Family pic

First shot, and even taken using a timer. Yay! This week is starting out great. Ammon slept all night last night for the first time in about 2 weeks. Man it felt good! Today he is happy happy and keen to go out in the car, to get out of the house. Not that what we have to do today is exciting stuff - take the lawnmower for a service, fill the gas bottle, refill some medicine and go to gymnastics with Em but it's just so nice not to have him grizzly and clingy.

Em is trying some changes to her diet including soy milk. Have you tried that stuff? Yuck. There is no way I would drink it given the choice, so if she doesn't want to I won't make her. We'll just find something else that might help instead, if we can. She has to have more fibre, less processed food.

Leah is very curious. In the middle of sacrament last week (at it's most quietest time) she asks Aunty Stancy "Why do we have bum cheeks?" How random is that?

Nate's work is looking up and we are planning a holiday for the start of November. He won it through work so we just have to book it. We're thinking Gold Coast.... any suggestions people? We just want some sun! Maybe wet'n'wild....bring it on!

Genealogy

Mum and I have been preparing for our stake temple week next week, looking at our family history to see whose temple work we could do.
I have enjoyed family history ever since I took it as one of my liberal classes at Church College in 1991. Over the years I have collected letters and certificates, communicated with distant family members, been to a reunion and a conference, and sat for hours on the computer finding shipping lists and census records and parish registers. I love it.
I probably have few hobbies/interests that are for me alone. Usually I'm busy taking the kids to the things they like to do, or looking after them while Nate is doing his things. Although he encourages me to find something to do, I haven't yet found that something that kindles any fire. I'm certainly not a physical person, I don't enjoy exercise at all although I have tried to go swimming this past year (but only cause the physio told me I had to). I played hockey for a number of years but now it is enough for me to run around after the children. I know I know... if I exercised I'd have more energy to do more things, but really - why commit to something you just KNOW you will not stick at? To something you don't enjoy? Flag that.
Instead I love to read, I love to do family history, I like both the productive and social side of going to work and I like to be in the background.
Anyway - back to genealogy...
My ancestors are mainly from Scotland but also from Denmark on my Nana's side. It is the Danish line I have been working on this week. My great-great-great-great grandmother is Helene Margrethe Larsdatter born in 1812. She had a daughter and a son to Lars Christensen but did not marry him. He was a soldier born in 1816. It is through the daughter that I descend (she was raised by Ane Marie Christensdatter who I'm thinking is her Dad's sister, maybe). She also had another son to another man but did not marry him either. Rebel. :-) For years I did not know who her parents were, but this week I found them as I scrolled through the Parish records which the Danish government puts on the internet for free. Love that!
Lars Hansen and Johanne Marie Jensdatter were married in 1799 and they had five children - all girls. I haven't found the parents births yet as it is getting close to the limit of when the parish records began but I found a census for a couple with the same name and if it is them then they were born in 1751 and 1770. Exciting huh?
The new FamilySearch program the church has is also a wealth of information. The old one just had info but the new one you can link your family members together. Through that I've found some descendants of Lars and Johanne's daughter Ane. So you can find all these people in your family tree you didn't know were there!
Mum and I have also been a little stumped on Alexander McLeod, my great-great-great grandfather. His son Donald's birth certificate says he was born in Boston USA in 1857 but I was going through some papers I've had for over 10 years and there was a letter sent to Mum's Mum in 1968 from his other son Thomas and it says he was born in 1848 in Scotland! Mum got his death certificate and it at least gave us his parents names - Donald McLeod and Euphemia McKinnon. It's a start and more than we had a few weeks ago, so that's the next line to find more on.
Okay gotta run - it's time for Leah's gymnastics. She LOVES gym! So does Ammon.

Papa's Birthday

Just thought I'd show you a pic of the birthday cake the girls and I made for Papa for his birthday last weekend. Yum!
Was by far the easiest birthday cake I've made, and a huge hit with the littlie's.

Finally a photo

I achieved my mission today! I got the long awaited photo for Ammon's passport application. Finally! No bumps, no bruises, no black eye's this week - but you can see his scar and he does have a few red spots on his chin from his dribbling (he's teething his molars this week) but ah well it's good enough! And your passport photo is supposed to be a TRUE-LIKENESS after all. So here it is...

The kids have not been fantastic recently, cold after flu after virus after teething after restless nights..... even today Leah didn't even want to finish her last day at gymnastics, her absolutely favourite thing to do ever, she just wanted to go home to her blankie. So we did, and both her and Ammon have gone straight to sleep. Here's hoping they have enough of a rest considering we have to pick up Em from school soon.

Speaking of blankie...Leah burnt her blanket on the gas heater and is most upset. Now part of it is not all beautiful like the rest of her blanket. She thought she could put it on top of the fire like she can at Papa's house to get nice and toasty warm, lucky Daddy was nearby and could smell it and remove it before it got any worse!

Reading

I have been going to book club with a group of friends from church for a few months now. We decided not to all read the same book, just share what we were reading, what we had at home that we liked or recommended and to be introduced to and try new authors and genre's we wouldn't try otherwise.
I chose to read THE BRONZE HORSEMAN by Paullina Simons. You can check it out here but the gist of it is a young girl meets a soldier the day war starts in Russia, and what they endure before and after they get together.
I enjoyed alot of the historical/factual side of it, what it was like to endure the weather, food rations, blockades, living conditions and the way of life. I liked the romance that develops despite it all and the challenges they overcome.
I think I learned alot from the character Tatiana, about the kind of person she was (in particular towards Alexander) and the strength she had and how she got through her trials. Of course it IS a love story and there was a fair bit of love in the story but as a whole it was really really good. It's the kind I just wanted to read and read - my poor neglected family! Didn't help that I read book 2 (The Bridge to Holy Cross) and book 3 (The Summer Garden) straight after that! Lucky them I don't have my hands on book 4 yet huh?

Another black eye

Well since Ammon's black eye (see a previous post) he's split his head on Aunty Jacinda's stairs and given himself another black eye in the same place as the first one by pulling our little telephone table over on himself. Crikey. What a boy! We think he'll have a bit of a scar from the stair incident but Nate has one just like it on his head too. If you faced them together it's like a mirror where their scars are. He really is just like his Daddy.
He's getting better. Not 100% but much much better. Thursday was his worst day. He just laid down the whole day, whimpering through much of the day and the night. We kicked Daddy out to the lounge and he slept with me, although I wouldn't say there was a whole lot of sleeping going on - especially at 3.30am when he seemed to perk up and get all wide awake and chatty. He'd gulp down water like a man in the desert and then puke it all back up again straight away. Friday he tried to walk a bit but was so shaky he would just collapse and cry, but he has more strength today to get around but not much more of an appetite. Tomorrow should see him back to his old self.
I tell ya, I've gone through the pamol this week! First Em, then Ammon. I need to go get a top up now. I remembered yesterday (!!) that I had a sheet that told me how much pamol to give at certain weights, well..... if only I had remembered that about 6 months ago! All this time I haven't been giving Ammon the full amount that he was entitled to, doh! Let's put it down to baby brain shall we?
After 13 months I gave up breastfeeding last wednesday. It was a good run and longer then I did with the girls (11 months each) but I'm real happy that I could go as long as that. It is SO convenient. I probably could have gone longer but nah, it's time. Of course I would decide to do that the week before he gets sick as I would have liked to have been able to comfort him with a feed when he was feeling completely crappy but I stayed strong, and even though the milk is still there you can't really go back can you? It's a bit of freedom now... I can wear any clothes (not just breastfeeding friendly ones) and go to a girls night out if I want and he can sleep over at Nan's if she wants... it's great.
Oh by the way I have a mission - to get a decent photo of Ammon for his passport application. Wonder if he'll stop getting black eye's long enough for me to do that??

Sick sick sick

Don't come visiting us at the moment. We're a house full of sickies. Emerson started on Sunday with stomach bug - coming out both ends but was fine by Wednesday, however Ammon got it that morning and I had it by that night. It's been a miserable day today. Poor Ammon! Nanny came over to give him cuddles so that I could have a bit of a rest, not that I had much of one. Why is it that even when your body is most tired, or most drained that you feel like you need to tidy up your house?? I've never learnt to just stop and go to bed and let it all wait. Nate can do it but I don't. Silly woman.

I've thought lots of times lately that I would update this when one of the kids have done something worth telling, but as you can see I haven't. Ah well... maybe it's a MacDonald thing (aye boys?).

Leah-in-a-box

Who needs Jack-in-a-box when you can have Leah instead?

We bought a new computer monitor but hadn't put the box out for recycling yet, and so found Leah watching tv like this....

NB: I added a photo of Ammon to the last post.

Taking after Daddy

Usually when Nate plays rugby he'll come home with a black eye or two each season. Well this is his year off, but the tradition continues.... Ammon has his first black eye. How'd he manage that? A face-plant onto his ball popper toy. It would probably help if he was a bit more steady with his walking. He didn't much fuss, he didn't much cry but over the past week it's really developed into a good one.
Like Father, Like Son!

What we've been up to

Rock Climbing. The girls loved it! I think we need to try the one in Auckland though, that sounds fun.School.... Kindy.... Work.... real fun stuff.

The Elders joined us for Family Home Evening on Monday. For the lesson they had us draw something we enjoy doing as a family. Leah's was going rock climbing, Nate's was camping and jumping on the trampoline. Mine was sitting together for dinner and Emerson's was what everyone else had drawn.

It's Mothers Day tomorrow - so Mum - Happy Mothers Day. I appreciate all that you do for me and I'm really glad that you look after Ammon and that he has such a great time with you. I hope you have a great day.
As for me, I'm having a day without children. That doesn't seem quite right somehow but the girls are far more excited about going to Ryan's birthday then spending the day with me, so I'll just enjoy some me time (and it will be just ME time 'cause Nate will be at meetings probably). Mmmm... lonely....