Newest News in the News Industry

I've been wanting to write an update for a while, but some of the news I couldn't really announce until this week, so I've been waiting.

Our biggest news on the news front is that Rob is now the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric of our ward. He was the YM President for a little over 2 years, and he'd just started to hit his stride. That, of course, was the problem. Once you hit your stride, you KNOW there are changes coming. The story of him getting this calling is a good one, though it's kind of long and intertwined with another story about our car. I'll mark it with a Start and End, so you can skip it if you want.

Start

At the start of this month was Fast Sunday. We had decided that our fast was going to be focused on our marriage and strengthening it. Not that we're struggling, because we're not. Shortly after we'd decided that's what our fast would be about (earlier in the week), our van had a glich. A hiccup. I rolled down the window of the driver's side door, just to make Miciah laugh, and it wouldn't roll back up. Well, it's darn cold outside. This is a bummer. And of course that has to happen on a Friday night, late.

So, Saturday Rob calls the dealership. They told him he could bring it in, but they probably wouldn't be able to get to it until Monday, though they'd park it inside, and the repair would likely cost us anywhere from $100 - $300 dollars. The cost was a bummer, but we needed our window to roll up. And it's not like we cover it with plastic and make do. It's the driver's side door. Kind of need to see through the window.

Anyways, that Sunday was the Super Bowl. And if it means we're going to Hell for watching the Super Bowl, then so be it, because we enjoy watching this one Sunday sporting event a year. Anyways, we were watching it at a friend's house and he had offered to look at the car with Rob. Then, another guy also offered to help. Sure, what can it hurt?

I'm going to skip ahead in this story to the repair at the dealer on Monday morning. The part that was broken in the first place was the switch. The switch was a $70 part. The part they broke trying to fix the first problem was a $600 part. In total, our bill was $830.

So, (skipping back) Sunday at church, during our fast, I was reassured that we should really focus on making our marriage stronger. Then I spent all Monday not talking to Rob after he called to let me know how much the repair bill came to. :) But it got me thinking, and really thinking hard, about marriage and partnership and communication.

I apologized, Monday night, for making Rob feel bad. When I get frustrated, I also get vocal, and maybe I should work on making that not so. Tuesday morning I woke up determined to really work on our marriage. We set out to do a marriage reassessment. I sent Rob to work with homework. We spent the next almost full week thinking about and talking about our roles and responsibilities in marriage. What we liked, didn't like. What was working, what wasn't. Where we needed to re-focus. It was great.

(As an aside, the two men that helped with the van, they're still our friends. :) )

Then came Saturday. Stake Conference. Before Rob left for the mens' leadership meeting, I saw one of the members of our stake presidency (used to be the bishop of our ward, and he's a great guy. I call him Jim, which thrills me) at a wedding reception. All casual-like he says, "I need to talk with you and Rob for a few minutes before the meeting tonight." I'm thinking just to chat. I told Rob, just as casual, "Hey, Jim needs to meet with us for a few minutes." "What for?" Rob says. "I dunno." Rob: "Okay."

Well, I wasn't on time to the meeting, so we met after the meeting. No big deal. Actually worked out really well, other than our friends were sitting next to us the whole time teasing us about what kind of calling Rob would be getting. We got in the room with Jim and he first asked how we were getting along (See? He WAS meeting with us to chat!). We chuckled a little and talked about the week and our marriage re-assessment. He said it was good to re-assess from time to time. I agree. Though NEXT time we'll schedule it so our marriage therapy session won't cost us $830.

Then he asks Rob to be the 2nd counselor. I WISH I had a video camera there. His physical reaction was almost laughable. Now, I was pretty shocked, too. The Bishop had just called a new 2nd counselor a month ago. That's not an exaggeration on how recently the changes had been made. On top of that, Rob just got his YM Presidency in order, and all those changes had been within the last 2 months. So it didn't seem the time, really, to make more changes.

But the call was extended and eventually, when Rob found his words again, he said yes. They looked at me after a time and asked how I felt. Great! Rob will be a fantastic 2nd counselor. No worries there. They talked about increased time committment, but every time committment Rob will have, he ALREADY had as YM President. Really, not much changes.

... Then came a full week of Rob walking around like a deer in headlights. In fact, every day since the call, I've looked at him and said, "How you feeling today?" And I wasn't asking about his health.

End

So, what have I learned from this? That God answers our prayers and petitions in strange ways. And as I look back over the last 3 weeks, I feel so blessed to have a Heavenly Father who cares about us and our concerns. It's amazing to me.

Though I still would have liked to skip the $830 part.

Sunday--A Great Family Moment

And then there was Sunday, when Rob actually got the call at church. V & C came down so that V could ordain Rob to be a High Priest. I don't know about you, but I think that's kind of cool. A once-in-a-lifetime event that I'm glad to have been there for. So I called Rob's siblings and told them that, even though Rob thought it was lame, they should come down for it. Rob really would have hurt me if he'd known about all of it. Hence he didn't know. And he's pretty easy to dupe. C brought down a huge crockpot of chicken stuff from C and Rob still was suspicious of nothing.

First, M & K showed up at church. We had M and A for the weekend (as a b-day present to M, whose b-day was yesterday), so Rob just thought they were coming early to get her. Then G and M showed up. And finally C showed, and then Rob got it. He still, I think, thought it was lame, but the family support was cool. And it was a great family moment.

Everyone stayed after for a meal and to play. It was awesome. And to initiate Rob quickly, he had to count tithing after church. :) It was weird to hand him our tithing. But he's trustworthy, I guess. I did tell him that he's not allowed to ask me to give a talk (at least for a good while), and I don't want him to give me a temple reccomend interview. I think that would just be weird.

...................

Other news.

Teancom

Took Teancom in for a doc's appointment last week. He's fine. Growing fine, doing fine. His verbal skills have really shot up, and it's awesome. I've decided he's probably communicating to us as effectively as Miciah was at this age. Miciah was very articulate from a young age, and pretty easy to understand. Teancom is neither of those, but because he doesn't fuss ever, he just uses his words to tell us what he wants. So he'll tell us exactly what he wants without the crying or whining, and it's a beautiful thing.

He's really rather polite. For instance, fruit snacks. I'll often give him a package of fruit snacks, and he'll say thank you and walk off to eat it. He'll get done, bring me the wrapper to throw away, and say, "More," very calmly. Is that not amazing? He has figured out that he has opinions, which is a little weird for me. I'm used to him just adjusting to whatever I want. He's figured out it's pretty darn funny to run away from me so I have to chase him. Or funny to say No, just cause he wants to (though he doesn't throw a fit when I make him do what I want anyway, and I'm grateful for that). So it's fun that he's figuring out he's his own person. He still has so much less attitude than what I'm used to.

Elijah Fun

Elijah is still crazy and fun and obsessed with Spider-Man. A fun story or two about Elijah.

My friends have now started noticing and commenting on Elijah's clothes-layering obsession. I took him to a play group on a day when he insisted on wearing 7 shirts. I don't even know how he gets them all on. Pretty impressive.

Rob was putting Elijah to bed and Elijah wasn't happy about going to bed. So Rob started distracting him with questions: "Elijah, who is blue and red?" Spider-Man! (As a side note, ever since Rob pointed out to Elijah that Spider-Man is blue and red, those are the only colors he wears.) "Who is green and not nice?" Green Goblin! "Who loves you very much?" Rob was thinking, of course, Mom and Dad. Elijah answered, "Spider-Man!"

Elijah is interested in saying the prayer for every prayer we say. We often let him, but he also will only whisper it. If we ask him to talk louder, he'll usually get quieter. But at the end of almost every prayer, whether we help him say it or someone else says it, he'll say, "Hey! We forgot to pray for Green Goblin and the Bishop!" Now, I get praying for the Bishop. But why exactly are we praying for the Green Goblin? So that he'll join the forces of good? So that he'll die and put everyone out of their misery? So that he will be forgiven in the afterlife and eventually be able to go to heaven? So that Spider-Man can defeat him? I'm just not sure.

For another bedtime, Rob was telling one of his infamous stories. Rob tells lots of good stories. They're brilliant, really, and unique every night. The kids will request the characters they want in the story and Rob will put it all together. Some nights he has to work together the Care Bears, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin, a dragon, Miciah and Elijah, and the Little Mermaid. This particular night, the story was about Miciah and Elijah, the Care Bears and Mom and Dad. Rob set it up so that Miciah and Elijah were orphans and the Care Bears were looking for good parents to take care of them. The stories are pretty predictable, and I'm sure you can guess who the Care Bears found. Right. But, Rob was talking about how sad Miciah was when she didn't have a mommy and daddy: "And Miciah said, "I would really like to have a Mommy and Daddy who love me." And then Elijah said, ... Well, Elijah, what did Elijah say?" And Elijah said, "Elijah said "Spider-Man will come down and slam the Green Goblin in the head!" :) We both just laughed. Here's this touchy-feely story about the love between parents and their kids and Elijah is thinking about Spider-Man fighting the Green Goblin. Awesome.

Elijah has had a hard time adjusting to Primary. Nursery was free-for-all fun for 2 hours, and the fact that he has to sit still for Primary doesn't make him happy. So we've been having some fun weeks trying to convince him to go. Hopefully those weeks are mostly behind us. But my favorite week was one where he'd decided he would go to our boring class with us instead of going to Primary. Even his best friend wasn't enough of a draw to go to class. Finally I told him I'd go and walk him to his chair and stand by him for a few minutes. He was okay with that. We walked in the door, and his teacher looked at him and smiled in a very friendly way. Elijah responds by raising his fist right in front of his face in a menacing gesture, lowering his chin a little and scowling. Lovely. The other teachers were laughing, or trying not to laugh, and looking at me. I was rolling my eyes. It's funny, but why must my son be returning menacing gestures to people who smile at him? Sometimes I genuinely feel sorry for his teacher.

Miciah

And then there's Miciah. Miciah is doing well in school and loving every minute she's there. She lately has been fighting bedtime, I've probably mentioned that in the last update. Anyways, we've been giving her reading time at bedtime and she's grooving on that. We even got her a lamp for her bed so that she can read as long as she wants. She really likes the freedom this gives her and we're really liking how well bedtime is going!

Miciah had to get her chicken pox booster shot last week because we couldn't find anyone who didn't vaccinate their kids, and so we couldn't find a kid to donate the chicken pox to us. Oh well. Anyways, the shot was a disaster. Miciah threw a HUGE fit. I told Rob I'm not taking Miciah in for a shot again by myself. Teancom cried less for his shots than Miciah did for hers. Yikes. Any suggestions for me?

Tamra's News

My news. This week I got my requested 3rd calling. I am now in Primary, I think as a substitute teacher. Like, the person they'll always ask first to teach a class. Sounds fine to me. With Teancom in Nursery, I'm ready to do a little more. My other two callings are pretty low-key, so I'm glad to have a 3rd.

Also, on Sunday I was finally awarded my Young Womens Recognition Award. I earned it over a year ago when I was still a YW leader. I'm proud of myself for acheiving that, especially since I never got it as a teenager. Go me! It was an added bonus that all of Rob's family was there to see it. I didn't tell them, it was just a fun little surprise. Sunday felt like the Rob and Tamra Thacker Show!

And I'll stop boring you with this update. I even fell asleep a few times while writing it, so my apologies to you as readers.

We send you our love! We're watching the snow accumulate and hoping you're all staying warm and cozy (and no comments from Dad or B. I KNOW you live in sunny CA where it doesn't get below freezing)!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, Cleo, and the fish (including 4 baby fish who are super cute! Having baby fish is WAY better than having a baby human. If the baby fish get eaten or die off, no big deal. The guppies will just have more.)

Here are 2 pictures of Teancom. He's a cutie!

Two more, from the same series.

For some reason, I particularly like blurry pictures. I mean, how beautiful is this one of Teancom? (That's not a question I want you to actually answer, since you probably think blurry pictures are awful, because you're a normal person who likes to see things clearly.)

Finally an Update

It's been a month since my last update. That seems like a long time to me, especially since we had Christmas and New Years in there! So here's our family update.

It seems like December was a long month in some ways, and just not long enough in other ways (like prep time for Christmas--can you ever have enough prep time?). At the start of December we decided on 2 things. The first was that we were going to go up early to Rob's parents' house and surprise them and B and G who were going to be there by themselves for a few days. We thought it'd be a lot of fun. The second thing we decided was to make a board game for C. Between fastforwarding our Christmas prep time and spending 50 hours making that board game, the week before Christmas was STRESSFUL!!!!!! We got little sleep and spent every available minute getting things done so we could leave Sunday to go to P.

Long story short, the board game turned out pretty cool. We're proud of it, anyways. We have yet to make a second game board (for us, of course), but we'll get to it. We won't try to pull it off the week before Christmas, though.

And going up to P on Sunday actually ended up working really really well. We had told V over Thanksgiving that we would be coming up early, but had let it be a surprise to everyone else. I actually was telling at least 1 lie to everyone involved with the Thacker Christmas. For an entire month. Anyways, when we arrived on Sunday, V was just as surprised as everyone else to see us. He'd forgotten. :) So it was fun to pull off a complete surprise.

Our surprise showing prompted Rob's sisters and their families to join us earlier than they had planned, too. They came up Christmas Eve late in the night and surprised Rob's parents. That was fun, too. We got both surprises on video.

Christmas morning was HUGE. None of us had huge Christmases, but when you combine them all, there were a TON of presents under this huge tree. The tree was cut out of their backyard and was something like 15 feet tall. We took pictures of it with the presents underneath. But I'll have to download the pics off Rob's laptop, so the pictures will have to come a little later. I'm behind, what can I say.

My favorite gift was the one we got from B. Everyone should e-mail him and ask him what it was. My second favorite gift was a freezer from my Mom. I really like having a freezer downstairs. Yea for freezer space! After that it was probably the Transformers special edition movie (the special features of how they did the special effects. Simply awesome), and two coloring books from J. Not for my kids, for Rob and me (he gave the kids their own). One is Color Your Own Abstract Art Masterpieces. The other is Color Your Own Van Gogh Paintings. They give you the outlines and let you color it yourself. How cool is that?!!

Santa and Rapunzel

So that was Christmas. A cute story about Christmas. Miciah only asked Santa for 2 things: The Barbie as the Island Princess movie, and the cereal, too. That's it. Easy enough. She asked us for the REST of the Barbie movies. :) We got her some, including the Rapunzel movie that she'd lost (we have the cover, but not the disc inside) months ago. When we were wrapping the gifts, Rob decided to wrap the Rapunzel movie as a Santa gift and he wrote a little note on it from Santa saying, "This is to replace the one you lost." We left the rest of the Barbie movies we bought at home to open when we got back. So on Christmas Eve in Toledo, at bedtime, Miciah said to Rob, "Daddy, I thought of something else I wanted to ask Santa for." Rob explained that it was pretty late to ask Santa for anything, but what was it. She said, "I want to ask him for a new Rapunzel movie to replace the one I lost." Rob repeated that it would be pretty hard to do at this point. She said, "Maybe Santa could put a chimney in a store and go buy one!" So you could imagine how magical it was when Miciah got the Rapunzel movie from Santa on Christmas morning. And I don't care if you like/believe in Santa or not, that IS pretty magical.

A funny end note to the story: When Miciah told her cousin, A, about getting the Rapunzel movie, and she showed it to her, A said, "We have that at our house." :) Turns out that the missing movie has been safely recovered at the S house. We told them that they could keep it. We'd even give them the cover for it. Merry Christmas to all.

7th Anniversary

Our anniversary was on the 21st. Rob and I celebrated 7 years together. It's been an interesting 7 years, with so many changes for both of us (3 kids, college, grad school, etc.). This last year has been one of the hardest of our marriage, but all I can say is that if that's the hardest it gets, we're safe. Let us pray the fates will not start a competition to see which year can be worse. :) I was exhausted for our anniversary date, so we cancelled other plans and Rob made me a cute dinner at home. Our 3 kids were being watched overnight by 2 families (it pays to have friends). You'd think we'd use the time to stay up late together doing something romantic. What did we do? First, after dinner I took a nap (no joke). Then we watched a chick flick while we finished wrapping Christmas gifts on the living room floor. Before all that, Rob had cleaned the house for me. And that's what the culmination of 7 years of marriage looks like--skip the romance, give me something practical: a nap, a clean house, and finishing the presents.

Rob did give me something really really cute. Before the dinner he sent me on a treasure hunt. I was tired and hungry and half annoyed that he wouldn't let me eat yet, but it was cute. At a few steps I discovered something he had set out for the night: my wedding dress (he wore his tux and I wore my dress for our dinner), our traditional sparkling cider and cheesecake. Then, the last clue lead to the big flower pot that was sitting out in our garage for the winter. I was pretty annoyed at this point, actually, that he'd made me go outside (insanely tired and hungry Tamra is not a docile creature). And then he buried the treasure. Except I'd missed that it was "treasure" I was digging for. I thought I was digging for another clue. He'd printed out the clues on a strip of paper about 1/2 inch in height and folded in fourths. I thought I was outside, digging in the flower pot with a shovel, in the middle of winter, to find another clue!! I was mad (I mean, seriously, can you visualize what I thought was happening?). Rob told me to read the clue again, it said I was digging for treasure!

The treasure turned out to be a blue topaz necklace (December's birthstone) with matching earrings. I actually really really like the color. It's a color that I wear all the time as an accent color. I have shirts that are that color. And the birthstone for December (when our marriage was born)--that's just cute. So it was a lovely night.

New Years Eve

New Years Eve was crazy. We have hosted the world's smallest New Years Eve party for a few years running. I think this was our last year for a while. I think I'm a little burned out. Though we may transition it to a New Years Day party. We spent New Years Day with the T's at our house playing the Wii. Convinced us that someday we would like to own one. We put it on our wish list. Miciah asked if we could get one next Christmas. I told her maybe. Then she said, "I'll sell some of my toys to get one." :) Even if she was willing to do that, I have doubts that she owns a saleable $300 in toys.

This last Friday the youth group at church did their non-NYE party. In the past they've done a New Years Eve party, but it got to be a hassle, and the new bishop thinks NYE is a family holiday (go figure), so they switched it to the Friday after NYE. Genius! It was a lot of fun. We played ping-pong, volleyball, and pin guard (a game the Scouts play a lot--kind of a dodgeball type of game), and ate pizza and chips and other goodies. It was fabulous fun. Again, another date night with the kids being watched overnight by friends. Yea for friends!! We watched their kids later on Saturday night, so it worked out well.

Our Furnace, A Saga

Saturday we got a furnace technician to come look at our furnace that we'd been thinking was going to burn down our house. For the last few months it was been exploding. That's the best way to describe it. Like it had an overabundance of gas and then it would do a very loud, chest-rumbling bang, and then the fire alarm would go off for a few seconds. Miciah was downstairs to see it once (she's the only one that's seen it at the time it does it) and she described to Rob that the flame came out about a foot and a half. Scary. Anyways, the guy came and checked it out. He cleaned the starters (is that what they're called?) off. Said usually the problem is from one of them being dirty and them not lighting evenly, so the gas keeps turning on. Then he turned down our gas pressure which he said was way too high (who knows these things?). Before he came, every time the furnace came on, whether it exploded or not, it would do this click, click, click sound. Many times. And since Saturday, I haven't even noticed my heater coming on. Yea for non-burned down houses!!

This is a long update. Clearly I haven't written for a while.

Avatar

Our family has been enjoying watching Season 2 of Avatar. C loaned us all the movies (in exchange for a Transformers borrow), and we've been watching those for the last week. It's a fun show. Miciah now talks to her friends about bending, and Elijah likes to pretend he's Aang, the Avatar. He'll come up to me and say, "Mom, I'm the Avatar. 'WHERE'S APA?'" That's a direct quote from chapter 11.

The Kids

Miciah and Elijah are cute as siblings. They alternate between loving each other dearly and bugging each other deeply. :) A fun story from a few days ago. Miciah was sitting on the couch and Elijah was standing in front of the couch. Miciah did something that Elijah didn't like. Suddenly, and with distress in her voice, Miciah said, "Elijah's trying to break down the house by breaking the couch!!" Rob and I stared at her in disbelief, without expression. She said matter-of-factly, "Really. He IS." SO funny. Then Elijah continued hitting the couch arm. Hard. Rob said, "Doesn't that hurt you?" Elijah said, "Not hurt my hand. Hurt the couch." :) Okay. He did explain to us that while he was trying to break the couch to hurt Miciah, Rob and I were not the object of his frustration and he wasn't trying to hurt us.

Elijah is a funny kid. While he can get really mad and somewhat aggressive, he rarely hurts others. He'll get mad and hit something else. He'll get mad and web you with his Spider-Man powers. But he usually doesn't hurt people.

Which reminds me of Christmas week's funniest story. Rob and I were playing racquetball, so the other adults were watching our kids. Elijah was standing in front of the TV so no one else could see. C asked him to move and for a little while he ignored her. She asked again and he turned around, like in slow-motion, glaring at her. He then, in the same slow-motion, brought out his web and webbed her. After they got done laughing, C picked Elijah up (because he still wouldn't move) and put him on the couch. He kept watching the show, but the whole time he kept his arm out towards C, webbing her, and he'd turn periodically to glare at her. :) That's just funny.

Teancom

Teancom is doing great. He is now walking near-exclusively, though he's still not incredibly stable on his feet. He has JUMPED in his verbal skills. Where before I couldn't think of 3 words he could say, he now says, "ma ma", "da da", "uh huh", "uh uh", "no", "here you go" (not that clear, of course), "please" (we can get him to say it occasionally), "thank you" (he says it often), "bye bye", "night night", "Cleo" (ee-oh), "Elijah", and "Leah" (his friend). So far Miciah doesn't have a name, that I can gather. He knows who Miciah is, but I've never heard him say her name. It's fun to have him so verbal, and it's very helpful! Yea for talking.

We took Teancom to nursery on Sunday for some transition time. He goes in officially the last Sunday of this month. He did great. I told Rob this and he said, "You're surprised?" No. He's just a good kid. He did get pushed over by one kid (there's a little boy who appears to have something out for Teancom. He's been picking on him for half a year or so), but no big deal. It got to clean up time. I thought he might be upset about putting his toys away. Nope. I asked him to put his car in a bin. He did it right away. He had a book. I asked him to give it to the leader. And he STOOD IN LINE behind 4 other kids with the book held up to give her. That blows me away. He's such a weird kid. He's quiet. He likes books. We can read him a full book. Not like a one-word-a-page book. A full easy reader book (like a Dr. Suess). Just so mellow. It occured to me while I was at nursery, that parents who only have kids like Teancom probably think that kids like Miciah and Elijah are monsters/broken and that parents of kids like Miciah and Elijah are awful parents!! It makes me grateful to have Teancom after the first two. It's not only a nice breather, but it's good perspective.

If you've read to this point, thank you for devoting the last hour of your life to reading my update. Your special reward is being mailed to you and you'll receive it in 1 - 6 weeks.

I'll try to get on top of sending out some of our cute pictures from the last few weeks!

We love you all and hope you all had memorable, lovely holidays!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

Good News!

We have some good news to report and it makes me happy that we have any real news to report at all. :)

Rob's Post-Doc

First, as some of you know, Rob has secured his post-doc! Rob met with Dr. Bob Colbert at Cincinnati Children's Hospital yesterday. Dr. Colbert has the space and money for Rob to come into his lab if Rob wants, and Rob told him he wanted to. Apparently there isn't too much formality for a post-doc, so this is about as formal as it's going to get. Rob will be funded by a training grant that requires us to stay for at least 2 years and not longer than 3 (that's when the training grant runs out). We are excited to be staying in Cincinnati and all the good things that means. Rob really likes Dr. Colbert's lab and the people in it, and he has heard nothing but good things about Dr. Colbert. Dr. Colbert seems like he will be another good mentor for Rob. He promised to expect a lot from Rob and help him stretch and grow (including helping Rob write his first grant and get his own funding), which is perfect. He said he understands about family obligations and is willing to be flexible with Rob's time, so long as Rob has a good balance. All in all, this is a great opportunity and we're looking forward to the next stage.

Someone in Dr. Colbert's lab said that to do a competitive post-doc with the intention of going into academics (something Rob may or may not do), you have to work 70 - 80 hours a week. That's double the time Rob's putting in now, and that's insane to expect of anyone, I think. When Rob met with Dr. Colbert, he said that he of course DIDN'T expect Rob to be working 80 hours a week, since Rob has a family. That was a relief to me. I don't mind Rob putting in more hours than he is now, but 80 hours a week is more than I want him to work. I would like to see Rob every now and then.

Teancom is Walking

The other exciting news is that Teancom is now walking!!! This is fabulous news as he is approaching 17 months and we were starting to get a little worried. Walking is still not his primary mode of transportation, but he can walk about as far as he wants to. He's a little wobbly still, but he can manoveur around objects and turn around and stuff like that. Awesome! So we're excited about that. A woman at church looked at me and said, "Is he walking?" I told her that he was but that he's just walking. She said, "oh." Like, oh, okay, good to know. Then I said, "Yeah, at 17 months." She then said, "OH!" :) It cracked me up how different the response was when I said his age. Another friend of mine said, "Though I don't know why we're encouraging you to walk, since you'll be a terror soon when you're walking." I said, "Yeah, but if he doesn't walk soon, we have to worry about if he might be retarded. So walking at this point is good."

He has also started talking a lot more. He will repeat lots of things you say, though I don't think his vocabulary has increased. He can repeat, "Oh, yeah" (which is DANG cute), "please", "thank you", and "you're welcome". He does more readily say ma ma and da da and bye bye, and they're becoming more understandable. He definitely says juice, which sounds something like "gunk gunk".

Teancom just isn't a very active child compared to most kids his age. He's getting more curious about things and more determined to do what he wants to do, but he's still really mellow. It is a wonderful baby characteristic to have. ... We went over to a friend's house so she could teach me how to make gingerbread (more on this story later), and she said, "Teancom's pulling on his ear. Does that mean he's got an ear infection or that he's tired?" I told her that it just means he exists. To which, in the retelling, my uncle quipped, "I have an ear, therefore I am." :) Teancom is ALWAYS sucking on two fingers and holding his ear with his other hand. This is part of the reason he's so calm. If he's bored, he'll suck on his fingers and hold his ear. If he's getting tired, he'll suck on his fingers and hold his ear. If he's hurt, ... you get the point. So he rarely cries and if he does, it doesn't last long. I think that while this is nice now, it will be hard to break him of the habit later. I'm not looking forward to that.

Elijah's Binky

Speaking of habits to break, how long has Elijah not had his binky? A few months now? Well, while playing in the basement two weeks ago, he found a straggler. He brought it upstairs and said, "Mommy, look! My binky!" He hadn't put it in his mouth, but he was intent on holding it and claiming it as his. Rob was wanting to take it away. He asked Elijah to throw it away. Elijah refused. I told Elijah to just go downstairs with it, which he did. To my amazement, he never did put it in his mouth, but for the next several days he was asking for his binky again. We'd say, "Elijah, you don't have a binky any more." He'd say, "Yes, I do! It's downstairs!" Funny. (Yes, it has been thrown away by now.)

Miciah

Miciah is still Miciah. She is loving to do her hair now (she did it the other day for like half an hour) and she gets pretty creative with it. This is good for me, cause I have no idea how to do hair and I don't care much about it. Miciah LOVES it, and I would also love for her to learn how to do it herself. It is odd to me that she is so into it. This is a foreign thing to me. She's much more girly than I ever have been (not hard to pass that mark). But it's also fun for me to be forced to like those things a little. If it were up to Miciah, though, we'd paint our fingernails every night and do our hair all fancy every morning. Since it's up to me, those things hardly ever happen, so I'm glad she's taking her own initiative.

She is also very creative with paper. She spends probably an hour or more every day doing a "project". She colors a ton and makes cards. And these aren't just normal cards. She makes cards with hidden pull-outs and cards with 4 pieces of paper and cards with an envelope on the inside. I'm continually amazed with what she comes up with on her own. Some of the things she makes I know she's seen before, but most of those things she hasn't. I scrapbook, but I prefer to do it alone (Miciah tries to take over projects, which I can't stand: is it my time/project or isn't it?), so she has seen me do very little scrapbooking or card-making. We have a collection of cards that I can't bring myself to throw away. They're so cute, and she takes a lot of effort to try to make us feel special with them. She'll also make cards for us from Elijah: she'll ask Elijah what he wants on the card, write his name on it, and then let him color some of it. She's even made us a card from Teancom! Her thoughtfulness blows me away. Almost every day I have a "surprise" waiting for me, usually a beautiful card. It's a fun thing and it certainly adds love and light to our home.

Miciah is an asset to our home.

Though she is getting much "better" at skillfully lying. She won't deny the truth, she'll just shade it differently. Like this story. It's a combination Miciah and Elijah story. Elijah is getting into EVERYTHING lately. He makes "mountains" out of couch cushions or out of the things that go on their beds (plus anything he can find on their floor). He takes everything out of the kitchen cabinets that he can reach. He pulls all the video games, videos and DVDs out of their spots and puts them all over the living room floor. And he does all these things on the same day. This is mildly amusing to me and I don't worry too much about it. Often it means Rob comes home to a house that is trashed, but it makes me think that someday I'll be wishing I had little ones trashing my house, so I can be amused about it while I can. (Though I must admit, it does not encourage me to clean my house. I find I clean my house less and less these days.)

The Wire Whisk Incident

So the other day Elijah was releiving the kitchen drawers of their utensils and spreading them throughout my house. Like normal. But this time he decided to throw the wire whisk at Miciah. I don't think it hit her, but it definitely came close. So she threw the egg beater whisk thing back at him. (Of course this happens while I'm on the phone, but if you're a mother, you KNOW that's when things like this happen. It's some sort of unwritten rule.) They both got time-outs in separate rooms. I went into Elijah first and talked to him about how it's not good to throw kitchen utensils, or anything else, at your sister, or anyone else. He was quick to say he was sorry (he usually is) and was out of his time-out. I went into Miciah next. She was by this time (maybe 5 minutes?) crying and fussing like a baby. This is her new tactic, though I have no idea why she thinks it should be effective. I asked her why she got a time-out. She said, "Because I dropped the thing and then slid it across the floor." Wow. That's a pretty skillful lie, I thought. She wasn't denying she did SOMEthing with the utensil, but she just gently slid it across the floor. Right. I said, "No you didn't, you threw it at Elijah." I had watched the whole thing happen, so I knew and she couldn't re-write that much. She said, "Well, I threw it, but I threw it at the ground, not at Elijah." :) Pretty clever, I thought. Don't deny the whole truth, just tweak it a little. I told her she could stay in her time-out until she was ready to admit she threw it at Elijah.

So round 2. I gave her another few minutes and went back into her room. We'll try the same question: "Miciah, why are you in a time-out?" She says, "Because I threw that thing at Elijah." "Yes. Yes, you did. Now why did you throw it at Elijah?" I realize the answer is obvious, so I quickly form it as a question, "Beause he threw something at you?" She says, "Yeah, and it hit me RIGHT HERE!" and points at her neck. "No he didn't, Miciah. He threw it near the ground." She says, "Well, he hit me right here!" and points to her knee. I start repressing a smile and I look at her with that "you better start telling the truth pretty quickly because I'm done with this crap" look that only moms can pull off. She then says, "Well, it hit me SOMEwhere!" And I lost it. I cracked up. Pretty soon we were both laughing. She still got the same lecture: be nice, don't throw things, even if he throws something at you. But we got a good story out of it!

I attached a few pictures. One is of our cool gingerbread house! There is a family in our ward that makes gingerbread houses every year (one year they made Hogworts castle. No joke) and they invited us over this year to make them for a fun family night. They had it down, but we have never made a real gingerbread house. They had the gingerbread all made and cut out, so we just had to assemble it. It turned out AWESOME! So we took pictures. I returned yesterday so she could teach me how to make the gingerbread. It's a tradition that we plan on incorporating into our family Christmas celebration from here on out. Rob really grooves on gingerbread houses, actually. I never thought I liked the taste of gingerbread, but apparently I'd just never had fresh gingerbread or something. Because it was good. So now I theoretically know how to make gingerbread and icing. I'm going to attempt a batch this week and see if I can make some gingerbread people.



The other is of Teancom "cooking." We had left some mugs and other things on the table, and Elijah had brought out a wooden spoon. Rob walked into the dining room to see Teancom stirring with the wooden spoon in the mug. Cute.


And the last picture is of Rob's creation. :) Last night Rob and I went to the annual Christmas party for his department. We didn't go last year for some reason now lost to me. Anyways, they have a contest for the best ornament made with all lab supplies. It's a fun contest and they give a little prize for it. Anyways, this is what Rob came up with. Pretty creative, I thought, and so did everyone else, because he won the prize. The girl who got second place (she made a really pretty snowflake made with slides and sucrose (sugar) glued to the slides with silicone stuff) was upset because hers was actually a hanging ornament and Rob's was a decoration, not an ornament. :) Last night Rob took pictures of it on our tree, and he says that, even though he has to return a lot of the supplies to the lab, we can keep it around this Christmas. It's actually pretty cool, though something about it makes me shake my head.


Hope you are all doing well! We love you all.

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, Teancom, and Cleo

Oh, we think we're going to keep Cleo around. Her ringworm is gone and she's doing really really well in our home. She's happy here and everyone in our home is happy to have her back, even me. Turns out having only one cat isn't near as hard on the house and everyone else as two cats was. Cleo's also a slightly different (and better) cat by herself. Plus, Elijah the other day was petting her, looked at me and said, "Mommy, Cleo is my best friend." How do you argue with that?

Latest Update

If it would be closer to Thanksgiving, I would appreciate that. I have not been able to think about anything except the season's great food for almost a week! It's tantalizing. I might just make pumpkin pie early, but would that spoil the greatness of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving? One never knows.

I sent you all Halloween pictures. Halloween was good. We had our traditional Dinner-in-a-Pumpkin meal (which the kids actually don't eat--we feed them hotdogs), and it's always fun to cook a meal in a pumpkin. It makes me want to cook ALL my meals inside a cleaned out pumpkin. Cause it's cool.

Cutting Back on Stress

The last few weeks have been good. Around last month I was about done with all the activities our family was doing. We were busy with so many good things that I didn't ever feel like Rob and I got to spend time together or even have a normal conversation. It felt a little out of control. So we slowed WAY down and it's been nice to breathe a little bit. We took out anything that wasn't absolutely necessary and spent a lot of evenings at home together instead of out and about doing stuff or having people over. The break has made us better able to do the things we need to do, and the things we want to do. We have just started to add a few more things back in: having a few people over for dinner, stuff like that. So now I'm not bitter at Rob being so involved in his church calling. :) I was bitter for a minute until we took this break and I realized that a lot of what I was upset about was the fact that our family was too busy doing other things. Though, I have asked Rob to cut out some of the things for his calling, too. Balance. This is a hard word for me. A work in progress.

Miciah

Miciah is getting better and better at reading. We have a parent-teacher conference at the end of next week. The teacher said she would have a reading assessment for us when we went in to meet with her. The teacher said Miciah is "just cool", but she could have just said that to make all those parental pride emotions inside of me feel good. :) She's a great teacher and we feel lucky for Miciah to be in her class.

A few days ago Miciah came to me with 28 cents. She asked if I could put it in her piggy bank. We created piggy banks for Miciah and Elijah for when they earn money. I told her she had to earn the money and where did she get it from (because she only earns money by doing chores and stuff like that--they play the penny game: a penny for every item they clean up). She said she got it on the bus. I asked her to elaborate and she told me a friend on the bus saw a "jewel" that one of her classmates had given her for her birthday. The kid on the bus wanted it and "traded" her the 28 cents for the jewel. ... I wasn't sure what to say about that. Miciah sold something to another student. In the end I decided that counted as earning money and put the coins in her piggy bank.

Elijah

Elijah is still a rambunctious 3-year-old. He's so sweet sometimes and then just all energy and boy at other times. But it's really cute when we see how sweet he is. He's more considerate than I am BY FAR, and that's refreshing. Sure, you can teach consideration, but we didn't teach him--he came with it.

At Halloween, there was a guy sitting on his porch smoking. He didn't have any candy. Now WHY would you sit on your front porch smoking on Halloween night without candy? Who knows. Elijah started walking up the steps and the guy said he didn't have any candy. We started calling Elijah back, but he wasn't really getting it. We said he could just tell him Happy Halloween, which Elijah apparently took as a go ahead and walk up to get candy. So he finished walking up the steps. We hastily explained to him that the guy didn't have any candy and went to get him down (cause he wasn't coming down). He turns to the guy in the middle of all this fun chaos-like atmosphere, smiles, and gives him a thumbs up. :)

Night Terrors

For a few weeks Elijah's night terrors spiked in frequency. He really hadn't had many until we took his binky away. We took his binky away 2 months ago now, and at first he just didn't go to sleep very well. Then he got used to that and the night terrors started coming back instead. There weren't that many at first, so I wasn't sure it was connected to taking away the binky. Then there was 2 or 3 weeks where they were 3 times a week or more. They'd changed in nature a little, but they obviously were night terrors. We were about to the point where we were ready to ask the doctor about them--if there was anything we could do--when they quit. I just realized the other day that he hadn't had one in like 2 weeks. He will now wake up occasionally in the middle of the night, around midnight (he's ALWAYS done this, even since he was a baby sleeping, otherwise, through the night), be a little sad but able to be comforted, and then go back to sleep. ... We just had Teancom's check-up on Friday, which you'll hear about in a minute, and we asked the doctor about the night terrors. I told him a little of the history and described a little bit about his behavior during them. The doctor said 1- we had it pretty easy compared to some kids' night terrors, and 2- it made a lot of sense to him. The binky was his comfort item which helped curb the night terrors. Then we took that away and he had to adjust again. Having a comfort item helps curb night terrors. So I was glad at least that what we were observing made sense.

But an after affect of taking the binky away is that Elijah now does not take a nap at all. He occasionally will fall asleep watching a movie, or he'll fall asleep in the car (even more rare, since I'm not out and about much in the afternoon now). But no naps on any kind of regular basis. In fact, I'm having a hard time recalling when his last nap was.

Teancom

Teancom is the cutest baby ever. He's dang happy and content with life. He still is not walking, though, and he's not really talking, either. At the check-up, our doctor asked if we were concerned about either of those things. We told him we weren't really, we just wanted to keep an eye on it. He described it much how we do, "It would be nice if he were doing those things, but I think he'll get there." He said he was encouraged by his interaction with us, and how active he was. He did tell us we could send him to Children's for developmental testing for his walking and his talking. He said mainly it would be for peace of mind--plus, we wouldn't have to keep addressing it at doc's visits in the future. We turned that down, just cause we're not really concerned. Teancom has done everything so far at his own pace, and just about the time where we're starting to be really concerned about it, he starts doing it. So, I fully expect that he'll start walking at 18 months, a week before the next doctor's appointment. :)

And then his language will take off, too, I'm sure. Right now the only word he says that is truly a word is "No." He's got that one down. Not that I'm sure he always knows what it means. There are just times I KNOW he knows what it means. He's developing his attitude. He's taken to throwing sprawling fits on the living room floor. Usually it's because he's hungry and I haven't fed him yet. He does know how to sign for food, but I've found that if he's REALLY hungry, he won't sign any more, he'll just throw a fit. Fun. :) But at least he has an opinion about it now, and that's nice. Before it was hard for me to tell when he was hungry at all, because he seemed not to care so much. Then we taught him the sign for food and he would wake up from naps signing for food. :) And now he's moved up a level from that--throwing fits when I don't feed him soon enough.

But, still, he's so dang happy and cute and cuddly! I don't know any other 15-month-old that still loves to be cuddled and squished and loved on like he does. He's very calm for a 15-month-old. And I love it. Miciah the other day said, "Mommy likes Teancom better than all of us, even Daddy." I smiled. I told her that I don't like him better, I just love that I can still gush him. I asked her if I could gush her and she said she wouldn't like it. I told her that Elijah didn't like it, either, and it would just be weird if I did it to Rob. So I have to get it while Teancom will still give it. I'll be a little sad when he's more active. It's nice to just carry him around during church and not have him going crazy because he's bored out of his mind. He's just content to be held while he sucks on his fingers and plays with his ear.

That's the kids.

Thacker Family Fireside

Family stuff. Something very cool happened last week for the family. Rob's parents and sisters and brother, G, came down to do a fireside for the ward. It was titled, "What Think Ye of Christ?" and was a wonderful evening of song and testimony. They each gave a personal story and then sang a song to go along with that testimony. The last song, entitled Tender Mercies, had C on the violin, the rest singing, and our friend in the ward, RH (who is a FABULOUS pianist), accompaning. It was AMAZING. As the presentation ended, I was almost in tears about the fact that it hadn't been recorded. It is my new goal in life to have them perform it (or something like it) again in C and M's branch, or V & C's ward, so we can work on getting a recording of it. (There are rules about what can be recorded where in the ward building. We didn't look very hard into getting it recorded, since they had told us no because that's the rule. I think had Rob or I made a personal plea about how this is a precious piece of family history, they would have let us record it. Because that was the right thing to do. But, alas, now we just have that regret.)

Anyways, it was amazing and a great family moment.

I am doing good. Working on this idea of Balance. That will be a life-long endeavor.

Rob is doing good, too. His paper (as always, it seems) is near completion and he's working on his second paper and his dissertation. We have a June 13th graduation in sight (it's a Friday, which I think is fun), and Rob has a committee meeting on Wednesday to try to convince them he'll be ready to graduate then.

Post-Doc Search

We're also still in the process of trying to find a post-doc. The woman he's been in contact with at the NIH is a flake and so we're looking into other options. This whole thing has been a process of better defining what exactly Rob wants to do for a post-doc. It is still possible that we will stay here in Cincinnati, but it's not Rob's first choice. There are lots of advantages for our family if we stay here, but it has to be right, whatever the choice is. I kicked the current "opportunity" out the door (the woman at the NIH he's been in contact with). Rob isn't as fed up as I am, but he's ready to start expanding his post-doc options now. Bottom line: There is no news to report. We're still in phase 1 (and in some cases, phase 0) of decisions about post-docs.

Cleo

Oh, and I should probably report about Cleo, our cat. We had given her to C, but she wasn't doing well there, so we took her back. There is someone here that is interested in her, possibly, but the day after she got back to our house, we found the elusive ringworm. You know, the ringworm that everyone in our family had, that C's family had, and that we were pretty sure the baby cat, Fumasa, had passed to us. We took Cleo in to get a treatment for it. We've been doing that for, what, almost 4 weeks. It's getting better, but slowly. A week or two after we took Cleo in, they found ringworm on Ceasar, too. The two different vets seperately concluded that Fumasa is a carrier for ringworm. Fun! So Cleo is with us until she is healthy, and then hopefully she'll go to another good home. ... So much for being cat free. :)

And that's our update.

Tamra and family

No big updates from us since last time.

Family Campout

Two weekends ago we went on a family campout. We have gone once before with two other families. This time we added one more family, but that's about as many families, I think, that will fit into the family campout scheme we have worked out. It works great to have other families there, because you share everything, including the sites and the cost, and you end up spending less than you would have just going with your own family. And that's awesome. ... The kids love the camping. We will go again in April, when it's warming up again. It's fun.

Plus, fires are pretty cool. We've been having a good time making tin foil dinners in our fire pit outside. And they're actually really really good. We have a wood pile that we intend to have used up by the time next summer comes and we'll be moving (if it all works out). So we make a fire probably once a week, sometimes more. We make s'mores and tin foil dinners and sometimes we just make the fire to make a fire. Code says that you have to be cooking over it for it to be legal to make a fire, so we always at least make s'mores. S'mores might be one of the best things EVER. So yummy. ... The other night we made a fire and as it died down (fires are like very demanding children. You can't leave them unattended), we sat around it and watched Tim Conway youtube videos. It was awesome. There's something about a fire that makes you want to just stare at it and let the world pass you by while you sit still.

Rob's Paper

Rob is really close to having his first paper finished and ready to publish. But I feel like that's where it's been for YEARS. :) Okay, it hasn't been that long, but it feels like it's dragging out. One of these days I'll send out an update saying it was published in this journal and it'll feel nice to have that completed. ... Rob has started writing his thesis and is doing experiments now for his second paper. Everyone cross their fingers that the results will come.

Miciah and School

Miciah is still enjoying school. She's a very self-motivated learner, which impresses me. Though we did have to have a discussion with her about homework. You do homework before you go outside to play or play a computer game. This discussion made Rob feel really old. How many times did our parents tell us that and how many times did we groan about it? And now here we are saying the same thing.

Teancom

Teancom has leaped ahead in just the last week. The signs we've been trying to teach him for the last 2 months (food/eat, juice, more, milk, and all done) he's now learned and is using unprompted. Out of the blue, it seems, he just suddenly was using them. So it's really really nice to be able to have him tell us what he wants. He's also taken a step for us, though he still thinks it's hysterical that we get so excited about it. ... I'm not sure I can define what's changed in Teancom. He just seems more attentive and alert and like he wants to communicate with us. Like he's trying to interact with us, whereas before he'd just smile at us when we tried to get him to sign. :) I think he likes that he can sign food and get food.

He still thinks it's pretty funny to hit me when he's tired. Usually in the face. Why he should think this is so funny, I don't know.

Elijah

Elijah was sick a week ago Sunday. He woke up puking at 6 a.m. Sunday morning and was up sick until 8:30 or so. He woke up feeling much better at 10:30 a.m. Everyone was at church except for him and me, and he turned to me and asked where Daddy was. I told him that they were all at church because Elijah was sick. He looked at me a little puzzled and said, "I'm sick?" It was cute. ... He's so sweet when he's not feeling well, really. When he first woke up, I jumped out of bed because all I heard was what sounded like Elijah choking. I ran in to find he'd thrown up all over his bed and himself. I took him into the bathroom to finish while Rob changed the sheets. After it had passed, I took Elijah into the living room. He took a detour to his room, looked in to see Rob, smiled at him and gave him a thumbs up. :)

That was a pretty off day. Later I remarked to someone about how if that's how Elijah's sickness went, I'd sign up for the same thing. 3 hours and done. He woke up asking for food. I made him go slowly, but he was eating good stuff by afternoon. Anyways, when I said I'd sign up for the same sickness, I meant that I'd sign up for it to happen IN THE SAME WAY. A friend of ours was sick with some stomach bug that ailed him for 3 days during the week. Wasn't sure it was the same thing, since his sickness was so ugly and Elijah's wasn't.

And Then It Happened to Me

So Thursday night I went to bed only to dream about how I was going to throw up. I woke up at 1 a.m. to fulfill that prophetic dream. By 3 a.m. Miciah had joined in. By 5 a.m. Teancom was throwing up, too. Poor Rob, he had to get up with the kids every time because I couldn't get up without throwing up. After Rob got done cleaning up after one of the kids, he got back to bed and said, "I should set my alarm for 10 minutes from now." When the next round came, he got up and said, "Well, we made it 12 minutes." :) He got back to bed after taking care of it, and said, "Well, you might as well get up and throw up, too." I told him I would have to in a matter of minutes. Of course, by then I was just dry heaving, which is worse. We all were done by 8 a.m. and everyone slept in until almost 10.

Rob asked if I wanted to get up and take a shower and hopefully that would help me feel better. I said sure and got up. I walked into the bathroom and Rob looked at me as I was leaning on the sink for support. He said, "Are you okay?" I told him I'd probably better just go back to bed. By the time I got back to the bed, I had almost fainted. So, needless to say, Rob stayed home from school Friday. I told him I'd love to be able to take care of my sick kids, but I can't even take care of myself (and you can't pawn sick kids off on someone else). I tried twice to get up and sit on the couch. From my bed to the couch (what, maybe 30 feet) I had to stop and sit on the dining room chair so I wouldn't faint. Miciah sat on the couch watching TV all day, with a fever spiking at 102. And I slept until 5 p.m. I still wasn't feeling great, but good enough to walk, so Rob took a little nap because he was beat. Wonder why. :) We figured out that the night we were all awake sick, the longest stretch of sleep was 2 hours. Nice.

The Morning After

We all felt MUCH better by Saturday morning. This last weekend was General Conference for our church, and we were supposed to go up North to stay with M and C to watch conference and let the kids play together. We were supposed to go up on Friday night, but obviously that wasn't happening. So we went up Saturday early afternoon after we got our house back in order. On the way Teancom threw up (Rob said maybe it was just car sickness. Maybe). I was grumpy because I still wasn't feeling great. Not sick any more, but still recovering and weak (I lost 5 lbs. in a little over a day--I kept looking in the mirror wondering what was wrong with my image--guant and pale (and that's paler than normal, mind you)). We got to M's house and I laid on the couch for another few hours. Finally by dinner Saturday night I was eating some normal food. That's 48 hours after getting sick. We went to bed that night and Miciah woke up and had thrown up a little agian.

But by Sunday we were all pretty much better. And no one has had any episodes since. ... Rob's advisor did tell him that he's next. Rob said, "I hope not." To which his advisor, an MD, responded, "No. You will be." :) Let's hope not.

... Why it should be fair that I would be hit really hard by this sickness that Teancom and Elijah breezed through, .... :) Oh well. We're all better for now.

So DON'T EVER SAY YOU'D SIGN UP FOR A SICKNESS. Cause you never know what you're in for.

Here's a great picture of Elijah. I went into the kids' room last night to make sure it wasn't too cold and walked in to find Elijah, asleep, like this. :) It was awesome.


Well, that's our long update about not much of anything. Hope life is going well for all of you!

Tamra

P.S. One of the speakers during our General Conference gave a talk that really touched me. He was talking about charity and small acts of kindness. About halfway through his talk he started shaking a LOT and looked like he was going to fall over. One of the other men walked up behind him. I thought he was going to tell the speaker that he should probably sit down or something. But he didn't. Without a word or even a gesture, and without any acknowledgement, he just stood behind the speaker and supported him so he could stand. The shaking decreased, but it was with great effort that the speaker finished his talk. I thought that maybe the speaker would shorten his talk because of the situation, but I don't think he did. He wanted to give his message as it was intended. It just really struck me that here is this man speaking on charity, just trying to give his talk with a body that isn't cooperating, and then, his friend comes up and embodies the talk by supporting him. No words. Just simple, kind charity. ... After the talk the speaker said, "Thank you," and several other men helped him to his chair.

How we all lean on each other. Thank you, all of you, for showing me and my family charity and love. We appreciate you.

Last Part of the Update

Miciah is loving school. She likes to learn (though she does tell us that she's not learning a whole lot that she doesn't already know). She comes home and as quickly as possible shows us her stuff from the day. They often have things she wants to finish coloring or whatever. Sometimes she'll come home with stories to act out for us. She loves doing her homework and is very eager not only to do it and have FUN doing it (is that possible? She has fun doing homework?), but to do it right.

It did make me laugh yesterday. She came home and was trying to tell me about an event happening Monday night. She said it was a bagel thing. I was thinking about how I didn't know there was a school function that night that involved breakfast food. She then told me that they would throw things. I asked, "Throw bagels?" "Yeah!" she said. I was beyond confused. She then told me it was at 7. No, no, that wasn't right. The teacher said it was at 7:30. And we could watch it on TV. They would be playing a game. ... She was telling me about the BENGALS game. Bagels, Bengals, it's all the same. :)

Teancom still isn't walking or anything, and that's okay with me. He does say Da Da, and usually says a consistent bye-bye. That's about it. But, again, he's about the happiest kid I've ever met, so I'll take it. By this point in Elijah's life, we knew about his temper. I was wondering if Teancom would have the same temper, but it seems that he doesn't have a temper. He doesn't even get mad if he's hungry and you're not feeding him fast enough. And that's AMAZING to me. He's just really chill. It makes him a charmer because everyone falls in love with his soft temperament. Including me.

And the last thing, I've had some funky eye problem. There was a dry spot on my eyelid. Who knows what it is. I had it for over 2 weeks. As I was entering week 3 this weekend, it started swelling. First the swelling wasn't too noticable, then it got a lot worse. I finally broke down and decided I should treat it with something. I didn't know what to use, though cause just about everything topical says not to get in or near eyes. I tried melaluca oil, but it burned and made my eye feel like I put icy hot on it. So I decided to try this triple antibiotic cream that has melaluca in it. The swelling has now almost completely reduced and my eyelid is no longer red. Random of all randomness, but I'm glad it's going away. And no, I am NOT attaching a picture of it at its worst. :) That's the beauty of being the one behind the camera.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Tamra

First Day of School Update!

We made it through the end of summer! I feel like I can think about life again now that summer is over.

We went in Friday to meet for about 15 minutes with Miciah and her teacher, Mrs. Parker. Mrs. Parker is nice and showed Miciah where her seat was and her cubby and all that stuff. Then she had Miciah write her name. She told Miciah that it was great, but that she would be expected to write in the correct lowercase and uppercase now. Miciah seemed not quite to know how to respond to that. But she immediately corrected her H to an h and handed it back to the teacher. Then, all weekend, she practiced her name (she wasn't quite sure how to do a lowercase a). Over and over and over. Until she got it down. She wrote it on paper. She colored it in coloring books. She wrote it in chalk on the front porch. Then she would run and say, "Mom, Mom! Come look! I wrote my name right and went, 'Yesss!' " Too cute.

First Day of Kindergarten

Miciah's first day of school was Monday. She has afternoon Kindergarten, which will work splendidly for us, I think. But Monday she woke up and asked about every 15 minutes from the moment she woke up if it was time for school yet. No. No. No, no, no, no. Finally, at 12:25 she sat down in front of the VCR and watched the clock. I had told her that at 12:30 we could walk to the bus stop. My mom tried to distract her by asking her to put her clothes away. She said she didn't want to. I told her it would help the time go by quicker. She said, unconvinced, "How?" Well, then you wouldn't just be staring at the clock. She got up and got the clothes. During that time the clock turned to 12:26. As she walked to her room, she glanced at the clock and said, "6! Yes!" Too funny.

We walked to the bus stop and the bus was very late. Late on her first day of school. Bummer. We also had our first real experience with how we shouldn't touch litter. You don't need details, all you need to know is GROSS! ...


While Miciah was gone, Elijah said, "Mom, where is Ciah?" I told him she was at school. He said, "But I want her!" It was cute. I think he'll miss her, but I also think the time will be really good for him. And it'll be nice to have the house not be so loud.

Second Day of Kindgergarten

She came back from school talking a mile a minute about how the day went! She was excited and ready to go back the next day. Fortunately, she wasn't quite as obsessed with the time yesterday. Elijah saw her off at the bus and was excited to go to school, too! He was a little disappointed that he didn't get to go, but still, excited just to see the bus.

She came home from her second day of school. I asked her how school was on her second day. She said, "Boring." Boring? Well, what did you do? "Nothing. We didn't do anything!" :) It's funny to me that the first day was exciting and the second day was boring. She told Grandma it was boring because they didn't get to play. Grandma told her that you go to school to work, not to play, so sometimes it might be boring. I thought that was a good answer.

Kids

And that's our main update. Miciah is now a Kindergartener and that's great. Elijah is still Elijah. He's cute and full-speed ahead. Teancom is still SO dang cute. He can stand up on his own and we'll stand him up and put our arms out and try to get him to walk towards the other person. He just laughs and either sits down or falls forward. Won't even take a step. But he's happy and healthy and that's wonderful. We take him in for a doctor's appointment tomorrow. A little late on his 1 year check-up. It's a new doc who hopefully won't be obsessed about the fact that he's a little behind on the walking milestone.

No More Cats, But We Still Have Ringworm

Oh, on other fronts. We gave Fumasa back to C along with our two cats, Cleo and Ceasar. It's a little sad to be without them. They're good cats. But it's also nice to not have to hassle with some of the things that are a hassle when you have cats. ... All of us have ringworm. Rob was the last holdout, but he has it now, too. We assume the ringworm is from the cats (C's kids have it, too, and had it first), but they couldn't find any ringworm spots on Fumasa (whom we assume is the culprit), and so they can't treat it. We are all being treated for it. We didn't have it officially diagnosed, but you treat it with over-the-counter stuff, so I figured it doesn't matter. We will ask the doc about it tomorrow, though. Teancom and Rob have 1 spot a piece. Miciah and Elijah have 2. And I'm the lucky one with 4 (and maybe a 5th if this random thing on my eyelid is one, too). Fun, fun.

And who knew that ringworm is a fungus? I guess a lot of people do, but I didn't. It should be a worm, shouldn't it, if it's called ringworm? Like roundworm. Or hookworm. Those are worms. But no, it's a fungus. Though I suppose ringworm sounds better than ringfungus.

So that's our news. Hope all is well for everyone!

Two pictures of my sleeping babies. I watched them sleeping and wanted to take pictures of them. They're not as enchanting in the pictures as when I was looking at them, but they're still cute. And the one of Teancom spotlights him sucking on those 2 fingers he thinks are tasty.

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom (with no cats, though we still have fish)

Pictures

I'll send out pictures first, then a short update. Oh, who am I kidding? My updates are never short, even when I think they are. :)

Cats

The kitten in the picture is C's cat. We're almost done with an almost-5-week-stint of cat sitting. The kitten now gets along with the other 2 cats, and has been fun for the kids. Teancom especially has loved the kitten being around. Soon, Cleo and Ceasar, our two cats, will go home with Fumasa to C's house and she'll be their new owner. Ceasar will have a heavenly home with tons and tons of space to hunt and run around in. And then we can still visit the cats when we go see C.

And this is Teancom sporting some awesome sunglasses. :) The glasses are G's. G is holding him in this picture, actually, but is making such a weird face that I cropped him out. Besides, next to Teancom, ... nothing's cuter than that!

My New Wedding Ring

Part of my update is that we bought me a wedding ring! If you remember, I lost my wedding ring in a car accident in Jan. 2004. So for 3 1/2 years I've been wearing one of 3 cheap rings I bought on eBay for $14 a piece. We have made it a date night to go ring shopping. We've never been meaning to buy a ring, we've just been looking for my "dream ring". We found one once that was amazing, but it was almost $3,000. We didn't have that kind of money. ... Anyways, we went on a date a few weeks ago and decided once again to browse jewlery stores. We walked into our third store of the night and there was my ring. We were both enchanted and amazed, and we bought it! It's exciting to have a wedding ring again.

This is kind of neat for me. The ring is a band that matches Rob's band pretty dang well. Rob's ring is yellow gold on the outside and platinum in the middle. My original matched his sort of. It was the same sort of design, but with alternating colors of white, yellow, and rose gold on the inside. We had bought both rings on clearance, and because of that, I wasn't able to buy my ring in the size I needed. It was a size 10 that needed to be squeezed down to a size 7. Well, after that, the ring wasn't quite the same (besides, I liked Rob's ring better for me, but it was too masculine--this new one, though it's white gold, is brushed, so that takes off that masculine feeling). I wasn't too happy with how it looked after that, but whatever. It was a ring.

So this ring matches Rob's ring better, it's very similar to my original, I like the white gold look better than the tri-gold, and we could order it in my size so it's infinitely more comfortable. All in all, I like it better than the original ring we bought for me.

This is exciting news for me, so thanks for letting me bore you with sharing it.
And these two pictures of Teancom are just so dang cute I couldn't resist sharing them.

Teancom

And now for the update part. Teancom's big news is that he chipped his top middle left tooth. Yep. On Rob's head. Yep. ... Don't ask, I don't know either. But the chip is very slight and won't be an eye sore or anything, so he'll just have a chipped tooth until he's 5 or 6. Not sure that's a big deal.

Teancom has now stood on his own three times that we've seen. He cruises along furniture, too, so that's progress. He isn't ready to try to take a step on his own yet, but that'll come with time. We have also just barely taught him his first sign: more. It's about that stage where signs come in real handy.

Elijah

Elijah is a monster, but we're learning how to deal with it. He won't take a nap for like a week and then he'll be so awful and so exhausted that he'll take 3 days' worth of naps. Then the cycle starts over. Obviously, the days with naps are infinitely better than those without. ... I have started joking with my friends that I'm offering him up for legal adoption. Miciah had a really yucky year 2 and wasn't as bad for year 3. So Elijah's great year 2 didn't prepare us for a crummy year 3. Oh well.

A funny story about Elijah. Elijah still gets his binky for nap time and bed time. He'll get up in the morning and I'll say, "Elijah, I need your binky" and he'll hand it to me. If he doesn't want to give it up, he has to go back to bed and be ready to give it up when he comes back out of his bedroom. Usually this works very smoothly. Well, a few weeks back he was really fighting us about it. After him pushing the line over and over, I finally told him that I was going to throw it away if he didn't give it to me (it's one of 3, so not too big a deal, just a lesson taught). He didn't give it to me, so I yanked it out of his mouth and threw it away. Of course he was upset. We talked to him about it and he calmed down. About 10 minutes later he came to us and said, "I look binky in trash can and say, "Binky, why you go away?"" That made us smile. ... If you're wondering, Elijah has had no problem since giving us his binky. In fact, the very next time he came out of his room, he put his binky on the table, unasked, and said, "No put binky in trash can."

Miciah and the Kindergarten Pre-Screening

Miciah is ready to start Kindergarten. We took her in for her pre-screening. You know, what is this color, what are these letters, what rhymes with orange. Stuff like that. She knew all of the answers, as she proudly reported when she got back to my side. :) ... Then this funny situation occured, and I wanted to share it cause it made me laugh (when it was safe to laugh). The next kid to do the pre-screening was a boy. The same lady who took Miciah back was there to take this little boy. She said, "Are you ready?" and then the kid takes off running down the hallway and out the school doors screaming, "I'm not ready! I'm not ready!" His mom is chasing out the doors behind him yelling, "A, stop it! A, come back here!" They have a chat outside and then A comes back in the doors. He waits until Mom is safely a few feet inside the doors, laughs, and runs back outside. Mom chases. A comes back in the doors again, and the lady says, "Are you ready now?" He follows her down the hallway, still shouting, "I'm not ready! I'm not ready!"

Made me glad my kid is Miciah. Though, I won't claim none of my kids would ever do that. They probably would. It was just funny.

Rob

Rob is excited about post-docs and about getting his first paper published. He is very near having the first paper ready to publish, and that excites me, too. It makes graduating seem like a reality. It will be interesting where the next stage of life will take us. Rob would be happy to go any one of a couple of places, so we'll see where we end up. It would be weird to think about the possibility of moving next year, but if that happens, I guess that's okay. One of the possibilities is in the DC area, and I think if that becomes a real possibility, Rob would love to go there (Army Medical Research and NIH are both there, and he'd love either of those). If that happens, we're probably back to an apartment, and I can tell you I won't mind that AT ALL. I've loved owning this house, and it's my baby, but I won't mind the lesser responsibilities of an apartment.

Tamra

It's my month to talk in church, apparently. I spoke in church last Sunday. I guess it went okay, that's what people told me. And I give a lesson Labor Day weekend on the miracle of forgiveness. I've been studying a lot about the topic and it's made me want to be more humble and repentant. It's a work in progress. :)

My Parents

That's our news here. My parents are joining us later tonight. Dad will stay until next Monday and Mom will stay until Sept. 1st. It'll be nice to have them here with us. They're always a delight, and we always get to see lots more family because they're here than when they're not here.

Tamra

Update

Teancom is Army Crawling!

Teancom is army crawling, it's official! On Wednesday 2 important events occured with his army crawling. I was sitting at the computer and he crawled into the other room. I heard the noise coming from the kitchen and then jumped up to get him because we have stairs off our kitchen! He was a foot or two away from them, so I was in time, but it was the first time, so it seemed monumental. I'll be putting up the gate when I get home from my trip, so then he can only stay in the living room, or at least can't fall down the stairs. The second one. I gave him some cheerios to eat on the living room floor. He finished those, then crawled towards me quickly, like he had some purpose in doing so. He wasn't looking at me, but next to me. I looked at where he was looking on the desk and realized he was eyeing the cheerios box. So not only was that crawling, but it was a want he had, and he communicated it well enough that I knew what he wanted! It was a fun moment.

Teancom is still just as sweet as ever, he's just mobile now. He looks like he's swimming across the floor when he crawls. He uses his legs when he crawls, he just won't get up on his knees. Or he'll crawl for about half a crawl and then he's army crawling. He is very fast at it, and I wonder if he'll ever crawl for real, cause he's so fast already that I'm not sure he'll feel he "needs" to. We'll see.

Elijah

Elijah is a blast. The other day he was sitting in the living room with Teancom. He said, "Mom, I share with Tankcom." He had some crackers that he had broken up into small pieces. He then put one in Teancom's mouth and said, "Chew. Chew." How cute.

Miciah

Miciah is Miciah. The cutest story about her is from our traveling yesterday (which I'll mention later in the e-mail). She turned to me an hour and a half into a 4 1/2 hour flight. She said, "How long will it be?" Another 3 hours, I told her. "That's too long! I could throw up on the plane. I could DIE on the plane!" I thought that was funny.

Miciah's last day of pre-school was Thursday. She doesn't do her Kindergarten screening until August, they changed the dates on us. It was supposed to be in June, but that's okay with us, since we're in CA for all of June. ... Miciah and C had set up to do Art Class during the summer, once a week for an hour or so. C made up the whole cirriculum. Then we left for all of June. So they did one class early, last week. Miciah made paper flowers with her. Loved it. Then colored a plastic container with markers to make a vase. She colored the entire thing pink. Then she wrapped it up in her skirt and shirt and so was covered in pink marker. I asked her why she did that and she said, "Cause it makes it look cool!" So I couldn't even yell at her--it was in the name of art! :)

Traveling is Fun

Traveling was fun. We flew from Indianapolis to Chicago, had a 3-hour wait (that was on purpose--if giving a choice between a 45-minute layover and a 3-hour layover, give me the 3 hours for my kids to eat and run around), then flew into San Fran, then another 2-hour drive to Mom's house. We drove to Indy Thursday night and stayed in a hotel not 5 minutes from the airport. This made our morning much nicer, since the flight left at 6 a.m. Friday morning we were arriving at the airport with an hour and 15 minutes til the flight, and as Rob stopped the van to get the parking stub, the car died. Go figure. He had to push the car, with the help of the guy behind us, into a parking spot. Oh well, at least we were there. We were on the wrong side of the airport, though. Luckily Indy is a smaller airport. Found United. Well, apparently showing up with enough time but just enough time isn't a good plan. We got to the front of the line fairly quickly, but then the woman helping us had to go to the gate to help out. She checked in 2 of my 4 bags, told me I was all set, then took off. Shortly thereafter, another woman left for the gates. 20 minutes later, and as I had only 45 minutes and less to get on my plane, I finally asked if I could leave Rob with the bags and go through security. They said that was fine, and it was a good thing I did it, too, cause the security line was getting longer.

Rob got the bags through, said goodbye to me in the line, then left to take care of the car. (He had joked the night before about being able to make it to Indy with a 1/4 tank of gas. I thought he was joking, and apparently he should have been, since we ran out of gas at the airport garage. Luckily, that was ALL that was wrong with the car.) Security was fun. Elijah wasn't really awake, and wasn't happy to be there. I made him get out of the stroller and then he laid on the ground and screamed. When we had to move, I'd literally drag him and then set him back down. The other passengers seemed to be okay with all this, a little amused, a little annoyed. I joked with them about how I'd just roll him through the rest of security. Then a lady 5 people back asked if she could hold the baby. I told her I wouldn't turn that down. So then I just had to worry about dragging Elijah. He still screamed, but at least I was able to get through security. She held Teancom all the way through security, and I was pleasantly surprised they let her do that for me. Fortunately they didn't make Elijah walk through the metal detector by himself, cause it wouldn't have worked (I tried). The lady was the last person on her flight, and I was right on time for my boarding group. This was 15 minutes before the flight was supposed to leave.

Flight #1

The first flight was awesome. Teancom slept the whole time. Elijah woke up a little bit and so wasn't crying and screaming any more, and just laid there the whole time. Miciah was across the aisle from me (it was 2 seats, an aisle, then 2 seats), and she chatted off the ear of the young woman sitting next to her. But the woman gave Miciah some paper and a pen to color with, got her bag for her, did anything Miciah asked her to. I was grateful to her.

The Layover

The layover. We hung out at the next gate. A guy told me, "Young lady, you redefine 'multitasking'." I chuckled with him. The kids got to run around a little. And at about the time they were getting really bored with being there, and Elijah was crying on the floor again, a guy came up with his 9 month old daughter and offered Elijah a balloon (one of those made out of rubber gloves). He then spent the next almost hour with us until we had to board, entertaining my kids. I was grateful to him. Some other people there, about Mom and Dad's age, were smiling at my plight, and I laughed along with them. I even offered them a kid or two, but they declined. :)

Flight #2

The long flight went smootly, too. Teancom and Elijah slept for the first 2 hours of it, and I got some sleep in for an hour or so, too. Miciah chatted with the guy across the aisle from us. She must have asked him about 50 times what time it was. Eventually I told her she couldn't ask him anymore. By the end of the flight she was listening to music on the headsets with him. She'd ask what number he was listening to and then she'd change her number to that one. Once she said, "I'm on number 4, listen to number 4." He changed to that one, listened for a few seconds, then said, "BORING. Listen to number 5. It's better." So she changed to number 5. It went on like that for the last part of the flight. I was grateful to him.

Someone else held Teancom so that Elijah and I could go to the bathroom on the flight. I was grateful to him. They said, "It must be hard traveling with 3 kids." I shrugged. It was easier than travelling pregnant and with 2 kids. Easier BY FAR. Besides, we were making it! It was working!

Arrival at SFO

Then we arrived in SFO and I wasn't dead tired (though I was tired from waking up so early) or done with my kids. I was amazed at how many people had helped make our day good. Like Doug at the gate with the balloons who showed up right on time and was there just the right amount of time. We were looked after and helped out by a lot of people Friday and that was amazing and wonderful. Plus, I was gently amused by the whole situation, and that helped a lot, too. I did it without drugging myself (Advil) or the kids (Benedryl). It was a triumph of a day.

I did crash at 8:30 last night. I fell asleep while still awake, and slept through all kinds of noise and distractions. Usually that's hard for me, but it was NOT hard last night. Teancom fell asleep at 6:30 or 7. Elijah, just after that. So they both woke up early: 6:30 a.m. And even though that was 9:30 my time, it still felt like 6:30. :) Hopefully I will be able to sleep a little bit today.

So here we are. It's nice to be here. I'm looking forward to getting my kids back in schedule and used to the time zone. As well as getting them on track with behavior. I switched forms of formula on Teancom and he doesn't like that yet. And Elijah, after traveling and being in a pull-up all day plus, wet his pants this morning, which is very unusual. Plus, I let him have his binky all day traveling, so he isn't liking giving it back. We'll get it all together in a few days and then we can start really enjoying our trip. :)

Oh, Rob had to walk to a gas station, about 5 minutes walking from the airport. Got a gallon of gas, enough to drive to the gas station and fill up the tank. Then went back to the hotel and slept for almost another 3 hours. Ate breakfast at the hotel and got back to the lab in Cincy by 11 a.m.

FYI, I have our cell phone, not Rob. So if you're trying to get ahold of Rob, you'll have to call the home phone. During the week days, he'll be at the lab, of course. Just in case you need to get ahold of Rob.

Miami Beach Trip

Oh, I guess I didn't update people on our Miami Beach trip. In short: the kids loved staying with other people for a week. Miciah was with M and A, two of her cousins. They made pinatas and she got to wear their clothes and stuff, and she loved it. Elijah and Teancom were with Rob's mom who was sick the whole time, but managed. She got really sick on the day we got back and ended up in the hospital for a week with pnemonia. Yikes! But the boys are healthy and the docs told C that the boys shouldn't get sick if they aren't sick yet.

And of course WE loved the break. Rob learned some good things from the people he met and talked to at the Immunology conference. Gave him some good direction and pumped him up to finish school quickly and move on. I loved hanging around with nothing better to do than take a bath or walk on the beach or read a book. It was a welcome change. We ate out at lots of places and did whatever we wanted. We walked to the south end of the beach. We had been told it would be a 40-minute walk one way. 2 1/2 hours later we were back. I was so tired that I then took a long nap while Rob went and played in the waves at the beach. We both got a little sunburnt, Rob worse than me because I stayed out of the sun for the most part (but the sun on my back itched like crazy for a few days and I used like a whole bottle of lotion to calm that down). The sun is more potent down there, I think. It was a fun trip and I'm glad we did it, especially since now we'll be apart for a month. It was nice to be together, just us, not talking about whose turn it was to change the diaper or whatever, and to remember that at the heart of our marriage is the fact that we really enjoy being together. I remembered all over again why I fell in love with the man. It was awesome.

Tamra