Happy Birthday Mike!

Mandy had a great idea to post a younger picture for the birthdays. This was the best quality I could get.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Mikey!

Sad news

For those of you who haven't heard the news, President Hinckley died last night.

Here is the link to the church newsroom.

Cheese!!

Is this my color??

New Computer

Our computer is on it's last leg. We need to buy a new one. Any advice? Money is always an object and we are hoping to keep it under $1000.

Reunion, Again

Based on previous posts, this is a tentative schedule. Please comment if you have comments.
Mon: Family picture at park in morning
Picnic at park
Unbirthday party and games

Tues: Beach
Boardwalk

Wed: BBQ at noon at Crowls

Thurs: Zoo and picnic lunch
Option of attending temple visitor center (10 away from zoo)

Fri:


As you can see Friday is blank. There are additional options that have been mentioned:
Hershey Park
DutchWonderland
Chuck E. Cheese
Philidelphia
DC
New York

We also must have a planning session for future reunions.
Is there anything you would like to change, add or delete? Please let it be known!
As soon as this is set up we can start a blog about food!!

FYI

So today was Jacob's surgery.
I got up just before 5am and got ready. My in laws came over at 5:30am. Laura stayed with the older kids, she would use my van to take Mikayla to school and then take the boys to her house. Ryan drove Jacob and I to the hospital.
We checked in downstairs and then were sent up to the 6th floor. We were put in a little room with two nice rocker recliners, a baby scale and a fully loaded change table. Also a tv and dvd player. We were given little tiny pjs and slippers to put on the baby. They took his viatls and then the waiting started. At this time he had not eaten in 5 hours. So, he was doing surprisingly well. He didn't want to just sit and rock, though. We walked around in the halls and then when some other children came in, we went to the play room and watched them play.
About 7:30 we were taken to the 2nd floor to another waiting area. Around 8:10, I was gowned, bootied and hairnetted. I carried the hungry, tired little guy to the operating room. I got stay and hold his hand while they put a mask on him that put him to sleep. The hardest part was leaving after that.
In yet another waiting room, they called and let me know the surgeon was finally there and beginning the procedure. That was at 8:40am. At 9:10, I was let to another room to wait and talk to the surgeon. He came in 10 minutes later. All went well, he had removed a 1 inch section of skin from the navel, and found that it was not attached to anything vital, just extra. Jacob is fine.
I was pointed in the direction of the post op room. I went and found my little guy. He was still mostly out of it, but starting to wake up and getting angry. I was able to carry him up to the first room and feed him. They kept coming in to check his vitals and his diaper. I couldn't take him home until he had wet his diaper. He also had a little tiny IV, and a great big wrap on it to hold it in place.
We finally left the hospital at 12:15. He has a gauze animal shaped bandage on his little belly button. It is bloody and kind of gross, but covered in that plastic sticky tape. We will leave it on for 2 days and then underneath it are some white steri strips that we just leave on until they fall off on their own. They said he will either sleep mostly for the next 24 hours, or be irritable, it just depends on the kid.
I am glad it's over!! I am glad he is fine! I am glad my husband is coming home tonight!! I'm glad I'm done waiting in various waiting rooms.

Because we never responded

If I come with the boys (because I think Mike will come either way) I am sure they would love to go to the beach. They have never been to the ocean and they would be in heaven in a world of sand--and I won't even flash my brothers-in-law this time!

I do however, think we should narrow down the list of ideas since we only have five days. I guess we could do all those things but I would not be participating. I'm simple and would go crazy doing that many things!

A Miracle

Well, it's finally happened. We've posted on our own blog. Instead of putting all of the pictures we want you all to see on the family blog, we've decided to start using our own. I made a blog for nick's pictures about a year ago and never added to it. I've now put on a bunch of pictures of our trip to Argentina and changed the link on the left. I hope you all enjoy.
and this is a smiley beard.

Happy Birthday Mandy!

So, it's a good thing we're having a family reunion so we can all take new pictures of one another. This is one of only a couple pictures I have of Mandy.

Me and the boys

This is the broken belly button. It's not very clear, but the part in the lower half of the button is a seperate piece that is a bright pink and pokes out unattractively. They will fix that.
This is just my cute boy!


Today was an interesting day. We took Jacob to see a surgeon. He has decided to do surgery on his little baby belly button. There is something herniated in there. He will go and remove fix the problem next Thursday. Poor little baby. I am glad it doesn't bother him.

Tyson was matching letters on animals to letters in on train cars. He found T for Tyson and B for Braden. I gave him J for Jacob and M for Mikayla. Then he gave me the unicorn.
T: What's this?
M: That's U.
T: That's me??
M: No, that's a U.
T: Me??
M: No, letter U.
T: OH, letter U.
Then he took it back and said:
That's me!!

Braden today brought me a metal ball... the one he swallowed last Saturday night. It "reappeared" today. But don't tell anyone, it's a secret. I'll say it for all of us:
Um, EW! Gross!!

B-Day picture

Since none of you found a good picture to use for my birthday, I thought it would be a good time to show you my civilian facial hair.



































































This is the picture of when Laura and Nick came to surprise me at work today.

It's Andy's Special Day!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY!!

You are the best Andy in our family!

We love you and hope you have a great day!

Let the Games Begin!!

It may be early for some of you, but I am just so excited and I like to look ahead and plan things, so:
What family activities do we want to do at our reunion?
Let's all make some suggestions and then we can narrow down if we need to. We can also start a food/meal blog when we are ready.
Ok, so maybe I just have too much time on my hands, or maybe I don't use my time wisely. Either way, I'm ready to start planning, so jump on board!!

Home Owners

Hey all you home owners, and future home owners(that would be me and mike and andy and laura!) I have a question for you all. As we begin to look at homes and think about what we want in our house, I am wondering:
What do you love about your house, couldn't do without it?
What do you wish you had in your house, but didn't think about it before you bought it?

Now, I know you might wish you had a room full of money, or a indoor pool, or a big screen tv, but anything serious that you would look for if you could do it again?

Coupons

I am interested in the Northwest Airlines coupons. Sometimes these are sent in the mail in coupons envelopes or other types of flyers. If you get one and are not planning to use it, I would like to see if it would help me out. I am not sure what the conditions are, but if it saved money in flying, that would be good. So, if you get one, can you read it and tell me what it says???
Thanks!
Mandy

New Link on the left

Please notice that I moved the calendar to the bottom of the screen. I put a link to it on the left at the top of the blog. You'll notice (when you click on the link) that the calendar is big enough to read what people put on it. I also wanted to point out how cool it is that I figured out how to make links like that--there's one under the calendar to take you back up to the top of the links.

Also, I'm attaching a picture I took of the stars this evening. I set the camera on one of the boys outside toys, opened the aperature as wide as I could and set the shutter for 60 seconds. I think it's an interesting picture. I'd like to get a tripod and take other pictures like it.

Mom and Dad weigh in on the Family Reunion

We are extremely excited that you all are planning a family reunion. Thanks Mike for taking the hint and instigating it. We will see if we can make it. . . . . . .hahaha. Of course we will be here to welcome you all with open arms. July works well for us.

We are going to try our hardest to get the basement done to provide additional sleeping spaces and an additional bathroom. Anyone who comes early might be enlisted to help with whatever remains to be done in the basement.

We are planning to provide all of the food, but don’t necessarily want to be the only planners, preparers or cleaner-uppers! We can have some fun tossing out menu suggestions, any preparations that can be done ahead Mom would be happy to do. This is something that we certainly don’t need to worry about yet.

If the expense of buying tickets is prohibitive let us know and we will see what we can do to help you. We would be sad to have anyone miss out due to lack of resources. The bank of Mom and Dad can be opened if there is a need.

We love you all,

Dad and Mom

Pitcher Family

Hey, I put new pictures of my beautiful children on my blog, in case you want to see them. Hint: Go look at my blog!!!

A Date

Is it too soon to pick a date, or would that make things easier for people?

Here is my thought...in July, after the 4th. That is still pretty broad, but narrows it down a little bit.

Family Reunion Part 2

Sorry, I got tired of commenting so many times. I think that we need to make a real decision and then move forward. Of course we all know that things can change, and also that Andy and Laura haven't seen any of this, they come home around the 10th.

And we have had no official comment from mom and dad...

To answer some of Mike's questions:
Yes, we really could house everyone. Not lavishly, but not uncomfortably. We each have two full bathrooms and both can have a third built in the basements by this summer. We have two fold out couches, plus will have a bedroom finished in the basement this week. We could easily come up with an empty bedroom upstairs as well, possibly two. Mom and Dad have at least one sofa bed, plus three empty bedrooms. The hardest thing will be deciding who has to stay at my house. I think that I will even want to stay at mom and dad's so I can be around all the action.

I am pretty sure that we could cover car seats as well. Between the ones that we have and ones that we can borrow from friends. I have an infant one and I don't use and a five-point harness. Mom has a booster and a five-point harness. And I have a lot of friends that I can ask.

Anyway, I say let's do it this summer. What say ye?

We are our parents

Does it ever just hit you out of nowhere that we are our parents!?! I mean, as we are talking and planning, I realize, WE ARE MOM AND DAD. We are Uncle Steven and Aunt Linda! We are Aunt Candace and Uncle Keith! Our children are us!

Anyway, sometimes that just hits me out of nowhere!

Family Reunion

Mom and Dad hinted--well, it was more of a suggestion than a hint--that it would be a good time in our family's life to establish some kind of family reunion schedule/plan. I think a discussion on the blog would be a good way to generate ideas and to gauge everyone's feeling on different ideas. I'd especially like to see what people want to have happen: frequency, locations, activities, responsibilities, or anything else.

I'll start the discussion by posting a comment with my thoughts on the subject.

Resolutions?

So, it's a new year, is anyone making resolutions this year? I am not sure when the last time I did that. I found, like most people, that I never kept them, so why bother making them. But what about you??

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful ushering out of 2007 and welcoming of 2008.

We went to an adult only party. It was lots of fun. There were 13 couples. Everyone brought an appetizer or a dessert. We played a gift exchange game, sang karaoke, played pool and fuseball. Okay, all I really did was eat, but other people did those things. It was just lots of fun. I missed the kids, but the party didn't start until 9pm anyway, so they would normally be in bed.

Anyway, what fun things did you all do?