Belly button blues

Summer was recently looking through photos of her newborn self when she noticed a partial umbilical cord dangling from her belly. She was fascinated as we explained how babies cannot eat in utero and thus received nourishment from this direct link with their mothers. With pride, I told Summer how when she was born I cut her umbilical cord. Her reaction was unexpected. She burst into tears and became hysterical. After calming down a bit, she sobbed:

I don't want my baby brother to be cut!!

Sweet, tender-hearted Summer is already looking after her unborn sibling (with no evidence to support her claims, Summer is 100% certain that she is going to have a baby brother). 

knocked up

so our astute readers and friends have probably already put two and two together.

emily disappearing entirely from the fabric of society has historically only meant one thing: emily is pregnant.

ta-da!

since mother nature has robbed me blind of my maternal right to keep little baby to myself for any significant portion of time, i decided it’s probably best to just be out with it.

i’m pregnant. i’m sick. i haven’t left the house or worn pants (or a bra) or stood entirely upright in weeks, and i probably won’t for many more weeks to come. at least once a day, i think i'm going to die. plus, my skin has turned this strange green color, and my teeth don’t get brushed nearly as often as they should. there. i said it. now everybody knows.

as this is my third pregnancy battling hyperemesis gravidarum, we finally consider ourselves experienced with the condition and have come a long way in our ability to manage the inescapable misery and endless woe (am I being dramatic enough yet?) that is HG.  now, first off, i am grateful every day that i don’t need PICC lines or stomach tubes and that i am not sick for the entirety of my pregnancy (knock on wood), but it’s still a far cry from the early pregnancy experience i’d like to have (that’s right…you know who you are).

sparing the gory details, the long and the short of a day-in-the-life is it’s pretty much like groundhog day around here.  i spend mornings up in my bed, then i move downstairs to the couch, then i move back upstairs to my bed, then i lather, rinse, sleep a bit, and repeat. and inevitably, when I wake up the next day i’m all, “what?!  no, not this again! no more sonny and cher!”

we do home urinalysis every morning  to check ketone levels in my urine and are prepared to go in for IV rehydration at the first sign of trouble.  we closely monitor my body weight (and % body weight lost), and bryan and my mom (my heroes) administer three to six suppositories a day to help me get food in and keep food down. for some reason, breyer’s mint chocolate chip ice cream stays down the best, and i spend a lot of my time eating/trying to eat that. and ice chips.

speaking of my mom administering suppositories, she has mercifully come out to live with us to take care of summer and afton (and me!), for which we can never thank her enough (and also my father for loaning us his dear companion). we learned quickly during  baby number one that our pregnancies, God willing there to be more, would be group efforts, and i owe so much to my family and friends for their support and sacrifice, especially my mother and, an all-too-often unsung hero, my husband.

when i walked into the temple that windy april morning seven years ago with bryan, i could not have imagined the poise with which he would shoulder the great burden of caring for a very sick (and grumpy) wife and two young (and energetic) children, while working his day job and cleaning and cooking and shopping and doing everything that i know you can imagine needs to be done. i picked good.

anyway, while you might not see it in my eyes or hear it in my voice for some time yet, we are thrilled to be welcoming crazy wheeler threeler to the family. i recently saw little baby: giant head, little peanut body, heart beating away, and i whispered to my new babe, "well, hello, there.  so you're what all this trouble is about. (dramatic pause) carry on, then."

we have been waiting and praying and trying for this privilege for a long time. and the moment i discovered we were expecting, i was, as i always am, overwhelmed by that purest of joys and fell to my knees and thanked the Lord. an image of myself i keep close as we wade through the dark days ahead.

emily out.

So long, sweet summer

olive oyl

afton discovered this little gift from mother nature all on her own:

she was all, "mom, look! it's as if they were made to go on my fingers!"

i mean, not in so many words; hers were more like, "mom! fingers!"

but, you know, it's what she meant.

a cherry on top

i finally figured out how to win over those picky kids at the potluck:

 (bryan made me this cool little honey nut cheerios 

cone holder for cupcake transportation. he's handy like that.)

weerez

i am not a spontaneous person. i panic under any kind of last-minute pressure and need a good long stewing process to feel confident in any plans. so pretty much, whenever a waiter comes to take my order, it's like a deer in the headlights. every. time.

but, as the girls and i were on our way to the lake thursday morning, and somewhere between summer's soliloquy on all the many varied activities she wanted to do that day and afton telling me the colors of all the cars that passed by, i overheard a disc jockey on el radio mention that weezer was in town. playing the blue album.

i called bryan right then and asked, "how did we not know about this? is it too late to get tickets? to get *gulp* a babysitter?" and bryan was all, "no way, let's do this."

and so, in a rare moment of emily-sanctioned spontaneity, we did.

weezer's debut album hit the airwaves seventeen years ago and is one of the few albums that both bryan and i know in its entirety. (and c'mon, who was a teenager in the 90s and doesn't?)

all in all, it was a good concert.  nothing like this, but certainly entertaining. as is our custom, we found some comfortable seats with all the other old fogies and lazy folks in the back and watched the young punks crowd surf and climb up on stage and throw things at one another whilst weezer regaled them with songs from our youth (certainly not songs from their youth).

however, with good ol' rivers at the helm, there were definitely some concert quirks.

first off, the band interacted ZERO with the crowd. nothing. nada. no "hi how are you" or profanity-laced song intros. not a word. rivers cuomo sang every lyric on the blue album and pinkerton and gave us not a peep more. and then, the encore was absolutely the worst i'd ever seen. after their quite energetic, hero-worshiping fans begged and pleaded and screamed for them to come back on stage, they played a lame song nobody knew, and we all went home like, "seriously, weezer? that's how you're going to leave us hanging?" i guess so.

fortunately, before that, there was this:



(http://youtu.be/9BZGoKd0iZU)

love birds

hooray for wedding season!

if you're in to the handmade gift-giving scene, here's a lovely one to try:

a printed tea towel set.

learn how here.

zooscapes

three moms, nine kids, great weather, 

(a melt down or two), and dozens of wild animals.

welcome to summer in seattle.

the last birthday post

i know what you're thinking: "no! not the last birthday post?! emily, can you please go 

on and on and on (and on) about yourself and your special day(s)?"

of course i can! 

but i'm just not gonna.

the final festivity of birthday weekend 2011 was strawberry shortcakes 

and games in our backyard with one of our favorite families.

a happy birthday, indeed.

cheers

also in keeping with tradition, i kicked off my birthday with a mighty fine 

carton of i'm-twenty-eight-and-by-golly-i-can-do-what-i-want-to ice cream.

(big shocker, i know.)

thanks, christina.

life's a beach

this year, in keeping with our time-honored tradition of birthday beaches, we were grateful for the good weather and headed down with our buckets and shovels, water bottles, picnic lunch, and pop-up sun shade to lake wilderness in maple valley. 

the wheeler girls love a good day at the beach.

 hey there, afton, like to get dirty much?

summer girl: baywatch babe. 

taking a delicious red vine break. 

if you haven't had the chance to take a wagon to the beach, put it on your list.

your kids will have the time of their lives. 

vingt huit

eat your heart out, twenty-eight.

count chocula

you know, i'm beginning to wonder if the 

wheelers spend enough time eating ice cream.

thoughts?

a sweet treat

i'm really not one to complain about the summer weather around here too much. i mean, i will to be social and all (because when pacific northwesterners get together, a lot of what we do is commiserate about the weather). but to be clear: the rest of this country is BROILING right now, and i do not care -- AT ALL -- to broil. it messes heavily with my precarious comfort level, not to mention my delicate porcelain complexion. 

so clouds, that's fine, a little rain, i can totally deal; as long as it's not 95 degrees with the humidity index we get around here, i'm doing all right. 

besides, i gots me some ice cream, graham crackers, chocolate, and sprinkles -- i can make my own summer.

highly recommend these sweet treats; they are totally kid friendly. cookie ice cream sandwiches tend to get a bit too hard for little toddler teeth (and mine, for that matter) to dig in to. the graham crackers were just perfect. plus, who can go wrong with sprinkles?

Treksplanation

It seems that many of you enjoyed the pioneer photos of Emily, myself, and our temporary family of 9 teenagers. I answered a lot of questions this week about our awesome pioneer trek and figured it would be worth posting the most common of these on the blog.

Where were your horses and oxen?
Between 1847 and and 1869, roughly 70,000 Mormon settlers crossed the plains to settle in the West. The majority of these pioneers traveled by covered wagon pulled by oxen or horses. Some of these faithful members, especially those emigrating from Europe, couldn't afford to travel west by wagon and instead went by handcart. Ultimately, ten handcart companies made the trek west.

Eight of the ten handcart companies had uneventful journeys. Two companies, however, started late in the year and met early blizzards. They faced extreme hardship and experienced mortality rates of nearly 25%. Complete disaster was averted by rescue parties sent by Brigham Young from the Salt Lake valley.

Why a migration?
In the early days of the Mormon church, members had a strong desire to live together in the same communities. As the population of these communities swelled, their non-Mormon neighbors typically grew suspicious of their political and economic clout. Thus, early Mormon history is a series of migration, town building, and persecution, followed by more migration.

In the early 1840s, the main body of the Mormon church had settled in Illinois and had established the city of Nauvoo,  the largest city in the state. Unfortunately, the pattern of growth followed by persecution repeated itself and the church founder, Joseph Smith was murdered in June of that year. Following these events, Joseph Smith's successor, Brigham Young was inspired to take the beleaguered people west to the Great Basin of the United States.

Why a reenactment? 
Every member of the LDS Church owes a debt of gratitude to those early church members who made tremendous sacrifices to come west. Some are direct ancestors of these remarkable pioneers (Emily and I both have progenitors who lived in Nauvoo and trekked West). Others had their faith kindled by missionaries who were pioneers themselves or were descendants of those pioneers. In all cases, each church member has benefited by the legacy of faith left behind by these hearty souls.

Trek was a small reenactment of experiences of those handcart companies. Groups of 9 or 10 teenagers were paired with a Ma and Pa to form a family. Six or seven families formed a company. We were on the trail with a total of 3 companies (more than 200 people!). The goals were relatively straightforward:

1. Strengthen the faith of the participants
2. Pay tribute to our pioneer heritage
3. Gain confidence in our ability to to hard things
4. Have fun with people who share similar values

And watching nearly 200 youth square dance to Katy Perry's "Firework" was quite an impressive sight -- one we're glad we did not miss.

the pioneer prom

the big rock girls

are totally legit.

just another manicure monday?

go bring them in

“Though we have rightly applauded our ancestors for their spiritual achievements (and do not and must not discount them now), those of us who prevail today will have done no small thing. The special spirits who have been reserved to live in this time of challenges and who overcome will one day be praised for their stamina by those who pulled handcarts."

Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Not Withstanding My Weakness

(click on photos to enlarge)

westward ho!

so. tired.

afton's ice cream social

invites and favor tags here.

pettiskirt tutorial here.

thanks to all our tutti-frutti friends and family who made afton's birthday so sweet!