Catching Up in 20

Wow. My days are busier than they used to be. Things have been happening in my tiny little world, but I haven't had time to share many of them. I do spend a lot of time at the computer, but it's usually while holding (and usually nursing) Sarah, so I only have one hand to use and that means slow typing. I'm taking a moment now to play catch up. I'll list 20 things that have happened, but leave out the details. If you want to hear an extended version of the story, just leave a comment and mention which numbers in the list you're interested in. That way, I won't bore everyone telling them how much fun I had cutting my toenails (that isn't and never was one of the twenty things).

1. I got a hair cut and perm.
2. Daniel doesn't complain of jaw pain anymore. The TMJ treatment seems to be working. We have a follow-up appointment on Thursday. Still need to figure out who's going to watch 3 of my kids!
3. We brought one of the kittens inside to be house cat and mouser. He only lasted about 4 days. Hope the mouse traps can do the job. Who knew a cat would forget he was litter box trained?
4. We went letterboxing for the first time in over 3 years. The kids had a blast.
5. Rebekah landed on a cactus plant while rushing towards a letterbox hiding spot and got a palm full of cactus needles. It took a trip to the doctor to get all the hairlike prickles out. She still talks about it.
6. Sarah now weighs 11 and 1/2 pounds! Way to grow!
7. We've avoided Swine Flu, but do like to get sick. Daniel and Nathan have had a "Saturday Night Fever" with cough, but on different Saturdays. Now Joseph has it. His is MonDAY Fever.
8. We went to a Straw Bale maze earlier in October. It was a lot of fun and Daniel threw a fit when we left.
9. I've started indexing records for the FamilySearch program. Some people have really bad handwriting. So far, I've done over 1400 names (thanks to nursing Sarah)...since 18 October.
10. We carved Halloween pumpkins. Two were Chernobyl pumpkins.
11. We got some great pictures of the kids in the leaves. These are just a few. Sadly, the leaves are still on the lawn - the piles are somewhat scattered.
12. The kids got to parade around the school in their Halloween costumes. I got to take 3 kids to the school twice that day and run around helping kids get costumes finalized. I miss Chad's flexible work schedule!
13. Choir practices have resumed. I really feel like an idiot in there sometimes. I can't get over feeling inadequate and therefore keep saying really dumb things. And of course, I keep telling myself that the choir would rather have someone else lead them. If you could even call it that. I have some issues to work through (obviously).
14. I've made so many squash recipes this last month that my kids will probably not eat squash the rest of their lives.
15. Our ward Halloween party was last week. The kids had a lot of fun dressing up for that (in addition to the school event) and for trick-or-treating the next night. I'm so glad Halloween is over.
16. My first week of weight loss ended in a gain. (There was a loss at first, but I found it again in the sugar cookies I made last Monday.)
17. Sarah does not like chocolate milk. Or should I say, she doesn't like chocolate in her milk?
18. The kids had a day off from school last week when the wind storm knocked out power to the middle school. The whole district was out for the day, though the power came back on.
19. I have been creating lots of digital scrapbook pages lately. Maybe I should update the slide show on the blog.
20. Two friends and I are singing in church next week. I don't get nervous in practices.

OK...that was a little difficult to think of so many things. And now you're probably glad I didn't go into too many details.


Here's a cute shot of Joseph on the afternoon we went letterboxing. He saw me taking his picture and stopped his climb down the steps to pose. He's so fun to take pictures of!