From Teagan's Camera

Teagan recently bought herself a little digital camera with some babysitting money she earned this summer. And so begins the obligitory teenager self portraits....

 She is such a big helper to me. I often forget that she is only 12 years old. She is Emmy's second mom and is often asking if she can "help" him in ways that just so happen to be beneficial to her as well :-) Recently she asked if she could take him on a bike ride and this is how she returned him to me...

 The poor dude was out cold! She took him carefully out of the trailer, laid him on his bed, changed him into a diaper, and then came in the front room and started reading a book. She just naturally takes care of him like I do. She doesn't have to be told or reminded of what to do for him, it just seems to come naturally. And I love that!

 Another day she was trying to catch on camera how blue Duncan's eyes are, but he was being uncooperative. He doesn;t like to make eye contact, and that seemed to be the case with her camera 'eye' as well.

So she moved on to things that don't move as much and that she could film. This is a hair flower that she made and really loves.

Here is her picture of Vampire Emmett. After she commented that he looked like a vampire, he promptly hopped my lap and started to pretend like he was biting my arm. I don't even know where he learned what a vampire was!

She has been having fun with her little camera!

Guess whose walking now!

Our little Emmie started walking last Monday!(the publish date of this post is wrong...sorry!) early in the morning he took 9 steps by himself, and we were all ecstatic... clapping, cheering, the whole nine yards. He was impressed with himself! I went to the calendar and wrote "9 steps" on it, so I could start tracking the days to see him progress. A little later he took 16 steps.. the clapping and cheering followed that occasion as well and back to the calendar I went to update the 9 to a 16.

It's been how long?

       I love the expression on Duncan's face here. I feel like this a lot lately when I think about how irrational it seems when I think that it has already been a month since he was born. Where has the time gone? How in the world could it really have been a whole month since I was pregnant and anxiously waiting for him to come. From the emotional stand point, it seems like it has been such a short amount of time, but from the rational point of view, he is 35 days old; which would make him just over a month old.

 Yeah, Duncan, I can't believe it either!

He was actually voicing his opinion of whether we should do a one month old photo shoot then or not. We went with not.

This was his actual 'One Month' day, so it would have been perfect, but the tummy bubbles in him said to do otherwise.

Instead I took some video footage of him. I caught some cute little smiles, a yawn, and some adorable coos. But Blogger isn't wanting to upload videos, so all those cute coos are stuck in a virtual folder on my computer.

We were planning on this being his first day at church, so we all got ready in our Sunday best and were ready to go, but finally decided that Duncan and I were only going to stay for the first hour and then we'd come home before we were around too many people who would love to unknowingly share their germs with him. He's been running a low grade fever for a few days, so we don't want to make anything worse! 

Emmy was so excited to bring his baby to church with him! But even that excitement didn't last when he found out that Duncan and I were heading home. Emmett ended up coming home with us as well and going straight to sleep. He hasn't stayed at church since Duncan was born, so we are going to have to do some serious retraining to get him to stay all three hours without complaining!

So Duncan is now one month old.

 He weighs 10 lbs 4 oz (!!! he's gained more than 2 lbs in one month...what a little chunk!!)

He eats every three hours during the day and, once night comes, he will sleep for 5 hour stretches.

He is a great eater - as is apparent by his weight gain - but is a sloppy and painful eater. (He is a little bit tongue tied, but I am hesitant to get it clipped, so until I make a decision it is just really painful for me to nurse him, and he is sloppy about the whole thing.)

He is a reluctant burper and the side effect of that is that he often has yucky tummy bubbles and loud gassy diapers afterwards :-)

He is so calm and peaceful. He's really patient, too.

He smells so yummy and has the softest skin. (He's in the middle of a breakout as he tries to get all my hormones out of his system, but once those are gone, he'll have the smoothest skin as well!)

Happy one month little Dinky Doo!

We sure love you!

Touching the veil

 We went for a fun hike today after our deep house cleaning. With as many times as we have hiked near Bridal Veil Falls or at the bottom of it, this time we actually went UP  the falls a bit!

 It was so fun to be so close to the falls and to feel the spray on our faces.

The kids loved touching the freezing cold snow melt off water; Scott made sure that no one fell down the falls by holding on to whatever he could grab on them :-)

Utah State Fair Time

I almost feel bamboozled...if it weren't for it being due to my lack of common sense, I think I might be upset. Here's why:
On Friday Scott played hooky from work and we took the kids into Salt Lake to the Utah State Fair. Teagan and Garrett both had items that went on from the county fair up the state level and they were each given a free ticket in to the fair, and the three older kids all got free tickets to the fair through a summer reading program, so we were all able to get in for free! All it cost us was the $6 for parking and half a tank of gas...that's the kind of family activity I love! The kids also had a ticket for one free ride and a free drink - they chose to ride the big Ferris wheel and I sent Scott up there with them and the wheel operator let Emmy on for free! Duncan and I watched them from a bench on the ground.

I had brought our little Kodak camera with me to snag some quick pictures of the kids and Teagan had her new Kodak camera too, but once we got there, we found a Nikon area where they were doing a photo contest and letting people check out cameras to carry around the fair grounds taking pictures and then they could enter their favorite picture into a daily photo contest. We were so excited about the idea of trying out Nikon cameras and lenses of our choice that we checked out one for Teagan, Garrett, and myself! So we all walked around the fairgrounds snapping pictures, not remembering that these were loaner cameras and that we would have to say goodbye to the SD cards we were shooting pictures on. I had checked out a macro lens and had such a fun time taking extreme close ups around the fair. But since we had to turn them back in, all the pictures we took are no more...they were deleted once we returned the cameras.

At the last minute I remembered that I wanted to have pictures to take home with me, and I was able to snag a few of the older kids next to their fair entries. Out of the four of Teagan's that went on to state level and the two of Garrett's that went on, all six won prizes. Both of Garrett's won second place, and one of Teagan's won second and the other three won first. They were both thrilled!

How cool is that to be a kid and have won first and second place at the state fair?!

So it was my being distracted with a new toy that made it so I don't have any good pictures from the fair. But as a wise boy once said in the cartoon Phineas and Ferb, "You'll always have the pictures saved in your memory." Let's just hope that when we look back on those saved memory pictures we don't find that we had our thumbs covering the lens the whole time.

A fun new 'syndrome' for Emmy

Emmy seems to have won the genetic lottery for 'odd disorders and syndromes.' He is such a happy little guy, but his body seems to be at war with itself sometimes.

Since his tonsillectomy in November, his PFAPA fever cycles have tamed down a great deal. The first two after the surgery were KILLERS, but since those two, the others have not gotten over 103 (which I can handle so much better than his 106 ones!) and he hasn't had anymore seizures. I can deal with a grouchy, hot boy every month as long as his brain isn't melting and he isn't seizing every few days!

This morning as I was making banana pancakes for breakfast, Quasimodo walked into the kitchen needing some cuddle time and we found out he has another fun 'syndrome.'

 This one is named Skeeter Syndrome...yeah, someone was really creative when they named this problem! It is when your auto immune reacts to mosquito bites in a larger way than normal - sort of like a severe allergic reaction to 'squito spit.

 He had gotten bit by a mosquito on his forehead sometime during the night and it swelled up so much that one eye was swelled shut and the other was barely opened. He could barely see and his cheek and mouth were fatter fluffier than usual. I gave him some benadryl and put an ice pack on his eyes to help the swelling go down, and put some lavendar oil on the bite to help with the pain, and after an hour or so he looked a lot better.

(My camera battery was almost dead, so pardon the blurry pictures, but you get the gist of how Quasi looked. And these 2D pictures don't do the 3D real life version any justice anyways.)

I already knew that he reacted strongly to 'squito bites because he's had some other ones swell up really big on his back and arms and legs, but this one takes the cake for pity party points. When your little eye is hidden behind folds of puffy, fluid filled skin, you get some seriously sad looks!

The poor little dude's face has hurt for most of the day and the swelling actually got a bit worse before it started looking better, but the nurse I talked to said that was to be expected. The swelling 'dripped' down his face and his eye sagged and his cheek puffed more, but as of bedtime tonight while I am writing this, I think it is mostly starting to go away. We'll see how he looks in the morning!

To make matters worse, at a home school party today he accidentally fell off of a swing and hit his face and he got a really bad bloody nose and a cut lip. After adding those lovely things to his already swollen face, by the time his siblings brought him to me he looked like a car accident victim ready to have DFACS called on his abusive parents! But he's still the cutest car accident victim I have ever seen!

The big One-Oh

Last weekend was a big one for someone in our house.

Garrett turned double digits last Saturday! The big One-Oh!

  

It wasn't our typical birthday for him because we went down to Grandma and Grandpa's house for the weekend and took our new toys that Duncan gave to his big brothers and sister - three new kayaks!

Scott has wanted kayaks for years and years and years, and this seems to have been our lucky year. We have had the great luck (on three separate occasions) to find a kayak on the clearance rack at Sam's Club. Unfortunately we have only been able to find three child sized kayaks, so we don't have one that Scott fits on, but luckily, his brother Stu has two adult sized ones and one child sized one for his own family, so we were all able to share and have fun on the reservoir together.

 Scott thought it was funny to pretend to pass out and let Emmy try his hand at paddling them ashore. The  boys all just loved paddling all around the lake.

 We even took Max Dog with us and he had fun running around in the water with the kids. He is about 12 years old and acts like an old man dog, but at the lake he was acting like a little puppy again!

 Garrett was a bit sad at the beginning of the day because he had to mow Grandmas lawn and do some housework, and all of the normal birthday things that we do at our house didn't get done, (like the birthday streamers and him getting to pick out his favorite meals and getting to say all the prayers) but once we got to the lake and then came home for cake and presents, well....it started to feel more like a birthday to him!

Scott bought him a bow with two arrows and he was in seventh heaven. He also bought Garrett five "How Things Work" type of books, which are some of his favorite kinds of books to read. He's already read two of them and is on to the third one!

 We love going to Nana and Papa's house for the weekends, and it means a lot more to me now that I can see the end of us being able to get up and go the hour and half to their house. Once we move to WA, those days will end and we will be all by ourselves with no family around ~ which isn't a bad thing, but not having grandparents so close is a bad thing; for both the grandparents and the grand kids.

 The main reason we went down was so that Nana and Papa could meet Duncan. Papa has been feeling so poorly that they couldn't make a trip up to see us, so we brought our one week-old baby down to see them instead. They both were in love with him and he enjoyed having Nana sing to him and help work out the tummy bubbles!

(Emmett playing with Uncle Stuart - 2011)
 It is always so much fun to see family - my kids love their aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins so much. They have amazing cousins to look up to and uncles who love rough housing with them, and grandparents who dote on them and constantly remind them of how loved they are...I don't think they realize what a great family they have on both sides of their family tree, but they'll see it as they grow up I'm sure!

I am  going to take Garrett out soon and take some 10 year-old pictures of him because it seems like I don't have any good recent ones of him. This is a birthday collage of how he has changed over the past few years. These are from when he was four years old until he was nine. _I never noticed until now, but he was wearing the same shirt two years in a row!

 He is such a sweet little man, and so much fun to have in our family. He loves to do service for others, and wants to do things to please you all the time. He loves giving back massages and sloppy kisses on the cheek. He is a hard worker (when he wants to be!) and loves to do things on scouts. He wants to be just like his daddy when he grows up and thrives at figuring out how things work and understanding the mechanics behind them.

He struggles with focusing on things (like school and chores!) and can be distracted with the dust particles in the air it seems, but he really tries hard to make me happy and do what I ask of him.

(working on math in 2007)

He has such a sensitive spirit and is close to Heavenly Father's spirit. He loves inviting his friends to church and scouts and is already preparing for when the time comes that he will be a missionary. He gets up each month to bear his testimony even though it terrifies him - he'll get back to our seat with eyes full of tears because he was so nervous, and he'll tell me "I can do tough things" which is one of our family mottos.

He loves chocolate milk and hot chocolate and would drink them with each meal if I let him. He loves riding his bike and roller blading and playing in the water and he would be reading a book 24 hours a day if he could. He is an outdoors boy - fishing, hiking, swimming, boating... His favorite things are RC anythings, LEGOs, Playstation games, books, and things with wheels (bikes, skateboards, scooters, etc). His favorite color is still green and his favorite foods are root beer floats, sticky rice and pork fu, pizza, and anything with BACON.

(Garrett in November of 2004 - 3 years old)

He is my green eyed lovely.

(4 years old - 2005)

My cuddle bug and teddy bear.

(trip to GA in 2006 - at Stone Mountain)

My  little man who loves to laugh until he cries.

(April 2011)

Heavenly Father really blessed me with some wonderful children, and Garrett brings so much into our family. I do love this boy of mine! It doesn't seem like it has been 10 years already since he came into our family, I can still see his little newborn turtle face and remember bringing him home from the hospital, so little and plump. He makes me smile and laugh and is such a fun guy to be around.

Happy 10th birthday Honk Honk! I love you!

I love games!

I love playing games - sports games, board games, card games...you name it and I probably enjoy playing it. I do draw the line on mind games, though...I was never a good girly girl because I refuse to play those types of games.... but that is straying from the point.

Go here to play a fun game that my friend Wendi put on her blog...it made me laugh out loud!

Two week birthday and unhappy about it his 'gift'

I blinked again and another week has gone by.

Duncan is now two weeks old...how did that happen? It seems like I was still pregnant yesterday.

On the up side, it sounds nice to be able to say that I've lost a quick 20 pounds on this Birth Quick Weight Loss Program :-) Plus I have such a cute little guy to show for it!

 In celebration of his two week birthday, we took Duncan to the doctor for his first visit; which included (among other things) getting his heel pricked again for a follow up test. He didn't cry or squeak or make a noise at all - other than to grunt a bit and fill and his diaper in the nurse's arms. He did so good!

 Both the nurse and the doctor told Scott that he needed to take me out to dinner for how well I've been able to feed Duncan. He has gained a full pound in the past two weeks, which is just over an ounce a day! He still looks little, but if you look at his arms and back, you can tell he is starting to fluff up a little!

 After all the fun measurements and compliments were given, then came the down side to visiting the doctor today...it was Chop Shop Day for him.

I have fought against it with all the other boys and this time was no exception - Scott and I talked every which way about whether or not to have the baby circumsized. Scott even came with us this time to ask the doctor about the pros and cons of it. We were told that it is now mainly just a cosmetic proceedure and that there is really only one pro for each direction. If you have it done, it does cut down on the incidence of foreskin infections, and if you don't have it done it cuts down on the chances of getting an STD later in life.  But even knowing that, Scott still wanted to have it done.

The doctor was hysterically funny through the whole thing, (he kept cracking jokes like telling us he was having a half-off special for the month of September - if he took off more than half, the proceedure would be free) but his humor still didn't change my opinion. I didn't want it done at all.  I don't care if my boys wouldn't be a 'matched set' - differences are okay!

Duncan did great. I nursed him before, and cuddled him, and apologized:-) He was strapped to the table and got his penile liticaine block without even crying a bit. He made it through most of the proceedure without so much as wiggling or crying, but did cry for about 30 seconds during a tugging part of it. He was such a trooper through it all - very reminiscent of when Emmy had it done.

 All the way home I (passive agressively) apologized to him for having it done. I told him that now he was just like all the other doggies who have their eaers clipped just to look the way people think they should.

Instead of taking me out to Cafe Rio like the nurse suggested, Scott took me out for shakes (SO not the same!) and I chose to get an Arby's Jamocha Oreo shake - something that Scott really hates for me to do. He doesn't like the idea of Jamocha anything, but it is a sweet treat that I only get every couple of years. He asked me if I felt guilty eating something that had coffee flavoring in it and I told him that I didn't feel even the slightest bit guilty, but asked him if he did for his choice for Duncan. Poor Scott got the point, I think, because as I dropped him off for work as he got out he said "Sorry you hate me."

 So that was our day today - part great, part terrible. Duncan is doing great, not complaining one bit about anything - he even let me take all sorts of pictures of him and wiggle him all around and didn't get angry at all.

He is such a wonderful baby. And he smells so delicious and feels so soft; I just want to eat him up everytime I hold him!

(check out his Vulcan ear - that was his identifying feature for us in the hospital - and don't you love his hairy little back! I do!)