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!