Weekly Review April 30 '11

Did you all have a nice Easter? I hope so! Ours was pretty nice, although half of us were sick. Scott and Jared were both still recovering and Frank felt pretty bad Sunday morning, so the three of them stayed home from church. Tanner, Seth and I went together and Seth was very good about staying with Tanner while I went up to sing two numbers with the ward choir. There were no meetings or anything after church, so we enjoyed being together as a family and relaxing a little. Here is Seth with half of his chocolate bunny melted all over him!:

One of the little girls in Primary gave me this super cute little bunny basket. It even had some Dove chocolate inside--yum!:

Frank and I were both sick for most of this week. I didn't feel terrible the earlier part of the week, so at least I was functional, but I felt like I was trying to fight the illness off all week. Frank got really sick--he actually had a fever, which never happens to him! He worked on Monday, but had to take Tuesday and Wednesday off. By Wednesday morning he had such a terrible cough that we decided he needed to go to the doctor. He sounded bad enough to the doctor that he sent him for a chest x-ray to check for bronchitis or pneumonia. It turns out he doesn't have either of those things, but the doctor was still pretty sure he had developed a bacterial infection of some kind, on top of the virus that the rest of us have had (except for Tanner), so he prescribed an antibiotic. He had improved enough by Thursday that he was able to go to work, but he still isn't feeling top notch and he still has a pretty decent cough.

In the meantime, I have felt worse the last couple of days so I've been trying to take it easy. I'm getting to the coughing stage now myself--fun, fun! But I have not been as sick as Frank, for which I a grateful. The boys have all been well enough to go to school all week, but I can tell they are still recovering. Jared has a cough and Scott has been super tired. I am ready for all of us to be completely well again. We have definitely had more sickness than usual the last few months.

The boys were out of school on Monday--it was the last day of spring break. I'm glad they had that extra day to recover before going back to school.

We did not get as much rain as expected, and it actually got freakishly hot this week. We had temperatures in the 70's with lots of humidity, and even at night it didn't cool down much. It felt like the middle of summer! After all the wet, cold weather we've been having, it was quite a change. We did get thunderstorms occasionally, and on Thursday morning we had 3 or 4 tornado warnings between 5:00 and 9:00 am. Here's an effective way to wake up your parents at 5:30 am: "Mom & Dad, it says on the television that there's a tornado warning for Frederick county, and we should take cover now." That was how Scott woke us up that morning! After we got up and checked the reports, we could tell that the storm was going east of us, so we weren't as worried. We did get some pretty torrential rain and strong winds, but nothing too serious. There were several waves that went through, but every time the worst of the storm went east of us. We went ahead and sent the guys to Seminary and then Frank took them to school. There was still a tornado warning at the time, and after they got to school Scott texted me to say that they made all of them take shelter in the class rooms as soon as they walked in the school. I guess they ended up being in the classrooms under desks for about the first half hour of school. I thought is was kind of funny--apparently Frederick County Public Schools thinks an inch or two of snow is a bigger threat than a tornado warning! I was really surprised they didn't delay school for an hour or two until all the bad weather cleared out. As it was, the younger two boys were almost late to school because I was waiting for a break in the torrential rainfall to make a dash for the car. I'm not complaining, though. After seeing all the reports of the terrible damage in Alabama and the rest of the south, we feel very lucky.

All three of the older boys got to go to the temple Wednesday evening to do baptisms. They seemed to really enjoy that, and didn't get home too late. They were riding home in some pretty powerful thunderstorms, though.

I don't think Seth was feeling his best this week, either. He fell asleep around 5:00 and took long naps on two different days. The first time he fell asleep he was playing on Frank's IPad, which he loves to do:

We thought that was pretty funny!

Because I wasn't feeling too great either, I didn't get much more than the bare minimum done this week. I did manage to finish Seth's astronaut costume, though. It think it turned out pretty good; what do you think?:

(Here's the whole costume.)

A very cute astronaut!

Close up of the "boots".

Doesn't he look great?! Now, if it will only fit him in a couple more weeks! And I hope he'll say his lines. He knows them, but he usually gets shy and whispers them to me. That's not going to work out too well in the actual play; no one will be able to hear him. But at least he'll look adorable, if nothing else!

Because I had some down time, I did some more reading. We are reading Out of Africa for book club this month, but I haven't been able to get a copy of it yet so I read The Trumpeter of Krakow and Rabbit Hill, both Newberry award winners. I thought I had read both books a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure I had never read the first one--it didn't sound even remotely familiar as I read it! It was good, though. Rabbit Hill seemed a little more familiar, but I didn't remember much about it, either. It was cute, but not my favorite.

The other thing we did this week is the boys started doing extra chores. I had to do a little bit of nagging, but overall they were pretty good about getting things done, and it really has been a big help to me to have them doing more around the house. Especially this week, since I wasn't feeling too great.

We enjoyed watching coverage of the royal wedding yesterday (not live--I wasn't interested enough to get up at the crack of dawn to watch). I hope that marriage goes a lot better than most of the other royal weddings have. They did seem to look a lot happier than I remember Charles & Diana looking, at least. Although I was annoyed by one of the commentators who basically praised William & Kate for being "smart enough" to live together for a couple of years before getting married, and even scoffed at the idea that it used to be considered "living in sin". Wow, what's the world coming to?! I thought the wedding was nice, but it still paled in comparison to temple weddings, I think!

Today Jared went to his friend Sage's house for the morning. He had a follow up appointment for his eyes after that--they are doing fine. He has needed a little bit of assistance getting his contacts in at times, but overall he is doing really well with them. I've been helping the boys work on chores and scout stuff. Frank is going to take Scott up this afternoon to take a few more pictures of the turtle cage and they will get the park ranger to sign his paperwork while they are up there, too. He still has quite a bit of work to do before he will have the paperwork complete, but he is making some progress, although slowly! Frank and I are trying not to do too much and are hoping we will be well enough to go to church tomorrow. I am supposed to teach sharing time, so I really need (and want) to be there. Hopefully we'll make it!

Weekly Reveiw April 23 '11

When I went to get this week's photographs off the memory card, I found this little gem:

A self portrait by Seth! He's been playing with the camera again.

When I left off last week, Frank and the older two boys were at a youth activity. We ended up getting a severe thunderstorm that evening; as a matter of fact, we were under a tornado warning for a while. The worst of the storm seemed to go south of us, but for a few minutes we had rain coming down in sheets with strong winds--it was pretty incredible to watch. Frank came home soaked, of course, but otherwise he was fine. It rained all day Saturday so by Sunday afternoon, the river was the highest I've ever seen it. Sunday evening we decided to go for a drive. Here is a baseball field at the park at the end of our street:

The sky looked pretty cool:

We took an alternate route home to see the flooding along the river, but we had to turn around and go another way when we ran into this:

This is the driveway to a farm. (Below) I hope the residents had enough food and necessities stockpiled for a few days, because they aren't going anywhere!

By the next day, the water had gone down significantly, though.

Seth didn't sleep well Saturday night, and Sunday morning he felt a little on the warm side. Frank took him home after Sacrament Meeting, which turned out to be a good choice because by mid afternoon he had a high fever. He took a long nap that afternoon. Meanwhile, I had a busy Sunday--ward counsel, church meetings, choir practice, and a Primary visit. Our home teacher came to see us and Tanner & Frank went home teaching also. After all that we had family night, and then we went for the drive to see the water.

The kids were out of school all week for spring break. I really wanted to take Seth to the zoo or the older kids to the science museum or something like that, but the weather didn't cooperate, and neither did the kids' health. Seth still had a fever on Monday and Tuesday, and even though he seems a lot perkier now, he still has a pretty wicked cough. Jared started feeling sick on Thursday and by yesterday morning he had a fever also. Scott started feeling sick Friday morning.

I can't say I had a great week--I think I had too high expectations for how much we needed to accomplish over the break. The boys helped with chores most days, but I also wanted to get a lot of stuff done for scouts and we didn't make much progress there. I ran into a lot of attitude from the guys whenever I tried to get any work done, which I didn't appreciate!

However, we did get a couple of things done. Monday morning I took Tanner, Jared and Tanner's friend Seth downtown to observe different types of architecture because I am working on the Architecture merit badge with them. (Well, not with Seth--he just came along for the ride.) They were supposed to try to identify some of the styles of architecture they saw (which proved to be pretty difficult) and they also had to pick a building to sketch. We took a bunch of photographs to help with the sketches later. Here's a sample of some of the things we saw:

Oops...that doesn't look like a building, does it? These are some flowers that my visiting teacher brought me when she visited Monday morning. (Blogger won't let me move photographs around anymore.) Not only do they look nice, but they smell fabulous!

Now, here are the buildings:

Tanner chose to sketch the one above.

This one was Jared's choice to sketch. (Above)

This is Frederick City Hall. The boys are sitting on the benches by the fountain.

The store with the red awnings is called The Candy Kitchen. I've always wanted to go in this store, so we stopped there to get a treat. The candy was yummy, but after spending $16 on two dipped chocolates, two lollipops (one fairly large), a small bag of jelly beans, and a small chocolate Easter egg, I wasn't all that impressed. Too expensive!

This former mansion is now a museum. It's called Rose Hill Manor.

All of those buildings, with the exception of Rose Hill Manor, were located on the same street, within about 8 blocks of each other. The name of the street? Church Street. Can you guess why? That is just one street of many in the downtown historic district of Frederick. I love all the beautiful old houses in that part of town!

Although I didn't take the boys anywhere special for spring break, they still managed to have fun. They each had a friend over for most of Monday, and two of those friends spent the night. (They went through 24 pancakes and a whole package of turkey bacon on Tuesday morning!) We took everyon out for ice cream Monday evening for family night. We also played the signs game that we learned out in Utah last summer. It was more fun to do it with two extra people. Ryan and Bryson had a party for a bunch of the YM and YW Wednesday night; the older three boys went to that and spent the night also. Thursday night Tanner and Scott spent the night with another friend in the ward (once again, many of the YM were invited to that one.) Jared was invited to that, too, but he chose to stay home since he wasn't feeling well--good choice! Tanner and Jared were planning to go to a camp out Friday night, but Jared was sick by then and I decided to have Tanner stay home also since I don't want him to get sick. It was raining and fairly chilly that evening, and combined with the lack of sleep he's had this week, I didn't think it would be wise to have him go. I don't want him to get sick just in time for school to start again! It may happen anyway, but I thought it would be wise to take precautions.

We had appointments this week, also. Scott had a follow up with the dermatologist, Snickers went to the groomer, and Jared had an orthodontist appointment. They are trying to move his front teeth to make room for his canines, so they put a new kind of wire on at this visit, and warned that his teeth would be pretty sore--they are. I also took Jared to they eye doctor and he has contact lenses now. Although he hasn't been wearing them much since he's been sick! He enjoyed wearing them for one day before he started feeling yucky. They didn't seem to give him any trouble, and he can take them off and put them on without much difficulty. I had a Primary visit Tuesday morning as well. Between all the appointments and shuttling kids to social activities and back, I didn't have as much time as I thought I would to work on other projects.

I did work on sharing time a bit, and have all but the last week of May planned out. (There are 5 Sundays in May, so I have to come up with the last week's lesson all on my own. I want to teach about how to bear testimony, but I haven't come up with a good way to teach that to kids yet.) Frank and I went on a walk Tuesday evening but had to cut it shorter than we'd planned because a storm was coming in. On Thursday I finally found the time to work on Seth's costume. I finished the jumpsuit and made the entire helmet--that part turned out to be pretty easy! (Thanks to mom for her help--I called her twice with questions!) I read a Newberry award winner called Dicey's Song--it's very good. Other than that, I've just been trying to keep up with all the kids' activities.

Frank had a very busy week also. His work hours were crazy because they had a major emergency come up with a client and some of his co-workers were not able to help out. He worked pretty late on Tuesday and then Thursday he didn't get home until 4:30 am! (Friday, technically.) And then he was up again around 8:30 to do some more work. I had a couple of nights that I didn't sleep well and instead lay awake worrying about various things. I haven't done that in a long time--can't say I've missed it! So neither one of us were feeling all that well rested at that point.

Yesterday we dyed Easter eggs. By "we" I mean Tanner, Seth, and I--Jared and Scott weren't feeling up to it and Frank was at work. Seth was making me nervous with how wiggly he was, and then guess who spilled yellow dye all over the floor?

Me, that's who! It cleaned up easier than I expeted, though.

Tanner supervising the egg dyeing. Those cups were not the best choice for dyeing eggs, by the way. They were too narrow. It was very hard to get the eggs out of them! So in spite of the fact that I have saved those little wire egg dippers every year and now have a sizeable collection, my fingers still have dye all over them. Here's some of our end results:

They turned out nice. I love all the beautiful colors!

Today is our 19th Anniversary. Our original plan was to go to the temple Friday night and then go on a hike and out to eat today. But since Frank didn't get home from work last night until after 5:00, and he had only had about 4 hours of sleep, we knew he wouldn't be able to stay awake. The weather today didn't cooperate, either. It was raining this morning--again! Wednesday and Thursday were sunny and quite nice (although a little on the chilly side), but the rest of the week has been wet and gloomy. So anyway, we revised our plans. After a good night's sleep (finally!) we got up and went to the temple this morning. There is such a great feeling at the temple! We did sealings, and it was very nice to do that--especially on this particular day. It was great to look back over 19 years and to be grateful for all the blessing we have.

After we left the temple, we made a quick stop at the LDS bookstore. We got a new set of the Children's songbook on CD and a copy of President Monson's biography. Then we made another stop for lunch at a sit down Chinese place. The service was quite slow, but the food was very good. After that we drove back to Frederick. We stopped at Honeybaked Ham to pick up a ham we ordered online yesterday. (One of Frank's clients always gives us a gift certificate for that place at Christmas, and we save it for Easter every year.) Then we made one more stop, to get some milkshakes for all our poor sick boys at home, who needed a little TLC!

Now we are just resting. Frank and I are both starting to feel like we might be coming down with the same ailment as the boys, so we are trying to take it easy. (Although Frank did just leave to go on a walk.) The rain has stopped for now, and we are trying to enjoy the sunlight while it lasts--it's supposed to rain some more tonight, and pretty much every day this coming week.

We hope you all have a wonderful Easter!

Weekly Review April 16 '11

I'm not sure where this year is going! I'm starting the realize that we are actually getting near the end of the school year. How did that happen? My kids have the next week off of school for spring break. When they go back to school, they will have only 7 weeks left until summer vacation! I feel like the school year just started. Even my kids say it went by fast, and I never felt that way when I was in school. Tanner and Frank got home last Saturday around 7:00. Tanner seemed to have had a fun time at the trek activity. He was very muddy, though! You can watch a short video that his Seminary teacher made of some of the activities (you can see Tanner in it several times) by going to: http//:www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePQjb6nVNho. Sorry, I am not "techy" enough to figure out how to make that a link! Scott got home even later; I think it was after midnight if I remember correctly. That was the last performance of their play, so they had a lot of equipment to clean up and put away. He skipped the cast party because he thought there would probably be drinking going on. At any rate, I was up very late waiting for him to get home, and then not long after I went to sleep I woke up again because Snickers was scratching and barking down in his crate. I finally got up and let him out of the crate and let him go outside, thinking he might just need to go to the bathroom. But after he came back in and I put him back in the crate he continued to make noise for quite a while, so I don't know what was wrong. Unfortunately, he repeated the performance Sunday night--Frank got up and took him out a couple of times that night, and then he was still up and making noise again before 6:00 am. Seth also woke up both nights, so between the two of them, we didn't get much sleep either night. Fortunately, he has slept quietly in his crate every night since then. Who knows what was on his mind? I'm just glad it didn't last long. Sunday was fast Sunday. Seth refused to give his talk in Primary--I wasn't too surprised about that! After church I had choir and then came home briefly before going on two visits to see Primary children. I didn't get home until after 4:30. Frank got most of dinner ready, which I appreciated! After dinner we had family night and then we got to bed early, since we were pretty tired after two bad nights in a row. Monday I did pledge drive updates in the morning and then in the afternoon I got my teeth cleaned. It was actually nice that day--warm and sunny! Tuesday we were back to rain. I had book club and a visiting teaching appointment so that kept me busy. Frank was supposed to have a meeting, but it was postponed so he got home a lot earlier than planned, which was nice. Wednesday evening there was a Court of Honor as well as a RS meeting. I tried to go back and forth between the two, but ended up missing most of RS. The part I did catch was part of a class on organizing / time management and the part I heard was pretty intriguing. Although this is an area of my life where I typically do very well, I still learned some things and I am interested in learning more about this system, which was created by a woman in our ward. At the Court of Honor, Jared received his Tenderfoot and 2nd Class ranks, as well as two merit badges (Family Life and Carpentry). Tanner received his Star rank and the Family Life merit badge. He was also awarded the Personal Fitness merit badge, but that was an error--Scott was supposed to get that one! (Tanner already received his.) I still have to get that worked out with the scoutmaster. They need to have an official record that Scott earned this badge before he can get his Eagle scout rank, because it is one of the Eagle-required badges. Scott did receive one other merit badge, though--the Emergency Preparedness badge. In addition, the scoutmaster had tracked down missing blue cards / award cards for several other merit badges the boys have received over the years, so we actually have everything we should have now, with the exception of the Personal Fitness blue card & award card for Scott. I'm happy about that! Sorry there are no photos of the Court of Honor (or anything else, for that matter!); I forgot to take a camera. After the regular Court of Honor ended, they had an Eagle Court of Honor for two boys in our ward. Frank was invited to sit in the Eagle's nest for that. I hope we will be having an Eagle Court of Honor for Scott before this year is out! After both Courts of Honor ended, I met briefly with one of the boys who is turning 12 this week so I could sign his Faith in God book. Needless to say, we got home late and everyone was up later than they should have been (especially Seth). Tanner already has all the merit badges he needs for his Life rank, so he just has to wait until October to get that. (They have to be a Star scout for 6 months before they can earn their Life rank.) I figured that after scout camp this summer and the couple of merit badges that I am working on with him at home, that he will have most if not all of his merit badges for his Eagle by this fall as well. So I am hoping we can do his Eagle scout project early next year. It will be VERY nice to have two of my four boys done with that! Then I can just focus on getting Jared through Eagle. My goal is to have him done with that by the time Seth is old enough for Cub Scouts! Then I get to start all over again! Speaking of Scott's Eagle scout rank, on Thursday evening he and Frank, along with another member of our ward who owns power tools, went up to the state park to fix the turtle cage lid. Hopefully they were able to get it done the way the park ranger wants it--if so, then she will sign him off on his project and we will just have to get the paperwork finished up so he can have his board of review. I have nightmares that something will go wrong at the board of review--like they will say his project wasn't good enough or something! But hopefully not. He certainly has worked hard at it, but we did have to change several parts of the project as we went along; hopefully his explanations for why that happened will satisfy them. I guess I shouldn't worry about it--if that happens, we will deal with it then! While Scott and Frank were gone working on his Eagle project, I had a visiting teaching appointment, so that was another busy evening. On Thursday we deciced that we were going to have to hold our Easter egg hunt at the church, because the forecast was for heavy rain and thunderstorms all day Saturday. Sigh! I would have preferred to do it outside. However, one of my counselors came up with some good ideas of some games we could do to make it more fun. We decided to hide only some of the eggs, and then have 3 games where they could "earn" the rest of their eggs. We divided the kids into groups by age and had them rotate through each game as well as the hunt portion. It took most of Thursday morning, making phone calls and sending emails to figure out our plan, and then Friday morning my two counselors and I met together for about a half hour to make sure we had everything pulled together. It all worked out fine. We had about 45 kids show up for the egg hunt, and everyone seemed to have a great time. The kids (and parents who were helping) all said it was better than last year, anyway! We tried to tie in each activity to a scripture from Christ's life or part of the Easter story. My station was an "egg walk" (similar to a cake walk, but they received a filled egg as a prize, and we used different colored plastic eggs to make the circle, which they walked around). They did various relay races using eggs at another station, played a game where each team gathered a certain color of eggs into their hula hoops at another station, and then at the fourth station they did the egg hunt portion. For the youngest kids, we hid the eggs down low in easy places, for the next group up, we made it a little harder, and for the oldest two groups, we made them do it in a dark room, crawling on the floor--with occasional "lightning flashes" created by flashlights. (We related that one to the storm that occured when Christ died.) We were done in a little over an hour, and clean up was easy! Yesterday I was making a few necessary purchases at Costco and saw the new Harry Potter 7 movie, so I got that too. We watched it last night, after Seth was in bed, and enjoyed seeing it again. I think were all worn out, though, because Scott fell asleep near the beginning, Tanner fell asleep closer to the end, and I had to fight to stay awake! I should mention that the movie ended at 11:00, so it wasn't like we were staying up really late! The weather was gorgeous yesterday, by the way--too bad we couldn't do the egg hunt yesterday. In addition to all of the above, I also finished reading Enchantment (enjoyed it, although I thought the ending fell kind of flat), and worked on Seth's astronaut costume. By Thursday afternoon I had the whole jumpsuit portion done except for the front opening, which is supposed to be closed with Velcro fasteners. I tried it on him and discovered that it barely fits--yikes!! I hope he doesn't grow too much in the next month! I'm not sure how that happened because when I tried the pattern pieces up to him they actually looked too big. I should have actually taken his measurements instead of eyeballing the pattern pieces, but I was careful to check things like the waistline and crotch. Anyway, other than the fit, I am very pleased with how it has turned out. I still need to make the helmet (out of felt) and if there is time, I will make the shoe covers that make it look like he is wearing boots. I also have to figure out how to decorate the jumpsuit to make it look a little more like the photograph I have of Neil Armstrong in his space suit. (Right now the jumpsuit is just plain white.) The other exciting event of the week, for the boys at least, is that all our new phones arrived. I'm still trying to figure out how mine works! I actually got a pink phone with flowers on it--no chance mine will get mixed up with someone else's in this house! Jared likes to text me, just for the fun of it, which can get a bit annoying when I'm busy--but at least he is communicating with me! This afternoon Jared is at Bryson's house and the older two boys are at a regional youth activity. Frank is helping with the cooking for that, so he's gone also. The wet weather put a bit of a kink in the plans for their activity, also, but the people in charge seem to have come up with a workable indoor plan. Hopefully Frank is not too miserable--they have to cook outside. But they do have a marqee to put up over the grills, and he wore his rain gear. Seth and I are home alone, which seems to be happening a lot lately! I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere else, though, because my eye is hurting. Last night when I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that my left eye felt kind of tender. Today the lid looks red and quite swollen. I must have some kind of infection. I hope it clears up soon! That brings you up to date on us, until next week.

Weekly Review April 9 '11

Let's start out this week with this interesting picture. Can you tell what it is? Well, I'll tell you. During General Conference on Sunday, Seth was sitting on the arm of the couch, next to the window. Frank noticed that you could see the shadow of his lower legs and feet on the opposite wall, so he tried taking a picture of it. His feet can be seen in the lower left corner of the shadow. (One leg crossed over the other, at the ankles.) You can also see the shadow of the window panes and the tree just outside the window (and yes, the hole in our screen). Kind of cool! Most of this week has still been wet and cold, but we did have a couple of nice days, and there are other signs that spring is going to win out over winter eventually. Such as this tree in bloom, right next door:

And my tulips showing signs of budding soon:

We are certainly getting enough rain, which means lots of things are growing and on the few sunny days we've had, it is just beautiful! Monday was one of those days. The temperature acutally got up into the low 80's. I decided to take advantage of the weather and spent an hour or two in the front yard, pulling weeds out of the flower beds. I made a lot of progress except for the wild onions that are taking over--I would have been out there all day trying to pull them up. After the boys got home from school, we made a quick trip to Wal-Mart to buy yard waste bags, since I discovered that we didn't have any left. (We are not allowed to throw yard waste in the regular trash anymore; we have to put it in special bags and leave them out on a certain day for the city to pick up.) It would have been a quicker trip except that I took the three older boys with me, and they all remembered that they needed socks, underwear, shorts for gym, etc.! But we finally got out of there and after we got home and bagged all the weeds, Scott mowed the lawn. I'm glad we did that while we had the chance because it's been mostly wet and colder ever since, and before we did the yard work the lawn was really starting to look like a jungle!

For family night activity on Monday we went for a walk down to a nearby park. Scott and Jared played basketball while Seth played on the playground (and Tanner chased him around). It felt really nice to be outside without a jacket and with a breeze blowing and to not be cold! I was kicking myself for not bringing a camera, though.

Monday was a pretty busy day--I also worked at the school that morning and took Scott to the doctor to get the stitches removed from his elbow. I actually hadn't seen his wound until then, since he kept it covered up with a bandage all week. I could tell that it was pretty deep, but it is healing nicely.

Tuesday was Frank's really early day--he had to be at work at 4:00 am. It was a crazy day for him. He had a meeting that evening from 6:30 to 8:00, so he planned to come home when he got off at noon to take a nap before going back to his meeting. But of course an emergency came up with another client, so he ended up working all day and taking a short nap in his car before going to his meeting. And then, of course, the meeting went late--until 9:00 instead of 8:00! He didn't see any of the kids that day because they were still asleep when he left for work and they were all in bed asleep by the time he got back home. I took Snickers to the vet that day for a follow up check on his teeth; they look great.

It was time for our city's semi-annual bulk trash pick up this week, so we put an old dresser and a computer monitor out on the curb Monday night. Then one of our neighbors told us "Didn't you hear that they cancelled bulk trash pick up because of budget cuts?" Groan! Somehow we missed that, although we seem to be the only ones in the city of Frederick who did, since I didn't see any other bulk trash items sitting out as I drove around. I refused to drag the stuff back into the house, though. I told Frank we'd just have to take it to the dump ourselves. But then Tuesday afternoon I looked outside and the stuff was gone! I was thrilled! Someone came along and saved us the trouble. I was kind of hoping that would happen, since most years people come around and pick things up before the city does, but I didn't expect it to really happen since no one else had put anything out. Anyway, I am grateful we didn't have to take the time to take care of it ourselves.

On Wednesday I got Seth's costume for his school play cut out. That evening I went to the church to help fill eggs for our Easter egg hunt. Frank was late getting home from work again (he's had a very busy week) but fortunately I didn't have to take Seth with me to help fill the eggs (would have been very counter-productive!) The teachers and priests were doing yard work for a family in our ward to help earn money for camps, and since Scott and Tanner have already earned enough for their camps, they didn't need to go. So they stayed home and babysat for me. We decided to have the activty days groups help us fill eggs this year. It worked out great! We got all 1200 eggs filled in 40 minutes; all the other years that we have done it as a presidency it has taken us 3-4 hours. I was amazed at how fast it went with all those helpers. The girls seemed to have fun doing it, too.

When I was on my way to pick up Seth from school Wednesday morning, I almost got in a car wreck. I was still on our street, too. There's a stop sign on the corner right by our house, so I pulled to a stop there as usual. When I looked to my right, there was a car coming, but it's a three way stop, so I knew that car had to stop too. I was about to pull out, but I just had a feeling I should wait a few seconds. I'm glad I did that, because the other car never stopped. The driver drove right through the intersection without even pausing or looking--I don't think she even saw me at all. I'm sure she would have hit me if I had pulled out. At first, I felt really annoyed with the driver of the other car, but then I thought "What am I thinking? I most certainly just received a prompting that saved me from a lot of inconvenience at the least and injury at the most. I should just feel grateful for that little prompting!" Although I doubt I would have been hurt if I'd been hit, it certainly would have damaged my car and just created a big hassel for me to have to deal with (not to mention that I would have been very late to pick up Seth). I'm sure things like that happen more frequently than I even notice, but this time I did notice, so I wanted to record it so I won't forget.

I was planning to start sewing Seth's costume on Thursday, but I got really interested in a book I've been reading and couldn't put it down! (The book is Enchanted by Orson Scott Card; I'm hoping to finish it today). I didn't lie around reading all day, though. I still helped take kids to the school library, sent a bunch of Primary emails, checked on signing Scott up for the SAT and the ACT, did the laundry, bought groceries, and vacuumed the house. So I don't feel too slothful! I did work on Seth's costume yesterday, and got a good start on it. I hope it turns out ok!

I feel like my presidency and I spent half the week watching the weather reports and trying to determine if we were really going to be able to have the Easter egg hunt or not--the forecast seemed to change a couple of times daily, and there were lots of emails going back and forth! We finally decided last night to postpone the hunt for a week. (Which meant lots of phone calls were made last night.) Although it has not been raining this morning, it was pouring all day yesterday so everything is very wet (and muddy) and it is not very warm today, either. So now we get to watch the weather for another week and hope that next Saturday offers us a nice spring day! Or a nicer one than today, anyway.

Scott had play performances again this week-one Thursday night, one last night, and he has two more today. I feel like I've barely seen him the last few days, since he would come home from school to drop off his books and then hurry back to the school to get ready for the play. It's a long play, too, so the performances don't end until 10:00 pm and then he still had to help put things away after that. He didn't get home until 11:00 or later those two nights. The performances today are the last two performances, though, so he'll be done after today. He has had a good time and has learned a lot. He is considering technical theater as one of his future career options now.

The boys brought report cards home for third term this week, and everyone did well. Tanner and Jared both got staight A's, and Scott did well enough to make the honor roll. Even more important, we always get great comments from their teachers about their behavior. We are grateful that they are making such good choices most of the time.

Frank has been counting calories and exercising diligently and he has now lost 23 pounds! He looks great. He is complaining lately about his pants being way too loose--a nice problem to have! He still has more to lose, so he doesn't want to go out and buy new pants yet. I am really proud of him for sticking with it and working so hard, especially when the results have been slow. He is already reaping some benefits--having more energy and sleeping better.

Tanner and Jared spent the night with their friends Ryan & Bryson last night. We took Seth and Scott out for breakfast this morning. Scott will be leaving for his play soon, and Frank and Tanner will be leaving shortly after that to attend a stake Seminary activity--they are doing a "mini trek". Frank is helping with the cooking. They won't be back until late this evening. (Unfortunately, Scott will have to miss it because of his play.) It's going to be wet, muddy, and cold, but the pioneers had to deal with all those things so I'm sure it will give the kids a greater appreciation for what the pioneers went through!

That means Seth, Jared and I will be hanging out by ourselves for the rest of the day. Among other things, I will be helping Seth prepare a talk for Primary tomorrow. I have no idea if he will actually give the talk or not! I am interested to find out. I have a feeling I may be giving the talk for him.

Weekly Review April 2 2011

I didn't take many pictures this week, but here are a few from today which I took while we were watching the first session of General Conference. I just had to get some photos of our messy kitchen table, with everyone gathered around to listen via the internet. My computer (with speakers attached, so we can hear better) is barely visible in the last photo, on the desk behind the kitchen table. Then the table is a mish-mash of traditional General Conference snacks (chips, fresh salsa, salsa con queso, apple wedges, and orange slices), lunch (leftovers--every man for himself), notebooks and pens (for note-taking), and Conference bingo sheets, with M&Ms and Skittles for markers (also a tradition). I usually hate messes, but I love this kind of mess!:

Tanner made that face on purpose!

Seth wanted a photo of his M&M!

We enjoyed the first session very much. I don't think any of us got as much out of the second session as the first. Frank and I were trying to "multi-task" by going through a bunch of boxes and other junk while we listened. I found that my mind wandered a little too much. I'm glad we have the chance to go back and listen to the talks again! Frank and I were going through things in his office and other parts of the basement. We did throw away a lot of stuff, but unfortunately it hasn't made much of a difference yet--we still have a long way to go! I feel very tired now, and I hope my back isn't going to give me trouble tomorrow. Frank and the older three boys are at the Priesthood Session now. I swept and mopped the kitchen floor and now Seth and I are hanging out, watching Iron Man cartoons on Netflix, but Seth will be going to bed soon. Now, on to the rest of the week.

Can I just whine about the weather for a minute? What a wet and cold spring we are having! Our heat has been coming on all week. I'm tired of wearing a coat! Is it ever going to warm up?! Ok, I feel better now!

On the upside, no one was sick this week, there were no snow days (although it did snow / sleet a little late Wednesday), early outs, delayed openings, or holidays. However, Scott still missed some school. First of all, over the weekend one of his teeth really started bothering him. He had an appointment to get a cavity in that tooth filled already, but not for a few more weeks, so we had to bump it up a little. I called Monday morning but they couldn't get him in until Tuesday at noon. So he missed some school that day to go to his appointment. It was just as well that I wasn't able to get him an appointment for Monday because as it turned out, he had to be pulled out of school Monday as well. He was in his last class (Technical Theater) and he injured his elbow--had to have two stitches! Thank heavens Frank was working from home that day because I was in the middle of getting my hair done when the school nurse called. Frank was able to go pick him up and take him to the doctor. He's had to keep the elbow wrapped up this week but thankfully it hasn't seemed to cause him too much pain. We're grateful it wasn't worse!

Scott has had a very busy week with very late play rehearsals Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (he missed Monday's rehearsal after his injury, though) and play performances on Thursday and Friday. There was a performance today as well, but he was able to get someone else to cover for him so he can attend the priesthood session of General Conference. He was so tired on Thursday and Friday that he didn't make it to Seminary those mornings.

Going back to Saturday, Frank and the boys had a long day aerating lawns, but the project was very successful. They all came home tired, sore and hungry (we ordered Chinese food for dinner) but our family earned over $500 which will pay for all but about $28 of their summer camps. So we are thrilled about that! Sunday was pretty funny, though--I was still sore from my fall and everyone else was sore from aerating, so everyone in the house except Seth was moaning and groaning a bit. We all felt better after a couple of days, though.

The rest of the week has been busy with visiting teaching appointments, a Primary presidency meeting, board of reviews for Tanner and Jared, a stake financial meeting for Frank, and lots of errands. I found a pattern and some fabric that will work to make an astronaut costume for Seth. I cleaned all the windows in the house which was badly needed--I can't wait to get on a ladder and do the outsides when the weather warms up. We need to replace all the screens anyway, so we can clean under the screens when we remove the old ones. I've also been updating Seth's baby book and pulling together ideas for Seth's birthday party--we decided to have one for him this year. He wants a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed party, which should be fun to do.

After much deliberation, we've decided to get cell phones with texting for all the boys (they currently share one phone between the three of them, without texting). Jared doesn't really need one yet, but there has been more than one occasion that Tanner needed the phone and Scott had it, and vice versa, so we definitely want both of them to have a phone. We also know they will be much more likely to communicate with us via texting than calling, so we've decided to give that a try. We told the boys about our decision on Sunday, and you would think that they had all died and gone to heaven! They are going to be doing lots of extra chores to help pay for the phones. Jared had the option of getting paid for the chores instead of getting a phone, but he chose the phone. (I was actually a little surprised about that--he's my saver!)

Yesterday Tanner, Jared and I went to see The Phantom of the Opera at the school. We really enjoyed it. I think that is a pretty ambitious play for high school kids to put on, but they did a great job. I was especially impressed with the girls who played Christine and Carlotta--they could really hit those high notes! There were some pretty cool special effects, also and the set for the phantom's lair was excellent. I wasn't as impressed with the rest of the set, but overall it was a great production.

I hope you are all having a nice weekend. We are certainly looking forward to a day of rest tomorrow, and hearing the rest of General Conference.

History, According to Seth

In Seth's school class they have been talking a lot about space and astronauts and so forth, in preparation for their class "operetta" which will take place the beginning of May. Seth has been talking a lot about planets, astronauts, and the sun at home. Last night when I was putting him to bed, he told me all about "Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstong and Buzz Lightyear and Serge (Zerg) who landed on the moon. Only Buzz Aldrin stayed in the spaceship, at the bottom. And then they blasted back off the moon, and then they landed on Mars for a minute..."

Gotta love his version of these important historical events!!

Weekly Review March 26 '11

I hope I will be able to get this week's review typed without too much trouble. My left wrist hurts a bit because I injured it yesterday. Yes, I am so graceful! I was taking Snickers out and I tripped and fell flat on my face! But before I face planted, I threw both my arms out to break my fall, and so both my hands / wrists got jarred pretty good too. My left wrist has been bothering me ever since, but I don't think it's anything serious. Amazingly, the only thing I can see on my face so far is a tiny scratch. It felt like I did a lot more damage at the time, but it doesn't look as bad as it felt! I am pretty sore today, though. My arms, shoulders, and back are definitely feeling the effects of that hard fall, and there's some bruising on my hands. It could have been a lot worse, though; I'm grateful it wasn't.



I probably spoke too soon when I said that it wasn't likely we'd have any more snow days this year. This week has been wet and cold! We might get some snow tomorrow, but I hope not. My poor daffodils are looking pretty droopy. We can use the rain, but I wish it was a warmer rain. Frank and the older three boys are out today aerating lawns. The rain this week has softened up the ground, which will make their job easier. Thankfully, it is not raining today or they would have had to postpone their project. It is quite cold, though--below freezing this morning. Hopefully they won't be too miserable--at least the work they are doing should help warm them up.



This week was fairly busy with phone calls and errands and visits. I had a visiting teaching appointment on Tuesday during the day and two Primary visits on Tuesday evening. One of the Primary visits was to visit a new family in our ward who have three Primary age children. They are very sweet children; we had a fun visit with them.



Scott was very busy this week with play practices--he is on the technical crew for his school's production of Phantom of the Opera. The play starts this Thursday, so they are in final rehearsals. He was also busy getting caught up with all the school work he missed when he was sick because this week was the end of term. Because of that, all the boys got out of school two hours early on Thursday and there was no school yesterday.



Scott also did some work for his Eagle Scout project this week. He finally got in touch with the park ranger (he's been trying to do that for months) and there is one adjustment she would like him to make to the turtle cage lid before she signs off on his project, so Frank and he went up to look at that to try to figure out what needs to be done. Hopefully it won't be too difficult to fix--they don't think it will be.



We all watched the BYU game Thursday night, of course. Very disappointing! But we feel good that they played a pretty good game (until overtime, that is). You can't say that they got completely creamed, at least! Scott and Tanner went to a friend's house to watch the game, along with several other YM from our ward.



I took all the boys to get haircuts yesterday. I spent the rest of the day doing financial stuff. I had the usual budget update to do, but I also wanted to make some adjustments to the budget that I've been meaning to do for several months now. I also got to talk to my friend Marci on the phone which was very nice since I haven't had a chance to talk to her for months! The three older boys had a night hike (for scouts) along the C&O Canal last night. Frank, Seth and I watched The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was pretty good; not fantastic or anything, but fairly entertaining.



To help encourage Seth to get more interested in Neil Armstrong (his part in his class play) I decided to show him parts of the movie Apollo 13--the part where they show television footage of Neil Armstong on the moon, as well as the parts where the rocket takes off and where they splash down in the ocean. Seth was fascinated, and actually wanted to watch the whole movie. It held his attention a lot more than I thought it would. Now Apollo 13 is his new favorite movie, and he's watched it a few times. There are a couple of times that Neil Armstrong comes into the story, and when he does, Seth says "That's Neil Armstrong. He's me!" Showing him the movie had it's intended effect, too--Seth is now interested in learning to say his part for the play! He's learning it fast, too--when I repeat the part to him, he is able to join in and say a lot of the words.


This morning Seth and I are going to go to a baptism for 3 kids in our ward. I'm not sure what else we will do all day while the rest of the family is gone. I'm glad I don't have a lot that I have to do since I'm so sore. I have a little bit of work to do, but hopefully we will mostly be able to relax and have fun together!