18 Months Old!

Jason is officially a year and a half old and today was his appointment with his pediatrician. Here are his stats:

Height: 34.5 inches (95 percentile)
Weight: 27 lbs. 12 oz. (75 percentile)
Head: remains consistently off the charts (smart little dude!)

"Hello"

Overall Jason is doing well. Because he has a small cold, over the past few days his asthma has been acting up. Trying to use a get medication into our strong little guy with an inhaler has been difficult. Even Abigail has a difficult time breathing correctly with the inhaler, so at the doctor’s recommendation we came home with a nebulizer for them to try instead. Neither Abigail or Jason has serious asthma, but when they get even the slightest cold they get wheezy. I think the Dr. is right - with two asthmatic kids having a nebulizer at home is a really is a smart idea. Better safe than sorry.

Of course we also talked about the fact that Jason still isn’t speaking. Although he totally understands and follows directions. The doctor re-recommended getting his speech evaluated (not sure how they do that seeing as how the boy has no speech to evaluate).

Jason’s most recent accomplishment is climbing onto the kitchen chairs. Yes, he is a little slow, but it’s been nice up to this point knowing he can’t reach anything on the table. Notice his pants are wet, he got a hold of a cup of water.

Thanks to the girls for teaching Jason how to “cheese” – This is what I get when I take out the camera now… still cute though.

Nursery here he comes!

There’s a small group of mothers I can usually count on visiting with at church each Sunday. During sacrament meeting, the first hour where the entire congregation meets together (including children), it’s the parents with kids that aren’t quite old enough to make it through the entire hour reverently. So they end up listening to the meeting in the foyer. Because of Justin’s calling serving on the high council, I’m typically on my own with the kids; Jason will usually make it through all or most of sacrament, but rarely through Sunday school. That’s when I get to see the pre-nursery group (parents with children under 18 months). Each week the pre-nursery group will discuss how long we each have until our little ones enter nursery and we can attend Sunday school in peace. We have an awesome Sunday school teacher so this is something I’ve really been looking forward to. This coming Tuesday is Jason’s official 18 month birthday.

By the time the third hour rolls around Justin usually shows up and takes over Jason (however, by this time Jason is so worn out that he’ll just sit quietly on Justin’s lap during priesthood). I’ve been serving as the young woman’s secretary which I absolutely LOVE. The girls are amazing and our lessons (by our super talented teacher) uplift me every single week. I’m quite certain I get much more from working with the young women than I could ever give to them.

Things were looking real good for me… too good perhaps because just as I was prepared to send my baby into nursery and be kid-free for two whole hours, I was asked to serve in the Primary presidency. Now instead of one pre-nursery toddler who I love with all my heart, I get to spend two hours with 60+ children. And what’s most shocking is that’s it’s not as secretary. I’ve never been anything but a secretary in Primary. I’ve never even had a primary class. I’ve never planned a sharing time presentation. I’m not much of a kid person so this will be a huge change for me. As for Jason, he did great in nursery today and even took a little nap… that never happens when I have him.

I tried to get a picture of Jason today after his first time in nursery, but the girls kept getting him to make crazy faces. This is his “cheese” face.

Looking for a new job?

T-Mobile was spotlighted this morning on the news as one of the few companies in the Northwest actually looking to hire in this economy. If you know someone looking for a job have them check it out: (article) (video)

If you apply, just make sure you list Justin as the way you found out about the job. With the salary-freeze they issued this year a little referral bonus would be great... maybe we'd even take you out to dinner.

Repairs

The van got fixed over the weekend. Well, mostly fixed. There’s still a large dent and scratch on the side, but we aren’t getting it fixed. Besides the hefty price we paid for towing and repair, I’m also bummed about what the damage portrays. I feel like I’m one of those cars that people look at, seeing the dents (or the mirror dangling off with duct tape holding it together) and think, stay away from that woman… she must be a crazy driver. Is it wrong to want to hang a sign from it proclaiming my innocence?

The van was fixed just in time for our newest issue. This afternoon I was sitting in the office and noticed a four-foot long pucker in the ceiling. Shortly after we noticed it, it started to drip. Yes, the ceiling was dripping. We knew immediately what the cause was. Our bathtub is directly above the office.

We’ve had on-and-off issues with our tub faucet since we moved in and have even had a plumber try to fix it. Every so often the water won’t turn off completely, resulting in a slow drip. So slow that it doesn’t drip into the tub, it travels down the underside of the faucet, down the side of the tub and onto the cursed bathroom carpet (in my opinion, carpet in a bathroom is never a good idea). Anyhow, the drip reappeared while Justin and I were in NYC and although we thought we had it under control, we obviously didn’t.

I called the handyman who converted part of our garage into our office and he said he’ll try to come check it out tomorrow night. Because the faucet parts are under the bathtub, he thinks it will be easiest to replace the faucet by coming from underneath it (instead of trying to completely take out the bathtub and attached shower)… meaning he would like to remove the office ceiling (which also doubles as my bathroom floor). Seriously, remove my ceiling. Anyhow, lots still to find out. Will the sub floor need to be completely replaced? Is there water damage under the cabinets? On the bright side, we got the ceiling to stop dripping.

Back in Business

After 138 days of sporadic, unpredictable satellite service we are FINALLY back in business. Come to find out we’ve suffered unnecessarily (when we moved everything out for the new floors a small connection cord went missing)…arrgh!

With Justin’s new TV, upgrading to HD, and getting 3 months of FREE movie channels, we’re ready to bunker down and watch some movies.

Now we just need Dish Network to work out a deal with ABC so we can get LOST… it starts in only four days!

The Sun is Shining

Carly is wearing shorts

So what if it’s only 40 degrees outside

Happy Birthday Abigail!!

Today is Abigail’s 7th Birthday! This is where most Moms would say “I can’t believe my baby is seven.” Well, I’m not like most Moms. Seven fits Abigail, in fact, eight wouldn’t seem strange either. She’s always amazed me and I feel so lucky to be her Mom.

Being an odd year means that instead of a birthday party we do something fun as a family. I gave Abigail several options. She jumped on the opportunity to have a movie night at home Saturday night. The kids don’t watch many movies or TV so this was a real treat.

I’m a junkie. So sending me to the store to buy goodies under the pretense that they were for the birthday girl was… well, anyhow, I went a bit overboard.

The goodie table – all peanut-free and egg-free.

Abigail and I went to Blockbuster (a first for her), where she picked out Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for her movie night. (Cute show, but Justin and I both like the original version better).

The girls ate so much candy that they both felt ill afterward. Carly (the junior junkie in our home) felt so sick that she actually threw-up. She felt much better afterward and commented about the colorfulness of it… skittles, licorice, and gummy bears… yummy!

Today me and the kids picked up Abigail from school and took her to McDonalds for lunch. I was surprised to find her wearing a birthday crown from class. For dinner we went to Red Robin to redeem her free birthday burger coupon. Normally, Abigail shies from any attention, but she said she felt like wearing her crown to Red Robin too and didn’t completely hide under the table when they sang to her.

Dinner was followed up with opening presents and having the Fletcher family over for dessert.

Abigail really enjoyed her birthday… maybe she’ll want to skip the birthday party next year too!

Christmas Production

Because of the snow closures before Christmas, Abigail’s school play was rescheduled for this past Friday night. It felt a little strange to be going to a Christmas play mid-January, but it was fun to watch all the cute first-graders (and a handful of second-graders from Abigail’s split class). Abigail was one of four “narrator deer”. The kids have been practicing their parts for months and did a great job.

I took a picture of Abigail in front of her locker before the play. This is the only thing in the entire classroom that refers to Abigail as “Abigail.” I’m not sure exactly how, but at the beginning of the school year Abigail took on a second identity. Everything at school refers to her as “Abby.” Is there anyone that sees her as an “Abby?”

And a video clip for Grandma.

Utensils... or not

Jason has entered the “I want to feed myself phase”

He was doing so well eating his yogurt with a spoon this afternoon

So I went into the office

I got distracted

He lost focus

“Look, no hands”

“Look, no spoon”

“But really Mom, I can do it by myself, see”

Getting Back Routine

Between our vacation, snow days, and Christmas break, it’s been nearly 4 weeks since I’ve sent my kids off to school. We had a great time at home. We didn’t get anywhere close to accomplishing all that I wanted to (we haven’t even put away the Christmas stuff yet), but I suppose that’s how it goes. To our surprise Abigail said she wasn’t ready to go back to school, but she is excited to get more homework.

Last night the snow started falling once again delaying the start of school one hour. Boy did I need that extra hour of sleep. Getting used to the early mornings will certainly take some readjusting. Getting used to not having Abigail around to help out will be an even bigger adjustment. Only six weeks til mid-winter break.

Just a fun picture:

Playing the DS is a family affair.
(Mom, have you noticed that in every picture of Carly since Christmas she’s wearing the flower you sent)

2009

We brought in 2009 with a few of our favorite people. Guitar Hero was meant to entertain the older boys, but the adults first had a go at it. The boy band did much better than our girl band. I wasn’t TOO bad playing to Bon Jovi, but got boo-d off the stage with a less familiar song. Sorry ladies.

Even though Tammy won, I’m not sure the Summers will ever play Settlers with the Hatchs and us again. Fun game, but we all ganged up on her, making the game last most of the night.

The kids completely entertained themselves all night. With only a few minutes left before the countdown we gathered them for the build-your-own sundae bar.

Everyone got a little glass of bubbly to cheer in 2009. Good friends, great food, lots of fun! Happy New Year!