It's A Girl!

So, even though I posted the announcement on Facebook and sent it out in all our Christmas cards, I have received a few grumbles from friends and family that I had yet to announce on my blog that we are having a baby GIRL in April 2010!!! We are very very excited, and the boys are anxiously awaiting her arrival as well. From the moment we told Clark that I was going to have another baby, he said that it was a girl, and he was right. Once we confirmed to him that yes, he is going to have a sister, he has decided to call her a boy with a big fat cheesy smile every time he does it. She is in for it ... poor girl.

I have since received my first two baby girl gifts from two very good friends of mine (if you don't count the hand me down clothes my sister Trish has already given to me, which I think do count because they are awesome!). I just have to share them because I have lamented for a few years now about not being able to shop in the girls section of baby stores since they are so much cuter than the boys section. But I have always been conflicted because I was never a 'girly-girl' growing up, and I don't want to have a spoiled little priss for a daughter. I have said to my sisters and my mother before I was ever pregnant with a girl that if I had a girl I would want her to be a tomboy and that I would dress her in cute little 'track-suits'. Cue the looks of alarm and disgust on the faces of my mom and sisters! I have since changed my opinion because I have decided that JUST because I might dress my newborn daughter in very pink, ruffle butt, fairy and butterfly adorned clothes, does NOT mean she is going to be a spoiled priss. I just have to make sure Tanner doesn't give her whatever she wants whenever she wants as I hear quite a few dad's of daughters are wont to do. :-)

Nintendo Thumb

So, if you are a child of the 80s, and you owned the original Nintendo, then you should know about the ailment affectionately termed "Nintendo Thumb." I think the last time I had Nintendo thumb was in 1990 just after Super Mario 3 came out on Nintendo and I got it for my birthday. I played hard to beat the game between July and August when we moved to England and we gave our cherished Nintendo away to our cousins. I think I had Nintendo thumb for a month solid.

19 years have passed, and I am happy to announce that it has returned! Thanks to this game
which I gave to Tanner for Christmas, but was really a gift for me (don't tell him). We have been playing almost every day together, and it is even more of a challenge because you can do 2 players at the same time! Tanner said to me the other night...

"After playing this together, now I know we could NEVER go on the Amazing Race together."

Let's just say we get a little bit annoyed at times when we kill each other accidentally or the other person isn't keeping up. But, it IS fun despite the minor trials it causes in our marriage ;-)

We beat the game without any cheating ... and then a new secret world opened up so I guess our playing gets to continue ... as well as my Nintendo thumb! Woohoo!!!

U.S. Botanical Gardens

Our friends, the Hillis's are in town from Florida, and the boys and I decided to meet them in D.C. to play! Unfortunately it was bitter cold outside, so Clark decided he needed to complain every step of the way ... except of course when he saw the train exhibit inside the U.S. Botanical Gardens. It was decorated beautifully, and the boys loved seeing everything especially since it was very warm inside. I would like to go back there with my mom when it is a little bit warmer to look at some of the gardens outside and the herbs.

Merry Christmas!

Santa came!
Behold, the "Sticky Fat Hand!"
Even Andrew got in the action.





Love,
Tanner, Cherylyn, Clark, Andrew, and Baby Girl!

Christmas Eve

Clark has really gotten into Santa this year. When we were at our ward church party, Santa came to visit. I asked Clark what he was going to ask Santa to bring him, and he said emphatically "A Sticky Fat Hand!" Clark was originally introduced to the "Sticky Fat Hand" when he received one at a Primary party and all the children got little take home gifts from Oriental Trading. One of those was what Clark termed a "Sticky Fat Hand", you know those small hands that you throw against the wall time and again until they inevitably get disgustingly gross or it falls apart? Yeah those. So that is apparently what Clark wanted more than anything else in this world for Christmas this year. I think Santa was definitely willing to accommodate that request.

We spent Christmas Eve at our friends the Beck's, and when we came home, we hurried and threw some cookies in the oven to leave for Santa. We made some hot chocolate, which Clark asked if he could have some of Santa's and we said we didn't think he would mind if he had a few sips, and we put some celery out on the plate for the reindeer. Clark wrote a letter to Santa and drew a picture with presents to say thank you for bringing them, and then it was time for bed! When we told Clark Santa would come down our chimney to leave the presents, he said "But Mom! Santa is too BIG!"

Smarty Pants.

View From My Kitchen Window

I took these pictures this afternoon while I was listening to this song and washing my dishes....

It can't get any better than this at Christmas time.

I then thought of the awesome gift my mom gave me this year and she said "I got you this because it reminded me of your house and your deer." It is exactly the same!

Did you all know that I LOVE snow globes?? My mom has known for quite some time and usually gets me one every year and I love them. She always manages to find me classic looking ones that are NOT cheap or cheesy...they are beautiful. Did I mention I love them and the deer that prance around in my backyard?? It actually makes washing dishes enjoyable....

Let It Snow!

The D.C. area was blasted by a blizzard (how's that for my alliteration skills?) beginning Friday night. It lasted for more than 24 hours and left us with 2-3 feet of snow. There was so much snow, the boys didn't find it very fun walking outside to then seep down into the snow up to their waists and chins. They decided it was more fun to take turns opening the door, grabbing a handful of snow and slamming the door shut and then eating it together. Clark even made us snow pancakes...which were so yummy, especially since he would use his bare foot to flatten the snow into the perfect shape he desired.

Tanner, on the other hand, had the unfortunate job of trying to dig us and our neighbor who lives below us out of the snow. He spent a good couple of hours out there and I was worrying about his back. He had just had ANOTHER cortizone injection in his back for two NEW herniated discs he has received just in time for Christmas!!!!! Woohoo! I kept asking him if he wanted me to call someone from church to come help him, but he said no. When I asked him why? He said one word.

"Pride."

Well, at least he's honest. I guess we'll see if it was stupid too when he goes in for his follow-up MRI in a couple of weeks. Cue the inordinate amount of snow pics:

This was at about 10am Saturday morning. You can just barely see the curves of the top of our candy cane decorations....

3 hours later....no candy canes.


The snow finally stopped Saturday night. Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, but still frigid cold. 11am Sunday...

Clark making his way back to the house....


After Tanner had carved a path out for us...

First Day of Preschool

Because Clark is our first child, when I told him he was going to start going to school this year, he acted like it might be cool, but I don't think he really had an image of what exactly that meant. However, when his first day finally arrived, he seemed relatively at ease with everything and he thought his bag he got to carry was particularly cool. I was really excited for him because I know that having this new social and educational experience for him is something that I think he will really enjoy. His teacher is actually in our ward at church, and I was really happy he got in her class because she really likes Clark, and so I know I don't have to worry about whether or not the teacher 'gets' my child. He loves Mrs. Hugie and Mrs. Zirkle (he loves saying Zirkle). There are 4 other boys in his class and 5 girls. There is also a set of triplets as well. They all seem like very nice children and although I missed "coffee" with the mom's the first week, I think it will be fun meeting them and getting to know other families in the area. (Andrew wanting to get in on the action of course...I think he has really enjoyed having some time alone with me in the mornings since Clark has been at school)

Apparently, his first day went relatively well, although I was told that he tried to escape from the playground. I don't know where he thought he was going...but I wasn't really surprised because he just likes to go, go, go even if he has no particular destination in mind.

Camping and Fishing

We went camping and fishing with our friends, the Swintons before school started for the boys. We had a great time and Clark asks almost every day now when we are going again. We made awesome foil dinners (thank you for the recipe Dan the Man), ate smores by the fire, and the kids ran around and played in the dirt a lot.(Andrew got tired of waiting for our foil dinners to cook so he plopped himself down on the picnic table and helped himself to grapes...A LOT of grapes)

(I know it's hard to tell, but it wasn't the best nights sleep I've ever had ;-)

The next morning we went fishing, and Tyler, Jenna, and I all caught a fish. The kids again loved playing in the dirt and splashing in the water.

Clarkisms

"I want to be a giant, so I can be in charge!"

"Mom, I am going to kiss you a lot and you be funny."
(meaning, he is going to kiss my cheeks super fast and I have to laugh while he does it).

Me: "Clark are you excited to go to school soon?"
Clark: "No Mom, I only go to church."

Clark and I go in to get Andrew from his crib after a nap:
Clark: "Hi Andrew! You have a good nap?"
Me: "Clark, do you love your brother?"
Clark: "Yeah, he's cute."

Clark playing MarioKart on the Wii. He falls off the edge into the water:
Clark: "Oh Dear!"

Favorite sayings while playing with his cars and trucks:
"Let's Get CRUSHING!"
"Rock and Roll!!" (Wok and Woll)
"Horse power!"
(he picked these all up from his current favorite show Meteor and the Mighty Monster Trucks).

Health Care Townhall...ALMOST

(the line snaked all around the parking lot, up that hill and to the right to the school...I estimate there were at least 4000 people there)

So, as some of you may or may not have seen on the news, there was a health care townhall given by my Congressional Representative Jim Moran (D). He also was able to book Howard Dean to attend and address the townhall audience. As soon as I found out about it, I knew I wanted to attend. I even read the first 100 pages of H.R 3200 until I almost died (maybe that was their intention? ;-)) of boredom and then realized within a few days I shouldn't bother since so much was getting changed in the Senate anyway. I emailed my girlfriends, but they were all going to be either out of town or getting ready to leave for out of town and Tanner had a Young Men's meeting that night so I hit the townhall solo mio. When I arrived, there were a ton of people already there in line. I was an hour and a half early. There were some crazies on both sides going up and down the line asking people questions or handing out fliers or signs to hold. I stood quietly in line and listened to the people around me. We live in a predominately Democratic district. Everyone around me was talking about how great the health care bill is and pretty much patting each other on the back for the great discussion they were having. It's alright, we all do it when we are around people who agree with us. I am not a confrontational person by nature, I like it when everyone gets along, and it scares me when I can't somewhat predict a person's reaction from something I have said...but after about a half hour, I just couldn't listen to it anymore without putting my two cents in. We were all very cordial and even though it was definitely a debate, we weren't screaming at each other or anything. I think the best response I got was when I said "well, I think we just have a fundamental ideological difference...I don't believe that health insurance is a right, I believe it is a privilege and the responsibility of individuals and families to pay for it, not the government or the taxpayers." They all looked at me like I had just called them all an expletive. Do I think we need changes to our system? Definitely. I just don't think this bill addresses very many of the problems that need to be solved. But it was cool...we understood each other...we just didn't agree.

At one point we were all wondering if we were going to get in. The gym of the high school held 2500 people and we were in the middle of the line. I joked that we would get right up to the doors and they would shut them right in front of us. As we got closer to the front, the energy really picked up. There were a lot of people near the front with signs and they were chanting, but it wasn't crazy or anything. I just looked around and thought "this is democracy personified". I loved it.

We finally got up to the front doors, and just as I was about to step into the school, a cop came out the front door with a sign that said MAX CAPACITY REACHED. She looked at me and said "Sorry Ma'am, we have to close the doors now." I couldn't BELIEVE IT!!! I actually said to her "are you kidding me?" (that's about as lippy as I am willing to get with a cop). I turned around to my now friendly foes and said "I JINXED US!!!" We started laughing, but we were all totally bummed. I was so sad. To be THAT close and not get in was just ridiculous. I was the next person, the VERY NEXT PERSON!!! It turned out to be the difference between turning right or turning left when I went to look for a spot to park. If I had turned left, I would have gotten in, but I turned right first, and it doomed me...if only I was more left thinking. ;-).

Anyway, I watched the news coverage later and it looked to be quite the spectacle inside...from Moran personally demanding to see someone's ID before allowing them to ask their question to Howard Dean admitting they didn't include Tort reform in the bill because they didn't want to take on the lawyers in addition to everyone else (hey, at least he was honest?) it would have been a blast to have been there, but oh well, I tried. I encourage everyone if you haven't already done so to email your congressional representatives and your senators about how you feel about the health care bill. The biggest lesson I got out of the experience is just how powerful the public voice REALLY is when we all actually care. Go here to find your representatives and to contact them.

Wow...Time Flies Part II

JULY

Well, of course July started off with a BANG! because it was the 4th of July AND my birthday. Tanner and I went out on the 3rd for dinner to McCormick and Schmick's. Steak and Seafood, you can't hardly go wrong with that...Except that the next morning we decided to run in a 4th of July 5K at a town close to ours. We had just bought gym memberships to help us start training for a triathlon, but it would be accurate to say I wasn't really READY yet for a 5K. Pathetic I know, but true! I was doing okay, but it didn't help that the run was quite hilly, and just before the end I decided we should sprint to the finish...well, I didn't quite make it. About 10 yards (seriously, I could see the finish line), Tanner gave me a look as if willing me on for us to pass this lady that was at least twice our age. I looked at him, shook my head and went over to the side of the road and threw up last night's dinner in the grass. 10 yards...10 YARDS from the finish line! I would be totally embarrassed, if I didn't find it so funny myself. We finally crossed the finish line after Tanner finished helping me hold my earphones away from my face while I upchucked in the grass. Tanner and I had a good laugh together, and then met back up with our friends who were watching our kids where we all proceeding to have ANOTHER good laugh at my expense. Here we are, post race, and post throw-up.
Later, I opened presents, and I received some great workout clothes from Tanner.
Last year we stayed away from downtown D.C. because we didn't want to fight the crowds, but for some reason this year I was feeling more brave. It was really easy getting into the city via the Metro and finding a good spot on the Mall to watch fireworks was easy too. Getting out of the city afterwards? Not so easy. We walked to a lesser known Metro station and eventually got on our line to get home. Everyone was in good spirits so the fact that we were bunched up so close that we could barely breath wasn't too bad! The boys zonked out on the walked back to the Metro and we got a lot of smiles from other pedestrians on the way. All in all, I would definitely do it again, so let me know if you ever want to join us! The fireworks were great and you can't help but feel patriotic in the middle of downtown D.C.





It was a great birthday and a great 4th of July!

Wow...Time Flies

Has it really been three months since I blogged? Why yes, yes it has. Well...here is a quick recap of the past few months for those of you who haven't already died of shock.

May

This month consisted of some small fun family activities like a Cinco de Mayo party at my friend Jenna's house. The boys had fun hitting the pinata to death and of course loved the candy.
Our town also had a fair where we met up with our friends and rode on some fun little kiddie rides. I love that we live close to a huge city, but our town still feels small.






Tanner's birthday was this month, and we had fun celebrating his BIG three ooooooohhhhh. He's an old man, but we still love him. :-) Oh, and we had our first backyard family picnic. Andrew eating his first corn-on-the cob...priceless.

That's IBC Rootbeer people...trust me.

June

This month of this year will forever live in infamy as the time of "Clark's finger" accident. WARNING: Graphic details below...

So I took the boys down to my sister Tricia's house to hang with her for the week since both of our husband's were out of town. My parents came to visit for part of it, but had left before the accident occurred a few days later. It was Thursday, and we were going to leave later in the afternoon to drive back home. Tricia had an appointment to get her haircut in the morning and so I offered to watch the four youngest (JB, Izzy, Clark, and Andrew) while she went to get it cut. All of the kids were having a grand time dancing to music in my sister's bedroom and I was finishing burning a cd for me to listen to on the way home when I heard this BANG! (door slamming) and then the most horrible blood curdling scream I have ever heard from my child. I went out to find him and he met me just inside the door where he had slammed his left pinky finger (later we realized he had actually slammed in in the hinge of the door). When I looked down, the tip of his finger was literally hanging off...and blood...everywhere. I pulled him into the bathroom and put some pressure at the base of his finger to try to stop the bleeding. He was crying but not hysterically so...and I just remember he kept saying "I broke my finger off mom...it's bleeding"...over and over again. I didn't know what to do, I was home by myself with four kids under the age of 5. So...I made my first ever phone call to 9-1-1. I tried to act like everything was okay and was 'just calling' to see what they 'recommended' I do with an almost severed finger. I can't decide if downplaying it is better or worse than if I had been hysterical, but regardless, they said to stay put and the paramedics would be there soon. We waited about 5 mins, and they were at the doorstep. We had a fire truck and an ambulance and 4 people come in to help. They taped up Clark's finger as well as they could and said I could take him to the hospital by myself or they could take him in the ambulance. Thankfully, my sister's neighbor came over to see if everything was okay and offered to stay with the other children until my sister could get home from the hair salon. I hopped in the car with Clark and he liked seeing the ambulance and fire truck, but I think he was in a little shock by this time. He was pretty quiet on the way to the hospital.

Once we arrived at the ER, they saw us very quickly. They took x-rays of his finger and quickly realized that he had an open fracture. So the very tip of the bone in his finger was fractured which makes sense since the tip was literally hanging on my a millimeter or two. They called in a finger surgeon from outside the hospital to come in and stitch it up, which I was very grateful for. They sedated Clark in order to stitch him up...which was C-R-A-Z-Y. His eyes were open but nobody was home. Eventually they closed his eyes for him and I watched with fascination as they sewed his finger back on. Stuff like that does not really bother me and I am just amazed that doctors can do what he did and Clark's finger would be as good as new in a few weeks. There was only a slight concern about the tip of his finger necrotizing from a possible lack of blood circulation back into the tip, but the surgeon seemed very optimistic.

Soon enough, they were pulling Clark out of sedation and boy was he a ham coming out of it. He was saying stuff like "Mom, your in charge, I not in charge" with his eyes half closed. By the end of everything the doctors and nurses loved Clark and said how great he had dealt with everything. They asked him what color wrap he wanted for his hand and he insisted on red, since it is the "the color of bloody". GREAT. Morbid much?

Suffice it to say, we didn't go home until the NEXT day and Clark got by pretty well just using one hand. In fact, I think he quite liked showing off his hand to anyone who would look and listen. The next week he stuck his hand in a potted plant I had, and he got his gauze wet, so I had to take him into the dr. to make sure it hadn't soaked through to his finger. While she unwrapped it, I thought Clark was going to make me go deaf, he was screaming so loud and was so upset. This surprised me after how well he acted in the ER before, but I soon realized that he had some emotional issues about seeing his finger again like it was. We had two nights of him waking up at numerous times with bad dreams about his hand. It was actually really sad. After ten days we had to go into a finger specialist to check the finger and Clark did pretty well. Once he actually saw how well his finger had healed, he was a total happy camper. The doctor gave him a lollipop and then after Clark had taken a few licks the doctor jokingly said "Can I have a lick?" Clark looked at him a little quizzically and then reached his hand out to give the doctor a lick. The dr. started cracking up laughing and said in all his years of practice he had never had a child so willingly share his lollipop.

So it has now been just two months since the accident and Clark's finger is completely healed and a new fingernail has almost grown all the way back. Success! Although I can't say that Tricia has had as much success getting the blood out of her carpet. Sorry dude.

After all that, I have NO picture to show for it. I don't know what was wrong with us. We never took a picture of him with his big fat red gauze covered fist. It was a total non-think.

Stay tuned tomorrow for July and August recaps!