Back in Business!

Boy, it's been a long time since some good (or even mediocre) posts from me.  The reason...one heck of an October.  I was sick about 3/4 of it and have come to realize that Fall and I just don't get along.  Whether it's allergies or colds, I don't know.  But I've spent a lot of the month NOT doing the things that I enjoy doing.  I'm excited to be healthy in November and get back to my regular routine.

Other reasons for my blogging slothfulness...Michael replaced the hard drive in the computer.  Then the new one was working all crazy and he had to reformat it.  Oh, what a chore that is!  And it took probably over a week for everything to be done.  I was fitting in my work when we had a functioning computer and just doing the best I could to survive without my email.  :-)  Lastly, Michael lost his job on October 3rd (don't ask...I'd rather not get sued for slander.).  So, on October 4th, the job hunt ensued.  Since I'm fast and I don't have the patience to wait for Michael to take care of it, I'm the job searcher.  That's quite the time commitment.  So, here I am with quite a few things to say and now I'll get to them!

Halloween & Birthday

First we start with a photo from a few days before Halloween.  Evan's cousin was over playing and they were doing such a great job just entertaining themselves and coming up with fun and creative things to do.  Evan came up and asked me if we had any white fabric so they could make ghosts.  I pulled out a white sheet and some washable markers so they could draw ghost faces on it.  When he wanted to cut it in half so both of them could have their own ghost sheets, I decided we'd better try something else.  White t-shirts.  Of course, Maren had to get in on it, too.  All three of them walked around for the longest time with their shirts over their heads.  They also drew all kinds of fun stuff on their shirt ghosts.  It was pretty cute.

See what I mean about Maren?  She always looks like a miserable child.  In reality she is fun, silly and happy, with a smile on her face more often than not.  Maybe I need to be more entertaining when I'm taking pictures or something.  Who knows!

This is Evan with the four presents he wrapped for me after his nap (he doesn't like to wear anything but his underwear when he naps!).  He spent about an hour doing it, wrapping every edge to make sure none of what was under the packaging was sticking out.  It really meant a lot to me.  This wasn't something Michael put him up to or a thought anyone else placed in his head.  Just doing something nice for his mom on her birthday.  It really helped make my day.  For some reason it was a hard day.  Am I the only one who has apparently unrealistic expectations for their birthdays?  Add to that heightened birthday feelings and then a day that everyone else celebrates for something completely NOT your birthday, and you get me...grumpy...on my birthday.  It's the pits.  Anyway, I share that because this little boy brightened my day with his love.  And now I have a new ball, stuffed moose, book and something else from his closet that I can't remember now.  :-)

Evan was Iron Man this year, thanks to his good friend Noah, who got it for him for his birthday.  He was absolutely beside himself (he's quite the super hero lover) with the funniest comments about his "amazing", "awesome", "cool" suit.  Never one to leave a Halloween costume be, Michael added an "arc reactor" to the chest that really lights up.  You know those dot lights that you push on and off?  Yeah, worked great.  Pretty much everyone was in awe of his costume everywhere we went.  Sometimes a bit too much.  Kids would come up and try to push his arc reactor.  They would take his mask from his head and try to put it on his face so they could see him completely decked out.  I literally had to fight one kid off today at the school's fall festival.  He would not leave Evan alone and was completely and entirely invading Evan's personal space trying to get to the arc reactor and the mask.  I was pushing him away, saying, "leave him alone!" and threatening to use my famous karate chop on him (this was after several attempts at keeping my cool and being gentle and kind!).  Ha!  Maren was a ballerina.  Michael said only for one night and that she shouldn't get used to the idea.  Heehee.  She liked to dance around whenever I reminded her that she was a "dancer", though.  What a sweet thing.

Annual Pumpkin Patch Trip

You know, this is one of the traditions that we have that I think is so important to Evan and then when we get there, it's terrible.  The last two years, at least.  He's grumpy.  He doesn't want to stay.  He wants a crazy, rotted out pumpkin.  I don't know what the deal is.  No nap, bad nap or just what...it was a little bit of no fun this year.  However, I do have some semi-cute pictures to share...

Yes, this is the best picture I could get of the kids in the wheelbarrow.  I swear, I can't get a picture of just TWO kids together.  How do people get pictures of four or eight or 18 kids together where everyone is smiling and looking like they like each other?  Good luck with us, Jen!  :-)  Anton tagged along with us.  Seriously, there are people who think he's our child.  He almost could be.  That's the crazy thing.  He's a great friend for the kids to have around.  Oh, funny note...on the way there he asked if we could stop at Walgreen's.  When asked why, he said there is this new kind of candy he just heard about that he wanted to try...Pop Rocks!  Ha!  We got a good laugh about that.  Those three kids had quite the fun time eating Pop Rocks in the back seat on the way out to the pumpkin patch.  Good thing for Anton since there's a space literally about six inches wide between the car seats for him to sit in.

I think this could be the first "family picture" we've had taken since Father's Day 2007.

I thought it would be cute to take a picture of Evan walking through the (disturbingly rotting) pumpkins.  Then he starts scratching his bum.  I just can't win!

But I DO love this picture.  What a cute boy.  I guess he enjoyed this moment.  Until next year, Pumpkin Patch, we'll try to remember the good times!

Seaside Vacation

Towards the beginning of the month we got to go stay at Michael's mom's timeshare in Seaside for two days.  This was, of course, within the week that Michael got let go from his job.  I suppose it we hadn't paid for it months earlier, we wouldn't have gone, for lack of money.  But it was the perfect time to get away.  We enjoyed having time together as a family being away from home.  I had been sick and the first morning I woke up with pink eye.  That was the pits, but otherwise I loved it!  My favorite thing was around 10 p.m. each night.  The kids were asleep.  The dishes were done.  The suite was clean.  I had no work to do.  I didn't know what to do with myself.  So I set the table for breakfast the next morning.  What a great feeling that was to have nothing better to do than that.  And then I did lots of reading.  I must say that I loved not having a job for two days.  :-)  Here's some of our favorite moments...

Evan was so excited to go on the bumper cars.  Michael was paranoid of whiplash (ha!) so I held his head tight to me whenever someone was going to bump us.  Apparently Maren was looking on longingly because you have to be 2 years old to ride.  Poor girl.

It is very, very rare to get a good picture of Maren...especially one where she has a sort-of-smile.  She loved the sand.  And her raisins.  But the two of them didn't mix very well.

I was deemed the doofus mom when everyone realized I had forgotten to pack our kite.  Since we were officially terrified about spending any money, I think we took a whole $20 with us to do everything we wanted to do (no surrey bikes...bummer!).  But Evan really wanted something to fly on the beach so we got him this cheap little thing.  Ha!  The things that will appease kids.  Evan and Michael built a sand castle and it got to fly on top.  Coats on the beach.  Still looks strange to me.  I still feel like I have California blood a lot of the time.

Yes, indeed, that is a kite string you see Evan holding.  That's because next to us on the beach were a couple of moms with their kids.  They had this kite they were trying to fly and it just wasn't working.  Michael stepped in to help since the moms were definitely mechanically challenged.  He spent probably half an hour putting this thing together, helping them get it up and teaching the kids about it.  One of the moms said I should hire him out.  Instead we just asked if Evan could fly the kite for a minute.  And I was forgiven.

Fighting a Losing Battle

This is going to be me soon, me thinks.  I am losing the battle against the gray.  I think mine is all tied into stress.  I didn't have one, single, solitary gray hair until after Evan was born.  And then it was manageable.  A gray here, a gray there.  Pluck, pluck, pluck.  Multiply the kids, multiply the stresses, exponentially multiply the gray.  And if I keep pluck, pluck, plucking, I will be bald on the right side of my head because that's where most of them pop up.  Now, my sister can't wait for gray hair.  She thinks it's distinguished looking and...something else strange that I can't remember.  :-)  I, however, am not okay at all with being 31 and having gray hair!!!  I'm much too young for that...especially since I feel like I'm only about 22 still.  You know the really strange thing?  The other day I pulled out one that I had to take a double-take at.  It was seriously gray at the root, brown in the middle and gray at the end.  I must've had a calm between two storms in my life or something.  I thought it was WAY weird and tried to save it but, of course, it got away from me.  Sad but true story.  I'm too poor to color my hair so when I look like the woman above, just tell me something nice like...I'm a sweet spirit.  Yeah, that's always helped in the past!!  (Ha!)

Brother Not Forgotten

Today the city was having a free shredding day where you could take all of your stuff to be shredded to City Hall and they would take care of it for you.  Hooray!  I've had some stored up for probably literally four years because I never get around to shredding and I don't want the kids to see the shredder because I don't want them to try to work it on their own fingers!  Anyway, we pull up and a lady stops us to give us a little comment card to fill out about how we like the service.  The first thing she says, when seeing the kids in the car, was, "Wow.  You brought the whole group, huh?"  I was wondering if she was actually in awe of a small family of four.  What would she think about the family of 12 in our ward pulling up?  Anyway, she was just about to explain the card to Michael when Evan rolled down his window and said, "Um, but, excuse me, this isn't all of our family.  I have a brother.  His name is Dallin.  But he died."  Well, the poor lady didn't know what to say, of course, and then my eyes start filling up with tears.  I know I've shared a lot of these things lately, but I want to remember them forever.  Evan is just so tender, thoughtful and aware of his brother who isn't here with us.  And he always remembers that our family isn't complete without him.  I think I cried in the car for about 10 minutes after that, just over the sweetness of a small child and looking forward to the reunion we will all have with Dallin.  Thank you, Evan, for giving me the permission to tell even perfect strangers about my THREE wonderful children.

We Really Do Have Cute Kids!

BEFORE

Maren had what I can't stand with little girls...hair in her eyes!  I was constantly trying to push it out of the way or put a clip in it, which would last about five minutes.  Evan had hair so long on the sides, it was going into his ears.  Ick.  And it was just a real mess every day.  Then...

AFTER

Aah...so much better!  Every time we cut Evan's hair, I wonder what took us so long because he is such a handsome fellow with clean cut hair.  And no more brushing wispy hair out of Maren's eyes.  Yea!  Normally Michael takes care of the hair but I couldn't stand it another minute today and took matters into my own hands (no, not the scissors, though!).  Oh, yes, Maren refused to give up the sucker for the sake of the picture.  Silly girl.

Our Family

Okay, this is ticking me off. Anyone know how I can get my pictures bigger? It seemed to have changed when I put on the cute background, which doesn't seem worth it when you can't even read what this says! (Click on it for bigger version.) Anyway, this was very fun. Wordle. It may be back to the boring blog for me soon if I can't figure out how to get bigger pictures. :-(

Famous Ears

Last Saturday we went to the zoo.  Not necessarily to see the baby elephant that had been born the Saturday before.  But because the dinosaur exhibit that we'd been meaning to go to for months was leaving on Labor Day and it was our last chance to take it in.  Of course, the bonus was that there was a cuter-than-cute baby elephant born in our zoo the week before and it was the first day they were going to let people see him.  We stood in line for only about 20 minutes for our chance to walk by him.  What a sweet thing.  I just wanted to go over and nuzzle up with him.  Anyway, Michael put Evan on his shoulders so he could get a better look and take some pictures (which were all completely blurry, I might add).  I got separated from them because I had the stroller and kept getting cut in front of.  When I got out of there, Michael told me that a reporter had gotten some information from them.  That's all I knew.  The next day, on the front page of Section B of the Sunday Oregonian was this picture:

 

If I haven't mentioned it yet, I don't know why this new background stuff is making my pictures so tiny.  It's bugging me.  But, anyway, you can click on it to see it larger.  There's cute little Evan in his Disneyland hat taking a picture of the baby elephant.  And there's Michael's ears.  The parents get no love...and rightfully so.  We're not 10% as cute as our kids, are we?

Michael Bybee, CMA

We are so proud of Michael over here!  Back in June, while I was at Girl's Camp, Michael took the board exam to become a certified medical assistant.  It was a four-hour test with 300 questions.  No small task.  I've been dying to know his results ever since.  It's been a long wait.  Just this week we got his score in the mail and found out that he had, indeed, passed.  And, he really messed up the curve for everyone else.  He did great on all three categories of the test (general, administrative and clinical), but his clinical score really takes the cake.  He was in the 98th percentile!!!  That's quite an accomplishment (especially after only maybe two hours of studying!).  So, he's been excited about signing his name with "CMA" at the end.  And it's time to get a little name plaque to go on his stethoscope that includes that.  Ha!  It's about the little things, isn't it?  Hooray, Michael.  Way to go!

Seriously!

You know those emails I send out every time there's a great concert coming to our area?  You know...the ones you always delete?!?!  Well, if you're in the area THURSDAY, 8/14, you would big a dingaling, ie. dork, geek, twerp, goofball, weirdo, goober, etc. if you didn't show up at Shute Park in Hillsboro at or before 7:00 p.m. for a FREE concert from Ryan Shupe & the Rubberband!!  Seriously.  Their music is contagious, they are funny, you'll dance, you'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you had come the last time I told you they were in town.  ;-)  And you'll wish you told all your friends.  So come on by.  Bring a chair or a blanket to sit on and prepare for a delightfully entertaining evening!!

If you require more coercing, you can check out their website:  www.shupe.net.  Don't make me have to come after you!

"Smile, Maren!"

That's what I said, and this is what I got.  Ha!  She's so funny.  She does this silly lips and closes her eyes almost all the way but not quite.  Who knows where they get these funny ideas?!?!

Fun Summer Times

We've been doing a lot of fun stuff lately.  I am really loving this summer, spending lots of fun family time enjoying each other's company.  Of course, other things are suffering...like pulling weeds, putting in a garden (oh, what?!?!  We're a little late for that?), and cleaning the toilets.  But we're creating fun family traditions and I'm thrilled about that.  Here's some stuff from the last couple of weeks.

We went to the Washington County Fair a couple Saturdays ago.  Boy, was it fun.  We saw a cool bird show, checked out all the animals (we saw a calf that was just born 18 hours before, with his mother, who still had placenta or something hanging out of her back side.  Cool!), and rode a couple of rides.  My favorite pictures:

(as a side note, I don't know why these pictures are coming up so small now.  I can't even hardly see the bird in the picture.  Ugh.)  So, here is part of the pirate/bird show.  The bird owner was showing how much trust the bird had in him, that he could hold the bird on his back and throw him up in the air.  It was really pretty amazing.

I just liked the elation on Evan's face as he watched the show.  Yes, Michael has an owie on his cheek...shaving accident.  And excuse the bald head on the right.

If you held out a dollar, one of the parrots would come get it.  Evan liked that and did it twice, although he looks a bit apprehensive about it in this picture.

Michael was pretending they were in a horse race and it was cracking Evan up.  I just love the looks on both of their faces.

So, Michael and Evan went on one of those really big, tall, bumpy slides together.  The first picture I took was of them towards the top and Evan looked a bit concerned.  Then he started having fun.  I didn't want to take this picture because I wanted to see it in person instead of through the view screen.  That's why they're way off to the side.  Oh well.  You can still see how much fun they had and I love the picture anyway.

Evan wanted to go on this dragon roller coaster.  The last time he went on a roller coaster was last year and  I went with him.  Well, no adults on this one.  It was just so crazy to see my little boy doing something like that by himself.  He is growing up so fast and every time I blink, it seems like something crazy and new is happening like this.

White Trash

I must say, this may be one of my more funny stories.  So, we have these neighbors across the street.  They are older, retired.  They only had one child and he's now probably 35 or so.  So it's been a while since they had a toddler running around.  They live here in the Spring and Summer, in Arizona in Fall and Winter.  Their house is pristine.  Their lawn is beautifully manicured.  Well, we've lived in our house 6 years now and the wife has always been friendly with us.  But a couple of years ago, the husband completely stopped talking to us and when I try to wave when passing by, he won't acknowledge my existence anymore.  And the reason, I believe...he thinks we're white trash.  :-) 

See, I don't have one second to go outside and pull those weeds that are getting as tall as I am.  I don't have one second to go outside and water the brown lawn.  I don't have the energy to go plant any flowers because my two children, one paid job and my volunteer position take up all the time and energy I have.  I'm thinking it's been too long since this nice man has had to worry about young kids, jobs, and the like.  So, today's happenings could've done nothing less than fuel his disdain for us and our trashy wash.  Ha!

It all started last night when I was trying to be a good little wife and load the dishwasher.  I was running the garbage disposal and it stopped working and water was backing up.  Michael tried to fix it but couldn't, stating it would have to wait until today.  So, when I got up this morning, I was WAY bummed out to have two counters FULL of dishes that were now really starting to stink and no way to even rinse them off, much less get them washed.  Then my unsuspecting niece, Melissa, called wondering if she could come over for the day.  This only happens about once a month.  Little could she realize what kind of a catastrophe she would be stepping into. 

When she got here, I apologized for the messy kitchen (she's totally used to that...I only have time to get the dishes done on Leap Day) and told her the story.  She said she could take them outside and wash them.  WHAT?!?!  And she wasn't kidding.  I checked with her about seven times to make sure she had her head on straight and she insisted that she wanted to do that to help out.  So, she packed up a Costco diaper box with the dirty dishes, we got a couple of buckets for water, sponges, soap, and drying racks and she headed out to the front yard with Evan for the BIG JOB.  It had to be in the front because we had to make sure the disgusting food had somewhere to drain to.  Where was it going to go in the back yard? 

Those two worked for at least an hour.  Evan liked his hose duties.  He's looking extra fine here in his uber-trendy inside-out and backwards shirt.  (It's going to be all the rage...you'll see!)  I'm sure we reached a new level of white trashiness today, as far as our neighbor is concerned.  But every time I look at these pictures, I can't help but get a big, huge laugh.  I mean...who washes their dishes out in the front yard?!?!  My life is full of ridiculous stories.  And Melissa feels proud to know that she could live like a pioneer!  Thanks for the clean dishes, you two!

Tender Heart

I remember feeling, before Evan was born, that I was going to have to work really hard to "include" Dallin in our family as far as our other kids were concerned.  That it might be awkward and they would never feel love for him the way Michael and I love him.  The past month or so have been so eye-opening and wonderful for me because of some things going on with Evan.  I wanted to share those things, mostly so I don't forget and I can have a record of it.  If only I could see what he sees, hear what he hears, and know what he knows...

Of course, Dallin has always been a big part of our lives.  But it's not like we talk about him on a daily basis or anything.  We go to the cemetery on his birthday.  Sometimes we look through "his" scrapbook.  Evan has asked a lot of questions about him over the last year or so and we've done our best to answer those.  And the woman who started the infant loss support group here in Portland, called Brief Encounters, even wrote a book called Someone Came Before You, for children who are born after the child who dies.  It is such a great book!  So sometimes we read him that book and we talk about Dallin.

Anyway, in the last month or so, it has really been Evan starting up conversations about Dallin.  And there has been so much said that I don't remember.  I wish, now, that I had kept a log of all of the things he's said.  At least every other day, he wakes up from his nap, looking kind of sad.  When I ask him what's wrong, he says, "I just miss Dallin."  The first few times after hearing this, I started to get a little bit concerned.  In the back of the book mentioned above, it says, to the parents, "It is important to remember that this is your grief, not theirs.  Your younger children will receive the story about a brother or sister who died only as a part of the family story, not as a reason for them to experience sorrow or grief."  I wondered if I say things or do things that put pressure on Evan to "feel" this grief.  I quickly realized that I definitely don't.  So I felt better.  But I still wondered what was going on.

He has also said, many times, "I'm disappointed that Dallin isn't here with us."  One day we were all sitting around the table, eating, and really enjoying each other's company.  I commented that it was so nice to have everyone there and that we were having so much fun together.  And Evan said, "But somebody is missing.  Dallin is missing."  He's the one that brings it up.  We were at a park on Saturday and Evan was climbing around a tree.  He called me over because he wanted to say a prayer.  I told him to go ahead.  He thanked Heavenly Father that he was able to be strong and we could have a fun time.  A couple of minutes later he called me back over for another prayer (not normal behavior, by the way).  This time he said, "Dear Heavenly Father, I wish that Dallin was here to play with us and do lots of things with us.  Please bless him until he comes back to us..."  Well, if that don't turn on the emotional faucet...

One night he was just really upset about Dallin not being with us.  He absolutely insisted that he have a picture of Dallin before he could go to sleep.  I found him one that had been on my desk at Unum.  It was very, very special to him and I think he ended up sleeping with it half the night until Michael took it and put it on his dresser because of very sharp corners. 

So, I've been trying to ask him, without putting my ideas into his head, why he's so sad about Dallin...why he's thinking about him so much...just what's going on.  As far as I can tell, he's having dreams about him.  A couple of times after his naps, he has walked right past me working at the computer, gotten Dallin's scrapbook down and looked through the whole thing, all by himself.  He says he sees him when he's dreaming and then misses him when he wakes up.  Again, oh how I wish I could see what he, in his innocence, gets to see.  But then it gets me to thinking about all the people who do not believe that they will see their loved ones again who have passed on.  That they are gone forever.  I'm so grateful to know that that is not the case, and that we will see them again.  Evan understands so much about the plan of salvation and resurrection because of Dallin.  That's really neat to see.  He wants to know when and how he will get to see his brother again.

So, it appears that I will not have to force the issue with the kids that they have an older brother.  They already know and he is just as much a part of our family, to them, as they are.  I think that's wonderful.  Today Maren was holding Dallin's picture and she said, "Baby.  Dallin.  Sleep."   But only till we meet again, son.