Substance of Faith: Spring Fever!

The past few days have brought sunshine and blue (ish) skies and it's actually been above freezing! I am so ready for spring time. Seriously, if it wasn't still freezing temps at night I'd be tempted to shovel the snow out of my yard and into my neighbors (Brittany, if you see a big pile of snow in your backyard, it wasn't us). Dave and I have been planning what projects we want to get done this year. The problem is there are so many things we want to do, but we're trying to be responsible (blah) and pick only a few that we think we can reasonably afford to do, or the highest priority projects. It looks like Dave will be working on the sprinkling system (we inherited a truly demented sprinkler system) and I'll be working on the garden and adding some flowers.
Anyway, that's all probably just more interesting to me than to you...
So what have we been up to in the month or so since I last blogged (so much for the weekly blogging). Well, I started back at work- thankfully at a graduated pace. My first week back I tried to work 3 hours a day, last week was 4, this week is 5 hours per day and then next week I should be back to my full time of 6 hours a day. I have no clue how I used to put in that much time before. This will be an adventure. But I do have to say it's been nice to get back. Some of the stuff that I enjoy about my job (aside from adult conversation) is that I feel like I am accomplishing something and a lot of it feels like I am solving complex puzzles. It's been nice to exercise my brain again. I've also started doing this jogging/walking/running thingy. I hesitate to say that I've started running because I'm not, and I'm doing more than walking- I'm sort of doing circuits (mixing walking and running)- again probably too much information. But this is me, where you couldn't get me to run for any reason. My new goal is to be able to run a mile- all at once! And then after that I would like to be able to run a 10 minute mile. So I'm trying to get up there. My sister has been awesome and has allowed me to use her treadmill (there is no way I'd be dragging this jiggly mess up and down the block in this cold). And frankly, it gives me a great 30 minute break from the boys in the middle of the day.
The boys are doing great. Mid week I always think of things I want to add to the blog about each of the boys and then by the time I actually blog I totally forget. Everyone is getting along great. Em has totally entered the terrible twos. I thought that the twos were supposed to be terrible because of temper tantrums, but I've decided they are terrible because Emery is totally and completely out of control. He's loud, he picks on everyone, and there's no stopping him. It's like we stuffed this big boy into this little body- I keep forgetting that Em isn't even two yet. Emery has become a daddy's boy through and through. Emery likes to wake up at 6 AM on Saturdays (rough) so that he can spend some time with just Daddy. Dave gets a little frustrated (of course he's very tired) but he sees the smiles and excitement in Emery's face and remembers that Emery is that stage in his life where he is just excited to be awake and alive. I was reading an article about how to show your child love in the way that they understand (the Languages of Love) and Emery is totally the kid that loves to be touched- he constantly wants to be held or to hold hands and when he crawls in bed with us, he cuddles from the top of his head to his toes- every part of his body is pressed against us. He is great. I've already started planning his birthday (just 2 months away!)... I am so excited to be able to do something just for him and to celebrate him. :)
As for Ethan- what can I say? He takes his responsibilities as big brother and mama's helper very seriously. And he is good at it. :) The other day my sister gave Ethan a bunch of pads of paper and pencils and he took them up to his toy room and made his own "office." He loves writing and drawing (our fridge is covered in his artwork and letters). We have been watching the cartoon series Avatar: The Last Airbender and Ethan is just so enthralled (actually so is Em). Ethan loves practicing his "air bending" and thinks that Aang is just the best person ever (if we want Ethan to eat his vegetables, we tell him that Aang does and then Ethan will chow down!). I'm really tempted to sign Ethan up for a martial arts class...
Zeke is growing so quickly! He is about 2 1/2 months old now (10 ish weeks). At his 2 month check up Zeke weighed in at 15 lbs even. Such a juicy turkey! I love it. He is getting to be so much fun as well- he smiles at us (the toothless grins of babies could be the most intoxicating smiles ever), he giggles, and he coos at us. Zeke loves watching his brothers wrestle (and boy howdy do they ever wrestle). It amazes me how personal space doesn't matter to kids- Ethan and Emery get seriously nose to nose with Zeke in order to talk to him and Zeke loves it. Zeke is getting better about sleeping as well... he spends more and more time in his crib each night and he sleeps for longer stretches as well. It's great! Zeke is totally a night owl though- he has no problem staying up with us in the evening and he loves sleeping in late- he's always the last one awake.
And how could I forget! We blessed Zeke at the beginning of the month. Zeke's blessing marked the third February in a row that we have blessed a little boy in our home. Ethan was first- the February after we moved into this house, Emery was next (last year), and then Zeke! We had family and friends and it was so much fun to have everyone over. I love having a big shindig like that once a year and then spending the rest of the year grateful that I don't have to have a million people over. Zeke was a champ and didn't cry at all and the blessing was beautiful. We did have our "uh-oh" moment though- I had bought a blessing outfit for Zeke and I was so concerned about it being long enough for him. So I had made sure that it would be long enough for him. But when I went to dress Zeke before his blessing I was shocked to discover that Zeke was thicker around than his outfit! I couldn't get the buttons closed on him! Thankfully there was a cute little vest that covered that fact that I couldn't close up Zeke's little outfit!
And Dave has been hard at work- working to bring home the bacon. He's also been working on house projects too. He's not taking classes anymore (I don't know if I mentioned that before). And he's organized another soccer team- they have their first game on Thursday. When Dave gets home from work he spends a half hour studying with the bigger boys- with Ethan he works on letters, counting, and reading, and with Emery he works on colors and shapes and just spending time with him. The boys really like it and it's good to see them spending some quality time together.
With all of the cold weather we've been trying to come up with some fun things to do inside... We've gone to the Natural History Museum, to Discovery Gateway (the Kids Museum), Boondocks, and today we went to the Church History Museum (Dave had never been there before and he was really impressed by it). I have been having a hard time with the sheer quantity of time that I spend with the boys- I feel like we do the same things over and over and over and over, etc. We're bored and sick of each other, so I feel like the only good/quality interactions we have anymore is when we go out and do stuff together (even if it is only for an hour). And the funny thing is- I think Zeke actually sleeps better when we go than he does at home.
We've also started doing some house projects- the basement is constantly on our list of things to do, but we haven't done much with it recently. Dave had to pull down everything the prior owner had put up- the walls were all crooked and when we pulled down the dry wall we discovered that the prior owner didn't even bother to use studs for the framing. Gah! So it set us back a few months on where we thought we would be, but we feel better knowing for a fact that things were done correctly.
And we finally painted the boys' room. It was dark grey and red, which worked for a man cave but didn't work as well for little boys. It's been on our to do list for a long time and we finally just did it. It is an amazing change. I just love their room now. We bought too much paint (it only took about half as much as we expected) so we're going to do the other room upstairs (the toy room) the same color. Dave and I suck at painting so we were pleasantly surprised by how the room turned out (we're quite proud of ourselves actually). My sister saved the day- the second we started painting the boys all went crazy and needed our immediate and undivided attention. Auntie (as we call my sister) came over and entertained the boys so that Dave and I could get the painting done. As it was, it took a heck of lot longer than I expected. Also, it was a crazy work out! It seemed like every part of my body hurt that night (seriously my arms hurt so bad it woke me up in the middle of the night repeatedly). And today we started working on organizing the garage- buying hooks and an organizing system to get stuff up off of the ground and getting rid of stuff that we didn't need anymore. We need to get some shelves put up to get the camping stuff out of our basement (because soon we won't be able to use the basement for storage anymore).
Anyway... now for pictures- and I've got tons!