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

November

November felt wonderful. It was finally cooling off and I loved it! I traded our older double jogger in for a newer single, and Shawn and I took lots of walks. We spent more time outside, and enjoyed the almost-fall weather.

Jeremy was really sweet and put kids to bed two Saturday nights in a row while I drove out to Maricopa with my parents and brother, Phil, to watch Spencer's play off and championship football games. Pima took the Division V (what used to be 1A) state championship, which was really exciting. The only sad part of that whole football-extravaganza was when I realized my phone was missing during the playoff game and finally discovered it two stories below, on the concrete, where it had fallen from my jacket pocket in the bleachers. Amazingly, it wasn't damaged, aside from a shattered screen...

On Veteran's Day the kids were out of school and wanted to do something fun. I took them to Tumbleweed Park in Chandler (which was a madhouse), and then we braved the Chandler Mall, and visited the Lego Store, Build-a-Bear, and the Disney Store. All sorts of craziness.

We spent a large portion of the month (and December, and parts of October and January) at the Budo Shingikan Japanese School of Martial Arts. There was a Groupon for a 10-week trial and we wanted to see if martial arts would make a difference for a few of our kids' impulse control and frustration. They have a great program there, and all three kids were in the same class, which is the only way we could have managed it, since they were supposed to go at least twice a week, and it was a 15-20 minute drive each way. They really enjoyed it, and if it had made a big difference, we would have tried to figure out a way to keep it going, even though the tuition for multiple children added up to a small car payment every month. Even though we didn't see many changes, we could see the value in it and we're trying to figure out if it was something we could swing.

This year we drove down to Pima for Thanksgiving, along with Emily and Phil's family. We really missed David & Nicole, who were stuck at home in Kentucky, getting ready to welcome their second baby. Reilly and I had signed up to do the Turkey Trot (5K) but our training had been a little lagging, and we did way more walking than jogging. Thanksgiving dinner was delicious, even without pit-roasted turkey this year. I had to drown my sorrows with pecan pie, chocolate silk pie, and delicious cheesecake.:) it was fun to be together with everyone, if a bit chaotic. There was one particular night I think very few people got much sleep. I had also come down with a rather nasty cold a day or two before We headed down to Pima, so that put a little damper on things. Thankfully everyone else was mostly healthy.

We came back Saturday so we could be ready to put all of our Christmas decorations up on Sunday. Sunday's are crazy around here, especially since Jeremy has a lot of EQ responsibilities, so by the time we got to it it was a bit rushed, but it got done. Another slight expectations vs. reality. Those happen fairly often, but I've found it helps when I label them that way and push forward. :)

November ended with a bit of a bang when we found out that we were (very unexpectedly) expecting our 5th child. The way it all worked out, it's very obvious that this baby was in "the Plan," even if we hadn't been read in on it. It did help us make our decision about continuing martial arts. The way my pregnancies go, there was no way I would be able keep up the twice-a-week classes across town. And Jeremy stays pretty busy between working on his chiropractic business and EQ responsibilities. Not something that would fit in this year! When we have a baby, it kind puts us out of commission for about 18 months in many ways...

November 2014

Another fill-in from the future, haha.

November 2014?
Let's see...
*I got to go to Time Out for Women with my mom, Emily, Sophie, and Nicole. That was really cool. Kind of like a mom-EFY. I needed the spiritual boost, and it was nice to spend time with my mom and sisters. Shawn was pretty much weaned (if not totally - I don't remember the exact date) so it was nice to be baby-less for an evening and a day. Emily and Sophie had Logan and Hudson with them, but it wasn't a big deal. It was at the Phoenix Convention Center, and we got to hear Hilary Weeks, John Bytheway, and the Nashville Tribute band (along with some other great speakers), which I've always been fans of. :)

Not that much of note happened the rest of the month. Just busy-ness. The kids' school had their Fall Festival, which the kids all really enjoyed.

For Thanksgiving we went down to Pima and Thanksgiving morning I got to do the turkey trot again with most of my siblings. That was fun, and I did do some jogging. Emily and I mostly stayed together. It was nice to have the whole family together, and fun for the three little boys (Shawn, Logan, and Hudson) who were born in the last year to be together. Lunch was super tasty, as usual, and Emily made some super yummy homemade rolls. Later that afternoon we went down by the Pima Museum and took a bunch of family pictures, since it had been a while since we had one, and had added several babies since. The turned out pretty well for all of us non-professionals. Hard to mess up a colorful background and natural light. Ashley was there and helped us take the pictures for the group shot.

When we came home we put up some of our Christmas decorations (including the tree) and since they turned the Mesa temple lights on, went and enjoyed checking them out, as well as a really neat nativity display (sets from all over the world) in the Visitor's Center.

The Rest of September

September was a super busy month. Shawn was super busy. He started getting into everything! He's getting the army crawling thing down, sitting up well finally, and starting to pull up to things and see the world in more of a three-dimensional place (instead of just the floor space). I put batteries in our Fisher Price chair (that was a 1st birthday present for Reilly, and is one of the few big toys we've moved all over the country with us. It's always a favorite!) and he is loving it. His other favorites are getting into the bottom drawers in the kitchen and swinging doors open and closed. The weather has been really pleasant for September, at least in the mornings, and Shawn and I have been getting out for some early morning walks.

In the first week of the month we got a ton of rain. Like record-breaking rain, that caused some major flooding. Our part in the excitement was limited (thankfully) to our store room getting kind of soggy on the bottom and to some of our windows leaking. Also, one or two ceiling leaks, but nothing very damaging. It took a while to get the roofing fixed though, because our HOA's roofing company was pretty busy with roofs that had caved in and such during the crazy storms. (It seems like there were two really big ones, just a week or two apart, so they were having a hard time catching up)

Oh! Another exciting thing that happened while we were in California was that Phil & Sophie's baby was born! Hudson Parker is a real cutie, and we were excited to meet him! Kinzi and Baiden came and played with us a couple times in the first week or two, and it was a little crazy having 4 kids 4-and-under, (we even made it to the mall...) but fun.

We've been getting much more regular about having our Family Home Evenings, and though sometimes they go more smoothly than others, it's nice that we're at least having them. It really helps that the kids are old enough that they know when it's Monday, and they ask all day what we're doing. Here are some pictures from a FHE in September. Shawn isn't as interested in what is going on and sometimes needs extra entertaining, especially since it's right before his bedtime and he's getting grumpy.

(leading the music)

Jeremy's MTC companion (who he's stayed in contact with pretty regularly over the last 10 years) finally got married this month! We were so excited for him (them) and I would have loved to have been there. If we hadn't just left the older kids for 4-5 days already (and recently done a long drive with Shawn that didn't go well) I would have tried to go too, but it's wasn't meant to happen. Jeremy had a great visit staying with our friends, the Frandsens (our neighbors at Palmer), and even got to see one of his mission presidents at the wedding. He had an awesome weekend, and a nice little vacation away from everything that he really needed.

Also, Reilly turned 8! Our stake does stake baptisms, which wouldn't be happening until October, which was a little weird, to have him 8, and not baptized yet, but he still had a good birthday. This was not a year for "friend" parties, so we celebrated by having dinner at Chili's, he went to a Diamondbacks game with Daddy and Grandpa, and then we made him a Ninjago cake. He also got this really cool Lego Chima set that Jeremy had found on clearance a month or two before. They were all excited about that one!
(Oh, and one of his favorite presents was also that we signed him up for a 6-week karate course, taught at the school once a week after school. He was very excited about that!)