Celebrating Two Of My Favorite Men

We went to Utah this past weekend to participate in celebrations for two very important people.  On Saturday, March 26th, we attended the baptism of Payton James Holt.  Man!  I love Payton!  You know how there are just some kids in this world that you can't help but love?  Payton is one of those kids for me.  He always makes me smile.  He's crazy, funny, self-confident, sweet, smart, strong and handsome.  What's not to love?!?!?

The baptism and confirmation were very nice.  There was no safety glass in front of the font, so I'm thrilled that no one had to dive in after Joshua. 


All girls love Payton! 



My beautiful sister, Kristin and her beautiful family.

 

What cute kids!

Right after the baptism, we went to our second celebration.  Grandpa Church's 91st birthday party.  We met at Sizzler.  Wow!  I ate a lot! 

What could I possibly say about Grandpa Church?  He's the most fun, lovable, handsome, manly man on planet Earth.  If you've ever met him, you already love him.  You can't help it!  He's literally my hero!


Me, Grandpa, and my other beautiful sister,  Katie.

 

The Sizzler party.


I'm so glad we went to Utah this weekend to be part of these special family occasions.  Here are a few other highlights of the trip:

All three big kids slept in the King sized bed downstairs at Grandma's house.  When I went to check on them, I had to grab my camera.  Look how adorable they are when they sleep!  They look a lot alike too!

Dave, the boys and I went to Katie's house to play Band Hero with Katie and Megan.  I am HORRIBLE!!!!  I simply can't make my hands move in two different ways at the same time.  And I am the queen of making up my own lyrics so I slaughtered the singing too.  David was more impressive.  He had a few really high scores.  Katie and Megan are practically professionals.  They were amazing.  It was really fun to spend a couple of hours there. I had a blast watching Adam and Josh play with toys too.

  And finally, it was great to show off our adorable little boy Bronson too.  He was a real charmer the whole time.  I love this picture of him and Grandpa Smith.

Tough Day

Saturday was a big, sad day for seven year old Alison.  It was the day she learned the truth about Christmas.  I know what you're thinking.  She's way to young!  You're right, but we couldn't help it.  This is Alison we're talking about.  She thinks so deeply all the time.  She has been asking questions for months and months now.  I have been trying to avoid it: changing the subject, asking her what she thought, being ambiguous, etc.  But David and I talked about it and we decided that if she really pushed us, we'd have to tell her the truth.  We can't lie to her.  How would she ever believe us when we tell her things that ARE true, like that Heavenly Father and Jesus are real.

So Saturday morning, I took Ali to the store to buy a birthday present for her friend.  On the way, she started asking "Do you buy my Christmas presents?"  She said she'd noticed that some of the stuff Santa gave her was sold at the store.  I tried to answer the best I could, but she kept asking more and more questions.  I told her we should talk about it some other time.  She said "Okay" but a few minutes later, she wanted to know again.  I said, "Ali, are you sure you really want to talk about this?  Are you sure you want to hear the answers?"  She said, "Mom, I just want to know the truth."  Well, there you have it - what could I do?

Let's just say that I had to pull the van over in an empty parking lot and hold my little girl while she sobbed for about 15 minutes.  Her heart was completely broken. So was mine, for that matter.  We talked about it some more.  She had a ton of questions about why we even have such a stupid tradition, and how everyone could be tricking their kids like that.  We reviewed many of the things I've said to her over the years to show that I never actually lied, I just said things like "Santa (Dad) is very cute and I really like him."  etc.  Once I told her that Dad and I knew she'd figure it out fast because she is such a smart girl, she felt a little better.  And we talked about how she had to help us keep the magic alive for her sister and brothers.  She eventually stopped crying, but it was a major blow to her day.

She told me later that she kept hoping she was dreaming and that she'd wake up soon.  It really was like a death or something to her.  She kept up a happy face all day, but any time she was alone with me, she had more questions.  "Do you think so-and-so knows?" etc.  Bless her sweet little broken heart. I love that girl so much.  Man, it's hard to watch your kids grow up!

Happy Green Day

As Luck-O'-The-Irish would have it, our entire family was healthy just in time for St. Patty's Day (or Green Day, as Nicki calls it).

 

The kids woke up happy and excited.  The excitement grew when they had green milk on their breakfast cereal.  Yummy. 

Each girl wore as much green as they could find, including green hair spray and green eye shadow. I was feeling a little bit self conscience about it until I saw our neighbor, Maddie at the bus stop.  She had her whole head painted green!

After Kindergarten, Nicole's friend Emma came home with us.  They played inside and outside for a few hours.   For lunch, they had green macaroni and cheese, peas, and green applesauce.  Then, we made green cupcakes.  We sent a few home with Emma and kept a few for our family. 

Eating the batter.  And I wonder how my kids get sick!

Alison also had a play date after school.  She went to her friend, Abby's house.  I picked her up just in time for an Irish dinner.  Grandpa Gee and Suzette came to celebrate with us.  Grandma Gee had a Relief Society dinner, so she couldn't come. 

We had our table all decked out with a green table cloth, green cups, and green centerpiece.  We ate corned beef and cabbage, dilly bread, asparagus, broccoflower, green Jell-O, and green punch.  Of course, we ate our green cupcakes as well.  It was Grandpa and Sue's first time eating corned beef.  I don't think it's going to be their birthday dinner from now on or anything, but I think they liked it.

I forgot to take pictures until after the dinner was over. 

Sick of Being Sick

February and March have been the months of sickness around here.  All six of us have struggled with various illnesses.  David is ALWAYS sick (which is why he has begun getting weekly allergy shots in an effort to find relief once and for all) so its hard to tell when or if he got the flu, but the rest of us did.  I was very sick for a few days, then the boys got it, followed by the girls.  In a matter of a week, I think we spent more than $200 on doctors visits and prescriptions.

Just when I thought we were over it, Bronson got sick again.  This time, it came on fast!  One minute, I put a healthy sleeping baby in his crib and 20 minutes later, he was trying to cry, but couldn't because he couldn't breathe.  I literally spent the next few days trying to care for and comfort him.  He was so, so sick.  He wasn't eating, and when he did eat a little bit, he threw it all up. His cough was painful to listen to and his lungs sounded very tight.  I "slept" on the couch with him, waking every hour to comfort him when he would cry and moan in misery. 

On Monday morning, we were waiting at the doctor's office when they opened.  The PA, a man in our ward, said he was almost positive that Bronson had RSV.  He said it made him feel claustrophobic to listen to Bronson breathe.  Just to be sure, he ordered an RSV test and CBC.  I don't even have to tell you how much fun it was to draw blood and extract mucus from a 5 month old baby.  YIKES!!

To every one's surprise, the RSV test came back negative.   It looked like a bacterial infection.  I was SO VERY HAPPY to hear that!  We did the RSV thing with Nicole when she was 10 months old, and I never want to go through it again.  Bronson was put on antibiotics and within a day, he was a whole new baby!  Thank heaven for antibiotics!  I honestly don't know if Bronson could have beat this bug without them.  Josh and Nicole were also prescribed antibiotics since they were both starting to cough again.  It was pretty humorous to walk up to the pharmacist and before I even said who I was, he said, "Here's the basket of medicine for the Gee family."  Yeah - we've been there that much!  And yeah - there was a whole basket of medicine.  Not only did three kids get antibiotics, but Bron had eye drops for his goopy eyes and suppository Tylenol since he kept throwing up the oral version. Fun.

But that's all behind us now.  No more illness for us, thank you very much!  We're healthy and we're gonna stay that way!

Mine Go A Work!

Josh has started doing the cutest thing.  He acts like his daddy, saying, "Bye bye, mom.  Mine ready go work!"  Then he "drives" around the house in his little "car." 

Not a Big Fan

On a typical day, Bronson is this cute virtually all the time...

But, try to feed him baby food, and the gross faces start coming out.

Don't worry.  It wont last long.  I'm confident that he'll be eating like a Gee in no time.

Different Strokes

Every fast Sunday, we have what we call "Daddy Sunday."  We try to give each child 15 minutes alone with Dad.  Some day, this will morph into a kind of father's interview, but for now it's just play time.  Our kids love it and ask if it's Daddy Sunday nearly every week.  Yesterday, David told me about each of his three visits and I thought it was hilarious how each child's personality came through. 

Joshua basically spent the entire 15 minutes playing with the same toy.  Every time David tried to touch it, Josh would say, "Hey!"  I guess Dad was supposed to watch him play, not join in. 

When it was Nicole's turn, they played with many different toys.  They even went "exploring" under the bed for any lost toys.  Near the end, they started playing "baseball" with a small beach ball and a stick horse.  Dave was the pitcher, Nicki was the batter.  This produced squeals of delight that could be heard around the house.

Alison went last this week.  She walked in and told her dad, "I have 15 minutes, but I don't want to start timing until after we say a prayer.  Then, I want to spend 8 minutes working on writing a story together.  The last 7 minutes will be spent coloring with my new crayons."   And that's exactly what they did.

It Pays To Help Mom

Here's a sweet story:
This afternoon I happened to be at Wal Mart.  With all four kids.   And no husband.  David was in Idaho Falls getting our taxes prepared and I decided to get a little shopping done.  It turned out to be a pretty long trip because the kids had all earned a small prize from this new reward system we are trying to impliment in our home.  (That is another story, however, and I won't bore you with the details of how to earn a "10-star prize"). We walked up and down the aisles of Wal Mart, weighing the pros and cons of every potential prize and "eeny-meeny-miny-moe-ing" many many times.  Then, after finally deciding on a prize for each kid, we needed to get the grocery shopping done.

So, we're all walking around the store.  Bronson is asleep on my shoulder.  The girls had long since forgotten that they were going to push the cart for me, so I'm pushing it one-handed while Josh is alternating between crying over a toy he wants and "dropping" stuff out of the cart.  The girls are helping quite a bit, but also begging for every item they pass with sugar or fake cheese as a main ingredient.  You know, typical day at the grocery store.  Once, I asked Alison to help me pick up something Josh had dropped, but before she got there, a woman next to me picked it up.  I thanked her, and she said something like, "No problem.  It's hard to do stuff one-handed." 

A few minutes later, we were in another asile when we ran into the same woman.  I'd say she was in her late thirties.  She had a teenage son with her.  She said to me, "By the way, you have very cute and very well behaved children."   I chuckled and said, "Thanks, but not really" or something like that.  She said, "No really.  You may not believe me, but they're really great."  I said "Thanks" and we kept on shopping.  She was right of course.  If you were just shopping and you happend to listen to their constant chattering and the excitement over every single thing, they are pretty cute kids. 

When it was time to check out, guess who was in front of us in line.  Yep, the same woman.  We didn't talk at first, but before she left, she came over to me.  She said, "I hope this is okay, but one time a woman did this for my kids, and I want to do it for your's."  She went up to Alison and said, "You are being so respectful to your mother and helping her so much, I'd like to give you this." She handed Ali a dollar bill.  Then she went over and said the same thing to Nicole and Joshua.  The kids were thrilled - I mean, Josh had no idea what was going on, but the girls thought it was the coolest thing ever!  I was touched.  What a thoughtful thing for her to do!  I think I'll be on the lookout from now on for my chance to reward some other helpful kids.