M&M joins the Tabernacle Choir!

Well, not quite, but she had the opportunity to sing with a children's choir in the Tabernacle under the direction of Craig Jessop.




















The church's department of Family & Church History had a "family night" at the Tabernacle & Church History Museum for all employees of the department and their families. One of the special activities for the kids was to have a practice choir session with Craig Jessop and then to sing 2 primary songs that they practiced for a short devotional immediately following the practice. M&M had a great seat in the upper right corner of the middle section in front of the large organ pipes. I'm sure this was a once in a lifetime experience that she probably doesn't quite appreciate at her young age.


















While the children's choir was practicing, the rest of our family went on a VIP tour of the underground sections of the Tabernacle. After we listened to the devotional, one of the organists at the Tabernacle gave a little demonstration of the organ. She was very talented & the organ has such an amazing (and loud) sound.

Enjoying some ice cream cones!

The innocence of little kids...

On Sunday morning I was undressing Kitty for a bath and Blondie was getting herself undressed. When Blondie was finished, she walked past me & Kitty to climb into the tub and Kitty gave a little laugh and said, "We're naked Blondie!"

How do you like my new...

**WARNING: If you are a member of the N family and would rather be surprised by what is new at my house (since the Ns LOVE to surprise one another), please stop reading this blog and do not scroll down the page to see the pictures!!**


There is a couple in our ward that makes clocks and sells them. They used to sell them at a boutique craft store but with the wife's new calling in November (Relief Society President), they decided that they were too busy to continue selling at the store and they just do it on the side now when people ask them. I have known for quite some time that they made clocks but I had never seen one of them so I didn't know what they looked like. A few weeks ago I was at the home of another ward member and noticed a large clock hanging on their wall that had their name on it. I asked where they got it and they said that it was made by this couple in our ward, the Harrises. I really liked the clock and thought that something like that would go very nicely on the big blank wall in our dining area of the house. I mentioned to DH about the clock and he suggested that I look into it and talk with Sister Harris about it to find out more info/how much they charge, etc.

A week or two later we had a YW activity where we made some freezer meals for families in the ward. We ended up taking the meals directly to the Relief Society President's house so that she could keep them in her freezer and have them available when they were needed. Since the girls all ended up leaving for home directly from the Harris' house, I decided to stick around and ask her about the clocks and if they were still making them. She invited me into her house right then to look at some that were all done except the personalization to see if there was one that I liked. I did like one of them and I asked her how much they were selling them for and said that I would talk to my husband about it and let her know if we wanted her to finish one for us.

Less than a week after I told Gayle that we wanted the clock and what we wanted on it, she had it finished and I picked it up at her house. Because of my parents moving into town and us helping them with some of the unpacking we didn't get it hung up for a couple of days, but here it is:

Here is a picture taken from our living room so you can get some perspective on how big the clock is:
Now I'm trying to decide if I want to buy some type of decoration to hang on either side of the clock.

Sick household

I think I can say today that we are all officially healthy now. It all started on Sunday morning when I went to get Kitty out of bed. She was looking down at her hands and when I got closer I realized that she had thrown up in bed. I'm not sure when it happened, but I got her up and dressed and decided to wait and see if she was sick or not. We stayed up late on Saturday night watching a movie and eating caramel popcorn so I thought that maybe she had just eaten too much and that's why she had thrown up. Apparently not though because I brought her to the kitchen table to eat some breakfast and she threw up again.

DH was at a meeting while all this was going on so he was a little surprised when he got home and I told him that one of us would have to stay home from church that day. DH volunteered to stay since I had been asked to lead the singing in sacrament meeting. Thankfully the kids did fine sitting by themselves. Kitty was a real trooper while she was sick. She never cried or whined once. She spent most of the day just sitting with either DH or me which is something that she rarely does.

She ended up sleeping through the night just fine and then seemed to be back to her old self on Monday and the rest of us felt fine as well. So I thought that we were all through it (wishful thinking on my part). I spent the day on Monday cleaning my house to get ready for my parents and sister M to arrive. (My parents are officially Utahns again!) They arrived around 4 in the afternoon. I gave them directions to get to their house so they could drop off their dog Molly and then come back to my house for dinner and to go to M&M's end of the year gymnastics performance. When we got back home after M&M's performance my stomach started to really hurt all of a sudden. We got some things for my parents (air mattresses, sheets, pillows, etc) so they could sleep in their new house (the moving truck was coming at 8 a.m. the next morning) and then got the kids off to bed. I then spent some time in the bathroom and tried going to bed myself.

Not too much later I heard Blondie crying and DH in the bathroom with her. Well, the sickness hit her as well and she had thrown up in bed and it was all over (in her hair too - yuck). Unfortunately I was still feeling sick and couldn't really go and help. I finally managed to get myself out of bed and went in to try and comfort Blondie while DH cleaned up. Poor girl!

We got her back to bed and I went back to bed myself. The next thing I knew Blondie was walking into my room with her hand over her mouth saying that she was going to throw up again. I told her to quickly get into the bathroom and we actually made it to the toilet before she threw up. I sat there with her for a few minutes and then I started feeling sick again so I took my turn throwing up with Blondie watching from behind. At one point while I was throwing up she said, "Whoa! Good one Mom!" She then asked me if I was feeling better (apparently she was...).

So back to bed again and then at about six in the morning Luke woke up throwing up. He was pretty good about it, but unfortunately it woke Kitty up. She was pretty wide awake and hadn't thrown up at all on Monday and I was feeling a little better so I brought her into my bed to try and get her back to sleep. She was awake and talking for a while and then all of a sudden she started to throw up! I managed to catch most of it in my hands but we still had to change the sheets on the bed. So I took Kitty downstairs and tried to get some sleep with her on the couch.

Luke stayed home from school on Tuesday and DH took the day off of work. I got M&M off to school and told her to let her teacher know if she started feeling sick. I called my parents and warned them that we were all sick and probably wouldn't be coming over for a couple of days. Not too long after I hung up, the phone rang and I heard M&M's voice on the other end - she sounded upset. I immediately thought that she had thrown up at school or on the bus and needed to be picked up from school. Well, it turns out that they had changed the lunch menu for that day and they were going to be serving something for lunch that she didn't like. I told her not to worry about it and I would have her dad bring a lunch to her.

Well, Blondie, Kitty, Luke & I sat around all morning watching some kids shows and DH stayed in bed. Finally at around 10:30 I decided that I needed to get up and shower and get a lunch to M&M before she got too worried. DH finally started stirring when I got out of the shower and I told him that I needed to take a lunch to school for M&M. Apparently DH was tired/not feeling well too and he ended up sleeping most of the day.

We were all worried about M&M because with the rate things were going with our family she was the next to get sick and very soon. Her class was scheduled to go on a field trip on Wednesday and I was afraid that she would end up missing it. Amazingly though, M&M has not been sick at all. She was able to go to her field trip and hasn't caught any of the sickness that the rest of us had.

Luke woke up feeling fine on Wednesday and went back to school. DH stayed home from work another day because he still wasn't feeling too good himself. Blondie threw up again on Wednesday morning so I left DH home with Blondie & Kitty while I went to the grocery store and post office. Kitty had a LOT of very runny diapers up until Thursday morning, but I think we are all finally in the clear today (Friday). My mom & sister were both feeling a little sick on Wednesday but we're not sure if it was what our family had or a result of stress from the move and unpacking.

Blondie & the broken toy

Yesterday Blondie accidentally stepped on a toy plane of Luke's and broke a wheel off the front of it. She brought the pieces to me and told me that she had stepped on it and was wondering if I could fix it. The way the pieces were broken I told her that I didn't think it could be fixed. After I told her that, she immediately responded with, "I'll ask Dad to fix it. He can fix anything..."

Kitty talk

Even though Kitty has more than her share of temper tantrums that she can throw throughout the day, overall she is a very cute little girl who talks quite a lot for a 2 year old. Kitty has some funny expressions that she says. One thing that she does is refer to herself as "Mine's" instead of "I". Here are some examples of the funny things she says:

"Mine's sleeped well," means "I slept well".

"Mine's got toesies," means that she has bare feet.

I checked out a He-Man DVD last week just for kicks (DH & I both watched it when we were younger). While we were watching it, whenever He-Man would say, "I have the power", Kitty would say, "Mine's got the power".

I was cleaning the bathrooms the other day and Kitty had to come and help me. So I gave her a sponge to use and she helped me wipe down the counters. When I got to the toilet though, I decided I needed to find something else for her to do while I cleaned the toilet myself. So I put her up on the counter with a paper towel, sprayed the mirror with a cleaning spray and let her clean the mirrors while I was working on the toilet. While Kitty was wiping the mirror she kept saying, "Mine's can do it... all the way home." (I think she was getting that line from the "This Little Piggie" song when the littlest piggy cries, "Wee, wee, wee, all the way home".)

Every once in a while Kitty will just out of the blue say, "What the hey?!?" She got this from a Sesame Street DVD that we checked out from the library a couple of weeks ago. It sounds pretty funny hearing that come out of her mouth...

Kitty was sitting with her dad last week (I think we were watching some He-Man episodes) and she looked down at his feet and said, "You've got toesies woesies!"

Kitty is very concerned about other people. Whenever she hears someone crying or coughing or something similar, she'll go over to them, put her hand on their shoulder and ask, "You okay?"

I took Kitty to get her pictures taken a couple of weeks ago since she just turned two. After we were finished with the photo shoot we went out to the computers to look at the pictures and decide which ones I wanted. When the photographer pulled up the first picture on the computer I asked Kitty who it was. She said, "That's Kitty." Then when he switched to the next picture I asked her again who it was and she responded, "That's Janey." The photographer started to laugh because he thought that she thought the picture was of someone else whose name was Janey. I had to explain to him that Jane is her middle name and I call her Janey a lot so she will sometimes call herself Kitty and other times will call herself Janey. It's actually kind of funny because she uses the names interchangeably. I'm sure it will start to confuse some people when she gets a little older.

No more braces!

On Thursday, M&M had her braces taken off (all 6 of them) and was fitted for a retainer which we picked up on Friday. It's amazing how straight and pretty her teeth look! She is supposed to wear the retainer all day & night (except when eating) for 6 months and then just at night after that. Unfortunately this is just round 1 of braces for her since she hasn't lost all of her baby teeth yet, but hopefully it will shorten the amount of time she has to have them on later...

Busy days!

I haven't been blogging much this past week because things have been very busy out here. Now that the weather is getting nice it is time to get the garden ready for planting and I've been painting our wood fence with a wood protector so that it will resist water and last longer. I've only done the front of the fence so far and it's taking a lot of paint and a lot of time. The wood is just soaking up the paint. (In the picture the left side is painted and the right side is not.) We've also been busy looking after my parents' new house (mowing the lawn, setting out the garbage and collecting mail). Luke has been out of school this week so the teacher could conduct end-of-the-year testing. I've also been visiting a lot of stores looking for some items for the adult craft activity for the W Family Reunion.

Here is my week in review:

Friday - Get our sectional! Go to the grocery store. Try to mow the backyard but it starts raining. M&M attends a birthday party.
Saturday - Drive to my parents house. DH mows the lawn while the kids & I vacuum the house. Come home. DH gets the kids lunch while I finish mowing the backyard. Luke attends a birthday party. M&M & I do some shopping until the party's over.
Sunday - YW board meeting, Elder's Quorum Pres. meeting, church, Elder's Quorum visits
Monday - Go to Furniture Warehouse. Return something to a store and do some shopping for the family reunion. Pick up M&M from gymnastics. Eat dinner. Go to my parents' house to put out the garbage & take a walk up there for FHE. Neighbor sees us and we visit for a while. Don't get home until about 10 p.m.
Tuesday - Do laundry all day. Luke has kindergarten testing. Go to a few more stores. Paint some of the fence. Run out of paint. Make dinner. Take M&M & DH to get some eye exams. M&M will need glasses soon but the longer we can wait the better. We will probably get her some when school starts up again after the summer. She is taking after DH it appears... Order some glasses & sunglasses for DH. Go home and eat dinner at about 8 p.m. :( Get a call from the optical dept saying they overcharged us $100. :) Missed enrichment since we got home so late (the appointments were for 5 & 5:30).
Wednesday - Take the kids to a neighbor's house so I can help with M&M's class at school. Go to the store to get more paint. Eat lunch. Mail some packages at the post office. Paint some more fence. Do another load of laundry. Make dinner. DH gets home and takes apart the dryer so he can fix it with the replacement parts we got that day. Find out that we need to order another part. :( DH puts the dryer back together while I run off to a YW activity.
Thursday - Work outside in the garden. Fill up the trash can with weeds and rocks. Hopefully it will be ready to plant on Saturday. Take a shower. Pick M&M up from school for her orthodontist appt. Stop at Wendy's for lunch on the way. M&M gets her braces off!! :) (More details tomorrow)

It's here!

Well, we finally got our sectional last Friday. Just after I wrote my blog saying that we were going to have it delivered Friday morning, we got a call from the salesman saying that they were loading it up on the truck and noticed that the sectional wasn't quite what we had ordered. The sectional that they received had a sleeper sofa which we opted not to get. Our thinking was that the family room is the last place where we would put guests that are sleeping over at our house. The price was cheaper without the sleeper since there would just be spring & cushions in place of it. The salesman wanted to know what we wanted to do. We decided to take it with the sleeper as long as they wouldn't try and charge us any more. We are also supposed to get $100 taken off the price since we had to wait so long and our 12-month no interest will get a couple of months added to it.

We were told that the delivery men would call on their way to the house, which they didn't do. They got here at about 9 a.m. and it took a lot of work to get it into our family room. There is a short flight of stairs and then a narrow doorway at the bottom of the stairs. I was actually afraid that they weren't going to be able to get it in. Thankfully after a few tries, unscrewing some legs and moving back and forth they were finally able to get it in and we have been enjoying it this past week. DH says we can have a couple of more kids now because we have room on the sectional for them. Blondie & Kitty have a hard time climbing onto it because it is quite a bit taller than our old couches.

We paid extra to get stain protection on the couch and the salesman told us that we would get the info for it from the delivery men. I asked one of the deliverymen about it and he said that we should have received a kit at the store when we purchased the sectional... The deliveryman said that I would have to go back to the store and pick one up. He said that there are usually some on the delivery truck but there weren't any that day (of course). So that night we were sitting around enjoying the sectional when Blondie decided to do a somersault on it and ended up getting a bloody nose somehow - and of course she got some blood on the couch... Luckily DH was able to get it out... (He was not too happy though.)

I went back to the store on Monday and they seemed a little hesitant to give me a kit. I think the lady behind the customer service counter went back and asked someone what she should do. She told me that she was going to go see if they had any and then when she came back she grabbed a kit from off a shelf right next to the counter (and there were at least 8-10 others there right in plain view of where she sits at the counter).

I also took one of the pillows with me when I went back because I wasn't convinced that the color was correct. Apparently this color green just looks VERY different in the store than it does in our house because the color was the same. I also asked if they could have someone come out and adjust the recliner on the chaise lounge because it does not go back easily and it doesn't stay back. There's supposed to be some way to adjust the spring tension but I can't find where the dial is you're supposed to be able to turn. I still haven't heard from the repairman...

**I just want to say that I have NOT been impressed with this store. I would not recommend Furniture Warehouse to anyone. The only time I can ever see myself going back there is if it is for something I can buy and take home with me that day. I will not take any more deliveries from them and I will never, ever do any special orders from this store again... Their customer service has been horrible, the salesman we worked with was not very good with dealing with our problem and the furniture company that they order from was horrible in communicating to our salesman that they were having problems with our order...

It's rough being 2

Kitty has had a rough time this week. She can throw some terrific tantrums when she doesn't get what she wants. On Tuesday she was throwing one of those tantrums and had thrown herself on the living room floor and was just laying there crying & screaming and the next thing I knew she was asleep. The funny part is that I was vacuuming at the time and M&M & Luke were playing around her and were not being very quiet either. Kitty has never been a good napper - even when she was a baby, so I usually don't put her down for a nap. I guess when you're tired enough you can fall asleep anywhere and sleep through anything...

Then on Wednesday while I was at YW, this is how she fell asleep while the family was watching a movie...

More updates

My dentist appointment went well on Tuesday. The endodontist said that as long as I don't have any more problems with pain or swelling in that area of my jaw, he doesn't need to see me until the fall for a quick follow-up. It took me about 30 minutes to drive there, I was in the office for about 5 minutes and then it took me another 20 minutes to get home...

I got a call from the Furniture Company earlier this week asking if they could move the delivery date for our sectional to Friday because there was some problem that came up with Thursday. They then called this morning and said that they will deliver it tomorrow between 8 a.m. and noon. So tomorrow by this time we should have it. Yea!!!

After playing some phone tag with a genetics counselor at the U of U, we finally were able to talk to each other. After reading some of the info on my sister's report we were able to determine that the test I need done can't be done at the U of U. So she directed me to the website for the Texas clinic and she was able to help me figure out which test I need from their lab. I then called up my Dr's office and of course he is out of town until next week... The lady I talked to told me to bring the papers in that I printed out and she would make sure that my Dr gets them. So hopefully next week I will be able to finally get this test under my belt. The only thing I'm not sure of yet is whether our insurance company will cover any of the costs of the test. The test is $585. The insurance company needs my Dr to call with the procedure codes so they can determine if it will be covered or not.

The basement carpet appears to have dried completely now and so far things look good - and no smells...

The weather has been crazy here over the past week. We finally had to break down and turn on the A/C because we were in the 80s for several days in a row. This morning though we had a cold front hit us. At lunchtime today it was raining/hailing outside and this is what our yard looked like.