Interesting Story...

So last night after having family prayer with the kids and while Russ was gone with the mutual snowboarding, Emma went running to put something away before getting into bed. She came back and said to me, "When I was running, I saw a person in the kitchen who disappeared." I had her take me into the kitchen (yes, I was a tad nervous) and asked her questions. Asked her if it was like a kid or tall like me. She said tall like me. I asked if it was a boy or a girl. She said, "Well, it didn't have any hair but had something sticking up. And it had a head like Daddy's." She seemed a little nervous about it, too, so I took her and helped her say a little prayer so she wouldn't be scared. I will admit that I got a little nervous when the phone rang shortly after she ended her prayer. My first thought with the phone ringing that it was someone calling to tell me that Russ died snowboarding (who says I'm a fatalist?). Of course, Russ has long hair, so what Emma saw wouldn't have been him anyway. Unless what she actually saw was someone wearing a hat so it looked like they had no hair and that was the thing sticking up. (Yes, those are about the things I thought as I walked to the phone...it was a telemarketer.)
I then got the kids to bed and got to sit and picture this figure in my kitchen disappearing. I freely admit it, I didn't go into the kitchen again until after Russ got home about 2 hours later. Just didn't want to at all. When I told him about it, he said the same thing I said to Emma. We really need to have him bless our home. He added, "But it won't make the good ones leave." He wanted to know if the figure tried to talk to Emma. I said she didn't say anything about that. Just said it disappeared. I also sat and thought that I have been seeing quite a lot of crows lately. If that actually means anything.
Oh, by the way, Russ and I are expecting our 5th child. I'm now 13 weeks along.

Jimmy's report card

Jimmy was very anxious when I picked him up from school on Friday to have me look at his report card. He has mostly 4's and it was generally a very good report card. Only really had two low points. He had two 0's in Language Arts (0 means makes no attempt so no judgement could be made) one was on oral language. Apparently he doesn't like to raise his hand and answer questions about things. He did say that the few times he does raise his hand, his teacher calls on someone else so he never gets called on anyway. Guess I have something I can talk with his teacher about for SEP Conferences next week. He has been doing pretty well on actually doing his reading homework this month. Just need to get him actually doing his keyboarding homework....
And it took all of maybe 3 minutes for him to ask if we can go to Krispy Kreme and get donuts for his report card. He even later tried to get Russ to take him by saying, "I'll get you a jelly-filled one." No, we haven't taken them yet. I'm sure we will. Eventually. I personally like Krispy Kreme donuts. Maybe a little too much. I want to eat too many of them when we get them. Of course, so do the kids. They keep me from eating all of them.
Hm...that has me thinking....I have apple pie in my fridge.....

More Russ work related stuff

Russ told me the other day that a contractor came in who went to Mexico with Contempo (it's a contest thing Contempo does...if a contractor buys so much tile from them, Contempo pays for a trip to Mexico for them). Said he kept trying to get Rich to tell him things about Russ and E leaving Contempo. He said that no matter how much he pressed, Rich didn't say a single bad thing about either of them. Just said that they lost some of their best guys and are trying to recover, but aren't going to hire anyone to replace them.
Of course, Russ told me today that Mossy heard that Contempo is going to be closing AO. They have been moving a lot of stuff down to the main Contempo and things along those lines. Which would make sense then, that they wouldn't hire anyone to replace Russ, E, and Mossy. Guess AO isn't doing very well since they left.

Emma's report card

Emma brought home her report card today. I'm sure Jimmy will be bringing his, too, but thought I'd go ahead and share how she did. Anyway, she has almost all 4's with a few 3's mixed in. One 2 and a couple of 1's. The 1's are on knowing the capital and lower case versions of the letter Q. After I saw the report card, I wrote down the letter Q and asked her what it was. Without any hesitation, she said, "Q!" I asked her what sound it makes (as that was her 2) and she immediately told me. I asked her why she didn't say what it was when her teacher asked her. She said, "I was scared to answer. Sometimes I get a little scared to answer." Silly kid.
Anyway, she hasn't missed a single day of school so far this year. Still gets upset if I talk about her staying home a day. Which I sometimes do just to see if she still really wants to go. It shows that she doesn't have any tardies, either.
Guess this means that she and Jimmy will be starting to beg to go to Krispy Kreme donuts and getting their free 6 donuts for bringing in their report cards.

Quick update for the day after...

Just thought I'd give a quick update on how Molly and Lyssa are doing today. Lyssa woke up this morning and shortly afterward started to cry. Her mouth was really hurting her. I gave her some medicine, got Jimmy and Emma off to school, and she was still unhappy. I thought for sure I wouldn't get a shower this morning. But then the medicine started to work. She got very happy, and has stayed happy today, except for briefly when the medicine started to wear off when it was about time to give her more.
Molly, on the other hand, insists that her mouth doesn't hurt. She will start to look like she's hurting, but still insists. I think it's because when she went the first time, I asked her if her mouth was still hurting a few days later. Told her she needed to go back (because she wasn't done having the work done, but I guess she associated it with the pain). She really doesn't want to go back again so keeps insisting she's fine and has no pain. At least that's what I think. Could possibly be that she doesn't have any pain. She is pretty tough that way.

Dentist

I just got home from taking Molly and Alyssa to the dentist. Lyssa's appointment was supposed to be at 10 and Molly's at 10:30. Since they were both sedated, they weren't supposed to eat or drink anything before the appointments. I got there a few minutes before 10. And sat and sat and sat. Probably about 10:40 they finally took Lys back. About 15 minutes later, they sedated her to start the work and I went back out with Molly to wait for her turn. Another 20-25 minutes later they took Molly back. Poor kid was very thirsty and hungry. And started to really not want to be there. Had to take her back kicking and screaming. Turns out she just didn't want the "nose" (the gas). So she didn't get that. Lys was back in the recovery room before the dentist came in to give Molly the medicine to sedate her. Once she was sedated, I went in with Lys, who was quite upset and out of it. She calmed down with me there but almost immediately started to say that she wanted to go home.
After a while, they brought Molly in to the recovery room. Lys wanted to sit with Molly, which actually made it easier for me. Once Molly finished her popcicle and such, we were able to go home. I had to stop and pay and schedule Lys to go back in to get the last thing done, which luckliy, she won't have to be sedated for and should go pretty quickly. Of course, while we were waiting there, Lys hurled. Has since hurled at home, too.
They pulled Lyssa's front four teeth, which didn't surprise me. They were very bad. They are going to put in a partial there so she will have something (which is what I am to go back for once her gums heal up from the teeth pulling). If she were older, we wouldn't bother, but it will be a few years at the soonest that those teeth will come back in. At least this way she'll still be able to eat corn on the cob, which she loves. Poor Emma has had a hard time eating that without her front two teeth. Guess three since she lost another top one a while ago.
Molly has seemed to do pretty well. I think she's just happy that she doesn't have to go back again. I know I am. I never have liked the dentist.

More Scout stuff...

Last week in church, they reorganized the primary presidency. And while they were at it, called my next door neighbor (who was the Webelos leader...I was one of the assistants) as the junior primary chorister. I knew then that it was inevitable that they would be releasing her from Webelos (she had been in scouts for about 8 years now). Well, Saturday night Bro. Carlson, one of the bishopric, came over to ask if I could accept the calling as the Webelos leader. There is one other lady in Webelos, but she doesn't speak English very well so they didn't ask her. They will eventually be getting another person to help out. They want me to suggest some names for that. So far, I haven't come up with any. Russ came up with one right away and told Bro. Carlson who he thought. Of course, the first people I think of just got put into the primary presidency. But I guess it really won't be that different since I did all of the planning for this month and did the bulk of the planning for the previous couple of months. Or at least came up with the main ideas that we did. It should be fine for now, at least. Don't know how it will be in about 6 months though.
I just worry about tomorrow. I have scouts at 4 but take Molly and Lys in to the dentist in the morning to get work done. Russ should be coming home from work a little early so that we don't have to have the neighbor girl watch them. Not sure that they will be happy with me leaving, but probably better for Russ than for the neighbor.

I'm so happy...

I managed to fix my computer! Yay! Without having to reload anything! It was really quite easy, actually. Even though I had tried to do a system restore at least 2 (maybe three) other times, I decided to try it one more time. This time I went back a lot further. And it worked! Makes me glad I never called HP back to finish talking with them. Really, really glad. So Steve, I know Russ called and asked for your help in getting it fixed, but nevermind. I managed to do it myself. :)
Edited to add: I also managed to hook my Wii up to the internet after fixing it without breaking it again. :)

Technical difficulties

So Saturday I decided that it would be a good idea to enable the wireless feature on my dsl modem so I could connect our Wii to the internet. I got online and found the instructions on how to enable it. Unfortunately, the instructions were not correct. It told me to click on basic settings and from there to click on wireless. There were no options on basic settings other than save and reset. After a little bit of searching, I discovered the wireless feature in advanced settings (a little bit into going through advanced settings). I am not sure what I did, but doing that, I managed to lose my user name and password for my modem. And I can't find my paper that had it listed. So I broke down and called Qwest. After confirming that I was who I said I was, they gave me my user name and password. That fixed it. Briefly. Now where I can get on and read my email, that's about it. I can chat on aol, too. Jimmy was actually the one who discovered we could still get on aol and get our mail. Just can't get on any websites or on msn messenger. Only way I can get on any websites (such as this one) is to get on my computer in safe mode. I discovered this after spending a very, very long time on the phone on Monday with Qwest and HP trying to resolve the problem. The lady from HP has decided that we need to reload all of the software on the computer. I haven't called her back to do that yet because I needed to backup everything I didn't want to lose. That and the thought of spending more time on the phone trying to resolve this problem does not sound fun at all. Really does not sound fun at all. Really. I hate making phone calls to begin with. This just reinforces that distain. On the bright side...is there a bright side to this?

Sometimes I have too much fun...

I got the Psych tv show newsletter today and it had a link to send a personalized voicemail to people from Shawn or Gus. I couldn't resist. Had to do it. And had a bit too much fun doing it, too. I sent one to Stacey, Jo, De, and Russ. Would have sent it to more people, but decided I was having too much fun doing it in the first place. Oh, and Jimmy saw me do a couple of them and so wanted me to send one to him at our house, so I did that, too. Fun thing is that it sends it from the phone number you put in as yours, so the people receiving it have no idea what it really is. Not so sure Russ thought it was as funny as Stacey, Jo, and De did. I know they thought it was funny. And since new episodes of Psych start tonight on USA Network, I thought it was appropriate. :)

Anyway, for those of you who might be wanting to join in on the fun, here's a link to the game: www.usanetwork.com/series/psych/community/voicemail/index.html. Okay, so you have to copy and paste the url. But try not to have too much fun. :)

Me and my big mouth

I got an email today from Jo, forwarding an email from her sister, Marilee, talking about getting together as the "Bear Lake Group." That's the name we've dubbed for the young women group that was my age or close to my age. Marilee had been one of our leaders and for several years we would go up each summer to Bear Lake overnight at their family cabin. We always had a blast and had certain things we did every year. Skits, m&m casserole, Win, Lose or Draw, hamburgers on the beach, and, of course, sunburns. Occasionally someone would even skinny dip. :) After they sold that cabin, we met a couple of times and then it kind of died out.

Anyway, Marilee wanted everyone's email addresses and contact information so she could plan and invite everyone to get together. When I emailed her back, I said I had been thinking that it would be fun to start a Bear Lake Group blog as a way that everyone could keep in touch and such. She wrote back saying she thought that was a really good idea and could I do that. Me and my big mouth. It actually wasn't as hard as I had thought it would be. Quite easy, actually. Of course, I don't have everyone's email addresses to invite them to contribute to the blog, but Marilee said she would send them to me as she got them. I haven't really added much to it, just the starting post to quickly say why I did it, but at least it's done. Maybe I should ask Katie if she has any good pictures of Bear Lake from our trip there this past summer that I could put on the blog. (hint hint) :)

January birthdays

I just realized that I didn't wish those a happy birthday who had a birthday in December. So Happy Birthday Alex! (Figure his birthday was on the 30th, so I'm not all that late.

Anyway, happy birthday this month to Bill, De (crazy that you're going to be 40!), Dave, Kady (going to get your learner's permit?), Will, Ethan, and Matt! Hope you each have a very nice birthday.

Just some rambling thoughts. More rambling than actual thoughts though.

The other day I was talking to one of my neighbors and she mentioned that her first impression of me was that I am shy. She said that as she gotten to know me more, she has discovered that I'm not shy at all. I said, "No, I'm just quiet." Anyway, that conversation got me thinking of a couple of things that for some strange and unknown reason, I decided to share. Probably out of boredom.

A little while after that conversation, I reflected back on it and thought of how one time I decided that if I were at a church activity or something of the like where they have people answer the question of what's something that others might not know about you that I would say that I'm actually a funny person. Mostly because I tend to be a very quiet person around people I don't know all that well. And because I quite often crack myself up. In fact, one of my favorite quotes (can't remember who said it) is: The most wasted of all days is that in which we have not laughed. Or something like that. I will add that I was quite proud of myself for striking up some conversation in the Little Caesar's while waiting among the large crowd of people, who were also waiting. (Discovered through that conversation that one shouldn't attempt to go to Texas Roadhouse for dinner on New Year's Eve unless you get there REALLY early.)

From that little train of thought, I started to think about how my parents (especially Mom) taught us how to laugh at ourselves and to keep a sense of humor about things. (An example of keeping a sense of humor about things might be the day when Russ had his foot run over by a forklift. He had been planning on going snowboarding after work that day and when they called to tell me about the accident, I said, "Well, I guess he's not going snowboarding." I really don't think the guy who called me expected a reaction like that, by the way.) I am really quite grateful to them for teaching me this and hope that I can teach it to my children. There are times I think I'm failing miserably at that though. Maybe it's something that's easier to teach them when they get a little older. Or one can hope, anyway.

That's pretty much as far as my thoughts went on that subject. You're probably wondering why you bothered to read this post. Me too. I'm actually wondering why I wrote it. Man, I really need to find a hobby, don't I.