The Saga of the Lonely Chocolate Chips

Once there was a lonely little bag of white chocolate chips, left over from a science fair project. :

What could I do to help this lonely little bag of chips? Well, I introduced it to some old friends--macadamia nuts--let it "mix it up" with some butter, sugar, flour, etc., and the end result was these yummy cookies!


The white chocolate chips aren't lonely anymore, and we had a great family night treat!

A win-win situation for everyone!


I love happy endings!

PS--I got the recipe off the internet. I'm wondering how I ever managed to live nearly 30 years without the internet!

Weekly Review March 28 '09

We are still waiting for spring around here. Most of this week has been on the cold side—pull the coats back out! Many nights have gone below freezing, and the heat has been coming back on. I have not been able to plant my pansies yet, and it’s been hard to keep them alive—I’m no good with house plants. Frank says I have a “black thumb” because I kill everything. I forget to water inside plants. Hopefully it will warm up soon or my poor pansies are goners! Thursday it rained all day long, and felt a little bit warmer. It rained all day today also.

Sunday was busy—no naps this week! After church I had choir, then our home teachers came, then I had a presidency meeting. At our meeting we stuffed plastic Easter eggs for our upcoming Easter egg hunt activity. Trivia question: how long does it take 4 people to stuff approximately 1600 eggs? Answer: 3 hours! It didn’t seem that long because we were visiting the whole time. Frank was wonderful and had dinner ready when I got home—not that I was all that hungry after “sampling” a few too many jelly beans!

For FHE activity on Monday we watched some of our old home movies—it was funny to see the older boys looking so little! One of the things we watched was footage of the huge snowstorm we got in February 2003. It was amazing to see how high the snow drifts were! I doubt we’ll ever have a storm like that again, although I know Frank hopes every winter that we will.

I finished up Grapes of Wrath just in time for book chat on Tuesday. I enjoyed the discussion, but I didn’t get to hear a lot of it. I had to leave early because I had an appointment for a follow-up mammogram—after I said I was done with all that stuff for the year, I ended up having to go back again! The lady who did my first one told me not to panic if they called me back—it’s not too uncommon the first time because they don’t have a “normal” to compare with—so I didn’t panic, but it was still nice to get that over with and find out nothing’s wrong. They ended up taking 3 different shots and then did an ultrasound also, just to make sure, but they decided I’m ok. I have to go back in six months, though, just to be on the safe side. So much for being done for the year!

Frank was busy this week with lots of work for the stake; he was fixing computers for 3 different wards on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was also busy with his regular work, usual. He does a lot more work from home now—a co-worker is going to the client that he used to go to on Mondays and Wednesdays, so he only has a regular place to go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He still has plenty of work to do, but on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays he is often doing work for various clients from home. On Monday he did some work for our bishop and his wife—her computer had picked up a pretty nasty virus.

Thursday evening Frank and I got out for a little while. It wasn’t a true date, because Seth came with us, but it was still nice to get out of the house for a while! We went to Costco to buy a carpet cleaner—we had a rebate coupon that covered a lot of the cost. I’m hoping it will be easier to keep the carpets maintained with one of those in the house.

This week was end of term at school. The boys all got out 2 hours early on Thursday and didn’t have school at all on Friday. Tanner and Scott had a friend from church, Brian, come over to spend the night Thursday night. We all stayed up until about midnight (except Seth) and unfortunately Seth woke up bright and early Friday morning—5:15. Ugh! After he roamed around our room for about 45 minutes with no sign of going back to sleep, I gave up and took him to his room to play. He wanted to go downstairs and wasn’t very happy about being confined to his room, but all the other boys were asleep on the living room floor. I kept him happy by reading books until about 7:15. By then we were both hungry so we went downstairs. Snickers was ready to get out of his crate by then also, so between him and Seth, they managed to wake everybody else up pretty quickly!

Friday was warmer than most days this week, so in addition to the usual video game marathon, the boys did actually go outside to play quite a bit. Jared’s friend Sage came over for most of the morning as well—the more the merrier! Frank had some work to do for a couple of clients, but he got that done and was back home by around noon.

We went out in the afternoon to look at hiking backpacks for Scott and Tanner—they’re going to need them for scout camp and other scout activities. Scott’s been making do with Frank’s old pack and other bags that aren’t really made to carry on your back, but we’ve decided we really need to invest in some good backpacks. I’m sure they will get a lot of use, with Jared and Seth coming along behind them! Anyway, I knew they would not be cheap, but it was discouraging to find out just how much they are—more than I expected. We went to one store and then we tried to go to a second one but discovered it has gone out of business. Those are the only two stores we know of in Frederick that carry that kind of stuff. Then Frank got the bright idea to see what we could find on E-Bay, and we found tons of them for really good prices. We ended up ordering two brand new ones, and came in way under budget.

Friday evening Tanner went to spend the night with his friend Ryan. Frank and I went out to dinner. We invited our friends, Jana & Brody Beck to come also. We had a good time. Brody came over after to play games with Frank. Jana loaned us their copy of Twilight, so Scott, Jared and I watched that while Brody & Frank played. We enjoyed it, but it wasn’t as good as the book, of course. I think they could have done a much better job with that movie than they did. We didn’t learn from our mistake the night before—we ended up staying up until midnight again! Seth woke up early this morning, also—but not until 6:15 this time. Frank got up with him so I could get a little more sleep.

Scott and Tanner were supposed to be gone all day today helping with the scout’s lawn aeration fundraiser, but because of the rain they had to postpone that. Tanner and Scott did go help a family in the ward who is moving, though. I had my eyes checked again this morning, and the doctor decided to change the prescription in one eye. Frank is gone with Tanner right now getting Tanner’s eyes checked, and picking up Scott’s new lenses for his glasses. Frank tried out the new carpet cleaner on one part of the living room carpet, but we’re not sure we’re very happy with the results, so we might take it back. Between all of that, preparing sharing time, and getting everything else ready for Sunday, this day has gone by fast!

Mr. Seth is getting too smart for his own good. One day he managed to pull a chair over to the counter, climb up on the counter, open the cupboard, get down the cookies, open them, and had about 7 cookies in his hand before he was discovered! He also likes to play with the burners on the stove and tries to climb on the stove (not a good thing!) and he can open the refrigerator and the oven. I am really worried he’s going to get burned one of these days. Speaking of burns, he did get burned one night at dinner because I gave him seconds on a casserole and I didn’t realize it was still pretty hot. He took a bite and immediately spit it out; the hot food landed on his hand and burned his hand! I felt really bad about that, but after putting cold water on his hand he calmed right down and seemed to be fine. One of his other antics this week: I was giving Snickers a much needed bath, and Seth decided to get in with him! Seth and I were almost as wet as Snickers by the time we were done. Seth is a busy boy, but lots of fun most of the time.

No pictures again this week—I’ve been too busy to take any! Everybody think spring!

Two Different Houses

The first house is small. The flooring is old and worn. The carpets need replacing or at the very least, a good cleaning. Many of the walls are grimy and some need new paint. Most of the furniture is old and worn, also. Much of it is “hand me downs” from others that don’t reflect the tastes of the house’s occupants. The family that lives in this house feels crowded. It’s hard to find some peace and quiet. It’s hard to find places for everything. The house looks cluttered, in spite of the homemaker’s best efforts. Finances are always tight. Vacations are infrequent, outings are rare, date nights almost non-existent. It’s hard to save. Whatever small savings that are accumulated quickly disappear—the car needs fixing, an appliance breaks, or someone needs dental work. The parents wonder how the kids are going to go to college. Day-to-day expenses are difficult also. Field trips, birthday gifts, growing children needing new clothes, and so forth wreak havoc on the budget on a weekly basis which leaves the parents feeling frustated and discouraged. They say "no" to their kids a lot more than they'd like to.

The second house has two full levels and an almost finished basement. It's in a nice neighborhood with beautiful views out the back. The walls in this house are also a bit grimy--mostly marks left by the dirty hands of children, which the parents consider a great blessing. The family that lives in this house is happy. They have everything they need and a lot of the things that they want. No one in this house has ever gone to bed hungry. As a matter of fact, they have good meals every day and on Sundays they have an extra nice meal that usually includes meat, vegetables, fruit, delicious homemade rolls and dessert. Everyone in this house has a bed to sleep in. The house is warm and dry in the winter, and in summer it's cooled by air conditioning. The children's drawers often overflow with clothes--many nice items given to them by others. Everyone has warm clothes (including coats, gloves, and hats) for winter months and cooler clothes for summer. Although the budget is almost always tight, somehow, miraculously, there's always enough to meet the family's needs.

Even more than all that, this family considers themselves the most blessed family in their whole neighborhood because they have a lot more than just temporal blessings. They are all healthy and strong. This family have wonderful extended families who don't live near, but through the wonders of technology they are able to keep in touch. They have many close friends and enjoy having those friends visit their home. There is more than one priesthood holder in this home. This family is sealed together forever through the power of the priesthood, and they enjoy all the blessings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ on a daily basis. They are far from perfect, but they have the blessings of scripture study, family prayer, family home evening, and the counsel of living prophets to help their family overcome their challenges and become a stronger family.

Maybe you've guessed by now that the "two different houses" are not actually two houses but one. I've been describing the same house and the same family in both scenarios. Maybe you've also guessed that the house and family that I'm describing is my own.

Perhaps that is why I loved this quote that President Thomas S. Monson used in his conference talk last October: “Both abundance and lack [of abundance] exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend . . . when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present—love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us [happiness]—the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.” (Sarah Ban Breathnach)

This quote spoke to my heart, perhaps because it put into words the conflicting feelings I've had for many years. One day I am feeling discouraged and resentful about the things I don't have and the next day I wonder how I can ever feel that way when I have so much of the things that truly matter. All too often, I choose to tend the first secret garden that I described at the beginning of this post instead of the second one. This quote was encouraging to me, though. I realized, for one thing, that those conflicting feelings I have are normal. More importantly, the quote provided the answer to my question of how to be a grateful person. I have to make a conscious choice to focus on the abundance. Ok, so I already knew that, of course. (How many times have I sung the hymn "Count Your Blessings" in my life?!) But I love the way this quote acknowledges the reality of the lack of abundance, while at the same time encouraging us to move past the lack to focus on the abundance that is also a reality. I can do that! I've been trying to do that the last six months, and it does make a difference.

I still have a long way to go, though. So I've decided that this will be my first post in a new "column" which I am going to call "Thankful Thursday". (Ok, so I didn't get this one posted until Friday...but I started it on Thursday!) I doubt I'll manage to post something every Thursday, but occasionally this column will pop up. Sometimes I might make a list of things I'm grateful for. Other times I might focus on one particular blessing, or share an experience that illustrates something I'm grateful for, or even write a mini-essay on gratitude similar to this one. I'm keeping my options open, but whatever I choose to do, I will be focusing on the abundance that exists in my life. I hope you will want to share your own thoughts on this topic as well.

Heaven on earth, here I come!

Weekly Review March 21 '09

I don’t think there is a lot to say about this week. Frank was gone from Tuesday morning to Thursday late afternoon; I guess things are just not very exciting when he isn’t around! Or I just try to keep things really simple, so I don’t go crazy trying to keep up with everything as a “single parent”. It’s probably a combination of both of those things.

We didn’t have any extra meetings or anything like that on Sunday, so Frank and I actually got a nap! That was nice for a change. We had Evan with us still—he went home late Monday evening. He mentioned on Sunday afternoon that he was feeling a little homesick, so I decided to call his mom so he could talk to her. I’m not sure that was a good idea, although I’m sure he was grateful to talk to her—when he heard her voice he started to cry! I should have thought of that. But after he got off the phone he cheered up pretty quickly and he seemed fine the rest of the time he was with us.

Frank’s back was doing much better on Sunday until he twisted around really fast to catch the dishwasher door before it hit the floor (the springs are broken, and Evan forgot that he couldn’t just let it go.) That really didn’t help his back at all, and he was in quite a bit of pain the rest of the evening, but by Monday he was doing much better, thankfully.

Monday was pretty uneventful except for the complete melt-down that Jared had that evening which resulted in his getting sent to his room and missing family night. He is usually pretty good, but he can be very stubborn! The rest of us enjoyed playing a game—it was Jared’s turn to pick the activity, so we just let Evan pick what game he wanted to play instead.

Frank went to work as usual on Tuesday morning, but instead of coming home he left from there to drive down to North Carolina. He went down there to attend the funeral of a close family friend who passed away last Friday. This man (Brother Harris) has boys near Frank’s age, so Frank spent a lot of time in his home while he was growing up, and he was like another father for Frank. He did some work for him at times, and Brother Harris even helped pay for Frank to go to college his first semester. So Frank is very grateful to him for that (so am I)! Brother Harris had diabetes and had been in very poor health for many years, so it wasn’t a shock, but of course we are sorry.

Of course, it was nice for Frank to visit a little bit with his family and a lot of old friends as well. It would have been nice for all of us to go, but Jared and Tanner both had state testing this week at school and even if they hadn’t, I’m not willing to take Tanner out of school for anything right now since he is still getting caught up! He has brought his grade in science up to a “B” now, and he has a high “C” in math. Unfortunately, he is probably stuck with a “D” in social studies because they rotate that class with science, and he is off the social studies rotation until the end of the term, so there is no way to bring his grade up any further. There is one assignment, though, that his teacher said she would excuse him from doing and there is still a “zero” on his grade sheet for that, so maybe when she fixes that his grade will go up a little (it was a pretty big assignment worth a lot of points.)

Since Frank was by himself, he made really good time getting to North Carolina and back, and he was able to take the Prius, which means he got almost all the way there on one tank of gas—nice! Maybe we will all get to go down later this summer, but it’s not looking all that good right now with all the other expenses that keep coming up. So far, though, I would have to say we’ve been very lucky that the struggling economy has not affected us very much. We know a lot of people who haven’t been so lucky.

Because of the testing, the boys have not had a lot of homework this week which has been nice for a change! Tanner has been working on his science fair project, though. We went early to scouts on Wednesday so that we could meet another family there and have them do his chocolate taste test. We went to another family on Thursday evening to do the same thing. (Frank also looked at one of their computers for them and discovered that they have a virus which is going to take some time to fix.)

My friend Jeanine came to visit with me most of the day on Thursday—that was nice for me! We had a nice, long talk. I was up early that day, and it’s a good thing because I ended up taking Scott to Seminary—his ride didn’t show up. It turned out to be a mix-up—the girl who usually picks him up thought he was riding with someone else. He got breakfast at Seminary that morning—they had some kind of competition between the boys and the girls, the boys won, and the girls had to cook breakfast for the boys.

Friday was the first day of spring, but it wasn’t very spring-like. It was raw and cold! We do have some flowers coming up, though.


I also couldn’t resist buying some pansies this week—they are one of my favorite flowers! I love how they come in so many beautiful colors!

Frank also brought home a bit of spring cheer—these pretty yellow tulips.

A lady he works with gave some to everyone to celebrate the first day of spring.

We had pack meeting on Friday evening. A lot of people couldn’t make it, but we still had a pretty decent turn out, and I think everyone had fun. I knew Jared was getting the Family Member activity badge, because I helped him do it at home. I was surprised, however, (pleasantly so) when he received 4 more activity badges: Engineer, Craftsman, Handyman, and Readyman. His Webolos leader must have done those with him. No complaints from me!

Today has been a lot busier than the rest of the week. Scott had a basketball game at 8:00 am. It was the last one of the season. As usual, his team lost their game. If they had won, they would have had more games throughout the day. I have to admit I’m kind of glad they didn’t win! Scott wasn’t too disappointed. I think he has learned a lot this season and improved in his skills so it was definitely worthwhile.

After Scott got back home, I worked on scouts with each of the boys. I finished up the Personal Management merit badge with Tanner (Scott already finished), and we worked on the Reading merit badge with both of them (they are both almost finished with that, also.) With Jared, I finished up the Scholar activity badge. It’s nice to feel like each of the boys is making some progress with scouts.

Frank and I did some furniture shopping after that. We are still looking for some couches. So far, we just haven’t found anything we really like. A lot of things we’ve seen are “ok”, but we just haven’t seen anything we can get really excited about. We will keep looking.

We rushed home from shopping so that Scott and I could go get our eyes checked. I finally have a new pair of contact lenses, after wearing the same pair for nearly 9 years! (The old ones were not the disposable kind, but they still probably should have been replaced after about 2 years.) I can see a lot better now. My astigmatism has gotten quite a bit more pronounced, so I am trying a toric lens. It seems to really be helping. I go back next week to get checked again to make sure the lenses I have are really the right ones for me. Scott also has new contact lenses (his prescription changed quite a bit) and we ordered new lenses for his glasses, but he will keep the same frames. I will probably do the same, but we are waiting to order the lenses until we make sure I have the correct prescription. (I would like to get new frames, but since I don’t wear my glasses very much I am deciding to forego the expense.) The good news is, I discovered that our new vision insurance is better than I thought, so we came in under budget. Then a few hours after we got back, Tanner came inside from playing basketball outside with one of the arms of his glasses snapped in two! We were planning to get his eyes checked soon anyway, but I was hoping to keep his frames and replace the lenses only since we are also going to let him try contact lenses. Now we’ll have to get new frames also. Rats! They are doing vision screening at Tanner and Jared’s school this week, so I decided to wait and get the results of that before I scheduled exams for them. I am fairly certain that Tanner will need a new prescription, but I don’t know about Jared. He was just checked last year, but he’s been having lots of headaches, so that makes me suspect he probably needs new glasses also.

The spring cleaning bug is biting me hard! This afternoon Frank and I did a little bit of cleaning and organizing in the basement. There is still a lot to do, but we did make some progress. We threw out a decent sized pile of stuff, and we have 3 or 4 large trash bags full of things to give away (mostly clothes), as well as a bunch of cardboard and plastic buckets to recycle. Most of the clothes I went through were baby / toddler clothes. We found a box of clothes that I’ve been looking for—it included all the shirts Mom made for the older 3 boys, so now Seth has lots of cute new shirts to wear (and will for many years!) I dislike the clothes sorting routine, but we have to go through it at least twice a year as the seasons change. I still have a lot to do in that area since I haven’t done anything with the older boys’ clothes yet. Our neighbor is also spring cleaning, and she gave us a dresser that we are going to give to Tanner since he is still using a couple of plastic drawer sets.

This evening I continued my “cleaning frenzy” by scrubbing all my floors on my hands and knees. I never did get around to cleaning them last week, so I was “doing penance”! They look much better now although they never do look very nice—they are just too old. I will be glad when I can replace them someday—with something that is NOT white!

Didn't it make you tired just reading all that?!

Seth fell down the front steps on Wednesday morning, so his nose is looking pretty beat up right now. (It looks even worse than in the picture now because it has scabbed up more.) I think all of the boys have fallen down those steps and scraped their noses at some point. I will have to track down the picture I have of Tanner after he took a nose dive off those steps. If I find it, I will post it later!

Seth is talking a lot and surprises me sometimes with the things he says. Sometimes when I go in to pick him up in the morning he fusses a little and pulls at his pajama bottoms and says “diaper”, so I change him. One morning his week he looked at me and said “diaper change”. I changed him, and he was messy. I suspect that if he had just been wet he wouldn’t have cared, but it’s a step in the right direction, anyway. Since I am a “veteran” parent, I am not fooled into thinking that he is ready to be potty trained! (He’s not even two yet.) But it’s nice to see him taking steps in the right direction, at least. Seth really likes I Spy books, so this week I put in one of the I Spy computer games for him to see. He has not learned how to use the mouse or get around the program yet (I’m sure that will happen all too soon!) but he enjoys watching me do it. Seth has a pretty yucky runny nose right now (that started on Wednesday) but doesn’t seem to have any other symptoms of illness other than he’s been a bit crabbier than usual.

I have spent quite a bit of time this week reading The Grapes of Wrath, which is my book for book club this month. I read it in high school, but that was a long time ago! I didn’t remember much about it, except that there was a lot of foul language. I was right about that—it’s even worse than I remembered and after the first couple of chapters I wasn’t so sure I wanted to read it again. But I persevered and it calms down a bit after the first few chapters (or else I just got “de-sensitized” to it—I’m not sure which) and it really is an interesting (although depressing) story that is masterfully written. I don’t think I appreciated that part of it so much the first time I read it. It’s interesting to read about that part of history (the “dust bowl”) in light of all the things happening with the economy now. Once again, it helps me to feel grateful for what I have. I hope days like those aren’t coming again.

Well, I guess there was more to say than I thought! I’d better quit rambling and get to bed!

The Dinosaur Phase

Seth is currently going through a dinosaur phase. Doesn't every little boy go through a dinosaur phase? Fortunately for Seth, he has access to a very extensive collection of dinosaurs, thanks to his three older brothers. For me it's kind of "dejavu" to see piles of dinosaurs on the floor like this: This was a very common sight in our home a number of years ago, but it's been a while!

Also thanks to Seth's brothers, I am very prepared for the dinosaur phase. I think I have read every kids' dinosaur book ever written--fiction or non-fiction! That means I have incredible dinosaur "smarts" that goes way beyond the basic Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Tyrannosaurus Rex. I mean, do names like Compsognathus and Pachycephalosaurus roll off your tongue like water? They do mine!

Here is Seth enjoying his beloved reptiles:

Family history trivia: Of the older three boys, Tanner went through the most intense dinosaur phase. As a matter of fact, I don't think he is completely out of it still--recently, when we had to research a potential career for one of his merit badges, he chose "paleontologist". He doesn't talk about dinosaurs much now, but when he was little he ate, drank, slept, breathed dinosaurs! Here's a picture of him with his most beloved dinosaur, at age 2 1/2. They were inseparable, as you can see!:

I have Tanner to thank for most of my dinosaur knowledge. I remember his kindergarten teacher saying to me "I've known a lot of little boys who can pronounce all those complicated dinosaur names, but I've never known a little boy like Tanner who can spell them, too!"

Only time will tell the length, depth and breadth of Seth's dinosaur phase. I'm dusting off the dinosaur books and preparing to enjoy the ride!

Weekly Review March 14 '09

The “battle of the germs” goes on at our house! I hope someday we are all well again at the same time. Although Seth never did throw up again, he had “sloppy” diapers for several days and it was obvious he wasn’t feeling his best. He got really sore in the diaper area, so diaper changes were quite an ordeal.

Meanwhile, Jared started sounding “stuffy” on Friday, and he was quite hoarse on Saturday. (Didn’t stop him from playing basketball for hours with the other boys—it was a very beautiful day!) We decided on Saturday that we weren’t going to take Seth to stake conference the next day and when I got up Sunday morning I told Frank since he and Seth were staying home anyway, I was going to let Jared sleep in and stay home also. That turned out to be a good decision—when Jared woke up (shortly before I left) he had a pretty high fever and almost no voice. He said his throat was so clogged up that he felt like he couldn’t breathe through his mouth.

I took Scott & Tanner with me to stake conference. (Unfortunately, Frank missed the Saturday evening session. He was just too tired to go, and I was too tired to manage dinner / baths / bedtime without him!) Because I was singing in the choir, I sat up front. Scott & Tanner were sitting in the back of the chapel, so I couldn’t see them very well, but from what I saw they were behaving very well. Because both of the choir numbers were closer to the beginning of the meeting, I left the stand during the congregational hymn half way through and went to sit with Scott and Tanner. The meeting was good; we had a visiting general authority—Elder Chipman—who was the main speaker. The focus of the meeting was mainly missionary work.

After conference our friends the Koettings came for dinner—that is our “stake conference tradition”. Jeanine was telling me that we can’t ever move away because coming to our house afterwards motivates her kids to want to go to stake conference. They actually look forward to stake conference! Well, it is good for us, also. My kids always look forward to it, too. I had sent Jeanine an e-mail to warn her that we had some germs, but they all decided to risk exposure and come anyway. We had a yummy dinner and a nice visit. It was so warm that day that we had to open all the windows. It was almost too warm! A lot of the bulbs in my yard are starting to come up, and a few little daffodils have bloomed. It is cooler now, and I’m sure we’ll have a few more cold days before we are through, but hopefully nothing cold enough to kill the flowers.

Jared had a high fever (103) Monday morning, so I decided to take him to the doctor to make sure he didn’t have strep or something like that. The strep test came out negative, but the Influenza B test came out positive. They prescribed an anti-viral medication for him that is supposed to help him have a less severe case of the illness, but he also has to start taking it within 48 hours of getting symptoms. I knew we were already pushing it, since he was having some symptoms on Saturday, and then when we called our pharmacy and found out that they were out of stock and had to order it and it wouldn’t be in until Tuesday afternoon, we just decided to forget it. (A friend told me later this week that she got some for her kids and it was so nasty they wouldn’t take it and it was expensive, too—so I’m kind of glad things turned out the way they did.) Jared mostly lay on the couch and did nothing Monday and Tuesday. He continued to have a pretty high fever. But on Wednesday afternoon he started to perk up. By evening his temperature was down to 99.9, and on Thursday morning his temperature was back to normal. I still kept him home Thursday and Friday because he still had a pretty nasty cough. I wanted to make sure he was really getting better--I didn’t want him to jump back into things too quickly.

I woke up in the night Tuesday several times feeling nauseated. When I got up Wednesday, my stomach was hurting. It felt worse if I got up and moved around, so I tried to stay down as much as I could that day. I didn’t eat anything until dinner time. Frank was able to work from home that day, so he was able to help me a little bit. We had quarterly Enrichment meeting that evening, and I am bummed that I missed it. It seems like I always miss the March Enrichment meeting! My stomach felt a lot better Thursday—I was just really tired and weak from lack of food or drink. It felt good to be able to get some things done, though.

My friend Marci, her husband, and oldest daughter went to Las Vegas this week and she asked us to keep her son Evan while they’re gone. Evan came over on Wednesday after school and he will be here with us until late Monday evening. He is a year younger than Jared, so they are friends. He goes to North Frederick Elementary, which is the school my kids used to go to before I moved them to the charter school, so he is able to ride the bus that comes near our house. I think he is having fun and he has not been any trouble.

I took Snickers to the vet Friday afternoon. He is healthy and growing well. It is going to cost s pretty penny to have him neutered, but it needs to be done. When we were getting ready to leave, a guy brought in this huge dog—I think it was a mastiff or something like that. The dog’s head was bigger than mine! Everybody in the waiting room got a laugh when little Snickers started barking at this dog! Not too bright. The big dog just ignored him, though. Scott was invited on Friday evening to spend the night with his friend Joey, down the street. They went ice skating also. The rest of us watched a movie with lots of “movie treats”. Frank pulled some muscles in his back (he picked up Seth!) so he was feeling pretty miserable. He’s better today than he was yesterday, but his back is still hurting him quite a bit.

Today I feel like I’ve been going non-stop. I made French toast for breakfast, helped all the boys with homework and with scouts, got sharing time ready for tomorrow, took Scott and Tanner and three other boys in the ward to pass out flyers for their scout fundraiser (lawn aeration), made dinner for 9 people (the sister missionaries joined us tonight), bathed Seth and got him to bed. I still need to sweep and mop all the floors, but I am taking a break for a few minutes!

I still didn’t get any pictures this week. The camera batteries keep dying every time I try to take a picture! Maybe next week!

Weekly Review March 7 '09

Well, March definitely came in like a lion! We woke up to a couple inches of snow Sunday morning, and it was cold…brrrrr! March has become much more “lamb like” the last couple of days, though. Yesterday and today have been in the 70’s—nice!

Most of the snow melted before Sunday was over, but then more came the next morning. School was already scheduled to start 4 hours late because of parent-teacher conferences, but they ended up cancelling school (and parent-teacher conferences) completely. We did get a good 3-4 inches of snow that morning, but I think they still should have had school—the roads weren’t too bad by early afternoon. I think they were just afraid it was going to be worse than it turned out to be. I had Scott’s conferences scheduled for Tuesday, and I was really glad those didn’t get messed up.

However, I was supposed to talk to both of Tanner’s teachers on Monday, and it turned out to be pretty unfortunate that I didn’t get the chance to do that. Instead, they sent home grade sheets with Tanner on Tuesday, and I was shocked / dismayed / horrified to discover that he is failing three of his four classes! They set up a homework hotline this term which I was checking frequently and according to Tanner he was getting everything done, so I was under the impression that he was doing better than last term. I guess I should know by now never to assume anything where Tanner and school work are concerned.

This situation caused quite a bit of stress and work for me this week, just trying to figure out what is really going on and what we need to do to get Tanner back on track. I spent most of the evenings on Tuesday and Wednesday just going through Tanner’s folders with him to help him find missing assignments, helping him to get better organized (he still had papers in there from the beginning of the school year—no wonder he is losing things!), and helping him complete some of the assignments he had never completed. There were also a number of e-mails going back and forth between his teachers and me. Most of the problem is not that he is not doing well on what he does, it is that he has a lot of missing assignments. It’s pretty discouraging and frustrating to me that he is still forgetting to hand things in, not completing assignments when he gets stuck (instead of asking for help), and not following up when he’s absent to find out what he missed. I mean, he is in 7th grade! He has the memory and organizational skills of a kindergartener. How is this kid ever going to learn to function in society?!

We’ve made quite a bit of progress this week, and I will be meeting with his teachers next week to talk some more. I hope we can figure out some things to do that will help him. There is some good news, though—he has a 90% in Language Arts--yeah!

I met with Scott’s teachers on Tuesday and he is doing well. He has As in Honors English, Keyboarding, and PE. He has a C in Algebra right now, but that is mostly just because he didn’t do really great on a test. All of his teachers commented on how well behaved he is, also, which is always nice to hear. I didn’t schedule a conference with Jared’s teacher because I know he is doing just fine.

We still had sick people at our house this week. Scott stayed home Tuesday with a sore throat and Jared threw up Thursday morning. I am hoping that someday we will all be healthy again! My days have been so unpredictable; it’s hard to get anything done.

Frank was able to work from home on Monday when all the boys were home from school also. He was supposed to go to a site in Laurel, Maryland which is near Baltimore and they got a lot more snow than we did, so he opted to stay home. He was able to do most of what he needed remotely. That evening we took all the boys out to eat to celebrate getting our state tax return. They don’t get to eat out very often, so we do that every spring. It was a nice day to go out since we’d all been cooped up inside all day. We got our federal return on Friday. I just filed our taxes less than 2 weeks ago. Three things I love: Turbo Tax, electronic filing and direct deposit! They make the whole tax filing process about a million times easier and quicker.

Jared got to go to a birthday party on Tuesday after school. (They got out 3 ½ hours early that day for parent-teacher conferences.) The party was for his good friend Sage. They went to a place called Adventure Park which has laser tag, rides, and games. He had a good time.

Because this week-end we have stake conference, all meetings and activities were cancelled. It turned out to be a good thing the boys didn’t have scouts since I was so buried under with Tanner’s homework issues.

I finally made it to sewing again on Wednesday—we haven’t met for the past several weeks because someone was always sick. I actually did some sewing, too! I sewed a button on a sweater and got 3 merit badges sewn on to a sash. I’m not sure Seth will want to go back there, though. He had so many mishaps—fell down the bottom couple of steps on the stairs, knocked over and fell off a chair he was on, got his arm stuck in the slats of a chair, and the dog (who is significantly larger than Snickers) jumped on him twice, which terrified him. He never got hurt, really, by any of these mishaps, but they all scared him.

I took Tanner to the grocery store after school on Thursday in search of white chocolate for his science fair project. (Yes, we are doing a project that involves chocolate again this year! But it’s a little different and (I hope!) simpler than what we did last year for Jared’s project.) We were only able to find white chocolate in chip form, but that will work. While we were there, I noticed they had Easter candy out and they had all these cool new kinds of jelly beans like Hot Tamale jelly beans, Mike & Ike jelly beans, and new flavored Lifesaver jelly beans. Yum! I have a real weakness for jelly beans and I am proud of myself for not buying any. Then we got to the check out line and a Snickers bar caught my eye because the wrapper looked like a football (leftovers from the Super Bowl, I think.) I thought maybe I’d get myself one of those (can you tell I was hungry?!) until I looked at the price. $1.00! This was no “king size” bar, either—if anything, it looked a little smaller than the standard size. When did candy bars get to be $1.00? They used to be .50…last week, I think! I just couldn’t bring myself to pay that much for a candy bar. I guess I don’t really need the extra fat calories anyway. That is my gripe on the state of the economy (don’t get me started on how I feel about bailing out greedy home owners while I am living in a tiny house because that’s all I can afford…) and I am thankful that I don’t have something a lot worse to complain about (like unemployment).

Frank was going to go to the temple on Thursday after work, but then there was a minor fire at FSA that day in the server room where he was working (something about a battery sparking and plastic burning) so he inhaled quite a bit of smoke, his clothes were really itchy, and he smelled like smoke. So he had to come home and take a shower instead. The fire had nothing to do with anything he did—it was someone else, and he told that guy not to do what he was doing, but the other guy didn’t listen! I’m glad nothing worse happened. He was pretty hoarse on Thursday evening and I was a little worried about what exactly he had inhaled, but by Friday morning he was a lot better.

Friday morning I had a mammogram—that’s the first time I’ve done that, now that I have reached the magical age of 40! Since it was a new experience, I was kind of nervous about it, but it turned out to be no big deal. I think I felt more motivated than most to get it done since 2 women in my book chat group have had breast cancer. Now I am finally done with all the routine female check ups for this year—hooray!

Frank and I got to go to the temple together Friday evening. There was a special meeting for our stake at 7:00, so we planned to go to the 5:00 session, but Frank ended up being at work longer than planned and the traffic was pretty bad, so we didn’t get there until about 5:15. Instead, we decided to do some sealings and that worked out well. We were doing names of English couples who were in India in the military—pretty interesting! We enjoyed our stake meeting afterwards; it is always extra nice to be in the temple with a lot of familiar faces. After the temple, we went with another couple from our ward (the Schlenzs) to Baja Fresh (Mexican fast food—the good kind!) for dinner. That was fun. We got home around 9:30. Scott babysat for us, and he did a pretty good job. He put Seth down for bed a little earlier than we would have done, though!

We got to bed late, and then Seth woke up around 2:15. When I went in to get him, I discovered that he had thrown up in his crib—yuck! Frank cleaned that up while I cleaned Seth up. Somewhere in there he threw up again (I got him to the bathroom in time). We got him settled on our floor, but by then he was wide awake and didn’t go back to sleep for hours. I stayed up with him until about 4:30 and then I went to sleep while Frank took over. Frank finally got him back to sleep, but then he was up again around 6:15. Frank got up again—I never really woke up all the way—and the next thing I knew it was about 8:00! So neither of us got much sleep last night, but I got more than Frank did. Seth has been fine today and has been able to keep down food, so we are not sure what made him sick. We are really glad he didn’t throw up while we were at the temple!!! I asked Scott what he would have done, and he said “call someone”. (We told them to call some friends who live nearby if they had something come up that they didn’t know how to handle.)

This morning Frank went to a client to get a little bit of work done. Then I had to be at the church at 10:00 to help with a cub scout fundraiser. The Super Derby (regional Pinewood Derby for our district) was held at our church building this year, so we figured it was a good opportunity to sell lunch to the people coming to the Super Derby. We sold pizza by the slice, chips, and lemonade. Jared actually isn’t going to Day Camp this year (the proceeds are going to help pay for Day Camp) but I figured I should help since I’m the Primary counselor connected with the Cub Scouts. We really had no idea how many people would actually come, and I think we overestimated how much pizza to buy, but we still did a pretty decent business. I didn’t stay for the whole thing, but I helped set up and stayed for about an hour and a half to help serve and make lemonade. When I left, I bought one of the pizzas and brought it home for everyone to eat.

Originally, Frank and I planned to go together to the adult session of conference tomorrow, but we don’t feel comfortable leaving Seth (just in case he gets sick again) so Frank is going to go tonight, and if we decide to keep Seth home tomorrow I will go with the older boys then. I’m supposed to sing in the choir so I’d like to be there for that although there are a lot of altos, so I’m sure they’d do fine without me. We combined with another ward for the choir this time, which really helped out with numbers! Hopefully we’ll all be able to go tomorrow, though. Frank has a meeting at 4:00 also, but he is not going to go to that, either—he’s taking a nap!

Snickers learned to go up and down the stairs this week. He actually has known how to do it for quite a while, but he has been too chicken to go up or down more than a couple of steps. I didn’t encourage it—keeping him confined to the main level made house training easier! But now he is very confident on the stairs and follows me up and down all day long. (I guess it couldn’t last forever.) At least he is getting more exercise!

One of the cutest things Seth does these days is he says “thank you” whenever I give him something he wants (a toy, a cookie…) Then one day this week I said “thank you” to him when he put something in the trash for me, and he said “you’re welcome”. It is so sweet hearing him say things like that! Seth is also learning to take his plate over to the sink when he is done eating. He is at the age where he likes to help…I wish they would never outgrow that!

We hope you are all having a nice week end. We have the windows open and are enjoying a really nice only-slightly-cool breeze! Just perfect weather! I’m sure we’ll have more cold weather before we’re done, but it is nice to get a break from the cold temperatures for a while. It’s the beginning of the end!

I guess no pictures this week—we’ll try to do better next week.

What We Named the Babies

I have always been fascinated by names. You know those books that are full of names and their meanings? I could pore over those things for hours. I especially like to look back over time and see what names were popular during different time periods.

When I look at the names of my ancestors, I often think that there is a story behind each of their names, and I'd like to know what those stories are. Why did their parents choose that particular name? I've heard the stories behind some of them (my mom was named after her two grandmothers, for example) but most of them I will probably never know.

Well, maybe somewhere down the line someone will wonder the same thing about my kids' names. So, just for fun, I thought I'd record the stories behind my kids' names. This is what we named our babies, and why:

First of all, there are a few things that apply to all of our boys' names. We picked a name that we liked for their first names and a family name for their middle names. I always loved having a family name for one of my names (I was named after my aunt Karen, whom I adored). Frank was named after his father--he's a "junior". We decided right away that we would not have a Frank Leon Cleveland III. I don't like that much repetition (it's confusing), and let's face it--there are not any really good nicknames for "Frank". (Although Frank has a friend whose son is a "third" and they call him "Trey"--three in French, I think. What a great idea!)

We never officially named a child without looking at him first. We usually had a couple of names in mind, and made our final choice after the baby was born and we got a good look at him.

When we picked out first names, we purposely avoided names that are really popular. I didn't want my poor kid to be one of two or three in his school class with the same name. At the same time, I didn't want to pick names that were so unusual that they would be considered weird. It was tricky finding a balance between too popular and downright strange, but I think we managed to strike that balance. (What do you think?)

Scott--August 1994

Scott Laurence Cleveland
(Scott: English, Scottish From an English and Scottish surname which meant "a Scotsman"; Laurence: English From the Roman cognomen Laurentius, which meant "from Laurentum")

The name Scott was actually chosen by Frank. He just really likes that name. He wanted to name his first child Scott, whether it was a boy or a girl. (He knew a girl named Scott, and he thought that was "cool".) I wasn't too enthusiastic about the name for a boy (I thought it was too common), and I absolutely refused to name a girl Scott! When we had a boy, I decided to "give in"--mainly because I was saving any future girls from the threat of being named Scott. (Of course I didn't know then that we weren't going to have any girls.) Scott turned out to be a good choice. Although it was a very popular name for boys my age (there were always 2-3 boys named Scott in my school classes), its popularity has waned over the years. There were never any other Scotts in my Scott's school classes. As a matter of fact, there are only a few Scotts in his large high school. It's a very familiar, but not-so-common-anymore name. I've come to like it.

Laurence is the name of one of my mother's brothers. He passed away at a way too early age, from Luekemia. He was a good person with a great sense of humor, and I knew Scott would enjoy hearing stories about some of the funny things he did. (Like the time he scared Larisa, Jeanette, Amy & I by looking in the window wearing that creepy mask...)

Other names we considered: Kip Tyler and Bracken Gerald

Tanner--November 28, 1996

Tanner Frank Cleveland
(Tanner: English From an English surname meaning "one who tans hides"; Frank: English Short form of Francis, which is the English form of the late Latin name Franciscus, which means "Frenchman")

Tanner was a name I had heard and liked--it's kind of a trendy name in Mormon circles out west, although fortunately it is almost unknown out here in the eastern United States. (More than one of Tanner's teachers have commented on how much they like the name and wanted to know where it came from.) I didn't think Frank would ever agree to it because he generally likes more common names (like "Scott"!) The night before Tanner was born (we didn't know at the time that he was coming so soon) we were discussing names and Frank suggested the name Tanner. I was so surprised when he brought it up, but I told him I loved that name and we quickly decided that was our number one choice for a boy's name.

Frank, of course, came from Tanner's father and grandfather. I like the idea of giving a boy his father's first name for his middle name. The bonus here was that we were able to name Tanner after two people at once! By some cool twist of fate, Tanner looks much more like his father than any of our other boys. (And Frank looks much more like his father than his older brother does.)

Other names we considered: None, that I can remember. We picked out the name "Tanner Frank" the night before Tanner was born and when we looked at him it fit, so we didn't really stop to consider any other names.

Jared--October 1998

Jared Antony Cleveland
(Jared English, Biblical From the Hebrew name Yared, meaning "descent"; Antony English English form of the Roman family name Antonius, which is of unknown Etruscan origin)

Jared is a name that Frank suggested, and I liked it. We talked a lot about the name Tyler also. I'm glad we chose "Jared" because we've come across a lot more Tylers than Jareds over the years. Besides, "Jared" is similar to my dad's name, Gerald. (My dad is called "Jerry" by most people, and Jared has some friends who call him "Jerry" also!)

Antony ("Tony") was Frank's sister Dawn's first husband's name. (Did you follow that?) Tony was tragically killed in a car accident one week after he and Dawn were married (and about 2 years before Jared was born.) I was in the temple one day when I had an impression that it was time for us to have another baby, that it would be a boy, and that we would name him after Tony. Jared was born 9 months later. He has beautiful deep dimples in both cheeks, and Dawn has always said that Uncle Tony kissed him on both cheeks before he came to earth.

Other names we considered: Tyler (I already said that!)

Seth--June 2007

Seth Bracken Cleveland
(Seth English, Biblical Means "placed" or "appointed" in Hebrew. Seth is the third named son of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament. Another meaning is "compensation"--Seth compensated, in a way, for the loss of Abel; Bracken English Anglicised form of the Gaelic surname meaning descendent of Breacan. Bracken is also a kind of fern.)

I chose the name Seth. We didn't really discuss any boy names until we had an ultrasound and found out we were having a boy. Honestly, I was kind of stumped when it came to coming up with another boy's name! I really thought we were having a girl that time (a long story) so I came home feeling disoriented and wondering just who this baby was. I went online to get some ideas for boy's names, and one of the first sites I went to had a picture of a baby with four names underneath--you were supposed to pick which name belonged with that baby. One of the names was "Seth". I saw that name--it was a name I had seen before and liked, but forgotten all about--and I immediately had strong feelings about it. I thought "He's Seth--that's who he is." When I saw that one of the meanings of Seth is "compensation", I felt even better about it, because the name fit our situation so well. We lost a baby 6 years earlier and then struggled through unexplained infertility until a miracle happened. We went through so much to get him here, but he more than compensates for all those difficult years! Incidentally, Frank was not all that wild about the name Seth, but in the end he let me have my way. And now he likes the name, of course!

Bracken--there's two reasons we chose this name. For one thing, I read a series of books as a teen ager (The Williamsburg series by Elswyth Thane) that I really liked, and one of the main charcters in a few of the books was named Bracken. He was a very likable character (funny, nice, handsome, rich...), and I thought that was a cool name that I might want to use someday. Then when Frank and I were engaged, I discovered that his mother's maiden name is Bracken. Perfect! The Brackens are a wonderful group of people, which endeared me to the name even more. I told my mother in law that since I never had a girl, this was the only way I could name a child after her! I'm glad I got to name at least one of my children after a female member of the family that I admire.

Other names we considered: Tyler, Luke, Simon, Zachary, Blake, Spencer for first names. Frederick, Hans, Benjamin, Timothy, and Ezekiel for middle names.

So there you have it...the story behind the names!