The Highs and Lows of Fall

I really love Fall in New England and will do a post on it once the leaves finishing turning into their glorious fall colors. The weather is perfect, highs in the 70's, lows in the 50's.
But those aren't the high's and low's I'm talking about. I'm talking about the start of school. I am always anxious for school to start by the end of summer. I am ready to put an end to the endless negotiating over how much tv to watch (I usually end up giving up by the end of summer), the bored kids, tired of the constant noise. The start of school is a relief to all of that and those precious quiet hours are wonderful. I always forget, however, just how necessary that quiet time is to my sanity and to be able to endure the after school craziness!
The start of school not only brings home tons of paperwork, pto forms, open houses, etc. etc. but it is also the start of Field Hockey season. Field Hockey literally takes over Diana's life with practices or games until 5 or later every afternoon. That actually will be the subject of another post as well, lots of drama with Field Hockey this year.
Anyway, it means that my only extra driver is too busy to help. Every day we have some sort of after school activity, Tae Kwan Do, saxophone lessons, scouts, homework, practicing and trying to fit dinner in somehow, orthodontist and dentist visits, it all makes me crazy at times! Garrett came last week wanting to add an afterschool flag football and Alyssa wants to start Tae Kwan Do but I just can't see how I can fit it in! As it is, I am resorting to teaching them piano lessons on Sunday afternoons. I usually prefer for them to take from someone else and I like my Sundays for rest, but there it is. I don't know how else we can do it...

Did I mention that Dave is out of town a lot in the fall??

Summer's Over

Okay, I've been a slacker for the last couple of months or however long it has been. I'm finally doing another blog post!

It was a very strange summer for me, being stuck in bed for a couple of months wasn't much fun and I couldn't drive until just about a month ago so I couldn't take the kids anywhere. I could, however, sit out with them at the pool. Thank Goodness we have a pool or it would have been a miserable summer for us all!

I never thought I would feel that way about a pool. I really didn't want one, it just happened to come with the house that we wanted. There were too many stories of people we knew whose child or grandchild drowned or nearly so in their backyard pool for me to feel comfortable with it. It does have a fence around it but I still get a bit nervous.

What I didn't realize is just how much we would enjoy the pool! It is great during the summer months when the kids are bored and watching too much tv. I just say "Let's go swimming!" and we head outside for hours at a time, quite often inviting a friend or two to join us. It's a great way to entertain too. A cookout and swim party is much easier than a more formal dinner party. It has been used this summer by our branch several times too: youth activities, a young women float and flick (they watched Jaws), and a primary activity.

Our children all swim really well too, except for Emma who is still learning. Last summer she wouldn't even get in the pool and screamed through her swim lessons. This summer she swam all over with her vest on and even went off the diving board and slide. The last couple of times in the pool Jenna helped her swim without the vest and she is getting it!

Here are some of our favorite swim pictures from this summer:

My Favorite Movie

I love this movie!!!

I have always enjoyed books and movies about people who go through extreme difficulties in their lives and still manage to find hope and beauty in the world. Life is Beautiful is another favorite movie even though he dies in the end (sorry if I have ruined it for anyone). The Diary of Anne Frank, Schindler's List, I could probably think of several more, and books like The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom, all really inspire me.

I think that Cinderella Man is my favorite because not only does Jim triumph over the trials of poverty and keeping his family together but he becomes a better person precisely because he has been through those trials and he uses them to his advantage. When his family is being torn apart because they can't pay the bills, he humbles himself and goes to ask for money from the people who told him he didn't have what it takes to be a fighter any more. When he goes to work on the docks even though his right hand was broken, he learns to work mostly with his left hand thereby making what was a major weakness for him into a major strength.

I especially love when he fights Max Baer at the end. Max Baer has killed a man in the ring and threatens to kill Jim. He is arrogant and narcissistic, a thoroughly unlikable person. Jim doesn't brag, he just goes in and does what he needs to do, the humble man quietly defeating the braggart. I love it!

Fenway Fun

One of the perks of living near Boston is being able to attend a Red Sox game now and then.

We used to be Atlanta Braves fans because we used to live in the Atlanta Metro area in the late 80's, early 90's. That was when the Braves went from worst to first in one season. They lost the World Series that year but you wouldn't know it from the parade they had.
I was not a baseball fan back then and Dave was traveling every week and we had 3 very young children so you would think that I would be going to bed early and getting lots of sleep.
Nope.
I was as caught up in the frenzy as anyone else! It was crazy with people decorating their cars and houses in red and blue and with big tomahawks and everyone talking to everyone about the games and exhausted from not getting enough sleep. It was fun!
Then we moved to Montgomery. People there are still Braves fans but it wasn't the same. We did go to games now and then courtesy of Dave's work. I even went to a World Series game in 1995 and saw people like Ted Turner and Jane Fonda and Spike Lee.

Then we moved to Massachusetts. I think that it is a requirement when you move here to be Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics fans. We were lucky that all three teams were doing really well so it made it a lot more fun and easy to change allegiances.
Last night, the Red Sox faced the Braves. There was a little part of me that is still a Braves fan but I don't really know the players any more so I was glad that the Sox won. Go Sox!

One of the really fun things about going to Fenway is just the history of the park. The Green Monstah (Monster) is famous and Babe Ruth played there, how fun is that! It is really cool just to be there and be part of the tradition of the place, including singing "Sweet Caroline" during the 7th inning stretch. The players are loved, especially now that Manny Ramirez is gone. (Yooouuuuuukkk!)
Another fun thing is listening to the fans with their brash attitudes and Boston accents. I mean Really fun. It just makes me laugh. It's a great people-watching place!
I didn't get to go last night of course, with my cast and walker, but I hope to go next time!

Update: Sleepiness

I went to the sleep lab the week before my ankle surgery. (All things are now going to be measured as Before Surgery and After Surgery-B.S. and A.S. for short.)

The ironic thing about going to a sleep lab is that they stick all kinds of things on you that make it difficult to sleep-sticky things all over my legs, chest, neck, hair, and even some things that measure oxygen in my nose. So they spend an hour and a half sticking all these things to you and then tell you to relax and sleep. Riigghhtt.

So it turns out that I have mild sleep apnea. It's kind of like the low-normal thyroid levels I have except that in this case they actually want to do something about it. I stop breathing 15 times an hour for at least 10 seconds each time.

I basically have 3 choices.
1. I can have surgery to remove my tonsils (yes, I still have them) and part of my uvula and possibly fix my deviated septum (yes, I have one of those). The problem with this solution is a: it's surgery, not a fan and b: it is only successful 60% of the time. Positives: If it is successful, it's done and I don't have to think about it.

2. I can get a dental appliance that helps keep my airways open. Pros-it's a simple thing and non-invasive. Cons-It is only successful 60% of the time and insurance may not pay for it and not all dentists do it.

3. I can get a CPAP machine which is a mask you wear at night that forces air into the breathing passages. It is almost 100% successful and insurance quite often pays for it. Downside: it has to be worn every night and can be noisy and irritating.

Sleep apnea has a lot of health consequences that I hadn't realized it did. Heart issues, weight gain, diabetes, stroke, 5 times greater chance of car accidents, hmmm guess I need to do something about it!

That's enough for now. Time for sleep!

Sittin' Around on my you-know-what

Sounds like fun at first.
Laying around all day, watching movies and reading books.
Having my kids wait on me.
No cooking, no cleaning, no running around like crazy.
Ahh, living the good life!
At first anyway.
Now...
Bored...
bored....
bore......d

I have plenty of books to read
and plenty of movies to watch

(I had to interrupt this post to go check out a major crash in the kitchen, a broken glass-a little excitement in my day)

a little variety is good

(Now I'm going to go all Molly Mormon on y'all)

My blessings:
I don't hurt much
I have kids to wait on me and do the housework
I have books and movies
I don't have to do the housework
Andrea's laptop is great
I love netflix watch instantly
I can watch an entire 6 hour miniseries from start to finish
I can sleep whenever I want to

Hey! What am I complaining about! This is great! I wonder how long I can keep the cast on...

Trials and Such

As you know, Dave's job loss in Montgomery and our subsequent move to Massachusetts was a trying time for our family (see "Surgery", May 5th posting). I realized today that I hadn't given you the full picture of the whole experience, in fact I left out a very important part of it.
For several months before Dave lost his job, I had the feeling that something very big was going to happen to our family. I somehow knew that we would be moving which was ridiculous because we had no intention of moving and Dave's job was going quite well at that time but I couldn't shake that feeling.
For a while I thought that my uneasiness may have been due to Hurricane Katrina. Katrina had a big effect on our community even though we only got a few sprinkles from the actual hurricane itself. The Red Cross set up their headquarters for the relief efforts there and we had some red cross workers attending our ward. Many refuges ended up there and I will never forget the long line of FEMA trailers going down the highway. Our stake spent several weekends helping with clean up in Mississippi, as did many of the churches in the area. Then I realized that I started feeling uneasy before the hurricane and that feeling continued for many months afterward. I even had to stop myself from telling people that we would be moving and when applying for Alyssa to attend the magnet school, I didn't care that she only made the waiting list.
It was around this time, February 2006, that I read an article in the Ensign, read here. It is an article by James E. Faust about trials. I remember turning to Dave and asking, "Where are our trials?" I counsel you never to do that. At the time, however, things were going very well for us. We were financially secure, healthy, happy in our ward, the kids seemed to be happy and, other than the occasional squabble and a little more than occasional messy rooms, they were (are) all pretty terrific people.
Literally within weeks Dave had lost his job and as you read in the earlier post, we were set upon by many difficulties in the coming months. It felt a little like the roof had caved in but I could never forget that I had been prepared for it. I knew that Heavenly Father knew that I didn't like change and blessed me with that premonition because He loves me. He couldn't take away our trials. We need our trials, we should expect to have trials, because without them we couldn't progress the way we need to progress. Because of that I didn't feel angry or try to blame Him or lose my faith in any way.
That love was shown not only by that emotional preparation I had but also through the tremendous acts of service we witnessed on our behalf, both in Montgomery and after the move to Massachusetts, and continuing today. We have been privileged to know some of the most Christlike people I could ever hope to know. We have been awed by their examples and humbled to know how much we owe to them and how far we have to go to be like them. If we had not had our trials we would not have known the acts of service because these are people who do not trumpet their own horns.
I have to say as trials go, an unexpected job loss and a broken ankle aren't too bad, I think that it was that and all the other little things piled up on each other that made it so difficult. It well may be that we have greater trials in our future, that these smaller ones were just to prepare us for the biggies, or maybe this is as bad as it gets, I just don't know. What I do know is that this is life. Trials or not, big or small, I know that there are many terrific people in the world, that my family loves me, that my Heavenly Father loves me as He does all of us, and with that knowledge I can handle whatever comes my way.
Last October Conference, Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin gave a great talk that just boosts my spirits. I try to remember it whenever I feel grouchy, which I am ashamed to say, is way too often. Watch here.

Reviving My Brain

I realized when I had my surgery that I would have a lot of free time this summer, in fact I knew that I would get pretty dang bored and I don't handle boredom well. When I originally fell and broke my ankle, the injury was pretty traumatic and so I was kept on a lot of pain medication and was in the twilight zone for a long time. This time I feel good, better even than before my surgery which is making this enforced bed rest, or almost bed rest, very tedious indeed. I have a lot of books to read for my book blog, in fact there are 8 sitting up in my room right now, but even I can't read all the time. I have watched more tv than I want and even then it's not that much. Most tv is pretty boring however I am thrilled that So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD for those in the know) has started! It's great that I can use Andrea's laptop and facebook is fun but just doesn't take up that much time. I have been watching things on Netflix and that's been good too but none of that (except my book blog) has any real purpose. Life has to have purpose or it is meaningless!
So, realizing that I would feel that way, I signed up for some online, non-credit courses. I have been feeling like I would like to earn a little money at home sometime and have been considering my options, and have tailored my online classes to that purpose. Right now I am taking classes in Web Design, Anatomy and Physiology (in case I want to do medical transcription) and Computers for the Workplace-yes, I know that's not a home business sort of class but I thought it would be a good overview of computers since I have NEVER taken any sort of computer course.
I am finding that I like the web design class the best. The computer class is really basic so far and I find that I know more about computers than I had realized and the Anatomy class is probably my most challenging because I forgot all that stuff long ago, but really I like the web design because I can actually do something with it, right now, today. It has Purpose, and so do I!
We have to do a website as part of the class (makes sense, doesn't it?) and I would like to do a family website, but not for sharing with the teachers and the class, so I have decided to do a web site entitled "Heart of the Home" and put our family's favorite recipes on it. I am sure you all are just dying to see it but I haven't started it yet. Once I do I will let you all know and then you can help critique it, and contribute if you so desire. Should be fun!

A Woman of Leisure

Okay, I am now 6 days post surgery and am doing quite well. The surgery was not bad. They gave me an epidural in my leg which made it nice and numb and then gave me a sedative which made my mind nice and numb so I don't remember a thing about it. It was nice not to have general anesthesia although the sedative did make me feel nauseated. I only spent one night in the hospital (yeah!) and the nurses were good, and no roommate this time!
Getting home was not fun because I got sick in the car. The only thing I had was a paper bag and well, that didn't work very well. We live about 45 miles from the hospital so it was, um, a bit uncomfortable. Once we got home and got cleaned up and I managed to get up the stairs ( a feat in itself-bumping up on my behind and once I got to the top standing up was interesting) then everything has been fine.
I feel pretty good. Not much pain. I do take percocet but won't need it much longer. I don't have a standard cast yet. It's just a metal support for the back of my leg and foot which is heavily padded and wrapped with a bandage. It's very heavy and thick and I think I could knock someone out with it if I wanted. I can't put any weight on it and have to use a walker. I am supposed to be in bed with it elevated most of the time except for the 5 minutes every hour I am supposed to get up and walk around, except of course at night. That means that I have spent pretty much 138 hours out of the last 144 in bed. Probably even more than that because sometimes I forget to get up and move around. Yeah. Thank goodness Andrea lets me use her laptop.
Andrea is our nanny and supervisor and laundress and cook and shopper and chauffeur. She's tired. She is doing quite well but I don't think she's going to want to get married for awhile. Our branch is wonderful and is helping out with meals. (They are soooo good to us!) I think though, that it is probably good that I can't see how clean it is downstairs. It's just best that I don't think about it too much. We had an incident this morning where Garrett forgot about the waffles in the toaster and set off the smoke alarms. That was exciting. Emma was mad because they were her waffles but she forgave him. Mostly I just hear thuds and thumps and sometimes crying or yelling but that's all just normal in our house. Or maybe that percocet is just doing it's job because I feel pretty relaxed about it all :) and am enjoying the time to read and rest. We'll see how long that lasts...

Mother's Day

I cheated a bit with Mother's Day this year. Not only did I get breakfast in bed but lunch and dinner too!
Nothing like having ankle surgery to guarantee personal service on Mother's Day. Although even without the surgery my family does a great job making me feel special!
Some of the things that made me feel good yesterday:
Emma let me keep her blankies with me for a couple of hours.
Alyssa wrote a very sweet acrostic poem for me.
Garrett wrote a poem and sang the song that I didn't get to hear the primary sing in church.
Andrea and Diana brought me things and helped make dinner.
I got to have nice talks with both Jenna and Erica.
Dave gave me chocolate, and brought me food, and took care of kids.

I am truly blessed with a wonderful family!

Surgery

I am going to have surgery on Friday. I am not thrilled about this. In fact I am dreading it. I know that I will have a long recovery, that it involves a lot of pain for me and inconvenience for the family. It is an elective surgery, so you may wonder why I would want to go through it since I do have a choice? But for me there is no choice, I have to have the surgery. It all started back in September of 2006. (Sit back and relax, this is going to be long.)

We had recently moved to Massachusetts from Montgomery, Alabama where we had lived for 14 1/2 years. The move had been due to a new job for Dave, which was due to his being fired from his job in Montgomery, something he is still loathe to admit. It was a very difficult move. We hadn't sold our house in Montgomery yet despite many (Many!) open houses. Things kept breaking in the house after we put it on the market-sometimes the same thing broke multiple times, things like the ice machine, and the window in the laundry room kept leaking. We had problems with our realtor and had to find another one. Emma had just turned a year old in March and still needed lots of attention. Erica graduated from high school, Garrett was baptized, we had lots of soccer games, etc. while trying to sell the house. Life goes on! Dave had to leave for his new job in July so the rest of us were left behind to deal with things. It was a long hard hot summer and nothing seemed to be going very well.

By the time we got to moving day, I was just getting over bronchitis and was taking an antibiotic that made my mind race and made it difficult to sleep. Emma got a stomach bug and was throwing up all night. The movers seemed to be inept and extremely slow, they took forever. We had a severe thunderstorm move through as they were loading the truck (those of you in the South know what these are like) so they had to put everything in the garage until the next day. I had to stand in the laundry room with a towel held on the window sill while this was going on so that the rain that was pouring in wouldn't ruin our new paint job from the last time rain poured in.

So, we finally got on the road after saying goodbye to Jenna and Erica who would be flying to Provo the next day. I felt so bad that we couldn't take Erica out for her freshman year like we did with Jenna but it just couldn't be helped. That night we stayed in Charlotte NC and had the worst stomach flu I have ever had bar none. We all had it but Dave who got to stay up all night cleaning up after everyone. It was horrible and I felt so sorry for the hotel's housekeeping crew. We know it wasn't food poisoning because Jenna and Erica had it too and had to put off their plane flight for a day.

The one good thing to come out of everyone being sick is that there was NO fighting, whining, asking if we were there yet, etc. We looked like a bunch of dead bodies in the car. Two more days of driving got us to Massachusetts where we immediately started painting in the new house. We sent the 2 older girls off to girls camp and I started unpacking. We discovered that the movers really didn't know what they were doing and had packed our cases of honey badly. Yep, honey all over the place, even on my piano. Curses!

We had a couple of weeks before school started and spent it alternately trying to get the house settled and trying to comply with Massachusetts many rules and regulations. We got to know the nurses at the board of health pretty well.

The reason I am telling you all this background is so that you can understand all that we went through. We were finally feeling more settled and more relaxed about life. It had been a very long tough several months where I felt like I was slogging through mud the whole time. I was finally feeling like things were going to be okay.

We got everyone settled and school started and I could get the house put together. Whew! It felt good to be able to focus on the house! So I grabbed a box from the garage and started heading down to the basement with it. I guess I wasn't careful enough and shouldn't have been wearing sandals because the next thing I knew I am at the bottom of the stairs and my right foot isn't where it is supposed to be. Now that's a bit unsettling! I will spare you all the rest of the gory details but after a couple of surgeries and 5 very miserable days in the hospital I was able to come home.

Now we knew that with a 18-month-old child and me virtually bed-bound we were going to need some help. Fortunately we knew that a friend of ours, a 20-year-old BYU-I student, had the fall off. She was willing to come be our nanny for a few months and what a blessing that she was! She was so fun to have around, really made the adjustment to a new place easier for our teens, and did such a great job that we wanted to keep her permanently!

I was stuck in bed for several weeks, pretty heavily drugged most of the time but still really hurting! It hurt no matter what I did but I felt best lying down with my foot elevated. I could only sit up for about 15 minutes at a time before the pain was too much to bear. Nights were absolutely awful because I would wake up and hurt and just have to lie there and endure it. I had therapists who came to the house and gave me exercises to do. It took several weeks before I had a weight-bearing cast and could lose the walker. Then I could use crutches and get around a bit better.

After a month of that I got my lovely silver boot and could walk without crutches, yeah! Another month after that and I could start driving. Three months without driving! And I still had lots of physical therapy coming up-months of it-but at least I was able to function and take care of things.

That was 2 1/2 years ago. The physical therapy helped up to a point and then all progress just stopped. I have been hobbling and limping ever since. Sometimes I am able to walk fairly normally but first thing in the morning and after I have been sitting a little while and if I walk too much then I am back to hobbling around. I feel pain pretty much every day but not all day. Usually by night I am aching pretty badly. I can only take tylenol which doesn't really do much. Everything else gives me heartburn. The thing is, it's getting worse. I have arthritis in the joint and sometimes it feels like the bones are rubbing together. My doctor says that they probably are.

So, yeah, this surgery is major and the recovery is long but I have my reasons to go through it, namely:

1. No more pain

2. Be able to walk when I get out of bed

3. Be able to walk as much as I want without pain. I want to be able to go to Italy with Dave one of these days!

4. No more pain

So here we go. Two more days and then the whole process begins, Here's to (90%) Pain-Free Living!!

Congratulations Graduates!

Spencer and Erica with Spencer's mom Betsy Ricks. It was so nice to see her!

Jenna and Chris

Spencer just after receiving his diploma

Erica just after receiving her diploma

Awww! Matching outfits!

Dave, Betsy, and Erica

Mark Jackson and Erica

Jenna and Mark

Erica, Spencer, and Chris all graduated from BYU in April so Dave and I made the trip out to Utah to see them graduate and celebrate with them! It was very nice of them all to graduate at them same time. It made it much more convenient for us. To make it an even more efficient trip, Dave scheduled a business trip in Utah that week (work then paid for his plane ticket, verrry smart!).

Dave flew out on Tuesday and I flew out on Wednesday. The Metros (from our branch) were on the plane so it was nice to have a little company. Thursday we got to spend a little time with the Armitages who just moved to Utah from our branch. We also did a little shopping in the BYU bookstore (it's a must) and very fittingly ran into some old friends who used to live in Montgomery, the Dillons. I say fittingly because we ran into them in August when we were dropping Andrea off for her freshman year.

That evening was the Convocation in the Marriott center. For those who have never been there, the place is huge! and the seats are very uncomfortable. President Uchtdorf and Elder Russell M. Nelson both spoke. I remember that the talks were excellent but couldn't tell you what they said right now. We sat by the Mullens (Chris' family-Michael, Ann Marie, and Joseph). At one point Jenna and I looked down the row and everyone else was asleep. It really was good but you know...it was a little warm in there. We took pictures outside in the mad crush of people (see above) and then went off to dinner. Spencer's family (Mom Betsy, sister Rebecca and Grandpa Welby) and JoEllen all joined us for a wonderful and fun meal at Macaroni Grill. Spencer's and Chris' family hadn't met before this but they got along very well as I knew they would!

The next day was all Commencement, more than anyone would ever really want but we were very glad to be there. It was a total of 8 hours in the Marriott, yes those hard little chairs, starting at 8 am with Spencer's commencement, the College of Humanities. Spencer graduated with a degree in Spanish and will be attending law school in the fall, most likely at NYU. Next came Erica at 11 am. She graduated with a degree in Sociology, although officially she won't be finished until the end of spring term. She wants to get a master's in Social Work. We ran into Mark Jackson, a friend from Montgomery. He was Jenna's first prom date. We had a break for lunch and a little rest at Erica's place and then back to the Marriott for Chris' commencement. He received his Master's of Accountancy degree and will be working in Boston (yeah!) starting in August.

It was very interesting to compare the 3 commencements. The College of Humanities had the best student speech, she was really good. And probably the best music as well (big surprise) The best speech overall was Matt Holland's speech at the College of Home, Family, and Social Sciences commencement. He was great! Andrea had him for American Heritage this year and loved him. Too bad he's leaving to be the President of Utah Valley University.

We then split up-the Mullens to Salt Lake for a big meal with extended family but we decided to stay in Provo because it was getting late so I got to have my chimichanga. We left for home the next day but not without running into one more, or two more, familiar faces at the airport. The Moores, from our ward in Montgomery, had been in Utah for their son's graduation. So good to see them!

We had a great time in Utah and are very proud of the graduates!!

Garrett's birthday

Garrett turned eleven years old on April Fool's Day. He thinks it's great to have his birthday on that day!

It's hard to believe that he is that old already...

He'll be a teen before we know it.

He already knows more than I want him to know. He came home the other day asking about a word he heard at school-not the f-word but a worse one. A word I didn't know until I was much older. It made me feel sick inside. I explained to him how bad that word was and that I didn't want him around that kid who used it if he can help it. Arrghh!

But he just picks up on facts and things all the time and likes to talk about everything!

I've already posted about his testimony giving, every month without fail, a long well thought out sermon.

Last month he gave a talk in Primary that was written that morning. I didn't get a chance to review until a couple of minutes before he gave it which made me a little nervous because we never know what he is going to say (like the testimony he gave about Adam and Eve and that they needed to leave the Garden of Eden in order to be able to reproduce, don't know how many times he said, "reproduce" but it was enough to make us cringe). He did a great job on the talk, and he used the word "inordinate" correctly in it. I don't think any of the kids understood what he was saying.

Last week he used the phrase "metaphorically speaking" in casual conversation. I mean, what 5th grader does that?

But he's basically just a good, kind, thoughtful kid. He is also a sax-playing, video-game loving, book-loving, rock band guru. He is very kind to his sisters (more so than they are to him), he loves going to scouts and camping out, loves to help me when I don't feel well, and thinks very deeply about life.

Oh, and he also apparently is incapable of taking a serious picture.

We are sooo glad he's part of our family. Love you Garrett!

My Mistake!

Why oh why oh why did I buy panties with the days of the week for Emma? As if getting her dressed every day weren't hard enough?!? Looking at the bright side, at least she's learning her days of the week and how to read them!

Emma's birthday

Emma turned 4 years old on March 19th! She was very excited about turning 4, although the realization that she can't go back to nursery was a little hard for her. She requested spaghetti for her birthday dinner which was nice for me, easy!

She was of course very excited to open her gifts and loved them all!

Here you get a nice view of her outfit. Gotta love the orange patterned skirt with the multicolored striped shirt. Yep, she's stylin'!

She got some mints and gum for her birthday too! She loves life savor sours and will eat a ton of them. She also has been known to swallow 14 pieces of gum in one sitting. She seems to find gum no matter where it is hidden. We are working on just chewing and she's getting a lot better at it.

We had sick kids on the day of her birthday, in fact no one went to school that day. This is Garrett expressing his feelings about being sick:

Unfortunately, the sickness has continued at our house with the stomach flu this week instead of the constant cough we had last week. We are hoping to be done with it and are looking forward to being healthy again!

The day after her birthday we took cupcakes to her preschool. Of course most of the kids, Emma included, just ate the frosting. I think next time I could just take a tub of frosting and save all the trouble of baking the cupcakes!

This is how Emma's cake looked a couple of days later. Hmmm, wonder who did that?

Happy Birthday to my big girl! We love you!

Aaaaahh, To Sleep!

I have always been tired. It's seems like I have been tired for my entire life. I remember going to the Mesa summer musical in the Westwood auditorium and falling asleep. In high school, if anyone ever showed a film in class, I was out. This was loonngg before I had children. High school, college, always sleepy during the day and I could sleep like a log all night and it didn't seem to make a difference.
All those years of being a mother with young babies, pregnancies, illnesses, etc. I walked around like a zombie, just dying for a nap, eating too many carbs because I was sleepy. I woke up with the kids when I needed to, even became a light sleeper, but ooohhh sooo tired! Even went to the doctor who, of course, said, "You are a mother of young children, of course you are tired." Thanks, doc.
And poor Dave. No pillow talk. Either I zonked out watching tv or as soon as my head hit the pillow. Somewhere in the early years though, I started having a different problem. I would be sleepy all day long and then when it came time to sleep, I couldn't turn my head off. Pillow talk was put off for another reason. I would have to go through my routine and then go straight to bed. Any deviation, just the slightest, and I could count on being awake for 2 hours before finally turning off the talk in my head and falling asleep. His snoring didn't help much either.
On occasion, I would fall asleep just fine and then wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes with an intense dream, other times to Dave's snoring, and still others, I have no idea why I would wake.
The worst was after I broke my ankle. You would think that taking 2 percocet at a time would mean I slept rreeeallly well. Nope. Nights were awful. I couldn't shift around and get comfortable. I couldn't have anything covering my foot. I slept on top of the covers with a blanket over me so I could stick my foot out but I had to be on my back with my foot propped up on a pillow. And of course I hurt big time. Those were some long nights...
Now I fall asleep just fine most nights. In fact I fall asleep watching tv all the time and have to crochet in order to stay awake long enough to see the end of any show. I just can't stay asleep. This morning I woke up at 4 am. Sometimes I'll wake up but stay sleepy enough that I can fall back asleep but not this morning. For some reason, I was anxious about Alyssa brushing her teeth well with her palate expander and it woke me up enough that I knew I wasn't going to get any more sleep before the alarm went off at 5:30. Bummer! Not a good way to start the day. Dave suggested that maybe I could take a nap. Ha! Emma no longer naps which means neither do I. I tried putting a in movie in my bedroom so we could both relax but she kicked the bed the whole time. Sigh...
I've been meaning to go to the sleep lab for a couple of years now. Just haven't gotten around to it-too tired I guess! But I'm going to do it! I'm signing up for it and should get it done in a couple of weeks. Not too sure what to expect but it's a start. I just know that something's gotta give.

Sundays, A Day of Rest?

I'm still waiting for that day of rest thing...maybe someday but probably not! Well, maybe after church is restful on some Sundays, and I am very grateful for that.
Yesterday was a typical Sunday. I woke up in plenty of time and thought that I had a handle on things-got the crockpot going with a roast and veggies, kids got up on time, things are going well. Dave has early meetings every week but we are used to that what with 5 years as Bishop, many years with other leadership callings including high council.
And then it begins. Emma decides she doesn't want to go to church and is dressed in jeans. "I don't want to go to church! I want to stay home!" Even reminding her that she gets to give her first talk doesn't sway her. I finally get her dressed, Alyssa can't find any tights, Garrett, who has been dawdling all morning, realizes at the last minute that he can't find his white shirt. I am directing him where to look while trying to get myself ready and trying to figure out what Emma can do for her talk (oops, put that off too long). We are already late when we find the wrinkled shirt in the clean clothes basket (how long has it been in there?). He throws it on and runs out to the car. No coat and it's 28 degrees out. Meanwhile Dave has texted Diana to ask if we can feed the missionaries right after church. I look around the house with clean clothes strewn everywhere, dirty kitchen, not sure if we have enough food-nope not this week. I need more notice. We fly down the road, 10 minutes late-it takes us 25 minutes to get to church but we make it before the sacrament. Of course, Emma needs to use the bathroom halfway through the sacrament and you just don't tell a 3-year-old to wait. We are washing our hands when someone comes in and says that the priesthood is waiting for us to have the water. (We are in a branch-they notice everything) Oooops!
Sacrament meeting is pretty typical. I am alternately either a desk or a chair. Actually, Emma is getting a lot better but she still doesn't know how to whisper.
I finish the talk for Emma, and we have a presidency meeting while the kids are all in class. Then I conduct closing exercises, Emma enjoys giving her talk, and I also play the piano for singing time. At least this week I didn't have to do sharing time too like I did last week!
We are always ready to go home afterward. Dave had a meeting after church-it's a good thing I said no about feeding the missionaries. We finally make it home! I enjoy our church meetings and I like being in Primary but it always feels good to get home. Thank goodness for crockpots! We had a nice dinner, and then collapsed. The kids and I watched Masterpiece theater's version of Kidnapped while Dave went home teaching, we had a nice talk with Andrea, I finished reading my book, it was a nice relaxing afternoon and evening.
Aaaaah, Sundays!

Alyssa's Baptism

Alyssa was baptized on Sunday, February 15th. She had a beautiful baptism, very sweet and spiritual! She didn't seem nervous at all, just happy and excited about it.

Jenna had flown in on Friday for it and we are so happy that she came! She helped pick out Alyssa's new dress, and she also got to go scout out an apartment for when she and Chris move here in August. It was very nice of her to come especially since she missed having Valentine's Day with Chris:(

Alyssa was baptized in the same outfit that all the girls except Jenna have worn. She did not swim in the font as she said she wanted to:) Diana gave the baptismal talk and did a wonderful job. Brother Silvia, our home teacher, gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and he also did a wonderful job. Jenna played her flute and I accompanied her on the piano and afterward we had a very nice potluck dinner with everyone who came. We had a pretty good crowd and lots of yummy food (we have some very good cooks in the branch).

All in all, it was a very special day and we are very happy for our sweet girl!

Emma's favorite outfit

This is it-Emma's very favorite outfit (along with her ladybug costume). If it is clean, she is wearing it, and maybe sometimes even if it isn't clean! Yes, I know it could be worse (Alyssa wore a skirt with big flowers all over it and a striped polo to church last week, Yikes!) but I do wish she would wear some of her other clothes sometimes!

Happy Birthday, Alyssa!

Today is Alyssa's 8th birthday! I told her that the whole school district is celebrating her birthday and even took a day off in celebration. Actually we are having a snow day. She got to have control of the tv and video games today and do whatever she wants to do (within reason). Tonight we had taco salad, cake and ice cream and opened her gifts. She got a BYU t-shirt and socks and a couple of DS games. Saturday we will be having a party for her at a bowling alley. She is looking forward to being baptized in a couple of weeks and thinks that she will be able to swim in the font. We love this girl!

It's a girl thing

Okay, what is it about little girls (or big girls for that matter) and clothes??? Why can't it ever be simple? The "experts" make it seem like it should be simple: "just give them a choice between two outfits" and they expect the kids to be happy to get a choice and just say "okay, I want that one" and that's it. Obviously those experts have Never been to MY house! This how it goes here: "Emma, do you want to wear this outfit? or this one?" Emma's reaction: kicking and screaming down on the floor saying: "Not those, I hate those, they're ugly! I want to wear this!" pulling out the most ratty-looking shirt and pants she can find. Honestly, I don't know why I bother to spend money on her clothes! I can be darn sure that if I buy a nicer outfit at say, Gymboree, that will be the outfit she will never wear, but if I pulled something out of the box of Alyssa's old clothes and it's something that I should have thrown away, then she will love it and wear it all the time!


It's a wonder we ever make it out of the house. When it is time to take Alyssa out to the bus stop is when she is most likely to have one of her fits about getting dressed. Half the time I would have to hold her down, kicking and screaming, and force clothing upon her body and we would walk out the door with her still screaming and the neighbors would all be standing there watching us, thinking I'm sure that "there's that crazy Mormon woman, it's a shame she can't handle her kids". I have finally given up and let Alyssa go out to the bus by herself because it's too cold to take Emma out half-dressed or in her pajamas.
It's just that we have been through the clothing issues for over 20 years now and it's getting old. Many of Jenna's 2 yo tantrums were over her wanting to dress herself. Erica would wear the strangest outfits and would never wear the cute clothes I bought her and finally at about 10 she asked me not to buy her clothes anymore. Alyssa was 4 when I had to take her shopping with me for her clothes. Unlike Emma, she always wanted the most expensive things and didn't like the cheap clothes. The smartest thing I ever did was give my teenagers a clothing allowance. They are then responsible to buy their own clothes and as long as they are modest I don't say a thing. I still have a ways to go before Emma and Alyssa are there and so the clothing battles will continue! Actually, it usually isn't much of a battle because I allow them to make their own clothing choices as long as: 1. they are clean 2. appropriate for the weather and 3. appropriate for the occasion (ie-dresses for church) which means that we take Emma out in her favorite outfit: a multi-colored striped top with stretchy flowered pants. Lovely.

I have to say though, that I have not had a single fight with my teenagers over clothing. I truly, truly believe that it is because I allowed them to express themselves starting at a very early age. I mean who am I to say that their style is wrong? Clothing is such an expression of personality and young children need to be able to express themselves (within the boundaries as mentioned before) without being made to feel that it is wrong! And so we go out and sometimes get strange looks but most people realize that it is not my choice of clothing but hers, although I do still wish she would wear some of those nicer things. Sigh! I guess I'll just sell them on consignment.


Garrett's wardrobe:


a suit, white shirt and tie for church


a pair of khakis and a polo shirt for nice casual occasions


several pairs of jeans and t-shirts


a scout shirt


along with the necessary pj's and swim trunks.


Doesn't even fill up half the closet and dresser.

So much easier than his sisters.

Budding Photographer

Guess who got a hold of the camera??

Here's a hint...

And another hint...

A peek at a leg...

And another peek...

Ooooh! She must have seen spots after that!

I'm sure you know by now...

Yep, you guessed it!

I found these pictures yesterday when I uploaded to the computer. Funny kid! She's been wanting to use the camera and I guess she found her opportunity!