October - Going Out With a Bleh!

October hasn't been a healthy month for us in 2009. The kids all had the flu early in the month and we were just getting back into a routine when, bam - hello, stomach virus. William started throwing up early Thursday morning and was home from school Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately this meant that he missed the Kindergarten Halloween Carnival. Poor kid. He felt much better by late Friday but then Henry was up pretty much all night with it on Friday night and Jay got sick late Saturday afternoon.

That pretty much decimated our typical trick or treating ranks, as our "Jay takes the kids trick-or-treating while Rhonda hangs out and reads a book while dispensing candy to the neighborhood kids" tradition didn't quite work out the way it usually does. Instead we put a candy bowl out on the front porch and I took William (the Jedi Knight) and Tessa (Snow White) trick or treating instead. We had fun and came home with lots of candy and treats to share with Henry when he is feeling better.

Luckily we did make it to the ward Fall Festival on Wednesday night before the plague, I mean the stomach flu, struck. So you can see Henry in his Yankee gear and Tessa in her unlayered Snow White look, complete with matching Snow White shoes.

I normally love the month of October, but this year I'm not sad to it go.

Bring on November!

Autumn in Cache Valley

It's been a busy and fun fall so far. Here are a few pictures:

We always love to go to the Pumpkin Walk held in the neighboring town of North Logan. The boys were thrilled to see that there were some Star Wars displays this year:


Tessa liked the princess cutouts.


We always carve our pumpkins on the Monday night before Halloween for Family Home Evening. This year we grew some big, big pumpkins in our garden and they turned out great (the pumpkins, not the picture):


A few weekends ago I attended a Super Saturday at church. I made a Family Home Evening Game for us to play (unfortunately we've had to shelve it because although the kids love playing it, Tessa gets hysterical when she doesn't win) and a nativity set for the Christmas season. I also learned how to decorate Halloween cupcakes:


And yes, I did all of those, even the werewolf. Try and pick yourself up off the floor; it wasn't as hard as it looks.

And finally, this was the scene outside our house today.


Yep, it isn't October unless we've had the first snowfall of the year. The snow looks lovely with the twinkling Halloween lights, don't you think? Thank goodness it will melt in a day or two. Halloween isn't as fun if you have to pick your way through the snowdrifts while trick or treating.

So About Those Dance Lessons...

For a while now Tessa has been interested in dancing. It really started last fall when I enrolled her in a tumbling class that met once a week. It was a mom and me kind of thing and she really enjoyed it. Some of the other little girls took dance lessons as well and she began talking about starting ballet classes. I told her that she had to be a big girl potty-wise before she could take dance lessons and that was kind of the end of it, although she did twirl around practicing her ballet moves fairly often.

Fast forward to this week, when another package from Grandma came in the mail. The boys received baseball cards, which are always a huge hit, and Tessa got a ballerina's outfit. Not just a leotard and tights, but a full on costume with sequins and a big, fluffy tutu. She wore it all day on Tuesday, except to preschool (I had to draw the line somewhere). She watched TV in it. She played on the computer in it. She ate dinner (carefully) in it. She loves it.

I'm just waiting for her to remember that A-she really loves twirling around like a dancer, B-she is potty trained and C-Mom and Dad promised her ballet lessons once she was potty trained. So far she hasn't made the connection. But since it's been scientifically proven that small children are smarter than both parents combined in cases like this, I realize that it's just a matter of time. Until then, it looks like every day is dress up day at the Wright household.

Fall Accessories

Tessa is really into choosing her own clothes for the day. She sits in the rocking chair in her room every morning as I show her her clothing options. On a good day, she says "Yes" to the first outfit that I show her. On a normal day we go through her entire wardrobe before finding something that meets her approval. I suppose I should find this tedious, but it's just such a novelty for me to have a child who actually cares about what she wears that I find it fun in a weird way. The boys squawk if they are forced to wear anything without a number or sports logo or picture on it and William often manages to pick a shirt/pants combination that just doesn't match. You'd think I'd learn my lesson and only buy him blue jeans.

Today's outfit was especially fun because Tessa has fall/Halloween accessories to wear. You can't really see the bracelet that matches the necklace she is wearing or the pumpkin hair clip in the picture, but trust me, she was looking quite coordinated today.

My favorite thing, though, is the enthusiasm that she has for her outfits and the complete lack of enthusiasm that the boys show her in return. She got right in William's face and waved her arm in front on him to show him her bracelet, saying, "Look at my Halloween bracelet, William. Do you like it?" He groaned and said, half-heartedly, "sure, Tessa." Then he ran back upstairs to find a pair of pants that actually match his shirt of the day.

Later, when I asked him if he wanted me to find a Halloween themed shirt for him, he looked horrified. Just checking.

Why Do I....

...obsessively check Jay's flight status any time he is travelling? He's on his way to New York City tonight (I'm trying to control my jealousy) and I keep checking to see where his plane is. Oh, look, they're over Iowa now.

...let my kids talk me into playing Lego Star Wars with them? I mean, really? Aren't there better ways for a 41 year old woman to spend her time?

...have such a hard time sticking to my treadmill routine? I mean, I absolutely love the way I feel after I exercise. I only hate the process during the first 10 minutes or so - once I hit my stride I'm good to go. So why do I let other things distract me from being healthier?

...still look at Disneyland websites? We won't be going back there for a few years yet I still check those websites fairly regularly. Why can't I let it go?

...procrastinate so much? Tessa's baby book isn't even halfway complete. Don't even get me started on photo albums for the past two years. I love having those things to look at but I don't make the time I need to complete them.

If you have the answer to the above questions, let me know. I'm too busy to come up with reasonable answers myself. I've got to make sure that Jay's flight is safely over Illinois.

Flu, Flu, Go Away

We've been stricken by the flu. By "we", I mean "the kids". It started last Friday. Henry was grumpy, which isn't that unusual but he seemed particularly ornery. I noticed that he looked a bit flushed and found out that he was running a fever. He was feverish all day Saturday and a little Sunday, but was good to go back to school on Monday and has never looked back. William started with his fever on Sunday and has run a fever every single day since then. Poor kid. He doesn't seem that sick, actually, and his fever comes down with ibuprofen so he feels OK most of the time. He's incredibly tired though and just can't seem to shake it all the way. He has missed four days of school so far and I'm guessing he'll miss tomorrow as well. He may not have a fever, but he just looks hammered so a little rest and recovery time is definitely needed. Tessa seems less affected. She's run a low grade fever off and on since Sunday and is a little hoarse and whiney. Not too bad, but she's missed preschool all week because it just seemed better to keep her home. So far Jay and I have been spared, thank goodness.

If you have any healthy vibes to spare, feel free to send them our way. You can address them specifically to William, who seems to need the most help kicking this virus. He has a speaking part in the Primary Children's Sacrament Meeting Presentation on Sunday and has worked hard to memorize it, so I'd hate for him to miss it.

I haven't had the kids specifically tested for the "flu" - it just seems like a waste of time and money to be honest. We can manage their symptoms at home and I'm certainly not going to take them to the doctor and expose them to every other sick kid in Cache Valley just to be told that they have the flu and there isn't anything that they can do but wait it out. So wait it out we will. It's a good thing we stocked up on popsicles when they were on clearance last month.

Twelve Years and Counting....

Today Jay and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. We were married October 11, 1997 in the Salt Lake LDS Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. We honeymooned in New Orleans, one of our favorite cities in the world, and had wedding receptions at Caffe Molise in Salt Lake City (the restaurant where we had our first date) and in Birmingham.

In some ways it doesn't seem like we've been married for twelve years and in some ways it seems longer than that, if it makes any sense. We've had our share of sorrows and had more than our share of joys. But we are happy together and love each other more than we did when we got married, so I think we're doing OK. We had planned to go out to dinner on Saturday night to celebrate - we even had a babysitter booked and Jay spent the week perusing menus online - but the kids were sick (coughs, fever, probably the flu) so we had to cancel. Instead we got takeout and watched a rental DVD. It really doesn't matter what we did to celebrate, anyway, as long as we were together.

I don't have a recent picture of us together and I haven't converted our wedding pictures and earlier photos to digital yet. That's something to add to the to-do list, I suppose. But in the past twelve years, this is what we've accomplished:


Not too shabby.

The Logic of Children

Am I the only mom who takes advantage of the fact that her kids logical reasoning skills are not fully developed? Seriously, sometimes it seems so easy to "trick" my kids into doing what I want them to do that it's scary.

Tessa is a good example. She's three, which is an age I find difficult. She often says "no" to pretty much any question that I ask her. "Tessa, are you ready to get dressed?" and "Tessa, do you need to go the the bathroom?" are regularly answered by "No." Even when I don't phrase things in the form a question, as in "OK, Tessa, it's time to get dressed" she'll say "No" and run away hiding. However, if I say (in practically the same breath) "I'll race you upstairs", she's up and running upstairs as fast as she can move. Then it's easy to get her to get dressed. As long as it's a race, I can get her to do pretty much anything (put on her shoes, go potty - the list is endless).

William is the same way. He has started asking to take what he calls "early baths". Normally his bath time is 7:45, which leads to him getting into bed around 8:00 pm. But he'll ask to take a bath soon after Tessa is done, like at 7:20 or so, and ask if he can "stay up until 8:00", like for some reason he's pulling one over on me and getting to stay up later than normal. But it's a pretty small thing that he asks and it makes him happy - as long as he's bathed and in bed around 8 pm, I don't really care what the order is, you know? But I feel a little guilty, like I should let him know that he's really not staying up any later.

Tessa I don't feel guilty about, though. Whatever gets me through the day with her is a valid parenting technique in my book. It's a good thing she's so cute (in the picture she's holding her princess music player - Bibbiddi Bobbidi Boo just never gets old).

Wide Open Spaces

We rearranged things in our family room a bit today to accomodate our new couch. We've been wanting a new one for a while for a couple of reasons. The main reason is that the furniture that we had there had basically gotten beaten up - it wasn't the best quality to begin with and after many years of service (8 years for the love seat and 15 years for the chair) and three kids, they looked pretty bad. We also didn't like that we didn't have room for our entire family to sit and watch TV or just hang out. So we bought a new sofa today. It looks nice - it's black leather and we can all sit on it at the same time if we squeeze. Jay can even stretch out all the way, as you can see in the picture. It's quite a bit bigger than the love seat, so we decided not to get a chair; we might supplement with some big pillows or a bean bag chair or something for extra floor seating. But for now we're good.

It's amazing how much roomier the family room looks now because we don't have the chair angled in toward the TV anymore. The black color looks nice as well; it blends with the area rug that we have and with the other colors in the room. We really liked a dark walnut color, but it was quite a bit more expensive so we went with black. We figure black will be fairly versatile for future changes that we want to make to the room as well.

After our foray to the furniture store we took the kids to Sizzler for lunch. William and Henry both had coupons since I joined the PTA at both their schools so we thought we'd take advantage of the free kid's meals. I love their cheese toast; Jay jokes that they should have a cheese toast meal deal just for me. Our waitress was nice and brought us enough cheese toast for several families. I tipped her $5.