Race Day, Dentist, Interviews, Embarrassing Moments

This past week has been crazy busy.  I finally find myself with some extra time this morning to finally try and catch up on everything that I have neglected until now.  Here goes: Last Sunday was the Brigham City Temple dedication so we went to that instead of having regular church.  Now kids older than 8 and baptized were only able to attend with a special temple recommend.  In order to get that recommend Josh and Matthew had to visit the bishop(ric) for an interview to get it.  The bishopric had an open Tuesday evening that I took the boys over to get their interview after scouts.  Unfortunately it happened to fall at the same time as when the Elder's Quorum presidency met so that meant I had to take all five kids by myself--ugh!  We headed over there and waited out in the hallway for them to meet with the bishopric.  The kids were bouncing off the walls it was pure craziness.  When I would run after one kid the others would run the opposite way.  After a few minutes of that I was ready to pull my hair out!!  Aaron happened to be in the foyer and heard the craziness and came to see what was going on only to find it was his own kids that were making the racket.  Thankfully he came to help me out until after the kids got their interviews.  I was never so thankful for the help!!!  Matthew went first and met with the first counselor.  He was only back in the room for a few minutes when he came out and Josh went back.  While we were waiting for Josh to get done we asked Matthew, "So, what did he ask you?" because I was curious.  Matthew replied in his monotone Matthew voice, "He asked me to be quiet."  Aaron and I found that quite hilarious.  About that time Josh came out and the first counselor came out with him and silently handed me a king size candybar.  SAWEET!!  It wasn't until later that I had found out that Josh had seen the first counselor's candybar and asked if he could have it--that's why he handed it to me.  Awesome--I am so embarrassed!!  Anyway we swapped kids with some friends on Sunday so we could both attend the dedication.  I do believe that we got the better end of the deal because the Einzinger's kids were little angels.  Our kids did ok, but Noah found his happy place at their house and took care of business in his diaper.  He also crawled up on their counter and played with their hand soap and their kitchen sink.  Sorry 'bout that Erin!!  Thanks for watching them, though!

 

This last week Josh finally got completely weaned off his Topimax medication.  YAY!!  So far so good.  He hasn't had any seizures that we know of and he doesn't overheat in the heat.  It has been a blessing for all of us!!  However, I have to keep my eye on Josh.  Every morning I give the kids their medications in addition to a calcium supplement and a chewable vitamin.  Josh HATES the vitamin and calcium so he tries to get out of taking them every morning, but I still make him take them--or so I thought he was taking him.  Aaron went downstairs yesterday to find the kids' Sunday clothes.  As he was looking for them he found a pile of vitamins that had fallen out of Josh's pants.  Daniel then informed Aaron that Josh hadn't been taking his vitamins, but putting them in his pants and telling me he had been taking them.  What a stinker!!  He got in big trouble and now in addition to being grounded he has to chew up his vitamins in front of me so I can make sure he is actually taking them instead of stuffing them into his pockets. 

 

Last Saturday we had a family party at our house to celebrate my Mom's 29th birthday (again) ;).  I am so glad our yard is in so we could have it outside.  It was such nice weather, too!  It was nice to get together for dinner and cake.  We also got to hear about my brother in law's latest hunting conquest.  He was able to get an elk tag this year and got his huge elk earlier in the week.  It was a fun get together.

 

Last Monday Sarah had her appointment at the dentist to get her cavity filled.  They took her back to a room and thankfully her cavity was small enough and they had some strong enough numbing gel that she didnt' have to get a shot.  They just rubbed the numbing gel on and gave her some nitrous oxide and filled it.  It only took about 20 minutes from start to finish.  It was so funny once they gave her the nitrous oxide.  She was pretty loopy.

Unfortunately, Daniel had spiked a fever Sunday afternoon after having a week long cold and wheeziness that needed the nebulizer.  Spiking a fever after already being sick for a week usually means some sort of secondary infection so we had to take him in to the 24 hour pediatrician's office where he got some antibiotics.  I kept him home from school Monday just to make sure he would be ok so he had to tag along with us to the dentist's office.  However, once they turned on a movie for Noah and Daniel they didn't seem to care about whatever else was going on around them.

Noah is progressing in his speech and development so our Early Intervention visits are getting less frequent like one every two months.  We probably won't be needing services after next month--WAHOO!!  However, they were starting a music class for a couple of kids who were in Early Intervention to help with socialization and speech.  They decided to enroll Noah for the 6 week course.  He started last Tuesday and he had lots of fun.  He thought he was big stuff to be going to his own 'school' just like his siblings.  Thankfully the music course is during Sarah's preschool time so I only have to wrangle Noah so that worked out great.  Here he is getting ready to go to 'school' (of course Sarah can never pass up a photo op):

Last week I came into a bunch of tomatoes and pears which had to be bottled before they went bad.  Now bottling and kids don't always work out well together so the kids got to watch TV for a day while I bottled like crazy.  While I was busy peeling the pears I noticed that Sarah hadn't moved for a while.  I went to check on her and found her really asleep.  She looked so sweet you could never picture her getting into trouble right?!  Anyway, seeing as she doesn't fall asleep on the couch very often I took a picture.

When Noah saw I was taking a picture, he came over to check things out.  When he found that Sarah had fallen asleep he had a field day with her.  He started poking and prodding and she must have been really asleep because she didn't even move.  What a nice little brother....He is learning the ways of how to be an annoying brother quite well from his older brothers.  He eventually did wake her up and she was not happy about it either!

After two days and lots of hard tedious boring work, here is my bottled bounty:  We yielded 28 quarts of pears and 33 quarts of tomato soup and multiple cuts and stab wounds all over my hands from peeling everything, but I think it is worth it.  I might even have a chance at winning a ribbon at next year's county fair maybe.  I will just have to wait and see.

The other day Sarah was playing in her room and came out wearing this outfit.  She came out and told me she was a princess with her glass slippers.  Who knew princesses had wings?!  She thought she was just beautiful and me being biased had to agree.  Have I mentioned that I LOVE having a girl?!

Friday at school they celebrated Daniel's birthday.  He was so excited to show me his birthday hat and birthday book.  His teacher made a birthday book that everyone wrote cute messages, signed and drew a picture for him in.  He was also excited to pass out his Oreo treats at school.

In July Aaron and I were sitting down and talking together.  The subject of goal setting came up.  I had just listened or read something about the importance of goal setting so I was really gung ho on setting some goals for myself, but I didn't know where to start.  I had always wanted to run a marathon, but that seemed like too big of a goal so I kept putting it off.  Aaron talked me into to trying a half marathon (which is 13.1 miles) instead to see how that would go over.  Well I got a training program and got started.  A little into starting my training I somehow convinced Aaron to do it with me as well.  We have both been training since mid July and after a month of training finally signed up for the Layton 1/2 Marathon that was September 29th.   To keep me motivated I bought a sticker that I could put on my car after we had run the race.  Here's my 13.1 sticker:

Race day was bright and early Saturday morning.  G&G T came up and stayed overnight so they could watch the kids while we ran.  Thanks again G&G T!!!  We parked at the finish line and got bussed over to the starting line which was on the causeway of Antelope Island.  Here we are all smiles on our bus ride over to the starting line: 

 It was very beautiful as we got off the bus except for it was freezing cold, windy and there was a strong 'lake smell'.  Other than that it was a beautiful way to start a race at sunrise:

 Aaron and I have different running styles.  We had agreed beforehand that we didn't have to stay together during the race if it became easier to run separately.  We did stay together for the first 7 miles until Aaron had to take an emergency pit stop.  I ended up finishing about 7 minutes ahead of Aaron so I was able to take his picture as he crossed the finish line:

 Here we are very sweaty and delirious with pain, but glad we accomplished our goal.   Albeit we were slow in running (we averaged 12 1/2 minute miles) that still is not too shabby for only training 2 1/2 months.  I also learned determination is an awesome thing!!

 Yay I got to put on my sticker:

After we got our medals for running we came home and showered and got ready to celebrate Daniel's birthday a day early with G&G T.  We started out by having a McDonald's lunch and then cake.  Daniel's choice of cake was chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  Here he is blowing out his 7 candles.

 Then he opened his presents:

 Noah loved his chocolate cake--don't you think?!

 After lunch we headed out to a corn maze--something we try and do every year as a family.  We decided to go to a different corn maze this year than Cornbelly's because Cornbelly's was quite expensive.  We got to the other corn maze at 1:30pm only to find it doesn't open until 3 pm.  WHAT?!  What corn maze doesn't open until 3 pm on a Saturday?!  We all thought that was ridiculous.  We didn't want to sit and wait in our cars for over an hour so we decided to come back home and watch Daniel's Avengers movie that he got for his birthday.  We popped popcorn and sat back to watch with G&G T.  It was the first time I had seen the movie and it was a good show!  It was a fun afternoon.

Sunday was Daniel's actual birthday.  He was super excited to get sung to in Primary.

 Sunday afternoon we had Brad, Jessica and Bailey over for dinner.  Brad is Aaron's long time friend that he grew up with in Plano, Texas.  I guess in growing up Brad and Aaron had a long time tradition for birthdays.  When it was either of their birthdays the other one would think of the most messy, sticky way to give them a present.  One year Aaron gave Brad $20 in the bottom of the biggest honey jar he could find.  Another year Brad filled up a bunch of balloons and put them in Aaron's bedroom.  He only filled 19 of them with a dollar bill and left the rest of them empty so Aaron had to pop all of them one at a time to get everything.  He then hid the last dollar bill somewhere else and made Aaron look all over for it.  Well Brad and Jessica found out it was Daniel's birthday and decided to bring Daniel a present.  They found a tub of whipped honey and put $10 worth of loose quarters all over in it.  Aaron tried to explain to Daniel about the present and Daniel summed it up when he said, "Oh so this is payback?"  He did have fun going through the honey trying to pull out all the loose quarters while the rest of us enjoyed the entertainment.

 Here's a few he excitedly found:

It was a messy endeavor, but he did find all the quarters.  Now the hard part is trying to decide what to spend them on....  It was a fun night and fun to see Brad, Jessica and Bailey again.

In embarrassing moments we had a huge one yesterday.  My Mother/daughter visiting teachers had not made a visit for September so the daughter and her dad stopped by to drop off a treat.  I was busy in the kitchen so when the doorbell rang Matthew ran over to answer it with Aaron on his heels.  When he opened the door Paige, my visiting teacher, gave Aaron the cookies and explained what they were for.  Paige's dad was by the sidewalk waiting for her to finish giving the cookies to us.  Now her dad is an average guy, but for whatever reason Matthew thought he was a girl. You can almost tell where this story is going....Matthew then asked Paige, "Oh is that your grandmother?"  Aaron tried to recover and started to say, "No that's her grandfather." but then caught himself because it was really her dad who happened to have really white hair.  Paige is only 18 years old.  Aaron was so embarrassed that he didn't even try to recover.  He just took the cookies, said a quick thank you, pulled Matthew back inside the house and closed the door and then came and told me what had happened.  Great--I can't wait to visit with them again and try to explain the actions of my family.....**SIGH**.