Johnson Jinx

New Blog Address

2009-08-01T09:02:00.000-07:00

Phew! It has been one crazy month...full of stress for sure. I haven't had much time to sit down and blog with the yard, work and kids all screaming for attention.

Since I can't put pictures on my blog anymore (I still haven't had time to slurp everything over into a book), I've started a new blog so I don't get too far behind. I've been catching up on it over the last week or so, so there's quite a bit to read from over the last month. Sorry. If you found out about my new blog from Hyrum, or me, and have been peaking at it already, you may want to skim through it again because I've been back-posting and you will most likely find new stuff that wasn't there before.

Click on this link: Johnson Jinx 09

Small miracles

2009-06-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

After what seemed like a plague of bad fortune, it seems Heavenly Father has finally decided we had had enough and he has poured down some blessings on us.

First, we're pretty healthy (well, until Kiersa came down sick yesterday, but it isn't too serious)

Second, after a year and a half of keeping my eyes out for a bargain on some kind of ground-cover for the kids' play area in the yard, we stumbled upon 5 trailer loads of rubber mulch from an old playground. They gave it to us for free!!! We just had to scoop it and transport it. Now the swingset and trampoline have soft, rubber mulch under them. I guess it's recycled tires or something, but it's really clean and soft. Kiersa fell off the swing and didn't even cry.

Third, the same day that we got all the free rubber mulch, I found out from the hospital that they were going to clear our bills to them. My cousin, Angi, told me that most hospitals have programs where they will pay part or all of your debt to them if you apply, so I called up the hospital, filled out the application, wrote a letter of explanation, then waited. They decided to pay for 100% of our bill, aside from a $375 copay that will be $20/month payments with no interest. I couldn't believe it! It was something close to $7,000 that we owed them (after the insurance companies had paid), and now the bill is $375. Talk about a load off our backs!! I never even knew these kind of programs existed! Thanks, Ang!

Fourth, business is picking up now. The weather is nice and people are relaxing a little bit about the economy, so that's helping our business. Now we have to play catch up for all the slow months and Hyrum is swamped waaaay over his head with far more than one designer can do. If you know of any trained kitchen designers, send them our way!

It feels so good to be able to breathe a little, though we do have the stress of a desperate need for a trained designer.

My yard is coming along. Sorry I can't post pictures. My garden is getting big and beautiful, and the landscaping is taking shape. I can't go to a gym, so I get up at 6 each morning and work in the yard until around 7:30. I can't tell you how great a shovel is for getting a person in shape. It's my new best friend it seems. Between shoveling tons of dirt to new areas in the yard, building recycled concrete walls, moving mountains of rubber mulch (that is recycled from a playground, and made of recycled rubber), making recycled concrete pathways and recycled brick pathways and grass edging, I've lost 10 pounds and I'm finally starting to get toned, AND...I'm doing something good for the environment by using all these recycled materials. Can you tell I'm from Oregon? Actually, the truth is, I have zero yard budget, and walking wasn't getting me anywhere in the weight loss department, so I decided to work on my yard each morning, and I could only work with materials that I already had lying around...plants I brought from my Coquille house when I moved and ferns from the shop, the concrete from the sidewalks and driveway that we tore up around the house, dirt from the excavation of the crawlspace, and brick from my fireplace that we tore apart (though we left the chimney intact).

I'm so glad summer is here, and I'm loving the yardwork, though my carpal tunnel is REALLY mad at me and is screaming at me to stop, though I won't since it's my only workout in a day. I think once my yard is done, I'll have to volunteer my shoveling abilities around the neighborhood or something in order to continue my workout. And though it's difficult to drag myself out of bed each morning, I LOVE the calm, quiet, windless morning hours. They feel almost magical.

The only problem is, I have an audience each morning, and it makes me a little self-conscious to be watched. If you remember me mentioning the nosey neighbors we have across the street that would watch the front of our house like a hawk while they sat on their front porch to smoke...well, they moved, but only 2 houses down. Now they can watch my front yard AND back yard, until I get a fence. Too bad I don't have enough wood lying around to build one. Anyway, they get up early to have their smoke breaks, so they sit out front and watch me work in the yard. They comment to me every now and then about how I'm out so early and how their amazed I'm doing all this on my own, but mostly they just stare. I feel like a one-man circus since I seem to give them so much entertainment. Thankfully, they don't stay out the whole time. Oh, I wore out my poor, trusty, mega-sized wheelbarrow, so now it only has one handle. Maybe they just like watching me maneuver a one-handled, two-wheeled wheelbarrow around my yard. I guess that would be kind of entertaining to watch.

Anyway, hopefully pictures will be up and running again soon.

I did it!

2009-06-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

I shaved Paisli's head! I took before and after pictures, but I can't upload them because I've reached my maximum uploads on blogger. I have to turn my blog into a book on blurb.com so I can continue blogging with pictures. Until then, my posts will be mostly on hold.

Anyway, Paisli looks just like my other kids did after their buzzes. I LOVE it! I kind of wish I'd done it sooner now.

I've used Burt's Bees baby lotion on all of my kids, so any time I smell it, I'm instantly flooded with flashes of memories of my kids as infants when they wore it. Seeing Paisli bald is just like that. I've always shaved my kids' heads around 2-3 months old, but I waited until 4 months with Paisli. I was just curious to see what she would look like if I kept her baby hair. It was getting bad. I couldn't stand her mullet any longer, or her thinning hair as the old fell out and the new grew in. So last night, I pulled out the clippers. She actually fell asleep during it! Instantly, she looked like one of my kids. She always had looked a bit different than the others had, but now when we look at her, she looks like one of ours. I love the little buzzed look. It's sooooo much better than the wispy, balding, patchy look that they have before. I wish I could post a picture!

To those of you whose babies have nice, even hair, count your blessings. Mine aren't that lucky. Shaving is a necessity. I wish everyone could see Paisli's adorable, round head! Hopefully I'll have the upload problem fixed soon.

Confession

2009-06-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

Some people have an aversion to fat, or pasty, white skin, or certain hair colors, or bad nails, or accents, or bad breath, or certain hair lengths. I have an aversion to bad teeth. I really LOVE nice, white teeth. I've had insecurity issues with my teeth ever since I broke my 2 front teeth at age 10 on a water slide. I've been to so many dentists, yet after all the work I've had on them to repair the damage (bonding, root canals, infection removal, crowns,...), my front teeth still bother me. At the gumline of my front teeth, my gums are kind of greyish instead of nice and pink (from the trauma and the methods of repair), and I can't whiten my teeth because my front crowns can't be whitened (my other teeth would be white and my front two would be darker). I could get new crowns that are whiter, but I can't justify the expense since they cost a ton and the existing ones are actually fine (for the average non-tooth-obsessed person). Until I got my crowns, my teeth REALLY bothered me. They still do, but not as bad, but because of the issues I've had with them over a lifetime, I'm self-conscious about my teeth (the front two mainly), and thus have developed a teeth-obsession.

Also...I got braces in middle school, but the orthodontist wouldn't give me a regular retainer. He gave me a thing to wear at night (like what football players or boxers put in their mouth during games), but when I lay down, I can't breathe out of my nose, so the stupid retainer thing only stayed on my top teeth (since my mouth is open all night) and my teeth are now a bit crooked again and my jaw has shifted back a little to a minor overbite again. Arrgghh! This only exacerbated my obsession.

At the risk of subjecting myself to ridicule and people thinking I'm rude, I'm going to confess my most ridiculous, petty, embarrassing pet peeve. I don't notice people's eye color. I notice their teeth (and their nose, since I don't like my bulbous nose). I have a hard time with bad teeth (discolored, broken/missing, snaggly, etc). No offense to anyone. I can't help it. It's my pet peeve. I told Hyrum that if he didn't have the nice, straight teeth he has, I would have required that he got braces before we got married. Aren't I ridiculous? I know I am. It's just that I can't help it! I couldn't have tolerated looking at him with crooked or discolored teeth everyday for the rest of forever. It would have grated on me like sandpaper until it became a matter of marital contention. I'm just being honest here! Luckily, he has good teeth. Actually, there were a couple of things about his teeth I didn't like, but they were very minor, and not near as bad as my dark gums (or the discolored bonding I had when I met him), so I got over it. I still wish he'd bleach them a little, but he hates the taste and texture of the Crest white strips, so I'm bearing with it. I know what you're thinking. I sound ridiculous and shallow, but honestly, I can't help it! I don't shun people or dislike them if they have bad teeth. I imagine in my head how their teeth could look if they whitened them, or got braces. Someday, I'll find a dentist who can fix my gums problem. Until them...I'm still searching.

If I could have picked a profession for Hyrum, and if he would have liked it, I would have chosen for him to be a dentist. Then I'd get all the dental care I wanted for my family at cost. I'd have had him help my extended family for cost too, so that they could all enjoy the benefits of nice teeth. Sadly, Hyrum's hands aren't steady enough for dental work, AND I wouldn't want to stare into nasty mouths all day, so I can't imagine he'd love that either. I could never be a dentist. I would be grossed out.

I'm determined that my kids will have good teeth. They WILL get braces if needed. They WILL be trained to brush morning and night...always. Johnson teeth break all the time, so I have to battle those genes my kids inherited (plus the crooked teeth gene that runs in the Cluff line). Kiersa already thinks it's the greatest thing ever to brush. Let's hope it stays that way.

El Chunko, the sequel

2009-06-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Paisli has broken Kiersa's chunky record! At 4 months, Kiersa was 15 pounds, 5 ounces. Paisli, on the other hand, at her 4 month check up yesterday was 15 pounds, 12 ounces! If those numbers don't mean anything to you, she's in the 90th percentile and has mega thighs with more rolls than a bag of Rhodes. And the cellulite...well, we won't go there. I'm sure that with the quantity she has, it's bound to be a sensitive subject. It's funny how my first two started out pretty skinny, and my second two have been "so plump-eh, and oh so chunk-eh" (that's Madagascar 2 if you're confused). I have to say that even though it was fun having skinny babies (you could carry them in one arm for hours without getting tired), it's more fun to squish my chubby babies' plump little legs and smooshy cheeks. It makes them so cuddly!

The Skinny 2: (note the lack of arm chub)

Talea at 2 months

Hyatt at 3 months

The Chubby 2: (note the rolls)

Kiersa at 1 month (this chub is strictly from breastmilk...no formula introduced yet)...

...and Kiersa at 8 months

Paisli at 3 months

How they are so different is a mystery to me.

You know how with your first baby you have all the time in the world to coo and play with it and watch for/encourage each new milestone since you have no other kids distracting you? Well, with Paisli, being my 4th, I've forgotten to do that. At her appointment, the doctor asked me if she rolls over yet. Hmmmm. Does she? Honestly, I didn't know. I didn't remember ever seeing her roll over, but when I really thought about it, she has never once been laid on the floor to have the chance to try. Since our floors at home and at work are both hard laminate and tile, the floor is too cold and drafty to put her on, especially since she's been so sick in her life. She spends her time in my arms, her swing, Daddy's or Grandpa's arms, her carseat, or her bed (strictly to sleep). And in her bed, she sleeps on her tummy (I know, I know, SIDS risk, but my kids will only sleep well on their tummies), with a heavyish blanket on her that makes it too difficult to roll.

Anyway, when I got back to work, I decided to test it out. I have a play mat for her that someone gave me, so I put her on her tummy and let her play (near a space heater so she'd be warm enough). I had to leave my office for a bit, then I heard her crying, so I went back in and found her on her back. Yep, she rolls over. Next, I decided to see if she'd grab her toys hanging over her head. Yep, she does that too. I have no idea how long she's been able to do these things! Sorry, Paisli. It's the curse of the 4th child...Mom's too distracted to focus all her attention on you. I love you tons though, and I already knew you had skills even if I hadn't tested them out.

Oh! She's almost ready to sit up too! I was out in the yard shoveling my new bark (that's a story for a different post), but Paisli was impatient, so I fed her, then I sat her on the grass, and to my surprise, she holds herself up really well for several seconds before leaning to the side. She'll sit up when surrounded by her boppy too. Kiersa's chub made it hard for her to sit up well until 6 months, so we'll see what happens with Paisli.

Camping!!!

2009-06-16T10:09:00.000-07:00

We LOVE camping! Especially with a trailer, so our noise and mess can be contained in one place.

This time we tried a new spot from our Camping Oregon book. It's called Daphne Grove, next to the river, over by Powers.

We got there late on Friday since we had the whole trauma with Kiersa's face right before we left, and we didn't even pack up or shop until after work. We had dinner on our way out of town, got to our camping spot, built a fire, and had snacks. Talea wanted ghost stories, so I dug through my memory looking for some, editing them to make them only slightly scary, which disappointed Talea. She LOVES scary stories, movies and places, even though they freak her out. She takes after me.

Hyatt on the other hand, was terrified. All we had to say was "Once upon a time, in the deep, dark wood, there was a clicking sound..." and Hyatt would immediately pull his hood over his head and then pull up the front of his jacket so only a slit of his face was showing, if that. If he wasn't wearing a hooded jacket at the time of the story, he'd race to the trailer for cover.

The next morning, we left the trailer at camp and drove into Powers for their annual city-wide garage sale. It was fun! We scored some cute kids clothes and a bike for Tilly since she's outgrown her Dora one. No training wheels either! I'm determined to make her learn to ride without them! We also found an aquarium for her so she can collect bugs and snakes and keep them in there.

On our way back to camp, we stopped at the marshmallow factory.

We've seen these giant marshmallows in the fields after the grass is cut, and we've been dying to drive to some in order to touch them...

and taste them.

The kids finally got their chance! They even got to try to roast one.

Next, we drove off into the hills exploring logging roads. We stopped at "Big Tree" for some pictures.

And we found some really cool waterfalls and rock formations.

Back at camp, we went down to the river and found all kinds of creatures. We took a container and made a river environment so we could collect our creatures.

Talea caught a pretty big frog all by herself...

and wasn't surprised to find that it didn't turn into a prince once kissed.

That night, chopping wood was the highlight, though with Kiersa's scabby face reminding me of the threat of injury, I was a little nervous about their wild swings. (We found out later that they provided free firewood at this campground, so we went through the sweat for nothing...but the exercise.)

Kiersa has learned to kiss things better, so here she is smacking Hyrum' s arm, then kissing it better. It's very endearing.

The next day, Hyrum thought he'd teach the kids how to hit a ball, so they played around for a bit. Hyrum was pitcher, Tilly and Hyatt were hitters, Paisli and I were the catcher, and Kiersa was short stop.

After that, we decided to explore more logging roads. We found a free campground by a lake that used to be called Squaw Lake, until the government decided it was rude to the Indians to call it that, so they renamed it Sru Lake. It's more of a pond really, but it has a trail around it and it was a perfect little hike for tiny legs to walk.

We found a MASSIVE slug...

Talea showed off her fearlessness by walking across a fallen log far above the ground...

And we had a race at the fork in the trail to see who was faster: the big kids or the little girls. The trails didn't come back together, so no winner was declared.

Kiersa didn't find the forest floor litter sticking to her hands when she'd fall a very amusing thing...

But her "Who" hair was pretty funny!

Even though it was a fairly easy stroll, Hyatt pulled out his handy dandy binoculars to keep us from getting lost.

Paisli kept an eye out too.

Daphne Grove was a fun place to camp, even with the mosquitos (Paisli is modeling her first bite...by her eyebrow),

and we can't wait to camp at Sru Lake next time.

More road rash

2009-06-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

One 16 month old + one pile of cardboard boxes on a gravel parking lot = one nasty case of road rash

Same day as accident (I was ready to run her to the hospital for stitches since I can't handle blood)...

One day later (she'll be okay)...

We planned to go camping on Friday after work...but we didn't figure in The Jinx. Why do we even bother "planning" anymore?

Talea and Hyatt were playing on a stack of cardboard at the back of the shop, and when Kiersa came out, Talea (being the kind-hearted sister she is) helped Kiersa up on the stack to join them in the fun and dancing. The problem is, a 5 year-old doesn't realize that a 16 month-old isn't steady on her feet while atop a wobbly stack of large, broken-down cardboard boxes. The stack was probably at least 4 feet high since the recycle guy hasn't come in a while, and though we'd warned the kids to stay off it, the temptation was apparently too great.

This is Talea's version of what happened: "I wanted to play on the cardboard, and Hyatt came out with his broom singing "Violin", so I lifted him up, then Kiersa came around the corner and I lifted her up too, then I climbed up. We were dancing and singing "Violin" then Kiersa was gone. I heard her crying, so I climbed down and I saw her mouth and her cheek was bleeding, so I ran to get help."

I was in my office when I heard Talea's cry for help, but Hyrum was already running out since he could hear Kiersa crying. Thank goodness Hyrum was there because I was ready to pass out with all the blood everywhere, and all I could do was wring my hands and try not to panic. Hyrum, on the other hand, was very calm and collected and inspected her all over and got the bleeding under control.

In the end, the worst cut wasn't bad enough for stitches, and thankfully her chubby cheeks had padded her fall so she didn't crack her skull or something. The poor girl is a magnet for injuries right now. I guess this is the exact reason why my brother-in-laws want my sisters to watch their kids so carefully. This probably wouldn't have happened to them. Hy and I just let our kids run loose to play, and hope for the best, since that's how we were raised.

We did go camping that night anyway. Kiersa was smiling and happy again within about 20 minutes after the accident.

The best gift a mother can get...

2009-06-09T20:58:00.000-07:00

when her children are small...is sleep.

Paisli is my little sweetheart. She has been sleeping through the night since 2 months old! At almost 4 months old now, she sleeps from around 8 or 9 pm to anywhere from 7:30 to 9 am. 12 hours straight is not uncommon for her. She NEVER wakes up at night anymore. Well, occassionally she'll stir and fuss for a few seconds, but I don't even budge anymore because I know she'll be asleep again in a matter of seconds. We usually have to wake her up in the mornings to put her in the shower with me so we can go to work.

Hyatt also slept through the night starting at 2 months, and so far, Paisli looks and acts the most like Hyatt. I've discovered that it may be the fact that I moved Hyatt and Paisli out of my room at 2 months old that they started sleeping through the night so young (though Paisli moved back in after a few weeks). I didn't do that with Tilly and Kiersa, and neither of them slept through the night until 9 months old or older.

She's beginning to try to hold her own bottle.

Hmmm. Is she embarrassed of us, concentrating extremely hard, or just dead tired?

Look at her chub! I don't know how much she weighs (I'll find out on the 18th), but she's got the horrible inner thigh curse that Kiersa has, which was passed down from me. Sorry girls.

Snoozin'

2009-06-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

Talea and Hyatt are the best of friends. The other day Hyrum took Talea to work so she could go to preschool while I stayed home with the others to get caught up around the house. Both Tilly and Hyatt were a bit lost without each other. Hyatt almost burst into tears when he woke up and discovered she'd left, but I managed to distract him.
Talea wandered around the shop, and without Hyatt to play with, she must have gotten a little bored. Hyrum found her asleep in the grass by a customer's car, much to the customer's shock and slight horror (she was afraid Talea was dead or something).

At least she wasn't in stinkbug position like Kiersa likes to do.

You had to see it!

2009-06-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

My baby is growing up. Talea cracks me up, and continually shocks me with how old she's getting by what she says. My favorite quote today...

"I was about to fall asleep..I didn't want to fall asleep, but I kept trying to fall asleep, then I looked over and saw Hyatt and he was asleep, and I didn't know he was asleep, so my brain said, 'What the heck?' It was so funny. You had to see it."

I love the bit on the end. She pays attention to what we say when we don't even realize it.

I constantly find that she's nabbed my camera and taken pictures. Here are some of her latest that she's taken at work.

iOwn an iPhone

2009-06-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

Hyrum isn't a hobby man. Usually, if a guy has a hobby (weight-lifting, cycling, playing on the dunes, guy's night, golfing, etc), it's hard to do it with an army of small children. Hyrum's the kind of guy that would rather spend 100% of his time with his family than have any kind of hobby that excludes the wife and kids. (Guess that's part of the reason he recruited me to come to work with him.)

Instead of swimming in hobbies, Hyrum immerses himself in the latest technology. He loves technology like some people love a good book. When he gets some new piece of technology, he gets lost in the fun of it and I'm widowed for a few days while he tinkers with it and figures out all the complexities.

He's really sweet about his passion though, because I usually reap the benefits of it in the end. Hyrum's latest "loves" he's acquired are the iPhone and a massive Mac computer. I mean, the screen is HUGE! He got the Mac mostly because he knows I do a lot of stuff with photos and movie-making, and PCs stink at that kind of stuff, so when our computer died, he chose the latest/greatest that would benefit me in the end. Awwwww. What a guy.

But...ever since Hyrum got an iPhone, he's been dying for me to get one too. I've been holding out because my current phone (that he got me since he had one before and thought I "needed" one too) works just fine. He LOVES his iPhone though, and in truth, so do I. Usually, if he gets some kind of technology that he loves, he can't see how I can live without it, so he ends up getting me one when he can't tolerate waiting anymore for me to actually want it.

Okay, so I can see why he wanted me to get one. He downloaded the Twilight series on his phone, and each morning when I would walk or work in the yard before we'd go to work at the office, I would steal his phone and listen to the books. We were always in different places, but we worked it out. We LOVED the books by the way, and can now understand why everyone was so crazed about seeing the movie and took the pains to go to the midnight showing. We're DYING for New Moon to come out! We've watched the trailer about 20 times already.

Anyway, back to the phone. For Hyrum's birthday, when I asked him what he wanted, he said he wanted to get me an iPhone. Get ME an iPhone for HIS birthday. Yeah right. Like I'd let him get me a gift for his birthday. I got him a .22 rifle instead.

But still, it gnawed on him that I didn't have one. Dane got one. Daisha got one. Why wasn't I chomping at the bit to get one! How could I live without one? Well, I hardly ever listen to music. I have a phobia of calling people on the phone. Why do I need something that makes me feel obligated to do both?

Doesn't matter. Guess what Hyrum came home with yesterday.

An iPhone for me of course! I have to say I'm not surprised, and I AM glad I have one. I did steal his a lot. I guess I'm one of those girls that says "Oh, don't order me any ice cream, I'll just have a bite of yours."...and then she hogs it. Maybe HE needed me to have one just so he could use his when he wanted to. He was probably tired of sharing it with me and the kids (though the kids use it a lot).

But...what do think happened once the phone was loaded with Hyrum's apps? Tilly and Hyatt immediately took over the phones and spent the rest of the night on them, and on the way to work this morning, and any other second they can.

If anyone "needed" something, our kids need their own ipod Touch so they can listen to their music, play their games, watch movies, check the weather and play with the flatulence app on their own gadget. I guess Santa needs to start saving.

All about Kiersa Milly

2009-06-05T04:24:00.000-07:00

Kiersa is finally old enough to really play with the big kids. She gets in wrestling matches with Hyatt and tickle fights with Talea. She doesn't seem like a baby anymore since she plays with the big kids. She loves cuddling and kissing Paisli and each time Kiersa gets sick, 2 days later Paisli has the same cold, only worse. I can't keep them separated!

When Kiersa wants something, especially my attention, she YELLS, "Mah--Mmmmmmeeeeeee!!"

She loves riding the horse the kids got for Christmas, and probably rides it more than the big kids do. She rides it all wild and crazy like she's been doing it for years, and she can even get down by herself afterward. She's fearless, just like Talea.

After learning to do stairs back in February, she's been obsessed with them, and she now wants to walk up and down like a big kid. It scares me, but I can't stop her, and with giving in and allowing her to do it, she's become quite good at it. She never crawls up and down, only walks.

Shooting guns must flow in my children's blood. Kiersa goes around picking up sticks, aiming them, then saying, "Boom, boom, boom, boom!!!" Pinecone grenades are the newest weapon they've chosen.

Peek-a-boo is a new favorite game, but books are her favorite toy, especially "The Gruffalo."

Though she contracted chicken pox from her varicella shot, they were so mild and didn't get all scabby and pussy. Thank goodness! I was told they'd be mild if she got them from the shot, and it was true.

Kiersa says bird (bu bu bu), snake (sssss), cow (cow...moooo), kitty (key key key) and makes various noises for many animals (owls, monkeys, elephants and crocodiles are a few), but she calls every other animal cowboy. Cowboy is the name of our miniature pinscher.

Kiersa has a defiant, stubborn streak. If she's angry about something, she'll look directly in your eyes and grab something (paper, my diaper bag, food, whatever) and knock it over or off the counter onto the floor. Then she'll look at you as though she's daring you to get her in trouble. I swear she speaks with her eyes.

My favorite thing about Kiersa is her eyes. They are absolutely spellbinding. It's not just their gorgeous, clear, bright blue color. It's not just her long dark(ish) lashes that curl up so perfectly. It's the way she looks at me...at everyone. It's as though she's studying you and absorbing every tiniest speck of your face and how your mouth moves and what your eyes are expressing. I would love, more than most anything, to have an incredible talent with art, because if I did, I would paint her eyes on a huge canvas. Or maybe I would draw them with pastel chalks. Her eyes say everything. What her eyes say to people make them deserving of being displayed on a wall, via art. Between her eyes, quick smile and chin dimples, she draws everyone in. They make you want to scoop her up and nuzzle her soft, little neck. My kids really watch me intently as I explain things to them, but Kiersa especially seems to watch and soak everything in just a little more than most kids. Maybe that's why she started talking earlier than my other kids.

Memorial Day Camping, and Hy's birthday

2009-06-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

After 4 months of constant sickness, our entire family is well!!! Time to celebrate! We decided to go camping! But it ended up being Cluff style because nothing went as planned and we got started waaaay later than we should have.

Day 1: Friday
Mom arrived to go camping with us.
Decided to camp at Arizona Beach.
Found out Arizona Beach is only a day-use beach now...no camping allowed.
Decided to camp at Humbug Mountain.
Hy had to work much later than planned.
Decided Humbug would probably be full.
Decided to camp at Sunset Bay.
Found out Sunset Bay was full.
Considered Laverne Park, but ended up deciding to camp at work...in the back.
Tried to have a barbeque at Sturdivant park, but the wind froze the kids, so we went back to work.
Built a fire behind the office, had a hot dog roast and s'mores...Hyrum style (use E.L. Fudge cookies instead of graham crackers and chocolate bars...waaaaay better and much less messy).
We camped in the trailer while my parents camped in their minivan. Poor dad. He wouldn't take us up on the offer to use the trailer.

Day 2: Saturday
Slept in.
I painted the front door and window sills of the office while I waited for everyone to wake up.
Had a pancake breakfast.
Went to Shore Acres to see all the flowers in bloom.

Went to the Simpson beach overlook.

Went to the overlook to see the baby seals again.
Split ways from mom and dad.
Went home to sleep for the night.

Day 3: Sunday
Went to church, especially to see the complete change of Relief Society and Primary presidencies. I was released from my 3+ year calling of Primary secretary.
Hooked up the trailer and headed south along the coast. The ocean was unusually blue instead of grey.

Set up camp at Humbug Mountain campground.

Tilly fell out of the car when Hyrum opened the door, but Hyrum caught her face with his foot before it hit the ground. Darn tinted windows.
Fed Stellar's Jays. They swooped into our camp with no fear. Kiersa LOVED it!

Roasted hot dogs again.
The kids raced each other, and Hyatt is only one second slower than Tilly.

Day 4: Hyrum's birthday, and Memorial Day...Monday, May 25th
Made Hyrum breakfast.
Gave him a .22 rifle for his birthday present. I FINALLY managed to surprise him with a gift this year!
Took down camp.
Kiersa pulled a Talea and fell out of the car and scraped up her head when I opened the door.

Went to the Prehistoric Gardens (see last post for photos).
Bought the kids candy sticks to suck into sharp points, like the good ol' days at Olive Pit.

Went to Brookings. Hyrum worked with some customers while I played with the kids at a cool park.

Went to Harris beach and fed the squirrels and seagulls.

Went to Arizona Beach. Drove back home.

Happy Birthday, my love! You just get better all the time and I love, love, LOVE being married to you. I love that you always smile. I love that you're always talkative (so I don't have to be). I love that you're always happy and laugh a lot. I love that you make your family first and foremost in your life and that you choose us over friends and hobbies. I love that you think I'm attractive, even after you've seen up close and personal all my horrors from babies, injuries, surgeries and bad luck. I love that you taught me how to back up trailers so I don't look like a helpless female behind the wheel when I have to back trailers up. I love that you loved being on a semi with me where you were never farther than a few feet away from me at all times for 2 years straight, and you didn't get sick of me. I love that you appreciate my yard work. I love that we never had the "7 year itch" in our seventh year of marriage, or our 8th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd or 1st. I love that I can feel 100% comfortable around you and never feel the need to ever keep a secret from you...in fact I find it impossible to, which is why I've only ever managed to surprise you with a gift twice in our marriage. I love that we know each other so well that we can just look at each other across a room and read in our eyes what we're trying to say to one another, without ever saying a word. I love that even after 10 years of knowing each other, we hate to be apart even if it's only for a few hours. I love that you will watch Jane Austen movies with me. I love that you're a book listener like me, instead of a reader, so I don't have to feel guilty about not finding time to read. I love a million more things about you, but I don't want your head to get too big all in one night, so I'll just tell you one last thing.

I LOVE YOU FOR FINDING ME...FOR KNOWING YOU WANTED TO MARRY ME JUST AFTER MEETING ME...FOR CHASING ME...FOR STEALING ME AWAY FROM MY MISSIONARY...FOR HOLDING ON WHEN I WOULDN'T COMMIT...FOR TAKING ME BACK, AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN, AFTER I BROKE YOUR HEART...FOR STANDING BY ME AT ALL TIMES...AND LASTLY, FOR TAKING ME TO THE TEMPLE. I COULD NEVER IMAGINE AN ETERNITY WITHOUT YOU!

You're my best friend. Happy birthday.

Shake your booty

2009-06-04T22:09:00.001-07:00

Kiersa LOVES to dance! She usually dances with her arms, but will also wiggle her tooshie when she hears music.

I was shocked to find out today how many songs Kiersa knew motions to: Do As I'm Doing, Pat-a-Cake, Popcorn Popping, etc. I guess Talea has been teaching her, because I'd forgotten to (I'm not much of a singer or music person). Every day she shocks me with how advanced she is compared to how Talea and Hyatt were at her age. Not that they weren't smart, but she just seems to have a thirst for knowledge and she just "watches" every move you make.

Just tonight she was tearing apart Hyatt's jammie drawer, so Hyrum called Hyatt and told him Kiersa was getting into his stuff, so Kiersa sudddenly stopped dead in her tracks, threw everything back in, and shoved the drawer shut (it's a huge, heavy drawer too) before Hyatt could run out to stop her, then she glanced back at Hyrum to check for approval. We were laughing so hard!

She even LOVES books and constantly brings me books to read her all day. My other kids weren't into books until much later. I wonder if she'll want to learn to read instead of play with bugs. Tabitha, want to give lessons? Maybe she'll be Talea's opposite! Maybe it's just a phase. Hmmm.

The Land before Talea

2009-06-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

Talea has been dying to go the dinosaur place on the coast, Prehistoric Gardens, and we wanted to take her on her birthday, but we were rained out.

We went on Memorial Day weekend instead. In reality, the place is pretty lame without kids. You walk through a little rainforest place and look at low-budget dinosaur replicas.

But with kids...it's great! At least with our kids, because Talea was totally into it,

and Hyatt was terrified. Kiersa just loved walking on the inclines since her favorite thing right now is walking up and down ramps.

Paisli was just glad to be out of a carseat.

Hyrum had a great time scaring Hyatt, making him think dinosaurs were after him, so I spent my time consoling him and carrying him or pushing him in the stroller (the only hiding spot he could find). Okay, okay. I teased him too. But it was only a plant-eater!

Talea loved breaking the rules with Hyrum by following his promptings to go off the path to get cooler pictures.

We followed the footprints...

...got chased by the flying one...

...and Paisli got licked on the behind.

Okay, so maybe I'm making it look cooler than it was, but we finally went! Been there...done that.

Is it overpriced? Yes

Is it cheesy? Yes

Was it worth going to once? Yes, if you take kids.

Escapee

2009-05-31T21:46:00.000-07:00

15 months old and Kiersa is already escaping from her crib. I had to take her pillow out so she couldn't use its thickness as a step-stool.

She also is trying to potty train herself, much to my shock. She's very aware of when she needs to go, so while we're shopping in WalMart, she'll suddenly stop walking, squat down, stare at us and say "Poop!" Sometimes she'll even beckon me to the toilet. I've never had any of my kids trained before 2 years and 3 months, but Kiersa may be my first.

The pox on you!

2009-05-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

Was it just me and my sisters, or did anyone else say this rhyme as a kid?

I'm telling on you!
Why?
Because you put rocks in my socks and gave me the chicken pox.

Kiersa got 4 shots on the 19th, one of which was the varicella vaccine (chicken pox). On the 28th, about 5 days after every person in my family was healthy at the same time (which hasn't happened since January), Kiersa came down with a fever. It was strange. Only a fever off and on for 2 days. Then I remembered the doctor said that a week or two after the shots she might get a rash (not contagious) , fever, or spots. The spots would be contagious, because they would be chicken pox. On the 30th, the spot appeared.

How much do you want to bet that Paisli will come down with chicken pox in 2 weeks? Kiersa was cuddling her like crazy on Friday, when I didn't realize she had chicken pox yet, but was already contagious.

Boing!

2009-05-31T10:33:00.000-07:00

Some jerk stole 16 springs off of our trampoline during the night a few weeks ago. Now, it sags and bags if you jump too close to those areas. The kids still jump anyway since we have a trampoline enclosure that prevents them from falling in the gaps.

Now where in the world am I supposed to find replacement springs??!!! My mom's barn of course! You can find almost anything in the storage area of a collector of all things used.

Paisli likes to bounce too...in her bouncer. Hyrum put her in it yesterday since she hates lying around looking at the ceiling, and she stayed in long enough to fall asleep in it.

I guess you've noticed that I haven't shaved her head yet. She has the best infant hair of all my kids, so I'm not in a rush. In pictures, it looks a bit like her hair line is very receded, but in person it's not so bad. The dark mullet-like section of hair where her head meets her neck (in the back) is a big irritating to me, but I'm handling it.

This is Hyatt's before and after hair.

Much better in my opinion, though he looked like an entirely different baby since he went from long dark hair to short blond hair. I think Paisli's would do the same because her new undergrowth is far lighter than her longer hair.

Talea and Kiersa had hardly any hair to start with, so no one really even noticed when I shaved their heads.

Here's Talea before and after.

Here's Kiersa before and after.

I usually shave my kids several times and only let it finally grow in when it all looks nice and even everywhere, but I only shaved Kiersa once, and you can tell. Her hair on top is waaaay longer than everywhere else and it get caught in breezes and flaps around. Hyrum commented that she looked like a cancer patient and wants me to trim it, and I would...but it's so fun to grab and play with!

Here's what their hair looked like on their 1 year birthdays.

As far as eyes...
It's funny how Paisli's hair is very auburn, but her lashes and brows look like they might stay reddish,

whereas Kiersa has strawberry blonde hair and her lashes and brows are actually quite dark, considering.

I can't wait to see what Kiersa's and Paisli's hair looks like when it's at it's full thickness and color around 3 years old.

Spring is in the air

2009-05-28T16:24:00.000-07:00

It's "dating" season! I have no qualms with telling Talea how it is. She's so curious and has such a thirst for knowledge and how things work. If she asks me how and why questions, I tell her. So when she asked me why bugs are stuck together lately, I told her they're mating so they can make baby bugs. Well...it's true.

Talea heard me wrong. When she saw these bugs, she caught them, then she exclaimed, "Look! They're dating!" When Hyrum questioned her as to what dating was, she said it's making babies. Okay, dating is out of the question for Talea now without a chastity belt!!!

Awwwww...

2009-05-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

This is why my heart is full.

(This is Paisli sleeping on Hyatt's arm, by the way.)

Walks

2009-05-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

When you have 4 kids, 1 double jogger, and 2 hands, you make do. This is how we end up when I take them on walks (my kids have no walking endurance).

Hair in the hole!

2009-05-19T10:09:00.000-07:00

I found my first unruly nose hair today trying to sneak its way out of my nostril. Of course it was instantly plucked, leaving my eyes watering. I felt violated, having my nose overrun by a long hair. How gross! I guess it's just one more piece of proof that I'm getting old.

What's next? 3 inch eyebrow hairs dangling into my eyes?

Darn it

2009-05-19T10:06:00.001-07:00

Talea's favorite word to emphasize what she's saying: Darn.

Example:
The other day, Talea's friend, Dean, said, "Talea, you're not my girlfriend!" To which Talea replied, "I know, Dean, but you're just so darn cute!"

I think Talea is just so darn cute.

Pollyanna's glad game

2009-05-17T17:13:00.000-07:00

My Aunt Judy once told me that there came a point in her marriage that she prayed for trials in she and her husbands lives since trials make you stronger. Soon after, her husband (a pilot) got in a plane wreck. He survived, but it was definitely a trial, and they grew from it and became stronger in their marriage.

Though I understand the principle, I'm waaaay too chicken to ask for trials, because 1) I don't like trials, tests, or hardships and 2) I like to play things safe and would rather have a life of boring same ol' same ol' rather than an exciting life filled with unexpected challenges and possible horrors.

So even though I've never prayed for challenges/trials to test our marriage or lives, it seems we've been loaded with them nonetheless.

Sometimes I feel like all I do is complain, worry, fret, stress, and plead. My faith waxes and wanes according to my stress tolerance. I wonder what we've done to deserve the mole hill of bad luck that appears to be forming into a mountain right before my eyes as each day passes. I go over the things we should be doing to see if we're leaving something out, and thus "asking for trouble". I go over the things we could possibly do to cast out the demons of bad luck. Will all that's happened to us over the last few months (things I've blogged about and things I haven't), it becomes easy to feel negative about life, get a little blue, wish to go back to easier times (man, I was naive to feel that a college final looming over my head was "stress"), and wish for sleep to come until the good times roll again.

As my little family has mucked along in the quicksand of bad luck, I've realized that focusing on all the negative in our lives has gotten me nowhere. Clinging to this negativity is like clinging to a blade of pampas grass to pull myself out of the quicksand. It's not strong enough to pull me out. It'll break, and just before it does, my hand will slip on it and it will slice my hand open in paper-cut fashion, as pampas grass always does. I've decided that if it's a strong branch I'm looking for, I'd better change my outlook on life and cling to any positive aspects of each negative that kicks us in the rear.

Pollyanna! If you've never seen that movie, why in the world not!!!?? It's a classic Disney. Pollyanna had a game called the glad game that she'd play to distract you from feeling down or grumpy. I'm going to play the glad game with things that I could otherwise choose to view as bad luck.

I'm getting old(er).
I'm glad I'm aging since older women make better lovers.

I'm older than Hyrum.
I'm glad I'm older than Hyrum because wisdom comes with age, so I'll always be smarter than Hyrum! Don't dispute me on this, Hyrum. If momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. :)

I'm getting grey hair.
I'm glad I'm finding grey hairs since the silver sparkles against my brown hair and makes my hair shiny, which is much more interesting than just plain dark brown hair.

My kids have been sick almost nonstop this winter and spring.
I'm glad my kids will now be immune to about 40 strains of viruses since that's about how many times they've been sick these last couple of seasons.

Business is down. Way down.
I'm glad business will be improving since when you're down, there's only one way you can go...up!

We're stuck in a tiny apartment with 7 people and no idea of when our house remodel will be complete.
I'm glad we get this chance to bond so closely. The family that crams together, stays together, right?

I'm finding it difficult to lose the baby weight.
I'm glad I have plenty of food to eat and I don't have to scavenge from a dump like the people I saw on TV.

I have wretched carpal tunnel syndrome that makes it painful to do yard work, fix my hair, apply make-up, hold kids and sleep.
I'm glad I have carpal tunnel as an excuse to not blow dry or curl/straighten my hair because over the last couple of years it's been too painful to fix my hair, so over that time of letting my hair air dry the majority of the time and not styling it or using any hair products, my hair has become the healthiest it's ever been and has more than quadrupled in thickness, and I'm getting compliments on my hair all the time, when that rarely happened previously. I can wear a pony-tail for the first time in my life without it looking spindly and pathetic. I'm also glad that my morning routine is so short because of the lack of styling. I wouldn't have the time for it anyway.

Well, I feel better now. The sun is starting to shine, metaphorically and out my window. I have my little family and that's all that matters. My hair will continue to grey, my waistline will never return to a pre-baby size, business will wax and wane, and life will go on. The only thing that won't change is my love of my family, and their love for me. I'm so grateful for each of my kids and a loving husband who tells me I'm the best friend he could ever have and that he can't stand to be away from me because he misses me so much. Ahhh. Eat your heart out Edward and Bella!

Speaking of Twilight, I listened to the book on Hyrum's phone while I walked in the mornings and all the gaps and strangeness in the movie were filled and explained. I really enjoyed the book, though I was surprised at her use of profanity and sensuality. A good book nonetheless, and now I enjoy the movie much more. We even decided to buy it. For anyone who saw the movie before reading the book, you'll understand why the movie was a little strange to me. I'm glad I saw the movie first though because I think I'd be a little disappointed in the movie if I'd read the book first. The problem now is, I'm anxious to read the next book but the movie's not out yet!! What to do...

Oi, Hyatt!!!

2009-05-17T16:40:00.000-07:00

You know how it takes a kid a little while to be able to speak properly? I used to say w's instead of r's (wudolph the wed nosed weindeew). Tilly couldn't say her l's forever (she said her name as Tawea Wiwa). Hyatt can't say the "or" sound.

Anything with "or" in it is pronounced "oi".

Hoise (horse)
Yoi (your)
Doi (door)
Moi (more)
Oinge juice (orange juice)
Foik (fork)

You get the idea. It's so stinkin' cute I don't want him to change.

He's beginning to pick up Talea's characteristics now that he's older and spends ALL of his time with her. The two are inseparable. Talea insists he goes to preschool with her, so he goes since the moms don't mind. Hyrum took Talea on a Daddy/daughter date to a movie on the Saturday before her birthday, but Hyatt was a little bummed he wasn't going so Talea was quick to invite him along and say she wanted a Daddy/daughter/Hyatt date. Since he's with her so much, he's starting to shed his shyness shell he's been hiding in his whole life. I've taken the kids to the park after work a couple times this week while Hyrum's wrapping things up at the shop, and I've noticed that Hyatt has suddenly decided he's brave enough to run onto the playground yelling things like "hi guys!" to the other children and going up to random kids and just chatting with them on a bench for a while. That is soooo Talea, not Hyatt.

Even though he's picking up her courage to make friends with stranger children, he doesn't have her guts when it comes to bugs. He refuses to hold worms because they're too slimy. Kiersa has a lot of interest in bugs just because they look intriguing, but she follows Hyatt's example and doesn't want to touch them. Looking is enough for her. I thought all my kids would be into bugs, but it looks like Talea is alone with the entomology interest. She could be Daisha's child easily (competitive, tom boy, etc).

When Hyatt gets tired, he doesn't fight it like Talea. He simply states, "I'm tired", then he goes and puts himself to bed. He's very low maintenance, though he does cry more than I'd care for.

Oi!!! Isn't he a cutie?

Paisli Taya

2009-05-16T13:36:00.000-07:00

Paisli is 3 months old now.

I've been thinking of the contrast between when I had Talea and when I had Paisli. With Talea, being my first, she completely consumed my time. I had no other distractions, so I was extremely focused on her and every single milestone. I didn't have any other noses to wipe, no other crying babies to hold, no other kids to feed, no other diapers to change, no other baby books to update and no other bodies to dress. I wasn't working either. Things are VERY different now. It's strange how I was able to adjust to having several kids when one seemed to take up everything I had in me.

With one, I updated the baby book constantly and most everything was brand new. After the fourth, it seems that I'm lucky to notice when something happens, and I never have a pencil handy or time available to write those milestones down and when they happened. Everything is hand-me-downs from someone or somewhere. Ah, the joys of being the youngest!

I haven't had time to blog lately (until the last few days), so I feel like I've neglected Paisli's newness a little too much. Here's a little catch up on what she's been doing in her life during her first months, and some cute pictures I took the other day.

During her 3 months in this life, Paisli has...
-started to laugh, a little (mostly she just holds it in letting out slight bursts)
-smiled constantly
-slept through the night for the past few weeks, never waking earlier than 5:45am.
-discovered her hands
-started scooting around when she's mad and crying and kicking (she was crying on the bed, then I heard her freak out for a few seconds but figured she was just mad since her crying settled a bit, then sounded muffled...I checked on her and couldn't find her...I found her in the crack between our bed and Kiersa's crib, legs flailing straight up in the air, head-down with her face in the pillows that were shoved down the crack...Hyrum said he put her far away from the edge, so apparently she can move quite a bit now...thank goodness she was only stuck in a crack on some pillows and didn't fall off the edge on our hard floor)
-held her head up almost since birth
-cooed and "talked" to us for a while now
-tracks you around the room with her eyes
-always loved showers and only grudgingly tolerated baths
-figured out the power of crying to get attention
-chunked up faster than Tilly and Hyatt ever did, but nowhere near as fast/much as Kiersa did
-decided she'll make a fuss if she's put down and has started to stay awake for a large part of the day, which makes for tired mommy arms. Thank goodness for slings!

Pooped

2009-05-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

Some things in life are just soooo exhausting that they leave you "pooped".

This is how I found Hyatt yesterday. He needed to be wiped, but I was outside and couldn't hear his calls, so he fell asleep. It took me a while to find him because I could hear his breathing, but couldn't find him in any of the beds.

To shave, or not to shave.

2009-05-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

That is the question.

I've always shaved my babies' heads around 2 or 3 months old. I just can't stand when babies have the balding spot in the back, or thinning up front when everything else is full, or when the dark wispy baby hair is being overrun by new blond hair, making the baby look like it got a bad dye job. When my babies get any signs of the above, off goes their hair. It usually grows back really fast because of it, and passes up babies who never were shaved.

Now, Paisli's hair has been bugging me for a while. It's seriously receding, thinning in the back, and her new hair is coming in blondish red, making her baby hair look a bit two toned. It's time for it to come off.

But...I'm a little curious as to what my babies' hair would have looked like if I'd never shaved it, so I ALMOST want to leave it alone.

Almost.

After all, if any of my babies was to break a streak of something, it would be Paisli. She was the only one of my kids to be born without a birthmark. She is my only girl to start sleeping through the night at 2 months old (Hyatt did too, but he's a boy...and Paisli sleeps longer than Hyatt did). My other girls refused to sleep through the night until 9 or 10 months old.

So though I'm a little tempted to leave the hair, I think it'll be gone soon. Sorry to those of you who are a fan of the thinning wispies. I'm not.

This is Paisli's most famous expression. She still hasn't gotten past the scowling stage. I can't remember how long it lasted with my other kids. She definitely has the biggest mouth of all my kids, and she and Hyatt have the biggest eyes. She's a perfect combination of Talea and Hyatt.

Here's her hair (the back and front, with her hair spiked and mohawked). Don't you love the mullet? I don't.

Mischief maker extraordinaire

2009-05-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

First, she found an open marker the kids left within her reach. (You should have seen her face before Hyrum wiped it off.) This was a third offense.

Then she snuck out the back door of the shop and walked along the side of it in the tall grass and rain, soaking her pants and getting all muddy.

What a cute little stinker!

Even with all her mischief, how can anyone resist her adorable smile? She's ALWAYS smiling it seems.

Kiersa loves to flirt with men (with her smile), but does NOT like to be held by them, other than Hyrum or my twin brothers. She will, though, randomly go up to strange women in our office and reach her arms out to be held. Weird.

Suggestive? Maybe.

2009-05-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

This is how Talea always draws people. ALWAYS. Well, they don't always have this long of hair (she has a long hair obsession right now), but the bodies are ALWAYS like this.

A stick body. A belly. Underwear.

Jeremy, our installer, saw one of her pictures, and blushed when he saw the "underwear", not knowing that's what it was. He had to go ask Hyrum what it was, to make sure she wasn't drawing what he thought she was drawing. Poor Tilly. Art is not her greatest subject, but at least she puts underwear on her people! Oh, she started drawing the stomachs while I was pregnant, and she'd draw a little stick figure in my belly. After that, everyone had a round belly. I guess occassionally she outlines clothes on the people, but I had to document this girl she drew in case she changes how she draws any time soon.

You're not imagining this!

2009-05-10T19:26:00.000-07:00

You are witnessing an actual, though rare, event. Hyrum mowing the lawn! He thinks he has mowed the lawn at this house more than I have, but we all know how untrue that is. I am the lawn mower, not him. And that's by choice. I LOVE yard work!

(Note my garden in the background. I finally put one in this year!)

Cruel and unusual punishment

2009-05-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

The barbaric entomologist struck again.

If you can't tell from this picture, this is an enormous fly who suffered terrible torture at the hands of a young girl (can you guess who?). His wings were ripped off first so she could play with him without him flying away, then she pulled the legs off one by one until one leg remained, forcing it to pull it's bulbous body along the counter with that one leg. She pulled the last leg off before I could document the one-legged body-pull. Did you know flies still buzz even without their wings (or legs)? I didn't know that until now.

I learn something new because of Tilly almost every day. I'm telling you, hanging out around Talea is constant deja-vu since she's almost exactly like Daisha was as a child, and since Daisha's my closest-in-age sibling, I spent most of my time with her. Insect torture was her specialty.

Granite sink

2009-05-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

I finally found the pictures I took of our granite sink. They were on my little camera which is usually buried at the bottom of my diaper bag.

They can make a double bowl sink, but I prefer one sink bowl since I don't hand wash dishes in two separate sinks. Makes a great place to bathe a baby, doesn't it (though I've never washed a baby in a sink)? I made sure it's big enough to hide my dishes in when people come over and can see my kitchen from the front door. These sinks are a new thing, and I can't wait until I can use mine! Patience....

Happy Birthday, Talea

2009-05-07T19:52:00.000-07:00

On May 4th, Talea turned 1...

2...

3...

4...

and finally 5!!!

We had to work on Tilly's birthday, so I asked her how she wanted me to fix her hair on her birthday, and she said she wanted a bendy unicorn horn. Hyrum mentioned something about the 4-horned sheep we saw recently, so she changed her mind and decided she wanted her hair fixed like that. So, here she is as a 4-horned sheep.

It was pretty strange, and got in her eyes a lot, so I pulled all her hair back for the remainder of the day.

We had planned to go camping at Arizona Beach for Talea's birthday, but we were rained out, so we postponed it for a later date. We had originally bought an inflatable pool for Hyatt's birthday, but gave it to Talea for her birthday instead since May is warmer than April. Hyrum got her a little pink bat, ball and glove in hopes of getting her enrolled in T-ball, but we were too late for this season. Her favorite presents though, were free!!! Points for the parental team!

The first was an adorable trunk of costume dresses that Dru was no longer interested in, so Tasha gave it to us to give to Talea, and eventually my "little" girls. Talea was in 7th heaven! We took it to work so she can dress up when she wants and take some dresses when she plays with her friends.

The second was a practically new (less than a year old) swingset I found on craigslist.

The sellers wanted to trade the swingset for a trampoline, and though I didn't want to get rid of my trampoline since my kids use it constantly, my friend had a great trampoline that she didn't want anymore since it took up her yard, so I traded her trampoline for the swingset.

That's probably the best luck I've come across in a long, long time.

And last, but not least, Talea got a card in the mail from her Aunt Elisabeth. Elisabeth has a natural knack for knowing exactly what my kids will love. The card had Tinkerbell on it (Talea LOVES fairies) and it sang a song when opened. This card was loved so much by Talea that she went to bed with it that night. Elisabeth also sent her some barrettes for her bangs. A much needed and appreciated gift!

While at work, Talea found a caterpillar, and wanted to get a few pictures with it.

Then she wanted to be a unicorn.

And a bird.

And take her own pictures of rocks she found, and her Grandpa making silly faces.

After work, we got pizza and went bowling with friends.

Hyatt got to sword fight with a boy (with glow sticks)!

I didn't have time to make a cute cake for her, so I baked a German chocolate cake (which didn't come with enough frosting) and made a cherry cheesecake (both of the cakes were from boxes of course). I put trick candles on it, but Tilly was already familiar with the trick since we used them for Hyatt's birthday too.

And that was it! My oldest baby is now 5, and I can say I have 4 kids under 5 (rather than 4 under 4).

Happy birthday, my beautiful little Tilly Weed! You are completely precious to me and my life is so much brighter with you in it! Your love of bugs, princesses, dirt, flowers, imaginary things, discovery, exploration, cuddling and animals are so fun to witness, and nothing makes me happier than discovering all those things with you and your siblings and answering all your "whys" to the world. Though you've learned how to try my patience and have discovered the power of bossing people around since you're the oldest, you are an incredible big sister and such a help to me, and I couldn't have requested a better daughter. I love you more than you can imagine and there is nothing you could do to make me love you less. Happy #5!

Long overdue updates

2009-05-06T07:30:00.000-07:00

So much has happened over the past few weeks, but I haven't been able to blog about them because my life suddenly became a whirlwind and I haven't had any time to sit at the computer. Where do I start? After our Easter Cluff reunion, we came home and went back to work.

We moved Paisli out of our room and she and I started sleeping through the night...well, until 6:30 or 7 am.

But...then she got sick a couple days later and that glorious blessing that all mothers celebrate (a full night's sleep) ended since her phlegm kept waking her (and me) up.

Then Daisha came to visit, and her 35th birthday was during her visit, so we went to the Game Park again (always a blast for us, especially since we saw a pygmy goat just minutes after it's birth),

and to 7 Devils Beach where the wind blew our hair into our ice cream cake and made it too miserable for a bonfire, so we went home to barbeque our dogs,

let the kids bond,

and let Edward experience his first pinata (ghetto style, with an extension cord on a broom handle to dangle it over the railing and a broken toy broom handle for the stick).

Talea was devastated when Tabitha had to leave so she had a hard cry while Hyatt did his kisses goodbye with Tabitha. Talea LOVES to play with girls of any age, but really has very little interest in playing with boys, other than Hyatt.

Also during my blogging hiatus , Kiersa Milly developed a minor addiction to her fuzzy/soft blanket.

I can't break Kiersa's bottle habit. I've never had a problem with getting my other kids off the bottle when they turned 1 because I just put all the bottles away and had only sippy cups. This time though, I have to keep the bottles around for Paisli, so Kiersa keeps stealing Paisli's bottle when I'm not looking (like while she's riding next to Paisli in the car), which makes it pretty impossible to break her of her bottle addiction. I've decided that with how crazy my life is right now and how stressed I get, the last thing I need to worry about is making sure Kiersa is off bottles. Have at it little Milly!

I watched (brace yourself) High School Musical for the first time. I LOVE musicals, but this was one hard movie to sit through. Actually, I didn't sit through the whole thing. I did housework since that sounded like more fun than the torture of that movie. I couldn't stand the overexaggerated facial expressions and annoying acting by Sharpay (who names their kid after a wrinkly dog breed?). I'd be fine never seeing another one again. It was a sad attempt at copying Grease, though the main boy was cute, but young enough that if I was naughty in high school, I could have a son his age. Yikes! I'm getting old.

We moved our travel trailer back to the shop, so we have our driveway back again! Hurray! We were supposed to go camping at Arizona Beach this weekend for Tilly's birthday, but the weather didn't cooperate. It's been postponed for a couple of weekends.

We tilled for a garden, and planted it.

While mowing, I found my mini-me. Hyatt LOVES to mow with me and is convinced that HE keeps the grass short with his bubble mower. Maybe I should kick back for a while and let him take over!

My Dad moved in with us. We warned him of our crazy life, but he wanted to come up here.

He made us his famous salsa and macaroni and cheese. If you've ever had these foods made by my dad, you're drooling right now.

He is going to learn to design and he's helping us get more organized and productive so our business will hopefully survive this economic/building plummet. His move means we now have Kiersa's crib and Paisli's bassinet back in our room, and we brought another twin bed up in the living room so Dad could sleep in the kid's twin bed. We're packed like sardines, but it's nothing we're not used to (remember, Hy and I lived in a semi truck for a couple years when we first got married). Now, is Dad used to this cramping? Maybe. His house was a lot bigger, but my mom is a collector of...well, everything. I hope he feels at home and that our long flight of stairs and being away from mom aren't too rough on him.

Tilly turned 5!!! I can't believe she's old enough for school! What's even better is that I no longer have 4 kids under the age of 4. I'll have to post about the big day later.

Hyrum Netflixed High School Musical 2 and 3 (despite my protests), and I've been dying! I did more housework to take my mind off it. My dad watched these and actually found them tolerable. Ugh. Hyrum seemed to enjoy every minute of them! How in the world do we coexist so well with such differing movie tastes!?

I started walking in the morning and am thoroughly enjoying the morning light. The donkeys down the road had an adorable baby, and the Canadian geese are back with their goslings. I love walks!

Paisli has started sleeping through the night again (for the last 3 nights), but her nose started getting runny again today, so I have a feeling the luxury sleep I've been getting will end tonight.

The Homeshow!!!

2009-04-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

The weekend of April 17-19 was the annual homeshow. This year we had to wow the crowd so we threw out a Hail Mary for business and had a lot of displays. Three are going in my house someday, and 3 were just other displays for our shop.

Here's the whole booth. The local granite shop was also part of our display, so several of our countertops were granite or quartz.

This display is always our most popular. People love knotty alder around here. This is our hilarious installer, Jeremy. Kiersa flirts with him with her smiles, but she won't let him hold her. She loves women, but is very suspicious of men.

This bathroom vanity was specifically designed by Hyrum for my master bathroom in my big house (once it's done). The wine rack will house rolled towels, and I'll have a makeup area where I can sit with a mirror closer to my face so I don't have to leave over the counter anymore. Hallelujah! The glass up top came from the windows we took out of our house, so it's old wavy glass. The countertops are Cambria (quartz) remnants from the granite guys. Just ignore the unfinished toekicks in our displays. We didn't put all of them on for the show.

This display is part of my future kitchen once the house is done. I can't wait to have a raised dishwasher! No more bending! We chose a different granite for the countertop that will disguise dust and sticky fingerprints. I also will have a granite sink made from the same granite as the countertops. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of it!

Here is my kitchen with my island (once my house is done). The granite on my island is too dark...it shows everything! I'm hoping we can sell it and put different granite on it instead, like the stuff on my other cabinets.

This is part of a cherry hutch display.

And this is a hickory vanity. We were selling some vessel sinks for a guy, hence the crazy colors.

Since we had the kids with us during set up, we entertained them with Ratatouille. Dallas and Weston came up to help us.

The homeshow went well and we got several leads from it. Here's to hoping that business picks up!

Gifts for Tiana

2009-04-24T08:29:00.000-07:00

Okay, Hyrum. You're always asking me what you should get me for gifts, and I can never think of anything when you ask me, so I'm starting this post to compile a list of things I'd like to have someday. You're my most faithful blog reader, so I know you'll see this, and you can refer back to it when you need it. I'll just keep adding to it whenever I think of things.

Here are some gift ideas, in no particular order. I'll just list them as I think of them.

-a nice set of hand gardening tools
-a pot that's smaller than our large one, but bigger than the medium one. Also hard anodized.
-any of the movies I highlighted on the TuffCluff movie list (especially What's Up Doc?, Paleface,
-anything from the DeMarle catalog that I marked
-the liquid measuring cups from Pampered Chef that you look down at, or anything from their catalog that I marked
-"O" weights for pattern cutting

Hideous Hernia

2009-04-24T07:36:00.000-07:00

The doctor assures me Paisli's hernia is quite small and should resolve on it's own by the time she's 1. Apparently things didn't close up inside, instead leaving a small hole, so when Paisli cries or tightens her tummy, her intestines push against her belly button, thus pushing it out like this.

Now that's an outie!! But on a different note, look how chubby Paisli's getting! She was 12 pounds even (75th%) at her 2 months appointment on the 22nd.

She's my only child to have a hernia, so it's a bit shocking for me to see each time I change her. I mean really, I've never seen one before in person, so each and every time I see it, I'm a bit jolted, though I'm slowly getting accustomed to the protrusion. Hopefully it goes away on it's own.

Evolution of a smile

2009-04-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

Pretty Paisli. Note the receding hairline. I'll be shaving her head soon.

Cluff Clan Unite!!!

2009-04-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

For the first time in 2 1/2 years, the Cluff clan gathered together again. It was Easter weekend. We total 35 people now, but with that size of family, it's impossible to get every single last one of us together anymore, but this time we got close. We were only missing Scott (Melanie's husband) and Ammon & Kaylynn (Dane's oldest kids). Scott was in North Carolina working, Ammon was in Arizona on a mission, and Kaylynn was in Utah at college. So with the 32 that were able to gather, we packed in a lot of fun in a short time.

Dad and Mom (and Dad's famous bug eye),

Dane's family,

Dallas and Weston,

and Shira and Sophia (in case you've been under a rock for the last couple of years, Jeremy is no longer part of the family)

all live in Ashland, so they were already in town when everyone arrived. Everyone else made the trek back to the homestead sometime during the weekend.

Nial arrived from the Seattle, WA area with his fiance, Elle, on Thursday night.

Tasha and her family arrived from San Diego, CA just behind us on Friday night.

Daisha and her family flew in from London, UK

and pulled up with Mel and her family who flew in from Fayetteville, NC on Saturday afternoon.

Hyrum and I arrived from Myrtle Point, OR with our family on Friday night.

We started off the reunion by going to the neighbors house for a massive Easter egg hunt.

Then we went back to the house for biscuits and gravy (Cluff style).

After everyone had arrived, we went to visit Dane's family at their new house in Talent.

I LOVE it! It's got amazing curb appeal, which they deserved after their houses in Ashland and Coquille.

We colored Easter eggs and took a few fun pictures.

Here are the 5 sisters in the family, together again. To be fair, some wanted to shower and some wanted make-up, but we took the picture anyway just in case it was our only chance during the weekend. We fought over who had to sit on the ends since that always makes you look fatter.

Here we are again later, with showers and make-up. Ha! The skinniest ones had to stand on the ends! They just happen to be the oldest and youngest, since we're standing in age order.

4-5 years ago, all 5 of us sisters had children together in just over a year. Here they are in age order.

From left to right it's Joseph (Melanie's), Talea (mine), Dru (Tasha's), Tabitha (Daisha's), and Sophia (Shira's). Isn't it so fun that all of us had babies together? It wasn't planned either! It was purely coincidental. I found out I was pregnant, then Melanie confessed she was pregnant too (she was due 2 months before me), then Tasha found out she was pregnant, then Daisha got married (just after Talea was born) and quickly became pregnant, then Shira got married right after that and became pregnant. From oldest to youngest, they are 1 year and 3 months apart in age. The funny thing is, each of these kids is the last-born of my sisters, but Talea is my first-born, and I have 3 more kids now after her! Our 5 kids would all gravitate to each other to play since they're all the same age, and that was WAY too cute! Adorable little Joseph was the only boy, but the girls played with him just the same. Hyatt liked having Joseph to play with along with Dyson.

Since we got a picture of all the girls (we're all 2 years apart until Shira...she's almost 9 years younger than me), we had to get one of the boys.

This picture is typical of our childhood: the girls all together with their older brother goofing off around them. Bet you didn't know Dane could still ride a unicycle all these years later!

Then we got a picture of the girls with the sister-in-laws included (Elle isn't quite in the family yet, but she's engaged to Nial, so she counts now)

and a few of the boys with the brother-in-laws included (minus Scott).

And of course, one with the girls and mom, since she calls us her Barbies

and some of all the siblings.

(This is in age order: Dane, Melanie, Natasha, Daisha, Tiana, Shira, Nial, Dallas, Weston)

It was so much fun to be all together again! Such a rare treat! It's hard to make that happen with 9 siblings who are spread across the world, not just a state.

We had a traditional hot dog roast down by the creek on Saturday night. It wouldn't be a Cluff gathering without blackening an oversized dog over a pile of garbage and wood debris that mom's collected.

On Sunday, it was a triple occassion day. It was Melanie's birthday, Easter, and Paisli's blessing day. All of my siblings, even the ones who don't go to church, all joined us at church for the blessing, and that made it extra special for Hyrum and I. We've blessed all of our babies, except for Hyatt, in Ashland in order to have the most possible amount of family present with the least amount of travel. It's funny that Paisli was blesssed on Easter, because Talea was also blessed on a holiday: Fourth of July.

The blessing dress and bonnet Paisli is wearing is a family heirloom, which is why it is an aged white. My grandma gave it to my mom for Tasha's blessing, so Tasha wore it, then Daisha, me, Shira, and then Melanie's daughter (Kira), and then my daughters (Talea, Kiersa and Paisli). It'll keep getting passed on too.

Although Paisli seems fond of scowling all the time right now, she does smile a lot too.

We ate a traditional English Easter dinner that was soooo delicious. Daisha and Edward were the main cooks, with my dad and Melanie assisting. Edward even made his famous English roasted potatoes. I felt bad that the whole weekend I wasn't that much help to anyone when it came to cooking or doing Easter bunny stuff because I was constantly feeding a baby or wrangling my other babies, so things were done before I ever got a chance to step in. Oh, I did color a couple of eggs. My sisters are just so efficient about getting things done that it didn't seem to matter much anyway. My Johnson sisters are just like that too: completely organized and on top of every bit of planning and fixing. I stick out like a sore thumb in both families since I STINK at planning and I never seem to have enough time away from kids to get things done. Did I mention none of my kids were planned? That's how bad I stink at planning. Hyrum and I are last minute kind of people and fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants types.

So with Easter dinner eaten, and plans for Hyrum to pack up and leave in place, we finally gathered everyone together for a family picture. Now THAT will get your blood pressure up! It's tough getting 16 kids and all the adults to get in one spot and stand still and look at a camera! Luckily some relatives stopped by for a visit and they were able to take the picture so Melanie could be in the family picture for once (she's our photographer since she's a professional). AND, I finally got a picture of Kiersa's adorable baby teeth (she already chipped a bit of one front tooth somehow).

When it came time for Hyrum to leave, I about cried. I'm never away from Hyrum, so the thought of leaving him, or him me, brings me to tears. Plus, I'd have to take care of all the kids for several days without his help, and hook up the trailer and haul it home without his help, and I didn't want to be without him. I felt very torn because I wanted to be with my family still, but I didn't want to be without Hyrum. Then, I realized that Tasha was leaving in the morning anyway, Nial was leaving Tuesday morning, Mel would soon be going up to her mother-in-law's house, and Daisha was planning on coming to my house in Myrtle Point in a few days, and I see the rest of my siblings regularly. So then I didn't feel so guilty about leaving everyone. I told Hyrum I was going with him, so we downloaded the pictures off everyone's cameras, gave our goodbyes, and headed home.

Just in time too, because Kiersa came down with diarrhea the next night that made a mess in her bed (I'm so glad she wasn't sleeping in my trailer for that), Tilly came down with a bit of the same case, Paisli was getting sick, and Hyatt was still on antibiotics so he needed to settle down and not be playing so hard every day. I'm thinking that the sickness will never end. I can't remember what it feels like to have everyone healthy. Actually, during the weekend, I think I went almost 2 whole days without having to wipe a nose (after over 2 straight months of wiping at least one nose each day), and then it all started up again with Kiersa, Paisli and Hyatt.

Anyway, Easter was fun, and since it will probably be another couple of years before we can all gather together again, I'm glad we had the chance to play for the short time we did.

Oh, I finally gave in and bought matching outfits for my girls (I used to think that was kind of corny to do, but I think it's fun now). Gotta love the rainbow retro dresses! I actually found one in each of their sizes! Shocking, but true.

A few precious days with Nana

2009-04-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

Since John and Maren decided to stay in Utah, John and Linda (aka Nana...Hyrum's mom) came back to our place the week before Easter to return our van and trailer. They arrived Monday afternoon (4/13) and stayed just until Wednesday evening (4/15).

My kids rarely get to see their Nana. Usually only once, maybe twice, a year. Every time she comes is such a special treat for our family. Any gifts are loved and treasured, and (dare I say) viciously guarded, even by the parents. Can you blame us? We don't get regular Nana spoiling, so we cling to every last bit of attention and/or gifts we're afforded. Linda has to be the most loving, involved Grandma to her grandkids that I've ever met. She pours baby gifts onto her daughters and makes an effort to travel long distances to see the grandbabies who live far away. No one comes close to her involvement and willingness to be a part of every little moment she can in her grandkids' lives. She was there for Kiersa's birth, which is probably why Kiersa turned out to be the first red-headed child/grandchild. She must have been so excited that Nana was finally able to be a part of something so special in our family that she wanted to please her by granting her wish of having a red-headed grandchild. We always feel sad that our kids don't get the opportunity to see her weekly or more like the rest of the Johnsons out in Utah, but the good thing is that each of her visits are looked forward to with far more anticipation than if we saw her frequently.

Even though Nana had been out to visit just after Paisli's birth, the kids were bursting with excitement to see her again so quickly. I was told she'd be arriving sometime in the afternoon, so when it got to be around that time, I told the kids she'd be arriving soon. Talea and Hyatt decided they wanted to eat their lunch at the top of the stairs so they'd be sure to see Nana as soon as she pulled up. Time passed, and Nana didn't arrive. Finally, exhaustion overcame the kids and they all fell asleep. Tilly, unwilling to leave her post on the stairs for fear of missing her Nana, fell asleep on the nasty entry rug. Nana and John had to step around her in order to get in the house. Now, if falling asleep on a hard landing rather than a soft bed doesn't illustrate how much Tilly loves her Nana, I don't know what does.

When I scooped Tilly up off the stairs to take her to bed, she woke up enough to notice that her Nana was there, and she smiled an enormous smile and quickly made her way to Nana's arms. Hyrum came home shortly after that and we just hung out together again. The last time Nana was there, it was pretty crazy since there were so many people together and I was going in for surgery. This time around, it was nice and calm, and Nana was able to take our kids a few places alone and get some good quality time in with them. She took them to Bandon to see the ocean...

She watched them jump on the trampoline...

And she took Talea and Hyatt to go see a movie: Monsters vs Aliens. They LOVED it, despite the boring reviews it got. They thought it was so neat that Nana bought them candy and popcorn. I was careful to make sure the chapstick she bought Hyatt was out of his pocket before I washed his clothes, but I didn't know about the sneaky bag of chocolate rocks in his jeans pocket until I was taking the clothes out of the dryer and saw melted chocolate all over the place. Oh well. Nothing a little spray 'n wash and another cycle through the wash couldn't fix. You know how I mentioned that my kids treasure their Nana gifts? Nana bought them each their own chapstick and they wouldn't let those chapsticks out of their sight for days! They aren't quite so obsessed anymore, but they still know whose color is whose and they use them regularly.

Nana also took pictures of the kids showing off for her in the yard (we made a balance beam for the kids out of some scrap lumber).

We took the kids to an Easter primary activity on Wednesday and while we were there, we found out Nana had to unexpectedly leave. So though the visit was short, it was very sweet and much appreciated! Thanks, Nana! We love you!

It's contagious!

2009-04-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

The jinx has either spread to the city of Coquille, or we just have our jinx because we work and used to live in Coquille. Here are the crazy/creepy things that have happened in Coquille within the last 6 months, as I've heard them.
1. The track coach got arrested for sleeping with several of her athletes (over the past few years). Don't feel too bad for her husband because he slept with some of the girls. Just feel bad for their poor little kids.
2. A mother on the graduation committee stole the graduation money, gambled it at the casino, and lost, so she went to Roseburg and robbed a bank, and got arrested.
3. 2 policemen got fired. One for stealing money out of the evidence locker, and the other for serving alcohol to minors at a party and propositioning those minors.
4. A group of teen boys hid in the Safeway in Coquille until closing time then robbed the store and stole cigarettes and some other stuff. They were all caught.

I realize that this kind of stuff happens all the time in big cities, but this is all in a town with a population of around 4,000. Pretty scary!

Speaking of naughty

2009-04-21T21:03:00.000-07:00

My favorite use of "naughty" that Hyatt has:

Hyrum took Hyatt to the bathroom at Walmart where the toilets flush automatically, and with all the movement they made putting a seat protector down and such, the toilet flushed while Hyatt was sitting on it. If you know Hyatt, you know he has sensitive ears and can't tolerate loud noises, so when the toilet flushed with its 90 mph roaring flush, Hyatt's face paled with fear and he tried to jump off. When the flush was done, he sat back down, but again, the toilet had sensed motion so it flushed yet again, this time while he was mid-business...almost putting Hyatt in tears. Amid his panic, he scolded the vile porcelain offender with "Naughty toilet!!!"

That'll teach it.

To sum up...

2009-04-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Hyrum has a penchant for writing little messages on the bottom of our kids feet. Hyatt can't stand it and feels as though he's been violated with a tattoo. He'll protest through the whole message, then when he's released, he'll scowl at Hyrum, shake his pointer finger and proclaim, "Naughty Daddy!" He calls things naughty all the time. If he bonks his head on the counter, he'll say, "Naughty counter!" Whatever offends or injures him is immediately and audibly labeled as naughty.

When Hyrum writes on Talea's feet, she doesn't mind. As long as it's not visible to other people, it doesn't bother her. After Hyrum wrote "I love Talea" on her foot, Tilly wanted a matching message on her other foot, but since Hyrum was working and was thus distracted, he didn't get to it. Talea sat there with her foot available and after a few seconds, she fussed, "Hurry up! Time's wasting!" She cracks me up. I keep forgetting to write down the funny things she says, but this was one that amused me.

Our weekend in Ashland was great. I ended up coming back with Hyrum since I couldn't imagine wrangling my kids without him, I forgot my medicine, I didn't want to drive the trailer back myself very bad, and I'll be seeing Daisha in a few days again anyway. Mel is going up to her mother-in-laws house in a couple days, Tasha was leaving and Nial was leaving in a day or so. Plus, Paisli started getting sick again. It was just time to head home. But, we got tons of pictures which I'll post later. It was a nice weekend to get my mind off of reality. Just what the doctor ordered!

Is there an end in sight?

2009-04-09T14:12:00.000-07:00

Now, I know I said when it rains it pours, in regards to all the medical trauma we've had lately. Well, I lied. In our family, when it rains, it hurricanes. Since early February, there hasn't been one day where every member of our family has been healthy. There has been at least one person coughing, battling a runny nose, or worse. I feel physically, emotionally, and financially drained from the stress of all this poor health, and other issues. Before this cold season, I had never taken my kids in to the doctor because of a cold/flu/ear infection. I've been in there almost nonstop...to the point where all I have to do is mention my name on the phone and they know exactly who I am and remember all of my kids and their recent problems.

My sister commented to me that surely our sickness couldn't last until Easter when my ENTIRE Cluff family (except for Mel's husband, Scott, and my niece and nephew, Ammon and Kaylynn) will be gathering in Ashland for the holiday. I guess she didn't figure the Jinx into the equation. Maybe it should be upgraded to a curse!

Last night, just before midnight, Hyatt was bawling about his ear hurting. It's been hurting him off and on for days, but he acts fine, other than his snotty nose and cough. He runs and plays like nothing is the matter, then suddenly his ear bothers him. I held off on taking him to the doctor because we're drowning in medical bills from the last two months (baby birth, surgery, sickness), and I was hoping it would just resolve on it's own. After his heart-wrenching sobs last night, I took him in early this morning.

The verdict? Double ear infection and sinus infection. Both spurred on from RSV, the doctor said. Also, he most likely has swollen adenoids that will need to be removed so he doesn't have sleep apnea and he won't snore anymore and will be able to breathe properly for once in his life. She figures all of my kids had RSV back when Paisli had it, but only Paisli ended up in the hospital. I'm feeling like there can never be a light at the end of the tunnel. I'd cry, but my tears were already spilled all day yesterday from "other" stress. I feel like Heavenly Father must be trying to refine us with the hottest fire he can muster right now because the economy is killing the construction and finance industries, thus putting a choke hold on our business, our house remodel is at a virtual standstill, we have constant sickness and doctor visits, and "other" stresses that aren't completely resolved. I'll either gain or lose 20 pounds from this ongoing nightmare. With my Jinx, it'll be the gaining I'm sure. Actually, I'll probably get pregnant, since that ALWAYS comes before a pregnancy for me, thus adding to my stress since it would be less than a year behind Paisli. Anyone have a chastity belt I can borrow? I doubt there's a form of birth control that could survive the Jinx.

I'm hoping that a week spent with my long-lost siblings will be the antidote to our hurricane and will be the pick-me-up that carries us away from reality...at least until we have to come home and face it again. I just wish Hyrum could stay the whole time with me. We're blessing Paisli on Easter Sunday in Ashland while all my family is there, so if you live in the area, you're welcome to attend. It's at 10:00 on the 12th in the Ashland ward building.

On the upside of the business front, the homeshow is April 17-19, so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we get slammed with business after that. Drowning in kitchen plans is far better than praying for some to come in.

I can't wait until I can look back at this post and say, "Oh yeah, those were tough times. I'm so glad they're over and things are back to normal." A girl can dream, can't she? Good thing I have such a great husband and kids to keep me smiling each day. I could live in a "van down by the river" and still be happy as long as I had them with me. Too bad we couldn't just hop in a semi and make some bank and see the country again, this time with our kids. Ah, the good old days. Family truly is the most important thing in this life. I'm so glad mine is eternal!!! In this murky fog, they are my shining light.

Age issues

2009-04-06T14:17:00.000-07:00

On the morning of Hyatt's birthday, he was really grumpy (from being sick and getting woken up earlier than he wanted). We told him it was his birthday, and that he wasn't 2 anymore. He was 3 now now! Yeah! That set off a full on grouch-fest with Hyatt. He's someone who get attached to things and doesn't like to change. I swear he was meant to be Tabitha's twin brother with his "change" issues.

He had a hard time transitioning into nursery (he just barely started going full-time without a parent only months before he turned 3).

He doesn't like his things used by others, even if he's not using them.

He doesn't like me to drive our Sequoia if Hyrum is with us because he thinks I belong in the passenger seat when we're all together.

He doesn't like me to give things away that he recognizes, even if we're not using them anymore. I hope he doesn't end up a pack rat!!

He knows what clothes and toys and blankets belong to which kid, and they can NEVER be used by someone other than the owner (unless it was his idea) without him getting a grumpy look on his face and doing a little pout.

And now, he did NOT want to give up being 2 yet. He just wasn't ready. For hours, he was completely unwilling to age. When we got to the shop, and the anger issues were really old and annoying and more than we wanted to deal with anymore, we got his Play-Doh out for him and told him that on the side it said it's for ages 3 and up (it really does say that) and that he could play with it if he was 3. Instantly, being 3 was just fine with him and he has no problem with it anymore. The only thing is, he can't remember he's 3. He remembers he's not 2, so he'll tell you he's 4. Great. It took Tilly 6 months to remember she was 4. How long will it take Hyatt to remember his age?

Party, Part 2

2009-04-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Today was such gorgeous weather! Perfect for taking the kids to the West Coast Game Park! First, we took advantage of the weather and I mowed while Hyrum went crazy with the weed-eater. He rototilled for a garden too. Though it was hard to pry ourselves away, we cleaned up and took off for the Park.

We finally arrived at the West Coast Game Park at 1:30, giving us 3 hours to play with the animals. When you first arrive there, you get bombarded with animals that are all trying to get your ice cream cone full of animal food.

I thought it was interesting that Hyatt wanted to come here again, because the last time we came here when he was 17 months, he was freaked out by the animals all crowding around. This time, he did much better, as long as I was close enough that he could grab my hand for courage if needed. Notice his hands balled up in fists when he's nervous.

The nursery is always popular because they get to hold ferrets, albino skunks and opossums. The freaky, bulgy/cross-eyed opossum died so we didn't get funny pictures with it. As you look at these pictures, keep an eye out for Kiersa's 6 adorable teeth. Oh, the opossum is yawning, not getting angry.

The kids got to pet a lot of things, including kids (baby goats), llamas (who were terrified of Kiersa), emus, and the world's largest rodents.

There were some freaky four-horned sheep,

adorable wallabies with babies in their pouches (click on it to see the baby peeking out),

and a Cluff favorite: the groundhog.

I just love pictures of my kids lined up together. I can't wait until Paisli is standing there with them instead of her weight being strapped to my aching back. The baby stage is fun, but it's not my favorite stage. It's fun having so many ages of kids right now because I can experience several stages at once and not feel longing for a stage that is gone forever.

Hyrum caught the baby goat for the kids to pet, but in doing so, a big goat butted him in the rear end while he was bending over. It was pretty funny to watch. Sadly, I didn't catch it on video.

We got in the car and Paisli started screaming. I had just fed her, so I gave her a bottle. Kiersa, sitting right next to Paisli, felt betrayed that she didn't get the bottle and started a fit of her own, crying "bobbow! bobbow!". Poor thing is having a hard time transitioning out of the baby stage with a new one constantly reminding her of baby comforts. Our sympathies won us over and the sippie was traded for a bottle.

After fun with animals, we thought we'd let the kids play at the park. The elementary school in Bandon has a really neat wooden castle, so Hyrum played with the big kids there while I took the sleeping babies to a garden nursery to get ideas for my landscaping.

Overall, I'd say Hyatt's birthday was a blast for everyone, not just him. I'm looking forward to Tilly's now because she wants to go camping at Arizona beach and visit the dinosaurs at the Prehistoric Gardens. That's much more fun than a kiddie birthday party, for me anyway!

Happy Birthday, Hyatt

2009-04-03T20:14:00.000-07:00

Hyatt turns

1...

2...

3!!!

3 years ago today I gave birth to a troll, I mean baby boy, who thankfully turned out to be such an adorable boy! His personality is completely different than my girls. He's quiet, shy, extra loving and quick to obey. He always says things like "Mommy, guess what. I love you." He expresses his affections easily and makes everyone feel special. He plays well with others and is rarely bossy (unlike his big sister that he's so attached to). I feel bad that he doesn't have any brothers to play with, but he melts my heart so easily that I'm kind of glad that I can tell him he's my favorite little boy (rather than how I have to tell my girls they're my favorite oldest daughter, or middle daughter, or youngest daughter). He's not just sweet to his family. He melts EVERYONE'S hearts, and they tell me so. I get stopped everywhere I go by people telling me he's so cute, and anyone who spends any time around him gets an "I love you" or 10 from him and cuddles and cuteness. I don't know that he irritates anyone because he's very sensitive and is careful to be a good boy.

This year for his birthday, he wanted to go to the West Coast Game Park in Bandon to see the animals and also play at Outdoor In (a small scale, wanna-be Chuck E Cheese). Sounded good to me instead of planning a party! Since he's only 3 and has enough toys already, I checked craigslist and found a few simple gifts for him. We found a bunch of brand new-looking name brand clothes for super cheap that he's been needing really bad, so we got him those, and he LOVED getting them! He had a blast trying each thing on and he'd say "Thanks!" when we told him they were cute. The bonus is the lady we bought the clothes from is going to save all her hand-me-downs for Hyatt now. We also found a cheap, huge canister of Play-doh and accessories that was lightly used one time. We actually bought him a kiddie-pool from Costco and bought the Play-doh for Talea since she's a Play-doh addict, but since the weather is a bit questionable still, we swapped the gifts ahead of time. They'll share them anyway. So you know what Tilly's getting in a month!

Poor Hyatt is still sick, and Hyrum woke him up before he was ready (DO NOT wake up Hyatt before he's ready unless you want to deal with a grouch for hours), so for pretty much the whole day Hyatt was either scowling, crying or whining. You could tell he just didn't feel that good yet. We had to go to work today, so having the Play-Doh there helped a little bit to cheer Hyatt up. They spread it all out on the island and had a blast.

Maybe this scowl reflects Paisli's opinion on not getting to play with the other kids yet.

After work, Hyatt wanted to go to Outdoor In, so we ran a few work errands in Coos Bay, then we went there for dinner and playing. We ate the cheesiest, stringiest pizza I've had in my life, then the kids went wild.

Again, Paisli missed out. Next year, Tayli!

We stayed for hours and hours until the littlest ones were dead tired. Way easier than a planning-challenged mom trying to plan a party, and he enjoyed it as much, if not more!!

Such a cutie!!!

I had Hyrum take a couple of pictures while we were there of two of my favorite baby items that I highly recommend to anyone.
First, my sling. It's called a Maya Wrap, and Tasha introduced me to it. I have 2 since Tasha gave me hers now, and I use them CONSTANTLY. I couldn't survive at work without it. Paisli wants to be held constantly, so to keep her quiet for customers and to keep me hands-free, I just wear her! When we're out and about, I carry her in the sling, and Hyrum carries her in the baby Bjorn. It makes for easy breastfeeding too. By the way, even while nursing, I've shrunk at least 2 bra sizes since having Paisli, thus making my wonderful bras I blogged about not so wonderful anymore. That didn't happen with Kiersa. No wonder Paisli's staying petite and I have to supplement her with 2-3 bottles of formula a day now just to keep her satisfied. It's amazing to me how a bottle can turn a fussy nursing baby into a quiet, content one. It's wonderful!

Second, I love this Bebe Au Lait Hyrum's mom gave me! It gives stylish privacy while nursing without having to use a blanket that constantly falls off your shoulder. I never had one with my other kids, and I wish I had! It's wonderful! Every nursing mom needs one.

The top of it even allows you to look down at the baby while you're nursing and still be covered. Genius invention!

I must have NO shame

2009-04-03T11:39:00.000-07:00

I hope at least a few people get some amusement out of this post, rather than get disgusted...yet again.

Everyone should have a daughter as "considerate" as Talea. The other night she said family prayers and asked "Please help Mommy's tummy to get shorter so it doesn't look like a bum bum anymore." Hyrum and I couldn't help but bust up laughing after that. Previously she prayed for her Daddy to get skinny and Hyrum suspected I had coached her on that one, but after Tilly prayed for her Mommy to lose tummy weight, I think Hyrum's convinced that she just thinks these things up on her own. What a helper! Isn't the faith of a child supposed to be really powerful? I hope hers works for us!

In case her prayer baffles you, I'll give you some background. Now that I have so much excess skin and fat from 4 kids born in my late twenties and early thirties (which if you've had your kids at that age you understand how much harder it is to drop the weight afterward), when I try to squeeze my gut into my SIZE 12 (oooohhh Nelly!) pants, it buckles my tummy into 2 bulging...well...cheeks. It looks like a rear end! I guess it didn't help that I stacked Paisli's baby weight on before I had a chance to lose Kiersa's. Don't I have such great excuses for my pudge?! If I could exercise as good as I make up excuses, I'd be 140 by now! Anyway, I showed Talea my tummy-butt, so then she was "thoughtful" enough to remember it in her prayers. She cracks me up.

Here's a little something to sharpen your mental picture and to scare you awake at night.

The saddest part is that I wore these jeans as my "fat" jeans 2 weeks after I had Talea, and there were no bulges. In all fairness, I am sitting in a slouch to get my belly to do this, but it's funny all the same, and sad that I have this much bulge just 3 kids after Talea. Ah, the sacrifices.

I keep thinking I'd look more presentable if I just went up a size, but my jeans fit everywhere except for my belly. If I could just buckle down and stop finding such undeniably excellent excuses for why it's too difficult to exercise, I just might save myself the misery of looking at my rear in a store's full length 3-paneled mirror and actually fit comfortably back into my "skinny" clothes that have been quietly hibernating in storage bins for years. Hmmm. Crunches anyone?

Mommy quiz about Paisli

2009-04-02T18:06:00.000-07:00

1. WAS YOUR FOURTH PREGNANCY PLANNED? No way!!! Aside from sort of planning Talea, none of our kids have been planned. I never got pregnant before my previous baby was a year old, and I never used any birth control, so I didn't think I'd get pregnant so soon. Kiersa was 3 months old when I got pregnant with Paisli.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes.

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Shocked! Sort of surprised/sort of not. Concerned. Scared. Happy.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? Never in a million years.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? A couple months from turning 32.

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? My carpal tunnel was getting really annoying at night, and even though I was running (trying to lose baby weight from Kiersa), I was gaining weight.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? Hyrum. I got up early on Father's Day and took a test since my carpal tunnel had been so bad that night. It was positive, so I took it to Hyrum. I put the test on his pillow and woke him up by saying, "well, you did it again!" He opened his eyes, saw the test, looked at it, then said, "oh no." We weren't mentally prepared to be pregnant so soon while still in our tiny apartment. We had actually thought we were done having kids.

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? Sort of. It was really fun having a surprise with Kiersa, but it's always such a temptation to find out the sex. We got to our ultrasound and told the tech not to tell us, but by the end the suspense was killing us so we told him to check it but not tell us, and we'd see if we could tell. We could tell it was a girl and the tech said it definitely was.

9. DUE DATE? Feb. 23, 2008. A year and one week exactly later than Kiersa's due date.

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? Not at all.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Nothing in particular.

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? My varicose vein in my leg that started with Talea and worsened with each baby.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR FOURTH CHILD'S SEX? Girl.

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? Yes and no. I wanted a boy so that Hyatt would have a brother that wasn't too far away in age from him, but I wanted a girl since this baby would be so close in age to Kiersa, and they would most likely be really close friends. I was fine either way.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 24 lbs. Started at 155, ended at 179.

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes. Maren threw a combined one for Teresa, Meghan, Olga and me at Thanksgiving.

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew because Hyrum suggested it to Maren since 3 girls in the family were pregnant and we'd all be together. I caught Hyrum talking to Maren about it so he spilled the beans.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? No. It was fine. It was my most uncomfortable pregnancy, but nothing strange happened. I did get a couple of weird mole things on my face, but one is gone now and the other is going away.

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Bay Area Hospital, Coos Bay, Oregon

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? I noticed I had started labor when I woke up on the 11th at 7:45 and I was having contractions 10 minutes apart. We were in Portland for Hyrum's DeWils meetings, so when they got a little painful and got closer together and I started dilating more, we left the meetings and drove home. We got home and I labored a little longer until I was dilated to 4cm, then we headed off to the hospital, arriving at 8:30pm. I wanted to make sure I got enough antibiotics in during the labor since with Kiersa I had waited too long to go in to the hospital. When I told the nurses about how they'd taken too long to give me antibiotics last time, then gave me my IV in a flash. I got my epidural at 10pm since things were progressing quickly, but then I got stuck at 7cm for quite a while. Once I'd had my 4 hours of antibiotics, they broke my water at 1am. The pace picked up again and I delivered at 3:17 am.

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? Hyrum

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? Hyrum and Maren. Talea and Hyatt were there too, but they were too tired to wake up for the delivery since it was at 3:17am.

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural.

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? I decided not to even try any alternative pain relief this time since I always end up stuck in bed, so I had an epidural. It was my most painful one to get, but it ached the least after it was removed.

27. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 8 lbs, 4 oz and 20 1/2" long.

28. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? February 12, 2009. 11 days early, and 2 days before Kiersa's 1st birthday.

30. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Paisli Taya Johnson. We really liked Paisley, but Hyrum wanted to spell it with an "i" at the end. Taya was just another one we thought was pretty. We had a really hard time deciding which one to put first. We thought it would be cute to combine the two for her nickname: Tayli.

31. HOW OLD IS YOUR FOURTH BORN TODAY? 7 weeks

Mommy quiz about Kiersa

2009-04-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

1. WAS YOUR THIRD PREGNANCY PLANNED? No. Again, we were banking on infertility. Luckily, nature spaced our kids 2 years apart. After 2 surprises, we figured infertility wasn't an issue anymore.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes.

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Surprise. Should have known. Happiness.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? Never in a million years.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? A couple months from turning 31.

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? I was a bit emotional, and again my bust seemed larger, plus my carpal tunnel was acting up, so I took a home pregnancy test, and it was positive.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? Hyrum. He was around when I took it, so I showed him it said positive.

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? No. Since we were prepared for either a girl or a boy, we wanted to have a surprise this time.

9. DUE DATE? Feb. 16, 2008.

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? Nope.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Nothing in particular.

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Smokers. I found out my little brother smoked by smelling it in my house when he moved in with us for a short while. I about blew my top and all but kicked him out right then and there. I CAN NOT tolerate cigarettes and smokers who think others should just tolerate their poisonous secondhand smoke as though it doesn't exist.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR THIRD CHILD'S SEX? Girl.

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? No, I had my finger's crossed that it was a girl because I had a girl name picked out and absolutely no boy name options. Plus, I wanted Talea to have a sister before their age gap got any bigger.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 27 lbs. Started at 145, ended at 172.

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? No.

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I didn't have one.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? No. It was completely uneventful. There was maconium in the water when my water broke, so a pediatrician had to suck her out before she took a breath, but other than that, things were fine.

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Bay Area Hospital, Coos Bay, Oregon

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? I started laboring sometime around 2 in the afternoon on the 13th while we were moving things from the house to the apartment. I went in to the hospital at around 10:00pm, got an epidural at 12:40am and gave birth at 2:34am. So it was about 12 hours of labor with around 4 hours of it at the hospital, and about 2 hours of it really hard labor. It only took a few pushes to get Kiersa out, and I pushed in a semi-sitting position.

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? Hyrum

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? Hyrum, Talea, and Hyrum's mom

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural.

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? Epidural of course! I was going to try natural so I got the room with a tub, but just before I arrived at the hosptial, the hot water was shut off for repairs, so I only got a few inches of warm water, and the nurses tried to fill it more by hand with hot water from the tea maker, but after a while of laying in 99 degree water (not near hot enough...not even hot tub hot), I couldn't take the pain and annoyance of not being submerged and I got out and had an epidural.

27. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 7 lbs, 10 oz and 21" long.

28. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN ? February 14, 2008. Valentine's Day! 2 days early.

30. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Kiersa Milly Johnson. We created the name Kiersa and Milly was picked to rhyme with Tilly, but also because I love the movie "7 Brides for 7 Brothers", and Milly is a main character.

31. HOW OLD IS YOUR THIRD BORN TODAY? 13 months

Mommy quiz about Hyatt

2009-04-01T09:28:00.000-07:00

1. WAS YOUR SECOND PREGNANCY PLANNED? No way! I didn't think I could get pregnant without the assistance of fertility drugs, so this pregnancy was a total shock. 2 1/2 years of infertility, then 14 months after Tilly...surprise! How did that happen?

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Absolute shock. Disbelief. Excitement.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? Never in a million years.

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? Was turning 29 that month.

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? I thought my bust felt bigger, and that only happens when I'm pregnant, so I took a home test.

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? Hyrum. I showed him the stick after I saw it was positive.
We took several more to make sure it was correct.

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? Yes, in case we needed to prepare for a boy.

9. DUE DATE? April 10, 2006.

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? Nope.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Fruit.

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Crying.The behavior of the nieces and nephews I was taking care of. I had no patience or energy for their issues, and unfortunately couldn't tolerate their behavior without irritation. I'm not as patient while I'm pregnant.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR SECOND CHILD'S SEX? Boy.

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? I had hoped for another girl so Talea would have a sister close to her age, but I was excited to have a boy since I already had a girl. Hyrum wanted a boy, so of course that's what it was.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 24.5 lbs. Started at 135 and ended at 159.5.

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes. The first scheduled one was postponed due to the fact that a girl in our ward commited suicide the day before and everyone was in shock and it felt wrong to be celebrating at that time. The one that finally happened only had 4 attendees I think. Baby showers aren't that great in this area.

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? No. This one went fine. He came a week early on his own, though we went to great lengths to get him here early since Hyrum had to attend the Home Show on the due date.

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Bay Area Hospital, Coos Bay, Oregon.

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? Several days off and on, then 20 hours in the hospital, with pitocin and having my water broken to finally speed things up. I was in and out of labor from March 31st until April 3rd. I was in active labor on April 2nd from 9am-2pm at home, then it quit. It started up again at 6pm and lasted until 3:18pm the next day when I delivered. I went to the hospital on the 2nd at 7:30pm because I was dilated to a 4. I tried the tub, then started bleeding at 11pm so I was put to bed and had an epidural at midnight. I peed the bed at 1 am because they forgot my catheder. My contractions slowed to 10 minutes apart, so they broke my water at 7:20am and started pitocin at 10:30am. Even though the labor was long, the pushing was only 15 minutes (on my side this time) and he was born at 3:18pm. I don't think he wanted to come out yet, but we had the Home Show hanging over our heads and had to get him out beforehand! It is SO not true for everyone that each baby gets faster. I was in tears of frustration by the end.

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? Hyrum

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? Hyrum, my mom, and my sister-in-law, Karen.

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural.

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? Yes! I love epidurals! I actually wanted to try to do this one natural, so I tried the heated tub, but I started bleeding mysteriously so they strapped me to machines in the bed, and I can't take laboring in bed without pain relief.

27. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 6 lbs, 13.75 oz. A pound bigger than Talea. 19 1/2" long. No cord issues other than it was wrapped around his neck twice, so that stressed him out during the labor and I had to wear an oxygen mask during most of the labor and the pushing, and he had to go to the nursery for 3 hours until they got him to cry and sound normal.

28. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN? April 3, 2006. 7 days early.

30. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Hyatt Dennis Johnson. I didn't want a 5th Hyrum, so we compromised by finding a name that started with H-y so Hyrum could have his little Hy still. His middle name is my Dad's name.

31. HOW OLD IS YOUR SECOND BORN TODAY? In 2 days he'll be 3 years-old.

Mommy quiz about Talea

2009-03-31T20:55:00.000-07:00

1. WAS YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY PLANNED? Well, yes and no. I couldn't get pregnant for the first 2 1/2 years of my marriage, so I finally saw a fertility specialist, and he gave me a clomid pill to take. I waited about 6 months to take it because it was scary holding the power to get pregnant. When we heard it took some people a year to get pregnant on clomid, we decided to take it and see how long it took us. We were hoping we had a few months before it took, but it worked on the first try. THAT was unexpected and scary.

2. WERE YOU MARRIED AT THE TIME? Yes

3. WHAT WERE YOUR REACTIONS? Denial. Shock. Disbelief. Happiness. Fear. Happiness. Disbelief. Happiness. Elation.

4. WAS ABORTION AN OPTION FOR YOU? Never in a million years!

5. HOW OLD WERE YOU? Just turned 27.

6. HOW DID YOU FIND OUT YOU WERE PREGNANT? My cousin, Angi, who was trying to get pregnant when we were, called to say she was pregnant, and she forced me to go get a pregnancy test, so I did. I took it, and thought it said negative, so I threw it away, then called her and told her it was negative. Hyrum looked at it and while I was talking to Angi, he told me/showed me it was positive. I was shocked. It was too crazy to think I could actually be pregnant!

7. WHO DID YOU TELL FIRST? Well, Hyrum was showing me the test, and I was talking to Angi, and my sister Daisha and her fiance were in the room, as well as Hyrum's sister, Susan, so...all of them!

8. DID YOU WANT TO FIND OUT THE SEX? Yes. I wanted to know what clothes to buy, and though the ultrasound tech said it was a girl, I didn't trust the ultrasound since it wasn't super obvious, (despite what Hyrum says).

9. DUE DATE? May 18, 2004

10. DID YOU HAVE MORNING SICKNESS? Not a speck.

11. WHAT DID YOU CRAVE? Ice cream!

12. WHO/WHAT IRRITATED YOU THE MOST? Smokers. I felt like they were poisoning my baby every time I inhaled their second-hand smoke.

13. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CHILD'S SEX? Girl.

14. DID YOU WISH YOU HAD THE OPPOSITE SEX OF WHAT YOU WERE GETTING? I didn't really care, but I had kind of hoped for a boy so he could be the older brother to stick up for his little sisters. Hyrum wanted a girl though, and we always end up having the sex he wants.

15. HOW MANY POUNDS DID YOU GAIN THROUGHOUT THE PREGNANCY? 28. Started at 125, ended at 153.

16. DID YOU HAVE A BABY SHOWER? Yes.

17. WAS IT A SURPRISE OR DID YOU KNOW? I knew. My Aunt Judy and her daughters threw it for me and it was the coolest shower ever with fun games and amazing food. They are always so good to me and make sure I'm taken care of. I wouldn't have had much of a wedding reception or wedding shower or baby shower if it hadn't been for them.

18. DID YOU HAVE ANY COMPLICATIONS DURING YOUR PREGNANCY? Yes. I got toxemia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) at 38 weeks and was induced unexpectedly.

19. WHERE DID YOU GIVE BIRTH? Rogue Valley Medical Center, Medford, Oregon

20. HOW MANY HOURS WERE YOU IN LABOR? 9 hours, 3 minutes (from the moment they gave me the 1/2 pill on my cervix at 6pm to soften the cervix to when the baby was out at 3:03am.) I never even had to get the second 1/2 pill or any pitocin. Though she was two weeks early, she was apparently more than ready to be born. I was only 1cm dilated/50% effaced when they induced me, but labor kicked in hard instantly. I tried hot showers, which were nice, but they made me stay on the machines in bed since I was induced, so by 1 am I couldn't take the pain anymore and I got an epidural. My water broke at 1:37am and she was born at 3:03 after a half hour of pushing. I tried squatting to push but felt too faint, so I pushed laying on my back putting my chin to my chest. It was awful! My sore neck pain was worse than the stitches pain I had from tearing (they threatened to give me an episiotomy so I pushed too hard, too fast and I tore).

21. WHO DROVE YOU TO THE HOSPITAL? No one. I drove to my doctor's office, met Hyrum there, and in the appointment I was told to walk across the street and check in to the hospital to have my baby because my blood pressure was too high to go on anymore. Wait, maybe we moved the cars across the street. I can't remember.

22. WHO WATCHED YOU GIVE BIRTH? Hyrum and my little sister, Shira.

23. WAS IT NATURAL OR C-SECTION? Natural

24. DID YOU TAKE MEDICINE TO EASE THE PAIN? Heavens yes! I have the pain tolerance of a gnat, so I had an epidural. Worth it's pain relief in gold, I tell you!

27. HOW MUCH DID YOUR CHILD WEIGH? 5 lbs, 8 oz. 19 1/2" long.. She was unexpectedly small, most likely because her cord looked as though it was starting to have problems. Good thing she was induced early or she could have been a stillborn.

28. WHEN WAS YOUR CHILD ACTUALLY BORN? May 4, 2004. 14 days early.

30. WHAT DID YOU NAME HIM/HER? Talea Lila Johnson. I heard her name while I was substitute teaching and I liked it. Later, my dad coincidentally recommended that name. Lila is my middle name, and Hyrum LOVES it, so he wanted it to be her middle name also.

31. HOW OLD IS YOUR FIRST BORN TODAY? 4 years-old (she'll be 5 in May).

My turn for a Twilight review

2009-03-31T13:40:00.000-07:00

When Twilight came out in the theaters, there seemed to be a rash of Twilight blogs popping up everywhere about how everyone went to the midnight showing of Twilight. Are you kidding me? Midnight? So here were my initial thoughts when I read those blogs.

A) How are people my age, with kids, able to keep their eyelids open for the entire length of a movie that starts at midnight?

B) Is this movie so great that people can't wait for a showing that's not at a freakishly late hour (for a movie anyway)? Or is the midnight showing just to add to the vampire theme?

C) I can't remember the last time I stayed up that late to start a movie. If it's past 9ish, it's too late for me.

D) What is Twilight and what's with all the hoopla?

I vaguely remembered in the back of my mind that a couple of my friends had on their blogs or facebook or something a long while ago about how they were reading a book called Twilight, or Breaking Dawn, or other books with black covers and a chess piece or hands and an apple or such. I'm visual, so I remember the appearance of the book covers they posted more than the titles. I guess I don't read enough to be "with in" in the literary world. I just can't squeeze sitting down to read a book into my schedule because too many things would suffer as a result. I can only listen to books on CD these days so I can multitask. I'm a multitasking queen these days! Blogging while nursing or watching movies is my specialty. (Can you guess what I'm doing right now while typing? Yep. Nursing.)

Back to my review. Suddenly, the countdown until Twilight was released was plastered all over Walmart and I was hearing about it everywhere. I heard the author was Mormon and went to BYU, so I thought it was interesting that her book had become another phenomenon like Harry Potter. We recently suspended our satellite service since it was sucking our lives away, and we got Netflix instead. We put in on our queue, and it arrived while I was in the hospital with Paisli last week. Hyrum texted me and asked if he could watch it without me, but I wouldn't let him. I had to see what all the excitement was about, and we have to watch movies together so neither one of us is out of the loop when we quote movies or talk about them.

I finally got to watch Twilight on Saturday. I realize, from the reviews my friends posted on their blogs, that the movie isn't as spectacular as the book, but what movie ever is unless it's a 6-8 hour BBC version? I make it a point to never read a book before watching the movie if I can help it. Reading the book first always ruins the movie. By watching the movie first, I can enjoy the theatrical version and then read the book later and fill in all the gaps and details. I can never enjoy any theatrical version of "The Count of Monte Cristo" because the book is phenomenal and no movie version can come close to comparing, and I read the book first.

What did I think of the movie? The first time through, I thought it was okay. A little odd, but fine. I found it strange that a Mormon author would use the Lord's name in vain, and that the prom would have a gambling theme, and that there would be a steamy bedroom make-out scene that almost led to underage, premarital naughtiness. Maybe those things weren't in the book though. Maybe that's just Hollywood's corruption of a good thing in order to boost ticket sales with lusty overtones. I guess I'll have to read the book now to find out. Or maybe someone who has already read the book can tell me. I did watch most of it again the following morning (Hyrum started it while I was sleeping since I said I didn't want to watch it again instead of returning it) since we couldn't take the kids to church for fear of spreading their crud or them catching new stuff while they're vulnerable (especially Paisli). I liked it better the second time because I caught more stuff. I have to say though,

A) Doesn't anyone in Forks think it's weird that ALL of the Cullens, who everyone thinks are foster kids, are ghostly white? Not that Bella isn't super white too, but come on! A little too much coincidence to ignore.

B) Edward is not as drop dead gorgeous as everyone made him sound. He's a bit too creepy to be gorgeous. And Bella's voice is a bit obnoxious. She sounds completely bored or indifferent ALL the time. A bit husky or manly maybe too. But she IS gorgeous. I love her hair.

C) Why are there so many names in this book that are also in my family? Edward (my brother-in-law...Daisha's husband), Isabella (my niece's middle name...Tasha's daughter, Cage), and Cullen (my little sister's married name...Shira). Hmmm. Maybe I'm overlooking some genetic predisposition to vampiring in my family.

D)Isn't it strange that the Cullens all have ultra-cool cars? I don't know of any foster kids with such luck.

I think it's interesting how the books with mass hysteria and devout followers attached to their titles are about either teenage witches/wizards or teenage vampires. So if you're an aspiring author and looking to make a killing, I'd say write a book about teenage zombies or something else equally dark and controversial, so there is sure to be book burnings and protests, thus increasing your book sales since naughty or banned things always draw more interest. Oh, it needs to be a series too, that way it can be made into a movie...or 6, and you can get even more money.

I looked up the author, Stephenie Meyer, and read a little about why she wrote the book and how it came to be. I thought it was awesome that she started it by saying "As you might have guessed from the length of my book, I can't tell a short story—this is going to take a while. You have been warned." I like her already because that's exactly how I am. I'm a long-winded typer. Would that make me a long-fingered typer?

Hyrum checked out The Host (by Twilight's author) on CD and I started listening to it with him, but I got bored and found my mind wandering too frequently to stay caught up on what was happening (he since continued it and says it's getting better). Hopefully Twilight is better, or I'll just stick to the theatrical versions of the book.

Overall, I'd give it 4 out of 5 stars since I liked it enough to watch it a second time so quickly. I wouldn't have stood in line for tickets though, or gone at midnight. But...I didn't read the book first, so maybe I would have felt different if I had.

Don't scare me like that!

2009-03-27T15:24:00.000-07:00

By now, you are all aware of our health saga...it's been ongoing since before Paisli was born. If you're not, read my older posts to catch up, and then remember: do not, I repeat, DO NOT have a baby during the winter or early spring months. There is too much sickness going around! I've had 2 February babies; never by choice...my jinx got me pregnant at the wrong time. I wanted to have babies in June or July. In all honesty, I CAN'T control the months that I conceive. My body is completely unpredictable and has a mind of its own. Hence my 2 1/2 years of infertility (requiring the intervention of fertility drugs in order to conceive) shortly followed thereafter by mega-fertility (2 kids just shy of 12 months apart). I never know when I will, or will not, be able to conceive, making family planning extremely difficult. It then gets left up to chance. Two years apart for 3 kids was great for "chance," but 2 days shy of 12 months apart was less than ideal.

On to the update. Since we didn't seem to be jinxed ENOUGH already, we were afflicted with yet another health challenge. Hyrum gave you a quick glimpse (2 posts ago) into what happened over the past couple of days. I'll fill in the gaps.

Sickness was on it's third cycle through our house. Hyrum went to church while I stayed home with sick babies. Kiersa seemed recovered from her ear infection, but Hyrum had meetings so he couldn't take her. Then on Monday morning, Kiersa had a runny nose, again, along with all the other kids. The coughing at night was reminiscent of a haunted mansion filled with sickly ghosts. I'd lay in bed listening the the coughs, trying to fall asleep, but my mothering instinct was running on full steam and it kept popping my eyelids open with each cough or moan or movement (we live in a tiny apartment, so all my kids sleep within 15 feet of me, thus they're easy to hear). I began to feel extremely sleep-deprived by morning. Poor Hyrum was just as sleep-deprived as me because he gets up to help the bigger kids while I take care of the baby.

By Tuesday, all the kids sounded horrid, but Paisli sounded scary, AND she was running a fever of up to 102. It got its worst in the evening of course. Her coughs sounded wet and strained and came in bursts of coughing fits and spasms. I had to suck her nose out and had to hold her all night so I could listen to her breathing. I thought about an ER visit, but thought I was overreacting. By Wednesday, I was scared she had RSV and with being a day shy of 6 weeks, I was scared for how fragile her little system was. I called the doctor's office, and waited...and waited...and waited. I killed time by taking pictures of the snot-fest in my house and starting a post about it. When the doctor's office called back, they said "How old is she? And she has a fever? Drop what you're doing and get her in here right now. We'll squeeze her in." Okay, if that didn't make my skin turn cold, I don't know what would.

I then began the process of wrangling 4 kids by myself. I was flying around the place with a brush and rubber bands in one hand, little socks and shoes in the other, grabbing for jackets, calling out orders and making mental lists of things I needed to put in my diaper bag that had, of course, just run out: formula, a bottle with water, 2 sizes of diapers...don't forget to check for wipes and grab the cell phone and keys. I, naturally, looked like a scum because with 4 kids, sickness, a blog to keep up in order to document our family's life, pictures to take, children to dress and feed, a house to clean...something's gotta give. And that something is applying my makeup and doing my hair in something other than a messy bun.

Now, of course, with my luck, things couldn't go smoothly. Talea started yelling in her "emergency voice", as I call it, that Hyatt was bleeding. So while I tended to his bloody lip (I never did get whether it was Tilly or Hyatt's fault), Talea went crawling under my bed to find a toy pig, and came out covered in crud. I was frazzled to my breaking point by this point. I was on edge from severe lack of sleep for the past 2 days, had just had the doctors scare the crud out of me, was trying to get everything together without forgetting anything, was patching bloody lips...and now just after getting her all ready to walk out the door, Talea has to go spelunking under my bed with the dust bunnies. I admit I lost it and booted Talea in the rear since my arms were full of babies and I couldn't spank her with my hands. I did have the presence of mind to do it soft enough to not knock her down, but man, I couldn't believe she'd gone under there in the crud to get a stinking little plastic pig when she knew I was rushing to get out the door. She never even plays with that pig! I know, she's only 4, but I only have so much temper and my stress capacity is only so high. Sorry Tilly.

So, about 30 minutes later, I was heading out the door with a baby in each arm and a diaper bag on my shoulder. As I was locking the door, I thought maybe I should have packed a hospital bag just in case, but I didn't have the time to do it now. And what about my camera! I didn't have the hands to carry it now, and I didn't have the time to buckle all the kids in their seats and then go up and get it. The camera was left behind.

I stopped by the shop to grab Hyrum because after that fiasco, I couldn't imagine herding them all to the doctors office alone, and then possibly the hospital. I grabbed Hyrum and we headed off. When I got to the doctor's office, the nurse mentioned that she looked fine and that her temperature was only 99. Great! Just what I needed! Wouldn't it be my luck for Paisli to act fine for the doctor and then freak me out at home? While Paisli was being examined, she confirmed our concern that Paisli does indeed have a hernia, but it's a small one that should heal on it's own with time. Luckily, while being examined, Paisli threw a pretty good coughing spasm, so the doctor got to see what was freaking me out. Paisli was blowing mucous bubbles and sounded like she was drowning. The doctor looked very serious as she watched Paisli have her fit, then she sent us down to radiology to get an X-ray. She warned us that the contraption they put the babies in to hold them still looks like a Chinese torture mechanism, so I had Hyrum take her in for it. I knew if it looked scary I wouldn't be able to handle it. When he came out, he said it was pretty funny and that he wanted one for each of our kids, but when he showed me the picture, it about broke my heart. I'm so glad he was there for it instead of me!

When the doctor looked at the X-ray, she said she could tell there was pnemonia and she was afraid that the cough could be Pertussis (whooping cough) because of how it came in fits, and that she probably had RSV. Holy cow! My poor baby! She was also going to test her for a urinary tract infection since she'd had such a fever. She felt that after witnessing the coughing fit and with the pnemonia and with how young and fragile Paisli was, she needed to admit her to the hospital. So off to the hospital we went. They masked our entire family (ha! try keeping a mask on a 13 month old!) and took us to pediatrics, then they took Paisli and hooked her arm up with an IV and drew blood and attempted a cathader for collecting a urine specimen, but they were unsuccessful with that until our pediatrician (Dr. Rabin) made it there later that evening. Everyone that came in had to wear a mask and a disposable robe/apron thingy to keep the germs isolated in her room. This is Dr. Rabin after Paisli's birth.

Now, here's the best part. They checked us into the Nookie Room! That's room 321 in case you want to request it. We were told by the nurse that its the only room in the hospital with one way windows into the courtyard because they use that room for "certain things". What things? Conjugal visits? It's a pediatric room! Do the doctors and nurses sneak into this room to get a little nookie? Do they take unruly pediatric patients in there for beatings? I'm betting on the nookie. So I took advantage of my privacy and left the curtain open while I hung my breast out and fed Paisli. I did that at night too when the lights were on in my room and it was dark in the courtyard. Hyrum thought it was weird that only that one room would be one-way windows, so during the day, he went out and looked at our window, and came back saying he could see the curtain through the window, so he thought it was all bogus. Great! I was flashing everyone in the hallways my saggy nursing boobs as they walked around the courtyard! I hope no one recognized me! Stinking nurse, Gemi, for leading me astray!

Anyway, the tests came back positive for RSV, so we knew she had that, and that she had pnemonia, but it would take 3 days to get the results of the pertussis test, so they started her on antibiotics for that, just in case. Hyrum called Kevin Muntifering (Kaylynns's long-time significant other) to come help him give Paisli a blessing, but Hyrum's oil has been sitting in it's container for a while because it looked more like motor oil when it came out, and smelled pretty rancid. Oh well. She got her blessing, and a hair wash when I couldn't take the smell any longer.

Her IV ended up going bad during the night, which apparently happens a lot with saline locks on infants, so they took it out and would have to do shots instead, but she never did get a shot. The IV looked so awful because her little hand and arm were all wrapped up in gauze and tubes. I got a picture of it on my phone, but until I get an SD reader, that's where it will stay (our new mac doesn't have a spot for SD cards). Her lungs were weezy all Wednesday and part of Thursday, but then they started to clear off and on and all that was left was a crackle over her pnemonia spot. Here's what she looked like during her coughing spasms. Pretty sad, isn't it? She really was struggling for each breath and her eyes and nose would turn very red, though it doesn't show up with the flash.

She didn't always look scary though. Occassionally, she'd grin her cute little baby smile.

My nights were spent like this since she wouldn't sleep peacefully any other way.

Lucky for us, it's Spring Beak, and my twin brothers came up to visit. They arrived while we were in the doctor's office, and it was really handy to have them because on Thursday, Weston

was able to go help our installer, Jeremy, with a counter top job and Dallas

stayed at the office with Talea and Hyatt to answer phones and watch the shop while Hyrum came to the hospital with Kiersa. Kierce thought it was great fun to play in the curtains,

and we thought the prison cell crib was a better place to contain Kiersa than Paisli.

It was nice to have Hyrum's moral support with me since I was pretty stressed about it all. This was my second scare with Paisli since her birth where in the back of my mind I was terrified I might lose her. Hyrum really is the best husband with how he puts our family above all else and supports me whenever I need him.

On Thursday, Paisli turned 6 weeks, and I had my 6 week postpartum check up with my OB, so since Hyrum was with us at the hospital, I left him with Paisli and Kiersa and walked across the road to Dr. Groth's office.
Here's Dr. Groth, the best OB ever, at the hospital when I gave birth to Paisli. He's a little groggy from me waking him up at 3 am.

I weigh 155 now, which was my starting weight with Paisli's pregnancy (though I'd already gotten up to 160 by my first OB appointment), so this is the first baby where I've dropped ALL of my pregnancy weight (24 pounds, not just the 19 I gained since my first appointment) by 6 weeks. Just goes to show how much excess weight I'm carrying if I'm able to drop all my weight by 6 weeks.

Really, Paisli was hospitalized as a precaution since an infant so young can crash in an instant, but in reality, we weathered the worst of the storm at home because once we were in the hospital, her fever subsided and she started to improve. There is no medication for RSV. There is just breathing treatments (oxygen) when needed, so it's good to be in the hospital in case the baby is laboring to breathe or stops altogether. Paisli never had to get a breathing treatment. It's most likely that the rest of my kids have RSV also, but it's not as severe with them since they're older.

They let us go home on Friday morning, after 2 nights and a day there. It was comforting to be there while her coughing was so scary, but it's almost impossible to get any sleep in a hospital with how many times they come in to do little things, like change your drinking water at 4 am. Come on! I'm trying to be asleep, not drinking!

So, since the start of our life as a family, we've had several firsts, all coincidentally within the last month.
First ear infection.
First hernia.
First surgery.
First bloody poo diaper.
First RSV.
First pnemonia.
First hospitalized child.

Up until a few months ago or so, I'd never even taken my kids to the doctor for a cold before. I've made up for almost 5 years of pretty darn good health with one month of plague, and $180 of copays. Let's hope the rest of spring treats us better.

My baby is so precious to me, and I'm so grateful for all the prayers and/or energy (Tasha) that were focused on us in our time of need. She's looking like she'll be okay and I'm so happy that we get to keep her in our family. Thank you, everyone, for your love and support and concern. We felt it and needed it. I hope all of you get a chance to meet our pretty Paisli and see for yourselves what a wonderful little girl she is.

It' snot a very healthy household

2009-03-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

For the past 4 days, I've been on mega snot-patrol. After a round of using the sucker on Paisli's nose, wiping Kiersa's nose while she screams and shakes her head and pushes my hands away, helping Hyatt and Tilly blow so they use one tissue instead of 4, I have to repeat the same round only a couple of minutes later. Ahhhh! I DARE you to click on the pictures and view the snot up close! To scared? I don't blame you.

Hyatt refuses to learn to blow his nose. Other kids younger than him can, but he can't. We thought he learned the other day, but then realized that he was just sucking it up farther when the tissue was on his nose. He wasn't actually blowing it out. The poor guy has had nasal problems since birth. I had to suck out his nose with the bulb syringe constantly...and not because he was sick. He sounds a bit nasaly, especially when he's whiny and crying. Maybe it's just painful for him to blow? I don't know.

Poor Paisli is so little that her snot has to be sucked out of her nose with a bulb syringe. It just rattles inside so lucky for your viewing pleasure, she doesn't have a visibly runny nose. FYI, the more Paisli's hair lightens, the more red she looks. I think she'll be another strawberry blonde like Kiersa.

And to make things worse, Kiersa keeps throwing up when I give her bottles because she has so much mucous that even soy milk and rice milk are too much for her. She wants bottles so bad, but they only make things worse. I was taking pictures of the kids and their snotty noses when I saw Kiersa looking like this:

Only after the picture did I realize that she didn't have just milk on her chin. When I put the camera down, I noticed she was playing with a puddle of snotty puke on her leg. Ah, the glorious surprises that come with motherhood!

****I started this post on Wednesday while I was waiting for the doctor's office to call me back. I didn't get to finish it until Friday because in the middle of writing it, the office called and said to drop what I was doing and immediately get Paisli over there and they'd squeeze her in. We ended up in the hospital with her after that, so this post is a bit outdated.

The Jinx strikes again!!!!

2009-03-25T20:51:00.000-07:00

Kay, well it is Hyrum again and so this will be short and to the point. I will leave the rest to Tiana. Paisli just keep getting worse and worse and so we took her to the doctor today, the doctor had us check into the hospital. The diagnoses is RSV and pneumonia, but before going to the hospital we had to get X rays. It looks like they are putting Paisli in a bank tube in the drive thru.
(Daisha I don't think they make these big enough for Dakota but you were asking for ways to discipline, you might think about this one.) They had to put her in this in order to get her to stay still long enough. For more details you will have to wait for Tiana but I thought I would give an update for those who might care. The doctor wants her in there for at least 2 days but not limiting it. If you would remember her in your prayers it would be much appreciated

A day late and a dollar short

2009-03-23T19:32:00.000-07:00

I think if I'd always had this on Kiersa's head, no one would have ever called her a boy. I managed to get her to keep it on just long enough for a little fashion show for Daddy.

Sickly, but cute, brood

2009-03-23T10:39:00.001-07:00

With yet another round of sickness raging its way through our family, I've found myself with lots of crying little kids and LOTS of snotty noses. Tissue patrol is a full time job between 4 kids. I often feel as though I have twins, with Kiersa and Paisli, because since Kiersa is still pretty much a baby herself (at 13 months old), she needs lots of attention and holding, usually at the same time that Paisli is screaming to eat. More than once I've tried to juggle the two babies in my arms, cuddling one and feeding the other. It's tough. Usually, lately, I've been surrounded by a lot of this...

And this...

But even with all the snot, crying, fevers, erupting diapers, coughs and rashes, I still think my brood is pretty precious. Just look!

Paisli just wants to be near someone when she sleeps, so Hyrum let Tilly snuggle her to sleep. They both loved it!

Kiersa LOVES to put anyone's shoes on her hands and scoot around the room with them. She also likes putting paper under her hands and sliding around the room.

Kiersa doesn't have a lot of hair yet (she didn't start out with much and then I shaved her head at 2 months), and though she has more on top

than on the sides and back

at least the top is long enough now that I can put miniature rubber bands in her hair. I finally found some cute little clips and bought them for my girls so they can look more like girls.

Let Kiersa feed herself and this is what you'll get afterward. She doesn't care for being fed. She likes to do it herself now.

My kids have always been born with really strong necks. Hyatt was holding his own head up in the hospital. Kiersa held hers up early too.

I finally took a picture of Paisli holding hers up also.

Now, I've posted pictures of Kiersa in her favorite spot (climbing around under stools and chairs), but if you can't find her there, her next favorite spot is in baskets, or anything else she can climb on or into. She LOVES climbing!

I realize I'm camera happy and that I take a million pictures, then post a million pictures on my blog, but it's because my baby book was lost when I was 9 and there are barely any pictures of me as a child. I always felt ripped off that I didn't have a baby book and that I couldn't look at baby pictures of myself to see if my kids looked like me, so I compensate for that feeling of loss by taking millions of pictures of my kids so they will have plenty of them someday.

This is my one and only baby picture, and I'm 6 months old. Yep. I feel cheated. I guess that's what happens to the 6th child. No time for pictures.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood

2009-03-22T17:33:00.000-07:00

We had a break from the spring rain the other day, so even though Kiersa was still a bit sick and had a rash from her reaction to the antibiotics, I took the kids to the park. Well, actually, our naughty dog, Indian, made a break from her kennel, so we went on a walk throughout the neighborhood to find her (which we did), and then we just continued our walk to the park.

The kids played on the swings.

I got on the extra swing to show Talea how to go from a stand-still to swinging, but in my attempt, the swing broke! Am I that fat?

In my defense, I inspected the swing and found that someone had broke it previously and had just set the swing up to look repaired, so I was the poor soul who got it next. Luckily, when it broke, I had a good grip on the chains, so I only dropped to my knees. Kiersa was next to me in the baby swing, so when it happened, she looked over at me kneeling on the ground and said "Ah oh!"

Since Paisli can't sit yet, she just slept in the stroller while we played.

I finally let Kiersa go on the merry-go-round, and she thought it was pretty fun. I don't know how much longer Tilly will be able to go on merry-go-rounds without getting sick. She gets motion sickness like her dad, and so does Hyatt.

This park really is pretty wimpy. All the equipment is old and all it has is a merry-go-round, a tall slide, some old monkey bars,

a small kiddie structure with slides and climbing stuff,

a couple of swing sets, lots of lawn, and a nice tennis court. But, the kids don't mind.

Paisli spent her time eating or hanging out in the stroller while I helped Kiersa play on the play structure.

I had all kinds of things planned to do during the day: cleaning the bathroom, cleaning the fridge, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, sweeping, etc, but after getting most of it done, I postponed the laundry for the park, and I'm so glad I did because the rain started the next day again and my kids needed some time out of the house.

Thursday and Friday were my first official days back at work with Hyrum since I can use a toilet and toilet paper like a normal person again. It was nice to be back there with Hyrum all day. I didn't realize how much I enjoy it, though I don't like getting up early. Paisli sleeps much more and much better at work because I can turn off the light in the playroom while she naps, so she thinks its nighttime and doesn't want to eat every few minutes. Let's just hope more people start remodeling their kitchens!!!

Traveling up north

2009-03-22T11:02:00.000-07:00

I know I've been dwelling on the southern region of my body lately, or is it the middle? And in the process, I've grossed out many a reader. I do feel a slight twinge of remorse for inflicting such sickening feelings in the pits of those stomachs, but in reality, I really don't care if anyone was offended or grossed out because this blog is my journal. Each year I'm making it into a book (with Hyrum's computer genius help), so it's for my family to look at and read. My kids aren't grossed out by it. Talea even asks me if she can check on my bum to see if it's improving (okay, I can hear the dry heaves now and the mouses clicking off my blog), so I'm not worried about them being sickened by my surgery tales.

I did visit the surgeon on Thursday. Things are healing well, but he did finally admit that I still have one hemorrhoid left. Drat!!!! I'll go back in 6 weeks and if it's still lurking around, he said he could band it. What am I, a goat? How do you poo in that situation? My aunt castrated our pygmy goats once by banding their testicles, so all I could picture when the surgeon said that was a banded testicle! When I was pregnant with Kiersa and had that pyogenic granuloma growth on my nose (stinking pregnancy side-effects!), it would grow so rapidly and bleed so profusely that I had no choice but to do my own "banding" by tying a thread around it and choking it off. I couldn't get in to the dermatologist for 2 months, and I couldn't live with a huge, bleeding growth on my nose during the wait. I must have "banded" it 2 or 3 times. So, back to my posterior...it appears the saga is not complete. I still have more pain to endure in the future, it appears.

Now, traveling up north, I've mentioned how I've had three clogged ducts from nursing. Starting with week 2 of nursing, I've been jinxed enough to get a clogged duct each week. If you've never had one, they're really painful. When the baby latches on, you feel a sharp, burning, shock of pain for a few seconds, and you get lumpy and engorged because the milk is backed up behind the clog. Yesterday, I got clog #4 (since Paisli is 5 weeks old now), but this time I couldn't manage to unclog it no matter what I tried, so I ended up in the early stages of a breast infection. I took a hot shower to try to unclog it, but it didn't work, so by the time the hot water was waning away, and I got out, I was struck by the infection. I felt miserable and I had no energy. All I could do was lie down. Then the chills started. I had goosebumps and was shivering like crazy, and even with Hyrum giving me a hot water bottle for my feet, I couldn't warm up. So, off to the bath I went. My teeth were chattering as I made my way to the scalding hot bath Hyrum had started for me. An ultra hot bath is the only way I can warm up when I have the chills. I think it must have helped my duct, because after that bath, things started to improve. I took an ibuprofen for the pain and I was able to sleep. When I woke up, I felt like I was 1,000 degrees, and poor Paisli who was lying next to me, nursing, was surrounded by a pool of her own sweat. I got up and felt as sore as though I'd just ran a marathon with no practice or training, but I felt okay. I was so glad I caught it before the red streaks showed up, which means I'd need antibiotics.

Hyrum says he doesn't think my body was made to nurse children, or else our children were never made to breast feed, and I have to say I agree.

I had all kinds of problems with nursing Talea. By the time she was a month old, she hadn't gained enough weight, even though she ate for an hour at a time and only went 10 minutes between feedings, so I had to start seeing several lactation consultants. They weighed her before a 40 minute feeding, and then afterward, and she'd only gained an ounce when she should have gained 3 or 4. I was put on every drug, tincture and herb you could try to increase your milk. One of the pills made my sweat smell like root beer. I was given a fancy breast pump that I'd have to use day and night. They eventually even told me to drink root beer each day! I had to tube feed her formula while she was breast feeding until her weight picked up to a reasonable level. She was born 5 pounds 8 oz, and was only barely 8 pounds by 2 months, when they said her weight had picked up enough that I didn't need to tube feed her formula anymore.

I took her off the formula, but her weight didn't continue increasing as fast as it should, so I needed to put her back on formula. She refused to take a bottle, but we were desperate with her screaming fits and all, so we kept trying to get her to take one. When we finally got her to accept a bottle, she gulped it down like she'd been starved to death her whole life, and once she'd take a bottle of formula, it was as though we had a new baby. The baby who cried constantly became a happy baby! I got a clogged duct when she was 4 or 5 months old that led to a breast infection with chills and red streaks and antibiotics. That clog never went away, so I only nursed her until she was 9 months old, and I couldn't nurse her on the clogged side very often because of the pain.

When Hyatt was born, I was nervous that I'd have the same problems.

He unclogged my duct for me somehow (that was still visibly clogged 14 months after weaning Tilly) the first time he latched, and he was actually pretty kind to me. No clogged ducts. No infections. At least none that I remember. After being put through the ringer with Tilly, I knew what things to look for to know if I was producing enough milk. I could tell he wasn't getting enough, so we introduced a bottle to him instead of a feeding tube, and Hyrum would feed him bottles when I was empty. But when he was 7 months old, he was done nursing and refused to continue. I was surprised because he was my gentle nurser, but he didn't want anything more to do with it.

Kiersa started bad and ended bad.

Well, actually I thought I finally had a good milk supply because she gained a pound a week for over a month (remember, it took Talea 2 months to gain 1 and a half pounds), but then it tapered off to my low supply at 2 months. I mean, Kiersa was a chunk! Here she is at about 6 weeks, with an eye cold.

And here's Paisli at 4 weeks. Not near so chubby.

I say Kiersa started bad because she was ALWAYS painful to nurse. She has a fetish with her tongue, so maybe that was the problem. She probably just latched weird with her tongue, but I couldn't ever get her to latch comfortably no matter what I tried. She gave me a lot of clogged ducts and a couple of infections. When she was 3 months old, I got pregnant with Paisli (oops), so I was told I needed to wean Kiersa when I was 4 months along so Paisli would get what she needed. Therefore, Kiersa was weaned at 7 months. It was really easy to wean all of my kids because they were all breast AND bottle fed, so the transition to a full-time bottle at 7 or 9 months was a piece of cake. And since I never get engorged, feel milk "let down", or leak milk all over my shirts (since I have a low milk supply), it's never uncomfortable for me when my kids quit nursing. I had WIC with Talea and Hyatt, which was so nice since formula costs an arm and a leg. I didn't have WIC for Kiersa, and we were spending $80-100 a month on formula. Ouch! We found out she was lactose intolerant when she was put on formula full-time at 7 months, so we had to switch her to soy formula.

So now Paisli is starting off worse than any of the others, as far as clogged ducts go.

If I had WIC, I would seriously consider putting her on formula full-time right now and just wean her off of me. I love the bonding of nursing, and I know it's the best for a baby, but something's got to give when I can't go a week without the threat of infection. We'll see...

Seeing red

2009-03-21T18:12:00.000-07:00

Hyrum has always had a thing for red-heads. His mom is a red-head, so it probably stems from that.

His brother also favors red. Funny thing is, neither Hyrum nor his brother married red-heads.

Hyrum WAS once engaged to a red-head, until he broke it off. Hyrum's mom is bright red, and she had 8 children. Not one of her children has red hair.

Susan and her girls aren't in the above picture, but none of them are red. Susan is engaged to a red-head, but can't have kids anymore. Hyrum gets red hairs in his beard and sideburns, but that's the most red that showed up in the family. Now, with all the Johnson kids being parents, not one of them has had a red-head. Elisabeth married a red-head, but her daughter is blonde.

Hyrum really wanted a red-headed daughter, but we seem to have dirty blonde kids...until Kiersa. We've been suspecting for a long time that Kiersa was strawberry blonde, but with her dark lashes and with her hair so short, it was hard to tell. Her eyebrows always looked a little red, but I thought it was just an optical illusion. If you click on these pictures, you can see the red in her eyebrows.

As she got older and got more hair, we really saw the red in her hair. When morning light shines on her hair, there's no mistaking that she's a strawberry blonde. Other people have noticed it now too and have commented to us about how we have a strawberry blonde.

So Hyrum got his wish and got his red-head, and I got my wish and got kids with dark lashes.

Kiersa learned how to do stairs while at the Bandon house (and she fell halfway down the flight of stairs while there too). So now she likes to go up and down our stairs at the apartment.

She's a super happy girl. Even when she was sick and was covered with a rash, she still played games with her shirt and gave me smiles.

If you say "on your mark, get set..." she says "Go!" She says down, tries to say Paisli, and has a tender place in her heart for her Nana.

She recognizes your facial expressions and responds to them accordingly. She's super cute and sooo sooo fun now! She's at the adorable stage where she interacts a ton, talks a ton, and plays with you like crazy. She has her daddy wrapped so tight around her finger that he can't resist her and her expressive eyes. She loves to watch Tilly and Hyatt play and joins in when she can. I can't wait until Paisli can play with her, since Tilly and Hyatt are so close and don't really care to play with others as much as each other.

Running out of time

2009-03-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

I was given an invitation to a birthday party for a little girl who was born a month after Talea. The party is in 2 months.
2 MONTHS!!!!
How in the heck is anyone organized enough to plan that far in advance? How do they know the health of the family will be good enough for a party in 2 months? Maybe I just think that because my family always seems to be sick lately. Hyatt is full blown SICK now...again, and Talea just caught it. They both just puked today, are coughing like seals, and have runny noses! Give me a break already!!!! We've already missed church for the past 5 weeks and it looks like it will be yet another week before we make it there again.

I just realized today that Hyatt's birthday is in exactly 2 weeks. He'll turn 3!

3!!!! Where did time go?

I haven't planned a dang thing or even thought about a party, and it's in 2 weeks! Uh, who will come anyway? We don't have any family out here (John and Maren are back in Utah), and there are no little boys Hyatt's age out here. Hmmm. Last year we invited a family over to jump on the trampoline since that's what Hyatt got for his birthday, but I have NO clue what to do for Hyatt's birthday this year!
I stink at making cute cakes.
I stink at planning things in advance.
I stink at surprises.
Where is Daisha when I need her?! Or Annie! Or Teresa! Or Kylene! Or Marcee! Or any of the other people who are so amazing at throwing parties together or decorating or planning? Ugh...
I'd make a good Jehovah's Witness for the fact that they don't celebrate holidays. Or is that a different religion?

Well, maybe I'll get some ideas online. I'd better get cracking. Poor Kiersa already had a last minute party since I came home from the hospital on her birthday, so I don't want to repeat that for Hyatt.

I had to throw this picture in because I love how newborns always go cross-eyed.

And here are my other girls.

After living here for 5 years we explored around Winchester Bay for the first time (and Hyrum got pulled over for going 49 in a 25 but only got a warning...we were seriously oblivious to the signs!), and we went to the Muntifering's ATV shop to chat with Kevin (Kaylynn's lover-pie) and the kids got to sit on the little ATVs. Good times.

When it rains...

2009-03-18T20:53:00.000-07:00

...it pours the Johnson Jinx!!!

In case you were wishing you could be a part of our family, here's a Johnson Jinx health saga that might make you change your mind.

Since around Feb 12 (just a month ago, mind you), we have been plagued by a number of health problems. I'm beginning to think that our family will NEVER all be healthy at the same time again. We've been to more doctor visits in this month than I've ever been to my whole life. It went like this...

Talea got sick, then passed it on to Hyatt. They were both getting better by the time Paisli was born, but still had to wear masks at the hospital to keep germs at bay.

I gave birth and spent several days recovering from it. (No, Paisli doesn't stick her tongue out all the time. Kiersa does. I just found a couple of pictures where she was sticking it out and thought it was cute.)

I saw my OB on a sort-of-emergency visit since I couldn't sit or get relief from my hemorrhoid. I was referred to the surgeon since everything they'd prescribed and could think of or look up on the internet wasn't doing a dang thing to help me.

I saw the surgeon and was told I should to wait for surgery until my swelling went down or my scar tissue would be too severe.

I caught the kids' cold.

We took Paisli and Kiersa to the doctor for Kiersa's one year check-up and shots, and for Paisli's weight check.

Paisli's poo turned black with blood. I was put on a strict no-dairy diet for 3 weeks to see if that improved Paisli's poos.

I got breast infection #1. Well, a clogged duct really (forerunner to a breast infection, but very painful just the same). Finally, by baby #4, I have learned how to unclog it before it becomes an infection and needs antibiotics. Each baby has given me several clogged ducts and/or infections, but Paisli is by far the champion at giving them to me.

I saw the surgeon again (a week later) and set a date for surgery in a few days.

I went to the OB to have a 2 week postpartum check, then had to rush home to take some powerful laxative stuff in prep for my surgery, which trapped me in the bathroom for the rest of the day.

I had surgery (hemorrhoidectomy to be exact).

Paisli's poo turned green and hasn't been baby-poo-yellow since.

I spent 2 full weeks recovering from surgery. Thank goodness for Relief Society and all the meals they sent during those weeks!

During the recovery, we took Paisli to her second doctor appointment...her 2 week check-up.

I had to return to the surgeon for a post-op check up 6 days after the surgery. He was NOT gentle when checking things. It was pretty much "drop the drawers, bend and spread 'em". Ouch!

I got clogged duct #2 during my recovery.

Hyatt got another cold, and passed it on to Kiersa.

Kiersa was hit hard by this cold. She had a cough, runny nose, fever, etc...then it went to her ear. She is our first child to ever have an ear infection.

We took Kiersa to doctor appointment #2, to have the ear infection diagnosed and to get antibiotics. They put her on Amoxicillin.

Kiersa suffered from a terrible diaper rash and raging diarrhea during the antibiotics. Her suffering was so horrible to watch. I HATE it when our kids get sick! I feel so bad for them.

I got a serious headache that literally felt as though someone was drilling a hole through my temple. I don't get bad headaches or migraines, so I just about couldn't handle the pain. Some ibuprofen, leftover Norco from my surgery, and an ice pack finally enabled me to fall asleep. I've only had one headache that was worse, and it was when my mom overdosed me on myrrh (yes, like the gold, frankincense and myrrh variety). I was pretty delirious with that pain, and this one got close to that.

Hyrum woke up early before church feeling pretty bad, and ended up erupting out both ends all morning. We have no clue what caused it.

Kiersa followed in Hyrum's footsteps the following morning by vomiting.

Paisli has been suffering from constant diaper rashes (my newborns always do), and we've discovered (after trying all brands of diaper rash ointments, vaseline, nipple cream, monistat, etc) that if we wash her at the sink rather than using baby wipes (even the sensitive kind), and then use Johnson's baby powder, we can keep the rash pretty much under control.

Paisli caught the cold and had a cough and stuffy nose.

I got clogged duct #3. It's been the same duct every time. I'm getting so tired of this! I'm not so sure that I love the whole nursing thing, other than the bonding. I have very little luck with nursing and barely manage to keep them nursing for 7-9 months before I can't take it or the baby can't take it and weans on it's own.

Kiersa was still sick 6 days after being on medication, so she went BACK to the doctor for an ear recheck. Her ear still wasn't normal, so they switched her antibiotics to Cefdinir.

Kiersa broke out in a body rash after one dose of Cefdinir, so they took her off of all medicine and we're hoping her ear will heal on it's own. We have to take her back in, AGAIN, on Monday to see if it's healed. In the meantime, her fever finally let up today, after more than a week of suffering.

Each time we take the kids to the pediatrician, it's a $30 copay. Over this last month we'll have spent $180 in copays!!! Things have GOT to improve soon or I'll be broke!

I have to go back to the surgeon tomorrow for a follow-up and then to the OB next week for my 6 week check-up. Oh, I can't wait for the appointments to end!

By the way, I've been concerned because it seems to me that they missed one of the three hemorrhoids, but I'm NOT going through surgery again. I was told something today that makes me feel a little better about it though. I was told that they can't take too much tissue off that area or else your sphincter won't let you know that you need to poo, and then you'd poo in your pants. So, it's better to leave a little than take too much off. I'd like to NOT poo my pants, thank you very much! I'll leave it alone!

Hyatt started coughing again last night and having a runny nose, so it looks like he's caught yet another bug.

Anyway, I'm sure I've missed some ailments or problems, but you get the jist of it. If you can spread it, we'll catch it!

PB and J burger

2009-03-12T21:54:00.000-07:00

On Saturday, I wasn't feeling up to getting out of bed. Hyrum went to the drugstore to get me more drugs with Hyatt and Kiersa, and while he was gone, Talea started complaining of hunger, so I told her to make herself a sandwich. I normally don't let her make her own food because I dread the mess, but this day I didn't care.

So, being the big girl she is, she got a chair to reach the jam off the top shelf of the fridge, got a stool to get the laundry basket off the counter so she could get the peanut butter out of the cupboard, and she got her own bread (did she know it was hamburger buns?). I could hear her in the kitchen working away, so I drug myself out of bed to grab the camera so I could document her first sandwich done 100% on her own. (She's made her own sandwiches before, I but I always get the ingredients down and help her with the lids and sometimes with the spreading since I'm so meticulous about how the PB and J is spread.) Oh, wait, I did open the jam lid when I got up since I knew the ring and lid would be stuck, so I guess she did it 90% on her own.

I love that she's getting old enough for me to trust her with helping me out with cleaning, laundry, and now food prep. I think she was ready for all of that before I was ready for her to be. She's growing up too fast!