Reminiscing

Have you visited this post lately?  Hilarious!  For some reason I was reminiscing this morning, and went back to find it.  And yup, it's still funny.

Gardening

I know, I know, I know.  I haven't posted in forever, and so I really ought to be posting something about my family, my baby that's 9 months old already, or some of the events that have transpired in the last months.  But all of that sounds like a lot of work.  Plus, we've had some computer issues that make me unable to post pictures.  And how can I post about my kids without including pictures?  So, instead of news on the family, you get some random thoughts. :)

I've gotten suddenly excited about gardening.  This spring I really didn't care about the flower bed, and never did anything with it.  But now that it's the middle of September, I'm all ready to go.  I've bought some perennials and I'm working on cleaning the grass out of the flower bed so I can plant them.  I also have plans for the garden.  I'm going to plant my seeds this fall so that the plants can start growing whenever they feel like in the spring.  I"m not going to plant them in rows, either.  I'm just going to toss them out there and they can grow wherever they choose.  Jef thinks I'm crazy.  But it can't really be any worse than this year's garden, which was planted on schedule in the spring in neat rows, but which seeds either never grew at all or died soon after emerging.  We did get a few tomatoes and some zucchini, but that's about it.  So, really, how much worse can it get by letting the plants choose their own spot and growing time?  Sounds like fun to me.

Rock Beats Scissors

My kids have been quite into playing Rock Paper Scissors lately.  The only thing is, the old game got a little boring, so they've made up some new rules.  I don't know all the rules, but I have picked up a few.  So, in case you want to play, here's what I can tell you.

Dynamite beats Rock
Gun beats Paper
Crocodile beats Scissors
Shield beats Gun
Robot beats Shield
Chuck Norris beats Crocodile
Death Star beats Chuck Norris
Luke Skywalker beats Death Star
Darth Vader beats Luke Skywalker
Emperor beats Darth Vader
Harry Potter beats Emperor

I'll keep you posted if the rules change some more. :)

Little Boy Adventures

At the end of February, Cannon turned eight.  Eight must be a pretty important age, because it hasn't even been a month yet, and he's already had lots of adventures.
He got a pogo stick for his birthday, and I was sure he'd have a broken arm within a week, but so far so good.  He can stay on it for hundreds of hops in a row, and it's basically the perfect toy for my little jumping bean.

Turning eight means, of course, that he got baptized! Jef was able to baptize and confirm him, and when we asked Cannon afterwards how he felt, he said he felt taller.  That's a good thing, because the poor kid is awfully short for his age. He got to share his baptism with his super good friend, Cadie, from around the corner.  We were planning on attending her baptism anyway, so it was very convenient to have them on the same day.

The night before Cannon's baptism, I was giving some long overdue haircuts, and so the boys both had their shirts off.  They were thinking they were pretty hot stuff.  I was trying not to laugh. I'm sure someday they will both have impressive muscles, and this picture of Cannon's ribs will be a hoot.  What am I saying?  It's already a hoot!

We have been having such beautiful weather, that I bought some cheap kites at Wal-Mart and took my kids over to the elementary to fly them.  They thought it was so cool, and most of them couldn't remember ever flying a kite before.  (Guilt, guilt, guilt...  how are you supposed to keep track of all the experiences your children are supposed to have?  I should make a list.) 

Anyway, Cannon thought flying a kite was a breeze.  He even flew his kite for a time while lying down.  I guess it's easier to see your kite that way - easier on the neck, you know.



The weather has been so nice, in fact, that Cannon and Jennie were convinced they were going to melt the other day, and nothing would do but to take a run through the sprinklers.  In March?  But somehow they were able to talk their mother into it, and they were mercifully saved from melting to death.

They didn't even turn blue afterward, and Cannon was still begging for more when the sprinklers turned off.

And, of course, if you're eight that means you're in Cub Scouts.  And if you're in Cub Scouts, that means you get to go to the Pinewood Derby. 

Cannon's car did awesome! (Even if it didn't have a professional looking, obviously-not-done-by-an-eight-year-old paint job.)  He won first place in the Wolves (his age division), and 2nd place overall.  So he came home with a ribbon, a medal, and a trophy.  Being eight rocks!!!

One of the experiences Cannon has definitely not missed is milking a cow. My parents have a milk cow, so my dad is always looking for volunteers to do the milking. And Cannon is always happy to volunteer! He's getting pretty good at it, too!
So there's one month in the life of an eight-year-old.  You can imagine what it requires to keep up with the kid.  (Picture me out of breath, running up to every event with my camera.)  Here's hoping the next eleven months will be a little quieter.  (I'm not counting on it, but I can always hope.)

Ann Marie

Well, my policy on journals and blogs has always been that you shouldn't try to catch up.  Just write/blog about what's happening now, and let the rest go.  So you'll have to trust me that we had a great Thanksgiving, a great Christmas, and great New Years.  Oh, and my brother left on his mission - and he's flying to Hungary TODAY!!!  Go Tom!
But it does seem wrong to just skip over the birth of my seventh child, so I'll bend my rule just this once. ;)
The Dr. was perfectly willing to start my labor for me.  In fact, because my last delivery went so fast (about 20 minutes), he made sure I was willing to be started at 39 weeks before he even took out my IUD.  I assured him that was fine with me, he took it out, and a couple weeks later we were expecting!  Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to happen quite that fast, and it put us in a quandary about the delivery day. See, I would arrive at 39 weeks on Nov 28th.  But we already have a birthday on that day.  There's another birthday on the 30th.  (Not sure why we're so fond of the end of November.)  We could have just waited until a couple days into December, but Tom was going into the MTC on the 30th, and it seemed a shame to make him wait two years before seeing the baby.  So that left us with the 29th.  I wasn't ecstatic about the idea of celebrating birthdays three days in a row every year, but neither Jef nor the Dr. saw any problem with it.  (Men!)
So the baby was scheduled to arrive on the 29th.  Skip past a couple months of morning sickness, several months of feeling not-too-bad, and a couple months of constant discomfort, and we arrive at the delivery day!  Crazy to say, but I was quite nervous.  Not nervous for the delivery.  Been there, done that.  But the last time I was in the hospital, I ended up losing all my hair and several months of my life.  It took quite a while to get back into my life again, and I was just not excited about starting over again.  I realize it was completely illogical to be afraid that would happen.  I would be home within a day or two, and other than being tired and sore, I would be fine and life would continue on as normal. (Or, rather, normal plus a baby.)  But as the time drew nearer, I kept catching myself preparing my house for several weeks of my absence.  Kept telling myself that wasn't necessary, but sometimes self just doesn't listen.  So I arrived at the day basically scared to death for no good reason at all. (I don't remember being scared at all to go into brain surgery, but this wouldn't be the first time I didn't make any sense.)
Each time I have a child, I manage to cut my delivery time in half.  I started out at 9 hours with the first one, then 4, then 2, then 1, and so on, til I got it down to 20 minutes.  (No, it doesn't actually work out mathematically, but you get the idea.)  So I was thinking this time it would take around 10 minutes.  Sounds good, right?  But, of course, just when you think you have life figured out, it sends you a curve ball.  This child was posterior, and required not ten minutes, but three hours of delivery time.  Three hours?  Seemed like forever.  I know, I know, it's not really that long, but in comparison...  Plus I had to do some real pushing.  Real pushing?  I hadn't had to do that for the last several children.  I had graduated past all that nonsense!  But I pushed anyway, and she eventually made her entrance.  Now, we hadn't found out the gender of this child beforehand, but I was really really really really really really really really hoping for a boy.  Really.  So when she came out a girl...   Well, I was a little dismayed.  It didn't last long, though.  How can you hold a newborn infant and not fall in love immediately? 

We didn't have a name (because she was supposed to be a boy.)  So it was almost 24 hours before she had a name of her own.  Jef wanted to name her Carianne (not sure how we would've spelled it) but I didn't think she looked like a Carianne. (Caryann? Carrie-Ann?)  I didn't have any ideas of my own, though, so we were at an impasse.  (If she would have been a boy, I would've had LOTS of suggestions.)  So finally my parents came to visit us in the hospital, and they came up with Ann Marie. (Like the little girl on All Dogs Go to Heaven) (Even though I don't even like that movie.  But the little girl is cute.)  I wasn't so sure, since Ann Anderson sounds like you're stuttering.  But Ann-Marie Anderson doesn't sound too bad.  And we could call her Annie for short.  That clinched it for me. I've always wanted an Annie.  I was still not sure that Annie Anderson didn't sound silly, but everyone assured me it didn't, so we did it.  I still cringe when anyone calls her Ann.  Not that I don't like the name, I just don't want it to stick and have her end up as Ann Anderson.  She would hate us!  She'd end up getting married at 15 just to have a last name that doesn't start with An.  And yes, we could have named her Carianne and still called her Annie.  sigh.
But she's here, she's named, I didn't have to lose months of my life, and everyone is doing great.