Luke's baby blessing

11/30/09

Wow. Things have been busy busy busy busy busy. We had Thanksgiving, Luke's blessing, I cooked and cleaned like a madwoman for days, and did NOT go shopping except for groceries. (Boo. Normally I'd have most of my Christmas shopping done by now.) Oh, and I got stranded in the middle of the road because my car ran out of gas. That was fun. Luckily, Mark was close by in his car and I was right in front of a gas station. And it was only snowing a little.

Anyways, here's my precious Luke Toy Yoder (two months old):

Fabulous blessing outfit, no? I searched online for months before I found it. Love it!!

And about his name...I have had a half a dozen people come right out and ask if we named him after:

Luke Skywalker. Uh...no. As much as I love him (and I have a pillowcase emblazoned with his face to prove it), "Luke" was simply the only name that Mark and I both liked. He wanted a "Samuel" and I wanted an "Isaac" and of course neither of us would cave. So Luke it was! (That's pretty much how we named Madelyn, too, although as it turns out my Grandma had a baby sister who died whose name was Magdalena, which is Spanish for Madelyn.)

We are not too big on family names, but the middle name of "Toy" has been given to Mark and all his siblings and a bunch of the grandkids, too. Mark's dad Frank Toy was orphaned at ten and was eventually adopted by Yoders in Pennsylvania. His father, (Mark's grandfather) emigrated from China to San Francisco when he was fifteen and his name was YuenTsung Yuk Choy. Emigration officers wrote his name down as "Toy" instead of "Choy" for some reason, and he took on the name "Frank." We all are proud of his Chinese heritage, but names like "Shun Tun Man Hung," "Jeck Lung" and "Fu Sai Tape" (Mark's great grandfathers) are a bit much, let's face it.

Anyhoo, here's some more pictures from the blessing day:

Our friend Dorothy Bone knit the white blanket for baby Madelyn and the other for baby Luke

Mark's sister Sheila Brown, mom Kathy Yoder, Mark, Luke, me, Sally and David Yoder with their boys Jake, Alex, Noah and Will

We attempted some family pictures later, and although we got a few cute ones, I want to take more. Because I'm crazy like that. And I might be able to get Madelyn to wear a shirt.

My whole family came to our house after church and of course they wanted pictures, too. Trying to get one big group shot is always a little circus-like.

Shay and Maria Nielson, Ava, Monica, Tyler, Megan, Rich, Nathan, Carolyn, Kevin, Lori and Hattie Murset, Madelyn, Mark Melissa and Luke Yoder

I also made a Mexican FEAST for everyone:

I am the Master of the kitchen Universe! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!! I made two crockpots full of Cafe Rio shredded pork, one crockpot of green chile chicken posole, guacamole, 7-layer bean dip, black beans, Spanish rice, cherry tart and mini lemon cheesecakes all from SCRATCH. It was way too much food, but now I have some very delicious leftovers. I think a recipe post may need to be forthcoming.

...And now I'll throw in a Thanksgiving slideshow, because somewhere between all this we did celebrate it at my parent's house in Hurricane.

I contributed about ten dozen homemade rolls (they were smallish as to have more), two pumpkin pies, and two four-berry pies (strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry), one of which went to my brother-in-law Shay, because it was his 24th birthday. The day after Thanksgiving, Mark went with my dad and our friend Adam Jowers to go hiking around some of the gorgeous red rocks behind Quail Lake.

Whew...now that all that's over I only have to get ready for Madelyn's birthday, Christmas, and our anniversary, all of which are in the same week in December. Don't you just love this crazy time of year.
(So tired...must...keep....going...)

Two months!

11/25/09 warning: baby overload

Luke is two months old today. I love my chunky little butterball!! Everything about this kid is round. I've gotten a lot of cute pictures of him the past couple days.

Thank heaven I finally got some pictures of him smiling. The poor kid's retinas were getting singed from so many camera flashes.

Weight: 11 lbs. 10 oz.!
Height: 24 inches
New things he can do this month: smile, coo, chew on his hands, stare at mobiles and ceiling fans, drool all over everything

As soon as he sees those elephants hanging above his playpen, be it 5:00 in the morning, his legs start kicking like crazy. He's not too interested in the fancy lights and music mirror, though.
I just want to eat that chubby little fist!

Madelyn is checking for "tosie lint." Lint-free toes are of the utmost importance to her.

I had just changed a big poopy blow-out (hence the nakedness) as Mark was leaving for work. Love that grin!! Actually, he's naked in almost all these pictures. I promise we clothe him most of the time.

Luke's bath picture reminded me of this one of Madelyn when she was four months old:

Cuuuute, huh. My dad came by today and took some snaps with his new digital SLR Nikon (jealous!). It was still on a fluorescent light setting so everything looks pink.

Time to go make Thanksgiving pies! Have a great holiday!

Just Chillin'

11/23/09

Holy schmoly--where did November go?? We've been busy doing....well....um, I can't think of what we've been busy with. Nothing, really. But the days seem to just fly by anyway. So here's some random pictures of....stuff.

Mark won himself some Cool Daddy points when he brought some dry ice home from work and made fog in the kitchen.

Madelyn, who is often pantsless, made up the pretend realms of Panty Land and Panty Castle in our bedroom. Not sure what one does when in Panty Land. Show off some leg, apparently.

Luke is often pantsless, too. Just realizing the coincidence.

Snuggle

Snuggle

Snuggle

Snuggle (with Grandma Yoder)

...And don't forget to take your notebook and markers out on the freezing, windy lawn in your Sunday clothes to "draw a map of the city."

Well, that about covers it. Now, since it's Monday, I get to go bathe the kids, go visiting teaching, go to the grocery store, do laundry, dishes, trashes, clean the house and change about a million diapers. Oh, wait--I guess that explains where all my time goes nowadays.

My husband...the pediatrician

11/19/09

Mark came home last night and showed me the new business cards his clinic had printed for him. We were all pleased as punch until I noticed that is says that Mark is a "Board Certified Pediatrician." WOO! Looks like someone's been promoted!!

Since they had about 300 of these printed off and probably no one will notice the mistake, Mark says he's not going to tell the office manager about it until it's time to reorder. In the meantime, we can bask in the prestige of him being called a doctor (even though his title as a PA-C is correct on the card).

...I should explain something about Physician Assistants while I'm at it. We have had a lot of people ask if/when Mark will ever go back to school to become a doctor. Unfortunately, even though PAs do about 80% or more of what doctors can do (diagnose, prescribe, perform surgery and other procedures), being a PA would not give him any head start school-wise in becoming a doctor. He would have to go to four years of medical school and do four years of residency just like everybody else, which is why there is NO WAY that is going to happen. If he even mentioned going back to school (which he wouldn't in a million years), I think I'd start looking for a new husband. No one in their right mind would want to do the grad school thing twice, TRUST me!!!!

What's Up, Doc?

11/17/09

I was wondering what to post about when it occurred to me that I have some health updates to report.

First one is about my father-in-law Frank:

If you are wondering where Luke's profile came from--look no further.

He had not been feeling well for about a week and finally decided to go to the doctor. The physician who saw him at the Instacare in Hurricane told him to go to the ER right away, so off he and Kathy went (pictured above at my bro-in-law Paul's wedding last spring). He had a bad case of diverticulitis so they started him on IV antibiotics, did additional testing and kept him overnight. The doctor there decided he needed surgery, which Frank tried to talk him out of. He is a super workaholic and didn't want to be slowed down by anything (he started up a Resource and Reentry nonprofit a couple years ago to benefit local ex-cons and the like). He gets up at 3:00 or 4:00am to start working every day.

Anyway, to sum up, he ended up having a bowel resection and colostomy last weekend, which was a pretty major surgery. He'll have to wear a colostomy bag for about three months and then go in for a second surgery to reattach everything. He is still in the hospital and has started to improve a little. He was refusing to take any pain meds for fear of becoming addicted (he is famously stubborn... anyone who knows him can attest to this), and no one in the family could talk him into it. Meanwhile, he was writhing in pain all day long. Sooo, eventually the doctor came in and told him he needed to take his meds and that he wouldn't let him get addicted. "OK." (At least he'll listen to someone...) Hopefully he'll get better soon.

Wow...thank-you Madelyn for accurately capturing how tired I look nowadays

Second, my OB Dr. Sanders referred me to a cardiologist because the tachycardia I had during my pregnancy has not resolved and I am dizzy and lightheaded for a good chunk of every day. So I went to St. George last week and met with a doctor who made me feel stupid for even being there, dismissed the fact that I had any problems, and didn't address my dizziness at all. He had all the results from the EKG readings I took every day for a month back in June and told me they were all normal. (A pulse of 150 is "normal"? Since when??). There is nothing anatomically wrong with my heart, but something is still causing my dizziness. I am on medication and I haven't had the same shortness of breath and heart palpitations that I had while I was pregnant, but my pulse is still around 90-112, which is rather high.

I had just kinda given up on the whole thing when Mark ran into Dr. Sanders last night at the hospital. Dr. Sanders was like, "Can you believe that guy?? He was so rude! I read his report and he totally blew her off." He said he's going to pull some strings to get me in to an internal medicine specialist to try and figure things out. THANK-YOU Dr. Sanders!!

Haha, I love this picture

Lastly, Luke has had a sandpapery rash all over his head, back and chest, which his pediatrician Dr. Newbold said was prickly heat and to help clear it up, we needed to (cue horror music) switch the whole family to fragrance-free laundry detergent and quit using fabric softener. EEEEEEeeeek! Now, I know I am a total dork, but my method of choosing detergents and fabric softener is based almost entirely on how they smell. It's pretty much the only good thing about laundry. So I very begrudgingly made the switch, and even though I found some fragrance-free Downy and dryer sheets, our clothes feel a lot stiffer than they used to and smell like...nothing. If this doesn't work to clear up his skin--I am SO switching back!

Chunky Monkey and the Wiz Kid (my 200th post!)

11/13/09

Well, haven't I been a busy little blogger! 200 posts since I started last April. Geez, you'd think I have something better to do.

...Nope, I guess not.

And what better way to commemorate than putting up a million pictures of my kids (which is pretty much what this blog is for anyway). Here's my chunky monkey Luke:


We took him to the doctor yesterday to get a rash checked out, and he weighed 10 lbs. 10 oz.!!! (Well, 3 oz. of that was a wet diaper. We weighed it.) That little man is almost the size Madelyn was at three months, and he's only seven weeks! Who's feeding this kid?!

Madelyn has been a great big sister, even though she's been usurped as the center of attention in the home. She loves to hold Luke and so far hasn't dropped him, feet in the face notwithstanding...

She is learning so much in preschool. I can't take credit for much because before she started, she knew her alphabet and numbers (thanks to Sesame Street, most likely), colors, shapes and a little counting but she couldn't write. Now she can write her name, look at words and spell out all the letters, and one day I came into her room and she recited the whole Pledge of Allegiance. She likes to hold a flag while she says it.


Although she isn't getting into mischief nearly as much as she used to (THANK GOODNESS), she is still Little Miss Personality.


Kids. They make life so interesting and messy. And now, seeing that it's 2:30 and I'm still in my jammies, I had better go see if I can shower and get dressed so I can finish the laundry and try to see if the living room floor is still there underneath all the toys. Wait...the baby just woke up. There go my next two hours before he lets me put him down again.. Oh, well. Who needs personal hygiene and a clean house anyway?