Unexpected side effect of fishing

As a child Dominic often went fishing with his dad and grandpa. He hadn't been fishing for over 20 years when he picked it up again this summer. It took a little while, but he got the hang of it again. The children are used to Dominic coming home with several blue gill. The other day he called during a break at work, and Elisa asked how many fish he'd caught. Sadly, he hadn't gone fishing that day. The kids like to chase each other around with the fish saying, "Fishy! Fishy!" in growly voices. Even Makayla, at 18 months, runs around growling and laughing with the older kids.

By the time Dominic gets home, the fish are usually dead. Sometimes the fish still try to breathe or weakly flop around until we put them in the freezer. I joke that we should throw them in the pool to keep it as a pet. We never did, until now. Dominic caught a decent sized crappie today. Not only was it still trying to breathe and flop, but it also looked around at us. This time when I said we should keep it, Dominic actually put it in the sink!

Black crappie, our pet fish for the evening

We all watched it throughout the evening. It would swim a couple of laps, float on its side, come up to the surface like it was trying to eat, and then do it all again. The kids loved it. They got so excited every time it swam or waved a fin. Now they really want a pet fish. We told them that it probably wouldn't survive the night (it looked pretty pathetic). After the kids went to bed, we put the poor thing out of its misery and stuck it in the freezer. We also said that we will get a beta or goldfish if they really want a pet fish. Besides, we bought a rabbit a week ago; we don't need another new pet so soon.

Makayla Grace

Makayla is eight weeks old today! She is certainly a welcome addition to our family. Unfortunately I lost the camera cord that uploads pictures, so these are all from the first month.



Getting ready to go home.

Weighing 7 pounds 12 ounces at birth, Makayla was my smallest baby by far. The others, in order of birth weight: Samuel (8 lbs 9 oz), Elisa (8 lbs 10 oz), Rachel (8 lbs 11 oz), and Benjamin (9 lbs), who never could wear newborn clothes.


Samuel does his best to take good care of her when I ask for help. He is very good at calming her down and holding her. I took Makayla into his class, and he was excited to do a little show-and-tell presentation. His teacher also enjoyed holding the baby.








Benjamin will look at her and say, "She's just so cute!" Then he either kisses her a lot, or he grabs the camera to take a picture. I think he has taken more pictures of her than anyone else.

An example of his work:













Lisy loves her baby sister, but she isn't old enough to really take care of her like she thinks she can.









She and Rachel both call her "Mataya," which is just so cute.

Here Rachel is showing me Makayla's mouth.











I love taking Makayla out in public. Since she is so little, we get a lot of sweet comments.










A strange thing I've noticed with each new baby, regardless of where we were living, is people always ask if the baby I'm holding is my first. With Sammy I was surprised that people always knew. Did I look like a first-time mom? Nah, it's just a universal question. Now I just laugh and say, "Nope, she's my fifth!"

Ten years ago in mid-April ...

... Dominic and I went on our first date, though not together.

Matt and I worked together. He asked me out on a double date during finals week. Matt was going to set up his best friend, Dominic, but the girl couldn't make it at the last minute. Dominic didn't want to go as the third wheel, so I offered to ask my sister Ellen to join our date. Dominic agreed, and Ellen decided to come along. Amber, our roommate, also came.

We first went to see the play "Into the Woods." I sat between Matt and Dominic. Matt fell asleep, and Dominic kept making snide remarks about the play and making me laugh. Ellen felt a bit neglected, and I guess Amber just watched the play. Afterwards we went to The Creamery for ice cream cones. Due to this part of the date, it took me ages to remember that Dominic was allergic to milk, because he loves ice cream.

Then we hiked up to the Y. I fell behind, and Dominic fell back to keep me company. I thought he was very nice and considerate, plus he was easy to talk to. It was a huge party up on the Y, with a crowd of people and lots of random music playing; it felt very festive.

On the way back down to the car, Dominic and I intentionally trailed behind the others. At this point I liked him more than Matt. He asked me out before we reached the car. (Later I realized that it was a gutsy move to ask someone out while they are on a date with another person, but I didn't mind.) I informed him that I was leaving immediately after finals to visit my parents for a month, and he said that he would wait for me. Although I had had a good time with him that night, I didn't expect him to remember me. I was wrong.

It was a dark and stormy night,

and we were drifting off to sleep in our warm, dry bed. All of a sudden we heard, "Meow, meow, meow." I reluctantly got up, went downstairs, and opened the back door (directly below our bedroom) to let the cat in from the rain. He wasn't there. So I went and checked the front door. He wasn't there, either.

Back upstairs, the meowing was louder than before. Hm, he must be stuck in the house - it's happened before. So Dominic joined me in checking all the rooms and closets, upstairs and downstairs. Still no sign of that pesky feline. The kids had been playing with the window, and the cat sometimes climbs out onto the roof. I poked my head outside, but no luck.

Convinced that we had looked everywhere, we went back to bed. Just as I was almost asleep again, I heard more urgent meowing, plus scratching. Okay, so the cat was somewhere he didn't want to be and was trying to get out. We got up again and looked in everything again, plus the kitchen cupboards and drawers and any place large enough to hold a cat - even the fridge, just in case. All to no avail.

Honestly it sounded as if the cat was stuck in the wall or attic. How could he have gotten in there? Dominic checked the attic entrances, but they were all shut tight, and we don't have holes in the walls. He went outside to visually check the roof, in case the cat was stuck and couldn't get back to the window. Exhausting every conceivable possibility short of tearing down the walls, we went to bed well after 1 a.m.

By morning there was still no sign of the cat, except for the occasional meowing from the walls or attic. I served breakfast to the kids and Dominic took drastic action. He carried a ladder up to the guest bedroom. The attic access had been caulked shut. Dominic broke the seal and found the cat.

What apparently had happened: the cat had gone out through the broken screen when the kids were playing with the window and was stuck on the roof when we made the kids close the window. He had knocked off a vent cover, which had not been nailed down, and fallen into the attic. Well, he had found a dry place to stay during the rain but couldn't get himself out. For all his efforts, he earned a bath to clean the fiberglass insulation out of his fur.

The final scoreboard:
Cat: +1, for finding a dry place to stay during the rain.
Homebuilders: -2, for the unsecured vent cover and the sealed attic access.
Dominic: Winner! for rescuing the cat and fixing the homebuilders' mistakes.

Song for a Fifth Child

by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth,
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Ten years ago ...

... on each Saturday in March, the Cannon Center (BYU cafeteria) held training meetings for the student supervisors and student managers. Mine was the first shift of the day, so I opened the cafeteria and headed over to the meeting. Dominic was always early, and I was usually running late (we haven't changed). Without trying I always seemed to be aware of where he was sitting, usually near the front. Then I did my best to focus on the speaker.

After the meeting there was barely enough time to prepare for the next shift. Let's just say I had a single-minded determinedness to finish up and go home. Unfortunately Dominic tried to talk to me after a meeting. I was annoyed that he kept trying to talk when I didn't have a minute to spare. Couldn't he see me running around? He, on the other hand, couldn't understand why I didn't just let the next shift take care of it.

In the last ten years Dominic has helped me learn how to slow down, relax, and allow others to work.

Christmas in March

Dominic gave me this pot rack for Christmas. Life has been a bit busy, so he just got around to installing it. I love it! It opens up cabinet space and helps divide the kitchen from the dining room. Plus, he found one that matches the dining room chandelier (you can kind of see it from this angle):


The coolest thing about being a homeowner? We can make useful little additions like this, and it's ok!

Ten years ago this week ...

... a friend and I showed up at the cafeteria during Dominic's shift to put together a display table for National Nutrition Week. So this is the new guy, I thought. For some reason I felt the need to show off. I wanted to look knowledgeable and competent as we set up everything.

Dominic told me later that I actually came off as mean and bossy. Oops.

Wall-E's tale, part 1

Once upon a time in a nearby town, a little kitten just old enough to leave his mother wandered onto a woman's porch as she was enjoying the sunset. This woman happened to work at Pet Haven, a cat shelter.

She took him into work, where they determined that he was healthy but too young to be adopted. They gave him all his shots. They gave him a cute name (Wall-E, like the Disney robot), which usually encouraged people to adopt the kittens sooner. When he was old enough, they had him neutered and moved him to the adoption area.

One problem surfaced while Wall-E was young: anything other than a prescription diet gave him diarrhea. The specialized cat food was very expensive.

At about this time, a PSR (psycho-social rehabilitation) worker began taking his young clients to Pet Haven to play with the cats for animal therapy. This PSR worker was amused that Wall-E looked like a miniature version of his own cat. He also watched many cats and kittens come and go. He saw several families choose Wall-E and then change their minds when they learned about his special diet. He saw Wall-E's price drop from $50 to $20 to $5.

After a year the PSR worker went from renting to owning a house and felt comfortable adopting a second cat. He showed his wife several of the cats he liked the most: older, calmer, and with fun or quirky personalities. They passed Wall-E's cage, where the wife exclaimed with surprise that he looked like a twin of their current cat.

As the date of the house signing approached, this couple discussed more earnestly which cat they wanted to take home to their guinea pig, 6-year-old cat, and 4 young children. The Pet Haven employees grew more excited to send one of their beloved cats home with someone they knew. The woman who found Wall-E confided to them that she would give him to them for free.

This husband and wife were both suckers for hard-luck cases. Their guinea pig was born with a broken leg. Their cat was born at a Home Depot to a feral cat, who gave birth on the top shelf on a pile of cement bags. One of the kittens had wandered off the shelf and fallen to his death, whereupon the Home Depot employees looked around, found the litter of kittens, and took them to a rescue home. So it is no big surprise that they decided to adopt Wall-E.

On September 29, 2010 we signed for our house in the morning. That afternoon Dominic signed the adoption papers for Wall-E. The woman cried, and we brought him home.

Ten years ago this month...

... my workplace was abuzz with talk of a new student manager, Dominic. We had all been working since the start of the semester in January, so a new person was exciting. Some people knew him when he worked there before his mission (this was his first semester back), and others just always referred to him as "the new guy." Although I heard about him a lot, we never met. We worked non-overlapping schedules at the Canon Center, the cafeteria for the Helaman Halls dorms at BYU.

not a morning person

I'm a great sleeper. Sometimes it's difficult to wake up, and it takes me awhile. For instance people say I mumble first thing in the morning and can't understand a word I say. In my defense, my mouth hasn't fully woken up yet and thus cannot speak more clearly. Another instance was the semester in college when I had to be at work at 6:00 am. I usually woke up to my roommate kicking me, yelling at me, or even throwing pillows at me after my alarm had been beeping for some time. The next semester I requested the evening shift. Lastly, my husband is often the one who brings me the baby in the middle of the night, because I sleep through the crying.

Napping with baby Lisy, 2007

Well, it turns out that my children have inherited my ability to sleep soundly. It is especially nice when they are babies and can sleep through the noise of older siblings. It's not so nice when I have to wake them up for school.







After he grew out of naps, I still found him sleeping in odd places.





Benjamin has always been my best sleeper. He is also my "mother's curse," like the expression "I hope you have a child just like you some day." He takes forever to wake up, he is always grouchy, and every morning he says that he hates school. However, I know that last statement is not actually true - he just hates waking up for school. I look forward to his days off so that he can wake up at his own pace.

This Little Piggy

Sammy, 2 years old

I have my own version of the classic nursery rhyme "This Little Piggy" when I play with baby toes. I'm not exactly sure when I came up with it; probably before starting my own family. I didn't realize that I always say it until one day I said the normal rhyme, and Dominic asked, "Hey, what happened to the rest of it?"

And here it is:
This little piggy went to market.
This little piggy staid home, because he's going tomorrow.

This little piggy had roast beef.
This little piggy had none, because he's a vegetarian and had a tofu burger instead.

And this little piggy? This little piggy? Cried wee, wee, wee all the way home!
-I like asking the question twice, because the children start giggling in anticipation of getting tickled.

Toilet paper woes

At one point in our married life, Dominic and I decided on one brand of toilet paper so we wouldn't have to choose each time we went to the store. We tried several different brands and selected our favorite, which happened to be more expensive than cheap. And we were happy.

Our children grew and were potty trained. They could never figure out how much toilet paper to use. Very often I would find piles of toilet paper strewn about the floor. Add to that a toddler who thinks it's fun to watch the paper stream off the roll.

I finally had enough. I took all the nice toilet paper and hid it in my bathroom and put a more economically priced toilet paper in the kids' bathroom. Lo and behold, the paper stayed on the roll. All the annoying things the children had been doing suddenly stopped. It was amazing, miraculous, and wonderful.

Well, over this weekend we ran out of the cheap paper, and I had to give them the nice stuff. Wouldn't you know it? Tonight I found a pile of the nice toilet paper strewn across their bathroom floor.

The Beached Whale Baker

L-R: Samuel, Me, Lisy, Benjamin and Rachel at Downtown Disney on New Year's Eve.

So it has been a little while since my last post. Life has been a bit busy. To sum up life since my last post: Lisy turned 3, we went camping a couple of times, attended a wedding, bought a house and got a cat, visited family and had family visit, and spent Christmas vacation in California for Dominic's schooling. Oh, and I can't forget to mention that I'm pregnant with baby #5.

I am in my third trimester, which I affectionately call "the beached whale stage," because I feel huge and don't have the energy to do anything. However, my nesting instinct has kicked in. I want to bake. A lot.

Since coming home about 2 weeks ago, I've baked bread (3x), muffins, cookies, brownies, and more casseroles than usual. Somehow I haven't been able to keep up on the laundry or house cleaning, but we've all been well-fed.

Kindergarten graduation

Samuel graduated from kindergarten today. It was so cute! They had a full ceremony, which only lasted about half an hour. The students walked in wearing felt grad caps that they got to keep afterwards. They even received diplomas with their pictures in it. Sadly, I forgot the camera, but I couldn't stop grinning the whole time. Now my oldest son is a proud first grader. Afterwards we ate lunch at Golden Corral, Samuel's choice.

Rachel's First Birthday

I love it when she scrunches up her nose and laughs.

We celebrated Rachel's first birthday this weekend! Nothing big or fancy, just a simple family party. This has been an exciting year for our family, from unemployment to a great job and moving from a small rental house to a big house we're buying. Through it all Rachel has been growing and exploring.

Although she can scream like a banshee and rattle our brains, Rachel also has an infectious laugh. She loves getting tickled; when we stop, she either puts our hand on her belly or walks into our hand to get tickled more. Rachel and Lisy sit next to each other in the car, and sometimes they laugh together for no apparent reason.

Our traditional first birthday chocolate cake. So messy, yet so adorable.

Rachel loves to play peek-a-boo with a blanket, a toy, or even around a door. She walks about 50% of the time now. She doesn't talk much, but she says 4 words: mom (sounds like mem), dad, up, and cat (which she first said on her birthday). And as with all kids, she understands much more than she can speak.

Rachel is enjoying her present from Grandma and Grandpa Abbott - a plush tea set.

Back from Never Never Land

Lisy, Rachel, Benjamin and Samuel showing off their St. Patrick's day finery.

Hello! Yes, I'm still here. There's really no reason I haven't written lately. So here's a summary of the last 2 and a half months (and a whole lot of pictures for the fun of it):



-Valentine's day was fun. During dinner we turned off the lights and lit candles, and Lisy started singing the happy birthday song. Then we went around the table saying what we liked about each person. The kids really enjoyed it and fell into a fit of happy giggles.








-We visited the zoo, and I took too many pictures. I was surprised at how small the Boise zoo is compared to Hogle zoo, and yet we didn't see everything. I look forward to going back.

















-Spring is extremely windy around here. Naturally we flew a kite. The boys each had a turn flying the kite, and they both did a decent job keeping it up in the air. Lisy was very excited and hopped around as she watched the kite fly.





-We visited Devin and Maran to celebrate Courtney's first birthday in March. It's always fun to visit family. At church someone asked if Rachel and Courtney were twins - nope, just cousins. The adults played many games of "Settlers of Catan," while the kids played with the 6-year-old neighbor girl.














-Thor the guinea pig can now run all over his cage, and he sprints around in circles whenever anyone enters the room. You'd think he would be used to me, but he is still skittish when I feed him. Whatever was wrong with his foot is now better, so it was probably a broken leg. He is also quite large - I hope he stops growing soon.

Samuel is feeding Thor a dandelion stem. Apparently Thor doesn't like the flowers or leaves.Who know a guinea pig could be so picky?

-Rachel now has 6 teeth and cruises everywhere. She has developed an off-beat sense of humor for a baby. She can climb up and fall down the stairs, for which we now have a gate. She makes a beeline to my laptop whenever I open it up - she likes hitting the keys.

-Lisy is laissez-faire about potty training, which has stalled, but at least she hasn't reverted back to diapers. I've upped the reward system: she can now earn up to 5 M&Ms per bathroom visit. She's slightly more interested now. Almost every day she has to wear a beautiful dress because she's a beautiful princess (or boo'ful, in her words).

-Benjamin's creativity is really obvious now that his speech has gotten clearer. His speech therapist says he picks up the sounds amazingly fast. She says his behavior is better, too, and that he's ready for kindergarten now. He is the self-declared watchdog for his younger sisters. He is quick to take away something they should not have, which usually leads to someone crying. He yells "choking hazard!" if he sees Rachel holding anything small.


-Samuel lost his second tooth. He now has a huge, gaping hole in his bottom teeth. I recently attended a parent/teacher conference. It was so much fun! She said that he makes her day better when he's there; he shows leadership qualities; he is very intelligent; and he can be anything he wants to be when he grows up. The only problem is that kindergarten isn't challenging enough for him.



-Dominic's job is going very well. As a matter of fact, he has a new client because someone requested him. They're also paying him the higher bilingual rate, because he has 2 Spanish-speaking clients. He put up shelves in the office, and he is going to build a bunkbed for the boys.







-I finally got back on my thyroid medication, and I don't feel tired all the time anymore. I'm currently working with the Cub Scouts. My boys are very excited to become scouts one day and to do fun things like the pinewood derby. I am also trying to get the paperwork together to buy the house; being a cluttered and disorganized person, this is a difficult chore for me.




Well, that's our life in a nutshell. We're happy, mostly healthy, and life if going in the right direction. I'll try to post a bit more often, but I give no promises.

Double pigtails! I love it!

Thor, the Guinea Pig

You may remember our pet degus. Yugi, our last one, lived happily through the summer. He and the cat were great friends, plus he had the entire garage to explore. We couldn't keep him in the cage - he chewed holes faster than Dominic could repair them. By September the garage was no longer enough. He would dart out and hide under the car's hood whenever we opened the garage door. So it was sad, but no big surprise, when we realized he was gone for good. We hope he is living happily out in the wild, but chances are good that a neighborhood cat or a predatory bird (lots of hawks in the area) got him.


Dominic missed the little critter - for some strange reason he likes rodents. 2 guinea pigs were free to a good home at a local animal shelter, but we were about to move. I said sure, he could get them, once we were in the new house (so they wouldn't be forgotten in the chaos). As luck would have it, someone else took the pair just days before Dominic went to get them.


Dominic was very disappointed. I reminded him that I had promised he could get a guinea pig. So he started looking around at the pet shops. 10 days ago Dominic took Samuel to pick one out. Samuel named him Thor, after the super hero.


After a couple of days it was clear that something was wrong with Thor. Dominic checked his legs, and the back right leg doesn't work. Sometimes we call him gimpy pig. We told the kids that Thor might also have internal problems and that he might not live very long. It was their choice to take him back and get a healthy pet, or to keep him despite the problems and shortened life expectancy. They voted to keep him.

I'm just a little nervous holding him. Can you tell?

Every day we take care of him, making sure his food and water are within reach. Lisy likes spending time with "my baby g' pig." Samuel feeds him lettuce. Benjamin likes to move him around the cage and talks about him dying. I can actually touch him and hold him. I think it's because he doesn't dart around like most rodents. And, he sounds just like a tribble when I pet him.