Another Long Post

So, we’ve had a nice Thanksgiving week. Last Saturday night my parents and my brothers got into town and it was really nice to have them here. On Sunday we made up a big dinner and the Barkers came over to enjoy it with us. We had fun talking and the kids enjoyed running around the house and playing together. Kolby and Eli had no preschool this week for the holiday, and Kolby’s piano teacher was out of town so his next lesson will be this upcoming Wednesday. He has been practicing the piano almost every day and does really well at it (when he’s not in too much of a goofy mood). I asked him to practice this morning while I was collecting all of the boys’ Sunday clothes before church, and he came downstairs a little later, very excited to tell me that the second time he plaid “Up on the House Top” he didn’t look at his book and played it all from memory. How cute!

So, this week we got to do a lot of fun activities with my family here. On Monday we found out that my sister, Michelle, is having a little girl. They are going to name her Elizabeth Faun Conde, and call her Lizzie, so that is exciting. And then on Monday evening my mom and I went to several Christmas stores just to look at things, we ate at a fun little German deli downtown where my mom and sister had eaten once before Jenn left on her mission, and then we ended up going to a mall and my mom got these cute little outfits for each of the boys for their Christmas gifts. And then on Tuesday morning my brother Matthew had a tour at BYU in Provo. We all drove down and while my parents and brothers went on the tour, Grandma and the boys and I searched out my favorite old BYU professor, Brother Minert, and we were lucky enough to find him in his office when we showed up. I knew he would remember me, because he is the kind of teacher that really gets involved with his students and invites them and their families over to his home for a dinner with the whole class, but he and his wife also came to Kolby’s baby blessing at church when we lived in Provo, and last year they were on a trip in Milwaukee and stopped by our apartment to visit. But I was so impressed when I showed up, and Brother Minert introduced me to his office assistant, and started telling her all about how we lived in Milwaukee and we were here in Salt Lake for the year and then moving next year for Michael’s residency – have you ever had a college teacher who remembered you so well? Anyways, that just felt nice. It was fun to see him for a few minutes, until the boys got too rowdy and we had to say goodbye. Then we met up with my family in the bookstore. My mom wanted to make a slideshow presentation for her ward’s Christmas Enrichment activity with pictures of Christ that went along with the song, “Mary, Did You Know?,” so she was looking for little prints of pictures and a CD that we could use for that. She also found a nice Christmas book for the boys – they get one for them each year. Then we headed over to Hogi Yogi for lunch – I don’t know why, but it seems like all the Hogi Yogi’s in Utah are gone except the one near the BYU campus – too bad, we always enjoyed their food. After leaving Provo, we drove up to Heber to take a look at my grandpa’s house. The people who were renting it have recently finished building their home and moved out, so my parents are looking in to selling it. We spent a while going through some boxes of old papers and stuff in the house, and then stopped for a quick visit to Grandpa’s old friend, Dee, before heading back to Salt Lake.

On Wednesday Michael had an early day, so it was nice for him to be home with us too. After he finished working, he called us and we all went and met him at the hospital so he could give us a short tour of where he works. Then Dad and Grandma Faun went to Costco, Michael, Matthew, Aaron, and the boys headed home, and Mom and I went to the grocery store to get all the Thanksgiving foods. We got home that evening and prepared food for several hours. We ended up with three batches of Grandma Moore’s jello salad with the bananas and 7-Up in it (my favorite Thanksgiving dish), a bowl of mom’s layered green salad with the red onions, pees, and bacon, a triple-batch of Mamaw’s fruit salad with the marshmallows, and about 9 plates of turkey cookies that the kids helped decorate after dinner. (I’ll have to get the pictures from my camera and post them later – the older three boys had fun decorating, and Isaac had fun munching on cookies while we did that).

On Thursday morning Michael and I got to sleep in, and then we got all ready and headed to Grandma Bradshaw’s house for Thanksgiving with Michael’s family. Michael was lucky enough to get the day off of work, which we were glad because he thought he might miss his family being in town if he had ended up having to work that day. We were disappointed that Alan and Jenn and Jennie and Dalin didn’t come. (Happy Birthday to Dalin, by the way – his birthday was the day after Thanksgiving). We got over to Grandma Bradshaw’s house around 10:30 in the morning, and after a long day of eating good food and pies, the boys playing ball in the back yard with Daddy, plenty of video games, a game of Apples to Apples, and a fun game of Ticket to Ride, we headed home around 11:30pm. It was nice to be able to spend the day with Michael’s family, and I think the boys did quite well for being at someone else’s house all day long.

On Friday morning Matthew and Aaron watched the boys while I went with Mom, Dad, and Grandma Faun to Heber to finish up at Grandpa’s house. We got the entire garage organized, made a trip to the dumpster, and took a few things back with us. So, now the house is pretty much ready to sell. We also drove up to the Lake Creek property to take a look around (the person who owns property downhill from Grandpa’s property doesn’t have water rights, and Grandpa did have the water rights, I guess, and so this other man has been breaking up the pipes and stuff that go from the ponds on Grandpa’s property to divert the water down to his land. I guess this man had been doing this even before my Grandpa died, but now there is no one to do anything about it, so the upper pond has been drained quite a bit). Anyways, we walked around both ponds – and I found that I wore the wrong shoes to go trudging through the snow in. Then we headed back to Salt Lake, picked up my brothers and the boys, and went straight to the movie theater to meet Dick and Debbie and the rest of the family. (Grandma Faun was nice enough to stay home with Isaac, which made it so we could actually stay inside the theater for the entire movie). We saw the new Disney movie, Bolt, about a dog. Kolby and Eli enjoyed it, and Camden sat still and watched for about 30 minutes or so, and then it lost his attention and he spent the rest of the time climbing up and down from all of our different laps, but did pretty good at not disrupting people around us – I think he did well for his first movie in a theater. Afterwards the boys enjoyed running around in the hallway with their cousin, Jaden, for a while before we had to leave. After we got home, Michael got home too and we ate a late dinner and put the boys down for bed. Michael fell asleep on the couch, and I went upstairs to help Mom work on that slideshow for her Enrichment activity. While we were working on that, Mom and Dad were helping Matthew try to cut down the word count for his college application essays, and he finally got that all finished and submitted around midnight. (It’s a good thing he got that finished, because he was using my Grandma’s computer to type them up, and her computer ended up crashing later on that night and hasn’t turned on since then, so we were glad that he didn’t lose all of his work before he was able to submit his application). Mom and I ended up staying up very late that night trying to finish that slideshow. I was proud of Mom – she has become more computer savvy over the last year or so, and when I showed her how to scan the pictures for the slideshow she learned how to use the scanner and adjust the custom settings for higher resolutions and everything. She had scanned all the photos earlier in the week, so we worked on getting them all on the slideshow and deciding which ones to use and what order to use them in so they coordinated with the words in the song. We were up until 4am working on that, and in the morning I worked on it for a couple more hours and got it all finished up (I had some pictures that needed to be edited in Photoshop, and I added the music and adjusted the timing of each slide to go with the music). I was very pleased with how it turned out (I really wanted to post it on the blog, but I’m afraid of copyright infringement – my dad was saying that even though my mom paid for the prints of the pictures that we used, we didn’t have permission to make a slideshow out of it, so I guess I’ll leave it off. Better safe than sorry). So my family got all packed up and cleaned up the house and headed out around 3:00pm yesterday. I’m glad that it sounds like they got home safely. We haven’t heard from Michael’s parents yet, but hopefully their drive back to Boise yesterday was also uneventful.

Today was Michael’s short day, so he had to be at the hospital during church, but he just got home while I was writing this, so that’ll be nice to have him here this evening. Church was pretty long today. Isaac especially had a hard time. He was very happy when we walked into church this morning, but as soon as I tried to walk into my classroom he started screaming. I went back in the hall and he was just fine. So I tried again, and he did the same thing. We tried about 6 times with the same results. I tried putting him in the stroller, carrying him in my arms, holding his hand and letting him walk in, and going in and sitting down and letting him crawl in after me – none of these different ways of getting into the classroom worked. Someone even got a chair for me and set it right outside the classroom door, and he cried most every time I sat down in that chair too (there were a couple times I sat down in the chair by the door and he wasn’t sad, but he started playing with the bulletin board that was on the wall just outside the classroom and making such loud noises that he was distracting people in the class). So, we spent that entire hour out in the hallway. When the people started walking out when the class was over, Isaac seemed ok going in finally, so we went into the second class. After about 15 minutes of moving around in the back of the classroom, trying to keep Isaac from taking peoples’ papers and being noisy, I just took him out. We picked up the other boys at the end of their classes and went to Sacrament meeting, and after a few minutes Isaac and I were out in the hall again. Near the end of the meeting I was in the hall with Camden and Isaac on my lap, and Isaac finally fell asleep (and then I had to wake him up when I put him in the stroller to go home at the end of church). Oh well. I guess there must be some kind of special blessings for parents who endure going to church with ornery little ones (even when they can’t get much out of it).

So, we had a nice Thanksgiving week, and I hope that all of you did too. This upcoming week should be pretty nice – when I flipped the calendar to December, it was nice to see a lot of blank days that haven’t filled up with busy days (yet). We are looking forward to a Christmas party for Michael and the other interns on Tuesday (the first time we have had an intern activity with everyone since the orientation in June). And a ward Christmas movie night on Friday night should be fun, since Michael should have a short day at work that day.

And then I have another doctor’s appointment coming up in not too long – I can’t believe that I’ll hit 30 weeks tomorrow. I have to say – with my first three pregnancies, by the time that I got to about this point in the pregnancy I was ready to be done, and once I hit the last few weeks I was absolutely ready for that baby to come. But with the last pregnancy and with this one, I have been more patient (although I did feel like I was ready when it got to the last week or so with Isaac). But I guess I know enough now to know that when this baby comes it will be more work and less sleep, so I’m ok with waiting for it to happen when it should. I guess the thing that keeps running through my head is something that I wondered about after Isaac was born and he was in the NICU. I remember then having a thought that maybe that whole experience with Isaac was some kind of preparation for Michael and I, like maybe our next baby would be premature and have to be in the hospital even longer than Isaac was. And I have to tell you, that when Isaac was in the hospital, that was probably the worst part of my life so far – even though the doctors all reassured us that he would be fine and that after he recovered from his surgery there would be no further issued and that Michael and I would be the only ones who even really remembered all that happening – I still had a really hard time with going back and forth between the hospital and home without him for 2 ½ weeks, and in my head I still worried about him dying, even though everything told me that wasn’t logical. But it was quite a trial for me, and I remember thinking that maybe it was some kind of preparation for something that would happen later on in our lives. And even though I never really felt like our family was “finished” with our four boys, I discussed with Michael after we had Isaac possibly not having another baby, because what if something where to go wrong and we had to go through something worse than all that? We decided that we shouldn’t change our plans for our family just because of the possibility that something might go wrong, but that thought has been in my head during this pregnancy. (Not that I feel like something is going to be wrong with this baby or like I’m having any kind of premonition or anything, but I’ve just had the memory of wondering about that possibility after Isaac was born). So, I was glad to pass the point in this pregnancy when a baby can still be delivered and can make it, even if they are premature, and I’m glad to be coming up on 30 weeks now. I’m sure that since I’ve been thinking about the possibility of this baby coming early, it will all back-fire on me and he will be a week late (as long as he’s not born on Valentine’s Day). It’s kind of fun – the baby started moving a lot when I started to write this about him. Well, I’m sure that everything will turn out just fine, and that, like all of my other pregnancies, I will have a full-term, extra large, healthy, adorable little boy. It will be so fun to have our five little boys to complete our family!

Oh, and I have been thinking lately that I need to write our Christmas letter sometime here before too long. I know that I don’t have everyone’s current e-mail addresses, so if you’d like to get our Christmas letter this year, please send me your address. Thanks!

Boise

We went up to Boise for the weekend of Michael's birthday and his 10-year high school reunion. Here are pictures from him opening his birthday gifts, some pictures with friends at the reunion, then some at a little preserve in the park that we walked through after the reunion with a few friends where the boys got to see lots of fish, some that Jennie and Dalin took with the boys while we went out for Michael's birthday dinner, and a nice shot of Michael wearing the special birthday fish hat at McGrath's seafood restaurant when Dick and Debbie took us out for his birthday. It was a fun weekend, but way too quick -- I wish it wasn't a 5 or 6 hour drive to get there, so it wouldn't be so tiring to go visit for a weekend.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

"Big Old" Man

Well, we have had a fun week. Michael’s rheumatology rotation has been wonderful – allowing us to spend a lot of time together as a family these last few weeks. Last weekend we went down to Lehi and had dinner with Mel and Christian and Annette. That was really fun. Then on Thursday morning I took Isaac for his 9-month check up. I quite like the new pediatrician we have – she seems young and knowledgeable, and willing to take time to explain things if needed but not too long-winded when we are going over the basics. Isaac was 19 pounds and 31 inches long – tall and skinny just like his brothers. He is healthy, and everything was pretty routine, except we did express some concern that at 9 months old he had just barely started to sit up. She asked some questions, had some blood drawn (which came back totally normal), and gave us the number to call for a state agency that does physical therapy for babies. The doctor didn’t seem too concerned, just thought we should have him seen and maybe do some work with him to get him all caught up. I had a long phone call today with the person at the therapy agency (who I think is really nice), and she is coming to our house with a nurse and an educator to evaluate Isaac on September 9th. So that is good. (And, of course, over the last week since Isaac had his doctor’s appointment, he has become even more mobile – scooting and rolling all over, and even pulling himself up on little things like the bottom step of the basement stairs or the toy boxes – so I think it will be good to work on some exercises with him to get him crawling and walking when he should be, but I’m not concerned that he will have any long-lasting problems because of this. Kolby and Eli had swim lessons last week, and had a lot of fun, as always. I signed them up to do one more session of lessons before school starts, and Camden will be starting too, which I am really excited about since he would love to be in the water each time we go to watch his brothers swim. We have thought a lot about it, and I think we are going to have to take a break from swim lessons once school starts, unless we can come up with any other ideas. I am pretty frustrated with the fact that I can’t find AYNONE in the area at all who offers swim lessons year-round just once a week. In Milwaukee we took the boys one evening a week, all year round, to the pool at the YMCA and we really enjoyed that. But here I can’t find anything like that. Right now their lessons are on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but once they start preschool they won’t be able to go swimming during the day anymore, so the only option the rec. center offers is Tuesday and Thursday nights and Saturday mornings. I just think that doing preschool several days a week, plus we were hoping to get Kolby into piano lessons this year, and adding 3 days a week of swimming on top of that sounds like a lot for such little kids. I really don’t want to over-schedule our 3- and 4-year-old. But I have spent a lot of time searching on the internet and calling all the rec. centers, public pools, gyms, and several high schools with pools within a half hour drive of us, and have found none at all that offer swim lessons once a week. I would love to have my boys swim year round – they love it, it is fun for them, it is good exercise, it gets me to get out and swim with them more often than I otherwise would, and it’s a good skill for them to have for safety around water. We’ll see, but right now we just can’t figure out any way to make it work without making their lives way too busy. Well, on to something else: we drove up to Boise this weekend. It was Michael’s 10-year high school reunion and his 28th birthday on Saturday (I asked Kolby if 28 was old or young, and he said “Old.” I asked, “How old is it?” And he said “Big Old.” Way to go, Michael – you have finally attained the status of Big Old Man. :) We hit traffic on the drive up to Idaho Friday night, and got there late. It is a long drive through a lot of nothing to get from Salt Lake to Boise. But once we got there we had a lot of fun. Michael’s reunion was really fun – it was just a BBQ at a park, but we both enjoyed talking to his old friends for several hours. Then we went home and got to go out to dinner for Michael’s birthday with Dick, Debbie, and Grandma Bradshaw (thanks, Mindy, Dalin, and Jennie for watching the boys for us so we could do that). It was a really nice dinner at a restaurant called McGraths. Then on Sunday, after going to church, we enjoyed a lunch of taco salad (Michael’s favorite), with dutch oven peach cobbler for his birthday “cake.” The drive home was long again, especially since Michael had pulled a muscle in his back just before we left Boise, but luckily he said that the pain wasn’t as bad at the end of the drive as it had been at first. So, we got home safely and everything has gone well today. And we will have to enjoy this week, because next Monday Michael starts his internal medicine rotation, which will mean a lot more hours at the hospital and a lot less time off with the family. Hopefully that 4 weeks goes by quickly. Oh, and last week we did a couple other things too that I forgot to mention – I cut Kolby and Eli’s hair again. Eli’s needed a trim to make it short enough to spike again, and when I asked Kolby how he wanted his cut he said he wanted it “up straight” so he got spikes too. And the boys and I made a fun t-shirt for Michael for his birthday with the words “No 1 Dad” and each of the boys’ handprints on it. It turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I’ll have to post photos of that later too. Oh, and I hit 14 weeks today with the pregnancy. Just a quick update -- I am mostly over the morning sickness, as long as I get enough sleep and eat at certain times, and I have started taking a couple Flintstones children's vitamins a day as an alternative to prenatal vitamins, which has been working a lot better for me. So, things are going pretty well now.

Video Clips from Our Trip to Boise in December

And now it’s time to play catch-up on posting videos of the kids. These are all the ones from our trip to Boise in December (except for the ones of the boys playing with Michael and Mindy that I posted last month). It was fun to watch these clips as I got ready to post them, especially since I hadn’t even seen all of the ones before that Annette took. These videos are of Isaac smiling, Eli climbing up Mindy’s legs and flipping over, Dalin teaching the boys how to do push-ups, and Camden at the Discovery center in Boise. Enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Utah

So, I haven't really kept up on posting photos to the blog since we've been out of town for so long. Tomorrow we are leaving San Diego, so I figured it's about time that I at least posted the photos from before we even arrived in San Diego. Here are some from our short stay in Utah for Jennie and Dalin's wedding. It was fun to see family while we were there -- especially Mel & Christian and Alan & Jenn (Michael's siblings and their spouses who live in Utah). It was fun for me to finally meet Jenn and for all of us to get to hang out with all the siblings. Kolby especially had fun palling around with his cousin, Jaden. Too bad we didn't get to spend more time with them. Here are a few photos from Jennie's wedding luncheon on January 4th.

Michael, Kolby, Camden, Stephanie, Alan, Jenn, and Jaden at the luncheon:

Jennie and her bridesmaids:

Kyler and Isaac had lots of fun napping together

(these little cousins were born only a few days apart):

Eli had fun hiding under a table:

Camden and his new best friend, Aunt Jenn, had fun walking

in circles around the gym after he was done eating:

The Last of the Photos from Our Boise Trip

I am going to get the last of the photos posted from when we were in Idaho:


Before Christmas the boys and I went to visit my friend Colette and her daughter Lila who live in Boise. Colette and I were roommates on our BYU Semester in Nauvoo, Illinois. It was really fun to get together with her and let the kids play together. They have some horses at their house and the boys loved petting them.

Kolby, Camden, and Eli:

Kolby, Lila, Eli, and Colette:

Eli petting the colt:

Camden, Colette, and Lila:

And after Christmas Dick took the boys and I to a place called Kid Planet that is kind of like a McDonald's playland with all the slides, ball pits, and tunnels to climb through but about four times larger. The boys loved it there, and Camden was even big enough to enjoy it too because the tunnels were down low enough that he could climb in by himself.

Camden in the ball pit:

Dick and Isaac:

Kolby:

Eli chillin' on the slide:

Michael and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary while we were in Boise. We got all dressed up and went out to a nice dinner at a fondue restaurant downtown called The Melting Pot. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we both enjoyed.

Dalin, Jennie's fiance, teaching the boys how to do push-ups:

And a few days later Dick took all of us to the Discovery Center. It had all sorts of scientific experiments set up and everything was hands-on so the kids really enjoyed it. There was also a room set up like a grocery store with plastic food, mini shopping carts, and kid-sized check-out counters and cash registers. And there was a section set up like a veterinarian’s office with toy animals and medical supplies. The boys all enjoyed that day and it was nice that we did it on a Saturday so Michael could go along with us too.

Camden picking out some groceries:

Eli on a 'bed of nails':

Kolby helping a dog in the veterinary office:

Isn't this the cutest picture ever?

Camden loves Isaac so much! He is probably our child who has shown the most interest in his younger sibling at the earliest age. He loves to hold his bottle while we are feeding him or give him his pacifier. And he is always giving him hugs and kisses. So I shouldn't have been suprised when Camden wanted to hold him too:

Isaac:

Camden giving Isaac kisses:

Merry Christmas!

Well, we missed writing our weekly post last Sunday with Christmas this week, so I’ve got a little catching up to do. So, last week Michael finished up with another set of interviews. On Sunday, December 16th he flew from Milwaukee to Los Angeles for a derm interview with the Harbor-UCLA program. He liked the LA program a lot, and was interested in the large Latino population he would have the opportunity to serve if he ended up doing his residency there. He also enjoyed stopping briefly at the beach, which was about 30 minutes from his interview location. The only downside to the LA program is the fact that a decent-sized house would be a lot less affordable in LA than in some of the other places he has interviewed at so far, and the program in LA didn’t seem to be geared quite as much towards family as the Pennsylvania and Texas programs where he has interviewed. As much as I hate to admit it, we are starting to think about those other two programs a little more than the California one, just because we could get a house now and possibly save up a little more so that by the time residency is finished and we have a doctor’s income, we could actually afford a place in southern California. But it is still a really close decision – and he has several other interviews coming up, so who knows what our top choices will be in the upcoming weeks. Michael got another derm invitation today to St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.

I am glad that Michael has been fortunate enough to receive several interview invitations, but I admit that I am looking forward to him being done with all the scheduling of flights, hotels, and ground transportation, having the shirts and suits dry cleaned, spending hours in airports with cancelled or delayed flights, feeling nervous before interviews, having him away on so many trips, having him tired from all his travels, and wondering where we will eventually end up. I am such a planner – I like to be in control and have everything in my life all planned out, but this is just something that I have to wait and see what will happen to us. I can’t believe, though, that match day is in 3 months – then we will know where we will be going. I am really excited to move into a house and start over in a new place. The one thing that we are not looking forward to, though, is the fact that it looks like we will likely be leaving the good friends we have made in Milwaukee. It’s kind of funny – when we left BYU, Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock were some of our good friends there and we thought we would never see them again. I was pretty sad when we left because I have never been the greatest at keeping in touch with friends after moving, and I thought that eventually we would loose touch. So, we were so excited a year and a half later when the Hedgecocks moved to Milwaukee for a summer internship and then returned again to Milwaukee the following year for a job. So, I keep thinking that all of our close friends in Milwaukee should follow us when we go on this next move – wouldn’t that be nice? Well, on to the other events of these last couple weeks:

Anyways, on Monday last week Michael had his UCLA interview and then flew back to Boise that night. On Tuesday night after we put the kids to bed, Bryce Christensen came over and we played a game of Settlers. And then on Wednesday Michael flew out to Salt Lake for a transitional year interview. He said the interview went well, and the only down side to going there for our first year is that they told him they keep their interns pretty busy at the hospital compared to some of the other places he’s interviewed at. But one big draw to going there for the first year is that my Grandma Faun invited us to live with her if we end up in Salt Lake – she has a full finished basement we could use that is probably larger than our current apartment, so having a year rent-free to save up for a house would be a pretty difficult offer to pass up. On Thursday evening Michael was supposed to fly back in to Boise in time for us all to go to the temple together for Jennie’s endowment, but there was snow in Salt Lake and Michael’s plane sat on the runway for 2 hours causing him to arrive in Boise about half an hour after the temple session began. I went and it was nice to be at the temple – Jennie and her fiancé Dalin were there along with Michael’s parents, Dalin’s parents, Dalin’s grandparents, and Dalin’s best friend who just returned from his mission in Ireland.

On Friday evening we played games with the family and then Michael and I went out to do some Christmas shopping late after the boys were in bed. And then on Saturday we got the boys ready in the morning and went to JC Penney to have their pictures taken. Grandma Faun gave us some Christmas money for the boys and we got them these adorable sweaters and matching hats, so we just had to have their pictures taken. It is proving more and more difficult to have successful portrait shoots of all the boys together with each baby we have. Oh well – I guess that if we give it a few years the older ones will start to be a little easier to photograph, at least. One thing we decided to do was take individual shots of each boy along with the shot of all of them together. We’ve never done that before except with pictures of them in their Halloween costumes, but I decided that I wanted one nice one of each boy. We got really cute ones of each of them, and I asked Michael to get me some nice big frames for the photos for my Christmas gift, which I am looking forward to picking out after we get back to Milwaukee. After having the boys’ pictures taken we ran all over the place to try to get all our last-minute Christmas shopping and errands done. On Sunday church went pretty well, although Camden spent the middle hour out in the hallway. But other than that the boys did pretty well.

And then Monday was Christmas Eve. That morning we took the boys outside in the back yard to play in the snow and build a snowman. The older three boys had a lot of fun, and Camden even did really well out in the snow for a while until his mitten kept falling off and his hand got cold and wet. I brought him in after than and Michael stayed out a little longer with Kolby and Eli. The three of them were running around and wrestling in the snow and for the first time neither of them were crying from the cold by the time they were done playing. I know Michael really enjoyed playing out there with them. Later on that evening I got a migraine headache, which is unusual for me because I haven’t had one of those since high school. I went downstairs and slept for an hour before Michael got me up. I came upstairs and it was really nice because Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, came over with his parents, but his dad was dressed up in a full Santa Claus suit with gifts for our boys. That was so nice of him to do that just for us. The boys loved it. Afterwards, they watched from the window as they left and Kolby remarked, “Look, Santa has a car!”

After that I tried to stay up, but the migraine just wasn’t going away. I felt really awful, because I didn’t want to miss the Christmas Eve traditions with our boys, but I had to go back to sleep. My prayers and the family’s prayers must have helped, because half an hour later I got up for dinner and was ok the rest of the night, except for a pounding pain in my head whenever I bent over or stood up – but I have never heard of such a quick recovery from a migraine before. We had fried chicken for dinner and then we all got in the car to drive around and look at Christmas lights. The boys were excited to see all the lights and I was surprised that none of the older three boys fell asleep in the car. When we got back to the house Santa had come and left two gifts (Santa always leaves a game on Christmas Eve at the Bradshaw house for the family to play together that night). There was a game that we could play with the boys and one for the adults. We played the kids game, a Disney Bingo DVD game that shows different Disney characters on Bingo spaces and the kids can find the characters and cover the spots on their Bingo cards. Kolby and Eli could actually play the game, and they have had fun playing it a few times since then. After the boys went to bed and the parents got all the gifts out and filled the stockings, we played the other game that Santa left – a fun new game called Blokus. And then when Michael and I went downstairs we watched The Singles 2nd Ward, which actually turned out to be a really funny movie – it’s been a while since I saw the first movie, but I don’t remember liking it as much as I did the second one.

The next morning everyone came upstairs at 8:30 and opened gifts from Santa. The Bradshaw family has certain gifts that are from Santa Claus and their stockings in the family room, then they eat breakfast and move into the living room to open the majority of the gifts from the family members under the Christmas tree. It has been fun to watch the boys this year as they start to understand more about the gift giving and the traditions of Christmas. Kolby especially is really starting to get old enough to really enjoy the holiday. We were blessed with many nice gifts from our family members, and we really appreciate everyone’s kindness.

The day after Christmas we took the boys to Barnes and Noble to meet Grandma Bradshaw and some of Michael’s cousins and their children who live in the area. Grandma Bradshaw wanted to get a book for each of the children, and they had fun picking those out. Then we went to make a couple returns and run a few more errands. I stopped at JC Penney to look at a cute dress I had seen there before (since I have some birthday money to use) and I happened to notice a sign that said there was a door buster deal going on so all the dresses were ½ off before 1:00 that afternoon. It was just before 1:00 when I saw that sign, so I quickly picked 4 dresses and went and bought them before the sale ended, and then I went and tried them all on. They actually all turned out to be pretty cute, so Michael talked me into keeping them. I think I will see if I happen to get enough birthday money to cover the cost of all 4 dresses, and if not I can always return one later on. But that was really fun, because I haven’t bought a dress in quite a while and I felt really pretty in all of them. It’s fun to get dressed up nice. That night after we put the boys to bed we went to Jennie and Dalin’s last indoor soccer game of the season, which was fun to watch.

Then on Thursday it was our 5-year wedding anniversary. When Michael came home from work he brought me a very pretty bouquet of flowers. And then Dick and Debbie were kind enough to watch the boys for us so we could go out together. We were originally tossing around the idea of going on a little cruise in January to celebrate our anniversary if we could find a good deal, but we decided that the cost of a cruise and getting me a passport just wasn’t realistic right now, and since we are only going to be in San Diego for 3 weeks we didn’t want to miss any of our time there. So, we decided to go out for a really nice dinner and see a movie instead. We got all dressed up and went for our reservations at The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant downtown, and enjoyed a wonderful meal together. Then we went and saw National Treasure 2, which we really enjoyed and thought was just as good as the first one. It was a great night out.

Today Michael had a good day at work – he said he got to close up on several patients and he is feeling pretty comfortable now about his ability to do stitches. He usually gets off at 2:00 on Friday afternoons here, but he didn’t get home until around 6:00 tonight, and I was starting to get pretty worried about him, especially after I called and the office was closed. But I guess they had a longer day than normal to do some catch-up after the holiday and then Dr. Burr took him and the other student out for dinner, and he didn’t have a chance to call. I was relieved when he made it home safe.

Well, we are winding up our Boise leg of the trip pretty soon here. Michael will go in for his last day of work with Dr. Burr on Monday and then we will celebrate New Years. And on Wednesday next week Michael will fly out to Washington D.C. for another derm interview. Then on Thursday morning the boys and I will be driving down with the rest of Michael’s family to Utah for Jennie’s wedding. The reception will be Thursday evening, and Michael will have to miss that because he couldn’t get a flight back from his interview soon enough to make it to the reception. But he will get back to Salt Lake that night and then on Friday morning we will go to the wedding and to the family luncheon. And then we will fly out of Salt Lake to San Diego on January 5th. Busy, busy – never a dull moment.

In Boise

So, we’ve gotten a little behind, since we usually try to write about our week each Sunday, and it is Michael’s turn to write this week but he has just been too busy during the days and too tired at night the last couple days, so I’ll do it this time. So, last week Michael had his first derm interview down in Texas, and he was really impressed with their program – he liked their emphasis on surgery and how family-friendly their program seemed to be. He was also attracted by the low cost of housing there [I told him that since we aren’t planning on settling in Texas permanently it might be difficult in 4 years to have to downgrade to a smaller house when moving to a different state, but still it might be nice to be able to afford a nice-sized house for a few years at least.] I also wouldn’t mind moving to someplace warm, although everyone says that some parts of Texas get miserably humid in the summer, but I don’t know if Temple Texas is in one of the more humid areas or not. So, we’ll see.

Camden had his 15-month doctor’s check up this week also (he’s not that old yet, but they scheduled it early so he could get his shots before we left town). He seems healthy, other than a perpetual runny nose, and the doctor commented that even though Camden seems so big for his age, that he is not as high up on the growth curves for his weight as he is for his height. Isaac also had his circumcision on Thursday morning, and it took me a while to calm him down after he had it, but he has seemed fine since then. I also had my 6-week check-up after having the baby (this sure was a week full of doctor’s appointments!) I was pleased to find out that I had lost all of the baby-weight from Isaac’s pregnancy (now I just need to work on the weight that I never lost from Eli and Camden’s pregnancies, but still I felt pretty good about that since I haven’t even been trying to lose weight yet with all that has been going on).

On Saturday morning we got up around 3:30am for our morning flight. We spent Thursday and Friday packing for the trip, and got it all into 8 bags (but it was really less than 8 suitcases, because several were just carry-on-sized bags that we decided to check rather than carry on to the plane). So we did pretty well – 8 bags, 4 car seats, and a stroller for a 2-month trip with six people – I even had room to pack my ski boots and ski helmet. So, we got up early Saturday morning and the Kearls took us to the airport, which was so nice of them to get up (and get their kids up) that early for us!!! We got on the plane alright and the flights went pretty well. My grandma was on the first flight with us, and she got off in Salt Lake. We had to rush in between our two flights because the snow in Salt Lake slowed down our first flight so they called a cart to drive us from one end of the airport to the other to catch our second flight. We were the last ones on the plane, and then after we got on it pulled away from the gate and sat on the runway for about half an hour before it was de-iced and we could take off. We got to Boise a little while later. All in all, it was a good trip – some of the boys cried a little off and on, but none of them cried for an hour nonstop (which has happened to me on past flights).

When we arrived, we went straight from the airport to a singing recital for Michael’s youngest sister, Mindy. Then we left after Mindy’s song so that we could go to a bridal shower for Michael’s other sister, Jennie, that was being thrown by her fiancé’s family. While I was at the shower, Michael unpacked all of our bags and the boys got to play with their grandpa. It is not as cold here as it was in Boise, and the boys have been able to play in the back yard a couple times, which has been really nice for them to get out. And we got to meet Jennie’s fiancé, Dalin, who seems like a nice guy. On Sunday we went to church, which went pretty well, except for Camden getting a bad case of diarrhea (caused by the antibiotic that the doctor gave us for his runny nose), but he has finally started to get over that today. At church we spent some of the time with the two youngest boys in the hallway, but got to attend part of all three meetings, so that was nice. We also got to talk to a couple old friends, and it will be fun to try to get together with them while we are here. That night we got to watch the First Presidency’s Christmas Fireside. We decided to watch it at home on the computer since taking the boys to church and trying to get them to sit still and quiet for an hour might be difficult. It was kind of crazy at home with the boys talking and crying, but we tried. After the fireside we went to Layne and Debbie Bennion’s house, Michael’s uncle and aunt, and got together for their annual tradition of hot chocolate and toffee. We got to see some of Michael’s cousins, and we talked with Becky and Neil Wall for quite a while. (It was fun to meet Becky after she and I have been in touch over e-mail for a while). We are planning on getting together with them sometime soon.

On Monday Michael started his derm rotation with Dr. Burr and he is enjoying it. Tonight he went to a derm conference in downtown Boise with Dr. Burr that is supposed to present a lot of really interesting cases, so it is nice that he gets to spend time this month doing what he is really interested in. On Monday evening we were invited to family home evening at Bryce and Emily Christensen’s house, but they called before we left to say their daughter had fallen and cut above her eye and they needed to take her in to see if she needed stitches, so we’ll have to get together with them later on. For our family home evening activity last night we ended up setting up the Christmas tree, and we will decorate it sometime this week. The boys should have fun doing that. Today we took the boys to the playgroup at the church, but it was cancelled because the carpets were being cleaned in the building so we took them to an indoor play area at a Burger King nearby instead. The boys had a lot of fun with that. When we got home I helped Debbie to get photos of all the family members for a calendar she is having printed. And now all 4 boys are napping – it sure is thoughtful of them to sleep at the same time so that I can write this.

So, Isaac sure has been great since we got here! When he was in the NICU they put him on a schedule of eating every 3 hours, and he had stuck to that schedule pretty much since then. So, after he got up several times the first night we were here, I decided that I needed to adjust his eating schedule. With my other boys I always nursed them every 4 hours from the time they were born, and they were fine, so I decided to switch Isaac to every 4 hours. I thought that if he acting hungry after 3 hours, we could just hold him and play with him to try to hold him off until it reached 4 hours since he last ate (because he is pretty content with being held, and he doesn’t cry much so I thought we could hold him off without much trouble). We did that all day and he did just fine with it, and then he went for 4 and 5 hours between bottles that night. The next day he did great again and last night he went for 5 ½ hours, got up once to eat, and then went another 5 ½ hours before he got up in the morning. I can’t believe what a wonderful baby he is. I guess, now that I think about it, all of my boys have been really good as babies, but I didn’t expect Isaac to switch his schedule so quickly just because I decided that he should. It has been nice to be able to sleep with minimal interruptions, and I hope it continues.

Oh, and Kolby said something pretty cute the other day. While we were having dinner Sunday night Dick asked Kolby what he learned in his class at church that day. Kolby told him about a song they sang about Joseph Smith going to Neverland. We all laughed and none of us could figure out what he was talking about. So, later on that night we were listening to Christmas songs and he said something about Joseph in Bethlehem – that’s what he meant earlier. How cute!