Washing Potatoes

It started pretty simply. I was washing some potatoes for dinner. Deborah REALLY wanted to help me. (She's at that great age where she wants to help with everything I do.) So, I figured she could wash some of the potatoes for me. It would occupy her for a few minutes, and give her a chance to help.


When I finally determined that the potato was clean enough, she was pretty soaked all over. Oh, but she had a GREAT time!

My Family's Visit

It's been really great to just visit with everyone!

Mom brought us a bunch of veggies from her garden, including a purple bell pepper.

Jason and Dwight talked tech, super intelligent stuff.

Funny things...

You know my family surprised me yesterday by showing up at my door. Well, in thinking about it some funny things have come to mind.

A few days ago when my dad asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I said, "Come see me." He said, "You know I can't do that right now. Things are just too busy." I believed him.

Then I think it was just Thursday morning when Deborah said to my Mom, "Nana, will you come to my house?" I bet that made it REALLY hard to keep the secret!

(I wonder if Deborah thinks they came just cause she asked.
She sure is enjoying it! She even got to wear Papa's glasses. Silly girl!)

I even said something to my Mom about coming to see me for my birthday. Her reply was something about the triple digit heat that we have here. And, I realized then, "Oh, Mom would be miserable here in Texas right now." (I hope it hasn't been too unbearable, Mom!)

Sis -- I can't believe YOU didn't spill the beans! I must have talked to you just before Mom & Dad left. Anyway ... thanks again to everyone who kept the secret! It was an AWESOME surprise!

Surprise!

So, this morning I had scheduled a meeting with a friend from church to hand off all the Cub Scout information. It was almost time for me to leave when Dwight said, "The garbage cans got dumped over." He asked Jacob and David to go out to clean up the trash off the lawn. Then he asked ME to go help them. Some grumbling thoughts when through my head. Okay, lots of murmuring: "Why me? I'm also getting ready to leave. I have 6 kids. I shouldn't have to clean up trash!" Really, I grumbled all the way down to the door.

Then I opened the door and ... AHHHH! My nephew, Jason, was standing there! Oh, my goodness! Then, my other nephew, Kevin walked around the corner. YEAHHH! OH, Wait! There's more! Then my DAD and my MOM walked up. I heard myself squeal. It was a squeal of delight! I have relived this moment in time over and over in my head. It was such a great moment!

They completely surprised me! I had no idea they were coming. Dwight did. Apparently, Dwight's known for a while. (By the way, Sweetheart, please next time give me some motivation/hint/even a command to do some preparation work. I don't know ... maybe get the guest room ready. But, please don't let me spend 2 days organizing a linen closet and the master bathroom when you know we have company coming.) Oh, I don't know. It was the best surprise ever! Hopefully, they didn't mind that the bed was not ready for them, and the bathroom had not been cleaned by an adult in a while.

I wish my sister and other nephew, Aaron, could have been here too. I understand that they had conflicts with work, but I hope they'll come see me too sometime.

Talk about feeling loved! This is going to be the best birthday ever!

Shoe Shopping with the Little Lady

Deborah has needed new play shoes for a while. Shoe shopping is usually a task that I let Dwight handled with the kids. I think he's just better at it than me. But he hasn't had time so I thought I would get it done.

So I took Deborah to a shoe store and looked through the racks of shoes. I showed her lots of nice shoes and she said "no" to all of them. Finally, she found two pairs of shoes that she thought would be acceptable.


I know the picture is not great. I took it on my phone, but can you tell from the picture that they are boy shoes. Definitely boy shoes. One has transformers on them. The other has cars. At first I thought she liked them cause they had lights. You know the kind that light up when you walk in them. So, I found a pair of nice girl shoes that had lights. "No."

When I realized I was fighting a losing battle, I let her try the car shoes on for size. I rationalized that I had better more important battles to fight than this one. As she RAN down the aisle, she said, "Look, Mommy! These shoes make me run FAST!!!"

That was the key. She wanted shoes that could make her run fast. So I found a beautiful (and inexpensive) pair of tennis shoes that were white with purple accents, and said, "Oh, Deborah, THESE shoes will make you run REALLY FAST!"

Guess which shoes we bought? :)

It really is all about the marketing.

Jessica is feeling much better today. I think she must have just been severely dehydrated. Tonight she was sassy and teasing her brothers, and busy designing a Mad Hatter Cake for Wednesday's party. Obviously feeling better.


Jacob is busy working on his Duty to God award. Unfortunately for Jacob, he is the learning guinea pig for me. I'm just figuring out the whole Duty to God program and the Boy Scout program. In fact, Jacob and I need to go through things tomorrow and set some goals for this week. He would like to finish his Eagle as early as possible.

David went to a science club today. They dissected a pig's heart. He thought it felt cool. This science club he's attending is amazing! Next week they are going to put a computer together from bare bones up. I'm sure he'll love it.


Johnathon has been really excited about life lately. I wish I could get that boy to talk about real stuff though instead of electronic games, computer sites, or some make believe thing. I've started challenging him to learn 1 new thing about the world each day.... AND, I don't accept "facts" from the Mythbusters. I do not understand how 30 minutes on the computer, and an hour tops of tv time can feed that child's imagination so much. I suspect we're going to have to cut out tv altogether during the week this fall. We'll see though.

Deborah has been a tough cookie lately. Picture my stubbornness and Dwight's stubbornness in a little 2 foot package with blonde hair, blue eyes and an amazing smile... yup, that's Deborah. Now imagine how empowered she feels by knowing that she has 3 brothers wrapped around her little finger ... and Dad's not too far away either. (Notice that I didn't say she's spoiled.) We are still working on who's in charge. The other day I said to one of the other bossy kids, "Who is the Mom?" suggesting that they needed to stop bossing other people around. A few minutes later, I told Deborah to do something, she looked at me very pleasantly and said, "Who is the Deborah?" Yes, we have a problem, but it is a really cute and often really sweet problem.

Ryan is still having clusters of seizures a few times each day. It feels like they're happening more often. I'm beginning to wonder if they are infantile spasms instead of myoclonic seizures. I'm not sure that ones better than the other. Our neurosurgeon friend told us that an EEG would probably be needed to differentiate them, but that it's probably best to just continue to treat the symptoms and not do the EEG too early. Much easier said than done. Part of me would like a definitive diagnosis. The other is scared of what the definitive diagnosis might mean.


Dwight started his new job last Monday. So today started the 2nd week. He's still learning about all the company policies and procedures ... ie red tape. We are so very thankful that his job search did not take too long, and that we have such amazing friends to network with during a job search. I'm so thankful that Dwight has such great skills and works so hard to stay current with technologies. I am very blessed and lead a very blessed life. I know Heavenly Father really blessed us. Sometime perhaps I will tell you of the miracles that we have seen recently. We truly have seen miracles.

Oh, maybe I'll get pictures loaded tomorrow. I hope the pictures of Ryan's birthday party turned out good. I haven't even looked at them yet.

Oh, one more thing ... we moved Ryan into his own room tonight. The black closet. (Don't worry. It's the size of a bedroom. ) Now, I need to decide how I'm going to turn the office into a therapy room. Should I paint 2 of the walls black and hang black black-out curtains over the window? Or, should I build a L-shaped PVC structure that can be draped with black fabric? Hmmm.... decisions, decisions. I'd love to hear your input....