Nella's bday and the Fall Festival

The smoke finally started clearing up after 3 weeks of being restricted to our home.  My bronchitis has started to calm down along with the smoke and my wonderful sister helped me with an inhaler because mine expired forever ago. (I had one when I had pneumonia).  Seth is also getting better.  Last week, we got together at our house to have a barbeque to celebrate Janelle's birthday with our family and some of her friends.  It was so fun.  Earlier that day we'd gone to the Thanksgiving Point Fall Festival with Janelle, and Sharon's family.  The main event was a pumpkin weighing contest.  We left before they'd finished, but one of them was over a ton.  The guy was asked what he does with the giant pumpkin after the contest.... he said he takes them to the zoo and lets the elephants eat them.  I think that would be fun.  I don't usually like to spend money at fairs because of how expensive they are, but I've been teaching a piano student and had some cash in my wallet.  I told the kids they could choose one treat.  The girls wanted cotton candy and the boys wanted flavored ice.  Jer saw some crepes and decided to get some for the family to share.  SOOOOO good! We got one with nutella and bananas and one with turkey and avocado....

As a catch up for the last three weeks, we've been hanging out in the house... I finished a lot of things that have been on my to do list, but not all.  We still did soccer on the occasional days that the air cleared up.  We had our garage flood again, but not as bad this time.  Jer figured out where the water was coming from and got that blocked off.  We were so grateful for the rain.  After so many fires in all directions around the valley, it was a blessing to get rain.  The faith of the people praying for rain is so appreciated.  There have been several small things that are definitely God's hand.  After the first full week of fires, the county held a fast and that Sunday there was rain right over the fire when there wasn't rain in the forecast.  There were 6000 people displaced from their homes and none of there were left homeless.  None of the over 1000 firefighters were hurt.  And the next Sunday there was again rain when it wasn't in the forecast.  The third Sunday there was rain in the forecast, that gave everyone enough forewarning to sandbag behind the homes in mudslide areas and no homes were lost yet again.  And now we have snow on the mountains too.  There was even one instance that they called Miracle Mountain.  There was a gust of fire that set a separate mountain on fire.... and overnight it put itself out for no reason.  I'm grateful to get to see these miracles.

We've been to the symphony twice this year with Jim and Judy.  Both times were amazing.  Both times I was trying not to cough.  Once, there was an animal protest in the mall food court.  People that believe that animals are not meant to be food were dressed in black with tape over their mouths and carrying signs back and forth.  They got kicked out because it was not a public area like a street or a park.

Today we get to listen to General Conference.  I'm so grateful for the ability to do that even with little kids at home.  We were supposed to spend today up helping Sharon and Brad in their yard and then having a birthday party with Ada and Vivien for their shared birthday.  Sharon was doing a CareBear themed party for Vivien and Ada said that she'd love to join in too.  She made CareBear ears for people to wear and we made rainbow suckers.  And then Seth and Ada came down with the flu and we spent most of the night cleaning kids, diapers (Seth has been peeing the bed and I'm so glad that I decided to put a diaper on him before diarrhea last night.), and bathrooms.  Needless to say, we're not going to her party.  She cried for just a minute, but she was happy that Janelle offered her a Harry Potter themed evening when she's better... eased her pain a little I think.  She loves spending time with cousins and it's sad when that can't happen.  Let me just say that I'm glad that our kids are to the point that they know how to throw up in the bathroom instead of in their beds...

Check ups- The day before getting sick (I don't think we caught it there because of incubation periods), we went to the doctor for a check up for Seth and Evelyn.  Seth's doing great and looks healthy.  He has a speech impediment that they might have us do speech with him in kindergarten, but it's overall not a big deal.  Evelyn on the other hand had so much to process.  She needs glasses,  has high arches that causes her pain through her feet, knees and even her hips, and is being screened for ADHD.  I made an appointment with the podiatrist and the doctor recommended her playing soccer in really good tennis shoes, not cleats.  I have an appointment for her eyes soon and filled out the paperwork for ADHD for the second time.  I sent the other on to her teacher and I'm waiting to get that back before I proceed there.  I don't want to medicate her unless she starts to feel frustrated, but I do want to have the diagnosis to let the teachers know that they need to spend an extra brain cell on her education.  She's gotten a little better at coping, so she might be fine.  She used to have a hard time sitting at her seat and would stand and sway at her desk.  Now she tells me that she can sit and not wiggle, but she also tells me that she's counting her wiggles or tells me about all her daydreams that she does to keep still in her seat.  That means that she's not really paying attention.  She's reading at a 4th grade level, but she's behind in math.  I went through her math homework with her and she's been telling me that she doesn't have homework... then she received a packet of 13 pages of homework that she hadn't turned in yet.  I asked her about it and she said, "Well, math just isn't my thing." Hmmmm....

Some funny saying the last couple of weeks, Seth wanted me to make him chocolate milk.  I had the stuff on the table from making Evelyn some and I told him to go get a cup.  He looked at me and very seriously said, "My hands are busy." I arched my eyebrows at him and said, "They're busy?" He turned around and got a cup.

We drove through Alpine loop last night to see the colors before getting more snow on them.  We stopped in Sundance to use the bathroom and Evelyn says, "Sundance!  Like the dog!  We should bring them here!"  (My friend's dog is Sundance because they like to hike up the mountain.)

Evelyn, Sam, Lance, Janelle, Jeremy, Seth Ada, Emma

Vivien

Millie's 8

We were so blessed to be able to make it to Millie's baptism this last week.  While we were sad to miss Samuel's baptism a couple weeks before, I feel blessed that we can see cousins/nieces/nephews as they get baptized.  Especially now that Evelyn is thinking forward to her own. 

Ada the goalie

Ada is actually a pretty good goalie. She gets mad when she makes a mistake but honestly she does a very good job.

Soccer

This little Evelyn is funny. She usually tries to play defense during her soccer games when at that age they don't teach defense. Her coach usually lets her but occasionally he tries to get her to do something different. This last game he told her you're doing a great job back here but I want you to go up there and get a goal. She just looked at him said okay, went made a goal, Hi-5 him and then went back to defense. I just laughed the entire time. She came back to me during her break and said now you owe me an ice cream mom. I told her sure.

My Ada

Picture day

I had to get up early and drive some friends up to an appointment with the IRS office. It was also picture day. O did the girls hair and Jeremy made sure they had clean shirts and brushed their teeth. Neither of us realized that Evelyn was wearing Seth's pants. Good thing pictures are only from the chest up.

Blanket

The plus of getting sick.... I've got extra down time to finish projects like this blanket for my room mate's first baby.

The twins's birthdays

My brother, McKay and his wife Sophie, are in the middle of adopting their niece and nephew.  They went from 3 kids to 5 and now they have two sets of twins.  The kids are aged 11, 11, 9, 9 and 6.  Here's the best part.  The twins birthdays are 2 years and 2 days apart.  That makes a very intense birthday weekend... 4 of your 5 kids birthdays within two days.  We got to go up because it was Labor Day weekend and we didn't have soccer... it was fun to wish them all a happy birthday.  We got them a combined present.  A giant jenga set.  I think they're really fun, but I hope they think so too. 

Fun week

We have been battling a cold all week.  I don't feel too bad about it since we haven't had a cold for awhile and we've had such terrible air for the last month.  On top of that, we had our garage flood during the one rainstorm that dumped on us last week.  While Jeremy and I cleaned that up, I must have rubbed up against something and gotten a splinter in the back of my leg.  I didn't feel it until I sat down and it rubbed on the chair.  I couldn't see it because of the location and Jer said he could feel it but not see it.  I soaked it in Epsom Salt for a couple of days, but that didn't seem to do anything for the long term solution.  I gave in and had Ada watch kids while I went to the doctor to get it removed.  I felt stupid beyond telling them that I had a splinter in my rear that I couldn't get out.  The doctor dug it out and I was good as new, but it was about a half inch long and he said that it was the color of my skin and was down in there pretty far.  Not two days after that, Seth was playing with his friend, James, in the trailer in the front yard and came in screaming.  He had a splinter that went down about a third of his foot.  I helped him wash it and tried to get it with a needle and tweezers.  I was able to get most of it, but the last bit was so far down there that I couldn't get it without some help.  Jer tried when he got home and Seung-mo even tried a little bit.  I took him to the doctor the next day and it took three of us working together to dig it all out.  Seth was brave for most of it, but by the time you start getting deep enough there's bound to be some kicking and struggling.  He limped for a day, but now he's back to his own self.  He has been bringing me socks to put on him lately though.  I think he feels that they will protect him more.
The other thing that we've been watching very carefully is Sam.  We were getting a lot of spiders around the outside of the house, so I called someone in to spray the outside.  I'm a little paranoid about spraying anything poisonous inside the house since one of our neighbors lost two grandkids after trying to kill voles in their yard.... So we haven't sprayed the inside for a long time.  We actually only see a couple of spiders every now and then and it's not been a problem, but spraying outside we scared a couple of them into the house and I've had to kill a few.  Sam started complaining about pain on his bum.  I watched it, it got bigger and developed a black spot in the middle that felt like a very large pimple.  He got a fever and I called the doctor.  They said that unless it started weeping or got very much larger than we didn't have to bring him in.  In the morning, it was about 6 inches larger than the night before.  I called and they had me keep him home from school and watch him.  I did some research and it looked like one of two bites.... a brown recluse or a hobo spider.  Eventually his fever went away and the swelling went down.  I think we were lucky and it was a hobo spider which can cause a reaction but is not actually very dangerous.  Brown recluse, the bite starts to collapse and the venom eats at the tissue.  I thank our Heavenly Father that we didn't have to deal with that.
All in all a very exciting week.

An old friend

Most of this week we have been sick with colds, taking out splinters, and fighting spider bites. One day was very special though. Tuesday our very first International student came back for a visit. He brought his wife and daughter. It was very nice to meet them both. I feel like we have a very special connection with Swung-mo. He wanted to especially say goodbye to Ada on the way out. It was very sweet. He was living with us when Ada was only 1 years old. I think he liked her a lot. Once he told us that staying with us helped him realize that he wanted a family. Ada doesn't remember him but she was very kind and tried to say goodbye anyway. Ada was especially kind to the daughter. Their daughter is 3 and doesn't speak English very well yet but they went upstairs and played dolls and horses. I love seeing them again.