Thankful Thursday: Water

This morning as I was climbing into the shower, it struck me just how thankful I am for running water in my house--and hot water at that (I am a total cold water wimp. I take very hot showers, even in the summer. Blame it on my Arizona blood)! I mean, what a luxury it is to have hot water at my fingertips whenever I want it and yet so often I take that luxury for granted.

So far today, I have used water not just to shower but also to run my dishwasher, to wash two batches of laundry (the third is being washed right now), and to wash (and entertain) a dirty toddler.

Oh, and then there's all those times I've washed my hands and I'm sure the toilet has been flushed more than once....

I have not had to walk down to the river and lug a single bucket of water up to my house in order to do all these things, thanks to indoor plumbing! How blessed I am compared to so many people in the world.

Well, now I need to give the dog a bath. He is sporting a bright orange spot on his otherwise snowy coat, thanks to the half-melted marshmallow from Seth's lucky charms that got stuck in his fur.

I am so thankful for hot, running water!

What modern conveniences are you thankful for?

Maryland News April 25 '09

We were just figuring out a few days ago that there are less than 60 days until school gets out. How did that happen?! I am starting to get excited about the idea of summer vacation, though.

The painting continued this week as Frank finished up the living room and stairwells. Our neighbor helped, too. He refused to let us pay him earlier in the week, but he finally agreed on condition that we let him paint our front door and shutters sometime also. I don’t know why he was being so stubborn about it—we only paid him for one day’s work and he has easily put in 2-3 days worth. I’m just glad he finally let us give him something; I was feeling so guilty! Frank will continue to do computer work for him also, so at least we are helping him in some way. He is a good guy and has been a really great neighbor all these years. (Actually, almost all of our neighbors here have been great—we feel very fortunate about that!) Things are starting to look more “put together” around here although there is still some work to do before we are done with this project.

We’ve had some nice sunshine as well as some rain this week. On Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons we had little waves of thunderstorms roll in. It would storm, then clear up, then storm again! Snickers didn’t know what to make of the thunder—he barked every time the thunder rumbled! Since he was born in November, I don’t think he’d ever heard thunder before.
I had Primary presidency meeting on Sunday, so it wasn’t a very relaxing day, but I always enjoy our meetings and the visits we do afterwards.

I had book chat on Tuesday, where we discussed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Everybody loved it as much as I did. If you haven’t read it, you should! That night after the kids were in bed, Frank colored my hair for me—and he did a great job! How many husbands do you think would be willing to do that for their wives? I was going to do it myself with help from him, but he just did it all for me. He had some computer stuff to do that night also, so we got to bed pretty late.

I didn’t sleep well that night, so I got a late start on Wednesday. Frank helped by taking the boys to school. I had some shopping to do and then I was supposed to go to sewing but by the time I got home from the store it was nearly noon and Seth was losing it, so I put him down for a nap. Frank was working from home that day, so I was able to go to “sewing” after I got Seth down, but they were done with their projects for the day by then and we were all hungry, so we just went to lunch instead. After school was crazy that day—Frank and our neighbor Tony were painting, I had to help Jared plant nine bean seeds for his science fair project, and I was trying to get dinner ready and get everybody out the door on time for scouts. Jared was also supposed to arrive at scouts dressed and packed for an overnight camp out (he wasn’t actually going camping, he was just supposed to show he knew what to bring—passed off a requirement for one of the activity badges) so I had to help him get that ready. We managed to get there right on time, somehow. I took Seth with me because Frank was painting. The scout master was interviewing the boys to find out what merit badges they have completed and what things they still need to do, so I stayed to let him know where Scott and Tanner are at with that. By the time we got done, it was close enough to 8:00 that I just stayed until then so I could bring Tanner and Jared home. Scott had a meeting, so I had to go back and get him later.

Since Frank and Tony were painting some more on Thursday evening, I took Seth with me to Jared’s soccer practice. Scott wanted to come also, and at the last minute I decided to take Snickers with us too. I didn’t see much of the practice—I was too busy chasing Seth around (he refused to sit in the stroller; he wanted to push it around instead) and walking Snickers. Scott helped a lot; he took turns with me alternately watching Seth or walking Snickers. It was a nice day, though, and it was good to get outside and get some fresh air and exercise. I think all of us were completely wiped out by the time we got home, though!

Seth came unglued right after we got home and then when we put him to bed he cried a lot and it took him nearly an hour to go to sleep which is definitely not usual for him. (He has been crying at night a lot lately, though—we’re not sure what’s going on with him.) Unfortunately, that was just the beginning of the trouble we had with him that night. It turned out to be one of those nights where you just lose track of how much you were up, you just know you were awake more than asleep! Seth just kept waking up and no matter how many times we got him back to sleep and back in his crib, he was awake and crying again within 15-20 minutes. By Friday morning he had a runny nose and by Friday evening he felt warm, so it was obvious that he wasn’t feeling very well.

Thursday was our 17th Anniversary, by the way. We had decided to celebrate by going to the temple on Friday afternoon and then to dinner on Saturday evening. (Frank took Friday off.) That was the plan, anyway! Seth messed up our plans. Even after our lack of sleep Thursday night, we were still hopeful that we would make it to the temple that day if we could take a nap while Seth was napping early Friday afternoon. Seth was only asleep for a few minutes, however, when he woke up again, crying. It was pretty much a repeat of the night before. So neither of us got a nap, and we were afraid to leave Seth for that long (and to go that far away) when he was not feeling his best. We had to give up on the idea of going to the temple (bummer!) but we did get to go out to dinner instead. It was nice to get away by ourselves, even if it was just for an hour or so.

Here's a few reminiscent photos from our big day!:

Don't we look cute? Young? Happy? All of the above?

On Friday morning we also did some shopping and finally decided to get a rocking chair and another comfortable chair that we found—those two chairs together cost less than any of the other love seats or “chair and a halfs” that we had looked at. We got to bring the rocking chair home with us, but the cushion we wanted for the other chair was not in stock, so we have to wait two weeks for it to come in.

I got a haircut on Friday also. The lady cut it shorter than I expected, but it looks ok. I like it better than I did before it was cut. Speaking of grooming, Snickers finally got a bath Friday evening (we had to wait 2 weeks after his surgery before we could bathe him) and he looks and smells much better! Except for his eyes...he gets dark “goop” (discharge from his eyes) stuck in the fur under his eyes (normal for his breed) but he will not let us come near his eyes. He tries to bite us every time we try to clean around his eyes. It is annoying!

Seth didn’t sleep well Friday night either, although it was better than Thursday night. He woke up a couple of times, though, arching his back and screaming…in obvious pain. He still woke up early this morning (6:00), and he kept telling me his nose hurt. Jared had a soccer game at 11:00, so I took Jared to his game (Snickers came, too) and Frank took Seth to the doctor. We found out he just has an upper respiratory virus which is good in that it’s nothing serious and bad in that there’s nothing they can do to help him feel better. We will just have to ride it out. Hopefully Frank and I won’t collapse from lack of sleep before then!

Jared’s game went well—his team won 4-3. Jared played offense the first half (almost made a goal, but he kicked it too high and it went over the net!) and defense the second half. He played goalie part of that time and made some good saves.

The rest of the day has been busy with homework and scout stuff. Frank finished painting the baseboards, which was the last painting that needed to be done—hooray! (Well, on this project….) Scott is at a party for his friend Ricardo, which I guess is going to go until midnight but we are making him come home at 10:00—aren’t we mean? Frank and I were supposed to go to a game night with some other couples in our ward but the host family had to cancel because of illness. That is probably just as well considering how Seth is feeling. We invited our friends the Becks to come here instead. I don’t think it’s going to be a late night, though. Frank and I are both exhausted and I’m starting to get a headache and slight sore throat. I just hope I’m not coming down with Seth’s illness.

Scott isn’t doing too well in one of his classes right now—he missed a test when he got his wisdom teeth pulled and then he forgot to stay after school to make up the test, so now his teacher won’t let him make it up. Tests are 50% of his grade—ouch! Hopefully he will be able to bring that grade up by the end of the year. He did find out, however, that he did really well on another test called the HSA. He has to take four of these tests at the end of certain courses during high school and pass them in order to graduate. He took the test for his Government class at the end of term 2. On his last report card it had his score with a P next to it, meaning he passed, which was good news. The score was a little meaningless to me, though, since I couldn’t remember what he had to get to pass. He talked to his guidance counselor this week, though, and she told him that in all the years she has been at his school (about 15 years), she has never seen a higher score on that test from any of her kids (she works with the kids with last names starting with A-L)! After he told me that, I looked it up. He had to get at least a 394 to pass. He got 460. We are happy he did so well, of course! Hopefully the other 3 tests will go just as well when he has to take them. Report cards came home last week and everybody did pretty well. Tanner managed to pull his three failing grades up to two B’s and a C—not too bad! (He got an A in his fourth class--even better!)

Frank started his exercise program again this week. (He was doing great last fall, but then the holidays came….) He hasn’t been able to exercise every day like he wanted to do—it’s just been a busy week and lack of sleep doesn’t exactly make you want to exercise—but it’s a start. He’s been very good about not snacking and eating smaller portions. Go Frank!

I'll finish off this week with photos of the boys enjoying the new furniture.

Scott and Tanner lounge on the couch--notice no one is sitting in the middle! The outside reclining seats are definitely the most popular.

Jared in the new rocking chair.

Seth gets a turn in the rocking chair.

Black Licorice

I love black licorice!

My husband hates black licorice. He says it's like eating a tire. He hates it so much that if I've been eating black licorice, he refuses to kiss me until I've brushed my teeth.

Now, to be honest, I can sort of understand why a lot of people don't like black licorice. I can see that it might be considered an "acquired taste". It's not the kind of flavor that would appeal to just about everybody, but personally, I love it.

I come by that love honestly--both of my parents love black licorice, too. I have very fond memories of our annual road trips to Arizona (to visit the grandparents) where a bag of black licorice was always in the treat stash. We would sit in the back of the station wagon chewing on black licorice, or sometimes sucking on a piece until it started to fall apart, just to make it last longer. (The end result was tongues, lips and teeth that were an alarming shade of blue / black, but as I kid I really didn't care about that!) I say "we" because all of my siblings love black licorice, too. (Or at least I think they do...correct me if I'm wrong, siblings! I know at least some of you love it becasue I remember fighting over who got the 2 or 3 black jelly beans in the bag at Easter.)

I still remember the first time I tried red licorice. I was extremely disappointed! It didn't have any flavor at all, as far as I was concerned. (I have since developed a taste for cherry flavored Twizzlers. But I still prefer black! The last time I was in Utah, I said something about having some licorice and my mom said "What kind?" "The only kind" I replied, "black, of course." My mom's response was "That's my daughter!")

My boys take after their dad. They think black licorice is nasty.

Every year I get a bag of black jelly beans for Easter, and I get it all to myself! (Somewhere along the line, some brilliant person decided to sell bags of just black jelly beans. We really could've used that when I was a kid!) Well, a few days ago I was in a quiet corner enjoying my black jelly bean stash, and Seth caught me in the act. He wanted some candy, too, of course! "Oh you won't like this kind of candy, honey" I said. But I knew it would be easier for him to accept this statement if I just let him try. So I gave him a small piece of jelly bean, and prepared to catch it when he spit it back out.

He didn't. He smiled. He swallowed it. Incredulous, I gave him another--a whole one this time. He ate that one, too!

Hey, Mom & Dad--he's one of us!!!

(But now I have to share...)

Weekly Review April 18 '09

I think I’ve gained about 5 pounds this week—the Easter bunny brought way too much candy! Why does that Easter bunny always do that? Well, I have an “in” with the Easter bunny, and I can tell you that the main reason why is that “he” is always dazzled by the dizzying variety of treats available in the stores. Plus “he” knows that every person in the family has a different favorite kind of candy and “he” wants everybody to be happy. Most of the junk is gone now, thank goodness! Frank was so nice—I never get a chocolate bunny (don’t like the chocolate they are made of) so he slipped a package of Dove chocolate eggs into my basket instead—yum!

We watched the movie “Finding Faith in Christ” for family night lesson Sunday evening; Scott picked it out. After the movie was over, Scott told us that the thing he liked the most about the movie was how everywhere he went, Jesus was stopping to help people. Other people would walk right by, but Jesus would always notice, stop, and help. Scott got pretty emotional—I can tell it really touched him. I’ve always liked that about that movie also; I’m glad Scott is noticing things like that! We talked a little bit about how we can try to be more that way ourselves, and help other people more.

It seems that spring has finally got a foothold around here the last couple of days, after it was cold and rainy for most of Monday and all of Tuesday and Wednesday. As I mentioned in a previous post, we put our couches out on the curb Monday evening to be collected in the bulk trash pick up—they sat out there getting soaking wet until the city finally picked them up Thursday morning. I notice no one came along and picked them up before then, so in this case, our trash was no one’s treasure. No surprise to me. Jared said it was kind of sad to see them go, but I disagreed. I was very HAPPY to see them go!

On the painting front, Frank did a lot of painting on Monday. He finished the primer on the downstairs stairwell and did the first coat on most of the trim. Our neighbor came to help him again for a while that evening. He mentioned that he did not have work to do on Thursday of this week, and so Frank talked him into letting us pay him to come paint for us that day. He charges a daily rate which is fairly reasonable, and since he has already helped us so much we feel like we should pay him for at least some of the time he has put in (he insists that he should do it for free because Frank has helped him with his computer over the years). So on Thursday he was here all day painting, and he made a lot of progress. He finished the second coat of paint (primer was the first coat) on the upstairs stairwell and in the living room (except for one small spot) and finished the trim. He painted four doors, also, and he even painted the baseboards in our little powder room. All he left for Frank to finish is a couple of doors, a second coat on some of the trim, and the downstairs stairwell. I admit I miss my “sunny yellow”, but the new paint is looking very nice and I’m excited to see how everything looks after we get the painting done, the pictures back on the walls, the new furniture in, and the rest of the furniture moved back where it goes. The stairwells have not been painted since we moved in (9 years) so you can imagine how grimy they were looking, with all the little hands going up and down those walls! (I did attempt to clean them occasionally, but the original paint was that cheap flat paint that doesn’t really clean.)

Friday evening and this morning Frank shampooed the living room carpet. I am pleased with how much better it looks! I can still see some places where stains didn’t come all the way out, but they are much lighter than before. We’ll have to do the rest of the house soon! (One project at a time, though!)

Seth, Snickers and I took walks on Thursday and Friday mornings. It was nice to get out in the sunshine and warmth! On our Thursday walk, we stopped at the little tot lot in our neighborhood—Seth enjoyed that a lot. Friday after school, Tanner mowed the lawn and I did some weeding, so our lawn doesn’t look like an overgrown jungle anymore. There is some kind of weed with purple flowers that has taken over our lawn this spring. I’ve never seen it before, so I’m wondering where it came from. It seems like we get more weeds and less grass every year!

That brown you can see just above the grass is the river.

Jared had soccer practice Thursday evening. Frank was late getting home that day because of a computer virus that hit right before he was planning to come home. For some reason, I had in my mind that Jared’s practice was at 7:00. At about 10 minutes to 6:00, Frank called and told me that his practice was at 6:00, not 7:00! I had to drop everything (dinner preparations) and get him over there—we were late, but only a little. Frank got stuck making dinner when he got home. If I had been thinking about it, I would have realized that 7:00-8:00 is too late for a practice because it gets dark before 8:00, but I wasn’t really thinking, obviously! The practice went well. They did a scrimmage with another team and Jared’s team won. Jared kicked one goal and assisted with another.

Scott and Tanner had a camp out Friday evening. It was a district “Camporee” and they were gone all day today as well. They came home dirty and tired, but they seemed to have a good time. They did a bunch of orienteering activities, and, according to Scott, have now completed almost all of the requirements for the Orienteering Merit Badge.

Tanner’s class did their science fair this week. He got 100 out of 100 on his project; hooray! Over the break I checked his grade and it said he got 75 out of 100. I was disappointed, because I thought he had done better than that. Well, he did—he just forgot to turn in the journal part of his project! After he turned that in he got 100%. That’s the kind of thing he does that makes me want to get him tested. How could he remember to turn in his display board, but forget the journal? Meanwhile, Jared has started his project. He is going to do a plant related project. (Last year Jared did a chocolate related project and Tanner did a plant related project. This year they have switched!) He is going to have 3 groups of plants and expose two of the groups to two different kinds of music and the third group won’t get any music. He’s going to see which group grows the best.

Seth has asked to “go potty” a few times, so we’ve tried it and been successful once or twice. When he does that, I give him a treat. He knows that Snickers gets a puppy treat when he uses the puppy pad, so when Seth uses the potty he gets a “Seth treat”. I usually give him a few jelly beans or a few M&Ms—there have been a lot of those in the house this week! Seth saw me take them out of the big bowl of Easter candy. The next morning he pointed up at the big bowl and said “Seth treat?” to let me know he wanted some candy. He is repeating practically everything I say. I sing Primary songs to him at night before bed; one night when I finished a song, he said “the scriptures are true.”

This is one of those pictures that he is going to hate when he grows up--definite blackmail material, hee hee!

Snickers has been healing well from his surgery last week. He is back to being his usual spunky self. The incision is barely visible now. He is still supposed to avoid running or jumping for another week, but that has been hard to do. When I take him on walks, he wants to run! I have to keep a firm hold on the leash, and we’ve managed to keep it down to a fast walk.

This morning Jared had his first soccer game of the season. His team won, 5-1. It was a good game—his team is working together a lot better already than I ever saw them do last season. It really makes a difference! There are about 6 kids (half the team) who are the same as last season, but the rest are different. There are a lot of good players on the team. They would have scored about 4 more times except the goalie on the other team was really good and made a number of amazing saves. Jared played offense the first half of the game and defense the second half. He prefers defense, but he did well on both. He is the oldest kid on the team now (because of his late in the year birthday) and he really towers over some of the other kids; it is funny! I took Seth with me to the game so that Frank could finish shampooing the carpet. Seth did really well—I just left him buckled in his stroller, so I didn’t have to chase after him, and he seemed to enjoy watching the game. I brought a couple of snacks with me, and when he got restless a few times I offered him a snack. That helped a lot!

The weather was absolutely perfect today, by the way. Warm, sunny…beautiful!! After I got back from the game I went over to the church to help with an open house we were having at our building today. I was only there for about an hour. Frank got Seth down for a nap while I was gone. While he was sleeping, we went to a couple of furniture stores to do more looking for a love seat / large chair. We found a couple of possibilities, but nothing we got really excited about, and certainly nothing at a price that we thought was really great, so we are keeping the things we saw in mind, but we are going to keep looking.

We did, however, go pick up our couch this evening so we have something to sit on again—nice! The couch is dark brown leather and the two end seats recline. It is certainly very comfortable, and even though I am not wild about the way it looks, I think I am going to like it better than I thought I would. It is definitely a huge improvement over what we had before, and I am thankful for that!

I think we are in for more rain this week, but at least we didn’t get 3 feet of snow like they did in Denver! I am glad I am here and not there. Here are some of the tulips that bloomed in my yard this week.:

I'll end with a couple of cute photos of Seth. Here he is in Scott's shoes (he put them on himself):

And here he is in one of Scott's hats:

Isn't he cute?

Thankful Thursday: Paint, Furniture...

I am thankful for a couple of things today.

First of all, I'm thankful that my house is getting painted, and that it's almost done.

(The light tan color doesn't show up in photos very well.)

Second, I'm thankful for yummy things like strawberry shortcake (we had some on Sunday).

This is the way my mom always made it, with biscuit-like shortcakes. I like these much better than those rubbery cake cup things you can buy at the store!

Third, I'm thankful it's sunny today after 2 1/2 days of steady rain.

(The blossoms on the apple tree in my yard looked nice with raindrops on them, though.)

Last of all, this week I have really come to appreciate a standard item in most American living rooms: the couch! We put ours out to be collected in our city's semi-annual bulk trash pick up on Monday evening. We aren't bringing in the new couch until we are done painting and are able to shampoo the carpet. So we've been sitting on the floor all week. Now, I know in many cultures sitting on the floor is the norm. But let me tell you--my body (especially my back) does not take well to sitting on the floor! Even now, my feet are falling asleep while I crouch on the floor next to my coffee table typing this post. I have gained a new and deep appreciation for the couch!

(The boys are lying on the floor instead of sitting. Yes, it's a mess from all the painting stuff.)

There are so many things to be thankful for...these are just a few I'm thankful for today.

Weekly Reveiw April 12 '09

We are already a third of the way through April—wow! Mom says that their lovely spring weather has “gone missing” for the past few weeks. It’s been the same way here. Really, we’ve only had a few nice days so far this spring. Winter seems to be hanging on tenaciously. I’m sure winter is going to have to give up soon, though! The last few days around here have been fairly pleasant—at least during the day time.

We enjoyed a nice, restful Sunday (for once!). General Conference was great! As many others have said, it’s always kind of sad to see it end. Of the talks that I heard, I would have to say Elder Holland’s was my favorite. (His talks are usually my favorites—for some reason, he just really speaks to me!) So many of the talks were good, though. I’m looking forward to listening to them again and / or reading them all.

Monday morning started early for all of us. This is what our street looked like at 6:00 am.:

This is later, when it was a little lighter outside:

Most of us were already up anyway—Scott had just gotten out of the shower, I was awake because Scott woke me up to tell me he wasn’t feeling very well (his mouth was hurting and he was feeling nauseated), and Seth had just woken up so Frank was in his room with him. Jared woke up about 15 minutes later, but Tanner slept through the whole thing. I think we counted 7-8 fire trucks (two of the ones with the huge ladders), 2 ambulances, about 3-4 police cars, and 6-7 other fire vehicles. They had our whole street pretty much blocked off within minutes! We didn’t see any smoke or flames, but later we found out there really was a fire in one of the nearby town homes. Frank gave up on getting Seth back to sleep—I found them at the window with Seth saying “Fire truck! Fire truck!” over and over.

They did get the fire out pretty quickly, and although we could see some damage later in the day when we drove by, it didn’t look too bad.

I decided to let Scott stay home from Seminary and school until I could get him in to the oral surgeon. (He couldn’t have gone to Seminary anyway—no cars could get up or down our street!) I took him in to get checked later that morning. He didn’t have an infection, so we’re not sure why he was experiencing so much pain. His mouth was actually feeling a little better by then, but he said he still felt nauseated, and he looked so exhausted that I let him stay home from school. He took a long nap that afternoon. I took about an hour nap also, while Seth was napping.

Scott was able to return to school on Tuesday, which was good since that was the last day of school before spring break. He was able to check in with all his teachers to find out what he missed while he was gone, and he brought home make up work to do over the break. I got brave and did some clothes shopping with Seth in tow, but I probably won’t do that again for a long time! He figured out how to crawl under the dressing room door, so you can imagine how much fun that was for me. I was hoping to find left over winter clothes on the clearance racks so that I could replace some of my old ratty long-sleeved shirts, but I didn’t find anything (I meant to go about 6 weeks ago—it’s probably too late now.) I did end up bringing home a couple of blouses and a short sleeve shirt, though.

The boys were in a party mood when they got home from school, of course! (The fact that there were actually snowflakes drifting down from the sky didn’t phase them a bit in their excitement for “spring” break!) Tanner was invited to spend the night with his friend Ryan; two other boys from the ward were also invited. Scott went to a party for his Seminary class.

Wednesday afternoon, the “party” transferred to our house—Ryan, Brian, Anton, and Bryson (Jared’s friend) all came over. They played outside for a while—it was a little chilly but sunny at least—and then came inside to play games and watch a movie. While they were outside, they all decided to go wading in the river, with their shoes on! I don’t know what possessed them. They know they aren’t supposed to go in the river, and why they didn’t at least take their shoes off is beyond me. Everyone came home with soaking wet muddy shoes (and socks, and pantlegs…) Scott managed to lose one of his socks, also. I had to document on film that I was the lone female in the house with 10 male living things!:

Jared, Ryan & Bryson

Tanner, Brian, Anton, Scott & Seth

Scott & Seth

Frank

Even the dog is male!

Speaking of lost things, Tanner lost one of his contact lenses Tuesday night at Ryan’s house. He thought he had put it in his case, but it must have stuck to his finger or something because the next morning it wasn’t there. At least it was just the trial pair he got for free at his exam. We haven’t picked up any more for him yet, though, so he is wearing his new glasses for now. My new glasses came in this week also. The new prescription is going to take some getting used to, but I think they look a lot better. I don’t wear glasses much, but when I do need to wear them, it will be nice to have these new ones (my old ones were nearly 9 years old!)

After all the kids went home on Wednesday (Bryson stayed—he was going to spend the night, but he changed his mind later and went home. His mom says he does this a lot.), Frank and I took Seth with us and went to buy paint. Yes, we are painting again! The couch we are going to purchase is dark brown leather. Our living room walls are a sunny yellow. I don’t like the idea of dark brown and sunny yellow together! I warned Frank if we bought the couch, we’d have to paint, but he said that was ok. So we picked out a light tan color. Frank did some patching and furniture moving on Thursday evening, and started putting on primer late Friday. Our neighbor, who is a professional painter, came over to help him (Frank has done some computer work for our neighbor so he insists that he “owes” Frank. In any case, we are happy to have his help.) They got a coat of primer on the stairwell and upstairs hallway that night. They worked pretty much all day on Saturday, and got the primer done, except for a little bit on the downstairs stairwell because we ran out of primer. They did some of the trim also. Hopefully they will be able to finish the trim and get the paint on tomorrow. In the meantime, things are kind of chaotic around here. Hopefully it will be worth it when it’s done, though!

Frank patching walls

Scott eating amid kitchen chaos (lots of living room stuff moved into the kitchen.)

Seth doing the same.

Ditto for Tanner (not enough room at the table for him!)

Seth "painting"

Meanwhile, back to Wednesday—Scott and Tanner had a service project that evening. They went to help with yardwork for another family in our ward—the husband is about to have back surgery, so he can’t do a lot of things for himself.

Thursday I was going all day long. Scott had an early appointment with the oral surgeon—I forgot when I made the appointment that he would be out of school, so I made it for 7:45. He is healing well and doesn’t need to go back. We stopped at the grocery store on our way home. When we got back, I started the laundry, vacuumed, helped all the boys with homework and with scout stuff, took the 3 youngest boys to get haircuts, and got Seth down for a nap. Then I took Jared to play with his friend Bryson and to do some other errands. I went to the fabric store first to get some supplies to make a quiet book for Seth. (It remains to be seen if I will actually finish the quiet book before he gets too old for that sort of thing!) After that I went to pick up a honeybaked ham for our Easter dinner—Frank received a large gift card from a client at Christmas time, so we decided to use it for Easter. Then I was going to go to the library, but thankfully Frank called me then and said “you’re on your way to the doctor now, aren’t you?” Yikes—I’d completely forgotten that Tanner had a doctor appointment that afternoon! I rushed home, picked Tanner up, and made it to the doctor only about 5 minutes late.

Seth with shorter hair

The doctor visit was for two reasons—I needed to get a form filled out by his doctor for scout camp, and I also wanted to start the process of seeing if we can get him tested for ADD or whatever it is that is contributing to his difficulties in school. The doctor listened very sympathetically to my frustrations and sent us home with questionnaires for Frank and I to fill out, as well as questionnaires for each of his teachers to fill out. After we get all of those back to them, they will look them over and hopefully have a better idea of what the problem might be. She said he may have some ADD (she agreed with me that he is definitely not ADHD) or he may even have some anxiety issues. Obviously, it is not “cut and dry” and making a diagnosis is tricky. She asked him some questions about sleeping, and it occurred to me that perhaps his difficulties getting up in the morning could be caused by the same problem that makes it so hard for him to focus. I’d never really thought about that before; I just assumed he was a “night person”. Wouldn’t it be great if we could solve that problem, too? Well, I shouldn’t get my hopes up too much, I guess! It’s just that I’ve been dreading getting him up for Seminary in a couple of years….

After the doctor visit, we stopped at the library. I finished reading both the books I was reading last week, so I returned them and got the sequel to First Light. I loved First Light, by the way. I was just blubbering by the end…but in a good way. There are at least 8 books in this series…could they all be that good? I hope so! After we got home, I made dinner. Then I finally sat down!!! What a day. Frank’s day was similar—he was running from one client to another all day, and then, as I mentioned, he came home and patched walls. Our bishop also brought over his computer that evening—he’d asked Frank to do some work on it, which Frank did Friday morning, along with working on another computer for a client.

I spent Friday trying to keep Seth out of paint stuff. It wasn’t as bad as I anticipated, though. Snickers got neutered that day—we had to drop him off between 7:30 and 8:00 am. He wasn’t supposed to have anything to eat after midnight, but we forgot to tell the boys. Scott got up before we did, let Snickers out of the crate, and gave him a treat when he went “potty”, which is what we usually do. We were worried we’d have to reschedule his surgery, but the vet said one small treat was ok. They called us around noon to say that the surgery was done and went well. Even better—one complication that they had anticipated didn’t happen, which means the surgery was less intrusive than they thought it was going to be and that also meant it cost about $200 less than they had estimated. Good for Snickers (easier recovery) and good for us (easier on the pocketbook)! They wanted to observe Snickers and give him time to wake up, so they asked us to pick him up around 3:00. I took Jared with me to do that. They said he had been resting very well and hadn’t even cried at all. Well, he did whimper a bit when he saw us, but they laughed and said “He’s doing that because you’re here!” He whimpered softly quite a bit on the way home, so I was glad Jared was in the back seat with him to reassure him. Snickers was quite groggy the first hour or two after he got home. I felt so bad for him that I held him on my lap and petted him a lot of that time. After a few hours he woke up quite a bit more and by late evening even got pretty frisky. He is not supposed to run or jump for 10-14 days—it was hard to keep him from running around and jumping on and off the furniture! It’s going to be a long couple of weeks, but we’ll do our best to keep him calm and quiet.

Seth has been an early riser this week—he seems to be getting up around 6:00 or even a little earlier most mornings. Not so fun for us! He has also been waking up in the night once or twice almost every night. We’re feeling sleep deprived. He goes in cycles, though, so we are just waiting for him to get back into a good sleep cycle! He is saying phrases like “drink of milk”. Or “Mommy, sit” (he pats the seat next to him when he says that…very cute!) He has also learned to say “please”. If you have something he wants (like a cookie, for example), he will make “come here” motions with his hand and say “please, please.” How are we supposed to resist that?!

I hope everyone is having a nice Easter today. It is sunny here, at least, although it was cold enough this morning that I wore my coat. It looks like spring out there, it just doesn’t feel like it!

I got to church early for choir practice—we sang “Beautiful Savior” today. Now we are home from church and relaxing. We don’t have any meetings or anything, which is nice. I think the boys have eaten nothing but candy all day. I guess one day of it won’t kill them! I just hope they are remembering the true meaning of Easter with their mouths full of chocolate! Here's our eggs that we dyed yesterday in the middle of painting chaos:

I had to move Seth's chair into the middle of the floor, away from the table to keep him from knocking over the dye or cracking the eggs:

He wasn't very happy about it!:

Here is Seth, playing with Snickers this afternoon (Snickers was under the couch.)

Snickers kept poking his head out, and Seth was laughing like crazy! It was very cute. Now Seth is napping and we are all thinking about dinner, so I will get this posted and go get dinner ready.

Happy Easter!

The Spirit: A Language All Can Understand

Several years ago, a couple in our ward sang a song for us in Sacrament Meeting. The husband's native tongue is French, so they chose to sing a hymn for us which is in the French hymnbook, but not in our English hymnbook. The hymn is called "Souviens-toi". I hear it's a favorite hymn among the French saints, and I can understand why.

The couple who sang the hymn for us are quite talented, musically, and they sang this hymn so beautifully for us. I remember being deeply touched by their song, even though I couldn't understand the words. As I listened to them sing, I felt the spirit strongly. The impressions that came to my mind and heart as they sang were feelings of a loving Heavenly Father--that I was with Him once, and that He wanted me to be with Him again. I remember thinking that I would like to know the words of the hymn, although at the same time I felt that not knowing the words had not hindered my enjoyment of the musical number at all.

Apparently, many others in the congregation were touched by this song as well and asked the meaning of the words because a few weeks later the sister who had sung the hymn handed out an English translation of two of the verses of the hymn. She said that she and her husband had done the translation themselves, so it was not exact, but we could get the idea of the meaning of the words. Imagine my delighted surprise when I read their translation:

"Remember, my child, your parents divine
Holding you in their arms, not so long ago?
But today, you are here, as a precious gift
And your eyes still reflect light from heav'n above.
Speak to me, my child, of that blessed place.
Can you see through the veil of forgetfulness?

(2nd verse not translated)

Remember, my child, at the dawn of time--
Even then, we were friends, playing in the wind.
Then, one day, joyously, you and I did choose
To accept our Lord's plan of happiness.
Remember, my child, the promise we made:
That by love, and by faith, we would meet again."

(translation by Eric Vallee & Valerie Wynn)

I knew when I read these words that the spirit had spoken to my spirit in a language that can be understood by all, but only with the heart. The message of the song had come through loud and clear, even though I didn't understand the foreign words.

The language of the spirit--it's a language I hope to keep learning as long as I live!