It's November? When did THAT happen? (an update)

My new favorite photo of Teancom. Taken at Miciah's birthday party.

Well, the last of October was eventful in all the right ways.

Miciah Turns 7!

Miciah's birthday was on the 16th, but we didn't do much for it that day. It was a Thursday night, and Thursday night is our Dave Ramsey class, so we didn't do any cake or party or anything. Miciah knew that would happen, so she wasn't upset by the lack of activity. We did let her have her birthday gift: Barbie and the Diamond Castle. That's a movie for those of you who aren't on the Barbie scene. She loves the movie and sings the songs all the time. I have to admit that some of the songs are kinda catchy.

The next week we had a birthday party for her. We let her invite a friend, but through some half fluke, half crafty design on Miciah's part, that turned into 2 friends. We wrote on their cards, "There's no need to bring a gift" and Miciah said, "Mom, add that they CAN bring a gift if they want." I thought that was cute. The party was just the 3 girls having a good time playing together, and then the 3 of them, plus 2 little boys, decorating a cake with WAY too many sprinkles. Really, with that many sprinkles and stuff on the top, it's almost gross to eat. But they had a good time. Miciah is the one that wrote "happy birthday" with the blue frosting. I was actually quite impressed that it turned out so well.

Newport Aquarium

The next day, Saturday the 25th, B&R took us on a family outing. We were supposed to go to an orchard-type place, but it was cold! so we opted for something indoors. B suggested the aquarium because we'd never been there and it would be a special treat for the kids. And it certianly was. The kids all loved it! and so did we.

Rob with the kids. We've been to the Monterey Aquarium in California many times, since my parents live close to it and have passes. It's a world class aquarium and the kids love it. So if we can do that for free, why pay for Newport? Plus, I'd been told that the Newport one is smaller and if you've been to the Monterey one, it's not that impressive. But the Newport Aquarium gives you a unique look at the fish. You get to "walk through" the tanks by a series of tunnels, and it's like the fish are swimming all around you. It was really cool.

I was holding Teancom in one of the coolest tunnel sections. He would say, "Here it comes!" as each big fish came our way, and then watch it intently as it passed over us. Very cute.

Teancom checking out a tank of fish.

Miciah and Elijah comparing notes.

Miciah found her sunglasses in the van (she loses them every other month--she "lost" them for about a year once, and they were in the van the whole time) and put them on her head. We tried to convince her to leave them in the van for fear she would lose them, but she said she would keep them on her head all day. And true to her word, that's exactly what she did. I thought it was adorable to see her with those glasses on her head.

Miciah intently looking in the tank for different kinds of fish. She would see each label and then look in the tank for each kind of fish. Very rarely did we find them all, and we were lucky to even find 1 from the label! But she had everyone looking for them with her. ... In the picture you can see B's hand in the photo. He's poking her and telling her that if we wanted to go to the live show, we had to go RIGHT THEN. He'd already told her a few times, but she hadn't found all the fish in the tank! :)

The live show was kinda cute. We were in small movie theatre type of room, and then they pulled up the screen and we were looking straight into the large tank. They had all the divers in pirate costumes for Halloween. And while that's kinda cute, I couldn't help but thinking, "Oh, poor divers. Where's the dignity?" I was humiliated for them. But perhaps they have a better sense of humor than I do. If I were one of them, I can only imagine thinking every morning, as I put on the diving suit and then costume, "Only 6 more days till Halloween. Only 6 more days till Halloween." :)

One of the coolest parts in the whole place (second only to the tunnels) was something they called the Shark Cage. You walked into a small room designed to look like an underwarter shark cage. You know, the kind that divers go into when they want to dive close to the sharks. The kind that the sharks attack and you think as you're watching the TV show, "What are you divers doing down there? Are you idiots?! Get out of the water!" So you walked in and one whole wall was a large movie screen showing sharks swimming around. And then the sharks would bump the cage! The neatest part (and a little creepy) was that every time the sharks would bump the cage, the floor would vibrate like you'd really been hit. Woah! The kids liked it, but thought it was a little scary (they post that it might not be appropriate for small children).

Rob had Teancom in with him and had Teancom stand on the floor next to him. Teancom got a little scared and Rob told him that the sharks weren't real. This calmed him down. After Teancom came out, I held him as we rested for a minute and I asked him if he liked the sharks. He said, "Yeah." I asked him if the sharks were scary, expecting him to say they were. He looked at me and said, "They're not real." :)

Elijah relaxing in the stroller. Teancom and Elijah would fight over who got to sit in it.

Teancom shaking his hands dry after petting the sharks.

This is Elijah walking over the part of the bridge that has a glass bottom. Underneath him, if you can tell (and you can, just barely), is an alligator. They weren't very big, and the glass, I'm sure, is very stable. But I wouldn't walk over it! :) I walked around.

After the aquarium we stayed at Newport on the Levee and went to a fun pizza place. Dewey's Pizza, I think it was. It's not your normal pizza place. Think ultra-gourmet pizza and fabulous salads. Plus, you could watch them make the pizzas, and the kids thought that was fantastic!

By the end of the day we were all beat! All of us, that is, except Miciah. It was a good insight into her personality when we came home and Teancom and Elijah were asleep before we got to the house. Teancom slept from 5:00-ish until 8 the next morning. Elijah slept for all of that except for about an hour and a half. Rob and I laid down for a nap, too. He slept for about an hour, and I took about a 2 hour nap. What did Miciah do? Who knows, but she wasn't tired at all! She colored and watched movies and in general wondered why we were all tired, I'm sure. She suggested, on the way home, that we find another activity to do and go as a family to that! I thought, "Are you seriously not tired? Wow." That's our Miciah!

So a nice thank you goes out to B&R for the lovely family outing. And to E for going with us, too!

A few random highlights.

Date Night and Helping Friends Move

Rob and I got a fun opportunity to go on a date a few Fridays ago. This usually isn't news to report--usually we go on dates all the time. But for the last 13 weeks we've been calling the Dave Ramsey class our date night. Normally that works good enough, but we needed a REAL date. So we did a date swap with our friends, the S's. So the S's had our kids overnight on Friday. Friday is my soccer night, so we went out to eat, then to the soccer game (where I played really really well, actually, despite having a stomach ache beforehand--which always goes away the minute I start playing). Afterwards we headed home. Rob had told me we could do whatever I wanted and I wanted to make brownies! So lame, but we just got this recipe for the BYU mint brownies and they take like 2 hours to make. So we got home and I was sick! For the next hour and a half I was on and off the toilet (mostly on). What a way to spend our date night! :) But I was determined to make those brownies and they were SO WORTH IT. Yumm!

The next Monday we went to a friend's house to help them move some boxes and stuff into their new home. It was fun to see them again, but as we were leaving their house, T got really sick and vanished into the bathroom. He came back out like half an hour later whiter than a sheet! He looked like he was going to fall over. He told us he was sick (which we could already tell!) and had to go lay down. And he apologized for being sick! :) Clearly there was no need to apologize, but I told his wife that I had been sick the Friday before. Not that I passed it on to him, obviously, but obviously something was going around. But for me, it was Friday night, then my tummy didn't like me Saturday, and it was done. Not bad for a sickness like that.

Sickness

At the start of last week Rob came home early from work because he wasn't feeling well. It was obvious he wasn't feeling good, but he didn't have any harsh symptoms, so I wans't too sympathetic. He stayed home from work and church meetings on Tuesday, but was well enough to go to work on Wednesday. And then, mid-day on Halloween day, I started going, "Ugh." Obviously I was coming down with the same lame cold that Rob had all week. It hit me hardest on Saturday and Sunday. I felt just like he'd described: not horrid, just icky and tired.

I stayed home with the boys on Sunday morning, because although Elijah said he felt fine, he had the same cough I had. By Monday morning I was feeling much better, though. The cough is worse, but finally productive, and I could feel like this the rest of my life and not complain about it.

On Tuesday Teancom was fussy. Teancom is NEVER fussy. I spent all day wondering what was wrong with him and why was he acting so weird. And then bedtime came and that nasty cough surfaced. Ugh. Consequently we didn't sleep well. I spent part of the night holding him on the couch so he could be propped up. I have my cough too, still, so I was sucking a cough drop all night and trying to not hack up my lungs. The rest of the night I spent holding him in my bed. ... I slept in, off and on, Wednesday until around noon. Getting no sleep while sick = not so good. ... But at least there was a reason for Teancom's grumpiness. The next day he was fine, and you can't even tell (until bedtime) that he's sick at all.

The Dentist

Rob and I went to the dentist the other day for the first time in years upon years. I have many many issues with dentists, and I walked into this guy's office waiting to find a bunch of reasons to never go back to him again. But he was delightful. Definitely grooved with my style. He found one small cavity that I'll have to go back for. Ugh. But for me, only finding 1 cavity is good! :)

Mostly I mention this because it's lovely to have dental insurance!

The Kids

The weather has been lovely, so the kids have been playing outside a ton. Elijah was outside on Saturday riding the trike with his Superman cape on! Totally cute. I mean, check out this picture:

Classic, right?

We spent all that Saturday finishing up the winterizing of our garden. Planting spring bulbs (we've never had spring flowers, so it'll be fun!) and stuff like that. Then we got free mulch from a friend, and our garden looks great. We won't winterize the roses yet, since they're still blooming like crazy and looking fantastic! (Thank you, again, Pop!) I love my roses like they were my own children. So beautiful.

Anyways. Elijah would ride around on his trike and then invite Teancom to jump on the back of it. There's a slight incline to our driveway, though, so every time Elijah would get to a certain point, Teancom's weight would be too much for him. He would dig down deep and put his all into pedaling, but Teancom would have to get off for him to keep going. Then, after getting past that spot, Elijah would say, "Get back on, Teancom!" It was really cute.

Teancom riding on the back of the trike.

Elijah

Elijah has just started becoming very chatty. We went to an appointment and Elijah was gabbing to this nice lady. And he told her this story (which we've since captured in a video, cause it cracks me up): "Once I was a little baby and I said my first word." At this point he got this high-pitched baby voice with a lisp and he said, "Ice cream." She looked at me and said, "That's pretty advanced, to have 'ice cream' as your first word." I just chuckled and wondered where in the HECK Elijah got that story from. His first word was NOT ice cream, but it cracked me up, that little fake baby voice.

Today was a fun one with Elijah. Elijah is still into making tracks out of chairs and movies and books and all that, and I still have a good time watching him do it. But in the last few weeks he's also been upping his making of complete messes. He's trashed his room three times this week. I didn't take pictures, but you can imagine what it looks like when you take all the belongings in one room and shove it all into the closet (I've taken pictures of similar things before). Plus, he's been wetting his pants just a little, and that's annoying.

But he's still a fun kid, despite these latest few annoying things. Today he was making a recipe, which is something he's been wanting to do a lot lately. He informed me that I needed to buy bananas so we could make banana bread. I didn't buy bananas, but apparently I should have, because he was intent on making a recipe. He grabbed stuff from the kitchen: a bowl, some spoons, some hot pads "for when it gets hot", etc. None of that is unusual--he does this a bunch. Then I gave him some Halloween candy and I assumed he was walking off to eat it. Nope. It became part of the "recipe." Later I came into his bedroom to find the bowl full of slightly wet (and therefore ruined) cheese-its, animal crackers, and pieces of chocolate. I moved it into the kitchen so he wouldn't continue to make a mess and when he came back to the bedroom he was upset that I'd moved his recipe. It made me giggle.

Teancom

Teancom is 2 and doing all sorts of fun things that are fun to take pictures and videos of. It's just a fun stage! I'll post some of the videos and stuff. Teancom is still extremely cuddly and cute and addictive. My latest favorite thing that he says is, "That's not dood, Mommy. That's not dood." :) (dood = good) Oh, so cute when they're learning to talk.

Miciah

Miciah lost another tooth this morning. That makes 6 for her (not counting the one that was pulled). Losing teeth is apparently traumatic for her and I don't understand it at all! This last tooth was so loose that the night before she turned it around completely several times. Then in the morning when miraculously it was still in, you could see the entire tooth. It must have been just barely hanging on. So we tortured her and pulled it out. ... I thought of taking a video of it, but I thought, "This could be evidence against us later on," because she really did act like we were torturing her! I don't get it. ... I did get a video from the night before where I was just asking her about her tooth and should we pull it out and by the end she ran away screaming, "No! No!" Wow. The trauma.

A traumatized Miciah showing off her backwards tooth.

If anyone understands why losing a tooth would bring about this level of trauma, please feel free to share your insights with us. I always thought it was cool to lose teeth. I would twist my teeth around and around and gross out all the other girls in school. I remember being sad when that last strand finally broke and I couldn't twist it all around any more. :)

Otherwise Miciah is doing very well. Her behavior has improved dramatically since we've been charting her progress. It continues to be amazing to me how much a sticker on a chart can motivate.

Dave Ramsey

Tonight is our last night of Dave Ramsey! It's been fabulous. We've learned a lot. And we're glad it's finally over. 13 weeks is a LONG time. So worth it, but glad it's wrapping up.

Rob

A quick note on Rob. We are almost done with our second round of the Health and Fitness Challenge. It's 12 weeks of really focusing on trying to eat better and exercise more regularly. We haevn't done that well this time around--we've actually super slacked, especially compared to the intensity we pulled out last time. But the little we have done has really paid off. Rob has lost another 10 lbs. in the last 10 weeks, which puts him at 210 and only 5 lbs. off the "ideal" weight he's been shooting for since 2005 when he started seriously trying to lose weight. We have realized, as he approaches this weight, that he still has a ways to go, but man he looks FINE at 210! I'm really proud of him and thought his weight loss deserved a mention in this update.

Here's a current picture with an older comparison picture.

Picture from Wednesday night:

Picture from June 24, 2005:

That's a 65 lb. weight loss! Go, Rob!

Have a good one, everyone!