A plague has come upon our house!
Dear nasty virus we picked up from who knows where:
I am so done with you! I want my life back!
Samuel's rear end is so red, he can't hold anything in his stomach, it just runs right out of him.
Matthew's school called me today, his temperature is 102.8. Come get him.
Caroline's temp. is 104. She always has high fevers so I am trying not to panic.
Trying to look on the bright side:
They are loving the Muppet Show DVDs I got from the library
I really don't care what the house/kitchen/bathrooms look like.
I've spent a lot of time holding, reading and playing games with my little ones and how can that be a bad thing.
I can't spend any money because we can't go anywhere.
I can handle 2 more days of this, but by the weekend, virus, I am kicking you out.
I'm sad
I am sad about President Hinckley.
I was asleep in bed, when Mark woke me to tell me the news of his passing. I cried for a while until I drifted back to sleep next to a croupy and feverish Matthew.
I was touched yesterday when I read on ksl.com of youth in Utah wearing their Sunday best to school on Monday as a tribute to President Hinckley.
I had the opportunity to meet him once at the Washington Temple Visitors Center. I was in line to shake his hand with Bill, Jacquelyn and Will. He shoke my hand and looked right in my eye and said, "Nice to see you." So tender and sincere. When Mark and I were dating, we saw him speak at Madison Square Garden. And we'll always remember the day he dedicated the Manhattan Temple.
The world just doesn't seem as nice of a place without him in it. I loved reading his biography several years ago. I am grateful for all he did.
some reviews from the Weekend
I had taped Persuasion on Masterpiece on PBS. It's part of their 6 week Jane Austen experience. I recently watched it and I really loved it. Ann was amazing. The characters she has to be around are just as annoying and awful as in the other movie. It was short, only 90 minutes, so a lot of scenes were cut. I didn't even miss them (mostly since they involved the Elliots--definitely less is more with them). I loved the ending....loved loved loved the ending.
Mark and I went to the new local restaurant. It's been completely redone...it's a totally different place than before. Very warm and inviting inside, fireplace, open kitchen, lots of beautiful iron work. It was nice. I have to say we aren't the best orderers (neither of us are real foodies), but what we had was good and hearty.
We went to see 27 Dresses. I can't say it's the best romantic comedy I have ever seen, but I found it entertaining. Mark was definitely outnumbered, lots of girls and teenage girls too. I looked around and felt some solidarity with other women who were with a date or their husband. Like we did well because our guy would take us to a girly movie!
I was happy with what we did with the kids over the weekend. The big kids had Friday off, so we played a lot together while Matty was a preschool, then went on a great outing to a nearby Children's museum. Sat. involved lots of running around to various activities. We spent Monday afternoon with wonderful friends and had a fabulous time together. I really tried to throw out my own agenda and focus on making the kids happy and it worked well.
It's nice to feel like you've had a mini-vacation, in your own home, in the depths of January!
Snow day mentality
So I was really geared up for a snow day on Monday. The weather reports had indicated we might get enough snow Sunday night into Monday morning to make me at least think we would have no school on Monday. When I woke up on Monday, there was a dusting on the grass. It had rained quite a bit, but no real snow. The children all went to school. But I had things planned just in case! I wanted to work with Josh on piano, play several games, do a craft or 2, maybe watch a video with them and read some books we hadn't read for a long time. A day without having to go anywhere=a gift!
Am I glad it didn't snow? Yes, it makes getting around that much more difficult. But I was disappointed too. Looking forward to that next opportunity....
Who needs TV?
Mark just said this to me as we were looking at his cousins' husband's blog and laughing because we saw something funny.
But seriously, I do need TV.
But no new TV in the works for some time. No Golden Globes! No new Ugly Betty, Grey's, Office or my secret show, Private Practice. Sob! (secret meaning the show I am embarrassed to tell people I watch...kind of like how Prince is my secret music love. Liz F., please don't laugh.)
But we still have the DVR. I have taped several movies that have aired recently (and with the DVR, you just FF the commercials.) I just finished My Big Fat Greek Wedding, always a favorite. I watched About A Boy, again. Still fascinated with Hugh Grant's "units of time" theory. I was excited to see Love Actually (the edited version.) That was disappointing. I think what I enjoyed the most about it was have the Sense and Sensibility folks back together (Emma, Hugh and Alan).
I taped episodes of Law and Order, Friday Night Lights and ER. But so far, I haven't been interested enough to watch them.
I put the first season of 30 Rock on hold at the library. Still remain a formter Netflix customer, because frankly I am more interested in TV than movies right now. And we have a redbox close by. We got Hairspray there recently.
We got Mark's parents the DVDs of Newhart for Christmas. I must admit I really liked watching them and miss them (his parents and the DVDs.)
If we can make it to the end of January, we'll have 8 episodes of Lost to look forward to. But so far January has been great (not the usual dread and loathing of January. As Mark says, each day crossed off in January gets us to somewhere better in the calendar. ) This could this be attributed to 60 degree temperatures in NY this week, lots of outside time and misc. diversions.
Tips for Karen
Lucky Karen is flying with her 3 children to Maui this weekend! Since it's been 4 years or so since she's flown a sizeable distance, here are the suggestions I gave her when she emailed me about ideas for the plane...
Hi karen, a few tips
First, I never medicate on flights, with the exception of tylenol for a baby who might have ear pain or who is teething. Just too chancy.
We pray a lot, that they will be good, that the baby will fall asleep easily and people next to us will be patient and kind.
We also pack some things they haven't seen before. Leapster is great for J's age. We've had a portable DVD player on some flights.
I also buy stickers, character bandaids (some people swear by this), new coloring books, sticker books, card game, crayons, notebooks, blank paper, activity books, but things they can do on their own too, since you don’t want to have to explain how to do things if you are in the middle of keeping somebody else happy.
We usually put who we think will be the most difficult on the one on one parent situation, and the other 2 with the other parent.
Snacks are good too since you never know how much they will give you on the plane. We try to fill them up at the airport too, esp. if we have a long wait.
I always bring 2 outfits for a baby, and maybe an extra shirt for the other 2. You just never know.
I am rereading this maybe thinking it's just like packing a super-duper church bag. For a 5 hour sacrament meeting!
With all this, try to limit what you actually bring on because it makes life harder to have too much stuff on the plane. I would pack J. and I. their own backpack they can carry and access with their stuff. A favorite or new stuffed animal is always popular with our crowd.
Also, just ignore people's strange looks and off the wall comments. I found I was a lot happier if I just was in my own bubble so to speak and didn't pay attention to what other people were saying.
And remember in a few hours you'll be in paradise! Good luck!
Feel free to add any other tips!
Wonderful Christmas
It was a wonderful and memorable Christmas. It's sad that's it's over!
Mark's parents and his sister Liz, her husband Bill and their 3 children came to visit us from Utah.
Everything we did was fun.
We went to see the Rockettes on Christmas Eve morning. We saw the Rockefeller tree and the trains at Citicorp as well.
Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner and nativity.
Christmas morning was fantastic. Everyone enjoyed being together.
The rest of the week was filled with fun and memorable outings such as Zoo lights, NYBG train show, Amer. Girl Place lunch, Top of the Rock, Museum of Natural History, Staten Island Ferry, Central Park Zoo, etc.. Liz and Bill saw Wicked. Mark and I went with his parents to the temple and dinner one night. The cousins played together beautifully. I fell in love with an 11 month old boy named Quinn. We had many, many fun times throughout the week.
Thank you for coming to New York! We miss you and LOVED having you spend Christmas with us.
Cures
For Christmas, Caroline received the book Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from her grandma. We have really enjoyed reading it together in the eveings. For those who have not read it, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle has all the answers. She helps the neighborhood parents solve problems such as "The won't-pick-up-toys cure" and "the answer-backer cure." I sometimes wish I could call Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, but luckily I have been able to come up with a cure or 2 of my own.
Caroline won't eat dinner cure: "Caroline, you know that there are poor children all over the world that would love to have a meal like this for dinner. Some of those children tonight will be getting their dinner out of a garbage, they are that hungry."
Josh wants a Joe-Torre baseball card-itis: Josh had extreme jealousy that his 2 best buds both got the Topps Factory Set for Christmas and was convinced that getting that large and expensive set was the only way to acquire Joe Torre. No one wanted to trade. I pledged to myself that I would not buy any more 2007 baseball cards. Luckily the local card shop had this one particular card for $1.50. We all took a trip there after school and he got it with his own money. Problema solved.
Sam thinks watching Thomas is part of his nap and bedtime routine-itis: Ah the beauty of deceiving a 20 month old. Sure we can watch Thomas. I will fast forward it until it has about 10 minutes left. During that 10 minutes, I will read my scriptures while I sit with you on the couch, since you won't watch it by yourself. Lovingly put baby in his bed and wish him sweet dreams. Close door and run!
No one wants to go to bed cure: Pull out Mrs. Piggle Wiggle and read the next chapter. Everyone settled down. Matthew even fell asleep for the night on the hardwood floor in the playroom where we were reading. (He is known for randomly crashing a different places in the house.)
Thanks Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. Can't wait to read more!
Happy New Year!
Well, it's January 3 and we are feeling good. A little cold but good. No snow or ice to contend with.
Here's a quick and easy game to play with the kids after school today. All 3 of my older ones have loved this and even Sam likes to watch.
Don't Eat Pete.
Draw a grid of 16 squares on a paper. Place one object (like an m and m or goldfish) on each square. Have one person go out of the room. Designate one of the 16 squares as Pete. Have the person return and start removing objects. When he goes to remove Pete, everyone shouts out "Don't Eat Pete." Rotate turns going out.
Enjoy!
