Ultimate Victory

The resistance has been defeated.

After having spent $10 to rent the movie, ahem...twice...

With the blessing, encouragement, and gentle arm-twisting of my brother-in-law Jason, my sister Heather has just returned from Costco with her very own complete set of the Twilight books.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Congrats, you guys! And welcome to the madness!

Neighborhood Recipe Blog

Here is the neighborhood recipe blog so far.  If you are a current or former resident of the Slate Canyon neighborhoods, please feel free to submit your favorite recipes by emailing slatecanyonrecipes at gmail.com 

Without further ado:

http://slatecanyonrecipes.blogspot.com/

Can't wait to see you tonight!

It's not too late!

We have about 40 very yummy looking recipes for the neighborhood collection!!  

It's not too late to make your own submissions and don't forget to invite your neighbors to the shin-dig at Katie's on Thursday at 7!  I've heard whispers of some delicious dishes that will be served!

ROP Free!

Crew had his final ROP exam this morning and he is officially ROP-FREE!! Woo hoo!!

Target's Return Policy

Target has their strict return policy posted in gigantic letters on an even more gigantic sign right behind the customer service desk. There is no ambiguity: All returns must have a receipt and must be returned or exchanged within 90 days of purchase.

Then... there is the hidden return policy.

I needed to return some gifted baby formula to Target. It could only be returned to Target, it's been 6 months since it was purchased (though it doesn't expire for a few years, don't worry) and I did not have a receipt. Rather than accept their policy at face value, I squared my shoulders and challenged it, ready for battle.

To my utter shock and amazement, I didn't even have to get uppity. Not even a furrowed eye brow or dramatic explanation designed to make them (very) uncomfortable was needed.

Apparently, with photo identification, you can return up to $35 of merchandise, without a receipt, twice in one 12-month period, no questions asked.

Don't you wish they put that somewhere visible? Now you know.

For Early Readers

This post is for parents of early readers.

Kinley came home from kindergarten recently with some pages of fill-in-the-blank nursery rhymes. She was absolutely enchanted and asked me to make her some more sheets just like it, with other familiar nursery rhymes. If you have an early reader that would be interested in these work sheets, please click here to download.

We also made some with primary songs. If you would like these work sheets, click here.

Recipe Swap

Neighbor Ladies, don't forget the recipe swap on Thursday night at 7pm! Send me your best recipes and if you don't have three, send me your best two or one!

scrappymeggie at gmail dot com

Celebrity Apprentice

Seriously, how unbalanced were the Rivers ladies last night! Ha ha ha!

The Week

Things have been pretty mellow and uneventful recently. I haven't been feeling very parentally creative, so we've been spending a lot of time outside playing with our neighbor friends, which is always a welcome diversion. We've gone to the library a bazillion times to pick up books that I've put on hold that keep being immediately available (the nerve). We watched the movie Seven Pounds (enjoyed it). I got the house clean this week (three cheers!) Crew got his immunizations (as previously whined about). Mmmm... yeah kind of a slow week around here.

On Friday, we took Crew to Beesley Monuments to pick out a headstone for Dex's grave. I'm pleased with what we have chosen and it should be ready in 6-8 weeks. The couple that was in right before us was there with their infant daughter, also picking out a headstone for her twin sister that died. You wouldn't believe how common I've discovered it to be. Relatively, anyway. Sigh... I can think of about 4 million things I'd rather buy for Dex, none of which he needs. We talked this week about Tanner and Crew possibly sharing a room sometime in the future and it made me very unexpectedly sad. I suspect that I'm in for a lifetime of moments where I have to stop and think "hmmmm..." Would that it wasn't so. But it is.

On a more positive note, Crew is doing really well. I fully rejoice every time he hits a milestone. I don't know why I continue to be amazed and surprised by this little miracle of mine. I just shake my head in wonder at every turn. He has started licking me incessantly and you'll find me with a slobbery shirt more often than not these days. He's not rolling over as much anymore and he's mostly just super annoyed when I put him flat on his tummy. He slurps on his hands all. the. time. It's really cute. Carlon wants me to start weaning him from his need/desire to be swaddled. Nah... not interested. I swaddled Tanner until he was 7-9 months old. I'm in no rush to unswaddle this little prince. He's growing really well and maybe sometime in the next week or so he'll be in 0-3 month clothes! Woo hoo! What a tank, eh?!!

Too Much Cuteness

Smoooooooooooooch!

My Little Ham

Crew never runs out of smiles these days. He is a really happy little guy and I just love him.

I bet a few of you are changing your vote on the eye color though, huh? Ha ha!

What a Strange Thought

New Poll

Depending on the day and the lighting, the color of Crew's eyes remain very much a mystery. I have a new poll on the left! What do you think? We're pretty sure it's going to be one or the other with nothing crazy like green or hazel. Kinley has blue, Tanner has brown, but we're still shrugging our shoulders with this little guy. Some days we are just so sure that they are a solid blue and other days they look like they are very definitely turning brown. Just can't tell yet!

Twisted Criss Cross

Ok... Can I just say that I was pretty pleased with how this turned out? It is just four pony tails on top. Then twist the ones in front and bring them across and tie them to the back ponytails. The back ponytails have double bands on them because of it.

Why We Hate Immunizations

I normally don't video tape Crew's crying because I can't stand to let it go on long enough to record it. Nevertheless, I grit my teeth to capture this sad little face because he is changing so much. His voice is changing, his cry is changing, etc. I wish I had recorded more of his newborn cry, but this isn't a dramatic deviation from what he used to sound like. That will come soon enough.

I warn you. The pout is pretty cute, if heartrending.

This was taken Monday afternoon at home when he was grumpy after immunizations. This was just the beginning. By evening he was in really bad shape, unmanageable fever, vomiting, uncontrollable crying. We were all relieved and thankful for the intervention of a merciful Heavenly Father when his fever finally broke and he slept for 12 hours straight (with a dreamfeed snuck in there).

Bambi Love

Once upon a time I mentioned that Tanner felt he was too old to need his Bambi blankets. That lasted about 24 hours. I'm kind of happy about that :) I will miss Bambi when the time really comes.

I'm not so happy that being dry at night lasted just barely longer than that... he's back in diapers at night, but I don't mind so much because it's so nice to have him potty trained during the day!

Heh, Heh...

http://www.9thwardcartoons.com/

Similac Checks or Coupons

Because of Crew's prematurity and the vitamins he was deprived of by missing out on his entire final trimester in-utero, he will be on special neonatal preemie formula until at least next February. For those who gave us formula as a gift before we knew what we were up against, we are so grateful for your generosity and have been successful in returning them to the store and swapping for what Crew can have. Nothing has been wasted.

Some people have to spend $1500 per month on a specialty formula and fortunately we are not in that boat! We are very grateful that we are able to pick up his formula at Walmart or any grocery store in the valley for a much much more reasonable price.

However, if you ever happen to get any Similac coupons or Similac "checks" in the mail that you just plan to throw away because you don't need them, would you mind passing them along instead?

Neighborhood Recipe Swap

We are going to have a neighborhood recipe swap next week!

**Please forward this to anyone you think might be interested! Or feel free to post it on your own blog.

When:
Thursday, April 30th at 7:00 PM

Where:
Katie's home

How To Participate:
#1. Tell me you want to come! Your basic RSVP so that we have enough paper plates, etc! Comment or email me to RSVP and I'll get you Katie's address if you don't have it.

#2. Email me your very very very best THREE recipes by Tuesday, April 28th. I'll be compliling them all together.

#3. Come to Katie's on the 30th and bring one of those dishes for us all to sample!

It will be a fun, easy way to try some new dishes and incorporate some new recipes into our homes!

It's so nice to be able to try something before you make it because sometimes recipes look good on paper and taste icky. And sometimes they look questionable on paper, but taste amazing!

So come, have a casual girls night in, and stuff your face!

Crew's Well Check

Crew had his well check this morning. With a clean diaper on, he is 8 pounds 12.5 ounces and 21 inches long! We are very happy that Crew has put on a whole two pounds in the last month! His hydrocele is really behaving very much like a little communicator, which is discouraging to accept. If it really is a communicating hydrocele, it won't resolve on its own and you can't leave it unresolved, which of course means surgery.

Developmentally, he has finally started to activate his little arms when I show him a toy. He doesn't reach yet, but he is making progress in that area. He follows toys and faces with his eyes and his head and he has astonishing neck strength. He rolls from his back to his side all the time and demands to be played with. He smiles all the time now and has started to use his little voice more and more frequently. Yesterday while taking pictures of him (to be posted later), I could swear he made a few sounds that were the very teeny beginnings of a laugh.

I'm so happy with his progress!

Dinosaur Museum and Stuff

To celebrate the end of tax season and the triumphant return of our Daddy, we went to the dinosaur museum as a family.

How do you terrify a 3-year-old? Paint a 3-story tyrannasaurus rex on the outside of your building.

Tanner posing by the bones that we nicknamed the Eastersaurus.
We bought tickets to see the African Adventure in 3D at the Imax theater. Justin just loves to have his picture taken!
I had never seen a movie in 3D before. I thought it was really great, in a headache-inducing kind of way.
I loved watching Tanner remove and replace his glasses time and time again. My favorite moment was when reached out his hand to see if that elephant trunk was really right in front of his face. Once he understood the 3D concept, he thought it was brilliant!
This was a hands-on exhibit. Unless you are my kids. They were a little grossed out, though I'm still not sure why.
Apparently, this exhibit was stinky.
Here we go!! Kinley wasn't about to miss out on a chance to color a picture.
Adding to the mural.
Wow, that brachiosaurus is huge!
What could capture his attention so completely?
This:
My future paleontologists.

Once she got over the weird texture of the wet sand, Kinley really got into digging for dinosaurs. She took it upon herself to evenly redistribute any collections of dinosaurs that she found unattended

.
And... Tanner took it upon himself to collect them into piles. I truly think he could have stayed at this exhibit the entire day. He absolutely loved it and I have some ideas spinning around in my head for a home version...
The last stop on our way out, running out of time.
It was a really nice treat for us to check this place out. As far as the rest of our spring break, it was pretty mellow. We took a lot of naps, read a lot of books, and watched a lot of cartoons and movies. Justin and I watched "The Day The Earth Stood Still" with Keanu Reeves. All I have to say is "wow." That, and "I want that 90 minutes of my life back."

And now that tax season is over? It's great to have him home on Saturdays, but he still works rather late through the week, so I haven't noticed a really huge difference there yet. He's still grouchy and stressed out. You know, kinda like me. Speaking of stressful, guess who's entire company had their insurance policies cancelled because "someone" at the office had a million dollar baby? Nice, huh? Fortunately, Justin (who is over such things) had already put out feelers and requested replacement bids for just such a possibility. I can't believe they can do that, but they really can, because of some loophole. And guess who gets to start over on the yearly deductible with the new insurance? Double nice. If Crew needs surgery (and that's almost a certainty as of this morning), we are hoping we can rush it to be done before May 31st, which will almost certainly mean that it has to be done at Primary's. Triple nice. But on the bright side, assuming we're really able to get insurance in place by June 1st, we're very grateful to have insurance at all.

Testicles Are Not My Forte

I took Crew in to see the pediatrician this last week because, once again, he wasn't looking "quite right" down south. Did you know that you can do a partial diagnosis for a hernia by shining a flashlight through the scrotum? I'm glad my sister gave me a heads up on that or I may have questioned my pediatrician's sanity.

At least I was vindicated in "being right", for whatever that's worth. There is definitely something amiss and the tentative verdict is that it's a hydrocele, or a potentially benign (innocent) collection of fluid. If it's closed off, the fluid should eventually resorb over time without complication. Unfortunately, he appears to be exhibiting symptoms of a "communicating hydrocele", meaning the fluid is able to go both ways through an opening, further meaning that the risk for a third hernia is alive and well. It is even possible that he has a hernia right now, but it's hard to tell for sure with all the extra fluid.

So, we've been referred to our surgeon (that sounds weird to say our surgeon) for evaluation. Blech.

The Bone Picker

Tanner: No, Kinley!! Don't pick yo fingo-nail!! You'll pull it off and then you'll pull off yo skin! And I don't want to see yo skeleton!

Mystery Nuggets

Commercial:

"Buy Tyson Chicken Nuggets. Now with all natural ingredients."

Ewww! What does that mean about the hundreds I've eaten in the past??

Spring Break

Mmmm.... not exactly the spring break that I had envisioned, but I guess it works. Meh.
Yes. Ahem. I fixed his ears after I took this picture.
Snowball fight
Yay! Spring has sprung!

Splish, splash.
Floating "boats" down the "river"

Happy Spring Break!

Wish you were here!

Burrito Baby

Super tight swaddles make my babies very mellow. I love to snuggle this little sweetie!

He is getting so big and responsive. If I walk by him, he follows me with his eyes and his head. He smiles a lot now, though I rarely get the pictures because I'm too caught up in the playful moment myself. This last week he has been trying out his voice, making some cute little vocal sounds, and this morning he brought his hands to his mouth all by himself and licked them. Yay for progress!

Sisters Are So Great

Welcome Home, Connor!!

After 120 long days in the NICU, we want to extend a huge congratulations to the entire Sprik family! Welcome home, Connor! We're so happy for you all!!