November 2, 2015

This weekend was Halloween.  We had our ward Trunk or Treat on Friday night. Danny didn't dress up this year.  He handed out candy in the van.  Rachel was Pikachu, Aaron was the guy from scream, Seth was a SWAT guy, that he's wanted to be all year, but then when it came time, he just wanted to wear the sumo costume.  So I let him wear that for trick or treating, but he had to wear the SWAT one for trunk or treat. And Ruby was bat girl. We had a great time at the trunk or treat.  Then Saturday was halloween.  We had our annual potluck dinner with our friends in the area and then went trick or treating.  Danny didn't dress up again and just hung out with a couple of friends at their house.  Rachel went trick or treating with a bunch of beehives.  Aaron went out with some friends who had plans to go really fast.  They did 2 neighborhoods in the time we did one.  So then Bob and I just walked around with Seth and Ruby.

October 18, 2015

 Aaron Ruby and Bob have been gone this week. I've learned that three kids is so much easier than five kids. And it was nice to change the dynamics with the kids. Seth got a whole lot more individual attention. And I was able to do fun things with Danny and Rachel. And then it was nice for Aaron and Ruby to get their own attention in Virginia.

 I went to the temple one of the days that Ruby was gone. I also went to see a physical therapist. I called for an appointment with Scott Pensivy. But he doesn't have any appointments for two months. So I made an appointment with one of the therapists he works with. His name is Anthony. He seem to know what he was doing. He thinks it's some kind of tight muscles and soft tissue problem. So he did a lot of deep massage and stretching and  Soundwaves and things. It seems to help. But my hands weren't tingling very bad when I went to see him. I have been keeping a daily record of my activities to try to find triggers. So far I have no idea. I go to see the physical therapist again this week. So hopefully it can help.

 On Friday night it was the fall festival at school. Rachel signed up to do face painting. And Danny didn't want to go. So Seth and I got to go around and do all the booths together. It was nice to spend time with just him. After the fall festival we put Seth to bed and Danny and Rachel and I watched a movie. On Saturday  Danny had a basketball game and then we all went out to eat. Rachel went over to Mckayla's house. So the boys and I watched a boy movie. And had candy and soda. They seemed to really like the time together.  Sunday morning Seth surprised me and got up and got himself dressed before I even got up. So I didn't have to get anyone ready for church today. It was great.

October 12, 2015

 My breathing is doing a lot better since conference. I've been really trying to focus on the Savior. Elder Maynes of the 70 talked about clay pots on the potters wheel and how if they were right in the center of the potters wheel that pots with spin out of control. I Felt like that was a good analogy for my life. I think I'm spinning really fast  but I don't know that I was in the direct center before. I was trying to do so many good things but Christ was probably not in the center is he should've been. So I've been really working on that. It's been helping me  feel happier and more calm.

 My tingling arms have been horrible though. They've been waking me up most nights. Last week they also started getting weak. My muscles feel sore and my hands move in slow motion like when you've been out in the cold really long  and your muscles are kind of frozen.  So I decided to fast last Thursday for help with my arms. I found a website that talks about helping pinched nerves because of poor posture. That makes sense that that could be part of my issue. I don't have the best posture. So I've been doing the exercises that that site says to do.  I felt a lot of help after I fasted and my arm seem to do a little bit better. But it still continues. I had  Bob give me a blessing on Sunday night. He talked about being able to recognize the correlations between my activities and my tingling arms. That would be great. Because right  right now I don't see any correlation. It doesn't seem to make a difference if I am active or not or drive more or do exercises or not. I have no idea. The blessing also said that I will be led  to the specific person that can help me with my issue. It's  comforting to know there is someone that can help me. I hope it isn't extremely time-consuming and money consuming though.  I think I will make an appointment with Scott Pensivy tomorrow.  He seems to at least be a good starting place if it's not him.

 Bob and I finished our love and logic class we've been taking for the last six weeks. It was very helpful. I had felt like my parenting was getting a little out of control. The kids weren't listening like I thought they should. And I was feeling a little overworked and under appreciated. The class has help me to get them to help around the house  better and to be able to communicate with them without getting mad.

 Bob Ruby and Aaron leave tomorrow for their trip to Virginia. They're all very excited. It will be nice to have a few extra hours during the day to get things done. I plan to go to a meeting at the school and go to the temple and get some housework done.  But I think I will especially miss Ruby because she's my little sidekick.

 Bill Hulterstrom came to town last week and we met at Jamba Juice one morning. It was good to refocus on my website work. I haven't been doing a very good job staying on top of that. It's so easy to prioritize other things above it. But now I am planning to have regular meetings with the communications  Director to be able to stay on top of the projects they need me to do. There are also planning to redesign their website. That's always a fun project.

September 27, 2015

I've been having a hard time with my breathing thing.  I feel like I've been trying to read more and take out as many nonessential things from my life, but I keep holding my breath and reacting to slightly stressful situations with bigger responses than I should.  It's so frustrating because it's a problem I'm causing and I have no idea how to fix it.  Then this week my tingling hands are back and it wakes me up at night and then I find that I'm holding my breath and that combination keeps me up for hours. So this week has been hard.  Today is fast Sunday because of conference next week.  I fasted about this issue and I've been trying to brainstorm any possible ideas that can help me. Over the last two days the scripture came to my mind "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." I looked up the reference last night and thought it would be a good thing to keep in mind as I try to work on this.  Then today Rachel and I watched the Women's Conference broadcast because we couldn't last night.  They had a video on there with a woman who was talking about her trials with not having kids and things not working out how she thought they would and she shared Phillipians 4:13 and said how much comfort it gave her.  I felt so loved and watched over when I heard that.  I don't remember ever paying particular attention to that verse in the past.  But I know the Spirit whispered it to me yesterday in preparation for watching this broadcast.  I know that the Lord is aware of me and wanted to comfort me even though this trial is probably not over. What a blessing that is to know I'm loved and important enough to let me know in such a special way.

My hands have been tingling again.  They were doing so much better.  There was just a slight tingling, but not enough to wake me up. But I talked to a friend who had a similar thing and she said hers was some kind of nutritional imbalance. And since I've been changing our diets with less meat and more grains and beans I was a little worried that something new was causing the issue.  So I went to see her doctor.  But he didn't think it was anything like that.  He thought my ribs were out of alignment and the muscle tension is pinching the nerves.  It sounded kind of like my SI rotation thing so I let him adjust my ribs even though I really hate chiropractic adjustments.  He said I'd need to come back at least 4-5 times to get my ribs to stay in the correct alignment, but after going once it made my tingling come back a lot.  So I don't know if he was right and I should have stuck with it to fix it or if it caused more problems.  I didn't go back.  I'm trying to decide if I want to go talk to my home teacher who is a chiropractor and get his opinion or just wait and see if it gets better. It's so frustrating.  I think I'm going to try to swim at least once a week though. My back seems to be weak and that is good for it.

I took Seth to an allergy specialist this week.  They did the skin test on his back.  He responded to pretty much all weeds, trees and grasses and animals.  Thankfully, though, he doesn't have any food allergies.  They prescribed an extra nasal spray to help dry out his sinuses.  Hopefully that will really help his hearing.

I met with Seth's teacher.  Seth is below grade level in reading.  We talked about things we can do to help him.  He's not confident in his ability to read and doesn't like to try hard things.  So it's been really hard to get him to practice.  He's liking his class this year and has been a little more interested.  I bought him a set of really easy Ninja Turtle books and that has motivated him quite a bit.  And I've hired Rachel as his tutor.  She is going to work with him 30 minutes a day on sight words and homework and other practice.  She bought some candy to help motivate him.  I think it's going to be good for both of them.

September 20, 2015

School is going well.  We're in the routine of drop offs and pick ups. The kids are liking their classes. Ruby is loving preschool.  Danny has done especially well with the transfer to the new school.  A lot of guys he knew moved over and he's a pretty outgoing guy at school.  Rachel has found some good friends and says she has a huge group of friends she eats lunch with and a few closer friends in that group.  Seth and Aaron are doing great in their classes.

We got a dog again.  It was a Shih Tzu.  He was a nice little dog.  I was so happy he didn't shed.  I was ready to commit to this dog and the kids just adored him, especially Ruby and Aaron.  A couple days after we got him, I thought Seth got a cold.  It was such a strong reaction it didn't even occur to me that it was allergies.  But about 2 weeks later I was talking to him after school and realized he couldn't hear me well.  He was 5 feet away and if I talked in a calm voice, he couldn't hear me, while Aaron could hear it across the room.  So we took him to the pediatrician.  She did a blood allergy test and confirmed he has dog and cat allergies and lots of other allergies.  She put him on a lot of medicines and we go see an allergy specialist this week.  His ears are getting a little better, but he still has a hard time hearing.  We sold the dog.

We went to San Diego for Kristal's wedding last weekend.  We decided to get up early on Thursday morning and go to Legoland while we were down there.  Seth and Ruby have really been getting into legos so everyone wanted them to be able to go.  Unfortunately San Diego was having a heat wave that weekend.  We got out of the car and it was immediately hot and humid. We all sweat all day.  But we didn't have to wait in line for anything so that pretty much made up for it.  We also got tickets to go to the Aquarium next to Legoland.  We had a great day.  That night we went to the house my parents' rented.  It was really nice, but had no air conditioner. :(  We had Kristal's bridal shower that night.

Friday we went to the beach for most of the day.  The water and air were so warm. That made it really fun.

Saturday Danny, Rachel, Dustin and Sheila watched all the little kids on the temple grounds while we went to the sealing.  Then we took pictures.  Then we went home and swam in the pool before going back to the reception.  She had it at Mission Bay right by the water and there was a taco truck and churro cart.  It was a fun party.  That night and inside the temple were the only not-hot times the whole weekend. We went to sacrament meeting the next morning and their AC was broken too.  We were all ready to go back to Las Vegas and air conditioning by the end of the weekend.

Aaron has still been having a hard time.  His tantrums aren't so bad, but now he quits everything and blows it up just to make it worse.  Like if he doesn't play well at basketball with Danny, he quits and says he's horrible and he's never going to play again, etc.  Or I've been really working on eating healthier and Aaron isn't adjusting well to that.  So at dinner, he'll be so rude about my cooking or he just won't take a lunch or eat breakfast some days. One day he had a tantrum over Saturday jobs.  He'd been crying in his room for a while.  And then after a little bit, Rachel came and told me she saw Aaron google how to easily kill yourself.  He apologized a ton, but it was still scary.  So I went to see Valerie.  She said a quote that explains him so well lately: "He who cares the least, has the most power". Aaron's been using that in so many ways.  Valerie had a lot of helpful things to say.  She talked about him having age appropriate behavior and if he doesn't then he loses the things he cares about.  That's helped.  She thinks his main issue is that he has too high of expectations of himself and things around him.  She suggested he see a therapist she works with who works with kids.  We saw him this week.  His name is Jeremy. He is going to be awesome.  He talked about most of the times we act out it's because we don't feel good enough. He said Satan is picking on Aaron because he's a threat to him.  And Aaron needs to go into warrior mode instead of being on the defensive.  He gave him a list of things to do every day for the acronym Man Power.  M-minister or serve, A-action and accountability, N-no tantrums!, P-prayer 2 times a day, W-write a letter to God, R-read scriptures or friend.  We're going to keep seeing him weekly for a while and see how it goes.

I've been working on following the Word of Wisdom still.  I've cut down on meat a ton.  We have it maybe once a week, and that's mostly because I still have a bunch in my freezer.  We're doing a lot more grains and beans and nuts.  I try to add more vegetables to all my dinners.  I thought a lot about milk, yogurt, cheese and eggs.  We all really enjoy those.  I prayed about it and decided that we'll try not to just eat those to eat them, but use them to enhance fruits and vegetables.  Cheese makes so many things taste better, but I won't buy cheese sticks or make cheese nachos.  I buy plain yogurt already, but we'll try to eat it mostly with fruit or granola or in smoothies.  The kids miss a lot of the processed snack foods we used to have. I buy trail mix or nuts for snacks and I try to make whole grain muffins or breads to use for snacks too. I feel healthier and happier with my body eating this way.  The kids are mostly adjusting pretty well.  Aaron is trying to hold out, but he's doing better.

August 23, 2015

School starts tomorrow.  We met everyone's teachers this week.  I especially love Seth's teacher.  That makes it easier to spend all the extra time driving him to the other school.  Danny and Rachel have schedules that I'm really happy with.  Aaron is happy with his teacher.  I don't really know her. I still really hope he can switch to sky pointe.

We got a dog.  It was a little spur of the moment.  We all decided we all wanted a shih tzu.  The kids looked a few times on craigslist and didn't find anything that looked right.  Then last Sunday Aaron found one so I texted her.  We went and saw him on Monday and he looked good.  He was a little skinny it had been a while since he was groomed, but he was so calm and easy.  He was in a house with several little kids.  We were thinking we'd have to check out several dogs, but we brought home the first one we looked at.  So far he's been good.  He had a few accidents the first day, but then he's been fine.  He sleeps in his kennel. And he's so good with the kids.  I love that he doesn't shed.

August 16, 2015

We had a great trip to Visalia. We did some shopping, went to Adventure park because Ruby wanted to go to the place with the games where you get a cup of money, swimming at the neighbors' house, and we rode the train from Hanford to Fresno.  The kids thought that was great.  We walked around for a couple hours and rode home and ate at Superior dairy on the way home.  My dad made a knife throwing target for YM and Danny had a great time with that. We had a family party there for Rachel's birthday.  We went out to Sizzler for dinner and then had cake at home.  We gave her her Iphone there.  She thought it was great.

For Rachel's real birthday, she had McKayla over for a lateover and they went and got manicures. Then the next day we took Danny and Rachel to the temple.  It was great. It's so nice to have the temple that is so accessible and kids who want to go.  We want to try to get a regular trip going once a month and maybe rotate through different parents driving.  I think that will be so helpful to the kids to keep their testimonies strong.

Seth got in to Sky Pointe too.  I thought the boys had no chance this year.  I went ahead and registered him.  I'm hoping Aaron will get in too, but that isn't as likely since we're only one week out from school starting. So now my carpooling will be a little crazy with kids at 2 different elementary schools, middle school and preschool. The legislature just voted for kindergarten to be all day for everyone starting next year.  So it'll be a little sad to lose Ruby all day, but it'll be so nice not to have a middle of the day pickup.

I've started doing family history.  Bob's uncle Jody has been doing a lot of work on ancestry.com and he shared it with Bob.  So while I was at my mom's I had her show me some things so I can try to combine the two sites.  I've found a lot of names that way.  Also there were a lot of names just waiting because it's been a long time since someone in Bob's family has done family history.  It's nice to have something I can do.  My family has so much done.  My mom spends hours and hours to just get a name or 2.  The church has been saying to "find your cousins" so I figure that doing Bob's names is like finding my cousins.

Kata and my mom have both been telling me about books they've been reading about the Second Coming.  So I read a couple.  I think I need to work on my food storage and emergency preparedness.