Some Bad Days and a Harry Potter Party

We have been struggling with Nikki lately and her feeling down a lot. I was called twice the week before last week by her school's counselor. The 2nd time they had me come in and meet with the counselor and the resource officer. Nikki has had thoughts of suicide and just feeling like everyone hates her and she hates herself. They have recommended twice now to take her to a hospital for mental health or to at least get her into her therapist as soon as she could. It was on a Thursday when that happened and normally she does see her therapist on Thursday afternoons but her therapist was out of town. Fortunately we were able to get Nikki in to see one of the other therapists that works at the same place. I actually liked her better because she actually pulled me into her office with Nikki after talking with Nikki alone. The other therapist doesn't talk to me unless I specifically ask questions so I don't really know what's going on. The therapist said she didn't think Nikki was to the point of needing to go to the hospital but gave me the suggestion to take her to a psychiatrist and gave me a couple of names she recommended. 

She didn't have the greatest day on Friday at school but she did go. Curtis decided that she needed to get out of the house and get her mind off everything so he took her out to Boise Saturday morning. They went to Freak Alley in downtown Boise where the building's walls are covered with artwork. Then they hiked up to Table Rock up on the cliff and then drove out to Lucky Peak. Taking her out seemed to do the trick. She had started out the day in a negative mood but then after they got back she was feeling good again and even started to work on her artwork. She hasn't done much of that lately. She also spent most of the day on Sunday doing artwork and continued to be in a good mood. That mood has seemed to have carried over into the whole last week because most of it she was doing good. Even though she was doing artwork for school it still made me happy to see her happy doing art again. However, Monday night she came into our room crying after everyone had gone to sleep.  She climbed into bed next to me and just cried for a bit and then I went out to the front room with her. Shortly after Curtis came out also. Between the two of us we were able to calm her down and talk to her until she was feeling better and so tired she was ready for sleep. Pretty much the rest of the week she was fine. I was able to schedule her with a psychiatrist but it is a month out. A couple others I had called were a 5-6 month wait. So I'm hoping and praying that we'll be able to help keep her on a positive path while we wait.

On Saturday October 2nd I watched conference with the kids while Curtis took Nikki to Boise. Then after the 2nd session was over I took the girls to a Harry Potter party while Curtis went to Garrett's band competition in Kuna. The original plan was to have Nikki take the girls so that we could go to the competition together but I decided I better just do it after her rough week. I'm glad I went though because I was having a bad day myself but not really knowing why. I just didn't feel like doing things and didn't want to go to the party. But that's exactly what I needed. I was able to visit with old friends and watch my girls have a good time and it totally changed my mood. We had a good time.

They had a craft to make a monster book because it was based off the 3rd Harry Potter book/movie.

The inside of her book, or the mouth. I thought I got a picture of Charlotte with hers but apparently I didn't. Oops!

They had the face painter there again. She wanted to be a unicorn.

Charlotte wanted to be a dog...or in this case Sirius Black.

We went out front where there were dementors (black balloons filled with confetti). We had to think of what makes us happy and then pop the balloon with a wand using the spell, Expecto Patronum! Alice got covered in confetti.

The kids had a field trip to "Hogsmeade" and found the candy store called Honeydukes. They each were given some galleons (money) to buy a bag of candy.

The food table in the same room as Honeydukes.

The other half of Honeydukes candy store.

The bogart in the cupboard. They take shape of the thing you fear the most.

The art of reading tea leaves.

Sirius Black was there in dog form!

It's amazing how just changing our circumstance can change our mood. Sometimes we can't do that alone though as I have learned. Sometimes we need others more than we know. I'm grateful Nikki is doing better because of Curtis changing her circumstance and taking her to Boise. And I'm grateful I was able to change my circumstance by going to the party that I wasn't really in the mood to go to and visited with friends.