Random thoughts

I have previously documented Lana's normal naptime routine:

1. remove clothing
2. attempt to remove diaper (which is taped on)
3. climb out of portable crib
4. throw anything loose in Everett's room into the portable crib

This routine has some variations, including actually falling asleep every now and then. This is either on the floor or in Everett's bed. The routine also often includes making a messy diaper at some point. Well today, since it probably won't happen again, I figured I'd document today's routine:

1. Lay in portable crib and SLEEP!

She got the diaper business over with before naptime today, and when I went to get her after the naps, not only was she IN her portable crib, but FULLY CLOTHED as well!

This child is going to have a lot to read when she's older.

And tonight I finally learned about something that's been bugging me for a while. Do your teeth feel funny when you eat cooked spinach? I know mine do--kind of gritty or chalky, like something is being sucked out of the enamel. (I used to have nightmares about all of my teeth falling out. Maybe I still have weird fears about my teeth.) I love the taste of spinach, but that feeling really bugs me. So today I finally did a Google search of "teeth feeling spinach" and immediately had my answer. I am not the only one who feels this way, and it is caused by oxalate crystals. I know the feeling will still bother me, but at least I know what it is!

Day of Rest

It has been another busy week!  We've spent a lot of time working on our garden and yard.  Cary rented a sod kicker and cleared space for a garden.  (What I just wrote made it sound really easy, but it was hard work.)  I dug out what had been a brick path in the yard and removed all the bricks.  Cary removed the stump of a tree he took out last summer.  I removed two buried railroad ties.  We placed sod from the garden area in those three places.  So we've been dirty, sweaty, and sore, but hopefully we'll have a nice yard and yummy veggies for our efforts--and perhaps some muscles.  Unfortunately it looks like our garden spot is rather gravelly, so we'll have to get soil somewhere.  At least it will be easier next year!

Today was a nice day of rest for us.  After church I let the kids in the den to do this:

I removed the bench because I knew it could only lead to disaster.  The kids also had a great time beating up on Grandpa.  He makes it so fun!  At one point we were dogpiling on people, and Everett said to Cary: "Lay down properly, Dada!"

Gwyn Jawa?

Lana Cuteness

Why are these pigtails so cute?  I just love Lana's chubby little baby cheeks!  She's a real sweetie (when she's not throwing a massive tantrum--we're still working on those).  She loves to hug and snuggle me.  She likes to have things her way, even when she's not quite sure what "her way" is.  She is happy to let her siblings have what they want for the most part.  She silently relinquishes toys and other items to them, but she is fiercely defensive of her blankies.  I have to be sneaky to wash them.  It's a good thing we have three of them!  When Everett was little he had one special blankie, and I actually cut it in half so that I could wash one half at a time.  Lana's blankies are the hospital blankets we brought the girls home in.  (Cary used to say those blankets had psychotic ducks on them.  Perhaps the "new parents of triplet girls and a little boy delirium" had something to do with his perception of those duckies.)  Lana is happy to play on her own or with her siblings.  It is really sweet to see her with other children.  Other little children are like her babies.  She may pat them and smile at them, but she'll almost always look at them and act like she's hugging something.  She is very social, and loves just about everybody!  She especially likes guys, and will ask most of them to pick her up.  (I know--we better watch her.)

Workin' Hard in the Yard

Here are my little helpers, hard at work:

Too bad they can't actually mow the lawn!  They love to help with the weeding though.  And digging!   The garden will be outside of the fenced-in area.  We plan on renting a sod-cutter and a tiller this week to prepare the turf, and repair other parts of our yard.  I'm sure that Everett will be a big help in the garden this year, but I don't know that the girls are quite ready!

I'm hoping to round up some form of shade for us before it gets really warm.  I'm already getting headaches.  I would love to have a nice big tree in the back corner, but by the time one grew big enough to shade us I'm sure we'd be long gone.

This is why when I tell the girls to come inside, they are happy to oblige:

They LOVE the handwashing ritual.  As soon as we come in, I get a bucket and fill it with warm, soapy water.  Six or eight little hands are immediately plunged into the bucket.  They rub and dunk until they pass inspection, then I pull the bucket away and give them a towel.  It is so cute to see all their little heads together!

Guess what projectile just hit me in the head unprovoked again?

At least she's moving to softer missiles...

More!

It's been almost a week since I've posted! It's been a busy week, but I guess that's pretty normal. The biggest difference between this week and those preceding has probably been the weather. It has been beautiful this week! It makes me want to spend time outdoors, and work on things away from the computer more. It rained today and it smells so nice! It has been wonderful to have the windows open and experience the fresh air all day long. I loved the feeling in the air today--that feeling that's always there on a day it's going to rain.

I have pictures to post, but I'm going to save that for another day. For now, I'll just share some good news. During lunch yesterday, Lana said the word "more" three times!!!

Now that you've picked yourself off the ground, I'll tell you what she asked for: Broccoli, noodles, and water. She has loved water for a long time, but the others are new. I normally give her very small portions of everything. This minimizes waste and avoids overwhelming her. She finished all of the noodles I gave her and asked for more. She loves broccoli! This is a food I couldn't give her much of because she would throw it up twelve hours or so later, undigested. She is on a new medication that seems to be helping her, so I let her go at it. We had tried the medication (Erythromycin) before, but she would throw up every time we gave it to her--obviously not worth it. Erythromycin is an antibiotic, but given in smaller doses just serves to irritate the stomach and cause it to empty faster. She is now, unfortunately, taking four different medications. I am supposed to dose her 6-7 times per day. We've tried cutting down or cutting out a few times, each time with detrimental effects, so we're sticking with all the meds for now and look forward to the day when she is free of all of them! She is still only consuming about 60 calories of solid food each day, but she is making progress.

Happy Birthday Devan!

Hi Devan!  We wanted you to know that we had a party for you.  Since you live about 1700 miles away from us, we figured we'd take pictures of it for you.

Here is your cake:

Everyone helped to decorate it.

We sang "Happy Birthday."  Here's Everett's rendition:

Then we ate your cake.

 

   (or at least most of us did)

                                                             

We love you Devan.  Hope you had a happy day!

Unfinished Projects

The other day I was thinking about unfinished projects and how they can weigh a person down.  It seems like our den is a perpetual unfinished project because I can't get it clean, let alone keep it that way!  It is where we throw coats and shoes when we get home, and things we don't want the children to get their hands on (current projects, paperwork, etc).  In the basement I have a box full of quilt pieces that I will put together some day.  I have many ideas floating around: building a storage bench for our living room, painting our porch and all of the outdoor trim, cleaning the basement, organizing the children's clothing in the attic, building a cover for the outside entrance to the basement so that it will be safe for the children, etc.  Just thinking about it stresses me out sometimes.  Today in Relief Society (the women's meeting at church) the teacher asked how many of us procrastinate.  I put my hand up right away.  I need to get better at picking one project and doing it!   So that is one of my new goals.  Stop stressing about it, and DO IT.  Maybe someone could get me one of those "round tuits" for Mothers' Day...

Thinking of unfinished projects reminded me about a yellow vinyl hamper that sat in my parents' room when I was young.  It was where we put all of our clothing that needed to be mended.  It became an archeological dig of sorts.  If you went down through the layers of clothing you would experience sizes and styles that took you back through the years.  It was really kind of neat when we finally emptied it.  It brought back some happy memories since a lot of what ended up in there were favorites.  I have a mending box now too.  I packed it up when we moved from our old house and it is sitting on a shelf in our basement, untouched.  I guess mine's more of a time capsule.  But you know what?  I don't feel bad about that one at all.

Yard Sale Wagon: $5, Fun Times For Four: Priceless

Today was my CMOMs yard sale. A yard sale for multiple mothers of multiples = lots and lots of stuff, and more than 100 customers in the first hour. I worked there for four hours today while Cary watched the kids, and came home with some clothes for Everett and a few fun surprises. (I also got rid of our most obnoxious toys. *grin*) Since the weather was a bit on the chilly side and I didn't feel like getting everyone dressed up, we let them try the wagon out indoors today. They pushed and pulled for a while, and when they got tired of that, the girls decided that the handle made a great sliding board! Kids are so creative.

(Maddie is in stripes, and Gwyn is in green.)  Here's one more of Maddie.  The girls' new favorite game when I pull out the camera is to rush over to me and try to push the flash closed.  Many shots end up with an arm over the face or very blurry!  Maddie is smiling because I'm holding her arm down and tickling her.

 

Where in the world are you?

Hi everyone! One of my friends just added a guestbook like this to her blog, and I thought it was a cool idea. I've enjoyed sharing this blog, and reading the comments we've received. I would love to see who is visiting our site, so please sign our guestbook! All you have to do is write your name, where you are from, and upload a picture if you want. Please sign even if you don't know us!

Back in the saddle again

I have regained most of my strength since the uncomfortable Saturday and pathetic Sunday I just experienced. I apparently had some kind of stomach bug, but thankfully the rest of the family seems to have escaped it. Woohoo! In any case, I didn't go anywhere or do much of anything for two whole days. Cary fed and entertained the children all day Sunday. I did manage to read my scriptures and a couple of blogs. One is a blog that I came across while visiting the blogger award nominations. (I figured if it was winning awards there just might be something worthwhile about it.) The author calls herself Pioneer Woman, and this is a link to her website. She lives on a working ranch. I think it is neat to read about ranching life through her site because she's a good writer and photographer, and has a fun sense of humor. Mostly I'm writing about this today because of this recipe she posted. If you're looking for things to inspire you to plant a garden this year, you may want to check it out. At least it looks really yummy to me! It also makes me want that harvest already, but I'm being patient. Another thing I read this week is that you shouldn't dig a garden when the soil is too wet or you could damage the structure of your soil. I'm glad I read that before I started digging.

Here are some random photos I took on Friday. I know they're terrible, but maybe the blurriness actually serves to show more accurately what is really happening to Cary, heh, heh.

The extra child belongs to Jordan and Celina. Daniel didn't take long to join in the fray!

Call 911

So here I am at lunch, TOTALLY minding my own business, absolutely NOT provoking ANYONE whatsoever in the SLIGHTEST degree, when out of the clear blue sky, with time only to sense that its trajectory originated on the other side of the kitchen table, a projectile comes hurtling directly at me and thunks me squarely on the forehead, leaving a red mark that lasted for…well…at least a few seconds, I'm sure. I'm thinking about: a. referring to Mandy as "David" from now on, b. taking great caution not to buy any more of that crunchy crust artisanal bread Mandy and I have come to crave so often since living in Paris—it can make for a pretty dastardly little missile!

Mandy ammo – I mean, Mandy: te amo…mi amor, mi esposa!

Another fun date night

Tonight was date night once again, and though I'm half-deaf and stinky, we had a great time! A fellow grad student of Cary's in the French department invited us to help celebrate her birthday with bowling and karaoke. One thing I miss about Utah is smoke-free bowling alleys. (That's why I'm stinky, in case you were wondering.) The karaoke is why I'm half-deaf. It was really loud, and sometimes painful, but fun! Cary even sang a number--"Livin' on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi. I was working myself up to do something but couldn't find anything that I wanted to sing. It would have been my first time doing karaoke. I did get the top bowling score of our group though (a whopping 112).

Here are some pictures of Cary "out walkin' the kids". He took them to the park yesterday while I stayed home and did fun stuff like dishes, laundry, etc.

Cary, Maddie, Gwyn, Lana, Everett

Maddie waving to me--Awww :)

Little Helpers

Everett and the girls usually do a really good job of putting away their toys during "clean-up time", but I think that their favorite "chore" is helping with the laundry. Sometimes I dump it on the stairs, and Everett gets to push it down and throw it over the baby gate, where this happens:

Maddie, Everett, Gwyn, and Lana

They play in the clothes for a few minutes, then they get to bring them to the basement door and throw them down the stairs. (Gwyn sometimes hands it to me to throw because she has a rational apprehension about those stairs.)

April's Fool

I haven't been feeling very well this week, so I finally went to the Dr. today. This is what they found:

Now before any of you have a heart attack, I'd just like to say...April Fools!!!

Now I feel terrible. I don't ever do April Fools, but this one was just too good to resist. It was mostly for the people who keep saying (mercilessly) that I will be having twins next!

I really haven't been feeling well this week, but that is not the reason. Thankfully I was able to take a nap today. The kids came up with some really neat games while I rested on the couch. Maddie and Gwyn especially love to play with Everett. Today they were pirates/superheroes.