On Monday we had a little tea party for Caitie and her friends. John helped me decorate the downstairs with flowers and butterflies. Caitie and her friends dressed up in princess dresses for the party. The girls had fun painting their own tea cup and saucer, making jewlery, and decorating a doorknob hanger. They ended the pary with lunch, cake, and dancing to "princess music."
Last week we were reminded just how unpredictable Texas weather can be. On Tuesday temperatures were in the 70's. Even Wednesday morning the weather wasn't too cold. By Wednesday afternoon the temperature had dropped considerably and just after Brian got out of school it began to snow!! The kids were so excited to see snow. Caitlyn ran around outside yelling, "This is just what I wished for!" Brian couldn't stick his tongue out far enough to catch the falling snowflakes. Anne-Loren was giddy just from the cold. She loves the cold! She would laugh out loud when she felt a gush of cold wind in her face. Here are a few pictures ...
This is the video of Caitie's dance recital. Caitie is second from the right.
The day after Thanksgiving my parents took all of us on the Polar Express. The kids had an amazing time and we made some great memories. Here is a video from the ride.
For years I have know that lavender and peppermint work great for easing the tension of headaches. Still, I have remained quite skeptical of the whole herbal remedy craze. Well, this past week I have become a believer.
For some time now Caitie has been waking up in the middle of the night. In the past several weeks it escalated from just 1 mid-night waking to waking up 4 or 5 times a night. Last week I was so exhausted that I was desperate. Remembering that I knew someone that sold Essential Oils I called her to find out if she might have something that would work. She made some suggestions and offered to let me try some before buying a bottle. I, of course, took her up on her offer and came right home to try it. Caitie only woke up once the first night we used it and has been sleeping through the night since.
Needless to say, I bought a bottle of the Peace & Calming blend. I also got a bottle each of Peppermint and Lavendar. Today I was very grateful to have the Peppermint. This morning Caitie started throwing up. Out of curiosity I looked in the "Essential Oils Pocket Reference" and found out that Peppermint is supposed to ward off nausea. So, why not? I decided to try it. Much to my amazement it worked!! She hasn't thrown up again. Normally, I would think that maybe this is just a throw up once kind of sickness. But, Monday I was with a friend who also has children. Last night she called me and her baby was throwing up. She told me this morning that she had been throwing up all night.
Maybe these are all just coincidences but at this point I seriously doubt it.
Call me crazy if you want but I am now throughouly intrigued by the Essential Oils remedies.
Today when I was putting Caitie down for a nap she asked me to tell her a story. "Alright," I said "Once upon a time there was a little baby that grew into a beautiful princess..." Upon hearing the beginning of the story Caitlyn quickly responded, " No, Mom, not a story about me!"
Here are the videos that I meant to put on the earlier post of Anne-Loren.
Clap
Swing
Anne-Loren
This morning I left to take Brian to school. Normally I take the girls with me but since John hadn't left for work yet I decided to leave them home. When I returned home this is what I found...
Anne-Loren sitting up in a chair (which I didn't even know she could do) watching Baby Einstein and Caitie lounging in front of Super Why!
Have you ever noticed how in any story, there's always someone who gets the short end of the stick? Like in the show Prison Break, it's the nurse/love interest of the main character. Every season, she gets shafted. 1st season - everyone escapes but her. 2nd season - she gets taken hostage by the evil conglomerate known as the company. 3rd season - she gets beheaded. I'm sure you're picking up the pattern.
Another example of folks getting the shaft is the tale of the 3 little pigs. Think for a second about how much we know about many fairy tale characters - we know the entire life story of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White... Even the villains get a good deal of character development. But not in the 3 little pigs. You've got 3 unnamed pigs that are derided for their diminutive size from the beginning. Then, you get this quickie run-down of residential construction techniques that came straight out of the masons propaganda - anything but brick is weak sauce, blah, blah, blah. Brick can take anything, blah, blah, blah. Then they bring in this wolf to show just how weak are the other building materials. They even go so far as mocking the wolf - ooh, here comes the big, bad wolf... my peach fuzz goatee is stronger than you... Obviously, the masonry lobbyists are calling the shots because the straw and the sticks get blown away but the brick house remains pristine.
Well, two weeks ago we learned that the wolf's name was Ike and when he huffed and puffed he might not have blown the house down, but he knocked out the power for more than 2 weeks. Touché.
Now that the power has been restored we can give a quick update - a few leaky windows/door and some failed flashing around the chimney were about all that happened to the house. Almost all of the damage this far north happened because trees came down. Thankfully, ours fell well away from the house. So for us here at l'Hotel Ellis, business is back to usual. And I'm sure you will all be pleased to know that we have won the coveted award for largest debris pile in the neighborhood. (Don't worry, they said that it might be a month or two before it gets picked up so you all have plenty of time to come and see it for yourselves.)
In March Caitie had reconstructive surgery for a perforated ear drum. As a baby she had to have tubes put in her ears. Unfortunately, when the tube fell out of her right ear it left a large hole covering about 40% of her ear drum. Because of this hole Caitie was not able to hear out of her right ear. The doctor was hopeful that the surgery would solve to problem and there would be no permanent hearing loss.
When we went for her post-op check up, we found out that the graft did not fully cover the hole. She still had a hole, only now it was much small - it covered about 5% of her eardrum. He decided to wait until summer was over to patch the remaining hole. Just before her check-up this past week, Caitie got a double ear infection. Because of the ear infection Dr. Albright feels like we need to wait another 6 months before covering the hole. He is worried that if he patches it now the ear infections will increase. She did see an audiologist and her hearing is about where it was before the surgery.
Hopefully, in another six months we will be able to get this fully resolved. Until then we will be praying for a miracle - that Caitie's ear will heal on its own.
We have officially made it through the first two weeks of school. Thank you all for checking on me to make sure that I was able to survive having Brian away all day. As most of you know, I was very hesitant to send Brian to kindergarten. It wasn't at all that I didn't think he was ready. In fact, that couldn't be further from the truth. It was more the fact that I was not ready to send my child out into the big scary world. I seriously doubted how well I had done in preparing him for this big step in life :) I had several nightmares about sending him during the weeks just prior to school starting. John lovingly let me know that I was a bit too worried and jokingly suggested that I call my good friend Kinsey who happens to be a therapist. I did call Kinsey. I was instantly reminded why she is such a great friend - she validated my worries (sorry, honey) and let me know that as long as I wasn't locking Brian in the house things were fine.
The Friday before school started we went to meet his teacher, Mrs. Carley. I felt much better about leaving him with a stranger ALL DAY LONG, when I found out that Mrs. Carley had also taught two of John's siblings. I have heard nothing but good things about her and her abilities as a teacher.
Brian was up and dressed for school by 6:30 on the first day. Here are a few pictures from the first day of school...
Brian all ready to go
In front of the school with his friend Caden
Brian and Mrs. Carley
For my birthday John got me a new Olympus stylus digital camera. I have been having fun taking lots of pictures and testing out all of its features. One of my favorite things about it is that it is waterproof in up to 30 ft of water. I was a bit hesitant to put it completely underwater but, curiosity got the best of me. This is the first underwater picture that I took ...
Since the camera is small and portable I no longer have any excuses for not taking pictures. Thanks, John!!!
Like many of you, we've really enjoyed the Olympics this year. It has been fun to get to introduce Brian and Caitlyn to so many different sports and countries from all around the world. The athleticism of these men and women is incredible. Learning the individual stories of triumph and heartache, disappointment and dedication and all it takes just to get to the Olympics inspires me to want to be better, to reach higher, to go faster, and to live stronger.
It was amazing to see Michael Phelps reach his unprecedented goal, and to see that even individual greatness (Phelps' 8 golds) is only possible with help from others - his single mother raising 3 kids, the support and direction of a coach who saw the potential in a scrawny 11 yr old with ADD, the unbelievable come-from-behind once-in-a-lifetime sprint of his relay teammate who some had described as too old and never having lived up to his potential who snatched victory from the world-record holder by 1/100 of a second.
I was amazed to learn last night of a South African swimmer named Natalie du Toit who, after almost qualifying for the 2000 Olympics, lost her left leg in a car accident. She competed yesterday in the swimming marathon without any kind of prosthetic device.
Some times the athletes gave everything they had and won it all. But because of the nature of the competition, not everyone gets the gold. Watching many of the gymnastic events I was confused by the judges' scoring and dismayed when someone I thought was totally deserving of a gold medal was relegated to second place because of an obscure tie-breaking rule. Luckily, I was able to find some of the gymnastics video footage and you can make your own judgement call.
A couple of Sundays ago, Caitie found a bright pink ribbon that she was dying to wear to church. We found a dress to match it and then, knowing it would fall out if I just tied it in her hair, we went on a hunt for a way to put it in her hair. This is what we came up with...
Each year Stan and KK get to come home for the month of July. Since they are only here that month out of the year the entire month is spent with family time. Thanks to Stan and KK's generosity, all of the kids and their spouses were treated to a wonderful trip to Alaska. (Thanks to my sister-in-law, Tiffany, and my parents for watching the kids for 9 days so we could go!!!)
There is no way that I can recap the entire trip in a reasonable amount of space. So I will just give the highlights.
We flew to Alaska on Tuesday, July 15th. After a very delayed flight we arrived in Alaska around 9:30. We quickly dropped our things at the hotel and headed over Jess and Marlene's house (Stan's brother and his wife) for a delicious feast of King crab legs. The food was delicious and it was great to see all of the family there.
The next day we took at train from Anchorage to Seward. The 4 hour train ride was filled with the beautiful landscapes of Alaska. We saw a brown bear and a couple of glaciers on the way. There were several streams and lakes as well.
The first few days of the cruise were a bit dreary and cold. In spite of the rain, we went Kayaking in Sitka. It was cold but well worth the adventure. We saw several different types of Star fish and enjoyed observing the majesty of the bald eagles flying overhead.
Our next stop, and the highlight of the trip, was Juneau. Here I am going to insert Rob's description of this day. (Hope you don't mind Rob) "We arrived in Juneau after a few bleak days of continual rain. The sun was shining and it felt great to step off the cruise boat, stretch our legs, and explore the nature that belongs in an outdoors magazine.
My family received a complimentary shore excursion in Juneau (one of the perks of travelling with a small army) to go whale watching in the surrounding ocean inlets. Although the brochure listed a dazzling array of animals for which we would 'be on the lookout,' I did not board the catamaran with exceptionally high expectations. But after a few minutes of sailing through beautiful (but animal-less) scenery, we hit the mother load...
Our boat was surrounded by two different pods of humpback whales (a total of around 30 whales) and for a solid hour and a half, we experienced the absolute adrenaline rush of seeing these beautiful whales up close and personal. And they were active!
The great part of having an awesome camera (thank you Christa!!): I was able to take rapid fire shots, capture the entire progression of their dives, and basically felt like a National Geographic photographer. The not-so-great part: having to later choose which pictures to put on the blog. (I took over 450 pictures of just the whales).
We got to hear their songs to each other and see a mother instructing her baby. But perhaps the most spectacular scenes came when all the whales would Bubble Net feed together. The entire group dives down into the ocean, sends bubbles up to the surface in circles to herd their food into a compact group, and then they all feast together in one sudden, synchronated lunge.
The naturalist conducting our trip told us a lot about humpback whales. Unlike killer whales that you can see in Sea World, humback whales are too big and consume too much to live in captivity. Consequently there is a lot that we still don't understand about their species. For example, marine biologists previously believed their lifespan to be 70-80 years. Then as recently as 2005, Alaskan Native Americans found a dead humpback whale with a 120 year old New England explosive (previously used to hunt whales in the Atlantic) that had lodged into the head, failed to detonate and was sealed into place by scar tissue. Experts now believe humpback whales can live to be over 150 years old.
This experience was absolutely incredible!!
On Sunday we were in Skagway, an old mining town. Thanks to Joy and Darrell, we were able to do a walking tour of this town before church. The stories that this town has to tell are very amusing. It is a very fun town. I would have liked to have more time there.
The rest of the trip was very enjoyable and restful (for those who didn't stay up all night playing games :) ) I am so grateful to blessed with such wonderful people to spend my time and share my life with!!
