Because Ivy Needed a Post

So, I totally had a way awesome, clever title for this post, and it was all clever in my brain, and then when I went to type it out, it just kind of...plopped out, instead of flowing out.  But, as we say, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit!  Onward...

This little girl of mine is getting so big!

She's my barefoot baby. Ivy is always going outside without shoes on.  She loves to suck on blankets, just like Brock did. She loves to be where the boys are, doing what they're doing.  But she's very girly, all at the same time.  She loves it when I do her hair and demands that I hairspray it when we're done.

(the perfect "girly" shot!)

When she says yes, it sounds like "nyeo".  Which is awesome, because it sounds like no.  So for a while, after she would answer a question for me, I would ask, "Yes? or No?"  And she would reply with "Yes or no."  Super helpful, eh?

She is so very determined to do things her own way.  My mom took me and my kids to the zoo, and we were all absolutely melting into the sidewalks.  And Ivy just had to push the stroller the whole time.  She even tried to push it with Troy riding in it.

She and Troy love to go with me and Brock to the bus stop, that's only two doors away.  While waiting, Ivy found a rock, that she dubbed "Baby Rock".  But because she can't say her k sound, she would say "bee-bee raw!"  It's still around here, somewhere...

Love my Ivy-Lou-Who!

Dynamite!

This song makes me want to shake my booty. Whenever I hear it in the car I turn it way up and start drive boogy-ing.

I throw my hands up in the air sometimes, sayin' ay-oh, gotta let go!
I wanna celebrate and live my life, sayin' ay-oh, baby let's go...

Oh, Their Bags are Packed, They're Ready to Go...

(I wanted to wait to post about the kids going back to school until Troy had gone to preschool, too. Just...FYI. Mostly I'm just sayin' because I want to make myself feel better about not doing this 2 1/2 weeks ago.)

The first day of school for Jakob and Brock was cloudy and rainy and cold. But despite the nasty weather, they were still excited to start school again.

Jakob insists that he hates school, but whenever he says that, he says it with a big smile on his face. The little punk actually really likes school.

Every year I've taken the kids' picture out by our dogwood bush. I made Jake stand out there in the rain. You can just read his thoughts on his face: "Mooo-oom, do we have to do this in the rain? Come on!" Yes, yes we did.


The weather got a little bit better (not warmer, but not raining) by the time afternoon kindergarten rolled around for Brock.

He's been looking forward to school for forever. And he absolutely loves it.


He gets so excited. Every day he's like, "I LOVE homework! Let's do more homework!" Our kindergartners get a packet of homework on Monday and it's due on Friday. He finished it Tuesday. So today he's all, "Mom, I need to do homework!" And I'm all, "Um, it's all done already." And Brock says, "But Mom, I need to do homework!!!!" So we did a couple of extra things today.



Such an eager little guy.

It was so weird and quiet to have two boys gone at school. I was so excited for them, but a little sad, too. I missed them.

While the older two were gone, Troy and Ivy played together. Troy built a cat plane (that's what he calls it).

I picked the boys up from school, and Brock ran over and gave a great big hug to...Jakob. Well, at least he was excited to see someone.

After school the weather was much better, so I got a few pictures by our humongous bush.

Here are Jakob and Ila. They've gotten way too big in the last few years.

Last week Troy finally got his first day of preschool. He just could not wait!

He insisted on wearing his old scroungy Bumblebee shirt the first day. *sigh*

Ivy and I went with him the first day. But then Monday he went all by himself. When I got back in the car from walking him up to Miss Karla's door, Ivy gave me a look like, "So, we're not going with Troy? And he's not coming back to go with us?" It was really weird to have just one kid with me.

So far school has been great. Both Jakob and Brock have been champs at doing their homework without complaint. Brock rides the bus home with Jakob, and the first day they walked hand in hand. They both have been looking out for each other, which is so wonderful and sweet. I'm glad to be back in a routine, and getting up early-I get way more done now than I did in the summer.

But it's still kind of empty and lonely without my boys all home.

Kidney Update

So, Pete had surgery Tuesday morning. When they went to get his stone, it went back up into his kidney.

*sigh*

The anesthesia made him really sick, and kind of made him trip out, I think. I visited him early in the afternoon, and he was just staring at the wall, all hunched over. Me: Pete, how are you doing? Pete: I feel weird. Me: Are you nauseous? Are you in pain? Pete: I feel weird. Me: Can I help you out somehow? Pete: I feel weird.

Quite the productive conversation.

Later he felt better. And now he knows to never do drugs.

Pete will probably feel like crap again today, because he had to go in and get his kidney blasted with sound waves to break up the stone this morning.

When the nurse, named "Loopy" (no joke) was checking Pete in, she asked if we had a living will. I said, "No, but I know what to do if something goes wrong," and made the slit-your-neck motion. Loopy said, "I told my husband he wasn't allowed to die, that I'd keep him around somehow." I'm all, "Like stuff his dead body?" Loopy: I had four little kids. I needed help. Me: "Kids, if you don't behave, you'll have to go sit on Dead Dad."

I really hope this is the last of it. Going to the hospital over and over is getting a little old.

Oh, and if anyone has any money they don't need, feel free to send it my way. Because dang.

Just Can't Get Enough!

A couple of Sundays ago, this happened:

How, you may ask? Pete sat down. Yep. Just plain old sat on Ivy's bed, and the frame broke. Just add it to the list, my dear. Here's a closer look:

We "fixed" it. It's very white trash, but we turned the bed around so you can't tell. (We drilled long boards along the frame on both sides. I should submit it to the website There, I Fixed It.)

That day at church I was joking with a couple of friends about "what's going to break next? a kid's arm?"

...

...I shouldn't have done that.

Because then our cute little Tuna decided to up and croak. This is all I have left of it now:

It was about time, I guess. It should have probably lasted only about 6 years, and it lasted 12 years. My stomach started getting all churny at the thought of having a car payment again. Ugh.

But.

Look at Tuna's replacement!

I think this car was especially meant for us. It's a Chevy Cobalt, it has five million buttons in it (including seat warmers-how cool is that?), we got it at a great price at a great rate... I'm still trying to think of a name for it. But our minivan doesn't have a name, so maybe it will be nameless for a while.

In the non-broken side of my life, my parents decided to be all awesome (like they always are) and got me some new trees for my backyard!

I can't wait until they're all big and pretty and giving us lots of shade.

This one has lost a lot of leaves, though, in the insanity we Idahoans call "wind". (If I could, I would seriously dome my whole backyard. Like a big greenhouse or something. Stinking wind. Which blew all five copies of my Sunday paper all over my neighbor's backyard yesterday. Sheesh.)

So, back to the whole "what's going to go wrong next?" You know, besides car wrecks, and sickness, and broken air conditioners, and cameras, and other car deaths, and beds. That's right! The fun hasn't stopped there!

Pete is back in the the hospital today, with his 6th kidney stone. (No matter what/how much he drinks, he will always produce stones. He's just lucky that way.) You can read about his last experience here and here. Pete went in last Thursday, and the doc told Pete to take some drugs and he should pass it on his own. Things seemed fine, until last night, when his pain came back with a vengeance. After a few very frustrating hours at the hospital, and a 2 a.m. call to our urologist, Pete got admitted to the hospital in the wee hours, and he'll be getting surgery tomorrow.

Today I had this song running through my head. (I can't POSSIBLY imagine why. *sigh*)

(P.S. Young Dave Gahan looks like Shia LaBeouf. And 80s dancing is really funny.)

"Ketchup"

When I was little, my mom told us that her brother and dad were...hiking? skiing?...doing some sort of activity, and my grandpa would look back at my uncle, and say, "Catch up, Kurt! Catch up!" To which my uncle replied, "Mustard, Dad, mustard!" I don't know if that story is even true, but I thought it was funny when I was young.

Anyway, I've been tired of feeling all behind on, oh, my LIFE, so I thought I'd highlight some of the things that have been going on in the last little bit.

A few days after Jake's birthday, we went down to Salt Lake to see Lion King, and on to Spanish Fork to see Pete's fam.

The car ride down was uneventful...


So, my sister Kar couldn't go, because she went into labor on the 10th! I mentioned that it was raining a bunch on Jake's birthday. When Karlenn came to get her son after the party, she stepped outside on our wet steps, and slipped and fell on her butt. I felt so bad, at first. But then when I found out she went into labor the next day, I was like, hey, go me! Because my sister was absolutely miserable, and I thought maybe her falling down my stairs started her into labor. And since her baby was done cooking, then labor was a good thing.

My dad, at first, thought he wouldn't be able to go, either, because he was in the hospital on Monday morning (same day as Jake's birthday), with some sort of pancreatic pain. They didn't know what was going on. It was kind of creepy to me to see my dad in the hospital-he's NEVER sick. He'll get a cold, like, once every 5 years. So to go from that to hospital was quite the shock. Turns out, though, that his pain went away, and everything is fine. So he got released Thursday morning, and Thursday night we were in SLC.

It was a little weird to have two family members in the hospital at the same time for two totally unrelated events.

Anyway, my sister Lex and her boyfriend, me and Pete, and my parents all ended up going. We ate at-where else?-Benihana for dinner. YUM! Here's me and my gorgeous sister:

Seriously, she could be a part-time model.

My awesome brother-in-law ended up watching our kids (we owe you one, Fatboy!) during dinner and the show, so for 6+ hours. He even watched some Garfield movie with my kids. What a good sport.

Lion King was AMAZING!!! I totally started crying during the opening scene. I forget how powerful live shows can be. The costumes were incredible. My favorite singer was the lady that played Rafiki, the old monkey. She could do the clicking tongue African language (not sure what it's called-I'm really cultured in that way). I liked the special effects they had, too. Like during the scene of the wildebeest stampede-they started a scroll showing them far away, then moved some people in closer with small wildebeest heads, then some people in closer with bigger heads, then people came in with really big wildebeest heads. It looked so cool. They also had a few more songs added; they were so moving.

Pete and I posed outside after the show the way some of the lion people posed:


And here we all are (me, Pete, Dad, Mom, Lex, Chris):

Thanks, Mom and Dad! It was such a great show!

We stayed in SLC that night, then headed down to Pete's parents' house. We played down there the rest of the weekend. And because I suck, I have no pictures. We watched movies, had a barbecue, slept a ton (except for Ivy, who slept like crap the whole time), and relaxed a lot.

In other "ketchup" news, Brock lost his first tooth!


He didn't even cry. (Jakob screamed and cried with every single tooth, except one.) Now he's wondering when his new tooth is going to come in. I told him drinking milk would help his teeth be strong. I think he's expecting to wake up to a full-grown tooth, though. He looks so grown up!

Well, I still have more to catch up on, but that's all I have time to write about right now. More ketchup later.