Christmas Fun

Juliet has been having a lot of fun with Christmas decorating and other Christmas festivities. When we pulled out the decorations she was very helpful in untangling the lights and unwrapping all the ornaments and putting them on the tree. Every day since our initial tree decorating she has rearranged or simply removed the ornaments on the lower part of the tree. Luckily, they are mostly pine cones we found on the playground and put glitter on last Christmas. She also had fun wearing the tree skirt as a cape. She twirled and ran around the living room with it before we put it under the tree.

Twirling

We tried making gingerbread houses with peaked roofs, but our frosting was not working with us, so we ended up making pueblos instead :)

Once Juliet discovered we could eat the graham crackers and the frosting, she went to town with the red frosting.

We also made some sugar cookies. Juliet loved using the cookie cutters. She has been practicing for months with her playdoh.

Juliet met Santa! She was very excited to see Santa.

Before Aunt Kendahl went into the MTC we took her to Temple Square to see the lights.

Celeste

Celeste will be 1 month old tomorrow. It is hard to believe a month has already passed! Celeste is growing tons, and Juliet is still as happy as can be being a big sister. Juliet does a great job with Celeste, and she is always quick to help. She likes to get a diaper and wipes whenever I mention Celeste needs a diaper change, and she also likes to choose outfits for Celeste. My favorite is when Juliet asks if she can give Celeste a kiss on her head, because then I get to watch my cute little 2 year old tenderly kiss her little sister. How blessed we are to have two wonderful girls!

Celeste - 4 wks old!

Celeste - 2 days old

Playing Doctor

Juliet's imagination is going like crazy these days, and I love it! It is always fun to see what she comes up with. Here are a few tidbits:

When I came home from clinic the other day, I casually set my stethoscope down on my backpack by the front door and forgot about it. A few minutes later Juliet found it and was very excited. Before I knew it, she had it in her hands and was saying "Mommy, hurt? Ow-ie?" Next thing I knew I was lying on the couch by her command and she was my doctor. She pointed to my elbow to indicate that that was where my "owie" was. So I played along and told her yes, that was where it hurt. So she proceeded to put on the stethoscope. It took her about 3 minutes to figure out how to get the stethoscope into her ears without catching her hair, and then she listened to my heart. It was amazing because when she heard it she stopped and had a look of surprise. When I told her it was my heart she then pointed to my belly, said "baby. heart," and made the sound of the baby's heart that she hears in clinic. After these connections were made, she pulled off the stethoscope, kissed my elbow, and asked if my owie was better now. I told her it was and thanked her for making it all better. She was quite pleased with her work :)

The other night as I was putting Juliet to bed she stood up in the crib next to me and started very tenderly swaying her arms like she was rocking a baby. She then told me that she was holding "Baby" and that it was now my turn to hold her. So she carefully passed off the baby to me and had me rock her in my arms. Then I gave "Baby" back to Juliet who rocked her a few times before putting her back in my belly...yes, back in my belly. You can imagine the good laugh I got from it. It completely caught me off guard.

Moments like these make me think of how grateful I am to be a mother and how my family truly brings a fullness of joy and a feeling of completeness to my life. I would not trade it for anything!

October Fun

This is Juliet's "Kitty Pump-kin." She is so excited about it if you can't tell!

"Let's Go Fly a Kite"

Clayton and Juliet found this kite at DI for only $4!

We took it out for a test run for FHE last night. Too bad there was not enough wind to make it go "up, up, up" very high. But we still had lots of fun anyway :)

Then Juliet and Clayton decided to roll down the hill.

Pretty soon Juliet was saying, "I dizzy, Daddy."

Optimism

One of the fun parts of being 8 months pregnant and on rotations is seeing the reactions you get from patients, nurses, visitors, housekeeping, doctors, etc. This morning as we were making our rounds with the attending physician we stopped in the room of a patient I had just met last night in the Emergency Department. While I was standing there the patient's wife looked at me and said, "Are you the one we met last night? I remember the belly, but turn and let me see your face." So I did and she said, "Okay, now I remember you. I just wanted to make sure." She then asked me how I was doing in reference to being pregnant and working, especially since it had only been about 12 hours since she last saw me.

As soon as she asked this question my mind started racing. In the split second before I answered it I found myself thinking about how I had already been in the hospital for over two hours and it was only about 9AM. Then I was thinking about having to fight a stiff and sore body in the middle of the night just to make my way to the restroom. And then how painful it is at times to roll over in bed at night because my body is cramping on one side so I have to change positions. Then I was thinking about the 65 hours/12-13 hour days I put into clinic last week with only 1.5 days off for General Conference weekend when family was in town, and the 3-5 hours straight I spend in the mornings on my feet as we round through the hospital with the attending physician. Not to mention the day I was literally running through the hospital after my team from the 3rd floor, south side, and down the stairs to the 1st floor, north side, because someone had collapsed in the main lobby and my team was on code call and all the while the veteran men in the hallway saying "Oh, careful there miss!" And on top of that my swollen feet at the end of the day. So you can imagine how surprised I was to find myself answering quite happily that I was "doing great!" and "moving right along!"

After this sentence left my mouth, I realized it was true. I am doing great! How could I not be when I am so blessed at this time with good health so that I can still be on my feet and very mobile to the point that climbing several flights of stairs multiple times a day with my team members is still an option instead of having to be confined to bed rest? I also thought of all the amazing experiences I was having with people I met each day, and the priceless learning opportunities I was a part of. All of these by far outweigh the small discomforts. In essence, the only difficult part of being in clinical rotations is being away from my family so much, but even in that aspect the Lord is blessing us and sustaining us so much that I cannot help but be happy, optimistic, and full of gratitude!

Cash or Plastic?

So the other day it hit us how much our society is turning away from using cash to purchase things...or maybe it is just us...

The other day Juliet found a wallet in our DI box and immediately went to her room and started stuffing it with her Disney Princess playing cards. Clayton and I thought it was cute, and had a little laugh. She then insisted on taking it with her since we were on our way to Home Depot. At first she tried stuffing it in the waist of her skirt (she did not have pockets), so we grabbed her a "purse" to put it in.

Well, the whole time we were at Home Depot she had the wallet partly open in one hand and a card in the other. Throughout the store I saw her making swiping motions on different items and on shelves. She even gave me a card so I could do the same.

Eventually, the wallet ended up in her purse when she got distracted by a few things. But when we got to the registers the wallet was out again. Before I knew it, Juliet was quickly opening it up and pulling out a Princess card and demanding that I pick her up. Then she was holding out her card and reaching to the register (we were in self-check-out) trying to swipe her card on the card reader!

That was when it all clicked. We hardly ever carry cash and use cards to make all our purchases. So now that she had her own cards Juliet was ready to pay for things just like Mom and Dad do. Clayton and I both had a good laugh, and thought: "Oh boy, what are we in for? She is already figuring out that plastic has power."

This event has been replayed several times since then, and I have to say it is kind of fun to have a 2 year old whip out her wallet at the register and insist that you pay using her card instead of your own. We just tell her, "No worries Juliet, some day you will be buying things for Mommy and Daddy." :)

Apartment Adventures

We have been living in a basement apartment for about a year now up at the U of U. First off, living in the U student housing has its adventures when you wear BYU apparel...you get a lot of confessions from people who are "secretly" BYU fans :)

Well, the following is another adventure I had this evening:

I am sitting at the kitchen table working on practice questions

when I hear the garbage disposal start up in the apartment above us.

Usually I do not think anything of it,

but then I hear this gurgling noise coming from our kitchen sink.

So I look over at the sink to see dark green-black water bubbling up from the drain!

It was filling up pretty fast and I started to panic a little,

because the last time this happened we had to fill up a mop bucket with the regurgitated water so it wouldn't flood our apartment.

And, worst off, Clayton wasn't here to help!

But luckily they stopped running the disposal upstairs and the water stopped gushing up.

This gave me time to notice the bits and pieces of cabbage, spinach, and even onion skins floating in the sink!

Who sticks those down the disposal??

As the chaos settled and I sat waiting for maintenance I could not help but notice the black sediment of who knows what at the bottom of the sink.

And, alas, the all-too-keen pregnant nose picked up the smell of rotten produce.

But thanks to maintenance it looked like this in the end:

Let's just say I am definitely looking forward to moving upstairs in a couple of weeks :)

Mom's Little Helper

We had some ripe bananas but instead of making simple banana bread I decided to make banana oatmeal cookies. Juliet always helps me when I cook (it is one of her favorite things to do), so as soon I started she pushed over a chair, climbed up, and started helping. We started with measuring the sugar and flour and putting them in bowls. Then I started grabbing other ingredients from the cupboard. Well, as I was grabbing the cinnamon and nutmeg from the cupboard Juliet spotted the star sprinkles and started asking for them very loudly and persistently. A little distracted I was first off excited that I figured out what she was asking for, and then I handed them to her and did not think anything of it as I fished around for the nutmeg. I found the nutmeg and turned around in time to find Juliet had dumped about 1/3 of the sprinkles into the bowl of flour. I had forgotten how good she has gotten at opening containers! It made me laugh, and she was quite proud of herself. So we fished them out of the flour as best we could and put them in a bowl for her to eat.

After that she was sampling all the ingredients we mixed in (sugar and butter, smashed bananas, oatmeal, chocolate chips). When we got to the bananas she took the fork and instead of trying to scrape smashed bananas into the bowl she was getting bananas to put in her mouth. I have decided baking must be a lot more fun to her because there are more things to mix, and the ingredients are not only tasty, but they are not hot so she can sample away! I love our cooking adventures.

Life

There have been many times in the past month that I have come into the living room to find Clayton laughing about something someone had posted on their blog. I have to say you all have inspired us to start working on our blog again. Thank you!

The past year has been a very busy one. Clayton has graduated. Shaela has passed her second year of medical school. Juliet is officially a toddler and two years old. And there is a new baby on the way! It is amazing how fast time flies. I think it is easier to gauge the passing of time when you have a child growing up before your eyes.

In the past month Juliet has started talking a lot more, too. She is beginning to move out of her shy stage, and she is starting to put words together. One of our favorite things is hearing her tell stories with her limited vocabulary and hand motions. She is very expressive and gets very excited to tell them. She even starts laughing in her stories about funny things she is talking about.

Her biggest stories are about the trip we took in the beginning of July to the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra, NY. She got to ride a plane for the first time, and she got to ride a boat for the first time (at Niagara Falls). So her story is about the "plane" that goes "up, up, up!" and "swim"ming on the "water" in a "boat" and how "Mom," "Dad," and "Grandpa" got all "wet." She shares the same story at least three times in one sitting, and you can tell she is remembering the experiences as she tells the stories.

Between taking care of Juliet and working on his business, Clayton keeps busy during the days. He is a great multi-tasker, and Juliet adores him. I love coming home and seeing them playing or just hanging out. They have a lot of fun together.

As for me, I have no choice right now but to study and prepare for my board exam. I spend about six hours on campus studying during the day...but compared to my classmates this is nothing. Some spend up to 12 hours studying. It is just hard for me to sit still long enough and be comfortable...One of the downsides of being pregnant :) I am trying to work up my endurance so that I can sit still and stare and a computer for my 8 hour test. Yuck. Let's just say I am glad I have a family to come home to. They help relieve my stress and make me feel human again. And they help me find a balance in life. Life is good.