Cough, cough, sniff, sniff

It's that time of year, I guess. Rhiannon stayed home two days and probably should have stayed home a third, but she was feeling a little better on Friday. Wade woke me up this morning with his cough, though he doesn't seem too bad right now. Fingers crossed!

Jason made our world a happier place by bringing home a grocery bag full of these on Thursday night... He also finished off the new storage room with flooring and baseboards. It looks gooooooooooood--pictures coming soon!

This morning I hosted a baby shower here with a friend. We had a good turnout and a lot of fun. It's so nice to have a bunch of people over and still not feel cramped--I love it!

The weather was super nice this afternoon (and I think the kids were DYING to get out of the house!). Wade wanted to go outside and read and begged Rhiannon to come out with him. I peeked out the door and saw this:

Wade was reading The Lightning Thief (we are SO excited about this book-into-a-movie coming out on Feb 12th!)

and Rhiannon was catching up on some missed school work! :)

Every five years or so...

we get snow! Our desert valley got DUMPED ON with rain this week. Finally it got cold enough for that dismal rain to turn to powdery white goodness! Not a big deal for most, but a BIG deal for us! The bummer was that the kids and I were sitting in the dentist office during the best part of the snowfall--beautiful, large, feathery snowflakes were coming down and actually starting to stick! Everyone in the dentist office, including us and the dentist, went outside and played in it for a little while. Jason took some pictures of the snow coming down at our house...

You can tell how much rain we've had by looking at the pool picture. The pool is covered, so the rainfall collected in a big puddle on top of it...here's hoping it will all evaporate before it's time to get the pool going again!

35!

Happy 35th birthday, Daddy! Even with all the RAIN and a regular work/school day, we were able to have fun celebrating Jason's birthday on Wednesday. We got some Chinese food for dinner and had some yummy German chocolate cake. Then we played some WII! :) We love you, Daddy! Thanks to everyone for the phone calls, cards, and messages!

What do all of these items have in common?

White mulberry, olive, English walnut, and pepper trees

Kentucky bluegrass, smooth broome, careless weed, rabbit bush, wingscale, lenscale, and various forms of ragweed

Dust mites, dog dander, and cat dander

Peanut, cashew, coconut, pecan, walnut, Brazil nut, and hazelnut

Shrimp and clams

Possibly corn

Nature's playground

On Saturday Jason and I attended a funeral and left the kids with some friends. They got a very special "treat" and drove to Fossil Falls about 30 minutes away. By looking at the pictures you can tell whether they liked the experience or not...



Many thanks to JenAi, Halle, and their dad for that fun afternoon. I have never been(gasp!) and look forward to going there!

HERO of the week, and other things

This week was FAST and FULL of activity! For being a fairly quiet, low-key household, I think we handled everything well. Here's a run-down:

Construction and emergencies--see previous post

Allergy tests, allergy tests, and more allergy tests--Wade is our HERO of the week! The "scratch test" on Tuesday was fairly easy, just super-fast little pokes on his back and then some itchiness for a few minutes. But Thursday was tougher. That day he had some intradurmal ("ID") tests done to check for false negatives from the first test. These were done in the arms, with little needles which had to go through more layers of skin. Wade made it through, with just a few tears. I know it affected him because at one point he grabbed my hand and put his free arm around my neck and pulled himself to me. What a sweetheart. We love him and think he is super brave! He'll be tested for food next Tuesday, and then we'll go from there. At the end of this initial step, he'll have been tested for 140 different allergens! We'll keep you posted on the results of the testing and the next step. One of our big goals this year is to get to the bottom of Wade's allergies and help him breathe easier.

Piano lessons--Rhiannon started them this week! Her teacher is a friend of ours from 3rd ward, Melanie McDonald. We took a short 5-minute walk to her home (it's just around the corner) and stayed for 30 minutes. Rhiannon LOVED it! She has been very good about getting her 15-minute practices in each day, too.

On top of those things, we cleaned the church with some other families on Saturday morning, Jason and I attended the funeral of a friend, the kids went to Fossil Falls with some friends (hopefully they'll share pictures of that with me later), Jason went to DC for a few days, and I had a RS activity and a Primary presidency meeting somewhere in there, too.

Next week promises to be just as busy--more allergy tests, piano lessons, a trip to the dentist, activities with Scouts, and a very important BIRTHDAY on Wednesday! Can't wait! :)

Before and after--House Project #1

Yesterday our first construction project on the house was completed. Larry Flentye and his crew showed up at 8:45am and had the job finished by 5:30pm. They did it in half the time they expected, too (it was going to be a 2-day project). They were awesome, in more ways than one, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The project was to finish off the storage space that was half done in the garage. We could store a few things up there, but we had to use a ladder and it was pretty scary with lots of nails exposed. Here are "before" pictures, where I'm looking up into the space from the garage:

And here is the "after" view from the garage and a video tour! :) The guys pulled up the old flooring and put down three new layers. They put in a new door to the space, too, that we access through the kids' upstairs bathroom. It ROCKS!

The other half of the story is this: around 4:00pm, just as some friends were walking up to the house, one of Larry's guys walked over to use the faucet outside along the west wall of the house. He barely touched it, and the old faucet handle/pipe connection just fell off! Water started pouring out into the yard and along the house. Larry and his crew turned the water off for me and fixed the problem!!!! I was so grateful. On a normal, average day, I rarely go out in the front yard. If that leak had happened any other time, it probably would have taken a lot longer to notice it and made a lot more damage! TENDER MERCY! I've got a long list of people I can call in an emergency when Jason is out of town, and Larry said that I could add him to the list!

It doesn't get much better than this

My 34th birthday ROCKED!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's a breakdown of my day:

6:45am to 9:30am--Got up bright and early for our Primary pancake breakfast. 40+ Primary kids plus pajamas, stuffed animals, board games, and LOTS of pancake syrup equal quite the party! :) Yes, they sang to me at the end and I got great hugs and some cute cards, too.

10:00am to 1:00pm--took a while to calm down from my adrenaline-rush morning; Jason and kids made a YUMMY orange cream birthday cake for me; enjoyed lots of phone calls and Facebook messages, too

1:00pm to 3:00pm--Jason took us to Big 5 and we got to pick out new baseball gloves! Then we came home and had a fun catch session out in the backyard. GREAT idea, Dad! Afterwards we had birthday cake and ice cream. DELICIOUS!

3:00pm to 4:30ish--Birthday nap (yes, I needed it)

6:00pm to 9:00pm--Jason took me out to dinner to Farris Italian Gardens. It was really good! Then we went to a friend's house and joined some other couples for games. Jason and I played Settlers for the first time E-V-E-R.

I. LOVE. Birthdays. THE. END. :)

Fish Fotos by RC

Hi, this is RC speaking. I had an out-of-this-world idea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was to take pictures of the fish and nature in our front yard. It was brilliant! Enjoy the pictures above! -RC

Note from Mom--RC is a great photographer! :) Seeing the fish out in the middle of January tells you that the weather here is perfect!

Christmas PHOTOS!

I may have just maxed out my Picasa account, but who cares! :) Enjoy all the Christmas pictures. As you can see, we had an AWESOME time and loved being with everyone!

Catch up!

Happy New Year! We've had an amazing Christmas/New Year's break, full of good memories. It doesn't seem right jumping into 2010 without closing out 2009 respectably, so here's the first recap:

Dec 19th--Jason invited a bunch of young men and leaders over for a "pizza and planning" meeting. Good turnout, good food, good productivity, and GREAT manners. I wish all teenage boys were like that! :)

Dec 21st through Dec 29th--4 days total of driving and 5 days of non-stop fun in Texas. I'll elaborate once I get pictures up, but the picture at the top of the blog pretty much sums it up. Grandpa Rich and Uncle Brant did a good job keeping Rhiannon and Wade busy "making memories," and Grandma Donna's "daily schedule of activities" was great fun. Getting to spend time with 4 of my 5 brothers and their families was icing on the cake. And CONGRATS to Tom and Lydia on their engagement!!!!!! WOO-HOO! We enjoyed visits with the McLaughlins, McKneelys, and Boatcallies, too. Pictures coming soon!

New Year's Eve--last night we went over to the Okerlunds' house to ring in the new year. WOW. Those folks know how to party. Lots of friends, tons of food, games, and Rock Band, for starters, and then a balloon drop in the living room and LOTS of noise makers, etc, too! We all made it to midnight with no trouble. :) This morning we were talking about how much fun we'd had. Wade said he was glad we didn't have the party at our house because of all the confetti and mess everywhere at the end. I told him we could handle a party here, too, but maybe without the confetti and silly string! Ha-ha! :)

Today--the Christmas decorations and tree are all put away! Time to think about goals, etc. for 2010!