Bye Bye Baby...

...tooth, that is! Hannah's opinion of this event: "I look better now than I did before! I'd look even better if I had FIVE losed teeth -- AND glasses!"

Hannah's recipe for magic powder

"Put 1 or 2 cups of powdered sugar in a bowl, then 100 or 99 cups of brown sugar to sweeten it in case someone eats it, then take sourdough bread and break it up and melt it. Mix it all together and bake it for 25 minutes. Then take it and sprinkle it over my head and then I will get long hair like Rapunzel!"

(We saw Tangled while we were on vacation, can you tell? She was terrified during the whole movie but all of a sudden she decided she loved it and now she is obsessed with growing hair like Rapunzel's.)

A couple of other funny things from Hannah:

- While we were on our way out of the airport coming home Sunday night, Hannah was complaining about being hungry and wanting to eat when we got home. Really she was just tired and we had already fed them dinner on the airplane, so I told her no, she was just going to go to bed. Her grumpy answer: "I always never get my dreams come true!!!"

-This was months ago and most of you have probably already heard this one, but it is funny and I don't have it recorded yet. Seth was trying to feed her lunch and she was (once again) in a bad mood and complaining because she wanted quesadillas instead of cheese and crackers. When Seth asked her why she wouldn't eat, she said vehemently, "These crackers taste like dirt! Dirt mixed with bees and gorillas!"

Joshua...what else can I say???

Meet Mr. Mischief (aka Miss Amy, but Miss Amy moved away so I guess he felt that he needed to change his name). He is 3 1/2 years old today. To see how he chose to celebrate, watch this video. (BTW, Hannah's commentary throughout the video is pretty funny. And I'm sorry my voice is so awful, I have been congested for weeks and I had just woken up...it was not quite 7 in the morning when we took this!)

I'm telling you, this kid has been on one lately. He has become the WORST troublemaker!!! he is SO stinking cute, but man is he a pill! Earlier this week, he destroyed a little beaded-rope Christmas decoration Hannah made in preschool last year, dropping one bead in the toilet and swallowing another one, leaving Hannah crying because he'd eaten her favorite decoration. One of his favorite pasttimes lately is squeezing tubes of toothpaste as hard as he can with the cap still on, causing it to ooze out the sides and up into the cap and make a pretty nasty mess.

Joshua is hilarious. He is a walking contradiction. He can be soooo sweet...he is very gentle and kind with Eli, he loves hugs and kisses and is very generous with them, but then he goes and chooses his snowman pajamas because "they are bad guy clothes...and I am going to kill my sister!" ...making Hannah cry again. He loves money and is very generous with it...he loves to pay his tithing and give his money to Heavenly Father, and wants to donate to every single cause on the tithing slip; he tells me "I am so excited to go on a mission! I want to go on lots of missions!" and then tells us some variation of a scripture story to demonstrate how "wicked" he is, such as this story from the other day: "Well, Laman and Lemuel were wicked because they wouldn't help Nephi build his ship. So I'M mean because...I don't want to help him either!" His favorite thing to say to people is "You are very, very stupid!" Other name-calling favorites include silly billy, silly punk, little pal, silly butt, stupid butt, and silly-stuff-sir (you might recognize that last one as a phrase from Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks).

Anyway....in terms of maturity this boy has regressed by about a million years lately. He has such a temper and will scream his brains out when something upsets him. And hit, and hit, and hit, and hit, and hit some more. He has even started sucking his thumb, mostly I think because he likes how Hannah sucks her thumb and holds her snuggy blanket in her face to go to sleep, but it seems like he actually might be starting it for real (or "for life", as Hannah would say). And the worst part is that he has started talking like a baby and crawls around saying "Goo!" when he wants to whine. It is REALLY annoying!

I'm hoping that all of this is just a phase that he might snap out of once he starts going to Sunbeams in a couple of weeks and can feel like a real "big boy." Until then...it's a good thing that he is SO cute and so smart and so fun (when he's well rested and not upset). He LOVES to play games, read stories, and be tickled. Nevertheless, if anyone has any advice on how to encourage a swift departure from this stage...bring it on!

Merry Christmas!

Hannah Rae had her first real school Christmas program on Thursday night. It was so cute!!! Usually those seem to drag on a little bit but I was really impressed with how great all the classes did. It was so cute to watch her sing the Hokey Pokey in Chinese...she didn't seem to sing much but she did all the dancing really well. So cute!!!! We brought our local "grandma", Cay, to enjoy the show with us.

That picture is of Hannah with Hung Laoshi, who must be the best kindergarten teacher ever. Hannah absolutely adores her. She is the cutest lady. And Joshua is officially in love with that Santa hat. He wears it everywhere and even sleeps with it -- not wearing it, just cuddling it!

Also, because we are visiting family on Christmas, we decided to let Santa come a week early to our house. We had a fun day -- the kids loved their new toys and Eli loved his moose antlers :) .

Happy Halloween!

We had to wait to get our photos printed from our wonderful ward party...because I forgot to take pictures on our camera! This was our very first themed Halloween. Obviously we did Peter Pan...John, Wendy, Tink, Peter, and a Lost Boy. :) Aren't they cute? I was pretty proud of the Peter Pan and Tinkerbell costumes I made -- from imagination because i don't trust myself with a pattern. Our friends the Kvavles just happened to dress as Tiger Lily, Captain Hook and a baby Tinkerbell -- it was perfect!

Happy 3 Months!

In honor of Eli's 3-month birthday today, I decided to backtrack a little and briefly record the story of his birth (scary music here) and his 2-months stats (I'm a little slow). Above are some recent pictures of Eli...unfortunately, and I am really sad about this, he is not very photogenic AND our camera totally sucks, so I just can't get a really good picture of him. He just doesn't ever look the same in a pic as he does in real life. Hannah was (and still is to some extent) the same way...cute, cute babies and kids but they look weird in pictures. (No offense, kiddos. You get it from me!)

Anyway, at his two month checkup Eli came in at 12 lbs 7 oz, 24 inches long, with the strength and abilities of a 4-month-old, according to the doc. Smart boy! Maybe this one will actually crawl before he's a year old. That would be a fun new experience for us. His nicknames: Eli Peli, Baby Donut, Little Tiny.

So for my own record, here is how the birth went down -- briefly:

Tue June 29: AM: 8 days overdue, passed the non-stress test but it took an hour to do what should have taken 20 minutes (my babies are never big movers in utero). I had about 500,000 contractions that showed up on the test strip but no baby movements...hmmm..you would think I would manage to go into labor myself wouldn't you?

PM: Had appt with the midwife, dilated to maybe a 2, sort of soft, not really doing much though -- they decided to go ahead and strip the membranes to help avoid a full-on induction that weekend. Midwife proceeds to sweep, I think I'm going to die and yell at her to stop. (Now, maybe that doesn't hurt when your body is ready, but I tell you it does when your body is stubborn and refuses to budge on its own. Holy COW! And I've been told by many many doctors in the past that I have a high pain threshold...) So I left the midwife's office in terrible crampy pain expecting to go into labor...

7 or 8 PM: Yeah, the contractions started really strong and close together from the outset (3-5 minutes). They hurt like crazy, even though I knew I was barely beginning real labor, because I was still in pain from the darn stripping. Thankfully, my mom was in town, having arrived the night before, and the three of us (mom, me, Seth) sat around on the couch eating my favorite subs from Jersey Mike's and watching Brian Regan on Netflix (good idea? I'm sure the laughing helped keep the contractions going, but it hurt like a mother (side note: now I know where that expression comes from!) to laugh during really hard contractions!).

Wed June 30: 1 AM: We arrived at the hospital. I was a 4 and 90%. (Only???After all that time 3 minutes apart???) I was Group B positive so they had to start the IV and antibiotics. Apparently they did that wrong because my fingers started swelling and hurt a lot. Also, they kept trying to turn up the dosage, because (silly them) they were afraid I would have my baby too fast to get the antibiotics in, and that stuff feels like FIRE!!!! So my whole arm would be burning like crazy until they turned it back down. And we went through this over and over for the next four hours. So my arm hurt like crazy and I couldn't concentrate on relaxing, so that all went out the window...and then I had conveniently forgotten that my body just does not handle the intensity of labor very well and i go into this kind of shock reaction with my teeth chattering, and shaking all over... Seth tried to talk to me and help me relax but I was already in sensory overload and it took all my strength to ask him to STOP TALKING!!! But hey, I was proud of myself -- I never once swore or told him to shut up :) And he tried so hard, poor guy.

So at our hospital there is a birthing center (where we were) on a floor separate from L&D. They have birthing tubs and stuff and do not do epidurals or anything. But they do offer pain meds through IV to take the edge off. So naturally I started thinking that sounded good. But the midwife -- unfortunately she was not my favorite one of the group -- would not give them to me! Like everyone else, she seemed to think that I would go too fast, yadda yadda. She kept harrassing me to get up and walk around, or take a shower, or sit in the tub. I am the kind who does NOT WANT TO MOVE during contractions. I have to just hold perfectly still in bed and even then I think I'm going to die. Anyway, I finally gave in to trying the birthing tub, and it was kind of funny, I admit. Those things are HUMONGOUSLY TALL 9for a shorty like me) so it was incredibly hard even to get in the darn thing. Sure the warm water felt good once i was in there, but only until I had a contraction -- as soon as one started, I would try to brace myself in a "comfy" position to get through it, but there was SO MUCH water, as soon as my stomach started tightening, I would start floating! It was HORRIBLE to not be able to control what my body was doing. But funny, like I said.

Anyway, so finally, finally, in the tub, I felt like it was time, so the midwife and nurses helped me get out and back in bed to start pushing. but they didn't do an internal check (which was fine with me anyway) and I think I wasn't fully complete before i started pushing, because we did not make any progress for so long. My other two came out super fast -- Joshua's labor was difficult, but he still came out after only a few pushes -- and Eli finally, finally came to barely crowning -- and got stuck there for half an hour. I truly truly thought I was going to die. In fact I wanted to die! I laid there watching the sun come up slowly outside the huge windows, crying and screaming and marveling that my pelvis was still intact. If you've been there, you know there is absolutely no way to describe what that feels like!!! The closest I can get is to say that the pain was so amazing and intense that I fully expected my pelvis to blow up into a million billion pieces, so forcefully that the individual shards would be fatally piercing people walking through the streets of Beijing.

Oh, and the best part of this was that the whole time Eli is stuck, the midwife kept telling me, "He's in your arms, your baby is in your arms! He's coming!" And I wanted to scream at her, Are you out of your mind? He's not in my arms, he's stuck in my crotch!!!! (Sorry if that's TMI.) And I knew he was not moving, because I could feel that he was not going anywhere. So then she kept trying to get me to reach down and feel the head -- I guess to encourage me that he was right there? And again, I wanted to yell at her, Do you seriously think I don't know that he's right there? HELLOOOOO! Anyway I resisted that for a long time because at that point I was just trying to live through it (for the sake of my children), but i finally reached down to touch it just so she would leave me alone.

5:46 AM: So, Eli F-I-N-A-L-L-Y came out, right with the sunrise, but he was all blue and floppy so they rushed him right away to the table to liven him up a bit. He was fine after a few minutes. I had torn a little bit so they stitched me up (that felt good too) and left me for dead. Just kidding. He was simply adorable from the first minute. Somehow, even after being stuck in there all that time, his head was perfectly round and beautiful -- during our hospital stay the nurses all exclaimed over his beautiful head, his dimpled chin, and his amazingly pensive expression -- he never even cried when they did tests on him or poked him with needles -- he just took everything in, every new sensation was a wonder to him.

We didn't get much sleep in the hospital -- Eli was born hungry and pretty much starved until my milk came in the next day, even though he nursed all night the first night. And his skin was SO dry and wrinkly. It was definitely time for him to come out, even though he was obviously reluctant to do so! He dropped from 7lbs 5oz to 6lbs 13oz before we left the hospital, but at 6 days old he was already above birthweight at 7lbs 6oz. The doc was pretty impressed with that from a breastfeeding baby!

I recovered okay, but while in the hospital I could barely get up and move because my chest and lungs were so bruised from the labor. I had forgotten about that happening after Joshua was born too. But they gave me an inhaler to use, which seemed to help a little bit.

The kids were absolutely in love with him just like we were. Eli was such a cute little pixie baby, with his adorable dimply chin and blue eyes. He is so amazing still. He loves for us to sing and dance, he loves his family, especially his brother and sister, and he loves to talk. It's really funny because it actually sounds like he is saying words when he talks -- always "hi" and "hey", but yesterday I could have sworn he said "I hate you!" It was so funny.

I think if I learned anything from this experience, it was: 1)we have super cute, good, easy babies, and 2)I do not have fast, easy labors. I was really hoping things would be fast and easy like everyone told me it would be with the third one -- they were wrong. If you are fortunate enough to have fast and easy labors -- like my sister-in-law, whose third baby came on the way to the hospital, or my friend whose baby (born one month before Eli) slid out so fast and easily that he fell on the tile floor of the hospital because her husband was chasing after the midwife -- you are lucky! I think if we are going to have another one (which by the way, I wouldn't count on), I will do the birthing center again but I will make it absolutely clear that i want the pain meds. Epidurals I don't like. I think iv painkillers and i would get along very nicely.

...and more stories...

Sorry, I just have to keep going! There are some funny things the kids say that I just have to remember.

Today Hannah said (sitting behind me as I was bending over, not a good place for anyone to be), "Mom, your bum is REALLY big! Bigger than Daddy's, bigger than mine, bigger than Joshua's, bigger than Eli's...your bum is really big!" Yes, Hannah, I still have 20 pounds to lose, thank you for reminding me!

Joshie really likes to repeat things we say to him so lately he's been telling me, with very large blue eyes looking out from a very, very serious face, and speaking very slowly and deliberately, things like, "Mom, you're not supposed to boss me around," and "Mom, don't hit Daddy's bum. That's rude." He also says upslide down instead of upside down, and loves to say "Oh, bodder" like Winnie-the-Pooh when things are not going right.

Hannah cannot say the word breakfast -- it comes out brefixt. It used to be breftix, though, so at least she's gotten the "t" sound in the right place now!

At least they already have their futures figured out -- Hannah wants to be a pilot and Joshua wants to be a bus. (No, not a bus driver; the actual vehicle.)