Lots Going On!

Well, last week I found out that my dad has prostate cancer. They did find that it was contained all in the prostate so that is a good sign. They are leaning towards having surgery in hopes to remove all of the cancer. Hopefully that's all that will be needed. It was a shock but I also remembered that my friend Whitney's dad, Dean, also had prostate cancer a few years ago. I honestly don't remember if he did surgery or radiation. Whatever they did, he's still around. I don't know how he's doing exactly but I'm optimistic about my dad because he has been doing a lot of walking and trying to eat healthier for awhile now so hopefully that will help. 

Thursday is a day that the 4 older kids go to school and Alice stays home. Her preschool days are Monday and Wednesdays. Well, I got busy doing stuff and turned around to see this little cutie. She passed out just as she was finishing her last gold fish cracker. She didn't quite get it in there, lol. 

I did decide to do some more Halloween decorating but man it took a lot to get me going. I got as far as emptying out the bucket with everything spread out on the floor and couch but I was just not feeling like decorating. I left everything there for at least an hour or so before I finally came back to it and finally just slowly started finding places for everything. After a little while I was finally getting into it and enjoying it a little more. I don't know what's wrong with me because I usually love decorating. I think the older I get the less I want to do it. Usually the kids get excited about decorating and I'll get them out. They pull out a few things to play with and then disappear, leaving me to decorate by myself. To my surprise, Jack was upset to see that I had decorated without him this year. Not really upset but a little disappointed. The funny thing is I usually do it by myself anyway. Sheesh, I can't win. 😂

I haven't gotten a picture of the decor outside yet just in case we add more but I did get this shot of Sage sitting by the sign. Of course she gets up as I'm taking the picture.

A lady from our ward, who happens to be our relief society president and the mother of Nikki's friend Logan, made some cute succulent pumpkins and was selling them. I decided to buy 3 small ones and do some ministering with them. This time I was able to get both of my partners involved with helping. Nikki is one of my partners. She helped pick out cards and then drew a little picture on each card. Then around 4:00pm we all went to deliver them together. Nikki had to work at 5:00 and we were only able to visit with two of them before taking her to work (one being the mother of Nikki's best friend Angie). Then our other partner Emily Rogers and I went back to visit the third person. We ended up visiting the last person for about an hour because between Emily and the husband of the third lady being there the conversation kept going and going. Fortunately for Emily from the conversations that were going on she was able to tell about the problems she was having with her home construction project. Bro Nickell has done some renovation work and offered to go look at it and see if he could help out. I guess it turned out to be a bigger project than he thought and it's too late to get started on it this late in the year but said they could do something in the spring. 

The last couple of Fridays Charlotte's teacher sends a link for a learn to draw session. These three did it both times. They did a fox on Friday. The week before was a bird.

This was the first week when they did the bird. I didn't get an after picture, silly me!

I made sure to get an after picture this time of their foxes.

On Saturday Garrett really wanted to go look at the guitars at the music store. Since we needed to replace a part on grandma's guitar anyway I said we could. The part that broke on grandma's guitar was the plastic piece around the screw where the strap goes on. I decided to replace both pieces with metal ones so we wouldn't have a problem later with the other plastic piece. After I was finished Garrett started looking at the electric guitars because he REALLY wants one. While the employee was helping him to look at one I got a text from Curtis in the car that Alice needed to go potty so I went and took her because Curtis was too tired and was sleeping in the van. After we got back I learned that Garrett had more money saved than I knew about and before you know it he was purchasing an electric guitar along with a carry case, cable and amplifier. He didn't quite have enough to cover everything so I helped him but he only owes me $12. He doesn't know how to play properly yet but is having fun playing with it.

After leaving Dorsey Music we went over to Deseret Industries to look for a couple of things. The boys were looking for something they could get a low powered fan to make their own fog machine with. Alice and I looked around at other things and found her first pair of skates for $5. Charlotte was so excited about Alice getting skates that she washed her wheels off and both girls rode around inside on Saturday and Sunday. Alice's skates have a mechanism in it that makes it kind of noisy when she skates but it keeps her from rolling backwards. She loves them! Charlotte even helped write Alice's name on the fronts of both skates, lol.

After we had dropped off Alice and Garrett at home we were supposed to hurry over and meet my parents to go to dinner at Sizzler. The hurry part went out the door when I got hit with some stomach problems. It wasn't diarrhea but it sure felt like it could have been. Every time I finished pushing a little out I would think I was done but then I'd wash my hands and start walking around a little and all of a sudden feel a pain like it was gas and then felt like I needed to go again. This happened multiple times and the last couple times I went it triggered some acid reflux/heart burn. I took 4 Tums to hopefully help settle it down. I was in a lot of pain on the way over just from this. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to eat anything. I definitely didn't feel like eating steak so I opted for the salad bar. It seemed to settle down as we were eating. It kicked up a little again later at their house when we were watching movies but I took another antacid. It slowly started feeling better. I'm not sure if it was something I ate for lunch or what but at least I felt good again by Sunday morning. The movies we watched were The Others, which is a spooky movie (for Halloween of course) and then so we wouldn't have bad dreams we watched Maverick. 

Yesterday was our first Sunday back at church where everyone was combined for Sacrament meeting, the first time since March 8th! Everyone still sat spread out and most people wore masks. We had previously been doing half and half so we'd be going every other week. The kids and I were running a little late but I couldn't help but get taken back by the sight of all the people who were there when we walked in. It felt like a family reunion almost and I just about teared up as I was rushing in with my kids to find our seat. It felt so good to be all back together. And there were lots of new families names that they read in today that moved in over the past 6 months. 

We have been given the okay to start having activities at the church again except each ward in the building will have a specific night of the week that way we're only in there cleaning the building once a week. Our ward was assigned to have Thursdays and this Thursday will be our first Relief Society activity at the church. We're going to be taught by one of our new sisters who does innovative penciling (looks like fancy color penciling?). I will be going because it looks like fun! If it doesn't turn out too bad I will share a picture of what I did. Yay, life is slowly getting back to a normal feeling! Slowly.

Oh yeah, I also received a few more Halloween decorations from Laverne when we were over there Saturday night. I really like this big spider web she gave us and how it looks right there.