Happy Birthday Mema

We love you so so so much! Happy happy birthday, Mema. Thanks for being the bestest mom in the whole universe.

*I am SO sorry, Telima. The doctor said it probably wasn't roseola after all, but Fifth Disease, given the circumstances and the fact they look very much alike in babies. Gideon still loves you, though.

And the verdict is...

The doctor called me today to see how I was doing and to tell me that he figured it out! I have Fifth Disease, or a parvovirus (completely unrelated, though it has the same name, as the virus that kills dogs). This virus hits most people as children, so almost everyone has already had it and is immune to it now. Except me. Apparently, I never got it as a child. When children have it, they get a rash, a low-grade fever and within 7-10 days, it's completely gone. For most of that time, the child acts pretty normal. When an adult gets it, it hits harder. There's joint pain and a couple of other things that some people get and others don't. I apparently got the joint pain. The doctor told me there wasn't anything he could do for me, since it's a virus and it may last for months. Which, you know, is encouraging. =) But, it's nothing serious, it will go away and in the meantime, I just keep popping Ibuprofen.

So, now we know! That's a relief, at least. I'm glad that I know what's causing it and that it's nothing serious. Thanks for your prayers and support! I love you all!

Happy Birthday Mom

To the greatest mother I could ever have, Happy Birthday. Hopefully, your have not forgotten how to count so high. I love you tons. SKT

P.S. You should consider dying your hair a nice hot pink color to fool everyone to think that you are younger then you really are. Good luck with that.

She's ALIVE

Yes, I truly am alive. I took a bit of a blog-vacation, and then I had a real vacation, and now we're back to almost-real life (Bradley is in San Francisco for a conference till Wednesday night, so we're not all the way back to normal). And I have a ton of fun things to share.

So I've already told everyone this personally, but just for posterity's sake: Baby Awesome is due November 10. YAY! Or, at least, YAY! after I'm done being sick. Which should be approximately November 11. Huzzah.

Although this little incident happened before I knew I was pregnant, I'm still very amused with it:

I've been loving and hating being a mom these past few days--the kids have alternately infuriated and delighted me. I'm in a loving it mood right now, and so as I was rocking out to my Hilary Weeks music on my iPod, cleaning up the kitchen, I ask Mercy, "Mercy, what do you want be when you grow up?" Maybe this will be teaching moment for telling her how wonderful being a mom is! Maybe I can teach her to want to be a mother when she grows up...

She, walking away from the kitchen to the family room, says, "I throw up?" and then pretend gags, hand to mouth.

When you consider pregnancy, maybe she already gets it...

LaDale and I had a marvelous time during Spring Break, doing...absolutely nothing. Seriously. We watched at least five movies (and several McGyvers), ate take-out, read books, and talked. And got my haircut--which took 100 minutes, from start to finish. No joke. It's really cute, though, and easy to style (which is essential). As soon as I get a proper picture of it, I'll share, I promise. Lost probably five pounds doing it, too, what with losing two feet of thick hair. (Easiest five pounds ever...)

While at Grandma and Grandpa Ross's house this weekend, Ezra told Aunt Kim all about Jesus. "Jesus is in charge of grown-ups. Grown-up's are in charge of kids. Kids don't have to listen to Jesus until they die." No, I don't get it, either, but it's really cute....

My least favorite place I lived was the Keele's house, because it was so stressful to keep everything perfect. Although if you count the hostel LaDale and I stayed at in Kona, Hawaii, with the flying cockroaches and all...it was only three nights (for me) and one (for LaDale).

My favorite FHE has pretty much been mentioned, going to UNLV to play games and then to the Dairy Queen afterwards. Or scripture chases and scripture pictures. Although much later, I remember making applesauce cookies while Daddy read the Proclamation to the World on the Family (since that was given while I was in college, I must have been visiting home for this FHE).

Ummmmmmm, what else? Mercy is three and loving it, and loving her tea set and books and fake wooden food to "cut" with the wooden knife. Ezra is four and I'm loving it, as he is getting old enough to do certain things by himself (but not to wipe his bum, apparently). Gideon is one and ADORABLE, trying to stand up even without DAFOs and talking (unintelligibly, naturally) up a storm. He thinks that any food on the ground is fair game, and if he can reach it, ANY food ANYwhere is fair game. Cute boyo.

And I love you all. Hope you are having a lovely almost-spring. (We got five inches of snow yesterday and today. Sorry, LaDale.)

Pictures

Here is a few pictures of Tinkerbell, finally. I hope that you all enjoy this shot of our little Silky Terrier. We love her very much. As an interesting side note on life with Tink, she has taken to following anyone who spends more then 30 seconds in the kitchen. She knows the chance of food falling to the ground increases when we stay in the kitchen for long periods of time. She has also learned that Kip does not stay still while eating. Thus, if she is able to, she will follow Kip anywhere he goes and eats the crumbs off the floor that he allows to fall. I say when she is able to because we have to lock her outside when the boys eat otherwise she will eat all of there food before they can get at it. Until later. SKT

Quick Post

I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm doing much better. I'm not completely better yet, but good enough that Momma is heading home now. She just left my house, so she'll be home late tonight. I love you all! I'll keep you updated on what we find out, if anything.

And HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIP!!! I love you!

Quidditch

ok, so I was watching CBS this morning and caught a quidditch game. VERRY FUNNY!!!!
I went on line and found it and here it is!
http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/i_video/main500251.shtml?id=3976918n

Enjoy!

Also, Happy Birthday Kip!!!!

Jeff's job

Well, as many of you know, Jeff has been working as a contract underwritter for the last two weeks. Also, he has been pursuring permanent employment. We received an offer letter from Wells Fargo yesterday that we accepted today. Chances are very good that he will be starting on Monday. We are very thrilled!
Thanks you all for you prayers.

FHE

LaDale,
You took the thoughts right out of my head! Those were the exact two I was thinking of. We have done the scripture one, not quite as much fun as all of our pictures are uniform, but still. I wish we lived in a world where it was still safe to play No Bears on a collage campus. I always loved those the best!

PS - Heather is wondering whatever happened to Flat Stanley?

PPS - Happy Birthday, Mercy. We are so glad you are in our family!

FHE

No Bears Are Out Tonight on UNLV's grounds and ice cream at Dairy Queen afterward.

I also loved when all the Book of Mormon and Bible pictures were put out and we had to pick out the scripture story that went with each picture. I loved all the different shapes and sizes of the pictures, some with white borders and some without, collected from all over. It added to the fun somehow.

QOTW

So this week I thought I would get in a question or survey really before anyone else does. It relates to my previous post. Tell us of one (or more if you want to) fun Family Home Evening that you have done, remember, or are planning to do. What did you like about it? Please share your thoughts.

For me I really enjoyed this past FHE. Mainly because I remember going to the park with all of us as kids and playing tag with Dad. Last night reminded me of that FHE when I was young. I love you all. SKT

FHE

I thought I would post a quick little blurb about something fun my beautiful wife suggested we do for FHE last night. For the first time that I remember in our married lives we had FHE at the park with dinner as a picnic. It was so much fun. The boys had a blast and we even brought little Tinkerbell. We tied her lease to a poll but she could still extend it and walk in a 15-20 foot radius around the poll. I'm so glad my wife thinks of fun things for us to do as a family. Until next time.
SKT

Update....again

I know, I know. I promised to get another QOTW up, but honestly, this week has been crazy beyond measure. I told you all about the rash. Well, we didn't actually go into the doctor because it started to clear up on it's own on Friday. I just took some Benadryl to stop the itching and ignored it. By Friday night, it was basically all cleared up. I even felt up to having friends over for our bi-monthly game night. All in all, I was feeling pretty good about it.

Then, Saturday night, shortly after we got home from a walk to Macey's (ahhh, Spring), my ankle started throbbing. Really bad. By the time we went to bed, I could hardly walk. It was no better in the morning and both my index fingers had joined the fun. I couldn't grip anything, let alone pick Jayson up to feed him. But, it's Easter, after all, and we had Stake Conference today, so we went. I spent most of the two hours following Katy as she wandered the Church (in and out, in and out of the cultural hall). By the end, my ankle was actually starting to feel better. My fingers? Not so much, and the pain was spreading to my wrists. Okay, but it still wasn't too bad. Around 12:30 this afternoon, my shoulders started to hurt. By 4:00, I was in so much pain, I couldn't lift my arms away from my body at all. That's when Tyler put his foot down. We were going to see a doctor. Keryn (lovely, wonderful, beautiful Keryn) came and took our children so we wouldn't have to deal with them. We ended up in the ER at UVRMC (because the Urgent Care isn't open on Easter Sunday) and after about two and a half hours (really fast, considering it was an ER) we still don't know what's wrong. Or even if it's related to the rash at all. All we know is I don't have diabetes, I don't have lime disease, and I don't have acute arthritis. Oh, and I'm not pregnant. *whew!* That's all I can say. Anyway, the doctor gave me a prescription for Loratab (yay!) and some antibiotic, just to be on the safe side. But he's intrigued, so he's going to call me in a day or two and see how I'm doing. In the meantime, he's going to talk to his doctor friends and see what they can come up with. I'm just hoping that by the time he calls, I'm all better. I'll keep you all posted though. Happy Easter! I hope it was better for all of you than it was for us.

Happy Easter

I hope that everyone had a wonderful easter holiday. We did, even if it did feel as if it snuck up on us this year!

Funny news articles

I saw a very amusing news article today about some cities taking down their red light cameras. It said that some cities are taking them down because they are no longer cost effective. People see the cameras and don't run the red lights, the cameras don't take any pictures and there are no tickets issued and no money coming in to pay for the cameras upkeep. I find that funny. Wasen't that the whole point of the red light cameras? To make people stop running the red lights? Apparently they work to well!
Also, there was this fun site - http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/10mosthistoricallyinaccurate.html
the worst historically inaccururate movies ever made, see also along the right hand side, 10 most mismatched couples and so on.

Re: Everything

First of all, Samuel, I'm excited to hear about your new calling. Tyler's the scout master in our ward and he finds it difficult, but I think he actually likes it.

LaDale, I'm so sorry about your computer! I hope that you can get it fixed or at least get the info off of it. When our old laptop died, it had quite a bit of information on it that we lived without until about a month ago. Tyler took it to the data recovery place on campus and they got everything off of it. It's been nice to have that back.

And everyone, thanks for answering the QOTW. I'm sorry I haven't put a new one up yet. It's been pretty crazy around here. Katy was sick last week and by the time she felt better, I was exhausted! And then I forgot. But I'll put another one up tomorrow before I go to bed, I promise!

Today has been a day filled with itching and scratching. I actually called momma to make absolute sure that I have already had the chicken pox, because I find myself absolutely covered in spots today. It started yesterday with just a few and I honestly thought they were bug bites. They look exactly like bug bites. But when I woke up this morning with twice as many as I went to bed with and none of my family suffering the same fate, I had to conclude it was something different. Now I absolutely covered in them, from head to toe, literally. The worst ones are on my hands and behind my knee. Those are actually swelling and painful as opposed to just annoying like the rest of them. I'm having a hard time holding anything and I wince when I walk. It's been fun. We tried to go to the doctor when Tyler got home from school, but we didn't have an appointment and the Urgent Care at the Health Center closes at 5:30...I have to say, I am not impressed. Anyway, they open at 8:00 tomorrow morning, so I'm headed in then. In the meantime, Tyler and I have been trying to get our house completely clean, just in case it's dust mites that are doing this to me. The only other thing I can think of is I'm having a bad allergic reaction to something blooming in the area. I've never had it happen before, though. Is it possible to pick up new allergies after having kids? Anyway, wish me luck and I'll report back tomorrow. I love you all!

QOTW

It is about time that I weight in on the worst place I've lived. I think it has to be the second apartment Dad and I lived in and it was not bad. The first place we lived had spiders but we had a bug service come out and that took care of that. But the second apartment had no heater. It did have a swamp cooler. For the cold days, it had portable heaters only. LaDale was just a baby and not really healthy and so she was sick all the time. We were only there for less than a year and we were able to save up enough to get into the house on Banjo so I guess it was okay that way.

LaDale, I am so sorry to hear about the death in your family. I hope you were able to save at least some if not all of the information on it. Is there chance of a resurrection?

My computer, however, is just plain weird. It thinks that okay is spelled wrong. It wants me to put in Tokay, which I don't even have a clue as to what it is.

Re: Condolences

Thank you.

Sniff!

Re: Death of a loved one

LaDale,

I could not stop my tears as I heard of your loss. Know that I will be thinking of you and trying to help you in any way that I can to comfort you. I understand how dramatic this may all be to you. Given time (and money) you will be able to accept this great loss of your and move on with your life. May the tax return do you favor in this great hour of need.

My condolences,

SKT

Death in the family

HELP!!

My computer is officially dead. Well, not quite officially because no official person in the 'know how' has actually taken a look at it, but it won't even start anymore. It won't even turn over or make that "I'm trying to come on," sound. Nothing. It just sits- cold and dark and DEAD!

You know that tax return we are getting- yeah- probably a new computer if it isn't already spent on my teeth!!

Just a quick note from my school computer being monitered every step of the way!!

SIGH!

I can officially say...

G'Day to you all. For the last 10 months I have not had a 'calling' in our ward. I say it that way because we always hear about home and visiting teaching as the most important calling we could do. I agree to the important part but I, personally, disagree in calling it a 'calling.' I say this because I call doing my home teaching my priesthood responsibility to represent the Lord, the bishop, and my Elder's quorum leader to the families they have entrusted in my care. With that being said, I will say again the I have not had a calling for the last 10 months since I was released with Caren as primary workers.

I can officially tell you now that I have a new calling. I new it was coming for nearly 2 months as they told me about it at the end of January. But the paper work and the impromptu stake conference and the actual stake conference all seemed to get in the way. I was sustained in church yesterday as the new Webelos den leader. I am expecting an assistant in the coming weeks. I am very excited as this gives me interactions with scouting and with the boys that I previously taught in primary. The kids I taught when I was their primary teacher are now 9 - 10 years old and thus I will see them again in this calling. Fun stuff to look forward to. I love you all.

SKT

Worst place ever lived in

Right now, it would have to be where I am right now! Sad, but true. It hasn't always been that way, or I wouldn't have stayed for 3 years, but recently, my downstairs neighbor plays music terribly loud often at 2am but worse, someone around the corner smokes so that even with the windows closed (it is winter still) a sickeningly sweet smell permeates the bedroom waking me up in the middle of the night with a stomach ache. I half think it isn't a totally legal substance whatever it is. Sigh! I will be looking for a new place sometimes this summer although the thought of moving is daunting. Oh well!!

Sunday mornings

Now, I love Sundays. I don't want you to get the wrong impression by this post that I don't. I just don't particularly like Sunday mornings. Once we're at Church, everything is great. It's just getting there. I only have two babies! I can't imagine the process of getting five or six kids ready to go! All I can say to that, Jenafer and Momma, is wow! You guys are good. I run around like a chicken with its head cut off for probably close to an hour and a half, trying to get Katy and Jayson dressed (and keeping them clean!), Tyler up and going, and myself looking at least halfway decent. And by then, we've got about two minutes to get to church before Sacrament Meeting starts, but it takes five minutes to get there, so we're basically always late. *sigh* Oh well. At least it's usually worth the effort. And the Sundays where it doesn't seem like it's worth the effort, I just have to keep telling myself that it's the right thing to do. Just go to Church. It'll get better. It always does.

P.S. You may have noticed I'm posting this on a Sunday morning, when I should be getting myself and my babies ready for Church...except all of our Sunday clothes are in the dryer right now. *sigh* again! Inevitably, we'll be even later today because of it. Love you all!

QOTW

Ok, I have been thinking about this very carefully. First off, I am going to disqualify the two times we lived with my in-laws, political correctness and all, so that narrows my choices slightly. I guess I would have to say that our first apartment together was my least favorite place to live. First, it wasen't in a terribly safe neighborhood, and I was alone alot with Jeff in school. Second, the people above us smoked, I was pregnate and could really smell that smoke through the vents. Then there was the whole caught on fire on my birthday thing that it has really counting against it. Also, as Keryn and Telima can attest, it had roaches the size of mice, and lastly there was the no central AC, only wall units.

That's all!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Re: Least fave living place

I'm sorry to hear about all your troubles, Telima. I admit that I have never lived in a place that bad in all my life. This also includes the mission. But, if I were to rank the places that I have lived in, then the one that would end up at the bottom would be our Wymount apartment. This is mainly due to the limited space that there is to live. Also because our first summer we did not have any form of air conditioning and that was the summer Caren was pregnant with Adam. We did end up borrowing an unit from a friend in early July. Lost summer though. I admit that I have to count my blessing that our time at Wymount is the place that I consider the worst place I have lived. I hope that I do not have to remove it from the list as I hope I can succeed in living in better places the longer I am living. Thanks for the question.

SKT

QOTW

Thanks, everyone, for answering! I really like the QOTWs. I was looking back at a few recently, and I really enjoy them.

So, this week's QOTW is more of a chance to rant for me than anything else: What was your LEAST favorite place that you have lived and why?

I think that mine, unfortunately, is where we live right now. I mean, before Tyler and I got married, I lived in Campus Plaza, with 3 roommates per bedroom and only one bathroom. That wasn't great, but this place is definitely worse. On first glance, you wouldn't think it was so bad. The kitchen is wonderfully large, the bedrooms are decently sized and there's a HUGE storage closet in the back. Rents not bad, although we do have to pay our utilities on top of it, and we have a big backyard. That's why we took this place. We moved in, and then the troubles started.

Since we have lived here, we have dealt with leaky faucets in the bathroom sink, the shower head, and the kitchen sink, not to mention the constant leak coming from under the toilet. Then there's the power outages, as the house was wired really weird, so anytime we run our spacve heater, half the house loses power. But we had to run our space heater because the heater in the house didn't work...it wouldn't turn on until it was about 50 degrees in our house. Our oven quit working for about a week before they finally came to fix it. And that's not even counting the fact that we've had a spider infestation, mice in our vents, and of course the raccoon family that lives in the bush right outside the front door. Add to this a cheap landlord who always goes for the quick fix instead of taking care of the real problem. So, yeah...after our lease is up this summer, we're moving again. *sigh* I hate moving! But I would rather deal with the annoyance of that than live here one day longer than we have to.

Jeff Has a JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, it finally happened. Jeff has just accepted an offer to be a contract underwritter for Radien. It is enough money for us and it starts on Wednesday. They even have benefits and vacation time! We are very excited!!!!!!

re:board games

I have always loved "Clue" but lately I haven't really done much playing of games. Dad's favorite game to play was not really a board game but was Dominoes. He really enjoyed that. He didn't have much time to play it but when he could it was just about the only games he did play.
On another topic, I have a very hard time with sending some emails. Everytime I have to send an email to a gmail account I always put in gamil. I can't seem to get my fingers working right and I seldom check so I get a lot of mail not sent properly. I don't know why it's that way but it is.
Now that I have ranted and raved, I guess that I should go. I love you.

WHEN WILL SPRING REALLY COME?

A Little Bit of Everything

Well, I haven't written in a while. It has been hard, with very little good to write about and really not something I want to dwell on. I will answer the QOTW. My favoite board game is currently Scene It, Disney edition, mostly because three and a half of my kids can play it with me. (Erica is the half, she loves to play, but I very carefully choose her questions to almost always be "Ya-Ya!") I am really looking forward to having more game with my kids. Benjamin is heavily into chess right now. And really, for an eleven year old, he is not bad! LaDale, I wish I could come and play a game with you! I really miss my big sister! It makes me sad that I can't spend as much time with you as our other sister can. Sometimes I really feel left out. Anyway, nothing much on the job hunt. Jeff is finally getting responses to his resumes. He has an interview tomorrow at Countrywide for an underwritting assistant. He is obiously overquilified for and it doesn't make enough to cover everything, but at this point even not enough is better than none at all! Anyway, we really only expect that it will be for a little while. Keep us in your prayers!
Thanks!

RE: Playing games with LaDale

Anyway, anyone for Cranium? It's only a short to Colorado Springs by jet?!?!

Nah, LaDale, I don't think so...much, much too much trouble...

Oh, wait! What about March 26-29? I think I have those days free...

Games

I think I've decided my favorite board games are the ones played with anyone. I don't get an opportunity to play a lot and miss the FUN. Santa gave me Cranium for Christmas, but I haven't had a chance to play it yet. I love playing Dominoes with the family and I loved playing Uno and other cards games.

As for some of the others, I don't LOVE Trivial Pursuit but I do enjoy Scene It, although I've only ever played the Disney version.

Anyway, anyone for Cranium? It's only a short to Colorado Springs by jet?!?!

Re: Board Games

Board games: Can 'Pass the Pigs' be considered a board game? It involves 2 pigs that you throw like dice and depending on how they land you get points. Rather pointless game but I find it fascinating.

I have many that I really enjoy playing. I love Pente, Risk, Fish Eat Fish, and a little Chess. I also enjoy those DVD board games of Scene It. I really like the Harry Potter versions and the Disney versions the best. But, I really love Ket, the laser game.
With that in mind I would have to say that Ket is my current favorite board game.

On the subject of games I would like to add my set of card games I like to play. I enjoy Canasta, Uno, Phase 10, and Spite and Malice. There is another card game that is quite fun that Caren's sister owns called Killer Bunnies. Very interesting card game.

Right now I would say Candy Land is Adams favorite game to play that he also plays by the rules. when it comes to playing a board game that he does not follow the rules, then the list is endless. Thanks for reading the random thoughts of a brother.
SKT

RE: Board Games

So my current favorite board game is...um...okay, my always favorite board game is Trivial Pursuit. I will just embrace the geekiness that is Trivial Pursuit and make it mine.

With big groups, I really like games like Buzz Word (Our team (Telima and me) totally thrashed Tyler's team (okay, it was only like three or four points, but still...we DID win) last night at the office party), Taboo, that one game where you say three or four words that sound like another phrase or words (can't for the life of me remember the name, and I'm too lazy to go upstairs and look), things like that.

You know what my absolute least favorite thing about playing games (besides little children knocking your pieces off when you are ALMOST WINNING)? The time between deciding you want to play a game and PICKING A GAME AND GETTING STARTED ALREADY. (Deep breath. Calm down, Keryn.) Just so you know.

Hee hee. Good question, Telima!