Carterism's

Now that Ethan is in Kindergarten, I don't have as much time to hear his creative comments and views on life. And given that Carter is speaking more and more each day, he comes up with the funniest things. The other day for example, he told me that he wanted a p-p butter sandwich.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to go to a church broadcast for women, Cater was in the bathroom with me when I started to touch up my nail polish and he said "I have some?" Okay, I said. I pulled out a light pink nail polish and painted his toe nails. He was so proud and left the bathroom running telling me he was going to "show daddy!"

A few minutes later, he returned as I had just put on my bra. He proceeded to point to my chest and said "pop those?" I said, "Pop what?" He said, "Pop those balloons." So, even my two year old has my number with my padded bras.

Time to Catch up

As you can all tell by my previous post, I was out of commission for a little while and I was lucky to just function as a mother during the day, so I could hardly keep up with my families antics.

Last week Ben took Ethan to a BYU football game and had a great time in some cool box seats. The cougars defeated UCLA 59-0. They were happy to go and spend some quality time with Ben's sisters Sara and Annalise and his brother Robert and soon to be brother in law, Kimball.

This past weekend, we enjoyed a quick visit from our Iowa friends Laura and Jordan Graff a their four boys Taylor, Aaron,Ethan and Joseph.

My boys enjoyed ditching school and we took them all to the Denver zoo and the Downtown Aquarium. Unfortunately for me, I forgot to take my camera to the zoo, so you will have to settle for pictures of the boys brushing their teeth together. Haa Haa.

What A Pain in the Chest!

I took Claudia to the ER on Friday. Since Monday she'd been having pains in her chest and back, along with a headache. She's also been pretty fatigued. When you call the dr. to get an appointment because you're having chest pain, they won't make an appointment, but tell you to go to the ER. So I left work and took her to the hospital in Loveland. The got us into a room right away and did a bunch of tests and asked a bunch of questions.

Finally we were able to go home after about 4 hours. The ruled out anything serious--no heart attack or blood clot issues. The dr. said he didn't have a diagnosis for sure, but that the two most likely conditions were pluracy and west nile virus. In both cases, you can only treat the pain, etc. and wait for it to pass. The most likely of the two is pluracy, which is an inflammation of the plura lining between the lungs and the ribs, and can take 4-6 weeks to clear up. The dr. thinks it may have been caused by the minerals in the hot springs pools we were in last weekend in Glenwood Springs.

So she's just taking some pain killers and hoping it will go away soon. She feels various levels of pain when she breathes and moves, so just about all the time. Although it is uncomfortable for her when the drugs wear off, at least it's not a serious life threatening condition.

Ben

Happy Birthday to Alec!!!

Just over nine years ago today...my due date for having our first baby came and went and my jumbo child had no desire to come out into the world. My stomach grew bigger and bigger and still no baby. When I was six days overdue, I went to the doctor where I clearly remember him giving me an ultrasound and telling me that his head was measuring that of a 10 lb. baby...but that the ultrasounds aren't always accurate. Then I recall the Dr. squeezing my belly and saying..."It feels like a 9 pounder to me."

Wow, we thought... 9 pounds is huge. I weighed 8 lbs. at birth and Ben was only 6 lbs. So, of course we were overwhelmed, but up to the challenge. The next day, Sept. 3 1999, my labor was induced with some serious drugs. I remember the day like it was yesterday when I was awakened in the middle of the night with the most excruciating pains I had ever felt in my whole life. After 4 hours of pushing and no success, the doctor prepped me for a c-section. That afternoon I said a prayer in my heart that I would live through the tiresome and painful event.

Just before the c-section, we gave it one last effort to have the baby. The doctor wedged him out with the help of a vacuum and forceps. When his jumbo body was placed on my chest, I felt this slippery enormous child for a brief moment before he was whisked away to be weighed and measured. Again, I remember the language like it was yesterday. Upon placing my boy on the weight scale the nurse laughed and said, " 11.7 lbs. ...You didn't have a baby!...you had a Toddler! Haa!! Haa!!" Recovery from that delivery was nothing to laugh about. Trust me.

Nevertheless, I really believe that high birth weight helped him to have excellent health and be a very mature baby (if there is such a thing). We called him Bubba for the first few years... not because he was chubby, but because he was huge. Our Bishop joked that it was due to being born in Iowa. "Iowa just grows them big," he said. I think it was due to the "Teacher potlucks" I was enjoying every Friday near the end of the school year when I taught first grade.

We had the privilege of having Alec to ourselves for 4 years before Ethan was born and enjoyed every minute of it. Now of course, we enjoy all three of them but we especially enjoy how well the all get along and what a great job Alec does of caring for his little brothers. We love you Bubba!