A very merry Christmas to us all

The last month has been busy for our family, so here's some pictures to catch you up on what the boys have been up to lately.

Cooper catching a ride at the family Thanksgiving. Carson created a beautiful gingerbread house for his teacher this year.

Colten created a very loaded gingerbread house for his teacher. She cried when he took it in to her at school and wrote him a thoughtful thank you note. He was so proud of the job he did.

Our Christmas card picture for those of you who didn't receive one... sorry about that.

Carson was a camel in his preschool's Christmas pageant this year. He did a great job and was really excited. I wish I had better pictures than this, but the room was packed with people and he was one of the last students to go down the aisle.

We went to Corvallis to visit family for an early Christmas and Santa (aka: Uncle Mike) showed up. This was Cooper's first experience with Santa. He wasn't too impressed.

My big boys were excited about the pinata Santa brought them. They had lots of questions about if he was the real Santa and decided it must be one of his helpers dressed up like him. They are still believing in Santa so I'm going to let them as long as they don't ruin it for Cooper.

All three boys with my cousin Mandy, who's birthday happens to be on Christmas. The boys look forward to playing with her each time we visit.

Colten's turn at the pinata.

Carson's turn at it next. I held Cooper and tried to get him into swinging the bat since he normally loves to swing and hit things, but he didn't like this so I took his turn.

My mom made all five of us matching pajamas for Christmas Eve. They have reindeer tangled up in lights on them. The boys were so excited for Christmas morning, but even let us sleep in until 6:30. I was thankful.

Santa was out of Batman costumes, but he brought a great pirate one for Carson. Colten was a little bummed about not getting his Venus Fly Trap plant (that I drove around to four different stores looking for) but he'll get one this spring when they are in season.

Cooper is obsessed with all the ornaments. Both our tree and my mom's have been well kid-proofed this year.

My dad's latest creation in the series of wooden construction toys for my boys. This year was a side dumper semi truck.

My dad also made one with a "low-boy" trailer so the boys can haul all the previous years' creations to their constructions sites. It also gives them a different one so they can argue about who gets to use what one at what time.

Other gifts included a variety of Legos and Star Wars gear and books, Tony got me a Kindle Fire, though it is being well used by all of us, and I got Tony a skydiving trip.

'Tis the season for....

...depression.
I'm a victim of seasonal depression. It hasn't been very obvious the last few years. I'm familiar with depression, with the worst being the year following my miscarriage. What's not familiar for me is not having anything to be depressed about. The only thing is that I'm just not seeing the sun.
In high school and college I remember wanting to just curl up in my room and "hibernate" for several months. I would want to sleep 12 hours a day and could barely make it out of bed to attend work. I even had to drop a class once because I couldn't get out of bed to make the one class in January.
I didn't really notice this season's blues much until Tony mentioned it. But now it just keeps getting me down. I think the worst part about depression is that it is entirely mental, but affects everything. My emotions are all over the place and I over-react to even the smallest things. I know I need to exercise and that it will help, but just can't get myself to exercise. My self image is in the toilet and yet I still can't get the motivation to work out. I'm impatient and find myself "vegging" lots of the time. To sum it up, it sucks.
So what am I going to do about it? I'm hoping that once things stop being so busy in a week or two, then I can talk to a doc and see about finding some treatment. I just can't wait until the sun comes back out in three months. I've been there, lived that, and know that I can't do that again. Hopefully once I get a handle on this depression I'll feel more on top of my school work, and able to keep up with the kids. Hopefully you'll be seeing more posts soon.

Life in the woods

You know you live in the woods when you have a resident skunk. Last weekend our dog Sara got sprayed by the skunk, and everynight she's been whining and acting strange. Tony went out to call the cat in for the night and he saw an animal farther out in the yard. It was the skunk! It was stalking the cat and turned around and sprayed Tony. He said he heard it spray, but didn't think it got him until his eyes started stinging. Knowing the skunk was stalking the cat makes me wonder if that is the critter that caught our other cats, Bob and Wendel, that disappeared earlier this year. Tony's brainstorming ways to encourage the skunk to move on, or just disappear permanently and of course most of his ideas have something to do with a gun. Not sure what is going to happen, but I hope Mr. Skunk moves on quick.

It has been far too long

I keep meaning to write some blog posts, but blogging keeps falling farther down on my to-do list each month. My girlfriend Jenny is making an effort to blog a little each day, something I wish I could do. Maybe after the holidays. I've got to do something different or else no one will read this anymore.
For now, you'll have to make due with some pictures of our falltime activities. We were lucky this year to get all hand-me-down costumes. Colten loved being a "clone trooper" and Carson wanted to re-make his bat costume from last year into "Batman". Cooper got the boys old bear costume to wear. It sure made things easier for me.

Cooper is getting so big.

Our babysitter was awesome and let Colten have one of her big pumpkins to carve. I helped him get it opened up and he did the rest of the work.

Tony helped Carson carve his pumpkin. He wanted a "scary" face.

Colten designed and carved his own pumpkin this year. He was so proud.

All of us ready to go to trick-or-treating on Halloween.

Colten and Carson getting ready to fire off Colten's cubscout rocket.

Celebrating Mom and Ed's birthdays together.

Happy Angel-versary, Baby Taylor

Every year October 8th comes up fast and then it hits me...it's that day. Finally, three years after my miscarriage, I can look back and think about how my life changed. Three years ago I was dealing with this. That one day greatly affected my marriage, caused me to lose friends, to have to work hard to keep the friends I did have, to become depressed and wallow in my grief. I can see how much I've changed, as a mom, a wife, and teacher. I've recovered from depression and gone on to have a healthy pregnancy and child. I can say that I'm the happiest I've been since losing Taylor.

But...


Does a mother ever forget the day her baby dies? I get caught up a bit when I see little girls the same age as Taylor would be. Nothing really noticeable to others, but in my mind I stop and imagine having a child that age. And while I'm certainly not wallowing in grief today, I am taking just a few minutes to remember Taylor. Reading over the old blog posts brings back all those thoughts and memories, but today is for remembering the joy a child can bring, even if only for a short time.

Catching up: Tony and I

Tony and I celebrated our 11th anniversary at the beginning of September. We always said we would do something big for our 10th, but then we had Cooper, so then we talked about doing something big this year, but that just didn't happen. The biggest problem with an anniversary at the start of school is I'm so stressed out about the boys and myself starting classes, it's really hard for me to set aside time for just Tony and I to spend together.
My mom did keep all three boys overnight for me and Tony and I were able to eat a dinner out. We went to a Japanese place he'd heard good things about. The food was good, but it was a busy night with only the owner preparing sushi, his wife waiting tables, and a high schooler in the back washing dishes. The service was slow....very slow. It took us an hour to eat our food and both Tony and I were tired from working all day, so it wasn't the most romantic of nights. We spent Labor Day weekend camping at Belfair state park. It was busy with lots of kids, bikes, and noisy groups. But things did calm down our second night there so we did scope out some possible campsites for next summer.
I have to say I'm just happy to have had the opportunity to celebrate our anniversary this year. After everything that has happened, I know it is less about what we did to celebrate, and more important that we actually did celebrate eleven years together. Lots of people are wondering how things are going, especially since I haven't been posting much. Things have been going OK between Tony and I. There's lots going on with both our jobs and the kids that it isn't easy to stop and focus on each other. Tony's been moved back in since May, and we've gotten back into our routines. One thing has changed though; how we react to each other is different now that we've reconciled. Things that irritated us before still irritate us, but how we deal with that irritation has changed. It is easier for me to let the small things go and understand Tony better now. We're both quicker to think of the other person at times and we apologize easier and more sincerely to each other. Tony did a great job being at home with all the boys while I was at outdoor camp for a week. We've been able to support each other through our struggles instead of resenting them.
Like I said, not perfect, but we're making things work. There are still things we are morphing and working on, but I don't know of any marriage that isn't working on some aspect of it.

Catching up: The Boys

Now that the September panic is over with I can catch everyone up on what’s been happening in my life for the past month. There have been lots of milestones with the boys.

August 30th was Colten’s first day of 2nd grade and Carson’s was September 7th was Carson’s first day of 4-year-old preschool. Both boys have been doing well in school and are having a great time. This summer Colten was diagnosed with ADHD and we started him on some medication to see if it would help. While he still has issues, the medication has helped lots and homework isn’t such a battle anymore. Colten continues to get good marks on his assignments, we still need to work on reading fluency with him. Another new thing for Colten is he is in cub scouts this year. We went to the information night last week and our first official meeting was Friday. Saturday we helped the local Lions Club (the cub scouts sponsor) collect canned food for the Tenino food bank. This was Colten’s first time going door to door and he did a great job explaining who he was and what we were collecting. We got enough food to fill a banana box and then took it back to the Lions and got hot chocolate. At the next meeting we will be getting rockets to assemble and fire off at the end of the month! Colten is very excited for that.

Carson’s class visited the Tenino fire station last week for a field trip. He got to see all the trucks and ambulance and the firefighters gave all the preschoolers a bag with goodies and talked with them about fire safety. This next month Carson’s class will be going to the pumpkin patch to pick out pumpkins.

Cooper has had a busy month also. He now has seven teeth and the dreaded molars are starting to push through. We are still waiting on one last incisor on the lower left side, but I think that Cooper may just have a strange teething cycle. I’m sure we’ll be paying for it later on in his life with orthodontia. Cooper also got his first hair cut! I held Cooper and my mom cut his hair with the clippers. I thought he’d freak out or cry from the strange vibrations and noise, but he just laughed and giggled the entire time. He looks so much different with shorter hair. He’s a little boy and not my baby anymore.

Cooper has also started walking!! It started with just a few steps to my cousin while in Wenatchee, but now he his walking just about everywhere! What’s really interesting is to watch him try to run, but he doesn’t have the coordination for it yet. We’re all still waiting for any real words to pop out of Cooper’s mouth. He is getting more and more frustrated with the lack of understanding what he wants, and I’m hoping he’ll start talking soon so some of the tantrums can stop. I never thought I would still be nursing Cooper at 14 months. He just doesn’t want to give it up. He’s fine during the day while I’m working, and he did pretty good while I was at outdoor camp, but when I’m at home and he’s upset, he knows what he wants. He’s certainly not nursing for nutrition so I’m content to get snuggles a few times a day for now.