You have to go

Tonight we had a great experience at a live Nativity. Taylor's parents told us about it, and we met them there, but none of us had any idea what we were getting into. We thought we'd walk up, have a look and leave. Instead we waiting in line for over an hour (with some admitted serious line cutting, if you don't fill the gap---we will!). It was FREEZING. Especially since we don't really know where our winter coats and gloves are. But they had fire pits all along the way, so we had a chance to thaw out here and there.

If you go:
It's open from 6-10 nightly until this Saturday (12/5)
I don't know the address, but take 12300 south west to 700 west and go north. The chapel is in a few blocks. Arrive early or maybe go late. We got there around 6:30 and the line was crazy.

I'll give you the mini tour. But you should go. Even you Logan friends, drive down. You shouldn't miss it. And I guess they only do it every other year.

Each little post is amazing. It's like the best movie set you've seen. The accessories, the clothing, the furniture and fabric, all so ancient looking. This it the first stop. He's a prophet writing down the prophesies of Christ.
This is the camel (Yes, a real camel!). The kids could pet all of the animals. The camel was next to the Wise Men, but we skipped them to get around the crowd:) The camel was amazing soft. Kyle LOVED it. Couldn't get enough camel, couldn't take his eyes off of it for the picture.

This is one smart dog all curled up in the hay!
This is at the "gate" of the little city (which thankfully is indoors!). Look how real everything is!
Once we were indoors we couldn't use a flash (It scared the chickens who were wandering around), and it was really dark (candlelit, to be true to the times). I had to use my night vision on my camera. It actually did quite decent. This man was the carpenter. There were many little corners and nooks with people doing back-in-the-day things. Most poignant to me was a man who simply opened a door, looked you in the eye and said "No room." It was crowded there as I'm sure Jerusalem was, I could imagine their plight.
Here are a few more scenes. There were 6-7 that I didn't get.



I loved this. These women were just chatting by a well with running water. Many of the scenes were those described in scripture. Not sure what that streak of light is in that picture.
Look at all the props above this woman. Look at the chicken :)

There was little announcing that the Christ Child was coming up around the corner. They did have some beautiful music as you approached, but it came up so suddenly that I was very touched to see the scene. I must say I teared up, which is unusual for me. I didn't want to leave. It was such a great emotion to see this with live people and imagine how it would have been.
I turned my night vision off and just got what I could get without a flash. I think they turned out well.
I especially love this picture and how white the swaddling turned out.
Anyway, you have to go if you can. Bundle up the kids and go early. Both of my kids understood what they saw and loved petting the animals. When we got home we had a quick talk about how Christmas really is about Jesus and how it's his birthday. I think seeing the real thing instead of pictures helped Claire understand a lot more. We hope to make this a tradition (every other year, of course) for our family.

And dress warm!

Love Craig's List

My friend Shannon has a rocking chair/recliner that would go perfect with our couch. (Remember this beauty? $50 at the DI and I was in love.) She got it in a round-about-way. She'll be the first to say it's seen better days, but every time I see it I think how I need one to go with the couch. Today I once again noticed it. She mentioned that it's a La-Z-Boy. So I came home and searched Craigslist for vintage recliners (not chairs as I previously have), and Ta-Da! This little baby popped up:

She's in pretty great condition, but obviously in need of a complete upholstery makeover even though the upholstery itself is complete and intact. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to go without ruffles when the time comes. I went to pick it up with only $19 in my purse (it was listed at $25). I think I could have done it for ten, but whatever. It was at the office for 1-800-got-junk. Apparently this is a perfect example of one man's trash being another's treasure. MY treasure that I've been searching for. On the way out of the office I noticed a cool box of white and blue and silver sparkling ornaments. I offered as many quarters as were in my car. It turned out to be 8 quarters, and I left with the ornaments too. I'm going to make a BYU wreath.

Now I need reupholstering lessons, but I know a great seamstress, so I think I'm in luck. I can't wait to see how they turned out. I've decided that my personal style is kind of a transitional modern vintage/retro. I'm going to use this fabric for the recliner, window valence, and some pillows on the couch:
I'm yet to find what I'm going to use for the couch. Probably something neutral. I'm deciding whether I'm going to be brave and paint the wood on the chair or couch a color other than dark brown. I'm thinking some of that green from the pillow for the chair in a nice glossy finish, what do you think?

Loving this blog

As we are about to become home owners (closing any second now), I have loved thinking about projects for our home. I especially love cheap/thrifty/free ideas. I have spent an hour reading and loving this blog:

http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/

During that hour Kyle put about 9 CDs in our VCR. And Taylor wonders why it doesn't work. Sorry Sweetheart.

I have so many pages bookmarked and can't wait to get started.

It's been a fun few days

On Wednesday I woke up with pain in my seeing eye. This was new, as everything has always been the other eye. I tried to ignore it for the day, but by that evening I knew I had to go to the doctor.

So I tried to make an appointment. The doctor that I love who has been my doctor since I was 3 is in Iran doing some sort of goodwill stuff or whatever (doesn't he know when I need him?). So they told me to go to Triage, a sort of ER for eye problems at the Moran Center. My mom came to sit with the kids, and I headed up around 2 (missing a really important Days of Our Lives, so you know I was pretty worried). I was behind a few people, so I got my glasses adjusted. That was the high point of the day.

The tech took me back for the paperwork. He started flipping through my file. I noticed that they put the 6-page-long letter of complaint I wrote about my bad experience with one of their doctors. Suddenly I was panicked wondering who knew that I had sent that and what they thought and what was said (I know they have millions of patients, but I'm somewhat of a celebrity there. I've been there since I was 2 weeks old in a clinic that is more than 90% geriatric, so I stand out. Then I was Miss Utah and had lots of problems that year. Everyone loved it. They had my poster in their break room. Really.) At one point one doctor started reading it and I just said, "That has nothing to do with this eye. Nothing in that chart has anything to do with this eye."

Anyway, that was a tangent. To make a long story longer I saw three doctors. All of which agreed that my eye looked completely normal. My only symptom was pain when it moved. And it seemed swollen in a way I couldn't describe. For FOUR hours I sat there with lights and people in my eyes with no results. They flipped my eyelid inside out a hundred times, each time managing to rip out eyelashes and somehow getting them to land in my eye. I left with a recommendation to take a steroid drop and use a warm compress and come back Monday to see another trio of doctors. They said it was likely swelling behind the optic nerve. I looked that up on the internet. I shouldn't have. It's a sign of MS. Lovely.

I didn't like their diagnosis. And it seemed like they had no idea what they were doing. So I called around and found another doctor to see me. While my mom and I waited in the room for the doctor I looked at an eye chart, pointed to a blob on it, and told my mom that was the problem. The new doctor flipped my eyelid, numbed my eye, pushed my eyeball down with a long q-tip and poked around behind my brow bone. (ouch!) He found the spot that hurt. I jumped and hollered a bit. The diagnosis: infection of the lacrimal gland (it makes tears then sends them to your tear ducts). It's very rare. He's only seen it two other times. It's not dangerous. I just have to take a ton of ibuprofen and see him Monday.

That's what I do. Anytime I see a doctor it seems I hear "This is unusual." "This happens like 3% of the time." or "I just don't know what's going on."

Anyway, the point in all of this was that for two days I had convinced myself that something terrible was happening. This pain is very similar to glaucoma. I was almost certain that I had glaucoma in my good eye. I thought of all the things I wouldn't be able to do without vision (everything), and I'm so grateful that it turned out well. And I'm so grateful for the vision I do have and what it allows me to do. I have been blessed in simple but amazing things.

And our house is done! We had our walk-through today. There were about 300 places that the paint needed to be touched up, but other than that we're just waiting to close---and thanksgiving is making that hard, but we'll close on the 30th most likely. Exactly they day we've always planned on. I can't wait to move in. The house is so beautiful, and we are so ready to have our own place.

And if you read that whole long post you must really care about me.

We have it easy

Today we were at my mom's house and needed a diaper for kyle. I went to the car to realize that I had none. We usually keep a good amount in there, looks like it's time to restock. Fortunately for all of us, Mom had an extra one lying around.

The experience gave me something to think about though. We're at a good stage in life. We can leave home as long as everyone has a jacket and shoes. That's it. No toting a diaper bag. No blankets to bundle. No toys to entertain. No extra food to pack. No potty trainer to worry about. Claire can buckle herself into her car seat, Kyle's learning to dress himself. Our hands-on parenting is slowly reducing as our kids become more self-sufficient.

Then I realized this is why my paternal grandmother firmly believed in reproducing every 18 months. That way you wouldn't know how easy it could be. If you're always in infant mode you don't realize how much your life will change with a new infant.

I'm certainly going through a need-a-new-baby stage (mostly thanks to my many friends who are now cooking/raising baby #3). But are we ready to go back to diaper bag toting and all of the accessories that come with a baby? Am I ready to go through 22 weeks of extreme morning sickness? No. No, I'm not. Is that selfish?

One thing we really enjoyed in Logan and would like to continue was family bike rides. We borrowed bikes and trailer from friends, and it was SO much fun to haul the kids around. If I were pregnant I'd have a hard time with that this summer (maybe?). What a funny reason.

Anyway, we have enough on our plate right now, so I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the goodness of having two independent children. Selfish as it feels.

Update

Here are a few updates on things in our life:
Swine Flu: We are still recovering. I'm 15 days into this thing. I still cough uncontrollably at night. I have never taken medicine with such abandon. I usually carefully consider each chemical I put into my body. Now I practically chug the robitussin at night with little regard for amount or last dose. I try to be somewhat accurate, but that's about it. Kyle got Tamiflu and seems to the best of all of us. He coughs occassionally, but that's about it. He sleeps all night and is back to dancing whenever he hears TV theme songs. A sure sign of recovery. Claire is the worst off of all of us, but she's 6 days behind me and 3 days behind Kyle. She still coughs a lot, is ghost-pale, and is currently at InstaCare complaining of an earache and strange noises in her ear. She says a bug is in there breathing. Taylor thankfully took her. I've been twice since this started, and that should be my quota. I don't love having swine flu at a doctor's office. And FYI we are at InstaCare because we don't have a doctor down here on our insurance plan.

The House: Mom and I ran up yesterday to see things. It looks like all that needs to be done is stove installation and paint touch ups. Oh, and they put the wrong counter top in two bathrooms, so they have to switch those out. We should close sometime this coming week and move in the next. We noticed that they have some pretty severe scratches in our brand new wood floor thanks to the workers and moving appliances. I'm not too happy. They'll hear about it from me. The baby potty is in and SO cute! It's so tiny. I'll post pictures sometime.

So things are moving along. Whitney and Rob should return to their now germ-free home tonight. We're excited to have them back in their own house. We've felt terrible that our sickness forced them out for a week.

Claire just got back from the doctor and does have an ear infection. Hopefully it explains her orneryness and sensitivity. Now we just need to get the prescription. My goal is to be all well by Thanksgiving. Pray for us!

Swine Flu Fun

Last Sunday I started to feel a weird cough. I wasn't thrilled about it. By Monday I had an awful sore throat and headache to add to the vicious cough. Taylor came home from work, I took nyquil and slept about 14 hours. When I woke up it was worse. The same thing happened on Tuesday expect for Taylor stayed the night in Ogden and I practically passed out trying to get the kids to sleep. I had lost my stern voice and my patience.

Wednesday Kyle woke up with a raging fever. I immediately took him to the doctor (InstaCare as we don't have a pediatrician in Sandy) following the HHS directions for children under 5. The lovely doctor told me I had a cold and Kyle had a slight virus. He did a strep test (negative) and said it wasn't swine. I was to sick to have the consciousness to ask why. I told him that it was the worst cold I had ever had. He didn't seem to care.

Kyle got worse on Thursday and so did I. At one point I texted Taylor and told him that since that was apparently not swine flu I had already determined that if swine did come along I would sit in the cold until I had to be hospitalized rather than have to be sicker than I was and still take care of the children.

Claire woke with a 99.9 fever Friday. After Kyle's nap, and 40 minutes after his ibuprofen his fever was 103.5. I decided to forget what the first doctor said and take him to another InstaCare clinic. After waiting 90 minutes to see a doctor---NO ONE else was even there---this one did a strep on Kyle (negative) then did a swine swab (up the nose, not pleasant) on Kyle. She prescribed Tamiflu even though it was most likely more than 36 hours since he got sick. I called Claire's Logan pediatrician would not prescribe Tamiflu for an unconfirmed case and as he foresees an upcoming shortage. He cited the fact that she was older than Kyle and would fight it better. I begged. I was denied. I was too sick myself to try another doctor. Taylor was still gone at this point---working on the house.

Whitney and Rob moved out (of their own house that we share with them) that night to avoid possible contamination. Good thing too, because on Saturday we found out that it was in face H1N1. I will be writing a very strong letter to the first doctor. Both of my kids could have had Tamilflu in plenty of time had he just listened to me and swabbed Kyle or me.

Today I'm finally not miserable. Kyle hasn't had a fever for two days. Claire is still burning. Taylor is still praying to not be infected. We decided that as long as we had to remain isolated we might as well isolate ourselves in our own house, so we drove up to Ogden and spent the day working on the shower. I was still in recovery, but it was nice to have the work to keep my mind off of my symptoms. And now today I have my sore, sore muscles to help me forget my lingering cough and sore throat.

Here is Taylor installing backerboard. He is an expert. Kind of. He rigs it together at least.


Kyle is becoming a wonderful helper. Miserable as he was, and scared of the drill as he was, he stood guard over the screws and handed one to Taylor whenever he needed them. You screw it in every 8 inches, so that was often.

Here I am swine flu and all. Taylor does the backerboard and cuts the tile. I do the mud and set the tile. It's a dirty job, but I love it. I'm not motivated enough to turn the picture. Sorry.

Our poor kids (who NEVER nap) napped most of the time we were there. Claire relaxed in "her" room for hours. Kyle took THREE naps that day tile saw, drill, hammer and all. He slept through it. Just so you don't worry, the heater was on, and the were bundled up good. They had all the comforts of home. Well, an empty one, but they were fine.

We returned to Whitney and Rob's (minus Whitney and Rob) to find a delicious dinner in the fridge and presents on the counter. My mom and Suzy brought dinner and bags of presents, three for each kid to open, one each for the next three days. She also packed in craft projects and other comfort food. (THANKS GUYS!). What a relief!

So this has been hard. I hope we never get anything like this again. It was so hard to be a mother and sick at the same time. Whitney helped out, and so did Taylor when he wasn't at work or working on the house, but it was so hard. I was sick 4 days before the kids were, that was the hardest because they were rambunctious as ever, and I was dead. My mom did come take them to dinner Tuesday night and I got a little rest (and thankfully she didn't get the flu from their evening out).

I'm looking forward to next week and when we can all be better. However my cousin Shayna tells me that she had it 3 weeks ago and is still coughing with a sore throat.

But I FINALLY found my camera charger. So that's happy. Wish us luck. Don't come over.

Halloween

So here are a bunch of pictures from Halloween. Claire was Snow White and Kyle was Dopey (Claire wanted him to be a dwarf, and all the rest have a beard, so Dopey wonThey'll make up for our lack of posting pictures for months. Thanks to Rob for the use of his camera. Can't wait to move and actually know where my stuff is again!

First we went to the ward party. As previously mentioned we're crashing with Whitney and Rob until the house is done. So we're crashing into their ward too.

With Rob & Whitney

Our life right now

Okay, so if I use internet explorer I can post a blog. I'm not about to attempt to put pictures on this ancient computer, so no pictures will be posted until our new hard drive arrives and is installed (hopefully it will be here in the next couple days.)

Kyle celebrated his 2nd birthday Saturday. We invited Ian and Shannon over to watch the BYU game that night, realizing only on Thursday that Saturday was also Kyle's birthday. So we had a little spontaneous party during half time. Kyle recieved dinosaurs and cars and clothes (also decorated with cars and dinosaurs) and is a happy man. I can't believe he's two. I can't believe I ever lived without him. He is my special boy. Holding him literally makes my heart thrill.

My younger siblings came up to celebrate with Kyle. Dan brought him an awesome car track (He always picks the best toys. He does personify the Toys R Us song "I don't wanna grow up..." He'll always be a kid at heart.) It was fun to hang out with Dan, Suz, and Meg as distance has separated all of us for the last few years.

The house is moving along. We were supposed to have all the flooring and tub and shower surrounds done on the 15-19th, but the cabinets weren't in and there was a wall in the wrong place, so we're doing the laminate downstairs on Wednesday, and trying to gear up for the shower surround. The tub surround was an all day event, so we're a little nervous to get into the shower. It just seems hard. But we're a little more experienced after doing three floors and a tub surround now. Carpet goes in on the 30th, so we're fastly nearing completion. I can hardly stand it. We have dreamed of having our own house for so long, and now to have a house that we have designed every little nook of seems so unbelieveable. That said we'll really miss catching up with Rob and Whitney ever night. It has been so great to see them daily.

Kyle spent the night before his birthday working on putting backerboard down with me and Taylor. Claire went to the BYU Spectacular with Gram and Tie Guy, and we thought Kyle might have fun with us. Although the house is mid-construction, Kyle didn't give us a moments trouble (okay, maybe a moment, like when he put a matchbox car in a drain pipe. Twice.) We brought a big dump truck for him and he just motored around for most of the time. He was helpful to run tools back and forth between Taylor and me, and super helpful to Taylor when he was screwing the board down and Kyle stood there with the next screw ready in-hand, "One more, Daddy? Here go, Daddy." It was so cute.

And that's about it. We are so grateful for all of the babysitters who have watched our kids while we've been working on the house. We've saved thousands of dollars and have some great up-grades to our home. We've enjoyed working together, and the results are actually astoundingly beautiful for our inexperience. As soon as it's all cleaned up we'll post pictures. Taylor's parents have taken the brunt of the childcare as my mom was sick and now on vacation (we wish we were too). We're so glad to have our family around.

New Hobby

On Sunday my brother Jake introduced me to helping to index the US Census. Since it's hard for mothers to leave the home to do service (for people other than our immediate family), this is the perfect answer for me. I love to feel like I'm of service to others, and I can do this in my spare time. You just look at scanned forms and transfer the data into easy to use forms. The data will be used for people doing their family history, and make it more accessible for temple work to be done eventually. It's easy to stop and start when a kid wakes up or needs you or whatever. Check it out and see if it works for you:
http://www.familysearch.org/eng/indexing/frameset_indexing.asp

I've done over 300 names already. I have a goal of doing 100 a day. I like knowing that I'm helping in some small way to further the work.


In other news our house is coming along well. We'll take more pictures tomorrow in our walk-through. After the walk-through they start the drywall. We are a little panicked because we are laying all of the tile and flooring on the bottom floor and we just found out that we have to do it between the 15th and 19th of this month. A lot sooner than we imagined. We're not really ready, but I guess we have to be. If you or anyone you know wants to volunteer to help lay tile or laminate, just let us know! (Please)