some pictures

So I actually downloaded pictures from my phone and my camera today and wanted to post a few. The first is a picture of my cute family at Thanksgiving with my Grandparents. The second are some aprons I made last minute for my nieces for Christmas. As I told my Sister-in-law, Christmas is one of the few times I get to buy/make girly things. I had fun.

long month

The month of October has been a long one. Thankfully it is over. The first week of the month Zach, Micah and I spent in Southern Utah, visiting my grandmother Cleone Wilcken and her husband Dee Wilcken before she passed away on October 11, one day after her 83rd birthday. The following weekend our whole family was down there again for her funeral. I feel blessed that I was able to tell her I loved her, and hear the same from her before she left this mortal life. It was a blessed release for her as her body and mind had decided to turn against her. It is so different to say good-bye to some one who has lived a full and happy life...
The Monday after my Grandmother's funeral Simon and I got sick with H1N1. Tuesday morning Seth left for a business trip. Wednesday evening Max got sick. Friday morning I came down with Mastitis. Luckily my cousin and sister-in-law were available to help because I couldn't do anything. Poor Micah had to wait for Megan to show up to get his afternoon bottle because I couldn't get up off the couch to feed him. Friday night (2 a.m.) Seth got home. Saturday afternoon I felt well enough that I thought to give him a kiss welcoming him home. (usually it's the first thing I do so that let me know how sick I really was). The following Tuesday Micah was sick. We took him in and had H1N1 confirmed. Seth and I didn't do anything except hold him all week until Saturday when he actually let me lay him down while he was watching his favorite Wiggles video. And then Sunday morning he was worse: he was either coughing or sleeping. After another trip to the doctors with another antibiotic prescribed he literally spent all day, coughing, sleeping, or falling asleep while taking his bottle. Today he was somewhat better, I was able to put him down and he didn't sleep all day and at one point he actually smiled. Hopefully he is on the mend now. Anyhow, that is why October was long.
Saturday was actually a fun day with boys working in the yard and trick-or-treating for Halloween. We met up with some other little boys in the ward and the gang had a fun time running from house to house together. the following are pictures of the boys "helping" and to quote Seth "actually being helpful" :)


T

Our boys... as monsters. Nope, no editorial intent here.

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Consistency, consistency

If as a parent you think you've got it figured out, wait a couple of hours (or minutes as the case may be). This morning I was so pleased because I came up with a fun way to get the boys to listen to conference, and it was actually working! I made a list of words commonly heard in conference (Book of Mormon, Temple, Prayer, Family etc.). Each boy got his own copy and was told to make a tally mark next to the word whenever they heard it. When the tallies totaled 5 they were able to pick out a small piece of candy. If at the end of a talk they had also "taken notes" or drawn a picture, then they could have three additional pieces of candy (think small here, gumdrops, candy corn, etc.). I can't say it was any less distracting, or that I got more out of conference than I usually do when small children are concerned, but at least they were saying things like "I heard temple. Prayer! Obey! Temple!", Look mom I drew a picture". "They said Jesus Christ 45 times!" Instead of "Why do we have to watch this. This is boring. When is this going to be over. Do we have to?", so for me it was a success. And then the afternoon session came along. We gave the boys the option of watching with us, or listening on the radio while they played in the playroom. They of course chose the toy room. and they of course did not spend the entire time running and playing tag throughout the whole house, as the echoing stomping above our heads attested to.Or running up and down the stairs and in and out of the Family room making little brothers cry while we were trying to pay attention. Oh well. I guess it's nice to have room for improvement :) Thank you Elder Bednar for your encouragement "consistency is the key.... consistency is the key...".

Help! my dishes are being held hostage!

Can I just say I miss my old new dishwasher? We finally bought a new dishwasher after needing one for at least a year. And then we moved. Our "new" dishwasher is better than our last old one, but not as good as our old new one. ( how's that for confusing). Anyhow, the door has had sticking issues ever since we moved in, but with enough muscle and grunting noises one can usually get it open. Until last night... Seth went to Round Table as I was finishing up the dishes. I had almost all the dishes in, closed it so that Zach wouldn't throw all of the nicely rinsed dishes on the floor, and scrubbed a couple of things. I went to put them back in and couldn't open it. After about 5 min. of trying I gave up thinking "I'll get Seth to try when he gets home". Well, that was a whole 1 1/2 hours later so of course I forgot about it until I tried to put in breakfast dishes this morning. Still couldn't open it. And then at lunch I went to grab a knife to make sandwiches with and realized all of my silverware is in the dishwasher being held hostage. Along with most of my cups/glasses/bowls/etc. I do have a few forks left, and I lucked out and found some plastic utensils so we'll be able to eat dinner tonight without resorting to our fingers, which will be good since I was planning on making spaghetti. And I hope that once we receive a ransom note and pay whatever it's asking us Seth will be able to open it this evening. If not, I just might use this as a good excuse to not do dishes for awhile ;)

year long goal accomplished

So I've been thinking about an article I'd like to write for quite some time, and I finally did it. Our newspaper has an online selection where regular people can write and post articles, so I did. If you go to www.hjnews.com there is a button on the left hand side called "your cache valley". The article is entitled "A Mother's Plea".

Wow! Long time, no post...

So you might say I'm not the most frequent visitor to our family blog... and you could definitely say I'm not its most prolific poster... but golly, Melissa: no entries since MARCH? Really? What have you been up to for the last six months?

In Melissa's defense, I guess I could jot down a short list of events that might have made claim on some of her time in the last HALF-YEAR.

- We sold a house.
- We bought a house.
- We fixed up a house.
- We moved.

Other than that, not much has happened. Our kids have grown. We've grown (older). It's been a busy season. I'm not going to try to make any kind of a comprehensive record, make-up style. That's been my problem where keeping a journal is concerned: I miss a few months and, upon starting again, feel an obligation to try to go back and pick up the pieces... which is such a daunting prospect that I peter out again. It's a vicious cycle.

And speaking of vicious cycles, it's bedtime. Sleep's overrated, but it's not altogether dispensible. Enough for now. Pictures later. SJ