Owen 22

At the elementary school, in most all of the classes, each child is assigned a number. This is true for Owen in his kindergarten class. (O waiting for the bus on 9/23, they like to stand on the rock when they get to the bus stop. It's part of the waiting for the bus tradition.)

Owen's class number is 22. And he is very proud of his number. Two weeks ago (9/24), I was studying in my General Conference notebook, and thankfully that was a book that was ok for kids to mess up, because when Owen found page 22....

...he wrote his name to officially claim it as his territory. 

He will pick up any book and if he finds a "22" he is so excited! Or if we are reading a chapter 22 or verse 22 during scriptures, he comes up and points at it up on the screen "Mom! It's my 22!" Yep! You're Owen 22! 

I've been getting a real kick out of finding little drawings all over the house with his name and number on them. Owen 22...

Another "Owen 22" name and self portrait.

In case anyone doesn't know, Owen's number is 22. It is more important to him than his last name. It is super fun and cute. 

I think this one was one of his first self portraits.

Here is another one of his first papers - from September 1st. 

He has really been learning so much so fast! They have a little ABC stencil that I bought years ago - from a set of 6 stencils that I bought at a Tupperware party in like 2003 (I know I bought them when we were at the pink house, where we lived from 2000 - 2004) They little boys all work on their ABCs with it - 

And then I got a kick out of Owen doing his ABCs freestyle. That's a big improvement in one month, huh! It's so fun to watch them learn and grow.

Daniel's been drawing a lot too - he found Joseph's spiral school notebook and started drawing in it. Here is another picture he drew in there with Joseph's fire pen of these little cars "having a race". 

I think Peter helped him with the other scribbles on that page, judging by his work here. 

Those were the three papers from Joseph's book that they drew on. I left them in Joseph's book, so he could smile when he finds them, and thus why they are documented here. I love your drawing, Daniel and Peter! So, the kids are busy with drawing and writing lots of stuff. I've been cleaning up a lot of paper. and as I was cleaning up, I also found this treasure! 

 

"Dear Owen perits your son Owen is haveing a hard time cochichrating" ha!! So cute! So funny "Dear Owen's parents. Your son Owen is having a hard time concentrating." haha, I thought that was so funny. This one is a scrapbook keeper. I asked Natalie about it, if that was a note from her to Corey and I? Like maybe she thought Owen was being noisy during scriptures and so she decided to write us a note. But she said it was actually from when she and Owen were playing school, and she wrote it as his pretend teacher to his pretend parent. I got a real kick out of it, so funny!

One other note (for those that actually read my posts and don't just look at the pictures) - so, in August I was like a week overdue for my period, and I was sure I was pregnant, and then I started. I don't know why I was a week late, but I thought that was annoying. I took a few dollar store preg tests in Aug, and they all said neg, but then I still didn't start my period, and I read online that the dollar store ones aren't able to detect small levels of hcg, so they kinda won't work until after a week, but I was sure we were pregnant, the baby was going to be due in April, and then my period started while we were at Bear Lake and I wasn't prepared and I had to go buy stuff. This time, I was supposed to start on Saturday, and on Monday morning, I decided I didn't want to have a week of wondering. So I walked down to Smiths before school to buy an first response pregnancy test. And they were locked up in the pharmacy, which didn't open until 9. Annoying, And Walgreens across the street was closed until 8am. It was 7:30, annoying. Ok fine, so I walked home. When I got home, the elementary girls decided they didn't feel well, so I said ok and they stayed home, which meant I didn't have to stay to get them out the door, so then I drove down to Walgreens (cause it was past 8am now) and I bought a test. Stupid expensive, but atleast I would know. There were two tests, one regular test and one digital. I took the regular one, there was kinda a line, but maybe not, ugh, stupid. After I took the test, I read the instructions and realized I might not have done it right. Not that it's complicated, but the test instructions made it seem like if you don't do it for EXACTLY 5 seconds, you'll mess up the results. So, I took the second one this morning, and followed the rules and times exactly and very carefully and...

So I was like wow! I guess I can give up relax about these last 20 pounds that refuse to budge. I googled a pregnancy calendar and found out the baby would be due June 11, 2021. If I plan for 9 months of pregnancy then a year of nursing... maybe I'll get my body back in June 2022. I decided to tell Corey about it this morning. Are you ready for another joyful burden, my love? I think we both handled the idea of even more responsibility very well. I marked each week in my academic calendar, we decided we'd tell the kids at Christmas, and mulled over other ideas like that, and then after dinner... my period started. 😶 So... apparently that pregnancy test was incorrect. I was a little confused, but ok... I know I have nothing to be sad about - its' not like I haven't already been blessed with twelve babies. Some of my sisters have struggled with infertility, and one is still yearning to be blessed with a child. I pray for them everyday (love you Beka). I have nothing to complain about. Also, it was just a few hours of expectation. I can hardly imagine the heartbreak a mother would have to deliver a still born baby. My Grandma (dad's' mom) had two still births. Mary Williamson's first baby Amy Ann (last pic) died after 3 days, so so sad. So much work and hope and dreams for the child and yourself enjoying a lifetime watching them, and then to lose them so soon after they're life had just begun, I would cry and cry and cry. 

I am crazy old, but I still feel young I guess. It would definitely be high risk with my two conditions of AMA and GMP ("grand multiparity", aka I've given birth more than 5 times), but I still feel like we might have more children for three reasons: 

Reason #1 - Joseph had felt prompted to say children, not "child" when he gave me a blessing. (Start reading after the second video in this blogpost). That blessing was given after Daniel, and before Peter was born. So Peter would be one child born to us after that blessing, but since Joseph had felt prompted to say "children" then there is probably more than just one/Peter? (or two?) 

Reason #2 is because of the answer I got once when I was pondering "how many kids" we were to have. We were watching the movie 17 Miracles, and at the end when they were telling what happened to some of the characters, and they wrote about the girl who died but came back alive, they said that she grew, married, and became a mother to 14 children, and on that part I felt a slight impression that "14" was my answer. I thought that would be a bit crazy, but ok, I'll think about that. I think that happened sometime between Natalie and Owen or right after Owen was born. 10 kids, really Lord? FOUR more?!?! But then along came 

Reason #3, and I searched all over here on the blog and I can't find a time when I share this, but I thought I had... I know I've shared it with several friends, I just assumed I had put it here. Anyway, once on a date night, I remember we went to Nuan's Thai Kitchen... that might have been the Thai food from this date in 2013? Hmm, maybe I need to go look at the photos on the cloud drive, cause I remember I took a photo of the post it... I wonder if I can find that photo... Actually let me go look in my 2013 planner, cause I know I took the post it paper and saved it in my planner.... just a minute... Yeah! Just found it! This was not 2013. this happened on our date night on Friday, January 6, 2017. At this time (Jan 2017) I was a mother to a 3 month old Daniel and a very young Owen, just a year and a half old (they were very close). I was probably feeling a bit stretched and wondering "Ok, are we good, Lord? Is this it for us? Or would you like us to have more?" Wilst I pondered this, we were on date night at Nuan's Thai Kitchen (I didn't need the help of the planner to remember that detail). I hadn't told Corey what I was seeking, but we sat and visited. We ordered food. We sat and talked. Our plates were delivered. We started to eat, and I noticed on the bottom of Corey's plate, on the edge that was close to me as I sat across from him, there was a little post it note sticking out. He didn't seem to notice it. I thought it was out of place, so I took it to remove it. "You've got a paper on your plate..." I said, and I took it, and looked at it, and.... IT SAID "14"!!!! I looked at it, my eyes went wide with surprise, and I was like "oh my gosh!" as I held it up to Corey with a "LOOK!" expression. Then I had to explain to him what I had been wondering all day, and IT SAID 14! 

I don't think I would have thought anything of it, HAD IT NOT BEEN the SAME CRAZY ANSWER/NUMBER that I had received before in the experience of Reason #2. So I thought that was nuts, but it was also second answer/witness that the first crazy answer that I didn't believe might actually be right. Whenever I mention 14 kids to Corey, he teases "Look... just cause "14" is your lucky number...." ...and that is true, because 14 was my soccer jersey number all throughout my AYSO and high school soccer days, and any other time I had to choose a jersey number. BUT, this isn't a lucky number thing, this is just a matter of fact/answer to prayer thing, I think, unless y'all make me doubt myself. But this has been my answer twice, so I don't know, I kinda can't dismiss it now. Some people also counter with "maybe it was just the number of people in your family?" in which case we're good now! Cause Corey + me + 12 kids = 14. BUT I wasn't asking or pondering "how many people should be in our family?" when I prayed. It was "How many kids should we have?" And as my sister said in a fb comment that made me laugh - I had shared a family photo and joked "#toomanykids", and Trice replied with "#nevertoomanyuntillucky14" So, that's that long story about kids and babies and numbers. Owen's number is 22, mine is 14. (I hope Owen's wife is prepared, haha, or that she has her own lucky number!)