End of the Year 2010

This year sure went by fast. We were able to purchase our rental home this year, so we are planning on staying put in Riverton for a little while longer, at least a few years. Another fun thing was hosting our 10-year-old niece for a few weeks this summer who flew up from Arizona to stay with us. And we also got to have a Fowles side family reunion in Arizona and Jenna’s whole family was able to be there–all 16 grandchildren and 13 adults! We all stayed at her parents’ house in Mesa which made for a crowded house, but a lot of fun. After the reunion in Arizona, we were able to head over to California for a few days. And, of course, the biggest news around here is that we are expecting baby #5, another boy, due in March 2011! Eliza will have all brothers, just like her mom.

Corey started this year at the American Fork store as a 2nd manager there. He was transferred in the middle of the summer to the West Jordan store and then a few months after that, he was transferred down to Orem, which is where he is working currently. He is still working hard to get his own store, hopefully sometime in the near future. He keeps quite busy with work and when he’s not at work, he enjoys having as much down time as possible.

Jenna started taking violin lessons in January, after not having played seriously since the 9th grade. Currently, she is part of the Herriman Community Orchestra and hopes to be able to continue that next year. She was able to attend BYU Women’s Conference in April and the Casual Blogger Conference in May. Other than that, it’s business as usual–endless loads of laundry and chasing after children.

Westley (7) finished first grade and started second grade this year. He got glasses over the summer. Westley did baseball in the spring, took swimming lessons in the summer, and has just finished flag football. He started piano lessons this fall also. He is excelling in school and loves being a big brother.

Caleb (6) started kindergarten this year. He has a half day and attends in the afternoon. He is doing well in school and loves every minute of it. He also did baseball and swimming with Westley and started piano lessons as well. He learned to ride his bike this spring and recently lost his first tooth.

Travis (4) continues to be full of life and laughter. He also did baseball and swimming this year. As many of you know, he’s been having some problems with his eyes and has recently undergone some neurological testing. The neurological tests came back with strange results–two cysts in his brain–but we learned that they are nothing to worry about. The eye problems will be corrected with glasses for now, and hopefully that’s all he’ll need.

Eliza (3) is a little girl with a huge personality. She adores her big brothers, who adore her in return. She recently became potty trained and is very excited to be such a big girl. She loves all things girlie which is a huge change for our family of boys.

Extended Family Gathering

Since we live in Utah and quite a few of my cousins and other relatives on my mom's side live here, we decided to have a get-together for the holidays. Everyone who lives in Utah was able to make it, and several members of my own family who don't live in Utah but happened to be here for the holidays also made it. We didn't have any representation from one of my mom's sisters, but all of their family lives in California and nobody was out for Christmas this year.

Anyway, we had a buffet-style potluck dinner of ham sandwiches. I made the ham, which was my first time making a ham ever, and it turned out pretty good. There was plenty of food, and I'm glad for that because I was worried at first that there wouldn't be enough. All the adults had a great time visiting and the kids (many of whom are only second cousins) had fun playing together in the toy room upstairs.

It's always fun to get together with the cousins on the Fellows side--we always had such fun playing together growing up, even though we often lived far away and only saw each other a few times a year.

My mom and my brother Adam

my cousin Matt and his wife Alicia

My cousin Andy with his 3-year-old daughter, our Caleb and Travis also at the table

My cousin Beth and my sister-in-law Eve

My cousin Ed and his sister-in-law Patrice, who is married to my cousin Dan

My Uncle Bill and his wife Lori, with their granddaughter, one of my cousin Andy's kids

Some of the kids who are second cousins

All in all, it was a fun evening and hopefully we can have more of these get-togethers in the future. Thanks to my cousin Beth who helped me put it all together.

Christmas 2010

Ah, Christmas 2010 is not one I want to remember very fondly. We spent the bulk of the holiday dealing with a stupid stomach bug that would come and go. Even though we had visitors--my parents, my younger brother Adam and his wife Eve and my younger brother Austin, the sickness kind of overtook everything else. We even gave it to some of them, I'm sorry to say.

Because of all the sickness, we didn't get to do a lot of the fun things I had planned. I had wanted to take the whole family tubing once more during all the snow. I also wanted to do the usual drive-around looking at Christmas lights, which we never did (afraid someone would throw up in the car). We didn't get to enjoy all the treats people brought for us because of all the stomach sickness, and the usual Christmas Eve tradition of warm eggnog or hot chocolate was passed over this time around. In fact, the usual Christmas Eve didn't really happen--partly because of the sickness and partly because Corey ended up working Christmas Eve. I'd really rather he works New Year's Eve and have Christmas Eve off because our Christmas Eves are so steeped in traditions and we don't do a thing for the New Year's. In fact, this year, I anticipate that I will be in bed no later than 11, even if he stays up to ring in the New Year. If he does, I think he's not being wise, since he'll have to leave by 6:45 a.m./7 a.m. for work on Saturday.

Opening the stockings: Every year we open the stockings first before even going in the room with the tree and presents. In the stockings is always a small breakfast for the kids--an orange, usually a packet of hot chocolate (not this year) and a small box of cereal. This year, most of the kids had to eat their cereal without milk because of the bad stomach bug. Later on, after opening gifts, we make a big breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, juice and hot chocolate.

Here is the tree before the opening of gifts. New church clothes for all the kids--unfortunately, my boys are bigger on top than they are from the waist down, so the pants were all huge but the tops fit fine of their new suits. Not sure what to do about the pants--try mending them or just hold off until they fit into them.

Here we are eating dry cereal for breakfast and drinking water rather than juice, milk or hot chocolate. Dumb stomach bug.

Waiting to open presents. We waited until my parents and my brother Austin came down from North Salt Lake to start opening gifts.

Eliza outside trying out her new tricycle.

Hopefully next year we can skip the sickness and enjoy Christmas a little better.

My Birthday

December 21st was my 33rd birthday. Not that my birthdays have ever been big, special days, because they haven't been, but this was one really kind of a downer.

Westley woke up that morning at 2 am and threw up from the top bunk. We were surprised because he'd been well for the past three days, which is why there was no throw-up bowl on his bed and he was still on the top bunk. After that, we moved everyone to floor level with a throw-up bowl by their beds.

Corey had to leave early in the morning for work because it had been snowing heavily since Monday morning, so after cleaning up the mess (the second time during the course of this illness), he went back to bed in our bed with Travis and I came downstairs with Westley and a throw-up bowl. Unfortunately, Westley spent the next three hours throwing up, so by the time he finally subsided (5 am), I was too worked up to go back to sleep, so I went upstairs to take a shower. While I was in the shower, Corey came in to tell me that Westley was now having diarrhea and had had an accident. We dealt with that and Corey went off to work after making me a cheesy egg burrito for my birthday breakfast.

That morning, I got Westley in to a same-day visit with a doctor at the office--his own doctor is not in on Tuesdays. The other kids were watched by someone in the ward. Westley was feeling better by the appointment, enough so that the doctor thought he was well enough to take to school, so I dropped him and Caleb off after lunch and came home and took a nap.

For dinner, I made myself some chicken fajitas, which Corey and I ate. I didn't think the kids would eat them, so I had chicken nuggets for them. Westley seemed perfectly fine by evening, so he had a couple nuggets and some applesauce. I didn't have a cake, but Corey had stopped at Krispi Kreme on the way home from work and picked up some donuts. He put a candle on a piece of bread for me to blow out. I got a DVD (Twilight Eclipse) and a new pair of slippers.

That is about it. That was my fabulous birthday.

Tubing

On Monday morning, December 20th, it was snowing quite a bit, so I pulled the snow tubes out of the garage and pumped them up and took the kids (minus Westley, who had school) tubing just in a local park. We had a lot of fun and the kids loved it.

Caleb rides down with Eliza looking on

Pretty little Eliza

Caleb on the tube

Travis wipes the snow off from under his glasses

It was still snowing while we were out tubing and continued to snow the rest of that day and the next. I think winter is here for a while.

Sick December

We have just been dealing with round after round of sickness here. If every December turns out like this, I will very much hate the month that used to be my favorite.

Between all the snowstorms, we've had a horrible stomach bug ravage the house. Poor Westley has had his fair share with it, to the point where I wondered if he would just always have stomach issues because his bout with it lasted 13 days. Yes, 13 DAYS!

It all started on December 15th, the day of the Voice Male concert. I was driving Corey to work so that we wouldn't have to drive separate cars home from our date. The plan was to get up early, eat, and take him down to work and then drive back up to drop Westley off at school, preferably by 8:30, but probably he would be a little tardy.

On the way home from dropping Corey off in Orem, Westley threw up in the car. I chalked it up to motion sickness because Westley is especially prone to it, he was bundled up in all his snow clothes (this corresponded with one of those snow storms) and the heater was on, plus we'd been in the car for nearly an hour. When we got home, he threw up one more time, and I let him lay low until taking Caleb to school later, thinking that he just needed some time to get over the motion sickness. I was in the office checking him in when he told me he didn't feel very good and didn't want to stay at school, so he came home. For the next 12 days, he had episodes of vomiting and diarrhea between periods where he felt fine and even ate normal food. He never had a fever, never acted lethargic, so I was unsure if it was a stomach bug.

On my birthday, December 21st, he had a really bad bout of vomiting in the morning, so I took him to the doctor. By the time we got to the appointment, he was acting perfectly fine and felt perfectly fine, so I even dropped him off at school later that day, after the doctor confirmed it was just a virus, he wasn't dehydrated and he was fine. He missed four days of school over a period of six days. Yet he was well enough a lot of the time, that it just didn't seem like a virus.

Eliza had diarrhea on Wednesday, the 22nd and then threw up, but she has been fine ever since. Caleb had a bout of diarrhea on Christmas day, but then he has been fine since. I even got the bug on Monday, December 28th, which started with diarrhea then I had severe vomiting later that night that lasted all night long and went to Urgent Care yesterday to get i.v. fluids and a Zofran drip for the nausea. Travis started with the diarrhea on Monday and it has continued since then, today is day #3 and now he's also throwing up.

So I guess it was a virus, but Westley had it so long that we took him in on Monday, December 27th, to get tested for other things. He has a UTI, which is rare in boys, so that is also being analyzed for possible kidney problems, and is being tested for a number of other issues that might cause vomiting. But more than likely, he just had several rounds of the virus. I guess he was due, since he hadn't been sick for almost two years, not even a cough. Poor kid.

I just hope that Travis recovers quickly and then we can be done with it.

Did I mention how much I hate stomach bugs? I think they are the worst kind of normal illness that we tend to get. Compared with croup, sinus infections, even ear infections, and other types of lung issues and stuff, I really don't like dealing with stomach bugs. They always go through everyone and seem to take forever to eradicate from the house and by the time we're done with it, I'm so stressed out by it that I'm paranoid it's going to come back, so every little toot or burp, I'm afraid will turn back into diarrhea and vomiting.

Hoping to never have another December like this.

Corey's birthday

Corey turned 32 big ones on December 9th! Unfortunately, he worked all day. Also, we didn't take one picture of anything that whole day, so this picture is from the In-N-Out picnic in June.

Corey's sister Traci was still in town, so she and Jamie came over for dinner. We had lasagna, which I tried making from scratch. Now I wish I had written down what went wrong so I can correct it next time, but now that I'm writing this, I don't even remember. It just didn't quite turn out how I envisioned it, but it still tasted fine. Lasagna is one of his favorites, so that is what I made him. I also made him a banana cream pie for dessert. He opened gifts and we played some games after the kids went to bed.

For a birthday gift, I bought us tickets to see Voice Male the following week at Thanksgiving Point. Unfortunately, we also didn't take any pictures that night. We used the Outback gift cards that my parents had given us both for our birthdays and went to dinner and then to the concert. It so happens that the date was on the 15th, which is exactly 6 days after his birthday and 6 days before mine. So we thought we'd start a new tradition of doing something on the 15th every year, unless, of course, it falls on a Sunday.

We sure do love and appreciate Daddy and all he does for us. Happy birthday Corey/Daddy!

Temple Square Christmas Lights

When Aunt Traci was visiting from December 6th through December 10th, we went downtown to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square. We rode the train downtown and then walked over to the Lion House for dinner.

On the train ride:

After dinner at the Lion House, we walked over to Temple Square to see the lights. Between the Church Office Building and Temple Square were some nativities from around the world that were life size and the kids had fun looking at those.

Our family with the Salt Lake Temple behind us.
Looking at the lights:

Making Ariel's Mermaid Outfit

I decided to get all crafty and make a Little Mermaid outfit for Eliza's Ariel doll. I bought her the Ariel doll a few months ago when we were walking through Walmart. It was already cheap and then they took even more off because there was a smudge on her cheek. Anyway, the doll came in a dress because it was Ariel after she became human. Eliza has loved playing with her, but I thought she'd love it if she could also dress Ariel up like a mermaid.

I also needed to use the doll in my cake for Eliza's birthday, and the doll needed at least the purple bikini because I didn't want to just frost one on. So I made the bikini out of a shiny purple ribbon about a week before Eliza's birthday. It wasn't until her birthday that I decided to go ahead and also make a tail so that once we took the doll out of the cake, she could play with Ariel the mermaid, not just Ariel the human girl.

So here is the step-by-step process in which I made the mermaid tail:

I started with some cheap green fabric, some green thread, and some green sequin elastic.

I measured and cut the green fabric by using the doll as a guide. I'll be honest, it actually took three different attempts to get it to the right size. Then I sewed down one side of the fabric and ironed the seam.

Again, using the doll as a guide, I cut the sequin elastic into a belt and sewed the ends together by hand stitching. I reinforced the stitching with a hot glue gun.

I hand stitched the sequin belt to the top of the tail. Then I created a fin by cutting out two pieces of green fabric in the shape of a fin, sewing them together like sides facing each other, pressed the seam after turning right side out, and stuffed with cotton balls. Would have used regular quilt stuffing, but couldn't find my roll of it anywhere. Then I sewed and hot glued the tail onto the fin and then I hot glued the sequin elastic to the tail.

And here is the finished product.

Eliza loves her mermaid outfit for her Ariel. It was a fun birthday surprise for her.

Eliza's Third Birthday

On the Saturday before Eliza's birthday, her aunt Jamie came and took Eliza out to get her nails done, eat lunch, and see the movie "Tangled". Eliza had a grand old time, and she loved being pampered, as you can see here.


Eliza's actual birthday was on Monday, December 6th.

For Eliza's birthday cake, I made an Ariel doll cake. It wasn't until too late that I realized the pan I had used wasn't deep enough and we hadn't figured out a way to have her sit up higher to look more like a mermaid sitting, but it still turned out fine. At least Eliza thought it was wonderful.



Aunt Traci and baby Noah were visiting that week, so they got to be there for Eliza's birthday. She enjoyed opening her gifts:

And here she is blowing out the candles on her cake:

Last picture of the cake before we cut into it

I can't believe my little girl is already three!

Three fun things about Eliza:
1. She can hold her own with her brothers. Often, it's, "Mom, Eliza hit me!" that I hear, rather than hearing it from her. The boys are pretty good about not hitting her, but we are working on her not hitting them.

2. She loves to be girlie--she loves having her hair done, her nails done, and wearing pretty things.

3. She is full of personality. Like she's about to explode all the time because she's got so much inside her and it has nowhere to go.

Happy birthday, my sweet little princess!

Trav's New Glasses

At the beginning of December, Travis got some glasses. He'd been through a series of testing since his eyes started turning inward in September. He'd had neurological testing done, including an MRI, to rule out a brain tumor, and then he went to the pediatric opthamologist who said he needed glasses and that the glasses alone should correct the problem before he's even a teenager. So the glasses finally came in the first week of December and here he is!

Visit to Santa Claus

On the last Monday in November, the city had this big event--Santa's Arrival. Of course Corey had to work the night shift, so we trudged through the heavy snow over to City Hall without him and stood in line to see Santa. Since we got there right at the beginning, we managed to only have to wait about 30 minutes in line. The kids sat on Santa's lap and then we went outside and got some hot chocolate. We ended up not staying because the kids were grumbly and they kept spilling their hot chocolate. But it was fun to go. Maybe next year Corey will have the night off and he can come too. I'm not sure I'll do it again with FIVE kids!