Weekly Top - February 23, 2014

1) Monday was the "Family Day" holiday, so the boys didn't have school. Things are busy for Scott at work and he wasn't able to take his vacation day, but he did join us for lunch. The boys spent the day duct taping diaper boxes together and playing with Legos (Ian's had magically reappeared from a long stay in Mr. Gunny's bowels) and I made 6 loaves of homemade, home-ground, whole wheat bread. I broke off one of the handles on the wheat grinder and plumes of wheat flour billowed out the side, even while I tried to hold it together. Half the kitchen was coated in the fine powder. The biggest problem though is that I can't plug my ears from the deafening sound of the grinder while I am also holding the broken lid shut. Helen was mesmerized by the process of proofing yeast and her eyes were so wide when I showed her how the yeast was suddenly high enough to lift the towel that covered the bowl.

This should be a video of Calder's nightmare. (IE Helen screeching his name and inch from his face.)

2) On Tuesday I made a few dozen whole wheat muffins. Even though I'd eaten nearly a whole loaf of whole wheat bread the day before, I was still eager enough that I ate half a dozen whole wheat muffins. The next day, and for two days following, Calder was really congested, and screamed and squirmed while nursing. I've decided to lay off the wheat. (Update: avoiding wheat for 5 days hasn't made a difference. Cal is probably just due for a higher dose of reflux medication.)

3) Helen had her BFF Scarlett Cooper over this week while their family packed to move. The girls played the piano, fought over the same naked doll, and generally had a lovely time together while I cleaned the kitchen. They've played together since Helen was 11 months and Scarlett was 7 months -- I am so glad they have each other!

Moving a load of items to the coopers house with two cute ladies. 

4) Thursday was a snow day. There was freezing rain predicted, but it never materialized. It was a nice, boring day at home.  After delightedly dressing in play clothes, the kids spent all morning doing playdough at the counter. They had a bakery and I purchased their grossly over-priced goods. I even bought the "recipe" for Ian's cookies for $21.50 (I haggled him down from $50). This was especially a bad deal because the recipe was written in Ian's own form of Sanskrit, which I cannot even read. I hate playdough because it crumbles into a gigantic mess, and today was no exception. But everyone had a lovely day and no one even had a time out! That's as near perfect as it ever gets around here!

Making "slinky" apples.

5) I prepared and delivered a talk in Sacrament meeting on why we pray in the name of Jesus Christ. At the outset, I actually had no clue why we pray in Christ's name. It was unique experience preparing this talk for that reason, and also because I found so few resources on LDS.org to draw from. It was a really rewarding experience preparing this talk though, because I got to do a lot of thinking and figuring out based on other truths that I have a testimony of. As always, I'm glad to have it behind me!

6) Calder began smiling! We've caught him looking "pleasantly" at us for a couple weeks, but on three occasions this week Cal was sitting upright on my lap, head resting on my crossed leg, and he opened his mouth wide and then settled it into the sweetest, most sparkly-eyed smile. It looks a whole lot like his "sleeping" smiles and completely melts our hearts. Scott was right there with me twice when this occurred. It's no wonder we anticipate this milestone -- it's magical!

No pictures of his smiles, but check this out! Cal has obviously been focusing on his thighs lately. 

7) On Saturday the our dear friends the Coopers moved across town to their first house! We're thrilled for them, but I'll really miss having them 83 seconds up the street from us. It was fun to have their kids over for a playdate while Scott was helping with the move. Beautiful snowglobe snow was falling outside and they kids couldn't bare to stay indoors. We scrounged up enough snow pants and gloves to go around and they all played out there so happily for more than an hour! The rest of the day was spent playing with Magna Tile castles inhabited by Playmobile pirates while Helen and Scarlett devised ways to sneak brownies from a pan on the counter.

For snack time they all shared the counter stools. 

I stayed indoors caring for Calder, but took some pictures through the panels of glass in the door. 

8) My iPhone fell into the toilet on Friday. After spending 48 hours in a bag of rice, it is working again! I don't think the camera will ever be the same again (it has trouble focusing) but at least I won't have to give up Instagram completely. The upside of this was that I pulled out my nice camera a lot this weekend while my phone was out of commission.

9) This weekend my grandparents moved their belongings from Lake Havasu, Arizona to the SF Bay Area! They recently purchased a house near my parents home, and I am so happy to know that they will be close to family. Now we'll just have to plan a trip out to see their new house!

10) Apart from Calders baby blessing day, Cal has only ever worn pajamas. PJs makes diaper changes easier, are perfectly suited for our climate, and avoid the discomfort of having a waistband when you spend your day folded in half. But today Calder wore real clothes to church. It was fun to dress him up, and he looked adorable.

Weekly Top Ten - February 16, 2014

1) Pipes breaking /flu - We experienced another Tender Mercy this week. In the middle of the night before Monday morning I woke up with the chills, which quickly progressed to the stomach flu. I quickly became too exhausted to care for Calder when he'd wake up nurse, so Scott would bring Cal to me and put him back to bed after I fed him. Generally Calder goes immediately to sleep after eating at night, but this night he was fussy and unsettled most of the night, so Scott rocked him and soothed him for quite a while after each feeding. Scott brought Calder down to the basement playroom where they wouldn't disturb anyone, and Scott thought he heard the faucet running in the bathroom down there. When he went in to turn it off he was greeted instead by sheets of water flowing down the walls and puddles on the floor. A pipe had broken and the ceiling and walls were filling with water! He switched off the water main and cleaned up the standing water. So although there wasn't water flowing down the walls anymore, we were without water for the next 12 hours. Try not to think too much about how awful it is to have the flu without running water in the house, because it will totally gross you out.

Thankfully Scott caught the problem as early as he did! If I hadn't been sick, and Calder had a more normal night where he slept well, Scott would not have been pacing the house with Calder and heard the water. If he hadn't heard the water in the middle of the night it would have probably taken all day for me to notice it. Once the kids were up it would have been too loud to hear the water, and we probably wouldn't have gone down to the playroom again until after the boys were home from school that afternoon -- at least 10 hours after Scott discovered it. The damage was minimal, a plumber was (miraculously) available to come fix it that morning, and all while the homeowner was on vacation in Florida.

2) Valentines day at school - Joseph and Ian anticipated this Valentines day more than ever before. I found some printable cards online and put them together the night before. The boys desperately wanted to pour the Jelly Beans in by themselves, but since we were low on Jelly Beans (*ahem*, Scott) I needed to do the portions to conserve what we had left. They both had parties in class and loved passing out the Valentines to their friends and Tobelerone to their teachers. (When I asked Ian which teachers he wanted to include, he named about ten people, from the headmaster to the assistant gym teacher, to the front desk receptionist.) Fortunately their parties were on separate days so they could share the one red shirt they own. Joseph was thrilled that, as an all-day student in preschool, he got to take part in both the morning and afternoon parties!

Some of the Valentines we made, plus all the loot the kids came home with. Ian's class was also celebrating the 100th day of school, hence the awesome spectacles. 

3) Branch party - Our branch held an activity on Valentines day with an Italian dinner, loads of desserts, cookies to decorate and a message about love by Brother Haynie. There was a great turn out, and as always, our kids had a ball running around like wild animals.

4) I made Helen's hair into two braids this week and she absolutely loved it. She pointed her "braves" out to strangers at the grocery story, sangs songs about them in the car "I'm a big girl because I have two 'braves' in my hair today!", and admired them in the mirror every chance she got. She wore them three days in a row in different variations, and insisted I braid her hair for church today so she could show them to her friend Scarlett.

5) Slushy snow on Sunday -- We had freezing rain this morning, along with large pellets of hail. The wind was blowing so hard that the hail was really painful when it hit my bare legs and face. There were 12 inches of slush on the unplowed roads when we drove to church. The church parking lot was plowed during church, leaving a bank of snow behind the minivan. Scott couldn't get out until Bro. Haynie gave a push from the front end. Getting up our cul-de-sac also presented problems -- Scott said it took 10 minutes and approximately 1 million attempts to make it through the slush to our driveway. Fortunately I fared much better in the black car with four-wheel drive, although I took Columbus drive to bring the Cumby's home from church and the route that usually takes less than 10 minutes took nearly twenty in those conditions.

Our cul-de-sac with Scott's tracks -- notice how they are going sideways and every-which-way in an effort to make it up to our house!

6) When Scott arrived at church with the kids, the branch president had just discovered there was no bread for the Sacrament. Since we live the closest to the church building he asked Scott to run home and get some bread. Scott left the kids sitting in the pew with Krista Hancock (I was out picking up another family) and went home to find that we only had two slices and two heels, so he went to the Irving station and bought a loaf of bread. When I arrived at church a few minutes later and he told me all I had missed, I broke the news to him -- since I'd only brought in the cold items after a recent shopping trip, we had a loaf of bread in the trunk of the car he'd been driving the whole time!

7) Ian had a staff development day at school on Friday. He absolutely loved lounging in his basketball shorts all day, reading, playing Legos, and making a Magna Tile castle with Helen. Ian freaked out when I told him he needed to put pants on to go pick Joseph up from school that afternoon -- apparently pants really cramped his vacation-day-style. Lucky for him the weather was so nasty out that Scott volunteered to go pick Joseph up for us. Scott's done that for me several times over the last few weeks -- I love living so close to his office and the kids' schools! Scott was working through his EDO this week but came to join us for lunch. Scott comes home for lunch a few times a week, but since Ian is usually at school this was a special event for him and he looked forward to it all day.

8) Dinner with Mostafa and Missionaries -- During our first year in Newfoundland we fed the missionaries (generally one of two sets of Elders) every single Thursday. We've been out of the habit since moving last spring, but in an effort to get back into it we invited our friend Mostafa, a recent convert, and the Elders in Conception Bay South to dinner on Thursday. I made french dip sandwiches and some really nasty vegan short bread cookies with ganache. They were colored with beet juice, and looked and tasted horrible.

9) Ian lost his beloved "brown" tooth last Sunday! It has been loose for weeks, and for a few days he had been able to turn it sideways in his mouth and leave it that way. But after all the apple-eating, tying it to a doorknob, wiggling it while Scott knocked Ian's arm, and working it with his tongue for hours every night in bed, it finally came out at bedtime. (His teeth usually come out at bedtime -- its the ultimate stall technique.) The tooth was dead because I accidentally pushed Ian into our backyard fence in Texas during a game of octopus tag almost two years ago. The Tooth Fairy allowed Ian to keep his tooth in this case, because it was such a special tooth. Ian received a Toonie (worth two dollars Canadian) under his pillow. Not bad!

10) I have a disability when it comes to hanging pictures on the wall. If I can manage to buy a frame, I don't get around to printing a picture for it (which is ridiculous because I take so many pictures!) If I manage to buy a frame and put a picture in it, it will lean against the wall where I want to hang it for months or years as I debate whether it's the best spot, until we move, or someone breaks the glass and I have to start all over. But! This week I bought frames for some prints by the lovely Sarah Nielsen, and actually hung them! I love how they look hanging over Calders bassinet. Perhaps now Cal will recognize the Texas landscape when we ever make it back to the Lone Star state.

Weekly Top Ten - February 9, 2014

In an effort to revive our family blog, I'm attempting to post ten details from each week. 

1) Joseph gave his first primary talk. Scott helped Joseph write it Sunday morning, and Joseph rehearsed it several times before church. It was very important to Joseph that I stand next to him while he delivered it, but I was changing Helen's diaper when the time came (I'm the primary president, and had just stepped out for a minute to change Helen.) When I came back in he was just finishing the "questions" part, and I stood next to him while he read the rest. I was so impressed with the way he plodded through a rather long talk. He only needed help with a few words ("it can't be "know", mom, it has a 'K' at the front!) He delivered his talk with great confidence too, and was beaming when I caught his eye as he stepped down from the podium.

2) Joseph had his second Kinderstart this week. The year before Kindergarten, all students are invited to monthly orientations where they do crafts, have circle time, eat a snack, and practice being Kindergarteners, all the actual Kindergarten classroom, with their future teacher. I didn't realize Joseph would love it like he does -- he spent an entire afternoon trying to convince me that Kinderstart was now going to be held weekly, just because he wants go again! Because of Joseph's Fall birthday he misses the K cutoff in Texas by just a month, making him one of the older children in his grade. Here in Newfoundland the cut-off is December 31, meaning that some kindergartners start school at 4.5 years old. This age gap was really evident at the initial orientation when some of the children were only 3.5 years old and Joseph was already 5. He's taller, calmer, and more eager to be there than most of his classmates. Josephs buddies Brian and Oldric from preschool are attending Kinderstart with him. Joseph is especially eager to join Ian in the lunch room next year.

3) In Ian's class of 18 children, 9 or more have chicken pox! Oddly enough, all of these children have been vaccinated. I'm terrified that Ian will bring it home and expose Helen and Calder. (Helen will receive the varicella vaccination later this month, but it takes 6 weeks to build immunity.) Fingers crossed that we avoid this!

4) We received 6" or so of the fluffiest snow late Wednesday night, and woke up to a snow day on Thursday! They called it "superman snow" on the news -- so light and fluffy that it's easier to shovel. Scott's office opened at 9, and the kids had the full day off. The boys spent the entire morning doing water colors while I nursed Calder and then bathed Helen (who had water-colored her tummy green.) It was a nice slow day.

5) Scott was set to go to Norway early next week on business, but the trip was canceled late this week. I was prepared to hold down the fort while we was gone (or at least give it my best efforts!) but I'm relieved he'll be around instead. The first business trip after welcoming a new baby always scares me.

6) Calder is finally breathing normally this week. He has been on reflux medication (Zantac) for two weeks now, so we assume that he is no longer refluxing acid and milk into his nose, and that is why he is no longer congested. I have also been on an elimination diet for the recommended 3 weeks, so perhaps this is contributing to his improvement too. I've eliminated dairy, soy and eggs. I miss butter the most of everything!

Calder and Joseph went to the ENT this week. This was absolutely a tender mercy from a loving Father in Heaven. It generally takes 6 months to a year or more to get an appointment with a specialist here. Back in August a speech pathologist referred Joseph to the ENT, and sometime thereafter an appointment for February was scheduled. At the time I thought it was useless to meet with the ENT at that point -- what we really needed was to meet with an allergist, and that was scheduled for December. I know come February we'd have a newborn, and the last thing I'd want to do was to schlep everyone to an unnecessary appointment at the hospital. I planned to cancel the appointment but for some reason I didn't. Flash forward to last Sunday. Calder wouldn't nurse and spent an entire evening screaming and writhing. He was miserable, and I was skeptical that the reflux medications we'd been given were working. I had asked the family doctor to give him a more aggressive treatment (like we'd had in Texas) and she refused, saying we'd need to meet with a specialist. (Our appointment with a pediatrician wasn't until April 25. April! I knew we couldn't wait that long to get Calder the help he needed.) I was so anxious about the situation that I was having trouble sleeping and felt overwhelmed trying to care for a tiny baby who was so miserable he wouldn't eat.

It was at this point that I looked at the calender on my phone to see what our week would hold, and saw an event scheduled for Wednesday. It simply said Joseph ENT on Wednesday at 1. In that moment I realized that my Father in Heaven had provided for a tender mercy for our family way back in September. Our family doctor prepared a referral for Calder and faxed it over the morning of our appointment with the ENT. Even though Calder had a rough few days before the appointment, I knew we only had to get through it until Wednesday. On Wednesday Dr. Redmond put a scope down Calders nose (quite unpleasant) and confirmed that Calder indeed had reflux, but that it appeared the current medications were beginning to work and soon Calder would be comfortable. He gave me a few more tips to manage the reflux. It was such a relief to finally, after 6 weeks of questions, to know that there was not anything more seriously wrong (like structural deformities, etc.) that were causing Calder's constant congestion. Dr. Redmond also explained that Calder's congestion was a mix of refluxed milk and stomach acid, along with mucous that his body produced to protect is delicate esophagus and nasal passages from the stomach acid. He also explained that all of this was so far back in his sinuses that suctioning it was never going to help. It feel so much peace knowing that we have a firm diagnosis for Calder.

It was a tender mercy that we had an appointment with the very type of specialist Calder needed to see, and that it was provided for by a loving Father in Heaven so many months before it was even needed.

7) Helen says the most adorable prayers. She generally begins to pray as soon as everyone is seated at the table, or kneeling after family scripture study, and thus she ends up saying most of our family prayers these days. This week her standard prayer has changed from "Heavenly Father, Thank we a next week" to "Heavenly Father, thank we had a good day. Bless Calder."

8) I've been making all sorts of vegan dishes these past few weeks. Some have been wildly successful (like the brownies made with coconut oil!) others less so (vegan carbonera pasta, with a cream sauce made from avocados). Most days I eat a sweet potato for breakfast, and I keep a bag of grilled chicken in the fridge for lunch and dinner.

9) We held our first family MTC last Sunday, and our second today. We got the idea from an article in the Friend Magazine. Each Sunday we'll spend about an hour doing activities to help prepare our children to serve a mission. We begin with a prayer and singing Called to Serve. Then in four 15 minute sessions we: 1) Write in our journals 2) Read the scriptures (Ian reads the Book of Mormon, and Joseph flips through the illustrated version of the scriptures.) 3) Study a story in the Friend Magazine, then retell it the rest of the family 4) Watch videos on the Friend website. It's so fun! Helen was asleep this time, and it went a bit more smoothly.

10) In preparation for Valentines day this Friday, we've been writing love notes to each other. We each have an envelope hung in the dining room, and lots of hearts cut out of paper for writing the notes on. We saved them up all week and read them to each other last Sunday after dinner and will read the notes from this week on Valentines day. Joseph enjoyed cutting cool shapes out for everyone (my favorite was a Toronto Maple leaf for Scott) and Helen drew herself lots of multicolored scribbles. Our household mice even sneeked a note in to Helen, thanking her for all the crumbs she leaves for them.

Happy SIXth Birthday, Ian!

We started the morning with a Birthday picture. Ian generally wakes up in a bright and cheery mood.

His mattress is on the floor because he had graciously let us move his bed to the guest room for Grandma Ogden during her visit the week before. And yes, his walls were (and still are!) pink!

Breakfast in the Birthday Chair. 

Ian then spent the day at school, where he got to share cupcakes and wear a birthday crown. Fortunately it was also "long lunch Wednesday", so Scott picked Ian up for lunch at Mc Donalds. 

Birthday boy's dinner request: His own pizza. Which he only shared with Dad.

"Dude, don't blow out my candles."

Don't be deceived: Canadian "Smarties" are actually M and Ms. Either way, multicolored ice cream was sure to please the birthday boy.

Present Time!

A book light for reading in bed. Ian LOVES to read. He thinks his teacher Ms. Spurvey created the name "bookworm" just for him.

Knitted stegosaurus, made by our church friend Krista Hancock.

"A math book?! I LOVE math!"

A mini transformer, from Helen.

A Lego police set, from Joseph.

A surprise last gift was hidden away... Ian was thrilled!

The following Saturday, Ian had a combined birthday party with his buddy Jackson. It's common in St. John's to invite ones entire class to a birthday celebration, which makes it impractical to celebrate at home. So together our families planned a party at Axtion, an indoor play place. 

I enjoy designing the invitations and was ecstatic to find napkins that matched almost exactly. Even though that kind of detail is lost on 5 and 6 year olds, I'm confident my mother would appreciate it!

Climbing the rope and ladder, outside his favorite obstacle: the Spider Mountain climb.

This slide is more gigantic than it appears. My stomach dropped each time I went down it, and eventually I couldn't do it any more. 

Helen, however, went down 20 times. 

Joseph loved it when I chased him through these "macaroni noodles".

The party room was actually a semi-trailer attached to the front of the building. In a previous life, it evidently delivered dairy products. Now it is lined with diner-like tables and echos party noise like you wouldn't believe!

Good friends from church: Jude, Nash, Lincoln, Gray, Tony and Zach.

Ian and I looked at a million cakes on Pinterest and he favored the ones shaped like basketballs or with elaborate soccer fields drawn on them. I didn't think I could manage more than this one though, and in the end, he was OK with that. It helped that it had cotton candy flavored icing. 

The birthday boys eating a slice of both cakes.

A tired party girl.

Look at that haul! I am proud to say Ian delivered thank you notes to each classmate the following Monday. He was one lucky kid!

Ian continues to impress us with his phenomenal memory for life events. He is incredibly bright and has really taken an interest in math this year, easily adding two, three and four large two-digit numbers in his head. His understanding of time is also pretty impressive, though when we are running late and he reminds me, it can be a bit grating! It is wonderful to have a reader in the house, and when things get a little too rambunctious in the house we never have to ask twice for him to go settle down with a book. Ian is always willing to read to Helen and Joseph, and does a great job expressing the dialogue. Ian prefers to read the Friend Magazine over just about anything else. 

One night (when he should have been sleeping) Ian held up items in his room, shined a flashlight on them, and recorded whether or not he could see through them. He called this experiment "Bedroom Look", and recorded the results as follows: (Pillow, pillowcases, pants, shirt)

He was recently presented an award in front of the school, where the headmaster spoke about witnessing Ian's "exceptional reading abilities". Ian's competitive nature has tempered a bit... or at least he is learning to channel it. He really enjoys sports, especially playing soccer. We've really seen his athletic abilities blossom this year because of gym class at school, and feel especially lucky that his grade-5-buddy from church, Zach, has included him in recess games with the older grades. All-day kindergarten was a challenge for Ian for the first half of the year in that he aimed for perfection at school and then dissolved into a complete meltdown each and every afternoon once we got into the car (or sometimes in the parking lot!) Thankfully, after Christmas break that seemed to lessen, and Ian actually looked forward to going to school and being with his friends, and wasn't so exhausted afterwords. Ian was disciplined only occasionally at school, and this was always for wrestling Jackson during transition times in class. This year he describes his best buddies as Jackson B., Lucas, and Theo. Fortunately, everyone in his class of 18 kids are great friends, and they all will be together again in Grade 1. Ian remains incredibly determined and recently was awarded in school for his "Willingness to work hard and try new things", qualities that we are especially proud of in this house. Around the same time, I heard Ian was the only student willing to try Hawaiian pizza in the lunchroom the first time it was offered. I admit, I felt pretty great about that too. 

With Kindergarten teacher Ms. Spurvey on the last day of school. 

 Ian Boy, you are a joy to have in the family, and the older you grow, the more thankful I am that you were sent here to be our first child. In so many ways you are the best big brother on earth -- you have an endless supply of creative ideas and you always want Joseph to play along with you. You work really hard and are a great example of doing your best. You're blessed with a testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ at a young age, and you know far more about the history and doctrine of the church than your peers, and than your parents have ever taught you. You aren't as overtly girl-crazy as you were once, but you still get a bit embarrassed when you talk about the girls in your class. (Especially when I interviewed you about the "spin the bottle -esque" game your class liked to play when the teacher stepped out during indoor recess.)

You are a critical thinker, and you want to talk about discrepancies you see around you. You always go a bit nutty at bedtime, but generally settle in quickly and would go straight to sleep if only Joseph would let you. I love that you really enjoy sharing a room with your brother. 

At the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City in July.

We love you, Ian Boy. Happy 6th Birthday!