Superman is 5!

My "to do" list is overwhelming right now, but one thing that is not on there that should be at the top is blogging about Hudson's birthday. So I will set aside the rest of the christmas cards, christmas gifts, whatever else and try to forget the laundry all over my bed and I will blog.

5 years ago today I was given the most noble of titles...Mother. Also known as Mom and Mama. People say once you have kids you forget what it's like without them. I didn't forget, but I definatly don't have any regrets. Over the past 5 years I am learning why it is so important to be a mother. It is the hardest thing I have ever done yet the most rewarding. I have never had more invested. Before becoming a mother I always thought I was a patient, loving, giving person. Hah! I am now learning what it really means to be selfless and kind. It is service at the most inconvienient times like 2am or all night, it is sacrificing time doing things for me to be with them or teach them, it is figuring out what is best for them, it is feeding them three or five times a day and trying to ...hold on, this is turning into a post about Motherhood. Whoops. I'll save the rest for another post because this day isn't about me, it's about him...

I've started a tradition with my kids to tell them the story of their birth on their birthday (minus some unnecessary details). Here is Hudson's (for the record)...

Hudson was due Dec 3 2003. He was born Dec 16th 2003! We actually prayed and prayed that he would not come before the 1st because I got off student insurance and onto Steve's insurance that day. It would save us $3,000. Which was a lot for us, still is actually :). Isn't it funny how some prayers are answered. Our prayers changed to "Please let him come!" I was comforted when my sister Tiffany told me that no one is left pregnant. He will be born.

And he was. I was induced and started on pitocin at 7am. He was born at 8:05pm. When they put him on my stomach I was just amazed. The nurse asked what his name was and I said "Hudson". Steve and I weren't sure on the name, but once I said it, that was the name!He had to spend three days in ICU because of low blood sugar. We finally took him home on Dec 19th. On that day I wrote in his baby book, "I am excited to see you grow, but at the same time I want you to always stay small so I can cuddle you in my arms. I love you Hudson James!" It is amazing to me how my love has grown for him and that my little superman is five!

We love you Hudson!!!!!!

Obsession

Meet Percy. He is a good friend of E's.

Christmas shopping for E is going to be easy this year. He has a SERIOUS obsession...

He is sitting in my lap shaking with excitement right now as he watches me post this yelling, "hain, rain, hain". That translates to "train, train, train". The above and below pictures show his daily rituals.

His other ritual is bringing me a train DVD or video and running to the TV yelling, "hain!!!!!"

Unfortunatly we have lost most of these little friends because they travel with us EVERYWHERE. Very unfortunate loss because these little friends cost 7 bucks a pot.

Everett Update #3

Several weeks ago Everett was going through his whole sleep issue and other issues...to give an update he is doing much better.

He was given a blood test for food and mold allergies and tested positive for a moderate peanut allergy (on a scale of 1-6 he was a 4) and mild corn, soy, wheat, and egg (level 3) allergy. Apperantly level 3 can be a positive or negative. With the level 3 food allergy the doctor said to only eliminate the foods he has had a problem with. He tested negative for mold. So we have eliminated the offending foods which are peanuts, egg, corn, and high levels of soy. The vomiting stopped but the sleep issues continued. I finally said we have just got to let him work it out on his own. I know I am mean, but it is for the well being of the whole family, especially me. So we had an opportunity because our landlords went out of town for two weeks (we couldn't ever let him cry it out completely b/c he would either wake us up or them). They let us use the upstairs bedroom to let him sleep. Here's how it went down...

1st night-woke up 3 times, cried for at least an hour each time. I turned off the monitor the last time, so I am not sure, it could have been up to 3 hours. Poor kid. But very stubborn.

2nd night-woke up 2 times cried for about an hour the first time and 30 min the second.

3rd night-same as 2nd

4th night- woke up 1 time! Cried for about an hour.

5th night- woke up 1 time...about 20 min.

6th night-peace. slept 12hrs.

7th night-peace. slept 12 hrs. waking up here and there, but always able to get back to sleep.

Halleluijah. I am back to my theory of you can get most kids to sleep through the night if you are a little (or a lot in E's case) tough on them.

And The Pictures

I didn't have to great of ones, but here they are. Hudson was a knight, Sadie was snow white, and Everett was a chicken. Poor kid was so hot because you know it was only 85 degrees here. He was literally sweating. It was the only costume he liked of the 4 I tried on. And it is dang cute. A little girly, but cute.

Happy Halloween

"Mom, don't put my halloween candy into a big bowl for everyone like you did last year. I'm going to eat it all." says Hudson.

Oh, yeah! It's finally here!!!

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Sadie Three Already?

I feel like yesterday's post was about Sadie's 2 year old birthday and how we celebrated at Build-A-Bear. And here we are a year later already, my little girl!...cheesy motherly thoughts I know. We prepared for the day by making cake, taking pictures, making dinner, shopping, and singing to Sade.She picked out the flavors. Not my preference really. She loves pink so she went with strawberry and she is a chocoholic like her Daddy. So it was a strawberry chocolate Dora cake. Her and Lucy love Dora and they frequently watch it together...probably too frequently.

Sadie and LucyJust a few of the wonderful people we celebrated with. Thanks Uncle Ben for loving Everett aside from all his slobber. For the record I don't dress my child with his shirt half undone, I was getting him into jammies, but was distracted by something or someone.

Sadie we love you!

Feeling Small in A Big, Big World

So my brother Adam called me a month and a half ago and asked if I wanted to meet him in October at Zions National Park in southern Utah to hike the Narrows. He had to do very little convincing. We had to do more work on my dad, but he finally bent and started training for the 16 mile hike through the Zion Slot Canyon. He passed through the canyon in better shape than Adam and me for sure.

For those of you who have not heard of this hike, it's amazing. We contracted with a shuttle service that took us up to the trail head at 6:30 in the morning. The ride up was very interesting and provided plenty of entertainment for the rest of the trip. The 40+ year old driver had an obvious love for the outdoors and a love to talk about it...constantly. The drive from the Zions Visitors Center to the trail head was about 1 hr 20 minutes long...he must have talked about 1 hr 15 minutes. I had the pleasure of sitting in the bench seat right behind the driver while Adam and my dad sat behind me. They couldn't hear much of what he was saying so I needed to be the polite one and respond to his monologue...much to Adam's amusement I might add. The guy was actually very informed and I learned a lot about everything from ring tailed cats to coned nosed beetles. Apparently the driver's been bit several times...not sure how he's been stung, but when you live in a remote cabin that has ring tailed cat claw marks on your kitchen cabinets and heat your home with a wood fireplace, coned nosed beetles may be living with you.

Anyway, the hike starts in a mountain cattle ranch. For the first 3 miles the trail follows a dirt road that leads toward the slot canyon. The canyon slowly encloses on you to the point that you can almost touch both walls at the same time. About 8 miles into the hike you run into a 20 foot waterfall that has been created by logs, dirt, and rocks that have logged between the two walls.



Fortunately 20 feet to the South of the waterfall there is a narrow passage through the rocks that provides a way down without ropes.

After the first 3 miles, you hike in and out of the water and cross the Virgin River hundreds of times throughout. A tributary, Deep Creek, joins up to the Virgin River about 9 miles into the hike and the rocks become slippery. Dad was the only casualty of the slippery rocks. He claims that the Narrows website states that "even expert hikers slip and fall in the narrows," so he must be an expert. As you can see, we wore special dry suit pants in the river since the water was very cold. They gave me 2XXL size pants. The crotch was around my knees when I wore them appropriately around my waist. I called them my maternity pants.

The narrowest portion of the hike, where the water is wall to wall most of the year, is called wall street. Since it's late Fall, the water was fairly low and only came up to our waists in the deepest spots.

Right before entering wall street, there are two large natural springs, called Big Springs, coming directly out of the wall of the canyon. The springs are adorned with beautiful ferns and apparently flow 365 days a year. It's pretty impressive.

The walls in the deepest and narrowest sections are 1500 feet. Not much sun gets in there and you truly feel very small.If you're not up to doing the full 16 miles, you can start from the bottom up and go up to 5 miles up the canyon, without a permit, and see some of the impressive narrows. This picture of Adam and my dad is less than a half a mile from the end of the hike.

Hudson actually came on the trip (he didn't hike) and Blake came with Adam. They hung out with Grandma while we hiked for 10 hours. Thank you Mom for watching them. Hudson had a great time with you and Blake.

On our way back, with stopped in Las Vegas for lunch with my old roommate Blake and his family. I had a great time catching up with them. Hannah and Blake are great people and obviously very good parents.

This final photo has nothing to do with our hike, but was impressive anyway. From Las Vegas to Phoenix, we crossed the Hoover Dam. They are constructing a new bridge right now to get highway traffic off of the top of the dam. You can see the new bridge at the top left. You can't see it, but there is still a 300 or 400 foot gap in the bridge and is thousands of feet above the bottom of the canyon. Thanks for lunch Hannah and Blake.

So, I have never played this blog tag game, but I will do ANYTHING for my sister. So the tag was to take the fourth picture from your fourth file and post it. This explains the below photo. This picture is from a case study I did in OT school on a patient that had an "AVM" or arterio-venous malformation, or something like that. I had to do a presentation to the staff at MGH and I was pretty nervous. Anyway, I didn't want to be dishonest, so here it is... So I skipped the AVM case study file and moved to the next file to the fourth picture and this was much more fun to post. This is Hudson at 2ys and Sadie at 3 months, oh so cute.

Will Work For Scooter

Several months ago Hudson and Sadie started begging me for scooters. Hudson wanted a specific scooter, a Red Flyer like one that his friend got at a birthday party. I told them if they saved half the money ($20) I would pay for the other half. They would receive a quarter for making their bed, getting dressed, and picking up toys. And extra money for other chores around the house. The first day we started Hudson pretty much cleaned the whole house with me. After adding the four or five quarters to his jar he said, "can we get the scooter?" Not quite.

3 months later...we counted up the money and Hudson had $14 and change and Sadie had $6. I told them if they combined they could get one scooter and share. They went for the deal (and I saved $20 bucks). I was happy for them.

I take no responsibility for Sadie's outfit choices.

Top 10 Theories on Why Everett Does Not Sleep

So my cute little Everett...innocent looking isn't he? I love him to death and could kiss his squishy cheeks all day long, but why oh why does he not sleep?

10. He's teething

9. There is mold in the basement and he is allergic to it

8. He's cold

7. He has food allergies and he gets an upset stomach at night

6. He has reflux and gets a burn in his throat from it

5. He has post nasal drip

4. He has gas

3. He's uncomfortable

2. He doesn't like sleeping with his siblings

1. He has allergies

What's your theory? Night terrors? Allergic to dogs? (our landlords have one). I think I have heard them all, but please add to the list if you have one. His symptoms are frequent runny nose, occasional cough, throwing up randomly throughout the day (but generally happy during the day), about an hour after you lie him down for bed he wakes up screaming (9/10 nights). Back to bed after being calmed (trust me we have tried more than 5 times having him cry it out, you can only tolerate so much in a basement 2 bedroom), again wakes after a few hours screaming, calm him. Drink. Food. Movie. Bed. Sometimes wakes again, same routine. Wakes for the day between 6:30-7:30am. One crazy piece to the puzzle is he slept through the night in Colorado for 2 weeks straight. He was in his own room. Who knows.

He has been to the doctor more times than any of my other kids put together. And we have never figured him out. You ask, what about the soy thing? Well, several months ago we reintroduced it slowly and he was fine. For the past 2-3 months he has not thrown up with soy. And now all of the sudden he is puking again.. I know, I know take him off soy. It's not that easy. He's just complicated and very opinionated (as far as food goes). There is only so much he will eat. I thought I was a perfect parent until I had him. Just kidding. But I sure am appreciating the mom's who struggle because now I am one of them. My child does not sleep (like an 18 month-old should) and he's a picky eater. The two things I always thought I could train kids on. Sleep train them and let them starve if they don't eat the good stuff, they'll eventually eat healthy if they are hungry. My opinions have changed. Some kids are special. Everett is one of them. I realize many moms have it much worse, but thought I would vent and get a few more opinions. You never know when the right one will come around.

Right now I am trying to just give him fresh foods with no preservitives, eggs, milk, or soy. It's been 2 days. I'll let you know how that pans out.

HUDSON16

In school Hudson has learned how to write his name. We had a party for the MBA program in our backyard and everyone had name tags. I saw Hudson walking around and had a puzzled look when I saw his name tag...

Hudson what? Then I remembered they taught him to write his name and cubby number at school and he has taken the 16 on as part of his name. I thought it was cute, but told him he only needs to write the 16 when he is at school.

It's Affirmative.

Steve accepted a job with Intel Corp. in Portland, OR beginning July 09!

Conquering the Bells

Steve took me on my first backpacking expedition a couple of weeks ago to the Maroon Bells outside of Aspen. The hike we did is called the four pass loop, a 27 mile loop over 4 12,000 foot summits. He took his scouts on it last year and I was jealous so he made arrangements for us to go. It was worth every minute, well except the minutes we were attacked by huge mosquito's and horseflies, HUGE. And those few other minutes where you really wish there was a potty around, but every other minute I loved. I love to see such natural beauty, God created beauty.
I was amazed by all the flowers. If only I had one of those darn Nikon D40's I would have been able to give you a better sense of the glory of these flowers.

I must say I was also very impressed by Steve's skills. That Eagle scout badge or pin paid off, he was makin' dinner, making fires with a magnifying glass or maybe it was a match, filtering water from the stream, and carrying about 10 more pounds than me.


Speaking of carrying the weight, about 10 minutes into the trip my shoulders were killing me. I kept trekking along not wanting to complain, but I stopped and adjusted my pack. I was expecting Steve to say, "oh dear, if you are hurting now we are in trouble". But he just said, "you have to get used to it, you'll be fine." I wasn't convinced. I readjusting everything in my pack and continued on. About 10 minutes later the pain was gone. I think I went numb. Then my hip started hurting, but then it went numb? Every few hours I would get a new pain and then it would disappear.

The trip was over 3 days and 2 nights. Each day we would wake up around 5, make breakfast, break camp and head to the summit. We would typically summit before 2pm and head down the mountain the make camp. Then we would sleep, talk, read and play a card game or two. Oh and get eaten alive by mosquito's (note to self, that Cutter crap repellent does not work.) Steve said he did not remember this attack last year. This one guy had a hat with a net over his face, never have I coveted anything more. So anyway, any entertainment you want at camp you have to carry on your back, so we weren't about to bring Carcossonne or our laptop. It was just us. Lots of time to talk, be wierd, and enjoy the fresh Colorado mountain air.

I loved it. Thanks hon and HUGE thanks to Gma's and Gpa's and for watching the babes.