Idaho Trip

My youngest sister left on a mission this week. She is in the MTC, but in a few weeks she'll be on her way to Philadelphia. We are so proud of her decision to be a missionary for our church. Last week was her "farewell," so we headed up to Idaho to say good-bye to Brittany. My whole family was there which was crazy, but fun. There was a big party after church and I didn't take any pictures then, but we did have an adventure the day before. We went to the Museum of Idaho where they are having an exhibit about carousels. It was really neat to see the old carousels. The carving was neat and some of them were hand cranked. I was fascinated. The kids' favorite part was riding the carousel of course! They love spending time with their cousins, and staying at grandma's house (mostly because she lets them watch cartoons in the morning).

When I woke up Saturday morning, I came out and found this.
Best seat in the house for morning cartoons!

Mark and Daniel on the carousel

Dax and Abby!

Seth LOVED the carousel!

This was Dax's favorite carving--a great blue heron.

Mark liked the dragon ones!

See Josh down there? Every other picture I have of him is blurry. I wanted all the cousins to be represented! And I thought those horses were pretty.

We rode the carousel twice. Seth and Audrey shared a bench the 2nd time.

We saw trumpeter swans right by the freeway. We were so excited. Yes, we are bird nerds.

We stopped by the Idaho Falls temple and the falls. Seth was thrilled.

Bowling

One of the rare pictures of Seth and mom!

We have been working on manners at our house. We've practiced saying "please," "thank you," and "excuse me," and a few other  manners like don't hit and look at someone when they talk to you. Our boys have been doing very well, and we can see the results all the time. When we started with please and thank you, we had a jar we filled up with marbles every time someone said one of those two things.

Well, we finally filled it up and the reward was going bowling. Dax always wants to go bowling. It is his reward of choice every time. So we had a free night last week and we went bowling. It was so much fun! Mark is old enough now to really be into it, and Dax was hilarious trying to carry a 15 pound ball to roll down the lane.

Here are some pictures of our latest family adventure.

I love Dax's intense face in this picture! He really wanted to get a strike.

Mark isn't quite as intense as Dax, but he likes to win.

Dax can barely lift this ball, but about half way through he would only use this blue ball.

Mark is doing a dance because he got a strike!

Seth got to have a turn on one of Dad's frames. The only frame he got a strike! 

Seth wasn't sure he wanted to let the ball go.

As you can see none of us are good, but I'm just glad I came out on top!

Dr. Seuss's Birthday

Our copy doesn't look this nice anymore--it's Natalie's that she had as a kid. 

Hey, this is Randy . . .

Today is March 2, which is Dr. Seuss's Birthday (for nerdy school teachers). Last year we did a simple Ten Apples Up on Top game with the boys. This year we decided to do Wacky Wednesday. For some reason Dax likes this crazy book.

After the kids went to bed last night, we made a few things around the house "wacky." A few of the things we did were straight from the book. For example, we had an umbrella in a pan on on the stove and, of course, a shoe stuck to the wall (Seth's baby shoe actually stayed up with a little tape).

We had plenty of our own ideas, too. We turned furniture backward, stacked things in weird places, turned pictures upside-down, and generally made a mess. All in all, I'd say we thoroughly enjoyed this as much as the kids!

When the boys woke up they loved it. (Well, to be fair, I think Seth was unfazed-- everything we do is wacky to him.) It turned into a treasure hunt for the boys. They ran around the house saying, "What the . . .?" (I'm sure they picked that phrase up from their mom.) Dax's favorite wacky thing was the bananas hanging from the light fixture and Mark's was the chair wearing socks.

Of course, the morning ended with Green Eggs and Brown Sausages (it's still a pig, right?) I'm actually looking forward to next March 2.

Mark's favorite!

Gotta have a shoe on the wall--that's how Wacky Wednesday began.

Dax's favorite!

There is usually a plant where the paper towels are and I'm pretty sure Van Gogh didn't paint the picture like that.

Who's Karm?

Dax loved Manner #7: Stand on your head!

This was Natalie's favorite--I didn't know Randy had put this one in here until I went to unload the dishwasher! :)

Seth is 8 months!

I have a picture of all three boys in this sweater. It's one of our favorites!

Technically, Seth doesn't really hit the 8 month mark this month because there is no February 29, but we are celebrating it anyway. Seth can do lots of things now. He still can't crawl, but all of our kids were late bloomers in that department, so we're not too worried. He does love to dive for toys. Seth sits up and then sees a toy he wants (usually one of his brothers' toys) and he suddenly lunges for it. Then he ends up on his tummy, which makes him angry. Just this week Seth finally figured out how to roll from his tummy to his back. He has been going from his back to his tummy for at least 3 months, but the tummy-to-back rolling was a challenge for him.

Seth loves to eat what we are eating. He'll put up with baby food a little bit, but he really wants whatever I have on my plate. He is starting to pick up food by himself, so he LOVES those baby puffs and goldfish.

Seth finally loves books, well, the right books. He has about 10 books that we must read to him every day. Whenever I try to introduce a new book to him, he usually pushes it to the side and tries to grab one of his favorites. I did get him up to 10 books, but it has taken me 8 long months.

Seth is almost as big as Dax, but he loves his brothers!

Seth pulls up on everything he can, or at least tries. He really, really wants to walk like his big brothers, so who knows? Maybe he'll skip crawling and go right to walking. Seth would have me walk him around the house all day if he could have his way.

Seth loves baths. He loves to sit in the water and splash and chew on toys. He has so much fun in there that Dax and Mark always want to take baths with him now. Rub a dub dub... three boys in the tub!

Seth is a very good and happy baby. He isn't a big laugher, but he will smile at anyone. He is easy going and flexible about his schedule. I guess he is a third child, so he just has to be. We are so glad to have this chunky monkey in our family.

I tried really hard to keep this picture G-rated!

Don't you love his fluffy hair?

Big Idea Natalie

Randy has a new nickname for me: Big Idea Natalie. It is usually when I am spending a lot of time on something that he reminds me of my "big idea" problem. I'm just trying to do a good job. Here are a few of my latest big ideas.

Dax's preschool teacher asked me to make the Three Little Pigs houses for a family literacy night she hosted at the beginning of February. My big idea began when I thought it would be way cooler to use large boxes instead of just butcher paper on the wall. So I sent Randy to the furniture store to pick up some boxes they had put aside for me. That's when he knew we were starting a Big Idea. Here are the final products--I only have a few glue gun burns!

The straw house.
The boys never played with this one in our house. It was quite a mess!

The stick house.
I had to hop the fence into the cow field to find sticks.

The brick house.
Definitely the easiest since it is just paint.

 Well, the next big idea came shortly after I finished these houses. I am on the teacher appreciation committee at Mark's elementary school. One of the traditions at this school is to decorate all the doors with a thank you message the Friday before teacher appreciation week. Well, I volunteered to do two doors since no one else was signing up. My plan was to make the door decorations at home and then run to the school to hang them up. When I spent two hours on the first one, Randy started calling me Big Idea Natalie again. But they are done and hanging up. I always follow through on my big ideas. I wonder what's coming next!

For the art teacher--she teaches all grades.

For the custodians!

Good News?

Hooked up to the EKG machine.

Seth went to the cardiologist this week. They just love him there because he is always happy and smiley, but mostly because he is so chunky. Most heart babies have a hard time gaining weight, but not this guy! He weighs 21 lbs now. My back is breaking.

Anyway, our appointments are pretty much the same. Weigh Seth, do some blood pressures (which take a lot longer now that he is so wiggly), do an EKG, then talk with the doctor. Well, unfortunately for us, we know a lot about the blood pressures. So when the numbers come up how they aren't supposed to, we start to get a little bit on edge. In fact, Randy starts freaking out, and at this appointment he was no different. He closed his eyes, put his head on the table, and went to sleep (or maybe he was praying). I wish now that I had taken a picture.

(Clearly an exaggeration! ~R)

Seth's blood pressure should be higher in his legs than his arms, and that was not the case at this appointment. So, the nurse always says, "Maybe the machine is acting up." Seriously, she has said that to me every time and she calls the machine Phillip because it is manufactured by Phillips. Then the doctor comes in and he listens to Seth's heart. We always talk about the slight murmur he hears because Seth has a bicuspid valve which one day he will probably have to have replaced (probably as an adult). Then the cardiologist does the blood pressures himself instead of with the machine.

This time, when he got done, he said that he was getting a different number for Seth's blood pressures. The arms were lower than the legs. Yea! I felt so much better even though they weren't more than 20 apart which is what they like. The doctor said that he felt things looked great, and Seth didn't need to come back for 6 more months.

I was feeling positive and glad that Seth is doing okay, not perfect, but good for a heart baby. Hey, we aren't heading to Primary Children's anytime soon which to me is a victory. Randy on the other hand was feeling a little bit down. He thinks the doctor just said that stuff to make us feel better. He sees it is as, things are bad, but not bad enough to do anything yet. I guess we have a classic glass is half empty or glass is half full kind of dilemma.

(Technically, all glasses are full. Some are just half full of water and half full of air. It's science, people!  ~R)

Our biggest problem is we have to come to grips with the fact that Seth's heart will never be perfect. We will always be worrying about him more than the other boys, at least with health stuff, and that is hard for us.

We just love Seth so much!

Feeling better

Life has been CRAZY at our house (do all my posts begin with that same sentence?). Everyone has been sick again, and I feel like I have not accomplished anything. When I post on my blog, I feel like I accomplished something so that is why I am sitting here Sunday night writing about my family life. 

The other day, Randy came home from school and told the boys that the mountain man had come to visit his class so he was going to tell them about the mountain man's visit. Mark looked at Randy and said, "How little was this mountain man?" I laughed so hard I almost cried. Maybe Mark thinks mountain men are dwarves from Lord of the Rings, but Randy explained he was a regular man who lived in the mountains and shared his experiences and stories with people. 

Dax was diagnosed with Strep Throat on Monday. This kid can't catch a break, but he is doing great after a week on antibiotics. He had some pretty scary fevers (some reaching 105.7), so I am glad Dax is finally smiling again. Tonight when I tucked him into bed, he told me I was a great mom. That made my whole day!

Oh, Seth! He had all the horrible sickness that Dax had, but no antibiotics to help. Seth has had a nasty cough, runny nose, and has been sad all week. Today was the first day he seemed like himself again. Dax put these glasses on Seth and it helped make everyone in our family smile. Seth weighs 21 pounds now. Randy and I are going to have to start seeing a chiropractor from carrying him around. I hope he learns to crawl soon. What 3rd time mom says that?

This bald eagle was in the tree next to our house yesterday morning. I took this picture out my kitchen window. Randy missed seeing it, but the boys and I watched him for about an hour. Seeing this bald eagle helped us birders make it through a long Saturday!