The first half of November, in a nutshell:
My parents were in town a few days after Halloween as well. Livy has been in a terrible "stranger danger" mode where she will cry and scream to be held by anyone but our immediate family. Having my parents here was the start of her getting out of this phase. She loved my dad and willingly went to him many times.
My mom helped Leah fill out some Veterans Day papers for school, listing her parents (my grandparents) and their service in the armed forces many years ago.
Does life get sweeter than sleeping babies? Every night when I check on this sweet girl, I just want to pick her up and snuggle her all night long. I am so in love with this girl. Sometimes I do pick her up just for an extra love, and then lay her back down and feel so glad that in addition to her sweetness, she is also such a great sleeper.
This month I finally made a phone call that I should have done months (maybe years) ago. Mitch has had chronic nosebleeds for years. His nose will start bleeding for no apparent reason and often will bleed very heavily. His most common time for nose bleeds is in the night when he is sleeping. We've had occasion where we will find him the next morning (or his bed and room, for that matter) covered in blood literally from ceiling to floor and everything in between. It looks as though we have stumbled upon a crime scene. Once, a nasty nose bleed led a trail all the way up our stairs, across a hallway, and ended in the kids' bathroom. If I hadn't known it was a nosebleed, I would have thought for sure someone had been brutally attacked in that bathroom. There was blood dotted all over the floor, smeared all over the counter tops and mirror and splattered up and down the shower curtain. His "crime scenes" often leave me feeling like I should be concerned about how much blood he has lost. And blood isn't easy to get out of things, either. I have scrubbed so much carpet, sinks and washed load after load of bloody sheets and clothes than I care to count.
I have brought it up with his pediatrician a number of times. We've done everything suggested: humidifiers, keeping his nose moist with ointments, etc. I mentioned it at his most recent well child check in October and the pediatrician recommended we see an ear, nose and throat specialist to see if he needed a blood vessel in the nose cauterized.
Mitch, my very brave patient!
The doctor first asked both Mitchell and me if we had noticed if one nostril bled more than the other. The pediatrician had asked me that question just a few weeks earlier, and I was kind of embarrassed to admit that I had never noticed. I just assumed with how many nose bleeds he was having (anywhere from 3-5 a week on bad weeks) that both sides bled an equal amount. In the time between seeing the pediatrician and the ENT doctor, I paid close attention and noticed that only his right side bled.
Upon inspection, the ENT specialist confirmed, quite quickly, that his right side did indeed have a big blood vessel that appeared very agitated. Just poking around in there started it to bleed. He numbed up the inside of the right nostril, then stuck an instrument up there to start cauterizing the problem vein right away.
While cauterizing, that nostril bled and bled. He had to cauterize it at least twice, if not 3 times, before he felt like he finally got it good enough. He warned us that it might still bleed for the first few days or so, and he was right! Mitch had quite a few nose bleeds the first week or 10 days and I was getting worried that we would have to go back in and re-do the work, which was entirely possible. But after the 2 week mark that we were told to hold out to, the nosebleeds have since stopped. I don't believe he has had a single on now in almost a month. Wahoo! Mitch was so brave the whole appointment. It wasn't a painful procedure, but having something stuck that far up a nostril would probably freak quite a few kids out. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. Hooray for no nosebleeds!
This girl! She loves this random mirror I have stored in our office. Every time she admires herself in the mirror, the song "You're so vain" pops into my head. ("You're so vain...I bet you think this song is about you..." Anyone?)
Ben's sister Megan and her family came up for a long weekend over Veteran's Day. We divided and conquered one night- half the kids with us women, the other half with the dads, to do some shopping. These two cuties tried to share a cart, but there was lots of angry binky stealing and face scratching that led to a lot of tears.
All 14 of us went out to lunch one day to the best Chinese restaurant around (King Wha's in Burien). It was quite the experience with 10 kids, but we survived. I'm sure the staff were not too sad to see us go. They recognized Ben and I, as we have become "regulars."
The rest of the visit was just fun. The kids had a blast playing together- it never gets old spending time with cousins.
Evie and Lexi loved playing dress up! These two are just a year apart in age almost exactly, but at least a foot apart in height! Too cute.
Pictures of babies never get old! Livy helped Grant feel motivated to do lots of standing that week.
The night they left to go home, our area was hit with a massive wind storm with wind up to 60 mph in some places. It was a loud, crazy night. The damage caused was pretty bad- trees down all over (some going right through houses) and lots and lots of people without power, some for 3-4 days! And the temperature was in the low to mid 30's, so it was too cold for the power to be off. Our power never went out, luckily.
The girls, assessing the damage out our bedroom window. Nothing too bad from this view. School was canceled for a day due to the damage as well.
We have these huge trees looking out our front door, up to our neighbor's back yard. We have always been worried about those trees coming down, and certain that they would reach our house should they ever fall. I was very surprised to see all of those intact the next morning. Our lawn was covered with small branches and debris that took a few hours to clean up, but we feel very fortunate for the lack of damage and inconvenience we had. The media called it "windpocalpyse 2014."
Mid November, I had the privilege of attending the temple twice in one week. The first night, on a Thursday, I attended with our youth for a baptism trip, and then 2 nights later on Saturday, I attended (with Ben) our adult ward endowment session. What a wonderful blessing that was to be able to attend those two nights. Both were such special nights and there really is no better place to be than the temple.
This man was excited to get his new reversible hunting jacket in the mail Notice the inside is hunter orange? Sexy!
Chloe, our ever faithful babysitter! We found her like this one night when we got back from an evening out. Part of her homework every night is to read a least 20 minutes. She has been struggling with the desire to read lately. I guess this night it just took every ounce of strength she had!
The twins received frozen yogurt (or Fro-Yo as they insist on calling it) gift cards for their birthdays and we hadn't used them yet. I surprised them one afternoon by taking them to get some on our way home from running errands. It was the best day ever for them! Frozen treats are never out of season!
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