well i have realized that i haven't been posting for awhile. i've been a little busy lately. here's proof. any maybe forgiveness for not posting for so long???

so...am i forgiven? :) James Allan Shuler was born on December 9, 2010 at 4:27 p.m. at Valley Medical Center in Renton, WA. He weighed in at 9 pounds 9.8 ounces and was only 19 1/4 inches long. My shortest! But not my lightest or heaviest. Emma was 9.11, Will was 9.9 and Tommy was my runt at 8.8! Both Will and Emma were 21 1/2 inches long, Tommy was 19 1/2 inches long.

kids' school pictures

Ok, so I'm not a pro at Photoshop as you'll see in Emma's picture. I tried unsuccessfully to get rid of the blue in her nostril. Believe me, I tried! I just couldn't get it right.
Anyway, enjoy! Yes, I know. The boys have what he call "hippy hair" as they are past-due for their haircuts. Still gotta love the personality that comes through their pics!

A Baby Sighting and Some Good News!

Just got home from an O.B. visit and have some good news. My little cutie is 4 pounds and in the 80th percentile, something my doc was concerned about since I have gestational diabetes. He said that Jimmy is not huge as he'd expected him to be, and that's because I've been so good controlling my sugar level.
During the ultrasound the tech just lingered for a bit for me to watch my little guy move his hands over his eyes like he was playing peek-a-boo! What a little cutie. He looks like he has Emma's nose, which I'm so grateful for. He'll have a cute little button turned-up nose and not the huge Norwegian nose I'm afflicted with!
Jimmy is very busy and is head down again, he'd been head up at the last ultra sound. All that moving around has paid off and he's in prime position, if he'll just stay there now!

Emma's toothless grin

So....we went to the dentist this morning and he ended up pulling her teeth. Good news is the x-ray showed that there was no damage to her permanent teeth at all, so that was a relief!
He also thought that the permanent teeth would come in sometime when she was 5, as they were already lower than he thought they would've been for her age. So she probably would've lost them earlier anyway. No harm, no foul.

But I bet she won't jump on the bed anymore!

Something funny happened on the way to making dinner.....well, not funny. But something happened anyway.

This was our evening yesterday:
I was fixing dinner and we hear (Ryan and I) a loud scream followed by lots of crying from Emma and the boys panicking voices telling us that Emma was hurt, Emma was bleeding and it was bad! Naturally we assumed it was a case of over-dramatics, since our kids are prone to over-exaggeration with wounds and blood. I have to say, when they brought Emma to me, I was quite surprised and grossed out. I couldn't even handle the clean up and had Ryan assess the damages to Emma. Her mouth was all bloody and she was screaming and panicking.
Ryan thought maybe she'd bit her tongue or something, given all the blood gushing out of her mouth. No, tongue intact. (whew!) He marched her into the bathroom with a cup to swish and spit so we could see what was going on in her mouth. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity (but really a couple minutes) we realized that when she had been jumping on the boys' bunk bed (the bottom bunk, of course) and hit her mouth on the wood part of the top bunk, she'd knocked her two front top teeth loose. And I do mean loose! It had me so concerned I called our pediatric dental clinic, but it was after hours and the after-hour number didn't work. (naturally) So then I called our family dentist, Brother Leonard in our ward, and got his answering machine. I was beginning to panic myself. I had visions of a toothless 4-year old and no spacers for her permanent teeth. Smiles are so important. Confidence boosters. I didn't want her to have an ugly smile the rest of her life.
So we called President Coleman, from the Kent stake, who used to be our dentist until he retired. So I'm talking to him when the Leonards beeped into our phone. Pres. Coleman told me that the worst that could happen is her teeth die and turn dark, but that what'll likely happen is her teeth will tighten back up.
So I called Bro. Leonard back and he told me to bring Emma over to his house and he'd take a look at her mouth. I. was. relieved. So I piled Emma in the van, plugged his address into our gps system (I love those things!) and headed over to his house. If you've ever seen Anne of Green Gables, then you know the beauty of the countryside of which the Leonards live. Their neighborhood is one of the most beautiful, woodsy areas I've ever seen. And difficult to repeat the venture without that blessed gps voice directing me to turn right and left. I love that computerized man voice.
Well, Bro. Leonard had Emma rest her head on his lap and he looked and looked. He decided there was a possible fracture to her teeth, given that they are set lower than the rest of her teeth now, and had to even bring one of her teeth forward from the back position it was in. I told you these were loose teeth, right? :)
He said that once the bleeding stops and clotting begins it should tighten up the teeth again. And he told me what Pres. Coleman had said, about the possibility of them turning a darker color and falling out. But he said something interesting. He said that it felt like the permanant teeth had already begun coming in, so she might have lost them early anyway. So it's not the end of the world, really. (another whew!)
So our adventure ended when we got home and I made her a smoothie for dinner since she couldn't eat the chicken meal I'd prepared. No biting down on her front teeth for awhile until those teeth either fall out or tighten up.
Proof she's okay today? Tommy and Emma just came running to me tattling on the other one for hair pulling. Everything's back to normal.

My hero

In Relief Society on Sunday our lesson was on humility and we somehow veered to talking about who our heroes were, the people in our lives who we want to emulate or who we admire for some character trait. When all the sisters were shouting out names, "Abraham Lincoln", "my mom", "my neighbor", etc., there was one person who resonated in my mind. It is my mom. Here is why she is my hero.

She raised me. That should be enough said. But it isn't.

She raised all 4 of us! That in itself should be the end. But it isn't.

My dear, sweet, beautiful mom took excellent care of my dad while he was so ill for so many years. She endured countless hours in the emergency rooms of hospitals, many different well-meaning but arrogant doctors and nurses, and having to worry about if the next meal she would fix dad would send him back to the hospital because he couldn't digest the food from his many health complications.

She would vent to me when she needed to, sometimes angry, more often than not, tearful, about how she could help dad feel better. Slowly the role of wife became that of caregiver. Watching her toil and worry daily for her eternal companion is my legacy of love. My example of long-suffering and endurance. My example of how to treat others with compassion, even in the face of complete and utter frustration in the situation that she found herself in.

Now her example of endurance with resolving the beaurocracy of the Social Security Administration and her pension, and her final victory, albeit very small, was very sweet for her. And for me, too.

Mom, I love you more than words can say. You are my hero. My friend. My mommy still. Thank you for being the level-headed confidant when my world seems to be caving in.

Yummy Hamburgers

First you start with the recipe. I went to http://www.allrecipes.com/ and found a great dough recipe; you may want to change for your favorite. Our family really likes this one though.

Ingredients:
2 cup warm milk (110 degrees)
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
1/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup white sugar
2 (.25 ounce) packages instant yeast
2 tsp salt
6 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed

Directions:
1. Personally, I put the milk, water mixture into the microwave until it reaches the right temp. Then while the yeast is dissolving in the milk/water mixture, I melt the butter in the nuker. Then I pour all ingredients into a large mixing bowl (milk/water/yeast mixture and butter, then I add the sugar. I let it sit until bubbly. The internet directions say for 5 minutes, I found that wasn't long enough. More like 8.
2. Next you mix in the flour and stir until sticky. I turned the dough onto a clean and floured counter and kneeded only 3 or 4 times, just to get a nice consistency. Then I put into a tube shape, cut into equal pieces and rolled into balls.  (see pic above)
3. Put the balls onto a greased cookie sheet and let rise 20 mins in a warm kitchen, or while kneeding set you oven to the coldest temp it'll go; once reached, turn the oven off and then put the balls of dough into warm oven. This rises in 20 mins, on the dot!
4. Take the risen dough out of the oven, preheat oven to 375F; bake the rolls for 15 mins. Cool slightly and then split them in half horizontally to fill with your favorite burgers.
Here is a picture of a finished roll. Delish!

So, after the rolls are in the oven, I start the potatoes. Just wash some spuds, then slice them into 1/4 inch slices. Put in a cold water bath to wash out all the extra starch. This takes at least 15 mins. So while the rolls are baking I'm prepping my fries.

After the cold-water bath is completed, you can heat up your frier. First you cook the fries for only about 2 to 3 minutes, let sit for 10. Then you cook in the oil again for about 10 minutes, maybe longer if you have thicker potato slices.
Once done, take out and let drain completely. To make it just that much more unhealthy, sprinkle with Johnny's. Oh, one tip on the fries. Before you put into the oil, make sure the potatoe slices are dried off, or else you'll have some pretty interesting bubbles and splattering. But then, hey, what's a little excitement in the kitchen, anyway, right? It adds spice to life! :)








Here is the finished product, all plated and ready to be served to a waiting family. Great for movie night.

Hamburger and homemade fries

Notice that we do have veggies! So it isn't a complete nutritional wasteland. :) And what's one meal out of the many we serve our families that isn't so great on the food pyramid anyway? It's definitely a cheaper version of eating out at a restaurant, and bonus, the kids will drink milk with their meal at home whereas at a restaurant they'll want pop. So at least there is one redeeming factor, right? Am I justifying too much? Do I feel a little bit guilty that it wasn't a low-fat meal? A little. But you've got to mix it up once in a while and have some fun in your kitchen.

Hope you all enjoyed my first attempt at posting a meal I made. I don't know if I'll do it again. It's a lot of work posting this kind of dialogue.