Weekly Review October 24 '09

I'll start out with some pretty fall pictures this week:

Of course, the photos don't really do justice to how beautiful it is right now, but I had to try. The hillsides are just covered with trees of all different colors. Wherever I go, I have a hard time keeping my eyes on the road!

This week wasn’t quite as crazy as last week, thank goodness! It was still busy, though. My second counselor (Tammy) told me that her husband thinks we (the Primary Presidency) broke the record for the number of e-mails sent in one week! Well, probably not—but there were a whole ton of e-mails going back and forth as we have thought of last minute things for the program and as we’ve been gearing up for the next event, which is the Halloween Activity—it’s going to be on Wednesday, just 3 days after the program. It’s no wonder we are busy! I will be very glad when both of those events are over. Of course, then I have to start planning the Priesthood Preview….

Frank was very tired on Sunday and he had sore legs for days from all the time he spent on his feet cooking for the wedding reception and for the youth activity. I think both events were great successes, though. I think Scott had fun at the barn dance. They had a pumpkin carving contest, and he and a friend won 3rd place (out of about 20 entries); not bad! They pulled a bunch of the stringy stuff and seeds through the jack ‘o lantern’s mouth to make it look like it was throwing up—nice, huh?! What else can you expect from teen age boys?

Our second practice for the program went pretty well and we got through the whole thing this time. It’s going to be long, but hopefully no one will mind too much. They gave the Sunday School teachers warning that they’d have a shorter class time, at least. And actually, I don’t think we’re going to go over any more than the high council speaker did on Sunday! (Which meant we had less time to practice…)

Seth is starting to give up naps, apparently. The only day he got a good nap was Thursday. (Well, actually, he’s napping right now, so hopefully today will be a good nap day also.) Monday through Wednesday I got him to sleep each day, but he woke up when I put him down (which he never does!) That was frustrating, especially since I had so much to do. He picked a bad week to give up naps! He took a good nap on Thursday, though, and on Friday he got a nap—but it was only for an hour while we were in the car coming back from the orthodontist as well as picking up Tanner & Jared from school.

On the days he didn’t nap, I was able to get him to sleep earlier in the evening, at least. One day he conked out on the couch right after dinner.

On Wednesday, I got him down right before I left to take the boys to scouts at 7:00. (I had an appointment to talk with the bishop about several Primary things, including some callings we need to fill. Can I just whine that staffing is the worst part of being Primary president?!)

Seth may not be napping much anymore, but he is still saying cute things. On Friday morning, I had just turned off the television so the older boys would get ready for school. Seth said (very indignantly!) “Mom! You turned off Special Agent Oso! (A favorite show.) Not a good idea!!”

I had book chat on Tuesday. We discussed Triangle, and now we are reading some short stories by Tolstoy. I managed to make it all the way through high school as well as a college minor in English without ever reading Tolstoy (I wasn’t avoiding him, either!) so I am looking forward to reading some of his works. I wasn’t sure we were going to have book chat this week because we normally have it at Jane’s house but her daughter is the one who just got married, so we had planned to have it at Cheryl’s house instead. But then Cheryl fell down in her backyard (it’s a hill) last Thursday evening while taking her dog out and she broke 3 ribs, her upper arm, and tore her rotator cuff! Crazy! I felt so bad when I heard about it—her husband wasn’t home at the time and her daughter in the house didn’t hear her cries for help. So she was stuck lying on the ground in the cold and rain for quite a while until our bishop, who happens to live next door, went out to his backyard and heard her. She is on the mend now, but it’s going to take a lot of time. Anyway, we had book chat at Laura’s house instead, and then she ended up working on a job (she does decorative painting) which took much longer than she thought it would, so she wasn’t even there! But she left the door unlocked for us. Laura has this absolutely gorgeous home because she is so talented at decorating. I loved being there—it is so elegant—but I realized as I looked around (feasting my eyes) that even if I were talented enough to decorate like that (I’m not!), that a house like that would never fit my family’s personality! I found that thought rather comforting—I immediately stopped wishing I had a house like that!

Tuesday evening I went to my friend Marci’s house and we had a nice talk while she shortened all the necklaces that she had made for me. (I discovered that most of them were too long—she forgot I’m a lot shorter than she is!) She is moving to Kentucky in just a couple of weeks, so our time together is pretty limited. They just bought a house in Kentucky that she is excited about, so it was fun to hear about it. I hope they can sell their house here. Their dog, Cookie (Snicker’s mother), was due to have puppies soon—we were watching her panting and trying to decide if she was in labor or not. She stopped panting before I left, though. The puppies arrived early Friday morning, and there are 7 of them! The vet said she was having 5, but Marci thought there were more. I guess she was right. Snickers was part of a litter of 6 puppies, and he will not be a year old until November 11th, so Cookie has given birth to 13 puppies in less than a year! Pretty impressive. (I’m so glad I’m not a dog! Although the shorter pregnancies must be nice.) Marci said that after the last puppy was born, Cookie raised her head and looked at all the puppies carefully—as if she were counting them—and then looked at Marci with a look like “Oi! There’s so many!”

Scott was supposed to get his braces off on Wednesday (I changed the appointment from 2 weeks ago because he was sick) but his appointment had to be moved back again because of a funeral. (The orthodontist had to go to one, not us—thankfully.) He went on Friday afternoon instead. So here are the photos—before and after!:

He has retainers now, which he is supposed to wear at night and for 4 hours each day. They are clear (he’s actually wearing them in the “after” photo) so they don’t really show. Much to my relief, he did manage to brush well enough while wearing braces that he didn’t leave permanent stains on his teeth. I think he looks great!

Friday was busy with appointments because I also had a mammogram that morning. Thankfully, that went well and I don’t have to go back until my “annual” appointment in 6 months. (This was a follow up to my last one 6 months ago, to make sure nothing had changed since something looked questionable to the radiologist, I guess.)
I haven’t been sleeping so well this week, and neither has Tanner. On Wednesday night he was up a lot of the night so I let him sleep in and took him to school a few hours late. The next night he had some trouble falling asleep, but thankfully he slept well once he got to sleep. I hope both of us will go back to sleeping well soon!

I had to take Seth to get his blood drawn on Thursday. He had to be checked for lead and iron levels. I actually got the lab order at his 2 year old check up in July, but guess who forgot all about it? It ended up in a stack of papers and I didn’t “unbury” it until last month. Poor Seth had to get poked in both arms because they had so much trouble finding a vein, but my stoic little Spartan boy barely fussed at all, although I could tell he wasn’t happy about it. No kicking, no screaming, and barely any crying. He didn’t cry at all with the first poke and subsequent probing around. It was only after the second poke (with more probing involved) and they were almost done filling the vials that he decided he’d had enough and started to cry a little. I was so proud of him! He got tons of stickers from the lab technicians for being so brave, and after we got out to the car I was searching in the diaper bag for a snack and found a small bag of skittles, so he got those, too. When we got home he wanted the band aid off immediately, but after that he seemed to forget all about it. He did tell me in the car on the way home “Those Mommies poked me.”

Starting on Monday, we had really nice beautiful fall weather for most of the week, and we certainly enjoyed it! On Thursday evening, Scott and I planted some bulbs in the flower beds out front. (Frank had taken Jared and Tanner to get haircuts—they desperately needed them!) When the flowers came up this spring, I noticed there were big bare patches in the flower beds where no flowers came up. So I was smart and actually wrote down where the bare spots were, so I would remember where to plant more bulbs in the fall! We’ll see in the spring if it actually helped. It started raining again on Friday, which meant a night hike the scouts had planned got cancelled—Tanner and Scott were a little disappointed about that.

Frank hurt his foot somehow on Thursday, so he is limping around a bit. He tried to stay off of it a lot on Friday (he worked from home all day) so it is feeling a little bit better now.

Friday night we had Pack Meeting. (Jared’s soccer practice got cancelled because of the rain, which was nice because it made the evening less hectic!) It was kind of an historic event for us—we’ve been going to Pack Meetings for 7 years now—because it was our last one until Seth turns 8 in 6 years. Jared will be 11 next week—unbelievable! Jared received his Arrow of Light and they had a bridging ceremony for him, since he is now going to be going to 11 year old scouts. Jared also received 3 more activity badges (Forrester, Scientist, and Showman) and the science belt loop. We are proud of Jared for working so hard in Cub Scouts. He is the only one of my boys to earn all the activity badges except for one. (He didn’t get Aquanaut, because we don’t have access to a pool.) Anyway, Pack Meeting was fun. We have several new leaders, and I think they are doing a great job!

We arrived at Pack Meeting with 4 boys and left with 1. Jared went home with his friend Bryson to spend the night. Scott and Tanner went home with their friend Brian to play until late (we wouldn’t let them spend the night because they have homework to do today.)

This morning I had a stake meeting for all the Primary presidencies. It was a nice meeting; we got a lot of good ideas, and they fed us a yummy lunch afterwards. I don’t think it was very well attended, though.

Jared did not have a soccer game scheduled, but even if he did I’m sure it would have been cancelled because it has been raining most of the day—torrentially at times! A family in our ward is having a chili cook off this afternoon / evening and it got moved to the church (instead of at their house—they have a lot of land) because of the weather. We will be going to that event soon. Frank is making chili now, so I should probably post this and go help him!

How Fall Looks at Our House

I love fall! It is my favorite season. After several gloomy days with rain and cold temperatures, the sun has come back out and we are reveling in warm, mellow, BEAUTIFUL fall days! We're prepared to enjoy it as long as it lasts. Today I just had to capture on film all the things around my house that remind me that it's fall:

Come In!

(Wipe your feet!)

Scott made this in Kindergarten or 1st Grade--too cute to toss!

Seasonal salt & pepper shakers, of course!


View out the front door

View from the back deck
Another back deck view

Mulled cider, pear, and cinnamon vanilla scented candles--love the colors and the scents!

Pumpkin Spice candle--makes my mouth water!

This jar lid was my very first cross stitch project--I was probably about 15 when I made it! It was an easy & fun little project. The candy in the jar never lasts long!

So, how does fall look at your house?

Weekly Review October 17 '09

Whew! This week was packed full of different activities. I felt like I just ran from one thing to the next all week.

Sunday we had our first practice for the Primary program. I expected it to be chaotic, and there definitely was some chaos going on, but not nearly as much as I anticipated. We got all 70+ kids seated in their places on the stand in record time, and they were actually quite reverent. As a matter of fact, the kids were really good for the whole first hour of practice. The second hour they got a bit wiggly (can you blame them?!), but they were still amazingly reverent, all things considered. We didn’t get through the whole program, but I expected that! My only concern about it at this point is that it’s going to be way too long. There were a few hurt feelings that day over a few of the kids who didn’t get parts (with so many kids we couldn’t give everyone a part) which I felt bad about, but I was able to talk to the ones concerned and I think everyone is ok now!

I was happy on Sunday because after 13 weeks of being Primary president--and having to call a substitute every one of those weeks—they finally sustained a teacher for the Valiant 11 class! I was even happier when I gave the new teacher his binder and he said his wife was planning to come to the class with him. She is not a member, but she comes to Sacrament Meeting most weeks with her family. They usually leave after that meeting, but now that he has a reason to stay, they will probably all stay which means his kids may be coming to Primary also. Since his wife is planning to stay with him during class, that also means he doesn’t have to teach with the door open, so that’s even better.

I left the Primary practice a little early because Scott was getting set apart as the 2nd Counselor in his Teacher’s Quorum, and I wanted to be there for that. He’s actually been the 2nd Counselor for a long time, but the president was changing so everybody got released and then he was put right back in. I’m glad I got to be there because the blessing he received was not like any blessing of that sort I’ve ever heard before. It’s hard to explain, but he was blessed to do some really great things; it was very powerful! I don’t know if I mentioned it, but Tanner is also serving in the Deacon’s Quorum as 1st Counselor. That happened about a month ago (or less).

I was anxious when I got home from church and discovered that Mom & Dad had called—it was a very unusual time for them to call, so I was worried something was really wrong—but thankfully it wasn’t anything really awful (well, not for us, anyway). They did say in the message that my niece Janna had been in a bus accident with her marching band, but they also said she was ok, so that was a relief. I still called them back as soon as I could and also talked to Amy later and found out what a miracle the whole experience really was. I’ve been feeling really grateful all week for tender mercies, and for an amazing teacher who sacrificed her own life to save everybody else!

A lot of people around here were off work on Monday since it was a federal holiday, but Frank worked as usual and for the boys, it was the only “normal” day of school the whole week. When I woke up Tanner that morning, I glanced out the window (I always open the blind to let light in and help him wake up) and I noticed that Frank’s bike was sitting out in the grass of the backyard instead of under the deck. That was suspicious, so I looked closer and discovered that both Tanner’s and Scott’s bikes were missing. The bikes are supposed to be locked up, but the boys have been lazy about doing that. I was surprised that Tanner’s was taken because it doesn’t work well, but after I took the boys to school and was coming back up our street, I noticed a bike on the sidewalk around the side of our row of town houses and when I went to investigate, it was Tanner’s bike. Whoever tried to steal it must have ditched it when he realized that the bike was not working. I didn’t see Scott’s bike anywhere, though, so I called the police to report it stolen. Scott has barely used the bike, so it’s not a huge loss; I’m more concerned about the presence of crime in my neighborhood. The lady I talked to on the phone said that bikes get turned in to them all the time and encouraged me to call back in a few days to see if a bike that fit the description of his bike had been turned in, but I haven’t remembered to do that yet. I did lock up all the rest of the bikes, though!

For family night activity that evening, we watched some home movies—from the day Seth was born through December of that year. I was expecting to be amazed at how much Seth has changed since then, but what was even more amazing was the change in the older boys, especially Scott. He still had a lot of “little boy” in him back then—not any more! For Seth, I noticed a dramatic difference between ages 5 (Halloween) and 7 (Christmas) months. At 5 months he was still in his own little world a lot of the time, but by 7 months he was so engaged in what we were all doing—making eye contact with us, and reacting to everything that was going on around him. It was fun to watch, but hard to believe how much time has gone by since he was born!

All the schools started 4 hours late on Tuesday. I had volunteered to help with the Book Fair going on at Tanner & Jared’s school that week; I did my first shift Tuesday afternoon. I also helped on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons. It was a little frustrating, though—they had booked too many helpers so there really wasn’t much to do and it felt like mostly a waste of time to me.

That evening I had parent / teacher conferences for Jared and Tanner. Jared is doing great; his teacher was very impressed with his first independent project of the year (he did it on jelly fish) and he is making lots of progress in math. She thinks he will probably be placed in Algebra for 7th grade. She also mentioned that he is getting “much more social” with the girls in the class which surprised me—I haven’t heard anything about that at home!

Tanner is doing great, also. His new Language Arts / Social Studies teacher just adores him! She says he is the sweetest, nicest, kindest boy ever! (I told her he was born that way.) He is also doing great academically. She loves the unique voice he has when writing. (I am going to post a couple of his papers soon so you can all get an idea of what a great little writer he is.) Tanner’s Math / Science teacher also had great things to say about him. She had him last year, and the first thing she said to me is “Tanner has really grown up and matured from last year. I see dramatic improvement in the areas of focusing and organization.” For me, that’s the best part of all: he has NO MISSING ASSIGNMENTS!!! It’s probably hard for you all to understand why that is such a big deal to us, but it is. It’s a minor miracle, really. We are just really ecstatic that his medication for ADD seems to be making such a huge difference for him. I am not big on medicating children, but in this case I can see that it was the right thing to do. I was pretty sure that if he always knew what he was supposed to be doing that he would do it, and do it well. I’m so glad I was right. I didn’t get to meet with his Spanish teacher, but he has 100% in that class, so he is doing fantastic in that class as well.

All of the schools started 4 hours late on Wednesday as well except for the high schools (how’s that for complicated?). The high school students went all day because the 10th and 11th graders had to take the PSAT. Scott said it was a hard test, so I don’t expect to see really great scores for him. It was only a practice this year for him, at least. In between school and scouts, we babysat for a friend in the ward so that she could go to her son’s parent / teacher conference. Wednesday evening the boys all had scouts and I had a Primary presidency meeting so we could discuss the program and work out a lot of details.

The weather has been cooler this week and on Wednesday it started raining. It’s been raining pretty much ever since and the temperatures have stayed in the 40’s which feels pretty cold when it’s also wet.

On Thursday I got Scott to Seminary and then to school. All of the schools got out 3 ½ hours early. I picked up Scott at his school while I was on my way to help with the book fair. Seth came too and he was supposed to watch a movie I had brought along, but he wasn’t very cooperative so I spent most of the time chasing him around. (Scott helped me with him, though.) Shortly after we all got home from school, Scott and I went to his parent / teacher conferences. I was glad I was able to meet with all his teachers this week so I could find out specifically what else he needs to do to get caught up from all the school he missed. All his teachers are pretty laid back and said he just needs to get everything in by the end of the term, which is in two weeks. He has quite a bit to do, but it doesn’t look too overwhelming. He’ll be staying after a lot next week, though, to make up some tests and quizzes that he missed. In his business class, he missed the whole unit on accounting—lucky for him, his mom can help him with that homework! Overall he is doing really well and his behavior is great, he just needs to put forth more effort on homework. His test scores are great; his homework is the area that is turning A’s into B’s. It was nice to have a couple of teachers comment on that—at least he’s not hearing it just from us!!

Thursday evening we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. It is always nice to have them over, and we haven’t had them for quite a while; we’ve missed that! They gave a great inspirational message to us. Seth didn’t take a nap that day (for the first time ever he woke up when I put him down—twice!) so he was tired and not very cooperative while I was making dinner. He went to bed right after the sisters left. The other boys stayed up to watch a movie because there was no school at all on Friday. Yes, crazy week! I have no idea what the school board is thinking when they work out the calendar; it’s really ridiculous sometimes.

I spent a lot of time on Friday helping the boys get things done for scouts and helping Scott get some of his homework done. Frank worked in the morning and then spent the afternoon and evening helping to cook food for a wedding reception for a girl in our ward. Tanner was at his friend Ryan’s house most of the day. I left Seth with Scott and Jared so that I could go to the wedding reception that evening. It was nice; I thought the bride chose a unique color scheme—black, white, and lime green. (They used granny smith apples for some of the table centerpieces—that color of green.) I know that probably doesn’t sound very pretty, but it actually looked pretty classy. I got there just in time for a short program, which included her dad eating a pickle because years ago when all the kids were small, he promised them that he would eat a pickle on their wedding days if they got married in the temple. (He doesn’t like pickles!) That was pretty funny. She did not have nice weather for her wedding and the temple actually closed down the day before because of a water main break which I know caused great consternation! But the temple opened back up for sealing ceremonies only, so she was still able to get married and she looked really happy, so I’m sure it was a wonderful day for them even though the weather was nasty. (Cold, rainy, even a little bit of snow coming down at one point!)

Jared’s soccer practice was cancelled that evening, which didn’t upset me much, and his game was also cancelled today because the rain is STILL coming down non-stop. Frank and I didn’t sleep too well last night because our sleep was interrupted at about 1:00 am by a phone call. The person on the line said she was trying to track down a Frank Cleveland and wanted to know what year he graduated and what high school he went to. Unfortunately, since Frank was still half asleep, he gave her that information and she said he wasn’t the one she was looking for. After he hung up, he woke up enough to realize how suspicious that was, so he had to get up and go change passwords on all of his e-mail accounts and other online accounts. Neither of us went back to sleep for a couple of hours. We are still racking our brains trying to think if we missed anything important. Hopefully, nothing will come of it, but you always have to worry about identity theft and computer hacking these days.

Tanner’s friend Ryan came over to play for several hours today. This afternoon Frank went to help cook again—this time for a stake youth activity. It was supposed to be a barn dance, but because of all the rain (and mud) the location was moved to the stake center instead of being held at a farm, as originally planned. Frank and Scott are still at that activity now. I spent the afternoon working on Seth’s quiet book, which is not coming together nearly as quickly as I’d hoped—but I keep working at it! The younger three boys and I have been relaxing at home this evening. I had beef stew cooking in the crock pot all day—it was yummy! We certainly could use some “comfort food” on a night like tonight!

Somehow in between all that craziness I managed to finish reading The Help. It got very interesting and it was hard to put down. I really enjoyed it. Lots of things to think about! If you get a chance, I recommend you read it.

Seth is expanding his vocabulary all the time. Two words he’s started using recently: disgusting and delicious. He is also figuring out possessives. It’s really cute because he’ll say things like “I’m in yours room, Mom” or “It’s raining on ours house”. He hasn’t figured out to drop the “s” off yet. The other day when I was changing a messy diaper, he told me that he had chocolate in his diaper! I had to set him straight on that one, for his own protection!

I hope some nice fall weather comes back before winter sets in for good. I got a “pumpkin spice” candle a few days ago, and it is making my house smell delicious—just like pumpkin pie with vanilla ice cream! I love the sights and smells of fall. The last few days it has been miserable to go outside at all. I feel very thankful for my warm, dry house!

Weekly Review October 10 '09

I was very busy this week with Primary stuff. Our first practice for our annual Sacrament Meeting Program is tomorrow, so we are trying to get everything ready for that. There are a lot of things to think about. There were e-mails going back and forth all week, as well as lots of phone calls. We had a presidency meeting Sunday morning before General Conference, but we didn’t have enough time to talk about everything we needed to discuss, and the secretary was sick and couldn’t make it, so there was still a lot of discussion to get through. Monday through Wednesday were the busiest days; things calmed down a little after that.

Frank was very busy this week also, with a lot of projects for work, so I don’t feel like we saw each other very much. I am grateful that he has so much work to do, but sometimes I worry about how hard he has to work all the time. He doesn’t get much time to relax, and he would also really like to be exercising on a regular basis.

General Conference was great, I thought! It’s always great. I didn’t fall asleep during any of the meetings this time. I have already started listening to the talks again via the internet. It is so great to be able to listen to them again—so much good stuff in there; I can’t take it all in the first time through.

Scott was sick all week. He continued to cough and had a lot of congestion, and he had a fever every day. He would start out in the morning without a fever at all, but as the day went on, it would creep up until it was 100 or 101 by late afternoon / early evening. Since his symptoms were the same as many people we know who were diagnosed with a virus or mild swine flu, I didn’t take him to the doctor until late in the week—I thought we were just going to have to wait it out. Frank kept saying I should call the doctor, though, and so I finally did that on Thursday. The nurse I talked to said that his symptoms did sound a lot like two things that are going around—a virus and the flu—but she said since he was on day six, he probably ought to be checked out the next day if his fever went up again that evening. Actually, it didn’t go up very much that day, but I still decided to take him in the next morning. They did a strep test—“just in case”—and he has strep! I guess I should have taken him in sooner. At least he is on antibiotic now. He will have a lot of catch up to do next week when he goes back to school.

Meanwhile, Tanner didn’t sleep well Sunday night and reported that he had thrown up in the night the next morning. So he stayed home from school on Monday and Tuesday as well. (He threw up again Monday afternoon, but other than that didn’t seem very sick to me.) When he went back to school on Wednesday, he reported that 12 kids in his class were out sick and 5 more left before the day was over. So there is just a ton of nasty things going around right now.

Next week is going to be crazy because the schools are all doing Parent / Teacher Conferences. Monday is the only whole day of school (except for the high schools—they have a full day on Wednesday as well because all the 10th and 11th graders are taking the PSAT). Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are half days, and Friday school is out completely. On Tuesday, I got signed up for conferences with all the boys’ teachers.

I went to lunch with my friends Rebecca and Marci on Wednesday—we were celebrating Marci’s birthday. I guess this will be the last time we do that, since Marci is moving in about 3 weeks to Kentucky. I will miss her a lot! She has been helping with the Primary program so I’ve been talking with her a lot this week. Wednesday was a VERY windy day, but not too unpleasant because it was also fairly warm. We are mostly having beautiful warm fall days. I love it!

I spent Thursday morning getting my hair done. A new lady in our ward is a licensed cosmetologist—yes!! I went to her house to have it done. She has three young children; her middle child is about a year older than Seth and they played together just beautifully the whole time I was there—we hardly heard a peep out of either one of them! I think my hair turned out nice, too.

Frank took me to lunch on Friday—that was the one day he wasn’t working from dawn to dusk. It was nice because we were able to leave Seth home with Scott—always good to get away for a little while by ourselves! Friday evening Frank and I took Jared to his soccer practice. We took Seth and Snickers along also. I took Snickers on a long walk and took Seth down to a nearby playground to play. He had a great time but got very dirty! It was a nice evening with a warm breeze—a great time to be outside!

Today we did the usual round of homework and scout stuff in the morning. Jared had a soccer game this afternoon; his team lost 2-0. It was a frustrating game to watch—Jared’s team just doesn’t play offense well (although Jared came close to scoring a goal a couple of times). They were on defense almost the entire game. And every time they did make a break down the field with the ball, they would run into several very tall girls on the other team’s defense, who always managed to kick the ball way back down the field! I keep wondering how old those girls are—they’ve probably just hit their growth spurts already. Most of the kids on Jared’s team were half their size! Scott came with me to the game, but Tanner was playing football at his friend Ryan’s house and Frank stayed home with Seth. Later, I took the older three boys to see Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at the dollar theater. They seemed to enjoy it. By the time we got home, it was late—we just ate dinner and got the kids to bed.

I’ve been reading a book called The Help, which is about African American women who work as maids for white families in 1960’s Mississippi. It is very entertaining and thought provoking, too. I always wonder if I had lived in that place and time, would I have been prejudiced the way many of the white people in this book are? Even more important, am I prejudiced now, in my own time and place? I hope not. Reading about social injustices always makes my blood boil. I just want things to be fair!

Cute “Sethisms”: On Friday I heard Seth call me when he woke up from his nap, so I went up to get him. When I got up there he said “Mom, I been up for YEARS!” I guess I took a long time getting up the stairs to get him! Another day this week it took me a little while to get upstairs when he called me. As I was getting to the top of the stairs, he called again but this time he called out “Scott! Tell Mommy come get me!” I guess he gave up on me! Another time it looked to me like he was chewing on something. I said “Seth, what’s in your mouth?” He smiled very big at me and said “Teeths”! Well, I guess I knew that….

One of Frank’s clients is having computer issues, so he had to go see if he can fix their problem. I hope he isn’t gone all night! (They’re in Frederick, at least!) I am working on a few more things for the Primary program practice tomorrow, and then I’m going to bed.

Maybe someday I will get some pictures posted again, but I just haven't been taking any photos lately. Too busy! I will try to make it up to you all soon.

Weekly Review October 3 '09

I feel like I’ve been fighting something off all week. I’ve had a headache, tender throat, and body aches but no fever and none of my symptoms have gotten worse. Besides that, I’ve been really emotional. A few mornings I’ve felt pretty good, but by the end of the day I am aching all over. I am glad it hasn’t been any worse yet, especially since Frank has had the same symptoms and by Wednesday night he was definitely sick and did only what he absolutely had to do for work the next day. Jared has not been feeling well either, and Thursday morning he had an elevated temperature and was complaining of a bad headache. Since Jared hardly ever gets sick or misses school, I let him stay home, and he lay around most of the day—didn’t have much energy—but he didn’t get any worse. Scott has also been less than healthy—he’s had a cough, congestion, and headache all week—but he still got up at 5:00 for Seminary every day and went to school every day except Friday. What a great kid!! Tanner has had some stomach issues again—on Thursday I had to take him some Pepto Bismal at school, but he didn’t miss any school at least. (Scott and Tanner both missed church on Sunday, though.) We just haven’t been very healthy this week, but I’m thankful because I know it could be a lot worse. There is a lot of illness going around, with many kids getting high fevers that last about 7 days, and one little girl in our ward is really sick with pneumonia right now.

Sunday I was feeling burdened by a lot of different things, so it wasn’t the best day. On Monday the kids were out of school (still—it was a long week end) so the boys and I all went to spend the day with our friends the Koettings. The boys played all day long—we hardly saw them—and Jeanine and I chatted while she worked on a wallpaper project and I worked on Seth’s quiet book. It is always great to talk with Jeanine, and I felt a lot more at peace after that. It was a nice day, but I was exhausted by the time it was over.

On Tuesday I went to lunch with my friend Rebecca; I am also her visiting teacher so my companion and I both came and we did visiting teaching at the same time. I didn’t go to Marci’s for craft night that evening since I wasn’t feeling my best.

Wednesday evening we all went to the church—Frank to help a friend with a computer problem, me to meet with one of the boys who had finished his Personal Management Merit Badge, and all the boys for scouts. Frank kept Seth with him most of the time. Jared went on a hike which is one of the few things he has left to do for his Arrow of Light, and the older boys had Board of Reviews. Actually, Scott didn’t have one because he just got his Life rank a few months ago and he’s not ready for Eagle yet. His goal is to finish up the merit badges during the school year (may need to do one of them at scout camp next summer) and to do his project next summer (we’ll start planning it soon). Tanner will be getting his 2nd Class rank. He’s actually done everything for his 1st Class also except for 2 swimming related things. The Board of Reviews took a long time, so we left the church pretty late and we had to stop on the way home to get some doughnuts and milk for a school project for Scott. (Of course, he had just mentioned that to me that afternoon after school!) We got to bed pretty late.

Seth had a bad night Wednesday night, which meant I did, also. I only got about 5 hours of interrupted sleep and since Frank was quite sick by Thursday morning I got to do the 6:00 am Seminary run and then had to go back at 7:00 to get Scott to school. By then it was time to make breakfast and get the other two up for school, so I never made it back to bed (I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night , either, so it was two nights in a row) but when Seth went down for his nap that afternoon, I took a nap also. I remembered around noon that Scott had an orthodontist appointment at 4:15, a 30 minute drive from our home, so I knew I was going to need a nap! Thank goodness Frank was home that afternoon because Tanner was on Safety Patrol that day (helps with the car line at school) and didn’t get finished with that until about 10 after 4:00. I took Scott to his appointment, Frank picked up Tanner, and Jared stayed home with Seth. At the orthodontist we got good news—Scott is done! We got to make an appointment to go back next week to get his braces off. He is excited, of course, and especially thrilled that he will be getting them off before Halloween! He will probably pig out on all that sticky candy that he hasn’t been able to eat for the last almost two years.

Jared’s coach had a practice Thursday night—they usually practice on Friday nights, but they had a game Friday night again and a game on Saturday as well, so he really didn’t want to go into two back to back games without any practice. Jared missed the practice since that was the day he wasn’t feeling well, though. He seemed to be doing a lot better by evening, but I didn’t want to push it!

Thursday night was better than the previous two nights, but I didn’t get to bed until around 11:00 and Seth woke up right then and was up for about a half hour. After that he did sleep, thankfully, because I had to get up to get Scott to Seminary. Frank got up and went to work really early—he was supposed to do that Thursday morning but he wasn’t feeling well enough. He still wasn’t feeling very well Friday morning, but he was better than the day before and the work needed to be done. Scott came back home after Seminary because he really wasn’t feeling well. He slept a lot and stayed on the couch all day. By evening, he had a fever and he has been the same today.

At one point that day, Seth came into the kitchen dragging a laundry basket with him. That set off alarm bells in my head, because the basket was empty, but I had filled that basket up with clean folded clothes the night before. Sure enough, all the clothes were in a heap in the middle of the living room floor. I got to fold all those clothes all over again!

Friday evening was a little crazy—Tanner got invited to go to Ryan’s house again, Jared had a soccer game at 6:00, and I had a bridal shower to attend at 6:30. Frank took Jared to his game and I dropped Tanner off at Ryan’s before heading to the shower. Seth and Scott stayed home. The shower was fun—we had a light dinner of yummy salads and breads, and I got to visit with a lot of people. I’m sorry I missed Jared’s game, though, because his team either won or tied (Frank wasn’t sure if it was 5-4 or 5-5) and Jared scored one of the goals. I’m glad they did well since the previous two games they lost. They also lost their game on Saturday, 6-2, I think. Jared had to play goalie the second half and he didn’t do so well—let 4 of the 6 goals through. He did kick one goal, but the referee called offsides on him, so the goal didn’t count. Frank says the referee was incorrect, though—Jared really wasn’t offsides. Frank wasn’t very impressed with this particular referee, who didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what was really happening. That’s how it goes sometimes, though.

Today I enjoyed the first two sessions of General Conference—I actually got to listen to almost all of them! Frank wasn’t so lucky—he took Jared to his soccer game which was at 1:00—for us “Easterners”, that is right in the middle of the first session. Then when he got back he had to spend the rest of the afternoon putting new brake pads and rotors on my car. The brakes started making noise about 2 weeks ago, and even though I told Frank right away, this was the first chance he’s had (on a day it wasn’t raining, that is) for him to take care of them. I’ve been trying not to drive the car as much as possible, but even so, he had to replace the rotors as well as the brake pads. This was the rear brakes—he had to do the same thing for the front brakes in the spring—so at least I should be set for a long time now. The weather was really beautiful—warm and sunny—all day, so at least he could enjoy being outside even though he was working!

For dinner this evening I made these really yummy biscuits to go with our omelettes. Frank and I had some biscuits at Red Lobster about a month ago that we both loved, so I decided to go online to see if I could find the recipe. I found it, so I tried it out. They turned out great! Frank agreed that they were as good as the ones we had at the restaurant. I love the internet! Frank and Tanner went to the priesthood session after dinner, but Scott had to miss it since he's still sick. Tanner and Frank got ice cream afterwards, so they got home pretty late (10:40ish). I’m glad we don’t have to get up really early tomorrow!

I did a little more online research on houses in our area this week and discovered that there are quite a few really good possibilities (ie: houses that are a lot more like what we are looking for) that are not all that far out of our price range. That confirmed my feelings that we ought to wait a while longer. It was actually encouraging to me that there are some really nice houses in neighborhoods I like that aren’t nearly as expensive as I thought they’d be. It makes more sense to wait a while and get what we really want. So no more house hunting for now! With the Primary program and a Halloween activity both coming up this month, I don’t have time, anyway!!!

Weekly Review September 26 '09

This week was busy with a lot of things going on that we don’t usually do. I didn’t write anything down about Monday on my planner, so now I can’t remember anything about it. Oh, except that for family night we went on a walk and stopped at a park to play for a while. Snickers came with us, too. We could hear the tractor pull going on at the fair grounds while we were outside—it was loud! We are glad we don’t live any closer to the fairgrounds than we do.

I had visiting teaching appointments Tuesday morning. The second one was with my friend Marci, but she forgot we were coming. I chatted with her on facebook later that day, though, and that evening she had “craft night” at her house so I went to that and got to visit with her for quite a while (I’m the only one who came this week). She had made me not just one necklace, but three! Along with that, she made 2 matching bracelets and a pair of earrings. They are all beautiful; she is very talented! She was feeling better this week than last week because her husband is home this week and they kind of put the house selling thing on hold. They are not even sure now if they are going to be moving—they expected to have a contract in hand by now, but they don’t, so she starting to think the transfer may not work out after all. I would be happy if they stayed, although I know she is ready for a change.

Frank worked really late Tuesday night, so the older boys stayed with Seth while I was gone to Marci’s and I got them all put to bed when I got home.

On Wednesday the oldest two boys had a special fireside given by a visiting member of the Quorum of the Seventy (can’t remember his name) which was held at another building in our stake. They had to be at the church at 6:00 to carpool. Then Jared had to be at the church at 7:00 for Webelos, picked up at 8:00, and the older boys arrived back at the church at 9:00. So it was one of those nights where we were shuttling kids back and forth and didn’t get much else done. (Except for bathing Snickers and Seth—separately, not together!) I was supposed to have a Primary presidency meeting that evening, but too many conflicts came up, so we postponed it.

The boys had a 2 hour early release from school on Thursday, so that day went by fast. Scott went on an overnighter for the Teachers and Priests at one of their leader’s cabins. He left around 3:00 in the afternoon and didn’t get back until late Friday night. I think he had fun except he didn’t get to sleep outside as he was hoping to do—it rained too hard. Tanner went to spend the night with his friend Ryan and didn’t get back until Friday afternoon. The rest of us rented a movie called Battle for Terra. I think Jared liked it, but it didn’t hold my attention much so I can’t give it an honest review. We got lots of treats to enjoy while we watched the movie; everyone liked that!

I had my yearly cardiologist check up Friday morning. Everything looks fine. When I am sitting in the waiting room looking at the other patients, I always think “I’m too young to have a cardiologist!” I had to giggle a little thinking about the very un-heart-healthy breakfast I had that morning: biscuits with sausage gravy, sausage patties, and scrambled eggs!

Frank took Snickers to the groomer Friday morning; he came back looking great! After my doctor appointment, I took Seth and Jared to the “Great Frederick Fair” to see the animals. All the kids were out of school that day for “Fair Day”, and admission to the fair is free for kids that day. (It cost $7 for me to get in, though, which I think is ridiculous considering once you get inside everything else costs money also, except for the exhibits!) I had a much more positive experience this time (I took the 3 older boys several years ago) because Jared was old enough to understand that we were ONLY going to see the animals (not ride on the outrageously priced rides—about $5 per ride!) and Seth was too young to care what we did. He was perfectly happy to see all the animals. While I was at the doctor that morning, Frank told him that he was going to see animals when I got back. Seth informed me when I got home that we were going to go see “cows, and dinosaurs, and pigs!” So cute!! Well, as you may have guessed, we did not see any dinosaurs, but we did see lots of cows, goats, pigs, sheep, horses, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and an alpaca. We also saw lots of tractors—Seth loved that! One tractor even had a slide inside for kids to go down—Seth tried that out, too. We stopped in to see some displays of vegetables, fruits and other farm produce, and checked out the 4-H building where we saw photography, place setting displays, crafts, and a short fashion show where some girls were modeling clothes they sewed themselves—quite impressive! After that we were more than ready to come home. Too much walking! Seth fell asleep on the way home.

Petting a goat

Baby pigs--all 8 are girls!

I finished reading Triangle early in the week. It was kind of a mystery and I got pulled into the story, so I couldn’t put it down! I was wrong on the date I cited in last week’s post: the fire actually happened in 1911, not 1907. Being the person that I am, after I finished the book I had to go online and read up on everything I could find about that fire, to compare the actual event to the events described in the book. It was pretty interesting, but so tragic.

I forgot to mention last week that Frank had a great missionary experience. He was at a client’s workplace down in La Plata, Maryland and a lady who works there started asking him questions about our church (she knew he’s LDS). She said that she and her mother are Catholic but there are a lot of things in that church they don’t agree with, so they are looking for another church. As she asked Frank questions and he told her what we believe about a lot of different things, she said she agreed with everything he said; in particular, she believes that if God spoke to prophets a long time ago, He should still speak to them today. After talking for a while, Frank offered to have the missionaries come to her home to answer more of her questions, and she said “I’d like that.” So he got her address and phone number, and early this week he tracked down the correct mission office (it turns out she lives in the Washington, DC North mission’s area) and gave them the referral. Who knows what will happen, but it was a great experience for him to have such a positive gospel discussion like that.

I drove by a couple of homes for sale in our area that I found online; I was mostly pretty uninspired by the neighborhoods and the homes themselves. But to get a better idea of what is really available in our price range, we asked our realtor friend if he could take us to see the inside of a few of these houses. We went today to see three of them. Two of them were townhouses, but bigger than the one we live in, and one was a single family house. Each of them had pros and cons. The single family home had the most room by far, but it’s pretty old and needs a lot of updating. Plus Frank could tell that the foundation is settling, the basement seems to be leaking water, and the roof needs to be replaced. So that one is definitely out. The townhouses are in much better shape and each of them had some nice features. Although they both have more room than we have here, I don’t think the extra room is distributed the way we need it. That is, we could really use a family room, bigger bedrooms for the kids, more storage space (including kitchen cabinets / counter space), and an office for Frank. Both homes had family rooms, but they actually had less storage space, mostly smaller bedrooms for the boys, and no space that would work well for an office. Most of the extra space seemed to go to huge master bedrooms and formal dining rooms—we don’t need either of those things! So at this point, we’ve decided to keep looking. There is one other house that I am really interested in seeing, but if that one doesn’t fit our needs either than we will just wait a while. I am thinking after the houses I saw today that what we really want is still out of our price range, so it would make sense to wait until our price range increases. In the meantime, we can focus on making improvements to this house and find ways to make the space that we have work better for us.

The rest of today was busy getting the boys caught up on homework and working on scout stuff. It started raining this afternoon and it’s still coming down hard. This evening I went to our Stake Enrichment Meeting (I guess it won’t be called that anymore!) which included a potluck dinner and short (but very inspiring) message given by our stake RS president. Then, of course, we watched the General RS meeting broadcast from Salt Lake City. All I can say is WOW! It was amazing. I feel like there are a lot of things I can work on, but I don’t feel discouraged about it; I feel motivated and inspired. I hope the rest of you who attended feel the same way.

I forgot to mention last week that while I was at stake conference another woman (who looked familiar) approached me in the foyer and asked me if I was from Orem. I said I was, and she said "Are you... Annette?" Yep, that's me. It turns out she is Jolie Ridd. She moved here with her family this summer. I am really surprised that she recognized me! I saw her again tonight.

Now it is late and I have ward council meeting kind of early in the morning, so I’d better post this week’s review and go to bed!

Motherhood, in 110 Words or Less

In the last two days, my 2 year old has done the following: thrown a cup of water all over the bathroom, spit milk on me, knocked over chairs (several, and more than once), hit me in the head (he thinks it's funny; doesn't realize it hurts), and dumped water all over the kitchen. Those are the things I can remember right now, I'm sure there's more.

And I still LOVE him and think he is the

Most adorable, wonderful child on the planet!

Whatever motherhood does to us--it's a Miracle!

Either that, or it's just made me Crazy--I'm not sure which!