With All Our Love

Dear Tanner,

I’m sitting on the bed with your sister, while she crunches potato chips watching me type. She’s listening to her “Snow White” cassette tape, and loves the “Whistle While You Work” song. Over and over she asks for her princess tapes to be played, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty round out her collection. She is learning how to curtsy, wave, dresses for balls, dance, and be kind. She takes her princess lessons very seriously. That is, until she’s Wonder Woman with your brother Miller. Then she wrestles, rolls, jumps, kicks and follows her Superman wherever their adventures lay. I digress. She’s my constant companion, my little friend, and happy to eat while I stop a minute from her agenda to type you a letter. And she still sucks her thumb!

Today while sitting at church in class, she was brought to me by the nursery leader, who was also bringing two other girls to their parents. I asked if her pants needed to be changed, and she said, “No, it’s time to go potty!” Well, of course, if you insist. Maybe being only two days away from turning three, her gift to me will be an end of twenty years of diapers. I can’t believe I’ve been buying them that long. What a lot of money!

Your little Miller-man is growing up quickly. When you ask him what he likes to do, he says he likes to protect. Tonight he told your sister, “Super heroes don’t cry. Turn off the tears.” He takes his duties as immediate guardian of the family princess very seriously. And he practices all day long. Unless he’s playing basketball with Sawyer, his only other interest: sports. He’s already asking me when baseball is starting, and our winter snow is still falling. Of all my children, he makes me wonder the most how to give him the skills he will need to succeed in life. We had teacher conferences this week, and I went to his teacher. We met with his speech teacher, who shared with us the results of a test she had administered that week. I knew he was exhibiting some strange behavior while we were working on his reading assignments, and had asked her to test him. He has almost nonexistent immediate auditory memory recall (versus working memory, or long term memory). So we made a plan to improve his auditory memory, which will help him recall sounds needed to learn how to read. And while building him this basic foundation, we hope that he’ll eventually learn how to read to learn. In the meantime, we’ll be playing lots of auditory kind of games, and practicing his spelling words in textures of sand, shaving cream, and dimensional letters. Who ever said being a mother, and staying at home, is not fulfilling? 

(Sawyer's eye ;-)

Your little brother Sawyer is almost through with his all-star basketball practices and games. He too is eager for baseball to begin. He did not have a game this weekend, has a game this week with no family able to attend, and one next weekend we won’t be going to due to his Pinewood Derby. So his season might already be over! We spent all day yesterday getting the cars ready. Your father is so good to help all who want to race have a car. Porter still hasn’t bowed out of the open competition, so his car was finished late yesterday as well. Cooper and Breyer will also be in the open competition, Miller will be racing Tigers, and Sawyer Webelos I boys. They all have “Car” cars except Sawyer, who wanted a car to memorialize his lost bunnies. We’ll be busy painting during the week, and putting the finishing touches on the wheels.

Cooper was the most help yesterday while designing the cars. Miller required extra detail, and Dad was so proud of how he put the whole car together. He’s such a sweet boy, and always hanging in the background. You’ll be surprised at how big all the boys have grown, and I suspect he’ll surprise you the most. His teeth are HUGE and he will have a beautiful smile when we’re finished with braces. He’s still in a holding pattern as I chose just to pay for Porter’s this year. He is so excited to be able to play the bass clarinet. He’s been waiting for a few weeks to bring it home, and has played it all weekend. He's the brother that came home from school and announced that since they began Christmas break, they've only had 14 days of school - and that's including all the days with two hour delays! In ward conference today, he was recognized as the president of the Deacon quorum.

Porter is SO tall! He’s gotten to the hard-to-find-pants-long-enough stage, and still hasn’t grown any beard! He got those good growing genes still going strong! He loves to be fashionable, just as you, and is always looking dapper going out the door. His temperament has evened out so much since you’ve left, probably another hormonal thing, and he’s fun to be around. Now ;-) He loves a good movie, a good book, a lot of food, and Jeopardy. Today he was recognized as the president of the Teachers quorum, and also recognized for advancing to a Priest. He is 16 (right!), and speaks of dating in the future tense, far future. And, he out of all your brothers is enjoying the Olympics the most. He loves the snowboarding events the most, and is cheering on an Australian LDS girl as she’s in a LOT of events.

Your wingman is still steady and strong. He was recognized as first assistant to the Bishop, leader of the Aaronic priesthood. He’s our daily weatherman, and so excited when weather is moving in and there’s the possibility of a delay or cancellation. We had no school Thursday, and a holiday Friday, so tomorrow morning will be hard. His sense of humor is so stylish. He walked into the boys’ room where a dinosaur song tape was playing, and laughed, saying, “The boys in the weight room will be surprised when I slip in this stegosaurus waltz!” He’s so kind to me, very gentle with your sister and such a big help to me around the help and with the car. I will miss him dearly when you whisk him away out west. I’ve been looking at airplane tickets for you guys this summer, and am excited for your traveling. I’ll keep in touch about plans, but know Dad does not have enough time to drive out and back again before Marshall begins.

Your father is still recovering nicely. His stitches came out this week, and he’s coping with the “no lifting” policy. He enjoys taking out the missionaries to lunch. One pair is usually on Monday, and the other on Thursday. We feed the sisters in Proctorville in our home. We’ll be going to the Shiners later in the week, asked them to check on a few names we had given the elders, and are still taking boys to play basketball twice a week at the church. Dad has been asked to help with the LDSSA “club,” and will be their official Marshall advisor. This week he’ll also be teaching institute there, as a teacher hasn’t been called.

Me? I’m still here. I had been asked last Sunday if I would make coleslaw for the sixty missionaries meeting for training at the church Tuesday. It was our ward’s turn to feed lunch to the missionaries. Anyway, I spent all afternoon Monday cutting cabbage, and chopping it up for coleslaw, and barely squeezed all the containers in my fridge. Tuesday I took Breyer to the library for her story time, with the coleslaw in the back of the van. Coincidentally, the missionaries were on the computer at the library, and when it finally dawned on me they should be at the church, I realized I was a week off in my responsibility. What in the heck do you do with coleslaw for sixty! I made them take a big bowl, handed some off to Larry, and kept the rest in the fridge. The boys MOANED whenever it was on their dinner plate, (everyday) but we finished the bowl.

One of the more interesting news articles I saw this week involved the $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project newly built and opened on the California-Nevada border. They're using mirrors to generate solar power in the desert, and the temperature has hit 1000 degrees! Can you imagine! The birds flying over the area are dropping like flies. What is going to happen to airplanes?

And here's the news from your father: "Dairy cows in Germany set their barn on fire after their farting and belching led to a deadly build up of methane inside the building, police said. Gas levels from 90 cows reached unusually high levels Monday before dangerously reacting with static energy from a massaging machine. It sparked a fire which set stalls at the Rosdorf farm ablaze. The flames quickly spread and soon reached the roof. One cow was seriously burned in the blaze." FUNNY!

In Sunday School today we were reading about Abraham. I loved reading this and thinking of how this applied to you! "For I have a purpose...to make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land...For as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their Father." I know how close you come to those you serve, and thought this was a tender way to express those emotions. 

I need to get into bed! It's late and (hopefully) I've got to teach in the morning. We love you dearly. We think of you always. We love you forever.

Mom and Dad