Multitasking FAIL, Blackmail Pictures, Barf-o-rama Week, Christmas, and 1st Haircut

We were getting ready to go out as a family the other day and I had gotten the older three boys dressed and ready, but hadn't gotten Sarah or Noah dressed yet.  Aaron got home from work and I handed him Noah and Sarah's clothes for him to get them dressed while I got dressed.  While I was getting dressed I was talking to Aaron.  Now if you know Aaron he has a hard time multitasking.  He tells me he has had difficulty with multitasking his whole life and he reminds me of this every time I give him more than one order at a time.  Anyway, I guess talking and dressing the kids proved to be too much multitasking for him.  He wasn't paying attention and this is what happened:

Aaron dressed poor Noah up in Sarah's clothes.  Of course Noah doesn't care at this point what he wears, but I think this will be a great blackmail picture for when he gets older--hee-hee.  We all got a good laugh about that especially Matthew, Josh and Daniel.  They thought it was extremely funny.  

In trying to get Christmas presents all finished I wanted to take some pictures of the kids.  I attempted this the morning of December 22.  Now trying to get 5 kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time appears to be mission impossible.  While I was trying to accomplish this impossible task Noah kept crying and crying.  I couldn't get him to be happy to save my life.  I tried feeding him cereal bits, but even that didn't work to make him happy.  I found out why he was so cranky about 30 seconds after this picture was taken.  I picked Noah up only to have him spew forth all his stomach contents and then some all over me and the carpet stairs--EWWW!!  Sarah and Matthew need to thank me because just seconds after this picture was taken was when he barfed all over me and not them since I had just picked him up.

Little did I know that this episode began Barf-o-rama week.  Noah barfed all day and then Sarah started barfing that night.  By the next day, though, everyone seemed happy enough, but we stayed home just to be on the safe side.  Since no one got sick on the 23rd I thought we were out of the woods.  On Christmas Eve, we went and had our traditional family dinner at my Bryan and Michonne's (my brother and sister in law's) house.  We had a yummy dinner and visited for a while.  The kids even rolled out, baked, frosted and decorated sugar cookies.  I was in charge of bringing some Daniel friendly cookie dough since regular dough usually contains milk and eggs.  Now finding a decent sugar cookie recipe that doesn't need eggs or milk is hard to do, but I did it.  I found a really good vegan sugar cookie dough recipe online that calls for tofu.  I know it sounds weird, but amazingly enough you couldn't taste the tofu in the cookies.  I am excited to have finally found a good Daniel friendly vegan sugar cookie recipe--WAHOO!!  Anyway, we spent most of the afternoon at their house visiting and making cookies so Sarah and Noah missed naptime.  When we did leave and got home Noah walked in the kitchen, laid down and didn't move because he was so tired.  What a funny kid!  He stayed there until I went to pick him up while later.

When we did get home from Bryan and Michonne's house we got all the kids dressed in their warm clothes and headed over to the Ogden Christmas Village to look at the lights with G&G T.

Let me say it was COLD!!  By the end we were frozen, but I think everyone liked it.  However, I am really glad that we had four adults to help herd all the kids because it was pretty busy.  At one point Sarah wandered off and we were frantically looking for her.  Grandma saw her pink coat from behind and went to pick her up.  That's when a lady called out to her, "Hey that's my little girl!"  Sure enough the little girl in the pink coat turned around and it was NOT Sarah.  Grandma was just trying to kidnap another kidlet for us I guess :).  Anyway, we finally did find Sarah, but lost her a few more times as the night went on.  She is a stinker.  She refuses to hold hands, but doesn't stay with us either.  It is a nightmare to try and keep track of everyone especially the likes of Sarah since she wants to do her own thing all the time.  Like I said it is like herding cats--all of them have their own ideas and want to do their own thing.  We really will be in trouble when Noah becomes mobile because we have our hands full with the four mobile ones we already have!!

When we got home we got the kids out of their coats and hats.  Noah's hair became pretty staticky and had some pretty spooky hair when I took off his hat:

We then let the kids open up their one token Christmas Eve gift of pajamas.  Noah quite didn't get what to do so he needed some help.

Here's everyone in their Christmas jammies:

The next morning the kids were chomping at the bit to come and see their loot at 6am--YAWN!!  We were up late into the night putting together Sarah's play house.  Geez--who knew it would be that complicated!  We had to wait to put it together since we didn't have room to store it fully assembled without her seeing it before Christmas.  Anyway, that morning we had them line up in the hallway and then said, "GO!"  They ran down the stairs, but of course, Josh, the ham, always has time to pose for a picture.  Sarah is in the mix in the hallway, even if you can't see her.

Everyone took turns opening up their presents:

Noah needed help at the beginning, but he caught on the whole ripping the paper thing by the end of the morning.

Matthew got his beloved vacuum.  What 10 year old kid asks Santa for a vacuum?!  He has loved it, though.  He would even sit on his bed laying next to his vacuum and just turn it on and off.  He was pretty excited to open that present up.  Since then he has been pretty good about keeping his room picked up so he can vacuum at any time.  We did have to implement some rules, though--like no vacuuming past 7 pm or before 6 am and no vacuuming while Noah and Sarah are having a nap.  He has the cleanest room in the whole house!

Sarah got a play house.  She loves playing with it, too since recently she has really gotten into imaginary play.

Daniel even played with the play house when he thought no one was looking.  Little did he know I had the camera handy--hee-hee.  Another blackmail pic for later on--I can't wait!

All the kids got a foam sword and we have had many a duel.  Good thing the foam swords are soft because I have been smacked upside the head quite a few times.

Josh got his much loved present at the very end and was pretty excited after he opened it.  He wanted an iPad, but since that wasn't in Santa's budget he ended up getting an iTouch instead.  He was pretty excited.

Everyone had a pretty good Christmas until that afternoon when the Barf-o-Rama party started back up.  It started with Daniel that afternoon and spread to Aaron.  They both were sick through the night.  Josh started barfing about 10pm and barfed all night long as well.  It is never a pleasant task to carpet clean let alone doing it multiple times--even at midnight because Josh decided barfing all over the carpet was much better than barfing in the barf bucket.  I did so many loads of laundry because they also decided barfing on their bedding was great, too.  Ewwww!  I so do not do well with vomit!!  Usually Aaron takes care of the vomit cleanup while I take care of the kid cleanup, but since Aaron was sick he couldn't help me much.  YUCK!!The next day everyone was slowly recuperating and starting to feel better.  Then Matthew started hurling that night.  The poor kid at least made it to the bathroom, but didn't get the toilet lid up in time--EWW!!  Matthew got it the worst because his lasted a few days before he started feeling better.  Luckily for me I never got it.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that I don't get it either!!  I have cleaned up way too much barf in the last few days so I am hoping that I don't have to clean up my own!!  Ewww!

I finally decided a few days ago that it was time for Noah's first haircut.  I had been holding off because he is my last baby so this will be my last first hair cut ever and that makes me sad.  But looking at the poor shaggy kid he truly needed a haircut in the worst way as you can see in his before picture: 

He was pretty tolerant of the shaver which was amazing because the rest of the boys just screamed through their first haircuts.  For some reason I didn't take an after pic, but he looks cute even if he does look bald.  My baby is getting so big **sniff sniff**!!

Pitching Practice at Church, Seizures, Gardner Village, Hay Ride

I will try and catch up from last Tuesday night since a lot of things have happened.  Tuesday night was Pack Meeting so Aaron took Josh and Matthew.  Matthew loves to be a helper in any way, shape or form.  It's a good thing we have laid back cub scout leaders because it would be really hard for Matthew if we didn't.  Matthew, of course, tries to take charge and to conduct the meeting.  They were going to have a flag ceremony but couldn't find the flag to use.  When they couldn't find the flag they decided to skip the ceremony, but Matthew wouldn't hear of it.  He went ahead and made everyone do the full ceremony even when there wasn't a flag to Pledge Allegiance to.  Afterward they played a few games where Matthew and Josh got a big box of Milk Duds.  Josh, of course, ate his right away.  Matthew held on to his and brought them home.  That was his big mistake because as soon as Matthew got home and put the box down on the table, Noah crawled up on the table and shoved full handfuls of Milk Duds into his mouth.  By the time anyone saw what was happening half the Milk Duds were gone and Noah was a huge chipmunk cheeked (still full of Milk Duds) chocolate/caramel, drooly mess.  Good thing Matthew is pretty good about sharing so he didn't get too upset with Noah.  

Wednesday  I needed to go and take care of my traffic ticket that I had gotten a few weeks ago.  It, unfortunately, was down in Salt Lake and the Justice Court was only open between 1-4:30 pm.  That meant I had to leave as soon as Aaron got home from work.  Before I left to go down to Salt Lake I got a call from McKay Dee hospital saying that they were out of Josh's seizure rescue medication that the neurologist had called in and that they couldn't fill the prescription.  Now this new rescue medication is only filled at a few specialized pharmacies.  McKay Dee's pharmacy was the closest to our house so since they couldn't fill it we had to go down to Primary Children's Hospital pharmacy.  That worked out great because I just happened to be going down to Salt Lake that afternoon so I could go and pick it up on my way home.  I went down to take care of my traffic ticket which is such a rip off!!  I had to pay for my ticket as well as traffic school which is held this next upcoming Wednesday night.  That means, yet another trip down to finish taking care of this stupid ticket!  Anyway, after paying my fines I headed up to Primary's to pick up the medication.  I walked in to the pharmacy and they had the prescription ready to go.  As they handed it over to me they were explaining how to use it.  If Josh has a seizure lasting more than 5 minutes without a break I have to squirt this medication in his nose through a special nasal mister and call 911 because after 5 minutes a seizure becomes life threatening.  They took the syringe out and showed me basically what to do and how to attach the nasal mister part.  Now I have heard this before, but for some reason this time it really scared me.  I held myself together long enough to get out of the pharmacy before I started getting panicky and teary eyed.  Then I started having a pity party for myself as I was walking down the hallway to get to the parking garage.  I was thinking, "This is so scary--seizures can be life threatening!! Why Josh?  Why me?  Why does my family have it so hard?  This is so unfair! "  However, my line of thinking was stopped immediately as I passed by a little girl about Josh's age who was completely bald surrounded by her family.  She was undergoing cancer treatments and probably would have to spend Christmas in the hospital.  At that point I had a reality check and a change of heart.  I realized that things could ALWAYS be worse.  That made me grateful that my trials aren't that bad and that I should be thankful my kids are as healthy as they are.  I can't imagine spending Christmas in the hospital with a very sick child. I made it home in the late afternoon.  I walked in the house to find Josh just shivering under a huge, heavy blanket.  I felt his head which was quite hot.  I grabbed the thermometer and took Josh's temperature to find it was a whopping 103.3 degrees.  Eeegad!!  We quickly gave him some ibuprofen and Tylenol to bring the fever down.  A fever really lowers the seizure threshold making it a lot easier to someone with epilepsy to have a seizure.  Which is scary especially with Josh!!  Anyway, about dinner time his temperature had dropped to 100.5 so we were happy with that...considering.  After a quick dinner Aaron gathered up the garbages from the house to take outside since Thursday morning is our garbage day.  In walking the trash cans out to the curb Aaron found our next door neighbor crying outside.  He asked if she needed help and she ended up telling him her troubles which were awful.  She had just gotten home from work to find a huge letter taped to her door from the city telling her that her water had just been turned off for nonpayment of her water bill.  After she found that letter a guy pulled up and gave her an envelope from her ex husbands attorney telling her he was seeking sole custody of their two daughters because she was a terrible mother.  She was quite distraught.  Aaron tried to talk to her, but didn't know what to say.  He ended up coming inside our house and told me what had just happened.  He wanted to offer her access to our bathroom and shower since she couldn't use hers, but he wanted me to go and tell her.  He thought it would be a little creepy to have the next door neighbor guy offer a single woman to use his shower.  I agreed that it would indeed be quite creepy, but that meant I would have to be the one to go over and talk to her.  That about sent me into another panic attack since I am so shy and this type of thing is so out of my league.  I swallowed my shyness and social awkwardness and headed over and knocked on her door before I lost my resolve.  She answered and was just crying.  I felt horrible for her.  She was trying to read the whole document her  ex husband's attorney had sent over, but couldn't see through her tears.  I didn't know what to do so I gave her a hug and she just sobbed on my shoulder for a while.  I offered her access to our shower and bathroom, but she said she would be staying with her aunt until she could get things resolved.  As I walked back over to our house, again, I was humbled by how many blessings I have and knew that even if I think I have it bad, someone ALWAYS has it worse. 

When I got home we decided to have Josh sleep in our room on the floor to listen out for any trouble we may have during the night since he had such a high fever.  Of course Daniel didn't want to sleep by himself downstairs so he had to come sleep on the floor with Josh, too.  Sarah wanted to join the sleepover party in our room and kept sneaking out of her room into ours when we weren't looking--the little stinker.  Boy Josh and Daniel are the noisiest sleepers which made sleeping hard for Aaron and me.  During the night Josh did end up having a seizure about 3 am, but it wasn't a very big one.  However, it is a bit troubling since he currently is on three medications for seizures and he still had one.  We finally got him up to the lowest therapeutic dose of the Trileptal Saturday night.  He is supposed to go a week without having any seizures and if he does that we can start weaning him off the Keppra.  SCARY!!  At least I have the emergency rescue meds if there is a problem...that should be a comforting thing, but it's not.  I just have to keep thinking it can always be worse, it can always be worse, it can always be worse...Luckily, Josh's fever broke that night and he woke up feeling great.  What a random fever!!

Thursday morning Noah had his evaluation with Early Intervention.  It was at 9 am so I really had to work hard to make sure all the kids were up and ready to go that morning.  I had about 15 minutes to shower and get myself ready so I hurried and hopped in the shower.  I didn't want to shower Noah or Sarah because I really didn't have much time.  However, Noah came in the bathroom and screamed by the side of the shower until I undressed him and put him in.  Next thing I know a naked Sarah is crawling over the tub to get in the shower, too.  The disconcerting thing is she had a poopy diaper that I hadn't had a chance to change.  That meant she had taken it off and left somewhere--AWESOME!  She so needs to be potty trained!!  Anyway, since it was a party in the shower I was a few minutes late in getting Noah to be evaluated.  After all the testing, it was not unexpected, but still I was upset to learn that he was developmentally delayed enough to require services.  Getting that news as well as not sleeping the whole night before and knowing Josh had had another seizure was more than I could handle and I started to cry.  Since I don't cry very often it really bothers the kids when they see me cry.  Sarah gave me lots of loves and kept asking if I had an owie or if the dinosaur had scared me.  Daniel went and got me a drink without me even asking him because he thought I needed one.   Even Matthew came over and gave me loves for a minute.  That night Josh surprised us by leaving Aaron and me our Christmas present that he had made in school on our pillows to help me feel better.  I really do have some sweet kids for all the trouble they give me ;)!  

Speaking of trouble Noah is a little stinker when it comes to eating.  You can only give him one mouthful of food at time a time on his tray or he will throw the extra on the floor.  I forgot this rule last night as I gave him a little spaghetti and meatballs.  Next thing I know I have cut up meatballs flying past my plate because Noah had more than he could eat and started throwing his food.  What a mess.  There was spaghetti splattered on the wall, floor, Noah and me since I sit the closest to him at the table.  What a stinker!

Noah has also been practicing his pitching at church as well.  Last week during Sunday School he got a ball out of the diaper bag.  When he was done playing with it he threw it.  I tried to grab it before it hit someone.  Unfortunately instead of grabbing it I ended up hitting it sending it flying across the room.  How embarrassing!!  It got passed back to me from a few rows away.  I quickly put it away hoping that not too many people saw, but how could you not see a ball flying through the air in the middle of a Sunday School lesson?!  Yesterday during sacrament meeting Noah was playing with a toy truck.  When he finished with it instead of giving it to me he threw it full force at the guy behind me hitting him right in the shoulder.  I put the car away, but somehow Noah got a hold of it again and when he was done playing with it he launched it and hit the guy sitting in front of us this time.  What a stinker!

Friday night was Sarah's dance recital.  The dance teacher recommended putting makeup on the girls to make them stand out a little more.  Of course Sarah was more than happy to let me put makeup on her.  She was excited I was putting it on her instead of her sneaking into my makeup and putting it on herself.  She was excited to "color" her eyes with the pencil (eyeliner), have some lip gloss put on and to have some blush put on.  She was even more excited to have her fingernails and toenails painted.  I LOVE having a girly girl!  Here she is letting me do whatever I want girly wise the afternoon before her recital:

Here she is with her costume and makeup:

I can't figure out how to post the video of her performance, but when I do I will post that.  Here is a picture of her doing one of her two dances:  (she is on the very end with her hands up by her face)

  Here is the final bow of everyone that participated in the performance:

Sarah's eyeliner got smeared a little bit since she did not want me to leave her backstage with her teacher before the performance and cried a bit.  She did great.  I can't wait to see her next recital in May.  The three year old class is so fun to watch!!  We were also glad G&G T were able to come and see her perform.  Everything was great until we got ready to leave only to find the people sitting behind us had spilled their coffee all over everyone's coats and bags.  Doh!!  Oh well nothing that a washing machine can't handle, right?!

Saturday we decided to head down to Gardner Village to check out their Christmas decorations.  We wandered around the shops and thankfully, no one broke anything!  Phew!  We did pass by a candy store and decided to go in.  In looking around it reminded me of when my mom took us kids shopping at the mall.  She would stop by the candy counter at ZCMI first and let us each pick out $0.25 worth of candy to keep us entertained and occupied while she shopped.  We decided to let our kids do the same.  They were so excited to pick out what they wanted.  However, it was mass chaos because all the kids wanted to get their stuff all at the same time.  When each kid had gotten their bag of candy they went and stood in line to buy it.  While we were in line I asked Aaron where Noah was.  He thought Noah was with me and I thought Noah was with him.  About that time Noah came wandering over to us with both of his hands full of candy and some in his mouth.  In all the chaos of helping all the other kids Noah helped himself to a bin of taffy.  The taffy in his mouth he hadn't bothered to unwrap it and was eating it wrapper and all.  Yummy!  We pried the other taffies from his hands and put them back which didn't make him very happy, but you gotta do what you gotta do right?!  When we got up to pay we noticed they wouldn't take any credit card/debit card payments under $5.  Uh-oh because we didn't have any cash.  Aaron and I decided to help out the cause and bought a couple bucks worth of egg nog fudge.  It was a small sacrifice to make :)!  The candy made everyone happy and the fudge was divine!!  It was a fun little trip!  Here's the kids showing off their bags of candy:

 Later that night we went to Burger Stop in Layton and rode the hayride over to look at the Layton City lights.  They were so pretty.  It was quite chilly, but we all had fun!

 Waiting in line to get our hay ride tickets at Burger Stop they had Santa there.  The kids wanted to tell Santa what they wanted except Noah who was NOT happy to be put on Santa's lap:

 Sarah wasn't too happy about it either:

 Josh finally got a chance to tell Santa he wanted an iPad.  Aaron and I about choked when we heard that.

 Matthew, just like last time, didn't even let Santa get a word in edgewise as he immediately started into his list of wants.

 Daniel was just happy to be there.

 It was a fun weekend.  I can't believe how close Christmas is getting.  I need to get in gear and start my wrapping as I haven't done a thing with it.  Also be thinking and keeping Josh in your prayers this week, too.  He has finally gotten up to the therapeutic dose of Trileptal and needs to go a week being seizure free before we can start weaning him off the Keppra.  That means he will be sleeping on the floor of our room this week so we can listen and make sure he is not having seizures throughout the night.  That also means Aaron and I will not be getting much sleep since Josh and Daniel are some of the noisiest sleepers EVER!!  What a crazy time, but we are hoping for the best!

Uncontrolled Nocturnal Seizures, Our Day Off, Another Incentive for Potty Training...

Thursday night I was not very tired so I stayed up to read after Aaron went to bed.  It was about 11 pm and the house was so quiet.  This rental house is so small that you can hear anything and everything from anywhere.  While I was reading I heard Josh thrashing around in his bed.  I quickly put my book down and ran downstairs to check on him.  Sure enough he was in the middle of a seizure.  When he came out of it I started talking to him and he sat up in bed and had another one.  This is very disturbing since we upped his medication (Keppra) about three weeks ago to the maximum dose that his body could handle.  I was quite upset because his previous seizures had been in the morning which is more understandable because that's when the night time medication dose should be wearing off.  However, these seizures happened about 11:00 pm--only four hours after he got his nighttime dose.  I have been pretty upset because this is about what happened right before his hospitalization for uncontrolled seizures two years ago.  I am really scared his seizures are going to become out of control again.  I called the neurologists office the next morning and had to leave a message and wait for her to call me back.  Waiting was torture because it took her until the afternoon to have her nurse call us back.  When talking to the nurse, the nurse said that Shari, his neurology PA, wanted to start him on a third medication called Depakote.  Well, unfortunately, they tried Depakote during his hospital stay two years ago and it didn't even touch his seizures.  We told her that so she had to go back and talk to Shari to figure something else out.  Again the waiting was torturous!  Finally they called us back and decided to start him on a medication called Trileptal.    The new medication wasn't for his particular type of seizures, but they decided to try it anyway to see what would happen.  They also told me that although Trileptal is an antiseizure medication, in a small percentage of patients who take it, Trileptal can actually make seizures A LOT worse.  Great...no stress, right?!  We have to start slowly to get his Trileptal level to get built up in his system.  The extremely scary part is once his Trileptal is in his system at the lowest recommended dose we are going to start weaning him off the Keppra and then wait to see what happens.  I am scared to death.  For one thing the Trileptal isn't for his particular seizure type, another thing they are starting him out at the lowest level and then they are weaning him off the Keppra.  I am so afraid his seizures are going to get out of control.  I am just praying he doesn't start having seizures at school!  That's the last thing that the "new kid" needs at school is to have everyone see him having a seizure.  However, I must say that I am a little relieved to get him off the Keppra.  Ever since he went on the Keppra two years ago he hasn't been the completely happy, carefree Josh he was.  The Keppra made him quite depressed, emotional, and aggressive.  I am sorry to say that Josh probably has some predisposition to depression since it runs in my family--my grandfather had to be hospitalized for depression years ago and I have struggled with a few mild bouts of it myself, I didn't like the fact that the Keppra brought that out in him.  I won't be sorry to see him off that medication.  I am just extremely scared his hard to control seizures will get harder to get under control.  We did get a new form of rescue medication for Josh for any seizures lasting longer than five minutes which is nice.  His old rescue medicine you had to give  with a syringe in his bum since a seizure patient can't take anything by mouth.  The new form of rescue medication is a nasal mist which you only have to squirt up their nose if they have a seizure lasting longer than five minutes.  That's much better than needing to pull down their pants to access their bum.  I think Josh would appreciate that much better, too--I know I would since the old medication was $250.00 which is our out of pocket portion after insurance and the new medication is only 1/10th the price at $25.00.  The ole wallet will breath a sigh of relief--that's for sure!!

Anyway, I held myself together pretty well during all this chaos.  That is until I called my Mom Friday afternoon to let her know what was going on.  Once I heard her on the phone and she started to give me sympathy after hearing what was going on with Josh I broke down and cried and cried because I was so upset.  I felt bad because she was still at work and was supposed to be working not listening to her crying daughter.  Since there is not much that can be done other than watching and waiting to see if Josh's seizures get worse, she offered to watch the kids for us Saturday so Aaron and I could have a break from all the stress since I was nearing my breaking point of what I could emotionally handle.  Jeez, between hearing the bad news about Matthew's testing, Josh's seizures, Daniel having a horrible allergic reaction Sunday night, building a house and Noah's developmental delays I am hanging on by a thread to my sanity.  Anyway, Saturday turned out being a wonderful break.  We got the kids up and ready and drove them down to G&G T's house for the day.  We dropped off the kids, traded cars with G&G T (since the Suburban is the only car that will hold all the kids at the same time), and headed back up to our neck of the woods to enjoy some time off.  We enjoyed our day off.  We spent the time looking at lighting since the lighting lady lost our order two times.  It was nice to do that without kids!  While we were looking at ceiling fans at Lowe's Aaron saw this nerdy snow blowing contraption with a body cover and thought he'd take a test run.  What a nerd!! 

We also went out to lunch at Noodles and Company--a place I have wanted to try for a while, but can't since they don't have anything Daniel friendly.  We then went Christmas shopping to finish up with all the kids.  It was so nice to do all this without any distractions or worries.  G&G T brought the kids back up that evening.  They were very brave because they ended up taking all the kids to All a Dollar to let them pick out a few things.  Then they took all the kids out to lunch at Golden Corral--that's something Aaron and I rarely dare do because it so crazy with 5 kids even if there are two adults!  The kids all had fun and I think G&G T did to even if it wore them both out.  G&G T got a little nervous when we dropped off the kids since I had to give her Josh's emergency meds and Daniel's Epi Pen.  After we left Noah was quite upset and screamed by their back door for over an hour because he was so upset we left.  I never leave Noah so he is not used to being without me.  However, after we dropped the kids off and left it was a nice break from all our worries.  I now feel refreshed and am almost ready to handle the very stressful upcoming couple of weeks as we make the transitions between the seizure medications.  It is always so hard to wait and see especially if you are watching for something horrible like seizures.  We had a special family fast on Sunday so hopefully things can transition smoothly for everyone!  I am on pins and needles just watching and waiting...

 Anyway, I made Daniel friendly vegan chocolate cake balls last week.  Daniel loved them.  He loved them so much he wrote me a note to tell me.

Let me decipher, "MOM From. Daniel  Mom Ch you For Maked Ches KaK Dols"  It says basically thank you for making the chocolate cake balls.  He is so sweet.  He is a great charmer and I worry for the ladies when  he gets to dating age.  If he writes them sweet notes like this he will have them all eating out of his hand like he has me!

In other happenings Noah is getting really good at making the sign for 'more' especially when he sees Aaron or me eating something he wants.  He also is getting really good at waving bye bye or goodnight.  I am loving it. 

We still have Noah's Early Intervention appointment on Thursday for his testing since he is so delayed in his development.  I am hoping that goes alright. 

We did make it to church on Sunday and amazingly enough we all had a good day and were able to stay for the full three meetings.  That makes any Sunday a good day!  However, Noah still must have been traumatized from me leaving him the previous day because he didn't last longer than 5 minutes in nursery until the nursery leader brought him to me in Relief Society.  Noah was screaming, arching his back and not letting anyone hold him in nursery so they had to bring him to me.  Once I picked him up he immediately stopped crying and was a happy guy.  At least he knows what he wants and how to get it--he really is learning from Sarah isn't he?!  I think I may be in trouble especially after what Sarah has done just this morning.  I showered Noah and Sarah this morning and when they were finished I got them out.  I dried off Sarah and tried to put on her diaper and she ran away from me.  I decided I would catch her in a minute after I dried off Noah and put his diaper on.  While I was drying off Noah on our bed Sarah crawled up on the bed, too, but stayed just out of my reach.  I finished putting Noah's diaper on when Sarah came over to me saying, "I poopy."  Now I never like hearing this and it's even worse when I no she is on my bed and has no diaper on.  I put Noah down and started searching for where Sarah had taken care of business.  Lucky (or unlucky--however, you want to look at it) Sarah had not pooped on my bed, but had peed all over it.  Thankfully she took care of business on Aaron's side of the bed up by his pillow.  She must have really had to go because that was one HUGE wet spot.  YUCK!!  Needless to say I got to wash sheets today and I am truly thankful for the Sanitary option on my washing machine!!!  She so needs to be potty trained!! 

Also last week Josh forgot his homework so being the nice Mom I sometimes can be I decided to take it to him so he could turn it in and get credit for it.  Unfortunately that meant I had to take Sarah and Noah along with me to do it.  Sarah had woken up on the WRONG side of the bed and so ornery.  When I got to the school I got the kids out of the car and started walking into the school.  I must have been walking too fast for Sarah because when I got to the door I turned around and saw her dawdling clear back by the car.  Once she saw how far away I was she started crying and telling me to wait while she ran to catch up to me.  We finally made it inside the building and I walked over to Josh's classroom.  Well the classroom wasn't exactly where I thought it was so we had to turn around.  For some reason turning around really upset Sarah and she had a complete, screaming tantrum in the middle of the hallway.  I had to put Noah down to pick her up to give her loves.  Since Noah had his big puffy coat on he was pretty unsteady.  We unsteadly walked over and ran into the wall and fell down.  He got really upset and started crying in the middle of the hallway.  I had to put Sarah back down to pick him up to give him loves.  That upset Sarah all over again and she started screaming all over again.  I gave up and headed to the office and gave them Josh's folder and tried to leave the school with two screaming kids in tow.  I was carrying Noah out to the car and Sarah was mad that I wasn't carrying her so she wouldn't walk by me and stayed screaming up by the front school doors.  I was watching her as I was carrying Noah out to the car and wasn't watching where I was going.  I ended up running Noah face first into a tree since I was watching Sarah instead of watching where I was going.  Noah started crying.  I was starting to get quite frustrated at this point.  I buckled a crying Noah into his carseat then I had to go and pick up a tantruming Sarah and fight/carry her all the way out to the car.  She fought me the whole time I was trying to buckle her in her carseat.  After this "fun" outing I headed home because I didn't dare go anywhere else with two very cranky kids!  What a morning.  The crazy thing is Josh didn't even care that I got his homework to him.  Oh the unappreciated life of a Mom!! 

As Josh starts into the crazy time of switching up medications these next few weeks, please keep us in your prayers because I think we are all going to need them...

IEPs, Monkey Boy, Toddler Bed and Tantrums Galore

Let me start with Sunday. We had quite an adventurous Sunday at church. Aaron made me take Noah to nursery. When I handed him off to the nursery leader he was NOT happy. We hurried and left because by us being where Noah could see us it wasn't helping him. He did calm down eventually, but he wouldn't let the nursery worker put him down. He finally fell asleep in her arms. She made a soft bed and tried to lay him down, but that woke him up and he was quite angry. They had to finally bring him to me during Sunday school because he wouldn't stop crying. It also happened to be Fast and Testimony meeting which is Matthew's favorite week since he can go up and bear his testimony in the microphone during Sacrament meeting. Without fail as soon as it was time for bearing testimonies Matthew ran up to the pulpit to bear his testimony. He HAS to be the first person every month. Another lady in the ward stood up to bear her testimony when he finished. During her testimony Josh and Daniel decided they wanted to go up as well. Aaron, who was sitting on the end of the bench, let them both go up at the same time--BIG MISTAKE!! When Matthew finished his testimony he came running down the aisle to come and sit back down with us and asked, "Did I do a good job?" rather loudly like he does every time. Matthew gets so excited about it! What a funny boy! Meantime the lady was bearing her testimony while Josh and Daniel were sitting behind her in the front row of the stand. She took awhile so Josh and Daniel got restless and started switching chairs and goofing off. Daniel then started waving at me. About this time Noah started wandering out in the aisle and wouldn't be contained without screaming so Aaron took him out to the foyer. That left me sitting on the bench with just Sarah. While I was watching Josh and Daniel goof off on the stand I was trying to send dagger looks to let them know what they were doing was not ok. Of course the didn't stop. Sarah followed my gaze and saw Josh and Daniel up on the stand and wanted to go join them. She kept telling me, "I need go get Daniel." while pointing at him. I kept telling her no, but she doesn't take no for answer EVER. She forced her way out into the aisle and I grabbed the back of her dress so she couldn't run up to the stand. She got mad and threw herself to the ground and started screaming until I let go. She stood up again and I grabbed the back of her dress again and she, again, threw herself to the ground and started screaming. About this time I decided I needed to take her out. I stood up and she figured out what I was doing so she threw herself to the ground and started really screaming because she didn't want to be taken out. I tried to grab her to pick her up, but she started rolling around so I couldn't get a grip on her. I finally grabbed her and picked her up to take her out. She SCREAMED the whole way out. Meanwhile while I took Sarah out to the foyer, I left Matthew on the bench sitting by himself and Josh and Daniel goofing off on the stand while this lady was still bearing her testimony. I handed Sarah off to Aaron who was also holding Noah and went back inside to sit with Matthew and send dagger looks at Josh and Daniel to try and tell them through my stern gaze to KNOCK IT OFF and to sit still. They, of course, didn't stop and continued to goof off. When I sat back down with Matthew I could hear Sarah just screaming from the foyer. She was pretty ticked off. Finally Josh and Daniel got their turn to bear their testimonies and came to sit back down. By the time they sat down I could hear Sarah screaming in the foyer even louder than before. I took the cue and gathered up our stuff so we could make a hasty exit. I made it to the chapel doors to see Aaron had to take Sarah all the way outside because she was screaming so loud. I was trying to figure out where Noah had gone to when our old neighbor came and brought him to me. They saw Aaron had his hands full with both Sarah and Noah so they grabbed Noah to help him out--which was very much appreciated!! I scooped up Noah and we all headed out to the car. Sarah was kicking, fighting and screaming and continued doing that the whole ride home. She was fighting so bad we couldn't even get her in her seat belt--good thing we live close to the church!! She was still kicking, screaming and fighting when we got home so we just sent her straight to her room and closed the door. She continued for a few more minutes when she finally fell asleep. What a Sunday!! It's Sundays like this that make us truly appreciate the ones that all the kids behave!

Last week Josh had his annual IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting where we meet with his Speech Therapist, teacher, and principal to discuss his goals. Josh is doing well with his speech, however, he has back slid a bit. He was just working on the "g" sound, but the speech teacher did some testing to find even though he had previously passed off the "k" sound, he couldn't really make that sound consistently. So he is now working on both sounds, but that isn't too bad. However, before the meeting started Josh's 3rd grade teacher started talking to me about Josh's handwriting. It is very difficult to read. Now let me give some back story about this. Ever since Josh started having seizures (about 7 years ago) he has been slightly delayed in all skills especially his motor skills. He has been on the border of needing therapy, but not quite bad enough to require it. I think this has finally caught up to him. As other kids handwriting improves, Josh's hasn't. The teacher and I came to an agreement to get him tested with a school occupational therapist to see if his hand muscles need extra strengthening so he can write better. In order to do this they had to send home a permission slip. The Speech teacher called me Thursday to let me know the sealed envelope was coming home with Josh. When Josh got home from school that afternoon I asked to see the envelope. Josh asked, "What envelope?" Josh then handed me a bunch of papers. They were the papers that were supposed to have been sealed up in the envelope that Josh decided to open up at school to see what it was. I signed the papers I could see, but I don't know if they were all there. Hopefully, they were, but you never know...no wonder I am getting so many gray hairs!!

Sarah's attitude hasn't much improved this week from Sunday. She has been Miss Attitude Girl all week long! Yesterday was one of the bigger tantrums. It was time for her to go to dance. Since it is just across the street I put Noah in his high chair with some food while I ran Sarah over. Sarah saw Noah get some food and she decided she needed some food, too. However, we were running late as it was so I told her no. Seeing as she does not ever take no for an answer she started into a major tantrum. I had to pick her up and carry her over to dance while she was kicking and screaming the whole time. I finally laid her on the middle of the dance room floor and told the teacher, "I think she will stop once I leave." I hurried up and left all the while she was continuing her tantrum on the floor all the while thinking to myself, "Good luck with that!!" When I went to pick her up after dance, I asked the dance teacher how Sarah did. The dance teacher told me once Sarah stopped crying she mostly pouted the rest of the way through class and didn't do much. When I brought her home she was happy because she had gotten a treat at dance. This child is going to be the death of me!! I have never had a kid quite as strong willed as her over everything!! Hey at least she knows what she wants and very determined to get it! That might help her later on in life...I am hoping. Sarah has a dance recital in a few weeks so we got to pick up her costume. When we got home I made her try it on and she, of course, was not happy about that either. Her hair had been combed earlier, but with her floor tantrum she messed up her hair. Even with her crazy hair and sour look she is giving me I still think she looks cute in her dance costume:

Her attitude changed by this morning because she changed into by herself and came downstairs wanting to wear it for clothes today.  **sigh** good thing I love this girl!!

Noah has turned into monkey boy! Monday afternoon I laid him down for a nap in the pack-n-play in my bedroom. I thought he was asleep until I heard him pushing buttons on the phone. I go upstairs to find that he had climbed out of the pack-n-play and was getting into all kinds of stuff. I thought it was just a fluke thing until I laid him down for bed that night. I laid him down and next thing I know he is climbing back down the stairs to come to see me. I went and laid him back down in his crib again only to have the same thing happen again. I went upstairs and put him back in his crib and watched what he was doing. Which was this:

Aaron and I decided that we better change his crib into a toddler bed before he hurt himself by climbing/falling out of it. However, Sarah liked his toddler bed more than he did and took it over. When they both finally fell asleep we put Sarah in her bed and Noah in his. In case Noah rolled of his bed in the middle of the night out I laid some blankets on the floor so he could have somewhat of a softer landing. Good thing I did because I heard a big thud and screaming about 3 am. Noah did roll out of bed hitting the floor. He needed loves until 4 am. Last night I put him to bed in his toddler bed and went to the gym. Aaron told me that while I was gone he kept hearing Noah cry and cry. He finally went up to check things out to find Noah had crawled up on Sarah's chest of drawers and couldn't get down. Aaron picked him up and put him back in his toddler bed, but he doesn't ever stay put. Every night since Monday I put him to bed in the toddler bed, but when I come to get him out in the mornings he is asleep on the floor somewhere. Here's what I found this morning--Sarah's in her bed asleep and Noah is asleep on the floor. What a crazy boy!

Since Noah is at that age where he just can't stay away from the Christmas tree we only put up non breakable ornaments this year. Good thing we did because he pulled the whole tree over on him the second day after we put it up. It scared him pretty badly and he hasn't done it since, but you never know with him if it will happen again.

Tonight is my friend's annual cookie exchange party. Everyone brings 6 dozen treats to trade so everyone goes home with quite a variety of yummy things. This year I decided to do something other than cookies. I made some vegan cake balls and they are yummy if I do say so myself. The nice thing is, that Daniel can eat them, too. I made about 10 dozen so my family could eat some extras. Hopefully they will still leave me the 6 dozen I need to take tonight to the party! They are chocolate dipped cake balls that are dairy, egg and nut free and delicious! I am not the best at dipping things in chocolate so they don't look the best, though, but here's how they turned out:

I think Daniel liked them.  The chocolate all around his mouth gives it away--what do you think?!

Tuesday afternoon Sarah spiked a fever. She had no other symptoms, but lethargy and a 103 degree fever. She didn't have much of an appetite so I tried to get her to drink. We got some Gatorade so she would be more willing to drink that than just plain water. I did medicate her with some ibuprofen and her fever came down and stayed down. The next morning she was fine, but she kept asking me for alligator juice. I had no idea what she meant until I saw the Gatorade bottle and then it clicked. She didn't have any other problem the rest of the day. What a random thing, but I am glad it wasn't anything else than a random high fever!

Josh and Daniel's school started a Christmas Choir for any student to attend. It is every morning up until the Christmas break. The choir meets and sings Christmas songs before school starts. When Josh and Daniel brought the flier home I asked them if they wanted to do it. They both said yes and I sighed a big sigh because that meant I had to get everyone up and ready to go (including myself) by 8 am which is a big fete!! It started yesterday so everyone was up and ready to go and I was only a few minutes late in dropping off Daniel and Josh. When Daniel got home from kindergarten I asked him how the choir was. Daniel told me they didn't have it that morning. I double checked the flier and it did say it started December 7th. I waited until Josh got home from school and I asked him if he had choir. Josh told me he did have the choir. I asked him why Daniel didn't go to choir with him. Josh told me that Daniel insisted he needed to go to his classroom instead of following Josh because he thought the choir was going to be in his classroom. Josh let him go and went to choir by himself. Good thing Josh looks out for his brother--NOT!! Poor Daniel ended up sitting outside his classroom for about 30 minutes until someone else showed up to open his classroom for him. This morning I talked to Daniel and told him he needed to follow Josh to choir and not go to his classroom. It seemed to work because Daniel just got home from school and told me he really liked choir this morning. What crazy kids!!

Trouble With Police, Temple Square, Festival of the Trees, My Couple Hours of Freedom

Thursday was Josh's Economics Fair where he sold his home made slime.  I am glad to say he sold all of his slime so he didn't have to bring anything back home.  I am glad that the slime sold well because you just never know with those things!  They let the whole school stop by and pick out different items they wanted to buy.  Daniel bought a Christmas decoration.  He gave it to me as soon as he walked in the door because he wanted to make our house "Christmassy".  I felt bad because living in this rental home I am just not feeling the decorating spirit because, for one thing, it is so small there isn't much space to put stuff out and, secondly, it isn't really our "home home"--it is just temporary and right now we are just getting by with the bare minimum of stuff since the rest of it is still packed up in boxes being stored in the garage.  However, when Daniel gave me that Christmas decoration I decided we should really decorate our house this weekend.  The weekend came a day sooner than I expected since we had that horrible wind storm Thursday.  The wind storm damaged 40 buses throughout Davis school district so the district decided to cancel school for Friday in order to repair all the damage to restart school on Monday.  Luckily, Aaron just works half days on Fridays so he was home to help me out.  His half days start at 5 am so he is home by 9:30 am and it is wonderful!!  We decided to make it a fun day.  We found some cheap tickets to the Festival of the Trees down in the South Towne Expo Center.  We picked up the house had an early lunch and headed down for the day.  We thought the kids would love it, however, the kids seemed to have all woken up on the wrong side of the bed and were fighting, screaming and extremely whiny all the ride down and when we walked into the Festival.  We walked around for a few minutes and decided having everyone so ornery wasn't going to be much fun, so we decided to bribe them.  Aaron snuck away and bought 5 suckers to help sweeten everyone up.  That worked until most of the suckers were gone.  Noah made his sucker last and spread it far and wide.  The picture doesn't even do his huge mess justice.  He was sticky from head to toe.  He spread the stickiness from his head to his feet, to the stroller and to the front of my clothes.  However, it was worth it since it stopped the crying and whining for a bit.  

Daniel saw and Angry Birds Tree and made me take a picture.

Let me just say the Expo Center is massive and it was very crowded and busy.  By the end we were just hurriedly walking the aisles to quickly see everything.  By the end (and when the suckers ran out, but not before she had rubbed her sucker all over in my hair--awesome, huh?) Sarah had had enough and let everyone know it.  She only wanted me to carry her, but my arms finally gave out at the end and I couldn't lift her anymore.  She was not happy about that and threw herself to the ground in full on tantrum mode.  She got even more upset when Aaron picked her up to carry her out.

On the way out we had to detour by the bathrooms to attempt to scrub off Noah's stickiness.  It didn't work very well because he needed a shower and his clothes washed in the worst way!!  However, we weren't close to a shower or a washer so we had to make do.  Aaron and I fought over who had to carry him because neither one of us really wanted to get even more sticky.  I remember bits and pieces of the Festival of the Trees, but for the most part it seemed like I was herding cats (aka kids) among big masses of people the whole time.  I have really decided Aaron and I are sorely outnumbered!!

Since Aaron and I were still glutting for punishment we decided to take the kids over to see the lights at Temple Square.  On the way over we decided maybe the whininess would stop if we fed the kids.  We were looking for somewhere cheap and fast.  Aaron was being my navigator when we pulled off the freeway at 53rd south in Murray.  We came to a stop light and Aaron told me I could either go straight or turn right.  I thought I was in a double turn lane so at the last minute I decided to turn right and not go straight.  That was a horrible decision!  A police officer quickly flipped on his lights and pulled me over.  I guess the lane I was in was not a double right turn lane, but a go straight lane instead--DOH!!  As soon as I pulled over with the police lights blazing behind me the comments from the peanut gallery (aka all the kids) started all at once.  Matthew said, "Oh Mom, YOU BROKE THE LAW!"  Josh said, "Uh oh, mom, what'd'you do?" Daniel said, "That was a wrong choice!"  Of course I didn't have the most current insurance card in the car and I also had not updated my address at the DMV either--double DOH!!  The police officer grabbed my drivers license and sauntered back to his car and took forever.  All the while I was getting great comments from my kids.  Luckily for Aaron he stayed mostly quiet because he knew what would happen if he dared say anything--he'd get the wrath of Rebecca!!  Anyway, he came back to my window and handed my stuff back and only gave me a warning for the outdated insurance card and not updating my info with the DMV.  However, he decided to give me a ticket for the improper right turn--DOH!!  I have to call in two weeks and I am keeping my fingers crossed they have a traffic school I can attend so this ticket won't go on my record.  Dang--it has been almost 12 years since I have even been pulled over--too bad I had to break my streak!

Well we did finally stop at a McDonald's to feed the kids.  I found a table with all the kids while Aaron ordered.  When Aaron brought the food over I feared for my fingers as we were passing out the food!!  The kids were ravenous!!  It took 16 hamburgers and to feed everyone and they were still asking for more food.  Oh. My. Word!!  I think they all have hollow legs!!  After cleaning out the McDonald's we headed over to Temple Square.  We decided to take State Street up to Temple Square.  Well I don't know what my deal was, but I was having a really "off" night if you know what I mean.  We stopped at an intersection and it was ablaze in police car lights.  There must have been a robbery or something because there were at least 4 police cars all around the intersection corner.  Well I was contemplating my own ticket when I saw the light turn green so I went through the intersection.  WRONG MOVE again!!  The green light I saw was the left turn arrow not the go straight light--DOH!!  I cut him off the car that was turning left, and he just honked his horn at me.  Mind you there are four police cars all around the intersection so I was just waiting for one of them to come get me....again.  Luckily, none of them did.  About this time Aaron asked if he needed to drive to get us to Temple Square safely.  I gave him a dirty look and kept driving, thankfully, without another incident.  We got to Temple Square and the hamburgers did their job because we had a significant decrease in the whininess even though it was incredibly cold!  We started out by looking at the luminaries:      

Next we headed over to a concert at the Assembly Center.  As we walked in they had a bunch of ushers who took our stroller and helped hold the door.  As soon as we sat down Noah started screaming and would only stop if we let him wander around.  Unfortunately, Noah only wanted to wander up on the stage, but would scream every time we stopped him.  We ended up only lasting about three minutes in the concert before we just had to leave because of Noah the stinker!  As we walked back out of the door and tried to put Noah back in his stroller, Josh saw the usher and thought he was a servant.  Josh then asked the usher if he could have a drink before we could stop him.  After we told Josh to stop, Josh went back over to the usher and told him, "My Mom got in trouble with the police today."  Aaron and I about died we were so embarrassed.  Aaron quickly told the usher that I had only gotten a traffic ticket and that I really didn't get in trouble with the police.  Thanks, Josh!!  We quickly walked away and headed over to the reflection pond with the nativity scene in the middle of it:

 Next we went inside the Joseph Smith Memorial building to look around and to also warm up a bit:

 We headed up to the top floor to look at all the lights from above (and to also warm up a little longer):

 All the kids looking at the pretty lights:

 Here's Josh and Daniel touching Jesus' feet, looking the holes in them and just looking at the statue.

We had a crazy Friday day, but at least it was memorable!!

To help explain my "offness"--see first part of post--I tried to explain to Aaron that I was suffering from severe dealing with five kids for too long without a minute to myself caregiver burnout  He skeptically took my word for it and let me go out all morning by myself to run errands and to do some Christmas shopping.  I am happy to say that I did not break any traffic laws so I must have really been having severe dealing with five kids for too long without a minute to myself caregiver burnout.  It was so nice to be by myself and not have to wrestle any kids into a car seat or to try and herd anyone through the store with me.  I smiled every time I was in a store and heard a kid screaming because I knew that wasn't my kid because I WAS BY MYSELF--something that doesn't happen very often at all.  When I came back home a few hours later Aaron had cleaned the whole house and had fed the kids lunch.  That was the best Christmas present I could have ever asked for!!  Hopefully in the future I can catch my dealing with five kids for too long without a minute to myself caregiver burnout before it gets so severe I start breaking the law by running red lights or making illegal right turns.

After I got home we took the kids to see Santa.  During Matthew's turn, Santa couldn't even get a word in edge wise because Matthew was telling him we had moved and all the stuff he wanted without even coming up for air.   Matthew wouldn't even stop talking long enough to look up take a picture.  He had too many things to tell Santa.  We had to force Matthew off his lap in order to let everyone else have a turn.     



 Daniel just sat down and asked for a teddy bear.  He was overly excited to get his candy cane afterward. 

It took Noah a millisecond to discover I was not holding him, but some strange, fat man with a red suit and scratchy beard.  He started SCREAMING--pour kid.  I grabbed him back off as soon as we got the picture.  I hope he is not scarred for life!!

Josh just sat down and pulled goofy faces.  He wanted to ask for a bunny or a parrot, but I had told him before that Santa doesn't bring live animals.  After that he couldn't think of what else to ask for.

Sarah sat down and Santa asked her what she wanted.  She kept saying a candy cane and staring at the basket of candy canes, but Santa couldn't understand her.  She finally jumped off his lap and stood right in front of the candy canes.  Santa finally figured out what she wanted.

When we got home from visiting Santa we finally did decorate the house for Christmas.  While we decorated we put Noah in his high chair with some food to keep him from undecorating what we had just decorated.  The kids had fun helping us.  When we finished we took Noah out of his high chair and he made a bee line right over to the tree.  Luckily, we put up the small tree and only put on unbreakable ornaments this year because I knew he wouldn't leave it alone.  He didn't disappoint me either.  He has already pulled off the garland and pulled off some ornaments.  Oh well, at least everything is unbreakable this year because we just don't have room to get everything out.  We only have enough room for the tree, the stockings, the nativity and a few books.  Here's Noah doing his best to undecorate:

What a crazy weekend!  I guess I now know what I want for Christmas--Traffic School!!  We'll see if Santa really listened to what I wanted while we were visiting him today....