Baby Boo

Though everything indicates that Baby Boo was right on time, it's hard on the psyche when you think you are going to have a baby around the 11th of October and then he doesn't actually show up until the 22nd. But he is here! He was born Friday morning at 10:18 a.m. (my dad wonders why I couldn't hold off for 4 minutes so he could have been born at 10:22 on 10/22). The home birth was a wonderful experience. I woke up at 3:00 and counted contractions until 4. Then I woke up Adam and we came downstairs and got everything ready. The boys got up at 7 and when Adam told them I was going to have the baby, Phin gave me the thumbs up and said, "Good job, Mom." I stayed pretty still while Adam got the kids breakfast and off to friends who took them to school and into their homes. My midwives came, enjoyed breakfast and got everything else ready. It was pretty nice to just relax (between contractions) and watch everyone else running around. I started to walk around about 8:30 and less than two hours later there he was. It was perfect and went faster than I thought it would. Here is the first picture of him. Still getting his color, but very healthy.

This is my great midwife, Dr. Frazier, weighing our new baby boy. 7 lbs. 8 oz.

The new family photo. The boys were excited to see their new baby brother. We were still calling him Boo until Friday night, when Adam and I agreed upon Colin Adam Gaul. We still have to remind each other not to call him Boo. All three of them love to hold the baby and can't wait for him to wake up. I tried to tell them that new babies sleep a lot, but they still insist on placing cars and trains on him when he's fast asleep hoping he'll wake up and play.

Spencer seems to be adjusting fairly well to not being the baby. He always asks about the "bee bee" and wants to hold him and share his drinks and food with Colin. What a cutie!

What a blessing each of our children has been to our lives. I feel so grateful to have four healthy, happy boys. I marvel at the things they do and teach me everyday. I am also grateful to know that they are mine for eternity, if I live worthy of it. I can't think of anyone I'd like to spend eternity with more than this wonderful little family that Adam and I have created. Adam is wonderful, coaching me through the labor, helping me to keep confidence in myself that I could do it. He's taken over Mom duties for the week and does it better than I do. I love him so much. Thanks, Ad, for being my strength and example always.

So here we are, a family of six and I am loving every minute of it!

Bad Mom and Heavenly Protection

Have to write about my scare of the day. George and Spencer were playing out back "building a space ship" according to George. Spencer was helping with the decor by piling dead grass on the "wings". George came inside and I continued to check on Spencer every few minutes. Our back has been broken for a few weeks. I propped it up to keep the kiddos corralled, but a big wind storm blew it over.

At one point I couldn't see Spencer and as George was going outside, I asked him to check. He went the other direction and I went out the back door to find Spencer. That's when I heard the first honk. I ran around the pool, hoping to see Spencer near where I had last spotted him running with his big Tonka dump truck. No Spencer. Then I hear the second honk. I run around the house to see a car in the middle of the road, Spencer crawling onto the curb, my neighbor picking him up and his dump truck stuck under a parked truck on the other side of the road.

My heart racing, I ran to grab him (thank goodness for my neighbor), waved a thank you to the lady in the car and went to retrieve the dump truck. That's when the police officer approached me.

"Had an escapee?"

I explained that I he had been in the backyard and I had just seen him back there a couple of minutes ago. The officer asked for my I.D. and for Spencer's name. I gave him both and told him that I really had seen him in the backyard two minutes ago.

"I think it was more than two minutes," he said. And he was probably right. Spencer was heading away from the open gate the last I saw him, I was busy making dinner and didn't think he was going to pass the blown down fence on the other side. I may have been three or four minutes. But it could have been the last three or four minutes of my little buddy's life.

I cried for the next half hour until Adam got home. The first thing he did was screw the blown down fence into place. It won't open now, but at least I won't have to worry when the kids are out back. I was just waiting for CPS to knock on my door. I am so thankful that Spencer was protected. And not just this time. This is his fourth time venturing out in the road, always when I have stopped watching him for more than a minute. I think today was Heavenly Father saying "Okay, I've warned you, now the police have warned you. Get it right or it might not work out so well next time. You're not being a very good steward. Now, stop cooking and watch out for your kid!"

No excuses. I will do better - anticipate the worst and hope for the best. My kids might never see the front yard again.

Construction

Okay, so Adam is working overtime tonight, so I don't have anyone telling me to go to bed. Thought it might be good to catch up on the blog.

As some of you know, we moved into a new-to-us house in January. In April the remodel began. We planned on combining two bedrooms and a bathroom to make our master suite. Over the next several months we removed a bearing wall (thanks to engineer Allen for helping us "suspend" the roof), ripped down the other walls leading to the baby's room and an extra small room that had been set up as a sort of sitting room, moved tons of insulation (I know insulation doesn't weight that much, but Adam has shoveled his way to the east coast and back with as much as he has moved up in the ceiling), redid plumbing and electrical, rebuilt two walls, gutted the bathroom and rebuilt the shower, installed can lighting in my new walk-in closet and put "exploratory" holes all over my dining room wall.

Here are some before pictures:

This is the ceiling of my bedroom. The big beam running from the top left hand corner down to the right is what is helping to support the roof since we took down the bearing wall. It also helps that we are building another wall just three feet from there. No worries on the roof caving in... this thing is solid.

Here is the wall of my bedroom. Adam had to put in extra supports in the walls to hold up the new beam. Can I just say the remodel takes twice as long because you have to destroy stuff before you can put up new stuff. Adam has become the master of destruction. Anybody need to borrow a crowbar or a maul ax?

Looking into my new bathroom. You can see the new Pex plumbing for the shower. There were only a few leaks while we were testing to make sure everything was hooked up all right.

THE MAN. Did I tell you he has spent every weekend for the past month working on this. And that means working from 8:30 in the morning until around 7:30 to 8:00 at night. He is standing in front of the wall that will lead from our bedroom into the closet (on the right) and the bathroom (on the left).

As of today the sheet rock has been hung and taped and the first layer of mud put on to try and patch up the mess we had to make above. We are on a time crunch now because I don't really want to have a baby in the tiny room we are living in now. I keep giving Adam and his AWESOME dad a count down -- only five more weeks, guys! Hopefully I will be sleeping in my new master suite and bathing in my newly tiled shower by the end of the month. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Summer Randomness

Summer is officially over. But I thought I would post some random summer pictures just so I remember how great it was.

Spencer has discovered the greatness of farmer's market corn. He's also graduated to the table and out of the highchair.

As mentioned in the last post we went to the Seattle for the weekend in July and of course had to go to the Pacific Science Center. We really could spend the entire day there, but four hours was enough for me. It also helps that with our $35 pass to our local "science center" we get in free over in Seattle. SWEET!

Spencer is a budding musician.

George thought this was awesome. "Just like Harry Potter, Mom!"

Spencer's not afraid of anything - - bring on the T-rex!

I think Phin is supposed to be a circus bear. In any case, you can't help but want to hug him.

We've also spent the summer doing the normal things. This is movie night, our new Tuesday night tradition. Had those boys a bowl of popcorn and pop in a Scooby-Doo movie and they won't move for an hour and a half.

George dressed himself for church the other day. He did loose the cap and the boy scout bandana right before we went in. I do kind of like the orange and blue plaid with the black and white shiny vest. Sassy!

Adam reads "special stories" to the boys every night. It is usually from the Book or Mormon or Old Testament readers. This night must have been special because they were reading from the Book of Mormon coloring book. Adam and George have added all sorts of commentary to the pictures, including blood on Laban's sword after Nephi has killed him and something about "Give us the drugs, Laban," when they are asking for the gold plates. I just like to sit and listen to Adam's version of the story. It makes it new again.

Finally, (drum roll please) George lost his first tooth! I thought he was too young, but one day it was loose. We ate pizza for dinner one night and after he was done eating I noticed his tooth was gone.

"Where's your tooth?"

"I don't know"

"You must have eaten it."

So George wrote a letter to the tooth fairy: "Dear Tooth Fairy, I ate my tooth. From George Gaul" Luckily the tooth fairy was a good sport and left a dollar in exchange for the note.

Summer has been great, but can you blame me for relishing in Tuesday and Thursday mornings when George has Kindergarten and Phin has preschool and it's just me and Spencer for two hours?

Day Out With Thomas

Well, it won't become a family tradition, but we did spend a day out with Thomas the Tank Engine back in July. We planned a trip to Seattle the same weekend, so it didn't feel too out of the way. All the boys were excited but I think the eight train tables and the puppet show were the highlights. In the end we had to drag them to see the actual Thomas the Train because "someone" had put a bounce house right in the way.

Phin was in Thomas heaven.

They had a Punch and Judy puppet show. The boys loved it!

Riding with Thomas. They advertised a 20 minute "ride with Thomas". It was 8 minutes up, sit and wait for 4 minutes and then 8 minutes back. The coaches were old and hot. As adults we were like "what a waste", but the boys didn't care.

Last stop of the day, meeting Thomas. This was the best shot I got, even if the "professional" photographer's arm is in the way.

Yes, Phin, it's Thomas.

Spencer, pointing to Thomas on the tablecloth.

If you want a review of the day, it was okay. The train ride was actually the lamest part of the whole deal. Not really worth what we paid or the three hour drive. The boys have nearly as much fun playing with the train table at the Barns and Noble.

Angels

I know all of you have gone to church some Sundays and spent so much time out in the hall that you wondered, "Why do I even come?" That was today. Adam threw his back out on Friday fixing the toilet. Some little hands had flushed the toilet paper roll holder down the toilet. Usually Adam is the one to take the boys out if they are being disruptive at church. But since he couldn't do that today, the job fell on me. And boy was it a toughy today, starting as soon as we pulled into the parking lot.

So after our family saga was played out in front of the entire ward during sacrament meeting, I found myself crying in the bathroom hoping no one would talk to me so that I could pull it together long enough to do sharing time in Primary.

Can I just say, my ward is full of angels? Some came and helped me when I had two boys out in the foyer crying. Others came and took the crying baby from my arms so that I could get my stuff together - both literally and emotionally. One of our bishopric members gave Adam a hug and both of us heard a lot of "We've been there, we know what it's like." After church, another person came and brought brownies. Each act of kindness brought new tears of gratitude. Heavenly Father was saying, "You're not alone. Others have made it, you will too." Boy I needed that. To all of you angels in the Sunset ward - THANK YOU! It doesn't seem to be enough, but I hope I will remember this day and when I see a mom frazzled beyond belief, I want to step in and say - Let me help, I've been there.

Mom Thoughts

The past two weeks have been HARD. And it's all because I'm a mom. All you moms out there tell me this:

• Do two shoes ever get put away in the same place?
• Are all children able to repeat the same phrase over and over at least 50 times in a row?
• Can you ever change the subject with your small child when in the state mentioned above?
• Will getting out the door ever be pleasant - or timely?
• Do your children think that as soon as they ask for something - crackers, chocolate milk, etc. that it should magically appear within seconds?
• Does there ever come a time where you do not have to repeat a request/question/demand more than three times before getting any kind of a response (besides the phrase being repeated 50 times)?
• Is potty training a nightmare for everyone?
• Do you ever just want to scream as loud as your kids, right in their face, just like they do to you?
• Can this miserable job of being a mom really be the biggest blessing of your life?
• Is the laundry ever "done"?

I love my little Phin and I know that somewhere in heaven my mom is laughing her head off when she sees the things that he does and how he can spin me like a top. "No" is the answer to everything. He will say he wants one thing and as soon as you give it (or don't give it) he all of a sudden has changed his mind. And not once but multiple times during the day. Often, by the end of the day he has completely worn me out. I just want to lie down and sleep for 14 hours without hearing the pitter patter of little feet coming into my room.

On Thursday, I broke. I literally broke. This has never happened to me before. I'm sure a great deal is due to pregnancy hormones. We were playing on my bed, me and the three boys. Suddenly, the wrestling turned a little too rough and someone was pulling my hair. "Get off, get off, get off," I repeated. In the end there were two bigger boys flying off of me and me screaming at the top of my lungs, "GET OFF OF ME!!!" And then I broke. I started to cry, along with the two little ones. Phin, who got the full force of my wrath and little Spencer who doesn't like loud noises.

I tried to go for a "time out", but none of our door have locks. So I ended up bawling with two boys on my lap bawling too and George hiding out in his room, hoping to escape any punishment. Then I couldn't stop. I tried and I tried to get it together, but it was like my body was resisting every effort. Thinking if I went on as normal I would feel normal again, I went out to the van to get my gym bag. When the sliding door wouldn't close, I gave it a "little" help. I could hear the pieces falling on the ground and then the door wouldn't close. Now, I'm a total mess. I call Adam, sounding, I'm sure, like someone has died. Sobbing, I tell him about my morning. He realizes that I am totally unable to function and arranges to come home. I cry for the next two hours - getting up enough courage in the meantime to call my dear friend to come and get my kids because I know the first little tiff could put all of us in serious danger. Adam came home and I slept for the next three hours. But it really took me about 24 hours to regroup.

I only share this, because I know there are other moms out there like me who think that they are failing at every turn - or at least flailing at every turn. Moms can get broken. Moms need time to repair. Moms need daily maintenance, or at least weekly maintenance, in order to keep functioning. Take care of yourselves, moms. And know that you are not in this alone. Heavenly Father, the perfect parent, sends his angles to watch over you.

Identity Crisis vs. Imagination: You Decide

So for the past couple of weeks George has taken on a new persona every few days. At first, he was obsessed with the movie "Up" and was a Junior Wilderness Explorer. He wanted to know if we had any badges. I didn't think so, but then it struck me that we had saved Adam's old scouting stuff. So we dug it out of the dress up box and, low and behold, the badge belt became the badge sash. We had a bandana and cap and with his backpack packed full of atlases and scriptures he was ready to go. Unfortunately, I only got a picture of him in the cap, but Spencer got to play wilderness explorer too, so just imagine George in this outfit.

After the wilderness explorer phase came the strange "girl" phase. George found a mullet wig in the dress up clothes. But to him, a five year old, it's not a mullet, it's a girl wig. So on it went and now he was a girl named Kaitlyn (it's a made up persona, so I don't know how to spell her name). It was fine when we were home or at the playground and I even let him wear it to the gym, but I started to worry when it was time for school. Should I call his teacher and tell her she had a new student? Should I call the school counselor? Luckily, "Kaitlyn" informed me that you can't wear wigs to school. Whew! Here is a picture of "Kaitlyn" dressed up as Wolverine. (Yes he still acted like a boy, so no worries.)

He would also dress up as "Kaitlyn the Wilderness Explorer" and "Kaitlyn the Superhero". So Kaitlyn was pretty much George in a wig dressing up as other imaginary people.

Kaitlyn has not been around very much lately. It's just been George. Which is great. Because I adore George.

***

To continue with the Kaitlyn bit, George has insisted that the new baby be a girl. He wants a sister so badly. And of course her name would be Kaitlyn. I've asked him what would happen if it was a boy.

George: "I don't want a boy. I want a sister!"

Me: "But it might be a boy. What should we call him?"

George: "If it's a boy, we should call him something funny, like Boo. I want it to be a girl baby though because I love girls and I hate boys. We don't need any more boy babies."

Much to George's disappointment, we will be having another boy baby. We haven't decided on a name, so I guess for now we will just call him Boo.

Birthdays

It's been nice having all of our birthdays at the beginning of the year. My birthday is in December. Phineas is in January, Spencer in February, George in April and Adam in May. It makes the first part of the year lots of fun and clears up summer and fall for, well, summer and fall things.

My birthday first: Went to Tony Romas, the temple and got a new Flip video camera. Okay, it's been months and I'm still trying to figure out how to add video to this blog.

Phin's Birthday:

A Thomas book from Grandma and Pop Pop

A tool kit from George and Spencer

And "Mood it mood it" (a.k.a. Madagascar 2) from Mom and Dad

Plus a special trip to McDonalds. This was the day we moved into our new house, so Phin kind of got jipped on a cake. I don't think he minded. Now he's three. What a big boy. He's in speech therapy and doing fantastic. He loves to go and play with Kris.

Spencer's birthday:

I know the first birthday is usually a big deal, but I figure, he won't remember, so we kept it low key. Just our family, cupcakes in cones and presents that everyone enjoyed.

He got a bubble maker (hours of fun, okay about one hour, before it broke) and a fun book that reads to you. He wasn't walking at the time, but within four weeks he was all over the place. Now I have to chase him down to put him in the car.

George's Birthday:

We had a Chinese birthday party with a couple of friends (for any of you that know the real story, don't feel like going through the pain all over again). George had a blast. We made Chinese drums and had some fireworks. We played Dragon Tag (just tag with a cool name) and had some good cake with Happy Birthday George written in Chinese. He got a coloring tablet, a light up frisbee and a "Super Hero Starter Kit" complete with mask, wrist guards and cape (thanks to my great friends Ramie and Tina for helping me out).

The Chinese theme continues today. He "writes" in Chinese on the back of his school papers. He knows all about the Great Wall and the clay army. He has a guide book for China and talks about going there almost every day. We have a friend who does a good deal of business in China and has the Rosetta stone software that has helped him with his Chinese. He has promised to let us borrow it when he is finished and George can hardly wait.

Adam's birthday was as uneventful as mine. We were actually camping at the time, which would have been fun except for the 60 mph wind gusts and the rain. Here is a cute picture though, before all you know what broke loose.

We celebrated the next weekend at Monterosso's, our favorite Italian restaurant. It was for Mother's Day as well, but we didn't actually exchange birthday/Mother's Day gifts until the weekend after that. It was more of a "birthday month", which Adam loved.

Now we have a problem. Something that is going to totally mess up my birthdays-at-the-beginning-of-the-year thing. A baby due in October. October! What am I supposed to do with that? I guess it could be the beginning of our holiday season. Birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday, Birthday. Come to think of it, this is great. Now our celebration season can last from the first part of October until the 1st of May. SWEET!

Thanksgiving, Christmas & Birthdays

So we have had a VERY busy winter. Soon after taking the photos in the previous post Adam received an offer for a permanent position with CH2M Hill. We had been house hunting and had found one that we liked. Okay, so now we have officially found EVERYTHING on Craigslist. It was a converted duplex with tons of space. But more on the house in the next post. With trying to get everything squared away with the house, the holidays, packing up and moving, I haven't had time to post. So here goes the update.

THANKSGIVING:

We went to Boise for Thanksgiving and enjoyed a great holiday with Adam's family. Both Evelyn and Gideon celebrated their 2nd birthday during November, so we had two birthday parties on top of the Thanksgiving bash. Adam's parents were in Atlanta visiting their son James and his family. George and Phin were disappointed to get to Grandmom and Pop pop's house and have it be empty.

George liked this game, but I think Evelyn has a sour face because he's not playing it "right".

Yum! Turkey. This was right before Fay almost set the house on fire when she forgot to take the candied yams out of the oven above. The marshmallows were totally roasted. It smelled just like camping.


Spencer before he learned to crawl on all fours. The hardwood floor is ideal for army scooting.
Fay looking all sweet and wonderful -- which she is. She is also pregnant here but didn't tell anyone until three weeks ago. With Evelyn's reaction to Fay holding Tank, I think Fay better get ready for some sibling rivalry.

"Bring on the Turkey!"

The food was delicious as always (especially Brandon's gravy). Like I said, we also celebrated two birthdays while we were there. Evelyn invited us all to Monkey Business, an indoor playground with an incredibly big slide. Even I was scared going down it.

Then we had fun at the house with Gideon and family. It was a house full of boys with George (4) Phin (almost 3) Gideon (2) Spencer (10 months) and Tank (6 months).

CHRISTMAS!!

Who doesn't look forward to Christmas? Upon arriving home from Idaho we went out and bought a Christmas tree. We wanted to cut one down, but you have to travel like 1 1/2 hours to get to any worthwhile trees. Next year, we might just get a permit in Oregon and pick it up on our way home from Thanksgiving. They have great trees in Oregon (not to mention, no sales tax). We decorated our little house, hung the stockings with care and made our Christmas lists. George wanted four things: (1) a Diego backpack (2) a Harry Potter Scene It game (3) a Twilight Scene It game, and (4) a Harry Potter wand. Okay, so Santa only came through on #4, but, a Twilight Scene It game? For a 4 year old? He hasn't even seen the movie. All in all I think the boys enjoyed their Christmas. I know I had a wonderful time savoring every one of my Andes mints. Plus I got a cool Flip video camera that I will be downloading video's from in future posts.

Sorry, don't know why the pictures are all fuzzy. Pretend you don't have your glasses on, then they'll seem normal.

Christmas morning--

Spencer loves his horse -- now if he could just stay on it.

They joy of headlamps. The boys wanted to play chase in the dark for the rest of the morning. By the way, they are also sporting the pajama bottoms I made for them. I figure I'll take advantage of their lack of fashion while they are young and make them wear cheesy pajamas at Christmas. It won't last long.

Yeah! Harry Potter! I think he's on page 3. No really the kid can read like a maniac. He sits down each Sunday with the comics and reads almost every word (except for Doonsbury, where even I don't know half the words).

Phin and his trains. He loved this gift. He still packs up his trains into "Daddy Thomas" (shown open on the floor) and puts them under his bed. This after refusing to let him sleep with them under his pillow.

We'd never even seen the movie, but now it is one of our favorites. George can do a perfect impersonation of Russell, "My knee hurts!"

The Harry Potter wand as promised. And the glasses to match. He wore those everyday until they inevitably broke.

Adam's parents opening their 65th and 63rd presents. Man, for people who you think have everything, they sure get a lot of loot at Christmas.

Me and my honey on Christmas morning. Adam's parents got us these hats that say "Shut up, big mouth." I don't know if it was a message from them to us or a message that we should give to each other. In any case, I like the hats.

So that brings us to the end of 2009. I'll start on 2010 next week. Right now it's my bedtime (9:00).