Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving. Show all posts
11 December 2008
Turkey Cookies
Here are some shots of Michael and the boys and I decorating our traditional “turkey cookies” the night before Thanksgiving.
Catching up on Photos
So, I’ve put off adding photos and videos to the blog now since just before Thanksgiving. All the boys are down for their naps right now, so maybe I’ll try to get caught up a bit.
Here are a few random shots from November:
Some plastic animal cracker jars from Costco that I’ve converted into food storage containers. I just cut up the bags from the food items that I wanted in the jars, then taped on the labels so it shows what is in each jar, and there is nutrition info on the back. I was pretty leased with how they turned out. (Now we’ll just see if the boys can eat enough animal crackers so that I can get a few more of these jars for food storage).
Here are a few random shots from November:
Some plastic animal cracker jars from Costco that I’ve converted into food storage containers. I just cut up the bags from the food items that I wanted in the jars, then taped on the labels so it shows what is in each jar, and there is nutrition info on the back. I was pretty leased with how they turned out. (Now we’ll just see if the boys can eat enough animal crackers so that I can get a few more of these jars for food storage).
A couple cute shots of Isaac and Camden in the bath when Kolby and Eli were at preschool one day.
One day Kolby and Eli’s friend, Hannah Johnson, came over to play for a little while after preschool. They played well together, but the boys got a little wild – showing off for their new friend. It was funny to watch them play, though, and see the obvious difference between boys and girls. Hannah had two of the Fisher Price “Little People” toys and was talking for them: “I love you,” “Why do you love me?” “Because I love you.” And then she made the people kiss. Eli, on the other hand, had a Little People bird and a crocodile which he was waving through the air (because the bird was helping the crocodile to fly) and every once in a while his animals would dive-bomb some of the other toys.
A rather unsuccessful attempt at pictures with Santa at the mall (we couldn’t even get Santa to look at the camera, let alone any of our boys). [Not that we would expect Isaac to sit with a strange man and smile for the camera].
When my family came for Thanksgiving, we met Michael at the hospital one day so that he could give everyone a tour of where he worked. These are of my brothers giving my boys piggy-back rides on our way into the hospital.
Michael wrapping a White Elephant gift for his work party that we went to.
And here are a couple shots of our boys with their cousins, Jaden and Kyler, on Thanksgiving at Grandma Bradshaw’s house.
30 November 2008
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!
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!
27 November 2007
A Busy Week
So, it has been a busy week. I think we will continue to be very busy until we leave on our trip on Saturday – there is so much that I’d like to get done before we leave. I guess we’ll probably continue to be pretty busy after we get there too, with Michael’s interviews and working at the dermatologist’s office and with all the boys. I guess with this many little kids we’ll probably be busy more often than not the rest of our lives. But we wouldn’t want things to be boring around here, I guess. :)
So, on Monday after taking Kolby to preschool I took Isaac for his follow-up appointment with the ENT doctor who did his surgeries while he was in the NICU. He said that Isaac has now recovered fully and can be treated like a normal baby his age. That was nice to hear. Then we stopped at the pediatrician’s office for a weight check, and Isaac had gained a few ounces from his birth weight. I wasn’t surprised that he had at least gained a little weight, because he has had trouble nursing so I had been pumping and feeding him with a bottle for almost a week at that time, so I knew exactly how much he was eating and he was getting enough to eat.
On Tuesday Michael had his second transitional year program interview here in Milwaukee at St. Joseph’s Hospital. He said that the interview went well, was pretty relaxed, and went by pretty quickly. He got home early after his interview, so he was able to go with me to an appointment at the hospital for Isaac to try to help with his nursing in speech and sucking therapy. There was a nutritionist and a feeding specialist who both work with babies who met with us and watching Isaac suck on a pacifier, eat from a bottle, and nurse. They were both really nice, and after watching him they said that he was efficient and he had a good sucking and breathing pattern, and they didn’t know why he was having trouble with the nursing. They didn’t really have any more suggestions for us, other than the fact that they said we should supplement with formula as needed so that he could have 4 to 5 ounces to eat at each feeding. They told us a nice little way to know how much a baby needs to eat: take the baby’s weight and convert it to kilograms, and that is about how many ounces they should have at each feeding. Isaac was a little over 4 kilograms, so we have been giving him breastmilk and formula since then, because I have only been pumping about 2 ounces at a time. (I’m sure you all really needed to know that – oh well). So, I have continued to pump since then, and I plan to do so until we leave town. Then he will at least get the breastmilk until he is six weeks old. One thing that sure has been nice this last week is that since Isaac has been eating from a bottle, Grandma Faun has been getting up with him to feed him at night so I can sleep. That sure has been nice to be able to get my rest at night so I can keep up with things in the daytime. Thanks, Grandma!
On Wednesday Kolby had preschool and then he had his swim lesson that night, and Grandma went with so she could watch him swim. Today I signed Kolby and Eli up for the winter session of preschool and swim lessons. Eli will be going with Kolby three days a week to preschool, which I think both of them will really enjoy, and both boys will be taking their swim lessons on Wednesday nights. It will work really well because Kolby and Eli will be in different classes, but their classes will be held at either corner of one end of the pool, so I will be able to go sit in the middle of the two classes and watch them both do their lessons, but we won’t have to go out two nights in a row. I think that will work out really well.
On Thursday we had a fun Thanksgiving day. In the morning Michael got up early and went to play football with the other guys from church, and he said he made a couple touchdowns. Michael roasted a turkey, and Grandma and I made a lemon jello salad with bananas that my great grandma, Grandma Moore, used to make; a fruit salad with marshmallows that my other great grandma, Mamaw, used to make; a layered green salad with peas, swiss cheese, and red onions that my mom makes; funeral potatoes, and deviled eggs. We decorated the table with a new tablecloth and we used the china. It was fun.
On Friday morning I took Kolby to preschool and when we got there, there was a sign on the door saying that preschool was cancelled due to the holiday and a lack of attendance. So I took him with me to the DMV because I needed to renew my license before we leave town (and the paperwork that they sent in the mail listed the holidays that the DMV would be closed, and only listed Thanksgiving but not the day after Thanksgiving), but when I got there they were closed too for the holiday. Kind of wasted my whole morning, but oh well. That night the Hedgecocks came over and the boys played together and we got to play a card game, which was fun. It was nice to see them again after a while.
And then on Saturday we got a lot of errands run and that evening after dinner we took a little trip to Cabellas. It is a hunting and fishing store, and Grandma told us that they have the best licorice that she has ever had (although once we got the licorice there, she said that the stuff they sell at the Cabellas in Utah was better than here). But it was a fun little activity (and nice to get the whole family out of the house). It’s not only a store, but they also have giant fish tanks with trout and catfish and other fish, and lots of animals (stuffed) – all sorts of animals from the forest, and a little section with African animals. It was a really big store – we didn’t even have time to see the upstairs before it closed since it was pretty late when we got there. But the kids had fun – that was our first activity with the entire family out of our house since Isaac was born.
Sunday was kind of crazy. I woke up at 7:30 in the morning to Michael yelling for help. I guess Michael was helping Kolby and Eli brush their teeth before church and Camden walked into the bathroom and fell and hit his mouth on the edge of the bathtub. We know that cuts in the mouth bleed a lot, but his was bleeding more than any other injury any of our children have had in the past. After we got it to stop bleeding and got him calmed down, Michael took the older boys to church. I noticed that one of Camden’s teeth looked like it was pushed back a little further than the other ones, and I called the pediatrician’s office to see if we needed to worry about that, or if it didn’t matter because it was just a baby tooth. The doctor on call suggested taking him into the hospital to have it checked out just in case there was root damage to the tooth. So Grandma stayed with Isaac while I took Camden to the emergency room. They told us that his tooth cut almost all the way through his top lip when he fell, but that they rarely do stitches in the mouth because the mouth heals on it’s own so quickly and because of the bacteria there is a high risk of infection when they do stitches inside the mouth, so they will only do that if it is a serious cut, like a really forked tongue or something. And they felt the tooth and said that it didn’t wiggle at all, so they weren’t concerned about that. So I don’t know if his tooth did move, or if it was already a little further back than the others and I had never noticed it before. So Camden is fine now – but he still has a big fat lip. Hopefully that will go away soon. After we got home from the hospital we decided to try to catch the second half of church. I wasn’t planning on taking Isaac this week, but Kolby gave a talk in primary, so Grandma and I wanted to be there to see that. He did really well, it was very cute. Then that night after dinner we had the Wellses, the Kearls, and the Hymases over for dessert. It was fun to get together with all of them before we leave.
This week has been crazy busy so far, and I think it will just continue to be really busy until we leave. Yesterday I had to get all the errands run that needed to be done because I knew we would not have a car today because we had to take it in to have the breaks and rotors replaced. So yesterday morning I took Kolby to school, got stamps at the library, went to the DMV and renewed my driver’s license, went home to call the doctor’s office to get Isaac’s medicine refilled, went back and picked up Kolby from school, signed the boys up for preschool and swimming lessons for the winter session when we return in February, went and got ink for the printer, picked up some diapers at the store, and then went to pick up Isaac’s medicine. When I got home and helped Grandma to finish feeding the kids lunch and put them all down for their naps, Grandma said that my visiting teacher had come while I was gone. I totally spaced the appointment she had set to come visit with me. Ooops! It seems like with so much going on I can’t manage to remember everything that I need to. I was thinking that my visiting teacher is going to think I am a forgetful person, but I’m really not usually like that (but maybe now that I have four little kids I am going to turn into a forgetful person – hopefully not, hopefully I will feel less forgetful after a few months when things calm down a bit and we get into some kind of regular routine).
So, last night we did have some fun. After running a few errands we went to the McDonalds down in West Allis and let the boys play in the big play area there. It is a two-story indoor playground with tunnels to climb through and two big slides, and it was especially fun because Camden went up in the play area for the first time. The first time he went up with Kolby and Kolby helped him through the tunnels to the slide. Then Michael and I each took a turn climbing up and helping him get up to the slides. The boys really enjoyed that.
And this week we have a lot planned. Tomorrow Michael leaves for his first dermatology interview in Temple, Texas with Texas A&M. He has a dinner with the residents Wednesday night and then the interview on Thursday. On Wednesday we also have a doctor’s check-up for Camden and Eli’s flu shot. Then on Thursday I am taking Isaac to Children’s Hospital to have him circumcision done (they didn’t get it done before he was discharge from the NICU, so this was the earliest time that we could get an appointment for him). And then on Friday I have my 6-week check-up after having the baby. And then we will be leaving early in the morning on Saturday. Our friends, Faith and Tyce, were so nice to say they would take us to the airport. Our family is getting so big, that we will need to take two cars to get to the airport now – with our family, my Grandma, a driver, and all our luggage for a two-month trip there is no way we could fit into one car. I don’t even know how we are going to pack for this trip, but I guess I’d better figure that out pretty soon. Well, Isaac was asleep and he keeps flailing his arms about and waking himself up – I guess I’d better go swaddle him so he can stay asleep.
Oh, here is the talk that Kolby gave in church on Sunday: (I helped him a bit with the beginning and end of the talk, but he came up with all the things he was thankful for all on his own).
“I have faith in Jesus Christ. I have blessings in my life. I am thankful for my blessings. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I am thankful for my brothers. I am thankful for the temple and the church. I am thankful for our Christmas tree. I am thankful for my whole family. I am thankful for my grandma. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for my manta. I am thankful for songs. And I am thankful for our food and our clothes. I show that I am thankful in my prayers to Heavenly Father and Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”
So, on Monday after taking Kolby to preschool I took Isaac for his follow-up appointment with the ENT doctor who did his surgeries while he was in the NICU. He said that Isaac has now recovered fully and can be treated like a normal baby his age. That was nice to hear. Then we stopped at the pediatrician’s office for a weight check, and Isaac had gained a few ounces from his birth weight. I wasn’t surprised that he had at least gained a little weight, because he has had trouble nursing so I had been pumping and feeding him with a bottle for almost a week at that time, so I knew exactly how much he was eating and he was getting enough to eat.
On Tuesday Michael had his second transitional year program interview here in Milwaukee at St. Joseph’s Hospital. He said that the interview went well, was pretty relaxed, and went by pretty quickly. He got home early after his interview, so he was able to go with me to an appointment at the hospital for Isaac to try to help with his nursing in speech and sucking therapy. There was a nutritionist and a feeding specialist who both work with babies who met with us and watching Isaac suck on a pacifier, eat from a bottle, and nurse. They were both really nice, and after watching him they said that he was efficient and he had a good sucking and breathing pattern, and they didn’t know why he was having trouble with the nursing. They didn’t really have any more suggestions for us, other than the fact that they said we should supplement with formula as needed so that he could have 4 to 5 ounces to eat at each feeding. They told us a nice little way to know how much a baby needs to eat: take the baby’s weight and convert it to kilograms, and that is about how many ounces they should have at each feeding. Isaac was a little over 4 kilograms, so we have been giving him breastmilk and formula since then, because I have only been pumping about 2 ounces at a time. (I’m sure you all really needed to know that – oh well). So, I have continued to pump since then, and I plan to do so until we leave town. Then he will at least get the breastmilk until he is six weeks old. One thing that sure has been nice this last week is that since Isaac has been eating from a bottle, Grandma Faun has been getting up with him to feed him at night so I can sleep. That sure has been nice to be able to get my rest at night so I can keep up with things in the daytime. Thanks, Grandma!
On Wednesday Kolby had preschool and then he had his swim lesson that night, and Grandma went with so she could watch him swim. Today I signed Kolby and Eli up for the winter session of preschool and swim lessons. Eli will be going with Kolby three days a week to preschool, which I think both of them will really enjoy, and both boys will be taking their swim lessons on Wednesday nights. It will work really well because Kolby and Eli will be in different classes, but their classes will be held at either corner of one end of the pool, so I will be able to go sit in the middle of the two classes and watch them both do their lessons, but we won’t have to go out two nights in a row. I think that will work out really well.
On Thursday we had a fun Thanksgiving day. In the morning Michael got up early and went to play football with the other guys from church, and he said he made a couple touchdowns. Michael roasted a turkey, and Grandma and I made a lemon jello salad with bananas that my great grandma, Grandma Moore, used to make; a fruit salad with marshmallows that my other great grandma, Mamaw, used to make; a layered green salad with peas, swiss cheese, and red onions that my mom makes; funeral potatoes, and deviled eggs. We decorated the table with a new tablecloth and we used the china. It was fun.
On Friday morning I took Kolby to preschool and when we got there, there was a sign on the door saying that preschool was cancelled due to the holiday and a lack of attendance. So I took him with me to the DMV because I needed to renew my license before we leave town (and the paperwork that they sent in the mail listed the holidays that the DMV would be closed, and only listed Thanksgiving but not the day after Thanksgiving), but when I got there they were closed too for the holiday. Kind of wasted my whole morning, but oh well. That night the Hedgecocks came over and the boys played together and we got to play a card game, which was fun. It was nice to see them again after a while.
And then on Saturday we got a lot of errands run and that evening after dinner we took a little trip to Cabellas. It is a hunting and fishing store, and Grandma told us that they have the best licorice that she has ever had (although once we got the licorice there, she said that the stuff they sell at the Cabellas in Utah was better than here). But it was a fun little activity (and nice to get the whole family out of the house). It’s not only a store, but they also have giant fish tanks with trout and catfish and other fish, and lots of animals (stuffed) – all sorts of animals from the forest, and a little section with African animals. It was a really big store – we didn’t even have time to see the upstairs before it closed since it was pretty late when we got there. But the kids had fun – that was our first activity with the entire family out of our house since Isaac was born.
Sunday was kind of crazy. I woke up at 7:30 in the morning to Michael yelling for help. I guess Michael was helping Kolby and Eli brush their teeth before church and Camden walked into the bathroom and fell and hit his mouth on the edge of the bathtub. We know that cuts in the mouth bleed a lot, but his was bleeding more than any other injury any of our children have had in the past. After we got it to stop bleeding and got him calmed down, Michael took the older boys to church. I noticed that one of Camden’s teeth looked like it was pushed back a little further than the other ones, and I called the pediatrician’s office to see if we needed to worry about that, or if it didn’t matter because it was just a baby tooth. The doctor on call suggested taking him into the hospital to have it checked out just in case there was root damage to the tooth. So Grandma stayed with Isaac while I took Camden to the emergency room. They told us that his tooth cut almost all the way through his top lip when he fell, but that they rarely do stitches in the mouth because the mouth heals on it’s own so quickly and because of the bacteria there is a high risk of infection when they do stitches inside the mouth, so they will only do that if it is a serious cut, like a really forked tongue or something. And they felt the tooth and said that it didn’t wiggle at all, so they weren’t concerned about that. So I don’t know if his tooth did move, or if it was already a little further back than the others and I had never noticed it before. So Camden is fine now – but he still has a big fat lip. Hopefully that will go away soon. After we got home from the hospital we decided to try to catch the second half of church. I wasn’t planning on taking Isaac this week, but Kolby gave a talk in primary, so Grandma and I wanted to be there to see that. He did really well, it was very cute. Then that night after dinner we had the Wellses, the Kearls, and the Hymases over for dessert. It was fun to get together with all of them before we leave.
This week has been crazy busy so far, and I think it will just continue to be really busy until we leave. Yesterday I had to get all the errands run that needed to be done because I knew we would not have a car today because we had to take it in to have the breaks and rotors replaced. So yesterday morning I took Kolby to school, got stamps at the library, went to the DMV and renewed my driver’s license, went home to call the doctor’s office to get Isaac’s medicine refilled, went back and picked up Kolby from school, signed the boys up for preschool and swimming lessons for the winter session when we return in February, went and got ink for the printer, picked up some diapers at the store, and then went to pick up Isaac’s medicine. When I got home and helped Grandma to finish feeding the kids lunch and put them all down for their naps, Grandma said that my visiting teacher had come while I was gone. I totally spaced the appointment she had set to come visit with me. Ooops! It seems like with so much going on I can’t manage to remember everything that I need to. I was thinking that my visiting teacher is going to think I am a forgetful person, but I’m really not usually like that (but maybe now that I have four little kids I am going to turn into a forgetful person – hopefully not, hopefully I will feel less forgetful after a few months when things calm down a bit and we get into some kind of regular routine).
So, last night we did have some fun. After running a few errands we went to the McDonalds down in West Allis and let the boys play in the big play area there. It is a two-story indoor playground with tunnels to climb through and two big slides, and it was especially fun because Camden went up in the play area for the first time. The first time he went up with Kolby and Kolby helped him through the tunnels to the slide. Then Michael and I each took a turn climbing up and helping him get up to the slides. The boys really enjoyed that.
And this week we have a lot planned. Tomorrow Michael leaves for his first dermatology interview in Temple, Texas with Texas A&M. He has a dinner with the residents Wednesday night and then the interview on Thursday. On Wednesday we also have a doctor’s check-up for Camden and Eli’s flu shot. Then on Thursday I am taking Isaac to Children’s Hospital to have him circumcision done (they didn’t get it done before he was discharge from the NICU, so this was the earliest time that we could get an appointment for him). And then on Friday I have my 6-week check-up after having the baby. And then we will be leaving early in the morning on Saturday. Our friends, Faith and Tyce, were so nice to say they would take us to the airport. Our family is getting so big, that we will need to take two cars to get to the airport now – with our family, my Grandma, a driver, and all our luggage for a two-month trip there is no way we could fit into one car. I don’t even know how we are going to pack for this trip, but I guess I’d better figure that out pretty soon. Well, Isaac was asleep and he keeps flailing his arms about and waking himself up – I guess I’d better go swaddle him so he can stay asleep.
Oh, here is the talk that Kolby gave in church on Sunday: (I helped him a bit with the beginning and end of the talk, but he came up with all the things he was thankful for all on his own).
“I have faith in Jesus Christ. I have blessings in my life. I am thankful for my blessings. I am thankful for Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I am thankful for my brothers. I am thankful for the temple and the church. I am thankful for our Christmas tree. I am thankful for my whole family. I am thankful for my grandma. I am thankful for my friends. I am thankful for my manta. I am thankful for songs. And I am thankful for our food and our clothes. I show that I am thankful in my prayers to Heavenly Father and Jesus. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.”
24 November 2007
Thanksgiving Day
On Thanksgiving day we read a few little stories that were a tradition to read in Michael's family when he was growing up. One is a children's story with pictures about a little boy who was thankful for his favorite whole wheat rolls that his mother made for him. Then there was an article about the history of the Thanksgiving holiday. And the last story was about a group of family and friends who gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner together, and the hostess told about how the Pilgrims on the first Thanksgiving only had 7 kernels of corn each, after storing away the corn that would be needed for planting the next years' crops (I don't know how accurate this part of the story is, but oh well), and so the group of people each had 7 kernels of corn on their plates, and they took turns going around and each telling 7 things they were thankful for.
So, for our tradition, after reading that story we went around and let each of the kids have 7 kernels of corn and tell 7 things they are thankful for. It was pretty cute what kinds of things the boys came up with that they were thankful for. Kolby said some pretty thoughtful things -- that he was thankful that Isaac came home from the hospital, he was thankful for Heavenly Father and the atonement (I didn't know he even knew that word), and he was thankful for his family. I thought that Eli might be too young to understand when we asked him what he was thankful for, and he said that he was thankful for the little plastic bag that we were using to collect each person's kernel of corn, but the next time it was his turn we asked what made him happy and he said temples and churches (I guess he didn't know what the word 'thankful' meant the first time around). So that was a lot of fun.
We had dinner at home as a family, and it was nice because my Grandma was here with us. We were originally planning to invite a few good friends over to have dinner with us (especially since we don't know if we will be moving next summer for Michael's residency, so this may be our last Thanksgiving here in Milwaukee), but when Isaac was born they told us to keep him away from other people, especially little kids, as much as possible, so we decided we would have to do Thanksgiving by ourselves. Then last week I took Isaac into the ENT doctor for his follow-up appointment, and the doctor said that Isaac is fully recovered from the surgeries and we should treat him like any other child his age. So, we will probably try to keep him away from crowded places with lots of little kids for a while longer, but we probably could have had over a few families if we were careful to have people wash their hands before holding him. But it was too late to invite people because everyone had other plans already, but we still had a nice dinner together as a family. I had fun using the table cloth and a pretty candle holder that I had found earlier when we were still planning on having guests over for dinner, and we got out the nice china for the first time in a while (I have been scared to use it with the kids, but none got broken).
Here are pictures of the table all decorated before dinner, and of Daddy and Isaac taking a nap after the meal:
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So, for our tradition, after reading that story we went around and let each of the kids have 7 kernels of corn and tell 7 things they are thankful for. It was pretty cute what kinds of things the boys came up with that they were thankful for. Kolby said some pretty thoughtful things -- that he was thankful that Isaac came home from the hospital, he was thankful for Heavenly Father and the atonement (I didn't know he even knew that word), and he was thankful for his family. I thought that Eli might be too young to understand when we asked him what he was thankful for, and he said that he was thankful for the little plastic bag that we were using to collect each person's kernel of corn, but the next time it was his turn we asked what made him happy and he said temples and churches (I guess he didn't know what the word 'thankful' meant the first time around). So that was a lot of fun.
We had dinner at home as a family, and it was nice because my Grandma was here with us. We were originally planning to invite a few good friends over to have dinner with us (especially since we don't know if we will be moving next summer for Michael's residency, so this may be our last Thanksgiving here in Milwaukee), but when Isaac was born they told us to keep him away from other people, especially little kids, as much as possible, so we decided we would have to do Thanksgiving by ourselves. Then last week I took Isaac into the ENT doctor for his follow-up appointment, and the doctor said that Isaac is fully recovered from the surgeries and we should treat him like any other child his age. So, we will probably try to keep him away from crowded places with lots of little kids for a while longer, but we probably could have had over a few families if we were careful to have people wash their hands before holding him. But it was too late to invite people because everyone had other plans already, but we still had a nice dinner together as a family. I had fun using the table cloth and a pretty candle holder that I had found earlier when we were still planning on having guests over for dinner, and we got out the nice china for the first time in a while (I have been scared to use it with the kids, but none got broken).
Here are pictures of the table all decorated before dinner, and of Daddy and Isaac taking a nap after the meal:
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