Jazz Dessert Night and Helping

It's that time of year again for the Jazz Dessert Night fundraiser at the high school and it happened Tuesday night. Over the weekend they had sent out a sign up to help with different things. I signed up to bring some dessert (it had to be store bought) and then eventually I decided I would go ahead and help set up the dessert table and help during the event. The girls really wanted to come again this year, and I told them that I would be helping this time. They were excited to come and help too! There were many different types of desserts donated and so our first job was to fill the platters with different types of desserts. The girls got creative with this part and really enjoyed helping the entire night (3 hours). I think we will volunteer again next year! Jack, of course, played with the band. We came home with a couple boxes of desserts, some of them Crumbl Cookies. I was trying not to eat any the last couple days but fell into temptation with those Crumbl cookies. I ate an oatmeal one yesterday and today a snickerdoodle. I told Jack that whatever remains by Thursday evening (tonight) he can take it to Choral Fusion practice to share with friends. I don't need any more! 😂 The sooner we get them out of this house the better!

Anyway, the gal in charge of the dessert table (Gladys) said she loved having the girls come and help and that they were so good! I was a little worried about how it would go at first, but these girls really stepped up and did a great job! And they enjoyed helping people who needed help getting desserts on their plates (as did I). It was a fun night and I'm glad all 3 of us had something to do while listening to the jazz band and jazz choirs perform, besides stuffing our faces. The girls took breaks to have some desserts and even I had one slice of Bundt cake (which was really good). Alice found one of her little friends from our ward and recruited her to come help us also. We were all very tired by the end of the night, but it was a good tired. 😊

Alice designed this platter.

Three of the platters that Charlotte designed. I was really impressed by the one on the green plate. 

Jack doing his thing.

Late Friday night Stillman and Michelle came to town because Saturday they were taking professional pictures of the new employee in Curtis's office. They stayed in a hotel again, but dropped the kids of Saturday morning so they could hang out with us (except Curtis, who stayed in the bedroom all day). After they finished with pictures they came back to eat and play a few games. I introduced them to a new dice game that Curtis and I learned from friends in our ward recently called Bank. You use two dice and an app on the phone to play it. Then we played a board game called Evolution. It was similar to their bird game that they had introduced us to. I like the simpler games, but I did enjoy playing this one with them after we got going. Stillman must have liked the Bank game because he wanted to play another round before they left. However, I taught them my other new dice game called Yamslam! instead. It's the one that's like Yahtzee. Michelle says she likes Yahtzee so I'm guessing she liked this game, but I don't remember if she said. We did one round of each game and then they headed back home. I guess originally they were going to come for the derby as well, but didn't realize it was on a Friday night. That didn't work with their schedule. It was good to see them again though and do something fun. We just wish Curtis could have joined us!

Last week Garrett needed help with a school assignment answering questions related to "The Crucible" play and movie. They had watched the movie in school and Act 1 of the play, but he didn't understand it. So, Saturday night we rented it on Prime and got through 1.5 pages (out of 4). Some questions were just hard to figure out and we had to keep pausing the movie to either answer questions or help someone else with something. We didn't get to bed until 11:30ish, but we didn't finish. Fortunately, we had 48 hours to finish watching the movie. Sunday we took a break from it and then Monday night after activity days and dinner, we finished watching it and answering his questions. This time Curtis was feeling good enough to watch it and help answer the questions also. The movie and play are written about the Salem witch hunt and trials back in 1692. It was hard to watch that movie because of how ridiculous the situation was. They were dramatized but it was based off of real events and it just made you sick to think of innocent people getting hanged because some young girls claimed people were witches and dealt with the Devil to keep from getting themselves in trouble. 

Then last night Jack needed some help with his project he's doing about "To Kill a Mockingbird". While he went to mutual last night, Curtis found the movie and we both started watching it so we would understand what was going on. We didn't finish the movie until 10pm. That didn't give Curtis much time to help Jack before going to bed while I got the girls to bed. That was a sad movie too because an innocent black man got accused of doing something he didn't and ended up getting shot and killed when he tried to run for it. I knew I had seen and read that in high school, but I had forgotten what it was about until now. While they weren't the best events to learn about in history, it was nice to be able to sit down and learn with the boys as they were doing these projects. I don't know if Jack was able to finish his project on time, but I hope so. Curtis says he was being a perfectionist, so it was taking longer.

This morning I got to go help in Charlotte's class again with math. I'm really glad that I have been going because now I feel like I can help Charlotte better at home. There was an assignment they had last week about estimating fractions that I had no idea how to do that. I was nervous about going to help in her class the next day because I couldn't figure it out with Charlotte. She even tried to get help from Jack and Curtis. After I went and the teacher went over the homework with the class and explained it, it made so much more sense. We had been over complicating it! She was able to bring that homework home to redo over the weekend and it went much faster because we both understood it better. They don't lie when they say, "knowledge is power". I felt empowered after learning how to do it and felt confident in helping her. This morning when I helped in class, I helped correct some math papers for adding and subtracting fractions. I really enjoy going each week now and learning with the kids.

Derby, Illness and Activities

Last week Alice had her dental cleaning and checkup. Everything looked good and she has 3 loose teeth on top. One of them is her extra tooth. By Friday night Alice pulled out one of those loose teeth. The Tooth Fairy was busy and forgot to take her tooth that night, BUT she wrote a note and gave Alice a little extra money and left it at the front door after ringing the bell. (Thank you Charlotte for the idea and help!) And she magically took the tooth as well.

Thursday night was our Relief Society activity, and we played BUNCO. I came at 5:45 to help set up and the activity started at 6:30pm. We had 7 tables, and almost all of the seats were filled with 4 women at each table (we played with one ghost). Each table had a rectangle piece of felt taped down to the middle to make the rolling of the dice quieter and there was a small bowl of goodies, a different flavor of candy on each table. I think everyone had a good time. There were 5 prizes given out. Sister Smith won a prize with chocolate making stuff in it but gave it to me because she said she couldn't eat the stuff that is in it. So, I will be making some hot chocolate bombs with the girls soon. 

Friday night was our Ward's first ever pine wood derby and there were no rules except no combustion. It was funny to see some of the ideas people came up with to race their cars. The most memorable was Matt Wilden our Elder's Quorum president, who got his car across the track using a bungee cord. His car didn't bother having wheels on it because it flew the whole way. We had to back away and be careful when his went. Originally Curtis was very excited to do this activity and to make a car with the boys, but he was so busy with work this month that he had no time to do anything. It was very last minute when Jack put his car together and labeled it with a marker as "The Block". Charlotte found an old kit Garrett never put together yet and made a car for her and Alice. They did tape some coins on it before the race to help give it some weight, but it didn't help much. They still had fun and Jack won a prize for "Least Engineered". He also would have won the slowest car but they gave it to someone else since he already got a prize. The prizes were made by the Horne's with their 3D printer. Brother Horne felt bad and later made another prize for Jack for the slowest car, which was a turtle, because he felt like he should have gotten it. He sent it with his daughter to mutual yesterday to give to Jack. So, there were two slowest car winners. Other prizes were for fastest car, most engineered, most likely to be in a Lego set, and some others I can't remember.

Jack and Charlotte did this race together.

Her car was dedicated to Milo. She decorated it while we drove to the church!

There's "The Block", the least engineered car of the night.

Poor Curtis started getting sick in the middle of the week. By Friday night he was feeling the chills and bundled up in layers. He was in charge of the computer at the derby races, so he felt like he had to be there. He also came early to help set up. By Saturday night he was feeling absolutely miserable, and he developed a fever of 102.5. He hadn't been taking the right pills and so we made sure he got some Ibuprofen or Tylenol, and his temp came down by the next morning. I had also kept refilling the humidifier and the oil diffuser. Thankfully he was able to sleep all day Saturday and Sunday. Saturday night I slept out on the couch to hopefully make it easier for both of us to sleep, but I didn't sleep very well. I had even put both of our cats outside to make sure neither of them woke me up, but I just wasn't that comfortable on the couch. Curtis had woken up several times earlier that week around 3:15am to go in to work to catch up on stuff. I told him that could cause problems, especially since the boys and I were recently sick. Sure enough, he paid for it. 

Monday morning, he slept longer and was planning on just doing a few things for work from home and then getting some more sleep. Then at 8:10am he remembered that he was supposed to check in on Friday to see if he had jury duty! He had already done the first week of jury duty and didn't have to go in, but this was the 2nd week and because he was so sick he totally spaced it. He checked on his computer and of course, they wanted him to come in that morning at 8am! He raced to find a phone number to call and had to leave a message about him being late. Then I told him he just better get over there and talk to them in person. He was able to get over there and they said they had enough jurors and that he was fine to not come in the rest of the week and would not be penalized. Thank goodness!! He said he felt like he was drunk while driving over there because he was dizzy and lightheaded and that he shouldn't have been driving. I had to take the girls to school, otherwise I would have driven him over. By Tuesday he was feeling good enough to go in to work. And now he's feeling pretty normal again. Thank goodness!

I had signed us up to feed the missionaries on Sunday, but with Curtis being sick, I ended up sending the boys over with plates of food for them instead. The girls and I also went to a mission farewell open house for Ethan Chandler. He had come into Charlotte's class a few times and he was in there on Sunday and invited the whole class to come, so Charlotte was excited to go. They had lots of goodies and a book to write in. It got me thinking about Garrett and his mission prep stuff. We had gotten overwhelmed with the health section of paperwork and took a break from it for a while. Now I felt like we needed to get back to it this week.

Monday was activity days, and I wanted to bring chocolate dipped strawberries for part of the snack because I enjoyed making them for Charlotte's school class. There were at least two girls who had never had one before. One of them liked it but the other didn't. Most girls liked them though. We also had pretzels and a gluten free cracker from Costco. There's one girl in our group who needs gluten free. She also shouldn't have dairy but can take a pill for it so that she can. We had been doing so many crafts and games lately that we decided that we should try to do something a little more spiritual, except we also wanted it to be fun. And thinking about the Children's guidebook with the 4 categories of goals to work on; spiritual, physical, intellectual, and social. Sister Gale really wanted to work on helping the girls memorize the articles of faith and this year it goes even better with us studying the Doctrine and Covenants. She also said that she heard and could vouch for herself that movement while learning something would help you memorize or remember it better. 

We started with a teamwork building game where we all held hands in a circle and had to pass a hula hoop over our bodies and around the entire circle. Then we talked about the 4 different categories and decided that we were going to try memorizing the first 4 articles of faith (mostly the 1st one) while we exercised. I wrote the verses on a big whiteboard in the gym. After going over it a few times, they split off to either grab a jump rope or a hula hoop and repeat the verses while they jumped or moved. The next part was to play "hot potato", and each girl had to pass the stuffed animal around the circle after they said the next word in the verse. We were more concerned about them saying the verse than we were about going fast. Sometimes I would help by pointing to the next word on the board and they could look if they needed to. The last activity was to do it with hopscotch in the kitchen. I think they girls enjoyed it, and Charlotte has now quoted to me the first and second articles of faith!

These are fun to make!

Playing hot potato and talking about the verses.

A Busy and Unusual Week!

A lot happened last week. On Sunday the 9th, we finally started the process of filling out mission paperwork for Garrett to serve a mission! Some things go quick, but the health information is taking a bit longer, with his heart condition and his mental health as the major things. It's overwhelming, but at the same time it's exciting to be starting the process. They have started some stake mission prep classes on Sunday afternoons, but I haven't been able to get Garrett to go to one yet. I think it would help him a lot, but I think he doesn't want to go because of the amount of people that we've heard have been going, which is close to 50 people. However, Garrett has at least started going to a temple prep class with just his bishop and 2 other graduating seniors from our ward. They do that Monday nights at Bishop Chan's house. I'll take what I can get, I guess!

Monday was activity days, and we had the girls make homemade valentines using heart shaped doilies and sewing two together using a needle and ribbon. Before going all the way around they would fill it with a chocolate candy and some paper conversation hearts. They each got enough materials to make two hearts but most only had time to get one made at the activity. It would have helped if we had more needles with bigger eyes (holes). We gave the girls the choice to give them to whomever they wanted. Charlotte never did finish her second heart, and I never did see Alice's finished heart. I think she gave it to her schoolteacher.

It was Sunday night that I started feeling a little sinus stuff starting in my nose and feeling a little fatigued. I started taking pills and doing allergy nose sprays right away to make sure I kept my breathing clear. I was tired on Monday at our activity, but I was feeling mostly good and able to keep my nose clear. On Tuesday I was feeling pretty good and I went to an appointment to have my very first mammogram. It was definitely a little weird but it wasn't too bad. Results came back normal. It's a good thing insurance covers mammogram screening, otherwise I would not want to do this every year. Another bonus is that we recently heard about a program through our insurance, Blue Cross, that will pay us incentives if we use in network facilities for certain procedures that would be lower cost. It's called Smart Shopper. I should be getting either $50 or $60 for getting my mammogram. That's more incentive for me to do this every year!

On Wednesday I had another appointment with a gynecologist to get a pap test. I haven't done that in 8 years, so I guess I was due. I haven't received the results for that yet, but I'm glad I finally got that done too. The same afternoon, I attended a Relief Society planning meeting for our next activity, which is tomorrow night. We'll be playing Bunco with a Valentine theme. It should be fun.

By Wednesday night I was feeling a little worse, just a little more tired and maybe a little sore throat starting. Normally Thursday morning I go to help with the math lesson in Charlotte's class, but I told the teacher I better stay home and rest this week because I was really feeling the fatigue now and I still needed to get some other stuff done as well. Charlotte had signed me up to make chocolate covered strawberries for their Valentine's class party on Friday. I had to go to the store to get fresh strawberries and almond bark for melting. The sore throat faded in the morning after eating oatmeal and drinking a honey lemon tea (honey, lemon juice, water and sometimes apple cider vinegar). After the girls got home, Charlotte got to work on her Valentine box dog, which she had started the day before. She wanted to do one last cool Valentine's box since it will be her last year doing Valentine parties. 

I learned a new simple heart hair style that I was able to do on Alice on Thursday.

Charlotte and her Valentine box.

It was designed after Milo, of course.

Uh oh, Milo's eating chocolate!

Even with the Milo tag.

I felt good enough to get the strawberries done. I enjoyed doing it too.

My plan was that Charlotte would take the strawberries to school with her the next morning. Well, it started snowing Thursday around 11am. Driving to pick up the girls from school was fun. I had to go slow and almost got stuck on a hill. I also decided that before the kids got home, I should go out and shovel the snow off the driveway so the boys could park easily. Then I started doing the sidewalk so the middle schoolers could walk on a clean path. Our neighbor Izzy shoveled most of our sidewalk already and I think he stopped to take a break. I stopped right before our other neighbor's driveway and went back to finish my driveway. The boys got home while I was shoveling, but neither of them came out to help me. I was NOT happy. They went in and watched TV while I was out there shoveling, while not even feeling very good. I told Curtis to talk to them later about that. Izzy came back out after I had gone in, and I saw him shoveling our neighbor's driveway. 

The roads were slick, so they canceled school. It's not very often you hear disappointment with that type of announcement, but the girls were looking forward to their Valentine's parties. I decided I better put the strawberries in the freezer to take the following week when they would have their party. I learned that I should have cut the tops with the leaves off first before freezing them. I didn't even think about what the leaves would do when frozen. I cut them off later after they were frozen and some of the leaves were falling off as I grabbed them. There were several inches of snow, I think, and this time our neighbor Paul (whom I had shoveled part of his sidewalk the day before, and whom Izzy did his driveway) came over with his snow blower and did most of our driveway and sidewalks. Curtis had instructed the boys to do it, but Paul beat them to it. The boys weren't even out of bed yet when Paul was out there. We are blessed to have such awesome neighbors on both sides of us! I just had to tell Garrett to shovel the walkway to our door because Paul did not get that part.

I was pretty happy that school was cancelled because I was feeling worse on Friday (no thanks to shoveling snow the day before) and I'm glad I didn't have to take kids to school. I was very tired and did the same thing with the sore throat in the morning. It felt better after getting the hot drink and food. I had to tell Garrett to take a couple of pictures for me of the girls playing in the snow because I did not feel like getting up to do it myself. They had been so disappointed with not getting snow in January and now they finally got to play in the snow! They even went across the street to do some sledding on the school hill.

Milo LOVED the snow! He was so excited that he would run around outside by himself, back and forth.

Curtis was a sweetheart and brought home some Papa Murphy's pizza for dinner for Valentine's Day, one was heart shaped. He also picked up a little something for all three of his girls. A single rose each, a donut and a small stuffed animal. I was not picture worthy that day, so it was just the girls who got pictures.

I spent the whole day binge watching Little House on the Prairie. I had been working on watching the entire season off and on last year and I was finally in season 9. We ended the day with watching "Enchanted" with the girls though. We had to talk them into it. Charlotte didn't remember that she had seen it before until we watched it, and Alice had never seen it. Of course, they both loved it.

Saturday I just binge watched more "Little House" and rested. The roads were better by then and Jack was able to drive himself to Choral Fusion practice. I can't really remember what else we did that day; just a lot of TV time for me and the girls played in the snow some more. It was going to snow again that night and we were almost sure that church would be cancelled, but early Sunday morning the message came that the main roads were clear and it was NOT cancelled. It just looked bad in the neighborhood. It wasn't that bad though driving through it. I wasn't even sure I was going to go to church just because I hadn't been feeling well, but I felt well enough to go by Sunday. I was still pretty tired though.

This is what it looked like Sunday morning after Curtis shoveled the driveway again.

There wasn't any school on Monday because of it being President's Day, but the kids did go back on Tuesday and do their Valentine's parties. I told Charlotte's teacher I would bring the frozen strawberries around the time of the party, which was the last hour of the day. When I showed up, they were on lock down. I wasn't sure if she would even get the treats because her class is in a portable. I dropped them off and went home, not knowing why they had a lock down. Charlotte's class did get the strawberries at the end of class and enjoyed them. What a very unusual Valentine's it has been this year! I'm just thankful that I wasn't more sick than I was. My nose stayed clear most of the time. There was just one morning that it got stuffy because I had slacked off on taking meds the evening before, but I got it cleared pretty quickly with the nose spray and more pills. So, I just had to deal with a little bit of sinus issues and minor sore throats, and lots of fatigue. I'll take that over a stuffy nose, bad sore throat, cough and mucus any day!

Jack's Sweet 16

Jack officially turned 16 yesterday! It's been fun watching him grow up into such an outgoing and accomplished young man. To celebrate his birthday, we had a little family party of just us on Sunday evening. He decided that he wanted cake this time. For Sunday, we made a homemade German Chocolate cake. We did things a little out of the norm by singing and doing presents first, then eating homemade smoked chili for dinner and then eating cake and ice cream. We got Jack a wooden puzzle that he can build into an owl clock. He likes doing those and we thought it would be nice to have one that actually has a purpose (clock). Then I was shopping at Goodwill one day and found 4 CD sets of a dramatization of the books for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and they were in excellent condition. Each set was $4. I had been thinking of getting Jack a CD player anyway so he could listen to our old CDs in his room and not have to keep borrowing my phone all of the time for Spotify; now I would definitely have to get him one, so we did. It looks just like the one we got for Garrett, except white colored. We also got him a case of mini sugar free Dr. Peppers for his snack/treat. We pranked him with just giving him one out of the package at first. I don't think he fell for it. 

I messed up on one of his gifts. The Lord of the Rings game that he got for Christmas was an extension. He didn't have the original game yet and so we went ahead and ordered that after Christmas. Jack said he would pay for the extension so he could just keep it but in my mind, I was thinking it could be a birthday gift. Well, he subtracted that amount from money we owed him, and I didn't realize it. We wrapped it up and gave it to him (again). Well, to make up for my blunder, he found something on Amazon that he really wanted, a Viking horn. We weren't expecting it until Friday but it got delivered on Tuesday! 

Anyway, later Sunday night the girls really wanted to play hide and seek in the dark. We gave in and played, except Garrett who stayed in his room to read his book. We played long enough for everyone to have a turn being the seeker. I have to say, I came up with a really good hiding spot on the last round. I finally had to give myself away. Alice was the seeker for that round and I was hiding in the downstairs bathtub. At first, I was just going to stand there and be caught easily, but then I had the idea that I could stand in between the liner and the curtain with my feet inside the tub. The liner was long enough to cover my feet and the curtain is dark enough to hide my silhouette. Alice and Charlotte both tried looking in but couldn't find me. We let the seeker use a red light to look for people, so it's not too obvious. Another good hiding spot was Jack hiding on the chairs under the kitchen table. It was Charlotte's turn to seek that time and she walked by him multiple times. It was funny! We hadn't played that game in a long time, so I'm glad we did. It was a fun way to end the day.

I baked the cake and Curtis decorated it. (It was just a box mix and premade frosting). Thank goodness for our neighbors who had two round pans for us to borrow. We had bought a release pan and found out after we got home that it was not good for batter. It's meant for things like cheesecake.

16 sparkling candles

He was lighting on his own and then Curtis joined in to help speed it up.

I love the look on his face.

There's a smile!

This was Jack opening the single can of mini Dr. Pepper. The girls had fun with putting his gift in a girly bag to be a joke.

His Viking horn that he got two days later.

Building his owl clock. He got it done in one evening.

On Jack's actual birthday, which was yesterday, he was all set to get out of school at 10:30 for early release day for the high schools. Then head over to the DMV to get his driver's license (that we had an appointment for) and then back to our house to have friends over from 12-5pm for his friend's party. Well, all that quickly changed yesterday morning when the weather gave us a light layer of snow and ice, causing the school district to declare a 2 hour late start. That meant that the early release day for the high schools was now canceled and rescheduled for next week. Well, Jack and I weren't happy about that but it is what it is. The boys went to school, but then I picked up Jack to take him to the DMV to get his license and then took him back to school. 

Directly after school, all of his friends walked over or drove to our house for the party, which was basically around 2:40pm. They were going to go until 5:30. A couple friends got picked up at that time but most of them stayed until a little after 6:00. They started the party with opening gifts from friends that brought one. His friend Caleb, who shares his birthday, also had a gift to open from one of the friends. Then they played a few rounds of Secret Hitler. While playing, I laid out a few snacks of carrots and broccoli with ranch to dip, Ruffles cheddar sour cream chips, and fresh mandarin oranges. At about 4:30 I took off to Walmart to grab a couple of pizzas. I did not have room for them in my fridge, so I had to wait until we were ready for them before purchasing. We cooked them up and they ate the pizza. And we quickly lit the candles for the cake, and they sang.  This cake was one ordered from Costco. I have never ordered a cake from them before, but it was good. I'm just glad we went with a small round cake instead of a sheet. I'm also glad I picked it up the day before, so it was one less thing I had to worry about on Wednesday. After dessert, the friends that were left played a few rounds of Signs. Jack and Garrett then had to go to youth group at 7:00.

This big box is a giant Jenga game.

A couple of friends bought him a Pepsi Snuggie. He's not a fan of Pepsi and prefers Coke or Dr. Pepper. These friends like to joke around with each other. Another friend gave him a Southridge shirt because his mom makes shirts. So, he put it on top.

Another friend gave him a princess crown that was popped out of a birthday card. And he showed them his horn while he was at it.

The girls helped me by putting this sign in the yard. I didn't even notice the "R" and "I" were swapped until I took the girls to school this morning.  Bless their hearts. I just laughed with the girls about it this morning. I guess I was more focused on the kids when taking this picture than I was the sign. Ha ha!

Playing Signs

It was a pretty good birthday.

The snow almost ruined our plans, but it turned out just fine. They will be getting together at Eli's house next week right after early release like they usually do to eat and play games. So, they get two parties basically!

Happy birthday Jack!! We love you!

On a side note, Jack drove to youth group with Garrett last night for the first time without a parent. And tonight he drove by himself for the first time to his Choral Fusion practice. It's exciting and nerve wrecking at the same time! But I'm happy for him and this milestone he has reached! He's showing up his older siblings again by getting his license way earlier.