Christmas Newsletter

Merry Christmas to our Family and Friends!

We hope this letter finds you and yours well, and able to reflect on a wonderful year.

We entered 2012 as a family of six, and are pleased to leave it with seven.  Declan Peter was born at 9 lbs and 4 oz. three days before Thanksgiving.  Zach got to do the delivery again, and we started off the holiday season truly thankful another brother has come to complete our family.  Four days early, his timing couldn’t have been better: we still had Aunt Lara visiting and had just picked up Zach’s mom the night before.  Zach was able to get work off, and Summer had the most pleasant hospital stay out of any of her delivery experiences.  We’re so grateful for the help of our parents and family and friends the last few weeks.

Kael turned 2 this July, and has made the transition from baby to boy; at the beginning of the year he was swallowing money, and now he’s counting it.  We enjoy knowing what’s on his mind now that he can speak full sentences.  One of his favorites,“I’m so excited!” gets applied to pretty much everything from getting his clean blanket out of the dryer to choosing a piece of candy out of his Halloween bucket. He loves his new brother and never likes to stop holding him.

Bree and Anya started Kindergarten this year.  The charter school in our area had no openings, as we expected.  We can’t say we’re too sorry about it.  They are zipping along at the pace they want in the K12 curriculum, and enjoy school.  They take after their sister at the playground and lead groups of kids in games every time we go.  We can’t help but wonder if they would take such initiative meeting people if they were with the same friends every day.  After the inevitable worries about “socialization” that come when one ventures into homeschooling, it has been good to see them so unafraid and friendly every time we’re out.  We’re trying to convince them to donate their long hair, but they’re still set on having it as long as Rapunzel’s.  Anya loves drawing pictures and playing the piano.  Bree prefers running around outside with Mia and Kael (who still can’t tell his twin sisters apart, ha.)

Mia has grown up a lot the last couple of months- it is hard for people to believe she just turned seven. She is two grade-levels ahead in school, and is working on her 6th Harry Potter book.  She was a great helper running up and downstairs on little errands while her mom was rendered much less mobile during the last trimester of pregnancy.  She demonstrated a lot of maturity keeping herself on task in school and took a lot of pride in the fact that she learned how to make two different kinds of lunches: peanut butter sandwiches and mac and cheese cups.  Although it is such a relief to have things back to normal now that the baby is born, it was touching to see Mia serve so willingly and admirably.

Summer spent a few months teaching a neighbor boy to read before he started Kindergarten.  In exchange for the daily lessons, his mother taught each of our girls piano lessons: Bree and Anya alternated each day with Mia.  Because of the frequency of the lessons, everyone progressed rapidly, making for a very fulfilling summer.

Zach is halfway through his second year of his surgical residency at UMC, with three to go.  He’s grown comfortable removing appendixes and gallbladders on his own, and thinking of him as a doctor isn’t such a novelty anymore.  On top of his 90 hour work week, somehow he manages to be there when we need him, put the girls to bed each night, keep a saltwater fish tank, and maintain the yard and house.

We’re grateful to be busy with such rewarding tasks, and hope this New Year will be just as full with satisfying challenges.  May you be blessed this holiday season and all through the year.
                                                                   
 Love, the Van Wagoners

Declan

Our last baby!  Declan is almost a month old, so I figure I should get around to writing about his birth. Poor blog.  If I want to share something publicly, it goes on Facebook.  And most things I want to extrapolate on end up in my journal.  I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want this blog for anymore! One drawback to Facebook is that nothing is really recorded or publishable, so maybe I'll start writing my posts in both.

Declan's delivery wasn't at all what we were expecting, but it was pretty uneventful all around. I got induced with Kael, and the twins came a month early, so I figured this would be another quick one like Mia's.  Four days before his due date, my sister was visiting and we picked up Zach's mom at the airport.  I woke up at 1:15 in the morning and started timing contractions for the next half hour at 2 to 5 minutes apart.  So I woke up Zach and we figured we'd head to the hospital.  Contractions stopped once we got there, but since I was dilated to a 5 and strep B positive they said they wouldn't let me go home.  They wanted to get two rounds of antibiotics in, and once they started that there was no going back.  We waited around for those, and then waited around for my doctor to get into work and give the okay to break my water.  I got the epidural I thought I wouldn't have time for. (It didn't hurt nearly as bad as the one I got for Kael's delivery and I was so relieved.) They broke my water around 11:00.  Even with the epidural I was feeling contractions, but they weren't showing up on the monitor.  They believed the monitor instead of me- even asking whether I'd like to start Pitocin now or later ... totally ignoring the fact that I was at a 7.  (These doctors and their Pitocin- holy cow.   I told her I'd hold off and see if I kept progressing.  No wonder everyone is surprised I haven't had a C-section- good grief.)  Finally I was in so much pain and feeling the need to push with each one, I was very frustrated that the monitor wasn't showing what I was feeling and had to convince them to check me again at about 1:00.  Sure enough, I was at a 10 and he was born 15 minutes later- exactly 12 hours after I'd woken up that morning.

I've been thinking this baby's 9 lb 4 oz weight may have been a little exaggerated at birth.  I was so pumped full of liquid, he might have been retaining a lot of water, too.  My feet and legs looked like this for a week.  And he looked kind of bloated in his first photos, too.

He eats "like a champ" and still isn't back to his original weight.  He was only 8 lbs 7 oz on day 6. Even though that is still more than any other of my babies has ever weighed their first two weeks, the pediatrician was saying I should pump after feedings and feed it to him on top of the regular feedings.  Which doesn't make sense to me.  Why not just feed him again and skip the middle man.  I decided to just ramp up his feedings before the next weigh-in and see what happened.  I just went in today and he's "only" 9 lbs.   So when the doctor asked if I was given a lot of IV fluids during delivery a huge weight left my chest.  Zach had never seen a delivering mom so pumped full of liquids as I was.  (They were trying to keep my blood pressure up.  My body hates epidural medicine and tries to faint.) The doctor said they've been starting to notice a trend with moms and babies in the same situation, so I don't have to worry about starting pumping or formula anymore.  Whew. Glad my usual doctor wasn't there today- this one had her head on.

 So funny how the doctor is supposed to be there for your baby's health, but really most of the time all they do is prick your kids and take their blood for no reason, make you drive in and disrupt hours of your schedule each week for no reason, stress you out for no reason...  I am grateful however, that in my kids' cases it's all been for no reason.  I don't think I can ever complain about anything baby-related... ever.  4 uneventful pregnancies, 4 problem-free deliveries, 5 healthy kids.  I spent so much time preparing for the inevitable catastrophe I almost can't believe my own statistics.  It's such a relief to have that stage in life over with.

He's started staying up between the second and third night-time feedings.  So this week it takes me 12 hours to get 6 hours of sleep.  I seem to remember this trend with the others before they started sleeping in 6-hour stretches. I hope it's on the horizon.

He's still a little yellow.  But his bili levels keep dropping, so they're not concerned.  The doctor I talked to today said they've stopped recommending putting babies in the window for jaundice.  Good grief- nothing stays the same for longer than a year. No wonder post-partum depression is higher now.  There's so much more to stress over than if you could just stay home and take care of your baby. Put them in the most uncomfortable position possible for sleeping, worry about feeding them enough even though they're perfectly fine. I guess it's a trade-off.  At least I don't have to worry about polio or cholera or whatever.

Giving Thanks: Week 1

I know everyone else is doing this daily on Facebook, but while I feel like making the effort, I don't feel like sharing it quite so publicly.  For one, the things I'm grateful for are different this month than they would have been had I not been so close to having a baby... it's kind of hard to explain that in a little status update.

1- I'm grateful that Zach is on a service this month with a resident who doesn't want to play martyr and keep themselves and all their co-workers late every day for no reason.  Last month Zach could have come home early a couple times a week, but his chief had a complex and wanted everyone to stay until sign-out "just because."  Ridiculous.  Zach is amazing and takes it in stride.  I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut. This month he's on with an awesome guy who doesn't have anything to prove, and only requires what is necessary from the residents.  Zach got to come home early for Halloween, so the kids got to go around the Trunk-or-Treat with him and we had our trunk a little decorated.  Then he got to come home early again yesterday and today.  We were worried he'd go another two weeks with no day off, but he almost got two!

Which brings me to number 2-  I'm so grateful for Zach.  I've heard about and met so many husbands- not just from my own acquaintance, but since the beginning of the internet, wives have had ample opportunity to brag about their spouses or ridicule them with a wide audience.  It's sad that some days it takes the comparison to remind me just how extraordinary is the man I married, but I guess it's good that I realize it somehow. 

People ask what his schedule is and when I tell them about his 90+hour work weeks they just shake their heads.  One guy said "He must just come home and crash."  He doesn't.  For more than a month now I've been moving at a snail's pace, and most of my energy is being expended on the girls' schooling.  He comes home after a thirteen, fourteen hour day, and helps me finish making dinner since I can't stand very long any more.  Or when he's late he doesn't complain about whatever concoction I've pulled together. He finishes the dishes I got halfway through.  He puts the girls to bed and goes down to maintain his fish tank or the lawn or the bills.  He goes to the store, puts together Kael's new toddler bed, and drops off my library books on the way. Then he comes back up after I've gotten Kael put to bed and helps me fold laundry while we watch 20 or 30 minutes of a movie.  Then he showers and goes to bed early so he can have enough energy to do it all again the next day. 

It obviously hasn't been like this forever, and it will be a lot easier once I'm up and about again.  But the fact that he is capable of such selflessness for such a long period is just so admirable to me.  There's more about him I'm grateful for, but I'm saving that for another day.

3- I'm grateful for disposable diapers and plates. I am always behind on laundry and dishes lately, and Kael has had the runs off and on for the last two weeks. I think I know why- he thinks it is SO funny to lick things that get a rise out of his sisters. Including standing water from outside. I try and tell him his tummy will hurt if he licks yucky things, but he just smiles and repeats "Yucky... sings?" Clueless. But I don't have to wash his diapers, and I don't have to wash as many dishes for the next couple of weeks! 

4- I'm grateful for Mia. Just typing her name brings tears to my eyes. Yeah, I'm hormonal, but still. ;) This girl turned 7 less than two months ago. And she has been as big a help to her family as any teen could have been. Yeah- she's got her share of attitude and silly giggle-itis when left to her own devices. But when I'm in a bind, physically or with her siblings, she's right there suggesting ways she can help. She's answered the phone calls I couldn't get to in time, run upstairs about ten times a day on some errand, helped dress her little brother for church, made mac and cheese bowls for herself and her siblings while I lay contracting in the other room. This pregnancy has been a beast the last couple of months. My last check-up confirmed I was already dilated to a 2, and sent me into major contractions for following two days. At one point when huge ones were coming two minutes apart and I couldn't move or talk, I almost headed for the hospital. But Mia was right there to bring me my vitamins and a cup of water. The contractions went away after an hour. Instead of whining about all the things I am not doing for her lately, each day this kid asks me excitedly if she can be in charge of something new.

This morning I was worried we'd have to forgo the twins' hair-washing before church- I was in a lot of pain. I told them to get in the bath and Mia called down saying they all wanted to shower. I said I couldn't stand to wash their hair, so I needed them to do a bath. She solved that right away: "I'll just wash it! Pleeeeease can we do a shower instead??" She did a good job. I'm so grateful for such a capable, good-natured, willing little girl. She's such a good example to every one in her family.

5- I'm grateful for my church.  Today I'm actually thinking of the social rather than religious aspects.  My sweet friend has taken my kids with hers to the park, and field trips while I've watched our youngest boys. Kael gets along so well with his little buddy.  She even took them to our (stake-sponsored) soccer game last week.  Every Sunday my kids get to be with other wonderful kids and learn about the gospel from their wonderful parents.  We had a safe and fun place to trick-or-treat in our church parking lot surrounded by people we know and trust.  If it weren't for the church community we're a part of, my kids would have a really bad month-old case of cabin fever right about now.

Too soon to count down?

I've finally caved and started using the stupid/blessed electric gimp carts at the grocery store. It makes the difference between being able to put the groceries away afterward or the girls having to do it. 

We stopped having the housekeeper come for a while.  Then I had to stop taking Ibuprofin, so we started having her come for an hour every week.  I think we're going to up it a bit for the next little while.  It's amazing how helpful it is- I wish I'd figured this out with Kael.  Yeah- it's a financial trade-off, but life will be back to normal soon enough.

About five weeks to go.  I'm thinking it might be sooner... I'm contracting like crazy every two hours, sometimes every hour.  We're kind of worried again about getting to the hospital in time.  Even when I got induced with Kael (for the same reason- we were afraid of fast labor) all they did was break my water, and bam- three hours later there he was.  That was including the hour they stopped my contractions with some drug because his heart rate was going down. 

My body loves getting these kids out.  It's a huge blessing, but it's kind of freaky to plan around.  We'll see how fast I dilate this time- I'm betting I can predict pretty well.  I've been a 3 four weeks out, and a 4 and 5 two weeks out for the last three pregnancies.  The Jeopardy theme is the soundtrack to my life now.  Waiting, waiting, counting down.

4 years ago

I'm glad I don't have to write him in this time. :)

Last day of summer

The kids have been living up the last couple of days of their brief summer break.  After almost a year of hard work and lucky deals, we've finally gotten our backyard as fun as we can get it.  Las Vegas may not be very family friendly, but I've been thinking the fact that we could afford a house with a yard more than makes up for it for these guys. :)

Zach's bi-annual vacation week coincided perfectly with the kids' school break, and all of the grandparents met us in St. George to go see Aladdin at the Tuachan.  We even got to go backstage and see the sets and costumes.

Anya was the only kid who would stop and pose for me! 

Zach's brother and sister-in-law came to stay with us for a few days while they did a wedding show in town.  He's been making personalized statuettes as cake-toppers.  They're fantastic. 

Zach was determined to find a cheap Guitar Hero set on Craigslist and found one just in time for their visit.  We figured out how to dress the characters modestly and went to town.  One week later, we think Zach realized his true instrument talent wasn't the guitar.  He's played this thing for four days and is already on expert level on drums- ha.  Mia loves the drums, too- I'm thinking we might have to invest in real electric ones someday.  

 

We went to the K12 Back-to-School carnival at the JW Marriot where the girls got to meet their teachers and go on bounce houses for hours.  Even Kael got to go on some, thanks to some awesome K12 volunteers.  I didn't bring my camera, darnit.  I wasn't sure we'd see the teachers, and I was really worried that even without the extra baggage I wouldn't be able to make the long walk from the parking lot through the hotel and casino to where they set up the carnival. 

Their teachers were so sweet- we'd talked with Anya and Bree's that morning so she could assess their reading level, having no idea we'd be seeing her later that evening.  She kept hugging them and telling them she was so excited to have little smarty pants in her class.  Bree regaled her with the story of her toothfairy visit, and like usual didn't stop talking for a good five minutes straight. ;)  

 

I'll have to snap a pic at the next field trip. I'm such a wuss.  Just three months, three months....

Growing

Our family has been looking different lately...


She started complaining about her eyes hurting so Zach just did an at-home vision screening, and sure enough- she's near-sighted. Our doc gave us her Rx and we found an awesome website where we got three pairs of glasses and shipping for about $25. She's got these, some with clear wire, and her funky purple ones. Kael wants all of them on himself.


The obligatory bump shot

This kid lost her first tooth this morning! Actually lost it. She came up to me with this confused look on her face, "Mom- my tooth is gone..." She thinks it came out while she was eating breakfast, ha. Who knows. I'm not gonna go searching, that's for sure. :)

Score!

I can't get over how awesome Craigslist is.  We've been looking at swingsets for a year now.  I've come very close to spending over $100 on a new metal Walmart set, but none of them had a slide, and looked kind of lame compared to some of the nice wooden ones I was seeing on Craigslist.  The problem with those was that we needed Zach to be able to pick it up, and the sellers always said we would have to dismantle it.  Between time and distance contraints, none of the sets I've run across in my sporadic searches have ever panned out.
Last night I happened to see this, the family happened to respond this morning, Zach happened to get work off for a few hours (this has happened once before in the year we've been here, I think) and they happened to want it gone so badly this afternoon before they got in their moving truck, that they gave it to us for $75 and helped him take it down.
It's in pieces in the mini-van.  The kids have no idea we bought it. I can't wait to see what it looks like in our yard.

Yay!

Moooouuuuse!

I don't know if you'll remember, but last year we stopped at Albertson's on the way to Chuck-E-Cheese and got the only little boy cake they had- a bright blue Cookie Monster cake that made for some fun blue surprises the next day.  When I asked the girls what kind of cake we should get Kael, they said immediately, "A red Elmo!  So we'll have red poop this time!"  And you'll never guess where they wanted to celebrate. 
I was planning on making a regular old cake at home, but ran out of time, so on our way to Chuck-E's we stopped again at Albertson's.  I brought Kael in with me to point out his favorite cake, and lo and behold-  the only little boy cake on display?  Bright red Elmo, which Kael immediately singled out.

Although his first reaction to the hideously dressed rodent approaching was one of distress,

immediately after Chuck-E left, Kael started calling for him.  I missed the first two yells, which were so loud he actually yelled his candle out instead of blowing it.  But we got him to re-enact it, even though it's not nearly as intense as the first couple of calls...

When we got home, Daddy hooked up the bike trailer and took him for a ride.  Maybe his first... it's been a long time since we got this thing out.

His sisters were more than happy to take turns while he rode every time.

He is a little spoiled...

I was right to be curious about what having a boy would be like. This kid has been the exact opposite of his sisters so far in just about every area.

The girls were all very outgoing. I couldn't usually keep up with them after sacrament meeting as they booked it to nursery and waited for someone to let them in.  This kid won't enter unless I go in and stay for an hour. 

The girls have never played alone... they're always playing with each other. Kael is content to hunker down on his own for a while. This is one of his favorite spots.

I wouldn't let him climb up onto that stool.

He's the loudest kid we've ever had....

and the most naked.  He does run exactly like Anya did when she was his age, though. 

 Bushwhacker style.

He's been the easiset to put down for naps and bedtime.  So easy- I just grin my head off almost every time he goes down with a smile and I remember that cringe I used to have whenever I closed a nursery door behind me.

One of the other few similarities...

He's just as affectionate as the girls are.  Every night he calls "Miiiiiiaaaa!  Shiiishers!"  (He doesn't use Anya or Bree's names unless we tell him to) and puckers his lips waiting for them to drop their toothbrushes or books or pajamas and run into his room.  Then he runs to them with his arms flug wide and yells "Huuug!" as he squeezes with all his might, and puckers up again and smacks them right on the lips.  He'll kiss anyone who mentions the word, we've learned. 

He has nooooo idea we think he's the cutest thing in the house.

Love this boy. Bring on the two's!

Better than I thought

So far, this housekeeper idea is working way better than I anticipated.  I forgot to factor in the tendency my girls have to show off for people they don't see every day.  It hasn't been on my list of desirable kid-behaviors before, since all it's done is raise whine-levels and mess with sleep schedules.

The day after she came the first time, the girls finished cleaning the toy room that she had started helping them with.  And we kept it clean for two whole days!  That's never happened before.  Then another first:  Bree was the one to clean it the next week.  Alone!  I was visibly astonished by what I saw when I went up after an hour- she laughed at the incredulous look on my face and was so proud of herself she didn't stop talking about it all day.

Mia spent an entire morning helping me catch up on laundry.  Granted, she was procrastinating starting schoolwork.  But still...  she was excited to keep going until it was done, and usually these guys poop out after fifteen minutes.

My first hypothesis isn't very generous: they are trying to show up the housekeeper.  They didn't give a hoot about helping me before they saw someone else doing it.  There is a small chance they've been willing to do this all along, but were just too overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff they let accumulate on their floors when I let them. 

In all actuality, we're not getting any more done than we did before Zach was in residency and I wasn't pregnant. She is just one person- there's only so much you can do in two hours.  But with hers and the girls' help, we've reached functional again.  Stress-level has gone way down- I've stopped growling and started just yelling "time-out" again.  For an entire week, no one has told me the clean pajamas are all gone, we've had clean dishes when we needed them, and our feet aren't blackened from crossing the famous Nevada dust layer covering our entire ground floor of tile. (Which I can walk across at the end of most days without gimping... bonus!)

I'm crossing my fingers that the girls' eagerness isn't because of the novelty of the situation.  If this mini-trend continues, and the girls are really getting a little neater, then when I've got my body back and mostly to myself, and we don't need help anymore, things should end up better than they started, right? Right? 

Okay, I'm back from a laughing fit.  Kael is now taking his third bath of the day.  I think we might not be going ice skating for a while.

Bump Hump Day

Halfway there!  I've already slowed down considerably.  By the end of the day I can't walk, and in the mornings it takes me an hour to quit gimping around- especially days I go to the grocery store.  Woo hoo!  For some reason though, knowing this is the last time I'll ever feel this way makes it considerably more bearable than it was with the last pregnancy.  Also- this time I knew what I was in for... whereas with Kael's pregnancy I was shocked at how I felt, and fear of the unknown made me a little wimpier.

Unfortunately, this time I have an almost two-year-old who is speeding up at the same rate I'm slowing down.

I can't get the girls to clean a completely toddler-tornado messed up house- I can only get them to maintain their own messes.  ("But Kaaaeel got these out! He has to clean it!")  When we left on vacation to Utah last month, we had a completely clean house.  Zach had a day off before we got home and even mopped the entire floor downstairs.  I was determined to keep it up, knowing I'd start feeling the baby-weight soon.

Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, my weakening hold on damage control has lost control of the damage. Even Zach tries to help, but he's only around a couple hours a day, and one of those is dinner and the other is usually fish-tank or pool or lawn or other awesome honey-do stuff.  (Can I just stop and say- my husband is He-man? Yeah.) 

So we're taking extreme measures for a few weeks.  We're using the girls' ice skating lesson money to hire a housekeeper to get us from disaster-house back to damage-control-house.  I let the girls choose, actually.  Do you want me to pay for help getting this place back to rights or do you want to help me yourselves and keep your lessons?  They decided they wanted help for a while, if they could start back up again once the house is clean.  I don't think they fully understand that they will still have a very big part in that process... but it was getting too hard to tie all those laces anyway, so I can't say I was disappointed with their choice.

What's awesome, and what you'd better not tell the girls, is that we found a bunch of housekeepers on Care.com willing to work for $10 an hour.  Which is going to end up costing half what the lessons did, mwah ha.

We've got two people doing little "trial-runs" over the next week, and hopefully we'll find a good fit.  This will be really weird, having someone else doing the weekly stuff I usually do.

You know how people advertise their weight-loss goals to provide some sense of accountability for their goal? Well, cyber-space, this is my mess-loss goal:  get everything back running the way it's supposed to in a month with professional help, maintain it for another month, but spend the time Miss Housekeeper is saving me, helping the girls form better habits.  By the time school starts, I'm hoping to get down to very minimal visits from our helper until I get my body back.

Who knew

We've been trying for years to get the kids into swimming lessons, but weird logistical problems have always kept us from doing it.  Every class I found needed parental involvement, and I was outnumbered.  By the summer I felt comfortable trusting one of the twins by the side of the pool while I helped the other, I had an infant to leave by the side of the pool, and I really didn't want to deal with that. When we moved here last summer, knowing we wanted a pool at our house, we were especially anxious to get them into lessons.  But we missed deadlines while we moved four times and I was trying to find a house.
So this summer we found ourselves with a pool and four kids who couldn't swim a stroke. 
Turns out we didn't need lessons after all.  You throw them in enough times, and they figure it out.  It helps that they can touch the bottom in every part of the pool- I don't think the twins would have been able to get out of their floaties alone otherwise.
In a matter of weeks they've gone from hating their faces splashed to swimming underwater across the pool. Now they're teaching themselves to float and kick and do arm strokes! They're no Olympians, but we were just shooting for not drowning. :)

That's Bree under there!  Even two weeks ago, I never would have believed it.

Same with Mia!  Anya was in trouble, so she missed out this time around... but she's been doing the same.

FAIL

I've been seeing a trend the last few months. My best laid plans are going awry! I'm hoping life doesn't have foreshadowing like novels do, because if I'm supposed to be getting more accustomed to things going differently than I hope- I'll probably end up having a C-section in November or a girl or something.

I tried for months to come up with a cute way to tell Zach about the baby. I've always just showed him the stick, but when I took a test that said negative and found out it was faulty, I thought maybe I'd try something new, since he already thought I wasn't pregnant. A week before I got everything I needed to tell him, he became acutely aware of my "schedule," and guessed. Aw, snap.

We found out our friends from Ohio were going to be in Utah, so we went up to meet them. I thought it was such great timing- we would get to share the baby news with our families in person, escape the first desert heat wave, pick up a huge bin of books for Mia from a friend in Orem to satisfy her lately insatiable reading frenzy.

The week before we went I felt terrible. But Zach had to teach Sunday School and Anya needed to give a talk in Sharing Time, and Kael needs someone to ease him into Nursery, so I got all ready for church anyway. On our way out the door, I acted on a hunch and told Zach to grab me a Ziploc. Sure enough. I got sick in the church parking lot and turned around and headed home. Grrr.

The day before we left, we did a video call with Grandmas. Mia spilled the baby beans, so telling everyone in person went down the drain. Aw, dangit.

All week we had wondered if I had been flu-sick or what. I was already in my second trimester, and hadn't gotten any morning sickness yet, so I wasn't sure. I had been pretty rough on my stomach the night before I fell ill, so when no one got sick, we chalked it up to morning sickness and headed up.
Everyone was just fine until the one day we were supposed to meet up with our friends. Mia and Bree woke up feeling bad and wouldn't eat breakfast. Mim tried to suck it up and have fun when she finally got to see her buddy after a year of wishing she could play with her. We tried to prolong the visit after we attended sacrament meeting together, (of course all the girls fell asleep on the bench and for the first time, I had to leave the chapel with Kael because of his behavior,) but Mia couldn't get out of her chair and then Bree threw up and decidedly ended the visit. Come ON!

I'm actually quite used to disappointments, so this recent trend didn't really even catch my attention until Wednesday, when the activity I'd planned for the combined young men and young women turned out to only take up a quarter the time I'd planned it would, and we all ended up chatting and eating popsicles and then looking at our watches waiting for parents to arrive at the usual pick-up time. The thought went through my head- "I can't plan a dang thing right!"

So of course my failed dinner the next night seemed like an even bigger failure, my plan to keep the kitchen clean after Zach did a lot of work on it was another fail.

  I decided I would do ONE thing I'd been planning- hang the consequences.

Write a blog post before June was over.

Ta-DAAAA! I rock.

Mia trying not to infect her best friend... oh yeah- another fail... ;D

The twins with Grandma Venice

Kael and cousin Wyatt

Hangin' out with Grandpa

We were there for cousin Miles' birthday!

Bring on the heat!

Mia played her last soccer game of the season last week. We'd been melting at every game, and thought it was funny that the weekend after the season ended the temp was 70 degrees.

She learned how to be a pretty good little goalie. This was the week she came down in plaid shorts and I told her to change into jeans. Meaning jean shorts. But she got into some jeans. She was purple the entire game- I felt so bad.

Her team was pretty cute. I don't think they won one game. And I don't think half of them knew whether they won or not. The coaches were all super awesome and cheered them no matter what happened.

We finally got a pool! This thing is kind of the reason we moved to Vegas. ;) My crappy back hates all exercise but swimming. The lawn is mostly grown in and we've been having a lot of fun in our first enclosed backyard since 2007. I'm looking forward to many more summer days floating around back there.

It took a few tries to peel him off Zach and me, but Kael finally got over his clinginess and had some fun.