A Few Funnies

I love the things kids say. I love the way they say the things they do. How they repeat what they hear with their own flair.

My favorite of the week was from Mallorie: her primary teachers gave her a card, basically welcoming her to their class and expressing gratitude that she's there with them. It was written in cursive, neatly worded and signed by both brethren. A sweet gesture! Especially since she's the only girl in the class and not particularly loving the fact. Well, the class was talking about the card at some point and Mallorie sweetly informed her teacher, "I don't think my mom can read cursive. She was born in Mexico." His wife is a friend and she texted me when he told her what Mallorie had said. I giggled about that for several days.

She has also been talking recently about where she's going to live when she grows up. For many months, she was going to live on a farm with all the dressings. However, things have changed and her future living spot will be in a "department." Today, questions revolved around what kind of animals you can have in such a place. And if she should live on the bottom or top floor.

Spencer has a couple things that crack me up. When asked to do something, and he's feeling amiable to assisting, he'll replay, "Yep. I can," then run off to do what was requested. The other thing that makes me laugh inside is when he has pooped and his bottom is sore. Instead of saying it hurts or is ouchy, he tells me that he's ready to change his bottom because it's "spicy."

His new favorite song is "You Are My Sunshine." However, since watching an episode of Care Bears from the library, he now calls it "funshine" (the bear with the sun on its belly). I like the new word better anyway.....

Morgan, You're Turning EIGHT!!

I was made a mom the first time in the early afternoon of February 26, 2010. This chubby-cheeked, blue eyed girl has been melting my heart since the first time I held her in my arms. She rivaled, and my opinion surpassed, the cuteness of the Gerber baby, has an natural curiosity that keeps me on my toes, and is turning into a beautiful and smart little lady.

Morgan loves to read. She devours books, page by page, at every free moment both during recess and while at home. Yes, it gets her into trouble as she places her nose in the book when she ought to be getting dressed/doing homework/completing chores/going to sleep. She reminds me of myself when young in that regard. School still seems to come easily for her and she loves reading and science and social studies. Library is, of course, her favorite special. Lately, Morgan has been exploring the world of Google as she researches places like Australia or animals from a prehistoric time. Drawing/coloring are her other favorite past times, especially in the winter months when she can't be out playing in the barn or riding her bike. 

For her birthday, she requested a family ice skating outing, so off to Ice World we went, through the snow and wind of the day. 

By the time the open skate was complete, Morgan was skating more and falling less. However, the effort took its toll and she requested an ice pack for bed for her bruised elbow! Mallorie also enjoyed the outing, more so once we snagged her a "stroller" which is a hard plastic piece that can be pushed on the ice in front of you like a walker. Spencer....he made it about two laps happily and struggled for the duration. His poor little ankles just aren't strong enough to hold him up yet. He enjoyed trying to eat the ice off the bottom of his skates.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, of which we are members, children are baptized when they reach "the age of accountability," which is eight. It's a big deal - you're making covenants with Heavenly Father to take His name upon you, to serve others, and to account for the mistakes you make in a bigger way. Choose the Right (CTR) is a slogan often used on jewelry, backpacks, and logos to remind the children to make good choices in their lives. Morgan wanted a cake that reflected her decision to be baptized, and with the help of some fondant and my friend Saramarie, an edible "masterpiece" was created!

Family came over for cake and ice cream on Sunday. Presents were opened Monday morning before school.

 And I snagged her for a quick bite at McDonald's during her lunch break. 

Dinner was home made cheese pizza at her request and we held family home evening. Overall, a great weekend celebrating this amazing girl! I am grateful for her help, her smile, her curiosity, and to see what she makes of this life as she continues to grow. We love you, Magoo!

This is Me

Reading about sugar addiction while savoring several pieces of my favorite dark chocolate. Yep.....that was one of my nights last week. 

Granite Counter Top:1/Spencer's Forehead: 0

Super Bowl Sunday brought our first visit to the emergency room. 

Twenty minutes before leaving for church, Spencer was standing on the barstool in the kitchen reaching for a toy just out of reach. One minute, he was upright, the next thing I knew, he dropped to the floor. The holler from the other side of the counter spoke of more pain than usual, and as he rounded the corner, the biggest column of blood I've ever seen was prepared to cascade down his face over his left eye. I sat him on the stool on the kitchen floor and pressed paper towels over the spot to staunch the bleeding. Peeking at the wound, I was horrified to see the large area of skin pulled back from the skull. Swallowing to calm the mounting adrenaline rush, I called Morgan over to keep pressure on the area (with strict instructions not to look under the bloody towel) and raced upstairs to find a bandage. I tore apart the first aid kit, thinking to myself that as two veterinarians, we ought to have something that would work! I was also calling Mallorie's preschool teacher, Tammy, to find out where to take this kid. She has five boys and I figured she would know where to go for stitches, besides the veterinary clinic where my husband works. 

Did I mention that Chadwick was already at church for meetings?

Tammy offered to come get the girls. I declined, swallowed the initial panic, and descended the stairs. Spencer was still hollering and sitting on his stool, Morgan obediently pushing on his wound. The bleeding had slowed and I got it bandaged without incident. Tammy arrived on my doorstep with a smile to get my girls (bless her heart!) and I loaded Spencer and his blankie into the Pilot to head to the urgent care. By then, his sobs had subsided and he was willing to try for a smile for the camera.

The urgent care was between patients and we walked right into the small room for vitals and history. After obtaining his height, weight, temp, oxygen saturation, and story behind the bandage around his head, the nurse asked to see the wound as we prepared to walk to the assigned room. I peeled the bandage back. Stunned silence greeted the revelation and the nurse looked at me, eyes wide. "Normally I can tell how bad it is by the mom....you are really calm. Um, we need to head to a different room." By this, she meant the "operating room" of the urgent care facility. Walking down the narrow hall, another nurse smiled and said, "another one bites the dust."

The doctor took a look at his wound, snapped a couple of pictures, and let me know she felt more comfortable with us at the emergency room in case we needed to sedate him. I was concerned about a concussion but as he was showing no clinical signs of such, I crossed that off the list of things to stress about. 

Now, this is one of the worst flu seasons in recent years. As we sat in the emergency room waiting our turn, it occurred to me that this was not the ideal place for two healthy individuals. I went through a large amount of hand sanitizer that afternoon in an attempt to keep us healthy and calm my mom-germaphobia. 

My little man was amazing. The doc placed a gel combination of epinephrine, lidocaine, and tetracaine over the wound, left us for about 30 minutes, and came back to suture the edges closed. By then, the skin had blanched and nerves numbed. Using 6-0 suture, he carefully placed 16 stitches in the v-shaped wound above the eye. Spencer lay obediently on the bed, flinching occasionally and happily watching "Snow White" on tv. When he started getting antsy, an orange popsicle calmed the wiggles and the job was finished. 

A nap, dinner, and children's ibuprofen improved his demeanor. He proceeded to throw a massive fit when we refused to let him jump on the trampoline in the dark at a friends' house...um, no thanks! Sutures were removed by a friend's PA husband 5 days later and it's healing nicely. He'll have a lovely scar to add to his manliness and I have a great story of the first - probably of several - ER stories. 

 

Go big or go home. Since then, he's been pointing to his healing scar to anyone willing to look in his direction while saying, "Look I did." 

Atta boy, Spencer.

Magnetic Experiment

Who knew that My Little Ponies could stick to the wall.....

Self-Reliance: Finances

Since joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2005, I have been impressed by the educational opportunities available for members (and interested non-members). High school students can attend seminary outside of their regular curriculum, institute classes are present on university campuses - I loved our professor, Brother Campbell! - and, most recently in our area, My Path for Self Reliance.

Strung out over a 12-week period, each class is roughly 2 hours long and focuses on one of four topics - finances, starting and growing a business, finding a better job, personal finances, and education for better work. As finances has never been my strong suit, I enrolled in this group mid-November.

Self-reliance, as defined by the Church Handbook:2, is "the ability, commitment, and effort to provide for the spiritual and temporal necessities of life for self and family. As members become self-reliant, they are also better able to serve and care for others." The result is that work is enthroned as a ruling principle in their lives. President Thomas S. Monson taught that "salvation can be obtained on no other principle" (Ensign, Sept. 1986). The curriculum is heavily doctrine based and infused with common sense principles. I loved reading weekly the tidbits from our church leaders and learning from one another. What began as a desire to improve my finance skills and seemed like a major time commitment (perhaps something of a drag every week) morphed into two hours of bonding, learning, feeling the Spirit, and cherished time with new-found friends. We made a commitment at the first class to not judge one another, not to apologize if we had a rough week with our homework, and to laugh. All of those goals were met and then some. 

The class is well outlined in the book we received the first day and discussions were centered around the "financial stewardship success map." 

We made commitments each week - teaching others what we learned, promising to work on daily prayer, serving others, creating a budget, or choosing a hard task and seeing it through to the end. Action partners were chosen weekly. These individuals were paired up to help as an accountability tracker; we were to text or call multiple times each week to see how the homework was going, chat about difficulties living a principle, and creating friendships. The final class had the same page - choose an action partner. While one class member joked that the editor of the book got a little crazy with the "cut and paste" button, five of us promised to stay in touch on a regular basis and continue to help each other through this on-going financial-smarts-learning. We attended the temple together last week and I was filled with the sweetest spirit while sitting with them. 

Financial conversations between Chadwick and I have never been easy and I used to dread them. He's always been the financially savvy one and probably felt like I was dragging us down by my lack of apparent interest. Since participating in the class, I've developed a foundation of knowledge related to money and, more importantly, a desire to actively contribute to our family's financial-well being. I feel like our conversations are more about conversing and less about one-sided discussions, I'm actively thinking before spending (though there's still room for improvement with regards to the use of my debit card), and feel better equipped to create a budget. 

I'm grateful for the inspiration of the church leaders in creating this class and others like it. I'm grateful for the materials provided, for the time to learn and grow with new people, and the friendships created. I'm grateful for the increased financial harmony in my marriage.

Now I have the tools to move forward and be a responsible adult. At least most of the time. =)

The New Year

New Year, new word. Last year, my word was "follow-through" and it was good to me. With that word posted in a visible place on the kitchen desk, I was gently reminded to finish the task I started. The beauty of the word was that it applied to just about anything from daily life to church life and everything in between. It wasn't a list of goals that were forgotten by March and tossed by June. It wasn't a reminder that I hadn't completed a single task on my list of New Year's resolutions. Just a nudge.

This year, my word is BALANCE. I think one of the things that contributes to my bouts of depression is feeling overwhelmed and off-kilter. Too many things on the to-do list, not enough time in the day, not making good use of the time available. Creating a loose schedule of goals and set days to work on projects, CBH, my doTERRA business (started last week, mostly as a way to help pay for the essential oils I'm using more for myself and the children) and time for exercise will help me to stay focused. For example, knowing that Wednesday afternoon is for the blood bank, I don't have to wonder how or when or if All Valley will be charged in an appropriate time. Actively creating time for each aspect of my life makes me happy since I'm very much a planner and Type A personality anyway. And yes, I'll schedule time for spontaneity as well....

We started 2018 by making a somewhat last minute trip to Utah. I found out that Chadwick's sister, Emily, and her family were going to be in the Salt Lake area for a week and wanted to make use of the opportunity to see them. Emily's daughter, Sarah, just got off her mission in San Diego in December and was heading back to BYU. I totally invited myself and my family to intrude on their time in Utah and it worked out wonderfully. On New Year's Eve we had dinner with Emily's brother-in-law and his family in their home (which, by the way, they had moved into literally two weeks before our arrival). The new house is huge and our kids promptly disappeared for the evening to play with the Davis girls. At one point, I asked Chadwick if he had seen Morgan or Mallorie. With a shrug and sly smile, he responded, "Out of sight, out of mind."

Monday we went to Thanksgiving Point and the Museum of Ancient Life - rooms of dinosaurs and bones and a mud-table, yes please!

 

We managed to meet up with a vet school classmate, Liz, and her little family. Another vet school friend also happened to be in town and joined the fun. The funny thing to me is that of the three couples, none of us currently live in Utah. The afternoon was spent at a park enjoying some sunshine and fresh air. We rested briefly at the hotel before driving back up to Salt Lake City. Experiencing the Christmas lights at Temple Square has been on my bucket list for a while - it was amazing! I've never seen so many lights in one spot. The Temple is beautiful on a normal evening, but the lights added another layer of beauty and spirit. The pictures don't do it justice.

 

 

 

 

 

We passed the window front of the Macy's store on the way to Costa Vida for dinner - each window contained a giant creation of candy!! It was amazing.

 

After eating, it was back to the hotel for another late bedtime. We let the kids swim a bit the following morning, said goodbye to Emily, her kids, and the Davis family and drove back to Meridian on clear roads. As a side note, I love Emily's brother-in-law and wife, Tim and Michelle! Our girls got along fabulously and they are wonderful. "When are you moving to Boise?" I asked. Their response, "You should move to Sandy."

On the way home, we stopped at Subway for lunch. This cup was a little too Oregon Duck for my taste....

The month has flown by with the return to school, resuming of music and dance classes, and a busier work schedule for me. I've made it to the Temple this month, am on my third week of training for a sprint triathlon, and really like my teaching companion for Primary. I scrubbed part of my kitchen floor, have been de-cluttering the extra bedroom closet, and cleared out old toys in the toy bin. Let's keep the momentum going!