What Once was a Shaggy Kid

I forgot to take pictures of Ashton's first haircut, but when I was cutting his hair the other night I had Jabon take some pictures. I have always cut all my kids' hair. Cody would not sit still for anything. I would have to enlist the help of people around me in order to hold him still. Brett and Ashton enjoy getting their hair cut and will sit as still as can be.

Except Ashton kept wanting to touch his hair as I was cutting. To fix that issue, I
gave Ashton a comb:

The Power of Prayer

Brett is learning the power of prayer. Earlier today he was helping me fold his clothes. He wanted to fold his socks and was searching for them through the rest of his clothes.

Let me paint a little picture for you first. Imagine a huge pile of clothes on the bed. It looks like laundry hasn't been done for a good month. They all happen to be Brett's, even though I just washed and put away his clothes last week. How could he have such a gigantic pile of clothes for me to wash and put away today? When I asked him that question he simply replied, "Mom, once they touch the floor they are dirty." So I say, "Just because the shirt fell off the hanger and landed on the bottom of your closet does not make them dirty." He quickly corrected me.

So we have an incredibly large pile of his clothes to sort through and he is searching for his socks. He told me that he needs to pray to Jesus so He can help him find his socks. He leaves my room (because I had the t.v. on), says his prayer and comes back in. Meanwhile, I had found some socks and pulled them out into the middle of the bed. He sees them and is really excited his prayer worked, so he sticks his head under Jabon's pillow (to block out the t.v.) and I hear him mumble a prayer of thanks. It was incredibly sweet to see my little guy demonstrate his spirituality like that for such a simple thing like finding socks!

This is not the end of it. No, this keeps repeating. He needs to find a matching sock, says he needs to pray to Jesus, buries his head under the pillow, and says his prayer. He comes out from under the pillow, and like before, I have found more socks and placed them in sight. He gets excited and then says his 'thank you' prayer. This repeated itself probably a dozen times. Finally, I had to tell him that he is technically praying to Heavenly Father through Jesus and he seemed to be able to understand that.

At one point, he had only two socks left, and neither of them matched. He said his prayer and pulled his head out from under the pillow. He sees that no new socks had arrived to make the matching sets and exclaims, "WHAT! Didn't He hear me?!" I said that of course He did, but He won't make socks magically appear. I had just happened to find socks each time he prayed, so Heavenly Father was helping me help Brett. Thankfully, he was happy with that.

I remember one of Brett's first night time prayers he asked for bananas. Guess what he got the very next day?

Kids are funny, but I think it is so cute to see their faith grow and to watch them experience it.

One Step at a Time

Ashton is starting to take his first independent steps. It has taken him a while to go from not walking, to holding both of my hands, to holding one of my hands, to trying on his own. Yes, I know he is not walking completely by himself yet, but this is such a big step for him (pun intended)!! When my parents were here for Thanksgiving, my mom said I learned to walk with our shopping cart. So, when Brett wanted one for Christmas, I petitioned Santa to provide it secretly hoping Ashton would learn to walk like I did.

Eagar Update

So, it has been at least 6 weeks since my last post. I figure it is about time to write on the happenings of the Eagar household.

Thanksgiving: We had a great Thanksgiving this year! My brother-in-law Brighton made his first trip down to see us since we moved to Arizona. He and Jabon have a lot in common and had a great time together. It was wonderful, since Jabon was able to have the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving off so he got to actually hang out with all our guests. My parents flew in from Montana and my littlest brother Peter and his wife Genica drove down from Utah. We went to many places and did a lot of things! On Black Friday, mom, me, Shelly, and Genica went shopping at Wal-Mart. We didn't go too crazy. We got there at 5am, so we were late. I wasn't getting much for myself but I did help Shelly score BIG TIME on her girls' Christmas gifts. That story I can not expound on since I was more of 'Santa's helper', if you catch my drift. Later that day, we went and walked around a bird preserve in Gilbert and then ended the day going through the Gilbert Museum. Saturday we all headed up to the Phoenix Zoo. With Sunday came church and Peter, Genica, and Brighton all heading back home. Monday, me, Jabon, Brett, Ashton, and my parents went up to the Boyce Thompson Arboretum to the east of Phoenix. It is a really cool place to see a ton of different plants. The main trail is about 1-1/2 miles long. Off this trail were many different areas: tropical, desert, herb garden, etc. We didn't see much of it (since it is so vast) but Jabon and I hope to return at another time and see other areas. Mom and Dad got to hang out until the Thursday after Thanksgiving. It was so great to spend so much time with our family. One of our funnest activities to do together was play Guitar Hero. We were all selfish adults and made the children go to bed before we pulled the game out. One night we had a competition between the guys and the gals. Needless to say, girls won 4 out of 5 times. Yes, we truly do rock. Beatles style.

Kids: Cody had his first band concert last night. He plays trumpet and has really picked up the instrument quite well. He is doing great in school and is enjoying his classes. His football team finished the season in 2nd place. Somehow, they got to go all the way. I say 'somehow' because it wasn't the best year of playing. Brett has been confused lately. My sister Shelly and her family have been living with us since Aug/Sept and Brett is now under the impression that he has two moms. One that goes to work and school and is home only an hour before his bedtime (me) and one who is with him 24 hours of each day, cleaning up his throw up, playing games with him, making his meals (Shelly). Oh, I am sorry! Did I sound a little bit jealous? Guess what, I am. That is okay. I love my sister and am so glad she is here to help us out! I have also seen Brett grow into what I call the 'Second Child Syndrome'. If you have children, see if this fits yours: He is bossy. He likes to tell all the kids, including the ones that are older than him (oh, wait-that is all the kids except for the two babies) what to do and what they just did. It is exasperating! I am the second child, so I can relate. You need to be in control over something, and being bossy accomplishes that. Ashton is getting closer and closer to walking. Yes, my baby is now almost 14 months old. He likes to take each new phase as slowly as he can. He feels no rush to develop. If you want more on that subject, just look in my history for the Lazy Gene post. He will stand up, but only while holding onto someone/thing. He is barely walking along the end of the couch. That is okay by us, though. It is helping extend the baby phase, and I kinda like that!

My sister: So, as mentioned before, my sister Shelly, her husband Josh, and their four kids (Emma, 8, Abby, 7, Matthew, 5, Millie, 1) have been living with us. Josh came down in August and Shelly and the kids came down late September. This has been an adventure for all of us, I think! We have an 1800 sq ft home and own a lot of stuff. A wonderful thing about our tiny home is the fact that there are 5 bedrooms. So we have had one room with it's private bath for Shelly, Josh and Millie, Cody, Brett and Matt shared one room with all the toys, Emma and Abby shared one room that was halfway filled with my junk, and we moved Ashton into the master bedroom with Jabon and I, leaving one room to be used as our office. It is tight quarters and with 7 crazy kids, it was a challenge to keep the peace. I think we did alright. As I am typing this, Shelly and Josh are moving into their rental house. It's a definite mixture of emotions. I love their family so much and will miss seeing them at any time but I am also glad to be able to get our house back to 'normal'. Before Josh moved down, my mother-in-law was staying with us, so we have had someone living here since July. But, we are very glad that we have been able to help Shelly and Josh make their transition to Arizona easier.

My new job: I was offered a Front Office Manager position with a new dental office. This office is located in Gilbert and is about a 30 minute drive into town for me. It opened in March and has had a few people through its doors as manager. However, none of them really knew what they were doing. I started here on November 16th and quickly realized that I have some major organizing that needs to take place. I have been super busy getting the patients accounts fixed, insurance payments in, and the office finances resolved. This economy is hard, but it is even harder if you have people working for you that are idiots and they are in charge of making y0ur business succeed. I have accomplished a lot of things so far, but have much more to do before it is not so shaky. I enjoy the doctor, the assistant, and the hygienist. They are all wonderful people and together I think we can make his office a great place.

My surgery: Since I was probably about 9 yrs old or so, I have had pain in both my knees. Around age 11 I saw a doctor, who thought it was Osgood Schlater's Disease (where the ligaments in your knee pull away from your bones. It happens a lot in young boys because they are too active during their major growth times) and was told it would go away when I quite growing, about 18 yrs old. Well, I am 29 now and still have knee pain. I went into the hospital yesterday for surgery. My doctor thought there might be some damage behind my kneecaps (or so the MRI seemed to say) but when he got in there, everything looked very healthy. There was a little inflammation, which he removed, but no damage. It turns out that the tendon coming down from my kneecap is not positioned right. It should hook to the tibia directly below the kneecap, but mine are attached to the outsides of me tibia. This must be were the pain is coming from. However, the only way to fix it is by breaking my tibias right below the attachment (since it is like this in both knees) and repositioning it. Major surgery, major recoup time. I say, "No, thanks". I do not think I want to try that. I don't know. Maybe I do. Right now I am sitting on the couch, both knees wrapped up propped on pillows. It's a sight. It will be a bigger sight in a few days. I cannot shower until Sunday when I get to remove my wraps. Yay.

If you made it through my post, pat yourself on the back. Since I suck at routinely posting, I have to do incredibly long posts every so often just to catch up. Good job getting through it.

Happy Halloween!

I made pumpkin cookies this morning. After they were cooled, each child got one to decorate. All together we decorated 9 cookies (starting from the top: Abby, Cody, Shelly, Matt, Millie, Ashton, Brett, me, Emma). I should throw in a disclaimer saying that Shelly decorated Millie's and I decorated Ashton's.

Here's the majority of the crew (Ashton was sleeping). They were having fun, but were so ready to eat their creations!

Ashton's First Birthday!!

My little guy Ashton turned ONE on Thursday, the 22nd. We celebrated his birthday on Sunday. My grandma Pearl came over, bringing along with her my cousins Hunter and Hadyn. And of course my sister Shelly, her husband Josh, and their kids Emma, Abby, Matt, and Millie were with us. The kids had a lot of fun together.

I wanted Ashton to have his own birthday cake, so I made some miniature cakes and one big cake. Each of the kids got their own cake. Ashton really enjoyed his!




Left to right: Cody, Hunter, Abby, Ashton, Emma, Matt, Hadyn, Brett

Today Ashton had his 1 year check up. He is 32" long and weighs 21 lbs, 1 oz.

What do you call me?

My house is a zoo this week. Besides the usual for us (full time jobs; school for Cody, Jabon, and I; football practice 2 x week and a game every Saturday; and physical therapy for my knees) we have had guests with us. Jabon's mom has been here since July watching the kids for us and about 2 weeks ago his dad drove down from Colorado to pick her up and spend some time with us. Plus, my brother-in-law has been here since August while he has been working at a local hospital and waiting for his family (my sister Shelly and their 4 kiddos) to move down. They arrived Wednesday night with my dad in-tow. SO we have 14 people in my little 1800 sq ft house.

Kids get easily confused. And yes, these two subjects are related. This afternoon Cody, Brett, and I were leaving the house to go to football practice. Brett was saying goodbye to each person individually. When he got to my dad and sister he said, "Goodbye, Aunt Shewy" and did not say anything to my dad. So, my dad asked him, "Brett, if she's Aunt Shelly, what do you call me?" Brett shrugged and, thoroughly confused because of all the family around-including 2 grandpas, said, "Um, Spiderman?" So my dad is Grandpa Spiderman from now on.