This morning Nolan said to me, "Mom, you're a little bit bustin out of that sweater I think." He said it as politely as possible. It was a good laugh! :)

Simba, the lifesaver!

For months and months Nolan has woken up with bad dreams and comes crawling into bed with me. If I take him back to his bed across the hall, I end up staying awake for at least an hour before I can fall back asleep. This doesn't just happen once during the night, at least 2 or 3 times he'll end up in my bed. Finally, I just give up and let him stay with me. I wake up, exhausted because I don't get a decent night's sleep. I've tried every little trick from, leaving his door open with the hallway light on, to teaching him to try to pray to Heavenly Father to help his bad dreams go away. It never fails, starting about 2 hours after I fall asleep, I wake up with him right next to me. I've been getting a little frustrated! Well, on Friday there was a huge consignment sale in Roseville that I went to check out. It had tons of children's clothes, maternity clothes, kids toys and baby items. It was fun to walk through. When we got to the toys, Nolan spotted a big stuffed Simba Lion, from The Lion King. I had told Nolan that he could pick out one toy to bring home with him. He immediately fell in love with Simba, he LOVES the Lion King. So, I had an idea. This stuffed Lion is about the size of Nolan. I told Nolan that we could bring Simba home and he could sleep in his bed with him and scare all the bad dreams away. YES, I was getting very desperate for him to stay in his bed all night!!! Nolan, liked that idea and seemed very excited about it. He carried his Simba all the way to the car (which I accidently parked quite a ways away) and he talked to him the whole way there. Nolan has a very good immagination. That's probably why he has so many bad dreams. He told Simba, "I have an urgent job for you, Simba. I need you to scare away all my bad dreams." I was a little afraid Nolan would wake up and be scared to see a lion in bed with him, but I was still willing to give it a try. The last 2 nights, Nolan has stayed in his bed all night long! I've been sooooo happy and make such a big deal about it when he wakes up! It's been very nice. Thank you, Simba!

Testimony

Yesterday while we were driving in the car, Nolan asked me what a testimony is. I told him and then I heard him in the back kind of murmuring a little testimony. I thought, oh that was cute. Today, it was fast and testimony meeting and I told Nolan that this was when people shared their testimonies. He said that he'd like to go share his testimony. So, he did. I'm so glad Nolan doesn't seem to share the same fear I have of talking in front of a bunch of people. Nolan is a good example to me and I know Heavenly Father knew what he was doing when he gave me this little boy to be a mommy too.

I have to be very careful how I word things because Nolan takes me very literally. This morning I was trying to get Nolan to get his pajamas off. He didn't want to take the his shirt off because it was freezing cold, so I told him he could start with the bottoms. I said, "Okay Nolan, take your bottoms off." He gave me a very strange look and than said, "Okay, but if I take my bottoms off, Heavenly Father will just have to make me another one." :)

Nolan was telling me how he had written letters to his cousins and other family at Grandma's house on Monday. I asked Nolan, "Do you miss your cousins?" Nolan replied, "Yeah, TOTALLY!" :)

Reverence

One of my biggest struggles of the week is making it through sacrament meeting. I guess this doesn't sound very good. My wonderful, happy, energetic 3-year-old boy loves going to church. He loves that we get to be together as a family on Sundays, he loves his sunbeam teacher, and he loves to sing! Ever since we moved into this new ward (about a year ago now) it's been a little rough during Sacrament meeting because he is one of the few young children , whereas in our Roseville ward, there were dozens. Nolan didn't stick out like a sore thumb like he does in our current ward Sacrament meeting. The first week we were there, I still remember how discouraged I was after the end of the meeting. Nolan was only 2 years old, but I knew that we needed to work harder on using his quiet whisper voice or we would be spending a lot of time out in the hallway. Adam and I have since then been working with him throughout the week on how we should act during Sacrament Meeting. Over the last couple of months, especially working with him on sitting still and not bringing out toys or games til after the Sacrament is passed. Nolan is learning, but still can't make it through the whole meeting without usually having to take a break out to the hallway for some reverent talk. I don't expect my 3 year old to be able to sit perfectly still without a peep during the whole meeting. He is still young and full of immagination. I have a hard time thinking of "quiet toys" to bring because for Nolan, everything comes to life and has something to say, whether it be at home or in the middle of the church meeting. :) I know I need to bring something to keep him busy though, or he would go crazy. I look for the ways Nolan is improving each week and try to let him know how proud of him I am that he is trying to be reverent. He may not always be using a whisper voice, but it's not his usual at home voice. Even though it is just baby steps, he is improving and that's all I can ask. There are definitely still weeks where it is a dissaster, I feel, and we go backwards. I definitely felt better after our ward conference earlier this year. The Stake President talked about reverence in Sacrament Meeting. I thought, "oh great, here we go." His words were comforting though. He talked about how our reverence in Sacrament Meeting should be on a personal level. We shouldn't let the young children who are being disruptive, for whatever reason, determine whether our meeting was "reverent." Of course if they are fussying loudly or whatever we should take them out. We need to remember why we are there and not let the disruptive children be the reason why we as individuals can't feel the spirit. The last couple of days Adam has had to work with an elderly man who needs 24 hour care. He's picked up this job with helping the elderly in their homes, so now he can receive a paycheck and help supplement our income with what we can't get from the catering business. This job works well with his catering business because they work with what hours Adam is available. He hasn't been able to come home the last couple of days, including today, so I was a little nervous about what might happen in Sacrament meeting today. My morning was off to a rough start, with Nolan being confused at why Daddy wasn't home yet and knowing I better be on time because I had to give the opening prayer in Sacrament Meeting. So, I got out the door in time, well, what normally would have been on time. Every time I try to drive to the Poet Smith building, I always get lost. I don't know why, I've been there a million times, but since Adam normally drives us to church I don't pay much attention. Of course, I made several wrong turns before arriving about a minute late. The pouring down rain did NOT help the situation!!! So, we come in just as the bishop is announcing after the song, he will give the...no, Sister Brice (now that he saw me) would give the opening prayer. I was telling Nolan on our way to church that I would need him to sit reverently while I went up to the front to give the prayer. I was a little nervous with how this would go, so I was very grateful when Nolan's sunbeam teacher got up to sit next to us. During the Sacrament song, Nolan got his hymn book and sang along. During the Sacrament, Nolan sat reverently with maybe 1 or 2 blurps. I was very proud of him. After the Sacrament, I let Nolan choose his toy to play with. He chose the Book of Mormon magnet characters. Of course, as usual, the characters came to life and each one had something to say. Nolan wasn't whispering, but I felt he was using a somewhat quiet voice, after a few shhhh s when his voice got louder. So far this was the best he had done. We always sit in the back, trying to be as little disturbing as possible. The next thing I knew, the lady directly in front of us turned around and said, "Are you NOT teaching this child how to whisper?" I said, "Excuse me?" I was a little blown away. This lady has had several children of her own who are all grown up and moved out, so she is older, but I was shocked! Did she really forget what it's like to have a young child, or maybe she was blessed to have perfect angels that never made a peep. I thought, how rude of her to step out of her boundaries and try to offend me. I was quite offended and could only handle sitting there another minute or so. I had to take Nolan and step out of the room. Nolan's teacher came out soon after to help me understand how untactful that comment was and that she had no right to say that. I was of course still upset about it and had a hard time getting through the rest of the day at church. I did eventually go back into Sacrament Meeting, making sure we were not directly behind the same lady. She did apologize, but I still am working at forgiving her. :) She had no clue, I guess! I may be a little extra sensitive, especially about this subject, but I realized how it would be so easy for someone to stop coming to church if someone was to say something like this to ANYONE, whether they were less active, or very active. Of course, I was not going to let her comment make me stop coming to church, but it made me feel bad for all the people who have been offended and have stopped coming. Some people just don't think before they speak and because of it we lose a lot of our members. We are a ward FAMILY and it takes everyone to be understanding and loving, whether they be young or old, in order for us to be strong.

Opened eyes

This morning I told Nolan I had a surprise for him that might come today and that we needed to keep our eyes open for the big brown truck (UPS truck). This whole morning Nolan kept looking out the window to see if it was coming and kept me informed on what was going on. He made sure I knew that he was keeping his eyes open for the big brown truck. When the afternoon came I told Nolan that maybe the surprise would come tomorrow instead, since normally the truck comes during the morning time in our neighborhood. He didn't seem at all disappointed, instead said, "Well, maybe so, but I'll still keep my eyes open for the big brown truck." After playing outside in the beautiful weather and than coming in to have lunch, I told Nolan to go pick out a story before naptime. HA! Yeah right! He wasn't going to take a nap after I told him we needed to keep our eyes open for the truck! I realized this after he reminded me, once again. I decided to not even try for a nap today, but was a little worried about bedtime. Well, the surprise didn't come in the big brown truck, but I was relieved to see that it came thru the usps. So, Nolan did get his surprise and could finally close his eyes for bedtime.

My Lifesaver

This morning I was making pancakes. I easily get distracted when I'm making breakfast because our balcony is right off the kitchen. So, sometimes I get half way thru making something and then step outside for a moment for whatever reason. Well, today I got all the way thru making the pancake batter and even had one out that Nolan was eating, plus one in the pan before I stepped outside. As I closed the sliding glass door I heard a "CLICK." I thought, oh that would sure be funny if I just locked myself out on the balcony with a pancake in a hot pan. But, I continued with what I was doing outside before I checked to see if this was true. Well, it was. I stopped for a moment to think of what my options were. I knew it would have to be fast since I had a pancake cooking and I couldn't bear the thought of burning it! I thought, I could jump off the balcony and run to the front door and get in the house in time to save the pancake. I thought this would be the quickest escape, but since I was a good 10-15 feet up, I thought I could possibly break my leg or some other bone and that would just add to the never ending doctor bills we receive each month, between adam and my surgeries. No, that was definitely not an option! Luckily I had my cell phone in my pocket and called Adam. He was able to leave immediately, but I knew that even if he floored it (which I found out later he did) it would still take about 2-3 minutes to get home. By then the pancake would surely be burnt! Than, I peeked in at Nolan. He started laughing at me! I said, "Nolan, can you unlock the door for mommy." He said something to the effect of, "Let me finish my pancake first." I said, "Nolan, mommy is locked out, can you push that black hook thing down." Finally, he got out of his chair and pushed it down! Yay! Oops, I guess that was to lock me out. The black hook thing was about 3/4 down, so I guess all the way down was completely locked. Nolan started heading back to his breakfast and I said, "Wait, Nolan, can you push it up now?" So, he did and I quickly opened the door to save my pancake! Nolan said, "Mommy, am I your lifesaver?" Well, I guess I should explain. Sometimes when we're using the bathroom downstairs, we frequently run out of toilet paper. One time, I talked Nolan into going upstairs to where the toilet paper was and to bring me down some. He did, and I said, "Thanks Nolan, you're my lifesaver." So, since then, when he gets me out of a pickle, he'll ask, "Am I your lifesaver?"

Quick Rolls

Yeast and I DON'T mix! I don't know what it is, I just can't get that stuff to work! I finally went to an enrichment night where Bonnie Abel gave us her dough recipe! I LOVE IT! It's anything but healthy, but you can always make it healthier! She uses it for bread, rolls, cinnamon rolls, pizza crust, scones, etc. This recipe makes A LOT of dough!

Quick Rolls:
3 1/2 C Warm Water
3/4 C Sugar (granulated)
1 C Oil
6 T Yeast
Mix--Let Stand 15 min.
Add to the Above:
1 T Salt
3 Eggs
10 1/2 C Flour
Mix til smooth Knead 1-5 min

Divide into balls, roll out cut into triangles, roll
out in rectangle, spread with butter, sprinkle
cinnamon & sugar, raisins, nuts, etc.
Roll up & cut for cinnamon rolls.
Put on trays, in pans. Let Rise 10 min.
Bake in oven 425 for 10-15 min.
Remove. Cool slightly. Move to rack, butter or
frost. Eat!

Scars

Yesterday Nolan fell and skinned his knee on the pavement. This morning he was telling Daddy how his knee still hurt and than asked, "Daddy does your knee still hurt?" Adam told him that it doesn't but that he still has scars on his knee. Nolan looked at Daddy's knee for a second and than said, "No you don't." I immediately knew why my boy said that. One of Nolan's favorite movie's lately is, "The lion King." The mean lion's name is Scar. No, Daddy did NOT have scars on his knee! Eventually, Nolan understood that some words or names can mean more than one thing. He seemed to think it was funny that Daddy has scars on his knee, so now Nolan goes around with his pant leg up, saying, "I have scars on my knee!"

"I want to be a missionary now..."

Yesterday was Nolan's first week of Sunbeams! His Grandma Eddenfield got him a new church suit for Christmas that he wore. He looked so grownup! Well, in his class his teacher made crowns for each of the children that said, "I am a child of God" on them. Nolan was of course trying to put it on his teacher's head all during singing time. :) When Nolan got home he looked in the mirror at himself and said, "I look like a cute missionary!" He sure did!

Rise and Shine!

This morning Nolan woke up as energetic as usual. His parents weren't quite so quick to get out of bed though. Nolan was determined for us to wake up! He got me my glasses and slippers as usual than moved on to dad. He tugged and pulled for a while and finally plopped down and said, "It's no use!" Adam and I started laughing. I'm not sure where he picked that phrase up, must be from a movie he's watched. I felt so bad that he gave up, I just had to get out of bed. So much for sleeping in!