What a weekend

I wrote before (I think) about Paul's parents and his dad having open heart surgery. The surgery went well and he was doing okay for a couple of days and then started going down hill Friday. Saturday he was even worse and late at night he was unresponsive and they thought he was maybe having a stroke. They did a CT scan and it didn't show anything. He started coming around but was still not himself. They took him off LorTab and he seemed to do much better. That was not a good drug for him. Now he's on Percaset (sp?) and that seems to be a better match for him. So I was up there Sunday and 3 times on Monday. Paul's been staying at the hospital since Friday (I'd say sleeping there but he really hasn't gotten much sleep). John will probably be there at least 2 more days and then the real hard time starts with taking care of him at home. It's going to be a long couple of weeks.

Sandwich Generation

I'm truly feeling a part of the "sandwich generation" these days. That's where you are raising your young children and at the same time caring for your aging parents. In my case, it's raising the 1 1/2 yr old twins that takes up most of my time and the aging parents are Paul's. His dad had a heart attack at the end of Oct and had 2 stints put in. His mom fell in Dec and broke her femur and had major surgery to repair the leg. She is still recovering and is in a wheelchair at home and cannot put any wait on the broken leg. She goes back to the ortho doc tomorrow to see if she can start putting some wait on it. And then Paul's dad had a quadruple bypass yesterday at LDS Hospital. He is doing pretty good today and they moved him out of ICU. He will be in the hospital another 5 days and then at home recuperating for 3-6 weeks (6 weeks no driving).
I spent a few hours there yesterday and today staying with Carolyn. That's the best assignment for me because I can take Jared and Kamryn there (not a good idea to take them to the hospital for LOTS of reasons). Jared and Kamryn love playing there and it's a great boost for their grammy. They were very good down there today and even watched Teletubbies with her. I've been trying to cook dinner more regularly so that I can take them the extra that I make. My house has gone to pot but that's okay.

Sunday morning

Kamryn.
I really love Sunday mornings now. We just switched to the 11-2 block and it is the greatest.
This Sunday Jared and Kamryn got up a little too early though. They woke up a little after 8:00 but were happy in their beds playing and talking until just before 9:00. We got them up and had breakfasts and baths and were ready for church an hour early. I actually got a little mixed up on the time and when I thought it was 10 minutes to 11 and time to leave it was really 10 minutes to 10. So we had an hour to kill - we took the opportunity to get some pictures and videos of the kids.
This is the best one I got of Jared.
He would never stay still long enough to get a good picture.
Kamryn is quite the poser and loves to have her picture taken.
The other is of Taylor with the twins at Paul's parents house in the evening. Jared and Kamryn love to sit in their Grammy's wheelchair and have Taylor push them around the house.

What a mess

Look at this mess!
Earlier in the morning I had gone in and Kamryn had unloaded just Jared's jammies drawer. I told her no and put everything away (it was actually a good thing because I'd been meaning to clean out that drawer and put away jammies that were too small).
So, later in the day I was going in their room to get a diaper and this is what I found.
There are at least 4 drawers emptied all over the floor.
I couldn't believe it!
I don't know if Jared helped or not but I do know Kamryn started it.

Here's the little culprit. When I am going to clean that mess up? I guess this morning after they wake up they will be staying in their beds while I sort it all out and put everything away.

So, what do you do ...

Yesterday morning Taylor asked me, "So, what do you do all day, anyway?"
I told him a big long list of things and I'm not sure he really believed me. Here's the list
1. Get up at 5:45 to exercise with my friend Cynthia
2. Read in the Book of Mormon
3. Get kids up and off to school
4. Clean up the living room again
5. Whatever it is on the list - pay bills, read emails, dishes, projects, make bed, shower, clean - before Jared and Kamryn wake up.
6. Once Jared and Kamryn are up a lot of my time is devoted to them - feeding, changing diapers, getting them dressed, cleaning up their messes, putting on "Tele guys" (as Kamryn calls them), getting them out of trouble (yesterday it was getting into Brooke's room and her hair spray, body spray and deodorant).
7. When they go down for their naps (which used to be a good 2-3 hours but this week they've only slept for an hour which just kills me) then I hurry to try and get a few more things done from the list.
8. Clean up the living room again.
9. Make dinner
10. When big kids get home busy with them and their homework and driving them to practices, sports, activities, scouts, etc.
11. Have dinner - now this is actually a rarity it seems but one of my goals is to do better about having dinner regularly (more than once a week) with whoever is home at dinnertime.
12. Go to young women's, basketball games, volleyball practice or tournament, meetings, book club, RS, etc depending on the night.
13. Put Jared and Kamryn to bed - which is usually too late, like around 9:00 or 10:00.
14. Clean up the living room - again!
15. Fall into bed exhausted.
One day a week (usually more) throw in doing laundry all day.
Other days there are errands to run.
What do you do all day?

Grocery shopping with twins

So, today I decided to do something crazy and go and do a big shopping with Jared and Kamryn. We went to Macey's for 2 reasons: 1 - they had a lot of good things on sale and 2- they have great carts for twins - the car type with two steering wheels and they sit up high by me.
Amazingly it went pretty well. Of course we bought some club crackers and peanut butter M & Ms that were not on the list to snack on while we shopped. And it took two carts, one of them overflowing by the end. Thank goodness for awesome customer service at Macey's: for the stocker who picked up a couple of frozen items that Jared and Kamryn threw out, for the nice checker who watched my first cart while I filled up the 2nd cart, for the very nice older gentleman who bagged my groceries and did just as I asked and put the frozen stuff in paper bags and put them in the car last so I could get them out first.
So if I paid a little more at Macey's than SuperWalmart it's okay because the customer service and the cart were worth it!

Volleyball World

Welcome to a whole new world. Brooke has been practicing for over 6 weeks with a new volleyball team. They are called Club Union. It is basically a polynesian team with some white girls thrown in. The head coach of the teams is Coach Sam Vaitai. He started this club because he noticed several years ago that the polynesian girls weren't playing on the high school teams. The reason is to play on a high school team you pretty much have to play "Club" volleyball and "club" volleyball can be very expensive. So he does this without pay or compensation and volunteers a lot of time to this club. So, we're benefitting too.
Brooke likes to play volleyball and decided to try it out. Here she is in the left corner in one of her first time's playing in a tournament.
Their first tournament was last weekend and that was an eye opening event. It was Friday from 3:30 to 10:00 pm and Sat from 7:45a to 8:00p. She was there the whole time Friday and Saturday and probably played a total of 10 minutes.
Her team is pretty good but she is definitely not a starter and spent most of the time on the bench. It's frustrating as a parent but she had a good attitude about it.
It was crazy there - a huge warehouse converted into volleyball courts. There were 11 courts there and 48 teams playing in this tournament. It's amazing how many 13-14 year old girls out there that are AWESOME volleyball players. We watched a lot of great play during the tournament.



This is Brooke's team with her coach before one of their games. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the season goes.

New Years resolutions

I struggle with resolutions every year. One year the only one I made was to not make any - I succeeded that year. Last year I decided to keep it simple and made 2 - to make my bed every day (I pretty much succeeded at that with a few days missed here and there) and to exercise. I succeeded at that one (didn't start until the end of Aug but I did start).
So this year I've been thinking about what goals I'd like to work on this year. I think I should challenge myself a little more this year. So here there, for everyone to see (they say a goal not written is only a wish).
1. Post more regularly on my blog - at least once a week but strive for more than that.
2. Get back in the regular scripture reading habit. I started in the Book of Mormon in Sept and was doing really good until Dec and took most of the month off. So I read again this morning and plan to finish before school gets out. I also want to keep up with the reading in the New Testament for Sunday School.
3. Lose 10 pounds before April (when we go on the Disney Cruise). I've got to be diligent and get the rest of the junk out of my house and get back on eDiets.
4.Work on at least one item from my big project list each week.

Okay, that's double from last year. Hopefully I can stick to these goals.
A side note on resolutions, for a great article read Afton Day's article "The New Me Has Been Cancelled" in the January 1981 Ensign. (One thing on my project list is to learn how to put links in the text of my blog).

Markers

Kamryn is really starting to get into everything. These pictures were taken at the cabin after she had fun with a marker. We showed her how she looked in the mirror and she smiled. She's going to be my little trouble maker.

She also got into some of our carpet cleaner and poured over 2 cups in one spot on the living room carpet. Concentrated cleaner does not make for a clean carpet. Now there is a big dirt spot in that area.
Yesterday when I was at Kohl's with Brooke Paul thought that Jared and Kamryn were being awfully good (all mom's know that means trouble). Jared came walking in the front room and something was in his hair and on his hands. Then Kamryn came in covered from head to toe in LOTION. As he was telling me about it on the phone I couldn't help laughing. Too bad he didn't take pictures.

Don't know where to start

I had no idea that it had been over two weeks since I'd last written. It just seemed so overwhelming to write during the holiday craziness. So, now I'll catch up (just think, Paige, now you will have something to read, sorry to disappoint).



Christmas - was okay. Not our best ever. Kamryn started with a bad cold a couple days before Christmas and Jared got sick on Christmas Eve. He seemed fine at Paul's parents but when we got home he just sat on the couch in a daze. I thought it was because I'd given him a little cold medicine when I was giving Kamryn her medicine (he loves medicine and she hates it, and she's the one that has to take it more often). Finally I felt his forehead and he had a fever. So then I rightfully gave him some Motrin and we put them to bed. Our big kids stayed up late so needless to say Paul and I were up late. Got to bed about 1:30 and Taylor came in our room at 4:44. Luckily he went back to sleep until about 7:00. Brooke got up at 7:30 and Justin got up at 8:30. I had told them they had to wait for Jared and Kamryn to wake up before we could do Christmas so we had breakfast first and Paul went to get his parents so they could enjoy the fun.

The morning was okay - Jared and Kamryn fought over each other's toys and the boys didn't seem too excited about the PS2 they got. At least Brooke seemed happy with her volleyball and piano themed Christmas.
We went down to the Adams for the afternoon and to have lunch. Jared and Kamryn were supposed to sleep there but that didn't work out too well. Jared finally napped at my parents in the evening. All in all, it was still a nice day.
The biggest surprise gift was from my parents - they had all of their home movies transferred to DVD and gave them to us. They also spent most of the summer and fall watching all of them to write an index. What a great gift.
We went to the cabin over the weekend - Thur to Sat. We had a great time up there doing the usual - playing in the snow, playing games, eating, watching movies and just relaxing. Jared and Kamryn love playing up there with their cousins. It was nice to have them happy again.
New Years Eve was a little different this year since it was on Sunday. I was fortunate enough to go the youth fireside at the conference center with Brooke and 7 other girls in our ward. We got there early so we would be sure to have good seats and it was worth going early. I really enjoyed the rehearsal that was going on and I knew we were going to be in for a major treat. That is the best fireside I've been to in a long time and Brooke said it was the best ever for her. The music was SO GOOD (and Paige, I saw you and really loved that song). The talks were so good and we plan to watch them again for FHE. It was especially neat hearing from President Hinckley without the time constraints he's usually under. I highly recommend watching this program if you missed it. KBYU is airing it again next Sunday at 6:30 (http://www.kbyutv.org/schedule/?dateselect=2007%3A1%3A7&v=day#)
New Years Day was half kick back and half working. I went shopping to Kohl's in the morning with Brooke. In the afternoon I started the huge mountain of laundry and also started taking down all the Christmas decorations. I didn't really intend to do either yesterday but it just kind of happened. All of Christmas is put away except for the little tree we have downstairs. Can't remember where I stored it. The laundry is probably about half done.
So, there you have it.
Look at my next post for goals next year (one of them about regular posts).