Andrea is Crawling!!!! WoooHOOOOO!

She is 1 year, 3 weeks old, so it is long overdue, but she is FINALLY crawling! Can you tell that I am pleased?

At her 1 year checkup, her doc said he wants me to consult with an early intervention specialist since she was not saying words or crawling yet. Since then she has jumped up a few notches on the developmental scale. She jabbers more and I'm picking out a few words among all the strings of sound. Things like "Yeah", "Bottle", "Ma", "Da" and I could swear she says "Hungry". I haven't been too worried about her slight delay on all this. Gwyneth was the same way -- slow on her gross motor skills and talking, but leaps and bounds ahead with fine motor skills, problem solving, and general smartness. Andrea seems to me to be the same as her big sister.

I would post a photo, but alas, right now I have no camera. More on this as I continue on with my vacation blogs... I don't want to ruin the suspense.

Today I was up at 5 am to get the family up and dressed in time to snap a few last photos of Mom and Dad with the kids. After he said some quick goodbyes, Dad was off to work. We packed up the car, said more goodbyes to Grandma and Mom and then hit the road by 7 am.

We reached Nauvoo, IL at about 3:30 and checked into our spacious motel room. I'm really not kidding about it being spacious. This place was great. Two large bedrooms, a full kitchen, complete with cookware and table settings, two bathrooms and a nice sized living room. Next time I go to Nauvoo I am definitely booking a room there again.

At around 5 we drove the 2 miles into town. We went to the visitors center first and posed a few photos in front of the statues in the Monument to Women. Then we drove around the old Nauvoo sites to orient ourselves and ended up at the Mississippi River crossing site. The kids had a lot of fun frolicking on the riverbanks.

What is it about water that draws us to it? Maybe it's not so for everyone, but I feel so at peace when standing on the bank or the shore of a waterway, especially a waterway as majestic as the Mississippi. I can't seem to get enough of the cool moist air blowing on my face and the hypnotic sounds of leaves rustling, frogs croaking and the moving water. My kids seem to feel that too, and maybe part of it was the reverence of this specific place, but we all were a little sad when it was time to get back in the car and move along.

After we left the river, we did few geocaches, then went back to the motel. The kids all had baths and changed into their PJs right before the lightning bugs came out, so Alex and Ellie had no choice but to romp around on the edge of the corn field in their pajamas catching lightning bugs. We converted an empty water bottle into a firefly lamp that they kept by their bed until morning.

Today we went to Green Bay and met Dad for lunch. He gave us the nickle tour of Precision Graphics and I was glad to meet his boss, Steve, and the office dog Hannah. Hannah is a gentle and lovable German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix that Steve rescued from euthanasia after he witnessed her getting hit by a truck. Hannah has a very long and amazing story that surrounds her, but that's for a different time. Now she is a therapy dog that Steve takes to the hospital to cheer up anyone there that needs it.

After lunch we went to find a multi-part geocache in a large, wooded, Green Bay park. We almost didn't find the second part of the cache, which would have left us unable to continue, but Scott stayed at it until he figured it out and located the canister that contained the coordinates for the next part of the hunt. By the end we had trudged through a creek, risked poison ivy and braved the hoards of mosquitoes and ticks. It was a blast, but Scott lost his sunglasses somewhere in the thick underbrush. That was kind of a bummer.

The photo above is of Gabrielle holding a frog she caught by a marshy area of the park. In the end she decided to let him go because even if she did kiss him and turn him into a prince, she figured he would have been too young to marry.

This morning Scott and I had a breakfast for two at OJs Midtown Diner in Gillett. OJs is the local dive that cooks a cheap breakfast like you wouldn't believe and claims to have the best pies in the state. I have to admit that I haven't tasted every pie in the state of Wisconsin, but OJs pies are pretty dang good. I love the country cooking here, but it's not doing my waitstline any favors.

Later Mom, Alex, Gabrielle and I went to the Amish Furniture and Craft store. Mom had her eye on a leaded glass photo frame. She was thinking of getting it to frame the four generation photo we took on this trip, but decided not to spend the money right now. On our way out of the store I picked it up and bought it for her as a belated mother's day gift.

Most of the rest of the day was filled in with shopping and laundry in preperation for getting back on the road early Wednesday morning.

We did find time at the end of the day to plant a new geocache. Underhill was woefully deprived of any geocaches, so we converted a big water jug into a camo-colored duct tape covered cache container. If you want any more details on how to find it you will have to look up the coordinates for the Old Underhill Depot cache on geocache.com.

Day 8:
Today was the "Finnegan Lake Walley Club Kid's Day." Finnegan Lake is a tiny lake right next to Gillett. The first Saturday of June they do the Kid's Day. They had free hot dogs, hamburgers, drinks and snacks. Each kid got a free lunch cooler and free rides on the pontoon boats. At the end of the day, they draw names for the kids to win prizes. Gabrielle won a little tackle box and Alex won a new fishing pole. Plus Alex, Gabrielle and Gwyneth all came home with new life jackets.

Ruth and Jim, neighbors to my parents, let us go out in their fishing boat. A total of almost 35 blue gill were caught by our group alone. But alas, by the time I had a turn in the boat, the fish had had their fill and weren't biting. Scott will tell you that the catch count for the day was around 50, but he's telling fish stories on that one.

Day 9:
I went to Sacrament meeting with mom this morning. She has a nice ward. They were very welcoming. Mom and Grandma had to step out for a few minutes, leaving Alex and I sitting by ourselves. At least a dozen people came up to introduce themselves and shake our hands.

After church I had a nice long nap, then it was time for the fish fry. Ruth and Jim got out their turkey fryer and cooked up all the fish we caught yesterday. It was REALLY yummy. We also has some homemade baked beans and potato salad. It was good company and good food. The perfect Sunday.

Today I got up at 4:30 to drive 90 miles (one-way) with Dad on his one sales call of the day. He has been working a lot more than he planned, so it was nice to have some time to visit with him. On the way back from Dad's appointment near Wausau, we stopped for a little R and R. First on the agenda was a stop at a nearby geological marker. It was at located at the coordinates of N 45 degrees and W 90 degrees. That marks the exact center of northwest quatrant of the globe, halfway between Greenwich, England and the International Date line and halfway between the equator and the North pole. Ok, so driving any distance at all to get to a coordinate with nice round numbers isn't everyones "thing", but we had fun.

Next was breakfast at a little family diner. One of the breakfast specials was the Johnsonville Brat Breakfast, with a bratwurst, eggs and potatoes. It sounds a little odd, but how could I pass up such a Wisconsin specialty as brats. It really was quite good and after being in the car for a few hours we were both hungry. For one final stop on our way home, I took dad to his first geocache located at Pine Park in Wausau.

Later we all went geocaching in Shawano and found the two caches that eluded us yesterday. We tried for quite a while to find a new cache at a Shawano park, but it was well hidden, or missing, and we never did find it. No matter though, because we had a great time hanging out together and the kids had a good romp in the park.

Day 6:
This afternoon we went geocaching with Scott's new GPS. We found two of the four we tried for, but we are planning to get some clues off the internet to find the others. Between geocaches, we found a little fudge shop (YUM!), then went to do a little grocery shopping. We also bought the kids some beads because they wanted to make some jewelry for their Granny. The kids spent the rest of the day busily beading.

My Grandma and Andrea have really taken to each other. Grandma can't get enough of holding her great-grand baby and Andrea loves all the attention. They both light up when the other is around. It is really very heartwarming to watch them together.

Today we mostly rested and bummed around Mom and Dad's house all day. Gwyneth wouldn't settle down for a nap, she kept saying she wanted to get in the car and go home, so we put her in the car and drove for a while until she fell asleep.

Some family friends came over for dinner and we had a big birthday celebration for my Grandma (85), Andrea (1) , Scott (35), and Gabrielle (9) who all have May birthdays. After a spaghetti dinner, Andrea's favorite, we dove into a gigantic ice cream cake. Andrea had her own personal 1st birthday cake and she enjoyed it immensely. She giggled and smiled and waved her arms, all the while becoming more and more coated with cake and icing. It took a whole team of us to clean up after she eaten her fill. I drew the short straw to put her in the tub, the dogs helped clean up the floor, and my mom and Grandma tackled cleaning the high chair.

Dad and Scott were excused from serving on the cleanup crew because they had to leave right after dinner to help a neighbor tend to an ill family member. They helped take him to the ER and didn't get home until after 1 am.

I'm home now, but I want to get all this stuff down. It was a fantastic trip.

Day 3: Crazy Horse Mountain, Mt Rushmore, and a little driving.

I got a much better night of sleep last night. Andrea woke up once at about 3:30, but she went right back to sleep. We kind of lazed around the hotel for a bit this morning, so by the time we got up and dressed, had breakfast, re-packed the suitcases and loaded the car it was 11 am. Our late start didn't bother me. After all, I'm on vacation!

Crazy Horse Mountain was neat, as always. For those that don't know, it is a mountain carving similar to Mt Rushmore, but MUCH bigger (all four faces on Rushmore would fit on Crazy Horse's head). Crazy Horse is a native American hero and the memorial is intended to honor his people and his legacy. It depicts him on horseback with his arm extended, finger pointing with the caption "My lands are where my dead lie buried." We didn't see a big difference in the carving since we were there about 5 years ago, but that's not really surprising considering the scale of the project. The sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski, passed away a number of years ago, but the project is now run by his wife and 7 of his 10 children. It is also slow going because the project is funded completely by donations. When it is complete, it will have not only the sculpted mountain, but also a huge complex at the base of the mountain dedicated to native Americans, including a college. It really is an inspiring place. The kids each took a piece of granite that had been cut away from the mountain.

Next we traveled another 20 minutes down the highway to Mt Rushmore. The forecast was for afternoon thunderstorms, but it only rained for a few minutes, and that was while we were eating lunch in the visitors center, so it didn't interrupt our day at all. We strolled along the boardwalk path that winds it's way to the base of the mountain, but about halfway around the loop we came upon a lot of stairs. Since we had the babies in the stroller, we turned back. We were all impressed with the "glittery" look of the soil. There were so many fragments of quartz on the ground that everything shimmered in the sunlight. On our way to the car we were greeted by a mountain goat in the parking lot. Each time I have visited the Black Hills I leave wishing I could spend more time there. This trip was no different.

After Mt Rushmore, we planned to drive for quite a while. I was hoping to make it at least to Mitchell, or even Souix Falls, SD, but Alex became quite car sick, so we stopped at Murdo and found a Days Inn. We had dinner at the Rusty Spur Steak House/Saloon. It took way too long and the food wasn't as good as we were hoping, but we did make it back to the hotel in time for the kids to have a quick dip in the pool before bed.

Day 4: LOTS of driving.

Knowing we had a long road ahead of us, we got up at 6, breakfast at 6:30, and were on the road by 7:30. We kept Alex well drugged with Dramamine and forbid him from reading in the car in the hopes that the motion sickness would stay away. I was behind the wheel all day and we arrived at my parents house at just after 7pm. Mom had a huge batch of yummy BBQ ribs and trimmings ready and waiting for us, which we devoured quickly, messily, and gratefully. Thanks, Mom!

Day 2:

Last night we got next to no sleep. For some reason Gwyneth is afraid of this hotel room. When we come to our our room and open the door to come in she, starts backing away and keeps saying "Scary." I have no idea why.

The only way I could get her to sleep was to have her in bed with me. That worked ok except for her all night kicking. Then our wee one woke up at about 3:30 screaming her head off. Gwyneth was sound asleep so I got up and took Andrea down to a lounge to sit and give her a bottle. Apparently G woke up and found me missing and completely freaked out. Who knows maybe she thought the scary hotel room had eaten her mother and baby sister. She eventually cried herself to sleep and was still asleep when Andrea and I came back to the room at about 5 am.

Despite the rough night, we had a fun day. We took a tour of Wind Cave. It is the fourth longest cave in the world and has some very unique formations called box work.

After the tour we had a nice picnic lunch. Nice until the insect kingdom started making some rude appearances. I got bit on the foot by a nasty black ant. A few minutes later Alex said he thought he had a bug in his ear. It was a tick. Fortunately it hadn't planted itself yet and I was able to easily grab it out with a pair of tweezers. I told him that in the Midwest ticks commonly fall out of trees onto people. Now he won't set one foot under a tree without his hiking hat on. A few minutes after that another black ant found its way up Baby G's pant leg and bit her. Then we left.

After dinner we went to Mammoth Site. It is an excavation of mammoth bones from animals trapped in a water filled sink hole about 10,000 years ago. It is a dig that is still in progress. It was really quite interesting. The picture at the top is of my four cuties in a replica hut showing how mammoth bones and hide may have been used to build shelters.

It was a full day, but a fun day. I'm REALLY hoping for everyone to sleep well tonight.

Oh, and today is Gabrielle's 9th birthday. Happy Birthday to my girl!  : )

Today was the first day our our road trip to visit my parents in Underhill, Wisconsin. We stopped for a short tour at Martin's Cove, WY and a picnic lunch at Independence Rock which is just a few miles past Martin's Cove.

While we were at Martin's Cove a woman approached us and was taken with the extreme cuteness of our kids. (Who can blame her!) She politely asked me for permission to photograph my kids. After she took the photos and cooed over the babies a bit more she said, "Now where did my husband get to? He was right here a minute ago."

I said, "What does he look like?"

"Well, I don't know if you have heard of him, but his name is Gerald Lund."

"Well yes, that does ring a bell!"

For those that don't know, Gerald Lund is a General Authority in our church, as well as the author of the popular LDS fiction series (books and movies) titled "The Work and the Glory". He is something of a Mormon celebrity. Sister Lund was going to introduce us to him, but he had wandered off to places unknown so we we never did get a chance to shake hands with him.
Somewhere out there Gerald Lund and his wife may end up with a photo album containing pictures of my kids.  : )

My husband is left handed and has longed for at least one left handed offspring to be the receptacle of his 35 years of left handed wisdom. He was hopeful that our red-headed, curly haired, blue-eyed bundle of recessive genetic material (also known as Gwyneth) would be left handed, but she clearly favors her right hand, just as our first two children and I do.

Andrea, our fourth and final child, is his last hope for a southpaw. It looks like he may have hit the jackpot this time. According to my Google search for "left hand baby", preference for the right or left hand can begin to be observed as early as 6-9 months of age. She is 10 1/2 months old now and grabbing everything that she can reach. (And I am constantly amazed at what she can reach! Sometimes I wonder if she's telekinetic and uses the power of her mind to draw her targeted item to with the reach of her tiny arms, but anyway...) I hadn't really stopped to notice her preference of hands until I was recently scrubbing her VERY grimy high chair. All the ick and goo that had once served as her finger food before it slipped out of her hand, down the legs of the chair and onto my wood floor were almost exclusively on one side -- her left. Since then I have been watching her choice of hands when she reaches for things and she almost always chooses to grab with her left hand.

For me, living with a lefty husband is kind of nice because I always know where to find him. Back when we took romantic hikes in the desert, and all we had to think about was each other, he would use his strong left hand to hold my right hand and keep me from slipping on the slick rock. Now our strolls usually include 4 busy kids and we both need both our hands to keep up with them. Sitting in a restaurant booth, he is always to the left so we don't bump elbows while we eat. If we are sharing popcorn in a movie theaters, he always sits to my left so we can both have a more comfortable angle to reach inside the bucket. I've heard that some newlywed couples take a while to settle in on which side of the bed belongs to whom, but not us. Right from the beginning, my husband slept on the left side of the bed and I took the right. It was just natural because we can both reach our night stands and reading lamps easier that way.

I don't pretend to know what it is like to live life as a lefty, but my husband seems to like it. It seems to me like it would be annoying at best, but maybe if you live your whole life that way, and never get a chance to know the convenience of life as a right-hander, you are just used to it and don't think much about it. On the "other hand" (hehe), I can see how it may give you kind of a cool sense of identity -- something special about you that helps you stand out from a crowd.

As for Andrea, don't worry because I know that babies can change their preferred hand, and what seems like an obvious dominance of her left hand now may change back and forth for another year or two. We aren't out to make her into something she is not, be it right or left. Still, I know what my husband is hoping for.

I love spring, but spring hates me. I love the crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, daffodils, flowering trees, new green grass, lilacs and all the other beauty of the season. Yet every year as I go out to bask in the warm spring sun, or walk in the grove of trees by the creek, I get slapped in the face by allergies. This year I was optimistic that I could have an enjoyable spring because I am no longer pregnant or nursing, which leaves me free to take allergy decongestants. But no, this is turning out to be maybe even worse than past years. The meds keep me from sneezing and waking up with sore throats, but now I have a whole list of other stuff going on. I am sick of hiding inside all spring and being forced to sleep with my window shut. I'm mad as #*^& and I'm not gonna take it any more!

Most of the time my symptoms aren't severe, although there are times when they spike. Lately the frequency of those spikes seems to be increasing. But more bothersome to me is that I persistently feel generally crumby. I feel like it is having a real impact on my life and on my daily productivity.

Maybe my doctor and I are both wrong and it's not allergies, but I am bound and determined to get to the bottom of my fatigue, headaches, dizziness and ringing ears. To that end I have started a health log. I am tracking environmental conditions such as barometric pressure, pollen counts, and other daily weather conditions. I am also tracking, hour by hour how I feel during the day, what I eat, my activities, and what medications I take. I am trying to get ready for a long haul before I get some real answers and maybe (dare I hope) a cure, but my thinking is that if I can gather as much info as possible over a period of time, then maybe my health care providers can better diagnose and treat my conditions. Maybe it's not allergies at all. Maybe it is allergies and tracking all this stuff will help to zero in on exactly what is causing most of my problems.

Wish me luck!  : )

This weekend we went with my in-laws and took their new 5th-wheel trailer out for it's maiden voyage. We stayed at a little camp ground by Baker Lake in the southern Utah desert near the tiny town of Veyo. We had a great time fishing (although no fish were biting), snuggling by the campfire (although it was too cold and windy for a camp fire the first night) and enjoying the luxury of an in-house toilet and hot shower (although the fresh water tank in the trailer ran out 3/4 of the way through the outing).

Still, you could hardly call our experience "roughing it" since their huge trailer was big enough to accommodate an impromptu Mexican polka dance fiesta during the day (we found a miraculously playable CD of Mexican music by the lake) and give all four adults and five million children a warm and comfy place to sleep at night. OK, so in truth there where only five kids sleeping in the trailer, and four of them were mine, but somehow it seemed like a lot more.

So last October we went to the same place and took another picture -- this time with the welcome addition of our then 4 month old baby.

But then we were right back with the problem of where to have the print made. Finally, a graphic designer where my husband works suggested Graphik (www.graphikUSA.com) . They do all kinds of signs and photo prints. Everything from our family photo to neon signs to the giant full color pictures that adorned the buildings of downtown SLC during the 2002 Olympics. And we are told that it will NOT fade. (Time will tell.) I was nervous that a company like this that deals in large orders and corporate clients would be expensive, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it would only cost $40.

We picked up our print today and it is beautiful. It is 16x20, printed on canvas and mounted on a hard backing. It would have been half the price that if I had opted out of the canvas.