good at dodge ball maybe...

Lots and lots happening. Christian finished his general surgery rotation and I'm happy to say he crossed it off his list of possibilities. I guess if he really loved it, I'd suck it up and be happy but knowing he doesn't like it I'm super duper happy. That's been our longest rotation by far. He also just finished Anesthesia and just started Radiology-both extremely easy rotations. I'm glad they've fallen around the holidays because he's been able to home SO much more!
Other things happening/happened. We spent Thanksgiving down in VA at the Thorely's and Callahan's joined us there too. So we had a house full of 6 adults and 6 kids; 5 being boys and 1 girl. It was such a blast. Oscar had a birthday! I have a three year old. Wow. Despite my hard work at teaching Oscar, he still can't catch a ball no matter the size. He's not even close. We're talking eyes closed so you know that's not going to get him far. Maybe I should try dodge ball instead. Felix got a hair cut but it's all so clear you really can't tell. Felix is starting to run. Well okay it's more of a speed walk but it's getting fast. Felix is turning into a climber and a punk-he'll grab one of Oscar's toys he's playing with, turn and run off cackling. Or he'll go to Oscar's tower he just built but stepped away from and Felix will slowly take it apart one by one waiting for a response from Oscar. Once Oscar sees and gets mad at Felix, Felix will then get up as fast as he can run away and cackle. Good news is Felix enjoys being tackled and so far no one's got hurt.


If I can't find Felix, this is were I look first. He's always escaping to the bathroom waiting for me to turn on the faucet so he can play in it. (See his little finger pointing to it.)

This is what Oscar does all the time. Swords, hooks, what ever weapon he has he sticks it in his pants or his underwear. I really should get him some sort of belt he can use for them. It's got to be uncomfortable.

So Christian was sitting reading on the couch and Oscar grabbed a book and sat by him, then Felix grabbed a book and tried to climb up so I helped him up. Love my boys!

I love when they decided to sit down and read together.

I couldn't ask for better boys.

Pictures, Temple, New York, Snow

First. We got family pictures! Thankfully my amazing new friend is a magnificent photographer and she snapped some shots of our family before we had a wonderful picnic in a beautiful park. She's also the one who took the pictures of Oscar and Felix from my previous post. Check out her blog for more of our photos here.



Then we went to the Temple with our wonderful friends, the Thorely's.


Boys got a little tired from running around, so what do you do? Well you lay on the ground of course. Oh, if we could all be like little kids again!

Then Christian and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary! Yay! Christian planned an amazing weekend. We went to New York (kid free) to see Wicked! Our friends kindly accepted to watch our kids for Friday and Saturday while we spend a night in the big apple. We headed out Friday morning and was planning on hitting the Temple but long story short it didn't work out too well mainly because of parking. So we found our hotel. We had a room right on 51th street so it was awesome! Everything was at our finger tips. We headed straight to Central Park and enjoyed a lovely walk then walked around more to see some other sites and visit stores till our dinner reservations at Vice Versa. People were great there and my food was delicious! Christian's food was not quite as good but still really good. Then we got back to the room and I saw on the news a storm was going to hit PA Saturday night so I thought, good, we should make it home before then. Then I wake up Saturday morning to find a text from our friends saying the storm has hit and it's a blizzard. Hmmm. That's no good. How are we going to get home? Well the snow storm hit New York around 11:30am that morning and we soon realized that we would not be going home. Roads were closed and the weather was awful. Moving on. During the time the snow hit we happen to be in a WONDERFUL diner called Ellen's Stardust Diner eating lunch. It was the most fun I've ever had at a restaurant. ALL the waiters are aspiring Broadway people and so as they serve and take orders they are singing and dancing full out. A glorified karaoke. (Cheesy? Definitely, but I loved it.) We had a few regular songs that were fun and enjoyable but we also had some great ones. 'Sweet Carolina' by Neil Diamond and EVERYONE in the diner was singing. We had a Frank Sinatra sort of voice sing 'Let it Snow' (very appropriate, I thought). Then we had a Phantom of the Opera song and the guy voice was amazing! He kept yelling 'Sing to me, my Angel'. It was awesome! Then we headed over to see Wicked. Amazing. More than amazing. I could watch it over and over again and the songs are more fun to listen to now that I've seen the show. I loved every minute of it! We then walked Times Square some more, grabbed dinner and went back to the hotel cause it was FREEZING and a mess outside. Sunday morning we got up early and headed home. Sure getting 'snowed in' in New York is fun but I think my bank account will beg to differ. All I can say is I hope our second loan disbursement comes soon. Yikes!

Cool side note is that New York hasn't had snow in October since before the Civil War. Wow! We witnessed history. So cool!








Our backyard looks so tempting. Snowman, here we come!

And what the heck, why not throw on another picture! Man, I love this boy!


Happy Halloween!

friends forever

Felix updates.

30 inches long
23 pounds
9 teeth
can walk-not that he does
climbs
says 'dada', 'mama' and 'na' which means banana or whatever your eating
loves stuffed animals
dances
hates bath time
plays hide-and-seek
lays his head on a pillow were ever he can
loves to be pulled around on a blanket by Oscar
loves for Oscar to feed him his meals and no one else
loves playing with whatever Oscar is playing with
basically loves Oscar to pieces

Sure life can go by fast but I've loved how quickly Felix has grown because Oscar finally has a brother to play with all the time and I love watching them play! They are great friends! Priceless.

done. done. done (well in one week)

done. Finished The Way of Kings.
done. Potty trained Oscar.
done (well in one week). Nursing Felix.

That third done is a little premature but I tell you there is not a thing in the world I'm more grateful for right now-have my body to myself. I tell you. I even thought about getting pregnant again hoping my milk would go away and I'd be forced to stop nursing but then I remembered that would just take longer to get my body back. At the same time I've never felt more blessed then to be able to nurse my kid for a year. I've known what it feels like to not be able to nurse your kid for one day and that wasn't the greatest feeling mainly because of the judgement calls that come from people who don't even know you. Not fun. But now I totally understand why people don't want to nurse their kids because there have been many days that I've wanted to quit and it can really put you through hello (minus the o). So I get it. Hey you had the kid right isn't that enough?! Do what you want. Anyway, I do feel blessed to have made it this long but that blessed feeling is fading quickly and I'm just plain old tired.

moving on. life is good. we're loving third year of med school. conference was awesome and I'm glad they never specifically mentioned pinterest-so my addition will continue. i think they'll need to put a 12-step together for me if i'm ever going to get over that addiction. oh ya. and we have another chef in the family.

So besides that earthquake that came on Tuesday this week and preparing for the hurricane that's going to hit on Sunday, here's what else we've been doing...

Got new couches!

No not good photography, just crappy picture taking skills but it turned out cool!

Boys playing together. I love these days!


Reading

and more reading... that's all we do here.

and sweet (sometimes silly) faces

august, really?

Okay, let's play catch up. Rewinding back to the night Oscar got home from the hospital (Monday)... So Tuesday we left for Kansas City, MO to pick up our van we had shipped out. That's right we bought a van! Wednesday, packing day. Thursday, picked up moving truck. Loaded it little by little each day till Saturday when we finished loading it. Picked up my mom from airport in K-ville. Sunday we headed out for Pennsylvania. Goodbye Kirksville! The trip wasn't too bad, LONG, but not bad. We did a 12 day and what should have been a 7 hour day that turned into a 9 hour day because of a toll road was closed. Really? We ended up having to make a u-turn and I thought it was tight in my van but Christian had to do it with the 24 ft truck while pulling our car on a trailer bed. I'm glad I was driving the van :) I made it to our house about a minute (literally) before the office closed thankfully or we would not have gotten our keys to the house. Few! Christian showed up about an hour later and we began unloading. My Dad and Sister showed at the end of the week and stayed for a week while we toured around a little. Then I flew back with my family for my grandma's funeral. We flew out on Sunday and the funeral was Monday so I thought I'd stay a little longer. I came back the following Monday and I'm in Vegas at 3:30 in the morning getting ready to be dropped off at the airport when I get a call from Christian (6:30 his time) telling me he was just in an accident. The one day he took our van to work because he was coming to pick us up at BWI after. He's fine but the van's going to need some work. Thankfully he was still able to drive it so he was able to come get me. It was great to be home! In our new home! We've been trying to settle in and get back to regular life. The van's fixed and good as new. And I'm glad we have a swimming pool in our complex because it's been deathly hot these pass two weeks but has now cooled off a little. We love it here in Pennsylvania so far and can't wait for the new things life will throw at us!

Life in the Hospital

As I was getting ready to take my boards, our family was hit by roughly seven plagues that I believe were originally intended for wicked Egyptians. When we got home from St. George, we found our land infested with cicadas/locusts. Then we each got hit by one to three diseases each (with the exception of Felix. Suspicious? I say yes). Looking back, I realize that its probably my fault. Kenna brought it up repeatedly that we should sacrifice a lamb and paint its blood around our door so the destroying angel would pass us by. I didn't listen to her. My bad.

So last Friday, I traveled to Jefferson City to take my boards for medical school. While I was half way through my 8 hour test, I called home to check up on Oscar. Turns out that he wasn't doing well and had to be hospitalized. He had originally had an ear infection but it had somehow transformed into a tonsil infection and a really high fever. After my test I traveled home and stayed with him that first night. In order to keep this blog post short so I can play some video games before Oscar wakes up, I'll summarize: really high fever, Oscar throwing up, nurse that doesn't know how to work the thermometer, more throwing up, Oscar not being able to sleep because of his swollen tonsils, more throwing up, vomit everywhere, more throwing up, me wanting to jump out the window from being so tired, more throwing up, his IV falling out and having to get another one at 3:30 AM, more fevers, massive frustration with the nurse, and more throwing up. I was expecting to have a wild post boards party but this was a little more than I had signed up for.

Today is day 4 at the hospital and Oscar is doing great! His fever is gone and he is back to being funny. If all goes well, we'll be out of here at five o'clock today! Happy times! Now if you'll excuse me, these video games aren't going to play themselves...


Some Pictures:

Felix is in the prison crib that they provided for him. He got some time off for good behavior.


Sick Oscar


Feeling a little better

change

I’ve never been good with change in fact for the most part I hate it. Weird since I used to work for the Who Moved My Cheese? company so you think I would have learned to embrace change and learn to love it. But nope, I still hate it. Ok ok, there is some change that can be good… changing a toothbrush, a dirty diaper, an outfit, the clock battery, a hair style because it’s no longer the 80’s (in fact, we’re no longer in the 19 something or others at all). But when it comes to a loss of something or someone change is no good. I thought I knew what I was getting myself into when I chose to marry a wanna be doctor but now that we are here, change is something that occurs all too frequently and I’m not always good with jumping on board. We’ve known for two years that we’d be moving this month, this year but little did I know that during those two years I’d gain friendships that I never want to lose. Jill Root and Melanie Peterson have been my family and best friends these past two years and I have grown to love these women immensely. They have been there for me when my family got the swine flu, when I gave birth to another child, when I had to have surgery after giving birth and countless other times. Well, Jill moved away on Monday and Melanie moved away on Tuesday this week and things just don’t feel the same. I know I’m moving too so things would eventually have changed no matter who moved first but nevertheless I’m sad. In addition, only an hour after losing both of my friends I got a call from my mom saying I just lost my Grandma. My Grandma had had a massive stroke a few days prior and so I knew this was coming. I’ve known since our visit to Utah a few weeks ago. I could see it in her face that she was taking in every moment and watching everyone. She longed to be back with her husband, son and many other family members and I’m happy for her. But I’m sad for me and my family. We will miss having her around, stubborn personality and all (hmm, wonder where I got that from?). I’ve loved growing up with my Grandma always a few minutes away and sometimes a bedroom away. I’ve loved her willingness to do anything you asked of her just so she can see the smiles on our face. I will miss you Grandma and I love you.

13 Years Later

It's taken 13 years but they are finally here and we get to experience them before we head to York.

Cicadas
Ours are a little more orange/reddish. But they tend to go to young trees and guess who has two big young trees in her front yard. Yes, that's right, me. These things are so stinking loud and they never stop making noise (or singing as they say). After some time they die and the bodies start to decay. Apparently when that happens it starts to stink. Not really looking forward to that part. Oh ya and as many as a million noisy male cicadas can gather in a tree over a single acre calling out for their future mates. Also they have their 17 year old buddies joining them and this is very rare. It occurs every 221 years. The last time it occurred was in 1777. The next time this happens will be in 2219. So glad I got to experience this...

happy boy

QUICK FELIX UPDATE..

4 TEETH
GREAT BALANCE
CRAWL/ARMY CRAWL (IT CAN BE FAST IF HE KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS)
LOVES CARROTS AND CARES FOR NOTHING ELSE
LOVES OSCAR
LOVES HIS BED
LOVES BALLS

THAT'S ALL FOR NOW BUT WE ARE GETTING READY TO HEAD TO ST. GEORGE SO I'M SURE THERE WILL BE MORE POSTS TO COME.

PS. OSCAR REFUSES TO HAVE THE CAPS LOCK BUTTON OFF WHEN HE'S ON THE COMPUTER AND WELL HE'S ON MY LAP SO I HAD TO TYPE THAT WAY. SORRY.

the final finals week

That's right. We will NEVER have another finals week. Sure there will be test's here and there and boards here and there but never a week jam-packed with late night (sometimes ALL night) cram-sessions, red bulls, pretzels, pop tarts, and all in all junk food. What a relief it is. Christian is going to be able to be home when he's home (if that doesn't make sense.. well, talk to a med school wife and she can explain). Christian has been amazing through out these past two years of craziness. I'm so proud of him for keeping his life balanced with both family and school. I can't wait for rotations. When Christian told me he had pediatrics for his first rotation, I couldn't help but get the biggest grin and tried to control my heart from leaping out. Congratulations Christian you're half of a doctor!

Felix 1 Dad 0

I (Christian) was holding Felix and all seemed well. He kept sucking on my shoulder like normal but at some point I realized that my whole entire arm was soaked. That seemed like a lot even for Felix's prodigious drooling ability. I then realized that this "drool" had a very nasty smell to it. At some point, Felix silently sent poop all up his back, soaking my shirt. I felt a little bit like bin Laden, I never saw it coming until it was too late. Felix 1 Dad 0

Identical Twins... in a different way

Felix is now 6 months! Felix had his doctors appointment today and things are just getting creepy. Here are Felix's stats along side Oscar's 6 month stats...

FELIX

Height: 27.5 in (92%)
Weight: 19 lbs 11 oz (91%)
Head: 45.7 cm (97%)

OSCAR

28 in
19 lbs 11 oz
46 cm

Felix also has his two bottom teeth and it working on the top. Also, my guess is he'll be crawling soon, TOO soon. He can get up on all fours and can roll super fast but it's just not enough for him. He's ready to move fast and furious. He has been so fun to have in our family.

Oscar is now 37 lbs (97%) and 39 in (97%). Oscar has been getting these growing pains and it's really sad to see but he's okay with them because that means he gets tylenol and he LOVES tylenol. Also, I'm pretty sure he's decided on a hand and it's left. He still uses both pretty regularly but his left dominates when he wants to be detailed in his drawings or anything he's 'careful' with.

Other news. Easter is almost here (it's taking forever this year)! And things are speeding up to our move. We've got a place waiting for our arrival on June 27th, moving truck is booked and finances are set. I've been packing since March little by little and it's starting to look good. Classes only have 4 weeks left and then boards, boards, boards it is.

Some things are just meant to be...

You have three guesses as to which member of the family is doing this blog post. Jimmer on the Jazz needs to happen. Lets all keep this in our prayers as the NBA draft approaches this summer.

Coccinellidaephobia (Cock-sin-ellie-day-pho-bee-ah)

A fear of Ladybugs

Why am I posting about this? Well Oscar has Coccinellidaephobia. Yes he is afraid of ladybugs. Come this time of the year we have what is actually called Asian Beetles but look basically like ladybugs. They can get everywhere but so far only one or two have gotten in the house but you'd think a million were charging in all at once based on Oscar's reaction to them. He reacts whether there are real ones or he's imagining them. He even gets hysterical sometimes. He'll think/image/sometimes see one and run to Christian or I stand on our feet and try to climb up us to safety. Sometimes he won't get out of his bed because there are "badybugs" all over the floor. Majority of the time I'm laughing but when he sees one every 5 seconds it starts to get on my nerves. Oh badybugs, badybugs go away. Come again another day.

Cake Anyone?

Well, finals are done for this quarter! One more quarter to go and I'm screaming, crying, laughing, well I don't know what to do. I think that was the most difficult quarter I've been through here in med school. I feel like I won an Oscar (haha). (I love how I can make jokes like that all the time!) Thank you Oscar and Felix for putting up with me and Congratulations to Christian for all his hard work!

1546 hours of med school classes down and 200 hours to go... oh and boards! Piece of cake!

too much and not enough

I love when I have a million things to do and here I find myself roaming facebook (which I never do), posting on my blog and eating chocolate ice cream. Hmmm... I think I'll just go to bed and hope some things on my list disappear.

Question: Does Santa rent out his elves? They can't be that busy during this time of the year, right?!

Oh and here's whom I blame for my list being so long...

catch me in you can

A lot has been happening and then again it feels like nothing is happening.

First of all let me say ADIOS January and February! Ever since we've come to med school those are officially my most hated months. It's cold, most likely snowing, sickness hits, Christian is never home, big winter coats are hard to get in a car seat, kitchen floor is always wet from snow being tracked in, nap time ceases to exist cause I can't run around in enough circles to get this kid worn out, the list could go on but I'll stop cause I'm bumming myself out let alone my readers. (Not that the post is going to get any better, sorry.)

However to help ease the awful month of February Kelly (mother-in-law) and Loretta (aunt) came to visit this last weekend! It was wonderful having them here. Oscar LOVES company. They helped with the kiddos wonderfully and it was nice to have a little break!

Last of all on Feb. 18th our dear friend passed away from cancer. She was the wife of a med student we met our first year in Kirksville. She was a wonderful woman and led an amazing life. We will miss her dearly.
Love you Brandy.

Four months old!

Felix had his four month check up today and to no surprise he has the exact same stats that Oscar had at this age..

17 pounds 2 ounces (82%), 26 ¼ inches tall (87%), 44 cm for head (92%)

Also Felix is rolling from his back to his stomach, loves his saucer and loves to talk.

Tractors

Okay so I mentioned the tractors removing the snow... well I got some pics when they were clearing our drive way..


Some other fun pics..