Spoiling a Child

It's ok when it's their birthday, right?

Dad is in China for business, so we decided to party hardy with donuts and chocolate milk; which is what Joe would have done for the birthday boy if he were here.

And to my Davey family members, notice the donuts are cut in halves not quarters.  Take note:  I am a generous task master. (My Grandpa Davey always used to insist on cutting every donut into quarters at family gatherings).

Happy #9 Hans! 

Great to Be Eight!

Hans just turned 8 last week, which means:

He had TWO birthday parties--one for the family and one with friends. I made a Pokemon cake for each party per his request. The first was Polywag cake for the family party. Grandma and Grandpa Harris, Derek and Aubree, Angela, and Jeff all came to join in the fun.

The second cake was Chickorita. A couple of hours before his "friends" party, Ada climbed up a kitchen stool and helped herself to some cake. Here is a picture of how it looked after Ada's attack, followed by the repaired version:

Hans is also now a cubscout! He's super excited that his birthday came just in time for the Pinewood derby next week. Someone from the pack gave him a hand-me-down size Large shirt, but Hans is really little, so I took it in quite a bit at all the seams to make it a little more presentable.

Hans will be baptized on January 31st and can't wait! There will obviously be more on that subject to come...

Two Reasons to Party!

This New Year's Eve, we had another reason to party--Ada's first birthday! I've been looking forward to having her birthday/New Year's party all year long.

Some people ask if I'm bummed that I couldn't hold on to her for one more day in hopes of her being the New Year baby at the hospital. I can honestly answer "NO!" Being able to claim her as a 2007 tax deduction was a much more profitable gift than any prize the hospital would have given us.



The celebration began by eating carrot cake cupcakes with pink and white frosting (Jennabee insisted that Ada's cupcakes have pink on them), singing Happy Birthday, and opening presents. Then I put Ada to bed and the New Year's celebration began!

We played "limbo" and I found out I can go a lot lower than I thought, but not low enough to beat my sis-in-law Angela who amazed us all!


We also had jumping contests and Joe and his brother Jeff proved that white men CAN jump:


The night was also filled with lots and lots of Wii. It was so much fun watching Grandma cream everybody doing the ski jump on Wii Fit! She's got some serious balance. All of the kids (except Ada) stayed up til midnight. How an early bird like me gave birth to a bunch of night owls is beyond me!

Happy New Year everyone!

Dessert of the Week + Party = Yum + FUN

I didn't have time to make cookies this week. I was too busy planning a birthday bash for Joe's dad. We convinced everyone to come to our house for a dinner party last night and had a great time celebrating his special day with him.

Some party highlights:

• Doubles Ping Pong tournament
• My best batch of homemade rolls yet--I wish I would have made more...
• Grandpa having to answer "Who Wants to Be A Millionaire" questions correctly in order to open a present.
• Joseph giving all of his prized transformers to Grandpa for a birthday present--a true gift of love.
• Hoffman's stopping by to drop off some of Mark's DELICIOUS homemade smoked sausages which we all got to sample.
• Everybody getting to see our cut out wall finally finished off and trimmed! I told Joe it was the only thing I wanted for Christmas and he hired a carpenter to do it this past weekend. It looks great and I promise to post a pic when Christmas is over.
• Watching Grandpa enjoy the Chocolate Cherry Trifle we had for dessert which combined two of his greatest loves--chocolate and cherries.

Chocolate Cherry Trifle

• 12 Chocolate chip muffins cubed (I made mine from a box mix in standard sized cups. If you use jumbos, you won't need 12! You could also use chocolate pound cake)
• 2 boxes of chocolate instant pudding prepared
• 2 cans cherry pie filling
• 1 tub of whipped topping
• chocolate shavings for garnish

Layer all ingredients in a clear bowl or trifle dish in the order listed above several hours before serving. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Signing off 'til after the holiday...

Sick Leave

I apologize for the long pause between posts, but we've been really sick around here. Sick with what, you might ask? Let's just say I was cleaning four throw up buckets out at the same time, in the middle of the night, all night long, while trying to avoid puking, myself. The four boys and I caught it from Jennabee who had the stomach bug the week prior. Two days of illness put me way behind schedule. It was a blessing, however, that this happened on the weekend when Joe was around to help out during the day. Another blessing is that when my kids get sick, they get incredibly sweet and tender. All through the night the boys said things like, "Mom, thanks so much for taking care of us" and after having to get up again right after laying down, "Mom, I feel so sorry for you." Those thoughtful comments gave me the energy to keep going. Now that everyone is better and I've caught up with the basics (laundry, cooking, dishes), I'm ready to blog.

Jennabee turned three at the end of the month. Another cute cake, but if I was the cursing type, I know I would have uttered unspeakble things while frosting this cake. I don't mind baking cakes, even from scratch, but coating cakes with frosting makes me mutter and growl at myself. I need some professional tips that make it easier. Any cake decorators out there willing to share their frosting secrets?

Independent Spirit

Austin celebrated his fifth birthday last weekend and has manifested his independent spirit several times this week to prove just what a big boy he is.

Take this picture for example:


He's capable of turning on the kitchen faucet by climbing the cupboards or getting a chair, but why work that hard when there's an easier way? I found it funny that he thought to turn it on using his "special stick".

How he found the "special stick" is another story. A very scary story. A story that I really don't want to remember but I'm sitting here posting about it anyway.

On Thursday, Joe, Hans, Joseph, and Grant walked to soccer practice which was at the park about 4 blocks away. Austin wanted to go with them, but I told him he had to stay home with me and the girls. He and Jennabee played inside the house for about 20 minutes while I worked on dinner. They eventually mosied into the backyard to jump on the trampoline and I checked on them every now and then to make sure they weren't getting into trouble.

Then the phone rang, it was Joe, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: Hi, what's up?

Joe: Not much. How are you?

Me: Great. Just working on dinner.

Joe: OK. How are Austin and Jennabee?

Me: Fine. They're outside in the backyard playing.

Joe: Oh. (pause) Actually, they're here at the park. They just showed up at soccer practice.

Me: (Cough, sputter, choke...) WHAT??? I just checked on them not that long ago and they were on the trampoline! This is bad... really, REALLY, BAD!

Joe: Yeah, I know.

Joe told me not to pick them up because there were only fifteen minutes of practice left. Those fifteen minutes seemed like an eternity to me. All of the bad things that could have happened, flooded into my mind over and over again. Run over by cars (they had to cross two fairly busy streets to get there), getting lost and wandering from street to street, getting snatched from the side of the road...the hazards seemed endless. And to think, at the precise moment they were walking to the park, I was in my happy little world, cooking and thinking "Wow, maybe we don't need to fence after all. The kids are so good about staying in the yard."

Once we were all together again, safe and sound, we asked Austin how he found the park. He said "I went bench to bench, just like Grandpa said". Grandpa had recently taught the boys that the way to find the park was to follow the benches to get there. There are several benches along the way within sight distance of one another. I'm so glad he knew the way! I shudder to think of him and Jennabee aimlessly wandering the roads trying to find Dad and the boys. It was while on the walk to the park that he found his special stick that "helped him walk when [his] legs got tired".

We had a firm chat with him and I'm keeping him on a tighter leash, but I can't help but wonder "what's next?" with him. He has had an independent spirit since his birth. His mannerisms as a baby were always different than my other babies. I've always known he was unique from Day 1.

I LOVE this kid and I never want anything bad to happen to him. Is it possible to tame such an independent spirit without destroying it completely?

And finally:

A picture of him on his birthday with his dragon cake. Thanks to Julie P. for the inspiration and for sending me the directions on how to make it.

The Fun Never Ends

It seems like when I have a ton of stuff to blog about, I have the least amount of time to actually sit down and write about it.


These past three weeks we have:

• Sent yet another member of our family to the ER which resulted in a full blown hospital stay. This time it was Hans with a horrible side ache that made him vomit over and over. They ended up finding out that his left kidney was not draining into his bladder very well. He will be seeing the urologist next week to have some tests run and hopefully a diagnosis will follow.
  
• Had a family reunion of sorts when Joe and his seven siblings (and parents) were all in town at the same time. It was 4 days of out of control fun for all of us. The kids especially loved it when Uncle Darren gave them tractor rides.

• Celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary.
  
  


• Threw a "friends" party for the twins' 10th birthday.
  

• Went out to a restaurant with my sister LeAnn (visiting from the Seattle area) on Saturday night to celebrate the twins' birthday and my 30th birthday. Joe told the boys he would give them $5 each if they stood up on their seats and started dancing when the servers came to sing happy birthday. Here is the video to prove that they actually did it:
  
  
  
  
  


• And if that wasn't party enough, we celebrated the birthdays again on Sunday night with Joe's family. You may have noticed all the scrapes on Joseph's face. Before church he tried to use his new slip and slide boogie board on the concrete patio and biffed it big time.
  

• Potty trained Jennabee! I just did what I normally do and waited until she was ready. She only had a couple of accidents and now tells me everytime she has to go. It's nice to only have one in diapers.

AND...Now that we own a house we have been having fun doing whatever we want to it:

• We pulled up the existing carpet in our house which we were going to replace with wood laminate, only to find cork floor tiles underneath. We LOVE them and are going to refinish them and keep them.

• Joe took a saw to the wall going into the kitchen and cut it out to open it up. It looks great, now we just have to figure out how to make it look finished.

• We painted one bathroom and primed another.
  
• Joe installed two ceiling fans, and five new light fixtures.
  
• We put in faux wood blinds in several windows.

Happy Birthday Joe!

Joe celebrated his 33rd birthday last week! Our church bulletin announces all of the people in the congregation who are having birthdays that particular week. Last Sunday Joe noticed that he has the same birthday as the dad of a family we've become really close with since they moved into our ward this summer. I told the mother about the coincidence and we soon discovered that our husbands not only share the same birthday but also the same birth year! Too cool. So we decided to have a big birthday bash at our house together to celebrate both of their birthdays. Somehow we managed to squeeze our family of eight, their family of six, Joe's parents, two of his brothers, and one of his sisters in our little apartment. We had a blast! We decorated sugar cookies, ate some cake and ice cream, played musical papers (we couldn't fit enough chairs in our living room), the "flour game", and LIMBO.

Grant knocked the nickel off the flour and had to fish it out with his teeth.

The Top Ten Things I Love About Joe:

1. He is a very manly man. He would fight, kill, and die to protect me.


2. He is an excellent father and our kids ADORE him. He plays with them when he comes home from work, he coaches their sports teams, turns up the crazy music and dances with them, and many more things that I don't have time to list.


3. He has an incredible work ethic.


4. He also knows how to play, have fun, and throw a great party.


5. He likes to play by the rules.


6. He is very humble. I have never EVER heard him praise his own merits and there are a lot of them.


7. He brings me flowers and candy at random (not just on special occasions).


8. He always tries to make my life easier and more comfortable.


9. He always thinks about other people and acts when he sees they have a need.


10. He inspires me to be a better person.

Catch Up

I've heard my mother-in-law say that pregnancy really feels like 10 months by the time you deal with all the intense changes you go through the month after you give birth. This "tenth month" has taken it's toll on me, hence the big break from blogging. One thing that was especially horriffic for me this time was my "after cramps". Someone told me that they get worse with each child and my experiences have convinced me this is true. With the twins, I don't remember feeling any cramps. When Hans came, Ibuprofen kept everything under control. That didn't cut it with Austin and Jennabee, so the doc prescribed Hydrocodone which easily got me through the pain. This time Hydrocodone didn't even make a dent! I seriously felt like the pain was as bad as labor everytime I nursed the baby. Tears streamed down my face and I tried (unsuccesfully) not to writhe around and cry out loud. After about a week and a half of torture the cramps became less intense and I was able to nurse without dread. I hope this admission hasn't scared anyone from having more kids!

Now to catch up with a few things.

The week between Christmas and New Years brought two visitors to our home. My little sis, Lauren, who was in Iraq, made it back to the states and was able to come and visit us for a couple days. Now she's stationed at an Army base in Georgia where she is going to train and teach new Army nurses. My dad was also able to come up from Southern California and visit us for a couple days. Their visits overlapped so it was fun to have both of them here at the same time. Lauren left Friday, my dad left Saturday, and Sunday night I was in labor and heading to the hospital! They just missed getting to see Ada.


My mom was able to come and spend a few days with us after the baby came. It was great having her here to help with the kids, the house, and cooking. We were sorry to see her go!


Luckily my mom got to be here for Hans' birthday which was on the thirteenth. Instead of sticking seven candles in a cake, I stuck them in a Hostess mini pie (a special request from Hans). That was cool with me because I honestly didn't feel up to making a cake, so it was mini pies all around. He was happy to get some "new" toys just as his Christmas toys started getting "old", but his coolest present was the newt he got from his dad. A newt is a little lizard like creature that likes to live both in and out of water. So he was water in his cage and a cat statue (we couldn't find a rock with all the snow outside) which allows him to sit outside of the water when he wants to. He eats nasty little worms that I have vowed never to touch. I guess that means Mom won't be feeding this pet!

Pies for everyone!

The newt

A Crazy, Adorable Little Man

And he turned FOUR yesterday!

Ever since Austin became mobile at 6 months of age he has been an unstoppable fireball of energy, curiosity, and independence. The day he became mobile changed my life forever. He has constantly been into mischief these 3+ years since. He started by emptying the contents of every container he could get his hands on, and believe me he dumped plenty.

Then he began climbing to heights no child had ever dared climb before. I even took the handles off all the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen when I realized he was using them as footholds, but within days he was just scaling them with sheer upper body strength and sticky little toes. I thought I would lose my mind when he beat the system by unlocking the most complex child safety locks on the market before he even turned two.

My first gray hair appeared right around his first birthday. I was barely 26! Now that he is four, it seems like I find a new gray hair every month. He really isn't a bad kid. He's actually one of the sweetest, most polite kids I know, often while in the midst of doing something crazy.

A few months ago I put the kids to bed before grocery shopping so Joe could have a quiet evening to get over his jet lag from his trip to Romania/Albania. I thought all of the kids were asleep, but as I started to pull out of the driveway, I noticed Austin practically standing in his open bedroom window with only a flimsy screen standing between him and the hard ground two stories below. My heart leaped out of my chest. I rolled down my window and heard him saying "Bye Mom!" while smiling and waving wildly at me. I told him to get down, hoping that if he did, it would give me enough time to get up there and make things safe. I was floored when instead of getting down he said, "I'm sorry, I can't do that Mom", in the sweetest voice possible. I whipped out my cell phone and called Joe, figuring that Joe would be able to grab him faster than I could run upstairs and get him. Joe saved the day, closed the window, and made sure all was well. I just shook my head thinking about the close call, and about the fact I had never been disobeyed so politely before.

Several days ago, I finally moved the marshmallows and chocolate chips out of my baking cupboard after several raids by Austin over the past month. A little later I smiled when I saw Austin climb onto the counter yet again to rummage inside the baking cupboard. He said, "Hey!", when he realized there weren't any chocolate chips or marshmallows in there. I smiled and gave myself a little pat on the back and continued with what I was doing around the house. A few minutes later Austin walked up to me and said "Mom, can I have a drink of water please?" I noticed white sparkly stuff all over his hands and lips. When I walked into the kitchen I found the sugar jar opened and the wooden sugar spoon all wet. He had been eating spoonfuls of white sugar! AAAHHHHH! So much for that pat on the back.


He recently came up to me with a whole stick of butter smashed between his hands, biting small pieces off and eating them. I wiped off the bulk of it and threw it in the garbage. Then I told him we were going to the sink to wash his hands. It took lots of soap, but we finally got his hands clean. As I was drying his hands he said, "Thanks Mom! I love you Mom!"
And last night for dinner we had some homemade soup. I wanted the meal to be somewhat special for his birthday, so I made homemade rolls to go along with it (homemade bread and rolls are very rare for me). They turned out awesome, but for some reason none of my kids wanted to eat them, except for Austin. He devoured his roll and his soup and said, "These rolls are delicious Mommy! This soup makes my tummy so happy Mommy!" I'm so glad that he has such a sweet and polite side. He melts my heart, making the crazy side so much easier to bear. I also feel hope for the future when Joe's mom tells me that Joe was such an active and wild little toddler that she seriously wondered if he would still be alive by the time he reached Kindergarten. If Austin grows up to be as great a guy as his dad, all of the premature gray hairs he has given me will have been worth it.

I love this little guy. Happy Birthday Austin!

Joseph and Grant are.....NINE YEAR OLDS!

Joseph and Grant turned 9 today! It's a tradition in Joe's family that during a birthday dinner, mom gets to tell the story of the birthday boy/girl's birth. Since none of you will be having dinner with us, I'll share the story with you here on our blog.

Five months after Joe and I were married, we were so excited to find out we were having a baby. Early in the pregnancy I had an ultra sound done to determine my due date. The doctor showed us a little dot the size of my pinky nail and said, here's the baby...here's the heartbeat.....took some measurments....said I was about seven weeks along...etc. Then he moved the scanner around a bit and he got this kind of excited look in his eye. His leg started bouncing up and down. He scanned one way and then another again going back and forth. Then he smiled and said, "I think we have twins here!" I was so indescribably surprised. I remember starting to feel light headed as everything ran through my mind at once. I was so taken aback I don't even remember looking at Joe to see his reaction. After the initial shock subsided, I felt an overwhelming sense of excitement at the thought of having twins.

The pregnancy progressed well and when I was 27 weeks, about six months along, I went in for a checkup appointment and the doctor said I was already softening and possibly dilating. He sent me to the hospital to be monitored. I kept having contractions so they gave me a shot of tributeline (sp?) which is used to stop labor. It didn't work, so they put me on the dreaded magnesium drip through my IV. It was a horrible medication that I would never wish on anybody. I was loopy while on it, but I remember feeling hot in my chest cavity, and throwing up uncontrollably, and not being able to eat or drink even though my throat was completely parched. I begged Joe and the nurses to give me something to drink but my requests were always rejected. After a night of being on the stuff, I had dilated 1 centimeter and that's when the doctor decided to life bird me from Pullman hospital to Sacred Heart in Spokane. They wanted me at a facility that had a newborn intensive care unit that could care for 3 month premature babies.

After arriving at the hospital, I was still out of it from the medicine. When I came to, the spokane doctors told me that the labor had stopped. They did an in room ultrasound and estimated that the babies were each 2 1/2 pounds. They said that I had to stay there on hospital bedrest until the babies were born. They were going to try to keep them inside as long as possible to give them the best chance of health and survival. They took me off of the magnesium drip and put me on a pill that I had to take every night to keep contractions at bay. I also had to get a steroid shot twice a week for as long as I stayed there which would help the boys' lungs get stronger. Most patients were there for a max of a week, maybe two before they ended up having to deliver, but I ended up lasting seven weeks! If I had lasted half a week more, they were ready to send me back to Pullman!

Joe had been driving up from Pullman to see me every Friday after work, and driving home every Sunday night so he could be back at work Monday morning. It was a Sunday evening when I began to have contractions that were closer together than normal. Joe was getting ready to leave and I felt silly asking him to stay if it was just a false alarm. Something inside told me to ask him to wait a while. I was glad I did because the contractions didn't stop. The doctor came in, they monitored the babies heartbeats, and when Grant (Baby B's) heartbeat dropped for two contractions in row, the doctor checked my cervix. I was dilated to five centimeters. He said that because the heartbeat dropped he wanted the babies out ASAP and since Grant was breech that meant a c-section no matter what anyway. They immediately prepped me for surgery, got me in the operating room, and checked to see if the epidural had numbed me sufficiently. I could still feel the pain in the pinch so they decided to give me general anesthesia. I remember counting down from ten and never making it to number one. I was out like a light and didn't wake for several hours.

When I woke up I was in another room and Joe was standing next to me. I was in the post-surgery daze and mumbled to Joe, "Are they out of my tummy yet?" He said they were and told me all about it but I don't remember a word he said. I kept going in and out. He tried to show me a video that he took and I remember being happy to see them, but it was all a blur.

When I woke up the next morning, I was alert and anxious to get to hold my babies. They were doing well but couldn't be removed from the NICU (newborn intensive care unit). The nurse came in and said they would wheel me over there once I was able to sit up well. I did all the little exercises to get my post c-section body to a sit up position on my own. They told me I was all set to go to the NICU but they had to do one more set of vital signs first. They took my temperature and told me I had a fever! That meant that I was not allowed in the NICU because I might have an infection. I burst into tears. All I wanted was to see and hold my babies. They told me they would wheel me to the window and hold them up for me to see them. It was a very small consolation. When I got to the window and saw them, I was amazed by the beautiful little miracle they were and as they wheeled me away I started sobbing because I couldn't hold them and let them know I was their mother. That day happened to be my birthday and I got lots of phone calls congratulating me on the birth and wishing me a happy day. I feel bad because everyone who called me was greeted not by a joyful mother, but by an emotional post partum wreck who broke into sobs every time they asked about the babies. I remember when one woman from church called and excitedly asked how the babies were doing, I said through choked sobs, "I don't know because I haven't got to hold them yet!" The poor lady had no idea...

The next day my fever was gone and I got to hold my sweet little babies for the first time. I was love struck and we bonded instantly.

Holding Grant for the first time

Grant weighed 4 lb 7 oz and Joseph weighed 4 lb 4 oz. They breathed fine on their own, had to be treated for a little bit of jaundice and had to stay in the hospital until they gained some weight. Grant reached his weight goal a day or so before Joseph, but didn't pass the "carseat test" where they monitor his vitals while sitting in his carseat for a certain length of time. One of the alarms went off and they said they would have to keep him and monitor him a few more days. Joseph ended up coming home after 7 days in the NICU and Grant came home after 10. When we were finally all together as a family everything felt perfect, the way I envisioned it would, and we quickly settled into life with two little newborns. Now those cute little bundles are nine years old! I will always feel that they are my little miracles.

Brothers finally together at home

Happy Birthday Joseph and Grant! Your mama sure loves you and is glad you made it safely into this world!