Gustav

Shannon and I were kind of in denial over this whole evacution thing and so we spent Friday night just talking over our options. We finally came to the conclusion that, even though we didn't want to go to the trouble of packing everything up, the consequences of not leaving would have been too big. We spent all day Saturday packing up the house, putting the irreplacble things in the cars and putting everything else up above the water line from Katrina. Finally at six o'clock we pulled on to the freeway and came to a stop. This was expected. We knew we would spend hours sitting on the freeway as we have in past evacuations, so we were somewhat prepared for it and pleasantly surprised when the traffic started moving slowly.

Things slowly got better and by the time some of the traffic started peeling off on I-59, we were feeling pretty good about things. We left the Accord at the temple in Baton Rouge and converted the Van into "sleep mode" at about 8 o'clock. Everything went really smoothly until we got off of I-10 on to I-49. The traffic was awful! It took us until about 3 o'clock in the morning to make it to Marshall Texas (just over the Texas/Louisiana border) and by then the hotel had given away our room...we were not happy. There were no other rooms available anywhere (literally) so we had no choice but to push through to Tulsa. After three 40-45 min naps on the side of the road in empty parking lots and a break at a McDonalds with a playplace once the kids woke up, we pulled into the Tulsa Mission Home by noon on Sunday to stay with Shannon's parents to ride out the storm 700 miles away.

It seems that we sort of dodged a bullet with this storm. According to news reports, it came and is the final stages of leaving and the levees are still holding... We feel really blessed! We had another "moment" on Saturday like we had as we left our house before Katrina wondering if it would be there when we returned. Before Katrina, Shannon swept the floor to perfection and then stowed the broom in the closet before we walked out the door to evacuate. This time was different in that after looking around at the kitchen floor, she figured that the water might just wash the crumbs out the back door. So, instead of wasting valuable time doing minor cleaning, we lifted everything we could at least one foot above the floor and then locked the doors and left. It sounds like she will be sweeping the floor once we reach home, something she'll be more than happy to do!

School has been cancelled until next Monday so we are planning on staying here until Saturday (trying to avoid some of that re-entry traffic) and I will try to catch up on my studying. Once we get home, we will post about how the house held up.

After five hurricane seasons involving three evacuations (Ivan, Katrina and Gustav), two bullets dodged (Ivan and, hopefully, Gustav) and one flooding disaster (thanks to Katrina), we are looking forward to the END of this, OUR LAST, hurricane season!

Bullseye

To leave or not to leave...
This is not helping my step 2 studying!

Announcing Number Six!

We are so excited to announce that we are expecting a baby BOY this January! It seems totally appropriate to welcome another little one to our basketball team/boy's club. Five boys and one girl is a little lopsided, but Peyton and I will continue to hold down the fort as the only female members of our family. (I was going to add the ultrasound pictures but the only pictures that are recognizable are those that identify that he's a boy....hmmm, we'll have to wait to post his picture until he makes his arrival.)
Now, any suggestions on a name for our little guy? Let me know.

School Days

It is hard to believe that the summer is over and school days are here again! It hasn't been easy for me to let three of my little ones leave me all day to attend school, in fact it has been sort of traumatic to have them all start going to school all day long at once. I am suffering some serious withdrawals. I put on a happy face before school started and told Carston, Jackson and Peyton about all the fun things they will be doing in school. Then I cried on the way home after dropping them off for the first two days. I didn't want them to see that it is so hard for me to let them go.

They are all attending Harold Keller Elementary school, which is only about half a mile from our house. Don't they look cute in their school uniforms? I am realizing that while I totally approve of wearing uniforms to school, it sure is easier to put my boys in their uniforms than it is to make Peyton wear a purple shirt every day. Maybe it is because she is my only girl and it is fun for me to dress her in outfits that don't exactly go with the parish's purple pre-k uniform shirt.
Carston is in Ms. Blanque's Kindergarten class. Jackson is in Ms. Jaime's Pre-K class and Peyton is in Ms. Tina's Pre-K class. The Pre-K teachers asked me before school started if it would be okay to separate my sweet twins and I thought it would probably be good for them to be in their own class, but now I am wishing they could be together because they always have been and because I like them having each other.

This is our traditional first day of school picture place, in front of the carport door. It seems to take me forever to get everyone lined up at this door ready for school with lunches packed, homework checked and tummies filled with a hearty breakfast. Hopefully I'll get into a good routine soon that will help me get the kids to school with more than a few minutes to spare before the tardy bell.

Carston, my fearless Kindergartner!

Watch out Pre-K, here come the Calder twins!
Jackson is in the ninetieth percentile for height and, as you see here, Peyton takes after me and is off the charts with her height. Jackson is a tiny bit sensitive about it sometimes, he doesn't like thinking of Peyton as bigger than he is. He has even started calling her his "little sister" since she is technically two minutes younger. I try to explain to him that he'll catch up someday (although it will probably be a few years before that happens).

I hope the kids will learn to love school and learning! Jackson is already the sweetheart of his class, bringing home treasures each day for being good and telling me about all of his new friends. Carston has informed me that I needn't make the flash cards the rest of the class needs, because he already knows all of them. Peyton tells me she likes school so far, but hasn't clearly identified what she likes about it. We'll work on that. Now I just need to talk Grant into staying home with me for another year, instead of begging me to take him to his school each morning after we drop off the other kids.

Happy School Days to my three sweet friends!

Broken Benjamin

The official name for this little crack is a Buckle fracture of the distal left tibia with possible fibula involvement. Benjamin threw himself out of Shannon's arms today at about 4:30 as she was walking in the house after a trip to the grocery store once she'd picked everyone up from school. She was able to catch him and slide him down to the floor, but he landed a little funny on his left leg and fell down. She was worried because he wouldn't put any weight on his leg and couldn't be comforted, so she called me. When I got home, we decided to wait a little while before rushing off to the ER.

By six o'clock he was still not bearing any weight on it, so I talked to Carey Sanders (an orthopedic surgery resident in our ward) whose opinion was that it was probably broken and at least needed an x-ray. Our neighbor Caroline, from across the street, came over to sit with the other kids after we put them down at seven thirty and then Shannon, Benjamin and I were off to Children's Hospital to get a few x-rays of his leg. We must have looked pretty pathetic to the ER doctor as he came into the room because his first comment to us was that it is hard to go through this with your first child (he explained that he was an experienced father of four), but that we would get used to broken bones and visits to the hospital just like he had.

Of course he about fell on the floor when he asked if Benjamin was our first and we calmly met his gaze and reported that Benjamin is the fifth of five and half kids, that this is our third broken bone and that I plan on orthopedics as a career. All things considered, Benjamin has been a real trooper. Although he will have to wear a splint and then a cast for the next 4-6 weeks, he should have a full recovery with no longterm sequelae. He is still uncomfortable and cries if his leg is bumped in any way, but I am sure it is just a matter of time before he learns to wield this temporary handicap as a weapon like the others have done.

Mr Mom

This weekend Shannon was out of town trying to get some much needed R&R. Since Carston was born six years ago she has only had a handful of nights off, so the kids and I sent her to visit Kimberly in NYC for the weekend to recharge her battery before the new baby comes. This video is a prime example of why I am not supposed to be in charge around here.

Notice their glassy eyes and expressionless faces; This was judicious use of the electronic pacifier. When mom is around this thing hardly gets any use and when I am in charge I make a strict rule not to use it more than nineteen or twenty hours a day.
We missed Mom a lot while she was gone, but had a good time playing in the pool and messing around at home as well. I tried to make sure that they ate their veggies, brushed their teeth and made their beds but things were different without mom. It definitely made me realize how much lifting, twisting and bending Shannon does every day!The Lakes were kind enough to document that I was a least able to get the kids to church on Sunday. If you look closely you can even tell that they have their hair combed. I would have been a fool not to go to church...even though sacrament meeting is tough, it has free babysitting for the next two hours. We really missed Shannon and are glad to have her back.

Six Years Old Today!

Today is Carston's golden birthday, his sixth birthday on August 6th. Happy Birthday to my sweet Carston, who made me a mom and has filled my life with joy since he first entered it six years ago. I always tell our kids their birth story on their birthday, a tradition passed to me from Mark's mom. While I told Carston his birth story this morning, I teared up thinking about the feelings I had on the day he was born. There is something unique and magical about holding your firstborn child for the first time (this doesn't take away from the experiences I have had with each of our newborns).

Here is a celebration of Carston's growth over the past six years, one picture for each year:

NEWBORN


ONE YEAR OLD

TWO YEARS OLD

THREE YEARS OLD

FOUR YEARS OLD

FIVE YEARS OLD

JUST BEFORE SIXTH BIRTHDAY

Here is to another wonderful year and a Happy Sixth Birthday to Carston!

This morning, Carston enjoyed our favorite birthday breakfast of whole wheat chocolate chip pancakes with pudding, cream and a touch of chocolate syrup.
After breakfast, he opened a few presents and played with them all morning. He has been asking for T-Rex Mountain for over a year, so that was his big surprise birthday present.
Luckily, Mark had enough foresight to put it all together last night.



We went to Chuck E. Cheese's for lunch and the kids ate pizza and played until it was time to come home for Carston's dinosaur birthday party that started at 2:00 p.m.


The first to arrive to the party was Carston's good friend from school, Joshua. We had dinosaur masks for each child that came to the party. Sadly, due to vacations and other circumstances, only two of Carston's friends actually came to the party. Luckily, Carston has enough siblings who attended the party that it didn't seem empty at all. His other friend, Abbott, came a little later and we kicked off the party with prehistoric fishing in our backyard.




Everyone caught a few fish and traded them in for a prize (a toy dinosaur). It was so hot outside, I didn't know whether or not they would want to do the dinosaur fossil dig out in the sand box.


Carston called this our "dino dig" and it was the hit of the party. The poor boys were sweating profusely as they sifted through the sand with their hands and brushes to find buried dinosaur bones. It was fun to watch them cheer each other on as they found different bones. They were covered in sand that stuck to their damp faces and limbs by the time they found all of the bones they needed to put the fossil together. They worked feverishly with Mark to put all of the bones in the right places and discovered that they had put together the king of all dinosaurs: a T-Rex. Abbott was a bit scared of the T-Rex at first, but then became its biggest fan.

The kids brought the T-Rex under our back porch for some treats and fun with the pinata. We had an edible dinosaur dig in chocolate pudding with crushed oreos and washed it down with apple juice. Then we got the pinata hung properly and everyone gave it their best shot with one of our plastic bats.

Carston chose this pinata a couple of months ago, so he was excited to see it again. The pinata was pretty stubborn and didn't want to crack open enough to allow the treats to spill out, so Mark had to give it the final whack. There was far too much candy in the pinata for the number of children present, so everyone stocked up.


After bearing the extreme heat, we came inside to play a few indoor games. We learned some dinosaur facts and then the kids went on an egg hunt to find their baby dinosaurs. Some of the eggs had puzzles in them and others had dinosaurs in slime (just what little boys love).

Finally, we sang to Carston and ate his birthday cake. While we were singing, Carston's friend Joshua insisted on posing with him in this picture. It was kind of funny.

I love Carston's flushed face in this picture. He was hot and sweaty from being outside earlier, but was having such a good time he hardly said anything about it. Even though not many of his friends were able to come, the party was a success. (Now, what to do with all of the extra party favors etc.?) It is hard to tell by looking at the cake, although it is a masterpiece of my engineering, but there is an active volcano on top created by a doughnut I covered in frosting. The volcano is covered in volcanic rock (oreos) and spewing hot lava from deep within. The candles are dinosaurs and there were six of them although I can only see five of them in this picture. I tried to make it look like the lava had flowed out into the words: "Happy B-Day Carston", but it didn't work as well as I would have liked. All in all, I figured I couldn't go wrong with moist chocolate cake infused with melted chocolate chips and covered with tons of frosting. It tasted better than it looked.

I've already decided that next year's party will have to be held at a fun party place where almost everything is included. That was a lot of work! Carston will probably change my mind though.