Thanksgiving 2013

For Thanksgiving this year we were a little bit nontraditional, a little bit store bought, and a little bit Pilgrim-and-Indian.  It turned out to be the perfect mixture for a low-stress holiday here at home.  We missed our greater families, but loved being able to cement our own family traditions that our kids will be carrying with them to their families someday.  Plus, small and intimate is a dream come true for this hermit mama.  :)

So, let's back up a bit to about a week before Thanksgiving when I finally got my act together and planned some Thanksgiving crafts for the kids to do during Oskar's nap.  We made Indian teepees and fingerprint Turkeys.  The boys played in the rain a bit, too, as they collected little sticks from the front yard for the tops of our teepees.  It was a perfect day for arts and crafts.

TEEPEES and TURKEYS

The Sunday before Thanksgiving we pulled together our 2013 Thankful Tree.  That's always a really fun family time for us.  The kids love filling out their leaves of gratitude and it was especially entertaining to hear them call out each item they were thankful for as they jotted it down and threw it in the growing pile.  Karsten was super funny, scribbling his gratitude on a ton of leaves while shouting out, "I'm thank thee for CARS!" or "I'm thank thee for TRAMPOLINES!"

2013 THANKFUL TREE!

Since we didn't have any more evening soccer practices, we hit up the park a couple time in the days before Thanksgiving.  It was SOOOOO liberating to have that freedom from the great fall soccer regime.  And it was so nice to catch two GORGEOUS sunsets and be able to take some awesome silhouettes of the boys.

PARK DAYS!

The night before Thanksgiving we went to a really fun movie (Frozen) and then went shopping for a Christmas tree.  Bad weather was forecast for the Friday after Thanksgiving and we wanted to be decorating our tree that day rather than sitting around watching the rain and wishing we had a tree.  We picked out our tree at the tree lot and I double checked the weather only to find that the rain was no longer forecast.  Go figure.  But we were happy to have our tree anyway.  And guess what?  True to San Diego weather's unpredictability, the rain actually did come, and we were happily tucked away in our front room, listening to Christmas music and arranging nativities all over the place.  Neener neener.

THE NIGHT BEFORE

And then it came time for Thanksgiving day and our big, non-traditional, somewhat-store-bought feast. Thanksgiving day was really fun and, best of all, do-able.  Dan helped out a ton, taking total charge of the main course (roast beast) and whisking the kids away for some park time later in the day when they were getting all wound up.  I attempted to liven up the party with some Thanksgiving decor this year and loved the way it wrapped us all up, cozy-like, in the spirit of Thanksgiving.  When we sat down to eat, the boys had coloring pages and activity pages and we all discussed why the first Thanksgiving took place and what things the Pilgrims and Indians had to be grateful for and how we can show our gratitude for the things we have and share our blessings with others.  The food was delicious (Dan's roast?  TO DIE FOR!  Sooooo succulent!), the company was the best, and the conversation was titillating.  It was a perfect Thanksgiving and looking around that table reminded me of how grateful I am to keep my greatest blessings so close to me, day in and day out, as we shape each other into the people Heavenly Father intended us to be.

P.S. Why the roast?  Because this prego mama CANNOT do fowl right now.  No way, no how, no fowl.  Bleh.

THANKSGIVING DAY

And then, the day after Thanksgiving, we quickly hid away all the Thanksgiving decorations and pulled out the Christmas stuff.  It was awesome.  And Oskar had a field day with the tree, which I didn't mind, since I wasn't the one who had decorated it (decorated BY kids, FOR kids - that's my new Christmas motto).  :D  I was dead on my feet by Friday night after those two long days of activity and perpetual motion.

THE DAY AFTER

Kudos to Dan for stringing our outside lights the Saturday before Thanksgiving!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!!

Psych

Bahahahahaa!

Turns out our supposed baby girl is really a baby boy, and quite the exhibitionist at that!  We welcome you happily and excitedly little man #5. Hey, I always tell people my personal ideal would be five boys and one girl at the tail end.  Maybe God really does take requests?  I guess we'll find out next round!  :D

A Link

I liked this blog post and wanted to share with my mother-friends out there:

Affirmation in the thick of things.

Enjoy!

October

***WARNING: this blog post is possibly the world's longest blog post with possibly the most pictures ever included in a blog post.
But this is me.  Is anyone really surprised?***

***Liz's recommended blog post reading method: click on one picture and scroll through the plethora,
then go back and read the text.  May the force be with you.***

Before it slips away from me, I want to record all the fun things we managed to do together as a family in October.  This is especially significant for me to remember and celebrate because October was the first month I was feeling well again after being in bed for two months straight.

Sea World

Bagel Baby #5's Gender!

IT'S 75% OFFICIAL ...

(pending a 20 week ultrasound that we are clearly too impatient to wait for)

... that we Bagels ...

... are ...

... having ...

... a ...

.

.

.

.

.

WOAH.

Reactions are mixed over here.  Karsten told everyone I was having a boy, but doesn't seem disappointed to be having a girl.  Soren says he's waiting for the 20 week ultrasound and crossing his fingers that it's really a boy.  Anders said disgustedly that he doesn't want any barbies around the house.  And Dan and I are just 1) grateful to be having a healthy baby and 2) grateful that there is not more than one in there (hooray for another homebirth!) and 3) sort of reeling from the differentness of it all.  A girl!  We don't know how to do girls!

I guess we will be learning pretty quick here!

UPDATE: It is not a girl.  :)  Click here for more.

Happy Halloween!

We had our annual ward trunk or treat tonight. The boys had SUCH a great time. It was different and better this year. Everything was outside, it was crisp and cool, lots of activity stations for all ages, tons of people, chili cook-off meant good food, corn bread, salads, etc. Oskar Skeleton cruised happily all over the place. Karsten Ninja (he calls himself a Ninjago and says his name is Jay) spent most of his time at the cake walk trying to win a cupcake. He also wore his good friend, Malia's, darling butterfly boots.  He loves them and has adopted them as his own since she left them at our house a few days ago.  We brought his flip flops along, too, in case she showed up and he could give them back, but, truth be told, I think he was kind of relieved when he found out they weren't coming so he wouldn't have to surrender those pink boots.  Soren Pumpkin Reaper and Anders Creepy Skeletor Dude were off doing their own things this year, chatting with friends, hitting up every single activity, winning prizes and candy. It was weird to realize that my two oldest are old enough now that I don't feel like I have to keep such a close eye on them. They were good about checking in every now and then, but they were thoroughly enjoying their freedom to roam. Anders also spent longer than anybody we know at that darn cake walk trying to win a cupcake. He finally succeeded, though I'm sure Dan was dizzy from watching him go round and round so many times.  The trunk or treat itself was great. The kids were so cute. One little tyke even came by and threw his garbage in my bucket of candy and left me busting up. Oskar stayed in the back of the van with me, trying to impale passers-by with Soren and Anders' scythe and sword, and helping pass out candy...by the handful. Those were some lucky kids who got to him before I refined his technique.  My favorite part of the night was when darkness committed itself and the marine layer started drifting over us in its bid for the east, wispy tendrils of ghostly white floating beneath the muted light of the street lamps in the parking lot.  I adore the marine layer.  It is one of my very favorite things about living in San Diego and on this ghoulish Halloween (or almost-Halloween) night, it performed beautifully to the theme provided by our little party of revelers.

Dan the Man hadn't yet seen the BYU game and was sure someone was going to ruin it for him, so he fashioned himself an appropriate Halloween costume to address this dilemma. Unfortunately, some upstart teen thought he'd be really funny and tell Dan the score. I think Dan may have made him pee his pants. Don't mess with Dan when it comes to his BYU football. No joke. :D

It's nice to be out and about again.  It's so nice to see my ward family.  These are dear friends that I love and have missed during my first trimester blah.  It's also nice to have the worst of this behind me as I face the upcoming holidays.  So very very nice.

Toddler Sass

I was putting Karsten to bed tonight and, after finishing tucking him in, I said to him tenderly, "I love you, buddy, sleep well."

*crickets*

"I said, 'I love you, buddy.'"

He slowly turned his head, popped his thumb out of his mouth and replied, "I already told you...nothing." Like, duh, Mom, I already responded to you by saying nothing!

Sheesh, I'm so slow.

Toddler Smarts

Today Karsten said to me, "Mom, when Baby goes to sleep for a nap, can we watch a movie?" I said, "No, buddy, you guys have been watching too much tv lately." He replied, gamely, "No, we only watch ONE tv." :D

Sleep

All four of my boys - who share a room, fyi - slept through the night last night. Not a single one of them woke up. I got a full night's sleep in who-knows-how-long. Therefore this must needs be recorded celebrated on the blog.

Congratulate me.

That is all.

Busyness

My mom called me last week after I failed to reply to any of her emails.  She thought I dropped off the face of the earth. I didn't. We are just adjusting to a new level of busyness with the start of soccer season. Soren and Anders are both playing this year and between the two of them they have four separate practices a week (all at dinner time, I might add - BOO!). Besides that they are busy with homeschool park days and co-op stuff, individual classes like a sculpting thingy they are doing this week, beach days, Cub Scouts, swimming, getting tan, fighting with each other, playing with each other, creating, designing, imagining, etc. Karsten thinks he's a big boy, so he does all that stuff, too, minus the soccer (though I believe he really would think himself capable if allowed). Oskar is just busy being the cutest little menace there ever was. We can't get enough of his curls, though we could do without the wielding of sticks, tearing of books (none of yours, Dad, they are all up high!), swishing of toothbrushes in poopy-clogged toilets (yes, this really happened, and it was Anders' toothbrush if you were wondering), climbing of tables and chairs, and just general up-to-no-goodness.

Crossfit

Dan began doing Crossfit a few months ago. And his enthusiasm has quickly passed on to the boys. They love to watch Crossfit Games with him and Soren knows all the top Crossfit competitors' names.  Soren would like to do Crossfit Kids, but it's a bit pricey for us.  So, today Dan had the boys out in the garage doing a Crossfit workout and burpee challenge with him, followed by a bit of rowing.  They loved it.  They just had the time of their lives.  I'll let my pictures of the event do the rest of the talking.  They tell it best anyway.  :D

Beach Day with Besties

I am so scared to go to the beach alone with my crew. I know that Soren and Anders are alright, though it makes me a little nervous that they are getting more and more comfortable with the ocean, venturing farther and farther out to make boogie boarding more exciting.  And Oskar doesn't move too fast.  But Karsten, man.  It's definitely Karsten that's likely to give me a heart attack.  He loves the water and waves and he doesn't pay attention to much else around him, like where his mommy is or where our "beach site" is.  He's a drowning and roaming hazard. So, I usually avoid the beach altogether and ESPECIALLY avoid the beach in the summer.  I always avoid the beach in the summer.  I don't like crowds.  Or heat.  Basically, I'm a wuss.

Danny Boy and His Samantha Girl

My brother is married! One week ago, he married the lovely Ms. Samantha, for time and all eternity, in the Bountiful Temple in Bountiful, Utah. And I got to be there to see it. In fact, my dad was the one to marry them as he is a temple sealer and they requested he do it. It was a wonderful ceremony and we had such a great vacation there in Utah.

Dentist and "Understood Betsy" and iPhone Blogging

Yesterday I took my boys to the dentist. All of them. It was their first time ever. Only Soren had ever been to the dentist before and that was when he was a wee tiny lad who shot himself head first into a playground step while at a birthday party, resulting in his top front tooth being shoved gruesomely far back in its socket. His memories of the dentist include being strapped to a table and given multiple shots in his mouth and then having that misaligned tooth pulled ever-so-slowly back into its rightful position. Surprisingly, he never had to have it pulled. The emergency dentist on call that week was sure she'd being seeing us again shortly, but it healed up perfectly and held strong until it fell out years later to make way for his adult tooth. 

So, first time in years for him and first time ever for Anders and Karsten. After a lot of frustration with finding a good dentist fit for our family and dental beliefs within our dental discount plan, I finally took the plunge and abandoned the plan altogether to find the holistic dentistry I wanted for my kids.  This place is great!  And guess what?  No cavities. Huzzah!  I was so stoked to hear that. Soren does have some decay issues on his two front bottom teeth, but the dentist said it is most likely a result of a combination of genetics and his poor diet way back when. Oh how I wish I'd known more about healthy eating back then! Oh well, lesson learned. So, probably veneers in his future. We are also looking at multiple frenum snippings in the future as Soren, Karsten, and Oskar all have pretty big front teeth gaps inherited from their daddy. 

Oskar stayed strapped to me in the Ergo the entire time. I fed him pretzel after pretzel and he watched Bolt with the boys. He did great and didn't even get fussy until right before we left.

Okay, Understood Betsy.  I recently made a goal for myself to read all the many hundreds of books I own. There are so many titles that look very engaging and I've missed reading so much in the last little while as life has simply swept me up and away from my beloved bookshelves. So, I marched against the current the other day and tugged down a book called Understood Betsy. It's about a little girl raised by her very loving but overly protective aunt up until that same aunt has to devote herself to her ailing mother, at which point the girl is sent to live with the "horrible Putney cousins."  Those cousins turn out to be wonderful people, which she gradually comes to realize as she also comes to know her own strength and smarts that were lying dormant under the hovering care of her aunt. I really enjoyed this book. It's fast. It's clean. It made me cry. I loved the characters and the language. Here are a couple of excerpts I thought were especially delightful:

"The matter was that never before had [Betsy] known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up." (p79)

And this next from Aunt Abigail, who was my favorite character. 

"I declare! Sometimes it seems to me that every time a new piece of machinery comes into the door some of our wits fly out at the window!" (p91)

I highly recommend this book. It was a fast read, two days tops, and full of character. I really found myself cheering on little Elizabeth Ann (Betsy) as she came into her own and found her strength and confidence. 

Next up: The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency. 

P.S. This whole post was written on and posted from my iPhone . . . while lying in bed.  SCORE!  :D

Bye Bye Birdie

Remember those birdies I was growing to *love* so much? They are gone. Dead, most likely. After blogging last night, I went to bed late and made the mistake of looking up bird mites on my cell phone while lying in bed. The horror stories about bird mites cost me an entire night of sleep. I was seriously hyperventilating, and I am not exaggerating. All I could think was that we needed to get rid of that nest ASAP, babies notwithstanding. I sound like a monster for that, but if you read the following links, you will perhaps cut me some slack. When it's between my babies and the birdie babies, I'll pick my babies every time.

At 8am this morning I called a wildlife removal company nearby and they promptly came to remove the nest. Heavenly Father loves me. I was struggling with my decision to deliberately cost these birdies their lives, but when the technician arrived, the nest had already fallen to the driveway below on its own. The tech said that's not uncommon with invasive bird species' nests and was especially unsurprised in this case as the nest had been built on the sloping surface of our garage flood light.  So we stood there and watched as this man collected the fallen chicks and the nest, nimbly avoiding the dive-bombing mama bird, and wrapped them up into a garbage bag.  It was a difficult sight to stomach.  Soren was especially sensitive to the plight of this little family of Finches.  Thankfully, the man told us that he would be taking the babies to a wildlife rescue to see if they could be nurtured and released.  Soren later related his emotional roller coaster he'd experienced this morning as I had first told him the babies would die for us to avoid bird mites, then the technician suggested they might live.  Soren also mentioned how much he felt for the mama since he knew how devastated I would be to lose my babies and he figured it must be the same for that little mama Finch.  I told Soren we could pray for that birdie family wherever they all may be and he seemed satisfied with that solution to our emotional attachment.

Lesson learned: never let a bird build a nest on your home.  Never.  You may think it will be a cute, cuddly experience, but it's not.  It's a poop-splattered, peep-dripping, baby-screeching, bug-infesting one instead.

As I survey our pressure-washed, hospital-grade-disinfected, poop-free driveway and flood light, I am relieved to have some peace of mind over this whole issue.  Hopefully tonight I will sleep deeply.  I am weary.  I have been having way too many run-ins with bugs and spiders of late and am worried I'm going to become bug-phobic.  I've been finding caterpillars in our CSA broccoli, we've had an influx of earwigs and spiders inside our home resulting in a couple of spiders-meet-laundry incidents, this whole bird mite issue cropped up and induced a very real panic, our backyard is a haven for Black Widows, and today we went to a new park with older, dilapidated play structures that were literally covered in spider webs.  I'm done, I tell ya.  Done.

Happy to have averted the deep deep doo doo.  Fly free little birdies!  I'm sure birdie heaven is so much better than your noisy start to this telestial life above our roaring garage door.

Bird Mite Nightmare
San Diego Family Nightmare

Lazy Summer Days

After a VERY crazy busy holiday week last week, we have been lazing about our house the last couple of days, lapping up the luxury of having nowhere to go and nothing to do. Well, *nothing* being relative for Mom, anyway, right? There are still piles of laundry and dishes and poorly-aimed pee accumulating around the house and toilets . . . respectively . . . AND there's still a turbo baby charging around pulling books off the book shelves, tearing up papers, exploring in garbage cans and toilets, eating yesterday's tossings off the floor AND there are still three bigger babies constantly demanding that I plunge a clogged toilet, check out this creation, play with that toy, begging for food like a nest full of newborn birdies . . . oh, speaking of birdies . . . no, no, Liz, stay on topic, where was I? oh, yeah . . . BUT with no play dates, appointments, meetings, errands, or any other outside demands on our time, LAZING about has been absolutely glorious.

What does lazing about consist of for the Bagels?

Well, we don't get dressed for one; it's jammies all the way, all day, baby!  Poor Jehovah's Witnesses, UPS guy, and random summer pest control salesman.  They never saw it (me) coming in my bright yellow sweat-shorts and mud run tee, covered in drool from a perpetually teething babe, wielding a Harry Potter wand in one hand, an Imaginext dragon in the other, with a backwards binky shoved haphazardly in my mouth.  It's my new anti-solicitor campaign and I gotta tell ya, it really works!  :)

Let's see, we also don't plan meals or meal times when we're being deliberately lazy.  The kitchen's a free for all.  You want a hot dog for breakfast? Go for it.  Cereal for lunch?  Done.  Clif Bar for a snack?  Healthy choice, young Padawan.  Daddy especially *loves* this part of his family's definition of lazing about, let me tell you!  Coming home to watermelon for dinner?  SCORE!  Okay, just kidding.  Moment of honesty here . . . it was really pizza . . . of the not-homemade sort. Pizza-a-la-Papa-Juan!  Because when you're going to be lazy, you may as well excel at it!

So, that's the alimentary aspect of a lazy day.  How else do we do lazy?

Well, we read a lot.  Scriptures, read-alouds (Fablehaven Book 5 - pure awesomeness, don't want to put it down), magazines, how-to books, blogs, board books and picture books, bath books, science books, craft books etc.  You name it, we read it.  Soren stayed up in his bed last night reading until midnight!  Thank you, Roald Dahl, for unleashing the true I-can't-put-this-book-down reader in Soren.  Now could you please come find the I'm-totally-fine-and-won't-overreact-to-everything-the-next-day-because-I-stayed-up-way-too-late kid in Soren?  Really.  Because apparently those two peeps don't walk hand-in-hand.  In fact, I'd challenge any human to find them in the same hemisphere even.  Sleep is sort of important . . . at any age . . . which is why I am so wisely typing away at 11:08pm.  Apparently I crave crankiness.

On a lazy day we DON'T:

~ open the blinds
~ impede toddler shenanigans
~ wear swim trunks (or anything, really) in the kiddie pool
~ fight, bicker, complain, thieve, punch, kick, bite (okay, yeah right, totally wishful thinking)
~ clean, tidy, or otherwise treat our home with any measure of responsibility (true story)
~ respond to emails, texts, or voicemail messages (sorry, Pops!)
~ follow proper grooming recommendations (fuzzy teeth, anyone?)
~ put water in the bedtime bath (fish out of water!)
~ say no to messes or homemade (and even made up) superhero costumes (Ever heard of Goggle Guru? Don't forget, you heard it here first!)
~ worry one bit about the AMA, APA, or AAP warnings about screen time limits (Pixar marathon?  Check. Poptropica marathon? Yup.)

So there you have the lazy Bagels in a nutshell.

Unfortunately, no more lazy days this week as the responsibilities resurface.  But that's okay because my house and my teeth can only take so many lazy days before they crumble apart.

Oh, want to hear about those birdies now?  A couple months ago we got to watch as a mama bird began to build her nest on our flood light above our garage.  Heaven only knows why she'd EVER want to build a nest there as we use the garage as our main entry and exit and it is lifted and lowered multiple times a day.  But, I digress.  She worked hard, that mama bird, and we were all in awe of her natural ability to scavenge materials and form her nest.  Then she laid eggs, or so we assumed.  We couldn't actually see inside her nest because the clearance from the top of the flood light to the eave was so small.  But, out popped some little chickies one day, birdie babies chirping away for their mama as she fled each time we exited the garage.  I got some pictures of the babies on my phone.  They looked fuzzy and cozy and oh so cute.  Fast forward a week or so and my friend, Heather, comes over.  As she's coming in the house I proudly point out our baby birds and she gravely takes a step back and begins to tell me a horrible tale of bird mites and fumigation and home tenting, etc.  Truly the type of story nightmares are made of.  So, thanks to Heather, I start to circumvent the area directly below the nest each time I enter/exit the garage, feeling itchy regardless of the wide berth I give those babies.  Then one day we notice black spots on our driveway.  It looked like throw up.  Then we notice more black spots and some white stuff mixed it.  We look up and notice the nest appears to be "leaking" fluid that's dripping down all over the flood light.  Fuzzy baby birdie poopy.  Everywhere.  Now our fuzzy little baby birds aren't so cute and cuddly anymore and Dan is struggling against a strong inclination to eliminate them.  I am not so callous (just kidding, Pops), but I am also none too fond of those darn birdies anymore.  I believe they must be like teenagers now in bird years.  Shouldn't their mama be booting them from the nest soon?!  All I know is as soon as they go, I'm hosing everything down with the strongest pressure nozzle I can find.  I am so over the cute little fuzzy baby birdies that pooped everywhere and gave me buggy nightmares.  Also, I think they might be dying. Today they stopped chirping so much and seemed to be just panting away, languidly sprawled about in their too tiny nest.  What if they are diseased?! Although, maybe they are just hot.  I wouldn't blame them.  I'm hot.  It's hot.

Okay, bed time.  Hasta la pasta, people.

Oh, one more story.  Tonight when I got home from my Primary presidency meeting and took Oskar in to the boys' room to nurse him and put him down, Karsten popped up, waved, and said, "Hi Mom!  I missed you.  We were pretecting Daddy."  And then he flopped himself back down into his new Ikea big boy bed, all cute and fluffy like a little baby birdie.  And then he followed me out of the room and begged for more food and refused to go to sleep . . . like an annoying adolescent birdie chirping incessantly.  :D

He eventually fell asleep in our bed.  He likes our bed.  I like our bed.  Mmmm.  Beeeeed.

'Night 'night, bloggy journal and two readers.

Lazy Bagels: