Uriah enjoys shutting himself in rooms. Back in October he had a traumatic door-related event. At the time he was only 18 months old, and could not open the door to let himself out. Well, on this particular Saturday while I was at a church activity, he went into our small laundry room and shut the door. Everything would have been fine if he had not then opened the drawer that is located inside the laundry room adjacent to the door. Once this drawer is open, you cannot open the door from the outside of the room. I took a picture from inside the laundry room to show what it looks like with the drawer open.

Uriah soon started crying because he wanted to come out. Rubin went to open the door and quickly saw the severity of the situation. He started calling to Uriah through the door, telling him to close the drawer.  Uriah would not close the drawer. He just cried and cried but did not see the simple solution!

When I got home from my activity, Uriah had been trapped for nearly one hour. Once he heard my voice, he started crying harder. It broke my heart! I put my fingers under the door and touched his fingers briefly. But when Uriah realized I was not rescuing him, he retreated to the far end of the laundry room and resumed crying. It was hard for me because I wanted at least to be able to touch him and give him some comfort, but he wouldn't come near me.

Rubin was doing everything he could to get Uriah out. Unfortunately the screws on the doorknob were on the same side as Uriah, so Rubin couldn't remove the doorknob. The hinges were inside the laudry room, so removing those pins was impossible. My husband was desperately pushing against the open drawer with a hanger that he snaked through the tiny crack in the slightly ajar door, but as he pushed the drawer closed, it simlutaneously closed the door. Finally Rubin got the idea to borrow a golf club from the neighbors. He slid the handle under the door, while holding onto the foot of the club (sorry to all the golfers out there if I am using the wrong golf club terminology!) and used the handle to hit the drawer. It took a long time to finally get the drawer all the way closed so we could open the door. But it worked and Uriah was saved!

Later I thought about the spiritual parallels of this experience. Sometimes we wonder why Heavenly Father does not just take our problems away and rescue us from difficult situations. We fail to see that we either created those situations, or that there are things we could do to ease our burdens, like closing a drawer. Also, God is always there to give us comfort during our trials. We should not withdraw from Him just because our trial is not being taken away. He is there to help us, if we will let Him.  And while it might not always be apparent, He is always helping us. More than we could ever know.

Anyway, I thought I should document this story before I forgot the details. It was funny because for weeks afterward Uriah was terrified of going into the laundry room! Lesson learned.

New Year's Resolutions

I know, it's been a long time. I almost gave up on this blog. But then I had a couple of people recently tell me they missed reading it (my mom may or may not have been one of those people). So here we go.

I made some New Year's resolutions in January. Here are several of them:

1. Run a 5K
2. Exercise more
3. Read less
4. Learn to crochet
5. Write in the blog
6. Finish 4 quilting projects
7. Go to the temple every month
8. Read the Book of Mormon as a family

Luckily I am ridiculously awesome at making and keeping goals. Here's how I'm doing so far:

1. Running a 5K in the winter is just crazy. I'll wait until spring ... or summer ... or possibly the fall.

2. I exercised every day for 2 whole weeks in January. I think we can all agree that's nothing to sneer at. And it's more than I exercised all last year. Check!

3. This one might sound a little strange, but I was definitely reading too much in 2012. I read 44 books, which, let's be honest, is pretty great. But I found I was getting a little too consumed by it. I would read rather than clean, play with the kids, interact with my husband, make dinner, etc. Also, I hardly quilted at all last year. I think I finished only one quilt! ONE! *gasp* It was ridiculous. The amount of reading has to be reined in so I can actually get things done! I have already let several books expire that I had on hold at the library (it hurt a little).

4. I learned to crochet last month, though I'm painfully slow at it.

This will eventually be a small crocheted quilt.

5. So I was a little less on top of this resolution, but I just renewed it today. That's right, I can renew resolutions at the end of February.

6. I am almost done with a quilt I started in the middle of January. It's a truck/tractor quilt (from a Buggy Barn book) for Uriah's 2nd birthday (which is in a month!). I love this quilt! Two years ago I made one each for RJ and Graham. Luckily I bought extra fabric when I made theirs so I was able to have Uriah's look the same. I'm excited to see it finished! Here's one of the quilt blocks. I will post a picture of the finished quilt soon.

7. As far as the temple, we made it in January and we are scheduled to go Thursday (so what if Thursday is the last day of February, it still counts!)

8. Finally, as a family we are in the middle of 2 Nephi. Right on track!

I think 2013 is going to be a great year! (Rubin is going to point out to me that 2013 is 1/6 of the way over already, but I don't care!)

Over-helpful Husband

I have an awesome husband. Rubin is always willing to watch the kids so I can go out with friends or get my hair done. He's really very helpful. Sometimes too helpful.

My mother-in-law gave me a copy of her house key in case I ever need it. For weeks this key sat on my dresser because it looked too much like one of my other keys. I was planning on distinguishing it with fingernail polish or something like that, but never got around to it.

One day Rubin borrowed my keys. When he returned from work that day, he handed my keys to me with a big smile on his face. Here's how they looked:

Did Rubin label only the two keys that looked similar? Nope. He decided to label all the keys on my ring. I was slightly annoyed and asked if he labeled his own keys. "No," he said, "I'm not confused by my keys."

Now every time I use my keys I feel like a dunce because I apparently need to have my keys labeled to know which one to use! Oh well, I am happy to have a helpful, or in this case, over-helpful husband.

Cocoa Pebbles

Graham came up to me the other day and excitedly told me some news.

"Mom, Cocoa Pebbles are more chocolately! Yay!" he gushed.
"Where did you hear that?" I asked.
"From TV," he said.

He made sure Dad heard the news when he came home from work. And Grandma when she came to visit. Apparently this is big news for our household.

This reminded me of another story from when RJ was three. One day as I was fixing my hair RJ came up to me.

"Mom, I need your phone." he declared.

"Uh, what do you need it for?" I asked puzzled.

"The man on the TV said to call him right now!" he said.

"Honey, when the people on TV ask you to call them, they just want your money," I informed him.

RJ was shocked and appalled. From then on whenever we saw a commercial he would shake his head, turn to me and say, "Mom, they just want our money." What a wise little man!

Rooster Cogburn

I neglected to tell the story of our little pest/pet, Rooster Cogburn.

There is a man who lives behind us, we call him Farmer Bob, who owns a few cows and occasionally has a sheep or some other random animal in his field as well. One day we noticed a new animal in Farmer Bob's field, a white rooster. We affectionately named him Rooster Cogburn.

At first it was kind of fun seeing that rooster wander around. He would cock-a-doodle-doo at the cows and chase away other birds. 

Then one day, we were sitting down for dinner and there was Rooster Cogburn right at our sliding door watching us eat! After that, he started coming out of the fence anytime we were outside. One day he was right under our bedroom window doing his loud cock-a-doodle-doo at 5 a.m.! But the final straw was when he chased my poor Graham across the yard, pecking him in the buttocks several times. My kids started being too afraid to go in the backyard. After that it was war between me and Cogburn. 

One day I saw Farmer Bob outside and decided to confront him. Here's part of our conversation:

Me: "We're having a little problem with your rooster."
Farmer Bob: "It's not my rooster, it's your rooster."
Me (thinking Bob is joking): "Umm, okay. Well, is there any way you could keep your rooster in your fence?"
Farmer Bob: "It's not my rooster, it's your rooster."
Me: "What are you talking about? I just have a normal yard and you have a field with animals. Why would you think he's my rooster?!"
Farmer Bob: "He was always in your yard, playing with your kids."
Me: "They weren't playing with him, they were running away from him!"

Farmer Bob and I determined someone had probably just dropped the bird off near Bob's field. This was wonderful news to me because now I could be rid of Rooster Cogburn!

I knew that rooster would be too hard to catch inside of Bob's fences and so I hatched up a plan. A few days later I lured the rooster out of the Bob's fence (using my children as bait of course -- Rooster Cogburn could never turn down an opportunity to chase my boys) and then called animal control once he was in my yard. Animal control turned out to be the local police. It took myself, three officers, a big net, Wonder bread, and more than an hour to finally catch ol' Rooster Cogburn! 

My husband was actually very sad about the rooster's relocation to the animal shelter. Do I feel bad? A little. Would I catch and send him off again? Probably. Good luck with the rest of your life Rooster Cogburn!

Rooster Cogburn watching us eat dinner (or is he plotting our demise?)