A birthday to remember

We had so much FUN at Chuck E. Cheese's!! The one in Utah was kind of run down and ghetto, so I didn't think we'd have that much fun, but none of us really wanted to leave. They even had ski-ball, so I was happy. The kids rode on ever ride (probably twice) and the fire truck about 4 times. They played all of the little kid games. Avri was TERRIBLE at ski-ball, but Talmage actually got a better score than Kendall.

Mercedes was just happy to be along for the ride. She is such a good little third child!We got our pictures sketched by a machine,ate pizza (Talmage didn't actually eat it, he just licked the Parmesan cheese off of it) and the kids got to meet Chuck E. himself.
Avri says that he is her new best friend. They won 177 tickets so we got some completely worthless little prizes that the kids loved and we can't wait to go back again! Then we came home and Skyped Grandma and Grandpa in Utah and Uncle Ammon, and we opened all of his presents.
What a spoiled child he was. We got him a big wheel that he can really only ride inside for a while. We had cake and ice cream and had way too much fun. It was totally relaxing and fun and the best birthday yet!

Happy Birthday Talmage!!

Where it all started 2 years ago today! He was born at 1:45 am after 2 1/2 days of hard labor and weighed 7 lbs 3 oz and only 18 1/2 inches - my smallest baby. But it only took him about a week to catch up and pass the girls in size. That kid hasn't stopped eating since the second he came out!At one years old he was quite the little charmer with his dimple (only one) and huge baby blue eyes.

His first birthday party. He wasn't so sure that he liked the hat cake that I made him, but he sure loved the ice cream!!

Talmage with his crayon birthday cake last night, right after I finished it. He tells everyone that he is three and that he has a "colors" cake.
It's just amazing how fast time flies. My kiddos are growing up way too fast, and I'm sure I have no idea how fast it goes!!

Big trouble in little packages

It's official - Mercedes is a bum-scooter baby. I always thought that babies who scoot on their bums were just hilarious, and now I am fortunate enough to have one! She continues to be my very funny child. She is starting to figure out how to sit up from being down on the floor and she is getting better about getting on the floor when she is sitting without flopping and hitting her head. She has also figured out how to open drawers (low ones, like dressers and things) so she scoots herself over to them and opens them and takes things out.Other news, I was lucky enough to have all three of my kids get sick on the SAME DAY!! We woke up Friday morning with 3 sick children. I'm really grateful that they got sick together because that means we don't have to pass it around for months like we did all last winter. So we will have a few days of coughing and snotty noses and hopefully it will all go away after that. Hooray!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend just hanging around at home! My grandma and grandpa came down from Michigan to visit, but they stayed at my parents house. We spent quite a bit of time all together, but when we were tired we were able to retreat to our own house to rest. We ate and prepared food all day long on Thursday. We also did a couple of Skype calls to Kendall's family as well as my brother and my Dad's brother and sister and their families. So any family that we weren't with, we saw and talked to at least.

The day after Thanksgiving we did NOT get up early to go shopping, but we did go later in the day when everyone else was tired, so the lines weren't too long and things weren't very crazy. We went to the Dollar store and let each of the kids pick out what they wanted to get for every other member in the family. This was a great idea, and a nightmare to actually do. Avri was not understanding that we were not shopping for her. She threw some big fits thinking that we were telling her that she was not going to get any presents, and it was kind of ridiculous. We then went to a tree farm and found a tree and cut it down with my parents. We are trying to save a little money this year, so we are going to use their fake tree. We spent that night and the next day decorating both trees. We only broke ornaments at our house, and had to pull the kids out of the glass a couple of times, but there wasn't any blood.

Here is a not very good picture of the tree and the hoodlums who decorated it! We also went out to dinner on Saturday with my grandparents and that was fun for everyone. Finally a meal that we didn't have to prepare OR clean up!! Those are my FAVORITE! Saturday night we got our first snowfall! So we woke up Sunday morning to a white world and that was very exciting for the kids. After nap time on Sunday we went over to my parents to sled down their hill. (Is sledding a Sunday appropriate activity?) But by the time everyone was awake and all the gear was on it was totally dark. So the pictures are dark, but the kids had way more fun than I would have ever guessed! Here is Macie in her first snow!! She wasn't out too long, but she thought it was great.Here are all of us girls, cheesing it up! Well, at least Avri and I. But Macie's look cracks me up!Daddy is so good at playing, he seems almost tireless!

Last year Talmage was still kind of little for the snow, but this year he trekked up and down the hill so many times, and all by himself while it was dark! I couldn't believe him! I don't think that he went down the hill the same time twice, either. He went down on his tummy, on his back, sitting, kneeling, backwards, forwards and every other way he could think of. Then he'd haul his own sled back up the hill and Kendall would push him down again.

Avri and Mom made snow angels, but when I tried to get Talmage to he just cried.
While Talmage kept sledding Kendall helped Avri build a snowman. It actually fell over before we even left my parents' house that night, but we didn't tell Avri that.

While the older kids were outside Mercedes was enjoying some time all to herself with Mom and Grandma and Aunt Amber. She was quite happy so we got a bunch of pictures of her. She is such a little elf. She has the Dietz ears that go back for many generations, poor girl.

We then did something that is becoming a tradition for Sunday nights, a movie picnic. We make dinner and eat in front of the TV while we watch a movie together as a family. To save the carpet we get out a big blanket and call it a picnic and the kids think this is so much fun. Well, we decided to do it at my parents house this time and we watched the old Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It occurred to me a few days ago that my kids don't know the classic stories of Christmas, so we introduced them last night.

The only other thing that we did this weekend was Harry Potter marathon. Kendall and I are finally reading books together again, and we are working on Harry Potter 5, which we started ages ago, but didn't ever finish. So all this Harry Potter made us want to see the movies. Over the weekend we watched 1-4, and we still have number 5 waiting for us. We watched every night into the late hours, and anytime the kiddos were sleeping. I always said that I would never be Harry Potter crazy, but I guess I should never say never.

Where Have I Been

I'm sure that most of you haven't noticed I've been lax in my posting, but I've been away for a while. No real reason, just trying to catch up. I keep telling myself that if I can get caught up then I can post things again. Well, catching up is not something that is happening anytime soon. But since I woke up this morning at 5:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep, here's an update post.

We are getting extremely excited about Christmas around here. Kendall and I are actually done shopping for all of the kids, and just have a couple of little things left to buy for other people. I am having a really hard time not giving the gifts to the kids now. In fact, a couple of nights ago we actually did let Mercedes play with one of her new toys and I've never seen her have so much fun! Her only quandary was the she didn't have enough hands to hold all of the blocks at the same time. So she would pick up two and then look at the others on the floor and back at her hands, like "what am I going to do?" I was having so much fun watching her! Here is a picture of the kids looking at the Toys R Us Big Book of Toys. We've gotten 2 of them and Avri carries hers around with her.We've actually been working with Avri because she says "I'm going to ask Santa for that" about pretty much everything. So I told her that if she asks for more than two things that Santa will think she is greedy. So she decided on a dollhouse and a wagon for her dollhouse. The second item keeps changing, but the dollhouse stays constant. (Hmm, I wonder what she will be getting...) Talmage still doesn't get the Santa thing, but he does get the present thing. His birthday is a week and a half away, so we already have all of his birthday stuff sitting out in a pile and he's excited about that. (I don't have any new good pics of him, but here he is falling asleep in his lunch.)Mercedes has gotten to be quite the little trouble maker. She scoots around now. When she's on her tummy she goes backwards and gets stuck in corners. When she is sitting up she bum scoots forward. But she hasn't figured out how to do it to intentionally get somewhere. Her other favorite past time is emptying the wipes. Here she is with a few of them, and Avri thought they would make a good hat for her. I'm obviously cleaning, hence the mess in the background.Avri and I continue to play with her hair. This one is her favorite because it looks like a flower. Not a perfect picture, but you get the idea!This is just my little sweety. I try not to have favorites, but on any given day I just might due to behavior on the older childrens' part. She has a small head for her age and this hat really shows it!! Although I think the hat was made for a child with a HUGE head.Mercedes LOVES her Daddy. She now says mamamama and dadadada and she seems to direct it to whichever parent she sees or wants. But you can tell that she plays favorites sometimes as well.

I have such a funny video to post, so I'll see if I can get it to work. If not, too bad for you. But it will have to come a little later since I'm leaving for Thanksgiving breakfast right now. I hope you all have (or had) a fantastic Thanksgiving!!

A Doctor a Day Keeps the Apples Away

At least, that's how we feel lately. However, I must say that we have found a FANTASTIC doctor named Dr. Steve (Lichtenstein) who is the pediatric ophthalmologist that we went to yesterday. We have finally solved the mystery that is Mercedes eye! So it IS a hemangioma that she has in her eye, it is just under the surface instead of on top, like the strawberry hemangiomas that are common on babies. The doctor was able to test her prescription in her eyes through lenses and shining lights in her eyes (which she HATED because they had to dilate her eyes again!). They said that hemangioma is causing a slight astigmatism in her right eye. it isn't a problem yet, but if it keeps getting bigger then it could cause her some problems with her eyesight. So we go in again in one month and they will check it again and see how it has changed. If it becomes a problem then they will treat it. But if it is not a problem then it will go away on its own in a few years. I'm torn on the issue, because I don't want to give her medications or steroids that she doesn't need, but I also don't want her to have a black eye for the first 4 years of her life.

I think that the thing I liked the most about this doctor is that if I think it's getting worse I can email him a picture and he will tell me if I should bring her back in or not. And if I take her in and everything is the same, or no need to worry I don't get charged. If it is something worth worrying about he will fix it. I'm so glad that we are in the right place finally!!

I related news, Kendall went to the doctor, and still no news on his throat or swallowing problems. He doesn't have the Zenker's Diverticulum that we thought, so they are going to try stretching his throat again in December and this doctor will do the esophogram so that he can get a good look at his throat. So at least we know what one of the problems is. :) Sorry about no pics. But that is our update.

Fall Leaves

I guess the last picture that I posted of the leaves in our back yard was premature. I took the kids out today to finish raking leaves and we had a pile worthy for Clifford the big red dog to jump in! I was slightly concerned that I might actually lose one of the kids in it. But we had a blast!