Nathan's Hip

Many people are wondering what is happening with Nathan's hip.  Join the party!  We are also still wondering.  Here is what we know so far, and the questions our knowledge inspires.

Based on an MRI and a CT scan, Nathan does not have cancer.  We were unsure about that for a while and spent a long weekend wondering if that would be the diagnosis.  There is a higher bone density on the side that he is experiencing pain. The "impression" from the doctor reading the CT scan is that there is a "mild chronic stress reaction" of the iliac bone.  But that is an unusual place to have that problem.  The fact that something like that should have healed long before now has meant we get to see a doctor at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake.  The doctor mentioned something about possibly having fluid "in there."   I can't elaborate on something I don't understand.

We did that on Tuesday this week.  They also agreed that nothing too serious or scary was going on (like cancer), but they were still unsure what was happening - exactly.  Nathan had some blood drawn that day and we have an appointment next week for a full body scan.  The scan is supposed to be even more in depth than a CT scan (which is more in depth than an MRI).  They will have to give him some contrast of some kind and wait for it to work before they do the scan.  We've been told to expect the appointment to last about 4 hours.

So now we are trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the kids on that day.  School is out.  It seems unnecessary to make them also take a 10 hour trip.  It's the day before Thanksgiving so we could just hang out with family for the weekend, but Chad would have to meet us separately and there are animals to care for and we'd have to add packing to our plans.  Besides, with all of the traveling we've been doing, and the stress we've been feeling, nothing seems more appealing than being home.

And that's an update on Nathan.  Thankfully, his pain seems to have lessened.  I think the physical therapy, while helping straighten out his back, was aggravating his hip. He is nearly pain free unless he has a day of a lot of extra activity.

Maybe my next post will be an update on Daniel!

Daniel's Ordination

Daniel will be turning 12 this weekend. (I can hardly believe it myself!) He will be ordained a Deacon on Sunday. He has been looking forward to this, and his first suit, for a little while now.

We are not expecting anyone to make the trip for the ordination. HOWEVER, any and all are welcome. We will take care of it after church, about 3:30 PM. If you think you will be coming, please let us know, so we can at least clean up the house! (And maybe prepare a bit of food.)

Uh oh...here comes summer

If today is any indication (or most of the Fridays of this school year) of what I get to expect for summer with 6 kids close in age, I am going to be twitching, stumbling, and babbling before the 2012-2013 school year begins!

 

(Wow.  How was that for a long sentence?)

Joseph's Cover of Many Colors

Joseph advanced to a twin mattress on Monday.  In our family that earns you a mom-made blanket to fit the bed.  This has got Joseph all a flutter!

We went through my bins of fabric and chose the brightest colors we could find.  I cut out 48 12.5" squares of fabric.  He'll need sunglasses just to fall asleep at night!

Wow.  I don't even know how I am going to make sense of it all.  Anyone want to help me tie it next week?  :)

Signs of Spring

New babies, flowers buds, laundry on the line, kids on the hammock: all signs of Spring.

I think this is the earliest I've ever been able to hang laundry to dry.  It snowed yesterday and it will probably be snowing next month.  But today it is Spring!

The Little Guy

Do you ever feel like the little guy in carton full of big guys?

The Taming of the Ewe

Let the DRAMA begin

You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Blogging, or Not Blogging

I started my blog over six years ago as a way to keep distant family updated on my growing babies and also a way to write (something I want to do, but don't really have the time to do).

As I have looked back over my posts over the years and had them printed into tangible copies, I have really enjoyed the vivid recounts of little moments that otherwise would have been lost forever. It helped that I had a real audience participating in my stories through the blessing of the internet. The comments left in response were encouraging and really appreciated, but the verbal remarks were more valuable as they gave me a real connection to people.

In 2010, I hit my blogging peak. I was composing blog entries while I mopped the floor, while I drove down the road and every time disaster seemed to strike. If the kids made me laugh with some little quip, I ran to the computer and recorded it. I LOVE reading through those moments!

Even so, my entries have always been motivated by my audience (real and imagined). My journals are influenced in the same way, though writing by hand is much slower and the pictures don't load very easily. I write for an audience, though I expect that my journals will be read after I am gone (at least I hope that I can trust those around me to respect me enough to never pry without permission).

Lately, my real and imagined audiences have decreased. The motivation went with them. It troubles me some as I think of the moments I am no longer recording, but it does seem a blog without an audience is really only a public journal. I no longer consider it worth my time to prepare and upload pictures and tell stories.

As I have thought over the demise of the blog, I have considered how different variables have affected it. The first problem was that I joined Facebook. If I put on FB, it seemed to ease the urge to blog about it. Plus, I was getting way more response that way!

A second problem is a family problem. I have struggled with this for years now. I claim much of the blame, but have little to be proud of in any resolutions. The truth is, I don't speak with one of my sisters. She made it clear enough how she felt and I finally gave up trying to fix it. Another sister is too busy. I know she doesn't read the blog. She has admitted it to me. My brother interacts with me via FB and I have appreciated his efforts to connect. Even so, he's a guy and the connection is different. I haven't spoken to my mother since February 2nd. The few times before that I attempted to talk with her were cut short. She says she doesn't have time to talk. I guess she prefers indirect contact. She recently started commenting on my posts more, but nothing in real time.

The distant relationship with my family has taken a toll on the blog. Sometimes I don't want to blog because I don't want them to know what is happening in my life. If they were to call, I don't know if I would answer the phone. So what is it? Do I want contact or not? I don't even understand what I am thinking!

On the other hand, I have regular contact with my Dad. Usually, we don't even agree about the things we discuss, but I know he is interested in what I am saying. The blog does help us in keeping the conversation fresh and moving. Our conversations can last 2 or 3 hours. And then I have to charge my phone!

A third factor is a trend I have noticed repeats itself way too often: I keep losing friends. I have pondered on this endlessly and cannot figure out what I am doing wrong. The friends that used to comment on my blog are now silent and their absence causes me to lose confidence that I am blogging about something of value.

The last reason for the decline in my blogging (that comes to mind) is the struggle that I have with being proper and avoiding topics too controversial. The times I did relax and share strong emotion seemed to cause greater tension. Well, if I can't be honest about how I feel, what the heck am I doing? My life isn't all flowers and sunshine...sometimes it's tornadoes and stink weeds! If my sister doesn't want to accept my multiple apologies or my mom really isn't interested in what happens in my life or my friends can't remember the 7 digits that make up my number, why in the world should that dictate what goes into my blog?

So the question I have pondered is, what is the purpose of my blog? Obviously, it's not to keep my family connected, but Chad's family is gracious and comments occasionally. Apparently it's not to give my feelings a voice. I'm not someone with hundreds or thousands of readers (if I have 20, I'm surprised).

I am not posting any of this to cause a firestorm or get a bunch of sympathy comments. Things are what they are...I've only stated what I consider to be facts, without emotion. However, I would like to know if there is any reason to continue this blog. Does it serve a purpose, other than giving me a record of my family's activities? Is there anything here that can't be shared via FB? Maybe I should go private and really know who my audience is. I appreciate any insight.

Potty Training

It could be going better.

Cell Phone shots

I take a picture of something when I want to share part of my day with Chad. I pull out my cell phone, snap the picture, then email it off to him. Here are a few of the things that have been going on in our lives.

WIND - It really got bad around here a while back. Because the genius that added on to our house (it wasn't our house then) back in the early 90's was lazy, we have a layer of shingles put down over a shake roof. You know the rustic-looking wood shingles that are very bumpy? They are still bumpy...under the shingles. Every time the wind blow over 35 mph (which it does occasionally around here), our house has flapping shingles. This time, the wind was strong enough to rip up a big enough section that the shakes were visible. (The guy also put a space heater in the crawl space to keep the pipes from freezing...but no vapor barrier. Genius.)


SLEEP - I had some errands to run one day that completely wiped out naptime. Sitting in front of the TV later that day, Sarah lost consciousness. She eventually had her forehead on the seat, but this was about 20 minutes before that.

MORE SLEEP - I like to squeeze in a 15-20 minute nap when I can. If I don't make Joseph take a formal nap, he usually gets bored and joins me in the bed. He looks so peaceful! He got a pretty good nap this day.

REAL GENIUS - I can decide how much of it is bias and how much is a fair label, but Sarah seems to be showing a few smarty genes. This day I looked down to see that she had arranged my hot roller clips in a balanced pattern. I sent this picture to Chad to ask if he thought it was intentional or lucky.


CONFIRMED - A couple of days later, I sent this picture. I had witnessed her in action and even heard her getting after Rebekah or Joseph for trying to mess her up. I think she would have put one more purple clip on the left but thought she didn't have enough room. I guess her spatial sense is still developing. When she's done, she takes them all off and throws them randomly into the drawer. At least that part of her is on par with the other kids...they leave my stuff in a mess all the time!

PAINTING - We painted the girls' room yellow over Presidents' Day weekend. Since we weren't going to paint the ceiling, I thought it might be worth a shot to pretend we had crown molding up by not painting all the way up. Additionally, I liked the idea of not accidentally painting the ceiling while we were working. When it was all done, it looked more like we had just painted not quite to the top of the wall.

I decided it needed something more after we made and installed new curtains and a shelf/curtain rod for each window. The fabric, while on sale, was a pretty penny. But we got the shelves made for less than $20 total (we already had paint). The curtain rods are 1/2" pvc pipe.

With the colorful curtains up, I thought there should be a way to tie it all to the room a little better. I made a sketch of my idea on my computer and tried it out on the wall. After a few adjustments, we had something we liked.


PRACTICE - I did not want to mess up where it counted, so I practiced what I wanted on the kids' bathroom walls. We will be painting in there (eventually) so I wasn't afraid to mess up anything. I made a stencil from vellum, but was worried that it wouldn't hold up to the moisture of the paint. I learned that I was right, but in the meantime I came up with this.


When the stencil didn't work, I tried my hand and painting...by hand. I was confident enough afterwards that I decided to go ahead.
BORDER - Unfortunately, I had to make several trips around the room to get everything done. The first trip was with another stencil to hold up and mark with pencil. The next step was the purple vines. After that were the millions of pink flowers. (It felt like millions.) And the last step was for the butterflies.

I knew that my artistic talents fell short of free-handing butterflies, so I went back to the vellum stencil idea. This time, I covered the vellum with contact paper, then cut the butterflies from that (on my Silhouette, of course). I used a light tack spray adhesive on the back to make them sticky, but repositionable. I lined them up with the placement marks I had done on my first time around the room and flipped and flopped them as inspired. I had to reapply adhesive only once. I think the end result turned out pretty cute.


It was a lot of going up and down a ladder, stretching and reaching, and muttering under my breath. The boys want their room painted soon and I expect another border is in my future. But for now, the ladder is put away! :)

We have been up to more than this, but I have to find the real camera to remember what they all were. We still have 7 living lambs with one ewe yet to deliver. Leah lost a front tooth and I still haven't gotten used to her new look. My house is a mess, so we must be OK...or at least normal. I have been struggling with some things and am still trying to figure some stuff out. I guess that's normal, too, but it still stinks!

Church Dance

Church! Church! It's time to go to church!


We love to go to church! Hooray!

Ha ha. I don't know what they were really doing here (Chad took the pictures), but I think that's what this picture should portray. Yay, CHURCH!

Missing

I would like my family to know that just because you read my blog and feel you have connected with me because you know a little of what we have been doing - - you haven't.

I don't know that you have read anything. I know only silence. It sounds very loud to me and sends me the message that you don't want or enjoy or require having a real conversation(relationship) with me.

The fact that I have tried to express this before (and once upon a time even made attempts to reach out), but still have not heard much from you, confirms my self-evaluation that I am unimportant to you. It has created trust issues within nearly all of my relationships. (If your own family doesn't care, who really will?)

No emails, no texts, no visits and 3-minute phone conversations tell me a lot of things. What would they tell you? Yes, you can find examples contrary to my complaint, but how many of them can you find?

I am missing you and missing from your lives and I can see that you don't care. I am trying not to care. I am not doing it very well. But eventually, I think I will master it. Just don't assume reading my blog is doing for me what it is doing for you.

Misery

THIS is what I got out of my laundry room as I prepared to mop.   I mopped in there last week so don't start thinking I'm just a lazy housekeeper (which I am). 

Why does the door to outside and all the animals have to be through the same space I wash my clothes?  WHY?  There are so many things I would change about this house...including the fact that we live in it.

Crazy Week!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! Here is a little piece of our decorations this year. I saw this idea on Pinterest.com and thought I'd try it myself. It would have been nearly impossible without my Silhouette, so I must give the credit where it is due!

Of course, these last two weeks have found us deep in the throws of sharing Valentines with each other. Chad came up with some great Valentines this year! Sunday night, Chad filled the tub with really hot water, bubbles and this:

(That is a little Fisher Price lamb in a boat.)

I got a pretty good laugh over it and then climbed in. When I turned around, saw this:

The joke is funnier when you know the tub looked like this a few days before:


It all started on Tuesday, 7 Feb when Chad went out to feed the animals and found 2 little lambs! By the time Chad got home that evening, Leah and I had brought this little ewe lamb inside because she wasn't standing on her own anymore.


She lived in this box, sitting in front of the heater in the bathroom, for the night while we bottle fed her through the night. Daniel named her - Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. We called her Super instead.

Here is Super's mother and twin sister. They are still doing quite well. But they no longer recognize each other as family.

She's pretty darn cute, though!

The next day, we had more babies. Chad found them in the morning again. There had been triplets, but sadly, one was already gone. The other two were doing quite well for a while, but we eventually brought the littler one in and put her in front of the heater. We caught her earlier and she's still a better eater than Super. We named her Ali as in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Those two little gals were so SKINNY!

During the night, while we were feeding the lambs, Chad went out to check on Ali's brother. He was fine. Less than 4 hours later, he was moments from death. Those lambs will die for no reason! We bought a second heat lamp that evening and got it up in the shed.

Meanwhile, I was getting my fill of lambs in my bathroom. Their poop was really stinky. I tried to keep them in the tub to make the clean up easier, but Chad was worried that the cast iron tub was too cold. So then the poop built up in the box we were keeping them in. Gross! On the other hand, I am quite impressed with my washer and laundry detergent!

I would put them in the tub to hopefully catch the poop and pee that inevitably came after a feeding. When Ali started getting OUT of the tub, I knew we were at our limit. Chad moved them outside to the warm heat lamps. And then he cleaned the bathroom. What a man!

Two quiet days passed and then we ended up with triplets again on Saturday. We watched them so closely. OK...Chad did the watching. He got up every 90 minutes to make sure everyone was well and occasionally to feed Super and Ali. He was pretty tired on Sunday!

The lambs were growing well and seemed fine. Here is a shot of them from yesterday.


And then I went out today and found the smallest one (a ram) cold, on the ground. Shoot. He was doing so well! So we are currently at 5 lambs. There are two ewes that have not had babies yet. We just wait and watch and pray over our little flock. Even the kids mention the lambs in their prayers.

We are not very skilled shepherds, but we are trying. Hopefully, we are learning and will have a better year next year (provided next year is as we plan).

Nathan had a birthday!

Nathan waited all year for this day (or so it seemed)! He was so looking forward to taking treats to school and then a scout activity (his first one as a Webelos) after school. The day dawned and he was sick! So he had to stay home. :(

But as you should already know, we are used to such birthday illnesses and made some adaptations. We postponed going out to dinner, but we carried on with presents and cake! (We are quite stalwart, I know.)

Here is the newly turned ten-year-old, surrounded by eager siblings. What was Nathan going to get?!?

Among his presents were his scout book and Webelos colors. He also got a real CTR ring (meaning it won't turn his finger green and cost a few pennies) and socks. I spared you the pictures of that!

Chad and I were excited to give him this present. It's a series of pieces that snap together to form electrical circuits and includes things like magnets, motors, light bulbs, etc. It's call Snaptricity. Learn more about it here.


But even that gift was upstaged by the pocket knife/key chain that Daniel passed on to him. Boys!


Don't forget the cake! I wanted to make a cake that would be something interesting to Nathan. I decided to make him a Hexbug cake, but was dismayed to not find any examples on the internet. What? I can't have that original of an idea. My first thought was to cut out the hexes and tracks from the cake but decided that would be too difficult and resorted to "drawing" everything on. The actual Hexbugs still vexed me and I took another easy road...I used real ones!


It's not to scale, but it still tasted good.

Nathan blew out the candles and served up the cake.

The girls liked it. (Sarah is always climbing on the table...it drives me nuts!)
The boys liked it, too. I did learn an interesting lesson about serving sizes. This was just one cake mix, baked in a 1/2 sheet pan. We got skinny, but wide pieces of cake and tricked ourselves into eating only half the cake. In past experiences, we have polished of the entire thing! It's a small stroke of genius...that I'll probably not do again just for the sake of eating less.


After cake, the kids "helped" Nathan assemble some circuits. The kit comes with a booklet that gives a diagram and instructions and explains what is happening. The kids were really just intrigued by the fan that they could make fly straight up into the air. Boys!

Happy Birthday, Nathan! We hope you know how much we love you!

Sarah has been practicing her smile. It's getting better (less "bull dog")!

Ribbon Rack

I bought this wood-like lazy susan at DI back in May. I had grand designs for it, but then had second thoughts and just kept it in my room for months on end. I eventually had another idea, but it took me a while to get my rear in gear!


But with a little measuring, drilling, cutting, gluing and painting, I ended up with this. (My thanks to Chad who got the drill and sand paper out of the garage for me and cut my dowels.) I painted it this morning with some paint I had on hand.

Ta Da! Now I can see all my ribbon in a simple spin and can access all of it without creating an avalanche. And I can also see that I need to get more ribbon!

Quote of the Morning

This gem of four-year-old reasoning comes from Joseph.

"Mommy, I know what rich people are. Mean people."

At this point I gave him a strange look and he asked, "Are they're?" (Are they?)

I know what my conscience is telling me to say to him, but I really only know one rich person, and he IS mean!

Heavy Headed

Joseph was leaning over the side of the arm chair I was sitting in and leaned his head into my hip. I exclaimed my discomfort about the pressure put onto my bone and told him his head was heavy.

To this he replied, "That's because my head has so much bones in it!"

I couldn't dispute it. And incidentally, my hip still smarts.

Sleep walking

We have two children that sleep walk: Daniel and Leah.

Leah is our more active of the two. She doesn't talk too much and we can't really understand what she does say.

Daniel can carry on a conversation when he is up, but it's a slow one. He usually has to make a trip to the bathroom and then can go back to bed. He may even wake up after he's taken care of business, but he usually doesn't remember his nighttime walks.

It's now 10 PM and Leah just headed down the hall toward me at a pretty brisk walk. I thought she would stop when she got to me, but she snubbed me and head past me to the laundry room. She walked right up to the washer and shut the door. (I keep it open as much as possible to keep it from stinking.) Then she turned around and came back into the hallway.

At this point, Chad intercepted her and escorted her back to bed. I don't think she uttered a single syllable.

That's a first for me! Who knew Leah had such strong feelings about the washing machine?

Baby Dragons

Joseph asked me today if dragonflies were baby dragons.

It's an interesting train of thought, really.

Because of all the dragonflies we get around here, I'm very glad that they AREN'T baby dragons!

Cornbread Aftermath

Daniel made the corn bread to go along with dinner tonight. He did it all by himself. (I'm sure it tastes fine.)

I was a little surprised at the amount of measuring cups it required to get all the ingredients into the batter. I didn't realize it had that many ingredients! (I'm sure it tastes fine.)

Here are the dishes he left on the counter when he was done. I'm guessing (hoping) that the mixing spoon is in the sink. It obviously isn't Daniel's night for dishes, or he might have been more conservative. Then again, it probably wouldn't have mattered.


The cookie sheet is not part of his mess...it's part of mine. ;)

I can't wait to try some of that corn bread! (I'm sure it tastes GREAT!)

Creative Writing

The boys have brought home some of their schoolwork over the past few days and I made sure to flip through it all to find the creative writing. I found some interesting things. (I won't be using spell check on this post, due to the developing skills of my budding authors. So, I apologize now for any spelling errors I make!)

This first one is from Nathan. It's even illustrated!


In case you can't enlarge the picture, here is what he wrote:

My snowman is really naughty at night, he quiety climbs over the fence around my yard, goes across the bumpy street and across the long field. Finaly he gets to the park and believe me its wild.

A Night in Monsterville
I ran after my naughty dog into the old and deserted house. "Midnight," I yelled, but there was no one there. then I herd a bark at the far end of the hous. I ran in the diretion of the bark and I was in what must be the living room. "Midnight," I called again. Then I saw the fire come on and then of again. I looked around and saw chairs covered in cloth, suits of armor, and a piano playing by itself. I walked to the end of the room and and opened a creaking door that lead into the kichen. I opened a cupboard and there were half a dozen skeleton shaped cups. Then I herd a noise behind me. I turnned around and saw something walk into another door. I followed it into room after room. It started to walk down the steps but I could keep hearing my dog walking upstairs. Then I remembered, I was looking for my dog not what was downstairs. When I looked back at the stairs, the door had shut. I open the door and instead of seeing it going down the stairs went up. This must lead to the room I heard my dog in. I went up, but there was a dead end. Just then the ground collapsed, and down, down, down I went and hit his bed. "Crazy knightmares" I said in disgust.

My Morning
When I wake up I see the faint shadow of my dad standing over me. Every morning I wake up and get dressed. If I'm lucky, the heater will be on. Once I'm dressed, I go downstairs to the laundry room put on my coat, gloves, hat and maybe a head light By the time I'm ready to go outside, my dad is already pumping water into a bucket. He opeans the gate and I say, "water." It seems that breakd Ice is easier the giving hay to the animals. Now that I have my stick I start the process of breacking ice. "Thud, thud, thud, crack, thud, thud, thud, crack", the sound of hitting the inch-thick ice rings in my ears. Well there goes the first one, Next its time for the other one. Finally, now that the buckets all contain ice water and the hay is given to all the animals, I can go back inside to a nice, cozy, warm, house.

The Day of Snow
The news report said there would be snow in the moring. As soon as I could, I ran downstairs. Then I found my boots, gloves, and hat. Before you knew it, I was running back upstairs to tell my little sisters the good news. After I told them, I told my brothers the wonderful news to. They were pretty excited about the possibility of having a day off from school. My mom was the only one who didn't think that a snow day would be fun. She said that weekdays were the time for her to relax and for us to think. We told her that we would just outside and play, and it would be like we weren't even there.


At the very least, the boys keep me entertained. And who knows, maybe one day they'll break through the mechanics and grammar rules of writing to earn lots of money and make me a mother to an author(s)!

Campout

Chad is gone for the night on a scout campout, so we had a little fun tonight.

We watched "Zookeeper," enjoyed some doughnuts, and then got out the Bingo game Daniel got for Christmas. We used conversation hearts for our Bingo markers while eating enough of them to make us sick. After a couple of games of Bingo, we read scriptures and had a song and prayer.

Then the kids got their blankets and settled in for a couple of chapters of Little Town on the Prairie. I turned on some Kenny G for them while I washed dishes and gave them a chance to settle down.

Nathan had been complaining about having to listen to music, but he was asleep first! He didn't even make it through 3 songs. Don't mess with a sexy saxophone! ;)

I had the boys (and everyone else) at the dentist this morning to have some teeth pulled. Nathan had four teeth pulled and Daniel went in for two teeth but ended up losing three. One was loose, so the dentist gave us a "freebie." I don't know how free it really was because it cost the Tooth Fairy an extra 50 cents!

So by now all kids are sleeping, the dish washer is going as well as the laundry. The Tooth Fairy has made her visit and I am heading to bed.

Here is what it looks like in the living room right now. Those blue eyes in the back belong to Cleo, our cat. :)

I remember the days when it was fun to sleep on the floor. Now I only do that when I have no other choice!

Rebekah's Monster

Rebekah (first grade) wrote a little story for school. She followed a given pattern, but the creativity is all hers!

"My new friend is a pink tickle monster.
It says smooooooockie smock.
It eats stufing.
It plays hide and seek."

Personally, I would love to hear this monster!

One of "Those" Days!

Today really started last night when Chad was hooking up the trailer to his truck in anticipation of making a trip to Rexburg to buy some hay. When he went out this morning, he realized he'd locked his keys in the truck. No big deal...I have a key to his truck. The problem was that he'd left the key turned in the ignition and the battery was DEAD.

I had no clue that there was a problem until Daniel mentioned something about Daddy having a hard time getting the van out with the truck in the way. I threw on some pants and went out to help. By that time, he'd unhooked the trailer, put it in the garage instead of the van and had the van up to the truck as close as possible (there is a fence in the way). We got the truck started and headed back inside to finish getting the kids ready for the day.

I changed back into my pjs and finished getting the kids out the door. Chad had already said good-bye and had been gone for at least 5 minutes when I looked out the window to check on the kids (waiting for the bus). There was Chad again, trying to tow the truck into a good spot so that he could get the van up to it. The engine hadn't run long enough and the battery was still dead. So while the bus is pulling up to get the kids, we are straining to push the truck. We were no match for it, but were able to get the van closer (barely).

Once he was on his way, Chad had no more trouble. But he was late and couldn't stop at the bank to get the money for the hay. So I took Joseph and Sarah with me and pulled out what he needed. The plan was to be waiting for the afternoon bus to immediately take the boys and the money to meet Chad at work so he could get to Rexburg on time.

WELL, the school called just as the final bell was ringing to say that Leah didn't feel well and thought she might throw up. Did I want to come and get her or just have her come home on the bus? I couldn't load up the kids that fast, and how many times have we heard a child say they thought they were going to throw up and never do it? Besides, Sarah was constipated and I had just given her a suppository that I was waiting on.

When the bus was late (and Sarah still had not pooped), I wondered if Leah had thrown up. It finally arrived and Leah got off with a red and tear-stained face. Yes...she had thrown up...twice. The bus was late getting to the middle school because of it. I'm very sorry for her having to get sick publicly and to have the bus driver get that nice present, but I'm grateful it happened on the bus and not in my van! They can just hose down the inside of the bus!

So she and Rebekah stayed home while I drove the boys to meet Chad. Joseph and Sarah came along for the ride. :) Everything was nice and calm and Leah only threw up once. It took Chad a while to get home because he was over-loaded with over a ton of hay and was sticking to back roads. (He fell off the half-loaded truck once while he was loading it and is still finding places that are sore.)

When he got home, I went out to help him unload. We got the trailer backed up and unloaded and Chad pulled out to park the trailer so we could unload the truck bed. Remember that we recently got a new drain field? That left us with loose dirt. Normally, this time of January would give us frozen ground. But because of the warmer weather, we have MUD. And the truck found a really soft spot, burying the rear driver tire up past the bumper. It was still loaded.

That began the job of unloading the truck on the other side of the pasture from where we wanted it. Meanwhile, we were fighting off two very hungry calves. Once the truck was unloaded and a bit of digging was accomplished, Chad was able to free the truck. That began the job of REloading the truck to drive around the soft mud to get the hay bales where we needed them. It took 3 trips.

At one point, Chad was chasing after the troublesome cows and stepped (fell) right into the hole the tire had been in. He was in mud up to his knee. Maybe it sounds mean, but I laughed so hard I almost fell out of the back of the truck! When a cow fell in the same hole and also struggled to get out, I thought the show was well worth my money. :)

We finally got the hay moved and were driving the truck out of the pasture, so I walked ahead to open the gate. I stepped right into a different mud hole up to the top of my chore boot! I had to pull my foot out and have Chad pull out my boot. Ah...more laughing. And now my foot was cold and muddy. We had to move the trailer by hand and get it out of the pasture.

The best part? That isn't even half of the hay that Chad paid for. He has to go back! It will take two more trips. We are sad farmers, but we laughed a lot. Our coats went right into the washer, including Leah's coat with throw-up on it. The pants and socks still need to be laundered. Chad's shoe came in filled with water because he's sprayed them off. His sock was dripping mud. We both have sore muscles and new bruises.

BUT, I was able to accomplish something during a quiet moment this afternoon. I made this menu chart for our dinners. We chose some of our favorite meals then I divided them into categories and color coded them. We'll pick from our tried and true favorites and add a new recipe every once in a while. Knowing what I'm going to make for dinner has really helped this week!

We expect tomorrow to be boring after the day we had! How was your day?