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!

Fathers Day

I decided that for Father's Day, Scott needed a picture of the kids to put in his office. It rained all week and the weather finally cooperated right as Scott arrived home from a business trip Saturday. So we shooed him away to unpack and shower, and then I got some pictures.

This is the best shot I got. And hey! All three kids are looking in the same direction!

There were quite a few that showed the kids personalities a bit more. 

Yeah, that's them. 

Here's Helen about to but the letter on her foot...

...and here is her face when I asked her not to. (The others are happy about not obeying)

These wonderful, crazy kids have one wonderful, crazy father. 

We all feel so lucky he's ours!

fishing in subzero temps

Breakfast in bed on Father's Day

Round Top!

Back in January 2012 my mom came to Texas for a visit, and we made a quick trip to Round Top, Texas for the semi-annual Round Top antique festival. We got an excellent deal on a nights-stay at The Belle of Round Top, an adorable bed and breakfast.

I'll love on any cat that comes close enough to grab!

We loved antiquing and experiencing the world-famous Round Top, but we agree that the B&B owner and our chats with her were the highlights of the trip. We connected with her over our shared history in the LDS faith (which was discovered when I saw her ancient wheat grinder), and felt right at home in her care. We won't soon forget her incredible sweet potato waffles, either!

Her husband wrote the song Wolly Bully, and we had the pleasure of spontaneously attending his current bands live show in the town's pizzeria the night we arrived. The entire town seemed to have turned out for the music and fellowship. We danced and sang with the locals and had a great time. 

Our room was decorated with toile -- which made it an obvious choice for my Mom. 

We didn't come away empty handed either -- we scored a great deal on a coffee table (which my mom and I repainted for our grown-up room), a doll cradle for Helen, an enormous ball of twine (literally bigger than my head!) a hard-sided purse/doll house, beautiful Scandinavian flour-sack material, and some jewelry... and certainly more treasures that escape my memory. 

We are certain we will return in future years!