Long Time No Write

Yes, I know. I haven't updated this thing in FOREVER, but I don't really care. We've had a lot of stuff going on lately and things like a family blog go to the back burner. So, here's an update on what's up with the Dickersons:
1. Elizabeth had her 2nd birthday and Tyrone had his 29th last month. Elizabeth made bank from her overly-doting grandmothers....It was like Christmas all over again. Tyrone just got a pair of pants for his birthday.
2. Sometime during late February or March, Elizabeth decided to chow down on half a bottle of Tyrone's allergy medicine that was left out on the kitchen table. She's a good climber. We spent that Saturday in the emergency room force-feeding Elizabeth the charcol drink they give kids at the hospital. Fun times....Elizabeth is okay. Nothing happened to her other than a traumatizing trip to the hospital.
3. Katara has grown like --whoa. She is rapidly catching Elizabeth in weight and currently wears 12-month-old clothing. She's rolling all over the place and working on sitting up. She is so close to crawling, but so far from it, that she is easily frustrated when playing on the floor.
4. Katara started her solid foods...and she LOVES them...mainly the fruit, but she does like some of her veggies. It's weird --having a kid that actually opens her mouth and wants to eat....Elizabeth never did that.
5. I fit into my pre-pregnancy pants again for the first time a few months ago. WOOT!!!
6. The girls had a good Easter. They each got a stuffed-animal sheep. Elizabeth was kind of enough to try to share the candy her grandmother gave her with Katara.
7. We are buying a home in IF. Finally! After 2 years of looking and being outbid constantly, we are actually getting a home. It is right where we want to be and a good size. 4 bedrooms, 3 baths...soooo looking forward to getting out of the Burg! Our offer was accepted the last day the government tax credit was available, so we should still qualify for it. :D

That's it. That's what our life has been like for the most part for the last several months.

New Year

So...I haven't written anything in quite a while...Christmas and New Years make time fly fast. Here are a few Christmas time pictures. The girls are getting so big, so fast.

The girls both got sock monkeys for Christmas. As you can see, Elizabeth got a tea set and she loves to play with it. Life would be very boring without the girls...and a lot more quiet. :)

Christmas Pictures

So, I do not profess to be a professional, but here are some of the photos of the girls I tried taking last week. Elizabeth was completely uncooperative. Next time we do pictures, I'm probably going to go to an actual photographer, or get a faster camera. Katara was a ham for the camera and gave me lots of big smiles.

Here they are: my little poptarts...

Still Alive

To start off with, I apologize for the lack of pictures to accompany this entry. No excuse --I just didn't feel like doing it. Today, Elizabeth and Katara went to the doctor --the youngest had a checkup and they both got shots. Elizabeth just had the one flu shot, but Katara needed three immunizations. So, needless to say, I have been quite unpopular here at home today. I have to help hold Elizabeth down for her shots, and Katara was looking at me when she got hers. Sad day.
Katara is growing fast though. She weighs 12 lbs, 11 oz and is 23.5 inches long. She smiles a lot and is starting to coo. Tyrone thinks she's a bit of a momma's girl, but that's only because I'm the chuck wagon around here. :) Elizabeth is a daddy's girl, so it all evens out.
Lately, Elizabeth has had a growth spurt in the language department. She repeats a lot of what we say and now has a new batch of vocabulary with which she may gab my ear off each day. She says: pillow, piano, caper, paper, dink (drink), baper (diaper), no, pease (please), and moo. We need to work on her pronunciation with a few words --like "sit." It's not quite pronounced right and sounds more like a cuss word...

Blessing and Halloween

This last Sunday we had Katara's baby blessing in Church. --Guess you could say she is "official" now on the Church records. She looked very nice in her white blessing dress and bonnet complete with white crocheted booties from a lady in our ward and a crocheted blanket from her great-grandmother. Instead of blessing Katara in Elizabeth's dress, we actually got to use my own blessing dress from when I was a baby. Didn't know I still had one, but my mom brought it with her. It was a good experience for everyone overall, I think. The grandparents, uncles and some of the great-grandparents were able to come for the event.

On a much different subject, this year for Halloween we really aren't doing much. So far we've only had a big breakfast, bought some candy, and plan on watching some anime shows tonight. The girls --while they may look cute in costumes-- are still unable to trick-or-treat, so we're not going to over-do things here for them. Tyrone, however, was requested to dress up for his Dungeons and Dragons game. So, he (not entirely enthusiastic about putting on a masquerade) decided to go as the newly famous balloon boy. (He's carrying a box around him since the balloon boy was found in a box.) We are sooo funny...

More On Our Newest Princess

So, here she is: a photo of Katara. She's just chilling out on her dad's lap here.

Katara decided to come into the world quite abruptly. When the contractions started, they were about 3-4 minutes apart. By the time I got to the hospital within the hour (my aunt drove me), I was dilated to 8cm and in a lot of pain. Things went really fast, and unfortunately I was not able to get an epidural or any pain killers. (Going "natural" for labor and delivery is possible, but it really sucks.) Luckily, Tyrone did get there in time. The doctor made it too, but just so. The nurses were still tying his scrubs on it seems, and he didn't have time to put his gloves on before Katara popped out. Literally, it seemed she popped out, because I had to ask if she was out or not. The doctor did catch her though. I noticed only afterward that he was still in his jogging clothes --shorts and a tank top, and the nurses were actually joking about this being his cardio workout for the day. Quite the ordeal, in my opinion, and I'm now on break from being pregnant for while. :)

So far, Katara is a good baby. She sleeps more than her older sister did and we've had two nights in a row now with only one wake-up feeding time! However, she usually will be awake for well over an hour after she eats... Currently, she has a bit of a cold.

Elizabeth is still adjusting as best she can to having a new sibling and so are we. I'm sure there are worse things than having two kids, but it's amazing how dramatic Elizabeth has become lately. She even has an "attitude face" that she's started giving us since her sister showed up.

New Addition!

Wednesday, we had our second daughter, Katara Jean Dickerson. She popped out (almost literally) after an hour and 20 minute labor and no epidural or pain killers. Tyrone is still alive and his hand is in good shape. :) She was over 8 and a half pounds and is extremely good looking. Elizabeth is still adjusting to her new sister, but we're sure they'll be great friends and playmates before too long.
More of our labor and delivery story to come later...

Family Home Evening Activity

For a family home evening activity one night Tyrone decided that we should make a tent/fortress for Elizabeth. He did most of the work since I was too big to really do a lot. Elizabeth did her best to hinder his efforts by running off with the sheets and sitting on the blankets her dad was trying to hang up and arrange. After much trial and error though, we succeeded in completing the fort. Elizabeth thought it was great.

Eureka!...?

I've been craving some pumpkin bread lately --need something "healthy and sweet." So today, I finally got to make some. I would have made it yesterday, but I only had two eggs and would be going to the store Saturday (today) to get some stuff anyway, so I waited. Well, I got everything mixed together and threw it all in the oven, quite excited for some pumpkin bread. However, during the one hour that it takes to bake, the house smelled different. I determined it was from the burned stuff at the bottom of the oven (probably rice from the casserole earlier this week). I also noticed that instead of filling out and rising into a nice dome-shaped curve, the bread was dipping inward and sagging. I have never had a problem making pumpkin bread before, so I figured that this new development was simply bad luck. We all can't be perfect chefs all the time, you know. Well, after the hour bake time was up and the bread came out of the oven, I discovered the actual problem with my pumpkin bread: in my haste to bake and eat it, I had forgotten to actually put pumpkin in the pumpkin bread. I know --what an idiot! Who does that? Who leaves out the main ingredient to which the recipe was named for? As Tyrone put it, "it's like leaving the chocolate chips out of the chocolate chip cookies." So, no pumpkin bread for me. Instead, I have sweet, cinnamony-nutmeggish bread that actually doesn't taste bad with a good amount of butter. It also actually makes for a good brick. The loaves came out hard and crunchy/chewy, and instead of bouncing off the cutting board and attempting to roll around like bread normally does when removed from its pan, the loaves fell with a hard, prominent thump --and did not move after that. What fun we have in the kitchen here!

Big Mistake!

So, I thought Elizabeth --being about 16-months-old, would be able to handle sleeping without a onesie on. It's been pretty hot here at nights and we can't just open our windows. The place we live at has an auto-sprinkler system that hits the windows and house, and I'd rather not have a wet floor or window area to wipe up everyday. So, in order to help Elizabeth stay cool, lately I've been skipping the onesie when dressing her after her bedtime bath and just putting a fresh diaper and pair of pajamas on her. She seems to do just fine with it, however today's nap time proved otherwise. I don't get Elizabeth dressed for the day until after her morning nap --I think it's more comfortable to sleep in pajamas than in a pair jeans and a t-shirt. Well, I go in her room after she wakes up and start going through her dresser drawers to find her some clothes for the day, and she chats about whatever in her crib. I pick out her clothes and look up and there it is in the corner of the crib: Elizabeth's diaper. I go over to her and lift up her nightgown and see a bare bottom mooning me. She'd taken that stupid diaper off at some point during her two-hour nap time, and you can imagine the dread. What is wet?--the sheet, blankets, what clothes she has on, etc. So, out she goes to get a new diaper on and get dressed. Then, I go back to her room for damage control. Everything must go into the wash. Turns out she wet the bed in two places, so I washed her mattress up with some 409 cleaner and let it air out. Such a poptart for a daughter! The diaper she took off wasn't even very wet, so it wasn't like it was an uncomfortable super-soaker one. Oi. As punishment, she lost her blankie for the remainder of the morning (it needed to be washed anyway since it too was in the wet crib).

Picture Time!

We took Elizabeth's 1-year photos earlier this summer, but because they took so long to print, we never got them out to the grandparents until a week or so ago. (If any of the grandparents read this and still haven't gotten the pictures, let us know. They were supposed to be delivered.) Technically, Elizabeth is 14-months-old in these photos. We wanted outdoor shots of her, because she is a spring baby. However, the weather here in Rexburg is too cold in May and then it rained all June. So, we did the best we can. She wouldn't stop moving, and in half the photos there's a motion blur going on with her hands or feet. We decided that that was just Elizabeth's personality showing through though. She is always on the go. I'm only posting two of her four portraits here. We put her in blue so it would contrast the outdoor colors. (I know pink would do the same job, but she looks so nice in blue and it matches her eyes. Some people think girls should always wear pink in pictures, but I disagree.) We had a difficult time getting Elizabeth to smile, because she didn't nap that afternoon thanks to Church. She was tired and the pictures were taken at sunset in order to avoid too harsh of lighting. So, the photo of her on the bench was the biggest/only smile we could get. She's just a good-looking little girl.

Summer Days

The thing about Idaho summers that bugs me the most is that probably 95% of the homes have NO AIR CONDITIONING!!!!! I know that it's like, winter and fall here two-thirds of the year, but come on --it's hot here in the summer and even HOTTER when you don't have AC. And no, opening the windows doesn't do the trick. Tyrone and I have discussed this one before. He's from Idaho, and doesn't know that there's life beyond window AC units and swamp coolers. I was fortunate enough to convince him with the car that just because you open all the windows, doesn't mean that the inside of the car (or house!) will cool down. If the air is hot outside, then you're only letting in hot air. It doesn't cool down just because it's out of direct sun. This just results in stuffy hot air, because despite all the open windows, you still have hot air trapped in an enclosed area. So, needless to say, we're really hot here right now. Even with the swamp cooler going, the house doesn't necessarily cool down.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our most recent goings on...

We try to go to the park several days each week. Elizabeth LOVES to be outside and play where other kids are. One Saturday, Tyrone got to come with us. We go in the mornings before things get too hot. There's also a splash park here in town. However, every time I have taken Elizabeth there, she's been more interested in the park play area than the water fountains and all the water play park has to offer. She'd rather run around and go down a slide, I guess.
I decided that it would be cheaper to make our bread rather than buy the amount we eat each month. Homemade bread makes the best toast anyway. Last time I attempted this "mom" thing, the bread was flat and not cool. This time, the loaves all turned out nicely. I was so proud of myself that I took a picture.....I think I need to get out more... :)
So, Elizabeth loves spaghetti. She was "starving" for dinner one night so I gave in early and let her at some leftovers. Tyrone and I were watching a movie, so Elizabeth's dinner went unsupervised. She usually does just fine. The dining and living rooms are open to each other, so we can keep an eye on her. However, this particular dinner she managed to be quiet and sneaky enough to do what you see in the picture here. Every time I looked over at her, she was eating and appeared to be fine. But, when I went clean her up the food was EVERYWHERE: floor, hair, behind/in ears, all over the high chair, on her legs, and in other places of the dining room that I have no idea how she got them there. Needless to say she went straight to the bath tub after this.

Real Quick...4th of July

For the 4th of July we all went to see Tyrone's family and their new house. They got a great deal on a fixer-upper and it turned out really nice. We helped them with the last part of their move and Grandma Dickerson gave Elizabeth a new, patriotic outfit to wear for the holiday. We had fun playing games with Tyrone's brothers and Elizabeth loved all the attention she got. Her naps were something to be desired, though. She was so tired by the end of the trip that she slept all two hours home! (Elizabeth is not a car sleeper.)

Peanut Butter!

On nice, sunny days while Tyrone is at work, Elizabeth and I enjoy walking to the park. Elizabeth likes to swing and walk around in the shade and touch the grass while I lag behind at a distance. Sometimes I wish I had a leash to tie her up to a tree with so I could just sit down and rest. Does that make me a bad mom? I don't know, but the park is usually a fun time for us. I just thought this picture was funny (even though Elizabeth is facing the wrong way)...little girl vs. BIG TREE


One night, Elizabeth woke up before Tyrone and I could go to bed. She probably had a bad dream --vacuum cleaners and alpacas or something. So, she came on out and sat next to me in the recliner. Within minutes of rocking and watching the television, however, our little princess was yet again too pooped to poop and knocked out. Her blankie was still up to her nose (that's her comfort zone).

Here, Elizabeth is looking slick and is all ready for church. Unfortunately though, she has an obsession with the bathroom. We have to watch out and make sure the toilet seat lid is always down. Otherwise, a rubber duck might find its way in there, and that would be the death of it. I don't really want to clean any toys that end up in the toilet...

Pregnancy Photo!

Okay, so my friend, Monica, has been nagging me for some pregnancy pictures lately. Unfortunately, it's not easy to take pictures of yourself --even with a timer, and I'm always too ragged by the end of the day when Tyrone gets home. So, after much effort, this is the best I could do:

I'm the one that looks extremely annoyed with everyone.

You have GOT to be kidding me!

Last week, Tyrone had to go into an allergist doctor to get tested for allergies. His throat has a condition that people with food allergies can have that makes it constrict. That's why he always chokes on my cooking -because his esophagus has been slowly swelling/closing up all these years. Anyway, so he had to go figure out what was causing all this mayhem (he'd never actually been tested for allergies before, but had always had reactions to poultry, seafood, and beans). Boy, oh boy, did we learn a mouthful! Turns out that there's a reaction scale of no reaction (-), mild (1), moderate (2), and so forth up to severe reaction (4) with +'s and stuff in between. Confusing? Yeah, it can be, but the results of the testing made me feel so grateful that I hadn't killed Tyrone in our 3 1/2 years of marriage. Tyrone had severe reactions to chicken (4++), peas (4+), and soybeans (4+). Those are his main allergies, and I had been feeding him peas all these years and almost everything has some form of soy in it. Oi. The chicken was no surprise. He's also got mild to moderate allergies to beans, pork, beef, cantaloupe, watermelon, walnuts, wheat, and rice. (There goes half our diet right there!).
So...you're probably wondering what Tyrone can eat? Well, he's actually NOT allergic to all seafood! He had no allergic reactions to crab, lobster, and shrimp! Who knew? We think it may just be tuna he can't eat. He had only mild reactions to beef and rice, so we can still eat those. Since he's still alive after all the pork and wheat, we can still eat those in moderation too. We just mainly need to cut out all chicken, peas, and as much soy as possible. No more soy sauce...
I've been trying to figure out what to do about the soy predicament. You see, almost everything has some form of soy in it. Read the ingredients label, and you'll be surprised. We'll have to get real butter instead of margarine, change the kind of bread we buy or make it ourselves, make our own chili, and so on and so forth. We'll be more selective about our cold cereals, mayonnaise, and other "normal" foods too. Who knew there was soy in pancake mix? Oi! We won't be able to cut everything out -Elizabeth and I have to eat something. Luckily mac 'n cheese is soy-free, so I guess we're good there.
Tyrone also has allergies to some trees, grasses (pollens), danders, and dust, but lots of people have those. The doctor will treat him for those allergies and hopefully that makes Tyrone's life a little more bearable as far as food goes.
In other news, Elizabeth and I are doing fine...both getting big...

Big News!

Today we found out that we're going to have another little princess this fall. Yep, it's a girl! Elizabeth will have a little sister. I guess we may be breaking tradition with our friends, who all had boys second, but oh well. All of our relatives and co-workers are having girls, so I guess we follow the trend of the year. We're excited.

Busy Week

This last week has been a rat race to the finish and will actually end with a horse race. Tyrone had two follow-up doctor appointments for this throat this week. Urgh. Turns out Tyrone's food allergies are causing him more problems than we originally thought. They inflame his throat deep down where he can't really feel it, but that's why he's always had trouble swallowing food. I just figured that it was a testament to my "awesome" cooking where my husband constantly choked and had to go throw up dinner each night. So, he's on medication for that now and will have some actual allergy testing sometime. Hopefully, we'll get everything under control.

Elizabeth had a WIC appointment this week as well. She's a petite 19.something pounds, but still just as happy as ever. We're slowly integrating whole cow's milk into her diet and so far, so good. We just hope she doesn't have food allergies like her daddy. Lately, the only way to get her to eat any solid food is to just dump it on her high chair tray and let her at it with her hands. It's messy, but at least she eats something (I think). Spaghetti and lasagna have been some of her new favorites to get everywhere. French fries are good too.

A week or two ago, Tyrone sold our second car --my car. It was an offer he couldn't refuse. So now, Elizabeth and I are stuck at home save for nice, sunny days when we go for a walk. Getting to her WIC appointment on Tuesday was sure a trip, though. It was SO WINDY OUTSIDE that you could hardly walk without tipping over or crashing into a bush. Luckily a friend loaned us her car, but sheeshz. We walked over to her house to pick up the vehicle and were nearly gone with the wind.

Anyway, so we've been really busy. This Saturday is the Preakness, and as an avid horse racing fan, I am so watching the race tomorrow. I just wish NBC would stop turning it's coverage into a red carpet affair with all of it's "this celebrity is here and this is their hat" business. It really is boring and takes away from the horses and trainers and all the real stories of the day. We get celebrity junk 24-7, I don't care what hat they wear. Horse racing's triple crown comes but once a year.

Scary!!!

So, this last week --the day after Elizabeth's birthday-- Tyrone had an endoscopy done on his throat. He's always had trouble swallowing food and the scoping would balloon open the hole to his stomach. Well, as it turned out, the scope punctured the inside of his esophagus somewhere. He noticed sharp, piercing pain in his shoulder while still in the recovery room and was sent to the hospital for a GI radiology. He had air escaping his throat and pocketing in his diaphragm which was hitting a nerve that ran up to his shoulder and caused the pain. The doctor wasn't sure how big the hole or puncture was, but there was the risk of infection. These things can be very serious and depending on the size of the hole, they can be fatal within 24 hours. So, Tyrone was ambulanced to EIRMC in Idaho Falls --it's the major hospital in Eastern Idaho and had throat surgeons needed in case major surgery was needed. I couldn't go with Tyrone, because I had to make sure that Elizabeth was taken care of. I sent her to stay with his aunt and grandparents who live in the area, and then headed straight to Idaho Falls. He was taken to the ICU and would spend the next five days there. The doctors were very worried about him, because any infection would require a cardiac surgeon to do the job to cut out any bad bacteria. Thankfully, they didn't think the hole was big, and they put him on antibiotics and a nexeum drip. So, surgery wasn't needed and the puncture healed itself. Poor Tyrone though, he was sooooo bored in the ICU once he started feeling better and the pain dissipated. A person can only watch so much television. I stayed with him and visited everyday almost all day. I tried to entertain him, but there's only so much I can do too. Tyrone never got to eat for about five or six days, but when he finally got moved from liquid to solid food, his mood perked up quite a bit. Those were probably the best french toast he'd ever eaten. He was released Monday, late-late afternoon. We got home just in time to watch Heroes on NBC. :) Elizabeth never got to see her daddy for almost a week. She was so happy to see him once we were all home. She was really good for his family.

Happy Birthday Elizabeth!

Yesterday was Elizabeth's very first birthday. She is now officially one-year-old. She had a good birthday and made bank on presents. Mommy and Daddy gave her some new shoes, but Elizabeth doesn't seem to think that she can walk while wearing them. She appears to be in shock about wearing them and probably believes that they make her feet feel heavy. Elizabeth also received many presents from her doting grandparents. Grandma Price gave her a birthday book, baby doll, two stylish outfits, and a musical telephone (that's already starting to annoy Mommy). Grandma and Grandpa Dickerson gave Elizabeth a bunch of books, a Fisher-Price popper thingy (you pull or push it and the balls pop inside the bubble), and another musical phone. Yes, both grandmothers think alike; they bought the princess the same toy phone. So, we'll have to exchange one of them for something else. I can only take so much of "Hey there puppy! How are you?" being sung in a high-pitched voice. Elizabeth also got a pink and purple birthday cake with a princess crown on it. I tried to be homemakerish, but the stupid cake wouldn't cool after almost 45 minutes. It was getting late, so I frosted the thing anyway. Needless to say the icing melted a bit, and the words "Happy Birthday" looked more liked "Hoppy 8-day." Oh well. Elizabeth won't remember much anyway. She munched on her piece of cake for a bit, but started to get cranky for bedtime.

The day after Elizabeth's birthday, however was a different story in comparison to the happy day she'd had. Today, Elizabeth had her one-year doctor appointment which included shots. Poor little girl. :( She was quite distressed and very upset about the whole thing, but a good bath and bottle when she got home settled her down enough to take a nap.