small updates

-- Faith has some mysterious rash all over her body. She has also had mild diarrhea, but no fever, no vomiting, no runny nose. I took her to the doctor yesterday just to make sure it wasn't anything contagious or worrisome. He couldn't find anything else wrong, and he said it's a viral rash, and we just have to wait it out. She just looks terrible. The spots are even on the bottoms of her feet. It doesn't seem to bother her, though, although she is clingier and whinier than normal.

-- We painted pumpkins for Family Home Evening on Monday. Actually, Jeff and the kids painted pumpkins. I helped Faith. Our pumpkins all are disguised as something else for Halloween. Faith's is dressed as an apple. Michael's is dressed as a sticker book, and Jeff's is dressed as.... hmm, I don't know. Michael calls it a "really scary face."

-- Jeff and I get to go on a date tonight! Yay!! We don't get out nearly as often as we should.

-- I have two bushels of apples and a bushel of pears that I need to make sauce out of. Anyone have one of those apple corer/peeler things I can borrow?

-- Jeff and Michael love the new Wii. I've only played it once, with Michael, and my athletic skill on the Wii isn't any better than my athletic skill in real life.

-- Ben Franklin here in Roy is going out of business. Everything is now 40% off or more. We went there today and I bought some cake decorating supplies, and some yarn to make a cute hat for Faith (another one - I just don't know when to stop).

-- Faith likes to open the lid to the toilet and back up to it, like she's trying to sit on it. I think I'll get the potty chair out and let her try for real. I'm not ready to potty train her, although it would be nice to not have two kids in diapers when Lauren is born. But there's certainly no harm in letting her get the feel of peeing in a toilet instead of her diaper.

-- One of the girls I hired at work didn't show up for her shift on Saturday. Or Sunday. So I worked. Why do those things always happen over a weekend? I guess I should be glad it was a weekend - Jeff was home and so I didn't have to find a babysitter. I ended up working five days in a row, which I don't think I've done since before Michael was born.

-- I hired a new girl, and I think she'll be great.

-- This Saturday we're going to Black Island Farms out in Syracuse. They do a corn maze every year, and you can take a tractor ride through the pumpkin patch and choose your own pumpkin. The best part, though, is the huge slides they make out of haystacks. Michael loved it last year, and I'm excited to see him play on them this year.

-- Faith is learning to make animal sounds. Jeff took a video of it, but it was sideways. We'll try to get another video made so I can post it here. It's really cute.

The circus performer in my belly

So I just noticed that my baby ticker at the top of the page says, "I bet Mommy feels like I'm trying to claw my way out right now." No joke. Even though babies are (supposedly) completely encased in a uterus, it sure feels like this one is reaching right through it and grabbing onto my intestines, lungs, ribs, and anything else she can grab, and yanking and twisting. It feels like a circus training ground. It's fun to feel her move around, but honestly, I wish she could sleep when I'm trying to sleep. She's an active little thing.

Irritation of the day

I love it when guests know better than I do what I said to them. Case in point:

Guest: You said there was an elevator. We can't find it.

Me: No, there is no elevator.

Guest: Well, you said there was. My wife was just in here and you told her there was an elevator over there somewhere and we can't find it.

Me: I'm sorry, there must have been a misunderstanding. We don't have an elevator. There are stairs over there, but no elevator.

Guest: Then why did you tell her there was an elevator?

AUGH!!! For crying out loud. Would I really tell someone we have an elevator when we don't? What better way to tick someone off than tell them we have something that we don't! And how do you know what I told her, buddy, you weren't in here with her!

General Conference with Michael

Today we watched the morning session of Conference. Well, we tried, anyway. Between Michael belting out "Bear Necessities" from Jungle Book, Faith screaming at every little thing that wasn't just the way she wanted it, and Michael asking questions about why horses can't climb trees, we didn't get much out of it.

They both listened very well to the choir, though, and Faith even waved her hand around like she was leading it whenever they sang.

Isn't there an easier way?

I lost my cell phone the other day. I walked around the house, calling it from my cordless phone, and couldn't find it. Not in the car, either. I remembered having it at the furniture store, but when I went back there, they didn't have it. So I called Brandon and told him I lost my phone. He said no big deal, it was about time for me to upgrade and get a new one anyway.

Then I found my phone, in my bed, under the covers and pillows. Not exactly sure how it got there, but oh well. So I called Brandon again and told him I found it, but the flip part is starting to break off.

So he ordered me a new phone. Meanwhile, the flip part of my phone got worse and worse. Today, as I was driving to work, the phone rang. When I opened it up to answer it, the flip part on one side broke completely off. Fortunately, my new phone arrived at work today.

But then came the fun part of putting all my contacts into the new phone. Apparently, there is a program that will do that for me through Verizon, but I have to subscribe to some specific service, which I'm pretty sure the hotel does not. Or I could download them to my computer and then upload them onto the new phone, but I don't have the cable to get anything off that phone (which is why I have photos of the kids that will never be seen by anyone else). So yes, I sat for over an hour today at work, manually punching in contact information.

Please, no comments that make me feel stupid about how lame I am for manually entering all of that info. I already feel that way. I just don't know how else to do it.

The new dining room table

There are two more chairs, and two leaves that can extend the table. But it's a tight fit in our dining room with all of that!

Thankful Thursday

1. Work is starting to calm down. That's nice. The new people are being trained, and are doing well. Hopefully nothing will shake everything up for a while.

2. One more piece of furniture out from my carport. Someone bought the dresser today. Phew!

3. My dad, who will be taking the other dresser out of the carport on Saturday and delivering it to Riley and Nikki.

4. Michael, who is so happy and loving and willing to help. Today we are canning pears and dehydrating plums. Sometime parents are sarcastic when they say their kids are helpful, but Michael really is. He helped me wash everything, and he keeps Faith occupied when I need him to. The work is slower when he helps, sure, but I like having him around.

5. Jeff, who is my best friend. I am so grateful to be married to him.