Sami's World

I guess it’s been a week since I added any news.   For the benefit of my own journaling, I will add things by day instead of one long entry.   Enjoy!?

We had been planning to spend Saturday cleaning up the front and back yards.   With the weather being what it has been, the yards were really out of control.   Jaime came to me on Friday morning and informed me that she wanted to earn money.   I told her that if she pulled all the weeds from all the rock beds in both the front and back yard, that I would pay her $10.   Now, I am VERY cheap when it comes to paying my children.   This was a big job and I half expected her to either say no, or say yes and 30 minutes later tell me she was all done.   When she heard the words 10 dollars, her eyes lit up.   She got dressed quick and went outside.   I spent the next hour getting all the other kids dressed and ready for the day.   We all went outside to get in the car ( I had a doctors appointment) and she was half done with the first rock bed.   She was reluctant to leave but she did.   As soon as we arrived home from the appointment she went right back to work.   She worked another 2 hours, then we went to the park and when we got home she worked another 2 hours.   She was done with the front yard and 1/3 done with the backyard.

Saturday morning, she dressed first thing, got her Saturday chores done in an hour and was right back outside.   3 hours later she announced that she was done.   Boy was she!   It looked great.   She also swept down the walks and cleaned up her piles of weeds.   Her fingers had cuts on them and she was exhausted, but you could she that she was very pleased with herself.   In the meantime Scott was trimming all the bushes, mowing the lawns and hosing down the outside of the house.   I finished up with the kids inside and then headed out and got all the weeds out of the cracks in the drive way.

Jaime had told us that she wanted to spend her money to buy pizza for dinner.   All the kids did such a good job working that we paid for pizza and then Jaime went to the store to pick out something.   After she paid for her item and took out the money for tithing, she gave Alix her $2 change so that Alix could buy something too.   It was very generous of Jaime.

On Sunday she came to me and asked if her friend Katie could come over and pull weeds.   I asked her why Katie would want to come over and pull weeds.   Jaime said ‘So you can pay her $10 too’!!   I informed Jaime that I was not in the habit of paying other people for things that my children can do!   :0)

All in all it was a very productive Saturday.

Milo had his panel review today.   It is an appointment where we go to the hospital and stay in one room and the doctors come to us.   We were in the room for 3 hours and saw 14 doctors.   It was a very interesting day.   It was full of information and answered questions.   Basically Milo is a healthy, happy, well developed boy and none of the doctors see anything wrong with him that needs immediate attention, except the eye doctor.   But even his concern is at bay for now.   His recent CT scan showed that all is normal and well.   They did inform us, although we knew this, that he will be having a midface surgery and will need oral surgery too.   They said the midface will be done summer 2008.   His oral surgery would be done later when he started loosing teeth and having his new ones grow in.   Till then, he will just see everyone next March, except for the eye doctor, we see him every six months.   We will start having pre op appointments in about 10 months (CT scans, evaluations etc….).   So we are free and clear for at least 10 months.   Yay for us!

It was nice to hear some compliments from the doctors.   The dentist was impressed with how clean his teeth were and the Social worker and Geneticist were very impressed with how well behaved he was and that he responded so quickly to our requests for him to stop certain behaviors.   It’s always a boost to the parental confidence when an outsider gives a compliment.

What an awesome birthday!   The celebrations have continued for two day’s straight.   I think I’m getting partied out.

Yesterday we had big birthday breakfast of Biscuits and Gravy – ummmm, my favorite.   The day was just kinda’ relaxed.   Sami took the older three kids to a stake primary activity, Afton slept and Niah and I watched movies.

In the afternoon, Sami took me out bowling (I actually bowled over 100 for the first time in my life).   After a couple of games, we headed out to dinner.   We went to Cattlemens.   It’s a steak house.   Funny, neither of us felt like eating steak, but ordered it any way because we where at a stake house and felt like we should.   My 20oz Rib-eye was pretty good.   Sami’s dinner was blah, so she sent it back and got salmon.   That was really good we both left the resturant feeling fat and happy.

Just before dinner, Sami gave me my present.   A weekend fishing on the Sacramento River with a professional tour guide.   I’m going up next week end with my good friend Joey Derting.   Should be good times.   I can hardly wait.

We got home and took the baby sitter home.   After that, we opened presents as a family.   Jaime gave me a liter of Dad’s Rootbeer.   Alix gve me some Peeps.   Milo gave me some “power tools” (more for him than for me, I think).   From Niah I recieved a bird-house – the kind you have to put together.   All in all, a very successful day.

Today (my actual birthday), we had the sister missionaries over for dinner.   That was fun and they joined us for cake and ice cream.   One of the sisters is from the Fiji Islands.   She is leaving this week on transfers.   She is a cool missionary.   She bore her testimony to our family in Hindi.   Our family really felt the spirit, and the kids enjoyed it.

My birthday cakes where German Chocolate brownies and Pumkin Pie.   I got two cakes because I couldn’t decide which I wanted.   Both where excellent.

I think that about sums up the birthday experience.   Thanks to all who called.   Thanks, Dean for singing to me.   I’m surprised you know all the words to that song.

A special thankst o Sami.   She is awesome and really worked to make my birthday a special one.   I love you Sami.

Well, we’ve had the van for a week now. The old van sold, so the new one now takes its rightful spot in the driveway. We still absolutely love it. Here are the top three reasons why I love our van.

1. Power. This van makes every other car we have ever owned feel like a gutless wonder. Sami drove up the Sunol grade the other day, and the van didn’t even notice.

2. Height. When driving the van, you sit 2 feet above every other driver on the road. It’s a very commanding view.

3. Size. I walked out of Wal-Mart the other day and knew exactly where I parked.

We are very anxious to take this thing on a road trip. Summer should be fun. A week camping and two weeks in Utah. We’ll be traveling in style.

I think we mentioned that two weeks ago our van died. I was without a car for a week. Then a friend of ours suggested that we use their car while they were out of town (the VW Vanagan). Then they took their car back and I was out of a car for a day. Another friend said we could use their car till we could find a new one. We made it a goal that we would not go to bed Saturday night till we had a car. It was also a requirement that we not go into debt either. So, after much prayer and research, we decided that we would buy from a dealer.

We had seen a full size van the week before and test drove it and liked it but could not pay for it, so we left. We thought, if they still had the van, we would call them and tell them how much we could pay and see if they could do it. So Saturday morning we called. We told him what we could do and if he could not do it for us that we had other dealers we were dealing with. He “punched in some numbers” and said no. He said there was nothing he could do. The sticker price was already a deal and he could go no lower. He also gave his sales pitch on how great the van was and what a deal we would be getting. We politly reminded him what our offer was and if he could do no more than we were done.

That kinda squished our enthusiasm. But we had to press forward. We had contacted one other dealer. It would have been quite the drive to get to him, but if they had what we wanted we thought it would be worth it. So we piled the kids in the car, grabbed what we thought we’d need and headed out. About 5 miles down the freeway we saw this Ford Truck dealer (off 880 and Brokaw). We pulled in there and they had about 3 used vans. Exactly what we were looking for. We test drove the one we were most interested in, told them how much we could pay, and they said ‘Deal’. About an hour later, we drove home. It was a great buying experience. We did not get those anxious feelings that we had been feeling while looking at other cars. We were pleased with the purchase and it just feels natural to have the van in the driveway.

Oddly enough, when we got home there was a message on our voice mail. It was from the original dealer exclaming with excitement that he had talked with the managers manager and they had a great deal for us that he was sure we would be pleased with. We kindly called back and informed him that we had already purchased and thanked him for his time.

Friday started out as any normal day.   I had decided to have the children do their Saturday chores on Friday so we could spend Saturday doing more family oriented things (like go car shopping).   In the late morning I recieved the first phone call.   I’m in charge of arranging cannery dates for our ward.   I had all the volunteers lined up and confirmed.   Three cancelled by noon and one more by 3pm.   Since we had to be there by 7 I had lots of fancy foot work to do.   I found two babysitters, a youth for our older kids and a mom for Afton.   Scott, Jaime and I headed off with the hopes that the last sister would still show up.   Not only did she show up but she brought her husband and adult daughter.   We ended up having enough helping hands and got the work done.   I now have the fun job of dropping off all the food storage to the various families.   I don’t mind though, that gives me the chance to say hi and socialize a little.

Saturday morning Scott was suppose to go fishing with Joey.   However, Joey was sick all week and cancelled.   So we went to clean the church instead.   But we got there and it had already been cleaned.   So we left and, since we were all dressed anyway, went car shopping.   The end result…..new cars are too expensive!   We fell in love with one van in particular, but way out of our financial league.   We spent the afternoon playing with the kids, cleaning, napping and enjoying time as a family.   While I was reading in the January issue of the Ensign I came across an article about a new feature on the providentliving.org website.   It is entitled “Peace in Your Hearts”.   The objective of this 5 lesson course is to help people get out of debt and manage their money better.   Since I am the new provident living leader in our ward, I thought I should check it out.   It was amazing.   I learned that being out of debt is more than just living within your means, it’s living below your means so that you have some for a rainy day.   Anyway, I went through the “course” in about an hour.   It could and should take much longer than that, but I wanted to get a feel for what it was.   It was amazing and Scott and I learned a lot.

Today, Sunday, we went to Stake conference.   It was broadcast from Northern California.   It was broadcast to 63 stakes and translated into 10 different languages.   Elder Uchdorf called us the united nations of the church.   It was a great conference with lots of great advice and counsel.   One that spoke loud and clear to me was about setting goals.   Constantly setting and achieving goals and reevaluating your goals and your progress.   It was a great talk.   We spent the afternoon napping, cleaning and planning our summer camping trip.   We are going in the middle of August to a place on the Sacramento River.   It’s suppose to be the best fishing spot in California.   I guess we’ll find out.   It should be fun, our camping trips always are, even when I was 8 months pregnant!!   :0)

Well, I finally did it.   I fed Afton baby rice cereal.   She had her first bite Thursday February 8 @ 9 am.   Her initial response is similar to all my children’s response the very first time…..

Afton got this great look of disgust and seem to say to me ‘mom, why are you feeding me cardboard?   I want what’s on your plate, that looks better’.   Of course everyone had to try and they too gave the same look, except for Niah of course, she loved it and wanted to eat all of it (we had the same thing when Niah had cereal for the first time, Milo loved it and wanted more).

Anyway, by today, day three, she is a champ.   I’ve never had any child take to baby cereal as Afton has.   She was a pro by the second feeding.   Today she ate about a half cup of cereal twice and wanted more when she was done.   She loves the stuff.   It hasn’t helped with her night sleeping yet, I hope that comes soon.   I’d love to have no nightly wake ups!!

It’s fun to watch them grow.   I love these little milestones they make.   :0)

So, breaking from tradition, and doing what no self-respecting male would do, me and a friend (Joey) planned a “guy only baby shower” for our elders quorum president.

It quickly became known as the “man shower” and it was tons of fun. First off, it was a surprise, and that added it’s own element of excitement, but since this was a “Man Shower”, we did things in a manly way.

Joey smoked 4 tri-tips (15 pounds worth), a side of beef ribs and a side of pork ribs. Joey is Cajun and master of the grill and the food was awesome. Best tri-tip ever. You could cut it with a fork. Sides where potato salad and Lima beans cooked with bacon. It was great. The best part? All that food and only 10 people to eat it. Have you ever eaten 1.5 pounds of tri-tip by yourself? Plus ribs? Wow!

Of course what’s a man shower without games? We played “who can change a baby diaper the fastest. I didn’t win. It took me 26 seconds to whip the old one off and strap the new one on. The winner came in at 17 seconds.

For the other game, someone melted 14 candy bars into 14 diapers. You had to look into the diaper, smell it and guess what candy bar it was. The winner of that game got 12 of 14 correct. Do you have any idea what a “100 Grand” looks like melted into a diaper?

Prises for both games where new BBQ tool sets.

Anyway, good times. Lots of laughs. I highly recommend the occasional man shower. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to eat lots of great BBQ.