When It Rains It Pours

When it rains, it pours.  And I'm not just talking about the fine Western Washington weather we are having.  This week, although it started wonderfully, hath ended in disaster.

We began our week with two hair cuts.  Yay "No-Shave-Novemeber" is finally over and Logan shaved!  and Tommy got his first haircut.  We gave him a little dinosaur to chew on and the iPad and he was fine until we used the clippers around his ears.  He got super scared and started shaking and it was so sad! but I was pleased with the end result.  Sadly I forgot to take a before picture.  Just imagine him with, well, longer hair.

For Family Home Evening we had the missionaries over for dinner and then went to Costco to get our tree.  They have them all wrapped up there and you just get a tubular tree and bring it home, put it in the tree stand, cut off the rope and let it sit for a few hours (in our case a day) to let the branches all down.  You miss the fun of having to pick out your tree but this was so much easier and less pine needles and not a crooked tree like last year.

Elsy was so excited about decorating but was pretty frustrated that she couldn't figure out how to hang the hooks on the branches despite being shown several times.  She keeps taking off ornaments and playing with them.  She is currently napping with three bear ornaments on the end of her bed that my Grandma Merkley gave us a few years back.  I was worried Tommy would tear the tree to shreds but it might be to prickly for his taste or something because he barley looks at it.  We did trim the branches kinda high on the bottom and didn't put lights or ornaments on that lowest area.

This week I had an eye appointment and had my eyes dilated.  My mom says I have had that done before but I seriously don't ever remember having to do that.  Everything within arms reach was so blury and I was worried about driving home but it wasn't to bad.  I got a new prescription for some glasses to help crispify things that are far away... and no I did not think about plucking my eyebrows before taking this picture... but yes I am thinking about it now.

This last Friday was the wonderful ward Christmas party.  Somehow we ended up helping with the program again.  Also, last year the Activity Day's girls made the Santa handouts so we did that again this year.  I went to Cash 'n Carry to get the supplies... and I don't think I will go there again.  At least not with my kids around.  These were the carts!  And they would NOT turn from side to side.  Everyone that passed me laughed at Tommy sitting in this little basket.  Elsy loved it, though, and kept saying it was her bed.  She would make a good Cleopatra I think.

So we made little Santa hat hot cocoa bags for Santa to give out.  It was quite the complicated mess for the 8-11 year old girls to cut the hats, stuff the bags, and glue the cotton balls.  We had some assembly line mishaps so I brought them home and touched up a few that were scary looking and then finished off the batch.  We did 100 and I don't think they ran out...

The Christmas party in our ward is always amazing and this year was no different.  The place absolutely sparkled.  There is always a huge turn out and every one of those seats were filled.  It is a great opportunity to invite friends and there are always loads of people who are not LDS there.  The theme this year was "The Symbols of Christmas".

Logan had the big screen up that said "Merry Christmas" with falling snow. 

Before dinner Santa came!  There were some fun coloring activities for the kids and everyone gathered to chat.  Tommy wasn't to excited about sitting on Santa's Lap but Elsy was fine.  She told him she wanted a bike and a princess.

The food was absolutely spectacular.  Maybe I'm mistaken but they prep for 300 people to eat. 

So the program was great!  It was decided that we split the program up a little bit so we did a little before people ate and then a little after everyone ate.  The program started with the Young Men and Young Women singing the Chipmunk Christmas Song with helium balloons to make their voices high like the Chipmunks.  It was hilarious and they did an awesome job.

The rest of the program consisted of different families coming up and talking about the different symbols of Christmas, just a few sentences.  Then each family member would hang that symbol on the tree.  So for the candy canes they hung candy canes on the tree or the bows they put bows on the tree.   There were also a few short videos from the Mormon Channel and we all sang some carols together mixed with musical numbers. Our family got to do the last symbol which really isn't a symbol at all.  It was the nativity.

When we left the stage the big screen went up and there was a life size manger in a little stable.  A fellow in our ward built it.  The bishop came out and talked about how all the symbols we learned about were there to help point our thoughts to Christ.  We all sang Silent Night together and the evening ended.  It really was beautiful.  Here is the script.

So, while the Christmas party was definitely a highlight of the week, it was also the turning point where everything started down the slippery slope of yucks.  You see, that morning Tommy woke up with a slight fever.  It was also the day he was scheduled for his flu shots so I took him in and they told me he had an ear infection.  No big deal.  Here is some amoxicillin to help him on his way.  We came home and found Logan was coming home early because he was having some stuff going on with his side of the family that he wanted to pay more attention to and also had the ward Christmas party to work on.  While we were at the party Elsy became a clingy and sad wreck.  She felt pretty warm to me but once she ate (three rolls and a bite of ham) she perked up and started dancing ballet and strumming an air guitar to the musical numbers.  Tommy lay sorta loopily on our laps all night.  We couldn't sneak out because we were at the end of the program but luckily the kids made it.

By bed time Elsy had a fever of 103.6 F.  Her fever stayed super high for four days.  Poor Tommy's didn't get any better either, in fact his slight fever turned into a 102 degree illness as well. 

On Saturday I stayed home with the kids while Logan went to a Christmas party we had been looking forward to going to for a few weeks.  I felt like a teenager again because I cried that I couldn't go to a party.

Completely doped up on meds we bundled the kids up and went to Redmond Lights in the pouring rain that night to ensure my sanity.  I get cabin fever way to easily.

Logan always points out that we have adapted to the weather because all of us, even Tom, have rain boots and rain jackets now and we don't skip an activity just because of the rain anymore.

Accompanying Elsy's fever was a terrible cough.  She would cough and cough until she would gag and throw up.  It is so hard when your children are miserable.  At first you want to cuddle them and help them feel comfortable.  But as the night wears on, you get so tired and frustrated that they wont fall asleep.  Then you feel guilty that you are more worried about your own sleep than your poor sick baby.  Pleh...

This is me on Sunday afternoon...

and Logan on Sunday afternoon...  both kiddos woke up with high fevers again and I started to get worried about Tommy because his amoxicillin should have been kicking in by then.  I called the nurse and she told me he should be fine so I was like ... oooookaaaay!  Our awesome home teacher Steve came and helped Logan give them both blessings.

Then we caught wind that my little nephew Ezra had fallen out of his high chair and needed to go in for stitches.  That was such sad news.

On Monday I was planning on taking the kids into the doctor but Logan took our car for repairs and forgot to take the car seats out again.  But that's okay I guess because I kept second guessing if I should take the kids in.  Elsy's fever was going down (Okay it was down to 101 instead of 103) and so was Tom's (100 instead of 102).  Sadly, the car breaks ended costing us almost a thousand buckos.

By the time Logan got home my stir-crazyness led us to the Nativity Festival at the Bellevue Stake Center. (Don't worry, I kept the kids tight and didn't let Elsy play in the kids room.  I didn't want to spread to many germs... but I also needed to maintain some sanity!).

It was fun seeing all the nativities from around the world and hearing people singing Christmas songs.

When we got home I became increasingly concerned about a diaper rash Tommy had contracted while sick.  I decided Monday night I would take him in the next morning to get it looked at.  I talked with my brother-in-law Steve who is in med school and a lady from our ward who is a nurse and it was thought that maybe he was having an allergic reaction to the amoxicillin.

The next morning his fever was gone but when I turned on the bedroom light I couldn't believe it.  He was covered all over in red spots!  When I took him in they said he indeed was allergic and took him off the amoxicillin and gave us a new prescription because his double ear infection hadn't gone away yet.  Poor kid.  And my doctor said his diaper rash was a yeast infection.

His whole forehead and scalp was a mass of red.

I took lots of pictures of his rash because I sent them all to Steve.  It got worse before it got better.  Today he still is quite speckled but its more pink instead of red.  Yay for Benadryl!  And his yeast infection is almost already gone.  Woop!

Today Tommy has finally been playing on his own again.  He was super clingy and sad for the last six days.  I had missed him so much, and Elsy too!  When they started perking up again I was just so happy for them.

Tommy can hear the dishwasher open from a mile away....

And this is his new hobby.  The day after we got our brakes fixed in the van, Logan's mini set off the alert for bad brake pads. Seriously?  Luckily our friend Cameron has the tools to do that one on our own and he and Logan are actually in the garage right now fixing those.

Another drop of rain on my head this week was I found a hole in the elbow of my favorite jacket that Logan got me.  So so sad.  And THEN today I was so excited to finally go Christmas shopping now that the kids were all better (besides lingering pink spots and Elsy's cough) and I had them in shoes and we were grabbing snacks for the road and all the sudden the power goes out!  Well, whatever! I thought to myself.  Got the kids shoes on and then... the garage door wouldn't open.  Stranded.  Ugh what a bummer.  Luckily it came back an hour later.

 But you see!  This week was kinda a downer for us.  I feel like my nerves were shot from worrying about my kids all week (I mean I know they aren't reaaaally going to die, but lets face it, I worry they are going to die the whole time they are sick) and Logan has been in high stress mode with his startup he has been doing.  He works so so hard on it all the time, I really am proud of him.  But some things are taking their toll and I can tell he is spent.  Even when he takes breaks his mind wont.  We have been watching The Flash together at night and drinking yummy hot chocolate and that has been a fun winding down thing for us to do together.  We haven't watched a show together since Psych so that has been fun. (Except if you have seen The Flash you will know how terribly cheesy Captain Cold is and Logan looked up quotes of his last night and has been quoting him all day to me and I can't even stand it anymore haha).

So, after the awfulness of the week I was determined that when I wrote this post I had nothing really that great to say... but my conscience is nagging and reminding me of my goal for every blog post to have something uplifting and spiritual in it.  (Insert my cranky face that I am making to nobody in particular about being a stickler on my own rules for myself).  So here is something I thought a lot about this week when my milk supply was going down and Tommy was not eating any solids so he was dependent on my milk and when I was praying for my kids to get better...

I did some thinking about faith.  Lots of times I feel like what is the point of praying for something if God is going to do it his way anyway?  Does that make sense?  Like, yes I can pray for my kids to get better, but even if I have all the faith in the world if its their time to die or something, they are going to die.  Right?  Well, I was thinking about faith and prayer and I knew that my way of thinking was wrong even though I didn't know how I was supposed to be thinking.  While I was reading about prayer in the Bible Dictionary I came across something that helped changed my way of looking at it.  This is what it says: "Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other.  The object of prayer is not to change the will of God, but to secure for ourselves and for others blessings that God is already willing to grant, but that are made conditional on our asking for them.  Blessings require some work or effort on our part before we can obtain them.  Prayer is a form of  work and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings."  While I know I have a lot more learning to do on this topic, focusing on aligning my will with the Father's, even when I don't understand it or when I think I know better, has actually helped my prayers get answered this week. *big sigh* I still have more to figure out on this topic though...

Now that my children are no longer oober ill I am ready for the Christmas Spirit to enter our home.  (Me holding my hands up in a welcoming manner)  Drum roll please...