My Little Miss Megan is Seven!!!

Seven years ago today my first baby was born :) We had waited five years for her to show up and she was such a blessing!

We found out she was on her way around Valentine's day. We had started fertility treatments the previous year, then the doctors discovered a tumor the size of a grapefruit in one of my ovaries and everything had to be put on hold for a while. I had surgery to remove it and the doctors told us to wait for six months and then come back to start the fertility treatments again. They had told us that our chances of being able to conceive at all were very low, so we were talking about adoption, but wanted to try the treatments first. We went back in after six months. The doctor did an ultrasound to insure that everything was ok and I didn't have any more cysts. The screen was turned away from me, but Rob could see it. The ultrasound stated and the doctor swore. Rob started crying and I was a bit freaked out. Then the doctor said "there's a BIG baby in here!" We were 16 weeks pregnant. Everyone in the room was in tears :)

Megan took her time getting here. I dilated to 3cms by 36 weeks and the OB kept saying "we'll make the appt for next week, but I don't think you're going to make it!" They finally decided to induce me at 41 weeks. Christy was home from college and staying with us. She and I went out to Olive Garden the night before my induction. Rob, Christy and I headed off to the hospital the next morning. By the time I was settled in and hooked up to the monitors, they discovered that I was already having contractions and was now at 4cms. We discovered that we had forgotten several things at home and since the doctor assured us that it would be a long day - she said probably 18 hours at least - we sent Rob home to pick up what we had forgotten and to take a nap. An hour later the contractions were 2 minutes apart and the nurse told Christy to call Rob if he wanted to be there for the birth. Rob came flying back to the hospital. Around 2pm the doctor came in to see how I was doing. She checked and barked "squeeze your legs together! I've got to get everything ready!" Less than 15 minutes later Megan had arrived. We had not completely decided on a name yet. When she was born my first thought was that she should be named Kylie, but Rob quietly said "no, that's Megan" and he was right :) I remember being wheeled down the hall from the delivery room to my hospital room with Megan in my arms and wondering how people could still be functioning as if the world was the same - it had changed so much for me :)

I love you Miss Megan! You are such a blessing in our lives and I am so glad you joined us seven years ago!

Megan at six weeks old - people who think babies can't smile until they are older never met Megan :)


One year old - Go Red Sox!!!


Two years old - such a good big sister!


Playing dress up with Kylie shortly after our move to TX - age 3 ~


More dress up - age 4 ~


Holding her new baby brother - age 5 ~


In her birthday ensemble from Aunt Molly - age 6 ~


Piggy back ride for Jack - age 7 ~

Boys are from Mars . . .

On Monday while playing outside I noticed a chrysalis hanging from the tip of our garden hose. I called the kids over to look at it. Then lower on the hose we noticed a caterpillar starting to create a chrysalis. Very cool! So I ran inside for the camera. I took a picture of the completed chrysalis, but just as I went to snap a picture of the caterpillar, Jack came running up and knocked it off the hose with a shovel. While I appreciated his desire to protect me, I tried to explain to him that he did not need to kill everything that moved. Ten minutes later he came over to me with this stuff all over his hands. He had squashed the chrysalis. *sigh* Boys are so different! The girls and I had a wonderful conversation about how caterpillars become butterflies, then they went off leaving the chrysalis and caterpillar alone. Jack's instinct was to attack one and take the other one apart.


We have spent a lot more time playing outside since Simon's arrival. Granted that may be due in part to the odd change in weather (the temperatures have dropped dramatically this week because of storms we've had), but I think it's mostly because of Simon. There have been several changes due to Simon. The downstairs is staying cleaner as the kids learn that toys and stuffed animals left on the floor might get chewed, we've gone on family walks almost every day, the kids' sleep schedule is almost back to where it needs to be for school as they have been waking up early to see the dog and then crashing at night because they are tired from running around in the yard. Rob and I are thinking this is a good thing :)

Simon has gotten a bit more enthusiastic as the days go by and he is not taken back to the vet he was boarded at. He LOVES playing outside and just running around, rolling in the grass, or chasing bugs. He is making friends with the dogs next door and they run up and down along the fence playing with each other. He is still pretty well behaved for a puppy and only had a few accidents the first day or two - mostly due to Rob's or my inexperience at dealing with dogs (not leaving him out long enough or not letting him out without kids hanging onto his collar). He thinks the cats are great and would love to play with them, however they do not share his enthusiasm and spend their time shooting us dirty looks and hanging out where Simon can't get them. Megan is really doing a great job of taking care of him. She makes sure he gets fed, takes things away when he gets a hold of things he shouldn't, refills his water dish, and sleeps next to his crate at night on a little mat. She even makes sure the back yard stays cleaned up. Her sense of responsibility really amazes me. She definately deserves her dog!



Kylie pushed Beth on the swings the other day. I thought it was sweet and snapped a picture :)


The kids have been so active lately, they are really tired at night. Last night after their bath, Jack and Beth fell asleep watching tv. Notice Jack's shoes (on the wrong feet) - he LOVES wearing shoes and puts them on himself.


On a completely different note, remember the haircut I gave Rob a few weeks ago? Well after the fact I was told that the missionaries had told Rob if they had five baptisms, he needed to get a military haircut. He got that haircut just a few weeks after the fifth baptism - lol :) I swear I had no idea :) Rob has actually decided he likes having short hair. It's much easier to take care of. I don't think we will go quite that short again, but I think his hair is going to stay on the short side.

Happy belated birthday Rob!

My amazing and wonderful husband's birthday was yesterday :) He took the day off work and we tried to have a day doing just what he wanted to do. We slept in (although he let me sleep in later then him) and took the morning easy, then got stuff crossed off our to-do list. We cleaned out the minivan (which really, really needed it!), took our old paint cans to the place that disposes of them, and stopped by Whole Foods. We don't have a Whole Foods market near us, and even though we like our little farmer market store, Whole Foods has a bigger selection, so it's nice to go sometimes. We got pizza for dinner (with whole wheat crust) and an all natural version of Dr. Pepper. He didn't get much for his birthday as his present was the Andrea Bocelli concert we attended last month, but I got him a little hand held version of Guitar Hero - a Wii game he enjoys (but we don't have a Wii, hence the hand held version).

In his honor, I include various conversations I overheard between him and the kids the other day when he was playing "dinosaurs" with them ~

Rob:Don't eat ponies. Ponies are our friends. Even though they don't fulfill any useful role, we should respect them for taking up space and resources.

Meg:Ponies are for dinosaurs to eat.

Rob:You are all savages!

Kylie:Don't call me a savage!

Meg:Why did you call my daughter a savage?

Rob:Because that's what you are - you are all savages!



Rob:Look, here is a giant pink cup. I will drink of it's knowledge.

Kylie:Hey, that's my cup.

Meg:Whip, whip, whip (as her dinosaur pretends to beat Rob's)

Rob:You are just a little dinosaur - you can't be whipping people.

Meg:Well, that is my job.

Rob:You must have little dinosaur syndrome.



Rob:Don't resort to violence to solve things. That's not right. Everyone should love each other. Can't we all just get along?



Meg:If you do not like horses, then tell your mom you are going to die.

Rob:What?!? Good grief!

Kylie:tell you mommy you are getting a whooping



Rob:My name is Spiny. I take the middle of the road on everything. I have no backbone.



Meg:Is somebody coming over to your house for dinner? Because we have a really big horse that is bigger than the dollhouse.

Simon says Happy Birthday Megan!

This first picture is Beth and Jack reading together :) I love pictures like this!



Megan has been asking for a dog for months and months and months. We told her that she couldn't have one because a dog is a lot of responsibility and the kids needed to learn to clean up their toys better and help out around the house more. She took us at our word and has worked and worked to do all her chores and help us any way she can. Nearly every day she would ask us if she was doing good enough to get a dog yet. We finally decided it wasn't fair not to reward her work, so we started searching for the perfect dog. There were several that didn't pan out, but yesterday I found a dog online that seemed to fit what we were looking for. This morning Brittney came over very early and Rob and I took off for our 90 min drive to check him out (we didn't tell the kids where we were going). It was "cautious optimism" (as Rob put it) at first sight! Simon is a Catahoula Leopard Dog/German Shepard mix. For those of you who like us had never heard of Catahoula Leopard dogs, they are hunting dogs that originated in Louisiana. They are very smart and often used in law enforcement or as herders or hunting dogs. They are laid back, but friendly. Simon is on the smaller side - he was born in Feb and weighs about 20 lbs now. When we walked into the vet office where he was being boarded (he was rescued by a pair of women who do private rescues from high kill shelters), all the other dogs got very excited and barked and barked. Simon wriggled and was very happy to meet us, but stayed pretty calm. He doesn't jump on people and he is an amazingly laid back puppy, but he loves to play. He is already 100% housebroken (the first thing the receptionist said when we told her who we had come to meet is "oh, he's such a sweet dog - and amazingly potty-trained!" which was music to my ears), neutered and has all the shots he needs until he turns one. He also came with a microchip. We loaded him in the car, where he slowly wormed his little head and paws forward until they were resting on Rob's lap, and drove him home.

The kids were thrilled! The cats were not. Simon just ignores the cats though, so I'm sure they'll get used to him soon. He is so gentle with the kids, but rolls and rolls in the grass. You can almost see him laughing as he enjoys playing and not having to be in a cage. His mother was brought to a pound with him and his brother when he was tiny, so he's never had a home - just cages in shelters or the vet's office he was boarded in. It seems to be going really, really well (but on the off chance it doesn't, the lady we got him from will take him back).

Officially Simon is Megan's birthday present and so after we got home, Brittney and I took Megan to Walmart to get his tag made (he came with the name Simon - we debated changing it, but it seems to fit him) and buy him toys and treats. Did you know they make organic dog treats??? We were very excited :)






Rather than spending tons of money, we found a used crate on craigslist and Megan helped pay for it with the money she got for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa Knowlton. We have my brother's dog's old water bowls and leash, so it was fairly inexpensive to get started :) Megan has decided she is sleeping on the floor next to his crate (we are crating him at night for the first few weeks).

The kids are enjoying the crate as well ~

Jack fighting and a Beth update

The above video was taken by Susie during her visit. Jack is such a ham! He loves to make us laugh :) He ends every "fight" by falling down and then looking over to make sure we laugh.

I took Beth back to the ENT today. She still had an ear infection when we took her back to the pediatrician for her check up last week, so they sent us back to the specialist. They did a hearing test first, which she passed fortunately. We're so glad that her ear problems have not affected her hearing! It was difficult for the nurse to do the test as Beth absolutely refused to co-operate on any level. Any time the nurse was in the sound room with us, Beth kept her hands clamped firmly over her ears. Poor baby - she's gone through so much pain :( After her hearing test, the dr checked her ears. Because of how much her ears have hurt, Beth no longer quietly lets anything anywhere near her ears. I had to pin her legs in mine and hold her arms and a nurse held her head just so the dr could look. Turns out it was a good thing that we brought her in. She didn't just have an ear infection, she has a hole in her ear drum. The tube is gone, but either it didn't heal after the tube came out or more probably it ruptured when she got an ear infection and is not healing on it's own. Apparently the hole has to stay for a year before they operate on it. Right now it is a fairly small hole that can be fixed by a fairly simple and quick surgery. If she gets another infection, it can get bigger and if that happens, the surgery to fix it will be MUCH more invasive, so we need to keep water out of that ear completely. She needs to wear ear plugs in that ear any time there is a chance she will get water in her ear - baths, showers, pools, sprinklers, etc. At least it's just one ear. Her left ear looks perfect.

On a side note, I came home from the ENT appt to find that Brittney, Megan and Kylie (don't know if Jack helped at all) had cleaned the whole downstairs!!! Brittney even moved all the chairs and vacuumed and swept the kitchen floor!!! It was one of the best surprises I've ever had :) Having Brittney as a friend has been such a blessing! The kids absolutely love her and I am constantly amazed by her patience and love for them :) Thank you Britt!!!

Susie's visit, Jack's eye, and other recent events

I keep meaning to spend an hour or two actually writing an update, but for some reason, things keep happening and somehow I never have the time. I will try my best to sum up the last two weeks before I forget it all :)

My youngest sister, Susie, came to visit us for about a week and a half. She is one of the kids' favorite people in the whole world and they were thrilled to have her here (I was too of course!). We didn't do anything out of the ordinary; we still went to the gym every other day. We tried to get a pass for Soos, but since she wasn't 18 yet, we couldn't, so the kids were allowed to decided whether to stay with Soos or go to the kid's center. Kylie always picked the kid's center. Jack went to whichever he heard about first. Meg and Beth always stayed with Soos. We went swimming at the town pool on days when we didn't go to the gym.

Brittney and Jack ~


Jack swimming by himself (with ever-watchful Brittney near by!) ~


Susie swimming with the three girls ~


The girls got into a horrible habit of staying up insanely late. Even when we put them to bed early, they would sneak into each other's rooms. One night I could not find Beth. Kylie was asleep on Meg's floor, Meg was asleep on my floor, Jack was in his crib, but I didn't see Beth anywhere. I finally found her. Can you?


Here is a view from the top :) What a goof! Notice she fell asleep holding books :)


Megan found a recipe for a "fruit flower" somewhere and decided we needed to make it. We bought a fresh pineapple, red apples for the petals, green apples for the leaves and cherries for the stem.

Kylie with her fruit flower and Jack with the what remained after he ate each piece as soon as I put it on his plate ~


Beth decided it was not necessary to make her fruit into a flower, but enjoyed eating the fruit. Sometimes she seems so serious and almost austere, then she surprises me by doing something like singing made up songs to herself at the top of her lungs in the town pool ~


Megan eating her fruit flower ~


What would have been a super cute picture of Jack if the flash had gone off, oh well! ~


Every night the girls begged Soos to sleep with them. She usually did, just because she's that kind of aunt :) One night I checked on Meg before going to bed and Soos, Meg and Beth were all in Megan's twin-sized bed ~


Kylie was conked out on the chair next to the bed ~


While Susie was here, the deadline for her to register for her first semester of college arrived. She could register at midnight, but midnight mountain time, so 1am here. She and I stayed up and we spent midnight to 1am figuring out her schedule and which class times and teachers she wanted.

Watching her cell phone, waiting for 1 am so she could hit the "register for class" button! ~


Well, we got into one class immediately and then the site sort of stopped working. Too many other future freshmen apparently had the same idea we did. We spent quite a bit of time waiting for web pages to come up ~


We decided to put our waiting to good use and I taught Soos to play Farkle (a dice game sort of like Yahtzee) on Facebook ~


Yay!!! We actually got into all the classes she wanted!!! ~


Tuesday was Susie's last night here and Jack decided to make it interesting by jumping off the couch, over the cushions Rob put on the floor next to the couch to stop jumping children from getting hurt and into the ottoman face first - or rather eye first. That boy! He does not get this from ME! When the cut was still bleeding two hours later, we took him to urgent care (which I have decided we are using whenever possible instead of the ER as it was faster and our co-pay was much less). Jack had lots of fun waiting for his turn. He climbed on chairs and tried to lock the door to the urgent care center with my car keys and charmed all the nurses and most of the patients. He loved the doctor, who was very young (or maybe that's a sign that I'm getting old???) and very friendly. The doctor decided he didn't need stitches this time, told us it was a very good thing we sold the trampoline considering our son's penchant for doing things like cutting his lip open or face planting into ottomans, and gave us some details about how to tell when a cut needs stitches or not, information I'm sure will be very helpful in the future :) Jack looks like he was in a boxing match, but he seems fine and it doesn't seem to bother him. It looks kind of bad though ~






Other recent events that I have no pictures for include . . .

~ Me getting a kidney stone on Saturday night. Rob took incredible care of me and a friend helped out by teaching my Sunday school class at the last minute so I could stay home and rest all day Sunday.

~ My summer term of school starting and with it my third class, Family Therapy Theories and Methods. It was a bit difficult getting back into the swing of school work after having a month off, but I am finding the class fascinating! I know nothing about the various theories and for the first time in my life I had to actually read the text book chapters to complete the assignment (I usually just find the section that talks about whatever the assignment is about). This week we are studying the difference between individual psychology and cybernetic methods of therapy. Individual psychology is much more Lockean in that it takes a very "cause and effect" approach. Cybernetic theories are more Kantian as they believe that you learn more by studying not only each element, but how each element affects others and is affected by others - more of a circular approach. We have also been studying the various "founding leaders" of family therapy and I have decided I really like Virginia Satir as her whole method is so positive. Any one who is interested in having a more in-depth discussion on these topics, let me know!

~ We got a wedding invitation/announcement from a missionary that we became very good friends with, Elder Larson. He is getting married tomorrow in a temple near his house to his girlfriend, who waited for him for two years as he served his mission :) We are very excited for them and wish we could be there! Good luck Brad and Amy!!!

Reverse the Curse!

I have decided I am cursed - at least for the past few days I have been. It started Thursday night after Rob got home from work. We have been trying to organize our house and donate things we don't need to try and eliminate clutter. Rob's chosen project for Thursday night was the storm closet, which holds all our food storage, but still needs to be clear enough for all of us to fit somewhat comfortably when the tornado sirens go off. Rob cleared the whole closet out, then reorganized the whole space. He called me in at the end to show me what he had done. Part of our food storage is quite a few 50 lb bags of wheat (I keep meaning to get an electric grinder so I can use it, but we have a hand held one that would work if there was an emergency at least), which we have stacked along one edge to form sort of a seat that historically we have had the kids on. Rob and I wanted to make sure an adult would fit up there now since that would make things more comfortable. I fit, but as I started getting down, we heard a sound that confused me for a minute as I wasn't sure how a waterfall got into the closet. It was more of a wheat-fall, not a waterfall as 50 lbs of wheat cascaded through multiple rips to the floor. We had to take every single thing back out of the closet to make sure we got every grain of wheat. It took several hours. Most of the wheat is now in large, sturdy plastic buckets rather than bags.

Rob had Friday off work and had discovered the night before that our Norton Antivirus program wouldn't open or run any scans, so Friday morning I called Norton tech support. The tech couldn't figure out what was going on, so he had me log into an online program that allowed him access to my desktop so he could try and fix it. I don't know what the heck he did, but he restarted the computer and managed to freeze it in safe mode, although he did something else too, because we can't access any of our programs or do anything else except turn it on and scroll through Microsoft's help menu. A friend who fixes computers very generously came over and spent several hours trying to fix it. He determined that we are going to have to replace the whole operating system. So what we assumed would be a pretty simple call into Norton resulted in a six hour ordeal that left us without a computer (my sister lent us her laptop, so that is how I'm online) and having to buy new parts for our computer (yes, I called Norton again and they reimbursed us for the product and I will call again when we know how much the computer will be, although I am not going to use our priority number as when I do, they don't answer our calls).

In between the hours we spent on the phone and watching our friend try to fix the computer, I baked our traditional 4th of July cake (Rob is working all day today at his second job, so we had our 4th celebration yesterday) for the kids to decorate. The cake turned out fine, but I burned my hand pretty badly taking it out of the oven. Things could have been worse :) Aloe is awesome, although I would strongly suggest not getting aloe that has green dye in it as it dyed my hand green. Every 4th of July we bake a cake, top it with whipped cream and let the kids decorate it with blueberries and raspberries. Last year Jack "helped" (by which I mean he ate berries while watching until he grabbed a handful of whipped cream and cake and I removed him from the area :) ), but this was his first year really helping. We always get large containers of the berries as we know that at least half of them will end up in the kids' mouths. All of them had a lot of fun!





Jack had lots of fun sticking the berries as far into the whipped cream and cake as he could ~


And then licking the whipped cream off his fingers. Good thing the cake was just for family! ~


The finished product with the artists ~


For dinner we had homemade hamburgers. After watching an episode of "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" about burger joints the other night that made our mouths water, I decided to try my hand at making a killer burger. I seasoned the meat and then added chopped onions and grated cheese (a sharp Irish cheese). The burgers turned out fantastic! I made homemade baked fries to go along with the burgers, but of course even though I put them in to cook 45 mins before starting the burgers, they still weren't done until 30 mins after the burgers were done, so we had two dinners sort of. I even made fry sauce for the fries (which for those of you who have never lived in ID is mayo and ketchup combined).

After dinner and dessert, we went to go see our town's fireworks. We took the back roads through the industrial park near the town park that they set them off at and parked about a mile or so away. We only walked a little bit - just until we found a promising-looking stretch of grass in front of one of the companies that had a clear view. The kids seemed a bit bored with it all.







Then friends of ours from church showed up with their two little girls and things got more fun :) Meg, Kylie and Jack ran around with their oldest, Sydney, who is about a year younger than Kylie. Beth sat on my lap. Once the fireworks started the four kids that had been running around had lots of fun clapping at the fireworks and jumping up and down in excitement and doing something that looked like playing musical chairs on the grass and curb. Sydney's dad said it was difficult to watch the fireworks because it was so funny to watch the kids ~


The most recent victim of my curse is Rob's head. This morning I gave Rob a haircut. I always start by using the clippers (with attachment) to trim the sides, then I even it out and trim the top with scissors. Well I started cutting and realized that I hadn't put the attachment on the clippers, so Rob had a swathe of completely shaved skin running up the side of his face. After an emergency call to Molly (times like these I am very grateful to have a sister who is a stylist!), I gave him a sort of military style haircut which incorporated my mistake while still leaving as much hair as possible. Molly assured us that it grows out in about two weeks ~




Rob cavalierly offered to tell people he was trying out a new haircut due to the heat so I didn't need to tell people I messed up, but obviously I decided against that approach. I'm sure we will laugh about it soon and I hope it's bringing smiles to the faces of our family and friends :)

Rob did remark before he left for work that he would advise me not to try any more projects (like the closet or the Norton issue or the haircut), especially regarding things like auto repair as I'd probably blow up the house with my current streak of luck . . .

A Few More Candids . . .

The kids kidnapped the camera again :)

Kylie posing in her winter coat, which is one of her favorite outfits to dress up in. The kids will put on their winter coats and "go to Massachoosis" (Massachusetts) or "go to Orgagin" (Oregon) ~


Jack playing with the dollhouse stuff near a house the kids built with their blocks ~


Meg playing doctor ~


I love this picture :) Jack giving Megan a "what the heck are you doing???" look ~


But see, he really was enjoying playing house or whatever they were playing :) ~


Piggy back ride for Jack! ~


Kylie cracks me up. Don't know where she got this gene from (*cough*Becca*cough*) ~


A very "Beth" face ~