How Well Does Alyssa Know Her Mommy?

I'm going to do a little series featuring my kids' answers to questions about yours truly.
First up is sweet Alyssa, 3 1/2. Let's see how well she knows me...




1. What is something I always say to you? You say, "I love everybody."
2. What makes me happy? When I kiss you and hug you.
3. What makes me sad? When someone takes away your teddy bear, then you cheer up!
4. What makes me laugh? That I tickle you.
5. What was I like as a little kid? You played around and wiggled your head and laughed.
6. How old am I? 3, and you growed up, and you have long hair.
7. How tall am I? A little bit big.
8. What is my favorite thing to do? Eat a vegetable. (Ha!)
9. What do I do when you're not around? You don’t play around or be crazy or cry.
10. If I become famous, what will it be for? If you’re a grown up mermaid and you turned into an octopus. (I'm sure that would do the trick!)
11. What am I really good at? Drawing paper and saying, “Good Job, Alyssa!”
12. What am I not very good at? Drawing pictures.
13. What do I do for my job? You clean up the whole rooms.
14. What is my favorite food? An apple and a potato.
15. What makes you proud of me? You play around.
16. If I were a cartoon character, who would I be? The mermaid movie.
17. What do we do together? Play around and dance.
18. How are we the same? We’re girls, and we’re not like the boys. I will never turn into a boy.
19. How are we different? You can’t stomp your feet and turn into a monster.
20. How do you know I love you? You love me and then I kiss you. I’m going to kiss you.(mwa). You love everybody.
21. What do I like most about daddy? You go on dates, then you married, then you came back to our house.
22. Where is my favorite place to go? You go at church, and you married at the temple.
23. What is your favorite thing about me? You’re cute and I love you.
24. What do I do that is silly? You make a silly face.

Can you tell she is obsessed with mermaids and marriage? A true girlie-girl!

I Feel Strong

I've had a nervous pit in my stomach for 2 days, ever since I made an appointment with the English counselor at the U of U. I've decided to go back to school in January to finish my English degree. I've been hoping I wouldn't look like a dumb blonde, ask dumb questions, and get a dumb blank stare back. I FORCED myself to go this morning and it went great!

While I was driving away I remembered how good it feels to conquer a fear. I was on a natural high today, feeling strong, feeling brave. YES! I did it!

On a totally different note, going on the U campus was weird. I have always pictured myself at BYU. I use to spend time there as a kid just because I loved it so much. I have never been to the U, unless you count Red Butte Gardens. As I was going from building to building today, I was thinking that I could be spending many hours there, will most likely receive a U diploma, yet I will never have school pride. (Maybe I should insert a probably in that last sentence. Maybe I'll become purple at heart, half blue, half red. But I doubt it :)) Anyhoo, it was very cool to be on a university campus again after a 5 year break, I am very excited about my classes. Wahoo! You can call me Becca the Brave.

3

I, uh, posted a silly little post a few hours ago...and now I feel really regretful. That was ramblings that should have only been in my own journal. I so much prefer typing to writing by hand, that I typed my thoughts and posted them. I don't know what I was thinking. Anyway, I pulled that post, and realized that I'd been tagged to do a post by my cute sister-in-law. So, with no further adieu, I'll replace "dreams" with "3".

Post these rules on your blog: List: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 regrets, 3 current obsessions/collections, 3 facts about yourself. Tag 3 people at the end of your post by leaving their names. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog!

3 joys

1. Clean floors
2. Yummy food
3. And best of all, a happy family

3 fears

1. Making some kinds of phone calls
2. Trying new things
3. Swen becoming disabled

3 goals

1. Learn to play the piano better
2. Become WAY better at waking up early to exercise and shower before scripture study
3. Become really good at portion control when it comes to chocolate (is there any hope for me?) :)

3 regrets

1. I wish I had spent less time reading and more time being active when I was younger
2. I wish I had written more in my journal and my kids' journals, and kept up on scrapbooks better
3. I wish I hadn't wasted time "discussing" (which means fighting over) silly things with Swen when we were newly married. (Such as whether we should be able to roll our corn in the butter at the dinner table. I said, "Absolutely NOT!" And he said, "I have always dreamed about being able to roll my corn in the butter!" DUMB.)

3 current obsessions/collections

1. I am obsessed with my wonderful family
2. I try to be obsessed with having my kitchen spotless before I go to bed. And here I am blogging instead. Pitiful.
3. I am trying to be less obsessed with housework during the day so I can picnic, laugh, and play with my kids more.
4. Bonus obsession. I am obsessed with HATEFUL feelings toward mosquitos. I HATE them. My legs look like a war zone because I forgot to put on bug spray before taking a walk last week. GRRRRRRRR.

3 facts about myself

1. I get really competitive when I play games
2. My worst household responsibility is dealing with paper flow
3. When I grow up, I want to be the kind of mom that my mom is/was. I also want to be just like Marjorie Hinckley (except I'll stay 5'4" instead of becoming 4'10").

I tag Lexie, Allie, and whoever else wants to participate. :)

Summer Top 10+1 (in no particular order)

1. Going to the zoo (24 kids, 1 man, 7 women). No, we do not practice polygamy.

The boys

The girls

The bird show

2. Subway sandwiches and red rover in the park.

3. Eating lunch at the hospital with Gramps Tadje. He had a heart attack and bypass surgery. Get better soon Gramps!

4. Bear Lake: mini golf, swimming, good food, cousins, and the beach

Ike as a merman

Buried alive!

5. Holding cute babies (We have 5 new cousins we got to hold this summer:)

6. Matching jammies from Gramma Howard

7. Days of '47 Rodeo for my birthday

8. Cousin Camp

9. Water parties at Gramma & Gramps Howard's



10. Lots of swimming!




11. Timpanogos Cave



P.S. It's good to be back in the blogosphere! I'll catch up with y'all soon!

Remember That Time...(a fun blog idea from my friend's blog)

Just write a memory you have with me or our family. If you leave one, we'll assume you're playing and we'll come leave one on your blog too... Happy remembering!

A Note to the Readers of This Blog

To those who have been wondering why I have recently dropped out of the blogosphere:

It's called 4 kids + Summer = 0 Blogging time. As you will notice, I have just written a rather lengthy blog wishing my firstborn a Happy Birthday. His birthday occurred over a month ago, and I have been trying to get to it since then. This morning, I decided that I would "stick to it until it stuck to me," to quote my mom. It took me about 3 hours, during which the following things happened:

1. Lots of fighting
2. Crying, flailing children feeling like I was neglecting them
3. Pajamas still on at 1:30 in the afternoon (the clock on my blog is off, does anyone know how to fix it?)
4. 29 items on the family room floor
5. Smashed bits of bread all over the kitchen floor
6. A table covered with various items that need to be taken care of
7. A sink full of breakfast and lunch dishes that haven't been loaded yet
8. Morning jobs are still not done
9. 3 loads of laundry needing to be folded and put away
10. A tired baby that went down for his nap 1 hour late
11. Shall I go on?

You get the picture. Needless to say, blogging is not going to be a frequent occurrence during the summer. Well, I'm off to make up for my morning indulgence. I think I'll be paying for it for the rest of the day!

Happy (really) Belated Birthday, Isaac!

Isaac turned 10 on June 7, and this blog is all about him. I really wish I could put some pictures from his early childhood, but alas, we've only had our digital camera for 1 1/2 years. Recent pics will have to do. I'll quote from his journal...

Aug 18, 1998 (2 1/2 mo.) "Swen and I have been so blessed by Isaac's presence. He is a wonderful baby... he smiles all of the time ... I love to spend time with him. He has Swen's olive skin. We took him swimming last week and he loved it. He splashed around like a fishy. ... Isaac was blessed on Aug. 4. ... He was blessed to be sensitive to the spirit, and with love for all people."

April 1, 1999 (Almost 1) "Isaac loves his daddy. When Swen comes home, Isaac instantly fills up with energy and bounces all over the place. They like to wrestle."

December 30, 1999 (18 mo.) At the end of a very hard day: "When we knelt down to say his prayers, right after I'd started, he leaned over and zuberted my arm. I couldn't stop laughing even though it was right during my prayer. I finally gained control, finished the prayer, and leaned over to adjust the sound spa. Isaac leaned over and gave me a big kiss on the cheek, then 3 on the lips. Then he gave me a big hug and went right to bed without crying. I felt so wonderful. Isaac seemed to know I needed some fun and some love tonight. He is so wonderful."

Jan. 12, 2001 (2 1/2) "Getting [Isaac] down for a nap has become a chore in the last few days. ... On Wednesday, I put him down for a nap around 1:00 or 1:30. Over an hour later, I heard a crash. I entered his room and found quite a sight. He had emptied 5 boxes of wipes (96 each) which were crumpled into a pile as high as his knees. Then he'd emptied 2 shelves of his bookcase (over 120 books) on top of that. It was a disaster! I scooped him up and put him straight into time-out. I was not pleased. When I called to tell Daddy, he laughed and laughed. He found it quite hilarious."

April 26, 2001 (almost 3) "Isaac is my little buddy. We have a lot of fun together. He's very active but he usually has a hug for me if I need one."

April 25, 2002 (almost 4) "Isaac is so smart. He amazes me every day with things that he says. ... He is so social ... and friendly. Isaac also loves to play with Jo-Jo. They get along great. Isaac teases Jo-Jo a lot, too. He loves to get Jo-Jo's pillow and blankie and run around our house with Jo-Jo running and screaming after him. His mom doesn't enjoy it as much as Isaac does."

May 14, 2002 (almost 4) "In the past two days, Isaac has brought me 3 bugs that he's killed with his bare hands. Two were flies and one was a moth. He's so quick. He gets very excited, 'I smashed it!'"

Nov. 16, 2003 (5 1/2) "Isaac began kindergarten ... He loves it! He's in the top of his class and he's beginning to read. He loves math. The other day he asked me to write out a bunch of problems for him-with 100's. He did all of them. I taught him how to add in columns and he picked right up on it."

Feb 10, 2005 (almost 7) "[Isaac] was very upset the other day when I had to get [Alyssa's] PKU test. He DID NOT want me to take her to get poked, and he refused to go with me because he didn't want to see her cry. He's very protective. He makes a wonderful brother."

Feb. 17, 2005 (almost 7) "You are so sweet and sensitive, Isaac. ... Recently there was a big tsunami that killed thousands of people. You felt so bad that you gave ALL of your money. It was over $5, and you had been saving it for months."

April 10 2005 (almost 7) "You and Jo made a "Marvelous Mud Mixture" in the backyard, then you played in the bath for about an hour. You and Jo spend hours doing pretend games. You set up forts ... It's so cute. Your "games" last a whole day sometimes. It's amazing. You guys are really good buddies (most of the time). You're always on the go. In 5 minutes tonight, you brought out the football, the baseball, and the soccer ball. You're a great friend. You're always concerned when someone gets in trouble or gets called a name. Sometimes you beg to take Joe's punishment for him, or you get mad at me and Dad when we discipline him. You especially love Alyssa. You kiss her constantly. Sometimes I have to ask you go give her some space! You are a good brother though, and we all love you very much!"

Jan 11, 2008 (9 1/2) "The funniest thing happened this morning! In the middle of the night, Alyssa came tearing out of her room flaming mad, yelling "Isaac, give it back, you stinkin' monkey!" It was so hilarious! We had to convince her it was only a dream, and that you hadn't really taken her toy. We all know why she dreamed it, though. You've loved to tease since you were born! Just kidding, not quite that long. But our constant lectures are: 1. 'Isaac! Stop teasing. Joseph! Stop reacting.' OR 2. 'Isaac! Stop teasing. Alyssa! Be nice." You're getting a little better at being a peacemaker, though! (Here's hoping! :) ).

Feb 8, 2008 (9 1/2) "Isaac, you are a truly amazing person. I went to your parent teacher conference with you on Tuesday, and your teacher is totally impressed with you. Not only are you smart, but you're a good example and you're helpful. Your teacher said that if she ever has a student who is having a hard time, she can sit you down by them and you help them. You have high grades... But the reason that I'm most proud of you is: a couple of weeks ago you came home and said that some of your friends say the Lord's name in vain and it bugs you. You asked them to stop and they teased you at first, then mostly stopped. 2 days ago, you came home and said that some of your friends say the "F" word. At first I was VERY concerned and said that maybe you ought to find new friends. That didn't feel quite right, however, so we looked up "friends" and "swear" on lds.org in old Friend magazines. All of the articles we checked gave examples of people asking their friends to not swear and they continued to stand up for what they believed. Yesterday you told me that you had asked your friend to stop swearing and saying the Lord's name in vain and he said he would stop! I am so proud of you for standing up for what you believe."

Isaac we love you for your faithfulness in the gospel and for your playfulness. You are a great big brother. Your name means "child of promise" and "he laugheth". It fits you perfectly.