Aw, Nuts!

This isn't the post I was wanting to write about Amy, but I wanted everyone to be aware of a new health issue for her. After a skin prick test, she showed definitely positive for a tree nut allergy, especially almonds. This doesn't mean that she'll have a serious reaction every time she's exposed, but it is possible. She is also allergic to cats & dogs. (Sorry, Scot & James--this means no pets for a while.)
So we'll have to watch out for nuts and read more labels. Peanuts & peanut butter are fine, but she shouldn't have peanuts that have been processed with other types--no picking peanuts out of a mixed nut jar.
Mostly we'll take a preventative approach, but we do have an epi-pen and an inhaler just in case she has a serious reaction. Hopefully we'll never have to use them!

Trunk or Treat

We had fun at the ward's Trunk or Treat party last night. We (I say we because it was a group effort to find everything) came as a elephant, candy corn, cheerleader, pirate, and spy. (Thank you Grandma Nielson for years of recyclable costumes!) The kids had fun playing games in the cultural hall. They packed in a full house! While I helped the kids play, Brian set up our trunk for the treating. I didn't get a picture, but it turned out pretty good. We took our theme from Charlie Brown and invited the Great Pumpkin to visit our small pumpkin patch. Brian had the movie playing on his small projector screen. A red doghouse (that Maggie and I made that afternoon) with the flying baron Snoopy atop was on the ground. And the pumpkin patch was made from small pumpkins each of the kids decorated. I couldn't believe we barely had enough candy. It makes me nervous for having enough for the real night. We are used to only having 4-5 kids show up. Of course, we never complain having left over candy.

Amy showing her decorated pumpkin for the pumpkin patch.

Official First Word

While Paul has been able to babble "mamama" or "dadada," and respond with a grunt which sounds similar to "ya," he never says anything on command. But today eating his dinner (while we were going crazy getting ready for the Trunk or Treat party) he sayed in his politest voice, "please may I have another bite so I can slurp some more spaghetti?" OK, so really what he said was "gee"--meaning please--but I know what he was really trying to say.

Primary Program 2008

This past Sunday our primary gave their annual Sacrament Meeting Presentation. What a privilege it has been to be the primary pianist here in our new ward. I love listening to the lessons and inspired songs each Sunday. It is amazing what our young children know about the Gospel.
The kids all did great, of course. I made minimal mistakes (phew!). Scot was a part of the group that began the program with "I am a Child of God" on wind chimes. Two other highlights were Maggie's singing and the final song. She has a great gift for lyrics. Sometimes she'll only hear a song only once or twice and she'll be able to sing the whole thing. Amy is the same way; I'm amazed at all the songs they both know (including verses and verses of "Follow the Prophet"). For the program Maggie worked really hard on singing her best (translated: her loudest). She wanted her daddy to hear her, all the way in the back. Brian says she succeeded.
The final song was "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus". The primary sang the 1st verse, and the congregation joined on the 2nd. It was overwhelming to hear everyone singing such a beautiful, simple song about following Jesus. I had to remind myself to keep playing. Now I have a whole year to practice playing without crying.

Stats

I thought you might find the following stats interesting from the check-ups yesterday.

Amy: 2'11" and 28 lbs.
Paul: 2' 7" and 25 lbs. 10 oz.

Isn't it interesting that even with a whole 2.5 pound advantage, Amy still needs help getting her toys away from Paul?

By the way, Paul has now lost his roaming privileges in the house. He may not go into any room unattended.

Scot's First Band Performance

James and I attended Scot's first band performance, FHIMA's Meet the Teacher Night @ the high school. The band teacher explained how the kids learn to play their different instruments and, then they performed a few songs. Some of you might have asked, "where are the earplugs?" but, as a mother of young (often wailing) children, I found the cacophony of the budding instrumentalists rather soothing. I can honestly keep encouraging Scot to continue practicing, although I rarely have to do more than remind him. He really enjoys it and using SmartMusic on the computer helps keep it fun.

Brian stayed home with the girls & Paul so they could get to bed early. Both Amy and Paul got shots today at their check-ups. Amy cried way more than Paul did--until she remembered about getting stickers. Even though I just wanted to hug and comfort her, I couldn't help laugh at her stilt-like walk to the car. She found that not bending her knees helped her thighs not hurt as much. Also, Paul may be banned from any future outings until he learns some self-control. (I would take any level of self-control, especially the not-flinging-yourself-in-and-out-of-the stroller-willy-nilly type or the pull-every-book-off-the-shelf-then-throw-it-at-you equivalent.)

Post Script: James' hightlight of the night was watching the pencil that was stuck in the ceiling tiles directly over Scot's head and hoping it would fall. ("You mean high schoolers would actually throw pencils at the ceiling??")

If you look really close you can see the pencil. Sorry about the poor photography :( I know how important it is to get good pictures of ceiling pencils...oh, and your own children, of course.

Following Up

I know I said the next few posts would be about Amy, but so much has happened this last week there may be a small flood of posts all about various events.

I did send Amy's hair today to Locks of Love. Everyone really likes her short cut, and she adores the attention. The only thing she misses so far is flipping her hair over so I can button her dresses. She does it anyway, and then realizing she doesn't have any hair to flip she bursts into giggles.

The girls and Paul helped pick out pumpkins today that we'll carve and decorate for Family Home Evening tonight. Paul helped get the insides of his pumpkin all mushy by dropping it repeatedly from the shopping cart.

Our neighborhood has the Halloween spirit. There are lots of fun decorations surrounding us, and the Phantom Ghost has been leaving treats mysteriously on front steps. So far we've been unsuccessful at catching the ghosts in the act, but they are usually not too bashful to share who they've visited with the school bus the next morning.

The scariest thing about our house is the dead plant beds in the front yard. That should be remedied soon (isn't the snow supposed to cover up that sort of stuff??). I'd be pulling the plants up today, except we're getting rain. I'm counting on the pumpkins to help with our fall decor.

And finally, Scot reminds you to trick or treat and smell his feet.

Grown-up Amy

The next few posts will be about Amy. We have a lot of fun together while the others are at school. And while her 3-year-old-ness seeps into all she does, her love and sweetness expands way beyond her few years.

Today we went to the salon.

The stylist was able to cut off just 10 inches of wavy brown hair, which we'll send to Locks of Love. Now my long haired, blue-eyed baby girl (which I would never say to her directly because Paul is obviously the baby) is a short-haired with one dimple little girl. I think it's adorable, but my heart nearly fell to my feet while I watched all that hair being cut off. I had to remind myself that cutting it wouldn't be any good if we couldn't donate it, and I think Locks of Love is a great organization.

We haven't had a chance to style her new 'do yet, but here is the first picture of her with short hair. It's fun to see her hold her hair like she's trying to figure out where it went!

Fall Fires

We spent a nice weekend working on the house. Our goal? To say we've officially "moved in." The kids rooms were thoroughly cleaned and rearranged (the boys got the huge bookshelf--they both go through about 5 books a week; the girls got the playtable). After a drop off to Good Will we visited the local library. The boys have been so anxious to get their own library cards. Apparently one (school) library is not enough.
The weather has finally turned chilly, and Brian has enjoyed building a small fire in the mornings. I think we both love the fall: sweaters, leaves, crisp air, a peaceful rest from the labor of the season.

To Utah and Back Again

The last week has been filled with family for me, and I'm very grateful for Brian and good friends who made it happen. Last Thursday Paul and I took a flight from Dayton to Salt Lake City leaving aroung 4:30am from our home and arriving at my mom's near 1pm (which included a 2 hour time difference). Paul did pretty good on the flights (we had a 2 hr. layover in Minneapolis), napping in between and for the last 10 minutes before landing in Salt Lake. Luckily we were sitting next to understanding and patient individuals who appreciated Paul's good behavior and tolerated his bad. Needless to say, we were both fairly exhausted upon arrival and had a good rest that afternoon. The rest of the day was spent visiting with my mom and preparing for my niece's wedding, which was the real reason we made the trip.

On Friday, Erin, my brother, drove my mother, Paul, and I up to Logan were the wedding was scheduled in the Logan Temple. Talk about a brisk morning! Up in the mountains you realize that fall is finally here. With plenty of time to spare, we waiting in the visitors room for our babysitters to arrive (which turned out to be Rachelle, my 2nd oldest niece). It was a beautiful ceremony and made me miss Brian (*sigh*). Through the last few ceremonies we've attending, I've realized that I really like weddings, probably because I can think about what the sealer is really saying, or maybe because it's much more fun to think about being a newlywed and not actually be one .

And so it was my great privilege to watch Melanie Thornton marry Geoffrey Joosten and become Melanie Joosten. I'm so excited for them, and hope that they will be happy as they figure out how to be married to one another.


(Her flowers were so beautiful!)



Between the wedding and the reception we ate lunch at The Bluebird, then drove down to Brigham City were my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Cal are living in an assisted living home. It was nice to see them again and remember all the nice things they have done for our family.

After that we went over to the Bear River Bird Refuge and walked through the visitors center. I now know slightly more about migrating birds than I did before.



Back in Logan, Paul and I had the time to take one last walk around the temple before the reception. Wrapped up in the stoller against the cold, Paul (and I) really enjoyed the beautiful flowers and fountains around the temple. What a peaceful and serene place, truly a House of God.
















The reception was lots of fun, and we got to see the rest of the family, nieces and nephews. Paul especially enjoyed the cheese cubes and lemonade. Plus I could tell he really missed his brothers and sisters because he loved playing with Grace and the other kids. I realized how much I depend on Scot, James, Maggie, and Amy to entertain him!

We got back late that night, slept for a few hours, then got up early to head back to the airport. This was a lot easier flight for me, though, because Mom came back with me. Yea!! We had a great visit here in Ohio: church, Graeter's, Juilf's Park, Imaginiff... Unfortunately we had to take her back to the airport today and say good-bye for another while.

It was a nice whirl-wind week. I wish I could have seen more of our family and friends while in Utah, but for now I will relax here in Ohio with good memories and incredible autumn leaves.

Neighborhood Games

I love that my kids can play football in the street!

Traffic Jam

Our street, especially in front of our house, was so crazy this morning. Water Works came to fill in the concrete they tore out yesterday to fix the water leak, plus the tree cutters came to finish taking down our neighbor's trees that were injured in the storm. Luckily the windshield I had ordered for Brian's car didn't arrive until this afternoon because I'm not sure the school bus could have manoeuvred past all the vehicles and workers.
I didn't have time to watch the school bus anyway. I had to get Paul and Amy over to a friend's house so I could volunteer in Maggie's class for a couple hours. It was really fun watching all the organized craziness of kindergarten. Maggie has a great teacher who seems to really know the ropes. My favorite activity was "Hickedy Pickedy Bumble Bee, Won't You Say Your Name for Me?" I'd never heard that rhyme before. After the person says their name, you repeat their name 4 times: repeating, w/clapping, whispering, then just clapping the syllables. It was really cute. When it was Maggie's turn she got all shy and could only whisper her name. I guess I didn't need to worry that she would be way too talkative!

Solution

After waiting 8 days for the water company to fix the water leak near our house, we decided to fill up our emergency water barrels with the free-flowing water. Last night Brian bought a water pump on the way home from work, hookup up the portable battery, and voila!, water storage. Unfortunately we ran out of time and battery power to fill up all the barrels, but all least we got a good start and saved a fraction of the water from going down the drain. (Pumping 50 gallons in 10 minutes (and not affecting the water drainage, I figure at least 300,000 gallons have leaked during this last week--and that is a very conservative estimate.)


Rigged strainer to keep debris from being pumped.






Scot getting making interesting flow designs. Get out of the water Scot!!

James mesmerized by watching the water drain into the storm drain. This has been a favorite pasttime of all the kids on the street.

This is how far the water drained each day. At the top of the picture you can see our white van in front of our house.

Post Script: The water company fixed the leak this morning. For a while we had mud flowing instead of water, but don't worry, they used more water to wash away the mud.