The Suisse Family Robinson

Last year we took a major trip out west for the summer and stayed at Yellowstone National Park for a few days. We bought this ornament that was made out of Buffalo poo so Reed calls it our "poonament".

decided to post a different ornament and it's story each day for the whole month of December. But of course I am behind so today I am posting 6 ornaments. :)

Reed and the girls gave me some shelves that I've wanted Reed to make since Mother's Day. I have no idea when he had time to do the work but somehow he did and it's a great present :)

We also had a party at the Robinsons (I don't have pictures) and a gathering at my Nana and Papa's with my family. My sister, Suki, made Pocket Frog cupcakes! There was some awesome food since there are some very good cooks in my family (Me not included).

Suki and I were at our piano lessons when our teacher's husband called and told her to turn on the TV. It was a little surreal, watching the plane crash, like it was dream and not really happening. A friend brought over a small tv to our family's house, knowing that we didn't have channel reception, so that we could watch the news. And we did for the rest of the day.

I am finding that high-schoolers are looking younger and younger with every passing year. On Labor Day we were at Highbanks Metro Park and shared a pavilion with about 15 boys who were obviously cross-country training. I was sitting under the pavilion when they came back from their run and I got to eavesdrop on their conversations. Mostly about this group of girls from their school they saw in the parking lot, one of them should ask "Laura" out, blah blah blah. I thought "Really, these must be freshmen. They look so young!" Then they got into their cars and drove away. Eek! They must have been at least juniors! It made me feel better when my sister-in-law said that she had thought they were middle-schoolers.

Vivi has had an exciting summer and did a few things that call for celebration.

Mariella at 2 months- 10 lbs, 13 oz and 23 inches

Yesterday I took Lara grocery shopping since we had NO food in our house after vacation. I had fed Mariella right before I left but apparently she knows when I'm not around because she immediately started wailing and didn't stop the whole time I was gone. Reed called me and said "I'm done" and I could hear her just screaming in the background. I told Lara "We have to hurry and get home because Mariella is screaming her head off." When we got home, Lara rushed over to Mariella and took a good long look. "Mom, I told you that Mariella wasn't going to lose her head!"

Armenian Potato Salad
5-6 medium sized potatoes boiled
3-4 carrots boiled5-6 hard boiled eggs
1 can of peas
1 can chicken
Dill to taste
10-12 Pickles(I use the tiny ones from Costco, so probably 2-3 big ones) depends on how much you like pickles.
Salt and pepper to taste

Chop everything up and mix it together.
Add mayonnaise and sour cream before serving. Decorate with olives and/or lea
ves of cilantro or parsley.
Enjoy!

What I Learned From Mariella's Delivery-

Lara: When I grow up I want to play baseball.
Me: Sounds cool.
Lara: Oh wait, never mind. I want to shake pom-poms while the boys play ball.
Me: Hmmmm...

I doubt Reed will ever let any of our girls be a cheerleader. :)

Life has been very busy and I am just now getting around to recording about Mariella's hospitalization at Children's. Since this blog also serves as our family journal, I didn't want to ignore it even with as much as I wanted to.

If you take a look beneath Mariella's left eye you will see a purplish bump. She was born with that bump and we asked every health professional we saw in the hospital about it. Everyone assured us it was a bruise or a blood blister and that it would go away. (Wrong!) A few days later we noticed that the bump and surrounding skin was turning red and was becoming very swollen. I decided to take her to Children's Hospital Urgent Care because what other urgent care would know what to do with a week old baby? The doctors there were concerned with the infection and admitted her. It is quite a shock when you are told that you're not going home, you're going straight up to a hospital room on the Infectious Diseases Unit.

The first day at the hospital Mariella had all sorts of needles poked into her so that the care team could determine what infection she had. OK, so she really only had 2 needles but it seemed like a lot! The lumbar puncture was the worst for me (and Reed. He actually had to leave before he fainted) although Mariella was an absolute trooper! She looked so pitiful when they strapped on the IV to her little hand but she was so calm through the whole thing. Luckily for us the YM president in our ward is a pediatric ophthalmologist and contracts with Children's Hospital. He called Reed to see if he could help out and diagnosed the problem OVER THE PHONE! He knew exactly what the purple bump was- a blocked tear duct that 1 in 100 babies are born with and, if they are not treated, 100% get infected. He told Reed that he would come the next morning and fix it in 15 minutes.

Mariella screamed through the whole procedure, but let me tell you, it is soooooo much easier watching your little baby go through all that when you know the person doing the procedure and it's someone you trust. "Dr. Dave", as I found out he is called, did a wonderful job and we will be forever grateful. Her eye was very swollen afterwards but by that evening I could already tell that it was 100 times better than before.


Now, 2 weeks later, you can't even tell that anything was wrong with her! This photo is actually from a day after she came home from Children's so it even looks better today :)


Hindsight is a killer in situations like these. I wish that I had listened to Reed when he suggested that we go see Dave in the first place, a few days after she was born. I wish that I had insisted that we go to the eye clinic first, BEFORE subjecting Mariella to a lumbar puncture that wasn't needed. I just have to remind myself that Mariella is fine and things turned out all right. I am so grateful that Reed was able to give Mariella a blessing and also for all the prayers that everyone was saying for us. A special thanks to my Mom, who drove an hour and a half to spend time with me in the hospital before turning right around a few hours later and driving an hour and a half back to the farm.

Now we have a beautiful girl with two beautiful eyes that can now be fully open! I am sure there will be a lot of pictures to come :)

Mariella Nova Robinson
Born June 16, 2011
7 lbs 9 oz, 19 inches long

Sweet girl!

About Pregnancy:

Swollen hands and feet
Waking up at 1:00am with no baby to feed
Weekly doctor's visits (I love my doctor but cervical checks aren't fun)
The limited wardrobe

I'm sure this baby is going to come some time this week. Let's all think positive baby-birthing thoughts! And last guesses as to what we are having!

There are a few terms in our culture that I have taken it upon myself to strike from our language. Okay, a little dramatic but I do dislike some of the terms that are becoming prevalent in our society. One is "autistic children" but that is another post. I'm focusing on the terms "full-time mom" and "working mom".

1. Working mom- This term is used to label women who work for an income outside of the home and it has the negative connotation that stay-at-home moms don't work. *Ahem*, it's a lot of work to stay at home. I know, not because I've done it yet but because my mom did it with 7 kids and all homeschooled. Not saying that we were the most challenging kids ever (maybe she would disagree) but I know we were a handful. Replace the term "working mom" with "employed mom".

2. Full-time mom- There is nothing wrong with being a full-time mom. What's wrong with this term is that it is usually referring to stay-at-home moms. News flash! You can never take the mom out of an employee. I belong to an employed mothers meet-up group and none of them would ever say that they can leave the mom part of them home or at the daycare with their child. I am doubly lucky that my children can be cared for at my actual workplace but not everyone has that luxury. Even with that, I am a full-time mom and always will be. Replace this term with a more specific term, either "stay-at-home mom" or "employed mom."

Lara: Mommy, I want a lot of brothers and sisters. I mean, a lot a lot. But they have to be in a pattern. Brother, sister, brother, sister, brother, sister, brother, sister... (complete with hand gestures).

Me: Um, OK. I'll do my best.

I am not crafty and probably never will be. I prefer to pay other people to make handmade items for me or my girls rather than spending the time to make them myself. When we get a house that I want to decorate, I will most likely pay an interior designer and decorator to do it for me. That's just me. But there are 4 things that I make myself for my kids- Easter (or in our house, spring bunny) baskets, birthday cakes, Halloween costumes, and Christmas stockings. I like finding patterns that are easy and right up my alley. Therefore, I was excited when I found this tutorial for an ultra cute Easter basket for Vivi. I pretty much followed the pattern exactly except for these few changes. 1. Don't buy the whole package for 6/32 cotton filler cord. You don't need that much and it's cheaper to get it by the yard. 2. I opted for a shallower basket so that the circumference could be wider.

I didn't ravel the fabric exactly like the tutorial, not on purpose. But it still turned out really cute and I have enough fabric left to make another one. I bought the honeybun off of Ebay, using a different set than on the tutorial. Still cute!

It took me a loooooooong time to compose this. Hey, it's hard to write for long paragraphs! Hopefully the other paragraphs won't take as long. I know it's worth it since Lara can sing the whole 7th paragraph and that is saying a lot!

Happy Mother's Day to all mother's out there, including my Mom who I didn't get to talk to yesterday. I meant to but then realized that she never actually got on the skype call until later. Anyways, Reed made it a great Mother's Day starting with breakfast in bed and letting me sleep until 8:30! Yay! But the best part was his poetry. He wrote me two limericks- one in the spirit of Vivi and Lara, and one from him. He later told me that he loves writing me poetry, it's just that limericks are the only type of poetry he can write :)

Limerick number 1:

Dear Mother, we love you so dearly
Your love and your care we see so clearly
You're kind and you're sweet
And it's always a treat
To be near you; We LOVE you, sincerely!


Limerick number 2:

A love that will last for all time
Is a love that we share; yours and mine
A mother to some,
A wife to just one,
I love you, with love so divine.

Aren't they sweet? He did a great job and I LOVE YOU TOO!

The day ended just right with dinner at the Robinson's and skyping with my family, including Jonathan (on a mission in CA) and Lindey (teaching English in China). Wonderful times!

A few days ago I was taking a late night grocery shopping trip and stopped by the local fire station to drop off recycling. The bins were bursting at the seams and I, being short and having a little bit of a pregnancy belly, was having a hard time keeping the lids open while I was dumping the recycling (which there was a lot). A very nice man drove up and dropped his recycling off but before driving away he stopped by my van to let me know that there was more room in one of the far bins. I thanked him and drove my van up to the bin to finish unloading. A few seconds later the man drove up again, got out of his car and said "You know, if my wife was out here I would want someone to help her." He held the lid open for me and helped me dump the rest of my recycling. I was having a bad day and that just ended it on a great note. So, thank you to the nice man.

At my last two OB appointments, she has expressed concern that I am measuring small. I'm not sure why since I was that way with Lara and she turned out just fine. Maybe because this is my third so it's not as common? I don't know. But anyways, this presents some questions that I will probably mull over until the baby is born:

Does this mean that this is another girl? Or does this mean that I will have a small boy? Where do my babies go because I don't have much length to hide a baby?! Either way, I think that Vivi will retain the title of biggest baby :)

(On a side note: Lara and Vivi had their well-child visits last week and they both weigh the same. They also can share shoes.)

The doctor just said that she'd keep an eye on it and then possibly do another ultrasound. Whatever, another chance to get pictures.

Reed was in charge of FHE tonight and he decided it was time to write Uncle Jonathan. To refresh Lara's memory on who Uncle Jonathan is, he asked each of us to say one thing we remember about him. Reed talked about how he remembers Jonathan always having a pocket knife in his pocket (always the boy scout).

Reed: But he was a boy scout so he was very safe with his pocket knives. Lara, when you're old enough, I'm going to teach you how to use a pocket knife. Then I'll buy you one that you can keep in your pocket.

Lara: Well, maybe a princess pocket knife.