Lacie-ism

looking at a picture of herself much younger, Lacie said:
"I miss being that age..."

Andrea-ism

"OH NO!! We didn't put up any Christmas lights! Now people will think we celebrate Hanukka!"

Fighting kids

Andrea is upset that Lacie won't play the game her way. I mentioned it's possible that Lacie needs to have some say in the game or it isn't any fun for her. Andrea's reply:
"Yeah, well, she didn't even pick the game!"
...
Kinda my point, kid.

The scene continues with Andrea chiding Lacie, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit."
Lacie answers, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit? I don't like that game."

I try to separate them into different rooms. Lacie doesn't want to be in the bedroom, she wants to play in the living room. Andrea doesn't want to be in the toy room, she wants to be in the kitchen. The kitchen and living room connect, and the girls are still visible to each other. Obviously a problem.

Later...
Andrea: "Hey Lacie, maybe we can play together but not fight."
Lacie: "Ummm, no."

Now they're arguing over whose cup has more eggnog.
And now over the movie selection.

I'd ask if this ever ends, but after looking down at my legs and seeing my own childhood battle-scars (ahem, Lexye), I realize what a dumb question that is.

Blabbermouth

I just posted these thoughts as a comment on a friend's blog (yes, really; hence the title!).
Then I thought, since I do this blog for my own journal-ing purposes I really ought to record my thoughts here. So I am.

"I don't recall ever having anything but meager Christmases growing up*. However, there were some more meager than others. I remember one year we had no money for anything, let alone a tree. Then my mom saw the neighbors trimming their (as luck would have it) pine tree. So she went and swiped a bunch of the branches from off the curb and tied them together into the most pathetic looking "Christmas Bush," as we dubbed it. Truly, it was sad. And yet, that is by far our most memorable Christmas, hands down.
Our family was never grand in our holiday celebrations. I don't think my mom had the time, now that I think back. But at Christmas we did have certain things that we did regardless, that had nothing to do with money or gifts or anything but the Christmas spirit itself -- acting out the nativity, caroling, making bread together, visiting rest homes -- stuff like that. And although now that I have my own family I try to make a big deal about holidays, b/c I just like to, I'm realizing it's more about creating the atmosphere of fun, togetherness and love that makes the excitement.
Sorry for the sermon. Not meant to be such. I think there are a whole lot of people this year feeling the pinch of the economy. You're right - it is depressing. For me, it's easiest if I put blinders on to what everyone else is doing and just concentrate on making things fun for my kids. After all, my kids would rather have me play Barbies with them for an hour than get another toy. Seriously.

One last thought --
last night our neighbors behind us had their house burn down. (That makes 4 houses in our neighborhood that have burnt in the time we've lived here. Eek!) Anyhow, it was a really good wake-up call as to how much we have that could so easily be lost."


*Just to clarify - I'm sure we had Christmases that were not meager. :) It's just that, ironically, those are not the memorable ones that stand out.

Mark-ism

Mark: "I did something new today."
Me: "Really? And what was that?"
Mark: "I hung a $250,000 picture of dogs over a toilet."

Knock, knock

Remember the post where I admitted my freakishly-paranoid antics? Yeah. Well, turns out I need to give people more credit.
Example 1:
About a month ago there was a knock on my door. As divulged, I do not answer my door unless I know/expect the person. On this day, there was a man standing on the porch, looking a little agitated. Normally, that's all it would take for me to justify leaving the door un-answered. However, I noticed his car pulled to the side of the road, still running. I figured if the guy wanted to kill us all he either was super-duper speedy or didn't care about wasting gasoline. I figured most serial killers probably take at least a little while to kill off a family, so I threw caution to the wind and answered the door...
Turns out, the guy the guy tracked down the address on the insurance info he had found in the parking lot of Chuck E Cheese. OUR insurance info. He was simply returning it.

Example 2:
A few days ago when the weather turned freakishly cold (well, for Texas anyway!), I got a knock on the door. As always, I peered through the peep-hole, only to find that our Christmas wreath was blocking my view. Blast!
Again throwing caution to the wind, I opened the door. Standing there was a man from the electric company who had come to shut off our power.
(Over-due bill. Fret not; when they asked me the reason for missing the payment I told them to put down "stupidity.")
Anyhow, the man told me he saw the car-seats in my car, and figured he'd give me a head's up on the situation in the event I could quickly take care of it before he had to shut the power off.
!!
Wow! I am so grateful first, for the guy to be so kind and second, that I recklessly answered my door.

Guess maybe I ought to ease up on suspecting the worst of everyone?

Our Christmas Miracle

Okay, this is late. Lacie's birthday is December 4th. But I wanted have time to do this right.

Lacie turned 5 years old this year.



That's 5 years of life with this beautiful little girl that we were told we weren't going to get.



Five years of learning her quirky characteristics, like her classic tilted-head, squinty-eyed, grimaced-mouth look of inquiry. Or her running around corners using her head to "lead." Or the sly, nonchalant ploy she uses before swiping the object of her desire.



Five years of being a younger sister/best friend.



Two years of being an older sister/tormentor.



Five years of absolutely winning our hearts in every way possible.



When Lacie was born we had no insurance so we brought her home the same day, ironically, to save money. The pediatrician didn't actually check her out before signing the early release form. So it's not a huge surprise that we didn't initially catch just how perilously sick she was until day 4. We took her to a (different) pediatrician's office and left on an ambulance to Children's hospital. Her oxygen level was at 71%. We suspect now that that was the cause of some major brain damage she sustained.
Within an hour her little body started literally shutting down. Had we come half an hour later, had a series of mini-miracles not happened to put us with the right people in the right place at the right time, they wouldn't have been able to save her.
Instead, she remained at the hospital, baffling doctors for the next few weeks before making a LITERAL miraculous recovery.
In that time we witnessed several more miracles, received several blessings, had so many friends and family step up and help us out in ways we can never re-pay. The worst part came when the doctors told Mark they were fairly (95%) certain she would either live brain-dead for a couple years, or just die in the next 6 weeks, if not sooner.
Instead, we brought her home on Christmas Eve.

Lacie will surely have her struggles through-out her life because of her rough beginning. But nothing like what medical science would have predicted.
I don't know why she was miraculously healed.
I don't know why some little spirits are allowed to stay with us and others are not.
I could (and have) speculate over and over about some higher purpose in her living, or me not being strong enough to endure the loss or whatever. In the end I just don't know. And that's okay. I will just be grateful.
So very, very grateful.


This movie is one I made a year after she was born. I've watched it a couple hundred times since, and I'm finally now able to watch it without bawling. Mark isn't there yet.



Lacie, we love you. We are so grateful for you. Second only to our Savior, you are the greatest Christmas gift we will ever receive.

Pic-torial

Random pic I left out of the Thanksgiving post

Mom & Lex, it was so fun "shopping" with you! Wish we could do it more!


Speaking of wishing...



...wishing this was less mountain, more molehill.



At the Primary activity Andrea loved meeting with Santa.




...Hyrum did not.




Lacie's school did a "Polar Express Week" complete with a train ride around the parking lot in their slippers and jammies.








A father & son activity:


peering out the back-door window, waiting for the possums to come... to their death! Woohaha!


Super cute kids


Lacie


Hyrum

Overheard

Last night I was standing outside the toy room, putting away some towels, and overheard the girls playing a game I hadn't heard before. It's called "Rich woman, poor woman" and the coveted role is the poor woman. At least that's what they were fighting over -- who got to be the "orphan" poor woman. Apparently the rich woman has to wear too much jewelry.

I have strange kids.

Exploding heads

That would be our heads. Mark's and mine. Exploding.
Ka-Blam.
Did you hear it?

Poor Mark.
He has been working tirelessly on trying to get his "new" work car to work. Run, that is. Well, run legally.
We were recently blessed -and I do mean that- with a stellar deal on a replacement car for Mark's work vehicle. And we're grateful. Really, we are. It's just that some blessings you have to work harder on than others. This would be one of them. And some cars are made more logically than others. This would not one of them... blast.

Poor me.
I've battled ants all year. Stupid, stupid ants. I would have thought with the weather turning colder we wouldn't see them at least for a while. I would have thought.
A while ago Mark got out my 72-hr kit so he could use the pack for a scout camp-out. I guess you could say the blessing in disguise here is that we found the ants now instead of during a disaster. But I don't know. I might not have minded them so much in a dire situation. As it is, I am blowing fire out my ears that by transferring the food back into our pantry (you know, to rotate out and all), I unwittingly introduced a new colony to our food supply... Aargh!

Poor possum.
Perhaps he got the worst deal in all of this. After all, his head actually did explode. Sorta. Well, enough. See, Mark has found a great new way of managing stress and ridding our yard of vermin all in one.



Gotta love that crossbow!

Have to say...

I love Christmas. I love Christmas music. I love seeing other people "getting into" the Holiday spirit.
BUT
there is something fundamentally wrong about a hearing a country-rock version of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's "Messiah," blasting away outside a gas station.
Call me Scrooge, but I may actually have to write in a request for them to stop playing the music.

Random bits

Not a great pic of Hyrum, but man! Mark looks great!


Hyrum has a thing for hats... and glasses...


Proof that I haven't yet killed my flowers that I planted early October!!!


I have a pic of my mom identical to this, except at my house.
I thought it was funny.


Thanksgiving dinner.


A Thanksgiving "play." Of sorts.


My cute niece and nephew.


Story time!

Stupid dinner

Lately I've been quite the slacker where dinner is concerned. Okay, in more areas than just dinner, but let's not go there.
Anyway, I decided to put some effort into it tonight.

Glazed carrots & curly cheese potatoes (ok, the potatoes look pretty nasty, but I promise that's just bad lighting/photography... and that the Parmesan cheese looks weird... and I had to leave them in the fridge pre-cooked for a couple hours so they grayed)


Rice pudding and "party" meatballs (ridiculously yummy)


And some rolls. They aren't pictured because I may have 'darkened' them a bit much. doh.

Point is that I tried.
The result?
Andrea didn't want to come to the table because she said it was so stinky.
Lacie didn't want to eat the carrots because they were orange.
Mark wouldn't eat the carrots because he's anti-vegetable.
Lacie didn't trust the potatoes because they were curly.
Andrea wouldn't eat the meatballs because she's crazy.
Mark thought the rice pudding was too sweet & the girls thought it was too weird.
Hyrum, who had just awakened from a too-short, too-late nap wouldn't eat anything but a roll.

Tomorrow night we're having corn dogs and top ramen.

Tradition

It's hard to be held to a standard where you have no control in the outcome. Well... maybe 'held to a standard' is a little strong. Hopes were high.
In any case, we managed to follow suit and pull off the Viehweg brothers' kids' gender pattern tradition -- 2 girls, 2 boys.
In other words...
IT'S A BOY!
HOORAY!
We are absolutely thrilled. Truthfully, I would have been delighted to be able to dress up another little girl, but we really, really wanted a brother for Hyrum. Yay!
And really, it is pretty cool that the Viehweg boys all have the 2-boy/2-girl thing going on.

And now onto the naming process... aka: torture phase.
Yes, our last run was not as easy as I thought it should be. The girls and I all called the baby by the name I liked the whole pregnancy, only to find out that Mark hated it. Well, more like he didn't 'come around' by the time baby arrived. Rats.
3 weeks later we found ourselves holding a 4-hour scramble-to-find-a-name session the night before he was to be blessed. AHHHH! My mom, Nick and Lexye are all witness to the agony that took place. And it was a good thing they were there, too. Lexye read through the name books, my mom refereed and Nick provided MUCH needed comic relief when things started getting tense.
(I know, you're all thinking, 'Mark? Jeanette? Arguing and it getting ugly? Never!' haha)
In the end, my mom gets the credit for pulling the chosen name out of thin air. She suggested 'Hyrum' and I loved it; Mark didn't hate it, so we jumped on it, and the next morning Hyrum Scott Viehweg was blessed & given a name in church. Whew!

So...

Needless to say, we're a little trepidatious at the prospect of going through that again. :)
We figured a good solution would be to ask the girls. Here are their suggestions:

Chomper
Slider
Time-for-dinner
&
Hyrum 2

...

anyone else want to throw your 2 cents in? Cos I just don't think I could ever get used to any of those.