The Holy Family Flees Into Egypt

The other night, Rob went in the living room after the kids were all in bed. He started laughing because there was the Holy Family all in the Barbie Jeep. Miciah came out a little later as Rob was taking pictures of the funny scene. She said, "I did that. Do you like how I put Mary?" (Notice Mary in the picture is upside down.)

Rob thought it was so funny that he's been telling everyone about the picture and asking me to send it out with the caption you read above.

So here you go. Here's the picture with the caption and a little story to go with it.

Merry Christmas!

The Holy Family Flees Into Egypt

Baby Jesus was born in a manger and everyone knows the story. The baby was born; heralding angels told shephards who came; wise men followed a star, met with Herod, and brought the babe gifts; Herod was so mad that he tried to kill the baby; and the holy family flees into Egypt. But did you ever wonder how the holy family made it to Egypt? Now the mystery is solved. It probably went down something like this:

A Slightly Irreverant Play -- The Story in Hyper Speed

The scene: Mary and Joseph watching over a sleeping baby Jesus. All is quiet in the stable. A majestic glow in the room. An angel stands at a corner of the stable playing heavenly music on a harp.

Enter the shephards.

Shephard #1: What a wonderful baby.

Mary: We think so.

Shephard #2: He is the Son of God.

Mary: Of course. Didn't you see the angel?

Enter the wise men.

All wise men: We bring great gifts from afar.

Mary: On behalf of the baby, thank you. These are priceless, wonderful, and meaningful gifts.

Wise man #1: Yes.

Wise man #2: We saw Herod on the way here. I don't think he likes the baby.

Wise man #3: I forsee that he will try to kill him.

Joseph: We should leave, then.

Mary: We should go to Egypt.

Soldiers are heard outside. People shouting. Babies crying.

Wise man #3: That was fast.

Wise man #2: You must leave now.

Joseph: We should leave, then.

Mary: What will we do? We can not leave fast enough to escape the soldiers.

Shephard #1: I have my car around back.

Joseph: We should leave, then.

Wise man #1: We will try to stall the soldiers. Go!

Shephard #2: To the car!

Shephard #1: I'll drive.

Angel: I call shotgun!

The shephards lead the way. Joseph follows with baby Jesus and the Angel picks up the manger to take. They exit the stable and walk around back to the car. Wise men exit off stage. Mary is still trying to grab things to take with them.

Mary: You never know what the baby will need. Never hurts to be prepared.

Soldiers start to enter the stable.

Mary: Oh!

Mary runs to the car and jumps in just as the car speeds away.


The End

More Pictures

Here are some fun pictures. One is of Rob and Teancom. Rob was waiting up in bed, reading, cuddling with Teancom. By the time I got in, he had fallen asleep. It was so cute to me that I went and got the camera. I stood on the bed over them and took 3 pictures. Then I got into bed at which point Rob woke up and told me that he had not been asleep. I got out the camera to prove he had been.

Another one is of Miciah "flying a kite." She decided to make, completely unprompted, a kite. So she taped together a piece of paper and made a kite. She then asked for string. At this point I was still unaware of why she wanted the string, so I gave her the string that had fallen out of my sweatshirt (the one that you tighten to make the hood tight). So she tapes it to the kite and goes outside to fly it. It was so cute. I tried to take some good pictures, but she was moving too much, so this is the best one I have. Though I do have a little video of her running through the front yard trying to fly the kite. She then turns to me, on video, and says, "See, I TOLD you I needed a longer string." It was too cute.

Notice that she's outside without a coat flying a kite on December 13th. The weather here has been incredible. 60 degrees and warmer. Which by now is getting annoying cause it's supposed to feel like winter so it can feel like Christmas. But it doesn't. It's like the first year we moved to California and couldn't quite get into Christmas the same way. Oh well. I suppose there's a week left.

Tamra

What's Been Going on Here

Not much happening here. I feel like I say that every time, but it's because it's true.

The highlight of my last few weeks was having a friend call on the phone for me and mistakingly ask for J. :) I have never been called my Mom's name, I don't think, and it was a treat for me. It made me giggle. This friend is older than my mom and she has a great love for her, so it was a nice little compliment (or at least that's how I liked to take it). It was JR, for those who know her (like Mom and Dad).

Gingerbread Houses

We had a really good time Saturday night making gingerbread houses. We used grahm crackers and cake icing, so it was way easy. The best part about it is that Miciah is old enough now to participate. Elijah got a plate of candy and that entertained him until he ate it all, and then he went and watched TV. We found out through that experience, though, that Elijah does NOT like Skittles. Who knew. Miciah, though, did a lot. I built the house and iced it and then she added all the stuff to it. It was fun! She's creative and had a lot of fun with it. On one of the houses we did (the mansion), she decorated the grounds and made a pond. She decided on how to make it (blue M&Ms, of course), and then added ducks all on her own (lemon heads). Even duck eggs! I was impressed. ... After we were done on Saturday night and we were cleaning up the candy, Miciah was quietly doing stuff that I wasn't paying attention to. I thought there was no more rome to put any more candy. But I was wrong. Miciah propped up some pretzels and made a nice licorice wood pile. It was cute. ... Good memories. We'll have to do it all again next year.

New Windows

Oh! There is some big news over here. No, not what any of you are thinking. We got new windows! We decided to replace all the windows in our house (on the main floor, not the basement) as well as the sliding glass door, cause all of them were in horrible repair. We did this 2 weeks ago and it's been wonderful ever since! Our house keeps heat! The wind doesn't blow through our house! Our bedroom isn't absolutely freezing! The sliding glass door actually opens! I can take a shower without shivering from the cold coming in from outside! We can sit on the couch without needing long johns on. It's wonderful and I wish we would have done it a year ago.

The purchase has required, however, that we make some smaller sacrifices in our budget. Which is just fine with us. The windows are so worth it. And it's amazing how easy it is to make sacrifices when you're in on it together. It isn't Rob sacrificing. It isn't Tamra sacrificing. It's us as a couple, as a family, sacrificing. And that doesn't actually feel like a sacrifice.

And we have figured out, at least for the last little while, how to have 3 kids and have a clean house. Amazing how it works, but it took both of us caring and doing something about it, and it's not so hard now (it might have also taken having a baby older than 3 months old). The dishes are done, the laundry isn't a huge pile in the basement. It just took both of us to be diligent about it. Before it was more like one of us cleaning and the other doing their own thing. Now it's both of us wanting to make it work. And amazing how that's easy whereas before it wasn't even possible for me to keep the house clean. Now I like being in my house. And that's a nice little change that's meant a lot.

Marriage

All in all, life here is good. This week is our 6th anniversary. We're still grateful to be married to each other and we're still in love. We still like our kids and we still like the life we've built together and what our future looks like. And maybe I've said this earlier, but it's dawned on me recently that now I know why they say marriage is hard. It's not because it's hard to not be selfish, even though that's a large part of it. It's hard because it's the biggest committment we've ever made. We constantly have to re-committ ourselves to each other and to the life we have together. It IS work to be One, as we should be. It IS work to work well together. It is a huge committment to truly put the other person first, to care more about how our family comes out together than about my own personal wants. ... I have come to a good place, I think, where I'd rather sacrifice anything I have to make our family and our marriage work. If that's pride I need to sacrifice, so be it. If that's money, so be it. ... I realize why wise sages in my life have told me that they didn't know what love was when they were first married. Why they say it just gets deeper over time.

We're looking forward to the next stages in our life, where things get sweeter with time. If that's really what happens. :) I guess we'll find out!

We love you all. Hope you all have a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

An e-mail Almost Sent

I have to admit to this because it's funny.

I almost sent out an e-mail in reply to one Dad sent out last week (the last time I checked e-mail). The one about how sarcasm can be inclusive. He said:

"Good comments all. It reminds me that in no one lives in India, at least no one important. And, that Tam gets every joke. And, that K is very quiet - I so wish she would speak up once in a while."

I thought about this comment for a while. I remember why no one lives in India. I know why K is quiet. But for the life of me I could not get it why I don't get every joke. So here I am, wondering why this became a T Family Joke. So I almost sent out an e-mail asking why it is that I don't get every joke.

And then I got it: Once again, I didn't get the joke.

Tamra

Updates and More Updates

Randomness, here we come!

I looked up the difference between the words "assume" and "presume." They can be used almost interchangably, though some of the lesser known definitions are very different. One of the definitions of presume, though, is to "assume with confidence," which is kind of what I was thinking it was. That's usually how you hear it.

In the newer Scooby-Doo movies (read: not the originals), the guy that does the voices for Scooby-Doo and Freddy (the same guy) is named Frank Welker. He also does the voice for Abu from Aladdin and George of Curious George. He does the voice of a baby clam in a few SpongeBob episodes, and is also Dr. Claw in the newest Inspector Gadgets. Who knew.

A little less random now, since it's all about our life. Still, though, pretty random.

Exploding Glass!

Exploding 8x8 Pyrex baking dishes are awesome! Funny enough, exploding glass sounds just like you'd think it might. Like an explosion sound mixed with a glass shattering sound. Though, before last night I wasn't aware that glass COULD explode. It can. Rob left a burner on. Then we all sat down to dinner and he went and put the glass baking dish on the stove. A few minutes later: bam! It was so cool! Luckily no one was in the kitchen at the time. ... We went in to see what happened and you could hear the glass sizzling. Who knew glass could sizzle? ... The only bummer about the whole thing is that that was my only square baking dish! Rob says he'll buy me another one. I told him maybe he should buy 2 and we'll do it again! ... We're still finding glass on the floor/in our feet. But I think the most of that is over, too.

Poor Tree is Dead, Poor Judd Tree is Dead

The neighbor that borders our back fence no longer has a dead tree in their back yard. The storm that came through 2 nights back produced enough wind to knock over one of the bigger limbs. It smashed through the fence and gazebo of another neighbor's. Really, it only knocked off a plank off the top of the gazebo, and they're really good friends with those neighbors, so I guess it's all good. The fence is destroyed, though. They said they were going to replace it anyway. It looks to be older than most of us. ... We were glad this happened the way it did. That tree has been concerning us for a year. So today they sawed it all to the ground. Cool! They came to the front door and said it would probably smash through our fence, too, in the process. By dumb luck, it missed the fence, which is great. I told them we would take any of the wood they didn't want, so between us and the neighbor with the gazebo, we took all the wood. Now we can make a real fire!

No, we don't have a fireplace. I just want to do one of those outdoor fires. No, we don't have an outdoor pit or anything. But next summer we may just have to get one. Or, just borrow someone else's. Or take our wood to C's house and burn it there. Some how or other, we're going to have some fires! Smores, here we come!

Normalness, or at least as close as we get.

This weekend we are pleased to be hosts to 2 wonderful young ladies. L and E are 4 and 6, respectively. They are here for the weekend because their mom and dad took a weekend trip and didn't want to have the kids in the car for 18+ hours total driving time. Can't say I blame them. I offered to watch the kids cause if it were me wanting to take the trip, I'd hope I had a friend who would offer the same thing. It's been pretty fun and a good learning experience. I've learned that 3 girls can be pretty catty and stupid. And I've learned that I'm not sure how to deal with kids that are not my own, even though I think I'm pretty good with kids and I'm pretty good with my own kids. And these 2 girls are very good girls, too. So much for knowing it all. Another friend offered to watch the 2 boys (L and E have 2 brothers), so it's only 2 extra kids instead of 4. I would have watched all 4, but I'm glad it's only 2. Though maybe the boys would keep the girls from griping at each other and me so much. Girls are trouble.

Winter Weather is Upon Us

And it is now officially winter. After having awesome weather, the storm that rolled through brought winter to us. It was 60 one day and 30 the next, with snow flurries and everything. Yikes! I went out to get the mail with my short-sleeved shirt and found out that winter had struck. I guess that's okay, since it's now December. It was funny, though, we couldn't see out any of our windows for a whole day, they were so fogged up. I went to pick up L and R (her brother) from the bus stop. It's just at the end of the street so I thought I'd walk. Dumb. It was so cold. We were FREEZING our butts off by the time we got back home. The whole way they were telling me about how they didn't even go out to recess cause it was so cold. No, one of them did go out for one of their recesses, but they had to come back inside cause it was so cold and while they were waiting in line to come back in, some of the kids started crying cause it was so cold. And I'm walking going, "WHY didn't I take the car?" Oh, cause I forgot what winter was. :) By the end I had given R my hat, and it felt like my chin and ears were just going to fall off. Luckily, no one was injured.

We now have warped from the stone age into hi-tech land. It's very weird. Rob has a palm pilot, we have an all-in-one printer, 3 jump drives, and of course Rob's laptop. Rob's school paid for everything, but it's still just weird to be caught up a little with the rest of the world. We're enjoying our toys (Rob says they're "professional tools", but they're toys).

And yesterday I washed and put away every dirty dish in the house. All of it was clean. Today we have no clean forks or little cups or little bowls and we're almost out of clean spoons. Figures. Man, do I love housework! :)

Okay, gotta go. We love you all and hope all is going well enough (like, no one's died lately).

Tamra and family

Halloween Family Picture

C has informed me that I don't send out enough pictures with me in them. Because usually if I want to take a picture, I want to take a picture of the kids, not of me. But a neighbor took a picture of all of us for Halloween. It's a little doofy, but here it is. I think it's the first picture of all of us together since, ... well, for a long time. Enjoy.

Tamra

Pictures of the Kids

The weather here has been fabulous! It was 65 degrees on Thanksgiving day. That blows me away! It's almost December and not only has it not snowed, but it's barely been cold at all. So we've been playing outside. These are some pictures of the kids playing in the leaves at R & C's house. We don't have any leaves in our yard, so we borrow their yard. ... One of the pictures is of Elijah with 2 sticks. Whenever he holds sticks he does this wizard-type thing. He'll point the stick in your direction and go "pssst!" like he's casting a spell on you. So I had to get a picture of it.

I remember when I was young that playing in the leaves was fun. But watching it in the eyes of my children -- pure joy.

Oh, the weather. The day after these pictures were taken, it was almost 80 degrees outside. I let Elijah run around in just a diaper. Rob complained and I just asid, "Rob, it's Nov. 10th. Let the kid be naked! It's warm!" We had people over for dinner that night and the kids all ate on the deck outside. It was Nov. 10th! Crazy!

Elijah loves his little brother. He likes to lay down for a "nap" with him. He'll set Teancom on his pillow and get out all the nap stuff -- blankets, etc. It's cute.

And the great thing about being the helpless little brother is pictures like this -- Teancom covered in princess stickers! :)

Picture of Rob

Here's a lovely picture of Rob. :)

Tamra

Family Update

November has been a busy, busy month for us. Our weeks and weekends have been filled to the max with things we had to do and things we wanted to do, too. Plus, we've all been sick off and on, so it's made for some interesting times around here.

Rob and Scouts

Rob has been having fun with the Scouts. Two weeks ago he went on a camp out but didn't get to stay overnight cause I was sick. I called him home cause I just wasn't up to watching the kids by myself because of how I was feeling. But the camp out was fun with the usual instances of shaving cream in kids' shoes and on signs, and kids hiding in the van so they didn't have to clean up. It makes me laugh how different the Young Men and Young Women are. Things are about to change in the ward, though, so the scouting program will be changing anyway. Rob will be going to more camp outs from here on out, which will be great fun for him. I'm a little sad he didn't get to stay the whole time this last time, but it couldn't be helped. I don't mind camp outs at all. I know some wives do. But it's only like 20 hours away from Rob and half of that is sleep time. What's wrong with that?

Excuse Me, Could You Pass the Family Sickness, Please?

I was sick this month immediately after Elijah got over the flu. I thought I was getting the flu, too, but apparently not, which is good. It still knocked me out with a variety of symptoms for about a week. I got my sense of taste and smell back just in time for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness! ... Rob, who was spared all month while me and the kids were sick, has come down with the same cold. He'll probably be coming home early cause he feels pretty crummy. Bummer.

Miciah had an ear infection. Elijah had the flu. Elijah is still cranky, which is weird for him.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was great! We spent Thanksgiving Day with R & C and their daughters and their daughters' men. It was way fun. The turkey was EXCELLENT, which is one of the first times I can say I enjoyed turkey. We made pumpkin pies and then ate 2 pies, just Rob and me, in 2 days. Yumm! I think I gained 5 pounds in a single day. :) No holding back this year. Rob had to go into school the day after Turkey Day, so while he was in school the kids and I brought out some Christmas decorations. Miciah and Elijah have been having a grand time playing with the Nativity set we got out. It's my favorite Christmas decoration. We have yet to put up the tree, but that should be happening in the next few days (or Miciah will hurt us!).

CS's Baby Blessing

Saturday we went up to C's house and it was wonderful. Sunday was CS's baby blessing and it was fun to be surrounded by family. I had to take Elijah out in the Primary Room to listen to the blessing cause he was throwing a huge fit. He's still not back to his un-sick self, so he was really really grumpy. He hasn't been napping well since he's been sick, or sleeping well, and it's starting to show. The branch president offered me a piece of candy but said I had to tell him one thing I learned at church today. I told him I learned my kids are better at our own ward than at other people's wards. He said, "Take 3 pieces." :) He's a great man and really really funny. He's the one that always has to tell us as we're leaving the church, "Kids, your parents will give you candy if you cry in the car." Funny.

The Trip Home

We got home last night at 10:00 or so. It was mostly a dang good trip except Elijah was so tired. He woke up in the car about 10 minutes away from home and was out of it. Rob finally took him in the shower and dunked his head in the water so he'd calm down. It worked. But it was a long long 20 minutes of him kicking and hitting and screaming. Elijah has also lost his voice, partly from being sick, and partly from screaming so much. But it's now a cute little raspy voice.

Teancom is an excellent traveller! The 2-hour car ride north was amazing. Teancom didn't sleep for any of it, but he was quiet the entire time! Wow! Teancom is turning into a great baby. Elijah was our good baby before, but I think Teancom is working on stealing that prize. He now goes to sleep on his own. He will get fussy and you can put his binky in, lay him down, and he's asleep in about 5 minutes. It's amazing and wonderful. He doesn't sleep through the night yet, but he sleeps during the night for about a 12 hour stretch. When he's awake he's generally very happy and smiley. He's not an easy laugher, but he'll smile at anything. Teancom also loves to hold his blanket. I wonder if he'll be like Elijah in that regard. I guess time will tell. Teancom is a joy to have and we are grateful he's in our family.

Dates (Woah. Did I say Dates?!)

We went on 2 dates this month without any of our kids! Wow! We haven't been on a date in a long time, especially one without the baby. We went first to see Aida, a musical put on by the Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts. The lead was amazing! And the show was great. I'd never seen it or even heard of it, so it was a pleasure to see. One of the YW in our ward was in it, hence why we went. We saw the closing show, but had we gone earlier, I would have made Rob take me again. It was SO worth it. Rob had seen Aida as an opera in Germany. He saw it in Italian with German subtitles. So I told Rob now he's seen it in 3 languages and 2 genres. How many people can say that?

The other date was a surprise date Rob took me on the day before Turkey Day. He took me out to eat at Panera Bread (my favorite place to eat out at here in Ohio), and then we saw Pirates 2. Sadly, I did not like it near as much as I thought I would for a number of reasons. Rob really liked it, though. I am reserving final judgment on the movie until I see # 3. So for any of you wanting right now to talk me into liking # 2, save it until I've seen # 3. Cause very likely I'll like it after seeing the last movie. But it was nice to go out on a date.

Our next date will be our anniversary date on Dec. 21st. Can you believe it, we've been married 6 years! I'm waiting to see how this year's date will top last year's, though. Last year's ended with Elijah throwing up all over multiple times. Might have been Miciah, too. How do you top that? :) I guess we'll have to see what's in store for us. Rob says he's planning the date and just a few days ago told me we would be going to someone's house to watch BYU play in the Las Vegas Bowl. Wowee! Does my man know how to be romantic or what!? I'm a lucky one.

The Holidays are Upon Us

And then it's the holidays. I can't believe it's almost that time of year again. I feel like I'm just waking up from being asleep for the last year (pregnancy plus recovery), so it's amazing to me the time that feels like it's just slipped away. I have SO MUCH more energy than I used to. I find myself randomly dancing or running, just cause I can and cause I have more energy than what I use up during the day. That's a NICE feeling and a very welcome change.

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I talked to a lot of you and told you how grateful I was for each of you (in a very personal way, I've been told ). For those of you I didn't talk to, thank you for being a part of our lives. We love you!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

A Political Comment (I promise there won't be many more)

I usually avoid politics with all my might. I hate feeling like there are no straight answers and like everyone's lying to me, so whose side do I take? I hate that in our elections coming up I have to choose between 2 men, one whom I don't trust and the other that I think is an idiot. I hate that I feel this way even after I have become "informed" and watched debates. I hate that people misconstrue (sp?) the facts just to get a vote. And I hate that I can vote for the other guy but still have to put up with whoever won the election.

But it finally dawned on me yesterday. That no matter what I do, I'm screwed. I thought for a while in my life that to avoid any political responsibility, I could just not vote. Well, that's just a cop-out. So then I thought maybe I'll just find out who I think will lose and vote for him. Cause then I can always say, "It's not my fault! I voted for the other guy!"

But I realized that if I don't like American politics, I should move out of the country. Because the way it's set up, the majority (sort of) wins. And that's who we as Americans, voted for. It isn't that some of us voted for him, it's as if ALL of us voted for him. So even if I voted for the other guy, I am responsible for and to the guy who wins.

So this has made me want to be as informed as possible and vote my conscience. Because it matters. And because in the end I can't say, "It wasn't my fault." There is no way to escape the responsibility (other than become a citizen of Canada!).

There you go. My latest "wisdom" about politics. So vote next week!

Tamra

Another Update with Pictures

Since my updates have been short lately, I thought I'd include a few more fun things that I've left out for the last little while.

Miciah's birthday party

The day of Miciah's party was also the birthday of a friend of ours, CR, who was coming to the party with his kids. I told him on the Monday before that I was going to make him a cake and he said, "I want a Star Wars cake." He was just kidding, of course, but I thought, why not make him one? So I did. Here are the pictures of it. It was awesome! His daughter who is turning 6 in January says she wants the same cake for her birthday. Fun!

The party prompted another friend of ours, DS, to mention that it was his birthday the next Saturday and why didn't I make HIM a cake, too. I reminded him that I made him a cake 2 years ago for his b-day and wasn't that good enough? Apparently not. So I made some cookies for him and took them to his house. We're really good friends with the S's, so I gave him only 13 cookies and wrote a note that said, "I made 28 cookies but got hungry on the way so I ate a few. But at least it now matches your mental age." Waa haa haa. I like having friends I can joke with.

The Primary program

The Primary program for church was this last Sunday. They practiced for it for 3 weeks, and Miciah was pretty freaked out about having to say her part. They gave her an easy one: 5 things she's grateful for and why. I was about to go up to the person running the show (JS, our really good friend (wife of the DS listed above) and tell her it just wasn't working. But J then told Miciah that if she does her part, she gets cookies afterwards, but it's a secret, so don't tell anyone. Miciah was convinced. And she kept the secret. She's good at keeping secrets, actually. So Miciah sat up there the whole time and sang the songs. During one of the songs she looked over at us, gave us a thumbs up and winked. Lovely. She did her part great. She said: "I am grateful for church, the Bishop, Grandma and Grandpa, Heavenly Father and Jesus, and Mom and Dad. I am grateful for them because they make me happy." What a great little talk. The Bishop was so impressed he's thinking about asking her to be a youth speaker in church some time. We'll see if that happens.

Halloween

We invited our good friends, T & S T, over for Halloween night. They came, had dinner with us (we made dinner in a pumpkin, how cool is that?!), and watch "scary movies" with us. We made a list a year back or so of movies that aren't really freaky, but that freaked us out as kids. The list includes The Neverending Story (the part with the wolf!), The Labrynth (need I explain that one?), The Black Cauldron (the green mist), Return to Oz (all those heads!), and The Dark Crystal (the emperor dying and turning into ash). We ended up watching The Black Cauldron, which I don't ever remember seeing as a kid. Rob says it gave him nightmares when he was little. Anyways, the movie was freaky, and I think that as an adult. Yikes! Not sure that's ever going to be on our must-own list. Plus, they butchered the story. I spent a good 10 minutes afterwards explaining why they shouldn't not read the series because of this lame movie. I'm a huge Lloyd Alexander fan.

Miciah

Miciah is a treasure and an asset to our home. She helps clean up and holds down the fort when I'm taking naps. She asks before she gets into things she knows might be iffy. She is my answering service and actually gives me the message. And she's very independent and takes care of herself. The older she gets, the more I find to like about her. And her personality is great. She's now into a stage where she's joking around with us. The other day Rob was folding laundry and had just finished folding a lot of Elijah's underwear. She said, "Dad, there's underwear on your head." Rob put his hand up to check and she said, "Just kidding." It makes us smile.

Elijah

Elijah is a stinker these days! "Eida do it!" That's how he says his name. He's very talkative and likes to yell at me and tell me just what I'm doing that he doesn't like. :) He likes to object every time we want to change his clothes. He's specific about what he wants to wear, or eat, or watch on TV. I have some great pictures of him in the bathtub. He was in the tub, the water was let out, and he refused to get out. So I got the camera to capture the moment. He kind of looked at me like, "What are you doing?" Then he got out, but only after refusing to use any towel but the blue one. Looks like Teancom gets the yellow towel. Our cute little compliant Elijah is now 2. It doesn't work to spank him or yell at him, he usually thinks that's funny. I don't think he has any pain receptors, cause you spank him and he laughs. So we've given up on punishment, pretty much. Cause it doesn't work. But does anything when you're 2?
He's still just as sweet as can be, though, and it's fun to have such a sensitive, caring kid around.

Teancom

Teancom is getting smiley and is starting to laugh. It's fun.

Rob

Rob's mentor guy at school told him he has enough data to publish a paper. Rob is excited, this is a good step.

Me and Rob

Rob and I are going out on a date tonight, with Teancom. We haven't been out for a long time. It'll be fun. And someone else is paying for dinner. How much better does it get?

Okay, that's all the random bits I had stored up. Until next time.

Tamra and family

Halloween Update

I now know why my mother didn't like Halloween candy as much as us kids did. What a pain to have all this candy around! But it's so fun for the kids, I guess that's good.


Halloween was fun. First was the Trunk-or-Treat at church. Miciah's costume turned out okay. The whole time I was dying the shirt on the stove I kept thinking about when Charlie's mom in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was doing the laundry. Stirring this big vat of clothes. I randomly would break into short singing bursts of "Cheer up, Charlie. Just be glad you're you." Though I doubt Charlie's mom was tie-dying shirts.

No one at church guessed what she was. But she loved being the Nile. Hardly anyone else at church was even a scripture character at all. Which bummed me out. Rob was Joseph, as you'll see from the picture of him twirling in my dress. I was Moses' mom. Teancom was baby Moses and Elijah was a horse (a cop-out. We already had a horse costume and there are horses mentioned in the BoM). They were all dang cute. I'm sending pictures of all of them (minus me. I just wore a dorky dress I wear regularly).

Some neighbors gave the kids a huge amount of candy. They also gave the kids some toy pumpkins and the kids think the neighbors are awesome. We like our neighborhood. R & C gave the kids industrial-size Butterfingers bars. Holy coy, have we got candy!

For Halloween night Teancom was a pumpkin, and what a cute pumpkin he was. We even got him to smile for the picture, though it took some doing.

Okay, gotta go. Elijah is throwing a fit cause I'm not showing him enough pictures. Life is hard. :) I'll send a better update later, though what's better than pictures?

Tamra

A Picture

This is a cute picture of the kids and R & C.

Indeed, it is time for an update. It's been a month.

Well, life is life here. It's busy and unrelenting, and that's how it should be. I had a realization a few days ago. After weeks of being unable to keep the house clean, the dishes done, dinner made, or the laundry done, it dawned on me that this was not a deficiency in me. I have 3 kids and one of them is 3-months-old. I have had this verified by several other mothers of 3 + kids and this makes me feel better. I still would like to be more on top of things, and this is a noble goal. But I have stopped apologizing to Rob when he comes home and the house is dirty. This is a nice freedom I have given myself (and that Rob has allowed me to have without complaining).

I have mastered the store with 2 kids (Elijah and Teancom), but have yet again to brave the store with 3 kids. Still going to the store for longer than 5 minutes is a gamble and I'm learning to have a good sense of humor about it, even when it's happening. And that's been a nice thing. Most of my days are chaos until noon and then it's better after that. I don't know why noon is the breaking point, but it is. I still take naps most days for a good part of the afternoon. This offsets at least a little bit the fact that Teancom still doesn't go to bed before midnight most nights and isn't consistent about his 5 - 6 hours of sleep. Some nights it's 5 and some it's 2 or 3. Naps are good. :)

Rob is still enjoying his research. I still understand very little about what he does.

Miciah's 5th Birthday

Miciah had her birthday parties. That was fun and chaos! We had 20 kids over, with their parents, so our house was overflowing with people. Feeding all the kids cake and icecream was overwhelming, but only lasted like 20 minutes, and the rest of the party was a break from kids. They were all downstairs and the adults were all upstairs. It was great. Miciah got lots of great toys and was spoiled rotten, of course. Elijah was also in heaven because all Miciah's friends brought their little sisters or brothers, most of whom are Elijah's age. He thought it was his birthday party, too. We let him open one gift during a small party with R & C and he was happy. Still, if you say, "Elijah, was it Miciah's birthday party?" he will reply, "MY birthday party!" It's cute. We got it on video.




Elijah

Elijah is talking up a storm and showing off his 2-year-old attitude. It's incredible. He's cute and lovable and a little sassy. I'll say something like, "Elijah, eat that." He'll reply with, "YOU eat it." Very nice. He is back to spitting and hitting and scowling. Well, he's always scowled. But he's delightful, even when he's talking back. Potty training is still potty training, and I wish I could say it's going so smoothly it's the easiest thing I've ever done. Yeah, right. Miciah was much easier. But it's going well enough, I suppose. We don't worry too much about when it doesn't, and Elijah gets M&M's when he does it right, and that's really good motivation for him.

Teancom

Teancom is growing like a weed and it's great. He's starting to get pretty smiley and happy when he's awake and is going to sleep better, fighting it less. He's sleeping longer (sometimes) and getting bigger and what else could we ask for? He's also making eye contact better. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't have great eye sight. He has just now started to make eye contact and still doesn't like people to be too close to him, or else he avoids their face. He will turn away from them. Someone today suggested that maybe he's near-sighted or whatever. I guess we'll have to see as he gets older. Certainly he's not developmentally behind, but it's something we're keeping an eye on.

Almost Halloween

And that's life here. Next order of business is making Miciah's costume for this Friday's celebration at the church building. They want the kids to dress as scripture characters, and Miciah said she wanted to be the Nile River. What kind of kid WANTS to be the NILE? Whatever. So she's going as the Nile. I bet she'll be the only one there who is a body of water. :) It'll be cute.

Take care everyone. Have a great Halloween! We'll send pictures when we get them.

Tamra and family

More Random Pictures

Here's a cute picture of Rob and Teancom after Rob got him to go to sleep by letting him suck on his finger. So there's also a picture of Rob's pruny pinky, cause we think it's funny. Tank won't take a binky really, but he'll try to suck off your finger.

And here's also a picture of the hardwood floor in our dining room after we tore up the carpet.

Randomness, here we come! Maybe later I'll tell you about what I found out about the Wiggles from their homepage. That'll be a real journey into the pointless.

Tamra

A Funny Picture

Elijah is attempting to phase out naps, but it's not really working. He still needs them. The other day he was doing good until about 4 pm. He then put himself in his high chair and started throwing things and shouting to himself and having a good time. I was generally ignoring him and suddenly noticed it was quiet over there. I looked over and there was Elijah, asleep in his high chair. Just thought you all might appreciate the image as much as I did.


Tamra

Family Update

Not much going on here. Miciah has started back at pre-school, and this makes us all happy. We have lots of friends there to carpool with this year and this makes all the parents happy, cause it's about a 20 minute drive to her pre-school.

Elijah

Elijah is still doing pretty good with potty training. He's hit the terrible twos full throttle now, so that's a little frustrating. Mostly he's just sweet Elijah, but he'll ask Why incessantly (which is actually pretty cute, I think), and insists on throwing full out tantrums whenever we go out in public. Let me tell you, it is hard to pick up a 30 lb. 2-year-old with one arm. I have decided when I go to pick up Ciah from pre-school I will take the stroller and strap Elijah down so he can't get out. Then at least he can't get down on the floor and refuse to move. Sheesh. And every time I am brave enough to go to the store, I remind myself to not be brave again any time soon. But I'm still laughing on the inside, so that's the important thing. And if I wasn't exhausted by noon everyday, would life be worth it? :)

Rob's project is still back and forth. He'll be able to tell in the next month or so if he'll need to switch projects. It's so day-to-day what the prognosis is. So I don't worry about it too much. If it does get switched, I'll make him get on here and tell you all what the new project is.

Home Projects

We have been doing a lot of projects since I now have energy to handle it. We tore up the carpet in the dining room to get the hardwood underneath. It won't ever look nice, cause there's lots of nails and screws they put in it probably to stop creaks. And there's a big spot that used to be a part of the heating stuff that isn't even stained, but it is hardwood. We'll be staining it soon so we can live with it. Long-term, we'll be putting down that laminate floor that looks like hardwood but isn't. But that won't be for a while.

We also stained the deck a see-through red color to protect the wood and weather-proof it. It's a nice deck and I think it'll be even nicer now. Even though Miciah helped so it's not very even in its color. But it's cute that she loved helping so much. She felt really special to be able to help and that's worth the imperfections. And it's not like Rob and I didn't add any imperfections anyway.

Because of projects our house is trashed. We're working today to get it all put back together.

Zelda

And the major accomplishment of my life is beating Zelda for the first time. I am now getting my butt kicked on Quest 2. But it's fun to play with Rob. And now you can go on-line and get any kind of cheat sheet and help that you want. And that's fun, too.

I am going up to M's this weekend with Teancom for an all-girls (and infants) weekend with C, C, M, and A. I'm looking forward to a little bit of a break, if not more sleep. Teancom is doing better about sleeping, but not much. He's getting a consistent 4 hour stretch instead of 3 hours. It's amazing how long 4 hours seems. :) From J's last e-mail, it looks like J and Tank are about the same size. Tank weighed in at 12 something just days before J was weighed at the same. Getting older is good for all of us. Teancom is getting a little of a pattern with his day, which is nice. I'm starting to catch on to the patterns, and that's also helpful. Teancom is still delightful and I can't imagine life without him now. He has this raspy little cry but he's not sick. It's just how he cries. So I'm wondering if he's not going to have a hoarse sounding little voice when he's older. Like Macy Grey or something. I guess we'll see.

That's all for updates around here. Everyone's relatively healthy with a little cough and congestion going around. It's starting to get colder and that's lovely. It's nice to not need any AC or heater. Good for our worn out energy bill. :) Take care all!

Tamra and family

Family Update

We are all healthy now, which is a wonderful thing to report! Teancom seems like he might have gotten a little bit of the cold that kicked our butts, but he's doing pretty good, if that's the case. Elijah and Miciah were untouched by the cold and Rob and I are over it now. So life is good again!

The infection I had went away, which is another great thing to report. I didn't realize that I was so swollen until it all went away. So I am feeling much better in that regard.

Potty Training Adventures

Elijah is doing pretty good for potty training. He has had few accidents. We're averaging about one a day. He tells us when he needs to go pee and does a good job at that. We haven't got the pooping in the potty thing down yet, but I think it won't be too far in coming. Elijah messed in his undies last night and he sat there going, "Yucky, Mommy. Yucky car" (there are cars on his undies). Yes, yucky. And the first day we were potty training, I put him down for a nap in his underwear. That was a bad idea. About 10 minutes later I hear a very insistent Elijah yelling at me: "Mommy! Mom-me! Come HERE! Come HERE!" I open the door and he's wet his pants and is standing there shouting, "Mom-me! Yuck-ee! Yuck-ee!" It made me laugh. ... So obviously we haven't got it all down yet, but if this is how it's going to be for a while, it's great. This is better than diapers, even with the occasional accident. And I think Elijah is loving the increased independence.

Adventures with 3 Kids

Miciah is having a lot of play dates lately, which is fun for her and nice for me. I think my friends with 2 kids (which is most of my friends) feel sorry for me with the new baby. I'm not really stressed out about the 3 kids thing yet (I'm waiting for it to kick in any time), but it's nice to have friends that are easing things for me anyway. I did go to the store with all three kids last week. What was I thinking? There were only like 5 things on my list so I figured it wouldn't be a problem. Well, 2 hours, 2 spills, 1 long fit, scrubbing carpets on hands and knees, 3 screaming kids and a tired mom LATER, ... Come to find out that almost every mom has a story like that, so I feel a little better about that.

Our lives are getting pretty much back to what normal is going to be for a while. We've been up to having people over again, and that's been great. I love having people over. And I even mowed the back yard yesterday! That was fun! It was hard and I could tell I haven't done much for a long time, so it was good to get a workout.

A New Cat. Again?

I'm sure you guys are getting tired of new cat announcements, but we have a new cat. The cat we used to have, Peek-a-Boo, was sick. He had diarreah for the full 2 weeks we had him. We gave him back and at last word, about a week ago, he still had diarreah and none of the medications were working. That's like 7 weeks of being sick. Yikes! Now they're thinking he has a disorder. Anyways, we don't regret giving him back.

So now we have Cleopatra. She is black and grey striped on top with white on her neck, belly, and paws. She is very pretty. She is very playful and she's an amazing climber. Rob says she climbs like a squirrel. :) She's fun to have around. She's not too loving, and in some ways, that's nice, too. She has scratched Miciah a few times, mainly because Miciah was holding her how she shouldn't have and tried to put her down and Cleo tried to hold on. Miciah was pretty upset about it until I explained that Cleo wasn't trying to be mean. I later heard Miciah tell her, "It's okay, Cleo. I understand you didn't mean to." Cute.

Baby Lucky, the Fish

And our best news of all!!: We have a baby fish. He's a molly. We have 2 different kinds of mollies and we're not sure which kind it is because the 2 we have are 1-black with a little yellow and 2-yellow with a little black and the baby fish is yellow and black. So who knows. But he's been around for like 2 weeks now and we're having a blast finding him. I half expect him to be eaten every time I look for him, but he's managed to stay alive and he's even grown to twice the size he was when we first saw him. So we call him Lucky, becuase I think he's lucky to be alive. If he gets eaten, I will change his name posthumously to Unlucky. :) He's getting braver and I like to hope that he will get to be a big fish. Having a baby fish is a lot less stressful than having a baby human. So this makes 3 fish in our tank with names: Paul (the scum sucker), Spot (our neon with a black spot on his tail), and Lucky. Fun!

That's all from here, sorry it was all pretty pointless.

Tamra and family

Update

It's been a little while, but not a lot has been going on.

Rob is still is school. He has no classes to take for the moment and so he's still just in the lab taking care of things there. I don't ask much about what he's doing because I don't understand much, and it also changes from day to day how he's feeling about how the test results are going. One day the sky is falling and the next Rob is on top of the world. So it's just easier to tell people that I don't know what's going on, cause if I miss the timing, I can be telling someone what Rob told me last week and he'll jump in what a, "Well, actually, ..."

I got a calling change. It's been in the works for a while, but it just happened 2 weeks ago. I am now the Young Womens Secretary. This mostly just releives me of going to every Tuesday night activity. I am grateful to still be with the Young Women. They're a bunch of fun and they're my girls.

Miciah starts pre-school soon-ish. Her fist day of full classes is the 20th, but they start transition days which are shorter on the 13th. Most of her friends have been gone for the summer, but have returned in the last 2 weeks, so we've had quite a few play dates, which makes everyone happy. Miciah is writing up a storm and spelling things all by herself. So we get lots of letters to "DADE" (Daddy). And she insists on spelling her middle name, Lynn, "LLINN", even when I correct her. Spelled like C, she says.

Elijah is doing great. You can't tell now that he even had surgery, except for the two little scars. He has dropped 2 pounds in the last few weeks, and so he's thinned out in his torso a lot. Still his limbs are as chunky as ever. :) It's cute. I don't know if the weight-loss is related to the surgery or not, but he seems healthy and happy, so whatever the weight-loss is from, it seems not to be a problem. Oh, and we're trying to potty train Elijah. We started today and it went pretty well. Only 2 accidents. He has yet to poop in the potty (he went in his diaper when we put him down for a nap), so that will be a big deal when that happens. But he is awesome at going pee in the toilet and needs little to no reinforcements, negative or positive. What a kid! Hopefully we'll be successful and I think we will. I anticipate being mostly all done with potty training by the end of the 3-day weekend. But now that I just said that out loud, God is probably thinking, "I'll show her!" :) So we'll see.

Teancom is doing good. He's a good baby. As he's growing he's getting better at being out of our arms for longer and sleeping longer and stuff like that. So that's nice. He smiled for the first time a week ago, so it's been fun to try to get him to smile for those fleeting moments. And he had his first huge blow-out yesterday. I found out by walking to the kitchen while holding him. Not a good plan. I ended up with poop all down my shirt and pants and on the kitchen floor. At least it wasn't on the carpet. I suppose I should count my blessings. :)

Walk in a Straight Line, Please

This week has been an interesting one. Rob started getting a cold on Saturday night and is just now starting to feel quite a bit better. He felt pretty crummy for 2 days. When he was starting to come out of it, on Wednesday, I woke up really late--like at 11. That surprised me in and of itself for 2 reasons: 1- I never sleep in that late and 2- Miciah and Elijah had let me sleep in that long! But then I got up out of bed, walked to the couch and the world was not a stable place. I could not see straight and I could not walk in a straight line. It took me being awake for 15 minutes before I called C and asked her to come take Miciah and Elijah. I thought of taking them to someone else's, but I couldn't drive feeling like that! So she came to get the 2 older kids and then, after seeing me and how I was, took Teancom, too. :) I've never been drunk, but if I imagine that's a little bit of what it must be like to be tipsy. If I drove around, I would be arrested for a DUI cause I wouldn't be able to walk that white line. Or I'd crash well before the cop pulled me over. She took the kids and I slept for almost 3 more hours. After that I was better, but still not great. I was moving slow for the rest of the day.

It was a weird day. Compounding the problem of the cold from Rob, I believe I have an infection. Tuesday night I started noticing redness and swelling above my scar. The scar itself looked fine, but above it was really swollen and a little tender. This worried me, of course. So I called my doctor and he said it was unusual to see an infection almost 6 weeks after a C-section, but it could be one. He said if it got worse or didn't get better to go in. So I had Rob drive me Wednesday afternoon (cause I really wouldn't have been able to drive myself. I was SO out of it). He put me on antibiotics and I feel much better in that regard. The tenderness was getting pretty bad by the time I went in. It's almost all gone now and most of the redness is gone, too, with the swelling decreasing rapidly. So I'm pleased about that. The cold is still hanging on and kicking my trash, but oh well.

Nintendo Fun!

Rob and I have started playing our original Nintendo games that Collin gave us. We hadn't for a while cause of the new baby. We have been enjoying playing Zelda and Dr. Mario and all those cool games. Rob beat Zelda like 5 times when he was a kid, he said, but I never have. However, I spent a lot of time watching my brothers play, so I know quite a bit. It's nice to be able to hold my own even if I'm not very good. :) I'm getting better.

Okay, that's my lame update. Sorry nothing more exciting is going on. We love you guys.

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

Update on Elijah

I know many of you have been concerned about Elijah, so here's an update on his surgery.

Surgery Day for Elijah

Yesterday morning was fun trying to keep Elijah from eating and drinking. He found a random sippy cup from somewhere. Had to take that away quick. And when we were getting in the car he found a few-days-old raisin that Rob had to take out of his mouth.

He loved the hospital cause they had a lot of toys for him to play with. I didn't get treated that well when I was in the hospital! I told the nurse that and she said, "All the adults say that!" :) They let Elijah play in one of those red cars you can drive around. They let him take it to his room and they even did part of his physical in it. I was impressed with how accomodating they were. Obviously they understood kids and were trying to make him comfortable.

The surgery was an hour and a half behind schedule, which was a bummer. But Elijah was okay with it, I wasn't. I was starving by the time we could eat! :) They gave Elijah a sedating drug and then he was loopy. It was really funny to see him making googly eyes at everyone who walked in the room.

They told us the surgery would be half an hour long and it was finally over in an hour and 15 minutes. It was a long day of waiting. The surgeon said the surgery went well. They scoped the left side and found a hole there, too, which we thought they would, so they fixed both sides. We have a cool picture of the left-side-hole. Neat! And the two incisions were really small, so Elijah shouldn't have huge scars for the rest of his life, just little bitty ones.

Recovery and Going Home

In recovery he was zonked because they gave him extra narcotics to make him comfy. He had drugged eyes and an itchy nose and I told him I understood completely! We took him home and Miciah was ready to play with him, which annoyed Elijah in a sleepy type of way. We were home by 6 and he was asleep for the night at 8. I was asleep at 8, too. It's amazing how tiring waiting can be! So that's why I didn't get an e-mail out yesterday, sorry.

The only real mishap is that he was up at 11:30 until about midnight crying because of his "owies." He went back to sleep after very sincere and desperate praying on our part (the Lord hears desperate parents). And he slept until 7:15 the next morning. He was clingy to me and even when I wasn't holding him, he wanted me to be at his disposal, so I didn't get out of his sight until 10 when I laid back down with Teancom. I slept until 1 and Eliah went down at 10, too, and slept until 3. (We let Rob sleep in this morning until 8:30. He was waking up all night worried about Elijah, poor guy.) But Elijah woke up very happy and back to his old self. He's been playing with Miciah and doesn't seem to be in any pain. We're still giving him some Tylenol and Motrin off and on, and occasionally he'll find a movement that hurts him, but he's happy eating cookies and drinking juice and we're happy that he's doing so well.

Thank you for all your prayers and concerns and phone calls, etc. Thank you, Grandma D, for putting Elijah's name in the temple. It's been nice to feel like we have that kind of support behind us. And we're very grateful to C, Rob's mom, for being here for us. We know she wants to be at home cause she's been travelling so much, but I don't think we would have gotten through yesterday and this morning without her. We send our love to everyone and we're grateful to have the worst of this past us. Take care!

Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah, and Teancom

Life at its Smelliest

Well, this update will be short-ish (nothing I write is short, I know). I only have 10-minute blocks of time these days, it feels like. Welcome to life from now on! :)

Teancom is doing great. We took him in for his 1 week visit and he weighed 2 oz. above his birth weight and was another 1/2 an inch longer. Amazing how fast they grow when they're this little. He is still a wonderful baby and we have fun with him. He eats every 3 hours now and sleeps about as long. Though his longest sleeping periods are during the day (hence why I am doing e-mail right now), go figure. Elijah seems to have figured the whole baby brother thing out. He took a while to transition and for a week plus he was FUSSY. It drove me crazy cause Elijah is just not a fussy kid. He threw a fit on a car ride home and cried the whole time. He has never done that in his life. Really. So it's nice to have Elijah back to his old self. Like today: He was a little fussy and so I asked if he wanted to take a nap. He said yes, grabbed his binky, went to his room, shut the door, laid in bed, tucked himself in, and went to sleep. That's my Elijah.

It was fun having Mom and Dad T in town. Plus, while they were here we had the baby blessing on Sunday, V's b-day. A TON of family and it was great. And now Miciah is loving having her favorite uncle in town to play with for a week. She is wearing him out and he'll need a long nap after getting back to Utah. :) But we are appreciating the continued help.

Miciah goes in for a doc's appt. tomorrow and I am hoping to get word from the doctor about what the "rash" on her neck is. She's had it for 3 months or more and it's spreading. Doesn't seem to really bother her, but it's time to get rid of it. It's been suggested to me that they are warts, but whatever they are, it's time for them to go away.

Elijah went in for a doc's appt. last week for his pre-op physical. He's healthy and happy and life is good. The surgery is Monday, the 14th. Rob's Mom offered to come down to help and I originally thought that wouldn't be necessary, but I am ready to take her up on that offer. :) Though I am ready to be on my own. People have been in town helping for over 2 weeks and by the time we're on our own it'll be over 3 weeks. My body is feeling great and all the pain is gone. I was even able to play in my garden yesterday with no ill effects. Though after cleaning essentially our whole house yesterday night, Rob and I crashed in bed. I don't remember the last time I saw Rob with circles under his eyes. He laid down in bed and in 2.7 seconds was asleep. We wore ourselves out.

And the reason we cleaned almost our whole house yesterday is 2-fold. There was meatloaf grease on the floor in the kitchen that the kids had tracked all down the stairs. Yuck. Miciah got our her mop and helped me clean it up. Then she mopped up the front porch, too. What a good girl! The second reason is much more aweful and not so easy to clean up. Two nights ago we noticed a smell in our room. I thought it was the clothes basket and maybe there was something mildewy in there. Not the case. So I tore the whole room apart looking for the source of the smell. I took out everything washable and searched through every drawer in the dresser. No luck. It was driving me crazy. We finally thought it was behind the bookcase. So we took off all the books (after smelling each one) and took the bookshelf down. It wasn't the bookshelf or the floor beneath it. So the end to this sad story is that the smell is coming from inside our wall about 3 feet up, right behind the bookshelf. We figure a mouse died in there or something. Eww. So the room is still smelly and that's dang unfortunate. But the rest of the room is clean!

Pronouncing Teancom's Name, part 2

And the last e-mail I sent about the pronunciation of Teancom's name got Rob and I to talking. We pronounce his name differently, apparently. The difference is slight and I doubt most people will notice. I hardly notice. I pronounce the 'a' in the name like the 'a' in 'tank.' Rob says the 'a' like the 'a' in 'and.' Whatever. Most other people just call him Tank, so I guess it doesn't matter. :)

Okay, I'll write more later if there's more to write. Oh, when D was here, we put her measurement on the wall for how tall she is. She is 3 inches taller than Miciah, who has grown an inch in the last 3 months. Just FYI.

Tamra and family

Answers to the Matching Game

Okay, here are the answers:

1 Tamra Suzanne, C) 7 lbs. 11 oz. 19 inches
2 Robert Irwin, A) 8 lbs. 2 oz. 21 inches
3 Elijah Ruben, D) 7 lbs. 5 oz. 19.5 inches
4 Robert Teancom, B) 7 lbs. 12 oz. 19.75 inches
5 Miciah Lynn, E) 6 lbs. 12 oz. 16.5 inches

And the winners:
My Dad got all the information correct, plus corrected my length. I was 20 inches, not 19 (I asked my Mom to get the length and my Dad actually looked it up). So he gets the prize for knowing more than I do. ... Though, to be fair, his first guess on my information was Miciah's info., so I guess he gets half a prize.

Most of the rest got the pictures right and didn't try the information, but the pictures were the fun part anyway.

The person who got it all right is someone who has never met Rob or my kids: Martina. She lives in Switzerland and even had to convert the weights and lengths! Way to go, Martina!

Okay, so thanks for putting up with my game. I thought it would be fun. Funny enough, I was my mother's smallest child at 7 lbs. 11 oz., and Teancom is my biggest child at 7 lbs. 12 oz. Rob was the biggest of us all and Miciah pulls in as the runt (not me, as quite a few of you thought).

Recovery

I'll attach a few more pictures of Teancom and the family. It's nice to have him home and have us back together. I feel really good, but I am so tired. I feel like at this point I shouldn't be so tired, but then I think about how I'm recovering from major surgery. And then my Mom will point out that I'm never getting more than 3 hours of sleep at a whack. Oh yeah. :) The other two kids have been able to stay in routine pretty well, and that's a blessing. I am hoping to get back to capable pretty fast, but every day I do something that reminds me that I'm just not healed. Yesterday I vacuumed half a room. It hurt. This morning, without thinking, I scooped up Elijah to put him in a time-out. I'm still feeling that one.

Pictures

As you can see, Teancom is pretty dark, like Miciah and Rob. We kept thinking he is darker than Miciah was, but I think it's pretty comparable. He has a little more hair than Ciah did, but it's all around the sides. It hangs over his ears. Rob says he has male pattern baldness already. Great. :) But it's cute. So we have 2 dark children and 1 bright white one. We'll see as they get older what they'll look like.

Pronouncing Teancom's Name

A lot of people have asked how to pronounce Teancom's name. I'm not very good at pronunciation stuff, so bear with me (I don't know which sound is the long a and which is the short, etc., so I'll just describe it as best I can). It is 3 syllables with the emphasis on the second syllable. The sounds are:
Tee-An (like the sound in tank)-come. In fact, if you just put 'ank' from 'tank' in the middle there, it'd be really dang close. Cause it's almost like I say the 'k' in 'ank', but not really. I dunno. I should just figure out how to do pronunciations. :) But hopefully that'll get people close enough to saying his name. Or just Tank. It works.

The Car Accident that Wasn't

Fun information that isn't news, but thankfully isn't: Rob almost wrecked the car this morning. It's been raining pretty steady for the last day or so. Rob was on the on-ramp to get on the freeway when he lost traction and spun the car 180 degrees before coming to a stop. He says he didn't go off the road, and thankfully he didn't, cause he says he came pretty close to hitting one of those metal telephone poles. Yikes! We are grateful he is safe and sound, and that our car is, too.

And that's the closest we get to news here. We've all been taking it easy with lots of downtime. Hope all is going well for everyone!

Tamra and family

P.S. Oh! And I included a picture of my uterus on top of my belly. You can see the "heart-shape" of my uterus. My doctors thought that was pretty neat. Weird.

Baby Matching Game!

This is the birth announcement for Robert Teancom, our new little baby boy. It's a matching game and I didn't include the answers (tee hee). You'll have to guess and I'll send you an e-mail later with the winning answers! I guess I could include a prize for whoever guesses correctly. So you think about guessing and I'll think about a prize. :) ... There will be other pictures of Teancom to come.

A BABY MATCHING GAME

Match the baby picture with the correct name and birth information.

Names:
Robert Irwin
Tamra Suzanne
Miciah Lynn
Elijah Ruben
Robert Teancom

Information:
A) 8 lbs. 2 oz. 21 inches
B) 7 lbs. 12 oz. 19.75 inches
C) 7 lbs. 11 oz. 19 inches
D) 7 lbs. 5 oz. 19.5 inches
E) 6 lbs. 12 oz. 16.5 inches

1)

2)























3)

4)










5)

The Real Announcement

The Birth Day

Friday went wonderfully. It was our best experience by far. The doctors were friendly and talked to me during surgery (though most of the time I just wanted to puke). I got to see Teancom being born, which I was reluctant about, but now that I saw it, I wish I would have seen the other 2 also. It was an awesome thing to witness. The first thing he did after being born is pee all over the doctors. Rob took a little video clip on our camera of the birth. Eww. But it's neat.



The Family at Home

Miciah loves him and would hold him all day if she could. She'll say that he needs "Sister time." And Elijah, after being pretty jealous, has warmed up to him and my Mom even found him this morning trying to comfort him when he was crying. How cute. He'll randomly walk up to me, put his arms out, and say, "Baby," like he wants to hold him. He also is getting used to the idea of breastfeeding. He at first would try to pull the baby off and say, "Let go!"

The whole process has just gone really well and we're extremely blessed. He's a pretty good baby and we're also very thankful for that. ... We get a lot of comments on his name: Robert Teancom. Teancom is a Book of Mormon war leader/hero, and also a family name. We spell it different (with an o instead of a u), just for preference. I wanted to give him the name of a warrior. If you don't like the name, or if you'd prefer to call him something else, C has suggested the nickname Tank. And we like that. Goes along with the warrior/war theme. :)

Anyways, things are going good. My Mom is here helping and loving on the baby. I feel really really good (especially compared to the last 2 times), but I'm still really really tired. By about halfway through the day I'm wiped out and have to go lay back down. So it's nice to have my Mom here to help out. And of course she loves every minute she gets with her 3 grandkids.

We love you all and thank you for your well wishes, prayers, and thoughts.

Love,
Tamra, Rob, Miciah, Elijah and Teancom

Introducing ...

The newest little member of our family. The doc was right, he sure is hairy! ...

Okay, Rob broke down Saturday and took Miciah to pick out a baby cat. He's a cute 10-week-old (this is twice as old as Max was when we got him. And this cat is already neutered) tabby cat. Miciah likes him cause he's got "stripes." I like him because he's very loving, something Max was not. But he's also pretty playful, so that's fun. We named him Peek-a-boo because when we brought him home he hid twice from us and we couldn't find him for a few hours. The first time he was under the entertainment center. How he fit down there, I don't know. So now the whole front of the entertainment center is blocked off with Rob's science textbooks (we knew they'd come in handy someday). Peek-a-boo is now almost always behind our couch, just chillin' out. He comes out to be petted and loved on, but he still runs away from Elijah. Go figure.

Peek-a-boo isn't the healthiest cat. We took him in to the vet to find out he has fleas, he's underweight and scrawny, and his diarreah is caused by roundworm. Wonderful. So he's being treated for all that and hopefully we'll have a healthy cat soon. Rob was bugged that Peek-a-boo isn't that healthy and that we're having some struggles with him (the diarreah means that he's pooped all over our house and us), and I reminded him that he's the one that wanted to get a kitten a week before we had a baby. :) But it's all good. We like him.

Elijah's Surgery

We took Elijah in for his operation consultation. The doctor thinks she felt an opening on the other side as well, so she said when they go in to operate, they'll scope the other side, too, to see if they need to fix it, too. Good plan. She also said that because he was in so much pain that one time, they want to do the surgery ASAP. He has complained a few other times, and once Rob pushed it back in, but no more screaming in horrific pain, which is good. Anyways, the surgery is scheduled for August 14th. We have yet to decide what we'll do in terms of Miciah. Obviously both Rob and I want to be there for the surgery, and if we have a clingy-needy Elijah and a not-really-fully-recovered-from-surgery Mommy, we'll probably have Miciah go somewhere for a few days. Though she's not really hard and she might be helpful, even. Who knows. Maybe I'll ask her what she wants.

T minus Two Days

That's about all that's going on around here. Miciah and Elijah are getting pretty anxious to have the baby here. So are Rob and I. :) It's time to have this baby. We found out some good news from the doctor about the C-section, so I'm anticipating this being a little better than previous experiences. Before, they cut me open and almost immediately the baby was taken to another floor and washed and given first shots and all that. I didn't see Rob or the baby for a few hours--they could have brought me another baby and I wouldn't know. Dr. Froehlich looked at me like, "How inhumane that they would do that!" He said the baby stays in the room with us the entire time they are stiching me up (unless the baby isn't healthy, in which case they would take him, but that makes sense) and doesn't leave until we leave. How nice is that! So I'm excited to have us all together, especially since this time that was my desire.

And honestly, I can't think about anything else other than baby-on-the-way. I feel like it's taken over my brain. It feels like there's so much to be done, but I don't have the energy to do most of it. I don't sleep at night any more. At all. I stare at the cieling until 2 and then sleep fitfully after that. Luckily Rob is home all this week and so I've been able to sleep in. Otherwise I think I would be in tears at the end of the day. But only 2 more nights of torture. Actually, only 1. Because the last night neither Rob nor I sleep anyway, so it'll be a relief to NEED to wake up at 4:15 a.m. At no other time in my life would I think this is a blessing.

We know you're all praying for us and thinking of us and we appreciate the support. Thank you! and we'll let you know how it goes as soon as one of us gets back on-line, though most of you will have heard by then.

Tamra and family

Not Much to Report On

Elijah's Surgery News

Things here are good. Elijah has not complained any more about his hernia, and we are hoping to keep it that way. We have a consultation with Children's Surgery Center on July 18th. I am assuming we will then set up the surgery date. I'm guessing that since the appointment isn't until July 18th, the surgery won't be until late August or September. Who knows, though. Even if they could do it earlier, though, I have a feeling I won't want it to be much earlier than that. ... I'll let you all know when the surgery is and if there's anything you can do for us.

Pregnancy - T minus Two Weeks

No, Dad, this is not an update to say I'm in labor. Braxton-Hicks all day long, but no labor. We are hoping to avoid all labor until the safely scheduled 21st. That's less than 2 weeks away, so I think we'll probably make it.

Go Mode!

In terms of how I'm feeling. I have hit the final go mode (nesting just sounds so weird to me). I have cleaned the house from top to bottom about 5 times. I think I have used an entire roll of paper towels cleaning every piece of glass in the house. I keep looking at things going, "This is dirty. I MUST CLEAN IT." It's compulsive and weird and I will be glad to put this stage past me. I think Rob will, too. I worked him hard yesterday cleaning and doing things. But, because I'm in the Ready For Baby Stage, it means I have a little more energy. So I feel better now just before baby than I have for at least 2 months. I can handle that.

Having said that, I don't have much energy at all. And on top of that, my body still can't handle a lot. We went to the store as a family on Friday. Intended to go to another store, too, but I just wasn't up for it. I have been avoiding the sun and going outside at all costs. The sun and heat drain me really quick. We went to a BBQ last week for 2 hours. I came home and slept for 2 hours. There's a picnic next Sunday that we're all invited to. I'm sending Rob with Miciah.

P's Baby Blessing

We had company today, and that was a lot of fun. Our good friends the T's had their baby the first week of June and the baby blessing was today. They have a little one bedroom apartment, so we invited the whole clan over to our house so they could all be in the same room together. It worked out well and it was a lot of fun to have company that brings their own food! Rob and I worked really hard to clean the house, but they didn't leave a mess when they left, so it's still clean now. That's the best kind of company. Brings their own food and eats off paper plates. :) They were here for a few hours, but it was more draining than I assumed it would be. Rob and I both just chilled for a few hours after they left. My body obviously was a little stressed, but hey, it was worth it. And their little baby is really cute. It's been weird to hold their little one and think, "I will have one of these very soon." But we're ready for it.

The Secret Baby Name

We have picked out a name, but we have decided to keep it until he is born to announce. Seems like if we've waited this long, might as well keep it till the end. We went through 25,000 baby boy names from a baby book and to top it off, the name we chose wasn't even in there! How's that for funny? But we've been using the name amongst ourselves, so it's finally feeling like his name. So that's a comfort. For a while it seemed like nothing would sound right except Baby Robert. And Elijah says the name really well, so that makes me happy, too.

Last Ultrasound

We had an ultrasound for week 36 on Monday. It was fun to see the baby so big! He is still a boy, so no worries there. Everything looked good. The doctor predicted that he would be just over 7 lbs. (like 7 lbs. 2 or 3 oz.), and have a full head of hair as well as hair all over his back. :) It was really cool to see this hair floating there. You really could see it! It was neat. About the hair all over his back, Rob said, "See, dear, we ARE having a monkey." Great. Maybe he'll be blonde-white like Elijah and you won't be able to see the hair on his back. :) It'll be fun to see what he looks like.

We're excited to have the baby and see everyone soon. Hopefully we can keep things calm between now and then. The next 2 weeks of my calendar are clear, which is a nice feeling. It will be nice to not have much to do.

Thanks for all you guys do for us. We love you!

Tamra and family

Special Report

(As an aside for any of the T family: JG has left SBHS for LH and Latin in San Jose. She's been pretty frustrated with SBHS for a while and I'm excited for her to move on. She asked me to pass on her love and news to the family.)

We had a very interesting night last night and since it was a momentous occasion, I thought I'd pass it on. We had our first Emergency Room visit for either of our kids. Last night at about 7:15 or so, we got home from the church and Elijah pointed to right below his tummy and said, "Ow." I told Rob he might have a tummy ache and asked him to look at it. Rob took off Elijah's diaper to look and there was a huge bulge to the side and up a little from his penis. Okay, not normal. In about 10 minutes time, Elijah was screaming and writhing in pain. He wouldn't straighten his legs and he could not be consoled. Like I said in the last e-mail, this kid doesn't cry like ever, so this was scary for us. Rob drove him down to Children's where surprisingly he got in very quickly. Probably because on that 1 - 10 pain scale, Elijah looked to be at a 9 or so (which has only happened to me maybe twice in my life). It was painful enough for us to just watch the poor kid in so much pain.

Anyways, the nurse looked at Elijah and said he probably had a hernia. And by the time, about 10 minutes after that, that Elijah got to see the ER doctor, the hernia had corrected itself and as immediately as it came, Elijah was in no pain at all. It was an hour and a half of Elijah screaming and then it was just gone. Rob said when it went away Elijah started tentatively moving his leg, testing out to see if it was really feeling better. Two doctors saw Elijah, the first one to say it was gone and the second one to tell us a little about where we go from here. The second one felt around and said that Elijah has a hole from where the testicles drop. Usually this hole closes on its own, but in his case it hasn't and it won't unless it is surgically fixed. And if we don't get it fixed, then this will be an on-going problem. Well, the idea of surgery for my 2-year-old doesn't thrill me, but what thrills me even less is the thought of my 2-year-old having to go through this again. So we will be calling the surgery center at Children's and scheduling a surgery as soon as possible. They said it's an outpatient surgery and isn't that big of a deal, but I'm thinking that for a little guy like him, any kind of surgery is a big deal.

However, an outpatient surgery for a problem that's fixable is much better than many of the alternatives. I will let you all know when it is scheduled and what it'll mean. I really am not sure what to expect. We will probably pass Miciah on to someone else so we can focus on getting Elijah well. I'm hoping that the surgery is in the next 3 weeks. After the 21st, it'll be no fun at all. My aunt suggested (as a joke) that I schedule it for the 21st, the same day as my C-section. We got a good little laugh out of that. Either way, whether it's before or after the 21st, it'll be as soon as they say it's possible.

Please keep Elijah in your thoughts and prayers. They told us what to do if he gets another hernia, but we'd of course prefer that it doesn't happen at all. He is happy and well and healthy as ever, and we'd love to keep him that way.

Love,
Tamra and family