Weekly Review December 2 '11

I'm starting this week out with this sweet picture of Jared & Seth. Sorry it's kind of dark--I didn't want to wake them up by using a flash. I took this picture this morning when I got back from taking Scott & Tanner to school. I always wake Jared up before I take them to Seminary and have him get in my bed because when Seth wakes up, he usually goes in my room first. Sometime while I was gone this morning, Seth woke up, crawled in with Jared, and went back to sleep. I think it's cute that they are on the same pillow! (There is plenty of room in the queen size bed for them to spread out.)

I guess we are totally into the Christmas season now. I keep seeing lighted trees in windows and thinking "They got their tree up early this year." Then I realize that maybe it's not so early! It just doesn't seem to me that Christmas should be so soon. In spite of that, I spent some time yesterday putting up decorations around the house. No tree yet, but nearly everything else is up. Seth got to put the first "ornament" on the advent calendar last night.

He's holding his choice up in the picture above, but you can't see it because he has his hands around it. It's a gingerbread man.

Here, he is putting it on the tree.

Going back to last week, we celebrated Tanner's birthday as planned. He had two friends (Ryan and Taylor) over Friday evening for a pizza dinner and cake. He talked us into letting him open his presents that night.

Here he is reading one of his cards.

He was very excited to get the book Inheritance, which is the final book in the Eragon series.

He also got a Batman Xbox game and an iTunes gift card (he can put music on his phone with that; he doesn't have an iPod). From his friends he received a chin up bar and some money. Since he also received a gift card from Grandma & Grandpa, he will be able to go get something(s) nice. He seemed very happy with everything he got.

Ready to blow out candles!

The cake was good!

His friends spent the night as planned. They played Xbox and watched the movie The Prince of Persia.

In the morning, we had waffles, bacon, and hot chocolate. Both of his friends had family plans they had to leave for at 10:00. Frank took Jared & Scott with him to help put up some lights for a lady in our ward. I was hoping they would be able to put up our lights too (the weather was ideal--clear and in the 60's) but our ladder wasn't tall enough and our neighbor with the taller ladder wasn't home until after dark. I did some work for the school's pledge drive, cleaned the kitchen floor, figured out how to get gum out of Tanner's white Sunday shirt, and helped Scott finish up his BYU application. Really exciting stuff, right?

Seth was still coughing a lot on Sunday (although his fever seemed to be gone), so Frank got up earlier and went to Sacrament Meeting with the other ward that meets in our building. Then I took the oldest 3 boys to our regular meetings. We didn't have any extra meetings so we were able to have a fairly relaxing afternoon.

The rest of the week has been pretty busy. I had a presidency meeting for YW on Monday morning; we did it by conferencing over the phone since I kept Seth home to make sure he was well--he still had a pretty decent cough. He was bouncing off the walls by afternoon so I was sure he'd be back at school on Tuesday until...he woke up at 2:00 am Tuesday morning, crying that his ear hurt. He was so uncomfortable that even sitting with him on the couch didn't help and he was mostly awake from then on. He dropped off for brief periods of time, but I never did go back to sleep until after Frank took the boys to Seminary at 6:00. I felt pretty out of it that day! Of course, Seth didn't go to school--he went to the doctor instead. Sure enough, he had an ear infection. The doctor also listened to his lungs and said they sounded horrible--very wheezy. She decided to give him a nebulizer treatment right then and if they didn't sound better after that she said they'd have to do something else. However, the treatment helped a lot. They still sent us home with a nebulizer and instructions to give him at least 2 treatments a day for the next three days. So here is Seth, on a nebulizer again:

He's doing a lot better now. I kept him home on Wednesday as well, but by yesterday morning he was energetic and ready to go back to school. As you can see in the picture, Seth is holding a pencil. He got very interested in writing while he was home this week and started trying to write words by thinking of the sounds they make. He's doing great, too--he spelled several simple words (such as "box") correctly. It seems like the whole reading / writing thing has just suddenly "clicked" in his head. Very fun to watch!

Scott was also sick this week--he seemed to have a milder version of whatever Seth had. Scott stayed home all day Wednesday and yesterday he went to school around lunch time. He's feeling back to normal now, though.

Other things we did this week: Jared had basketball practice and YM. Tanner missed YM because he was writing a paper and Scott was sick that day. I had YW too, of course. I helped with the annual meeting and elections for the school's governing council on Tuesday evening. My responsibilities ended sooner than I expected, so I went to the end of choir also. I took cookies to one of the YW who had a birthday and is coming into Mia Maids. I did a little bit of Christmas shopping. I took everyone but Scott to get haircuts (he got his cut a few weeks ago). I finished reading the book for book club (The Space Between Us) and working on Christmas cards. I took Jared to the orthodontist this morning. Frank worked late on Thursday--he had some work to do for a client.

Today is our stake's temple day. Frank and I wanted to go together, but he started feeling sick last night (same thing as everybody else--cough, congestion, head ache) so I went by myself instead. I just missed the 2:00 session, so rather than waiting for the 3:00 session, I did initiatories. It worked out perfect because a lady came in with a bunch of family names that she wanted to get done before the 3:00 session, so I was able to help her. I also got done in time to miss most of the rush hour traffic coming home.

We continued to have beautiful weather the beginning of this week, but today it is feeling more like winter. Couldn't last forever, I guess!

That brings you up to date on us. We hope you are all well and begnning to enjoy the Christmas season!