where to begin

I made peanut butter balls. They were scrumptious.


It is hard to eat a PB ball without front teeth, but well worth the effort.


We had a cool rainbow on the way up highway 5 through California's "Great Valley".


Grammy stocked up on nativity costumes and we had to do the program 4 times on Christmas eve so all the girls could wear the beautiful angel dress. Good memories were made and Uncle Ben was a very patient Joseph.




I loved watching the cousins play with their new dolls.It's hilarious watching the politics of Diana and Ally who are both very used to being IN CHARGE! Although, in this picture, it looks like Emily is laying down the law.


I spent a lot of time holding Nora between throw-up episodes.


Maverick and Isaac, bonding over food.


The incredibly beautiful beach at Santa Cruz (minus Nora, she was sleeping and still sick.)




Nora, sick in the car on the race home. Emily was sick too. Pretty much vomiting all day long.



We got home, bathed the vomit off of Emily and Nora and Ryan took them to the emergency room, both dehydrated and pretty sick little girls. Em got taken care of and was able to come home that night. Nora had to stay the night to get her blood sugar and hydration back up. Ryan stayed at the hospital and brought her home this afternoon. He is now upstairs with the same flu - rotten yuck!

Diana and I seem to be OK, so far, although, Diana has been a pretty big pill today (shocking, but true). Isaac has a low grade fever and is crabby, but that may just be teething (molars) or post trip grumpiness. Hopefully things will look a bit brighter tomorrow.

jingle and the flu

Happy Christmas all. We are having a grand time with Grammy and Grampy and the gang. That is, all of us but Nora - she woke up with the flu poor chick. Of all my kids, she is the best sick one - she remains cheerful and sweet.

I hope you are all having a most festive Christmas. love, Marian

candlelight

When was the last time you had a random candlelight dinner?

i uploaded the camera

and this is what I found:

The wreath I made from the pine cones we found in Los Alamos on our visit to Andersonland. I love it and it reminds me of a most pleasant day with Joyce and Joseph.


Isaac enjoying his first Peanut Butter and Jam - yumola!


Ryan's new favorite picture of Isaac. Dinner is an especially mess meal for the boy and so we usually just strip him at the table before baths. Here he is saluting his dad.


The kids in their Christmas finery (thanks Grammy).


And finally, Emily's mouth (and her new Aurora baby doll from her friend Isobel via the pre-school gift exchange). Em's mouth is healing OK, still gross, but definitely better. I was talking to my mom yesterday and she told me about some friends who are a little older and needed extensive dental work and so decided to just get ALL their teeth pulled and be fitted with dentures! I cannot imagine. They are going on some destination vacation that specializes in teeth extraction. Just envision it - a resort in Mexico for a whole week with no teeth, sore mouth, and dozens of other people just as toothless and bruised as you. Then they have to go home a wait 4 months for their gums to totally heal before they can get fitted with dentures! Oh MAN!

Are you all ready for Christmas? We may have hit a snag. We made our big Amazon order last week and they informed us a few days ago that they won't even ship out until tomorrow, so that gives us until Saturday to get them because we drive off to CA early Monday morning. Christmas morning will be a bit slim without the Amazon order. Oh well. I think the girls are already satisfied. They opened their Cinderella sleeping bags Monday in FHE so they can have them to sleep in at Grammy's house. Nora informs me several times a day that she loves her Cinderella sleeping bag - ah sweet success. It's nice to sometimes get it right.

I'm still not feeling very jolly and I think I have finally figured out why. I spend most of my day here in the kitchen and there are not any Christmas lights in here. They are all in the family room, outside and in the kids rooms. I'll have to remember to save a strand for the kitchen next year to get me happy.

smiles and soreness

Did you know it hurts to type with dry, split finger tips? It does.

Emmy had her two front teeth pulled out today. It was a rather grim procedure despite the Wiggles doing their thing on the TV on the ceiling. One tooth came out fine, but the other had a totally fractured root and so some digging was required - yuck. Not that her dentist isn't great, she is, but let's face it, tooth extraction is, and always will be, GRIM.

Emily was a trooper for the whole thing and has not complained all day even though I am sure she is sore, sore, sore (more sore than my finger tips).

I was very sad to see Emily's little teeth go. One of my faults as a mom is I am pretty bad at savoring the moment and so when change bares it's ugly head I have never indulged enough in whatever state is changing. Emily's smile gives me such joy and I have a written goal to get smiles at random times during the day from her. I am used to her perfect little teeth smiling out at me and now they are gone FOR-EV-ER! I will miss them and the new empty (yes cute, but decidedly different) smile will take some getting used to. I also REALLY do not like it when my kids are in pain and and a kiss and band-aid won't make it all better. There should be a rule against that kind of hurting in a kid - hmph.

On top of it all, I only have one quarter in my possession for the tooth fairy and I need two. I used to have a whole bunch in my purse, but all purse change goes to Salvation Army buckets in December (it's the law, isn't it??). I must go and pillage Ryan's stuff and see if there is another hiding somewhere.

I'll post a picture of the new smile in a few days after the bruising has gone away, it's pretty grisly right now.

my fault and all emmy wants for Christmas

I went to my closet this morning to get some clothes and guess what I chose? You guessed it, MY holey jeans and stained BYU shirt. The choice was totally unconscious and when it dawned on me I had to admit entire defeat. Wear what you will Nora and we will most likely match.

In other news Emily fell down most if not all of our 15 steps last night and landed face first on the tile at the bottom. Her top gums are black and blue and it looks like at least one top tooth is going to be dead, maybe both front teeth. Better start teaching her the "All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth" song. Maybe I'm overreacting and it will look better in a few days. We can hope.

I'm glad we took some family pictures yesterday morning.

tales from the front

day one: Nora wore, you guess it, her BYU shirt and patched jeans (it was the day after laundry day)
day two: plaid skirt and striped turtle neck - ouch
day three: Mom gives up and re-dedicates herself to at least doing a little more careful job on Nora's hair, which yes, Emily Hill, is her real hair and it is incredible, honey blond, curly and incredibly soft.

wardrobe policy making

I, Marian Boren Chase hereby declare WAR on the heatheness of Nora. There she sits at her breakfast, bleary eyed because she slept until almost 8, jam on her face, faded, stained ballerina jammies.Yesterday she wore an almost too short purple shirt with flowers (and milk stains) and a dress up skirt (burgundy with stripes). When we had to actually leave the house she chose to add her purple sweat pants, the ones that let her belly hang out admirably. Her favorite outfit is her patched, frayed jeans and her stained BYU shirt. Some of it, of course, is not her fault. She is at the end of a long line of hand-me-downs so let's face it, her clothes are going to be a little lived in. I admit I am not a stain stick psycho. I have friends who inspect and treat all clothes before laundering, I do not, it would make me crazy and I would rather just have the laundry done. I also let all the kids pick their own clothes and try to only gently guide their choices. Like Pres. Elect Obama, the kid has final policy making power and it's just my job and secretary of clothes to see the vision through. Well folks - NO MORE! Nora is gorgeous. She would have been a model for one of Raphael's angels had she lived a few centuries back. She deserves to be cute. So watch out Nora, MOM is going to take some control, at least try a little harder to influence policy.

emmy lou who

So, Em had her cardiology appointment to check out the suspicious murmur and all is well. She is one of the many lucky ones with an innocent murmur, nothing more to worry about. We are grateful, very grateful. As I said to Ryan, sometimes life gets a little ho-hum, but major medical conditions in a small child is not the kind of spice I want in my life, thankyouverymuch! So sing on Emily's heart, sing on.