Advice Please?

Mercedes got pretty sick last night and she has a fever. It isn't dangerous or anything, but she is terribly miserable and she is such a stinker about medicine! I try to give her Tylenol and as soon as it reaches the back of her throat it gags her and she throws up EVERYTHING that is in her stomach. It turns out to be counter-productive, since now she is hungry AND she still has a fever. Any advice? My other kids weren't too bad about medicine so I don't know what to do. I've tried doing it quickly to get it over with and slowly pouring it down her throat. She will NOT take a bottle, no matter what, and I haven't started her on solids yet, so I can't mix it in with anything. I'm at a loss. Whoever said being a mom was easy. You'd think with 3 that I would have a few tricks for things like Tylenol, but no. Once again, Macie proves to be my most high maintenance child. It's good we love her so much!

A Second Failed IUD

No, I am not pregnant, at least we don't think. But yes, my IUD once again has to be removed because it is not doing its job correctly. I guess my body just is not equipped well enough for an IUD. So now I will be going on the mini pill; I am nursing and don't have a ton of other choices. But the bad news is that the nurse was saying that they just aren't as effective as the regular pill, so I live in almost constant fear that I will become pregnant again. The other bad news is that my IUD has moved up inside so far that they may have to sedate me to go in after it in an outpatient surgery thing. My luck is just not there!

Aragog

I don't have a picture for this post, thank goodness!! As part of living in the woods I am trying to get used to the number of spiders that seem to be constantly present. I HATE SPIDERS!!! They creep me out and I have nightmares about them chasing me. We have one that is living behind our mailbox and Kendall said it is a wolf spider. I told him that they are my least favorite because they are big and they are FAST. He told me that they do bite and that he learned at his recent scout training that they are actually aggressive enough to chase people. So today I actually made Kendall come home from work on a break so that he could kill a particularly large spider that I couldn't handle. While he was home he went out to the storage shed that we have in our back yard. I had told him that they was a HUGE spider out there and that I would never be going anywhere near it again after I saw it once. He figured it was some normal spider and that I was overreacting. So he went out to save the day and get it. When he came back in I asked him if he saw it. He said he wasn't sure if the one that he saw was the same one I saw, but that he had killed one that he named Aragog (the spider from Harry Potter) before he sent it to the next world. It is literally about the size of a mini disk or so. Like 4 inches in diameter. And he said it had a huge egg sack that it was carrying around. So I will now sleep much better knowing that it is no longer.

Avri, the busiest child

Avri is three going on 20. She talks so grown up and is so dramatic that I feel like I am living with a teenage thespian quite frequently. But she does do some funny things along with the exasperating and frustrating ones.

Avri's hair is getting so thick and long that I am having fun trying new and different things with it. This was my first attempt at french braids and I was pretty proud of them. I'm getting much better now, and Avri loves getting her hair done as long as she gets to put a ribbon in at the end.

I woke up a couple of days ago to this. Avri had found and unpacked all of her winter gear. She wanted to know when it was going to snow. Too bad we still have the AC cranked up and she'll be waiting for a while. The day before when I got up she had on clothes that used to be hers when she was 12 or 18 months old. She LOVES to unpack things. Every morning she says, "Come on Mom, lets go unpack something." This is part of the reason that it is going so VERY slow!!! The last time I moved I didn't have any help so it went much faster. At the rate I'm going we should be moved in by about 2011.
Avri had fun on the canoe ride with my dad and my brother, too. But she needs a little lesson in boating safety. She wanted to stand up and walk around the canoe; she almost capsized the thing a couple of different times.
This picture is proof that Avri can't stand to see the camera and not be in a picture. I took the one of Talmage holding Macie first, and then Avri had to jump in and be a part of it.

Mercedes the Growing Weed

Mercedes is never short on attention. I spend most of my day trying to give her a little space. But she always loves when the kids are around her. I thought this was especially cute when Avri would read to her and then show her the pictures. A little teacher in the making.

She is a side sleeper, which I find funny. When you lay her down she is not happy until she rolls onto her side and burrows her face into a blanket or something. I thought she was sleeping and when I went to take the picture she peeked at me.
She has also found that toys are amazingly fun little objects. She grabs for everything now. Her favorite thing is the phone (the real one) but she likes pretty much everything now. She is an amazing little roller now and she windmills when I put her on the floor. She will turn like 270 degrees around on the floor. She thinks it is really fun.
She also enjoys the Luv Sac, but I feel like I have to watch her really closely on it so she doesn't burrow too deep and suffocate.
She found her tongue again and it is her way of flirting. I don't have a picture of that yet, I need to do that. She will stick her tongue out if she wants attention and then grin great big when she gets it, but the tongue stays out the whole time. And today she realized that she has ears. I love watching kids this age, it is so much fun to see their growth every day! She is my comfort child, she is always good for a smile and a laugh and a good little snuggle.

Talmage the Character

Talmage is growing up really fast all of a sudden. He's tall, and he talks all day long. Avri and I seem to be the only ones who understand what he is saying all the time, but he is so full of life. He is starting to get interested in the potty, so we are going to go buy a training potty this weekend to encourage him. I think it's still a ways off though. He LOVES Mercedes and is so soft and gentle with her (is that a toilet paper?). He likes to hold her, but the only place that I feel is safe is the Luv Sacs, so here he is being a big brother.

The other day my dad and my brother got out the canoe and took Avri and Talmage for a ride on the pond right behind their house. They thought it was awfully cool and didn't want it to end. Talmage helped paddle.
Talmage is also getting really independent. He wants to peel his own banana and get in the high chair by himself, or better yet skip the high chair and sit in the booster seat. He's mostly happy unless he's throwing a temper tantrum, which he is getting quite good at. They don't last long though because when Mom leaves the room and there isn't anyone to scream for he stops. Talmage is my child that I go to when I need to laugh. Enough said.

A Trip to Nauvoo

We took a day with my family and we all drove over to Nauvoo. Right as we were getting out of the van Talmage started running around and he fell got a pretty fat and bloody lip, and Mercedes had a blowout and needed a bath and outfit change. Once we got that all squared away, Kendall and I and my mom and dad went to the temple and did sealings for somewhere around 100 people or more. While we were in the temple my brother and sister took the kids to play at Pioneer Pastimes. They had a blast. Here were a few pictures. (My sister takes LOTS of pictures, so I got to see pretty much everything they did.)




They were all exhausted and Sadie got a little sun, but it was a fun and busy day. It felt good to seal so many of our family members together. My dad even got to seal his dad to his grandpa, and that was really cool.

Moving experiences

For some people it is picture day, for others it is washing their car. For us, our problems come with moving. When we moved to American Fork we had a big power outage the whole time we were trying to unpack and we couldn't see. This time we moved in and there was a water main break right in front of our house. The water was bubbling up from under the road for about a day and then I called to report that there could be a problem and they came and put this huge hole in the road right in front of our house and turned our water off (luckily it was only for one day). Then we had a boil order for the next two days, so we couldn't drink the water, but since I didn't have my stove yet I couldn't boil it either. So bottled water only. At least we always have our stories.

This picture was taken from Talmage's room. The kids were quite fascinated watching the man climb down into the 8 foot + hole and disappear and the tractor and all. It took Avri like 2 hours to fall asleep at nap time.