Melarky

He’ll tell me when he’s a police officer and I refer to him as “Officer Welly” for as long as he wants.

He loves to take his guns with him places, like to the grocery store, but I usually make him leave them in the car.

I’ve let him wear his Policemen pajamas all day before.

He calls bullets his “bullups”.

I’m now the expert on where to get cheap toy guns and police gear! (Six Star Party Outlet! I’ve actually gotten the same policeman set twice now! It comes with cop sunglasses, a badge, handcuffs and key, two guns, bullups and a holder for the bullups. And targets to practice shooting.)

I really do love that he loves all that tough boy stuff. He’s pretty cute with it. I love our tough guy!

I love dressing my boys alike. I get away with whenever and for how ever long I can. If I can buy something that is the same, in both their sizes I’ll do it! The boys are wearing some angel jammies here. Angel jammies are just what we call big shirts for pajamas.

Hilyard is wearing his older brothers t-shirt and Wellington is wearing my shirt that matches his. Those are both shirt.woot.com shirts we got for free!

We had tons of fun at this years fair. Welly played his heart out, I entered a quilt I made my sister (and won 2nd place!), and Hilly got a few good naps in his stroller (poor kid, we didn’t let him out for any of the fun).

We got there in the early evening with all of the cousins and the kids played their hearts out. Marky couldn’t come right away since he was waiting at the clinic for someone to come that was looking at the truck. He ended up taking forever and didn’t show up until around 7:45, but we forgave him because the guy ended up buying the truck (yay, full price, didn’t even ask if we’d take less!)

While we love our filthy carny fair food, we have been resisting the temptation lately, and instead we just eat after we leave the fair. Our wallets thank us, AND our arteries thank us (but those funnel cakes did look mighty tasty). Here are some pics of this years fair fun:

It’s hard teaching sharing time on Sunday’s while your three year old is bouncing off his seat, swatting at his teachers, crying or begging you to give him a turn. Not only is it distracting, it can be a little embarrassing. It was actually a bit easier being Welly’s Sunbeam teacher than it is trying to teach all of junior primary while he is in the front row.

Often, if a teacher or leader tries to get him to sit down or sit still, he says, “Don’t touch me!” usually swatting them away in the process. He has a hard time with waiting or taking his turn, he wants to kick, walk around, sit by Mommy, sit by another teacher….(there’s a lot of musical chairs).

It’s so frustrating because you know what he is capable of. I know his little body has the ability to sit still. I know he can be sweet, be kind, be quiet. It never seems to happen in Primary though. I feel bad for his Sunbeam teachers sometimes because I know he is very active and sometimes requires a lot of attention. But they really do a great job! They are the perfect teachers for him.

I’ve really been learning a lesson in motherhood with this calling. I think I need to learn to be more patient with my own kids and discipline them differently. I’ve noticed I react differently when I keep Christ’s example in mind (a lot less spanking happens). When it comes to discipline in our own home I can use the Savior’s example. I’m not perfect, I still “get done” and dish out a few spanks but I’m trying to do better. I’m thankful for this calling, it’s helping me be a better, more patient mother. It’s helping me keep on track and trying harder when it comes to prayer and scripture reading. I’m thankful also for my calling right now because I think it’s given me strength in some hard times.

I know Welly wont always be Mr. Rowdy in Primary. I know that with consistency, love, teaching him at home, and a lot of patience from his teachers that he’ll get there. (fingers crossed).

I really liked this quote; Remember “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God” (D&C 18:10). Criticizing, threatening, or scolding are not effective methods for teaching appropriate behavior and do not exemplify the Savior’s love. Positive comments help children understand that we expect the best from them.-Lds.org

One Sunday when I was especially frustrated with Wellington, Sister Chapman (our awesome secretary) reminded me that Welly could be the Prophet someday. She was so sweet to say that…. It does help to look at your children differently and see them as future missionaries and fathers, Priesthood holders and maybe even the Prophet someday.

Welly loves the Rubber Band Machine Gun Marky made him for Christmas. Actually, Welly loves all guns, but this one is especially fun because it actually shoots things. The boys will sometimes pick a spot and set up some “targets” (usually just a couple of toys placed around a room) and then Marky will load the gun so Welly can shoot the targets.

One time, Marky took a turn and laid down with the gun to shoot some of the targets, so of course Welly had to lay down with the gun to shoot after that. He’s pretty funny trying to hold the too-big-for-him gun while laying down on his bed shooting the various toys in his room. I got some fun pics of the last time they had target practice in Welly’s room:

If you read this blog, you know that Welly loves bikes. Marky has been working on a few of the scooters, and Welly is so cute out there “helping” him work on the bikes. It doesn’t take too long for Welly to go grab his own bike so he can “fix it”.

It was so cute the other day though, when Welly was saying his bed time prayers, he said “And please bless us to fix more bikes…”. Well so far his prayers have been answered, Mark has to finish fixing the blue scooter so we can sell it soon. I love that goofy little kid.

We had been to the Discovery Museum in Salt Lake before, so when we decided to spend the day in Ogden, we thought we’d give The Treehouse Museum a try and see how it compared.

The cost was a little less at the Treehouse. Children’s prices at the Treehouse museum are about $2.00 cheaper than at Discovery museum. It wasn’t as crowded I thought, this could have also been due to the fact that it was a Monday. I think because it was less crowded Welly was able to really play, with so many kids running around it can be distracting. He was also able to get more turns at the popular places.

I really liked all the fun outfits they had to play dress up with. Some stations would have outfits that the kids could try on that went along with the station. Like at a Rodeo type station, there were cowboy hats. At a firetruck there were hats and coats. The tee pee had Indian type clothes and so on. Welly found his favorite outfit and wore it around the rest of the time we were there. A police man hat and a one piece policeman uniform. He was pretty cute in it and only took it off right before we left.

Welly loved playing in the kitchen and loved pretending to pour and serve drinks. He was pretty cute in there sitting in the cute cottage. He loved the firetruck and went back to it pretty often. He really loved the dress up outfits at that one, there were cool hats and coats. The boys both enjoyed the music/drum room, where they could make lots of noise. I liked the art room they had where the kids could draw and paint, but we didn’t really even go in there, it just looked cool. Welly really liked that they had a kid potty and sink just his size in the bathroom. Hilly liked climbing through this hole at the bottom of a huge two story tree. He was unsure at first but once he did it, he kept going back. Hilly mostly liked following his brother around. Hilly loved this mechanical sheep that was in the barn. It would ever so slightly move his head and Hilly thought it was great, even grabbing a bottle and trying to feed it. I even had fun pretending to be a teacher to the boys in a old school house.

Overall I think I just liked the Treehouse Museum better. I would love to go back. The boys had a great time and they both found things that they could do for their ages. The workers that were there were all very nice and looked busy going around picking up toys and putting things back where they belonged. I liked that the museum was right by places to eat and other things to do.

We like going to the fair, mostly for the food, but the other aspects of the fair are getting funner as the kids get older.

Wellington and me in 2007.

Wellington will probably do better about riding rides this year. We usually go with Mark’s side of the family with all the cousins, it’s fun plus I like sending him on rides with his older cousins so they can help take care of him.

Wellington and Auntie Carrie in 2008.

Hilly probably wont go on rides this year. I think he’s still too little. He will have fun getting pushed around in his stroller, watching people and eating.

Wellington with cousins Hannah and Estee in 2009.

This year I’m doing something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Enter something. I’m entering a quilt I made for my sister. I’m curious to see how it goes. I’ve never done anything like this before. I’m not really in it to win first prize, I think it’s fun to mostly have it displayed and okay, it would be fun to win a little ribbon. I’ve been ironing, steaming, and clipping any loose strings off the quilt to get it ready for judging. I wonder how it will do? I’m pretty excited.

I just realized we still hadn’t posted any pics of our Disneyland trip when we went to California. If you missed our other posts about the California trip, check out California or bust and At the beach.

We had a great time at Disneyland, and Welly was a great age to really appreciate the park (I think when we went to Disneyland in 2008 he was too young to really appreciate it, and that was about the same for Hilly this time around). Welly pretty much kept his mouse ears from his last trip on the whole time and had a blast with this cousins the whole time.

We were really worried about Welly before the trip because he has a tendency to run off when he sees something he likes, and we seriously considered plunking down a bunch of cash on a kid GPSsystem. Ultimately though, we decided to instead have him wear a twinner outfit with his daddy, write Mark’s cell phone number on his arm in pen, and then we got him one of those kid backpacks that allows you to attach a “leash” to keep track of your kid (yes, we are those kind of parents). As it turned out though, he did great, and there was plenty of family around to keep track of him the whole time.

It was a great trip, and Welly still asks us all the time when we get in the car “Are we going to California again!”. Below are some pics from our day at Disneyland:

Many of you know that Marky loves his scooters. We haven’t been able to register or ride any of our scooters really this year or last, but our brother-in-law Gary has a scooter just like Marky’s black one, and he got his registered this year, so Marky couldn’t pass up the chance to ride it (and neither could the boys).

Hilly just sat on it with daddy, but Welly actually got to go on a little ride. He was so cute with his little foot on top of Marky’s foot, he was in little boy heaven.

Thanks for letting us ride your scooter Gary, the boys loved it!