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Thanksgiving Festivities

Well we had a lovely Thanksgiving this year. Everyone came to our house! We had a HUGE turkey, thanks to dad teaching Richard how its done. Everyone pitched in and brought things. I did mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and an orange jello salad. Megan made awesome homemade rolls and a delectable chocolate pecan pie, Beth made her quick disappearing deviled eggs and Grandma Frederick's yummy layered desert, Marella brought veggies and ham rollups, they went fast too. Mom brought stuffing, yams, jello salad and made the gravy(hers is so yummy). It was a ton of food! We had lots of leftovers and usually the tradition is everyone comes back the next day for seconds. But alas, no one came back, so we ate some Friday and Saturday and froze the rest of the turkey. I will make a soup this weekend probably.

After dinner Jeremy brought in his XBOX 360 and we played Rock Band. Everyone took turns on the instruments and with the singing, I am pretty sure everyone got a chance to sing, including Mom and Dad. It was very fun! The younger kids spent most of their time playing upstairs, or in the front room. But Joseph was desperate for the chance to play the drums. He kept failing, so we finally unplugged the drums from the game and let him do a song that way, and the other kids gave that a try too. Then he was satisfied and enjoyed watching everyone else, for the most part. Jake is a natural at the Rock Band guitar and Adrienne is a great drummer! Megan's belly did not keep her from playing those guitars! Richard even got really good at the drums, they are really hard and no one but he, Adrienne and Jeremy would play them! Anyway, we played for hours and it was wild and crazy fun!

I am thankful for my family and grateful we got to spend Thanksgiving with everyone!! As well as being a holiday, this was a special day for my parent's. They celebrated their 40th anniversary! Way to go Mom and Dad! Glad we could spend your special day with you!!

Dad gives singing a shot. Wait, is Dan plugging his ears in the backgroung? :-)

Adrienne and Dan getting ready to rock out!

My adorable pregnant sister Megan holding nephew Zachary

Joseph had some fun hanging out with Grandpa Frederick!

Jake's crazy schedule

First I want to start off by congratulating Jake for his awesome Cross Country season. Last night we went to a Banquet in honor of the entire team. Jake lettered as a freshman and we are all so proud of him! His coach explained that at his first time trial Jake did the 5K in just under 29 minutes. By the end of the season, he was bettering his time just about every meet and ended with 19 minutes. Pretty impressive shaving off 10 minutes over just a couple months time. I cannot wait to see how he does as the years go on. By the time he is a senior, I imagine he will be even faster! A couple of weeks ago he tried out for the Glencoe freshman basketball team. He has been looking forward to this for a long time now and has been practicing and staying in shape. Well, sadly he was cut from the team and was devastated for a day or two. My heart broke for him and the mom in me wanted to rush over to the school and explain that he was nervous at tryouts, but he is so skilled, they simply cannot pass him up this year! But the mom in me also knows when to back off and simply offer him my support. So I signed him up with the Hillsboro Youth League and he is now on a team and starting practice next week. As if that is not enough, he also volunteered to be the manager of the Varsity Basketball team for Glencoe. This should be good for him since he will be at all the practices and games and will get to see what goes on at the Varsity level. He will be staying very busy between the two, but Jake seems to thrive when he is busy! I love the Hillsboro Youth Basketball league. Last year was such a great experience for Jake. He had a wonderful coach, Mr Brauer. He is the welding teacher at Glencoe and Jake is in his class this year and loves him. Anyway, he is a wonderful coach and worked very hard with Jake who had only started playing basketball on his team. He was new to the sport, but as is typical of Jake, he took it on and gave it all he could. He had a great team of boys. I went to just about every game and watching him play is really better than being front row at a Blazers game. Towards the end of the season Jake got especially good at rebounds, due to his height and newly developed skills. He would get the ball and keep shooting till he got it in there. Early in the season it might take three of four rebounds to get it in, but that improved as the season went on. He also got fowled a lot and got pretty good at the free throw line. The coach was really good about giving everyone fair play time. He rotated them out on a regular basis. His team did not win a lot of games early on. Towards the end of the season he started asking the boys if they wanted a good shot at winning. Halfway through the game he asked the boys if they wanted to leave Jake in to rebound, or if they wanted to rotate regularly. Every single boy wanted to leave Jake in. So the rest of the boys rotated around Jake and he played the majority of those last games. His coach would pull him out for about 30 seconds to get a drink and then put him right back in, when they huddled for a time out, he told Jake to sit on the bench and catch his breath. He played exceptionally well, making up to half the points for his team during the games. One game they were down by a basket, Jake made the basket, but got fowled. He made the free throw, winning the game for his team. For a mother of a boy who was so challenged early in life, this was especially incredible and moving for me. Jake became a star in the eyes of many people. My eyes tear up just remembering, so I am very much looking forward to this season and hope it can be as positive an experience as last year. I know it will be great for Jacob! My dad has been taking Jake to practice in the church gym. He was a star player on his high school team and it is a neat bond between the two of them. Dad helps Jake with things I wouldn't know a thing about! He also came to a lot of Jake's games last year. Megan and Jeremy and kids even got to come to some. Though he may not show it, this support really means a lot to Jake. Thanks guys!!

Last Years Game Pictures, compliments of Richard the photographer

He shoots, he scores!!

Look at the height Jake can get when he jumps!!

I was wrong....

I only have THREE(not six) more classes until I am officially on Christmas break for a month. That is the good news, the bad is that all three are huge exams. I have my section three lecture exam next Tuesday, my section three lab exam on Thursday of next week and then the following Tuesday is the comprehensive final.

I have found a distinct pattern to my attitude of learning. At the beginning of each new section I feel overwhelmed and I tend to mentally freak out a bit. I start to question whether I have what it takes to be a nurse, or even if I have what it takes to get through the prerequisite's. As the classes go by, I start to understand theory and how things work, and although the details aren't always clear in my mind, the fog starts to lift. By the time the exams come along, I feel fairly confident, but I study like crazy for a few days before. This has worked well for me thus far, but I do wish I could skip the panicked questioning phase. I also wish I had a bit more time between upcoming exams to study for the next. I am grateful for the Thanksgiving break and will be using a lot of that to study!

Milk, glorious milk...

Joseph has been off milk products for a couple of months and it has been really hard on him. He loves yogurt and he loves cheese and he loves just plain milk! The Dr office advised me to keep him off of milk, since it seemed to help with his hive breakouts. I decided I wanted to know for sure so this last week I took Joseph in to see the Allergist. He was tested for milk as well as milk proteins and it came up negative. He does NOT have an allergy to milk! Yippee! Apparently the hives coming and going away in relation to milk product consumption was just coincidental and not related to what he was eating. I am so relieved. So we came right home and he at a cup of yogurt, his favorite!! No more breakouts! I am so glad I did not listen to my Dr and just assume it was milk. I cannot imagine keeping him from eating dairy for an extended period of time when there was really no problem!

Veteran's Day Fun!

Ok, so Veteran's day was a couple weeks back, but I enjoyed it immensely this year. When I was in school as a child, it always meant a day off from school, yippee. Now as an adult, I understand that this day is so much more. With all the soldiers serving our country, many in other countries, and with a husband who served in the Army, I have come to respect this day far more. But this year it was special for both reasons, I also got a day off from school! Yippee! And the kids were home, as well as Richard.

Well Annalina spent the day celebrating her daddy. She made her own American flags and colored them, complete with the right amount of stripes and we made him Caramel Corn, and she made up songs about him because she truly wanted to celebrate his military service. She is very grateful that he survived being a solider. Let me explain her sweet thoughts on this subject. Last year in Kindergaren she told the kids in her class that her daddy was in the army. They asked if he was dead, and she said no. Several of them refused to beleive her because if he was really a soldier in the army he would not be alive right now. Could it be a misconception of many kids these days that to serve in the army means to give your life for your counry...ALWAYS? So it would seem. Luckily Richard went to school twice during "transportation" week, sharing both his motorcycle and Rover, so the kids could see that he really was alive!

While discussing Veteran's Day with her friends this year, she brought up her dad's service in the army, and again many kids would not beleive her. So Veteran's Day was a great reason for celebrating this year. It was sweet how Annalina made it such a special day for Richard. And we are all very grateful that he survived his military experience and we love to hear his stories!

It's been a while...

Remember my post about my bad luck? Well the T on my keyboard keeps sticking, making posting updates on our lives a little more time consuming! I keep going back and finding words with missing T's, sorry about that. Oh well. It has also been a very busy couple of weeks for us. There has been much going on, but I have had little time to write about it all. I just hope I can remember the important things now!

School is challenging, but I am still enjoying it very much. I only have six more classes, the last three of which are huge exams. Luckily I have Thanksgiving off and will have extra time to study. We are working on the muscular system. It is all very complicated and amazing! I still have an A in this class, and hope I can keep it through the last three exams. Early on I tried to tell myself that a B would be ok, but have since learned that the program is so competitive that it is really hard to get into without straight A's. So I spend a lot of time studying and so far it is working!

Tekronix has gone through another round of layoffs. Sadly Richard's group has shrunk again and the three of them that are left and now responsible for 24 hour monitoring of the data center, which lost ALL of its employees. Richard figures he has about six months of job security, which really is not very long at all. It is stressful for him at work now, and the worries do not end when he comes home at night. Big change is coming for us, but I know that whatever happens, we will be led to where we need to be. It is so comforting to have the gospel in our lives and to be able to turn to the Lord for comfort when things become so insecure. I recently read a book which said that life is full of challenges. It is how we respond to those challenges that is important. We are truly learning to see things in a better light. Rather than lamenting over the challenges sent our way, we can view them as a learning and a growing experience.

My sister Megan recently recommended the book "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. I read it in one evening, staying up until 2am to finish it. I highly recommend this book to everyone, no matter the stage of life you are in. It is all about getting out of debt, budgeting, and being prepared for college funds, financial emergencies and retirement. I was impressed by the steps he sets forth to become financially fit. I told Richard about it and he read it too, only taking a few days to finish. Due to our current predicament, the ideas in this book have come along at a great time. Aside from our house, we are not hugely in debt, our cars are paid for, but we do not have an overabundance of savings right now, that is for sure. We have set a monthly budget, and are sticking to it. We have started making weekly menus and buying only exactly what we need for those meals. We do not go out to eat or spend money on things we don't absolutely need. We dress in layers and have not turned the heat on except for a couple of times so far this fall. Gas prices have fallen, and this has saved us a LOT on our gas budget. To build up our emergency fund, we have been selling things we don't use or need anymore on Craig's list. Richard and I are working together towards something we truly believe in and it is working. It is not always easy, but it is very rewarding to see the results even after just a few weeks.

Now that I have talked about being responsible with our money, I have to admit we splurged, Richard took me to see Twilight, the movie. I read the series last year and really enjoyed it and was very excited to see the movie. We hit the matinee and skipped the popcorn, so it was somewhat affordable. We went to Cornelius theaters, and even though it was the first Saturday after release, there were only about a dozen of us there. It was nice not to be sitting elbow to elbow with strangers! It was fun and Richard even liked the movie! He probably won't read the books, and that is just fine. I am happy to be able to share the movies with him! I have heard from a few people that they were disappointed by the movie, but I really loved it! It was worth the wait, and I am looking forward to the next few movies!

I am looking foward to Thanksgiving, which is just around the corner. We are having it here at our house this year for the first time ever. We will have 9 adults and ten kids here. We have been working hard to get the play areas cleaned up and ready for major activity! I am looking foward to the long weekend with family! Richard will be on call this week, at least we won't have to leave him home alone for the big feast!

Grandma Frederick's Microwave Caramel Corn

When I was younger my Grandma Frederick used to make us caramel corn when we came to visit. It was so yummy! I suppose since grandma was so traditional in her cooking, I was always shocked to see she made it in the microwave! She gave us the recipe and we tried making it at home. It worked for us too and I LOVED that recipe. Well its been years since I have had Grandma's microwave caramel corn and I don't even know what has become of the recipe. On a whim I googled it and what do you know...you really can find just about anything on the web. We will be making this soon with the kids and hopefully they will like it as much as I did when I was little. The only difference in this recipe is that we made the caramel coating in a pot on the stove, but I suppose you can do it this way too. It will be fun to try out!

Next time you go to the grocery store, ask for your groceries in paper bags. You'll need one bag per batch.
3-4 quarts popped corn
1 stick of butter (no substitutes!)
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup Karo Syrup
1 tsp baking soda - add last
Pop the corn and discard the unpopped kernels. Put the popped corn in the paper sack. While the corn is popping, put the butter, sugar, salt and syrup in a glass bowl and bring it to a boil in your microwave. Stir after one minute, and let it boil for an additional minute. Add one tsp of baking soda and stir well, until thickened. It will turn light in color and look like taffy. Pour this mixture over the popped corn in the paper bag and shake well. Put the paper bag back in the microwave and cook an additional 1-1/2 minutes (90 seconds). Remove and shake well again. Return to the microwave and cook another 1-1/2 minutes. Shake again. Open the bag and let it cool. You can even tear the bag down the side and speed up the process.

Me and my bad luck...

So I wrote about my laptop crashing early in October. Well lucky for me it was under warranty and Dell sent out a new hard drive asap, Richard installed it and that was that. Great, except now they want the old one back! I have about 1100 photos on the old broken hard drive, many of them from our long family vacation this summer. I also did a lot of digital scrapbook pages on that computer, and no, I had not had a chance to print them up yet. We can have a professional recover the data for us, but it will not be cheap. How do you put a price on something like that? I may have to save up for a while and eventually have it done, I just hope Dell will be patient with the return of the drive! I adore my husband. When I asked him his opinion on the subject he mentioned how many potential scrapbook opportunities would be lost if we do not try to get the date back! And he was being serious! Awwww....what a guy!

My computer drama does not end there. A couple weeks ago my nice big flat screen monitor on my work computer stopped working. It just went blank and Richard checked it out and confirmed that its time had come! So sad! Luckily we had a spare small monitor sitting around unused and so I plugged it in and was back in business. Its much smaller, but at that point I was just grateful to be able to use my computer again! You might think that would be the end of it. But alas, I have a new found unluckiness with technology. This weekend while using my computer the small monitor also just flicked off. Now what are the chances? Is it really true that bad things happen in threes? If so, am I done with computer issues? Well we still do not have it in our budget for a new monitor, so I am accessing my computer with the laptop with a nifty connection my husband set up for me. It is not easy doing all my work on a laptop, but again, I am feeling very grateful that this is an option! What would I do without my computer! Perhaps that is not even a question I should be posing!

Anyway, I have been posting photos on the blog like crazy lately, you may have noticed the sheer volume of them! More than usual. Well this is because the only photos I have from May on are the ones I posted here to share with all of you, the rest are trapped on a broken hard drive awaiting rescue! I am so happy to have these at least, and while this is not the solution for data backup, its nice to know they are here, just in case! If anyone has trouble getting the pages to load due to the many photos on them, please let me know!

Halloween Happenings

It was a busy week here at the Loomis house. Lot's of fun things going on! I already posted about the Pumpkin patch on Monday, well on Tuesday evening we carved our pumpkins. Wednesday night was the annual church Trunk or Treating event with a fair in the church afterwards. Megan and Jeremy brought their kids over to join us. There were lots of games, facepainting, hot dogs and home made root beer. There was also a spook alley which Jake had a large part in. We waiting in line for about 20 minutes, and when they opened the door to let us in, poor little Nate saw the strobe light and would not go in. So Jeremy and I took the girls and Joseph through. They sent word to set the scare factor to low and so it was not too bad. In the last section Jake was sitting under black plastic bags with his head sticking out. It looked like a floating head. He really scared Annalina, but he wasn't trying to. She was just expecting the worst. She cried when we got out and I said jokingly that I was going to ground Jake for scaring her. She said, "no mommy, don't ground Jake, its ok!" So it was a fun filled evening for the most part. Sadly Richard was training at his new second job and was not able to attend with us. Next year!!

Thursday was preschool day for Joseph, he got to wear his costume and they made cookies, then went trick or treating around Glencoe to the classrooms. He had a great time and got to play at Alec's house for an hour after preschool. This was nice since I had my second HUGE test in A&P that night. I studied and studied all week long and once again I got a 92%. This was a good boos for me since on Tuesday we had a quiz and I did NOT do well at all. We get to drop the worst quiz score and that will be the dropped score for me!

It rained most of the day on Friday. I dropped Joseph off with Megan in the morning and went to open lab to study for the practical lab test on Tuesday. It felt good to have a couple solid hours to study on my own. Richard had the day off from Tek and went to Best Buy for more training. With the change in day light savings time, it stayed light much later than usual on Halloween night. It is usually dark by 5:15 or so and that is when we go out trick or treating. Luckily it stopped raining late in the afternoon and was dry by evening. But by 5:30 n0 one was out yet, so we waited until 6PM and off we went. We went to the neighbors houses and then saw daddy come home on his motorcycle and went back to get him. We went through the rest of the neighborhood with him. We went to a house that always goes ALL out with decor, a bit scarier than I prefer with a horror scene and lots of fog. Anyway, the kids were fine with that, but one of their older kids was dressed as a skeleton and as we were leaving he started chasing Joseph, and Joseph really ran, he was terrified and the boy didn't stop. So I had to grab Joseph and say, "that's enough". The rest of the night Joseph was watching for the Skeleton. He was pretty scared until Richard reminded him he was a Viking and had a battle ax. He told Joseph that if he saw that skeleton coming he could wack him with the ax. OK, I don't advocate violence and Joseph could not do any damage with that plastic ax, but it made him feel much better to know he could "protect" himself. After a while, he was asking to go back to look for the skeleton. ::sigh:: Annalina dressed up as Snow White, for which she got many comments. Her hair is dark and short right now, she looked a LOT like Snow White, especially with her pink rosy cheeks!

After a while we caught up with some of my friends from our playgroup. Joseph had fun with Jake and Abe, but shortly thereafter Annalina declared she was done, so we headed home. I asked if she wanted to stop at any houses along the way, but no, she was done and that was that. She has always been like that though. Once she gets tired she is done! When we got home Jake was watching the Blazers game and was glad to be relieved from passing out candy. Joseph decided he would take over and he sat in a chair at the front window with the bowl of candy in his lap. When kids came to the door, he would give them their candy, with me supervising of course. When we turned off the lights at 8pm, he was sad, until we told him it was time to play with his candy! The kids got to bed late that night, but it was a very Happy Halloween!

Every year after carving the pumpkins we sort the seeds and roast them. Richard gets very creative with the seasonings. We always do a batch of garlic flavored, Lawry's seasoning salt, and a lemon pepper flavor. In the past we have also tried wasabi(it turned out really good) and teriyaki flavored. Anyway, at church we have an email group for the women where we can let each other know about good deals, or request something we might be needing, or give away things we don't use anymore. Its a great way to stay connected. So I posted that if anyone had pumpkin seeds they weren't using, to let me know! Well Thursday, Jannamarie stopped by with a huge bag of sorted pumpkin seeds. She had just been to the school and the entire 3rd grade had carved pumpkins that day, so she kept the seeds for me. WOW! There were a ton so Friday and Saturday I roasted seeds! Such fun!

Plumper Pumpkin Adventure

Richard had a very long weekend. There was a huge project at Tek that has been in the works for about a year now and this was the weekend it was implemented. Richard worked most of the weekend on it, including many hours in the middle of the night. Then after a couple hours of sleep it was time for him to work some more. We did not see a lot of him and he was very tired when we did! We missed him! Now he has taken a part time job and for a while, we will not see very much of him at all! I appreciate the sacrifice he is making for our family and for me so I can continue with my classes.

Yesterday Richard was home by 3pm, so we took the little ones out to the Plumper Pumpkin Patch! We had never been there, but it had been recommended to me by several people, so we decided to give it a try. It was a beautiful afternoon! Being a Monday, there was hardly anyone there, which was nice. They have two hay bale mazes, one is inside a big barn so its dark and spooky and has fun tunnels and a slide to go down. The kids enjoyed going through them over and over and over again! There were also several large pipe slides, a couple of bowling lanes and a water pump ducky float challenge, which Joseph loved. There were tons of photo opportunities, which I loved and there were lots of farm animals which Annalina LOVED, and Richard was not at work, which he really loved! While we were watching the baby calves(there were 7) the farmer came out to bottle feed them milk. He asked for helpers and Annalina and a couple of other kids were able to feed the cows. Annalina was in heaven! I didn't get photos of this but Richard did make a small video of it. It was fun to watch. She told the farmer she was going to be a veterinarian and he told her about all the animals she would need to learn about. She was thrilled to have such a fun conversation with the keeper of the animals!

He looks far too comfortable in this photo....
Perhaps I need to invest in one of these?Annalina spent a lot of time with this particular cow. She wanted to keep it company since it was all alone laying in the corner of the pen. She was worried that it might feel bad that the other animals weren't near it. There were so many fun activities to do, but she was happiest with the animals and spent most of her time with them!This was the funniest thing. This big metal bridge goes between two different pens. Richard asked why it was there and the farmer told us the goats go back and forth on it. So he lured them up with some feed and they wandered across, then stayed up there for a while, probably playing king of the barnyard or something. It was pretty funny to watch!
There were four of these pumps set up next to each other. The kids had to pump as fast as they could to send the ducky down river to the trough at the end. Joseph had trouble at first, but after daddy showed him how to do it, he did it over and over and over again! The idea is to race them, but he was more than happy to just make the ducks go on his own!

Star Student of the Week

Annalina is the Star Student of the week in her class. This means we got to make a poster of pictures about her life and her favorite things to do. It is hanging in the class room and on Friday she will get to explain it to the class. She will also be able to take some show and tell items to share. She gets to be line leader and I am sure there are other benefits, but I haven't gotten clear answers out of her on them yet. She is very excited that this is her lucky week!

She came in the door from school yesterday looking very sad. I asked her what was wrong and she said a boy on the bus called her a crybaby. I asked her why she had been crying on the bus and she said, "I wasn't Mom, but when he called me a crybaby, it made me sad and I cried". The rest of the story came out and I learned that her friend told a boy at the back of the bus that he could not save seats. He got mad and said they were all a bunch of cry babies. She took this very personally and it made her sad. I explained sometimes people say things to make us sad, we just have to ignore them. Hard lessons for a 6 year old, but she seemed to understand what I was telling her. It was just a cute response from my perspective, one that is so Annalina!

Go Jake, go!!!

Today Jake had a cross country meet, and yes, you guessed it. He beat his personal record once again, this time finishing the race in 19 minutes even. One day he will just be a blur as he passes the finish line! He finished fourth for Glencoe and would have made third except he took a wrong turn and had to backtrack a bit. All I can say is WOW! I cannot even imagine what kind of times he will be making when he is a Jr or a Sr. Go Jake!! I think he only has one more XC meet to go to this year. He is already lamenting about missing the team and practice. There are some great kids on his team and his coach is really neat. But Basketball season is getting closer! And then we have track to look forward to...

We have had quite the week! Lots going on, and then Tuesday afternoon the van would not start and it seemed to be a starter issue. I had a lab exam to study for and go to, then my dad called with emergency work he needed me to get done, what with the final tax deadline on the 15th. So the studying went to the back burner and I headed over to work. My mom was kind enough to lend me her car so I could get to my class and I really appreciated that. I was late and was stressing out a lot! The lab exam was very hard, but I did not do as poorly as I thought I was going to. I don't know my score yet, but hopefully it will be ok! I did study an awful lot for it. There are so many great websites dedicated to teaching and quizzing on A&P subjects. It is a whole new world of learning than it was last time I attended college! While I was gone, Richard took apart the van(well, not completely) and we had the starter tested, it was fine. The battery however was not. So it ended up being a cheaper fix than I had feared. After a day of panicking because of our tight finances it was such a blessing not to have to pay a huge mechanic bill. I had to go back over to work and did not get home until 10:30 or so. Richard got the van put back together tonight, but I did not have a vehicle during the day today. I had to pick up the boys from preschool(I am part of a carpool). Christy Childs came to pick up Joseph and offered to bring them all home, which eased my mind as I was trying to decide if I could walk over to get them all or would that be too far for three little three year olds to walk. It always amazes me how the Lord truly knows me and my needs, even when I do not verbally state those needs. When Christy offered to pick up the kids, out of the blue, it was an answer to an unstated prayer. She may never know the relief I felt when she made that simple offer! It has not been an easy week, but sometimes I think we need to struggle to truly appreciate the blessings we are so freely given, and often overlook.

This evening we took Annalina to her Parent Teacher conferences at school. She is doing wonderfully. She placed high on her reading assessment and will be attending an extra reading group in the afternoon that will help her develope those skills. When she was tested in Math, she got all the first grade problems right, so the teacher tested her on 2nd grade skills. She got about half of those correct, so it appears she has a great aptitude for math! Just like her big sister! Her teacher told us she is a delight to have in class. She gets to be star student next week and is very excited about that!

Well, I am off to study! We are starting in on the bones and there are a LOT of them to learn, not to mention all their parts and markings. Sheesh!

Cute conversations

Annalina and I were scrambling to clean up her room for a play date today. She has the next three days off due to parent teacher conferences. I was vacuuming and Joseph was playing on his bed. I finished and turned off the vacuum and told Joseph to run downstairs and put on his shoes for preschool. His reply was: "Not yet, I'm still controlling the sun". Hmmm, an odd statement coming from a 3 year old, or perhaps not so odd. I looked over and he had a CD and was reflecting a beam of light onto the floor and moving it around in circles. He learned when he turned it the wrong direction it stopped reflecting. His vocabulary amazes me sometimes! His choice of words was just too funny, so I had to come blog about it so I can remember! Too often the cute things the kids do and say get forgotten as the day goes on. I am happy to have a place to write about it!

Itchy Puffy Joseph

Little Joseph has been having some allergic reactions of late. His skin, mostly on his tummy, breaks out into big puffy red hives. Sometimes it is gone within an hour or so, sometimes it lasts most of the day. I called the Dr to find out what we could do for him. She said due to the previous diagnosis of eczema in our family that it is probably just that. We put cream on it and that seemed to help. We got a special soap for the laundry thinking he was sensitive to the kind we were using. But on Wednesday Joseph had a tub of yogurt and within a few minutes he was covered with hives, this time on his arms, back, neck, chin and thighs as well as his tummy. Hmmm...his worst reaction yet. So we took him off of dairy products to see if that would help. By morning he was fine. Lots of foods have milk products in them, and a couple of times I have accidentally let him eat one of those foods. He has had smaller reactions to them. So we think Joseph may have developed an allergy to dairy. I'll be taking in to see an allergist soon to find out for sure. This is a sad thing for Joseph as he LOVES milk and all its food cousins! We got him some Vanilla and Chocolate soy milk and he seems to be ok with that. I tried it and thought it was kinda yucky. If anyone has any specific brands of soy milk that is tasty, let me know! My friend Dawn has two kids with food allergies and is an expert on these things, so hopefully I will get some great tips from her!

Joseph loves preschool. It is so fun to pick him up and see him interacting with the teenage girls and the other kids in his class. He gets to play on the playground, ride the tricycles down the sidewalk by their classroom, paint, color, play with playdough, watch the birdies, or the fish, etc, etc. I have been very impressed with the preschool and am glad Joseph is able to experience it and have such fun.

I have some photos to post, but it will have to wait until I find the camera. Having a cute little tiny camera is great for taking to the park, zoo, etc. However I always seem to be misplacing it!

My brilliant husband!

Its good to have a husband who knows how to do most anything, or can look it up if he doesn't. I got this nifty laptop last May, mostly for work, however I adore it and do most of my blogging on it. With work demanding more and more of my time I felt like I was always in my office and the kids noticed. Now I can blog from bed, or hang out in the kids room while they play and study. It keeps me out of my office more and more and I love it!

Earlier this week I started up my laptop only to find messages that made no sense to me. Richard knew what was up and immediately contacted Dell tech support to get it taken care of. My hard drive sadly passed away. This is not good, not good at all. Since it was such a new computer, I had not ever backed up anything. Sadly ALL my photos from the last five months as well as our vacation photos, of which I had printed very few, and all my new scrapbook layouts from July till now are gone! Luckily I posted some of my favorites on this blog! But I had over a thousand photos on the laptop! Richard is going to try to rescue them off the dead drive, so we will see what happens! I am just grateful to have my laptop back and will hope for the best! I am grateful to have a husband who is so knowledgeable and willing to help.

Since I started school in the afternoons, Richard has taken to the EARLY shift at work. He goes in around 6am and works until 2 or 3 in the afternoon. This is in the effort to keep his schedule simple for others at Tek who need to know when to find him. It is not easy for him to get up that early, he is quite the nightowl, and I really appreciate the sacrifice he is making on my behalf so I can go to school. It is so nice to know he is home with the kids when I cannot be. He is considering taking a second job in the evenings and on Saturdays through the holidays. My income has dropped considerably and its hard making ends meet right now. Richard's Land Rover is not working at the moment and its getting colder and colder in the mornings, not to mention the rain which makes riding a motorcycle to work uncomfortable and dangerous! I hate the idea of him being gone all day and again in the evenings, but hopefully it would only be temporary. Again, I am grateful for a husband who is willing to consider such an exhausting schedule!

A broken record...in more ways than one

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I just have to blog about Jake's broken records! We went to a XC meet on Wednesday and watched him run 3.1 miles in 19 minutes and 20 seconds. This was down from his last run of 19:48. It was a beautiful day for running, nice and sunny but cool. He learned that the run would be fairly flat so he set a goal to run it in less than 20 minutes. He did great! He seems to be making a new personal record every time he runs! Annalina went over to him when he was finished and asked for a high five! Instead he gave her a big hug. A very touching moment for a mother, especially with these two who are almost always at odds!

Well today Jacob went to the Adidas invitational in Portland with his team. We did not get to go watch him, but he told us there were a lot of hills to go up and yet he still beat his time from the flat run and came in at 19:18. It must be the new running shoes we bought him last night! Actually he is just a very passionate runner! Last night a bunch of the kids from the various high school sports teams met at Mooberry Elementary School with flashlights. They object of the game was to run to Glencoe without getting tagged by the kids who met at Glencoe and left to "hunt" down the runners. After making it safely to Glencoe, they traded roles and Jake's teams were "it" and went out looking for the runners. Jake really enjoyed being with the other kids!

On Thursday I took my first A&P exam. I read the chapters several times and went over my notes and then decided I would do just fine. After all, the test is multiple choice! I went to bed Wednesday night feeling very confident. Early thursday morning I started having bad dreams about missing the exam due to car problems, or not being able to find my notes to study from, not having the scantron form to fill in etc. I figured I should continue studying and used my online site to take practice tests on each of the chapters. I was failing miserably, they were really hard tests, so my anxiety rose until I was sure I would do very poorly on the test! I kept reviewing my notes and then I went and took the exam. It wasn't so hard. Only 50 questions and I felt good about 40 of them. Our teacher was kind enough to grade them that night and posted our scores on the online class page. I got 92%! Yippee! I am feeling much better about the class now, although I have a lab exam on Tuesday that is NOT multiple choice, yikes! It is a good feeling to be learning, stretching my mind to understand new concepts. I'll admit that I am really enjoying going to school and am looking forward to being a nurse!

Pajama Day

Today was officially declared Pajama Day by Richard! Twice a year on Sunday we have General Conference where we get to watch our Prophet, President Monson and the other leaders of our church on television from the warmth and comfort of our own home. The kids have been talking about Conference for a couple weeks now, looking forward to it. We ate breakfast of sticky buns while watching the first session and in a little bit another session will begin. I love the messages we have heard so far, they are truly inspired for our lives on this earth in this time. And they bring such comfort and hope in these difficult days.

President Monson closed the first session with a wonderful message about enjoying our lives in the present, not just looking to the future. I find myself often thinking of the future and how much easier life will be when...all the kids are in school or when I am done with school or when we are retired, the list goes on and on. He suggested we enjoy and do our best in the here and now because as we enter new stages in life we are met with new challenges and life will never be the peaceful bliss we look forward to. But it is through life's challenges that we are refined and that is how we can become more Christ-like, by meeting those challenges with a positive attitude, by learning to thrive on adversity.

I love General Conference because I alway take away much to ponder. I am able to make changes in my own life so that I can live more in accordance with the gospel. Often times they are just baby steps, but I know every step takes me closer to where I need to be. I love the Gospel and am so grateful to have the knowledge I do.

AP Adrienne

We haven't been seeing a lot of Adrienne these days. She gets home from school and immediately starts on her homework. As I mentioned before, Adrienne is taking a lot of challenging Advanced Placement classes. She is working so hard at all of her classes and I am very proud of her, but we don't get to see her as much as we'd like!

Friday night Adrienne went to the homecoming game with some friends. Glencoe won 49-o and Adrienne tells us it was an awesome game! I had to wonder though because every 15-20 minutes or so the rain would come down so hard I was sure she was getting drenched. Luckily Glencoe was the home team and got to watch from under the covered bleachers. She was excited when she got home! Saturday night she went to the homecoming dance with some friends. We went shopping earlier in the day for last minute things like shoes. She looked so beautiful! Well see for yourself below! I am happy that even though she is so busy with school work she finds time to socialize and have fun!

7 Random Facts

7 Random Facts

I was tagged by my dear sis Megan!

http://meganeconser.spaces.live.com/

1 One of my favorite Mother's Day gifts was a bottle of water given to me by my son Jake when he was only 6. Richard took him to Fred Meyer to buy me a gift. Well the claw game was broken, so what was a boy to do? He really wanted to win me something. But right next to the broken claw game was an Aquafina water machine. He decided that was what he wanted to get me. Richard tried to suggest some other things, but his mind was made up. I truly did love it, knowing he picked it out for me.

2 I am a recovering nail biter. I let them grow now, although I really hate long nails. They get caught on stuff and they just seem to get in the way a lot and there tends be a lot of upkeep what with painting them and keeping them the same length etc. When I get stressed I tend to bite them back down again, I think I will do my best to keep them trimmed short, oh and have a stress free life. That should do it!

3 I have an unnaturally terrible fear of spiders. I know it is far worse than just typical arachnophobia. If I see a spider near my bed, I will seriously not be able to sleep in my own bed for several nights. In fact I am usually paralyzed by fear when I see one inside the house. I often have waking dreams about spiders. My eyes are open and I see spiders, but they aren't really there. I wake Richard up so he can kill the spiders crawling on the bed, only there aren't any. He is very patient with me though, calming me down and getting me back to sleep. Oh and I do stay in bed if they were just dreamed, but often I have to hide under the sheets, after removing the comforter they were crawling on. Luckily we live in a nice house without lots of little ways in. I have only seen three real spiders since we moved in almost two years ago. I see them in my dreams several nights a week. Yuck!

4 I am going to school to be a nurse! I have always wanted to work in this field, and every time I have had a baby, or surgery, I think how great it would be to help other people through difficult times. But why oh why does the human body have to be so complicated?! It is truly fascinating and miraculous how we work! It makes the Big Bang theory seem utterly ridiculous!

5 I love to sleep with the windows wide open. Especially this time of year. Its nice to snuggle under the blankets when its so cold!

6 My closet is never clean. I just cannot keep up with it! I am sure my husband is glad not to have to share with me anymore. It couldn't have been fun to step all over my clothes to get to his. Maybe when I grow up I will learn to keep it clean!

7 I am unusually ticklish! I always have been, just ask my sisters. For years I had to sleep with my arms down in defense of being tickled under my arms in my sleep. I only got over that in the last few years. My husband thinks my ticklishness is pretty funny. He only needs to come near me pretending to tickle me and I laugh and yell at him to stay away. Sadly sometimes he is just being loving and he rubs my arms lightly and I break into laughter.

So now according to the rules I am supposed to tag 7 people, but I am afraid to say I don't even have seven blogging friends to challenge(since Megan already did this). So I will reinforce Megan's challenge and suggest that my sisters Beth and Mar do this, its really fun. Also, Aunt Renetta, any cousins reading my blog, my friend Beth Long, and Sarah Keith if you ever find time with that tiny sweet new little baby of yours! We'd love to get to know you better!