Feeling Thankful

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with one of my bestest friends, Tina, and her cute family! The kids read a fun story together in the living room while we finished food preparations. Our kids have known each other for so long, they get along fabulous. It was a very relaxing afternoon and the kids were so good.
Baby Maddie slept through most of the celebrating. Sarah even made a cute table place setting for her and set it by her carseat.

Taylor always hides when I pull out the camera. (o: But I got him!

Sarah helped make these cute place setting nametags.

Natalie and Connor ready to devour lots and lots of rolls. Seriously. A lot of rolls!

Ned's* famous rolls that disappeared quickly. (o:

Natalie liked the idea of getting the drumstick, but really didn't each much of it.

What a fun dinner we had together!

I am so grateful for such a wonderful friend! I'm glad we could spend this holiday together!

Gymnastics "Graduation"

I mentioned earlier that my friend and neighbor, Rebecca, and her daughter teach a little gymnastics class in their garage. She's got quite the setup and my girls love to go play at her house. It's wayyy more fun than our house. Angela smiles and giggles with joy through the whole class. She absolutely LOVED it!
The tongue is key to balance.

Rebecca said that Angela was very nervous to hang upsidedown and this was a huge act of courage on the last day that I attended. Yeah!

There's a smile.

Hannah is so cute with the girls.

Party Animal

Check out my friend Kelly's house the night of her New Moon party!

Can you tell she is a super fun hostess? Kelly is the biggest Twilight fan that I know. She has hosted several parties now - every time a book or movie comes out. She reserved about 60 seats in this theater (below) and ended up having to get even more. It's so fun going to opening night of a movie with so many friends. Before the midnight showing we all went to Kelly's for a showing of Twilight and some fun trivia games and yummy food.

Michelle came along too! What a fun night.

Missy sat on the other side of me. It was funny sitting between an avid Edward fan and a practical Jacob fan and hearing the comments from them throughout the movie. I am impartial, it depends on my mood. Typical me - I can't make decisions. We had a lot of fun and got home from our partying at around 2:30 a.m. It was hard to wake up at 6:30 the next day, but I got to take a nap while Angela watched morning cartoons after getting Sarah and Natalie on the bus.

Mother Daughter Night

I got to join Sarah for a lovely Mother/Daughter night with her activity day friends. I remember being the activity day leader when she was a baby. Tina and I would host similar activities for the girls and their moms. It was fun to be a participant this time. I can't believe how fast time flies. Sarah was a wonderful date. The girls sang "I am a Child of God" for us so sweetly. We played some fun "get to know you" games and had a very nice dinner. We played a game that tested our ability to remember what our "date" was wearing. (the girls left the room) We almost won and Sarah was really ticked off that we weren't the winners. She is so competitive. So for part of our "date" we had to have a talk about being good sports and just having fun. (o:
I love my cute Sarah. Who wouldn't love a face like this?! (o:

Too Cute

Angela has discovered this princess eye mask and uses it a lot lately when she goes to bed. (o: It works well for kids who have parents that take pictures of them when they're sleeping. It helps to block the flash. (o: But the mask is so cute it causes parents to take even more pictures of them while they're sleeping, so it can kind of backfire.
Angela was determined to be in charge of the treat for family home evening one night. She had an idea in her head and this was the result. She wanted to make a treat that looked like the scriptures. A graham cracker with yellow frosting and licorice, that I think represented lines of words. I thought that was pretty clever. (Although it sounded really gross to eat.)

Sickness, a Movie Night and Good Luck

I considered myself very lucky to get through the week of jury duty with no illness during the height of the swine flu "epidemic". Just a few days after jury duty, Nat woke up with a fever and I figured my luck had run out. It turned out to be nothing more than a fever though. Unfortunately, this meant that Natalie missed the school movie night that she was so looking forward to. She and daddy had their own movie night with Angela. Sarah and I went so that I could help the Booster club.
Our Monsters vs. Aliens night was a big hit.
This was our first time trying a movie night and it looks like it will be a new tradition.

I "helped" Terri and Angela at the popcorn station. Actually, I think I got in the way more than anything, but I learned how to use this baby. We had a hard time keeping up with the huge, huge line of people wanting popcorn! Check out our new snazzy hot pink T-shirts.

Good Job Nackie!

Melvin* and I have been so proud of the progress Natalie has made this year in her reading and math! She is just taking off and doing great work. Last year in Kindergarten, she was not really that interested in doing her work. (Which, thankfully, isn't a huge deal in Kindergarten.) She just had more fun daydreaming, socializing and playing. Again, totally acceptable for a Kindergartener. But this year, she has started to really take pride in doing a good job and becoming a great reader. We are so proud of the good little student she is becoming. I have been especially surprised how well she remembers which days she needs to bring library books back (I always forget) and which folders she needs to bring home and papers she needs to return. She is becoming so responsible! Great job Natalie! (o: What a cute first grader!
One thing about Natalie that I don't think will ever change is her nurturing side with animals and babies. She loves all creatures - even little frogs and worms we find in our yard. (o: Note: the funny marks on her nose are from a Halloween tattoo - they are ghost eyes that she put on her nose. What a nut.

One of the reasons I am able to do so much catching up on my blogging this week is because Natalie has been sick for two days. Poor baby. Luckily, it's just been a strange fluctuating fever and she doesn't feel too miserable. I worried that we might have been hit with Swine flu, if so, it's not the big deal that the media is making over it - for us anyway. The worst part is she's just stressed about missing school. I hope you feel better soon sweetie.

Creative Spelling Sentences

Sarah has super easy spelling words this year. I loved the spelling curriculum she had in 2nd grade. It was very catered to each student and she learned some really hard words. By the end of the year, she was doing words I didn't know how to spell without looking. For some reason this year the district or school has all the kids doing the same words. It is a little frustrating because they are not very challenging for some of the students. A lot of the parents miss the spelling program from last year because it was tailored for each student.

Because they are easier, Sarah has taken a new spin on doing her spelling word sentences. Every week she makes each sentence build on the last and turns it into a story. I thought that was pretty creative. This was her idea and she really has fun with it. Here is this weeks list of 13 sentences. Some of the sentences are a bit of a stretch. (o:

1. Mom, I feel like I want to speak to you about something.
2. I feel the same way.
3. It seems like you have a secret your keeping from me mom.
4. At the most, yes I have a secret.
5. We should both have some apples and cheese and talk about it.
6. I know honey, but we're out of cheese.
7. We could ask our neighbor across the street for some.
8. The people across the street lie, remember?
9. Your right, we need someone we can trust to give us cheese mom, but who?
10. We could paint a poster that says, "We Need Cheeese!"
11. Hold on a minute, is that a cheese truck on the road?
12. You mean the truck with the birds floating it, yes!
13. Let's grab some cheese from that truck on the count of three, one two, three!

Super Twilight

Daddy is always doing something funny to make the girls laugh with the kitty.

Poor kitty.

Aren't they cute?

Here's a couple cute pictures of my girls - my bigger girls. (o:

This was the day I completed my jury duty and could finally talk about the trial. The girls were sweet and so interested in what happened. (or they pretended to be (o: ) It was nice to finally be able to talk about it. It was hardest to not talk with Buster*. I was relieved to move on with life.
We played a couple games that night too.

This was taken after our "rake and run" service activity. It was muddy and dark, but fun to help some of the people in our ward who have a hard time keeping up with all their leaves.

Little Violinist

Natalie recently started violin lessons with one of my very accomplished young women.

We have this family in our ward. They are very musically talented and perform all together often in the community and for our ward activities and programs.

Whenever they play in sacrament meeting Natalie is in awe. Most of the family members play a string instrument. During one performance, Natalie didn't even blink. She sat up straight and listened so intently. After she said, "Mommy, I want to play that." pointing to the violin. At the time I said that she was too young. Then I laughed when she replied, "She's little!" Referring to one of the girls who isn't much older than Natalie.

So I mentioned this to the oldest daughter, Heidi, who is one of my young women.

Recently, one of her students moved and left a spot open for Natalie so I jumped at the opportunity. We found an adorable 1/8 size violin on EBay and Natalie is LOVING violin lessons. I don't know much about violin, but she seems to be doing great and is willing to practice.

So far most of her practice is a bit tedious because she has to practice holding the bow and violin correctly. I've been worried that she would get bored, but she is eating it all up and taking it very seriously. I'm so proud of her! I hope she sticks with it for a long time.

We had a few issues of jealousy from Sarah when the violin arrived. It looks like so much fun, like a toy. Sarah played with it a couple times and the feeling of being jealous has faded. Sarah is very passionate about her talent in piano and likes the idea, that we brought up, of her and Natalie getting to play duets together someday on their different instruments. (o: (And Angela says that she wants to be the one to play the drums . . .)

Natalie demonstrating the correct way to hold a bow.

She can play the first part of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and it sounds so pretty! (o: Go Nat!

Getting Into the Swing of Things . . . FINALLY!

Well, the girls are getting used to the "new" school year. Natalie officially hates getting up early in the mornings, she is having a hard time with that one. Sarah doesn't like it either, but she is more used to it. It takes us a while to get going in the morning so we have had to start getting up around 6:35 now. It sounds so stinkin' early for little kids, I think it is so lame that the elementary kids go to school before middle schoolers and high schoolers, but that's a whole different topic. Anyway, despite the early hours, our morning routine is going much better and enjoyable. We usually have plenty of time once the girls finish eating. They have even started helping make their own lunches! I think we will be sticking with our new morning routine. It is so nice to have better quality time together before the girls head off to school. I think this has also helped with our issues that each of the girls have struggled with this year.

Natalie has really struggled with homesickness. I remember Sarah having this problem in Kindergarten and 1st grade too, so I'm not worried. Natalie would have several mornings in a row where she'd be almost in tears not wanting to go to school because she said she missed me during the day. I've tried to go into the school a lot this year to volunteer and that seems to help her feel better. She is also doing much better as the year progresses as she gains confidence in herself to handle all the social situations and problem solving that make her nervous when mommy is not around. We've had about two times where I've had to come in to get her because she had a tummy ache or something else that I'm pretty sure was more homesickness than anything. But the last couple weeks have been much better and I think we're finally in a "groove". Our trip to Disneyland probably didn't help. Oh well!

Sarah has had her own struggles with issues this year that has affected her school. Mostly to do with eating. She has started having issues with nausea so frequently that I took her into her pediatrician on her birthday to see if she was hypoglycemic. For the whole month of October, she had several episodes during the week of feeling nauseous and not wanting to eat just as she should be getting really hungry for a meal. It started happening before and during school, which was causing some disruption to her ability to attend and pay attention at school. So we had to solve the problem quick. The doctor was pretty sure it was not hypoglycemia, just more of an issue of not understanding body signals.

Now that we are at the other side of the issue, it looks like what would happen is that she would start getting hungry and it would turn to kind of a sick feeling quickly. I experience that if I get too hungry myself. She is so terrified of throwing up that any feeling like nausea freaks her out. So she would totally avoid food, which is what she needed to feel better. It was a vicious cycle and so hard to get food in her stomach so she'd feel better. Poor thing. The doctor recommended giving her more protein at every meal and for snacks to help her blood sugar stay more stable rather than drop significantly like it does if you eat mostly carbs. (Which Sarah does.) The change in diet has worked great and Sarah has learned to listen to that "funny feeling" as we call it now and do something about it before it gets worse. We make sure to have snacks and she even has one at school in the morning before lunch. Usually, a cheesestick or almonds.

Now that we have worked all these kinks, life seems to be going really well for Sarah and Natalie. Thank heavens this all got solved before my call to be on jury duty last week! I "lucked out" and got chosen for a jury on a criminal trial which has lasted a whole week! More on that later, but if we were still having the issues we had a couple weeks ago, I would be a nervous wreck leaving the girls and unable to be reached even by cell phone. For the first two months of school, I have kept my cell phone close and several mornings completely expecting a phone call from the school. I don't think any of us could have handled this jury duty thing when we were having all the homesickness and nausea issues. While it has been inconvenient, I haven't been so worried about missing a call from the school while I'm in court. Phew!

Just For Fun

I have a lot of talented photographer friends. One day, after browsing my friend Julie's website I was inspired to do some macro photography. I have my title of this entry linked to her blog if you want to see her work - it is really fun!

My Civic Duty

I haven't done jury duty for over a decade. My most recent summons were just after two of my babies when nursing was a very legitimate excuse. And since I can't use that excuse anymore, when my letter came, I made arrangements. I thought it would be interesting to spend a day doing my civic duty. My previous experience was from when I was 19. I got chosen to be on the jury and was put on an interesting trial that ended promptly at 5:00 p.m. It was an overall good experience and I learned a lot.

This experience turned out to be even more educational than I planned. My one day of adventure turned into a week.

As I rushed to the courthouse that first day, I bumped into another girl who seemed to be headed in my same direction. She saw my summons and we became fast friends. Both not sure exactly where we were going, but grateful to have someone to be ignorant with! When we arrived at the courthouse after a two block sprint, we found a huge line and realized we didn't have to do a morning run after all. The courthouse was particularly busy that day and it took forever to get through security.

Tanya and I had lots of time to get to know each other.

As we entered the waiting and briefing area with around 100 or more other people we found a spot on the floor to hang out and do what jurors do best - we waited for further instruction. As I filled out the paperwork, I got to the part where you can waive your fee for jury duty. $10/day for the first 3 days, $25/day after that. I felt happy to donate $10 and figured the county needed the money more than me.

We watched a well-done video that made me feel patriotic for doing jury duty. It made me want to get picked for the jury that day, it sounded so interesting.

We finally started figuring out how it would work. There were 4-5 judges that would be needing a jury that day. Each judge had a bailiff that would come down and randomly choose around 30 jurors. That group would then head to the courtroom and either be chosen for that jury or sent home.

After 3 bailiffs came in and not having my name called, I began to think I would be going home soon. The strange coincidence is that Tanya never got called either. We were grateful to get to stick together for such a long time, but knew our luck would run out soon enough. We enjoyed chatting about being moms (she had just discovered THAT morning that she was pregnant!), work, family, jury, hobbies, etc. I also discovered that my bishop's wife was there that same day. And I met a super nice guy who heard me talking about my three girls. He got all excited and said he had three girls too. They were all in college and it was sweet to hear how proud he was of his girls and how much he loved them. All in all, I had a great time and met some really nice people that day. Little did I know . . .

The few of us left by the afternoon were excused for a long lunch. This was a huge blessing because it was long enough for me to go home and finish up some things for our Young Women in Excellence that night. Yes, that's right, it was the same day as our YW in Excellence! That was very stressful. But the time we were given was just enough for me to finish up some last minute things for that night. Oh yeah, and I was up until 2 a.m. putting together a slideshow for the girls the night before.

I headed back to the courthouse and we finally went with the last bailiff. Both Tanya and I were picked in the same group. This time, there were about 40 of us. We filed into a courtroom. The fun and games were over. There were two lawyers, a defendant, the judge and her bailiffs. The judge explained a few things and then began reading the 25 counts against the defendant. It took her a half an hour to read them all. They were horrible - I didn't understand everything I was hearing, but I heard things like old blood, new blood, abusive head trauma, under aged child, crib toss, withholding care, couch toss, etc. My stomach turned as I listened to all the charges. I imagined this little child, Jayden was the name repeated over and over, and all the horrible abuse that the words brought to my mind. By the time the judge was finished, I wanted to cry or throw up or run away. I hated that man - Zachary H.

The feeling in the room was heavy. Some people sighed. Some looked down. Others grunted with disgust. Then the lawyers started to question us. It was strange and nerve wracking to feel like we were on trial. The lawyers called on whomever they wanted and asked hard questions. I tried to pipe up when I had something decent to say because they tended to probe the people who weren't volunteering any comments for the discussion. As we discussed whether we could judge this man fairly, the lawyers took notes. Asked us personal questions. Some people broke down and said they could not participate in the trial because of the content that would be brought up. I said something about how I didn't want to listen to awful stories of abuse either, but if no one is willing to listen and try to be fair, then the whole system doesn't work. I probably should have kept my mouth shut, but it's true. I think that is why I was chosen to be on the jury. Drat.

The judge informed us that the trial would last 3-5 days. Eeek! My mind started racing. I still had YW in Excellence that night, I had to figure out childcare for the next day and for the rest of the week. I had to emotionally prepare to hear a trial for a man accused of abusing his baby boy. It was exhausting. But there was one cool and strange thing. Tanya was picked to be on the jury too! What are the chances of that? We were both dreading the trial, but grateful that we would be there together at least. Strange how things work out like that sometimes. Tender mercies...

The next few days were crazy, busy, sad, fascinating, burdensome, funny, and educational.

The trial ended up not being so cut and dry. The day we heard the charges, I hated Zachary H. I wanted him to be punished. I dreaded listening to the evidence. The hardest evidence to sit through were the 911 calls when the dad claimed that his son was choking and you could hear Jayden struggling to breathe. It still makes me cringe just thinking about it.

During those days I learned a lot about sub dermal hematomas and abusive head trauma. It was a fascinating case. The witnesses were interesting, the lawyers were characters, the defendant was likable - it was almost interesting enough to be a television episode. (o: Quirky doctors and lawyers claiming them to be quacks. (later the judge told us that the quirky doctor witness winked at her out in the hall - what a kook!)

In the end, I felt sad for Zachary. I didn't think he was innocent, but I didn't think he was the monster I envisioned that first day. I believe he truly loved his baby boy. I think he just shouldn't have been his primary caregiver. There were still a lot of questions in the end. He never admitted to shaking Jayden once except for right before the first 911 call. At this time he said he thought Jayden was dying (from choking on formula) and he shook him to wake him up when he went limp. He was scared. This sounded plausible, but was it true? Then there was a second choking incident. We had to decide if Jayden really choked, because the symptoms he was showing could also be side effects of abusive head trauma. Looong story short - after hours and hours of deliberation - over the course of two days - we voted guilty on about half of the charges. It was so hard carrying the burden of being a judge of another person. What if we were wrong? What if we were too hard on him or too soft? What if we just ruined his life and he's innocent? So many of these worries cluttered my mind. FYI Jayden is now a one year old and is developmentally on track.

The 9 other women and 3 men on our jury were great people. I thoroughly enjoyed that part of my weeklong jury adventure. We worked on this fish puzzle for 2 or 3 days during our breaks. We were so proud when we finished.

One of the mornings Jessie so kindly brought in Krispie Kreme!
We also had fun doing trivia, talking about our families, hobbies, etc. We were not allowed to talk about the case until the time to deliberate so we had all kinds of interesting conversation.


Kathy, Sandra and I. Sweet, sweet ladies.

Tanya and I - jury buddies. Who knew our chance meeting at the intersection the week before would turn into a weeklong friendship on jury?

This was where I "lived" for a week. Overall, it was a great experience. There are so many good people out there. If the group of jury members I was with was an accurate sampling of the people in Washington County, then I feel pretty lucky to be surrounded by so many nice people. Even Mike, the "tough guy" Marlboro man as I dubbed him in my brain (o: - ended up seeming like a pretty nice guy. I think he thought the rest of us, especially the girls, were a little strange for bonding so quickly, and he teased a lot. By the end of that week spending sooo much time together through an emotional experience how could we not bond?

Anyway, good news - I got to take back my noble donation of $10 to the county and opted to take my $95 I earned over the course of the week. It helped pay for the great lunches that we enjoyed in downtown Hillsboro. I discovered some great places to eat and shop. There's got to be some perks to jury duty, right? I loved eating out every day with the lunch ladies - that was very enjoyable. Did I mention the tour of the haunted Venetian theater after lunch there one day? Did I mention it was dark and the lady had a great British accent? Did I mention how we all got goosebumps hearing her firsthand and secondhand accounts of paranormal activity in there? Whew - all kinds of excitement was going on that week! (o:

After all was said and done, I was very grateful for the blessing of being a stay at home mom. For that week of "working" full time, I really had to use my time in the evening wisely to keep up on laundry, food, chores, etc. It all worked out thanks to a supportive husband and wonderful friends who were happy to help with the girls. But I can't imagine juggling all that on a daily basis. I am very blessed. I had a few mishaps too, like the day I was so looking forward to the lovely chicken noodle soup I worked hard on the night before - only to discover that I never plugged in the crock pot that morning. Baahh!