October 2012 (most of it)

I know. It has been a REALLY long time since I last posted. Apparently our life is quite eventful and once you get a little behind, it seems daunting to catch up and so you put it off for just a bit longer until before you know it, three weeks have gone by without a word. But I think most of you are friends with me on FB and so have seen news of our life, as well as pictures. I don't have a single picture to post on here from our camera, either. Well, let's see....

The second week of October didn't have a lot. More preschool, lunch with friends to celebrate my birthday late. Trying salsa for the first time with my canning buddy thanks to a friend in my ward giving me all the tomatoes and onions left in her garden. Then had lunch with another friend at the end of the week. Also during this week much anticipation was to be had because our ward had been split. It was a sad day. We were ripped from our old ward and paired up with others that had been split off from another ward to make a completely new ward. Which means many, many new callings. It was a tense week waiting for that unknown number to show up on the caller ID. Both Robert and I got the call. His was to be a Sunday school teacher for the 16 and 17 year olds. Mine was to be the Beehive advisor. To be honest, I was relieved. I really enjoyed being with the YW and let's face it - there are MANY other less-than-ideal callings out there. So we are adjusting to the new way of things, but one major good thing about this new ward stuff is our good friends the Potters are now in our ward - yay!!!

The second week of October was a tough one. Robert had his tonsils out Wednesday and thank goodness for my sister-in-law. We had arranged for a YW in our ward who is doing college classes from home to come babysit the kids. But when we got to the hospital and as the proceedings took place, we realized it was going to be MUCH longer than we had told the babysitter and she had a class to be to. So Stacey saved the day and drove down to be with the kids as long as we needed her and also made us dinner. The next few days were rough. I was in YW mtgs, rushing to get kids, taking Robert back to the hospital when he started bleeding and we couldn't get it to stop, and then my older sister was sealed in the temple on Saturday. Since Robert wasn't doing well, we forewent our planned day trip to look at sectionals and Suburbans and I drove down and back that afternoon. It has been one heck of a week, let me tell ya!

And to round it off nice and evenly, I woke up to get me and the two kids ready to go to 9:00 church by myself and was greeted with Amy's bed full of throw-up and her diaper full of diarrhea. Left her at home with Robert, took Sam with me to church. He. Was. Awful. Of course. I told myself we would just stay long enough to take the sacrament and then go home. And then he calmed down. Of course. Did I forget to mention I had to teach YW on Sunday, too? Let's just say I am ready for a new week and am bound and determined to be more prepared and to get to bed early EVERY night because you just never know when your four-year-old will suddenly decide that naps are no more. Dang it!

Hope you have a great week - I'll have to let you know about mine :)

Birthday Week

Arilee + Marissa go first

 So, I have absolutely no pictures from this week, so I will share the pictures I have from YW almost two weeks ago. We knew that there was a big change coming up, so we decided to dispense with the activity to teach the girls how to use lds.org and just have a fun night with treats and Minute-to-Win-it games. The game I came up with is you put a baseball in the end of a pair of tights, put it on your head, and have to use the ball in the end to knock over a line of water bottles. It was quite fun!

 We all had a blast that night just enjoying each other's company one last time. Turns out they took two wards and redid the boundaries so now it is three wards. We are part of the new ward, so I have lost a great number of friends and YW. But on the plus side, we kept some of my favorites (shh, don't tell!) and now our best friends, the Potters, are in our ward! But with a new ward comes new callings, so we are hesitant to answer our phones now :)

Alli + Kennedy

 In other news, it was my birthday this week! Yay! The actual day was pretty typical, Sam went to preschool and the kids and I just sort of hung out. I worked on Amy's tutu and headband for Halloween and was able to get it finished, which was fun to do something crafty, finish, and have it turn out cute! That evening Aunt Stacey came down from Rexburg to watch the kiddos so I could go to YW and then Girl's Night Out (GNO) right afterward. GNO is something some ladies in my ward started and they go out on the first Tuesday of each month late in the evening to a restaurant (different each month) to just sit and chat. It was so fun that this fell on my birthday and we went to Red Robin per my request so I could get my free dinner and sundae. It was a late night, but a good way to end my day.

Bridgette + Arliee

 Then the next day my best friend brought over my birthday cake. It was a layered ice cream cake with Oreos, hot fudge sauce, and raspberries - so yum!

Jodene shows us how to move an Oreo down your face into your  mouth

 Then the rest of this week was just kinda blah. Sam woke up in the middle of the night throwing up and diarrhea on Wednesday night. Then Thursday night Amy had the same thing. So Thursday I had to keep Sam home from preschool, which meant I had to cancel my trip to the temple I was going to do while Sam was in preschool. But he didn't throw up again, so we were still able to go over to the Potter's to can pears as planned. We spent 7 hours canning pears. Then I threw the kids in the car so we could rush to IF to get my sewing machine back from being serviced (a birthday present and SOOO nice!). And Uncle Kurtis' mission call had come in the mail that day, so he and Jake and Stacey came down to open it and have some ice cream cake with us.

Kaelynn + Verinique

 Friday was just a kind of hang-out day since both kids had been sick and Mommy felt like a walking zombie from being up half the night three nights in a row. Today I will do my best to listen to conference (while I work on a sewing project of course!) while the kids play/destroy the house. Tomorrow we have big plans for the Rexburgers (Jake, Stacey, Kurtis) to come  down to watch conference with us and enjoy lots of good food. What are conference and family for anyway? :) Hope you all have a great weekend enjoying conference in whatever way is best for you! :)

Jodene (1st Counselor) + Holly (President)

Katelynn + Ashlee

Arilee + Kennedy