So Who's Smarter?

Last night I said, "Brigham, it seems that you remember everything."

B: "I do Dad. That's because I'm smarter than you."

Is a Fireside a Party?

Holly just got back from a Relief Society "fireside" at 10:30 pm.
Brigham asked her, "Is fireside another word for a party?"

Nationals Game

We took the kids to Mormon night at the Nationals game in DC. I think Caleb had the best time of all. He was clapping and laughing.

A Full Day in Virginia

Well, today was a busy, but fun, day. It started out with Holly going kayaking with the Relief Society. She had a blast. It is definitely something that we are going to have to do with the kids.

When she got back I went for a run while Brigham went with Trevor, Luc and Addy to Mt. Vernon. Brigham came back and reported that George Washington was the guy who “gave us freedom”.

When I returned the rest of us when to the reflecting pool right by the Lincoln Memorial. It was a beautiful day today, about 83 degrees, and we had a great walk down from the Lincoln Memorial to the World War II Memorial.
On the way there we saw a tree that had fallen on the other side of the highway. It was a very large tree and had smashed two cars. The entire side of the freeway was covered with the tree. It happened maybe 30 seconds before we got there. We decided to take a different route home.

Holly and I tag teamed the temple today since it was ward temple night and we didn’t have a babysitter. So, I got to take the boys out to the Arlington County Fair. I met Steve and Mary there as well as Mary’s sister Kate and her husband Chris.
Brigham had a blast. Jacob wasn’t so thrilled. He was kind of freaked out by all of the commotion. Caleb was just a mellow fellow all night.

Latest Update

We are still loving Virginia. This last week was a bit hot but it cooled down enough that we were able to enjoy the weekend.
Yesterday we went with Trevor, Luc and Addy to the Moore Colonial Farm, an 18th century farm right next to the CIA. It was very beautiful and Brigham and Luc had a great time seeing how farmers lived in the 18th century. Brigham was very concerned when a chicken walked in and “made a mess” on the floor of the farm house.

We also picked up some preserves from the gift shop that were quite amazing. I think that we will be returning as soon as we run out.

I also went running yesterday along the W & OD trail. It is basically a bike path that goes over where the old train tracks used to be for the Washington and Old Dominion rail line. I went about four miles towards DC and it was beautiful. We are going to have to get some bikes setup so that we can take the whole family along there.

Brigham and Jacob are having a great time in the house. Jacob has a computer setup and thus is in heaven. Brigham is finding new uses for the house all of the time. He loves to go play in the side yard. This week he started “zipping” (basically repelling) from the banisters in the basement. He was also very excited when we set the tent up in the basement on Friday night and he got to sleep in it. Caleb just keeps rolling all over the place and always seems to be happy.

We are getting closer to being out of boxes. We are still trying to figure out where everything goes. I am sure we will get there soon.

Some More Brigham Quotes

Yesterday I made Brigham take a shower. He was very angry. He said to me, “Dad, I’m taking you out of my will!”

Yesterday Brigham got to be a pioneer in primary. Holly was telling me that everyone thought he was the cutest little Sunbeam. Brigham said, “Why did they think that I was little?”

Holly: “Because the Sunbeams are the littlest kids in the Primary.”

Brigham: “Well, this Sunbeam is big.”

Last night I was saying prayers with Brigham. Sally and Josh’s hometeacher had brought over toys for all of the kids. In the prayer I said, “We thank thee that the nice man brought some toys for Brigham.”

Brigham interrupted my prayer and whispered, “He was a very good man.”

Our Stay in Salt Lake

We are finally here. “Here” means Virginia - not in our house.

We stayed in Salt Lake for about a week. We actually means Holly and the boys as I wasn’t there much. As soon as we arrived in Salt Lake I left to drive across the country with Trevor. Once we got to Virginia I flew back to Salt Lake, stayed for a couple of days, flew to Seattle for some business, flew back and left with the whole family for the long drive to Virginia.

We had a great time in Salt Lake though. The 4th of July was particularly fun. We stayed at Ja and Laura’s the night before (I don’t think that they will ever invite us to do that again). In the morning we did the Freedom run. We just did the 1 mile Fun Run since we wanted to do it with Brigham.

Brigham had been all excited about doing this run but when it was about to start something spooked him. All of the sudden he didn’t want to run. He really didn’t want to run. He was scared of something and I had to carry him for the first little bit. I tried to put him down and he started screaming and kicking. So I told him we were going to quit - we just had to run to Uncle Ja. Once we passed Ja I told him we had to run to the car. He started to figure out that I was just tricking him into running the race and started screaming again. So, I put him on my shoulders. After a bit of that he decided he wanted to run and really enjoyed it. He especially liked running down the street to the finish line. He was very excited for his medal and T-shirt. I have no idea what set him off initially but he was certainly irate.

Later that day we went to Craig and Jill’s. Everyone was there. We went on a hike up in the mountains and Holly and Laura did some shopping.

The most exciting part of the day was when Jacob ran away. You might ask how a boy who can’t walk can run away, but he can. I was on the hike and Holly had gone shopping. She left some of the teenage cousins in charge of Jacob. When she got back the people downstairs said he was upstairs and vice-versa, The only problem was that he wasn’t anywhere in the house.

I returned from hiking to see everyone out in the street looking for Jacob. Finally someone saw him out the back porch. Craig and Jill live on a golf course. Jacob had crawled all the way across the first hole, most of the way across the driving range and almost to the street. When we finally spotted him a golf pro was picking him up in a golf cart.

We still don’t know how he got out of the house. It certainly gave us a scare. Jacob looked pretty shocked too.

Jacob and Brigham had a great time at Grandma and Granddad Hales’. Brigham was especially excited that he got to use Granddad’s tools and that Grandma made a scrapbook for him. I hope that Grandma and Granddad have recovered by now.

The Move Has Begun

The long trek across the United States has begun. We had to be out of our house on June 23rd but can’t move into our new house until July 25th. So, as you can see we have some time to kill.

Loading up the truck was quite the adventure. We used ABF Upack. Basically, they dropped a huge trailer in front of our house and charged us for the number of feet that we use in the truck. The trailer was 28’ long. We thought that we would use about 20’ of it.

Saturday morning we had a good turnout of friends from church to help us load up. We started at 8 am and by about 11:30 we were all done. Everyone was really great and that thing was packed to the top. Final total - 22’. A little more than we had planned but not bad.

We were also moving things out of our office but the plan was for Trevor to put all of our office stuff in the back of the moving truck he was driving to Virginia (he was packing up and moving the same day). I called him at about 11:30 to see how he was doing. He was all done but there was one problem - there wasn’t any room left in his truck.

So, Trevor came up and we spent the rest of the day getting stuff out of our office, taking stuff out of Trevor’s truck, putting stuff in my trailer and repacking Trevor’s truck.

We didn’t finish until about 6pm. By the end both of our trucks were completely full.

We then had to get our refrigerator to Nathan’s house. There was no room left in the trucks so we just rolled it down the street. We got a lot of strange looks as we pushed it down the middle of the road.

On top of all of that we also had a going away party that night. We only showed up 40 minutes late.

We spent the first couple of days in La Canada with my parents and have spent the last week in Utah with Holly’s parents. Next week we will start the drive back east the hang out at Holly’s sister’s for a week until we can get into our place. We are anxious for this month to be over.

Brigham Has a Brain

This morning Brigham told me “I hate it when Granny Dot says that Heavenly Father gave me a brain.”

“When does she say that?”

“When I do something naughty at her house she says Heavenly Father gave me a brain to think. I hate it when she says that.”

Jacob Sings - Brigham Pontificates

The last Sunday before we left Valencia Jacob sang in Sacrament Meeting. He sang “I Like to Look for Rainbows.” That isn’t the right name but that is how the song starts.

We weren’t sure how it would go since sometimes when Jacob gets up in front of the microphone he starts to improv a bit. But he did great. He went up there with Holly and I played the piano. He started off a little soft and then said right into the microphone “Can I sing for Aunt Kiersten?”

Holly said yes and he began to belt it out. There wasn’t a dry eye in place after he was finished.

The high counselor got up several minutes later. He said, “I don’t know if this is something that Jacob does often but I am glad there were some other speakers so that I could compose myself before coming up here. That was truly angelic.’

“We look at Jacob and it is very easy to see all of his imperfections. But if we look through our spiritual eyes we see that we are the ones with imperfections. He is the perfect one among us.”

Brigham Pontificates

Brigham had to give his first talk in Primary. We talked the day before about what he wanted to talk about. He said he wanted to tell about when Joseph Smith got killed. We told him that that might be a little intense for the Junior Primary and maybe we should talk about something else.

So we went over the story of the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood and when Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were baptized. We also had a backup plan that told about the pioneers and “defining moments”.

Well, Sunday afternoon Brigham was sitting in the front of the Primary ready to give his talk. The Primary President announced “We will now have a talk by Brigham DeVore.” I was supposed to help him give his talk but before I could get out of my seat Brigham stepped up, placed both hands on the pulpit and said, “My name is Brigham DeVore and I am going to tell you about how Joseph Smith got killed.”

I ran up there and said “Brigham, why don’t we talk about something else first.”

“Ok Dad.”

So I asked him a few questions:

“When Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were translating the Book of Mormon what did they read about?”

“Baptism.”

“What did they do?”

“They went to the Susquehanna river.”

“Who did they see there?”

“John the Baptist.”

“What did he give them?”

“The Aaronic Priesthood.”

“Then what did they do?”

“They were baptized in the Susquehanna river.”

I had him tie up with some words about how he wanted to get baptized and then asked him to sit down. He slammed his hand down on the pulpit and yelled, “But I haven’t told them about how Joseph Smith got killed.” So we gave a quick summary about how Joseph Smith was killed and sat down.

Latest DeVore Stories

Brigham Cleans His Room

The other day I am on the phone in the hall and Brigham comes running out of his room naked. He throws the closet door open and grabs some Febreeze. I said, “Brigham, what are you doing?”

He responded, “I just need this real fast Dad” and started to run back to his room.

I grabbed the Febreeze from him and went to inspect. There were two poop stains on Jacob’s bed. Brigham had a baby wipe that he was using to furiously scrub them. When that didn’t appear to be working he had decided that he needed some Febreeze.

So, here is how it all happened. He had gone to the bathroom and some sort of accident had occurred where he had gotten his underwear and pants wet. He was embarrassed that he had had an accident so, after he was done on the toilet, instead of asking for help cleaning himself up like he is supposed to, he ran to his room to get some clean clothes. The problem is that he uses Jacob’s bed to climb up to get his underwear out of the top drawer of his dresser. When he sat with his naked and dirty bum on Jacob’s bed it left a mark. When he saw the mark he panicked because he knew Mommy would be upset so he instantly went to work cleaning up his mess.

Caleb

Caleb has turned into a smiley guy. He just hangs out all of the time and smiles. He just seems happy to be alive. Jacob really loves being around him. He is always trying to snuggle up to him and Caleb doesn’t seem to mind at all.

Lobster Night

Nathan received a Lobster-gram from a guy he works with and invited me over to enjoy it. It was incredible. There was lobster bisque, lobster cakes and the two biggest lobsters I have ever seen. We couldn’t finish it all. The two lobsters had arrived alive. Brigham came with us but wasn’t thrilled with the look of the whole lobsters.

Running Day

Yesterday was declared by Brigham to be running day. He got his running shirt and shoes on and he and I went running. We were just barely on the paseo and he started huffing and puffing, “Man, I’m getting really sweaty.”

Pirate Ships

Brigham got a “Black Pearl” pirate ship last night from Nathan and Kiersten for Christmas. He was so excited. We were then watching “Pirates of the Caribbean 2” and when I pointed out his boat in the movie he about went nuts.

Christmas Parties Galore

We have had quite a few Christmas parties this year and they have all been very fun. But the most memorable had to be the Spanish Ward’s party.

The whole family went and the kids had a blast. Santa Claus showed up and Brigham got a big green and silver Mexico soccer ball. He told us that he needs to go to Mexico to play soccer.

They had some musical numbers. Brigham and Jacob had a blast dancing. After the program they cleared away all of the tables so that everyone could dance. We decided it was time to go since it was already 9:45 pm. Brigham was very upset that we had left early. He told us that he wanted to stay and “Dance with the pretty girls.”

The Richmond Marathon

All I have to say is, “ooouch!” I actually have a little more to say but that is the overall theme of this post.

Yesterday Trevor and I ran the Richmand, VA marathon. Well, Trevor actually ran it and I more “barely finished it”.

I had been training for this for several months. We originally got involved with this because my sister wanted to run her first marathon. We did a quick search for a marathon that wouldn’t be on a Sunday and Richmond came up. It also said that it was ranked by Runner’s World as the county’s “friendliest” marathon. Well, that sounded like a good one for first timers.

Trevor had just run his first one in Salt Lake last June and decided he was up for another one. I had just had ACL surgery back in February but had sworn that I wouldn’t play basketball again until I finished a marathon. So we all decided to do it. We actually initially recruited some of my other siblings but they dropped out pretty quickly.

Tiffany ended up pulling a muscle several weeks before the race so it was just down to Trevor and me.

I felt like I was prepared. I had gotten in all of my long runs before the race and had done all right with them. The one thing I hadn’t done was much hill running (read “any hill running”) since, from my understanding, the Richmond Marathon hardly had any hills at all. I didn’t like running hills because they made me tired. I would find out later that that was a big mistake.



Race day was beautiful. We started and I was going at my slow and steady pace. The first 12 miles or so of the course was absolutely gorgeous. It was really incredible. But there were a few hills. They weren’t big hills but they were hills and in hindsight I probably should have taken it very easy on those hills. But I didn’t and by mile 13 I thought I was going to die. I remember thinking at mile 13, “What have I gotten myself into? I still have 13 miles to go.”

Up to that point I had run the entire way. My pattern quickly became, walk a mile and run a mile. Then it became run as far as you can and then walk until you can gain the mental fortitude to run again (I must say that at this point the difference in speed between me running and me walking was not that great - running just meaning that I bounced a little bit.

Holly and Heather had come as well as Heather’s sister Cassidy, her husband Matt, and Trevor and Heather’s friends Matt and Marsha with their four kids. Matt of Matt and Marsha found me at about mile 14 and then everyone else was waiting at mile 17 with some much appreciated oranges.

Here are some pictures of Trevor at mile 17.





Here is me at mile 17. I look much better than I felt.



By mile 20 there was nothing left. I began seeing people with medics on the side of the road with IV tubes and such. My one goal became not to get carried off by the medics. I remember passing the 20 mile marker. The time said “4:48:00” and I thought, “Trevor is probably done. I reeeeeally wish I were done.”

This is a picture of Trevor finishing.



I kept plodding along. I never imagined that I would want to quit as badly as I did.

Mile marker 25 was the best thing that I had ever seen and I decided I was going to run the entire last mile. I just kept pretending that I was forcing Jacob to walk and telling him, “One step more, one step more.”





I made it and it was more relief than anything. My muscles have never felt that kind of pain before. It is the next morning now and I can still very much feel it.



Am I glad I did it? Yes. As Trevor said, the marathon gets better the further you get away from it. I will definitely prepare differently next time.

And by the way, Richmond well deserves the title of Friendliest Marathon. It was extremely well organized and everyone was so nice. Hopefully I will be back next year to make a better showing.

Nacho and Woody

We have been involved in some of the pre-Halloween festivities here in SoCal. Last night Jacob, Brigham and I along with Granny Dot, Trevor, Heather, Luc, Nathan, Kiersten, Henry and Tiffany went to Disney’s California Adventure. They had a special deal that they closed the park at 6pm and then reopened it from 6:30 to 10:30 for a Halloween party. They only sold a limited number of tickets so it wasn’t crowded at all.



The kids had a blast. First up was Soarin’ over California. That is Jacob’s favorite. It was Brigham’s first time and he wasn’t too sure about it.

Next we went over by the Monsters ride. The ride fun but the big hit was dancing with Sully afterwards. Jacob got up out of the stroller and was going wild. He didn’t want to leave.



They had Trick or Treat stands set up all over the place and everything was really fun. Jacob went as Woody and Brigham was Nacho Libre.

Tonight we went to our Ward’s Trunk or Treat. Brigham was a little nervous about going in his costume. At first he didn’t want to show anyone. But as he walked around with his bag everyone kept commenting on how cool he looked. 



After just a few of those comments all inhibitions were gone. He was flexing his muscles, calling out “Nachooooo!”, and striking poses with his “stretchy pants.” Several people wanted to take pictures of him. The best was when he was trying to pose and kept falling over because of the poses he was trying to hold.

Holly made the costume and really did an amazing job. She also decked out Jacob’s walker with horses. She was done up as Annie while I just went as my boring self.




PS
Brigham came in our room this morning and said "Nacho wants to snuggle with Daddy Warbucks" (the outfit I had worn to a Halloween party a week ago).

He also wanted some of his candy this morning. I told him he coudn't have any until lunch. He said, "But I don't feel well and candy makes me feel better."

Henry Mayo 5k

Today the family did a 5k in Valencia. Well, some of us. I woke everyone up at 7am. Brigham was furious. He kept saying, “I want one more nap.”

We got everyone down to Henry Mayo hospital. First came the 1k kiddy run. Brigham took this very seriously. Basically the kids ran around a long center island in the parking lot twice. Brigham was nervous about what to do so we told him that all he had to do was follow the big clown (he was the pace setter).

The race started and they were off. Brigham went running off with all of the kids.

We waited for them to come around the curve - camera ready. First cam then clown with the fastest kids. And then some more kids. And some more. And then the announce said, “Here comes the end of the pack,” but still no Brigham.

We looked on the other side of the loop and there was Brigham jogging along looking a little confused. I went up to him and grabbed his hand and helped him make it to the finish line.

After the race Brigham said to me, “I was a little lost, but you rescued me daddy.”

Next came the 5k. Jacob wore our number and had a great time. The course went through the paseos of Valencia and was really fun. Jacob kept clapping and said, “Is Jacob having fun in the stroller?” We didn’t break any speed records but we did all right.

Holly got to go through a Baby Expo the hospital was having and we came home with more free baby stuff than you can imagine.

Blue Mango in the Ensign

If you check out page 48 of the October Ensign you will see one of our VRs from Virtual Historian. The Church has used a bunch of VRs on the Joseph Smith site. If you want to see more of them check here.

Last Sunday Jacob spent the evening singing for us. I played all the Primary Songs that I thought he knew and he belted out each one. His pitch is really amazing. He is always right on.

What was even more amazing was that he would keep going with the song even when I was messing up. He kept right in time (except for a few times when I really messed up - my piano skills are pretty rusty).
It was great to see him get so excited after he sung each song.

He also played “I Love to Look for Rainbows” for us. He can pick the notes out by ear. Hopefully we will be able to get a piano soon so he can really start working on this.

Some Recent Brigham Quotes

We asked Brigham, “Are you cute?”
He responded, “No, I’m gorgeous.”

Last night we were talking about baby names and Brigham said, “The one I chose was Superman, Superman DeVore.”

Brigham at the Dodgers Game

Brigham got to go to the Dodgers game last Friday. He got to sit in Papa’s seats (which are right behind 1st base). But the highlight of the night was sitting in the Dodgers car. We went up the escalator multiple times to see it again.
He also got some “Shrek” ears which was pretty exciting.

Caleb Comes Home

Caleb John DeVore came home today. I had some early Church meetings then I headed over to the hospital to get Holly.
This was all supposed to happen tomorrow (on an even day) but Caleb had different plans. Wednesday afternoon at about 4:30 Holly called me at work to tell me that her water had broken. I rushed home and we threw things together (we really weren’t that ready since we were scheduled for a C-section on Monday the 18th). We dropped the kids off at my parents and headed into the hospital.

Holly really wanted an even birthday so she was hoping that they would delay the C-section until after midnight (Wednesday was the 13th). But that wasn’t to be. Shortly after we arrived the nurse came in and said, “Dr. Ostercamp” wants to do this in 45 minutes.

About an hour later he had arrived. The C-section went smoothly. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 10 oz. - just one ounce off of what my father had predicted with his ultrasound measurements.
The only hitch in the whole thing was that we didn’t have a name for him. So far that night and almost all of the next day he was “Cousin IT”.

We narrowed it down to Adam and Ryan but neither one felt right. By Thursday night we were to the point that we were flipping coins (the name I liked won 5 out of 6 times). But still neither one “felt” right. So we threw them both out and started over. Caleb John just seemed right. My Dad says that he is going to call him Kolob but we think he will eventually get the pronunciation correct.

The boys have approached the change cautiously. Brigham was fascinated when I showed him the pictures of Caleb but didn’t want to go near him in the hospital. He likes to look at him just doesn’t want to hold him because “he is too small.” Brigham has a tendency to break things so maybe he doesn’t want to risk damaging baby brother.



Brigham always wanted to come to the hospital though. He had an especially good time creating his “comfy chair” with the pillows.

He eventually warmed up to Caleb but will often say “I want Daddy to hold Caleb” when Holly is feeding him.





The picture above pretty much sums up Jacob’s feelings about the whole thing. We put Caleb on his lap and he about jumped out of the chair. He is pretty much like Brigham. He likes to admire Caleb from a distance.
Caleb arrived home today at around noon. His brothers are still at their grandparents’ house. We will see how it goes once everyone arrives here.