Eli's Blessing

On Sunday we had the wonderful opportunity to bless little Eli during church. We were especially thrilled that we could have both sets of grandparents there for the special occassion. There was such a sense of peace and love during the blessing, and it was a special moment for our whole family.
The blessing was beautiful and I wrote down notes this time (I forgot to with Jake's...sorry Jake. You live and learn.)


Eli was as handsome as ever, and as you can see, he's beginning to be quite the little chunk!! As per usual, he was a perfect angel throughout the entire meeting.

I'm so grateful for my two handsome little boys and for a husband who is a worthy priesthood holder and can give them blessings. I love being a mother for my little family.

After the blessing, my family left to go back home to Midland and Jake, Eli and I all tagged along! Joseph is in his super-block of dental school right now, so I thought we would get out of his hair for a little while so he can get things done a little more efficiently. We're in Midland for a couple of weeks, and if anyone is in town we'd love to see you!

Impressed or horrified?

For Christmas I got Joseph Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the wii. Often when Joseph comes home from school, he will sit down and play for a few minutes to unwind while Jake watches him and helps him look for stars. Lately as soon as Joseph walks in the door, Jake starts to jump up and down and yell, "Get the stars daddy!!" It's been a fun activity for the two of them to do together.

However, you can imagine my shock when I woke up one morning to find that Jake had left his room, turned on Mario, and had started playing all on his own! As in, he was in one of the levels (I'm amazed that he got into a level at all, it's not easy with all kinds of buttons and pointing that you have to do) and had figured out how to run, jump (and run and jump together), shake the controller to spin, fly, and collect stars. What is even more amazing to me is that had connected the two controllers needed to play this game, and he was using them both in sync. At that moment I didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified. He's not even three yet and he's already playing video games!! He was so cute, though, I wasn't going to stop him! Of course, he died and fell off cliffs several times, but I really was slightly amazed while I watched him play. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he figured everything out. Still, I wasn't expecting having to worry about my son becoming addicted to video games before he was even potty trained!!

Yes...that's right...still not potty trained...ugh!! But that, of course, is a whole other post.

The dental school hates us

The news is calling it snowmaggedon. Students are calling it a blessing. Joseph and I are calling it a nightmare because the dental school is calling it a funny little joke.

Like much of the country, we got blasted by snowpocolypse '11. Official records say that we got anywhere between 12-15 inches of snow, but the drift outside our house was well above two feet. The whole city shut down. The Iowa City Transit busses stopped running, the public schools and university closed, and we were all expecting a nice little snow day. But, apparently the dental school hates us because they are separate from the rest of the university and their clinics were open!! Which meant that Joseph had to go in!! Which meant he had to walk!! Which meant that he was out of the house at 6:45 am shoveling a pathway through the snow so that he could at least get out onto the unplowed road in front of our house and trudge through the snow. Luckily, right after he finished the path he got a phone call that one of his friends was getting a ride to the school and asked if he wanted to tag along. YES. So at 8:30 I kissed my husband, and a day that had such great potential, goodbye.

He called me later to inform me that hardly any of the faculty showed up for clinic, but every single student did. They must have thought they were playing a funny little joke. We're not laughing!

Oh well, Joseph got some good studying in which would have been hard for him to do at home, and he ended up coming home after lunch anyway so the day ended up not being all that bad afterall.

On a completely unrelated and much happier note, Jake peed in the potty today. On his own. And he wanted to! Forget the fact that half of it got on the floor and not in the toilet at all, but, hey, we've got to celebrate the little things over here.

Also, Eli is still just as sweet as can be. I love my boys.