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

A Little Life (February)

February was a better month. I was still sick a lot of the time, but was able to get up and do a little more. It was good timing, because Katy was really hoping I could go to the zoo with her for her kindergarten field trip. We made it, and she had a good time. But it was seriously intense chasing a bunch of low-attention-spanned 5-year-olds around when I had been laying in bed for 3 months. And Shawn was not that impressed that he mostly had to stay in the stroller, but it was the only way we could keep up with them!

We also made it to the IDEA Museum in February once or twice, to get some use out of the 6-month membership I bought on Groupon in December. We luckily ended up going one Saturday when they had a special members-only activity with all sorts of fun things outside. Snacks, mermaids in a lagoon, dress-up, bubbles, story time, and crafts. Of course, the kids' favorite "craft" was decorating graham crackers with frosting and all sorts of extras.

One of the excitements of the month was the stackable unit that our landlady had let us use in our rental stopped working. (it no longer used heat in the dryer part) Someone in our ward came and jury-rigged it, but it burned through the new wiring in a bout 3 loads... so we decided we were done with that. The probable repairs were going to be a decent amount, so we made our first real appliance purchase (I know, we've only been married over 10 years...) and bought a washer and dryer! Pretty crazy. Not quite as crazy as the gymnastics they had to do to get them both in that little space, though. :) We were very grateful to have a working dryer again!

Jaina had a rough month. Towards the beginning her allergies got really bad. She has them from time to time, and there are seasons she does much better if she takes something daily, but this was kind of a sudden onset thing, and she started wheezing. This child has never had a wheezy breath (that I've noticed) in her life! It progressed quickly, and we even tried taking her into Urgent Care that night. But the wait was like 3 hours, and Jeremy said most of the people there were on death's door, which we didn't want any part of, so they just came home instead. We rubbed essential oils on her chest and feet, and diffused them in her room, and hoped for the best. She slept mostly okay, but was still pretty wheeze the next morning, so we we took her in to our pediatrician (who we're way more comfortable with than a random urgent care dr) and they got a her a nebulizer and she did a treatment right then. We did several treatments for just a few days, and it cleared right up. She hasn't had a problem since. It was so random! We now have a cute penguin nebulizer though, so... And then towards the end of the month she was the first one to come down with a random virus that was 4-5 days of high fevers (we're talking up to 104º several times, which is when I start trying to bring it down just a little!) and like one random throwing up episode. Katy caught the same thing a week later, and Shawn after that (without the throwing up, thankfully). Reilly seems immune to a lot of the things everyone else catches, thankfully. :) We took Jaina in (again) because her throat hurt a little, and after 2 days of high fevers, I wanted to rule out strep, which was going around. Thankfully, that wasn't it. Just a long-lived virus!

Jeremy pretty much spoiled me on Valentine's Day, and because I was pregnant, (but not super sick still) my favorite gift was these awesome hazelnut chocolates that normally were like $20+ on Amazon that he got because he bought something else? I think. Anyway, hands down the best chocolates I've ever had. Sometimes I daydream about them. :)

Other random happenings? The Phoenix Marathon came through right by our house (about half a block over). I always love seeing the runners. Even the not-so-fast ones are so inspiring. Like they almost make me cry. The dedication and training and stick-to-it-ness that has to go along with running a race of that length is awe-inspiring. I am not a natural runner. But I'd like to do a 10K and aspire to do a half marathon some day. (At Disneyland, of course. I need extra motivation, haha)  And then, a picture of me, 15 weeks pregnant, and not doiong even any 5K's in the following year, pretty much...

January.

Not too much happened in January. I was still mostly down, with periods of feeling a little better. I was hoping to do a double post along with February, but February was much busier!
In January we were still finishing up Christmas break, and our POGO passes were about to expire, so Jeremy took a day and took the kids to Castles & Coasters. (the older 3) They had a great time! The weather was nice, the crowds weren't bad, and the kids loved all the rides. Reilly did a ropes course thing too, that looked pretty cool. He is a pretty brave kid most of the time, and loves to try new things like that. (New foods? Not so much.) Shawn didn't get to go, of course, which was just as well, because I think like the next day he came down with some nasty little bug. The only time we ever see him fall asleep outside of his bed (or maaaybe in his car seat, occasionally) is when he's sick.

I felt well enough one day (a Saturday?) to take the kids to a nearby park, and then to McDonald's for an early lunch and some time climbing in the play place. I do not love to take them to McDonald's, but they sure enjoy it. Of course they always ask for Happy Meals, but if they get them (not often) they don't want half the food. They're just excited about the toys.

Jeremy and Reilly took Reilly's first "real" bike ride over to the library. The library is definitely one of Reilly's favorite destinations, and he's always asking to go exchange books. One of -Shawn's- favorite places to go is "Daddy's office!" He absolutely loves to go there and get into whatever trouble he can.

We visited Mod Pizza in Tempe, which was fun and tasty. The kids love getting to customize their own pizzas. The only other thing of interest that we attempted was going to the mall one Friday or Saturday, and then to Tempe Marketplace for dinner (Where we ate from 4 different restaurants, I think. I was just excited for food that I didn't have to think about or make.) It was fun, but it wiped me out so much (being up that long) that I didn't even make it to sacrament meeting the next day. We were glad to see January pass!