Well, everyone has been asking for more photos of Courtland, so here are lots of photos and a couple short video clips. He is such a little cutie! He is the only one of our boys who has a cute little cleft in his chin (like his Daddy). His hair is a light brown color, and his eyes are dark blue. He has a good little personality – he seems to be trying to sleep pretty well the last day or so, and since visiting a lactation specialist this afternoon I think we’ve got this whole nursing thing down, so things should be getting a little easier from here on out. He likes his baby swing and his pacifier, and since he was giving me a hard time with nursing the last couple days we found out that he takes a bottle really well too. When he was born Courtland had lots of red blotchy spots on his face and we thought that maybe he had really sensitive skin, but it has mostly cleared up since then.
His brothers all seem to like him – we haven’t had any jealousy issues yet (cross your fingers that things will continue to go well in that department), and every once in a while even little Isaac will come over and give him and kiss or hug without us even asking him to (we often ask him to give us kisses and hugs). I thought that the boys would do well with the new baby, but was a little concerned about how Isaac would react, especially since he seems to be more attached to Michael and I than the older boys were at his age, and because with moving to Utah we aren’t really around anyone else with kids Isaac’s age or younger so he hasn’t been around little babies at all, but he has done very well with Courtland so far.
Well, here are lots of fun pictures of this cute little guy:
Showing posts with label Mel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mel. Show all posts
10 February 2009
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
25 January 2009
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.
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.
24 January 2009
A Sleep-Over with Cousin Jaden!
Last Saturday we went to Mel and Christian’s for a family dinner, and on the drive there Kolby asked if he could sleep over at his cousin, Jaden’s, house. After explaining to him that it isn’t polite to invite yourself to sleep over at someone else’s house, but that it’s ok to invite someone to your house if Mommy and Daddy say it’s alright, he asked if Jaden could sleep over at our house that night. I told him that it wouldn’t work that night because Jaden wouldn’t be able to get back to his house in time for church the next morning, but said that we could invite him to spend the night after Eli’s birthday party on Thursday (since Kolby and Eli don’t have preschool on Fridays). This worked for Mel, and we made plans for the sleep over.
The boys were excited for Jaden to stay, and I was glad that Jaden seemed excited, and not at all nervous about staying after his parents left too. We put the kids to bed around 8:00, with Jaden and Eli sharing Eli’s big bed together, and they did pretty well. As expected, they played and talked in bed for quite a while. Around 10:00 Jaden came out of the bedroom, and with a very concerned look on his face, told us that Eli had broken his pillow. It turns out Eli had just taken the pillowcase off, so that was an easy fix. :) We ended up putting Jaden in our bed (just because we didn’t want them to wake up Isaac, who shares a room with Eli), and then we moved Jaden back into Eli’s bed after they had both fallen asleep. In the morning the kids all played with toys and colored until breakfast time, we ate, and then they played all morning until lunch. After lunch I put all five boys down for naps, and Christian ended up coming to pick Jaden up while he was napping. I thought that it went very well, for how young the boys are. And they had so much fun! I took this picture that night before the boys went to bed, and I think it turned out so cute of each of them:
.jpg)
Eli's 4th Birthday Party
So, we had Eli’s birthday party on Thursday (he will turn 4 on January 31st). I made a Lightning McQueen car birthday cake which turned out pretty cute, if I do say so myself. The boys were excited to help me curl ribbons and hang them from the ceiling, and to blow up balloons too. Since it was a Cars themed party, we got out the boys’ box of matchbox cars for all the kids to play with. We also got out several little boxes that the boys like to play with like they are garages for their cars, and a large box that we happened to have from the dishwasher that had to be replaced earlier this week. The kids enjoyed climbing in and out of that big box until it finally collapsed at the end of the night. Eli liked his cake and ice cream, and enjoyed the treat of drinking soda (we usually only get soda for birthday parties). And of course he had fun opening a few gifts from his friends, which he has been carrying around and having fun with the last couple of days since the party. Although it was a traditional Bradshaw family kid’s birthday party [lots of loud kids running around for the entire evening], the kids had fun and it was nice to see the parents and get to say hi to them too. You can tell from the pictures and video clips that Eli enjoyed the night – he has a big smile in every photo.
18 January 2009
Yes, I know this is another long post . . .
So, this has been a nice week for our family. We started out on Monday with the Hymases coming over for family home evening. It was nice to see them, let the kids play together, and just sit and talk. We did a little lesson from the new nursery manual (if you have young kids and you don’t have a copy of the new nursery manual, I would suggest getting one. The new manual has great lessons that are just the right length for the attention spans of our kids, and the coloring pages, activities, and photographs and church art are included right in the lesson. You can order it online from the church distribution center, with free shipping, for less than $10, and then you have a family night lesson all ready and you don’t have to scramble to think of something to teach the kids at the last minute. Anyways, we’ve really liked using it for our kids so far).
On Tuesday I had another doctor’s appointment. I am down to having appointments every week now. At my last appointment they explained to me their policy about elective inductions – that as long as the cervix is favorable, you can choose to be induced at 39 weeks up until 7 days after the due date (if the baby doesn’t come before then, then they recommend you be induced, but they say it’s medically indicated, not an “elective” induction if it goes that long). So, I talked to Michael, and we both feel like we shouldn’t do an induction early this time, but that scheduling it for right around the due date would be fine (I don’t really like the idea of having a Valentine’s Day baby). So, at this appointment we tentatively set an induction date for February 10th (the day after the due date). I thought that was a good day – exactly one month after my birthday. But really I’ve felt for quite a while now that this baby is going to come on his own, and I’ve really thought that he would come sometime in the week before his due date, but it’s nice to have a date scheduled as a back-up, just in case, so if he doesn’t come then we won’t have to wait too long after the due date. So, she said that how it works is they never schedule a specific time for an elective induction (because there is always a chance that there will be several other women who need to be induced for medical reasons and they would get in first). So, they call you from labor and delivery the night before the induction is scheduled and give you instructions, like to call them back the next day at a certain time to make sure they weren’t too busy with other patients before you come in. So, it feels nice to have a plan. Although I really still think he will come before that date, if I do go in to be induced, I think it will work out well, as I was induced with Kolby (he was full term and they decided to induce because I happened to have high blood pressure that day), but being induced with Kolby worked out just fine – I have heard horror stories of women getting the pitocin and it causing them to have a pattern of terrible contractions followed by labor stopping, but when I was induced with Kolby the pitocin seemed to work just as it was intended with no problems at all. So, either way I expect everything to go smoothly.
On Wednesday I made dinner for one of the ladies that I visit teach and her family, because she had been in the hospital earlier this week. I tried a simple recipe for a strawberry dip that turned out very good (although I’m sure it is less than good for you). But you just whip together 8 oz of cream cheese with one jar of marshmallow cream, and it is very, very good to dip fruit in. (It’s always fun when you try out new recipes and they turn out good, especially the kinds of recipes that don’t call for a lot of ingredients and don’t take too long to make). Also on Wednesday I did Camden’s night out. I have been running low on good ideas for free kids’ nights out to do in the winter (in the summer, it is always nice to just go on a walk, a bike ride, or go to a playground), but in the winter the options decrease and I’m not too fond of taking the kids to McDonalds to play in their play area, walking around the mall, or going to a toy store just for fun. If anyone has any good winter ideas that are free and are things you can do in the evenings, I’m open to suggestions. This week Camden and I went to the library, which was fun. He was excited to sit in the kid-sized chairs there and to have me read books to him that he picked off of the shelf by himself. But the highlight of the night for him was definitely when we were leaving the library. We were going to the car and I saw a lady down the street walking her dog, so I pointed the “puppy” out to Camden because he loves dogs. That lady must have had amazing hearing to overhear me all the way in the library parking lot, because she turned around and walked over to us just so Camden could pet her dog, which was so nice of her. Although he absolutely loves animals, especially dogs, he was a little shy at first (as usual), but he did get brave enough to pet the dog a few times before we got in the car. Then the entire ride home he kept telling me that he wanted “his puppy,” that he wanted to go to the puppy’s house, that he didn’t want to go to our house, and that he wanted the puppy. Over and over. He was definitely excited to pet that dog.
On Thursday we had a fun, full day. First of all, after I picked up the boys from preschool, we went to the dentist’s office. I scheduled an appointment for Kolby, Eli, and Camden with a pediatric dentist over a month ago, and it was finally time to go. So, we had been to a pediatric dentist a few times before for Kolby and Eli in Milwaukee. We liked the dentist that they saw in Milwaukee, and I thought it was nice that they had a dental assistant to assist each of the boys in stepping up on a little stool, each at their own sink, and showing them how to brush and floss their teeth, and then they both sat together in the dentist’s chair (they were both still little then, and fit fine in the big chair together) while the dentist looked in their mouths and talked to them about brushing their teeth before sending them off happy with a new toothbrush and toothpaste. They thought the dentist was a lot of fun, and I was pleased with the dentist in Milwaukee. It was not until we went to the dentist here that I realized how run-down, cheap, and technically out of date our dentist in Milwaukee was (although he gave the kids good dental care, it was made obvious to me the difference between a dentist who accepts Medicaid and a more “normal” pediatric dentist). When we went on Thursday, the first thing that impressed me was the office. Of course, you don’t need fancy decorations or toy to have a good experience at the dentist’s office, but it was nice for the kids to have something fun to do while I filled out all of the many forms necessary for 3 new patients who were all coming for their first time that day. We walked in the door and a whole section of the lobby was fenced off and decorated like a jungle, complete with trees sprouting up from the floor and a little Jeep that the boys enjoyed sitting in and playing. The walls and furniture were all decorate in a jungle theme and there were plants, statues, and stuffed jungle animals all over the place. When we got back into the room where the boys would be seen, it was a large room with four kid-sized dental chairs in a row, a large fish tank right in the middle, and more jungle animals and decorations all around the room. Camden was especially excited about the stuffed lion sitting in the corner of the room that was bigger than he was. The dental assistants took all three boys in for x-rays of their teeth (The boys never had x-rays in Milwaukee). Then each boy got to lay down on the dentist’s chairs and they each got little headphones to wear so they could hear the sound from each of their individual televisions (that were imbedded in the ceiling above each of their chairs) that they could watch cartoons on while the dental assistants cleaned their teeth. And they used the normal dental tools and suction to clean their teeth (Kolby was pretty excited to tell Daddy that they squirted water in his mouth) – in Milwaukee they just used a toothbrush and a piece of floss. Afterwards the dentist came in and counted their teeth, looked at the x-rays, and told me that their teeth looked good. Then he took the time to give me a recommendation for an adult dentist, since I need to get a crown to cover a tooth that had a root canal when I was in high school. When I called my mom to tell her how cool this pediatric dentist was, she said that every experience they had had was similar to that (minus the jungle décor). So, I guess the one in Milwaukee was just a little low-tech. But either way, it was actually a really great experience, because all of the boys, even Isaac in the stroller, did wonderfully and I didn’t hear a single cry or whine the entire time we were there. The boys were also very excited to pick out a prize at the end of the appointment, and all three of them picked out little red sunglasses – Kolby told me that he gets to keep his sunglasses for the rest of his life.
So, on Thursday night Michael went to go play basketball with some other guys at the church, and after getting the boys to bed I was planning to just lay down and relax. For several days before that I had been spending long hours while the boys were asleep (and staying up far too late at night) trying to do research to figure out who the parents of my 3rd great grandfather, Cummings Gilmore Monk, were for sure. I had come into contact via the internet with several distant relatives on that side of the family, and two of them had given me different information on who his parents were. In 2006 one of the people who contacted me told me that his parents were George Shadrack Monk and Anne Wright. And then recently another relative contacted me with new information supporting the idea that his parents were actually a different couple, Shadrack Peter Monk and Margaret Anne Williams. The second person’s information fit better with the family information I had, and she had good notes and sources to support her research. I was very excited to find this new information! But after doing a little research on the family myself in order to familiarize myself with the research again after a few years, I started to wonder. The information about Shadrack and Margaret is good, solid information and they are definitely the parents of Cummings Gilmore Monk. The only problem is that I have found two Cummings Gilmore Monks who were both alive in the midwest at the same time, and I am not sure which one is the son of Shadrack and Margaret – if it is my 3rd great grandfather or the other Cummings. And with an uncommon name like that, and the fact that they were both born in Virginia within 5 years of each other and then both moved to the Midwest by the time they were old enough to get married, I am assuming that they were probably cousins, likely both named after a common ancestor (maybe their grandfather?). So, I spent a lot of time this last week trying to find out which Cummings was which. I ended up making a chart in excel showing both of the Cummings’ and all of the information I have found about each of them throughout their lives – trying to sort out what information went with what Cummings. But as hard as I tried I could not find any actual source that told me who the parents of “my” Cummings were for sure. I thought that if I put in enough time and effort in researching this, (and after praying about the research and trying to follow through with the ideas I’d had when I did that), I just thought that I would be able to find them if I tried hard enough. So I was pretty disappointed that I was trying so hard and not turning up any good information. So, I had decided that I was just going to have to move on to something else and not worry about that family for now, since I wasn’t finding any new leads and I was getting frustrated with it all. I e-mailed the relatives that I had been in contact with to let them know what I had been researching this week and ask if they had any last suggestions for me. And I was so glad that I did! One of the Monk descendants wrote back and gave me an idea about ordering a death certificate, and she even offered to pay for one of the orders if I paid for the other one (since we have a 10-year range for when Cummings could have died, so we are going to do two orders to find the death certificate, and we think that they will look at a 5-year range for each order). Anyways, I know that all this probably isn’t too interesting to most of you, but I was excited to get that idea and I am looking forward to hopefully getting a death certificate (there is a section on a death certificate for parents’ names, so if we can find a death certificate and if the certificate is filled out with the parents’ names, it will be really exciting!) So, the reason I went into all that in the first place was that on Thursday night I was pretty worn out from all the late hours of research and I decided that I was just going to relax – I told Michael that after the boys went to bed I was going to lay down, watch tv, and not do anything productive at all for the rest of the night. I turned off the computer, watched a couple shows, and went to bed at 10pm, and felt like I had caught up on my rest pretty well the next day. Oh, and Michael was pretty disappointed that when he went over to the church to play basketball no one else had shown up, so he just came back home. He found out today that he had gone to the wrong building, and so I think he will try again next week (the week after this one, I guess, since Eli’s birthday party is planned for this Thursday evening).
On Friday morning I had to go out to the WIC building for a class on breastfeeding, and Grandma had a doctor’s appointment so I had to take all of the boys along with me, even though I wasn’t required to take any of them to the class. So, we got out there and the majority of the class was taken up with general announcements about the WIC program. Then I had to take Camden to change his diaper, and when I got back into the classroom with all the boys they were finishing up what must have been a very short discussion about breastfeeding. Oh well. Not that I really think I need a breastfeeding class anyways – there’s not much they could tell me at this point that I don’t already know, I don’t think. So, after we got out of there, we went to Deseret Book store. Michael got me these beautiful Willow Tree figurines for Christmas and there was one with a father and a son, one with a mother and a son, and one with two brothers, but he couldn’t find a single baby boy figurine to finish off our family. So, I went back to the store and found a different figurine with a mother, a son, and a baby boy, and I exchanged that one for the mother and son figurine. Now we have the whole set for our family and I love how they look. The other thing we did while we were at the bookstore was exchange a DVD. For Christmas we got the movie, The Other Side of Heaven, and when we tried to watch it it wouldn’t work. We could get it to the DVD menu, but then it would skip repeatedly when we tried to play it. I tried it on 3 different DVD players, and it wouldn’t work on any of them. So I exchanged it a couple weeks ago, and the second one had similar problems. We finally did get it to play once the other day, after skipping the beginning of the movie. So I took the second disc back, and told them about the problem. I asked if we could exchange it again and then try to play it on the DVD player in the store before going home so I didn’t have to return again if there were problems. So she opened a new disc and it wouldn’t play on their player either. They must have gotten a defective batch of discs or something. She called the manager and they decided to keep opening and trying discs until we found one that worked. I was glad that the next disc they tried worked (and I was also glad that the one I brought back to exchange didn’t work on their player, so they didn’t think I was just incompetent and didn’t know how to work a DVD player). After that, we stopped for a few minutes at my new favorite store at the mall, Maurice’s, where I got a new shirt on a half-off sale with birthday money. I am planning on saving most of my birthday money to get some new clothes that fit after I have this baby and get closer to a normal size again, but I couldn’t resist getting a couple shirts this month, since they were so cute and on a good sale, and I haven’t bought clothes for myself in so long. Plus they should fit after the pregnancy, so that will work out too. After the mall we headed to Costco, with promises from the boys that they wouldn’t fight, whine, or be wild at all if I let them try each of the sample foods in the store for lunch. It worked out well – the boys started whining once, and I reminded them of their promise that they wouldn’t whine at all or else we wouldn’t come back to Costco for lunch again, and they did really well after that. And it was one of the rare days that the West Valley Costco happened to have lots of samples (for some reason this store doesn’t often have very many samples), and by the time we got through the whole store we had picked up a few items we needed, the boys had tried every sample except for the diet drinks that I didn’t let them try, the boys and I were all pretty full for lunch, I did something that I rarely do – I bought one of the foods that we tried a sample for so we could have it for dinner that night, and the boys were all tired enough to go right down for naps when we got home. It turned out to be a nice day out.
When we got home that afternoon I put all the boys except Kolby down for a late nap, and then Kolby practiced his piano songs before his lesson (it got switched to Friday this week because his teacher’s daughter had been sick earlier in the week). Grandma made it home from her appointment just in time for me to go with Kolby to his lesson. Before Grandma got home, Kolby was kind of concerned how he was going to go to his lesson, and he was asking me if I was going to get a babysitter to come stay with his brothers while we went. I told him that if Grandma didn’t get home in time, I would have to stay home. And before I explained the plan to him, he was quite concerned that someone might take him if he walked to his teacher’s house alone. I explained that if he had to go without me I would stand outside and watch him walk the entire way until he was inside his teacher’s house, and I would call and make sure his teacher would watch him the entire way home until he got back into our house afterwards (his teacher lives a couple houses down from us). Fortunately, Grandma got home before we had to leave, because I do like to go along and listen to him at his lessons. On our walk over to the lesson, he said, “Mommy, if I had to walk alone and you were watching me and someone tried to take me, you would run and get me, huh?” I assured him that I would run as fast as I could and I wouldn’t let anyone take him. He didn’t seem too worried about being kidnapped, he just wanted to know all the details of the plans to stay safe. I wondered about how I have done with teaching him about safety – you don’t want your kid going around being worried about being kidnapped all the time, but at the same time you want them to be aware of danger and avoid dangerous situations. I think Kolby is aware of danger, and he obviously thinks about making plans to avoid it, but I don’t think he’s going around being scared all the time. Things like that are hard to figure out just how much information you should give a small child. I guess that’s how it goes, being a parent, especially with your first child. There are a couple other things I’ve been thinking about lately with how best to teach Kolby at this age. Like, over Christmas, we took Kolby and Eli to see a movie, and before the previews started there were commercials playing in the theater that were meant to recruit people for the army. They showed soldiers shooting guns, and Kolby quickly said, “Those are the bad guys, huh?” How do you explain to a 5-year-old that, even though Mommy has always said that guns are unsafe and people who shoot other people are bad and that we don’t play like we are shooting our brothers or friends, that the people on these commercials who you see shooting people are really the good guys? I told him that they were soldiers, and that sometimes when there is a war soldiers are needed to protect the good people against bad guys (although I don’t really believe that there is really one good side and one bad side in most wars). But it’s hard to start explaining the grey areas, when a year or two ago everything Kolby asked me about would be black and white – Mommy, do good guys shoot people with guns? No, Kolby, people who shoot other people are bad guys and we don’t use guns because they hurt people. I guess there will be more and more of these “grey areas” that I have to continue explaining as Kolby and the other boys keep getting older. There was another one the other day, although less serious than bad guys with guns vs. soldiers protecting innocent people. A couple weeks ago Kolby was invited to spend the night at the Barker’s house. The Barkers have four girls, ages 10, 8, 5, and 3, and they were also having the Adamson’s two girls over that night too. I figured that since Kolby was just 5 he was fine sleeping over with girls there, because it’s all innocent at this age and he doesn’t really see any difference between his friends who are boys and his friends who are girls. Once the kids are older, I don’t plan on letting them sleep over with girls, but now while they are so young I don’t see any harm in it. So, then a few days later we were at another friends’ house for dinner and after Kolby and his friend, Kaitlyn, were playing they both came and asked us if they could have a sleep over. Kaitlyn’s mom told me that she had always thought her daughter would be about 10 years old before she had to tell her she couldn’t sleep over with boys, not as young as 6 years old. So, how do you explain to your 5 year old son that it’s ok to sleep over with some of his friends who are girls, but not with others? Luckily he didn’t press the question of a sleep over with Kaitlyn that night and I didn’t have to discuss it with him – I didn’t really want to tell him that Kaitlyn’s mom didn’t want her to sleep over with boys, because I didn’t want him to start thinking about why that would be. I just want him to stay as innocent as he is now about his little friends forever. I know that won’t happen, but he doesn’t need to be thinking about those kinds of things at age 5.
Well, this post is getting so long that anyone who might have actually started reading it in the first place has probably quit by now, but oh well. I guess I’ll finish off telling about our weekend. On Saturday morning I made 6 loaves of bread while Michael worked on laundry, and then I went over to the church for a visiting teaching interview. After we put the boys down for a short nap (I don’t know if any of them actually went to sleep, and we finally just decided to get them all up because they were all awake and making noise in their rooms after a little while), we got ready and headed to Lehi to visit Mel and Christian and Annette. We had a good afternoon and evening at their house, eating dinner and playing a game of Life. We headed home later that night, and all four boys were asleep in the car before we got home. When we got home, we learned that my mom had been hit by a snowboarder from behind while skiing in Mammoth and her arm had a bad spiral fracture. It sounds good that she probably won’t need a surgery, but she is in a lot of pain and it’s a bad break. Trying to make her feel better, I told her I could Photoshop a picture for her with her skiing off some cool snowy cliff, and she could show that to people as an explanation of her injury when she gets back to San Diego in a few days. Then I came up with an even better idea: a picture of her skiing off a cliff and being hit from behind by a snowboarder mid-air. Hopefully she can recover quickly, because it sounds like this is very painful for her.
So, today we went to church. I reminded the boys before we went inside of one of our family goals, to be reverent in church. And when I said that, Kolby said, “And Mommy and Daddy need to not yell,” (that was another one of our family goals, that the boys and the parents would not yell at each other), so I told him that we would remind them to be reverent in church and they could remind us not to yell. I’m glad to say that Kolby, Eli, and Camden all did quite well with being reverent in church today (and Michael and I did well at not yelling in church today too). Isaac had several loud crying episodes (so that he could leave the meetings at church today), but overall he did pretty well. I took him out for a while during the sacrament meeting (and he was happy in the hallway, as long as we didn’t go too close to the chapel doors), but he did last through the entire Sunday school class, and then he fell asleep in my arms for most of my Relief Society class. So that went pretty well too. . . . so, Michael just turned to me and asked if I was still writing the blog. When I said yes, he said, “No one’s going to read it [because it’s so long].” I told him it’s not for anyone else, just for us. Anyways, I know it’s long, but oh well. . . . So, at church a lady said that her granddaughter was moving in with her and brought her furniture, so she had a couch and two hide-a-bed couches that she wanted to give away because she didn’t have enough room for them. So, after church I called to ask if they were still available, and she asked us to come over and take a look at them this afternoon. We went over and told her we would take one of the hide-a-bed couches, and then when our home teachers came over later in the afternoon they went with Michael to help pick it up from her house. This was perfect timing, since we had been thinking the last couple days that we needed to switch the boys’ rooms around, because Camden has been waking Isaac up at naptime a lot lately and not letting him sleep, but we didn’t know how to do that since Kolby and Eli share a bed, and we didn’t have an extra bed for one of them to move into the other room. So, this little couch was perfect – we are going to keep it as a couch, because opening it up as a bed takes up too much space in the bedroom downstairs. Kolby had already willingly volunteered to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor in Camden’s room, but we thought this was a good alternative. He now has his own little couch, “his new bed,” in Camden’s room. Our home teachers helped Michael move the couch downstairs, move the table and filing cabinet into the storage room so there would be more room down there, and move Eli’s bed and dresser over to make space for Isaac’s playpen in Eli’s room. We’ll see how the new arrangement works out. We figured that Kolby would be a good match for Camden, because Kolby will continue to nap on our bed during the daytime, so Camden can be alone and not have anyone to wake up during naps (and so he might actually end up sleeping more in naps too, if we’re lucky), and then at night Camden does pretty well anyways and Kolby will also hopefully be able to help a little with Camden not doing certain undesirable actions that have started to become habits lately when he wakes up in the morning or from naps, such as taking off his clothes and sometimes his diaper or climbing out of the crib and turning the table upside down. Also, we hope that Eli and Isaac do well together – as long as Eli follows my instructions not to get Isaac out of his bed without my permission, I think it will all work out well. We’ll see. But it was so nice of that lady from the ward to give us that couch (and such perfect timing), and we were really thankful to our home teachers for their help with lifting all that furniture – I definitely couldn’t have done it at this point.
Well, that’s about it for our week. Tomorrow it is nice that we will have a relaxing day, since the boys don’t have preschool because it is Martin Luther King Jr. day (although Michael doesn’t get the day off work, of course). Also this week I have another doctor’s appointment (I hit 37 weeks tomorrow, (which, for all of you non-pregnant people, means that the baby will be considered full-term and they wouldn’t try to delay labor at all if he started to come anytime after then). And Isaac has his 15-month check-up this week too. So, we’ll keep everyone up to date on any changes with this pregnancy, and hopefully it won’t be too many weeks before we get to start posting pictures of our little Courtland.
On Tuesday I had another doctor’s appointment. I am down to having appointments every week now. At my last appointment they explained to me their policy about elective inductions – that as long as the cervix is favorable, you can choose to be induced at 39 weeks up until 7 days after the due date (if the baby doesn’t come before then, then they recommend you be induced, but they say it’s medically indicated, not an “elective” induction if it goes that long). So, I talked to Michael, and we both feel like we shouldn’t do an induction early this time, but that scheduling it for right around the due date would be fine (I don’t really like the idea of having a Valentine’s Day baby). So, at this appointment we tentatively set an induction date for February 10th (the day after the due date). I thought that was a good day – exactly one month after my birthday. But really I’ve felt for quite a while now that this baby is going to come on his own, and I’ve really thought that he would come sometime in the week before his due date, but it’s nice to have a date scheduled as a back-up, just in case, so if he doesn’t come then we won’t have to wait too long after the due date. So, she said that how it works is they never schedule a specific time for an elective induction (because there is always a chance that there will be several other women who need to be induced for medical reasons and they would get in first). So, they call you from labor and delivery the night before the induction is scheduled and give you instructions, like to call them back the next day at a certain time to make sure they weren’t too busy with other patients before you come in. So, it feels nice to have a plan. Although I really still think he will come before that date, if I do go in to be induced, I think it will work out well, as I was induced with Kolby (he was full term and they decided to induce because I happened to have high blood pressure that day), but being induced with Kolby worked out just fine – I have heard horror stories of women getting the pitocin and it causing them to have a pattern of terrible contractions followed by labor stopping, but when I was induced with Kolby the pitocin seemed to work just as it was intended with no problems at all. So, either way I expect everything to go smoothly.
On Wednesday I made dinner for one of the ladies that I visit teach and her family, because she had been in the hospital earlier this week. I tried a simple recipe for a strawberry dip that turned out very good (although I’m sure it is less than good for you). But you just whip together 8 oz of cream cheese with one jar of marshmallow cream, and it is very, very good to dip fruit in. (It’s always fun when you try out new recipes and they turn out good, especially the kinds of recipes that don’t call for a lot of ingredients and don’t take too long to make). Also on Wednesday I did Camden’s night out. I have been running low on good ideas for free kids’ nights out to do in the winter (in the summer, it is always nice to just go on a walk, a bike ride, or go to a playground), but in the winter the options decrease and I’m not too fond of taking the kids to McDonalds to play in their play area, walking around the mall, or going to a toy store just for fun. If anyone has any good winter ideas that are free and are things you can do in the evenings, I’m open to suggestions. This week Camden and I went to the library, which was fun. He was excited to sit in the kid-sized chairs there and to have me read books to him that he picked off of the shelf by himself. But the highlight of the night for him was definitely when we were leaving the library. We were going to the car and I saw a lady down the street walking her dog, so I pointed the “puppy” out to Camden because he loves dogs. That lady must have had amazing hearing to overhear me all the way in the library parking lot, because she turned around and walked over to us just so Camden could pet her dog, which was so nice of her. Although he absolutely loves animals, especially dogs, he was a little shy at first (as usual), but he did get brave enough to pet the dog a few times before we got in the car. Then the entire ride home he kept telling me that he wanted “his puppy,” that he wanted to go to the puppy’s house, that he didn’t want to go to our house, and that he wanted the puppy. Over and over. He was definitely excited to pet that dog.
On Thursday we had a fun, full day. First of all, after I picked up the boys from preschool, we went to the dentist’s office. I scheduled an appointment for Kolby, Eli, and Camden with a pediatric dentist over a month ago, and it was finally time to go. So, we had been to a pediatric dentist a few times before for Kolby and Eli in Milwaukee. We liked the dentist that they saw in Milwaukee, and I thought it was nice that they had a dental assistant to assist each of the boys in stepping up on a little stool, each at their own sink, and showing them how to brush and floss their teeth, and then they both sat together in the dentist’s chair (they were both still little then, and fit fine in the big chair together) while the dentist looked in their mouths and talked to them about brushing their teeth before sending them off happy with a new toothbrush and toothpaste. They thought the dentist was a lot of fun, and I was pleased with the dentist in Milwaukee. It was not until we went to the dentist here that I realized how run-down, cheap, and technically out of date our dentist in Milwaukee was (although he gave the kids good dental care, it was made obvious to me the difference between a dentist who accepts Medicaid and a more “normal” pediatric dentist). When we went on Thursday, the first thing that impressed me was the office. Of course, you don’t need fancy decorations or toy to have a good experience at the dentist’s office, but it was nice for the kids to have something fun to do while I filled out all of the many forms necessary for 3 new patients who were all coming for their first time that day. We walked in the door and a whole section of the lobby was fenced off and decorated like a jungle, complete with trees sprouting up from the floor and a little Jeep that the boys enjoyed sitting in and playing. The walls and furniture were all decorate in a jungle theme and there were plants, statues, and stuffed jungle animals all over the place. When we got back into the room where the boys would be seen, it was a large room with four kid-sized dental chairs in a row, a large fish tank right in the middle, and more jungle animals and decorations all around the room. Camden was especially excited about the stuffed lion sitting in the corner of the room that was bigger than he was. The dental assistants took all three boys in for x-rays of their teeth (The boys never had x-rays in Milwaukee). Then each boy got to lay down on the dentist’s chairs and they each got little headphones to wear so they could hear the sound from each of their individual televisions (that were imbedded in the ceiling above each of their chairs) that they could watch cartoons on while the dental assistants cleaned their teeth. And they used the normal dental tools and suction to clean their teeth (Kolby was pretty excited to tell Daddy that they squirted water in his mouth) – in Milwaukee they just used a toothbrush and a piece of floss. Afterwards the dentist came in and counted their teeth, looked at the x-rays, and told me that their teeth looked good. Then he took the time to give me a recommendation for an adult dentist, since I need to get a crown to cover a tooth that had a root canal when I was in high school. When I called my mom to tell her how cool this pediatric dentist was, she said that every experience they had had was similar to that (minus the jungle décor). So, I guess the one in Milwaukee was just a little low-tech. But either way, it was actually a really great experience, because all of the boys, even Isaac in the stroller, did wonderfully and I didn’t hear a single cry or whine the entire time we were there. The boys were also very excited to pick out a prize at the end of the appointment, and all three of them picked out little red sunglasses – Kolby told me that he gets to keep his sunglasses for the rest of his life.
So, on Thursday night Michael went to go play basketball with some other guys at the church, and after getting the boys to bed I was planning to just lay down and relax. For several days before that I had been spending long hours while the boys were asleep (and staying up far too late at night) trying to do research to figure out who the parents of my 3rd great grandfather, Cummings Gilmore Monk, were for sure. I had come into contact via the internet with several distant relatives on that side of the family, and two of them had given me different information on who his parents were. In 2006 one of the people who contacted me told me that his parents were George Shadrack Monk and Anne Wright. And then recently another relative contacted me with new information supporting the idea that his parents were actually a different couple, Shadrack Peter Monk and Margaret Anne Williams. The second person’s information fit better with the family information I had, and she had good notes and sources to support her research. I was very excited to find this new information! But after doing a little research on the family myself in order to familiarize myself with the research again after a few years, I started to wonder. The information about Shadrack and Margaret is good, solid information and they are definitely the parents of Cummings Gilmore Monk. The only problem is that I have found two Cummings Gilmore Monks who were both alive in the midwest at the same time, and I am not sure which one is the son of Shadrack and Margaret – if it is my 3rd great grandfather or the other Cummings. And with an uncommon name like that, and the fact that they were both born in Virginia within 5 years of each other and then both moved to the Midwest by the time they were old enough to get married, I am assuming that they were probably cousins, likely both named after a common ancestor (maybe their grandfather?). So, I spent a lot of time this last week trying to find out which Cummings was which. I ended up making a chart in excel showing both of the Cummings’ and all of the information I have found about each of them throughout their lives – trying to sort out what information went with what Cummings. But as hard as I tried I could not find any actual source that told me who the parents of “my” Cummings were for sure. I thought that if I put in enough time and effort in researching this, (and after praying about the research and trying to follow through with the ideas I’d had when I did that), I just thought that I would be able to find them if I tried hard enough. So I was pretty disappointed that I was trying so hard and not turning up any good information. So, I had decided that I was just going to have to move on to something else and not worry about that family for now, since I wasn’t finding any new leads and I was getting frustrated with it all. I e-mailed the relatives that I had been in contact with to let them know what I had been researching this week and ask if they had any last suggestions for me. And I was so glad that I did! One of the Monk descendants wrote back and gave me an idea about ordering a death certificate, and she even offered to pay for one of the orders if I paid for the other one (since we have a 10-year range for when Cummings could have died, so we are going to do two orders to find the death certificate, and we think that they will look at a 5-year range for each order). Anyways, I know that all this probably isn’t too interesting to most of you, but I was excited to get that idea and I am looking forward to hopefully getting a death certificate (there is a section on a death certificate for parents’ names, so if we can find a death certificate and if the certificate is filled out with the parents’ names, it will be really exciting!) So, the reason I went into all that in the first place was that on Thursday night I was pretty worn out from all the late hours of research and I decided that I was just going to relax – I told Michael that after the boys went to bed I was going to lay down, watch tv, and not do anything productive at all for the rest of the night. I turned off the computer, watched a couple shows, and went to bed at 10pm, and felt like I had caught up on my rest pretty well the next day. Oh, and Michael was pretty disappointed that when he went over to the church to play basketball no one else had shown up, so he just came back home. He found out today that he had gone to the wrong building, and so I think he will try again next week (the week after this one, I guess, since Eli’s birthday party is planned for this Thursday evening).
On Friday morning I had to go out to the WIC building for a class on breastfeeding, and Grandma had a doctor’s appointment so I had to take all of the boys along with me, even though I wasn’t required to take any of them to the class. So, we got out there and the majority of the class was taken up with general announcements about the WIC program. Then I had to take Camden to change his diaper, and when I got back into the classroom with all the boys they were finishing up what must have been a very short discussion about breastfeeding. Oh well. Not that I really think I need a breastfeeding class anyways – there’s not much they could tell me at this point that I don’t already know, I don’t think. So, after we got out of there, we went to Deseret Book store. Michael got me these beautiful Willow Tree figurines for Christmas and there was one with a father and a son, one with a mother and a son, and one with two brothers, but he couldn’t find a single baby boy figurine to finish off our family. So, I went back to the store and found a different figurine with a mother, a son, and a baby boy, and I exchanged that one for the mother and son figurine. Now we have the whole set for our family and I love how they look. The other thing we did while we were at the bookstore was exchange a DVD. For Christmas we got the movie, The Other Side of Heaven, and when we tried to watch it it wouldn’t work. We could get it to the DVD menu, but then it would skip repeatedly when we tried to play it. I tried it on 3 different DVD players, and it wouldn’t work on any of them. So I exchanged it a couple weeks ago, and the second one had similar problems. We finally did get it to play once the other day, after skipping the beginning of the movie. So I took the second disc back, and told them about the problem. I asked if we could exchange it again and then try to play it on the DVD player in the store before going home so I didn’t have to return again if there were problems. So she opened a new disc and it wouldn’t play on their player either. They must have gotten a defective batch of discs or something. She called the manager and they decided to keep opening and trying discs until we found one that worked. I was glad that the next disc they tried worked (and I was also glad that the one I brought back to exchange didn’t work on their player, so they didn’t think I was just incompetent and didn’t know how to work a DVD player). After that, we stopped for a few minutes at my new favorite store at the mall, Maurice’s, where I got a new shirt on a half-off sale with birthday money. I am planning on saving most of my birthday money to get some new clothes that fit after I have this baby and get closer to a normal size again, but I couldn’t resist getting a couple shirts this month, since they were so cute and on a good sale, and I haven’t bought clothes for myself in so long. Plus they should fit after the pregnancy, so that will work out too. After the mall we headed to Costco, with promises from the boys that they wouldn’t fight, whine, or be wild at all if I let them try each of the sample foods in the store for lunch. It worked out well – the boys started whining once, and I reminded them of their promise that they wouldn’t whine at all or else we wouldn’t come back to Costco for lunch again, and they did really well after that. And it was one of the rare days that the West Valley Costco happened to have lots of samples (for some reason this store doesn’t often have very many samples), and by the time we got through the whole store we had picked up a few items we needed, the boys had tried every sample except for the diet drinks that I didn’t let them try, the boys and I were all pretty full for lunch, I did something that I rarely do – I bought one of the foods that we tried a sample for so we could have it for dinner that night, and the boys were all tired enough to go right down for naps when we got home. It turned out to be a nice day out.
When we got home that afternoon I put all the boys except Kolby down for a late nap, and then Kolby practiced his piano songs before his lesson (it got switched to Friday this week because his teacher’s daughter had been sick earlier in the week). Grandma made it home from her appointment just in time for me to go with Kolby to his lesson. Before Grandma got home, Kolby was kind of concerned how he was going to go to his lesson, and he was asking me if I was going to get a babysitter to come stay with his brothers while we went. I told him that if Grandma didn’t get home in time, I would have to stay home. And before I explained the plan to him, he was quite concerned that someone might take him if he walked to his teacher’s house alone. I explained that if he had to go without me I would stand outside and watch him walk the entire way until he was inside his teacher’s house, and I would call and make sure his teacher would watch him the entire way home until he got back into our house afterwards (his teacher lives a couple houses down from us). Fortunately, Grandma got home before we had to leave, because I do like to go along and listen to him at his lessons. On our walk over to the lesson, he said, “Mommy, if I had to walk alone and you were watching me and someone tried to take me, you would run and get me, huh?” I assured him that I would run as fast as I could and I wouldn’t let anyone take him. He didn’t seem too worried about being kidnapped, he just wanted to know all the details of the plans to stay safe. I wondered about how I have done with teaching him about safety – you don’t want your kid going around being worried about being kidnapped all the time, but at the same time you want them to be aware of danger and avoid dangerous situations. I think Kolby is aware of danger, and he obviously thinks about making plans to avoid it, but I don’t think he’s going around being scared all the time. Things like that are hard to figure out just how much information you should give a small child. I guess that’s how it goes, being a parent, especially with your first child. There are a couple other things I’ve been thinking about lately with how best to teach Kolby at this age. Like, over Christmas, we took Kolby and Eli to see a movie, and before the previews started there were commercials playing in the theater that were meant to recruit people for the army. They showed soldiers shooting guns, and Kolby quickly said, “Those are the bad guys, huh?” How do you explain to a 5-year-old that, even though Mommy has always said that guns are unsafe and people who shoot other people are bad and that we don’t play like we are shooting our brothers or friends, that the people on these commercials who you see shooting people are really the good guys? I told him that they were soldiers, and that sometimes when there is a war soldiers are needed to protect the good people against bad guys (although I don’t really believe that there is really one good side and one bad side in most wars). But it’s hard to start explaining the grey areas, when a year or two ago everything Kolby asked me about would be black and white – Mommy, do good guys shoot people with guns? No, Kolby, people who shoot other people are bad guys and we don’t use guns because they hurt people. I guess there will be more and more of these “grey areas” that I have to continue explaining as Kolby and the other boys keep getting older. There was another one the other day, although less serious than bad guys with guns vs. soldiers protecting innocent people. A couple weeks ago Kolby was invited to spend the night at the Barker’s house. The Barkers have four girls, ages 10, 8, 5, and 3, and they were also having the Adamson’s two girls over that night too. I figured that since Kolby was just 5 he was fine sleeping over with girls there, because it’s all innocent at this age and he doesn’t really see any difference between his friends who are boys and his friends who are girls. Once the kids are older, I don’t plan on letting them sleep over with girls, but now while they are so young I don’t see any harm in it. So, then a few days later we were at another friends’ house for dinner and after Kolby and his friend, Kaitlyn, were playing they both came and asked us if they could have a sleep over. Kaitlyn’s mom told me that she had always thought her daughter would be about 10 years old before she had to tell her she couldn’t sleep over with boys, not as young as 6 years old. So, how do you explain to your 5 year old son that it’s ok to sleep over with some of his friends who are girls, but not with others? Luckily he didn’t press the question of a sleep over with Kaitlyn that night and I didn’t have to discuss it with him – I didn’t really want to tell him that Kaitlyn’s mom didn’t want her to sleep over with boys, because I didn’t want him to start thinking about why that would be. I just want him to stay as innocent as he is now about his little friends forever. I know that won’t happen, but he doesn’t need to be thinking about those kinds of things at age 5.
Well, this post is getting so long that anyone who might have actually started reading it in the first place has probably quit by now, but oh well. I guess I’ll finish off telling about our weekend. On Saturday morning I made 6 loaves of bread while Michael worked on laundry, and then I went over to the church for a visiting teaching interview. After we put the boys down for a short nap (I don’t know if any of them actually went to sleep, and we finally just decided to get them all up because they were all awake and making noise in their rooms after a little while), we got ready and headed to Lehi to visit Mel and Christian and Annette. We had a good afternoon and evening at their house, eating dinner and playing a game of Life. We headed home later that night, and all four boys were asleep in the car before we got home. When we got home, we learned that my mom had been hit by a snowboarder from behind while skiing in Mammoth and her arm had a bad spiral fracture. It sounds good that she probably won’t need a surgery, but she is in a lot of pain and it’s a bad break. Trying to make her feel better, I told her I could Photoshop a picture for her with her skiing off some cool snowy cliff, and she could show that to people as an explanation of her injury when she gets back to San Diego in a few days. Then I came up with an even better idea: a picture of her skiing off a cliff and being hit from behind by a snowboarder mid-air. Hopefully she can recover quickly, because it sounds like this is very painful for her.
So, today we went to church. I reminded the boys before we went inside of one of our family goals, to be reverent in church. And when I said that, Kolby said, “And Mommy and Daddy need to not yell,” (that was another one of our family goals, that the boys and the parents would not yell at each other), so I told him that we would remind them to be reverent in church and they could remind us not to yell. I’m glad to say that Kolby, Eli, and Camden all did quite well with being reverent in church today (and Michael and I did well at not yelling in church today too). Isaac had several loud crying episodes (so that he could leave the meetings at church today), but overall he did pretty well. I took him out for a while during the sacrament meeting (and he was happy in the hallway, as long as we didn’t go too close to the chapel doors), but he did last through the entire Sunday school class, and then he fell asleep in my arms for most of my Relief Society class. So that went pretty well too. . . . so, Michael just turned to me and asked if I was still writing the blog. When I said yes, he said, “No one’s going to read it [because it’s so long].” I told him it’s not for anyone else, just for us. Anyways, I know it’s long, but oh well. . . . So, at church a lady said that her granddaughter was moving in with her and brought her furniture, so she had a couch and two hide-a-bed couches that she wanted to give away because she didn’t have enough room for them. So, after church I called to ask if they were still available, and she asked us to come over and take a look at them this afternoon. We went over and told her we would take one of the hide-a-bed couches, and then when our home teachers came over later in the afternoon they went with Michael to help pick it up from her house. This was perfect timing, since we had been thinking the last couple days that we needed to switch the boys’ rooms around, because Camden has been waking Isaac up at naptime a lot lately and not letting him sleep, but we didn’t know how to do that since Kolby and Eli share a bed, and we didn’t have an extra bed for one of them to move into the other room. So, this little couch was perfect – we are going to keep it as a couch, because opening it up as a bed takes up too much space in the bedroom downstairs. Kolby had already willingly volunteered to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor in Camden’s room, but we thought this was a good alternative. He now has his own little couch, “his new bed,” in Camden’s room. Our home teachers helped Michael move the couch downstairs, move the table and filing cabinet into the storage room so there would be more room down there, and move Eli’s bed and dresser over to make space for Isaac’s playpen in Eli’s room. We’ll see how the new arrangement works out. We figured that Kolby would be a good match for Camden, because Kolby will continue to nap on our bed during the daytime, so Camden can be alone and not have anyone to wake up during naps (and so he might actually end up sleeping more in naps too, if we’re lucky), and then at night Camden does pretty well anyways and Kolby will also hopefully be able to help a little with Camden not doing certain undesirable actions that have started to become habits lately when he wakes up in the morning or from naps, such as taking off his clothes and sometimes his diaper or climbing out of the crib and turning the table upside down. Also, we hope that Eli and Isaac do well together – as long as Eli follows my instructions not to get Isaac out of his bed without my permission, I think it will all work out well. We’ll see. But it was so nice of that lady from the ward to give us that couch (and such perfect timing), and we were really thankful to our home teachers for their help with lifting all that furniture – I definitely couldn’t have done it at this point.
Well, that’s about it for our week. Tomorrow it is nice that we will have a relaxing day, since the boys don’t have preschool because it is Martin Luther King Jr. day (although Michael doesn’t get the day off work, of course). Also this week I have another doctor’s appointment (I hit 37 weeks tomorrow, (which, for all of you non-pregnant people, means that the baby will be considered full-term and they wouldn’t try to delay labor at all if he started to come anytime after then). And Isaac has his 15-month check-up this week too. So, we’ll keep everyone up to date on any changes with this pregnancy, and hopefully it won’t be too many weeks before we get to start posting pictures of our little Courtland.
11 December 2008
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.
09 November 2008
Kolby's 5th and Isaac's 1st Birthday Party
.jpg)
.jpg)
On Friday Michael had the day off and we planned the birthday party for Kolby and Isaac for that evening. I made a couple of cakes the day before and decorated one to look like Cookie Monster for Kolby. And on Friday we finished getting the house all cleaned up and put up some streamers and ribbons for decorations. I ran to pick up the little cake for Isaac – Mel told me about this deal where you can just call any Albertson’s grocery store and ask them at their bakery about their birthday cake for a child’s 1st birthday, and they will make you a free cake. All you have to do is call at least 24 hours in advance and tell them what you want on it (I guess they can write the child’s name if you want, but it has to say “Happy 1st Birthday!” on it). It’s not a huge cake, but on our boys’ first birthdays we always give them their own cake and set them on the table and let them eat it all by themselves, and then I make other cake(s) for everyone else at the party. So, this free cake worked great for Isaac’s cake. We video-taped him eating it, and he gets the biggest smiles once he actually eats a bite and realizes that it is food. Michael did put Isaac’s face in the cake (as he has done with each of the boys), but he didn’t end up getting too messy from that. Isaac actually didn’t need Daddy’s help to get really messy – by the end of the night he had done a pretty good job of covering his face and hands (and arms, legs, tummy, table, floor, and high chair) with lots of bright multi-colored cake frosting. He probably got the messiest that any of our boys have with their cakes on their 1st birthdays. We found out later that the pink frosting happened to not wash off very well, so if you look close you can still see a few pink spots on Isaac’s forehead and legs today. Camden thought it was pretty exciting that Isaac got his own cake, and that Isaac was nice enough to share some with Camden after he started in on it. The one thing that night that was really frustrating was that the camera ran out of batteries during the party. It didn’t show that the battery was low at all until after the party started, and then it went dead after Isaac started on his cake, but before we brought out the Cookie Monster cake for Kolby. So, I was so sad that we didn’t get a video of Kolby blowing out his candles. But I did remember that Grandma Faun had a digital camera that she’d never used before, so I got that out of it’s box and was able to take several more shots of the kids throughout the evening before the battery ran out on her camera too. I think Kolby really liked his cake – when he saw that I had gotten some blue and black icing, he asked where the brown icing was to make cookies, and I told him that I wasn’t doing that. But I surprised him by putting real cookies all around the outside of the cake. The Eccles and the Mills from the ward were able to come for the party, and the kids all had a lot of fun playing games like Simon Says, What Time is it Mr. Fox?, and Duck, Duck, Goose. And Kolby was excited to show his friends how he could play some songs on the piano right before everyone had to leave. (I am amazed that after taking 2 lessons Kolby can now play a recognizable song with the right timing and everything – we’ve never done the whole music lessons thing before, but I just assumed that it would take a lot longer than that).
20 October 2008
Catch-Up
Well, it’s been a few weeks now since we’ve written our “weekly” blog post because I’ve been busy having fun in San Diego with the boys for a month and Michael has been busy at the hospital on his ICU rotation, so I’m going to play a little catch-up now. I have lots of fun pictures from our trip, and a few video clips. Since I last wrote, a lot has happened. We took the boys to the beach when my brothers had a day off of school, we attended several playgroups at the fun splash park and big playground in 4S Ranch, my brother Matthew got his Eagle Scout, Kolby and Eli had lots of fun with their new friend, Brittany Giles, at the playgroups and swimming at Nana’s house, Isaac started to stand up without holding onto anything quite often, and he made us think that he was going to take his first step more than once in San Diego, my friend Sidney came over to the house a couple times for my mom to help her smock a blessing dress for her baby girl and the boys really enjoyed playing with her daughter Haley, my brother Aaron had his 14th birthday party and I found out that pregnant women are not allowed to play laser tag, my dad and I went shopping for my grandma’s birthday gift and he got me a cute shirt – it was fun to just hang out with him, we went out to an Italian restaurant downtown to celebrate Grandma Faun’s birthday, Camden got his second haircut ever – even though it’s not a really drastic looking change, I did take off 2 or 3 inches – and the boys warmed up to my parents’ dog (which they had been rather afraid of when we first got to San Diego), my mom got me some maternity jeans and three cute maternity shirts – thanks Mom!, Camden learned how to climb out of the playpen about a week before we left San Diego which made it rather difficult to figure out sleeping arrangements where he couldn’t get up and get into anything, mom and I got to go look at model homes (always fun), and we all got to spend lots of fun family time together.
Then on October 16th my Grandma and I drove back to Salt Lake. It was a long drive, and what made it seem even longer was the fact that about ½ an hour after we left Kolby needed to pee, then ½ an hour later Eli needed to, then Kolby, then Eli, etc. all the way to Las Vegas! After stopping for a quick dinner at In’N’Out and threatening the boys that they had better “get it all out” because we weren’t going to take any more potty breaks for a long, long time, we made it a whole 18 miles outside of Las Vegas before Eli started insisting that he really had to go again. After telling him that he couldn’t possibly need to go again that soon and trying to ignore him for about 10 or 15 minutes, I started to look for a good place to stop for him, and then he fell asleep and slept the rest of the way home, so that was nice. Kolby also slept until about an hour before we got home, and then he woke up telling us that he had to go right away. By the time we stopped and got him out of the car about 10 minutes later his shorts were all wet, and he told me that he just couldn’t keep it all in. Oh well. At least we made it home without any major problems.
The day after we got home Michael had a day off work at the E.R., and I took Camden for his 2-year check up, and I forgot that it was his first official appointment with this doctor since we moved here and so I had to go back home and get his immunization records from our old doctor in Milwaukee and then return for him to get his 2-year-old shots later in the afternoon. The doctor also ordered some blood work just to check for iron levels and lead – I guess she must do that for all new patients, because she had Isaac’s blood drawn after his first appointment there too – and I was amazed: Camden not only didn’t cry for the initial needle prick, the moving the needle back and forth in his arm for about a full minute before they got his vein, the blood draw, or the later shots, but he didn’t even make any noise at all. Amazing! Anyways, while we did that Michael started getting things unpacked and then vacuumed out the van when we got home. And while the boys napped I folded all their clean clothes from the trip and put away all the shorts and t-shirts in the storage bins and got out all their fall and winter clothes. After the boys got up from naps, we decided to take a break from getting things done and we all drove over to the Jordan River Parkway to take a fun walk and then play on the playground for a few minutes. Then we decided to go to Denney’s for dinner, a mistake which we probably won’t repeat – the restaurant was run down, the waiter messed up our order even though we were the only customers there for most of the time, and they were skimpy on the portions so we had to ask for more of things that normally come with the meals. But it was nice to go out together and not to have to cook or clean up afterwards.
When we drove home that night, Kolby said something pretty cute: He asked what it was called when things sleep in the daytime, and I said “Naps.” He said, “No, like when owls sleep in the day.” And I told him that was called nocturnal. And then he said, “Oh, so the moon and the stars, they’re nocturnal, huh?” He is such a little thinker.
On Saturday evening after Michael got home from work Grandma offered to watch the boys for us while we went to stock up on groceries. We got some bigger things at Costco and then went to WalMart for the rest. I got a bunch of different vegetables for a couple of big batches of soup that I am planning on making this week. One thing I like to do in the Fall and Winter is make a big stock pot of soup and have it for dinner, and then freeze the rest of it for several more easy and healthy dinners.
On Sunday Michael had to work. He says that a career in the E.R. would not be for him – there are so many patients who come into the emergency room with minor problems, either because they don’t have health insurance or because they are overly concerned parents who bring their babies in for a cough. Also, he said that patients are either discharged because they shouldn’t have come to the E.R. in the first place, or they have a real problem and they are treated and sent home or they are serious enough to be admitted to internal medicine, the ICU, or surgery, and then Michael, as an E.R. doctor, doesn’t get to find out what happens to them later on. That’s one thing he likes about dermatology, is that he gets to see patients and their families over time and watch their progress and build a relationship with them. Anyways, on Sunday after church we went down to Mel and Christian’s house in Lehi to celebrate Kyler’s 1st birthday. The boys had a lot of fun running around with Jaden, as always.
And today after taking Kolby to preschool, the other boys and I went to Wheeler Historic Farm for the playgroup that one of the other interns’ wives has organized. Melissa, the one organizing the playgroup, and her daughter Chloe were the only ones there. We had a great time taking pictures in the pumpkin patch, seeing all the animals, and letting the kids play in the little tree house there. After the playgroup we came home to pick up Kolby, then headed downtown to turn in my voter registration paper – we realized when we got back in town that today was the last day to turn in the registration. I am still unsure if I will be able to vote or not – I know that you have to have either a photo ID or proof of residency to vote, and I don’t have a Utah driver’s license because I decided not to pay for a Utah license and then turn around and pay for another one in New York next year, and since we are living with my grandma we don’t have any rent, mortgage, or utility bills that come in our names – and I don’t know if they will take junk mail or catalogs as proof of residency. Oh well, at least I’m registered now, so I can try to vote if they’ll let me.
Tonight I am going to try making spaghetti squash for dinner, so wish me luck. (Last time I tried it I did it in the oven and it took much, much longer than the label on the squash said it would so we were very hungry by the time we ate late, but my mom said that you could do it in the microwave for about 20 minutes, so that should be good if it works out this time). And then for our family home evening activity tonight I was thinking of going to a pumpkin patch (if we can find one) or at least getting some pumpkins at a store, because the boys need little pumpkins to paint in their preschool class this week. So that should be fun for them to go pick those out.
Oh, and we have been very lucky that Camden has not yet climbed out of his crib since we got back, even though he got very good at climbing out of his playpen in San Diego. Also, Isaac has officially been off the bottle for about 3 days now. And he took two steps in a row without falling down this afternoon – although I could only get him to take one step on the video afterwards. But it shouldn’t be too long before he really starts walking around. And his birthday is on Thursday, so we will officially have a 4 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old all at the same time for just over a week until Kolby will turn 5 on Halloween.
Well, my computer continues to have internet connection issues, so I’ll get this posted for now and then try to add the photos later.
Then on October 16th my Grandma and I drove back to Salt Lake. It was a long drive, and what made it seem even longer was the fact that about ½ an hour after we left Kolby needed to pee, then ½ an hour later Eli needed to, then Kolby, then Eli, etc. all the way to Las Vegas! After stopping for a quick dinner at In’N’Out and threatening the boys that they had better “get it all out” because we weren’t going to take any more potty breaks for a long, long time, we made it a whole 18 miles outside of Las Vegas before Eli started insisting that he really had to go again. After telling him that he couldn’t possibly need to go again that soon and trying to ignore him for about 10 or 15 minutes, I started to look for a good place to stop for him, and then he fell asleep and slept the rest of the way home, so that was nice. Kolby also slept until about an hour before we got home, and then he woke up telling us that he had to go right away. By the time we stopped and got him out of the car about 10 minutes later his shorts were all wet, and he told me that he just couldn’t keep it all in. Oh well. At least we made it home without any major problems.
The day after we got home Michael had a day off work at the E.R., and I took Camden for his 2-year check up, and I forgot that it was his first official appointment with this doctor since we moved here and so I had to go back home and get his immunization records from our old doctor in Milwaukee and then return for him to get his 2-year-old shots later in the afternoon. The doctor also ordered some blood work just to check for iron levels and lead – I guess she must do that for all new patients, because she had Isaac’s blood drawn after his first appointment there too – and I was amazed: Camden not only didn’t cry for the initial needle prick, the moving the needle back and forth in his arm for about a full minute before they got his vein, the blood draw, or the later shots, but he didn’t even make any noise at all. Amazing! Anyways, while we did that Michael started getting things unpacked and then vacuumed out the van when we got home. And while the boys napped I folded all their clean clothes from the trip and put away all the shorts and t-shirts in the storage bins and got out all their fall and winter clothes. After the boys got up from naps, we decided to take a break from getting things done and we all drove over to the Jordan River Parkway to take a fun walk and then play on the playground for a few minutes. Then we decided to go to Denney’s for dinner, a mistake which we probably won’t repeat – the restaurant was run down, the waiter messed up our order even though we were the only customers there for most of the time, and they were skimpy on the portions so we had to ask for more of things that normally come with the meals. But it was nice to go out together and not to have to cook or clean up afterwards.
When we drove home that night, Kolby said something pretty cute: He asked what it was called when things sleep in the daytime, and I said “Naps.” He said, “No, like when owls sleep in the day.” And I told him that was called nocturnal. And then he said, “Oh, so the moon and the stars, they’re nocturnal, huh?” He is such a little thinker.
On Saturday evening after Michael got home from work Grandma offered to watch the boys for us while we went to stock up on groceries. We got some bigger things at Costco and then went to WalMart for the rest. I got a bunch of different vegetables for a couple of big batches of soup that I am planning on making this week. One thing I like to do in the Fall and Winter is make a big stock pot of soup and have it for dinner, and then freeze the rest of it for several more easy and healthy dinners.
On Sunday Michael had to work. He says that a career in the E.R. would not be for him – there are so many patients who come into the emergency room with minor problems, either because they don’t have health insurance or because they are overly concerned parents who bring their babies in for a cough. Also, he said that patients are either discharged because they shouldn’t have come to the E.R. in the first place, or they have a real problem and they are treated and sent home or they are serious enough to be admitted to internal medicine, the ICU, or surgery, and then Michael, as an E.R. doctor, doesn’t get to find out what happens to them later on. That’s one thing he likes about dermatology, is that he gets to see patients and their families over time and watch their progress and build a relationship with them. Anyways, on Sunday after church we went down to Mel and Christian’s house in Lehi to celebrate Kyler’s 1st birthday. The boys had a lot of fun running around with Jaden, as always.
And today after taking Kolby to preschool, the other boys and I went to Wheeler Historic Farm for the playgroup that one of the other interns’ wives has organized. Melissa, the one organizing the playgroup, and her daughter Chloe were the only ones there. We had a great time taking pictures in the pumpkin patch, seeing all the animals, and letting the kids play in the little tree house there. After the playgroup we came home to pick up Kolby, then headed downtown to turn in my voter registration paper – we realized when we got back in town that today was the last day to turn in the registration. I am still unsure if I will be able to vote or not – I know that you have to have either a photo ID or proof of residency to vote, and I don’t have a Utah driver’s license because I decided not to pay for a Utah license and then turn around and pay for another one in New York next year, and since we are living with my grandma we don’t have any rent, mortgage, or utility bills that come in our names – and I don’t know if they will take junk mail or catalogs as proof of residency. Oh well, at least I’m registered now, so I can try to vote if they’ll let me.
Tonight I am going to try making spaghetti squash for dinner, so wish me luck. (Last time I tried it I did it in the oven and it took much, much longer than the label on the squash said it would so we were very hungry by the time we ate late, but my mom said that you could do it in the microwave for about 20 minutes, so that should be good if it works out this time). And then for our family home evening activity tonight I was thinking of going to a pumpkin patch (if we can find one) or at least getting some pumpkins at a store, because the boys need little pumpkins to paint in their preschool class this week. So that should be fun for them to go pick those out.
Oh, and we have been very lucky that Camden has not yet climbed out of his crib since we got back, even though he got very good at climbing out of his playpen in San Diego. Also, Isaac has officially been off the bottle for about 3 days now. And he took two steps in a row without falling down this afternoon – although I could only get him to take one step on the video afterwards. But it shouldn’t be too long before he really starts walking around. And his birthday is on Thursday, so we will officially have a 4 year old, a 3 year old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old all at the same time for just over a week until Kolby will turn 5 on Halloween.
Well, my computer continues to have internet connection issues, so I’ll get this posted for now and then try to add the photos later.
06 July 2008
Happy 4th of July!
This week has been pretty fun. Kolby and Eli started up swim lessons at the rec. center, and they go on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. They are in the same class, along with three other kids, and they are the youngest in the class. I wondered if they should be in a different class, because there is a boy who is 5, and then a girl who looks 6 or 7, and another bigger boy who looks maybe 9 or 10. But they can both do everything that the class is doing right now without trouble – dunk their head under water, jump in from the side, and float on their backs and on their stomachs with support. I am glad they are doing well and enjoying it. I took all the boys with me on Thursday morning, and I think it won’t be too much longer before Camden will start swim lessons – it was hard to keep him happy and out of the water. After their lesson that day I swam with the boys, which was a lot of fun because there is a nice wading area and the water is plenty warm (and I hate cold water, so this is a big plus for me!)
On Wednesday evening I took Kolby for his night out with Mommy, and we went to the nearby mall. We had a game that we were given, but we already had that same game, so we went to return it at Deseret Book. With the credit from the game, Kolby was able to get a new CTR ring (“choose the right”), and a few fun little figurines. He wore his CTR ring all the time in Milwaukee, then lost it outside the afternoon that we moved, so I was glad to replace it. We made sure it was snug and talked about always leaving it on so it doesn’t get lost (this was my alternative to his idea: that we should buy more than one so we’d have an extra if this new one ever got lost), and he has done great with keeping it on all the time. It’s pretty cute.
On Wednesday evening I took Kolby for his night out with Mommy, and we went to the nearby mall. We had a game that we were given, but we already had that same game, so we went to return it at Deseret Book. With the credit from the game, Kolby was able to get a new CTR ring (“choose the right”), and a few fun little figurines. He wore his CTR ring all the time in Milwaukee, then lost it outside the afternoon that we moved, so I was glad to replace it. We made sure it was snug and talked about always leaving it on so it doesn’t get lost (this was my alternative to his idea: that we should buy more than one so we’d have an extra if this new one ever got lost), and he has done great with keeping it on all the time. It’s pretty cute.
Friday we had fun for the 4th of July. Michael was on call at the hospital overnight on the 3rd and got home around noon on the 4th, and he hasn’t had to go back in until tomorrow morning, so it’s been a nice little break. On Friday afternoon we went to my great uncle and aunt, Guy and Sharon’s house, for their annual family BBQ. We got to see some of my 2nd cousins who I hadn’t seen for years, and a few new little kids who we hadn’t met before. We swam in the pool for a while and then had a very nice dinner. Then we had to head out a little early because we were meeting Mel and Christian for fireworks. They go and sit outside the BYU stadium every year, and we joined them there. The fireworks were great – we all lay down on the blanket and watched them together, and all four of the boys liked them. I was happy that none of them were scared or bored – even Isaac held still and watched intently. The only down side was that the fireworks didn’t start until 10:30 at night, and then the traffic was so bad that it took us 2 hours to make the regularly 45-minute drive home afterwards.
We had some fun yesterday too. After dinner we got out all the bikes. We were excited to use the ‘new’ bikes I had found for the boys. Last week I was looking on craigslist.com and couldn’t really find an inexpensive kids’ bike for sale, so I posted that I wanted a bike for a 4 year old, that I didn’t care what it looked like except I didn’t want a pink one, that it needed to work well and should have training wheels, and that I would pay $10 to $20 for it. The next day I got an e-mail, we drove to Taylorsville, and ended up getting a bike for Kolby and one for Eli and only paying $15 total for the both of them. Anyways, we have been excited to go on a bike ride, so we pulled out all the bikes and pumped up the tires. Camden and Isaac rode in the bike trailer, Kolby rode his bike, and Eli ended up opting for his old Big Wheels tricycle because his legs are just barely too short for his new bike still. We rode down around the school and played at the playground for a minute, went across the street and down a couple blocks, and then over to the church parking lot and back home. It wasn’t a really long ride, but pretty good for Eli’s little legs. And I had fun – this was my first bike ride in years. I have either been big pregnant or it had been freezing winter for quite a long time now. So that was fun.
After we got home from the bike ride, we got out the sparklers and little fountain fireworks that I’d picked up the other day. We started lighting a few, and a couple neighbors ended up coming over to join us, which was nice. We met a girl with two little children who spoke mostly Spanish, and Michael had fun speaking with her. And we met a man with two of his little girls who just moved in across the street a couple weeks ago. The fireworks here don’t really compare to the ones in Milwaukee, since none of the ones here go off the ground, but it was still fun. We saved the sparklers for last, which is always the most fun for the kids. We got those extra long ones, and they loved waving them around in the air. I’ll have to put of some pictures soon.
Also, Isaac has started doing a fun thing. He doesn’t really scoot yet, but he can push himself backwards across the floor, and lately he has started getting up on his hands and knees and doing the rocking thing, but hasn’t moved his hands yet to take that first crawl. I have heard of kids that skip crawling and go straight to walking, but have you ever heard of kids skipping sitting up and going straight to crawling? (He can sit up a little, if we prop his legs and arms up, but he doesn’t last very long and he has never tried to sit up on his own). Oh well, every kid is different.
Oh, and congratulations to Michael’s brother, Alan, and his wife Jenn. They had their first little baby (a boy – there are only boy cousins in the family so far) on Monday. They named him Alanjerome and will be calling him Jerome. We’re excited to go down and visit them sometime hopefully soon (once Michael’s schedule cooperates).
24 June 2008
Cousins!
It has been lots of fun to visit with some of Michael’s family members since we’ve been here in Utah, especially for the boys to have fun with their cousins, Jaden and Kyler.
.jpg)
.jpg)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
