January 12 & 13

Tuesday, January 12th-

The day after being sick is rough!

Today I ate ice cream for a morning snack. It was the only thing that sounded good. And I think it actually helped me to get some energy!

And then I crashed. haha.

On a happier note, 25 years ago my brother Darin baptized me. I remember it being a special day. I'm grateful for my membership in the LDS Church.

 

 

Wednesday, January 13th-

 

Today I am grateful for…

• Good scout leaders for my boys
• Good friends
• Electricity
• Amazon.com (just ordered a couple of used books!)
• Health

 

 

 

January 10 & 11

Sunday, January 10th-

Today was a success!

• Silas had 3 meetings and helped in another ward's primary.
• I went on visits with the Young Women's Presidency and were able to meet a girl we haven't been able to contact.
• The kids only watched one movie and it was after dinner!
• We were 10 minutes early for church.
• Ryan worked hard to be reverent during primary class.
• We had Jambalaya for dinner!

Monday, January 11th-

Moms shouldn't get sick. It messes with life!

This morning I woke up with the stomach bug that we thought was long gone. It was MISERABLE. Silas was able to stay home to watch the girls and shuttle the boys to school, the orthodontist and piano lessons. I am grateful that he was able to stay home.

Silas reading to the girls.
(He does a great accent for Skippyjon Jones!)

So I read the new book club book about Black Mormon pioneers and watched the entire second session of a Hallmark show, When Calls the Heart, thanks to my nice friend Megan.

Speaking of orthodontist...today was the day! Here are some cute pictures Silas took of our Ryan and his braces!


BEFORE

DURING

Almost there! Look at that face! He's so cute.

AFTER! (This is at home about 9 hours later.
You can already see a difference between his
front two teeth!)

January 6 & 7

Wednesday, January 6th

The boys were so tired this morning from being sick yesterday that I decided to let them stay home to rest today. Ryan and Grant are back to normal, but Cleod isn't feeling well.

I went to the school and got the school work they have missed and we spent the day, on and off, reading, doing math and social studies homework.

After feeling temporarily overwhelmed with life this afternoon, I decided to skip mutual tonight. I am the Secretary I'm the Young Women’s Presidency and like to be at all the activities, but with 3 other leaders, plus leaders from the Spanish branch (we combine with their youth for weeknight activities) I knew they would be fine. Thank goodness I decided to stay home. Silas came home with a headache and fell asleep by 7pm, the time I would have had to be at the church. Cleod threw up less than an hour after that, and although he's 11 years old, I think he still needed some support from his mommy.

Thursday, January 7th

Molly joined the club during the night when she threw up in my bed! But I was grateful that she had come into our room so we could take care of it right away. From about midnight to about noon today she's been getting sick. It is so sad to watch a 2-year-old be so sick.

Poor Molly Moo!



Watching Frozen on my bed.
(Sheets were in the washing machine.)

Me and my sick Molly. She is
also ALWAYS happy, even
when she's sick.

This evening, I was able to go to my monthly book club meeting. I love visiting with these ladies and eating yummy food. Tonight we discussed Pollyanna. It is a very cute book that helped remind me to look for the positive in every situation!


Today I'm grateful for:

• Cleod being home to entertain Cora while I took care of Molly.
• A washer and dryer!
• A good neighbor who brought my other boys home from school.
• A nice husband who willingly runs to the store after work for me.
• Holding Molly while she napped.
• Early morning workout

 





January 8 & 9

Friday, January 8th-



Silas drinking his Sprite/water!
The waiter filled his half empty
Sprite with water. HAHA!

Some faucets and sinks we like

Me and my pretty hot cocoa

Cleod is still sick so we had another lazy home day. Lazy is relative, especially for the Mom, but it was a relaxing day.

Silas and I think it's important for us to have regular dates. Sometimes we do home dates, but it felt especially good for me tonight to get out of the house. We ate dinner at the Thai restaurant in town, which is delicious, and “window shopped” at Home Depot. We are currently in the market for a new kitchen sink and faucet. Wow, are they pricey! But we figured out what we like and have a goal to save for it. Then we went to one of our favorite places, The Brick House Café, and ordered hot cocoa (SO YUMMY) and cheesecake! Totally fun and delicious date!


Saturday, January 9th-

Our day in photos...

Christmas gift from my parents that we
finally put together! It is now the home of all
the games and puzzles.

Molly not letting me pass when
I got home from the gym.





Cora in the bouncy house at the SUU Fan Fest!

Being silly at the SUU Fan Fest.

Craziness of January 5 and the Christmas Miracle

Tuesday, January 5th

Found Cleod reading to some of his siblings this afternoon.

Ryan pretending to be sad after eating his
"prison food" of toast and Gatorade.

Today did not go anything like planned. Ryan was supposed to get his Phase 1 braces (smaller set) today but because he threw up yesterday evening and through the night, we had to reschedule that (for next Monday). Grant also threw up during the night, so we were all super tired this morning. I felt so tired that I didn't have Cleod go to school. (He is such a good helper).

 That ended up being a good thing, because in the afternoon he was complaining about some different pains in his head than his normal headaches. He gets headaches on a regular basic, just like his dad did when he was younger. The way he described this pain caused me to feel really worried and had Silas come home from work and take Cleod to the ER. He ended up being fine, but did have some swollen lymph nodes, so it was good that he had a day at home to rest.

 

Cleod with wristband after
he got home from the ER.

While Cleod and Silas were at the hospital, Ryan was very worried. He is a worrier. He cried and told me that he didn't want anything to happen to Cleod and that he didn't want to be the oldest. He said he couldn't imagine life without Cleod. It was so sweet.

 

Silas is so sweet too. I am so lucky to have him. He came home right away when I called and took time from work to help us. He was really patient and loving to Cleod too.



Grant, happy to be feeling a little better.

Luckily, a package from my mom showed up today which had some things that we forgot at her house during Christmas. We had left our newly purchased Star Wars DVDs there and the kids hadn't seen A New Hope or Empire Strikes Back so we watched them! It was fun for me too because I haven't seen those for years.

Another important item that was in the package was the last Dark Chocolate Covered Peppermint Joe Joe's from Trader Joe's. It is part of our Christmas Miracle. :)
We went to Darin and Nicolle's house in Bountiful earlier in December. One of their neighbors had given them a package of these cookies and we tried them. They are basically my favorite cookie now. They are like Girl Scout Thin Mints goodness times 10!  We don't have a Trader Joe's in Cedar so I asked my mom if she would look in Las Vegas. She did and they were sold out at two different stores. She asked Annie (my aunt in Phoenix) to check her store and they were sold out there as well. Apparently others believe in the goodness of these Joe Joe's as much as I do.
So just before Christmas when my mom was volunteering in the Las Vegas Temple during her weekly shift, she mentioned it to a lady she was serving with. My mom had no idea, but this particular lady bought a case of these cookies every season and brought her LAST BOX with her to the temple just because she felt like she should. She got it out of her clothing locker and gave it to my mom!!! This may seem so silly and was not an important issue, but it was a Christmas Miracle for me nonetheless.


The last one, with a few nibbles taken out.

And luckily, there was one left in the box (that I FORGOT) and my nice mom wrapped it up safe for me to send with a few other items and I got to enjoy the dark chocolate goodness once more.

Back to blogging! Here we come, 2016!!!

I am determined to start blogging again. It will be more of a journal style this time, trying to get something written about every day but posting once a week or so.

Friday, January 1st

We started our New Year with a visit from the Fire Department!

The kids had been up for a while, but Silas and I were lying in bed, trying to get a little more sleep and enjoying a day off of normal life. Then the CO2 alarm went off and said there was lots of carbon monoxide in house. We were pretty sure it was a fluke, but we called the fire department to come check it out. (Note: This is not the first time we have had them come check our house. We have had issues with smoke detectors for a long time, so this was probably the 4th visit. Sheesh.)

LEGO time!

While we were waiting for them, we hurriedly got dressed and went outside to hang out in the van. By the time they looked through the house with their monitors and decided that the CO2 detector was just not working right, we decided to head out for some breakfast. Maybe it will be a new New Year's tradition? IHOP was a success since the kids ate EVERYTHING. With full bellies we headed back home for some laziness.


My girls and I while we were watching Into the Woods.

We got out LEGOS and Silas helped the kids organize all the Mini-Figs. It was pretty funny because I am usually the weird organizer of the LEGOS. We had a good time. We played a few of our new games from Christmas, the kids took turns playing games on the tablet and a few of them did some watercolor painting.

To finish the night, we rented Into the Woods which was a funny, strange and interesting movie. It reminded me of one of my roommates, Julieann, from college who loved the play. Good times.


Saturday, January 2nd

After Saturday chores and some lunch, Silas took the boys to the new Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens. They really enjoyed it and I am anxious to see it myself.


Sunday, January 3rd

With the new year, our church time has changed to 1pm. But we woke up and got ready for church at 9am today for Ronan Warby's baby blessing. I'm pretty proud to say that I got all the kids ready while Silas was at his weekly Stake High Council meetings and got to Steven and Katie's ward building before 9am!! Silas was able to make it for the blessing but then headed back to more meetings while we joined the Warbys at the firehouse for lunch. The kids enjoyed running around and I visited with Jamie, Katie and Alyson. Deruchette was home sick.

We came back home and waited until our 2nd block started at church, not really wanting to have the kids sit through another Sacrament meeting. The kids have new Primary teachers, which is always exciting. I taught in Young Women's about the Godhead and I think it went well. I had the girls write down some things they knew and some questions they had and we talked about them and read some scriptures to support what we were talking about. I am very thankful for my calling and for the Gospel.

Next week we will see how the later church time works out. I am a little concerned about having things for the kids to do in the morning that will help them to still keep the Sabbath. We shall see.


Monday, January 4th

Back to school today! I love having my kids home, but it's nice to be back to a routine too. The girls and I headed to the gym after taking boys to school and then did our normal Monday stuff: laundry, cleaning recovery from weekend (mostly the main level) and having the Huff boys over in the afternoon. Megan stayed some of the time and we had a good visit. She is the one that has inspired me to start blogging again so that I can have a history of our crazy family at this crazy time of our lives.

The normal schedule was interrupted by Ryan coming home early from school. He said his stomach hurt and I mostly thought it was anxiety because he was supposed to have braces put on tomorrow. But as the evening went on, he threw up and we realized that he had a stomach bug. Grant started saying his stomach hurt too, so for Family Home Evening we watched a movie. We watched Tomorrowland, a recent Disney movie. The kids mostly sat through it, but it wasn't their favorite.

Cleod did have piano lessons today. His awesome teacher, Peggy, gives them treats as an incentive to practice. They get double points for performing in public and since his recital was on Dec. 14th, he got double treats today and picked one of them just for me. He does this regularly actually. Sometimes he picks out things that Silas likes too, or something he can share with his siblings. He has a very generous soul.

Molly moment: This evening Molly told us that her "tummy hurt" while she was holding her forehead. We told her that it was her head and she said, "Oh. My head hurts." I love the stage she's in where she can totally communicate but doesn't speak in full sentences yet. She is so smart but still our baby.

Pregnancy #5

I decided the other night that I need to use my family blog a little bit more. I haven't written as much because I post pictures on Facebook, I write in my journal a few times a month, and I have a family history blog and a self-reliance blog that I regularly use.

And that's besides all the normal mom/wife/person stuff I do every day.

Anyway, I wanted to write a little bit about my current pregnancy.

First of all, since a few weeks before delivering my 4th baby (Cora), I knew that we had at least one more child coming to our family. I just knew there was another one.

In the first year of Cora's life, Silas and I both had experiences that someone was missing. I have heard people say things like this but never thought I would feel that way myself.

I am VERY grateful that we had these feelings during that time, because after Cora turned two I started to get TIRED. In April 2012, I had some blood work done and found that one of my hormone levels was way low. There is treatment for it, but it is something that CANNOT be taken while trying to get pregnant. Because we knew that we wanted to try soon for baby #5, I decided to wait on the treatment. I was working out regularly which actually helped with the fatigue and just knowing what was going on helped me to deal with feeling tired.

After a few months of trying, we were able to get pregnant. Unfortunately, I sprained my ankle badly just a few days before I found out I was pregnant. That was in mid-September and it wasn't until December that I could use my foot again regularly. So, the whole exercising thing kinda when out the window. (Plus, I am paranoid about working out while I'm pregnant because I almost lost my 3rd at 9 weeks due to working out. But that's another story.)

So, the fatigue has continued throughout my pregnancy. Morning sickness, luckily, only lasted until about week 11. And I don't feel tired ALL the time, but when I do, I CRASH. I am also not very nice when I am extra tired which has effected my kids during the last few months.

Silas has had a hard time physically due to some changes we tried with his arthritis meds during this pregnancy.

So maybe we're done...

Honestly, I don't know yet.

What I do know is that I am trying to enjoy the things that I love about pregnancy. The main thing is feeling this little girl move around inside me. It amazes me every day that my body can grow a PERSON and that she's alive in there and already being crazy like her siblings. (Seriously, she is my MOST active baby in the womb so far!)

I am trying to be patient and praying that the next 52 days until my due date will go smoothly and quickly. Compared to some, I have had an easy pregnancy and I am grateful for that.