Weekly Review January 27 '12

Since I didn't take any pictures this week, I thought I'd share a few photos from our past. This is what we were doing five years ago. The boys look so little to me! So in January 2007, we were in the middle of science fair projects and building Pinewood Derby cars. Jared was growing crystals for his science fair project, as you can see in the picture above.

Tanner was studying waves or something like that for his science fair project--I can't remember now.

Jared won 3rd place in the Pinewood Derby.

Tanner got a medal for participating.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that little jog into the past! Now on to the present day. So I was wrong about a couple of things when I wrote last week. First of all, I thought that the week end was going to be busy. I also thought we were all getting better. The week end turned out not to be so very busy, mostly thanks to Mother Nature. We got a few inches of snow plus freezing rain early Saturday morning and in Maryland, that means everything got cancelled. No basketball games and no dance. I can't say I was too disappointed about that. Instead of running around like a crazy person all day, I got to stay home in my warm house. We didn't lie around all day but it was a lot more relaxing than it would have been. We took some time in the morning to break down a bunch of empty cardboard boxes that had accumulated over the last several months and to do some general cleaning up / tidying. Now there is only one box of computer stuff on the lowest downstairs landing instead of several boxes covering most of both downstairs landings, so it looks a lot neater (and is much easier to go down the stairs). We had the missionaries over for dinner that evening.

Sunday wasn't as busy either because our bishop wasn't feeling well so both of the meetings I was supposed to attend were cancelled. Frank was busy--he had two ward conferences to go to so he didn't make it to our ward meetings at all. The boys had a fireside that evening; it was a musical fireside that all the youth in our ward and another ward had put together. The idea was to invite their non member friends to attend. I hear it was very nice; I didn't make it to the fireside myself.

Frank came home from work on Friday not feeling very well at all and he started coughing again. That lasted for a few days; he seems to be mostly feeling better now. Both Scott and Tanner started feeling sick on Monday again. They didn't have school that day so they rested a lot but they didn't get better very fast. Tanner made it to Seminary on Tuesday morning but came home after that; Scott started throwing up right before we left for Seminary so he didn't make it to either school or Seminary on Tuesday. Jared also woke up with a bad headache and congestion so Seth was the only one who went to school that day. (A great way to start out a new term, right?) Scott made it to school Wednesday (but not to Seminary) and so did Jared but Tanner continued to suffer with congestion, headache, slight fever, and fatigue and didn't go back to school or Seminary until today. Scott started coughing a lot yesterday, so he still isn't feeling very well. I am starting to wonder if this is ever going to end!

In spite of all the time I spent taking care of sick kids, I still managed to get almost everything done I needed to do this week, except for exercising. I do that on the Wii, and the televison was kind of monopolized by sick kids. I made it to book club on Tuesday--we were discussing A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce. Now we are reading a non-fiction book called "The 100 Thing Challenge", about a man who decides to get rid of all but 100 of his personal possessions and live that way for year. I also made it to choir that night, which I always enjoy.

Wednesday was busy with shopping and errands. That evening I met with one of the boy scouts so he could pass off his Personal Management Merit Badge and then had a presidency meeting with the Mia Maid class president before YW started.

Thursday was more shopping and errands. Frank and I went out for dinner that evening--we had a gift card for the Olive Garden. That was a nice break after a busy, somewhat stressful week.

Today I went visiting teaching and worked on the budget. Frank and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out a glitch in our budget spreadsheet--we still don't know what's wrong! In between everything else, we applied for a home equity loan so we can do a few repairs / improvements on the house--mostly replacing the floors. We also got pre-qualified for a loan (they are willing to loan us a lot more than we can actually afford, of course) and looked into the cost of renting a storage unit--all this in case we ever find a house we actually want to buy.

Seth said something funny to me this week. I was in the kitchen making biscuits and he wanted me to move a chair to the doorway so he could stand on it and see what I was doing. I said "Why don't you just come over here next to me? Then you can see what I am doing." Seth's reply was "My feet are not floor proof!" (He further explained that they were carpet proof, but not floor proof, so he couldn't walk onto the kitchen floor. Who knows how he got that crazy idea into his head!

What will the coming week bring? Good health for the whole family? I hope so!

Weekly Review January 19 '12

Just for interest, I thought I would start out with a photo from two years ago (February 2010). We had more snow than we knew what to do with! Quite a contrast from this winter--it's only snowed twice and both times we got an inch or less. We have a 90% chance of snow tonight, though--we'll see if it really happens. We're only supposed to get an inch or two.

Here is this morning's sunrise. Not spectacular, but still--I thought it was pretty.

Now, on to our week. Remember how most of us were sick last week? I think we are all mostly better now, but last weekend we weren't feeling very healthy. We were watching Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (none of us had seen it yet) last Friday evening. Not very long into the movie, Seth came over to me and whispered "Mom, I have an ear infection." He said it like he was ashamed of himself--no doubt because I'd been warning him all week that if he didn't start blowing his nose instead of sniffing it in that he would get an ear infection! I asked him if his ear hurt, and he said "yes". Which one? He pointed to his left ear. We decided not to waste any time--it was the beginning of a holiday weekend, after all--and called the doctor. I put Seth on my lap and within a short amount of time, he was writhing and holding his hand over his ear and fussing because it hurt. Thankfully, the doctor on call decided to call in an antibiotic for him immediately. Before we made it through the phone calls, Seth had (thankfully) fallen asleep! I kept him on my lap while we watched the movie; he slept through almost the whole thing. He woke up shortly before the movie ended so we were able to give him his first dose of antibiotic. By then it was bedtime and much to our surprise, Seth went right back to sleep and slept through the night. We were so grateful!

Saturday was Frank's birthday. Sadly, I was in the worst of the runny nose / sore throat / headache thing, so he got to make his own cake. I did have presents ready for him, though:

Birthday Boy

Huge bag of peanut butter cups!

Remote control helicopter (big boy toy!)

That is not a Kitchen Aid in the box; it is an attachment for the Kitchen Aid that makes ice cream. He wasn't surprised about that gift because I had him pick it out himself. We got it a few days ahead of time because the bowl has to be put in the freezer for at least 12 hours or the ice cream doesn't freeze.

Of course, later we had to try out the Kitchen Aid ice cream maker! (We had cake, too.)

Jared liked it, apparently. It is a pretty nifty little gadget!

We also ordered Chinses food for dinner--Frank's favorite, and good timing since I wasn't feeling up to cooking anyway. I didn't sit around and do nothing all day, though. I was able to finish filling out the FAFSA for Scott and got it submitted. I'm glad to have that done. It would be very easy to do if my tax return for 2011 were already done--you have to estimate your taxes instead and that can be tricky. Especially if you had an unusual financial year, as we did last year. Anyway, it's done.

Seth's ear didn't give him any more problems but his left eye looked a bit red and goopy Saturday morning and he still had a runny nose so we decided that it would probably be best for him to stay home from church on Sunday. Since I still wasn't feeling well, I stayed home with him. Scott was still feeling pretty sick, so he stayed home too but Frank took the other two boys to church. Before our meetings at 11:00 he had to go to another ward to do some computer training stuff before their meetings (it was their ward conference) so he had to get up pretty early. That ward building is about an hour away and he had to be there at 7:00. I rested a lot on Sunday and read scriptures and the first two lessons in the George Albert Smith book (I don't get to go to RS anyway, so I read them at my own pace); that was nice. That evening we watched "How Rare a Possession" for our family night lesson. The boys had never seen it--they thought it was a pretty amazing story, which is how I've always felt about it too.

The boys were out of school on Monday for MLK Day (of course). The company Frank works for (Aetea) does not include MLK Day as one of their paid holidays, but Marriott does and they were not even going to be open that day so Frank couldn't go into work. He talked to Aetea and they told him to use it as a sick day so that's what he did. It was nice to have him home since I still didn't feel very well. I spent most of the morning on the phone--we had a YW presidency meeting via conference call. There is so much planning to do for YW--it is ridiculous sometimes! Frank got some groceries for me and everyone helped do laundry. We played Uno for family night activity and ate brownies.

It was (mostly) back to the normal routine on Tuesday, and thankfully I woke up feeling a whole lot better--practically normal! I did get to sleep in a little bit which helped, especially since I didn't sleep very well the night before. (I didn't sleep well nearly every night this week--woke up and didn't go back to sleep for hours. I haven't had much trouble with that problem the last few years. I hope this relapse is only temporary!) The reason I got to sleep in is because Frank had to stay home until we got Jared & Seth to school because we only had one car. The Expedition was in the shop all weekend getting the heater fixed and wasn't going to be done until that evening. I asked my friend Tammy to pick Seth up from school for me--when she brought him home, her son Henry stayed for a couple of hours to have a playdate with Seth. It is always fun to listen to those two play together! Frank and I picked up the Expedition that evening; I stopped to get some books at the library on the way home. The sun was going down and a storm was moving in--the sky looked really beautiful! I felt well enough that evening that I even went to choir practice.

It is really nice to have the heat working in the Expedition again! It is easy to take something like that for granted until you don't have it anymore. It is so much easier to go out in the mornings now, knowing that I have heat in the car. I was talking to Frank on the phone about that this morning while waiting for the boys to finish Seminary; when Scott got in the car the first thing he said was "We have heat in here now; I'm so happy!" That made me laugh since I had just been saying the same thing. The heater was very expensive to fix, but we did find someone who was willing to do it for less than a thousand dollars (not much less) rather than the $1200-1500+ that was quoted to us originally--we are grateful for that. We've had some pretty cold days this week, too, so the timing was good.

The last few days have been a bit stressful / busy because I was pulling things together for the combined YM / YW activity (the Mia Maids were in charge) and I was also in charge of finding rides for all the girls who want to go to the regional dance this Saturday, and it wasn't easy to find people who were able and willing to drive. The ride situation finally came together, though, and the activity went fine (I was a lot less stressed about the activity than I was the rides.) One of the advisors told me she thought she may be able to drive but had to ask her husband first--then I couldn't get in touch with her for days. In the meantime, I called a lot of parents but had no luck finding someone who could drive so by Wednesday evening I was feeling pretty worried. Then one of the parents I spoke with earlier in the week called me yesterday morning to say she could drive after all--I was so relieved! Then the advisor got in touch with me last night and she can drive too, so I didn't need the parent to drive after all. However, I consider it a tender mercy that the parent called me Thursday morning--I would have been stressed about the ride situation that whole day and would have had to make more phone calls trying to find someone else just in case the advisor wasn't able to do it. That one willing parent saved me a lot of anxiety and time, and I am grateful!

At basketball practice Wednesday evening Jared hurt his finger. He jammed the finger as he was catching the ball and at the same time one of the other boys ran into the ball which caused his finger to bend backwards pretty far. It's looking quite bruised and swollen, as you may be able to see in the photos below (they're pretty blurry). In the first one you can get an idea of how swollen the left pinkie is, compared to his right pinkie.

In the second one, you can see some of the discoloration around the knuckle.

In this last one, you can sort of see that the knuckle at the base of his finger is a little bruised too. The bruising doesn't show up very well in the photos, so his finger actually looks a lot better than it does in real life.

Today his finger is not looking any better and it hurts more than it did yesterday, so we decided he'd better have it looked at. I'm taking him to the doctor in about an hour.

Yesterday was pretty busy also--Frank had a long day at work and I always have tons of things to do for YW (sometimes it's like having a part time job!) as well as keeping the household running. I am finding that having a child who is a senior in high school can be time consuming too. There are lots of things to do to help him prepare for college.

Speaking of which, Scott finally got his letter from BYU Idaho, and he was accepted! Ok, we weren't too surprised about that, but we are very glad to have that settled. It's pretty likely he will go there unless BYU Provo accepts him (but we don't really expect that to happen). Scott is excited about it. It all feels a little surreal to me, to be honest! It's a little frightening to think of sending your child all the way across the country.

Well, I got interrupted because the doctor's office called back and said to bring Jared in right away rather than waiting until 4:20 because if they determined he needed an x-ray, they wanted to make sure the radiology place was still open. So we went in, the doctor did decide to send him for an x-ray, and it turns out that he does have a fractured finger. So now he has to wear a splint on his finger for four weeks and then go in for a follow up appointment. No more basketball for him this season, I guess!

On the way home we stopped at the pharmacy (to get a splint and also to pick up a couple of prescriptions) and at the bank; by the time we got home it was time to make dinner so now it is early evening. Seth was asleep on the couch when we got home--he never naps, so I hope he's not getting sick again (although he's awake now and he seems to be feeling fine). Frank had another really long work day--he was there at 5:30 this morning and he didn't get home until 5:30 tonight.

The boys got out of school two hours early today because it is end of term (that means we are half way through the school year already.) They have Monday off as well (the teachers have a work day to get report cards ready) so we have two 3-day weekends in a row. I'm actually glad because tomorrow and Sunday are going to be extremely busy so I'm hoping Monday will be a little more restful. I had all the boys work on Duty to God stuff this afternoon and Scott & Tanner took down the Christmas lights. Frank just took Jared over to his friend Ian's house for a "late over". On the way home he is stopping at Wal-Mart because we just remembered that our snow shovel broke last winter and we never bought a new one. Scott went with him--he wants to return two purchases he made yesterday which were both defective--some luck, huh?

I've been working on this post off and on all day (too many interruptions) but I think I'm finally done, so I'll post it quick before I get interrupted again! Everyone have a great week.

Weekly Review January 13 '12

Alas, no sunrise photos this week! I don't know if it was the weather or my timing or what, but I didn't see any spectacular sunrises like last week. A few pink skies, which is always pretty, but that's it.

We continue to have very unusual weather for winter. Saturday was beautiful--got into the 60's--and yesterday was pretty decent, too--up into the 50's. It rained most of the night Wednesday night. The rest of the week was mostly in the 40's and cloudy, so kind of gloomy but not too bad. Today, however, it is down in the low 30's and very windy so it feels even colder than it is. Definitely more like winter! Still no snow, though. I think it may have snowed a little bit in the night, but nothing stuck. At least the sun has come back out again. My mood really suffers when I don't see the sun for days.

Last Friday Frank and I got our eyes checked so we can get more contact lenses--our prescriptions expired and we were out (Frank), or almost out (me). After we were done with our exams we went to Red Robin for some burgers, so it was a fun little "date".

Saturday was busy--I'm not sure where the day went. I worked on the FAFSA and got it mostly done. Frank and I have a goal to go on a walk once a week, so we took Snickers with us and did that. As I mentioned above, it was a beautiful day so it was a nice day for a walk--we didn't even need to wear jackets! Tanner took Seth to the park for a while too. Frank took the boys to their basketball games that evening while I gave Seth a bath and made dinner. As usual, Jared's team won and Scott's team lost--but Scott said he had a lot of fun. I'm glad he is a good sport about it!

Sunday was mostly relaxing. I missed most of YW because I needed to get my temple recommend interviews--there was a fairly long line to see the stake president. Frank and I both got both of our interviews done though. The temple is closed right now but re-opens on Tuesday.

My lists of things to do each day this week were pretty long, but most of it is not particularly noteworthy. We are keeping busy with the usual stuff. The goals I've set for myself are keeping me busy too! Nothing major, but even little things can add up. It feels good to be doing some things like exercising and reading to Seth more, though.

I spent two mornings at the school--on Tuesday I did pledge drive accounting stuff and on Wednesday I helped with Seth's class. It's always fun to see what kind of things they are doing at school!

Choir practices started again Tuesday evening; I always really enjoy choir although the songs run through my head for two days afterwards.

Wednesday evening we did a family history activity for the YW. One sister in our ward came and told a few stories from her family history--they were pretty amazing! Then we helped the girls get set up in family search. Frank went over ahead of time with the boys (they had basketball practice) to get all the computers set up for that.

Illness is still rearing its ugly head around here. I don't think anyone it the family is feeling 100%. Seth has a runny nose, Frank is still coughing (although not nearly so much), Jared is still coughing a bit and is having a hard time hearing (we've cleaned his ears a couple of times; doesn't seem to help much), Tanner stayed home from school Tuesday through Thursday with the same coughing / congestion / fatigue (although he did go to Seminary all three days--he still has perfect attendance for this year!), Scott has been feeling lousy with the same thing the last two days but dragged himself to school and seminary anyway since he needed to be there, and I have been feeling less and less healthy as the week has gone on. Wednesday was the day I really started to feel sick and now my nose is red and sore from wiping and the coughing is starting. Lots of fun! I've been trying to take it easy a little bit the last two days but that is hard to do when the kids still need to get to seminary, school, and back. Besides, with the boys not feeling well either I don't like to ask them to help out as much. But at least it is Friday and we have a three day week end ahead! Not that I expect to be lying around all week end...but hopefully it will be a little more relaxing.

Frank had a busy week--he had work for clients, work at the stake center, and work for a friend to do (all computer stuff), besides his regular job. Scott did the sound for a program at the high school last night, even though he wasn't feeling well.

Rachelle asked what Scott's plans are--he has applied to both BYU-Provo and BYU-Idaho, but we are still waiting to hear back from them. We don't expect that he will be accepted to BYU-Provo, but decided it was worth applying anyway. We will hopefully hear back soon so that we can start making plans. (We're hoping that the whole family will be able to visit Utah / Idaho this summer.) He thinks he will probably focus his studies on technical theater or architecture.

Well, everyone will be home from school soon so before it gets too crazy around here I will sign off. We are looking forward to celebrating Frank's birthday tomorrow!

The Day I Was Born

Me as a young baby--probably a few months old

One of my goals for this year is to work on my personal history. I thought maybe the easiest way to accomplish this goal would be to do it in short installments. I have a list of "interview" questions I picked up somewhere and I've decided to attempt to answer each question--one at a time--in a blog post. We'll see how far I get!

The first question (actually set of questions) on the list is: "What year were you born? On what date? What day of the week was it? Where were you born? Did your parents tell you anything about the day you were born?"

So here goes...

I was born on July 5, 1968. I looked it up once and discovered that date was a Friday. I think I was born around 2:00 am. I was born in Covina, Los Angeles County, California. I've heard quite a few stories about the day I was born because the circumstances were a bit unique. I like to say that I was a surprise...in more ways than one. For starters, I was born about 9 weeks before my due date--I should have been born in early September rather than early July. But if that wasn't enough, I am also the second baby girl born to my parents that day...and they didn't know they were having twins.

That's hard to comprehend in this day and age of highly advanced and accurate ultrasounds, but when I was born they didn't have that kind of technology. (Makes me feel old!) I don't think my parents were totally unprepared for the possibility of twins...twins run in the family and my mom(who was highly experienced with pregnancy by this time) certainly had some suspicions that something unusual was going on. She even asked the doctor if she might be having twins a few weeks before my sister and I were born, but after listening again and only picking up one heartbeat, he insisted that she was just having "a big baby". It wasn't until after my sister was born that he discovered that he was wrong.

Both of my parents say they don't remember being incredibly surprised when they found out there were two instead of one, but my dad says he must have looked surprised. He asked a nurse for information about my mom and was told "Oh, the first baby has arrived. We're just waiting on the second one." My dad had not had a chance to reply when the nurse said "Oh, you didn't know you were having twins... did you?"

Because we were so premature, my sister and I were both very tiny. She weighed 2 lbs, 15 ozs and I weighed 2 lbs, 11 3/4 ozs. My dad said we looked like little skeletons wrapped in a thin layer of skin. He said he could count our ribs from across the room. We caused our parents a good deal of worry those first few weeks, I'm sure. We were so small that the doctors would not even give them an estimate of our chances of survival. Although we were in fairly stable condition, they said that our condition could deteriorate rapidly without any warning. I was having trouble breathing at birth and sometime in those first couple of hours, they decided to move me to another hospital where they thought I would get better care. My sister and I were born at Covina Community Hospital but I was moved that first day to the USC Medical Center. They specialized in the care of premature babies. I was transferred by ambulance; my dad followed the ambulance in his car so that he could fill out the paperwork to admit me. My mom didn't get to see me before they transferred me. They had put her to sleep for the delivery because I was turned the wrong way and she was still drugged up when they moved me. She had to wait until she was discharged from the hospital a few days later before she could see me. (She told me once that even though she had never seen me that she was worried sick about me--the power of mother love!) I stayed in the hospital for 5 weeks. Fortunately, I progressed well and didn't have any major set backs.

My parents were able to visit during those 5 weeks, but things were very different then--they were not allowed to hold me at all and could only see me through a window. (It used to bother me that no one was holding me when I was a newborn, but then one day my mom told me about the day she brought me home and how sad this little Asian nurse was because they were taking away "her" baby!) The nurses were not allowed to give my parents progress reports over the phone--they had to talk to a doctor or go to the hospital to see for themselves. The two hospitals where my sister and I stayed were not very close together. I imagine it must have been quite trying for them to have to drive to both hospitals to see how we were doing. They had five other kids at home to take care of, as well.

I'm sure it was helpful, in a way, for us to be in the hospital for those weeks--it gave them time to get everything ready for another baby that they hadn't expected. They were very excited when my sister and I finally got to come home, though. Although I was the smaller of the two, I got to come home first because the weight requirement at my hospital was lower. My sister Shellie, who was nearly 5 years old at the time, remembers the day I came home. My mom was giving her a bath when the phone rang. She says when my mom came back from answering the phone that she had her purse in her hands and looked very excited. "The hospital called and said Annette can come home! I'm going to get her!" my mom cried, and left--leaving Shellie in the tub, wondering if she could get out or not. At least, that's how Shellie remembers it! Maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic. ;) My sister Amy came home a few days later and then the fun really began!

That's the story of how my earthly life began.

Weekly Review January 6 '12

It's that lovely time of year when I always write down the date wrong. I have to get it into my head that it is 2012! (I did it right on the title above, at least.)

New Year's was kind of strange this year. We didn't do our usual things to celebrate (dinner of appetizers, eat lots of junk food, make a jigsaw puzzle, and do "toasts" with our special "celebration punch".) That's because our stake had a big dance / activity; the oldest two boys wanted to go to the dance and Frank was asked to help cook the food. So it was just Seth, Jared and I at home. The boys played games and I read. I even took a nap from 10:30 to 11:30 and probably would have slept through the New Year if Jared hadn't woken me up. So it wasn't a very exciting New Year's, but at least Seth got to bed at a decent hour!

Church was funny the next day because everybody was tired. We invited our friends the Pedersens over for dinner and games. We had our traditional appetizer dinner that night instead. We had so much food--we are still eating the leftovers! It was fun to play some games, too. We had a good time. I forgot to make the celebration punch, though--still haven't done that!

Frank had Monday off, but we didn't relax much. I had a presidency meeting for YW that morning. I came away from that with a lot of things to do and lots of things to think about. I was so preoccupied that I forgot to watch the Rose Parade so we could see Janna and Madalyn march with their band. I was so bummed when I remembered--the parade had just ended!

We spent a good portion of that day (after my meeting) taking down all the Christmas decorations. Now the house looks kind of bare, but it also looks more spacious and less cluttered. A lot of people still have their lights up and are still turning them on at night--it makes me laugh a little (procrastinators of the world!) but I like seeing them because they are so beautiful. Actually, our lights outside are still up also because we haven't had a chance to take them down yet. Hopefully it won't be as difficult to take them down as it was to put them up!

When I was putting away all the decorations I switched out salt and pepper shakers, too. I'm not sure if I've ever posted pictures of the ones I used in December, so I took some pictures of them before I put them away. Aren't they cute?:

Frank got these "hard candies" for me a year or two ago.

My mother in law gave me these snowmen. Sadly, their little carrot noses both broke off last year but they are still pretty awesome. I also took down the Christmas wreath and replaced it with this door sign:

And wouldn't you know it--the very next morning it DID snow!:

I guess Mother Nature was just waiting for me to put up that sign...who knew I had that kind of power?! This is the first snow we've had besides that freaky storm we had a few days before Halloween (and the few flakes I saw drifting down last Thursday). This storm was funny too. When I took the boys to Seminary at 6:15, there was no sign of snow. When I got back home, I noticed a few lazy flakes drifting down as I was unlocking the door to go back inside. I was surprised when I opened the door back up at 6:55 and discovered a thin coating of snow all over everything! It wasn't really snowing much by then but then when I got to the church and was waiting for the boys to come out, it suddenly started to snow very hard. It came down really hard for about 10 minutes. It was really funny to see all the kids come out of Seminary--they were surprised, and a lot of them came out in the parking lot and danced around ecstatically! No one got out of school though, because of the timing of the storm. The roads were actually very slick and treacherous on the way from the church to the school, but at that point it was too late to delay the opening since everyone was already on their way when the storm hit. I, for one, was glad--I think it's ridiculous how often they delay or cancel school for snow. By the time I took the younger boys to school the roads were clear again. It was kind of a fun way to go back to school after winter break!

Wednesday was not so fun--it was bitterly cold and windy. Without heat in the car, it was especially miserable for us. We've been looking for a portable heater for the car (Mom & Dad saw advertisements for a kind that plugs into the cigarette lighter) but haven't been able to find the kind we need. Frank purchased a small space heater on Tuesday thinking we could use that because we have a converter thing that can be plugged into the cigarette lighter but when we tried that, it didn't work. It ran for a couple of seconds and then shut down. I suspected that the heater was too powerful, and I was right--after further inspection we discovered that the converter could handle a maximum of 300 watts, and the heater was 1500 watts! I managed to find a 200 watt heater at the store that day, and that has helped a little bit. Thankfully, the weather has warmed back up again. Wednesday was the worst day (never got out of the 20's and the lows were in the single digits); after that yesterday's 30's felt almost balmy! Now today we are back in the 50's which feels very nice indeed. We are still working on trying to get the heater fixed. We are taking the car in to a different place today to have them look at it.

Jared has been congested and had a cough similar to Frank's since late last week (not quite as bad as Frank's, but still not good) and on Tuesday he started complaining that his left ear hurt. It wasn't any better on Wednesday so I let him stay home from school and took him to the doctor. Sure enough, the ear is infected. He got on antibiotics immediately but still felt pretty miserable yesterday morning so he stayed home yesterday too. He is back at school today, though, and seems to be on the mend. That is the third member of our family in the last 6 weeks who has had a virus and then got a bacterial infection related to it. (Seth had an ear infection at the end of November and Frank had a sinus infection right before Christmas.) Unfortunately, Seth has a runny nose again so it's not over yet. It has not been a good winter for us, health-wise. We are not usually at the doctor so often!

The rest of the week has been busy, just trying to get back into a normal schedule. Thankfully, I am sleeping much better than I was over vacation--apparently I sleep better when I get up at 5:00 am in the mornings. I set some goals for the new year and have been working diligently to get started on them. It feels good to be doing that.

YW stuff is keeping me busy; there is always a lot to do! For our class activity this week we made collages to represent our goals for the year. Believe it or not, the girls said they wanted to do something related to New Year's resolutions--I was trying to think of a way to jazz it up a bit and got the idea to make the collages. They seemed to enjoy doing that. I didn't finish mine, though, so I still need to get that done.

Yesterday I took Scott to get a haircut--he was very shaggy and has been bugging me to take him for over a week. Last night I went to a meeting for a group of people we know (mostly in our ward) who are getting a group of youth together to go to the Dominican Republic this summer to do a service project--help building houses, I think. Some of the kids in our ward did this last year and they had a great experience, so they are going again and trying to get others to come too. Some of Tanner's friends are going and I think it would be a great experience for him, so I am trying to find out more about it. Unfortunately, I missed the informational meeting so I am still a bit at sea about details. I did find out where I can go to read up on it, though. This meeting was mostly to plan fundraising, since it is not cheap to make this trip. I'm going to find out more about it before we decide whether or not we are going to try to send Tanner.

Scott worked at the school again last night doing the sound for a band concert thing. It pays pretty well. He will have some more jobs to do in February. It's great that he is getting some work experience in a field that he may choose as a career, and earning some money, too.

I am trying to get going on our 2011 tax return also. We need to fill out the FAFSA this month (financial aid for college for Scott) and we have to have all that financial information. The scholarship / financial aid thing is stressing me out a little right now. There's a lot to do and being new at this, I'm not even sure what I need to do. I'm sure it will all work out somehow, though. I will feel better after I have the time to dive in and do some real work on it.

Frank is keeping very busy also between work, church calling, and a few outside clients. They are moving forward with getting him hired as a Marriott employee and this week they started giving him some long-term assignments. Yesterday there was so much going on that he ended up working pretty late. He only had to work half a day today though.

This afternoon he and I have appointments to get our eyes checked and then we are hoping to go on a date. We are going to "mall walk" a little to get some exercise and maybe go to dinner. It will be nice to get out of the house and spend some time together.

Last year I decided I needed to stop hating January and try to find ways to enjoy it. I really worked at it, and it did seem to help the month go by faster when I had a better attitude about it. So I'm doing that again this year, and one thing is for sure--January has great sunrises! I noticed this fact last year, and this year I have not been disappointed so far. Here is the sunrise yesterday morning:

And here is this morning's sunrise:

It was way better in person, too! I'm actually not sure if January has better sunrises than other months. It may just be that the timing of the sunrises in January is just right--the sun is coming up right about the time I drop the boys off at school in the mornings, so I see the sunrises in January. At any rate, that is something about January that I love. Twenty-five beautiful sunrises to go! :)

Weekly Review December 30 '11

My last weekly review for 2011! Where did the year go? When I left off last week I had a batch of cookie dough in the fridge waiting to be made into cookies. We did that Saturday morning--the photo above is the end result.

For lunch we drove out to the pizza place where Scott worked for a while--we wanted to give his boss a plate of goodies and invite him to church. (He didn't come, but we tried!) His boss was happy to see us and gave us a gift certificate to come back for another meal for free. We had pizza, subs, and gyros for lunch--very yummy! It was a much more relaxing Christmas Eve than many we've had because we weren't cooking a fancy dinner. We had a simple "Bethlehem" meal instead--flat bread, humus, olives, clementines, dried fruit & nuts, cheese, crackers, and summer sausage. Most of us didn't eat much since we were still pretty full from lunch. Tanner & Frank delivered the last 12 Days of Christmas treat; then we watched Joy to the World (the church's video that includes reading the Christmas story from the scriptures and music by the Tabernacle Choir) and everyone got to open one present before bed. Seth took forever to fall asleep so we sent the other boys to bed, too--they wanted to stay up to be "elves".

Frank, Seth, and Snickers--relaxing on Christmas Eve

I woke up by 6:00, so I decided to get my shower out of the way--we knew the morning would be a little rushed with church at 11:00, and I needed to be there early. The boys didn't get up until about 7:30, so that was a good choice. Everyone seemed to be happy with their presents.

Jared got this nerf gun from his brothers--he has quite a collection! ( I guess this one is actually a disc shooter, not a dart gun.)

Seth's loot from everybody--Santa, us, brothers, grandparents...he was pretty spoiled.

Scott playing "transformers" with Seth.

Tanner tries out the new keyboard. The older boys got this and a Kinect for their XBox. That's mostly what they got, along with a few movies and games. They did not expect to get a keyboard so it was fun to surprise them! (We got a great deal online on Black Friday.)

I got a--project! Yes, that's a dollhouse. I've been wanting one for years and when I got a 50% off coupon for the only store in Frederick that sells dollhouses, I tipped "Santa" off and he took the hint. The problem is, there really is no place in this house for me to build it. (The instructions say you need a large space that won't be disturbed--doesn't exist!) So I am going to have to find someone willing to loan me their basement or I'm just going to have to wait until the older boys move out of the house and use one of their rooms! It'll be fun to build...someday.

Frank opening his metal detector. He was supposed to get one for his birthday this year, but he never got around to picking one out before he got laid off. So it had to wait and became a combined birthday / Christmas present.

After opening gifts and playing for a while, everyone else got showered and we went to church. I was singing four songs in a quartet as part of the prelude and Jared was helping with ushering. Our bishop had planned things out to help set the tone for a reverent and extra special Sacrament Meeting...a lot of the YM and YW were going to open the doors for people as they arrived and there was going to be 10 minutes of organ prelude followed by our quartet for 10 minutes before the meeting started. Unfortunately, the other ward which meets in our building (at 9:00) had an extra long sacrament meeting so when we arrived at 10:40 they were just ending and then they all stood around in the chapel visiting so it was basically bedlam for a while since our ward members were all arriving and trying to get to their seats and the other ward's members were blocking all the aisles and foyers. Oh well! I don't think the organ prelude happened at all, but our quartet got to start about 5 minutes to 11:00 and the meeting was really spiritual and uplifting anyway in spite of the rough start. It was nice afterwards to wish a lot of people Merry Christmas--we love our ward family!

After that we hurried home to change and get some rolls in the oven before going to have dinner with our friends, the Pedersens. They had us over for Thanksgiving, also. We had a nice ham dinner and pulled "crackers" too. It was fun--we all had to wear our paper hats from our crackers during dinner. The missionaries serving in our ward were there also. We were just a bunch of people without any family around banding together! :) It was a different Christmas but we enjoyed it.

Frank had Monday off, so we just hung out, relaxed, and played new games. (We did get some laundry done, too--weren't totally lazy!) Frank had to work the rest of the week so we didn't have any big plans. It was nice for the boys and I not to have to get up at a certain time in the mornings. I had a list of things I wanted to get accomplished over the break so I worked on those things. I didn't get a lot of it done, but it was a pretty ambitious list. At least I got started!

I had a visiting teaching appointment Tuesday morning and yesterday I took advantage of the boys being home to babysit and went to the temple. The traffic was horrible both ways, so that ended up taking up most of the day. They only have sessions every hour during the day time on week days, and I just missed one session so had to wait an hour for the next one. It was worth the wait, though! Last night I took Scott to buy some shoes--he had a gift card to spend.

The boys had several social events--Tanner spent the night at his friend Taylor's house on Tuesday and he has another sleep over at Ryan's house tonight. Scott played basketball with friends this morning, went to lunch, and now he and Allie are at a movie. All three boys went to a movie night last night with friends in the ward. They got home just after midnight--I never heard them come in! I woke up after 1:00 and had to go downstairs to see if they made it home--when I saw their shoes and cell phones lying around, I knew they were home! I didn't go back to sleep for hours after that, unfortunately.

We enjoyed watching BYU play their bowl game this afternoon. Well, maybe "enjoy" is not the correct word since we groaned through so much of it, but we couldn't find much fault with the defense and there were some pretty awesome offensive plays (although they were few and far between) and we are just happy that they managed to pull off a win in the end. If they were going for suspenseful, they certainly met that goal!

The weather has continued to be mostly mild this week. We had rain some days. Yesterday it was colder and it did actually snow--but only briefly. Today it is back into the 50s again. No complaints from me!

Seth is getting very independent lately. He was the first one up most mornings. This morning I didn't wake up until 8:00 (after my bad night) and I found him downstairs playing a game on the Wii--he turned it on and got it going all by himself. Yesterday while I was drying my hair (and no one else was up yet) I heard him moving things around. I went downstairs to see what was up and he had pulled most of the kitchen chairs into the living room, grouped them around the coffee table, put one of his blankets on the table for a "table cloth", and had just pulled 6 plates out of the cupboard so he could set the table. Then he put a piece of cheese on each plate. He woke up the older boys, saying "Get up! I made dinner!" I was impressed he managed to do all that himself--got out the correct number of plates for our family (he didn't know Frank was already at work) and the "table cloth" was even on the table nice and straight! I should have got a picture, but I was trying to get out the door to go to the temple. (If I'd known the traffic was going to be so bad, I would have taken the time to take the picture!)

Best wishes to all of you for a Happy New Year--welcome 2012!

Weekly Review December 23 '11

Winter break or spring break? If it weren't for the Christmas decor everywhere, I would definitely guess spring break! We are having such mild weather--many days this week the temperature was in the high 50's. It even got up to nearly 70 one day--ironically, that was on the 21st; the first day of winter! We've had quite a bit of rain as well. If it were colder, we'd definitely be having a white Christmas this year. The boys have been known to complain, but I don't mind one bit!

The weather was chilly enough that we did wear coats when we went to the temple grounds last Friday, as you can see from the photos. We had some family drama as we were getting ready to leave and Scott and Tanner decided to stay home, but the two younger boys came with Frank and I. The visitor's center is always all decked out with many beautiful trees. All the local stakes are responsible to decorate a tree. Here is Seth standing in front of our stake's tree:

And here is Seth trying out the camel by the nativity:

The lights are so beautiful! I didn't have a tripod with me, though, so unfortunately my pictures are pretty blurry:

Besides enjoying the lights, we also attended a concert done by a handbell choir--it was great! Jared and I saw the nativity set exhibit also. Frank stayed with Seth and let him wander through the visitor's center while we did that because Seth was getting pretty restless. The nativity set exhibit is done every year and includes sets from all over the world. They are always so amazing! (There are different ones every year, too.) Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me when I was in the exhibit; I left it with Frank. One of my favorites was one that was black and white photographs of people in nativity dress attached to simple wood blocks. I think it would be cool to make one of those using photographs of family members. Another one was hanging on the wall--three framed pictures. One picture was a sillhouette of Mary, Joseph & baby Jesus, another was a sillhouette of the 3 wise men, and the third was a sillhouette of the angel and the shepherds. Behind each sillhouette was a copy of the sheet music for a different Christmas song. I also really loved a set from the Netherlands that was white and blue; it looked like fine china. It's always so interesting to see how the different cultures interpret the nativity.

Saturday was a busy day. Scott had a basketball game at 10:00. His team lost and he tweaked his knee a bit but he still was in good spirits about it. The boys did cleaning and organizing in their rooms. I can't say that their rooms are up to my standards, but they do look a lot better than they did. We cleaned the kitchen floor and cleaned the oven. My visiting teachers had me and the other two women they visit over for lunch; it was very nice!

Sunday was busy too--after church the boys had a practice for a song, then we had tithing settlement, and then I had another song practice. By the time I got home, it was time to start making dinner! We had another family in our ward over for dinner. They brought the dessert. They also brought us a bunch of rolls in a basket made out of bread (it was a work of art; wish I'd taken a picture of it) and this beautiful poinsettia plant:

We had a nice dinner and visit with them. Snickers was looking festive in his Christmas bandana:

He loves to sit on Frank's lap; he is looking up at Frank in adoration! In these pictures he is snuggling:

It is hard to get a good picture of Snickers because his eyes reflect the light from the flash. You'll have to trust me; he looks very cute!

The rest of the week was busy also. I'm really glad I got all my shopping done earlier! Monday morning I went to the church to help watch kids for moms who needed to get shopping or other Christmas projects done. There were a lot of women from the ward there to help so I didn't really end up doing much--most of the time we just visited! I also worked on stuff for YW that day, and of course that evening we had family night.

On Tuesday I went to the used book store again to look for some books for Scott--he is taking an AP Literature class next semester and they gave him a list of about 14 books that they are going to read for the class. He is supposed to read as many as possible before the class even starts. (He did read a few over the summer.) They want him to have his own copy of the books if possible so that he can write notes in them and so forth, so I thought if I could find used copies that would be much more economical. It was a good idea--I found all the books on the list except for two and they were each $3 or less. As usual, I didn't make it out of there without buying a couple of books for myself as well--but I was pretty good this time! I also had choir practice that night, Scott was gone all evening doing the sound for a show, and Frank & Tanner went home teaching. Frank and I also went to look at a house. We are not really ready to begin house searching in earnest yet, but this particular house was a really good deal so Frank wanted to go look at it. I should say look at it again, because we actually looked at it nearly a year ago. Yes, it is still on the market--and the price has dropped over $40,000 since the last time we looked at it. At the new price it would be very "do-able" for us and it still looks good--only needs minor work done--and it's big. Bigger than we need, actually. The catch is that there is already an offer on it, so the chances of us being able to actually buy it are pretty slim. We considered putting in an offer, but because another offer is already under consideration our realtor said they would not even look at an offer with a contingency that we sell our current house. We're not comfortable making an offer without that contingency in the current market so we are just going to wait and see if the other offer works out and then go from there. We aren't feeling ready to put our house on the market yet anyway.

Frank was starting to feel worse again on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning he really felt sick. He went to work that morning but after a couple of hours he was so miserable he decided to come home and go back to the doctor. His cough never did go away and besides that he had chills and his whole face was hurting. Not surprisingly, the doctor diagnosed a massive sinus infection. He put Frank on two different medications--one of them a very powerful antibiotic. Frank was pretty much down flat the rest of the day, but the medicine did it's trick and by Thursday morning he was vastly improved and able to go back to work. He is still coughing a lot, though. Hopefully he will get completely well soon; he has been sick for over 3 weeks now!

Meanwhile, Wednesday was a pretty busy day for everyone else. Scott went home teaching and Tanner made cookies for a school party the following day. That evening we all (even Frank, in spite of how sick he was) went over to the church for Scott's Eagle Court of Honor. His good friend David was also receiving his Eagle scout award. The meeting started a half hour late and Seth could not hold still to save his soul, but it was still a very nice ceremony. Among other things, they had 3 of the men who had worked with the boys in scouts talk about the boys and some of their experiences together, and they had some very nice (and sometimes funny) things to say about Scott and David. Afterwards, we had refreshments. David's family and our family went in together to get a cake:

Happy Eagle Scouts (and yes, that is Jared being crazy in the background):

Our three scouts (don't they look great?):

We let them be crazy for this one. (I said it wasn't a good idea to take the photograph in front of that picture of Christ, but they wouldn't move.):

Scott with Allie:

The two new Eagle scouts feeling giddy:

Sorry, I didn't manage to get a photo without a "fist pound":

Proud parents (see my new mother's pin?):

Seth wanted me to take his picture, too:

We are glad Scott finally reached this milestone! They asked him to say a few words and he thanked a lot of the people there for helping him to reach this goal, but especially his mom who kept pushing him (nagging would probably be a more accurate word, but he was nice enough not to use it) all those times when he wanted to give up. He got that right! ;)

We were tired when we got to bed but a good night's sleep was not on the cards--Seth threw up at about 1:00 in the morning so we were up a while with him and had some cleaning up to do. At least this time when I went in his room to find out why he was crying (and I could tell from the sound of his crying that it was not just a nightmare) and asked him what was wrong his response was "I need a bucket!" So we are getting there--at least he recognized the nauseous feeling and knew that it would be best not to throw up all over his bed even though we still didn't make it to the bathroom (or get a bucket) in time. That's a step in the right direction, right? Thankfully, this was one of those illnesses where they get sick pretty spectacularly just once in the night and then they go back to sleep and by morning you'd never know they were sick at all! By the time we got him cleaned up and settled down, though, I was wide awake and took quite a while to go back to sleep so it was a short night, as far as sleep goes. Seth didn't wake up until nearly 9:00 the next morning so I let him sleep. I took our car pool boy, Javier, to school at the right time but left Jared with Seth until he woke up. He actually woke up while I was gone so when I got home I got Seth in his coat and shoes and we went right back to the school--Jared was only about 15 minutes late. I kept Seth home, of course, but he never had any more problems. He sipped soda and by mid morning was ready for some scrambled eggs. By evening he was bouncing off the walls. Here he is with Tanner and Jared, watching "How to Train Your Dragon" on the touch screen computer. They looked so cute, the three of them together, that I took some photos:

Thursday was the last day of school for the kids, and they got out two hours early. Frank had a dentist appointment after work; his teeth are in great shape, thankfully. I made three batches of candy. Today we all enjoyed sleeping in, except for Frank--he still had to go to work. They shooed him out of there very early, though--he was on his way home by 11:30. I enjoyed grapefruit from Mesa, Arizona for breakfast--thanks to Erick & Liz, who sent us a box of citrus from there! I was a cookie making machine today. I spent all afternoon and into the evening making 4 batches of cookies. I still have one batch to finish tomorrow--I put the dough in the refrigerator. Here are the guys making the traditional paintbrush cookies:

I am now exhausted and every bone in my body aches from being on my feet most of the day. Remind me to never open a bakery! But here are the results of my two days of cookie and candy making:

Paintbrush cookies, spice cookies, snickerdoodles, chocolate fudge, butterscotch / peanut butter fudge, and buckeyes...yummy!

I made a lot because we are giving some of it away. The boys helped with the paintbrush cookies and Frank helped me with most of the other batches, which I appreciate! Now we are waiting up for Scott to get home--he went with Allie and some friends on a double date. They went to see the lights at the temple.

Tomorrow will hopefully be a bit more relaxing. Some friends invited us to dinner on Christmas day, so we are not cooking a fancy dinner tomorrow as we normally do. We will have a simple "Bethlehem" meal instead, which is what we normally do on Christmas day. This Christmas is going to be quite different from most since we have church also, but I think it is going to be very nice. I really like it when Christmas falls on Sunday.

We will be thinking of all of you and hope that you have a wonderful Christmas. We love you!