Max the star

Max says he wants to play basketball for high school, college and the NBA. He's been working on the tricks to show the crowds, too, like spinning:

This (vertical-sorry!) video was at a recent Sunday dinner. Look for an appearance by cousin Phin, baby James, and Papa in the background, and listen to my non-radio giggle voice.

Spring sprung

Today is the first official day of spring.  We had a sprinter (spring-winter) and it was fantastic. I've always felt spring goes too fast in Utah. You go from cold and snowy months to a few weeks of nice weather, to hot months. This family will take spring, spring, spring.

I think that photo of all four boys on swings was taken on a Saturday in February.  JB took this picture of James in February as well.

He says it's his favorite winter since those two he spent as a missionary in Brazil.

Add to this weather the daylight saving time, and now Andrew doesn't want to go to bed at 7 pm any more:  "But MOM, it's not dark outside!"

Tonight they were playing ball in front yards with other kids on the street, happy as clams, then the big boys wanted to watch some March Madness, so bedtime was pushed back just a little. I can be flexible on a Friday on the first day of Spring.

Jamesy boy

A friend subbed in nursery in church on Sunday and told us, "You do realize that your boy is obsessed with basketball, right?" Yes, yes we know.

21-month-old James spends a lot of his time talking about "Bas-kit-ball!" and "HOOP!" on repeat. He has been this way since he could first talk.  Looking around, I realize he's surrounded by it.

The last thing he sees before falling asleep and the first thing he sees when he wakes up is the basketball-in-a-hoop light in the ceiling in his room (the very same light that used to hang in JB's boyhood room).

Our family room has a kids' basketball hoop in it. Several different-sized balls are always underfoot in our house.  Our garage has a basketball hoop on it.  There is a smaller hoop INSIDE the garage, too.  This time of year, a basketball game is almost always on TV. The church has a basketball gym. His older brothers play on Jr Jazz basketball teams.

He wants to play all the time. He thinks if we could juuussst lift him a leetle higher, he could make a basket on the taller hoops. He says "pass!" but won't pass it back. When he does pass back, it's overhand and strong. 

Thankfully he also talks about many more things and has a surprising number of words and people's names that he says and recognizes:  Nonna. Poppa! DOGGY! NIGHT-NIGHT (his blankies). ANDY! (Max and Ben's friend) AN-shoe (our Andrew), BOYS! (Max and Ben).  Teef, TEEF, TEEF! (for brushing teeth) MILK! BALL! He'll even go to the back door and bleat, "Walk. WALK!"

I put them in caps because he really just seems like he's strongly saying each word -- if not yelling them sometimes.  It makes us proud and gives us the giggles every day. 

Updates-updated

In the past month since I last posted,

I

have been sucked into British TV in my spare time. Downton Abbey (swoon), Broadchurch (sick to my stomach), Call the Midwife (sweet), and Grantchester (surprisingly good).  I also read a lot to the boys and like family walks outside in this heaven-sent mild winter.  A few longer days at work though for meetings or breaking news or news conferences have thrown the family all off. I am now out of the primary presidency and in the nursery every other week (which confuses James no end) and I enjoy hearing Sunday School and Relief Society lessons again.

UPDATE - I found a recent picture of me. Taken by Max:

JB

has been busy Bishop-ing and mortgage loan officer-ing. Basketball on Tuesday nights is going strong. And he's being the cutest dad. On Friday school was out, so he took the boys to eat breakfast at Penny Ann's Cafe with a coupon, then they went to the park and red-boxed Planes Fire and Rescue til I came home. During these morning errands with his four little ducks around him, someone said, "those apples didn't fall far from the tree."

Max

finished a season of Jr Jazz basketball, did a science fair project (Which Cleaner Cleans Better? It turned out Windex seemed to brighten the shirt), did a few book reports and field trips and cub scout activities. Also, 4th grade math isn't so bad.

Benny

also finished another season of Jr Jazz basketball, and breezes through his 1st grade homework like it ain't no thing. 

And he lost his two front teeth. You may call me, "Mary the tooth-puller." They were just a-danglin' in there, and I am the one who coaxed them out finally. He had twisted one around, so I said I would fix it -- and I yanked it out, muahahahaha. The other popped out a week later when I was flossing his teeth and wrapped the floss around and flicked.

Andrew

Asks every day if he has preschool that day. Monday and Thursdays we pre-school co-op with four other families. Those moms host in the mornings, I host in the afternoons when it's our week.  One morning JB went when they took a field trip to a candy factory.

Andrew brought home this candy alligator that he thought was a pet and carried around gingerly for days. We were afraid a brother would lick/bite/eat it, so it's now resting on top of the fridge out of mind.

He also told me that an alligator "alligates." Like a verb! And he insisted on being called a turtle for days after meeting a neighbor's pet turtle while learning about the letter "T."


James

Is such a cutie. Also a stinker sometimes. He refuses to be totally weaned, even though he's 21 months old now. He won't.give.up.

 No snow for that sled this winter, sorrynotsorry.  JB says this has been his favorite winter since those two he spent on his mission in Brazil.

JB also shot some senior portraits of #4:

And I successfully moved Andrew out of the bigger boys' bedroom downstairs (they cheered), and in with James upstairs to the bedroom across from us. I was worried they would mess each other's sleep patterns up, but after a couple days of rushing in there when James fussed, we realized Andrew was sleeping through it all.  And James is much better at sleeping now.

James likes to climb onto Andrew's bed with him.

"No pictures, please."

They are 2 1/2 years apart but Andrew is our point guard and James is getting big, so today at the library someone saw my double stroller and asked "twins?"

More occasional pictures/updates on Instagram. And hopefully another blog post soon.