Announcing...

We recently welcomed a new member to our family.

Rhys Riley Williams was born on Wednesday (10-20-2010).

Chris sent out an email announcement to our families and I thought I would share it with you too. I will make my own post later...now I think I will sleep.

-Mal

Rhys is a Welsh name. It means "enthusiastic". It also sounds similar to the Latin word for laugh (risi or risum) which we thought especially fitting as Malinda literally laughed him out. Honest to goodness, no pushing, she simply couldn't stop laughing because the epidural made her legs feel all tingly and weird (everyone who knows Mal is nodding their heads right now). The OB actually told her to stop laughing because he wasn't quite ready yet. Three seconds later a baby boy popped out.

It just seemed that given the happy, rapid nature of this child's entry into this world he required a suitable name.

Malinda performed wonderfully and so far everyone is very happy and healthy and resting.

Our love to y'all,

Chris

Here are some videos:

Laughing Mal

Baby Rhys

Surgery

My son was born with a mark on his forehead. His pediatrician told us it was a Nevus Sebaceous. Then, another pediatrician called it something else. Then a dermatologist said it was a juvenile xanthogranuloma and that it would go away by the time he turned three.

Eli is 2 1/2 now and the mark was growing skin tags rather than going away so we decided to get a fourth opinion. The new dermatologist diagnosed him with a Nevus Sebaceous. Since this was the same as the first diagnosis given, we decided that it was the correct one.

A Nevus Sebaceous has a risk of becoming cancerous later in life. With this in mind we decided that the sooner we have it removed from Eli's forehead the better.

Yesterday was the surgery. Eli and I left the house at 545am and drove to the surgical center. Sweet Eli was so well behaved wile we waited. He knew we were having his mark removed and he was very brave. We sang lots of songs to fill our wait time and he made all the nurses fall in love with him.

Here are some pictures of my brave and happy son:

Giving mommy a cheesy grin while the nurse checks his pulse.

In his hospital gown.

On his way to the operating room.

Seconds after waking up post-op.

The circle on his forehead, that most people never noticed is now a line on his forehead that most people will never notice. And now I have the piece of mind that I did all I could to prevent health problems for him later in life.

And I must add that this was way more traumatic for me than for Eli. I was so worried that something would go wrong. I was particularly anxious about his sedation. Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who was able to give Eli a father's blessing the night before the surgery. It was really more for me than Eli, and it worked...my anxiety went away and I did not go into a stress induced labor while waiting for Eli to wake up after the surgery.

Welcoming Fall

We recently spent a fun evening at the local elementary school's Fall carnival. We walked halfway there then boarded a school bus that shuttled us the rest of the way. I had no idea how excited my kids would be about riding on a school bus. We could have gone home happy after just that one ride.

At the carnival there were booths for games the children could play to win treats. Ella and Eli played a digging for treasure game, a fishing game, a put your hand in a bowl of spaghetti and search for body parts game, and many more.

The first thing to do at a carnival is get your face painted.
Here is Ella showing the flower on her cheek:

Eli chose to get a tattoo rather than have his face painted.
Here he is making a pirate face while showing off his pirate tattoo:

A train ride was high on the agenda since that is the motivation we used to get Eli to eat his dinner. He even got to ride on the blue train!

My daughter rode the mechanical bull!

I tried to get a picture of them coming down this slide,
but my phone doesn't take good motion photos.

They loved this obstacle course. Ella raced against her friend and Eli raced against his. They went on it over and over.

One of the booths that we had fun doing was pin the pumpkin on the patch:

Here we are with our friends lining up for the potato sack race:

Go Eli, go!

By the time we left Eli was beyond exhausted and Ella was asking when she gets to go to another carnival.

What a fun way to welcome Fall!

Soccer!

Today was Ella's First ever soccer practice. I don't know who was more excited, her, Eli or me, but boy were we happy for soccer to start.

Soccer practice started at 530pm so of course we were there at 430pm. Now, wait a minute. You know I like to be more than on time to things, and we were so excited...so we had a picnic dinner at the park and played around until practice started.

See how excited she is?



I am not the coach. I would be, but I am due to deliver our third child in three weeks. So I am the assistant coach.

I started the kids (four girls and four boys) dribbling to the fence across the field and back. then, after discussing such rules as "no hands ever, just use your feet" and, well that was the only rule today, we circled up for a passing game involving learning everyone's name.

After a water break I reluctantly let the head coach take over.

Here they are practicing their passing:


I loath red ants. And sadly every park in Tucson is infested with them. Here is Eli scratching his newest bites:



Learning how to score is important. Here is Ella shooting against the coach:



The practice ended with a team meeting. The coach went over the rules: have fun and be a good sport. Then we voted on a team name. The kids suggested names like "airplane", "helicopter", "soccer team", and "dinosaur". Eli (not actually on the team) suggested "pirates". We "voted" and then the moms chose pirates because they thought it would be easy to make a team banner for the pirates.
Ella was beyond exhausted when the hour long practice ended. She said she had fun and is excited to keep playing.

Eli had fun (omitting the ant bites) and I'm pretty sure he thinks he's on the team too.

Go Pirates!!!

Don't "bug" me

While in Oregon the family participated in a bug eating contest. Gross. Being pregnant has a very nice excuse element to it and I did not need to participate. Ella also refused. And I have to admit that I didn't even notice if Chris ate any because I was so busy watching Eli eat bug after bug after bug!

Here you see Eli eating a Larvet.

Eli won the contest.
(The sign says "I'm a real man, I eat bugs")

The bugs were roasted and seasoned, but still, they are bugs.

Eli wouldn't touch the crickets, but thought the Larvets were like chips.


Now why can't I ever get him to eat dinner?

Vacation overview

My family spent the last week up in Oregon. It is always fun to visit family and we are never ready to leave. Now we get to enjoy these great picture memories...


First we went to a cabin up in Sunriver:

We loved the cooler weather and the nature all around us. we went for bike rides and nature walks.

This is our booty from the nature walk

The cabin had a hot tub...

We floated down the Deschutes river.

We played with our aunts and uncles

and we played with our cousins.

Back in Medford...

We visited the science museum:

Ella's favorite room was the bubble room

We played at Grandma and Grandpa's house:

Ella loves her cousin

Fun in the sandbox

We played lots of games.

I even got a girls day out!

Julia and Gray paid us a surprise visit.

Of course there was swimming.

Chris taught Ella to dive.

Then we flew home.

You know a vacation is successful if you are completely worn out: