IEP and Synagis Makes For a Busy Day!

Today I kept myself busy. Noah had his 6th (and last) Synagis shot and 1 year well child check-up at the pediatrician's office. He is getting so big!! He is up to 20 pounds exactly (13 percentile), 29 inches long (20th percentile) and 45.8 cm head circumference (they didn't tell me the percentile on that one). They had me fill out a developmental questionnaire and he continues to be about two months delayed. That is fine since he was about two months premature. He showed the biggest delay in his gross motor area. That's because they weight everything according to the baby actually walking or pulling up to furniture. Seeing as Noah is not even close to this he didn't score so well. The doctor then asked me if Noah was even interested in pulling up on furniture. I answered no. The doctor then asked about his temperament. I said he was a pretty happy go lucky baby that was pretty much happy with rolling around, sitting up, scooting and eating anything off the floor (delicious!). The doctor was ok with this. He said it is pretty hard to make a baby want to walk if he is pretty much content with what he is doing--which explains Noah to a "T". Noah is as happy-go-lucky as they come--thank goodness for baby #5 especially in our household!! We will see if he gets that walking motivation in the next two months, though. The pediatrician did suggest contacting Early Intervention just to check him out. I'll try and add that on to my hectic week ahead of me...Here is my happy "non motivated slug boy" baby who loves to smile and laugh at just about anything:

Thank goodness his spitting up has decreased significantly!! However, he still has it somewhat as you can see the evidence of the nice white spot on the carpet behind his head. I try to clean it up after it happens, but he is the silent barfer so a lot of the time I don't see it until it is partially dried and has already left a white spot. YUCK!

In other happenings today Matthew had his annual IEP (Individual Education Plan) meeting today to set his educational goals for next year. That's the meeting with the principal, regular education teacher, special education teacher, speech therapist and us lowly parents. I got a phone call from the principal last Monday. When I saw the school's phone number on the caller ID my heart sank. I answered wondering what bad news they had to give me about Matthew. Luckily, it was only to set up the IEP appointment. Whew what a relief!! Anyway, the principal had to call to set it up because Matthew's learning center special ed teacher is on extended leave with no one knowing when she would be back. That news was quite surprising. I knew Matthew had had a substitute for the last few weeks, but I didn't think anything about it. I tried to find out what happened to his teacher, but no one would say anything today. Hopefully nothing too bad is going on with her :(. Anyway, I wasn't too happy to have a substitute special ed teacher who doesn't even know Matthew try to set his education goals for next year. However, she turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The substitute teacher had spent the last couple of days in the classroom trying to get to know what makes Matthew tick. Hey we have lived with the kid for almost ten years and we still haven't figured that one out!! Anyway, she had some insightful goals for him next year. He will be attending a different school next year and we don't know where he will be yet. We should find out May 1st. Hopefully, we can get a teacher that will work well with Matthew. The teacher he has had these last two years didn't work as well with Matthew as some of the teachers we have had in the past. Getting a good teacher is always a big concern especially with Matthew!! As for the educational goals for next year she actually came up with some logical ones that should really help him. Now we only need a good special ed teacher to implement them next year. Crossing our fingers and saying our prayers for that one!! I am glad to have the IEP meeting out of the way until next year--barring any problems between now and then....I can't believe he will be starting 5th grade next year. 5TH GRADE!! I still can't wrap my head around that one!!

Birthday Celebration and Hospital Visit

This Friday Aaron had his annual neurology visit. It is mainly to refill his epilepsy medication prescription and to sign off on his driver's license to make sure he was safe to drive. Seeing as he hasn't had a seizure for about 13 years it really is no big deal. His doctor is down in American Fork. As it happens G&G T are also live conveniently close by so we made a weekend of it. We pulled the kids out of school 30 minutes early Friday afternoon and all of us headed down. Me and the kids waited in the car while Aaron had his appointment and then headed over to G&G T's house. We got the kids ready for bed so when G&G T got home from work Aaron and I could head out and actually go on a real date with no tag alongs. I made sure Noah nursed before I left so he could be happy while we were gone. No such luck. He cried for most of the time we were gone until he tired himself out and fell asleep. Poor guy and poor G&G T!! Anyway, Aaron and I went to the temple since we hadn't been there for (dare I say) about two years! Way too long. We missed the 5:30 pm endowment session so we decided to do sealings instead. It was quite pleasant. Afterward we headed out to dinner. We decided on Rodizio Grill. I got to choose since it was my upcoming birthday. It was quite delicious and we got to eat at a relaxing pace because we didn't have to keep 5 kids happy during dinner since it was just us two. We had a great time. All of us spent the night at my parent's house. The next morning G&G T made some Daniel friendly pancakes. True to form Daniel didn't like them--the little stinker! However, after breakfast Daniel got a hold of Sarah's sippy cup and drank it up. Unfortunately, it happened to be full of cow's milk. He quickly started sneezing and breaking out in hives all over his body. He then started wheezing. After a hefty dose of Benadryl and a inhaler I was watching him to see if more treatment was needed. He got worse and worse. I went and found the Epi-Pen because he was getting to the point he might need it. Finally the Benadryl kicked in and slowed everything down. He hasn't had that bad of a reaction in YEARS. It was scary for a bit. We have been giving him Benadryl around the clock yesterday and today just to make sure he would be ok. Even this morning he had faint traces of the hives all over his body still. He just likes to keep us on our toes, I guess. Here's a picture after we got home yesterday. The picture doesn't show all the angry looking pink hives all over his body, or the wheezy breathing, or the copious amounts of snot coming out of his nose, but you can see how itchy he is. He scratched and scratched all day. This morning along with the faint pink hive marks on his body he also has nice huge scratch marks from all his scratching yesterday. I am glad that things turned out as well as they did, though. No Epi-Pen or Emergency Room visit for him THANK GOODNESS!! Hopefully he learned his lesson and won't drink from Sarah's sippy cup again!!

When we got home Saturday I had a friend "date" for lunch. My friend took me out for lunch to celebrate my birthday. It was so nice to have a full 2 1/2 hours of adult female conversation with no kids to interrupt. Lunch was yummy, too!! When I got home Aaron told me he had to go out to run some "errands" (meaning getting a few birthday presents for me). Also it was another few hours without too much fighting between the kids which was pleasant, too.

Today we got to celebrate my birthday. The kids got a lot more excited than I did. At this age I don't want to remember birthdays because it means I am getting OLDER!! Anyway, we were getting ready for church when I got a call from my Mom telling me my Grandpa Gee (her Dad) had taken a turn for the worse in the hospital. He had had a hernia operation on Thursday and was doing ok. However, yesterday he ended up bursting a blood vessel in his esophagus and stopped breathing. They had to resuscitate him and they moved him over to ICU. Wow. I got this news right before church. We still went to church, but afterward my brother, sister and I were going to visit him. When we got home from church Aaron fixed a yummy dinner of hot dogs on the grill. One of my birthday presents was a dinner in which I wouldn't hear I don't like that from anyone. That's why we had hot dogs because everyone likes those and no one would complain. Nice present!! After dinner we had cake and ice cream. Aaron wanted to order me a birthday cake from the bakery, but since I had taken too long for my lunch date with my friend he ran out of time. Instead he just got to pick from what the bakery already had available. The closest thing was a Happy first birthday cake they ended up converting. They converted the #1 to a big messy heart.I was just happy he thought of getting me a birthday cake so I didn't care. I still tasted good!! After cake and ice cream i opened my presents. The first one was this:The second one was this:Now you may wonder why I would get princess panties and a potty seat for my birthday, but I would have to say it is one of the best presents ever. It means that Aaron is going to potty train Sarah for me. YAY!!! Happy birthday to me!!

Afterward my brother and sister came and picked me up and we headed down to Provo to visit my Grandpa Gee. He was doing fantastic considering everything he went through yesterday!! I just hope he continues to recover well. They have his bleeding almost under control and his pain is under control as well. Hopefully he can get back to his usual self soon. That's a lot his body has been through in the last few days to say the least. If you can send a few prayers his way please.

Bleeding Owies, Army Crawl and Stinky Babies

Yesterday it was some sort of teacher day so the kids had a day off from school. We all had a very lazy morning which was nice. I laid Sarah and Noah down for a nap after lunch. When they woke up I went to get them and it was very smelly. I hate it when they dirty their diapers during nap time because it makes the whole upstairs stink. Anyway judging by the size of the stinky diapers I thought we would be ok to head to McDonald's for dinner because we wouldn't have any stinky diapers to worry about. When we ordered our food Noah surprised us all by inhaling a ton of french fries. I didn't know he was just throwing most of them on the floor instead of eating them--the little stinker. While we were there Noah learned how to drink from a straw somewhat. Once he discovered how to suck on the straw, he got a huge mouthful at first. It took him a few minutes before he wanted to try it again, but he did and he did get a little bit better the longer we were there. Hopefully he will remember it for next time, but I don't know if I want to share my drinks from now on, hmmmmm.


During dinner it didn't take long for Sarah and Noah to find their happy places and dirty both their diapers again. What the heck!? I thought we would have been safe since they took care of that during nap time, but I guess they both found their "happy places" at McDonalds and decided to take care of business AGAIN. After that we left.

Later on that night we had put all the kids to bed and Aaron and I were watching some TV when Daniel came upstairs quite upset. He was crying and told us he was bleeding from his bum so he got some toilet paper to clean it up with. You can see his nice toilet paper tail in the picture. I was a little concerned since our family seems to have a lots of unusual things happen to us. I asked Daniel more about it. That's when he showed me where the bleeding was coming from. I guess he had scratched his bum cheek and cut it. It was a small cut mind you, but once he saw the blood it freaked him out. He insisted on a bandaid and then of course he needed lubs (loves) for a while. I am glad that it was just a cut and nothing else--whew!! I must admit Aaron and I had a hard time taking him seriously after seeing the long toilet paper tail hanging out of his pants, though.

Something has clicked with Noah. In the last day Noah has discovered the army crawl. He spent all of today perfecting it and has gotten pretty fast. I am happy, but sad too. That means my baby is getting too big too fast!! Also don't you love how that after Noah happens to brush Sarah's toe, she tattles on him saying, "Noah hit me!" Kids learn how to tattle way to easily!!

Sarah has really been into pretend play lately. Today she kept telling me her baby was Peeee Ewwww. Then she would just say her baby farted. With her either term means the same thing. (Of course I didn't have the camera going when she was doing that so in this video I was prompting her a little bit.) She has used quite a few wipes to clean her baby. Enough that her cloth baby actually has a wet bum from all the diaper changes with wipes. I love how she will wipe her doll's bum and then put the wipe back into the wipes container. Lovely. What a funny girl. Her doll gets pretty clean except when Sarah gets distracted with the TV. All of my kids are like that. If the TV is on the whole world would explode and they would never notice. Good thing we don't have it on too often.

Hangaburgers, Meat is Optional and Sarah's New Dress

Since I only have 1 girl I allow myself to splurge on her once in a while. This time I got her a fancy Easter dress. I know it is WHITE of all colors, but before I bought it I made sure it was machine washable. Hopefully, she doesn't stain it too bad even if it is machine washable. She wore it for the first time today. She even was patient enough to let me do some fancy hair on her, too. She wouldn't look at the camera so here's the best shot I got:Here's the back side: While I was trying to take her picture, Matthew and Daniel were fighting. They both got sent to seat away (time out). Matthew is in seat away on the other set of stairs. Sarah for some reason loves it when Daniel is in seat away. She will come over and sit next to him the whole time and play with him. Daniel was crying so she gave him a kiss because she thought he got an owie. He was just crying because he got put in seat away. She spent the rest of his seat away playing with him--the little stinker!!

Aaron is getting the boys really interested in watching basketball--particularly BYU basketball. Here they all are (even Matthew which is very surprising) watching the awesome BYU winning game Saturday night: I am starting to wonder about my mental faculties--even more so with an impending birthday soon. Today Aaron made Sunday dinner. He made hamburgers (or hangaburgers according to Daniel) with grilled onions, cut up avocados, tomatoes, blue cheese crumbles and blue cheese dressing. YUMMY!! As we were sitting down to eat we all prepared our buns starting with the kids first. Aaron got a phone call so I was helping all the kids by myself. I had had been interrupted more times during fixing my own hamburger that I kept forgetting where I was at. Finally when everyone was busy eating (Matthew on his second 1/4 pound hamburger and Josh on his 3rd 1/4 pound hamburger) I got a chance to sit down and start eating my hamburger. Aaron got off the phone about this time so we were sitting around chatting about our day at church. Side note: we actually made it through all of church without needing to leave today. Yay for small victories!! However, even though we had speakers Daniel and Josh kept asking me if they could bear their testaments. I corrected them and told them it was testimonies and it wasn't fast and testimony meeting today anyway. They weren't too happy, but we still made it through church without any major mishap. Yay again!! Anyway, I had eaten about half of my first hamburger when Aaron looked at me and asked me if I had any meat in my burger. Sure enough I was having an unintended veggie burger. In all the interruptions I had forgotten to put the actual meat patty on my burger. Aaron laughed so hard at me. I felt a little stupid, but I did finally put 1/2 patty on my burger to finish it off with. I hope I am not going senile yet!! However, I have to admit this isn't the first time this has happened to me. A couple years ago I made chicken enchiladas for the family dinner. In the middle of eating them Aaron mentioned they tasted different. He opened up his enchilada to discover I had forgotten to add the chicken to not only his enchilada, but for the whole dish!! He has never let me live that one down!! He still won't let me fix enchiladas to this day just because he seems to like actual chicken in his chicken enchiladas--the crazy guy :). So if you would like a vegetarian dish of some sort intended or unintended come visit us for dinner anytime :). I must have "Half heimers disease" because it hasn't progressed to Alzheimer's (Allzheimer's) disease.....yet.

Noah's 1 Year Pictures and Quadruplets?!

It was close enough to Noah's year old birthday so I went ahead and got his 1 year old pictures taken last week as well. Way back when I was pregnant with Matthew we had just found out we were having a boy for our first baby. My brother was serving his mission in Hawaii and my parents were going out there to pick him up. While they were there they picked up this little Hawaiian outfit for my first baby boy. Little did I know I would have 3 more boys follow Matthew! Anyway, all the boys have gotten their picture taken in this outfit when they were a year old. This time it was Noah's turn.

Here's Noah's pictures:

Every time he looked at the photographer he was extremely serious and refused to smile. Here he is looking at the photographer:

Looking at the photographer: However, when he looked at me he was all smiles. So all the pictures with him smiling he is not looking at the camera. Oh well you can't win them all can you? Looking at me: Looking at me: Looking at the photographer: Looking at me: Here's the rest of the boys' 1 year old Hawaiian outfit pictures. It is crazy how much they all look a like at this age!! Here's Daniel at 1 year old:Josh: Matthew:

You can tell they are all Mancil boys that's for sure!

St. Patrick's Festivities and Sitting Up

For St. Patrick's Day I thought we would try something a bit different. We of course had some green food. I made some Alfredo sauce. I then pureed some fresh spinach and colored the Alfredo sauce green without food coloring. It does not look very appetizing, but it did taste good. We also had some steamed broccoli, spinach salad and for dessert we had rainbow cake for all the leprechauns that like rainbows. Unfortunately, the cake mix I picked up was Daniel friendly but substituting the egg replacer for the actual eggs made the cake fall. It was pretty thin through the middle. Oh well at least it tasted good.

We also got to see the local park's fountain water dyed green again this year. I love how they do this every year!!

Noah is getting big. He has now mastered the skill of sitting himself up. He has also discovered he can get into more things that way, too. He likes to go over to the diaper shelf and pull all the diapers off because he can now reach it. I hope he is not destined to be a mischief maker like Sarah! I can only handle one like her.

Kids' 2011 Pictures

We finally had all the kids' pictures taken. We got the group shots out of the way first before anyone had a chance to fall to pieces. Getting them to all look at the camera and smile at the same time was mission impossible. I think we got one semi smiling picture by all of them after many attempts.Noah had to suck on his fingers for comfort because he was starting to fall to pieces.Matthew age 9 1/2:Josh age 7, but will turn 8 in a few weeks:Daniel age 5 1/2:Sarah age 2 1/2: Noah will turn 1 year old in a few weeks:

Soda Down My Pants, Muscles and a Promotion

Sarah has discovered a deep love for toast along with the boys. However, I think it is more of a love for margarine! She will take a knife full put a little margarine on her toast and then lick the rest off her knife. Mmmmm yummy! Then she will dip it in the margarine again, spread a little on her toast and lick the rest off and start the cycle yet again. Crazy girl!!

Tuesday I met up with Aaron at Cafe Rio for lunch. We were sitting at a table next to the soda fountain. My back was facing the soda fountain while I was talking to Aaron. Next thing I know I had ice cold soda poured down my pants. Whew that woke me up!! The poor lady that did it was trying to balance a toddler on her hip, her tray and her drink. Obviously she didn't do too well because she poured her full drink down the back of my pants. I wasn't mad or anything because that could happen to anyone. I did get a little creeped out when she tried to clean it off my bum, though. That was just a little too weird. I guess once you get into the cleaning up spills mommy mode, it doesn't matter to you if you are trying to clean off a stranger's bum. However, the stranger might not feel quite the same way. Let's just say it was a little awkward--for me at least!

At the end of our lunch Daniel took it upon himself to help our candy fix. He went over and grabbed the biggest handful of mints he could possibly fit in his 5 year old hands and brought them back over to us. A little embarrassing, but we did get our candy fix, though. That's what you have kids for--to do the things you really want to do, but are too embarrassed to do them. You just send your kids to do it for you! I don't think I would have grabbed quite so many mints, though.Josh was getting dressed yesterday when I ran upstairs to tell me something. He said, "Mom, my muscles are starting to poke up!!" He was so excited to show me!! He told me that when he runs he swings his arms so it is making them get big muscles with all that exercise. Next thing you know he will be telling me he has a six pack, too. However, I think I might have to draw the line there and tell them those are called RIBS!! What a bean pole!! You know they are super skinny when you order them slim jeans and those are still too big for them when they put them on!! Good thing for belts! This week Aaron got a promotion at work. It came in title only and didn't come with a pay raise, but it should put him in a better position to get a raise later on. Aaron now is a team lead. He is quite nervous to be the one in charge of a few people, but I am sure he will get the hang of things!! Wow, when did we become responsible adults?! We still feel like we are teenagers--even though we have five kids and plenty of gray hair to tell us otherwise!!

Another Typical Sunday for Us Mancils

Today at church was pretty crazy!! It was utter chaos trying to get everyone dressed and ready for church. When we left the house it was an absolute disaster area and we were late again even though we have 11:00 church. When we got everyone to primary and nursery it was peaceful. Everyone had a good day and then we got into sacrament meeting. That's when the real fun started. As the meeting started Sarah found a little space just big enough for her between the bench and the wall. She was standing over in her little space for a while when she came out to join the rest of the family. That's when Daniel yelled, "SOMETHING SMELLS LIKE POO!!" As it was the beginning of the actual sacrament it was relatively quiet. There was no question what Sarah has doing over in her hidey hole. We sent her back to her hidey hole. By doing that we were hoping we wouldn't have to smell her until I was going to take her out when the sacrament was over. We waited for the bread to come. Wow, you would have thought I had never fed the kids before. When the tray of bread came around the kids all attacked it like a pack of rabid wolves. I was afraid of getting bitten when I tried to score me a piece of bread, but much to my relief I got a piece unscathed. When the bread part was over the deacons were lining up right next to our bench. That's when Sarah decided she wanted seconds on the bread. She came out of her hidey hole (insert stinky smelly waves wafting off her diaper) and was making her way over to where the deacons were lining up. Daniel saw what she was doing and grabbed on to her trying to hold her back. That's when she started screaming. I promptly grabbed her and took her out of the chapel along with a diaper and wipes. We went out to the single bathroom in the foyer to change her diaper, but when I tried the handle to the single stall bathroom it was locked. I went to sit down to wait my turn, but Sarah had other ideas. She was quite upset the door was locked and kept pulling on the bathroom door handle and knocking while screaming, "UNWOCK IT! UNWOCK IT!! (unlock it)". I tried to grab her to take her over and sit down, but she dropped to the floor in full tantrum mode. I finally wrestled her over the chair and we waited our turn for the bathroom. The person inside the bathroom must have heard her pleas and they came out shortly after. I took her in and changed her diaper. I came back out in the foyer and waited for the sacrament to get over so I could go back in the chapel. That's when I saw Aaron bring out everyone else. Things didn't go so well inside the chapel for Aaron while I was gone dealing with Sarah in the foyer. Aaron had to break up a huge shoving match between Daniel, who had the look of I am going to kill you in his eyes, and Matthew who just wanted to tease him. They were arguing over whose turn it was to read the scriptures. Nice--especially since it was DURING the sacrament. When the water came around Josh took a big gulp and let out one of the biggest burps known to man. Also Noah decided to make his presence known by babbling very loudly. Between all that and hearing Sarah screaming in the foyer, Aaron decided to cut our losses and we would take everyone home since things weren't going that well for our family today. As Aaron was herding everyone out he got to see that our family provided some comic relief for those people on the benches around us. I am glad our rambunctious family could provide the comedy side show for everyone during sacrament meeting!! It's a hard job, but someone has to do it, right?!

After recovering from church with some quiet time, Aaron made some chicken enchiladas for dinner. Noah got to try it out for the first time and he LOVED them! That is until he rubbed some of the chili sauce into his eyes--poor guy. You can see how far he spread it: What a mess! They sure tasted good, though. Why is it food always tastes better when someone else makes it?!

Whew, I am glad I have a full week to recover until we attempt another Sunday at church. Who said Sunday was a day of rest--not so much when you are outnumbered 5 to 2 with very noisy and highly energetic kids!!

Diaper Emergency

I want to feed my kids healthy food so as a Mom I am trying to find healthy things they will actually want to eat. Usually for breakfast they will have cereal. Well Josh has gone on a cereal boycott as of late. Unfortunately, Daniel, Matthew, and Sarah have followed suit. A little frustrating since I just stocked up on bags and bags of cereal...DOH!! To take the cereal's place for breakfast Josh and the gang have turned to toast. They LOVE it and have had it for breakfast every single day this week. My poor, cheap toaster couldn't keep up with all the use. Half the heating element went out so it was only toasting one side of the bread. The kids didn't care, they ate it anyway. Their philosophy is if you put enough butter on it you can eat anything. I finally went out and got a new toaster which made them eat even more bread when they discovered that bread with two toasted sides tastes better. The kids were going through more than half a loaf every morning. The boys were great and made sure Sarah had her fair share and then some of the toast. Unfortunately, in my passion for feeding my kids healthy food I bought the bread with the highest fiber content known to man. I have been paying for it all week long. Yesterday I would have to say was the worst. Sarah dirtied 6+ diapers. I was running low on diapers anyway and that made me run out even faster. I even got desperate enough to raid my diaper stash in the car and emptied the diaper bag of all the diapers for all her poopy diaper changes. When she stunk up another diaper I was officially out of diapers. I had to run to the store to get a case just to keep up with the increased diaper demand. When Aaron got home from work, and after he had changed a few dirty diapers himself, he searched out the high fiber bread and threw it in the trash even though it was almost a brand new loaf. He told me it just wasn't worth it and by then I whole heartily agreed. I am glad no one stopped in to see the house yesterday because I am afraid it smelled like dirty diaper all day long thanks to Sarah (Noah had his fair share yesterday, too). PEEEEE EWWWWW!! Thank goodness for showers and Febreze air freshener!! A few times Sarah did her own dipstick test of her diaper and her hands came up.....well, disgusting. After those times she got thrown in the shower. After all this the lesson I learned is I think I will sacrifice that high fiber healthy food for my sanity--at least until all the kids are all fully potty trained and I have a huge stockpile of toilet paper on hand!!

Doctor Week--Glad It's Over!!

Whew this last week has been filled with doctors visits galore!! It started with Noah's croup last Sunday night/Monday morning appointment at midnight. The next day Noah had his regularly scheduled RSV shot visit. Monday afternoon Matthew had an appointment with the psychiatrist. It was time to tweak his medications again since he has been having a very rough past few months at school and at home. Hopefully we can get him happy and functioning again soon!! I had my yearly "fun doctor" gynecology appointment Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning Daniel had his check-up with the allergist where they tested his lung function and also they did the skin prick test. That's when they also discovered he has developed a new allergy to oranges. Yesterday (Tuesday) morning Josh had a check up with the neurologist. I am thankful we have his seizures under control. Last year at this time he was hospitalized at Primary Children's Hospital because we couldn't get his seizures to stop. I am glad we are just having a check-up today and not another hospitalization!! Josh is doing so well, knock on wood, we don't have to have another check-up for a year as long as he doesn't have any problems in the interim. His appointment was at 7:45 am down at Primary Children's Hospital. They also asked us to arrive 30 minutes early to check in, fill out paperwork, get his vital signs, weight and height. That meant we had to wake up at 5:45 am and leave our house at 6:15 am. I actually had to set my alarm which I HATE doing!! However, Josh (ever the early bird) was already up and in the shower by the time I woke up--crazy kid!! Since our last appointment Josh has grown two inches, but has stayed the same weight. Basically he is staying tall and skinny. I wanted the early morning appointment so Josh wouldn't miss much of school. We got to the hospital on time despite the horrible weather and driving conditions. This is what it looked like yesterday morning:

If I didn't know it was MARCH I would have thought it was still the middle of winter! We have the craziest seasons here I swear!!We were in and out so fast that Josh was only 10 minutes late to school that morning.

Tuesday afternoon I got to have a little procedure done. Not going into specifics, I have been having some "womanly issues" for the past few months that have left me EXTREMELY anemic and basically feeling pretty crappy. These issues have not resolved with the regular treatment options, so we brought out the big guns yesterday. I had an ablation done under conscious sedation. An ablation is where they burn off all the inside lining of the uterus to stop the bleeding. Aaron went with me because they had to knock me out and my Mom stayed home with the rest of the kids. The whole procedure wasn't too bad. The worst part was getting my IV started. The nurse had one attempt that didn't work. Then she went and got the anesthesiologist. He tried once and failed giving me a HUGE bruise on the back of my hand. He tried again and thankfully was successful. I was so glad because I am quite needle phobic and was about to give up on the whole procedure because I didn't know if I could handle another needle stick. After they finally got the IV in place I had the procedure done and was on my way home within 90 minutes. However, I really don't handle narcotic pain medications very well and had a nice barfing good time until the narcotics worked their way out of my system. YUCK! I could never be a chronic narcotic painkiller abuser for sure!! I was hurting yesterday evening, but this morning I am feeling pretty good. I do have a narcotic headache/hangover, but other than that I am feeling ok. I am going to take it easy today and Sarah has take advantage of that. She found where the licorice was kept (on top of the fridge) and helped herself and Daniel this morning. Glad she didn't fall off the bar stool and get hurt the crazy kid! Monday we also had our first house showing. I spent all morning cleaning up. By the time it was all clean I had enough time to shower me and and Sarah then we had to leave. Poor Sarah didn't get her hair combed, but she didn't care. I cleaned through lunch so we went and grabbed a hamburger and hung out in the car. To keep Daniel busy I let him play on my phone. He decided to take a bunch of random pictures of anything and everything. Poor Sarah was one of his subjects--spooky hair and all.

Noodles, Painting and Poopie

The other day for a quick dinner the kids said they wanted Cup of Noodles. Sarah decided that is what she wanted as well. She LOVED the noodles, but I am not sure I loved the huge mess she left afterward, though. We have been fixing up the house to sell. Last week I got out the paint to touch up all the dings around the inside of the house. Josh asked repeatedly if he could help me paint. I must admit I didn't let him help me. I was too nervous of the possible mess that could be made by a 7 year old and a dripping paint brush. I did feel a little guilty because when I told Josh that he couldn't help me paint he was not happy. However, Saturday Aaron decided to paint the fence. Josh saw what he was doing and begged to help him paint. Luckily it was outside and after Josh and Daniel got their grubby clothes on, they finally got their painting fix in. I got to breath a sigh of relief because the mess was all contained outside. Whew! As always church can be an interesting experience with kids! We showed up a few minutes late yesterday. The lesson was already underway in Relief Society when I made it in to class. No sooner had I sat down than the Primary brought Matthew to me. Matthew walked inside the Relief Society room in the middle of the lesson where he used his very loud voice to ask me where his scriptures were. I hurried him out of the room and told him I didn't know where the scriptures were and that he would have to go to primary without them. Thankfully, he didn't throw a tantrum and went back to class pretty quietly. I went back into the Relief Society lesson and sat down. Five minutes later the nursery brought Sarah to me. She had taken care of business in her diaper and definitely needed to be changed. Out of the Relief Society lesson I go AGAIN. I changed her diaper and took her back to nursery. By this time Relief Society was almost over, but I went in and sat back down. Things were pretty calm through Sunday School, thank goodness. Then we headed over to Sacrament Meeting. It was fast and testimony meeting and of course all my kids wanted to bear their testimonies. Matthew got up first and told everyone how he likes to help his Grandpa use the snow blower as well as how he knows the church is true...Daniel got up next and then Josh. They did great and no one suffered stage fright! Every week during Sacrament meeting Sarah likes to go into the aisle, hold on the arm rest of the bench and jump up and down. Provided that she doesn't wander off and as this keeps her busy and is not too distracting, I let her do it. However, she stopped jumping up and down and just sat down. Daniel went over and started playing peek-a-boo with her. When it started getting a little too loud I had to stop them. Sarah refused to come back inside the bench area when Daniel tried to pull her in. I grabbed her arm to drag her inside the bench. About this time there was a lull in the bearing of testimonies so the chapel was very quiet. That's when Sarah stands up and walks up to me and yells, "I POOPIE! I POOPIE! I POOPIE! I FARTED! I POOPIE!!" Sure enough she was. I didn't even need to smell her diaper to figure that one out--PEEE EWWWE!! Um, there was no question where she was headed to when Aaron took her out to change her. Too bad her speech is getting clear enough that everyone could understand what she was saying. I guess kids are here to keep you humble, right?!

Noah really likes his food. He gets pretty excited whenever you feed him by bouncing up and down. It makes feeding time last three times as long because it is really hard to hit a moving target with a spoon full of oatmeal!!