Camden's New Haircut and Non-Valentine's Day

So, I finally cut Camden’s hair. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and I finally did it. I thought his hair was cute since I cut it last time, but not nearly as cute as it was with all his curls before I cut it last. So, I decided to take the advice that my friend Rachel gave me a while ago of using texturizing scissors on his hair. I picked some up at WalMart today and decided to try them out. I cut it a little short in the back, but it doesn’t look too bad and it will grow out before too long. I was going for a similar look to Isaac’s hair when his is all curly, and I think it turned out pretty well. So, here's a cute picture of Camden with his new hair-do:

Oh, and here’s something totally unrelated that I thought was a little odd: I got a letter from Kolby’s and Eli's preschool class saying that on February 12th (their last day of class before the weekend of Valentine’s Day) they will be celebrating Friendship Day and the kids are welcome to bring cards or treats for the other kids in the class. So, here’s my question, “When did Valentine’s Day become politically incorrect?” Why do they need to call it Friendship Day? I don’t really get it. Oh well, now I just have to think about preparing 42 cards and treats (21 for each boy) to celebrate non-Valentine’s day.

Kolby's Post

So, this week Kolby said he’d like to write our blog post for us, and I’m just going to type what he says:

I love my manta (blanket). And I love preschool. I like church because I love Jesus. I love my toys. My favorite toys are my cars, and my favorite car is my new car from Christmas. It is my favorite because I like it, because it makes noise. My other favorite toys are my trains. Making a train track is fun.

I’m going to write what our family did this week. On Monday we didn’t go to school because it was a holiday. On Tuesday it was Isaac’s doctor’s appointment, and Mommy’s doctor’s appointment. And Camden was sick that day. On tv we watched the parade for the new president. On Wednesday we went to the temple open house. The temple made me feel good, it was quiet and beautiful. My favorite part of the temple was the room with the baptismal font. Later we went to my piano lesson. I played three songs on the piano. And then on Thursday it was Eli’s birthday party. Before the party we decorated the house with balloons and ribbons. People came to Eli’s birthday party. Kaitlyn and Nikki, Chelsie and Emily, Paige, and my cousins, Jaden and Kyler, and aunt Mel and aunt Annette all came. When people came, we got out cars to play with. I played in a box too. After we played, we sang “Happy Birthday” to Eli and ate cake. It was a car cake. After everyone else left, Jaden stayed for a sleep-over. We played together and then we went to sleep. The next day we played and colored together. On Saturday I helped Mommy get some food out of the food storage. And I helped Daddy move the clothes because my brothers and I moved bedrooms. Today was Sunday. We hade stake conference at church, it was a special meeting where we listened to people talk. And that’s what we did this week.

Eli

So, our little Eli is getting bigger. He will be 4 years old in two weeks. He just “graduated” from his nursery class to the big kid primary class at church, and he enjoys being in primary like Kolby. On his last day of nursery his teacher gave us his star – each of the nursery kids have a star with their picture and some of their favorite things written on it hanging in the nursery classroom at church.

I also thought I’d post Eli’s name. In preschool each morning the kids start out the day by practicing writing their name. Eli has known how to write “Eli” for quite a while now, but has been working on “Elijah” since starting preschool, and is doing pretty well with learning his lowercase letters too.

Photos and Video of Camden and Isaac Playing Together

These are some cute shots of Camden and Isaac playing together. Michael had the day off work and went to volunteer in Kolby and Eli’s preschool class, so after letting Camden and Isaac play in the bathtub, I got them dressed and combed their hair. Camden wanted his hair parted and combed over to the side like Isaac’s – which made him look so different than he looks when we do his hair normally. I could actually see a resemblance between Camden and my brother, Matthew, when he was little, with Camden’s hair combed this way. I grabbed the camera, and had fun following the boys around and shooting pictures and video until Daddy and big brothers got home. I think that some of these video clips are so cute: Camden “dancing” (running around the room in circles and bobbing his head), Isaac walking (he is even fasted and more sturdy on his feet now than when I took these), Camden and Isaac playing together, and Isaac “walking” on his knees.

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School Pictures

So, since Kolby and Eli go to preschool at a public school here, they got to have school pictures taken for the first time this year. We just got the pictures back the other day, and I think they turned out so cute. Both boys are just adorable! And doesn't Kolby look like such a big kid? Wow!

Preschool Photos

First Day of Preschool

So, the boys had preschool this morning and loved it – I had a hard time getting them to go at the end of the class time. Since it was just an orientation day to meet the teacher, the parents all stayed while the kids got to explore the classroom for an hour this morning. They liked their teacher, Ms. Dora, and they enjoyed the classroom. There are places with each child's name to hang their backpack, a cubby for art work with each child's name, and there is a water table where they used magnetic fishing poles to fish, a little wooden kitchen set, an area with a road map rug and cars and blocks, tables and little chairs where they can color or do puzzles, a “quiet corner” (we didn’t check that part out – I assume it is a reading area), a computer with an animal alphabet game, a drinking fountain inside the classroom (Eli was especially excited about that), and a big rug for all the kids to sit on when they start and end the class for with songs. The boys loved it! At one point today they were coloring on the board, and Kolby showed his teacher that he could write and read several words, and she told me that they have a special reading program for preschoolers who have started to read (that 2 kids in her class last year were able to be in it), and that once the kids get tested in a couple months to see what levels they are at, Kolby will probably be in the reading program. She said that it is fun because they often have the kids who can read help read out loud to the other kids during reading time in class. She also told me that if Kolby seemed to be getting bored this year, she would get some materials from the kindergarten class for him to work on. So I thought that was great, because I had heard bad stories from parents about some other teachers in the area not being willing to do anything extra at all for kids who were a little bit ahead, because of the ‘No Child Left Behind’ act. I am glad that Ms. Dora seems to care a lot about actually teaching the kids, and that it seems like this year will be more like real school than a glorified daycare (which I think some preschool programs are). We took lots of pictures this morning – of the boys’ new backpacks and their folders, the boys walking to school, and doing different activities in the classroom. Kolby is excited to go again tomorrow, and to get to stay longer than just an hour. And Eli did great today too, so I think he will really enjoy preschool also.



I'll have to post the photos later, since it is not allowing me to upload any photos right now for some reason.

Preschool Pages

So, Kolby and Eli got to fill out a page about themselves that they are going to take to preschool this week and their teacher will hang them on the wall. I took new pictures of them for these pages, since I realized that I didn't have a decent one of Kolby (without anyone else in it) since I cut his hair last, and he doesn't really look the same with this haircut as he did before. I let them answer the questions and then they colored on the pages a little bit too. I thought it was pretty cute that Kolby listed "paying tithing" as one of his favorite things to do, and that Eli said when he grows up he wants to be a fireman and then a missionary.

(just click on the pages to zoom in)

Dinosaurs, Swimming in the Lake, and Upcoming Ultrasounds

So, this upcoming week will be an exciting one. Tomorrow is the big day: Kolby and Eli start preschool, and then in the afternoon we are going for the ultrasound. The boys’ first day of school isn’t really a normal day, it’s an orientation day for them to go and meet their teacher and see the classroom. So they will then officially start on Tuesday. Kolby will go 4 days a week (Monday through Thursday) and Eli will go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Their class is at the perfect time of day: 9am to noon (so they will still be able to keep to their schedule of naptime after lunch). And on the days Eli goes he will be in the same class as Kolby. Their teacher is Mrs. Dora, and she has two aids in the classroom too. We were excited when we went to the parent meeting last week to find out that the aids both speak Spanish, and we asked them if they would try to use Spanish with our boys too, so that will be nice. We went the other day and the boys each picked out a new backpack and a folder to keep papers in, and they were excited about that. (One nice thing about this preschool starting a couple weeks later than most of the other schools around here is being able to get backpacks on sale for 30% off). And after naps I have my ultrasound tomorrow at 3pm, so that will be nice to find out if this baby is a boy or a girl so we can finalize a name and I can get a little more prepared (like getting a baby book started and picking up clothes, if needed). So tomorrow is a big day. We also have Camden’s birthday party next week, so that should be exciting too. And then next week we are going to head for San Diego to visit while Michael starts his busy ICU rotation here. Then we’ll get back here just in time to celebrate Isaac’s and Kolby’s birthdays, go to a pumpkin patch, and celebrate Halloween.

So, this week went pretty well, although it was kind of tiring since Michael hadn’t had a day off for almost 2 weeks until Thursday, so it was nice once he did get that break. On Monday it was my mom’s birthday, so we got to call her and the boys enjoyed singing “Happy Birthday” to her on the phone. On Tuesday and Wednesday we ran several errands and on Wednesday I took Eli and Camden in for a doctor’s visit.

We did get to go do something fun earlier this week. Grandma Faun had a dentist’s appointment up in Ogden (where she used to live), and so we drove her up there and then afterwards we went to the Dinosaur Park there in Ogden. It is a fun park where she took us when we were kids too. We got there, and they started us out in their small indoor museum before going out to the park. The only problem was when we got off the elevator for the museum we came out into a dark room with a scene behind a fence with a triceratops and her little babies and a tyrannosaurus. These were the only robotic dinosaurs in the whole park, but the tyrannosaurus moving it’s head and arms and roaring loudly was enough to thoroughly freak Eli out. He started crying and saying he didn’t want to go that way. I tried to explain to him that the dinosaurs weren’t real – that they were robots made by people and that the noises were just recordings, but he told me then that he didn’t want to go by the robots. We convinced him after a little while to continue through the museum, even though he didn’t want to pass the large dinosaur skeletons. Then we went outside, where there were lots of different dinosaur statues as you walked through trails in the park, and there were recordings of dinosaur noises playing from the bushes and trees. Eli went along, but wasn’t to excited about all of it. Kolby thought it was great, as he walked through very slowly and quietly, pretending to be hiding from the dinosaurs. At last I found one of the dinosaurs that was close enough to the edge of the trail that we could reach it, so I had Eli feel the dinosaur and then feel a rock next to it, and see that they felt like they were made out of the same material. I said, “See, I told you they weren’t real.” And he responded, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” (As if he hadn’t been there for the last 20 minutes while I told him repeatedly that the dinosaurs weren’t real and the noises were just recordings). After that he was pretty much ok, although I’m still not sure that he didn’t think that the dinosaur he touched was the only fake one and all the others (especially those robotic ones) were really real. But we walked through the whole park, and the boys enjoyed it. At the end there was a playground with a giant slide and some little dinosaurs they could climb on, so it was a fun afternoon. They all fell asleep in the car within a few minutes of leaving the park, except for Kolby who stayed awake the whole drive back to Salt Lake. Afterwards we stopped at Costco for a few things Grandma needed, and we ended up having dinner at the food court there, and all I can say about that nice little experience is that I look forward to the day somewhere down the road when I can sit down to eat a meal without having to hurry and eat it all before the kids finish their food and start in on why they are still starving and should be ale to share my meal. Who knows when that will be?

On Thursday Michael fortunately got the day off, so he was able to go with me to the parent’s meeting for the preschool class, and we liked the teacher and are excited for the boys to start this week. Then we decided to take the boys swimming in the afternoon, so we checked the pool schedule on the rec. center’s website, got all the kids into their swim suits, and headed to the pool. We were disappointed when we got there to find that the pool was closed for maintenance for the week. We called several other local rec. centers, and found that they were also all closed too. And we were told that all the outdoor pools in the area closed on Labor Day. So, we walked back out to the car and were trying to think of something else fun to do on Michael’s day off (without having to take everyone back home and change again), and we decided to go to the Great Salt Lake. I had swum there a few times before when I was younger, but Michael never had. We found, after being in the car for quite a while, that the entrance to Antelope Island was a lot further north than we had realized, and we had to drive through bad traffic on the freeway to get there. When we arrived at 4pm, we had to pay $9 to get into the “park” (which I guess wasn’t so bad, since we would have paid about that much for our whole family to swim at the rec. center anyways). We drove across the road, and as soon as we got to the island we saw two big buffalo walking slowly towards us and across the road right behind our van. That was pretty fun for the boys. When we got there, there was nice soft beach sand around the parking lot, so I decided we should leave our sandals in the car rather than end up carrying all of the boys’ sandals for them. That ended up being an unwise decision, because after we got a ways down the beach (too far to run back to the car quickly to get the sandals), the sand became rocky and hurt our feet for the rest of the long walk down to the water (the water was pretty low, and it took us quite a while to walk that far with the boys). We got down to the water, and at least it was pretty warm. Michael was pretty excited that he could float with no effort at all because of the high salt content of the water, especially since he has trouble floating in a pool. He tried to get all the boys to do it with him, but none of them were excited about that idea. Camden did have fun, though, sitting on Michael’s stomach while he was floating on his back, so Michael was like a human inner tube. The boys were not as excited about swimming in the salty water as their daddy was, and we ended up returning to the shore and building castles before too long. We listened to a coyote howl for a while as we sat on the beach. Then we got back to the car and drove around the island for a little bit – the boys got to see several more buffalo and an antelope all pretty close up, so that was fun. Then we had a long drive home before we could eat anything, since we smelled pretty strongly of Salt Lake water, we couldn’t stop at a restaurant to eat and we didn’t want any drive-through food. We got home later than planned, but it was a fun outing. I think that swimming in the Great Salt Lake is something that is good to do once, but probably not a favorite new day trip for each weekend, since the water just smells so strong.

Thursday night was supposed to be my night out with Kolby, but since we took so long getting home from the lake that night we decided to do it Friday instead. I had the idea of taking him to a movie, since we haven’t taken the boys to a movie since Cars was in the dollar theater, which had to have been when Camden was a little baby. I looked online, and there was a kid’s movie playing at the dollar theater nearby that I hadn’t even heard of, but it was rated G and it looked like it would be good. So we went and I didn’t tell Kolby what we were going to do, just that it was a surprise. We got the tickets, went into the theater, and sat down while the previews were playing, and then I asked him if he knew what the surprise was yet, and he said no. (I guess it really has been a long time since we took them to a movie). I told him we were seeing a movie, and he got really excited. I told him that we don’t talk out load during a movie, so he kept asking me throughout the previews when the movie was starting so that he would know when he needed to start whispering. About 5 minutes into the movie Kolby moved to sit on my lap, and we enjoyed the whole thing together. And the movie ended up being pretty good for a kid’s movie that I hadn’t even heard of before – sure, it had it’s corny scenes, but for the most part it was cute and better than I had expected. It was called Kitt Kitteredge, about a little girl and her friends who lived during the depression. Kolby was really excited for our night out, and he is still carrying the stubs of the movie tickets around with him.

Well, yesterday I was sick all afternoon (the morning sickness just randomly comes back every once in a while). I was glad that I was feeling all right by the time Michael got off, because he had had a good day at work and wanted to go out, since he didn’t have to go back into work this morning. We went to the dollar theater and saw Indiana Jones, which I thought was pretty good – it reminded me a lot of the old Indiana Jones movies – until the kid started swinging through the trees with the monkeys and the monkey proceeded to help him attack the evil Russian soldiers – I thought that was pretty unbelievable. And then the whole ending about the aliens just really didn’t fit in with Indiana Jones as an archeologist – they could have come up with a better idea for that part of the movie. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good, having been warned by friends before seeing it that there were some cheesy parts and a few corny jokes.

So, today Michael had another day off, since he hadn’t had a break for a while so he got two days off not very far from each other. He wanted to go back and visit his old ward at the church he grew up going to in South Jordan, so we went down there this morning. We found out, though, that it was their stake conference, which meant we had a longer meeting to sit through with our boys and Michael didn’t get to see as many old friends as he had hoped, but he did get to talk to several families he knew, which he enjoyed. (If only our stake conference wasn’t coming up next Sunday, when Michael doesn’t have the day off – don’t get me wrong, I think stake conference is great, but it’s just too long for babies to sit through for 2 hours of talking without a break. That’s why it’s nice that they always have an adult meeting on the preceding Saturday night, so those of us who have young children can feel like we get something out of at least one of the meetings – but for some reason they don’t have an adult meeting in our ward this year. Who knows why?)

So, we were able to get a hold of Michael’s cousin, Andy, and his wife Michelle, and they are coming up here for dinner tonight. That should be nice to see them. Their daughter is not much younger than Kolby, and our kids have never met each other.

Well, we hope you all have a good week, and we’ll be sure to keep everyone posted on the findings of the ultrasound tomorrow.

Easter

We had a fun little Easter egg hunt in our living room on Sunday. The boys got new books and some bouncy balls that light up in their Easter baskets this year. In the boys’ preschool class at the YMCA they had talked about the Easter bunny and made fun little Easter basket and bunny art projects. So, on Easter morning Michael took the boys in their room to play with them while I put out their baskets and hid the eggs. After we took some pictures of them all in their white shirts and ties (of course, we had to take a lot of pictures to get a few that were good of all four boys, but I think we got some pretty cute ones), they came out and were excited about the toys and the eggs. Kolby then asked me when the Easter bunny was coming. I told him that the Easter bunny must have already come and left all the eggs, so then Kolby asked if we could call the Easter bunny. I told him that we didn’t have his phone number. Apparently I should have taken the boys to see the Easter bunny at the mall, because Kolby was expecting to see the Easter bunny at our house that morning. (Actually, the boys are lucky that they got what they did for Easter this year. Although we definitely knew that Easter was coming up, Michael and I have been so focused on Match Day last week that we didn’t even think of getting candy and other things for the baskets until a couple of days before Easter). [Oh, and thanks, Mom, for the Elmo Easter baskets – they were a big hit with the boys!]

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Kolby and Eli with Miss Mary Kate

Kolby and Eli finished up their preschool session at the YMCA on Friday last week. There is a spring break this week and another session of classes starts up next week, but we are going to take a break for now. With the move we probably won’t be here through the end of the next school session, and I’ve been wanted to start up a weekly playgroup again too. (But, honestly, we are mostly taking a break because over the last couple of months I have come to dread Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays because I have to get up before the sun comes out to get the kids all ready to go, wake up the babies, get them all fed, changed, and dressed, and take all the boys out in the freezing cold all the time, and I need a break for a while). Kolby and Eli had their picture taken with their teacher, Miss Mary Kate, on their last day. The boys do love their classes, and we will look into finding some classes for them to take again when we get to Salt Lake.

February Photos

Here are some fun photos and video clips of the Bradshaw boys from last month. The video clips show Isaac laughing, Kolby playing the harmonica, Isaac eating rice cereal for the first time, and a fun game that Kolby, Eli, and Camden play. (I love this little game that they came up with -- it's kind of a mixture of Hide-and-Seek and Chase -- Kolby and Eli run into one room and hide in a corner or behind the furniture and Camden runs in and as soon as he sees them, they run into a different room to hide again and he follows, it's so fun to watch them play together).

The photos are of the boys playing with their train set, Eli on his first day of preschool (and Kolby's first day of school for this winter session), Eli with the trains that he got for his birthday from Grandpa Dick and Grandma Debbie, Isaac in his jumper, Daddy and the boys singing Eli's favorite song, "Wheels on the Bus," Kolby showing off his new favorite possession: his CTR ring from church [CTR stands for Choose The Right], Isaac after he fell asleep on the living room floor, and a few of all four boys together. It's so fun to see these pictures, especially the ones of all of my boys together, and think of what good friends they are (and will hopefully continue to be) as they all grow up together.

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Swimming, Zoo Trips, Potty Training, and Car Seats in Church

This week the boys enjoyed their preschool class. Kolby and Eli love their classes, and on Friday I even got motivated and took all 4 boys and worked out during their classes. Camden and Isaac went to their kid care, and I used the elliptical machine for a while. Afterwards I picked up the boys and it was all I could do to keep Camden from joining in with Kolby and Eli in their gym class. That was a fun morning.

On Tuesday it was Camden’s night out with Daddy and they went to the YMCA in Menomonee Falls because it has a nice kid’s swimming area with a little wading pool and slide. Unfortunately there was a problem with their heating system in that room that evening, so they got moved into the lap pool. Camden wasn’t able to go down the baby slide anymore, but they still had a lot of fun. And then on Wednesday night Kolby and Eli had their swimming lessons, and they both did great. Kolby is now able to jump in from the side of the pool without anyone to catch him and he can walk out to the middle of the pool. Eli is still as brave as ever – dunking his entire head under the water over and over. It’s pretty fun to watch.

On Thursday we had an Enrichment activity at Catherine Call’s house sharing all of our favorite children’s books, which was nice to have a night away from the kids. I enjoyed remembering the books that we loved as children and thinking about which ones I would like to add to our collection for our kids. Then on Friday evening we had a ward dessert night at the Spencer’s house and Alicia and Steve Taylor were there too. That was nice to get together with some ‘new’ people, and it was fun to see all the little boys running around together too.

And then yesterday was fun. We went to the zoo in the morning because it was a free zoo day (our membership had expired on Friday). We told the boys that there was going to be a surprise at the zoo (Eli was sure that the surprise was going to be the animals, but Kolby was excited to find out what it would be). When we got there we met our friends, the Hedgecocks, and Kolby was excited that the surprise was his friends, Jordan and Carter, at the zoo with us. My favorite part of the Milwaukee zoo is always the big cat house, because the lions and the cheetahs are always right there in front of the glass and they are usually active and moving around so they are so interesting for the kids to watch. We stopped on our way home and picked up some tennis shoes for Michael since his were getting his feet all wet every time he went out in the snow because he had so many holes in the soles. Then, after naps we took the boys to Denny’s for their kids eat free night. After we got home, picked up around the house, and put the boys to bed, the Kearls joined us for some games.

And today started out with Michael waking me up to help with the other boys because he needed to take care of Eli, who had had an accident. We are working on the potty training with Eli, and he is doing pretty well most of the time. He still wears a diaper at naptime and bedtime, and we have been using pull-ups for school and church (just in case), but during the daytime when we are at home he is just in underwear, and he has only had two accidents since we started this week, so I guess that’s pretty good – we are using less diapers, anyways.

Today went pretty well. After getting the boys ready and making bread, we headed to church. (On the making bread, if anyone has any good suggestions for getting bread to rise well, I would be open to them! I have made bread now every Sunday for the last five weeks and am starting to get a little discouraged. The first time the bread barely rose at all and turned out very thick, the next time it took hours and didn’t rise much but was a little better, another time it rose pretty well and then sunk right before I put them in the oven, last week they rose nicely and then they sunk while they were cooking, and this week they rose ok but still not very high. I know the recipe is good because my mom’s bread turns out great. I have tried letting the bread rise in the oven on “warm,” letting it rise sitting on top of the stove while the oven is on warm, letting it rise on top the stove on a cooking rack, letting it rise while the oven is on higher, and letting it rise just sitting on the counter top. There are just so many things that could be affecting it, and I don’t know which thing it is I need to fix – is the yeast bad? (but it has risen somewhat), am I letting it get too hot or not hot enough while it rises?, am I letting it rise for too long or not long enough?, or is it something totally different that I haven’t even thought of? At least the bread tastes really good and it’s nutritious, but I sure wish that it looked good and it made bigger slices for sandwiches. So, any suggestions would be appreciated!)

Anyways, on the way to church Camden fell asleep in the car, and Michael and I spent the entire ride to church considering options of how we might keep him asleep (church is hard with a child who is too young for nursery, too old to sit still, and too tired because it is right in the middle of naptime). Various ideas were thrown around, including taking a playpen and setting it up in an empty room at church, leaving him in the car, or putting him in the shed out behind the church – but none of these seemed satisfactory (and some rather illegal), so we ended up deciding on carrying his entire car seat in and setting it on the bench next to us. Now, Camden has long outgrown the little infant car seats that are meant to be carried with a child in them, and he is in an upright, forward-facing seat. Michael huffed and puffed and lugged that big old seat into the church building, and Camden actually slept through a good portion of the first meeting. Michael also decided to take a separate container of snacks for each boy to eat, and that actually kept them all entertained for the entire first meeting, which is uncommon. So, other than the fact that Camden can now open doors and escape from the classrooms at church and so the second two hours of church were not the easiest, it was a good day so far. Camden has two more Sundays before he is old enough for nursery class – yeah!!!

Well, only 18 more days until Match Day when we find out where we will be going for the next four years. We are not-so-patiently awaiting that day. So, tonight we are heading over to Amy and Vicente Cortez’ house for dinner, which will be nice since we haven’t had a chance to visit them for a while. We’d better get ready to go to their place now.

Car Problems and Fun with Friends

I feel like we got a lot accomplished this week – I almost feel like we are getting back up to date with all the little every-day things we need to get done since returning home. This week I was able to cross a lot of little things off of my ‘to do’ list including updating our food storage inventory, organizing the baby’s room, printing and sending some photos to Grandma Bev that she asked for, e-mailing a bunch of old German family documents to my mom so they could prepare for their trip to the Czech Republic, – I am so envious that they have the chance to go to some of the towns our ancestors are from and they might even find the places where they lived – and I also ground enough wheat for a month’s worth of whole wheat bread – I’m determined to make a batch (6 loaves) each Sunday, and am very glad that the batch I’m making right now looks like it is turning out well after last week’s batch tasted good but didn’t rise very well (wow, can you say, ‘run on sentence?’). Anyways, it always feels good to cross things off of my list as I accomplish each task.

So, this week was a fun one. A nice thing about our trips is that we got out of the habit of watching very much television, and since we’ve returned to Milwaukee we’ve tried to continue that. We’ve had more time for getting together with friends and playing with the boys.

On Monday I dropped the boys off at preschool and then my visiting teachers came by before I had to go pick them up again. It’s been really nice this month because Michael hasn’t had to be in until 9am, so he waits with Camden and Isaac while I drop off Kolby and Eli at school, and then I don’t have to lug all four of them in and out of the car.

On Tuesday it was Kolby’s night. We decided to start having one night a week be an individual night for one of the kids to go out with a parent. Kolby went with Michael to run a few errands, and then they went and read books at the library. While they were running errands they got some pretty flowers and a fun new board game, Carcassonne, for me for an early Valentine’s Day surprise. I was very pleasantly surprised, and it was fun that Kolby picked out the flowers. Michael seemed to enjoy it a lot too, because he says that I am so hard to surprise, but I didn’t expect it at all.

On Wednesday morning the boys had preschool again, and they did great. Eli has done well with preschool, he especially enjoys having Kolby there with him. Most days this week they haven’t even made a big deal of me leaving when I drop them off – they just say goodbye and that’s enough for them. Then Wednesday evening Michael had an AOA meeting and he took Isaac with him while I took the other boys to the YMCA. Camden went and played at their kid care while I watched Kolby and Eli’s swim lessons. It is the first time that Eli is in a class with us in the water with him, and he did great. The teacher seemed surprised when Eli willingly dunked his head under the water right when she asked the kids to do ‘bobs’ and she asked me if he had taken lessons before. Kolby did great too. And the nice thing this session is that they are in lessons at the same time, and their classes are right next to each other, so I can pull up a stool and sit right in the middle of the two to watch them both. After their lessons were over they wanted to stay and play in the water and they played for about 15 minutes more before we left. Eli loves to play on the steps and go under the water with his eyes open the whole time and Kolby was excited that he is tall enough to walk on the bottom even deeper into the pool than he used to be, so I kept having to remind him he couldn’t walk all the way to the middle of the pool. They had a lot of fun with that.

Thursday morning we took Michael’s car into the shop because it had failed the emissions test earlier in the week. We paid them $30 to tell us that we would need to pay $1000 to fix the entire emissions system, $450 to replace a rotted out radiator, and $400 for a major tune up – all for the little car that we paid $1500 for a year ago. So now we are really trying to figure out what to do. Do we get a different car that is a little newer and might not have so many major problems for a while (although we couldn’t afford the payments on anything much newer than the one we’ve got), or do we put money in and fix the car up because people say Toyotas are good little cars and we could get a lot more miles out of it if we put some money into it (or it could continue to have major problems that would cost us even more), or do we just fix the minimum to try to get it to pass emissions for one more year and then face those problems later on, or is there any possible way to make one car work at least until we move in the summer (but getting the kids up early each morning and late each night to go pick up Michael from his Surgery Sub-I rotation next month just seems like it would be awful). So, we don’t know what we’re going to do yet. Yuck! We don’t have very good luck with cars.

On Friday morning I took the boys to preschool and when I came back out of the YMCA the back of our van was all smashed in. I didn’t really know what to do since no cars were near my van at all when I came out and I thought the other driver had left. So I just stood there for a while and the driver of a semi truck parked a few car-lengths away from the van came and told me he had hit it. (I was really glad it wasn’t just a hit and run). He said that he was unloading things from the back of his truck and it started rolling and he ran and got the emergency brake on just as it hit the van. At least it seems like his company will cooperate and take care of everything with the insurance, we just have to wait until after the long weekend to get things rolling on that. But for now we can’t open the back door of the van. Luckily there wasn’t more of a problem than that – I’m glad it didn’t break the back window or anything, because it had been so cold that driving with our kids in the van with a broken window would be unbearable. Anyways, one more bit of our bad luck with cars. Oh well. So, Friday night the Kearls came over and we babysat Nathan and Katie while they went curling and then they stayed for games after they returned and the Wellses came and joined us for games too.

And then yesterday morning Michael went and helped Bishop Park to move some of their stuff into storage so they can sell their house. They are moving to Washington this summer. After lunch we went over and saw the Wells’ home for the first time and we played some games on their Wii. Jana also got out her violin and played some songs for the boys, which was very impressive – she could play any song that we named and each one sounded great. She said she started playing just before she turned 4 years old, so I guess we are behind. We told Kolby he could start taking piano lessons after we move. After that we dropped off our boys at the Kearls and went out to dinner for our Valentine’s Day date. We went to Habaneros, which we would recommend. They had great food, and we were surprised at how nice of a place it was inside – from the outside it looks like a small place in this little strip mall with neon beer signs in the windows, but when you go inside it is a very large room with vaulted ceilings and much more authentic-looking architecture and decorating than other Mexican places we’ve been to out here. It was a fun evening out together. After that we went over to the school for their annual Variety Fest talent show. We have gone to it each year since we’ve been here, and it was a really strange feeling to look around and not recognize many people there and realize that we were some of only a few 4th-years there. It felt really strange to be the “oldest” and realize we are going to be done with all of this soon. Afterwards we returned to the Kearls and played a game of Carcassonne and watched a fun movie called Stardust before taking the kids home to bed.

And today there have been reports of a bad storm that is supposed to come in later on, so church was cancelled. It doesn’t look too bad out now, but there was rain this morning that is supposed to make things very slippery and later on there is supposed to be about 6 inches of new snow. So, this morning we watched on the internet the recording of President Hinckley’s funeral services since we were traveling on the day of his funeral a couple weeks ago. Now Michael is training the person who is taking over his job as the one who schedules all of the events in the church building. And later on the Hedgecocks are coming for dinner and then we are going to play games afterwards and the Kearls may come too. So it should be a nice relaxing day. The boys are napping now, which is always nice to have a little break. Hope you all have a nice week.

Last Week

The past week was our first full week back in Milwaukee, and we had so much fun playing games and spending time with friends. It took a few days to get everything unpacked and back in the right places. We also got the Christmas decorations down and put away. After taking all the Christmas boxes and luggage to our storage unit, we had room to finally move the piano out of our bedroom and back into the front room, which has been so much nicer to play. The boys always want to play with it too.

I started into my new rotation, which is surgical pathology. I am with one other student and we sit in a room and look at pathology slides with the residents and fellows. I am amazed at how fast they can look at a slide under the microscope and know within seconds what they are seeing. This is good for me to start getting used to looking under the microscope, since I will have to do this in my dermatology residency.

Last Wednesday we had a huge snowstorm that swept through the area, dumping about 12 inches of snow. There was also a really gusty wind, so being outside and on the roads was bad. The director of our rotation on Tuesday said to not come in Wednesday if the snow was bad enough, so I ended up having a snow day, which was so nice. Steph and I were able to get a lot of little things done at home that day and that night we had the Kearls over for games. We played out in the snow when they first got here and the boys had so much fun because there was so much.

Thursday night we went to dinner with Tyce and Faith to celebrate Faith’s birthday, which was Saturday. We went downtown to the Pizza Shuttle and they had really good gourmet pizzas – we got a bbq chicken, alfredo vegetable, and spinach with feta. We thought it would be more than enough food, but the boys ate so much, and there were no leftovers. They have definitely gotten their appetites back since coming home.

Friday was Eli’s first day of preschool. He is in the same classes with Kolby. We got some really cute pictures of him and Kolby dressed up for his first day. He had so much fun and loves school, especially since he is with Kolby – they are such good friends. Steph said that as soon as they got there the boys were off playing and didn’t need her to stick around.

That night the Kearls had asked us to babysit for them so they could go curling. We went to their house to help out, and when they got back some others showed up for cake and ice cream and games. By the time we were done playing Killer Bunnies, it was pretty late, and all the kids were already asleep, so we just decided to spend the night in their front room. It made me feel like I was back in college. Saturday morning Nathan came out around 6:30 with a little flashlight, and when he saw Steph sleeping in the recliner, I guess he thought she was his mom and got really excited that she was out in the front room. He came over and shined the light on her, but when he realized that she wasn’t his mom, he started screaming and ran back to his parents’ bedroom. It was really funny.

Saturday we got to listen to the worldwide leadership training conference over at the church. The topic was on raising a righteous posterity and the focus was on how to better help our kids to learn the gospel in the home and to make sure that we made our homes safe havens from the evils of the world. I thought it was neat how often they spoke about making the sacrifice of faith to have a family while still in school and not making a lot of money, and that if you would obey that commandment to multiply and replenish the earth, then you would be blessed immensely for it. As I look back on our marriage so far, I can definitely see how much we have been blessed and helped as we have tried to follow the counsel of the prophet and keep the commandments. In the conference they also gave advice on things to do to have more love and unity in the home. Steph and I are continually trying to improve on making sure that our children always feel loved and that we are spending good quality time with them. We decided to set up a weekly night out with one of the boys so that we could spend more individual time with them. We will start with Kolby this week. Saturday night we had Peter and Cynthia Hedgecock over for games and had fun catching up on each others lives for the past few months. They brought a new board game that is now our favorite game for the time. It is called Carcassonne and is similar in some respects to Settlers of Katan, but easier to explain and quite a bit faster to play. Basically, you take turn picking up pieces to add to the table as you build up cities with fields and roads and you get points based on what you build.

Sunday was probably the coldest day that we have had so far since being back – the high was only around 10 degrees, and there was a really cold wind blowing all day. Kolby gave a talk in primary on the topic of how the scriptures teach us about Heavenly Father and Jesus. He said that his favorite parts of the scriptures are those about the Lamanites, and his favorite stories are Nephi building the boat, Noah and the Ark, and Ammon and the sheep. He wanted to do the talk without our help and he did a good job with the primary president helping him. I am really looking forward to next month when Camden will be old enough to go to nursery, because one of us ends up spending the hour in the hall with him because he just doesn’t want to be quiet. :) I also got released from my calling as the ward physical facilities representative and my assignment as the stake building coordinator. For now I will just be doing home teaching, which is different, especially since I have had those callings for almost the whole time we’ve been in Milwaukee.

After church we had dinner over at the Hedgecocks. Peter is an excellent cook and we love eating his food. He made us salmon that was so delicious. I had to run for a few hours to do my home teaching with Jason. We had fun catching up on the lives of Steve and Kara and Kyle and Tracy and their kids. When I got back to the Hedgecocks we got the kids in bed and then played another round of Carcassonne. We are so grateful to have such wonderful friends here in Milwaukee and are not looking forward to possibly having to leave them when I graduate.

Grandpa McIntosh also had his back surgery on Wednesday. It sounds like everything went well, although things were a lot worse than the doctors had thought once they got in and started working. He is out of the ICU but had to have a blood transfusion Sunday night. It is good to hear that he is continually improving, if not as fast as he had hoped. You are in our prayers grandpa and we hope that this will help to alleviate some of the pain you have been dealing with for so long.

We hope everyone else is doing well and love hearing from you.

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.

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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!

It Feels Good To Get Organized

So, this morning the boys asked me if they could clean their room (they know that they aren't allowed to get a new set of toys out of the closet unless their bedroom is totally clean). So, while they picked up their toys, I got out the drill and started screwing hooks into the walls. I got the hooks a few weeks ago, and have been putting off installing them until now. It took a while, (because I had to move one of the quilts up higher on the wall) but I got it all done, and now they have places to hang up their winter coats, their sweatshirts, Kolby's backpack, and their construction and fireman hats. I figure hanging up their sweatshirts will free up some space in their dresser and having a place that they can put their coats away on their own will make less cleaning up around the house for me to do. I guess I'll just need to get one more hook, so Eli will have a place to hang up his backpack once he starts going to the preschool classes this winter after he turns 3. Anyway, I thought I'd share -- it always feels good to finish a project.

One More Week

Well, we’ve got one more week to go before we get through Michael’s Sub-I this month. Michael and I are both counting down the days. He added up the other day, and he will have worked just over 90 hours this week (even though they are not supposed to make you work over 80 hours in a week or over 30 consecutive hours – but Michael has done both several times this month). Michael and I are both pretty worn out after the long hours he has had this month, and really looking forward to a lighter schedule next month! Earlier this week Michael got home after being on call at the hospital for over 30 hours and only getting one hour of sleep in that time, and when he arrived home all the boys were down for their naps, so Michael fell asleep on the couch. Kolby woke up from his nap a little while later, and was so excited to see that Daddy was home, but I told him that Daddy really needed his sleep and not to wake him up. Kolby got a sad look on his face and just laid down on his blanket on the floor next to the couch where Michael was sleeping. Later on I looked over and saw that Kolby was rubbing Michael’s arm – trying to wake him up, I’m sure. It is pretty cute to see how much our boys love their Daddy. I guess we will all be relieved in October when we have more time to spend together as a whole family.

Well, this week went well. Kolby started his preschool classes again at the YMCA, and he is loving both of his classes. He goes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 2½ hours each day. Also this week the boys started their swim lessons up again. Kolby has his on Wednesday nights and Eli on Thursday nights. They love swimming, and Kolby was excited that his friend from church, Isaac Anderson, is in his class. I went swimming with Eli (even though he really is ready for swim lessons by himself, they keep the kids in parent-child lessons until age 3 at the YMCA). He is amazing in the water – he loves to dunk his head under the water over and over and jump in to me from the edge, and the other night he kept trying to jump away from me and swim on his own. His teacher is the same teacher he had last session, and she commented that he will definitely be ready to take the swim lessons on his own when he is old enough.

Thursday was Camden’s 1st birthday. We had a little party for him the week before, so we didn’t do any big celebrations this week, but several family members called to tell him Happy Birthday, and he got to open a few gifts. That morning I also had my new visiting teachers come for the first time, which was fun. And then in the afternoon I had a doctor’s appointment for some pain I’ve been having in my foot. The doctor sent me upstairs and had an X-ray taken just to see if there might be anything in my foot, and she told me to soak it in warm water each night for a couple weeks and see if that helps. Hopefully that little problem will resolve itself quickly. And then on Friday night we watched Jordan and Carter so that Peter and Cynthia could go on a date, and when they came back they watched our boys while we went and got custard and rented a couple videos. When we came back, our boys were in bed and theirs fell asleep on their laps, and it was nice because they stayed for a bit and we got a chance to just sit and talk for a while.

And yesterday morning we went to the church and I dropped Kolby off for his primary program practice. Eli and Camden and I went and picked up a few things from the grocery store and came back. Kolby has been doing so well lately – he memorized a scripture and had a little line to say in the program, “In primary we learned that faith means trust.” He has been working on memorizing his part for about a month now, and at the program in church this morning he said it, and then gave a huge grin – everyone could tell that he was so proud of himself! Saturday evening we went to a birthday party for Ian Nielsen, who was born around the same time as Camden. At the party, Christina Nielsen, who is a photographer, also took cute pictures of all the kids Ian and Camden’s age and took a photo of all the moms holding their kids that age – we took one about a year ago when all of us were pregnant. She was talking about putting some of the photos she took in the medical school yearbook – too bad for me that all the other moms in the pictures looked nice and thin after a year of recovering from their pregnancies, and I looked huge pregnant still – oh well. We had fun at the Nielsen’s, and then we headed over to the Hymas’ house for a little birthday party for their daughter, Emily, who is turning 2. I gave Emily some of the bows I made for a gift, and she was wearing some at church today, so that was fun.

And church went well today. Michael was actually lucky enough to discharge his last patient of the day yesterday, so he asked his resident for permission to leave the hospital for one hour today to come to church for Kolby’s primary program, even though he is on overnight call again starting today, and his resident said yes. So even though he was in the hospital this morning, so I had to get all the kids ready for church by myself, he got there and was able to stay for Sacrament meeting, which was great for Kolby to have Michael there for his program, and it was also nice because Eli and especially Camden were a little wild and noisy in that meeting, so it was helpful to have him there to help me with them. He had to rush off to the hospital as soon as that meeting was over, and I haven’t heard from him yet today, so hopefully the day is going well for him.

The rest of church went well for me. With the help of a couple little bags of Cheerios and Honeycomb cereal, Camden actually stayed in the classroom with me for all of Sunday School and Relief Society (except for a few minutes when we had to go out because he was crying after he fell and hit his head on a chair leg). But it was nice to be able to stay in the classroom for the entire lesson, since he is starting to get to that age when kids are too old to just sit still for 3 hours of church, but not old enough yet to go into the 18-month-old nursery class, so many parents end up spending a lot of time out in the halls at church for those months. After church I went to choir practice, and the boys enjoyed playing at the choir nursery. And when we came home we took dinner over to the Hansens because they had a baby a few weeks ago, and I put the boys down for naps. Camden just got up, and the other two are still sleeping. Thank goodness for naptime. I think that even when Kolby outgrows naps, I will still insist on a minimum of a 2-hour “quite time” in his room while the younger boys nap. On days that I am frustrated with the kids or just days that seem especially long and I am tired, their naptime is very important for me to have a couple hours all to myself. Well, I hope you have all had a good week!

At The Playground

Since Kolby started his classes at the YMCA last week, we have been going most days after his class to the little playground that is out behind the YMCA for the boys to play a while before we go home for lunch and naps. I figured we should try to get in as much outside time as we can, because who knows when it's going to start getting cold here. Camden loves the slides -- he crawls up the steps and slides down face first on his belly, and he likes to just sit at the bottom of the slide and play. Kolby was having fun pretending to be a puppy, as you can see from some of his pictures. And Eli was having fun on the big slide and climbing the little "climbing wall" on the playground. They have so much fun -- it's really nice to let them all play and be able to just sit and watch them having fun for a little while.

First Day of School

Kolby was so excited to start preschool again today that he was bouncing off the walls this morning. I took some first-day-of-school pictures, and he had fun making lots of silly faces. He was excited to use his backpack again and to pack a treat. He has two classes that he will be taking three days a week at the YMCA: Kid’s Club and Preschool Movement. In his first class today he said that he played, cleaned up, colored, sang songs, and had snacks. Then in his class in the gym they played an animal game where they pretended to sleep on the ground when a bear come, jump over logs, run really fast from a tiger, and something that has to do with deer antlers (???) – I got all this from his reenactment after we got home. He told me all about how many girl teachers and how many boy teachers he has (he said that he doesn’t know any of his teachers’ names, even though I recognized some of them from when he went to preschool last school year. So he asked me to ask them their names for him when we go back on Wednesday). I was really glad that he was so excited, and that he walked right in and sat down as soon as we got there (which was a relief after having to leave him crying on his teacher’s lap when I dropped him off yesterday for his primary class at church).