You may not be able to tell from this photo (then again, maybe you can) that Sam was crying right before I took it. He woke up crying and was, again, like last year, SUPER clingy as we went to the school. He was literally forcing his little body up against me as he held tightly to my hand. I'm not sure why he has such insecurity about going to school. We live in a small town, and he knows all the kids and teachers well, and they're all wonderful, I don't get why he gets so scared. I don't know which way I prefer, like Sam who needs me and depends on me, almost to a fault, or like Noah, who is much more independent and who always wants to fly solo. As you can see from this photo, he just wanted to get to school and get the photo-op over with! As for Sophie, she complained of feeling "a funny lump in her throat" all morning, but once I got her into her classroom where Mr. Lish greeted her with a big hug, she was fine. Just over 2 hours of school left for today, and still no phone calls home from anyone...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
First morning.
Here are my four beautiful children ready to leave for their first day of school! (I am mainly doing this post for the benefit of their father, who is still out of town and was sad about not being here to see them off on their first day.)
You may not be able to tell from this photo (then again, maybe you can) that Sam was crying right before I took it. He woke up crying and was, again, like last year, SUPER clingy as we went to the school. He was literally forcing his little body up against me as he held tightly to my hand. I'm not sure why he has such insecurity about going to school. We live in a small town, and he knows all the kids and teachers well, and they're all wonderful, I don't get why he gets so scared. I don't know which way I prefer, like Sam who needs me and depends on me, almost to a fault, or like Noah, who is much more independent and who always wants to fly solo. As you can see from this photo, he just wanted to get to school and get the photo-op over with! As for Sophie, she complained of feeling "a funny lump in her throat" all morning, but once I got her into her classroom where Mr. Lish greeted her with a big hug, she was fine. Just over 2 hours of school left for today, and still no phone calls home from anyone...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
You may not be able to tell from this photo (then again, maybe you can) that Sam was crying right before I took it. He woke up crying and was, again, like last year, SUPER clingy as we went to the school. He was literally forcing his little body up against me as he held tightly to my hand. I'm not sure why he has such insecurity about going to school. We live in a small town, and he knows all the kids and teachers well, and they're all wonderful, I don't get why he gets so scared. I don't know which way I prefer, like Sam who needs me and depends on me, almost to a fault, or like Noah, who is much more independent and who always wants to fly solo. As you can see from this photo, he just wanted to get to school and get the photo-op over with! As for Sophie, she complained of feeling "a funny lump in her throat" all morning, but once I got her into her classroom where Mr. Lish greeted her with a big hug, she was fine. Just over 2 hours of school left for today, and still no phone calls home from anyone...I'm keeping my fingers crossed!
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Last day of freedom.
Tomorrow the three older kids start back to school. I can't believe how fast the summer flew by, but here we are beginning another school year already. Today they've spent enjoying their last day of freedom. Noah will be in 4th grade this year, followed by Sam in 2nd grade, Sophie in 1st grade, and Nicolas will also be in pre-school twice a week. What a change for me; gosh, I sure hope I can find things to do to fill my time while the kids are gone everyday! ;)
Grandpa's Visit
We had a great time enjoying a visit over the weekend from my dad, "Grandpa Doug"! Thanks for making the trip from Michigan to spend some time with us. We kept very busy, and the kids were giddy the whole time. The weather was perfect and we also had Chris home for the weekend from his advanced training ~ it was really a good time.
Time at the Zoo...
...followed by lunch at Space Burger.
Flying kites at the park.
Good times at Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, ID.
Feeding the bears.
By the Duck Pond.
Time at the Zoo...
...followed by lunch at Space Burger.
Flying kites at the park.
Good times at Yellowstone Bear World in Rexburg, ID.
Feeding the bears.
By the Duck Pond.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
10 years of wedded bliss (or something like that)! ;)
I wanted to make this post yesterday, but last week our broadband modem broke and we've been without Internet access since then. The new modem came today and I am back online, hooray!
Anyway,...Happy anniversary, Chris! In some ways the time has flown by, yet sometimes I feel like we've been together forever (in a good way)!
Anyway,...Happy anniversary, Chris! In some ways the time has flown by, yet sometimes I feel like we've been together forever (in a good way)!
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| From Movies |
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
You're in luck!
I was just working on a video/photo montage for our 10th wedding anniversary (that I will post on Monday), when a friend asked to see the "construction zone" picture up close. Well, here it is. (Click on photo to see the full-size version.) The quality isn't that terrific, because it's an old photo and our scanner doesn't work too well. What I remember about that day was that it was hot, and we had to walk around all the construction to get to the area where we took some of the photos - Temple Square was a total mess, and we were both sweating bullets!
Monday, July 27, 2009
Family Reunion
We got home yesterday, after a (long) week on the road, camping and attending the Bake Family Reunion. I'll write more on the reunion and all our escapades later, but I wanted to send out a great big "THANK YOU!!" to all the brothers that shared their horses, 4-wheelers, time and patience with all the little kids to make the reunion so much fun for them. Speaking for our little ones, at least, riding the horses and 4-wheelers was the hit of the weekend, next to getting to play with all their cousins.
As always, those of you that are interested in seeing all the pictures from the past week, feel free to check out this link to the web album:
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| Bake Family Reunion July 2009 and Stanley, ID |
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Help me!!
Maybe our family blog isn't quite the right forum for this kind of a post, but I'm having issues with Sophie and thought I'd write about it and see if anyone out there has any valuable advice or feedback.
My six year old little girl is obsessed with death and dying, and I do mean obsessed. She talks about it all the time, things like she wonders how many different ways people can die, and her ideas range from falling asleep on the floor and never getting up, to having your heart break and you die, to getting shot, to natural disasters, and on and on. If it rains or thunderstorms, she thinks her dad and I are going to die, and she says, "if a child dies, they are a littlest angel, and if a grown-up dies, they are a big angel". It's gotten to the point where, for about the past two to three weeks, she refuses to sleep because, as she said (with tears and sadness in her voice): "When I'm asleep it feels like I'm dead!!" She thinks if she sees a bug in her room, it's going to crawl on her while she sleeps and she'll die. She says she thinks raccoons are going to come in through the attic and kill her while she's in bed. Any sound she hears, the wind, the neighbors, a bump or scuffle outside, and she's out her bedroom door screaming for help. She now has to have a nightlight, the door open and someone sleeping in her room with her for her to be able to fall asleep. She sometimes talks about it with a paralyzing fear that she, or someone in our family is going to die, and other times she just brings it up like casual conversation, as though she just has a morbid curiosity about the subject. The other day she was asking me all kinds of questions like whether or not your spirit feels hungry or thirsty after you're dead, or if she'll have to sleep when she's dead. We have to be really careful about what we say around her because she picks up on everything and even the smallest things add to her unrealistic fears, and that includes talking about when anyone in our family is sick (because in her mind, they might die), or something we saw on the news or read in the paper, or if something happens to someone we know, she will talk about it for weeks, as though she's afraid the same thing is going to happen to her. One day recently her brothers were watching a show on Animal Planet about dangerous sea creatures. She came to me crying that they just "have to change the channel because it's scaring me!" Apparently there's some kind of flat fish out there that "if you don't watch your step in the water and you land your foot on one, it may be your last!" (At least that's what she kept repeating to me for days afterward.)
I'm starting to get a little worried, and just plain frustrated, because though I'm trying to be patient and explain things to her the best I can, understanding her sensitivity to the subject, I'm frankly tired of her crying every night about going to bed because she's scared and waking me up 2 or 3 times a night to tell me she's scared. I feel at my wit's end. I've tried giving her a special necklace to wear only at night, which she calls her "Jesus necklace", because I told her that when she puts it on she will remember that Jesus is always protecting her. I've also tried letting her listen to some of her favorite music when she goes to bed, hoping it will help her relax, and we've started not letting her watch any t.v. right before bed, to see if that helps. So far, none of those things have been the solution.
Chris keeps saying it's just a phase, but I want to make sure she gets through this "phase" unscathed. What do you other moms think? Anyone else's kids talk about "death" all the time??
My six year old little girl is obsessed with death and dying, and I do mean obsessed. She talks about it all the time, things like she wonders how many different ways people can die, and her ideas range from falling asleep on the floor and never getting up, to having your heart break and you die, to getting shot, to natural disasters, and on and on. If it rains or thunderstorms, she thinks her dad and I are going to die, and she says, "if a child dies, they are a littlest angel, and if a grown-up dies, they are a big angel". It's gotten to the point where, for about the past two to three weeks, she refuses to sleep because, as she said (with tears and sadness in her voice): "When I'm asleep it feels like I'm dead!!" She thinks if she sees a bug in her room, it's going to crawl on her while she sleeps and she'll die. She says she thinks raccoons are going to come in through the attic and kill her while she's in bed. Any sound she hears, the wind, the neighbors, a bump or scuffle outside, and she's out her bedroom door screaming for help. She now has to have a nightlight, the door open and someone sleeping in her room with her for her to be able to fall asleep. She sometimes talks about it with a paralyzing fear that she, or someone in our family is going to die, and other times she just brings it up like casual conversation, as though she just has a morbid curiosity about the subject. The other day she was asking me all kinds of questions like whether or not your spirit feels hungry or thirsty after you're dead, or if she'll have to sleep when she's dead. We have to be really careful about what we say around her because she picks up on everything and even the smallest things add to her unrealistic fears, and that includes talking about when anyone in our family is sick (because in her mind, they might die), or something we saw on the news or read in the paper, or if something happens to someone we know, she will talk about it for weeks, as though she's afraid the same thing is going to happen to her. One day recently her brothers were watching a show on Animal Planet about dangerous sea creatures. She came to me crying that they just "have to change the channel because it's scaring me!" Apparently there's some kind of flat fish out there that "if you don't watch your step in the water and you land your foot on one, it may be your last!" (At least that's what she kept repeating to me for days afterward.)
I'm starting to get a little worried, and just plain frustrated, because though I'm trying to be patient and explain things to her the best I can, understanding her sensitivity to the subject, I'm frankly tired of her crying every night about going to bed because she's scared and waking me up 2 or 3 times a night to tell me she's scared. I feel at my wit's end. I've tried giving her a special necklace to wear only at night, which she calls her "Jesus necklace", because I told her that when she puts it on she will remember that Jesus is always protecting her. I've also tried letting her listen to some of her favorite music when she goes to bed, hoping it will help her relax, and we've started not letting her watch any t.v. right before bed, to see if that helps. So far, none of those things have been the solution.
Chris keeps saying it's just a phase, but I want to make sure she gets through this "phase" unscathed. What do you other moms think? Anyone else's kids talk about "death" all the time??
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