Happy Thanksgiving

November 27, 2008

I hope everyone survived our annual day of gorging ourselves. I decided this year to start off with tight pants hoping that it would stop me from eating so much and it actually worked. Of course it wasn't nearly as much fun. Next year I will revert back to my elastic waist band.

This year we had Thanksgiving at the parents. Everyone came over and Jeff even brought Sarah along. There was tons of food everywhere and plenty of good conversations to join in with. And the best part was the kids were kept entertained the entire time with the movie Kung Fu Panda. You couldn't ask for a better Thanksgiving.

This year Forrest really wanted some of his cousins to sleep over, In a moment of insanity I agreed. Instead of our original two we went home with five. On the drive home Greg and I got a real kick out of listening to the kids. After telling the kids we would be having pizza for lunch the next day, one of my nephews (who is only five) asked if it was pepperoni. When I told him yes, he got all sad and said, "But I don't want to get heartburn." Luckily for him I had some left over ham pizza that I was able to give him.

Another nephew went into great detail about how mothers are great at keeping secrets. His mom has been keeping a secret from him for almost two months now and still won't tell him until it is Christmas. I can just tell this secret is really killing him.

Once we got home the boys got ready for bed. A couple of years ago Liz had picked up a couple pairs of PJ bottoms for some of the boys in the family. Just by coincidence three of the boys were wearing them. I got a real kick out of them all standing around in the bathroom brushing their teeth. They looked like triplets.

The kids all went to bed at 9:00 or I should say I turned off the lights at nine and they probably went to sleep by ten. Around midnight I woke up and headed downstairs to check on them. One nephew was rolled up in ball with his hands tucked between his legs trying to stay warm. He was laying on his blanket. Let me tell you it was no small feat to get him covered up again. Forrest, on the other hand, had rolled off the air mattress and pulled all of the covers off his cousin. This poor cousin had rolled completely over to Forrest spot trying to stay under the covers. After moving both boys back on the mattress I headed back to bed.

Amazingly enough things went pretty well. My oldest nephew was bored a couple of times, but not too often. The boys played well together and I was able to get some cleaning done. Hopefully we haven't emotionally scared them too much and we might even be willing to do this again sometime.

All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.

November 24, 2008

This, That and the Other

November 23, 2008

Does anyone know where the month of November has gone? It seems like this month just flew bye. After this week I kept thinking we still had another week of November. Well jokes on me.

It seems that I have really been slacking in the blogging department. My goal is to blog at least 7 times a month. If you haven't noticed I have only blogged twice. Either things are really boring around here or I am not living up to my goals. To try and get my blog number up I figured I write a little update. Most of them are not blog worthy, but oh well.

This past weekend we were able to ship the kids off to the grandparents house and enjoy an evening out. We were able to see the Bells on Temple Square. I just love listening to the bells and really enjoyed the concert. It was so good that the really uncomfortable seats didn't even bug me. The concert really got me into the Christmas spirit. So, of course on Saturday I had to pull out my Sissel CD and spend the day wrapping presents while I listened. Forrest was not impressed and kept telling me that it is not even Thanksgiving yet.

In regards to the fish oil, the kids have both been on it for about two months. We have noticed improvements in both kids. Eliza, on her own without us trying to get her to say it, now says pin for pink, bub bub for bubbles, Ma, Da, ball, bear and right there. Both of her speech therapists are encouraged by her improvement. Some may wonder if it was finally just time for her to talk. I don't really know, but this is the most improvement she has ever made so we are keeping our fingers crossed. As you might not know we also have Forrest on the fish oil. We have noticed increased memory, easier time getting his thoughts out and greater focus in class. One weekend we forgot to give them their fish oils and the regression was pretty startling in Forrest. He became very frustrated with homework and had a very hard time remembering things. I also noticed an almost stuttering type structure to his speech. Once we got him back on track all of those symptoms disappeared. For now we are going to keep the kids on the Fish Oil. In the future what we do will be anyone's guess.

A Passing of a Season

November 9, 2008

As many of you know my grandmother passed away this past week. It has been a time of sadness, but also a time of joy. As we were walking out of the funeral to head to the cemetery my brother made a comment that Grandma's mother had been waiting 96 years to finally meet her. Grandma has lived a long and eventful life. She leaves behind 10 children, 44 grandchildren and 77 great-grandchildren.

This past summer I was able to spend a lot of time with grandma. Grandma needed a little extra help getting ready for bed so I volunteered to help out one day a week. At first I dreaded going, but it soon became the highlight of my week. I was able to take a break from the kids and spend a couple hours visiting with grandma. I could always make her laugh and it was fun to get to know her silly side.

A couple of weeks ago when I came to put her to bed I found out she had been to the ER. Grandma was very tired and didn't feel very well. Things seemed to go down hill from there. She was soon placed in an Assisted Living. Everyone hoped that the transition would be smooth, but Grandma didn't seem to be getting the help she needed and seemed to be getting worse. They soon moved Grandma back home. Last Sunday I was asked to sit with her for a spell. She was very different from the last time I saw her. She was extremely restless and couldn't get comfortable. She was finally able to fall asleep for an hour or so before she woke up and became restless again. It made me wish the drugs worked better or that she could have better drugs that would make her final hours more peaceful.

On Monday I wasn't able to get up to see Grandma, but on Tuesday I was able to visit quite a few times. I left Wednesday morning at about 12:15 am and Grandmas passed away a couple of hours later.

These past couple of weeks have been a roller coaster of emotion. On one hand I am happy for Grandma. She is finally able to be free of this mortal body that failed her long before her mind ever did. She will also be reunited with her mother and husband. However, I do feel a sense of loss. No more going to get Grandma dinner, getting her ready for bed or just spending an hour or two visiting with her. I also feel that we are seeing a changing time. At the funeral yesterday I looked around at all my relatives and released that we might not be together again like this for a very long time. We are an amazing family and we will always have a tight family bond. I am glad I grew up in such a big family with so many aunts, uncles and cousins. And all though Grandma wasn't a traditional Grandma I still loved her and will miss her very much.

The Aftermath

November 1, 2008

For some unknown reason our teacher work day fell on Halloween so we did not have school yesterday. This did not really sit well with me. I could see the kids start asking at 9:00 am when we can go trick-or-treating. It had the potential to be a very long day.

To fight this we jam-packed our day with fun things. First on the agenda was a walk down to the river. We called some friends and we were off. A lot of leaves had fallen the night before so it was a blast to walk through all the fallen leaves.

The river was also really low so the kids had lots of fun throwing rocks and getting into all sorts of mischief.

After the rive walk it was almost lunch time so we headed back for a quick lunch with Greg and then we were off to the Dinosaur Park. I don't know about you, but I think it is really fun to go to the Dinosaur Park around Halloween.

Eliza kept walking around and telling me how scared she was. She really wasn't scared, but she likes to pretend to be scared around all the dinosaurs.

After the Dinosaur Park I got the brilliant idea to go and get the kids their flu shots. I know, I know that wasn't really something fun, but I figured the doctors office would be dead considering it was Halloween. I was really wrong. It seems a lot of other moms had the same idea and the place had been hopping all day with moms bringing their kids in for their flu shot. We were lucky and got in when they were in a down time. The other nice thing is they didn't get a shot. It seems now the flumist is covered by almost every insurances so instead of a shot they just had to sniff. It made for a much better doctors visit.

We finally got home about 3:45 and everyone rested up for the night. After dinner I started to get the kids ready.

Both kids were really excited. (I know you can't tell in the picture, but neither of the kids would look at me. Out of the 10 shots I took this was actually the best one. Little stinkers.)

This year it was my turn to stay home. I love to go out with the kids, but the last two days had been so jam-packed that I was really looking forward to just getting a small break. The kids left at about 6:00 and were back by 6:30. Forrest said he had enough candy and wanted to come in. I convinced him to go out for a little while longer. They finally came home at about 7:30 and that is when the real fun began. My kids love to hand out candy. They will fight and race to the door to give out treats. Forrest soon grew bored of it, but Eliza didn't.

She would gaze out the window holding the candy bowl looking for the next group of trick-or-treaters. When we would tell her it was time to go to bed she would sign more and then point to the bowl. Finally Forrest and I decided to help her along. We went out the back door and ran around to the front to ring the doorbell. She loved to open it up and have us yell trick or treat. Pretty soon she also wanted to join in the fun. After about 20 minutes of this we finally convinced the kids they needed to go to bed. Both kids were in bed by 9:00, but I doubt either of them fell asleep much before 10:00 they were so wired.

This morning when Eliza woke up she got her costume back on, grabbed the bowl and immediately started to watch for more trick or treaters. It has been a hard blow to her that Halloween is over for the year. Hopefully we can think of something fun to keep her going until Thanksgiving.