Apparently I’m Not the Only One Who Thinks It’s Cool

Just in case you didn’t know, Daniel is really into origami. And he’s really good at it. We’re not just talking paper cranes here. We’re talking about teaching himself all kinds of designs that he’s found in books and on the internet and then using what he’s learned to create his own designs, things like a variety of different ships from Star Wars. He’s been doing origami for about three years now and he’s looking at intermediate origami designs in the rearview mirror.

About a year ago he found instructions for a dragon designed by Satoshi Kamiya, one of the world’s most advanced origami masters. It was one of Kamiya’s less complex designs, nevertheless it is pretty complicated. There were 24 pages of instructions. Daniel made multiple attempts to make the dragon but was never successful not only because it is complicated, but because he did not have paper that worked well. He needed bigger pieces for the more intricate designs and since this is Utah, the biggest origami paper I can find is 8 inches. So he tried some other kinds of paper and just could not make it work.

A few months ago my parents began serving a mission working at the Distribution Center. That is where the church prints all its materials and there are frequently rolls of the paper that the magazines are printed on that are either rejected for some reason or are far enough gone that they can’t be used anymore. They are up for grabs so my dad started bringing some home and offered one to us. I took it knowing that my kids would love to have big paper to draw on. But it wasn’t long before Daniel discovered that the paper was well suited to origami. It had enough body to hold a crease but was thin enough that it didn’t get too bulky with multiple folds.

So he gave the dragon another try and succeeded. He used a 1 yard square piece of paper with no cuts in it. He entered the dragon into the art show at his middle school and won a first place ribbon, one of a number of first place winners. Yesterday, at the end of the art show, he was awarded the one and only people’s choice award. He was super excited and I must admit that I was a little bit proud. He told me that as he was carrying the dragon towards home he had lots of kids holler, “I voted for you!” I think it was a big self-esteem booster.

So prepare to be amazed by Daniel’s origami awesomeness:












 
Last night he completed a phoenix, also designed by Kamiya.


 
Now he is wishing he could afford the book of Kamiya’s designs, but the thing is $150 used on amazon and $75 plus shipping on the other sites we’ve found…

I Needed an Excuse to Introduce My Children to the Awesomeness That is 80’s Rock

Last Kevin was out of town for part of one week and most of the next. With only one parent to manage all four children, I was feeling a little frazzled. And when I get tired out or stressed, I frequently need to clean stuff. But without a lot of time to do that, the amount of clutter that was constantly underfoot due to the drop it and leave it mentality of my offspring was absolutely driving me nuts! I happened to remember a tip I read somewhere and somewhen (don’t ask too much of my memory-I’m lucky I actually remembered what I did) and decided to give it a try. Here is the idea: you play one song and for the duration of that one song everyone in the house picks up as much as they can as fast as they can. Of course, an upbeat tempo is key to the whole process. And I added that things needed to put away in their proper places.

Imagine my glee when I played a 3 minute song and the entire living room was picked up in 1 ½ minutes! It seems that knowing there is a definite deadline, my boys will actually pick up at a speed that is not on the slow side of snail. So not only is the “One Song Pick Up” becoming a fixture in our house, but I get to listen to an assortment of music that I haven’t listened to regularly in a couple of decades. “Rock This Town” by the Stray Cats is Matthew’s current favorite but the other boys like some variety so we try to mix it up. Eighties rock seems to be everyone’s favorite so Kev bought an entire album of 80’s favorites and we’ve been picking up to Billy Joel, Styx and Bon Jovi.

Is it sad that I still remember almost all the lyrics to nearly all 79 songs on that album? And is it even sadder that hearing it makes me dance like a sixteen year old in a thirty-nine year old body? It may not be pretty, but it’s fun!

A Reminder for Matthew: The Lord Knows You, Understands Your Needs and Loves You More Than You Can Comprehend

The last post was a reminder for me and this one is a reminder for Matthew. At some point he is going to wonder if the Lord really knows what he is going through or if the Lord hears his prayers or even cares. I want to be able to remind him of an experience the two of us had that will let him know that the Lord really does know and care.

A few weeks ago Matthew quit eating. He would have a couple of bites of cereal for breakfast and a few bites of dinner, all usually under great duress. He came home from school with his lunch box still completely full. As is normal, after a few days of this, his appetite decreased and the problem became a vicious cycle. He had no energy, was tired all the time and had a slightly grey pallor to his face. He was unhappy and became overemotional at the drop of a hat. He was yelling and screaming at everyone. It was bad enough that when I made a doughnut for him and took it to school for his Halloween party that he didn’t even want that. I knew something was wrong but simply could not discover what it was. Honestly, I don’t think that Matthew even knew what was wrong. After a couple of weeks, I was getting worried. Kev and I tried to talk to him, tried to make him eat, but we could not figure out what was going on. We were concerned enough that I had decided that if we could not figure out what was going on I was going to employ the aid of other trusted adults in his life and see if they could get any useful information out of him. Other than that, our only plan was to pray, which we did.

A few days after that, I was helping Matthew with his homework when all of a sudden I realized that I was asking him a question. It was not something I had thought about in advance, there were just words coming out of my mouth all of a sudden that had absolutely nothing to do with the conversation we had been having. The question was, “Do you sit with friends at lunch or by yourself?” Right away Matthew told me that he doesn’t sit with friends but that they moved the food allergy table at school and now a bunch of hot lunch kids come and sit by him. Because I know him so well, I knew immediately that this was the root of the problem. Food is a scary thing to Matthew because of all his allergies and being surrounded by kids who are eating stuff he knows he is allergic to is a source of great stress. So I reminded him that as long as he doesn’t eat their food he will be fine. I also told him that none of the hot lunches at our school ever have any peanuts in them. (Peanut is Matthew’s worst allergy.) He responded, with a bit of wonder in his voice, “Oh, I didn’t know that.” Right away I saw his countenance lighten a little bit.

The next morning he asked for a huge breakfast. I gave it to him and he ate almost all of it. He came home from school with an empty lunchbox, a spring in his step, some color in his cheeks and the normal twinkle in his eye. As he continued to eat regularly, I was relieved beyond what I can express.

Yesterday I was reading through the conference edition of the Ensign preparing a visiting teaching lesson. I had decided to give my lesson from Elder Eyring’s talk entitled“To My Grandchildren.” The basic gist of the talk is that we can have happiness in family life by keeping the first two commandments. When we love the Lord, love others and live so that our choices reflect that love, the Holy Ghost will guide us to help us make choices and solve problems in our families so that we can be happy. It is a fabulous talk. As I was re-reading the talk, I suddenly realized exactly what had happened when Matthew and I were able to figure out why he wasn’t eating. It hadn’t occurred to me that the Holy Ghost was giving me the help I needed either because I’m super dense or because I’m so accustomed to those little helps that it didn’t seem out of the normal for me. I prefer to think it is the latter, but it could very possibly be the previous reason. Anyway, it was one of those moments when I was reminded that the Lord knows exactly what we need and he helps us in his own way.

So for Matthew: He loves a little six year old food allergy kid so much that he put words in the mouth of that child’s mom so that between the two of them they could figure out what was wrong and work together to solve the problem. It was an answer to a heartfelt prayer. He knows exactly what you are going through and he loves that you deal with your struggles with courage and faith. He won’t ever leave you to deal with life’s trials alone if you ask for his help. And he has promised you that someday your body will be perfect and you will be able to have a big bowl of ice cream, just like everyone else.

No matter where or when you need this reminder, it is still true. Just ask your mom. She knows.

A Reminder for Me: There Really is a Purpose to the Program

This post is mostly for me. It has the potential to be long and wordy. If you want to skip it, I won’t be offended. In fact, I’ll never even know. But the next time I get all ornery about doing my visiting teaching, I want to remember all this stuff. So this is your chance to run away if you so desire…

One of the sisters I have been visiting for almost the past two years will actually call me when she has trouble and tell me when things are going on in her life. It is kind of different for me as the majority of the sisters I’ve visited in my life will smile and tell me everything is fine even when it isn’t. But this sister actually trusts me enough to share her worries. Two weeks ago she was the first one to arrive for choir practice. (She is also a dedicated choir member which I love her for.) I asked her how she was and she started to cry and tell me about some troubles she was having with one of her daughters. I started to cry to (I’m a huge bawl baby. I inherited it from my father.) and needless to say, choir started a bit late that day.

For the first time in my life, I had a feeling that I needed to tell the Relief Society president (who I’ve also visited in the past) what was going on. I wasn’t sure why because I had been privy to some much more serious struggles the same sister had been through with one of her sons the previous year and had never been impressed to tell anyone. Nevertheless, I needed to chat with the R.S. president and it needed to be that day. I had planned to call her after church, but after opening exercises in relief society, the president came and sat down right by me. When the meeting ended I told her I was concerned about one of the sisters I visited and was only a little bit surprised when she knew exactly which sister I was talking about. I shared the little bit of info I had gleaned before choir practice, also letting her know that while I had been in a position to help with her son and his struggles, I had absolutely no idea how to help with her daughter.  The president let me know that she would follow up.

The next Sunday I was subbing in nursery and as church was ending, the president came to deliver in person a brand new list of sisters I was assigned to visit. I was surprised to see that the sister I had been visiting for two years was no longer on my list. The pres wanted to make sure that I wasn’t offended by the change and knew what the reasons were behind the change. After talking with both me and the sister I was visiting, the president had a feeling that there needed to be visiting teachers in that home that could help with the daughter. She had made changes accordingly and wanted all parties involved to know why there were changes being made. Knowing that the family’s needs were the impetus for the change immediately put my mind at ease. All was as it should be.

That was when the R.S. president asked me to write the visiting teaching thought for the November newsletter. And I was not surprised in any way. For the past few months I’ve had a thought in the back of my mind that I needed to think about what to write. So I had taken plenty of time to ponder, went home from church, did a ten minute brain dump and the thing was finished. So here it is, another reminder to myself of why I persevere in doing my visiting teaching even when my attitude is suckalicious:

My first experiences with visiting teaching were not positive. In the first ward I lived in after I got married, I was never visited and I don’t even know if I was assigned a companion and sisters to visit. In the next ward, I was assigned a companion and the very first time I met her she told me that her last companion had made her arrange all the appointments and so now it was my turn to make all the appointments. To say that I was flabbergasted would be an understatement. Several wards later I had an inactive companion and three of the four sisters I was assigned to visit were inactive. Every month my visiting teaching supervisor would call and use her grumpy voice to ask, “What’s wrong?! Why aren’t you doing your visiting teaching?!” That was about the point that I just gave up.

When that inactive companion moved, my new companion happened to be one of my best friends in the ward. I figured we could commiserate together, but instead she taught me what visiting teaching is actually about. We worked together to make appointments and prepare lessons. We scheduled appointments early in the month so it didn’t feel like a last minute dash to get everyone visited. We shared lessons with those ladies who were receptive to the messages and just visited with those who were not. We had one completely inactive (possibly nonmember, I don’t remember) sister who didn’t even always let us in the house. But we would stand on her porch and chat with her and my companion took a spinning class with her and honestly considered her a friend. We had only been companions for two or three months when I moved to Herriman, but it was long enough for me to see how visiting teaching should be.

With that in mind, I made a commitment in my new ward to do my visiting teaching even if it was hard and in spite of my negative feelings about it. I set my nerves aside and cold-called a new companion I had never met and made appointments with several sisters that I had only met once or twice. That was nearly five years ago and I can honestly say that I’ve only missed visiting my sisters a few months. That doesn’t mean that it has been easy. Schedules have been hard. Illness had changed plans. My attitude has not always been stellar about the whole thing, but I had made a commitment to just do it and so I did.

I have no idea if any of the sisters I’ve visited felt like they were better off for hosting me for half an hour once a month, but I know that I’m better off. Many of the ladies I consider to be my friends started off as being companions or ladies that I’ve visited. Over time I’ve found myself worrying about their worries and triumphing in their joys. Little by little I’ve discovered that I care about their wellbeing and honestly want to help and serve them. It doesn’t mean that actually getting out there and visiting everyone has gotten easier. There are still obstacles to overcome. But it does mean that I honestly believe that because of my commitment to just do it, the Lord has begun to give me a little glimpse of what a truly Christ-centered commitment to love and serve our neighbors is about. I have a long way to go, but I’ve taken the first step. And I’ve been blessed for it. I only hope the sisters I visit feel the same way.

Fall Festivities

At the Pumpkin Patch

Carving the Spoils of the Hunt

Daniel's Ironman, Matthew's Minion, Nathan's Scary Jack

 

The Big Day

 

 I always try to make a fun Halloween dinner so the kiddies will eat something healthy before they gorge on candy. This year's offerings were mummy dogs and skull head cucumbers. The cucumbers were a last minute addition. I have some ideas on how to make them look more skull-like next year.

Daniel as the Iron Patriot. He made his shoulder weapon out of cardboard, duct tape and elastic. I thought it looked great!

Nathan loves quirky and original costumes. This year he was "Partly Cloudy With a Chance of Rain."

Matthew as Ironman, the Mark 42 as opposed to last year's Mark 7.

Malia as Ladybug Girl. I wasn't sure she was going to like dressing up, but she loved it! And she loved running around the neighborhood with her trick or treat bag. She wouldn't let us carry her, even when she started to get cold and tired.

October: “Let me 'splain…No, there is too much. Let me sum up.”

Actually, October was largely uneventful. There isn’t all that much to say but I just couldn’t resist using an awesome movie quote as a blog title. I have spent much of October working on other projects, the completion of which allows me to cross things off my to-do list which in turn allows me to soothe my OCD. But for the sake of recording my family’s history, there are a couple of things to mention.

Matthew had his annual appointment with the allergist. Everything is pretty much the same as last year, no big changes in either his blood work or his skin prick testing. The one thing that I should mention is that after three years of testing negative for almonds, his doctor wants him to do an oral challenge with almonds. If he doesn’t react when he eats them we will be able to incorporate almonds into our diet which means we will be able to use almond milk, almond butter, etc. His challenge is scheduled for December so we’ll have further news then.

Kevin was out of town for a couple of weeks doing some training for work. Nathan and Daniel were just fine, but Matthew and Malia kind of freaked out. Matthew is just a beast when Kev is gone. He screams and yells and fights with everyone, throws enormous tantrums, and basically makes life miserable. I’m very grateful for facetime. Being able to talk to Kev helped keep him at least tolerable for those two weeks. Malia was fine for the first bit, but then she started having some serious separation anxiety. It was so bad and that I couldn’t even walk away from the highchair while she was eating without her breaking down. If I did, she would immediately stop eating and start crying, telling me she was done. She was concerned about the funniest things like the fact that Kevin’s toothbrush was gone. I guess those little things were just a reminder to her that things were not as they should be. She loves nursery, but she started crying when I dropped her off. It took her a couple of weeks after Kevin came home to get over the anxiety and start enjoying it again. Again, facetime was great and now every time she sees my iPod she says, “Talk to Daddy!”

So there you have it, a quick summation of October. Oh, and perhaps I should mention that I think I’m addicted to Doctor Who…and I’m not sure that is a good thing. But I spend a good amount of time with the Doctor while Kev was gone and he kept me entertained.

Next up: Halloween.

Mmmmm.......

Today is National Homemade Cookie Day which gives me an excuse to make cookies.

Not that I actually  need an excuse, but.....

:-)

My Crazy Life

This post is basically going to be a rant about how stressful things have been around here for the last few months so if you want to skip it, I won’t be offended. On the other hand, if you want to get an idea of why I’ve been enormously absentee from social gatherings, blogging, and life in general, stick around. Ready or not, here we go:

In mid-June Kevin applied for a new job. He was in no danger of losing his current job, but he saw an opportunity to take a step up professionally and decided to throw his hat into the ring. Twelve hours after he submitted the online application, he got the first phone call. Within a week and a half he had six interviews and at the final interview he learned that things had been narrowed down to only two candidates, Kevin being one of them. The job was for Adobe and the whole company pretty much shuts down for the entire week surrounding the 4^th of July which is great for them but not so much for the guy who just completed a bunch of interviews and is waiting to hear back about whether or not he got the job. Needless to say, the waiting was stressful.

Good news is that once the waiting was over he got the job. He gave notice at his current job, giving them three weeks so that the health insurance on both ends would give us the coverage we needed. He had planned to complete a big project during those three weeks, but once he told them he was quitting they decided they didn’t want him to do it. So instead he spent three weeks twiddling his thumbs waiting for the new job to start. It made him crazy and made those three weeks seem loooooong for him.

Once he actually started at Adobe, it took a few weeks for him to feel like he had any idea of what he was doing and to have enough work to fill his days. Now he is getting into the swing of things and is feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Matthew has been a huge stress bomb as well. During all this job stuff, he was getting ready to start first grade. First grade is a big deal, especially for a food allergy kid who will be eating lunch at school. He was really stressed about his teacher knowing about all his needs and it took us a good week of trying before I was actually able to talk with her and help dial back some of his concerns. He was also worried about whether or not he would know anyone in his class. And he didn’t know his teacher so he was worried about what she would be like. He was in tears nearly every day about all this.

And then we dumped the “Dad is quitting his job and going to work for Adobe” bomb on him. It really shouldn’t have been a big deal, but it totally freaked Matthew out. It was so bad that he started having nightmares. Things like Kev and I were on a vacation and Nathan and Matthew were left home alone and they didn’t have a phone number to call us. Another one was about going to eat lunch with Kev at his new job and when we arrived the entire building was gone. They pretty much reeked of abandonment issues and as much as we reassured him that nothing would be different at home, he just couldn’t stop panicking. He freaked out when Kev was in Washington D.C. for an entire week earlier this year and I think part of his panic was that Kev would be gone like that again.

Nathan was stressed out because he was in limbo land about who his fifth grade teacher would be. Because we are in year round school, they only had three weeks between one school year and the next which you would think would not be enough time to work up a real stress attack, but you would be wrong. Our school definitely doesn’t help that. The new school year started on July 25^th. July 24^th was a holiday and our school didn’t post teacher assignments until 4:00 p.m. on July 23^rd. I know they do it because they don’t want to deal with all the parents who are unhappy about the teacher their kid was assigned, but honestly it is ridiculous. They are either going to deal with it the week before school starts or on the first day of school. Just postponing letting everyone know which teacher they have doesn’t make that go away. But it made Nathan super stressed out for three weeks. At least once he know which teacher he had and knew that he would have a few friends in his class he was able to calm down.

Daniel just started 7^th grade and although he didn’t actually admit it until a couple of days before school started, he was stressed out to. Seventh grade is a big change and although he was excited as well, there was a lot of uncertainty about how things would be. And he had a whole extra month to stew about it once the other boys went back to school. He was also headed to the weeklong scout camp for the first time so we had to get him all ready to go. He only had some dehydration once at scout camp and luckily for him (and us), his leaders knew what they were dealing with early enough that they were able to get him rehydrating without needing medical care.

Malia did pretty well, being too young to comprehend the stress of her whole family. She did however, get sick twice and have that instacare visit when she whacked her head on the counter.

As for me, when all this started in June I was at the point where I was having headaches every single day. So in addition to trying to keep my entire family from going bat crap crazy because of stress, I was trying out a variety of new treatment methods and changing some routines in an attempt to get the headaches under control. I was also neck deep in paperwork trying to get all the forms Matthew needs to get the care he needs at school, for Matthew and Daniel to be able to have their meds at school, to update insurance info everywhere, to allow Daniel to go to scout camp, etc.

Now overlay on top of all that the pox we’ve all had (the week we all had a cold was Kev’s first week at Adobe, Nathan and Matthew’s second full week of school, and Daniel’s week at scout camp and the second round of sick was the week just before Daniel started school with Malia’s sick lingering into his first week), a new mortgage (we had an opportunity to refinance at a lower interest rate which meant a lower monthly payment) and the fact that Daniel is now on a traditional school calendar while Nathan and Matthew are still on a year round school calendar which leads to scheduling chaos and you’ve got a pretty good picture of how we spent our summer.

We are finally at the point where I feel like we are getting back into a routine and I cannot tell you how good and ready we all are to have hit a new normal. My daily life, as crazy as it can be, is a welcome relief compared to what we have just survived.