Kajal's Wedding

Last month one of my closest friends from high school, Kajal, got married! Hurray! I'm so happy for her as she has been searching high and low for Mr. Right! Neeraj seems like SUCH a nice guy and they are so happy together! I got to fly out for the wedding with only little Nathan, leaving Brandon to tend to the rest of the troops alone. Thank you so much, Brandon, for being such a supportive, wonderful husband! Kajal is from India and had a traditional Indian Hindu wedding. It was a fascinating experience. Luckily, another of my good friends from high school, Jessica, is still in our hometown and attended the wedding festivities with me. We didn't get to talk to Kaj much, since she was a little busy with other things, but Jess and I had a fun time catching up and sympathizing with each other about all the craziness of having young, busy families. It really was a wonderful weekend. Plus, the free lodging, food and babysitting by my own mom was an additional perk! Thanks, Mom! I tried really hard to get some great pictures to capture Kajal's beautiful wedding, but came home really disappointed with my pictures. I guess I don't know how to use my camera very well with low lighting and such. But here are some of the pictures I got, for better or for worse!

Here are the invitations to the wedding festivities. It was a 3 day wedding with 5 different events. Jessica and I went to all but one of the events! Beautiful invitations!

Here's Jessica, Kajal and me at Kaj's Mehndi Party, the 1st event of the wedding. This is when she got her henna tattoos. It took THREE hours for Kajal to get her hands, arms, feet and legs tattooed. The tattoos are so beautiful and very ornate. Kaj said she chose a couple of specific symbolic designs and the rest were just beautiful designs.

Here is a close up of Kajal's hands.

Kajal's hands and feet.

At the Mehndi Party they had some artists giving all the women tattoos on their hands. They were amazingly fast. Here's MY henna tattoo. It almost lasted a week!

The Friday morning event Jessica and I missed, and I spent some time with my mom and sisters. But here we are Friday night at the Garba Raas. For every event Kajal had the most beautiful saris. Jess and I felt way under dressed. This night was a dinner, lots of Indian dancing, and some speeches from Kajal's and Neeraj's friends.

And finally, the wedding day! Here's Neeraj at the Baraat Procession coming to his wedding on a horse. We all proceeded him dancing the whole way. Traditionally Indians involve elephants in the procession, but those aren't readily available in the USA! :)

After the Baraat Procession everyone gathered in a big mosh pit to dance. Those Indians really know how to party! Kajal's mom did some ceremonial and traditional things here that we only could catch a glimpse of through the crowds and got some brief descriptions from some of the people around us that we kept bugging for explanations.

At last, here's Kajal and Neeraj getting married. A Hindu priest performed the ceremony, which was longer than Christian ceremonies. So during the wedding they passed out little bowls of ice cream for a snack! Yum!

The wedding party sits on stage with the bride and groom for the ceremony.

Here's the happy couple with some other random people they were getting their picture taken with. I just wanted a picture of Kajal's beautiful dress. It was SO ornate. But my camera didn't focus right. I was SO sad!

Jessica, Neeraj, Kajal and me at the dinner reception. Kajal's wearing yet another gorgeous sari. Like I said, it was quite an experience. The food was really spicy and the traditional music was very different to listen to. The Bollywood music was fun! Congratulations Kajal and Neeraj! What a beautiful wedding!

3 Pink Ballerinas

What could be more fun than wearing pink, dancing and being together with new friends?

Halloween!!!

Jacob, Nathan, Mommy & Sarah at the school Halloween Carnival.

Jonah, Sarah, Jacob & Daddy carving pumpkins.

The finished products!!!

This year Jacob was Luke Skywalker. He's never seen Star Wars, but he has seemed to learn plenty about it from his friends. I don't know who's had more fun with that light saber, Jacob or Daddy.

Sarah was our beautiful PINK ballerina!

Jonah was a lion this year. He didn't get into the GETTING the candy so much this year, but he loved GIVING it to the trick-or-treaters.

And last, but not least, Nathan was our adorable Jack-o-lantern!

And here's the whole gang, off to go trick-or-treating!

All 17 grandkids! Whew! What a good lookin' crew!!!

Pumpkin Patch

We took our annual trip to the pumpkin patch with Brett & Kimber's family! This year we had gorgeous weather. The kids had fun running around and getting dirty. Every year our free pumpkin patch cuts out a little more of their fun stuff. Guess that's what we get for free! But the kids don't know the difference, so who cares?

Sarah's sitting on her pumpkin of choice!

Jonah's feeling like a big boy!

Great pumpkin, Jacob!

3 cute kids on pumpkins!

The whole gang (except Nathan).

Hot chocolate and doughnuts always tastes good!

Girls Weekend!!!

A couple of weeks ago I took off with my wonderful mother-in-law and sisters-in-law for a fabulous girls' weekend in Park City. We try to get away for at least one night a year, but this year we stayed for TWO nights! Yahoo! We all left our husbands with our motherly duties and drove to Park City Thursday night. We stayed up late talking, attempted to wax Natalie's legs, and burned popcorn in our microwave TWICE! Oops! Boy, did we sure stink up our wing of the hotel, and set the smoke alarm off twice as well. Isn't it just fun to be GIRLS?

Friday we slept in, ate a complimentary hotel breakfast, and worked on unfinished projects while we talked nonstop, of course. We grabbed lunch at Kneaders (yummy), continued working on our stuff, and then Donna took us out for a first class dinner at The Blue Boar Inn! The atmosphere was picturesque, the food was divine and presented beautifully, and the company was the best! We even got a tour of the quaint little Inn featuring rooms themed by famous authors like Jane Austen and Robert Frost. So much fun! We stayed up late playing games and discussing home decorating and bras! Don't you just love sisters?

Saturday was shopping day! Natalie and I especially hit the outlets hard swapping coupons and finding lots of great deals to outfit our families! And the best news is that our husbands and kids survived SO well that we might just have to go again sooner rather than later! Thanks to Donna for making it all possible, and to a wonderful, understanding husband who knows the worth of letting Mom getting a little rejuvenation time!!!

The kids made me "Welcome Home" cookies with Daddy! Wow! Not only did Daddy survive, but he made cookies too! I kicked myself the whole weekend for forgetting my camera, but at least I got this one picture!

Answers for Nathan

We finally got some answers for some of Nathan's funny breathing sounds and uncoordinated eating habits. He's got laryngomalacia! The cartilage around his voice box collapses as he breathes causing a loud, gasping kind of sound, which he'll outgrow by the time he's 18 months old. As soon as Nathan was born, Brandon and I, the doctor and nurses were all watching him apparently gasp, but there were no signs of distress, no flailing arms, no blue lips, just a weird sound. So we got used to it. But then Nathan wouldn't breastfeed. All of my kids have had troubles nursing. We've dealt with nipple confusion, nursing strike, low milk supply, grinding, biting, and infection after infection. We've seen suck specialists and numerous lactation consultants. We've done it all! So when Nathan refused to nurse, I just thought, "Here we go again!" I was discouraged and felt like a failure. After all these problems and working with so many specialists, I've have accumulated quite the collection of nursing tricks, but none of them worked. And then I just felt tired. All the hours and memories I spent hunched over with child after child trying to nurse them came flooding back. And when yet another infection came upon me, I just quit. And then I couldn't bring myself to try again. So I faithfully began pumping and bottle feeding. It's not ideal, basically double duty feedings. But at least Nathan was getting my milk, and that's important to us because of Brandon's diabetes.

After a couple of months when Nathan wasn't growing out of making his funny little sound, the doctor sent me to a pediatric ears, nose, throat specialist to have him scoped. That's when we discovered Nathan has laryngomalacia. "Does Nathan have reflex?" the doctor asked. No. "Is he gaining weight?" Are you kidding me? Look at him! Do you see those rolls? The doctor continued on to inform me that babies with laryngomalacia usually fail to gain weight because they're such uncoordinated eaters! It was like a light went on for me! "OH!" I almost shouted. Well that would explain why he wouldn't nurse because breastfeeding takes more coordination than bottle feeding does. AND that explains why even being only bottle fed Nathan is still a very uncoordinated eater. Feedings are hard and take a long time. I see now that had I nursed him I probably would have lost my milk because of his inconsistencies with feedings, he would be fussy, and wouldn't sleep well. Instead, I've got a happy, content, sleeping baby! What a blessing! More than anything, it's just so nice to have answers to why he wouldn't nurse. And now that he has 2 teeth with more coming in soon and he's biting everything in sight, I'm especially happy how things have worked out. I feel so blessed to have such a supportive husband who never complains about the time or hassle that pumping takes. I prayed so hard during my pregnancy that we wouldn't have the feeding problems I've had with my other kids that have made nursing so torturous for me. It's amazing how Heavenly Father answers our prayers in His own ways because I find myself enjoying Nathan as a baby SO much because I'm not worried about so many other problems I've dealt with in the past. There are so many tender little mercies in life, aren't there?

Snuggling with Jonah

This is what it takes these days to keep Jonah still enough to catch a few moments of snuggle time!