Many Thanks

Many thanks need to go out to my in-laws for putting together a great Thanksgiving dinner for us. With the whole family being near by, we get a pretty big group together for our meal, and it's not easy to find a place for all of us to gather. It seems that the general population around here has figured out how nice it is to hold Thanksgiving dinner at a church, and so the local churches were all booked up and we were unable to find a location for our dinner this year. Luckily there is a building near by Morris and Carol that has a big Relief Society room with its own little kitchenette. (Are you kidding me? If went to church there, I'd store ham and Swiss sandwiches in the fridge and sneak them out during the lesson!) I wasn't sure we'd be too comfortable in a little room, but it turned out great. Plenty of space, a much more cozy atmosphere than the gym. That' s partly because my mother-in-law brought lovely Christmas music and nice table decorations and everything. There was a spare room for the kids to go nuts in (a definite requirement when you have 11 kids ages 0 - 15). And of course everyone brought really scrumptious food. My favorite? Kathleen's yams, in which she accidentally doubled the butter. Can't go wrong there! Anyway, it was a total success. Thanks!

Sam and Kathleen's baby girl turned two on Thanksgiving, so we decided we could have a birthday pie for her. She is such a dolly, so cute.

Go Away, Axel

I believe it was back in April that I cheerfully blogged about Stomper's new addiction to the song "Axel F." Oh, I thought it was so funny that he loved this song so much after seeing the President play it for the aliens in "Monsters vs. Aliens." Yeah, well, it's not funny any more. He has learned how to open itunes, find the song, and put it on infinite repeat. Ahhhhhhhhh! I checked on itunes the other day, clicked on "most played." The 2nd most played song is "Let My Love Open the Door" by the Who at 88 times. Guess I like that song... Anyway, the top most played song is of course Axel F at a whopping 385 times. I guess that was money well spent, considering it cost us one buck to buy it. But I had to quietly come put my arm around Stomper's shoulders this evening and calmly whisper, "I can't listen to Axel F any more today."

Nothin' Like a Girls' Night

Oh how I love going out to the movies with the gals. One gal, two gals, a gaggle 'o gals, any number will do. Even if I have to prop up my eyelids a bit the next day, I just love it. Becky, were you TRYING to make a silly face (like you'd ever do something like that...) or did we just catch you at a bad moment? Sorry, I'm posting the picture anyway! Cheers to girls' night!

Loved This.

Happy Thanksgiving

Twilight Thoughts

I think it has now been three years since I was out to dinner with The Misty (we were at Bombay House....mmmmmmm.......) and she and I were chatting up books we were both reading. She told me about a romantic tale by the name of Twilight...never heard of it. She insisted that I had to read it so I ordered it and its sequel New Moon and got to reading. I will confess that I read both books within about four days while my household crumbled steadily around me. I didn't think the books were especially well written, and actually the style was a quite heavy handed. (Yes yes, we know he's gorgeous, but enough about your breath stopping at the sight of him.) But something about those characters and story pulled me to a place of memory and emotion that just exploded. It sure was fun. And it was my own little private escape.

I must say, I'm very happy for Stephenie Meyer, who's daydream has blasted her off into major stardom, wealth and hopefully additional creativity. (Read The Host if you haven't; it's much more grown up and well written.) However, since the entire planet now knows all about Twilight and all it's goofy lovey-doveyness, my own private little escape has been slightly overrun. At least overpopulated. And exposed my silliness to all. Some people feel the same way, some people don't, but everybody knows! Kind of sad.

I did get the chance to go see an early showing of New Moon the other night with The Becky, and I'm not going to deny that it was a treat. Bundle was a perfect little lady and slept right through it, bless her. She must have sensed just how much mommy needed a night out, even if she was tagging along. It was super fun. Much closer in vision to my ideas than the first. One comment to the movie makers: If you're going to fill a movie with someone like Jacob who is so large and brown and lovely, you can't throw a pasty white skinny boy like Edward at us. It just doesn't compare. No offense, Book Edward. Movie Edward needs a wax and a trip to the gym. Okay, I confess. No matter how silly, I will always love it and will continue making a mental trip to the land of Forks when needed.

The Return of Bundle

My Baby Has Returned!!!! Oh MAN. The past few weeks have been a little rough. Ever since we transferred her into a crib, my perfect little sleeper has been a waning miracle, down to the point where something was really truly wrong. Lots of screaming. Little did I know that the crib was the key. I mean, I wasn't surprised that she had some transition time between sleeping in her car seat and sleeping in her crib, but it was the actual lying flat that flushed out our trouble that I think has been here all along. Too bad I didn't figure that out a month ago. I have been going nuts doing all sorts of things to figure out the problem. She used to sleep 8 - 10 hours at night and by this weekend it was down to 3 hours at a time max, usually with interruptions in between. So I was trying to drink a TON of water every morning wondering if because I was drinking most of my daily water at night so was she. She's been miserable during her meals, crying and pulling away and not eating much. I have tried eliminating all sorts of foods from my diet wondering about upset stomach. I've had a yeast infection and been treating her for yeast too. I actually think that all of these things have helped her a little and are not crazy, but still poor Bundle has not been herself. I was trying to not just think that she had decided she was not a great baby after all, but it sure felt that way! Finally I called the on-call doc yesterday to ask a couple of questions about the yeast medicine she's been on. Well, he said he had a different idea and proceeded to describe her exact behavior. It's reflux. She's not spitting up at all, which is usually a big key to reflux, but I guess there's something called "silent reflux," in which there is little or no spit up. He recommended an over the counter medicine to give her every time I feed her, and if that works, we'll give her a once daily med. Well guess what. I gave it to her yesterday, and her first meal after that was the first peaceful one she's had in a few weeks. And guess what. I gave it to her last night and she slept soundly in her bed from 7:30 last night to 5:00 this morning. I woke up so surprised and excited that I actually couldn't go back to sleep. Ironic, right? I was so excited to get some sleep that I couldn't sleep. And right now she's zonked out for the longest nap she's had in I don't know how long. And it all started with her lying down flat in her bed.

Sorry to be obsessing here, but seriously, when all I do is be a mommy all day and something is wrong with my child, there is little else I can think about. Usually I find there is not one clear answer for most behavior, this time, it seems that we've found it. Ahhhhhhhhhh.

Good bye, spooky burps, Hello sleep. And hello again to me going out to late movies, one of my favorite things. YAY!

Someone's Got a New Trick...

Just so you know, she's going to stay "Bundle" for a while. I got a split vote on "Cookie" and "Posey," plus a few requests to just leave her name alone. So, I think I'll keep her as Bundle until she's one and then we'll go from there. In case you care.

So Bundle pulled a fast one on me. She decided to sit up. She's of course not perfect at it - no way am I leaving her on the kitchen floor like this, but she's a lot more steady than I thought. It was Bitty who wouldn't sit up much at all until she was eight months old and then decided What the Hey! and was not only sitting but crawling and pulling herself to standing all within two weeks of each other. That is so Bitty for you. Bundle seems to be a little more on the slow and steady track, praise be.

I'm wondering how many pictures I really need of Bundle sitting. Today I think I took about 20. When I went back through to edit them I couldn't delete any! Pathetic, I am. Who knew.

Headline: Fall Photo Shoot a Success!

I am so excited! There is this weedy little area in front of our house (okay, there are several of them...) but this one gets really pretty every fall. Yesterday the sky was cloudy in just such a way to make all the fall colors really pop. I decided to try for a little photo shoot of the kids. I knew that the second I said "pictures" they would throw fits, so I just asked them if they'd help my wish come true. (Manipulation can work wonders, I've found.) Thus, pictures were successfully taken with only brief shedding of tears on Bitty's part after she accidentally let Bundle roll off her lap. Ooops. Bundle was fine, Bitty cried for a while. After a few hugs from Daddy we got snapping and I'm pretty thrilled with the results. I might actually get pictures printed and hang them on my wall, believe it or not!








And I have to throw in one of sad Bitty because it kind of melts my heart:

Sing To Me, Jackie!

The last words I heard before I made a run for the door just now were, "Mom, what is that horrible smell?" It happened to be dinner that my kid smelled and couldn't handle. And he had a point. I totally messed it up, came very close to sitting on the floor and crying, and decided instead to head for the nearest Little Caesar's. Luckily I have a husband who not only shooed me out the door all by myself but placed Jack Johnson's Curious George soundtrack into my hand on the way. Smart Man. I turned up Jack and let him sooth my wrinkled brow all the way there. I'm wondering if the cashiers at Little Caesar's are getting familiar with the sight of a half crazed mother, hair askew, baby snot on her shoulder, shoes untied, careening in there and demanding pizzas at any cost.

Best. Husband. Ever.

Bundle is not sleeping well. Bitty has started waking up again. (Melissa, I have to admit that after reading your blog I really have nothing to complain about, but still.) So Bitty, who seems to need a lot less sleep than other kids, comes wandering in our room the other morning at 5:00 just as I start feeding Bundle. Troy shoos her back to bed with the promise of a kiss from me after I feed the baby. He leaves to go to spin class. (Yes, he's awesome.) I feel sure that Bitty has gone back to sleep until she comes back in and tells me that it's taking me a really long time to come give her a kiss. So she climbs in bed with me and lies there chatting quietly with herself until 6:30 when Bundle wakes up. Gonna be a great day. What's up with this 5 a.m. thing I'd like to know?

In an effort to Look On The Bright Side, I did take some very cute pictures of the kids in bed together...


...but the day kind of went down hill from there. Sensing that I might be in distress (a weeping mommy is surely a sign of something gone wrong, I'd say) Troy, in an act of selfless heroism, (and a dash of self preservation) took Bitty with him on an errand to Layton, during which ride Bitty gave herself a nap. They took just long enough that he had to drop her off at school and I didn't see her until after I had a two hour nap with Bundle. Good work, Troy. Today's crisis averted.

I think it was later that same day that Bitty uttered a pretty cute prayer. It went something like this: "Bless that everything will be yummy, even spicy and mint."

Hang in There, Thanksgiving!

I'm just going to state here and now that I am now celebrating Thanksgiving. Just because Halloween is over does NOT make it Christmas time yet. I know the stores and television commercials would like to make you think so, but I am here to say Oh No You Don't! This week as I packed away the hanging jack-o-lanterns and dangling spider decorations I very resolutely placed my fall leaves on the front door and dried corn on the piano. And now I'm going to just sit around and Be Thankful. Happy month of Thanks, everyone. I'll pull out the Christmas tunes later.

Just Can't Stop It

As hard as I try, I just can't convince Bundle that she should stop growing up. Okay, there have been more rough nights than usual lately which makes the growing up not all bad, but mostly all I can do is kiss and smooch and squeeze and nuzzle her as much as I can. Of course, when the big kids do this I yell at them to "Get off your sister!" but when they aren't looking I do it myself. So, Bundle is now five months old. I am thinking that perhaps "Bundle" is no longer an appropriate name for her since she is starting to hate being bundled up the way she used to. My ideas for a blog name for her are Cookie ('cause I wanna munch her), Posey or Boo. What do you think?

To celebrate the triumphant completion of her fifth month I decided to feed her some cereal. She is definitely not going as long as she used to without a meal at night and I'm wondering if it's because she's just hungry and growing. Here's what she thought about that:

Epilogue

Remember how I was talking about my mom and her little Halloween problem? Well, I guess my dad's in on it now. Behold:



What did I tell you? I invited my folks to our Trunk-or-Treat so they could see the kids' costumes and they kind of upstaged everyone else there. They were so funny. They were a troll and her troll-trainer. And guess where they were going next. Out dancing. I hope my mom didn't twist her ankle dancing in those troll feet!

Well, Halloween treated us right this year. We had quite a mellow day. You may remember that the kids got me up at 5 in the morning (curses!) so I took them for a drive around 2:30 and they all zonked out for 1/2 an hour. I don't know that we would have made it otherwise. After that we donned costumes and went to visit Troy's parents. That's a really fun tradition. Every year our first stop is to see Grandma and Grandpa, collect our first candy of the evening and then trick or treat up and down their circle. It's really great.


At the last minute Bitty put a Bundle toy on her head and decided she was a princess kitty.

After that we had to scurry off to our Trunk-or-Treat to set up our car. I'm so glad we did a car this year. There was a UofU football game last night and so there were pitifully few cars there. Luckily I brought tons of candy and I think it was okay.


After that Bitty was pretty much fried so we took her home, along with Peter and Sheri who came to enjoy the Trunks with us. Stomper went out for some serious candy collecting with friends and didn't come home for two more hours. Meanwhile, Peter, Sheri, the girls and I ate pizza, simultaneously cleaned up and made more messes, and plopped the big girls in the tub.



Now there's only two things left to do. Clean up and eat candy.

Birthday Boy!

For all of you out there who are ticked that it started snowing in October, you may officially blame me. It was I who planned an outdoor birthday party at the end of October. Stomper, who celebrated his SEVENTH (!!!!) birthday on the 28th, has lots of buddies, which is a joy to me. I'm so grateful for all his good friends. Good boys they may be, I knew I couldn't have them all in my house at one time. My house is good for one friend over at a time, two if we're lucky. So I thought to myself, it's been a nice warm October! I'm sure that if the day is dry it will be warm enough to have a party at the park. So I made some announcements and sent them out. It was that night that the news first reported the upcoming snow. Great.

Luckily we have a great church building with a big gym and a kitchen connected to it. We changed plans and had everyone join us there. My parents came and helped me decorate. The theme? Godzilla. We had a Godzilla party. Let me warn you, any of you who may be interested in such a party that there is not a single Godzilla item to be found in this valley. So we went with green streamers and balloons, a black table cloth and I had Stomper draw a bunch of Godzillas for the table. I did find one giant eyeball balloon that seemed to fit the theme, which is still floating eerily in my living room. I, as expected, found not a single Godzilla pinata. I was directed by my friend to a dive-y little joint on State street to the best, most giant pinatas the valley. They are magnificent. I printed out a couple of pictures of Godzilla off the Internet and stapled them on. (Yes, I'm turning out to be quite handy with a stapler.)




I was worried that because we weren't at the park I'd have to plan some games to keep kids busy. I have a hint for all of you party planners out there. You only need two things to keep a party going. 1) Balloons. I was going to have a relay race and balloon volleyball, but the kids weren't interested. They just wanted to romp. 2) Coloring Pages. We had a table set up with crayons, markers and a stack of Godzilla printouts. Thank you, dear Internet. What with the romping, coloring, pinataing, pizza and caking plus presents, the party was over before we knew it. I'd call it a success for sure.

And now I have a seven year old boy, who is turning out to be an okay kid! You know what I love about parenting, especially since I get to do it along side my best friend? I love those moments when your child does something funny or sweet or a little naughty and, unbeknownst to the child, you and your spouse meet eyes across the room and you share a little laugh or a little amazement. I love that. Happy Birthday to my big boy whom I'm getting to be quite fond of!

Halloween Tales

-Just one question. Of all the days, of all the weeks, WHY did my kids (all three of them) feel that today was the day to arise at 5:00 in the morning? I mean, I threw a birthday party this week, I made costumes and helped out in the class room this week, I even put on a cooking demonstration for church this week. Plus I fed everyone, kept the house from complete chaos (I won't say it was actually clean), and did the laundry. My reward? Good morning, Mommy! It's Halloween! Heaven help me.

It did give me a bit of happy flashback of getting up at 5 a.m. on Halloween morning in years past, not due to my children but due to my mother. Most of you know that my mother is the sweetest person on the planet. Such a good heart. Well, everyone has their dark side, their wicked little ways they keep to themselves. My mom has only one, and that is to get nasty on Halloween. She hasn't done it much in recent years, but when I was in high school and had some stage-makeup training she was teaching at West High and then Rowland Hall. We'd have a little 5 a.m. date every year for me to do something horrible to her. Werewolves, witches...that was just the beginning. One year she was the Bride of Frankenstein - I made these latex lacerations with stitches in them that we put running up the side of her mouth and wrapped around her neck. One year she was a basement lady - we glued bugs coming out of her hair, wounds in her face, and one coming out of her mouth. See? Truly a dark side. The best ever was the year I painted her up in full skeleton makeup. She donned a LONG red cape, skeleton hands, streaming black hair and a scythe. The kicker? Painters stilts that made her seven feet tall. She scared the crap out of me, then every one at West High, and, feeling that her job wasn't yet done, went to my dad's work up at the University and stalked around campus handing out heart attacks. It was awesome. Even in the years after she stopped working at a school she just couldn't resist. A couple of years ago I took little Stomper to her house to show off his costume and to trick-or-treat up and down their street. Mom just couldn't stop herself. The next thing I knew she had donned this terrific Troll costume she has and as Stomper and I tricked and treated I caught glimpses of her literally scampering to and fro across the street scaring kids and spreading Halloween cheer.

The Basement Lady

The Werewolf

I must admit that my costume efforts this year for the kids fit under the category of "another lesson learned." Don't you hate that? I mean, I thought I was being pretty smart. First of all, I listened to the kids, over the past 11 1/2 months, recite to me the myriad costume ideas they had. "Mom! This year I want to be Wolverine! I mean Venom! I mean a pirate!" So I gave them a lock-down date. You must choose your costume by October 10. Great. Stomper picked (never heard this one the whole year) a werewolf. (No, he didn't see the picture of my mom when he decided.) Bitty picked a scary black cat. (She is unable to say this without simultaneously flexing her claws.) Great. I then took Bitty WITH ME to the costume store because I knew that whatever I picked would not be okay. So I purposefully had her pick out her ears, tail, fangs and claws. I then chose a multitude of werewolf type items to please Stomper.

You know what happened, of course. As we've been putting things together over the past few days for class parties and school carnivals and such, Bitty has refused to wear the ears on the grounds that "they just can't be straight."The fangs went before the ears did. The claws have largely been rejected as well, though I think they'll make a comeback tonight for trick-or-treating seeing as how the claws are attached to gloves. As far as Stomper is concerned, I think I doubled what I actually needed to make him into a decent werewolf. I had all sorts of intricate plans and costume pieces but it all came down to me, the kitchen table, 1/2 a yard of furry material, a glue gun and a stapler. Yes. I stapled Stomper's costume together. Probably not the best idea as far as longevity goes, but it was quick and easy, just in time for the school carnival.

The school carnival. I'll say one thing. Next year we're doing something else. Enough said.

I think my favorite part of Halloween, once all the costuming and candy-purchasing and pumpkin carving has been taken care of, is seeing the kids all decked out in their garb. I love it when they get so excited that they kind of get into character. I was a little afraid that Stomper would scare himself, but he just loved being a werewolf and was disappointed that the moon wasn't full so he couldn't howl at it. I wasn't sure if I sure tell him that he could howl whenever he wanted or to just agree and enjoy the quiet. Aw, it's Halloween. Howl away, my boy!

Another Pumpkin Post

We didn't think we were going to get to carve the pumpkins this year. It was a close call! I mean, we were all set to go. We had wrestled the gigantic pumpkins into the kitchen. We had towels carefully laid out on the floor. We had the kids draw faces on them and everything. And then Troy stuck the knife in. Woah. Talk about your solid pumpkins - no wonder the dang things are so heavy! But we persevered, and with some minor simplifications to the design, we managed to get a couple of jack-o-lanterns created and set out on the front porch for all to behold. I dare anyone to come pumpkin smashing at our house - you'll need a crane.

Stomper especially enjoyed "ripping out the guts." He continually exclaimed about the major sliminess throughout the process and spent a lot of time massaging the pulp in his hands. My favorite Bitty moment of the night was after she asked why we put the pumpkins out on the porch. I said that it was so that people in the neighborhood could see them. Her reply to that was, "Mom, 'neighborhood' is just such a darling word." Yes, I suppose it is.

So Much For Alone Time

Now, I'm going to sound like a wretched mother here. And I'll just have to own it. Yes, I am a wretched mom today. Bitty has had a couple of weeks off of school and I'll just say that I can't WAIT for school to start. Sometimes Bitty is the master of the onslaught. She talkstalkstalkstalks with lots of screeching and yodeling and meowing. Add that to constnat bouncing, kissing, twirling and crashing into your legs. Plus the questions. I don't even want to get into the questions. Okay, it can be darling, actually, briefly. Then I start to feel like someone (Bitty) is slamming a cymbal on my head over and over as per Tom and Jerry and I just need a little break. Is that so wrong? We had a Costco run today and by the time we got home I was silently gritting my teeth and holding Bundle above my head out of Bitty-arm's reach. (See? Wretched.) Then I had a sudden stroke of genius and told Bitty that mommy needed some quiet time so she, Bitty, could take any toy she wanted into her room, shut the door, and she had to play quietly for one hour. It actually worked for about 15 minutes until I heard her crying for me, banging on the door and jiggling the doorknob as quickly as she could. I went in to remind her about quiet time when she asked me this very awesome question:

"Mommy, do you want to see what happened in my underpants?"

I guess that trumps quiet time by a long shot.

Glorious Day

What a day. Can you believe this weather? Couldn't be more perfect. After the sudden onset of cold last month (we went from using our cooler to using our heater within a day!) I was missing a little warm fall time. Well, today made up for it. Nice morning at church, and then Bundle decided to be extra nice and took a two hour nap as soon as we came home. Stomper and Bitty also pitched in and let me sleep for an hour too (miracle!). Then we packed up some snacks, apples and water and headed to what we call "Oma's New Park," a.k.a. Evergreen Park. Couldn't have been more gorgeous. Blazing leaves everywhere, lovely warm sunshine, me on a comfy camp chair with a fat happy baby, my kids having a ball. Stomper and Bitty obviously haven't been to the park in a while and really needed to just run. I enjoyed a long conversation with a fellow husky-owner. Well, actually her pup had died last year at the age of 14 (yikes, Alex is 13...) and they just got a new lab/aussie mix. Cute pup. Anyway, it was one of those days when we got to the park and the kids just took off and stayed happy for almost two hours. I just wish I had brought the camera!

The Vegetables of our Labors

Little did we know that fateful day last spring when our neighbor handed over two innocent-looking seeds that our garden plot would shortly be overrun with giant pumpkin plants. How could we have known? Anything that I sprout I also shortly thereafter kill. Luckily, Troy was in charge and so the plants flourished. And I mean flourished. We had to tear the vines off our neighbor's roof! What was fascinating to me was how each vine chose two pumpkins to grow. When the vines first flowered there were blossoms everywhere and I thought we'd have to pick them off so that each vine would focus its growth on just one or two pumpkins, but the vines did that themselves. Interesting. And so all summer long we watched these four pumpkins balloon in size and weight until I suddenly realized this week that, Hey! It's October! Pumpkin month, right? Time to quit growing them and get them out on the porch. I carried one out there but Troy had to do the rest. Those mothers are heavy! I won't deny that I'm dreading the idea of carving them - we'll need Troy to pull out his hack saw or something. But for now they look really fun on the porch. I've already had two people ask how much dough we shelled out for those babies, and I was happy to report that the total spent was zilch. You just need a nice neighbor. You know, I think we'll save the seeds from these pumpkins for next year. Anyone want a couple?

Sleep Feeding...

...or would that be breast walking? Either way, there was something weird going on last night. I went to sleep in my bed around 10:30 or something, and then the next thing I knew I was waking up on our couch from a totally sound sleep several hours later. Bundle was zonked out on my lap, and without sharing too many details, I'll just say that I had obviously been nursing in the recent past. Do I remember getting her up and going to the couch? Nope. Do I remember feeding her? Nope. Do I have any idea how long I was asleep there, my head tilted back, mouth open, snoring peacefully? Nope. It could have been 15 minutes, it could have been two hours. This is a little disconcerting. I wonder what else I can do in my sleep....

In other Bundle news, it turns out that my baby has alien poo. Not what you were expecting to read, eh? Well, you may remember in one of the Alien movies how alien blood, once spilt, just burns through layer after layer after layer of the space ship. Well, Bundle's poo pulled the same trick today. Now, my poor baby hadn't pooed at all in many days and she was so sad and uncomfortable and grumpy that I finally did something about it. (I am SURE these details are the reason anyone reads my blog, right? Want me to talk about barf next? Well maybe I will.) Anyway, the result was that my cute baby was lying there on my bed and managed to produce enough poo to go through her diaper, through her outfit, through a towel, through the duvet cover and through the comforter. It just kept going and going and going. And let me tell you, the return of my happy baby made the clean up worth it.

Ah, parenthood. Was that too much information?