Summer Summary – In Two Parts

PART ONE

Instead of trying to back blog about each individual event that happened over the summer, I have decided to just write about the whole summer all in one post.

Looks like I stopped blogging right around May – same time every year. I must have some type of mental break down when all the kids get out of school, and are here 24/7 with non-stop whining and arguing. I’m sure it’s not that bad, but I don’t remember very well. I do know that I enjoy having them back in school now. It’s so nice to be back on a regular schedule.

So I am looking back through pictures to help me remember what we did.

Here are the little boys at the zoo in May. They had a lot of fun. The weather was perfect. We actually went again today, but I didn’t have my camera. So I won’t be able to start and end with a zoo pic. :(

Thomas celebrated his 12th birthday in May. He asked for a strawberry shortcake. I don’t know if he remembers, but he asked for a strawberry shortcake when he was three. Sometime over the summer, he got a haircut and has decided that he prefers his hair short – we are all happy about that.

One of the major events of this summer was our vacation to Disney Land. It’s not very often that we take a family vacation. I’m sure it’s because we are afraid of having to be in such a small confined space like the car for hours and hours and hours together. I’m happy to say that it wasn’t as awful as I imagined it would be.

We did the drive to Orange County all in one day. It must have been the excitement of the final destination that kept everyone happy and agreeable. My new favorite way to pass the time in the car is to have an audio book. We listened to I Am Number Four. It wasn’t the best book, but it kept everyone occupied.

There was a slight problem when we arrived at our place of lodging, only to find out that they didn’t have any more rooms that would fit all of us. Yes, we did make a reservation. They were thinking that maybe we could share 3 rooms. Can you imagine the complete lunacy in suggesting that we share 3 separate villas for 4 days. Luckily we found someplace else to stay – A newer, brighter, cleaner place. Crisis averted – but not before I had a nervous breakdown at the front desk and bawled like a baby in front of the staff of idiots.

Here are my children walking away from us as they head out into the park with no adult supervision. It was hard for me to let them just go off and roam the park by themselves.

The girls got their faces painted.

The little boys were quite comfortable in the stroller that we were able to borrow from a friend – Thanks Mindy, we would have been super miserable without it.

 

We didn’t actually ride the Tea Cups – Blech!

We packed up and hauled in all of our own snacks, but for some reason we couldn’t resist the popcorn from the park. We also couldn’t stay away from the churros either – we ate way too many of them.

 
While we were there we celebrated Henry’s 4th birthday, and our 17th anniversary. We even got to wear special buttons and all of the workers congratulated us on our celebrations.

On the way home, we stayed at my Sister’s in Vegas. She was kind enough to pick up a Buzz Lightyear cake for Henry. That was his most favorite ride and he got to go on it several times.

A magnificent time was had by all and I am looking forward to more family vacations in the future.

 

** PLEASE PAUSE FOR A SHORT INTERMISSION **

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Summer Summary - Part Two

 

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And we’re back.

This year, Libby turned 8. She celebrated the big day at the bowling alley with friends and family.

I was super lazy and didn’t make a cake for her, but I did buy her three from the store. One of the great things about Libby is that she was totally fine with store bought cakes.

Since this was the big #8, it was Libby’s turn to get baptized.

We continued our tradition of dinner at the Roof restaurant. 

And a stroll around Temple Square.

We had a very nice time hanging out with her for the evening.

We are very proud of her.

Finally, we ended the summer with another birthday and a campout. Steve and Thomas headed out on a backpacking journey on my birthday. I was not too crushed, because I headed up to my moms house and had a great time. My sister made me delicious cupcakes and I spent most of the time with my head in a book while someone else watched the kids.

Steve and Thomas enjoyed their time in the forest. Thomas did not eat oatmeal or soup – I’m not really sure what he ate. He survived somehow though.

 

Also it should be noted that Jonathon also went on an amazing campout where he Climbed rocks, mountain biked, hiked, and river rafted. It was the most amazing thing he has ever done, and he lets us know every day how boring we are for not ever taking him to do those things ever.

I am always glad when summer is over – I gladly welcome cooler weather and yes – even snow!

Oh, Poor Henry!

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS GRAPHIC CONTENT

From time to time, we have taken our kids to the emergency room for non-emergency situations. Croupy coughs or mysterious rashes with high fever in the middle of the night. Once on a Saturday afternoon for an eye injury where we were basically told that nothing was wrong and we just wasted a bunch of money. All this was before we had an after hours clinic here in our small village.

However, a week ago, we had an actual emergency that brought us once again to the ER. This time, we were accompanied by actual fear and panic.

Henry is very much an independent child who rarely asks for help. On this particular day, he was using our piano bench to climb up high enough to reach the TV power button. He didn’t ask for help, because he has done this by himself at least a million times before without any difficulty.

Exhibit #1 – The bench: Unsafe? Yes, and even though I have eyed the bare metal edges on the foot with trepidation, I chose to do nothing about it.

P.S. The bench did not come like this – there used to be rubber stoppers that covered the ends. However, they were not glued on and so they have been lost along with things like the boingy door stops and the spam can openers that unlock our bedroom doors.

One can only imagine what actually happened, because no one was watching Henry while he was climbing up to push the button. I was not even home at the time, and in Steve’s defense, he was in the bathroom. I have been amazed, throughout my life as a mother, at how many things happen while you are attending to the call of nature.

The only thing we know is that Henry was horribly hurt when the bench tipped over and his face smashed into the metal edges. Steve met him in the hallway to find him cupping the blood that was oozing from his chin. It looked minor at first, but upon further inspection he saw that Henry’s chin was flapping open and exposing quite a bit of flesh.

Luckily I was not very far away, and after Steve got Henry loaded into the car, he came and picked me up and we headed out. I had no idea what had happened and was concerned when I saw Henry sitting there howling into a blood stained towel. When I asked him what happened, Steve assured me that I would be sickened if I looked at the injury. I was picturing all sorts of awfulness, and so was actually relieved when we got the ER and they took the towel off.

Henry waiting for the numbing gel to kick in before getting the Lidocaine shot.

The actual wound – but still this does not portray how bad it really looked.

 

At first they tried to stitch him up without sedating him, but they finally had to put him out. He had to have stitches under the skin, and inside his mouth as well as to close up the cut – 20 in all.

All we could think about is how much more awful it could have been.

Steve left in such a hurry that he was not able to explain what was going on to Hannah who was immediately summoned to take care of Jack because she was the only one home. She was extremely worried and scared to be left so abruptly alone and so she tried to call Grammy who wasn’t home, and my sister Tauna who didn’t answer and finally Grandma and Grandpa Lauer who live in Florida and are two hours ahead of us, but were actually still awake at 10pm EST.

We are very much thankful for our neighbor who helped round up all of our kids and took them to her house to stay until we got home.

We were sure that the rest of the night and the next few days were going to be a trial for us, but Henry was just fine. He never once complained that he was hurting. This is amazing considering our previous experiences with Henry and his dental work.

I have to say the worst part of this whole business was actually getting the stitches out. No matter how many times we told him it would not hurt, he resisted. It took three of us - me, the nurse, and one of the office ladies to pin him down. I would never want to criticize or say that I could do her job better, but I am sure that I could have taken those stitches out faster than the nurse.We struggled with him for half and hour. I was actually sweating by the time we were done.

This is how he looks today. I am worried about the decision that we made when we decided not to call in the plastic surgeon. I know with time the scar will fade, but this is still pretty bad.  I guess we will just have to wait and see what it looks like when he’s bigger.

Just Some Easter Pics

Things have been pretty slow around here for the last month. Not much to write about. Spring has come and gone several times, but never actually stayed for any length of time. It’s been rainy and cold for the most part with a little snow here and there. Every once in a while, the sun makes an appearance and we get excited, but it’s short lived. The clouds soon come rolling in and we have to head indoors.

Steve and I took a trip to Vegas at the end of March. It was nice to get away and enjoy a little bit of sunshine. As always we spent too much money, and ate too much food. However, I got some new shoes out of the deal, and we had fun hanging out with my sister. We even decided to go see Donny and Marie at the Flamingo. That was interesting!

Our spring break was pretty dull. We hit the Kamas pool on Monday, but then Libby came down with some horrible illness, and so we spent the rest of the week under quarantine – no kids in or out. I’m not sure what she had, but luckily nobody else came down with it, so that’s a plus.

We had a pleasant Easter weekend. Lots of chocolate, but I have a new favorite saying - “Whatever the question, Chocolate is the answer!”

Here are some pictures of the kids in their new spring duds.

 

I have a new favorite picture of Jack – It makes me laugh every time I look at it.

It’s not the greatest, but I love the double chin with the neck tie and the facial expression – he makes faces like this all of the time that crack us all up.

Well, that’s it – Happy Eaaster!

Holy Moly, He’s 14!

Jonathon turned 14 on the 23rd. We started celebrating early, because the week of his birthday was busy for us and we didn’t want him to feel like he was forgotten. It was almost like Magical Birthday March. Two weeks early we took him out to dinner and then shopping with just us and Henry. We also went to see Rango the weekend before and then we took the whole family out to dinner on his actual birthday. He had presents from all directions and got everything that he wanted.

He chose the same cake he has every year. I know why though, it’s amazingly tasty. How can you beat a pan of brownies topped with Oreo ice cream and covered in hot fudge and more cookies?

Really, I am blown away by the fact that it has been 14 years since we entered the wild world of parenting. How can my very first little boy be so big?

Oh, the memories. Since I didn’t write any of this down when he was a kid, I am going to dig deep and write a few things about Jonathon that I still remember. Warning: This gets kind of long.

For the first year of his life, we lived in a two bedroom apartment with Steve’s brother Paul. I could put Jonathon in his swing and he would sleep for hours. Sometimes I had to force myself to turn it off and wake him up so that he would be able to sleep at night. He was such a good little boy, but I really had no clue at the time. I figured it out later though, after I had Thomas.

When he was a year old, we bought our first house. He had his own room, and his own TV and VCR. His collection of video tapes was quite extensive, and he watched his favorites over and over. He could name what movie we put in for him almost before the first image would appear on the screen. He amazed us when he learned how to work the VCR by himself, and just started  watching his movies whenever he wanted.

One day I found him sitting near an open window with his face pressed up against the screen whispering loudly to the outside world, “Somebody help me, please get me out of here.” I have no idea if he was acting out something from a movie, or if he really felt that he needed someone to come and save him. He sounded very convincing though, so I had to get him away from the window before someone actually heard him and called in the authorities.

Jonathon also learned the art of video game playing early on in life. It was so cute to watch him play. He started off slowly with computer games – one of his favorites was a Little Critter story game - but it wasn’t long before he had mastered the Playstation. Anyone who has spent any time with Jonathon knows that he loves talking about his latest game – now you know that it’s really our fault, we led him down that road.

Over the years, we have found that Jonathon does not really like to play sports. He has been on a team for soccer, T-ball, and basketball. He did not enjoy any of them but was a good sport and went to all his games and didn’t complain nearly as much as I did. I have been surprised this year, because he has been playing all sorts of games during PE and talks about how much he enjoys it.

Speaking of PE, it reminds me of a funny story. When Jonathon was in the 6th grade, he only had to go to PE once a week, but he still had to change into gym shorts and a T-shirt. He didn’t have an extra pair of tennis shoes, so he just wore his regular shoes in the gym. Well, when winter rolled around, he started to wear his snow boots to school. One day he came home and told me about how he had to play volleyball in his snow boots, because he didn’t remember to take his regular shoes to school. He said it was no big deal, but I felt so bad for him. The next week I made sure that he had his shoes in his backpack and sent him on his way. Later that day he came home and told me about how even though we had remembered the shoes, he forgot to wear regular socks. The morning was chilly, and so he had left the house in a pair of Steve’s heavy wooly winter socks. They were so big for Jonathon that they went up over his knees. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to him to take the socks off, but he didn’t. I just picture poor Jonathon running around the gym in his shorts with fat socks pulled up over his knees and the heel of the sock sticking out of the back of his shoes while he played. It cracks me up.

That is Jonathon for ya – or Jon as he is now called at school. He also goes by Lauer, Jonny, Jon Jon or just J. He reminds me so much of myself when I was his age. He loves art, especially drawing and in my opinion, he is very talented. He is usually in a pretty good mood and looks forward to life with excitement.I can always count on him to help me out when I need it.

There is so much more to write about him, but I will save it for another time.

Happy 14th Jonny – we love ya!

Tin Grin

Hannah has entered the world of Orthodontics. She is now in what is called Phase One of her treatment plan. It was exciting for her to finally get braces, because she was not super happy with her crooked teeth.

Here she is with her new smile.

There’s a first for everything

In all of our years of dental visits, we have never had one turn out even close to the way it did for poor Henry.

At the end of February, we had to take Henry in to get some cavities filled. The actual visit went well. He drank some special potion and then drifted off to happy land as they fixed his teeth. Steve brought him home and things were great. He wasn’t even upset or anything.

Except, he was hungry. Really hungry, because he had to skip breakfast. What do you feed a hungry little 3 year old boy with a super numbed up cheek? Well fruit loops of course. So, Steve made him a nice big bowl of cereal to chow down on.

(I will refrain from any type of negative comment here. I will only mention that I strongly urged Steve to give him some apple sauce or yogurt, but Henry wanted cereal, so he got cereal.)

I’m sure Henry didn’t even have a clue that he was chewing up the inside of his cheek, not even when blood was oozing out of his mouth like drool. I walked into the kitchen to find the gruesome site and knew that it was going to be bad.

So what does it look like when this happens?

 
I know it looks like the camera was at a funny angle, or that there was some sort of fish bowl effect going on, but no, it’s his swollen cheek.

It a rough week for my poor little guy. When the Novocain wore off, there was much pain for him. Not only did his teeth hurt, but the cankers that had formed on his cheek were awful. We had to endure never ending cries of, “ My cheek, my cheek, my cheek, ow ow, my cheek!”

This picture was taken a couple of days after the trauma.

He was still a little swollen

Luckily, he is all back to normal now, but it was pretty bad there for a while.

Jack’s Second Birthday

Jack’s birthday was pretty low key this year. We didn’t have a big party or any decorations. In fact we didn’t even wrap his presents. Hey, he’s two, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t care. We’ll try to do better next year.

Grammy and Grampy  came for a visit in the afternoon, and brought him a Toy Story couch. It was very tough for Henry to understand that it was for Jack and not for him. He was like that with all of Jack’s presents. I’m sure it will be that way forever. Hannah still has a hard time when Libby get presents too.

Grandma Lauer sent a radio flyer tricycle for him, and it was a hit with all of the kids. It’s amazing how many times I have to get mad at the older kids for trying to ride it. Jack spent the day singing a Queen song about bicycles.

 

We got him this twisty road thing that cars drive on.

I decided to get all fancy with his Birthday Cupcakes. I know that he didn’t really care what they looked like, but he sure did love how they tasted.

It’s crazy how fast two years has gone by. Jack has turned into a little boy, and he is no longer my baby. He loves to play with Henry and copy whatever he does. This makes him seem even bigger than he really is. He is such a funny little boy who makes us all laugh. He likes to help put the dishes away and he loves to play with the kitchen gadgets. He is constantly moving chairs to get into things. He is going to be an amazing artist when he grows up, and I will be rich because I will have all of his beginning masterpieces on my walls and doors and windows and furniture. I am afraid for the terrible twos with this one – it’s a good thing he’s so cute.

Super Shopper Saturday

Last Saturday, we took the girls out to spend their Christmas gift cards (presents from Grandma Lauer – Thanks!)  I was not really looking forward to shopping with either one of the girls, but Steve forced me to go with him.

Shopping with Hannah is usually very stressful, because she wants what she wants no matter how much it costs, or how awful it looks. We usually end up fighting over whatever she decides to buy. So on this day I was determined not to say a word about anything she picked out.

Shopping with Elizabeth is usually very exasperating because she can not make a decision about anything. She walks around the store talking about how much she loves everything, but is unable to pick out exactly what she wants. This usually leads to me picking out her clothes for her, and then having her not like them later. So I decided that she was going to have to pick out, try on and make her own decision about what she wanted to buy.

I don’t know if it was because I went into the whole thing with a different attitude, or what, but the whole shopping experience wasn’t so bad. Hannah was a great bargain shopper and got almost twice as many items as Libby did. That is fine with me, because it took Libby twice as long as Hannah to pick out half as many things.

Surprisingly enough, Steve was a great help and made sure that Libby picked out the right sizes and found matching leggings for her. Really, it’s only because he forgot his Kindle at home and so he didn’t have anything else to do.

After we shopped, we hit The Olive Garden for lunch. I do love it there, how can you go wrong with soup, salad, and breadsticks? During lunch the girls were talking about how they wanted to get their hair cut shorter. So on the way home, we dropped into Great Clips and they got new hair do’s.

Poor Hannah, she suffers from what we like to call “The Fun’s All Over Syndrome.” She has such a melt down when it’s time to go home. I told the girls that we would take pictures of them doing a fashion show with their new clothes on, By the time that we got home she didn’t even want to change into her new clothes, but I still made her. We only got a couple of good pictures. I think we need a new camera – lately none of my pics have turned out.

 

Bringing 2010 To An End

When I have finished this post, I think I can finally consider myself caught up. I have made a promise to myself that I will not get that far behind again. Hopefully I can stay on top of things. It’s no fun blogging about stuff that I can barely remember.

It seems like our Christmas Season was a bit hectic this year. I didn’t even get any baking done, so therefore, we did not give out any neighbor gifts this year. I find myself thinking that we didn’t focus on the more important things, and we let the hustle and bustle take over. So, note to self, try to make next year a little more special.

A few days before Christmas, Hannah was playing at a friends house and totally smashed her finger between two exercise weights. It looked awful, and was definitely something that I worried about. Luckily the doctor was able to take care of it in the office, and patched her right up. She worried so much about having to get stitches or that something might be really wrong, but in the end she loved all of the extra attention.

My mom and dad came for a visit on the 23rd. It’s always exciting when they show up with giant bags full of presents. My dad got out the video camera and took tons of videos of the kids. Tauna flew in the next day, and so we were only missing Sam. Hopefully we will get to see her sometime soon.

Our very own Christmas eve tradition is making graham cracker houses. Steve is the master carpenter and gets all of the houses glued together with hot glue. This year, he went above and beyond and made an extra large two story house with the leftover crackers.

 

Our other Christmas Eve Tradition is to let the kids open one present. They all know that they are getting Pajamas, and then a movie to watch. It makes them crazy that they never get to open a real present. I tried to get them to hold still for a photo of them in their new PJ”s, but it’s beyond impossible.

We all enjoyed our Christmas morning. I took more pictures than usual, so it is hard to choose just a few for this post. I will throw some in when and if I ever get around to making a blog book. Besides, there are not many people who want to look at pictures of other people opening presents.

We also have many pictures of the easy bake creations that were made later in the afternoon. I was happily taking a little snooze during the baking process, but was later informed that the chocolate cake was delish and the yellow cake didn’t quite turn out. I do not have wonderful things to say about the easy bake oven, however, it gives Hannah something to do.

All through December, I was worried that we might not have a very white Christmas. We did eventually get some snow before the magical day, so no worries there. However, the real snow came right before New Years. We had so much snow, that we had to snow blow 3 times that day.

Finally, our New Years Eve celebrations. We decided to forget about the easy bake oven, and go for some real cakes. The girls each made their own cakes, and then we tried out our new mini cupcake maker that we got for Christmas. We had cakes and cupcakes and frosting everywhere, but everyone had a great time decorating.
 

We spent most of the day watching our favorite movies that we got for Christmas, including Despicable Me which we probably watched twice. We finished off the year by enjoying the firework show put on by the neighbors as we drank our sparkling fruit drinks. It should have been hot chocolate, but I wasn’t using my brain.

So now that I am all caught up, I don’t know if I will have much to write about for a while. January is now over, and nothing much has happened. At least we will have Jack’s birthday in February.

Our Magical Downtown Family Night Adventure

This year, Steve and I did not get tickets to our favorite Christmas concert put on by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So apparently the only other festive activity that we could come up with was to take the kids to see the lights at Temple Square. Most people enjoy this activity and highly recommend it to their friends. However, our sojourn to the big city was wrought with many trials and tribulations, so we are going to think twice before attempting this as a family ever again.

Our evening started out with Steve arriving home at around 6:00 pm. I was mildly irritated at the kids, and somewhat frazzled at the thought of coming up with something to fix for dinner. Since it was also a Monday, one of us was going to have to come up with some sort of Family Night Activity. Steve, who had just driven home from Salt Lake suggested that we pick up something to eat and head back down to see the lights. This was an amazingly kind gesture on his part, because who really wants to drive to and from SLC twice in one day?

So we loaded up the kids and headed to the gas station to fill up the car and our bellies with food from Wendy’s. It seemed like everything we did took forever, plus, the chicken sandwiches had mayo on them and since mayo is poisonous, we had to go back and get more sandwiches. By the time we headed out, it was around 7:00 pm

We decided that since there was a Jazz game, we had better not try and find parking downtown, so we headed to a trax station around Trolley Square. In our mad rush to get out of the house, we did not have time to familiarize ourselves with the way trax works these days. We showed up with nothing but plastic to pay for our tickets, but the ticket kiosk only took cash. So more time was spent traipsing through the area to get cash from the nearest grocery store. This was not such a bad thing, because as soon as we entered the grocery store, magical fairies called to the children saying, “bathroom, bathroom, bathroom” so at least we got that part out of the way.

After we finally boarded the next train that came along, we discovered that the (green) train we were on was headed south instead of north. So we got off at the next stop which was the Library. This is where Steve decided that no matter how hard we tried, we would never ever in the history of the world be able to figure out which train would take us to the lights, so we must just walk the rest of the way.

So around 8:30 pm, Steve and I along with Jonathon, Thomas, Hannah, Libby, and Henry & Jack in strollers, headed off into the night with the assurances of Steve who said he knew where we were and how to get where we needed to be. I did not have my doubts about being able to find the Temple, I did, however, wonder how long it was going to take us to get there.

I will not lie, I was not a good sport about walking all that way. Amazingly, the kdis did not complain at all. Well, maybe they did, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was lost in my self pity, thinking in my head what I was going to say to Steve later when he tried to make us walk all the way back to the car. This was not a happy thought, so I focused on the passing trax cars and tried to figure out which color we should take to get back.

Shouts of joy abounded when we finally saw a giant glowing Christmas Tree from afar. Our pace quickened, and we were finally there. It truly was amazing, there is no doubt about it. Every time we go there, I have to wonder how many hours must have been spent on stringing all those lights on every branch and twig. We wandered around for a little bit, and then everyone was ready to go.

As we were heading out, the kids were all wondering if we were going to stop and get a treat or something. We tried explaining to them that since it was after 9:00, there were not any places that were open. Plus, both Steve and I were preoccupied with trying to figure out which train to get on.

It was nice that there was a trax station not too far from where we were, and by now I knew that we needed to get on either a red or yellow car. So we waited and waited and finally we saw the train coming towards us. The only problem was that we were waiting on the wrong part of the platform. The train passed us and stopped further on down from where we were. We had to move quickly to catch the doors before they closed. We really had to scramble to get everyone and the strollers moved without loosing anyone. Somehow, in the commotion, Thomas got tripped up and biffed it on the pavement.

Steve was already at the train door, but looked back to see Thomas on the ground and was about to let the door close when It magically opened and more people got off the train. Thomas was up and on his way, but I had to make a split second decision. Jack had dropped my gloves and I wasn’t sure if I could to back and get them and still make it before the train left. In my mind, it was like a scene from the movies and I was moving in slow motion. I ran back, grabbed the gloves and made it onto the train just in time. In the movies, all the people on the train would have clapped for us. In real life, they didn’t but there were a couple of very nice gentlemen who stood up so that we could all sit down together.

We got back to the car around 10:00 pm. I could not have been happier. Steve felt bad and apologized for making us go through the whole thing. The kids were still whining about wanting goodies and treats. Me and Steve just wanted to get home, so we put our invisible earplugs in and ignored them until they all fell asleep. After that, it was a pleasant drive home.

So, if we do attempt this again in the future, at least we will know what not to do.