Weekly Review January 16 '10

Frank has one candle for each decade!!

Seth wants to serve the cake!

Anxious to "help"



First phase of "project organize 2010"--bathroom vanity!

Where did this week go? Time flies when you’re having fun…or just when you have a lot to do!

I did get a little bit of organizing done in the master bathroom on Saturday. I had to take Scott to get some new Sunday clothes (Scott’s outgrown clothes fit Tanner almost perfectly, so I didn’t need to get any for Tanner) that afternoon, so I was also able to get some small storage pieces to go in the vanity under the sink. It looks much better in there now—I should have taken a “before” photo! I also started working on the master closet, but I haven’t made a whole lot of progress on that yet. By the way, Scott looks very stylish in his new clothes! I couldn’t find a suit to fit him, so he got a sweater vest instead to go with his new pants and white shirt.

Primary went well on Sunday, although not quite as well as I would have liked. I guess some of the “newness” has already worn off. The Primary president in the other ward saw me before church and she told me how great our bulletin board looks—nice to hear! Frank ended up being up until 3:00 am Sunday morning (working) and then had to go back in before church to fix something else. He met us at the church, but only made it through taking the sacrament. He was so tired that he went home after that—but he didn’t get much sleep because he got several phone calls. One of them was from the stake patriarch, cancelling Scott’s appointment to get a blessing because he was sick. He re-scheduled that for this Sunday, but then on Saturday he called and had to cancel again, so now it’s supposed to happen on Thursday.

Our home teachers came that afternoon and then we had a guest for dinner—my friend Marci’s husband, David, who was here working this week. He was staying at their house (still hasn’t sold) and getting some work done on the house as well. He forgot I was planning to come over with laundry on Monday, which caused me a little bit of trouble because he changed the code on their keyless entry system, so I couldn’t get in. I was able to get in touch with him later in the day, so I was able to get a couple of loads of laundry done. Frank was able to get home early enough that day to buy a new thermostat and install it, so I was able to finish up the rest of the laundry at home. The dryer has worked fine since, so that must have been the problem. It is VERY nice to have a functioning dryer again!!

Tanner came home from school on Tuesday complaining that his throat hurt. Wednesday morning he said it still hurt and his stomach hurt, too. He didn’t have a fever, but he did look sick, so I kept him home even though my usual rule is they have to go if they don’t have a fever and are not throwing up! I just had a hunch that he really was sick, and I was right…by afternoon his temperature was 100. He ended up staying home the rest of the week, although his temperature was back down to 99.4 on Thursday. He just wasn’t feeling his best—his stomach was bothering him and he got congested and has a cough also. He did go in to school for a couple of hours on Friday afternoon to take an Algebra test, though. It was one of those “benchmark” kind of tests that all the kids have to pass at some point, so I didn’t want him to miss it, and his teachers didn’t want him to miss it, either! He passed the test, by the way.

One nice thing about having Tanner home was that while Seth was napping I could get some errands done. Actually, Seth didn’t get a nap on Sunday or Monday and he did well and then went to sleep early those nights, which was nice. So on Tuesday I decided to let him skip the nap again—he’s kind of in that “in between” stage where he’s starting to grow out of needing a nap. Well, I discovered that 3 days in a row was too much!! By 3:30, he was very crabby and by 7:00 he was coming completely unglued! I got him to bed shortly after that, though. So anyway, I was able to go out and get all the food and paper products for the Primary activity without Seth in tow, which was nice. I also did a little bit of birthday shopping for Frank, but gave up—he didn’t give me many suggestions for presents and the ones he did give me I decided he needed to pick out himself!

His birthday was on Thursday. The big 40!!! He got a “hoodie” and a couple of coupons—one for a trip to the movies, and another to pick out something else he wants. We also went out to eat—took the whole family this time—at a buffet place. Tanner was feeling well enough to go, but while we were at the restaurant I noticed that Jared wasn’t eating much. I asked him why not, and he said he didn’t feel very well! So he stayed home on Friday, as well as Tanner. He had a fever, but not a very high one. I made Frank a birthday cake on Thursday but by the time we got back from the buffet place, no one was hungry! So we did the cake part on Friday instead. Frank also got a gift card to his favorite restaurant from my parents and his parents called him that evening, so I think he had a nice day.

I went on a quest this week to try to find a replacement toy pot for the one Seth melted. I didn’t have any luck, though. Even E-bay and Amazon failed me! I did, however, find a really cool website dedicated to Fisher Price toys. It’s found at www.thisoldtoy.com. You can search for toys by model number, category, or year. For example, you can click on a year and get a list of all (or most—the lists aren’t complete) Fisher Price toys that were available that year. There are photos of most of the toys. Maybe that doesn’t sound too exciting to most of you, but to a person like me who loves toys, is into details, and is particularly nostalgic about old toys from childhood, this is a great site! I should warn you, however, that if you are like me, you can spend HOURS on this website. Incidentally, we had a lot of Fisher Price toys at our house when we were growing up—I’d say at least half of the toys for any given year (in the 60’s and 70’s) were toys I recognized as ones we had at home!

Frank had a lot of work to do this week—by Thursday he had worked 91 hours for the pay period, and it’s only an 80 hour pay period. On his way home from work on Friday he stopped at Barnes & Noble to spend the gift card he got for Christmas. I also had him get a book for me—a copy of the organizing book I read a few months ago and really liked. I intend to use it a lot, over an extended period of time, so checking it out of the library wasn’t too feasible. My visiting teachers came Friday also, so I had to banish Tanner and Jared to their rooms. It seems like every time my visiting teachers come, at least one of my kids is sick! They must think I have sick kids all the time, but really I don’t.

Tanner had a doctor appointment Friday afternoon to have a wart on his foot looked at. I set the appointment last week, not knowing that he would be sick, but since he was there anyway, we asked them to swab his throat. The strep test came back negative, though. They think he just has a virus. Frank took him to the appointment because Frank also had a wart he wanted the doctor to look at. The doctor is wrote out referrals for both of them to go see a podiatrist, but I haven’t made those appointments yet.

I was busy on Friday getting a few things finished up for the Primary activity, like making menus. The activity was Saturday morning. I got to the church about an hour before to help get things set up. The activity turned out great, I thought! When the kids arrived, we had a game for them to play—they had to guess which childhood photo went with which teacher. They also wrote thank you notes on the back of paper flowers which we put in vases to give to the teachers. Then we had brunch—fruit, muffins, yogurt, etc. The teachers got menus; they circled their choices and then the kids brought them up to us and we got the plates ready. After all the kids had served their teachers, then they got to eat, too. The teachers all brought several items representing their interests and hobbies to put on the center of their table for a centerpiece. While they were eating, the teachers talked about the objects they brought. We also had lists for the teachers and the kids of suggested questions to ask each other so they could get to know each other better. After everyone ate, we did a short little lesson on gratitude and then played a game with fun facts about the teachers—once again, the kids had to guess which teacher did what! Then we had a balloon relay with the classes and their teachers and then played “Do You Love Your Neighbor?” until parents came to pick up their kids. We had several parents help us put up tables and chairs, which helped a lot! Jared was feeling fine, so he came to the activity and he helped a lot with set up and clean up also.

On the way home, we stopped at Wal-Mart to get some things for Primary. I wasn’t home very long because I was going to a baby shower that afternoon for one of my visiting teachers, who is having twins. It was a bit of a drive to the shower location, so I got a ride with the Relief Society president, which was nice because we enjoyed visiting, but I also got home really late because after the shower she had to stop to visit a sister in the ward who’s been having some health problems. It was a longer visit than anticipated, but I enjoyed it anyways. This sister and her husband are both deaf, so another sister in the ward who knows sign language (actually, she’s one of my counselors) came along to interpret. Because of the “language barrier”, I’ve never been able to get to know this sister very well, so it was fun to see her on her “own turf” and find out more what she has to say, with an interpreter there. I’d never met her husband, either, but I found that they are both delightful people. Anyway, the shower was fun, with lots of yummy food, but it was long, so between that and the visit afterwards, I didn’t get home until about 7:30. I still had some Primary things to get done (print some labels, make invitations for the baptism fireside), so I spent the rest of the evening getting those things done.

While I was gone all day, Frank held down the fort at home. Scott had a basketball game (YM), but he got a ride to that since it was during Seth’s nap time. Our ward team is not very good, and true to form they lost their game by a lot. Scott didn’t mind except he felt frustrated that the other team fouled them a lot. They also have a deacon’s team this year, but Tanner was not well enough to play. They are letting the 11 year olds play with the deacons, but their game was at the same time as the Primary activity, so Jared couldn’t play either.

Now it’s Monday afternoon; I never got a chance to finish this up and post it! Seth didn’t sleep well on Saturday night; he sounded really “croupy”. We ended up putting him in a soft chair to sleep the rest of the night, so he was more upright and could breathe better, but he was still pretty restless and none of us got a lot of sleep. In the morning he was pretty perky, but he had an incredibly runny nose, so we decided he’d better stay home. Tanner also wasn’t sounding very well, so the two of them stayed home together. Frank came to Sacrament Meeting and then went home to stay with them. After church we didn’t have a lot going on, but we were all tired so we just relaxed. It rained a lot on Sunday and then it was really cold, but today it has warmed up a lot—feels like spring thaw! I’m sure it won’t last long, but it was nice to take Snickers on a longer walk today.

I hope you are all enjoying your Martin Luther King Day!