Declarations of Love

For scripture study tonight we listened to THIS story from the Friend Magazine.

We discussed the story and I was bearing testimony about the importance of family. I was trying to help the boys understand (in little boy terms) that I love our family more than anything and that they are the most important thing in the world to me. To get my point across I said something like "If someone gave me the choice of a MILLION DOLLARS or you... I would choose you. There is nothing in this world I would rather have than you (meaning Jack and Aly) and Truman (who was sleeping in bed) and your Daddy." Jack's eyes got wide and he interrupted my next statement with an unasked for declaration of love of his own:

"If I could have a thousand TV's and be able to watch any show that I wanted on all of them... I would still choose you."

then

"Wait! If I could have a SHARK, a SPIDER, a SCORPION, and a SNAKE I would still choose you!"

then

"I would give up everything I ever learned about spiders for you."

and even

"I would play a game of circle dodge SWORD... not BALL... without even having a sword to defend myself and without armor... for you."

and finally

"I would rather have you than Owen and Ethan to be my friends and everything else I said!"

Now I don't know if you have had a conversation with Jack Edward lately, but if you had, you would know how much those statements mean.

I mean, come on! He loves us more than the 4 Big S's?!? Woah man. Woah... Those 4 S's are the reason he gets out of bed in the morning... the air he breathes... the sunshine in his soul! Owning even just ONE of them is his current highest aspiration in life. He is constantly reading, talking, hypothesizing, comparing, watching (Netflix has National Geographic shows) make believing, and thinking about them. I would say that 80% of my conversations with Jack surround them... particularly spiders.

And Ethan and Owen? His best friends since Kindergarten. Family over Friends? Huzzah! He's learning!

Alaster also said some really sweet things (Mostly variations of what Jack said, but we could still feel the love!) and Corey said he would choose us over every tool in the world and a cabin in Alaska.

Completely sweet, un-asked for and happy unexpected moments like these are the ones that make the hard times worth it.