Fall update

My girls remind me regularly that I need to update our blog. Yes, I do. It's been a crazy few months. I don't think I've even downloaded pictures off our camera since my last post. Can I even find the camera at this point? Here's the overview:

Oct. 18: Sierra's 9th birthday. Emma was so sweet and put together a surprise party for her.

Oct. 29: Emma's 11th birthday.

Oct. 31: Halloween

Also Oct 31: Moved out of rental house while Ryan was away in Chicago at a business meeting.

Nov. 1: Went to Pocatello to see my brother who was in town for 2 days before deploying to Iraq this month.

Nov. 2-20: Stayed in another rental. Ryan was over at our new place every night until 1 or 2 am trying to get it livable.

Nov. 19: Paisley sick with the stomach flu.

Nov. 20: Ready or not, here we come. We moved into our new house, on the condition that the plumbers turn on hot water for us that day, which they did. But the electricians shut off the circuit to the heat and we didn't have heat until Sunday. Thanks goodness for the wood-burning stove.

Nov. 20: Sierra, Anya, Christa and Mom up all night with the stomach flu.

Nov. 22: Lexi and Ryan up all night with the stomach flu.

Nov. 24: My sister Karianne came over to help me get a few things unpacked.

Nov. 26: Thanksgiving, with 3 more sisters here with their families and my parents, here at our new house. They all went home with the stomach flu as well.

Nov. 30: We actually closed the mortgage on our house.

We are grateful to be here, but still LOTS of work to be done (a front door before Christmas would be nice). Yes, my husband is a compulsive perfectionist, who believes that if it's going to be done correctly, he has to do it himself. Lots of boxes to unpack as I figure out how to arrange things.

December 4: Girls played piano in Christmas recital

December 5: Christa performed a Mozart and Mendelssohn concerto in a solo recital.

So, that's been our life for the last couple months. Kind of crazy, but good crazy. I am getting a bit tired of "Mom, do you know where . . . is?" Some days I feel like I spend 1/2 the day just finding things for people around here. It's nice to know I don't have to move again for a long while. Paisley is into the full blown 2 year old stage, complete with tantrums and screaming fits, alternating with complete cuteness, like when she points out the Christmas lights with a big "WOW!" Anya loves her preschool, and lots of playdates with friends. Sierra is so excited about making everyone's Christmas presents and started Irish dance this fall, along with Emma and Anya. She also had a great soccer season. Emma is really enjoying playing viola in the school orchestra, and is really picking it up quickly. Lexi has the lead role in the school play coming up in February, had an awesome cross country season, and is on student council. Christa is also in the school play, also on student council, played on the 9th grade varsity volleyball team, and is still keeping up with violin, piano, and her AP Physics class. Plus she's officially old enough for driver's ed, although that will have to wait a couple of months.

Now to think about Christmas, if I can find any decorations.

I'll try to find my camera to add some pictures of all this excitement! Happy December.

Pictures

Birthday Girl

Yellowstone

Yellowstone

4th of July with the Freis

Dr. Cole and Dr. Cole

Shoshone Falls

Paisley dressing herself

First Day of School

Christa and Friends at Music Camp

Is summer over already?

I can't believe how this summer has flown.  I've been really negligent on posting, partly because Christa wanted a Facebook account, so I started that, partly to get a glimpse of her life from that point of view, and I can only keep up with so many online posting things at a time.  Here's a brief update:  We moved Ryan into his new office.  He's been working out of our home for the past 5 years since starting his own practice.  Having him work at home has been a great thing for our family in many ways, but it was time to make the transition back to a regular office space.  One major reason being he needed to hire some additional support staff and I can't have a couple of administrative people working in my house.  We were able to hire my sister, who has worked for our billing office for quite awhile, and convince her to move to Boise, and we found another girl with some medical office experience who should be a good fit.  I have been working down at the office (about 12 minutes down the hill) trying to get the new people trained in and things running smoothly.  I have full time help at home with the girls for 10 more days, and then I get to really be a stay home mom again.  It will be strange to not be in the day to day of our practice, though.  Though I have plenty to do to keep me busy at home, I'll miss being more of a part of Ryan's world.

After putting out our For Sale By Owner on a whim, we had an offer on the house within 2 weeks, and closed a month later.  We were able to find a rental here in the neighborhood, since our new place won't be ready for move in until sometime mid October.  We put a lot in storage, and in many ways that has greatly simplified things.  It's a lot easier to pick up toys when the number that can get dumped out is limited.  

Meanwhile, Christa and Lexi went to Girl's Camp.  Then we took Christa over to Harrington State Park (Eastern Idaho, North of Rexburg) for an amazing two week music camp.  We took the whole family and spent an extra day in Yellowstone and checking out Bear World.  We were reminded that Paisley really does not like being in the car for longer than, say, 30 minutes at a stretch, and she doesn't sleep in the car for more than 30 minutes a day. 

July 22-25 Ryan had a conference in Cle Elum, Washington (an hour east of Seattle) so he and I took Lexi and Emma over to that, and enjoyed a couple of days relaxing and biking in the great outdoors.  We came back from that to a new hire at the office to train in, a record case load for the week, and a house to finish packing and moving.  We had some wonderful help with the move and getting the old house ready for the new owners, and it is great to have that behind us.  

I think I'm pretty much done with getting ready for school, except for finding shoes and a backpack for Lexi.  The girls are very excited about their new teachers and classes.  Christa just found out she made the varsity 9th grade volleyball team.  Lexi will be starting the junior high, and just got her very own cell phone.  Emma is going back to regular school after doing homeschool for last semester.  Sierra is always excited about everything and she'll be starting her new soccer season this week.  Anya is a bit sad that most of her good friends will be in kindergarten, and she gets another year of preschool.  It will be good to have the extra time with her, though.  Paisley is just a busy busy bee.  Her favorite words are Mommy, More and Shoes. And we added 4 more new kittens a month ago, but we lost 3 with the move.  They won't stay at the new place.  

One more week of summer freedom then back to the school routine!

Book Recital

On Saturday Christa and Lexi will have a their Suzuki "Book" Recital.  It's Suzuki tradition to have a recital performing all of the works in a particular volume when those pieces are mastered. Lexi completed Book 3 cello about 3 months ago, and Christa is finishing Book 8 Violin, so we are hosting a performance for them at Dunkley's at 5:30 pm on June 20th.  You are all invited to join us to celebrate their year of hard work and the joy of music in our lives!

One more thing I should have added on my list of things I've learned this month:  

-Small busted women are in the minority in this day and age, as evidenced by the difficulty in finding a bra that fits.

Catching up

Well, I guess I haven't posted in awhile, so I'll fill in here.  This past month has been a bit crazy around here.  After Christa's birthday, we had our anniversary (#17), Ryan's birthday (#41) and lots of end of the year concerts, socials, soccer parties, field trips, and so on.  Things have calmed down a bit since everyone finished school, with flying colors I should add, and we are settling into some sort of routine, if you can call it that. Ryan has a new lab building that is ready this week, so we will be moving offices over the next bit, and trying to train in some new secretarial staff.  We also put the house on the market.  We won't actually be ready to move out until October most likely, but we figured we should capitalize on the summer traffic.  Right now we just have a For Sale By Owner sign out front, but we have had one person come look already.  We'll see what happens.  We have lots of changes going on, and while they are all exciting ones, it's stressful in some ways, too.  A few things I've learned in the last month:

-14 year olds should not be hand-washing priceless family heirloom bowls

-High density spray foam insulation exacerbates asthma

-8 pizzas are too many for a soccer team pool party

-I must know where Paisley is at every moment-if I can't hear her, it means trouble

-How Spock and Captain Kirk became friends

-Sierra doesn't run into things as often without the filter on her glasses

-Emma would rather hang around the boys 

-Hot pink nail polish doesn't really come out of carpet, and the bottles break when dropped onto tile floors

-Love is a choice

-Cats can be pregnant again 8 weeks postpartum

-My husband can still make my heart flutter

-I don't remember very many people from high school

Until next time . . .  

Giving

I just listened to this great talk recently given at BYU.  It's about 30 minutes but well worth the listen.

http://www.byub.org/talks/Talk.aspx?id=2998

Naming Contest

So we need a name for our new little place in the "country."  We have been referring to it as "Cole Cottage" but it's not really sticking for me.  I am thinking more along the lines of something-Farms.  Just thought I would solicit nominations.  We'll come up with some great prize for the winning entry-you can come over and have a BarBQ or something.  Thanks for your input!

Happy Birthday Christa!

I can't believe Christa is 14 already.  I really can't be old enough, can I?  Christa is becoming such an amazing young lady.  She is so self confident and talented in so many areas.  Today she wanted to spend the day with friends.  It's been interesting to watch her develop and expand her friendships this year, being in the junior high school.  She gets along with lots of different groups of friends--church friends, choir friends, TVMSC friends, neighborhood friends, sports friends . . She has always made good choices with her friends, and we are grateful we can trust her judgement in that department.  We may have to sign her up for text-messengers anonymous sometime soon, though.  Thanks for being a good example to your sisters, Christa, and thanks for your willingness to work hard and do the right thing.  We love you lots!

Kids

Tonight as I was tucking Anya into bed, she poked herself in the eye.  I said that eye were not for poking.  She said, "Eyes are for seeing.  And Mouths are for talking and eating.  And Ears are for hearing, and Noses are for sniffing, and Hair is for putting in accessories."  She is definitely the girly-girl.  

Paisley has learned this week to throw major tantrums when things don't quite go her way.  She drops to the floor and actually bangs her head on the ground a time or two until I feel enough sympathy to pick her up.  

Kittens

Whiskers just had 3 baby kittens.  They are so tiny and cute.  I hope they make good farm cats for when we move out to the new place!

  

Trouble with a capital . . . P

Doesn't this face look like she's up to something?  This little girl is busy busy busy.  She is weighing in at just barely over 2o lbs and 31 1/2 inches--following the long and skinny model of several of her sisters, and boy is she on the go.  I've seen similar posts on several blogs by those of you with a toddler in this age range--if she's not being constantly supervised, you can plan on a disaster in her wake.  Paisley's favorite perch is the middle of the kitchen table.  I came home from violin lessons the other night to find that she had climbed up there before it had been cleared off from dinner and decided to test gravity with a glass.  Luckily it had been emptied of juice before she pitched it to the floor.  She uses whatever she can find as a ladder. She likes to try to clean the toilet with the toilet brush and is particularly fond of the dishwasher as well. She has half of her 1 year old molars in and a snotty nose right now, so she's a bit more grumpy than usual. She doesn't sit still for more than about 30 seconds, unless I am in the shower.  The other day she was emptying the bathroom drawers, as usual when I'm taking my shower. I looked out and didn't see her anywhere until I looked right on the rug next to the shower.  With the soothing sound of the water running, she had put her head down right there and gone to sleep.  Cute!

Easter

We enjoyed out Easter weekend.  Due to soccer games, we weren't able to participate in the neighborhood Easter egg hunts, but we did have out own version in the backyard.   We also had fun with a good old Paas egg dye kit.  Tomorrow it's time to make egg salad sandwiches I guess.   For Easter I get a bit obsessed about finding new dresses for all the girls.  I love to search for matching outfits.  However, a few times I have found things that match, only to find that certain children would never where the dress I picked out ever again.  So this year my dilemma was whether to find everyone something they liked, even if it didn't match, or to make sure we all matched, even if the girls didn't like it.  Well, I picked something they liked.  The three little girls coordinated pretty well, but the older ones didn't really.  In some years I've been really ambitious and made their dresses, but that gets time consuming when it's times 6 now.  We tried to talk more about Jesus than the Easter Bunny, so hopefully some of that sunk in.

My Hand

Thanks to all of you for your sympathy and offers of help while I was disabled!  So I took Paisley and Lexi in to see our family doctor for their immunizations and well visits last week.  While there I mentioned my encounter with Jack and showed him my right hand, which was still pretty tender and a bit swollen in one area.  Ryan and I had discussed the possibility that it could be broken, but I didn't have time or desire to go get an X-ray, make an appointment with an orthopedist, etc.   Dr. Kropf felt that it would be good to have the X-ray and at least know for sure what we were dealing with.  Luckily there's an imaging center in the same building as his office and he was able to send an order and I could get it done right away.  He called later to say that I did indeed have a fracture at the base of my 5th metacarpus (pinkie), right near where it meets the wrist bones.  He was even so good as to call the orthopedist and give him the history.  Given that it looked pretty stable, and that I was two weeks out already, they decided that I could just wear a wrist splint until I can go about my regular activities without much pain. I wore the splint for about 6 days until it just got annoying.  Thanks to daily prayers by Anya that "Mom's hand will get better" it feels mostly back to normal now.  The stitches have all healed beautifully and are just slightly tender if they get bumped just wrong.  Here's a picture of your hand bones, if you are looking at your right hand with the palm toward you.  The fracture is right about where you can see the red line that says "hamate" even though that's not the name of the bone.  Enjoy your anatomy lesson for the day.

Sad Days

Well, today was one of those days that doesn't quite go like you plan.  This morning I was putting our 3 1/2 year old lab, Jack, back in his kennel after his morning potty break.  I grabbed him by the collar from behind him (bad form for a dog owner), and he whipped around and bit me--hard, on both hands.  Ryan ended up putting 20+ stitches in my hands, and my function is somewhat limited for a couple of days.  My right hand especially is pretty swollen and tender, but I learned to type one-handed in all my years of nursing babies and working on the computer at the same time, so I can still do some things.  I'm just a bit slower that way.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time Jack has shown signs of aggressive behavior, and we have hoped he would grow out of it, or that we could train it out of him, but that has not been successful.  At this point Ryan decided we would just have to put him down.   So, this afternoon Ryan took both dogs down to the Humane Society--Jack to be euthanized and Jill to go up for adoption.  Jill never showed the aggression, but we just don't have the time to really train her to be a good family dog right now with everything else going on.  Plus, the girls never really loved her because she's so rambunctious and jumps up on them, so they wouldn't walk her or play with her.   Anya is the most sad of all the girls because Jack was her Birthday dog when she turned 1.  As Ryan tucked her in tonight they were talking about Jack being put to sleep and she said, "I wish this was a dream and not real life."   Ryan is in the depths of despair--he had dreams of Jack being his garage buddy and bird hunting dog for many years to come.  A few things to be grateful for with all of this--Jack bit me and not one of the girls; the girls are home for spring break, so they can really help out for a few days until I regain most of my function; it wasn't a busy work day for Ryan, so he won't get behind after not doing much work all day.  So the timing was good, even if I never would have chosen the experience.    

Photo Booth

On our Mac, we have a fun feature called Photo Booth, which is basically a built-in web cam.  The girls love to sit in front of the computer and take pictures of themselves with all sorts of cool and interesting effects.  Here's a sampling.

Getting so Big!

Paisley is growing up so fast!  She climbs on everything and anything, and can open drawers and doors now, too, thanks to lever door handles.   This morning she climbed/fell out of her bed. I heard here awake and fussing, but was still half asleep and couldn't get myself out of bed, until I head the "Thud."  I went in and found that the same sound had pulled Lexi out of bed, and she beat me to pick up Paisley.  I realized that the crib was only on the 2nd lowest setting, so I can drop it another inch lower, so hopefully that will buy me a few more months in her crib.  I was debating whether to put the crib up in our new house, or move her to a bed at that point.  I guess I'll be lucky if I can keep her in the crib until the end of the summer!

  Here she is sitting on Ryan's desk next to the microscope, where she found a chocolate treat. She seems to have a built in radar for chocolate.  A few short minutes after getting her down from this precarious perch, we found her on the stairs, also with someone's chocolate bar.

She found both Lexi's and Sierra's candy drawer and regularly raids those. 

She is also developing quite a little vocabulary.  She can say Hi, Momma, Dad, Di-da (for Christa or sister), shoe, juice, woof (for dog), more, and night-night.  At least we think she says all that.  She has had a poor snotty nose and diaper rash this week, and is cutting 4 molars (one has broken the surface), so she's been a bit out of sorts this week. 

San Francisco

Last weekend Ryan and I spent a couple of days in San Fran for the American Academy of Dermatology Conference.  He goes most every year (last year I was in the hospital having Paisley so we missed it) to shake hands and bring in some new clients for his practice.  We were able to squeeze in a visit to Muir Woods, just over the Golden Gate Bridge, and Stinson Beach, a trolley ride to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square with a view of Lombard Street in passing, and dinner and shopping for trinkets for the girls in Chinatown.  It was fun to be in a big city again--I love the vibrancy and the culture that comes with a real city.  But I'm always happy that I'm living in a bit more sheltered town here in Boise.  I helped out in Ryan's booth on the tradeshow floor, where it is always interesting to people watch.  Walking along the streets of San Fran we noticed a few scraggly men shaking their cups and asking for donations-some playing music, others just hoping people would drop in some change.  We mused that our activities in town weren't all that different, we just have a nicer backdrop.  Maybe next year we'll bring along the violin and just have the case open in front of our booth, "Biopsies to spare, anyone?"    The girls were well taken care of here at home, and it was nice to have a couple of days break, even though we were working.  

News Story

Channel 7 called our heating and cooling contractor the other day and asked if they could do a story on geothermal systems, and other "green" energy sources.  Jason, our contractor, told them they were working on an install at our house, and the news came out and did a little article on renewable energy, which now qualify for some additional tax credits and incentives.  We were there going over some lighting, so the news interviewed Ryan as well. Here's the link to the story, complete with video of the house.  

Lexi turns 12!

Tuesday was Lexi's 12th birthday!  We've been stretching the celebration out for several days.  On Saturday we went shopping and got her ears pierced.  Then Monday night we went out to dinner and had cake with some friends who have a little boy who shares Lexi's birthday.  Tuesday was her real, actual birthday, but it's our crazy lesson day, so we didn't really have much time, but she did get treats at her school class and to choose dinner (dad's homemade mac and cheese), and she opened presents late that evening when everyone was back home.  She is excited for her friend party on Friday night, and sometime we need to have her mom and dad dinner date.  Lexi is such a sweet, bright, talented kid.  Some things we love about Lexi:  She is a pretty easy going kid-not much gets her upset; she is a huge help with Paisley; she is very smart, but is really humble about it; she is friendly to a variety of kids; she has worked really hard to get all of the Articles of Faith memorized before her birthday, and is sooooo excited to be in the Young Women program; she likes to play football at recess, and loves to go for long walk-runs; she has a really quick, witty sense of humor and often makes us laugh with her sarcastic comments.  She is a joy in our lives, and a child any parent would wish for.  Thanks, Lexi, for being you.  We love you tons!

Happy Birthday Paisley!

On Monday, the 2nd, we celebrated Paisley's first birthday.  I can't believe I don't have a baby anymore.  She's a full-fledged toddler.  She walks everywhere, and even tries to run.  She's learning to climb on everything, and she's figured out how to let us all know what she wants (and doesn't want.)  We switched the car-seat around to face forward, which makes her so much happier.  This little one is definitely the star of the family.  She knows how to pose for the camera, and how to scream until someone gives her whatever toy she was just playing with.  We all adore her-especially her daddy.  She loves her new baby doll.  (She would steal Anya's all the time, so she got her own for her birthday.) Thanks Sarah for the cute cake idea.  

No news is good news . . .

Things have been the usual crazy busy around here since Christmas.  We had various family members here visiting for most of the 2 weeks starting at New Year's (thanks for all your help!).  We love being close enough to have family come visit, after spending the first 12 years of married life at least 1200 miles away from family.  Just as we were getting back into the swing of things, the girls had a couple of days off school for the end of the semester, and for MLK day (or whatever we call this holiday in the middle of January now).  Paisley is walking all over the place now, and wins the prize for the youngest walker of all the girls.  She is also starting to say a few words-Hi, Momma, Dadda, juice, and some form of Lexi.  She is getting to be a little mimic and has quite an opinion about lots of things.  She really fast at emptying my bathroom cabinets and the plastic dishware cabinet.  She recently had a bout of thrush, which resulted in her being weaned (happy day and sad day), and a course of Nystatin. That seems to be mostly resolved now.  We have decided to homeschool Emma for the remainder of the school year.  Though she has been performing at the top of her class academically, she just wasn't loving the school experience.  We have a great curriculum that makes it pretty easy for me to manage and for her to be mostly independent in the day to day learning activities.  She will still go down to HSCS for PE and a few other specials with her old class.  She is excited for the change.  Christa started basketball.  She was picked for the 8th grade varsity team and is really improving, especially in her shooting abilities.  Her first game is tomorrow.  Go Grizzlies!  Our house is coming along, and we're just trying to keep up with all the decisions about windows and bathtubs and where we want light fixtures.  It's never-ending, but in a mostly fun way.  We have been in an inversion for nearly 2 weeks straight, and I am more than ready to see some sun!  They say maybe this weekend.  I got a new computer and imported all my photos, but somehow they came through duplicated and unorganized, so there's a new project, in case I don't have enough on my to-do list.  I enjoy those kinds of projects, though. They just come out of my sleep.  

These pictures are just random shots from the last month.

Aarggh matey! Anya the sleeping pirate

Almost a toddler

Bad hair day

Trying out my new makeup kit from Grandma