Happy Birthday to Ashley!

I wish I had a picture where you weren't way in the background! Sorry! I hope you had a good day, and I wish we were there to help you celebrate. Did you get to sleep in or anything awesome like that?

Gotta see it!

Well, you will have to excuse me for putting two media-related posts in a row, but we watced The Bourne Ultimatum on Thursday,and it was really good. If you liked the other two movies at all (which Chad and I both did), you will like this one. I am not an action fan at all - I get really bored and start to zone out during action scenes - but these movies rock my world. They are also, by the way, Matt Damon's only movies where I find him attractive.

If you click on the link above, you are led to its page on rottentomatoes.com, which is one of my favorite websites. It shows you the reviews of a ton of critics for each movie. I know movie critics can be idiots sometimes, but it is still interesting to see what they think, and sometimes when they bomb on a movie, I check out why, and then decide if I want to watch it anyway. For instance, I saw that Catch and Release had a 22% rating (which made it stinking rotten), but I like Jennifer Garner, and it looked cute, so I watched it anyway. In this case, the critics were right, and it was total crap (sorry for the language mom, but you saw it with me and you know it was crap :o)

As I was thinking about the Bourne movies tonight, it made me remember a movie that we liked that didn't get a lot of attention. The critics liked it, but I don't know anyone else who has seen it. It is called Breach, and it came out this year with Ryan Phillipe and Chris Cooper. Very instense. Good stuff.

Are you Lost?

Chad I were huge "Lost" fans from the very first episode and even got some of our family members hooked on the show, but when we got rid of DVR in March, we stopped watching it. We missed the whole second half of the season. Chad was still working nights then, and I didn't want to watch it without him, but kept forgetting to use the ol' VCR to tape it, and if you miss a couple of episodes of Lost, you can get pretty lost (hehe). It's no good to try and just jump back in. So we decided we would wait until Season 3 came out on DVD and catch up then. Unfortunately, I read a couple of articles that I shouldn't have, so I know about a few things that happened while I was away, but I am still looking forward to catching up. I am sure I still have a few surprises in store. It was released on DVD on Dec.11, so I think we will probably spend some quality time with Kate and Jack during Chad's Christmas vacation. It will be a nice break from cleaning out the garage and painting the boys' bedroom.

Looks like this season will be probably be cut short by the strike.

I think that even after the show finally wraps up and answers some questions, I am still going to need a book written to really explain everything to me.

CSI or Poison Control?

Gabe woke up coughing in the middle of the night on Tuesday. Chad pulled out the Tussin and slipped him some real quickly, and I think he forgot to put the cap back on tightly. The next day Gabe came toddling downstairs, upset about something, and I picked him up. His pants were wet and he was trying to tell me something. He guided me upstairs and led me to this mess. Oh my!!!! It was so, so bad. Our mattress is permenantly pink now, but luckily it did come out of the sheets. I had to laugh because I went to go put the sheets in the washer and by the time I got back upstairs, Colin had already gotten the carpet spotter and cleaned up the little bit that had spilled on the floor. Why do little boys have to be such rascals?

Happy Birthday Audra!

You rock!

Does Santa Claus wrap your gifts?

When I was growing up, Santa did not wrap our gifts. Santa did wrap Chad's when he was a boy, so we had to decide which tradition would carry on in our own family. I won out, probably mainly because I am the one who does most of the Santa stuff, and Chad doesn't really care about stuff like that as much as I do. Here are my reasons for not having Santa wrap my kids' gifts:

1. I think it is fun for the kids to walk into the room and immediately see what Santa brought them. It has the big WOW factor.

2. Although I do love wrapping gifts, I try to keep down the mom and dad workload around Christmas. We have plenty of other things to occupy our time without attempting to wrap a bike.

3. After the Santa gifts and stockings are done, it is nice to sit down and unwrap gifts from each other. It makes the two things more separate, and I think it lets us focus on saying thanks to each other more.

So what does Santa do at your house?

A swingin' neighborhood

What does the Christmas Season bring to mind? Trees, lights, pies, cookies, ham? How about gambling? What, isn't that what the holidays are all about?

Our neighborhood has fun activities on a daily basis for all ages, and even though they had the kids painting turkey t-shirts with washable paints (?), most of the activities are pretty cool. It does stink that most of the family activities are scheduled for Sundays, but I understand that, for most families, that is the most convenient day of the week. Well, now it is time for the adult holiday party, which would be a nice, free date for Chad and I to go to, if there was actually anything there that appealed to us. But nope, it is all about gambling and drinking. I am sure they were trying to think of something different to do instead of the typical holiday party, but it is pretty disappointing to me. Can't there be just one aspect of the party that can enjoyed by cold fish such as ourselves? We pay just as much in home owners association dues as the rest of 'em. Maybe they are trying to keep our kind out :o)

Another Update!

Add an ear infection to the Coleman family list of maladies. We noticed that Colin hasn't been hearing us well (as opposed to the usual not listening well :o) and he complained once or twice that his ear hurt over the last few days (and then promptly forgot about it), so Chad took him off to them Dr. tonight and he has a ton of fluid in one ear and a raging infection in the other! Woohoo! More antibiotics!!!!

Chad and I came down with these incredible head colds on Saturday that completely knocked us flat. I got about three hours of sleep that night. We took turns getting out of bed to do just the essentials yesterday (and showering wasn't even considered an essential) , and Gabe was a snotty, pink-eyed, croupy mess, so we were laughing about how Colin was the only healthy one among us. Guess not! Poor little deaf boy. Maybe our family should take up that new fangled "handwashing" thing I have heard so much about ;o)

BTW, if you ever want a challenge, try finding a substitute teacher for Sunbeams. I left messages with about 11 people on Saturday and only had one answer me back (with a no.) Wow.

Another benefit of fasting?

Interesting article.

Imagine checking this out

One thing I really dislike about reading Orson Scott Card is that the covers of his book are often utterly ridiculous. Seriously, look at this one! It looks like a sleezy romance novel. In reality, the guy and gal featured on the front are hundreds of miles away from each other for 99.9% of the book, and the story revolves around a witch hunt and the heartfires of slaves. Every time I look at it I just have to laugh. Who exactly were they trying to appeal to? Uncle Orson, I know you read my blog, so I have to ask - do you have any say in your covers?

Btw, in case of of you are extremely gullible.....no he doesn't really read my blog. But wouldn't that be cool if he did?

Gabe's favorite activity

Gabe really loves to draw. Not color, draw. He doesn't try to fill in any pictures or cover the paper with color. He meticulously draws circles (or "O's," as he calls them), lines and "stars." I have never seen a toddler who is so precise with a pen or crayon. Gabe knows where we keep the construction paper and crayons, so he helps himself to them throughout the day, or to whatever paper we shouldn't have left lying around. I found a paper Chad wrote in the last week of his mission about his long term goals, and Gabe had drawn tiny circles all over the letters. If I want to keep him happy in the grocery store, I just hand him my planner and a pen and let him go nuts. Sometimes he will come up to me during the day and ask me to write his name on his creation and then after I finish he does the sign for butterfly, which is the one thing he knows I can doodle. Such a unique and neat little boy already. He is getting a MagnaDoodle for Christmas.

Ten things you might not know about Chad

1. His sports injuries included three concussions, a broken arm, a broken nose (from playing baseball with his brothers with a croquet ball!) and a severly sprained ankle.

2. He graduated cum laude from BYU.

3. He might make fun of people a lot, but there are actually very few people that he dislikes. He is really a lot nicer than me than me in this respect. He really really likes people and very trusting, loyal, and forgiving.

4. When I was just getting to know him in high school, one time I asked him what the holes around the neck of his t-shirt were about, and he told me if was from his puppy. He would lay on the ground and giggle as the puppy nibbled at him. This was when he was sixteen! He is still such a softie when it comes to puppies and kitties (and nieces!). He always jokes about how much he would love to wrestle with a baby white tiger.

5. He has been a huge help decorating our house. He will come home and surprise me with pieces of decor he knows I will like and he is always the driving force in getting things painted and decorated around here.

6. He is never afraid of asking questions. I really admire this about him because for some reason I feel like you should always try and figure things out for yourself and I think it stunts my growth. Chad really succeeds because he learns so much this way.

7. Chad is an Excel genuis, and most of it is self taught (while he was a customer service manager, no less). At work, where people know how to do this stuff, he is still the go-to guy when it comes to Excel. He knows how to pull data and build all these incredibly intricate reports with about a million different hidden formulas, and the reports self generate graphs showing how the company is doing and all kinds of stuff that I can barely begin to understand. It is so weird to look at the hidden stuff in one of the reports that he built, and be so confused by it, and know that he made and understands every line of it.

8. He is much better at cleaning than I am.

9. He thinks the movie "What Women Want" is hilarious.

10. I think he has secret ambitions to be a sniper (even though he doesn't know how to shoot a gun).

Update and an awesome tip!

Isn't this picture pathetic? After my last post, Gabe's eye quickly turned gunky, so I took him to the doctor. He confirmed that it was pink eye and wrote a prescription for antibiotic drops. The Dr. also said Gabe has croup, which, as we have all learned now, no medicine can cure. As soon as he said that, I thought, "Wow. Colin's croup must have been really bad, because it was much worse than this." So now I can just be thankful that Gabe's croup is very mild. He didn't even wake up once after I got home last night.

I really love the doctor that treated him. He told me that if one of the boys ever gets pink eye when we can't get to the doctor, to wash it out with Johnson's Baby Shampo. It is antibacterial and won't sting their eyes, so it works wonderfully, but you do need to do it 5 or 6 times a day. He even said that you could probably just do this continuosly to get rid of pink if you wanted to. What a great tip!!!!! Kids get pink eye so often.

We are all messes

Well, it is that special time of the year again - the sick season. It started early this year with Colin's croup in October, and since then one of us has always been sick. I currently have three disgusting cold sores, updated from when I took this picture yesterday with only two cold sores.

The cold sores just popped up a few days ago, but the cold has been here for five weeks now. No fever, nothing to indicate anything more serious, just a yucky cough for over a month. Colin has been coughing for that long as well. Chad and I went on a date last night after the boys went down, with Bobby babysitting, and when we came home, Gabe was calmly sitting on the couch with him. As he let out his "Mommy, where were you?" cry, out came a raspy, seal bark of a cough . Sometime between 6:30, when I put him to sleep, and 8:00, when Bobby heard him crying, he developed a cough. Don't you love that?

When Gabe woke up this morning, one eye was slightly crusty and runny. Are we going to add pink eye to the mix? If it is viral, there is no treatment. If it is bacterial, it needs antibiotics. Here is the difference between the two, courtesy of Dr. Sears :

1. Bacteria – when the eyes are red with yellow or green drainage oozing or crusting in the eye throughout the day and night, then bacteria are usually the culprit. The eyelids may also be swollen. Affects one or both eyes.
2. Virus – when the eyes are very red, but there is no drainage, or only a small amount of drainage or crusting upon waking up, then it is probably viral conjunctivitis. Usually affects both eyes.

I am leaning towards viral, because it was only crusty when he woke up, but I might be taking him to the Dr. before the day is over. Luckily we have an nice, clean, express place nearby that never has a wait.

I think something is wrong with me, but I feel really really guilty whenever my kids get sick. Maybe it is because of the commercials for antibacterial wipes and tissues that try to convince us that we can prevent all childhood illness (or even that we should). Maybe it is because I still remember how horrible and inept I felt when Gabe got RSV when he was five weeks old and was hospitalized. Maybe it is because I like to leave doctors and prescription drugs out of the picture whenever I can, and sometimes when I compare myself to the moms that stick their kids on antibiotics whenever they can, I seem like I am not doing enough. Whatever it is, each time I hear Gabe let out that bark, I feel like a failure.

Sorry for the negative post - I promise I am pretty darn happy right now, but the sick season always gets to me.

A visit with Santa

Santa came to the clubhouse at our subdivision on Saturday. Colin was brave but subdued as he requested his bike. This picture was the one moment when Colin was actually allowed to look at Santa instead of the photographer taking his picture. When did visiting Santa turn into purely a photo op?

Gabe walked in, saw Santa, and started trembling and bawling. The cookies and donuts soon calmed him, but he refused to go anywhere near the jolly old soul. The photographer on hand was more than a little annoyed by this, and tried to talk Chad and I into getting into the picture Colin, while holding Gabe. Uh, no thanks. We aren't cheesy enough yet to buy expensive picture packages featuring our whole family with Mr. Claus. Um, I hope I didn't offend any you with that remark, but I think I know my audience.