Ever wonder what a flying saucer looks like?

Evidently it looks something like this

Here's the story:

The other night we had another wicked Texas-sized storm come through. Of course, John was out of town for this one. As the storm intensified, I decided to bring the babies downstairs to my bed. Tornado season is over, but you just never know! I enjoyed my cuddle time with those two drowsy boys up until the wind really started to have me concerned. I left the bed and paced around the house, peaking out each window assessing any possible damage to come. As I check out our front window, I noticed the top half of a tree sitting in my yard. I immediately started scanning our yard to see which tree had snapped. After confirming that all of our trees were still intact, I noticed the severed trunk across the street. The tree had come from our neighbor's yard. I felt relieved that it wasn't one of ours, but felt bad for our neighbor. He's a nice man who is terribly sick battling cancer right now and I felt bad that this would happen. It was a lovely tree and trees that size are quite expensive. (Here it is after John dragged it to the back yard until we figure out what to do with it).

The storm died down and I returned my sleepy boys to their own beds. Morning rolled around and as I was contemplating what to do with the large tree in my yard, I heard a knock on my door. It was my neighbor behind me and his neighbor to his right. This is how our conversation went:

Them: Good morning.
Me: Hi
Them: We had a bad storm last night
Me: We sure did
Them: Your trampoline is on our fence
Me: Dangit

Evidently the wind picked up our large piece of recreational equipment and turned it into a destructive flying saucer. It flew the entire length of our yard, over the fence, the entire length of our neighbor's yard, and landed right on their dividing fence. It is a miracle that no windows were broken and an even bigger miracle that it didn't land in our other neighbor's swimming pool. The trampoline landed propped up on one side of the fence and all the legs flew off and landed in the other yard (some hitting his house, but missing all windows). Oh how I wish I had a picture! Better yet, I wish I had seen the whole thing happen!

Anyway, John returned home that evening and dragged the tree out of our front yard and then with the help of one of the neighbors, returned the trampoline to it's rightful place.

So there you have it, the story of the flying saucer. We'll now be staking that thing down so that it won't make any more flights to outer space...or into the neighbor's yard.

Strawberry picking

The tradition lives on another year...

The happy baby

The supportive dad

The eager helper

The satisfied gang

The scrumptious reward

No Matter

Yep. He seriously doesn't care if it's upside down or right side up.

Happy Birth Mother's Day

Today is National Birth Mother's Day. Cool, huh?
It's incredibly difficult to put in to words how I feel about Tyler's Birth Mother, and some of those feelings are too sacred to share. I will forever be grateful for the decision that she made when she placed Tyler with our family. That day changed me. I became a mother. Better yet, I became Tyler's mother.

I am constantly amazed at the kind of love that a birth mother has for her child when she chooses to give them the best possible life. It is truly a mother's love. It is miraculous and beautiful.

I think I've mentioned before that LDS Family Services is overhauling their adoption website. The updated version is still in the "working stages," but above is a link to the best part of the new site. They have documented a few success stories from the birth mother's point of view. These videos of courageous women, much like Tyler's birth mother, make me weep with gratitude every time I watch them. Hope you enjoy.

(Oh, and if you'd like to see the parts that 'Yours Truly' contributed, click HERE and HERE)

Brothers

Tyler 6 months

Robby 5 months

Big, round head? check
Big, googly blue eyes? check (although Robby's eyes are looking more gray these days)
Small, round little nose? check
Soft, blond hair? check (Tyler's didn't stay blond. I think Robby's will)
Chubby rolls to munch on? check

...well, I guess they were meant to be together.

Here are more pictures and a video of these two doing what brothers do best:

playing instead of going to bedhanging out after church

watching cartoons

Being silly and making mommy laugh.

I don't know why, but every time Tyler sings (or yells or whatever you would call this), Robby makes this adorably funny face complete with hippo nostrils.
Tyler is also the VERY best at getting Robby to giggle. Sometimes all he has to do is walk in the room and Robby will start flapping his arms and squealing.

Love these two boys.

A Job Well Done

Okay, so a few weeks ago I had a thought and since this thought came to me while I was reading the scriptures, I dare say it was inspiration. Granted, I sometimes think about what color to paint my toenails while I'm reading the scriptures, so I really should question it's validity, but whatever- I'm totally chalking this one up to revelation!

So I've been thinking a lot lately about all the things I need to teach my children in order for them to become the people I think they should become (and hopefully the people that Heavenly Father wants them to become too). Top on my list is hard work and disciplined. I could go on and on about why these are important qualities, but I think it's kind of a no brainer.

However, I'm thinking that more and more these days, these are qualities that are less valued by society. Why is that? We outsource everything and I mean everything from cleaning our own toilets to raising our own kids (there. I said it) just so we can have a few extra minutes of leisure time. It feels to me that there is a huge pull for so much of our energy and time to be put into making sure our kids have fun experiences. That's good and it has it's place, but I've decided that just as much energy and time need to go into creating opportunities for them to develop valuable skills. So my new mission in life has been to find ways to make my children miserable. Okay, not really. But maybe kind of. I want our kids to work their tails off. Is this bad??? My parents did this for us and I think we turned out pretty good. I really just want them to know what it feels like to work hard. REALLY hard.

Anyway, part of this whole "hard work thing" has brought up the issue of reward mechanisms. For some people, the reward mechanism for hard work is feeling good about a job well done; for others it's recognition and praise and then there is the universal reward mechanism...cold, hard cash. And now enters the second life lesson we're trying to teach Tyler: the value of money. He's recently been showing signs of interest in money. He asks questions about how much things cost and why.

So now we bring the two topics of interest together and this is where I had my most recent stroke of genius. At our house, we now have two kinds of work- work for pay and work for stay. Yeah, you totally know where I'm going with this. Some jobs are a little more tricky and require a little extra time and effort, and therefore, are rewarded with the ever coveted "monies." And some jobs you do because you are a part of the family. Period. Each time a new job is introduced to Tyler it falls under the "work for pay" category. Once it is mastered, it is moved over to the "work for stay" side of things.

And can I just tell you how much I love seeing my little guy work? He is so diligent, it's amazing. Truly. Amazing. I'm still waiting for him to catch on to the fact that emptying the dishwasher and collecting all the garbage in the house isn't supposed to be fun. Please don't tell him. He'll even clean the entire toy room all by himself without uttering a word of complaint- and those aren't even "work for pay" jobs anymore. But really, this shouldn't surprise me. That is just how Tyler is. Life is fun, exciting and wonderful to him. Love that boy.

Well, last Saturday we hit the outside chores pretty hard. We were going for the weed pulling experience. What childhood is complete without weed pulling? In fact, I told John that when the boys get older, he can forgo the pre emergent on the lawn in the spring. Bring on the weeds! Our boys need some character!!! Before we hit our weediest patches, we prepped Tyler for the experience and told him that if he wanted his monies for this job, he would have to pull LOTS of weeds for a VERY long time. I wanted this experience to be mildly painful and to induce at least a little bit of discomfort, possibly even some whining. That way I would know were successful in our goal for the day (building character, not creating a beautiful lawn, silly).

So we headed out for not 15 minutes, not 25 minutes, no not even 45 minutes of weed pulling could break him! That kid pulled weeds, piled the uprooted weeds, and ran the piles in a small bucket to be dumped in the garbage can for the better part of an HOUR! 60 minutes, people, and still not a word of complaint. He worked hard and earned every penny he received...all ten of them (don't worry, we're still working on "the value of money" lesson, so this seemed like a small fortune to him. I'm not that cheap).

But no, it didn't even end there. He then proceeded to help John mow the lawn with his best $2.00 I ever spent at a garage sale lawn mower. And I don't mean like he pushed that thing around a few times, I mean like he seriously mowed almost the entire lawn with John.
I'm still not sure I know exactly what it is he thinks he's doing as he pushes that thing from one side of the lawn to the other several dozen times, but I suppose it doesn't matter because in the end, he is obviously satisfied with a job well done.

So Jaron, do you think Tyler can come work on your dad's ranch fixing fence posts for the summer? Evidently we just don't have anything hard enough for this kiddo around here.