Miciah's News

8 Years Old Means...

Miciah is now 8 and she's loving it and I'm loving it and it's good for everyone.  She is generally calmer and in more control of her emotions (unless you count when she's losing a tooth, and then she's completely irrationally emotionally explosive).  She is also taking on more responsibility around the house, and she loves it.  We changed her chore list to include:
1 Making dinner once a week
2 Doing her own laundry

We're only on week 2 of these changes, so we'll see how she loves them over time.  But already she's thinking of great things to make for dinner like Clam Chowder.  I told her we'd have to work up to that one.

Letting her do her own laundry last week also meant that she didn't kick and scream about doing it.  That's semi-miraculous.  I hope it continues to be so successful even when laundry changes are coming our way (more in another update to come).

And check out these chore lists:

See the beach and tree and water?  ...  Before I left for Key West, Miciah asked if the next time I went she could come with me.  I said, "Sure," thinking that the next time I went was probably, oh, never.  But, of course, she was talking about it instantly like it was a sure thing.  Realizing that I should have answered VERY differently, I did the only thing left to do:  set about devising a way to get her to Key West.  The kids have been earning money for about a year now, $5 a week.  So we sat down and figured out prices and timelines and told them that if they saved all their money (minus $.50 for tithing), they would have enough money in a year's time.  They are now very motivated to do their chores--a nice change.  And each of them has a Key West piggy bank to make it all seem real.  We're already looking forward to our family vacation to Key West.

School Halloween Party

During her school party I caught this great shot:

She's messing with her loose tooth.  Which is good.  We used scare tactics to get to her to mess with it, since she's been letting them stay in her mouth for ages, and the dentist told us she probably shouldn't do that.  So we gave her a week's time, and the tooth was out.  Another parent caught the moment:

Another tooth will be gone within a day or so.  Hopefully the drama and trauma of last night's Loose Tooth Freak Out Session won't repeat itself.  Sheesh.  It's just a tooth!  More grow in!

School

We had Miciah's Parent Teacher Conference this week, too.  It went great.  One of the "major" concerns:  I should stop doodling on Miciah's homework.  ...  They make us sign everything and this seems tedious to me.  Maybe other parents find it wonderful.  Or maybe they're just decent enough to not give the teacher crap about it.  Me, though, I doodle.  The teacher caught on to the rebellious spirit of it all, I guess, and asked me to stop.  So there goes my fun.

Here's Miciah's school picture:

Miciah is doing well in school and is helpful and kind.  She isn't snooty when she knows stuff that other people don't.  She isn't being bossy (no "Miciah, who's the teacher?" talks).  She isn't being as bossy at home, either.  Being 8 is really good for her. 

Miciah's Party

More pictures of the girl craziness that went on:

It was fun.  The next scheduled Birthday Party is when she turns 13, I think.  I think that's the year Rob and I decided.  And it's 13 because nothing cool happens when you turn 13.  It's just a pointless year.  Might as well give it a party and make it something to look forward to.  Then a party at 16 and then we should be done with them.  Hurray!

Piano, etc.


Miciah has been doing piano lessons for several weeks now and seems to be really liking it.  It's still a novelty, so she spends half the lesson trying to make her teacher laugh.  Cause she's a goober like that.

It's fun to watch Miciah grow up and decide what she wants to do with her time.  She reads a LOT and is very interested in history and science stuff.  In fact, that's exactly what she told me the last time we went to the museum.  She said, "Mom, have you noticed that I'm more interested in the history than in playing?"  I wanted to laugh.  Good for her, though.  I told her that when we have Elijah and Teancom on board, it wasn't really the time to read stuff, and promised that we would go to the museum later, just me, Rob, and her.  It's fun that she's entering that new stage when we can enjoy more adult stuff with her.

She is also interested in fairies, just to remind us that she's still only 8.

And that's Miciah's news.  I'll make another post of her artwork and things she's done at school. 

Thanksgiving Week (an update)

The kids made this Happy Thanksgiving sign. It didn't come out very well on here, I guess. If you click on the picture, you can see it bigger, though.

My mother and grandfather fly into town today, so I thought I'd sit down and write my update, since it won't happen after they get here.

Things to report.

Miciah's Tooth Trauma

Round 2 of Miciah's tooth trauma. Last year right about this time, if you remember, she had to have a tooth pulled after an ER visit where we found out that her tooth was just gone. Rotted out without us being able to tell. They put a spacer in to allow the adult tooth to come in correctly.

Well, a few weeks ago she came to us in the middle of the night (4:30 a.m.) saying that another tooth hurt--this time the same tooth, just on the other side of her mouth. Rob took a look at it briefly, gave her some Tylenol and sent her back to bed. I asked him what he thought and he gave me that look that says nothing good is coming her way. So depressing for her.

We took her in to the dentist and sure enough, tooth number 2 rotted away without us knowing. They showed Rob the x-ray of the tooth from last year. The tooth was totally fine. The dentist said it was pretty incredible that that amount of damage happened in a year's time. They gave her an ultra-powerful flouride tooth treatment (FINALLY people are believing me that she just has crummy teeth!) and scheduled a tooth-pulling session for December 17th.

Dec. 17th was 4 weeks after they brought her in. I wondered if she would last that long. What if it started hurting? It took her another week or so to start complaining about it again. Some nights before bedtime of her complaining. But the last straw, really, was when she came home from school and said that she'd had to go to the school nurse because her tooth hurt. Clearly, we wouldn't be making it all the way to Dec. 17th. We called Children's Dental (the ONLY place I will be taking my kids from here on out, by the way. They're that good) on this last Friday morning and told them she was in pain and we needed to set up a time before Dec. 17th. I was ready for them to put up a fight, tell us how busy they were. But the lady just said, "If she's in pain, bring her in right now. We'll put her in the emergency chair." Oh. That was easy. WHY DIDN'T THEY TELL US THAT BEFORE?!

So we took her out of school Friday morning and Rob took her to get her tooth pulled. They said the tooth was massively infected, and it was good we didn't wait until Dec. 17th to bring her in. She got home by about noon and was pretty mopey. I remember tooth trauma from my childhood, so I'm very sympathetic about stuff like this. But by about 2 pm she was running around being crazy and she said, "I got a day off school!" I looked at her sideways, wondering if it was worth it to get a tooth pulled for a day off school! I wouldn't think so.

Snaggletooth was very nice to her and gave her a full dollar for the tooth trauma. This is the note she wrote to him:

Working the system. That's our Miciah. And she got a piece of candy.

Soccer

Miciah is now playing on an indoor soccer team, and loves it. She is the shortest, slowest, and probably youngest on the team (they didn't have a slot for her in her age group, so they put her one age group up). At her first practice one of the girls put her arm around Miciah and paired up with her for a drill. I was glad that she was able to find a friend so fast. Miciah later told me that the girl had said, "You're so cute!" and "You're so little for your age." ... I suggested to her that she could run a little faster when she was on the field and she said, "You don't run as fast as you can when you play, either." I think that's a tally mark for Miciah.

She has now played 2 games and her team has won them both. She has claimed, after both games, that she scored a goal. In fact, she was so desperate to say she scored, apparently, that she claimed that she scored a goal for the OTHER team. I think she might be wanting to be like me (and that wasn't meant to be cocky). The day before her first game I had a game and I scored 2 goals. It's interesting how compelling it is for kids to want to be just like their parents.

I think it's fun to note my own soccer playing. Mainly because soccer is (and probably forever will be) a love of mine. It's nice to be in touch with that part of me, even though it feels like I pay a small fortune to play, especially when our budget is so tight. In my last game, Friday night, I accidentally did the full splits. By the way I can't DO the full splits. On my way down I heard a sound that I knew was my muscle. Not good. And Saturday morning I woke up knowing EXACTLY where that muscle runs and where it connects in the body. It hurt the entire length. But it's fun to play. Hopefully bruises and over-stretched muscles will be the extent of my soccer injuries.

Stress

Rob's job continues to be stressful, though we seem to finally be figuring it out (slowly). Really, it's the job and calling combo that gets us. This month has felt like a culminating event in terms of stress. It was a crucial time for us to say, "Enough!" and put our lives back together the way they should have been to start with.

For instance, as related to Rob's calling: Is there another meeting that Rob could attend, please? Because I think he needs a few more. ... Ugh! NO! I finally got to a point where I said, "If I hear the word 'need' in the same sentence as 'meeting' I will scream." Because I can think of a lot of things I need and NONE OF THOSE THINGS are a meeting. But we're figuring out how to meet halfway. Rob has figured out that he can say no to some meetings, and I've become willing to let him go to all the meetings he says he needs to go to. And he's learned that if he wants to attend a meeting at all, he leaves the word 'need' out of the sentence. Instead he'll say, "Tamra, there's a meeting that I'd really like to go to..." I know he's saying roughly the same thing as before, but it's a change in attitude for both of us, and it really helps me.

Calendar

I finally have my 2009 calendar. It's amazing how much you need one for the new year come October or so. The kind I buy happen to cost only like $2.50. It was fantastic how excited I was when Rob came home with my calendar. Not quite update worthy, I'll admit, but I'm excited, so I'm including this pointless piece of information.

Sickness

This whole month feels like it's been filled with sicknesses going around our family. It took a full 3 weeks for Rob and I both to feel like we were feeling much much better again. Still, we have a cough that's just hanging around. Not bad any more, but still just hanging there until we've almost forgotten about it, and then it shows up again. Still, last Sunday I declared us all healthy. Hopefully we all stay that way.

While I was sick I lost a little weight. Not because I wasn't hungry (it was a strange sickness, really. No huge symptoms other than a cough and feeling crummy, but still apetite in tact), but because I felt too crummy to get off the couch to get something to eat. My stomach did feel a little not right a few days, because my main caloric intake was mucus drainage and cough drops.

Needless to say, the Health and Fitness Challenge Rob and I were doing was completely thrown off track by this sickness parade. There were several days where exercise was impossible, and many other days where we just didn't want to, even though we could. And after we were finally feeling better, the challenge only had a week and a half left! So the challenge is now over and we completely bombed out of it. But that's alright. We still got some good benefits from it, and Rob still lost some weight, even though it wasn't the amount he wanted to lose.

Reading

A good thing about being sick is that I read the rest of a fantastic book: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It's really long, but it's SO good. I feel like I learned a lot and it was fun to read, too. Highly recommend it.

Then I started on The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, which I'm not quite done with yet. My brother, C, recommended it to me and then bought a copy and shipped it to me. I was 70 pages into it before I'd realized I'd spent any time on it at all. It's sci-fi, and it's fantastic! If you like sci-fi at all, I highly recommend this book. (I did read ahead to find out what happens at the end. I needed to know what happened to Mike, my computer friend.) Really. I can't emphasize enough how good this book is. I almost decided, before I started reading this book, to let almost all fiction reading cease in my life and move on to non-fiction near-exclusively. Robert Heinlein single-handedly changed my mind.

Thanksgiving Plans

My mom flys in today with my Grandpa O. (her dad). They will stay for 2 weeks. Tomorrow my dad will be here, too, and he won't stay for 2 weeks, but he'll be here for Thanksgiving. It's fun that we'll get to have them here for the holiday!

While they're here, my computer usage will probably be limited. When there's family in town, why would I spend my time on the computer? Just so you know, when you're wondering where my Thanksgiving pictures are.

Miciah's Parent-Teacher Conference

We had a parent teacher conference with Miciah's teacher, Ms. L. Miciah does great in school academically, and we knew that before we walked in there. Instead, we wanted to know if she was ever over-emotional or bossy in class. She said she's not over-emotional at all. She isn't bossy: in fact she helps other kids with their work in a way where she doesn't tell them the answers, but leads them gently to it on their own. I thought that was an excellent compliment for a 1st grader. But Ms. L did say that she occasionally has to ask Miciah, "Miciah, who's the teacher?" Miciah will quickly correct her behavior and point to Ms. L, the real teacher. When Ms. L said that I laughed and said, "We have that conversation about 8 times a day! "Miciah, who's the mom, me or you?""

She also said some very good things about Miciah and her abilities, especially her reading. Miciah is very confident about her reading. Miciah says she struggles with her math, but really she just makes silly mistakes. Ms. L said Miciah makes most of her mistakes because she's trying to get done really fast so that she can be the first one done. That competitive drive. We wanted to half-apologize for that, but Rob and I just looked at each other and said, "Yeah. That was us." Capable and competitive. Not a bad combo, so long as she's not cocky.

Pictures to Share

My boys especially love markers and crayons. Teancom likes to color the floor with crayons (I made him cry (which is not hard to do) by telling him it was NOT appropriate to color on the floor). And Elijah likes to color himself and furniture with markers. (Miciah likes to color, too, but she colors on paper--novel idea). This is one of my favorite recent colorings:

I like to tell people that I love that kids color themselves with markers and they give me this look like, "Whatever." Seriously! I think it's awesome. I would color myself with markers on a near-daily basis if I felt I could get away with it in public. In fact, maybe I should try it.

The other day the kids came upstairs talking about "snow" they were making downstairs. Uh oh, that's never good. I think they were using packing peanuts and shredding them up real small. I sent them downstairs with an order to not do that any more, but I didn't really care, cause it was my night off (soccer night, and Rob let me go early so I could buy myself some boots (I ended up buying retro little boys boots on clearance (the womens' boots were awful, I thought). I found out that I wear boys size 4) because I needed boots, and I also needed a break from the kids). Right before I left Rob walked downstairs and saw the huge mess and was about to yell at them when Miciah crawled out from under a table with her hair looking like this:

And instead of getting mad, he said (in true Tamra fashion), "I'm going to go get the camera and take a picture." And THEN he cleaned up the mess. Kids are awesome.

A fun Playing with Daddy session from a Saturday morning:

Rob attacks!

Rob wards off a Spider-Man attack from Teancom while pinning Elijah with his leg.

Elijah, still pinned, attacks Rob by pricking his ankle with something. Rob is mid-manhandling Teancom when Miciah runs up with Spider-Man for the attack!

Miciah climbs on Rob's back while Rob has Elijah pinned, and Teancom needs to take a break for a phone call.

What good memories!

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!

No taxation without representation! (an update)

This is from a series and was by far the best photo of the group. He looks like such a T in these pictures! I can see some of my brothers in his face.

Work for Rob

Rob has been working in Dr. J's lab now for 3 weeks and he's still coming home saying, "I'm stupid." :) Dr. J's lab is an immunology lab, and Rob hasn't been working in an immunology lab for the last 4 years, so he feels pretty far behind in terms of knowledge base. He's been on a mad dash to learn all he needs to know so he can run experiments well, and there's been a lot of time spent learning how things run in the lab.

Of course, Rob is not really stupid. I told him that if he were to start talking to Dr. J about the ins and outs of fibrinogen, Dr. J would be the one feeling "stupid". Plus, every lab does things a little differently, so there has to be some expected learning time. ... Pretty soon Rob will come home talking about his new knowledge and the experiments he's running, and he'll sound dang impressive.

... And it's been a transition to the word "work." The answer to "Where's Daddy?" has been, for years, "At school." And so my response now is usually, "At school.work," about that fast. Spit out 'school' and then correct with 'work'. :) It's nice that he's done with school. And Miciah likes to call him Dr. Thacker, which I think is cute.

Girls Camp

I went to Girls Camp for 2 days, which was fun. I love camping. Not that Girls Camp is really anything like Scout Camp (for you people out there who don't know that, I'm telling you now. Girls Camp and Scout Camp are NOT comparable), but it's fun anyways. Though I could do without the cheers every 3 seconds. Anyways. One of our jobs on set up day was to make sure the little bank of the river by the "water hole" was safe. I checked out this small piece of tin sticking out of the sand. I figured we needed to cover it up or dig it out. And digging it out sounded much more fun. So I started digging. And digging. And digging. Half an hour later, we pulled out a piece of tin that was a few feet wide and 8 feet long! So somewhere upstream is a shed missing a piece of roof.

Family Camp Out

After we got home from Carter Caves, Elijah asked where we went. I told him we went camping. He wanted to know where. To keep it simple, I told him, "In the woods." He said, "I want to go camping in the woods, too!" Then Rob went on a camp out with the Scouts. And then I went to Girls Camp. He was feeling terribly left out. I looked at Rob and said, "You are not allowed to go on a camp out with the Scouts until you take this boy camping!" I would LOVE if Rob were able to take Elijah on the Scouting outings (tee hee: Scouting outing. Say that 10 times fast), but alas it's not allowed.

So we went on a family camp out. Just one night at Miami Whitewater, a campground about 20 minutes from our house. It's in a nice park and the kids loved it. On Saturday, as we were prepping to go back home, Elijah said he wanted to stay another night. Camping 2 nights in a row! Crazy fun! I told him we had to go home. Camping out on Saturday night and then getting ready for church on Sunday morning? No thank you. And then it hit me. I asked him what camping was to him. He said, "A tent and marshmallows." :) I told him we could do that 2 nights in a row in our backyard. So that's on the schedule for sometime in the near future.

I really do love camping. This weekend we're going down to Mammoth Cave and we'll be camping overnight Saturday to Sunday. I asked Rob it if it would be okay if we took a break from church for one Sunday. :) Sometimes his calling feels like a job. ... The other thing Elijah wanted to do, when he heard about our fun trip to Carter Caves, is go inside a cave. Rob and I have wanted to take the kids to Mammoth Cave for 2 summers now, and we're finally going to do it when C, my brother, comes in town. That'll be an adult per child, and that sounds totally managable. So C comes in town on Friday, and we'll leave early Saturday morning for Mammoth. ... We figured it'll be a fun trip, and relatively inexpensive. Mammoth is only a 3 1/2 hour drive from Cincinnati. And the camp site we found is an out-of-the-way place. I think it's just some guy who owns land near Mammoth and lets people come camp on it. Our choices were this nifty backwoods place or Jellystone. If you've ever stayed at Jellystone and enjoyed it, I'm sorry. Jellystone goes against everything I think is good and right in this world. :) Okay, not quite, but close.

You can't take baby backpacks inside the cave. Which is a bummer, cause we had one lined up for Teancom. As it is, I guess we'll be carrying him most of the time, and Elijah some of the time. Fun!

A Swingin' Good Time!

For my belated birthday gift, my Mom sent us money for a swing set. She said she figured it was as much a gift for me as it was for the kids. Perfect! We found the set we wanted on-line and had it shipped to our house. It arrived last Wednesday and the kids were excited. I asked Elijah, "Elijah, what is it?" With excitement in his voice he said, "It's a big box!" :) Guess we could have paid a lot less for just a box and he'd have been happy.

Elijah and Miciah playing in the box and with the paper that came in it:

It just so happened that Wednesday our Home Teacher called and asked if he could come by that night. I told him that was fine, so long as he wanted to help put up a swing set. I lured his wife into coming, too, with the promise of ice cream (which we forgot about in the end--we'll have to make up for that), and they were tremendously helpful! The directions were pretty lousy, so D had a full-time job interpreting them (seriously, the directions weren't even in the right order. Our first directions went from step 1 to step 6 and then backwards from 6 to 1) and arranging the hardware. The rest of us put it together. B came home and walked out to the back to help saying, "I walked in the house and the kids said, "You might want to go back there, B. They need help."" I thought that was funny. So the 5 of us worked and got it together in one night! By the end Rob and B were out with a lantern, finishing the last of it, until 10 p.m.

Teancom "helping" with the wrench.

The kids have been super happy to have a swing set. And it's way nice to say, "Go outside and play on the swing set" and to have them answer, "Okay!" and then run outside to play. The first day, Teancom stayed out there for almost the whole day. He gets on the lawn swing and he'll prop his feet up on the seat across from him and sit that way for a long time. That day he had a bowl of cereal that he ate at a leisurely pace while he sat on the lawn swing. ...

Teancom on the lawn swing.

Otherwise, he'll get on a swing and ask me to push him. I have a low endurance for swinging my kids, unfortunately for Teancom. I'll push him for a while and then go do something else. Then, when the swing comes to a stop, he'll say, "I'm done." Then he'll take a few steps over to the other swing and demand to be pushed on THAT one. :) I try to tell him that it's the same thing, but he doesn't believe me.
Miciah hanging from the trapeze bar. The other day Miciah said, "Mom, was I meant for the circus?" I told her I didn't think she was, but I didn't know. She said she felt like she was, because of all the acrobatic stuff she could do on the swing set. Funny, I remember thinking that when I was her age.

And since the swing set is outside now, we moved the smaller slide thing downstairs. It required us to take away some toys from downstairs. We decided to rotate them through. Our toy room just isn't large enough to keep all their toys. ... It's funny. I suggested to Rob that we could just get rid of most of those toys. And even though he's always bugging me to get rid of more toys, he wasn't okay with getting rid of them on a large scale. They're still good toys, sure, but do they need so many? No. The rotation thing, though, sounds great. And they think having a slide inside is really cool.

Cleaning and Scrubbing

The whole swing set venture prompted a huge organizing and cleaning effort by me and Rob. On Saturday we cleaned out the garage, the back shed, the downstairs play room. Plus we did all the laundry and dishes. We did several small projects that have been on our list for months--mulch rings around our bush and tree, the pipe under the kitchen sink. It feels NICE to have these things done. I've gone through almost every corner of my house, throwing away or giving away things that aren't needed or useful, and then re-organizing the things that are left. It's amazing what we don't need but that we've kept around anyways. :) And Rob finally replaced the serpentine belt on our van. Though the guy that helped him do it said we should get a tune-up on the van as soon as possible. Figures.

And that's life here.

Rob and I have been working hard to make things run smoothly around here. His calling, though lovely, is time-consuming and stressful at times. It's interesting the process we're going through to make everything go right. We have different expectations and we're having to compromise. Someone compared it to marriage, and I think that analogy is dead on. You compromise and work together towards a common goal to keep each other happy. So we're working on that with his calling in particular. We've come a long way in just identifying what it is that's not working and coming up with a game plan to make it better. So far it's working nicely. So we'll hold our breath a little and pray it continues in that direction.

Miciah

This is from a reading time night in July. It was late-ish and Rob told Miciah that, even though she's a night owl, she wouldn't be able to have that much reading time because it was late. And she wrote us this note:

She has written us several other notes during reading time, which she takes on our bed (3 kids in 1 bedroom means we put our kids to bed in shifts, and using our bedroom, too). She isn't allowed to come out of the room once she's in there unless she has to go potty or get a drink. (She routinely breaks all bedtime rules or abuses all bedtime priveleges we give her.) One night there were 2 notes waiting for us.

The first:

On the front of the card: "To Mom and Dad"

On the inside of the card: "I went in the dinning room last nitte to get the pappr." Then in a box: "Sorry" signed "Miciah"

The second note:

On the front of the card: "You'r loved giis. Miciah"

On the inside of the card: "nuthing to say"

Miciah is bored out of her mind and SO ready for school to start. She'll have a friend over almost all day and then fall to pieces when the friend has to go home. I told her one day that she should take some quiet time to cool down. She replied, "I want to take quiet time with a friend!" :) She's lonely and ready to see her friends again. I remember feeling like that at the end of summer when I was a kid. ... I'm happy that C is coming to help her be happy for a week plus. It'll really be a blessing to our end of summer.

I got her a 1st Grade workbook to try to help her be less bored. I brought it home and for a moment I was the best mom ever! It's amazing to me how much she likes to learn. And she wants to do things perfectly and hates making mistakes.

I've been working on getting a lot of Miciah's artwork scanned in to the computer. I'll post some of the best stuff eventually.

Miciah recently lost her other front tooth! So she's now got the cutest smile ever. Here are 2 pictures of her with the tooth so loose it was almost gross. I remember when I was a kid, being able to gross out girls at school by turning my loose tooth in circles and pushing it so far and then making it stick that way. That's what Miciah's tooth was like.

Miciah, unprompted, did that face. She called it her pirate face. Arrr!

And the side view.

The day after these pictures were taken, the tooth fell out. Thank goodness. It was driving me crazy!!

Elijah

Elijah is a good kid. He is still into clothes. I swear I wash all of his clothes in a week and a half. :) And he's funny about what he wears. He'll insist on wearing pajamas all day (and sometimes want to stay in the same pee-soaked pull-up, and that's just gross). Or just underwear and a T-shirt. Or it'll be blazing hot and he'll be in a sweatshirt. Don't ask why. There is no reason that I can tell. It does crack me up, though, cause people will think that I dressed him that way. And I'll say something like, "Yes. In 95 degree weather I thought he might be a little cold." :)

He is learning a lot of his letters and actually repeating them correctly to us. On the camp out, for instance, I put EZ cheese on their Ritz crackers. I spelled out their names, one letter per cracker. Elijah recognized all the letters of his name, which kind of surprised me. I think he knows more than he lets on. Same with counting. I KNOW he can count to at least 12 because I've heard him do it. But if you ask him to count to 10, it'll usually be something like, "1, 2, 3, 7, 5, 1, 10!" I don't get it. I am certain he is not stupid, though, so I don't worry much about it.

The other day Miciah asked how to spell Elijah's name. Before I could answer, Elijah said, "E-I-P-T." And that cracked me up.

Teancom

Teancom is still the world's happiest, easiest child. I count my blessings every day. He's a cuddle bug and needs a lot of down time, which is really really nice. He's not the off-the-wall 2-year-old that he should be, and I love the calmness. He listens when I speak, and that's just weird. He does what I ask him to, and that's even weirder. ... I should sing that song. You know, the one from Sound of Music: "Nothing comes from nothing. Nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something good." Probably not, though. God is just a very very very merciful God.

Teancom is a very sensitive soul. He still cries when Rob raises his voice, even if it's directed at the other children. He also cries at any ogre or giant in any movie. Even in Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus where the giant is funny. Or the ogre at the start of Enchanted: animated, kind of cute-ish. And he cries hysterically. Cute, cute sensitive child.

No taxation without representation!

We've been paid for 4 years through non-taxed means. We have forgotten what it feels like to have the government take your money before it's even in your hands. :) The first instance felt like a punch in the gut. But we're recovering. Slowly. And without much bitterness.

Pictures from the Wedding, part 2

Clearly, from the pictures, Miciah lost her first top front tooth. She's already lost her bottom 2, so now it's the first top one. The 2nd will follow shortly. ... She lost it on the bus 2 days before the wedding and she was traumatized. She came home bawling her eyes out. She was playing with the end of her umbrella in her mouth and it popped that tooth out. It was so ready anyway. But it bled all over the place. I think she was unprepared for it to fall out. She cried and cried. And she kept saying, "I'm going to look stupid!" and "My smile looks silly!" :) It looks dang cute. Rob came home shortly after she did, and he talked her into thinking it was a beautiful smile. And it is.

Pictures:

Miciah in curlers, getting ready for the wedding.

Elijah with his baby sitting on Grandpa's lap. Elijah's been all about the baby lately.

They gave out M&M's at the reception and Miciah arranged them on the plate like that. Cute.