Our Second Home–or the ER

I guess it’s just having a boy, but we have been in the ER/Urgent Care/doctor’s office way too many times in the past five years. I am sure this is only a premonition of what is to come.

Russ was on one of his trips, and Michelle and Dan (who have been living with us) had gone up to visit Michelle’s parents in Midway. It was a Friday night and I was sitting on the couch reading while the kids were playing before bedtime. They were already in pajamas, and I was letting them run off their energy.

They were putting pieces of paper into the box fan in their bedroom and then coming to show me/tell me how hilarious it was.

Children in a state of hilarity + running back and forth between bedroom and living room = disaster/ER trip waiting to happen.

It was about 9:00pm on Friday night when Vincente came running full speed out of his room and tripped. On the carpet. And caught himself on the couch. With his forehead.

As soon as he hit, I jumped up. I knew it was going to be bad. He didn’t pass out or anything, just grabbed his forehead and started screaming. I pulled his hand away to assess the damage, and as soon as I saw the gash I knew we would be making a visit to urgent care. I picked up that poor little guy and headed to the kitchen for some rags to stop the bleeding. I’m not sure why I wasn’t more freaked out. Probably because this isn’t the first time he’s done this.

I was a little flustered, trying to call my friend to see if she could watch Joseline, but when she didn’t pick up and I realized how long it would take me to find another phone number, I decided to walk across the street and knock on my neighbor’s door. Doc was running around outside, and Joseline was standing barefoot in our driveway as I knocked on the neighbor’s door. Chaos.

still under the effects of the sedative

It was perfect timing because my other neighbor who also happens to be the nursery leader (i.e., Joseline’s best friend from Church) walked past neighbor #1’s house as I was at the door explaining what happened. Neighbor #2 took Joseline for me, and Neighbor #1 drove us to the hospital.

Three hours, four stitches, and one dose of conscious sedation medication (that was hilarious), and he was as good as new. And we were all very ready to go to bed.

Vince kept saying “What’s this little light?” or
pulling the oxygen tube out of his nose and saying “What’s in my nose?”
every minute. He was sooo out of it. And it was adorable.

I am so grateful to my neighbors for being so totally awesome.

And grateful for good health insurance – we never have to pay anything from these ER/doctors visits. A huge blessing, since my children seem to be walking disasters.

Tugga Tugga Stop Stop–or Twinkle A

Thanks to a generous donation from Grandma Pam and Grandpa Victor (in the form of an old student violin I played on in high school) we were able to buy a violin for Vincente for Christmas! Mom and Dad’s donation covered half of it and we were able to pay off the last half with part of our tax return.

Vincente started violin lessons in March with Elizabeth Burton, one of the best Suzuki violin teachers in Utah. She is so great with Vincente and he loves going to violin lessons. We’re working on focus and obedience – but those are normal things you work on with a five year old. What I love most about his teacher is that she understands that and is so patient with my very creative, very active little genius.

Just look at that kid!

If you missed it before, here is his performance at his very first recital! He enjoys the group class, even though it’s all girls and he doesn’t want to sit next to them in group lesson (they have cooties). I’m sure he’ll reverse his opinion about that all too soon, so I’ll let him think they have cooties for as long as he likes.

Third Honeymoon

Well, our first honeymoon was to McCall, ID, and our week long trip to Puerto Rico last summer was like a second honeymoon, so this would be more like a third honeymoon.

The view from the room, King’s Peak, at the Inn on the Hill

The same view later that night

Russ had just returned from a pretty steady stream of trips for work, and his mom offered to take the kids for a few days when he got back so he and I could get out and do stuff, just the two of us.

Of course, that is an offer I can’t refuse, so on Tuesday evening we drove the kids down to Russ’ folks house in Salem. We hung out with the in-laws for a while before coming back home and enjoying a quiet evening at the house all by ourselves.

We slept in, then made breakfast and went to marriage counseling. But not before making plans to stay Wednesday night in the Inn on the Hill, an adorable bed and breakfast in Salt Lake City up on Capitol Hill. On our way to the hotel we stopped at the Rec center in downtown SLC to get a little workout in. After we got nice and sweaty, we headed back to the hotel to shower and change so we could go explore the City Creek center and refill all those calories we burned by eating at Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian churrascaria. The food was pretty good – their feijaoda was the best of all the churrascarias we’ve been to (I don’t like it at either of the other places, but I had two helpings at Texas de Brazil). There weren’t as many meat options as there were at the other churrascarias, but the meat they did have was moito bom.

Unfortunately the City Creek center was closed by the time we were done with dinner. But not to worry – we headed back to the hotel to watch Hitch on DVD (the bed and breakfast had a bunch of movies you could check out to watch in your room).

The next morning we headed to the temple for a session before breakfast at the inn. The weather was great and the view from our room was excellent.

Breakfast at the inn was also really delicious. The lady who ran the bed and breakfast cooked it herself, served it, and helped us with anything we needed. She was really awesome (I wish I could remember her name!)

After breakfast we hung around the inn for a while before checking out and heading for Get Some Guns & Ammo. Russ shot a few different guns – some .45’s, I think a .55 or something like that. I tried the big guns once but the recoil scared the pee out of me every time. So we went back in and asked for a “woman’s” gun. They gave me a .22 handgun, and it was perfect! I really enjoyed shooting it, and I have to say, I was a pretty good shot with it.

Russ’ favorite gun was the XDM – I can’t remember if it was the .45 or the bigger gun. I was really surprised at how much fun I could have shooting. And Russ, of course, was in heaven. It was good for him to be able to shoot and try out different guns. He really had a good time and I hope we get to go shooting again soon.

After the shooting range we went to a Hibachi place in Sandy. We went in for the lunch special, and we were the only people in the entire restaurant. It was nice and quite and the Hibachi artist guy was really fun. I should have taken pictures of him doing all his flames and throwing stuff. Russ caught a cucumber in his mouth when the chef flicked it at him with his spatula. Next time we’ll have to take the kids. Vince would get a kick out of it, I’m sure.

We owe a huge thank you to Mom and Dad Rowley for keeping our kids (even Joseline sans fofinha – she didn’t have her blanket the whole time, which makes bedtime a little bit of a night mare). The kids really enjoyed being with Grandma and Grandpa, and Mamae and Papai really enjoyed spending some grown up time together. It’s so good for our marriage.

I’m already looking forward to our next trip together.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Remember how Joseline wasn’t super excited about her bike that she got for her birthday?

If you don’t, here’s a picture to remind you -

A few weeks later, we got her on the bike (happily!) and with a little help from Vincente she even got down the driveway!

She’s got a lot of room for improvement, but I’m sure she’ll pick it up.

Meanwhile, Vincente is getting pretty good at riding without training wheels! No pictures or videos of that phenomenon, but hopefully we’ll do a lot more bike riding this summer and I’ll try to remember to take pictures and videos.

Trampoline Downgrade

When we lived in California and had a nice open backyard, we bought a 15’ trampoline with an enclosure. It was a lot of fun and we were excited to put it up in our backyard. Until we realized that it took over almost all of the open space in our yard.

So at the end of last summer, we sold it. We weren’t horribly sad to see it go – Doc had jumped on it a few times (who knew he loves jumping on a trampoline almost as much as our kids do) and got caught in the net once and tore a hole in the enclosure.

This spring I found a trampoline at Sam’s that was just the right size for our little concrete pad. So I bought it, and with Michelle’s help (I think Russ was out of the country when we got it), we put it together and the kids have loved it.

Now we just need sod on that side yard. Soon. Very soon.

One Year Older

Vince and Joseline’s birthdays are ten days apart, and Vincente’s birthday falls on or near General Conference every year, so birthday parties don’t happen all that often for them.

This year we partied while Papai was in Paris on a French immersion.

While we were taking these pictures

he was taking these pictures

Renae and her kids were down visiting for spring break so we had the entire family there for their birthday. The cake is always a highlight, although Joseline was a little worried about all those people singing happy birthday to her.

She perked right up when it was time for presents. Especially the gift from Jordan to “Joshasilin”. In some world, that spells “Joseline”. I really can’t fault them, though. It’s a hard name to spell, even if you go with the traditional “Jocelyn” spelling. Which to me is even harder than the way we spell it. At least our way makes a little bit of orthographical sense…

In true form, Jordan gifted several of his old toys.

The duct tape covered Nerf ax was a big hit (and still is).

And I am pretty sure Jordan’s gift doubled our stuffed animal collection.

Good thing I made that zoo.

They now have Nerf guns. I’m pretty sure every kid needs a Nerf gun.

The “big” Grandma/Grandpa gifts -

Bumblebee transformer for Vincente. He’s been begging for a “big transformer” since his cousin Sam got one last November for his 5th birthday. He originally asked for Optimus Prime, but I’m pretty sure when he saw Bumblebee all he could think about was how incredibly cool he was that he now had a real transformer. Whoa.

Joseline’s big gift was a bike. She was not incredibly thrilled about it and although we got her to ride around for a little bit she really didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Hopefully she’ll grow out of that.

Spring Bunny

After much discussion and a lack of Easter Bunny around our house for the past 5 years, we have decided that we really don’t like the idea of the Easter Bunny being associated with Easter. I don’t have a problem with Santa Clause, since he was an actual person (or is associated with an actual person) who did things that are related to Christ – gave to the poor.

But the Easter Bunny… brings you candy and presents… I really can’t see any connection between that and the Savior’s atonement, death, and resurrection.

And so, the “Spring Bunny”. We call him Vernal. Ha ha. Rather than celebrate the Easter Bunny on or near Easter, we have decided that we will have the “Spring Bunny” come on the Vernal (Spring) Equinox. While that date sometimes gets really close to Easter, more often than not it’s father away, at least a week or so, and by associating the bunny with spring rather than with Easter we can eat candy and not feel like we’re secularizing Easter. Best of both worlds, right?

This was our first year attempting the “Spring Bunny”. I think it turned out pretty great. Now we need to do some all-out Easter traditions to really make the distinction. Our family is young, so we’re still working out all our traditions.

We carried over a few from our families, with the Spring Bunny – including hiding baskets and eggs/candy all over the house. (this picture is Joseline finding her basket under the table)

Vince is getting old enough to make an egg hunt really fun.

We shared Easter this year with the Wilde’s who have been living with us for a few months while Dan was in China.

Some of my favorite memories from childhood are when we would find Easter candy hidden a few weeks/months/a year after Easter. Ha ha. Nothing better than a stale malt egg!

Families are Forever

We had a very merry Werner Christmas for 2011, with the presence of every member of my parents’ family – even Ross was there. Well, his picture was there, and we thought about him and talked about him a lot.

We took some family pictures (thanks, Victoria!) and when it was time for us to have the “mom and dad and offspring” picture, I kept looking around for Ross. There was someone missing. It was kind of hard. We really miss him.

 

As I was thinking about writing a post today, I remembered this oldy (but goody) from the LDS Church back in the 70s. The first time I heard it (when I was a kid) I cried my eyes out, and I still can’t get to the end without bawling.

It is a lot more poignant for me now. And I am so grateful for the testimony I have that families are forever.

“Dad, dad, it’s alright! Families are forever!”

“And he said, ‘Dad, dad, it’s alright! Families are forever!”

Haiku… no… Hiatus

I took a long break
There was no time for writing
But I am back now

We got sick.

Then we got better.

Then my family came for Christmas.

Then we got sick again.

And during all that we had a situation with a friend that we had to deal with.

Then Russ left for a Chinese course.

The situation is taken care of (well, it’s out of our hands now).

And we’re getting better. Hopefully. That or we’re just passing the “sicky bugs” back around again. Let’s hope it’s the former.

I’ve been drinking lots of garlic syrup (dice a few cloves of garlic, soak it in a cup of apple cider vinegar for 24 hours, strain, store in a – glass – container in the fridge. Take a few tablespoons each day. I’ve been taking 6-10 tablespoons a day. I WANT TO GET BETTER, DANG IT!)

I’ve been watching lots of Psych. The kids have been watching lots of Wonder Pets, Backyardigans, and Yo Gabba Gabba. Thank you, Netflix. I am sorry your stock has dropped drastically. You are a great service, but you made some really dumb business mistakes. Just sayin’.

I plan on doing a lot more blogging – I moved my computer to the basement/family room/play room, so I can blog while the kids play! Okay, I know, I should probably be playing with them… but I have been alone with the kids – mostly sick – for the past two weeks almost… and it is MAKING ME CRAZY.

I love my kids, really, I do – but… I need my husband. A lot.

I posted on some of the other blogs, too, so go check those out.

Flight of the Dragon

One of my goals as a mother is to provide my kids with high quality toys that encourage independent pretend play. (that is, the kids can have fun without me directing their play).

Vincente loves dress up, and when we lived with my parents in Arkansas for a summer his favorite dress up costume included fairy wings. I had mentioned that I wanted to make him some dragon wings, but I never really got around to it.

Well, my entire immediate family came to Utah for Christmas 2011, so my mom was here to help me put together some dragon wings. Due to all the festivities (and craziness!) of having 15 people and 5 dogs in our house almost all the time, the dragon wings got postponed until Christmas Eve. I was up until about 4am working on the dragon wings, and my mom was up with me working on a gift for my sister.

They are now one of the favorite costumes in the dress up box -

The kids’ favorite thing to do when they were dressing up was having Grandma Pam play “dragon music” and then Vince would chase them around. Then they would say “Play princess music!” Grandma would happily oblige, and the little girls (there were three of them!) would spin happily around the living room. Then there was “bunny music” and “pirate music”. They are so lucky to have such an amazingly talented grandma! Now she just needs to record a CD for them so they have have her “dragon music” and “princess music” even when she’s 2000 miles away.

A Rite of Passage

A few weeks before Christmas I was working on several Christmas projects downstairs in the basement. That means my sewing machine, countless buttons, spools of ribbons, yarn, rick rack and the like were laying out in the open on my sewing table.

I’m pretty sure we were getting ready for dinner (it was in the evening) and I thought “I should probably put away my sewing stuff downstairs.” But we were busy, so I didn’t. Later, it was awful quiet downstairs, so I headed down to check on the kids.

Bags of buttons had been opened and strewn about the room, balls of yarn had been cut into tiny pieces. The sewing machine was off, but there were pieces of felt and rick rack shoved in the foot under the needle. I took a deep breath, tried not to freak out, and sent the kids upstairs so that I could clean up.

As I was picking up pieces of yarn and moving sheets of felt off the ground I saw it.

Clumps of precious, blonde, wispy, Joseline baby hair.

“Nooooo!!!”

I grabbed the hair and ran upstairs to assess the damage (which I hadn’t noticed before – probably due to the panic I had been experiencing).

At first I only noticed her pony tail (she pretty much cut the pony tail right off). It was only later after brushing out her hair that I found that she had scalped herself in the front.

A friend of mine had a similar experience and said she took her daughter to one of those cheap cut places to fix it, and they made it worse. Not wanting to make things any worse (could they even get worse?) we went straight to Cookie Cutters in South Jordan the next morning and begged them to repair the damage as much as they could.

They couldn’t do a whole lot for the bangs (we just stuck with headbands for a while), but the stories they told of kids who had done worse made me feel worlds better.

Everyone who hears about her cutting her hair has the same things to tell me, “Every kid does it at least once.” “Now she’s officially a little girl.”

Or they tell me their horror stories.

Which really do make me feel better.

At least she didn’t take the clippers down the middle of her head.

Hair grows back, right?

That’s what I keep telling myself.

Bowl Heads

Joseline is a daddy’s girl. No doubt about it. Doc gets kind of jealous sometimes. But that doesn’t stop all of them from having a good time.

He’s such a great dad – seriously, who else would pose with a bowl on his head. Gotta love a dad who loves his kids. These guys are peas in a pod.

A Mother Heart

I love these guys. So much.

I got stranded in Wyoming last night,
and I didn’t see these precious faces until this evening.
I just couldn’t get enough of them!
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There’s something really special about being a mother. Something that makes me love it.

You know what else I love?

Watching complete strangers being awesome parents.

Today at Kohls’ I walked by a young couple with a little one or two year old boy in the mother’s arms crying. The father got close to the little boy’s face, and in the sweetest voice said, “I know that’s really fun to play like that, but you can’t ___.”
(I think the blank was something about being in a crowded store and running away from mom and dad being dangerous – I was mostly out of earshot by the time he got to that part)

I just loved that the dad was so in tune with his kid – the kid did think that running around the busy store was fun! But he also needed to understand how dangerous it can be not to obey mom and dad, and not to stay near them. Overhearing that exchange in the store lit up my face. Seriously. I smiled for almost a minute afterwards. I see too many moms and dads dragging their kids around public places, snipping at them, saying mean things to their kids, or even spanking them in the middle of the store (sometimes I am guilty of this behavior – not so much the spanking part, but definitely being impatient with my kids in public places). The way this father spoke to his son was so sweet, so loving, so tender. I’m sure that little boy had no doubt in his mind that his daddy loves him and that all his daddy wanted was to keep his little boy safe.

What a great dad.

I’m married to a guy like that.

He’s a great dad.

Great dads make great kids.

That’s why my kids are fabulous.

Snakes and Snails

We have a little family of garden snakes that live in the flowerbed by our front door. This fall when we were cleaning up for the winter, I caught one to show to the kids. They weren’t scared at all!

I love that we get to experience this beautiful world Heavenly Father created for us. There is so much variety – it never gets boring! And there is so much to see and experience. I hope my kids get to experience more than I did – and I got to experience a lot.

(PS – see Doc’s nose there at the bottom of the picture?
He was scared to death of the snake. Ha ha)

Adding Pictures

So I got distracted while I was blogging the other day and instead of blogging current pictures I kind of went on an “add pictures to old blog posts” kick.

You see, when I first started blogging, I didn’t know you could add pictures to your blog. So I had to go back and add pictures.

You should go back and check them out. (seriously – there is a video of Vince learning to walk)

You’ll really like this post, too.

the quest for a tall loaf

After one miserably failed attempt at whole wheat bread today (I forgot to put all the flour in – so it was… less than desirable), I am trying again, but I think I miscounted and still put not-quite-enough flour in the dough. I think that I am overly cautious trying not to use too much flour that I use too little. And I am certain I don’t knead the bread enough.

If tomorrow weren’t Sunday (and if I had more milk) I would try again. Perhaps I will a try a recipe that just uses water – just to see if I can ever get the dang thing to be tall enough.

One of my concerns is that perhaps there isn’t enough dough to fill the pans (i.e., my pans are too big) But I use the same size pans my sister used, and she got hers to rise tall…

I also read that letting the bread rest between mixing it up and kneading it (autolyse?) can help it rise tall, so next time I am going to try that.

I’m feeling a little bit like a failure today… two ruined batches of bread (when I am making the bread in the first place to stretch our grocery budget this month), I lost my patience with the kiddos, it’s 7:36pm and they still aren’t in bed, I lost my patience with my sweet husband, I haven’t prepared my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow, and I didn’t get a load of laundry started this morning. In order to accomplish everything I would like to accomplish tonight, it will require me staying up too late (which I hate doing on Saturday night – I like to be well rested on Sunday! Plus, the choir is singing tomorrow, so that means choir practice before church…)

On a brighter note, we took back our cable box today (no more TV! Yay!) and set up our internet and home phone service with Qwest to start in a few weeks (saving us a LOT of money). So that’s good, right?

I also wanted to blog more, but my blogging marathon will have to wait until tomorrow (unless I decide to sleep tomorrow because I stay up too late tonight…)

 

Some days are just bad days. Today is a bad day.