I know I'm biased...

but seriously, tell me this kid isn't amazingly adorable!

Handsome

or should I say Dapper?

Merry Christmas!

Uncle

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope your Christmas day so far is joyful and happy. That you all had fun mornings as we did -- filled with the sounds of wrapping paper ripped from packages, the sight of paper and gifts strewn about the room, and the smell of yummy treats for breakfast.
Wait, what?
It's not Christmas yet?
Christmas is tomorrow?
So... all those presents I tediously wrapped... I get to re-wrap them? with paper I need to go get since I used up all we had the first time around? So I have to pack up my 2 girls and baby boy into the car, drive through holiday traffic to find a store still open, circle the parking lot for 15 mins to find a spot that is still over a mile away from the store, and then do battle with the other last-minute shoppers?!

Oh how I love that special time of morning after Mark has left for work but before I am awake and the kids are left to their own devices.



Little culprit. In case you can't see, that is a chocolate chip cookie she is sneakily eating.

Warm Fuzzy

Story 1:
Late one night Andrea woke up, needing to go to the bathroom. Being such a sound sleeper, it was not unusual that she was more sleep-walking than walking as she felt her way to the toilet. Tonight's walk seemed a bit shorter, and maybe it was for that reason that she stayed more asleep than awake. As she bumped into her seat, she automatically turned around, sat down and 'went,' completely forgetting to pull down her clothes first. In fact, she was in such a deep sleep that it wasn't until I came in the room and found her standing next to her bed and started cleaning her up that she even awoke.

Story 2:
Mark had gotten home late that night. It was already very dark and he was very tired. But being the devoted father that he is, when it was time, he helped put the girls to bed. And, of course, the girls begged him to stay and tell a story. So he laid down on the floor inbetween their beds and told them a story - putting everyone to sleep.
Hours later Mark was startled awake, a little unsure of where he was or why he was getting wet.

Story 3:
I was in the office trying to soothe and rock Hyrum to sleep. It was late and everyone else had been asleep for hours. Hyrum had just calmed down when Mark burst into the room and shouted, "She peed on me!" I looked up to see that sure enough, he was drenched and looking a wee bit yellow.

Conclusion:
Turns out Andrea never made it to the bathroom. In her sleep, Andrea mistook the first thing she bumped into (Mark sleeping on the floor) to be the toilet, at which point she proceeded to sit down and pee on him.

A Christmas Carol

You'd better watch out,
you'd better not cry,
you'd better not pout - I'm telling you why:
Mommy's on a rampage this year.

The house is not clean,
the shopping's not done,
the kids misbehaved and I was up past one.
Mommy's on a rampage this year.

The screaming in the backseat;
the fighting in the cart;
the weather's cold, 3 kids in tow, it's a madhouse at Wal-Mart.

Oh,
You'd watch out,
you'd better run hide,
stop making a mess if you want to stay alive.
Mommy's on a rampage this year.

-isms

Net: "Andrea, what do you want for lunch?"
Andrea: "Mac 'n cheese."
Net: "Well, you're in luck since that's what I'm making right now."
Andrea: "All by yourself? Without any help?"


I was just getting off the phone when I looked down and saw some black marks on my toes. To no one in particular I asked, "What is this black on my toe?"
Lacie came running over and replied, "It's marker."
"Marker?! How did marker get there?"
"I put it there."
"Lacie, you are a pill!"
"I am?"

Baa

Baa, baa black sheep, have you any shame?
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! I feel lame!

So after swearing up and down that my baby had 2 teeth protruding from his lower gums, I must now make a retraction statement.
My pediatrician's office had me come in on account of the irregularity of a 6-wk old teething. Whatever. I figured they didn't believe me and just wanted to see for themselves. Turns out that I was right -- they didn't believe me. They were right. He isn't teething. The white bumps are actually ulcers caused by some nasty reflux he's being plagued with.

I didn't know it could get that bad. Sorry, kid.

Schizo

So naming this kid was ridiculously hard. Turns out it still continues to be a problem. Just 2 days ago Andrea told the neighbors that her brother's name was Emmett, "but Daddy and Mommy don't like the name." Today she informed me that we haven't tried the name Alma yet, and thought we should give that name a go.
So Mark calls him Scott.
I call him Hyrum.
His nickname is Handsome.
The girls call him brother, but Andrea has now switched to Alma.
His birth certificate says Emmett,
and one of our friends in the ward calls him Danger (since that was one of my proposed middle names. yes, for real.)

If this kid doesn't end up with an identity complex it will be a miracle.

That's Un-Be-Lieveable*

I googled "early teething" and according to the net experts, a kid that cuts a tooth at 3 months is ahead of the game. So what would you call cutting 2 teeth at 6 weeks?
A bit skeptical are you? That's ok. So was my mom. And so was the doc when I called to ask about giving Handsome here some liquid gold --

Me: "Hi Dr. Anne -- I'm calling because my 6 wk old son is cutting a couple teeth and I was wondering if it's okay to give him the infant tylenol."

Doc: "Oh. What makes you think he's teething?"

Me: "I can see them."

Turns out poor kid is too young for drugs. So we have to suffer through with nothing but frozen binkys to get us by. It's going to be a long night.
Still skeptical? Some pictoral proof for all you nay-sayers.



okay, I realize the salivatory shininess makes them hard to see, but they're there. They're the 2 white dots in the middle of his bottom gums, just to the upper left of my thumb.
Weep for him.


*ps: 10 pts to any non-Lund or spouse who can name the movie this comes from

Lacie-ism

"Look, I'm shiny all over!"

(see next post)

A new perspective

If you've ever gone to or talked with a counselor, chances are they told you to journal. Helps you sort, vent, get perspective, etc.
Maybe they're right.
Just the other day I was in the living room feeding Handsome when I caught a strong whiff of nail polish aroma. And since my hands were at the moment occupied and Mark was at work, the only other explanation was trouble.
I dashed towards the smell and found Lacie on my bathroom floor with the contents of 2 bottles of polish all over her and the floor, counter, cupboard, and toilet seat (not sure how that last one happened).

Now normally I would imagine a parent's reaction to be that of anger with a lot of yelling involved. Usually that would be my reaction, except instead I found myself thinking about how I could turn this situation into a blog post.
Yeah, my kids so owe this whole blogging thing.

Lacie-ism

While watching a TV show Lacie spotted a bride and said,
"I wish I be married."
Later a horse came on.
"I wish I had a horse."

Stingy

Andrea: "Grandma, do you want 5 M&Ms?"
M'Jean: "That would be great!"
Andrea: "Well, you can have 2."

What gets me through the day...

"Mothers, rock a sobbing child without wondering if today's world is passing you by, because you know you hold tomorrow tightly in your arms."

- Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Andrea-ism

(as told by my mom while staying with us)

As Mark and Jeanette were leaving for their meeting Saturday morning, I watched as Andrea and Lacie saw them to the door with the usual prolific goodbye, goodbye, I want a hug, goodbye, hug, another hug, goodbye, goodbye. Shutting the door, Andrea, with Lacie in tow, headed past me towards the living room. "Don't worry, M'Jean," she said. "We'll keep you company."

And the winner is...

After literally hours and hours and days and weeks and months of looking and searching and debating and arguing and fighting, not to mention all the pleading, begging, bribing, and threatening, Mark and I were FINALLY able to come up with a name -- HOORAY!! And not a moment too soon either, since it was decided upon the morning we intended to bless him.
So without further ado,
I would like to proudly announce the official name of our little boy

Hyrum Scott Viehweg



What a cutie!!!



Another good shot...



"With a wink and a smile..."

Yeah, I'm a "Twilighter"

Take the Quiz and Share Your Results!


And yes, I was there at the midnight showing of the movie opening night (though I was severely disappointed).

On our current country affairs...

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Call for Help

As a follow-up to the last post...

our plan right now is to bless Baby X this Sunday. As previously stated, we are no closer to having a name for him than we were 7 months ago.
I am looking for a name that isn't weird, but uncommon; unique.
Mark is concerned about him getting beat up at school for having a funny name.
Suggestions?
Please?

A.K.A.

You'd think after 7 months of fore-knowledge we'd be a little more prepared to give this kid a name. Sadly, we're having to get really creative in what we call him because he still doesn't have one. Not that I didn't have a name for him. Oh I had one. I had it from the beginning. And I had plenty of back-ups. So did Mark. Unfortunately, none of the names I had made the list for Mark and vice versa.
So we're left with:
Brother
Baby Brother
Baby Boy
Little Boy
Little Boy Blue
My Son
Our Son
(at 2 am) Your Son
The Kid
The Baby
Him
Bundle o' Joy
Buddy
Kiddo
Heyyyyy, You
Baby X


Of course, if you ask Andrea she'll tell you,
"His name is Emmett. Mommy likes that name and Lacie and I like that name, but Daddy don't like that name."
Tell it like it is kid.

They love their daddy...

Anyone who has ever seen Mark with our girls knows that they have him absolutely wrapped around their fingers. It's not hard to see why when Andrea says things like,
"Daddy, when I have a scary dream I think of you, and it makes the scary things go away and I see pretty things."


Whenever Emmett starts crying Andrea gets concerned and tells him, "Don't cry baby brudder." Tonight as she was saying that I told her that when she was a baby she used to cry and cry and cry all the time - that she had a very bad tummy ache and no matter what I did, I didn't know how to make it better. She responded,
"But Daddy how-ed, and that's why he's Dr. Daddy."


Lacie: "I'm a princess and you are the king."
Mark: "You are a beautiful princess."
Lacie: "You are a beautiful king."

Hairy Beast

Just showing off the head of hair this kid has...





What you can't see is all the hair on his back. It's hilarious. There is so much and it's so long it actually looks like it could get tangled into knots.
Reminds me of nasty Italian men you see at beaches covered in masses of black hair while sporting itty bitty speedos. Ew.

The drama starts...

The day after we checked out of the delivering hospital we found ourselves back - this time in the ER. Turns out our little guy had jaundice bad enough that it was affecting his eating, which worsened the jaundice, which worsened the eating, and so on. As a result, we won a 4-day stay at the plush new Children's hospital up in Plano.



Little man got a nice simulation of a beach vacation



except that instead of roaming waiters serving drinks he had nurses every 3 hrs taking his vitals and poking his feet.



He didn't like that part much.

"Aren't you cute? Oh yes you are."

-Andrea










Yeah, we're all pretty proud of our little guy. Sadly, Andrea, and then later Lacie, got sick. So it's been real fun keeping the doting older sisters away from such a cute, new toy.

Andrea-ism

We unwittingly ran out of Lacie diapers, so in an act of desperation we decided to give potty-training a shot. We sat Lacie down on her little training potty and told her to see if she could go pee-pee. After a while without success she finally said,
"I can't. It's too hard!"
to which our seasoned vetran of the potty counseled her sister,
"That's because it takes practice."

He's here!!

At 1:34 am, Friday, November 7th we were blessed with the newest addition to our little clan. Weighing in at 7 lbs, 4.5 oz and 19 in. long, he has lots of dark, wavy hair and the faintest little cleft in his chin.



After a whole pregnancy of this kid playing mind games with me I shouldn't have been too surprised that he decided to pull some last-minute tricks on me with the labor and all.
Thursday afternoon, after a long day of errands and appointments, I was heading into the house when I suddenly wet my pants. (Yeah, the girls thought that was hysterical - "But Mommy, aren't you a big girl?") Since I normally have better bladder control than that, but since there was no flooding I figured I'd better call my doc.
Ironically, next on my to-do list was to call my doc -- to schedule being induced for the following Thursday, but to tell him I hadn't given up hope that I'd go into labor on my own before that Saturday morning (when he left for vacation) so that he could finally deliver one of my babies.
Turns out my hope paid off. My water had broken. But the little rascal wasn't ready to come out yet - the breakage didn't put me into labor.
Fortunately, that meant a pain-free ride to the hospital (though I do still agree Angela, driving myself there in rush-hour traffic probably would have been a bad idea. Thanks.).
Unfortunately, it meant a lot of waiting around.
Fortunately, I was able to get my epidural before I ever had horribly painful contractions.
Unfortunately, since I was so calm, the anesthesiologist figured it'd be okay to show me the needle -- holy crap.
Fortunately, he showed me after he had shoved what looked like a striped yardstick in my back.
Unfortunately, because it took so long for my body to finally kick into labor-mode, by the time it did, the epidural drugs were wearing thin.
Unfortunately, once my body kicked into labor-mode I went from a '5' to a '10' in FIFTEEN MINUTES.
Unfortunately, I felt every bit of it.
Unfortunately, due to my previous lack of progress, the nurse had called my doc and told him not to come to the hospital, but to enjoy a night of rest at home.
Unfortunately, as a result, I was told not to cough, laugh or sneeze for fear I'd push the baby out before the doc could get there.

Fortunately, miraculously, the anesthesiologist arrived, my doc arrived, 2 1/2 pushes later our baby boy arrived, and there was much rejoicing through-out the land. Hooray!



As you can see, the girls are both thrilled to be big sisters.

My take on it

So I've been reading a lot about the aftermath of Prop 8. I guess it's a little hard to miss. Anyway, it's made me think about a lot of things. One thing is what I would say to an "opponent" so that it wasn't an ugly confrontation. Another is how I would explain WHY it's so important to me that the definition of marriage isn't changed - WHY I would be for "denying" the gay community that right - WHY I could be so "intolerant."
Here is what I came up with:
On the road we have bikers and we have car drivers. Both like to drive on the road. And we have laws & rules to make sure that the bikers are allowed safe passage on the road while at the same time not interrupting auto traffic.
Now, imagine if suddenly all the bikers demanded "equal rights" to all the roadways - like the freeways. If they wanted to be able to use the freeways and have every right as the cars, well, obviously that would be a mess. See, bikes are not cars. No matter how good of a biker you are, not even Lance Armstrong can bike 60 mph, let alone keep up with freeway traffic. It's a bike. No engine. Pedals. Self-propelled. IT IS NOT A CAR.
So that is how I look at the marriage thing. I don't want to see anyone not get to have rights to a patient in the hospital because they are the domestic partner and not blood or marriage related. I do think that's wrong along with a whole bunch of other equally wrong scenarios. But that's why they have the code in California law that allows for those rights. Just like the bikers on the road.
BUT if you try to say that because you can ride on one road that all of a sudden you should have the RIGHT to drive on EVERY road now -- well, not so good. Marriage is not a right. It is an institution given by God that the government recognizes. God set the parameters, not us. Not the government. Not the socially affluent of the world. And as soon as you start messing with that you're essentially putting yourself up there with God. Not cool in my eyes. Nor in God's for that matter. Regardless of the fact that yes, He does love everyone.
But really, if he meant for anyone to be able to be married, he would have provided for anyone to have kids together as well.
So as far as I am concerned, once Bill and Steve are able to procreate I will take that as God's blessing on gay marriage. Until then, bikes are not cars.

PROP 8

The best summary I've seen/heard/read yet...

Lacie-ism

Not sure what this is all about, but it started a while ago, and I haven't figured it out yet...

(Lacie) Mom?
(Mom) Yes?
(Lacie) Yes Mom.
(Lacie) Mom?
(Mom) Yes?
(Lacie) Yes Mom.
(Lacie) Mom?
(Mom) Yes?
(Lacie) Yes Mom.

FHE

Early on in October I decided to get the family into the spirit of Halloween -- a very important thing to do in our family. So for FHE I dragged out the costume box and let the kids go to town whilst I worked on decorating the house. It was a blast!
The kids especially loved the wigs. Ah, to be able to change your hair on a whim... Must be my girls!


Lacie loved that we called her Rapunzel.


Andrea would not accept that this cow costume was just not her size.


Ummm....? Yeah, my kids are creative.


Andrea's favorite part was dancing the "hula" (or her interpretation of it anyway) to the Halloween cd I put on. Had I gotten video footage rather than still pics you would see that the proper way to dance to "Monster Mash" is a combo head-banging/hula/ballerina act.

Lacie-ism

Lacie wanted to say the blessing for dinner, so Mark prompted her through it. Usually what happens is when we get to "in the name of...." we finish out the sentence and rather than repeating it, Lacie just finishes with an "Amen."
Tonight she changed it up saying, "The End."

Lacie-ism

This morning there were some kids over at the house and a few times we had to break up little squabbles, saying things like, "Don't hit," and "Be nice to your friend," and so on.
Later on at Lacie's neurologist appointment while waiting for the doc she played on the floor with one of those wooden cubes with the big colorful wires that loop and have wooden beads on them.
I overheard Lacie saying, "No, don't hit. You need to be nice to your friends." Wondering a bit, I looked down to see she was role-playing with the different beads - scolding the one for not getting along.

Awesome

So it was one of those nights when I just needed a good pick-me-up.
I laugh so hard it hurts every time I see this.
Enjoy.

Pampered

Saturday I got the royalty treatment. Mark was so good to me. He got up at an unearthly hour with the girls and let me sleep in, made breakfast, did dishes. Awesome. And then he let me go get really pampered -- went to the salon to get a nice manicure w/ the pretty acrylic french tips, pedicure (the 45-min "sport" version because apparently I had some mega callouses going on), then leg & eyebrow waxing. Nice.

[I say this knowing that I am potentially endangering friendships with those of you who know this as just a regular grooming routine and may now be worried about my hygenic standards. But as it is definitely NOT a common procedure for me I was a bit excited and therefore ready to take the risk.]

Back to Mark...
Okay, so he didn't actually know in advance that I was going, and he kinda freaked when I showed him the bill, but after a minimal amount of persuasion and kind of a lot of scalp massage, he was okay with it. What a guy!

Back to the salon...
Since (as stated before) I am not a frequent customer at the salon I felt a bit awkward with all the questions and instructions that I did not understand. It totally reminded me of the following comedy sketch (Molly, I love you for showing me this). Of course, when one of the girls working there actually quoted a reference to the sketch it made the rest of the time that much more uncomfortable since I had to keep my legs crossed tight to make sure I didn't pee my pants from laughing so hard.

Andrea-ism

A conversation we had on the way home from church today...

Andrea: Where does Jesus' father live?
Mom & Dad: He lives in heaven.
Andrea: I want to go to heaven so I can see him.
M&D: Well, that's why we have to be really good here on Earth - so that when we die we can go to heaven and be with him.
Andrea: I want to die right now.
M&D: Oh, but if you died and left us right now we would be so sad. We would miss you so much.
Andrea: But I want to die and go to heaven right now.
M&D: That would be so fun to go to heaven right now, but we would miss you. Do you think you could wait a while before you die?
Andrea: Okay. Just one more time and then I'll die.
M&D: Okay. Will you just make sure to let us know before you die?
Andrea: Yes - first I will go to Elliot's house, and then I will die.

What would you do?

Okay, seriously, we have some pretty inconsiderate neighbors. I get that they like to party. I get that they like to party often. And have loud music. With sound systems. And clowns. With megaphones. And I appreciate that after calling the cops on them multiple times they have now started this endeavor to appease us by warning us ahead of time that they are having a party, acknowledging that law is that they must stop the noise at 10pm. Great. Awesome. Thanks.
So what do you do when they come over all nice, inform us of yet another bash to take place -- until 1am. Even invite us to come on over (who cares that we're not Mexican, don't speak spanish or drink tequila?). Even bring us some food from the party during the party. But then at 10pm when you'd think they'd at least turn the music down, it is still pumping loud enough that the windows in the room closest rattle with the bass. Hmmm.
Does informing you that there will be a party now constitute a green light for blasting music all night? Do we go over and ask them to now turn it down? Should we take the food back? Throw it over the fence?
One thing is for sure - if they leave beer bottles on our lawn again I am going to throw a hissy fit. I don't care if they did promise us some of the birthday cake.

Lifting the Ban

Soooo.... yeah.
Been a while. Had a lot going on lately. Everything from home remodel to 4-yr old pirates to mortgage loan stuff to bank wars to embarrassing medical needs to smelly gasoline issues to a spider solitaire obsession. Okay, so maybe the solitaire is mostly to blame.
Point is, I figure it's time to lift the ban on blogging and once again resume the pathetic dribble of my goings-on. And I say pathetic not in any self-depricating way, but in a very shake-my-head-that-this-is-reality way.
Here goes.

Definition

A Bad Day:
it's a bad day when you wake up in a pile of vomit; but the true realization of a bad day isn't met until you wake up in a pile of someone else's vomit.

...and then find that the vomit started in the perpetrator's bed and was next brought to you.
And if you really want a humdinger, you could have all this followed by a day of little sister's Day of Diarrhea, made especially fun by the fact that she tried multiple times to change her own diaper. Awesome.

When Mark got back from the Galveston clean-up trip he tried comparing his "bad day" to mine. I told him if his didn't involve fecal matter and regurgitation to not even bother.

Dangerous Surroundings

With all the remodel and construction going on, our kids have come to pick up on some safety / self-preservation tactics.

Andrea's Christmas Wishlist

chairs
rope
buckets
random yard tools
long poles or sticks
tarp or blankets - either works
pillows, more pillows
boxes
paper of all sorts, sizes -- especially the used variety
un-opened (but soon to be opened) mail
kitchen timer
anything work or construction related
belts




I swear - when Andrea's idea of "play" is gathering the most random objects and then piling them up to create a boat or car or train or horse... I mean, why do I even bother buying toys?

Happy National Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Or as we like to say, Andrea's Birthday!
Yes, where this kid's birthday falls on such a momentous occasion she will probably be subjected to many-a pirate-themed birthday parties. Good thing she likes pirates!


She had a great time at her very quickly thrown together party at the park where she pretended to blow out candles (since the wind did NOT cooperate), the kids got to scream about the lemonade-obsessed bees, and she totally scored with some awesome presents.

That interested Lacie quite a bit as well.


At home we had fun family party with a super cool Tinkerbell cake furnished by the Newmans


That once again, Lacie loved.



And after my long, hot day of shopping, preparing the party food, games & supplies, shlepping it to the park, putting on the party, taking down/cleaning up, taking the kids out some more for family time and doing the family party, it was nice for Mark to get in a good nap.

A Brief Synopsis

of our trip to Utah:

Started with some fun in the sun at the pre-reunion lake day, where Lacie was happy to be a beach bum

while Andrea enjoyed her first JetSki ride.


Then up to the fabulous lodge where we luxuriously spent the next 4 days with family

and bed-wrestling.


We played lots of games

and then went home to prepare for Barney and Mary's wedding --

and all the food that went with it.


We gussied up with fun hair-dos

and everyone had a blast at the reception.

Especially the kids who enjoyed the nursery toys,

each other,

and the yummy cotton candy


until it was quite apparent that it was time to go home.


I was then happily treated to a night in Park City with my girlfriends from high school

where they surprised Sarah and me with a double baby shower

and we played games and talked literally all night long.


Andrea & Lacie enjoyed more fun cousin time

and Mom/Grandma/M'Jean brilliantly came up with the idea to perm Lacie's hair

before we went home.

It was a party.


Thanks for a great trip!