Lea A., First Grader and the case of the extra tooth......

We like Junie B Jones, can you tell!? For weeks maybe even months, Lea has been asking when she'll lose her first tooth or at least have something to wiggle. All of her friends are starting to lose their teeth and it's a little disheartening for not to be in that club yet.

Well, today is different, she has a loose tooth! Only one problem, which I can see causing more problems in the future......................the tooth is not that loose and her teeth are very tiny. Okay, but the big problem: the next tooth has already pushed through behind the "loose" tooth..................*sigh*. Prediction - the tooth will have to be yanked and there could be future visits to an orthodontist if this is the pattern for all her teeth.......*more sighs*.

Lea and her cousins: Brianna and Ashley sitting by Lea. Wickenburg, AZ

PS: I tried to take picture of it and all I got was a black hole. haha! :) So you'll have to ask her the next time you see her - she will gladly show it to you. Although we're going to the dentist this week to get it figured out, so look fast! :)

NEW DIET! Lose 6 pounds in 3 days!!!

I'm sure you're all just on the edge of your seats waiting to hear about my new found diet and weight loss....well, here you go....be warned it's not pretty, but it was easy. :)

Tuesday: Lucas woke up not feeling well. He spent the better part of the morning (5 am-ish) throwing up, dry-heaving and then had diarrhea. He finally finished and was able to sleep most of the day. Great...that's over.

Wednesday gone, here comes Thursday: I was under with only half of what Lucas had and it wasn't the throwing up part although I felt like I should have several hundred times... Erin was sweet enough to take my kids for me Thursday morning, returned them for nap time, then picked them up again in the afternoon when she brought me a pregnancy test...yes a pregnancy test. I had to explore all the possibilities as to why I was at 5 minute intervals doubled over in pain for 2-3 seconds and it would go away....if this was the beginning of 9 months of pregnancy, this was the last time and it was going to be a long haul. I took the test and it was negative, means nothing to me so I'm still uncertain about that option.

Friday: I called Erin that morning to see if she would take my kids again and she wasn't feeling well so she couldn't (keep reading erin...), Jeff finally came home early - I think that was about 3:30 to help out. Later that night (I'm still miserable, no cramping, and the bathroom runs are less frequent - yeah!) I called Erin to see how she was doing. Turns out I never called her, she wasn't on her way to take her boys to school because they don't go to school on Friday and I need a nap.... :) She was fine other than I called during the "getting kids to bed routine".
Bedtime: Jeff flips on the light and hands me Abbey and says "I need help." Breathing heavily, high fever and runny nose....yuck - that's Abbey, not Jeff. :) Jeff spent a good part of the night giving her an ice bath with towels to bring her 103.7 fever down to 100. She finally sleeps and is up later with me. A little more sleep and the other kids are up at 6:30.....why oh why do my kids get up that early!!!!?!?!?!? I think we've watched more TV/movies than ever recommended by anyone....

Saturday: Jeff takes Lea and Lucas to Lea's soccer game - after missing the first 2 practices, she's starting soccer again...YEAH! I love it, but didn't go - under strict orders from Jeff to stay in bed....right because Abbey loves to just lay still and not move around. Saturday afternoon, finally found someone (thank you Palmers!) home to watch our kids while we went to urgent care (after a somewhat sad email to my nurse friend Kehau in Portland I was convinced I should go). Of course the clinic was closed and Good Night Peds didn't open for another hour. We drove out to a different office - much cleaner one, but there was already a line at 5 pm and it just kept getting longer and longer by the minute. Very sad to see so many sick little ones and tired parents - we were all in the same boat: miserable and lost. We meet with a very nice doctor, they test Abbey and she almost kung-fu'ed the nurse in the head while she swabbed Abbey's nose. Quite entertaining actually. She's a fighter! :) Doctor comes back and oink, oink we have the Type A/Swine flu - whew, now what. Take this and should be okay - will lessen the symptoms and off you go.

Of course all 24 hour pharmacies are anywhere but close to us in Laveen. Jeff drops me off with the kids at home and drives for another half our to the pharmacy, spends a couple hours there, and returns home....4 pm to 10 pm was a long day for everyone.

It's finally Sunday, Jeff took Lea to church, Abbey and Lucas are napping and I'm finally eating - oh yeah back to my weight loss diet. I am down 6 lbs in 3 days from 3 days of diarrhea and not eating or drinking (some water here/there and couple of freeze pops). It's not recommended by any doctor, but it sure does work. Abbey is still recovering, but is doing better and well my house looks like we've been hermits for about a month.

Attitude of Gratitude:
*my friends near and far who were there to help
*Jeff has a job now where he can leave without others condemning him for having a "Family first" attitude
*health insurance - we went 3 months without it this year....scary - we are family who uses the insurance to the fullest!
*knowledgeable doctors and nurses
*my sisters and mother-in-law who would show up in a heartbeat if I asked
*I still need my mom even though I'm 30 and have my own children. I now understand why my oldest sister would call home when I was younger and ask for her mommy....I thought she was insane..... she might still be, but she never reads my blog so she won't know any of this. :)
*I have goodly parents whom I miss very much!
*the priesthood is a beautiful power to have and my husband is pretty amazing! A pest yes, but still the right one for me!
*Lea is not sick and hopefully she will not get sick - she's been a very big help!

Fun Abbey

Abbey is such a blast! This little one is fiesty and crazy! She does whatever she can to run with the big kids, no way is she going to be left behind. She chases Lucas and Lea and even tries to push around other big kids who come to play. She runs along the couches and dives for the armrests. I have caught her a couple times before she nose-dived off the edge.

She has an open door ocd - she can't stand to have them open. The other day she was running our hallway, came past the laundry doors, stopped, turned around, closed the doors (you couldn't even tell they were open unless right next to them), and kept running to the living room.

She has learned a few new words - very important to any girl's vocabulary.

hewo - hello
bah-bah daddy - bye, bye, daddy
byyyee - bye

All of which are said into anything used as a telephone - the remote control is one of her favorites "phones".

choo- shoe, she will back up on my lap for me to put her shoes on.
and my all time favorite she learned today was "cool".

Yes, Lucas is climbing in the cupboard. He would open the door for me to take his picture and before I could even say "Smile", Abbey had closed the door in his face - they crack each other up!

One other crazy thing - she loves the ice maker and every time anyone uses it, she is right there to pick up the ice that falls to the floor. Or she will plop right down and wait for her cup to be filled and the lid on. Funny girl!

I wanna be like.......Coach

That last two Sundays and even a couple more before this, I have been fixing Lucas' hair for church. I part it on the side and it's really cute. Lucas is full of chatter and usually it's whining about how Lea hit him, someone took his toy or Abbey pushed him. Poor boy with only sisters. :)  Anyway, he looks in the mirror and comments "You fixing my hair?" yes. "I wanna look like coach." Oh yeah, Coach Jeff? "Yeah, I wanna look like Coach Jeff."

Well, coach is not my Jeff. Coach is Jeff Porter - who coached Lea's soccer team back in February and we have probably seen Becky's Jeff  maybe 4 times since then. (we refer to our husbands as mine, yours and your Jeff because there are at least 3 of us with Jeff/Geoff husbands) They are in a different ward and are finished with church before we even get started. The couple times we've seen Bishop Porter (see he goes by so many titles, it's easy to be confused...) at church, Lucas has said, yelled, shouted, whatever, "There's Coach, Hi coach, there's Coach. Mom, there's Coach, Lea there's Coach. Hi Coach, hi!" It's never to Bishop Porter, it's merely stated that we can see him across the parking lot or as we walk into the church. So Lucas adores Coach Jeff and wants to look like him every Sunday - Jeff,  you have a fan! :)

What do you think - do they look alike?! No? At least the hair is the same style. :)

Sink or swim

Lea and Lucas took swim lessons twice this year. For one week at my parent's local pool in WA and then each for 2 weeks at Aqua Babes with Miss Erin. Lea's lessons were great as she had done swim lessons before. Lucas has never taken swim lessons, but the kid is not afraid of the water. We (actually it's Jeff and my dad) have pulled him out several times while swimming because he just keeps running - thinking he can run on water, but he does in fact sink. I was really nervous for him to start, but he definitely needed it.

At Luke's first swim lesson with Miss Shayla, the teacher held his hand and helped him jump in. I told Shayla the next day, he will jump in by himself, just be prepared to catch him....sure enough he jumped in saying "CATCH ME!" on his way into the pool. Crazy kid.

Being helped off the diving board by Miss Shayla - he would only go off one time. They'd ask if he wanted to go again. "No" and he kept walking.

"CATCH ME!" Jumping to Channing (I used to babysit him and his 3 brothers when they were Luke's age...another time and a whole bunch of stories....)

Lea is quite the opposite - very cautious, loves the water, but will not do anything without someone to watch her. She loves Miss Stefany and has had her for the last 2 years when we go to Washington. She's great with the kids and doesn't put up with any whining and crying. She's very patient and sweet with the kids and well she's just great all around.

Miss Stefany trying to coax Lea to come with her to swim

She has improved greatly on the board - the teachers (even my sister-in-law helped a couple times) used to hold her hand until they couldn't reach her anymore and she would move ever so slowly to the end of the board and wait....wait.... and finally jump in. This year, she's all on her own, but still needed to jump to someone so she didn't go too far under. She doesn't even plug her nose anymore - thanks Miss Erin!

Abbey got to sit on the sidelines and hang with me - next year though, next year. She loves the water too.

While on vacation this July, I decided it would be best for them to get more than a week of lessons (this was only because we were at my parents house for one week of a 2 week session) - so we signed the kids up with Aqua Babes having heard great things about Miss Erin. She didn't disappoint - she's a fantastic teacher!

Lea started first and started on the first day of school - it was a LONG day and a LONG, LONG two weeks while we adjusted to the new schedule. Lea has a strong dislike for putting her face in the water (sorry that's my fault - I hate getting my face wet). Everytime she was swimming, Miss Erin would say "Chin down, Lea, chin down" I would find myself pushing my chin down as if that would make Lea's head go down. Kind of like when your husband yells at the TV at his favorite football team - as if they can actually hear you and will do what you want....not so much, but a good effort. Anyway, Lea did great and was able to swim one lap of the pool by the end of lessons. She absolutely detests doing sitdown dives (thus the dislike of getting her face wet), and was "helped" more than a few times by Erin to get to the bottom of the pool for the diving ring. Lea told me once "Miss Stefany doesn't make us do sitdown dives." She does, she doesn't make you dive to the bottom of the pool - nice try. :)

Pics: First day; Lea and Madelyn waiting their turn; popsicle day! - she passed! wahoo!

In Luke's class - there was him and another little 3 year old Mereck (brother of Madelyn in Lea's class - they're about 6 days apart) and then 2 - 5 year olds. I was nervous about putting him in a Beginner 2 class, but he did so awesome! It was such a boy class - like a little locker room of boys. Cheering each other on, giving high fives and just being crazy! They bonded and were a great team.  He was disappointed the first day because he wanted to jump in and Miss Erin had him stay in the water to practice. Lucas struggled to close his mouth when he went under water. You'll see she'd tell him to take a big breath, but he would take it too early - she had to squish his cheeks one day to make him take a new breath. There was one day where I thought he was going to drown, but he was able to flip over on his back with some assistance from Erin. That was the only time I saw him panic in the water - heart wrenching, but he was amazing! I would hear the same thing about Lucas "Chin down, Lucas, chin down...." come on kids! :) By the end of the 2 weeks, he was doing sit down dives and swimming a half lap.

He passed! Well sort of, needs to take this course again and get better, then can move on - still not to shabby for his first full lesson!

Even Jeff and Abbey had a good time watching - Abbey has finally taking a liking to her dad. Which of course Jeff loves - it only took a year, but we made it! :)

Thank you so much Erin, Shayla and Stefany!!

9/11/01

I remember that day as clear as if it were today. Not saying too much, but I do remember a lot of it. :) Jeff and I were married on August 2nd, 2001, so we had barely been married a month and were living in Provo, Utah going to BYU. We got a call early morning 7 am-ish - it was before we had to be to school and it was Jeff's brother Steven. He asked if we were watching tv, nope. Well turn it on! We had just been attacked in New York City. Unbelievable, Jeff bolted for the TV turned it on and all I heard was "No way, oh my gosh, no way". I ran to see what he was talking about and we stood there watching the news, wondering what the heck was going on. We went to school and I could barely pay attention - it was unreal. It was like watching a movie - so real, but it had to be fake. I was working at Computer Support in the Wilkinson Center. I went to work and they had a TV on in there, we watched the rest of the new reports and everything else that went on. My friend (former roommate) Alyssa - her dad worked in the Pentagon, so when that was hit, I instantly thought of her and hoped he was okay.

As the days unfolded and stories started pouring out of the selflessness of those involved, although I didn't know any of them, I was truly grateful for each of them and was amazed at how the Lord had gone to work preparing us and helping us heal. Those who risked their lives to save their co-workers, those who were late to work and saved, who followed a prompting to not go to work and so many more. A friend of mine who was moving from Canada to Washington State with her little family and made the move just days before 9/11 - she wouldn't have been able to move after 9/11 because the borders were shut down. So many stories and so many heros - firefighters, police officers, medical personnel and every other individual that went through that horrible day.

I love the songwriters who were inspired to create music to remember this day and others similar - Pearl Harbor, World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam, Persian Gulf War, and so many more. I remember listening to Toby Keith's "Courtesy of the Red White and Blue" and "Proud to be an American" by Lee Greenwood, Alan Jackson's "Where were you when the world stopped turning...". I still get choked up when I hear these songs. It was amazing to watch as our nation pulled together out of our own petty problems and disagreements, to be one nation to stand up for our great nation and the people who died. I appreciate George W. Bush - he's a great leader and one who was definitely needed for that time.

I still have a few of the papers from that day and days to follow and will hold onto those as part of history during my lifetime. I don't know exactly where they are, but I come across them every now and again and the same feelings come. A sense of pride for my country - grateful to military and their families, sadness for those who lost loved ones and just how precious life is and how quickly it can change.


I get choked up everytime I hear the National Anthem and see people stand for the Pledge of Allegiance, at the Olympics, at school, baseball games, football, doesn't matter where - I love it! Especially to see the kids stand and repeat it. It's a touching moment to see Lea stand with her fellow classmates and say the Pledge of Allegiance followed by a moment of silence.

"It was a war we did not start, but were called upon to finish". (From "The Price of Freedom")

Thank you and we will never forget.