Sweet moment

 My Sethie likes music, but it has to be on his terms.  When he was a baby he would get mad at me when I would sing to him like I had sung to the other babies.  Eventually I stopped singing.  He will sing in primary, and he would rather listen to an audio book than music.  He doesn't really sing in Sacrament meeting unless it's Christmas time. That made choir practice extra special for me.  Seth was sitting on a chair next to me waiting for Dad to take him home.  I commented that this piano particularly made it hard to turn the pages of my music.  He happily volunteered to turn pages for me.... I happily accepted. He sat on the bench next to me, put his head on my shoulder and softly sang, "I know that my Redeemer Lives" into my ear. He would turn the page, but once or twice got into the song enough that he forgot.  I didn't care one bit.  His sweet voice in my ear made me the happiest.

last of the last month

Sam's first self portrait.  Not bad.  He did the ears really well. He needed to place the ears higher and the mouth higher and smaller. But not bad.

A cat at her melting point

nappers

Jer hosted the young men to talk about smelting aluminum.  They had this little leftover while cleaning up.  I think he looks like Randall from Monster's Inc.

 

cyst

Monday morning, I ended up in the ER for the first time since I was 21. Ironically both were for cysts. The first was from a cyst that had formed after I broke my tailbone sledding.  This current one I've had for years.... sometimes it would be close to the surface, sometimes it would go down to where I couldn't feel it.  Saturday it was bugging me. Apparently, it burst and became an abscess and infected the skin around the area.   Sunday it was painful and at 5 am Monday morning it was excruciating. I was going to drive myself to the ER and text Jer so that he could be in charge of getting kids off in the morning.  I got dressed and then laid on the couch so that I could get there just after the hospital shift change.  It's easier to explain everything once instead of twice.  Jer woke up and saw me waiting.  He wanted to drive me, so off we went leaving a phone in the girls room so that we could call them when it was time to get up.  We got there, ran into Janelle who had just happened to pick up a shift that morning...no wait... got into a room... no wait.... talked to the nurses and the PA on duty... no wait... he left to get some lidocaine.... gave me a shot of lidocaine and just that pressure was enough that it burst open and shot across the room.  All the medical staff ooooed and awwwwed, then he cleaned it out and packed it before the lidocaine had taken effect.  We were in and out in about an hour and a half. I was really sore Monday, less sore Tuesday, and today I'm feeling pretty good. Hopefully it will be better soon. It might come back because they just drained it instead of removing it.... hopefully it won't be like today again.

St Patrick's day

Remember that time when we all got dressed up to celebrate St Patrick's Day but we were a week early?  We did it on time this time.  It was fun matching with my family and talking about our history in Ireland a little bit. 

Evelyn and I were going to take a picture of our matching hair and Sam came in with the most perfect St Patty's day photobomb.

Jer pulled out his old slot car set.  Seth is obsessed.

We played Super Mario brothers in my messy room, but they were too cute not to take a picture of.

Jello dessert

Green pancake dinner.

 

Frazer

My friend's dad got a new puppy that he can't leave alone in the house.  We like to puppy sit for a few hours.  Everyone loves him.... but they've all come to realize how much work a puppy is... he wants to be entertained all the time.

 

FBLA

Ada did amazing!  Their FBLA club went to State.  She had prepared 3 presentations and I think did 3 tests.  She didn't place in the tests, but she got 1st place and 2nd place for two of her presentations.  She's been working hard and she's scheduled to go to nationals in Orlando, Florida. Jer might go out there and say hi to his sister while he's there.  We'll figure that out once we have details.  She's worked hard and I hope that she's proud of the effort that she's put in.

For the first place presentation, she and her team were awarded a $100 bill.  She drove me to the bank and she got money to split between the three of them.

They also won chapter of the year for their service hours and activities.  

During Sam's Sophmore night, Ada was running the school store with Jimmy and Alexx. Sam likes the idea of doing the retailing class, but Ada is not keen on having him in her declared space.  I think Sam has enough that he's interested in that it won't end up being a problem.  Ada has already registered for classes for next year and I think she's got a good thing set up.  Sam's got his wish list registration put together.... we'll see what he ends up with.

 

misc

The cat discovered that I'm comfy.

Sam has had fun running a D&D campaign for his friends.  They started with 5 and it's grown to about 10.  I'm enjoying the happy noise.  Ada used to do stuff like that, but it's harder as you grow older.  Sam only started doing stuff like this now. I am worried about two of the players that came late to the game.  One of the keeps trying to bring in a lesbian theme for their backstory and the other one is applauding the effort.  So far Sam hasn't give time for their backstory and plows on with the main plot point.  I talked to him about it and he was busy with the story line and didn't know that the player was doing that... I had overheard them while Sam had a group in the other room.  Sam said he'll try his best to keep it steered away from that.  I appreciate Sam and his willingness.

There are two cats here if you look close enough.

We replaced a couple of broken camp chairs with these.  Seth's insisting that we take them to the soccer games coming up.  

Spring Soccer is starting this week.  Sam was getting yelled at constantly from the goalie on his team last season and the coach did nothing to stop it.... I moved Sam from the team even though Sam said he was used to being yelled at and I reported the player and the coach to the league.  The league was very accommodating and I hope to never see that player again.  He was doing things like groaning every time Sam was put on the field.  Telling him that he's an awful player and yelling at him while he's trying to chase the ball.  It's a rec league.... so crazy.

We have enough allergies to cats in our home that I don't allow them to walk all over the house.... they're held or outside.  Sam has been "sacrificing" his jacket so they can cuddle by him when they don't want to be held.  Evelyn will also take them up into her bed.  

Another D&D session

If I fits I sits.

 

Caucus Meeting

We had our caucus meeting this month too.  Jer and the two youngest kids went to set up chairs and hang informational flyers.  Then I came after picking up Sam from play practice and Ada from a school thing.  I fed them all Wendy's and took the kids home before coming back for the meeting. It was the biggest turnout that we've seen in the almost 20 years that we've lived here.  And they suggested that they do a child care nursery so that other families can come too. 

Jer has been the rep for 6 years.  They wanted to re-elect him but he stepped down. The Vice chair ended up being elected.  It will be a nice break for our family. 

 

STEAM Day

I got to go to Seth's steam day.  It was fun and they had a pretty good idea of what to do.... but it was interesting.  If one thing broke none of the 3 boys working on it wanted to redo it.  They all thought it was a lost cause just because one thing wasn't working.  Me and another mom were trying to encourage them to try again but they just sat a fiddled until the other mom started setting things up for them again.  The moms were not supposed to be helping, so I just cheered them on and gave suggestions.  Seth was the one that was trying to think things through at least a little bit.  I was proud of him for that and hope that one of the things he learns is that you can't let hard things keep you from doing things.

I love this boy!  

 

stuff

Seth went gaga over this tunic at the nerd store that Jer took him to.  He loves it.  It goes well with his sword and shield from Europe too.

They were not too pleased with the weather after it had been warming up.

These cards ended up on the dining table for a whole week.  They kept wanted to start new games with each other.  I played and lost spectacularly.  I kept getting all the draw 2s and draw 4s put on me with no way out.... 

Homework is always best done with a cat in your pouch.

 

Symphony

We had tickets to the symphony, but Jer couldn't go... so I took Ada, my singer, and Sammy, my jazz player.... to the Jazz tribute concert.  We got there two hours early because there were other big events going on and I didn't want to fight traffic, so we went to the cheesecake factory.  I've never been except to get cheesecake to go once.  It was very good, very expensive, highly salted and spiced and extremely slow.  It took us 2 hours to eat. And the server asked if we wanted a kids menu.  I said no, but they brought my almost 15 year old Sam a kids cup anyways.  We all got a kick out of that and Sam said that he didn't need me to ask for a different one.... But we had to take a picture to commemorate the occasion. 

I love these beautiful people more than they can know.

 

My family

Late night homework/gaming session going on in here.

My parents had pruned their trees and our helpers came to haul them away.  Seth loved the idea of cutting them to fit the trailer.

We watched cute little Rosie and Peter.  

Played D&D with Uncle Seth and the Komen's

Ada's been so stressed that she got a patch of white started.  My cousin had one like this.  She called it her mouse patch.  I'm not sure why.  We sure love our girl and hope things calm down for her.

 

Sam Band

Sam went to a Band thing where different schools came to compete.  It's so fun that he loves music so much.  I don't blame him.... so did/do I.  I don't practice as much as he does anymore, but it makes my heart happy to hear him playing.

 

Valentine's Day

We had to have a pretty chill Valentine's Day.  Everything was overwhelming and hard.  But Dad made sure to show his kids that he loved them.  He got flowers for the girls and lego minifigures for the boys.  I loved them, played games with them and did dishes after Jer's traditional steak dinner.

 

daycare

sleeping twins

everyone loves the baby.... even the babies....

I'm probably going to be doing daycare through the end of the summer, but I think my daycare time is coming to an end. Maybe. We'll see how it plays out.

 

YW's

I've been a little more busy/stressed lately, so I'm going to have to catch up on a month's worth of doings here.  I got this cute picture of Evelyn from their activity earlier this month.  They did a great job with their cake competition and Evelyn came home loaded with sprinkles.  I didn't know where to put them all, but she's very proud of them and they have been used once since then.  She calls sprinkles "spronkles". The girls' YW's president has been spectacular but is currently going under chemo, so she dyed her hair pink before shaving it all off.  You can see her in the back.  They just released her and called another neighbor.  I appreciate all the love and care both of them have for my daughters.