Family Dreadunion

Some people have families they love to see and spend as much time as possible with. Some people have sisters that go on weekend getaways together. That's not my family. We're uptight and bitchy witchy when we're all together. The one week a year that we all get together is preceded by weeks of skyrocketing stress, blood pressure, anxiety, and dread for me. I survive the week by doubling or tripling up on my vitamin B (which is nature's anti-stress happy vitamin), ibuprofen, and chocolate therapy. Sometimes even that is not enough. And it usually takes a week or two to process all of that out of my system. This year, I quit and went home a day early, even after shortening the trip a couple days. But I do it for my kids to see their family. It's the one time of year they see the only cousins they've had in my family until March.

Anyway, here's some highlights.

On Monday, I drove up to Denver and met Becky to pass Tommy over to her so she could take Tommy, Erik, and Bode to Dart Warz. I dropped my kids off at Mom's, then went to Costco to buy my chocolate. 

Tuesday, we went to the Aurora Reservoir.

Geese visited our picnic table.

Samson loved the sand and water.

Katie enjoyed burying herself.

Dump truck!

Tunneling

Dancy is proud of her strength.

Sam let Katie bury him, but she forgot to build up enough head support.

Samson was done.

Thora was so excited to finally get time with Momma Lisa again! Lisa made Mat play Pretty, Pretty Princess with them.

The prettiest princess!

Another pretty princess

Tuesday night I went out and got boba with Katie Oliver, a friend from high school, and we talked until nearly 1 am.

Wednesday was a Colorado Springs day. I drove home to pick up a package for Dan, my sunscreen, and double stroller. Then hit the zoo with Becky, Lisa, and Mat.

Dancy wanted a picture with the orange tiger bench. Lisa was highly amused by her pose and had to join.

Dancy and Tommy

{Katie, Tommy, Thora, Mat, Dancy, Samson & Lisa, Becky}

Saying goodbye to Mat before he flew back to Utah. Samson loved playing with "my Mat!"

Thursday, Katie did Jen's morning workout with her.

Mom and I took the kids to Utah park. We met up with Katie Oliver there and Thora played hairdresser with her.

Dancy got creative with a tree leaf in creating a wrap to hold her flower. Tommy copied Dancy's technique.

Swimming in the afternoon. Sam and Thora loved playing with the fountains that sprayed in the 2" area of the pool. The other three were always off with an aunt. When Sam got worn out, he enjoyed all the attention he got from Erik and Bode in the grass.

Thursday night was the boys' night at Spider Monkey, and the girls' movie date with Lisa. The girls saw Incredibles 2.

Shad arrived Friday morning which happened to be my breaking point (the morning, not his arrival), and after the family photo shoot, he and I left with Thora and Sam to go hike with Shad's parents before going home. We let Katie and Dancy stay to hang out with Becky and Jen, and Tommy had a boys' day with cousins and Jake. Then I picked up the girls, Shad picked up Tommy, and we got ourselves home.

Sam and Thora loved the hike with Nana, Bumpa, Levi, and Ryan. We got to a point where we thought we needed to turn back to finish and get Ryan back in time for karate, but Samson begged us to let him keep going. So we continued for another 5 minutes. We found this area with piles of stacked rocks. 

"Take pictures of my mountains, Megan!"

The flat irons

Thora checking out the view with her binoculars.

And then we were home! I remembered to take a picture of Samson at the top of one of the rope ladders. He and Thora couldn't climb these at all until after we went to Santa Fe and climbed all those ladders at Bandelier. Then suddenly when we were back home they were confident and knew they could handle these short climbs.

Rainbow of peace at the end of a frazzling week.

Hibernating January

In December, Thora suddenly had interest in potty training, thanks to Dancy getting her excited about pretty underwear. So I did what little I was willing to do before Christmas: I got excited with her, we picked out her treat (biggest purple bag of Skittles possible!), and discussed that we would start after New Year. While happy to finally be ready to potty train this three-year-old, I savored the little freedom I had left.

Momma got contacts and Samson got a haircut! Shad did the cut while I was at my appointment, so it was a surprise for both of us when I came home. Samson was the first to notice I wasn't wearing glasses.

This is Thora being Princess Sofia talking on the phone to her sister, Princess Amber.

Hooray! She peed! Lori got many of these pictures, and some of poop when that finally happened. Aren't you glad you aren't Lori?

Potty training Thora took the. whole. month. She picked up peeing on the toilet pretty quickly, then I gave her underwear and accidents were all over the place. So we spent a couple days keeping the underwear clean. Then I gave her pants and the accidents were all over the place. So we spent a couple days keeping the pants clean. Then we ventured out in public. And had those accidents. And then there was the week when she pooped in her underwear DAILY. Seven or eight days straight. It was rough. I definitely had moments of crying like the mom in this video:

And then finally, FINALLY things clicked and I declared her to have become a big girl, sent Lori LOTS of poop emojis, and earned her reward: a date with Lori to get her ears pierced and have ice cream. I think that was achieved in February though. Text records show February 9th to be the date. One month and one week to potty train. Thora did voluntarily give up naptime diapers, which was more than any other kid did. So she's at a one-a-day for bedtime status and I'm happy to stay there for a while now that I'm back in the thick of potty training again with Samson.

Here's a fun story: I mostly stayed home as much as I could while potty training Thora. But there was that one time that I had to go to Walmart to get new tires on the van...and was there for nearly 2 hours while they changed the tires and oil...and Thora was wearing underwear (which she did keep clean and even peed on the toilet, but was still stressful for me), Katie threw up twice, and Sam's nose was running constantly. I was so glad when they paged me to pick up my van! Oh, icing on the cake: the cleaning lady at Walmart never got to the vomit the whole time I was there. Don't know what she was doing, but they were definitely paging her for over an hour.

Back to pictures...

Samson just got it into his head one day that he needed to have tape on his hands. Kept it up for a couple days.

Maaaany months ago back in Kansas we found this huge Lego Friends amusement park set on clearance. Shad and I kept it hidden in our closet until Christmas and gave it to the kids as a group gift. We all participated in building it.

Mom made a chocolate smoothie for breakfast! Yay for sneaky spinach!

Art class. Always colorful.

Adorable

Sometimes they exasperate me.

Milk in the hair.

From milk in the hair to falling asleep on the couch reading books. Parenting is a roller coaster.

And then cuddling on me while sleeping. This almost never happens anymore!

Because we live in Colorado where it's dry as heck and I humidify like crazy. And we order a lot from Amazon. Tommy's art.

I'm trying to remember, but I'm thinking this was the first snow that stayed for more than 12 hours. Or maybe I woke up and surprise! This was there. Dunno. But I still love this window view.

Frozen flakes on the roof.

Got a new fridge! That was an exhausting day. The fridge that was already in the house had a bad leaking problem. As in, I had to always keep a cup to catch the drips and if the cup got bumped or pushed out of place, water everywhere. So we managed that for a while, but the deal breaker was the day I suddenly heard the water pouring into the cup. Found this fridge on facebook for $125 and the guy delivered it. Missionaries helped install it while Shad was at work. 

Dancy built this.

Snow day! I figured out a good system for managing the kids playing in the snow and still keeping the carpet at the entry clean and dry: double layers of towels and processing one kid at a time. I'd sit them down and pull off all the wet clothes, then take them over to the fireplace to dry in front of the fire. Kids took to the couches with blankets to watch Netflix and warm up.

So that system worked well until Tommy's coat was too close to the fireplace and was actually touching the glass and the zipper melted.

And thus, January ended.

Samson's Allergies

My milk supply dried up early with Dancy and Thora, so I wasn't surprised when it did the same with Samson. I started supplementing with formula in July, and quit breastfeeding in August. Since then, I've struggled to keep up with his eczema. It started on his legs, then spread to his lower back, face, arms, hands, upper back, belly and chest. In that order of progression. 

I've been through every can of formula on the shelf...Similac advance, infant, gentle, sensitive, soy; cow's milk, soymilk, almond milk, coconut milk. Our doctor recognized that it was an allergy, but kept telling me to just keep trying different things and use a steroid cream. Okay, well I didn't use the cream because I didn't want to just hide the problem, I wanted to find the problem and eliminate it. I finally demanded a referral to an allergist.

This was Samson on Saturday. I had worked so hard, reading labels of everything, going to the grocery store just to read labels to find things that were soy and milk free (which means no crackers or bread. Homemade, all the time). His chest and arms were clear, his legs were almost clear, his face still a mess due to teething drool.

And then he broke out from the soap. Dang it.

We went to the allergist in Hays yesterday and I had a babysitter lined up for the other 4 kids. Samson and I enjoyed our date (1.5 hrs of driving one way). He did not enjoy the stethoscope or the blood draw (back at the Norton clinic because Hays won't draw on kids younger than 2). After the blood draw, he was given a bright orange little bear. He promptly stopped crying and waved the bear at the phlebotomists, growling, and then woofing. Anyway, I think I have a little love-hate relationship with the allergist. She was great at helping, but seems to be the kind of doctor who doesn't like anything outside of mainstream Western medicine and pharmacies. She didn't like my use of homemade coconut oil lotion, or essential oils. *pursed lips* One day I'll have a witch doctor holistic doctor.

ANYWAY, we got the blood draw done and should have results in a week. In the meantime and until further notice, I am supposed to:

*give Samson half a vitamin and half a probiotic daily

*give him 2 prescription medications that I don't know what they do

*give Samson Alimentum, a $25-40 12 oz can of formula that tastes bitter nasty

*feed Samson only fruits, veggies (no tomato), rice, oats, chicken and turkey. Salt is allowed, seasonings are not

*use only Cetaphil soap and Aveeno lotion

*try not to go completely insane