My girls...

We finally did a real photo shoot for my girls! It was fun. We went to a neighboring town and found some decent places to shoot. It's always fun to find some new places to take pictures. They were pretty cooperative and I got some decent pics. Here's my favorite so far, though I haven't worked on very many at this point.

Since I've really decreased my blogging time, I have to indulge in a post about both of our girls. They are growing before my eyes on a daily basis, people at church are commenting on how old they look all of the sudden. We have a Peter Pan syndrome at our house that discourages all "getting bigger." Tonight the girls and I were having a picnic at the school across the street, and I told Ruby she was just looking so old to me all of the sudden. She said, "Don't tell Dad!" Alice has asked for permission to get bigger only until she learns how to swim by herself, and we were okay with that. Swimming is important. Even for a teeny, tiny baby like Alice.

RUBY...

Ruby has a LOOSE tooth. Her FIRST loose tooth, at almost seven years old! She is excited and scared. I took her to Wicked the other night and she loved it. It was so fun on our way home afterward because she talked the whole way home. Here are some samplings from our conversation...

Ru: Mom, can I tell you something?

Me: (nervous) Sure, what?

Ru: I can see air.

Me. Really? You mean when it's cold?

Ru: No, all the time. I can see air right now. (11:00 PM)

Me. Oh, what does it look like?

Ru: It looks like white stuff all over the place.

Me: Sounds like maybe you need glasses!

Ru: Some people wear ugly glasses.

Me: Well if you need glasses, we could pick some out that you like.

Ru: You know, some people wear big, round glasses like grandpa Pierce. (ouch).

Me: Yes, older people sometimes don't like the new styles.

Ru: Well, I think I'd want some that were flatter, you know like ovals or rectangles. More stylish, like Uncle Matt's.

Ru: I don't know why, but when I say, "hello," all I can think of is "yellow!"

Me: Interesting.

Ru: When I say "popular" all I can think of is "popcorn!"

I love talking to my girl. The other day, Alice fell asleep and so we got to spend some time together alone. She was like, "remember when Alice used to take two naps and we were always alone together? That was awesome." I couldn't help but say, "But she's super fun to have around, I'm so glad she's part of our family." Ruby's reply? "No mom, she's all bad news." So not true!!!

Today, she decided after wiggling her loose tooth, that her nose was also loose. Chris of course fed right into it, and pretended to wiggle his nose while she wiggled hers...only he didn't move his at all. So he agreed with her, it was loose and was definitely falling off. She was super worried. Later, she started wiggling her ear and again was convinced it was falling off. It just wiggles so much! Thank goodness they are still young inside, even when they start to feel so old!

Alice...
Alice is our second born. She is pretty much the opposite of her sister. We love her. She's very curious about everything. I can hardly move a muscle with out her wanting to do it for me. She wants to hook my bra, put the detergent in the washing machine, break the eggs into the frying pan...nothing is ever accomplished with out her involvement. Alice hogs all the puzzle pieces, when told not to do something, she'll always do it immediately a second time to see what the response will be, and she likes to avoid consequences by telling us whatever we want to hear. She's a hands on kind of gal.Alice loves to wear skirts and dresses. She rips through her own snarled hair and actually gets all the knots out! She loves to stress out the simple past tense angels. She's known to say "watched-ed", "goed-did" and other overly conjugated verbs. In spite of the fact that Alice wanted a little sister, she had a dream that our baby will be a boy baby, and she is 100% adamant about that fact. She tells everyone.

Alice laughs so much, with such abandon, I can't think of anything I'd rather hear than her laugh. It is infectious.

July Camping...

We've gone group camping every year with a bunch of friends from the Puyallup area. This year, we went in July and it was a nice, relaxing weekend with great company, food and fun at the beach. I didn't take my camera to the beach, so I took almost zero pictures. Thanks Mimi for letting me snap away with your camera AND then for getting around to sharing the album with me!

I didn't get any pictures of the sand dollars, but there were THOUSANDS of sand dollars at low tide, in knee-deep water. The kids were so entertained by them, picking them up in piles. Did you know that sand dollars are almost black when they are alive? It was really neat to find some sea creatures, enjoy the sun, the WARM Puget Sound water and a sandy beach.

I highly recommend Penrose State Park for Washington camping. We were at the group site, so I can't speak for the other sites, but we really enjoyed the experience there!

Alice confided in Ruby that she wants to marry her friend Braden. Ruby confided in me and I'm not telling anyone. Lol. They are the same age and are such fun little playmates! It amazed all of us that the whole weekend, these two kids wandered around all over together and were found many times just sitting next to each other on a log or something chatting up a storm.

Ruby, Wyatt and Kiley have been friends since babyhood. It is so nice (and maybe fleeting) that they can still play at age 6.5 together so well. They, and a lot of the time, Wy's sister Kesley spent a lot of time playing together around camp.

Wow...I really went a whole month between posts.

I used to blog an average of maybe 25 times per month. Now I blog maybe a handful of times per month OR LESS. What am I up to?

• Working. My photography business has sort of overwhelmed my life and I sit at my laptop way too much working, so the computer has kind of lost it's recreational appeal.
• Facebooking. It is so worthless. I literally deleted like a dozen friends a few weeks ago to get below 600 friends on facebook, and I think at least a dozen more have added since. Important people...old roommates, missionaries who are now home who lived with us, old people like aunts and uncles who are just getting with it...still, my awareness that the girl from my choir in high school is visiting her sister in NYC couldn't be less interesting than reading 30 blogs of closer friends and family members, could it? NO! I am wasting any time I spend on facebook, and it has to stop. I'd rather blog. I think it is just easier to post a one liner than a whole blog post, so it tends to take over.
• McCall-ing. I have been at the cabin for 20 days the past two months, and there's no internet there. Just a deck of cards, good company, the sun and a refreshing lake with a sandy beach. Who needs anything more than that?
• Baby making. Sorry if that terminology threw you...but my body is busy making a baby. It's tiring business!

So why two posts in ten minutes? I'm sick. I can't sleep, so I decided to blog.

Irony...(a post probably no one will muscle through)

The first three paragraphs are for those of you who are paying way to much for health care. The irony follows my preface...

So with the economic downturn, I've resumed some of my original responsibilities to my husband's business...in this case, shopping for competitive insurance benefits. It is a lot to sort through, but I am very interested in quality, affordable (what?) health care and so I trudged through. In the past two years, I spent $24,000 on a health care plan for Ruby, Alice and I (Chris is free, paid by company) that I maybe used 4 times (were were on a plan that didn't cover my doctor of choice, so we paid OUT OF POCKET for most office visits, and my kids didn't get their annual physicals), and only for simple office visits maybe $800 in lab work. I also used my every six months dentist exams and they may have paid a few dollars here or there for their portion of a super cheap generic prescription or two. I rely primarily on naturopathics, so we are talking really recent, like three months or so of thyroid meds.

Anyway, my investigation led me to an extra $700 a month and a plan that will cover my preferred doctor for 6 office visits a year (per person) without meeting the deductible for a $30 co-pay. I stayed on the company dental plan, which went DOWN in cost, I went vision free, as both Chris and I have 20/2o vision and the insurance guy said that with affordable eye care at Costco and Walmart, vision insurance usually isn't worth the money for the average vision needs. I also went prescription free since I literally fill maybe one prescription every two years total for my whole family (until my recent thyroid thing which only costs $15 out of pocket), and they are almost always generic and you can get generic drugs at Walmart for $5, right?

So...we are now on a "catastrophic plan" that covers 6 office visits and pregnancy (after I meet the deductible of $1,000 it is covered at 70% with a max. out of pocket of $5,000--but remember, it only costs me $4,300 to have a baby (assuming all goes as planned, and of course that is a big "if", hence our need for insurance that covers pregnancy complications) because I am planning a home birth with a midwife.

So in the past two years, outside of my recent thyroid journey, I have seen a doctor probably twice for annual exams. So I go on the above explained "catastrophic insurance plan" on August 1st, and on August 26th, I am on vacation with the most severe pain in my inner and outer ear, that I can't chew food, hear or touch my left ear. BAD, BAD PAIN. So I go to the doctor. I was a mess. I had been dealing with it on my own for five days and I wanted relief. The doctor said she's never seen an adult ear so angry. I had an inner ear infection that wound up rupturing (which actually felt good) along with swimmer's ear (outer ear infection), a horrible head cold and chest congestion with a pesky cough that has gotten worst by the day. I wasted no time taking the only thing they could give me due to my pregnant state...amoxicillin. I kind of bent the rules and took two doses in 8 hours instead of 2 doses in 12 hours. After three days or so, my ear was noticeably on the mend.

So I have been coughing non-stop for about three days now. I can't sleep and I have a headache from the noise. At night, I can't ignore the high pitched wheezing coming from inside of my chest WHILE MY MOUTH IS CLOSED, it keeps me awake...I have dreams of children shrieking by my bedside, but it is only me...breathing.

I went to Rite Aid tonight and sat on the floor of their cough medicine section for 45 minutes while friends were googling active ingredients to tell me if I could or could not take the medicines in question. Literally, the store manager was called when I asked the clerk if I could leave my purchases at the register and use their bathroom. I was escorted to the bathroom, she unlocked it and waited. Whew...no huffing or downing a bottle Robitussin in the stall for me!

Thankfully, Sommer called her OB/GYN dad and got the for sure green light for Tussin DM, which is alcohol free and safe for pregnancy.

The irony? Well, I think I'm going to see the doctor this morning to make sure I don't have pneumonia or something. I hugged a friend tonight and she said I felt hot, and I did feel fevery...and I've been coughing almost two weeks now, and it is getting worse...so I think it's time to see the doctor to be sure nothing more is developing. I think the antibiotic might be hindering some potential symptoms, so it's hard to say really how I am feeling, and I think I should be sure I don't ignore the cough too long.

AND, I have an appointment on Tuesday with my preferred doctor to re-establish myself as a patient, as I haven't seen her for myself (only paid for the kids out of pocket while we were on that plan that didn't cover her, of course I neglected myself) for two years.

So...in my first 40 days on my "catastrophic plan" I will see the doctor THREE TIMES. Ironic, see?

4th of July in McCall...

It isn't any secret, I LOVE McCALL! We got to spend the 4th of July there as part of a ten day trip with just me, the girls and my parents. Thankfully, for the 4th, Jeff's family and Chris joined us for a few nights. In all my 32 years of going to McCall, this was my first 4th there. It was nice! It may have been crowded in town, but we avoided town, it was kind of crowded at the beach, but we still swam and played in the sand just fine. It was a nice way to spend the holiday. The girls were happy to see our family dog, Stone. He came up with Chris.After a great, long day at the beach, we quickly decorated the kids' bikes and headed into town for a simple, small town bike parade. The kids had fun, it was short enough.
I don't know what I was thinking, but it sounded simple enough to just walk/jog along with the kids as they rode their bikes home. It was just Sarah, Ruby and Alice...but it was a little farther than I imagined, and it was HOT, and they were FAST!

While I was trying to keep up with the excited bike riders, I was lucky enough to pass by two really young girls clad in bikinis walking through town at 6PM. Looks to me like you don't really need much...just a cell phone and a bikini! I remember swimming to town with my cousin Trina and walking around the stores WET in a swimsuit. There's just something about a small beach town.After a nice barbecue, we were joined by my cousin Trina and her family for fireworks on the dock. It was LATE, the show was great.

Jadin and Alice...immediate friends (J is my cousin's daughter)

Trina, Amaya and Trey

Looking forward to number three...

There are so many different things about this third time around that I am looking forward to! Here's a little list...

1. Cloth diapering. My previous pregnancies, I lived outside the delivery area of the only cloth diaper service around. I know you can do it the hard way, but since I was the oldest of five, and my mom did lots of cloth diapering, I'm totally OVER scraping diaper junk into toilets and rinsing them out. No way. So this time, I'll use the diaper service and happily toss them in whatever receptacle the provide and move on.

2. A boy. Lol. Of course, I don't know if I am having a boy, but statistically, people with three children have both genders, so it is in my favor to have a boy (the old myth that the more you have of one gender the more likely it makes you to have more of that same gender is actually not true, I did the research). I'd love to name a boy, we have a boy name all picked out and I prefer our selection for boy to our girl selection. I'd like to add that boy dynamic to our house. Whenever little boys are around, my girls kind of light up over their mischief and physical play. Our girl house would definitely change a lot with a boy around. I'd love to see what it is like to play with action figures instead of ponies...but if ponies it is, Ruby and Alice are very good at playing with ponies.

3. Three mommies. Ruby and Alice are going to be little mommies with me. They already are. Ruby wants to be allowed to stand up and hold the baby, and I think she's ready. Alice is fascinated by dirty diapers and will hopefully take her fascination to an unprecedented ability to change all diapers on her own at age 4 and a half.

4. Nursing. I always nurse, but I really look forward to it this time. I have watched other moms nursing their little ones and I just love that eye looking up at me and I love being the answer to all their problems (no I don't). Okay, maybe nursing between the ages of 6 months and 9 months. After the "daddy thinks I'm always hungry if I'm crying" stage and before the "lets see what happens if I chomp down on mommy" stage.

5. Home birth. I have experienced two very different out of hospital births, both at freestanding birth centers. This time, the midwife is coming to us. She says that she cleans everything up, uses a towel service and so we don't have to wash anything. I'll probably birth in the tub anyway, like last time.

6. Video monitor. My monitors are done for. I have pieces of them in every random drawer in the house, and I want to SEE my sleeping baby on my monitor this time around.

7. Spring baby. I've wanted a spring baby for 4 years. I started out trying only for a spring baby, but when it didn't happen, I gave up hope and expected to get another fall baby...or worse...a summer baby. So when "it" finally happened, I was so pleased that it happened to land me with a March baby! I think it will make for a more difficult summer, but I think I'll live it up enough this summer not to care too much.

8. Keeping pace. I don't really care about how fast other people have their babies, it's not a competitive thing for me, but it was weird to have friends who had their first babies after I had my second, to catch up to me! I just always thought that I'd have more kids than those people...I'd have my third, they'd have their second...you get the idea.

9. Co-sleeping. I MIGHT be able to sleep with my baby this time around. We have a king size bed now, and we have a memory foam mattress so that you don't disturb the other people in bed with you when you move or get up. I think it would be kind of nice to co-sleep for a few months. We'll see.

10. Making baby food. I've done okay in the past with making my kids' baby food purees, but now I have a VITA-MIX! I'll be able to skip all the steaming and boiling, and just puree in the vitamix. It will be faster and healthier and yummier. YAY!

A BABY for us...

It is true! After 2 and a half years of wanting another little one on the way, we are finally having another baby! He or she is due on March 16th, so I'm 8 weeks along and feeling great!

Alice wants a girl, everyone else wants a boy for a change, but of course we are just thrilled to meet whomever comes our way.

I finally broke down and made an appointment with an OB with lots of experience in fertility (Sommer's dad) to get started figuring out more about the reason behind the lag, and of course, I found out maybe a week after I made the appointment, that I was already pregnant.

Waiting for this wasn't that hard. I focused on being grateful for my two beautiful girls and I trusted that it would happen if it were meant to happen.

I am so glad that it did!

We will find out what we are having, but we won't probably share our names until closer to the due date, which is half of an eternity from today.

Ruby wants me around her all the time, she says, "I want the lady with the baby in her tummy to put me to bed.", or "Can I sit by you and the baby?". What fun. We've had to watch videos of babies in the womb and talk about how the baby is currently the size of one of their teeth, etc. It has been fun!

Anyway, I feel great and am really enjoying the anticipation!

Carseat Safety...

I often get weird looks when I strap my almost seven year old (only barely hit 50 lbs last week, and she's average or tall for her age...not small) into her Britax 5-point harness. Sometimes people even say things to me, which I welcome, because the under use of 5-point and the over/misuse of the booster leads to many child deaths in the United States every year.

Take my four and a half year old for example. She is off the charts for her height and for her height has average weight. She only weighs 35 pounds. Most 4 and a half year old weigh less than she does. So that means that many kids her age may not qualify for a booster seat at 4 and a half, but they've been in a booster since they turned THREE YEARS OLD! This is such a hazard to their health!!!

Even when they do weigh the recommended 40 pounds, relying on a seat belt is not enough to protect them. They make seats that go up to 85 pounds, and they are secured through the LATCH system to the seat in such a way that they cannot be budged. Ruby is in her seat that can hold her securely until she weighs 65 pounds. She will remain there until she weighs 66 pounds, as will Alice.

Here is a video from an organization started by parents of a three year old who died when the seat belt he relied on to save his life failed during a roll over. He is one of many victims of poor car seat safety. This little guy even weighed over 40 pounds, but he is dead because he was in a booster seat that relied on a seat belt. A 5-point harness properly installed using LATCH would have saved his life.

I know for a fact that most people who read this will be aware after this that their child is unsafe in his/her car seat, and still not change anything! Don't be that person!

The Importance of a 5 point harness car seat from Laura Bower on Vimeo.

Effective advertising...

So we were on a road trip to McCall, ID and we stopped at Arby's in Pullman for lunch. Right on the counter by the register was a Plexiglas display case with some pastries inside. Ruby said, "I'll have that for lunch!", pointing to the pastry.

"Oh no you won't!" I said.

"But Mom, the commercials for those are BEGGING me to eat them!"

10 days in Colorado...

We are so blessed to have family cabins on both sides of our family! This was a trip for ten days to Colorado. We started in Ft. Collins staying at Mike and Sage's beautiful home, and then made our way down to Manitou Springs where we met up with Pam and Matt's family and Doug and his new girlfriend, Heather (stay tuned).

I couldn't believe that I left my camera behind! Chris came three days after I did, so I missed taking pictures of our stay at Mike and Sage's house. Thanks to Chris for bringing my camera for the rest of the trip.

It was an eventful arrival at the cabin, as it was infested with like 200 "millers" (aka: moths). It was like 11:00 PM, and I was envisioning putting my kids straight to bed, but they were horrified by the flying pests, and it took me and my mother-in-law with two vacuums and one central light and more than one hour to rid the cabin of the unwanted creatures. Gross.

The next day, we had serious things to attend to for the hair contest. Most people showed up with their hair grown kind of long so they could groom themselves into competition shape. Chris however, was all ready to go...because his game hair was on his chest (not much on the head to work with). Here's the group pic...Doug's hair was shaved into "Douglas Firs" with tree shapes all around the head, Matt went for a slick skater do, Pam relied on a trusty wig, Sam on a hair net, Doug's Heather wore rags in her hair, Perry went generally crazy with spikes and sweet Porter sported a mohawk...the winner of the bunch?? Need I say it was Mike, with his balding mullet. He shaved his already recessed hair line to a true bald head with just a ring of hair around the head, then he glued a mullet using rubber cement around the back. It was GROSS and FUNNY.

Here are some individual shots:

Grandpa Perry and Porter

This is a classic pose from an old picture of Doug that Mike and Chris decided Mike needed to reenact.

Mike had some deep thoughts on a bridge whilst wearing his new style

Pam needed a new facebook profile pic...this one is IT.

We had many fun things for the kids to do. They played in the stream in front of the cabin, made puppets, made up little skits to perform for us, jumped on the trampoline, went on hikes and much more. Here they are on a money/candy hunt through a pile of sawdust.

Doug and Heather: What do I say? Doug has all green lights for this girl. It was funny because Chris flew in an hour before Heather, and got to be with Doug and Heather when they first saw each other after a month of separation. He sent us some funny texts from the car: "there's a lot of knee touching going on in here" and "no one is talking to me".

Here is a great shot captured by Pam (she took many of the pictures in this post) showing Chris' general reaction to Doug and Heather's displays of affection...
Baby Beckett, Mike and Sage's little one was such a sweet highlight for me. It was fun to hold him and see his sweet coos and smiles. (Pic by Pam)
We went to the lake by the swimming pool one day with the intention of putting Mike's kayaks in. We've done it before, but this time, the community manager saw the boats and said it was a big no-no, so Mike got creative and took the kayak up a big hill and sent the kids down the hill in the boat. I'm sure there are no covenants to prevent this kind of boating! The kids loved it.

Ruby and Mattie fishing.

Everyone swimming in the community pool

One day, we went to some waterfalls. At the beginning of the little hike, we were met by growing rain and thunderstorms, so we all went down to the little visitor's center and waited it out. Alice didn't want to venture back up, so I stayed with her while the others went up. I was experimenting with my camera, and she was a willing subject.

This "straight line smile" is a classic Alice expression. The eyes, the mouth...the whole face is just totally her.

Pierce, Chris and Ruby coming down from the top.

Ruby and Mattie love holding hands everywhere they go. I was glad to see them continue the tradition even though a year had passed since they last spent time together. (Everyone was in church clothes, we went after church...notice above that Chris forgot his church clothes!)

Alice, Mattie, Ruby and Pierce. Unfortunately, Porter wasn't interested in being in this picture.

The trip was a great time for us all, Alice cried as we drove away, "I want the cabin, I want the cabin!"