Playgroup at Wheeler Farm

A couple weeks ago we went to the playgroup organized by Melissa Maxwell, the wife of another intern at Michael’s hospital. I was so glad that we were able to go – I had been hoping to get together with the other interns’ wives since we got here. No one else was able to come to the playgroup that week, but we had lots of fun. Kolby had preschool that day, but since Eli only has preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays he got to go with Camden and Isaac. We went to Wheeler Historic Farm. We had been there once before, when we first moved here, and I have to say that I enjoyed it much more on a nice Fall day with their pumpkin patch and the leaves starting to change colors than I did on the hot, sticky day that we went last time in the summer. Eli and Camden had fun with Melissa’s daughter, Chloe, and the boys liked the tree house and the farm animals. And by the end of the playgroup Isaac must have been all tired out because he fell asleep in his stroller on the way out to the car.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Walking on the Jordan River Parkway

The day after we got back from San Diego Michael had a day off of work and we took a break from unpacking and all the things that had to be done around the house to take the boys on a walk on the Jordan River Parkway after their naps. It was nice to get out of the house, to spend time together as a family, and to enjoy that uncommonly warm Fall day. (Oh, and I think this is a decent "pregnant picture" of me -- I know, usually the pregnant pictures people take are from the side, but you can see my belly well enough on this front shot without me turning sideways). :)

Labels for the Boys' School Clothes

So, something I have been working on the last couple of weeks is getting all the school clothes we will need for the boys for this fall and winter. I have gotten most of the clothes we need, except a few more pairs of jeans and some pajamas I am still looking for for Kolby (and we just found out that we’ll need an extra set of clothes for Kolby and Eli because they like to keep an extra set at the preschool in case they get messy painting or something). But I was trying to think of a good idea to mark the boys’ school clothes so that they could easily tell who’s clothes are who’s. (This saves me time, because then the boys can pick out their own clothes when they get dressed without having to ask me to find a size on a tag – since so many of their clothes are similar or the same sizes, and it will also be easier when we are doing laundry if someone doesn’t know who’s shirt they are folding, they can just look inside). Last year I used different colored sharpie markers and put a different colored dot on the tags for each of the different boys’ clothes, but the problem with that was that sometimes the dots were hard for the boys to find, and sometimes the dots changed colors when the tag wasn’t white. Anyways, I came up with the idea of iron-on tags, and I went to the internet, but couldn’t find what I wanted – all I could find was big, colorful full-name tags that didn’t seem especially inexpensive. So I decided to make my own. I got paper that you could print on your computer to make iron-on transfers, and I printed out a small letter with each boys’ first initial. In one afternoon I finished ironing on all of Kolby’s, Eli’s, and Camden’s, and I have since put off ironing on Isaac’s (but that shouldn’t take too long once I decide to get it done). I think they turned out pretty well, although I don’t know how well you can see them in the pictures. It was nice, because I could iron the labels onto a tag or right onto the inside of the shirt if there wasn't a tag. I didn’t want the labels to be too big, just a little letter that the boys could find easily. So, that’s one project that I’m almost done with for this season.

The labels that I printed out
(I realized later that I printed way more 'K's than I needed for Kolby).

A couple of Kolby's shirts with the labels on them.

Kolby's fall and winter clothes with all the labels on them.

Eli's clothes with all the labels.

And Camden's clothes with all the labels.

Feeding the Birds

We went to Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake for a little family dinner Sunday evening to celebrate Grandma Bradshaw’s birthday. When we realized that the family was setting everything up just a few feet from the lake, we knew it would be hard to keep the kids dry. Camden stepped in first, and then slipped and fell in up to his neck (then he was walking around in just a diaper for the rest of the evening). Kolby later fell in when he was trying to throw bread to feed the birds (and he was walking around in his shirt and boxers the rest of the night). And later Camden fell in again (I think this time may have been an accident) while he was trying to feed the birds. Michael caught this last fall on tape. It was an eventful night and several of the family members thanked us for providing the entertainment for the evening. Happy Birthday, Grandma!

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

Fall Pictures

After church yesterday we went out and took some pictures with the fall leaves. The boys gave us lots of big smiles (after we bribed them with chocolate treats if they would be good for the photos). I think they turned out pretty cute!

First Week of October

Well, this first week of October has been much more relaxed than the schedule we were on for Michael’s rotation last month. He is now doing one of his elective rotations called “Promoting Health in Urban Underserved Communities,” and he has basically had a 9-5 schedule with a lot more flexibility to get time off if he needs to, which is nice because he is taking one of his Step 2 Board exams and we are expecting the baby to come this month.

So, this week was pretty uneventful. Kolby had preschool, which he always loves. It is interesting because his classroom teacher is blind, although I don’t think that the kids really realize this. On Monday Kolby wanted to take a cut-out of a footprint that he made in his church class to show his school teacher. He was showing it to her at the beginning of class, and she was asking if she could hold it, asking what color it was, and telling him that he must have big feet if it was traced from his foot. And he loves his gym class too. Often we go about 15 minutes before the end of class and if they are wrapping up a game that is not very structured, I will let Eli join in with Kolby and the other kids. They have played freeze tag a couple times and the boys really like it. Kolby seems to be one of the only kids that really comprehends the idea – many of the others just kept running after they were tagged without waiting to be unfrozen. And on Wednesday when I went to pick him up, Kolby and another little boy named Simon were running around holding hands and they came up and Kolby told me Simon was his best friend. I let Eli run around with them, and they were holding his hands and playing great with him too. I think Eli will really enjoy going to the classes in a few months – he will be able to start in the winter session once we get back from our trips, since he will be 3 years old by then.

Well, on Wednesday I hit 36 weeks with this pregnancy. So now I have just over 3 weeks to go. I am glad we waited a while in the beginning of the pregnancy to announce to people that we were pregnant this time – I know that it’s all in my head, but it really seemed to make the remainder of the pregnancy go by much quicker than with earlier pregnancies when we announced it soon after we found out. So, on Wednesday night Michael had an AOA meeting, so I took Kolby to his swimming lesson. He is doing great. They have these little float belts that they put around the kids’ waists to give them confidence, and the kids all swam the length of the pool with those on several times in this week’s lesson, then at the end they swam a few feet from the edge of the pool to their teacher with no float belts, so that was pretty cool. It is fun to see Kolby’s confidence increase as he is now really learning how to swim.

On Thursday morning we went to the Twelmyer’s house for the family history group, and I was able to help Sister Twelmyer to learn how to search for some ancestors on the IGI online so that she can prepare the names to take to the temple. Later that afternoon I had my doctor’s appointment – I am down to the last month now, so I am having an appointment every week – and Michael was able to join us for the appointment this time. Everything is going well with the baby, and I am dilated to a 2. (I don’t really care if I’m dilated much yet or not, except that my midwife had mentioned that they would induce me a day or two after my due date, if it goes that long, but that if you get that far and are not dilated at all, they might not do it as early. So anyway, I got her to commit to inducing me on November 1st if I haven’t had the baby by the due date, which is nice to have a final date set). And Thursday night Michael took Eli to swim lessons, and said that they had a lot of fun.

. __ . __ . __ . __ .

Eli decorating cookies . __ . __ . __ . __ . __ . __ . Eli licking his frosting

On Friday morning, after I dropped Kolby off at preschool, we went to Jill Hunter’s apartment for some fall activities for the kids from the apartment complex. All of the kids went outside and collected fall leaves, and then we went back in and they decorated cookies that were shaped like leaves. Eli had fun doing that. Then on Friday night we went to the Townsend’s house for our ward dessert groups, and the Sanders family came too. We had banana splits and had fun talking with the adults while all the kids played.

And this weekend has been spent watching General Conference on the internet. The boys kind of had a rough time sitting through the first session yesterday, but it seems like they are getting used to the idea of sitting quietly and watching the 2-hour sessions at a time, and they have done pretty well today (as well as you could expect for a 2- and 3-year-old, and Camden napped through most of this morning’s session). After the last session that will be starting up here in a few minutes, we will eat the roast that Michael has prepared for dinner and then he is going to head down to Chicago. He got a pretty good deal on a motel room, so he can drive down tonight and not have to get up super early in the morning and he can avoid any bad traffic tomorrow. In the morning he will take one of his two Step 2 Board exams. It is the one where they have different standardized patients and they are graded on how they give exams and take the patients’ histories. So, hopefully he will have a safe drive down there and back, and his test will go well. Then I think we are planning to go out to dinner as a family when he gets home Monday evening to celebrate him finishing his test.

Eli, Mommy, and Kolby watching Conference

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention that Michael got another interview invitation this week. He got an e-mail saying that he is on the early invite list for the transitional year program in Salt Lake, and that they will let him know the dates for that interview shortly. So things are all going pretty well. I’d better run get the computer set up now so we can catch the last session of Conference. Hope you all had a great week!