This house is full of boys. So. Many. Boys. As I’ve told Jason time and time again, too many penises. Thankfully we’ve now fully entered the stage of what I’ll call “penis awareness”, as in “Mom, Christopher just hit me in the penis” or “Mom, William just swung his blanket at me and it touched my penis”. Penis jokes. Butt jokes. Oh joy. On the bright side they’re boys so the other day when Jason trimmed the apple tree they spent a decent amount of time outside hitting each other with sticks, this is what my “bright side” has devolved to.
Christmas was good. I’d say it was great except we all had colds. The boys thoroughly enjoyed their gifts and even got to meet Santa for the first time! Christmas break was mostly relaxing with a few adventures thrown in. This year Jason’s company gave them tickets to Zoo Lights at the Hogle Zoo. None of us had been there before so it was a fun adventure with the kiddos. Jason also spent an afternoon with the boys at the Thanksgiving Point Museum of Natural Curiosity, we all explored the Temple Square Lights and Macy’s candy windows together, and spent any remaining time playing with our new Christmas presents at the house.
The year always goes fast around the holidays. Everything between Thanksgiving and my birthday (Jan 25th) turns into a blur, and before you know it, it’s Valentine’s Day. Here’s an update on each of us: 
Stephanie: I turned 37 in January. How did this happen?!? I baked myself a cake and proceeded to almost buy the candles corresponding to 36. When taking a survey that asks my age, I have to think about how old I am. Guys, forgetting your age is a sure sign you’re getting old! Overall it was a nice birthday. I bought some more cake making tools to play with. Jason and I bribed Marion with a birthday cake of her own (we share a birthday) and she watched the boys for a couple hours so we could sneak out to dinner. Lots of people took the time to wish me happy birthday, and I ate cake for breakfast for at least a week. Not too shabby eh? One part of me that seems to be showing its age? My teeth. Seriously guys, you’d think I chew rocks for fun. I’ve had another series of crowns, bringing my crown total to 3 1/2. I didn’t even know you could get a partial crown, but yeah it’s a thing. Then the other day, completely out of the blue while eating some cereal, I felt like something was stuck between my teeth. And proceeded to floss out a piece of filling. Seriously just about died right then and there. Luckily the majority of the filling was still intact so it didn’t hurt, and a quick trip to the dentist a few days later had it all fixed up. Fillings wearing out are dumb.
Jason: Between my birthday and Valentine’s Day Jason had a dental procedure to fix some receding gums. (We are single handedly paying for our dentist’s vacations in case you were wondering). The procedure itself was pretty straight forward however he has some pretty strict activity restrictions for 3 weeks and restrictions to what/how he can eat/brush for 6 weeks. The procedure came with a full page of instructions for things he is not allowed to do, our favorite of which are “do not play a wind instrument” and “do not smoke marijuana”. Those of you who know Jason well will understand how difficult it will be for him to go 6 weeks without getting stoned and playing his flute. The procedure has been harder on me than expected. 1) I am now cooking for 3 small boys, a husband who isn’t supposed to chew anything that might get stuck in his teeth–this includes bread–and I’m gluten free so Jason lived for the first week on mashed potatoes and Ensure 2) It decided to snow a foot within days of Jason having his procedure and all the shoveling had my neck and shoulders fired up for a week 3) He isn’t able to snuggle because he can’t lay on his left side, but if he lays on his back he snores like a mo-fo, leaving the unfortunate sleeping position of choice with his back to me…lame. He’s 12 days in to 6 weeks of restrictions, and other than a constant fear of getting hit in the face by one of the boys is healing quite nicely…according to the dentist…we’re not allowed to look, per the page of restrictions.
William: William is reading up a storm and pretty much kicking first grade in the teeth. A fun William story: Yesterday (Valentine’s Day) I was waiting to pick William up from school chatting with the mom of ones of his friends. William came out the door and it was obvious he was choking back tears. I said 
“uh oh” and the friend’s mom and I exchanged knowing glances about the rough afternoon that must have been had. I loaded William into the car and started to ask him why he was crying. “I don’t want to tell you!” was all I got. I continued to gently question, did someone hurt his feelings? Did he ask a girl to be his Valentine and she said no? Did he fight with a friend? Did he get in trouble? All these were met with more crying and still no explanation. I could tell he was getting frustrated so I explained to him I just needed to know that he was safe and nothing bad had happened at school. He assured me that it hadn’t and had settled down during the short drive home. Once we were settled in at home, I approached the subject again and he reluctantly cracked “Fine! I’ll tell you”. The story went something like this: “Mom, at the end of the day the blue group [the other half of the dual immersion class] came in to our classroom and sang us a song for Valentine’s Day. It was all about how much they cared and it really got me right in the heart.” Ok. Seriously guys, I’m not crying, you’re crying. I gave William a big hug and explained to him sometimes emotions like that come out in tears and that’s totally ok. The blue group surprised the red group by singing “Count on Me” by Bruno Mars and it really struck a chord with William. Turns out I have a 6 year old with a soft heart and I’m ok with that.
Christopher: Christopher alternates between discussing Ben 10 and Pokemon. He’s not great at remembering all his letters, but I think he could name at least 26 Pokemon and how they 
evolve, this stuff is nuts! He’s really happy to be back in swimming lessons, which he and William are doing a 9am on Saturday mornings. That’s the time slot you get when you sign up late as an afterthought. Dragging them out of the house is tough but once he’s in the water he has a pretty obvious perma-grin for the entire lesson. He’s liking preschool although it “wastes all his energy”. Some days if we walked home any slower we’d be moving backwards. He has a few cute preschool friends he talks about including Adamarie, Penelope and Sky. He looks forward to lazy stay home days and will spend the entire day in PJs quite willingly. On Fridays he still enjoys going to Debbie’s house and playing with the kids there. He will miss daycare next year when we move to full time kindergarten.
Andrew: Oh, Andrew. Loud. Wild. Naughty. Sweet. Pusher of buttons. What a character. We’ve recently gotten out the kiddie potty, without much luck. Fortunately, he is less resistant to sitting on it than his brothers. His brothers were so reluctant to sit that it became a comical struggle just to put them on (picture trying to put a cat in water). Andrew sits willingly, but doesn’t really get the concept. A new development however is that after he poops in his diaper he will come sing “poopy diaper, poopy diaper” to you while shaking his booty. Aunt Autumn got to witness this dance firsthand and likely won’t ever forget it. I’m still trying to get footage for his high school graduation party. He still naps about half of the days of the week for which I am thankful. He’s at a really busy stage and it is sometimes difficult for me to get work done from home when his brothers are at school and he has no one to fight/play with.
That’s the family update from Utah. This spring we’re looking forward to some more house projects, a spring break trip to California, and a visit from my parents. Time flies and hopefully I get back to the next blog before all 3 of these things have happened! Take Care Everyone! S.~
PS: I call this series “Working from Home”
