Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A whole jumble of thoughts

It occurs to me that if I would choose a specific topic for every post, I'd always have a title. But since I treat this more like I journal that will be difficult!

Rebekah is doing very well in ballet, gym and swim. We switched to the county pool because they are the only place that offers lessons at 9 am and I am loving the change despite the cost difference. Not only do we now have lessons at a decent time, this teacher seems to be more skilled and knowledgeable in her craft and that makes me very happy! Plus, some of the other women in my ward bring their daughters at the same time so I have friends to talk with.

Daryn's WW has hit a small snag. He's been a bit more lax in tracking food and we as a family have not been as careful about our meal planning, so we've eaten out more or fallen back on quick and less healthy dinner options. So he's gained back some of his weight, but we'll fix that! Yesterday we went to a YMCA for Family Night - it was only $1 to get the whole family in. They have a great kids pool that you can walk straight into and it gradually gets deeper (think beach front - no steps) and that was a great place for me to sit with the kids while Daryn did laps. Then he joined us and we all played together for a while and Rebekah got to show off what she's been doing in swim - she can almost float on her own! - to Daryn, who hasn't seen her at lessons. When we were getting ready to go, Daryn went and did a few more laps on his own. I'm sending him back to the pool tonight, but I think we'll only go as a family once or twice a week. Every night is too much for me right now.

Poor Josiah had a rough weekend. We went to see Brave (great movie!) with some friends and Josiah threw up in the middle of the movie. I thought maybe he had gagged on a piece of a PB M&M I gave him, so we went ahead and took the kids to the park for 30 min after the movie and then proceeded to Golden Corral for a great dinner. Everyone had just gotten situated with their food when Josiah threw up again, and this time he'd only had breastmilk and water. :( Both times he got sick I had to take him into the bathroom, strip off his clothes and then bathe him and wash his clothes in the sink. Thank goodness I had a spare set of clothes in the diaper bag! I just wish I'd has 2 spare sets! So poor little guy had to ride home in just a diaper. I was supposed to start playing soccer again that night, but I didn't go so I could take care of Josiah for the night. Thankfully he didn't throw up again, but he still wasn't feeling great the next day.

Saturday he had a well-child check-up and the poor guy had 4 shots AND a TB test! I'm pretty sure that's what caused his fever late Sat night/early Sun morning, but I didn't want to risk the health of my fellow church -goers on that, so he and I stayed home while Daryn took Bekah to church. I wish I could say I got some extra rest staying home from church, but my poor guy just wanted to be held and nurse the whole time.

Speaking of nursing: I am physically and emotionally ready to wean Josiah. I feel bad, since I nursed Bekah 'til she was almost 2 and I loved it the whole time (okay, well, most of the time!) but being pregnant now, I think it's just too draining on me! We had cut back to just 3 times a day and once at night (morning nap, afternoon nap, bedtime, midnight snack) but since he was sick this weekend now he wants to nurse all the time! Plus, he's starting to change his nap times (I don't keep him on a strict schedule, but he mostly feel into one so I have a rough idea of when he'll want to nap) so I'll try to nurse him and he wont go to sleep so I'll have to nurse him again later to get him to sleep. This has more than doubled the number of times I nurse him! I really wouldn't mind so much if I didn't feel like I need every ounce of energy to just barely get by for the day. I am not getting chores done in a timely manner at all, and it's effecting all of us! :( (Hence the eating out and Daryn not losing weight!) Plus, Josiah's waking up 2-3 times at night again, and that is killing my sleep.

I don't want you to think that I'm miserable. I really am happy! I love my husband - who, BTW, just got a raise at work and an on paper promotion that makes him more eligible to move up in the company - and my kids are such a joy. I feel like I shouldn't even be complaining, because there's nothing really *wrong,* but I'm just so darn tired! And that makes everything take 100x more effort than it should. :p

Right now we have Rebekah's friend over to play. They haven't had a play date in a while, and they're having fun. :) Bekah asks pretty much every day to have a friend come over or go to a friend's house. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm not doing enough to keep her happy/entertained, but she's really just a very gregarious  and active girl and she LOVES to meet people and play with people - not just Mom and brother.

Brothers. Right, so I feel nauseous EVERY DAY but can't throw up. That's how I felt through almost all of Josiah's pregnancy. So, maybe I'm having a boy! Only time will tell! A consistency with all my pregnancies, though: I crave meat, eggs and cheese like nobody's business! With Bekah I would eat grilled ham and cheese for every meal if I could, and with Josiah I couldn't have enough eggs - usually scrambled, always with cheese and often between two slices of buttered toast. With this pregnancy, I've eaten both in large quantities and I'm really not that far along.

BTW, Rebekah is convinced we are having a girl. When we suggest that maybe it's a boy she either says, "Well maybe it's a girl" or "Maybe we'll have BOTH!" Also, she told us she likes the name Ella. She said this a couple times, but when I tried to reproduce the statement for others, she changed it to Annie. Given a choice between the two, she chose Ella.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

A little insert


(Written on August 16th)

First, a few things I wanted to chronicle from June that didn't make it in. Btween June 10th and 26th, some interesting and exciting things happened!

June 15th We took a trip to Phoenix and got in a visit to the temple. It took us a while to get going in the morning, so any thoughts to visit people in the afternoon didn't work out, but we got in our temple visit! We really needed it. My dear friend Tiffany was so sweet to watch the babies for us. Her kids are practically the same age as ours, and they had a fun time together. I LOVE that my friends I've known for so long have kids the same age as mine. It really brings us even closer together.

We also went to a birthday party for another friend's daughter. It was really nice to spend the evening visiting with my Phoenix girlfriends - definitely makes me miss them, though!

After the party, we stopped by and visited with Daryn's mom. Daryn also gave his dad a Father's Day gift. That story, as much as I want to record, will be in my journal, as it was a very special moment for Daryn. We were very happy with the end result. :) Gary called Daryn on Father's Day to thank him for the gift, and the letter that came with it. He also gave us a very generous offer:

So we've been thinking about cars lately. Daryn's truck will not properly fit 3 car seats (especially with one or two rear facing) and while 3 carseats DO fit in the Fusion, it's a pretty crowded fit. I've wanted a mini-van for a while now (perhaps later I'll rant for your about people who don't want mini-vans) but mini-vans don't lose their value! Used, they are still very expensive. I'm convinced it's because almost no one sells their van - it mostly gets used until the van dies. Because of this we were looking at selling the truck and using that money as a down payment and then just having payments on the van. But even then the payments would be pretty big, so I briefly toyed with the idea of selling BOTH our cars to get the van. THAT would have amounted in a reasonable monthly payment, and it would have reduced our car insurance etc. I told Jeanette what we were thinking, and asked that she and Gary help us look for a reasonably priced minivan - they find great deals all the time. So after Gary was done talking Father's Day with Daryn, he asked how much we thought we could get for the truck. Then he told us that if we could get that much, we could turn around and give them that money for their Expedition! Daryn says that since they have around the same mileage, and the Exp is a year older, KBB says they're about the same value, but that truck was SOOOO beat up, and we know the Exp has been very well cared for, so it is definitely a step up! (More on that later.)

So Saturday June 16th, was CRAZY busy! We went fishing with my sister Kati and her kids, then the kids napped and then we went to our friends the Romney's for lunch, and that afternoon we went to Ft Huachuca to visit our friends who couldn't come up the week before. We ended up staying the night and had just a great time. I felt bad that I ducked out early to go to sleep. Priscilla was super sweet and help put Josiah to sleep because I just could not keep my eyes open! I was glad we got to visit with them, because it had been nearly a year since we'd seen Merrick, and they're moving to New York soon. :(

That next week was nice. I changed Rebekah's swim lessons to the Flowing Wells pool so we could go at 9am, and we had a few people from church at the pool with us. We also had our last Investment Club meeting, since our friends the Strattons were moving soon, too. Then there's the weekends I've talked about in previous posts.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

A few things to remember

Just a little recap of this last week for my own benefit. Wednesdays classes went okay, but next week I won't let Rebekah choose between the zoo and the mall (I seriously thought she'd pick the mall)! We went to the zoo, and I brought a cooler with us for lunch, but Rebekah wanted to see ALL the animals. Duh, Mom, you can't go to the zoo and only see a couple animals and eat lunch. It didn't help that Rebekah woke up early that day and was ready for a nap before Ballet- her first class! Fortunately, we made it through. The hardest was swim at the end of the day because Rebekah is the youngest in her class and I had to wake her up from a 2 hour nap to get her there (a little late). The older kids splash a lot and are impatient when she's in front of them while they are "monkey crawling" across the wall of the pool. She doesn't move as fast and they push into her. :( Fortunately, her swim coach is a patient and friendly young man who notices the problem and helps Rebekah move away from the offending older child. I think he wants to lecture the kid a little, too, and he makes a short comment, but since classes are only 30 min I understand the need to keep moving and mostly ignore distractions to attempt to keep everyone focused.

Wednesday was also my little brother's 22 birthday! Happy birthday, Ammon. I love you!

Thursday I went grocery shopping. This is kind of funny because it seems like most people have one spouse do the shopping. I did when Daryn and I were first married, but that was forever ago. For a long time, it was kind of the way we went "out" - need to get out of the house? Go grocery shopping together. It's a walk, in an air conditioned building and you can converse while you stroll down the various aisles getting your food. You can also bargain on which treats you will/won't purchase. ;)

And we've done this for 4 years! But now that we're out of school, we don't have nearly as much time together and there are plenty of other things we'd rather do than just got shopping, so I'm working on taking over the shopping again. (Oh, and since Daryn was the cook, he mostly did the shopping and I pushed the cart.) It's interesting to try and figure out how to buy good produce - and not very easy! I'd say that's the hardest part, actually.

The second hardest part is the kids. :) Now, if Bekah had been awake, I think I could have done fine. She'd be old enough to walk, Josiah would go in the cart and we're good to go. But, Rebekah fell asleep in the car. So, I had to put her in the cart and Josiah's carrier on the basket of the cart. This very much limited the amount of space in my cart! I don't think I've stacked so many little boxes and things underneath before, but I managed to get it all in. About the time Rebekah was waking up, Josiah was falling asleep. So that let me finish the shopping in relative peace.

I am thankful for the bag boy who helped me load a second cart, take it all to my car and pack my groceries in my trunk for me. I've never needed that service before, but I imagine I will need it again!

Friday and Saturday were great. Jeanette, my MIL, came down for a visit that we planned over a month ago and the kids LOVE her (and so do I)! Josiah wouldn't let me hold him as long as Jeanette was at our house - unless he wanted to nurse, which was almost never. We went to Chick Fil A for lunch, bought Rebekah some ballet shoes, checked out books at the library, and that night, after Daryn made a delicious Chicken Taco salad, my hubby and I got to go on a much needed date.

We went and saw MIB III. It was so good! I actually had tears in my eyes at the end. Granted, being pregnant, everything makes me cry, but DARYN had tears in his, too. It was great. And thanks to my awesome friend who works at the theatre, we got to go for free. :)

Saturday I made my own liquid laundry soap! I'm not sure it came out right, but we'll see! I've been meaning to do this for a long time. Then, Daryn and I went out again by ourselves to finish up some shopping - wedding gifts and birthday presents. Then we saw our friend Steve for lunch and met his girlfriend - they were down from Utah to go to a wedding reception (I think). Or, maybe that was their excuse to meet each other's families and friends. I think that was the real reason. :) It was nice to see Steve, and his girl seems pretty good for him. I'd really love to see it work out for him this time - he needs a wife!

That afternoon Jeanette headed home while I took a nap, and then we took the kids to a wedding reception for the daughter of a friend from church. Everything was beautiful! I had fun and saw a lot of people I know both from my ward and my sister's ward - because the groom was from my sister's ward. How fun is that? Such a small world. Rebekah really loves the bride, and almost missed the party because she slept the whole time (Nana sure wears her out!) but she woke up long enough to get in a hug and see the bride's pretty Princess dress and invite her to Rebekah's own Princess party next month. (Rebekah is SO excited about her birthday party!) This helped me a TON when Rebekah woke up in the middle of the night, crying about missing the wedding party. I reminded her that she didn't miss it all and that helped her calm down and get back to sleep.

Today has been rather easy going - just how we love our Sundays to be. I taught Sunbeams again today; our lesson was on our nose and mouth and how we can smell and taste, so I got to bring in a lot of food and things for the kids to try. To smell I brought: soap, lotion, vinegar, water, pickles, onions, and a lime. Then the kids got to taste Wheat thins, graham crackers, lime and banana. Only a few kids chose to try the lime. I wish I'd handed them all a piece and had them lick it at the same time, but since I went one by one, only a few brave souls dared to taste it. The rest were warned off by horrible faces! It was pretty adorable.

This afternoon we've watched a movie and Daryn's made our meals. I LOVE that he's still helping with the meals - especially on the weekends. I've been very tired lately - partly from the pregnancy, and partly from Rebekah and Josiah taking turns waking me up, but what's new? Such is the life of a mom! :)

Now, Josiah is playing the "throw things off my tray and say 'uh-oh'" game to get Daryn's attention, so I should go take care of him so Daryn can finish making dinner.

The only bummer this weekend: Our friends were supposed to come up to visit from Ft Huachuca, but he was sick and so they had to cancel our BBQ plans. :( Maybe another week!

This week: I REALLY need to do some laundry!

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Video, Picture, Text...

So, I took a fun video of Rebekah the other night. It actually took me a couple tries to capture, but I think we have the best one here.

I originally e-mailed this to mine and Daryn's immediate family. We got a few responses, but then my brother reminded me that not everyone has great downloading/video capabilities. He recommended I just tell the story, too. So I will! I'll give it here in 3 different ways: video, still picture, and then text. :)


And, if you can't watch that, go ahead and take a look at this:


So, here it is: Baby #3 is on the way. :)

It's funny. I took the HPT last Thursday (May 31) and of course we called our moms right away. I wanted to wait to tell anyone else until I'd been to the midwife (June 29) and I wanted to tell family before friends.

The trouble is - I'm not a secret keeper. At all. I was constantly stopping myself from saying anything and it was super annoying. I've had 2 healthy, completely uncomplicated pregnancies. So even though I'm only about 5 weeks along (maybe?) I decided to go ahead and e-mail our families this weekend because I'm probably just going to be telling people who I regularly associate with, and I really did want to tell my family first.

Details? Not much to report yet. I figure I'm due either the end of January or beginning of February. Yes, this baby was planned just like the last two. Daryn and I think about 2 years is a nice space between kids, but I guess now we'll be able to test it out and compare it to the almost 3 years between Bekah and Josiah. So far I'm feeling pretty good. I had a cold a few weeks back, and pregnancy makes my gag reflex more sensitive, so my runny nose really drives me crazy, but I haven't been sick at all (yet). Also, I rarely remember my dreams, but when I'm pregnant I have super crazy dreams that I vaguely remember - at least better than normal ones. Those have already started, much to my amusement. :) Maybe if I remember a plot, I'll share one with you sometime.

Monday, June 4, 2012

First day of swim lessons!

This last weekend we went to Daryn's sister Renee's house  house for a super party. MacKenzie turned 12, Shane graduated from 8th grade and Clinton became a journeyman at work. It was a very fun party and Rebekah loved playing in the pool with Daryn. I feel a little silly for not taking pictures, but oh well. I'm sure Jeanette has some great ones to share with me. :)

After that we high-tailed it back to Tucson for a birthday party for our friend Maggie. She's married to Arjay, who went to classes at NAU distance with Daryn. Funny connection:

I know a guy named Clay from my first year at UA - before he or I were married. Clay married Candice. Candice is Arjay's sister. Also, when Daryn and I moved back to Tucson, we were in a ward with Tania. Tania is Clay's sister. We met all 3 couples independent of one another, but it didn't take long to connect the dots! And now Clay and Candice live in MY sister's ward.

Back to this week, though. The party was great - Arjay make it a surprise party and got a ton of people to come. I'm not surprised because Maggie is such a sweet person. It's a bummer they're pretty far on the other side of town because their daughter Ali is only a few months younger than Rebekah and those two were ADORABLE playing together. Rebekah loves to play and make new friends! Also, their son is just 2 months older than Josiah. It's interesting that having kids the same age gives you so much in common!

Hm - something I didn't talk about when I wrote about Rebekah's classes: When we got to the ballet class and were waiting for the teacher, Rebekah went up to every girl and said, "Hi! I'm Rebekah. What's your name?" and held out her hand to shake theirs. It was precious. Some of the girls answered and shook her hand, but most of them were so shy (this is a class for 3-5 year olds) that they just buried their face in their mom's leg until Rebekah moved on to her next victim/friend. When she'd said hi to everyone, she went back around saying, "I'm a ballerina! Are you a ballerina?" This time she at least got head nods.

Let's see... I've been teaching Sunbeams a few weeks in a row now - I have a partner, but she's out of town. Before she left she offered to teach a couple weeks in a row, and I took her up on it because I was in Phoenix a couple times in that timeframe. Now it's my turn! I have 6 girls and 1 boy if they all come, but we're usually 1 or 2 shy. They're good kids - 2 of them have a few issues, but nothing that can't be handled. For some reason, lately Rebekah will cry and say she doesn't want to go when I talk about church, but she always has a wonderful time when we get there!

The next few weekends are FULL of activities, but we'll see how many I make it to: most of them are in Phoenix, and we're trying to cut back on trips up there - something we are rarely successful at! I know my friends understand if I don't make it to their parties, but I sure do love seeing them!

This evening is Rebekah's first swim lesson. It's 30 minutes long. I'll post some pictures or video later tonight.

I just want to say how excited I am that I've had so much time to catch up today! I've added pictures and videos to past posts, and the kids have been really good! I also cleaned Rebekah's room, got most of the dishes done, I'm working on some laundry, and now I get to go cook dinner.

I have ONE MORE fun post to share. Hopefully it will be up soon because it's a pretty great one. ;)


Practicing different kinds of kicks








Getting in and out of the pool from the wall (practiced on the ladder earlier).



Floating on her back