Gift for Grandma Mary

I have spent a major chunk of time the past week gathering and assembling a scrapbook for my Grandma Mary Mix's 90th birthday. It has been a labor of love. I finally put it in the mail today for my sister Tiffany to add the final touches. I have taken pictures of all the pages and if all goes well they will load and be visible on a slideshow here. We will see. This project has stretched my computer skills, which needed to happen. For all those who contributed, Thank you, and I hope you are as pleased with the outcome as I am.

Sunbeams

Today, in the spirit of conservation, I hung out all of my laundry to dry in the sun (what is a pool fence for anyway if not to just white-trash it up). One of the items I washed was Heidi's special blanket. As soon as she saw it, she wanted it. She grabbed it and when she realized it was wet she asked me to put it in the dryer. I told her the sun was going to dry it. She was skeptical. I finally convinced her to just give it a try. When I asked her how long she thought it might take for the sun to dry her blanket she said 8 minutes. So we went inside and set a timer. By the time it went off she of course had forgotten all about the blanket. When I reminded her what the timer was for she ran out and got her blanket and you know what? it was dry.

Tonight at FHE Tanner started to cry during the opening song when he realized we were not going to sing Jesus wants me for a Sunbeam. He was slightly consoled when he was told he got to choose the closing song. Six minutes later when we hit the closing song (we keep it short for everyone's sanity) he was so excited to jump up and down and be a Sunbeam. We got the kids in bed and Reed was laying by Tanner (a bad habit we need to break). Reed fell asleep before Tanner did (not uncommon) so Tanner was left to put himself to sleep. I happened to be walking by (returning the last of the sun dried sheets to the beds) and heard him singing to himself Jesus wants me for a sunbeam. I sat outside his room and was impressed with how well he knew the words. He kept getting louder, and I started to think I was going to have to intervene, and then it just stopped. He sang himself to sleep. Too cute.

On Saturday evening Zoe lost her second tooth. Reed recorded this.
Zoe in her prayer "Please bless that the tooth fairy will bring me 1000 dollars."
After her prayer "I said that because last time she did not bring me a 1000 dollars."
Zoe is my child with a keen interest in and understanding of money. Dear TF failed to make an appearance on Sat. night.
Reed "Do you think it would be possible for the tooth fairy to come during church?"
Zoe "No, because then people who are not members of the church would see him."
This morning when she was checking what she had received she counted out the quarters and seemed very unhappy. When questioned Zoe said it was because she didn't get 1000 dollars.
I guess it was Zoe's turn to be little black raincloud (she hates it when I call her that).

Ooops, he did it again

I arrived home from work on Wed. night and was greeted by Tanner laying on the couch. Reed said he just woke up, so that was why he was laying on the couch. His face was scuffed up, apparently he did a face plant in the sand at the park with the babysitter (he was doing superman on the swing and lost his balance) and because of the way he was laying I asked what happened to his arm. He had found Heidi's "fancy Nancy" stamp and put it all over his arm, which was the explanation, but I should have done more follow up on that one. So I set into making dinner, get it all done, the girls sit down and Reed asks Tanner if he wants to come and eat. He won't move. I look at him and realize that his right arm has not left the spot where he was gripping his left arm since I looked at him 35 min earlier. I instantly knew that there was a problem. Tanner has dislocated his left elbow on two previous occasions. We tried to quiz the girls on events of the day to try and decide when this happened. We call the babysitter, who only said that he was sleeping in a funny position for his nap. Turns out the girls were cleaning their room and Tanner was messing it up. Zoe was trying to get him out and pulled him by the arm. This must have been just before Tanner went down for a nap. So I pick up Tanner and his blanket and we head to the urgent care. After waiting for an hour and a half the doctor walks in, says, "you have done it again", pops it back in and we are out the door. The good news is that the ligaments are getting tighter and he will grow out of this soon. Hopefully.

welcome spring...and air conditioning

Several weeks ago Reed announced that the pitchers were reporting for spring training. He said it in a way that I new the statement was loaded, so I asked, "What does that mean?" Reply, "It's gonna get hot."
And so it has. I returned home from work today and the house was really hot. We have been managing to survive with open windows and fans (delightful in the morning). I ran some errands and when I returned and began making dinner I noticed a familiar breeze on my face. Reed had turned on the air conditioner. This may not seem like a big deal, we are in Arizona, but it is what it means. It means that there are no more afternoons of letting the kids ride their bikes in the front yard, because it is too crazy hot. It means the pool is open for the season and all the towels that are now neatly tucked away will soon be littering my house in soggy piles. It means the constant hum of the air conditioner for the next six months, with the attached power bill. It means we probably need to turn our sprinklers back on so we can keep everything green and then have to trim it all in 100 degree temperatures. The air conditioner "on" signals the end of the innocence here at our house. It is when we contemplate the sanity of living in the desert, and wonder where we have put all the sunshades for our cars. From now on trips to the store for ice cream have to be executed with precision as to not destroy the ice cream before it can be safely stored in the freezer.
On the bright side, we get to contemplate visiting everyone we know who lives somewhere else.

I can do hard things

Today at work my first patient was a 17 year old who whined and fretted. I don't get too many of these, but invariably their self talk sounds something like this...I hate shots, just a second, I can't do this, this will hurt, I don't want to do this, are you sure I have to do this, this is too hard. I reassure them that the only bad thing that could happen is if they were to stop breathing, so please take a deep breath, you are going to be alright, just hold still. Just a note, if you want to really injure yourself and upset the dentist try and grab the hand with the needle, bad idea. I know from the shaking hands and sweaty brow when patients are really nervous, I see it all the time, and I always try to be gentle, regardless of how the patient is acting, or overreacting.
This is what really bothered me today, so I am going to share. It was the dialogue. I started to wonder, at what point in this girls life is she going to realize that sometimes you have to endure undesireable situations, and you just have to tell yourself, I can do this. It is hard, it hurts, it is not fun, but it will be over quickly and I can do this.
As a juxtaposition, my last patient of the day was a 4 year old who didn't flinch. He had his fair share of wiggles and curiousity but at no point was there a fret that this was too hard.
Sis. Dalton, who is the young women's general president had a little bio in the church news a while back and it said that she has on her desk a plaque that says "I can do hard things. " It has stuck with me. It is classy, it has backbone, it is all about facing trials head on and and not getting caught up in negative dialogue.
I can do hard things. I also get to do a lot of boring things, like the dishes, but hey, it is all a package deal.

What a week, and it is not over yet...

Monday.
The kids were out of school. They spent the day riding bikes and having fun with the neighbors. Around 3pm while I was doing the dishes I hear screaming coming from the garage and someone yelling, "just open the door!" I went to check out what was going on and as the door opened I was greeted by Tanner, covered with blood. It didn't take long to realize that he was going to need some professional attention. I was able to call a plastic surgeon in our ward and he was able to get him in right away. I left the kids with the neighbors and went and got Tanner stiched up. The laceration went all the way through his cheek so he got 10 stiches, three on the inside of his mouth, two in the deep tissue and five on the outside.
Tuesday.
I had the priveledge of participating in the judiciary process, also known as jury duty. I had taken all kinds of reading material. I arrived and sat down and 10 minutes later I was headed out for jury selection. Fortunately they did not need my services, but it was an interesting 3 hours. Rather than releasing us for the day we were told to get lunch and report back to the jury assembly room at 1pm. By the time I had gone through security and made myself confortable the regular protocol seemed to be changing. They weren't taking anyone out of the assembly room, and then they wouldn't let us go to use the restroom. Slowly people were able to contact people they knew on the outside and we learned that an inmate had escaped. They finally released us around 3:45. I was able to pick up food at Carolina's on the way home, a bright spot in an otherwise crummy day. I arrived home to realize that I had not adequately communicated the girls piano lesson time. They caught the last 20 min. Reed left to go to work when I got home, he had stayed home with Tanner who was in bad shape and hadn't been able to get much done.
Wednesday.
I played musical beds in the night because Heidi and Tanner did not sleep well. Reed stayed home with Tanner again. Tanner still is whiney, drooling everywhere and not eating well. When I arrived home from work at 5:45pm Reed was on the computer trying to meet a deadline and Tanner had just dropped a glass bottle full of Italian soda on the floor. What a mess.
Thursday.
Surprisingly uneventful. I was not able to get out and run any errands because Tanner was just not up to it. We did "clean out the fridge" for dinner. It is ready for a reload.
Friday.
I went to bed too late,(laundry) was up with Tanner and when I went to get in my bed Molly had taken by spot. I struggled with the motivation to get started because I feel crummy (I have been congested the last week also). I finally got the car loaded up to go to the grocery store and it wouldn't start. To be honest I haven't had the energy to deal with it. I am pretty sure it is the starter. This will probably cause a problem because I have to work tommorrow and Monday.
I could use a day of rest, does anyone mind skipping Saturday this week?

What I did on my Valentines day

I will begin with Friday night. Reed and I went to Outback for dinner because, well, we had a gift card and that is largely what determines where we go when we go out. They had a Valentines special which we of course did the math on and thought-what a deal, that is for us. The special involved a blooming onion, which I have never before purchased. Reed summed it up like this "it is funny to be eating state fair food in a restaurant." We then consumed a salad, steak and potato. At this point I was feeling uncomfortably full, but we still had cheesecake coming. So we had cheesecake. I was reminded of the Princess Bride where the two dueling factions (can't remember names, it has been a while) at the beginning of their fight the one asks if they are going to fight to the death, and the other says no, we are going to fight to the pain, so that forever you will have to remember and live with the shame of your loss. So when the cheese cake came I ate to the pain, and then had the last two bites. I was miserable. We went to Target afterwards and could barely walk around we were so full. It is a good thing we don't do that very often.
On Saturday morning we had heart shaped pancakes, which Reed couldn't even eat because he was still miserable from the night before. The girls had been eating so much candy that they barely ate. I of course wondered to myself why I had gone to the effort, oh well. We rode our bikes to the park, came home and Zoe decided she wanted to try riding without training wheels. So she took them off ,she has done this a lot before, but this time she just started going and quickly had it all figured out. This all happened while Heidi was at a birthday party. When Heidi got home I joked with her that she would be the next one to learn to ride with out training wheels. She smiled and said no-but a few minutes later she was headed in and when I asked he what she was doing she said "I am going to take off my training wheels." Sure enough, we took them off and she had the hang of it in no time. They were both so excited and proud of themselves. It just so happened that Reed missed both of them. I had Zoe go and get Reed so that he would feel a part of the process, but by that time it just frustrated her to have him trying to hold on. She kept yelling let go and he was to nervous to. Reed was asleep when Heidi pulled off her feat. I took a picture and then went and showed him. He was just coming out of sleep. He looked, then he looked again and asked "Is that Heidi?" Shortly thereafter we brought the kids in to put them in church clothes for a marathon baptism session. One member baptism and two convert baptisms. We were at the church from 5pm to 7:30. We came home by way of Wendy's and after getting them fed and bathed and in bed I went to the store to fill our fridge which was barren because I hadn't been to the store for a week. I was able to see the sorry looking picked over Valentine's displays and the few sorry saps making a last ditch effort to impress their significant other. Admittedly I am not a huge Valentines day fan. I much prefer random acts of caring scattered throughout the rest of the year.
As I was helping Heidi say her prayers I told her to say thank you for being able to go to the baptisms "no, not that", but when I told her to say thank you for being able to ride a two wheeler she started bouncing up and down she was so excited. Today the first thing she asked was when was she going to be able to ride her bike. Lunch after church was painful-all Zoe and Heidi wanted to do was ride bikes. Heidi just kept going and going once she was out. She lasted for almost an hour after all the other kids had parked their pedals. I was talking to the neighbor about what a sense of freedom being able to ride a bike gave us as kids. I can see that in Heidi's eyes.