Weekly Review February 24 '12

Well, it was too good to last, right? Seth started acting sick on Sunday. We made it to church with him, but it was pretty obvious as we sat in Sacrament Meeting that he wasn't feeling his best--not his usual energetic self! He felt warm to us, too. Frank had to leave right after the sacrament because of a meeting at another ward's ward conference and I was singing in the choir. I decided to take Seth out to the foyer, in case he got sick, until after the choir sang. I just stood out there and held him, and he lay quietly with his head on my shoulder. It was nice that he wasn't wiggly, but he was heavy, too! Scott held him while I went in to sing, and then I took him home. I thought I was going to miss YW, but Frank got back from his meeting in time for me to go to that. As the day progressed, Seth's temperature went up and he threw up once (all over the carpet, of course). There was no school on Monday of course, but he stayed home Tuesday and Wednesday as well--he had a fever until Wednesday (although no more upset stomach) and on Wednesday (his "make sure he's all better" day) he got a mysterious rash on his cheeks. All the more mysterious because it went away a few hours later. Meanwhile, Tanner had a sore throat from Saturday on; he kept going to school anyway but yesterday I kept him home and took him to the doctor, so today was the only day that everyone made it to school. Tanner does not have strep but he had lost 6 pounds from when he was in two weeks ago (with the ear infection) which concerned them a bit. He has to go back next month for a follow up on his ADD medication so they will check on his weight again then. They are hoping it was just a fluke--so am I.

Jared had his follow up on his broken finger this week as well so I made two trips to the doctor. But that's better than the week that I had three! Jared's finger has healed well so he is back to normal activities; no more finger brace.

Our long weekend was not very relaxing but we weren't really expecting it to be. Saturday wasn't too bad, actually. Frank had computer work to do and he pulled down some more wallpaper. I worked on taxes a little. I worked on them a lot more on Monday--a good portion of the day. I was feeling rather frazzled with numbers coming out of my ears by the end of the day, but I think I got most of it figured out. Frank pulled down more wallpaper so one another bathroom wall is completely done; he still has part of two more walls left. The older boys went to the ward talent show Saturday evening--Frank and I decided to opt out because we knew Seth wouldn't sit still. Tanner also went to a dance with a friend--another regional dance about a half hour from here.

Sunday morning Frank had a meeting and then I had ward council--filling in for the YW president. It was kind of amusing because when we went around the room to let each organization report on families / individuals they are working with, the bishop brought up a particular family when it was my turn. I was thinking in my head "they don't have any teenage girls..." and then I realized that he was forgetting that I was there for YW instead of Primary! Everyone got a good laugh out of that one. I was supposed to stay after church for BYC as well, but that meeting got cancelled and just as well since Seth was sick. Frank had to work that night also--an emergency with one of his clients.

As I mentioned, I spent most of Monday working on taxes. I did get some reading done over the week end, though. I finished the book for book club weeks ago so I've been reading some children's books the last few weeks. I finished "Miracles on Maple Hill", "It's Like This, Cat" and "The Giver" over the last few weeks. (I know the titles aren't supposed to be in quotation marks, but I don't see an underline option and the italic function is messed up and keeps italicizing the wrong words. So I gave up!) They were all good, but I liked The Giver the most. Very thought provoking!!

Other things that happened this week--I had a presidency meeting Tuesday afternoon, via phone again since Seth was sick. I was busy the first part of the week with preparations for New Beginnings, which was on Wednesday. It went really well, though--a couple of less active girls who are turning 12 this year were able to come and a few girls who come to church with their parents but don't want to come to class or activities also came in and stayed for the meeting, so that was great! We are happy whenever we get to see them. The girls planned the program and made the decorations--they did a good job. They asked me to speak and I hope it went well-I felt pretty good about it, overall.

Jared had play practice on Wednesday afternoon and Scott worked that night--he was doing the sound & lighting for a "Mr. TJ Pageant" at the high school. (A "pageant" for the senior boys; a tradition every year.) So that was a busy evening!

Thursday I took kids to the school library and did some research on some possibilities for Jared's class's 8th grade trip. Frank took Scott to take his test for his driver's license and he passed, so we now have an additional licensed driver in the family! Scott is very happy about it. Since he is a teenage boy, the cost of the added car insurance coverage is predictably steep. But he's already run two errands for me this afternoon and I intend to milk it for all it's worth! Today I went visiting teaching and one of my visiting teachers came. If nothing disasterous happens in the next 15 minutes, Frank and I will be leaving to go to the temple. We don't have a lot of time, so we'll probably do sealings. But we figured if we wait until tomorrow morning, someone will throw up in the night or something like that so we are going now!

Update on the house: long story short, there was a lot of miscommunication going on last week. There really was another offer on the house but this week the buyer walked away from the deal. So now our offer will be considered but in the meantime another offer has also come in that will be considered as well. Although we offered full list price, the other buyer may be offering more, so we have until tomorrow to decide whether or not we are going to increase our offer at all. Right now we are leaning toward keeping our offer the same and letting it go if we are outbid, but we haven't decided for sure. The seller wanted all the interested buyers to look at the house again so we did that on Wednesday afternoon. The house looks better than last time we looked--it's been cleaned up a lot more. It doesn't look like it will need a lot done to it except carpet cleaning and lots of painting. It really is a beautiful house, but we can live without it of course!

Well, we are off! I'll try to get a picture of Scott with his new license for next week.

Weekly Review February 17 '12

Happy Valentine's Day! Above is a picture of our table the morning of Valentine's Day--with all the goodies. We had a nice day with lots of chocolate, cards, and love--oh, and chocolate covered strawberries too!

So guess what? All four boys made it to school every day this week! I don't think anyone even has a sniffle, either. We are all feeling well all at once--and we've stayed that way for a solid five days. Miracles never cease! It has certainly been nice for a change. I'm not sure if I have anything to write about, though. :)

Last Friday night you may remember that Frank & I weren't feeling too great so we didn't make it to the temple. I did feel well enough to make it to the Leadership Training Broadcast, though, and it was very inspiring. Frank got a call shortly before it started; they were having technical difficulties so he had to run over there and save the day (even though he was feeling pretty nasty). They showed the broadcast two more times on Saturday morning and he went over to help with set up again, and then later in the afternoon on Saturday he and I went back to the church to take down all the equipment and put it away.

When I came out of the broadcast Friday evening, it was snowing lightly. It snowed more on Saturday--off and on, sometimes quite heavily for short periods of time. We only ended up with an inch of two of accumulation and not enough for anything to get cancelled. (Around here, it doesn't take much!) So we had three different snow "storms" in the last week which is more snow than we've seen around these parts in a long time. We might get more snow this weekend, but I doubt the boys are going to get out of school since it's a long week end. The timing of the few storms we've had has been just perfect, so that there have been no snow days or even delayed openings this whole school year. I don't think that's ever happened since we moved here. (But now that I said that, we'll get a huge freak spring storm that cancels school for a week. Jinx!)

Besides the Leadership Training Broadcast, Saturday was busy with other chores such as taking Frank's car in to get the windshield replaced (it had two large cracks; the insurance covered all but a reasonable deductible), some house cleaning, and Scott had a band show he helped with that night (for pay). Frank also started pulling wallpaper off the walls in our powder room--I've been wanting to pull it down and paint for years now. Right now about a third of the wallpaper is off so it doesn't look too great but I'm sure it will be nice when the project is done.

Everyone made it to Ward Conference on Sunday, which was nice. Frank and I were still feeling slightly queasy, but not too bad. Because the other ward that meets in our building was also having ward conference that day and our meetings usually overlap, our meetings were moved from an 11:00 start time to a 1:00 start time. It was strange going in that late, but at least we got to sleep in!

The rest of the week went by quickly and we stayed busy, mostly with the usual things. I went visiting teaching on Tuesday so I could take some flowers to one of the sisters I visit--she lives in a nursing home so I thought it would be nice to take her something. She really seemed to appreciate it. There was not YW on Wednesday night because we had a temple trip on Thursday evening, but the boys still had activities--the younger boys were planning a camp out and all of the boys needed to get temple recommend interviews as well. Frank took our boys over to the church and it was nice for me to stay home for a change.

Thursday it rained most of the day. That afternoon I had a meeting at Jared's school--I'm on the committee to help plan the 8th grade trip. It's a tradition that the 8th graders get to do a fun field trip at the end of the year, since it's their last year at the school. (Tanner's class went on a dinner cruise.) They always do something in Washington DC (an attempt to make it fair) but they try to pick something unique for each class, based on what the kids want to do. Thursday evening I went with the youth to do baptisms at the temple. It was great--I loved being at the temple again, after trying so hard for the last month to get there. They kept me very busy helping the girls (I was the only YW leader who ended up being able to go) but there was such a great feeling there. One of the sisters in our ward had a lot of family names and so most of the kids did baptisms for her family, which made it extra special. She came with us and it was great to sit next to her and watch her face as they read the names--she knew several of the people personally, so it meant a lot to her. I also enjoyed watching all three of my older boys as they were proxies for baptisms. We got to the temple early, so we went over to the visitor's center for a while and they showed us a short movie. Our session didn't start until 8:00, so we were up very late and getting up for Seminary this morning was not very fun. It was worth it, though.

Today the boys got out of school two hours early. I spent the morning at the school updating pledge drive information--I always enjoy doing that, but it made the day a bit hectic. After all the boys got home, Jared had to pack for his camp out. I left Frank in charge of that while I went to get my hair done. Seth came with me so he could play with his buddy Tyler (Tyler's mom cuts my hair). I got home just in time to take Jared to the church where they were meeting for the camp out. A few hours later, he called to say he forgot his contact lens case and fluid, so Frank and I drove that out to him (along with his toothbrush, which he also forgot, and some warmer gloves). Tanner has his friend Seth over to spend the night tonight. Sleep overs have been pretty sparse the last 3 or 4 months; I'm not complaining about that, though.

I think those are the main things that have been going on this week. There's been some interesting developments with the house we put the offer on--our realtor called to say that he's been trying to contact the listing agent all week to confirm that she got our offer and she hasn't responded. So Frank called the bank that owns the house and they told him that there are no offers on the house. To make a long story short, it looks like something fishy might be going on and the bank asked Frank to send an email to them with information on what we've done so far and what we've been told so far and they are going to do an investigation. There's no telling what the result will be, but I am not too worried about it. I don't mind the delay since we have so much to do to get our house ready to sell and we haven't been able to do much yet. Hopefully we'll make some progress on that this week.

Weekly Review February 10 '12

I am sorry I have no pictures to include this week. I guess I could have taken pictures of sick kids lying on the couch, but who wants pictures of that? Sadly, we are still suffering from various ailments around here. All families have those years where everyone gets sick a lot, and this is definitely one of those years for us! Last Friday Jared made it through the school day (although he didn't feel great). But then Scott came home with a migraine and Frank had an upset stomach. So I think Tanner was the only one who was feeling healthy that day. Frank felt pretty yucky through Saturday and Jared & Scott didn't feel great but better than the day before. Seth and I were improving, too.

Because neither Frank nor I were feeling very well on Friday, we didn't make it to the temple again--sigh! Scott felt well enough on Saturday that he played in his team's basketball game. They lost, and since it was their first game in a single elimination tournament, that means they are done. They didn't expect to win so it wasn't terribly disappointing. His team has improved a lot this season, though, so it was satisfying to see that. Jared couldn't play in his game because of his finger. His game was the final for the deacon's team tournament and his team won, so they are the champions of the stake. All three of the older boys went to a party that night which our bishop had for all the youth who read the entire Book of Mormon last year. It snowed a little bit on Saturday but the roads weren't too bad. Jared felt worse Sunday morning so he stayed home from church. The rest of it made it, though!

All four boys went to school Monday morning, but Jared came home early. His throat was hurting and his teacher sent him to the school nurse because strep throat has been going around their class. The nurse called me because although he didn't have a fever, his throat looked quite red and inflamed. She thought I should get him checked for strep, so I picked him up and took him in to the doctor. It was a little stressful because Scott had a follow up exam with the dermatologist that afternoon also and I wasn't sure we were going to get through Jared's appointment in time to get to Scott's, but Frank left work a little early and met me at the doctor's office so it all worked out. The doctor was just coming in to tell me that Jared's strep test had come back positive when Frank got there; I had to leave with Scott right then. I was really surprised he was positive because of the absence of fever. Go figure! Jared was home from school the next two days and returned to school on Thursday feeling much better.

However, in the meantime Scott and Tanner both started complaining of sore throats and had some cough and congestion as well. Scott asked to come home early on Tuesday; I took him to the doctor that afternoon but his strep test came back negative. The doctor said his throat looked pretty bad, though, and he suspected a possible false negative so he put him on antibiotics anyway. Scott stayed home Wednesday and Thursday and went back to school today although he didn't feel well enough to get up for Seminary.

Tanner didn't go to the doctor on Wednesday--I texted him when I realized I was going to be taking Scott in to see if he felt like he needed to go also, but he said he was feeling better. Later that evening, however, he started complaining that his left ear hurt. He couldn't hear out of that ear either. Really? By then the doctor's office was closed, but we talked to the doctor on call and he called in a prescription for Tanner and asked us to bring him in the next day to get him checked.

The story doesn't end there. We went to bed thinking we may be up in the night with Tanner, who would probably need another dose of pain medication before the night was over. Tanner slept through the night, but around 2:30 Seth came in our room and promptly threw up all over the bedding we have on the floor for him. (He told us he'd already been sick in his room, too--we had a mess to clean up in there as well.) Usually when he gets the stomach flu he throws up once and that's the end of it, but this time he woke up repeatedly and had diarrhea as well. Neither Frank nor I got much sleep after that. He was really a sick little boy--was not able to keep down even small amounts of liquid until early afternoon. He had a fever, too. It wasn't a very fun day. I washed my hands a hundred times and went around wiping down doorknobs and such with clorox wipes. Scott and Tanner were both home from school as well and Frank took a sick day from work. When I took Tanner in to the doctor that morning, he confirmed that he did indeed have an ear infection. By afternoon Frank and I were both feeling a little sick as well as dead tired. We both seem to have caught what Seth had, except that (thankfully!) it's a very mild version. We don't have much appetite, but we can eat and it stays down. Our plans to go to the temple have been ruined for the third week in a row, however. Maybe next week?

Tanner stayed home from school again today--his ear is feeling better but he still has congestion, cough, and headache. Seth is also feeling better but since he was throwing up less than 24 hours ago, I kept him home. Besides, he woke up this morning with both eyes looking pink again! We still have drops left over from last week, so we started putting them in again. Frank took another sick day since his stomach is still feeling pretty nasty.

Well, we did do a few other things this week besides take care of sick kids. I did some shopping Monday morning for the YW combined activity--I was in charge of that this week. We had family night Monday evening; I had activity and picked something tame (no K'nect or Wii) since Jared was sick and I totally creamed my knee that morning. (I rammed it hard into a seat belt fastener when I knelt down in the seat of the car to get a carseat out of the very back seat.) I 'm not sure what I did to it exactly, but it ached all day and hurt to walk. Going up and down stairs was especially painful. It was very sore for a few days, but oddly it didn't hurt to kneel on it or touch it as I would have expected. Now today it doesn't hurt very much to move it anymore, but it has developed a slightly greenish yellow tint and it does hurt to kneel on it! Delayed bruising? I don't get it.

Tuesday we signed the papers for a home equity loan. We also put in an offer on a house--but don't get too excited about that yet. The one house we looked at that really interested us had an offer on it already but that deal was supposed to close at the end of January. We found out the deal didn't close, so we decided it was worth a try putting in an offer ourselves--this house is one of the biggest we've looked at and in our ideal neighborhood but it's listed close to the bottom of our price range so it's a really great deal. So we did put in an offer, but the next day we found out that the other deal had been pushed back until the end of February so if that one works out we are out of luck. But that's ok--it it's supposed to work out it will. In the meantime, I'm feeling rather stressed about getting our house ready to sell--especially since we never seem to be feeling well enough to actually do anything!

I had a presidency meeting Tuesday afternoon as well, so it was a busy day. I didn't sleep well at all Monday night (woke up around 2:00 and never went back to sleep; my stomach was hurting) so I was pretty tired. Frank offered to stay home from work that day to help me, but I told him he needed to save his sick days for really bad days--and I am very glad now that he did!

I made two batches of sugar cookies on Wednesday because we were decorating sugar cookies for our YW activity that evening. We also put together some care packages for two sister missionaries serving from our ward. It started snowing Wednesday afternoon and came down for several hours but it didn't start sticking for quite a while so we only ended up with a few inches and very little stuck to the roads. I wondered at times if the activity was going to end up getting cancelled, and truthfully I wouldn't have minded too much--I was tired and my throat hurt a little so curling up in my pajamas was a more appealing idea than running an activity for a bunch of teen age girls. However, the activity went well and I actually enjoyed myself. The YW president didn't make it because she lives out in the country with a long, uphill driveway and the snow accumulation was worse out there.

I was supposed to go in to the school Thursday morning to take kids to the library and to work on pledge drive stuff, but I had to cancel both those things when Seth got sick. Today Frank and I have been trying to take it easy but we are slowly getting a few things done like updating the budget and folding laundry.

We have our Ward Conference this weekend; I'm hoping we are all healthy enough to go to that.

Weekly Review Feb 3 '12

Last week I forgot to include these pictures that Scott took of his school project. I tried to convince him to let me take a picture of him with the project, but he was feeling stubborn. Anyway, this is the project he worked on in his architectural drawing class all last semester. He had to draw the floor plan first and then build a model of his house. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Below is a detail of the front door:

The house has two stories, and on the model the top level lifts off so you can see the floor beneath:

He took a bunch of pictures of his model because--sadly--we didn't have room to keep it, so it had to be thrown out. Scott didn't mind--he said he worked on it so long that he was kind of sick of it! Documenting it in pictures was enough for him.

So on to this week.... I didn't get my wish--we did not enjoy good health all week. Seth has been home from school since Wednesday because he has a red eye and "pink eye" has been going around in his class. He came home from school Tuesday with his eye looking a bit pink but it wasn't too bad. It really didn't look much worse Wednesday morning, but it still didn't look quite right to me either, so I decided to take him in to the school nurse that morning when I took the boys to school. The school nurse said he should probably have it looked at, so I took him home and made an appointment with the doctor. The doctor didn't think it looked too bad but because pink eye is going around his class, he decided to go ahead and treat him, just in case and said he should stay home Thursday also because if he really did have pink eye he'd be contagious until he'd been on medication 24 hours. So he stayed home yesterday too. (Now if I can just figure out how to get eyedrops in a four year old's eyes!) Today I kept him home because in the meantime he still has a runny nose and he's complaining that his head hurts. He's not incredibly sick, but I just decided to give him another day (and the weekend) to get rested up and hopefully he'll be much better and less germy by Monday!

I have also been fighting congestion / slight sore throat / sinus headache off and on all week. Some days I feel almost normal and other days I feel pretty lousy. I've been pretty functional overall, though. Yesterday evening I really didn't feel very well (I skipped a YW training meeting)

and today I'm not much better but I'm hoping I'll start feeling better before the day is over. We were planning to go to the temple tonight and I'd still like to go. We'll just have to see how I feel as the day progresses. Jared has been a lot like me this week as well--feeling pretty good some days and rather sick on others. This morning he is quite congested and definitely not feeling his best. Hopefully he'll make it through the whole school day! Frank has been coughing more the last couple of days but other than that seems to be ok. Still, not feeling 100% healthy! So the "winter of 'the plague'" continues! Should we blame the mild weather? It's possible that at least some of this stuff has been caused by allergies--things growing that don't normally grow this time of year because it's too cold. It is hard to tell.

We did have a few really nice days this week with temperatures in the high fifties or low sixties. Tuesday was nice enough that one of my friends organized a play date at the park. We went right over after I picked up Seth from school and he had a great time. We had to wear jackets, but it was perfectly comfortable that way, without heavy coats. Wednesday was pretty nice also but it's been a lot cooler since then. The groundhog notwithstanding (the one in our area predicted 6 more weeks of winter), we have crocus blooming in the yard, my bulbs are starting to come up, I hear a lot more bird song in the mornings, and yesterday I saw a large flock of geese returning from the south. It certainly looks and feels like spring is on the way. What a weird winter it has been! Frank is a little grumpy about it and Scott is really mad that we haven't had any snow days for his senior year (the seniors get out of school a couple of weeks earlier than everyone else no matter how many snow days there are) but I have not minded at all!

This week was pretty busy, but it would have been a lot busier if a few things hadn't been cancelled. Frank did some cleaning up in his office on Saturday. He still has a lot to do, but at least now I can get to the file cabinet in the corner without having to risk life & limb climbing over a bunch of computers and boxes. He's making progress! I spent a lot of the day working on our tax return; it's mostly done but I'm waiting to see if we are going to get any more 1099s from some of Frank's clients. (We're going to report all the income anyway, but I'd like to enter the 1099 information that we receive.)

Sunday turned out to be busier than I thought because the YW president was sick so I ended up going to BYC after church. Scott also had BYC, APEC meeting, hometeaching, and a fireside and Frank had another ward conference to attend. He went with the 3 older boys to the fireside that evening because he had to make sure the technical stuff worked--they were playing a tape of the Seminary broadcast from last week. Because the YW pres was sick and I wasn't feeling my greatest on Sunday, we decided to postpone a YW leadership brunch that we had scheduled for Monday morning. That turned out to be good--I really needed that morning to re-group and plan out my week. Our presidency meeting for Wednesday morning was postponed also, which turned out to be good since I ended up taking Seth to the doctor that morning and the other counselor was also sick.

The YW president is actually not sick--she is having a major allergic reaction to something, and they can't figure out what. It's been going on for over two months, actually, but has gotten much worse over the last week or two. It started with feeling itchy and a few hives showed up; now she has hives all over her body except for her face--so many that they blend together and it looks like a big rash. They've determined that she has huge amounts of this one chemical in her blood--a chemical that your body normally produces in small amounts to combat an allergen--but that's all they've been able to figure out so far. She even had an appointment at Johns Hopkins this week with an expert and he said he'd never seen anything like it before. Unfortunately, the only medicine that can cure the problem is prednisone (not sure how to spell it) and she's allergic to that. They are treating the itching with a medication that makes her dizzy and drowsy, so for now she is either half awake or itching all over. How miserable that must be! The itching is much worse at night, so basically that means she is non-functional in the mornings from either lack of sleep or the effects of the medication. She says afternoons and evenings are better so she can get some things done then. I feel so bad for her! I hope they can figure out what's going on and find a solution for her soon.

Anyway, as usual I had shopping to do and lots of various errands to run this week. I did manage to exercise a few times, which felt good. We had a class activity on Wednesday for YW; we did some Personal Progress stuff so I was busy planning that and getting some things ready for that. I thought of a few ideas to make it a little interesting and fun! Then I ended up having all the Beehives join our class because the 2nd counselor was sick. It all worked out--she called ahead so I was prepared. I thoroughly cleaned out my desk one day--it took a lot longer than I had anticipated. A guy in our ward who runs a contracting business came over Wednesday before YM / YW to look over the work we want done so he can give us an estimate. If all goes well, he will probably be starting the work on our house in about 3 weeks. It's going to be crazy around here while that gets done, but I'm sure it will be nice when everything is complete. We still have a LONG list of things we need to do ourselves, like pretty much repaint (or touch up)every room in the house. But we may have a lot longer to get that stuff done than we thought since at the moment we aren't seeing any houses that even interest us. There is really not much on the market right now, at least not in our price range. And that's ok--I wouldn't mind staying and enjoying our new floors for a while!

Frank did several hours of work for a couple of clients this week, so he's been busy too. At work they are trying to get through the process of hiring him as an employee. They are running into the same paperwork hassels they encountered when they hired him as a contractor, but at least this time he is working full time while he's waiting, so it's all good. His boss says they are "fighting" to get him hired quicker, so it's nice to know that they really want him.

The boys have not had a lot of activities going on except for basketball practices (Jared is not supposed to be playing but keeps trying to play anyway) and Tanner stayed after school one day to make up some work he missed last week. They are all enjoying the piano keyboard and have surprised me by the songs they can play already. Jared has even memorized a few favorites, such as the Star Wars theme and "Praise to the Man". Frank gave an excellent lesson for family night this week based on Elder Oaks's "Good, Better, Best" talk he gave a few years back, and we are all working on making better choices of how we use our time.

I have to go work on the budget now, so I'll wrap up this post. (We did finally figure out the glitch in our budget spreadsheet--a problem with one of the formulas, as we suspected.) We hope you all have a great week. We are happy that it's February! (Happy Birthday to Ben!)