Example is stronger than words...

Sometimes I will flush our toilets using my feet. I always do in public places. I am tall so it's not much of a struggle to lift up my foot to flush a toilet. Well somewhere in the course of a day Bryce has seen me do this and now often will flush the toilet with his foot too. He surprises me with how flexible his little body is, especially getting his foot up that high.

Do you hear that?! That's the sound of Quiet!

That's what I said to our boys and the neighbors one night after a loud romping around the house, while they were all sitting down quietly at the table drinking a smoothie I had made. Carter says, "Are you just kidding daddy?"
"No, that really is the sound of quiet."
He repeats the question again more concerned this time "Daddy your just kidding right?"
After about a minute, I realize that he has named one of his large stuffed dogs "Quiet". Poor kid, he thought his dog had come to life and I had heard it.
Speaking of smoothies...that's got to be one of my favorite snacks. I'll have to blog about smoothies later, because 1)that's not a waste of time and 2) who wouldn't want to read about smoothies?

Boys and their toys...

Carter and Bryce love their trucks and even put on a truck trick show for us tonight. Here are a couple of clips.

Poo Bum

So our youngest gets away with calling us names, Poo bum being his name of choice. I'm not sure how it started really, I think it was with us calling him Brycie poo bum when he had a dirty diaper. So we really set the example for him which he is only following. We said it affectionately of course which he in turn says to us. So when he does something that sends him to timeout or that we ask him to tell us sorry for, he replies, "wharry daddy poo bum." He says this to everyone and even caught our friend off guard the other night as he was leaving when he said "Bye Steve poo bum!" This is a man in his 40's that probably isn't used to being called poo bum, but again, let me reassure you people, it is a term of affection.

I had to learn this quickly in my first few years of marriage when Christy would call me crazy. I'm not quite sure what I had in mind with the definition of the word crazy, but it wasn't one of affection that's for sure. After getting a little upset more than once she finally explained this to me that it was a term of affection and I've since learned to associate that word with acceptance and love. And now poo bum has joined those ranks of affection. Of course I may be like the emperors new clothes and they tell him what is good when others are laughing behind his back while he prances around naked. Maybe she has bamboozled me into believing that crazy is a good thing? But go ahead and laugh for all I care, heck, kiss my crazy poo bum! Because I believe I am loved...

Goals

I've been thinking lately about goals and success... I think that there actually might be more of a correlation between the two than I previously gave them credit for. I've been living too many of my days just taking life as it comes to me, and while I don't think this is necessarily bad, it breeds too much complacency and maybe even depression because I have nothing to really work for or look forward to. That is one main reasons goals are good. They allow us to continue to improve ourselves and help build our self-esteem as we accomplish each one. It can sort of act like perpetual motivation once you start and accomplish the first few. We end up accomplishing much more. And I'm not even talking major goals...even small ones like doing something small that's been on my list for months that I haven't done just because I've never set time apart for them.
(As a disclaimer to anybody I live near, my mission president once told me that as a leader, it was okay to teach the right things to do as long as we know they are right, we shouldn't not teach something that is right just because we may not be implementing our own teachings. In other words, I feel that goals are something I should do and set for myself and I shouldn't feel like a hypocrite if I don't always do them. )

Winter Posts

The main reason for this post is the fact that I got the audio coming over from my video camera again... So here is Christy and Carter coming down the sledding hill at Deep Creek.








Yes, the scream is real. I heard it again just the other night while I was playing hide and seek with the boys, I was in the closet, she was on the phone and came to the closet to put something away...it was about that moment that the scream was heard, loud and clear. Then there was the other night I was in quietly changing Bryce before I went to bed. I had the urge to sneeze so I ran out into the hall and sneezed into my sleeve. We'll I couldn't help that Christy was out there as well, and she whipped me in the face with a shirt she had in her hands because I had scared her. We got a good laugh out of that one after the bleeding stopped...



Then there's the boys dancing to "Feliz Navidad"...

You're a mean one Mr. Grinch...

Our little Brycie broke his arm when he fell off the bed Friday night. I was helping someone in the ward move and said goodbye to my family at 6:45 to go help, leaving them eating pizza and watching The Grinch who Stole Christmas, because it was Friday and we wanted to do something fun.
I get a call from Christy about 45 minutes later with urgency in her voice saying "Hurry home, I think Bryce just broke his arm!" I sped home. When I got there Christy was holding a crying Bryce. I drove Christy and Bryce to the emergency room hoping that the arm wasn't broken, yet at the same time knowing that Christy is never one to exaggerate injuries. After painful X-rays and two attempts to get an IV in him, he finally is given some morphine and appears more relaxed. Inside I was wishing I could take his place and take all the pain that he is feeling and the fear he must be feeling not knowing what is going on. It hurt me to see my sweet little Brycie suffering so much. I quickly realized that Christy did a better job at soothing and calming him, so I felt like the best thing I could do would be to give her the strength to keep going by giving her what she needed.
Once we got to the D.C. hospital my heart was really breaking for him. They were moving his arm in different positions to X-ray it for the second time and he was crying and saying "owie!" each time we would re-position it. It would've been a little different if it had been Carter, at least we could explain to Carter what was going on, at least he would grasp a deeper understanding. But Bryce was beginning to understand a lot more than he could talk and I thought he is probably scared but doesn't know how to ask "What's going to happen now? What's wrong with me? Will I ever stop hurting?" So I tried to explain to him in a calm voice that the doctors had to take some pictures of his arm so they could make it feel better...then I repeated it to him in case he didn't understand the first time. He just nodded his head, sniffled and said "k", in his sweet little voice. He was really being so brave.
My mind kept thinking of his pain and how helpless I felt to do anything. I did all I could by giving him a blessing and being there for Christy and him. Christy said that must be how I felt when she was in labor and I couldn't do anything. She was right. That too was a helpless feeling and wishing I could bear some of the pain with her enough to keep her from the intense suffering, all of it if need be. I'll never forget that morning that Bryce was born and seeing Christy in the most pain I'd ever seen her in. She thought she was going to die, at least that is what her eyes were telling me and the scared expression on her face. These experiences both give deeper insight into the atonement from both the Father's view and the Son's. I am amazed at the Savior's suffering for us, not just physically, which was more than I can comprehend, but the emotional suffering. The mocking and hatred he felt from others, yet he loved them. I find it hard to not have bitter feeling towards others when I feel that they are out to hurt me. I am trying to be slower to take offense, and that is hard to do.

Bryce's surgery went well and from 8:45 to 10:15 ish (about 1 and a half hours). He was extremely cranky coming out of the anesthesia and thrashing about. Christy said she almost dropped him a few times. Eventually later that night he was acting more like himself and not wanting to rest in the hospital crib, so we went for a few walks to see a fish tank and the elevators. I sure love my sweet little Brycie. I love Carter for his sweet spirit. I love Christy for being such a fabulous mother to them both and showing them unconditional love. I'm a lucky man.

Is quiet to be found anywhere in this house?

I don't know why I can't get the audio to upload to the computer from our camera anymore. Maybe I need to re-install the software, but no time for that now and I need to have another post. Here is a silent video of me and the boys this past Saturday having a good time together. They were cranking Another Rainy Night, by Queensryche and running away laughing. I was enjoying the music and my boys being boys...