The Munro Family

Tucker turned 4 months and we went in for his checkup on Friday. He weighs 15 1/2 lbs and is in the 75th percentile for his weight, height, and head. We have never had a child be quite this healthy!!!!!! He is so much fun and is doing incredibly well. They are a little concerned about his "pirate eye" as Carson calls it, but hope that he will outgrow it soon. He has learned to roll over to his stomach, which means he sleeps much better now. He's discovered toys and his fists and thinks that both are pretty cool. He holds his own bottle, when he gets one and would love to sit up on his own! And best of all, he REALLY likes solid foods!

Festival of Trees has been a tradition in my family for years. It is a fundraiser for Primary Children’s Hospital, Hallie’s home away from home when she was a baby. It is such an awesome start to the holiday season and I was so bummed that I wasn’t going to get to go this year. Then we made our unexpected trip to Salt Lake, which coincided so nicely with Festival!!! I got to go help my mom set up—she did 2 doors in Hallie’s name, bid night, when most of the trees are actually sold, and then I took my kids with their cousins—a nice silver lining to the clouds!

Thanksgiving and my birthday this year have been very bittersweet. My grandpa was admitted to the hospital on Thanksgiving with nausea and a high fever. By Friday he had slipped into a coma, and by Saturday, they weren't giving him very good odds to live through the night. I spent the afternoon frantically packing and trying to make arrangements to be gone for an indefinite period of time. My brother Cody and his cute wife Heather were driving through from California and went out to dinner with me for my 30th birthday, then we went to bed early and got up at 4:00 the next morning and drove out. Derrick had to stay behind because of work.

We drove straight through (8 1/2 hours) and went straight to the hospital. Grandpa has spinal meningitis, sepsis infection of the blood, along with paralysis of the right side, seizures, is in a coma, along with a myriad of other problems. It has been very touch and go, but today he is starting to come out of the coma. The paralysis is letting up, and he is sure he is leaving that hospital. I can just imagine what he would say if he could talk, but as it is he just grumbles his curses at you and throws his leg over the side of the bed and tries to leave. All while he is technically still in a coma!

Today has been a very good day for him. His eyes have been open, even though he is not completely concious and aware of his surroundings. He hummed a few strains of a song while I was there this morning, as well as was able to start moving his right hand. While my brother was there tonight, he said "ok" twice. That might not seem like much, but for someone that wasn't supposed to make it through the night on Saturday, we are just thrilled to see such incredible progress. The funny thing is that he broke his hip and just got out of the rehab center 6 days before Thanskgiving and he absolutely refused to move that leg. Now he is kicking me with it!

So while Thanksgiving and my birthday weren't bright spots, I got to come to Salt Lake and be with my family. I wish Derrick could be here with me and the kids and I am dreading driving home alone, but I love being here and being able to help lighten the load for my family. My grandma loves that I know what all of the alarms are for and whether his oxygen is being weaned or not. She wants me to stay all the time and answer her questions. My mom is on the executive board for Festival of Trees, so I have being trying to help out there as much as possible a well.

I hope and pray that Grandpa continues to improve and will have a full recovery. When I get back here in a little over 2 weeks, I want more than anything for him to give me a big hug!

So I know that we are a little early, but the little shopping center down the street had this Christmas Walk amoung 3 different stores last weekend. I figured since we were heading to Salt Lake for Christmas, this would be a good opportunity to take my kids to see Santa. Carson thought he was great, Hallie wouldn't sit on his lap, but loved the penguin and Tucker fell asleep in his arms!

My hair has started falling out in big clumps. It's horrible! It has happened after each of my kids. I will soon have male pattern baldness, uggggh! I don't know why I thought it would be any different after the 3rd child, but for some reason I did. Usually it starts to fall out when the baby is about 2 -2 1/2 months. Tucker is almost 3 1/2 months now, so I was excited, thinking I wasn't going to have to go through this after this baby. Unfortunately, my hairstyles will soon have to get very creative in order to hide all of the hair loss. Bummer.

Tucker has recently become very discontented with ANYTHING but standing. He will sit in his bouncy seat for maybe 2-3 minutes before he gets mad. His little play mat he has no use for. He likes to be on his stomach, but forget it lately. Even when we are holding him, he has to be standing, none of this sitting or lying down bit. We put him in the exersaucer the other day and let me tell you, he is awfully proud of himself. He thinks it is pretty awesome. Not to mention that it lets me get a few things accomplished!

We were at the church tonight for a primary activity and as everyone was leaving, Hallie some how got her finger slammed in the door. It was pretty ugly looking and the pinky finger was definitely not straight anymore. We had to take her to the urgent care and do x-rays. Her finger was dislocated, but luckily popped back in on its own.

For Hallie, this is fairly minor stuff, but I was extremely proud of her anyways. The only time she cried in the whole doctors visit is when they put the pulse oximeter on her finger (a fear left over from her time in the hospital-- she got burned by one once when it got left on for too long). She didn't even cry when they did x-rays. She loved the cooker things (aprons) that she and I had to wear and wants to make one for Daddy for Christmas. He'll look good in a floral apron, don't you think? They kept giving her stickers ( we ended up with 20 or so) and she would take a walk out to the waiting room to share them with Carson. It was so cute!

She and I were sitting in the exam room (Derrick was a chicken and opted to stay in the waiting room with the boys) and she asked if we could play I Spy. This is not very challenging with her because the first thing you name, even if it's not what she was thinking of is the answer. And she always does the I Spy part while you get to guess what it is. Then she looked at me and asked me if I was thinking what she was thinking. This is a new game for her. I asked her what she was thinking and she told me that she thought the room was dancing. The other night was she thought the house was dancing like a penguin. It was such a crack up. Here she is in so much pain that if you even touched her finger, let alone moved it, she would cry out in pain, yet she's playing games, talking to the nurses and doctors, and having a great time. And the whole time I am thinking how much she has gone through in her short little life, how amazing she is, and how incredibly blessed I am to have her still with me, despite the nice mural she colored on my wall for me today!

While we were out of town, Derrick's company did some lay-offs. Not huge ones, just a few people, but with an office of only 35, it's been enough to scare most of the other employees. When you hear about all of the jobs being lost, it just makes you so grateful to have a job, to have a way to make money and support your family. Who ever would have thought that we would reach a time in our lives that we would be so grateful to have a job that if they ask you to work extra hours, you do it without complaint? Derrick has worked so many hours since we got back from vacation. Part of that is because he was gone and had so much to do, but the rest is just him trying to help take up the slack from the layoffs. My poor kids are missing their daddy so much! He has been working at least 10-12 hour days ands sometimes 16 hours, including the weekend. Tomorrow his show comes out and it will be another long day, but come Thursday, he should be home around dinner time and we are so excited! My heart aches for those that have lost jobs and I hope that each of us will truly remember our blessings this holiday season and give back to those in need.

We just got back from visiting Derrick's parents. We left the day before Halloween-- what an ordeal traveling out there is anymore! We flew out of Sacramento, so we had to wake up at 3:00 am and drive 2 hours to get there, during which Carson threw up, of course! That was even with Dramamine. I swear that child gets motion sick just at the thought of riding in a car! Then we had to park at a hotel, take the shuttle to the airport, get through the security (no small feat these days) and take a 4 hour flight to Minneapolis, which is a very cool airport. They have a mall inside of it. They also had this hug airplane inside the terminal that the kids could play in. We had a 2 hour layover there and then flew to Indiannapolis, about 1 hour and 45 minutes away. Derrick's family met us there and we grabbed a bite to eat and then drove the 2 hours to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky. We didn't get there until about 10:30 at night. I was so tired by the time we got there that I couldn't hardly see straight!

Halloween we slept in and tried to catch up on some sleep, then we went to grab a few things at Walmart and then headed up to Aunt Sis's (Derrick's great aunt). We had an early dinner with her, then headed back and went trick or treating. It was kind of cool-- out there everyone sat on their porches or the end of their driveway to hand out treats. Some people had little fire pits going. It was like a party for the adults and it made it easier for the kids to not have to walk all the way to someone's door to trick or treat. It was very nice.

Saturday was my father-in-law's birthday. All Brad wanted to do was have a bonfire and cook foil dinners and cobbler. We did a little birthday shopping and the kids got to visit grandpa's horse, then Grandma Tucker (Derrick's maternal grandma and where we got Tucker's name from) as well as Derrick's Aunt Christine and a few cousins came over for our bonfire.

Sunday we went to church and ran into Derrick's boss from Salt Lake there. He recently accepted a new job out there and moved into my in-law's ward- probably because my mother-in-law was their real estate agent and helped them find the "perfect" house! What a small world! Anyways, Derrick got to visit with a lot of people that he knew growing up, which was nice. After church, Derrick drove to Cincinnati and picked up Aunt Sis, who came back and spent the afternoon with us. She has really adopted Hallie as her own grandchild and has worried about her since the moment she was born. We get packages every few months from her for the kids, so it was nice for her to get to spend some time with them.

On Monday, we took the kids to Jonny's Toy Store, which has a birthday castle in it. We signed the kids up for their birthday club a few years ago and they send keys to Grandma's house for each of their birthdays. We went to the store and each kid got a turn unlocking the door to the castle and choosing a toy off of the shelves. They thought it was great and wanted to go back several times during our trip. That night we got to visit Derrick's best friend Amber, who he ironically lined up with his college roommate Brady. They've been married almost 10 years and have 5 kids. We don't get to see them very often, since they seem to be traveling to see Brady's family in Utah every time we travel out there, so it was really good to eat dinner with them and just visit.

Tuesday was election day. We did early voting here in Nevada, but Brad, Vicki, and Derrick's sister Cori all needed to vote-- they had to stand in line for an hour and a half to vote-- crazy! They only had 2 booths and when one volunteer took a break, his booth got shut down. It took them forever. We went to see High School Musical 3, which my kids loved. Hallie, for whatever reason, decided that while watching the movie, it would be a fabulous time to decide to become potty trained. She told us she had to go to the bathroom 3 different times during the movie and each time she went-- it was great! I love that movie just for that reason! She was pretty good about telling us when she needed to go for the rest of the trip. Unfortunately, she had to go on the airplane and told us the toilet there was disgusting-- not that I blame her-- and has completely regressed since. I guess I need to take her back to see the movie again!

Wednesday we met up for lunch with Grandma Tucker. We don't normally get to spend one-on-one time with her, so it was really great to be able to see her more than once and spend the afternoon with her. Dustin (Derrick's 10 year old brother) had basketball practice that night so the rest of us got a chance to kick back and relax and for me to do laundry and start to get our stuff together.

On Thursday, we headed back up to Aunt Sis's and had lunch with her, then went to a real working farm, where the kids got to milk a goat, feed the goats, hold baby chicks, gather eggs, and take a tour of a Native American "village". They all loved that, especially seeing Grandma milking the goat. We went to Dustin's basketball game and then had a movie night at the house.

Friday, the kids got to go visit the horse one more time and then we drove up to Indianoplis and went to the children's museum there. The kids had a great time exploring all 4 levels and doing all sorts of fun things. I will be so glad when the children's museum opens up here in the spring. The closest one is in Carson City and it leaves a lot to be desired once you have gone to one of the bigger ones! I couldn't believe the price of gas there! I though Cinci was cheap when we filled up for $1.85, but Inday we saw it for $1.72 or $1.62 with a car wash! I would love to have been able to bring some home at that price! Afterwards, we checked into a hotel and had dinner before saying goodbye to Grandma, Grandpa, Cori, and Dustin.

Saturday morning we woke up at 4:00 am ( 1:00 am our time) and flew to Minneapolis then to Sacramento. I liked the people at the security checkpoint so much better in Indy! They didn't even make me take Tucker out of the snuggli or take my jacket off-- it made it so much easier! By the time we got to Sac, we were dead on our feet! We took the shuttle back to the hotel, checked in (thank goodness they allowed early check in!) and then took a family nap! What a nice couple of hours of much needed rest! We got some dinner and were all asleep for the night by about 7:45. I was trying to hit 8:30, but we didn't realize that the clock in our van hadn't been changed since daylight savings, so I thought it was later than it was and by the time we realized the mistake, we were all too tired to stay up any longer!

The kids all woke up by 4:00 Sunday morning, so we hung out for a few hours and then all went back down for a nap by 8:30! It was great! We woke up, checked out and drove about 40 minutes to Derrick's college roommate Jason's house. We got to visit with he and his wife for awhile, then headed to church with them where they blessed their baby. We headed back to their house for dinner and then drove the 2 hours home.

We are exhausted, the kids still aren't sure what time it really is, but we enjoyed the trip. It had been almost 2 years since we had been back there, with us moving and all. The kids had a great time and I'm glad that Derrick was able to spend so much time with family and friends!

Due to a lot of questions raised recently about the safety of blogs, I have decided to make our blog private. I will be switching it in the next week or so. If you would like an invite, let me know and I will send you one. You can either email me or post a comment. Thanks!

Carson won his first football game tonight!!!! The last 3 games, Carson has acted like he didn't know how to play football, but tonight he looked like a real football player. He started off the game by making a catch (although he did get a penalty for swatting at the defense's hands). You should have seen his face! He was completely shocked! Then he ran a ball (penalty as well for swatting). Then he was QB (way scary with the way he throws) and he threw a touchdown pass. Then on defense he was the rusher and sacked the QB in the end zone for a safety. We won 21-19. Good thing we got the safety!

Anways, it was a way fun game and it is so much fun to see how far they have come in just 4 games. Carson is super pumped. Everyone kept asking me what I had fed him for dinner and where he came from. What a huge confidence builder for him! Maybe now when he plays football on the playground at school, he will be able to hold his own! The whole team did awesome. Great job Texans!

Carson learned how to ride a 2 wheeler on Saturday. He has fought us tooth and nail when we have tried to teach him. We finally took him to the school and told him we weren't leaving until he could ride his bike. 2 hours and a LOT of tears later, he finally figured it out. The funny thing is that he rode laps around the ball diamond (the only place he would consider riding), but when we told him to take his bike across the grass to the parking lot, he declined saying that he would rather push it-- what a kid! He is such a chicken liver!!! But I am awfully proud of him for finally overcoming his fears. Way to go Carson!



And of course, since Carson was riding his bike, Hallie decided to learn to ride hers-- the problem is that she is so short, she has to scoot all the way forward on the bike, just to reach the pedals. She'll get it one day!

Carson started flag football a few weeks ago. Derrick got roped into coaching him. They've had 3 games now and Carson is living, breathing, and sleeping football! Derrick just thinks it's cool that they get to play under the lights-- he didn't get to do that until high school! Carson doesn't really understand all of the rules, as evidenced by the two back to back rushing penalties he got at last nights game, but he sure loves to play!



Hallie and Tucker love the games too-- Hallie usually falls asleep on the way there and Tucker just watches with big eyes!

Well, it snowed here-- in October-- again! My kids thought it was great, so I thought I would post a few pictures of them playing in the snow.

So, after living in Reno for over a year, I have FINALLY found a pediatrician that I love! That has been one of the hardest things about moving-- finding good doctors to replace our ones in Utah. We had a pediatrician for awhile that was fairly good, but I couldn't stand her office staff. After a series of problems at their office, I finally gave in and went on the hunt for a new pediatrician.

I have interviewed several and finally found an office that I had gotten several referrals to, but they weren't on our insurance when we first moved here. This time around, they are now accepting it and I am so excited! I went and met with them a few weeks ago and was impressed. After our appointments today, I am so very happy with them. Hallie was given a flu shot and didn't even freak out. That is huge for Hallie! The staff was awesome and the doctor is great. I feel very comfortable for the first time in a year with the healthcare my children will be given. It is an incredible feeling!

We went to a pumpking patch last night for Family Home Evening (for those not LDS, our church encourages us to take one night a week for family time-- Monday is set aside as a night without any church meetings to help facilitate this). We had so much fun. My kids were disappointed that I wouldn't let them pick out big pumpkins because we will be in Cincinnati this year for Halloween. Other than that, we had a great time! It was some much needed family time.

While all of our family was here, we drove over to Tahoe and spent some time at a little playground on the beach. It is so gorgeous over there! We thought that we would take some family pictures while we were there.