::a few lucys::

This little pictogram was Max's creation.  He was playing with Lucy while I was getting ready in the morning.  I heard, "Look mom, look!"  And there she was.  And it's true, he really does.


Here's a sad and pitiful Lucy.  This was the day I was so sick.  I had energy that morning to stick a bow to her head, but by the time Bryce picked me up from the doctor and took me home, I barely had the energy to carry the babyseat back to the bedroom.  It was a tender mercy that she fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep in the carseat for about 30 minutes after I got home.  She never does that.

When she woke up and discovered that her hairbow had migrated to her cheek she was extremely displeased.  I thought it was pretty fashion forward, personally.


Sunday Lucy in a little Boden dress with Max's foot.  She's doing something important that involved kicking.  I'm so glad we have soft carpet that babies can play on.  Even though she always tries to eat it when she rolls over and I don't like that so much.

Lucy got to go with Kris and I to Phoenix for a big two day seminar with our consulting group and the staff.  It was a little crazy, but she did great.  The first full day she was really patient and just played and slept and ate.  But then she didn't sleep well the that night, so the next half day of class was a little bit of a struggle.  She just wasn't interested in team building or customer service any more.
But we all survived and learned something.  And when it comes down to it we're just lucky.  She's a very patient and sweet little person.

::fake out::

So a lot of parents try to figure out ways to disguise healthy food as junk food so their kids will eat it, right?

That's all well and good, but what I like to do is to figure out ways to disguise JUNK food as HEALTHY food so as to really distress my middle child.  It's the best thing ever.

The other day Max was still refusing to eat after his tonsils and so I went to Target with the aim of finding a tasty treat to tempt him with.  I found these bizarre Wonka banana peel popsicles.  They're pretty fun.

So the next thing that happened was that Sandy wanted a popsicle, and he wanted one bad.  He earned one by the huge task hard of eating all of his dinner, no small feat for Sandy.  Max got one out for him and started peeling it.  Sandy freaked out.  He collapsed to the floor.  "I DON'T WANT A BANANA!!!!"  We told him it was a popsicle, but he just kept crying and insisting it was a banana.
 
Tears and tears and drama until we forced him to stuff some of the candy peel in mouth and then he smiled a beautific smile and said, "It's a popsicle!"

These are photos from the next day, not sure where his shirt went.


There's an oldie but good story that goes with this too:
When Bryce and Nancy visited us back in April we took them to the Cowgirl BBQ restaraunt in Santa Fe.  It's a great funky place and their best dessert there is an "Ice Cream Baked Potato."  It really does look like a potato and it's definitely made of ice cream.  Kris and I especially like this becuase it reminds us of some of the ice cream treats in Germany and Austria.  They always liked to make dessert that looked like food--especially spaghetti "spaghetti-eis."

(We didn't actually each eat one, Bryce & Nan just lent theirs for the photo.  No really, I promise.)

Anyway, we wanted to introduce B & N to the delightfulness that is the potato, so we ordered a few to share amoung the families.  Again, Sandy had to be bribed to eat his dinner (probably super healthy corn-dogs) by the promise of ice cream.

He was off playing in the kids play place when the ice cream arrived.  We called him over and when he saw the dessert he just about died.  The below picture is a still from a video I took, I only wish I could hear it and see it better.  "Not a POTATO!"  "That's not ICE CREAM!!!!"

Again, we had to stuff some in his mouth before he'd believe us.  It was so dang funny to me.


Life is tough when you're a little guy I guess, and your parents like to laugh at you--at least sometimes.

::maxie update::

We had a little Max medical crisis on Sunday night. At Max's bedtime of course.
Sandy was in bed, we had just read scriptures and we were going to put the rest of the little stinkers in bed and relax for a while when it all went down.

Poor Max was gargling salt water--which we were forcing him to do--and his throat started bleeding a little bit. He was freaking out and spitting and dancing around squeaking "WHY AM I BARFING BLOOD!?" As soon as I got him to settle down he promptly spat out a big disgusting blood clot that looked like a jellyfish and started bleeding again. Then he REALLY started freaking out. Kris was talking to the ENT on the phone, and he was giving us good advice, but since the bleeding started up again we thought it was a good idea to take him to the ER just to be safe. So they went. After they left I finally got angry Miss Lucy to go to sleep. She didn't think it was cool for me to abandon her in the middle of bedtime just becuase Max's vital essences were leaking out of his mouth.

 Sultan was a little worried about Max and waited by the front door. Max said the ER was super boring and he wished he had stayed home.
By the time they got in to see the PA the bleeding had all stopped and it was kind of pointless. But better safe than sorry I guess.

I set up a bed on our windowseat for Max to spend the night on--one of the things I imagined doing when we bought the house--and they got home at around 10:30PM or so. The bishop and Caryn came over so they guys could give Max a blessing and then we all went to bed.

Thankfully he slept great all night and after I forced him to eat some food the next morning he was back to himself.

By today, Wednesday, he's doing really well. He's been eating well, sleeping solidly and school started today. He was able to enjoy it and have the energy to be himself. So there you go, looks like he's on the up & up and we're so glad about it. He's our boy.

::::

Maybe in yesterday's photo Lucy was thinking back to this particular happenstance:


Wooooah, no dropping babies!
He didn't drop her, and after one more picture I took her and she was a little less scared.  I didn't even realize she was sliming out of his arms until later when I looked at the photos.
Funny funny stuff--only because no babies were harmed in the photoing of these photos.

::::

This is from back in May. Funny for a lot of reasons.

One is that Lucy actually looks chubby in this photo and she was so not chubby back then.

But really the funniest thing is just her facial expression versus Max's. Max looks so proud and confident and Lucy looks so skeptical. Like, "Are you REALLY trusting me with this crazy guy??"

::ouch::

On Tuesday morning of this week I woke up feeling a little off--mostly I thought because Lucy had been up several times in the night.  That'll do me in pretty quickly.  Anyway I was a little sore on one side when I fed Lucy.  Kris went off to work and I got down to whatever it was I was doing.
About an hour later I started to feel really sore and hurt on the left side.  And I started to feel a little bit achey.

I thought the likelihood that I had a case of mastitis was pretty strong, so I emailed our Dr asked if I should come in for an appt.  She said yes, so I scheduled an appointment for noon that day.
We headed out to run some errands and as we drove around I started to feel worse and worse.  It started to feel like the whole left side of my body was on fire, and when we stopped at the office I realized I was really achey when I was getting the kids out of the car.

I kept feeling worse and worse as I was watching the kids at work and trying to get stuff done.  I left the boys there when I went off to the doctor.  While walking out to the car I realized I was super naseous and I was REALLY sick.

Kathy was flying in to watch the boys for us because on Thursday and Friday we had training for the whole office staff in Phoenix.  Anyway, I was supposed to leave to pick her up at 1PM.  I called her on my way to the doctor and told her that there was no way I was going to make it.  I felt so bad!

At the appointment I just kept feeling worse and worse, and it got to the point where the PA told me they didn't want me driving myself home.  I had to call the office and since Kris was still seeing patients Bryce came and picked me up.  I lay on the floor of the doctor's office with Lucy while I waited for Bryce to find the office--it was a while because he got totally lost.

I survived the drive home and collapsed into bed with Lucy.  Kris brought the boys home at lunch and picked up my antibiotics.  I've never been so happy to see a bottle of antibiotics in my life.

The babysitter came popping over at short notice to help with the boys, and Kathy arrived later in the afternoon so I was well taken care of.

The rest of that day I felt totally like a zombie, like I had a terrible case of the flu.  By the next morning though I felt a ton better, and by the afternoon of that day I felt totally like myself again.  I even made it to Phoenix for the work trip which involved getting up at 3:45AM to make the flight out there.

I think that was the sickest I've felt in at least 10 years.  Maybe ever.  I don't want to do that again anytime soon.  And it was just so crazy that it came on so fast and so hard.  And then went away so quickly.  Bizarre.  At the end of this week I felt like it had been a month since last Sunday.  What a weird week.

(Baby and mom selfies from a couple of weeks ago but too cute not to post.)

::::

This one is my favorite daughter.

::morning lucy::

When I was in Utah earlier this month I had to sent Kris home so he could go work and get important stuff done. I sent him some first thing in the morning photos of Lucy during the week just so he'd know what he was missing.

There was an underlying theme in the photos--she's dang happy in the morning. Much happier than me. I could be that happy if somebody fed me milkshakes at 2am, but no, I'm the one making and delivering the 2am shakes.

Good thing she's so stinking cute.





I saved the best for last.

::blackmail for later::

I was trying to take pictures of this cute little thing: when I looked across the room and saw this: loooooook at those rolls!! And this: Yes, he's sitting in the baby seat.

 Those pictures of Sandy are really terrible, out of focus and yucky looking. But the content I think could be pretty valuable to me at some point in the future. I think I'll hold on to them.

If you sit around in my house in a baby seat in your undies I will most definitely take pictures of you. Look out.