Everyone is gone-

I guess everyone but Dove is gone from the blogging world this week. Probably the almost Dec hurricane that is going on. I should be doing hundreds of things other than being here. Procrastination at its best I guess. I fought with my computer all day yesterday and thought I lost a bunch of California pictures then found them and had problems just trying to upload pictures from recently on the computer. I was a stressed out mess from it and am still further behind in my must dos- here are some pics to all the people that are not out there this month.

Autumns Thanksgiving program

Uncle Rex and his dog Roxy-sure that's a motorcycle riding front carrier.

Pep Band -------------------9th grade Basketball

Homecoming forever ago.

We are home and on the go already-

We had a nice trip to Seattle. The weather was nice. I left sick but got well enough to enjoy our time there. We had lots of family for dinner and some of my Aunt and Uncles friends. They asked Lee Joe to say the blessing on the food and when he mentioned my cousin in the prayer that is in Iraq they both had to take a minute after the prayer to compose themselves. I met a cousin I haven't seen since she was an infant. She is in college playing basketball on a scholarship right now. My grandpa cracked me up the whole time. He was telling Kelsea and Amber they needed to get this 15 year old boys phone number and he was telling the boy the same thing. He told Amber and Kelsea that they were such good friends that they needed to share their boyfriend. And then he told my uncle Rex that he needed help with an ingrown toenail. He wanted Rex to get this tool and cut a V in the top of the nail. Rex said he didn't want to do it because Grandpa would "squeal". They kept talking about it and Rex kept saying he would squeal like a little girl. It was funny. The next day he said Rex fixed it and it felt much better. And I had to ask him if he squealed and he said no. Melissa asked him why he didn't go to the doctor and he said you only go to the doctor when your sick and he wasn't sick. Coming from a man who pulls his own teeth when they hurt. My aunt and uncle have new dog. It is a little boston terrier and it is the cutest thing. My uncle had this doggie front carrier he said it was so he could take it for a motorcycle ride. We all said yeah right, that was the manly excuse for a doggie front carrier. My grandpa wanted to keep my cousin's little dog and was thanking her for the dog. She has THE cutest little 4 pound dog. It went home with my cousin.

So Friday Melissa her family and all of us went to Seattle Aquarium and I toured them down the Pike Place market. I bought a sweatshirt for me this time and shirts for the little girls. Then we went back to the house. We got a little lost but found our way back. Saturday we went to the Woodland park zoo and my Aunt and Uncle also came along. We laughed at Orangutans that were playing with a sheet. It looked like they were playing peek-a-boo. It was a really nice zoo just a little cold. We watched Evan Almighty that night. We left late Sunday morning and had a really nice visit. We got home at 8:30 which wasn't so bad.

I had to be up and out to the school this morning sice I have missed the last two Mondays with sick kids.

I can't believe it is time for Christmas almost. ACK!!!
I have some fun pictures to post later.

Happy Hallothanksgivchristmas

I think that is what we should call this time of year when the holidays feel like they start running into each other. I can't believe that Thansgiving is this coming week already. It already feels like the holiday season. It could be because they were running Christmas like commercials the day after Halloween. But Lee Joe, Amber, Kelsea and Amber's friend all say that it feels like Christmas. That usually doesn't happen until December for me but I feel it too. I think Boise feels as well because the traffic around us yesterday was seriously obnoxious. It took me 30 minutes to pick up Amber from the high school and then get to the little girls. That should take 7 to 15 minutes at the most. We are five minutes away from the only mall in town. It took me 30 minutes to get to and from the mall yesterday before 4pm!! on a friday-well fridays are busier than most week days but that was more like Saturday afternoon traffic in December.

We have had two invitations for Thanksgiving this year. One to Eastern Idaho and one to Seattle. My family is all going to Seattle to see my Aunt, Uncle and Grandfather. I have left it to Lee Joe to decide where. He is leaning towards Seattle and we may hit Eastern Idaho over Christmas break. I don't have to cook the Turkey-did you see my turkey dance?

Good news

We had some good news from the neurologist this morning. He ruled Lee Joe's episode an atypical migraine. He had a lot of symptoms they had to rule out the worst but after looking through all his tests that is what they believe he had. And then the doctor mentioned at the end of the visit that if it had been a transient ischemic attack he could loose his CDL. We are glad that it is not the case. So there is no evidence of any stroke or any sort of bleeding on the brain or artery that has done something nasty but we got to see the inside of his head. The doctor showed us his MRI pictures. But boy will this be one EXPENSIVE migraine. But thankfully the news is good.

Something crazy happened this week. I cleaned up the garage enough that we were able to pull the van in it so Lee Joe could work on it. That is remarkable since I think we have only pulled a car in the garage maybe 3 or 4 times in all the 8 and a half years we have been here.

Taking it easy

I always have high hopes for long weekends like this but when they happen sometimes it is just nice to not worry about much and that is what we have done. I cleaned so well on Wednesday that it has actually lasted most the weekend. We have done some pick-ups here and there. Amber had friends over and what I prepared for food left a minor mess. I haven't cooked and we have shopped some and Lee Joe came along with us all on Friday to the mall and we had ice cream at Baskin Robbins. Today we went to the parade that Amber marched in. I was feeling crappy so when we got home both her and I slept a long time. Autumn has started her barking cough. Hannah was sick last weekend and Kylee sounds like she could be starting so I may stay home with the sick ones again tomorrow.

By the way we had parent teacher conferences on weds and thurs. I met with 15 teachers in two days. All but one teacher had high praise. The one teacher says her attitude is improving. That is Kelsea in orchestra. It has been a battle since the begining of the year with the teacher. Many 9th graders quit at the start of the year. I wouldn't let Kelsea. When I got the call from the teacher telling me she has been disrespectful in class I was upset with Kelsea. But when I talked to her she had been bothered by the teacher causing a 9th grade boy to cry in class. And that is where her attitude came from. In the meantime I talked to the counselor about what happened and then the principal evaluated his class and I e-mailed him and suggested he talk to another teacher that is fantastic with the kids and Kelsea has that teacher for one of her classes and basketball. That teacher talked to Kelsea and gave the orchestra teacher some suggestions and positive change started taking place. We will see if it lasts though. I might have to give in to letting her out of that class at the end of the semester. He wants to win Kelsea over. He rocognizes she has talent. So there you go!

So far this week-

Lee Joe is back at work. There are no lasting effects from his episode on Sunday. Or none that are obvious. He has an apointment next week with a neurologist. I forgot to mention what a good job Amber did while we were at the hospital. I had a roast on for dinner but it took awhile before I called the house and when I did Amber was making the rest of dinner without being told to do it. I was so impressed because she lacks her own initiative sometimes. Good kid. But the day wasn't without some sisterly abuse in our absence.

My van had an oil change a few weeks ago and ever since the oil pressure light comes on and dings at me when I am idling at stoplights. We do that a lot here in Boise. So it happens a lot. And something is wrong with our tub. It is leaking into the downstairs bathroom still. We need to make time to figure out whats leaking before there is much more damage. The downstairs bathroom already needed work on the ceiling in there. It looks like the tub has a crack.

This week is interesting. It is parent teacher conference week. For some reason the school assigned me a time on Weds that makes this afternoon a huge nightmare. Piano from 3:30 to 4:30 I need to go to the jr high for Kelsea's conferences at 4:30 and I might need to go back Thursday and on Thursday I need to go to Amber's. Lee Joe has Scouts from 6-7, oh yeah-he has a new calling too. The little girls have their conferences from 6:20-to 7:20 which overlaps YW. I, of course, was in charge. Everyone is coming over here. And somehow Kelsea needs to get to basketball practice at some point. But what makes the day a bit more enjoyable is I get to stay home all day until then. Hannah doesn't have school today. That is SOOO nice. Kylee and Autumn are home after early morning choir tomorrow. And everyone is out on Friday. So I think I can get a handle on some stuff and I am still trying to tile that small strip in the kitchen and the girls that are downstairs still need shelves put up in their rooms. So I am going to think positive and we will see how much I can tackle! I need to get busy.

Since blogging-

So I blogged while everyone was at church and then Lee Joe came home with headache-he never gets those and some other alarming symptoms so it was necessary to spend the day at the ER. We got there at 2:45, left at 8:40. We got the works-EKG CT MRI and the results are he had a transient Ischemic attack. A little scary but it was mild and he felt better most of the time we were there. We are both worried about the impending bill with no insurance. He fought a lot of the tests because of the cost but when it was done and they told him what they did he could agree it was necessary. He has to take a baby aspirin everyday and see a neurologist. Fun huh? He is OK right now. We are just glad they didn't make him stay the night.

AHHHH-some time

The first 3 days this week kicked my fanny. What really kicked my fanny was an unruly kindergartener at the school at the end of the day that decided to take a run past the office and through the kindergarten class room, out the door and halfway across the playgound before I caught up to him. I hadn't had to run that fast in along time. Apparantly I need to do that more often. I worked half a day on Tues. And of course Halloween and I was EXHAUSTED!! before the day was even half over. So we survived, the kids felt really special in all their dressed up glory and we went to the trunk or treat and then went trick or treating in a nice neighborhood where most of the girls friends live. Amber dressed up like a pirate and walked the little girls through the neighborhood. She had her loud ear phones around her neck and played pirate music so she had theme music too. She didn't trick or treat. Kelsea went to a friends house and dressed up like a boy.

Thursday I got to recover. It is soo nice having things calm down a little. Kelsea made varsity in basketball. She has practices for a few weeks before games start. Friday I stayed home with Hannah. She has barking cold. It was early release. It saved me from going back to the school and hour and half later. I baked two cakes-100% homemade, not a box mix. One for a funeral and one for us. I cleaned house. So nice to see it clean even if it is only for a day. Sat the dog threw up in two places in the family room. I had to shampoo the carpet. I was going to shampoo anyway. Lee Joe and I went shopping for trim and other house stuff. We were gone all day and had lunch out. We haven't done that in ages. And then we came home proceeded to destroy things in the process of making things look nice. I started getting my tile together for the kitchen and mudded some of the walls and Lee Joe trimmed out the doorway that use to have the sliding glass door in it. We are shopping for a ceiling fan for our room. For some reason Lee Joe is fixated on having one that looks like an airplane propeller. I am giving him first choice on the fan and I think I found one online that he will really like but it costs a lot. So when we get there I will take pictures and post them-do you believe me?

We are having some successes with our fish. We have lost some too. Our big tank has been doing well. We lost one fish a few weeks ago. Everyone else is hanging in there. 24 fish, a big snail and two frogs in our big one. Our guppy tank has been up and down. We have lost more guppies. I have made few healthy again. But the fish guy I saw says he has trouble with guppies too. We have had several batches of babies. We think the frogs ate the first big round of babies so they got moved. Our first two babies that were getting really big died. We had 6 babies, 3 or 4 died but now we are back up to 5. We have 4 ghost shrimp in that tank. One is so big and now HER belly is covered in eggs so we will see how many shrimp we end with. I was going to name that one George but I guess she is a Georgette. Maybe the guppies will eat some of those of the shrimp babies otherwise we could be in a heap of trouble. And we have a big snail in there and a cory catfish. We are going to fish sit for the next few weeks while my neighbor is away.

We are progressing well right now. I always have too much to do but things are happening. I can't believe how close Christmas is now. Ack!! I am not ready for that-we just had Christmas last month it feels like.

I have written my book on this past week so there you go!

So busy

I don't really have time to blog but I am looking forward to tomorrow and Friday-I will be home more. I subbed Fri and Mon and half of Tues. I have the usual Halloween run around. But with Kindergarten I get to go to the school 2 times for parties and take Amber some food for one of her classes in between. I got to drive kids to school from seminary this morning. I did Autumn and Hannah's hair this morning for their costumes. Autumn hair needed to be curly all over. She slept in rollers and we curled her hair in ringlets-ish and Hannah has Belle hair. Kylee's hair was done last night. I plan on remembering to take pictures this year-I don't know what happened to me last year. Now I need a shower and to get myself going.

By the way, I got my first call last week from a teacher telling me one of my daughters has been naughty, more like disrespectful in one of her classes. Can you guess who? More on that later.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Crazy can stop now!

This coming week would be somewhat restful if it wasn't for Halloween in the middle of it. I really don't like Halloween much as an adult. I have never liked scary anyway and it is one of those I help my girls indulge in. This year I bought costumes for the little ones we rotate picking from the box of costumes past and fulfilling their imagination but I think I bought 2 of the 3 costumes the little girls did last year and made the other. Santa was memorable. Our current trip brought out the disney this year with one exception. Kylee is Cinderella in her wedding dress from Cinderella 3. I have to add some stuff to the store bought costume. Hannah is Belle-so easy. Autumn wanted to be Peter Pan and wear a Tinkerbell wig. I had a hard time indulging that one and partly because there are not any peter pan costumes or tinkerbell wigs around. And it was just weird. We have done a Pippi Longstocking cheerleader before but Autumn's idea was just weird. So I asked her if she still wanted to be that and she said that or Christine. I had to ask who Christine was-from the Phantom of the Opera. What 9 year old wants to be a character from a broadway musical. It wound up being easy because she wanted a white dress and Fred Meyer had a snow princess dress that works perfectly. I just have to get creative when it comes to curling her hair.

More on the weekend.

Aren't they Cute?

We woke up on saturday with our lawn being "spooned" as Amber called it but it was actually forked. D 3 was on our lawn. Streamers and silly string in the trees, sticky notes on the car and balloons on the car and the house. We replaced the sticky notes with spirit stuff for band now I need to get to the car wash.

Big Band Day

The biggest marching band day of the season. It is D III competition. Capital placed this year WOO HOO! In last weeks competition they did not get best music. This week they got best music out of 6 bands I think in their division. The Auxilary got 3rd place and Capital won 3rd in their division. Even Amber agrees by looking at the pictures that they performed well. Amber is the one to the left in each picture. First one-left of the 3 standing together. On the left podium. in the awards the one with the gold helmet on the left. It was freaking freezing by awards time and it almost started to snow. My sister has an awesome camera. My two cameras would never take pictures that good. You see the top most seats on the other side of the stadium? We were sitting a few rows from the top but we got the best view up there.

The last two pictures aren't great but pretty good considering we were in the nose bleed section of the stadium.

Stats-

4 bedrooms in some state of reorganization
4 cans of different colored paint for one bedroom
5 beds taken apart.
6 beds put together
3 closets rotated
1 new set of bunkbeds
1 old set of bunkbeds sold
3 bedrooms almost in perfectly clean condition
2 bedroom disaster zones (Amber has no excuse)
3 bags of leaves
2 trash cans of tree branches
1 baked cake
3 pans of Chocolate Chip cookies made
4 awards at the latest band Competition on Sat-Best percussion, best visualization, best general effect and 2nd place(?) At least they won something.
2 people finally got their dinner date
Unspecified loads of laundry done with bedding and rugs included
Messy, leaf filled front yard
AND a Disaster zone of a house

5 happy girls

1 tired achy mom

1 very helpful hubby

Boy we got a ton done this weekend

OWW

Maybe if I could take my eye out, my head would stop hurting so bad. I've lost my momentum on the room change because I have been sick and busy for 3 days. Today I can rest. Just a volleyball game afterschool and the usual pickup schedule. I was sick all day long yesterday and worked at the school for 45 minutes early in the morning and had an appointment for me and then an appointment for Kylee to get a tooth pulled. I was miserable and asked Lee Joe if he would take the girls to the school carnival. he said he would. But at 4 everything just kind of went away. I took medicine all day that helped little I took some hours before it decided to just ease up. I made dinner, Lee Joe didn't make it back and I took the kids and felt OK and then as soon as I got home it slowly came back and today I feel the same. HMM-
I am going back to bed. Even though my house looks like it blew up in every room. Right now I don't care.

When Kelsea knows you are taking a picture of her this is what you get


When Kelsea doesn't know you are taking a picture of her this is what you get
These two pictures are from their Faith Quest trip this summer on their hand cart trek day. This was on a video of pictures from the trip the stake watched and got as a sovenir. Above is Amber and her giggle buddy Andrea with Kelsea pretty exhausted and below is how exhausted she really was. She is asleep.

I wish--

I wish I knew a little more about computers so I could figure out why mine is acting so retarded right now. I have a bunch of issues so I can't get all the pictures on the computer right now. And there are so many I want to download.

Amber just got home from her competition in Washington. It is 2:30 in the morning here. They did come home with a trophy. They took 3rd in their division but they didn't make it into finals but they did a great job from the way it sounds.

I am in the middle of a big bedroom over haul and change over project. We filled 3 trash bags full of clothes from the 3 youngest and three trashbags full of trash from Kylee and Autumn's room. Kylee is about to get her own room, Hannah is about to share her room with Autumn, we will move upstairs and Kelsea down into our current room. Amber stays where she is. I was suppose to do this in August. I hope I can find enough time this week to keep it up. So far Kylee and Autumn's room is half empty. What isn't in there is in the family room.

Off to bed.

Well-

I was trying to figure out why I was so bummed about my birthday but last night Lee Joe brought me a dozen roses and two cards in apology because he realized my birthday was a disappointing one. First of all I can't remember the last time Lee Joe got me a dozen roses. I am not kidding when I say it was probably a dozen years ago. They were beautiful.

Having a sunday birthday stinks first of all. Especially when married to a last minute shopper like Lee Joe. All I really wanted on Saturday was to go to dinner but Lee Joe got home too late to take me and 3 schools had their homecoming that night so my favorite restaurant would have been full of teenage kids in formals. He took the kids shopping and it was odd because we wasn't even gone an hour. He suggested I order take out from the olive garden so that is what I did. So I ate my dinner at home with two of the girls trying to mooch off my dinner while I ate it.
Sunday the bishopric gave me a "gift". I got released from nursery and called to be the Mia Maid advisor. As if I wasn't already freaking out from my current state of everything at the moment.
Lee Joe invited my family to dinner and made it. There was a weird glich in the mashed potatoes. They were a little almost like potato soup. But everything else was really good. A friend of mine and her daughter brought by cupcakes that all had different letters on them to spell Happy Birthday Kim. I got money for a monitor and pretty crystal from my mom and Lee Joe and the girls got me an MP3 player. I don't want to sound ungrateful but I really wanted an ipod. I had asked for an Ipod. Lee Joe always does that, I ask for something and he gets me something else. I didn't have to get an ipod and a monitor. If I had wanted an MP3 player I would have had one by now. But the real surprise was in the end that they got me an ice cream cake from baskin robbins. They hid it in the big freezer and I didn't find out about it by accident. My mom or someone usually brings me flowers and I guess Lee Joe remembered that Tuesday and realized he really didn't try that hard for all I do-those are his words not mine. I did go buy my own present in the end. I wasn't picky about the monitor, the cheapest one would do and in the end I found one for $150. So I was sad and he kind of acknowledged that.

I have fixed 7 band uniforms in the last 3 days on top of our craziness. Yesterday was nuts but I made it. Hannah had dance, I needed to grocery shop and did that before and after. Kylee had her first basketball game. Our girls outscored the other team so bad it was time for our girls to stop shooting. Kylee scored one basket and rebounded like her sisters. We made it to Honor Choir very late. Kylee and Autumn are in it. (Autumn may be not so tone deaf after all) It isn't as easy for her though as the other girls. She has several friends and I may be able to get a car pool going-WOO HOO for car pools! Once I dropped the 3 little girls at home I picked up Amber and stopped by a firends house that was in charge of altering the the 30+ uniforms. Glad that wasn't me. She had Amber try on her uniform so she could figre out where to place the cape-by the way it is the home of Amber's admirer -ahhh. Amber came home and said that was so awkward. It wasn't that bad. I sewed until midnight last night.
What I am looking forward too- Marching band is over in 4 weeks, basketball for Kylee is over in 4 weeks, Volleyball is over in 4 1/2 weeks. But then 9th grade basketball starts.
Hannah was paid a very nice compliment after dance yesterday. The teacher said she had very nice dancers feet. She does a very good job. All of my girls have walked on their toes since they started walking. They all still do and so do I. And she is getting Student of the month award today.

The kids are out for 4 days starting tomorrow. And it is conference weekend. Amber will be gone to Washington this week-the source of my busy-ness the past 2 weekends. It feels like a vacation!!! Not really because we are overhauling bedrooms. I will get those pictures up, they are great but I need to shower and get uniforms back to where they belong when I pick of Hannah.

My birthday present

Yesterday was my birthday. I got money from my mom and sister to buy myself a new flat screen moniter for my computer. I found a pretty good one today and now it is like looking at everything with new glasses. It is about to give me a headache by all the crispness of everything but it is still pretty neat. I have loads of pictures to download but I am in the middle of hemming band uniform pants. I needed to give a few fingers a needle break. Maybe that is the actually culprit for the eye strain. More later!

Busy

It's so busy I shouldn't be blogging but Kylee is 11 today! This Sunday she was moody like a teenager. We are on our way to 3 teenagers-EEWwww. We will see if I get a chance to blog until after Sunday. I should have lots of pictures after this week too. Between a hair do for Kylee, Homecoming for Amber, First time marching in uniform this season on Friday, two birthdays, and yeah, we are almost too busy for birthdays. But Kylee is getting a bike. Gotta run and clean and laundry and whatever else shows it's ugly head besides the lawn that hasn't been mowed in 2 weeks.

Poor Hannah

Hannah missed school yesterday. Her throat was really sore. And she was so bummed when she realized she missed getting a 3rd grade buddy. She was so sad all day about it. She went today but her nose was pretty runny and by tonight she is even worse. She may not make it again tomorrow. She loves school. Her teacher really enjoys her. I have to work tomorrow but she may get time with dad. I am in the ERR and I hear there is new girl that is really REALLY difficult. Hopefully I won't have to work with her. I kind of dread days in the ERR. It always depends on the day. Those people don't get paid enough. Most of the kids that were there last year are gone. But they were all kids I liked though.

I may have an update on the teenage soap opera for later but it won't get posted until after the weekend. We have to shop for a homecoming dress this weekend.

I tried to take a power nap at 5 today. Mistake. I went out completely until 6:30 and jumped out of bed thinking the kids weren't up for seminary and school. OOps. They were just not getting dinner. I am surprised I didn't get woke up by someone before that. I guess I needed it but now I should be sleeping so I can get up for school in the morning.

We will see if there is a riot in the house in the morning over the absence of bagels in the house. I have already heard about it before bed. The girls think it is the end of the world because there are no bagels. Apparantly froot loops and waffles are insufficient. Well that is more like snack food not breakfast for me too though. There are no bagels so now they starve I guess.