Day 49: Primary Program

Today was our big primary program. I've mentioned that in a few other posts, I guess.

So, I'm the children's music leader in my congregation at church. We have a fun time all year, but most of the year is practicing for the primary program, which takes place sometime in september/october/november.

Today was our program. The kids sang about 8 or 10 songs that we had been working on all year. Some highlights:

-We sang "Our House Becomes a Home", which was written by our beloved bishop's mother. It was super cute.

-We sang "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam" which was very cute. We had a group of four sisters sing the second verse as a solo, and a little precocious 3-year-old, Brad Lewis, was supposed to sing the last line "I'll be a sunbeam for him!" .. he kinda got mixed up and spoke some line about "I just wanna be a sunbeam." which somehow ended up even cuter.

-We sang "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" -- the kids sang the first verse in Marshallese. We have a large group of Marshallese families who come to our congregation. I had the Marshallese grown-ups singing the second verse, and the congregation joined in on the third. It was pretty cool.

The program was a lot of work, and ended up being a lot of fun. My parents came to town to watch Edgar and Sabrina sing and do their speaking parts. They did wonderfully, of course.

After church, we retired to our house where the kids showed Grandma and Grandpa their costumes. Jen was cooking lunch, and Grandma was holding Betty but couldn't get her to calm down. She handed her to me, and she calmed right down, snuggled up on me, and we both fell sound asleep.

Had a great lunch with mom and dad, and a great legitimate nap afterwards. I set my alarm to wake up at 4 PM, but ended up just moving to the chair and falling asleep next to Jen. We both slept until 6 (which will probably be the source of no end of trouble over the next few days).

Edgar and I spent the evening playing pokemon downstairs. Sabrina and Jen watched TV (separately) upstairs. It was a pretty chill night.

Here are some pictures that Jen took whilst I was downstairs:

Jen was worried how Sabrina was holding Betty. Sabrina "No, Mom! I'm her lifeguard! This is what I've been training for!"

After putting the kids to bed with extra love, Jen and I settled downstairs to watch a movie or two.

We finished Jodorowsky's Dune, which is a strange documentary about the weirdest movie never made. Jodorowsky is this crazy movie guy from the 70s, and he wanted to turn Dune into a trippy allegorical movie. It actually would have been cool and very strange and very 70s, but it never got made.

Since we weren't a bit tired (and neither was Betty), we went ahead and watched Almost Famous, since we've been on a Cameron Crowe kick. It was, really, the perfect movie for Jen and I. Silly, funny, a touch romantic, Very much about rock and roll music but also kind of making fun of the lifestyle.

Now it's super late, and we need sleep for all the adventures tomorrow. This next week will be fantastic.

Day 48: Time again

So, after 6 weeks of time off with baby Betty, I went back to work for a week. Now that week is over, I get one more week of her to myself before going back for realsies.

Work was.... there. I have a wonderful job. I am thankful for my job. It's a great job. I'm glad I got my education so I could get this job. It would be a shame to lose this job.

IT'S NICE TO NOT HAVE TO GO TO WORK.

I got some good work done this week, but things were not nearly so busy nor urgent as my whining coworkers insisted in my absence. Maybe I just have a better set of priorities right now.

Jen and Betty got along fine (especially on the days the kids went to school), but we had a stomach bug come through the house, and Edgar took 2 days recovering, and Sabrina did me-too for one of those days. I don't think she ever got sick, but she liked the attention and time at home.

In fact, this morning, when we got up, Sabrina claimed she was sick to her stomach and ensconced herself in front of the TV downstairs with a throw-up bowl.

I slept in a bit, then was hurriedly awakened by Jen to get Edgar ready for soccer.

According to our calendar, Edgar and Sabrina had conflicting games at the same time and at different fields today. I was to take Edgar so Jen could watch Sabrina's game, as she had missed more Sabrina games when Betty was new.

I got Edgar all shoed up and ready to go to soccer, and on our way out the door, I hugged Sabrina and asked her if she was alright. She said she was better and wanted to play her game.

So, Edgar and I left while I suppose Jen frantically got Sabrina's soccer gear together.

I took Edgar to his game. Since we were taking my car (and had planned most of the morning to take Jen's car, which has all the soccer game gear in it), I forgot to bring a chair.

So, I stood on the sidelines and watched the game. Edgar played pretty well. He's really gotten better this season.

About 3/4 of the way through the game, I looked over and Jen and Sabrina were walking towards us. Apparently, I hadn't noticed the phone buzzing in my pocket, and had missed several Jen phone calls. I guess Sabrina's soccer game was NOT at the other field, but in fact right next to where Edgar was playing (at the same time). I hadn't noticed.

Sabrina was too embarrassed to run over and join her team, and was howling at us the whole time "I wanna go home! I WANNA GO HOME!". Jen got to catch a few minutes of Edgar's game. Edgar got to make goo goo faces at Betty on the sidelines.

The final whistle sounded, and I took Sabrina home in my car immediately, so that Jen could take Edgar out for some much needed school shopping.

Sabrina was sad, of course, but I suggested some ice cream might make her happy. Yes, our family treats hard days with ice cream. It's probably why I'm so fat.

Anyway, a Dairy Queen lunch and a dipped cone later, the world wasn't so bad.

Sabrina came home and immediately made this drawering for me:

It's a little hard to see, but it's:
(left to right)
-Baby Betty
-Me (with clown hair)
-Sabrina
-Jen "Mom has really thick hair, right, dad?"
-Edgar
-cousin Calvin
-cousin Lexi (with glasses!)
-Grandma Carmichael
-Grandpa Carmichael

Sabrina says that it's all of us jumping because we're happy. It's all the people that her daddy loves and that love her daddy!

Aww..

So, I left Sabrina to her devices (looks like she had some more drawing to do), and I took a well-deserved and missed afternoon nap.

As I was sleeping, Jen came home and fell asleep. I woke up to Edgar's request to fix the downstairs TV (which was not broken anyways). Since I was up, I forced myself to do some saturday chores. I did some minor yardwork (the most I've done in months). I cleaned the toilets in anticipation of this coming week's company. ...and... that was about it.

Then, I joined Edgar downstairs for some epic Pokemon Colosseum playing. I got humbled pretty badly by the bad guys, so I had to spend the rest of the evening training and strengthening my pokemon (=

 At some point, Jen woke up and let me hold the cutest girl in the world.

(there she is!)

Right before I took this picture, she was sleeping and doing the "For Great Justice!" pose and face. I couldn't get the camera to take a picture before she changed position, so you'll just have to imagine what it looked like:

I held Betty for a long time while Jen cleaned the house and got dinner ready.

Jen cooked a delicious dinner that Edgar refused to eat (are we seeing a pattern here?) It was tough at the end of the night telling him he absolutely could not have a snack of any kind and that his hunger was entirely 100% his fault.

After dinner, I did some baby snuggling while Jen defused a kid fight. I sure love this Betty and love every chance I get to play with her.

Now, it's back to the blog and bedtime. Tomorrow is church and our Primary Program that we have been working on all year. Should be crazy.

Day 42: An Ending / Midnight Blue

Sabrina gave Jen this note this afternoon. Note the detail on everyone, including the color of clothes (and hair!) we had today:

(left to right, that's Jen, Sabrina, (little) Edgar, me (with blue hair) and underneath, Betty (with black hair)

Text:
mom THAC YOU
FOR MAKETH
UR FAMULI
PRFEKD

Translation:

Mom, Thank you for making our family perfect.


In other words, Sabrina thinks our family is now PERFECT with the addition of baby Betty. I tend to agree.

yeah, she's cute

I just love the expressions on her face.

We have about 500 more of these pictures that I'm not sharing.

Okay, so now that I've mentioned that our family is perfect, here's our day:

Jen woke me out of a very deep dream at 6 AM to hold baby while she got ready. Betty was being fussy, and would drop off to sleep for 5 minutes (as would I) only to wake up, squirm, cry, fart (!) and go back to sleep. Must have been painful gas, but it kept me from ever truly waking up or ever truly getting any rest.

So I was sleepy and grumpy, and was not in a good mood by the time we got to church. Church was another one of those exhausting practices. Our primary program is next week, and it's the thing we've been working on all year, so all the adults are really high strung. The kids are great, but they tend to reflect what the grown-ups pour into the mix, so it was a tough day. I can't wait for it all to be over.

After church, I got to relax on my last day before returning to work. I got to sit in the living room and listen to records and read my book.

Jen cooked dinner, which was delicious, but the kids hated it. Typical.

After dinner, it was time to dye my hair black. I bought the blackest dye available at the grocery store. I was going for "none more black". So, the package said "Midnight Blue". It was obviously hyperbole, as all the pictures on the box were of black black hair.

As long as we were doing it,  Jen put a few streaks in Sabrina's hair.

1, 2, 3, sass!

 

only flattering pics, plz.

Sabrina grabbed my phone and took a video. She does this all the time. She's grown up in the 21st century, and thinks everybody is on youtube. She's a natural, if I kinda hate the "talking to youtube selfie" format videos... It's still silly and cute:

We watched some Harry Potter and let the dye set. Sabrina had never seen Harry Potter before (I can't remember if she was too scared or preoccupied last time), so it was Harry Potter night for the family. We got through about half of it, and then it was time for the kids to go to bed and to shower and look at our creation.

I was hoping that my hair would come out black enough to pass as natural at work. I was actually hoping for unnaturally black black, as that would be a pretty fun and subtle contrast to my dark brown natural color. Even a later check of some online product reviews says that the hair dye is basically dark black.

blue?

So, it turned out less black, and more... blue.

again.

Okay, so the selfie camera on my phone gives everything a yellowish cast and makes my hair look REALLY blue. Let's try some different lighting:

Well, hmm... That;s still bluish, but might almost pass.

Let's see if this will fly for a week at work.

Remember a few weeks ago when I said I didn't dye my hair Katy Perry blue? now I did. On accident. (pro tip: never google "hair accident." eww.)




So, again, my story with the blog.

It's been forty two days.

What a wonderful forty two days it has been. I surely appreciated the time getting closer to my family, being helpful to my sweetheart, being a strong father to my olders, and snuggling this baby. This last six weeks has been THE BEST.

I return to work tomorrow. I don't plan to blog tomorrow night. I will be working for five days. Starting Saturday, I plan to pick up the blog for a bonus 9 days. Next week, my friend David Shelley will be flying in for a few days, and I finagled my baby leave so that we can have some adventure time (with or without the rest of my awesome family). I will keep track of that, since it's being covered by FMLA as well.

I sure love my family. I sure love the time I get to spend with these kiddos.I'm grateful for all the wonderful blessings and comforts we have in our life. I know lots of folks have it a lot harder than us. My life is great.

Day 41: Crocodiles in the mud

A fussy Betty kept us from a good night's sleep last night. I took her for about 2 hours, and she slept on me for some of that. Then, she proceeded to keep Jen up much of the night as well.

When the alarm went off, we were sleepy and grumpy, so it was a minor miracle that we were able to get all the stuff we needed packed in the car and get the kids to the soccer field by 8:20 AM for Sabrina's pictures.

Not too many kids on Sabrina's team showed up, so soccer pictures went really quick. I was busy filling out her form, so I didn't get to see (or sneak a team picture).

The soccer game was fun. It was Sabrina's first time running around post-surgery, so she played HALF a good game. The first half, she was on fire. She was running and kicking the ball and having fun (although asking to be subbed out all the time). The second half of the game, she was tired, and she mostly wandered around the field watching the ball go by, or sat long periods out.

Phew. recovery is hard work. 

We didn't have a lot of time between Sabrina's game and Edgar's, so we went to IHOP and had pancakes. Edgar and Sabrina were super well-behaved (so was Betty-- she was asleep)

We even made it slightly early to Edgar's pre-soccer pictures. (since we were early, I got LOTS of pictures. Sorry, Sabrina.)

 

Sabrina discovered a mud hole. Since her game was over, she'd changed into heavy boots, so I let her play. The other kids running around were waiting on pictures, and were very jealous as their moms and dads kept them spotless for their pictures.

 

That was fun, although we had to wait a long time for pictures. Just before Edgar's pictures, Sabrina started picking up handfuls of mud, and I kinda knew the fun was about to end...

uh oh.

Handsome dude.

Edgar is officially the tallest kid on his team.

 I returned from Edgar's team picture to find this:

uh oh indeed.

I'm a just little black rain cloud.

 

Just.... uhh.... don't touch.... anything. Or anybody.

So, with Jen and baby asleep in the car, and Edgar warming up for his soccer game, I had Sabrina roll around in the grass. It actually worked pretty well. She traded being super muddy for being kinda wet, kinda grassy, and kinda muddy. We had a towel in the car, and by the time Edgar's game started, we had her pretty well sorted out.

Edgar played pretty well in his game. The other team were called the Salem Attack Owls, which is pretty clever, if you've heard the story.

 

There were some pretty cute things going on on the sidelines, too.

 

In fact, when Edgar was on the bench, it was tough to keep his mind on the game:

 ...and, being fall in Oregon, the skies were full of Canada Geese migrating.

  

Here's a few shots of Edgar playing goalie:

It's tough for Edgar to ALWAYS pay attention to the game, but he sure tried hard.

Throwing himself on the ball, just like Coach says.

Another successful save.

...and another successful game.

After the game, we packed up and headed to the Crocodile...erm... Kroc center.

It was a birthday party for my nephew(in-law) Tom (30) and his son Thomas Rex (AKA T-Rex) (1). The crocodile center is a big salvation army community center in Salem, where we live. I'd been there for a few work meetings, but Jen and the kids had never been there, and we'd never been to the pool.

So, we signed in. Filling out the paperwork, next to my name, it asked "Relationship with Adult". I put "questionable". Next to Jen's, again it asked "Relationship with Adult". I put "tenuous". Maybe that should be "relationship with adultHOOD".

Anyways, after some red tape and the usual locker room hassle, we made it to the pool. The pool was really fun-- lots of modern stuff like a lazy river and splash pad features and stuff like that. After a while, though, it felt like we were swimming in each others' armpits. Either the pool was too small, or there were too many people to properly have fun.

The kids had fun, though. There was a waterslide. Surprisingly (given their personalities), Edgar took to it right away. After one time up where I went before him, and he was kinda nervous, he LOVED it. I think he rode the waterslide 20 or 30 times. Sabrina was very scared. She was right on the line of being tall enough, so when we remeasured her and she fell just under the 4 foot requirement, she was relieved.

Jen and Betty also came to the pool. I'm proud of Jen for braving the pool 5 weeks postpartum. Betty loved the water, but the pool temperature was a little too cold to be really comfortable.

After some miscommunications and changing plans 3 or 4 times, we left the pool and headed for a local pizza place for the birthday party proper.

There were a lot of Tom's family, and very little of mine, but that was okay. We just felt a bit like outsiders or distaff relations, but we got pizza and really good cake, so who's complaining? Greta has been branching out, not only into professional photography, but professional cake design and baking. Both her cakes were tremendous, and one was made specifically to be smashed:

hulk smash.

We got Tom and T-Rex a pair of light-up foam swords for swordfights. Perfect gifts (in my opinion) for a one-year-old and his dad.

We returned from the pizza place thoroughly exhausted with a fussy Betty. We had just enough time to watch some TV together as a family. Since we finished Star Wars Rebels the other night, we went back and watched a few Clone Wars episodes that feature one of our favorite characters.

sleepy baby

cute baby.

It was super hard to stay awake, though, because of the short night and long day. Also, Betty wouldn't stop crying. (again, after having Edgar, who either slept, ate, or cried until he was 10 months old, I can handle a few minutes of verbal abuse from an infant. I took her and started this blog, which took a long time to finish.
 
Jen eventually put the other kids to bed, and Betty fell asleep. Jen and Betty are now asleep (very early) in the recliner, and I'm going to follow suit.

...just as soon as I read what was going on five years ago, when Sabrina was this old...

Day 40: Jen and Alex

I got to spend some quality time with the family member that I think I've missed the most this last forty-odd days: My lovely wife Jen.

plus my cute daughter Betty.

I got the kids to school this morning with fewer dramas. Sabrina got everything done early and got to watch more than a half hour of TV. Edgar dragged his feet mostly, but still got 15 minutes or so of screen time.

After walking the kids to school and completing my various morning chores, Jen and Betty were still asleep in the recliner, so I snuck downstairs to play Pokemon Colosseum. After quite a while of that,a very well-rested Jen and Betty came downstairs to meet me. We planned what to do today, on my last full official day off work (At least for a short while)...

We went to lunch at the Konditerei, a local restaurant known for its really really good cake. The place was packed, and we were the youngest folks in there, by at least 30 years. Betty did a good job of cooing and snoozing in her car seat next to our table. We ordered without the menu like regulars. I'm not sure if it makes me feel old or young, but it sure was good. Jen and I challenged the (level 10, blue) pokemon gym that was there and knocked it down a level waiting for our food to arrive. After soup and a sandwich (ribbon loaf ftw!) we each got a fat slice of yummy cake. Jen had Raspberry Lemonade cake, and I had Peanut Butter and Banana cake.

Full and happy, we headed to Bush Park and took a guided tour of the Bush House, an italianate victorian house restored to its 1913 glory.

Our tour guide's eyes got really big when she saw us carrying in a baby. Betty was fine, for the most part, but the tour guide about had a panic attack when Betty started to cry about 10 minutes into our tour. I took her outside to rock her, and she was asleep within 30 seconds of hitting the cold air.

The house was beautiful-- They said that its cost to build today would be about $140 million. There were ten sculptured marble fireplaces, each one different. There were TWO INDOOR bathrooms with hot and cold running water (a big deal for the 19th century), and lighting in both gas- and electrical varieties.

We didn't take any pictures unfortunately, but it was beautiful, and fun to learn about local history. We've been in Salem 15 years, so it's about time to see everything.

Came home, and tried to pull my records together for my radio show. Just at that moment, Edgar and Sabrina came in the door, and the house erupted into chaos. I couldn't find some of my CDs, I tried to pull out a cabinet to look behind it, and my record shelves very nearly collapsed and fell on Edgar. (Anybody know how to build record shelves?) Sabrina wanted attention, Betty was crying, and I was late for my radio show.

I cruised across town (with the car beeping at me that it was out of coolant!) to make it just barely on time, but very flustered. I had fun spinning the records, though.

It was a yellow vinyl kind of day.

After the radio show, I headed home. Jen had a babysitter lined up, so we went to Eric's house and mixed another song. Mixing a 16-track recording the old fashioned way is tough. Eric and Jen supplied the ears, and I moved the faders on the board. I think we got a good mix, though. 3 tracks down.

 

Jen and Betty, in the studio.

Jen and I made use of having a babysitter for the older two kids, and sat in the car and played Pokemon, and each had a pidgey party.

After taking the babysitter home, I ran to Wal-mart at 11 at night (sketchy....) to get a birthday present for Tom and T-Rex tomorrow. I think I got a good one. I also found 4 boxes of Jen's nursing pads, so I bought out the store.

What a fun day. What a great time I had with my best friend.

Day 39: Smile

Today started out difficult.

You see, Edgar and Sabrina have NEVER had a hard time waking up. In fact, up until now, all our conditioning with them has been the please-stay-in-bed-until-the-clock-says-7 variety. They ALWAYS wake up.

So, this past few weeks have been unprecedented. At 7:00 AM, my alarm went off, so I stumbled up the stairs, still mostly asleep myself, to Edgar and Sabrina's room. "Wake up, sleepyheads!" "No." "No?" "Yeah. Goodnight."

So, what did I do? I spent a good 15 minutes pulling blankets off, cajoling, arguing, and full-on fighting with the kids trying to get them awake and going in the morning.

I can't keep doing this -- I'm not that much of a nag,and I am NOT a morning person. I also have things to do in the morning besides enduring verbal abuse from a 5 and 7 year old.

The kids barely made it out the door this morning, and were fighting, and catty, and rude, and generally unpleasant to be around.

I think 60% of my anxiety around this is the dawning realization that Monday I go back to work, and I've SO enjoyed the stress-free time focusing on my kids and family. So, I'm projecting my stress on the kids, who multiply it and send it back to me.

Anyways, getting the kids off to school felt like a herculean task, and once that was accomplished, I was not in a good state. I begged Jen's forgiveness and took (what I thought was going to be) a short nap. When I woke up at 1 PM, I was feeling a LOT better (=

We made a run to the hardware store, and spent some time reading and playing with Betty.

Betty is finally smiling! Here's a picture!

 

for comparison, here's Sabrina at the same age (in a very different light, though)

 

Can you tell these kids apart? They look exactly the same to me. I sure love them. It's going to be hard looking at baby pictures in the future, because I honestly can't tell 'em apart.

Also, here's a newborn picture so you can compare how much Betty has grown.

What a cutie.

Had a fun afternoon playing Pokemon Colosseum with Edgar. Sabrina's soccer practice was cancelled (unfortunately), so, to celebrate 2 weeks post-surgery, and her returning ability to eat normal food, we ordered pizza and watched the (twisty, cliffhangery, and unresolved) end of Season 2 of Star Wars Rebels. We played a bit more pokemon, and then the kids were off to bed, and I was off to the grocery store. Welp, tomorrow is my last official day off work, and we thought of going to the zoo (as that would be super fun and appropriate), but it looks like it's not going to work out.