So I had this idea today that I ought to write down what a day in my life is like right now. I think I’ll look back one day and wonder how I did it, because there are days now when I wonder how I managed to make it through the day only to wake up and start all over. I have to warn you that this is very detailed and therefore long.
My father’s favorite thing to do when his grandsons come to visit is to give them forklift rides:
So when he saw this picture of my grandfather he said “Mom, your family is a forklift family"
you might see a scene like this if you checked on the children after bedtime:
Isaac will likely be found surrounded by non-fiction books. He often has one propped up or will fall asleep with his finger in one. The globe is not atypical. He loves to study maps and other such things as he lays in bed (or when he’s on a road trip). He’s also a little heater so he’s often sweaty.
Charlotte typically sleeps with a doll or water bottle and sometimes both. I have to admit that the light saber is not typical, but I took this picture on the same night as the other.
Nicole will likely be fully away sitting up in her bed singing or talking for hours after you put her to bed. She generally doesn’t cry much if at all when she is put to bed, but it’s not uncommon to still hear her awake as much as two hours after putting her to bed.
Ila is still establishing her sleeping pattern. At two months old, she doesn’t usually settle down until about 11:00 (which is much better than last week when she didn’t settle down till 1 or 2 each night). She can be a little fussy in the evening which is fairly typical for her age, but once she settles down she usually only wakes once to eat before my alarm goes off at 6:30AM.
I’ve wanted to go see my grandmother’s house since moving to Knoxville a few months ago, but I didn’t want to go alone so I waited until my sister Krista could come with me.
This is what the house used to look like and except for the fact that there were a lot more trees and other plants and a birdbath in the front yard, this is pretty much how I remember it looking
Here’s the picture of what it looks like now
The lady who lives there now was very kind and talked to us at length about the changes they had made and apologized for the roses and other things that didn’t survive. It’s strange that she’s been there for ten years already because in my mind that house has always been my grandmother’s house and for some reason I had it in my head that she had just moved in.
I don’t think anyone who has had a little boy could make the argument that masculinity 
is something that we train in our kids. When Isaac was 17 months old, someone handed me a book full of trucks to show him. I assumed the book would not hold his attention for long, after all it was a book with nothing but construction trucks in it—I thought it seemed rather dull. Imagine my surprise when his face lit up as he pointed to each vehicle. From there he became captivated with anything that had an engine. Since that experience, I’ve noticed that every little boy I’ve known has gone through a stage where he is obsessed with trucks, trains, and planes.
My girls on the other hand, like girly things. Sure they’ll play with a truck or drive a car around the room, but they show their gender identity in different ways.
This is old news now, but I thought I ought to update my blog and decided to scroll 
through recent pictures for inspiration and all of Charlotte’s recent pictures make me think of this event/story.
Charlotte gave herself a haircut. I was lucky—it wasn’t too bad and it was on the verge of being much worse when I interceded. She made her cuts right in the front forming a very choppy upside-down V and forcing me to cut some shorter-than-I-ever-would-have-chosen bangs. I was mostly sad because we’ve been trying to grow out her bangs since birth and now we have a new set of bangs to grow out.
This is a continuing tradition because many (all?) of my siblings and I cut our hair at some point during our childhood.
6.20.07 Today Isaac brought his toy jeep over to me and said “mom, want some noise†then he turned it on.
6.21.07 Today I took Isaac to the post office with me to buy stamps. 
I let him put the money in, make the selection and then collect the change at the end. As we drove away he told me “mommy buy money at the Post Office.†I guess he thought that when the change came out it was what I had purchased.
I brought a chair into the bathroom for our nightly teeth brushing ritual. Isaac and Charlotte each climbed up and as Isaac looked in the mirror he excitedly proclaimed “big and little†in reference to the height difference between him and Charlotte.
Isaac got a birthday card from Great-Grandma Cochran a few days ago. After he opened it we read it and he looked at it. Then he opened some junk mail and said “yay, another birthday card from Isaac.†For the rest of the day any piece of mail or paper was another birthday card for Isaac!
I scrolled through my log and choose a date at random—here’s what I wrote on February 6th of last year:
2.6.09 Here are some recent things the kids said: "I would sleep so hard that I couldn’t wake up. I’d be stuck asleep and you’d have to kiss me to wake me up. Would you kiss me?"
"And after her birthday I would be stuck sleeping if you don’t kiss me." Isaac (possibly before Charlotte’s 3rd birthday)
After biting his finger accidentally, Isaac said "My mouth thought my finger was food. My mouth thought it was salad"
"Mom, what time will Tigers eat us?"
"Mom, don’t let tigers eat us until we’re ready to die." <<so, when we’re ready to die we should let Tigers eat us?>> "yeah" Isaac
“that’s the Tiger’s pretzels? Because of the white spots?" Isaac upon seeing footage of a Tiger eating a deer that had white spots on it’s back
In answer to the question "What are kids made of?" Isaac replied: "They’re made of everything that skin covers."
“What happens if a Lion goes into a machine that turns him into food for people, that would be chicken?†Isaac
After getting a light spank for getting out of bed at bedtime, Charlotte said "I need pajamas that doesn’t have a spank on themâ€
<<The picture was taken February 1, 2009>>
Every so often I think I should write a blog post, but then I never do. I blame the fact that I have 4 children and whenever I sit down to do something not related to cleaning, the house seems to fall apart. The other night I updated my log of funny things my kids say and it occurred to me that I could just post a quote every so often—at least it would be something and I found myself smiling at the silly odd things they say and do so perhaps it would be interesting to other people as well.
I know you didn’t love your name, but that’s because to you it was just a name. To me it is the feeling of love that I felt when I was with you.
It’s a reminder of a great woman who I loved and admired. Who showed strength in motherhood through sorrows and joys.
A woman who, like me, thrills to be a mom and recognized her role as the most noble and worthwhile thing she could do.
It’s the thrill in my heart as we got closer to your house each time we drove to Knoxville to visit you. It’s the love that flowed from you to everyone you knew.
There is so much about you that I admire, but when I try to put into words what you meant to me, I can’t find the right words and the letters on the page fall short of the emotion I feel when I remember you.
So, here I sit with my precious, perfect little girl. In a place that I always wanted to be, but now find myself here without you and it seems so appropriate and perfect to be able to give this little angel your name. I miss you and I love you.
Your granddaughter,
Kathleen
DAY 9: On Wednesday we set off for Knoxville. 
It was a long crowded ride in my mother’s Tribeca, but the kids behaved well and the trip was uneventful. We stopped for lunch at Wendy’s and Nicole enjoyed dancing to the music and making faces with my mother. She was in such a funny happy mood that I was glad I had my camera handy to capture a few moments.
The only other noteworthy thing was the few times that Isaac announced that he needed to use the bathroom right away and we frantically exited as soon as we could only to find out that his need was not nearly as urgent as he had claimed.
When we arrived at our new place, the movers were still unloading the truck and a neighbor from the ward had provided a hot meal for the family.
The rest of our moving experience is not blogworthy as it consists of me unpacking and organizing our things into our new house, but I think 9 days of moving details really should be enough detail for the few readers we get to our humble little blog.
Isaac seems to be doing well in his new school. His school day is much longer than it was in Utah. He went from 2hrs and 45 min of school to 5 hrs and 15 min. It means he gets to eat lunch at school which he thinks is great. On Fridays they wear Orange to support the local football team (Tennessee Volunteers) and Isaac loves his new orange shirt so much that he often tries to wear it all weekend as well.
After his first day of school, I asked him if he had made any friends and he said “no, but lots of kids made friends with me.†He now tells me that a boy named Storm is his friend because in his words “Storm always gives smiles when he sees me and he always wants me to sit next to him at lunch and when I sit next to him he gives smiles.†He also informed me that a girl named Faith doesn’t like him because “she gives frowns†when she sees him.
DAY 7: We spent much of day 7 exploring my parent’s property. We kicked off our adventures with the traditional forklift rides. Isaac and Charlotte took turns riding the forklift with their grandfather. He showed them how to lift a pallet up and down and even gave them a ride on the pallet and loaded them onto a truck.
Next they had a tour of his warehouse which included showing the children the kiddie rides that grandpa Bird has been storing for a company.
DAY 5: Our first day in Ohio was mostly spent relaxing at my parents’ house.
Lee stopped over as we were having some lunch and introduced us to his girlfriend, Jen. We had a nice visit with Lee and Jen as we munched on french fries and BBQ chicken. Nicole took to Lee right away. She snuggled up to him as soon as he picked her up and enjoyed smiling at him and making faces.
DAY 4 CONTINUED: The airport experience with three little kids is a little crazy. The kids were actually quite good, but just the management of them all would have been 
impossible on my own. Once we made it through security, we stopped at a little play area before going to our gate. This provided a perfect opportunity for a potty break. Unfortunately, Charlotte managed to get her underwear wet while sitting on the potty so I had to make the trek back and forth to the bathroom with a fresh pair of “airplane underwear.†By the time I was finished (the play area was not close to the bathroom), I could only allow Charlotte 10 minutes to play before we scuttled them all off towards the gate.
DAY ONE: We were lucky enough to have Zach’s new job pay for a moving company to 
pack and move our belongings. I think if not for that I really would have lost my sanity. They came at 8:00 AM and worked until 7:00 PM packing and loading our things onto a gigantic semi-truck. The beginning of the day went well, Grandma Cochran took Nicole and Isaac went to school so I just had Charlotte with me and Zach’s Aunt Neta who had come down to help. We sat on the couch and talked as they worked through the morning.
I think almost everyone who reads this blog already knows about our upcoming move, but there may be a few who we we don’t see often and don’t use facebook so for those few, here’s our official announcement: We’re moving from Orem, UT to Knoxville, TN.
When Zach first suggested taking a job out of state,
I was VERY opposed to the idea. I thought we would probably spend the rest of our lives here in Utah, perhaps even in this house. Of all the things I’ve come to love about Utah, living so close to my in-laws has been the absolute best and I will sorely miss living so close to them.
As the job interviews started to come, I couldn’t help but feel blessed at the number of good opportunities that Zach had available to him. We had been praying for months for a way to increase our income and improve our financial situation. I expected the answer to our prayers to keep us here, but at one point, Zach was in various stages of the interview process with 7 different companies in 6 different states and not one of them was in Utah. It took a couple of weeks for me to be ok with the idea of moving, but before long I found that my mind had been changed and I knew that a move was inevitable and I somehow found myself ok with the idea.
The next step was selecting the best job opportunity and though the process only took a month or two, it seemed to take forever. I was pleased when the decision was finally made that he would work for Jewelry TV in Knoxville, TN. Of all the cities that he interviewed in, Knoxville was my top choice. I have fond memories of Knoxville because it’s where my grandmother lived. I spent every Christmas there and a week out of each summer there for my entire childhood. It’s within driving distance of my parents and I have some extended family in the area as well.
On the way to the store 
last night, Isaac noticed a flag at half-mast and asked why the flag was hanging down. I explained to him that people fly the flag that way when someone dies, but that I didn’t know who they were honoring. He thought for a few moments and then announced that if we didn’t have any food, he would fly the flag at half-mast to tell everyone we were out of food. I told him that people don’t fly flags low to say they need more food. His next idea is that we could make a special flag to fly low when trains are on fire.
I don’t have anything really funny or inspiring to write. . .but I am very excited about a great 
deal I got yesterday.
Getting a good deal on something always makes me happy, but the icing on the cake is when I go out with the express purpose of purchasing a specific item and I get a good deal on that item.
So I was thrilled yesterday when I went out to buy some BYU clothes for the kids to celebrate the kick-off of BYU foot ball and found these outfits for just $3.00 each! Yes, you may all tell me how much I rock ;) GO COUGARS!!!
When I picked Isaac up from school he didn’t say much at first, but as we walked home he 
started telling me bits and pieces of his day and by the time we got home, he was very eager to tell me more and more of the details. He was especially eager to read some books for his reading log. He ran into his room and came back with two books on machines. Both books were not beginner reading books, but he was determined to read from them. I helped him with the words he didn’t know and we read a few lines in each book together. He was very excited about his reading and wanted me to write down each word that he had read and then talked about how amazed his teacher would be with his reading.