Over the past 16 days, I have traveled to Nampa and back, Ogden and back, Bountiful and back and today thanks to awful driving conditions only to Pocatello and back and NOT to Nampa. Secretly I'm glad. That would have been approximately four 3+ hour drives in the past 16 days. Our car is so filthy I don't even like to touch it if I can help it and I keep telling the kids to keep their hands off everything except the door handles. I tried to go to the car wash last night, only to find it closed. And then I gave up on trying to get the dang car clean. After trip number 2, I got 2 new tires put on the van and boy have I been grateful for the extra traction that has provided in all this snowy weather.
We have 2 weddings this month, and then had a surprise eye surgery pop up which also included a preemptive appointment to make sure surgery was needed. Fortunately/unfortunately, it was. And so it happened last Thursday. And we made it back on Thursday afternoon. And the snow started on Friday night. What a blessing that it held off for one more day so we could make it home safely and focus on Mirren's recovery.
Bronwyn is out of school now until the 2nd of January and Aftyn gets out of school for Christmas break this Friday and then goes back on the 8th of January.
I'd write more but I think the title of this post tells you why that's not happening right now. I'll try to get some pictures posted soon.
Loving our ever changing, crazy, fantastic life
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Thursday, November 16, 2017
Halloween 2018
Everybody chose a couple things on the house to decorate and had a lot of fun
doing it.
to complete his look.
I ended up making was Aftyn's out of a pair of women's top and bottom pajama set from
the Deseret Industries. The kids had so much fun and got lots of candy, so in all
a very memorable Halloween.
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Nothing New
Dear Blog Readers,
I have been waiting, trying to figure out how to upload all the fun pictures I have to share because our new home computer does not have a card reader . :( My solution is coming in the mail and THEN dear readers, there will be lots and lots and lots of blog posts and pictures and other lovely details of our lives here. Here's just a preview of what I have to write about: Lochlan turned 2! Halloween! Bronwyn going to charter school! and loads of other exciting posts. Stay tuned!
I have been waiting, trying to figure out how to upload all the fun pictures I have to share because our new home computer does not have a card reader . :( My solution is coming in the mail and THEN dear readers, there will be lots and lots and lots of blog posts and pictures and other lovely details of our lives here. Here's just a preview of what I have to write about: Lochlan turned 2! Halloween! Bronwyn going to charter school! and loads of other exciting posts. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Our Concrete Job
I told Reed he should do this on the side. He's good!
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Aftyn's Double Strabismus Surgery
It's been a long day but I figured I should write this down for posterity and for Aftyn to remember in about 18 years when she has hopefully forgotten this day.
Yesterday after school, all the kids and I went and picked Reed up at his work's office in Pocatello and off we drove to Ogden. We settled into our motel, watched a quick episode of Arthur and then off to sleep for all of us.
The alarm went off at 7. I quickly did my workout and by the time I was done, all the kids were milling around me. Since I knew we had to be at the surgery center at 9:30, I hurried all the kids except Aftyn off to breakfast with me. Aftyn couldn't eat because of her surgery so she and Reed watched Leave it to Beaver. After about 20-ish minutes and full of yummy food, we went back upstairs to get everyone dressed and gave Reed time to go and have his own quiet breakfast by himself. By the time he came back, I had kids dressed and hair done. Another 20-ish minutes and we were all packed up and out to the car with everything we had brought in the night before. Reed got confused and ended up taking us to the wrong place but got us where we needed to be in the end.
15 minutes after checking in, in a fairly small waiting room where there wasn't enough room for all of our family to sit together, Aftyn's name was called and she and I headed back to get her ready for her surgery. Good thing Reed and I had gone through this whole thing before with Mirren, we knew what to expect so we had already worked out who was doing what since we always needed one of us with the other kids and one of us with Aftyn. We got her dressed in her gown, put some large adult socks on her smaller child-sized feet and waited. We waited a while but the nurse came and tried to put an iv in Aftyn while we waited. That was interesting. We played I Spy. That was pretty fun. We told funny knock knock jokes. Those made us laugh. Through it all, poor Aftyn kept telling me with a smile on her face how nervous she was. How her stomach had butterflies. Then came our doctor. After a quick chat, then came our anesthesiologist who was tall and friendly. He was trying to make the situation as light and non-scary as possible, which I appreciated. Then off they went back behind those double doors that I couldn't go behind, so I headed back out to the waiting room to hand off the baton to Reed who would be waiting for her through surgery and would go back with her while she woke up enough to come out and hop in the car with the rest of us.
I took the kids to the local Smith's where we purchased some treats to hopefully entice Aftyn that she wanted to eat and some juice that might do the same after her surgery. We went and got some fast food for everyone to eat so that when Aftyn was done, we could just make the couple hour trip home as quickly as possible. When we got back to the surgery center, Aftyn was waking up but not enough for Reed to go back yet so I took the kids back out to the car and fed them lunch. Tried to kill some time and keep them contained and calm. Aftyn was taking longer than Mirren had because she felt much more nauseous than Mirren had. She would be fine, but then stand up and suddenly feel like throwing up. She and Reed were back in the recovery room for about 40 minutes, I would say. It was long waiting out in the parking lot, texting every 5 or so minutes to get an update. Finally, I saw Reed standing at the front doors! With Aftyn!!
We quickly picked them up and I could tell Aftyn did not feel good. It took her about an hour and a half to feel good enough to eat anything. She didn't want to eat or drink or open her eyes or anything until an hour and a half had passed. Once that time passed, we had a good hour where everything was happy and great and good. Right about that time, we were dropping Reed back off at his truck in Pocatello and Aftyn started crying that her stomach was REALLY hurting and she just wanted to be home. Ugh. So sad to have your child crying and feeling helpless as to how to help them.
We sped home and dealt with poor Aftyn not feeling good for the first part of that 45 minute drive but by the end she was back to feeling good, just really needing to stretch out and lay down horizontally. We got home and she did just that. Being home has helped her immensely!
Fast forward a couple of hours to when I had to do her second dose of antibiotic cream in her eyes. Oh my heck. She cried and was in so much pain. It just hurts my heart so much to watch her lay sobbing on the couch and saying how much it was stinging. :( But I kept reassuring her that it wouldn't always be so painful, that this pain was just temporary and it would get better.
And now, she's peacefully sleeping on the couch, her choice for the night. Pretty positive any ideas I had of her going back to school tomorrow are in the past and I just want to focus on her getting back to feeling 100% well again. Her eyes are blurry sometimes, they water sometimes, they hurt sometimes, they are sensitive and the light hurts them sometimes. But all of these things will go away and her eyes will benefit from this surgery and that is the thing we have to focus on even when the pain is bad or something seems so bad in that moment. It is just temporary and we can get through anything moment by moment until it gets better. Here's to tomorrow and hope.
Yesterday after school, all the kids and I went and picked Reed up at his work's office in Pocatello and off we drove to Ogden. We settled into our motel, watched a quick episode of Arthur and then off to sleep for all of us.
The alarm went off at 7. I quickly did my workout and by the time I was done, all the kids were milling around me. Since I knew we had to be at the surgery center at 9:30, I hurried all the kids except Aftyn off to breakfast with me. Aftyn couldn't eat because of her surgery so she and Reed watched Leave it to Beaver. After about 20-ish minutes and full of yummy food, we went back upstairs to get everyone dressed and gave Reed time to go and have his own quiet breakfast by himself. By the time he came back, I had kids dressed and hair done. Another 20-ish minutes and we were all packed up and out to the car with everything we had brought in the night before. Reed got confused and ended up taking us to the wrong place but got us where we needed to be in the end.
15 minutes after checking in, in a fairly small waiting room where there wasn't enough room for all of our family to sit together, Aftyn's name was called and she and I headed back to get her ready for her surgery. Good thing Reed and I had gone through this whole thing before with Mirren, we knew what to expect so we had already worked out who was doing what since we always needed one of us with the other kids and one of us with Aftyn. We got her dressed in her gown, put some large adult socks on her smaller child-sized feet and waited. We waited a while but the nurse came and tried to put an iv in Aftyn while we waited. That was interesting. We played I Spy. That was pretty fun. We told funny knock knock jokes. Those made us laugh. Through it all, poor Aftyn kept telling me with a smile on her face how nervous she was. How her stomach had butterflies. Then came our doctor. After a quick chat, then came our anesthesiologist who was tall and friendly. He was trying to make the situation as light and non-scary as possible, which I appreciated. Then off they went back behind those double doors that I couldn't go behind, so I headed back out to the waiting room to hand off the baton to Reed who would be waiting for her through surgery and would go back with her while she woke up enough to come out and hop in the car with the rest of us.
I took the kids to the local Smith's where we purchased some treats to hopefully entice Aftyn that she wanted to eat and some juice that might do the same after her surgery. We went and got some fast food for everyone to eat so that when Aftyn was done, we could just make the couple hour trip home as quickly as possible. When we got back to the surgery center, Aftyn was waking up but not enough for Reed to go back yet so I took the kids back out to the car and fed them lunch. Tried to kill some time and keep them contained and calm. Aftyn was taking longer than Mirren had because she felt much more nauseous than Mirren had. She would be fine, but then stand up and suddenly feel like throwing up. She and Reed were back in the recovery room for about 40 minutes, I would say. It was long waiting out in the parking lot, texting every 5 or so minutes to get an update. Finally, I saw Reed standing at the front doors! With Aftyn!!
We quickly picked them up and I could tell Aftyn did not feel good. It took her about an hour and a half to feel good enough to eat anything. She didn't want to eat or drink or open her eyes or anything until an hour and a half had passed. Once that time passed, we had a good hour where everything was happy and great and good. Right about that time, we were dropping Reed back off at his truck in Pocatello and Aftyn started crying that her stomach was REALLY hurting and she just wanted to be home. Ugh. So sad to have your child crying and feeling helpless as to how to help them.
We sped home and dealt with poor Aftyn not feeling good for the first part of that 45 minute drive but by the end she was back to feeling good, just really needing to stretch out and lay down horizontally. We got home and she did just that. Being home has helped her immensely!
Fast forward a couple of hours to when I had to do her second dose of antibiotic cream in her eyes. Oh my heck. She cried and was in so much pain. It just hurts my heart so much to watch her lay sobbing on the couch and saying how much it was stinging. :( But I kept reassuring her that it wouldn't always be so painful, that this pain was just temporary and it would get better.
And now, she's peacefully sleeping on the couch, her choice for the night. Pretty positive any ideas I had of her going back to school tomorrow are in the past and I just want to focus on her getting back to feeling 100% well again. Her eyes are blurry sometimes, they water sometimes, they hurt sometimes, they are sensitive and the light hurts them sometimes. But all of these things will go away and her eyes will benefit from this surgery and that is the thing we have to focus on even when the pain is bad or something seems so bad in that moment. It is just temporary and we can get through anything moment by moment until it gets better. Here's to tomorrow and hope.
Friday, August 25, 2017
Friday Fun Day - AKA I Did Another Project
So I got this super ugly dresser that had all the right curves..... It's upside down in this picture and you can only see 2 of the drawers because I had already started painting the other 3 drawers......
Sunday, August 20, 2017
The month of July
We had found out on around June 22nd that our house purchase wouldn't be happening until the 14th of July. This was a hard pill to swallow as we had planned out everything to a 'T' for the previous 3 weeks but hadn't seen another 3 weeks on top of that. It really took the wind out of my sails for 2-3 days. And then I made another plan. I split up the kids between a bedroom in my parents house and my parents tent trailer out by their shop. I slept out in the tent trailer next to Lochlan every night and had various bed mates, but mostly Mirren and Aftyn joined me in the other beds available in the tent trailer. Reed and Bronwy, who made frequent nightly bathroom trips and still does, slept inside on the guest bunkbed. We were grateful for the beds and accomodations we had and I tried to look on it as an adventure. Over the next 3 weeks, my sisters kids next door and my girls spent lots of time making lots of trouble outside at Grandpa's house. Glasses were lost, tree branches were used as weapons, and canal covers were even disassembled and luckily their parts were found so they could be put back together. It was quite an eventful few weeks. We had our weekly trip to the laundromat to make it even more fun. Or not. It was pretty obvious each week as I crammed all our clean clothes back into the hamper that had been full of dirty clothes that I was just surviving. I laughed as I watched people meticulously fold their clothes and mine were just being sorted and divvied back up to the right person back at home. We had more important things to think of than wrinkled clothes.
With my bathroom projects, I painted 7 bathroom walls, 2 sets of bathroom cupboards, and all the trimwork, replaced 1 light fixture, helped mount a new medicine cabinet/mirror, put up 2 sets of towel hooks, created artwork for the walls, and replaced 2 electrical outlets and 1 light switch so that they would be bright white instead of nasty yellow. I wish I had taken pictures because those bathrooms look AMAZING!! I'm so glad I could use all my extra energy to make those bathrooms more beautiful for my parents.
There were lots of fun things we planned to help the time go more quickly, like the 2 times we went to the movies as a family and watched Beauty and the Beast and Despicable Me 3. I can't remember the last time I took all the kids to a movie but on the whole it was fun. Mirren got a little scared in both movies and Lochlan only cared about the popcorn and once that ran out, he was basically done. Bringing a blanket and binkie for him to cuddle with helped a lot in one of the movies, so there's a good idea for later. I also took Aftyn who earned a free ticket to Roaring Springs and Bronwyn who we gave a ticket to for her main birthday present to Roaring Springs on July 3rd. It was a madhouse but it was fun! We took my niece Mia with us since she too had a ticket and she was the only one in her family who had one and it needed to be used before it expired. She brought a friend and we had all the making of a fun day! We split up at Roaring Springs and the girls and I had a blast, except for that time I almost drowned Bronwyn in the Lazy River by putting my weight on the side of her tube. :( That was scary!! But we learned and that didn't happen again. We also ran into our friends from our ward, Brayli and Broxon and their mom. That was a fun surprise! Best part was that no one got a sunburn because we were very thorough in our sunscreening except for on my back where Aftyn applied it for me and missed a couple of spots. But none of the kids got sunburns so I was totally okay with that. One day we also went to the church orchard and got our favorite Ranier cherries. We ate those for a few days and then I cut up the rest and chucked them in the freezer, to be moved with us so I could use them in later in my favorite cherry recipe: fruit smoothies! We went to lots of garage sales and got clothes for the kids and furniture for our deck at the house we would eventually be moving into.
Finally the week came that we were going to get our house! We had our signing day all set but unfortunately our realtor and her office were, frankly, having communication issues and when signing day came around I was freaking out. I called our realtor, her assistant, our realtor again, her assistant again and finally got ahold of her assistant to finally get some of my concerns talked about. We ended up being about 20-30 minutes late to our signing because I was not signing papers for a house we weren't even sure everything had been taken care of like it needed to be by the sellers. I was literally crying as we walked into Title One. And I vowed never to use my realtor in Idaho Falls again, sadly. So don't ask for a referral, I haven't got one. Now the realtor I sold my house with in Nampa, I would use over and over again. Loved him. I would totally refer him. Anyhow, the lady who helped us at Title One helped calm me tremendously as she explained everything exactly the way I needed to hear it, so we signed. And then on the way home, found out that the sellers were not signing until the next day. So even though we had planned on driving up that day with all our stuff packed into our moving van and our family's van, we had nowhere to stay that night. Our realtor's assistant even tried to ask the buyers if we could just stay in the house that night, which admittedly I would never allow for a house I was selling, but we were desperate. And not surprisingly, they said no. And we figured this all out about 30 minutes before we were going to be arriving in Idaho Falls with all our stuff. So luckily my awesome sister Wendy let us stay at her house, just like I knew she would. I was an emotional basket case. Really. What a day it had been. The best part of the day was that my nephew had just received his mission call so we were just in time to be there for when he opened it up. That was a great surprise!
The next day was just a waiting game since we didn't know when the sellers were signing, and time was just ticking away. I was feeling so impatient, just wanting a dang house to live in!! To kill time, I took the kids to go see a movie again, since that's a great way to just think about nothing for about an hour and a half. We went and saw Despicable Me 3 again. What can I say, it was funny! Reed stayed at my sisters house and worked. Literally, as soon as the movie ended, I got a text saying that my realtor's assistant had our keys in her office and I could come pick them up. So I did! I was so excited!! Until the assistant told me that I couldn't actually go to the house until they received payment from the bank and the house was officially ours. *Sigh* Are you seeing a pattern here? I swear, it was just one hurdle to jump after another. But finally, after Reed took the kids to go get us lunch, I got the phone call that we could go move into the house. Hallelujah!!! It was Friday, the 14th of July, exactly 3 weeks from when we were supposed to move into the house originally. That night my sister Wendy, her husband Jeff, and her kids Jake and Dillon all showed up at our house on a warm night to sweat our way through unloading our moving truck. Never have I been more grateful to have a house to move our things into. Really. We met our next door neighbors that night who happen to have 2 little girls Bronwyn and Aftyn's ages, and they are also members of the LDS church which is neat. The next 2 weeks were a blur of unpacking boxes, setting up bedrooms, getting the internet (which is another funny story) and slowly getting settled in to our new house.
With my bathroom projects, I painted 7 bathroom walls, 2 sets of bathroom cupboards, and all the trimwork, replaced 1 light fixture, helped mount a new medicine cabinet/mirror, put up 2 sets of towel hooks, created artwork for the walls, and replaced 2 electrical outlets and 1 light switch so that they would be bright white instead of nasty yellow. I wish I had taken pictures because those bathrooms look AMAZING!! I'm so glad I could use all my extra energy to make those bathrooms more beautiful for my parents.
There were lots of fun things we planned to help the time go more quickly, like the 2 times we went to the movies as a family and watched Beauty and the Beast and Despicable Me 3. I can't remember the last time I took all the kids to a movie but on the whole it was fun. Mirren got a little scared in both movies and Lochlan only cared about the popcorn and once that ran out, he was basically done. Bringing a blanket and binkie for him to cuddle with helped a lot in one of the movies, so there's a good idea for later. I also took Aftyn who earned a free ticket to Roaring Springs and Bronwyn who we gave a ticket to for her main birthday present to Roaring Springs on July 3rd. It was a madhouse but it was fun! We took my niece Mia with us since she too had a ticket and she was the only one in her family who had one and it needed to be used before it expired. She brought a friend and we had all the making of a fun day! We split up at Roaring Springs and the girls and I had a blast, except for that time I almost drowned Bronwyn in the Lazy River by putting my weight on the side of her tube. :( That was scary!! But we learned and that didn't happen again. We also ran into our friends from our ward, Brayli and Broxon and their mom. That was a fun surprise! Best part was that no one got a sunburn because we were very thorough in our sunscreening except for on my back where Aftyn applied it for me and missed a couple of spots. But none of the kids got sunburns so I was totally okay with that. One day we also went to the church orchard and got our favorite Ranier cherries. We ate those for a few days and then I cut up the rest and chucked them in the freezer, to be moved with us so I could use them in later in my favorite cherry recipe: fruit smoothies! We went to lots of garage sales and got clothes for the kids and furniture for our deck at the house we would eventually be moving into.
Finally the week came that we were going to get our house! We had our signing day all set but unfortunately our realtor and her office were, frankly, having communication issues and when signing day came around I was freaking out. I called our realtor, her assistant, our realtor again, her assistant again and finally got ahold of her assistant to finally get some of my concerns talked about. We ended up being about 20-30 minutes late to our signing because I was not signing papers for a house we weren't even sure everything had been taken care of like it needed to be by the sellers. I was literally crying as we walked into Title One. And I vowed never to use my realtor in Idaho Falls again, sadly. So don't ask for a referral, I haven't got one. Now the realtor I sold my house with in Nampa, I would use over and over again. Loved him. I would totally refer him. Anyhow, the lady who helped us at Title One helped calm me tremendously as she explained everything exactly the way I needed to hear it, so we signed. And then on the way home, found out that the sellers were not signing until the next day. So even though we had planned on driving up that day with all our stuff packed into our moving van and our family's van, we had nowhere to stay that night. Our realtor's assistant even tried to ask the buyers if we could just stay in the house that night, which admittedly I would never allow for a house I was selling, but we were desperate. And not surprisingly, they said no. And we figured this all out about 30 minutes before we were going to be arriving in Idaho Falls with all our stuff. So luckily my awesome sister Wendy let us stay at her house, just like I knew she would. I was an emotional basket case. Really. What a day it had been. The best part of the day was that my nephew had just received his mission call so we were just in time to be there for when he opened it up. That was a great surprise!
The next day was just a waiting game since we didn't know when the sellers were signing, and time was just ticking away. I was feeling so impatient, just wanting a dang house to live in!! To kill time, I took the kids to go see a movie again, since that's a great way to just think about nothing for about an hour and a half. We went and saw Despicable Me 3 again. What can I say, it was funny! Reed stayed at my sisters house and worked. Literally, as soon as the movie ended, I got a text saying that my realtor's assistant had our keys in her office and I could come pick them up. So I did! I was so excited!! Until the assistant told me that I couldn't actually go to the house until they received payment from the bank and the house was officially ours. *Sigh* Are you seeing a pattern here? I swear, it was just one hurdle to jump after another. But finally, after Reed took the kids to go get us lunch, I got the phone call that we could go move into the house. Hallelujah!!! It was Friday, the 14th of July, exactly 3 weeks from when we were supposed to move into the house originally. That night my sister Wendy, her husband Jeff, and her kids Jake and Dillon all showed up at our house on a warm night to sweat our way through unloading our moving truck. Never have I been more grateful to have a house to move our things into. Really. We met our next door neighbors that night who happen to have 2 little girls Bronwyn and Aftyn's ages, and they are also members of the LDS church which is neat. The next 2 weeks were a blur of unpacking boxes, setting up bedrooms, getting the internet (which is another funny story) and slowly getting settled in to our new house.
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