My Three Sons

We always celebrate family birthdays on Sunday evenings at my parents' home.  

Here are some pictures of Matt's celebration following his birthday.

 Matt chose lemon bars for his "cake".

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Being the first week in October, Matt's birthday is always near General Conference and therefore is often celebrated in conjunction with my mom's General Conference Quiz.

This past Sunday, a week after this celebration, Josh surprised us all by getting up in Fast and Testimony meeting and bearing his testimony. 

This is a summary of what he said:

'So I like to take notes during General Conference.  Every Sunday we go to my grandparents' house and after General Conference we have a "quiz" (he did the little quotation mark thing with his hands when he said this :)  to see how well we listened and there are prizes.  This time I must not have taken as many notes because I got one of the lesser prizes.'  Here he paused for a minute and struggled with how to say what he was thinking but eventually came out with, 'This is kind of how it really is.  If we don't listen to our prophet we will get a lesser prize in life.'  Then he bore his testimony about how important it is to obey our leaders and sat down.  It was so precious and sweet.  Andy and I just looked at each other and smiled, amazed at our wonderful oldest child.  Many people complimented him later on his testimony and I think many thought that we had talked about this analogy as a family as I had one person tell me.  But no, our Josh is a thinker and came up with that all on his own.

A proud moment as a parent :)

We experimented this year and let Matt play fall soccer.  

Josh had his orchestra and Abby had her Hula so we felt that Matt should be given a chance for an extra curricular activity.  It was good to have him involved in something but he didn't enjoy it as much as we thought he would.  They do fall a little differently and have a weekly clinic (training) along with a scrimmage.  Matt was not interested in the clinics at all and just wanted to play the games.

It's kind of hard to tell but I don't think that's a picture of Matt kicking the ball, I think he's the one you can barely see behind the left hand blue player, but that's okay...it kind of looks like him :)

I think I've mentioned before that he is a great little player!

I love that he has his arm around the player next to him :)

Now we know to stick to spring soccer for Matt :)

So...this thing is a beast I tell you...an unmaneuverable, giant beast!

However, on the rare occasions that my children are with me at the grocery store, this is what they desire to be transported in...and I allow it because I love them :)

It is impossible to get through a shopping trip with one of these things without bumping into numerous  victims and backing up multiple times to turn a corner without knocking down a display.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself steering one of these through the grocery store isles with Ben in the seat and Matt at my side.  I was perusing my choices of chips when Ben went into a full blown seizure.  I pulled him out, held him in my arms sideways and had Matt start timing with my phone. 

It lasted two minutes and I can't tell you if it was a blessing or a curse that not one soul came down that isle the full two minutes.  I'm glad we didn't create an unnecessary scene however, it would have been nice to know someone was nearby and willing to help if the need arose.

Anyway, after the seizure, I had to carry Ben in my arms for the rest of the shopping trip (of which we were only about half way through) as well as push the beast.  Matt was very helpful and did the best he could but with my previous description, you can only imagine how well that went :) (He really was super helpful though and I am grateful for his efforts.)

I'm sure we made quite a picture.  I was armed with an explanation should anyone ask...no one did.

We made it through the checkout and a bagger helped us to our car and all was well :)

Ben has continued having clusters of many seizures over a few day span.

I can't remember if I have mentioned on the blog the day that he had 5 and then 15 the next.  They even went through the night which really, never happens.  

Some times they're associated with illness like two weeks ago he had a span of 4 days where he had 4-6 each day.  They were pretty predictable in pattern and timing.  They all lasted about one minute and after each one seemed to be over, he would violently wobble his head and arms for a few seconds and then it would end.  He ended up having a cold and that was the obvious reason for the pattern we saw.  I'm waiting for him to be sick again since we're seeing the same wobbly pattern.  Six yesterday and six more so far today.

Josh had a Living History Mystery Museum at school.  He chose to be Daniel Boone.  I encouraged him with that choice since I noticed he would have to dress up like the subject he chose and I knew Josh had a coonskin cap already.  I thought that would make things easy.  It was rather ironic then that I found out Daniel Boone never wore a coonskin cap.  He despised them!  Oh well.  I think Josh thought it was pretty cool that Daniel married a Bryan :)
He had to write a paper and memorize a one minute speech about Mr. Boone.
It's interesting how with these things I always seem to learn as much if not more on the subject than the student :)

Josh made a very handsome frontiersman.

I love that artwork on the bottom of his poster.  It says, "This is me moving to Kentucky".

Josh did a very fine job with his assignment.  It's always fun to see the end result after many hours of long hard work!

Abby, I promise to do a post all about you...very soon :)!