Finals

YEAH!!! Jed passed all of his classes, including chemistry! He has now finished and passed calculus, chemistry, AND physics! No more mind combusting classes. He must be pretty smart because he works at least 40 hours a week and has to take care of a family and a church calling. I revamped a song in his honor. The tune is a little off, but if you start the tune over at the second chorus you should get it. Sorry if it is a little immature, stupid, etc.

JOY TO THE WORLD
FINALS ARE OVER!
AND CHEMISTRY IS DEAD!
We'll flush your book down the potty
but it might be naughty.
And we won't be able to get it down.
And we won't be able to get it down.
lalalalalalalalala

But we shall prevail
because we can sale
it to the highest bidder!
And we shall overcome on Amazon.com
And we shall overcome on Amazon.com
lalalalalalalalalaaaaaaaa

Jack's First Month

His favorite thing to do. I love how he sleeps with his arms above his head, if they're not wrapped up.

Already out of newborn clothes and into 3 month size.

After his first bath.

Jack is a wonderful baby, so far. He likes to sleep, eat and be held. He hates baths, diaper changes, and his bassinet. Here are other observations I've made over the past month...

• He sleeps best on either Jed's or my chest curled up in a ball. He's very compact.
• His hair has a reddish tinge to it.
• He is very sensitive, one day I was upset and so was he. He also gets so upset when he is put alone in his bassinet that he pukes. I thought it was just because I was laying him down on his back to quickly after eating, but if I lay him down on his back, next to me, he has no problem. His bassinet has turned into an expensive pacifier holder.
• If he is taken out of his clothes he waves his arms like Frankenstein.
• He takes a pacifier. Hallelujah! And a bottle!
• He snorts, a lot.
• Jara loves him and gives him kisses and says "pet Jack." She also sometimes calls him dude. For example, when he sneezes she says "Acchhoo Dude!" I'm starting to get over the fear she will kill him. Thankfully she hasn't tried to pick him up or wanted to hold him, yet.
• He is starting to make happy coo noises and wave his arms and legs during his wake time.
• He is very strong and "crawls" scrunches to burrow in my neck when I'm laying down holding him.
• He loves touching his face with his hands and it's all I can do to get them away from his mouth to try to feed him. Even in ultra-sound pics he was always touching his face.
• He's developing male pattern balding
• Jara likes to play "This Little Piggy..." with his toes.
• He has very long fingers and toes. How could he not? Jed and I are both at fault for this genetic trait.

Bye Bye Birdie

It feels as if a member of our family has left us. Mockingbird squawked his last squawk. Now what will I have to wake me up in the morning. That thing was a very faithful alarm clock. Jed tried to resuscitate him, but to no avail. (See May's post Foul Fowl and other Noxious Creatures for more info.)

Wobble Gobble

This year was Wheeler's Wobble Gobble...
we came...
we saw...
we stuffed...
we strutted. That is because the wobbles won the turkey bowl. Sorry feastie-beastie's.


The kid table, before mayhem and destruction broke out. Notice the tablecloth is still on.


After the feast.

Uncle Jesse and Jack.

Jed and D.J. completing the livesaver pass.

Mason and Jara's celebration hug at the Wobble Games. It was so wonderful to spend time with family.

Jack J. Wheeler

Jack J. Wheeler

11/7/08

7lbs. 8oz.

HELP!!!

Okay here is the deal...
We are getting some weird traffic on our blog. They don't call it the WORLD WIDE WEB for nothing people. So, help me out, and if your blog isn't a link on ours, take our name/link off your blog. If that doesn't help to get rid of the issue, we're going to have to go private. We don't really want to do that because it has been so fun to connect with friends we haven't seen in a long time. Don't be offended if your name isn't on our blog. Once we got to a certain number of links we quit linking. We didn't want to leave anyone out but didn't want to look like a phone book either. (If you're wondering why we haven't included your blog on our list that's why. Sorry.) Thanks for your help.

Celebrations

Halloween

The Roman Wheeler's: Caesar, one of his wife's, and his first-born daughter.

Yes, what else can you be when you are having a baby in a week? (Well, besides a pumpkin, but that's everyday.) Jara refused to wear her beautiful, plush monkey suit complete with a banana, so we made her into a Roman too. The toga was worn under much protesting and m&m bribery. When I put leaves in our hair to complete the costume, Jara said "Mommy horns?" We tried to make "baby" (jara's ever-present donkey) a toga but...

Jara's 2nd Birthday

The pinata was this hideous yellow chicken, that only Lin's in Overton could produce. The whole way home in the car Jara kept looking at it and screaming "Bock BOCK Bock BOCK" she discovered this got me off of the phone really fast and now makes the obnoxious chicken screech whenever I am on the phone. Oh well, at least she stopped making it in church and towards unsuspecting mall patrons.

The Martha in me made two birthday cakes and cupcakes for the kids. The Grandma Leavitt in me made the cake look like a theme party for the leaning tower of Pisa, but very delicious. I made two cakes under the pretense that I didn't want anyone to go without, but the truth is I secretly was hoping to have one cake all to myself.

Jara is very lucky to have family close who were more than generous. Thank you family for all of your kindness. Jara has enjoyed each of her presents throughout the day. The telephone in bed this morning to call "Gorki," the tea set to have crackers on at church, the drum to wake up daddy from his nap, (which really wasn't Jara drumming but Jed just can't get the noise out of his head) and the baking set was used as a very entertaining organizational
tool.

Happy Halloween!

Pumpkin Carving

Jed's Pumpkin

Joshlyn's Pumpkin

Jara liked to sit on the pumpkins!

Storage Solutions

In our first apartment Jed and I lived in together, we had a tunnel to use for storage. Yes, you heard correctly, a tunnel, connected to our landlord's house, (thankfully they were very nice people who did not invade the tunnel.) The tunnel had about 20 feet of cupboards and housed everything from 4-wheeler tires to my excess of childhood memories all stored in rubbermaids. In house/apartment #2 we had a garage. Ahhh a garage. I never thought I would list that on my top 10 wish list but they are very useful buildings. No more hot leather car seats and a place for all of the rubbermaids. Then we bought our current home and no more tunnel or garage. So, we have a "forbidden room" the room where all the crap goes and nobody is allowed in because it is a serious liability. The closet is floor to ceiling tower of boxes, sleeping bags, etc. Every available space is consumed in this 10x10 room. Then I moved all my teaching "stuff" home and it got even uglier. Well, since the intended baby's room is the forbidden room, we decided we would have to do something about the excess o' clutter...

Hence the JED SHED! This weekend with charitable donations of supplies and talent/time we completed PHASE I of our storage solution. (Don't worry, all of you who know about the Narrow's fort, this wasn't that kind of wood donation.)

How could you go wrong with 2 construction management majors and a civil engineer? Brennan reminded me the key word is "management," but I saw the money for Jed's education put to good use this weekend.

Thank you Brennan and Ryan!

Phase II (roof) coming soon...

Things You Say

I never thought I would say the following words in one sentence...

"Honey, we don't eat barb wire." (As Jara is licking the fence.)

"You CAN NOT play with grandpa's blow torch." (She really likes twisting knobs, which the blow torch has. I caught her about two seconds before combustion.)

"Icky is not a pillow." (Icky is the cat who lives up to her name. What cat drools?)

"Look, grandpa has corn horns." (Grandpa Alderete was using corn cobs for horns in an attempt to make Jara laugh. I don't know if she did, but I was very amused.)

"Jara, when you run with the screw driver point it down." (Yes, I know there are so many things wrong with this sentence.)

September Pics

Here is our month in pictures...

Mike and Danielle, (about a week before Macy was born.) Jed jumping the wake. Oh if only the boat had a tower.
We've been to the lake three times this month. Is it good or bad when you live in a place where it is September and still hot enough to go to the lake?

Jara "fixing" the cupboard. Using a butter knife as a screwdriver, I'm telling you it is a genetic trait. My mom has taught me how to fix anything with a screwdriver, it's the universal tool.

Jara and I cleaned out the sun room and she found a lovely pair of "reading" glasses I bought for my classroom a couple of years ago. Devil reading glasses really motivate children to read, I highly recommend them.
Jed watering the yard, we have this really cute plant that we've been growing for almost two years, vigilant watering has kept it growing strong.

Jara likes to climb up on the bathroom counter and throw everything off, the only reason you are not seeing soap, brushes or a curling iron, she thinks this is hilarious and laughs at herself for doing it. Whenever I hear the evil laugh coming from the bathroom this is what she is doing. Don't worry the soap has only landed in the toilet once.
I couldn't find or hear Jara the other day, which normally means destruction and mayhem, but I found her in a self-made nest of pillows. Very cozy. She was also reading Good Housekeeping.

Jara at the Logandale park-she loves it! It makes me tired just watching her.


Interesting. You may be wondering why I chose to include this picture. This is an analogy of my current state.

Election '08

Warning: This post is entirely opinionated and may contain information that is shamefully bias and inaccurate.
That being said I feel as if I can now state my mind without leading anyone astray.

November 4th is a very important day this year. Do you know what it is? You guessed it Election Day! A presidential Election Day nonetheless. However I am in a quandary as to who to vote for. Take the poll on the right I’m interested to know your thoughts.

Normally voting is a very clear decision for me as I happen to have a strong loyalty to my party, but who let John McCain advance as far as he did is what I want to know. This man has me considering going to the dark side of politics (the Democratic party). After all these years of cursing the Damn Democrats how could I be affiliated with them this late in the game? (My Granny told me not to call the Democrats names because she was one. All those years, who knew?)

But voting for Obama is aligning myself with democratic policy and there are too many things I disagree with. For example: abortion, health-care issues, and gay rights. You know, all those hot-button topics.

I’ve tried to educate myself on the two candidates but it’s hard when they spend most of their time talking about the other. I even watched the Democratic and Republican national convention. I don’t think it was very effective since the only thing that stands out in my mind of the DNC was when Major-Seargeant-Corporal-Etc.Etc. got up to endorse Obama and scared Jed and I so bad (just through the TV) we were willing to vote for anyone SHE told us to. And the only thing that stands out from the RNC was when Sarah Palin’s daughter was licking her hand and smoothing the baby’s hair. It was hilarious!

If I vote for McCain (the original Maverick, by the way, that is the WORST commercial ever) it would be more of a vote for Sarah Palin. That woman is awesome! I don’t know if she would be a great leader but the VP is not really that important anyway, except for in that little detail of the president dying. This woman has taken a lot of abuse in the press for being inexperienced, among multiple other things, but if experience was the key component of the race, Hillary (already having served eight years in the White House) would be running for president, not Obama. So take that trixsy democrats! A beauty-queen, bear/moose shooting, mother of five, now that is what America needs! If she can’t charm the world with her looks she could always flash her NRA badge and apply child-rearing strategies. Mother's of that many children know how to get things done!!!

The following link is much more reasonable and will provide you with actual facts, rather than the arbitrary ramblings of my mind. Good luck!

http://election.msn.com/WhereTheyStand.aspx

Elephant Man

Last weekend Jed had his wisdom teeth out. A regular routine procedure, except for Jed. He contracted elephant man disease and had to go the ER. On Friday he had them out, on Saturday he started to swell, and by 2:00 am Monday morning he could barely see out of his right eye and his temple was protruding. So, I called his Dr. and he said he didn’t know what was wrong, and we could go the ER at UMC. After waiting around for almost two hours, contracting who knows what other kinds of diseases in the holding area/waiting room, finally Jed got to go back to some dark, scary place where wife’s are not permitted. I suspect it is because it is a university hospital and they want to perform experiments without witnesses. What I saw and witnessed in the waiting room however, should also have been shielded from me. A hooker with a hole in her foot from someone’s stiletto, a homeless man sleeping holding purple lilacs (I could write a whole book on the symbolism), a mom throwing things and stomping her feet, a lady talking to her self and countless other personages wrapped in cloaks with backpacks. Of course there was also this totally OCD pregnant lady who kept getting out hand sanitizer and weeping. I don’t know who let her out.
Anyway, I finally got to go back and see Jed and they still hadn’t given him anything for the pain. Eventually after they saw Jed eyeing the needles himself, they gave him some morphine, told him they didn’t know what was wrong and that a c/t scan should fix everything. Thankfully, about this time Jed’s oral surgeon got back a hold of me and came to the rescue. He bossed those ER nurses around and had an x-ray, meds and ritual needle stabbing done all in about an hour, with prescriptions! I am amazed that any oral surgeon would come into an ER to take care of a patient on Labor day and answer phone calls at 3:00 am! We never were given an absolute diagnosis but it must have been an infection because after about 24 hours of antibiotics the swelling finally went down a little. I think at this point, (Friday) he may even be off the pain pills.

On a lighter note, I have to mention my favorite Jed quotes from the ride home after the procedure. Keep in mind Jed is crazy when he is woken up minus anesthesia, now picture him waking up with all that lovely stuff they give you when you have your wisdom teeth out.
“Everyone is driving so fast. I feel like I came on a rocket ship.”
“I think you should let me drive. I can still drive better than you.” When I wouldn’t let him drive he drove with his own steering wheel and couldn’t figure out why his steering wheel wouldn’t let him change lanes. This made him a little angry.
“When I get home I’m doing yard work.”
“When I get home we’re going wakeboarding.”
“Joshlyn-we should have taken one of those tanks. I love gas!”
“Go back, lets get one of those tanks.”
He also attempted to put on chapstick and couldn’t quite connect the lines to the dot, if you know what I mean. This made us both laugh so hard I started crying.

Jara's World

Starring...

This is at Aunt Ashley's on 4th of July with her "Mow". Mow is a bit hot in the car! Think fur cape in 115 degree heat.

We try to get her to wear clothes, we really do. She likes to lay on both of our ottomans and do "gymnastics."

Lounging in our bed. She won't let anyone else in and has to fluff her pillows before laying down, and will NOT lay on the pillowcases that are striped. She also tucks herself in. Very self-sufficient.

She likes to wear her sunglasses, she likes to break mine. I'm on my 4th pair, this summer.

Just like daddy! (Plus Elmo and an apple.)

Our little "Picassa" notice how we only give her water to paint with. Maybe it has something to do with the picture below.

Dream On

Dreaming is a genetic problem in my family. We are all dream demented! When Ashley was little she had a reoccurring nightmare of a big yellow bird, slightly resembling Big Bird chasing her in my grandpa’s field. Jordan always dreams someone’s going to die. My mom and dad won’t even tell us what they dream it’s so insane. I’ve had my share of nightmares, but currently I am in a state of ridiculous, what is floating around in my subconscious, to make me dream this stuff up, frame of mind. I don’t think even Freud could interpret my madness at the moment. Currently I dream anywhere from 3-5 ridiculous dreams every night. I wake up thinking, I have to remember this, but my mind is kind enough to me to only recall half of them when I wake up. So, here are my favorite dreams of the past 2 days.

1) I dreamed NASCAR was held right here in MV at the fairgrounds. (We achieved the ultimate status, it was even bigger than the Fair.) But the best thing about this dream was Jed won!!!!! My husband is now a NASCAR hero. Watch out Jeff Gordon!

2) I dreamed that I had a purple flute and was playing in a grown-up Mrs. D (my hs music teacher) band in a circus tent. Except my flute wouldn’t work it was all bent up. This dream probably means, no, no, no-not that I am on drugs, but that I have some kind of repressed musical inner beast just waiting to be unleashed.

3) I dreamed that I was in a tyrannical rage, throwing things and screaming and Jed punished me by taking away… get this, the ultimate punishment, bread. I am currently on a “No carb left behind” diet so this was a severe penalty.

4) I dreamed Jara had a drum that only she could make noise on and only I could hear. Need I say more.

Well sweet dreams to all of you, hopefully my crazed state of mind won’t lead your mind to have any sympathy dreams. I am going to bed now to see what I can imagine next.

Birthday

Jara and I opening presents. I got a cool new camera, no more purple pictures with lines. B-day pics was my old camera's final assignment. (We are both wearing our swimming suits, hence the immodesty.)

Jara enjoying a capri sun while posing for a very conveniently positioned picture.

Jed doing what he does best.

Jara and I with my German Chocolate cake "hand-crafted" by Jed. (Thanks mom for dinner.)