Introducing....

Zachary Zaugg Perkins
Born 12/26/08
7#, 3.5 oz
20.5 inches

For those who care about the details of the birth, it's after the pictures. For those who don't want to know that much, just look at the pictures. :) The blogs about Christmas and such will simply have to come later.








The Details:
I woke up about 1:30am on the 26th (after going to bed at midnight) with contractions. After about an hour, I woke up James and told him it was time to go. I wanted to do the classic TV "It's TIME!", but I couldn't roll over to grab him. It took him a bit to get out of his stupor. When I told him it was time to go, he said, "Are you sure?" Yes, I was sure. So I called the doctor while he took a shower. Then he got to scrape the frost off the car and off we went. Checked in about 3:30, got an IV, then got ready for the epidural. That was the WORST epidural I have ever had. Epidurals are never comfortable, but this one had me screaming in pain. Yikes! But, it was done, and then we settled down for a bit. About 6:30, I felt like I should push, so I called the nurse, who checked and said I was ready. Then she called the doctor and everything got set up. I wasn't pushing right, so they turned down the epidural so I could feel more pressure. That worked! After 3 series of pushes, there he was! A healthy, screaming baby boy, born at 7:30ish in the morning. Not too bad. He's a pretty good baby, but he's starting to sleep less and eat more, which is good for him but bad for us. But Grandma is here to save the day and take care of the house and kids. I'm most excited about the dimples he has! When he has his gassy smiles I can see two small dimples. My favorite features about James are his curly hair, blue eyes, and dimples. I have 4 kids with blue eyes, one with curly hair, but I've never gotten dimples. I'm so excited, I hope that I'm not just seeing things, because they are so cute! The kids love him, hopefully not to death! Eldon is great with him and wants to help and Jessie and Erica love holding him. All the noise in the house doesn't seem to bother him, so that's great.

It's beginning to look a lot like winter

Well, it finally snowed. And it's still snowing. I'm glad that I have nowhere to go! We got a snowblower from some friends that moved to California, so James is outside using it now. I asked him how he liked it, and he said it was worth every penny we spent (which was 0). But it's faster and shouldn't break his back as much, which is good.


James got to wear his original Chilean hat that his brother bought him on his mission. He looked so funny as a conehead that I had to take a picture.


The kids loved playing in the snow, and built a snowman named...Frosty! How original!


Eldon even volunteered to shovel the snow. He did a pretty good job on the deck and ramp.

And since I'm blogging, I thought I'd finally post a picture of the kids decorating the tree. It is that time of year, you know.

For everything else...

Size of oil tank: 175 gallons
Price of fuel: $2.089/gallon
Filling our oil tank for HALF the price we did in October: PRICELESS!

Star Wars

We've started a "marble jar" in our house. Do something good, get a marble. Do something bad, lose a marble. When the cup is full, get a reward. Well, Eldon got his reward - and he wanted to watch Star Wars episode II. Well, I'm not a huge Star Wars fan, so I didn't watch it. I still have yet to see all of Star Wars IV, because I always fall asleep during it. Looks like Jessie and I are on the same wavelength. This is a picture I took of her in the middle of the movie.

Baby Blanket

I finally get to use the "I Made It Myself" image that some of my friends use on their blog.  Because I FINALLY finished my baby blanket.  So now the baby can come.  Anytime.  Really.  I don't mind.  Whenever it's ready.  Like, now, please.

Thankfulness

I am thankful for a husband that is calm in a crisis.  Today, just as we were taking the turkey out of the oven, we heard Jessie scream, "Dad!  Dad!"  Since James was busy with the turkey, I went to see what the matter was.  The toilet was flowing over abundantly.  So I did what anyone else would do.  I screamed, "James! James!"  He came running, threw some towels at me and said, "Don't let it get on the carpet."  Oh yeah, that would be a good idea.  Then he ran into the bathroom and shut off the water valve.  Oh yeah, another good idea.  Then he told me to start picking things up off the floor.  Oh yeah, that's a good idea.  So he kept his head and nothing was ruined at all.  Not even the turkey.  The stuffing didn't get fluffed in time, but I think we survived that.

I'm also thankful that my husband can cook.  He spent a great deal of time making dinner for today.  Turkey, rolls, cranberry sauce, and potatoes.

I, however, made the pies: lemon meringue, chocolate, and blueberry.  I am thankful for yummy pies.

Yesterday was my last cake decorating class.  One of my friends' had a birthday today, so I made the cake for her.  Here are the results.  You can call my secretary to set up an order. ;)

Jessica's 3rd Birthday

Today is Jessica's 3rd birthday.  James made her waffles for breakfast and after lunch she got to watch a movie, open presents and eat her birthday cake.  She's now playing with her presents and is very happy.

Other notes:  Jessie's birthday cake is the result of my first cake decorating class.  We only practiced with 2 tips (stars and dots), so it's pretty simple.  When I came home, James asked me why I didn't write Happy Birthday Jessica on it somewhere.  It had never occurred to me.  Silly!  When I asked Jessica what kind of cake she wanted (as in what design) all I could get out of her was chocolate.  So I made a chocolate cake.  When I asked her what color the frosting should be, she answered brown.  So easy to please!  So she got her brown chocolate cake, but she would only eat the frosting.

Jessica is still allergic to nuts.  She had a skin test in February that showed a minimal reaction and took a blood test a few months ago that gave us the go ahead for the "Peanut Challenge", which is essentially letting her eat peanut butter and watching her reaction for two hours.  So on Thursday before the challenge her doctor did another skin test.  On this skin test her body reacted, so we did not proceed with the challenge.  The doctor said to come back in a year and try again.  

On a good note, it seems that Jessica can almost spell her name.  She's known for a while what letter her name begins with and is very interested in what letter words begin with.  One day she said "Jessica begins with a J!"  I agreed, then she proceeded, "And next is an E, then a C (I corrected that), then another S, then an I, then a C!"  I helped her with the A on the end, but I was very impressed for a 2-year old to be able to do that.  Erica is very interested in learning how to spell things, and it seems that it is rubbing off on Jessie.

New Blog

After watching James retrieve the pencil eraser from the pencil sharpener, I decided to start a blog cataloging all the stupid/silly/crazy things my kids do. For posterity, you know. For those of you that get this blog by email, the crazy things won't be sent out by email. You'll have to check it out periodically at http://perkinsnotthinking.blogspot.com.

Under the category of "What was he thinking?"

I often ask myself, "What was he thinking?!?!?!?" As you probably know, I have a very intelligent boy. That can be good, but it can be bad. We often say to ourselves that we wish he'd use his powers for good instead of evil. The bad part comes with inventing ways to get out of trouble.

So, where do I start? Starting the story from the front or the back has its appeal. I think this story is best told from the ending.

So, there I was, doing our weekly loads of laundry. I open the dryer to pull out the first load (darks, jeans and such), and all over the dryer vent are little brown balls of...well, something. Now, at this time, Jessie is potty training and not doing a very good job of it. Still, I would be surprised if dirty underwear could pass by me unnoticed and into the laundry. So, I did what any self-respecting mother would do. I picked up a little ball and smelled it. Ah-ha! Mystery solved.

Now, back to the beginning of the story. On Friday, we had our Halloween dinner (as you can see in a previous post). Our entree was rat-shaped meatloaf. The kids were excited to eat it. However, when it came time to actually eat, my pickiest of picky eaters decided he didn't like meatloaf today and didn't want to eat it. The rule in our house is that if you put it on your plate, you have to eat it. After much arguing and threatening, the meatloaf was eaten and the boy was allowed to leave to go trick-or-treating.

Fast forward to today. As soon as I smelled the little baked balls of meatloaf, I knew exactly what my son had done. Yes, that's right, the meatloaf went IN HIS POCKETS! He'd already been reprimanded for trying to hide it in a napkin and throw it away. All we saw was the empty plate at the end and never, never, never would I have thought of him putting it in his pockets, then in the laundry, thinking he could get away with it. What was he thinking? He was thinking "I want to go trick-or-treating, my family is leaving soon, and I don't want to eat this meatloaf. My mom will never find it in my pockets!" That, folks, is what he was thinking.

Our spooky dinner

I've been trying to decide if I would post this to my recipe blog or my regular blog.  I finally decided that I wasn't really including recipes, just ideas.  So here we go.

Now, I'm not usually big into Halloween.  I don't really like paying a lot of money for costumes that are worn once, maybe twice, spending money on candy that we just give away, and getting tons of candy that I don't really want my kids to eat.  I don't like all the spooky, macabre parts of Halloween, and I don't decorate (except for jack-0-lanterns).  So, for me, Halloween is really all about the kids having fun.

But this year I decided to do something fun with dinner.  So I looked online and got some ideas for a spooky feast.

We had Bloody Rats, which were small meatloafs covered in ketchup, with carrots for the face and ears and a chinese noodle for the tail.  The recipe actually said to use peas for the eyes, but I couldn't get them to stick.  It also suggested that you wrap the meatloaf around a cube of cheddar cheese so the guts ooze out.  But I wasn't sure if my kids would eat that.

We had Bloody Eyeballs.  I put red food coloring on a pasty brush, and brushed the egg whites before I filled them with the deviled egg mixture.

And we had Severed Fingers -- thin breadsticks with the knuckle lines made by a knife and slivered almonds for the fingernails.  The baking made the almonds a nasty brown color, which was a bonus.

I was a bit afraid that my kids wouldn't eat it, even though they like all of it, because they tend to be picky eaters.  But they fought it was fun and kept calling the food by their spooky names.

Kids say (and do) the darndest things...

Some recent gems from my kids:

Jessica is in the middle of potty training. She can go. She just doesn't want to. So if I make her go all day, she's dry. But if I leave it up to her, no deal. One night we were getting ready for bed, and I told her to go potty. She ran to the bathroom screaming, "I'm dry! I'm dry!" When she got to the bathroom, she turned around, looked at me and said (with a forlorn look on her face), "Now I'm wet. I'm so very sorry." Too cute!

Erica has been listening to scripture stories every day. She really caught on to the story of Cain and Abel and wanted to listen to the Old Testament stories over and over. Well, she now says that when she's 11 she's going to be wicked and kill people. We don't let her listen to the stories anymore, but she still persists in this. I got a call the other day from a very shocked school psychologist. Erica visits with her twice a week. One day, Mrs. Diaz asked her what if she could do anything in the world, what would it be. Erica responded that she wanted to be wicked. When asked what it meant to be wicked, Erica answered that it meant killing people. So of course, she called me, and I was able to alleviate her concerns a bit. We're used to hearing it now and tend to ignore it so as to not give it the attention she wants, but it always shocks people the first time they hear it.

The other day was laundry day, and Eldon came into my room to tell me he didn't have anymore underwear in his drawer (he should have had plenty, so not my fault). I told him sorry, he'd just have wear his underwear from the previous day because I didn't have any more for him to wear. Well, before the kids left for school (luckily), I went into their rooms to put their jammies in the laundry piles. I saw Eldon's underwear on the floor, and it was wet, so no wonder he didn't want to wear it. So I found him and did a quick check. His solution to the problem had been to stuff his pants with socks until it made pseudo-underwear. At the time I found him, he was trying to keep the socks from falling out his pants legs. I had to give him a pair of Erica's underwear to wear to school. I just told him not to let his friends see and be thankful it was white instead of flowery in case they did see!

The Great Pumpkin

Eldon's recital

Today Eldon had his first piano recital.  He played a two songs.  One was a "spooky" song that he wrote himself called "Approach of the Shark".  The second was a song from his piano book called "The Woodchuck Chucks Wood."  It was at a church in Glastonbury and 12 students performed.  He did a pretty good job, and we are proud of his progress.

P.S.  Forgive the shakiness of the video, I had one daughter crawling on me and the other grabbing my arm during the filming. :)

Cheesecake!

I absolutely LOVE cheesecake!  I've loved it for as long as I can remember.  My mom always made cherry cheese pie for Thanksgiving.  And then one fateful day we were having a meal for my brother-in-law's farewell (before he was my brother-in-law, of course).  I ordered a slice of New York style cheesecake.  My mom warned me that it wasn't like her cheesecake, that it was drier, but one bite and I was in love.  Droo-ool, droo-ool.

So, now I experiment when I can with different cheesecake recipes that I find.  My dear husband got me four 4" springform pans, so I can experiment with cheesecakes on a small scale.  Droo-ool, droo-ool.  He's so sweet, but that poor man is happy with out-of-the-box Jello cheesecakes.  Not drool.

Last night there was a relief society dinner at my house.  The main course was lasagna.  When I asked James what dessert went with lasagna, we both looked at each other and said, "Cheesecake!"  I haven't made one for a while (thanks to the low-fat diet I'm supposed to be on), so I was excited to make one.  After thinking it over, I decided on Caramel Brownie Cheesecake.  It is de-lish-ous! The recipe is on my recipe blog.  Droo-ool, droo-ool!

P.S.  I did make the recipe reduced fat by using reduced fat cream cheese, sour cream, brownies, and vanilla wafers.  It's still not lowfat, but it turned out pretty good using the reduced fat ingredients.

Ultimate winter cuteness!

All I have to say, is how incredibly cute is this?  After the kids were sent to school, Jessie went digging through the hat/mitten box and put on her winter hat.  Oh, that we could all look this good in a hat!

On another note, I've decided to start posting recipes that I like on my blog.  I really love to cook (when I have time, haha).  So I decided I would share recipes I like, recipes I've tried, recipes that are disasters (yes, there have been times when James has come home, looked at what I've cooked for dinner, then promptly asked me, "Pizza or chinese?").

The first recipes I'm posting is corn muffins.  These corn muffins are wonderful!  They're not crumbly like regular cornbread, which is a great idea when you have small children that like to tear apart their bread.  I didn't post a picture because, hey, they're corn muffins.  They look like corn muffins.  I think you can get the idea.

Cookie Craze

Well, it happened again.  I wasted a perfectly good evening when I could have been sleeping.  It seems that every time James is out of town (he's camping with the Boy Scouts), I can never get to bed at a decent hour, then I have to wake up tired the next morning and deal with kids by myself.  But at least this time I was doing something fun.

I decided that I want to take cake decorating classes.  So I talked to my friend Christie about it, got some pointers, and headed to my local Michael's store to sign up and buy some starting equipment.  The classes might be on Monday night, so we'll have to see whether or not I can actually go, but I bought the kit for the first class and talked to someone who was in the middle of taking it.

So of course, I had to play with my new stuff!  Christie had the brilliant suggestions of decorating cookies.  This is great for two reasons -- one, I'm able to practice with the tips on more surfaces, and two, we'll actually eat them!  Our family is not all that crazy about eating cakes, but the cookies will be gone fast!

So, if our family doesn't eat cakes, why cake decorating?  Good question, glad you asked.  When the kids' birthdays come around, I like to try and make fun cakes for them.  They're starting to ask for cakes that require a bit more talent than I have, so I would love to be able to decorate cakes for them.  Also, I think it would be a good side hobby to have to decorate cakes for others.  We'll see how it goes, I guess!  As for now, the above picture shows my creations.  Not all that great, but hey, it is my first time.  And James will be happy when he comes home and has cookies to eat!

Temple Trip

We went to the temple in Boston this weekend. Apparently, it's a bad idea to go anywhere on a three-day weekend. We were supposed to leave about 3:00, but James had to cover for someone, so he didn't get home until after 4:00. Still ok, it takes about an hour and a half to get up there. For those unacquainted with our situation, when we go to the temple, we get a hotel for the night. One of us goes that night, and the other goes the next morning, so that we can better take care of Erica. We usually eat dinner at the hotel (it has a small kitchen) and there is a hot breakfast provided, then we eat lunch at a restaurant. The kids love it, even though they never leave the hotel, because they get to sit and watch TV all morning, which they *never* get to do. And there are 2-3 TVs, so they can all watch what they want.

So, back to our story...

We hit traffic somewhere in Mass., (no, I don't know how to spell it), and it was stop and go until we hit the Cape Cod exit. Then traffic lightened up. Then it slowed down again. All told, it took us until 7:00 to get to our hotel, which is twice as long as it usually takes. The kids are cranky and *starving*! Unlike usual, I didn't bring any snacks for the car because I thought, "They wouldn't be snacking at home, why should they snack in the car right before dinner?" And of course, they're tired. So we pull up to the hotel, James goes to check us in and comes right back at. Right hotel chain, wrong hotel! It's the hotel we usually stay at because it's cheaper, but I had forgotten that it had been booked, so I had reserved a room in another hotel of that chain, which we had passed 30 minutes ago! ARGH! Luckily, traffic's flowing fine in the south direction, so we hit the other hotel quickly and get some dinner. It's nearly 8:00 by this time (the last session of the Boston temple starts at 8:00), so James won't make it to the session, especially considering that he'd be fighting the traffic we already fought on the way up.

But all's well that ends well. We both were able to go today and just get home later than we had planned. It made for a busy, tiring day. But, the definite upshot was that, while we were putting the kids to bed, I noticed how clean the living room was, because no one had played in it all day long. :) So now it's time for some R&R, and be glad that we were able to make our journey safely.

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, testing

We took Jessica in for an "egg challenge" yesterday.  It sounds more exciting than it really is.  They fed her an egg and we waited two hours to see if she had a reaction.  And the verdict is...no more egg allergy.  Hurray!  Next up, the peanut challenge!

And lucky me, today I get to go in for my pregnancy glucose test.  That means downing 10oz of nasty, thick, syrupy, carbonated orange drink in only a few minutes, and then living with the sugar rush for an hour until they stick a needle in me and take my blood away from me.  Oh joy.

And more pregnancy woes -- Monday I knelt down on one knee and Jess sat on it so I could put her shoes on.  When I stood back up, my knee protested.  So I get to limp around everywhere.  Then yesterday, while going down the ramp to put Erica on the bus, I slipped (frosty ramp) and landed *hard* on my backside.  That made walking even more of a challenge.  But good news, I didn't let go of the wheelchair and hurt Erica in the process.  James has now been commanded to put grip strips on the ramp.  Soon!  But all's well that ends well, eh?

I think I can, I think I can, I think I'm done!

I think the canning season is over.  I was curious about how much I had really saved in the process, considering all the work done.  So I did up a spreadsheet and was amazed at what I came up with.  I used the cheapest item of each at the store I usually shop at.  The sugar, salt, water, lids, and energy are not considered in my total costs, but there are few things that I can't even buy at the store, like crabapple jelly and dried blueberries.  And these prices don't include all the fresh fruit we ate, of which we at tons!  And of course, raising things in your own backyard considerably helps on overall costs. :)

Best buy: Apples for $.35/lb

Worst buy: HORRIBLE peaches from a farmer -- not even worth preserving!

Fruit	Amount	Cost	Store Cost	Savings
Strawberries	12 c freezer jam		11.96
	14 c syrup		29.60
	11 c frozen		8.25
	10 c cooked jam		9.97
		34.75	59.78	25.03
Raspberries	6 c syrup		11.24
	8 c jam		8.00
	16 c frozen		16.00
		0	35.24	35.24
Blueberries	24 c dehydrated
	32 c frozen		44.77
	7 c jam		13.93
	9 c syrup		16.86
	4 qt pie filling		24.72
		46.50	100.28	53.78
Blackberries	10 c syrup		18.30
	20 fruit rollups		3.65
		0	21.95	21.95
Green beans	59 pts canned
		0	40.46	40.46
Peaches	35 qts canned		51.20
	12 fruit rollups		2.19
		51	53.39	2.39
Crabapples	9 c jelly
Pears	52 qts canned		100.43
	20 fruit rollups		3.65
	1 pie		2.49
	14.25 pts baby food		45.60
		50	152.17	102.17
Grapes	7 pts juice concentrate
		20	22.30	2.30
Apples	1 pie		2.49
	6 crisps		14.94
	42.5 qts sauce		78.41
	13.5 pts apple butter		17.91
	21.25 pts baby food		68.00
		87	181.75	94.75
Tomatoes	10 pts salsa		13.93
	7 pints canned		6.93
	10 c tomato sauce		3.00
		0	23.86	23.86
	GRAND TOTAL SAVINGS			401.93

Sleeping in...

As anyone who knows me knows, I *love* to sleep in. Really, really, love it. So this is how a typical morning goes in our household.

James' alarm goes off about 5:40. After many hits on the snooze, he finally makes it out of bed about 6:00. At 6:34, Eldon's alarm starts buzzing (his idea, not mine). It's still buzzing when I get out of bed about 6:45, when James gets out of the bathroom. On my way, I open Eldon's door, turn on the light, tell him to get out of bed and turn off his alarm and get dressed for school. Erica is sometimes awake, sometimes not. Jessie's usually still asleep. When I get out of the shower at 7:00 (when prayer time is *supposed* to be), Eldon's still in bed, sometimes awake, sometimes not, although the alarm has usually stopped buzzing by now. If awake, he's usually refusing to get out of bed because he's too tired/sick/whatever to go to school today. Erica is up and getting ready. Prayer's finally said about 7:10, then it's telling Eldon to get dressed (again), and off to breakfast, where we rush through everything to be ready for the bus at 7:40.

Now, picture the typical weekend morning. Erica comes into our room around 5:30 or 6:00, demanding to be played with. Eldon's up by 6:20, luckily in the mood to play with Erica. Jessie is up soon thereafter, where they can all wreak havoc until Mom and Dad can finally pull themselves out of bed (today it was a bit after 9:00 -- stayed up too late making cinnamon rolls for conference).

My questions are thus: How can they tell that it's a school day vs. the weekend, and why do their bodies have to be on the opposite circadian rhythm that they're supposed to be? It was said in General Conference today that we will miss the fingerprints on the windows and the toys scattered about when our kids grow up. Maybe so, but I don't think I'll ever miss the 6:00 wake-up call on the weekends when our kids finally get old enough to take care of themselves in the morning.

Losing the magic

It's finally happened.  After forgetting to be the tooth fairy for 3 or 4 times in a row, Eldon stopped believing our excuses for the fairy's failure and bluntly asked if we were the tooth fairy.  I couldn't lie to him, and I knew that he was close to the age of figuring it out anyway.  We almost lost it last Christmas when he started to question, but when Christmas day arrived and he saw the presents, he declared excitedly that Santa Claus was real.  But as soon as the tooth fairy's identity was declared, the secret identities of the others were quickly figured out.  It's a bit sad to lose the magic, but now the real difficulty begins: trying to keep Eldon from telling his sisters the news!

And away we go....

So, I keep thinking, who has time to blog?  But then I think, I would like to get my thoughts out sometimes and share pics and stories with friends and family.  So, here we go.