Long Overdue

It's been AWHILE since I have written on my blog.  So I'll try to be brief, but include as much of an "update" as possible.

1 -  Lets start with Allison . . . Allison turned 6 (!) on October 24th.  Can't believe it, but it's true.  Because I had a new baby (Kimball) last year 1 month before Allison's birthday, we didn't have a party for her.  THIS YEAR, we threw a pretty big party for her at our house. I think we had something like 16 kids. It was fun, and luckily it was only 1.5 hours long!

Allison started off the sickness in our family this season.  She came down with a pretty bad case of bronchitis, which laid her out for 3 days.  Unfortunately 2 more of us in the family got it before it was all over. (see more below)  That illness finally subsided and she was back to school for only 1.5 weeks before coming down with another "bug." Last night she woke up at 4am and threw up ALL OVER the bathroom floor.  Poor girl. Luckily for me, it wasn't on any carpet.  She already seems to be feeling better, so hopefully it's a 24hr thing and hopefully no one else gets it . . .

Allison's getting assessed for the gifted and talented program at school sometime this week.  I'm curious how that'll turn out.

2 - Sarah is the only one who didn't get the bronchitis/croup bug.  Amazing, since she's the thumb sucker in the family and was surrounded by sickies at home. Tell me how that works?

Sarah's, (3  1/2) is pretty cute, but she's going through an ANNOYING tantrum phase.  I'm doing my best to ignore them and control myself during them.  Usually, they're over the weirdest, most irrational things.  SHE doesn't even know why she gets upset, but she sure gets all riled up and I have to hand it to her . . .  she's persistent. (hence the difficulty in controlling myself).  Hopefully that trait of hers will turn into an asset someday. When she WANTS to be, she can be a good helper, and she's getting better at playing with Kimball and including him, which he loves. 

3 - Kimball, 13 months, is sure cute!  :) He got pretty sick with bronchitis and croup after Allison, and I wound up taking him to the ER for a breathing treatment and steroid injection a couple of Mondays ago.  He's over it now, and hopefully won't get what Allison has now. 

 

I haven't ordered his glasses yet because I'm waiting for him to be on our vision plan (starting Jan 1), so I can save some money.  I figured 6 more weeks of poor vision wasn't going to hurt him!  

 

Kimball is getting MUCH better at entertaining himself (as long as I'm in the room). He also LOVES LOVES LOVES to look at his picture books with me.  He points to the animals and I name them and make their sounds.  He could do this all day, and often comes to find me wherever I am, dragging his book in hand, and plops himself into my lap so that I will read to him. The other day, I caught him sitting on the floor with his books, pointing to the pictures and "talking" to himself as if he were reading it.  It was adorable.  So fun to watch him learn and grow.

Since Saturday, Matt and I have noticed  that Kimball's goopy eye has disappeared.  It's been clear 3 days now - which is unheard of unless he's been on oral antibiotics - which he's not.  Let's hope that his eye has miraculously fixed itself, and I will cancel his surgery on the 19th!  The eye part, anyway.  I think I'll still have him get the tubes placed in his ears.

4 - Matt: is enjoying his job. There's alot of change happening within Sysco, and it's keeping his department VERY busy.  (good job security)  As usual, he's turning all kinds of heads with his incredible performance and work ethic.  Nothing new there.  He's very good at what he does.

For Halloween, Matt took it upon himself to go buy the pumpkins this year and plan the carving activity with the girls.  They turned out great, and the girls had a blast.  We even had unusually cool weather the night we were carving, which actually made it "feel" like Halloween too.  Not to make you all feel bad, but it's still 80+ degrees during the day here. So weird.

5 -  I was the last person to get that nasty virus that Allison and Kimball got.  Man, it just lingered on and on, but I'm finally better.  Doesn't it stink that there's no one to pamper the Mom when she's sick?  That's the hardest part.  

I'm getting a new calling at church this Sunday, and for the sake of a few people who live in my ward who read this blog, I can't say what it is . . . so stay tuned.  Let's just say it's a big change and I'm nervous.

I'm going to look into getting my Texas RN license soon, just in case I can actually find a part-time job that works for me and my family. Working 1 day a week in KC was awfully nice.

As far as our housein KC  goes, we should be having a contract signed in the next couple of days to rent  it to a family for 1  year.  We're not going to MAKE any money on this lease, (it won't even completely cover our mortgage payment) but it will at least minimize the "hit" we are taking every month.  It's better than nothing for sure.  That will be a HUGE relief in many ways.

Matt's brother, Mark, is also living with us for the next month while he is working at his new job in Houston & waits for his family to move here over Thanksgiving weekend. I'm glad we have an extra room for him to use.  I think it will work out just fine.  Too bad he has to put up with my terrible house keeping and not-the-greatest cooking skills.  It will be so different to have some family live nearby, so that will be a nice change.

Well, ok.  This wasn't so "brief." But it's 10pm and I'm going to just go ahead and post this without the corresponding pictures right now, or else I might never get this out.  You'll have to check back later to see the pictures I upload of Allison's birthday party, Halloween, cute pictures of all the kids, etc.