This one has no Pictures

Subtitled:  Soccer Mom extraordinaire- Not! 
Subtitled:  I hate the Cold!

Saturday was a divide and conquer kind of day.  Emma had a soccer tournament in Columbus, and we had two other soccer games here.  I stayed home and Rob went to Columbus with Emma.  It was a cold, drizzly, wet, windy day.  It was miserable.  Emma played 2 games, the last one starting at 6 pm.  They were chilled to the bone when they got home.
Me, uh, I hate the cold- remember?  I sent my children out to play and stayed in the car where it was warm!  Yes, I did feel a little guilty.  With Max's game, I would run out of the car and stand at the side lines and give him thumbs up, especially the couple of times he scored goals.  I would stand there freezing and watching until I was sure he was completely distracted and then I would run back to the car.  With Samuel's game, I didn't even pretend.  I parked my car where I could see everything and didn't set foot outside of it!  Hence, the no pictures, thing.  I am hanging my head in shame, in my mind.
We all started the day off in the cold wet drizzle.  Robert decided the whole family was going to do an APFT (army physical fitness test) and nothing was going to persuade him otherwise.   We did sit ups, push ups and a 2 mile run.  I am happy to report that I passed!  Everyone did better than we thought they would- except Emma who refused to try.  She did one push up and 5 sit ups and ran with Max for the 2 mile.  I stayed with Joseph.   Joseph surprised us all by running the entire 2 miles!  He was awesome!  Samuel surpassed all our expectations.  At 12 years old that boy beat his Dad in the 2 mile run!  I thought Rob was sandbagging it, until he told me that he had run the 2 miles in 15 minutes and Sam had still beaten him!  Sam also got 79 sit-ups (1 less than Rob) and 50 push-ups.  Wow!  Max went an entire mile!  I have to admit that I wasn't real thrilled about the start to that day, until we were at the turn around for the mile run and Joseph was still running and Sam was staying with Rob and little Max was trotting along as hard as he could holding onto Emma's hand for support (that was the cutest picture!  I took a mental one!)  What great family time!  Thanks, Robert for making us do that together before we split up for the rest of the day.
Besides the APFT and the two soccer games, we had two birthday parties.  By the end of the day, I was smoked- no more of those kind of Saturday's- Ok?

Medical Overload!

Since January we have had sickness of one kind or another in our house and been in and out of the Doctor's office.  I have never been to the ER so many times in my whole life put together (not including when I work there.)  Rob, I think, is finally over his upper respiratory infection (it took 3 months), but we still have a frog beside our bed, spewing mist on us all night long.

 We also have a cabinet that  looks like an 80 year old lives with us.

I am taking antibiotics every day now to combat urinary tract infections that keep coming back.  It's a 90 day supply.  I also, after 8 weeks of almost weekly visits and a biopsy have been given cream to use on a site that is "on the verge of precancerous."  The cream makes it hurt almost as much as it did anyway, so we are just holding steady with that one.  I have to put the cream on for 8 weeks.
Then, after our sweet Monica died so suddenly

and nothing showed up on the autopsy, I was convinced it was an arrhythmia that was never diagnosed, so I took all the boys in to get an EKG from the pediatrician.    Some of them, like long QT syndrome are inherited, so I wanted to be sure.  The pediatrician was obliging.  Max's was normal, but Joseph's and Sam's came back abnormal.  They both had a quick and large T wave (repolarization).

 Today we went to have them rechecked by the cardiologist and have him compare it with Rob's.  Joseph's actually looked a lot better.  Rob's was normal.  They then decided to do me, since I like to faint.  Mine was bradycardic (49 beats a minute, oh yeah!!), but otherwise fine.  Sam's was still not normal.  The cardiologist told us that it looks very much like Brugada Syndrome.  He can't be sure until they do a drug trial with procainamide to see if they can make the T wave get even bigger.  I asked about the problems with this and he said that it could make his heart start to fibulate and then they would have to shock him.  He was wondering if he should do it at the on base hospital or down at Children's and I said, "um, I think if there is even a possibility of having his heart fibulate you better have him somewhere where they can take care of him!"  He got the hint and we are to hear from Cincinnati Children's hospital soon about scheduling the drug trial.
I feel like I have opened a can of worms.  Would it have been better not to know, to not have to make him go through all this and have the potential for him to have a fibulating heart by something we did?  If he has it, they won't agree to let him do any competitive sports.  He was devastated about that!  And he might have to have a pacemaker inserted.  We left the hospital today with him yelling at his heart that it had better work correctly next time!
Health wise, this hasn't been the best year ever for us.  Here's hoping it gets better!
PS I haven't taken Emma in yet, because she says she has to loose 5 pounds before she goes in to see a doctor again.  The cardiologist said, "No she doesn't need to loose 5 pounds.  Get her in to do the EKG." So we will be back up to the hospital again soon.

Easter Bundting

I don't know what happened this year- seriously!  I'm busy, but just at normal levels of " Spring busy."  I just never got out the decorations for Easter or did a reading with the children or got the Easter eggs dyed.  Easter Eve we went downstair, after tucking the children all into bed, and had to find the Easter baskets to fill.  I had bought candy and new Sunday outfits, at least!

The sacrificial bunny!  Everyone gets a Cadbury Chocolate bunny in their baskets and we eat them one at a time, cut into pieces.  Those things are over 800 calories a piece!

Rob stopped getting new clothes, because he is extremely picky and he refuses to shop.  I can not, for the life of me, get that man out of his 80's and early 90's clothes.  Therefore, I ignored him when I shopped. 

Trying to get a picture of all the new Easter outfits was not an easy job, either. 

Now that Sam is a deacon, his clothing are boring beyond belief.  He got a new tie, another white shirt and pair of Khakis.

He was not impressed.  He never has been- with Sunday clothes.  When he was little he used to spit on them and tell me they were too wet to wear.  He tried everything to get out of those clothes.  Now he just takes them off as soon as possible.  

Emma's dress I had to find on line. 

You just can't find a decent Junior's dress out there.  You can't find a decent Women's dress out there any more either.  It's like the whole world decided that dresses were stupid and they were no longer going to wear them.  I don't mind wearing skirts and blouses, but I like dresses every now and again.  Emma's dress is from Down East Basics, mine from Shabby Apple.

That is a really bad picture, but Rob would only take one!

 Both of them are Utah based companies.  

We had a quick bite of chocolate early in the morning and then headed to church.

I enjoyed Sacrament meeting, but in Young Women's they did a lot on the death of the Savior.  You should have heard the song that was performed at the end.  It was morbid!  They lightly touched on the suffering in the garden, but never mentioned the Resurrection.  It left me... not happy.  I mean there is a reason we don't wear crosses like our other Christian brothers and sisters!  We believe that the most important parts were the sacrifice in the garden and the Resurrection.  True, he couldn't have been resurrected if he didn't give up his life.  Anyway, I just feel like it ends up being a let's make everyone cry session instead of a let's wonder about the condescension of God and his miraculous gift to each of us lesson- which makes me dread Easter more often than not.

After we got home, we made the dinner (yep didn't even make rolls before hand, this year!) and everyone colored an egg. 

After dinner, we decided we needed some fun, though, so we called a couple friends to come over and we did a flashlight Easter Egg hunt. 

We staggered the start, so that the little kids got to go out ahead.  We went from youngest to oldest and made them wait 15-20 seconds between each- Ok, by the time we got to Samuel, we really didn't make them wait that long, because Sam is super speedy!  Look what we found while we were hiding eggs

- a real nest with robin eggs!

They looked so fake!

I couldn't remember what we traditionally had for dessert on Easter.  Is there even an Easter dessert tradition?  I don't know.  So we decided to make one.  Behold- Easter cake! 

It is strawberry bundt cake with lemon icing and strawberries all around it.  It was yummy!

I think everyone had a great time- we just didn't get rid of enough chocolate.  Next time, we need more friends!

Emma Says "Ouch!"

Emma's first game was a little bit of a shocker, especially since there were no subs so they all played the whole 80 minutes of the game.  Emma took a huge face plant at the beginning of the game and the defender who was on her, rode her calf muscle to the ground.  By the end of the game Emma couldn't run because her calf hurt so bad and her lungs were blown out!  We are hoping the last game of the season's pictures are a little nicer!

Springbreak Staycation

This year, as last year, Rob's school couldn't get it together and had Spring break a week before our kids had spring break.  On Rob's spring break we do chores, like taxes and fixing toilets.

Fun for him!
On the kids spring break, we slept in gloriously late and did things like trap shooting- I didn't hit anything, but I aimed the right place, finally!!  Sam hit a couple this time.  Emma refused to try.  Joseph was the pulling man- He loves that job!
We had a Super Mario Party 8 day.  Everyone was really sad whenever Mom was on their team, but hey, I was winning on the owning real-estate until the very end!
We went out and had a jump rope party one day.

We did double dutch

 and single.  

We had a hard time remembering the words to the rhymes.  Luckily a couple 7 year old girls came to our rescue.  I couldn't jump longer than about 10 jumps before I had to run in the house and go to the bathroom.  Hmmm, maybe I should have kegled it up a few more times- although, after 4 babies, I doubt anything helps.
We also did a 5 mile hike to pass off a requirement for Star for Samuel.

 He was in charge of the treat and water bag and portioned it out well.  He carried it all but about 1 mile which is when Max insisted on wearing it.

We found some fun things on our walk through the Clifton Gorge,

like our first letter in Ohio

 and a hollow tree,

 some ruins and pretty flowers.  Sam used the flowers to make me into an Elf Princess.

 Don't I look pretty?
We had never been to the gorge before, so we weren't sure where we were going and ended up back at our car around 3 miles.  We took a break then and had snacks and water,

but then the kids didn't want to finish the last 2 miles.  They wanted Sam to do it with just us.  We told them it was a family affair and get up and get going.  They were troopers and everyone finished the last quarter of a mile skipping!
Max had an especially fulfilling Spring Break.  He learned, finally, how to tie his shoes

and how to ride his two wheeler bike!

 His training wheels are up, so they don't touch the ground.  Yeah for Max!!
The last day of Spring Break was April Fool's day.  Emma had gone to a park on Friday with a bunch of friends all but one of which were older than her by a year or 2 and played Ultimate Frisbee.  There just happened to be the guy that she was texting at the Young Women's broadcast that got me into trouble, there that day!  Wonder how he found out about it, since he's her age?  Anywho, I told Rob that he was there and so Sunday we decided to play a little April Fool's day joke on Dad.  I had Emma tell him that she had lost the $500 he was going to give her for not kissing a boy until she was 16- on Friday.  His mouth dropped open and he was like, "What?  What?"  That was the only coherent thing he got out of his mouth before Emma turned bright red and said, "April Fool's!"  Ha ha!  Then Sam made his famous Texas Sheet cake all by himself and we had friends over.  We told them that he had accidentally switched the sugar with salt, so eat it at their own risk.  They were so good or they just really wanted to eat it, because it looked so good!  Either way they tucked in and tried it.  You could see them rolling it around in their mouths trying to taste the salt, ready to spit it out at any minute.  The one little girl said, "it doesn't taste much different."  That's when we said, "April Fools!"  Tiffany then decided she wanted a much bigger piece!!  Later she did my nails for me.  She likes to do my nails for me, because my nails are so ugly!  I had to take a picture, because my fingers refuse to hold onto nail polish.

3 hours after this picture several fingers had lost most of the polish.
Well now it's back to the grind, back to 5:30 am wake ups and soccer galore!  Yesterday, I was not happy about it all, but then everyone said, "let your child get her own breakfast and lunch."  I just didn't like that response.  I feel like I should be there to support my daughter in her righteous goals to get up early, read her scriptures and head to seminary.  She has really long days with soccer and weight training for the high school soccer team.  I believe in the statement that you should be at all of your children's cross roads, that includes leaving for seminary early in the morning.  Today she smiled at me when she took her breakfast and lunch box and head out the door and threw me kisses and that's how I know that what I do means something to her.