Amy's Baby and Eric's Interview

I went to see Amy today in the hospital and snapped a few pictures for you guys to check out. I know that Dad forwarded you all an email with pictures, but here is one with Noah and Mylie together on the bed...he is so much bigger than she is. I held her and it was like holding nothing because she is so much lighter than Noah. She's a little cutie and Amy is doing well.

Eric had his interview today in Missouri and he told me that he felt like it went well. He had three seperate interviews and they were pretty casual, he said and they mostly just talked about him, not really like interviews he's used to in jobs and the like. He said that out of the 6 people they interviewed today, he was the only one applying for the anatomy program and he thinks that might increase his chances; also they have only interviewed about 30 people and out of that they will take 10-12, I think that should increase his chances too. But they said that we should know by the 2nd to 3rd week in April. So, pray with us that he made a good impression and they choose him. We will definetly keep you posted.

Hairy Easter

We had a great Easter and I wanted to share some pictures with you. We went to our ward's Easter activity where they did face painting, bunny petting, a HUGE Easter egg hunt (they had over 2000 eggs!) and bunny baseball. Addie couldn't participate much in the activities, but we had fun anyhow. She wasn't into the giant Easter Bunny, but who can blame her? He DID look pretty strange. I threw in some of her Easter dress as well, she sure is getting big!

Heather's Grandma

I don't know how many of you know yet, but Kurt called us tonight to tell us that Heather's grandma passed away today. They were on there way up north when I spoke to them. I'm sorry to hear about this, especially since they were hopeful of her recovery. I dread the day that our grandparents pass on. It's going to be so sad for me because I haven't been able to spend much time with them.

Heather, you and your family are in our prayers.

Happy Birthday Eric!

Today is my lovey's birthday and I want to celebrate by putting it on the blog so everyone knows. Today Eric is 26 years young and as handsome as ever-especially in this picture.

Let me tell you a little bit about how wonderful my hubby is.

1) He is a AWESOME husband. Yesterday, without even asking, he gave me a back rub-just because he heard me say my back hurt.

2) He is an amazing dad. He feeds Noah every night and rocks him to sleep. The other night while he was walking with Noah to put him to sleep, I heard him singing "You Are My Sunshine" and my heart melted. What a great dad.

3) He is driven and motivated to better himself and our situation. He works hard at work and is working on getting into school to further his education.

I could go on and on about how caring and loving he is and how well he takes care of me and our son. He is so wonderful and I am so lucky to be married to him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!

Jana, How Are You?

Eric and I were talking and he asked me if I knew how you were doing from your surgery and I didn't know. So, how are you? Have you had cheese yet? Pizza? How is that going? Give us an update.

Sorry Mom

I didn't mean to go bad- I just played the hand I was dealt. But you guys were too smart for me. I just want to say that I had Dad killed out of mercy. I knew that he was going to be super busy with school and finals. I was trying to be nice.

The Barre of Guillain

As you may know, we went up north this past weekend to visit Heather's grandma, who had recently been admitted to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed her with Guillain-Barre Syndrome. Basically the immune system starts attacking the nervous system and you lose nerve sensation and muscle control. It can be pretty serious if it gets to your heart and lungs, because they'll stop working, which did happen to her on Friday. Fortunately, they were able to resuscitate her. She was actually under sedation while we were there, to let her body relax and accept some of the treatment. The plan is to keep her mostly sedated until the worst is over, which the doctors say could take a few days. Hopefully after that, she'll start to get most of her feeling and muscle control back.

Her outlook is fairly good right now. She was able to squeeze hands, and move her tongue even while under the sedation medication over the weekend, and today she moved her arms. We're hoping and praying for her to pull through. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Thanks.

Here is the other video that I said that I would try and upload. I'm not sure why these videos are orange. But in this video Noah is smiling and it melts my heart. I know you will all think he's adorable.

JIMMY IS OLD!!!

Today, our little brother Jimmy turns into a legal adult! AHHHHH!!!!
HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY, JIM!

I'm sorry

Well folks, I'm sorry that I don't check the mafia blog every couple of hours. I had no idea that people wanted me to explain anything. Unfortunately, all of yesterday I was at a friend's house and had no access to the blog at all. Oh well. This makes my life easy until the end of the game.

All I can say is: HA!! I was a townie!! WRONG PERSON

Neener...

~Jim

HELP!

I'm trying to make a seperate user name for Charlie to use on the Mafia game. I can't seem to be able to do it. Can someone please help me?

Our Cute LIttle Boy

Here is a video we shot tonight with him "talking" for you. It is almost 2 minutes, but he is soo cute. Plus he starts with a smile. Tomorrow I"ll try and upload one with him smiling even more. Enjoy!

Lexi and the math competition

The math competition was on Tuesday. They wouldn't allow parents to come to the competition portion but did allow us to come to the awards ceremony at the end. So I didn't get to see how well they did, but I got to see them not receive an award. They awarded the top 10 individuals and then the top 4 teams with plaques. Lexi nor her team won anything. Her teacher said she saw their test answers and that they were in the thick of things and actually did very well, just not well enough to win. At least they weren't in the bottom portion. I thought this was a statewide competition, but it turned out to be only the Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha counties. There was still quite a few teams there, though I don't know how many. Lexi said she had a good time. It was a good experience for her. Here's a picture of the kids she went with from her school.

New Job

Heather how did the first week of work go? How is Harvey liking day care?

mafia

The game has now begun. Check your emails to find out your roles, but keep it quiet. After tomorrow at midnight, check the mafia blog regularly to stay up on the action!

www.hutchinsonmafia.blogspot.com (I feel like a perpetual advertisement...)

Good News

Yesterday Eric got an email from the dean of the masters program he applied to at the school in Missouri, and they want to interview him. YAY! His interview is the 26th of this month-2 weeks from today, so we are scrambling to find the best airfare at the best times. I want to go with him, but we're not sure we can afford it. The good thing is that they make a decision at the beginning of April, so we will know pretty soon after the interview whether he made it or not. So please keep him in your prayers because if he makes it into the masters program, it's pretty much a guarantee into the medical school if you do well. We are just very happy that this one seems to be going somewhere. :)

MAFIA UPDATE

Ok, I would like to start the mafia game this week. The more the merrier, but it would be best if we had at least 10 people to play, besides myself, and this is who has said they'll play so far:

Hillary
Charlie
Kari
Eric
Jason
Heather
Mom

I am still waiting to hear from Kurt, Jim, and Dad. I will email a couple other family members today to see if they'd be interested. Also, I will need SEPARATE email addresses for every individual playing so I can communicate with you without your spouse knowing-- everything in this game needs to be very secret, except for what is said on the blog to try and figure out who is the mafia. I need Charlie and Eric's email addresses.

I will plan to start the game Thursday morning, if we can get a couple more people to join. Don't be afraid! It really doesn't take very much time to play, you just have to read the blog and comment as to who you think is mafia. If you have a role, you'll have to email me every other day to do your night role. That's it, it's simple! It really is a lot of fun.

Jana, so when do we start this mafia thing? Charlie said he'd play.

Wrong again!

Of course I voted for Kurt. It's pretty sad when you don't even recognize your own face! Merrit just saw it and said it was himself. I thought that was pretty funny.

Banana Phone

We showed our friend Michele the Harry Potter skit that was on the blog a couple of months ago and this came up with it. We all really like it, especially Harvey. Enjoy!

Hutchinson mafia, anyone?

Jason and I have loved playing online mafia via a blog with his brothers, sister, and cousin. It finished a couple weeks ago, and I think it would be fun to try and play with our family. I believe I could even get Sarah Lester and possibly some other cousins and aunts and uncles if there is enough interest. It would be a fun way to stay in touch. Let me know if y'all would like to play and I'll gladly set it up.

It's just like the regular mafia game where you sit in a circle and randomly choose who is mafia and who is the detective. The rest of the people are townspeople. Mom and Dad are probably not familiar with this game, but read on. I would be the blog moderator (at least for the first game because I know how to play it) and would randomly choose the roles from whomever is playing-- two mafia members (who conspire together to kill off townspeople one by one), a detective (who gets to find out member roles), and a doctor (who can, with a little luck, "save" the townspeople from being killed). The townspeople then try to figure out who the mafia is and vote them off. If the game ends with mafia, they win, if the townspeople figure out who the mafia is, the town wins. It's like being in a mystery novel. Mom, you'll love it!

Anyhow, that's a brief summary. All communication about the game is done on the blog using the comments. You can check out our old game at www.hairmafia.blogspot.com to get a feel for how it went. (There was one post that had over 200 comments. That is NOT normal, it usually does not take up that much time, Jason's brothers were just bored and sat on there all day.) It's a lot of fun and I think we'd all really enjoy it. You just have to be able to check the blog at least once a day to see what everyone thinks, but most of us check this blog that often anyway. We'd have to have at least 10 people, so if we got everyone (including Jim) and their spouses, that would be enough, but like I said, if we get enough interest in our family alone, I would love to invite some cousins and aunts and uncles. Let me know what you think! I was thinking of starting the game in about a week.

Brett Favre to RETIRE!

I know the whole world must be in mourning just like we are here in Wisconsin. Favre was the highlight of the whole world, even if you didn't watch football. Oh wait, let me pinch myself and come back to reality. It's really hard to do that here when ALL you hear about is Brett Favre. The people here are treating it like he's dead or something. It's really a strange world. The local ABC station did a spur-of-the-moment tribute to him lastnight during prime time TV. I mean come on, the world will move on, football world will move on, even the Packers will move on. Besides, now the Lions have a better chance of winning their division, right:)?!?!?

HAPPY ANIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!!

Tell Me What You Think

This is a picture of Mehmet Okur-he plays for the Jazz and used to play for the Pistons. Everytime I see him play I think of Jimmy-tell me if you think I am right...I think the resemblance is uncanny.

A Great Time!

Time Out for Women was this passed weekend. I drove down with the lady who invited me. We went Friday night and came home and then went back on Saturday morning. We figured it saved us hotel stay, but I don't know how worth it that was because we didn't get home until about 11:30 pm and then had to leave at about 6:45 am in order to get back there for the beginning. It was hard to stay awake at some points on Saturday for lack of sleep. I'd probably go for the hotel stay next time. The conference was very good. I was surprised because the one that Mom and I went to in Toledo last year really didn't stick out to me as being all that special. I don't know if the speakers were just that much better, or if I'm at a point in my life that I needed it more now than I did then, but this one was better. I'm so glad I got to go. The points that stuck out to me the most were these:
I need to make more time for just Charlie and I, even overnights, without the kids
I need to teach my kids to govern themselves more, I even bought a book that will help me with this
I need to incorporate service into our family culture
I need to slow down and treat people like they are humans - for example, not yell at someone who has just cut me off, but try to put myself in their shoes and not get so worked up about their actions or don't be so impatient with people in check-out lines at the store because I'm not really in that big of a hurry, am I?
And finally, if I feel like I'm not feeling the spirit or receiving inspiration, what am I NOT doing to keep me from feeling those things? I think this one is pretty important because it's easy to get out of the habit of reading the scriptures and saying your prayers but those things help us to stay spiritually connected.
So overall, I got a lot out of this weekend that will help me improve many aspects of my life.

We received a new bishopbric yesterday. Our previous bishop has served for almost six years. They called his 1st councelor to be the new bishop and the young men's president is the new 1st councelor and the 2nd councelor also came out of the young men's program, but I'm not sure what his old calling was. Needless to say, there will be some other major changes in the ward in the next couple of weeks, but Charlie and I feel pretty confident that we are safe in our callings. It's pretty exciting to be a part of such changes. I'm looking forward to see what comes about because of them. The new bishop is such a great guy. His wife is just outstanding. She is the one that invited me to Time Out and is one of the ones in the ward that I would actually consider my friend (which is saying a lot because I don't really feel befriended by many yet, although I am trying).

Add it to the Collection

Here are two pictures of our beautiful baby sleeping. He has just starting figuring out that he can use his fingers to calm himself down. We took them and then thought about Dad's collection of sleeping pictures and would like to add these. We just couldn't resist-he is too cute!

Jim's big day

I finally got around to scanning Jim's newspaper article and will see if I can post it and you can read it (sorry, I did everything I could and can't make it large enough to read). We finally completed the bag pick up yesterday. We dropped off the bags a week ago, approximately 1200 bags and picked them up yesterday, as mentioned and had maybe a 10% response to the bags; the living room looks like a mini-store, with all the merchandise stacked around in boxes etc. Jim is in the process of estimating the value of what we gathered; he is already over $1000 and still has more to estimate. All in all, the Active Faith director should be very pleased with what she will receive as will all those in the South Lyon area who are in need who will benefit from this effort. Now we just need to get him through all the paper work (which is a bunch) and scout reviews that go along with receiving an Eagle Scout award and then we may have a nice party to celebrate. It just occurred to me that we might be able to schedule the Court of Honor about the time he graduates from High School and we may be able to arrange things to get most of you back here for both big events; we'll wait and see how it works out. Love to all.

Change of Plans

The company I took the job with requires a physical but they didn't let me know that until Wednesday of last week. So I had my physical first thing Thursday morning but the lab is backed up so they won't get results until Wednesday of last week. Long story short, I'm starting work on the 10th rather than the 3rd. Not a huge deal except that we already have daycare lined up for Harvey and all the little kids there are super excited about him coming. He's going to go for half days this first week which will give me a chance to give the house a really good cleaning before I go back to work. That's the excitement here.

adelyn bo badelyn...

Yesterday Addie was being particularly cute. We got a ton of great pictures, and I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you. Oh yeah, on our Hair Blog we uploaded a cute video of her talking if you want to check it out. She started attacking the camera and it's pretty funny (well, at least it is to her doting parents).

update

Well, they took my gall bladder out, not my bladder, so that was good. I am feeling fine, quite sore, but happy to have eaten cake today without worrying about the repurcussions. Jason has been a wonderful caretaker, and poor Addie keeps wondering (and crying) why I don't hold her as much. It just hurts when she kicks me in the stomach!

The doctor let me have one of my gall stones, it is about the size of a pea. I wonder how many I actually had in there! Hopefully in the next few days I won't be stooped over like an old lady when I walk!

I eij;s;lutl;ks7lkjl;hkl;aimial;lil;inl;dsa

School Update

Just thought I would give everyone an update on how the application process is going. So far we have heard a definite no from Maine and an unofficial no from Missouri. That still leaves MSU and Chicago to hear from. While I am still hopeful that one of these schools will offer me an interview, at this point it seems like a long-shot. In the wake of all of this I did apply to a Masters program at the D.O. school in Missouri. The lady in admissions made it seem like I had a good chance to get in so we will see what happens. The degree would be in Human Anatomy Education and would give me a great head start when it comes to applying to med school again. Just thought you all would like to know what is going on and if anything changes we will keep you updated. Other than that we love you all and are grateful for your prayers and support in our behalf. Stay healthy and be safe.

Good Luck, Jana!

Tomorrow our sister is having her bladder out and I think we all need to cross our fingers and say our prayers that everything goes well. I am excited for Jana because she hasn't eaten cheese since before Thanksgiving. So, good luck Jana! We all hope that it goes well for you.

Heather - What ever happened with the job offer you had and the one you were expecting?

Jana - Do you have your sugery scheduled yet? When is Jason's spring break again? Isn't that when you were going to try to have the surgery? If you don't, are you going to come up and visit?

Kari - How is Noah? How are you doing with Eric back to work? I'm sure you're doing O.K.

Mom - How did the bag drop-off go? Did you get to all the neighborhoods you wanted to? Were people expecting the bags and willing to give? I hope it goes well.

Dad - How is school? Did you get your mid-term test grade back yet?

I was just wondering how things were overall for everyone since no one has added to the blog in almost a week. I think that's the longest we've ever had without a new addition. Not much is going on here. Charlie just went to the state wrestling tournament with the kids from the team that made it that far. It was held in Madison. It started Thursday and went to Saturday. The school paid for them to rent motel rooms to stay there. He ended up coming home early though because all their kids lost by Friday. He came home Friday night because he didn't need to be there any more and he expected the other coaches to go out and party hard that night. It wasn't something he really wanted to be around. I was glad he came home because I wasn't expecting to be able to do much on Saturday, but because he was home, I was able to do the things I had origionally planned - before he was invited to go to the tournament. I'm glad he got to go, even though it was a bit of an inconvience for me. It was a good experience for him. I am going away this coming weekend as kind of a trade-off to his weekend get-away. A woman from our ward had an extra ticket for the Time Out For Women in Chicago. She asked me to go so I thought I might as well. Because we only live an hour or so away we decided to just drive back home Friday night and go back in the morning for the Saturday portion. I think it's going to be a good way to get to know some people from church a little better. Plus, I can really use the break from motherhood. Being cooped up in the house so much isn't doing well with my nerves. I can't wait for spring. We're suppose to get another 4 to 8 inches of snow tonight. I can't wait! Well, I hope all is well with all of you out there. Write soon.

Sweet Pickle Mania

We went to visit some of my family this last weekend and did the eat-and-hand-off-the-kid ritual that is one of the untold skills of parenthood. While I had Harvey I let him try my sweet pickle which was really, really strong. I thought he'd spit it out like he had asparagus and some other random things we've given him. Instead he sucked at it like crazy. When he started gumming pieces of it off I took it away and he screamed and screamed. So we took it as a sign that he was ready for food and started him on rice cereal this week. He doesn't like to bend so we have to feed him in his sling chair but he's really enjoying it and I'd say over half of what we give him actually goes down rather than out so I think he's doing pretty well.

I'm shrinking...

...it's a good thing though. I weighed myself at Curves today and found myself at 163.5 lbs. This is the smallest I've been since I was pregnant with Alexis! I feel so good about my weight loss now, especially since I haven't lost weight since before Christmas (it was really hard getting back on the weight loss band wagon after the vacation I took from it). Now I hope I'm back on track to being at my goal weight by the middle of June (that will be my year mark from when I first joined Weight Watchers). Just thought I'd shout it from the roof tops (figuratively) and share my good news.

Happy Birthday, Jaxson!

Happy Birthday, big guy. Hope you get a huge piece of cake today.

Our "little" cousin

On the left is our new little cousin William-Rick's son (I apologize for the sideways picture-I'm not sure how to flip pictures on Eric's computer). He is 4 months old and I don't know how much he weighs, but according to Elise, he weighed less than Noah did when he was born. So I have included a picture I took of Noah today (doesn't he look cute in his church clothes?) who wil be 3 weeks old on Tuesday. This is just for comparison.

Also, I have included another picture of Noah I took today and also one I took of Grandma while we were there eating dinner tonight-just in case you guys have forgotten what she looks like.

Here are somethings we found out while we were there:

Paul is engaged! His fiancee's name is Bronwen (I'm not sure how to spell that), she was there tonight and seems nice enough...she gets along with Bob, that's got to count for something. She is 30 and her and Paul were friends in South Dakota while he lived there and I guess they kept in touch all this time. They got engaged on Valentine's Day and are getting married April 25th in the Logan temple. I wish them the best.

Also, Karen is doing much better. She is out of a leg cast and walking usking a crutch. She thinks she could be on a cane if it wasn't so icy outside. She goes to physical therapy and says that it's doing wonders.

And, Amy's due date is March 30. Robin says that she is super excited and that the reality of the situation hasn't set in yet-I hope that reality isn't too much for her.

Here are those pictures as promised.

Movies Recommendation

So, in the last month we have seen three movies that we both really like, and I thought I would share them with you all, if you are looking for a movie to watch. The first movie we saw was Dan in Real Life. We saw this like a week before Noah was born and were both surprised at how much we both liked it. It was funny, but we thought it would be a little more like stupid funny and were glad that it wasn't. There isn't any sex, but I'm sure there is swearing-I can't remember exactly. But we both really liked it and recommend it-for those of you who haven't seen it.
This movie we watched while we were in the hospital. It is very heartwarming. It is about changing your life and helping others-Mom, you would really like this movie.

And this movie we watched just last night, it's the third Pirates. We bought it when it came out on video even though we had never seen it and we have owned it for about 2 months without watching it. But we watched it for Valentine's Day yesterday and I absolutely loved it. It took a while for me to fully understand exactly what was going on, but once I did I got all wrapped up in the story.

So there you are, the three movies that we've seen lately that we liked. Take it or leave it. If you are going to watch any of the them, the middle one is the cleanest and the most uplifting of the three. Enjoy!

baby question

Do I really need to worry about "brushing" Addie's teeth with a baby toothbrush? I've read that I should, but will they really start decaying this young? I just don't want to buy a baby toothbrush.

Happy Birthday, Alexis!

Happy Birthday, Lexi!

Hope you have fun, fun, fun today.

Happy Valentine's Day from Harvey

Hope everyone has a happy valentine's day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD//HAPPY VALENTINES DAY EVERYONE ELSE!

Happy Valentines Day, everyone! Jason and I bought ourselves an inexpensive grill for Valentines Day, we figure there isn't anything more romantic than a delicious piece of meat. What's funny is that we'll be using it this weekend as well. I'm sure the rest of you won't be using a grill anytime soon!

Dad turns 54 today! Woohoo! Way to go, Dad, you're one year older and wiser, too. By the way, the picture that we've been guessing on is Dad at his graduation. I'm guessing most of you didn't recognize him because we've so rarely seen his bare lip. Him and Kurt do look an awful lot like each other. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

WE DID IT!

This morning little Noah surprised me when I put him to nurse and HE ACTUALLY DID IT! We have been practicing these last couple of days and he would latch and suck more each time. So this morning, before I was about to pump I decided to have him try and nurse, not expecting anything-just a repeat of what had happened before. He was on and off, like usual, and then, BAM! he started to nurse and he stayed on for 8 minutes. YAHOO! I burped him and then tried to get him to nurse on the other side and he only stayed on that side for 2-3 minutes. I still had to feed him from the bottle because he didn't have enough from me, but I didn't mind because this means that we might have a future in breastfeeding. I just wanted to share that joy.
Also, thank you Heather and Kurt for the swaddler-I love it! I really love the velcroe bears. I don't know how much longer he'll get to use it because he is getting soo fat. The bottom bear bearly reaches the velcroe opposite side. We went to the doctor yesterday for his 2 week check-up and he is 9lbs 13 oz. He never lost weight after he was born. He is just huge! People who see him don't believe that he is only 2 weeks old. But the doctor says he looks great and that his weight gain is great. He's just getting heavy-especially in his carseat. As long as he's healthy, it's okay.

Cold Sassy Tree

If you're looking for a good book to read in your spare time (I know Heather and Mom have already read it) try Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns. It's great! I read it a couple years ago, but forgot everything, and just finished is last week again. I absolutely love it. It's one I'll have to get for my own collection.

I just picked up the sequel, Leaving Cold Sassy, which the author didn't finish because, well, she died while writing it. I heard that Heather said it wasn't very good, but Mom recommended I read it so I could have a good discussion at our book club next week. I'm not a fan of thinking it will just end in the middle, but oh well. We'll see how it goes. As for Cold Sassy Tree, it's definitely worth reading!

Harvey on the move

More Harvey news.

He's been rolling from his back to his sides for a while now, but he hasn't gotten all the way over yet. On his stomach he hasn't rolled at all. He mostly just lifts his head and kicks his feet. And gets annoyed after a few minutes.

Two nights ago, though, I put him on his stomach and put a noisy, blinky toy in front of him. And he started inchworming toward it! He'd look at it for a bit, and then put his head down, pull on his arms, and dig his feet in. He obviously won't win any races yet, but over the course of a few minutes he probably moved 6 or 7 inches forward. And he didn't get really annoyed like he usually does when on his stomach. It was pretty exciting.

Now we get to start really baby proofing. What a joy that will be.

Slept through the night

Harvey slept through the night for the first time last night. We both woke up around 6 am because it was so weird that he was still sleeping. It's 10 to 8 right now and he's still snoozing. I hope this isn't a one time thing because a whole night of sleep will make a huge difference in our lives.

On a cruddier note, I get to talk to a lactation consultant today. I hope mine is nicer than Kari's. My milk is turning rancid after I pump it. If I pump a bottle in the morning it is rancid by nighttime. I have almost 30 bags of milk stored and I'm afraid I'm going to have to dump them all. I will cry like a baby if I have to. It was a lot of work. Hopefully the LC will have some good advice for me.

Snow Pictures

This first one is of the pile we created from the snow on our driveway. We ended up shoveling twice for this storm. We went out at about 3 pm and shoveled about 8 inches of snow. Then we went our again at about 8:30 pm and shoveled another 4 inches or so. It was incredible.

The second picture is of our backyard. We had to shovel out a small area for Meg to go to the bathroom in because it was too deep for her otherwise.

This is the front of the house and the pile in the front yard is the pile in the first picture. Compare it to our van. Isn't it high? It hurt to shovel that much snow into a pile that high.

I thought I'd post some pictures of the 12 + inches of snow we got for my birthday last week. This passed weekend we had temperatures below zero with wind chills in the -30 to -40 degree range. There was a wind chill warning in effect from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon. Tomorrow we are expecting to get another 3 to 5 inches of snow. It's so hard to travel around on the roads right now. All the snow we had on my birthday had not been plowed off the roads before we got the arctic blast. That means that most of the side roads are now sheets of frozen slush. The city can't spread salt on them either because it's too cold for it to matter. Salt only brings the freezing temperature down to about 18 degrees. So with temps down below zero, the water and snow freeze dispite the salt. They have been putting down sand to try and provide some traction, but it's not the best. I really try to to go anywhere when the roads are like this. This winter has been so delightful! We also found out that we have to make up all four snow days that we've had so far. The school district doesn't build in snow days to their calendar. Does that make sense to anyone? We are in Wisconsin and they don't automatically count on having at least a few snow days? I think it's ridiculous!

Up close pictures

Jana, those up close shots of faces are kind of fun to guess about. This one is lots harder than the last one. I'm ashamed to say that I guessed wrong on the last one, even though it was a picture of my own kid. After I locked in my vote, I looked again more closely and realized that the eye was brown, not blue, and therefore couldn't have been Jimmy like I had voted. That's when I knew it was Makayla, but I had already voted. I am so disappointed in myself. I probably won't get this one either.

Little Green lives again!

Little Green is the car with 9 lives. We took her in last week and it was her timing belt, just like Hillary suspected. She got special treatment because she also received a new water pump. We took her to a guy in our ward and he charged us $367 for everything. We thought that was a good deal. I remember paying over $400 last time the timing belt went out on her. Do you think that was a fair price? I'd like to know if we should go somewhere else next time. We really like them and their shop is just starting so we'd like to continue doing business there if the prices are as good as we think.

Anyhow, three cheers for Little Green!

Happy Birthday, Charlie

This is the best photo I have of Charlie. I looked and looked. I'll have to get some better photos next time we all get together. Anyway, Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthhday, Merrit!

Happy Birthday, big guy. I hope you get to play as much Wii as you like today.

Addie's first word, sort of. I still don't think she knew what she was saying, but she did it perfectly! It's a cute video and Jason is so proud.

Baby's First Bath

Last night, we gave Noah his first bath and he seemed to enjoy it-except when the water on the wash cloth was cold. He really likes having his hair washed- he likes having his head scratched. We did take some video, but we're having a hard time loading it onto this computer-I think I'll try to load it through a different computer later. Enjoy these pictures-he really is such a cutie.

This last picture is of Noah in the towel and slippers Kurt and Heather sent him. They were a big help-thank you.

So, yesterday, Noah was 1 week old. It is a little weird to me that he is only 1 week old-it feels like he has been here for so much longer. He is doing much better-with the jaundice that is. We went to the doctor yesterday for a well baby visit and she said that his skin color looked great and that the yellow in his eyes will go away soon. She said that the eyes are the last things to clear. Also, he has gained weight, instead of losing any. He weighed in yesterday at 9.2 lbs. Also, his umbilical cord remnants have fallen off. We just went to change his diaper on Monday and it was in his onsie-the doctor said it was okay. I have to admit that it's nice not have to worry about it anymore. And, he peed on the doctor-pretty hilarious.

Also yesterday I went to the OBGYN and found that I have mastitis in my left breast. I was given antibiotics and everything should be okay. Then after I saw my doctor we went and visited with a lactation consultant. It was awful. She was not very encouraging and we left there feeling like we were the worst parents in the world. She critized pretty much everything we did and she didn't really even show me how to breastfeed. It was a waste of time.

After we left the consultant, we went to a baby store and bought an electric pump. I was going to have to pump for the next month anyway to help get rid of the infection, and I've never been really excited to breastfeed. So we decided that I would just mostly pump and if I ever feel like breastfeeding, I could just go ahead and do it and we'll supplement with formula (thanks for suggesting WIC everyone, we're going to look into it). We feel pretty good about this and hope that it all works out.

Everything is going well, now. We are working into a routine-all we have left is to go to sleep sooner. But we love being parents and are just happy that he is doing well.

Happy Birthday, Hillary!

The big 30! Hope your day is fun and you get a big piece of birthday cake.

Kari Update?

Hey Kari, how are you doing? Did the lactation consultant come to help? Have you guys gotten any decent sleep yet? Is Noah the cutest baby ever (though that would be hard since Harvey already holds the title)?

Picture catch-up

This is the museum in Milwaukee on Jan. 31st. (Sorry for the sideways picture. I was feeling lazy today.) They had this tank of sturgeon that you could touch. That is what Charlie, Chelsea and Lexi are doing while bent over in the one picture. There was a full size ship inside the museum, named the Challenge, that used to do runs up and down the Wisconsin coast. The picture of Jaxson is him coming up the ladder from the cargo hold on the Challenge. The picture of Lexi laying down is her laying on a bed of nails. We all got to try it. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt.

These pictures are of the museum in Rockford, Il on Jan 28th. This one at the bottom that looks like a big cage is actually the stair case to the 2nd floor. They had climbing platforms inside that you could climb up (if you were small enough to fit in the little holes). The kids loved it. The picture of the tubes was a wall of tubes that had air flowing through them. There were foam balls that you could put inside and watch the air move them through the maze of tubes. Merrit and Jaxson really liked this display. The red pictures are an impression of each one of us in one of those needle table-like things. Charlie thought it would be fun to have our family picture done that way. We actually have one picture with all of us in it, but it's really hard to see detail in that one. Can you tell who is who? The picture at the top with all the kids sitting in that big yellow thing was actually a giant sit and spin. The red knob in the middle allowed you to push or pull yourself around in a circle. The kids had lots of fun with that.

Here are some pictures of New Years at Grandma Hicks's house. Grandpa Hicks used his tractor to pile up the snow. Lexi, Merrit and Charlie made a cool cave inside and there was a neat slide down the front in the middle.

These videos are ones I shot with our digital camera so there is no sound, but they are of our sledding trip we took on our last snow day, Feb.02. They kids had such a great time. It's a good thing Charlie likes to play too or they probably won't have had half as many fun experiences as they have had in their lives.

Unusal week

We just had a real unusual week. The kids didn't have school on Monday because it was records day for teachers to turn in grades for the 1st semester. Charlie only had to work a half day so we decided to go to a children's museum in Rockford, Il in the afternoon. It was lots of fun. The drive was about 2 hours there, but it seemed to be worth it. The day was actually pretty warm. We hit a high of about 46 degrees, which was shorts weather compared to what we've been having.

Tuesday night a super cold front came in and the temperatures went from around 42 degrees to -2 degrees in one day. Then factor in the wind chills and it was about -20 to -30 degrees. We had a wind chills advisory for Tuesday night to Wednesday afternoon. Because there are so many walkers to the schools in the city, the administration decided to close school. So we had another day off. Because the roads were still driveable, we decided to go to another museum. This one was in Milwaukee. It didn't have as many kid-friendly displays, but they had a super awesome aquarium. I'd go back just for that feature.

The next day was pretty cold, but the wind chill advisory was lifted so we had school. But I woke up in the morning to find a flat tire on the van. So I had to walk the kids to school. Boy was that fun in the freezing cold :)! I also had to walk to pick them up. I kept Chelsea home because I had no way to get her to school. Her school is way too far to walk, even if the weather was nice. It turned out we had a nail in the tire, but we got that fixed up when Charlie got home from work.

Thursday afternoon at about 3 it started snowing. It didn't stop until about 9 am on Friday. Needless to say we got about 8 inches, in my opinion. According to the news the official measurement for Racine was 12 inches, but I don't think it looked that deep. So school was canceled again. It made for a nice long weekend. We took the kids sledding yesterday. They have wanted to all winter and we thought we should take advantage of the great blanket of snow that was around.

It is snowing right now as I write this. I don't think we'll get enough to cancel school again, but I could be wrong. I am really just sick of snow. The weather man said the average for the whole season is about 51 inches and with that snow that fell on Friday morning it put us to about 52 inches and the season isn't even over this year. Of course we would move here to witness such great record breaking opportunities.

This week Charlie and I rented 10 videos from the local Family Vidoe. They have old movies that you can rent 2 for $1 and have them for 5 days. So we decided to try to knock some off of our list that we've been making over the years. One of them was The Day After Tomorrow, I think Jana recommended earlier on the blog. Charlie and I both liked it a lot. It's definately a movie that gives you an appreciation for the need to have food storage. We also have seen Dodgeball, Memoirs of a Geisha, Catwoman, Electra, and The Forgotten. Charlie watched My Super Ex-girlfriend, but I had seen that one before and didn't care to see it again. We have 3 left. We have liked all that we've seen except Catwoman was a little disappointing. We have until tomorrow night to return them. I hope we can fit the rest in. With the superbowl on tonight though, we may not make it.

Well, in 3 days I will be 30. I never thought being a certain age would make a difference to me, but turning 30 has become a little bit of an issue. It's just weird for me to think of not being in my twenties any more. I feel old. I know I'm not, but to me, the twenties seem to be such a fun, young age. The thirties, from where I am now, doesn't feel like that. I know once my birthday has come and gone, it won't really be an issue anymore, but being on the brink is a little uncomfortable for me.

Jim's Big Day

Okay, so here's the scoop. Jim was awarded his last three merit badges last night at a Stake Court of Honor; we have a picture to prove it. Now we just need to figure out how to complete the Eagle project before his birthday. He had the idea of collecting toiletries, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc. for the Active Faith Food Bank here in South Lyon. Now we just need to get the project approved and figure out when we can do it. If we get an article published in the "South Lyon Herald" for publicity of the project and then distribute bags and instruction sheets to the homes here in South Lyon one week and then collect everything the next week, we may just be able to pull it off. Wish him luck!! Any way, here's the picture. Hope you enjoy it.

Please Help!

Here's the problem:
My milk didn't come in until yesterday evening-you guys weren't kidding, it really is quite painful. But, because I didn't have any before, I was trying to feed Noah and he wasn't getting anything so he developed jaundice. Friday we called the doctor and the nurse said that he needed to be fed every 2-3 hours, even at night. So we had to bottle feed him because I had nothing to offer. BUT now that I have milk, he won't take it. When I pump, he will take it because it is in a bottle, but when I try to put him directly on the breast, he won't have any of it and screams and cries until we give him a bottle. The problem with the pump is that it is manual-so my hand always hurts-and it takes like a million years before I even have 1 oz. I want to breastfeed him, but we are afraid that because he's been getting the bottle for the last few days, every couple of hours, that he doesn't like the texture of my breast and that he won't feed from it. I do try everytime he's hungry to breastfeed, but get nowhere.
Does anyone have any ideas? Are we just stuck with him preferring the bottle nipple to mine and should just accomodate? And if that's the case, should I keep trying to pump regardless of how long it takes and how sore I am when I 'm finished? OR should we just give up breastfeeding altogether and switch solely to formula? And if that's what we should do, how do I get rid of the milk I have right now?
Any insight would be helpful...anything. I am so frustrated by this whole ordeal and Eric and I can't seem to come up with the best possible solution. I appreciate anything you give me-even if it's that you can't come up with anything either. Thank you!

Bowing to the Demands

My sister-in-law came over today and watched Noah while Eric and I went and filled my perscriptions. I got home and she said that she took over 100 pictures and I thought she was just exaggerating until I got an email just now saying that she had 110 pictures. If you click here you can also veiw them. Just please remember that in the pictures with the three of us, that it has only been 3 days since I gave birth-be kind :) I hope you enjoy them.
p.s. The kids in the pictures are my sister-in-laws

Celebration!!

I just want to point out for January we reached our biggest month yet in blog posts: 45 posts! I think I'm going to go run down the street and let everyone know.

Thanks for making this blog possible.

Good News, Bad News, Icky News, Rad News

Good News - One of the companies I interviewed with is putting an offer package together and will be contacting me the first of next week with the details.

Bad News - The other company I interviewed with called back and said "Thanks, but no thanks." I might have had more professional opportunities there.

Icky News - I think there is a mouse in the wall near our dryer vent. We're going to the hardware store for traps ASAP.

Rad News - Ok, "rad" is a stretch but I have another interview Monday and was just contacted by a head hunter for a fourth company that is interested in setting up an interview early next week. Also, we found a "rad" day care that we really like and are planning on sending The Harvmeister to.