24th of July

Our vacation for the year was our trip to Snowflake for the Pioneer Days Celebration.  We spent almost an entire week there and it was really nice.  Rob and Tina's family was there too and Melanie came down a few times so the kids had lots of cousins to play with.  Here is some of what we did.

Damon was introduced to earphones.  He couldn't figure out why Tina was trying to put that thing in his ear, but once he figured it out (he had to do it himself), he had lots of fun listening, dancing, and singing.  Mostly he just zoned out a lot while he listened.

I bought bubble gun/fan things from the dollar store for the kids to play with one afternoon.  They worked great!  And the kids had a lot of fun.

Slip and slide.  My kids had never played on one of these before.  They thought it was fun but never mastered the technic.  Kelton doesn't like getting his face wet, so that was a bit detrimental to the whole process.

Damon was very content to stand on the side and play with the water.  Later, we got out the inflatable pool and the kids had a lot of fun playing in there.

On Friday night I had my 10 year class reunion.  There weren't a ton of people there, but a lot of my friends did make it.  It was fun to see everyone.  I was really glad to get to spend some time with my best friend from high school, Rebecca (Baldwin) Norton.  We've been really bad about getting together.  I hadn't seen her for four years.  Here we are.  (Me, Becca, and Carla Free)  I think it's kind of funny that because of the shirt I am wearing and the angle of the camera, you can't tell that I'm 7 months pregnant.  I also think it's funny that I don't think I've really gained any weight in other places until I see myself in a picture and realize that my face is chubbier. 

Saturday morning was the parade.  The kids love this for the same reason I always did... the candy.

 Everyone waiting for the parade to start.

Waiting for more candy.

Candy action shot.

 We had a community bag where everyone would put their candy.  Natalie on the other hand decided to hoard some of her favorites and fill up her own pockets.  Crazy girl.  However, that is so something I would have done too...

This picture makes me laugh.  I wanted to try to get a picture of the two of them, but instead, I got a three feet apart stare down.  Damon and Jade had a tricky relationship.  Basically, Jade wanted to just touch Damon.  And Damon just wanted to not be touched.  They found it fun (only on the giving end) to push each other a lot too.

Getting a ride home from the parade with Grandpa and his new golf cart.

 Nate's brother, Tyler recently got remarried.  Saturday night we had a reception for Tyler and Aurelie.  I forgot to take my camera so I don't have any pictures.  It was at Webb's house.  They had a taco bar and a soft serve ice cream machine.  The highlight for the kids was getting ice cream from grandpa... pre-dinner.  Since Aurelie is Swiss, they had a cake made from swiss rolls and more on the side to eat.  My kids are now in love with swiss rolls and we've had to buy some for treats at home.

On Sunday we took a big family picture with the whole Webb family, minus Marissa and Johnny, who couldn't make it.  (Photoshop is in the plans, I think.)

Here's a picture of just us girls.

Baby sister.

And I thought it would be a good idea to try to get a family picture after the big group picture, since my boys were being so super cooperative (NOT).  We took about 20 pictures.  Massive amounts of swiss roll bribery got us a bunch of pictures that look something like this:

Oh wait, here is the one lone picture where Damon decided to smile.

Overall, this is maybe the best thing we got.  Oh well.  We will try the self inflicted torture again sometime after the baby is born because, you know, it will be so much easier with one more child.

Right before we headed home on Monday night, Damon and Jade went for a walk with Grandma and Grandpa.

Kelton's Finger

If you don't do well with pictures of, or descriptions of injuries, this post may not be for you.  It's not super graphic, but consider yourself warned.

Every Monday (and Friday) I go play volleyball at the church.  I take the kids with me, and so do other people.  The kids were running around and being a bit crazy.  Kelton was chasing Natalie and some other girls.  Natalie didn't want him to.  So she was running around the out of bounds line in the gym and ran into a classroom that is right there and slammed the door shut so Kelton wouldn't be able to come in.  Unfortunately, Kelton's finger ended up in the door.

I knew it had gotten smashed, but then I saw it was bleeding.  I figured it must be the nail.  But then I saw what was really bleeding.  The door had cut through, in a large upside-down "U" shape, the entire meaty part of the tip of his finger.  It was even pulled open and out from the rest of his finger.  I was actually surprised that I couldn't see the bone because this was not a shallow cut of skin.  It really was the whole padding part.  There was a medical resident there playing with us and he helped me wrap it up so we could go to the doctor.  Wrapping it up pinched everything back together.  Unfortunately, (or maybe fortunately for most people) I didn't get a picture of it while it was open.

We then spent a while driving trying to figure out a cost efficient place to have his finger fixed.  We have an insurance plan where we pay every penny up to our somewhat high deductible, so I knew that we would be paying full price for whatever was done.  And can I just insert, it is a huge pain to not be able to know upfront what I will be charged for medical expenses.  When I am the one paying for it all out of pocket, I want to be able to make an informed decision of the cost effectiveness of different places.  Anyway, there is an urgent care right close to my house, but luckily I knew, from someone else's misfortune, that because they are an extension of a hospital in town, they bill at the ER rate and not that of an urgent care.  (Soooo sneaky and shady, in my opinion.)   So, we weren't going there.  We went to Kelton's doctor first, who said she couldn't do anything.  To insert another complaint, it is very frustrating that pediatricians no longer do much more than check on healthy kids and diagnose ear infections.  So, on we went to a walk in clinic in town.  Normally, they would have been able to help, but they didn't have someone there today who could do stitches.  So we then drove into town to an Urgent Care clinic. 

After all that, the nurse practitioner wasn't quite sure what to do and ended up just glueing it shut.  He thought it was staying closed well enough to try glue over stitches.  They did do an x-ray to check for bone fragments.  There were none.  Afterward, it made me wonder why someone else along the way couldn't have just glued it closed.  They can't do x-rays at the pediatrician's office (which they should...) but they could have sent me to another place in town to get the x-ray.  Then they could have glued it closed.  Our medical system is so messed up.  It's like everything is set up to make you pay the most amount of money possible.  It's like they want you to have to go to the ER for everything.

You can see that up the sides and over the tip of his finger is where it was cut.  It was attached at the bottom.  And really, "cut" is the wrong word.  It was sliced all the way through there.

Tomorrow I am going to call his pediatrician.  The nurse practitioner who saw Kelton didn't clean his finger with anything and didn't prescribe antibiotics.  He literally dabbed glue around the edges of the cut and put two strips over the top to hold it together and then put a bigger bandage around it.  He told us not to take any of the bandages off for 48 hours.  I'm not seeing how this isn't going to get infected.  So I want to see what Kelton's pediatrician thinks.

Kelton is doing just fine.  It doesn't seem to be bothering him much at all.  I gave him some ibuprofen a few hours ago, but that's the only medication he's had.  This is the only picture I could get him to give me of his bandaged finger.  He looks so sad and miserable, but really, he is just watching Star Wars and didn't want to be bothered.  :)

More of a Home

Today I finished most of the decorating in our front room. It's so nice to finally have things up on the wall. (The family picture is really old, but our newer, still two years outdated one was oriented the wrong direction.  We are getting a new one soon anyway.)

I somewhat had this same grouping in our other house, but it hadn't been up for very long.  And there is one more picture on there now.  Sorry to disappoint anyone hoping to see a name on the baby's magnetic photo board.  Nate and I both have one to put on there, but for the time being, they don't quite match.  Kind of a problem.  They almost do, but not close enough to call it good. 

I got the idea for this sign from my sister Melanie.  I think she got the idea from esty, which is a great place to go to steal great ideas.  Anyway, you use everyday object to spell words.  The guy at the one hour photo made my day by asking if they were professional photos.  It made me feel good that he thought they were good enough to ask that question (for their copyright reasons, I'm sure).  I have a non-DSLR camera that I fight with all the time and don't really know how to use.  And to give credit, I didn't photograph the "E."  Melanie did, but let me use her file.  If you can't tell, the "W" is my church shoes, the first "B" is a pearl necklace I have, and the second "B" is the top of my gate (turned sideways).  The "E" is the swirly metal end of something Melanie has, maybe an easel.  I am going to put pictures in the two other mat openings on each side.  I'm thinking I will put a picture of Nate and I on the left and a picture of all the kids on the right.

This is a small section of wall by our sliding doors that go to the backyard.  The table is there on the right.  I got the unfinished shelves at Michaels and Natalie and Kelton helped me paint them black.

Closer up view.  I actually made everything on this wall, at least in part.  Including the candles.

Despite how this picture looks, these little crazies didn't really survive the day being neglected by their mother.  Fighting/crying levels were much higher than usual today.  But now I'm done, so we can play more tomorrow.

Church Callings

Just a quick update on my church callings:  After a little over three years of playing the organ, I got released last week.  When asked about playing the organ by a member of the bishopric a little while ago, I did mention that it was going to be a bit difficult, mostly for Nate, once we had this new baby plus our other three fairly young kids.  Some moms have to manage their little kids by themselves during sacrament all the time, but dads aren't as used to it, mostly because they don't do it at home all day long.  Nate barely survived by himself with Damon as a newborn and Kelton as a crazy two year old.  And really, it only worked for me because Damon was bottle fed from really early on.  So, now with two crazy boys who like to fight and bother each other, and a soon to be newborn baby (Natalie is always really good), it was time for me to rejoin them.  I didn't mind playing the organ at all.  I will miss the quiet of sitting alone on the stand for the beginning and end of the meeting.  But it will also be nice to not be worried about not being able to help Nate keep the kids quiet, especially during the Sacrament.  (Or chasing my escaped two year old (Damon) across the front of the stand during the sacrament.  He was ever so nicely repetitively yelling, "NO, MOMMA!" the whole time I tried to catch up with him.)

Today was my first time sitting with my family for all of sacrament meeting since Kelton was about a year old.  I think having me there on the bench for the first 25 minutes of the meeting threw my boys off a bit.  They weren't very good.  It is going to take some re-adjusting/re-training. 

Also, this evening was the third time I have held choir practice.  I was called to be the choir director back in January or February.  But, along with being super not excited about it, I had morning sickeness hit at about the same time.  That pretty much took me out of commission for a few months.  Then we had a few months of crazieness in buying our new house, setting the other house up as a rental, and moving/settling in to the new house.  Once that was all finished, I was able to find some music for the choir to sing and then figure out a time when we would be able to meet.  Our church meetings start at 8:00 a.m. and we share the building with three other wards, plus one more ward that meets in a school because we can't do five blocks in our small building on Sunday, but they still use the building for all other purposes.  So, finding a time for choir practice when people would actually come was a bit challenging.  We meet from 6:00-7:00 p.m.

But we are underway now.  This calling is a bit different for me.  I am way more used to being the one behind the piano.  And directing a choir is different from just conducting the music.  But I am slowly figuring it out and it seems to be going okay.  Hopefully the choir members feel the same way.  We even almost have one song ready to sing.

Ultrasound

I had another ultrasound a little more than a week ago.  Everything still looks really good.  And the baby is still a girl.  :)

Profile view

Hand

(I'm pretty sure the oval is a top view of her head)

I like this one with her arm and hand up across her face.

Marble jars

About a month ago I decided we needed to do something about some bad behavior around here.  The kids were being disobedient, complaining when asked to do things, and were not being nice to each other in words or actions.  And, as a result, I was not noticing or praising any of their good behavior because I was so frustrated by the bad.  So I decided to institute a marble jar system.  (This is not original at all, and I'm sure many of you have done it too.)  Simply put, you do something nice, or obey mom and dad, etc... and you get a marble.  You do any of the bad behaviors and you lose a marble.

Here are their jars about a week after starting.  I didn't tell them they had to choose a certain color, but Natalie wanted to be blue, Kelton wanted to be green, and Damon decided each time what color he wanted.

I must say, I had no idea the power that these little marbles would hold.  It was truly amazing.  I heard Kelton stop and nicely ask Damon to "share" his own toys with him (instead of grabbing, yelling "that's mine!", hitting, crying... you get the idea) and Natalie was a lot more cooperative (overly so at times) about doing homework, putting her shoes away, etc.  They were always looking for ways to get marbles.  Which resulted in everyone being a lot nicer and happier, myself included.  And, it was nice for me to be able to notice all the good things that they do.  And it is amazing how positive reinforcement encourages more positive behavior.  I just know that as a parent I will a lot of times get stuck in a rut of just getting upset with all the "bad" behavior and then I end up grumpy all the time.  So, these jars really helped me too. 

Over the weeks, we were not as dilligent as the first week or so.  But we've tried to get back on track.  Today the marble jars were full.  Natalie's was all the way full and Kelton's was only five or so marbles behind, so I figured we would get all their rewards on the same day.

I let each of them choose what they wanted to earn when the jars were full.  (I did guide their choices a bit by making suggestions.)  Natalie wanted ice cream from McDonalds and to play in the Playplace.  Kelton wanted one of those big balls you always see in the isle at Walmart.  Damon is a little too young to understand the whole concept, but he did understand some.  He really loved being able to put marbles in his jar and did realize that he got them for doing good things.  But he loves ice cream, so we decided his reward would be the same as Natalie's.

Here they are with their rewards.

I couldn't choose just one picture of Damon.  Each one was just so indicative of his cute personality.  Such a happy kid.

Kelton had to choose the exact ball that Damon got on his birthday so that they would each have the same one.  I couldn't even sway him with the balls that had the dots all over them.  He was so happy. 

And I did feel a little silly taking a picture of him with his ball in the middle of Walmart. Other people were probably thinking my poor kids were so deprived for this to be a big enough thing to pull out the camera. :)

The marble jars are now empty and we are starting the whole thing again.  The kids just need to choose a new reward.

Lost toenail

Just as a warning... this post might be gross or kind of weird to some of you... but it's for my personal record keeping.

Back before I met Nate, he had a reoccuring issue with an ingrown toenail on his big toe.  He went to the podiatrist a few different times to have it taken care of, but it then grew back with a fungal infection.  When I met Nate, he told me that his toenail had fallen off once and that it was about to fall off again "any day now."  That was about nine years ago and I have never seen his toenail fall off.  Until about two weeks ago.  So, he decided it was time to just go in and have the podiatrist kill the root so it wouldn't grow back again and he wouldn't have to mess with it anymore.  He went in at the end of May and had it taken care of.  (Don't worry, I didn't take any gross pictures.  It wasn't that gross anyway.)

(Just a note:  my house is around 82 degrees and my kids still wrap up in their blankets. I can't imagine.) 

 Now Nate has a whole care routine he has to do twice a day for a few more days.  I think he is ready for it to be done with.  I'm interrested to see what his toe will look like once it is all healed and doesn't have a toenail anymore.

We have some Color!

We've lived in our new house for about two and a half months, which is by far long enough for all of the blank walls to start driving me crazy.  Today was the day to do something about that.  I painted our breakfast bar/sink island, Nate installed curtain rods, and I hung curtains.  And just to note, the curtains and paint are exactly the same color, but it doesn't appear that way in the pictures.  The paint reflected the flash too much--it's really a deep red like the curtains.

Here are some before and after photos from different angles.

BEFORE

From living room looking into the dining area

AFTER

BEFORE

Dining area

AFTER

BEFORE

(from dining area looking into living room)

AFTER

(I still need to hem the curtains...)

View from in the kichen looking out over the sink.

The kitchen and living room are open to each other, so I needed to be able to do the same color scheme throughout. Once I get things hung on the wall they will be in the same colors: black, red, and silver (I have stainless steel appliances). I have some wall decorations that have silver metal on them. That's where the silver will come in. And I will probably use some black and white photos. Hopefully I can get that all figured out soon because the pictures on the wall are what I am really missing.  But it is nice to finally have some color.

Miss Natalie is 7!

Today was Natalie's seventh birthday.  Natalie got a special treat this morning.  Her Grandma and Grandpa Webb stayed at our house last night, so they were here this morning to sing Happy Birthday with us and watch her open presents.  They also took all of us to Olive Garden (Natalie's favorite place to eat) last night to celebrate Natalie's birthday.  Natalie's been so excited to open her presents for a long time.  Here are a few pictures.

And the winner was... or at least the one that got the loudest reaction...

A box of Lucky Charms.  (That either makes me a really good mom, or a really bad one.)  I never buy Lucky Charms or any equivalent.  On a 1 to 10 scale of good breakfast foods, Lucky Charms fall somewhere around -2.  I don't really feel that fortified sugar qualifies as a meal.  So, I guess it's a good thing my kids have birthdays when they can ask for things like Lucky Charms.  And yes, she's been asking for months to have this for her birthday.  She also asked for it for Christmas, but apparently Santa is not as nice as I am.  Natalie also got some new shirts, flip flops, 2 DS games (Super Princess Peach and Starfy), an umbrella (her request), a couple of card games, and a Color Wonder Lightbrush paint set.

Grandma and Grandpa Webb got Natalie a few pairs of earrings.  She's only had one pair of earrings for the past few years.  She was so happy to get some more options.

Grandma and Grandpa Burgess sent Natalie some money so she could pick out her own present.  We took her to the store tonight so she could shop.  She had so much fun looking around at everything knowing she could pick something out.  She was having a really hard time choosing until she found a Tinkerbell jewelery/music box.  She knew that was what she wanted.  At home, she loved putting her new earrings in her new jewelery box.

Today was also the last day of school.  Natalie was so excited for them to fall on the same day.  I think a lot of times her birthday falls just after school gets out for the summer so her birthday doesn't really get recognized at school.  I took popsicles in for her class.  Her school requires that all food brought in be store bought.  After two years you think I would be over this, but it still makes me grumpy.  So if you want to bring in cake, is costs about $15-$20 instead of a few dollars to make one.  So, since it is so hot outside, we decided that popsicles were all around a better option.  Anyway, Natalie was excited that we came into her class, and the whole class enjoyed eating the popsicles.

When Natalie got home, she got to see her cake.  She had requested a Silvermist (from the Tinkerbell movies) cake.  I didn't feel like doing a frosting transfer, so I came up with another idea.  And usually I feel like my cakes look better in the pictures because you can't see the flaws, but this one definitely looked better in person.  The swirly lines were a lot smoother looking.

This was her reaction to the cake.  She later told me that seeing her cake was one of her favorite parts of the day.  And she could not wait to take that toy off the top.  But I made her anyway.

Happy Birthday Natalie!

A little Makeover

I am so excited to be having another baby girl, especially since it's been over 7 years since I've had one.  And heaven help me, I have so many things I want to make for her.  I've learned how to make a lot of cute baby girl stuff during my years of having baby boys. 

Anyway...  here is the baby bouncer I used for both of my boys.  It's so ugly.  The design is ugly, the colors are ugly, and I just never really liked it. But it was cheap and I wasn't willing to pay more for cuter fabric.

However, Baby Girl needs something better.  So, thanks to a craft blog I love (she makes you feel like you can make anything...), I decided I could fix it.  The blog author re-covered a carseat.  I figured this would be about the same, but a lot easier.  Basically, you unpick ALL the seams (yes, it takes forever) and then use the fabric as a pattern and reuse the inner padding.  Here's my finished project:

Waaaay better, right?

Unfortunately, I am stuck with the lime green buckles and blue/green frame.  Replacement buckles were $2 each and I'm sure I could have found paint that would have stayed on the metal, but it would have been expensive for the small amount I needed.  The point was for this project to be cheap.  After all, a new bouncer is only like $25.  My total cost to re-do this one was about $3--for the fabric.  The cute circle material was on clearance for $2 per yard.  (I am going back on Monday to buy some more to make a matching blanket.  I hope it is still there!)  Stay tuned, there will be lots more baby girl projects to come...

Little allergy sufferer

Look at Damon in these pictures.  (had to specify a child because apparently if the camera comes out, everyone has to get in front of it)

Damon's eyes are so puffy and swollen.  It looks worse in person.  For the past few days it has been apparent that Damon has seasonal allergies.  I get them too and I've noticed that he seems to be having the same symptoms as me.  My eyes have been over-the-top itchy the past few days.  Damon has been rubbing his eyes red.  And he's been rubbing his nose, because it itches too.

Tonight right before bed, the puffiness flared up and I went to Walmart to see if there was anything I could give a 2 year old for allergies.  I found one thing--childrens' Zyrtec.  Hopefully it works.  Poor kid looks so miserable.

Plug-be-gone

I think the technical term is "pacifier," but most people have their own name for it.  In our house it is a "plug."  And on Sunday night, we did the unthinkable... we took it away from Damon.  I've done this with three kids and each time I wonder who it is more emotionally difficult for... the child or the parents.  I really didn't want to take it away, but our cut off is two years old.  And we are ready for Damon to be in a toddler bed but needed to get rid of the plug in a contained environment (crib) where he couldn't just get up and walk out because he was upset. 

We employed a technic that failed miserably with Kelton.  We cut the tip of the plug off.

 (We did this when we took it away from Kelton and it made him extremely mad. He would throw it out of the crib then cry for it and then repeat the cycle. It made him so mad that he threw up, and we had to just make it vanish and deal with the crying. It took about a week before he was back to normal without his plug.)

At bedtime we gave Damon the cut plug and said, "Uh, oh... pluggie is broken."  (Damon adds "ie" to the end of nouns he is fond of, and we end up using his words)

Damon laughed.  He thought it was funny!  He repeated a few times "pluggie broken" as a statement of fact, with no sadness in his voice.  We let him hold it in his crib and he went to sleep like normal.  I couldn't believe it.  It was too easy.

But then he woke up at about 11:00 and was inconsolable.  He never once asked for his plug, but I think that was what the problem was.  I think he wakes up during the night and reaches around until he finds his plug and that's how he falls back asleep.  But that didn't work tonight.  And maybe he was awake for a different reason entirely, but the timing was pretty coincidental for it not to be caused by the loss of the plug.

Nap the next day... no problems at all.  At one point as I was putting him down, I could tell he was about to ask for it, but instead I heard him quietly mutter, "broken."  I didn't even give it to him.

Bedtime last night... He said "pluggie broken,"  like he was reminding me.  We went right to sleep and had no troubles.  Same with his nap today.  He actually didn't even mention the broken plug.

So really, this has been a very easy transition.  I think if Damon could describe what has happened with his plug he would say something like, "Well, my plug broke.  It's actually kind of funny because I can stick my finger all the way through it now.  And it looks funny.  I can't use it anymore because it just wouldn't work.  So what do I care if I don't have it anymore.  It's useless."  That really has been his attitude.  It's been great!  Now on to the toddler bed and moving into the "boys" room.  Can't wait to see how Kelton and Damon handle falling asleep in the same room in beds they can both get out of.