Super Boy!

Yay! Daddy's home!

Henry riding his bike really fast with his super hero outfit on, mask, cape and stickers on his shirt.  Such a happy boy!

 I think this summer has been instrumental in the growth of Enrico.  He has all of a sudden learned to really ride his bike and I don't have to force him to go on rides, he just wants to go, he has been doing his chores and is becoming more obedient.  He's happier and more confident.  He's even taking beat boxing lessons and will soon start on guitar.  I am enjoying this stage so much and I can't wait for him to become more capable.  Justin just learned that his buddy's son, who is only 6, rides mountain bikes with him up in the hills and now Justin wants to get Henry some crazy expensive bike with shocks and hand breaks.  Haha! He's just as impatient as I am for him to grow up. 

Blue snow cone lips holding the fire hose at a street fair

Henry and Bea doing a little dance to make their floor sweeping chore more fun. 

Henry just learned how to do a real back float and couldn't be happier with himself.  I'm just happy that he knows how to float in case he feels like he's in water that's too deep

Grandpa bribed Henry with a popsicle if he would go down the really slow waterslide at our pool.  He refused to do it thus far, but then he realized he loved it and kept going again and again.  He can even swim to the side.  Go Henry!

Henry and Bea on the Ferris wheel at Liberty Park, having the time of their lives!

In the pool with Nanna B.  See Bea dunking her head. She's so wild in the water!

So, we've spend a lot of time riding bikes around and playing at the pool.  The kids are also super awesome swimmers.   I got them all these new floatation devices that are made from life vest type foam but look like floaties with a tube around their waist, but it's coastguard approved which means you can use them in public swimming pools like the one behind our house.  I also bought them tiny goggles that finally fit their tiny faces and heads so now they can see underwater and all they want to do is go underwater and wave at me.  haha! Every mom with a two year old clinging to her leg at the pool asks me what I did to get Bea so comfortable water and I tell them, "Puerto Rico!"  Haha.  She has those floaties on, but they aren't that super buoyant, so she does backwards dives and rolls and does this thing where she dunks her own face in the water like 6 times before she takes a breath and she thinks it's so funny.   I seriously think she could be legitimately swimming by the end of the summer. 

All the kids having a great time in the car.  Guess who loves Clemmie?

We went to the Children's museum with Tracie and her kids plus my friend Alissa that lives on our street on Wednesday and then we played in the fountains(since they're both at the Gateway mall in SLC) and then we went swimming at our pool directly after that, which was an insane day, but totally fun. 

All the kids in the helicopter at the museum.  Bea's friend Ella is in the window.  It's a great exhibit.

Then on Friday we went to the aquaraium, which is just around the corner from us and found out that it was only $36 for a year membership for all of us, so we got that and the kids were in love with it.  We went with a few friends from the neighborhood which included a couple five year old boys and at one point there was this one exhibit that had a red light with some fog machine spilling out fog over the water and the two other boys were saying, "woh, that's a fire on the water!" and Henry was like,"there's no way that could be fire guys.  Fire cannot be on the water.  That's probably just a light with some dry ice or something."  They totally argued and didn't believe Henry, but when he asked me what it was I told him that he was right, but that it was meant to look like fire, he felt so good that he didn't give in.  

Packed in to look at salamanders. So cool!

My mom moved into her new place, which is so awesome, so we went down to Provo to hang out and help her unpack a little. She lives on the bottom floor in this really fun complex in a super nice condo that has almost no one living there and she's right next door to a giant room with a huge flat screen TV, kitchen area, eating area that is also right next to the indoor pool and hot tub.  Then just across the lawn from that is a tennis court(that needs a little TLC).  I put Clementine down for a nap, walked 30 seconds to the tennis court to play with the kids and then we went swimming, all the while I would be totally in range of the baby monitor(when I bring one down)! Yay! It's the sweetest setup ever. 

Trying to get a good shot in the boat. Clemmie would have nothing to do with it:(

My sister-in-law had her baby on Friday so I went to see her yesterday and when I walked into the room, I burst into tears because I was so happy for her to finally have her baby and because I'm pregnant and emotional about everything, AND because he looked a lot like Henry with his red hair and big eyes.  I just couldn't help thinking back to my first moments with Henry and how special that was. She was so happy.  I am so happy that she had a baby because all I ever want to talk about is babies!!!

So we've been late to church lately and it was raining cats and dogs today so I went to sleep super early so I could wake up at 6:30, get myself ready, get the church bag all ready, I made a gourmet breakfast and got all the kids clothes and shoes out, even their hair bows all ready before I woke them up. I marched them all downstairs and they ate breakfast while I did their hair and then quickly got them dressed and out the door totally on time for church! I was a little late though because it was raining so hard and I had to coordinate Henry helping Bea with the umbrella and me with Clementine and all my bags and it took an extra 5 minutes to get in from the car, but we were basically on time.   So at church we had the greatest lessons.  The RS one was on missionary work and a few guest speakers spoke about their conversion or their missions and the spirit was so strong, then in Sunday School we learned about the last day of the Savior's life and what he did in the last moments before he was betrayed and was captured and sent to be judged.  Basically the point was that if one of us knew that we were going to die a horrible death soon, we would probably be thinking a lot about ourselves, but Christ was so focused on teaching the apostles and serving them until the last moments.  It was such a showing of love and unselfishness.  Such a great lesson.  One funny thing is that there were two funny men who decided to sit in the front right corner of the room instead of the rows, which is where I had strategically planned on cornering Clementine with chairs so she didn't walk all over the room, but I didn't care that they were there and I blocked her(and them) in anyway.  When the teacher saw this he said, "welcome to Sunday school everyone" and then looked over at me, the two old men and Clemmie and said, "And welcome to Junior Sunday school.  If anyone misbehaves you will go to time out in the Junior Sunday School".   Haha.  It was really funny. 

Visit from Daddy

Many of you know that Justin still has a month left in Pittsburgh before he can join us out here, so he came to visit for his Birthday last weekend and he had many adventures with the kids and his buddies.  If any of you know Justin, he has a plan for every moment of his life, so there was no stop to the action.  Since I hate long posts, here's a list of each day's activities, a photo, and short funny stories if any....

Henry and Lisa

Thursday
-Drove up to Snowbird, kids went sledding with some Australians, decided to send the kids to ski school this winter.
-Went down the mountain where there was no snow and did a .2 mile hike up to Lisa Falls and ate snacks, let the kids get wet and rock climb.  The river and falls were raging and freezing cold, plus it was less than 60 degrees out, and it was raining.
-Wait, are we still in Pittsburgh?
 -BTW, it was the rainiest May in recorded history in Utah and you wouldn't believe how much snow is still in the mountains and how green everything is: gorgeous!
-Justin went on a 4 hour road bike ride partly in the rain
-Justin and I went out to Chimayo restaurant in Park City for his Birthday.  Delicious.

How awesome is this huge tire!?  Henry was amazed.

The copper mine from outside.  My camera died before I got the inside shots:(

Friday
-The kids and I went out to the Bingham Canyon Copper mine with some friends, ate lunch at a fun park and hung out with a ton of new awesome sistas from my ward and their bazillion kids.
-Justin went snowboarding
-We went to see Kung Fu Panda 2 3D together.  I almost cried three times, Henry LOVED it, Clementine slept(yesssss) and Bea finally left the glasses on and watched the action.
-Visited the Mayan Restaurant next door where they put on a show every half hour with people who throw fire and dive into their indoor pond from a giant waterfall.  We'll definitely return.
-Mom got to go up to Snowbird for a girls night out with my new neighbors/friends

I thought this was funny

Saturday
-The kids and I went to our Stake activity called Family Fun Day where every ward is in charge of a booth or activity and people come and play.  There was two giant slip-n-slides, three bouncy houses, snow cones, ice cream, pop corn, food tent, crafts, a giant climbing wall, sand box, face painting, nail painting, and some other things we didn't even have a chance to check out.  Henry was obsessed with the slip n slide and Clementine ate watermelon for about 2 hours straight, even the rind.
-Justin went on a mountain bike ride with a buddy
-Had Justin's Birthday party with about 6 old friends/mission companions and their wives plus his sister and husband
- Embarrassed Justin by singing him his Birthday song, but was already extremely sunburned from snowboarding so you couldn't notice him turning red.

Henry on the rock used to build the temple

Henry soaked at Temple Square after falling into the reflection pool

Sunday
-Decided to skip church since we have sacrament meeting last and wouldn't have been able to go because of Justin's flight departure time(lame)...so we did some research on the Salt Lake Temple quarry trail which is 5 minutes from our house and is a nice paved Sunday walk with historical plaques to read along the way.  We saw where the pioneers cut the stone, saw a broken chisel from 150 years ago and collected a lot of bugs. Henry was screaming with excitement every time he saw the chisel marks in the stone and any signs the pioneers left behind.
-Henry was disappointed that we didn't see any dead pioneer bones on the trail
-Drove to the Temple and let Henry see the stone on the temple that was dragged all the way there. 
-While posing for a photo, Henry slipped and fell into the reflection pond, completely drenching him from head to foot.  I was in the car with the two sleeping babies and missed the whole thing:(.
-Drove Justin to the airport
-Met tons of new people on our street, including three new boys Henry's age(That makes 10 total just on our street). 

The boys at the temple

Dirty Dash!

Henry crying with Bea wondering how she's going to clean her hands

There is an insane race called the Dirty Dash that is held in Midway, UT up by Park City at a venue that was created for the Olympics and it is the craziest race ever.  There are tons of start times and categories of racers that do a 5 or 10K and other stuff, but I did the Piglet Plunge with the kids which is basically a mile race(more like a walk for me) starting on a giant muddy slope, then across a field and down a muddy slip n slide to another mud field and then down to this huge mud puddle that you have to wade through and then climb up a giant mud mountain, slide down and cross the finish line.

Henry screaming as he runs down the slip n slide

Nice view though!

Almost at the end and still protesting

Henry worried about the giant mud puddle

Behind Clementine is the mud mountain/slide before the finish line.  Check out those muddy people!

By the time it's all over, people are totally covered in the thickest, blackest mud you have ever seen.  You don't have to get super dirty, as you can tell from my kids only being muddy from the waist down, but most people go all out and just get super dirty.  I got there and couldn't find my friends who were supposed to take my kids through the race, so I just found a straggler family at the back and got them to take the kids.  Henry cried the whole time saying that he didn't want to get his socks dirty and seriously just cried and freaked out until he was all cleaned off.  He was running down the hill screaming, "I never want to do this again! Waaaaa!" while Bea was so happy to play in the mud and get super dirty.

Check out these super muddy kids with my almost clean children.  I wish they had gotten  into it more!

Not happy Henry with pensive Bea

Since my kids didn't know this family and I didn't know them either I had to run along side them pushing my stroller through all these bumpy fields to avoid all the mud and Clemmie was laughing the whole time as she was bouncing around.  She didn't cry all day long and just fell asleep anywhere and was such a trooper.  Her little chubby feet got burned though since I forgot to put sunblock on them. Poor baby. At the end you can pay a little money for a hot shower(which I totally did) or take a super cold shower that's directly from the stream nearby to wash off and then most people donate their shoes to charity.  They clean them off really well and give them away.  I can't WAIT to do it again next year together as a family.  I convinced Henry that it would be really fun if we were all holding hands and getting muddy together.  Even Clemmie will be able to do it next year since you just have to be two years old to participate.

Almost to the finish line.  They could hardly walk with the mud that was on their shoes!

After that we went to a hotel pool with our friends to relax and hang out until I found my phone face down in a puddle of water that was created by Bea trying to find candy in my purse and dripping water in the stroller undercarriage and letting my phone drop in it.  I just turned it on for the first time a few minutes ago and it still works, but the screen is really messed up.  I got the super insurance plan for it so hopefully I can just get a new one tomorrow.  The kids fell asleep on the way home around 6 pm and didn't wake up until 8:30 this morning.  That's the most all three have slept in together.  Oh, the saddest part the whole day was when I was trying to get my stuff out to the car with Clementine asleep in my new double stroller and I had the big cooler on the other seat that is facing the seat she was sleeping in, along with a whole bunch of stuff, and I was so stressed out about my phone and I just wanted to get in the car to get home and I forgot to hold the cooler and when I stopped the stroller for something, the cooler slid forward and smashed into Clementine's chubby, sleeping face.  I couldn't imagine a worse way to wake up than having a giant cooler smash into your face.  I almost cried I felt so bad.  Luckily there's no bruise or anything, but it was not a good mothering moment for me.

We're Here....

This might scare you.  This might excite you.  This might make you cry.  We have finally moved to Utah.  I first want to say that I have always said I would never live in Utah again, but here I am.  I should have known because just about everything I have ever said I would never do has come true. This is how I know God exists.  I will make a short list of a few of these things..

1. Said three times that the last place I would want to go on a mission is to Rome, Italy.  Result: Mission call to Rome, Italy
2. Said I did not want to boy first or two girls really close together.  Result: Boy, Girl, Girl
3. Said I would never ever, ever live in Utah again.  Result: Just moved here and will probably say until I die(I kind of have a feeling)

I learned my lesson and have stopped saying and thinking about anything I want. 

BTW, if you hadn't heard, I'm pregnant again and it's another girl! Yay for me!  Henry will be so sad.  Sorry sweet boy.  Maybe the zillions of boys on our new street will make it easier to hear you're getting another sister.  I love you!

Road Trip #2 Revisited:Boston

The last road trip we took was to Boston to see Teri, my step mom, run the Boston Marathon.  We took it with my friend Gulzat and her son Daniel.  We had done this trip last year and this time it was a lot more difficult with my three kids even though last year I was 9 months pregnant with Clemmie.  It took us 9 hours to get to CT and we spent some fun time with The Hohl Grandparents and then we headed up to Boston and spent a lot of time with my dad and Teri, going out to eat, playing at the Science Center, taking a Duck Tour and going to church with Courtney(who is dating some fabulous guy and we're all thrilled about it but that's another blog post).  We found the best spot to watch the marathon from the windows from Lord and Taylor department store and they were kind enough to let our whole entourage stay there.  While we were waiting for Teri to run by LUCY CALLED FROM CALIFORNIA JUST BEFORE SHE WENT TO JAPAN ON HER MISSION!!! It was so thrilling to have two really great things happen at the same time. The kids sang to Lucy and told her how much they loved her.  I miss her so much.  Just today I called the guest bed, Clemmie's bed and Bea yelled, "No! Lucy's bed!"

Anyway, Teri did great and we did get to see her run by.  Henry cried because he said he couldn't see her.  I was busy taking photos and so I couldn't point her out even though I was yelling, "She's the one with the orange hat!!!" a million times and he was crying, "I can't see her mommy, where is she!?!!!?".  We also took Gulzat to Harvard Square and ate some pretty good Thai food.  The biggest trial of the trip was that we had Bea and Clemmie who both woke up once per night and woke each other up the first night for a couple hours which almost killed me the next day.  Gulzat let Bea stay in her room so I could get some sleep and so I survived....but that's about it. 

On the way home we stopped off in NYC for some delicious treats, Saigon Grill, Dinosaur BBQ, and Grom and then made the long drive home. I was driving that day for almost 12 hours.  Needless to say I spent the entire next day on the couch.

Road Trip #1 Revisited:DC

For some reason I have a hard time blogging about road trips but I have to blog about the trips we've been on these past few months.  We took a trip to the Washington DC temple March 26th and we hung out with our great friends the Romneys (woot woot!) and spend all day Saturday amongst the beautiful cherry blossoms.  It was the first day of the Cherry Blossom Festival so the blossoms were absolutely perfect and we got some really fun photos of the kids playing by the trees.  Henry actually got in trouble from security a couple of times because he was venturing in the flower beds and tried to climb up some trees.  I felt bad because we have really never found a tree that he could climb around here.  Our neighborhood and the parks around here do not have climbing friendly trees and I can see the desire to climb  coming out in him.  I was a super tree climber back in the day, climbing up really tall trees to watch baseball games and dreaming up really cool tree houses in the huge horse chestnut trees in Lindsey Gardens.  I am actually kind of excited to go back to SLC and go to the old trees I used to climb and let Henry climb up.

Anyway, Justin and I got to go to the temple to pray and meditate about a job opportunity while the Romneys watched our kids and they had a blast playing in the mud.  Luckily they have a plethora of clothes of all sizes and we got all the kids dressed in clean clothes for the festival.  On Sunday we attended their Spanish ward which was fun trying to understand what was being said.  I understood maybe 60% of everything and got the gist of all the talks. We drove home with no problems.  We love that place and visiting our friends!

Easter fun and madness

Our big handsome boy.  5 years old....with a short baby tie on.  Nice going dad.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to any of you that Henry is crazy about candy and there has been a lot of it at our house recently.  This morning the kids woke up extra early and ate a ton of candy for breakfast, wouldn't even eat their eggs and had candy fits and meltdowns in sacrament meeting.  Henry left primary twice asking for candy from Justin and Bea was in a sugar low during nursery and didn't say a word or move, but just sat there observing all the fighting(someone actually drew blood today in a battle over a car) so I guess it was a good thing that she wasn't down there in the brawl. 

As soon as I said for Henry to put his arms around the girls this is what he did...and then they both cried.

We did have a nice little photo session today after church and we actually got all the kids smiling in quite a few photos. Finally!!! The girls are wearing their home made dresses and Henry is actually wearing an outfit that fits him! It's a miracle!

Henry wanted me to take multiple photos of himself eating the candy. 

We had our best friends/family over for dinner, watched a video from Easter three years ago and laughed our heads off and ate wonderful lamb steaks with middle eastern side dishes.  Yum, yum, yum.  Seriously, you would have been jealous of our meal.  Then we ate tiramisu for dessert(mormon style using Italian orzo, a wheat drink). We talked and laughed and had a wonderful time.  I just love my friends and family here and I'll be sad to leave them in a few weeks.

I made Henry button his shirt for the photos.  I love how it turned out.

Little Sponge

I am so glad for those moments when you realize your child is actually listening when you think they're not and when they're absorbing information when you think their brain is in outer space.  Last week we were in the Boston Science museum hopping from exhibit to exhibit not really knowing if he was taking in any of the actual science of the displays.  Henry and I ended up putting together a model of the human body and I told him a lot of things about what was going on with the heart and lungs and other physiology of the body and today while Justin was getting his blood drawn at home for a disability insurance quote Henry looked down at Justin's arm and told the nurse, "This vein is blue and that means it has no oxygen in it.  The red one is the one that has the oxygen." The nurse said to Justin, "oh, you must be a doctor or something" but Justin responded, "well, yes I am, but I didn't teach him that." Well, I have news for you.  I did!

Eggosaurus

These were a fun craft I found at Aldi.  I babysat three kids today who were the same age as my three so it was basically like having three sets of twins.  They were all boys too and were all super attached to their mom, which I'm not accustomed to.  When we leave our kids anywhere, they're like, "see you in a few days mom.  We're having a sleepover!!!" They have no attachment complex, which I am totally fine with.  Luckily they didn't mind being cuddled by me so we spent a lot of time on the couch snuggling and reading stories since they all wanted to be held all at the same time(not going to happen). Good thing they're all so darn cute!

As many of you know, I love eggs.  I make a ton of Easter egg crafts and Christmas eggs stuff and I love to eat eggs, in fact, I think I ended up eating four soft boiled eggs(my all time favorite snack) today since the kids didn't finish theirs and I was in heaven.  I put freshly ground salt and pepper on them from my gourmet pepper mix combo with red(I know they're not really pepper), white and black peppercorns smashed on a piece of toasted super crusty bread from my favorite bread store and I am in heaven.  That is up there with dark chocolate for me.  I really have to stop myself from eating eggs all day long.  Don't tell Justin though because he's convinced that the cholesterol in eggs is basically poison, which I don't believe at all.  Read all about it if you google cholesterol myth.  Anyway, I love eggs and so do my kids!

Hentropy

When I finally got the entire house clean, it was time to bathe the babes.  Here they are all clean, pink and smiley.

This morning I got up really late because I'm still recovering from still not getting any sleep since the kids are used to crying for water all night long and Clementine had a blow out that took a half hour to get cleaned up.  So anyway, I got up around 9:15, got dressed, found Clementine who had pooped all over herself again, so I gave her a quick bath, tidied up the upstairs and came down at about 9:50, ten minutes before this lady was scheduled to come over to give us a moving quote and I couldn't believe how horrible the house was.  It looked like a tornado had hit our kitchen.  Henry and Bea had been cutting stuff out all morning and had crumbled crackers all over the place, peeled string cheese, ate pasta, craisens, paper was strewn all over the place, markers were all over the floor and they had colored all over the table and spilled water all over the table and it was all underneath the table and there were still dishes in the sink from the day before, which I was hoping was the only thing I had left to do before this lady came and as I was standing there contemplating the mess, she rang the doorbell, like 9 minutes early!  I don't think anyone has ever seen my house that disgusting.  Not only was it cluttered, but it was covered in food and filth.  There was almost no place to walk around.  At least she was a woman and the upstairs was clean. 

Straight from Henry's Head

Henry and Wee-o digging for dinosaur bones at the Nat. His. Museum

Since we have sold our house and I'm not cleaning and organizing every day, Henry doesn't get to play Little Big Planet or watch TV anymore and his mind has gone into make-believe overdrive.  He pretends so many different things every day and creates elaborate paper objects ranging from Pirate flags, hats, full body armor, alien heads, and always gives me and Justin a present that says, "I luv yoo mom/dad, frum Henry".  Many times when I come downstairs in the morning he has a treasure hunt all planned out with either clues or a map.  The best part is that he treats me like I treat him when he can't find what I have hidden for him and starts talking to me in a baby voice, "can you see it mommy?, just look a little harder right around HERE" and basically points right to it.  Haha.  He's so creative.  He also writes and illustrates at least 10 pages of something every day.  Today he made me a drawing of me in "the savannah" with two trees, a lion and a giraffe that were amazingly cute.

Grinding corn Native American style

The other day when it was uncharacteristically warm outside we had some friends over and Henry and his friend Thomasin started digging for bugs.  Every bug they found was either mauled to death, drowned, or suffocated and every time they discovered that they had killed their new pets they felt really bad about it.  They they found a big worm they named Skipper that eventually died after also being drowned and they decided to have a funeral for it under our front yard mailbox.  They found a stone from the back yard and used crayons to color it and put stickers all over it.  Henry wrote a note to him and brought out a napkin, which supposedly his favorite blankie,  and tucked them both under the rock while they had his funeral. The mail lady drove up to deliver the mail and they told her the whole story and I could hear her from my window as she struggled to keep in her laughter.  It was so amusing.  We have also played vikings, dragons, dinosaurs, cowboys, etc.  I am really enjoying having a five year old.  He's so much more emotionally stable, is so sweet, tells me he loves me every day just out of the blue, kisses and hugs me often, takes care of his little sisters, is usually obedient, talks about Jesus and is curious about religious topics often.  I am so grateful for him and what he is becoming.  Just watching him being so proactive and independently interested in so many things is making me so excited to start seriously home schooling him.

Henry and Lucy having fun with phone games on the Culebra ferry

pregnancy posts from 2005 and my hairless rat surgery photos

Old photo of Hen I found on Lucy's computer

So I have been trying to get access to my old typepad account so I could link it up to Henry's blog since it has all the posts I made when I was pregnant with him and I finally figured it out! So if any of you are interested in reading some funny stories and seeing Henry in the womb, here is the link...

http://milliemama.typepad.com/milliemama/

Some other highlights of this blog include

1. The documentation of the surgeries I did on my hairless rat, Egor(see photo albums on the left)
2.  Seeing what my life was like pre children.  I seriously saw five shows per week and went out to dinner every night!
3.  The shocker that I didn't remember actually living some of what I wrote which is a stark reminder to me of why I blog.  I will probably forget my entire life if I didn't write it down. 

four year old

Today our little Georgie would have turned four years old and I was reflecting on what it would be like to have a four year old boy instead of Bea. Since Henry seems to do very well playing with anyone older than three I always seem to think that they would be awesome buddies and have tons of adventures together looking for treasure in the woods and putting legos together. So far all Bea does is steal everything Henry puts together and she's still too little to venture outside our yard without me. Even though we have received so many blessings from his death and am grateful for his influence in our lives,I'm still convinced that our life would be better with him here and I miss him more often than anyone knows. I still can't wait for the day we're together again. We love you little boy and we know you were with us today, even during our wild prayer and scripture time.

Love,
Mommy

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First Finger Fright for my Five year old

Henry Post-op(bad phone photo) with some presents

 Today is Henry's 5th Birthday and we spent most of the day at the Science Center with the Chous and Gammie and Grandpa Hohl.  Henry was an angel all day and had so much fun with his cousins.  We even ran into Thomasin and Marta for the last couple hours and they joined in on the fun at Sports Works. On the way home it started to rain so I turned on the wiper in the back where both boys were sitting, facing backward.  Our car is falling apart and the back panel keeps falling off and at this point all the mechanics of the hatch door are exposed, especially the wiper arm.  As we pulled into our garage, Henry gets the bright idea to stick his left pointer finger into a hole in the mechanical arm of the wiper blade and in so doing, almost sliced off his finger.  He had a deep wound that went from just below his cuticle diagonally under his nail bed and slicing into his skin.  When I opened the back to let the boys out, Henry was holding his bloody finger in his other hand and looked at me saying, " I stuck my finger in the hole and I just didn't know!" I felt so horrible for my sweet Birthday boy! I rushed him into the house, rinsed it, and as I rinsed I realized just how deep it was. I wrapped it up in tissues and tape and called Justin to come home.  He arrived home quickly with supplies and examined the patient.  He decided to take him for an x-ray at the Children's Hospital (no break) and came home to finish the repair.  Complete with gloves, tools, a couple beautiful assistants and some freezer paper as a sterile surface, Justin was ready to go.  I held Henry on my lap with Gammie Lynn holding his arm as Justin injected lidocane into his finger quite a few times.  Henry cried, but didn't really pull his arm back or freak out like I had expected him to do and was so brave.  After his finger was numb, Justin was free to do the surgery.  He removed the nail and put four or five stitches across his nail bed and then reinserted his nail into the cuticle, which assists in the new nail growing back.  Justin commented that this surgery was even more complicated than any of the other surgeries he had done that day.  The whole time Henry was content to boss Kaitlin and Wee-o on the proper techniques to navigate through levels of Little Big Planet and had little interest in the bloody stump of a finger his dad was working on.  Justin wrapped it all up and then we ate linguine with meat balls for dinner and a Hazelnut cake with dark chocolate coating on top, opened presents and let the kids eat some candy and it was a wonderful Birthday!

Recent pic

He looks so grown up to me.  I can totally see how he's going to look as an adult in this picture.  So handsome!

Do you Strew?

I got this idea to "strew" the other day by leaving things out for Henry and Bea to find to see if they're interested in them and it works! It's an actual technique to indirectly teach.  I feel like I can keep them busy when I feel like putting things out, not when I'm in the middle of feeding Clementine or doing the dishes or cooking.  I finally have some control around here!   Henry found a note pad and pencil I left out and decided to make treasure maps and instructions on how to make a tent, which took him about a half hour to create and then we went on a treasure hunt and made his tent, only after following his very detailed and numbered instructions and then we had a Birthday party in the tent.  The most fun part of our treasure hunt was when after we found the loot we all hugged each other and jumped and chanted, "we're rich!, we're rich!" Both kids were laughing hysterically and so was I.  Henry is so much fun!

Chia Head

 I usually regret paying $2.50 for these cheap toys at Target but I got one for our trips in September and even though it popped almost immediately Henry enjoys making it look like he has a Chia head. 

Hen on the run

Henry has been so busy traveling with his family and getting to know his aunt Lucy who has been living with us. Since the last post we have traveled to Puerto Rico, Lake Tahoe, Boston, NYC, CT, Block Island, and Amish Country. In-between trips we have tried to get the house ready to sell and have been doing numerous holiday crafts, activities and cooking fabulous meals...which cuts significantly into blogging time. Look for back blogs soon!

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Blogging hiatus

Many factors have played into not blogging for so long, but mostly because I have a new phone and now I don't have to sit down and email all night so i don't sit and blog anymore.  Also, I don't watch TV anymore and I'm getting up super early to exercise, but the main reason I'm not blogging is that I am so far behind! I just got home recently from a 5 week trip and now my sister is living with me and there is just too much to say.  Anyway, just thought I would say something to get me back on track.  Everyone is alive and doing well!

Caribbean in WV?

Yes folks, you heard right.  I think I'm falling in love with West Virginia despite what I originally thought of it.  I guess the only thing I knew was this joke....How do you know that the tooth brush was invented in West Virginia?   Answer: Because if it was invented anywhere else it would have been called a "teeth" brush.  I know, so funny.   Anyway, West Virginia is absolutely beautiful and every time we go down there for an outdoor adventure we are amazed at it's natural beauty and variety.

 Do you see Justin way up there?

This is where we went last weekend.  It's called Summersville Lake and the water is super warm and the lake is pretty clear so we snorkeled, did deep water solo rock climbing, kayaked, paddle boarded and played on the beach with the kids and our friends.  We even camped on a super sloped site with tons of neighbors and bathrooms/showers just to be near this lake(which I didn't use more than once.  That's part of the fun of camping-- no showers or toilets) I think this lake is owned by the Army Core of Engineers or something because it's totally undeveloped and you can't even rent a speed boat at this lake even though you can bring your own.  This limits the amount of people on the lake and we felt like we had it all to ourselves on our little pontoon boat.

We also checked out river rafters on New River Gorge and drove across what was until just recently the longest steel suspension bridge in the world.  From 1977 until 2003 it was the longest and highest bridge of it's kind in the world but France and China built some others that broke the record, but it's still up there in the top few and was pretty spectacular to see and drive across.

Our friends Christi and Dave were with us and Christi's parents joined up with us for a day and half which was wonderful because they watched the kids while we had some fun(for the first time in so long for me!)  It was a slightly painful drive but we hope to return next spring, hopefully with our other friend's speedboat!

Drama I didn't ask for

Today was a wild day.  I took my kids to my friend's house to watch while I took a scuba diving course in the morning/early afternoon and then I came back to Gulzat's house to be at a discussion with the missionaries who got lost and never showed up, then Henry wanted to go to soccer practice, but wouldn't participate (like last time) because the shirts Stef made weren't blue and then the missionaries showed up an hour and a half after they said they would and asked if they could come tomorrow, which I can hardly do because I have my other half of the course tomorrow and have to go to Costco to get diapers and food for my friend who just had a baby today.  Then I took my kids home, got some food, rushed out the door to get some gardening supplies for the YW activity tonight, buy a new charger for my portable DVD player (that still doesn't work) and pick up my CSA(community supported agriculture) box(vegetables are taking over my fridge) and while turning to get on the freeway I ran into the curb(around an illegally parked car) and shredded my tire and had to wait for Justin to arrive to help me.  While I was waiting, another woman did the exact same thing I did and she held my baby while I searched for her spare tire and tried undoing the lug nuts, which we couldn't do and many passing homeless men and strangers asked to help, the most notable was a drunk, one legged black man who had just gotten out of the hospital from having three stents put in his heart driving a power chair.  He was bouncing up and down on the wrench with his only good leg trying to get it to budge with no luck.  I couldn't believe what I was seeing.  One homeless man kept asking me for money and I gave him the hamburger I bought for Justin since I was out of food, except for raw vegetables, and my kids were screaming to be let out of the car on a busy street with drunks everywhere.  Then another drunk man came by and said he knew someone with a tow truck who could help us and he loosened the nuts for us for free.  Yea!  While I was out of the car, Henry and Bea destroyed my car with chicken nuggets and ketchup. Justin finally got there, I transferred all my stuff and the kids to his car, rushed up to the church while Bea was torturing the baby until she was screaming her lungs out and did my gardening activity with the YW and then I came home, gave my dirty kids a bath, put them to bed and I've been studying for my scuba class until one in the morning and I have to wake up in 5 hours.