Colds, etc.

It's been a while since I've posted on here, so I thought I would today.

We had a pretty good, but quiet Thanksgiving. While it doesn't feel as much like Thanksgiving when we're not around more of our family, it's really nice sometimes to just enjoy a quiet Thanksgiving at home. The best part is that we get all the leftovers. :) Bryce had all of Thanksgiving week off, but we didn't really do anything exciting, just hung out together as a family. Ben still had school, so it made it harder to do things in the day. We did go to dinner together one night since we had some coupons that were expiring at the end of the month. Ben and Chris each spilled their drinks and Daniel got into a coughing fit right before we were going to leave and threw up all over. Luckily, the waiter was really nice about it. He got a good tip.

We got to go to dinner to see De and her family the day after Thanksgiving, so that was fun. Daniel had his runny nose that had been coming and going for 3 weeks and Ben had his cough that he'd had for a little longer than that, so we were a little hesitant to bring everyone along. Hopefully they didn't mind that too much. Earlier that day I had put up the Christmas tree and Alex and Chris helped me put on the ornaments. They were very excited and keep asking when Christmas will be here now.

Unfortunately, Chris spent Saturday morning throwing up. He hadn't been one of our sick ones, and no one else had been throwing up, so we were a little surprised. I blamed computer viruses for that one, since Cindy's kids had been throwing up. Chris was feeling better by about noon though, so that was good. Unfortunatley, that evening, Alex had a fever of almost 103. So Bryce kept Alex, Chris, and Daniel home with him the next day while Ben and I went to church. And through Sacrament Meeting, I kept thinking that we should have kept Ben home too, with all the coughing he was doing.

Chris and Alex both had seemed better Sunday morning, but were both feverish Sunday evening, so we were glad we had kept them home. They've been sick all this week too, which is the last week before my schedule starts to get crazy. They haven't been sick enough that they haven't been doing their usual teasing and fighting though. Alex seems to be doing a bit better today, his eyes don't have the sick look anymore and his temperature has been back down to normal. I figure it's because I had called yesterday to cancel his speech therapy session today. I do think it's better that I keep him home today though.

So for the last couple of weeks, we've mostly dealt with colds and other illnesses. Hopefully everyone will be better soon. Just in time to have Chris have surgery and for Daniel to get another round of shots. Fun times.

Living Room

When Mom and Dad came to visit last month, they brought up a metal wall hanging that was of a G cleft staff with notes on it for my living room. Ever since then, it's been safely tucked away behind my piano waiting for me to finally put it up.

A week or so ago, I was going to put it up. I found a couple of drywall anchors and some screws and was going to do it. Unfortunately, my drill wasn't charged, so I plugged in the charger and waited for it to charge. I got busy for the night, so I figured I would do it in the morning. I grabbed the battery and put it on the drill only to find out that it still wasn't charged. Apparently the outlet I had plugged it into doesn't work. So I moved it to a different outlet to let it charge again. It has been sitting there ever since, at least until this morning.

So yes, I did put it up this morning. I'm not sure I totally like the positioning of it, but it's going to stay there. I had to drill holes in my walls for it. I don't want to leave my wall on big holey mess. So if we ever get around to repainting our living room, I may move it over a bit then, but for now it's staying.

Here are a couple pictures of what it looks like:




And just because I can, here are a few more pictures of the boys:

Alex playing with a watergun and lightsaber:


Chris using the Wiimotes as a toy weapon:


Daniel looking innocent:

Busy December?

So it looks like December is already going to be a busy month, even before you put in holiday stuff.

I went to the dentist yesterday morning for a regular cleaning, and yep, I get to go back next month for a new filling. Well, mostly to replace an old filling, I think. It's starting to pull away and in order to avoid all that I had to go through with my one tooth, we're going to take care of it now. Well, on the 10th of December, anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, the urologist office called to schedule Chris's surgery. They had a cancellation on the 15th of December, so I could either do it then or wait until the end of January. I decided to have us do it then. Get it over with, along with the added bonus of not having to fill the deductible again right away. I also get to take him back in to their office on the 12th to make sure he's healthy and to get some last-minute instructions. After the surgery, we're supposed to take him back about 2 weeks later. I'm thinking with the holidays that might make it be in January sometime, but you never know.

Add in Alex's regular speech therapy sessions and a well-baby check-up for Daniel, and my calendar is filling up fast. I also still need to schedule his follow-up appointment from when he got the tubes in his ears, so that will probably be the first week of December.

Bryce and Ben both have off school and work for the two weeks around Christmas and New Year's, so I'm sure we'll have plenty to do then. And don't forget Alex's birthday on the 30th. Somewhere before then I'll have to squeeze in Christmas shopping too.

I'm just glad I don't have to figure out how to schedule work off with all this. It's certainly nice being a stay at home mom.

Speech Therapy and Urologist

Alex had his typical speech therapy appointment today. The thing that made today a little more unusual was that Chris had an appointment with a urologist in Meridian a little less than an hour after Alex's speech therapy usually gets out.

In order to not be rushing the whole time, I took all the kids with me to the appointments. I really was tempted to leave Chris and Daniel at Katie's for speech therapy, then drop off Alex and pick up Chris after, but I decided it would just be easier and less stressful time-wise to just bring them with me. And it would give Katie a whole week without having to watch my kids, so a definite bonus for her.

Chris and Daniel seemed to have a pretty good time in the waiting room during Alex's speech therapy. We had brought along a few toys from home, but they mostly ignored those and played with the toys that were already in the waiting room. When Alex was done, Trisha said he had done an awesome job and gave us some 'sh' papers to work on at home for the week.

We loaded back in the van and headed to Chris's appointment and ended up with about 15 or 20 minutes to kill, so I picked us up some lunch and let the boys start eating it before we went in for the appointment. Daniel fell asleep in the van though, so he got to wait to eat any of his until after the appointment.

We handed the receptionist the paperwork they had mailed us earlier, along with a copy of Chris's insurance card (we have separate cards for each person in our family even though we're all on the same plan), then sat down to wait in the waiting area. The boys thought it was pretty cool to be able to look over the balcony to the floor below. I thought it was pretty interesting to see the shackled prison inmate come in with his 2 armed guard escorts. Yes, he got to go back immediately.

When the receptionist had entered all our information, she led us back to another waiting area, but this one had a train set to play with, so the boys were pretty excited. And when the nurse came to get us, she let them take some of the trains back with them. Of course, the trains didn't stop Daniel from opening all the drawers and cupboards in the examination room. (As an aside here, I cleaned my downstairs bathroom this morning and was all happy that I hadn't gotten any bleach from my toilet bowl cleaner on my clothes like I've been doing lately. In the examination room, Daniel knocked over a squirt bottle that was under the sink and spilled its contents. I cleaned it up as well as I could, then noticed that yes, it was a bleach product, and yes, it had gotten on the arm of my sweater. Bummer.)

After a wait of 5 or so minutes (which can sometimes seem longer when you've got 3 very active boys playing in an examination room), the doctor came in and examined Chris. He does have what is called a hydraseal (I'm not sure on the spelling). She said adults can get them, but they worry about them in kids Chris's age because they can stay and get bigger and cause pain and other problems. So like I expected, Chris will need to have surgery to take care of it. The doctor is going to give the information to her scheduler who will call us and schedule his surgery. It will likely be after the first of the year, just because so many people try to get things like this in before the end of the year and so the schedule fills up quickly.

So lucky Ben will be the only one of my kids so far who has not had surgery of any kind. I hope he doesn't decide that he wants to try surgery too.

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Ben had parent/teacher conferences last night. Our appointment with his teacher was for 5:00, which was the very first appointment. Of course, we managed to be about 5 minutes late to it. It turned out okay though.

We weren't surprised by anything at the conference. Ben's a smart kid who is already at or beyond the spring level for his grade, especially in reading. Occasionally he has a hard time keeping his hands to himself and listening to all the rules, but he's been working hard at doing better.

His grades on his report card were all E's (exceeds grade level/expectations) and S's (satisfies grade level/expectations), so he's doing really well so far.

They were having a book fair at the school too. Ben seemed pretty excited to be able to check it out, so we went there after and got him 4 new books. He came home and read 3 of them straight through and is still working on the 4th, which was a bit longer with 9 chapters.

So good job, Ben!