Pathetic

Today I broke down and went to the doctor's office.  Ryan insisted.  As in, he made me an appointment before I even got up this morning.  I think he got kind of worried about me when I got really winded from going up the stairs in our house twice yesterday.  (It was Sunday morning and we were trying to get the kids ready for church.  Making several trips up and down stairs is par for the course.)  I went to church with the family.  I tried not to sit too close to anyone while I hacked away in the back of the primary room.  I had already missed one Sunday from this blasted virus.  Missing two was unacceptable.

After church, I had to lie down and do nothing for the rest of the day.  At dinner time I literally had no energy and had to prop up my head at the dinner table.  I felt utterly pathetic.

At the doctor's office it was determined I had bronchitis and borderline walking pneumonia.  On one hand, it was a relief to know there was a reason for my symptoms.  On the other- how sad is it I suffered through 12 days of this before deciding to do something.

A Family Day

Yesterday most of my husbands family came over to our house (minus Michael, Blair and their son Simon, who obviously think they are too good for us and came up with some lame excuse of going to see Blair's brother when he came home from his mission-humpf).  Ryan's grandma flew up from California, and everyone converged here to see her.  Our new, lovely, very big house is a good place for big family get-togethers like this.

 It was also a good opportunity to celebrate Annie and Maddie's birthday again with the extended family.  I don't think they minded having to open some more presents.

Annie asked Grandpa to change Cinderella's clothes.  I laughed to myself and took pictures of Grandpa's fingers trying to manipulate the teeny, tiny clothes for the teeny, tiny doll.

 Success!

For dinner we had our friends James, Tiffany and their kids over to join us, since their furnace was out.  With another 5 people here, we ended up having the kids eat on the floor of the kitchen while the adults ate at the two tables set up in the front room.  Ryan and I were kidding around about leaving a jar by the front door and letting our guests give donations for a bigger table.  We made need one eventually, as the family continues to grow.  But it isn't such a bad problem. :)

Sickie Poo

I got sick this year- really, truly, good and sick.  The day after Halloween, I started feeling kind of "off."  By Friday morning, I had a fever, chills, and a good, solid cough.  Ryan stayed home from work to take care of the kids so I could be pathetic lying down instead of pathetic and trying to take care of kids.  Hopefully rest would be just the thing to get me going again.

Saturday (and the twins' birthday) I was worse.

Sunday I was starting to sound like Elizabeth before I took her to the doctor a couple of weeks ago.  Ryan found some Mucinex for me, and after a couple of doses, I was breathing easier.  I was coughing a bunch, but at least I felt like I could take a good breath in.  I was still horizontal and shivering under our big denim blanket.

Monday the twins watched too much tv.

Tuesday, I showered and took the minivan in to get our break pads replaced, and that was my big accomplishment for the day.

Wednesday was my day to help with preschool.  Since Thursday was no school due to parent teacher conferences, we switched days.  We were going to have a field trip, and I was needed to help drive kids to Kid's Castle to run around and play.  I mostly sat by myself once we got there, so I wouldn't cough on people.  Thankfully, a couple other moms not with our preschool group came too, so I was able to trade seating when Maddie had an accident, and just go home early.  After a trip to Costco.  We were out of cheese and a few other necessary things.  Then I laid down for the rest of the day.

Thursday we drove to Boise and back in a single day.  Instead of getting antsy and wiggly after sitting in the car for so long, I was content to just be an un-energetic blob.  The only thing missing was my blanket (I brought my pillow) and putting my feet up.

Now it's another Friday, and I am still on the couch feeling like I'm trying to cough up a lung.  My fever still comes and goes, usually with timing of my doses of Tylanol or Advil.  The kids think my voice sounds like Daddy's voice.  I'm really tired of this virus.  It is taking its merry time going away.  I need to get my energy back, and soon!

Boise Temple Open House

Sometimes I think we are certifiably crazy.  Yesterday morning at about 7:20 am, we all clambered into our minivan and went for a 5 hour drive to the Boise LDS temple.  We made pretty good time, only stopping once for lunch and a potty break.  As we drew close the the freeway exit, I saw one of those construction-type signs on the side of the road with directions on which exit to take to go to the LDS Temple Open House.  I started laughing, which started my coughing again (more on that later), and I was unable to tell Ryan what had set me off until after we had passed the sign.  It must be an Idaho thing.  I'm pretty sure I didn't see anything like that for the other two open houses I've attended in our state.

Once we arrived, we all stayed in the car and shimmied into our church attire.  I'm sure we made for a nice show, had anyone been paying attention.  

The kids were pretty excited to be able to go inside the temple.  (To learn about LDS temple open houses, click here to read about them.)  We all got glamorous "booties" to go over our shoes and we swish, swished our way inside.  Maddie loved the sparkly chandeliers and asked for one for her room for her "burpday."  I thought the stained glass windows throughout the building were beautiful.

Once we were finished with the tour, we went back to our car for our coats and the camera.  We didn't drive 5 hours to have no pictures to remember this by.  We walked back on the grounds and looked for a good photo op.  We found one, and looked for a good place to balance the camera while the timer ran down while Ryan ran back to be with the family for the picture.  Well, there wasn't any good places.  There was a garbage can, but the edge was too slippery.  While Ryan was searching for something better, I shrugged out of my coat and threw it across the garbage can.  Now the camera wouldn't fall into the hole.  We were set.  The first time, Annie followed Ryan over to set the self timer and when Ryan grabbed her to run back, her boot fell off and so she was screaming when the camera took our picture.  It wasn't a good look for her.  The second try was better.

 We love fountains.

Once we felt our wiggles were sufficiently sufficed, we all piled back in the car for the ride home.  That's right- we drove all 5 hours back home the same day as the first 5 hours.  The kids did great.  They were rewarded with hot fudge sundaes at McDonalds when we stopped for dinner.  We listened to 2 audio books, watched 1 movie, and sung along to music.  I still need to get a video of all the kids singing along to "Call Me Maybe."  It's the funniest thing.

In Which Annie and Maddie Turn 4

My babies turned 4 yesterday.  (sniff, sniff)  They have been so excited for their "burpday," as they call it.  Every time we would enter a store, they would point out so many things that they wanted for their birthday.  Luckily, they seemed happy with what they got.  Annie and Maddie got to open their presents in the morning.

In the afternoon, Ryan took the girls on an Amazing (Boy) Race.  The race was held in honor of a local little boy with Menkes Disease.  I was supposed to go too, but I've been really sick the last couple of days.

After dinner (which Ryan made, because I've been pathetic and haven't felt like moving much), it was cake time.  Annie wanted pink frosting and Maddie wanted purple.

Happy Birthday Annie and Maddie!

Tinkerbell

Maddie loves her Tinkerbell costume so much.  She's been wearing it all the time.  Even if we try to put her to bed in her pjs, she changes back into the costume after we leave.

Happy Halloween

A month ago, I asked the kids what they wanted to be for Halloween.  Easy enough requests- Tinkerbell for Maddie, a fairy for Annie (we finally decided on Rosetta), a mummy for Elizabeth, and Annabeth Chase (from Percy Jackson and the Olympians series).  After looking at patterns, I decided buying used from ebay was the way to go for the fairy costumes.  But I could pull together mummy and demigod outfits.

Elizabeth's costume took me a lot longer than I thought it would.  For some reason, it's always like that.  But once done, I had Elizabeth try it on, and I had a difficult time getting it off of her again.

She would not take it off.  Here she is doing her homework in it.

Next, was a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt.  As Target only had long sleeved t-shirts, this was going to be the "off-season" version of a camp t-shirt.  Google images gave me some good ideas on how to make the shirt.  

 Ta-Da!  I was happy with how it turned out.  And today, last minute, I painted some wooden beads and made a camp necklace.  It turned out ok...  But Emma liked it, so it was a go.

Emma and Elizabeth were pretty excited to go to school today.  They got to walk to the high school for a special showing of the high school play.  This meant less time for afternoon Halloween party and candy.  (Yay!)  When they got home, it was time to get ready for the church Trunk or Treat.

I scoped out our new yard to find a good spot for pictures and found one.

 Tinkerbell (aka Maddie) had a WHOLE LOT of hairspray in her hair to get it to stay in a bun.  I asked my friend Rachel (who has cut and highlighted my hair) how to get Maddie's hair to stay.  Any time I put up her hair into anything, it falls down in about an hour.  Rachel suggested "back combing" and using a whole lot of hair spray.  Her hair stayed pretty well once the texture was no longer "slippery."

 Annie insisted on wearing her cowboy boots.

Elizabeth showing her "scary" mummy face.

I found two ninja daggers for 97 cents at the store, so I bought them so Annabeth could have her dagger.  Not exactly Greek style, but Annabeth seemed pleased.  She kept pointing it at me while I took pictures.

And her new owl earrings.

We figured it was ok for Annabeth to be a brunette since the movie actress is decidedly not blonde.

We had fun at the carnival and the trunk or treat later.  One of the carnival games was to throw pennies in to glass glasses.  The High Priest group was in charge of that one.  I thought it was awfully brave of them to use fragile glasses.  Then I realized that once the kids threw a penny into the glass, it was picked up and given to the kids.  Um... why?  Who thought this was a good idea?  Ryan and I were among many parents carrying a couple of brown paper lunch sacks around the church.  We looked like a bunch of winos carrying our hard liquor in paper bags.  Happy Halloween!

Once home, we surveyed the loot.

The kids made out.  The candy may or may not have been pilfered after the kids went to bed....

Preschool Halloween Party

Annie and Maddie went to preschool in costume today.  They wanted to wear their Halloween costumes, but I persuaded them to choose some princess dresses from the dress up box.  (Persuasion in the form of, "Nope, you can't wear those.  Those are for Halloween.  I know you want to wear those, but we aren't wearing those today...  Look at all these pretty dresses.  How about one of these?")

The first part of preschool was the same as usual.  I went home and prepared the craft I was in charge of, and made some Ritz cracker and pretzel spiders for lunch.  I am so prepared.

I arrived in time for games.  First the kids played "Ghost, Ghost, Witch" in the spirit of duck, duck, goose.

 Then we made my silly spiders.  We made them from painted black paper plates, construction paper legs and "googly" eyes.

 Next there was a pumpkin walk.

 All of the girls were in princess dresses.

Kennedy, Annie, Mali and Maddie.

Then we had the limbo.

 How low can you go?

 Lower!

 There were a couple of other games, but I was one of the moms in the kitchen preparing lunch, so I didn't get any other pictures.

 My Ritz and pretzel spiders, string cheese and pretzel stick broom sticks, chocolate chow mein noodle spiders and pumpkin pancakes.  I have some mad frosting skills, don't I?  I think I missed my calling as a decorator.  Not.

Carving Pumpkins

Tonight we carved our Halloween pumpkins.  We had three pumpkins left over from Ryan's fair display, and I bought another one for a grand total of four pumpkins for four little girls.  We let Emma and Elizabeth loose with their pumpkin carving "knives" (not sharp, trust me) this year.  Ryan and I were allowed to help Annie and Maddie, although they weren't excited about it.  They would much rather have done their own.  Ryan used his drywall cutter on the pumpkins this year.

The finished projects.  Maddie, Emma, Elizabeth and Annie

Visit with Grandpa

We visited my grandpa today.  Here are a couple of pictures we took in the few minutes we spent with him.  He was pretty sleepy, but was happy to see us.  He kept thanking us for coming, and asked us to come again.