Sick

I've been so sick the last four days. It's been years since I've felt this sick. Today is my first day back and I am surprised at how weak I feel. I am scheduled to teach class this afternoon. I have high hopes, but I've lost my voice. Maybe I will be able to talk by 2pm today. I feel so behind on everything and today is Monday. Monday is always a day I start running. There are so many things to do at the beginning of the week. After school Andrew will get his staples out and Kate will see the doctor about a skin rash.

Congratulations Johannah!

Johannah just found out she has been admitted into BYU! Wooo! Whoo! We are so excited for her!

Staples Are Better Than Stitches

Scott took many of the children snow boarding over the long weekend. They arrived home yesterday evening. Andrew came in first and went straight to the shower. Nate came in next and said, "Okay Mom, don't freak out or anything, but Andrew got cut up with the snow board. Oh, and there was blood everywhere, but he's fine now." How am I suppose to react to that. I don't think I over react in injury cases. I'm a trained EMT.

After Andrew exited the shower I asked to see his injury. He had a about a two inch gash on the left side of his head. It was not bleeding but it was gaping. Andrew said he felt all right and did not want stitches. Well what is a mother to do? I took him to Urgent Care. On the way there Andrew began to hyperventilate. He did not want stitches under any circumstances. Fortunately we had a very nice nurse and she helped us take a photo of the injury. She explained what would happen and told Andrew he probably would get staples instead of stitches. As soon as she left Andrew let me know that he did not want any staple stuck in his head. After the numbing gel and shots of a local anesthetic Andrew received 9 staples. He was surprised that he did not feel any of them. Of course we took another photo of the staples before we left. On the ride home Andrew told me that it was not as bad as he had imagined it would be.

I'm just glad that Andrew was wearing a hat or the cut would have been worse. I'm also grateful he was not cut on his face or other unprotected area. The injury could have been a lot worse. I am grateful for life's little blessings.

Heart Messages

I thought I would include a few of the heart messages that are posted on the wall in our house.

Kate likes making cookies for me. - Josh
I love James just because. - Andrew
I love Nate because he is not like Jacob & Andrew. - James
I love James because he lets me win. - Jacob
I love Andrew because he smells like butterflies. - James
I love Johannah because she lets me hang out with her friends. -Josh
I love Mom because she solves problems. - Kate

Its fun to remember that we really do have a lot to be thankful for especially the people in our family.

Happy Valentine's Day

Valentine's is on its way! We have a tradition of cutting out hearts and writing nice things on them. Some years I buy gel pens and glitter so we can decorate them and post them on the wall in the dinning room. That is how it is suppose to work. To encourage nice thoughts and actions I fill a jar with candy and offer one piece for every nice note. I soon had to limit the notes to 10 a day, per person. That makes it so you can write one for each family member per day. If everybody does that its 100 notes. Some how we always run out of candy before we run out of heart notes to write on.

Since Valentine's Day arrives on a Saturday this year I am planning a fun breakfast. Better than the Denny's breakfast some of us had earlier in the month. I will serve cinnamon rolls, eggs and sausage and maybe pancakes. Fun, fun!

Contact Lenses

Today I took Tyra, Johannah & Josh to have eye exams. They all had changes to their past prescriptions. All have complained of blurred vision in one eye or another. We had to update our contact supply and of course every eye had a different prescription. Tyra is the winner at the strongest correction, then we have Johannah who now has one eye worse than the other. Finally we have Josh. Have you ever watched him looking out of his glasses? He naturally moves his eyes to avoid all the scratches. Today Josh received his first set of contacts. He did better than Johannah the first time. His eyes watered but he got them in. With Johannah , Tyra & I spent hours trying to help her put the contacts in her eyes. Finally we left the office with only one contact in.

Next time you see Josh notice his beautiful eyes, no longer hidden behind his scratched glasses. ;)