Tuesday, August 31, 2010

avocados


For dinner last night we had grilled mahi-mahi. Yum. I'm glad that my kids like to eat fish (except for Coop, of course, who only likes sandwiches). I like to top my mahi-mahi with diced tomato and avocado.

Lincoln is my kid who will eat ANYTHING, as long as he is in the mood for it. Broccoli, beans, squash, tomatoes, bleu cheese, pickles, salsa... Yesterday afternoon he chowed down on the apple slices that the big kids didn't finish for snack.

But last night we made a discovery. He does NOT like avocado. He was so disgusted once he tasted a mouth-full, that he wouldn't touch the rest of his dinner. Like he was afraid of it. It was pretty funny.

So it'll be a while before I serve these to him again.



Sunday, August 29, 2010

thank goodness for monday

I am SO GLAD that Sunday is OVER!

Brent and I had to speak in church today... not such a big deal for him; huge scare for me. I don't so much like being in front of people. Brent told me, "try not to say 'um' so much." So I wrote out my talk and just read it. When I'm on the spot like that, I can't think clearly! But thankfully, it's over.

Brent did a wonderful job. He hardly even cried - which made him very happy. I spoke about Agency, and he spoke about Accountability for that Agency. Wish I could speak like he does. Seriously. He doesn't even get nervous. He just gets mad when he cries.

After our Sacrament Meeting I went home and crawled into bed. I took two Advil this morning, and they didn't even take the edge off of this head pain. Surgery = NO FUN. So I slept until the kids woke me up for family scripture and prayer time.

Mercedes' school starts on Thursday and I've not registered her yet! Oopsie. Before we went to Utah, I'd left messages and gotten no return calls from the district office. Now that we're back and school is starting soon, I don't have to have an appointment but they are closed on Fridays (the first day that I was off of the hard drugs and allowed to drive last week). The poor girl is so worried. The other day she said, "Mommy, what if you don't get me registered in time and I can't go to school?!" So that's #1 on my list tomorrow. Tonight when she said our family prayer, she said "Please bless us that Mommy will feel up to registering me for school and that it will be sunny and maybe we can walk on the beach." The district office is right on the coast of the Puget Sound, and the kids have been anxious to visit the beach.

Better get off to bed.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

apicoectomy is spelled: OWIE!

Well, the good news is that the infection is all gone! No more abscess. The pain will someday end.

I sat in the Endodontist's chair today, so very grateful to live in the age of "modern medicine." The Endodontist literally lifted up a flap of my gums, sucked out the infection, then "refilled" the top of the root of my pre-molar. And I didn't feel much at all. And it only took about one half of an hour.

Then I went on my merry way to Target to get my Vicodin prescription filled. The post-op instructions were to rest as much as possible for the next few days, and not to chew much until my stiches are removed on Friday. So while I waited for the pharmacist to hand out the narcotics, I found two books to read while I'm laying around. I also picked up some key lime yogurt and peanut butter fudge ice cream.

So now I sit on the couch watching "Daniel Deronda" on netflix while Brent and the kids are out picking up "convenience foods" (mac n cheese, frozen pizza, juice boxes), since I won't be cooking for the next few days. I also asked him to bring home some tapioca pudding - yum!

I have the best husband in the WHOLE world.

I just hope that my face isn't all black and blue on Sunday when I'm speaking in church. That wouldn't be so much fun.

Monday, August 23, 2010

we're so glad when we all get home

Glad as we can be!

We're home! Even though it is a bit traumatic (and I'm not being dramatic) to leave our beloved parents, grandparents, siblings and cousins, we're all super-dee-duper-dee-glad to be home.

I was relieved to see our house still standing. I worry about loving an inanimate object so very much. We do have a sprinkler system, so I wondered if we'd enter the house to water damage. I wondered if our grass and plants and flowers would be dead. I wondered if the place would be full of ants or spiders or ear-wigs. But it's just as great as we left it. Brent mowed the lawn as soon as we got home on Saturday evening. He's spent the past two nights diligently moving a sprinkler around in an effort to bring a few brown spots back to life.

This morning we walked to our local post office in wonderfully comfortable 70 degree weather. We stopped at the park on the way home to play for a while. Then Mercedes rode her grey "horse" cupcake home, and Cooper rode his red one, Skip's Up. Yes - they do have healthy imaginations. When we got home Mercedes yelled, "Mommy! Cupcake got in the house!" Lincoln is already in the muck and mire of the terrible twos (and he's barely 18 months old). He bucked and bronked each time I carried him across the street (because he absolutely refused to hold my hand).

Since our adventure, I have been filling out new student registration forms for Mercedes, making an Endodontist appointment, and trying to find a baby-sitter in a town where we know almost no one.

I am a super-lucky duck whose first root-canal failed and now have a TON of pressure in my sinuses because of the lovely abscess trapped above my tooth. Tomorrow, I get to pay a sitter to watch my kids while I pay the Endodontist $600.00 to RE-DO my root canal, possibly breaking my beautiful porcelain crown in the process (which will cost another thousand bucks). I don't even want to imagine what this would cost me if I didn't have dental coverage.

I need to go and breathe for a while. Sometimes I forget to breathe when I get upset.

I'm excited to share the fun details of our great family vacation, but it might take me a few days to get the pics uploaded. Life has gotten so very busy!


Wednesday, August 4, 2010

mess

This is our mess:








It's a good thing that we have some energetic little hands to help!




Maybe someday we'll be clean and organized.

But not today.

Today we're going to the park.

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

oh, how we love christmas


Last night as we were driving home from the closest "good" mall in our area (almost an hour away), Mercedes was excited to see Mt. Rainier. She's always excited to see Mt. Rainier. It's still quite an impressive sight to all of us. We can only see it on clear and sunny days, and it's always covered in snow.

Here's what conversations sound like in our family:


Mercedes: Look! I see Mt. Rainier!!!!

Me: Yup.

Cooper: Why is it called Mt. Rainier?

Me: Because that is what the mountain's name is.

Cooper: Does it have Reindeer on it?

Me: Maybe!

Cooper: Is it Christmastime there? Is that where Santa is?

Mercedes: (In a very "know it all voice") No, Cooper. Santa lives at the North Pole and that's where Reindeer live, too.

Me: Well, maybe there are some Reindeer living on Mt. Rainier.

Later, we passed an amusement park. It was close to 8 pm and Mercedes said, "I wish we could go there, but it's probably closed."

Cooper: No! It's not closed! (He was VERY upset with her assumption.)

Mercedes: Yes it is, Cooper. Because it's late.

Cooper: No it isn't, Mercedes! No, Mercedes - it isn't CLOSED!!!

I finally asked Mercedes to drop the subject, and ten minutes later I could still hear Coop in the back whispering, "it isn't closed. It isn't closed."

Apparently, it was VERY important to him that the park remain open. I think that he was afraid that if it closed, he'd never get to go there.

Also, he's very stubborn.

Monday, August 2, 2010

back to real life...

Brent is back to working
full-days this week.

We've been in heaven
for the past few weeks.

He's had time off and has
only worked half-days.

This week he's super-excited
to be taking a CE Course
(Continuing Education)
that has something (I totally
don't remember the name of it)
to do with Oral Surgery -
his second great love.
(I'm his first love, of course).

But here's what our mornings
have looked like for the
past few weeks:



Is there a better way
to start the day
than with a
MORNING DANCE PARTY?!?!?!!

busy beavers

As Brent would say,
we've been busy beavers.

Each mess we clean up seems
to make a bigger mess.

BUT - we can finally watch TV!


Here's a photo-story of our
latest accomplishment:


We started with a small
hole in the
wall above our fireplace,
and NO mantel.


So Brent made the
hole bigger.
Demo was fun.
And messy.



The kids were
great helpers.


But Cooper didn't like
the noise of the Shop-Vac.


Our wonderful next-door
neighbor does a lot
of work for
"Habitat for Humanity."
He was kind to offer
us the use of his tools.
We only had to rent a
finish nail gun and
buy some wood and
paint and...


Voila!
A hole big enough for an
LCD,
AND a mantel to hang
Christmas Stockings from
(my requirement).




Rather than having cable or satellite,
we bought an internet connectible TV.
We watch Netflix and
listen to Pandora - which I LOVE.
This morning Mercedes put on a
dance-show to our
"Jonas Brothers" channel.