Easter 1976

I take for granted my knowledge that life after death exists. I don't mean to. I just don't stop and appreciate the Savior's resurrection as often as I could or should. Then Easter comes around, and I find myself bearing testimony to my kids about the reality that Christ lives and that we too will live again someday. And even though I haven't thought about that particular truth in a while, the second I start explaining it the Spirit promptly confirms its reality. 

I'm not just happy to know that God lives and that I will live beyond the grave, however. There are some other people I can't wait to see and hug and hang with in heaven.

#1 -- Grandma Marshall, as we called her.  My dad's mom, Mildred.  Yes, the nickname Millie has a lot to do with this wonderful woman who blessed my childhood with her quiet, patient love and devotion.  She was always there.  Every birthday, every holiday, every Sunday dinner that we had time to share with her.  I felt her love from a young age and it was a sustaining force for many years to come.  I still remember how her little house a few blocks off Aurora Avenue (in Seattle) smelled of cats and cigarettes and the most delicious mashed potatoes you've ever had.  She loved making us dinner, loved pulling out her best tablecloth and china, loved making us happy by feeding us yummy food.  I want to be the kind of grandma she was to me.




Sadly, I don't have very many photos of Grandma Marshall... and as usual, my eyes are shut.


#2 -- Grandma and Grandpa Bandy.  We spent many a summer in Twin Falls, Idaho visiting my mom's parents, Paul and Sophronia.  Grandma in the kitchen doing dishes or cooking something delectable in the oven, Grandpa downstairs in his leather recliner watching sports or westerns or Time Life documentaries.  I loved hugging G'pa Bandy and his big belly, smelling the Old Spice soap-on-a-rope and feeling the whiskers on his cheek tickle my skin.  He and I would play Gin Rummy on the front porch with a bowl of peanut M&Ms between us.  Grandma kept an organized, beautiful home, full of magical things from a bygone era.  A storage room full of bread bags and jarred peaches, a guest room with old clocks and bedspreads, a closet full of toys I'd never seen the likes of before.  I loved summers in Idaho with G'ma and G'pa Bandy.



Holding little, newborn me


#3 -- Great Grandma and Grandpa Bandy.  Ila and Floyd also lived in Twin Falls, so we got to visit them in the summers.  Loved their cuckoo and grandfather clocks, loved their stories about meeting in a horse and buggy, loved their knowledge of farms and dairies, loved their love for their little dogs, loved their strength and examples.




Jana and I with Great Grandma




Outside with Great Grandpa.  Notice the matching Holly Hobbie dresses.




Wondering about the post's title?  Here's a shot of two-year old me in my stylin' Easter garb.



Comeback Kid



We went bowling the other night with some friends and got completely schooled in the first game.  I continued to hit the gutters and impress with my abysmal consistency in the second game, while Stephen, on the other hand, turned things around and ended up taking the highest score of the night.  The other two couples were probably more surprised than I was.  I've learned over the years that Stephen, although sometimes the underdog, has the kind of patience and persistence that get him the best kind of results.  While I'm busy giving up because "it's just too hard" or "it shouldn't take this long," my husband chugs along without complaint.

I wrote a letter of recommendation for his youngest sister recently, only to realize a few days after writing it, that so many of the qualities I appreciate and love in her are the same qualities I appreciate and love in my husband.  Quiet, hard workers who neither need nor seek praise or attention, they fulfill their responsibilities not because anyone is watching but rather because it's their duty.  It's the right thing to do.  I am daily grateful for a husband who recognizes his fatherly duties and willingly meets them.  I know it's not a given, even in this day and age, to have a spouse who wants to be home, who helps when he's home, who puts his family above all else.

That sense of duty translates to so many other areas of his life.  Work, calling, hobbies, sports, his family, and probably most importantly, his spirituality.  Patiently working hard at all of these things has changed his life and mine for the better, and, yes, made him one serious pro at comebacks. 

Little Miss Excited

Millie loves to say "Yay!"  It started out as her way of showing enthusiasm for something, but now it's turned into her version of "yes" for just about everything.  I'll ask her if she's hungry.  "Yay!"  She'll see one of the boys putting on his shoes to walk to school. "Yay!"  She'll bring me my shoes when she wants to go outside and play in the backyard.  "Yay!"  She'll see someone picking up a remote to turn on a show.  "Yay!"  Her exuberance for such simple, daily things cracks me up.

Other "Yay!"-worthy things in Millie's life right now, in no particular order:
1. Swings.
2. Daddy and all men that look like daddies. (She's cozied up to a few absolute, and thankfully kind & patient, strangers in restaurants before simply because they're men.)
3. Shoes.  She spends a good chunk of her day putting on and taking off shoes.  Her own shoes, the boys' shoes, and of course my shoes most especially.  Several of my favorite flats are no longer pairs anymore, by the way.  Too weird to wear two different shoes together? 
4. Baby dolls.  I'm happy to say she's spending almost as much time with dolls as she is with superheroes and legos these days.  Marked improvement, people.  That said, I am a little unsure about her interaction with said dolls.  She'll be hugging and kissing them one moment and then pretend screaming and crying with them the next.  Extreme emotions, to be sure.
5. Slides.
6. The top bunk of her brothers' beds.
7. Purses, bags, backpacks, anything she can sling over her shoulder.
8. Music and dancing.  She does the funniest plie you've ever seen. 
9. "Go, go, go"-ing just about anywhere.  She's like her mama, who loves getting out of the house.
10. Books.  I must confess, this is my favorite of her favorites.  I will frequently find her sitting in the rocking chair of her room, flipping through almost every one of the books on her shelf (thirty to forty) in one sitting.  It warms my heart every time.
11. Bath time.
12. Repetition.  Another thing we hear a lot from her is "A-gaaaain!"
13. Kisses.  
14. Hugs.
15. "Ma ma."  Even if I'm gone for only five minutes, the moment I walk back in the door,  I hear "Ma ma!" from somewhere in the house with such glee and surprise you'd think I'd been gone for days. 





The backyard treehouse, her favorite hang-out

 



She and her beloved swing in the background

 



Curious as can be

 




How could I forget her love ot Sillybands, rubberbands and hairbands?!  She loves having something on her wrist.

 



Another favorite haunt, the shoe box by the back door

 



Gotta have a bag on her arm

 

Renters No More...

We took a big step today. We've been searching for a home on the down low for a while now. My good fortune came when I was talking to an elderly woman at the Sunnyvale train station waiting for the train to work. I ended up talking about our family and 3 kids and then she asked if I knew anyone that was looking for a home to buy. I told her we were, but we probably couldn't afford anything in our current area. Then out of the blue she said, "Today's your lucky day. I am getting older and have no surviving family. I have a family home that my father built in 1908. Turns out it has been on the market for quite some time--almost a year. It is a 7 bedroom 3 bath house that is split in two. The asking price was $998,800. She lowered it to $500,000 with one caveat. It is a Colonial Revival Historical home on 297 Charles St. in Sunnyvale. So in order to maintain the historical status of the home I have to give tours one weekend a month. We will get a very small stipend from the city of Sunnyvale for the upkeep and publicity of the home---$10,000 a year. We would be responsible for the rest of the upkeep of the home.

It is super close to the train station, so it's a short walk. Sweet! We will be staying in the 5 bedroom portion of the house and our new friend will be living in the 2 bedroom side house until she can make plans to go out in style. Apparently she has been saving up for a trip around the world with a senior citizens group and then will be living in a group home. Pretty cool way to go if you ask me.

Anyway, we plan to move in sometime in June if all goes well. We would love for you to come by sometime to pay us a visit. And I really mean pay. It's $1 per person for admission. You'll get the full tour along with the detailed scoop on the history of Sunnyvale.

And for those of you who haven't caught on to my tomfoolery.....

It's APRIL FOOLS DAY!!!

Stephen :)

Going it alone

I did it.  I survived one week without my husband.  I'm not saying I want to repeat it anytime soon, but for somebody who relies on her husband a WHOLE lot, I'm pretty proud that the kids, the house, the car and I were all in one piece when Stephen walked through the door Saturday night. 

Lessons learned while flying solo:

1. Not cooking dinner makes all the difference.  Left-overs, frozen food, and eating out were this single mom's best friend.

2. Child #3 is an octupus that I never want to bathe again.  Stephen and I have long held the after-dinner tradition of my doing kitchen duty and his doing bath duty.  With the boys taking their own showers these days and only Millie to clean, I've been feeling like maybe our little arrangement is a little unfair.  "Here I am washing allll these dishes, while all he has to do is wash one kid."  Wrong, wrong, wrong was I.  I'll take dishes over Millie's bath any day.  That child nearly drowned herself and cracked her head open within the span of about thirty seconds.  She's excited to the point of insanity--flipping around like a fish, sticking her head in the water, flinging herself back in the tub! 

3. I like not waking up to an alarm at 6:00 every morning.

4. I do not like sleeping alone.

5. Scheduling fun stuff with friends is, well, a lot of fun, and shouldn't be reserved for only when Stephen's out of town.

6. Dealing with a sickie, and most especially a sickie who's thrown up on himself, without his daddy around to help and comfort him makes for one very sad boy.  Poor Eli.

7.  I need to be more thankful for a loyal husband who loves and dedicates himself to home and family the way Stephen does.  Sometimes I forget just how lucky I am.




Look at this gal, ready to go with her shoes, purse, baby hat (where did she find that thing?) and ball

  


Sunbeam Magic

Guess what I do for the second and third hour of church every Sunday?  Yup, you guessed it.  Teach the three-year-olds, who are as new to Primary as I am, also known as the Sunbeams.  The name is apt.  Those bright, shiny kids, so eager to do what's right and learn about Jesus and His gospel, have warmed, if not melted, my ridiculously-caught-up-in-my-own-worries, cold heart on more than one occasion.  Their sweet innocence reminds me why the Savior tells us to be like little children. 

Not that it's easy being a kid in Primary.  Asking an energetic, naturally-wiggly three-year-old to sit still for two hours is a tall order. And for those of you who don't know what goes on in Primary, which I didn't until I got this calling a few months ago, let me give you a brief run-down: 

1. We sit through Junior Primary with about fifty other six-and-unders, where we sing songs, listen to a lesson directed at all the kids, and of course practice sitting still. 
2. We move into our own classroom where the Sunbeams eat a snack, get a drink and go potty, get some wiggles out, do some coloring, and get to learn a lesson about a very simple gospel principle.  Today was "I am thankful for fish." 

Sounds so basic that you'd think you wouldn't have to prepare, right?  Don't be fooled.  Keeping twelve three-year-olds' attention, even with the help of a co-teacher, long enough to have them not only listen to what you're teaching but also hopefully feel the Spirit takes some premeditation.   You'd be amazed by these kids, though.  Amazed at what their little brains and hearts are capable of understanding and feeling.  Amazed at the power of one simple scipture story like Jonah and the Whale in keeping their undivided attention.  Amazed at how much you can feel the Spirit with such small pockets of quiet and such basic gospel concepts.  Amazed at how much they already know about fish! 

Anyway, my calling has surprised me is what I'm trying to say with this post.  Sure, it's a lot of crowd control.  Sure, it's exhausting (my apologies if I used to chat with you after church and now you only see the back of me as I b-line for the parking lot).  But there's no denying the warmth and happiness I feel from my loving little Sunbeams every week.

The latest with the leg

Bennett got his cast off a few weeks ago, right in the middle of ski week/mid-winter break, and let me tell you how excited I was for that thing to be removed.  Do you know just how stinky an active, six year old boy's leg/foot cast can get after five weeks?  I do.  Soooooooo stinky that you will avoid sitting next to your own child on the couch, because breathing in that fowl stench gets your gag reflex going like a puddle of vomit on the bathroom floor.  So stinky that everything that cast touches on a regular basis -- bedding, couch cushions, carpet, cast shoe, ottoman-- seems like it should be burned it reeks so bad.  So stinky that even though it's chillier than it's been all winter, you have to roll down the windows of your van as you drive just so you can breathe.  I'm feeling sick just thinking about it.

Bennett loved watching that thing get sawed off and seeing all the dirt crusted on his leg underneath.  Then he stood up.  Uh oh.  Not quite what he'd expected. "I want my crutches back" even though he hadn't used those things in weeks, which didn't turn out to be such a bad thing since I forgot to bring his other shoe.  Oops.  Poor kid.  I think he'd honestly expected to just run out of that cast room as soon as it came off, despite all our attempts at explaining muscle atrophy and how he might not be able to play soccer for a while.  He kept telling me, "My leg feels weird.  And squishy."  The x-ray brought good news, however: the bone build-up around the fracture was "superb" as the doc called it, and they wouldn't need to re-cast his leg (I didn't even realize that was an option).  The doctor said the squishy feeling would go away and he'd be back walking on it in a day or so.  He also gave a strict mandate to not play sports for THREE WEEKS, which in Bennett's world translates to three more long weeks of torture.

I expected Benito to nurse the leg a bit the first few days, but five days later I started to get concerned when the strange limp he'd developed persisted and didn't appear to be going anywhere.  Physical therapy started to loom large in my mind, harbinger of yet another something to devour my time and co-payments, so I took action.  Every day B came home from school, I'd make him do calf raises on the step in our living room, make him do high knees to practice putting full weight on his weak leg, and make him walk the length of the house keeping his foot straight.  Not to mention my incessant reminders to "Straighten your foot," "Walk normal," and "Put your weight on it," anything to get that leg stronger and in full use.  I'm happy to report that the gimp has lost the limp and seems to be back to normal.  He's just biding his time with the no sports dictum, which means two soccerless soccer practices and possibly one benched game.  Not bad for a kid whose leg cracked not even two full months ago.