Thanksgiving, and our thanksgiving weight loss secrets revealed!

Ever wonder how some people are able to not gain extra weight at Thanksgiving?  In the Brunson family, we do it by puking our guts out!!!  More on this innovative new way to keep off those extra holiday pounds in a moment.

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend....Well, week actually.  We drove down to SLC last Saturday and made it a goal to see as many people as possible.  We did pretty well, but missed a few.  Sorry people that we missed.  There just aren't enough hours in the days I guess.  We also spent lots of time at the park with cousins, and doing other fun things.  Here are a few pictures from the week.

Also while we were in town, we made a little trip over to Shane Co to have my wedding ring fixed.  The diamond has been getting very loose for a while now, so they fixed/replaced the prongs and cleaned it, now it looks shiny and new.  Yay! Did you know that they do that for free, for life!  Double yay!  (No, Shane Co didn't pay me to say that, I just think that they are super cool).  Anyway, I've had it for almost ten years now, I guess it was a good time to get it fixed.

We had thanksgiving dinner at a church by Scott's parents house in Sandy. I think there were 30+ people present, but I didn't count them, so it could have been less, I don't know.  Anyway, Marde and Auntie Christine did all the planning and almost all of the food, and it was so awesome.  Good food with a fun family equals a great time.  Thanks for feeding us ladies, you are amazing!

Now for the fantastic Brunson diet.  Just get a member of the family with the stomach flu to come for Thanksgiving, be in close quarters with them for just a few hours and boom....puking all around.  

Poor Dex zonked at 6 pm on Thanksgiving and didn't get up until 9 the next morning!  He always takes sickness the hardest of any of my kids.

Scott's sister Heidi made a chart to document everyone who came down with this awful, awful, AWFUL bug.  Its a good thing it wasn't the black plague or most of the family would have been wiped out! Everyone who is circled on the chart below either threw-up, had diarrhea, had to sleep for 15 hours to avoid the first two, or all of the above.  We didn't stand a chance.

Update: Since this picture was taken this morning, Heidi's own husband, Doug started throwing up too......Its not over people!  Those of you who think you were spared, beware!

The IUD is finally gone!!

Well, the last medical procedure on our "to do medical" list is done.  I had surgery yesterday afternoon to get the IUD out, as well as have a tubal ligation (no judging.  I have done my womanly "procreating and replenishing the earth" duties by having 5 babies!).  

The IUD was found still lodged halfway in my uterus. One of the arms of the "T" was sticking out, and so were parts of the strings.  It was weird, and I think the medical team was pretty shocked about its location and circumstances.  They took a bunch of pictures and even gave us copies of them.  I haven't scanned them yet, but I will get to it eventually and post them for you if you all are interested in such things.  They had to cut it out and stitch the uterus back up.

After the IUD was removed they proceeded to cauterize my Fallopian tubes to discourage any future pregnancies.  I say discourage, because if anyone is going to get pregnant after a tubal ligation, its going to be me, but my doctor has 100% success rate.  I'm hoping that I wont be her first pregnancy after a tubal and ruin her excellent record.

Anyway, I have been in a pretty significant amount of pain, not more than I expected, but in a different place than I expected.  My doctor warned me that I would likely have shoulder pain (a consequence of pumping my abdomen full of air), but she didn't say anything about my ribs.  So my shoulder and ribs hurt like a mofo and its really painful to breath sometimes.  Especially when I lay down.  I had been doing pretty well without the pain medication (Norco) she prescribed until this afternoon.  I finally had enough being tough and stubborn and took one.  I was trying to avoid it so I could still nurse, and not become so constipated (sorry tmi), but I'm not that tough I guess.  I can't tell if its doing anything yet, but hopefully it'll kick in soon.  

So anyway, that is the story.  No more kids for these Brunson's, but we are okay with that, and know we made the best decision for our family.

Has it really been four years? (and some catch up stuff)

I CANNOT believe its been four years since Ivy was born!  Oh how time flies!  Here are a few things about Ivy, that you may, or may not know.

~Everyone (and I literally mean EVERYONE) loves Ivy.  Complete strangers will go out of their way to talk to her and tell her how cute she is.  I'm not exaggerating either.  It happens everywhere we go.

~Ivy has the GREATEST laugh.  She laughs loud and hard and it makes everyone else bust up too.  It is one of the best things about her.

~Ivy is such a sweet little mother.  She loves mugging on Malcolm, giving him kisses, rubbing his head, putting his paci back in his mouth.  She talks to him in her cute little high voice and tries to get him to smile, she tries to keep him happy while I am busy with something else, and is a super helper.

~Ivy seems to finally be getting taller.  For a while there I didn't think she was ever going to add any inches, but lately she is growing up and thinning out.  (Which makes me a little sad, I wish she'd stay little with those adorable chubby cheeks forever).

~Ivy is such a girlie-girl.  Its weird for me, since I was totally the opposite when I was a kid.  She loves pink, princesses, clothes, shoes, and dolls.  She always wants to pick out her own outfits, and enjoys wearing necklaces.  She's so fashionable!

~Ivy brightens up our household.  She gets along with everybody (but if she fights with someone, its usually Dex), and basically has the entire family wrapped around her finger.  For example, if she wants to play the iPad and its all the way upstairs, she'll ask Corbin or Dexter to get it for her, and 90% of the time they will, no questions asked, no complaining.  How do I get that kind of service!

~She's a little spoiled.  I am first to admit that we spoil this girl.  Its really hard not to.  Not only is she our own personal miracle, but she is also the sweetest little girl on the planet.  She has a great personality and is very easy going most of the time.  She is so awesome and well-behaved and tooth-ache inducing sweet that we just have a really difficult time saying no to her!  She hardly ever gets in trouble (it does happen, but she rarely behaves badly, I swear), and when she does she's so tender-hearted that she gets so sad, and that makes me feel bad.  Ugh, I need to work on that I guess.

Anyway, here is our awesome 4 year old with her birthday stash!

For a few of the kids' birthdays they have asked me to crochet them a specific toy.  Ivy asked me to make Jewel from Lalaloopsy.  If you haven't heard of them, here is their website.  They are semi-creepy dolls that have button eyes.  Jewel is her favorite because she has a crown.  Anywho, I worked crazy hard on this doll because I really wanted her to love it, and then we also bought her a Trinket (Jewel's little sister) doll to go with it.  So here is the homemade Jewel on the left, and store bought Trinket on the right.  I think they look great together!

Okay, I took a lot of pics of the doll for my World of Yarn website, so here are a few more.

In other news....There is a woman in my ward that has stage 4 ovarian cancer and has only been given two months to live if she undergoes Chemo-therapy.  She has a young daughter and doesn't want to go through that, so she's been looking at other treatments.  Those treatments are expensive, so my ward is doing some fundraising to help her out.  Its called Caramels for Candi.  We are making tons of caramel and selling it.  I made 4 batches (which was way more work than I anticipated, but it was so fun!)  If you'd like to donate for Candi's treatment by buying some delicious caramel (I really do mean delicious, I tried it. It is so soft and scrumptious!) please visit the facebook page.

And in more news...Malcolm is adorable and I don't think I have posted enough pictures of his cuteness to prove it.  He finally smiles now!

 I love this picture because he looks like he's trying to do that thing where you pat your head and rub your belly at the same time.  He's so funny.

And here's one of Echo, just because its awesome!  And if you stuck around to look at all these pictures you're awesome!  Have a GREAT wednesday!

Confessions of a stay at home mom

-I don't bathe my kids every day.  I don't even bathe them every other day.  We're currently on a twice a week schedule (unless there are extenuating circumstances requiring extra bath time, then we'll do more).  Malcolm has only had ONE bath where he was actually immersed in water....the rest of the time we just do sponge baths because its faster.

-I wait until my kids go to bed to eat any sort of candy or snacks, just so I don't have to share.

-Nursing makes me sweat.  It also makes me occasionally leak milk.  I feel like I always smell like B.O. or sour milk.  I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to all nearby noses.

-I've been known to hide toys that the kids fight over.

-Sometimes when the girls wake up from their nap early, and I know they are awake, I just ignore them for awhile so I can finish up what I am doing.  If they aren't crying, they're fine, right?

-Mickey Mouse Clubhouse babysits while I shower....Almost everyday.

-I bribe the kids with cookies or candy to be good at the grocery store.

-My house gets pretty messy at times, because cleaning is almost never at the top of my priority list.

-Echo has escaped from our backyard twice.  She was found in the front yard very quickly both times, but it nearly stopped my heart!

-I know I should wean Echo off her pacifier, but I don't want to because it makes life so much easier.

-I hate when my kids have homework, because it pretty much means I have homework too.

-I don't always love hosting playdates because it feels like babysitting, and I don't always love sending my kids to playdates because I'm a compulsive worrier.

-I HATE making dinner.  Enough said.

-I think potty-training is punishment for some horrible sin I must have committed in a previous life.

-Taking the kids to the zoo/museums/fun centers usually feels more like work than fun to me.

- I love my kids more than anything and think they are the cutest/smartest/funniest/best kids around.

Malcolm's first Halloween

So, we Brunson's love Halloween.  We had a big party again this year.  Scott invited his work buddies and their families.  One of his work friends moved here from Ukraine in December where they don't celebrate Halloween, so it was their first experience with it.  I hope we made it memorable for them and their 3 year old daughter.  Anyway, Shawn, Shelley and Shaliese came also, and even a couple others.  It was a full house, and lots of fun.  We did our traditional chili and witches brew which are always a big hit.  Unfortunately, I was so busy hosting (and sneaking away to nurse) that I never whipped out the camera...so sad.  But I did take a few pictures of Malcolm with effects on my phone in his little skeleton jammies earlier.  Plus, I already posted a picture of our kids in their costumes a little while ago. Anyway,  Sorry I don't have anything more exciting for ya.  But enjoy these two cute pics of cute Malco.  He makes me smile!

My final tonsillectomy post

Last one, I promise.  Its been 15 days since I had my tonsils evicted.  To sum up the whole experience I will say, it wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be.  That being said, it was VERY un-fun and hard.  Days 6-9 were probably the very worst (Those days my ears really joined in to the pain, it sucked).  After day 9 things started to turn around and I was able to eat again by day 12.  I lost a total of 9 lbs from day 1 to day 12, but as soon as I could eat again I went crazy and gained 4 back in one day, but its going back down again now that I got that overwhelming need to eat out of my system.  Things are normal again.

It still hurts to yawn and sneeze, and mornings I still feel like I have a sore throat, but the rest of the time it feels pretty normal.  Thank goodness.  There are still some nasty looking scabs back there, but they are no longer affecting me the way the used to.  I feel great!  Thanks for all the support, and for reading these posts even when they were quite puke-worthy.

Yay for better days to come!

Surprise!

Wednesday morning...I had just gotten out of the shower and was busy blow drying my hair when Dexter quietly knocked on the bathroom door.  I turned off the blow dryer to hear what he needed.  He said, "Someone keeps ringing the door bell."  So I walked down the stairs and opened the door expecting one of my neighborhood friends.  It wasn't any of them.  There at my door stood Marde and Ross.  They had driven up from Sandy to surprise us.  They had some awesome new couches to deliver from Heidi, plus they were dying to see little Malcolm.  It was such a big surprise!  I reluctantly let them into my SUPER messy house (don't judge, I'm a mother of five now!), and they stayed until Friday evening.  It was so fun to have them here, and what a surprise!  Someday we'll drop in on them unexpectedly too!  I can't wait to have my revenge!!  Just kidding, It seriously was so fun!  They helped rearrange the furniture for our new couches, Marde made me smoothies to fill my mostly empty stomach, watched little Malcolm while I napped and even watched Malcolm and Echo so Scott and I could take the three oldest kids to the Boise Temple open house.

We also had a quickly thrown together little Halloween Party with the nearby cousins and it was so fun to have everyone over (Shawn and Shelley hadn't met Malcolm yet either).

What an unexpected good time.  There really never is a dull moment around here!  Here are some fun pictures from those few days.

Our first photo of our FIVE kids together.  Do you love that Malcolm is yawning?  I think its FANTASTIC!  

Grandma and Grandpa pose with our little fam (and sit on our snazzy new couch, Thanks Heidi!)

Dressed up for the Halloween shin-dig.

Um...I don't think boy cows are milk-able, but whatever, this costume isn't anatomically correct!

Grandma cuddles with the newest member of the Brunson clan.....

 And quickly falls asleep!

Look at that sweet little mug.  We make the cutest babies!  (Too bad that's the last one we'll see on earth!  (Knock on wood!!))