Sami's World

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.

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.