Birthday Fun

 Holy Moley it's been a busy week!  

Monday was my 41st birthday.  We had pineapple upside down cake and nachos for dinner.  David helped me blow out my candles and he wrapped up a couple of his cars to give me so I could play cars with him.  He and daddy wrapped them up in the morning, so he was excited all day about getting me to open my presents!  

These are just David being cute.  My dad sent some bread home with us when we went down to visit - and David loved it!  (so did the rest of us!)  

David wants to spend all of every day "playing cars."  Sometimes that actually means playing with the cars - sometimes it just means, "come play with me mommy."   On Tuesday it actually meant playing with cars since we needed to play with the cars he wrapped up for me.  :)  

Wednesday was Evelyn's 11th birthday.  She had Butter Chicken for her birthday dinner and sheet cake for her cake.  She got some really cute clothes from Grandma and Grandpa Jones and a fuzzy sweater, a stuffie backpack and fidget cube from mom and dad.   

Eileen and Anna wanted to re-do their hair to get the color brighter - I thought they looked awfully funny with their hair in cups waiting.  

She and her friends wanted to do a baking competition - I was a little worried about how it would all work out - but it ended up working out ok.  Some of the girls had more experience than others, so they needed a bit of supervision and we had to stagger baking of the cookies.  They had a blast and made a mess and then we took plates with one of each cookie to have all the parents judge (Dan judged for our family since I knew who had baked what so I wasn't impartial)  Emily and Leah ended up tying, but all the cookies tasted great!  

After we finally finished all the cookie baking and judging, the girls convinced all their parents to sleep over at our house.  Evie had passed out by 10:30 while the other girls were still awake - but they had a great time and Evie loved getting to spend some time with her friends before the move.  

Saturday started out with waffles and lots of girls.  Then after lunch, Evelyn with out for ice cream with Grandma and Grandpa for her birthday.  Evie also got to talk to her adopted grandma Sister Cottrell.  Then in the afternoon, we took the whole family and headed down to Medieval Times for a fun evening together!  The kids loved it - even David was enthralled and James was crazy excited for the whole thing.  Evie got one of the flowers after our champion won an event, and we all had a wonderful time!  

I got to play organ this week for church and of course that meant some practice time too.  Before church on Sunday, I had the kids get their yearly picture taken.  James was reluctant, but quick and easy.  Aaron was quick and easy and liked it when I had him take a picture with his vampire teeth showing.  James wanted his picture taken over and over and over, then wanted to get into everyone's pictures and of course, he wanted to see all the pictures too!  Evelyn was easy once I got her to tilt her head in a way that would remove the glare on her glasses.  Anna was the easiest of all.  Eileen just tried not to laugh at me while I told her to think of cute fuzzy moths and caterpillars so that I could get a nice smile out of her - she hates smiling! Oddly enough my favorite picture of the bunch is not a big smile, but the picture is just so her.    I sure do have cute kids though!  

We also took a headshot of Dan - we need proof that once his hair was this long.  He likes the first one better because he is all dressed up and looking stylish, but I just love the second one - It was taken before I took the kids pictures just to get the lighting in a good place.  The smile is just so genuine! 

I'm certainly not the best photographer, but this was fun and I like how they came out - and it's much cheaper and easier.  

Church was wonderful - but Dan and I were exhausted, so we took an afternoon nap, then after dinner we played some games with the kids.  

Dan and I are spending spare time packing.  We are trying to get to say goodbye to all our friends.  We are trying to get the kids school work done.  I'm ready for this all to be done.  We spent some time trying to nail down our trip out to Oregon and figuring out how it will work out and where we will be when.  We had hoped to stop by Paul and Candace's house in Utah, but that is looking like it won't happen.  Paul may have COVID, which worries us for him and his family, for now he is just quarantining, but either way, we won't be staying there.  

School and Packing

 We've had a busy week of school stuff.  Anna and Eileen have seminary, Anna has band and cross country, Evie has band, Anna and Evie have piano lessons.  

Dan smoked some pork this week - it was SO yummy, Dan invited some friends over to help us eat it and we sent them home with some pork and some sheet cake.  

David wanted to sit RIGHT next to Dan at lunch time.  David had some cute moments - in the car this week, he sneezed and then said "bless myself"  When someone says he can't do something, he often says "too late, I gonna do it"  

Anna High School had their homecoming game on Friday, so Dan and I went to watch Anna play during the halftime show.  She did amazing!  She had me help with her hair - they told her she had to have a medium high bun with no fly aways.  So I did a bun and pinned it up with bobby pins and the glued her hair to her hair with hairspray.  By the end of the night in a warm Texas night, she still had no fly aways and she thought it was hilarious that when she got home and took all the bobby pins out - her hair still didn't fall down.  Dan and I watched the game through the halftime show.  Anna was playing winning, so that was fun - and Anna's first homecoming game of her High School career included a 20 minute break when all the lights went out.  

Bright and early on Saturday morning, Anna had a track meet.  She did well and had a really good time of 16:16.  Grandpa Cox came to watch too - he drove up and was comfortable being there since it was out in the open and he didn't ever have to be near anyone to be able to watch her.  

Saturday afternoon, I took the kids down to the library for a quick drop off and pick up of books and let them know that this was the last time we would be checking out books from the library.  Then we headed down to my parents house.  I didn't think it would be warm enough for swimming, but I should have known better.  The four younger kids spent most of the time there swimming - even though they were obviously cold.  Anna also got in for a bit, then she got out, laid down on a towel and slept through dinner.  Dan and I brought sour cream enchiladas for dinner and a salad for my dad, my mom got a cake from Nothing Bunt Cakes and we did a little bit of a birthday celebration.  My parents, with a hint from Dan got me a super soft fuzzy sweater!  

Sunday was beautiful.  We had church together.  We played games - we played space base and I lapped Dan with my score!  :)  We had biscuits for dinner, and Evelyn made cupcakes that we took to her friends in the neighborhood after dinner.  Then we had a nice time chatting with the Francone family.  

MCO had it's first week of video rehearsals.  Evelyn and Anna and Eileen all have done their rehearsing for the week - I still need to do mine, but it's wonderful having the music in our homes!!  I love getting to listen to them sing!  David was a bit of a cranky beast today - he can go with out a nap once in awhile, but if it happens more than once in a row he gets really cranky.  We were talking to Gene and Ann for a bit today, and he got very mad when Dan wouldn't let him walk off with his phone and talk to them on his own.  

We have also spent some time this week packing up.  We are starting to try to get everything that isn't totally essential packed up.  

New Home!

 It has been a long and crazy week.  School has been getting into a more regular train and the kids are doing pretty well.  David misses being able to play with all the kids though.  Eileen and Anna have seminary in the mornings and Anna has cross country and marching band and piano.  We are keeping pretty busy.  

Dan was supposed to leave for Oregon on Tuesday to look at houses.  However, storms in the area caused his flight to get cancelled and he ended up not being able to leave until Wednesday.  On Wednesday afternoon he was able to fly out and got into Portland just in time to look at a house that we had been excited about.  Unfortunately, there were serious slanting issues with the floor in the house.  So the next day, he went to look at a couple more houses we had been interested in, and they both had similar issues!  We were getting rather bummed out by the whole thing.   Dan was just driving around the neighborhood of one of the houses we had looked at and was looking for "For Sale" signs and then having me look up if they were in our price range and would fit our family.  Wonder of wonders, we found one that looked like it would work and we really liked how it looked too, so Dan set up an appointment to see it.  After walking through the house, we both really liked it, so we put an offer in and now we are officially under contract!  

One of the nights that Dan was gone, we had Beef Stroganoff - David loved it and ate crazy amounts of it - both on the night we made it, and on the next night when we had leftovers.  

The younger kids wanted to build a fort and sleep together on the hide-a-bed.  So we let them have fun and they actually even slept - mostly.  

Saturday was a much more laid back day - we slept in a bit and spent a few hours at the pool.  Dan was supposed to get in around 7 - unfortunately, due to more bad weather, his plane was unable to land at first, and then unable to circle anymore without refueling, the flight was sent to Kansas to be refueled and then they finally made it home.  He didn't get in until late, but at least he made it home safe!  

Today, we got to go to church and it was a wonderful fast and testimony meeting proceeded by an epic  tantrum from James that had me outside with him waiting for him to calm down and missing the opening song and sacrament.  :(  

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Mangum's house for dinner and fun.  We had a great time chatting and eating yummy food!  

We spent our evening talking with family on the phone and playing games and playing.  I've spent way too much of this week looking at the pictures of our future house and trying to plan where things will go.  Eileen keeps laughing at me for it.  

Inspections and Back to School

 We are officially under contract!  We close on Sept. 30th and begin our new adventure as Oregonians.  Dan will fly out to Portland next week to check out some houses that we are considering and then we will make our choice and begin the process of buying a place to move into also!  

David wanted Anna to do his hair, so she sprayed his hair and combed it.  She's just laughing at it all, but his little face is so serious! 

Monday was the day for meeting the teachers and picking up schedules and such.  We had an appointment with James' teacher, we parked, went in, had a covid screening and went and talked with the teacher.  We got his stuff for school and then we went home excited and ready for the first day of school.  The elementary school has one teacher per grade that is in charge of the online students - she is wonderful and has the ability to adjust things that don't work well and the time to devote to the kids since this class is her main responsibility.  It's great!  

Monday afternoon, we had to go to the high school, the middle school and the 6th grade center.  We got to wait in line in the hot Texas sun for 45 minutes at the high school before going inside to wait in more lines.  More than an hour after we got to the high school, we left and headed for the middle school.  There was another line.  Not long after we got there, an ambulance showed up - then about 45 minutes later they managed to figure out a way to move the line so it was inside so no more people would get heat stroke...  Thankfully once we got in, it went pretty quickly.  But by this time, it had been more than 2 hours since we had started this journey and we still had one school to go.  

Thankfully Dan met me at the 6th grade center and took Evelyn to get her stuff and I took Anna and Aaron home.  I think I got dehydrated that day - I hadn't brought my water bottle because I didn't realize I would be standing sweating in the sun for 2 hours....  

The middle and high school students who chose online school are basically just sitting in on classes via zoom meetings.  It's hard on both the students and teachers - the poor teachers are being given twice the work with no extra help or pay.  The kids aren't getting nearly as much out of it because they often have problems getting into the zoom meetings because teachers have to admit each student one by one - and if they are late (for example if they are coming back from band and don't get there on time) then they have to wait for the teacher to admit them - but by then the teacher is trying to teach and it's hard for them to have to keep going back and admitting students.  

Wednesday was the beginning of school.  It was great for James - but everyone else had issues.  Evie had lots of problems getting into her meetings and problems with computers.  We finally just decided to get a cheap computer for school purposes.  

Evelyn's friend Emily is also doing online schooling, so the girls are alternating houses and doing school together.  I think they are both really enjoying it - at least enjoying being together.  

David on the other hand has not been crazy about not having as much attention to himself.  I've needed to spend time checking on the kids and problem solving and all he wants to do is play cars with me.  So he isn't happy when I need to go down stairs and make sure James is still doing school work instead of playing Prodigy.  

Thursday we had to be out of the house in the afternoon so the inspection people could come.  So we packed the kids up and went down to swim at my parents house.  I chatted with my parents, the kids swam and Dan went hunting for a cheap computer.  Apparently we aren't the only ones, because most places were sold out of the one we wanted...  

Friday was the usual crazy of back to school, but it finally feels like we are finding a routine.  Next week we get to throw a new wrench into it with seminary, but we're getting there.  

Saturday was crazy busy.  we started out early with Anna's first high school cross-country meet.  She did well and then had fun at a team breakfast after the meet.  Then at 1:00, the kids had a primary ice cream drive through activity.  Evelyn's friends came with us, and we had a fun time getting sticky and cool.  

Eileen and Anna went to a birthday party for a friend from church who was celebrating her sweet 16 birthday.  They had a great time, then we picked them up on our way to the Hendrickson's house for dessert and swimming.  We brought the creme brulee and had a great time swimming and chatting.  The kids loved it and want to go back... right now.  They especially loved the lights in the pool - which they only got to see since we let them stay up much later than usual - which meant they were all exhausted by the time we got home.  

Today was wonderful.  We had a great church at home - we talked about Joseph and his coat and his dreams and about being kind to our siblings and respecting them.  We played some games and the kids had a blast playing with daddy after scripture time.  

Evelyn taught this to David and it's adorable!!  

Bugs and Walks and Friends

 Monday evening, I was getting ready to go for a walk and found, to my delight, that both Eileen and Anna wanted to join me!  We walked a usual route, but we took almost twice as long to walk it as usual because we kept stopping to check out the wildlife.  We found a cute little toad, and a bunch of bugs and spiders.  We found this really neat app that lets you learn about the flora and fauna around you - so we were trying to take pictures of everything.  Then Eileen and I introduced Anna to the Portsmouth Sinfonia - which is an orchestra where everyone is intentionally playing instruments that they are unfamiliar with - so the music is intentionally and hilariously awful!  Plus the comments on the you tube videos are just gold.  So we laughed and giggled the whole way.  It was a wonderful way to spend an evening!  

We had some fun trying a new reciepe for butter chicken and it came out REALLY yummy!!  

Anna has of course been busy with cross country and marching band.  Anna and Evelyn had piano lessons on Tuesday and we otherwise mostly spent our week quietly.  I am hopefully approaching the end of my doctor drama.  I found another endocrinologist, and set up an appointment - unfortunately the soonest one is not for another 3 weeks.  Hopefully this one works out - I really don't want to have to deal with trying to figure all this out in a different state - a state which probably doesn't have any doctors that take our insurance....

Evelyn has been devouring her way though the Harry Potter books.  Unfortunatly at some point, the kids lost our book 6 - so we make a special trip to the library to borrow that one for her.  We let her stay up a bit later than usual to watch the first movie.  James hates it when anyone gets to do or have something that he doesn't get, so he threw a fit, but she loved it.  

This is what walks with Eileen and I invariably look like....  There are a couple tarantula burrows here and we could see the tarantula in his den! 

On Saturday, Dan and Aaron went to help some friends move, then invited them over for dinner - we had plenty (even after taking some over to the neighbors who just had their ADORABLE little girl Jada on Wednesday!!!)  Then I took Eileen and Anna with me to help with the cleaning up.  We invited them over again for Sunday dinner and they took us up on it again.  It was so nice to have friends over again and to get to just sit and chat with other adults!  Besides which - the Findley's are just awesome people and we're going to miss them.  

David loves to hunt flies - and when he does he goes prepared with sword and shield - yes - his sandal on his hand is his shield and he always has it there when he goes fly hunting...

David is so cute and loves to help out when we are cleaning up to get ready for showings - he really wanted to help vacuum the floor for us.  

We hadn't had any showings all week and had been kinda depressed by it, so we have been praying - Dan and I are both ready to be out of the holding pattern and into movement and progressing.  We had two showings today - one in the early afternoon - we drove down to the library to drop off books - and one in the evening when we were able to go and say goodbye to one of Dan's seminary students before he leaves on his mission.  The kids had a blast and even Koopa (who had to come be with us out of the house too) was well behaved.  We got home and got kids to bed, played a game and then I started on a massive batch of Creme Brulee - but I had to use a different cooking method since our double broiler wouldn't hold the whole thing - and getting the temperature up to the right place with out overcooking it took FOREVER - so now I'm exhausted and ready for bed!   

Showings, Showings and more Showings

We've had a busy week!  This picture of me is from less than 3 weeks post surgery - and the scar is hardly noticeable already!  I had a doctors appointment on Monday - the last one with the ENT and he was amazed at how well it had healed up.  For that matter, so am I!  

The kids found a mantis out on our trampoline - Eileen is a bug whisperer.  

We had tons of showings this week.  Which is great - especially if it leads to an offer, but it's a pain.  We spent a lot of time going to the pool and the library.  We had 7 showing total.  

Saturday, we went down to my parents house - both because we needed to be out of our house for showings and for my Dad's birthday.  We brought angel food cake and lunch and had a fun time together.  David has gotten to LOVE jumping in the water now.  And he usually prefaces his jumps with dances and faces and growling and it's hilarious!  

Happy 75th Dad!!  

Today was a hot and beautiful Texas summer morning.  We headed to church and I got to play organ again and we had a wonderful talk from our high council speaker.  As part of his talk he listed the many changes that have taken place in recent years and I was struck anew by how so many of the changes have been a blessing for us during the pandemic!  It's so wonderful to see how the Lord is looking out for us!  He also told a story about his daughter quitting thumb-sucking and how when it was hard for her, she would ask her mom or dad for help, he then likened it to us turning to our Heavenly Father when things are hard.  It was beautiful!  

In the evening, it started storming and pouring - a full on Texas sized storm.  So the kids got on swimsuits and went out and had a blast!  David (and mom and Eileen) didn't last too long before we got too cold, but it was still a blast!  

Dan has been on a cooking bender - this week he made cookies, salsa, angel food cakes, a giant heart shaped cookie and more.  

 

Evelyn has been playing Five Crowns all week - multiple times a day.  She loves this game - Dan and I are getting a bit tired of it.... so we forced her to give us a day off from it.  :)  She mostly did.  She just played with her brothers instead.  Dan and I have mostly got a house that we want in OR, but we still need our house to sell first, so we wait....  It seems like real estate agents in Texas take the Sabbath off - which has been nice not having to worry about showings today.  

Houses and Dates and Food, Oh My!

 We've had a busy week this week.  I'm ok for going in the pool again, so we've been going to the pool a lot this week - it's been pretty empty there which has been nice.  

Whenever Eileen wants her hair up and off her face and neck, she gets me to do her hair.  I'm not very good, but I have fun braiding her hair and trying to get it to look nice.  This was one of the attempts this week.  The funny thing is that she then takes it out when she showers in the evening, and I'm usually doing the braid after dinner time, so it's not in very long, but I like being able to serve her and show her I love her since she hates hugs.  :)  

Aaron and James were having fun trying to build houses of cards - David tried to help for a bit too - but he wasn't much help.  :)  Aaron managed a decently impressive one - certainly a whole lot bigger than I could ever manage!  James did a pretty amazing job too, but it crashed before I could get a picture :(  

David loves to play games with us, but of course, he has no concept of the rules and needing to play by rules.  Which can make it an adventure.  If he's in a good mood - it's fun and a bit silly - when he's not in a good mood... well  it's not worth the trouble.  

Thursday night, Dan and I went out on a date for our anniversary.  We met up with some friends at Fogo de Chao for dinner and had a lot of fun!  Before, we stopped off at my parents house and dropped off a chicken Dan had smoked the day before and some fried rice.  We chatted for a bit before we had to go.  

This little guy is such a ham!  He is just adorable and a ton of fun (unless he's tired and grumpy!)  He also loves to eat - especially breakfast.  He eats multiple breakfasts over the course of the morning and then he eats snacks - it's no wonder that he barely eats any lunch.  

On Saturday we learned that we had a showing in the afternoon, so we spent the morning and early afternoon cleaning up and vacuuming and getting the kids ready to take them out.  Then we headed to the library.  While having to be out of our house, we had a couple video viewings of other houses in OR to look at.  We still haven't seen something that we are in love with yet, but hopefully we will be able to find something when we are ready to take action.  

The viewing on our house seemed to go well - we got positive feedback and we are anticipating an offer tomorrow.  We've been waiting and suspended in being able to take any real action - it's kinda crazy to think that things could suddenly be moving very fast.  

We had to get the kids registered for school here this week - we opted for online school for all the kids.  School is supposed to start here on Aug 26th, but it's not supposed to start until September in OR.  

Church today was wonderful.  We talked about the story of Isaac and Rebekah and about temples.  One thing about this Covid-19 craziness is that I feel it has brought our family even closer together!  

I've had an awful time trying to get doctor's appointments set up.  I was told by my ENT who did my surgery that I needed to see an endocrinologist - so I finally had an appointment set up on Friday to see one - when I got there, they were still trying to figure out what our insurance would cover, and said that if they didn't figure it out by the end of my appointment, then I would have to pay out of pocket - but they couldn't tell me how much it would cost out of pocket.  I wanted to wait for the insurance, but they said they couldn't wait any longer, so I walked out and we found another one - but I can't get in to see them until a week from Monday - which means I'm stuck being tired on insufficient meds for at least another week+.  

I've gotten back to working out this week - it's been good, but I'm sore!!  

Doctors and Such

Monday, we got the house all ready to be photographed for the listing, then we headed down to swim at my parents house.  We got there just in time for me to leave for my doctor's appointment which went pretty well - the stitches came out - which I wasn't expecting, but the doc says it's healing really well!  

We've had a mostly chill week - the kids did some swimming and we've played lots of games, and we've tried really hard to keep the house cleaned up.  We found a new home for our bunny since he can't move with us.  Evie was bummed, but she was ok since she knew it would go to a good home.  

Dan promised Anna before we left on our trip that she could have her own birthday cake when we got back, so he made her an angel food cake and we had some yummy cake!  David insisted that we had to sing Happy Birthday to her - we couldn't just cut into the cake and eat it with out singing!  

David is loving having mommy back at mostly full capacity - he wants to play cars with me all the time.  Today during church he wanted my lip gloss on him, so he wiped his hand on my mouth, then wiped his hand all over his face!  He's such a sweet and funny kid!  Grandma Jones sent us these fun family reunion shirts since we hadn't managed to bring any shirts for Sarah and Rob to print for us - so they got the shirts and made them for a family home evening activity and then sent them to us - David wanted to wear his right away!  

Today was fast Sunday and our anniversary!  18 years together!  So for church today, after singing and doing the Sacrament, Dan and I bore our testimonies, then we told the kids our story - how we met, and our first dates and holding hands and kiss.  We told them about first meeting each others families and how we got engaged and had fun!  I think the kids enjoyed it, I know Dan and I did.  After church, Aaron was struggling and hungry, so he dozed off - Dan and I both found it amusing just how much he looks like Grandpa Jones.  :)   Thankfully we had an early dinner of Dutch Babies and then we watched the musical fireside that the church did this week!  

It's now almost 2 weeks since my surgery and the wound is healing well, Evelyn likes to peer closely at it and examine it every day and she informs me that it looks much better.  I mostly feel back to normal, but I do wish that we could get my meds figured out so that I'm not quite so tired!