First Day of School

The first day of school 2009/2010.

Spencer is headed to Kindergarten, Chelsea is in 4th grade, and Bryce is facing loneliness. April doesn't seem to care. (Carter had already left for Middle School and refused to have his picture taken.)

Pictures of April

Thanks Mom

As most of you already know, April Evelyn Nelson is here. She arrived last Monday, August 10, at 3:36 pm. We are thrilled with her and everyone (except occasionally Bryce who is dealing with some sibling jealousy) loves her ubermuch.
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I have to say, I love babies. It's just having them that is a pain. In this regard, I was especially blessed this time because my mom was around to help. While I sat on the couch with the baby, she cleaned my house, mopped the floor, did all the laundry, organized my pantry, made dinner, and emptied all the garbages. When I needed a nap, she took the kids swimming or to the park. One time she even took them all to Target to pick out a toy for Grandma's house. (I think this was especially noble because I know what happens to my kids in the Target toy aisle. Suddenly the "I need this so bad! I think I will die without it" monster emerges and we rarely leave without someone in tears. It's not pretty.)

Now that I am feeling better and almost back to normal, my mom has gone back to her house and I am once again in charge of mine. Consequently, the laundry is piling up again, the floors could use another mopping, and I'm not sure what's happening for dinner tonight. I think I've been spoiled for too long...

Thanks Mom.

More Cabin Fun

We had a lot of fun at the cabin last week.
I didn't get pictures of all our events, but we have a few.

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We drove up through the National Forest above Hobblecreek and found this beautiful campsite.
Tyler took pictures of all the kids.

He is getting so old! I still think of Carter as my little boy. But he's not. Look at how handsome he is!
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My photogenic darling.

Bryce doesn't pose. It's just "catch me if you can."
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Playing on the bridge.
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Running through the woods.
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And playing in the stream. Isn't that what childhood is about?

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We also went to Brick Oven one night when the
"balloon man" was there.

He makes the most amazing balloon creations. Chelsea's is a Koala bear in a tree. Spencer's is Yoda (the lightsaber went missing before the photo), and Bryce just got a snake, which turned out to be everyone's favorite.

Cabin Adventures

We have been enjoying our cabin vacation for the past few days. We came up last Wednesday and went shopping, spent time with family, and played in the woods. It's been great. Yesterday morning though, Bryce came down with the flu. Right after breakfast he threw up all over the basement floor.

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Now, in order to properly understand my family's reaction to flu you must know that my oldest son is an absolute germ-o-phobe. He wipes down his shoes with cleaner every morning before school. He refuses to sleep in or lie on a bed where someone else has recently slept. He washes his hands and puts on so much Germ-X during the winter that the backs of his hands actually crack and bleed from being so dry. My other children have successively picked up on this. So, when I say, "Bryce has the flu," it basically means, "let the hysterical pandemonium begin."

Chelsea was downstairs with Bryce when he lost his breakfast. She came running up the stairs in an absolute panic, yelling throughout this very small cabin, "BRYCE THREW UP!!! EVERYBODY OUTTA MY WAY!! BRYCE THREW UP!!!" From the terror in her voice, you'd think the British were coming.

Carter immediately grabbed a bottle of Germ-X, bolted outside to the front deck and shut the sliding door. Spencer sat wailing on the couch where Bryce had just been and refused to move until someone picked him up and carried him over the mess and up the stairs. Bryce, who of course needed the most attention, stood crying in a mess at the bottom of the stairs. Tyler was asleep in the bedroom during all this and I'm sure he pulled the covers snugly up over his ears. (It's what I would have done).

I put Bryce in the tub, cleaned up the mess, started the laundry, and wiped down all appropriate surfaces with disinfectant. Carter, having fully doused himself with Germ-X, had tentatively made his way back into the house and was hovering behind me, diligenty running a history and physical: "Who has he been around lately? Do you think it's something he ate? Where have we eaten in the last few days? Do you get a fever with food-poisoning? Is his fever high? When did he first start to get sick? Do you think I will get it? If I were going to get it, don't you think I would have it by now?" Chelsea had taken Carter's spot on the front deck and was now lathering herself with Germ-X. Spencer, thankfully, had found a new activity and was happily playing with Little People in the front room. Tyler: still a no-show.

I suppose in the grand scheme of childhood experiences, the stomach flu is up there on the list of 'Uncomfortable Physical Sensations.' But honestly, this degree of terror seems a bit excessive. A while ago, I explained to the kids that the swine flu is respiratory, so it doesn't necessarily make you vomit. "Wait, so you don't throw up, you just die?" Carter asked, obviously relieved.

On a positive note, Bryce seems to be feeling much better, and no one else is showing signs of illness. The picture above shows him back to his vibrant self, enjoying the cabin and the great weather. With this minor tragedy overcome, we have even started making plans for this next week: swimming, hiking, ice skating, and plenty of Germ-X.

Happy Birthday Tyler

Yesterday was Tyler's birthday.

He didn't want us to take any pictures.

But I still wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday "blog-style."

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Chelsea's Poetry Night

Chelsea's 3rd grade class had a
"Tribute to Shel Silverstein" Night

at the end of the school year.

(Yes it was over a month ago,

but I figured it is still blog-worthy.)
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Here she is singing and reciting poetry with her class.

That grin reflects the wonderful year she had.

We took a picture of her on the stage after the assembly.

Chelsea with the most wonderful teacher ever, Mrs. Beck.

Fetal Echo

The fetal echocardiogram results were all normal. The doctor said baby April has a "very photogenic heart." There was no evidence of structural abnormalities or other issues. Her heart rate was normal the whole time and performed beautifully. He recommended keeping an eye on things with routine monitoring, but otherwise didn't see a need for any additional treatment unless things change. We left feeling very relieved.

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(The picture above is just for reference and is not a picture of April's heart. For all I know, that is a 40-year-old with congestive heart failure. But, the images they took looked very similar -- only smaller.)

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Also, my heart really went out to all the parents at Primary Children's Hospital. That is not a happy place to be. I'll be thrilled if this is my one and only visit.

Baby April's Heart Health

I think this is the second blog I have posted about our baby with a picture of a heart. Last time, I was excited that we had a fetal heartbeat, so I posted a picture of an anatomical heart. This time I posted a picture of a symbolic heart for several reasons.
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As many of you know, there have been some recent issues with our baby's heart rate. (She is due in August.) Up until last Wednesday, everything had been perfectly normal with her throughout my pregnancy. But at my routine OB appointment, the doctor noticed her heart rate was very fast, about 190 beats per minute (130-160 is normal). He sent me over to Maternal/Fetal medicine for an ultrasound and a consult. The Maternal/Fetal doctor noticed a slight arrythmia (called a PAC - ask Tyler what that stands for), but he said they are not uncommon, usually benign, and resolve at birth. At that point her heart rate was back to normal. But he did advise monitoring the baby's heart rate twice a week just for analysis. This all happened on Wednesday.

On Friday I went in for the first non-stress test (fetal heart monitoring), at which point her heart rate skyrocketed back up to 220 beats per minute. The doctor was out of town then, so his consulting partner gave instructions for me to go back to the hospital on Saturday for another non-stress test. At that point they let me go home.

Saturday afternoon Tyler came home from camp and we both went over to the hospital together. They monitored the baby's heart, which was in perfect range for about two minutes (140 beats/minute) and then raced back up to 220 beats/minute and stayed there all afternoon. (There is no good explanation as to why it does this.) None of the doctors seemed to know what to do with me since both my regular OB and the Maternal/Fetal doctor were out of town. The on-call physician decided to admit me. The baby's heart rate stayed at 220 from about 3:00pm until 11:00pm Saturday. They gave me steroid shots to mature the baby's lungs, just in case the unthinkable happened and she went into heart failure, then they strapped me to a monitor and put me in a bed. After my Dad and Tyler gave me a blessing, her heart rate finally dropped again to normal range during the night.

Sunday morning, her heart went back up again to 220 from about 6:00am until 11:00am. They were just about to give me medication to try and bring the rate down, when it suddenly dropped back to normal. I sat there all afternoon watching the numbers on the machine, praying they would stay down. They did. At 7:00pm last night, after 8 hours of a normal rate, they discharged me.

This morning I had a follow-up with the Maternal/Fetal doc (who is thankfully back in town). He did another ultrasound and the heart rate was normal, there was no evidence of fluid around the heart or skull (which they had been concerned about on Saturday), and he could see no flow issues or other structural concerns of any kind. YEAH! He did recommend we get a fetal echocardiogram (which we have to go to Salt Lake to do), just to rule out any other structural problems that he is unable to see with the ultrasound machine here. We are headed up tomorrow for that exam.

All in all, the point of this blog is two-fold. One to give all of you a history and update. And, more importantly, to thank you for praying for us through this whole ordeal. It may not yet be over, and even if the echo is clean (which I really expect it will be), I will still have to go in 3x per week for monitoring. But, I do believe that when her heart rate went back down on Sunday afternoon -- and stayed there -- it was in large part due to the prayers and concerns of all of our family and friends. Thank you so much! That is why I posted the picture of the symbolic heart -- because I feel very loved and cared for (and so does April).

Oh, and some good news did come out of this. We have now had approximately 5 ultrasounds that confirm that this baby is a girl (there was some doubt previously). Also, she is most likely going to be named April Evelyn Nelson, whenever she arrives, and that is how we have been referring to her. Hence the blog title.

Thank you all again for all your love and prayers. I will give another update when we get home from Salt Lake.

Love, Kristen

Preschool Graduation

Spencer with his class.

Saying his part: "I am thankful for books."

Throwing off the hats!

Preschool carpool friends.

With his excellent teacher, Mrs. Nobis.

A view of the classroom.

Bryce could not be restrained from climbing up the treehouse.

Baby Birds

Chelsea discovered a bird's nest in our front tree. There were two eggs inside. Chelsea watched the nest carefully and was delighted when two little chicks hatched. She collected one of the egg shells for show & tell at school. (Here she looks a little concerned because I told her that the mother bird may not come back if she touched the nest. But she did and all was fine.)

Tyler climbed up in the tree and took a picture. The chicks were really cute, in an ugly, gray, wet sort of way. Chelsea named them Charlie & Markie.

But then, on Saturday night we had a huge windstorm. The kind that makes even Mom and Dad nervous. Chelsea was terrified for the chicks and wanted to climb up in the tree and shield them from the wind. We told her that the mother bird made a strong nest and that the chicks would be fine. We were wrong.

On Sunday morning Chelsea found the chicks on the ground under the tree. The kids wanted to make a nest for them in an ice cream bucket and give them some worms, but we told them the chicks were too weak to eat and there wasn't anything they could do. It was a sad reality.

After a prolonged goodbye, Chelsea buried Charlie and Markie.
She said it wasn't fair that they only got to be five days old.
They will be dearly missed.

Daddy's Chocolate

After church, while the rest of us were changing,
Bryce snuck upstairs and raided Tyler's chocolate stash.

When I said, "Bryce, you need to clean this up,"
he said, "Okay."
He then grabbed another piece and began to unwrap it.

A bit of a mess here...

And here.
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But he didn't seem to feel too much remorse.

Butterfly Heaven

Chelsea found a butterfly in the backyard this afternoon.
It had died, but it looked perfect.

We have a neighbor who is going to post it
on a display board for Chelsea.

Chelsea is in heaven to have such a perfect specimen.
(The butterfly is also in heaven and I'm sure
he doesn't mind a bit.)

Probable Female

I had my ultrasound on Monday, and while everything looks great, the technician couldn't tell the gender for certain. (We looked for 10 minutes, but apparently this is a very modest baby.) Based on what didn't see, the tech wrote: "Probable female"on the ultrasound report. I've been thinking this was a girl, so even a hint that is the case was happy news for me. But Tyler reminds me that I also thought Bryce was a girl, so I suppose none of us will know for sure until August. However, the baby looks healthy and active, and that is good enough for me!

Board Games

This past weekend our friends, the Merrills, stopped by for a visit. I am always impressed by the Merrills because as a family they love games. All kinds of games: outdoor jousting tournaments, athletic contests, games of wit and strategy, and of course, simple board games. Whenever I spend time with their family I think, we need to play more games.

So, on Sunday afternoon I pulled out Trouble, the board game with the dice that 'pops' in the middle. The object of the game is to get all your pegs around to your "Home" before others get theirs home. Now, in the original game, if someone lands on you, your peg has to start all over. We immediately disregarded this rule because it led to hurt feelings and made the game last forever. So, now for us, this game is just a race to the end.

I played the game several times with Spencer and he loved it. Then I went upstairs to work on my lesson. Chelsea then played the game with Spencer. Now, most parents know that four year olds don't really cheat, they are just sometimes generous in their counting. If Spencer ever added an extra jump when I was playing with him I either intentionally didn't notice or I nicely said, "No honey, I think you are here."

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Chelsea has not yet picked up on these nuances. So everytime Spencer would overcount on his behalf she would get mad. Then he got mad back. Then she accused him of cheating. Then he accused her of being 'the meanest sister ever,' and so forth. Carter came over to intervene and unfortunately only made the situation worse. It was a case of everyone accusing and misunderstanding each other. By the time I went downstairs Spencer was having a full-fledged Donald Duck meltdown. It looked something like this:

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I remember now why our family doesn't play many games. Maybe we just don't have enough practice. Or maybe we just have the wrong personalities. Either way, for our family, Trouble is apparently appropriately named.

Pringles vs. Willpower

Last night I went to the gym for an hour. When I came home, I virtuously grabbed some water and headed in to turn off my computer. Of course, while I was here, in front of the ever-so-inviting monitor, I just had to log in and check the news, the blogs, the vacuous frivolity that is Facebook.

I also noticed that someone had left a half-eaten can of Pringles by my computer. I assure you, it was not me. I do not, in any normal state of being, buy or eat Pringles. However, pregnancy has altered my mental/
emotional/physical status to such a degree that the other day I actually ate a Twinkie. (Okay, I ate two -- but not on the same day!)

I cannot tell you how annoyed I was that someone could be so thoughtless as to not only break the 'no eating by the computer' rule, but then leave the evidence sitting there with such obvious disregard!

I picked up the can, looked for the lid, and noticed that there weren't many chips left. Now, I ask you, my fellow mothers, those of you who eat the crust you just cut off the sandwich for your toddler, and snack on the last few Dinos rather than dump them in the trash, what would you do with a lidless, almost-empty can of Pringles that was sitting open by your computer?

Well, that's exactly what I did. I don't know how many maternal diets have been spoiled by the rationalization, "Well, I can't just throw it away."

Of course, most men would not and do not have this dilemma. If they want Pringles, they buy them and eat them. If they don't want Pringles, they throw the remainder away. I often wonder what it would be like to live life with no guilt. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to go the gym again.

We Have A Heartbeat!

I went to the doctor today for my first OB appointment. We heard a heartbeat - which is always a relief.

But the FNP said I was measuring several weeks larger than my dates indicated. So she recommended we do an impromptu ultrasound with a small, portable device they have in the office -- just to "check for multiples." So, for those few precious moments while they went to retrieve the machine, I got to indulge my twins fantasy (Tyler's twins fantasy, however, is something completely different).

The ultrasound revealed one perfect fetus and one very full bladder. No twins! But I am thrilled all the same. I'm also happy to be feeling a little bit better. I'm not 100% yet, but I can now do laundry and drive -- always helpful!

Temporarily Closed

This blog is temporarily closed due to morning sickness.

Check back again in February.

One of the many reasons I am a "mean mom" (so dubbed by Chelsea)

Musical Training Makes Kids Smarter, Study Suggests

Thursday, November 13, 2008
By Jeanna Bryner, FOXNews

Children who study a musical instrument for at least three years outperform children with no instrumental training on non-musical tests of vocabulary and non-verbal reasoning. This new finding adds to a list of music's magic. Past research has shown tunes can evoke strong memories, reduce stress and even boost athletic performance.

Researchers compared 41 kids, ages 8 to 11, who had studied either piano or a string instrument for at least three years, with 18 children who had no instrument training. Children in both groups spent about half an hour each week in music classes at school. But instrument-wielding kids also attended private music lessons for an average of 45 minutes a week and practiced on their own at home. Tests showed the kids who practiced instruments scored much higher than their non-musical counterparts on auditory discrimination and finger dexterity, both skills closely tied with musical training.

The young musicians' vocabulary scores were 15 percent higher, and non-verbal reasoning scores were 11 percent higher. The longer the child was musically trained, the higher the scores. The study was done by Gottfried Schlaug of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, and psychologist Ellen Winner of Boston College and Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education, and their colleagues.

"Music involves grasping patterns, and the non-verbal reasoning task involves grasping patterns," Winner told LiveScience. "You have to pay attention to the pattern of sounds, and you also have to pay attention to the pattern of the notes when you're looking at music notation."
The research was funded by the Dana Foundation, International Foundation for Music Research and National Science Foundation.

Blech...

Maybe it was politics. Maybe it was food poisoning. Maybe it was stress. But whatever the cause, we all came down with the flu this week. I'd love to delve into all the delicious details about why I hate the flu, but words just aren't sufficient. So, here is a helpful, visual example instead.
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This is the flu:
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This is me with the flu: .

Any questions?