How To Break Your Arm

In case you didn't know, Jaxon broke his arm the day after Thanksgiving. It was the day that our friends Nate and Darryl came to help Mark install the flooring. I took the Curtis boys and my boys out so the men could work on the floor.

(It's been over a month and I'm finally at a place where I can blog about this.)

So this happened on Black Friday (perhaps that should have been my clue) at a dog park near Ray and Greenfield.

Here he is climbing on this deadly device. What he's doing now he can do in his sleep, backwards.

Such grace and confidence!

Here he's finishing up and his friend Asher wants to try, but changes his mind.

Here are all the boys on these 4 foot high concrete steps (there were a dozen of them).
Looking at the photos now, I'm surprised I didn't have to take them all to the hospital.

There was also a lake, with dangerous edges, which the kids were drawn to.

In this photo, you can see Finn in the back, trying to touch the water and Luke headed straight toward the edge.

Here's another photo of Jaxon climbing. He really loves it.

So when we got back to this part of the park, Jaxon decided to try this climbing structure again but on the INSIDE this time. He was on the other side (inclined) about exactly where he is in this photo when he fell. I don't think there are many adults that could climb at that angle. Why this is a children's play structure is beyond me.

He fell on his arm and fractured it in 3 places. I was hoping it was just bruised. Nope.

So Jaxon got a trip to the ER (instead of a movie with the Curtises) and X-rays and a cast.

He was pretty excited to get his friends to sign his cast.

The boys and their gingerbread train.

Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas holiday.

It started with Christmas Eve visiting the temple lights with the kids. We heard Jordan Bluth sing (he just moved in our ward). He has an amazing voice. Mark is thinking of taking voice lessons with him.

Here's us at the temple lights.

When we got in the car, Jaxon had the camera and snapped a photo of Mark and me.

When we got home and bathed the kids, we gave them one gift on Christmas Eve.

A nutcracker! It was because we saw the ballet this year (thanks to Asher's school!). Mark's family had the tradition of seeing Nutcracker every year as a family so we enjoyed doing it with our family. All of our kids loved the ballet and they were excited to get their own small nutcracker to sleep with on Christmas Eve.

After the kids were in bed we opened the "gift receptacle" and realized we had a lot of work ahead of us. We were up till midnight wrapping.

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But the finished product was worth it! (You can also see our new floor in this photo.)

Here are the stockings. Santa brought the kids Pillow Pets because mom thinks they are a waste of money.

This year's best Christmas gifts:

Finn- helicopter, horse, transformer, and his brother's airplane (the one Finn picked for Asher at the store)

Asher- Thomas, Pillow Pet, Lightning McQueen, and the airplane his brother likes.

Jaxon- RC helicopter (but we can't get it to fly high), Pillow Pet, and art set.

Jess- PHOTOSHOP! (and cute pajamas)

Mark- NEW TV and blu-ray player (thank heaven's Walgreens was open so we could get the hdmi cord)

Milo (the cat)- Loved his ball in a round track.

Apparently I didn't get a family photo on Christmas, just a bunch of snapshots.

Here are a few.

We opened presents (including one for the cat). Then we had my family over for dinner. After dinner we played soccer in a little field near our house.

After a while, Asher fell in the mud and I walked him home. Poor guy. At least he got a bubble bath!

A few other Christmas pics.

Hope you had a Merry Christmas as well!

Eavesdropping on Playtime

After reading some adorable things on my friend Annie's blog, I came out of the office to find all my boys without their pants on holding couch pillows threateningly.

Jaxon says it's part of the rules and I just move to the kitchen to get lunch.

I overhear him:

"Guys, let's go over the rules again. Number 1- No pants. Number 2- Only hitting with a pillow. Number 3- No falling down. Number 4- Fight only. Number 5- Don't hit bodies. Number 7- You grab the side of the pillow like this, then spin around like this (he explains some move for 30 seconds).

Okay, that's it! Those are the rules. Okay Asher, you get it? 10, 9, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0! Go!

Wait! Stop! I forgot one.

Rule number 7, You can fall down if you trip.

Asher: Yeah!

Jaxon: Also, the oldest person in the kids column (that's me) gets to count down from 10.

Asher, you are not the oldest person in the kids column.

There's still a lot of screaming (and somebody just hollered from the bathroom to tell me what exactly he's doing in there).

Ah, good times.

Home Improvement Project

The day after Thanksgiving we started a flooring project. It was my idea and prodding, I will totally admit. But Mark recognized that our tile and carpet were terrible. The carpet was not quite 5 years old but it was really light colored and had terrible stains from regular wear and tear and 2 babies that spit up a ton, constantly. Also, the tile was poorly installed by the previous owners. But what we didn't know was that they had installed it right on top of the vinyl! It was so yucky. We essentially had to remove two floors in the kitchen and the vinyl was the worst.

Here are photos from that day. Our bishop and his two sons came over to help. They were awesome. My dad came over as well (he's in the overalls).

Thanks everyone!

Here's us eating dinner on our concrete floor. It was take-out spaghetti on a white table cloth. What was I thinking?

Next post: installation!

No more seasons

So, I can't keep updating my headers even TWICE year so now my header is just generic. But, it's fine.

My friend Leslie took some pics of us at Mesa Arts Center last Saturday. She was so humble, but I think she did a great job! (better than I did of her family and I have some practice)

Here's the link to some of the pics on my webalbum.

Also, the title of this post reminds me that we really don't have seasons here. Not fall or spring at least. Just hot or not hot.

I love that it's not hot right now!

Sorry to those of you who are freezing your arses off right now.

Wish you could join us in sunny Arizona!

Funny Things Heard Today

Finn stares at the toilet with blue liquid in the bottom and screams for me to come to him.

"What's this?"

I tell him, "Mommy cleaned the toilet!" with a big smile.

He says, "No clean it! You naughty Mommy." as he scolds me by wagging his finger.

Asher's eating dinner and chatting with me. "You girl." I said, "Yep. And what are you?"

"I'm a boy." I ask him about Daddy and Jaxon, to which he says, "Boy."

Then I say, "What's Finn?"

Asher says, "A baby." (I asked twice, to give him a second chance. He answered the same both times.

Jaxon says that some kids have short term memory loss. That's why he can't remember the sentence he thought of when it's his turn to share.

iPhone and Christmas Advice Wanted

iPhone

Christmas came early for me this year (well my old phone broke, too).

I got an iPhone that's unlocked so I can stay on T-Mobile. And so far, with wi-fi in our house, I haven't even had to upgrade the $15 a month for the data package, although I may in the future.

Advice Wanted

We're looking forward to Christmas but I'm leery of buying gifts for the kids. Here's the usual for us:

Me at Thanksgiving: "The kids have too many toys, they don't need any presents for Christmas!"

Me on Christmas Eve: "Holy Cow! How did we get so many presents for the kids? They have a dozen each! This is ridiculous!"

Solutions?

The Secret Garden

A friend of mine is losing her garden this week and I'm very sad for her.

Thinking about gardens reminded me of my favorite Broadway musical, The Secret Garden. I've listened to the CD hundreds of times (I'm sure my college roommates still remember how much they hate it!)

I found a clip of the original cast doing sections of some of my favorite songs. Enjoy!

I've never seen the production, but always wanted to. In this clip, I loved watching the song with Mary and Dicken where they sing about plants being wick and having a will to grow. During this scene, Dicken stands behind Mary and gestures that she's the thing that needs a will to grow. It gave me goosebumps. I would love to see this show live. Ironically, they performed it at BYU the semester before I got the CD and fell in love with it.

I just found out that ASU is performing The Secret Garden for the next few weekends! If you want to come with us, send me an email.

Camp HUG

Our second adventure at Camp HUG (Hemophilia Uniting Generations- AKA Family Camp) was awesome. Mark came up a little late but we had a great time. We did archery, hiking, climbing, a horseback riding, crafts, and even a skit night.

Our skit was awesome. Mark wore a yellow hat and asked Sheriffs Jaxon and Asher to help him find his little furry friend. First they brought out Finn in a skunk hat. "No, that's not him," Mark said. Then they brought out Finn in a bear costume and Finn attacked Mark (well he was supposed to if he hadn't been scared, then tripped and hurt himself). It was pretty funny. I had to take screaming Finn off stage and calm him down.

I went up this rock wall after Jaxon. It was actually pretty scary. I'm getting more anxious in my old age :)

Here's another attempt at a family photo. We cannot get a shot with all of us looking at the camera to save our lives. No chance for a Christmas card this year.

Update on My Wedding Ring

Last year I lost the diamond in my wedding ring.

It was very sad. I've spent the last year trying to figure out how to replace it. (Actually I've spent two anniversaries without it, including our tenth)

For a while, I wore a CZ ring I bought from overstock, but it looked cheap, got scratched up, and didn't fit well.

My hope was to find a lab-grown diamond at a great discount. I don't want to buy a regular replacement diamond because of the ecological and human costs associated with mining diamonds. (Heard the term blood diamonds?)

Well this week I found out that lab-grown diamonds are only about 10% less than their mined counterparts (at least in colorless, colored diamonds are cheaper than their counterparts but that's because pink and yellow diamonds are so rare, they're $60k a carat). This was disappointing, but at least I figured it out before I bought a CZ (diamond simulant?) from Diamond Nexus thinking it was lab-grown diamond. It's not. The DN website doesn't say anything about CZs but I found it on another site. They do say that the "synthetic diamond" have to be cold set like a ruby because they're not made out of carbon. That should have been my first clue.

So, I don't want a CZ, I don't really want another gemstone (I had toyed with the idea of a pink sapphire) because the hardness level is much lower for other gemstones. The garnet in another ring I have is pretty scratched up.

I'm down to

1. Buy another new diamond, which I don't really want to do morally or cost-wise.

2. Buy a used diamond which is less expensive and gives my conscience a break.

3. Get a plain wedding band like Mark's and call it good.

What would you do?

Ups and Downs

After waking up with some neck pain from my Zumba classes yesterday, I wanted to relax a little today so I went to my parents house with the boys and we hung out in their hot tub.

It was a beautiful, almost chilly morning (62 degrees), with a sunny clear sky. Perfect conditions for enjoying a jacuzzi. I floated around, with my legs hanging over the side of the tub and my head resting on floating ring. My boys were bored so they used cups to pour water over my belly, my knees, my arms, parts of me that were sticking out of the water. It felt soooo good. Almost like a spa treatment. I was basking in the sun, with perfect warm water and a cool breeze, relaxing and thinking, "I love my job." The boys were playing happily and then. . .

Finn dumps a cup of water on my face. Yep, he tried to drown me.

I sat up, sputtering thinking of all the bacteria in the hot tub water painfully invading my sinuses. "I'll get a sinus infection tomorrow, I just know it."

But seriously, I had to laugh.

"Back to reality!" I thought.

For some reason, it's the highs and lows that come back to back that remind me why mothering is so unpredictable and yet so worthwhile.

Life-Like Statue

When I was in Boston a few weeks ago for the Exponent retreat, I walked around a beautiful park in the downtown area. I can't remember what it's called, but I snapped a photo of this slightly inappropriate statue because it reminded me of my boys.

Sure enough, as soon as I got home the boys were playing like they always do in their underwear (remember it's hot in Arizona) and I took a few shots that look pretty similar to this statue. Kind of ironic, isn't it?

Re-introducing: Dairy!

Remember when I said this diet wasn't doing anything? Perhaps my tolerance level for my children was low because it was fall break, but today we made a big discovery.

We'd introduced bread on Friday and have had it a little here and there since then.

But today I gave the kids a LOT OF DAIRY at lunch time.

Remember they've been off it for 8 or 9 days.

Menu:

Breakfast: Oatmeal, Toast with sunflower butter and honey

Snack: Fruit

Lunch:

1-2 cups of milk

cottage cheese stuffed tomatoes (yogurt for Asher)

grilled cheese

Dinner;

Pinto beans

Corn on the cob

Peaches

In the book I've been reading, "Is This Your Child?" the description of reintroducing diary says that the child feels a stomachache and has a headache. Imagine my surprise when about 45 min after lunch Jaxon says, "I feel nauseous and I have a headache." THEN after I got back from teaching Zumba I told Jaxon to stop playing his Wii game because we were going to walk the babysitter home.

He just collapsed on the floor. I haven't seen THAT behavior for oh, about a week.

Jaxon also talked about not feeling as happy, and said he couldn't think of what to do to be more happy, as though his mood had taken a dive and he couldn't pull himself up.

Finn was also extra active, angry, aggressive, and loud. (The babysitter said she had to tackle him to get him to bed tonight)

Asher (the one who doesn't care that much for dairy to begin with) was surprisingly unchanged by the dairy.

Did I mention what Jaxon said when he saw the milk I brought home?

"Organic milk! I've missed you. I haven't seen you for so long."

Oh, and Finn asked for milk almost every day of our diet.

So, now we will have Finn and Jaxon on a dairy-free diet. How do I do that? Do I have to take the rest of the family off as well?

I'm curious about how the rest of the food reintroduction will go as well. I guess I reintroduced corn tonight since I served corn on the cob. I'll have to try it again tomorrow to see how it goes.

Allergy Diet Day 7 and Jaxon's Surgery

Jaxon's surgery went fine today. Totally uneventful, even easy. In fact, we got some good lines out of him because of it.

When he woke up at 5:45 AM the first thing he said was, "Well, port, it's been nice knowin' ya."

After his surgery I told him he could have any food that he wanted (besides, how am I supposed to gauge his behavior based on his diet after he's had a body full of anesthesia?) He picked grilled cheese, so that's what we all had for lunch.

Breakfast: oatmeal for Finn and Asher, Jaxon nothing, Mark and I shared an omelet in a crepe with fresh fruit

Dinner: Pinto beans, applesauce, and cut up red bell peppers.

I'm going to reintroduce dairy tomorrow and see how the kids do (I know they had cheese today but it was very little).

Allergy Diet Day 6

Jaxon heads into surgery tomorrow to get his port-a-cath removed. He's had it for 7 years to get medicine for hemophilia into his veins easily. Now that we can poke his veins in his arms and hands he doesn't need it anymore. Training wheels are officially off tomorrow.

But that means the diet is probably not going to stick, which is fine because I don't think I've seen any difference in behavior, which is disappointing, although I like the home-cooked healthy (for the most part) meals. I'm going to resolve to do more cooking and stick to my menu.

Menu-

Breakfast: Oatmeals and apples (again!)

Lunch: Chicken rolled in crushed potato chips and baked and served with toothpicks. Also green beans and fresh veggies with hummus

Dinner: Seasoned pan-grilled mahi-mahi, Spanish rice, and home-baked sweet potato fries. Also, sliced heirloom tomatoes on the side.

Dessert: ICE CREAM (for me and Mark. The stress broke me and I have now begun eating for emotional reasons)

Did I mention that I broke (or sprained) my pinkie toe yesterday? I'm limping a little and it was a blessing that there was a woman auditioning to teach Zumba in my class today so I only had to teach half. It's swollen and purple. Totally lame. Also lucky that the studio I teach at is closed for the October break so I didn't teach tonight.

Allergy Diet Day 5

We're starting to get used to this diet. I'm focused more on what we can eat than what we can't. I guess my attitude has changed since I ate at the Hemophilia Association yesterday and had a baja taco from Baja Fresh (yeah, the tortillas were a no-no).

Menu:
Breakfast- Oatmeal with apples and cinnamon
Lunch- Leftovers
Dinner- Rice Pasta with spaghetti sauce
Snack- Brown Rice cakes with sunflower butter and honey, also lots of fruits and veggies

Behavior:
Kids- I don't see any change in their behavior or physical signs of allergies. Jaxon's reading on Monday was probably just to get away from the swarm of younger children at Leslie's house. I'm not seeing more focus, happier kids (well maybe Finn is a little less angry, I'll have to pay closer attention).
They are still getting up waaaay to early. Before 5:30 today, so now it's 11 AM and they're down for naps.

Me- I'm still finding myself more emotional than usual (which could be unrelated). I've also lost 3 lbs which is good or bad depending on whom you ask.
Mark- Has lost 2 lbs, but he hasn't commented on any other issues.

Side effects: I noticed that Finn had a rash on his chin after dinner. Then I remembered that he always gets that when he eats pasta sauce because he must have a slight allergy to tomatoes. How ironic.

Here are photos from Jaxon's first cub scout Pack Meeting. He's very excited to be in scouts and got initiated by bobbing for apples.

Here's the first time I've taken the kids for story time at the library. I had Ella that day and she did not like the idea of sitting down for 30 min. We were in the front on the side, so the kids found the most comfortable position. (Jaxon was in school) Keep in mind that all the other children are sitting up. . .
It's pretty funny.

The Daddy Mountain

Our kids read the book, The Daddy Mountain and have started using their daddy as a mountain. It's their pre-bedtime calistenics. I'm not sure who gets more exercise, the boys or Mark.