Picture 24

It was just Heidi and David's children left. I had just rocked Miles to sleep and Carter and Halley had a loud dispute over toys. I loudly whispered for Mike, who came to supervise. After giving toy rights to both children, Halley lay on her back and her high-pitched, tearless cry waled. Mike asked why she was crying. She stopped and in a pitiful voice said, "I so sad." Mike looked at me and said, "Cheryl has nothing on Halley."

Picture This

Thanksgiving, in my mind was going to be peaceful. After all, we had madly ordered items to complete the readiness, and put up as many paintings and curtains as we could. Yes, there were going to be 20 of us--including 11 grandkids, but in my fantasy Thanksgiving, they were silent and docile. We didn't take many pictures, but I can give you the rundown on many moments.

Picture 1: Four or five girls giggling for an hour on the entry bench as they play alternating doctor/patient.

Picture 2: Logan loving the reclining chairs (we have five). Yes, so much that he reclined them back so far he would tip them over on the floor. It was his newfound game. :(

Picture 3: Clara and Errolyn rehearsing for hours in the garage to sing a song (of made up melodies) to the music and words of well-know songs...(at least  to adults) and performing them later.

Picture 4: Hairballs. Yep, Carter has a thing about hair. So much that his lion he sleeps with has big chunks torn out of his head. When Carter wakes up, always empty his mouth of the hairballs he chews.

Picture 5: Grandma (me) finally getting Miles-- to laugh and smile.

Picture 6: New furniture (my pride and joy) finally being covered by sheets to protect them.

Picture 7: Gymnast Olivia, who always grins) can raise herself to a stand from a sitting position without touching or pulling on anything. It is pure leg strength. She is only 5 or 6 months old.

Picture 8: Alternating high pitched screams and low pitched howls from the competing cousins who are at an age where sharing is not a natural/normal ability.

Picture 9: Grandpa laying down to play with Olivia amid loud chaos of cousins and when he is woke up 2 hours later, he thought he was only asleep a few minutes.

Picture 10: A jam-packed fridge with Thanksgiving food for 20 and Susan and Mike's special diet. No room in the fridge.

Picture 11: Grandpa taking the grandkids around the lake and one of them kicks a resident's soccer ball in the lake so Grandpa had to fish it out while the rest of the cousins raced to beat him home.

Picture 12: Grandma fishing through all the boxes in the garage to find books to read to the children. She finds one labeled Cheryl's books, so she assumed all the CH books were Cheryl's too...No books to read aloud. :( Later, she found out the CH stood for Children's...books.

Picture 13: Quite the switcheroo for beds. We were jam-packed with people in every room when it came to sleeping. Poor Carter had to sleep in our closet. When I came to get him, I found a little nest of my clothing he was cuddling with as he must have had fun pulling them down from hangers.

Picture 14: Me cooking (over cooking, mind you) the turkey. It was so plump that I had turned it upside down. When I checked the temperature, it read that it was done, so I pulled it out and when I went to carve it, the meat was not white (as would have been the case had the turkey been right-side up) so I put it back in and kept cooking and testing it (even though it read that it was done according to the thermometer) because I was waiting for the white meat. I don't even remember when it occurred to me that it was upside down. I felt like a fool.

Picture 15: More than enough food. Lovely desserts from Le Madeline (Thanks Janet) and great salads from Susan, while I fixed the staples. Needless, to say, this dieter was off her diet.

Picture 16: David's sad face. Nothing was going right for him. He had imagined a romantic getaway for his anniversary and up till the last minute it was almost cancelled because Carter appeared to be ill. They took him to a clinic, but he was OK.

Picture 17: Wild whooping and hollering from a bunch of cousins trying to play inside and out, when there was no backyard, but mud.

Picture 18: Los Tres of course.

Picture 19: Logan playing Book of Mormon Stories that he taught himself to play, with everyone shushing him because it always seemed to be while someone was watching a movie, on the phone, or a baby was napping.

Picture 20: Kevin sleeping on the floor next to the couch, where Halley was sleeping. He traded the couch for his bed (well his substitute bed...because he gave his king bed up to Mike and Susan) to Halley, so he could play video games in the living room after the kids went to bed. In the middle of the night, Halley wakes up and doesn't know where she is, so she cries and wanders back to the couch where she originally went to sleep. She lay down on top of Kevin, who gave in and let her have the couch and he rolled on the floor. She would periodically wake to look and see if he was still there.

Picture 21: Everyone going to see Frozen with Janet's family while grandma stayed home to dance with Carter and Halley to Barney music.

Picture 22: Me trying to sleep with Carter's music playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star so loud. I finally had Mike pull the plug. No telling how long it would have gone on.

Picture 23: Mike and Kevin going to pick up medicine on the pre-Black Friday at Walmart when the entire parking lot was full. It was quite the miracle they could even get in and out...as they made up a parking spot from the waiting area up front.

It isn't finished. For all of the chaos, I hope the memories are happy. I will update them when we finish the vacation.

Heaven help me

if I picked that hideous color! If they don't change it, I'll be out there with a paintbrush...but how can I get the chimney. I'm totally embarrassed for anyone to think we'd choose to live in such an ugly house. I am so stressed out.

Miles to go...

Mike, Kevin, and I traveled to Pearland to participate in Miles's baby blessing. What a sweet boy and beautiful blessing! Two cute things that happened were when Carter took the sacrament bread and went, "MMMM' while he was eating it. (Just like David when he was little.) The other thing was when Heidi went to the stand to bear her testimony, Halley was not happy, but when Heidi came back down, she shouted out, "Mommy, you came back!" and everyone smiled. Both David's family and ours ended up at Janet's for dinner on David's way back to San Antonio. The salad bar was the best idea ever, but I know Thiago's bbq leftovers went over well with those men who wanted the real beef. Dessert was cut fruit, so for we women, it was very healthy. It was fun to see two sets of grandchildren. We will miss David's family.

Best Halloween Ever

It has always been my least favorite holiday...so today I turned all the lights out...went to sleep. No trick or treaters here! :) Had another chest compression today. First my throat hurt, then I had the warning, tick I can recognize, so I immediately tried to take deep breaths so as to not let stress make it happen but it came anyway. In a second, I was dripping wet with cold sweat and I gripped my chest. I managed to make it to my class and lay back in my chair. My class knew something was wrong, but I knew that last time I went to the nurse it went away when I lay down...so I kind of did in the chair. Five minutes later was specials and I went to the nurse..even though it had passed. My blood pressure was higher than my normal but not the 160 something as when I had her take it before...so I knew I was on the good side of it, but it took its toll on me the rest of the day. I just felt like I was whispering and going through motions to make it to the end. I don't know if the medicine I am taking triggers it. Today, the previous activity I was doing might have triggered it, (45 mins of non-stop clapping, cheering, and whooping for the cake walk). I just want to be normal again. Sometimes I think I won't make it to retirement alive.

Everything I like...

...is either a dairy product, involves sugar, and beef. Well, I've been sick for 7 weeks now and so my doctor did some blood work on the 2nd visit. On the third visit, he spent about an hour with me. He has taken over my life. He took me off everything I like. He took me off dairy products. He took me off sugar products. He took me off red meat. What else is there? Gone are my pity parties with a pint of Blue Bell. Gone are my teacher queso runs. Gone are all my favorite dishes at my favorite restaurant. What will I eat? Where will I go? How can I socialize when there is nothing I can eat? I went to my restaurant to eat and had to study the menu for a long time before I ordered chicken fajitas and ate one serving on one tortilla. (Thank heavens I can have guacamole.) And my choices of cafeteria food...eew. They definitely have healthy...it's just not my taste. I am balking at one thing. I am not ready to give up my regular milk. We had quite the argument in the doctor's office about it, but when I'm out of his office...he just doesn't need to know. He thinks I am going to fax him my exercise log and blood pressure every week. NOT. I'll wait till I see some weight loss and hope that will suffice.

Busy Day

I'm still sick. But...life goes on and my job is to talk (which makes my throat more sore and swollen). It's been 7 weeks and I'm going to take off tomorrow to go to the doctor again.

We've had a lot of goodbyes and here we still are in our ward. The entire YW had a surprise party for me two weeks ago and had made pictures of them and me and had refreshments. Then last week the choir which I have directed off and on for years (cough, cough, 25+ years??? in several wards in this area) we had a huge going away party...and still here we are. It is getting embarrassing. The youth went to the temple last Friday and Kevin and I were with them. I work with the Laurels and he is an adviser with the Priests, so he was doing confirmations for the dead.

Today I led choir practice in the a.m. then gave a talk in church on "Obedience to the commandments brings Freedom"...a very interesting topic which was very fun to illustrate and find some very powerful quotes from general authorities. Then I gave a Laurel lesson on developing patience. Wow. I had prayed to know which of the 3 remaining topics to choose and this was it. After the Uchtdorf marshmallow video, scriptures, brainstorming of people in the scriptures who were examples of patience and for what reason, ways to develop patience, the girls talked about their own lives and the things that they needed to have patience for, then I had them write to someone to buoy them up, to help them through a trial. In the end, they shared some of what they wrote...and then the tears came. One at a time, they shared trials that someone in their family was going through, even the visitor from another ward was crying...and she even hugged me. We went overtime sharing, hugging each other and when they heard it was my last lesson, they all wanted pictures with me. Then it was choir practice, but I sent them all to stake choir since it didn't make sense to have me rehearse something I don't know if they'll sing.

I've so loved my Laurel calling. Every week we would have this huge class. The girls love each other and love the Lord and the gospel. Every week they invite people from other wards and nonmembers. We have 9 girls on the roll and with all the visitors, we just crowd our room. Everyone wants to be in our ward with our girls. I just hate to leave them.