A night of prayer

Well the rest of yesterday was a VAST improvement from the morning. We got things turned around and peace restored in the home. I have to say nothing tempers the temper for me better than so really good music and my Mormon Tabernacle choir was performing miracles in my heart yesterday.

I worked hard all day and was just beat by 8:30 when I finally sat down. The two younger girls were just getting out of the bath and Sabrina had just finished the last of her homework. Then Lauren came down still wrapped in her towel... and threw up all over the floor. Luckily she was on tile. I am usually pretty good about throw up but my sensitive nose was having a hard time so I called in Jon. Apparently it was just that my nose was sensitive because we just about had a family throw up party right there.

Between the two of us tag teaming we got Lauren and the floor cleaned up. The older girls had to put themselves to bed as we nursed Lauren. At around 9:30 Jon went to bed. Lauren continued to throw up every 30 minutes or so till 4 a.m. Then Noble was awake and jumping in his bed till 4:30 and then Annie came in to tell me she had to go to the bathroom at 5:17.

Lauren seems to be feeling a bit better since 4 a.m. She has kept a bit of water down. I think I prayed the whole night that she would get better quickly and no one else would get sick. I don't know how we could do our trip to DC (which we leave for tomorrow) with the stomach flu.

Hopefully Lauren will feel well today so I can finish prepping for our trip today. And hopefully sometime today I will manage to fit in a solid nap.

**************************UPDATE***********
Ann Marie started trowing up at 8 a.m. Luckily she still had a relatively empty stomach and she hasn't thrown up again. Both Lauren and Annie are already feeling lots better (a little weak but no longer nauseous.) Now we are all just praying like mad that it doesn't hit any of the rest of us.

Disappointed

Today Satan hit hard and he won. I lost my temper and had my own childish meltdown at my kids. Now they are in school and I am trying to regroup and change (repent) enough to be able to make peace once more in my home when they come home.

The worst part about all of this is that I know better - so much better. It kills me that I can let this happen after knowing and learning all I did from the Spirit about home and how a home can and SHOULD feel.

Disappointed in my kids and even way more disappointed in myself -- the 35 year old who had a temper tantrum today. Thankfully the Savior has made repentance possible. I owe Him .... everything.

Exciting News!

We took a little trip to the 4D Ultrasound store down the street. 




Some of us couldn't wait till next month to find out if Snickerdoodle 






is a Boy or a Girl.




And we found out...




That Noble is getting...




A BABY BROTHER!!!


We are thrilled beyond words for Noble to have a little buddy to play trucks and cars and ball with. He keeps patting me as if to tell me, "Good job Mama!"

LuLu's On the Move

Remember my pastry chef friend Chris??? You know the guy who has created such amazing desserts for us as the "Waite"less root beer float or pomegranate souffle? Well he is starting a new venture teamed up with the guys from the amazing Metro Pizza. They are rolling out a Food Truck that will travel to the different Metro Pizza Locations with a breakfast menu that will have you drooling.

Kick off day is tomorrow 10-10-10 at the Henderson Metro Pizza Location at Stephanie and Horizon Ridge. On the menu??? Sourdough Waffles, Muffin Tops, Coffee Cake, Beignets (LOVE THOSE), Hot Chocolate and Coffee.

I am so excited for Chris to start this new adventure and to become a regular LuLu's Stalker. :)

To find out about all that is going on with LuLu and where LuLu is headed to next see her twitter page HERE.

Never Far

Today I got some photos I ordered for a school project for Lauren from Costco. This picture was in the bunch. Jon handed it to me and said, "That's my girl." I took it and looked at it. I still want to just jump back into that picture and grab her and hug her. 

It has been 2 years and almost 4 months. The world, and life has moved forward. I am fairly certain that Camille is not the first thing people think about now when they see me. I am happy for that. And my life is progressing. I don't cry about Camille every day or every week or even every month. Perhaps part of that is because I just don't talk about her (and especially about her passing) as often anymore. That is bitter sweet. I wish I had stories to tell about her and could include her in telling people the fun things my kids are doing. But I don't miss all the crying and I still can't talk much about her passing without crying. 

But the reality is that she is never far away. I think about her everyday - several times a day- and not usually in a sad and weepy sort of way. I just think of her. I wonder what she is doing. I wonder what she looks like as an angel. I wonder what it would be like to see her. I hold Noble and love his little body twice over for her. I insist on double kisses from him. I wonder if he still remembers her. And every night as I lay in my bed waiting to fall asleep I think of her again, and I try to avoid thinking of the fateful day she left our home. 

I write this because I want this to be a true record of where I am on this journey. Time has dulled the sharp intensity of the pain and longing for me. But it has not erased the desire and she is still in my heart and in my mind every single day.

Feeding the Missionaries

Yesterday I was scheduled to feed the missionaries (as well as my regular dinner group families). So I had a big beefy crock pot dinner planned. The night before I reminded myself around 8 p.m. to put the beef in the crock pot before bed so it would have all night to cook for the next day.

At 10 p.m. I went to bed. I didn't think about the beef any time after 8. I took a Unisom to help with the nausea and help me sleep. And in my sleep I began to dream - vivid pregnant dreams. At 1:30 I woke up with a start from a dream that I forgot to get my beef into the crock pot and didn't have time to cook it.

Sometimes we just get little miracles. And I really appreciated this one. I got up and went downstairs and put my beef in the crock pot and started it cooking. It was perfectly done for dinner last night. French dip sandwiches are one of my favorite meals and last night they hit the spot. I am excited for leftovers for lunch today. I made caramelized onions and sauteed mushrooms to go on top. All on fresh Great Buns French rolls made that morning. Yummy. Maybe I won't wait till lunch. Maybe I will have one for breakfast.

Then I made these for dessert. They are officially called "Better than Crack Brownies." Now Jonathan says that that is not a good name because really ANYTHING is better than Crack. Have you ever seen someone on Crack? Who wants that??? He has a valid point.

But how can you go wrong with so much peanut butter and chocolate goodness in one dish? My mind was loving these last night. My tummy was wondering where a nice juicy apple was. You should know that these are incredibly rich though. Just saying...

Yes those are Reese's Peanut Butter cups in the middle. 

The recipe can be found HERE.

My Favorite

Which was your favorite talk during conference? Any favorite points made?

My favorite talk was the first one. Elder Holland almost always has one of my favorites. This time it seemed his talk was just one big THANK YOU. I guess just the way I have been feeling lately, it fed me. I wiped silent tears from my face throughout his entire talk. I loved the quote where he said, "I am trying to be voice for the very angels of heaven, in thanking you for every good thing you have ever done, for every kind word you've ever said, for every sacrifice you've ever made, in extending to someone, to anyone, the beauty and blessings of the gospel of Jesus Christ."

His talk just made me want to try that much harder and be that much better at home, at church in my calling, and personally. I loved that he spoke thanking the members and that the prophet spoke on how we need to be grateful. I found there to be so much balance like that in this conference. Like the talk on living a consecrated life and using our time and agency wisely. That one made me feel like I better be doing more and better things with my time. It was followed by President Uckdorf reminding us to keep these simple and stick to the basics - that the fundamentals are what really matter. I felt the two talks back to back tempered each other and gave us a fairly complete idea of how we ought to spend our time.

I loved the talk by Elder Jensen (I stand corrected. It was Elder Larry Lawrence and his WHOLE talk was AMAZING. Elder Jensen's was also good and I will be using it in a lesson I am preparing for my young women.) where me mentioned that sleepovers can be dangerous. It is the first time I have heard that over the pulpit but that has been a rule I have established for our family. I used to go to sleepovers as a kid. But my mother in law who raised 9 children once told me that if she could go back and do one thing different she would not have allowed sleepovers either at her house or others. She didn't expound but I took her statement seriously and have followed her advice. When my kids have been asked to sleepover I tell them (or their very insistent friends) what their grandmother told me and they I just say, "I don't know exactly why Grandma said it but she raised lots of kids and I trust she knew what she was talking about so we are going to follow her advice." Hearing Elder Jensen talk about all the sins he had heard happened at sleepovers when he was a bishop just solidified my mother in laws advice for me.

I thought the talk to the parents was wonderful. I think living the standards we set for our youth in the For the Strength of the Youth pamphlet as parents in critical. How can we ask our youth to keep modest standards of dress, clean music and wholesome media enjoyment, and clean language usage when we are not doing the same?

My kids really grasped onto the analogy of the fishing lure and how Satan would like to catch us with his lures of sin. We had a great talk about that Elder Ballard talk afterward.

I love conference. I feel I have been richly nourished and wisely instructed. Let me know what your favorite parts were.

Answer to Prayer

Today I had a wonderful experience that made me just feel so ... known, heard, and loved.

As you can probably tell from some of my posts lately, I have been stressing about all that I have to do with YW lately. It has really been weighing on me. So the other night I was praying about all of it and really trying to have a good attitude but also trying to be somewhat realistic. I have had times where church callings have stressed me out before. Planning major events tends to stress me out. And somehow the Lord has always helped me out and been my partner when I turn to Him. So that is exactly what I did.

"Father, I can't do all this. It is simply more than I can do. I need help. This is Your work and I know you want the best for these girls. So I am turning this over to You. You find me the help I need to make this happen and I will work my best to do all I can. I am turning it over to You."

I felt confident that somehow, in someway, the Lord would provide. I got into bed that night and ideas started to come to me about some aspects of our YW in excellence program that would really be special and wonderful for the girls. I thought, "well this is good help, but if He is giving me inspiration as help I guess I am going to have to carry out the leg work."

We are planning to do a skit for this program and the date was up in the air as I am scheduled to be out of town for the night we had it penciled down. I was waiting on my advisor to let me know if she could run it without me or if we would have to move it to an alternate date when I would be in town but she would be gone.

The next day I worked on Clue and banged that out. YW in Excellence was still weighing on me, but I was too tired to work on it. I heard back from my advisor that she thought she could run it the week I would be gone (which was a better week anyway) and although I will be really sad to miss the night, I was glad we could do it on this better date and that she would bear the burden of making it happen that night.

Still I had the skit to worry about and all the other assignments to make. I really wanted someone who was going to be there that night do the skit just in case something went wrong or needed help that night. But I was uncertain I could burden my advisor with any more than I already was. But somehow the Lord would help us get it done. Of that I was confident.

Today I took my materials over to watch conference at our Personal Progress Leader's house with several of the young women. After the morning session I was going over the PP Leader's responsibilities for that night with her. The young women were milling around. I asked our PP leader to let me know where the girls were in their progress. She told me one of the young women who was sitting a few feet from us was just one project shy of earning her medallion. I told her she HAD to be done by that night so we could present her with her award then.

The PP leader told her she would have to find a different project for her Faith value because there would not be time to grow flowers between now and then. She looked over some of the options and there was one about writing a skit or play. The PP Leader asked me if this highly responsible laurel could take over the skit portion of our YW in Excellence night and do that as her project. The laurel was SO excited and totally wanted to do it. I giddily handed over my materials and gave her instructions and told her to make it her baby. I told her she was literally an answer to my prayers for help.

I have felt so much better since I handed that over to her. I know she will do a great job with it. It will help her finish her Personal Progress and it means so much less burden for me and my advisor. I am just so thankful tonight for a Father who knows me and loves me and truly does answer my prayers for help even beyond what I expected. I feel to shout Hallelujah!

HALLELUJAH!!!

Clue Explanation

I have emailed the Clue documents to many of you. I thought I should give a bit more explanation.

We will play very much like the board game but the kids will be the game pieces. So in the beginning of the activity I will divide the group into 6 teams (they may or may not be called by the names of the Characters of the Book of Mormon.) Each team will be assigned a leader.

I will pick randomly one card (one of the documents is the cards that need to be cut out) from each of the categories. These three cards will be the answer of who where and with what. All 6 leaders will get to see and know the answers so they will be able to answer to their teams accusations. I will then deal the remaining cards out to the 6 teams. They will each get 3 cards. This will just help move the game along a bit faster.

I will have classrooms assigned to each Book of Mormon Place with a sign on the door (one of the document is signs for the doors that need to be cut in half. Each team's leader will have a copy of the trivia questions and the page with their directions on how to be the leader and the two lists of possible people weapons and places (with classrooms filled in). There are two lists in case there is time to play twice. They are meant to be able to cross out ones they know are wrong as they find those out.

We will start in the gym and each team will have to there answer a trivia question before they can go to their first place to make their accusation. Once in the room they make their accusation and their leader reveals one of the wrong aspects as noted in the leaders directions. The team MUST move to a different room to make a new accusation. If they want to return to that room they must first go to another room, make an accusation and then come back. They must answer a trivia question to move to a new room.

Okay hope that all makes sense. I only have 33 trivia questions because I think they will spend about 3 minutes per accusation and question and all that and we only have 50 minutes to play. I hope that will be plenty of questions for the time alloted.

Hope that all makes sense to you everyone. If anyone wants to post it to Sugardoodle or idea door they are welcome to do so. I am not sure how to do that but I am fine with sharing. :)

Clue and Block Party

I just finished setting up everything for our giant game of Book of Mormon CLUE at the church for our Oct. Young Men and Young Women's combined activity. I hope it will be as fun as I think it can be.

We will play it much like the board game. I have made cards with Book of Mormon People, Weapons and Places. I came up with trivia questions about the Book of Mormon to use as a means of moving from room to room instead of having to roll dice and move spaces. I wish I could upload all my documents here to share with everyone. I mean I have been working on this literally ALL DAY and I would love to have others benefit from my work. But Blogger doesn't allow that I guess.

If you are in Young Women's or Young Men's and want copies, feel free to email me and I will send you all the documents to do this activity in your ward.

As for the Block Party (some have asked for details on our party plans) -- We get two bounce houses (one that has a slide) and we charge $20 per family or $10 per couple to cover the cost. We have those up all day in a central location. We have food. We have done pot luck sides or dessert with a central main dish (burritos one year, pizza, sub sandwiches...) We also provide water or lemonade in big coolers. We will do pizza this time with neighbors either bringing a side dish to share or volunteering to host a carnival booth. Last year we had a Haunted House, a Cupcake walk, a fishing for treasure booth, and many others. I hope we will have some people volunteer to do booths again this year because it was really fun. We decorate treat bags with the little kids and have someone do face painting. I think we may have a cotton candy machine this year. Kids often come in costumes and we get to see everyone. It is a fun day. I organize but everyone who comes helps out and it makes putting the event on pretty easy.

Hope that gives some of you some ideas. Now I get to turn my attention to YW in Excellence. Well, maybe next week I will work on that. This weekend I am looking forward to soaking up as much of General Conference as possible. If you want to check it out you can go HERE. Hope you can catch some of it. Have a great weekend and hopefully you will be able to recharge your batteries like I plan to.

Back at it

Sometimes the best thing you can do when feeling overwhelmed is to go to work. Last night I worked with the kids to get our house in order. That is always a good first step to feeling less frazzled. Now that my house is clean, I am ready to take on the three giant productions I have to put on between Oct. and Nov.

First I am creating a Mormon version of the game Clue for the youth to play at the church with different class rooms being the rooms in which the murder could have happened. I will have Scripture Characters for the team names and trivia questions that if answered correctly will allow them to advance to the next room. I also plan on using scripture time weapons and locations for the other categories. That is my task for tomorrow. Hopefully I can get most of it planned tomorrow.

Next I have to work on Young Women in Excellence and plan out and delegate out all the various responsibilities that will go on with that. I found a cute Princess Bride themed idea online that I think we will use. Hope I can get some dads to help out with it.

And then of course I have the neighborhood block party to pull together for Halloween. I am not sure how many of our neighbors will be around this year as our kids here get Friday, Monday, and Tuesday off school that week. I think many will be out of town. I guess we will see how that pans out as I get the RSVPs back.

So that is what is almost constantly running around in my mind these days - that and fighting the nausea. There is always that too. Nothing to do but get to it. It is the only way to get it off the brain. Tomorrow I plan on doing just that.

Empty

Do you ever have that feeling that you have just been sucked dry? You know that empty feeling of having given all you can give. I have. I do. I am tired. I am ready for a vacation where I don't have to think about my daily responsibilities. No music practices or lessons. No bills to pay. No church calling to worry about.

That last one takes so much out of me. Working in Young Women's is not an easy calling. It is busy and there are lots of things to plan and activities and meeting to attend. But that is not what is hard about it to me. The hard part to me is all about the girls. I love our girls. I mean I really genuinely love them. I worry about them and pray for them. I try to find the right balance between being there for them in a friend sort of way while still being their Young Women's Leader.

That is a difficult balance that is not always in harmony. Ultimately, I have accepted the responsibility to be their Leader and not their "friend" though. They have lots of friends. So when the two roles conflict, I opt to be their leader. I only hope that one day they will understand and appreciate that.

That is the hard part of working with the Young Women. The weight of the love and concern and responsibility. Because it just is that important. THEY are just that important.

I have worked with the different sets of young women for the nearly that last 3 years. We have a great board of leaders that share the load. For that I am grateful. I have a great group right now that have a great chemistry with each other. They are wonderful, smart, really good girls. For that I am grateful.  They are the reason I keep going even when I am tired and feel spent. Because THEY are just that important and they deserve my best.

So tonight I will get some rest. This weekend with General Conference I will recharge my batteries. And then I will jump back into the race and run my best again.

September

I love how quickly September has seemed to fly by. It helps to be busy when you want time to move quickly. And now we are almost to October. I am ready for the cooler weather to kick in. I am ready to decorate for Halloween. I am ready to be far enough into my second trimester to be done with the sickness part. I am ready to find out what we are having (girl or boy). I am ready to take our vacation to DC. All these things are just around the bend in the month of October.

But for now I am trying to motivate myself to start my long Do List for today. It is pretty hard when all I really want to do is sit in my rocking chair and watch Noble right now. He is being so silly. We have a little step. He likes to step up on it. He thinks he is so big. He steps up on it and raises his arms up in the air so proud of himself. Then he says or sings something in his own language loud like an announcer. Wish I knew what he was saying. Then He steps/jumps down and falls to the ground and laughs.

But I have laundry and grocery shopping and banking calling my name. Those I have to get done before I have to pick up Lauren from school. So I guess, since I can't freeze this moment to savor it, I will lock the mental photo in my mind and get to my list.

It is so fun having some alone time with Noble each day. What a gift he is.

Arctic

It has been a few days since my last post. I would like to say I have been too busy. And well... after school I have. (I am trying this new thing of being busy with the girls this year and have signed them up for dance and music lessons. Almost every day of the week we have some after school lesson to go to. So far it has been good for all of us. We'll see how I feel by May.) During the days, however, I have only been busy trying to keep my mind off being sick. Somehow blogging doesn't do the trick. Red Raspberry Ice Breakers gum on the other hand is my new best friend. Anyone know where you can find it in Vegas? I can only find it at Toys R Us and I already bought out their whole stock.

Anyway, so my girls have been busy. They go to school and then their lessons and then practice their music and do their homework and then it is bed time. This means not so much playtime. So today being Saturday (and a Saturday with nothing on our beautiful Calendar) they have had all day to play. And I love that they all love to play together. That was the reason I wanted to have my kids close in the first place. Today they have played musical instruments (they made some out of paper cups and thing). They have played some Wii together. And perhaps my favorite of their games is their newly invented game "Arctic."

They pretended they were all trapped in the Arctic and got all dressed up in their heavy winter jackets and boots and hid out in the igloo (the pantry). They even put Camille's BYU sweatshirt on Noble. It was so tiny on him. It just made me realize what a little bit of a thing she was. We bought it for her the week before she died and it fit her well. He looked giant in her sweatshirt, even though he isn't a big kid at all.

But it was cute to see him playing with his sisters and now well they can play using their imaginations. To me that is the best kind of play ever. 

Little Things I Don't Want to Forget

I have a few things to document that I just don't want to forget about my kids. Bear with me or skip this if you don't really care. ;)

Noble: He loves to GO. When I tell him "Let's Go!" He runs with his little pitter patter feet to the mud room area and points to my purse and then to the garage door. When he is getting into trouble downstairs I ask him if he wants to play with his blocks. He gets a look of "Oh YEAH!" on his face and that little pitter patter of his feet goes over to the stairs to go up to his Mega Block legos. When the door bell rings, again the pitter patter to the front door. When dad's office door opens, the pitter patter to his office. I love the pitter patter. It is the only part of tile floors that I love.

He has a soft heart for anyone crying and is quick to give them a love. He loves to stand at the door and wave goodbye to his sisters as they go to school in the morning. When he is tired he is happy to go upstairs to bed and will wave goodbye to anyone downstairs as we go. He loves to climb and if able to climb on chairs now and smart enough to know if he moves them he can get up on a counter. Scary. Yesterday I followed him upstairs and was in the next room when I heard the water go on in the bathroom. I ran in to find him sitting in the sink fully clothed and turning on the water.

Words: he says "Dad" and "ball" and "Lala" and bellybutton which actually sounds like "BeBu" and he is learning to ruff like a dog. How appropriate that his first animal sound is a dog. :)

Lauren: She likes to tell me she loves me more than a never ending ice cream cone. That is a lot. She loves to cuddle and she makes good friends easily. She likes to do her own hair (which consists of her wetting and brushing it with a really soft brush till it is almost straight in the front.) She likes to come up with interesting outfits. One day she came in ready for school in a striped orange, red, and pink dress with striped pink, white, green, and orange pants. These were not stripes that were meant to be worn together. I said "My you sure are stripey today!" She smiled and said "Yes!" so proud of herself, "even my underwear are stripey!" That sealed it for me. I couldn't tell her to change a thing. Anyone who put that much thought into an outfit deserved to wear it proudly to school.

Annie: She is an eager and wonderful big sister. She loves to help her younger siblings however they will let her. Need help sounding out a word? planning a play? walking to the bathroom? doing a chore? she is there! Noble LOVES Annie. The other day I looked in the rear view mirror and saw she had laid her head down in his lap in his car seat. He had his arms around her giving her loves. She loves to tell stories and be the center of attention with her friends. She likes to say "Well.... " and then make a little smacking sound with her mouth several times and clear her throat a few times before she tells you something. This makes it very easy to do a good impression of her. ;) Dad says she has a black belt in pilates. She will show you her own version of "pilates" moves that seem more like some crazy karate.

Sabrina: Tonight she got home from dance and we were all playing outside. We were waiting for her to come home before we went it. All the kids ran in the house and she went running around the neighborhood picking up all of ours and the neighbor's toys and taking them into our garages before going inside. Once inside she practiced her viola and then as she finished she said "Mom, you and I have a date with the dishwasher." She knew I needed to do the dishes and needed some motivation. She stayed and helped load (not a job she enjoys at all) while I washed the dishes. What can I say? She came this way and I am just trying not to screw her up.

And Snickerdoodle: Just a few pregnancy oddities to note. First I have had strange cravings. I say strange because they are odd for ME. Normally I crave sweets or burgers or not so good for you food. This time, all those things make me sick to even think about! I can't even eat desserts. The only thing that has been steadily safe and so good to me is fresh fruit and good healthy salads. I guess that is good for me. Less weight to gain hopefully. Oh and the craving of the day is funeral potatoes. I will be making them for dinner group this week for sure. Anyone got an awesome recipe for them? I guess I will be googleing that tonight!

Okay, I am off to put those little darlings to bed!

Surprises

I love good surprises. I love to surprise others and I love to be surprised - as long as the surprise is a good one. Jonathan, on the other hand, does not like surprises. He doesn't care much for me trying to surprise him. He never has the "great surprise" reaction I love to see. Even if the surprise is big and I know he likes it. He just smiles and nods.

And I am pretty hard to surprise. I guess I like to feel in the know because most of the time I know something is up when a surprise is coming. Sometimes he does manage to give me a genuine surprise though. Like today when he emailed me from the airport to tell me he was catching an earlier flight home! That is one GREAT surprise! Yipee!

Mom to the Rescue!

My mom has been sick all week. So even though she is in town she has been stuck in bed. I had been planning on her helping me through this week without Jon. But as the days of her illness drug on, I lost hope of seeing her. Then yesterday morning she called and told me she was almost all better and well enough to come help me out.

After the disaster that was Wednesday night (well... mostly it was just a disaster because I was too spent with too much to do) I was ready for some Mama TLC.  She came out in the early afternoon and helped the kids with a school art project all afternoon. I am sure this project would not have happened without her. It was not mandatory but all the girls WANTED to do it. I could not have done it with them alone. They had so much fun making "popcorn art."

Then when I felt sick after dinner she cleaned up and helped the older kids with their homework and music practicing while I took the little kids outside for some fresh air for me and exercise for them. Somehow the fresh air didn't seem to help my nausea so we headed back inside before too long. After I got Noble and Lauren bathed and Noble to bed I laid around while my mom helped the girls finish up all their music practicing and getting ready for bed.

Then we all listened as Nana read to us from her favorite storybook from her own childhood. It had great stories - one for every day of the year. With the kids in bed, I took advantage of having my mom to myself and we watched a little Star Trek together before I went to bed and she headed home. My mom is kind of a Trekie and she has instilled a fondness for that show in me.

All in all it was a great night for me - mostly because my mom was here. Thanks mom!

Here we go ...

Jon is in the big apple for the rest of the week. My conclusion after this night... pregnant ladies should not be left home alone to do all the work of 4 kids. I miss my hubby and the help he gives at night. I am tired and emotional.

Last night the girls had an all out sob session feeling their grief all over in their new ages and understanding. It was a heavy night. Tonight I am feeling the aftershocks of their grief on my own heart. They are my comfort and joy and at the same time they add layers to my grief because I grieve for their loss as well.

How many more days till my anchor comes home?

Great Neighbors

You know neighbors can really make or break any place you live. I grew up in a cul-de-sac my dad built with 4 of his friends. We loved all our neighbors and were welcome to play with any of them anytime. We all took care of each other on that street. It was an ideal way to grow up. It felt like one big extended family all around us.

While there are a few more houses on my street now, and I certainly didn't know my neighbors before I moved in, I feel blessed to have great neighbors in my neighborhood now. I don't know ALL my neighbors but I do know a good percentage of them. And we have a really good neighborly feel with 2 annual block parties and plenty of homes where I can go borrow a cup of sugar or where my kids can find friends to play.

Last night I was feeling sick (like every night). For some reason it just seems that I feel better when I am out in the fresh air so I took the kids out in the street to play. They went across the street like normal to ask our street play friends if they wanted to play.

My neighbors across the street were the first people I met up in this neighborhood. They were one of the first 3 people to move in and were just moving in when I drove the neighborhood one night to show it to my brother who was in town from California. We started talking and they let me come in and show my brother their home. We moved in about 4 months later and we have been great friends ever since.

So last night not only did my neighbors come keep us company and play but when they heard I was feeling crummy and not up to making dinner (thus why we were in the street playing at dinner time) so the kids were going to have to wait till 7:30 when dad got home to do dinner, they fed my kids some of their dinner.

Did I mention I love great neighbors? I LOVE GREAT NEIGHBORS! Thanks to all my neighbors who have been and continue to be such good friends and such great supports to me and mine.

Do you know your neighbors? What can we all do to be great neighbors today?

Great Book

Last week I read a book entitled "the Maze Runner." It was pretty darn page turning. If you read and liked the Hunger Games, you would probably like this book as well. It is the first of a trilogy and the second book is scheduled to be released on Oct. 12. I am looking forward to diving into it.

The book is about a bunch of teenage boys who are trying to survive day to day life in a world they woke up in with their memories wiped out. It is interesting because the voice is from the perspective of the newest addition to their ranks and you discover this world right along with him step by step.

The author, James Dashner, does a great job making you want to keep reading chapter after chapter. I finished this book in about a day and a half. It makes me want to go read what else he has written.

If you are looking for a good page turner to dive into, I highly recommend the Maze Runner.