Kearsten, who is exactly one week older than me. Exactly. Doesn't she look great for someone who just a few days prior to this photo had her chemo dose upped?

Emma Rose

Baby JJ

These are my heroes of the Nativity play!

Christmas festivities

Well it's been a little while since I last blogged, mostly due to laziness, if you can call being a busy mommy lazy. :)
We've been snowed in since last weekend when the heavy snow hit our neighborhood. It's raining a fine, misty rain right now. I can only hope it keeps up and melts the snow away. THAT would be my Christmas wish!
Last Saturday we went to the Elizabeth Gregory Home's 3rd annual Women of Worth Christmas party and Ryan played Santa, borrowing Dad's Santa suit. He looked great, even if he chose not to wear the Santa beard, just the wig.
After that we went to our ward Christmas party and the boys were in the Nativity. Tommy played a shepherd in the field, and Will was THE Inn Keeper who allowed Joseph and Mary to use his manger. It was very cute and they did a great job. We got to hang out with our friends, the Waletsko family, who moved to Maple Valley recently. We really miss them, as I got really close to Kearsten, the mommy of the two young kids, Emma Rose, who is 3 but wears a size 5T! and the baby, JJ, short for Justus J (I forgot) and the kids absolutely love them. Emma calls JJ "Baby JJ" and loves it when he comes over to play.
Well, Merry Christmas to all and have a very happy night in preparation for tomorrow. As the kids keep singing from the Spongebob Christmas Special, "Santa's coming tonight, tonight. Santa's coming tonight!"

tree cursor

On family prayer and the fun we have after...

...or what kids say.
The last two days Tommy has had this awful cough, and per the NP at our pediatrician's office she suggested a teaspoonful of honey to help with the cough during the day. Well, Tommy told me that maybe he needed some more honey because it was bedtime and he was still miserable.
So we had prayer and Ryan kept teasing him, saying, "Tommy, stop coughing!" :) Always with a smile on his face and a lilt in his voice, as only he can. Tommy told him that he couldn't stop, that he needed more honey maybe to stop his cough. So Ryan said, "No, Tommy, what you need is a kick in the pants!" You have to understand that this is a running joke in our family of a kick-in-the-pants pizza, a kick-in-the-pants anything. So Tommy, my literal-minded son, said, "No, Dad, that would just go to my bum!" So Ryan laughed and finally was able to say, "No,Tommy, that would go from your bum up to your throat and out your mouth!"
Boy did we ever have a hoot over that one! How did I get so lucky to have a family who uses humor in every aspect of our life? What a blessing my family is to me.

Seattle Temple on December 6. Torah! Torah! Torah!

Last Saturday as a family we went to the beautiful Seattle Temple to honor some of our family that have gone on before us and give them the opportunity to accept or reject the true gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I was privileged to be baptized for 30 women that went before me. After 20 names, the Temple recorder asked me how I felt, and if I felt like doing more. I told him that absolutely I would do more, that I would do as many as needed to be done.
So my brother-in-law, Geoff, continued dunking me under that warm water 10 more times. I can only hope that all 30 will accept the true gospel, but at least I know that my part was done for them.
I've always wondered if the people having the work done for them really do come and take part with us while we're getting wet for them, since they no longer have a physical body. I'd like to think so. I do know that when I did the work for my Aunt Harriett a few years back that I felt her with me. Grandma Helen, when I told her this, was shocked that Aunt Harriett was receptive to the Gospel, since in life she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it. But I had always felt a special kinship to her because as a young girl I remember meeting her and then when she got a new carpet, I got it in my bedroom in the downstairs room in the house in Edmonds. It was that green carpet, and I loved it. Who knew my sentimentality would continue into forcing me to do family history work? Funny how the cycle goes on and on, isn't it?
Anyway, after the baptisms finished and we were dressed in our street clothes and walking to our cars to go home (at 10:00 p.m., I might add!), I was awestruck with the breathtaking beauty that is the Lord's House. I took some pictures, but none really turned out well except for the Nativity, which you see. I tried to get the fountain with the lights shining on it, but it didn't come out. Darn! It was so pretty.
I love my family, past, present and future, and hope that all will join in the graet Celestial Room of Heaven with our Father.

Happy Birthday to Tommy

Last night was Tommy's 5th birthday and we had such a fun time. I made the cake and frosted it, then Tommy wanted to put the sprinkles on himself. He dumped the entire bottle of sprinkles on the top of the cake. I tried to salvage the appearance of it with the rest of the sprinkles and spread them around the cake. So it isn't that pretty to look at, but sure did taste wonderful!!!
Anyway, he had fun, and then took a bath with Will to play with his new toy! They had a great time. So much so that Tommy took a bath with his sister today to play with his new toy in the tub.
The good night song? Another rendition of Happy Birthday, this time Dad's version, the Happy Birthday you smell like a monkey....at his request.

Kids say the darndest things

Today during Sacrament Meeting, Will looked over at me and told me in his joking voice, trying to be serious and wondering probably if I would think it was as funny as he did, "Mom, do you know what a Pow Wow is?" I told him that I did, but what did HE think it was. He told me, "It's when you give someone a "pow" in their face (ouch!) and then they say, 'Wow!'" What a silly boy. I giggled as quietly as I could, then he told Ryan the same joke that he had just made up. Just one of the many funny things said lately in the Shuler household. As I think of more I'll add them to this site.
Have a wonderful night!

Halloween fun around Kent and Auburn

Hello all and I hope you had a safe and fun Halloween. We sure did at our house this year.
The kids dressed up as Goldilocks, a Cop, and a Gangster. I wonder if you'd guess who was who just based on their personalities? :) Of course, Emma was Goldilocks, Tommy the Cop, and Will the Gangster. Tommy took extra pride in knowing he could arrest his big brother as many times as he wanted to. Very fun. He was even trying to arrest Goldilocks on suspicion of breaking and entering (B and E in cop lingo), criminal trespass, damage to personal property, etc. Very cute.
We went to Ryan's old neighborhood, per our usual, and had fun visiting the old neighbors that he knew growing up. An old high school teacher, his old babysitter, the lady across the street whose kids played with Ryan and his brother, Wes. It was fun.

The Many Misadventures of Heidi the Mommy

What a book!!!!!

Oh my gosh!!!! I can't believe that I've never read this book before. I just can't put it down! I've only had it from the library now for less than a week and already I'm almost done! The book? Twilight. Yes, I joined the bandwagon, and for once, I'm really glad that I did. Now, which is her second? I want to read them in order so that I don't miss parts of the story. What a beautiful love story! Oh, I hope he can change back to a human but not age immediately to be the age he should have been if he hadn't been turned into a vampire in 1918.
I want them to live happily ever after....don't tell me how it ends for those who have already read ahead and knew about these books before I did. BTW, how did I NOT know about them? I rely on my sister to keep me up on the books to read and she didn't clue me in until this summer at the park in Auburn. Shame on you, tsk, tsk, tsk....
Well, I'm off to read some more. Hopefully I'll go to sleep before 2:00 a.m. like the other night!!!

Beautiful Earth

Hello. One of my friends sent me this link that I would like to share with you. Please click on it and turn up your volume. It is absolutely stunning.
The kids will enjoy this also, so gather them around. The music is beautiful, but it's really the photography that will enchant you.

http://video.thesecret.tv/windowsmedia/planet_earth.wmv

Does Heavenly Father sometimes give us "poop" urges????

Well, I have to start this posting by saying how grateful I am to a loving Heavenly Father who watches out for our children when we are on the other side of the house.
Last night the boys were watching The Wiz, I was online doing another roll-out lesson for the New Family Search website, and Ryan went into the bathroom. Emma had gone to bed a couple hours prior to this.
While Ryan was on the "throne" he heard Emma playing, or so he thought. Nope! He was ready to reprimand her for not sleeping yet, when he saw her fully engaged in a grand mal febrile seizure. I'm not sure it that's the official term for her type of febrile seizure, but her entire body was fully engaged and violent, so much so that she was actually falling off the bed. Ryan called me back into the room to be there with him and Emma. Of course, the boys naturally followed me in as they heard their daddy say, "Um, Heidi, I think Emma's having a seizure." Duh! He told me today that of course he knew she was, but didn't want to alarm the boys. Too late. Will took one look at his little princess and cried and said he was scared she would die. Ryan shooed them out of the room and we handled the necessary medical tasks we are used to with Tommy. I made sure Emma was safe on her bed, putting her back up onto it when she fell off.
As I put her onto her bed though, she vomited and so I put her onto her side. At that point we decided not to call the on-call ped in our clinic but rather 911. By now her seizure was into about minute 5 or 6. So I spoke with them and Ryan went out and calmed the boys down. Emma still seized and then gradually it went from all engaged to just her legs and mouth. Then finally her legs stopped, and just her mouth was engaged. That's when she sneezed vomitous and I called back to our friends at 911 to ask their ETA, that she had sneezed the vomitous and she told me to hold on, she checked their ETA and then they were outside our door. By now it was about 10 minutes into it. Finally it stopped as they began to walk into our threshold of our home.
So it was quite an eventful night. To make a long story short, her chest x-ray was clear, so no aspiration, which was a concern for us and the doctor as well. Her ears were clear, which was a surprise to me, because when my kids get high fevers and seizures, it's always been because of an ear infection or two at once. Her UA was clear. The poor little thing had to have a cath put in. I felt so awful for her, she was screaming and crying and saying "ouch" and "ow". She actually put her hand up to me for me to hold it through the pain. I couldn't take it and started crying too.
Her only diagnosis? 102.6 temp upon admittance into the ER and a swollen lymph node on her left side of her neck. So they gave us an rx of amoxicillin and released us at 2:30 in the morning. So I didn't sleep until after 3:00; good thing Ryan had the day off today!!! I needed to sleep in, and boy did I ever. 9:00 was wonderful.
Emma's much better today, but still feverish. I got her some Pedialyte and her Rx at the drugstore and so between Mr. Amoxicillin and Ms. Ibuprofen she's feeling better.
Well, I'm gonna sign off for now.
All I can say is, I am grateful Ryan had to poop or Emma could've been far worse off.

Can you name that lyric?

Hi. Well, I guess I'm the very special girl who keeps singing the wrong lyric over and over again. It was just brought to my attention tonight, by my dear, sweet and adoring husband (note the sarcasm?) that all this time I've been singing a lyric wrong. What is the offending lyric? Well, it's by one of my favorite high school bands, Oingo Boingo, and it's "Dead Man's Party."
I know, I know, but let me tell you the funny part. All this time I've been singing the chorus line as "leave your party hats all at the door," when in reality it's "leave your body and soul at the door."
I laughed a deep, hearty belly laugh. My kids just looked at me, not quite understanding my ineptitude. Give them time, they'll get to know the "real" me and understand that this is quite a common occurrance. :)
Happy singing!!!!

And the water rolls on...

Hello there! It has been a long time since I've come to my blog. So much has happened and I just don't know where to start. I guess, I'll start by saying that I've begun working part-time from home, so I'm even busier than before. Thus, my reason for not writing sooner. :)
A few nights ago I flushed the toilet, then jumped into the shower. When I stepped out, I expected to find the usual dry ceramic tiled floor, but instead, had gushing water spilling out of the toilet seat and onto the floor, out the door and into the hallway by my bedroom, the boys' room, and Emma's room. As if it wasn't enough with the water damage sustained in the first plumbing mishap, now this one too!
I'd better go for now though. I'm suddenly not feeling too well.

"I can still hear with my ears, you know."

So we're having family prayer last night in our room and kneeling at our bed. Will is reverent, Ryan is praying, and I'm trying to keep Tommy still. Didn't work. He moved and wiggled the entire time. So I finally put a "seat belt" hold on him the rest of prayer. When we said "Amen" and closed prayer, Tommy glared at me and pouted. I asked him if he knew why I had done that he said no, and that he was mad at me for holding him so tight. I told him that it's important to be quiet when someone's praying, but more important, to be reverent for Heavenly Father. His eyes got big and he said a very slow, deliberate, "ooooh". I told him he can't bounce around during prayer anymore and he looked up at me and said, "But Mommy, I can still hear with my ears, you know." Oh the logic of a 4-year old.

The boys' bedroom

Well, because of my flood, the boys' bedroom also flooded. I forgot to mention that the kitchen wall and their bedroom wall are connected. So we currently have the carpet pulled up and fans and the window open. I decided to paint the room with the paint my mom bought us since I have everything out of the room anyway. It's a nice shade of very light blue. Then I'm going to put white trim, and corkboard on the back of their door. I might even put picture rail up so that they can hang their school artwork also.
I painted all this while they were napping with their Daddy yesterday afternoon. So when Will got up he opened his door, poked his head in and said that he hated it. He like his Buzz Lightyear room better. Tommy came in and said he loved it. I guess you can't win all the time. They're most excited now that I'm going to hang the superhero posters up that they've been collecting.
When it's finished I'll post the picture for all to see.

Plumbing mishap, or how I forgot to turn off the main water valve

Hello friendly readers. I am currently working on fixing up the house little by little, as budget permits. My husband isn't very handy (or so he wants me to believe), so I am doing it all by myself with my trusty Home Depot manual. I call this the "Bible for do-it-yourselfers".
I obviously forgot to read-up on how to do under the kitchen sink plumbing.
What I'm trying to do is put my garbage and recycle cans under the sink, to help my kitchen appear less cluttered. My mom is finally rejoicing as she's been after me for a long time to do this very thing. Well, when we bought the house the previous owners had a water filtration installed, which we've never used. This was in the way of the cans fitting perfectly, so it had to go! So I figured I could just unhook the hose attachments to the shut-off valve; I couldn't unhook or unscrew it, so my bright idea? Just cut it off! WRONG IDEA!!!! It began leaking profusely, a steady run of water all over the cupboard floor. So I quickly shut off the valve under the kitchen sink. I went to Home Depot and the appliance guy there told me to get some end caps and those should do the trick. I bought the wrong size, returned it for the correct size, and that was still the wrong size! So I went to Fred Meyer and bought a new valve that was straight instead of a "y" and went home with my wonderful idea to put the new valve on myself. I've put up shelves, painted walls, spackled, etc. So, of course I can do this right? NO!
I managed to unscrew the valve and just when that happened, SWOOSH!!! I had water blasting in my face and flooding all over the kitchen. I had my oldest son run next door and get my neighbor to save me from myself. He rushed over and we troubleshot how to fix it. We tried putting the garden hose to the copper pipe coming into the house to divert the water outside. Didn't work. He finally went to the street and shut the water off at the meter. Duh! Why didn't I think of that to begin with?
So, here we are with water standing at the 3 inch level, going on to the carpet, my clothes are soaked to the bone and finally one of the phone calls paid off. Just AFTER Ryan got home from work. Needless to say, he wasn't very pleased with my attempt at home improvement. Or should I say MISimprovement? Did I mention that Friday was our 10-year wedding anniversary? Happy anniversary Ryan, the kitchen has flooded and the steak is burnt. Sorry.
So 3 other neighbors arrived and helped us get the problem fixed.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Ryan had me put duct tape on the opening, because, after all, he reasoned, they created duct tape for WWII for waterproofing, right? WRONG.
Well, I hope you all had a laugh on my attempt. Ryan made me promise to never try to fix anything electrical in our home. I have to agree with him. With my luck, I'd probably just burn the house down.