Copying

I learned some things about Holly yesterday.
I have to be careful how I put it because it won't be long before she figures out the internet and starts reading every blog entry I've ever written.  (You might think that's an exaggeration, but time is relative.)

Anyway, Holly is the kind of kid I was, and the kind of kid her mom was.
Yesterday was library day, and when Kelsea got to school to get Holly, she was sitting on the balance beam, reading her library book.  Kelsea tells me that other kids were talking to her, encouraging her to play with them, but she was too excited about her book "Pinkalicious," about a girl who ate so many pink cupcakes that she turned pink.  Kelsea immediately thought about the youngest kid on the show "The Middle,"  who is named Brick, and who reads during everything.  (We recommend that show for anyone who has kids or has ever been a kid.)
So that was the first thing.

The second thing has to do with the title, which I'm sure you were wondering about.
Also yesterday, Holly got a progress report.  Usually, I don't see those, but I get input from Kelsea about any problems.  Yesterday, though, I was sitting at the computer when Kelsea had Holly bring her progress report to me.  She had all "A"s and "B"s, and I pointed out her highest percentage was in math.  I said something like "you're the best at math."  Then she told me that sometimes, a classmate copies her work.    Kelsea told me that Holly told her teacher about it, so Holly and the girl who copied her work aren't friends anymore.  Holly added that the copier gets moved around now, so that she can't copy Holly's work.

It made me a little sad to know that Holly told on her friend, but I had to be positive since she was only trying to do what was right.  It made me think about what I had done as a kid.  I never let anyone copy my work, but I don't think I ever told a teacher, either.  I was proud of Holly, and sad at the same time.  Cheating is wrong, but I wish she had told that to her friend, not the teacher.  Maybe that's a lot to expect of a first-grader, though.

He's doing much better now

On Sunday, Jay wasn't feeling well.  He was having some trouble breathing, and his albuterol wasn't helping as much as it usually does.  After a full day of waiting and hoping he would improve, I called a nurse help line, and was advised to take Jay to Urgent Care (they said he didn't sound so bad that he had to go straight to the ER).  

At Urgent Care, they gave Jay more Albuterol, Oxygen, and a steroid shot, but it didn't seem to make any difference, so the doctor said she was sending us to the hospital.  Jay and I rode in an ambulance to UMC's children's hospital, and they took a chest x-ray which showed that he had slight pneumonia.  They figured it was only slight because he was probably dehydrated, so they expected it to get worse once they started him on an IV.  Fortunately, it was gone the next morning, but Jay had to stay at the hospital for just under 48 hours, and was doing very well by the time we left.  

He hated the cage-like bed he was supposed to be in, and got frustrated if his IV, oxygen tube, heart monitor, or pulse oximeter lead got pulled on even slightly.  We were able to find a few small things to make him happy for short amounts of time while he was there, though.  Such as a balloon.

And a Popsicle.  

And a little tykes car that I was able to push him around the pediatrics floor for a little while, until a nurse took his blood pressure in it.  He also enjoyed the play room, but they close it at 5 pm, so we were only able to go once.  

He had a hard time falling asleep, since he hated the bed so much, and generally hated being in his room.  We got him to calm down a few times, and he did sleep a little bit.   

He's still a little traumatized by the whole thing, being a little more clingy and grumpy when he's tired, but when he's rested, and can find something to play with, he's back to his usual self.  

Catching up with pictures

Enough ties for you?

Half the total

The rest.

Installing some Linoleum. 

Partially finished bathroom.

With different lighting, the paint color sure looks different.

Eight years of wedded bliss.

My favorite joke when people say something about how long I've been married is to say that it feels like it's been forever.  It's partially true.  Eight years isn't really that long, but it's long enough that you feel like your life has always been together.  And for me, it's been great.

Kelsea and I went to St. George for our anniversary, and saw the Tuacahn production of Tarzan.  We stayed at a bed & breakfast called the Seven Wives Inn.  Despite the apparently true connection the house has with polygamy, I think the name and theme of naming each room after a supposed wife is in poor taste.  I'm sure they could think of something equally clever, but less controversial.

So other than the name of the place, we really enjoyed staying there.  It is an old house in St. George's historic district, right across the street from Brigham Young's winter home.  It was a very nice house, with some cool little antique (-looking) furniture and smaller details.

For dinner, we weren't very hungry, but needed something to eat before going to the show, so we stopped at Jazzy's Rock 'n' Roll Grill for some very delicious hot sandwiches and sweet potato fries.  The light fixtures were made of brass instruments.  We were the only people there at the time, but I would guess it fills up, and gets very loud, later.  There was a performing area, and ads for local bands, and an open mic night.

Tarzan was pretty entertaining.  I'm kind of a hard sell for most things like that, but they have a few little tricks that they incorporated into the show to keep it interesting.  And some pretty good acrobatics.  Tarzan is a good story, and this one is based on the Disney movie.  The program mentioned that the earlier versions were much bloodier, which of course made me wonder what happens in other versions.  Maybe I'll look it up sometime.

In the morning, Kelsea and I had an excellent breakfast, though Kelsea's croissant french toast was bathed in too much jam.  I looked through the complementary newspaper and, oddly enough, we decided to drive past a few yard sales.  We didn't stop at any, and it was terrible weather for yard sales anyway, but it didn't eat up too much of our time.  We went to the outlet stores after that, and got some fun things, and joked about decorating our house, or my office, with a moose head.  I still think it's a good idea.

Before leaving town, we walked around the temple, and I even took a picture for a couple that was apparently not happy with their self-portraits.  We packed our own camera, and thought about taking pictures several times, but we couldn't find it in our bag.  So after I took the picture for that couple we though it would be funny to ask strangers to take pictures of us, then give them an email address to send it to.  Just to see people's reactions, and to see if anyone would actually send them.  But we didn't do it.

We got home late in the afternoon, and picked up the kids from my parents' house.

Maybe my next post will have some pictures.  Maybe Kelsea will get back to posting.  No promises.

Way behind

So, I had good intentions of blogging a bit more, but you know what they say about good intentions: they make an... oh wait that's what they say about something else.

Anyway, my tie project ended, and I took pictures of all my ties laid out on my dresser.  All of the pictures came out fuzzy.  Don't worry, I'll still post them.  That way, everyone can see what my tie collection looks like to people who are near-sighted.

I have 93 ties.  I still have 45 that I got in Italy, and three from before I went to Italy have survived.  I have given some away, and one time I let Kelsea make patchwork pillows out of some ties that were past their prime.  Kelsea suggested I get 7 more ties to make it an even 100.  She wasn't feverish, though the suggestion was a bit out of character.  The long and the short of it is that I have more ties that are not from Italy than ones that are, which makes me kind of sad.  There are a few Andrew's Ties stores in the US, including one in Las Vegas, so I've added a few Italian ties here.  They sure cost a lot more here, though.

In other areas of our life, our horribly decrepit fence is being painted.  I'll be glad to have a freshly painted, repaired fence, though it means Kelsea is even more anxious to have house repainted, which will require stucco work.  I look forward to that part, too, but it's all money.

The girls started swimming lessons yesterday, which is good.  They love the water, but we hadn't gotten around to putting them in any lessons.  Holly had a great time, though she's one of the older ones in the class.

Kelsea and I will be going to Tuacahn for our anniversary later this month.  We're very excited.  We've gone in the past and had a great time.  I wonder if they have figured out a way to flood the stage during Tarzan....  Our last experience with a motel was less comfortable than sleeping on the ground (true story!) so I went ahead and booked a room at a nice bed and breakfast.  Unfortunately, its name refers to Utah's polygamous history.  Not the best choice, but I've just chalked it up to bad taste on the part of the owners, and will try not to let it bother me.

Oh, I almost forgot.  The reason there aren't any pictures is because I almost ruined our computer by trying to install a second operating system (Ubuntu anyone?) which didn't work and almost broke Windows.  Which I was fine with, but Kelsea insisted was a problem (she didn't want to change operating systems).  It was running slow, and several programs mysteriously stopped working.  I'm convinced it's in bad shape, but I'll let Kelsea and the kids use it as long as they want.

Tie

For those of you wondering whatever happened to my little project of wearing every single one of my ties, I haven't forgotten about it, I just have a lot of ties.  Starting March 1, I haven't worn the same tie twice.  I have worn 74 ties since then.  These are the ties I haven't worn yet:

She knows it's a lot of ties.  Her arms were getting tired.

Flowers for Mom

Happy Mother's Day Everyone! I hope your Mother's Day was as good as mine was. On Saturday morning I went to get my haircut. I came home to find Mother's Day surprises: As I walked up to the front door I found my first gift, a ceramic bear poking out of a log that says "welcome." Inside on the table were flowers and a card. Holly and Mia picked out some pretty flowers that are also pretty bright. The kids were so happy to have me home so they could show me the flowers and the cookie cake they bought for me. The kids must have enjoyed giving me flowers because later it turned into an ongoing game. Holly and Mia would make various bouquets with silk flowers and then deliver them to me. Each time expecting me to gush over their thoughtful gift. Then they would collect the flowers so they could make another arrangement for me. I was so spoiled; I received flowers all day long.

Jay even brought me flowers! Dee took Jay out during Sunday school and let me sit and listen to the lesson. Half way through, they came back, and Jay was holding a little yellow flower that he picked outside. Jay climbed up on the bench next to me and reached out his little hand to give me the flower. Awwwww! I love being a mom!

Names

I just saw that the name Mia made number 10 on the top ten girl list for 2009.  Bummer.  Dee and I tried hard to pick names that weren't so common.  I guess that everyone must have seen how adorable my blond hair blue eyed Mia was and then they named their babies after her.

In case you hadn't realized Dee and I both have kind of unusual names.  Growing up with my name was complicated.  I liked that the name Kelsea was unique but nobody could spell it or pronounce it right.  Plus my name always gets underlined as being a misspelled word.  Look!  It's doing it right now!  Ok, you probably can't see that.

In grade school I would always correct people who said my name wrong.  After that I gave up and just answer to anything that was close.  So I have been called Kelsey, Kel-C-ah, Kelesiah, and somehow some people manage to put a T in there KelTs-e-ah.  It's kind of a long name with no cute nick name to shorten it.  K through 12 grade, I insisted on being called Kelsea.  Except in eighth grade when my closest friends called me BoBo.  But that was a weird phase.  In college everyone shortens everyone's names.  So to my roommates I was Kels.  I think Randi is the only one who still calls me Kels.  Don't worry Randi I don't mind.  I find it endearing.  But Dee met me back in middle school so he has only ever called me Kelsea.  I take that back, sometimes he calls me baby, honey, or sexy.  But those don't really count as names.  I remember when Dee and I first got engaged we would try out those terms of endearment like honey and sweetie and laugh at how weird and silly it was to say them.  Some of the silliness seemed to fade away and a couple of those names stuck.  I think it was when Holly was little I called Dee "Honey" so much that she would call him that too.  She would even say "That's not Dad.  That's Honey".  When I was young I never wanted to refer to Dee as "Dad" and never wanted to have him call me "Mom".  But once you have kids you kind of have to.  You can't let your little kids keep calling their father "Honey".  A few weeks ago Dee called me Kelsea in front of the kids.  Holly asked "Why did you call her that?  Her name is Mom."  Now it's almost like my real name has become a bad word.  Oh, can't say that in front of the kids.

So because of the challenges I faced being named Kelsea I wanted to give my kids simple names.  You hear it once you get it.  Easy to say, easy to spell.  I also didn't want to give my kids names that were so common that they end up in a class with 3 other Mia's.  When we named our baby Mia I thought that name was fairly original.  How did it become so popular?  Maybe a girl with a popular name is destined to be popular herself.      

  

Hey Dee, Your Blog Looks Girly!

This is Kelsea writing this blog.  I know I never write blogs.  Today I spent a long time figuring out how to improve the look of our blog.  I was very happy with how it turned out and I was excited to show Dee.  But Dee wasn't very happy or excited about it.  He says it looks girly.  He says that it's fine but that means that now I have to actually contribute to the blogs.  He doesn't want everyone to think that he is the one who made his blog all girly.  He was sad to see his boring blog title with the words "That one blog" changed to a frilly picture with no words, although he did like the picture of us.  So let me know what you think of the new and improved blog.  Is it a keeper or should it go back to how it was before?

Kelsea is Happy to be turning 30

Well I am turning 30.  I don't want to.  It sounds old.  I am trying to be positive about it so I created a list of why  I am happy to celebrate my 30th Birthday.
1.  30 years and still no cavities
2.  I finally have my own car
3.  I weigh less than what my drivers license says
4.  Maybe people won't tell me I look 15 any more
5.  It's an excuse not to cook or clean
6.  I can go on a shopping spree for new clothes
7.  Maybe now I look old enough to have 3 kids
8.  cake
9.  presents
10.  ice cream
11. It's better than turning 40 or 50 or 60
12.  owning a house
13.  Dee is finally done with school
14.  I am married to my best friend who still thinks I am hot
15.  getting to stay home with my 3 kids
16.  watching Holly excel in school
17.  Having Mia run around me singing "Mom is the Best!" over and over again
18.  Jay's slobbery kisses
19.  I finally have something I can blog about

Prodigy

Easter weekend

Hello, I don't blog enough, you say?

I think I blog just enough. Here is a photo journey through our Easter weekend.

Kelsea took the kids to the park for an Easter Egg hunt on Good Friday. I was still at work during this time, but I don't have any pictures of that.

When I did get home from work, we finished packing, and hopped in the car to go here:

[Salt Lake City from our hotel room window]. We went with our friends Peter and Laurel (Peter was a friend from the mission, and he's really let himself go. He says it's for a movie....),

To the Saturday afternoon session of conference in the conference center.

It was a good session.

Peter and I also went to the Priesthood Session while the women went to get the children from their great aunt Sharon's house. They seemed to have fun.

We woke up on Easter morning to a blanket of snow. In downtown it was mostly just on the rooftops, but in other areas, everything was completely white.

At Kelsea's grandparents' house in West Valley, the snow melted fast in the sun, but you can still see some in the garden behind Jay.

Unfortunately, we had to get back in the car just before the final session of conference started, and the kids weren't too happy that we didn't let them watch anything on the DVD player for the first two hours of the trip home.

They really appreciated the rest stop in Beaver. Even though the cheese factory was closed, and it was cold, and it was windy, and we wouldn't let them climb the fence to get closer to the horses in that field.
Jay was happy to sit up to a booth in McDonald's, though.

And then we drove the rest of the way to get home in time to sleep in our own beds and go back to school and work the next day.

Addendum: Kelsea says this sounds like I didn't enjoy the trip, though I did. I was trying to use as many pictures as possible and write only very little. Don't worry, I had fun.

I had a dream

Last night I had a very strange dream. This is the first dream in a while I've been able to remember in any detail, so I thought I'd record it while I could still remember. I used to try to figure out some meaning to dreams, but stopped when I stopped remembering them.

In my dream, I was at a motel on a family trip. My parents, siblings, cousins, and aunts and uncles were there, among other people. My wife and kids were there, but they were safe in the room I came from at the beginning of the dream. It was a small motel, and we were basically the only guests. The first detail I remember is that I had changed clothes and tossed my white shirt down to my dad's truck. I missed, so I was about to go down to pick it up and put it inside when my older sister showed up with her family. She apparently didn't like how my dad's truck was parked, so she started to move it.

At first, she wasn't driving it; it was like she was using a mechanic's dolly or something to move it, and she immediately ran over my white shirt. Then she was driving it, and ran it straight into the side of the hotel. I remember the part of my dream where the truck jumped the curb was actually in slow motion. That was the first slow motion sequence in this dream. After running into the motel on the ground floor, the part above the demolished rooms sort of fell in. It looked sort of like earthquake damage, but it was just the middle part of the hotel that caved in, directly above where the truck had crashed.

I went through the rooms on both of the damaged floors, and people were in the rooms on the second and third floors. On the second floor, they had been able to get out of the way. On the third floor, a bunch of my young cousins had built a blanket fort, and were amazingly unhurt underneath it. After making sure everyone was ok, I walked down the street a little ways for some reason that I can't remember, but it involved a construction site. It made sense in the dream, of course.

On my way back to the damaged hotel, I realized someone was following me in a dark SUV. Since I was walking, I was sure I was caught, and several times I was inches from being abducted (or run over, that part is fuzzy), but I always got away just in time. I got back to the hotel and found the back door and went inside just as the dark SUV pulled around.

The back door was like a fire escape, and led to the fire stairs inside. There was a window that I had to pass to actually get into the hotel, and the SUV pulled up next to it just as I was about to pass in front of it. The driver's window was down, and he pulled out a gun and started to point it into the stairway. This is where the second slow motion sequence started. I was literally right next to the window, as he pulled his gun, but he hadn't seen me yet. As he started to turn the gun towards me, I stabbed him in the eye. In my dream, I actually saw the knife blade go into eyeball. He turned away and covered that eye, then started looking for me with his good eye, and turned the gun back around towards me again, so I stabbed him in the other eye. I don't remember pulling out the knife, or even thinking about it, but I have relatively clear memories of stabbing this guy in both of his eyes. Then I went into the hotel.

Inside, I passed through a large hallway, in a much nicer hotel than I remember coming from, when two army guys, who were sitting in fancy armchairs, stopped me. Instantly it made sense that the man who I stabbed was an army guy, too, but one who had gone rogue or something. Both of the army guys in the chairs knew what I had done somehow, and one was bothered, while the other thought it was funny. I was actually more concerned with the knife I was still holding (which was not bloody, by the way), because I had folded it up like a pocket knife, but the blade was square, almost like a carpet knife, and a sharp corner was still exposed, so I wasn't going to put it in my pocket, but I was trying to figure out what to do with it. The army guys were trying to reassure me that everyone was safe, and that I wasn't in any trouble, when the guy with two stabbed eyes came into the room with his own personal guard, and took all of us prisoner. That's about when I woke up.

I think part of the dream was brought on my the Psych episode we had just watched, which incorporated many Alfred Hitchcock horror plot points. I also clearly don't think highly of my older sister's driving skills. Other than that, I'm not sure what to think. But it was a weird dream.

Family pictures

This morning, after we were ready for church, and as I was looking up how to get to the baby blessing we were going to, Kelsea came up to me and said "I look nice and we have a few minutes." I figured she was most likely fishing for a compliment, so I started out with "you do look nice...." She acted impatient (though flattered), and said, "no, I mean we should try to take some pictures." So we did.

That was the best one. We got another decent one or two, but I had to include this one because of Holly's expression:

Pretty good, right?

Peas porridge hot

This is the time of year I really love Las Vegas weather. The peas that I planted sometime last year are doing great.

This is what they look like to a five-year-old. Holly took this picture.

Peas are delicious, and the kids love to eat fresh-picked peas. At least they are getting some vegetables.

too many to count, but close to 90

I have to wear a tie to work most days. I wear a tie to church every Sunday. I served a mission to Italy, and I anticipated both of those things, and therefore I bought a lot of ties while in Italy. I only took 6 or 7 ties with me when I went into the MTC, and in my first area, there was a closet that had a built-in tie rack, for 30 or so ties. I thought it was a pretty nice way to hang up ties.

It looked a bit like this, only instead of pegs, it had little hangers that rotated in against the inside of the closet door. (Picture it on the inside of an armoire door.) Well, I bought several ties in my first area, and in later areas, but I never had a tie hanger as nice as that first one. When I got home, I found tie hangers like this one, and bought a few for my tie collection. Each hanger holds 24 ties, and I needed three of them to hold all of my ties. That means I had somewhere between 48 and 72 ties when I got home from Italy.
After buying so many ties over the course of 2 years, I was hooked, even though my initial plan was to never buy any more ties in my life. It got worse a year or so ago when I found out that there was an Andrew's Ties store here in Las Vegas (it's in the shoppes at the Venetian/Palazzo upscale mall). Andrew's Ties was my favorite tie store in Italy, so last Christmas I finally checked it out, and bought three ties. They cost a lot more here than in Italy, in case you wondered.

Well, eventually, I needed more tie hangers. Right now I have four tie hangers and they are almost full (four of those hangers will hold 96 ties, but I do have a few open spots). I have two more hangers in case I need them.

Kelsea always thought my tie collection was a little weird, and always tried to convince me to get rid of the oldest, or loudest, or any that were worn out. I let her use some to make patchwork pillows once (though she actually wanted to make a quilt, I didn't let her destroy that many ties). So now she suggested I wear each tie once, until I wear them all. I started yesterday, and it is going to take a while. At 5 ties a week, I think it will take me until July or so to get through them all. I do have a few ties that are kind of loud, so I know I will get comments on them (and I am hesitant to wear a few, like my toilet tie), but there are probably only 3 or 4 like that. Before anyone asks, I have worn every single tie in my collection at least once already (yes, in public), a few just get into the rotation much more frequently right now. I'll let you know how this little project progresses.

Pretty much all grown up

Jay's first birthday is this week, and it amazes me how big he's gotten. He can walk now, you know.

That video was taken a couple of weeks ago, and he's made a lot of progress. He doesn't really fall like that any more, even when one of his sisters tries to knock him over. He's also taken the offensive against his sisters, occasionally trying to tackle them. It's pretty hilarious.

Jay loves to be involved in what's going on, and gets very upset if he's excluded. He gets really excited about the chance to play Rock Band, and screams when we don't let him hold both drumsticks. He knows where we keep them in the extra room, so any time that door is open, he makes a bee line for the drum set. I came home from work yesterday, and he was trying to reach the mouse to use the computer. I sat him in the chair and turned on an episode of Woody Woodpecker on Hulu. Then he started pushing keys on the keyboard, so I had to move that out of the way.

Mia is a musical person. She sings things, and dances to her songs. Not just songs people teach her, but she will sometimes sing to herself, or sing to other people, using as lyrics whatever it is she wants to tell you. Sort of like she thinks she's in a musical. Sometimes Jay will dance along with her songs.

Holly is doing well in kindergarten. On the weekends, she looks forward to Monday so she can go back to school. She has learned 110 words by sight, but she reads all by herself already. She takes cues from the pictures, but still does amazingly well. I don't mean books with three words on a page, either. She's been reading books with paragraphs on each page. And Dr. Seuss books, too.


They continue to amaze me.