A new Christmas tradition

Last weekend my best friends from work, Ressa (directly above) and Kristi (pictured at top), and I (looking stoned, center) gathered in Ressa's lovely Ammon home for a most novel and festive purpose. That is, we met in order to embark on the grand and new (to us) adventure of Christmas candy-making. And it was a rousing success! Candies were made! Conversations were had! Laughter was produced! Wine was drunk (by some)! And all in attendance agreed, with great conviviality and energy of spirit, that we shouldn't let so much time pass until we three, and perhaps our respective life companions, should gather again for some merry-making and festivities. (Soren also attended and, while cheerful, was also conscientious in his endeavors to make his presence known, largely through repeatedly running the cruel edge of his Walker into the Achilles tendons of all involved. Ressa's feline companion, whose name I continually forget, was also in attendance, and likewise worked in a somewhat distracting manner, though his methods differed in that he focused less on the humans and more on the confectionery goodies they were creating.)

At this point in my online journal, I had planned to post the recipes we used on this occasion, but a general disinclination to perform any tasks beyond those that are the simplest to complete has motivated me to choose, instead, to suggest that those interested in tasting these fine treats individually petition one of the three candy-makers listed above for such an disclosure.

All dressed up and only cold places to go.

Shortly before Thanksgiving, Soren's Uncle Sue (because he is his Pseudo Uncle. Get it? Uncle Pseu? Uncle Sue? Hah! Nick's pseudonym is Uncle Sue. Anyway...) and I and Soren took a brisk early-morning walk across the countryside. While Nicholas and I began to fear lest our limbs turn black and fall off after a mere half-mile, Soren remained toasty warm--if immobile--throughout the journey. Yes, this little snow outfit is a wee bit large for him.

This is our new house! We close late this month.

Sick Baby

Soren has been sick since Saturday. He's had a high temperature (when we took him to the doctor yesterday it was 103.6) and has been generally lethargic and sad. The PA who looked at him couldn't find anything obviously wrong (no ear infection, no throat issues, no stomach problems, no respiratory illness), so he advised us to keep Soren doped up on Tylenol and wait a few more days. The PA also asked us lots of questions about where he might have picked up an infection, and I couldn't think of anything at the time, though as an afterthought it occurred to me that he did come with me to the hospital when I took my uncle there to visit a friend. I wonder if he picked up something nasty there. Should I call the doctor's office and tell them that I remembered we'd been to the hospital recently? If he's not better by Wednesday, they'll do some blood work on him.

Soren's illness really responds to Tylenol: his fever drops and he has energy to play, but I wonder if I'm doing him more harm than good by making him feel better than he really is. Maybe if I let him feel crappy he'd get more rest and let his body heal. The above picture was taken when he hadn't had any fever reducers for about eight hours. It breaks my heart to see him looking so tired and hopeless. He's usually such a little sparkle.

Another Visit From the Betrothed

Aubrey's mommy and daddy needed to do some work in the Idaho Falls temple the last Saturday, and we were lucky enough to be able to host them at our house overnight. Soren gave Aubrey a tour of the house. Here he's trying to impress her with his mad piano playing skillz.

The Little Pumpkin (and his Bunny Auntie)

Happy Halloween!

To view jack-o-lanterns way cooler than mine, visit www.extremepumpkins.com.

I predict a broken bone before the age of 3.

My poor little noodle.

In just a matter of four days, he's managed to contract yet another bad cold, whack his eye against a cement block, and bloody his nose on the side of the bathtub. That child is an accident waiting to happen. He's all exuberance and no forethought.

Yesterday Abe, Soren, and I were driving up town and we looked back to see Soren sitting in his car seat, looking sadly over the cloth of his gray hoody into the cloudy scene passing by. A single tear (I kid you not) streamed across his bruised eye socket; snot trickled into his open mouth. He was staring bleakly out the window as though life no longer held any meaning for him. If anyone had noticed that little face peering though our Honda window, they probably would have called child protective services. Abe and I decided he looked like a hardened street kid who had recently been in a fight. Using a raspy manly voice, Abraham narrated Soren's thoughts: "It hasn't been an easy life, but I've gotten by. Never asked nobody for nothin'. Just made a living for myself with my own two hands, sometimes working, sometimes fighting. But I've done it alone. And I don't need nothing or nobody. I can get by just fine."

(I wish desperately that I'd gotten a picture. Soren's got such an expressive face. For illustration purposes I've taken a non-smiling picture of him and doctored it in an attempt to make him look as sad as he did yesterday. It doesn't even come close to capturing the sheer melancholy.)

And we're back.

After receiving several chastisements from friends about my lack of recent blog posts, I decided it was time to update Ye Olde Bloge. Much to my horror, I discovered that it has been nearly SIX WEEKS since I last posted. I hope I haven't lost my loyal fan base through such a lengthy silence.

The big thing, of course, is that Abe, Soren, and I recently spent 2 whole weeks in sunny New Hampshire (believe it or not, it actually was sunny most of the time) visiting his parents and their dwindling flocks (they're down to only two cats, three dogs, six at-home children, and two chickens. And I'm not kidding. That really is dwindling. Welcome to the land of milk and honey).

All in all, it was a very lovely trip. Every time I visit my in-laws I grow to love them more. I spent most of my time at the Skousen home relishing my lack of responsibilities (no church lessons to plan, no uncles to buy cookies for, no statistics to count for work), drooling over the endless delights to be found in the family library, and pulling Soren away from the drip-catching tray under the fridge. We also visited with friends (the Irwins and the Mailhots) and family (Nana and Aunt Sandra and Uncle Bob), took a little trip to the Maine Coast, and discovered a library in St. Johnsbury, Vermont that sent us spiraling into a fantasy about someday opening a Library Retreat.

Here are some pictures from our back-East adventures:

We started and ended our adventures at the Snuffer household in Aurora, CO, where Abe's sister Lara and her husband, Nate, were kind enough to let us stay. Nate even made us delicious food, including the most fabulous vegan pancakes I have ever have the pleasure of consuming. Soren was intrigued by his newfound cousins, though they were less than enthusiastic about him. Chase, in particular, seemed to find his presence threatening. And Maya? Well, her face in the picture below says it all:

(Notice the enormous amount of snot dripping out of Soren's nose. He took serious issue with my wiping away of such painstakingly produced boogers, so I mostly just let them hang. The entire Snuffer family became sick shortly after our departure. This was mere coincidence.)

Sadly enough, this was about the best picture of the family that was taken on our camera during the duration of our stay. My mother-in-law was constantly snapping lovely shots of every family member and each memorable event on her own camera, lulling me into a false sense of memory-saving security that forced me to procrastinate the day of taking good pictures until it was everlastingly too late. (From left, clockwise, Abe's dad's nose and forehead, Quentin's black-and-white striped shirt, Briar's hand, and Aunt Sandra's pixie haircut.)

Soren LOVED having animals around who would very passively subject themselves to his vigorous maulings. Freddy, pictured above, was a particularly good subject, as moving as little as possible is more important to him that being entirely physically comfortable at all times. Soren, spotting me with the camera, is trying to look innocent. "Who, me? Pulling the dog's ears? Never!"

One of the delightful things about this trip is that Abe's brother Tanner, his wife, Holly, and their son, Ethan, were able to visit at the same time. This meant that all five of the Skousen sons were together in the same place for a brief period of time. There are adorable photos documenting this occasion...on my in-laws' computer.

Soren's favorite thing about the beach in Maine was that it was full of many rocks for him to put in his mouth. I tried keeping him contained in my lap, but the baby hand is quicker than the mommy eye and he still ended up tasting the Atlantic Ocean in many different mineral varieties.

Here are Abe and Soren in Cincinnati, Ohio, catching some Zs during our layover on the way back home. It was a long, long day.

And They Called it Puppy Love

The above picture was taken on Aubrey and Soren's first official date. They went to Pillsbury park and were chaperoned by their mothers and their Auntie Loriann. They enjoyed time crawling in the grass, eating the grass, and swinging on the swingset. Aubrey even got a little fresh and felt up Soren's bum. The date was cut short when they both got a little fussy and needed some snacks and a nap. Dating is rough when you are only nine months old.
- Loriann

Fun, Fun, Fun

Believe it or not, we have been engaged in fun activities in addition to our usual baby watching/working grind.

These Fun Activities include:

Camping (with my folks and the Smith family at beautiful Meadow Lake).

Driving to Brigham City (to dine with Abe's buddy Daniel).

Hosting houseguests (Holly and Aubrey! -- Pictures pending).

All of these experiences were highly delightful, but beyond posting pictures, I am not going to elaborate, as doing so would eat even more into my precious Soren-is-asleep time.

Sleeping Handsome

So. I have vascillated wildly on the cry-it-out issue. I've listened to Soren's doctor's lectures about how it's something I must do; I've read Dr. Sears' indictment of the whole idea. Some moms have told me that letting their baby cry it out was the best thing they did; other moms have said that it absolutely didn't work for them and was, in fact, a rather traumatizing event for the whole family. I finally decided to go with Elizabeth Pantley's gentle sleep-through-the-night program and began her regimen.

Then Soren had a night in which he awakened TEN times. Simply waking would have been OK, but the little guy was also crying his I'm-feeling-whiny-and-mad-not-hungry-or-in-pain cry. And I decided perhaps Dr. Baker was right. Maybe it was time Soren learned he isn't entitled to anything he wants anytime he wants it. I finally decided that it was time to let him cry it out. For reals this time.

And I braced myself for horror.

Thursday night we went through our usual bedtime routine. Then I put Soren in his crib, handed him his stuffed monkey, put a plug in his mouth, kissed him, and left. He cried. After five minutes I went in and patted him, gave him back his binky, readjusted his blanket, told him I loved him, and left. He cried for two more minutes and went to sleep. I fairly danced around the house. That was MUCH better than I'd been expecting. But I braced myself for the nighttime, expecting that perhaps horror would ensue then. And he did wake up a lot. But each time he'd cry for no more than five minutes and go back to sleep. It was a miracle! And that's how it's been ever since. He'll wake up once or twice in the night, cry for a minute or two, and then go right back to sleep. That I can deal with. My only complaint now is that his new morning wake-up time is 5 am.

Well, maybe that's not my only complaint. I do have another one. I actually miss getting up with my wee one at night. He was always so sweet and limp and heavy and warm. He would reach up with his sweet little hand and play with my hair while he nursed and we rocked. When he was done eating, he would cuddle against my shoulder and sigh so sweetly and I would smell his hair. I miss that. A lot. During the day he's just so much more active and playful. He doesn't have time for cuddles.

I guess there's just no making me happy. But, you know, I might get accustomed to this whole eight-hour block of sleep thing.

Haven't posted in a while, so...

I mentioned to a friend earlier this weekend that I kept waiting for a big story to happen for me to post on my blog, but no big stories are happening. So I'll just give you what I've got.

First, here is a picture of a manta-ray like pancake that I made when Abe's siblings Quentin and Merritt were here for the 4th. That batch of pancakes was just one disaster after another.

Also, Quentin came up to stay for a few days while the BYU-I people cleaned his carpets or something. He and Abraham were kind enough to take a couple of hours out of their busy schedule of playing Counterstrike to install a brand new air conditioning unit at Uncle Dewey's . Here is a picture of him enjoying the cool breeze. (Actually, this picture was taken at our house, which is still hotter than salsa, but I thought it was cute, so we'll pretend...)

Soren and I have developed a morning routine that consists of waking, nursing, bathing, then coming upstairs to find Grandma, who says she can't function without her morning smile from Soren. On the particular morning documented above, we were lucky enough to find Grandma AND Grandpa, who were more than happy to partake of Soren's morning sunshine.

On Collette's day off this week, Dad and Abe took the Smith kids up to the Blacktail portion of the Ririe Reservoir. Abraham, ever the pied piper, persuaded all the children to play in a gigantic mudhole. A good time was had by all.

In other as-yet-unphotographed news, Soren has been on a wild developmental spree as of late. During the past couple of weeks, he's mastered the art of rolling from his back to his belly (he's been going the other way since he was 9 days old) and started seriously working on crawling. Right now he kind of creeps around, mostly backwards, and rolls to the places he wants to go. Every now and again, though, he'll shift up onto his hands and feet (we call it "the stinkbug position") and lurch forward. So he might end up being a stinkbug crawler. Also, he's developed a mad passion for his doorway jumper, in which he can hop for hours. Really. Hours. I'll load him up in the jumper, lie down on the floor in front of him, and take a good nap.

He'll probably cry 'imself to sleep on his 'uge pillo'.

Soren had his 6 month checkup today. He weighs 20 lbs, 12 ounces (90th percentile); measures 28 inches tall (95th percentile); and has a head so big (18 1/2 inches) it doesn't even have a percentile. He's perfectly healthy, though I did receive a rather stern lecture from the doctor about how I need to let him cry it out at night. (No, I haven't worked up the guts to do this yet, but I will. We've got Girls Camp this week, but after that, by gum, he's going to be sleep trained come heck or high water!)

Other news posts:

The case of the black squiggly diaper: solved.
On Sunday, Soren woke up with a very strange diaper indeed. Swimming in his usual slew of peanut-buttery substance were a herd of black squigglies. It looked like he had a serious worm problem. I saved the diaper. That morning over breakfast I asked Mom about it. She glared suspiciously at Soren's "Bert" doll and said, "Maybe he's been eating Bert's hair." When Abe got up, I made him take a look. "I don't think it's worms," he said. "But I'm not sure what it is." When my sister, Collette, came over for dinner that afternoon, I had her take a look. "Banana diaper," she declared authoritatively. I mentioned it to the doctor today and he agreed with her prognosis.

Many new purchases made by the Skousen family.
We've gone kind of hogwild crazy in the money spending arena lately. It started a few weeks ago when we ordered Soren a doorway jumper and a food grinder from Toys-R-Us. These both proved to be good investments. Soren's happily bouncing and squealing in his doorway jumper as I write this. The food grinder has made it possible for me to share all manner of grown-up food with him at meal times, something he finds most satisfying.

Then Abe and I went shopping on one of his days off and ended up purchasing an umbrella stroller (for occasions when we don't want to haul around the hulking travel system stroller) for Soren, a couple of shirts for Abe, and two pairs of shoes for me.

On Saturday I was connived into a garage sale-ing expedition with my sister, where I ended up acquired a few new toys for the little guy (3 good toys for a total of 45 cents); an 18-volume "Childcraft" set, which I've been wanting for years; a never-worn size 2T snowsuit for $1.00; and a complete potty training set (including unused potty chair and Potty Training Elmo doll) for $5.00. I also bought some shoes for $5.00, a purchase I have come to regret, as $5.00 now seems exorbitant to me for a pair of used shoes. But you know.

So anyway, I've been feeling rich in things and poor in money, so I'm going to try and take a bit of a purchasing sabbatical for a while.

Two women attacked by gigantic horseflies on Sunday stroll.
Collette and I have a weekly Sabbath-day tradition of taking what we refer to as a "Giggawalk," a three mile stroll in which we gossip, vent, chat, and otherwise share some giggles. This week we encountered an enormous herd of mean biting flies that cut our walk short. We must have looked very bizarre to anyone watching from afar: two grown women running several yards, arms flailing wildly around heads and bodies, who would periodically stop and take turns whacking each other's heads, backs, and legs, only to resume running again.

There were other things I was going to write about, namely, our Fourth of July celebration, but it was mostly unmemorable and I'm ready to go zonk out now. After all, it is nearly 7:30 pm.

Soren's first cookie.

My Uncle Dewey had a tragic event occur earlier this week: his remote control died. This was something that simply could not be tolerated, as Dewey's day centers around his visit from the girl who brings him his Meals on Wheels-- and whatever's showing on Turner Classic Movies. He showed up on my doorstep Monday looking forlorn and lost. "I know something better's on a hundred channels away, but it's too hard to get up and find out what it is," he told me. So on the way home from work yesterday, I stopped at Wal-Mart to find him a replacement.

Soren and I walked across the street to Dewey's house to set up the new remote, where we discovered there were no batteries to make it run. I told Dewey we would get some from home and return shortly, but Dewey, who recently held Soren for the first time, declared that "Bill" (he can't remember Soren's real name) was "too fat" for me to carry across the street and back. He said, "I'll hold him while you're gone." Soren and I visit frequently, and Soren feels fairly comfortable with this loud, bearded, smelly old man, and I decided it would be all right to leave him there for a minute. I plopped him on Dewey's lap, kissed him multiple times, promised I'd be back soon. I ran home and when I returned was relieved to find Soren happily reclining on Dewey's lap.

"Oh good," I said. "He's looking quite content."

"Bill likes cookies," Dewey replied.

I laughed.

Then I got nervous.

And, upon further inspection, I discovered that, surely enough, Soren was gnawing on a pink sugar wafer.

The cookie was taken away, Soren cried, and Dewey was chastised for irresponsible behavior.

"The cookie felt good on his gums," Dewey countered.

I couldn't really say much about that. He would know: he doesn't have teeth either.

I think Soren won't be spending much more alone time with his Great Uncle.

Week In Review

Sunday evening I received a call from Abe's Great Aunt Sandra, who said that she was in Idaho and would like to come meet our new baby. I harbor a strange love for this woman whom I had only met once before, so I looked forward to seeing her the following day.

So on Monday, after spending two joyous hours picking out food from the shelves of our favorite supermarket (our first trip to WinCo in at least three weeks!) a whirlwind hit our house. Accompany Aunt Sandra and Uncle Bob were their daughter, Melissa, who lives in Sugar City, and her four youngest children. The children tore in, ran about, went outside, came back in. They ate some crackers and cheese and drank purple grape juice without spilling it on the carpet. The littlest one attempted to bite Soren's foot. The next littlest one poked and prodded my son in various ways, making his Nana very nervous-- which made ME very nervous. Would he, too, attempt to make a meal out of my little boy? The adults sat around and chatted as much as was possible amidst fearful glances and warnings cast toward unruly younglings. Aunt Sandra took many pictures and the whirlwind moved on, to Sam's Club and then beyond.

Here's a photo of Sandra holding Soren. "This will just make Brenda so green!" she exulted.



The quality of the photo is poor. This was my fault. Poor lighting, I suppose. Soren was a little uncertain about this new lady, so Sandra is attempting to entertain him with my mom's "Visiting Teaching: Do it/Done" magnet.

On Wednesday I went visiting teaching for the last time with my dear visiting teaching companion, Joyce Hall. She is moving to Blackfoot and I will miss her terribly. She's been a wonderful companion. When we finished visiting our ladies, I swung by our house to pick up Abe so we could drive up to the Stake Center and have interviews to renew our temple recommends. Soren was in bed, but his grandma and grandpa were nowhere to be found, which meant we weren't going anywhere with just each other. We really wanted to get those interviews done, however, so I ran out to the car and asked Joyce if she would sit in our home and listen for Soren on the baby monitor while we drove to Shelley, met with the stake presidency, and drove back. Joyce agreed, so I brought her in, showed her the monitor, and bade farewell. The poor dear. She has a hearing problem and was terrified that she wouldn't hear Soren on the monitor if he woke up, so she went downstairs and sat, among a lot of dirty shoes, in the hallway outside his bedroom door. And of COURSE he woke up. And of COURSE when she came in to pick him up he freaked out because she was a stranger. Poor Joycey had to hold my inconsolably loud baby until my parents came home. Fortunately, it was only about five minutes. But five minutes can be a very very long time when you are holding a screaming child. Sigh.

For our date on Friday, Abraham and I went to see "Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration" at the temple visitor's center. Abe's mother told him he should go see it months and months ago and we finally did. And, as moms are apt to be, she was right about the film. It was extremely well done. I had heard the stories but never really felt the sacrifices that Joseph (and Emma!) made to bring about the restoration of the gospel. It really gave me a lot of food for thought.

Saturday was a day of bad mothering.
Friday night I fell asleep with the perfect plan for the following day. It was to be a day full of noble acts. I was going to wake up, spend some hours in the office while Soren happily played on a blanket on the floor. Then I was going to come home, clean the house, then journey across the street to my Uncle Dewey's house to give him a much needed haircut and beard trim and also clean his house. I was then going to reward myself with a pedicure a la my dear friend Ressa. All the while Soren would be in tow, happily playing and gurgling and taking naps.

Unfortunately, Soren (and his stomach) had other plans. We woke up, bathed, and drove to the office. I sat my child on the afore-mentioned blanket, retrieved the money to be deposited that week, and turned on my computer.

Soren began to fuss.

"You need a nap," I told him, wrapping him up and popping a binky in his mouth. He began to scream. "Just go to sleep!" I said, rocking him in my office chair. He continued to scream. "I'm trying to get some work done, child!" I told him, laying him down in his seat and letting him scream while I sorted through cash and checks. He wriggled and writhed and screamed and thrashed. I picked him up and tried to nurse him while I created a spreadsheet. He would have nothing of eating. He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't sleep, he wouldn't be placated by a toy. And it made me mad. After several minutes of impatiently trying to calm my child so he would Be Quiet and Let Me Get Important Things Done, I called Abe in tears and begged him to come watch Soren while I worked. So Abe dropped what he was doing, drove to town in my parents' hideous and filthy van, and rocked Soren to sleep. I completed my work and we returned home.

Back at the home front, Abe asked me to give him a haircut. I sat Soren down on a blanket, got out the clippers, and began to shave Abe's head. Soren again began to fuss. I tried giving him a toy. This did not please him. I tried wrapping him up and putting him down for a nap. This only made him angry. I tried to nurse him. He gagged and coughed and shook his little fists and proclaimed his rage in a loud voice. So for the second time that day, I laid him down and left while he screamed. I finished cutting Abe's hair, brushed the excess hair off my clothes, and then retrieved my upset child from his crib, holding him and singing him songs until Abraham came and put him down for a nap. His nap lasted approximately 15 minutes. The MOMENT Abe left for work, he woke up and began crying again. I was at my wit's end: tired, cranky, and most of all, thwarted. I was home alone and beginning to feel desperate, so I called my friend Nicholas, who came over with two Capri Suns -- "liquid happiness," he called it-- and helped me load up Soren for a walk. We rambled down to the cemetery, where we discovered piles of flowers near the garbage ("God put these flowers here to make you happy," declared Nick), which we raided, loading the stroller to capacity with silken colors.


This is Nicholas pushing our stroller full of flowers. He would probably want me to remark here that he is NOT gay. Just happy. (Editor's note, circa 2010: after years of vehement denials, Nick did finally come out of the closet...)


And this is Soren posing with our ill-gotten graveyard stash.

Later that afternoon little Sorenito projectile vomited multiple times and created an enormous diaperful of orange poo. I remarked that he had experienced carrots for the first time the day previous and wondered aloud if perhaps that might have been the cause of his sour mood. "These are the ramifications of carrots," said Nick. We decided that a book should be written by the same title: "The Ramifications of Carrots: A Memoir."

I felt like a wretch and a horrible mother all day long. And when I finally sat down to contemplate the problem, I realized that I had woken up that day with the idea that I was Rachel Skousen, Person Who Does Things and Accomplishes Stuff. I SHOULD have woken up with the idea that I was Rachel Skousen, Mom of Soren Skousen, Who Needs Things and Who is a Big Accomplishment That Doesn't Always Seem Like One at the Time.


An adorable shot of The Big Accomplishment That Doesn't Always Seem Like One at the Time.

Anyway, this week also marked the beginning of a new church calling for me. I'm the ward Laurel's Advisor, which means I'll be teaching the 16-and-17-year-old girls in the ward. I'm pretty pumped about the whole thing. Tonight I'll be attending a daddy-daughter date luau. Hawaiian Haystacks will be served.

Dee-licious.

We're BACK! Since my last post, we've both graduated from college, gotten pregnant (for reals this time), had a baby, and reared him to the age of 5 months. After an uncomfortably long bout of unemployment, Abe's had jobs a Wal-Mart (the worst two weeks of his life, I believe), Barnes and Noble (better, but not quite what a college grad is looking for), and finally at Harbor House, a home for drug-and-alcohol addicted adolescents. I've been working at the (take a deep breath before reading this out loud) Family Violence and Sexual Assault Intervention Center, as a full time Office Manager-turned part-time secretary-turned even-more-part-time bookkeeper.

So why have I returned to blogging after so long a silence? The reason has a name. And his name is Soren. Our baby is so ridiculously cute I can't help but show him off. Although as I'm typing this, a sudden wave of paranoia just washed over me. Working where I do, I encounter lots of creepo-stalking scenarios that tend to make one a little more cautious about displaying a great deal of personal information on the world wide web. I wonder if there is some way to make it so no one can see this except people I know and love.

Nevertheless, the pride of a new parent is more powerful than paranoia, and I shall continue, onward and upward, in the reporting our family's latest news, which is....

Soren's First Camping Trip

Our little kiddo is apparently a born outdoors man (baby?), as he slept just fine in a tent with his mom and dad. After hearing multiple horror stories about sleepless nights with screaming babies who did NOT camp well, this mother was greatly relieved to find that her son was not going to force her to join the ranks of the Walking Dead Campers.

Here are some pictures of Soren from our outdoor adventure:

...carrying on a longstanding family tradition of playing games of luck while gathered around the table in Mom and Dad's camper.
(Here, we are pictured throwing the dice in a rousing game of "Zonk." My niece Arielle is wearing the red hat. My mom is sitting beside her. Coloring in the background is Arielle's baby sister, Tessa, and sitting on my lap is the best looking child I've ever seen. Soren and I came in a close second to Arielle, who was the champion of the day. )

...sitting on Pappy's lap in front of the campfire.












...enjoying the family bed in our little tent.

While Soren was being cute, other adventures were taking place as well.

For example,



Grandma and Tessa throwing pine cones at each other,



and Calysta learning how to shoot a gun.

Activities not pictured here: The little girls giving Collette, Mom, Soren, and I glitter make-overs. Little Marty gathering a large pile of obsidian (he called it "flint") and other assorted rocks and shot gun shells. Dad, Abe, and Little Marty driving around and looking for small animals to shoot. Multiple fishing trips attended by various people, myself not included. Grandma speeding away on a bicycle with Tessa running behind (barefoot) in hot pursuit.

Also, I will post pictures later, but every day my husband looks more and more like an Idahoan. I about keeled over when I saw him on this trip: sporting a goatee, dressed in plaid and a baseball cap, strutting around with a gun over his shoulder.

Rachel and Abraham Love Each Other

Isn't this such a cute picture of Rachel and Abe? This was taken at Richard's and my wedding about four months ago. We just got our pictures on CD from our photographer yesterday. We had to threaten to take her first born child to get her to send us our pics. But I guess you've just got to do what you've got to do. - Holly

Our big news.

Our big news is that we own a stuffed basketball that looks as lot like a pregnant belly when shoved into one's overalls. But doesn't Abe look cute and protective? Also important to note in this picture are, from left to right, the book "Leaping" by Brian Doyle, which I recommend to everyone; and BahBah, my darling water bottle who, like Loriann's dog Oscar, goes with me everywhere. Abraham is very jealous of BahBah. In fact, one day he "accidentally" elbowed him off the kitchen counter and "accidentally" kicked him down the hall. That's when I decided that I could never leave Abraham home alone with my water bottle. It's a shame when you can't trust your own husband like that.

Herb

This is our firstborn son, Herb. Thinking about it, though, I wonder if the phrase "firstborn" might be a bit inappropriate, considering that he was actually adopted from Home Depot. So this is our firstadopted son. Herbie is a sixteen-month-old cactus, and is currently not as healthy as he looks in this picture. When we first got him, he grew and grew and grew. Then he stopped growing and got shorter and fatter. Then he morphed back into a ball, but a smaller ball, and of a less-than-healthy-looking green hue. We give him a good watering every other week and keep him in sunlight with some other plant friends. I can't figure out where we've gone wrong. To rephrase Jacob 5, "What more could we have done for my cactus?" We're hoping he'll pull through it. If anyone has any suggestions, let us know.