Intern Initiation

This Friday Sean finished his two weeks of orientation for his new residency position. On Thursday all the families of the new interns were invited to a park for lunch and a special initiation activity. It is as close as the program could come to "hazing." It was a lot of fun to watch them run through all of the funny challenges and obstacle courses they were put through.

The interns before the wipped cream, water balloons, running, slipping, etc.
Sean at the end of the obstacle course (slip-n-slide). Looks fun, huh?

Sean being "knighted" an intern and taking a "sacred oath."

Receiving his white coat.

The interns after the whole sha-bang.

The whole event was a lot of fun and we loved supporting Sean through it all.

We Went Camping

Before Sean started work we tried to shove as many activities in as we could. Camping was one of them. On day one, we traveled up to Logan and saw the temple. After realizing Sean and I hadn't brought jackets, although we did for the kids, we spent an hour driving around trying to find a store with some cheap coats in the summer. Finally we drove up to Bear Lake. It was beautiful and really neat, but it also started raining. No Pouring. We hadn't checked the weather. We headed back to Logan. Realizing it would be miserable to camp with two babies in the rain, we started home and tried to keep positive about our fun day in Logan, although we didn't camp.

As we drove past Ogden, we thought, "What the heck, lets just head up a canyon here and see if we stumble upon some camping areas." Again no luck. We took all the wrong turns. Back to Provo.

The next morning after a cozy sleep at home we still had the camping bug. We hadn't even unpacked the car so we headed up Hobble Creek Canyon. We spent the whole day there. We set up the tent for Gracie to play in, had lunch and dinner, played with fire, and explored the wilderness. Again we decided it was much to cold and wet (we had a little sprinkle again) to stay the night. We headed home. But, we were tired, smelled like smoke, and had played in a tent, just like real camping. Between two days in the mountains, it all worked out. And we got to sleep in our own beds!

Green Thumb

We are so excited to be in our new house with a yard and lawn. I wanted to plant a garden but we moved in too late to start from seeds. I have tons to do (unpacking and a million little projects) so we started small this year and bought already-started plants. Here's how it went.

Before

Sorry about the picture quality

Middle

After

Two tomato plants, zucchini, and strawberries

Gracie had a lot of fun and she made some new friends-

That's right, folks-WORMS. She thought it was fun to find them, hold them, put them in her pockets, name them, and call them her happy family. I've never been really good with keeping plants alive, so I hope our work is fruitful!

G-U-M Yum!

Set the Scene-Sean and Elaine sitting in front room with Kemp, talking

*Enter Gracie with big smile on her face*

Sean: What is in your mouth?

Gracie: (Drooling) Gum-Gum!

Elaine: What?

*Elaine and Sean's eyes pop out as they realize Gracie's mouth is FULL of gum.*

Sean: Where did you get that!

*Parents rush to kitchen and discover Sean's scripture case on the floor with EMPTY pack of gum and 3-4 empty wrappers scattered*

Elaine: Gracie, you need to give us some of your gum so you don't choke on it.

*GULP*

Gracie: I swallowed it!!!!

Some Pictures For You To Enjoy

Kemps camping outfit
My exhausted husband and child

Visiting Temple Square

Camping and adoring nature

Eating toes

There's No Place Like Home

Well, we are into our house! We actually were finally able to move in a little over a week ago. As you can imagine, things have been a little busy, and we just got our computer set up and our phone/internet started. For the next few days I will try to do some catch-up-blogging and tell you all about the adventures in our new home.

You know those moments when things are unusually quiet and you think, "Gracie (insert your child's name) is WAY to quiet right now, something is up." One of those moments happened the other night when we had put Gracie to bed. She wasn't in the mood to settle down so I was suprised when she was so silent in her room after only two or three minutes. She couldn't have fallen to sleep THAT fast. Here is what we found when we checked on her.

What you are looking at is the result of leaving desitin in Gracie's room after changing Kemp's diaper. She always liked to take a little desitin on her finger, spread it on a various body part and say, "I washing myself!" This time she really did get a bath after applying the paste all over her feet, legs, face, and hands. It is designed to be water resistant so we made decent progress and then gave up. The rest rubbed off on her sheets when she slept that night.

Moving On

This week we are moving up to Utah. We don't know exactally what day we will pull into Provo because our house may not close on time. I can't tell you how disappointing this is to Sean and me. If things go really wrong, our house may not come through at all. Or, we may just have to hang out on the street until the loan finally goes through-which is what we are waiting for. We will stay in Holbrook until things get figured out because our lease here is ending so we have to leave.

Packing up and leaving friends, family, our home, and this city which we have lived in for the past 8 years or so is stressful and very sad. What makes it harder on me is to see how it is hard for Gracie. It breaks my heart. We have been packing up for a few days and she all the sudden started going around the house throwing all of her toys into a box. It took her about 30 minutes to get the job done. When she finished she said, "There-I all cleaned up Mom!" I got the impression that it was her way of dealing with the stress and she thought that if she cleaned up her toys, Sean and I could be finished too and play with her. She did the whole process a second time last night (her toys dont ever stay put away for long). Another time she was having a melt down about going to bed. I asked her what was wrong and she cried, "I just want to go to Utah!" Again, I think she realizes that after the move is done things will be back to normal.

Her room is all packed up with boxes stacked everywhere. This changes the smell in there, too. Two nights ago she was having trouble sleeping again (a common thing in this last week) and I stood outside her door to hear her whimpering, "Don't be scared, ohhhh... Don't be scared....ohhh!" Poor girl. I about started crying myself. I went and got her and rocked her to sleep. She has also started sleep walking- I'm assuming from stress.

Kemp has also become more needy as we spend less time with him and more time working around the house. At times he won't let us put him down at all. I will be so relieved when we are settled in and can give our sweet kiddies lots and lots of time and attention.

Thanks to everyone here in Tucson. I am grateful for all of the friends we have made. We will really miss our families. Gracie will, too. She adores her grandparents and aunts/uncles. It has been a wonderful year with Sean serving in the bishopric and we will miss our ward even more because of it. It is hard to leave.

(Not so) Yummy in the Tummy

Our pediatrician likes to start babies on rice cereal at four months. Gracie really liked solids so we were excited to introduce Kemp to the world of baby food. He did really well at first. Four days went by and he did better and better. Then...WHAM-OH! He got sick with a cold that we all passed around. He was sick for at least three weeks.

After his illness everything changed. He can't stand solids. I'm not sure what happened but he starts by making the most hilarious "oh gross!" faces and follows that by gagging. We stopped for a while and have been trying to think of how to handle the situation.

For one thing, we know some people dont even start rice cereal until six months, so maybe we will wait. OR, bend the rules and mix it with something sweet like bananas to see if that will interest him. He also loves puting things in his mouth, so maybe if we let him take charge and somehow feed himself... I dont know. I'm not panicking yet, but I am getting a little anxious because it would be nice to know that he is not going to have any problems switching to solids.

Any ideas or similar experiences?

Doctor Sean

Dr. Sean Smithson M.D. It is official! On Friday Sean graduated from the University of Arizona college of medicine with a doctorate degree in medicine! I am so proud of him. He worked so hard for four long years. Taking 35 credit hours a semester, working 80-90 hour weeks. Spending weeks away from home doing rotations at other hospitals, spending hours and hours and hours studying for tests that cost $1000 lasted 8 hours. He did it and passed with flying colors. He didn't get involved in all of the extracurricular stuff like some students, but he built strong relationships with me and our kids. He got stellar marks and evaluations from his attendings. He proved that he will make a great doctor. I wish I could tell you all of the great things that his patients and other doctors said about him, but he wouldn't like that.

His family and grandparents came for the graduation and it turned into two long days of excitement. Gracie, Kemp, and I hooded him at the ceremony. I wish I had some great pictures, but our camera ran out of batteries! I feel sick when I think about it. I ran it down trying to keep Gracie quiet by showing her pictures during the long hours of awards banquets and graduation speeches.

I am proud of myself too because it was hard on our whole family as we sacrificed money, and our huband/dad as he worked hard. We made it and are stronger and better for it. And our future looks bright! We are so blessed.

Bye Bye Paci

I'm back! Well, I wasn't really gone, but our computer was. We bought this computer from Best Buy last August and it began freezing up right away. The lesson we learned? Dont go to Best Buy! They will absolutely refuse to help you. Gateway was reasonable. They paid to have it shipped back and forth THREE TIMES in order to fix it. It was frustrating because there shouldn't have been any problems in the first place, but they were fair and ended up replacing some parts which was like getting a brand new computer.

Now for the real topic of this posting. Pacifiers. Who can deny that they are a life saver! I don't know about you but we totally depended on them with Gracie. She was a really good baby, but we got used to putting her to sleep with it and using it to sooth her or keep her quiet during church or in the car. This expanded to her having it any time she wanted. This isn't that abnormal, right?

When she turned a year I decided to try and wean her from it. She could only have it in her crib or at night (and naps). She responded by asking to play in her crib all day. So we limited it to only naps and at night. We weren't totally consistent. Especially when our routine was disturbed by 2-4 week rotations in different cities-which meant different apartments and beds. We felt bad and would let her have her paci during the day again. We broke down again when Kemp was born.

About a month ago Sean was reading in a medical journal about pacifier use and finally decided that we should totally end it all together. I was kinda waiting for this moment. I knew once he was in we could do it as a team, but it would be hard.

That night he went in Gracie's room and cut a tiny piece off of the tip of the pacifier. The idea is that this ruins the sucking element and bye bye paci. She woke up in the night and called for Daddy. "My paci is broken." The next day we let her have it all she wanted-but she didnt want it because it was broken. Then the hard part came. She didn't cry or throw fits, but she had a very hard time falling asleep at naps and nighttime. It took about a week for her start falling asleep in under an hour. It took two weeks until she stopped mentioning it. Three weeks-its as if she never had one!

We are still using one with Kemp because it reduces the risk of SIDS in kids under 6 months to a year. But with him I am definitely going end the whole thing a lot earlier.

Do your kids use pacifiers? How do you feel about it? When did you get rid of them?