James 1:5

It’s been another week of miracles!

Wesley’s official defense date is Wednesday, April 2 at 10:30 a.m. NREL is trying to give us something more solid/resembling an offer in the next week or two so we can move forward in whatever direction we need to. Hurrah! His work progresses every day. He’s preparing diligently for his Illinois interview—realizing how underprepared he was for the BYU one and still grateful for the experience. His head is full of ideas; he sorts through them and tries to formulate potential grants to write, classes to organize, and how to become a successful professor.

I have visit taught a woman for over a year who has been inactive. I’m the first visiting teacher she allowed for years. Her husband has been completely uninterested. Something changed in the last few months. He decided he wanted to learn more and be baptized. For the last two months the whole family has come to church: the couple, their three kids, her sister and her mom. Wes and I have both been able to go with the missionaries for visits which have been very special, spirit-filled experiences. Yesterday Frankie was baptized. Wesley spoke. What a glorious event! I’m so glad we could be there.

I felt sick all week. Usually I can sleep my migraines off (usually I don’t have migraines in pregnancy!), but this week I even felt bleary in sleep. Kind of cool, if it didn’t inhibit me so much. I haven’t even worked out much this week and I have slept in all week. (That sounds really dumb, but it really does take a lot to remove me from my beloved bike.) On Wednesday we cleared up enough to visit teach a sister who really needed it. Her daughter was there and needed to hear someone testify of the Savior and her part in Heavenly Father’s plan. That afternoon, I caught the full-blown cold with Keller and Lincoln (who are both teething). This is not a big deal except I needed to watch another little boy on Thursday. So we prayed on Wednesday night and Thursday morning that we’d be able to do it and not get him sick. When Dustin came over, our runny noses and coughs slowed. I had just enough strength to take care of everyone and no one threw fits. When Dustin left I knelt down in gratitude because there is no way I could have done that otherwise.

Then! On Friday night (Saturday morning) around 2 we heard our growling heater start to give out. It’s been struggling for a while. The house shakes and it roars. We urged some life out of it by letting it rest for forty minute stretches. Wesley went to Walmart in search of space heaters. Alas, we live in Austin, Texas (paradise) where it shouldn’t get cold especially in February and space heaters are few and seasonal. Add a few cold fronts—no stores in the area have any space heaters left. Thankfully, our heater lived until 5:30 when the temperature started to rise. The last half of the week didn’t peek much over the 30s and schools were cancelled for ice storm possibilities (I know, I know, not real cold—but a big difference from 75! And still cold without heat at night with little people). The heater man spent a couple of hours with us, but has to order parts—which will hopefully be here early next week. The weekend has been warm, though (60s and 70s). Another cold front comes in tomorrow. If we’d lost our any earlier, the process would have been painful. As it is, our sweet friends borrowed their space heaters to us and the boys are basically oblivious to any temperature change in the house. We feel like this is a huge tender mercy.

To make our furnace adventure more entertaining—earlier this week when I was in the bathroom for five minutes, Levi and Lincoln somehow moved chairs from different rooms and completely unloaded our storage closet: suitcases, all the winter clothes, quilts, quilts, quilts. This was the day after they unloaded their entire dresser into their closet to build a swimming pool. Instead of losing it, like I wanted to, I decided to just pack it up into boxes. While I did this, Keller unloaded his dresser to find more blankets for his crib. Another miracle: I didn’t tape the boxes closed! Haha!

We built a fort out of the couches. The boys transformed it into a barn. They’ve pretended all weeks that we’re a cow family. Or, more accurately, Wesley is a bull, I’m a cow, and they are the calves. Levi set up a milk shed in the barn. They mooed and played so happily. Then I heard, “Mom, you need to come to the milk shed. It’s time to milk you!” What? (Please note that there were a lot of things I was tempted to say about milking and my children that I refrained from expressing to my sweet son at this time). “Well, you’re the only girl cow. So we need to milk you. Every day!” I don’t know how I avoided that one. So hilarious.

Tuesday and Saturday surprised us with warm weather. Lincoln was soooo happy to wear shorts and no jacket outside (shorts unencumbered by pants. He always wears shorts, but we force pants over them to go outside). He biked with a huge grin. All week he looked mournfully out the window, “But I really, really need my shovel.” Finally they dug in the dirt yesterday, helping Wes fix our raised bed garden spot. They even tried to cut down the tree with their shovels.

Keller cracks me up. He wanders all over, preferably with something on his head. I’m constantly pulling off buckets, bags, blankets, socks, etc. off of his head while he wanders near the stairs. He also loves slipping away quietly then squawking as he splashes in the potty, as if to say, “HaHA!” He remembered how to blow kisses—which he loves when Lincoln responds. At night he says, “Bye-bye!” One night as I walked out of his room, he sat up (climbing out of his six billion blankets that he keeps throwing in there) and said, “Bye-bye!”

One of my favorite moments of the week happened just before bed time when Wes transformed into Rambo and the Ninja Turtles set up forts (the Alamo, according to Lincoln). They had an awesome pillow fight while the boys tried to block with their ninja weapons. Levi set up their blankets nearby in case anyone got hurt and needed comfort. Lots of joyful shouting. I’m pretty sure, “REPENT!” was in there. Oh my.

Quick Picture Update of January....

 Playing the piano with our friend Eli

 At the Capitol with the Kellers

Ninja Turtles

I didn't realize I never updated January! This will do!