Back to California: Sad Times and Fun Times

So this summer I won a couple of Disney gift cards from a sweepstakes Bashas did. I was pretty. darn. excited. The only thing better than winning cash is winning money that has to be spent at Disney. :) Pretty cool. So with part of it Jeremy said I should do something fun like go to Disneyland with my sister. Um, okay!!
We originally planned to go the first weekend in December, because that day worked best, we thought. But then she found that she needed to move it to the Monday after Thanksgiving. So we did. But then that reason was gone, so it seemed like we had moved it for no reason. Until I heard the crushing news that one of my best friend's dads had died, and his funeral was going to be held the Saturday before our planned trip in the same area. Suddenly the timing of our trip seemed like a bit of a blessing in disguise, because I was able to drive home Friday with my family, and turn around to leave for California about an hour later and make it there by Friday night. I stayed with my other best friend, and got to hold her sweet new baby. The next day we were both able to go to the funeral and support our dear friend, and I was able to offer some help to her family with carting things around. I was so grateful to have the opportunity to be there, and to have that trip already planned, also on a flexible enough weekend that I could go two days early. It was a tender mercy for sure.

While I was gone, the kids and Jeremy stayed pretty busy putting the tree up, getting out of the house, and meeting up with some cousins to see Wreck It Ralph 2!

Emily was sweet and willing to rent a car and drive out to meet me Sunday evening, so I picked her up at the John Wayne Airport (and adventure, since I had to go down in an pick her up at the car rental return) and we spent the evening at Downtown Disney. It was a super fun time, and so fun to explore and see all the Christmas decor and shop and be together without our nine crazy kids.

We stayed at kind of a sketchy hotel, but it was super cheap, haha. It didn't feel unsafe, it was just about as basic as you can get! But bright and early the next morning, we were at Disneyland, and we rocked that day, let me tell you. We had park hoppers, and used MaxPass, and rode 26 different attractions, took 35,000 steps, and I finally found someone that would drag ME around Disneyland like I do to everyone else! She was slightly more excited than me to be there (because she hasn't been without kids or to California Adventure since 2005, and has only been to Disneyland once a couple years ago with all 4 boys, including a nursing baby...) and her legs are longer, haha. We had a great time, and I'm so glad we went!

Leaves are Falling All Around

Well, not so much in Arizona. It seems like some of the trees decide it's finally autumn somewhere in November, and the rest wonder if they might have missed it somewhere in February or March and drop a bunch of leaves... Anyway, we've had a very busy fall.

With Reilly turning 12 at the end of September, he was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood, and also was able to start going to the temple to perform baptisms for the dead. Our Mesa temple (less than a mile from our house) has been closed since spring as they completely redo it and its grounds, AND the Gilbert temple was closed for like a month, so Jeremy took him up to the Phoenix temple for that.

Katy was due for a parent-child trip, and since she turned 8 this year, she got to attend General Conference with Jeremy in Salt Lake City. They made a trip of it, and were gone for like 4 days. They stayed with and visited with a bunch of friends, and saw some different interesting places. Katy really enjoyed having that time with Dad! We tried to have our own Conference fun at home, including making donuts in between sessions!

We started enjoying the weather more in October, and the kids really love to get out. Riverview is a popular destination, with its big awesome park. They weren't too excited about our plan to walk around the little lake that's there first, but it was really nice. :) After that we let them spend a while on all the playground and climbing equipment.

With the cooler weather Reilly's Scout camp outs also resumed, but his first experience as a 12-year-old scout wasn't so great. They had a ton of wind that ended ripping their tents up over and over, and he only slept like 2-3 hours that night! He came home and took his first nap in about 9 years, not counting illness. :)

Some Halloween highlights included having Grammy come down to do a bunch of crafts, the girls had a Halloween party in their dance class, and parties at school, Shawn helped made pumpkin Halloween muffins for his pre-school class, and their Halloween program, etc.

Of course we got some trick-or-treating in, after the traditional meal at Chipotle. It was weird not having Jaina there for dinner, because she was at her friend's little Halloween party before joining us for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. It was the year of reusing costumes, as I think most of them are ones we wore before or for another occasion (in the case of mine and Jaina's), Katy's was found at D.I., (She was NOT Elsa, she was a winter fairy...) and Bridget's adorable little candy corn witch was passed down from one of Jeremy's cousins. We struggle with Halloween since we avoid sugar so hard a lot of the time, but Jeremy traded the kids quarters for a bunch of their Halloween candy, so that made them happy.

November was a little calmer, and had even nicer weather. We actually went down to the Gila Valley for Thanksgiving, and spent time with Jeremy's family members.  It worked out really well, because David and Nicole are living in my parents' house while they're on their mission, but they were coming to Mesa for Thanksgiving, so we were able to stay at their house for the weekend. The two older kids and I did the Turkey Trot with Jeremy's dad, sister, and co, and we did a fun Thanksgiving breakfast with them. A couple hours later we went up to Thatcher and did Thanksgiving lunch/dinner with Jeremy's mom and sister, and then we took some family pictures afterwards at the golf course. They turned out pretty good for taking ourselves with a tripod and a timer!

How Did This Happen?

I remember before school started, I was thinking, "maybe when some of the kids go back to school, and things calm down, maybe we'll try potty training with Bridget." Ha. Ha ha ha. Since school started, my days have gotten SO busy. It's true that sometimes things are quieter at home, with the girls both in regular school and Reilly at Prenda from 8-12 every weekday, but things have not calmed down. I feel like I spend SO much time in the car. Even though Jeremy takes and picks Reilly up maybe half of the time, that is a 10-15 minute drive twice a day some days, plus Jaina has to go early (7:30) on Tuesdays and Thursdays for orchestra, and stays after for an hour+ on those same days because of band. Jaina and Katy both have Activity Days twice a month, as well as musical theater on Thursday evenings. Reilly has piano lessons once a week. I have scouts Wednesday nights. Shawn is going to pre-school M-W, (which he LOVES) and until very recently, it's been too warm to want to walk him over, so that's two more car trips. Bridget is getting slightly better at riding around in her seat, but she's still not a fan. On top of all that, Reilly just turned 12 (what???) and went to Mutual for the first time Wednesday. He didn't get home until like 9 o'clock! (He's usually in bed before then) He had a great time, of course. I don't feel like anyone is over-scheduled (except maybe Jaina with her double music involvement) but that is a whole lot of stuff! How did this happen? It's just a little crazy...

Since I last wrote, lots of fun things have gone on. Most notably, I went to Hawaii for just over a week, and spent time with my parents, and Phil and Emily and their spouses. That was amazing, and Jeremy is completely awesome for pushing me to do it and keeping all the kids (as well as trying to work some) as I was gone. Jeremy took Reilly (and then also Jaina and Katy the next day, after they'd been at Bearizona for a cousin's birthday) to the Grand Canyon. They had a great time doing that! I forgot to mention that earlier, in July, we went to the cabin for the 4th of July, which was crazy. It was so nice to be up there again though, and see it safe with my own eyes after all the crazy fires last summer. Also, Jaina and I just got back from a really fun mother/daughter trip to Disneyland for Mickey's Halloween Party.

Jeremy and Katy are currently gone to Utah, where they will be attending two sessions of conference. Katy has been pretty excited for this trip! They won't be back until Monday or Tuesday. October Break starts on Monday, and we don't have any plans... I guess we'll see what happens! (My kids aren't very impressed with my lack of activities lined up for them, or whatever they think I should have done...) Here's a picture of Bridget, just because she's super cute, and talking like crazy these days, just a few months over 2. :)

Summer Craziness

Summer has been really crazy, and this last week has been especially intense. Bridget woke up the morning of Katy's baptism (Saturday) with a fever again, (she had run one all day last Tuesday) and I feel like she cried most of the day. :-( I was a little worried that I wasn't going to be able to go to the baptism if I couldn't get her feeling a little better, and she was too upset to really leave with other people. :-/ Thankfully motrin made it possible for me to attend the baptism, and even stay in the room for most of the program. I just held her the whole time, since that's what she wanted, and since I didn't know if she had an ear infection (what I was suspecting) or something contagious. Emily (my sister) gave the talk on baptism and she did a really nice job. I appreciated her lugging all 4 of her boys down for it, and then going back again that night with the littlest guy. That's a lot of driving in one day, but she had lots of responsibilities at church Sunday, and her "baby" doesn't sleep that great other places than home at this age. (Bridget either!) We shared a baptism time with the Daleys in our ward, even though they just moved back to Thatcher last week actually. We will miss having them in our ward! It was a good experience though, and I was just grateful everyone was able to be there.

Bridget was still very upset and feverish on Sunday, so I stayed home from church with her and Jeremy took the other 7 kids to church by himself. :-o  It was a bit of a rough day, just having so many busy kids with only Sunday activities to entertain them. Plus Bridget was bad enough and acting like her ears hurt, so Jeremy talked to one of his naturopath friends that happened to be in her office to see another friend, and Jaina and I took Bridget to see her. She basically had a double ear infection, which was probably why she was so miserable. :-( We started her on amoxicillin (which we've avoided up until now with everyone except Reilly once) and by Tuesday she was feeling much better.

Despite Bridget feeling awful, we tried to do some fun things with Emily's boys for our half of the Great Cousin Summer Exchange. Monday Jeremy took them to a park, and to get Hurts Donuts, (They had a "pay your age" day) and to Target, and took some of the oldest kids to play laser tag. Bridget was still having a pretty rough day, though her fever was gone, and I spent most of the day holding her. We took them to Organ Stop Pizza for dinner with Phil and Sophie, and then Jeremy took Bridget home (she did pretty well at the pizza place actually) while the rest of us went to Carlee's 5th birthday party, unicorn rides and all. They had a great time there, and she was the cutest little unicorn birthday princess ever. :)

Tuesday we did a lot of cleaning up, and I let Logan and Shawn just hang out and watch movies (because Logan had a fever the night before and Shawn's foot was acting funny) while Jeremy took Bridget and the rest of the kids to the State Capitol Museum. 

After that they got to play Minecraft (their favorite activity together) while we got ready to go, and about 3 PM seven kids and I road-tripped to Joseph City. Definitely a bit of an adventure. We managed to keep anyone from getting car sick, and they were excited to get Happy Meals in Payson. The last hour was getting a little dicey, so we broke out the tablets, but we only had 4 tablets for 7 kids. Also exciting.

It has been nice to have some quiet at home (especially after 3 very loud, chaotic days). Bridget is feeling much better, but still has a lot of fluid in her ears and has some temporary hearing loss. :-p In other news, we ordered a new bed (a "Tuft and Needle" on an Amazon Prime Day deal) so our old mattress is hanging out in our living room while we try to decide what to do with it. Hopefully I will adjust to the new bed soon. My back wasn't sure what to think of it last night. 

Also, my computer, which was 7 years old went to the Jason's house to be converted to a SSD, but the jury's out on how much longer before I just need to buy a new one. He doesn't often get stumped, but my computer managed it...  It won't let him install any Windows operating system on it except a 32 bit version of Windows 7 (It originally had a 64 bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium) and I really need 64 bit to run my Adobe Programs. So I might make do with it for a while with the goal of changing to a new computer in a couple months. I technically have a laptop too, but I don't prefer using a laptop that much, and the kids use it quite a bit for game and school stuff. I know, first world problems. But my photo and video stuff does really help keep me sane in my stay-at-home-mom life, so I know that they're important to me. (And to our family in that way, haha.) You gotta nurture the things that keep you sane and bring you a sense of accomplishment. Laundry and dishes and cooking never STAY done, and that's a little exhausting to do the same things over and over again, especially with my personality. I loathe re-doing tasks, even in games or whatever. That's one reason I never enjoyed any of the Super Mario games. If you die, you have to re-do some things you've just accomplished!

Anyway, enough typing. I need to put away some of the endless laundry while Bridget is sleeping.

Sara