Summer Craziness

Summer has been really crazy, and this last week has been especially intense. Bridget woke up the morning of Katy's baptism (Saturday) with a fever again, (she had run one all day last Tuesday) and I feel like she cried most of the day. :-( I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to go to the baptism if I couldn't get her feeling a little better, and she was too upset to really leave with other people. :-/ Thankfully motrin made it possible for me to attend the baptism, and even stay in the room for most of the program. I just held her the whole time, since that's what she wanted, and since I didn't know if she had an ear infection (what I was suspecting) or something contagious. Emily (my sister) gave the talk on baptism and she did a really nice job. I appreciated her lugging all 4 of her boys down for it, and then going back again that night with the littlest guy. That's a lot of driving in one day, but she had lots of responsibilities at church Sunday, and her "baby" doesn't sleep that great other places than home at this age. (Bridget either!) We shared a baptism time with the Daleys in our ward, even though they just moved back to Thatcher last week actually. We will miss having them in our ward! It was a good experience though, and I was just grateful everyone was able to be there.

Bridget was still very upset and feverish on Sunday, so I stayed home from church with her and Jeremy took the other 7 kids to church by himself. :-o  It was a bit of a rough day, just having so many busy kids with only Sunday activities to entertain them. Plus Bridget was bad enough and acting like her ears hurt, so Jeremy talked to one of his naturopath friends that happened to be in her office to see another friend, and Jaina and I took Bridget to see her. She basically had a double ear infection, which was probably why she was so miserable. :-( We started her on amoxicillin (which we've avoided up until now with everyone except Reilly once) and by Tuesday she was feeling much better.

Despite Bridget feeling awful, we tried to do some fun things with Emily's boys for our half of the Great Cousin Summer Exchange. Monday Jeremy took them to a park, and to get Hurts Donuts, (They had a "pay your age" day) and to Target, and took some of the oldest kids to play laser tag. Bridget was still having a pretty rough day, though her fever was gone, and I spent most of the day holding her. We took them to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner with Phil and Sophie, and then Jeremy took Bridget home (she did pretty well at the pizza place actually) while the rest of us went to Carlee's 5th birthday party, unicorn rides and all. They had a great time there, and she was the cutest little unicorn birthday princess ever. :)

Tuesday we did a lot of cleaning up, and I let Logan and Shawn just hang out and watch movies (because Logan had a fever the night before and Shawn's foot was acting funny) while Jeremy took Bridget and the rest of the kids to the State Capitol Museum. 

After that they got to play Minecraft (their favorite activity together) while we got ready to go, and about 3 PM seven kids and I road-tripped to Joseph City. Definitely a bit of an adventure. We managed to keep anyone from getting car sick, and they were excited to get Happy Meals in Payson. The last hour was getting a little dicey, so we broke out the tablets, but we only had 4 tablets for 7 kids. Also exciting.

It has been nice to have some quiet at home (especially after 3 very loud, chaotic days). Bridget is feeling much better, but still has a lot of fluid in her ears and has some temporary hearing loss. :-p In other news, we ordered a new bed (a "Tuft and Needle" on an Amazon Prime Day deal) so our old mattress is hanging out in our living room while we try to decide what to do with it. Hopefully I will adjust to the new bed soon. My back wasn't sure what to think of it last night. 

Also, my computer, which was 7 years old went to the Jason's house to be converted to a SSD, but the jury's out on how much longer before I just need to buy a new one. He doesn't often get stumped, but my computer managed it...  It won't let him install any Windows operating system on it except a 32 bit version of Windows 7 (It originally had a 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium) and I really need 64 bit to run my Adobe Programs. So I might make do with it for a while with the goal of changing to a new computer in a couple months. I technically have a laptop too, but I don't prefer using a laptop that much, and the kids use it quite a bit for game and school stuff. I know, first world problems. But my photo and video stuff does really help keep me sane in my stay-at-home-mom life, so I know that they're important to me. (And to our family in that way, haha.) You gotta nurture the things that keep you sane and bring you a sense of accomplishment. Laundry and dishes and cooking never STAY done, and that's a little exhausting to do the same things over and over again, especially with my personality. I loathe re-doing tasks, even in games or whatever. That's one reason I never enjoyed any of the Super Mario games. If you die, you have to re-do some things you've just accomplished!

Anyway, enough typing. I need to put away some of the endless laundry while Bridget is sleeping.

Sara

Jaina's Baptism (and 2 birthdays!)

The highlight of December was probably the 12th. It was Jaina's 8th birthday, and her baptism, and since we had a bunch of family in town and were having a party, we celebrated Shawn's 2nd birthday as well. A few weeks beforehand we had taken some nice pictures of her in her white dress (eBay, friends, and it was beautiful!) for some announcements.






















The morning of her 8th birthday we did the traditional birthday number pancakes for both, and got ready for the baptism (about 2 pm?) and for having everyone over. I felt pretty icky, but thankfully wasn't so bad I couldn't make it through the day.
















It was so fun to have just her baptism (vs a stake one, which had already happened for the month) and to have most of our family there. The only sad part was that Emily and Jason were planning to be there, and had tried to leave the morning only to encounter lots of snow that was making the roads worse and worse. After about an hour, for safety, they had to turn back. :-( Aunt Ashley also ended up really sick and couldn't make it down. (and of course David and Nicole and family were in Kentucky...) We really missed all of them, but were glad they stayed safe, and tried to get well, and yeah... Grandma Weech gave the talk on baptism and Grandpa Weech filled in for Aunt Emily and gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Jaina was very excited to have so many people there to support her. (And yes, those were the best family pictures we could pull off...)

Somehow we don't have a picture of Jaina's cheesecakes (they weren't much to look at - they turned out kinda lumpy...maybe on someone else's phone?) but here is the one I made for Shawn. He was very impressed with it (He was way into minions, or as he called them all, "Bob-bob") and even more impressed when he got to eat it. I think he had three pieces. Between his milk and corn sensitivities, he didn't often get any of whatever dessert was going around. They both got some really fun presents. Jaina loved all of hers, and Shawn picked different days afterwards to love each of his. But his favorite that afternoon was the Little People Disneyland set. He had also recently gotten excited about Mickey Mouse. :) (Oh, and we also made our announcement that afternoon - he and his cousin were supposed to have matching shirts that we would send them in wearing, but it didn't quite work out that way. :) )

Jeremy had to rush off to Stake Priesthood Training or something similar, and the older 3 kids were going to the martial arts dojo for a fun "Polar Express" pajama party that evening from 6-9. Shawn and I grabbed a special birthday dinner for him - his favorite, french fries, and we wrapped up a very long, very fun day. :)

October

I will try to write what I remember about this month! (this is over a year later...)

*Reilly has been enjoying his after-school karate program at the school.

*Shawn had his first hair trim at 9.5 months!

*We went to Pima for conference and enjoyed spending time with our Gardner cousins there. The kids also had a dental appointment while we were there, with no cavities.

*Shawn is starting to pull up to things, and he's adorable.

*Reilly was baptized on October 12th, and lots of family was able to be there. It was very cool, if a little chaotic, since it was my first experience with a stake baptism. He also got to start cub scouts, and is very excited about that!

*We went over to Scottsdale to the contemporary art museum or something, because it was free that day. It was kind of weird, and there was a bell that kept tolling that freaked Katy out. But we took some cute pictures outside, and it was fun to get out together.

*Jeremy took the kids to the Phoenix open house. I must have been not feeling well or something, because I didn't go with them.

*I started going to a weightloss group at a birth center down the road and met my friend Anika and Savannah. :)

*Jeremy's was in the midst of doing the AIP (autoimmune protocol) and trying to figure out if it will help his eczema, which was pretty bad.

*For Halloween this year we painted mini pumpkins, and then Abbie came down and went to Chipotle and trick-or-treating with us. Shawn was a football, Jeremy was a referee, and I was supposed to be a football player, but I never found a jersey in time. So I was a random Argentine soccer player I guess. (We all had to dress up to get cheap burritos/taco at Chipotle)