Summer happenings

It's been a whirlwind of a summer since Amy was born.  It's hard to believe she's already two months old and school will begin in a few short weeks!  It's been hard to find time to write, but I wanted to capture a few of the summer highlights thus far.

In anticipation of having our hands full with a new baby, we've tried to involve the kids in a variety of activities to keep them occupied.  A lot of them have involved swimming, especially since our neighborhood pool is only about a block away.  Sarah and Whitney participated on the neighborhood swim team again this summer.  Spencer and Michael took swimming lessons and Sarah took a diving class across town at the Mulberry Pool.

The three older kids continued their piano lessons over the summer.  Spencer participated in a variety of sports camps.  Michael took a farm class and is part of a weekly playgroup through the city that is geared towards kids with special needs. The city has fantastic resources for children with disabilities like Michael.  For any of the classes through the city, they assign a personal assistant to be with him to help him. 

Michael absolutely loved his farm class

Having a heart to heart with a sheep

Michael with Megan, his assistant

After some initial trepidation, Michael conquered his fears and had fun riding his pony "Cookies and Cream"

Right after Amy was born, Liz's dad and I built an extension to our play structure with a few more swings in the hopes that our kids would use it more.  We also built a ladder climbing up the back that is more Michael friendly.  We haven't been disappointed.  The kids have had a ball with it this summer.

Guess which swing the kids like the best.  You're RIGHT!

Trying out the new swing

We get a lot of bunnies in our yard that love to eat our grass and plants.  This summer we resolved to do something about it.  I bought a bunny cage, and the kids absolutely love to bait it with lettuce, apple cores, carrot sticks, and whatever other fruits and vegetables we have handy, trap the bunnies, then let them go a few miles away close to my work. We call some of the bunnies Zootopia bunnies since they're smart and really good at eluding capture.  But we'll get 'em eventually.

We caught another bunny!

Letting it go to find its brothers and sisters

The kids have also enjoyed activities such as miniature golfing and bowling this summer.  Also, because of a funny scene in "Monsters vs. Aliens", the kids and especially Spencer have been way into "Axel F", the electronic instrumental song that was big in the 80's.  He likes to play the song over and over and dance to it, he's been trying to teach himself to play it on the piano, and the kids write "Axel F" on a lot of their creations.

A great day of golfing at Fort Fun

Michael seriously scored 3 holes in one!  I held him up and helped him hit the ball, but I'm not that good!

Spencer's "Axel F" pose

In spite of the activities in the attempt to help the kids stay busy and out of trouble, I think Brooklyn's middle name is trouble.  Brooklyn Trouble Wheeler.  One day recently a friend came over to visit Liz and see baby Amy.  During their conversation Brooklyn walked into the family room covered in Comet.  She had gotten into the bathroom cupboard with the cleaning supplies and got Comet and Windex all over the bathroom as well.  Bleach and Ammonia make a great mix.  If we are serious about winning the war on terror, all we need to do is send Brooklyn out there with Comet and Windex and she'll win it for us using chemical warfare.

A few days after that incident she got into the diaper rash cream and smeared it all over herself.  She also regularly takes off her own poopy diapers, but at least that leaves a trail so we know where she's been.  

Ho ho ho!  I wonder if Santa's beard is also made of diaper rash cream.

We wish she had left a trail last week when Brooklyn and Whitney went missing.  They were on their way to a neighbor's house to help water their plants while they're on vacation.  They had been right behind Sarah and Spencer, but never showed up at the house.  After searching for them without any luck, we enlisted help from friends and neighbors, and even my manager at work came to help with the search.  They were finally found an hour and a half later a mile away at the other end of the neighborhood.  

Brooklyn is often very adamant about doing the opposite of whatever we want her to do.  This time she decided she wanted to go in the opposite direction of wherever Whitney wanted to take her, and led Whitney (and the rest of us) on a wild goose chase.  Although it will take time to teach our kids how to handle Brooklyn's tantrums (we're still trying to figure it out ourselves), fortunately Whitney stayed with her and kept her safe.  When we finally found them they didn't even know they were missing.  All's well that ends well and we were so relieved everyone was okay.  

Our A/C died again three weeks ago, the second time in a month. The first time was the day after we had baby Amy and were still in the hospital. This time we're going to have to get it replaced. Good thing it was only 100 degrees outside at the time (90 degrees in our master bedroom). The kids thought we were the funnest parents for letting them sleep on the floor in the basement for a few days. Except for Brooklyn. For the last few weeks she refuses to sleep anywhere except in her closet!  Things have been so busy for HVAC companies this summer we still haven't been able to get it replaced yet, but fortunately the repairman was able to get it hobbling along well enough that it's working okay for now.

Sleeping on the floor in the basement is way COOL!

Except for Brooklyn, she prefers her bedroom closet

We're super excited about the Fort Collins Temple Open House coming up in just a few weeks!  Liz and I are looking forward to being one of the ushers and tour guides, and we've reserved tickets on templeopenhouse.lds.org for our whole family to go through and feel the wonderful spirit of this beautiful and sacred new House of the Lord.

Sarah and Whitney recently built paper versions of the temple for their Polly Pockets to play in

I'll finish the post with a few more pictures of our beautiful little baby girl.  We're still adjusting to having a newborn in our family and now 3 children in diapers.  (We've been trying unsuccessfully to potty train Michael and Brooklyn since January and still aren't there yet.)  But Amy has been super sweet and we all adore her and are so glad she's a part of our family!

Birthday celebrations

Brooklyn and Michael have their birthdays in different months, but this year they got to celebrate them on the same week.  Brooklyn celebrated her 3rd birthday on Monday June 27, and Michael celebrated his 5th birthday on Saturday July 2.  It's amazing how much these kids have grown in just the last year.

Are these all for me?

Brooklyn keeps taking Spencer's stuffed Lynx named "Cheetie" that he got in Yellowstone last year.  So now she has one that's her very own

Brooklyn received a picture of her holding her little sister Amy in the hospital

Brooklyn holding the real deal

Brookie's Kitty Cake

We love you Brookie!

As for Michael's birthday, here's a blast from the past when we celebrated his 1st birthday.  Our "Little Brave" had already been through six months worth of cancer treatments, and still had six weeks of radiation to go.  Family and friends helped us throw a big celebration in our backyard for him.  What a miracle that Michael has now celebrated five birthdays!  His birthday parties since then haven't been nearly as elaborate, but we are no less thrilled that he and all of our children are with us and part of our family!

Michael loves Mickey Mouse, and was excited to receive Mickey Mouse dishes

Spencer is no longer the sole owner of Matchbox cars in the family

Michael was so excited about his new Daniel Tiger book, he had to pause during opening his presents to read it.  You can read in Brooklyn's face her jealousy that Michael would receive such a coveted present.

When we revealed this present, which we had kept hidden under a blanket until the end, Michael excitedly blurted out, "OH MY GOSH! OH MY GOSH!"  He NEVER says that!  Best 3 bucks we've ever spent at a garage sale!

We tried birthday cupcakes with Jelly Life Savers this time around.  It was a hit!

Blowing out that last candle

We love you Michael!

Amy Catherine Wheeler

After nearly 40 weeks of waiting, our adorable little girl Amy Catherine Wheeler made her grand entrance into the world on Saturday, June 4, 2016 at 10:01pm!  She was 8 lbs, 8 oz and 20 inches long.

This is the first time we’ve ever done an induction.  All of our other children were born in the middle of the night on whatever day they decided to be born.  This time around we decided to try the induction route since it was getting harder and harder for Liz to walk, get any sleep, and for logistical reasons such as being able to find babysitters for our five other children and having Liz’s doctor be the one who actually delivered the baby.  Hey, maybe we would even break the trend of having all our babies in the middle of the night.

For the most part it worked out just great, except that part about not having our baby in the middle of the night.  Even though we arrived at the hospital early in the morning on Saturday, just 3 days before the actual due date, things didn’t start to get interesting until that evening and it was almost the next day before our little Amy was born.  Perhaps she was just taking her time hugging everyone goodbye in heaven before coming down to earth.  Especially her Great Grandpa Cox, whose birthday she now shares.  But really, things went extremely smoothly, Liz’s labor was only about 4 hours, the epidural worked perfectly, and it only took about two pushes at the end for Amy to finally come out.

Amy is such as cute and sweet little baby.  She looks a lot like Sarah did when she was a newborn.  She loves to be held and cuddled.  On Sunday I took all of Amy’s big brothers and sisters to the hospital before church so they could meet and hold their baby sister.  A good friend of ours met us there and helped capture the moment on camera.  Every one of the kids fought over who got to hold her next and wanted lots of turns to hold her.  Brooklyn was especially possessive of her little sister.  The thought crossed our minds that if we can give Brooklyn the job of holding Amy all summer long to keep her out of mischief, maybe we can kill two birds with one stone!

On the way out of the hospital Michael was crying and kept saying something that sounded like “cereal”.  I asked him if we wanted cereal and he kept saying, “No.  Cereal.  Cereal!”  Then he spelled it for me: “S-E-A-L”.  He wanted the little stuffed animal seal that he had been playing with in the hospital room that Sarah had given Amy as a newborn gift!  We are so grateful that not only is Michael getting easier to understand when he talks, but that when we can’t understand what he’s saying, he can spell it to us.  And 9 times out of 10 his spelling is dead on.  He’s going to have a great year in kindergarten next year.

This is one of the best hospital experiences we’ve had while having a baby.  We had the baby in Loveland rather than Fort Collins since it was the hospital Liz’s doctor was assigned to the day of the induction.  Both hospitals are equally far away from our house, so to us it didn’t matter that much. The nurses there were great, especially at helping to watch Amy at night so Liz can get some sleep.  It’s the first time that Liz wasn’t trying to run out of the hospital as quickly as possible, but even stayed a few extra hours the last day to take advantage of the peace and quiet and take one last nap before heading back to the noise, chaos, and sleepless nights at home!

Just to give a few examples of the chaos we left and had to return to: the day before Amy was born our garage freezer quit working.  We had a big sticky mess on our hands of melted popsicles and ice cream, and were trying to figure out how to keep our other food from spoiling while we were at the hospital for a few days.  So I ran to Sears that evening to pick up a new freezer, only to discover after bringing it home that I got the wrong one and will have to take it back.  The day after Amy was born, I arrived home from being with Liz in the hospital to discover that the air conditioner in our house had quit working.  Fortunately I was able to arrange for a repairman to come first thing the next morning to fix it so Liz and Amy wouldn't have to arrive home from the hospital to a sweltering house.

We are so grateful for friends and neighbors who have watched our kids, provided meals, mowed our lawn, helped clean up our house, and provided other support during these last few days!   We could not have done it without all their help.  We're fortunate I've been able to take this week off of work as we try to get our feet back underneath us.  Liz's parents also just arrived today and will be a great help as well.

We're in love with our sweet little Amy Catherine and are so happy she's a part of our family!