St. Patrick's Day

We hosted a St. Patrick's Day party on Saturday. We had a little over 30 people show up...which was more than what we expected. Saturday morning I woke up with a fever of 102.5. Zac had to go take a test in the morning, and Eric had a birthday party to go to. So I took some tylenol and headed to Chuck E Cheese with the kids. I could not believe how many kids were at Chuck E Cheese! Eric had a great time with his friends though. By the time we got back, we needed to get ready for the St. Patrick's Day party. Because I was still somewhat sick, Zac made the food for me. He got right in and started rolling out the cookie dough for the sugar cookies, cutting up the fruits and veges, etc. Then he started cleaning the house with me. He even drew the "treasure map" for the kids to find the pot of gold. Our house was very hectic during the party. Tucker was so funny during the treaure hunt. He looked at the map, and found where the pot of gold was and went straight for it, instead of going to the other locations first. (Which we had a little toy at each location). Our ward ended up having a St. Patricks Day party also, so we had to hurry and have all the activities done within an hour so people could go to both. The kids had a lot of fun. After the games, we were all socializing in the house, then Zac went outside and started up his Mustang and all the guys ran outside. I had to laugh because after the Mustang had started, the guys all sat in the garage and talked. It wasn't "manly" to talk inside the house, but as long as they are in a garage, it's okay.

Our lesson in church this week was "I am thankful for fish". So Zac went to Wal-Mart and bought 10 cent goldfish to give one to each of the Sunbeams. The parents were either thrilled or gave us a look that could kill. Especially the dad with twin girls...he got 2 fish.

Zac took the first step on Friday for him to get braces. He went and got the plaster of his teeth made. He goes back this Friday to talk about his "mold of teeth" and where to go from here. One benefit of me working is my dental insurance is wonderful, and Zac has dental insurance also. Zac finally decided it was time for him to get braces.

Our Weekend

Not too much happened this past week. I have started to run 4 miles every day during my lunch break, and on Saturday, Zac and I bought a double jogging stroller/trailer. They had a great deal at Costco, my friend has actually fit 4 kids in it! It will convert to a bike trailer for those days that I need to crosstrain. I ran a little over 5 miles on Sunday with it and the kids. It was a beautiful day outside. Zac was able to start putting the sprinkler heads on in our yard. Currently, we just have a lot of hose sticking out of the ground. I was going to officially potty train Aubrey this weekend, but I wanted to devote an entire weekend to it, and we had the dentist on Friday. Aubrey has been going potty every night and morning in the potty, I really think she's ready, I just need to make the switch to underwear...I always hate the first month of potty training...so many messes.

Eric, Aubrey and I all went to a new dentist. I have gone to the same dentist my entire life. I have only had one cavity, and it was back in 1999. THIS dentist however, looked at me teeth and says "how long has it been since you've been to a dentist?!" I told him a year, then he starts counting my teeth, and tells me that I have TWELVE cavities!!!!! WHAT?!! but that he is only going to fix four of them. If I have twelve cavities, why wouldn't he fix all twelve? Plus, if I had that many cavities, wouldn't at least ONE of my teeth hurt? I do NOT believe him. I am going to my other dentist for x-rays again for a second opinion. I was really disappointed in their office. They didn't have the laser that goes on your gums, they didn't have the swish flouride, etc. They advertise that they have a daycare AT the dentist office, so Mom's don't have to find a babysitter. WRONG! It was just their waiting room, with NOBODY watching the kids, and they kept on bringing Aubrey back to me, all flustered with the fact that she wasn't playing nice, during my cleaning. Then they did Eric's teeth in the same chair as myself, which at our other dentist, they have a separate kids room where there are tv's on the ceiling, video games in front of him, etc. They didn't have one kid thing in the office. The dentist told me that the x-ray doesn't show any cavities for Eric, but that there is one on his back molar. I am going to have my other dentist look at that too. I give the kids a flouride tablet every day, and Eric LOVES to brush his teeth. He probably brushes his teeth 4 times a day, including at daycare. Eric and Aubrey were really good though, Eric let them clean his teeth and put the flouride on. They cleaned Aubrey's teeth, but said she was too young for the flouride treatment.

Bobby is making Aubrey some dresses for her birthday (next week) so I went fabric shopping with her on Friday after we came back from the dentist. It was hectic with 5 kids at the fabric store. Bobby and Nathan were finally able to start working on their house this past Saturday. (they had to put the tar on the foundation).

Zac and I are hosting a St. Patrick's Day party for the kids this Saturday, so Eric helped me make the invites, and pass them out to his friends. Zac really wanted to make homemade rootbeer and dye it green, but the only rootbeer concentrate that I found already had the brown dye in it, so if anybody knows where we can find clear rootbeer concetrate, let us know before Saturday!

Sunday we had a lot of fun teaching our lesson to the Sunbeams. It was "I am thankful for plants, trees and flowers". We bought each of the kids a flower plant (90 cent special at Wal-Mart). We also had them close their eyes, and I would put a fruit/vegetable in their mouth, and they would have to try to guess what it was, etc. We had around 20 different kinds, and they were hilarious to watch. Zac and I were cracking up watching their expressions. The kid that would NOT eat any of the fruit/veges, absolutely LOVED lemons. All of the other Sunbeams immediately spit out the lemon, making horrible faces, etc. The kids were cute. After the parents had gotten the kids after church, we were walking out, and our Sunbeams were showing off their plant to EVERYONE. As soon as we got home, Eric ran up to his room and put his plant on his window sill to make sure that "Heavenly Father's flower stayed alive".

Zac's sister Barb had gotten into an accident awhile back, and Zac finally finished painting the new fender, etc., so Barb and Garrit came over Friday night for Zac to finish putting her car back together. We always enjoy having them over. It's nice for them to come over without watching our kids, then our kids won't be expecting it when we DO end up going out.

For our little lawsuit that's going on with the HOA, Zac has been speaking with some attorneys trying to find one to represent us to file a counterclaim. What we've come to find out is the ones who are excited about representing us are 5 times as expensive as the ones who could give or take our case. Our entire neighborhood wants to go in on the same attorney, but they want Zac to do the leg work to find a great one. So if anybody knows of a good real estate attorney in Utah County, let us know! Zac asked Judge Bullock for a referral, and the guy seems great, but REALLY pricey. That's about it for our week!

1/2 Marathon

So Lisa has inspired me to run in a 1/2 marathon. I signed up for the Provo River Trail 1/2 marathon set for Aug. 11th. I will begin my marathon training in April. I am really excited for this marathon. It starts at South Fork Canyon (my absolute favorite park in Provo Canyon), we run past Bridal Veil Falls, and end at one of the parks in Provo. We stay on the river trail the entire way. This is what website describes the run as:

This is the most beautiful run down South Fork Canyon with the most spectacular view of Mt.Timpanogos, then running down a fully paved river trail in a tunnel of trees on a cool August morning. Its an easy down hill. You start at 6,000 ft. and gradually work your way down to 4700 ft., to a food feast at the end with all kinds of fruit, food, music and drinks Blues band we will have 1/2 and 5 mile run From Bridal Veil falls this year. We finish at Riverview park, that is 4800 n. and the Provo River. At the park you can soak your feet in the river, listen to blues band while eating pancakes & fruit. See you there.

If anybody is wanting to join in the run, you will need to register now at http://www.trailrun.com it is going to be a lot of fun!

Another week

I haven't posted any pictures of the kids lately, so here are some random pictures. I also forgot to post Eric's picture of his scar from surgery, for those who wanted to see it. Aubrey was a stinker though while taking the pictures, and would only stand there for a second and then come running to me to look at the picture. More than half of the time I hadn't even taken the picture yet. Most of them turned out blurry because she was running.

This weekend was very uneventful. I babysat our neighbors kids Thursday night, all day Friday, and then Zac came and helped babysit Saturday night. They were really good. Eric and his friend just wanted to play "Thomas the train" the entire time. His friend brought over his train and tracks and they would make a massive track for the trains to ride on.

I was going to post a picture of Zac's car after his accident, but Zac fixed the car before I could. He tied the front end of the car onto a pole, and hooked the backend up to his backhoe, and drove the backhoe until his car started to retain it's original shape. Then he pounded out the rest of the dents and the car looks almost as good as new. We are still getting a check for the car since they totaled it out, but it runs still, so we are still going to continue driving it into the ground.

We are getting sued by the Homeowners Association. They put a lien on our house. We are pretty upset about it. Our neighborhood is not part of this HOA, we NEVER signed anything to become a part of it, etc. I have found a LOT of case law that backs us up on our position, etc. So we will be counter suing the HOA. Zac called and was upset with the law firm that put the lien on our house, it was a little premature since the Judge hasn't made a ruling yet! If the Judge rules in their favor (which I don't see happening) we will turn around and sue our builder to pay for the HOA fees. Our entire neighborhood is involved in this. We even have our original paperwork from the builder that states "No HOA", our title company wrote a letter for us stating that we were not part of the HOA, and they would need to report it on our title if we were a part of it, I got the same kind of letter from our loan officer, and when we called Eagle Mountain City, they ALSO said we were NOT a part of it. I really am just frustrated that they are wasting our time on this! The whole reason we moved to the house that we did was because we did not want to be in a HOA. Anyways, enough venting about that.

LONG WEEKEND!!

Wow! What a weekend! It started off horribly. I took off Thursday from work to cook and clean for a brunch I was having on Saturday. I should have gone to work! Eric had the "runs" all day, but never flushed the toilet. I didn't realize this until it was too late. I was in the kitchen chopping up some chicken for a salad I was making when I heard Eric scream. I ran upstairs to discover the toilet overflowing. He had used almost an entire roll of toliet paper that day. But because he never flushed, I had all of his goodies coming out of the toilet as well. I hurried and reached down to turn off the water, but it wasn't turning off. There are so many things in our house that is backwards. In the meantime, I am having Eric hold that 'balloon' that's in the tank (I don't know the correct term) while I am trying to plunger the toilet out. BUT, because it was so full of water, I was splashing the water and such all over me and Eric. So I started scooping out the toilet and put it in the bathtub. So now our bathtub got clogged. I hear my phone ringing downstairs, so I asked Eric to run grab it for me. It was Zac. He got hit on the freeway TWICE! He hurt his neck and his right leg. The guy hit him hard enough that his hat flew off his head into the back window. Luckily he's alright, but the insurance company is going to total our car once again. I just barely renewed our car insurance, and Zac didn't have it in the car. So the officer needed the expiration date, etc. for his report. So I ran downstairs to get it, and heard some water running downstairs. The water from the bathroom was going through our lights in our family room! So I hurried and put buckets underneath our lights, gave Zac the insurance info, and ran back upstairs. I finally tried turning the shut off valve the opposite way, and the water turned off. I finally got the toilet unclogged, and decided to work on unclogging the bathtub now. As I was turning the drain to get it off, I broke it. GREAT! After I mopped up all the water on the floor, I pretty much gave up trying to fix the tub and waited for Zac to finish the job. By this time, myself and both kids were sopping wet. I threw them into the shower in my bathroom and got them cleaned up. I am grateful for the "sanitary" cycle on my washer for all those towels! GROSS!!!!

I had a great turnout for the brunch on Saturday. I ended up hosting a "Taste of Home Entertaining" party. Bobby helped me make some of the food for it. I was so impressed with all the kids. There were probably 14 kids at my house, and they ALL played so quiet. There weren't any fights over toys, etc. We had a great time!

On Sunday, it was our first time teaching the Sunbeams. We had 13 sunbeams, and sharing time was a nightmare! If they didn't call out one of the 3 year old names to come help with the lesson, they were crying. At one point, I had 3 kids on my lap, Zac had 3 on his, and the other 7 were in their seats crying. Then when we taught the lesson, I am so used to having to hurry and rush through the lesson so that we can get it all in, that after I gave the kids the lesson, I looked at my watch to see how close we cut it, and we still had 45 minutes LEFT! It was a LONG 45 minutes. I think I taught that same lesson 4 times, we made the kids color twice, etc. I know now that I have to be longwinded with these lessons.

Happy 24th Birthday Devin!

Devin is one of my favorite people. He is always so good with my kids. Because we are so close in age we have always had to do things together. I was the ONLY girl on his T-Ball team, but if Devin got to play, I wanted to play. When I moved back into Mom and Dad's after I graduated from highschool (during the dating Zac period), every night I got home, I would run into Devin's room and we would talk about everything. When Devin got home from his mission, he helped me take care of Mom, and he was so gentle with her. Devin regularly comes to our house just to hang out. He would even pull all-nighters with Zac playing games. He is one of the most talented people I know. I love listening to him play the guitar, and listen to the new songs he wrote the night before. I hope you have a great day and hopefully some cake (but not sugar-free cake)!

Crooked Judge

Crooked Judge...at least that's what it is right now, it will most likely change, is Devin's new band. His concert was on Friday. Zac and I were able to put our kids to sleep before the babysitter came over, and we met up with Dad and Nathan in Provo at Muse Music. I knew that they had 2 bands opening for them so we got there around 9 pm, but I guess they had THREE bands opening to try to bring in a larger crowd. So their band didn't play until 10:30. Muse Music was packed. There was standing room only for people. We were lucky enough to grab a seat on the bench when people stood up in between bands. They did an awesome job on their cover from Dinosaur Jr. Zac had a battle going on with the girl sitting next to him. She was trying to scoot Zac over closer to me, but we had no room, it got to the point where she was actually somewhat sitting ON him. So he turns to me and Dad and said "I'm FIGHTING back!" So Zac started leaning way over on her side, etc. It was hilarious. One of the bands that played had a lead guitarist that had my same hair cut...it was disappointing. We had a good laugh about it though.

On Saturday Barb and Garit came and watched the kids so Zac and I could go out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner. When we got there, they said it would be an hour wait, but they told the people in front of us only a 1/2 hour. So we decided to stick it out, because we thought it would be less than an hour. After 1 1/2 hours of waiting, Zac finally went up to the hostess and asked how many more couples were in front of us? The answer....25!! After 1 1/2 hours still 25 couples! BUT, we had already dedicated 1 1/2 hours, we weren't going to leave yet. So about another 1/2 hour and we were finally seated. WOW! We really need to call ahead next time!

Zac and I got our callings in our new ward.....SUNBEAM teachers. We were actually excited, because we honestly thought that we were going to be nursery teachers. We are in Eric's class, but our ward is still so big, there are 4 Sunbeam classes. The bishop told us that they will be splitting our ward AGAIN in about 7-8 months. We already have 600 + people in our ward and it's growing. Eric is really excited that we will be teaching his class.

We were able to hang the curtains and rods around the house..FINALLY! It's amazing what a difference curtains make in a house! Zac also hung up a light sconce in our front room. He did a great job! He had to wire it in the wall and everything. That was our week!

Eric's Appointment

Eric had his follow-up surgery appointment yesterday. It went really well, and really fast. Eric's stitches are healing well, and he had no infection, etc. It was a successful surgery. Zac came up for the appointment as well, and my boss told me that Zac HAS to take me out to lunch because it's Valentines. I told him that I don't think he has the time to take off. Then after we dropped Eric back off at daycare, Zac told me that his boss said it was REQUIRED for Zac to take me to lunch. So we ended up going to lunch. Zac's classes were canceled last night as well. Our tradition for Valentines is we make a dessert. We don't give each other presents, etc. Well, because I thought Zac was going to have class, I didn't even bother buying the ingredients for the dessert. Zac surprised me and had it made when I got home.

Eric was really cute yesterday...I told him that he was going to get a lot of presents at school (because of Valentines) when I picked him up, he proceeded to tell me about all of his valentines he got from his friends, then he turned to me and said "Mom, I didn't get ONE present!!" I had to explain to him that the presents I was talking about was the Valentines. He told me he would give back the Valentines for presents. oops. Then when we were at the doctor's he pointed to the light board that you put x-rays on to view the x-ray. Last time we were there, Zac told Eric that is where you see pictures of your bones. So this time, when he saw it again, he asked me if we were going to see a picture of his BUM. I was confused, then Zac said, No...your BONES not your BUM.

Tomorrow night Zac and I are going to watch Devin's new band play at Muse Music. Luckily his band is the last one to play, so I will be able to have the kids asleep before we even leave. That should make it really easy for the babysitter.

The Week

So our wards finally split! I am no longer in the Young Women's. Zac and I don't have any callings right now. However, Saturday night, the new primary president asked if we would substitute in Aubrey's nursery yesterday. Zac agreed and when she dropped the lesson off, she started telling him how to do nursery, and Zac told her I used to be primary president, so we know the drill. She seemed really excited about this, and said she hasn't filled this position yet. Zac tried losing a kid yesterday so that it would appear that we did a horrible job...we'll see if we get called into nursery. During church, the Sunbeams teacher came and told Zac that Eric had a dirty diaper. That's weird....Eric doesn't WEAR a diaper. He's potty trained, remember? Zac told his teacher that, and Eric looked up at Zac, smiled, and said "Dad, I've been farting a lot!" So, apparently Eric's farts are very potent.

We found out that the worker's that built our house, didn't do our driveway correctly. So they are going to tear up our driveway and pour a new one. This time though they are going to put a trough underground, and at the end of the driveway put metal grates so the water can go into the trough instead of our garage. (Our driveway goes downhill). Also, we have a rock wall in our backyard. We were going to buy some gravel to put at the bottom of the wall, so our water doesn't runoff into the neighbor's yard. We found out that the builder was suppose to do that as well. So that saved us some money and time. With Zac's new school schedule, I honestly don't see him until Saturday. Sometimes his Friday night class will get out early...but I can't count on it. I see him Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Some of his classes go until 11 pm, then he has the hour drive home. I am well asleep by the time he gets home. I was so excited that he wasn't going to have class on Saturday this semester, but it turns out that he has to take all of his TESTS on Saturday, so I don't see him until around 4 on Saturdays.

Thursday was Tucker's birthday, so we went down to Dad's after work for his party. Eric had a ton of fun. Friday morning, he told me that I needed to call Bobby to "Thank her for a pleasant party." What? What 3 year-old says 'pleasant'? Nathan and Bobby came up to our house on Saturday to have the kids play for a little bit, and discovered that they had finally dug the first hole on the house! They signed their closing papers to begin construction before Thanksgiving, and now finally they are starting the construction.

IT'S A HAIR!

I finally got the results back from Eric's lump. It started out as an in-grown hair, that inflamed a cell, and the cell became infected which caused the lump to grow larger and larger and hard. YEAH! Who knew we would be so excited about a hair! The doctor told us that we probably would have needed surgery anyways to get the infection and the hair out. What a relief!

The doctor's office gave me 2 scares in the past week, that I didn't want to write about, because I didn't want to worry anybody until I knew what was going on. On Tuesday, the day after the surgery, Primary Children's called me at 4:30. I was in a meeting, so I didn't answer the phone. (I also didn't recognize the number) They left me a message stating that it was urgent for me to get back with them. I called immediately, and they transferred me to everyone and their dog, and nobody knew who called me, or why. Then Zac and Dad call me, and the hospital had called both of them. Zac also didn't answer the phone, but Dad did, (who is listed as my emergency contact next to Zac) and they wouldn't tell him why they were calling, just that they needed to speak to a parent of Eric. I finally gave up, and told them that if it was urgent they would call me back. Sure enough, at 8:00 in the morning, I get a call from Primary Children's. I asked if this was the same nurse who was calling me last night and it was. She asked me a series of questions about how Eric's feeling, his activity, etc. Then she said that was all. I said "Excuse me? Why did you say this was urgent? Do you have any idea how unsettleing that was last night? Do you realize that we are waiting to find out if my son has cancer or not?!!" She apologized and said that it was the end of her shift, and she really is suppose to talk to us within 24 hours of the surgery, and she really wanted me to call back. She didn't realize we were waiting for any lab results.

Since then, I have been calling the doctor's office about 1-2 times a day to try to find out the results. Nobody has called me back. I immediately get transferred to a voicemail everytime I call. Today, I had it. When I called, I told them I wanted to speak to a LIVE person, and I want the results. I should have had them a week ago! The nurse grabs our file and finds the results, but told me that she did not understand the terminology that the pathologist used, that she had never seen it before. So that was at lunch. She finally just called me back and told me about the in-grown hair. I had no idea that 3 year olds could have in-grown hairs! At least it was good news! We don't have our follow-up appointment until Feb. 14th.

The surgery

Eric's surgery went really well. On Friday, Eric woke up and was crying. He wouldn't stop. So, as soon as it turned 9:00 I called the doctor and they got me right in. Turns out, he had a really bad ear infection. The doctor had me give Eric two big doses of antibiotics every day, to make sure he would be well enough for the surgery. Primary Children's called me on Friday, and our scheduled time for surgery was 7:30. Eric was pretty exicted that he was going to have his lump removed. I didn't tell him everything that was going to happen, but he knew that the doctor was going to put a mask on him to fall asleep, and when he woke up, the lump would be gone. He was really good throughout the entire day. The Primary Children staff was wonderful! We never had to wait for a long period of time to go to the next "step" of the process. Eric was really excited when they gave him pajamas to wear. His absolute favorite was the socks, and that he would be able to go to sleep with socks on.

They gave him a Valium for kids to relieve some anxiety about the surgery, and for being separated from me. He was so 'loopy' about 15 mintues after they gave it to him. He was so funny. They put him in a wagon, and he was swaying back and forth, etc. He was cracking us up. Dad was able to make it right when we got Eric into the pre-operation waiting room. The anethesiologist came and took Eric in the wagon. As he was about to leave, he told Eric that they were going to see some puppies. That was not a good thing to say! I had to immediately correct him that they were going to see kittens, not puppies, there will be NO dogs. Eric was already a little apprehensive when they took his vitals, because he remembered when he had to get stitches from the dog attack.

The surgeon came and talked to us after the surgery was completed. Eric did really well, he fell asleep really easily. They took out a 2 in x 2 in lump, that he said was a fiboris mass. Most of the time they are benign, but the pathologist has it now, and will call us back in 2 days. We're glad he took it out though, because it would have continued to grow. I'm glad we got it out when it was smaller. Eric was pretty upset when he woke up. They only let me go back to the post-op room with him. He was really upset that he had an IV. He has never once complained about where he had the surgery, but he complains about his hand where the IV was. I was able to calm him down enough to go to ANOTHER room, where Zac and Dad could join us. I was finally able to get Eric to drink some apple juice. His throat hurt really bad from the tube. After he drank he started to act like he felt better. He was still pretty out of it for awhile. He tried to sit up, and he grabbed the oxygen mask, where he had the laughing gas come out of. He picked a bubble gum flavored gas. He put the mask on his face (it wasn't hooked up to anything), we asked him what he was doing, and he said "Mom, this smells SO good".

We had to wait for awhile to make sure that he didn't throw up anything. Luckily, he did great. We got him in the car, and he asked me if they took his lump away. I told him that they did, and he got this huge smile on his face and threw his hands in the air and said "Yeah! It's gone!" He did really well the rest of the day. I made him lay either on the couch or in the bed. By the end of the night, he was very wound up, and back to his usual self. He even helped me make some cookies! :)

Eric's Surgery

So we just got back from Primary Children's. They were really good over there! The doctor listed off about 5 things that Eric's lump could be, I could not tell you what they were if I tried, but his surgery is scheduled for Monday. We are going to meet with the surgeon before hand, and when they put Eric under, they will put the laughing gas on him, but he gets to pick the flavor of the gas! Rootbeer, strawberry, etc. They will make sure he's out before they even attempt to put an IV in him. They told us that they will have a pathologist on hand to test the lump as soon as they get it out, and the surgery should only last about 10-15 minutes. He also told us that they will use the disolveable stitches for him.

I won't find out the time of the surgery until Friday. It will be a same-day surgery, and luckily, Zac has Monday off already. My boss is being really good about letting me take whatever time I need off as well. That's all I know for now!

Sick Weekend

What a long weekend! I got the intestinal virus that is going around this past weekend. I spent most of the weekend either laying in bed, or throwing up. HORRIBLE! Zac was really great though and watched the kids for me. He wouldn't let them come into the room at all. I feel like I didn't even see the kids this weekend! I stayed home from work yesterday, and today I am feeling pretty good, although, I am still a little queazy.

I think I got sick from Aubrey. Wednesday night she threw up 3 times, ALL OVER! I had to give her 3 baths during the night, and Zac would change the bed sheets while I was bathing Aubrey. We eventually ran out of bed sheets, and Zac put down some towels for her to sleep on. How miserable.

I took a boot camp class on Friday, and it worked me! I am still sore! About 15 minutes into it, I realized that I was not in good enough shape for this class, but I stuck it out the full hour. When I went to pick up the kids at the gym's kid care, they told me that if you weren't already in the best shape of your life, this class will be hard! But LISA....I am proud to say, that I have finally done a full man's push-up! I have never been able to do a man's push-up. The women's push-up's are easy, but my feet would always slip out when I tried to do a man's push-up.

I got a center piece for my table for the upcoming holiday - Valentines Day - I got this big candle holder that has a candle in the top half, and I put the Valentines peanut M&M's in the bottom half. It looks great! However, somebody keeps on eating the candy. I caught Zac red-handed last night. I was blaming the kids, but it was Zac the entire time!

Tomorrow is Eric's appointment with Primary Children's...I will write how it goes, and anything that I find out.

4 day weekend

These pictures are for Zac's dad. Zac told me to post them. For Christmas Zac made me curtain rods for our house. He bought all of the metal, and welded it at work. He did them custom for each window, including my kitchen window which is 2 windows in the corner. We bought fabric for me to make the curtains now, but Zac and I have different ideas of what the curtains should look like. Zac also made a snowblower at work, so he wanted me to post those pics too. It is a pull start, not electric. He and his coworkers apparently get really bored waiting for the funerals to end.

On Wednesday night, I got a really bad migraine. Thursday morning I still had a headache, but I couldn't justify staying home from work for a headache. On my drive into SLC, a wave of dizziness came over me, and I couldn't see the lines straight on the freeway, and I started to see the black circle coming (like when you pass out). I was in the car pool lane with the kids, and I pulled over to the shoulder. It took me about 10 minutes before I could see straight again. Then at lunch, I was just walking to my co-workers car, and it happened again! She grabbed my arm and said that my eyes were completely dilated. When I started to feel normal again, she said that my eyes were back to normal. Thursday was the big snow storm as well. So I had two coworkers drive me and the kids home. I just couldn't risk starting to blackout with the kids in the car, and with the bad road conditions. I had one drive with me, while the other followed behind in her car to give the one driving with me a ride home. It was extremely nice of them to do this. Luckily, I have Friday's off, so I could rest for the day. The doctor finally called me back and he told me that I was just having a really bad migraine with all of the symptoms, and it was lasting for a couple of days. I also decided to get off of caffeine right at the same time, and that may have contributed to it. So goodbye Mountain Dew, it was not worth it to drink it.

Saturday morning I decided that I was feeling good enough to go up to Idaho, so I went and got Devin and we made a weekend of it. Zac stayed home with the kids working on homework. We stayed at Grandma and Grandpa Parry's house, and went to Jake's reception and saw all of the Idaho people there. We were able to make it back to Grandma and Grandpa's house in time for the BYU game. Thanks again Grandma and Grandpa for letting us stay with you. We had a great time!

When I got home on Sunday, Zac wanted me to look at Eric's lump, it had almost doubled in size...so we went to the doctor on Monday, and we now have an appointment for Primary Childrens Pediatric Surgery next Wednesday for our consultation before surgery. They didn't want to do just a biopsy on Eric. Because it grew so much, they are just wanting to take the entire thing out. The doctor said it is most likely a cyst, but he doesn't want to take any chances. That was pretty much our week!

Our weekend

I was able to get the kids into the doctor on Friday. We switched to a new doctors office that is right by our house, Alpine Pediatrics. This doctor told me that Eric's lump was definitely NOT excema, but he wanted me to watch it for the next month. We measured it's diameter, and I need to measure it regularly to make sure that it is not growing. If it starts to grow, I need to get in immediately, but if it stays the same, it is just something that I will always have to watch on Eric. Aubrey on the other hand is anemic. We have to take her to American Fork Hospital to get her exact level of anemia to see how high a dose of iron we need to give her. This doctor was really good though, he was very thorough with both of the kids. I only brought Aubrey in to get her immunizations, and he decided to test for anemia because in Dec 2005 she was borderline anemic. I don't know how this girl has anemia. She eats everything in site, and her favorites are fruits and vegetables.

Zac and I got our first babysitter this weekend that we had to pay for. I had one of the YW come watch the kids while Zac and I went to a movie. She did good with the kids, however, I forgot to tell her that we had cats....I didn't think to tell her, because they hide out in the basement and hardly ever come up. After she put the kids to bed she put in a scary movie, and turned out the lights. I guess right at the scary point in the movie, she sees something white move out of the corner of her eye, then Buster runs straight at her with Maebe following behind. When they see her, they immediately run downstairs. She said that she screamed so loud that she woke up the kids.

Eric is now a Sunbeam in primary. I peeked in on him during Sharing Time, and he and the kid next to him had their foreheads together just laughing....they were paying great attention to the songs. Eric's good friend Zack, got Thomas the Train for Christmas also. So on Friday they had a playdate where Eric brought over his Thomas and the tracks, and he and Zack made a huge track. They played for hours. Eric begged us to let him take two trains to church, so we put them in the diaper bag. During sacrament, I hear Eric yell to Zack (who is sitting about 15 rows behind us) "I have my trains! Where's your Thomas? I want Thomas stickers too!" He was so loud. When we were home, Eric got the train going around in a loop (it's battery operated), and he went upstairs. I could see the train from the kitchen, and saw Buster, our cat, slowly creep up to the train. He would get close to the train as it was leaving him, and as soon as it started to come back, Buster would back up. Finally he got brave enough and he was chasing the train around in a circle. I wish I would have gotten it on video. Aubrey was squealing watching the cat.

New Years Week

This past week has been very slow moving. It has been great! It's nice to not really have anything going on. On Friday, Zac's sister and boyfriend came and watched the kids so we could go to the movies. We saw Night at the Museum. It was very entertaining! For New Years, Dad's family had a party that started at 2pm and got over at 5 pm. What a weird time for a party! We played the usual bingo, etc.

New Years Eve we did absoultely nothing. The kids both fell asleep for the night at 5:00pm. So Zac hooked up the DVD player in our bedroom, and we just layed in bed and watched movies. On Tuesday, I had mutual with the girls. We were showing them some basketball drills, and about 30 min. into, one of the girls goes "Are you Sister Nielson?" I didn't understand, then realized it was the first time they had seen me since I cut my hair. They thought I was a guest person teaching them basketball drills. Open your eyes girls. That shows how much they pay attention.

Eric has this weird lump under his armpit. We noticed it about 3 weeks ago and I thought it was a bug bite. It still hasn't gone away, and it is the same size. (The size of a lima bean) We took him to the doctor on Tuesday to have it checked out. The doctor wasn't available, so we had to see the Physician's Assistant. He said he had never seen this before, but he didn't want to do a biopsy on a 3 year old, instead he gave us some cream for it. When I got home I looked at the cream and it was for excema! HELLO! A lump is not excema! Even in the brochure that was included with the cream for excema, it did not have 1 picture that showed it reduces the size of lumps. So I am taking Eric to another doctor tomorrow for a 2nd opinion. And this time, I am seeing the DOCTOR. I'm sure the lump is nothing, but with my families luck, I'm not taking any chances.

Zac starts school today, he has got a full load of classes. I am pretty much a single Mom until the weekends. He comes home after I go to bed during the week. He is getting excited though, we can finally see the finish line for his degree! Then off to law school. He signed up for the ACE program to help him study for the LSAT.

My basketball season starts tonight. When we were doing our practices, etc., Zac was home...but now I am going to have the kids. Hopefully they will stay away from the court. This is just church ball, but our team is good. One of the girls played basketball in college and is currently a coach for the highschool, and almost everybody else has played in highschool, with me being the exception, but I am the tallest! But in all honesty, I can block the shots pretty well, that is why I am playing. Making the shots is another story.

Christmas Weekend!

So we started our weekend with my big hair cut. I hate it! I am starting to get use to it, but it was way to drastic for me. When I came home, Zac looked at me and went, Hmm, So what do YOU think? She did really good on the color of my hair, but the cut did not turn out like I thought. I had brought in a picture of what I wanted my hair to look like, and she refused to do it. She thought that it would be even more drastic. Oh well. Zac keeps on telling me that in 2 weeks it will look great. His saying is a good hair cut is a great hair cut in 2 weeks. I forgot to take pictures of my haircut, so these pics of me are taken by myself at work during my blog entry. :)

Christmas Eve we went up to Zac's Aunt Diana's house for the usual Christmas Eve party. Barb brought up Garit to meet the family for the first time, and he fit right in. Wayne came only for Santa and left immediately after. Eric was so much fun this year for Christmas. When Santa called his name, he ran up to Santa, sat on his lap and told him everything he wanted for Christmas. Aubrey still isn't too sure about Santa.

Christmas morning Eric and Aubrey woke up to see that Santa came. When I went into Eric's room, he was really sad, he told me that Santa didn't come to his room last night. Then he ran into my room, and told me that Santa forgot my room too. I guess I didn't make it clear that Santa puts presents under the tree, not in everybodies rooms. He was so excited to get a train set. We had to set them up as soon as we got home from Idaho, and he tried to talk us into letting him go to sleep with the trains. After we put him to bed last night, I heard this noise, which I thought was the cats....turns out, Eric was downstairs playing with the trains after we had put him to bed. I didn't even hear his bedroom door open. After we opened the presents we immediately got in the car and drove up to Idaho. We were able to get into Idaho Falls and see Grandma and Grandpa Parry and visit for a little bit before we headed up to the cabin. Devin rode up with us and Dad was coming up on Tuesday morning. As soon as we got to the cabin, Nathan and Devin started the snowmobiles up, then I joined them and Devin and I started sledding. Zac just goes, "There go the Powell's" That's right. We know exactly what to do when we get to the cabin. We throw on our snow clothes as fast as possible and immediately start playing in the snow. The Millburn's were right behind us, and we started to head to the Springs. On the way up, the snowmobile that Nathan was driving started to overheat. So we were down by one snowmobile. Luckily, it overheated close to Steve's cabin, so Nathan went and got Steve, and the guys loaded the snowmobile into Steve's truck and unloaded it at Steve's cabin. Terry and Debbie were wonderful and came up that night with their trailor and took the snowmobile down to Idaho Falls to find out what was wrong with it. So we ended up walking up the hill instead of using the other snowmobile. It started to sound the same way as the one that broke, so we weren't taking our chances.

As usual we had our usual races down the hill, and this time around, we were trying to perfect our "Chain sledding". We would go down the hill forward on our backs, forward on our knees, forward on our stomachs, then backwards head first, etc., standing up, pyramid, diamond, and "V" formation. And we did this as night when we couldn't see where we were going. Zac thinks he broke his tailbone during one of the chain sleddings. He went off a bump and landed on another bump the wrong way. He has been sitting on pillows everywhere he sits. I wonder how the backhoe is going to go today?! Zac actually played a football game with my cousins. It was the first time I had seen actually participate in a sport (besides foozball). Speaking of foozball we had a tournament, and I lost EVERY GAME...but I did make it close on my game against John, he won 10-7. That's right John, it made the blog!

Eric's Christmas Program

On Wednesday Eric had his Christmas program with his daycare/sch
ool. His class sang 2 songs and recited one poem. I put Zac in charge of taking pictures. Instead of taking pictures he took video. I don't know how to put a video on the blog.
Maybe Christen can clue me in on this. I tried to upload it, it came back as "Page experiencing difficulties". Eric did great on Santas lap, he told him everything that he wanted for Christmas, etc. Aubrey, as you can see, was not too fond of Santa.

Cutting my hair

So, I am going to cut my hair really short tomorrow. I am donating my hair to Locks of Love. I will probably dye it darker tomorrow also....we'll see how it goes. Any suggestions on the style?

Joy Riding

Last Sunday the Young Men/Young Women had to sing in sacrament. Because I am always the only person who knows how to play the piano, I played for them in sacrament. I sat on the front row so that I wouldn't have to walk down the long aisle. Zac stayed home with the kids. Everything ran smoothly...I went to Sunday School, then I had to teach the lesson in Young Women's. When I got there, one of my Laurels, Cassie, came up to me and gave me my car keys. She had told me that I had left them on the bench in sacrament. Later I found out that she had taken them out of my coat pocket as we were walking up to the stand. At the time, I was very grateful, thinking that maybe they had fallen out of my pocket, etc. I was teaching the lesson about "truth" and she stood up and left right at the beginning and didn't come back. When church was finished, I walked out to my car, and it was parked in a different spot....hmm.

So now the question becomes, How far did she drive my car? Did she just put it in a different parking spot, or go joy riding? She is 16 yrs old, BUT has not gotten her license yet. I was going over every different scenario to confront her...do I go to her parents first? Do I treat her like an adult and go to her first? Do I tell the YW president? I still want her to feel like she can come to me if she needs to, but she needs to know that what she did was WRONG.

Tuesday was mutual, and I decided that I was going to talk to her just to find out what really happened. Like I said, I don't know the whole story...maybe even one of the young men that she likes drove it, and she was just a passenger, etc. I talked to the YW President ahead of time, I just felt like she needed to know. BIG MISTAKE. I told her several times that I wanted this to remain confidential, I didn't want anybody else to know about it, it was between me and Cassie, but she can be there when I talk to her, etc. She went ahead and talked to Cassie without me even being there, AND she told everybody and their dog about this! I was so frustrated! Our YW President is only 19 yrs old, which explains a lot of the immaturity. So Better or worse? It was Cassie's DAD who drove my car! When Cassie got the keys out of my coat, HE thought it would be funny to move my car! I can't fault Cassie for her Dad being an idiot! I have never even met the guy! Apparently this is his personality, he thinks everybody is his best friend, yadda yadda. The only thing that I am grateful about having her Dad being the one to drive the car is that at least he is an experienced driver, and most likely wouldn't have crashed our new car. But how do I tell a 50 yr old man the diffence between right and wrong? I'm just going to drop it, but I let Cassie know that she needs to respect her leaders, etc.

We got a good foot of snow yesterday. We couldn't get out of our driveway because it is slanted so steep. Zac started to shovel our driveway, so that we could get out, and across the street is a mom with 3 little kids, and her husband only comes home one weekend a month from work, so Zac started shoveling her driveway instead, and our other neighbor came out. Then they decided that they would work together and shoveling each other's driveways, when out neighbor who has kidney failure came out and said "Hi" to them and went back inside. Zac thought that it was a hint to shovel their driveway, then across the street our other neighbor starts shoveling with a regular shovel, so Zac went over there and shoveled their driveway, etc. By the time he was done, he had shoveled 6 other peoples driveways, and didn't even finish ours. After we were able to get the car free from the driveway, I had to go visiting teaching. When I was leaving, my car got stuck in their driveway too. I had four guys come and push me out. I guess that's what we get for moving to a mountain.

More pictures

For some reason, Blogger would let me add the pictures, but then they didn't show up on my posting, so I am trying to post those pictures again.