Just in...

...Pictures of Conor Matthew Chambers. Isn't he adorable? Oh yes, and Mary looks cute too!

Cute picture

I just had to post (show off) this incredibly cute picture of Rachel. I'm no photographer, but this belongs in a magazine or something.

Good News! Mary had her baby!

Speaking of Mary, my daughter-in-law, Matt's wife. Connor Matthew was born last night and weighed in at 8 lbs. 14 oz. Mother, baby, father and big brother are all doing fine.
More good news! Matthew has a job in St. George! He was supposed to start today but due to the baby being born, tomorrow will be his first day. So chances that I will get to see my new grand-baby in the near future are immensely increased. Yes!

Oatmeal HA!

Thanks for that post on oatmeal Luella. Yes, oatmeal was a mainstay in our household growing up. I remember Dad being the one who cooked it most of the time. Funny how we all tend to remember things differently! I have also found ways to make my oatmeal taste better (because it is really good for you, you know). Here are my two contributions to the recipe mashup.

Oatmeals, Apples, Cinnamon, Sweetener (sugar, agave, honey, or whatever suits your taste), and Walnuts - 1/2 cup oatmeal per person to be served, cook oatmeal in the microwave (it's quicker than waiting for water to boil), then add the remaining ingredients to meet your personal flavor requirements.

Oatmeal, Walnuts and Bananas - same as above except swap out apples, and cinnamon for bananas.

How to Eat Oatmeal

For as long as I can remember, Mom used to make all kinds of hot cereal for us to eat in the morning. I was so glad when she started buying cold cereal for us younger children(Grape Nuts, Mini-Wheats, etc.). I never enjoyed oatmeal very much. Then when I was pregnant with Michael, I was craving something, but I didn't know what it was. We went to a breakfast restaurant where they served Baked Oatmeal. It was delicious! and it was what I was craving. Since then, I have thoroughly enjoyed most kinds of oatmeal. I am posting a recipe for Baked Oatmeal that I make for holiday breakfasts(I found it online). I hope you enjoy it!

Baked Oatmeal

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 cups quick cooking oats
1/2 cup raisins(optional)
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Beat together oil and sugar. Mix in eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, oatmeal. Beat well then stir in raisins. Pour into a lightly greased pie pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Bake in preheated oven until firm, about 35 minutes. Serve hot.

Fielding Family Update

Most of the interesting things happening with our family happened today, one of which was Joey's baptism. He was baptized by John. Here is a picture of them in their baptism whites.



John also confirmed Joey. It was a really special occasion.

Also today, John was called as 2nd counselor in the Elders Quorum Presidency and I was called as Ward Music Director.

We are working steadily towards a temple sealing date. John has his recommend and has received his Patriarchal Blessing. He still needs to adopt the boys and then we can set the date. We plan to do it in the Salt Lake Temple and have a big extended family celebration. We will give you all fair warning as soon as the date is set. Noelle has requested next summer and I'm keeping that in mind.

John is dreaming of the start of ski season. We've been really lucky to have a ski instructor dad and be living in a town where skiing is relatively cheap for residents. John has turned us all into skiers and it has been a rewarding family activity for us. He is still hard at work building our house. We have radiant floor heating now which is so nice. Even the part of the house that is still uninsulated is kept warm. That whole system took months to install. It is a pretty amazing plumbing feat. He has also been our greenhouse guru. With Steamboat's short growing season, gardening outdoors is a challenge and keeping the right temperature in a greenhouse is a lot of work, most of which John has done. As a result, we've had tomatoes galore, lettuce, onions,cucumbers, squash, potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, artichokes and some of John's favorite foods which are horseradish and Jerusalem artichokes. We've had a few strawberries as well. We are still working on how to grow them here. John has also built some beautiful garden sculptures on the city lot next door that look like small ski mountains. His work on our property attracts a lot of attention from the townsfolk. I often get comments about it wherever I go. John is the town commissioner for the Historical Society as well and is helping work on a highway bypass plan. We, too, have been hit by the economic meltdown. John's employer has had the funding cut by the bank for his building project, so John's job will be ending within 2 weeks. He is starting his own consulting business for now. He has a couple of job prospects as well, but they are not making any decisions this week. The stock market has been too scary.

Christie (John's daughter) is completing her Associates degree this year and working 2 jobs. She lives with college roommates still close enough to home to come over often. The boys adore her and she is so good to them. I took a kickboxing class with her a few months ago. It was a grueling class for me, although she seemed to do fine. She is trying to convince me to do it again. I want to spend time with her, but I'd also like to live through it. Christie and John are planning a trip to Connecticut at the end of the month to visit John's parents. We can't afford to all go right now and Christie is very generously paying John's way.

Joey is growing like a weed. He turned eight on September 30. He got three parties; a family party, a sleepover and today a potluck at the church. He is getting spoiled and loves it. He is doing very well in 2nd grade. He loves his teacher. He has some struggles with reading because of dyslexia but he loves books and works really hard at figuring out what they say. He was thrilled to get his own set of scriptures today and has already started reading the Book of Mormon on his own (his own idea). He told me he is stuck on page 1 but he doesn't want help.

Justin is in 1st grade this year and doing well. He also has a wonderful teacher who loves him. He is a natural charmer and has discovered the fun of telling jokes. He works on his comic routine constantly. He has a whole litany of jokes that he will tell anyone who will listen. He and Joey are naturals at horseback riding. They are also practicing violin regularly now. I have been trying to figure out what motivates them as they would resist even candy bribes. Finally they saw one of my students whom they are friends with play "Twinkle" and suddenly they wanted to practice. Joey can play the first variation of "Twinkle" on the violin with the piano and Justin can almost do it.

I am teaching at Colorado Mountain College (where Christie is attending) as an adjunct professor. This semester I just taught one course in Music Appreciation. It was condensed to 1/2 term. I'll be administering the final this Tuesday. It was a ton of work to do this class, as I've never taught it before. Thank goodness I can reuse my PowerPoint presentations again. Next term I'll be teaching that class as well as Music History, History of Jazz and a non-credit Learn to Play Violin class. The school is state run and trying to qualify for a music building, so they are pushing more music classes. In addition to teaching college, I have 17 violin students; well, 16 violin students and 1 viola student. I have become the family wage earner for the time being and I am grateful to have the ability to make enough to keep the bills paid. I am also working towards getting a non-profit foundation started that will provide scholarships for private music lessons to underserved students. The school district here is lacking in a string program so I am doing my part to make up the deficit in that area. Right now I am contemplating a doctorate as the college will pay double salary for a PhD. Boston University offers a Doctorate of Musical Arts that I can do almost completely online, but the cost is $30,000 per year. I'm looking for fellowships and scholarships to pay that amount.

Well, that's the scoop on our family. To get more detail and pictures, see our blog.

This day in history...

I came across this today after talking with Shanda and Rachelle about their picture project. This is an entry from Grandma's diary, when she is expecting Teddie. I think it is interesting that the Doctor "told me I was doing fine and I would probably have a dozen kids", when this is her second. Would any doctor say that still today? Little did he know that she would fulfill that prophesy. I am so glad that Grandma kept a diary. I'm working on transcribing her journal from 1978-1987. When I get it completed, I'm thinking of posting it with googledocs, so that all of us can have a copy of it. She was so focused on missionary work and her children and grandchildren. It is interesting to read what her first impressions of my aunts and uncles future spouses were. (Just a plug from your future generations to keep a journal!)

Oct. 10, 1951

Weight 129 Waist 29”
Bust 37 ½ ” Hips 38”

Well it looks like a couple months have skipped me by. We went to Salt Lake during September and painted the folks’ new home. I have never worked so hard in my life and I never hope to work so hard again but I didn’t seem to have any ill effects.

I felt life September 18^th – a determined little struggling within me that gave me once more the thrilling satisfaction of motherhood. Since then I have felt movement every day and some of them have been pretty violent.

Ted teases me a little about my tummy (it’s beginning to protrude) but I know he is proud. At night he lays his hand on my stomach and squeezes me sleepily when he feels it kick.

A few times I have waked up at night with terrific cramps in my legs. The muscles were simply tied in knots and hard as rocks. Once I yelled extra loud and Ted jumped like he had been shot. He rubbed my legs until the hardness went away. Then he put the heating pad against them. Heat seems to be the only thing to relieve that awful pain so I never go to sleep anymore unless my trusty pad is within easy reach.

I have backaches occasionally when I overwork, but when I told this to the doctor he merely laughed and gave me his definition of a woman – “A female bi-ped with a backache.” I see what he means.

My latest visit to the doctor was on Sept. 25. He told me I was doing fine and I would probably have a dozen kids. He gave me some vitamins to take. It is a small wonder modern children are such pills considering the quantities of said product that present-day mothers have to swallow!

It looks like I am really expanding. There has been a two inch gain around my waist and a 3 ½ inch gain in my bust – Eek!

The Gosnell Family

I'll follow Monte's lead and post an update on the Gosnell Family.

Rachel is, of course, the center of my universe (just as she planned). She celebrated her first birthday September 22. She took her very first little steps two weeks before that. She still does most of her getting around on all fours, but she is starting to walk a little bit more. Some of her favorite past-times include pulling all of the books off the bookshelf, pulling all of the DVDs off the DVD shelf, pulling all of the papers off my desk, turning off the computer when I'm trying to do something on it, and climbing all over everything.

During Conference weekend Rachel did some experimentation with throwing some pretty impressive temper tantrums. Fortunately we have not had much of that since, for which I am very grateful.

Rachel's favorite movie is Baby Signing Time volume 1. She has made the signs for mama, daddy, eat, doggy, and all done, and made them at appropriate times. She doesn't do all the time, so I am not convinced that she completely knows what she's doing, but maybe she does.


Jeff is doing well at his job as a Quality Assurance Analyst at the software company QSR. He also plays basketball with the guys from our ward every Thursday. In addition to his favorite past time, playing computer games, he is also experimenting with building a cornhole set for our back yard. Cornhole is a game where you throw beanbags. It's pretty popular around here. Jeff recently got called as the Financial Secretary in our ward.


I am doing pretty well myself. I stay busy trying to keep up with Rachel. I am still teaching piano lessons, and I occasionally tune pianos too. I sing with a barbershop chorus called the Pride of Kentucky. We actually have a concert a week from tomorrow. We are raising money to compete in the International competition in 2009. We won our region this past year, which made us eligible to compete in the Internationals. I recently completed my first book. It is a book of baby songs, and I illustrated it with pictures of Rachel. It is too dang cute (if I do say so myself, which I do). I was recently called as the Relief Society pianist in our ward.


Rachel still doesn't have a calling.

Old idea, new implementation

Many years ago, we had a monthly family letter we took turns gathering information for and then sending out. It consisted of reports from each family member as to what was going on in their family. In many ways this blog is a streamlined version of that concept. I propose that we each include a monthly update (more often if you like) of what's going on in your life and in the lives of your family members (if they are not on the blog to speak for themselves).

OK, I'll start things off then--I'll start with Makela and move on up the ladder. Makela is our multi-talented child who loves to perform, dress up, dance, sing, color or whatever suits her fancy at that particular moment. She's definitely a free spirit with a mind of her own. For a while we had a difficult time getting her go to church. When we asked her why she didn't want to go she replied, "because they shush me when I'm talking about Dragon Tales!" When she does go to Primary, she can often be found laying on the floor coloring, or looking up at the ceiling tiles counting dots. She's smart and very articulate for her age, and apparently interested in pursuing a dream of being multi-lingual. Recently she asked to watch "Ariel's Beginning" (The Little Mermaid saga), but she wanted to watch it in French. Then after watching it all the way through in French, she asked if she could watch it again, this time in Spanish. Both times through it held her rapt attention.

Alex is still working at Gandolfos Deli, and while he doesn't exactly enjoy it there, he's still looking for an alternative. He and his band are amazing. While I don't share his love of the particular style of music his band chooses to play, I recognized good musicianship when I see it, and they've got it in spades. He still holds on to the dream of making a career out of playing music and earning enough money where that can be his only source of income.

Chantelle (Missy) is a name many of you haven't heard before and probably the same number have never met her. She is Suzanne's youngest child from her previous marriage. We all call her Missy, and you can too. Missy is 18 and living with us while trying to figure out what she wants to do when she grows up. She's very sociable, pleasant and easy-going. For the most part she's been very enjoyable to have around (although it's getting cramped in our home again).

Danielle is Suzanne's second youngest. She's expecting in late January (yup, I'll be a grandfather soon). As soon as she has the baby (she has to have it in California because of conditions the insurance company puts on paying out) she'll also come to live with us so Suzanne can help her with the baby. We've given Missy some incentive to move out by informing her that she'll be sharing her room with Danielle AND the newborn baby. Danielle's love is in the military so as soon as he gets back from Korea in March, they'll be moving to wherever they get stationed.

Jessica is going to UVU majoring in Digital Media with an emphasis in photography, which is amazing by the way. Here's a couple of pictures she took of Makela:




Jessica has been dating Nick--we're waiting for Nick to propose, but he's apparently a little slow on the uptake. It's not like Jessica's been subtle at all in her hints. I'll know he took a little bit too long when Jessica decides again that she's going on a mission. Jessica is in her third year in the LDC Institute Choir. She's got a beautiful voice that she inherited mostly from her mom.

JJ has been living in Las Vegas and LA doing web design for a clothing design company. Here's an example of his work. Now he's moving back up to Utah for a job change and because he and I will be working on an online company that he'll be the web designer for. He came up for a visit mid-September and I think he realized how much he actually missed his family. Hopefully he'll still feel that way after living with us again.

Charlene is Suzanne's middle child--number three of five from her previous marriage. Charlene lived with us for a while and is quite glad to be close enough to visit regularly while still having a sense of independence and not having to shovel snow this winter (at least not at our house anyways). She works for an online marketing company as a writer (she got her degree from BYU Idaho as an English major) and she recently started her Masters program also in English. I might add as a side note that Charlene and Jessica take turns doting on Makela. Makela gets invited over for sleep overs, movie nights, dinners, etc. and it's fun to watch them interact with her.

Suzanne is immersing herself in studying everything she can about health, nutrician, diet and herbal remedies. I think a part of her would like to bring in an income with everything she's learned so far and continues to learn. I wouldn't doubt if she's able to parlay that into her next money-making venture. Unfortunately I get to be her guinea pig for the time being. She still enjoys decorating and one or another areas in our home seem to always be in some kind of decorating flux. And speaking of that decorating flux...

I just put in a hardwood floor in the kitchen, family room and entryway, and in early November I'll be putting in tile flooring in the back hall, bathroom and laundry room. I can tell when Suzanne wants me to do some kind of home project--she buys me another power tool to help accomplish the task. I will admit the new floor looks amazing!

I'm still selling airplanes, but with the recent downturn in the economy I dusted off my insurance license and will begin selling pre-planned funerals in a couple of weeks. It's not quite like it sounds. It's an insurance policy that pays for the casket and mortuary services when you pass on. It cost about $4,500 for everything the Mortuary did for Louisa's funeral. Instead of leaving it up to the bereaved relatives to choose a casket, try to guess what you want regarding a viewing, funeral, etc. and then pay for it to boot during what is already a very difficult time, the deceased has already made all of those decisions and the insurance policy pays for the funeral.

I'm also FINALLY finishing up my degree by taking my last class--math (ugh!) A word to all my kids, and nieces and nephews: in the course of your college career, get your math classes out of the way as early as you can and don't put it off to the very end like I have. Otherwise it makes graduating from college very difficult! But in the mean time, I'm not enjoying this month at all as it has become math immersion month for me. Not much else to report at this time. Other than math, life is good!

I'm loving this interaction

Thank you all for making your contributions to this blog. Rachelle, stop writing things that make me cry!

Family picture project

As Rachelle has already posted, she and I are working on a project to complile all the Bateman family pictures together. What we want to do is get them all scanned onto a computer, sort them by year taken, and then distribute them out to all interested parties.

We were working on it yesterday, and came across this picture:



Cute, right? When was it taken? We know who is in it, we just aren't sure what year Monte was born.

We also came across this one:



Fine, we know who is in it and when it was taken, because it was very nicely labeled. I just love the picture of my grandma looking like she is trying to catch flies! She was 12 in this picture, by the way.

Now there is this one:



Again, we know who is in it and when it was taken. Rachelle and I really enjoyed looking at her parents/my grandparents being playful and having fun.

We had a great time yesterday scanning pictures. What is fun about it? Well looking at all the pictures is a big one! Also spending time with Rachelle is a bonus, but that is a post for another day.

Please, please, please send us your pictures! We don't want/need originals. If you have scanned them and want to send us a CD or DVD that would be perfect. Remember, we are doing this project for all the Batemans, so if you want more pictures than just Rachelle's and Faline's, please send us your pictures!