The ocean is freezing! But all the kids jump right in. Even the one wearing the pink cast. She duct tapes a plastic bag around it. It's been really hard for me to take working on the house breaks. If it weren't for my sister Candice always, saying, "Hey should we go to the beach?" I really don't think we would have gone at all this season. And when Candice isn't planning fun family outings she is here helping me move.



  She is constantly making the 45 minute drive to help out for a day. She is on her way here now to help with boxing up more stuff and it is only 8 in the morning. So I just have a second and want to write about this little guy above, before I forget his latest 3 year old moments. Last Sunday we went to have Father's Day dinner at their apartment in Manchester. They live on the 8th floor. We had a great time, and I decided her apartment kitchen is better than my new one. About the time we were packing up to leave Marcus disappeared out the door. By the time we realized this he was gone. Nowhere to be seen on floor #8. It had been at least 10 minutes by the time he was located down in the lobby waiting at the front desk with the concierge. He had taken the elevator down by himself. I asked him how he knew which button to push. He said he pushed "Go, it had a  G on it" That would be ground level. He also said he pushed the "Bad" Button. That would be the "B" right next to the "G" button. Luckily the first stop was Ground level, not basement. Then he would've been running through the parking garage. I hate  those kind of panicky 10 minute moments. I have them way too often.


  He really is becoming extremely mischievous just as you would expect a little boy to act. A house full of sisters hasn't prevented a thing. He loves that we live on a hill and all he has to do is find something and get it to the edge and then, "Whoopee! Watch it go!" So we are always finding stuff down across the street. Yesterday he grabbed the lawnmower out of the garage and rolled it over. We found it in stuck down in the woods across the street. He is always so sorry for his actions, and it is actually hard to discipline because he is so repentant. . . until he does it again, you know.


  I watched him yesterday take the helium balloon he had got at the church the night before into the sun room. The next thing I knew he had opened the door and just let it go smiling into the air as it floated off. I went rushing in and said, "Marcus, you can never get your balloon back, why did you do that?"


"That's not my balloon, Mom. It's Caroline's." His was safely stored in his room.


  The last small catastrophe I wanted to mention Candice swears had nothing to do with Marcus, but was all her daughter Laura's doing. She noticed Marcus has bath toys and she doesn't and now Candice says she insists on putting all kinds of random stuff in there with her so she can take a bath like Marcus. So I put the two of them in the bath as usual when we got done painting. It gives us a break and Laura had paint all over her. She tends to strip quite often and her little bum was covered in white kitchen cabinet paint.
  I was in the living room making little checks on them here and there. . . well, I thought I was. Apparently my time in between checks had gotten a little spread out because the last time I went in, I was shocked to see the entire bath filled. Laura had made a lot of trips into Caroline's room and had hauled out all their stuffed animals and dumped them in. Then she had gone back for the dolls. Three American Dolls along with all their clothes and accessories were in the tub too. Once she was out of toys and stuffed animals to dump in she had started adding Caroline's shoes.
Unsupervised baths are a very bad idea with Laura in the house. That was not a fun bath to clean up from. And Marcus had three very upset sisters.

Some babysitting shots

 Savannah broke her arm running hurdles just in time for the league meet. Since she was out of the running she stayed home and babysit while Brent and I had a perfect date. Four hours at the track with no Marcus to chase around, over, behind, through, or under the bleachers. Kennon got first place in two of her heats at the meet. She didn't win anything over all and I can't remember which events they were but I believe it was the 200 and the 400. I love running lately but the fact is I am the slowest person I know and I always have been. I just didn't ever win a race ever. So it's pretty exciting for me to think that's my daughter out there running faster than other girls. 

 We are loving having a cousin in town. Candice always dresses Laura so cute. Nothing but homemade sun dresses. She went shopping with my older girls one day last week and I was left babysitting the little kids. They wanted to go swimming and Laura didn't have a swim suit. 



I don't think this girl has looked trashy a day in her life before I babysit her. Candice came home to find us swimming and said that Peter would've died seeing her like that. She just doesn't get dirty and run around in a old white T to often I guess.  She loved it!

 Camille set up the pool in the perfect mudhole and Marcus let Laura borrow his t-shirt. Seeing her running around splashing without a swimsuit reminded me of the good old days growing up with her mother. Candice, Ciana and Alainna were called the three little girls in our house. And I have so many memories of these girls swimming in nothing but panties in mud puddles. Real mud puddles. The ones we would find all over the farm and within two seconds my three little sisters were stripped down and swimming away. We had some pretty deep puddles. I never swam in them myself but Laura's mother sure loved to. 

  I found these pictures on the camera taken by Kennon when she babysit all day last Saturday when Brent and I had a long date working on our new house. Which by the way is all painted now! Mostly by me standing on a very tall ladder, completely out of my comfort zone. Brent did the extremely high stuff but we are talking about a three story ladder here. 

 They are making brownies. With aprons and everyone getting a turn to measure, stir . . . 
 and taste. 

Picture perfect. 

 They were all cooked and waiting for us when we got home. 

And they cleaned up too!

I love finding this stuff on the camera. It really is so awesome when your children start taking the pictures. 

The day our trampoline rolled away

Caroline is always complaining that she's the only one that never has a friend over. I don't have some kind of rotation schedule it's just that the other girls are always on the phone planning stuff with their friends and Caroline never thinks of it until she's the one being left out after school. So one morning last week we got up and I happened to think of calling her best friend to see if she could ride the bus home to our house. They got off the bus and spent the first half hour jumping. Then they came in for a belated afterschool snack. While we were working on that we heard faint sirens going off outside. It sounded something like a warning siren and Kennon became concerned, of course, while I continued to run around cleaning etc. About 2 minutes after that

the sky suddenly darkened and the power went out. Kennon ran over to the window to check out the current conditions and happened to see our trampoline taking a violent roll down our hill. She was screaming for me to get out there and save it (The kids paid for half of it)  . . while I was screaming for everyone to get into the basement in case of . .  I don't know. . .Tornado?? 

I hadn't bothered to tune into the message that was being broadcast via the siren and there had been a tornado an hour away the week before. So we all ran into the basement which was now completely pitch black at 4:30 in the afternoon. I found candles and we sat in the room with no windows for about an hour all the while reassuring Caroline's best friend that we were just being cautious and No, her parents weren't dead. My cell phone doesn't get reception at our home usually so we really felt stranded and out of the loop. Finally the hour passed and I ventured out and was smart enough to get into the car and listen to the radio because we had been unable to find any batteries of course to run any inside. I listened to several news broadcast and finally determined that it was safe now since no one said anything about a tornado a coming. Then I drove the best friend home, taking necessary detours to avoid the power line wire that was strung out across the road the trampoline just rolled over.  As she got out of the car she turned to Caroline and said, "Caroline, I am never coming to your house again!" 

Which I thought was hardly fair. To pin the storm and power outage on a 7 year old. We carried the trampoline back up the hill and it was mostly intact. Or I guess it is because we are still jumping on it. We had no power or water until the next morning and my two oldest daughters seriously couldn't handle it. I kept trying to get them to just relax like we were camping, but they thought it was such a trial. Even though we drove downtown, picked up pizza and then hung out and had a picnic in the dark just the seven of us. Kids these days. 

Mitt Romney announced his candidacy for President of the United States today 15 minutes from my house. And of course I was there. 

This turned out not too flattering of his wife Ann but it happens to be the picture where he shakes Marcus's hand.

The event was held at a local farm in a big field and we all ate Mrs. Romney's famous chili. Former Senator George Lovejoy (our realtor) introduced me as his friend and fellow mormon. I was doing fine on my own talking to him but as soon as he had to tell him I was a mormon he immediately got the moving on attitude. I guess he figured he already had my vote.

And look.  His wife Ann is really beautiful. 

Candice and her sister in law that lives in Boston also scored some tickets thanks to my friend the Senator.  

Brent has informed me that our house is voting for Ron Paul so I felt a bit like a traitor yelling Go Mitt! But either way.  Hooray that I am living in NH for the election season. 

Caroline's 7th Birthday fell on a busy Monday. It was so hectic we didn't even get any pictures of her surprise visitors straight from Tennessee.  Uncle Peter, Aunt Candice and cousin Laura arrived. That's okay though because they will be here all summer. Hooray!

 Caroline wanted fondue for her party so I just made a small ice cream cake to go with the fruit and chocolate.

Once the partying was over we put our house guests to work. Peter followed Brent around all day while Brent cut holes in the side of our house to fix things like the upstairs shower faucet. Let's just say we bought a very leaky house. Luckily I happen to be married to a plumber that doesn't mind doing the work on tall ladders. 

Candice has been inside helping with the painting.  Why do my children hate their mom in bib overalls so bad? They are horrified that all of our new neighbors keep meeting me in my painting gear - the same overalls everyday. I gave Candice the cute painting outfit to keep her happy. 

 Along with lots of little helpers. Caroline insisted that she needed to borrow my "safety goggles" for the heavy duty sanding she was asked to do.

 

It's hard coming up with jobs to keep everyone busy. 

Peter and Candice had to leave us this week to start his job in Manchester. So now I am just trying to squeeze a few hours of painting in everyday while the rest of the family is off at work/school. 

Besides our new busy remodeling schedule we also had Savannah break her arm last week, Marcus pick up two new bloodsucking ticks, Kennon get three first place finishes in her last track meet, Camille sing and dance on stage in her mother's high heels for the grade school show, and that's all that comes to mind. 

Stay tuned for some before and after photos of our big house project.

We have the keys!

Should we call it "The Lion House?"

Graveside service for Angelica

 Angelica was laid to rest in a small graveside service last Friday in Washington state. They were able to get a spot and bury her at the foot of my 9 year old sister Arianne's grave who died in a family car accident in 1987. It was one of the hardest things for me ever to miss this and not be there with my family.

 Big Sis Laura says goodbye to our little sister.  

Here are ALL of my siblings and some of their spouses and children. They had a big family reunion without me this weekend. They came from Nashville, TN, Dallas, TX, Long Island, NY, and California. Talk about being spread out across the map. It was weird to not go because my reasons all seemed so trivial compared to the reason they were getting together. This house better be worth it because I missed a very important day last  Friday while I was stuck in NH signing house papers.

Mother's Day Trip! New House! Visitors!

For my Mother's Day gift, my husband bought me a ticket out of town figuring it would be a nice break and get him out of flowers, breakfast in bed, and shopping. Kennon and I flew to DC to attend a reunion with some friends from Buffalo. Kennon got to come because we were having the girls reunion at Christy's house and her daughter Ciela was Kennon's good friend during the dental student years. 

This is the group that made me loose a whole night of sleep once a month at book club. We used to talk and talk and get so tired that we couldn't get our booty off the couch and into our car so we just didn't till way too late. This weekend we had three nights with no  nowhere to drive once it got late so the party just went on and on. I came home Mother's Day so exhausted after having the least amount of sleep I had probably had since the last Fielding Family Reunion. And within a couple days I had a bad cough and had my first illness since 2008. Seriously I haven't been sick since then but 3 nights with little sleep was enough to bring it on. One night I retired to my bed early at the sensible hour of 12 a.m. determined to get some sleep. But all these women came and piled in too.  There's Steph, Briste, Kristen, Erica and Christy from left to right. I had the little slot on the foot of the bed next to Christy. When the first one got too sleepy and drug themselves off to bed, I was jealous and mentioned to them as they left the room, "Would you mind shutting off the light on your way out?" Everyone totally hollered at me for that though and the light stayed on. I tried again later when someone else left the room but once again I think they thought I was joking or something. Finally sometime after 3 a.m. the last of the late nighters left my room. For the last hour there had been a pillow over my head. It's a wonder they even wanted me at this party huh? Well see if I get invited back for next years reunion. 

The thing is it's not like we could sleep in either. There were a lot of kids in that house and they were screaming and running past my room by 7 a.m. every morning. 


It was tons of fun. I loved seeing these women and catching up. I am sure that it will all be worth it and I will be SOOO grateful I went. . .once I get over this darn cough that now keeps me up every night.


Yet Another tick 
So I got home on Mother's Day and only had one present left to discover. Marcus had a tick stuck in his head. On Friday when I talked to the man at home taking care of kids, I pleaded with him to please bathe the kids nightly and check for ticks. He said he did. But somehow on Sunday during Sacrament meeting while Brent sat up on the stand Savannah found a tick sucking on the back of my little boys head. Brent spent the next two meetings driving around trying to find a tick spoon finally settling on a pair of tweezers and then trying without success to remove the tick. When he finally did get it out the head broke off and remained inside Marcus. So this is how I found out when they came home from church. We tried to numb it with ice cubes for awhile and then dig it out but that wasn't working that well. After a while Brent took off for some medical supplies at the dental office and an hour later thanks to some antiseptic the tick was removed. So apparently I can no longer risk leaving my children over the weekend or they may have Lyme disease by the time I come home. The main reason I was concerned is because Brent was pretty sure he must've picked it up on Thursday because that was the day that he had been at the neighbor's house playing in the woods. And the tick was all engorged with blood so that is a pretty good sign that he had been there long enough to feast. 
Luckily so far, out of the three ticks we have had all of them to our knowledge have been the right kind of ticks. They are large ones and therefore not the small deer ticks that carry Lyme. I love the woods but sometimes you have to ask yourselves. . . Is it really worth it? 
Brent had a really busy weekend though. He attended one track meet, one daddy daughter formal dance, the ward building spring clean up, cleaned the office for his out of town cleaning lady, bought a birthday present and dropped off Camille for a party, and attended a very long home inspection. All that and there wasn't a single dish in the sink when I got home. Though no one can exactly remember what they ate. . . but that is a different issue. The home inspection went better than expected and while I was gone we decided to go ahead and buy the house after all. 


Homeowners again
So it is a done deal. We paid and it's ours. We are still waiting very anxiously for the keys however. I don't know how it is that you can write a check for a house and four days later you are still asking permission to get inside that house. They told us we can't even mow the lawn yet. Buying a house from a bank has really been a pain. It's like they didn't want to sell it and did everything they could to prevent it. But we were persistent and now have the huge project on our hands. Saturday night about 7 p.m. was the first time we had time to do anything and although technically we were trespassing according to the bank we mowed the lawn and started in earnest on the yard. We had worked for about 20 minutes pulling weeds and raking stuff up when suddenly I hollered out, "WAIT!" We never took our before pictures. So the weeds were thrown back down and we walked away though it killed us. 


 I am so excited about this project. As we walked around the yard I really felt happy. It seems like a great place for us to be. It's going to wear us out for the next couple months but I think we will be really proud of what we will accomplish. 

Meg and Jake come to town

 We signed homeowners papers on Friday morning and then spent the afternoon in downtown Portsmouth with our guests -Brent's niece Meg and her husband Jacob from Phoenix. I think it is awesome that we can take our visitors down to have fresh seafood on the harbor when they come to town. For me it never gets boring to live near the sea. I am not sure if it is the constant sight of sailboats or the fact that I think seafood is one of the best things ever, or maybe it's just that it is so different than living in the desert I grew up in. I always loved as a kid crossing the mountains and visiting Seattle and having seafood down on the wharf at Pike Place market. We only did it three times maybe but it was quite memorable. Now we can do that just 15 minutes from home. . . without the traffic.   We really do live in an awesome place in the woods by the sea. I'll just keep crossing my fingers about Lyme disease. 

First Camp out 2011

We came home to children that were really enjoying the warm weather and were convinced that Dad needed to set up the tent for a camp out. Brent told Marcus if he could make real tears he would do so. Here is him giving it his best shot. Kennon had to help out. Unfortunately she can make the kid tear up in 5 seconds flat. Dad had to set up the tent. 


We cooked hot dogs over the fire in the back yard and then it was time for the big camp out. Only our three younger children wanted to sleep outside it turns out. So we let them. I had Brent go get Marcus and bring him in about midnight. But Caroline and Camille slept out all night. 


Downtown Boston Tour

Saturday we went to Boston with Meg and Jake to see them off. We walked part of the Freedom Trail but got little out of it without a guide. 

Riding the swan boats in the Public Gardens.

Marcus Always chases birds. He really thinks that he is about to catch one the whole time.

Jacob had a pamphlet and was forced to lead us around and play tour guide. Brent and I were embarrassed that we were such terrible hosts. I told Jake next time we visit them in Phoenix we will give THEM the grand tour. We kept getting stuck behind the Rainbow Parade taking over the downtown area . . . and had to answer lots of questions from our children about why there were men marching along wearing high heels and lipstick, and how come so many of the ladies had Mohawks. So I guess it ended up being an educational day after all.

Angelica Fielding Munk 5/4/2011 -5/9/2011

Candice and Peter's baby daughter was born alive last Wednesday morning and spent the next 5 days with her mother, father and sister before she died peacefully in the night lying between her parents as they all slept together in their home in Nashville, TN.  

Angelica came home from the hospital with her parents the day after she was born like most babies do. Angelica was pink, ate well, had a peaceful demeanor and was literally much like any other newborn except for one thing. Their daughter wouldn't have as as many breaths to take. 

Starting on her second day of life, she would without warning lose her pink color, and stop breathing for several minutes as her little angel heart would suddenly stop beating. Each time her parents held her and said their goodbyes never knowing which of these moments was the very last moment they were spending with their living daughter. Every time though she would recover in several minutes and they would have her back again. They were happy as each moment and then day passed and she was still there breathing in their arms. 

Finally Mother's Day came, Angelica's fifth day with her family. Candice dressed Laura and Angelica in their matching dresses she had sewn and Peter took pictures of his girls out in the yard.

 

That was the last day they spent together in this life as a family. 

Losing a child is every parent's worst fear. But Candice and Peter have just been amazing throughout the entire ordeal, inspiring all of us with their willingness to go along with Heavenly Father's plan for their lives. And they have remained so grateful. Grateful for nine months of a wonderful pregnancy where the baby was safe and well. Grateful for a delivery of a living baby daughter. And then mostly grateful for the five beautiful days that they just spent as a family giving her all the love they could for as long as they could.   They know that they will be together as a family one day and until then she will live with the angels watching over her family from up above.  I think most of us Fielding are thinking that one of those angels is our dear sister Arianne that we lost so many years ago. 

As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we are so grateful for the knowledge we have of eternal life as families. It gives us the gift of peace and happiness despite the very hardest of trials that life may bring us. 

              I love this picture of mother, father and child. It expresses the true joy that they have recently experienced. Farewell Angelica. I too look forward to meeting you someday. 


Here is a link to their family blog if you would like to hear them tell their story themselves.


peterandcandice

Meeting Angelica

Today my sister Candice is going to be induced to have her 2nd baby daughter. As most mothers are at nine months pregnant, she is anxious to meet her and hold her in her arms. But Candice has been less anxious to deliver than I usually am. That's because her baby has thrived while in the protection of her womb. But once she is born she knows that her time with her daughter will be brief. Since the ultrasound at 20 weeks, Candice and her husband Peter have known that their daughter has a condition called Trisomy 13 which involves a host of problems that are not conducive to life outside the womb.  She may not survive birth at all or live only a few hours. They so want to be able to hold her and love her in their arms before she passes on.

I am praying really hard for her and Peter today. They have been such an example to all of us as they have anticipated this birth. They spent a lot of time early on choosing a special name for her and finally fell in love with the name Angelica. Candice loves to sew and spends much of her time sewing dresses for her 2 year old daughter Laura. She decided to sew baby clothes for Angelica too, even though she knows that she most likely won't be alive to enjoy them all. She hasn't blamed God or been angry at the fact that she has spent 9 months of her life sacrificing, losing her figure, being sick, all the hard stuff that comes with pregnancy. .  .and not to even get to keep the baby in the end. She continues to thank her Heavenly Father for this experience to carry a special child who has taught them already so much about the preciousness of life. I am so inspired by her unselfish desire to give life and love to this angel baby who will have such a short life among us. No child could be more loved. 

We love you Candice and Peter and are praying that this will be a sweet experience as you meet and enjoy the time that you have with Angelica. Thanks for teaching us so much. 

It seems like I just blog currently just for the sake of blogging so I don't give it up all together. It's been such a good thing in the past, and I am sure that I will get the motivation back . . . so for now I press on until I do. I took several pictures this weekend and that helped get me on here. I love taking pictures of Caroline, because she has A LOOOOTT of personality. She just is overflowing with zest.  All Saturday she was bugging us to take her to Wendy's to use her Birthday kids meal coupon that just came in the mail. She seriously asked over 100 times and said we had to go today because if we didn't we were gonna forget. Ha! Like that could ever happen.

So besides her constant harassment to go somewhere, Saturday was a typical day of our great NH life.  I love that dentists have weekends off and really nothing that they need to feel guilty about because they don't need to study (like in dental school) call a big list of people (like in our insurance salesman days) or work their head off all day (like on the farm) because you definitely don't take Saturdays off as a farmer.

So we can plan our weekends around family usually and of course church too because that takes up much of Sunday's and sometimes Saturdays too. But last Saturday was pretty open. Despite three transport trips to the Mall for Kennon's Jazz band performance, we took it easy at home.

Working in the yard is always my favorite Saturday family activity and we did plenty of that. At least I did. Everyone else disappeared from the work area after about an hour but I kept going until I had 1/2 our back woods taken out. Anything small enough for my clippers was cut down and hauled away. We now can run around in the woods without ticks brushing against us on all side. And I know we are probably moving out of these woods soon. . . but it was worth it. 

  

Brent finally found himself a motorcycle after hundreds of hours of craigslist shopping and that was the reason that I think I was abandoned. He started that up for a short work break and then spent the next hour giving each kid a ride around town. He never can sneak away on that one. 

On one of these rides he found out that the University was holding a very affordable carnival a mile away. So we scrapped our date plans for the evening and took the three middle girls to hang out with the coeds till the carnival closed. We had a carnival come to town every summer in Buffalo but that one cost $20 for a ride pass and we never bought one once. This one was only $5.  Once again we were one of the very few families that were brave enough to hang out with college kids. I don't mind these kids at all at this university. I am seriously impressed with them. They don't cuss or smoke, or at least they refrain to do so around our children. 

I am proud to announce that Caroline finally got over her fear of rides and was a new and improved girl and didn't waste any of the money we spent on her. She was so happy to be there all night. Of course they didn't have that scary dragon ride that terrified her every year as we talked her into just one ride to try it again. . . Do I need to post those photos again? 

Kennon on the other hand has already passed the stage of thinking carnivals with your family are fun and stayed home happily to watch Marcus.

                                                    There was free face painting by the sorority girls.

                                              And the most respectable carnies you will ever find. 





Savannah came along and spent way too much time in line getting her portrait drawn on this hat. Luckily she didn't have to pay for this artwork. This actually is after she spent another 10 minutes at home with her sharpie adding eyelashes, and more hair on the side because at first she looked mostly like a man with a hairy chin.

 On Sunday afternoon we went for a walk down to our river with even less children. We keep losing them lately when it comes to their willingness to be seen in public with their family.

Aren't they sweet when they are young and do what you say? Camille is washing her hands off in the river after being told to pick up the trash she knocked over and out of the garbage can, one item being a doggie doo bag.

I told Camille she has to stay on our side and not cross over to the dark side to join her older sisters.