Pirate Party--AARRRRRGGGGG

Caleb the pirate killing all his foes. :)

Pirate feast!

Brayden walking the plank singing "I'm a ballerina." I'm not sure why he chose to sing that the rest of were chanting "Walk the plank."

So I am FINALLY updating my blog. :) We've had a LOT happen the last six months, but first, I'll tell you about Caleb's 5th birthday. We went camping with Michelle and Ivan, or as we like to call them, Meeshivan. We went up Mount Lemon and escaped the cacti and heat for pine trees and cool weather. It's a great view. It makes you feel like you're on top of the world. So we camped up there and had owl cupcakes to celebrate camping. Nobody slept much and we were cold, but it was still fun. So we came back and did a dinner with Meeshivan and opened presents Sunday night. Then Monday I started planning Caleb's pirate party. Thanks to my new love Pinterest, I could plan and execute a party in two days. So we had a few friends over Wednesday after school. They decorated pirate swords with "treasure." They got pirate hats (which didn't really work out). They went on a treasure hunt. This included swabbing the deck (sweeping and popping balloons), walking the plank, pinning the eye patch on Capt. Hook, and then finding the treasure box in a "sea" of toys. They actually found the treasure box before we even officially started the party so I had to re-hide it. Good thing we have lots of "seas" of toys. :) Then we ended the party with a pirate feast and presents. It was crazy chaos but I think everyone had fun. And I had a great friend who stayed to help, and her help was invaluable! Things I'm really proud of for this party: I freehanded Capt. Hook's face. Our treasure map turned out really cool. Caleb's preschool teacher had the PERFECT treasure chest for us to borrow and we filled it with rollos and gummy worms and swedish fish and it looked great. And our pirate feast was great. We had "salty bones" (breadsticks that looked like bones), cute pirate cupcakes and bottled rootbeer and and popcorn. I love cute food. Now that our house and I have recovered from Caleb's birthday activities, it's on to thank you cards!

8 hours uninterrupted sleep . . .

and I feel like my old self instead of this needy, angry person that I've been for the last year and a half. We took Devin to a new pediatrician a couple weeks ago, which is great and we love him sooooo much better then our last for many, many reasons, and found out he (Devin) has started growing again. He looks skinny still, well, he is skinny, but his length is back where it used to be and head circumference is also, and he's eating (when he's not sick, which is a lot), and he's not having diarrhea. Anyway, because he's growing again, we decided to cut the nighttime feedings so that I can be a normal person again. So we only had one night of crying and he started sleeping through the night. Even while being sick and eating less. It is soooooo amazing!! My kids now seem funny instead of hellions, my house is so much easier to clean, I don't mind that Mike's working 16 hour days right now, I am actually getting down enough on my to do list that I'm getting laundry done, and I have free time to blog right now. Only wish I had pictures. But that will be for another time. For now, this is great.

Out of the fire and into the furnace

So while you may think this is referring to the weather state of AZ, not so my friends. This is my life. :) It seems we have been in the state of putting out fires. Crisis after crisis. Or at least it has felt that way to my sleep deprived brain. Our latest and greatest was we had a hard freeze here. We knew it was coming and being from Michigan (well for the last 6 years) we figured not a big deal, we know how to handle this. Well, we're not used to uninsulated pipes, so they froze. But we had a wonderful neighbor we brought out a space heater and made a cocoon out of a quilt to localize the heat and soon we had water again. However, the gas company couldn't handle everyone running their heaters to compensate for the 18 degree weather, so they turned a bunch of people's gas off. No warning, no explanation, just bye bye heat, have fun dealing with subfreezing temps and no gas. Well, Ivan (Michelle's fiance) saved the day. His family has an extra house that they are not using, so they let us come and stay at their house. Yay for warmth!! And I didn't feel guilty about ordering chinese, or pizza, yes! And another really great neighbor of our's called and said the gas company here is turning back on the gas and pilot lights, (b/c apparently they are the only people competent enough to turn on a pilot light, heaven forbid civilians take their hand at it) tell us the code to your garage and we'll go in and wait for them and get your gas turned on. Thank you!! We're all grateful for heat, and for warm weather, and for running water, and for my own house with my own stuff and clean floors! And I've realized that I do not miss the cold. Good lesson to learn since we're here for a while.

Still happy but not so fat

Devin went in for his 9 month well child last week and it was definitely not one of our best visits. Poor little guy hasn't grown since his six month appointment. He put on a whopping 6 ounces. I knew he was getting skinnier and I was crying that his skin didn't look like it was going to pop any more and that I could tell he had a neck, and I worried that he seemed soooo interested in food but wasn't (isn't) the champ eater I thought he would be, but I didn't expect no growth. Oh, and he has on and off diarrhea that concerned me also. The two might be related--food allergy?? It has yet to be determined. The upshot is that my concerns that I attributed to being an overly concerned parent were validated. His poop situation is not normal. His growth situation is not normal. I have yet to have his lack of food intake validated though. The doc thinks that he's getting enough food into his body but that he can't use it correctly. However, if I were going to make a prediction, I would guess there is some kind of food allergy going on (but not gluten or milk), and that there is something going on with his mouth also. Reason being he used to let his mouth hang open with his tongue hanging out like a puppy dog. Reason two being that he pockets food (the food sits in his cheeks like a chipmunk for a while before he can figure out how to swallow). Reason 3 he seems way too interested in food and previously was growing fast enough that what he intakes doesn't seem to be enough to me. For the meantime I've added Pediasure to his diet and I'm nursing him at night when he wakes up and hoping that will do some good until the root cause is addressed. Things to be grateful for: he is still the world's happiest baby and Mike made an awesome candy cane shaped stromboli for thanksgiving dinner b/c I was too fixated on Devin to do anything!!

Do you like our new family picture??

Pretty sweet, huh? Our photographer can even do things like grow you new hair. Mike's always wanted to be a rock star. "Unleash your inner rockstar." Thanks Disney Channel. You've totally inspired us.

Utah Trip

So at the beginning of October I we left for Utah so that I could experience some fall weather and do some fun fall things. We didn't do nearly as many fall things as I wanted, but we did get up to Sundance (in the middle of a HUGE rainstorm), we saw some awesome thunderstorms, we got to see family, Michelle got engaged, we went on walks, we went to parks, Michelle and I almost got blown away trying to run in a windstorm or microburst (whatever they are called), we had a family birthday party for Brayden, we saw Mandy and Eddie, we went to JDawgs (yum hot dogs), we went to Johnny Rockets (my brother's favorite burger place) we saw one of my favorite people ever at her beautiful house in St. George, we got to see three super fun cousins, and we watched a lot of DVDs in the car. How's that for the longest list/sentence ever. Unfortunately all these really fun events were a little too much for a 7 1/2 month old who really likes his sleep, and that resulted in me walking the halls and driving around my cousin's neighborhood all night long one night b/c that was the ONLY way I could get this little one to sleep. But I'm still glad we went. Hopefully Neal and Michelle don't regret agreeing to let us stay in their one bedroom apartment! Thank you sooooo much for letting us stay with you!! We had a great time.

Happy Birthday Brayden!

It is hard to believe we have a six year old. Brayden is a joy. He is sensitive, considerate, smart, attentive, huggable, athletic, tall, very afraid of getting hurt, accident prone, focused, loves to laugh, loyal, a daredevil, and kind.
Fun facts about Brayden are:
1. he is really good on a bike,
2. he loves everyone and really, really misses people when they are gone,
3. he is good at making Devin laugh,
4. he still gets slap-happy very easily,
5. he is the model student in his kindergarten class,
6. he's got a sweet spot for a little girl, Mia, that lives down the street,
7. he is very altruistic, he is always opening doors for people, sharing his stuff with people and looking out for his friends,
8. he is getting pretty excited about reading and loves practicing his sounds and the accompanying actions
9. he is really interested in singing
10. he's a fabulous swimmer and wants to do swim team in a little while.

Brayden and Caleb both had great birthdays, complete with a dinosaur party and way too many kids, and then separate family parties. Caleb got to have Brian and Alia over and Brayden got to celebrate it in Utah with almost everyone in my family. He was even a sport about sharing it with his aunt Michelle's engagement. Both these boys love comfort food for their birthdays. Caleb requested Sharon's homemade mac n cheese for his birthday dinner and Brayden wanted chicken pot pie. This year, aunt Michelle O. made the crust from scratch and I did the innards, and we were told it was the best chicken pot pie ever! Yay for us! And a Cherry boy birthday wouldn't be complete without an oreo ice cream cake. Yum! Yay for good food, good friends, and wonderful families!!