Superstar Hubby

I just wanted to give some quick, but major props to Branden for all his hard work on my birthday this year. He made and decorated this cake completely by himself!!!

 

Here was my birthday breakfast spread.

He even invited a bunch of my friends over that night to help celebrate and eat the cake. He is so thoughtful and I'm so grateful for all his efforts!

Pudding Painting

 We revisited an FHE activity we did with Nora when she was about 18 months old.  Branden made up about 5 colors of pudding and we let the kids have at it on their plates. The point was to finger paint in the pudding, but it really just ended up everywhere. Lots of fun though!

Harry and Rita

I realized today that I never posted about our very special visitors in September. My dear friends Harry and Rita van der Bulk cam all the way from the Netherlands to spend a week with us during their American vacation. I met them on my mission after they came through the Temple open house. They were not interested in joining the church but I remained in close contact with them throughout the years and this year, nearly a decade after my mission, here they were! It was great to get reacquainted, and I did a pretty good job of remembering how to understand and speak Dutch after 8 years, if I do say so myself. :)

We were a little stumped as to what "sites" to show them in Visalia, but luckily Harry and Rita were more interested in simple getting the "flavor" of our little central valley home. Here's some pictures of our adventures together. All photos courtesy of Harry (he's an amazing photographer.)

They brought cute Dutch "wooden shoe" slippers for the kids.

 Walking around downtown Visalia

 At our favorite local restaurant, Fugazzis

 Showing Harry and Rita the murals of downtown Exeter

 Harry and Rita spoiling our kids with GIANT suckers

 Our kids LOVED Harry and Rita. Even though Rita didn't speak much English with the kids (she could understand it fine), they laughed and played with her all the time. Ike was even calling her Oma (grandma) by the time they left.

 Ike dancing on the trail at Sequoia National Forest

 We even took them to one of Nora's soccer games.

One of our last adventures was the Tulare County Fair, which I think was a truly American tradition to introduce them to. :)

 

 Nora being the leader of our section during the pig races.

They promised to visit again some day and I really hope they do. It was a wonderful visit!

Halloween

The Bride of Frankenstein (aka Nora)

The Organ Barrel Grinder and his performing Monkey

Maybe I do have a little of my Dad's humor in me after all. :)

 The Bride and Rapunzel about to head out for some treats.

 This was half of our trick-or-treating group. We had another family join us along the way.

 This looks like a monkey, if I've ever seen one! Ike had the most stamina of all the kids last night. Once he figured out how it worked, he was running from door to door. When the other kids were begging to go home, Ike was shouting, "More!"

Ike's Tongue Clipping Saga Resurfaces

I never wrote about it, but Ike was born tongue-tied. The hospital nurses asked us if we wanted it clipped but didn't really explain it to us very well. They made it sound like he didn't really need it done so we declined. We regretted our decision just a few days later but we had switched insurance and our new pediatrician totally blew us off. We couldn't understand why it was such a big deal since at Kaiser they made it sound like it was just a quick snip and healed up really fast. And as a newborn Ike had been losing weight for three straight weeks and we were really concerned. We pressed the issue and told her we wanted to see a specialist about it. (And we changed pediatricians.) We drove to Fresno to see the specialist who also looked at us like "why are you even here?"and said a lot of kids grow out of short tongues and we would have to wait until he started talking to see if he still had a problem. He said at that point he would have to be sedated and have a minor surgery. So left with no other options (we thought) we just waited it out.

Fast forward to Ike at 18 months old. At his checkup the doctor was concerned that Ike was only saying a few words and recommended him for a special evaluation. Since that time his vocabulary has really blossomed (although most words are only comprehensible to us) so we haven't been too concerned. But today was his evaluation and...he needs his tongue clipped! Surprise, surprise. The speech therapist was concerned that he isn't able to articulate the ends of his words because his tongue is too short. She even said that without the tongue problem she thinks he would already have been saying three and four word sentences at this point. I'm assuming the surgery is not too big of deal, but he's still going to have to deal with anesthesia, ugh, and I'm left wondering why we couldn't have avoided this problem altogether by just making a little snip two years ago.

So moral of the story I guess is that  I should listen to my best parental instincts and keep pushing until I get a doctor who will listen. I don't look forward to a surgery that will make my son feel like this:

(And yes, that's about how far he can currently stick his tongue out)

 If they had just clipped it when he was a few days old, he would have been forever as happy as this:  :)

Well at least as happy as often as most two year olds are. :) And I am glad that its getting taken care of now instead of even more years in the future when it would be even harder to change speech patterns, but still! :)

Say what?

During breakfast this morning:

Nora: Do you love having a clean house?

Me: Yes I do.

Nora: Even if someone else cleans it for you?

Me:... Yeah, that would be really nice.

Nora: Do you trust Merry Maids?

Me: What?!?!?

Nora: I saw a commercial about them. Get a Merry Maid. Everyone trusts Merry Maids!


Yesterday, Nora's preschool teacher told me there was a little rock throwing incident, where another kid hit Nora in the mouth with a large rock. Afterwards I pumped her for a little more information.


Me: So Parker hit you with a rock?

Nora: Well...Actually I started it.

Me: You did? What did you do?

Nora: I was throwing little rocks at him.

Me: Why?

Nora: Because he was pretending to shoot a gun at me and I didn't like it.

Me: But don't you know you shouldn't throw rocks at people?

Nora: Well (sigh)... sometimes during life, its hard.

Morro Bay Heaven

In the middle of August, we made our last big fling of summer, heading out to the coast at Morro Bay. This was one of Branden's favorite childhood vacation spots and now it is one of mine as well. So beautiful! We broke up the drive by stopping in a town called Paso Robles, where they happened to be having an Olive Festival. 

 The kids got to make some crafts,

 throw some bean bags, 

 and be an olive.

 Here's Nora getting her groove on while she watches the pacific islander dances.

 We even got a taste of OLIVE OIL ice cream... and it was GOOD!!! They sprinkled raspberry vinaigrette on top. Wow. Who knew?!

Then we headed over to the rocky beach area (can't remember what its actually called) and Nora and Branden braved the cold water to climb the cool rocks.

 Ike chasing after the birds. (He would do that all day if we let him!)

 Nora and her Daddy made it to the top.

 My turn.

No, she's not playing hide and go seek. She's praying to God that he will save her friends from destruction when the Second Coming comes. Don't ask me how her mind works! :) 

Then the sandy beach area...

It was the BEST day - happy kids, beautiful weather and scenery. Can't wait to go back!