Tis The Season...BeepBeep!

I am NOT going to have a holiday that continues to be this busy!

No!

As I sit I have swimming in my head the 400 things I need to get done by...oh...yesterday.

Some I chose to add on to my to do list because they are actually enjoyable and things I want to do this season.

Some are things we have always done as a family around this time that I'm kind of just doing for the kids.

Some are obligations I need to meet, deadlines for church stuff that I can't quite seem to catch up on.

I am entirely too unwilling to let go of the "want to's" in order to complete the "have to's." so my priorities are a little messed up, but as a yellow, the "want to's" are almost more important to me than that "have to's."

(That's a lot of bad grammar there, folks.)

Did I mention I have a massive head cold?

Joy to the World, it's Dayquil time....

Pictures from our Thanksgiving weekend- it was nice, peaceful and loving.....

No drama.

Catan, as we do every year

So tired

The food was perfect, the kids are still snacking on leftover ham, but if I decide to add one more thing to my day, we will have that in soup tonight.

Who am I kidding? We're having Smurfs Cereal for dinner tonight.  I cooked last night.

Greyson...New and Improved!

 

(Yes, I'm THAT Mom who takes pictures of sick kids.)

My Little Greyson has had a rough weekend.

They had a party for scouts this weekend with pizza, board games and soda. Because our ward has so few YM, Emma and Kate went over and joined in. 

Saturday morning, we had plans for the annual Turkey Bowl and a baby shower with the girls in PG. 

None of that happened.

Grey came home in the middle of the activity screaming and crying. I gave him some Tylenol and told him to lie on the sofa and relax. He never could relax, and after an hour, I didn't care if it was an imaginary injury, his level of meltdown was beyond my abilities to fix.

We headed out, in the blizzard, to the hospital.

 4 hours later he had a CT scan, morphine and an appendicitis diagnosis.  They transported us by ambulance to the children's hospital. Once there, the doctors just thought he had an abnormally large appendix and a tummy bug. His elevated white count was chalked up to a medical mystery. By 3am, I was ready for any diagnosis, I had to get some rest. They decided to observe him and Matt went home to sleep while I settled in with Greyson, whose symptoms resembled a bipolar 8th grade girl.

So...no operation.

At 7 am the nurse said they were going to operate, we were scheduled for 11am.

Okay....operation is a go.

Over the course of the next few hours, Grey seemed to be doing better and his pain was significantly lower, so at about noon, they had firmly decided he just had a tummy bug and we were going to go home. 

No operation.

The head of the department wanted to check Grey one last time before they discharged him, after a few hours without morphine in his system.When he poked Grey's tummy, Grey screamed. He said we absolutely needed to operate, this child obviously had appendicitis.  

Operation.

But of course, it was decided exactly 20 minutes after they let him eat solid food again and you need at least 6 hours of fasting for most surgery. The Doctor said he'd get around that because they do emergency surgeries all of the time on people who had just eaten.  

Ugh. This was hour 18 of the whole ordeal. 

Dad gave him a blessing and went home before the surgery to get some things we needed for another night here and check on the kids. Thankfully, Grandma was over and helping out. We were worried about trying to juggle both locations and knowing Grandma was there made it so all of our focus could be on Appendix Boy

His surgery took almost 2 hours.

I was only kind of a complete wreck the whole time.

Okay, I was completely tense and worried. 

 

(Ambulance  at 3 am are cool, even if your guts are exploding)

When the surgery was over the doctor confirmed that it was appendicitis, just as he thought.
Grey was going to get better quickly, they caught it early.  Had we waited, we'd have been having turkey from the crappy cafeteria here at Primary Children's.

But it went fine, a few mishaps and some drama in the recovery room that took a few years off all of our lives, but it's over and Grey has 2 nice new scars in his tummy and his belly button is pretty gross, since they went through that, too. 

He's okay, he's comfortable and we got home this afternoon-- next week there was only a day and a half of school anyway, so he has the Holiday Week to recover. 

He's in better spirits and even making smarty pants remarks- a sure sign with that the kid is feeling like himself again.

What a ride this weekend was.

This had better mean that next week will be peaceful and happy and not involve any exploding organs or drama.

This Mom is tired, and going to sleep, Yo.

Quilting is the New Knitting

Only 490 more to go.

In all honesty, this project may take months to finish, but it's a nice change of pace.

My next crazy idea is that I am going to build one of these:

We're going to set quilt at the Relief Society meetings and see if that is something the women of the ward are interested in helping with. 

I know machine quilting is faster an fancier, but I like the idea of sitting around with friends or with my daughters and making something like this with our own sideways view of the world perspective on design.

The doc says it's good for my arthritis- to keep working those fingers as Jack Frost makes them want to knot up.

I'm back to getting steroid injections again, I just can't outsmart the cold weather.

Still I Love Technology

New Phone.

Oh my.

My beloved Driod has been rebelling against me and last night it started saying "Drooooid" in a very ridiculous tone. I don't take that kind of back sassing from my kids, I'm sure not going to take it from a phone.

It sounded like it was underwater, but I take very good care of my phones, I know it wasn't underwater.

At worst maybe a few grains of salt made it's way inside since I always keep extra packets in my purse- you never know when you're going to need emergency popcorn and emergency popcorn never has the right amount of salt.

I sound nuttier with each word I type, don't I?

Anyway, we went last night after a long day/evening and just looked at phones.

I was drooling over the iphone4.

The salesman came to help and told me the iphone was a good choice, it was trendy, it was user friendly, it was sexy.

He lost me a little at "sexy."

A phone that was sexy may just tip me over the edge and make me too sexy.

We can't have that.

He said that at our price point (we had a price point?) he would steer us to something nicer, the just released yesterday HTC Rezound Beats phone. 

He said it had bits of Dr. Dre ground into it. 

I told him I could not name a single Dr. Dre song and that just last week my 18 year old told me I wore jeans "like a mom."

He told me they came with awesome headphones.

I told him I never use headphones.

He told me it had amazing graphics. 

I told him I never even wear my glasses, so the whole world has nice fuzzy edges to me and I like it that way.

Reading street signs in the dark is what wimps do.

He told me it was 4G.

I said "What's a G?"

He told me it has an 8MP camera.

I instantly forgot about the iphone.

Apple Schmapple. 

Love love love this phone.

 It's faster than my laptop and takes amazing pictures. 

Angry Birds has never been faster and the sound quality is incredible.

So much awesomeness.

Thank you Dr. Dre---I mean, Matt. 

Uncle John and Aunt Gail

Saturday we headed down to Pleasant grove to have a fun lunch with the Olson clan and to spend time with Uncle John and Aunt Gail who were visiting from Denver. It was so good to see them and the kids has so much fun playing with their cousins. 

Thanks for a great afternoon, Olson and Riggs Family!

We can't wait to see you again and wish we'd have had more time to visit on Saturday. 

We love you so much!

The Cat Was Away, After All

Last week, Matt was in NYC and it was just me and the kids here at home.

I finished 2 books I was reading, caught up on some dreadful TV I wanted to see and took on a home decorating project.

Our Living room is a constant source of irritation to me, I just can't quite find the look I like, something comfortable but stylish that company can feel welcome in, but it isn't attractive to kids with art projects and bowls of cereal to nest in.

Having the TV in there was great for the family social stuff, but not for my need to have a clean living room. 

We moved it out and, as I mentioned before set up the dining room as a family area and I have been loving that.

But the living room went from being too cluttered to empty. 

So, with Matt gone I scrounged through the garage and put together a window seat for the bay window. Total cost was about 8 bucks since I scavenged most of the supplies from our house.

In hindsight, I probably should have drawn up some sort of plan, but I only had to undo my work about 20 times before I built something sturdy. It doesn't help that none of our walls are straight.

It's ugly, but pretty close to free, so ugly is just fine.

I was so proud of myself in cutting out that vent hole. Inside, I also built a box out of Styrofoam and  insulation tape to divert the air flow into the room. 

When it came time for the cushion top, I had a very expensive resource in my house to use.

At one point in our lives we purchased an expensive 4 inch memory foam for our Cal King bed. 

It made my back hurt worse, so we put it in storage.

Then the freaking dog found it.

That dumb dog chewed on it and dug her claws into it and made it so we couldn't give it to anyone else and using it on a kid bed was pointless since the dog goes in all of the bedrooms but mine. Rosie ruined one side, but the other side was fine and there were large sections of the foam that were okay, so I grabbed my scissors and hacked it up. I painted the side, added trim and covered and secures the cushion. 

Isn't it lovely?

I am thrilled with how it looks and the room looks so much more balanced now. 

All that for just some elbow grease, a box of wood screws, and mismatched scraps of wood from the garage.

Yoyo

It's a crummy picture, but the fabric yoyos are coming right along.

I have 80 done, only 610 more to go.

Miss domestic is also making 3 pies this week, I'm just trying to decide if I risk a crust from scratch or just drop the three bucks and buy the crust.

Just Loving Life

This week Rori had a sleepover while her mom went to Arizona with the baby to go look at real estate. She and Erik are relocating to AZ after Christmas. We will miss them like crazy, but they have been through so many changes in the past year, they got married, had a baby and, oh yeah, their house burned to the ground. 

If life demands a fresh start, you may as well jump in feet first into the future.

Auntie Christmas took her out for a doughnut and then we went to Gardener Village. We really had fun at the doll shop, candy store and quilt shop.There were so many gorgeous things to see there and Rori was so well behaved, I was really proud of her. It's weird to think she is already 6 years old. All of my nieces and nephews are growing up way too fast. 

(At the candy store, that reminds me- I bought fudge there, didn't eat it but I never saw it again. Hmmm....)

I have been taking my scrap supplies and making packets to donate to Big Brothers Big Sisters, my goal is to donate 50 page kits before I pack away what I decide to keep from the scrap stash. As I've gone through the stuff, I am just stunned at how many expensive supplies I have purchased and then just hoarded. I totally had that "too pretty to use" mentality and I look at some of my sacred supplies and see that they aren't even current now, I just let my brain get stuck in some dumb place that was honestly- wasteful. 

It's a big step for me to just stop the bad habits I excused in myself with this hobby and quite freeing.

I have one more blanket to knit in order to make my goal of 5 donation blankets by the end of the year, I haven't worked on my goal of indexing though since making it. I started a new project instead on Thursday, I'm making a quilt out of yoyos.

Like this one:

(Image from Alabama Chanin)

Yoyos are crazy fun to make and they use up small fabric scraps I have been hanging on to forever. 

I've made 50 yoyos and only have about 950 more to go,lol. 

And Matt- you make me so happy. Thank you for the colors you bring into my life, the happiness you bring me and the man that you are.

 I absolutely adore you and I always will.

 I am so thankful that we found one another. 

We had our first real snowfall last night, and even though I just hate winter and what it does to my old bones, there is a part that always makes my heart smile because snow in the Salt Lake Valley reminds me of when I first met you.

(Our back yard right now- Romy, Jane and Greyson had loads of fun this morning)

From Matt: On being lucky

An author I read is noting things he is grateful for. I would like to wholeheartedly concur with how he feels about the following:

If you add all this up, the odds of me having met my wife, given who I was, where I lived and what I usually did with my time, are so infinitesimally small as to be almost completely non-existent. Pretty much the only chance I would have ever had to meet her was that one time, that one night. You know, there’s a word for meeting one’s lifelong love on the single night in either of your lives that you would have ever had the chance to meet. It’s called “luck.”

I know how he feels about luck. I am very lucky too, and thankful for every day I have Chris.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2011/11/03/the-thanksgiving-advent-calendar-day-three-luck/

Change is Good, I Hope

We survived Halloween. The weather could not be more perfect and we hit the far reaches of our neighborhood.

Okay, it wasn't exactly Narnia, but we went as far as the Stake Center.

Roe wanted me to dress up, too and I wasn't wearing those red heels out Trick or Treating, so I grabbed clothes Matt and I actually still wear all of the time and was an 80's whatever.

 I also got this great idea to move furniture.

I have LOVED having a TV in the living room, but I have also HATED it. 

It's so ugly and it made the living room the mess room. It was great having it right in the middle of everything so I could still be Mom and watch my stories when needed. 

What to do, what to do.

Then it dawned on me that we almost never eat at the kitchen table. We have a large bar area that seats 8 already and the table generally held craft projects or laundry.

We (and by we I mean Sweet Matthew) took out the table and the loveseat, coffee table and a chair were brought in from the living room. The living room is now a little too sparse, but I have some ideas in mind for it. 

It took me 5 whole minutes of a family room set up in the kitchen to decide this was perfect. 

The kitchen now is really the heart of our home and I have a comfy place to rest my stupid aching back while the kids do homework or play Kongregate online. This is super cozy and I am completely happy.

For at least the next 6 months.

--

But that isn't the biggest change here that was just the boring teaser to an even more boring thing.

I got a new calling in church. 

2nd counselor in the RS presidency.

I'm pretty much over the activities, and you all know I know how to throw a good party, I'll just have to add meaning to them now. I'm super excited.

Betty is our president.

Knit night buddy Betty. 

There isn't much I wouldn't do for her to begin with and I'm excited to learn and help in this calling. 

And nervous.

Mostly excited though- I've avoided leadership positions pretty successfully since I was the Laurel Class President. 

We will see if I've learned anything since then.

And yeah, when I got the call, honestly the primary thought I had after being shocked and humbled was "YOU MUST STOP SWEARING NOW."

I'm working on it, I'm not perfect, I never will be, but I am doing pretty good.

I didn't say any bad words today at lunch with this sweet lady:

Okay, I think I did say "hell" but people are on the fence about that being an actual swear or not. 

I think I said "what he hell" so I think it WAS a swear.

Well, crap.

PS- Liz, thank you for you sweet personality and company today. I really had a nice time, even if I did waste half of my panini. You may just be the world's easiest person to talk to, you rock. :)