What have we been up to?

This post was started forever ago so I'm just going to finish it and then move onto the more recent past. I must be the worst blogger ever lately.

It has been forever since I have even looked at anyone's blog, much less had anything to write about. So I was trying to think of what we have done over the last month and all I can come up with is cleaning. It seems like a futile attempt to keep this house clean but I feel like cleaning is all I do from morning until night. And we aren't having any showings so it seems completely pointless. Maybe one day it will all be worth it if we can just get it sold. But we have already come to terms with possibility of renting it out if need be. (Update: House is under contract and we should close June 9th if all goes well. We only had about 6 showings so we feel very blessed that it sold relatively quickly)

I guess we have done a few other things in the last month but in my attempts to keep the house clean I seem to never have a camera when I need it. Work has finally slowed down significantly so we have had lots of togetherness. I'm still trying to decide if that is a good thing or not. Taylor and Ethan are still terribly amuzing and frustrating all at the same time.

So here is my Ethan update.... He continues to be much older than 4. He is obsessed with talking to people anywhere we go and it is pretty funny to see how people react to him. We were in a bike shop today and the salesperson comes over and asks me if I needed any help. I said we were just browsing and didn't need anything. Ethan follows him saying "excuse me, excuse me. Can you tell me how much this costs?" The guy looked completely confused and paused for a good 5 seconds before he answers Ethan that the bike costs $150. I love his willingness to ask questions without concern but it can be a little frustrating too. The other day I was at a fast food restaurant and he asked to order his lunch. He knew he was suppose to order a 4 piece chicken nugget and he looks at me with his mischievious look and then tells the lady he wants a 10 piece chicken nugget and we have a fun little battle as the clerk seems to be confused by which one of us she should listen too. Why she wouldn't just ring up the 4 pieces so we could move on I don't know.

I have recently been reminded that I need to watch what I say in front of him because it will be repeated... word for word. I was somewhat frustrated with someone (who will remain nameless) because of something said person had fed Ethan that had sugar in it. I was ranting to my mom and I said something like "why in the world would you feed him popcorn with sugar on it?" I was over it by the next time we saw this person but Ethan marches right up to the person (I was around the corner and could only hear the conversation) and says "why in the world would you feed me popcorn with sugar on it?" She politely responded "Well it said it had sucralose. I thought you could have that." To which Ethan replies, "No I can't have sucralose" with complete conviction. (No he doesn't know that he can't have sucralose but he's pretty good at just going with the conversation). So she replies "well I'm sorry. I will check with you next time." I guess that satisfied Ethan cause he finally let it drop. Later on when he was repeating some other comment I had made he looked over at me and says "You really need to watch what you say in front of me." Oh I love hearing myself coming out of that little mouth.

We attempted to watch conference last weekend even though it appeared that no one was getting anything out of it because of all the chaos. At one point in time Ethan was playing on the floor, paying no attention to what was going on, and Taylor was throwing a fit about wanting something. So I was a little short with her and Ethan looks up from his playing and says "Did you just hear the prophet say that you need to be kind to little children?" Ouch, how can you argue with that. Funny how that is the only thing he got out of conference and will often use it against me now.

We have decided that Ethan will most likely grow up to be a used car salesman. The other day we were playing pet shop and I was suppose to buy some of their stuff animals. I selected the ladybug and told him that I wanted to buy it. He says "well somebody else was just about to buy it but I'll sell it to you for $2." The beginning of his used car career.

I guess I should say that it he makes it to adulthood he will probably be a used car salesman. We have our doubts these days with the lack of fear that child has. We went to a pond in town the other weekend and we were walking over the stepping stones that go across the lake. The water is only about 2 or 3 inches deep where the stepping stones are on the spillway but on either side of the stones it gets much deeper. Ethan thought he was all big and bad and was jumping across the stones by himself and it was driving me crazy. I tried to convince him that it was a bad idea but I hate always being the voice of reason so I let him continue. He decided to walk along the cement divides of the spillway and somehow got the bright idea to jump from the divides to the stones which was a further distance. So when he jumped he lost his balance and tumbled right into the deep part of the pond head first. Oh it was so awful to watch it all in slow motion but be too far away to do anything. Abe grabbed him out of the water before he even took a breath of air but he was so upset. We took off his shirt and gave him my sweatshirt to keep him warm as we walked back to the car. (I thought I had made my point that maybe he should listen to mom next time she warns him about something. That lasted for a couple of hours but by dinner time he said "Boy that was pretty cool".) So we get back to the car and strip him down the rest of the way and just have him in my sweatshirt that went down to his knees. He was VERY concerned that someone in another car might see him and know that he didn't have any underwear on. He talked about it the whole way home and once we pulled in front of the house he realized that people on the street might see him and his lack of underwear. So I told him that I would just carry him in and he said "but then Will (the neighbor) will see my bottom". I was out of patience so I just told him to cover it with his hands. Then he said "but then Will will see my penis." So I again told him to just cover it with his hands. In total frustration he says "but my hands aren't big enough to cover it." I'm sure his concern was that I expected him to cover everything at once with his little hands but it sure made us laugh.

Taylor is getting bigger and more amusing each day also. She is such a girlie girl. She loves to wear a tutu and do "ballerina dances" for us. She has been known to put on 3 pairs of pants while she is suppose to be taking a nap and is constantly making request to wear dresses all the time. She isn't all sweetness. She can have it out with Ethan and she can be pretty violent when she wants to be. But even Ethan can't stay mad at her for long when her eyes fill up with alligator tears when she gets in timeout for putting him in a choke hold. I'm always impressed with Ethan for his ability to not strike back at her (even though he will get right in her face and growl at her when he gets really mad which only makes Taylor more likely to punch him). Taylor is all about compromises lately although she really doesn't understand the term. At dinner Ethan was trying to negotiate dessert or no bath or something he wanted and Abe joking said "Here's compromise, do what your told or get a spanking". Taylor quickly chimes in, with her hand in a fist, "how 'bout I spank you daddy? that be a compromise" with such a sassy tone.

Poor Taylor has so many cute things she says and does but they are usually quick, one liners or things that just don't come across being written. Hopefully she won't feel bad down the road when we don't have great records of all the adorable things she did when she was 2. She is so different than Ethan in some ways and I'm not sure if its boy vs. girl differences or just personality. She gets so frustrated with Ethan's constant chatter and noise, we both would like it a little quieter from time to time. Ethan's pictures have always been full of scribble and cover the whole page. Taylor does neat little pages full of small, delicate circles, usually the same size all over the page. She may be my little perfectionist.

I better finish this post before I head off for vacations. I promise more updates to come when I get back. After a trip to San Antonio and Easter I finally have things to blog about.

Potty Humor

I will preface this post by saying all may not find the humor in this post so you have been warned!

The other week both kids were sick and it was AWFUL for everyone. It was so strange because they were both sick in completely different ways but they were both miserable. I guess it is better to have them both sick at once since Abe and I had to take turns missing work to take care of them.

So day 1 of being sick Ethan had terrible diarrhea and was miserable. The attempts to make it to the bathroom didn't always work so it was frustrating and upsetting to everyone involved. I think Ethan got over the initial horror of it pretty quickly though. By mid-morning he says "Uh, mom, I thought it was just a toot.... but it wasn't". By dinner that evening he was even more non-chalant about the whole thing. He is sitting eating his dinner and he says "I'm totally going to run out of underwear." He doesn't move from the table, he doesn't even pause from eating. So I'm thinking he is just speaking in general so I gave him a rundown on how I would do laundry tonight and then it hit me "Did you just poop in your pants?" He answers "Yep."


Good times at the Fish house.

Where did January go?

It seems like it has been a long time since we posted something but the pictures in our last post are from Christmas and that was just a few days ago, right? Maybe its just me but January was a complete blur. Abe had his second round of radiation and was able to get lots of things done around the house during is forced exile. Work has been incredibly busy and I'm counting down the weeks until I can be done. I actually did the math the other day and realized that technically I could take the next 5 months off and still get paid based on all the overtime I have been working lately. Unfortunately there is too much to do and HR doesn't seem to like my plan too much.

Other than work, getting the house ready to put on the market has been the most time consuming task lately. Abe did an amazing job of redoing the front and back porches. They were in pretty bad shape and now look great. We enjoyed hours of patching, painting, cleaning, organizing, and staging. But now the house is officially on the market. So bring on the offers. I thought this would be a good time to do a little comparison of what the house look liked when we moved in.

The living room before. Note the lovely blinds.The living room after.

The kitchen before. I do not miss that tile.
The new and improved kitchen.

The dining room. Sorry the light fixture went to goodwill.
Abe did such a great job on this floor!

Our bedroom.

The master bath. Ethan and Taylor's room.
The kids continue to do wonderful and are very excited about our move. Ethan has gotten into the packing process. We were loading some stuff to put in storage and he wanted to know what we were doing. We explained how we wanted the house to look cleaner by getting the clutter out. He said "so stuff is going to the attic like in Toy Story". We said yes that was pretty much it. Then he grabs a box and starts loading his toys in. He told Taylor "come on, we are going to sell this stuff at a yard sale and get some money." He is always thinking. The other day he was watching me as I was getting ready for work. I put on a pair of hose only to realize that they had a run in them so I took them off. Ethan wanted to know what I was doing and I explained about the hole and how I couldn't wear them. So he say "So I guess you're going commando today?" Thanks Abe for teaching that concept to Ethan. Tonight as we were trying to leave the house I was trying my best to convince a stubborn Taylor to go to the bathroom and she wasn't having it. I finally told her that Ethan and Dad were going to leave without us if she didn't go. Ethan's eye got wide and his face got very serious. He said "Hold on here. I am not going ANYWHERE without my sister." I love the moments when they love each other so much.

So last Saturday was Taylor's 2nd birthday. I can't believe another year has passed by. Taylor is so much fun and such a handful at the same time. While playing teaparty today Ethan was making a lot of noise while "drinking" his tea. Taylor said "Ethan that isn't very good manners." Just what I was thinking, she is like a mini me some days. Since I am completely overworked and lazy we decided to go to Chuck E. Cheese for her birthday. Ethan and Taylor had a great time. I'm worried that this picture is a flash forward 14 years.No worries, it's just Abe, not some creepy mountain man trying to abduct Taylor. Abe thinks he is trying to get in as much time with a beard as possible before the army regulations kick in June 7th.



All day long on Taylor's birthday Ethan was letting Taylor pick everything. She got to decide what they watched on tv. He let her go first at everything. And this was all his own idea. So Sunday, the day after her birthday, she said something that she wanted to play with. Ethan took the toy from her and said very matter of factly "Taylor, its not your birthday any more."

Christmas in Utah

So we once again made the trek to Utah for Christmas. I have vowed never to travel again for Christmas after the hassle of trying to figure out how to celebrate Christmas early to avoid bringing more things on the plane than necessary but we have had a great time. The kids were great on the trip out so we can't complain about the traveling and no delays was nice.

The kids have been having a blast visiting their grandparents. Grandpa has all sorts of toys that Ethan loves. And by toys I mean the bow that Ethan got to shoot and the 4-wheeler. Ethan has had such a great time. Even Taylor has gotten into riding the 4-wheeler. She doesn't like to be left out.

We celebrated Ethan's birthday again with the family and Ethan loved the attention, and the cake.

Taylor is a huge fan of Cricket, Peyton's dog. I think Cricket was pretty ready to go home after all the attention she got from Taylor.

Peyton was such a great cousin. Ethan couldn't wait for him to come over and play. He was so patient with Ethan and Taylor.
Christmas was the day of the Pillow Pets. The kids have been begging for them for months so we gave in and got them each one for Christmas. The kids haven't let them out of their sight for more than a few minutes. I guess that means it was a good present. I love this video of them and their pillows.



Ethan pretending to be asleep on Taylor's Pillow Pet.

So we decided to try and take a family photo before church on Sunday. No wonder we don't have any family photos. What is Taylor doing with her face? That is her new look when she is making a "mean" face. Why would she choose it for the family picture?

"The look" up close.

Oh that is nicer.

This week we also checked out the museum at Thanksgiving Point. The kids had fun running around and looking at everything.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

First of all the Good, last night we found out that we are moving to San Antonio, Texas to do an Emergency Medicine residency. San Antonio was our first pick and we are really excited. I really enjoyed my rotation there, I got along great with the residents and staff, I like the set up and the construction that is going on to improve the hospital. I really hope the parking garage is done before we get there though. Also there are some great affordable housing options, the city is awesome with all kinds of things to do for the kids, and right now here in Christiansburg it is like 15 degrees so Texas heat sounds great.

Now for the Bad, I got the results of my scan done last Friday. There was some uptake in the front part of the neck which is expected, also some in the liver, again expected because that is where it is metabolized. The bad is there was some uptake in my left chest. The radiologist wasn't able to determine if this was from a highriding stomach which would normally have some uptake or if it has metastasized to my lungs. Either way the treatment for this is to have an ablation dose of radiation.

Now for the Ugly, the dose of radiation that I had last Wednesday was supposed to be an ablation dose. However the doctors office put the orders in wrong and I only had a scanning dose. So all the arrangements to have Meredith's parents watch the kids, and me taking my vacation month this month instead of in May (if it was May we could have found and bought a home in San Antonio where we are going for EM Residency, did I mention that, because that is where we are going and we are super excited) were for nothing. So right now I will have to do the ablation dose of radiation in January. This means we have to rearrange my schedule, and arrange to have Meredith's parents watch the kids again.

Lastly this post was meant more to inform everyone that we are really excited about going to San Antonio, the rest of it is just FYI. I also would like to say that I'm feeling perfect, I have some bad days but there aren't many. So be excited for us going to San Antonio and don't worry about the other.

Update

Dear Zeb,

Here is the adventure race course that I had in mind. I think that you can spread out the obstacles to suit your need. You can tell them that a Special Forces soldier and his son designed it. No need to thank me.

Abe

Recently Ethan has really gotten into doing family home evening. I thank Meredith for this because she has come up with some pretty amazing ideas of how to keep the kids interest. One of her ideas was about following commandments and so we made an obstacle course where the kids had to follow the instructions to make it through the course. Well Ethan loved this idea and decided that he wanted to make a course of his own. Most of the stuff he came up with on his own, pretty impressive.

On another note here is an update on what is going on. Right now I have good and bad days. I feel as if I have been very blessed that when I needed mostly good days I was able to have them. Especially since those good days that I needed where when I was doing interview rotations for residency programs that I wanted to get into. This also determines where we will be for the next three years. The next step in treatment is radiation therapy. It is a little different for thyroid than other cancers. First I have to have a couple of injection of thyroid stimulating hormone. This will cause any thyroid cells that are left to want to take in as much iodine as they can to try and make thyroid hormone. Then I take a radioactive iodine pill. This will be taken up by the thyroid cells essentially killing them off. There is a chance of recurrence with papillary carcinoma so in order to minimize it you have to get rid of all the thyroid cells. The radiation therapy is a onetime dose and then I have to follow up for a couple of years to make sure that I'm still clear. The worst part about it is that I can't have any contact with the kids for five days, so they are going to stay in Richmond with Meredith's parents. I will have the radiation on Dec 10th and then we will go from there. I'm looking forward to having this done and being able to move on. I also want to thank everyone for there support and prayers. It truly has meant a lot to me when people have told me that they and there families are praying for us. Thank you!

You know your kids is watching too much tv when...

So I thought it was time for me to write down a couple of my favorite recent Ethan sayings. I can definitely tell that the babysitter is letting Ethan watch too much tv when he is constantly quoting commercials.

- When Ethan saw a picture of some automatic broom he says "if you get this mom, you will have more time to spend with us." Later I saw the commercial with some mom sitting at the table with her kids while the broom worked saying it gives her more time with her kids.

- While looking through a Toys R Us ad at the house he pointed to some video game and said "mom that will really help me learn."

- While unloading the dishwasher (and complaining the whole way) he comes up with the plan that instead of unloading it we can just use the silverware straight out of it until we get to the bottom (I didn't mention that this is usually my plan with the clean laundry in the basket so I don't have to put it away. Maybe this is genetic.) When that plan was not accepted he decide that he would promise not to eat for a week if he didn't have to do them.

- The other day while I was distracted on the phone I see Ethan collecting some supplies for a "project". He had a rope and a hanger. After I got off the phone I listened to the conversation between Taylor and Ethan. Ethan was trying to convince Taylor to jump off the second story porch while using the hanger like a zipline on the rope. He promised her that he would catch her at the bottom. Thankfully Taylor wasn't into the idea. I have to keep a closer eye on that kid.

We have been enjoying the Fall out here. I will definitely miss Fall in the mountains. Even the kids are always pointing out the trees, the leaves and the mountains and how beautiful they all are. We spent the first Saturday Abe was home at the pumpkin patch. We had such a wonderful time with beautiful weather. Ethan had been waiting not so patiently for Abe to come back from being gone so we could get a pumpkin. It was well worth the wait.

Our search through the corn maze.

Taylor wanted to pick up ever kernel of corn she found in the corn maze. I thought we would never get through it.

Hard to imagine but Ethan really was having fun.

Ethan and Taylor with the animals. No fear from these kids.

Getting them both to smile at the camera at the same time with the bright sun was impossible.

Not to be out done by her brother's talkativeness Taylor is so good at keeping up with him. I love to hear all the things that she has to say. Although it often involves A LOT of attitude. I put in this video of her helping me "read" one of her favorite books. I love to hear her say the words.

Sometimes Ethan and Taylor can be so sweet to each other. I just love it! Sometimes they are all about giving each other hugs and being so adorable. The other night at dinner Ethan pulled Taylor's chair close to him and hugged her and said "mom, I just really love being beside my sister." Taylor leans over and says "I love you too Ethan." Too cute. Of course Taylor wanted some long hugs and Ethan was done with his sweet moment very quickly but it was still cute while it lasted.