random boy thoughts

We finally did it!! We have been working toward and waiting for this day for a long time, and we finally moved all the boys downstairs to their own rooms!! Here are a few before and after pictures of their rooms.

Ben's old room:

Ben's new room:

Twin's old room:

Will's new room:

Jake's new room:

I have to say that both Daren and I were surprised at how well the move went for them. It was a little hard on us, though, because it was just another step in their lives to show that they are growing up. Will and Jake have slept together in the same room since they were born (where they slept in the same crib for a while, until they grew too big and would kick each other), so we didn't know how they would react, but it seems that they have adapted quickly. And yes, the pictures are true--they were still sleeping in their cribs. They all slept in their new rooms for the first time on Sunday night, and they all slept like rocks. Will was so excited about his new bed that he put himself to bed Monday night at 6:30pm--I think he realized what a terrible mattress he had been sleeping on in his crib and how comfy his new mattress was and couldn't wait to get to it!! A few years ago when we were finishing the basement we named the rooms--back then Ben was the only one who could talk, thus he got first dibs on his room, and then chose the other rooms for his brothers. He first picked the room Will is in now, which is the biggest one, but then changed his mind to the room he has now, which is the smallest with the most crazy angles. So Will gets the biggest room with the biggest bed--not bad for the smallest kid in the family!! Each of their rooms have nice walk-in closets, which is what you get when you finish the basement years after you move in your house (it's everything you wish you could have done upstairs!). The house is still a disaster trying to move everything, but it is nice to have them down there...finally!

There are a couple other random things that happened this past week. One night I was "tickling" Ben's back (our daily ritual) when he was in bed. We were talking about something to do with ages, and I told him that he would only be living with us for another 12 years and then he would be gone. His eyes got big as he asked where he would be going. I told him he would be leaving us when he turned 19 to go on a mission and that he would be gone for 2 years. He thought about that for a minute and then asked if people go when they are older. I told him yes, that sometimes grandma's and grandpa's go. He said, "Ok, that's when I'm going to go. I don't want to go when I'm 19 because I don't ever want to leave you." It's words like that that melt a mom's heart and makes her think that she must be doing something right. I had to write it down because I'm pretty sure when the time comes, he may not feel that same way anymore--just a hunch!! Bless his heart!

Since I am on the subject of Ben, I've got one other funny story. A week ago Friday he brought home a note from his music teacher saying that they were going to have a talent day in class the next Friday, (unfortunately it was for students only). Ben was quick to announce that he had signed up to play the Indiana Jones theme on the piano. Only problem is, we don't have a piano and he's never had a lesson in his life!! Fortunately on Thursday, the day before the talent day, he was over at Grandma Train's (Mortenson) house and remembered his song about 5 minutes before he had to be out the door to lacrosse practice! Grandma helped him really quick to kind of figure it out. Ben told her that if he couldn't play it, he could at least sing it for them! Oh how I would have given anything to be there in that room when he apparently played a few notes of the chorus of the song!! I love that he has confidence to try new things, even if he hasn't ever done them before. And he said he did a great job. ;)

Will is doing well at his new preschool. He has the best teacher, Miss Jeri, who is so positive about him. She told us the first time we met her that her motto is "Hakuna Matata," which is from the Lion King and means "no worries." She is so nice and so paitent, even when Will tests her, which happens several times during the class day. I know that this move for him was probably one of the best things we have ever done for him. I think that him being on his own there (away from Jake) is going to help him discover who he really is. Jake has always been very loving toward Will, and I think he (Jake) always felt like he had to look out for him, so now Will is on his own to make his own decisions, and it is hard sometimes, but good.

Jake is also doing well at school. I was at a parent's meeting at school the other night, and I talked to his dance teacher. She actually sought me out to tell me what a great kid he is and how he is so good about listening and helping others. She remembers Will from last year too, and how Jake seemed to always be looking out for Will, and we both came to the conclusion that Will being in his own class was good for him, but it was also a great move for Jake. Now that Jake doesn't have to "look out" for Will anymore, he is free to do what he wants to do. I had never thought about that before, but it's true. Oh these kids; they may be challenging but you gotta love 'em!!

the influence of friends

friend \'frend\ n 1: A person you know well and regard with affection and trust; 2: An associate who provides assistance; 3: A person with whom you are acquainted.

Both Daren and I agree that the friends we had growing up played a huge part of our lives, one reason being that they influenced so many decisions we made. The friends I had, and still have to this day, are for the most part the ones I played sports with, and I love them all and appreciate the important part they have played in my life. I look around at the friends our boys have and it makes me so grateful for the area we live in. They have great friends at church, in the neighborhood, and at school. Both Ben and Jake can make new friends wherever they go because they love to interact with others. Will.......well, he's another story. He actually loves to talk to adults and will talk their ears off, but he doesn't do a whole lot of interacting with other kids, but we're working on it. These pictures just made me think how grateful I am for good friends in our boys lives.

The other day Jake was playing outside with Jaycie and Gregory (as mentioned before: formerly known as Craig when we couldn't understand what his name was, and now affectionately known as Craigory by all). Jaycie asked me to watch her go across the monkey bars in our yard, and suddenly Jake just followed along behind her and got almost all the way across! Craigory was following along close behind, and there were just these three cute little kids working their way across the monkey bars like it was no big deal. I have never seen Jake go on one bar, and here he was going all the way. It just goes to show what an influence friends can have.

Being with friends is a huge motivator for Ben. If friends are involved, he usually wants to do whatever is going on. He has played soccer several times and t-ball once, always with at least one friend on his team. He was asked last year at school if he wanted to play lacrosse, to which he quickly answered "NO," and life went on. He was asked a couple of times this year just before school started; same answer. But this time, we pushed him a little harder on it. It's a fine line you have to walk with Ben--we didn't want to force him to play anything, but on the other hand, maybe all he needed was a little encouragement. So I asked him, the evening before the first practice, why he didn't want to play. He eventually answered that he didn't know anything about the sport and would be nervous to play. BINGO! We talked about it, but the clincher was the fact that he would be playing with a lot of his friends and he agreed to give it a try. Now I think he actually really likes it. His first game was last Saturday, and he looked so cute in his uniform!! Here he is waiting for play to start.

It was fun to see him in a face-off, but the kid he was going against was a little rough on all of them--he didn't care about getting the ball first, he just wanted to mow over the person he was going against. We still won. There are some incredibly talented boys on his team with a lot of natural athletic ability. It's been nice because he hasn't complained once about the time spent at practices or games, because he is with his friends.

Now this is the latest "at-school" phase Ben is going through--Bakugons. Maybe it's just me, because I don't really understand the hype about it, but he and some friends at school are crazy about these things. Ben spent quite a bit of allowance on these things, but whatever!

Like I said before, the influence of friends can impact so many phases of our lives, and I am so grateful for our boy's friends. I hope they will always have such great friends to influence their lives for the good. And Will......I'm sure he will find his own real friend soon.

mueller park canyon

So, I'm sitting here getting all the pictures ready for this blog while Jake and his friend, Adam, are starting to play the Indiana Jones game on our Playstation 3. Adam really wants to be Indy, and asks if I can help him. I played with it for a minute and couldn't figure it out, so I handed it to Jake and said, "Here Jake. Can you help Adam be Indy?" And just like that in less than 4 seconds Jake did it, handed it to Adam, and they continued on in their playing. What the...?? I can't figure out those controllers, and frankly, I don't really want to because I don't want to get sucked into playing it all the time, but seriously, my four-year-old can figure it out? Is that scary or what?! I guess that's what we're in for from now on--our kids figuring out all this electronic stuff before us. What do you do?!!

Saturday after Ben's lacrosse game we went to Mueller Park Canyon with most of the Cox family for our annual brunch there. We usually go on General Conference weekend, but this year we had to switch it around because some family members are going to be out of town then. (There weren't as many colorful leaves this time because we were early) Barry and Susan always do the main part of the meal, which is always so good, and this year was no exception: pancakes, french toast, cheese blintzes, bacon, sausage, eggs, Aunt Patty's cinnamon rolls, fruit, etc. We look forward to this every year!

This isn't the best picture of the food because it's all covered up--trust me, it was good!

The whole fam-damily!

Lots of cousins everywhere! Terry Rasch, who is married to Daren's cousin, Mardi, made it to the picnic for a few minutes while he was on "official business" from Dugway, the military base. He spent some time in Iraq a couple years ago, and are glad he made it back safely because there are many who don't. Here he is with his cute son, Nate. Once again the yellow dump trucks surfaced, and once again we forgot ours!!

Sydney and Payge hanging out, blowing bubbles...some of the only girls in a family somewhat dominated by the boys!!

The boys, on the other hand, spent plenty of time hanging out and chatting. Will loves to try to "scare" Daren; Daren and his bros.

We celebrated two birthdays: Jack, who just turned 9, and Ike, who is going to be 2 next week. It's never too early to start Ike on a bike, because Jack (his brother) was riding a bike like a mad-man when he was 3-1/2 years old! The present to get the most attention was the safari truck, and because the boys came into some good fortune that day, with some late b-day money, we stopped at Target to get each of them a safari vehicle.

Will kind of stole Sommer's piece of cake and put as many pieces of the happy birthday candles as he could on it. Jake was filthy by the end of the day there!! As you can see, his shiner is quickly fading, whew!

This is Grandma Cox, mother to Susan, Patty, and Janyce; grandmother of 10; great-grandmother of 17 (I think). She is so sweet, and one thing I have grown to love about her over the years is that no matter what kind of gathering we are having, she always brings decorated towels to pass out to everyone (this time it was Halloween and Thanksgiving towels). Or lace. We all have quite the collections going on after so many years.

It was a fun day, as usual when this family is together!!

Pirate's Cove...again

Our friends, Jed, Alisha, and their boys River and Diesel, invited us down (a couple weeks ago) to Pirate's Cove near Las Vegas, and we coudn't turn them down. Ben (and River) missed a couple days of school, and their first lacrosse game, but as you will see, it was all worth it. We went to Pirate's Cove for a day back in June as we began our Route 66 trip, so we were excited (esp. the boys!!) to spend more time playing there.

We picked up Ben from school on Wednesday and headed down. It was a long drive, but nothing that a little Scooby Doo and Indana Jones couldn't handle. The boys fell asleep about 15 minutes before we arrived...at midnight...and this was the beginning of being thrown completely off their sleeping schedule! Photo 2 shows the entrance to Pirate's Cove--you can see our car in there, just in front of our casita. (I took a ton of pictures, and I couldn't resist putting quite a few in.)

Bright and early the boys were up at 6AM the next morning!! (It never fails on the days they can sleep in they are up early, and then it's like trying to wake the dead on school mornings) Each morning they got up a few minutes later, so by the last day they were up at 7am-nice! We ate breakfast every morning outside, overlooking Lake Mead. It was a gorgeous sunrise on this first morning!!

From sun up to sun down the boys made the most of their time at Pirate's--they found some lifejackets, and were off to play. Jake jumped off the pirate ship over and over, which was pretty impressive for a four-year old, Will liked checking out all the pirate stuff around, and Ben headed up the mast first thing to jump in...

Photo 1: rules of the mast. Photo 2: if you look close you can see Ben standing on the mast, trying to psyche himself up to jump off. Photo 3: Ben's view looking down from where he was standing on the mast--with a skeleton pirate heading up to get him! Photo 4: the jump!!

Just some cool pics of Will and Daren jumping off the rocks.

Most of Jed's family was at Pirate's Cove as well. It was fun to meet them and hang out with them, and there were plenty of kids around to play with. One evening I crashed the girl's "Hannah Montana party," and after I painted Grace and Addison's nails, they painted mine and brushed my hair. It was fun to play with them, and I'm pretty sure it will be quite a while before something like that happens to me again. One of the highlights was dinner every night. Jed has turned into the master pizza maker, using the pizza oven they have there. I didn't get any pictures of the pizzas because I was busy making salads and such, but they were very creative and very good!

I'd have to say that, without a doubt, Will's favorite thing there is the ice cream machine. If ever there was a time you couldn't find Will, he would be found loading up another ice cream cone, and he got quite good at it! You can see what eating too much ice cream can do to you, though!! That's why he followed up a cone with playing in the water. He loved the rope swing, and still sang the Indiana Jones song every time he was on it.

If ice cream was Will's weakness, this was mine--the slushie machines!! All-you-can-drink for days on end. Does it get any better?!

On Saturday afternoon Jake, Ashley, Ben, Jackson, and Matt decided to all jump off the pirate ship at the same time--what a blast! Daren and I did this too with all our boys, but no pictures.

While the kids were jumping off ships, the big boys were hanging out inside the cove watching a little college football, and Will was enjoying his own free time while not being heavily supervised so he could finish off the rest of the Doritos...

...and everyone else was playing in the outside section of the cove. It was a glorious day!

Later in the afternoon Jed's mom, Joyce, and Leah put together a treasure hunt for the kids. The hunt took them all over Pirate's Cove, and in the end was the big prize--skulls! (What else?!)

We popped a bunch of popcorn for a late night movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas. It is one of Will's favorite movies right now, and he does a mean "Jack the Pumpkin King" face! He knows all kinds of songs from the movie--"This is Halloween, this is Halloween, trick-or-treat." Or, "What's this? What's this?" He cracks us up!!

Ben got to sleep outside with River, Diesel, Leah, and I'm not sure who else, on the last night there. What a beautiful view to wake up to!! This picture is Diesel and Ben.

So on Saturday night Ben and Jake were messing around near the waters by the pirate ship and the mast. Jake thought he would be funny by pushing Ben off the rocks into the water, and as Ben was coming to the surface of the water, Jake jumped in right on top of him! Their heads collided and this is the result of what happened. Photo 1 is Jake the next morning--he looked like Igor or something, it was so puffy. A few days later the swelling had gone down, and all that was left was a black and blue eye. School pictures were last Wednesday--looking good!!

The following pictures are some of my favorites I took around Pirate's Cove. I could take pictures there forever because there are so many fun things to see:

Photo 1 is standing on the mast looking toward the pirate ship and to the cove just past it. Photo 2 is standing on the opposite end looking back at first the cove, then the pirate ship, and then the mast. You can just click on any of the pictures to get a better look at them. Our casita is on the top left of the picture.

The band and the flowers. These beautiful flowers lined the sides of the stairs, and got to see them a lot with all the stairs (there are 4 levels of stairs) I climbed up and down there! Seriously, it didn't matter that I didn't go running there because I'm sure this was a better workout--I must have climbed the stairs from the cove up to our casita (and the slushie machine) at least 75 times!!

Top of the mast, pirate dude on the side of our casita, and the rack of lifejackets

I loved all the treasure boxes there! This is just a sampling of them.

The last photo is the entrance to our casita--I just wanted to remember it.

And then it was back to reality--thank you so much Jed, Alisha, River and Diesel!! We had a blast there.