Make that four years . . . ohhwee!

Yeah, Stephen and I are pretty much that old couple still holding hands that young romantic hopefuls wish they could be like-- except with wild running children who don't really let us walk slow enough to hold hands.

Unforeseen benefit of getting married Oct 24th? It hits around UPenn's Fall break every year. We spent our anniversary date (with kids) in Romney/Ryan land, a.k.a. PA outside of Philadelphia. Rural Pennsylvania is breathless in October.

Thanks Nathan and Robin for the temporary wheels, believe it or not, they made it back safely.

19?!?!

I am still giddy inside about girls being able to serve missions at 19. All of a sudden it just seems so much easier to be a woman in the church.

Now girls can go on mission at 19, have great spiritual experiences to take with them for the rest of their life, come home, get married, have the option of a big family at a decently young age without having race against the biological clock. What about their education? That was the one benefit, to me, of having girls wait till 21. But this inspired church is totally on top of that with its Pathways program so that even if a guy or girl comes home quickly and decides to jump into family, they don't have to be at an educational disadvantage.

I love that the future women of the church can have it all: a mission, a big family and an education. Okay, okay, they can't really have it all because the church policy on polygamy is unchanged so Stephen is still all mine. ha!

Stephen and I have been talking all day about the implications of this for BYU, singles wards, and the church in general. To me, it feels like the church has finally spread its wings and is off the ground. I can't wait to see what happens in the church in the next 10, 20, 30 years when so many more girls have had an opportunity to be missionaries.

Personally I love the way life worked out for me. When I came home from my mission, I knew it had been good for me, but it is only now coming up on 5 years of being home that I see how much I would have been missing had I not gone---#1 on that list would be Stephen. I realize that some girls are already mature and serve in other ways so it's not necessary. But oh, a mission full of difficulties, joys, successes and relationships make a nice little marathon for any soul.

Christian quotes and Simeon tales

I was in the middle of telling Christian about everyone that loves him. I told him about his parents, grandparents, and cousins. I then asked in hopes to teach him of heavenly love: "Do you know who loves you more than anyone else?" He responded, "Uncle Jared!"

the entire trip in Utah, this is how Christian looked:

Now that we've come back, he can't stop talking about horses, uncle Andrew's house and riding a horse:

Despite his acute memory over this experience, he can't remember that he was absolutely terrified and it was all we could do to hold him up there.

One of my favorite memories from our summer was when the adults were all downstairs talking at the reunion with the kids asleep. Soon, however, Christian poked his head through the banister and asked when he heard us all laughing "Are you talking about cowboys and horses?"

So Christian somehow got a random recessive OCD gene. Stephen and I are about as opposite OCD as people can come and I thought we were raising Christian to be the same, but lately he has started caring cares more about his clothes than a teenage girl. It takes us an hour to get out the door simply because we're having him try five different pants until he gets just the right fit and look. Heaven forbid he ever discovers a mall with an endless supply of pants. Some pants to him look like "Joseph" pants of "Hyrum" pants. I don't know where he's getting this, but I'm blaming the church for this one.

Christian asked what the green book at church was. We informed him it was a hymnbook. He then asked, "It's a man-book?" Two Sundays ago we were sitting in church when a white man wearing a wearing a white shirt passed us with the Sacrament. Christian (very loud) started saying "White man bringing us the sacrament!" Or something to that effect. He started getting louder and all our African neighbors several rows behind us were bursting out laughing. I finally got him to be distracted and then a black man wearing a black suit started coming down the isle. "Is the black man going to bring us the sacrament?" Again, super loud. I think he was talking about the clothing, but sigh, I don't think I'd mind it if Christian stopped with the racially charged conversations.

On that note, I was at the playground with the kids. Christian had started following two older black boys around in 3rd and 5th grade. They were being sweet and soon started playing with Simeon too. One of them started looking at Simeon and said "Look! He's got blue eyes too!" The 3rd grader responded "All white people have blue eyes." The 5th grader quickly said "Don't say 'White' that's racist."

Simeon has started dancing with his hands and enjoys his mobility. We're trying to wean him as its become super painful again for me to nurse, but he's a stubborn fellow and I'm a sucker for his baby face. I did give him a new sippy cup for his birthday (yes, I'm going to be one of those mothers who gives underwear for Christmas presents) and he took it, kind of. Christian's starting to get a little jealous of Simeon, but still adores him too. There both at really fun stages right now and it's a thrill to see what they come up with.

Simeon's 7th cousin born within a year of him was born yesterday! (Congratulations Mary and Jared!) His newest little cousin, Thomas, is cute as cute, but has had some complications which has us all worried. Stephen and I were trying to explain to Christian that we needed to pray for the doctor's to help baby Thomas. We had showed Christian pictures of baby Thomas in the NICU and had prayed with Christian for him and the doctors. Today he kept talking to us about baby Thomas and said he didn't want to be worried for him. He also wanted to keep on praying for him. When he prayed, he prayed that the doctors would give him "nice nice pokeys." I guess that's maybe something I should pray for too.

stealing birthday cakes

"I'm going to steal Simeon's birthday cake. I'm going to steal his party." - Words from an older brother put out that his own birthday is not for another two months. Yes, it was Simeon's first birthday. There wasn't too much for Christian to steal--just some German pancakes with homemade syrup. Some friends dropped by and made it into a real birthday party.

The view from the hospital room Simeon was born in:

Simeon use to have a habit of crawling and getting stuck under our bed:

We couldn't be happier with our little Si.

Simeon (and Christian) Walking