Halloween and random thoughts :)

Our elaborate costumes

Check out his short hair!

Michael pulling up on me and the shell on his costume.

We had a fun halloween this year. Jeremy's show that night was cancelled due to low ticket sales, so he was able to be there. We went to the library where the boys decorated cookies, made blow pop ghosts, spider watches and jack o lantern faces. They had a trick or treat through the library where they accumulated non- candy treats. Then we went to the church party, where we had scary foods. We brought frog eye slime in a witch's cauldron. The boys thought it was so fun to add the green food coloring to the tuna casserole. It looked really gross, but still tasted good. :) Lynne brought down some of her great Halloween decor and we decorated a door for trick or treat down in the primary rooms. They had some fun songs with the bishop and his wife and some games to play.

We had three T's this year - a tiger, a Thomas the Tank Engine and a turtle. The pictures don't quite capture the cuteness of the turtle. I will post individual pictures soon.

Michael is making some strides lately. He can get from his stomach or back into a sitting position all by himself. He can now go onto all fours and takes a few crawling steps. He is great at pulling up to his knees and we are working on getting all the way up. He can say Ball now. I am really seeing more of his personality now and I am excited to see my little guy exploring his world.

Andrew has been coughing for two weeks and last thursday after I finally got him to school (we had a flat tire ) he joined his class outside. After all that running around on his weakened body, it gave up and he threw up all over a couple of his friends. So, we have been dealing with the virus going all through our family. No fun. But, the sad part for Andrew was that Friday was his very first field trip and he didn't get to go. He was so sad. He kept asking me if he could go to school. We rented a movie with a dinosaur in it and let him watch it while his class was at the zoo. Andrew's class also voted for president. He says he almost voted for John McCain, the old man, but decided to vote for Barack Obama, because he was so tall. It seems that was the most important characteristic on voting for the president.

Jacob went to the doctor and he is now 32 lbs and 36 1/2 inches. He seems so big to me, but he is a little small for his age. Fiery, though. He loved being Thomas the train for Halloween. He spent the whole time in costume 'choo-choo' ing everywhere. He always put his hat on sideways or backwards. He is so funny.

When we got to church today, there were protesters with posters on the sidewalk. They were upset about the marriage amendment passing here in Arizona. While it never escalated, I have begun to understand how prophets in the past were stoned to death or imprisoned. Emotions by the opponents to these amendments have surprised me, I didn't expect them to pinpoint our church as much as they have, especially in California.

October

We drove down for about an hour to a pumpkin patch where we could pick our own pumpkins. We had to fight through some overgrowth with spikeys, but it just added to the adventure. :) We picked out a perfect pumpkin and a small baby pumpkin.


I neglected to pack sunscreen and Michael kept his hat on for about two minutes after the first picture was taken. It is October and it is still hot! It was fun, though. They had a petting zoo and a children's maze. The kids loved a baby goat, the picture just shows them swarming it, too bad, it was cute. Andrew did great with the maze. He only climbed over one wall. :) We even had a sack race.
This was Andrew and Jacob playing in the water in Phoenix. We went and had lunch and played in between Conference sessions. We missed Aiden this time, though. We really enjoyed spending the weekend with Lynne. Conference was wonderful and we feel lucky to have grandma around.
After we watched the last debate, Jacob was running around saying 'barackobama, barackobama'. It was all one word and he thought it sounded cool. Then he asked, 'What is barackobama?' Pretty funny. Jacob and I are having fun at home while Andrew is at school. He helps me with Michael and likes to do 'homework' with me. He has some preschool workbooks that I have him work on when I am helping Andrew with his homework, so sometimes during the day we pull them out. We made our own paint with flour, water and food coloring, which was fun and not even that horrible to clean up.
Michael is in therapy and it is going well. The therapist said in just two weeks she is noticing greater trunk control and he is starting to pull up on things and gets on all fours(almost, usually his legs are perpindicular to each other) and has started clapping. I think he is close to crawling.
He is still quite the Mama's boy, but did well when I shot the commercial. Which was fun to shoot and a nice break. But, it was stressful arranging babysitting, someone to drop off Andrew at school, pick him up, getting everything ready so Jeremy could get them ready before he went to work, etc. Everything went smoothly, but whenever I had any downtime, which wasn't much, I was worrying about them. I don't leave them very often, especially Michael. It should air down here in November.
Jeremy's play Loves Labours Lost is up and running, which eases his schedule a bit, we actually had him home Mon, Tues and Wed night this week. His classes are going well and is he is working on job applications for next year.
Andrew is doing well in school and is doing well in his reading. He can read several books all by himself. He has made friends at school and seems to have ironed all those kinks out. He is getting tall and I can't believe he will be six next month. He is a great big brother.
We have had a fun October so far, we even had a short cold spell, but then popped back up into the 90's. Jeremy keeps reminding me we live in the desert. I am sure I left plenty out, but its a start!

Does it take a village?

It has been a crazy last few weeks, full of things I needed someone to watch one of my children for. Mostly doctor's appts. I have my children with me almost all of the time. I don't do very many things, if at all that require me to be away from them. So, I have a hard time asking people to watch my children for me. And wishing that I had family here in Tucson that I could lean on for support. And yesterday, I had an audition at 3:00 right by Jeremy's office, my second audition in Tucson. Jeremy's class ends at 2:50, so I was hoping I could get him to end his class a little early and then hang out with the kids in the car for me while I auditioned and then I could take him back to work or we could go home together. This way, I wouldn't have to find someone to watch all three kids. Of course, he gets caught by students and doesn't make it to us until 3:03 and I get to my audition almost 10 minutes late. And it turns out it is almost a group audition and all these people are sitting around a table waiting for me to get started. Embarrassing. And then due to the weird nature of the audition, I didn't get out of there until 4:30. Which means my poor husband in the car with my three crazy children for over an hour. It was not quite as simple as I had hoped it would be. Does it get easier to balance? How do you get everyone to the places they need to be at the right time with the right amount of children, etc. If we had another car, this audition would have gone easier, but that doesn't really solve the problem. I think it will just get harder as the kids get older and we have responsibilities with church and other things.
But, I guess it was worth it. I will be shooting a commercial for Vantage West Credit Union on the 20th of October. :)
But, what that really means is that I have to find someone to watch my children!!!!!!

Michael update

We finally got the results from the MRI and are so relieved that there were no tumors in the brain or the optic nerve. Hooray. The Dr. found a few concentrations of fluid that he said would go away, but they were often an indicator of neurofibromatosis.
His surgery went well and he is mostly back to normal. Sometimes he still favors his right leg a bit. The surgery was to fix an undescended testicle and the nurse said something funny when he was taking a little longer to wake up from the anesthesia. She said when there is a male anesthesiologist and the surgery involves that part of the anatomy they tend to give them a lot of medicine! They pumped my little baby with a narcotic, local anesthesia and a caudal block to numb the lower half. I don''t think he felt anything!
The therapist finally came to evaluate Michael and she said he is doing a lot of good things and she sees no reason why he won't continue to develop and he will hopefully catch up. She think one side of his body is weaker than the other and getting those two sides to do the same thing at the same time is difficult. So, we will see what happens.

My voice

Today in Sunday school we were talking about Christ's visit to the Nephites. We read a scripture that introduced God's voice to the people and the effect it had on them.

'...they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and nothwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center....it did pierce them to the very soul and did cause their hearts to burn.'

I have been contemplating disciplining my children lately. Andrew is testing his boundaries, trying to balance what happens with the other kids at school and what is appropriate. And Jacob is very demanding of my attention at home now that his big brother and playmate is gone during the day.
They are both being very rough, with each other and Michael. My patience is stretched pretty close to breaking most days. And I don't like how I feel when they don't listen or obey. And I am afraid I have been yelling too much. And the yelling isn't effective anyway. So, I am am left frustrated and still no results.
After reading this scripture for the second time today, I realized I want to strive to have the voice described in it. I know that this is not the way I think about this scripture very often. But, I was struck how I could apply it to my own life. I don't want to have to yell. I want them to know I love them. But, what I want most is the effect it has on these people.
I want to have a voice that is not harsh or loud, but one that pierces them to the very center.
So, I have found one more attribute of our Heavenly Father I would like to emulate. I have a new goal.

The world according to JACOB

On taking a drink:

It feels like a waterfall in my mouth. And it is hot.

Michael had his MRI today. We will get the results in about a week. And tomorrow someone comes to evaluate him for therapy. Hooray, things are happening. I am hoping for more knowledge, more tools to help Michael become who he was sent here to be. I know Heavenly Father created him and that He will help us know how to help him.
Today was a little surreal for me. An MRI isn't really a major event, but when you have to put your baby on anesthesia, it kinda becomes one. It was scary for me. But, he did great. Especially considering he was ready for a nap and really hungry. (they can't have anything but clear liquids six to eight hours before and nothing after 6am) After he woke up and really came to, he snuggled into me. I never wanted to let him go. The paper I had to sign about the small risk of death and other side effects really occupied my mind during the hour and twenty minutes he was away from me. I am grateful to be his mother.
On a very different note - I am curious about everyone's thoughts about Sarah Palin. I have mixed feelings. Let me know what you think.