Deck The Halls

Josh almost DIED this November having to wait to put up the Christmas tree.  Every single morning, we had to count the days until Thanksgiving - not because he cared about turkey, but because he knew he could decorate for Christmas on the day afterward.  When the day of decorating finally rolled around, he popped out of bed bright and early (WAY too early for this mom, who spent most of the night before hitting Black Friday sales and had collapsed into bed a few hours earlier).  I told him that we wouldn't do anything until after Dad left for work, so Josh kept trying to make David leave.  "Dad, don't you have your shoes on yet?"  It was a funny role reversal.

Well, Dad finally left and we got to work turning our house into a winter wonderland.  I was pretty short tempered, but I don't think the kids even noticed.  They were too excited!  By the time Dad came home from work, our house was completely decorated, clean, and smelling festive.  After dinner, we all sat in the light of the Christmas tree, sipped eggnog and sang Christmas carols.  What a fun way to start off the Christmas season.

I love our new home's holiday feel.

We've never had a mantle before!

Oh how I love our Christmas tree!  It just makes me happy!

These jars are SO FUN!!!  I love changing them out every season.  Aren't the stick-on bows adorable?



And here's how they look on our entry table.

My favorite decoration:  L to R: Josh, Ali, Nicki, and Bronson at 6 weeks old.

Krisitn made me these nativity blocks one year.  It's so NICE to have something the kids can touch without getting in trouble!  You should see the strange ways I find them stacked up sometimes!

Our house came pre-lit.  When we moved in last June, the Christmas lights were still up.  All we had to do was plug them in.

Last Monday night we, decorated out annual gingerbread house. 

Gee Family Gingerbread House 2012

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Idaho this year!  Since David couldn't get any time off, we drove up-and-back in one day, but it was totally worth it.

We love visiting with our family. 

We ate tons of fabulous food.  The kids ate in the newly-remodeled garage.  It was awesome!



Then, we all enjoyed the beautiful weather by going for a walk.  Silly picture, Nicki!



We must have been quite a sight - a whole gaggle of Gees on Highway 33.



We walked to the family farm.  All the kids (and Aunt Sue) climbed up on the haystacks.  Sorry about the dirt on my lens.



Bronson loved getting so close to the cows.  They weren't sure what to make of all of us.  They kept their distance and mooed from afar.



Many, but not all of us.  Nicki's MIA, Ali's the one flinging her arms in the air on top of the stacks. 



The Gee women.  I love those ladies!
 

Dave's Jug of Moonshine

Dave got sick in November.  Really, really sick.  Our whole family contracted a nasty cold, but Dave got it the worst - as usual.  Ever since he had pneumonia four years ago, his colds drop straight into his lungs.  He gets pneumonia (or close to it) every single winter.  This year, it seemed to come earlier in the season, but boy - did it come!!! 

He went to the doctor twice in one week.  The first doc he saw didn't help at all.  She just said, "Hm.  Yep - you're sick.  Drink lots of fluid and use a humidifier."  When that didn't work, and Dave got much worse, he went to a different doc.  This one said, "Man!  I can't believe that first doctor!  When someone has a tendency towards pneumonia, you don't mess around!"  He prescribed a very strong antibiotic and a VAT of cough syrup. 

Look at that beast!  I put it next to a normal sized bottle of medicine for comparison.
 

Dave is very skeptical about cough syrup.  His experience in the past four years is that cough syrup only makes his mucus thinner, which actually makes him cough more.  He vowed to me that he would NEVER take cough syrup again - he'd rather go back in the wind caves than take cough syrup again!!!!  I think that last part was a bit melodramatic, but he was going on several nights without sleep due to his constant coughing, so he had the right to be melodramatic.  The doctor promised Dave that he would LOVE this stuff.  Still, David was very leery when he realized that it was the same prescription he'd been given for the past four years.  This doc, however, made one significant change.  He told Dave, "Now the pharmacy is going to tell you that you can only take 1-2 teaspoons of this stuff.  I want you to take 5 teaspoons."  Well - that did the trick!  If you practically overdose on codeine, you stop coughing and get a little rest - who knew!!!  Thank heaven for that doctor!  I don't know how much more Dave could have taken (or me for that matter - it's ALMOST as hard to sleep when your spouse is coughing, you know).  He took it for about a week, but stopped as soon as possible because it was making him kind of loopy around the clock.  He's almost better now - at least for the time being - and we're stocked up on cough syrup for the next time.

Adam

My little sister's son, Adam, turned 8 yesterday.  He is non-verbal autistic.  You have NEVER seen a more handsome, brilliant little kid in your life!  Both Katie and her husband, Scot (who is typically the most funy and sacastic human being on the planet) wrote such beautiful posts on facebook about their happy little boy that I asked her permission to post them here - I want to keep them in our family history.  And I also want to share this amazing family with you:

Katie's post:

It's miracle time at our house again! Tomorrow, Adam will turn 8 years old! When I first held my tiny 2 pound baby eight years ago, I had no idea what we had in store. Most days are so hard and the emotions that accompany raising a child with special needs are not always pretty (anger, frustration, hopelessness, jealousy, sorrow, fatigue), but somehow the love, joy and triumph is so much the sweeter because of our difficulties! I'm so thankful for the times when I'm given glimpses of the amazing individual that my son truly is. Our lives would not be complete with out our Adam! Now if we could only get him to stop licking everything he sees...

Scot's Post:

 

Warning: Sappiness alert. When someone posts a sappy, religious, offensive, etc post, I typically skip it. I am warning you right now that you might want to skip this one cause it might contain sappiness as well as being long and boring. So here we go:

 

 Happy birthday Adam! 8 years ago, our lives were forever changed when Adam was born 11 weeks early, weighing 2 ½ lbs. For those in my church, the 8th birthday is somewhat of a milestone. They can at that age choose whether or not they want to be baptized. (For my non LDS friends, in our belief, one of the reasons that they wait until 8 is that a little child is not capable of sinning because they don’t fully understand the difference between right and wrong. They may know that they are not supposed to do things but they might not understand why and so God would not hold them accountable. It would be unjust to hold someone accountable for something if they don’t know the difference between right and wrong.) Although as we get older and understand these things, we are still human and we may make wrong choices. That is where baptism comes into play. We also believe that people like Adam will never know the difference between right and wrong and so there is not a need for baptism because he does not purposefully make wrong choices.

 So while the 8th birthday is a milestone for most in my church, it is somewhat of a bittersweet moment for us. Don’t get me wrong, I am very happy for my friends when they post pictures of their 8 year olds on their big day. In fact, I envy them. Although we are not supposed to envy, I’d be lying if I said that I do not envy those with “normal” lives and children. I am also very happy for the knowledge that Adam will not be held accountable for the things he does on earth. I also know that we are truly blessed by having him in our lives. But in the LDS “showing empathy culture”, it really doesn’t help to hear things like, “you must be really special people to let the lord give you someone like Adam”. With that type of reasoning, the lord must really trust someone who is gives birth to and raises a “Crack” or “fetal alcohol” baby.

 The other thing we cringe at is things like “I don’t know how you guys do it”. Do what? We don’t really know any difference. This is our life and we are happy. I’ll be honest, I would love to be able to watch him play sports or go on a vacation as a family. Heck, I’d love to be able to go to the store as a family. I’d obviously like to be able to save money instead of pay $1000 for anesthesia just to get his teeth cleaned or instead of buying new blinds that he’s broken every month. Have you tried to buy diapers for an 8 year old?

 So now it sounds like this post is just to complain and it’s really not. With all of the issues that we might have, this is what our little non-verbal autistic 8 year old boy gives us:

 - He gives us the gift of having someone who is always happy (Even when he shouldn’t be).
-He shows us unconditional love and trust.
-He shows so much joy in the simple things. He’d rather play with a plastic hanger or cardboard box than a video game or a phone.
- We have been surrounded and blessed throughout his life with great teachers and friends who watch give him the love and attention that he needs at school and at home.
-He was blessed with an unbelievably amazing mom and a wonderful sister who often gets overshadowed because of his needs.
-He hums and sings the entire time he’s awake.
-We have learned so much and been able to feel so many different emotions (both good and bad) that we never would have had with a “normal” life.
-We have learned to shrug off things that you have no control over or that you can laugh at later. (Like the old people that give him the evil eye when he turns the lights off at church or when he ducks his head underneath the table at a restaurant and comes up chewing a piece of gum that he didn’t have before that.)
-He’s very healthy even though he only eats cheerios and salty crackers.
-It's important to stop and lick the roses.

 One of our friends with a special son of his own summed it up perfectly when he said “although I never sign up for this type of experience again, I wouldn’t trade the experience we have had for anything” Thanks for the great experience Adam. Thanks for teaching us not to take life so seriously. We love you.

On A Whim

Sunday, November 4th started out like any other Sunday - aside from the fact that it was daylight savings and our boys woke up pre-5:00 am!  We ate breakfast, got ready for church, put dinner in the crock pot and lounged around a little.  Then, at about 9:30, David said something crazy to me.  He said, "You know, I'm feeling kind of impulsive, but it probably won't work."  Of course, I was intrigued by this introduction, so I asked for more information.  He said, "Well, my dad picked up my allergy drops for me this week, and I was thinking we could drive up to Idaho and get them."  That was all the encouragement I needed!  I'm not sure if Dave expected me to react to his impulse so strongly, but we've all been missing our Idaho family so much - especially on Sunday evenings, so I was all for it.

It took about an hour for Dave and I to figure out all the details and prepare for the trip (you know, packing snacks, rearranging a few things for church, making sure Dave's parents would be home when we arrived, setting up the DVD players in the van, etc.).  We didn't tell the kids because we wanted it to be a surprise, but they could definitely tell something was up - we don't usually pack an ice chest and set up the DVD players to go to church.  They were super excited for whatever was happening.  We went to sacrament meeting in our ward, but came straight home afterward and changed into more comfortable clothes.  We told the kids our destination after sacrament meeting (although the girls had pretty much figured it out on their own).  They were dancing and high-fiving and giggling all the way home.

We hit the road shortly after 12:30.  We arrived at Grandma and Grandpa Gee's house at about 4:00pm.  We had packed our crock pot full of food in the ice chest and set some Rhodes rolls on a tray to rise while we drove, so we brought dinner with us.  Soon after dinner, the cousins started arriving.  What a great night!  We were so happy to be there again.  We were lucky enough to come on the night when many of the grand kids performed the musical numbers they've been working on for Festival.    Wow!  They are all getting so good! 


Grandpa's lap is the perfect place to listen to a cousin concert!  L-R: Nolan, Abram, Grandpa, Josh, Bronson (who was also on Gpa's lap a few minutes before this picture was taken).



Eli and Bronson getting acquainted.



Kristi, Amy, Ali on the floor, Maddie and Abby.
 

It was just like old times:  cookies and ice cream, kids gunning around in dress-up clothes, skits being worked on and performed, political discussions between the adults, and plenty of laughter.  I hardly saw Nicki and Isabelle - they were downstairs having fun, I  suppose.  We didn't want the night to end, but it did.  We left around 7:30 pm, pulling into our driveway around 11:00.  The kids didn't have school the next morning, so it was okay to be up late, but poor Dave had to work.  All four of the kids fell asleep in the van on the way home, but Josh had a hard time getting comfortable, so I had to sit next to him for part of the drive.  It was a crazy, impulsive thing to do, but we all thought it was TOTALLY worth it!  In fact, Nicki said, "We should do this every Sunday!"

Time Capsule

When I was in 5th grade, our school buried a time capsule.  It was  HUGE deal!  I remember very well how much thought we put into the things that we wanted to preserve for 25 years.  We wrote letters to the future and took pictures of ourselves.  We had a huge ceremony on the day we sealed it.  I was chosen to recite the Preamble to the Constitution at the ceremony.  It was really exciting. 

Well, 25 years has come and gone since I was in the fifth grade!  Last month, the time capsule was opened at another huge ceremony.  This time, I was unable to attend due to conflicts with my girls school schedule.  I was VERY sad to have missed it!  I read a newspaper article about it, and I could see several of my old classmates there.  Bummer!  Luckily for me, my sister still lives close by (her kids attend the same school we did) so she was able to pick up my letter and picture. 

Wow!  What a looker!  Dave is one lucky guy!

Dear 2012, I'm Kelley Smith.  I will be 35 in the year 2012.  I want to be a scientist.  When I become a scientist, I will study volcanos.  What do you want to be?  How many languages do you speak?

My typical school day starts at 9:00.  We have Business, Reading, Spelling, and recess.  Then I do math, have lunch, recess, story, Social studies, recess, art, and go home.  Sometimes we have field trips.  A few days ago, we went to a State fair.  Do you have field trips?  Kelley
 

I am anxiously awaiting a response from 2012.  After all, I asked some specific questions...but so far, 2012 has not written back.

Halloween 2012

We had a great Halloween this year, but I didn't do a great job of photographing it.  Sorry about that. 

First off, Nicole dazzled us with a Halloween concert on October 30th.  The whole 2nd grade put it on.  They performed for their classmates in an assembly that afternoon, then again for their families in the evening.  It was really adorable!  They sang fun, snappy tunes that I'd never heard before, and each class performed a poem as well.  I may be a little biased, but I think Nicki was the cutest one there.  Seriously, she really boogied!  She was very animated and engaging.  She was dressed up as a black widow spider this year and each time she did the actions, it would make all her legs dance along.  It was funny to watch.  She was right on beat the whole time and she just seemed to be glowing up there.  I couldn't be prouder of my little performer.

On Halloween morning, I forced everyone to down a big bowl of "grown-up oatmeal" (aka not instant flavored stuff).  Then, I made the girls do their 20 minutes of reading before school.  Finally, we put on their costumes and I drove them to school.  The first thing they did that day was march in a Halloween parade.  Parents were invited to attend in the gym.  We had a great time watching all those adorable kiddos strut their stuff.  Nicki was her usual self, giving everyone high fives as she passed by (which was really funny with all those extra arms).  Alison was Lady Liberty (by the way, thanks to Katie and Megan for letting us borrow both girls costumes!) and she was a big hit.  Moms kept stopping her so that they could take her picture. 

The boys and I came home and got to work cleaning and getting ready for that evening.  They both took naps so that they'd have enough energy for trick or treating later.  Around 2:00 in the afternoon, Dad surprised us by coming home for the day.  I had asked him to arrange his schedule so that he could get off a little early, which he did, but then lots of people canceled or rescheduled for one reason or another.  Hooray!  We took the boys over to a nearby park for a while, then picked up the girls from school.  The weather, by the way, could not have been more perfect for Halloween!  Warm, clear, almost-full moon (that night) - it was super!

We had our traditional dinner-in-a-pumpkin feast, but this year I added a twist.  I made orange and green rolls that looked like little pumpkins.  CUTE!  After dinner, we got everyone dressed up and ready to go out.  Dave and the girls were a little sheepish about going out so early.  They wanted to wait, but I told them we had too much to fit into one night as it was and sent them out.  It was about five minutes to six.  As soon as they left, the neighborhood came alive!  We had a lot of trick-or-treaters!  It was so fun to look out the window and see so MANY little families walking around.  What a great little neighborhood we have for kids.  I stayed home and cleaned up the dinner dishes between trick-or-treaters while David took the kids around the block. 

Things started out well for our little crew.  Bronson even said "teet teet!" at each door for the first little while.  Then, we had a slight mishap that sent things downward.  I specifically told Dave to avoid any houses with "dummies" in the yard because all too often those dummies are really people that jump out and scare little kids.  I also specifically told him to be sure to go to Ali's piano teacher's house.  I guess he couldn't do both things at the same time because there was a scary werewolf at the piano teacher's house that jumped out and scared the tar out of Nicole!  Josh and Bron were also reduced to tears. After Dave got them away from that house, they ran into a "zombie" roaming the sidewalk right next door.  That proved too much for Nicole's nerves.  She vows she will never trick-or-treat again.  Bron needed to hide in daddy's shoulder the rest of the evening as well.  Those spooky people should really wait until it's a little later at night so that the young kids can go in the daylight and not be traumatized! 

Anyway, the crew arrived home from their neighborhood rounds around 7:00 pm.  Then, David stayed home with sleeping Bronson and manned the door while I took the three older kids over to my parent's neighborhood.  We arrived just as the cousins were starting to trick-or-treat.  We joined up with them and hit all the houses in their circle.  Its so much fun to get all those kids together and watch them go!  Talk about energy!  Nicole, still shaken up by her last experience, opted to stay at Grandma's house and answer the door.  She had fun visiting with Grandma and Grandpa Church and Uncle Brian as well. 

We didn't get to stay very long since it was a school night, but we sure had a blast while we were together.  I carried my camera everywhere we went, but never took a single picture.  Way to go, Kell!  Well, just so you know, Payton was a bat (and he kept hiding in the dark, then swooping over and attacking his cousins), McKenna was a Gypsy complete with a glowing fortune telling ball, and Megan was a cranky morning woman in a  robe and curlers with cold cream on her face and a frying pan in her hand.  She was worried that after "Tangled" came out, the frying pan might be considered a weapon and she would not be allowed to bring it to school, but they let it slide.  Josh was absolutely bubbling over with excitement.  He kept chattering away to everyone about how he was Batman---muscle-y Batman! And how cool Payton's bat costume was and how much candy he was getting and how fun it was.  He was so cute!

This year, I offered to buy any candy the kids don't want for a nickle a piece.  I figure any small victory is better than nothing.  I'll keep the ones I like and toss the ones I don't.  Each girl sold me back 20 pieces (but they still have a LOT left) and Josh could only part with 2 things, but that's okay with me.  That boy burns a lot of energy!!!