Four months!

Miss Kate, you are four months old!  The days are mighty long, but the months are flying by.

You are such a darling girl who warms our hearts on the coldest days.  This month you discovered your voice and delight us with your gurgles, coos, yelps, and screeches.  You are clearly trying to communicate. You love it when we mimic your sounds.  You are happy to be surrounded by so many people who love you, and you flash your fabulous dimpled grins whenever you see a familiar face.

Kate, you are continuing to grow!  You aren't going to be in 3-6 month clothes (or size one diapers) for long. Last week at your check-up you weighed 12 pounds, 8 ounces and were 23 inches long. You jumped from below the 3rd percentile at the end of October to the 25th percentile in mid-December!  Quite suddenly you have chubby thighs, a round belly, pudgy wrists, and a double chin.  You love your bottles and drink 4-6 ounces every 2-3 hours.  

You are showing an interest in toys.  Although you still prefer sucking your fists, you are starting to grab at toys and put them in your mouth.  Your silly mommy misplaced the box of baby toys, so at the moment your options are limited!

You sleep better some weeks than others (don't we all?).  On a good night, you'll sleep from 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. until 3:00 or 4:00 a.m.  Once you stretched that to 4:45 a.m.!  But other nights you wake up three or four times, always wanting to eat.  We know you are still catching up, growth-wise, so we try to be patient with your erratic sleep patterns.  You take a consistent morning nap around 9:00 a.m. and sometimes take a 3-hour nap in the afternoon.  Sadly, as the fifth child, you don't have a super strict routine.  We are often on the go and you catch a snooze when you can!

You don't spend tons of time on the floor (with so many feet in the house I'm not sure it's safe!), but when you do, you kick and wiggle and squirm.  Sometimes you dig your heels into the carpet and scoot. That's not doing much for the bald spot on the back of your head!  You always travel in your sleep and almost always wiggle out of your burrito-wrapped blanket.  You strenuously object to being cold, but we're not sure how to keep you warm!

This week you tried rice cereal for the first time.  As you can see from these pictures, it wasn't your favorite thing.  Since you aren't super steady in the Bumbo chair, we thought you might be more comfortable in my arms, but your opinion of the cereal remained the same.  Hopefully you will enjoy the addition to your diet as time passes.

During your fourth month you traveled to (or through) five states on our Thanksgiving road trip.  You met a great chunk of your extended family in the process.  Now we are looking forward to your first Christmas!

The Covert Cookie Case

Last Sunday Garry came home from church with a large briefcase in hand.  I was mystified; Garry isn't a briefcase-carrying fellow.  Later he revealed its purpose: transporting treats in and out of Elders Quorum meetings.

Inside the briefcase was a large plastic food container with the following message taped on top:

"Welcome to your week with the Covert Cookie Case.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to provide a minimum of 40 units of delicious homemade goodies to your fellow Elders next Sunday.  Remember, Elder, we have been asked to keep this on the DL for security and crowd control purposes.  If you succeed at your mission, you will be rewarded with praise from your fellow quorum members.  Good luck, Elder."

Apparently the men in our ward have snack time every Sunday!  Ha!

Luckily for me, Garry's responsibility didn't become my responsibility.  He made his own treats: Candy Cane Fudge and Raspberry Fudge Balls.  I'm quite partial to the Candy Cane Fudge.

The guys at church liked the treats, too.  Go Garry.

Holiday bucket list

The kids are out of school until January 5, and with a week left until Christmas it feels like we have a lot of time on our hands.  This morning we planned a menu for the next week and made a list of the things we'd like to do over our long break.

* Make and decorate sugar cookies

* Drive around town to see the Christmas lights (again)

* Go sledding (if it snows!)

* Read every picture book in the house to the Littles

* Deliver the rest of our neighbor gifts
* Have friends over to play

* Donate to the Cub Scout book drive

* Go skiing with Dad

* Fix Gavin's bean bag

* Eat lasagna for dinner

* Go out to eat

* Make paper stars (like the ones at the ward Christmas party)

* Decorate a gingerbread house

* Watch "Joy to the World"

* Watch new Life of Jesus Christ Bible Videos

* Complete more indexing batches

* "Camp" in the basement

I'm not sure how much of this we'll accomplish, but it's a good place to start!

Tyler's school work

During my latest bout of insomnia I scanned a fat stack of the boys' school work, pictures, and certificates.  Eventually I will include them in their individual memory books, but I couldn't resist posting a few of Tyler's fun work from this fall.

Tyler is very interested in art and has some natural ability.  I think this pumpkin looks great.

Third graders are apparently learning about drawing faces.  These two pictures are self-portraits.

I love Tyler's colorful rendition of a jungle bird.

This one is my favorite.  It is a tribute to his Great Uncle Garry on Veteran's Day.  The content is very sweet -- but mostly fiction.  Tyler's father was named after this uncle, and Uncle Garry was bald (and awesome), but those are the only facts in this piece.  I love that Tyler clearly reveres Uncle Garry, a Las Vegas dentist who died in an accident in 1998, well before Tyler was born.  Somehow Dad's stories of his uncle have turned him into a legend!  The translation of Tyler's writing is below.

Garry (my uncle)

I think my uncle (Garry [my dad is named after him]) deserves a very special monument.  He deserves a monument because he was saving peoples lives ALOT!

He also deserves a monument because he helped with our freedom.  He is bald, nice, and very old.  He was a great fighter!

Garry's monument would be in mesa, arizona because I think that is where he lived at the time.  The monument would be completely white.  On the front, it would have his name and why he deserves it.  Inside, there would be a statue of him in war, made of gold.

That is why my uncle deserves a monument.  He was a great fighter, and an AWESOME uncle!

Deep thoughts by Gavin and Lexi

Gavin: Mom, what is Tyler going to do when he's a dad?

Mom: I don't know; what do you think?

Gavin: I don't know!  What is Dad going to do when Tyler is a dad?!?!

Mom: Probably hold his grandbaby!

Gavin: But what car is Dad going to ride in when he is a grandpa?

*

Random person: Where did your baby get her dimples?

Heidi: From her daddy.

Random person: Do your other kids have dimples?

Heidi: They do.  Zach and Gavin and Kate have two and Tyler has one, but Lexi and I don't have dimples.  

Lexi: (lifting up her shirt)  Mom!  I have dimples!  See?  Here and here!

This-n-that

I think it's time for a little family update, don't you?

Garry has been busy at work, doing...um...work stuff.  He received a "Team Impact! Recognition" award for participating on the third quarter 2011 Enterprise Matching project (see him for details).  He has been sweet enough to let me sleep in several times over the last few weeks, handling the breakfast/scriptures/make lunches/get kids ready portion of the day.  What a man!  He has also been coming home a little earlier in the evenings, which is perfectly glorious.  Occasionally I have a warm meal on the table when he walks in the door, but the Littles always attack him with hugs and kisses, which makes up for the lack on days I'm not especially domestic.  Last Saturday he and the boys hung Christmas lights on the house, and they look great!  Garry was also my date to the Denver Temple last night.  He is currently being treated to the 12 Days of Christmas.  A little gift shows up on his dresser every night after work.

I am pleased to be done Christmas shopping (assuming one of Tyler's presents is shipped to the house on time) and need to tackle wrapping next.  I can't quite keep up with the housework, but am pleased to report that I am nearly caught up on the ironing.  I am working on the piano portion of this piano/organ duet for our church Christmas program, and have organized a group to sing a sweet little song on Sunday in Relief Society.  My musical muscles are out of practice!  Last week I started a regimen of thyroid, estrogen, and progesterone medications.  So far they have sent me on a wild ride.  I look forward to a season of balance...one day.  I logged onto familysearch.org for the first time and indexed a batch of records last week (so did Garry!), and last Sunday I subbed as a teacher in Relief Society (my favorite place to teach).  Oh, and I cut bangs.

Zach is thrilled that we lifted the ban on shorts if the temperature is below 32 degrees.  He enjoys the increased freedom over his wardrobe choices in frigid weather, which has eliminated a daily fight.  We should have done this years ago!  Zach is the resident mail-picker-upper.  He also fills in as a nice baby-holder and pot-stirrer (literally and figuratively) when I need extra hands.  He plays basketball on Monday nights and Saturday afternoons, although his season ends this week. Zach loves watching "Mythbusters" on Netflix and reads three or four books at a time.  His current reads are Harry Potter #5, Summer of the Monkeys, and The Son of Neptune.

Since finishing up the science fair on Saturday, Tyler doesn't know what to do with his free time after school.  Oh, wait...now there's more time to watch TV!  Tyler also loves reading, and can often be found curled up in bed with a good book when he is supposed to be doing something else, like getting ready for school or cleaning his room.  Tyler is enjoying an incentive program for controlling his temper, which has been getting out of hand lately.  Somehow using Cheerios to fill up a Mason jar has flipped a switch, and Calm Tyler is on his way to earning all kinds of fun rewards.

Gavin has a love/hate relationship with preschool.  He hates getting ready for preschool in the morning, but he loves being there every day.  He is really thriving at school, though, and has great stories to tell after his mornings away from home.  Gavin loves his birthday bean bag, back rubs, and the movie Gnomeo and Juliet.  He likes to picnic on the living room rug for lunch, play games of chase and hide-and-seek with Lexi, make Kate smile, play with my hair, and do anything the big boys are doing.  He does NOT like time-out, going to bed, or staying in his car seat.  But using a seat belt with his booster instead of a five-point harness is pretty cool.

Lexi is a little spitfire.  She has many opinions and prefers to share them in an ornery tone of voice and at the top of her lungs.  She wants what she wants, and she wants it NOW.  Lexi loves having her nails painted and her hair fixed "like Mommy," especially if the styling involves the flat iron (on her stick-straight hair) and hair spray.  She likes the idea of bows and clips and headbands, but can rarely tolerate them for more than 30 minutes.  Lexi was thrilled when she figured out that we have a back-up Betsy doggie, so now she carts both of them around.  Her bed is often so crammed with books and dolls and toys at bedtime that I wonder how she can sleep in there (oh wait...she wakes up 3-5 times per night!).  Lexi is also interested in wearing panties, but not in sitting on the potty for very long.

Kate is growing, growing, growing.  She loves her bottles and has the rolls to prove it!  I am thrilled, although she is going to blast through her 3-6 months clothes way too quickly.  Kate is a happy baby and gives us lots of grins and coos.  She is starting to develop an interest in toys, and in her fists.  She tolerates tummy time for longer periods now and holds her head high.  Kate's peach-fuzz hair is starting to grow and lighten a little bit.  It will be interesting to see if she is a tow-head, too.

This update turned out to be sort of Christmas-letter-ish.  'Tis the season, right?

You're never too old for Santa Claus

Our ward sponsored a pancake breakfast

with Santa Claus Saturday. 

While the pancakes were nothing to write home about,

Santa Claus was a hit. 

And much to my surprise,

all of our pajama-clad children

wanted to sit on Santa's lap.  

So what do our children want for Christmas?

I stood close enough to listen.

Tyler:

"I don't really know, but maybe an iPod. 

Or a Smell-Pod.  I read about that in a magazine."

Gavin:

"Two watches, so if I lose one, I still have one.  And lots of toys."

Lexi:

"Something pink.  And dolls.  And Mom."

Zach:

"Um....Hex Bugs and remote control Bey Blades and a remote control car."

Kate:

"Breakfast would be good."

I didn't sit on Santa's lap,

but I would like to sleep through the night for Christmas.

Do you think I might find that in my stocking?

Homework for Mom and Dad

Another science fair has come and gone.  [Insert giant sigh of relief.]

Tyler had the dubious honor of being the guinea pig for his class's science fair.  While all of his classmates will complete science fair projects in the spring, Tyler did his project this fall and prepared video diaries of his progress.  His teacher has been showing these videos in class to prepare everyone for next semester's projects.  Tyler has enjoyed his time in the spotlight.

I tried valiantly to give Tyler the reins on his project.  He selected the topic and did most of the research online.  He made calculations and offered ideas and drew conclusions.  He wrote the final report.  He completed the display all by himself.  I think his seven-year-old efforts are pretty awesome!

Zach was a good sport and helped Tyler with all of his videos, acting as a reporter on a news team.  I wrote a script for each interview, which the boys relied upon more heavily as the weeks passed.  Here are seven of the eight videos (#4 wouldn't upload for some reason), each a couple of minutes long.  They make me laugh.  Many thanks to Garry, who spent many late nights converting all the videos for classroom (and blog) use.

On Saturday night, Tyler presented his project on camera.  I'm impressed with his delivery, considering I gave him about two minutes to prepare.

Overall, I think this was a good experience for Tyler.  He worked hard and had a great attitude about 90% of the time. However, next time we set academic goals with the Talented and Gifted coordinator, I am going to make sure that Tyler's goals involve less parental homework.

family

I spent some time on Thursday hanging our latest family pictures on the wall.  Since moving here 3 1/2 years ago, our formal family photos have always been downstairs, but I decided I'd like them in a more public living space.  So after arranging frames and letters on the rug, I hammered about a million holes into the wall and eventually ended up with this.

I think it will make me smile every day.

Last week as I pondered my mortality, I achieved a certain clarity that only seems to come to me in a crisis.  I understood more than ever the importance of faith and family.  Less meaningful things like holiday shopping, festive parties, the ironing pile, and my waistline slipped into oblivion as I thought about how much I love my children and how grateful I am for my Savior.  I realized that I need to cherish holding my baby, to enjoy reading books to my preschoolers, and to take every opportunity to hug and encourage and praise my older boys.  I need to hold Garry's hand and express my appreciation to him.  I need to spend more time in the scriptures and make my prayers more meaningful.  I need to get to the temple again.  These are the things that matter most.

Since receiving the amazingly good news that I am tumor-free, I have tried to hold onto the gratitude, peace, and complete joy that settled upon me.  It's like an orb of light in my chest.  I hope I can always keep my priorities in line.  The view from this perspective is amazing.

One phone call

This week I went to my doctor (well, actually, she's a Nurse Practitioner in my OB's office) to discuss the results of some lab work she had ordered the week before.  I just haven't been myself since Kate was born, and three and a half months out, I expect to feel more normal.  The extreme fatigue, dizziness, headaches, insomnia, vision and memory problems, and irritability, coupled with my nursing struggles, prompted my initial visit. Lab work validated how lousy I have been feeling.  My thyroid numbers were way low. Liver enzymes were high.  Progesterone and estrogen levels were post-menopausal. Although blood counts didn't point to anemia, the  other markers definitely showed reason for my lethargy and malaise.  Melinda (the NP) wasn't surprised that I felt lousy! She was also quite concerned about what the labs meant.  Two things seemed like possible culprits: early-onset menopause or a tumor on my pituitary gland.

Gulp.  You know things are bad when menopause at 32 sounds terrific.

My meeting with Melinda was on Tuesday.  She was content to wait for the results of additional labs, but I was not.  Once the word "tumor" popped out of her mouth, I needed to know if she was right or wrong.  I needed to know if I had a foreign body growing in my skull, threatening to take over my hormones, my sight, my personality.  I pressed, and on Wednesday morning I found myself in an MRI machine, getting a map of my brain.  That experience is on my short list of freaky medical things I never want to experience again. Aside from having my head caged and my body shoved in a tiny tunnel, the noise was deafening and frightening.  And that only covers the physical discomforts!  I couldn't believe what I was doing--that those 40 minutes could define the rest of my life.  I would be quite content to never have another MRI in my life.  It was not pleasant.

And then the waiting game began.  Garry and I discovered we have very active imaginations.  During waking and sleeping hours, we imagined every scenario--from best case to worse case--associated with impending brain surgery.  Two of my friends have had pituitary tumors, and knowing about their experiences added details to our dreams that were scary and surreal.  We certainly haven't slept enough in the last couple of days as we have pondered my mortality, five little kids who need their mama, our stressed-out bank account, and the Christmas holiday around the corner.  But through it all I had complete peace.  I knew that whatever happened, we'd make it through.

This afternoon I was unloading kids from the car after school and talking to a friend who was dropping something off when my cell phone rang.  Immediately my heart started racing.  It was Melinda.  I knew she was calling with the MRI results.  So with kids swarming and a friend standing by, I stood in the garage and heard her say, "The MRI looks great.  You do not have a tumor."

Sweeter words were never spoken!  I went weak in the knees and had to sit down.  I had convinced myself that I had a tumor, and that I would be spending Christmas in a Denver ICU.  Poor Garry sounded shocked when I called with good news.  Of course he was relieved, but like me, he had expected the worst.  My mom cried when I called her.  Our prayers were answered!

Of course my symptoms persist, tumor or not.  The quest to feel better has just begun.  I am going to try some hormone and thyroid supplementation to see if that helps remind my body how to function properly.  The way is uncertain, and I already feel like I need a nap.  But I also feel like I have a new lease on life.  

It's not a tumor!  Hooray!!!!!