Seventy-eighth Passage

Last weekend David and I took the family to Utah for a quick weekend.
David borrowed Lydia's dollar store sun glasses for part of the trip down.

We had a not so happy incident while driving. David rolled down the passenger window to throw out an apple core. But when he went to roll it up it wouldn't work! It would roll down more, but nothing could make it go up. So on we drove, freeway speeds, with horrible hot air blowing in and noise it creates. The pressure in the car was also screwy because of it, so my ears were pretty unhappy. I wasn't thrilled about the situation.
So when we stopped at a rest stop David put his handyman skills to work.

The kids ran around on the grass, terrorized and man and his dog, and got some energy out while David tinkered. It didn't take long before the window rolled up again. It didn't, however, roll down anymore, but we were just happy that it was up.

We stayed with my Aunt and Uncle who are always so nice to have us.
Saturday morning we dropped Morgan and Lydia off with their dad. They had a full day of Lagoon ahead of them.
The rest of us found a trax station, parked the car, and took the commuter train into downtown Salt Lake. Owen was apprehensive about riding a train at first, because he was sure it would be scary, but once on the train there was no more fears.

We took the boys to Temple square. We walked a lot. We toured the old Tabernacle, the new Conference Center, along with the big gardens and fountains on the roof. They got to throw coins into the fountains, though Owen refused to make a wish. :)
We spent lots of time in one of the visitors centers. I was surprised at how much the boys liked it. My patience was waning before theirs. William really liked seeing all the art work of Jesus' ministry. Owen loved outer space and the ramp to get there. Lol.

We went to the Joseph Smith memorial building. We rode the elevators to the top and looked out over the city. A cool view of the temple.
We were trying to take a picture of the whole family by holding the phone out and scrunching. Then a nice older gentleman offered to take it for us. The iphone was a little advanced for him, and our picture ended up not being great.

But because it would have seemed rued to take another one by ourselves while he was still there, we didn't get another family shot there.

We got some of the boys though.

And we had William take a picture of us.

We also watched a movie in the Legacy theater.
It was a good experience for all of us, though my poor pregnant hips and feet were quite through with the walking when we were done.

It was a good trip. Fun playing tourist, fun visiting with family, and the six hour drive was better than we expected with 4 young ones.

Post-it #123

I like to crochet. But I only know one stitch, and I don't know how to do any boarders or anything. Still, I crochet. I've only ever made scarves and blankets.
I made a blanket for Lydia before she was born.

The multiple colors was me getting all fancy. :)

I've made a blanket for this little baby now, too. David even helped.

I liked the idea of squares. So I had to look up how to get the squares crocheted together. It worked pretty well, except for the backside. It's not nearly as pretty. I was okay with Lydia's blanket not having a boarder or anything, but this blanket has an air of being unfinished. I may have to look up different boarders.

Post-it #122

In the past two weeks the following has been seen in our house on separate occasions.

Uh. Weird.
I don't know how long Morgan slept there. David got up to go to work and found him like that. I asked Morgan why he was sleeping on the floor, and he told me that he got up to go to the bathroom and didn't want to climb up to his top bunk bed. But he assured me the floor was very comfortable.

Lydia's was in the middle of the day. Actually, she had just awoken from a nap. The nap wasn't very long though, since her noisy brothers woke her up. She was very cranky and whiny and eventually made her way up the stairs. I went to check on her and found her sound asleep.  Poor exhausted girl!

Post-it #121

Check out Lydia's operatics. It's actually pretty impressive what she comes up with on the spot! It's almost as if she really were singing a song she knew.

Seventy-seventh Passage

Family Pictures! Finally, I have family photos to put on the wall. Well, as soon as I get them printed...
My friend Jessica from Busy Bee Photography took these pictures. She did an awesome job. I recommend her. And she's great with kids and big groups.

Enjoy!

This one could be better, if certain little boys would make normal faces...

David and I got some pictures taken together too.

 Who is more pregnant??

Personal pictures of all the kiddos. 

Morgan

William

Owen

Lydia

And baby girl! Tee hee.

We got the pictures taken with all the Postons, so here are some of my favorites from the gang.

Seventy-sixth Passage

Here's a little update on my pregnancy.
I am 28 weeks along, so only 12 more to go. This pregnancy has gone by relatively fast, so that's nice. I'm big enough now that sleeping is much less comfortable, and more broken up. Oh, and the pelvis pain has returned! I had it with Lydia really bad, so I predict it will only get worse as I continue to grow.

Last week I had an ultra-sound. My first big ultra-sound, around 20 weeks, they saw some bright spots around the babies stomach that they were worried about. They suggested some blood tests and a follow up ultra-sound. I wasn't concerned much at all and almost forewent the recommendations based on convenience and money. It just reminded me about when I was pregnant with Lydia. They saw some bright spots around the heart that they say they see sometimes with down syndrome. They recommended I do more testing for that. I didn't, and wasn't really worried about it. Lydia was fine.
Anyway, I got some blood work done and ruled out an infection that could have caused it. Then we went to the ultra-sound last week. The bright spots had migrated to the bowel. This is what they were hoping not to see. This could mean a few things. The worst case is that the baby has cystic fibrosis, a horrible disease, whose victims lead a hard, short, life. But in order for our baby to have cyctic fibrosis, David and I would both have to have the gene, which is unlikely, especially considering that nobody in our families have had it. The news was more concerning at first, but I just don't think that will be an issue. I'm going to see if I can get a lab done to see if I carry that faulty gene, and if I don't, we're home free on that account.
But there are other major issues. It could be that the bowl didn't form right and is twisted or something. It would take a surgery to repair it. I don't want my brand new baby to have to have surgery. It could also cause a problem in utero. I will have to keep going in for ultra-sounds to keep a watch on it, to make sure the bowel doesn't rupture or something. If it does, they will take the baby early.
We asked a lot of questions, but I don't feel like we got the clearest answers. I think that it could be nothing, but it wasn't very easy to get the doctor to admit to that.
And yet, I'm not terribly concerned. I just think it will all be okay. I'll continue to go in to make sure things haven't worsened, and I do want to get tested to see if I'm a cystic fibrosis carrier, but...I won't be surprised if it all turns out to be nothing.

Seventy-fifth Passage

Last week the three boys had swimming lessons. Owen was in the pre-school class with kids mostly 3 years old, William was in level 1, and Morgan was in level 2. I wanted to put both the older boys in level 2, but there was only one slot left open. When I signed them up, William was still afraid to put his head in the water, so I put Morgan in level 2. But in the short time that elapsed between signing up and having lessons, William became much braver in the pool, and even learned to doggy paddle without assistance. But I left them in the classes I originally signed them up for, which I don't think was a bad thing.

While they boys had their hour lessons, Lydia and I hung out and watched. She did much better than I thought she would; she loves swimming and I thought she would throw a fit every day because she didn't get to get in. But she was generally well behaved.

Owen was generally horrible. He's way too afraid of water in general, but the water his class was in was 2 ft. deep. Even he is okay with that depth. But he still refused to participate, listen to his teachers, or be nice in any manner. The only interaction he instigated with his classmates was to splash them in the face. And his teachers. I was not well pleased.

One day they did life jackets and took them into deeper water. David was there that day, so we made him participate. He wasn't happy about it. But afterward, he was more comfortable with his teachers and was happier to be there.

 He clung so tight to the teacher holding him.

William did great in his class. His first day he was still a little apprehensive about blowing bubbles in the water, and freaked out a little. This made me realize my decision to leave him in level 1 was a good choice. But he got better, and even learned to swim short distances underwater without plugging his nose.

 The last day his class got to jump off the diving board. Owen's class did it with them, but Owen, of course, stayed on the sidelines.
Anyway, William was pretty apprehensive at first. His teacher, (whom William adored) was in the water to catch him, and another was on the diving board to assist. It's a good thing too, otherwise William would have chickened out an never known how much he would like jumping off the diving board.

Here are the first and second jumps from William. I didn't get anymore videos, but he got braver each jump.

Morgan also did well. His class did a lot of diving for rings. Morgan has a buoyancy problem. He isn't. He sinks like a rock, no matter how much he kicks and flails about. So the learning to float thing didn't work out so well. Neither did the learning to swim thing, for that matter. But there was definite improvement. I think with a little more instruction and practice, he can get it down.

His class also got to jump off the diving board, but they didn't have someone in the water to catch them, so Morgan used a floaty.

Post-it #120

Lydia put her giant baby in the cradle, which is in my bedroom. I'm more used to it now, but for quite awhile I would do an alarmed double-take every time I walked by it.

Post-it #119

It has been brought to my attention that Owen looks like a character in the new Les Miserables movie. I agree. I told Owen to give me a serious/grumpy face so he could look the same as the brooding character. He had a hard time keeping a smile out of his scowl.
What do you think? Do they look alike?