Snowed in again!

I've already said this once, but this year we have gotten more snow than the entire nine years we have lived here. A guy at the grocery store yesterday was saying that it's the most snow we'd had for eighteen years. Anyway, today another storm blew through leaving us with about 5 inches of snow. It's not a lot in Utah terms, but snow in Kansas usually comes with a sheet of ice underneath it, so getting around can be tough. Due to the snow church was cancelled. That is the second full day of church cancelled since Christmas, as well as one half day. Sometimes it's nice having a stay home day, but it is easy to get that trapped feeling after a while. We did get to get out for scones at our friends house later in the day, so the kids were able to get some energy out. It was a lot of fun. Normally I am not too sad when church is cancelled, but today I was a little sad because I now only have one more Sunday left in Kansas.

Party pictures

Party, party, party

I have to admit that I love birthday parties. I think I'd enjoy being a party planner for kids birthdays if there was such a thing. I love attending parties, I love planning parties, I love reading about birthday party ideas on the web, and I love watching the children's faces (not just my child's face)at the party. I also love coming up with cake ideas. Some of my friends think I'm crazy because I do parties almost every year for my kids,(I am considering the every other year thing though) but I really enoy it. I do feel a little sorry for Parker, Carter and Emily though, since their birthdays are at a harder time of year. We did manage to get a party in for Emily a couple weeks ago(a month late) so she could enjoy one last party with her friends here. It was a favorite doll party to which all of the girls were to bring their favorite doll. We set up a small table for the dolls to sit at and eat their cake. I made winter hats for all the girls and their dolls so they could have something that matched their doll. The girls made miniature food for their doll out of sculpey clay, and they all got to color their own wooden doll. We also had individual pinatas made from paper sacks for the dolls to hit, but we ran out of time for it so they just took them home. It was a fun party, and the girls were so cute. This weekend I threw an early birthday party for Taylor since we are actually moving on his real birthday. He wanted a sleep over, but I decided that we also needed a theme so I could plan activities to entertain the kids. I love parties as long as they are organized with things to do. I can't stand random chaos. Anyway, we had a Harry Potter party which I thought was fun. I gave them a class schedule which included helping the house elves make pizza, levitation class (doing static electricity experiments), transfiguration class (shrinky dinks), potions class (water surface tention experiment, and the mentos/diet coke geyser - a hit), and care of magical creatures class (they got a large easter egg with a little bakugan creature in a plastic bag and obleck - cornstarch and water) The kids loved the corn starch and water and played with it for quite a while. Yes it was a mess, but that stuff cleans up easy. Anyway, after all of the classes and the cake and presents it was 9 pm and they were ready for pjs and a movie. We were going to watch Harry Potter 2 but some of the kids are apprehensive about it so we watched something else. It was fun.

Surrounded by Angels!

I don't know if any of you remember the song by Kenny Rodgers (I think) that goes something like "there are angels among us." (I'm terrible with knowing song titles or artists) Anyway, I couldn't help thinking of this song over the last few days as our little family went through yet another hospitalization crisis with RSV/Pnuemonia. On Monday night, after having sent Jeff back to Utah, Carter started running a fever and breathing faster than normal. Having been through this type of thing with him before, I knew he needed arbuterol so I gave him my last vial which had been given to us by a good friend, hoping it would get him through the night. He woke later, around 3 am, with a higher fever and breathing even faster so I gave him Tylenol for the fever and started praying that the fever was what was causing the fast breathing. Over the last couple of months of being on my own with the kids, I have learned to rely more heavily on the Spirit and on the Lord when faced with challenges, and although I was worried, I felt Carter would be ok until he could see the doctor the next day. Anyway, I got him in to see the doctor and it turned out he had a double ear infection. He was still breathing fast, however, and even though the doctor couldn't hear any "crackling" in his lungs, he wanted to rule out pnuemonia as the cause of the rapid breathing, so we were sent to get a chest X-ray. This is when I started getting a bit stressed. See, we are now on Utah insurance which doesn't exactly cover Kansas. I'm considered "out-of-area" and even with contracted facilities, we still have to pay 40%. Do you know how much a chest x-ray costs? Well it's around $240. Well, it turned out that Carter did have pnuemonia in two sections of his lungs, and considering how he was breathing and his change in behavior, (he's normally very energetic even when sick, but not this time) the doctor thought it best to have him admitted into the hospital. What?! I thought to myself. Of course by now I was an emotional wreck trying to think of what I was going to do with Jeff gone, but as my frenzied mind thought through what to do I was comforted with the thought that there were so many people I could ask for help. People quickly and willingly took the kids for the night so I could stay with Carter in the hospital. My wonderful friend who took some of the kids, also arranged for Carter to get a blessing which was comforting. Then there were so many calls from people willing to help where they could and offering to bring dinner. I just kept thinking of how grateful I was to be surrounded by angel friends. Thank you to all who offered thoughts and prayers for us. I believe the blessing and the IV really helped Carter perk up quickly. He'd gotten pretty dehydrated, and just getting fluids into him seemed to help. He tested positive for RSV as well has an elevated white blood cell count, (meaning he had a bacterial infection) so they gave him an antibiotic and breathing treatments. Luckily, he was doing so well the next day that when I pushed to go home, they let us. Anyway, I just couldn't help thinking of how wonderful all of the ward members and friends are here. You are truly angels. I only hope I can find people like you when we move.

It sold!

So about a week ago I got this great call from our realtor saying that the couple who'd seen the house the night before really liked it and may be making an offer. I was so excited! A couple hours later she called again saying she had the offer and wanted to come by to show it to me. I had to wait an hour because I was headed to the school to watch Taylor in ths spelling bee, but you can only imagine how excited I was. Well, it turned out to be a great offer, and the next day we had a new sign in our yard. It is such a blessing because we closed on our new house a couple days ago. It's now becomingvery real.

The kids' activities!

Sometimes life can get so busy, especially when you have multiple kids enrolled in multiple activites and only one person to drive them to those activities. It wasn't so crazy when Jeff was here because he could pick up or take kids to their various things, but right now it has almost gotten to where the kids don't want to go because they are tired. I did get smart and pull the girls out of dance before this whole "single mom" moment started, so that eliminated two classes we didn't have to drive to. We do still have scouts, achievement days, and basketball, which though it doesn't seem like much, has been a challenge since each took place on a different night so every Tues, Wed, and Thurs we had something until 8 or 8:30 pm. Anyway, things have lighted up a bit because now scouts and achievement days are on the same night so it's not so bad. With all of the craziness, I am especially grateful for Sunday afternoon. When the kids get home from church they immediately start into playing with their toys and each other. It is really fun for me to see. During the week they play with friends or watch TV after school, but on Sunday they relax. There is a reason we have been commanded to keep it holy. The Lord knew we'd need it. Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple pictures of the kids' playing. I thought it was cute what they did.



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