Weekly Review March 19 '11

Another busy week has gone by. I had sick kids again this week (remember Scott and Tanner weren't feeling very well last Saturday?) I think this time they both caught that nasty virus that Frank and I had right after Valentine's Day. They both missed school on Monday and Tuesday, and Scott missed Wednesday as well. I took Scott to the doctor on Monday to make sure he didn't have strep. The rapid strep came back negative, but his throat looked yucky enough that the doctor put him on an antibiotic anyway. It didn't seem to help much, though, so when I found out (yesterday) that his culture for strep also came back negative, I wasn't surprised. Tanner wasn't as sick (no high fever like Scott had) and he was planning to go back to school on Tuesday, until he woke up in the night with an ear ache. So he went to the doctor on Tuesday, but to my surprise he did not have an ear infection. Thankfully, his ear didn't hurt him after that and he was able to go back to school on Wednesday.



Meanwhile, Jared had a bad head ache on Saturday night and Sunday, so he stayed home with Scott and Tanner on Sunday. Since Seth still had a cough and runny nose (still does), we decided to have him stay home from church with the older boys as well. So Frank and I set off to church alone together...for the first time since August 14, 1994--the day before Scott was born! It seemed kind of strange to sit by ourselves.



I would have to go back to check, but I am pretty sure that between snow days, holidays, delayed openings, early closings, and sick kids that we have not had a single week since Christmas break where all four kids were in school all day (or in Seth's case, half a day) for 5 days in a row. Crazy!



There is hope that the snow days, at least, have ended, though. The weather this week was mostly rainy or cool, but we got a gorgeous spring day for St. Patrick's Day, and then yesterday was even nicer. On Thursday my daffodils started to appear:

Take that, winter! Today is not quite so warm, but it is still nice. I can tell that the end is in sight!

We didn't have any extra meetings or anything on Sunday; it was nice to come home from church and relax a bit. The missionaries came over for dinner, and we enjoyed getting to know them better.

We played Taboo for family night activity on Monday. Then we had pie for treat--we had to do that because it was pie day!

On Tuesday I went to the library to get new books for Seth and to pick up a book for book club. We are reading two books this month because they are both children's books and a little shorter, but with a similar theme--both about refugees. The one I am reading now is called The Road from Home by David Kherdian, and it is about an Armenian girl living in Turkey who survived the genocides that took place in that area during World War I. It is a true story--the author is telling the story of his mother's life. I'm about half way through, and so far it is very interesting and a good story, although not happy, of course. Tuesday evening we had a RS activity. We usually meet on Wednesday, but this time we had a combined RS birthday activity with the other ward who shares our building. The theme was "Celebrating the Relief in Relief Society", and for most of the evening we did various service projects. There were 8 different projects going on at once. I chose to help make "wheelchair bags" since that was one of the projects that required sewing. I got one done and started on another one. Afterwards, we all had cake. At the beginning of the activity, they had 12 tables set up--one for each month of the year. We were asked to sit at the table of our birth month. Each table had a cake in the center decorated to represent that month. So those were the cakes we were eating (although we could have any of the cakes--didn't have to eat the one for our birth month). I thought that was a fun idea!

The boys had basketball practice and YM as usual Wednesday evening. Scott didn't participate in the practice, since he was just getting over being sick, but he did make it to YM. They had a missionary work themed activity, and from what I heard it was really good. I wasn't feeling very well that evening--I had a scratchy throat, runny nose, and head ache. I was really worried I was coming down with the same thing the boys have had, but fortunately, it hasn't turned into anything serious. I still have a slight scratchy throat and runny nose, but my head feels better so I've been functioning!

Snickers had his teeth cleaned Thursday; I had to drop him off at the vet's that morning. He was done and ready to be picked up by lunch time, so I went to get him after I picked up Seth from school. I spent that morning at the school doing pledge paperwork. Snickers was a little groggy most of the day and he didn't eat much, but by the next day he was back to being his usual frisky self. Jared bought himself a ticket and went to a play at his school Thursday evening. The play was called "Into the Woods, Jr." He said it was really good. We all stayed up too late that night watching the BYU basketball game, but at least they won the game this time! (We were very disappointed by Saturday's game--the first one we've been able to see all year, and then they choked!)

Frank has been exercising and watching what he eats this month, and so far he has lost 13 pounds! Go Frank! He found a program online where you can keep track of your calorie intake. I was doing that with him for about 5 days (last week) but I gave up on it already! I got depressed when I went over my calorie allotment every day. I don't eat a lot, but apparently I eat things high in calories. Who knew? The whole process was very educational and now I am paying a lot more attention to what I'm eating. Actually, the thing that was really contributing to my going over was my milk intake. I guess I should switch to skim milk--I drink 1% most of the time. I also made the mistake of saying I wanted to lose a few pounds instead of just maintaining my weight (I'm not overweight, but I weigh a few pounds more than I have most of my adult life), so it had me on 1200 calories per day. That sounds like a lot, but it's not--try it! Especially when 3 glasses of milk (2 cups each) add up to 780 calories! I was hungry all the time and felt like I should be drinking less milk, but I need to drink milk because I'm at high risk for osteoporosis. So I stopped keeping track, and now I'm just trying to be smarter about what I eat. Frank looks great, by the way! He still wants to lose a lot more, but he is off to a great start.

One of my visiting teachers came to see me Friday morning. I exercised and got the budget caught up. The day went by very quickly! In the evening, Tanner and Scott went to the church to help finish making decorations for tonight's dance. Then Scott and Tanner went with some friends to get pizza. After that, Tanner and Jared went to spend the night with Ryan and Bryson. Seth and Frank were watching a guy movie on tv, so I watched Ramona and Beezus on my computer. I enjoyed the movie--cute, sweet, and funny!

This morning I went to a baby shower while Frank took Scott to his basketball game. Then Frank and I both went to Jared's basketball game. Our teams lost both games which means they are done for the season. This was the first round of the tournament, which is single elimination, so they are out. Both teams played well, though, so we are proud of them. The officiating was good at both games, also, so at least it wasn't really frustrating! It's kind of for the best that they lost, too because a lot of the boys on both teams (including my boys) are doing a lawn aeration project next Saturday. If they had needed to play a game in the middle of that, it would have made things pretty complicated!

Tonight the older two boys are going to a dance. The rest of us are planning to watch the BYU basketball game. After that, I will have to go straight to bed because I have Ward Council in the morning, early.