12-12-2010 Week in Review…

So, I’m trying to recover.  I have no abdominal strength, a lot of pain, and I get tired pretty easily.  I am so thankful for my mom who’s driving kids to and from school and for the many friends who are taking the girls during the day.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!  The following stories say “we” a lot but that really means THEM and me sitting on the side watching…

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We did do Family Home Evening Monday night…Ryan and Corben headed out to get our tree since we’d reached enough service (done and received) to put it up and get lights on it.  The kids have been keeping good track of their service hours and were able to put 10 ornaments on the tree tonight.

If you missed my explanation of this…This year we’re giving gifts to the Savior for his Birthday and we’re using our Christmas tree as a reminder.  Each time the kids do a service for someone else or recognize a service given to them they get to add an ornament to the tree.  We’re hoping to have them all up by Christmas!

We also hung our stockings up but only after each person was told what we love about them most.  I’m loving establishing new Christmas traditions with my kids.  And they’re loving it,too!

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While I worked on recovering today (thanks to mom and SM for helping with the kids), my sister was blogging about Thanksgiving…so I stole some pictures from her and will now post them here as if they were my own.  Thanks, Sis!

Our Thanksgiving feast!

Eating our Thanksgiving Feast (I was in the kitchen with the Pizza Rolls…)

Proof I was there…

 

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I am so grateful…for people who watch my girls, for friends and beloved family who come and help clean my house, for meals brought to my door, and for my nice warm bed.  I feel better than I did last week…just not better than I did this morning…

More pics from my sis’ blog from the boys’ birthday party (Thanks, Tam, for filling up my blog this week)…

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Today was Tammy to the rescue again…she seems to be a running theme this week…

I bought tickets several months ago for the girls to go see Disney on Ice but wasn’t feeling like I could be the one to take them.  After not finding any one in time to take them for me I called and offered the tickets to my sister who insisted that the girls should still get to go and so we worked out that I would lay around in the living room with her sweet calm children while she took my crazy children to go see Toy Story.  I felt bad but she insisted so it was a deal.  Well, this morning Sylvie was in a funk.  She was all out of sorts and insisted she didn’t want to go anywhere, much less get out of her pj’s for the day so we decided that Tammy could take Ella and my niece, Bean, while Sylvie and Monkey Man hung out with me.  It worked out great!  Sylvie was apparently worn out so she went down for a nap almost immediately and Monkey Man watched Ice Age and cracked up laughing all morning long.  So easy!

 

 

Here’s the girls at Toy Story on Ice.  Their favorite part was, of course, the Barbie Dance.  I love that they have each other to hang out with and have fun.  We sure love having them so close by!!

 

 

The great news is…I’m feeling much better today.  Not as achy as I’ve been and the pain at the surgical sites is a bit less.  I definitely felt like I could do more today but tried to remind myself that that didn’t mean that I should do more, it just meant that the rest I’ve been getting is working.  I am so looking forward to feeling well and getting ready for Christmas!  Thanks again to everyone who has been there for us this past week.  I am more than grateful!

(I’ve been doing a lot of animal watching in my yard this week, thus the random bird/squirrel pics)

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Overdid it yesterday…lesson learned…maybe.

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I did too much today.  But my kids are happy so I won’t complain too much when I feel horrible tomorrow…

When our congregation was split a few months ago, Corben was crushed because it meant that his new Scout leader would no longer be helping him blow things up each Wednesday.  Brother Allred was pretty upset about it to and so he scheduled a day for the boys to come to his lab and finish all the fun things they’d started before the split. It was an amazing day!

First, they toured the science lab…

 

Then they got to see their rocks they’d previously excavated and that had gone through the rock tumbler.

They shot off rockets…Corben’s ended up behind a barbed wire fence so one of the other boys there gave him his!!  It was SO kind and Corben was really thankful.

They then got to learn/touch/explode all kinds of metals/elements like Magnesium, Potassium, and Sodium!

Boiling metal…

Burning holes in concrete…

Blowing things up just by adding them to water…

Blowing up more things by adding them to water…

Using Liquid Nitrogen to shoot buckets into the air…

Playing in Liquid Nitrogen…

Making Liquid Nitrogen ice cream!!  (it was DELICIOUS!)

Mixing hot water and liquid nitrogen to make a huge explosion!…

Hammering the liquid nitrogen bits to make them pop/mini explode…

See why Corben’s going to miss his favorite Scouting instructor??

Luckily, Corben’s new instructor has already had them building catapults so Corben’s really excited!

Later that evening, Ryan took me out to see my niece in a play.  She played one of the orphans in Annie.  It was really a spectacular production and Brinley sang so well!  I was blessed to have the company of my cute nephew, Dylan, all evening.  What a great night.

When we got home (after having done way too much all day), I found that Corben had been working hard on a garland for our CHRISTmas tree.  He learned to hand knit this week and made this beautiful garland for our tree!

We also put up the ornaments for the last few days of Service the kids had done and some extras representing each of you who did so much service for us this week.  What a blessing everyone has been!

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Thank you to my sweet friend who drove me home from church today.  I was able to slip in some sleep before the everyone got back home.  It’s a cold rainy day but there’s warm bread in the oven and our Home Teachers just left.  Life is good…