April Fools!

Deep down, I've always had a fondness for April Fool's Day.   I always wished I had the guts to pull off some great pranks, but the risk of making people mad stopped me many times.  (My siblings would probably want to strongly interject here, but since the one I hog-tied is serving a mission and can't read this, I will continue.)

BUT, now I am the Mom and I get to make the rules.

Be afraid.

Really, I figured this holiday was made for my family.  We love joking around with each other.  We don't mind being a little silly.  We appreciate the effort it takes to whip up a neat trick.  And, since most of us greatly prefer to be on the giving, rather than receiving, end of pranks, there is no possible way anything we do could go wrong.  Right?  (Ahem.)

Well, this year I decided to make April Fool's Day an annual Johnson Family day.  It was tough because we had returned from Cincinnati late the night before, but we managed.

First up was a breakfast prank.  I served the kids "juice" which was jello with a straw in it.  Their initial excitement at actually drinking juice (I'm lame and don't buy it regularly) gave way to confusion, and then sudden delight.  They thought it was hysterical.

Jello for breakfast is even better than juice, right?

Everett and Ashley finished theirs up quickly.  But you will notice that a scowling someone did not think this joke was very funny.

Poor William.  All he wanted was to enjoy his juice in peace.  He was so upset I'd do that to him, he refused all day long and into the next day to eat any of the extra jello, no matter how many times I offered it to him.

I have a feeling next year might be a little rough for him.  I will have to give him the upper hand once or twice.

William did perk up later in the day when the kids laid a trap for Joel.  They went for massive quantity over anything intricate.

The barricade worked!

We had cupcakes for dinner.  The kids were really excited.

I served the cupcakes with a fried egg.

(Ok, ok.  It was meatloaf with mashed potatoes on top, and vanilla yogurt with a canned peach half.)

Everett was thrilled to catch on immediately.

After seeing Everett's reaction, it took Ashley a while to even try her dinner, but she did.

If I remember correctly, William didn't each much of his dinner.

We are already getting ideas for next year!  Do you have any good ones?

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

Whew!  I don't think I've ever gone this long without blogging.  We've had a lot of fun things happen in the last couple of months.

• Everett finished kindergarten
• Ashley finished preschool
• James turned 18 months old
• William discovered a love for goats

AND:

• Joel got a new job

That's right!  Joel is a great financial analyst and when an opportunity popped up at a fantastic company, he couldn't help himself: he had to apply.  The location was Des Moines, which I just laughed about.  "Go ahead and apply," I laughed, thinking nothing would happen.  IF we moved, we were going to move closer to family than that!

After a great interview (Joel interviewed downtown while the kids and I interviewed the surrounding areas by scoping out some other places), I think Joel and I just knew.  It was right.  And most importantly, it was time, even though I didn't expect it to be.

Joel started working at Mid American Energy, his new company, at the beginning of May while the rest of us stayed behind to sell our cute home.  Never fear; we still get to see him on the weekends!  Muscatine is only a little over two hours away from Des Moines.  

It has been a month now of living apart.  I think we've all gotten used to it, except for Joel.  He gets pretty bored in his tiny studio.  And I, well, I have four little reasons to avoid being bored. 

I didn't feel ready to commit to moving to Des Moines.  I have great friends here.  Joel and I both had demanding and rewarding callings.  The kids have friends just down the street.  The church members here are amazing.  Joel had a very low-stress job with great hours, and working only five minutes away allowed him a lot of flexibility.  

But it was time.  We decided to try to sell our home ourselves to avoid paying the realtor commission.  It was tough getting everything ready with short notice, but we had two strong offers within a week.  We were (are) very lucky.  I don't know why it was so easy.  I hope I have been grateful enough.

The best part of this whole arrangement is seeing energetic joy enrapture the kids' faces when they know their papa is pulling into the driveway every Friday night.  Even little James shouts "Papa! Papa!" as he rushes to the front door, and back to the window, and to the door again, laughing and dancing from one leg to the other.  

We are closing on our current home on June 15th.  We will be traveling to see family for a few weeks until our next home is available.  Everything works out.  We are heartbroken to be leaving the wonderful people we know here, but we feel ready to leave because we know it is time.  Joel is enjoying his new job.  We are excited for the educational opportunities the kids (and I!) will have.  

We are blessed.  When I think of the experiences we've had and people we've known in Muscatine, the words to a song in Wicked pop into my mind: "Because I knew you, I have been changed for good."  (Freshmen roommates, I'm sure we sang this one together in our apartment more than once!).  

Living in Muscatine has made me a better person.  I am grateful for our time here.  We've all been blessed.  Thank you, thank you to all who have helped us in small ways and large.

So maybe I get a pass for not blogging for two months?  Yes?  No?  Well, it's too late now.

A Little Bit More About Our William Warren

 William is a special boy.  I know I'm biased, but he really is.  He is always happy.  He is always ready to give some love, and he is always ready to receive some love with giggles and open arms.  He still loves to cuddle, and he still sucks his thumb and fingers his belly button.

I recently tried to take portraits of the kids.  Some were harder than others.  William was, by far, the easiest to get a genuine expression out of.

I have a million more photos that look just like this.

William has some kind of special joy in his soul that causes his smile to frequently enrapture us all.  I feel truly privileged to be his mother.  

Some interesting things about William:

William has a trademark, "Huuuhhh?" we frequently hear from him when we tell him something he finds unusual.  No one can say it as expressively and as curiously and as merrily has he does.  I need to record it for posterity.  When we clarify or explain our statement, William responds with his other trademark expression:  "Oh, that's right. . ."

William loves being a big brother.  He takes very good care of James, our bottomless pit, by feeding him whenever he notices James is unhappy.  William will climb to our high cupboard in search of cereal or crackers and give it to the baby with a friendly "Here you go, James."

When I put James down for a nap, William always wants to bring over James's special moose.  "Here comes. . .MR. MOOSE!"  William will exclaim as he thrusts it into James's arms.  James giggles the whole time, delighted by this trick.

William love to play cars and trains with James, show him books, and explain things.  He also loves to tickle little James.  And James loves it too; he laughs and laughs and lays still, hoping for more tickling.

We love to see William's goofy grins, like this one.

William is not really more active than the average boy his age, but he certainly gets hurt a lot.  It is a miracle we haven't had to rush him to the emergency room.  But you can certainly see the signs of his injuries when you look at him.  He chipped his two front teeth shortly after he turned one.  I have no idea how or when that happened.  And, because of his avid thumb-sucking, those same front teeth are bucked a little.  Due to continual knocks and accidents, William has had a bruise on his forehead for the past two years straight.  (You may think this is an exaggeration, but it's not.  This is why I was thrilled with the bruise was lighter when I took the picture.)  He has bumps and bruises everywhere else, too, but for some reason his forehead takes the brunt.  

A few days later, just as this bruise was going away, William fell off the couch and got another lightly bleeding goose egg in the same exact spot.

William is also extremely smart.  I will spare you a long explanation, but I will say that he's had a great vocabulary since he turned two.  He taught himself to correctly count objects sequentially up to 10 before he was 2 1/2, and he can count well above that otherwise.  He knows some letters already.  This is only impressive because I haven't spent any time teaching him letters yet.

Basically, I am just relieved that all of his head injuries have not damaged his cognitive function too badly.

William loves his big brother and sister.  He idolizes them.  He wants to do everything just like they do. 

On the rare occasion William does get upset, it is usually over an injustice cause by an older sibling.  William will spit out his angry words (literally, due to his sweet lisp) and the veins in his neck will bulge ominously.  But as soon as the spat is over, William is back to our happy-go-lucky guy and will hold no grudge.  Once in a while he will hit and get sent to time-out, where he is extremely repentant and faces his consequences willingly and obediently.  

William was born with the gift of obedience.  He loves to please and do what he can to make those around him happy.

He loves to help.  He always wants to help me cook, mix, wipe, clean, gather laundry. . .

Even the dishes.  I try to not get irritated when I come downstairs and see water splashed on the floor as a result of his autonomous and enthusiastic dish rinsing.  Needless to say, after enough reminders, he usually remembers to wipe it up on his own.  

William is a sweet, kind boy.  He loves to run and fight and play with cars.  He is easy to have around, and  because he is so happy, unfortunately he is also easy to forget about.  William's birthday was bittersweet for me because I realized all of a sudden that I have been so busy with various activities lately, I have not been playing with him like I used to.  He used to ask me to play cars with him all the time.  But he stopped asking because I always told him I couldn't.  William's birthday was a good reminder that even though he almost always seems carefree, he still needs as much love and attention as the other kids.

And I'm happy to give it to him.  William is one of a kind, and every single one of us is glad he's ours.

Happy Birthday William!

I can't believe William is three years old.  He has been an absolute joy from day one.  Even giving birth to him was a joy--William came too fast for me to be in much pain, and it was all over with so quickly, I was left with a profound feeling of amazement that suddenly the precious, sweet baby was mine.  I fell in love with him immediately, and so did Joel.  William was born with hair all over his body, even on his ears, which earned him the nickname "Bear" for a time.  He was also born with deep chocolate eyes, which were midnight and luminous at the same time.  The fact that his beautiful brown eyes were framed by a thick fringe of dark eyelashes made him all the sweeter.  I was sure that no one had ever given birth to a more beautiful baby boy in the whole world.

(a week later and still hairy!)

And now my baby is THREE.  Excuse me while I try to get over the shock.

Nope.  Not over it yet.

It took William a while for us to convince him he was turning three.

"Your birthday is happening soon!" we'd say.  "You're going to be THREE!!!!"

"No I'm not," William would reply, "I'm just going to be bigger."

And then dear William would get irritated when we pressed the issue.

After enough times of this, however, he began to come around.  Now he knows he is three years old.

Our traditional lunch date with Papa helped smooth things over.  William was thrilled.  He never gets to go anywhere with one of us by himself, but he has never complained about it.

They went to Wendy's.  William brought home most of his frosty, and let Everett finish it off, then immediately regretted sharing it.

I kept asking William what he wanted for dinner.  "My Own!" he'd say forthrightly.

"Your own what?  What kind of food do you want to eat?" I'd try to clarify.

"I want. . .my OWN!"  hands raised, voice exuberant, William was as specific as he felt he needed to be.

So we settled on pizza.  And instead of letting everyone have their own, I only made William his own serving.    It seemed a fair request to me.  In a family with four small kids, the value of having your own is not to be understated.

He was too excited to eat it, even with his magical party hat. 

(Joel is hamming it up for the camera.  Or, that is just how is face is.  You decide.)

I served blackberries along with the pizza, forgetting completely that William was only a fan of blackberries the first day we had them.

And Joel is not a fan of pizza with no meat on it.  No, I didn't forget that when I made it.

Presents were fun.  William requested "orange presents."  Orange has been his favorite color since before he turned two.  He also requested a little car or truck.  William can never have enough trucks.  I don't mind buying him some, because I know he will lose many this summer when he buries them in the dirt pile out back.

So each of the kids gave him a little monster truck.

William was thrilled.

I think he could have stopped there and felt perfectly content.

But he also got a sleeping bag and a night-light (which he was surprisingly excited about) from Joel and me. 

(You may notice that our enthusiastic Everett is jumping up and down because he cannot contain his excitement.  What ever would we do without him?) 

AND, an orange balance bike from his grandparents.  We love balance bikes in our family.  Ashley and Everett are both confident on their two-wheelers with no training wheels because of our old balance bike, which is now about to fall apart.  I expect William will take to it as well.

I actually took a video!  It is of William riding his bike in the house.  

Password: bike

And, of course William had an orange cake!  He didn't care what flavor it was, so I made my favorite vanilla recipe and filled it with a cream and mascarpone cheese mixture.  I ate more of it than I should have, but if you're going to have cake, you might as well have good cake, right?

The kids couldn't keep their fingers off.  William didn't even touch his cake; he was too worn out.  He was ready to dig in the next day, however!

I'm glad we got to celebrate William's day.  I'm especially glad I had a chance to be reminded of what a wonderful little person he is to our family.

Sledding

After several inches of snow fell a few weeks ago, the kids had a lot of fun sledding down a minuscule hill in our backyard.  I don't think you could even call it a hill.  It is a very, very slight slope up to the back fence.

Joel and I watched them laugh and shriek and cheer out the window.  "Those poor, deprived kids," I joked, "They don't even know what sledding is really like."

So we decided to fix that.  Apparently the happenin' sledding spot in our town is hole five of the golf course. There were some pretty good hills.  

The kids were thrilled to have a real experience sledding.

They are lucky to have a fun father who shows them the ropes.

Everett and Joel are on the same page: the faster, the better.  

Like father, like son.

Everett takes sledding very seriously.  He comes up with strategies to increase speed, increase spin, or increase the exhilaration by doing something dare-devilish.

Everett taps into the maximum amount of fun to be had.

William, while more cautious, enjoyed almost every aspect of sledding.

Except the roughness and speed.  He tolerates it but doesn't love it.

But William discovered that riding with Joel as a partner is the best way to go.

As long as it's with Papa, the occasional spray of snow just adds to his fun.

William will always speed down a hill if he is sitting on Joel's lap.

And Everett just enjoys the suspense: crash with that boatload of people, or no crash?

(William would agree with the term "boatload."  He calls his sled a boat and will not let anyone convince him otherwise.)

The crashes are not William's favorite, but he always gets right back up and runs to do it again.

William's favorite part of the day was his patient father who pulled him repeatedly up the hill.  The incline was too great and poor William's clunky boots were just too unwieldy.  He never could make it up very well on his own, but it was sure fun to watch him try!

Ashley loves sledding.  Her thrill comes partially from fear and partially from exhilaration.

Is that excitement or fear?  

And she always closes her eyes to brace for the rough landing that never comes.

And then Ashley is the picture of serenity.

Sometimes she just preferred to relax.

Sometimes she'd run to her own rhythm.

Occasionally I'd look over and see Ashley swirling around in her creative mind.  What does she think about?   I'd love to know.

But she and William made a pretty good pair.

And everyone kept coming back to their papa.

What a fun guy.

At the end of the afternoon, the kids and I stomped their names out in the snow.

Everett got fancy with his uppercase E.

James had fun too, I think.  At least, he didn't complain too much.  He wasn't too keen on the snow, so into the front carrier he went.

When we went sledding again a couple of weeks after this day, James again was not thrilled about the snow until I showed him we could eat it.  Then my bottomless pit went after it until his hand got too cold.

Sometimes I wish we could go sledding year round, and then I remember how much I like being able to go out of the house without locating a million gloves and boots and making sure everyone goes to the bathroom before we put on our snowpants.