Lyman Family Blog: 2008

Monday, December 29, 2008

3 days with Scarlett's kindergarten

Scarlett's last week of school before Winter Break was a busy one. She kicked of the festivities with her schools winter performance. She sang 2 songs with all of the kindergarten classes. She is on the far left, second row up, next to the bow in the tan sweater. She is mostly hidden by t

he girl in the red vest with the white shirt. Their performance was so cute and they did a great job.

Thursday was there holiday party. I went to help out. The made gingerbread houses, did pokeys (a craft project), made snow (soap), poinsettia bags, a reindeer ba

g, and did a book exchange. It was so much fun, but I have a new found respect for her kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Marazzo, whom we love. She is so patient and awesome with the kids, you really couldn't ask for a better teacher.

Then on Friday, the last day before break, I went and did art docent for an hour. I didn't have a babysitter for Abram and the twins, so they came along for the fun. I don't have any pictures of that day. Mrs. Marazzo's twin sister, Mrs. Cook was there and they each held one of the babies, while Abram sat at the table with Scarlett and did the art project as well. I love being her art docent. I love art and am so glad I can help teach others how to express themselves through it, even if it is only once a month. Our lesson was on artists who paint portraits and then each of the kids had to draw a portrait of one of their friends while looking at their face. They all turned out great and they had a great time. Oh and it was pajama day, so we all dressed in our jammies.

It was a whirlwind of three days, and I was exhausted at the end, but it was so much fun.

Ugh...I can't get the video to post. Sorry.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

On Sunday we decided to take a family drive up to Pollock Pines. Seth wanted to go to breakfast at a restaurant called Los Hermanos, he had heard about it on the radio. The drive was beautiful. When we got to Placerville, everything was covered with a thick layer of frost and made it look like a winter wonderland.

We got to Pollock Pines and found the restaurant, but to our dismay it was only open for lunch and dinner, no breakfast. We drove back into the town and found a breakfast place called The Naughty Pine Cafe, and chose to eat there. It was pretty good. When we got there, a soft snow had started to fall.

After breakfast we drove up the hill a bit to Kyburz and found a place to play in the snow. It was such a soft powder, perfect for snowballs, so we had a fun snowball fight. It was beautiful! We had such a great time. We played for a bit and took pictures for our family Christmas cards.

We headed back down the hill and stopped at High Hill in Apple Hill. It started to snow pretty good at this time. They had a Santa Clause in a covered wagon so Scarlett and Abram took a picture with him.

We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed our day in the snow. I wish it would snow a little further down the hill so we could have a white Christmas.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Merry Christmas from my kids

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Cute pictures of my kids, just because

On Saturday I took some pictures of Scarlett, Maxon and Zane.

Abram w

as picking up Papa's sail boat and wasn't around, but I just wanted to share them because, well, my kids are freaking cute! Maxon is in green and Zane in red.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

A Fort Bragg Thansgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving this year with my family in Fort Bragg. It has been a long standing

tradition, camping at Fort Bragg for Thanksgiving and Easter. I h

ardly remember anything else. The kids were excited to get to the beach. It was wonderful. We had fantastic food the entire time and it wasn't rainy or windy, so that is a plus. We ended up coming home a day early becau

se Maxon decided to teeth while we were there and I wasn't sleeping at a

ll and I didn't want him waking up the whole camp site, but we still had a wonderful time. The kids played at the beach and loved Pudding Beach aka fart beach because of the delightful sound the sand makes when you run on it. Abram made a new best fri

end and wouldn't leave him alone. His name is Tyler and he is my sister's fiance's son. Scarlett enjoyed playing with all the babies and kids there and Max learned a new trick of crawling while playing in my parents trailer. Zane will catch on soon enough, but for now, one crawling baby is all I can handle!

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

My happy elf family!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Monday, November 3, 2008

A kitty litter cake and the Amazing Papa and his Traveling Circus

On Sunday it was my grandfathers 79th birthday. We celebrated with a party. My grandparents are major cat people, crazy cat people even, so my mom made my Papa a kitty litter cake. It was pretty gross looking, but tasted great. Then we took a picture of all the cousins from my side of the f

amily. As you can see, Scarlett is the only girl and will most likely be for a long time to come. Then my dad wanted to attempt his circus trick and hold all of his grandkids at the same time. We had attempted this before, but he wasn't happy with the picture because there was an extra arm in it. This one turned out nicely. How many of you can hold 6 kids all at the same time?

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I wish I could take the pain away

Sometimes being a mom is hard. Kids get their feelings hurt and it hurts your heart, kids get physically hurt and you wish it was you. The latter is what happened to me this weekend.

Scarlett broke her arm on Sunday night at 9:00 pm. She was being wild and I had her go calm down in another room for awhile, but she came back out and was bouncing off the walls. She started to climb up on the outside of the banister and fell off of the 5th stair up and landing with all of her weight on her left hand. I could immediately tell something was wrong. She started screaming about her arm, and I could see it just looked odd. Seth and I carefully packed her up and took her to the er. She was trying to hard to be brave, but you could tell she was in so much pain.
We got there and waited fo 25 minutes and then they took us back and x-rayed her. The Er doc came in and told us that it her elbow looked dislocated and possibly fractured. The orthopedic surgeon was on his way too look at the pics and to talk to us. They set everything up to put her to sleep temporarily and reset the elbow, but thankfully it wasn't dislocated, but fractured in multiple areas and it was pushing out her growth plate, which would require surgery and pins to fix, or she could be disfigured, disabled, or not have full range of motion.

So they admitted us to the hospital. We got to our room at about 1:00 am. They gave her morphine for the pain and she finally slept. She was hilarious though while on it. Oh....the stories we will have for when she is older. I spe

nt the night there with her.

Monday she had her surgery at 3:00 pm. She was so brave. She took her stuffed kitty Dinah with her. Her nurse put a cap on her, just like Scarlett had. When she was done the Dr. came and talked to us and told us everything went great. They said I could go back to see her. She was bawling and screaming in pain. It was so hard to try and not show my tears to her so I could be brave and show her she could too. They gave her 3 doses of something, plus a dose of tylenol with codeine and nothing was helping. She was in horrible pain for about 3 hours and then they finally gave her morphine and she fell asleep and took a good long nap. She ate a little bit for dinner. All she had been talking about all day was how she was hungry and wanted a turkey sandwich with mayo and cherry jello. Then she slept for most of the night.
We were going to try and come home, but her pain still wasn't being managed well and she had developed a fever. She made the decision to spend the night. She was terrified that her arm would start hurting again. We all agreed it was a good idea, so we spent the night. We final

ly got to come after she ate breakfast and lunch there, her fever was gone, and her pain was under control.
I was so glad to come home. I had been at the hospital since Sunday night and it was Tuesday. I was wearing the same clothes and hadn't showered or left the hospital. I missed Abram, Maxon and Zane.

Scarlett is doing great. She is trying to do more than she should though. She is in a splint till all the swelling goes down. She will be getting her hard cast next Tuesday. She is so excited and debating what color to get. She will be out of school till she gets her hard cast because her cast is too soft and it would be risky to go and play at school. All in all she is doing well, but keep us in your thoughts and prayers that everything heals and that stays pain free!

Enjoy the video of her interview when we got home today!

Monday, October 20, 2008

Seven Years and itch free

Today is Seth and I's 7 year anniversary. I am so blessed to be married to such a wonderful man who loves me and his family.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Our 40's photo shoot

Our bestest friend Matt Salvo is an excellent photographer. He wanted to expand his portfolio and asked Seth and I if we would be models for him. He thought w

e fit a 40's-50's vibe.

So we met a couple weeks ago and got our hair did, and I got makeup done and then we went to Seth's parents house to get our pictures taken. I felt a litt

le silly because I was supposed to act attractive and I have a hard time doing that, but we had so much fun and got some really great photographs. If you like them, you should hit Matt up for some professional photography. He's our favorite!

Go to salvoimage.com to see more of his photography and contact him.

The Otow Persimmon Orchard

Seth was watching California's Gold on PBS the other night. He loves that show and always wants to go where they go, and this time they were at the Otow Orchard. They are located in Granite Bay, so we decided we would go there after breakfast on Saturday.

We arrived there and PBS was there again filming for California

Heartland. We walked through their orchards to the pumpkin patch and let Abram pick a pumpkin since Scarlett got to go on her first field trip to the pumpkin patch on Friday. The persimmons on the trees were beautiful. It was really chilly out with the cold wind blowing, but it felt like fall. It w

as perfect, I just needed some hot apple cider.
Otow Orchard makes Hoshigaki persimmons, which is an ancient Japanese technique for drying persimmons. It is a very tedious job. The hand peel the persimmons first and string them on a string and hang them on these wooden racks on the side of their ba

rn. They have to massage them constantly to get the wrinkles in the right spot. When they are done, they look like they are coated in sugar, but it is just natural sugar that has seaped out. They are so sweet and kind of taste like a sweet potato with butter and brown sugar on it.
We also got

some soft persimmons to make baby food with, a new favorite hobby of mine, and some persimmon cookies. We got vodka persimmons too, which are treated in vodka to bring out the natural sweetness and make the texture softer. They also sell jujubes, which I just thought were a candy, but they are like small, really dry apples, they have plums, pumpkins, gourds, pears. If you go on their website you can see what fruits they have at different times of year, they are open year round. We had a great time and it was beautiful. We really enjoyed ourselves and encourage others to go too.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Website with intructions to make baby legs

I meant to post this before, but forgot. You can also use them as arm warmers under short sleeve shirts, or leg warmers for little girls. They are so cute and really versatile. I used knee highs, but you could probably use just regular ones, they would just be shorter, but I think it's cute to have the cuff at the bottom go over the foot like a sock sort of.
http://everythingyourmamamade.com/2008/01/21/make-your-own-baby-leg-warmers/

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Baby Legs!

I have a new obsession. They are called Baby Legs. They are pretty much like leg warmers, but for boys too. You just make them out of knee high socks. They are so easy and look so stinkin' cute. I made 6 pairs today. Check them out. They are really nice because they keep the legs warm,

you don't have to take them off to change a diaper and when the boys start crawling, they won't come off like elastic waist band pants.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

6 Months Old

Yesterday, September 1st, Maxon and Zane celebrated their very first half birthday. We are so happy we have

had the past 6 months to spend with them. They entered this world fast and furiou

s and then spent the next 3 1/2 weeks in the NICU learning how to eat. We finally got to bring them home and it was the happiest day ever.

They have continued to grow healthy and strong and to thrive. Maxon weighed in at 4 lbs 9 oz and Zane was 4 lbs 6 oz. They were both right around 16 inches, well they have both gained about 10 lbs and grown 10 inches as well. They are small for being 6 months, but no smaller than their big sister Scarlett was when she was their age. They are on the percentile charts and that is good enough for me.

They still to share a crib and will until they can't stand sleeping by each other any longer, but as you can see from the picture they take up the whole thing. They are both starting to show their little personalities too. Maxon seems a little more shy and

reserved and is content to just lay there. Zane loves attention and loves to kick around and stand all the time. Both have started tripod sitting and are doing everything a normal 6 month old baby can do. Both of them are

major flirts and insight riots everywhere we go with people wanting to see the smiling twins. To me they look nothing alike, but some find it hard to tell them apart. Both look so much like Seth, but Zane a little more so.

I thank my Heavenly Father every day that he blessed us with them and that they are happy and healthy babies.

Oh and Max is in the darker green and Zane in the lighter green. The pic with the snowman pillow is their first night home and the other pic is about 5 days old in the hospital.

Family Weekend Extravaganza

This Labor Da

y weekend, Seth's brother Shelby and his wife and 3 boys came to visit. We haven't seen them in two years, so it was wonderful to catch up. They too have a

set of twin boys. There's are 3 years old and fraternal. They also have a 15 month old little boy and this was the first time we got to meet him. We started the weekend on Saturday with a BBQ with the yummiest Maui Chicken in the world. We all just hung out and enjoyed the day and then around 7

:00, some of us took some of the kids to the park and Seth, Shelby, Jenica, and I played tennis. Seth and I won, no thanks to my horrible serving, but I am pretty good at the return. We all went home and went to bed and the started the party again Sunday afternoon. I had to go to my sisters birthday party, so the kids and I were late, but everyone else went crawdad fishing. They got about 20 and the kids spe

nt the whole afternoon looking at them. Seth's other brother cooked up some delicious tempura shrimp and then late

r we had a crawdad boil. It was a wonderful day. Monday they headed home, but not with out Seth and Shelby playing a good 3 hours of tennis before hand. We had so much fun and we hope either they can come again or we can go see them sometime really soon.

Monday, August 18, 2008

The Kissing Hand...Day 1

Scarlett,

my beautiful five year old daughter, started kindergarten August the 11th. I can't believe the day has come and gone that my little girl started school. She was so excited about it and is already loving school.

Her teacher, Mrs. Marazzo, is a young, fun, enthusiastic teacher who seems genuinely excited to be there every day. She is so adorable too, and an identical twin! She loves Scarlett already. Scarlett has already

made very many friends, which is pretty easy for her to do. She is not burdened by shyness by any means.

The very first day, we walked to school. She stood in line and then the teacher took all the kids into the class. Scarlett sits on the yo-yo. The teacher had all the parents come in the back and she read a book called The Kissing Hand. It's about a bears first day of sc

hool and the mama bear kisses his hand and tells him it won't rub off and if he ever misses his momma, he can just rub his hand on his cheek and it's like his momma is kissing him. Then all the parents went to their kids and kissed the palms of their hands and we said our good byes and left our bab

ies to join the big kid world of kindergarten.

I walked out the door, very composed, waved good bye to Scarlett, walked around the corner, and started to cry. I am so happy and yet sad. She is too big now. Gone are the days of her total dependence on me, although she has been little miss independent from day one. Gone are the days of me being her very best friend.

I knew the day would someday come and it was bittersweet. I miss her when she is at school, but I know she is having a blast. I love our walks home where she tells me everything that happened during the day. I hope she continues to include me in all the details of her life as she grows up. She is so grown up, so much older than her five short years.

Lyman Family Blog