Weekly Review January 24 '09

We had another busy Sunday. Besides church (of course), I had choir practice and a Primary presidency meeting followed by a visit to one of the families with Primary age children (two little girls; they were so excited to see us). Our home teachers also came, and in between all that we went to pick up our puppy.

We were going to wait until Monday to get him, but the Nelsons (Marci’s family, the breeders) offered to loan us a small crate and give us enough of the other necessities (food, puppy pads) that we would need until we could get to the store on Monday. They put a towel in the crate that smells like Snickers’ family, so he is very comfortable there. They also gave him a few toys. We spent the evening getting acquainted with him (and he with us) and deciding on a name for him. The Nelsons had named him “Stitch”, and we talked about keeping that name, but we discussed other possibilities as well, and when Frank suggested “Snickers”, it just seemed to fit him so we all agreed on that name. Snickers is mostly paper trained, but he still has accidents so we have to watch him pretty closely. (Bonus: now I’m glad I haven’t been able to replace my ratty old couches and my worn out carpet!) He slept pretty well the first night and even better the second night, but the next two nights were pretty rough. Then Thursday night he slept all night through! (Almost as exciting as when your new baby sleeps through the night for the first time.) He slept well last night, also, so hopefully this is a new trend that is going to continue!

Snickers is very playful and cute. We are all enjoying him. Seth has done so well with him, and they get down on the floor and play together—very cute! Snickers growls and barks at Seth (signaling he wants to play) and that doesn’t bother Seth at all. He also nips at all of us playfully and even though Seth has cried a couple of times when he’s been nipped, usually he doesn’t mind and he certainly is not scared of Snickers at all. I think Seth and Snickers are going to be good friends. We just need to teach Seth to keep out of the water dish! (I’ve cleaned up two floods today already…. And yes, Seth has already sampled the dog food, too—yuck!) We also need to teach him not to kick the puppy! He’s been doing that a lot the last couple of days. I know he is just excited, and that’s one way he shows it—he doesn’t seem to realize it hurts the puppy. But we’ve been jokingly saying that Seth is a “puppy bully”.

Seth checking up on Snickers. I would have some really cute pictures of them together, except neither one of them will hold still long enough for me to get one! I have caught them nose to nose (Seth on the couch looking down; Snickers on his hind feet looking up) as well as Seth flat on his tummy in front of the crate. But when I run for the camera, one or both of them moves!

The boys were out of school Monday through Wednesday. I’m glad we had that long week end to get settled into a new routine with a puppy in the house. I made a trip to the store Monday morning to get Snickers a leash, food, etc. I think we have everything he needs now, although we will have to get him a bigger crate in a few months. I even got him a little doggie jacket. I wasn’t going to (I have always laughed secretly at people who put clothes on their dogs) but then when we took Snickers for a walk, he was shivering, so I felt guilty and got him one the next time I was at the store. Pampered animal! Monday afternoon it started to snow, and we actually got an inch or so before all was said and done. I guess the snow caused a lot of trouble—there was a huge 35 car pile up on I-70 just west of Frederick. Jared went to play that afternoon with a friend from the ward, Joseph. I am proud of myself because I actually made home made sugar cookies for FHE treat—I don’t bake very often! They were yummy, and I wish I had taken a picture, because they looked good, too.

Frank, Seth, and I got haircuts on Tuesday. I got my hair colored as well. A friend in our ward came to our house to do all that for us. She actually had me watch her do the color and showed me how to do it, so that I can do it myself (I’ll still have to have her buy the products for me, but I will save a lot of money this way.) It’s a fairly simple procedure, but I’m not fully convinced that I will be coordinated enough to do it myself! Frank watched also, so he will hopefully be able to help me if I need it, though. Seth looks incredibly cute with his little boy cut. He is easily the most adorable little boy on the planet! Frank looks great, too. I really like how the color on my hair came out (of course, just about anything looks better than dull brown mixed liberally with gray), and I also liked the way my friend styled it, but of course I have not been able to get it to look that good myself! (Again, I wish I had taken a picture….) Here are some of Seth with his new cut, though:

(Sorry these pictures are blurry--Seth kept moving!)

Jared went to a sleep over with Evan Nelson that evening. When I took him over there, I took Snickers also so he could have a visit with his “family”. It was fun to see him with his parents and one sister—it was obvious that they were excited to see each other. Lots of barking! He and his sister (Peanut) played and played the whole time we were there. He definitely didn’t sleep as well that night, though, so I think we won’t do that again for a long time. I think maybe he was feeling lonely.

Scott and Tanner had a YM activity and basketball practice Wednesday evening. Jared didn’t have scouts, though. The boys and I had fairly low key days, although between the regular household chores and keeping an eye on Snickers, I kept pretty busy. Frank was very busy with work and got home late most nights.

Everyone was back to school on Thursday. Seth, Snickers and I enjoyed a little more quiet! Frank and I started working on our income tax return that evening. It is so easy with Turbo Tax, and we are always motivated to get it done as soon as possible because we always get a refund. We were also motivated to look it over because after looking over his W-2, we think the accountant at his work messed up the way he handled our health insurance premiums. He was supposed to take them out pre-tax, but I don’t think he did. Hopefully we can get that resolved, because we plugged it into Turbo Tax both ways (the way he did it and the way we think he should have done it) and the way he did it results in a smaller refund for us.

I had a doctor appointment Friday morning and Frank needed to take a disc down to Griffin (his company) so Frank took Seth with him to do that. Seth was very popular with Frank’s boss’s family. (His boss is also named Frank, so it gets confusing.) Frank and I did lunch for our “date” that day; we got Chinese food. After I did a post about why I don’t like winter, the weather warmed up and even got into the 50’s on Friday! (But it’s already getting colder again, and even snowed for a while this morning.) Friday night we tried to watch a movie; there were lots of interruptions so we got to bed late.

This morning started early because Scott & Tanner had a basketball game at 8:00 and they wanted them to be there between 7:00 and 7:30 to practice. We actually managed to get Tanner out of bed, but he was tired and complaining so he didn’t end up going to the game (that’s not a battle I choose to fight). He wasn’t the only one that had a hard time with the early hour, apparently, because Scott reported that only 5 boys showed up to play (last week there were 11-12). So all 5 boys played the whole game, and Scott was very tired when he got home. They lost again, but they played better than last week, so they are making progress at least. I worked on scouts with Scott and Tanner—we are trying to finish up Personal Management. We are also starting to work on Citizenship in the World, because they are going to do that at a merit badge day in May and there are a couple of requirements that they have to complete first. I also finished preparing a talk for a Baptism Fireside tomorrow. Frank fixed the faucet in the boys’ bathroom today—the piece that operates the shower broke last week so the shower could not be used. We all shared the one shower for over a week, and although we made it work, it is nice to have the second shower operational again! Tonight we had the sister missionaries over for dinner. One of them was new to us—she is only here a few weeks because the sister that was here before had to go home temporarily because of some health problems; they hope she’ll be back soon. Anyway, the new sister is an older woman and her last name is Hatch. I told her that my maternal grandmother’s last name was Hatch, and we talked a little bit about our ancestors, but we couldn’t find a connection. She’s from Utah originally but lived many years in Southern California. She’s related to Senator Hatch. We enjoyed getting to know her, and we had a nice evening.

Seth started saying two word phrases a few weeks ago (“Daddy’s shoes” instead of just “shoes”.) Now he is saying three word phrases, also. (“Where’s puppy? There he is!) Sometimes he loves the puppy a little too much. At first I thought the poor little animal was never going to get a decent nap! But Seth has learned to leave him alone when he is sleeping—well, most of the time, anyway. Still, the first thing Seth says when he wakes up from a nap a lot of the time is “puppy?” He follows Snickers around sometimes, clapping his hands to try to get Snickers to come to him—it’s very cute!

One day this week when I was putting Seth back into his car seat after a trip to the grocery store, he kept saying “shoes, shoes.” I couldn’t figure out why until I got him buckled in and went to return the cart to the rack. One of Seth’s shoes was sitting in the child seat in the front of the cart. It must have come off when I took him out of the cart. Clearly, Seth was trying to let me know that his shoe was missing! I’m glad I noticed it.

Seth is also starting to say his own name sometimes. He will point at himself and say “Seth, Seth.”

In between everything else, I was busy reading my book for book chat—I finished it this morning. We also finished the puzzle on Tuesday, and Seth demolished it on Wednesday! I got a picture first, though, so I don’t have to say “I wish I’d taken a picture!” this time:

I finished solving all 120 puzzles and solved all the mysteries in my “Professor Layton” DS game that Frank got me for Christmas. Aren’t you proud of me? Some of those were pretty hard puzzles, let me tell you! I would be sad about being done except there are a lot more games in the bonus material. So that will keep me busy for a while. Now that I’ve got a few other things done, I’m allowing myself to start on the 3rd book in the Twilight series (Frank finished the last 2 books last week), so I expect I’ll be spending quite a bit of time reading this week.

I'll finish with a few puppy pictures. Snickers curled up on my foot and went to sleep today. It was very cute!

Jared insisted on taking this picture so you can see it was my foot that he was on. (Another blurry one, though.)

Ten Reasons I Don't Like Winter (and five reasons I do)

I think I've said this before, but I am just not a winter person! I have a friend who is allergic to cold. As in, she breaks out in hives when it's cold and has to take medication to keep that from happening. Ok, so I can't claim to be truly allergic to cold, but my body completely rebels against winter. (See #1, 3, and 4 below.)

Here's a list of 10 reasons why I don't like winter:

1. I get cold very easily. I don't like being cold!
2. My kids are stuck inside a lot because it's "too cold". (Although if you add some of that white stuff, they miraculously forget how cold it is and can't wait to get outside.)
3. My lips get chapped.
4. My hands get horribly chapped, as in cracked and bleeding. The more I wash them, the worse they get. (And with a child in diapers and a new puppy in the house, you can imagine how many times a day I wash my hands!)
5. I have to either freeze or lug a big heavy coat around everywhere I go.
6. It takes so much longer to get everybody out the door, because we have to put on coats, hats, and gloves.
7. When it snows, my floors get wet and muddy.
8. When it doesn't snow, everything is bare and ugly.
9. Old snow is brown and unsightly.
10. Ice and snow are dangerous and nerve racking to drive in.

But just to be fair, here are a couple of things I do like about winter:

1. I have a nice river view from my back windows.
2. I see a lot of beautiful cardinals hanging out in the trees behind our house.
3. If we get a bad enough storm, I don't have to go anywhere, because everything gets cancelled.
4. Hot chocolate
5. Christmas is in winter!

Just to end on an even more positive note, here's something I'm grateful for in the winter:

My warming mattress cover! I just turn it on about a half hour before I crawl into bed at night, and voila! Warm sheets! Ahhh....bliss!

(Frank's side stopped working this year. I feel guilty about it, but I have no intention of switching sides with him!)

My cardinal S&P set. I would have posted a picture of the real cardinals in the trees, but they are too far away to get a good photo. I don't know why they made both of these males! A male and a female would have been cuter (and easier to tell the salt from the pepper). I still like them, though.

Even More Outnumbered

We did it! We took the plunge! I hope we don't regret it!

Introducing the newest member of our family:

Snickers, a 2 month old male Maltese puppy.

Isn't he cute?

So far, he has been very well-behaved.

The tally in our household now stands at:

Males--6

Females--1

I am even more outnumbered!

Weekly Review January 17 '09

Let’s see if I can write this and watch a basketball game at the same time! Tanner and Scott are playing for our ward basketball team this afternoon. Neither of them are in the game right now, though. Oops…I guess Tanner just went in.

It has been miserably cold most of this week. As in, highs in the 20’s, lows in the single digits, and very windy. Brrrrr!!! January always seems to be like this. I really want to hibernate until March! The boys actually got a “snow day” on Thursday, although we didn’t get any snow. The roads were quite icy that morning, so I wasn’t too surprised when they had a 2 hour delay, but then it got switched to school being closed all day. Some other parts of the county must have been a lot worse than it was here.

Friday was supposed to be the last day of the term, but now it’s been moved to Thursday (the boys are out of school Monday-Wednesday next week), which was good news for Scott since he has some work to get done in most of his classes. I went online on Wednesday to check his grades, and discovered that he wasn’t doing very well in 3 of his 4 classes—mostly because of missed assignments. Needless to say, we are not very happy with him, and he is no longer allowed to play with friends on school days unless I check online and he doesn’t have any missing assignments. He already got some missed work in, and I think he will manage to get B’s in those three classes, which is better. I had to send some e-mails to a couple of his teachers, and when one of them wrote back he said “Scott has been a true asset to his class. He works hard everyday, and has a very positive outlook on learning. You've done a great job.” That was nice to hear, after we’d been so frustrated with him and wondering what we’d done wrong!

Speaking of Scott and school, he had a project for his cultures & cuisines class this week. He had to do a report on another country and their food before winter break, and this week he had to pick a recipe from that country and demonstrate how tomake it. He did Guatamalan salsa. He did a "slide show" as part of his presentation, so we took lots of pictures while he was making it. Here are a few:

Scott had an orthodontist appointment on Thursday late afternoon, but since he was out of school, I called and was able to change it to morning, which worked out better. The boys enjoyed watching Frank’s new movie that day—Cars—that’s actually the only thing he would tell me when I asked him what he wanted for his birthday!

Which leads me to Frank’s birthday, which was on Wednesday. He opened presents that afternoon and we made Chinese food for dinner, but we had a celebration of sorts last evening also. We invited the Becks over for a little “luau”. We had pulled pork sandwiches, potato wedges, tropical fruit, and Hawaiian punch for dinner. I decorated a little bit—Hawaiian theme tablecloth, plates, and napkins, and fish-shaped glitter, which I’m now finding all over the house! After dinner, the boys enjoyed playing video games while Jana, the younger kids, and I watched the Singles 2nd Ward and started on our Christmas jigsaw puzzle. Seth wasn’t very cooperative with the puzzle, but luckily it was almost his bedtime, so we made more progress after I put him down. We had his birthday cake, also—at the last minute I decided to decorate the cake to look like a beach. It certainly wasn’t professional looking, but everybody said it was cute, and it tasted good. It was nice to pretend we were in the tropics for the evening, since it was so nasty outside!

Opening presents

The party table

That's pineapple, papaya, bananas, mango, and kiwi fruit!

The cake

Getting ready to blow out the candles

The game is over now, so I’m back at home. Scott and Tanner went home with Ryan Schlenz to play for a while, and Jared is incredibly bored. They lost their game 18-60, by the way! They have never been a good team and are used to losing, though, so they really didn’t seem to care. They have fun. Actually, I think they won, technically, because the other team only had 4 players show up, so one of our team members played on their team. The other team actually had to forfeit. This was Tanner’s first time playing. I think he did pretty well, he just needs to be more aggressive and get in the game. Scott has learned to participate more, and even tried to make a few shots.

Frank had Friday off, but his boss asked him to go with him to meet with a new client that day. The client is here in Frederick, and Frank will probably be doing a lot of work for them. That meeting ended up taking a lot longer than he’d thought—a couple of hours—but I am glad he will be working in Frederick more often.

We’ve been trying to work on helping Seth sleep better this week, so we have not been picking him up at all when he wakes up and cries. (We were coddling him a little bit when he was sick a lot in November / December.) If he gets really upset, we go in and hug him, pat him on the back, and then leave again. He has cried off and on for about an hour or so nearly every night, but last night he slept all night, so hopefully we are making progress.

Today my friend Marci called and offered to give us a puppy for free. Their dog had 6 puppies about 8 weeks ago, and they have sold them all but one. This one has a heart murmur, so they don’t feel right about selling him because he isn’t perfectly healthy, although he seems to be fine—has plenty of energy. He might live a long time, or he might not. So we are thinking about it! I can’t remember what breed he is now, but it’s a small dog that doesn’t shed, which are two big pluses for us. They usually sell for around $1000, so we definitely would never be able to buy this particular breed. We’re just not sure we’re ready to take on the responsibility of a puppy at this point. There would be some expense also, of course. So we are still thinking about it. I think I deserve a medal for even thinking about bringing another MALE living thing into this house!!

Around here, things are gearing up for all the inauguration events next week. There are notices up on all the major freeways saying to expect "major delays". I'm glad I won't have any reason to go down that way next week! I am just going to avoid the whole thing! Hopefully Frank will be able to avoid all the traffic also.

Everybody stay warm!

My Kids Are Easterners

Whenever someone asks me where I'm from, I have a hard time answering. Well, my parents were born and raised in Arizona, but I've never lived there. (Always wanted to live there, though...) I was born in California, but spent a grand total of about 4 1/2 years there (ages birth to 3 and ages almost 9 to 10 1/2). I also lived in Denver, Colorado for a couple of years, Houston, Texas for about 3 1/2 years, and spent a year and a half as a missionary in North Carolina. Then there's Utah. We moved there when I was 10 1/2 years old, and with the exception of the time I was on my mission, I lived there until I was nearly 29. I guess Utah qualifies as "where I'm from" more than any other place, since I spent by far the most time there and did most of my growing up there. I should probably make it easy on myself by saying I'm from Utah. But I can't! Why? Well, that's another story. Suffice it to say that the first 10 years of my life had a profound impact on my view of the world and that when I moved to Utah I was shocked to discover how different I was from all the kids who had lived there all their lives.

Amy & I with Pew grandparents in Arizona

Easter in California--Me, Amy

Amy & I on our 4th birthday in Denver, Colorado

So what do I say? Well, lately I have settled on saying I'm from "the West". I figure that's about as accurate as I can get. I never even made it East of the Mississippi River until I was 21 years old! Yes, I grew up in the West, and I remember as a child having a great desire to see "the East"! What was it like out there, anyway? It seemed to me that all the interesting places to see and all the fascinating things to do were all far, far away in the the East! Pictures were not enough--I wanted to see it all for myself! I wanted to stand on the coast of Maine and view the Atlantic Ocean. I wanted to visit all those fascinating historical places I'd read about--Boston, Philadelphia, Williamsburg, Gettysburg, Valley Forge--to see for myself where our nation was born. I guess it was all so fascinating to me because it was so "inaccessible".

Well, now I've been living in "the East" for nearly 12 years, so all that has changed! I've stood on the coast of Maine, I've seen the Atlantic Ocean, and with the exception of Valley Forge, I've visited all those places I mentioned above. The East is home to me now, but I still consider myself a Westerner, albeit a transplanted one. So it seems completely amazing to me when I realize that my children are Easterners! As a matter of fact, Jared and Seth have never lived anywhere else (Jared was born in Delaware and Seth was born here in Maryland). Scott was only 2 1/2 when we moved to New York and Tanner was only 5 months, so even though they were both born in Utah, they remember little (if anything) about living there.

Here are a few things I've noticed about my kids that make me think "Wow! They are Easterners!"

1. Snow--We'll see a few flakes start to drift down, and the kids will ask "Are we going to have school tomorrow?" School gets closed at the drop of a hat out here. Not so in Utah, where I remember school getting closed early once--when it snowed 3 feet! I still shake my head over school getting closed over a minute amount of snow. (Frank calls it my "Utah attitude"!) But for my boys, that's all they've known so it's what they have come to expect.
2. State size--We'll be in the car for about 15 minutes (on a long trip) and one of the boys will ask "Are we still in Maryland?" This is not a question I would have ever asked so soon after leaving home! It takes hours and hours to drive across most Western states (when we lived in Houston, we would leave home really early in the morning, drive all day, and barely make it to El Paso by evening). But in general, Eastern states are much smaller. So my kids are speaking from their own experience! When we drive to Brevard, North Carolina, we are in Virginia within about 20 minutes of leaving home, go into West Virginia about 2 minutes after that, and back into Virginia about a half hour after that! That's when we head west / southwest. If we leave home and travel straight south, we are in the District of Columbia within about an hour. If we head north, we get to Pennsylvania in about 30 minutes. When we lived in Delaware, it was even more apparent. We could leave our house and drive in any one of three directions for 10 minutes and be in another state--west (Maryland), north (Pennsylvania), or east (New Jersey). We notice the nearness of other states when we play the "license plate game", too. I remember trips in my childhood where we'd play this game, and it was always exciting to see a license plate from another state! Now we see plates from other states regularly, just driving around town. It's not unusual to see plates from nearly half the states within the first 30 minutes of a trip. (When I was little, it was the ultimate excitement if we saw a license plate from Rhode Island or Delaware. Now seeing those plates is common; my kids get really excited when they see a Wyoming license plate!) No wonder my kids expect to be in a new state so early in our trips! A drive across the western states would be an eye-opening experience for them.
3. Moisture--I didn't really realize it at the time, but I grew up in the desert. Not my kids! They think sprinklers were made for the sole purpose of kids cooling off on a hot & muggy summer day. That's mostly what we use ours for. If I told them to water the lawn, they probably wouldn't know what I meant. (If the lawn needs watering, it means we're in a drought and under water restrictions, so we're not allowed to water it.) Not me, at their age--I remember setting up sprinklers a couple of times a week. I don't think they fully appreciate how green it is here, either!



The lawn in spring--no watering, and not even at it's greenest.
4. Historical sites--We live smack in the middle of Civil War history. There was a small battle right in Frederick; we've visited the Monocacy Battlefield more than once. Gettysburg is 30 minutes to our north, and Antietam about 20 minutes to our northwest. Non-Civil War historical sites abound, as well. Fort McHenry, Washington, DC, Harper's Ferry, C&O Canal, etc.! The only "history" we got out west was pioneer sites,"geological" history, and Spanish missions!

Gettysburg, March 2005

Washington, DC November 2007

Cove Fort, Utah--June 2005

Bryce Canyon, Utah--June 2005
5. Mountains--Things I consider hills, my kids consider mountains. I grew up surrounded by huge, bare, rocky structures. My kids are accustomed to the older, gentler, tree-covered (and greener) slopes of the Appalachian Mountains.

Utah mountains--July 2005

Appalachian Mountains (Blue Ridge range)--August 2008

My kids are Easterners!

The Best Picture I've Ever Taken

Does that not look like a picture you'd see in a magazine or something?! Ok, I'm a vain little beast!

I'm posting this photo not only because it's the best picture I've ever taken, but because it's January, and I thought we could all use a reminder of summer!

I took this photo in July 2005 at a balloon festival in Provo, Utah. They do this every year as part of Provo's Freedom Festival. They started doing the balloon festival when I was a teenager and I always wanted to go, but it took me until I was in my late 30's to actually go...mainly because you have to get up really early in the morning! (And it didn't help when I moved across the country from Provo nearly 12 years ago.) I dragged my three boys out of bed to go to this event, and they weren't very happy about it at first, but they loved it and afterwards they all agreed that it was worth getting up for.

Here's a few other photos from that event:

Ahhh....don't you feel warmer already?! Only about 161 days until summer!

Weekly Reveiw January 10 '09

All right, so I admit I’ve been neglecting my blog lately! I’ve mostly just been doing the weekly reviews, which I know aren’t the most exciting reading on the planet. I’m doing those mostly for my benefit. I do have a lot of ideas of things I’d like to do, though—I’ve just been too busy to execute any of them! I am hoping I will do better now that the rush of the Christmas season is over (and I’m kind of sad about that, actually!) but I haven’t noticed things slowing down much yet.

Take Sunday, for example. After church Frank and Tanner went to collect fast offerings. While they were gone, I got Seth down for a nap and finished making dinner. I had a Primary presidency meeting at 3:30, so we wanted to eat before I had to leave. After my meeting, we visited one family (we are visiting all the families in the ward who have Primary age children). With driving time, I managed to get home just after 5:15, which is when Frank had to leave for his own meeting. He was meeting with the stake clerk about some computer stuff, and then at 6:00 he had a stake priesthood meeting. Scott and Tanner went with him, since they were also going to the 6:00 meeting. They got a ride home after that, because Frank had another meeting at 7:00 for the stake leaders. He didn’t get home until 8:30. Meanwhile, I got everybody to bed. That was Sunday!

It was back to the regular routine on Monday, but not for long. That’s because we had a “wintry mix” storm come in on Tuesday, and ended up with the schools getting out 2 hours early on Tuesday and starting 2 hours late Wednesday morning. So our first “full” week back in school didn’t really turn out to be a full week. There really wasn’t any need for the kids to get out early on Tuesday—they thought things were going to get worse, but the weather was actually better that afternoon than it was that morning—but there was quite a bit of ice on the roads Wednesday morning which melted before the kids had to go to school, so going in late that morning was helpful. We mostly got rain out of that storm (a lot of rain), but we did have some freezing rain mixed in at times. The boys were disappointed that we were south of the “snow line”, so they didn’t get any full snow days, as they had hoped. We did get a little snow—Thursday morning it snowed hard for about 10 minutes! But of course that didn’t produce much accumulation, and it all melted quickly.

I admit it’s been hard for me to get back into a routine, although I’ve enjoyed having a quieter house during the days. Seth still isn’t sleeping very well, so getting up in the mornings is hard. I don’t like worrying about homework and all that stuff, either. Christmas is my favorite time of year—I just love the special feeling that’s in the air that I just can’t hold onto (try as I might!)—so I’m always sorry when it’s over. Besides, January is just plain cold, gray, and boring most of the time! I agree with my mom—we really need to have a fun, exciting holiday in January!

Speaking of my mom, I should mention that in recent years I’ve noticed that a big part of the magic of Christmas is remembering past years. I find that I am doing that more and more as I get older, and I am so grateful that I have such wonderful memories of all my Christmases. My parents always did such a good job of creating fun, happy, and spiritual Christmases for us!

Wednesday morning was complicated this week because not only did the boys have to get to school 2 hours later than usual, but I had a visiting teaching appointment and Seth had a doctor appointment. I managed to get everything done, in spite of the change in the schedule. Seth is healthy and growing well. He weighs 26 pounds, 12 ounces now, and he is 34 ¾ inches long. He only had to get one shot, and that is the last one until he is 4 years old—hooray! His doctor said he can’t believe how big he is—it has gone by fast! Seth has been exploding in the verbal language area the last few weeks—he is saying new words every day! Butterfly, puppies, baby, tissues…. He is finally starting to call me “Mommy” instead of “Daddy” sometimes. He will repeat almost any word I say, and then remembers it later if he sees the same object again. He got to see puppies at my friend Marci’s house this week, which he loved. He is also really into buses right now, so he looks for them when we are driving in the car and gets very excited if he sees one. He is constantly asking “bus? Bus?” when ever we are in the car. On Sunday I was showing him a family snapshot and if I pointed at each person and asked him who it was, he would say something that sounded like the right name for each person. If I said “Where’s Scott?” “Where’s Daddy?” etc, he would immediately point to the correct person. He also said his own name for the first time this week. It’s really fun to hear him talking more!

We all went to the church Wednesday night—the boys had scouts, Frank was fixing a computer for somebody, and I was going through the nursery toys to try to organize them better and see if there were any toys in bad repair that should just be thrown out. Seth stayed with me and enjoyed playing with the nursery toys while I worked. I found that almost all the toys are in pretty good shape, but there are so many of them, that we really need to give some away. There are a lot of larger items (play kitchen, slide, etc.) that don’t fit in the cupboards, so the nursery room floor is pretty cluttered with toys. I’m going to talk to the nursery leaders and then make a decision about what to let go.

I went to lunch with my friends Marci and Rebecca on Thursday. It was fun—we don’t get to see each other enough lately. Other than that, I spent way too much time in the world of Bella and Edward this week! I finished the 2nd book in the Twilight series. Frank decided to read them also; he caught up with me and now he’s working on the 3rd book. I’ve decided not to start the 3rd book until I get a few other things done—they are hard to put down once you get into them. Now I am reading my book for book club—we are reading an LDS book this time; it’s called The Broken Heart (by Bruce Hafen). So far it is absolutely fabulous, and I’m still in the introduction!

Frank was very busy at work this week—he put in a lot of long hours. On Thursday he didn’t get home until after 8:00. He got to take the day off on Friday, though, which was nice. He helped me go through a big pile of paperwork that has been accumulating for the last month or so, and he also went out and got some lunch for us. After the boys got home, he went to the stake center to work on some computers for a couple of hours. Well, it was supposed to be a couple of hours! He ran into some problems, so it took a lot longer than he’d planned, and he didn’t get home until after dinner.

Jared had a pretty cool field trip on Friday. They went to an old school house where they experienced what a school was like in the year 1880. They each got to pick a person from a list of profiles and they were that child for the day—Jared was “Adam”. He says it was interesting, but cold. (There was no central heating, just a wood stove like they would have had back then.) They also had to use an outhouse. They had a spelling bee, used slates to do their work, played games from that time period at recess, and so forth. They even got to find out what it was like to wear a dunce cap, if they wanted! (They also talked about other disciplinary measures, but Jared said they weren’t allowed to hit the kids’ hands with a ruler!)

Today I worked on some scout stuff with the boys. Tanner and Scott are both almost done with their Personal Management merit badge. I took Jared and Tanner to play with the Schlenz boys; while they played I went shopping and then picked them up on my way back home. I was shopping for clothes—I had some money from my Christmas stocking to spend. I always have to scour the racks for a long time and try on a lot of things in order to find a few things that fit right. I was successful this time, though—I ended up with a blouse, two sweaters, and a jacket that all fit beautifully. I’m excited because finding things to wear on top that are not way too long is the hardest thing for me!

That about wraps it up for this week. Hopefully you’ll hear from me again before my next weekly review!

Weekly Review January 3 '09

Happy New Year!

New Year’s always seems anti-climactic to me after Christmas, but we did have fun celebrating it this year. Our friends the Becks invited us over to spend the evening. (I took the camera with me, but forgot to take a single picture!) They had pizza and we brought a bunch of finger foods—we ended up with a ton of yummy food. After dinner, the older boys (including the two dads) went upstairs to play video games. The women and younger kids stayed downstairs—the kids watched Alvin and the Chipmunks while the women visited. Actually, the older boys came down and watched quite a bit of the movie, also. I brought the new game Frank got me for Christmas to show to Jana Beck, so we played that for a while and she thought it was a pretty cool game. It’s called Professor Layton and the Curious Village. In the game, you are trying to solve a mystery but all along the way you also have to solve all these “brain teaser” type puzzles. I’ve been enjoying it—makes me think! After the boys got their fill of video games, they came downstairs and all the adults played a game called “Cash Flow”—it’s the Becks’ favorite game. It was pretty fun! We played that until midnight. I got really lucky and so I was winning when we quit to welcome in the new year. I was getting a monthly “paycheck” at that point of $345,000—not bad, huh?! I told everybody I had a good feeling about 2009!

We came home shortly after midnight, since we were all pretty tired by then. We had put Seth down around 9:00, but he woke up when we took him home and even though he went back to sleep pretty fast, he woke up again about a half hour later and he was restless for a while, so we didn’t get to sleep until after 1:30. Seth hasn’t been sleeping very well lately—I think maybe because he is teething again. We’ve seen a lot of new teeth coming in the last week or two. We all slept in the next morning, though.

On New Year’s Day, we took down all the Christmas decorations—I’m always sad to see them go, but it is nice to have a less cluttered house! The sister missionaries also came by that day to do a “missionary activity” with us. We talked about some things we can do to be better about sharing the gospel (we can all work on that), and set some goals (pretty appropriate activity for January 1st, I thought!) We enjoyed their visit. In the late afternoon we went to do some shopping—Tanner and Scott both need new pants, and I got some money from “Santa” for some new clothes. We found some pants and also some shoes for Tanner, but as usual we couldn’t find anything to fit Scott. I found a lot of things I was interested in trying on and headed to the fitting room with a cartful, but I had barely started when they announced that the store would be closing in 10 minutes—at 6:00, on a weekday?! So I just had to leave without even trying on most of the things I picked out, and I didn’t buy anything. That was frustrating—a waste of time! Back at home, Frank gave all the boys haircuts while I did a bunch of other chores—laundry, budget, etc. It was pretty late before we got done with all that.

It was nice to be on a more relaxed schedule this week, although I still felt like we were pretty busy! We ended up staying up late most nights and then sleeping in a little in the mornings. Frank did have to work on Monday and Tuesday, and he went in on Friday to get a few things done (and ended up working about 4 hours), but he had the rest of the week off. I played games a lot more than I usually do, and I also got a lot of reading done—Santa brought me some books.

We had a nice time on Sunday—the Schlenz family invited us over for dinner. The three older boys went home with them after church, and then Frank, Seth and I joined them later for dinner. They had tons of yummy leftovers from Christmas, and we brought a few contributions also. We just had a really nice visit with them. Seth was fascinated with their two cats and followed one of them around a lot. He kept pointing to it, and then patting his chest with his hand—it was obvious he wanted to hold the cat! The cat didn’t want to be held, though. Seth was so good the whole evening, even though he didn’t get to hold the cat!

We had the two older Schlenz boys over on Tuesday afternoon and they spent the night and stayed until afternoon on Wednesday. The weather was really nice on Tuesday—only needed a light jacket! The boys were able to play outside (although they weren’t happy with me at first when I made them go out!) They all played “capture the flag” with some of the neighbor boys, and then later they all played football together. It was nice to see them getting some fresh air and exercise. (Especially since it got cold again the next day—and extremely windy!) I took Seth out twice also, and he loved wandering the neighborhood (me following, of course!) and watching the older boys play. I had a doctor appointment Wednesday morning and I got some shopping done, too.

The boys and I spent Friday morning rearranging furniture in the living room—after taking the tree down, we decided we wanted to try something different. I’m not sure we’ll keep it the way it is now, but the room looks bigger the way we have it now which is nice. Frank went to the temple that morning before he went to work. In the afternoon, Scott & Tanner went to the Schlenz’s house to play. That evening we had movie night; we watched the Singles 2nd Ward (thanks, Tim & Rachelle!) which we all enjoyed.

I was not home very much today. This morning Jana, Andrea, and I got together to put up new bulletin boards in the Primary room for the new year. That ended up taking longer than we expected, but they do look very nice now. After that, I came home long enough to change clothes and grab something to eat, and then I was out the door again on my way to the temple. I wanted to get home before dark, because I do not like driving long distances in the dark! When I got there, I decided to see if I could do initiatories, since that generally takes less time. I’m glad I checked—there were three workers there but no patrons, so they were as happy to have me as I was to be there! I am really glad that Frank and I both made it to the temple this week. Today was the last day the temple was open before it closes for winter maintenance (about 2 weeks), so we really wanted to go before then. After I got home from the temple, I ran to the store with Scott to see if we could find him some pants. We did find a couple of pair that sort of fit (they are always too big in the waist for him) so we got them. He ripped a big hole in the back of one pair of jeans recently, bringing him down to 2 pair, so I’m glad we were able to find him a couple more. We also ran a few other errands; by the time we got home Frank had dinner almost ready. It’s been a busy day, and I am tired, but grateful for everything I was able to get done.

On Sunday we found out that Andrea, the other counselor in Primary, and her family are moving to Michigan in a few months. What a bummer! We will really miss them. Andrea is such a great person to work with. Of course, that means we will need a new counselor in Primary. This will make the 6th counselor Jana has had since she became the Primary president just one year ago! Jana says people are going to think she must be really hard to work with! (She’s not—there have just been a lot of circumstances come up where counselors have needed to be released.) I grinned at her and said “Yes, I was just thinking—I’ve been in about 5 months now, so isn’t it about time for me to be released?” She said “No way!”

We’ve been thinking about Juan today because we remembered it’s his birthday—hope he had a good one!