The Summit Gym

Have you heard that Daniel Tiger has a new baby sister?  When those episodes came out Scarlett became obsessed with babies and pregnant bellies.  She would watch the show then ask me questions like "How did the baby get out of her mommy?  Did she open her mouth really big and the baby crawled out?"  "No, it came out her belly."  "How?"  "Uhhhhh....... Let's go get a treat!"  haha!  I finally just showed her my c-section scar and that seemed to satisfy her curiosity.  

Then she started noticing pregnant people everywhere we went.  One day she asked me "Do you have a baby in your tummy?"  Ugh.  "No... That's just my belly."  "What's in there?"  "Probably just lots of treats."  "Wow, you have a lot of treats in there."  Yes, thank you my child.  I am aware that my body isn't what it used to be.  Between all the prednisone and well, growing 2 human beings at the same time, it just hasn't recovered yet.  The next day she was cuddling with me and said "Wow mom, I feel a baby in your tummy!"  *sigh*  We had a long conversation about how talking about bellies can sometimes hurt people's feelings (like your mother's!)  

Then I was at a RS activity and a lady in my ward came up and asked me if I was expecting again.  ?!?!  This is like the 6th time an adult has asked me if I was prego when I wasn't.  The first several times I wasn't even married!  People: don't ask if someone is expecting.  Ever.  No matter how sure you are.  Why take the risk of sending the poor girl into the bathroom at Macy's so she can break down hysterically crying while all her body image issues that she's worked so hard on overcoming bubble back to the surface?  Not worth it.  Instead, just talk about the weather.

Obviously it's time to get back into shape.  A friend of mine (Summer) teaches Zumba at our local "rec center" called The Summit.  She convinced me that I needed to get a pass cause they have the best child care.  So the next day I went and bought a 6 month pass.  Good thing she didn't talk me into buying drugs because clearly she is persuasive.  But really, when she started talking me into it, it just felt right.  I was worried about how I would stay sane during Jake's last rotation (which is VERY time intensive).  The Summit seemed like a perfect solution.  

What I didn't really expect was how hard it would be for the girls.  For the first 2 months I would drop off the girls, get on the treadmill, run as hard as I could for 10 min, then go back to the day care and pick up my SCREAMING children (usually Scarlett was just fine).  It didn't feel like I was making any progress, but the ladies that work there were so patient and encouraging.  They are grandmas and they really love kids.  They are so kind and remember the smallest details about all the children.  I don't think I could do this without them, they really are so sweet.  They will try everything they can to get the twirls to stop crying.  

Then one magical day it happened, the twirls calmed down and no one came and got me from the gym.  Since then I've been able to workout for almost 2 hours every time I go!!!  It's wonderful.  I still have a problem going regularly.  It's a lot of work just to get there, and if the girls are sick/coughing/runny noses we can't go.  So basically the stars have to align - which isn't as often as I'd like.  But I'm working on it.  I need to be more diligent about exercising at home if we don't make it to The Summit.  WIP.

But I'm happy I bought the pass.  At least one twirl will still cry when we enter the day care room.  But after I'm gone they will calm down.  I'm hoping this will help them in nursery.  Just the idea that I will eventually be back for them.  We shall see...

The twirls LOVE eating at the table, pretending to be "big kids."

Scarlett wanted to wear her sticker earrings to the gym.  She wanted 2 "piercings".  What a rebel!

Christmas Card 2014

I know I'm waaaay behind on blogging.  I have been scrambling these past few weeks trying to finish Christmas gifts.  I'm finally to the point where I can think about other things (like doing the dishes, ironing clothes, etc).  But right now we're fighting a nasty virus that's kept us quarantined for 8 days -I hope we're on the tail end.  So I'll catch up soonish.

Until then, here's our Christmas Card - and I finished it with 25.37 hours to spare!  Woot woot!

Merry Christmas!

Love, The Glauser Family

Jake, Jenni, Scarlett, Jaide & Siena

And in case you want to take a stroll down memory lane, here are our old Christmas Cards (2011, 2012, & 2013):

Basement Dwellers

When Jami and I were teenagers both of our bedrooms were in the basement.  My dad would called us the "Basement Dwellers".  Well apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, cause my girls love to be in the basement.  Trampoline, indoor sledding, tents & tunnels!  I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time down here during the snow months. 

Thanksgiving with Carolyn

Thanksgiving week was an exciting week.  Jake's sister, Carolyn, came to visit AND the twirls moved into forward facing car seats.

I was on the fence about moving them forward facing or buying one of those huge rear facing seats.  I knew they needed something new cause the seat belt on their infant car seats was as tight as it could go.  I know they recently changed the guidelines to keep them rear facing til they are 2.  But when Scarlett was a baby the recommendation was only 1 year old.  I did the research.  I read the tests.  I made the decision that seemed best for our situation.  I hope you'll respect that and I'll respect your decisions (for some reason the car seat is a heated topic with many people, so let's all agree we're trying to do what we think is best). anyways.........

The worker lady at Buy Buy Baby wanted to see how they fit in these seats.  They took the inaugural ride to church the next morning.  The twirls were literally speechless!  Driving is so much more peaceful and relaxing for all of us.  Plus I like that they're eating food while upright where I can watch them.

Carolyn came a few days later.  She loves to cook and clean and I love to eat and sleep.  It was a wonderful week!!!

One morning we went to the gym, after our workout we went to get the girls from the daycare.  The lady in charge looked at Carolyn then back at me and said "you two look so much alike!"  She was surprised that we were only related through marriage!

Hard at work in the kitchen... homemade rolls, cranberry cheesecake, rainbow jello.  It was a feast!

Jake wanted to try smoking the turkey this year.  I was on board - mostly cause that meant I didn't have to do anything with it!  It turned out absolutely amazing!  The smoky flavor was just enough to give it something without being overwhelming and the meat was so juicy!  This is our new turkey tradition!

Our delicious dinner, our scrumptious spread, our enjoyable eats, our... well you get the idea...

After dinner I ran upstairs to work on my assignments for our Ward Christmas Party.  When I came back downstairs I found the girls enjoying a movie and the adults enjoying a nap.  haha!

Aunt Carolyn was so fun!  She played all sorts of games with the girls, took Scarlett outside, made tasty treats, and even watched Frozen (her first time seeing the movie and Scarlett's 479th time)

Don't let the girls' expressions fool you - they loved being all squished on the slide!

After our Thanksgiving festivities were over we got the girls bathed and ready for bed then loaded everyone up in the car for a new adventure.  We drove through the Hines Park Lightfest.  You pay $5 for your car to enter the park and you drive through all sorts of light displays.  They were a little spaced out but I was impressed at how many really cool displays they had!  I think it took us around 25 min to drive through everything.  The girls all really seemed to like it.  Despite being tired they were excited to see the lights, especially the displays we got to drive through.  I think this may be an annual tradition!

Yes, we make our guests ride in the back.  You've been warned!  Ok, not always, but I get car sick and Carolyn doesn't so this trip she was willing to take the back seat.  Even on the way to the airport.  I think she was worried about boarding the plane all covered in my vomit.  A very real and very serious possibility.

Another fun part of our week included this new purchase:

Yes, that's a folding wagon!  My mom saw it at Dick's Sporting Goods when she was here last time.  We went the day before Thanksgiving and it was on sale!  SOLD!  It holds like 120 lbs or something like that.  I love how quick it is to load the girls and drag them somewhere.  So far they haven't tried climbing out while I pull them - but I still watch them just in case.  They love it and so do I!  It's way easier than the stroller - especially for quick trips indoors.  I have used it to go to playgroup at the church or from the car to the gym.  And Scarlett loves that she can ride too!  I usually put a big blanket over their laps once they're all tucked in and I think it's warmer than the stroller!  YAY WAGON!!!  The main drawbacks are: no straps to hold them in, no place to put the diaper bag (except Scarlett's lap) and the turning radius is huge (I end up doing 3 point turns sometimes).  I still use the stroller for big adventures, but it has made the quick trips so fast!

The twirls were resting their heads together on our walk it was so sweet!  Then Jaide started head banging, like she always does.  It was cracking the other girls up.  Silly ladies!

After Carolyn left Scarlett often told me "I miss Aunt Carolyn."  One day she said "Oh no!  I forgot to ask Aunt Carolyn what does her house look like!?"  haha!  I sent that to Carolyn in a text and she sent Scarlett this picture... When I showed it to Scarlett she said "wow" with wide eyes and just stared at it for a min with wide eyes.  Then she said "She has lots of leaves, windmills, and stormy clouds."  That's my quirky girl!  Now she's so excited to go to Utah and see Aunt C

Random story: Scarlett woke up crying in the middle of the night.  I went in her room and through her tears she told me "I wanted to dance!"  haha!  I rocked her for a min then put her back in her bed.  She looked up at me and asked "What comes after E?"  "F"  "What comes after F?"  "G" "What comes after G?" so I sang the ABC song (her favorite) hoping that would answer all her questions.  When I finished she looked up at me and asked "What comes after G?"  oh my goodness!  I finally left her room but I was only 2 steps down the hall when she started crying again.  I opened her door and asked her what was wrong "I forgot to blow you a kiss *muh ah* ... can I have a glow stick?"  Seriously?  That girls sure keeps us on our toes!  Even at 2 am!

Psychic Powers?

I few weeks ago I was looking through my computer trying to find an old file.  During my search I came across a document titled "Letter to Jami."  I couldn't remember what it was, so I opened it up and read it...

On October 25, 2009 I wrote Jami a 4 page letter.  She was going through a tough time and this was also the beginning of her rapid deterioration from the Cushing's.  When I was about half way through the letter I came across this paragraph (don't worry, she said it was ok if I posted this):

"Someday when I'm like bed-ridden with twins..."

What?!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!

This was FIVE YEARS AGO!  Kids weren't even really on my radar back then.  The only explanation is: I have psychic powers.  I'll admit that my new-found ability scares me.  "With great power come great responsibility."

Side note: I wrote the letter to Jami using my own handwriting font.  The site I used back then isn't free anymore, but this one seems similar: http://www.myscriptfont.com/.  You print the paper, fill it out, scan it, and it makes a ttf file of your very own handwriting!  Pretty cool!  We were living in CT when we came across this.  One of my friends (Amanda) has beautiful and unique handwriting.  I told her hubby that we could make a font of her script.  So we devised a plan.  I told Amanda that Jake's little sister was in a graphic design class and needed examples of handwriting - and since she's famous in the ward for hers I asked for her help.  She had no idea!  Then on Christmas morning, her husband used her font to write all the Christmas labels on her gifts.  She said "I don't remember writing this."  haha!  It was a fun surprise!

Anyways, back to my psychic powers.  I'm nervous to look through my old journals now.  Who knows what other predictions I've made?!?  If I remember correctly, I should soon start my career as a dolphin trainer.  Not sure how that's going to work since I live in Michigan... and I hate water!  Also, from here on out I will no longer be joking about having another set of multiples.  The consequences are too dire!  ;-)

Furnace Fiasco

Why do things seem to fail in the middle of the night, on the weekend, or when someone is out of town?  Murphy's Law in action.  We had our a/c stop working in the middle of a hot and sweaty night in Connecticut.  Another time our a/c went out on a Sunday - again on a hot and sweaty day.  Well as luck would have it our furnace stopped working in the middle of a freezing cold night (really, there was an arctic front that week and it was 20 degF colder than normal... 11 degF that night).  

I was working on the computer and noticed my hands were cold and stiff.  I thought it was cause I keep the vent closed in the office so I went downstairs to watch StudioC before bed (that show makes me happy).  This was like 10pm.  I decided to check all the locks on the doors before watching TV - I usually check them right before I go to bed - this was a tender mercy!  I checked the back door, noticed the twirls had removed the plastic door stopper from the sliding glass door tracks, and I bent down to put it back into place.  When I picked it up my hand was over our kitchen air vent and I felt cold air blowing up at me.  What?!?  I went and checked our thermostat.  It was 69 degF and I had it set to 72 degF.  I went downstairs to check the furnace.  Sure enough - no flame inside.  I went through all the diagnostic instructions on the label.  I called Jake who unfortunately was on a business trip that week (Murphy's Law).  He googled things, I tried more stuff.  I called my dad just in case we were both missing something simple.  I flipped circuit breakers, tried to relight pilot lights, made sure the gas was running, etc.  My dad had a great idea to crank up our fireplace - which wasn't even turned on for the season.  So I got that going to add heat into the house.  Finally after all the troubleshooting we could do - I called a 24 hour HVAC guy at Americool (Ed).

Ed asked if I wanted to wait til the morning, but I don't think it's worth saving a few bucks when I am responsible for so many fragile little people (and mostly cause I didn't want to have to deal with moving them all down to the fireplace then try and get everyone to sleep all night).  So Ed showed up an hour later.  I was a little nervous about having a strange man over in the middle of the night, so I told him that my husband had an early shift the next day and had to go to bed (so he thought Jake was upstairs).  And the entire time he was at my house, my mom called me every half hour to make sure I wasn't duct taped to a chair in the basement.  :-)

I felt like the technician was honest and informative.  He explained all my options to me and the pros/cons of each.  His information matched everything I've read online.  We had 2 limit switches that went bad.  He was able to replace the fan limit switch that night and bypass the roll out limit.  There are 4 fail safes, so bypassing one was still safe.  The draft motor was going bad and he suspected that the motor was overheating and flipping the limit switches.  It also caused a rattling sound we would hear in our vents at night.  He wasn't sure how long the new limit switch would last, but at least it would get us some heat in the house.  It lasted all night!  Another tender mercy!  I scheduled them to come the next day to replace the unit.  To get the furnace back up and running would cost ~$1000 parts and labor, but that may or may not get us through the winter and once the heat exchanger goes bad you have to replace the whole unit (that's when you get carbon monoxide leaks).  So it just made sense to replace the whole unit now.  He said he wouldn't charge me for the service call that evening since I was having to buy a new furnace, which I thought was nice - especially since it was so late and so cold.  He left around 1:30 or 2am.  I think the coldest our house got was 65 degF.  None of the girls even woke up - another tender mercy! 

The next day we had planned a playdate with some friends.  I told them what was going on and we moved the activity to my house.  The installers came around noon so I cranked up the heat all morning so we wouldn't get too cold during the install.  I think the 2 young guys who showed up to install the furnace were shocked at all the little kids running around.  One of them told me "I see a new kid every time I come upstairs!"  haha!  We had 8 kids ages 4 and younger plus 4 adults, 2 of which were pregnant (NOT ME) - it was craziness!

One of the pregnant ladies was 9 months along.  Her last name is Furness.  I told her that I only wanted one Furnace/Furness delivered in my house that day.  walkawalkawalka!

It took the installers SIX hours to put this all together.  Our house was a little cold toward the end, by then it was just me and my girls so we sat on the couch by the fireplace and watched a movie.  

We upgraded to a 2 stage 80% efficiency furnace - it kicks on at 50,000 BTU and only moves up to the normal 100,000 BTU on really cold days.  The gas savings are really noticeable in a cold climate like Michigan.  And it's quieter!  

We also added a 5 inch air filter - something an asthmatic needs!  They turned the furnace around so it's easier to access, moved the power switch, blocked off the vent in that room (wasted heat), reran the PVC pipe, and installed our new wifi controlled touchscreen thermostat.  I was really happy with the quality of their work.  And Scarlett really liked taking water and fruit snacks to "the worker guys" (turns out they both have little kids so they're used to eating fruit snacks!)

It's funny how I was saving up for LASEK all year then we spent more than that in one unexpected evening.  Aw, the joys of home-ownership!  I'm glad I got my LASEK first, otherwise I think I would have postponed it.  And I'm loving my new vision!  

I was joking with Jake that on Christmas Day we should crank up the heat and sit on the air vents while wearing baggy shirts.  So we get to really enjoy our special gift!  Too bad Santa doesn't make furnaces in his workshop!  I joke, but seriously a warm house is a wonderful blessing and I'm so grateful that we were able to stay warm during the whole process.  It could have been really awful.  Even though it was inconvenient I saw the Lord watching over us many times that night.

The next day I woke up feeling totally miserable.  I think the stress and lack of sleep turned a little cold into a full blown illness.  Then on top of everything there was a snowstorm that morning AND I realized we were out of milk AND I found a bunch of scribbles on my wall from the previous crazy day.  That's Muphy's Law again folks!  Luckily, even though we are far from our family, we have an amazing group of friends in our ward.  I asked if anyone was braving the storm and going to the store that day.  A few hours later Rachel F. showed up at my door with 2 gallons of milk.  Truly a life saver!  That evening I went to put away our trash cans and I saw that my next door neighbor, Don, had shoveled our driveway and sidewalks - plus he brought our cans up to the garage.  We are truely blessed by the wonderful people in our lives!  And don't worry about my walls (I know you were stressing).  I hate that color anyways.  Just more motivation to paint it this winter.