As some of you know we've had a lot going on lately. First off, good news! Emily is pregnant and we are expecting a new baby in April. Harris prays that it is a girl, and I'm pretty sure Emily does too.
Second, I have cancer. I had a testicle removed last Saturday, but it appears that the cancer spread to my lymph nodes. I still need to talk to an oncologist next week, but it looks like I will require chemotherapy. From what I understand this isn't a terribly dangerous condition, just a pain and expensive.
After months of preparation and hard work, Jack and Harris sang and spoke in church yesterday in our primary program. They both did very well with their memorized parts, but where they really shined was in a special rendition of "Jesus Once Was A Little Child".
The Sunbeams (Jack and other 3-4 year olds) lined up in front of the congregation, and the CTR 5's (Harris and his bunch) lined up behind them. Fortuitously, Harris was lined up right behind Jack. The song began, and Jack decided he was not going to sing. No, instead, Jack was going to see how far over the rostrum he could reach. So as the song went on, Jack leaned further over the rail until his entire upper body was hanging over the edge, his fingers stretched out toward the ground. Harris took umbrage at this, and abandoned his singing and tried to reel Jack in. Jack resisted, so Harris was forced to grab onto Jack's shirt and pull him up. Eventually, Jack was pulled all the way up. Unhappy with this situation, Jack turned and punched Harris, who then hit back. At this point a primary teacher broke them up and Harris sang a little bit.
Halloween! Besides Harris's helmet and breastplate, Emily made everything they wore from scratch, and the helmet and breastplate were also augmented with vinyl placemats, spraypaint, and faerie magic.
Will had originally demanded that he was "a tiny Vader", but he acquiesced to Yoda.
In the car yesterday, Harris asked me if I knew this song: "Da-da-da-da DA-da-da DA-da-da DA-da-da Da-da-da-da DA-da-da DA-da-da-DAAAA." Of course I recognized it immediately, but I couldn't remember any of the details about it. Slowly, he enlightened me, as he remembered EVERYTHING about this song from his music class earlier in the day.
"It's about the Man and the Trolls. Only a few people were the Man and lots of us were trolls. I was a troll, and we marched around to get the Man. And the music got louder and faster when we were about to get the Man, and when there were more trolls."
"What's the name of that song, Harris?"
"The end of it is 'the Mountain King'."
"Oh, yes, the 'something of the Mountain King.'"
"Yes, the Man wrote it for a play."
"And who was the Man? Was it Aaron Copeland?"
"No." And after a long pause, "He was born in Norway....His name ends in Grieg."
"Oh, yeah! Edvard Grieg! You have a good memory!
"Yeah, Edvard Grieg."
Dad gets in the car.
"Dad, do you know a song by Edvard Grieg?"
When we got home, we had to check our iTunes library for the song, and there it was, so we loaded it up on the iPod, and Harry marched around talking WAY too loudly for about an hour. I am very impressed with his music teacher-- he remembered her name, too-- Mrs. Kunz, and quite impressed with Harry.
This from wikipedia:
Edvard Grieg, a prominent Norwegian composer of the later 19th century, wrote several pieces on trolls, including a score based on Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, with the famous In the Hall of the Mountain King, and March Of The Trolls (Troldtog). Regarding his motivations, Grieg wrote: "The peculiar in life was what made me wild and mad...dwarf power and untamed wildness...audacious and bizarre fantasy." Grieg's former home, Troldhaugen ("The Troll's Hill"), is now a museum.[4][5]
I like this quote from Grieg-- I remember playing his "Puck" as a piano student, and I loved the fantasy in his music. He is a fun composer.
Jack started soccer on Saturday. He was a little hesitant at first, but loved it once things got going. His team is called the Green Dragons, and he is number six (for all the back-facing shots). The picture of him drinking makes me a little nostalgic, though-- my fair-faced baby. Harry started again on Saturday, as well, but we forgot the camera, and the other team didn't show, so we'll have to post some exciting pictures of his new team (suspiciously called the Blue Dragons) soon. We are proud of our soccer boys.
Our little man has joined the ranks of school-goers. His first day was Thursday, and he is loving kindergarten. His teacher is Mrs. Petersen-- a mother of eight-- so we think she can handle him. On his first day he learned to count backward from 10 to 1, so now his rocket ships can blast off properly. Here are some pictures...
We met up with Emily's uncle David and his family down at Grandpa Garth Holm's farm last night (Em and the boys went back today while I was at work). We had a great time meeting up cousins and grandparents and playing on the farm. To everyone's delight Grandpa was generous with his ATV rides. The boys are going to want an ATV now...I think we'll get a goat instead.
So this is quite a bit late, but James's birthday was on Friday. We were lucky enough to have James's mom, Barbara, and brother, John, with us. We did a lot of birthday things, but it was spread out over a few days. We have kind of a birthday tradition of going to whatever Harry Potter movie is coming out around James's birthday, so we got to do that this year-- Barbara watched the boys (thank you, thank you!), and what a fabulous movie it was. We had cake and ice cream with some of James's cousins in the area the night before his birthday. And on his birthday, he went to a lawyer lunch with his mom at which a good friend of hers from law school was the speaker. Then we got Chinese takeout for dinner, and I made shortbread with raspberries and cream for a tasty little dessert. The raspberries are from our own garden-- though we didn't plant them, we sure love them. It was probably a bit of an anticlimactic 30th birthday, but James is a great sport and took it all very gracefully.
Let me count the ways that I love and appreciate James. #1 He is doing the dishes and vacuuming as I write this. #2 He loves cooking, and he is lot more adventurous (and successful) than I am. #3 He is an impeccably good and honorable man with a huge heart. #4 He is a genius and keeps me wanting to know and understand more about everything. #5 He never complains when the house is a mess, when I am a mess, or when dinner is slow or a mess. #6 I am totally confident in his love for me. #7 He loves our boys fiercely-- ask them, he can be fierce. #8 His huge smile still charms me every day. #9 His faith is strong and helps mine along when I need it. #10 And millions more....
I am lucky to have him, and I knew when I saw his baby pictures that I wanted my baby boys to look just like him. Here's to the next thirty years, sweetie.
Jack never seemed to go through that awkward newborn phase-- he was perfectly cute from the start. His first picture~ Super Jack absorbing his powers at a very young age
Jack in New Hampshire Ewok Jack Jack at Niagara Falls Jack in Toronto Jack in a Box Jack's First Birthday Jack in a Mess Jack as Jack-Jack Jack in the Snow Super Jack realizes his powers Big Brother Jack Flying Baby
We LOVE Jack! A delightful boy. Don't miss our next installment-- 30 Years of James!
Jack turned 4 today. It's hard to grasp that he is that old, because he's seemed the same age since he was about 15 months old. But he is, and he had a great party that was well-attended and gifted. There was even a little dirty Dickensian girl waiting on the periphery of our group, hoping perhaps for a small piece of cake or some semblance of warmth or human contact. She got neither, of course, and ran off to her mom's $65,000 SUV in a pout.
Emily's Superrasta cake was rad, and my death-wielding piñata was el lamo. But of particular awesomeness was the party favor de resistance: hand sewn Buzz Lightyear™ capes for each boy. And some pink cape for the girls, but I didn't pay attention to that.
Harris and Jack were playing soccer outside yesterday, with Harris as goalie and Jack trying to score. On one of Jack's attempts, Harris dove and made a pretty great save, prompting Jack to exclaim, "Harris is like a spider!" A few minutes later, Jack kicked the ball past Harris for a goal, and he jumped up and down, yelling "The fly wins! The fly wins!"
Through a fortunate motion to continue, we were able to join my family in Utah this past week for a great time. Rachel flew in from DC; Russ and Sarah Jane from Austin; and Mom, Dad, and John drove from Austin. In other words, a perfect time for our camera to die. Fortunately we have a nice point and shoot (Thanks, Dad) who was waiting for his time to shine.
We spent a couple of nights in my Aunt Joan's splendid cabin near Kamas and then we hung out in the ancestral mansion on the avenues. Joan and Craig have some ATVs, so I had some fun times riding around the area with everyone from Will to John (including Corey, though our "ride" consisted of idling down a long hill and then pushing the ATV back up when we couldn't get it started again). We also enjoyed a huge indoor water slide in Kamas and endless entertainment from children suffering from sugar induced psychosis.
It was great to see everyone and we had a wonderful time.
So we wanted to make a quilt for our soon-to-arrive new niece, and James had the wonderful idea to make a Mario Mushroom Grow-Up quilt-- it has been delivered, so we can show the world some pictures now. We worked on it together from designing it on a piece of graph paper to sewing it together-- James is a great stitcher! And we are pretty pleased with how it turned out. James wants a King size one for our bed.
I am struggling with Will right now (literally, he is twisting around on my lap refusing to sleep). He just said "dad, you we-dic-ulous" and "Stop it, James" in response to my incessant whistling of "Karma Police".
Oh well. The other boys are sound asleep because of their grueling workouts today at swim practice.
Emily says that Jack is jubilant throughout, just smiles and laughs. And yes, I saw Harris ride his bike today with no training wheels.
No posts lately, but so much is going on. The boys have been in swim lessons for the past two weeks, and they are loving it. We went to Nampa two weeks ago and this past week Emily's parents came in for a Nelson family reunion in Rexburg. Next week we are heading to Utah for a get-together with my family. We were planning on going Monday night so we could actually spend some time with them, but instead I have to stay most of the week to watch some terribly important trial.
Emily has been busy with some top-secret handicrafts, including this beautiful family tree she made for my dad for Father's Day:
EDIT: Also, thanks to Rachel and everyone else who helped us get the family history for this.
I have wanted bunk beds for Harry and Jack for a long time. Very long. Very badly. I don't know how many times I have entered the term "bunk bed" into the Craigslist search box. A lot.
James made my dreams come true. He MADE bunk beds with nothing more than a hand saw and a drill. I am way impressed with my handy manny. Then I stained them and finished them. The whole thing was a lot of work. We learned why they are SO stinkin' expensive. But we saved a significant wad of cash and got what we wanted, so I am doubly happy.
Last night we assembled them in the boys new room-- we traded their room for the computer room (big mess still underway). Here's Harry helping James tighten the bolts:
It's hard to get a good picture of them in our small house because they are massive, but here's the gist of it:
Today we celebrated Will's second birthday. I guess that means we'll have to stop calling him Baby Will. I still get frequent urges to eat him up, so I have a hard time thinking of him as a kid. We love our Will SO much. He blesses our family every day and brings so much joy to us.
