How We do Thanksgiving.... Part One

This year, we made the nearly last minute decision to go up to Vicksburg to hang out with my brother Andy and his family for Thanksgiving. I was easily persuaded to go there when I learned that my sister Miranda and her family (to include her brand new baby boy!)  were going to come down as well.  And when he heard where the party was going to be, my dad decided to make the trek down for a few days.  Yay!  All my favorite things in one place:  Family, food and Pie!

Delaney was so pleased to hold her new cousin, Alex. 

Joshua put his brain power into creating a Tardis and here he is proudly showing off his creation.

Aunt Miranda was so cute, letting her boys cook with her.  Camden was a pretty decent helper, but Ethan... maybe not so much.  (But he sure is adorable in his Charlie Brown shirt!)

Rylee is posing with the pretty little snake.  the snake is quite the popular fellow with the kids.

Callie wanted a turn holding the baby, but she's in a no-photo phase and would not smile for me!

Isn't Alex a cutie pie?!!

The little kids got along fairly well.  I think they were enjoying a movie here.

Uncle Dan brought this fabulous cardboard castle and the kids had SO much fun coloring it.

Aren't Delaney's pants awesome?!!  It was 75 degrees at home when I packed, and the day we drove up, the temp dropped to the 40s and has stayed there. However, it means I did not pack appropriately and Delaney had to borrow some long pants.  (Oops!)

Here is the nearly finished Castle.  Callie and Rylee were so pleased with it!  Pretty cool, huh?

Hanging with cousins, waiting for snack.  I love these kids!

A pre-bed game of duck-duck-goose.  So fun to watch!

Uncle Andy made a great horsie.  But he had waaaay more kids on him than any real horse would tolerate.

Uncle Dan was also quite popular as a climbing toy.

Oops, looks like the kids got him!

Grandpa did not escape unscathed.  I think we had to pull the children off him to get them to stop piling on.

Looks like he enjoyed it though!

How we do Thanksgiving at School

The school has a "Parent Appreciation Day" where parents are invited to have lunch with their kids and the school serves  "traditional" Thanksgiving fare. Since my children rarely buy lunch, they get very excited about this day and I let them all buy lunch.  This year I was only able to get to sit down and have lunch with Callie. 

She was pleased I came to join her, but also a little shy and embarrassed.

This was what we had: Peas, candied yams, roll, stuffing, turkey with cranberry, and an oddly flavored peach pie.  It was.... well, it was cafeteria food, but the turkey was quite good.

After lunch, I walked to Callie's class with her.

She showed me her desk and we had time to chat for a bit.

She hates getting her picture taken, but she humored me.  It was a nice time with my girl.

- - - - - - -

Joshua's grade had a Thanksgiving Feast thing.  They asked all the parents to contribute something and I made 2 pies.  There was so much food that there was a ton of leftovers.  There was a veggie tray, a cracker tray, 2 turkeys, a ham, fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, sandwiches, rolls, and gobs and gobs of desserts.  It fed all 4 classes plus parents, teachers, and then some.  Rylee came with me and she sat in a corner eating while I handed out rolls and finger sandwiches to the line of kids.  After serving, I got to go hang with Joshua in his classroom.  It was kind of fun!

Rylee enjoyed the frosting off her cupcake!

I snuck a picture of my boy.

All the girls were impressed with Rylee and really wanted to play with her.  Joshua enjoyed having something that gave him status and he took fun advantage of it.  They both had a marvelous time.

And Thus it Becomes a Venting Medium

I'm annoyed.  And crabby.  I wonder if it is me.  Is it?

I was looking for a doggie sitter for Levi over Thanksgiving.  I posted on our local base Facebook page and 2 ladies offered.  I messaged back and forth with the first one.  I was a little annoyed that she didn't seem to answer questions directly.  If I ask, "Would you like me to bring the dog over so you can meet him?" and she responds with, "What is your address?"  I wonder if I was unclear.  I was starting to feel a little less secure in my decision when she had other comments on the base FB page about working late hours.  Levi needs to not be kenneled all day and that was not inspiring confidence.

I messaged back and forth until we seemed to have an agreement of dates and money and she had said she'd come over this afternoon to meet him.  Am I crazy for wanting to meet someone before letting them take my dog for a week?  Is it odd that she would rather come here to meet him than to let me come to her house?  If my dog is going to go to her house for a week, does it not make sense to have a getting to know you visit there beforehand?  It did not seem to be a priority to her.  And I had no clue where she lived.  The only clue I had was when she mentioned that she wasn't going to be on the base on the day I invited her to meet Levi.  Great, all I know is that she lives off base.  Am I odd for thinking that this might be important?

This afternoon I messaged her to see if she was still coming.  She said no, she didn't have the gas.

So, um, yeah.  I don't like you anymore lady.

I'm crabby.  I am annoyed with you.  I'm angry because I thought this was all taken care of and now I have zero trust or confidence in you.  And I feel guilt because I agreed to pay you to watch my dog.  And based on other comments, it seems like money is tight for you.  Well, those comments and the fact that when I adjusted the doggie-sitting from Tuesday to Monday, you doubled what you wanted me to pay.  I feel bad that you are strapped for cash.  I feel bad that my sense of loyalty makes me feel bad for backing out of our agreement, but this is my dog and I don't trust you.  Bah!

I also feel bad because in the last hour, I did contact the other lady (who I had better vibes about but had already agreed to let the first lady watch the dog) and she's happy to dog sit, for half the cost of the first lady.  So I am very happy about that, but I still feel like a jerk for not going with lady #2.  Who I haven't told I'm backing out on yet.

I think I need some chocolate.

Murphy's Law

Yesterday was the special day at school when the parents are invited to join the kids for lunch and they have a traditional Thanksgiving fare, although they manage to make it look nothing like what it is.  I went out to hang out in the cafeteria and enjoy some time with my kids.  Since it was overcast, I carried my umbrella.  I hauled that darned umbrella around with me for 2 hours, and carted it home, never needing it.

Today, Joshua had a special Thanksgiving lunch for his grade and parents were invited.  Rylee and I went out to enjoy the festivities.  As I left the house, I considered grabbing an umbrella, since I was carrying a bag, and could easily haul it around with me.  The sky was lovely and blue, so I left without an umbrella.

You know where this is going, don't you?

I spent 2 hours at school with Joshua and his class.  I served finger sandwiches and rolls to about 100 students and to some parents.  I got to enjoy my own yummy lunch with my favorite son and I got to giggle at the antics of my youngest child as the girls in Joshua's class tried to entice her to play.  Since Joshua wasn't going to be doing anything but watching a movie after the party, I checked him out of school 2 hours early.

As we walked to the front door, I noticed it was raining.  Not just drizzling, but huge drench-you-in-2-drops raining.  And I had 2 children, a bag with a pie in it, and NO umbrella.  And we had 1/3 a mile to go to get home.

Sigh.

Fortunately, there is a happy ending!  I ran into Callie's teacher, who loaned us a good sized umbrella (which I will return when I go back at 3:30 to pick up Callie!), and Joshua scoured the lost and found and came up with a giant green umbrella.  We managed to get home without getting soaked.

Getting Poked

Some of you may know I have been visiting the acupuncturist because I have stupid Plantar fasciitis that won't leave me alone.  Now I'm pretty sure no one actually enjoys being poked with needles, and most find it uncomfortable.  I tend to be fairly neurotic about needles.  Or I guess I use to be.  Now that I've been getting allergy shots each week for the past year, I have accepted that it is okay to be uncomfortable for a second to receive a better result.  I wasn't concerned about acupuncture though.  I know the needles are super-tiny and don't hurt.

Well, they usually don't hurt! When I went in the first time, they lovely lady told me it would sting going in because of all the nerves in the feet.  She wasn't kidding!  About 4 or so of those needles hurt going in.  They only hurt for a minute, then all is well. Out of the 15+ needles she put in, only a few actually hurt.  And since I have been back for 3 more visits since then, well, it must have been worth it to me!  If you have never tried acupuncture, it is pretty simple.  You tell them what the problem is and they poke needles into areas that should help fix it.  You lie there for 30 minutes, then they come and remove the needles and you are done.  Again, it does not hurt at all during that 30 minutes. 

I brought my camera with me on Saturday for my most recent visit.  Since my foot has improved so much, they said I needed fewer needles and they wouldn't hurt going in at all because they wouldn't be going in as deep.  I was suspicious, but it was true!  Whew!  

Here I am, being a pincushion:

Marian, How do I love thee....?

Marian brought this home the other day.  Her Girls on the Run did this as a self esteem thing, I think.  It was super cute.  Someone drew an outline of Marian and Marian wrote lots of words on it to describe herself.  I was reading the words and asked her if she got them off a list.  She said no, she thought of them and wrote them down all by herself.  I LOVE this kid!  You can't really read them all, so here are the words Marian used to describe herself:

fierce  kind  helpful  awesome  creative  funny  fantastic  cool  smart  thoughtful  nice  remarkable  hungry  fast  loving  generous  energetic  flexible  unique  beautiful  courageous  radiant  responsible  cute  lovable

Ye, my darling daughter, you are ALL of these!!

Fishy Fun

Monday was Veteran's Day and I had not planned to do anything.  Dan planned to take advantage of some of the freebies to military and was going to go to lunch with some of the kids.  I discovered that the Zoo and Aquarium were both going to be free to military that day.  So I gave up nap time to take the kids (and Dan!) to the aquarium.  We met at the ferry and sailed across the river to New Orleans and enjoyed the aquarium.  The kids had a surprisingly good time and were really good.  It was a nice day out as a family and I enjoyed it a lot more than I had expected.

Hamming it up on the giant shark mouth.

Delaney striking a pose with the seahorse.

And we can't forget the frog.  Must climb on it.

Sure, why not see if everyone can fit on it for a photo.  Yeah, those are my kids.  I let them climb on everything and annoy everyone else.  Actually, the place was not crowded at all, thank goodness!

No waiting to pet the sting rays.  The kids loved this.

They rearranged their play area and there was this faux fishing boat which the kids really enjoyed.  Rylee loved "catching" fish.

We meandered down the river walk a bit.  Here's Rylee being sneaky and silly.

Did I mention the climbing thing?  3 kids up in a tree, and 2 begging for a boost.

My cute Delaney.

View of Nola from across the river, as we headed  home.

Feelin' Churchy

 Joshua got to go on his first Temple Trip 2 weeks ago.  I got to drive up with him and his buddy Jacob.  Then they went to do the youth thing and I went to do the adult thing and we met back up and drove home.  Nothing earth shattering, but a lovely morning.  I was glad to hang out with my boy!

More grown ups than youth, but a good group and they had a good experience.  Joshua is in the front with the strained expression.  He doesn't do fake smiles well at all. 

Last weekend was our turn to clean the chapel.  The kids know the drill by now and are pretty good about it all.  They don't complain much, do their jobs, and we usually go out for food afterwards. They are good sports and they work pretty hard.

Joshua was chief hall vacuumer.

Rylee helped clean off the fingerprints she helped make on the doors.  Window washing is one of the more popular jobs- along with chalkboard cleaning. 

 Callie helped put the hymn books away.

I got to vaccuum the main chapel room.  It always takes forever, because I have to use the hose to clean the pews too.  (I know, not a flattering shot, but hey, if it weren't for unflattering photos, I'd have no photos of myself at all!)

Letter to my Podiatrist

Dear Dr. Podiatrist,

I have been stewing over yesterday's visit since I left your office.  I'm really annoyed with you. This was our second visit;  I saw you six weeks ago.  You were not very communicative.  I walked in, with a list of things I had been doing and you didn't care. I had my shoes in the car in case you wanted to see what I wore, but you didn't ask, and you were so not interested, I didn't even bring it up.  I said I thought I had plantar fasciitis and you spent 10 seconds with my foot and proclaimed my Achilles tendons too stiff.  Then you began wrapping tape around a piece of foam on my foot.  I was perplexed.  You never said what you were doing, or why you were doing it.  You never said what I was suppose to do with it.  Perversely, I just waited to see if you were going to explain yourself, because I'm kind of passive-aggressive like that, but nope, you never said a word about it.

I thought you were going to send me out of your office with no clear answers.  Fortunately, I also had a list of questions I wanted to ask.  Once I started asking them, you actually became more user-friendly.  You did answer my questions.  I kind of liked that you said you wanted to take a conservative approach and you were confident I would overcome this quickly.  I was a little surprised that the only things you mentioned were to stop running, do a specific stretch 3 times a day, and purchase some orthotic shoe inserts.  You suggested anti inflammatories, but I do not want to be taking them for forever and said so.  I asked about the steroid shot but you said no, let's try the easy fix first.  I asked if I should be doing anything else, and should I try a night boot.  You said no. I felt like maybe there should be more, but you didn't think so.  So off I went.

I stopped running.  I got the shoe inserts.  I did the stretches.  I discovered the shoe inserts hit my foot back at the heel.  After 4 weeks, I began to wonder if I was seeing no improvement because the inserts were aggravating it.  I wondered this because my foot hurt worse in the evenings after I had spent time in the shoes with the inserts.  I stopped using them.  However, I switched to a shoe with good arch support for going to the gym, and I wore orthotic (Spenco) sandals the rest of the time. My feet wore some sort of arch support 90% of my waking hours.  I took over the counter anti inflammatories for a week, and was aggravated to see no difference.

In addition, I have a slant board in my bathroom, and I occasionally use the frozen water bottle to roll under my foot.  I see the chiropractor regularly for my back and the chiro spent extra attention on my foot.  I explored acupuncture on the foot, and while it wasn't pleasant, there was a little improvement.  Sadly, nothing gave me miraculous relief, or lasting relief.

After 6 weeks, my foot still hurt.  Every day, every time I used it. I came back to see you at the appointed time.  You hadn't even asked what I was doing before you began to tell me I wasn't improving because I hadn't done what you told me to do.  I had mentioned a visit to the acupuncturist and that I saw the chiropractor.  You were offended that I would seek help from elsewhere and told me that if I wanted treatment to work, I needed to stick with one, and I wasn't getting better because of that.  I was offended that you had no idea what I had been doing.  I did exactly what you asked me to, yet you did not listen to me at all.  You accused me of not following your treatment program.  You hadn't even asked me if I had.  You assumed that if I had tried acupuncture or the chiropractor, then obviously I wasn't doing what you suggested.  You assumed wrong, and you did not even wait to see if I had followed your 2 protocols.  Astonishingly enough, you were also unhappy with me for not using the prescription you had given me.  A prescription you apparently gave me at our last visit, without ever mentioning you were giving me a prescription.  Honestly, I found out you had prescribed an anti-inflammatory (directly to my pharmacy) when I got the notice from my insurance company 5 weeks after you sent it in. I then had to call the insurance company to ask what this was.  Had you listened to me on our first appointment, you'd have known I wasn't interested in taking drugs long term anyway.

You also implied that I was wasting your time.  That I was stringing out visits when I could be doing more.  That one really perplexed me.  You were the one who wanted to be conservative.  I was really confused as to why you thought I was making us need more visits, but you were on a tirade, and obviously were not interested in hearing anything else.

I'm sure you recall our time together somewhat differently.  However, I have no interest in hearing what you think happened. I have no interest in seeing you again.  I think you didn't listen and I will not be visiting with you again.  If I want someone to ignore me, I have 5 children for that.  If I want a doctor who will listen to me, I will be finding one elsewhere.

Sincerely,
Thoroughly disgruntled

Halloween Wrap Up

We had a lot of stuff going on to celebrate Halloween this year.  I figured I'd put it all in one exceedingly long post.  So, this is all the stuff we did this year:

The Branch Halloween Party:

Is it wrong for me to be annoyed that they insist on calling it a "Fall Festival" when it clearly is not a Fall Festival, but in fact, a Halloween party?  It was the usual thing- Chili cook off, cake walk for dessert, lots of little costumed people running around, and a trunk or treat.

Rylee wore a horse costume, but it was bulky and cumbersome, so she's down to just her freckles here. Dan was himself.

My kitty Marian. 

Poor Delaney.  She was convinced that her adorable glow in the dark pajamas were a scary costume.  She was irate whenever someone suggested it wasn't. 

Callie brought her best friend Dorothy to the party and they were matching cats. 

The pumpkin carving contest.  I thought I did a pretty good one, but the others were way better.   Not the best picture, but mine is in the center... next to the awesome "Where the Wild Things Are" carving. So yeah, I was okay losing this year!

Frosting the pumpkin cookies.  My favorite part of the evening was hearing a kid ask for the "putrid" colored frosting! 

 Rylee posing with her cookie.

Marian, Dorothy and Callie doing the cake walk. This was the only way to get your dessert.  Fortunately, there was plenty of offerings and when they started the trunk-or-treat (a little prematurely, I thought!) I snuck in and grabbed a bag of yummy cookies. (Hey, I had donated pie!)

 Rylee and her horse trunk-or-treating.  Somehow the horse's bridle part got left at home and she had to hold the poor thing's head up as she begged for loot.

Joshua and Callie hanging out in our trunk.  Joshua likes to give out candy. He also thinks he is very clever.  We had gotten a plastic foot as a Halloween accessory, and when kids would come up and say, "Tick or Treat!", Joshua would hold out the foot and say, "Smell my feet!"

Nope, still not a great shot of the pumpkin I slaved over to carve!

Running Group Halloween Play Date: 

My running group got together on Wednesday and had some fun.  I felt silly and ashamed, since I was the only adult NOT in a costume.

 We had a mummy wrap relay which the kids LOVED.

And the coloring sheets and stickers were a huge hit for Rylee. 

 Isn't she cute?!

Delaney's Pumpkin Day:
This was an exercise in disorganization, but the kids seemed to have a wonderful time.  I had signed up to assist, but since no one knew what was going on, I just hung out with Delaney and did what she did.  There was a lack of supervision, so I did get to help keep her class going where they needed to, and I got to help with the less organized kids. Again, the kids thought it was great.  They went out to the track and ate lunch out there.  Then they had several different stations to do stuff at.

Delaney having her lunch with her friends. 

They made these cute cotton ball ghosts at this station.  The wind was quite blustery so it was challenging. 

The next station they were given adorable little pumpkins and the kids made predictions about their pumpkins and then measured to see if they were correct. 

This was the "How far will it roll" measurement. 

The "will it sink or float" test.  (They float!) 

The next station was to make these popcorn hands.  Delaney is a little kooky and I have no idea what she is doing!  There were 2 more stations- I think it was decorating a cupcake to eat, and pulling out pumpkin guts.  I had to leave and run over to Callie's class at this point! 

Callie's Party:
Callie's class cleverly scheduled the presentation of "Personal Narratives" on Halloween and thus was able to consider it educational, while still having a party!  I went to see Callie's presentation.  In a class of 30 kids, I thought it might take forever, but it only took an hour.  Score!  And the kids were impressive.  They did a great job on their narrations.  Callie was #27, and hers was short and sweet.  It was kind of hard to hear some of the kids over the sounds of munching, but what I did hear was very good.

 Hanging out at her desk, waiting her turn.  Note all the candy and treats around the room. Callie also got a little pumpkin to bring home.

Giving her narration. She was quiet, and shy, but knew her stuff and spoke clearly, if softly.

Halloween Night:
After school, Delaney and Marian went to the Karate Party.  Dan dropped them off and I picked them up. I think they had fun.  Again, Delaney was heartbroken that no one thought she was scary.  And she got a prize for "silliest" costume, which really hurt her feelings.  She was perplexed as well.  She'd had me draw "angry eyebrows" on her and could not understand why no one thought she was scary.  Poor kid.

Joshua and Callie took off before I got back from the karate party pick up and I never even got to see Joshua in his costume.  Well, I did for 30 seconds when he returned form trick-or-treating, but I didn't have the camera then. Marian opted not to go out, but wanted to help pass out candy.  But she really didn't.  She was too shy to answer the door and hand over candy.

Delaney is in the pink, in the middle of the line.  Marian is all the way on the right, in the black cat outfit.  There were a lot of kids at the karate party.  

Delaney and Rylee with their loot haul. They had fun.  Dan takes them out and they came back with a decent haul.  Joshua and Callie came home a lot earlier than they had to, but that worked out fine since it was raining by the time their curfew rolled around.  There was plenty of candy for all, and I'm pretty sure that is all they ate all weekend long!

Oh, these were the pumpkins we carved for Halloween.  Joshua did the pokimon pumpkin on the left.  I cleaned out the guts and he did absolutely everything else!  The wolf pumpkin on the right was selected by Callie, who was also suppose to carve it, but alas, I did all the work. And it came out awesome!