J-Ball

 Jax loves himself some basketball. He has been patiently waiting for spring to come so he can play. We are both a little disappointed though. The team is for 3rd and 4th graders. And he is in 3rd and most of his team is as well. And let's just say that by 4th grade, the kids are much better at the game. So he's not having as much fun always getting creamed by the other teams (of 4th graders) and not being able to do as well. Hopefully he'll still love the game and want to do it again next year. He's pretty good, and is good at always double dribbling and traveling ;). This last game he got quite a few shots up but just didn't quite make it in the net. His team was cursed I tell ya.

 He has such concentration. I enjoyed basketball growing up so I'm glad he's into it too.

And this is what else happens during his games. Rafe is so afraid of the loud whistles and ridiculously loud buzzer. So he hides and won't move, just wants to be held. As you can see he's cuddled into Greg's side. He kept his coat on and was hotter than Hades for wearing it the whole time. Bodie and Creed found other things to do. Like roll around and get dirty. There are a couple friends on the team so we can have people to hang out with and cheer them on.

Too many

Cars, trucks, planes, trains, all things that go. (Boats, skateboards, helicopters, 4 wheelers, space ships, etc.) Rafe and I had a free half hour today. So we emptied the containers and lined up all the vehicles in the house. I quickly snapped a picture before Rafe bull dozed through the nice organization. Gosh, back when we just had Jax we had just a few cars and trucks. And 9 years and 4 boys later, this is what you get. Of course I forgot to include the remote control cars, race tracks and many many broken and thrown out vehicles over the years.

Are we done with the collection yet? Probably not, especially since Rafe's b-day is coming up. I wonder what it would be like to have half as many cars and the other half of our toy collection being pink, dolls, and princess stuff? 

Too much boy stuff at our house. What do you get year after year, boy after boy? We have too many toys. I'm outta ideas.

This Kid

This kid has way out grown this high chair. We only use it maybe 25% of the time anymore. He actually likes it. (I love that he's eating and pointing his toes and looking up at Greg while I snapped the picture) I can't part with it. And Greg keeps begging to toss it out. It's one of the last remaining baby items. I don't know how to say good bye. All 4 of my boys used this. For 9 years it's had it's place in our kitchen. It's held up great. It doesn't look so great. But it's lasted. I know the end is near. I just wanted to say how I have loved you high chair. You were a big big part of the Lorenzon boys life. Tears will be shed. Not so much for the chair I suppose, but for knowing it is the last of the baby items still around.

And this kid... Greg chopped the boys hair and got rid of the long dark locks on Rafe. Now it shows his purty blonde again.

One minute he is happy and laughing, the next he is a grouch. He gets mad and says mean things, screams a scream Greg can't stand. But happy or sad or mad, his brothers get a kick out of him.

This face below I see all too often. He scowls and starts telling me to "be quiet" or even "shut up" and talking back to me and is a real pill. The two's have been bad. I hope his three's are better!

With my older boys I would say "terrible twos - no way, it's terrible three's" but he had the two's. So I'm crossing my fingers. Every morning he is mad at yells at me. For no reason other than he woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I'm trying to be patient. Trying to be loving, but oh man it is hard.

March Moblie

I've been such a slacker at blogging lately. There are moments I want to remember and capture. Here are a few from my phone the last couple weeks.

For starters, I was happy inside when Jax called me over to see his Mine Craft creations on the Play Station. One was the Eiffel Tower. But my favorite was his Statue of Liberty. Or as he called it Lady Liberty. Awesome, what a great face too. Ha! He loves to create, and I LOVE THAT!

My next is Bodie's art. We were at his speech class and I had to pull the teachers example into the picture above his. To show what it was supposed to look like vs. what Bodie created. At the top of his rectangle pond was a pink flower, then... red blood and a monster machine that killed something (in the blue squiggle). Hmm, I guess too many video games on his mind. And I also love that Bodie still has his tatoo on his arm (seen in the picture) that won't wash off man! It's been since Valentines. Yeah, I know. We scrub it every bath/shower. It's slowly wearing away. What's up with that?!

 And Creed always gets ALL of his spelling words correct so he gets coupons from his teacher for free ice cream or kids meals to different places. Oh boy we have so many.  So I took him out on a date to Sizzler. I had to capture him licking the ice cream and fudge sauce off of his plate. He loves his sweets. And I love it because I used to do the same thing!

And poor Rafe. He had a cold and now just a lingering asthma cough. But he also has a bad ear infection now as well. And we were on our way to our friends house for dinner last night and he all-of-a-sudden screams out and crying holding his ear. We thought for sure he ruptured his ear drum. But no, just a strike of pain I guess. Or maybe a blister popped that the Dr. saw on his drum. So he's been going around holding his little blanket up to his ear for comfort.

And Greg is out right now running another half marathon up to the Zoo. He's training for a full one in a few months. I wish I loved running. I'm happy with my 2 miles. Or maybe I'm happy to be alone without the boys for that time. Heck, if that's what it takes to have alone time, I'll run even longer. Ha!

Life Update

We have been outside quite a bit with the warmer weather for a few days there. It was fun. Sunday evening we did our family walk. Such a gorgeous sunset! We all enjoyed the pretty views and sky. And plenty of practicing of dribbling while we walked. Our boys like to play hard I tell ya.

Here's a brief update on the fam...

Greg - currently training well for a Marathon he's running in May. He's had a little knee pain but otherwise is loving it. He's almost lost his goal in weight. More on that later I guess. Working hard, not much free time, and is enjoying being in Young Mens in our ward. He makes dinner almost every Sunday. And let's me nap on Sundays. But he does get to sleep in a little when he can as well. It's a trade off.

Jax - plugging away at school. Wants to eat school lunch almost everyday. He begs to walk with his friends to school. He can always be found "prancing" around the house, meaning he runs, jumps, and is playing some imaginary ninja type something (all the boys do this). He only likes to play video games for a few minutes then he's done. He is liking playing the piano. He asks for hot cocoa every morning, don't worry, we only let him every-so-often. He loves going to scouts. And is always asking questions or wants to talk about something, anything. We all love that he can speak French. It's kinda neat to know they are learning it.

Creed - 1st grade is good to him. He loves his friends and gets wet everyday with the snow. Soggy feet, wet hair, etc. It's getting old. He still gets injured at recess at least once a week. He is obsessed with video games. It's always a battle of when and how long he gets to play. But it motivates him like no other to get his homework, or goals, or piano done. He loves to take HOT showers. Crazy hot. I get mad at him and tell him it can't be good for him. He now gags on school lunch and home lunch. So his home lunch supply is tiny in selection. Right now it's chips/salsa and cold cereal. I know, I know. He's the picky eater king! Oh boy does he have sweet tooth. Oh and his 2 front teeth are finally growing in. 10 1/2 months isn't too long with no teeth is it? Ha!

Bodie - Tells me every morning that he hates preschool. Although he really LOVES it. Happy as can be going and coming home. Wants to play with his little buddy Canon everyday. He writes his name the cutest way. He gets all 5 letters, scattered all over the page in random order. We take him to speech class every week and he loves that. So do I. He's a little like Creed in always wanting to play video games. But he usually turns it off before I have to tell him time's up. He carries around all his little collected things and toys. From his bed, to the couch, to the table or car. Then I tell him he has too many and needs to put some things away. He's like a hoarder. But all my boys did that for a while.

Rafe - He can play all day. In fact that's what he does. He watches a few Disney shows (Mickey Mouse) every morning so I can finish getting ready for the day. And then he likes to hang on me and loves to eat. He's always wanting a snack. He is a good eater. He'll eat anything and lots of it. We have been "introducing" potty training to him for months now. Starting to really work at it as he's almost 3! He's just learned to hold up 3 fingers so he can say he's three come his b-day. I find him singing songs, which he loves. Every night after I read Bodie and Rafe their bedtime story, he asks to look at the book again, by himself. Then I hear him talking about the book as if he's reading it. So cute.

I am really missing the baby stage of life. I know I say that often, but I am glad I had it and will cherish it. I think I love the idea of it now more than I did when I was in it. The boys are all growing up so fast. There are sure pluses to having the kids older and self sufficient. I get excited thinking of the things we can do without such little ones. We've been keeping Rafe out of nursery every week. And he hasn't been sick the last few months. Well one time, but... knock on wood. Everyone at church now knows who Rafe is, that's for sure. He's the one who is smiley and happy and then the next minute he's screaming no or crying of something. Fun stuff. My calling is in the Relief Society extra meetings committee. So I do planning and activities. And I plan all the play groups in our ward.

Greg's parents are doing well. His dad is close to retirement. Greg's mom is gracious in helping to teach our boys piano. And they help visit Great G-ma Bangerter in her recovery center. And my parents are, hopefully I can type this through the tears in my eyes, my mom is using all her strength to care for my dad with Alzheimer's. Her new full time job is taking care of dad's every need. And dad is so far gone. He sleeps a lot, will get up often and in the night, gets changed, he eats, showered, and my mom begs him to get in the car when they need to leave. But he still laughs, he was always good at humor and laughing, but now it's just not at the right things sometimes :) . He's like a toddler (giant size), it's so heart breaking. We are always praying for them. And especially my mom. 

I certainly can't wait for winter to be over. I keep thinking there are so many things I want to do, so now I need to do them. I've been trying to work out more, and eat healthier foods. Be a more patient parent. Teach my kids all the best and be the best example. Gosh it's so hard.

Never easy, only worth it, right?

The Skiing

 Saturday was a beautiful day, it's the day we got ready for Sunday. We cleaned the house, we shopped at the store, we shined our shoes so we don't have to work until Monday. Remember the song? Well just kidding. We did no work, only play. We did our monthly ski trip up to Alta with Jax and Creed. It was fun and I was cold. Nobody else, just me as usual. Jax was super excited to go after watching the Olympics. His favorite was the Skiing Halfpipe. So he really wanted to do a 180 and 360. Ha! He did find a few little hills to try and do a little small jump on. Creed likes to tease me that he goes faster than I do. So I kept passing him to show him he doesn't always. BTW - his favorite was the Skeleton in the Olympics, Bodie's too.

Here we are on one of the lifts. Jax and I then the right is Creed and Greg.

I hate how cold my fingers get. It's painful and the hand warmers I put in my gloves don't work man! And my ears, oh and sometimes my toes. Skiing would be so much better if I stayed warm. I do love riding the lift up with one of the boys. It's a few quiet minutes of one on one time and we get to just talk. Just us. In the pictures I'm with Jax then then with Creed a few times. It's one of my favorite things. Then driving back down the canyon. A stream of cars all leaving at the same time pretty sky and pretty valley below.

But for reals... Greg did have to do "work" on Saturday. Fixing some pipes on the duplex and we had to get our car inspected in the morning. You see on Friday I was "run off the road" by a (Bleep, bleep, bleep) driver. She turned into my lane and cut me off, I slammed the brakes but was going to hit her, so I swerved to the right lane and then she did too, so to avoid getting hit by her I swerved off the road to the curb, up over the curb/sidewalk and back again. Amongst some honking she didn't stop so I quickly followed her to get a picture of her license plate. We did file a report, but...

Bodie and Rafe were in the car at the time, I'm sure scared wondering what was going on. And it was funny, Bodie says to me after it all "Uh mom, you're not supposed to say idiot". I appologized for it and I'm thinking, was that the worst word I said?

Winter Purge

So I'll just share a few things from the end of January. Everyday Bodie, Rafe, and I hang out for a few minuets in the car waiting for Jax and Creed to come from school. Bodie was enjoying his reflection of funny faces in the mirrors one day. And I captured a typical moment of the boys walking to the car in the middle of winter. Not wearing coats. I suppose it wasn't a freezing day, but still.

 

In the mornings Jax and Creed will walk half the time with the group of neighbor kids from down the street. Otherwise I drive them to school. And I always pick them up after school. We live so close it's silly to drive them. But Jax was young and we didn't have anyone to walk with and the hill to the school is busy with school traffic and there are no sidewalks so it's not the safest walk. So I've been driving him all these years. But that's going to change soon. He's certainly old enough and they've been asking more and more to walk with their friends. So the days of "hanging" in the car are going to end. Unless it's bad weather.

 

 

One Saturday Greg decided for us to tackle a big, big project. Ugh. We pulled everything out of our storage/laundry room and closets. To clean and organize and see what we have and what we can throw away. After living here for 10+ years we've sure accumulated a lot of stuff. We didn't throw nearly as much away as I thought. But our house was a pile zone for a week. We had the donation pile, the garbage and the keep sections. And finally have it all put back together. Everyone talks about when you move it's great see what you have, to throw away, and purge out the stuff. I'm glad I wasn't packing and moving, but it was so nice to have it all done and organized. Phew.

 

As I was boxing up my old VHS movies (what do we do with these now?) I was loving my collection. There was a reason I owned these movies. They're all so awesome! Am I right? Do they have "Bird on a Wire" on Blu-ray? Doubt it. We'll have to break out the VCR one of these days.

 

Well we got to the bottom of a pile in the storage room and pulled out my Cabbage-patch dolls. I LOVED my dolls when I was little. I kept my Barbie's and my Cabbage-patch for my daughters to have and enjoy. Well, now I guess for my grand-daughters (crossing my fingers). And they were all mashed and squished, I was scared and couldn't bring myself to pull the top off the squished basket to see the damage. So Greg did it for me. Luckily not too bad. The only sad thing is that my favorite baby had these red marks all over? What? Then it dawned on me what it was from. Stink'n Target bag! Obviously up against the face. I tried cleaning it off. No such luck. Anyone know how to get it off the plastic? Rafe sure loved my dolls. All the other boys were in bed so they missed it all. Rafe kept calling the babies a "he". They are not boys, they are all girls! ha ha.

11 years ago...

Oh so many years ago it was a lovely day. Our wedding day! 11 years ago. It's Anniversary time. That means a little glimpse of history of our day. In the picture while we were getting picture after picture around Temple Sq. and downtown (my mom and the photographer helping pose Greg and I), we had this little audience... My siblings/spouses and a few of my friends stuck around. It made it a fun photo-shoot I tell ya.

 

Then we rushed off to our Wedding Luncheon. This is the only picture I have of us during that. It was at Greg's old church ward building on Foothill Blvd. I have a picture of all his aunts in the kitchen doing all the food. And as I was going through pictures I was noticing all the tables and decorations, flowers, all the prep work. Wow, I have no idea to this day who did what and helped. It was Greg's family and I had nothing to do with it. I just showed up and got to enjoy. So thanks to everyone who helped make it happen.

 

Gosh these scanned pictures just aren't good quality, sorry. And then while the reception happened, our families did this... (lower picture) Greg's family all lined up waiting around. I love it, they're all posing with legs crossed, Chris on the phone, an Ex blurred out. My family was there of course and some friends were troopers and stayed the whole time as well.

 

I love my memories of my wedding day. It really was such a great day. Not only did we get hitched, but we got to spend the day with family and friends, oh and it was all about us! Here I am kissing my new husband. And a "ring" shot. I told the photographer I didn't want one, but this is camouflaged as one ;) - I guess. I love my ring. I wasn't finding anything like I wanted while ring shopping so I saw a few ideas, put a design together and we had it made. Now I can see rings all over that I'd choose :) I don't have one of Greg's wedding ring darn it.

 

 

Wait, while I was doing this post I called Greg at work and had him snap a picture of his ring and email it to me. So I have one now. Love modern technology! I had an idea of what I wanted for my husbands ring. Something with carvings in it to hide any dings and scratches. This one reminded me of my dad's. And Greg liked it. It's been great. And I am embarrassed to admit, but it makes a great nail file as well. See the little ridges along the edge? Oh so many times I've asked to borrow his ring to fix a little snag on my nail to make it smooth. :) 

 

The Ice Fishing

We (us and most of Greg's family) went up to Rockport Res. on Saturday and ice fished. We've never been before. From the looks of all the people, we thought it must be a good day and lots of success. But after 2 hours and freezing and random crying with catching zero fish. We called it quits. It was fun though. I'm glad the boys got to do it. In fact Rafe and Bodie were our alarm clocks Sat. morning and came racing into our room and the first thing out of Rafe's mouth was "Ice Fishing!?" He was so excited. So we gathered our gear and loaded up the car. Dressed warm and hiked out to a spot on the frozen lake. Holes were dug/drilled, the boys were excited. And then the waiting began. They got bored, got hungry so we ate, messed around, visited, then we left. But not before...

 

Bodie loved it at first. So happy holding his own fishing pole, all smiles. Then 15min. later (the sad face) he came to me in tears with a glove soaking wet mumbling something through his tears about his pole is gone in the hole. He was so distraught that he dropped his pole down in the icy water to never be seen again. He wouldn't stop crying. Creed didn't seem to care about ice fishing, so he gave Bodie his pole to "use forever". Bodie still didn't seem happy. Too upset his own was gone.

 

 
And Creed played all sorts of things, collected ice piles and made his own little adventures. Rafe played a little, very little, and he liked to cling to mom or sit in his chair. He kept asking to go home. But in general I'd say he had fun. I kept checking his hands to make sure he was warm. He was.

 

 Jax had fun and would totally do it again. But was bummed he didn't catch anything. I guess after we left, uncle Abe caught one. Maybe next year Jax.

  Here's all my boys after lunch. The only time I could round them up for a picture.

 

It was neat to see the frozen lake and the many fishing people. Quite the sport I guess. I pulled Rafe back to the car with the sled instead of our gear. Bodie and Creed were sitting and playing the whole way back to the car, making it take forever. Next time I know to bring more gloves, and food, and sleds. :)

The Regatta

Finally getting on the ball for the new year and posting on the blog. I've just been waiting for something to mention. And it's been a January rut and not much to tell about.

So the Rain-gutter Regatta came and went. It sounds all neat and cool. Fun for the boys to make a boat and blow the sail down the gutter to make a win. But I sure didn't think it was all that. Lacking something just a bit. Jax enjoyed his few races though. He said he had to rest between because he was light headed. Rafe was so excited he brought his own tub boat to try. But wasn't supposed to. We're just waiting patiently for a Pinewood Derby. I hope they have one before Jax is out of cub scouts.