Yep, I mistyped pieoneer in the subject, but it amused me so I left it. So then I went to mention it, and typed it wrong AGAIN. But I like the idea of PIEoneer day, so I'm leaving that one, too. Next year, that will be my official holiday title.
We haven't updated in a while, but rather than catch up, anyway, bla bla behind . . .
Gary's triumph of the week was going to the dentist to get a cavity fixed (it was just a tiny thing), and not using any Novacaine. According to him, it was amazing. Hmmm.
Two weeks ago I spent most of the week in South Jordan at a teaching conference (trying to keep up my license). It was so great, and I'm excited about what I learned. However, I always start off those conferences thinking I need to find a way to get back into teaching right away, and end up thinking, "never mind." I had a colossal allergy attack the first day (Zyrtec, Allegra, Pseudafed, Benadryl, and Flonase were all called into action). The allergies gradually subsided, and a sinus infection was left behind. Also, I had to sit on a donut due to my broken tail bone. So, while I had a great time, it was embarrassing to be the girl sitting on a donut blowing her nose with a large box of tissues in hand. Feel free to make fun of me!
One of our best family moments in the last couple of weeks was our trip to the D.I. We didn't score a dresser like we hoped, but we laughed like crazy. Josh and Noah bought Star Wars and Mulan with their Great-Aunt birthday money (they are very pumped), and stayed so entertained with all of the toys while Gary and I looked around and imagined finishing grand projects. We decided it's a great activity - the kids are excited about the new-to-them toys, and we don't have to feel bad because they're all just dumped in the bin anyway. Highlight - Noah picked out a toy for everyone, and the one he picked out for Gary was an extremely muscular army guy wearing a full-on camo battle jacket . . . and no pants. He said, "Dad, this is for you. But he needs a diaper." Probably had to be there, but I was, so I'm chuckling.
My sinus infection is almost gone, it seems Andrews perma-cold never will be, some projects got done this holiday weekend, but it's slow. But we'll get there. We almost didn't celebrate pioneer day, but Gary decided he'd like to try a place in the boonies called the Miner's Cafe. Seemed fitting. So, we enjoyed burgers and Brigham's Brew rootbeer, just as our ancestors did. After we were home with our kids asleep, Gary decided to further the date by watching Weezer videos on Youtube. It was fun, but when it drifted to Everclear, we needed something to pick us up. I turned the computer around, and when Gary saw it again, he was watching the Boyz II Men "Motown Philly" video. It was incredible, we decided we need to dress as them for Halloween. Gary was pretty proud of my find, but decided to try and top it, and turned the computer around. When I saw the screen again, I beheld . . . Nelson, "Can't Live Without Your Love." Speechless. We tried to top ourselves, but it couldn't really be done, although of note was the Van Halen "Jump" video ("He's really flexible," Gary noted.).
On the way out of nursery yesterday, Noah told his teacher, "Thank you for coming." So probably she looked the other way when he bolted to the front during sacrament meeting.
Oh, I was done, but I have mention that Andrew is getting the funniest little personality. He interacts with us and gets excited at even little bits of attention. The other night he was sucking on a bottle of shoe gel (it was closed), and suddenly put it up to my mouth. When I pretended to suck on it he started belly-laughing. He held it up to my mouth over and over, and then to Gary's, and the joke never got old. Then he found the bottle again the next day and held it up to Josh. He's so cute. And our only child who goes to bed when he should (am I cursing myself?)
Okay, happy end-of-July!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
"Pace Yourself"
Nope, this isn't an inspirational bit about taking life a little at a time, although I have thought about writing one (and ironically haven't had time). It's just my monthly updates turning into weekly updates. The purpose of the monthly updates was that I was writing them a week at a time, but not publishing them until the end of the month because I didn't expect that anyone would want to read them, and was just slapping them on the blog for myself, for later.
However, when I was at my cousin's wedding, one of my cousins said, "I read your blog, but not when you publish this much at a time," and held up his hands two feet apart. I started trying to explain why I did it, but everyone at the table started agreeing. Somebody said, "Pace yourself." So, for the love of family, here is last week:
This week was our shut-in week since Josh and Andrew had surgeries on Monday morning. They all had colds before the surgeries, so that didn't help a ton, and then Noah decided the middle child could not be forgotten and developed croup. So, I did a lot of holding boys and cutting otter pops this week. On Thursday Josh was feeling better enough that he got high on his Lortab (watched TV upside down on his head), so that was an improvement, I guess. By Friday the kids were feeling better enough to have a Justin Bieber dance party. You've got to see their moves, it's hilarious. The dancing was followed by a nice crash (nap).
We were also able to get our van half-way fixed this week (it was broken down when I got back from girls' camp). So, we're half-way to driving it again, and that's good. Although it was crazy with three needy boys this week we were SO blessed to have a couple of friends make us dinner, so all we had to worry about was dispensing medication. Also, my mom was here on Monday to help out with boys and get them some new movies, which was awesome. On Saturday Gary fixed most of our sprinklers that weren't working, so that was manly and should help our lawn.
Some neighbors were doing fireworks on Saturday night so we went outside to watch, and of course the boys were fascinated. Noah helped out by trying to blow them out from accross the street. Somebody gave us a pack of sparklers and Josh put them in the diaper bag before church. Sacrament meeting sure was interesting. (I just wanted to say that, for some reason I didn't light them until later.)
Our first outing following invalid week was - family 4th of July! So good to see everyone, especially out-of-staters we rarely see. Andrew tried to get to know everybody since he's one of the new kids, and decided to start out by sucking on Uncle Christian's legs. Then later on, Uncle Taylor poured a glass of ice water on his head. He's one of the family now. Do I need to say the food was delicious? Yummm. Chatting, the Brent Fireworks Show, awesome . . . Poor Josh had a little too much fun; his throat has been killing him ever since we got home. It's okay, though, it was his most fun all week, and we have two boxes of otter pops.
However, when I was at my cousin's wedding, one of my cousins said, "I read your blog, but not when you publish this much at a time," and held up his hands two feet apart. I started trying to explain why I did it, but everyone at the table started agreeing. Somebody said, "Pace yourself." So, for the love of family, here is last week:
This week was our shut-in week since Josh and Andrew had surgeries on Monday morning. They all had colds before the surgeries, so that didn't help a ton, and then Noah decided the middle child could not be forgotten and developed croup. So, I did a lot of holding boys and cutting otter pops this week. On Thursday Josh was feeling better enough that he got high on his Lortab (watched TV upside down on his head), so that was an improvement, I guess. By Friday the kids were feeling better enough to have a Justin Bieber dance party. You've got to see their moves, it's hilarious. The dancing was followed by a nice crash (nap).
We were also able to get our van half-way fixed this week (it was broken down when I got back from girls' camp). So, we're half-way to driving it again, and that's good. Although it was crazy with three needy boys this week we were SO blessed to have a couple of friends make us dinner, so all we had to worry about was dispensing medication. Also, my mom was here on Monday to help out with boys and get them some new movies, which was awesome. On Saturday Gary fixed most of our sprinklers that weren't working, so that was manly and should help our lawn.
Some neighbors were doing fireworks on Saturday night so we went outside to watch, and of course the boys were fascinated. Noah helped out by trying to blow them out from accross the street. Somebody gave us a pack of sparklers and Josh put them in the diaper bag before church. Sacrament meeting sure was interesting. (I just wanted to say that, for some reason I didn't light them until later.)
Our first outing following invalid week was - family 4th of July! So good to see everyone, especially out-of-staters we rarely see. Andrew tried to get to know everybody since he's one of the new kids, and decided to start out by sucking on Uncle Christian's legs. Then later on, Uncle Taylor poured a glass of ice water on his head. He's one of the family now. Do I need to say the food was delicious? Yummm. Chatting, the Brent Fireworks Show, awesome . . . Poor Josh had a little too much fun; his throat has been killing him ever since we got home. It's okay, though, it was his most fun all week, and we have two boxes of otter pops.
Updates June
Due to a conversaton with my cousin, I probably won't be posting a month at a time, at least for a while. But here's June anyway. Interesting fact - only the first week was ever read by Gary's family since things were too crazy for me to write until later. I mean, interesting to me.
June 6:
Andrew has moved on from yoga and started crawling this week. He's making me very aware of what we leave on the floor - I've already had the need twice to pop him on the back to get him to cough up a wad of paper. Just now he took the doorstop off the wall, and is trying to eat a book he saw sticking out from under the couch. The journey has begun! Josh has been a super great brother, and loves playing "follow the leader" with Andrew, getting him to follow Josh all around the room. Andrew also belly-laughs when Josh makes funny noises, and it's adorable.
Josh and Noah might watch too much Diego. We showed up at playgroup on Friday and Noah yelled, "Yo, rescue pack here!" Also, when I went to print something yesterday there were no cartridges in the printer, only yogurt smears on the outside. I haven't found the ink yet. Not assigning blame for sure, but putting it in the same paragraph as Noah.
We've being doing regular stuff (lots of it), and trying to put stuff back together after being out of town, so I'll just end with the thing that amused Gary and I this morning. I was putting together an object lesson for RS that involved a bag of small red beans I've had open since 2003 when I used them for a school project. Noah kept asking, "What do you have? Can I have it?" So I gave him one. Josh saw him chewing on it and immediately asked, "What does Noah have?" I said, "An old, dry bean." And Gary and I laughed and laughed . . . how many times when your kids were jumping to eat what you're eating and get what their siblings are getting have you wanted to say something like, "An old, dry bean."? But it was true! Gary thinks we should do that more often so they don't always think they're missing out on something good.
Hmmmm . . . Noah has a plastic lizard named Cricket whose mommy is his stuffed pig. He's Piggy's dad, and he nurses him. Josh had his last soccer game of the season, and we were proud of his hustling skills (the good kind). That's all, folks!
Should have been June 14:
Yeah, I feel off the weekly updates wagon. Crazy busy, but I made these notes to remind myself what we did. First of all, weaning, this is the week we started it (although it took a while). So sad, so time consuming. So that's last of all. We had our first "stuff stuck up the nose" experience with Josh. He came inside crying because he couldn't get something out of his nose, but he wouldn't tell me what. When I couldn't get it out with traditional methods I filled a syringe with water and plunged it up his nose. Success!! Crappy past experiences sure paid off. Oh, it was this piece of a foam puzzle, I'd say significantly large for his nose. I had a chuckle at the whole thing.
One interesting thing I did this week was learn how to make all sorts of stuff out of beans. (Benefits of overseeing food storage in the ward.) As in, using beans instead of butter. Favorite was fudge out of refried beans, serious.
By Friday night I was absolutely beat, and Gary walked in with Butterfinger ice cream and "The Blind Side." The ice cream had lots of candy in it and the movie was great . . . the simple things make it all better.
On Saturday we got together with Gary's family for his brother's birthday. It's always good to see everyone, and I enjoyed myself, although I was exhausted and mentally gone before I got there. Our nephew Luke sang and played the piano adorably, then his ornery cousin Noah came up and said, "I'm playing the piano now, Luke." Hmmm. I hope that's not reflective of us.
As for the weaning. Doesn't sound like it should be dramatic, but every woman I talked about it with totally understood why I was on the verge of tears for a week. One girl almost started crying herself. I didn't start out wanting to totally wean Andrew, but he just would not go for the bottle at all (even though he used to, that's another story that ends with the legislative session stinks sometimes), so we had to go 100%. Of course there are a million things people could say, "Well, did you try ___?" Answer is probably, yes, or there's a good reason we didn't. When we totally made him start bottle feeding he wouldn't really eat much for more than a day. He would look at me with his big, brown Bambi eyes, begging for a meal. I would hold him and he would dive at me, and my heart just broke over and over. My poor baby was used to me snuggling him and providing him with his nourishment, and now I was denying him. I was a wreck inside, and every now and then I'd start crying, "I just want to feed my baby, Gary." Plus, it was time-consuming. We had to try all the different bottles, find the right nipples, wash the bottles and the pump components, buy formula, pump, and also fight him on every meal . . . argh. And it's not like I wasn't trying to get anything else done. From this vantage point a couple of weeks later, it's okay, but then I would have had even more to say about it. Good or bad thing I didn't have time to write until now? I am determined that this will end up to be a blessing somehow, or else I wouldn't have done it. I have nursed him a couple of times since camp, but it's just not happening anymore, and now I'm okay with it. I'm glad for the extra chances, though. Oh, my sweet baby Andrew . . .
Last week of June. Actually, I skipped a week, but that happens in retrospect. The weaning thing was during the skipped week, as were crazy camp preparations, as well as getting many other things squared away before leaving. Anyway, here's the last week:
I was at girls' camp. Amazing people helped watch my kids, and Gary fed them hot dogs and pizza. I got home on cloud nine, but the kids were sick and my neck wouldn't move the next day. Oh, well. I was SOOO blessed to have people help out, and the kids are lucky to have a fantastic dad that plays with them. Which, in turn, makes me lucky as well. Gary wanted to watch a movie with me to celebrate being together again, and I thought the kids-with-a-disease-Harrison-Ford-movie looked interesting. However, when he said he'd rather watch New Moon than that, I decided after a week with the kids he deserved to watch Sherlock Holmes like he wanted. After we rented it I was barely awake, but being clean and with my man was nice.
On Saturday Noah was singing "Happy Birthday" to everyone in the house - Mom, Dad, Josh, Noah . . . I pointed out he'd forgotten someone, and he named everyone again the same way. Then I said, "What about Andrew?" "Andrew is too little to eat cake," was his reply.
Oh, and we went to my cousin's wedding before camp. It's fun to see my cousins, and makes me want to see them more often. We had a close shave with leaving Noah at the reception, but he found me before I could really go, thank heaven.
June 6:
Andrew has moved on from yoga and started crawling this week. He's making me very aware of what we leave on the floor - I've already had the need twice to pop him on the back to get him to cough up a wad of paper. Just now he took the doorstop off the wall, and is trying to eat a book he saw sticking out from under the couch. The journey has begun! Josh has been a super great brother, and loves playing "follow the leader" with Andrew, getting him to follow Josh all around the room. Andrew also belly-laughs when Josh makes funny noises, and it's adorable.
Josh and Noah might watch too much Diego. We showed up at playgroup on Friday and Noah yelled, "Yo, rescue pack here!" Also, when I went to print something yesterday there were no cartridges in the printer, only yogurt smears on the outside. I haven't found the ink yet. Not assigning blame for sure, but putting it in the same paragraph as Noah.
We've being doing regular stuff (lots of it), and trying to put stuff back together after being out of town, so I'll just end with the thing that amused Gary and I this morning. I was putting together an object lesson for RS that involved a bag of small red beans I've had open since 2003 when I used them for a school project. Noah kept asking, "What do you have? Can I have it?" So I gave him one. Josh saw him chewing on it and immediately asked, "What does Noah have?" I said, "An old, dry bean." And Gary and I laughed and laughed . . . how many times when your kids were jumping to eat what you're eating and get what their siblings are getting have you wanted to say something like, "An old, dry bean."? But it was true! Gary thinks we should do that more often so they don't always think they're missing out on something good.
Hmmmm . . . Noah has a plastic lizard named Cricket whose mommy is his stuffed pig. He's Piggy's dad, and he nurses him. Josh had his last soccer game of the season, and we were proud of his hustling skills (the good kind). That's all, folks!
Should have been June 14:
Yeah, I feel off the weekly updates wagon. Crazy busy, but I made these notes to remind myself what we did. First of all, weaning, this is the week we started it (although it took a while). So sad, so time consuming. So that's last of all. We had our first "stuff stuck up the nose" experience with Josh. He came inside crying because he couldn't get something out of his nose, but he wouldn't tell me what. When I couldn't get it out with traditional methods I filled a syringe with water and plunged it up his nose. Success!! Crappy past experiences sure paid off. Oh, it was this piece of a foam puzzle, I'd say significantly large for his nose. I had a chuckle at the whole thing.
One interesting thing I did this week was learn how to make all sorts of stuff out of beans. (Benefits of overseeing food storage in the ward.) As in, using beans instead of butter. Favorite was fudge out of refried beans, serious.
By Friday night I was absolutely beat, and Gary walked in with Butterfinger ice cream and "The Blind Side." The ice cream had lots of candy in it and the movie was great . . . the simple things make it all better.
On Saturday we got together with Gary's family for his brother's birthday. It's always good to see everyone, and I enjoyed myself, although I was exhausted and mentally gone before I got there. Our nephew Luke sang and played the piano adorably, then his ornery cousin Noah came up and said, "I'm playing the piano now, Luke." Hmmm. I hope that's not reflective of us.
As for the weaning. Doesn't sound like it should be dramatic, but every woman I talked about it with totally understood why I was on the verge of tears for a week. One girl almost started crying herself. I didn't start out wanting to totally wean Andrew, but he just would not go for the bottle at all (even though he used to, that's another story that ends with the legislative session stinks sometimes), so we had to go 100%. Of course there are a million things people could say, "Well, did you try ___?" Answer is probably, yes, or there's a good reason we didn't. When we totally made him start bottle feeding he wouldn't really eat much for more than a day. He would look at me with his big, brown Bambi eyes, begging for a meal. I would hold him and he would dive at me, and my heart just broke over and over. My poor baby was used to me snuggling him and providing him with his nourishment, and now I was denying him. I was a wreck inside, and every now and then I'd start crying, "I just want to feed my baby, Gary." Plus, it was time-consuming. We had to try all the different bottles, find the right nipples, wash the bottles and the pump components, buy formula, pump, and also fight him on every meal . . . argh. And it's not like I wasn't trying to get anything else done. From this vantage point a couple of weeks later, it's okay, but then I would have had even more to say about it. Good or bad thing I didn't have time to write until now? I am determined that this will end up to be a blessing somehow, or else I wouldn't have done it. I have nursed him a couple of times since camp, but it's just not happening anymore, and now I'm okay with it. I'm glad for the extra chances, though. Oh, my sweet baby Andrew . . .
Last week of June. Actually, I skipped a week, but that happens in retrospect. The weaning thing was during the skipped week, as were crazy camp preparations, as well as getting many other things squared away before leaving. Anyway, here's the last week:
I was at girls' camp. Amazing people helped watch my kids, and Gary fed them hot dogs and pizza. I got home on cloud nine, but the kids were sick and my neck wouldn't move the next day. Oh, well. I was SOOO blessed to have people help out, and the kids are lucky to have a fantastic dad that plays with them. Which, in turn, makes me lucky as well. Gary wanted to watch a movie with me to celebrate being together again, and I thought the kids-with-a-disease-Harrison-Ford-movie looked interesting. However, when he said he'd rather watch New Moon than that, I decided after a week with the kids he deserved to watch Sherlock Holmes like he wanted. After we rented it I was barely awake, but being clean and with my man was nice.
On Saturday Noah was singing "Happy Birthday" to everyone in the house - Mom, Dad, Josh, Noah . . . I pointed out he'd forgotten someone, and he named everyone again the same way. Then I said, "What about Andrew?" "Andrew is too little to eat cake," was his reply.
Oh, and we went to my cousin's wedding before camp. It's fun to see my cousins, and makes me want to see them more often. We had a close shave with leaving Noah at the reception, but he found me before I could really go, thank heaven.
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