Clifton Family Journal

Rhys & Ella

2012-02-08T22:27:00.001-06:00

Here are some photos of Rhys holding Ella. She gets very excited about holding Ella and doesn’t want any help at all. So, we hover only a few inches away. Ella doesn’t always enjoy the visit, but we let Rhys have a few seconds here and there holding the baby. Ella was on her way to bed, so she was pretty tired. She hadn’t been crying when I gave her to Rhys, but she started as soon as I pulled out the camera. Of course. And, Rhys did her own hair. She’s very into shoes and headbands/hats.

I thought these were sweet. Hopefully one day we’ll get a happy Ella in them too. It was very dark in the room. All the lights were off, just the TV provided light…and the flash. But that is why it’s the hue that it is!

Here are a few other photos:

She thinks she hears something…(not really, it just looks like it):

why everyone should own a dSLR camera

2012-02-04T00:56:00.001-06:00

If having a camera that can take photos with really nice lighting, really pretty bokeh (blurry background), various lens options and tons of other stuff – if none of that is enough to get you to fork over millions of dollars for a dSLR camera, then keep on reading to find out what WILL be enough to make you buy one!

You can get freakishly bizarre photos like this:

In case you’re confused, no, it’s not the unfolded laundry on the couch that you are supposed to be looking at. It’s Rhys’ face:

Quick reminder of what she really looks like:

And, now back to the photo of her face looking freakish:

The camera can take 5-6 shots per second, and I’m finding it allows me to capture some really amazing shots. Of course, I think people are usually going for shots like this. Ones that capture more sporty types of shots.

But I find I’m really preferring these weird head-moves-faster-than-skin-can-keep-caught-up-with type of photos. Like this one with TS jumping on the trampoline. Who knew his cheeks thinned out like that?

In case you forgot what he really looks like. This was taken on Tuesday during our family photos (he did his own hair):

This next photo would have to be the most frightening, bizarre, freakish photo I have ever taken…or seen (without computer graphics to make it look really weird). She was jumping on the trampoline. I had the camera set to sports mode to get some really cool shot. And this was it.

I can’t remember if I actually screamed when this appeared on the computer screen or not. How did she turn into a scary old lady while jumping on the trampoline?! I showed it to her and she thought it was so weird and it made her laugh. When we want to be scared, we pull up this photo.

Just because I have to – in case someone is new to my site – this is what Emma actually looks like.

So, while I think that is an absolutely hideous, freakish photo up above. I also think it looks absolutely nothing like the beautiful little girl that she really is.

Anyway, isn’t that neat? Don’t you want a dSLR camera now? One that can take photos faster than most point & shoots and catch really weird shots?! I know you do. Actually, now that I think of it, that might be something point & shoot cameras can do too. I don’t really know. I just wanted to show you my weird photos.

Ella’s Blessing

2012-01-31T23:40:00.001-06:00

We had Ella’s blessing today. It was very sweet. Since it’s flu season, we are especially careful of germs for Emma’s sake. We had a private little blessing with a member of the bishopric. My sister and her family came, with her husband helping with the blessing. I thought she was going to be really fussy because she was so tired, but she wasn’t. By “she” I’m referring to Ella, not my sister. My sister wasn’t fussy either, though, just in case you were wondering. Ella watched Tyler almost the whole time during the blessing. Very sweet. The blessing itself was very neat.

We actually have some family photos now!! We almost never have those. We want some fancier ones some day, but until then, here’s proof that we all exist and that none of us are shape shifters that turn into other members of the family:

This is the group shot of the blessings supporters. Left to right: Me, Ella, Rhys, Tyler, Rob, Siouxsie, Kyrie (my gorgeous niece), then front row, Emma, TS, and Violet…but I’m guessing you already knew them. Emma was making her face on purpose, of course.

If only I had video of the people taking the photos of our family (below). Siouxsie took them, and Rob & Kyrie acted like insane people trying to get the kids’ attention and some smiles. It was pretty funny. There’s a ton of these photos, but here’s a few of my favorites. A favorite part of this one is Rhys is on her way to sticking her finger in Tyler’s mouth or nose.

Violet deciding to make an escape while TS pretends to either be a statue or a robot:

I like this one. Rob positioned the kids like that in hopes of keeping Violet from running away again. It worked. I think this is the closest to the best posed one.

And, here are some of Ella in her blessing dress. My mom had made this blessing dress a little over nine years ago for Emma. We’ve used it with each of our girls. We considered using it for TS, but we didn’t. hehe. Though it won’t seem like it, I limited the number of photos I’m posting below of Ella…

ella…again

2012-01-25T16:31:00.001-06:00

Really quick, I forgot to include the link to TS’s bday spy video, so for those of you who needed it, here it is (and I added it on the other entry too): http://youtu.be/0mtwLVpIfhQ?hd=1

Here are some pics of Ella. She’ll be four months old in a week (from when these pics were taken):

Photo Above: I enjoyed this explanation from my sister of Ella’s expression when I posted these on FB: “It looks more like her gangsta face. She's letting her homies know she's not to be messed with. Also she's considering this as the cover to her latest album.” (I didn’t realize Ella was working on an album.)

Little sleeping beauty:

I wanted some pics of Ella and myself together…mostly as proof that I existed in their childhood (since I’m usually the one taking the pics, not the one in them!). Emma took these photos. She did pretty good! Ella was on the verge of falling asleep, so if she looks kinda tired, she is!

Blurry, but Ella looked cute:

And then she was too tired…

I don’t know if others agree, but I think I’m looking more like Mindy as I age. Not saying Mindy looks old! Just that I’m not a string bean anymore, and I think we look more alike now. I used to think almost none of us girls looked alike. But I can see a lot more resemblance between several of us now.

Ella is “waking” up more with her personality. She has crossed over from being a newborn to being a more interactive baby. She makes eye contact almost all the time now (some of ours have since birth, while a few others took a couple months), and she is so quick to smile and wiggle her little arms and legs from excitement. She regularly makes Emma and me squeal, “You are so cute!” because we can’t hold it in.

I no longer worry she has FA. She is still little (at almost four months, she still wears 0-3 months. Though, I did break out her 3-6 months because she can fit those too). But she’s definitely packing on the pounds now, and, if she had FA, that wouldn’t be happening! Of course there’s still the small chance she has it, but my worry is lessened tremendously over it. She is developing chub rolls on her little legs! Her personality reminds me more of Violet’s personality. Very happy, spunky baby. She likes to randomly try and squeal.

We like her. A lot.

the SPY turns FIVE

2012-01-19T21:21:00.001-06:00

We had an especially fun little party for TS, who turned five recently. The theme was SPY related, since he’s a spy (obviously). That meant he had to use his spy skills to find his birthday presents. It was so cute and so fun. I had never put together a scavenger hunt, so it was new to me, but it was a blast!

Here’s how it went:

We started off in our bedroom, and Tyler handed TS a present. TS opened it, and it was a pair of walkie talkies. Tyler taught TS how to use the walkie talkie really quickly, including how to say “over” at the end of each splurb of talking, as well as telling him their code names. Tyler was “White Castle” and TS was “White Ghost”. (along the lines of White City/Minas Tirith on Lord of the Rings because we’re nerds and think that’s cool.)

Here he is practicing:

Tyler’s job was to stay in our room and be the “command center” and was responsible for giving TS his orders through the walkie talkie to tell him where to go and what to do. I had typed up a sheet with a script on it, telling Tyler what to tell TS for each location, etc. It was very detailed with all the info he would need.

TS also had my iPhone with Face Time on it, while Tyler had his own iPhone with Face Time – connected to TS – so that TS could use the phone kind of like a camera so that Tyler could see what was going on. Tyler dressed up in some old Army gear. This is what TS saw:

Not really easy to see in the photo below, but this is what it looked like on my phone:

The phone/FaceTime thing ended up not being necessary. So a couple presents into it, we stopped doing that.

Violet and Emma were assigned as carriers – they carried the opened presents (Emma) and wrapping paper (Violet) to help keep it clean and orderly. Their job was to carry little bags around and take the opened presents from TS when they were told.

My job was to take pictures and film it. Little did I know that my new camera films things differently than my previous camera. So, I wasn’t prepared for having to figure it out right then. It was still fun despite the fact the video isn’t the best! We got some fun pictures.

So, that’s the basic set up, and here’s how it went. I won’t go into every single detail – just enough to give the idea:

TS waited in the hallway, the doors were closed, and it was just him and his walkie talkie…and me and the girls. Tyler was in our bedroom. He gave TS his first order. It went something like this, over the walkie talkie:

“White Ghost, go in the living room. Look at the shelves on the left side of the room. You will find a present on the shelf somewhere. When you find it, pick it up and open it. Over.”

TS’ little smile and the way he talked and his little giddy smile was almost too adorable…

He responded “Okay. Over.”

He went into the living room, found the present, opened it.

It was a pair of night vision goggles. Tyler instructed him to put them on.

Yes, I do think he’s the cutest little boy ever.

Then all the lights were shut off. Blinds were closed. Curtains were closed. It was now very dark everywhere in the house. TS had to rely on his night vision goggles to find his next present.

Tyler told him where to go to find the next present. TS did it.

The photo above I used the flash. This is what it really looked like in the dark:

It was CARS 2 movie.

Then Tyler told him where to find the next present.

It was rearview mirror glasses. TS had to use them to find his present, using the rearview glasses – so he had to put the glasses on and use them to find the gift hiding behind him. The gift he found was an XBOX game.

Then he was instructed to put his night goggle glasses back on and went back out into the dark house to find his next present.

TS had been BEGGING for a play gun ever since he saw his uncle with one. So, that’s what he got. It shoots rubber pellets even! TS loves to watch Top Shot and wants to be on it someday. Tyler was on a sharpshooting team when he was younger. He’s actually really, really good at shooting. It’s really fun to watch. I’ve never seen anyone shoot as good as him (not in person at least!). When Tyler was in the army, he was at the top of his company. It was a group of about 200 soldiers, and there was only one other soldier who shot as well. So, TS will have some good training from his papa.

Here’s a fun little video from his bday. Again, I hadn’t realized that taking a movie was going to be so different on this camera, so I apologize for my lack of skill! It’s still cute to watch. Here's the link if you need it: http://youtu.be/0mtwLVpIfhQ?hd=1

It was SO CUTE how he reacted to everything. He was so interested and enjoyed the “challenge”. He liked shooting targets so much that we set up some targets he could shoot down. He did some math problems, and then he would shoot the answer. They are magnetized, so when he shoots them, they fall off and are easy to set back up.

The only problem with the whole thing was Violet and Rhys decided to have break downs/tantrums at about this time. It was one of those things where you feel like, “Of course they are screaming and crying RIGHT NOW!” We tried letting them play in the tub together, to get them happy, since that usually is fun to them, but that didn’t work either. So, Tyler had the job of trying to entertain Vi and Rhys while also telling TS what to do. That made for one busy dad.

Anyway, so I’ve finally posted the birthday blog entry! It was a lot of fun.

skills…

2012-01-17T23:23:00.001-06:00

Our newly turned 19 month old, Rhys, has some mad new skills. Her expression cracks me up. I have no idea why, but it reminds me of when people get arrested, and they take that photo of them. She just needs that little sign to hold up.

In case you’re uncertain what the skill is – she’s starting to undress herself! Yay!!! It’s great because now we can get her dressed in her pjs, and she can almost undress herself immediately, including poopie diapers. Who doesn’t want that? Today she did that, but luckily I caught her right as the diaper was about to come off.

Here she is demonstrating more of her skills:

Tada. Now she isn’t bothered by those annoying pajamas:

Pretty cool how kids learn things. One day they can’t do it. The next day they can.

She’s also working on putting shoes on. Who needs clothes when you have shoes? (photo kept modest since we never know who all looks at this blog!)

Later on, she was looking at an animal book & being cute. I really like the natural lighting in the photo. Her eyes look so blue.

Hanging on the table, eating:

A few of Emma & Ella:

Emma practicing her eye crossing skills. A while back, Emma didn’t know how to cross her eyes. We had some lessons. She can even cross only one eye now. In case it’s not obvious, she loves to make funny faces.

I keep forgetting to post this, but have you heard of Julian Smith on YouTube? He’s pretty popular, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you did. He does skits and songs. They’re pretty dumb/funny. This is one of my favorite songs…ever. The words and the song style just don’t match. He wrote it and sings it. His stuff is clean, so no worries. He was homeschooled too, which is fun. He has a TON of stuff on YouTube. There’s a lot of really funny ones. We subscribe to him to get all his new stuff as it comes. Anyway, so here’s my favorite song of his:

being cute

2012-01-14T21:57:00.001-06:00

trampoline

2012-01-14T01:03:00.001-06:00

Kids were out on the trampoline, so I thought I’d try a few photos. It took me several pictures in to remember there was an “action” setting on the camera. It was pretty nifty.

Here’s Violet jumping. Love her hair!

Rhys doesn’t jump yet. She mostly just survives.

Sometimes I wonder if TS could be more boy. The messy hair, mismatched clothes…complete loathing at the idea that I might brush his hair or have him change his clothes. Maybe living in a house full of girls makes him more boy? For those who need reassurance, that is a pellet gun. That means it shoots little rubber bullets that can’t hurt anyone. He LOVES his gun. He wanted it so bad for his bday. He really wants to be on Top Shot (Speaking of which, I’m almost done with that birthday post that has taken me about 1.5 months to put together…)

He cracked me up because he was jumping with his gun and lightsaber:

This is what I meant by surviving…

Even though it looks like Vi is tippy toeing on the edging there, she’s not! It was a jump.

Some of my favorites:

Violet had hurt her hand, and lifted it up to show me.

This one looks more interesting the bigger the photo is:

laying in a pile of laundry…

2012-01-12T23:11:00.001-06:00

and I decided to take some pics of her because she looked so cute. (It was CLEAN laundry!)

And, some little women…well, at least their feet:

Can’t leave Rhys out! She is currently very obsessed with shoes. She always wants them on and off. She also is fast like a ninja, and I couldn’t get any good photo because she kept getting too close. She likes to wear heels sometimes too.

I’ve had several people email and ask, so I’ll post it here in case anyone else is curious! I use Lightroom 3 to edit the photos. I barely know how to do anything with it so far, and it edits this nice. Imagine it’s potential. There’s tutorials online, including youtube, so you can learn basics fast. And, my camera is a Canon EOS 60D, lens is a 50mm f/1.8 lens (love both!). If you have a dSLR, and you don’t have a lens like this – you need one!

I love having a nice camera…

2012-01-12T01:34:00.001-06:00

…because it lets me capture memories of the things most special to me.

I love their little voices. Their giggling. Their laughing. Even their screaming and fighting. I love the funny things they say and the way they view the world. I love their hugs and kisses and smiles. I sometimes feel like I’m going to explode with how much I love these little people. I love to sit and watch them and think how grateful I am to be a mom.

Is there a more awesome job than to actually give life to little people, and then get to teach them about the world and help them be good people and reach their potential in life, whatever that may be for them? I can’t think of a more awesome job than being a parent.

Pretty much…what I’m saying is our life is perfect. Not that we are perfect or our kids are perfect, or anything like that, just that it’s perfectly awesome. Even the crazy, grumpy days where everyone woke up on the wrong side of the bed. When I find myself hiding in my room for a moment of peace and quiet, only to hear them banging at the door, and I find myself thinking, “Oh no, they’ve almost breeched the door…” Yes, even those days. hehe!

I have all these feelings. Then I remember FA. And, I feel like this time is so short. I see how much the kids love each other, and it’s hard thinking that things will change so much some day.

Anyway, I don’t really know why I’m writing all this. It’s just how I feel a lot. I feel like life goes by so fast. I see people get so busy doing so many different things. Will we look back and wonder why we didn’t stop and spend more time doing the little things…why didn’t we sit and hold them more…or sit and play with them more…or include them more in our activities/chores? Will we regret making little things big deals? When they want us to sit and color with them, will we regret telling them we have other things to do? Will we be glad we spent so much time on the computer, on our phones/tablets, or on the TV? Will we wish we had been more patient and listened more?

Or will we decide now, while we can, to treasure the time of their childhoods? To make sure we spend a lot of time where we sit and do nothing but be with them and listen to them and appreciate them? Even without FA involved, this time is so fleeting. It’ll be gone in the blink of an eye, but yet, childhood makes a tremendous impact on a person…so why not make sure to make it awesome?

It’s a goal of mine to be sure to treasure the simple day to day. To not have regrets. To enjoy their laughing and all being together. One day it’ll be so different. So, for now, we get to take lots of pictures, watch them be together, and love every second of making life time memories.

(haha…she’s such a dork. And, if she read this, she’d tell me I’m not allowed to call someone a dork.)

It’s late, and I’m too tired to reread this again, so I hope it made sense.

yesterday

2012-01-07T11:00:00.001-06:00

Mostly just pictures…random ones.

Here are some with kids “excited” about our little lesson/activity/school work:

Emma’s expression made me laugh (and her laugh). She looks so annoyed in it, but in reality, she was quite excited. She enjoys activities.

Vi apparently didn’t want her head included:

Rhys was such a busy body that I couldn’t get her face…at least, not in a timely manner:

Vi including her head in the photo this time:

Then later on, playing (see, Kristin, my house DOES get messy):

Helping Ella sit up…

Thought they were sweet…even if they were giggling at Ella’s crying (she was making a funny sound w/her cry):

FAVORITE RECENT KID QUOTE:

We had ordered Chinese food, and as we were dishing it up, Emma said, “I love Chinese. They are yummy.”

It’s amazing how one incorrect pronoun can make the who thing mean something else entirely!

my sister

2012-01-04T23:21:00.001-06:00

My sister’s house burned down about a week before Christmas, as you can see in the photos below…

Thank goodness for the fancy tree house in the tree for them to stay in while they rebuild.

The story:
About a week before Christmas, my sister, Mindy, emailed, with the subject line “Chestnuts Roasting”. She went on to explain that their house had burned down. She had been in the shower showering (obviously) when flames burst through the side wall of the bathroom. It was huge, engulfing the whole wall. Screaming from surprise, she threw open the window (it was one of those bathrooms with the window in the shower, a smallish window), knocked out the screen, and jumped up and wiggled her way out (tight fit with such a small window). She said it seemed to take forever, and she wasn’t sure she’d make it out in time. The flames were literally nipping at her feet when she dropped head first onto the ground in the front yard. She had to jump and run immediately to avoid the flames, accidentally slipping on a lose piece of wood and falling into the splits. She’s fast, though, and was up and running again.

While she was running, she began to be aware of everything around her. There were already a couple fire trucks there, several neighbors & random people stopping to watch the fire – now her – and her family huddled over near one of the ambulances. Some police cars were still arriving. Everyone was staring at her. Some people were muttering to each other, while looking at her. Her husband apparently looked shocked when he saw her because obviously she had no clothes on. He was only wearing boxers, so it’s not like he had anything to offer her in the way of clothing, though she was tempted to demand his boxers from him. The fire fighters were all busy getting their hoses and the water set up, so she couldn’t steal one of their suits. The ambulance was out of blankets for some reason, and all they had was plastic of some sort – like bags of saline or see-thru plastic bags. Obviously nothing that would work, though she considered taping a row of saline bags around her. The onlookers were too far away to offer clothing, but plenty close to observe the situation. So, for a couple hours she was stuck there, much of it she spent standing behind trees--

Okay, so all that part is a lie. But I thought it would have been funny if it were true. And, haven’t you ever wondered what would happen if your house burned down while you were in the shower? I know I can’t be the only one…

The Real Story
In case I’ve confused with you with sick sense of humor, her house did really burn down. That is really her house. And she really did title her email “Chestnuts Roasting”. Thankfully they were gone on a trip when something caused the fire to start. It spread very quickly, quick enough that if they had been home, they might not have been able to get out in time. So, it’s a real blessing how things worked out.

I’m sure she’s really happy that I made up the story about her being caught in the shower & unclothed in front of everyone (haha!), but that’s what happens when I have a blog…

They are doing quite well considering how devastating it must be to lose everything. They really aren’t staying in the tree house. They have a place to stay, and even were able to have a nice Christmas. She LOVES it when people ask her what the most painful thing is that they lost (note my sarcasm, don’t ask her that). They had excellent insurance that is taking good care of them.

Her advice:
- Use USAA Premium for insurance. They are the best – this is according to the fire 6-7 fire inspectors that were there. (USAA is awesome for EVERYTHING. If you can, seriously consider switching to them! They are the best bank ever.)
- Don’t count on a fire safe keeping your stuff safe in a fire. Store it some place else.
- And, if she really had been caught naked, she would probably say to make sure you always wear your clothes, even in the shower.

And, I’m really not morbid. When I first heard about it, I couldn’t believe it. I was so shocked. I couldn’t imagine how devastated they would have to be and worried about their children too. But then she started cracking little jokes here and there about things, and I realized, no matter what, our family is weird.

Anyway, just wanted to share. I know several of you know her. They even made the front page of their local paper. She always does weird things to get attention…

randomness

2012-01-02T23:37:00.001-06:00

Gift from Grandma (Ty’s mom). The kids love it.

Tyler showing them how to climb…

The kids like to read books every night before bed. Here TS is reading one with Ella.

And Rhys enjoyed the overly large laundry pile quite a bit:

We had been given bags and bags of girl clothes that fit Rhys (yay! since we were running low on her size). So, we were washing them, along with normal laundry. Made for a huge pile. Rhys thought it was fun to sit on it, with a blanket, and a cow on her head.

And, lastly, TS is doing his school work. Does he look like a fighter to you?

Because that is why he’s wearing the headband. I’m not sure what fighter he has seen who wears a girl’s headband on their head, but…

haha! And, he’s so serious about it too. Makes me laugh. Makes Tyler go buy him a boy headband thing (whatever they are called).

Oh! And, I just realized I forgot to post about this here. The test to see if Ella has FA or not (it’s a chromosome breakage test), was not done like it was supposed to be. The lab accidentally misread the orders and did a completely different test. Instead of testing her for FA, they tested to see if she was in complementation group C. Emma is in complementation group A, so the C group testing would be negative, even if Ella had FA. So, we have to get her retested!! Argh.

Did I already post this here? I don’t think I did. Cellularity is how much of the bone marrow makes blood vs how much doesn’t. Basically it’s how much of the bone marrow is working. Emma’s first hematologist, back from when she was a baby, told us that cellularity should be 100 minus your age – so Emma should be around 90%. But, she has been at 10-20% for the past several years.

Well, the doctor called, and she is very, very surprisingly at 80%. He was beyond amazed and called it a miracle. I’ve checked with the FA family, and none of them have had the same thing happen before. The dr did say that there is a slight chance that the part of the bone marrow he took happened to have more cells in it – making it seem like a higher cellularity when the rest of her bone marrow might not be. But he said with the size of sample it was, it all looked really good and he believed it was a good, accurate sample. He thought it was pretty incredible. So, yay! We’re sure the androgens have something to do with it. Plus, we’ve tried really hard to keep Emma as healthy as we can in hopes of allowing the androgens to work the best that they can without illness causing issues. It looks like it might have helped…hopefully. It also sounds like her body should have more strength/endurance when it comes to illness. She still has very low counts, though, but hopefully she’ll do better given even more time. I’m curious what her next biopsy says. I really hope it says something similar!

Off I go. Hope you all had a great New Year!

Christmas Time

2011-12-28T23:21:00.001-06:00

Growing up, it was tradition in our family to open presents from family/friends on Christmas Eve. Then on Christmas Day, we open up presents from Santa. When Ty & I got hitched, we decided we’d continue that tradition in our family. I’m going to try to limit the photos, but there will obviously be A LOT of them!

CHRISTMAS EVE:
I couldn’t get the whole tree in view in the camera (probably would have helped if I changed the lens to a different one, but I didn’t). It was a squished room. So, imagine the other side of the tree looking pretty similar to this one.
Kids opening presents…

Emma made that face a lot. She is so expressive in her expressions!

They played all day on Christmas Eve with their new presents. A few of the toys they got were: Rhys got a top that spun a train around the inside of it. Violet got a Bell barbie that she’d been wanting. TS got a Captain America action figure that he loves. Emma got some roller skates (TS did too, and Vi got Emma’s old ones, not as a present, though).

Then it was time to go to bed and wait for Santa to come. The kids were SUPER excited. Being the AWESOME mom that I am, I forgot to buy brown sugar, white flour, and a few of the other ingredients that we needed to make Santa some cookies (I grind our wheat flour, and we don’t use sugar typically, other than honey). So…we didn’t make Santa any cookies.

Due to the position of the tree in the room it was in (small space), it was really hard to get photos that showed the whole thing. But, here are the stockings hanging from the chimney with care. Say what? They aren’t hanging from a chimney? That would be because we don’t have one.

Then the sweet little kidlets went to bed, excited about Santa coming the next day.

TS fell asleep holding his Captain American action figure that he had gotten. So sweet. I like this pic. It’s taken through the window on the side of his bed. hehe.

Emma is always last to fall asleep out of the kids! That’s her version of the “I love you” sign.

Meanwhile, “Santa” was getting things ready. Like how I put it in quotes? I did that in case you thought I meant the REAL Santa. Ty bought a Santa suit last year. This year he bought a better wig/beard because he almost ate the other one last wear while trying to eat the cookies we left him. And, it made him look like he had some weird balding disease (not saying that men who bald are weird, just that when you look like you’re missing patches of your hair throughout random parts of your head, it looks like a disease). This beard/wig looked much nicer!

When Santa came, I went and got the kids up. They peeked around the corner of the hallway. If Tyler – I mean, Santa – were to have looked up, he would have only seen three little kid heads hidden in the shadows. It was really cute. Emma wanted to know why Santa was so skinny. TS seems to know it’s Tyler. They have a lot of fun with it, though.

Again, hard to see due to lack of space to take the pic, but here’s a glimpse of a couple of the stockings:

After Santa left, without any cookies to eat (that’s probably why he was so skinny!), the kids went back to bed.

The next morning, when we were all up, we opened presents that Santa left:

Jewelry for a little princess:

A little light stick toy thingy. They each got one, and they each love them. Rhys really likes hers.

Emma and Violet are both into Strawberry Shortcake right now. So, they both got some of that.

And, of course, Star Wars!

Hmmm…squatting and that expression seem kind of like she’s leaving a present in her diaper while opening her present.

And, here’s the little weird ball gift that she opened:

I think I caught her as she was sitting down…love her happy expression!

Love her expression too, as she was telling me about her toys:

We had a great Christmas. Every year is so special. You never know what the next year may bring, so treasure what you have! I’m so grateful to the Lord for my wonderful husband, and my sweet babies. I remember after we had Emma thinking we may never have anymore…and here we have four more, to total five, beautiful little people to enjoy our lives with. Life is good.

Happy Holidays!!

christmas photos

2011-12-26T03:19:00.001-06:00

I wanted to take some special Christmas photos of each of the kids for Christmas, so I did!

Here’s Ella in a cute little hat/flower given to us by family. They aren’t very Christmassy photos of her (didn’t have anything very Christmassy for her), but that’s okay!

She started getting too fussy, so I gave her a pacifier. She started falling asleep, as you can see it progress below! (like how huge the flower looks?)

Sleeping babies are so sweet!

Here are a few of Rhys. She would not stay still, so they are a bit random:

Now some of Violet. She was so cute with posing. (She was a little bit tired, hence the glazed looks some times!)

She took wearing the lights on her head quite seriously! hehe…

Now Emma’s turn. I don’t know how obvious it is, but in some of the photos, I had Christmas lights hidden behind the blanket that I was using as a backdrop. I had intended to not hide it – just stick it on the blanket and let the bokeh effect keep the lights out of view but have them show up as a sparkly background, but then I realized our lights had green cord so that wouldn’t work so well. Oops! It shined through the blanket, though. So, it still worked. I just need to remember to get some white cord ones.

Emma really wanted a photo with her reading a book. I thought it was cute.

And, then there was TS. Since this was mostly a spur of the moment, just for fun little photo shoot, I didn’t make anyone participate that didn’t want to. TS wasn’t all that interested. I got this one photo with him in mid-sentence…and then another one of the back of his head. Oh well. Maybe another time.

I hope you all had a great Christmas! We had a lot of fun. It’s always a really special time of year. I’ll post more about our Christmas later. It was fun reading all the FB updates and emails and letters that many of you sent! Sounds like you all had a great time.

Love,
teresa

love our babies

2011-12-15T23:47:00.001-06:00

Having a lot of little children can be a lot of different things: busy, chaotic, frustrating, crazy making, exhausting... But it’s mostly just super awesome. I love the innocence of childhood and how children view the world in such funny and unique ways. I love, love, love their imaginations. If you have a good imagination, you can do anything.

It seemed like it rained all day today, and the kids really wanted to go outside to use umbrellas. So, out they went. It was cold enough to need coats, and I was too cold to leave the deck since I was barefoot with no coat. Here are some photos from their adventure. They are headless in most of them. Well, they have heads, just non-visible ones. No, wait. I’m not saying they have invisible heads. Just that the freakin’ umbrella blocks their heads from the view of the camera, okay?!

They kind of reminded me of little puppies, wondering around.

The photo above made me think of TS floating out in the ocean. So, the photo below I put him out in the ocean…with a shark. Or at least a shark fin.

Little Miss Rhys came outside for just a few minutes before she had to go back inside. She loved the rain. She’ll be 18 months old tomorrow! We love our little Rhys. Part of why it’s been so manageable with two little ones is because of Rhys. Sure, it would be nice if she would stop trying to step on the baby or hit her in the head with things or poke her in the eye randomly or accidentally fall & sit on her when I’m changing her diaper (my ninja skills have increased significantly to the point that Rhys rarely succeeds)…or get into everything she can reach, eat crayons, wear TS’ underwear on her arms or legs or head…but her mild temperament really makes it work. She’s not a very demanding little girl. If she gets some one-on-one playtime with me, snuggles to bed, and constant nearness, she does really good.

Some pics of Ella. She’s starting to get a lot more interactive. She loves to be talked to and is full of smiles. The past few days she’s been a lot easier overall. She’s sleeping better and is happier when the kids hold her. She had gone through a phase of crying any time anyone but a parent or Emma tried holding her. She’s a really fun little girl. She doesn’t seem to be getting very big yet. It’s kind of odd to me. I’m used to big, fat babies! She almost seems to be staying the same size (though she IS growing some).

Elfie, the lion (he was supposed to be an elf, but they didn’t have one years ago when we bought him), has started bringing the 12 days of Christmas. Every morning the kids wake up to find him and little gifts. Elfie was a slacker and forgot one day, so he brought two days worth. It looks like Elfie shops at Wal-Mart in the $1 section…

These are mostly for my sake to remember. I love the cute little things the kids do and how it doesn’t really occur to them to do differently. Like below, TS wanted a banana and pulled one off the bunch…leaving part of the peel. It was cute & clumsy.

Here is TS’ fork. He accidentally dropped it on the floor. So he put it in the sink and grabbed a clean one. He stuck it in the handle of the pan below (as seen when I stuck it in the dishwasher). He just stuck it there absent mindedly…so cute! (I did take it out of the pan after the pic to wash it.)

I still need to write an entry about TS’ bday party. I’ll do that another time!

results

2011-12-12T23:12:00.001-06:00

We found out today that Ella does not match Emma. She matches Rhys. So, Ella and Rhys match. And, TS and Violet match. But the one child who actually needs a match, doesn’t have one. WHAT?!!

I feel lots of emotions and thoughts about it all. Still working on sorting it out. I do believe God has a plan, and we’ll trust in Him to help us along the way to figuring out where we should go from here. I just wish sometimes that way didn’t hurt as much as it does!

Also we found out Emma for sure does not have leukemia. Her bone marrow cellularity, which should be 100 minus your age (so for Emma, at nine years, her cellularity should be 91% or so) was 70%. Her cellularity has been 10-20% over the past several years. (In case you’re wondering, cellularity is how much of the bone marrow actually makes blood). He thinks it’s likely that the increase in cellularity is from the androgens (steroids) that she takes to increase her blood counts, which would be a really good thing. There is a chance, though, that it’s due to a chromosome change (this indicates upcoming leukemia). A few years back, Emma had a very small percentage of the monosomy 7 chromosome change. That’s a very aggressive one, but it went away when she was tested again. So, fingers crossed that that’s not back and that her increased cellularity is due to the androgens. We’ll know for sure in 1-2 weeks.

These photos of Rhys made me giggle. This was during dinner tonight. I LOVE her expression in the second one! It makes me laugh. She wasn’t really mad at all. She just made that expression for about five seconds.

I have some funnies stacking up, so I thought I’d share them here:

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Vi asks me to turn on her show.
ME: "What's your show?"
VI: "It has octopus, sharks, squid and boglatapoh and garwalkin and dasrepto and yawpolgib" (or some gibberish like that)
ME: I gave her my crazy look.
VI: In a very sweet, almost business type way, she said, "Find that for me, okay?" With her tone, it would have been fitting for her to pat me on the head.
ME: (insert laughing) “Yeah…right…since you made it so much clearer what show you want. I’ll go get that for you.”

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I was in the kitchen, and Emma, TS, and Violet come running in. Emma is squealing from excitement and tells me, “I’m so excited we get ice cream!” I’m confused because I didn’t say anyone could have ice cream (left over from bday). Upon further investigation, I find out Violet randomly went in there and told them that they all can have some ice cream! They were very sad when I told them Violet made it up and that we weren’t having ice cream. I felt sad for them too.

Then a week or so later, they all come into the kitchen, giddy that they get ice cream. I’m slightly confused again because I never said that we were having ice cream. We figured it out a lot faster that time. Violet did it again. I think she thought if she did that then I would give them all ice cream! But I didn’t. I know – you’re all thinking I’m mean now. It can’t work or else they’ll do it all the time! It made me laugh, though. The look on Violet’s face was so funny. A little mischievous smile.

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Several months ago, Emma told me that TS can speak Spanish. She was totally amazed. It made me laugh because TS had been watching Diego, and I knew he had picked up some of the words, and it was funny to me that Emma thought that it meant he knew the Spanish language.

Then recently, it came up again. Emma said that TS could speak Spanish. So, I asked him if he could really speak Spanish. He said yes. I asked him to say some words in Spanish. He started speaking complete gibberish. No Spanish words, just gibberish – like most of us probably did as kids when we would pretend to speak another language. Emma’s eyes were wide open in amazement that he knew this whole other language. It made me burst out laughing. Since TS himself even said he spoke Spanish, I asked him what he said. He said, “I don’t know.” Me: “But you know you’re speaking Spanish?” TS: “Yes.” According to him, he could speak Spanish very well. He didn’t have a clue what he was saying, but he could speak the whole language. haha!

He also speaks Bushman.

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I was making oatmeal yesterday, and I couldn’t find the milk. I thought that was weird, considering it was a new container. So, I opened another one.

Hours later, I found the milk in the spice cupboard. NO idea when I put it there! I have no memory of doing it, but I’m assuming it was me…though, maybe it was Violet. Either way, I found the milk that was lost!

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TS was in the living room, and I was in the kitchen. I called him to come to me. He stood up and said, “What? Do you need my big muscles?” as he flexed. haha! It was soooo cute. (I do sometimes ask for the use of his muscles to get him to help clean and stuff…)

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I’ll write more of them later. I should eat and get to bed!

biopsy & a movie

2011-12-12T01:06:00.001-06:00

I made a little movie to share. I wanted to explain FA for those who might not understand, as well as share some of what Emma goes through.

In the movie, I include little snippets from her bone marrow biopsy/aspiration that she just had this past Wednesday. I think there’s only about 90 seconds of it out of five minutes worth (that’s how long her actual biopsy was). Since she’s getting older, I showed it all to her and asked her if she was okay with it being shared on our blog, and she was totally fine with it. She even helped choose the music (it’s royalty free music, so hopefully youtube won’t mute it this time). So, just know that she was a-okay with it.

Quick explanation – when he puts in the first needle, he pulls out liquid marrow from within her bone (that’s the aspiration). Then he puts in another needle, yanks it all around (I only show a small snippet of all the yanking!), and then gets a sliver of bone to test (that’s the biopsy).

If you can’t see the movie directly below, you can click HERE to watch it.

And, here’s all the details from her biopsy:

Emma had another bone marrow biopsy this past Wednesday. We are super, super careful in flu season about having the kids around anyone who might have the flu since it’s so dangerous for Emma, so we didn’t have a babysitter. Tyler stayed home with the kids, and I took Emma & Ella in. Ella was being tested to see if she has FA, as well as to see if she is a match for Emma. We saved her cord blood in hopes that she is. We did the same for TS, Violet, and Rhys, but none of them are a match. Luckily Cord Blood Registry saves cordblood for free in cases like ours.

I was a little worried how things would go with having a baby to take care of while Emma needed me as well. Often it doesn’t seem to go as smooth as hoped for. This time it did. When Emma was getting her IV, she did great. The nurse got it in one poke (thank goodness!). There was a little mess with the blood spilling out before the nurse could get a syringe bottle thingy on the end of the needle (that didn’t really make sense, did it?). That freaked Emma out, but she did great.

Then it was Ella’s turn. I suppose it might seem like I should be used to this by now, but I’m not. I was feeling so much anxiety over Ella getting her blood drawn. If it’s a heel stick, no big deal (not that I like it!), but how do you miss a whole heel? I HATE it when they have to poke them in their tiny veins. The phlebotomist that never misses was the one doing Ella. She checked out both of Ella’s arms, then started checking out Ella’s hands, and I was thinking, no way! I wasn’t going to agree to any hand vein poking on tiny baby when we could just come back in a couple months. Instead she went to get the hematologist because she couldn’t get a good enough vein. That made my stomach sink. When TS was a baby, he was poked four times, I think. Violet was 2-3 times. Upon threat of bodily harm (by me), the hematologist managed to get Rhys in one poke. I did not want Ella to have to be poked several times. I considered threatening the doctor with my ninja kick, since it worked so well last time, but I didn’t. I know all you moms already know this, because you’ve no doubt felt it, but that mother’s instinct thing is real. It’s yet another reason we are part super hero. Luckily I was able to restrain my super human strength, and ninja fighting skills, while the doctor did the blood draw. Good thing for him, right? (He’s an amazing doctor – really – he reminds me of Patch Adams.)

Ella was very, very upset over the tourniquet more than the actual poke. Emma & I braced ourselves for it, but Ella started crying less hard when he poked her! She was still upset, but she was calmer. It was a relief. He had to dig a little, but not to the point of me losing containment this time. I don’t really know what that means for me to lose containment. (Just to make it clear, it has nothing to do with my bladder.) She ended up going to sleep while they were taking the blood. She had just fallen asleep right before they poked her, so she was super tired. During all of this, she mostly seemed annoyed that they kept bothering her and not letting her sleep.

Then when they were done, we went back for the biopsy. They have a procedure room that we do it in. The anesthesiologist was super nice. Oh, Emma was talking that day! This is THE FIRST time. Typically she is a mute at the doctors. I’ve never forced her to speak because I figure it’s the one thing she can control. But then I noticed recently it seemed like she wanted to speak, but she had not spoken for so long that she needed encouragement. She was kind of trapped by her own self, in a way. So, at home we’ve been talking about it more and letting her know that any time she wants to talk to the doctor, she can, that I know she can do it. We role played how to say hi back to the doctor when he talks to her (she can talk to other people, just has trouble with medical places). Anyway, she jabbered to them the whole time we were there. The doctor has been wanting to talk to Emma for several years now – well, he’s talked to her a lot, he’s been wanting to hear her talk to him, but he’s always been so respectful of her need to have that control. When she was jabbering away at him, at one point he stopped and just watched her with this happy smile on his face. He didn’t really say a lot about it, but it seemed obvious that he was really enjoying it. It was really fun to see her take that step.

Back to the anesthesiologist…she was awesome. Emma was very insistent that the anesthesiologist give her the meds through the IV very slowly. If the doctor went to fast, Emma would yell at her to slow down. The anesthesiologist was so funny. She went as slow as she possibly could. Then when she got Emma to sleep, several minutes into it, she told Emma, “I’m giving you some more medication, and I’m doing it really slow!” even though Emma was totally out of it by then.

This is getting really long…

Ella conveniently fell asleep during it. Then when Emma woke up, I was able to lay Ella down in the stroller and take care of Emma – thank goodness it all worked so smoothly!

And, really quick, Ella’s counts were great. Totally normal. Emma’s were typical for her – platelets 34, hemoglobin 10.7 (pretty good for her!), and ANC 830.

Ella weighed 10 lbs 8 oz. If you recall, she was born weighing 9 lbs 10 lbs. She was ten weeks this past Wednesday, so that’s not quite a pound in weight gain. She’s gone from being in the 90’s% to being 5-10%. They don’t seem worried. She looks nice and chubby. She had been weighed before/after nursing to verify her intake, and she has full diapers…so odds are she’s just tiny the way some of my sisters and I were as babies apparently (we were born big but then didn’t grow very fast after that). Of course, there’s always that little tiny chance that she has FA, but hopefully that’ll be ruled out soon! I really don’t think it’s a milk supply issue. I managed to feed a 10 lb 11 oz baby boy just fine…and all my other ones.

We should have the bone marrow matching results any time this week. It’s not easy to wait! It’s hard to believe that she really could match Emma, considering our other three didn’t. But, at the same time, it’s hard to believe she won’t because…she sort of has to. Whatever happens will happen. I’ll share when we find out.

Hope you’re all doing well!

Teresa

snow!!

2011-12-06T23:58:00.001-06:00

First, if you want the Christmas Light Tutorial, I posed it on my other blog.
http://teresabelle.blogspot.com.

Now, to the snow…did any other local peeps notice it snowed last night?! The kids noticed it right after they got up. They ate breakfast and then ran to get ready to go play in it. The temperature was in the low 30’s, so it was time to bundle up to stay warm. It was also time for me to realize none of them have any coats that fit them, except for Violet (thanks, Lauralyn!). So, TS & Emma wore coats that were too small and went out to play.

Meanwhile, I was on the search through stored baby girl clothes to find a coat that would fit Rhys. She really wanted to go outside too. She’s to the age where she gets really upset if she’s left out of all the fun! After searching everywhere, I couldn’t find it. It’s not like there’s that many places the old coats could be!! I’m pretty sure the coats must have fallen victim to my crazy must-pretend-like-we-live-in-a-hoarder-home-so-I-can-clean-lots-of-things nesting that I did while pregnant with Ella. Our house is pretty clean and organized, and when I would watch Hoarders, I couldn’t handle it (while prego). I had to clean…and clean…and clean. But since our house wasn’t messy, it didn’t leave a lot of options for me to clean. I’m pretty sure I was giggling with glee when I tossed out the old coats (why I did it, I’m not really sure!).

I had a dilemma. Rhys really wanted to go out. It was really cold. And there were no extra coats anywhere. I was trying to figure out what to do when I spotted this:

Isn’t it so cute?! It was handed-me-down by my sister-in-law. It’s been awaiting in our closet for when Ella would need it. I looked it over and thought that maybe…somehow…Rhys could fit in it. I’m pretty sure it’s for 0-6 months (maybe up to 12 months). Rhys is almost 18 months.

So, I started putting it on her. The laughter (from me) started early on. I got her legs in it, arms in it. All I needed to do was get it up to her shoulders because, as it was, it only went to about mid-bicep area. I thought if I could pull it up on her leg so that it went as high as it could, then I could get it to her shoulders. At the ankles, it was tight. I pulled her pants/legs through it, and with my BIG muscles, I managed to pull her legs through it more. It gave me enough of what I needed to squish her shoulders into it. It got funnier and more laughing.

It was about that time, after I squished her shoulders into it and pulled her legs out as much as I could, that I realized there was no way I was going to be able to zip it up. The zipper didn’t even come close to coming close enough to zip.

So, it was totally a failed idea. BUT it did make for lots of laughing…hysterically…

Rhys couldn’t move very normal it in. I laid her down to pull it back off, and she laid flat, keeping her face straight down into the floor not moving. Do I need to mention how much harder that made me laugh?

I almost didn’t snap this other photo because she was no longer a happy camper, but WHEN WAS I GOING TO HAVE THE CHANCE EVER AGAIN?! It’s not like I was going to be dressing her in it again.

Anyway, so here’s what the front looked like:

So, I pulled it off and dressed her in a jacket, hoping she would enjoy a few minutes outside. The snowsuit did survive to be worn another day. No worse for wear at all. It was worth a try, though, right?

And, here are the kids playing in the snow:

No, our trampoline isn’t dirty! It’s snow! And, we had a little spot over by the slide too. You might have to click on the photo to see it large enough to see the snow. It’s the white stuff on the ground.

They didn’t last very long. Poor Rhys was frozen when she came in. But she had a nice, warm bath waiting for her. So, she warmed up fast! Guess we need to buy her a coat. The other kidlets have new ones coming for Christmas.

it’s been a while…

2011-12-06T00:01:00.001-06:00

I know it’s been so long since you’ve heard from me! Has it been a couple days now? You’ll be happy to know we’re still alive (or will you)? We put our tree up a little later than we meant to because we’re losers. The kids were SO excited. Not that we’re losers, but that we put up the tree. I’ll try to restrain myself from commenting on how much I like the camera and all the neat things I’m learning. Just think it for me so I don’t have to say it.

I wanted to see what it would look like with the Christmas tree as the background, so I used Emma as my model. When she wasn’t making spit bubbles to gross me out (geesh!), she was making duck lips. This was her favorite one of them all, so I decided to post it. That little girl LOVES to pose funny for pics. It’s nearly impossible to get a normal expression. I had like 10-15 of goofy ones.

And here are the two normal ones I got.

And this one isn’t totally normal, but she looks cute

We put the tree in the schooling/craft area. It makes for a nice background, especially considering how much the kids love it. It works well in this room because the gate blocks Rhys from grabbing stuff off of it, which she still tries to do the moment she is within arm’s length. Here’s Emma doing some school work against her will.

Rhys was playing with her toy, and my most awesome camera focused on her through it.

Here she is being swung around in circles. The background was SUPPOSED to blur like this. But it didn’t. I got too sick from spinning in circles, so I couldn’t get adjusting my settings and trying again. So, I used photoshop to blur the background! hehe. But, it was supposed to look like this.

Ella on the couch looking cute…

Sometimes I wonder what Ella must think of her siblings. I didn’t catch Violet in mid-movement. She was posing like this on purpose.

posing like this on purpose too…

This too. Ella looks slightly concerned…probably wishing she had better control of her head so she wouldn’t get licked (which she didn’t get licked).

And, this one makes me giggle. The look on her face and the way she’s sitting. hehe… I don’t know if they look like they were being crazy around her, but they were moving very carefully. They are well trained, usually. Unless it’s Rhys. Then not even close to being well trained!

TS had his bday. I still need to post that one. Everything is going well!

post-birth appt

2011-11-29T23:21:00.001-06:00

I had my post-birth appointment. Nothing too exciting, which is good! My hernia repair looks good, and my diastasis does too. I found out soon after I had Ella that the stitches for the hernia/diastasis would dissolve over time, starting at about six weeks. I was a little concerned about that because I didn’t want the hernia to come back or for my diastasis to return either. The doctor explained that when the muscles are pulled/stitched back together, given enough time, they will heal back together. It’s like they remember they are supposed to be together and will kind of fuse back together. I thought that was interesting! I had been worried that my diastasis would pop back open once the stitches were gone.

In case this is helpful to anyone reading this, if you don’t know what a diastasis is, it’s where the belly muscles separate and leave a spacing. It happens to most women to varying degrees during pregnancy. It gives a permanent pooch, or pregnant look, which ALL women want to have after they have a baby, right? I know you do! Often, simple exercises and a belly splint (it pulls the muscles together while you strengthen them into that position) can bring those belly muscles back. Read “Lose Your Mummy Tummy” by Tupler. She has really good info. (In the meantime, be sure to NOT do situps or crunches, as this makes diastasis worse.) There are cases bad enough to not go back together…ever…no matter what type of exercises you do. Since I get such a huge belly during pregnancy, my diastasis was pretty bad, which is why they repaired it. Plus, it can increase the risk for a hernia and a lot of lower back problems, both of which I have! So, getting it repaired will help me be able to strengthen those muscles better since they’ll be in the correct spot now. That book I mentioned has some really good exercises. I’m not even halfway into it, and some of her exercises relieve lower back pain. I didn’t know there were exercises like that out there – it’s been awesome. I highly recommend the book to anyone in similar shoes.

Anyway, now to some pictures:

I sat Ella in her bed next to some stuffed animals. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to snap a photo before she tipped over. But I did! She was all smiles.

Then she fell over.

I’m not sure if it’s very obvious in her photos, but she has a little stork bite by her nose (they usually lighten over time!).

Some black and white pics with Violet.

THE END.

new activity room

2011-11-24T23:00:00.001-06:00

Remember this pic? I had mentioned that we were redoing things in our house. Emma’s “room” was one of those things, and our activity room is the other.

We realized our house wasn’t set up very well for five kids, especially for homeschooling. Honestly, I think we had them so quickly that we ended up suddenly feeling like several things weren’t working anymore when they had been working just fine when we had three.

Our activity area, which is technically a dining room (we have an eating area in our kitchen, so we haven’t needed a separate dining room), is what we’ve been using for crafts and various activities. It worked well for three kids, but it’s been getting more difficult as time goes along.

Besides the fact that it’s been a big eye sore (they haven’t had enough storage for their papers, so it always looks messy, not to mention the fact that they have scribbled all over the table and it always looked dirty! (why do people say “not to mention the fact” and then they mention the fact that they claim they weren’t going to mention?)), it’s also been easily accessible to little people (not referring to the random dwarf who might be walking by). We have an open floor plan, so there is no door to help keep this area away from spastic little ones.

At first it was Violet who, as a mobile baby, would climb up and grab all their stuff. But she grew up some and stopped that. Now it’s Rhys who will climb on the table and rip papers away from them, eat their crayons, throw stuff on the floor. She’s not being mean. She’s being a baby, but it can get really frustrating for them. I run interference as much as I can, but often I’m holding Rhys, I mean, Ella, so that makes it more complicated. And, when I do get her down, there’s nothing to keep her from running right back in unless I constantly stand there blocking her (or take her into a bedroom and leave the others out by themselves, which doesn’t work if I need to help them!). I have put her in her high chair in there, but she runs out of interest and gets really upset after a few minutes. If I’m doing schooling with them, I can’t always stop when Rhys is done because I need to work with the other kids. Plus, sometimes I’m nursing the baby or walking her to sleep, and it just gets really chaotic and stressful! It has made it very difficult to be able to allow the kids to do much in there. And, schooling has gotten difficult to do in there as well (I had to have them sit on the couch, or on my bed, to do school).

Point being, it’s been the cause of a lot of frustration all around. I would really like the kids to have an area where they can do crafts, school work, games, or other things that need to be done away from Rhys (things that have small parts or something). Also, we needed it set up so that there was room for a few different types of activities at the same time. They don’t always want to do the same things. So, we thought a lot about it, and here’s what we did.

This is the BEFORE – one table, four chairs, open access to Rhys.

This is the AFTER – two craft tables and stackable shelves. The shelves can hold Emma and Tyler’s school work, as well as their own craft items, which is something we really needed. The shelves on top and bottom have chalkboards. I use the top ones, and the kids can color on the bottom ones (these can also be flipped around so that only wood shows). We also have a bigger chalkboard on one of the walls, as well as three “lockers” that they’ve had for a while now. These shelves help add more storage, making for a cleaner activity room!

Each table has storage cubbies in them. If they are sitting and coloring, they can put their crayons in there, or whatever it is, to help keep the table cleaned off better to leave more room for them to play. Having two tables fits the kids in there more comfortably, and it also allows for doing different activities easier.

Each table also comes with a spot for a paper roll. This gives them fast access to paper for all their coloring needs! It’s been really nice. We often will have one table with the paper roll out, and the other without, so then one can be for coloring and the other can be for some type of game or something.

Girls are coloring and TS is playing with some magnets. Soon after this pic was taken, the girls migrated over to the magnets where they all played for a little while.

And, while this isn’t the most beautiful thing, the key to the success of this all is THIS!

It creates a way to block Rhys from grabbing all their stuff. Most of the time she is allowed in there because she likes to sit and color too. Right now she can’t get off a chair if she climbs on, so we can give her one activity at a table and give the others one at another table, and they are all happy campers! But if there is an activity they are doing that requires no little ones in there (like the magnets), they now have the option to have some privacy and a way to do it without it being destroyed.

We don’t have people over very often (Emma’s immune system makes for an interesting life right now), so we haven’t had to care too much what this baby gate looks like! It’s been a HUGE relief to have our house set up like this. The kids can do things without worry it’ll be destroyed. They have more personal storage areas. Then in their bedroom, they each have more personal areas as well. Their bedrooms had been one for sleeping and one was a playroom. So, now we’ve made them both bedrooms and it works so much better. It’s been sooooo nice, and now we feel, and fit, more comfortably in our house! And, I feel adjusted to five kids now. Not sure if it’s because it’s been eight weeks, or if it’s because we changed things around, or both, but it’s nice.

If you’re interested in any of the furniture, we bought it from Hayneedle.

emma’s room

2011-11-23T23:06:00.001-06:00

When we moved into our home six years ago, we had one child. Our house seemed huge to us compared to our tiny apartment in Oregon. Over time, our house kept shrinking. With seven people in our family now, three bedrooms doesn’t seem as much as it did before. We’re thinking we want to stay here for a while so that if Emma has a bone marrow transplant, Tyler will have the option of taking work off and being with us more than he would if we moved into a bigger/more expensive home. Then we can buy a new home after transplant or something…or stay here forever. Though, it seems a little lopsided, one boy to four girls…

With Emma being so much older than the rest (four years to the one closest in age to her), she sometimes feels a need to have some quiet time. She hasn’t really had a good, private place to do that unless we have her go in our room. But we wanted to give her something more private that was hers. Since we can’t exactly create a new room out of thin air, we decided to buy a new bed for them that had a room on top that Emma could call her own. We already knew we needed to find something that would sleep three in a more condensed space than we previously had set up, so this bed met both needs.

We ordered it on sale (yay!), and it arrived 2-3 weeks later. But it was damaged during shipment (boo-hoo!). We noticed the damage on the box when it arrived and the delivery guy cut the box open, and we saw that it had given the bed a big ding in it –broke all the way through the wood. So, we had to refuse the delivery and were told it would be another 2-3 weeks for delivery. It was a big bummer.

But, only one week later, and the new bed was here, and there was no damage. So, yay!!

Tyler came home from work a couple hours early in hopes of getting the bed put together by the time the kids needed to go to bed. He brought all the pieces in. Looking at it all, we realized it probably shouldn’t take too long to put together. So, yay!

Then we realized there were no assembly instructions. We both looked through everything – nothing. I called the place, and they emailed them to us immediately. So, yay! We had been worried we’d have to wait another week or two.

Then we realized the first page was missing! It was the page that labeled all the pieces. There were several different types of screws & pieces, and they weren’t labeled at all on the packaging. It wasn’t easy to tell which matched with instruction. Several of them looked very, very similar to one another and to the instructions. I contacted the place again, but they didn’t have the first page. Why would you have all the other pages but the first one?

So, Tyler took about an hour looking through all the pages, trying to match up the correct screws and labeling them as best he could, as well as helping with the kids while I took care of a very fussy Ella. It was kinda frustrating he had to do that considering how much further along we could have been by then if we had the first page.

Then we started putting the pieces together. We realized we needed three people to put it together. Two to hold the big pieces together, and a third screw them together. So, we had three kids be one person holding a piece, me being another, and Tyler being the other.

Then once we got all the screws shallowly in, we went to tighten them all. They wouldn’t tighten. After a few minutes of confusion, we discovered they were the wrong screws. So, Tyler took another 15-20 minutes going through the instructions again, trying to match the screws up correctly (and, in case Tyler seems like he doesn’t know what he’s doing, he’s very intelligent! He’s assembled a lot of furniture, and he always does it well. This thing was quite confusing.). Once he got it all figured it, he switched all the screws around. It wasn’t frustrating at all!

Finally, we had three big pieces stuck together. It was time to add the fourth piece. It had probably been about two hours by now! It’s hard to explain, but the way they wanted the fourth piece put on made NO logical sense. It simply could no go on the way they said to do it in the instructions. The only way to do it was to undo everything we’d done, attach two big pieces, then attach the other two pieces to it.

When I realized it had been two hours, and we were undoing all the progress that had been made so far, it became one of those moments where it becomes SO ridiculous how everything was working out that all I could do was laugh hysterically. It helped. When in doubt, just start laughing.

Our plan worked. We got the four pieces all put together. I think we started cheering. Or, at least I did in my head. Then Tyler worked on putting together the other pieces himself.

I should mention that during all of this, the kids were so excited that they were adding a whole new dimension to making it difficult to get it done. And, Violet was very short on sleep and was sooooooo grumpy. That’s another reason it was taking so long – having to stop a lot. It was one of those nights where I was pretty sure my eye was going to start twitching soon, and I kept feeling like laughing hysterically, mixed with screaming.

About four hours into it, it was time to add the full bed on the bottom. The full bed was NOT part of the bed purchase. It was separate, so it wasn’t actually made to go with it. The new bed was just supposed to have spacing for a full bed to fit under there (they didn’t have a full bed that went with it at all). Apparently our full bed was a little too big. We tried and tried, but it was obvious our bed was an inch too wide to fit in there! WHAT?! It really felt like one thing after another after another.

Is it a bad sign when you have to take a saw to the bed?

But it did it!! The bed frame fit in there perfectly after that.

Then we added the mattresses, bedding, and we were done. It only took about FIVE hours! I honestly think if we had all the instructions (and if the kids were in better moods/more patient, which probably the patient part wouldn’t have happened!), it would have taken about half that time.

By the time we were done (I say “we”, but Tyler did the vast majority of it!), I felt like growling, “HERE’S YOUR BED!! YOU BETTER LIKE IT BECAUSE IT’S NEVER LEAVING YOUR ROOM!!” But, I didn’t. Seeing how excited they all were made the craziness of the night worth it.

Here is the finished bed:

Doesn’t Violet’s face shine with glee?! Here’s another angle:

While it was a funny/stressful/crazy making night, we love the bed. The company we bought it from really was awesome. They were the reason we knew to check for damage when it arrived (they have everyone check), and they accepted the damaged bed back with no problem. It was the manufacturer who had forgotten the instructions, and we were impressed with the customer service from the company we bought the bed from…they just need a copy of the first page! I think we’ll let them know.

Now Emma has a place that is her own, with walls even, so she can have some quiet time should she want it. We’re going to be putting some shelves in there so that she can have some of her stuff up there. The other kids don’t seem to care about having private time yet, so that’s convenient. They love their little area below.

And, Rhys has a blast with it too.

Anywho! We love it. Emma is so excited to have her own little place. We’re so glad we have it!

Hope you all have a Happy Thanksgiving! We’re going solo this year (again). We had planned with my sister & her family, but they ended up sick. My mom was going to come, but she ended up sick! With Emma’s immune system, we can’t have sick people around. So, we’re sad they won’t be here, but we’ll still have a special time! We’re going to dress up like turkeys (not really) because that’s what Thanksgiving is about, right? Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!

It was Ella!

2011-11-23T09:38:00.001-06:00

I'm not sure how to edit my previous post from my phone. So, I'll just write a new one.

As a few of you noticed, in my previous post, I referred to Ella as Rhys - a common occurrence! (haha!) Actually I often run through all their names before I settle on the right name. Sometimes I even add a couple of my sisters' names into the mix.

But when it comes to the babies, I mix them up the worst. Rhys gets called Ella. Ella gets called Rhys. I even call them by their actual names too.

So, yes - it was really Ella, like the subject like said in that post. (At least I got it right there!)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

ella & the momma

2011-11-22T22:58:00.001-06:00

I don’t have a lot of pics with me and the kids because I’m usually the one behind the camera. So, I thought I’d try and take some with Rhys. You’ll notice they are all really close up and that’s only because with the lens I was using, I couldn’t get it any further back. I couldn’t see where I was aiming either, so it’s amazing we even ended up in the shot at all (hehe).

Love that her tongue was sticking out! hehe… It was really a fast in/out tongue. She doesn’t usually lay around with it hanging out (ha!).

today

2011-11-21T22:28:00.001-06:00

I think I’ve become a little obsessed with taking photos. It’s seriously SO fun to have a camera that can do nifty things. Since I am usually holding the baby, and am usually doing this one handed, photos are the easiest things to post right now. Oh, let’s not kid ourselves. Even when I gain access to my other arm, you’ll still see a ton of photos. I can’t help it. Besides, practice makes perfect. I have lots of practicing to do.

Also, my husband gave me my Christmas present today (I’m not sure we’ve ever made it to Christmas with our presents. It made for a very present-less Christmas Day that first year before the kids since there were literally NO presents under the tree at all…). It’s a new lens for the camera and is super good at focusing. It was really fun to play with and see how much better it focuses and how I need to pay good attention to exactly where I have it aimed. It will make the nose in focus and eyes slightly out of focus…it's that sensitive. If you have a Canon DSLR, this is a good lens to have:

Canon EOS 50mm f1.8 lens

So, here’s part of our day, mostly in photos.

This was our dinner. It wasn’t very good. I discovered after it was mostly made that I was out of the main spice. It looks much tastier than it really was. But it was fun to take photos of!!

It can focus on Violet’s hand and nothing else! How awesome is that?! Oh, the possibilities…

Emma is a very serious child, in case you hadn’t noticed.

Accidentally focused on her mouth instead of eyes. She sure loves to make weird, unflattering faces. She tries really hard, and it usually causes much laughter from both of us. She’ll laugh hysterically over it – so funny!

Bath time for Rhys.

The cutest little newborn foot we have in our house. Well, not totally true. Her other foot is a pretty cute newborn foot too.

--------------

TS has a funny problem. He cannot remember what chapstick is called. Here’s a conversation with him:

TS: “Mom, can I have more chopstick?”
MOM: “You mean chapstick?”
TS: “Yes, chapstick. What’s chopstick?”
show him pics online since we apparently don’t have any chopsticks anymore…
then, later on:
TS: “Mom, can I have chipstick?”
MOM: “Chipstick?” insert laughter “It’s chapstick.”
TS: “I can’t remember!”

We’ll see how it goes tomorrow. Wish him luck.

ella & violet

2011-11-20T16:31:00.001-06:00

Decided to try some similar poses as I did last time, only this time with the new camera. Believe it or not, I did narrow it down. She just looked too cute! And, her head really isn’t bizarrely huge or anything…in case it looks that way! ha!

Ella was right on the verge of crying, so it was the last pic we got. So cute! I love having so many little people to stalk with my camera.

snuggly babies

2011-11-20T13:12:00.001-06:00

the past few days…

2011-11-18T21:11:00.001-06:00

My Favorite Photo of the Day:

The photo started off with Rhys in the standing position.
Clearly it ended with her in the crashed position.
(No babies were harmed in the taking of this photo…at least not enough for tears.)

BELOW
She looks slightly, ever so slightly, insane. Guess that’s what happens after one biffs it while standing on a box.

TS helping me cook…

Violet loves to put make-up on with her pens. Funny thing is, I didn’t really realize what she was doing until I’d taken several photos.

Trying to take a pic of myself & Ella w/my phone. The HD on the iPhone only works one way, so I used a mirror to see the reflection on the screen…if that made sense:

We have Emma’s bone marrow biopsy/aspiration scheduled for the beginning of December. We have Ella scheduled to have her blood work done then as well (check to see if she has FA and whether she is a bone marrow match for Emma).

Remember how Emma really wanted a sister named Cinderella? It occurred to me a few weeks back that according to some, Cinderella’s name was really Ella. Now, if only we could have a son to name him Mowgli…hehe. (And, yes! He would only ever wear a loin cloth.)

cream of pumpkin soup, pond scum & camels

2011-11-15T23:43:00.001-06:00

COOKING
Violet and I decided to make a yummy pumpkin soup the other day. She donned her apron, had me pull her hair back, and she was ready to go.We used this recipe HERE to make our yummy soup. Here are some pics of Violet through the process…

Stirring the butter/cinnamon/honey:

After we spread it on the bread, she carried it over to the oven so I could put it in (it’s the croutons for the soup):

While I worked on chopping onions and some other things, she was busy licking the bowl:

Then she came over and helped sauté the onion:

Poured in the broth:

She is surprisingly capable for a three year old. She’s very confident and has an “in charge/get it done” type of attitude, while making it really fun too.

Then we have a series of steps that she didn’t participate in because she was busy eating her lunch so she could have the soup when it was ready. Um, writing that out doesn’t really sound like it makes as much sense as it did at the time. I had never made pumpkin soup and wasn’t sure what it would be like. So, I gave her some lunch while I finished it up.

And, then Miss Violet ate the soup with her eyes half opened apparently. She loved it. So did I. So did everyone else. It was surprisingly delicious and cozy tasting. I don’t know what cozy tasting is, but that’s how it tasted. We really liked it. Tyler compared it to split pea soup, and I could see what he meant, though it definitely had a different taste. Yummy!

The JUNGLE
Then later on that evening I took the kids to the “jungle”. It’s what we call a little nature park near our home. We didn’t make it very far. The kids stopped at the pond and threw rocks for quite a while. It was near the parking lot, which was full of gravel/rocks. So they would run to the parking lot, grab rocks, and then run back and throw them in the pond (sorry, locals, but if you notice there are no more rocks in the parking lot one of these days, you’ll know why).

Then it was fishing time…(I like how Vi is standing w/her hands on her hips like TS was):

Oh, look! He caught some pond scum:

What was that? You can’t see it good enough? Here’s a close-up:

Did you just throw up a little bit in your mouth? (insert me gagging)

I can see twenty years from now, when the kids are back home for a visit, and we’re all reminiscing about old times, and the conversation goes something like this:

TS: “Hey, Mom, do you remember when you used to take us for a walk at that nature park?”

ME: I burst out crying at the memory because I’m having severe empty nest syndrome and have no control over my emotions “Yes, how could I forget?!”

TS: “Remember how much fun we had throwing rocks in the pond?”

Everyone smiles. I start sobbing harder, maybe even drooling a little from crying so hard.

TS: “Then how we’d go fishing. We’d find any branches we could and would pretend to fish, only there was no fish, just pond scum that we would catch, and how fun it was!”

Then I’d grab my nearest photo album, with pages that have clearly been worn from my obsessive page flipping, and I flop open the page and show them the pond scum photo.

Sigh. It’s what memories are made of. What can I say? (And, yes, I know that was really stupid. You have no idea how often I restrain myself from writing more stupid things like that! It takes so much restraint…)

So, the kids had fun playing with pond scum for a while, and then we went home. Luckily Rhys didn’t fall into the water. She kept trying to get close to it. Since she still trips and falls regularly, I kept a good hold on her! I really didn’t want to have to take a photo of her with that pond scum on her head.

OUR SECRET
TS and I were cooking dinner one night, and he was telling me about something in great detail. Being the attentive mother that I am, I can’t remember what he was talking about. No idea. At all. Though, I do remember it had nothing to do with Emma or Violet in any way. Actually, I think it might have had something to do with super heros. Most of our conversations are about that. He ended the conversation with a “Don’t tell Emma and Violet! It’s a secret.” (Little did he know that he had nothing to worry about. Momma wasn’t going to be telling nobody! Not even herself.)

Anyway, right after he said, “It’s a secret,” he looked and saw Emma standing outside the kitchen watching him. His demeanor immediately changed to one of being overly casual and slightly nervous. He said, “Hi Emma,” and waved really quickly at her. He paused, clearly thinking fast for a response to Emma – who hadn’t even said anything to him. “Mom and I were just talking about camels.”

Camels? hehe. It made me burst out laughing that that was what he came up with. Not sure it reads as funny as it was in person!

feet & pics of Ella

2011-11-12T23:11:00.001-06:00

Thought these were kind of cute/funny with how big their feet look in the photos.

So, here’s Ella. She’s molting.

Didn’t get it focused in time, but I think the blurry look makes it all the sweeter.

These are below are Emma’s favorite pics from today:

Becca, I had no idea about the SR71 feature on the camera! (see previous entry comments for those who are confused) I wasn’t sure what an SR71 was, so I looked it up. This, my dear, is an SR71, which I’m guessing you already knew from back in the day when you were a spy (is that okay that I mention that here?). I found the SR71 button on my camera.

And, due to pushing the button, here’s TS flying in an SR71 (click on it to see it larger). I love talking photography with you, Becca! I always learn so much. Your expertise is amazing…and we should definitely randomly use that word.

photos

2011-11-11T19:27:00.001-06:00

Here are some photos from today. It was fun being able to take action shots. The camera can focus so fast and take pics really fast. I need to do a commercial on digital SLR cameras because they are so awesome! Becca you need to get one so we can pretend like we know what we’re talking about when we talk about photography. I can’t wait to get the 50mm/f1.8 lens (it’ll blur the background way more).

These photos made me laugh.

Cute little Rhys…

And, it appears we are all getting sick with a cold or something. Nice.

Hope you’re all doing well and don’t mind my endless blog entries! I’m trying to write more often to keep it shorter and record more things. It’s the blackmail thing, you know.

six weeks/10 year anniversary

2011-11-10T16:18:00.001-06:00

Ella is six weeks old now. I don’t know how that happened. I feel like I should be saying she’s six days old. She’s such a sweet little girl that makes Emma and I randomly yell, “You’re so cute!” because she is. Here’s a couple photos. I’m still adjusting to not always shooting in auto mode, so the photos are a bit too bright. I adjusted the lighting, and then she was crying. Figures.

These were taken last night when she woke up.

FOCUS:
I love being able to have control over the focus on my camera now! The kids were playing with this “telescope”, and I decided to practice focusing…

BELOW: I held it like this in front of the lens and then focused on the child at the end of the lens.

hehe. Never did get one with Violet looking at me.

Rhys made it into the kitchen and was eating food off the floor. Isn’t she so cute? And, isn’t that so gross? At least it wasn’t old food since the floor was cleaned last night (thanks, Tyler!).

BELOW: I practiced taking photos of a running object. Does Violet count as an object? I guess I could have said I was practicing taking photos of a running child. And, I suppose I could have deleted that and corrected it, but alas, I didn’t.

Anyway, this is my favorite photo of them all. Closed eyes, tongue sticking out, funny fingers, and her doll looks funny too.

It reminds me of this photo of Violet back a year ago almost exactly (below). She had been running around, looking adorable, then I find this photo. I mean, is there a more awesome photo than this? She was getting ready to turn around and walk back up the driveway…hence the feet. It looks even funnier since her shoes are on the wrong feet and her facial expression is great too!

Back to now…

I took several pics of Violet running back and forth. Then TS came over and said something she really didn’t like. I can’t remember what it was, but Violet’s mood changed immediately & drastically:

Awwww, Violet! You look so cute. She did get a hug. I mean, who can stand not hugging her when she draws those things on her face and then cries like that?

Speaking of drawing things on her face – uh, no. We don’t need to talk about that. Okay, yes we will. Violet really likes putting make up on. She’s been using washable markers and pens to do it since I don’t have actual makeup that I let her use. She gets a little carried away and writes on other objects, too, like Rhys, as seen below. Does Rhys count as an object? Maybe I should have said that Violet likes to write on other children.

I mean, where is their mother while all of this is happening?! Who would let their children do stuff like this? I’m pretty sure I was in the same room being distracted by the other three. It’s all a plot.

We are doing some major rearranging in our house – kids bedrooms and the homeschooling/activity room. This was a big delivery of kid furniture that arrived yesterday. Once everything is put together in a couple weeks (still waiting on some items) we’ll have to post pics of the before and afters. We realized our house needed some updating to accommodate our growing family. We’ll feel like we fit a lot better when all is said and done!

SWEET
TS hanging out with Ella…

It was this dark in the room (early morning) and TS was laying by Ella playing a game. It was very sweet. Here are a few more with a good flash:

Then after a few minutes, she just closed her eyes and fell asleep. So sweet!

Good morning to Rhys!

That’s probably enough pictures and rambling from me.

Today is our 10th anniversary! 10 years!! It went by so fast. I love my hubby so much and am so glad to be married to someone as amazing as he is. I love our babies and love that he is their father…and that we get to have all these amazing, fun adventures with our family. Thank you for being my best friend and for being the person you are, Tyler. And for not minding that I only shower every three days right now. I love you forever!

pics

2011-11-06T23:11:00.001-06:00

I’ve been having fun learning how to use my new camera. Most of the time it’s NOT in auto mode anymore. Yippee! I don’t know why, but the thought of figuring out how to use the camera without being in auto mode was kind of intimidating to me. I bought a couple books that teach how to use my specific camera, and I’m sure they’ll be helpful…once I read them. It’s fun having a camera that can focus. I didn’t realize there was more to focusing then just focusing with the lens (as in, putting my hand on the lens and adjusting it). The little dot focus thingys are pretty cool! I’ve been taking a LOT of photos to figuring things out more (and taking many messed up pics in the attempt).

Here are a few from playing on the trampoline:
(Like her lack of pants? She seems to think that’s what they are…)

Something as simple as this (below), my other camera would have focused on the trampoline enclosure, not on Rhys. I love having a camera that is smarter. And, she looks so cute!

Some pics from our walk today:

This one is totally blurry, but it was too sweet. Violet had fallen down. TS was back by me, and when he saw her, he ran over and helped her up all on his own. He’s like that a lot. He hates seeing people hurt. There are many shows that he doesn’t like because someone gets hurt in them, and it makes him very upset. Sometimes it’ll make him cry and get upset, and he’ll want the show turned off (like Tangled). But, it doesn’t always cross over into his actions! He’ll randomly beat the girls up on accident…hehe. Guess it’s part of the life of a superhero. You just don’t know your own strength.

Rhys does a really good job of walking along, holding daddy’s hand. And, she is so squishy and sweet! I love that little dress on her.

TS and Violet sort of have a love/hate relationship. It’s gotten better as they’ve gotten older.

Here’s the love…

And here’s the hate:

TS is often not interested in posing for photos. I thought it would be cute if he posed by a tree. So, instead of asking him to stand there so I could take a pic, I asked him if he wanted to pretend he was a spy and to hide behind the tree and then peek out. This was his interpretation of that. And, his expression is too cute!

Spy Emma…

Violet walking around. Too bad she didn’t look up at the camera! Still thought it was sweet, though.

Watching Violet play in the dirt.

Here’s a photo Tyler took tonight. It was how we were all sitting to watch a movie. Rhys likes to sit on my lap when Ella is on my lap. She’ll often sit like she is. Or, she’ll perch next to me, sitting on the arm of the couch. Oh, and TS refused to look at the camera. They had just gotten out of the tub and that is why TS doesn’t have himself some pants on!

TS helped me clean the kitchen tonight. That meant he stood on the stool next to me at the sink and mostly talked while I cleaned. It was fun. At one point he was telling me how he was so tired from cleaning (it’s hard to put a couple dishes in the sink!). I told him that superheros are really good at cleaning. It’s part of being a superhero (I was saying this to sound exciting, since I was excited since TS is a superhero). He thought quickly and told me that he’s not really all the way a superhero. He’s just kind of a superhero. Just a little bit. He can run fast and that’s it. He’s not good at cleaning. hehe. It made me laugh.

Today we went to church for the first time since Ella was born. When we were heading back home, both Tyler and I agree AGAIN that having five kids is a big adjustment. I’m sure the fact that the youngest two are 15 months apart has something to do with it (and the next older two aren’t that old either).

Back when we had one or two kids, it wasn’t too bad. It’s always a lot of work taking care of another person, so I won’t say it was a piece of cake, but it was manageable. Then when #3 arrived, it was a huge adjustment. Could partially be that TS was only 19 months older, but still, for whatever reason, #3 really challenged us at first. When we had our 4th, it wasn’t much different than three. But, five… ?! We are adjusting quickly. It’s just been a bit more adjusting than before.

It’s sometimes hard to figure out how to give each of them all the attention they want/need (especially if they all want it at the same time). That’s why we often sit and form a little crowd around us to at least snuggle with them all! We are trying to do more one on one things too – such as having one come in when I’m in the kitchen (or doing something) and we’ll chat for a while. Or, if we go to the store, we’ll take one with us – rotating through. Figured it would be fun one on one time. We’re also reorganizing our house a bit and organizing my day more so that I can be more productive with the time that I have – to get schooling done easier and help give the kids fun activities. I’ve even been able to blog more because of it! (I’d gotten pretty bad at blogging…)

Thanks everyone for the hair/headband suggestions – have loved it. I’ll post a couple pics of the hair cut we’re trying for, but it’s on the other computer, I think.

Cheryl, the manners book we have is called “Mrs E’s Extraordinary Manners, Courtesy and Social Skills Activities”. (I’m almost 100% positive ours did not cost $25! I think it was closer to $10.) It teaches in a fun way how to have good manners like saying please/thank you, it’s okay to be different, sharing, not pushing, waiting turns, not hitting, etc. It’s taught with an activity and a storybook. So, each lesson you’ll need a book from the library that she has listed to use. It’s geared towards pre-k to 1st grade age levels.

I’m about to fall asleep. I’m going to go to bed!

Goodnight!

smiles…and playing outside

2011-11-04T22:50:00.001-05:00

Ella isn’t the greatest sleeper at night right now (What newborn is? Well, Violet was pretty good…) Last night she was awake from around 3-5am. And, she smiled almost the WHOLE time whenever I talked to her! So cute. Definitely made for sweet memories. This was from this morning:

PICS of EMMA:

Since she’s a whole nine years old now, we’ve decided it’s time to do a new hairstyle. She’s only had this one for…about nine years! She’s been resistant to much change in the past, other than chopping it all short. She hasn’t wanted bangs, even though we’ve tried them. She is a lot more interested now – FINALLY.

Our biggest issue is that she HAS to always wear the headband because it’s actually her hearing aids. It’s all one piece. We can’t change the color of the headband anymore like we used to since these are different, way better hearing aids that another family gave to us (how awesome is that?!). The headband is now part of the hearing aid, which is different than our old pair. We have to be careful of putting anything over her headband because it’ll affect the vibration of the hearing aid, which is how they work to transmit sound to her inner ears. But I’m still formulating ideas in my little brain to try to figure out how to get different headband styles and colors.

It also prevents her from ever wearing her hair all the way down, which would be so fun to do. We were looking up photos online and found some cute hair with headbands. The plan, right now at least, is to add some layers, some side bangs, and hot roll her hair. It looks really good when we do that now. Usually she resists having hot rollers done (& they don’t hurt), so it rarely happens. But since she’s started watching that Toddlers and Tiaras show with the little girls who do the beauty pageants, she’s been more interested in having her hair done (hehe…at least some good comes from that show!). With more layers, it would add even more body and hopefully be more flattering.

Why am I rambling about all of this? Because I’m a girl, and I’m excited that Emma is interested in doing something a little different! I’m excited to see what it’ll look like. Whenever we do it, I’ll post some pics afterwards, unless it looks horrible. Then I probably won’t.

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For homeschooling today…

The kids went outside to play in the dirt under the trampoline. There wasn’t enough mud, so they made some:

Some played in the dirt…

Some ate the dirt…(Emma’s hair has wings! Not sure how…)

And flung mud on their face…

Then we decided that was enough mud and moved along. Normally I like to tease the kids about how they dressed (not in person, just here on the blog), and then I look at Rhys. Obviously I dressed her, and she doesn’t exactly match. Maybe this is where the kids get their awesome style! hehe. Actually it was because I needed something to keep her legs warm and we only had these green baby legs, and I didn’t feel like changing all her clothes.

(There was real homeschooling done later on, too!)

Emma & her awesome expression & swinging with no hands.

Rhys showing her cuteness. It’s probably one of my most favoritest photos of her, dirt and all.

BELOW: She tried and tried to climb, but this was the furthest she made it up the slide.

In case you ever wonder why there aren’t as many pics of TS and Violet, it’s because they usually aren’t interested. Emma enjoys having her picture taken. And Rhys can’t get away from me…yet…which is why I have more of them.

Better run!

halloween

2011-11-02T21:50:00.001-05:00

We had a Halloween party with the kids. I admit it, we’re one of those families who aren’t really big into Halloween, but we still like to create memories and have fun! We gave the kids some fun Halloween coloring books, and when my mom was here, they decorated pumpkins and make a cute little monster craft.

We made some fun gift bags and decorated the table with Halloween stuff, and we ordered pizza…

BELOW: As you can see, TS is Superman. Emma is a ballerina with her underwear showing. They had no idea what Pez was…hehe.

FANGS: They had fun trying to figure out how to put fangs in their mouths. Emma had the most fun with it.

Below: Not sure how easy you can see it, but you can see TS’s teeth above his fangs.

Below: The mandatory check to make sure one can still stick their tongue out…

BELOW: I’d like to see her try and bite me with those fangs! hehe. It was so cute watching her try to put it in her mouth.

BELOW: Rhys had just gotten her bracelets out of her bag. She sat there with her arms held very carefully so that they wouldn’t fall off. hehe. It was so cute.

Below: Violet playing with her PEZ candy. (It was almost bedtime, which explains the dazed look!)

BELOW: Rhys enjoying her tiny cookie.

I’m almost done writing this and realize I have no picture of Ella! I did try to take one picture of her. It was a little bit close (she was in my arms):

She was dressed up as a newborn baby.

Tyler was an army guy. I was something that I am now realizing I don’t know what I was. Ah, and here is a pic Tyler took:

Anyway, it was a fun little party! The kids had a blast and can’t wait until the next party.

schooling

2011-11-01T23:37:00.001-05:00

From the end of my pregnancy, and since Ella’s been born, we haven’t been doing as much schooling. I was just way too tired at the end. And, with Ella being born, I needed to get my feet back under me.

We have started using a curriculum – A Beka (www.abeka.com). It’s a lot easier when it comes to planning. TS and Emma are using it right now. Violet has a preschool art book, but that’s all she does (as well as any group activities that we do). She cannot wait until she’s old enough to do more book work schooling. She really likes it.

TS would start kindergarten next year if he was in public school, but we’ve decided to start him in it this year. He’s been interested in things for a while. He wanted to learn to read right after he turned four, and in a few months time, he reached first grade reading level. Then he lost interest in reading. So, we stopped. I thought he would forget it all, but he hasn’t! He has a very good memory.

I know that might seem weird that we aren’t pushing him harder, but from what I’ve read, there’s really not a lot of benefit to having them learn things younger (there’s quite a bit of info on this out there). They’ve found that if you teach a child something too young, a “less efficient pathway” is created in their brain than if you were to wait until they were a little bit older. When they are a little older, then a more efficient pathway is created. In the long run, it’s more beneficial to wait until they are a bit older. They develop a deeper understanding of things. Play is an incredibly important part of their learning, so we’ve been focusing mainly on him doing that, along with group activities and some individual learning when he really wants it.

We decided to start him a year early in kindergarten because he really likes it and he seems really ready for it – more than ready for it. I think following a child’s lead is also really important, which is what we’re doing. I think the problem is more when a little kid is forced to learn things, and they might not be ready yet. He figures math out on his own and has questions about everything. Those are great ways to learn just by answering all his questions, but it’s also fun for him to get to do the book work. It doesn’t seem challenging for him yet. I’m not sure exactly where his brain is, but we’re figuring it out. (And, I know several of you have started teaching your kids at young ages. I’m sure you know what you’re doing! This was only meant to explain why we haven’t pushed him more, not judge why others have chosen to do it sooner.)

That’s one thing I like about homeschooling. It’s easier to go faster or slower, depending on the child. Emma we’ve gone slower. She just hasn’t seemed as ready – her comprehension is a bit behind due to her hearing issues (moderate to severe loss) and lack of hearing aids until 18 months. She’s doing great, though. She’s really, really interested this year.

Besides their book learning, we also do little other learning projects, like chemistry for kids, gospel lessons, reading time, manners book, various crafts, and outside activities. We need to start adding a pen pal project because a couple of their cousins write them, as well as a friend’s children…and we’re so behind! (sorry guys!)

Today we did the volcano activity – baking soda and vinegar. They thought it was fun. (I forgot to turn the flash on in the pics below!):

BELOW: I like how he’s peeking into the “volcano” by covering one eye.

Emma was doing some of her bookwork and got really goofy. She likes to try to make the most hideous faces. I think she does a good job!

And, they say homeschooled kids are weird. *scoff*

She had a LOT more pics like this. We had fun laughing over the weird faces she could make. Then a couple more kids got in on the fun:

So, pretty much what I’m saying is, we just stand around making weird faces for our schooling…

They’re such fun kids!

one month

2011-10-29T23:27:00.001-05:00

Miss Ella is a whole ONE month old! I can’t believe how fast time goes by. Before I know it, she’ll be grown and gone. We only have 18 more Christmases with the kids, give or take. I can feel the empty nest syndrome already starting… I’d say I’m just joking, but I’m NOT! Maybe we can go live in one of those cultures where the young still take care of the old. Then I can live with them forever, and they can never get rid of me (hehe).

Ella is too cute. She is very sweet. She started smiling a couple weeks ago. She is starting to make eye contact more, which is always fun too. We like her!

BELOW: Taking her first bath in the bathtub. She loved it.

BELOW: She’s practicing her boxing here (according to my sister). This is right after her bath.

BELOW: Sleeping on our bed.

BELOW: Ella and the Pink Bear.

We love you, Ella!

Not sure I can make myself take her in for blood work, but one day soon we will. Then we’ll know if she is a match for Emma…as well as if she is FA free (she is FA free). Why couldn’t they test the cord blood?! I don’t get it. But, for whatever reason, we were told they couldn’t test it, they had to test Ella herself…just like they did with the other three. And it has to be from a vein, which is never fun when they are so little. I would definitely prefer a foot poke. I mean, how do you miss when you poke a foot?! I feel my inner ninja getting ready to come out. I seriously hate this type of blood draw on wee babes. I want to know the results, but I am sick of the poking with all our babies! I have no doubt they’ll miss the vein and want to dig. Then they’ll probably have to re-poke. By then I’m sure I’ll have lost all control and will have the doctor in a headlock. I can only control myself so much…

Don’t mind me. I’m tired and probably shouldn’t be writing a blog entry!

the pacifier

2011-10-27T22:05:00.001-05:00

Rhys loves pacifiers. She is our first baby to ever take one. We didn’t realize how helpful they could be! Rhys can’t take pain medication when she is teething because it makes it so she can’t sleep. She will literally be awake hours at night (4-5 hours!) if she takes pain meds. So, these pacifiers have come in really handy to help provide comfort.

We have just recently started giving Ella a pacifier, and it’s been hilarious watching Rhys. When we first gave it to Ella, Rhys couldn’t control herself. She HAD TO HAVE THE PACIFIER! If I was busy changing Ella’s diaper, or doing something else that took my focus off of Rhys, I’d end up finding Rhys attached to Ella’s pacifier, which was attached to Ella’s clothes by a clip. She’d suck on it like her life depended on it. It is so funny.

She still does it, but now she doesn’t get upset if the baby has it. She’ll even help give it to the baby. Then she’ll rip it out of the baby’s mouth and suck on it herself. Who knew the pacifier thing could be so entertaining! (Of course, if the baby gets upset at all, we unattach Rhys and give the pacifier back to Ella.)

I was walking around with Ella in the baby carrier. I kneeled down to take some pictures of Rhys at her level, and guess what she decided to do?

Yes, that’s Ella’s. Rhys snagged it once it reached mouth level.

As you can see, she’s attached to Ella via the pacifier.

I’m not sure how funny this seems to other people, but it cracks me up! Ella was in the baby carrier (on me) in the photo above. It was hard to hold the camera to get a shot of Rhys. So silly!

A FEW FUNNIES
Here are a few funnies from this week. I need to start writing them down again!

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Violet was talking to me thoughtfully about Rhys:
VIOLET: "Maybe we shouldn't buy her. She keeps getting my lipstick and necklace."

I think that’s her way of saying she wants to give her back.

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We watched a documentary where they showed inside an alligator:
TS: "What is inside an alligator? Chicken? Is that meat chicken?"
Me: "It's alligator."
TS: (blank stare)
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Violet's thoughts on nursing:
"That's gross."

Violet's thoughts on learning she used to nurse:
"When I was a baby I would eat from yous boobs?"
(no that's not a typo...it's how she speaks...hehe)

When she puts it that way, it does sound a little odd!

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While Tyler was at work, the kids spotted a couple fairies flying around outside. It was getting dark. I’m not sure if they were fire flies, or what, but Emma was convinced she really saw a couple lights flying by, which she knew were fairies.

Tyler called on his way home, and this is the conversation:
EMMA: "Dad, I saw a fairy outside!"
DAD: "You did?"
EMMA: "It was the tooth fairy. I want to catch it."
DAD: "If you catch it, you won't get any money when your next tooth falls out.
EMMA: (thinks for a minute) "Oh, I didn't realize. I don't know what I was thinking."

Not sure that translates well into written word, but her tone of voice and the way she said it was so funny! It made us both burst out laughing.
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Here’s a sweet pic from today:

We decided to be wild and crazy, and I cleaned the kitchen…leaving Tyler to fend for himself with the kids. I thought this was cute. He sat and snuggled both babies, a common occurrence!

I’m not sure how obvious this is, but Rhys is about to fall under his arm and out the back. She didn’t actually fall, she was just slipping. It cracked me up.

Oh, and a lot of you have asked what camera we bought, so I thought I’d answer here. It’s a Canon 60D. We LOVE it. I just need a little quiet time to read the books I bought on it so I can use it beyond auto mode!

Hope you’re all doing well!
Teresa

(I know I was all excited about the lightscoop in the previous blog entry, but I haven’t figured out how to set my new camera’s settings to work right with the lightscoop. I haven’t had much time to look. So, the lighting isn’t as awesome as it will be once I figure that out!)

some pics with the new camera

2011-10-25T18:03:00.001-05:00

Our new camera came last night, so today we went to a nature park and took some pictures!! I don’t really know how to use the camera beyond the auto mode, but I will one day soon…as well as figuring out the lighting better. But I was very impressed with the camera! It was so fun! It takes photos SO FAST, one right after another. My other camera was quite nice, but it couldn’t take pics real fast, which made me want to pull out my hair some times! And, this camera can shoot action shots, which is totally new to me…and super exciting. I’ve tried a lot with our old one, but everything was always blurry.

Anyway, on to the pics:

BELOW: Here are some photos of all the kids together. I’m not sure TS could look more bored.

BELOW: Love Rhys’s expression and Ella’s.

BELOW: This is the best one we got. And, of course, I chopped part of Ella’s head off in the photo on accident.

BELOW: Violet had a sore foot because she had her shoes on backwards.

BELOW: Ella trying to catch flies…

Now she’s sun bathing…

BELOW: I’ll probably end up deleting this one off of here, but for now I’ll post it (hehe). I was putting Rhys and Ella back in the stroller. I looked up to check on TS, and he was standing there going potty! He never pees in public like this, so I was really shocked. Clearly not too shocked to forget to take a pic…hehe. (He had just gone potty a few minutes before too.) I thought part of the advantage of being a guy out in the wild is that you can go potty without going bare bummed. I think training sessions are in order.

I LOVE the one right above so I can use it for b.l.a.c.k.m.a.i.l.

Here are a few more:

BELOW: I know that sort of looks like part of a bird wing, but it really isn’t.

BELOW: Violet was RUNNING and she’s not blurry! Yay! Not that she has a super power that makes her blur when she runs, but our old camera thought so.

I know I don’t always have time I want respond to emails/comments, but I do love hearing from each of you – so, thank you! And, we hope you’re all doing well.

life with five kids…

2011-10-23T15:21:00.001-05:00

I was spoiled for the first three weeks of Ella’s life. My mom, my sister, her hubby & daughter, and my hubby were all here helping out. I had the life of luxury. I laid around in bed, resting, with only the baby to take care of. The other kids would come and go through out the day, but most of the time they were being entertained by family that was over.

Then after a week, my sister & her family returned back to the normal world. That left Tyler and my mom to help out. My life of luxury continued. I had time to shower. I could go nap when I wanted to. Tyler could go nap when he wanted to. My mom couldn’t go nap when she wanted to. She cooked, cleaned, did laundry, played with the kids, and I enjoyed it all…knowing I should savor the moment, since it was going to be over soon, and my lovely life of chaos would be back. I’m hoping my mom enjoyed it too. She seemed too.

BELOW: Here’s some pics of the kids w/my mom. Rhys enjoyed following my mom everywhere. They snuggled a lot.

BELOW: As a random pic, Emma decided to include Ella with the pillows. The baby slept there really well for quite a while! It looked funnier in real life. I thought the scarf was a nice effect.

BELOW: Playing in the bounce house. There was a lot of screaming, including from my mom.

It was great having everyone’s help! Thank YOU!!

Tyler returned back to work this past Monday, and my mom left Tuesday evening. I bet she has time to shower now. Wednesday was my first official day being back to work as a full time mom. It’s been really entertaining, at least to me.

Things I can’t figure out:
- How do I find time to shower?
- Two crying babies? Two crying/whining preschoolers? A moody nine year old?
- Is this house really supposed to stay clean somehow?
- Sleep? hehe…right.
- Cooking? Me? Really?
- Am I supposed to change out of my pajamas?
- Back to that shower thing, when does that happen?

I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I already have a lot of ideas that are on the verge of doing something helpful. Life is busy with so many little ones! That makes four under the age of five. And, our nine year old is the size of a six year old.

Despite the craziness, it really is awesome. It’s been three days, and I haven’t totally lost my mind (maybe just a little bit). I really like all our babies. They are such fun little people. It’s a fun challenge. I do feel like I need some Mission Impossible music at times (don’t we all?).

NEAT-O CAMERA THING
On a completely different topic, I learned about a really awesome thing I can put on my camera. I’ve been learning new things from my cousins, Aly & Doug, and from my friend, Heidi. I’m still waiting on my new camera, but this new thing will fit on my old camera. (Thanks, Heidi, for telling me about it.) It’s a light scoop that deflects the light when you take photos. You know how often when you take indoor shots, it’ll white out the subject and make them look too bright, especially if you get very close? Then the background will be too dark? All you have to do is put this thing on your camera’s flash (you do need a camera with a hot shoe), and the flash reflects off the mirror and controls the lighting differently.

That was probably a really bad explanation. I’ll just show you photos:

BELOW: Here is a photo of Rhys taken with my camera’s normal flash. I didn’t do anything special to the flash…yet. It’s the way it often looks with indoor pics. She’s a bit too white, and the background is dark. I have a ton of photos that look like this, many are worse.

BELOW: I put on the light scoop, and it does it’s magic. I take the same pic, and the lighting is WAY different. I didn’t mess with these photos at all – it’s exactly how my camera with the light scoop took the pics. Notice how bright it all is and how the lighting is more natural?

Rhys FINALLY looks like Rhys in the photos!! I’ve always thought she wasn’t very photogenic. She’s just so cute and sweet in real life, and it’s been frustrating that I couldn’t seem to capture that with the camera. But with the way this corrects the light, it’s much more accurate. I love it!

You need a hot shoe on your camera (where you can attach different flashes). Many point and shoot cameras don’t have this, but luckily, mine does. DSLR cameras will have this (which is what we are waiting to arrive!). This is the light scoop I bought:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0017LNHY2

I’ve been having fun taking pics of the kids. I can take them closer up, and it won’t white them out like it always has done in the past. So, here’s several photos that have always been “flops” in the past (subjects whited out and the background too dark), but due to the light scoop its much better! The lighting looks much more natural.

BELOW: In a larger room, the background doesn’t get quite as bright, especially when all the lights are off, but it’s still brighter than it usually is. I think they look so sweet.

BELOW: This is often what Rhys does when I’m on the computer when she’s up.

BELOW: Trying to help me type.

BELOW: TS is cute with Ella. She really was content when I laid her down.

BELOW: I love her tongue!

BELOW: Rhys had just barely gotten up in the morning. She was squealing and so happy. Ella looks so sweet with her little half smile.

Fussing baby. Rhys observing.

Giving Ella a careful hug. We have to watch Rhys really carefully because she’ll try laying on the baby to give her hugs. No concept of having to be careful with a little baby!

It’s only taken me about four days to write this entry…

Hope you’re all doing well!

three weeks old

2011-10-19T22:27:00.001-05:00

You might have seen these on FB, but here are a few pics of Ella from today. She’s a whole three weeks old! She’s so sweet…

couple appts

2011-10-18T17:22:00.001-05:00

This is going to be a really quick update because I started it a week ago and haven’t finished it. I find I don’t end up with a lot of typing time. I can read emails, but I’m usually holding the baby (or one of the others) and typing is difficult.

Anywho, things are going great. Tyler started back to work yesterday. I did pretty good. My mom is still here helping, so it’s making the transition nice. She’ll be leaving soon.

Rhys is proving her amazing-ness. I was so worried about having Ella while Rhys was still so young, but Rhys does great. She is such a happy little girl and loves her little Ella. If Ella starts crying, Rhys gets very concerned. It’s very sweet. Granted, Rhys has had my mom, or Tyler, here to give her one-on-one attention and snuggle regularly with her. I hope it’ll work out well when it’s just down to me!

Ella had her two week check up a week ago. Her umbilical cord wasn’t drying out properly. It was too attached on the sides, so the doctor pulled it all around and detached it from the sides. Maybe I’m weird, but it totally grossed me out seeing under her cord. It seems like it should have hurt the baby a lot, but there are no nerves in the cord, so it really shouldn’t hurt her.

The only concern is that Ella was a pound under weight! I’ve never had a baby do that. Even my 10 lb 11 oz baby was back to his birth weight at two weeks (it’s normal to lose a considerable amount after birth, then by two weeks it’s gained back to birth weight). Ella was a whole pound under her birth weight. The only baby who had weight gaining issues was Emma, due to FA. I can’t imagine that Ella has FA. She looks so healthy and is so big. We’ll be finding out for sure in the next few weeks probably. Hopefully she’s a match for the Emma! My theory is that since Ella pooped a ton after she was born (all day, and the next two days, she pooped and pooped and pooped!), I think it lowered her weight more than normal. At least that’s my theory.

Here are her measurements at two weeks:
Height: 21”, 78%
Weight: 8 lbs 12.5 oz, 68%
Head: 15”, 91%

Here’s the birth announcement for Ella:

After Ella’s appointment, Emma had a hematology appointment. It was Grandma, Emma, Ella, and me… We stopped at the Chinese restaurant at the hospital and ate prior to the appointment. It was so yummy! But, I think Ella is sensitive to spice in my milk. She was so fussy that night. I love spice! Rhys was sensitive too.

Anyway, Emma did AMAZING with the blood draw. She was very nervous/anxious, as usual. She didn’t scream or fight. She was very quiet and calm, though upset. It’s really nice as she gets older that she is able to be calmer. We’ve been working on it more, and practicing breathing, and it helps a lot.
Here are some of her counts:

CBC RESULTS:

WBC: 2.30 (normal is over 4.5)

RBC: 2.63 (normal is over 4.0). The androgens that she takes helps with this blood count the most. If she weren’t on them, this would be much lower.

HGB: 10:30 (normal is over 12). This is also helped by the androgens. They are keeping this number as high as it is.

HCT: 28.80 (normal is over 36). Again, androgens help this. So, while these counts are low, they would be much lower without the androgens. She was on blood transfusions prior to taking the androgens, so they seem to have really helped a lot!

Platelets: 33 (normal is over 130). This is VERY low. Though, it’s much better than being at 9, which is what she was at a while back.

ANC: 710 (normal is over 2000). This low of a number means she has a pretty weak immune system and would have a harder time getting over illness.

Anyway, things are going well overall! We are having fun adjusting to our larger family. I have more pics to update with. I even bought a new camera to help assist in taking even more fantabulous photos! (thanks everyone who sent me opinions/experience with cameras!).

Hope all of you are doing well!

Love,
Teresa

Ella’s Birth Slideshow

2011-10-09T12:08:00.001-05:00

Before I get to Ella’s birth slideshow, here are a few current pics of the girls holding Ella. TS holds her a lot too, but I need to get more pics of him…Rhys too.

BELOW: Ella slept like that for a while (with me sitting right next to them, of course!). It was so sweet.

Ella is a doll. I know she was a “big” baby, but she seems so tiny and petite and is so sweet! Rhys looks like a giant compared to her…hehe. Overall she is very easy so far. She does have the common fussies at night for 2-3 hours, but otherwise, she is pretty content! We’re all in love with the little one!

BIRTH SLIDESHOW
And, here is the slideshow my doula made for Ella’s birth. I LOVE it. I feel like she captured the emotions we felt during the birth (probably how most feel during their children’s births!).

QuickTime Video: http://thadenpierce.org/Ella/Ella%20Rose-Medium.m4v

The song is “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas, available HERE.

DOULA INFO
If anyone local is looking for a good doula, Heidi is an AWESOME doula. I absolutely loved having her there, and I love that she offers photography as part of her service!

Here’s her contact info:
Website: http://betterbirthdoula.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/betterbirthdoula

The birth story really will be finished one day!

Week One: Pics of Ella

2011-10-05T00:00:00.001-05:00

Here are some photos of Miss Ella from today. She will be one week old tomorrow! The photos really seem to add about 10 lbs to her. She’s quite dainty and has delicate feature. She’s pretty scrawny, but then I take photos, and she looks chubby with a big head! I don’t get it.

I love baby feet!

BELOW: I don’t know how clear it is, but her eyes are a deep blue color, not brown.

As her face has lessened with swelling, her eyes are getting more and more like Violet’s eyes were as a baby. She has the round noggin like Emma, TS, and Rhys, though. Her hair is like Emma’s was, only Emma probably had 2-3 times as much. We can see all of our kids in her. It’s so cute!

BELOW: And, my VERY favorite photo…hehe! She’s definitely one of ours.