Weekly Review September 26 '09

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Petting a goat

Baby pigs--all 8 are girls!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Motherhood, in 110 Words or Less

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

And I still LOVE him and think he is the

Most adorable, wonderful child on the planet!

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

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

Weekly Review September 20 '09

This week has felt long to me, for some reason. We have Stake Conference this week end, so we didn’t have any of the normal meetings. We were just supposed to go to the temple as much as possible during the week. For us, that means once! I went on Thursday evening. Of course, there were all these reasons why it was hard for me to go that day. For starters, Seth woke up around 3:00 am that morning—he went back to sleep; I didn’t. Then my neck and left shoulder were hurting—must have pinched something; it hurt to turn my head to the left. Frank and I were going to go together, but Frank had a bad headache so he wasn’t feeling up to going and I hate making that drive at night. Luckily, I did get about an hour nap that afternoon and I am stubborn—I decided I was going to go no matter what! I’m glad I persevered. I knew if I didn’t go then I wouldn’t get to go at all—Jared had soccer practice Friday evening and a game Saturday afternoon, and Frank had committed to help cook food for a wedding on Saturday which meant he’d be gone most of the day. So anyway, I went and it was wonderful. The traffic was amazingly good—there was no back up on I-495 at about 5:40 when I got on. No back up on I-495 during rush hour?!! It is not unusual for that part of the trip (only a couple of miles) to take up to a half hour. It was great—I was able to get into the 6:30 session and made it home by 9:30. Frank had all the kids in bed and the kitchen and living room were cleaned up—even better!

Frank was able to go to the temple on Friday on his way home from work. He didn’t have to work a lot of hours that day, so he got home in time to go with me to pick up Jared from school.

Tuesday was a busy day, also. My friend Marci was cleaning out her sewing room and giving things away so I went over there for a little while to try to help her. And I didn’t bring any of her sewing stuff home with me because I am trying to pare down my possessions, not add to them! I had book chat that day also. We had a small group show up—only 5 of us. (There are usually 10+, so I guess it was a busy day for a lot of people.) We had a nice pot luck lunch and a good discussion although I had to keep leaving to track Seth down, who loves to explore other people’s houses without permission. We were meeting at a different house than we usually do, so he was worse than usual! By the time I left book chat, Scott was already home from school. I took Seth home, put him down for a nap, and then went over to the church to vote before I went to pick up Jared & Tanner from school. It was the primaries for mayor and alderman. One of our neighbors was actually running for mayor; we voted for him but then found out the next day that he had pulled out of the race for health reasons. Oh well! I haven’t heard any of the other results of the election. Frank had his class that night so he got home late. (He voted when he went to pick up Scott from Seminary.)

Frank worked from home on Wednesday, so we went on our (what is becoming traditional) weekly lunch date. Just Burger King this time, though! My friend Marci is getting really stressed out about getting her house ready to sell, especially because her husband is gone a lot (making trips to the new job location to do some work) so I tried to go help her on Wednesday afternoon while Seth was napping, but she didn’t answer her door.

All these people around us moving has got us thinking about the possibility of trying to move to a bigger house. We have toyed with the idea more than once over the years, but never thought about it too seriously. I’ve been looking online lately to get a feel for what prices are like, and it does look like we may be able to pull it off, but it would be a challenge to find something in our price range that would be worth it to go to all the trouble of trying to sell our house. We also wanted to have a clearer idea of what our house would sell for these days, so we asked a friend in our ward who is a realtor to come look at our house. Frank talked to him on Sunday and set it up for Wednesday evening, which caused me to have a melt down on Monday at the thought of anyone I know seeing my cluttered house. But then I “got a grip” and reminded myself that most people have cluttered basements. I knew there was no time to get things in better shape, so I did the smart thing—I didn’t kill myself trying! Then when the realtor came over, he was not nearly as critical as I thought he’d be. He said overall we have a really nice house. The market value he quoted was about what we’d expected. So now we are just thinking about it some more and trying to decide if we want to do anything about it right now. I don’t feel in a hurry about it. Even if we decide we want to try selling, we will probably wait at least until spring. I really like our house; especially the location. Part of me would rather stay here and just fix it up. But since we are in a townhouse, there is no way to add space (just try to use the space we have more efficiently). I admit that the idea of having another 900 square feet or so makes me drool!

Tanner came home from school early on Thursday with stomach issues. He stayed home Friday, also. He never seemed to be that sick, but he was having enough trouble that it was interfering with his ability to get any work done at school. By Saturday he seemed to be doing a lot better.

One of my visiting teachers came to see me Friday afternoon (the other one had a sick child). She told me that she is pregnant with twins! She has an 8 year old and a 6 year old, but since then has had a miscarriage and then just couldn’t seem to have any more. (Sounds familiar; I know how that feels!) So she is glad to be having two, but mostly she is very nervous about all the things that could go wrong. I know how that feels, too! Hopefully everything will go all right for her, though. I am really excited for her.

Jared had soccer practice Friday evening. Frank and I took him to that. We left for a few minutes to go pick up something to eat; then we took our food back to the park and watched the practice while we ate. It was nice to sit on a bench by a creek and talk while we ate. After we got home I took Scott to his friend Ryan’s house to spend the night—they are sleeping outside and they are in the same scout troop so we count that for one of his camping nights! (We’re desperate—they don’t get to go on nearly enough “real” camp outs!) Tanner was invited to go too, but he couldn’t go since he was sick.

Saturday Frank was helping cook food for a wedding reception; he was gone from about 9:45 to about 4:00. Jared had his first soccer game at 1:00. I got Seth down for a nap right before I had to leave to take Jared to his game; Tanner stayed home with him. Right as we were leaving, I remembered that Frank had told the coach the evening before that we would bring the snack—yikes! Of course, I had nothing in the house that would work. So I dropped Jared off at his game and ran to the store to buy the snack. I missed the first 10 minutes of the game. Apparently, the other team kicked one goal before I got there. Then there was no scoring until almost the end of the game, when the other team scored two more goals. So the final score was 3-0. In spite of that, I think Jared’s team played quite well. Jared made some really great defensive plays. Hopefully they will get better at offense before the season is over!

We stopped on the way home to pick up Scott from Ryan’s house, but he wanted to stay longer and they were fine with having him stay and offered to drop him off later. He had actually spent the whole day with them working—helped them cover a pool, set up chairs at the stake center, and when I arrived he was helping them dig up some stumps in their yard. Why do kids help so readily at someone else’s house but not their own?! Jared wanted to stay also, so I ended up coming home with no kids instead of two! Ryan’s parents dropped them both off at our house later, on their way to the adult session of Stake Conference.

I went to the adult session of Stake Conference last night, but Frank stayed home; since he was on his feet most of the day, he was pretty tired. The meeting was really good. When I got home, everyone was still up watching the BYU game. Unfortunately, it was not a good game, as many of you know. BYU was playing a lot like Tulane played last week, in my opinion. It’s disappointing to see them have such a big set back, but hopefully they will shake it off and go back to being the great team I know that they are! This makes 3 games in a row that were actually on television out here on the east coast. That is a record! We usually get one game every 3-4 years or so. I hope we will get to see more games before the season is over.

Today we all went to the general session of Stake Conference together. Afterwards, our friends the Koettings came over for dinner, as usual. They didn’t get to stay as long as usual this time, though, because Jeanine’s brother was flying in this afternoon for a visit. So we only had a short visit, but the boys and I will be going to see them next week. After the Koettings left, I had some appointments to visit a couple of Primary kids. The visits both took longer than I expected and Frank didn’t hear me say that we were going to visit a second family, so by the time I got home he was really worried and had actually gone out looking for me. I felt bad about that. The visits were quite productive, though. One of the girls we visited has not been wanting to come to Primary, and we got some insights on why she might be feeling that way. Hopefully we will be able to do some things to help.

After I got home we had some supper and then had family night. Then we got everybody to bed. Seth didn’t get a nap, so he was half asleep by the time I got through a couple of songs and said a prayer with him; poor tired monkey! I was reading “The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge” with him tonight, which has become a favorite of his. I probably read it to him 3-4 times per day. Tonight I started stopping in random places and he would fill in the right word / words almost every time! I didn’t realize he had memorized it already, but I guess he has.

For book chat I am reading a book called Triangle. It’s about one of the survivors of the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire in 1907. So far it is quite fascinating, although I’m not sure how everything is going to tie in together.

It’s getting late, so I will get this posted. Maybe some day I will have some time to post something besides weekly reviews. But don’t hold your breath!

Weekly Review September 12 '09

Greetings from soggy Maryland! The rain has really been coming down the last couple of days. Yesterday I was remembering 9/11/01—it was a sunny, clear day with an incredibly vivid, bright blue sky. Not this year! It couldn’t have been more different—dark, gray and rainy. This year’s weather fit the mood of the day much better.

We started meeting at a different time this Sunday—now church is from 11:00-2:00 instead of 9:00-12:00. I actually like the earlier time better, but it is nice to get a little more sleep and to not be so rushed in the morning. Scott surprised me by sharing his testimony in our fast & testimony meeting—he’s never done that before. He focused his remarks on how much Seminary and going to church has helped him; it was good to hear that! Shortly before he got up, a young woman got up and introduced herself and her family, mentioning that they were moving into our ward. When Scott got up, he said he wanted to be the first person to officially welcome them into our ward and he told them they would love our ward. Where did that polite kid come from?! Scott getting up seemed to have a “domino” effect on the rest of the youth in the ward—a whole string of them got up after him. I winked at Scott and said “you started something!”

Primary was busy; I had sharing time. I left the last 10 minutes because they were sustaining a new Deacon’s Quorum presidency and Tanner is the new 1st counselor, so I wanted to be there for that.

Sunday evening we had the Beck family over for dinner which was fun as always although we were all feeling a bit gloomy about them moving so soon.

I think we spent Labor Day appropriately—no relaxing! Frank spent the whole day helping the Becks pack & load as well as moving the new refrigerator to our house, getting the water line for the ice / water dispenser installed, and moving the old refrigerator out. I cleaned the old refrigerator, took care of Seth while Frank was gone, and did several more small “organizing” projects around the house. Scott & Tanner helped with the loading, also. By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but the Becks were ready to leave early the next morning and the new refrigerator was working. It’s nice—bigger than the one we had, newer, and the light inside works! (Our old one didn’t have a working light anymore.) It’s a side-by-side, which is nice in some ways, and not so nice in others. (Seth can get into things on all the bottom shelves in both the refrigerator and the freezer!)

The Becks had dinner with us here that evening in the middle of our messy kitchen; we got some pizza. Then we said our good-byes. We will miss them!

The rest of the week has been the usual—school, homework, cleaning, shopping, Primary stuff. I’m feeling the impact of getting up earlier in the mornings—I always feel tired! I’m sleeping like a log at night, though, thankfully!

The evenings were busy for me this week. Tuesday I went to “craft night” at my friend Marci’s house, Wednesday was RS Enrichment Meeting, and Thursday was “Back to School” night at the boys’ school. Marci and her family are going to be moving to Georgia soon; I am bummed about that! (But happy for them—it’s a good move.) We talked a bit about buying their house, but the bottom line is—it’s too much of a financial stretch for us to do that, so I’ve given up on the idea. The current market value for their house is about the same as what they owe on it—they bought when the market was high—so they don’t have room to negotiate. They are thankful they probably won’t be losing any money on it, at least. Anyway, on Tuesday night I continued to work on Seth’s quiet book and Marci worked on jewelry. She is currently making a necklace… for me!

For Enrichment Meeting we had a service project. We sewed baby blankets and bibs for one charity and put together school kits for another one. I helped sew the blankets—they were cute and simple, but I was surprised it still took me the whole evening to sew one of them! They asked everyone to bring their favorite pie to share for dessert so there were lots of yummy choices. I picked a fresh peach pie to try; it was delicious!!!

Frank ended up working from 6:00 am to 9:30 pm on Thursday, so I ended up leaving the older boys in charge of Seth when I went to “Back to School” night. I am so thankful to have built in babysitters! I was mostly interested to hear what was happening in the Middle School. Tanner had a follow up doctor’s appointment after school that day also, so it was a very busy day for me. At the doctor we discussed Tanner’s progress with the ADD medication as well as his sensitive stomach issues. It’s a little early to tell how effective the ADD medication has been, but so far so good with school—he doesn’t have any missing assignments yet. We decided to keep his dosage as is; I will monitor his school assignments closely and if he starts having trouble keeping on top of his schoolwork, we will increase the dosage of his medication a little. For his stomach, we’ve been keeping track of what he eats and when it hurts. He’s also been taking a fiber supplement. The “food diary” didn’t show any patterns and the fiber seems to be helping a lot—he actually hasn’t had much stomach trouble since he started taking it. So he is just going to keep taking the fiber. He goes back in 3 months unless he starts having trouble—if that happens, he’ll go back sooner.

Speaking of missing assignments at school, Scott has a lot of them—already! It is very discouraging to be having homework woes already. His grades are still good because he’s done well on tests, quizzes, and class work, but it is hard to convince him that all those “little” missing assignments are going to add up eventually. I hope some day he figures that out. It is really frustrating to me because I can see the long term consequences; apparently, he can’t (or he doesn’t care).

On the other hand, he is a really good boy in so many ways. Last week it was his Seminary teacher’s birthday and he decorated a brownie to give to her. It was his brownie, actually, and he gave up eating it himself so he could give it to her. Then on Friday the bishopric made breakfast for the Seminary kids. I drove Scott that morning and since Frank was home with Seth I decided to stay there and wait in the car (I read my scriptures). Scott came running outside (in the rain) with a plate of food for me. I hadn’t asked for any; he just knew that I was outside waiting and was considerate enough to think that I would probably like some food. See, there is hope for that boy! He always treats me very well. He will be a good husband someday. (I can thank Frank for that—he’s always been a great example in that area!)

Tanner went to spend the night with his friend Brenndon on Friday night. He hasn’t seen this friend in a long time, so we let him go although he had strict instructions to go to sleep at 11:00. Jared was supposed to have soccer practice, but it was cancelled because of the rain. They had a last minute practice on Saturday instead, but we didn’t get the message in time to get him there. I did take him shopping to get some new soccer cleats, though. His old cleats are getting too small and apparently we bought the wrong kind anyway.

Saturday afternoon we were going to go to a birthday open house for a lady in our ward, but right before we left I noticed a large puddle of water on the kitchen floor, coming from under the new refrigerator. Luckily, it turned out that Frank just hadn’t put the filter back in properly (he took it out earlier that day to see what kind it was since we want to replace it soon) but it took a long time to confirm that was actually the problem and to clean up the water, so by the time we finished that it was too late to go. Frank started flipping channels on the television and discovered that the BYU game was on, so we watched that. What a treat, since we hardly ever get to see BYU games! We tuned in at the right time, also—near the end of the 1st half, just in time to see BYU score two touchdowns before the half ended. And it was uphill from there, as most of you know since you probably watched the game too. We were feeling bad for Tulane by the time the game ended. (But not too bad!)

I’ve been reading one of the organization books that Shellie recommended on her blog. I like it; it’s different than any other organization book I’ve ever read. I think if I follow what it says, I can get our house functioning a lot better than it is now. I hope so, anyway. It will be a long process, though, and at times seems pretty overwhelming. It has sparked some interesting and constructive conversations between Frank and me!

Seth said some cute things this week. One day when we were at Wal-Mart he didn’t want to get in the cart, he wanted to walk. Of course, having him walk is a recipe for disaster, so I resorted to bribery—I promised him if he got in the cart, I would take him to see the fish. He readily agreed, so I strapped him into the cart and headed toward the fish. However, there were 2 or 3 things on my list that were on the way, so I stopped to get them. I turned down an aisle and paused, searching for what I needed, when Seth piped up “These are not fishes, Mommy.” Loved it! He kept reminding me as I made a few more stops. We finally got to the fish.

Another day Seth was trying to get to the sliced cheese in the fridge. It was a little high for him, and even when he climbed a little it was just out of his reach. I discovered him just as he was deciding to try something new. “I know!” he said to himself “I use a butterfly net!” (You have to have seen the kid’s show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to really appreciate that. Seth is a big fan of this show. Each episode they are trying to solve a problem and they always have 4 “mouseka tools” that they end up using at different points to help them get to the solution. One tool that they use sometimes is a butterfly net.) It was funny, but it was also kind of cool for me to see him thinking like that—“if I can’t do what I want by myself, there might be a tool I can use that will help.”

One other funny thing he says (I’m sure he’s not the first kid to do this, but it’s still cute) is he usually says “chicken” for “kitchen”: “Mommy, I hungry. Let’s go in the chicken.” I get a kick out of it every time.

Well, now it is Monday evening so I’d better get last week’s review posted before we are too far into a new week! Sorry, no photos this week.

Weekly Review September 5 '09

I can’t think of much of note that happened this week. That’s not a bad thing, really. Just the usual “busy-ness”!

The temperature change between Sunday and Monday was pretty dramatic—I guess a cold front came through. We went from hot & muggy summer to cool fall overnight, and it’s stayed cool ever since. The mornings are quite chilly, but the days still get into the 80’s, so it’s actually very pleasant, just strange to have it feeling like fall so soon! I’ve had windows open most of the week to let in the fresh air—I’ve been loving it!

Scott started Seminary on Monday which means that Frank and I are getting up earlier than we were. Unfortunately, Scott doesn’t have a built-in ride like last year (she graduated from high school). The other 3 families with Seminary kids who live near us have young drivers—they can take themselves and siblings, but no non-family members—so it looks like we’ll be on our own most of the time, at least for the beginning half of the year. Frank is going to be able to drive Scott most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but I have been getting up every morning anyway because I want my body to get used to getting up that early. It’s actually nice in a way, because I have precious quiet time to pray and study my scriptures! It has helped that overall I’ve been sleeping much better the last few months. (Without Melatonin, even—it quit working after the first 60 days.) Seth had one bad night this week, so that day I didn’t get up early but the rest of the time I’ve mostly been waking up on my own shortly before 5:00 am. We’ll see if I can keep it up for a year!

On Fridays, we are picking up another girl—she lives with her non-member mom who is not, I gather, feeling motivated to get her daughter to Seminary herself. Other ward members pick her up the other days. She doesn’t live far from us, but it is actually out of our way to pick her up (we have to go the opposite direction from the church) but we are glad to help her out, of course! My biggest concern with driving Scott is that Seth will wake up while I’m gone. I always wake up Jared to let him know I’m leaving, but he falls back asleep and I’m not convinced that he would actually wake up if Seth were crying. Frank stays at the church when he takes Scott (I’m at home if Seth wakes up) but on the days I drive, I am going to have to make two trips—one to the church, and one from the church to the school. Rather inconvenient, but there’s not much I can do about it. Hopefully everything will work out ok.

My friend Marci is having “craft night” at her house every Tuesday evening, so I went over there this Tuesday and worked on Seth’s quiet book. I bought some lighter Pellon, the next heaviest I could find at the store, but this kind is probably not heavy enough. I’m going to experiment to see if I can get it to work. Needless to say, though, the problems are slowing me down. I’m still working on last week’s 2nd page; I haven’t even started on the 2 pages I wanted to do this week! I’m going to persevere, though.

Frank was working from home Wednesday, so he took me on a date for lunch (not a true date—Seth was with us!). We went to Red Lobster—haven’t been there in years. It wasn’t until after we got there that we realized Seth had the perfect shirt on—it had a picture of a lobster on it and said “little lobster catcher”. The waitress was really impressed! The food is really yummy and they give you a lot of it, but I’d forgotten that it’s on the expensive side. We had a coupon that helped, though.

The rest of the week has been busy with all the usual work to do, as well as the usual list of Primary-related items. I have Sharing Time this month, so I worked on that. I also finished up the album for Jana (former Primary president) in the nick of time—this Sunday will be their last one here. Her husband is flying back here tonight (Frank is going to go pick him up, because he gets in late and Jana has little kids), they are packing & loading Monday and leaving early Tuesday. We will miss them! One nice thing for us—the refrigerator in their house belongs to them but their new rental house has a refrigerator already, so they are giving their refrigerator to us. It is newer and bigger than the one we have, so that will be nice. (We’d rather have our friends stay here, though!)

Seth has had a little bit of a cold this week. It’s mostly noticeable in the mornings. I’ve been giving him Tylenol at night to help him sleep; it seems to be working. I’m glad it hasn’t turned into anything nasty.

Last week the screen on my laptop died. Thanks to my computer genius husband as well as all the extra computer paraphernalia we have lying around our house (which I admit, I am usually cursing—the stuff, not the computer genius husband!), I have a temporary fix—my laptop is hooked up to a separate screen. It’s not ideal, but without my computer I am nothing! I can’t check e-mail, I can’t get prints of photos made, I can’t blog, I can’t check facebook, I can’t keep up with the budget, I can’t get to any of my Primary documents, I can’t do my daily word search online, etc. Now, some of those things I could do from another computer, but I am realizing if my hard drive ever crashes, I am toast. I probably ought to have my computer genius husband do backups!

This morning I went to our stake’s baptism—we had two boys in our ward who were baptized, and I needed to be there to say a few words. I was glad to be there—the spirit is always so strong at baptisms; very uplifting!

This afternoon I took Scott & Tanner to see an art exhibit—that’s the last thing we needed to do for their Art Merit Badge. We went to a place called the Delaplaine Center for Visual Arts which is in downtown Frederick and has several galleries. We ended up seeing an exhibit of art quilts, which I particularly enjoyed. There were some pretty amazing quilts (I can’t imagine the work that goes into them!), and Scott was excited when he found a few done by his middle school home economics teacher. After that, we walked back to the library (we parked there) and the boys got some books and a movie. The walk was nice—it went through Carroll Creek Park (flowers and brick paths) and past the Community Bridge which is a work of art itself. We also went over another really cool little bridge made out of wrought iron that had designs all over it including a tree and some marsh flags, all made out of wrought iron. I wish I’d had a camera with me!

I did have a camera and captured some cute (blurry) shots of Seth “playing with eggos”.

I just love how engrossed he is! Yes, I know he's not supposed to be playing with those little Legos at age 2, but with thousands of them in the house, it's just not all that practical to keep them all away from him. Also, he is really good about not putting them in his mouth!

Now I need to go bathe the dog (kids are gross; dogs are grosser!) and then make dinner.

Please Answer the Banana

Me: "Seth, would you like a banana?"

Seth: "That's not a banana, it's a phone."

Oh...a very tasty phone, apparently...