Sami's World

As if my last entry wasn’t long enough, I realized I forgot to report a few things.

(Thank you grandma Thompson for reminding me of this)
Joey, our SBC in, told us he would install any extra phone jacks for us.  When it came time, Joey told Scott that he was the one who would have to do the crawling under the house.  Scott was not too jazzed about this and so asked if anyone else wanted to do it.  Alix happily volunteered.  She was very excited about the prospects of doing it.  Once she got the hole, she hesitated a few moments.  Then she saw some little army guys down there.  That got her into the hole.  Then we had her shine her flashlight toward the correct spot and Joey jiggled the cord.  She saw it and got very excited and was off.  She was back in no time and very pleased with herself as were all the adults in the room.  Alix was the hero of the day for Scott.

Last Friday night I was emptying all the half boxes in our room.  One of the boxes had some books in it that needed to come down stairs.  I piled the books high and started down the stairs.  I slipped on the first step and did the classic fall (feet out from under me and books flying everywhere).  I landed on my back/bum on the fifth step.  I felt paralized for a few seconds (I think my body just went into shock) and called for Scott.  After about one minute I could move again but was VERY sore and had a headache.  Since it was 1 o’clock in the morning anyway, I figured I should just go to bed.  I woke up in the morning sure that I was going to have the worst back ache ever, but didn’t.  However, my neck was shot.  Scott said I probably had whip lash.  Saturday evening at Joey and Gayles, I wore a hot pad most of the night to try and loosen the muscles.  It seemed to help.  By this morning, I feel good as new.  Oh ya, did I mention that I broke the step?  If you ever walk up or down our stairs be carefull of step five from the top, it’s a doozy!!  That’s ok, it matches all the other things we’ve already damaged in this house in the two weeks we’ve lived here!!  :0)

Tonight, Jaime was working on some math that she didn’t quite finish before dance class.  She was trying to figure out who had more dimes by reading a word problem.  We had gotten to the point where she should know the answer, so I asked her ‘Who had more dimes?’  Niah, in her cute 2 year old loud voice and from another room, answers ‘I dunno……probably Alix’.

It’s been a good week and a half since I last wrote.  I guess I should update you all.  We are completely out of the old house.  We spent the mornings last week at the old house.  I found baby sitters for the younger kids and told Jaime and Alix if they wanted to earn some money they could come and help me.  They were very excited about that.  We spent about 2.5 hours each day scrubbing bathrooms, floors, baseboards, cupboards (inside and out) and anything else you can think of (except walls, they said they were going to repaint).  I even went one day by myself and cleaned the carpets.  All in all, I think it may have been in vain.  You go into the house and it just doesn’t “feel” as clean as it should.  I’m sure they are going to hire a cleaning crew.  But that is ok, we did what we could with what we had.  I’m very pleased with my girls and how hard they worked and scrubbed.

The rest of the week was spent on the phone with various companies and people trying to change our address and dealing with the internet company (that battle is still not over…..).  I spent one whole morning on the phone with the bank.  My new landlord cashed the check too soon.  I paid him a couple of days before the 1st to make sure he had the payment for the first.  He didn’t wait though.  Lucky for me the bank did not bounce the check but did a courtesy payment and charged me a huge fee.  After pleading my case to three different people, they had mercy on me and gave me the fee back.  They are a good bank and this made them even better.

Friday was our first real clean day here at the new house.  We scrubbed the bathrooms and floors, vaccumed etc….  It felt nice to clean our own house and the kids even felt like it was more of our routine.  They are great cleaners and helpers.

Saturday was spent watching General Conference.  We stayed home and streamed it over the internet.  The kids even listened a bit and were quiet when they weren’t listening.  In between sessions, Scott went over and mowed the lawn for the last time.  Between the afternoon and preisthood session Scott hung pictures for me.  While he was gone I got all the kids showered and dressed.  We ran a couple of errands and then headed to Joey and Gayles house.  We had dessert with them and enjoyed some visiting and then we watched “Trouble with Angels”.  It is a 60’s flick about these two teenage girls that get sent to Catholic School and all the trouble they get into.  It was a very good movie.   After the movie we all sacked out.

We woke up the next morning, cooked breakfast together and then watched conference.  We went for a walk and ate lunch, then everyone sacked out for the afternoon session, well, not Scott and I.  We had dinner with them and then left.   We got home around 7 pm.  It was a fun and spiritually uplifting weekend.  We really enjoyed it.

Monday was a “normal” day.  I got my school shevles cleaned off and all my school stuff out and we did school.  It was a great break from the cleaning and organizing.  It felt more “normal”.

Tuesday we had planned a trip to the zoo because it was $1 Tuesday.  Except it wasn’t.  My friend and I had gone together and so we just had a picnic in the park with the kids, and visited the nearby Japenese Friendship Garden.  While my friend and I were taking some pictures with our babies (she has a little boy 3 months older than Afton) the older kids went running off on an “adventure”.  A few minutes later I see a ranger holding Niah’s hand and walking around.  Niah is just covered in mud and looking happy as can be.  I walked over and the ranger smiled at me.  She told me that it looked as though Niah slipped in some mud and was in the pond trying to wash herself off.  The ranger told me that when she approached Niah, Niah informed her that she was just trying to clean herself off.  I thanked the ranger (who was VERY kind) and took hold of Niah.  Niah kept telling me she needed to wash in the water.  It was very cute.

I forgot to mention the biggest news of all…..Niah is out of diapers.  On Monday I decided to take the plunge.  I put panties on her and she peed on herself all day.  However, she insisted that we sit on the toilet every five minutes.  Once Scott got home it was his turn.  She finally peed in the toilet in the evening.  She was up every ten minutes until 2 am when I finally suggested to her that we just put a diaper on her for the night.  It worked and she slept till morning.  Tuesday she had no accidents at the park and even went to the bathroom there.  Once we got home she had an accident, but was fine the rest of the day.  She was up all night again.  Wednesday was Jaime and Alix’s P.E. class.  She had an accident there but only because the bathroom was a mile away (not really but it seemed like it).  She was fine the rest of the day and she was only up till 11 pm.  Today, she hasn’t had any accidents and has asked to sit on the potty only 2 times.  She even goes poo.  It’s been fun and easy.  She is just so matter of fact about the whole thing, and I’m sure I can consider her potty trained during the day (however, things change fast around here).  Starting next Monday, we’ll work on night time training.  It usually only takes a couple of middle of the night clean ups and the kids are dry all night too.  We’ll see how Niah is.

Also, Afton has four teeth.  Two top and two bottom.  She has been getting one new tooth every Sunday.  I figured she’d get her last top tooth on Easter Sunday, but it didn’t want to wait that long.  She got it on Wednesday instead.  I hope she is done for a while.  We have had some pretty rough nights the last two weeks.

I guess that is the update.  We have about 8 boxes left.  Most of which are craft supplies and desk supplies.  We still have not taken the time to solve our organizational problems, but will.  I hope to one day have “the counter” cleaned off and kept cleaned off forever.

Love to all.

Many people have asked us if we are “all moved in”.  I suppose that all depends on the deffinition.  We are completely out of the old house (except for some cleaning supplies).  We are well on our way to having this place in order.  It was a VERY long weekend, but we had TONS of help (thank you Grandma and Grandpa Thompson).

I spent some of last week packing, but didn’t want to upset “normal” life too much.  So we had our work cut out for us Friday.  We spent all of Friday just packing and making a few van loads.  By Saturday morning we were ready for the U-haul.  Aparently we have more stuff than the biggest u-haul.  Fortunatly for us, someone in the ward just showed up with a truck and trailer.  We made one big U-haul load and 6 truck loads.  However, we do fit nicely into our new house.

*Tangent*

I really have been learning my lesson lately on judging.  I’ve never thought of myself as a harsh judge of others and the things they do but recently I’ve had my eyes opened to the fact that any kind of judgement of others is not good.  I’ve had many friends that have moved into new homes and gotten rid of most of their old furniture and gotten new.  I’ve always thought how silly that seemed, what was wrong with the old furniture.  Well, nothing, it probably just didn’t fit!!  This house has different angles and walls and things just don’t fit the way they did in the other house.  We have gotten rid of a couch and a desk.  We almost had to get rid of our bed and refridgerator, but luckily we got those to fit!

Anyway, it’s nice to be here.  It’s nice to send my kids into the back yard and they play and climb trees.  It’s fun to have them run up and down the stairs and have more places for hide and seek.  It’s nice to have four bedrooms so that four people can sleep all at the same time and not get disturbed.  It’s nice to go through all my stuff and really get rid of the uneccesary stuff because I didn’t want to move it, or I don’t have a place for it.

We live in a VERY quiet neighborhood.  We’ve seen a few kids, but I think that during the week this place will be a ghost town.  I’m sure with the summer coming, we’ll see more people out and about.

We still have a bit of work to do over at the other house, but we have some time to get it finished.  So my plan is to go over a few hours every day and hopefully be done by the end of the week.

We did have a great group of kids in our other neighborhood that the kids really enjoyed playing with. We really knew our neighbors well and will miss them.  We are only 1/2 mile from our old house, but in this day and age, there is a good possibility we’ll never see some of them again.  We are looking forward to getting to know more people on the street.  Our neighbors to the left are named Nina and Guy.  Jaime can’t get over the man’s name, she can’t understand how someone can have the name of Guy.  They don’t have any children, but they have two dogs!!

Guess that is the news.  It rained pretty heavily here today.  It was beautiful and sunny in the morning, windy and rainy in the afternoon.  Love to all.

I realized, with everything else going on, I haven’t taken the opprotunity to brag about miss Afton’s progression in the first 6 months 2 weeks of her life.

She is sitting independently. She is eating solid food like a champ (although she can’t have spaghetti squash yet, she throws that up). The other day we put little pieces of bread on her tray and it was fun to watch her try and pick them up and put them in her mouth. She didn’t quite get any into her mouth but she sure did try. She doesn’t really roll over. If she is on her tummy she will roll over to her back, but I think it’s more on accident than on purpose. She does pivot really well and will get up on her hands and feet and eventually makes it across the room backwards. It’s very cute. She is an awesome sleeper. Down to bed by 8 and up between 3-4 am. Usually a quick feed and then up by 7:30. I’m pretty sure she does not need that in between feeding, but we are both so used to it, it’s habit. I hope to break her of that habit in the new house. She will have her own room and will be able to cry it out. We’ll see what happens.

I guess her biggest news is that she has her first tooth. Scott noticed it on Sunday while she was gnawing on his finger. She is pretty miserable and I think she may be getting the second one soon. She has her bottom left.

All in all, Afton is a super good baby. Niah has pretty much given up on picking on her and mostly just ignores her now. However, I have been noticing, that when Afton is crying, Niah will look for a toy or blanket or the pacifier and try to make her happy. It is very cute. Jaime and Alix still fight over who gets to hold Afton, I’m glad that hasn’t worn off yet. She did get weighed a week ago and is 16 pounds exactly. I’m not sure of the length though. She is getting big and is a joy to be around. She is quick to smile and has a VERY cute laugh when you tickle her tummy.

She loves the bath and usually takes one with Niah. They actually play good together in the bath. I’m very pleased with that.

Well, today was the last day of “craziness”!   The morning was very mellow.   Mostly just getting everything put away from last nights events, school and playing.   In the afternoon we went to Jaime’s dance class.   We came home, had dinner, washed everyone’s face and then went off to an open house for Jaime’s school.   She participated in the Science fair.   So we got there, set up her project and waited patiently for Jaime’s turn to present.   Joey and Gayle came too.   Because of the way the evening went, Jaime didn’t present till almost last.   That was o.k.   Jaime did a great job.   We all know that there are those kids who do a project and then there are those kids who’s parents do thier project.   It was very obvious here too which was which.   Jaime got a compliment from one of the teachers that her project was very age apporiate and that it was obvious she had done her own work.   It was a nice compliment.

We did win at the raffle, a frisbee!   We got home and got the kids to bed by 9:45.   I’m planning on getting to bed before the day is over……wish me luck!

Lots of love to you all.   I hope your week has been more tame than mine.

Next week: THE MOVE!!   Stayed tuned…….

Wednesday was the busiest day I had coming to me this whole week.   We got up, ate breakfast, got dressed and out the door by 9 am.   I had to stop by someone’s house and pick up stuff, get a few more things at the store and then headed to Jaime and Alix’s P.E. class.   Ater that was over, we headed home for a quick lunch and then off to the church.   The next 2 1/2 hours were spent setting up tables and all the displays and information I had gathered.   We left there in just enough time to come back by the house and grab a few things before heading out again.   I had to stop by another sister’s house and pick up something and then off to the other side of Fremont to pick up the berry orders.

About 4 weeks ago, as a church, we did a group berry order.   The berries come from Oregon and are quick frozen and a very resonable price.   I was the one in charge of the berry orders.   What should have been a very easy task turned into quite the   ordeal when I lost the berry orders.   Lucky for me, the company keeps a copy of all the orders made and lucky for me, the Lord blessed me with the memory of every one who ordered so that I could call them and tell them to go pick up their berries.

After berry pick-up I had to go home and put them in the freezer. Then I picked up a friend of mine and we headed to the church.   We spent the next hour putting the finishing touches on the displays and the event started.   I did an entire program about provident living and emergency prepardness.   It went pretty good.   We had 48 sisters in attendance (which is amazing for us.   Usually a “good” Enrichment meeting is about 28 sisters).   A couple of reps from the City of Fremont came out.   We had a round robin and learned about food storage, emergency sanitation, 72 hour kits, water storage and had some samples to taste of different food storage items.   We then had a spiritual prepardness portion of the program and then a game to test their knowledge.   All in all it was a very fun evening.   I think everyone learned at least one thing.

We were home by 10.   The kids in bed and then we did some clean up and headed to bed ourselves.   I still managed to stay up till 12:30 though.   I’ve gotta start getting to bed sooner!!

This was the only morning I had to run all the errands and purchase all the things I needed for Wednesday night.   So I got the kids ready and out the door by 9 am.   We went to a couple of stores and back home by 11:30.   Just enough time to feed the kids and get them to the baby-sitter.

As the kids and I were bringing in the groceries and other items, I left the garage door and back door open.   I was in the kitchen getting lunch going and turned to ask one of the kids something   and there, standing half in the door and half out was a dog.   I screamed, more because it startled me to see it, and then called out to see if the dog had an owner attatched.   I quickly found out, it did not!   I shooed the dog outside.   The kids were very excited and asked if we could keep him.   I found his tag and called the number.   It was the police department number.   I felt bad calling but I didn’t want the dog to get hurt either.   It was a VERY nice dog.   It LOVED the attention from the kids.   It ate an apple!   It kept coming in the house so we had to leave the doors all closed.   It made itself at home in the garage.   The dogs back was up to Jaime’s waist and Niah and the dog could look eye to eye.

About 2 minutes before we had to leave, the dog police showed up and took him away.   It was fun to have a dog for 45 minutes.

After I dropped Jaime, Milo and Niah off at the baby-sitter, I took Alix to her doctor’s appointment.   For a good 18 months now she has been having some bleeding when she has a bowl.   We finally got some samples and she does have blood in her stools.   Her blood tests all look good and so the bleeding is minor at least.   Her appointment on Tuesday was with a pediatric G.I. specialist.   He did an extensive exam, asked tons of questions and look at all her recent tests.   He decied that a colonoscopy (sp??) is in order.   He says he thinks it’s a polyup (sp??).   So they scheduled her procedure to happen on Friday April 13 at 8am.   They will put her under and they said it will take about 45 minutes.   If he sees a polyup they will remove it.   He also said that in children a polyup is usually nothing more than that, but in 1% of kids it could be something more.   He was confident that there was nothing to be concerned about and that everything would be safe and easy.   After everything Milo has been through, this seems like a cake walk.

Once we got done and back home to the other kids, we spent the rest of the evening doing chores and eating dinner and going to bed.   It was my last night to put everything together for my Wednesday activity, I was up till 1 again.

I woke up on Sunday morning and I looked at the calendar to see if there were any meetings for the day.   I noticed it said ‘teach Milo’s class’.   Oops!!   I was suppose to prepare a lesson for Milo’s primary class.   I stressed for a moment then realized I could wing it.   Milo and his best friend Toby are in the same class.   They have a hard time sitting reverently.   Not that they are bad children, they just can get eachother going.   For example, I was giving them a lesson on birthday’s, the little girl in the class had had a birthday and so I figured that would be the best lesson to teach on.   I was telling the kids that thier bodies were the first gift they got when they came to Earth.   The next thing I know those two little boys had their shirts up and were pointing to all the different parts of their bodies.   I was really worried that the pants were going to come down next, so I quickly changed the direction of the lesson!   All in all it was fun, but I have a new appreciation for their regular teacher!

Wednesday was going to be a Big Enrichment meeting that I was in charge of.   So I started implementing my ideas that night.   I was up till one!

Monday was a “normal” day.   My only day of the week with nothing scheduled.   I did TONS of school with the kids in preparation for a crazy week.   I was up again till 1 am working on the Wednesday night activity.