Someone had a birthday last month ... Joy

For Joy's birthday we spent a lot of time together. Normally that means playing board games while the children are asleep, but I've been too tired with seminary for much of that.

We were very blessed with friends who wanted to babysit the children for us. So we went to see Macbeth. Or, we went and saw half of Macbeth at Tarleton. That whole "too tired to stay up late for seminary" showed up again, and Macbeth IS after all one of the more bloody of Shakespeare's tragedies ... so we called it a night a bit early (much to Joy's relief; she asked me the next night to never show her Macbeth again).

In review, Lady Macbeth did a great job. She spoke most clearly and was readily understandable. Most of the cast had no real feeling for the language, and much was lost in trying to sound Shakespearen and like Brooklyn gangsters at the same time. Macbeth's Marlon Brando impression fell flat and the lighting on every single one of his soliloquies was horrid. They were trying for a half-light/half-shadow effect, but it ended with the half facing away from the crowd lit and the whole face facing us shadowed, or the "window" outline covering his eyes and the top half of his face, leaving his mouth visible. The witches also blew their lines all to bits -- so excited about racing around the stage and cackling that if I hadn't known the prophecy by heart I never would have known they said he would be king. So, yeah, we weren't missing out too much in the second half, we're guessing. Most of the cast was also in Alice in Wonderland that we saw just before that, a 30-min production. The kids loved it to pieces. The actors did better in Alice than in Macbeth.

We also had a glorious drive to the Dallas Temple. Some friends in the ward drove up at 5am (from nearly an hour away!) so that we could leave before dawn. As we drove through the early morning mist and watched the sun rise, we had just the happiest, most peaceful time and drew closer as a couple. A very, very happy morning.

We enjoyed a morning at the local corn maze (pictures must be somewhere) and we went to the Chinese place for their ice cream - only hard-serve place in town.

Joy has always loved ice cream cakes, but this year she had me remake the ice cream too - we bought some dark chocolate, to which I added cookie pieces, and then arranged slabs of ice cream, more cookies, and chocolate/whipped cream layers. Add some Nutella to that and you've got a really good cake!

We also took several walks along the local trails as a family. 

Here are some more pictures of Joy and the happy children opening her presents. "I got books from my favorite author, Sarah Eden."

Hoo's there?

 

Parody: Our father just said brrrr

Superstar and I tend to be the most impervious to changes in temperature in our home. But when it drops from the 80s to 39 degrees, even Dad can get a little chilly. Here's a song for the morning to the tune of Rejoice, the Lord is King!

Our father just Brrrr! It's cold 'cause our dad said brrr.
Everyone come inside and put on a sweaterrrr!
Put on some socks! Put on a hat!
It really is as cold as that.
Put on a layerrrr and say a prayerrrr
Because our father just said Brrrrr!

JT gets his milk groove back

For something like 3.5 months, John-Thomas has not been allowed to have anything with milk-products in it. He's had some tummy troubles for years and that was the latest suggestion from the doctor after they stuck probes up his nose and down into his intestines.

It looks initially like it might have done some good. While he was in Utah, JT's gagging decreased. When they got home, it was only a once-a-week kind of thing, so it looked like this was a big part of the solution. By now, though, he's back to where he started and showing no improvement whatsoever.

We drove out to Denton to see the doc again, and he confirms it sounds like milk is not the solution. He now informs us that there were not only a lot of white blood cells in his intestines, but also a lot of histamines, so it's definitely allergy related and probably dietary but it might be environmental too. The thing is, the allergy testing he did came up with mostly negative results or minor results, 0+ or so. The only thing that is a 2 he doesn't eat regularly and he has nothing that came in at a 3-6, which is normally when a body gets noticeably bothered by something.

We know JT has environmental allergies - we do and he and Superstar both react to the allergens around here at the same time we do. So the next step is to take him to our allergist and get him properly tested for food and environmental allergies and go from there.

As we were driving to the doctor, JT calmly asked, "Is life supposed to be hard?"
Joy's inspired answer was Yes, but it's also supposed to be joyful.

To celebrate the return of milk and a couple other milestones in his young life, we took him to get a milkshake.

What have we learned from our grand 3.5 month experiment? We could totally live off soy milk (for cooking and baking) and almond milk (chocolate flavor for drinking) in an emergency. It keeps for a year and is a lot yummier than powdered, so I'm thinking this will become a fixture in our food storage.

While I'm talking about food, I'll mention that Joy started the Naturally Slim program I went through 2 years ago. We liked it when I was doing it; we like it again as Joy goes through. So we're going to be implementing some of the elements of it at home on a regular basis, trying to teach the kids to take small bites (as Princess always has), to pause between bites (the way JT does), and to be more aware of when they're full (Superstar can even say no to cake when he's full). After eating 10 minutes, pause for 5; oh, and no sweets after today until Halloween, and from then on
we'll be more purposeful with our sweets.

Funny little things on a Wednesday

I love the form I get from work, asking me if I have anything that falls under export controls. To help me know if I do, they give me examples, starting with military aircraft, and including nerve toxins and nuclear weapons. *LOL* Yeah, lemme look around a bit. Might have one hiding under this textbook. Ah, the life of an economics professor is delightfully dull. Except, of course, at home:
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The little one got to go on a field trip to the fire station with his Christian pre-school. The coolest thing he saw? A dog picking up a cell phone in its mouth.

He's got a doctor visit Friday. "That means I won't have Bible study!" he moans.
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When I came home, my daughter handed me a folded piece of paper with a barely concealed excitement. I read the invitation ... to a balloon's birthday party. Held two hours ago. "Oh. Then it's tomorrow." I'll be teaching a class then. "Saturday!" Saturday it is.
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The older one is writing a book that includes several of the other boys at school. He told me before bed how he is trying to convince the character representing one of his friends to become his evil henchman, but the character refuses.
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I came up with a new parody for my trade class at the beginning of the year to the tune of Uptown Funk. I have been chomping at the bit for us to cover enough of the class that the song will make sense. Tomorrow is the debut!

Except for last night at the dinner table. The two older kids enjoyed it very much and were proud that they got to hear it first. I was just pleased I remembered the lyrics without a cheat sheet!

Someone had a birthday a while back: me

I turned 40 just before school started, so that happened.

Joy made me this glorious chocolate peanut butter lasagna cake... that no one else liked. So I get to eat it ALL by MYSELF! I worked through a good piece of it over the next week and froze the rest. Wonderful, decadent, gooey, scrumptiousness! I got the recipe from a Facebook video - thanks to those of you who like tempting people with glorious recipes!

Thankfully for the rest of the family she also made some vegan chocolate cake muffins. That goes along with JT's non-dairy diet, so everyone could enjoy those. It's the recipe we got from Moosewood in Ithaca

My biggest present easily was having Joy return home with our two youngest in tow. Three weeks without my sweetheart were long and hard, even if Superstar and I could enjoy an amazingly long board game tournament.

I got some nice presents, including an expansion for Terraforming Mars, a food scale to weigh ingredients to a tenth of a gram, a couple new board games, some sheet music, and a lovely collection of books I've started working my way through.

I decided I really wanted a pinata this year, so I got this giant dinosaur. We had fun making a short movie of the JT running away from the dinosaur (below the fold).

Farewell to a hymn

With the First Presidency's announcement that Sunday meetings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will be shortened to two hours, there are a lot of changes. For the most part, I am excited to move forward and see what the Lord has planned. When they announced three years ago that they were going to put a renewed and increased emphasis on making the Sabbath a delight, and worshipping at home, I had no idea they were preparing us for this. And who knows what this is preparing us for!?

But amid the rush and excitement, I do need to mourn for one of the changes. I need to in part because I know almost no one else will mourn its passing: The second hour will not begin with a hymn.

John-Thomas and the noodle nose

I've mentioned that John-Thomas needed to have a procedure done where they inserted a probe down his nose to scope out his intestines and find out what's going on. That was in late June.

I drove him up to the Cook's Children Hospital in Dallas. He took a teddy bear and a Sonic Underground CD for comfort.

They had a TV on with some cartoons. Gotta say, the cartoons they make today are weird and ugly. While I can appreciate the weirdness, the ugly was quite off-putting. He got bored with them quickly.

Finally they gave him the "giggle juice" and wheeled him away. The doc spoke to me eventually and said everything had gone perfectly and they found nothing unusual yet.

30-60 minutes later he woke up.

He was not terribly happy to be awake. Groggy and disoriented, he was very upset that his arms were in these two sleeves that stopped him from taking the noodle out. He got a yummy popsicle to eat and then we went to IHOP to try feeding him something before our long drive home.

Folks at IHOP were understanding. JT got to watch some 1960s Spiderman as a distraction, but Sonic Underground int he car was Much preferred.

Poor little guy got all the cuddles and snuggles he wanted, watched TV all day, and was loved and comforted in any way possible.

He finally fell asleep and stayed down the whole night. The next morning, we got to take the noodle out and I delivered it back to Cook's the next morning first thing.

They didn't find any major acidity problems, certainly nothing connected to his eating times. So that's when and why the doctor told us it was time to take all the deliciousness dairy out of his diet. He's done remarkably well like that so far.

Health updates

A non-dairy pizza

John-Thomas - The probe in his stomach determined he has too many white blood cells and that whatever's going on in his intestines is probably aggravated by a very mild food allergy. As a first step we took him off milk, with instructions to bring him back in two months.

Two months (and a few gallons of chocolate almond milk) later, JT is doing better. He has gone from gagging almost every day to only gagging 1-2 times a week. Sounds like it has helped but may not have been everything. We'll have to monitor a little longer.

Just a tiny tickle

Princess - Originally the x-rays were not the best and the doc couldn't see an actual break in her arm. He figured it must have been a very mild fracture, casted her, and told us to come back in a couple weeks. After Joy got back from UT, we brought her in and this time he got a better x-ray. It turns out she knocked a piece of her elbow clean off! She'll be in a cast for 3 months total at a minimum and is supposed to not put weight on that arm, but that's a really tall order with this one.

Princess also got glasses. She's got my astigmatism and has trouble seeing at a distance like both of us. She likes her new pretty pink glasses and she cleans them 7 times a day.

First day of school: pre-K for reals, 2nd, 5th

Superstar is doing just fine. His last turn was long enough, he can enjoy the time off.

A few days after

I had a topaz surgery in my ankle for my tendonitis, which is where they poke you with a hot needle in a checkerboard pattern in the hopes of jump-starting the body's healing process again to cure scar tissue. I will have been in a walking boot for something like 6 weeks before graduating to a regular boot again. When I went in this week, the tendon was still plenty tender, but that particular area doesn't appear to be hurting while I teach so far. So, progress, maybe?


Joy is back in Utah. When she got back home two weeks ago, we planned to send her back this weekend without the kids in tow and then again a month later. Turns out Grandma was transferred to a new facility the very day Joy flew out to see her! Joy has spent this weekend moving Grandma's stuff from Logan to Ogden, and helping her get settled in. We're very glad about the move - the staff there should be able to give her more of the care that she will need and they managed to convince her to get back on her medications, so that should help stabilize her too.

As evidence of the good Joy has been doing, Grandma was stable while Joy was with her last month, but as soon as Joy got back home to us her mother was back in the ER again. Hopefully this new facility will be able to help. (Mind you, we have no complaints about the other facility. They were patient and took good care of her for over a decade by my count. Grandma just needs a higher level of care than before.)

A childhood trauma, fondly remembered

I originally wrote this post in 2010 on our other blog, but something I read online reminded me of it and I wanted to share it again. Because it's funny.

Kids normally go through a stage of babbling random consonants as they practice sounds. Over time, these babblings start to sound like words. Then they become words. We've been trying to figure out this one sound Superstar [then 21 months old] LOVES making. What could he possibly be saying? We haven't agonized over it, but it has occasionally given his father some consternation.

Joy figured it out last night and as she told me, I leaned my head against our coat racks and relived an event from a couple decades ago..... (wavy flashback effect)

Ants have preferences

An ant colony is entering our house through a crack under our dining room table that I haven't been able to eradicate yet. This has given us a great incentive to keep the table and the floor under it really clean. We don't always succeed, though, and our mishaps have occasionally taught me some interesting things about ants and their ability to express their preferences.

I learned that ants have preferred foods and that they will completely ignore other foods if they have a more-preferred option available. For each of the following pairs, pick which one you think our ants attacked: (answers below the fold)

Cherries or grapes?
Bananas or bread crumbs?
Water used to heat frozen vegetables or flat, sugared cream soda (from Dublin)?

Thursday Throwback - Balboa Park 2

I was so sad when I realized the CD with half of Aunt Jacquie's photos of us at Balboa Park for our wedding was broken. Imagine my joy, then, (pun intentional) when I discovered we had TWO copies of each CD, and the replacement copy works! Here are some more favorite pictures from the day before Joy and I were sealed.

Throwback Thursday - Family pictures after the wedding

May 28, 2005

Our triumphal exit from the temple.

So, funny little story about our least-favorite part of the day: In a wedding at an LDS temple, you don't need a tux or any of the usual worldly finery, so I wore my temple clothing for the wedding. After the ceremony, I went to change and only then realized I'd left the tux in the car. We sent my brother to find it (after he got changed). He got lost, I think. Dad went to find him. It took a while. Eventually they found me again and I got dressed and came out to find Joy.

She meanwhile had been waiting for me. Really brand-newly married and her husband was nowhere to be found! For more than half an hour! It was very disconcerting. When I finally emerged, one of the temple workers had her hide and made me spend some time waiting on her. "That's the way things are supposed to be! The man waiting on the woman!" So I waited in a side room until we could be rejoined. It really was her least-favorite part of the wedding day. So when we emerged from a side door to find our families waiting (patiently) on the two of us, it was truly a moment of triumph. Let the wild rumpus start!

In the 13 years since, I can say I spend very little time waiting on Joy to get ready. I am a blessed man, in many ways.


The rest of the pictures are of our family. I'm labeling everyone for family history purposes

Throwback Thursday - Balboa Park

The other day we very nearly lost our family computer - the one with all the pictures we've saved up for forever. I realized that, while I used to be diligent about backing things up, the advent of cloud computing and transferring every file to the next computer had made me lazy. As I'm going back, restoring old pictures to the current computer so I can put them on more modern devices, I know I want to preserve some pictures.

Joy's Aunt Jacquie flew out to San Diego with us to take pictures the day before our wedding (and the day of) at beautiful Balboa Park. Cousin Rich also took pictures of the wedding and the Utah reception. Those pictures and two filled photo albums were among our most treasured wedding gifts. Here are some of our favorites from Balboa Park. (Sadly, half of the CDs of pictures they gave us have corrupted since. I'll need to scan our wedding album book sometime.)

Someone had a birthday last month...ish - Princess

In keeping with my tradition this year of blogging everyone's birthdays a month late, here is Princess' 7th birthday.

She decorated her own cake (and at least she helped make it; she might have made it herself too, but I'm not 100% sure and she's in UT right now so I can't ask). Her birthday theme was Under the Sea, following her school's musical program.

We celebrated several days. Day 1 was with my parents while they were in town visiting us. She opened her presents from them and we all enjoyed cake and ice cream. We ate a lot of pizza and tried to figure out just how far her walkie talkies would reach (answer: not as far as the pizza place).

She got soft and fuzzy things mostly.

Also a couple games and a bunch of really noisy dress-up shoes.

Princess has taken to origami lately, so she made her own party hats. Pop is a good sport.

She didn't get quite enough made for everyone, so we pulled out some hats from last year. Superstar is also a good sport, as long as you know he is a Prince, not a Princess.

The next day was her normal birthday and we gave her our gifts (more soft and fuzzy things, mostly) plus some books and a tracing tablet for our artistic girl. One of the fun things was her pausing opening her gifts to start reading each of the books she got.

Then she had a few friends over for a party. They played in the kiddie pool and enjoyed some games. She tried to teach them a little origami.

She was a very happy little seven year old, but she did one thing I wish she hadn't ... she started looking older and more grown up. Your kids aren't supposed to get older! Sigh.

Jolly Old King Benjamin

In 2005 I came up with the following parody of "Jolly Old Saint Nicholas," using the teachings of King Benjamin from Mosiah chapters 2-4 in the Book of Mormon.

Jolly old King Benjamin said: “Pitch your tents this way.

Don’t you trifle with the words that I’m going to say.

Jesus Christ is coming soon, so my countrymen,

Choose this day whom you will serve and be born again.

“I have served my whole life through that you might be taught:

When you serve your fellow man, alone then you serve God.

And if I, your chosen king, have labored to serve you,

Ought ye not to do the same: serve each other too?

“Oh what thanks we all should give to our Heavn’ly King!

Though we serve Him, we are just unprofitable things.

First off, He created us.  We are in His debt.

Then we serve, He blesses us, and we aren’t out yet.

“When the clock was striking twelve, I was fast asleep.

There appeared an angel bright, and my heart did leap.

He gave me a message clear, and I know ‘tis true:

Jesus is the only way salvation comes to you.

“We must be little kids, and be easily taught;

For you know the nat’ral man’s an enemy to God.

Yield unto the Holy Ghost, put off the nat’ral man,

Trust in God, be humble too; with His help you can.

“If you’ve felt to sing the song of redeeming love

Keep in mind how great and wise is the Lord above,

Then, my friends, you will retain remission of your sin

And you will teach holy things to your children.

“Last of all, please watch yourselves, your thoughts and words and deeds.

Do not let your brothers beg – answer all their needs.

See that ye do all these things in order and wisdom,

Then one day you will return to God’s great kingdom.”

More traveling (and hospitalizations) than expected

As summer approached, we asked Superstar what he wanted to do this summer. His answer was firm and clear: NOT go ANYwhere. Let's stay at home this summer and just read and play.

Sorry, kid.

This post is a rehash of the trips we've taken and some of the health problems this summer plus some gratuitous pictures of the kids because we always need more of them.

End of May/early June I went to Atlanta for a conference.

I was still on my way back when we learned Joy's mother had a stroke (she hadn't, but that was the report we got) and was unresponsive, so she left the kids with a friend and started driving to UT. My dad called and used some flyer miles to get her a flight instead, which saved a good deal of time and trouble. I got back and watched the kids for a week while she nursed her mother back to health. Turns out it wasn't a stroke and she was soon mended.

Superstar the Archer, who has 2
healthy arms again and knows
how to use them!

The next week was Scout Camp, with Joy and Superstar enjoying 96 degrees and high humidity all day. That was the week the central air broke and we had to have it replaced.

The next week we all stayed home and let my parents come visit us (Yay, grandparents!) after my brother graduated with his PhD in Hispanic Languages and Literature. Yay, Steve! They got to stay for Princess' birthday. Yay, Princess! And I totally need to blog about that.

As soon as they left, I drove JT up to Cook's child hospital. He has been gagging most every day for years and the docs can't figure out what's wrong. So we had a probe inserted through his nose to measure the ph in his stomach. It had to stay in for 24 hours. He had really been looking forward to his "noodle nose", but didn't like it nearly as much once he had it. Turns out his (very mild) food allergies might be harming something in his intestines. He is now on a dairy-free diet to see if it's a milk allergy, but so far nothing has changed. We'll be trying dairy-free for 2 months and then see about removing something else from his diet.

A few days later we left on our two week drive to CO, UT, WA, and CA, which I do promise will get a blog or three sometime. While we were gone, four of us came down with a bad stomach flu - we suspect we had two different stomach viruses because some us ******************* while the others had **********. I did both. Lost 5 pounds, though, and I've kept them off, so that was nice. Horrible pain. We gave it to my parents. :(  Sorry, Pop and Grandma!

She asked me to please help
her look as sad as possible

I got a happier shot
once she had her pink cast

The next week we were with our friends in Louisiana, where Princess broke her arm. :(  She was jumping on the furniture upstairs (we adults were all downstairs) and fell on her arm. Some of her first coherent words were, "Now I understand why you keep telling me not to jump on the furniture." Yyyyyup. She has a pretty pink cast now.

And no sooner have we returned, but we learn that Joy's mother is in a real bad way and has been sent to the hospital twice in one week. We now realize this is not just a one-off, but a longer-term issue. So Joy grabbed the two younger kids and drove to UT to spend some time with her mom and plan with her brothers and sister what they will do for her long term. She may be up there a week; it may be a month or more.

Superstar the Beach Boy

Superstar and I are chillin' at home while I finish preparing my tenure packet, try to get a research paper out before school starts, and prepare for teaching seminary and an overload (one class more than I usually get assigned). The plan is that, at latest, Joy will come back with the kids around the start of school/my birthday and then drop of Princess with me while she and JT return to UT again if things haven't been resolved yet.

So, sorry, Superstar, but it looks like we had some traveling happening every single week this summer. And this week? This week I'm getting a minor surgery for my ankle. That should keep the two of us home at least!

Our family photo the morning Joy left, 5:30am