Boogey Down

We own the movie, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - the one from the sixties that's on TV all the time around Christmas time. Sadie ADORES it. Especially the special features - there are a couple of music videos that have that same clay, stop-action kind of stuff. One of the videos is Destiny's Child (back when they were still together), singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Micah loves to dance to that song. It's pretty cute. In this video, he danced just for the first few moments, and then got shy. But I still wanted to put it up here:

Little Ponies with Special Powers

My mom and I got Sadie some My Little Ponies DVD's for her birthday last year - one is the My Little Pony Movie, circa 1985. The other one is several episodes from the My Little Pony TV series, also circa 1985. These things are hilarious to watch. When one of the ponies is talking, you can hear the voice, but the lips kind of just move up and down, and not really in sync with the words that are being said. And the plots are really, really ridiculous. We are so spoiled nowadays, aren't we? But Sades still loves the movies and watches them often.

Dyls was watching an episode with Sadie, and there was an editing mistake. This pony was standing on one side of the screen, and in a split second, it was on the other side of the screen. Dylan gasped, "Mom, that Little Pony can teleport!!! Awesome!!!"

Auntie Versary, 2010 Edition

Oh, poor Ben. Every time he tries to surprise me on a special occasion, I mess it up. Never intentionally. It was our 9th wedding anniversary a month ago, and this year, it was my mom who accidentally ruined the surprise. Maybe four or five days before our official anniversary date (Ben let me at least know that our date was going to be on a Saturday), Mom was over, making those necklaces, and the kids were asking if they could go to her house. She said, "Not tonight, but on Saturday night, I'm going to spend the night here all night long!!!" I gave her a shocked look, and she goes, "Oh, you didn't know??? Oh, I feel so bad! Don't tell Ben!!" So I kept the secret all week long. I'm proud of myself for that.





Our anniversary proper was the Wednesday before our big date. I had told Ben that I wanted him to finish our bedroom closet as my anniversary present, and he delivered:

"Did your man deliver, or did he deliver?" "My man delivered." What movie are those quotes from? Ten points, baby. It's so nice to have a place to hang up clothes. I'm loving it.





I got Ben some dress pants that he had requested. He was so obsessed over his stupid video game that he wouldn't even pause to pose properly, so I threw the pants on his shoulder and shot the dang picture:

Ben jumps quickly from addiction to addiction, so he has left behind his stupid video game at this time. Now he is obsessed over that show, Dexter. He's watching every single episode online. Sheesh.





Ben also got me some mums:

They were gorgeous. And they thrived in their vase for FOUR WEEKS. I kid you not. I have never had cut flowers live that long. I couldn't believe it. They are tenacious suckers. I'm soooo planting those in my garden this year. I'm a fan of tenacious flowers. No rose gardens for me, thanks.





And then he got me the greatest gift of all - two almond truffles and Black Dutch fudge from Sarah's Candy Cottage:

Oh my gosh. I haven't ever bought any truffles from them, because they're like $1.50 for one little chocolate. But these were like a carnival in my mouth!!! And of course, the Black Dutch fudge was amazing, as usual. And yes, I know I look gross in the above picture. But I felt gross. No makeup. On the couch all day. It was one of those days. Wait. Every day is one of those days.





I gave each of the kids a sliver of my fudge. Dylan and Sadie have tried it before, but this was Micah's first time, and he was in hog heaven:

So, for the rest of the evening of our Anniversary Proper, I lay on the couch and we all watched TV. The Money Pit was on, which was so funny.

I love that show soooo much. And then That Darn Cat was on. Love that show, too.

A little story about The Money Pit. I went out for milkshakes with my friends, Pats and Megs. They asked what Ben and I did for our anniversary, so I told them, capping off with the mention of watching The Money Pit.

Pats: What's The Money Pit?

Megs: Yeah. I've never heard of it.

Me: You know, that 80's movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long?

Pats: Well, I know who Tom Hanks is...

Megs: I'm still drawing a blank on the movie.

Pats: Who is Shelley Long?

Me: You know, she was the first girlfriend of Sam the Bartender on Cheers??

Megs: I think maybe I've seen five minutes of Cheers once, but I don't remember who Sam the Bartender is.

Me: Her name was Diane! She was really prim and proper, and Sam was kind of free-spirited... One of the best romantic match-ups on TV!!

Pats: What else has Shelley Long been in?

Me: Ummmm.... Troop Beverly Hills! You know, Troop Beverly Hills??

[Blank stares]

I am really old.

And I took a little bit of poetic license with that dialogue, girls. I don't remember who said what. But it's pretty close to our conversation, no?

And, just FYI, I tried curling my hair the other day, and it ended up looking just like Shelly Long's hair in that movie poster. Not cool. I am so hating my hair!!!

Okay. So on to our big anniversary date. Saturday morning came, and Ben said, very nonchalantly, "Hey, let's go to an afternoon movie and dinner for our anniversary, and then call it a night." "Okay," says I, also very nonchalantly. When it was almost time to leave for the movie, I went to grab my toothbrush in the bathroom. Ben had already secretly packed it! Cute man. But he had forgotten my pills. And my contact case and saline and glasses. So I grabbed those things and shoved them into my purse, incognito.

We drop the kids off at Mom's and go to Sherlock Holmes. I am so in love with Robert Downey, Jr. Have been, ever since I saw him in Chaplin. Another movie Pats and Megs probably haven't seen. Because I am old and they are young. I'm dying to see Sherlock Holmes again. It was fantastic.

In the middle of the movie, my cell phone rings. It's a new cell phone, so I couldn't figure out how to turn off the ringer, and I had forgotten to try to figure that out before the movie started. But then I saw it was Mom calling, so I ran out of the theater and answered it. She told me that Sadie had a 103-degree temperature. She said to come get her and take her to the doctor when we were done with our movie.

On our way to Mom's, after the movie, Ben finally divulged to me his plan to whisk me away to some Bed and Breakfast up by Heise. I delivered an award-winning performance of being shocked and excited. Well, I didn't have to fake the excitement part. He was so worried that we would have to cancel our B&B reservation and that we'd lose our money or whatever. I told him to wait until we saw what was really going on with Sadie. I had a suspicion that this might be UTI, part two for Sadie, and that it would be a quick fix.

We took her to a Community Care, they diagnosed her with her second UTI, gave her some antibiotics, and her Tylenol finally started working, lowering her fever. Mom said to bring Sadie back to her house, that they should be good. Ben and I were starving by then, so after the doctor's visit, we took Sadie with us to Cafe Rio. It was such a romantic anniversary dinner. Me... Ben... and our daughter. :)

So we drop Sadie off and head for the hills. The B&B is actually four seperate little cabins, and then there's a main cabin where you eat your breakfast. Ben had arranged with the dude to just go straight to our cabin when we got there. It was a cute little thing. Two beds and a bathroom. And a one-foot-by-one-foot TV that was like 15 feet away from one of the beds. :) It was like 8:30 when we got there, so we were like, let's see what's on TV. They didn't have cable. But they did have a VCR to go with their munchkin TV, and a selection of five VHS movies to choose from. Movies of high calibur. Award winners. Like The Nutty Professor: Meet the Klumps - Unrated version. Things like that. They did have Independence Day there - our best choice of the five - so we watched that. Then, when the movie was over, it was like ten o'clock, and we were like, "Well... hm. I guess we'll go to sleep??" It was funny. I secretly did the contact changing and the pill taking, not wanting to ruin that I had known all along what was going on.

Breakfast the next morning was incredible. Belgian waffles, fresh strawberries, homemade whipped cream, and homemade buttermilk syrup. I've never heard of buttermilk syrup before, but oh my gosh. What a revelation. It was incredible. I need to get a recipe for that.

So. That was our anniversary. It turned out to be pretty great, in spite of everything. Thanks, Ben, for such a great anniversary. Even though you never read my blog, so you won't see this. Thanks, Mom, for baby-sitting. (It ended up being a long, hard night with my kids. Bless her heart.) I know you read my blog sometimes, so maybe you'll see this. :)

Anti-Lutheran

Weeeeeellllll, we had our 12 week appointment today. And it was weird.





They did the standard blood tests three weeks ago, at my first appointment. In one of those tests, they discovered that I am now carrying an antigen (an antenna-like structure) on my blood cells called the Anti-Lutheran antigen. The most bizarre name in the whole world!!





I've been studying it all evening, and I think I finally have it figured out. Okay. Everyone has a blood type, right? A Positive, A Negative, B Positive, B Negative, etc. etc. Ben is B Positive, and I'm A Positive. There should only be problems between a woman's blood and her fetus's blood if the woman is Negative. A Negative or B Negative or whatever. So I haven't had any issues yet with any of my babies. Even if your kid is negative, as long as you, the mom, are positive, you are AOK.





However, things can change. If you receive a blood transfusion (which I haven't), OR if you give birth to a child that is Something Negative (which can happen even if both parents are positive, like Ben and I are), sometimes, during the birthing process, your child's blood can intermingle with your blood, making your blood think, forever after, that it's Something Negative. Like a positive cell putting on negative clothing. So, if your next baby is Something Positive, your dressed-up cell goes, "Oh. We are pregnant with a Something Positive baby. That's different from me. I'm confused and think I'm Something Negative. I'm going to attack this baby with my antibodies."





In plain language - this little war between my confused blood and this baby's blood could cause anemia in the baby. We have to test my blood every month to make sure my Anti-Lutheran levels remain low. If they get higher, we may have to give me this vaccine-like thing that prevents the development of more antibodies. From what I understand, that will be the worst of it. There are other antigens (Anti-Kell is the name of one of them) that are more lethal, that could require amniocentesis tests, which are risky for the fetus, or even blood transfusions directly into the fetus, inside the mother's womb. That thought makes me want to vomit. Can you IMAGINE??? The antigen I have is a "mild" one. There's mild, moderate, and high-risk ones.





So I consider myself lucky. There are all kinds of weird things we've had with some of our babies/fetuses. When I delivered Dylan, he had only one lifeline on his palm. The doctor was like, "Usually, only children with Down's Syndrome have only one lifeline on their palms." I, understandably, freaked out, but he ended up being perfectly fine. When we did the ultrasound for Sadie, she only had one umbilical artery and one umbilical vein, where she should have had two umbilical arteries and one umbilical vein. Again, I freaked out, and again, she turned out fine. My amniotic fluid got dangerously low with both Dylan and Sadie, and we had to induce Sadie. Again, causing me to freak out. I work so hard to get these kiddos here that I just don't want to lose them, you know?? I'm going to try not to freak out too much with this little one. It sounds like my doc is going to keep a strong watch over me and make sure nothing gets out of hand.





And no, I'm not one hundred percent sure that Micah has Something Negative blood. I need to go look in my safe where I put all of those things they give you after you have a kid. I have a feeling he did have a negative Rh factor, but I just can't remember. So I'll get back to ya on that.





We were able to hear the baby's heartbeat again, which is a huge relief. I'm past my personal miscarriage danger zone. And I get more and more nauseated with each passing day. I'm barfing at my usual three to four times a day. It's so weird to be grateful for nausea, but there you have it. I wanted to ask my doc for Zofran today, because it's really been difficult to be so ill all day long, but with all the hubbub about my Anti-Lutheran blood, I forgot. Plus, I'm already on thyroid medicine and anti-depressants (yes, the kind of anti-depressants that are safe for fetuses). And I just added my usual pregnancy necessity of Nexium, the purple pill. The miracle drug for heartburn. I don't want to add another pill to my arsenal, you know? I want this baby to be as safe as possible. I can buck up and deal with a little bit of nausea.





Sorry for the rambling. Other medical news in our family - Sadie is UTI-free now for a couple of weeks. We went to the urologist, and he prescribed her a low-dose, two-month-long regimen of antibiotics. If she gets another UTI after finishing that, we'll have to start doing ultrasounds to further investigate. He put me on this same kind of antibiotic for six months, and since then, no UTI's for me. I haven't had one for a whole year. A miracle. I hope this drug can do the same thing for little Sadie.





And the last bit of medical news - Dylan has something fluey/vomitey. It came on very suddenly. He's been barfing all night. He's sleeping in the living room with me tonight so I can help him aim for his barf bucket, clean up his barf bucket, wipe off his mouth, etc. He can't even keep water down, poor kid. It's going to be a loooooooooooooong night. I hope he's okay.

Gimme a head of hair....

What musical is my title from? It was on TV late the other night and I nearly peed my pants, I was so excited.

Kay, so I got my hair cut a month ago or so, and I don't know how I feel about it. It's so weird - my hair was this length for like two years at the end of college and when I was dating Ben, and at the time, I adored it. So why am I not feeling it now?

Not that I liked my hair long, either. I hated it long; I hate it shoulder-length. I would probably hate it if it was shorter. I think it's a pregnancy hormonal thing. When it was long, it took like ten thousand years to do. And then I was always thinking, "Am I too old to have teenager hair?? Shouldn't I have more mommy-like hair?? Am I like those delusional ladies on The Real Housewives of Orange County???" Just a total identity crisis.

Not that I ever have time to do my new hair. But when I do it, I just think, "Does this look toooo Mommy?? Do I look like I did when I was in the 8th grade??" And I think shorter hair makes my face look even fatter. I've gotten a lot of compliments on it, but I'm just not a huge fan this time around.

And really, my hair is all I've got. My only asset. My skin looks like pizza. Or ground sausage. And I am overweight. (I'm not talking about pregnancy weight. I was like 30 pounds overweight before I got pregnant.) My clothes aren't that cute. Maybe I should work the only thing that looks decent. I don't have any grey hairs yet, and it's still very thick.

I don't know. I'm just going to let it grow until this baby comes out and the weird hormones are gone. I'm not going to do anything drastic until then.

Meat Solution

We have an indoor grill that always leaves our house smelling Major Beefy. Or Major Porky. Or Major Chickeny. We finally got the Major Beefy smell out of our house from last weekend, and I wasn't about to add Major Porkyness. So I grilled my pork outside.

The Nappy Neighbor Kids just couldn't believe I was doing this. I sat in a blanket on my porch and tended to the pork, just in case the Nappy Neighbor Kids' Nappy Dogs decided to come take some munches. I hate those dogs. They are the meanest, most anti-social dogs I have ever met. Sometimes, when the Nappy Neighbors get home, they let their dogs out in the front yard to go potty, and they growl and bark at me if I'm in my front yard. Like they've never seen me in their lives. And I think the one named Bark has some major problems in his nether region. There is something not quite right down there. Something very prominently not right. That's all I'll say about that.



I felt, sitting all bundled in a big blanket, like the Native American in this one famous painting that I remember seeing all the time, somewhere. I cannot find the painting to save my life, but it's kind of similar to this:

I have sad news, though. Our indoor grill died after my pork extravaganza. It really was falling apart anyways, and when I went to hand wash it, both handles just broke right off. I had to send it to a dumpsterey grave. It was sad. So I guess, from now on, if I want that grilled taste, I'm going to have to use the skillet on the stove and make my house Major Porky/Beefy/Chickeney from here on out. Frown.

Linus

Micah is turning into a bit of a Linus (from Peanuts). He loves to carry blankets around. And washcloths and towels. Anything fabric-ey. He especially loves the damp washcloths that hang from my oven door. What a weirdo!! He was cheesing up his blanketness to Ben the other day:

Maybe we should call him Blanket, like Michael Jackson's kid. Or not. :)

Watercolors

I mistakenly bought watercolors for Dylan last fall, and they didn't end up being on his school supply list. I kept them, though, for a rainy day.

The kids pulled them out a couple of weeks ago and painted like ten million pictures with them:

Then they proudly stuck the pictures on my fridge:

This cracks me up - Dylan painted a rainbow for me, but instead of putting "Mom" at the top, this is what he put:

Such a smart-arse.

I went to work one night, and I realized I hadn't helped Dylan do his homework. Which consists of sitting with him and saying, "Pick up the pencil you just dropped, please." "Sit down in your chair, Dylan." "Sit down, Dylan." "Butt in your seat, Dylan." "Write your name at the top, Dylan." "Name. Top. Now." "I can't read your name, Dylan. Erase it and write it so I can tell who is doing this worksheet." And so on and so forth.



It's special.



So I asked Ben to help Dyls with his homework while I was gone. When I came home, Ben was all wrapped up in watching some movie, so instead of asking Ben if he had remembered, I just peeked in Dyl's folder to make sure it got done. It's just the way it is - I have to always make sure Ben has done something I've asked. He's just a teeny-tiny bit forgetful.



This was the top of the worksheet:

And Dylan's answer to question number four:

"I don't"????? Jigga WHAT?



I asked Ben what the H. Had he even sat with Dylan while Dylan did his homework? Yes, he said. They had talked it over and both decided that was the best answer. He argued that we don't know if they're real bears. I told him that the fact that they live in a zoo means that they are real bears. And the fact that the narrator tells us that they're bears.



Ben says, "Well, what if the narrator is crazy, or is a pathological liar?"



"Ben, this is a first grade worksheet, not a high school exercise in narrator reliability."



Ben goes, "And just because they live in a zoo doesn't mean that they're animals."



"Ben, humans don't live in zoos."



"We don't know that. What if the narrator is talking about the stuffed bears in the gift shop?"


"Ben, stuffed bears don't sleep or eat."


"I stand by my answer."



He's such a smart-arse. I woke Dylan up a little early the next morning to scribble out his smart-arse answer and to have him write, in a complete sentence, "I know that they are real bears because the author tells me they are real bears."

Major Beefy

Our ward had its annual Sweetheart Ball last night, and Ben volunteered our oven to cook one of many enormous, billion-pound roasts. Seriously, it had to have been fifty pounds. I could hardly lift it down from my counter into the oven. And that sucker took four hours on 500 degrees to cook. Not joking.

The problem is, there is this little tube that goes from the inside of our oven to a place right next to the stove dials. And it blows out whatever air is in the oven, into my house. I don't know if other ovens do this or not; I just know that I can sit and see the steamy, smoky air being blown out whenever we do any kind of roasting.

Before long, my house smelled like beef. Ben was delighted by this when he came home. It just made me want to vomit all day. When I'm pregnant, me, plus meat, equals NON-true love. A week or so ago, I was trimming some fat off of some raw pork chops, and I swear I got Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from it. Bleaughhhhh..... (That is a barfing noise.)

As soon as Ben was sure the beef was all the way done, I commanded him to take it to the church. To get it away from my house. And he did. But the disappearing of the beef didn't make the smell go away. In fact, it STILL smells like I just cooked a huge roast. I can smell it on my walls. On my clothes. In my hair (even though I've washed it since then). And I know that a lot of this is my Pregnancy Bloodhound Nose. But still.

This morning, the kids came and pounced on us in bed. As I woke up, the first thing I was cognisant of was the smell of BEEF. It smelled majorly beefy. And then I giggled, because I remembered this voice that a girl I knew in junior high and high school used. She kind of used her tongue to constrict her airway a little bit, and she would sound kind of like a chipmunk when she talked like that. It's a really funny-sounding voice. She called it her "Major Beefy Voice." When she used that voice and said the words, "major beefy," they sounded really, really funny.

So when my kids pounced on me and I giggled, they said, "What?" And I said, in the chipmunk voice, "It smells major beefy in here!!" And they laughed sooooo hard. Dylan was all, "How do you DO that?" I tried to teach him, but he didn't quite get it. We all lay on the bed, and the kids would request certain phrases to be said in the Major Beefy Voice.

"Say, 'Sadie's butt.'"

[In the Major Beefy Voice] "Sadie's butt!"

[Many guffaws and giggles.]

"Say, 'Dylan's butt.'"

And on and on. So I had to say everyone's name, including Xena's name, plus "butt" afterwards. It's been hours since we got up, obviously, and Dylan is still walking around, perfecting his Major Beefy Voice. He's getting the hang of it now. I hear Sadie muttering, off and on, "Major Binkie!"

Today, we've been opening our windows for as long as we can stand it, until we're all shivering uncontrollably, and then we close them for awhile. And then open them again. Ben stuffed dryer sheets into our air intake thingeys. We went and bought a candle for our living room. And I'm seriously thinking of borrowing an air sanitizer spray from work for a couple of days. We've been scrubbing the house like crazy.

But our house still smells Major Beefy to me.

"Mom, I'm wearing my bra."

Apparently, scarf=bra.

I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow.

Yep, my title is from a song. What movie is this song on??

I think I should win the award for Worst Mom. I haven't been out to play in the snow with my kids. I feel too gross. So they play in the snow by themselves, poor things. I did go out once to snap a couple of pictures of them out there, though:

They were playing with the Nappy Neighbor Kids. The Nappy Neighbor Kids kept trying to pose for pictures, but I don't want any pictures of them. :)

Wrestle Mania!!

It's The Dylanator vs. Sadie-Ain't-No-Lady!!!

Actually, they were doing this stretching thing my mom taught them. You're supposed to be foot-to-foot, both of you with legs in a V, and you hold hands and slowly rock toward one person, and then another person. This was their own little version, and they were rocking soooo fast. It was really cute. They were giggling so hard. Sometimes they get along. Like once a year or so.

The Dispose-ALL

My mom has always pronounced "disposal" like my title - "dispose-ALL." It's just never flowed very well for me to say it like that. I say it in the boring way, I guess. :)

My parents, being The Best Parents in the World, got Ben and I a disposal for Christmas. Can I tell you how in love with it I am??

No longer do I have to dump bowls of mushy cereal down the toilet. Or creamy salads. I can put almost anything down this lovely machine. You know, except bones and forks. And my mom just learned that lettucey salad doesn't do well. And potato skins.

Anyways. Ben, being The Best Handyman in the World, knew exactly what to do to wire it all up and get it all put together. The button isn't in a very conventional spot, however. In this shot, Sadie is showing you where our disposal button is:

She makes a good Vanna White. Our disposal button is just under the lip of our counter. You see, our house was built in 1945. So our walls are brick with plaster right inside of it. There's no wall space. No drywall. No wood. No insulation. Which makes nights like two nights ago (it hit negative 2) fun for us. We couldn't shove a wire up through four feet of solid wall. So it's unconventional, but it works just fine. Until Micah discovers it. :) The older kids have left it alone, which is great.

A lot of our house is unconventional, come to think of it. We have sliding doors in our basement, instead of doors that swing, because of the lack of space. And Ben put a "wall/door" between our bedroom and the storage room. It looks like a wall, but wait! It's really a door!!! It reminds me of Versailles - it really is pretty cool. And if we ever had another Holocaust, we could hide some people in our storage room and dupe everyone! :)

Sorry; the hiding of people in storage rooms is freshly on my mind - I just finished The Book Thief. Fantastic read. I recommend it. I cried for like two hours when I finished. I do that a lot lately. Like, we watched 500 Days of Summer the other night, and I was weeping for hours afterward. You gotta love these pregnancy hormones. (500 Days of Summer looks like a fun romantic comedy - nononono. It was very, very good, but don't expect a fun romcom. That's not what it is.)

So. Vive la disposal!!

Beads for Beads

I had a bunch of beads leftover from my watch-making adventure, so I decided to make a necklace for my sis, Beads, for her birthday. (It's ironic that I made a bead necklace for my sister, who I nicknamed Beads a long time ago.) The only problem was that I didn't know how to make necklaces. :)



When we made our watches at that free class at Porter's, I asked the lady if she would teach me how to make necklaces. She was very, very kind and taught me the basics. You need a wire string to string necklaces, whereas for the watches, you use a plastic-ey string. You need to use these things called crimping beads to make your beads stay in place. All kinds of stuff.


And... drumroll please... the finished product (showcased by my very horrible, fuzzy camera shots):

Cute, huh? Beads tells me she loves it.



My madre also had extra beads from one of her watches, so she came over one day and had me coach her through making a necklace of her own:

I love my mom's reading glasses. They are seriously so cute. And that crusty look that Sadie is giving me is really funny in that shot. She was pissed that she couldn't be more involved in the process.

Voila:

My new goal is to make a necklace for myself sometime. :)

Chee-lay

For as long as I can remember, when anyone in my family talks about having chili for dinner, they say, "We are having cheee-lay!" Pronounced like Chile, the country. I wonder why we do that. But I like it.

We had a Chili night back in the first part of January. Nat made her special chili. (No one makes it quite like Nat does, and I LOVE the way she does it. I need to write it down.) Mom made the most yummy creamy cherry salad, involving sweetened condensed milk. Ohhhhh drool. Anything involving sweetened condensed milk is alright in my book. My assignment was to bring cornbread, and I was so excited for everyone to taste it - I won my ward's cornbread contest with this new recipe last fall. I cut into it, and lo and behold, it was denser than a brick. I realized that I had missed the baking powder step. It was totally and completely inedible. So disappointing!!! After all these years of cooking, I still make mistakes all the time.

Ben felt bad for his poor, pregnant, carb-craving wife, so he went out to find some rolls, but he said the rolls at Wal-Mart looked really gross. I just told him to come back - we could live carb-free for one meal. :)

After dinner, we played Phase 10. My fam has a new house rule - you can choose which phase you want to do for each hand. You look at your cards and decide which phase might be easiest to accomplish. The new house rule still didn't help me. I'm soooo bad at Phase 10!

I took some pictures of our gathering, as usual.

Ben would lift Micah way up high, and Micah would giggle and cover his eyes. I couldn't catch it on camera, though. He is soooo cute when he's happy, which is seldom:

Lexi got some nice, professional-looking clothes for her grad school interviews. Here are the adorable shoes she got:

She calls them "grown-up shoes." She's usually a moccasin kind of a gal. And guess what? She got into ISU's Physical Therapy school!! Those shoes must have done the trick. Plus the fact that she's insanely smart, has worked really hard, and kicks butt in any kind of social thing like an interview. She's a charmer. She just had another interview up in Spokane. I need to call her and see how that went. Though I will obviously be voting for ISU. Closer to home, baby.

Some more pics:

TiK ToK

My title is a song - by which singer? It's a relatively new song. Ten points, dude.

One of my Christmas presents from my madre was a certificate to Porter's to buy watch-making supplies. A perfect gift for me. I like to make stuff. Yes I do.

And can I tell you how much I love the jewelery-making section of Porter's? They have a lady in there full-time, and she can help you with anything. Because Mom and I didn't have a clue as to what to buy and where to start. And their jewelery section is also much, much larger than at any of the other local craft stores.

So we got our stuff like on a Wednesday, and then the following Saturday, they had a free class to teach us how to make them. It was surprisingly easy! And very fun. The whole time we were making our watches (it was my mom, my aunt, and I), I just kept saying, "This is way too much fun."

My mom ended up making two. This is one of them:

And here is mine!

Wow. My hand pores look really big in that picture...

I'm so in love with the connecting bar thingeys I found for mine. They match my watch face perfectly.

I got wayyy too much silver for my liking. When I make my next one someday, I'm going to cut back on the silver and use more semi-precious stones.

Gorgeous, huh? I love it. I have the watch-making bug now.

P.S. I just barfed up a bean burrito. Are you jealous??

Flarp

My kids' utmost favorite Christmas presents - the $1 Flarp that Ben got them. It feels a little bit like Play Doh, and when you squish your fingers into the flarp while it's in its canister, it makes a farting noise. HOURS of entertainment:

Mental note for next Christmas - just go to the dollar store.

Baby's Room

For the three or so weeks before Christmas, Ben was at work for like 70 hours per week. They had this deadline to meet. So I was carting the kids all around, doing Christmas stuff, and generally going out of my mind. "They'd better give Ben a Christmas bonus," thought I.

Two days before Christmas, Ben's boss gave us a certificate to the dollar theater in town. The certificate says, "A night on the town!!" You get like a thing of popcorn and two drinks, plus your dollar tickets to a movie. No sign of a bonus. I was mad. Was this our "Christmas bonus"??? "A night on the town" to a dollar movie???

Not to be a brat. At least Ben has a job. But he was putting in major hours, and he isn't paid hourly. Just salary. He was giving his all. And our family was suffering with his absence. Anywho, he actually ended up getting a Christmas bonus like a week after Christmas. It was enough to get started on another room downstairs for the baby-meister. Ben has gotten a little bit farther on the project since I snapped this photo:

He's drywalled the whole room now. We're waiting on our tax return to hire someone to tape and texture, and then to hire someone to lay carpet - two things Ben hasn't figured out how to do on his own yet.

I'm really excited to have the baby down there with us. It would be tough to sprint upstairs every time the baby cries through the night.

Though I'll have to sprint upstairs anyways, to get a bottle heated up. Yep, I am NOT BREASTFEEDING. Judge me all you like. I tried three times. I failed three times. I AM DONE. Yes, "breast is best," blah blah blah. But not when your baby is projectile vomiting your breastmilk all over the walls. Not when your baby has sucked so violently (even with a lactation consultant) that you are basically feeding her a blood-and-milk cocktail. Not when you get mastitis like seven times and you feel like you're going to die and your baby is wayyy less colicky on formula. I'm done. Done, done, done.

As far as sleeping arrangements, a few months before the baby comes, we will transfer Micah from his room/crib to the bottom bunk in Dylan's room. We'll move the crib downstairs. And hopefully buy a new bumper/sheet/skirt set. Because DANG. Ours has HAD it. Sadie will move into Micah's room and have it to herself, as an only girl (so far) should. Dylan teases her when he walks in on her changing her clothes, and it makes her really embarrassed. Time to seperate the two.

Losers from the Street, 2009 Edition

One of our favorite phrases in this household is "Loser from the Street." To read about the phrase's inception, go here. Poor Ben still has nightmares about that day in Roberts. Seriously. The other night, he dreamed about that same scenario that happened when I was pregnant with Dylan, only this time, he left me in Roberts and drove away in anger. Then, like two hours later, he felt bad and went to Roberts to pick me up, and I announced when he got there that we were getting divorced. Poor guy. Me not laughing at his lame-o joke 7 years ago really affected him, I guess. :) When he told me about the dream, and about how real it was, I reassured him that I really wouldn't mind being left at Roberts for two hours. If he huffed off in anger in real life and left me at Roberts, I would get my revenge by buying A LOT of crafting stuff. Hell hath no fury like a woman stranded in a store with her debit card.



So, on New Year's Eve Day, I couldn't believe it when Nat was like, "Let's hang out together tonight!" In '07 and '08, we were the Losers from the Street who stayed in on New Year's Eve, because no one invited us to any parties. (And let's face it; I'm too lazy to clean my house, so I never throw parties.) So I was soooooo excited. But then Sadie started to get sick that day. She barfed once, and she kept saying that her throat hurt. I was scared that what she had was communicable, so I called Nat and canceled on her. She told me that now she felt like a Loser from the Street. Sorry, Nat. I just didn't want to get your kids sick.



If I had known that this was the beginning of a month of UTI trouble, instead of the flu, I wouldn't have believed it. I don't know if the sore throat was real or not. Perhaps Sadie remembers being comforted by Vicks Vapo Rub whenever she is sick with a cold, so she asked for that. She wasn't complaining of urinary pain or anything. That came the next day. Poor girl.

Parenthetically, Sadie doesn't have a temperature today! For the first time in five days. That super-shot worked, apparently. I took her to a real pediatrician yesterday, and he put her on a really strong oral antibiotic (stronger than the one the insta-care gave her Friday, which obviously wasn't working) to last until her appointment with her urologist on the 16th. I hope we've killed that bug for good this time. And then the urologist can figure out why she keeps getting these UTI's. He's probably going to do an ultrasound and then one of those things where they stick a camera up inside and look in your bladder. Boy, is Sadie going to LOVE that. He did that for me, and it was actually really cool. I couldn't believe that I was looking inside my own bladder! And he had numbed me down there. That's all that matters.



So this is what we did on New Year's Eve at our house.



Sadie sat on the couch, miserable, with her unneeded Vicks Vapo Rub on her throat:

And a towel underneath her pillow to catch the barfies. Which oddly matched her washcloth. Weird. Do you guys put washcloths on your kids' throats after you put Vicks on them? To protect the kids' clothes? That's what my mom always did. I think it's genius. That Vicks will leave an oil stain on your clothes.



Micah ate chocolate and got it all over everything:

And Dylan played his stupid computer game:

At least he was quiet. :)



Then Ben attempted to launch his second Brazilian luminaire. This time, he used my necklace wire instead of a hanger for the bottom rim, thinking that would do the trick.



Sadie, looking miserable at the launch:

Dylan was in hog heaven. He loves being a big boy and doing experiments and helping his daddy:

Notice the holes in the knees of his jeans. Every single pair of his jeans has holes. I really need to patch 'em up. Can you help me use your sewing machine, mom??? Pretty please?? It's way too new-agey for me to understand.



It was doing much better this time, but we still couldn't get it to fly:

Ben would kind of launch it into the air, and it would slowly settle back onto the ground and just peacefully sit there:

Ben has decided that we had the wrong kind of tissue paper. He felt that this tissue paper was too thin, that it let out too much of the heat from within. He has vowed to try again. I thought for sure he'd make another attempt on our anniversary, but I think he forgot. What I really should do is buy one online as a Valentine's gift. I'll bet he would love it. Now I just have to find some money somewhere....

News of the Medical Persuasion

Sadie has gotten three UTI's in ONE MONTH. (For those of you who are blessed not to know what those are, they are Urinary Tract Infections.) Her first started on New Year's Eve. They gave her antibiotics. We gave them to her (religiously). We made sure she was wiping right. We started giving her showers instead of baths. We forced her to drink cranberry juice all the time. I've had about a billion UTI's in my life - I know the drill.

Her second UTI happened exactly two weeks later - during our anniversary date. Again, we took her to Community Care (nobody else is open on a Saturday, except for the really-expensive hospital). They gave her a new kind of antibiotic and then did a culture of her pee. She had E. Coli in her bladder - which apparently is really common for UTI's. They assured me that this time, they were going to nip it in the bud.

This last Saturday, exactly two weeks after her second bout, guess what cropped up again? This nasty, nasty UTI. They gave her an even stronger antibiotic. However, this time, her fever isn't dropping with the antibiotics. Nor with Tylenol. Nor with the Tylenol-and-Ibuprofen regimen. When her temperature jumped to 104 last night, Ben took her to Community Care AGAIN. They gave her some kind of Super Shot of antibiotics, then said to come back with her today so they could check Sadie out.

Today, I can't get rid of her temperature. It's been hovering between 100 and 101, WITH the Tylenol-and-Ibuprofen regimen. WITH the super-shot. This morning, I called Micah's pediatrician. You know, the one that saved his life when he was failing to thrive and no one else could figure out why. I begged and pleaded for him to take Sades as a new patient and told him my woes. He moved some patients around to see her today. I hope he can get to the bottom of this, because it's really, really worrying me. I'm scared she's going to have some kind of permanent kidney damage from this. Why aren't these antibiotics killing this E. Coli? Is it still E. Coli???

I do have an appointment with a urologist, but he can't get her in until the 16th. I begged and pleaded with his receptionist, but she won't budge. That's it. So we have to try to deal with this until then. Then he can see if maybe her bladder isn't emptying completely, or if her urethra is too small, or if that valve thingey that leads from the bladder to the urethra is functioning properly. Yeah, I know my stuff. I am the UTI Queen. Or was the UTI Queen, until I met this urologist. He knows what's up. I haven't had a UTI since like February. That's some kind of record for me.

Prayers requested.

On the Kar Pregnancy front, we had our first gynie appointment yesterday!! I'm nine weeks along. My little munchkin looks like this:

And SHE'S the size of a quarter. Yes, I'm going to call her She. Because I really, really need another Sadie in my life. My boys kick my butt. Sadie is calm and kind and quiet and loving and cuddly. She has been a real blessing. So I'm hoping that, by calling this little munchkin She, I'll get another Sadie. We'll see.

So. I told my gynie of my fears that this baby isn't doing so well. I really do feel gross all day long, and I WANT to throw up, but I just don't. Every now and then. But not as violently as with my other three. He told me that, just because I'm not violently ill, doesn't mean that this baby isn't viable. He checked for a heartbeat and actually found one! It's hard to find a heartbeat on my babies, because my uterus has always tilted back toward my spine. It's always tough to get a heartbeat at this juncture. However, after many, many minutes, he found one.!!!And it sounded nice and strong. I was a little relieved. I'll be extremely relieved when we pass 12 weeks and everything seems good.

Be healthy, baby. Stay with me. And be a girl. :) Or a REALLY mellow boy.

You looked like Christmas morning.

Yep, my title is a movie quote. See if you can guess it.

Dylan came down and woke us up on Christmas morning - "HEY MAMA!!! SANTA GAVE ME A DEVASTATOR!!! I'VE BEEN PLAYING WITH IT FOR LIKE AN HOUR!!" Oops. We should have reminded him, the night before, to come get us before going out to check out the Santa goods. :)



Here they are, walking into the living room:

Sadie wanted this black toy horse from Santa. She made a beeline for it and immediately gave it a bear hug. So cute:

Has she played with that black horse ever since? Nope. It's a good thing I saved up for a couple of weeks to buy it. Sheesh.

She got a Polly Pocket from her G-ma and G-pa Smith:

I think I literally spent an hour setting it up! It was complicated. Has she played with it since? Nope.

A video of Dylan with his Transformers Devastator:

Sorry that Ben hiccuped in the middle of that video. Does Dylan play with the Devastator now? Nope.

We were so lucky this year - because Sadie is in Headstart, our family was eligible for Toys for Tots. All I had to do was write down the age and sex of my kids, and we got tons of toys from them. So awesome. This is one of the toys from Toys for Tots:

Dyls hasn't touched that since Christmas Day, either. Why do we bother getting the kids anything??? I stress out about it every year. And every year, it doesn't end up mattering what the kids get. They hardly touch their toys. My goodness. I played with the toys I got when I was a kid...

Another Toys for Tots toy - a basketball:

Dyls also got a football. The other day, our annoying little neighbor boy, H.B., was playing with Dylan when he found the football. "I tink dis is my fooball," he said. (He's nine, and I can hardly understand him when he speaks.) "Nope," says I, "Dylan got that for Christmas. "But it wooks dust wike myyyy fooball dat got wost," he said. "Well, H.B., you lose a lot of your toys. Maybe you should look for it in your yard, under all that snow." Their yard is COVERED in toys. And then it snows, and they can't find any of their toys.

I'm so mean. I just kind of feel like I'm their forced baby-sitter. I have to mother them all the time. And it bugs me. I can hardly keep track of my own kids, you know? Once, Ashlynn was here, and she announced that she was "thoosty." She needs speech therapy, too. I told her to go to her own house and get a drink. She said she didn't have any drinks in her house. I told her to drink water. She paused, and then said, "We don't have any watah." "B.S., Ashlynn. You have water. Go home and drink it."

Anyways. Back to the topic at hand.



Sadie with one of her new Littlest Pet Shop animals. She actually does play with these a lot:

And she still calls them "Littlest Ketchups." I love it.



Micah got another My Little Pony, which he adores:

I love this picture, because it shows what he does all the time now - he holds onto his straw with his teeth so that both of his hands can be free. His teeth are looking a little buck because of it. He still can't get the hang of the other kind of sippy cups, though...

Dylan and his new R/C car - courtesy of Ben's dad:

This thing supposedly goes on normal ground, snow, aaaaand water! I'm excited to try it out on water this summer.

To my parents and Ben's parents - thanks for all the things you got for us and the kids. You are the BEST. Real thank-you cards are on their way. When I feel good enough to finish them. :)





Slidey-poos: