Will is Four!

It seems as if four years old is the age when suddenly kids aren't so little anymore. They are completely out of the toddler phase, and fully embracing being a little kid.

Will is all boy. He thinks it's funny to burp, fart, play with his food, etc. He loves trains, cars, superheros, and sports.

At the slightest hint of warm weather, Will was begging to play in the sprinklers. I finally gave in one day, even though it wasn't super warm. He still loved it, thought the water was cold. I'm sure we'll be playing in the sprinklers all summer long.

I decided it was time to start teaching Will how to really play sports, so I went and bought him a baseball glove, a plastic bat, and a hockey stick. He really likes to play hockey in the driveway or out in the street. And for having only held a stick a time or two, he is picking it up really fast. He can stop the ball and hit it back to me.
 
 He also really loves to play soccer. He dribbles the ball down the field as fast as he can. The only problem is when he wants to stop the ball. He just slides on his knees and crouches over the ball to grab it. Still working on that one. I'm planning on signing him for for a leagues this fall. Yay!

When Blake got her glasses, he really wanted some too. So we found some cool sunglasses for him.

It rained pretty much the whole month of May. And Will became obsessed with umbrellas.

One of this favorite new movies is The Big Green. He watches it all the times and loves the part where they all play soccer in the rain and mud. He always asks if we can do that next time it rains.

He loves to go to Primary, though he mostly just wants snack time. He also gets mad if he doesn't get to participate and talk into the microphone. He always asks if he can give a talk.

Will says he enjoys church, but the entire time he is asking if it's almost over yet. He likes going to primary, especially if he is able to give a talk, say a prayer or participate in any way. Often throughout the week, I will find him setting up primary in our living room. One time he even asked me to play the piano so they could have singing time, then he got up and gave a little talk, etc.

He loves to learn, and he loves to help.

Will loves riding his bike, though he is growing out of this one. We have a slightly bigger one that we need to fix the tires on. We'll see if he can master riding a 2-wheeler this summer.

He loves playing dress-up and his current favorite is Captain America.

He loves reading and telling stories and I find it's one of the best ways to teach. Most of the time, we aren't necessarily reading word for word, but I like to ask him what is going on in the picture and talk about different things.

Often, he will ask me to sing at the piano so that he can spin. When I play the piano, Will and Blake like to spin. And the louder and faster I play, the faster they spin. His favorite song for me to play is Phantom of the Opera.

He thinks he can read the time, but he ends up saying something like, "It's eighty-fifteen-seventy-twelve o'clock." Not quite sure what that means.

Will has a major problem with leaving lights on and not closing the door. Every time he goes outside, I'll find the front or back door wide open. It seriously drives me nuts. And we work on it daily, and he says he'll never do it again. But I swear I have yet to see him close a door behind him. (Though I will acknowledge that often times Blake is right behind him and I think he leaves it open for her...and she refuses to close it.)

He will start preschool this fall at a place called Kiddie College. I looked at a couple of different options, and I felt this one was best suited for Will. I really think he is going to thrive there. He will go Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for 3 hours in the afternoon.

For his birthday, he really wanted a crane to attach to his wooden train set. He was super excited when he got one.

Will was also fortunate to experience trick candles on his birthday. He thought it was a hoot.

It took him quite a while, but finally they stayed out for good. I believe he was exhausted.

He is quite the little daredevil and climber. I doubt he is afraid of much.

One of our neighbors built a garage a few months ago. Now Will keeps asking me to go buy a garage. When I tell him it's too expensive or that we can't right now, he tells me that the "fixer man" will do it and that I need to call him. If only it were that easy.

Since we can't build a garage yet, Will just builds houses out of pillows. Great spot for movie watching.

Of course they have their issues, but for the most part Will is a great big brother. He loves to push Blake on the swing. He will help her get her snacks. And they play together really well.

Will is, however, very bossy and likes things to be his way. We have a double slide that comes off of our trampoline. Will only allows Blake to go up her side and he gets to go up his. We have 2 cozy coupe cars and 2 wiggle cars, and Will is very particular about which one Blake uses. He tells her what to play with and how to play with it. Luckily, she seems to go along with whatever he says.

They also play really well together until another kid is around. If we are playing with any friends, you would think Will forgot that Blake even existed. He pretty much ignores her, or torments her with his older friend.Sounds like a brother thing to me.

He is constantly talking about the things he will do when he is older. "When I turn 6, I'm going to fix my own bike." Or "When I turn 10, I'm going to ride my bike and take you to the park, Blake." "When I'm giant like Daddy, I'm going to have my own motorcycle."

Will likes to do anything but smile when I pull a camera out. I have to bribe (or threaten) him in order to get a smile out of him.

Will is very social and makes friends quickly. The other day we were on a walk and passed someone who was working in the yard. Will told me that I was supposed to say "good morning". 

I suppose it has never been easy, but bedtime is especially fun for this dude. But what about bath time? And I need a drink? I'm hungry? What about brushing my teeth? We need stories. And songs. Another story. Oh yeah, I need to go to the bathroom.

When Will dresses himself, he likes wear all one color. He will have blue shorts, a blue shirt, and blue shoes. Or he'll do the same in red. Most of the time, I'm ok with it, though occasionally I make him let me pick what he wears.

He has a great imagination. I'll often find him and Blake playing some sort of pretend game or another. Yesterday, they had our snow sleds out on the grass and they were pretending they were boats. Or they will set up 4 chairs to act like a car and they will go places. Or they also like to pretend that they are going to school. They even make sure to pack pretend food for lunch in their backpacks.

We can't drive far in the car without Will on the lookout for a train. He knows where all the tracks are and if we happen to cross over them, he always hopes for a glance at the train.

 

This boy is incredibly smart and loves to laugh. He has a big idea for everything and can think of a way to solve any problem. He is constantly on the go and wanting to play and learn new things. 

Syracuse Boil Order

On Friday, June 5, Syracuse confirmed a contaminated sample (E-coli) from the culinary water system. The city issued a "Boil Notice" for the entire City until further notice.


We were advised to:

• Use boiled or bottled water
• If you plan to boil, bring it to rapid boil for 1 minute.
• Throw out ice cubes from regrigerator
• Boiled water or bottle water should be used for brushing teeth, washing hands before food prep, and for food preparation.
• Shower is permissible in un-boiled water if there are no open sore on the body and it doesn't enter the mouth.

The the water from the provides is declared safe:

• Drain and flush all ice makers, water heaters, purifiers, water softeners.
• Lets cold water run through water every faucet in your house for 20 minutes followed by 2 straight hot water. Replace filters.
• Throw out ice cubes or other water stored in refrigeration that have connections o culinary water sources.

The "Boil Notice" in effect until the effect until until late Tuesday.

There were a lot of people panicking and I heard it was pretty intense at the store trying to get water. For whatever reason, I really wasn't concerned at all. Friday night we tried to use bottled water, though I admit I forgot a few times and drank from the tap.

On Saturday, we spent most of the day down in Utah County for my nephews' baptism. So we really weren't home much of the day.

The next few days, we simply boiled water when needed, used bottled water when needed, and it really wasn't that big of a deal. I informed Will that there were "bugs" in the water and he did a really good job not drinking from the tap or giving any water to Blake. Yes, it was slightly annoying and I felt it was harder to clean things since I couldn't just wash dishes in the sink, but it wasn't the end of the world. Maybe I should have been more concerned, I'm not sure.

But yahoo for clean water again!

Wild West Days

Last Christmas, we planned on taking Will up to Heber City to ride the Polar Express. Apparently, if you don't buy you tickets right away, you wont get to go. I've been telling Will for months that we would go ride the train, there just hasn't been a good time.

On Memorial Day, we were sitting there wondering what to do, so I looked online to see if any trains were going today. It turns out it was Wild West Days. There was a small magic show, a gun fight, and a short train ride complete with train robbers.

There were still some tickets left so we bought them, invited our friend Savannah, and headed up to Heber City.

Will was so anxious to get onto the train. While we were waiting to go aboard, we walked around the train to look at all of the cars. As we got to the front engine, the engineer invited Will to climb up and go look inside. He went in a little ways, before coming back out and saying he was done. I though he would want to go in and look at everything.

We boarded the train and we were off. While we were going, we had a fiddle player stop to play some music, and the sheriff came by asking if we had seen any robbers. About 15-20 minutes into the ride, the train stopped. We were being held up by some robbers.

They came aboard and told everyone to get their hands up. As the sheriff got closer, they hurried to the next car. When the sheriff came, we pointed him in the direction the robbers had gone.

Later, the robbers came back through with a bag of gold, but the police had caught up with them. The robbers were forced to share the gold, and we were all given a chocolate gold coin.

The train turned around and we headed back to the station. Will was very upset because he wanted to keep going into the mountains and he wasn't ready to turn around.

 

  I wish it would have been a longer ride, though we had fun. Next time, we will have to try the 2-3 hour trip. Will would love it.

Grandpa William Lee Banks

The past couple of months have been pretty rough on my grandparents. I can't remember how long it's been exactly, but it seems as if they both declined extremely fast.

I remember getting a call from my mom a while ago saying that she had received a call in the middle of the night because they found my grandparents driving home from St. George on the opposite side of the freeway. Luckily, there was no accident and no one was injured. That could have been a very bad situation. Immediately the following day, both of their cars were sold.

My Grandma Banks has been forgetting things for some time now. She will ask you the same question every 2-3 minutes and you can have the exact same conversation 10 times. Since they had their vehicles taken away, her health has declined rapidly. She hardly eats and has lost a lot of weight, her kidneys are failing, and sometimes she wont get out of bed for days. There has been more than once, when my mom has told me that she wasn't sure if Grandma would make it through the weekend.

Then suddenly my Grandpa started having some health problems as well. They were finally able to get a hospice nurse to come spend an hour with each of them every day, taking blood pressure, checking oxygen levels, feeding them, whatever was needed. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough as someone needed to be with them pretty much 24/7. So my mom and her siblings have taken turns staying there and taking care of their parents.

There was one point a couple of months ago when my mom said she wondered if Grandpa had had a stroke. He was normal and acting fine one day, then suddenly he could barely communicate and all sorts of other issues. Eventually, they determined it was not quite a stroke, but something very similar where the brain goes without oxygen for a time.

My mom thinks the same thing may have happened the day before he passed.

On Memorial Day morning, May 25, 2015, my mom, Kim, and McKenzie were at my grandparents house taking care of them. My mom said that at one point Grandpa said "bathroom" and her and Kim were able to help him to the restroom. When he got back to bed, he lay there and gone within a few minutes. As my mom could see what was happening, she urged my grandma to lay beside him as she didn't think he was going to make it. I'm told my grandma kept telling him that he couldn't leave her, and that she asked him to take her with him.

I got the call around 1pm that my Grandpa had died.

The funeral was that weekend in Cedar City, UT.

I was asked to prepare some sort of musical number. I looked through a ton of sheet music, but nothing felt right. I finally remembered a song that I would maybe be interested in singing, but I really didn't want to do a solo. My cousin's wife Tina volunteered to sing with me. I played the piano, and together we sang "The Test" by Janice Kapp Perry. I was so nervous and shaking terribly, but I suppose it turned out well enough.

The funeral was really nice. There was a lot of family there, and it was good to see cousins that I hadn't seen in years. At the cemetery, my grandpa was given a military salute.

They gave my grandma a flag and thanked her for his service, there was a gun salute, and a few trumpets played. It was really cool and the most emotional part of the day for me.

My grandma has had a tough time, understandably. She forgets that he is gone and asks where he is. Then she remembers and become very sad. She's mad that he left her behind. I'm afraid that she wont be too far behind, though it's hard to say.

I lived with my grandparents for my last two years of High School, but I feel like I don't know them that well. I have very few, if any, memories of them when I was little, and I really didn't see them a ton during the time I lived with them. It was really nice to listen to people talk about his life and to learn a little more about him. It's unfortunate that it wasn't something I took the time to do while he was still alive.

 Fortunately, I was in Cedar City about 2 weeks ago and I was able to see my Grandpa before he died. I really wish I would have a least got one picture with him that weekend.

 I have the best siblings in the world and I'm so glad that everyone was able to make it.

Love you, Grandpa. 

A Week Later

A week later, and Blake's glasses now look like this:

My friend was babysitting Will and Blake while I was at the dentist, and when I returned to pick them up, she handed me the glasses in pieces. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but Will says she grabbed both parts and just pulled in opposite directions.

Unfortunately her second pair is still on back order and we are waiting for them to come in. Meanwhile, I took this broken pair back and they are repairing them, but it could take several days. Until then, Blake is without glasses again. And maybe it's just a coincidence, maybe not, but she has sure been grumpy since they broke. I really hope they get fixed quickly.

Luckily they have a warranty on the glasses and I shouldn't have to pay anything to have them fixed. And hopefully this doesn't become too common of an occurrence.