Reading

Today James woke up just before I was about to finish up dinner, which meant there was a good chance he'd be grumpy and want my full attention.  However, Everett was so happy to see his littlest brother that he sat right down with James and read to him.

Then they played blocks and a few other things.  James wasn't grumpy at all, and all the kids were busy playing happily together.  It was a dream.  Usually the kids do some form of the above activities together, but today was more unusual in that everyone maintained high spirits.

These pictures were taken another day, but I am posting them anyway.  No matter how many times it happens, I never get tired of seeing my seven-year-old-reading to his little brothers.  There is something indescribably sweet about it, and they hang on his every word.

(This well-loved book came from Grandma Johnson.  I think most of our favorite books have come from her!)

New Year

We haven't ever really celebrated New Year's Eve with the kids.  This year I decided (last minute, as is my style) to change that.  

No way was I going to let them stay up until Midnight--I was sure I wouldn't make it that late, anyway.  

So I decided to do cheese fondue for dinner.  That's festive, right?  I figured if it went over well, fondue could be our New Year's tradition.

I picked up some party hats and fun plates at the dollar store.  I let the kids customize their hat, and they went to town decorating one for each member of the family.  I also covered the table with paper and let them decorate it.  It turned out to be pretty festive for a last-minute arrangement!

We also had sparkling grape juice.  The kids really have no idea what people do with wine, but Everett instructed us on how to hold the goblet.  Where does he even get this stuff?  Hilarious.  (The goblets were plastic and came in a set of six at the dollar store.  We're just classy like that.)

The cheese fondue was excellent, if I do say so myself.  I used some colby jack and some smoked apple gorgonzola.  We had steak, shrimp, brussels sprouts, pumpernickel bread, french bread, and cherry tomatoes to dip in it.  The kids loved all the food but I think the cheese was a little too strong for most of them.  

After dinner we turned on a movie.  I thought about playing games, but I was too tired.  I was also planning on doing round two of fondue: chocolate, but I was too tired.  This pregnancy has driven me to use that phrase often in the year 2013, so I suppose it was only right that we ended it that way.  (I always feel better after I have the baby than before, so I'm confident in hoping 2014 will not have the same theme.)  The kids didn't seem to mind that their mother was a party pooper, because along with the after-dinner movie, I produced a pack of glow sticks for each of them.

Kid heaven!  (And Mom Heaven!  I could just sit on the couch and giggle with them!)

(I feel it necessary to point out that yes, Joel was here and was indispensable in the execution of the evening.  It is only thanks to him that we even had one.)

This is William.  He preferred throwing his glow stick circle like a frisbee to doing anything else.


I think the kids had fun, and I think we will try to repeat this next year.  I would like to add in a family theme for the year, or a goal, or both, or something like that from now on.  At least this time I'm giving myself a year to think about it rather than a couple of hours.

And one of these years, maybe we will stay up to watch the ball drop.

Baby Johnson

I've mentioned a few times on this blog that we are expecting another boy, but I don't think I've actually posted specifically about it.  So here is the belly picture that people always ask for:

Me, at 37 weeks.  Some people look like they swallowed a bowling ball, some people look like they swallowed a basketball, and I look like I have swallowed a beach ball!  Such is life when you're barely over five feet tall.

This has been my most difficult pregnancy for various reasons, but it will be worth it when we have our sweet little boy in our arms.  I am crossing my fingers that this will happen sooner rather than later, but as I usually go all the way to my due date and beyond, I am not too hopeful.

The kids are very excited.  When I had the 20-week ultrasound and Joel and I found out the baby was a boy, I made cupcakes filled with blue cream and gave them to the kids.  One bite in and they could tell another Johnson boy was going to join our family!  Everett cheered and Ashley burst into tears.  "I wanted it to be pink!" she said of the cupcake.

Well, she did get over it.  Once in a while she comes up to me and conspiratorially references our being the only girls in our family.  And she is the only one of our children that has prayed for the baby during every single prayer she has uttered since she found out he is a boy.  Sometimes she prays that the baby will be healthy, and sometimes she prays that the baby will hold her finger.  She is very excited about that particular aspect.  She will be a great big sister and she will love him as deeply as she loves her other brothers, I'm sure.  

Everett loves babies, especially the babies that live at our house.  He takes great pride in being the big brother.  Mostly, Everett just has a big heart and is always willing to help someone who has trouble helping himself (which is basically the definition of a baby).  He has especially had a fondness for James, I think because Everett is getting older and it is easier for him to understand babies' needs.

One day Everett said to me, "Mommy, James is just so cute!  I wish he would stay a baby forever and ever so that I could always snuggle him."

Everett has also pleaded with me to let him share a room with James AND his new little brother who will be born soon.  Since I care about my sleep and my sanity, I told him no.

But that did not stop him from bearing his testimony at Church last month and telling everyone "I am going to have a baby after Christmas."  He really does feel like the baby will be his.  I'm not going to burst that bubble!

Ashley's Injuries

Ashley has had a fun couple of months for head injuries.  Fortunately nothing happened that was ever very serious.

On the day before Thanksgiving, Ashley decided it would be really fun to slide down the stairs in her sleeping bag.  I remember doing this a lot as a child.  On her very first ride down (head first, of course), she hit the banister at the bottom just above her temple.

No, I did not see this happen (nor did I even know this was something she was planning to do, go figure).  All I heard was the sliding sound of her extra-slippery sleeping bag and a whack that seemed to shake the house.  Then her screams reverberated against the walls, and as I dashed over to her, I expected to see a lot of blood.  But there was none!  I felt relieved, but I held her for a long time in an effort to comfort her.  She was in quite a bit of pain, that much was obvious.

I nestled her up in her room and left to tend to Ashley's friend, who was visiting, and make sure the rest of the kids were doing ok.

When I went back to peek in on Ashley, she was cowering in her dark closet, tremblingly wrapped in her warmest blanket.  I was surprised--Ashley makes it a habit to avoid dark places at all costs.
"I can't see," Ashley murmured to me.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Everything is swirling around.  It's just a bunch of swirling colors."

Ashley looked terrible.  She was extremely pale and she just looked like she wasn't thinking clearly.  There was also no outward swelling on the place she bumped her head.

I spent the next while figuring out how to get a hold of the parents of Ashley's friend.  While I was doing that, Ashley started vomiting.  I suspected a concussion before, but the vomiting made me sure.  I had to sit Ashley up with a bucket while I frantically tried to make contact with the friend's parents.  I knew I needed to take Ashley to the hospital, but I couldn't do it with the three boys and an extra friend in tow.  Fortunately I did get in contact with the friend's parents, and the waiting paid off because they immediately took my boys for me.

I drove Ashley to the hospital and carried her in because she was still "swirly."  We were seen right away.  Poor Ashley looked horrible.  She did not have a good time at the hospital until they gave her some anti-nausea medication, after which she fell right asleep.

Ashley did great during her scan and x-ray.  She held perfectly still and followed all the directions exactly, even though she was nervous that I couldn't be in the room with her.  Nothing looked abnormal, but the Doctor did tell me she definitely had suffered a concussion.  "Only give her clear liquids today and tomorrow just feed her the BRAT diet."

"Tomorrow" happened to be Thanksgiving, so I just smiled and agreed but I had little intention of following through if Ashley was doing much better.  (She was doing much better and so I just let her eat whatever sounded good to her.)

I think five or six separate people came in to ask about the details of her head injury.  I knew they really wanted Ashley to answer.  I gave her the opportunity each time, but between feeling out of it and shy, she did not want to speak to anyone.  So I told the story repeatedly.  One person apologized for all the questions and explained that they have to be extra thorough when it comes to children getting head (ie suspicious) injuries.  At one point I told a doctor laughingly, "I think it was her older brother's idea to slide down the stairs."  He chuckled and said he has six kids and in his house, it would have been the Dad's idea.  I was glad we had a doctor with a good sense of humor.

In the picture below, you can sort of see, ever so slightly, the mark where she bumped her head just above her left temple.  It is almost into the hairline.  There was almost no discoloration and no goose egg, which was a worrying sign.

(Ashley wasn't too happy to put on the hospital scrubs until I told her that scrub pants are some of her Grandpa Burton's favorite pants to wear.  Suddenly she was thrilled to put them on.)

The pediatric doctor was great.  He really warmed her up and helped her feel comfortable.  The prizes he gave her at the end of her stay made her day!  This is the only picture I took, after her anti-nausea meds had kicked in and she had woken up from a nap.  It was the first time she started perking up.  I was happy to see her looking much better, because it made me feel comfortable taking her home.

Ashley has decided she never wants to have a concussion again.  I think I am ok with that!

Fast forward a few weeks to a cold January day.  Ashley came in the front door, slipped, and knocked her head right into the banister.  

Fortunately this time the hit wasn't concussion-worthy.  However, it did give her a pretty good bruise.  One week later, it still looks like someone socked her in the eye!

(She is showing you the initial bump.)

Everywhere we go, people ask her what happened to her eye.  It is too bad she doesn't have a more exciting story to tell.

But we do like to tease her that she got punched.  She rewards us with this face every time we do!

Christmas

 We had a really enjoyable Christmas this year.  Traveling to see family was not an option for us, as I was a month away from my due date, so my wonderful family made the trip to see us instead!

Taking two flights from Utah to Iowa is not very much fun during the holidays, but they braved the stress and delays and weather and made it safely the day before Christmas Eve.  I am so grateful to them for putting in all that effort just to come see us.  A "thank you" just does not seem like enough.

The sad part of this story is that I was a complete slacker and barely took any pictures!  I am kicking myself right now that I don't have any pictures of my kids with their Burton Grandparents or Aunt and Uncle.

My parents love good food and we had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner of prime rib and root vegetables, pomegranate salad, and cinnamon rolls and wassail for a treat.  No one cooks meat as well as my Dad does.  It was a really, really good meal.

We had a small devotional after dinner.  The kids told the Christmas Story and we watched a short Nativity film.  I was out of energy this year, so our spiritual part of Christmas was sadly lacking.  Next year I am going to make the entire holiday much more Christ-centered.

Then the kids opened their traditional Christmas Eve gift--new pajamas.

They look forward to this moment.  It really whets their appetite for the next morning.

I lamented to Joel that I can't dress the kids in matching pajamas anymore because they have grown into different clothing sections of the store.  (I could make pajamas, but I was not so into that idea this year.  Too much effort, or something.)  He just laughed and told me our kids are lucky that is the case.

Would they like to match?  Probably.  I did make the two little boys match, and they seemed to be happy about that.  But they were all happy with their pajamas.

William and James were happy with their Planes pajamas.  William is also into Transformers, so he spent the majority of the evening making guttural sound effects and "transforming" into an airplane rescue bot.  James followed suit, obviously.  You can see them making the transforming motions in the photo above, with no smiling, because transforming is very serious business.

Ashley is happy as long as anything she is wearing has a cat on it.  My Dad even noticed this while he was here.  "Do you have any clothes without cats on them?" he asked her.  She just giggled.

Everett is happy as long as he is wearing something affiliated with Star Wars.  I wonder how long this phase will last?  What will he be into next year?  At any rate, I knew as soon as I saw these that they would be perfect for him, despite the long sleeves.  If Everett had his way, he would never wear long sleeves, no matter how cold it gets outside.

After the kids got dressed, my Dad, AKA Grandpa Doting, pulled out a special extra gift from him and my mother.  LED Headlamps!  The kids were in heaven.  They ran around and around and around the house with their fancy gear shining brightly.  Did you know shadow puppets are really easy to make when your light is strapped to your forehead?  

The kids still sleep with their headlamps.  James has been especially proud of his.  

Christmas morning was a joy for the kids, who are extremely easy to please, so it was highly enjoyable for the rest of us as well.  Joel and I gave the kids each a new movie, board game, and books.  Ashley and Everett also got their first watches.  William got about forty matchbox cars and James got some little trucks.  Santa gave the kids a firetruck tent (James), the Transformers rescue bots trailer with four rescue bots (William), and light-up-wheels scooters (Everett and Ashley).  

I wanted the kids to have an opportunity to give to each other, but since they don't have any money, I thought making a gift would work out well.  It actually did.  Ashley made marshmallow catapults for her brothers.  Everett made Ashley a bunch of felt hair bows, and made William a lego board game.  William was too young to make anything, but he did see an inexpensive helicopter at the store he just knew James would love, so I let him go that route.  It all worked out great, and the kids were very excited to give their presents.

Everett's biggest wish this year was that he got an autographed picture of Santa.  I don't know where he got this idea, but it was his only wish.  Fortunately Santa came through and gave each child not only a picture of himself, but an autographed picture from Rudolph as well.  I asked Everett later if he would have still loved Christmas if that was the only gift he had gotten.  Without hesitation he answered, "yes!"

Grandparents were extra generous and spot-on with what interests the kids.  In fact, I think most of the favorite presents this year came from the Grandparents (and there were many gifts).  Thank you, thank you for being so generous to my children. 

(William in a post-Christmas Day stupor.)

Our Christmas this year was relaxing and wonderful.  We are so grateful to my family for making the trip out to join us.  We love their company and appreciate all they do for us.  The kids especially were heartbroken when they left.  And, any other family members out there are always invited to visit us, no matter the time or season!