Cold Cereal

On this, the last day of November, I am most definitely grateful for the gift of cold cereal. I think that it's an invention especially for me. This was a picture that I took at breakfast, not dinner -- although cereal makes a great dinner around our house every now and then. Kimball and Koria love to look at the cereal boxes, just like I did as a kid. It's almost as much fun as eating.

By way of explaination, the last couple of posts were for Jana, in the hopes that one of the pictures posted would work for Joe and Ev's mission papers. The format needed to be vertical, not horizontal, as all of the pictures I took were formatted. One was a photoshop attempt that I did, hoping to fit Ev in closer to Joe, and the next was a picture that we had taken while we lived in Orem. Different camera. Low resolution. Only shot of Joe that I could find with he and Ev together, he not wearing a hat. Oh well, if it doesn't work, Jana, good luck on the retakes!

Only other one I've got

Jana, this one's to the right dimensions. Don't know if this will work or not ...

Here you go Jana!

The Photoshopped, closer together edition. Good luck, Jana!

Mission Picture

G&G Black are working on their missionary papers right now, so I took a picture for them today following church meetings. Afterward, we loaded up the car and headed home to Huntington. We had a great holiday weekend, and are happy to be back home tonight. Nothing beats your own bed.

Saturday, Now. 28

We enjoyed a slower day in Panguitch with Grandma and Grandpa Black and Julena on Saturday. All of the kids managed to sleep in until at least 7:30 a.m., which helped me recover from the loss of sleep the night before. The day ended with Koria vomiting all over the stairs around 11:00 p.m., in the middle of a game the adults where playing upstairs.

Perfect way to end the day.

Black Friday

Since Panguitch sits in the middle of nowhere, Black Friday requires one to test their own sanity and well as dedication to a deal. Jana, Evelyn (my mother-in-law) and I all braved the time and weather and left town around 3:30 a.m. to drive to Cedar City to first hit the Walmart before heading farther south to St. George for some Christmas shopping. We managed to stay awake through "Harry Potter" also, then headed back to Panguitch, arriving home around 8:30 that night. Too bad the world with all of it's technology (which seemed to in short supply that day) has still not provided a way for us to just fly from place to place with our own hover jets. Sure would make traveling a lot easier.

We had a good time talking and laughing along the way ... and yes, Grandma Black can still outshop anyone ... even her daughter and daughter-in-law!

Thanksgiving in Panguitch

One of the highlights for us this year on Thanksgiving had to be sledding on Dickinson Hill, right across from Grandma and Grandpa Blacks house, in Panguitch. The kids had a great time enjoying the snow, despite the cool. We had to force Jaden and Koria to come in when the sun went down. The others came in a bit earlier, after which we all sat down and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner together. Luke and Layne enjoyed their first solid-food Thanksgiving to the fullest, outeating me by far. We are definitely thankful for good family and fun. Here are some pictures from the sledding portion of the day. There's a couple of posts here that show some of my favorite shots.

Jaden and Kimball suffer the aftermath of snow splash.

Dad and Kimball

Everything's that much better being a twin.

The old truck in winter

Thanksgiving in Panguitch (cont)

Mom and Red

Sun and Snow

Drama Queen

Taeya and Jace (love the tongue)

... and Taeya vs. the snowboard

Congrats Katie

On Wednesday, our soon-to-be Aunt Katie, who plays for the USU volleyball team, competed in the WAC volleyball tournament in Las Vegas. USU ended up beating the third ranked team in the nation, Hawaii, to win the WAC championship and an automatic place in the NCAA tournament to begin this coming week. We made some signs to congratulate her on the big win. GO USU!

Thanksgiving Preschool Program

I'm typing this up one-handed because I'm holding Layne with one arm and keeping Luke away from the keyboard at the same time. That's a disclaimer for any typing errors.

Yesterday morning, K&K had their Thanksgiving Preschool Program, complete with indian dances and songs and hand-made costumes. Here's some of the highlights of the morning itself:

Luke woke up at 5:30 a.m., screaming.

I woke at 5:30 a.m., moaning.

I showered at 5:45 a.m.

I bathed three kids in one tub by 7:00 a.m.

Another one followed around 8:30.

Started four loads of laundry somewhere in there.

Ran two four-year-olds to program practice at 9:00 a.m.

Laid one baby down for a half-hour-nap upon returning.

Got the other baby some medicine for the fever she started running.

Started packing for Thanksgiving travel around 9:15 a.m.

Woke a baby up from a nap to run to preschool program.

Changed two diapers and loaded two babies into car around 9:47 a.m.

Picked up husband from work for program by 9:50 a.m.

Figured out that I'd left the video camera at home by 9:55 a.m.

Figured out that I'd left the memory card for my camera at home in the computer by 9:56 a.m.

Husband ran to his work to get a memory card for camera at 9:57 a.m.

Husband returned around 9:59 a.m.

Preschool program begins at 10:00 a.m.

Figured out that my camera will not read husband's memory card about 10:00 a.m.

Felt like a loser mom .... can't pinpoint the time.

Drove home from preschool program around 10:45 a.m.

Fed two babies some cereal and laid them down for a nap around 10:55 a.m.

Bribed older set of twins into dressing up in costumes and reenacting dances/songs around 11:00 a.m.

(Deep breath)

It was worth it. They did a great job. I love my family.

Monday, November 22

Another day of random sights from around Emery County, Utah. This first one if a picture of our neighbors gas tank. I have been meaning to take a picture of it for a long time now, and since I already had my zoom lense on, I decided to go for it while outside. I love the rustiness of it all.

That's me, snacking away on preschool snacks. I spent a couple of hours this morning making gingersnaps and oatmeal choc. chip/craisin cookies for Kimball's snack day today, Sorry about the bizarre angle, but it was a self-portrait. The cookies were good, by the way.

This final scene is a shot of the mountains to the west of us, heading up to Skyline Drive. I should have taken the picture about ten minutes earlier, because the mountains were enveloped in a moving wall of snow. Oh well, had to pick up the kids from school.

And that's a look at today ... so far.

Snow-dusted Mountains

It snowed today during our church meetings, and although it did not stick to the ground, the mountains in the distance appeared to have been dusted with powder. I played around with my zoom lense looking out of our back window before heading off to do some visiting teaching.

The Pirate Fort

I married the greatest guy out there. Today was proof. After helping me with various household duties and taking care of the kids, Jared decided to make the kids a surprise pirate fort/ship out of Kimball's bunk beds, a cranium set, and some sheets. It was awesome.

Layne's also quite fond of her dad. She just smiles and laughs whenever he is around.

Luke was hanging out around the little people nativity set today while drinking an after-nap bottle. He put on quite a show for us tonight with his latest dance moves. He thinks he's funnier than anyone.

Today, November 19

Today's entry is a bunch of randomness, so I just thought that I'd leave the title open-ended.

Obviously, Layne's teething right now. She's even been trying to take bites out of the tree. I find her throughout the day inching her way over to the green stuff, so today I'm counting that as doing her therapy work. I don't think she's ingested anything yet, although she also has a thing for grass. Maybe she thinks that the tree is a big pile of it standing upright for her tasting pleasure.

I told Kimball and Koria to make their maddest faces possible and this is what they came up with. You should see the crusty that Koria REALLY can give when she's mad. This face is nothing in comparison, although I wonder if this is what they see on my face for part of their day.

We kept ourselves busy dancing to music (mostly Christmas) after dinner. This is what Luke thought of the whole night.

Yep, more teething evidence. That's Jared Reindeer, BTW.

This last pic is of Koria and Kimball having a pretend snowball fight in the house tonight. I came up with the idea after I got tired of playing various other Christmas games that I invented. Kimball let me know that this is his favorite time of the year ... and that it should be everybody elses too, as far as he was concerned. They loved it when I'd get hit in the face with a pretend snowball and have to wipe away madeup slush.

Okay, so I enjoy it as much as the kids do. Part of me will always be a kid.

Just after I had put Luke and Layne to bed and started reading "Peter Pan" to Koria and Kimball (in the traditional English accent of the show) Jared returned home from SLC. Great to have him back. I think the kids are excited for a change of pace tomorrow, meaning someone other than me nagging them all day long to get along with each other.

My Turkeys

Kor and Kimb bounced out of school yesterday all dressed up as turkeys. I thought they looked great.

Before school, we decided to work on a few art projects that I came up with. Actually, Koria and Kimball asked me if I could draw Becky as a pilgrim for them to color, so I did my best to make Aunt Becky look like she could have blended in with the Diego and Dora indians of last week.

I also drew up a turkey, then taught the kids about different textures and helped them do crayon rubbings onto the turkeys' bodies and feathers. They had fun with it, and believe it or not, I managed to hold Kimball's attention for a while with it. Maybe that was due to the fact that he got to hold a cheese grater, tear the paper covering off of crayons, look for different objects around the house to use .... it was a Thanksgiving miracle.

After a power outage left us in the dark for a couple of hours, the kids requested to eat cereal for dinner. After that, we decided to turn on the Ipod touch, then danced to music while running around the table, guided by flashlights. The babies viewed it all from the comfort of their highchairs. I'm happy to note that Layne didn't vomit at all yesterday either. YEAH!

Jared left from work for meetings early the next morning in SLC by mid-afternoon, so by 6:00 p.m., the kids started asking me when "Dad was coming home because we miss him."

Obviously my coolness is slipping. I can't even win out by drawing a stylish Becky pilgrim. What does it take these days?

Haircuts

Alright, alright -- before I get the "what a lame picture" comments, I freely admit that today's picture is not that noteworthy. Just the tools I use for the haircuts I gave to both Jared and Kimball tonight.

Notice I took pictures of the tools, not the haircuts themselves. I noticed on an episode of "NCIS" last night that some of the men seem to have their sideburns cut extremely short and thought to myself, "When I cut the boys' hair next time I wonder if I should do that. It must be pretty modern."

Right?

Well, Jared looked in the mirror after the haircut was complete and I heard an audible gasp from the bathroom. Don't get me wrong, he's not mad, he just has never had his sideburns M.I.A. before. I tried to explain my reasoning, pulling up pictures of the men from the show, only to see that I, in fact, gave Kimball and Jared a Gibb's hairdo -- no part down the middle or anything, just highly cropped sideburns.

Good thing Kimball doesn't care and Jared really loves me.

Maybe I'll start calling Jared "Boss" and watch out for a headsmack or two headed my way.

Hearing Screening and Ear Tubes

Yesterday, November 16, Layne and I had the joy of driving to Taylorsville in South Salt Lake to have a hearing screening done and a few other auditory tests. Jared, mega dad that he is, came home at 10:00 to watch the other three so that we could go. He ended up getting a call from a friend in the ward who asked if I could take two of the other preschoolers to school for her, so Jared volunteered for the job. I was impressed.

Layne didn't pass her hearing screening, making this the fifth or sixth time, and the audiologist, upon closer examination, found that there were pockets of fluid on either side of Layne's eardrums. She called over to Primary Children's Med. Center (we know that place all too well these days) and arranged for us to have an appointment with an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor). I quickly called over to Layne's opthamalogist to cancel the appointment we had there so that I could make it to the other one.

Upon examination, the ENT doctors have decided to do an ear tube placement along with an ABR, a test to measure Layne's brain wave function in relation to her abilities to hear. When the ENT found out that she also needed an echocardiogram with sedation, he suggested that we do both surgeries at the same time so that she's only under the sedation once.

Agreed.

I spent the equivalent of three hours on the phone today trying to get a coordination of a cardiologist, echo tech team, and the ENT doctors to make this all happen. I will not expound further here for my own sanity.

SOOOOOO....... Layne's next surgeries will be on December 20. We are hoping that the echo will show that her heart is working well with no defects and that the ear tube placement/fluid drainage/brain wave testing will help improve her hearing abilities and help to pinpoint what type of hearing disabilities she faces so that we can all better help her. The doctors seemed hopeful that the fluid removal will help, in part.

We left PCMC around 5:00 p.m. and made our way back home. Layne had decided to vomit all of her lunch just as we were headed out the door yesterday (that was a fun cleanup) and decided to puke up all of her late afternoon bottle on the freeway around Orem. Needless to say, she had a rough day again and the car isn't smelling so hot these days.

Then she barfed up all over in her crib last night.

Add on an occupational therapy appointment this morning between calls to Primary Childrens', four not-so-happy kid campers, preschool, and another day of nonstop screaming from the Laynester, and you get a picture of how today went.

Not complaining. Just stating.

Now don't you feel good about your day?

Still cracks me up that she can be bawling her eyes out, but the second I bring out the camera, Layne flashes those pearly whites (no view of the new molars though).

At the end of the day, we couldn't love them all more.

Notice I said "at the end of the day."

It's been a long one.

Molars and Incisors

Sunday was a rough day for both Luke and Layne. I thought that the reason that they both cried the whole day away was due to the fact that they were just starting to feel better after colds and the stomach flu.

I was wrong.

Both in the fact that they were feeling better and that those were the reasons behind the bad attitudes.

Monday morning I went in to see the little sweethearts when I noticed that Luke had pushed through three of his incisors in the night. Layne had managed to push through her first molar with a second almost through the gumline too.

Ouch, right? I went a little easy on them the rest of the day.

Here's a couple of shots of Luke's mouth. I tried to get you a view of the new teeth with no luck. He thought the picture taking was rather funny.

"Behold, your King"

We have about seven nativity sets set up around the house. I love them. Every year I try to get at least one more to add to the collection. They range from the kid friendly Little People set to the very fragile. I took a picture of this one today, which happens to be one of my favorites.

If you are familiar with El Grecco and his artwork, you will see some similar characteristics between this nativity and his work. I love the long, exaggerated lines of the figures. Kimball whacked Joseph last year and took out part of his upper torso and staff, but I managed to salvage him the best that I could. This year they are resting on top of the book shelves.

This is one of the reasons that I find justification in decorating for Christmas so early. It is a gift to have on display a portrayal of our Savior, His life, His purity.

A Week With the Flu

That's right, folks. As the title so perfectly states, I have not kept up on the blog for a week due to a visit with our favorite winter friend, the stomach flu. Luke started us out with a bang when he awoke early on Monday morning covered from head to toe in the previous night's dinner. Load #1 of laundry.

I actually was treated to an entire day of Christmas shopping in Provo by myself, thanks to the very loving offer of Jared to stay at home and watch all of the kids on Monday.

And no, I did not take pictures. I had a limited amount of time to get some rare shopping done. Just picture lots of traffic, overpriced kids' clothes, and more toys than one world could possibly know what to do with. Toys'R'Us kind of intimidates me. Halfway through the day, I stopped and called Jared and told him that he was in charge of the fun stuff and I'd take on the clothes. That made the rest of the day a piece of cake.

Tuesday on the other hand? Well, let's just say we awoke to laundry load #2-4.

Wednesday? Luke had 5 changes of outfit due to blowouts, so I stopped counting the number of wash cycles we'd gone through, and that was by 10:30 a.m. After a busy day of therapy appointments for Layne, preschool and discipline issues with one particularly overactive four-year-old, and bathtime times 4, Layne decided to join in on the fun and lose her lunch ... and dinner ... and her bedtime bottle.

Like I said, I lost track of the laundry count.

Thursday morning welcomed me to the party. Maybe because I wasn't feeling so great myself, I wisely didn't eat too much the night before and only suffered the effects of the flu from one end of the spectrum. I'll let you figure that one out. Jared saved the day again and took off work to stay at home to take care of things here. He did the same for most of the day again on Friday. What a lifesaver. I couldn't have done it without him. I think I realized just how heavy Luke and Layne have become after trying to lift them on Thursday.

The good news? I didn't document the scenes visually for all of you to see. I'm not that crazy. I have many vivid pictures of the day from the last week in my head though.

Trust me -- you don't want any part of that.

I did manage to take a few from the highlights, so here's what we have to show for the week. To save time (and energy), I'll just post all of them on this entry.

This is from today, Sunday, November 14. I finally got around to printing up some photos of the kids that I'd taken near the end of summer. I just edited them all into sepia tone and put them in our frames. Tomorrow I'll get around to hanging up the other two. I don't hammer on Sundays.

And yeah, that's my bag of Doritos in the mirror reflection, and the computer upon which I'm currently updating the blog. I'm definitely feeling better.

We decided to get the season started off by bringing in all of the Christmas decorations, and I know that there are many of you out there who hold to the theory that you need to enjoy Thanksgiving first, but let me tell ya, we enjoy Thanksgiving every bit as much with Christmas deco up as anybody else. Makes the holidays seem that much more enjoyed in our household. While Jared attended the Worldwide Leadership Training yesterday, Koria, Kimball and I worked on the tree. This is after some help from the Momster. There were about five ornaments to every limb within a one-foot section of the tree before I stepped in with a little help and advice.

It was nice enough yesterday afternoon that we all loaded up in the car, drove to Price to the Dinosaur Adventure Park, and Jared and I took turns playing with K&K as L&L hung out with either of us in the car. Still too early for the youngens to venture out into the elements. We decided to play hide-and-seek around the playground and this is a picture of K&K being surprised by me at the end of one of the slides.

Friday night I still had no energy, Layne was loosing everything we put down her, and Luke wasn't much farther ahead. The older set of twins suffered no loss of energy and no flu bug, so we decided that a dance competition was just the right thing for the night. Here's some of their moves.

You know, I don't think I've ever had that much energy -- not even when I'm fully fed and rested. I'm still holding to the theory that they get their energy by sucking it out of me. That would explain a lot.

Oh, I forgot to mention that on Tuesday afternoon we had to get Luke and Layne their immunization shots. 5 to be exact.

Send the sympathy pains this way.

That's right, keep 'em coming.

Oh Asthma

Without fail, when Kimball comes down with a cold, it means a guarantee of Albuterol treatments (nebulizer meds) and Flovent plus the added bonus of little sleep. Yesterday, Jared and I tried to entertain the kids with activities that required sitting in the hopes of helping Kimball take it easy and start to recover from his breathing troubles of the past couple days. Jared volunteered to play "Lego Star Wars" on the Wii with his help, I made drawing for the kids to color of Dora and Diego as indians and also drew up a turkey for them to color (Thanksgiving's almost here ....), and we enjoyed some other sick day activities along the way.