3 Years ago Today

Three years ago today my husband, Stephen had open heart surgery.  It was such an emotional rollercoaster for me.  I still remember being in the waiting room and taking the calls from the OR.  The surgery was long and so they would call me to keep me updated.  I remember them telling me that he was on the heart and lung machine, and me just crying.  As a nurse I could picture and had seen what that looked like.  That meant that his heart was completely stopped and they were working on it.  Can you imagine, the one that you love more than anything, with their heart STOPPED?!?!  That was hard and it was hard seeing him in pain trying to recover as his chest healed.  It was weird adjusting to the new sound of his heart as I would lay by him.  I had gotten so used to the old one that I felt like I was laying by a different man because of the new heart beat.

I did learn something that I think about often.  During this time I had many family and friends help us.  There were those who would call to see which night dinner could be brought over, or just drop by and pick up my kids, or grab laundry to do.  I remember Brittany coming to the hospital with dinner for her and I (Stpehen was still NPO).  Brittany and I sat there and talked forever.  She took me into another world as we laughed about this and that.

Then there were those who would say, “let me know if I can do anything?”  I hated that phrase.  Like I was really going to call, to let them “know”.  Didn’t they already realize that I needed help NOW!  If they were going to do something, then just say what can I do, and find something to do.  It’s sad to say but many members of my church would use this phrase.  They probably meant well, but it’s not just the THOUGHT or OFFERING to help, its the actual ACTION of service that benefits those in need.  It was my true friends and non-member friends that would just “DO” the sweet little acts of service.

Anyway, that is what I learned from this hard experience.  I try very hard NOT to use “the phrase”, but to ask when I can bring in a meal, or what day I can take your kids.

AND Stephen, I’m sure glad that you are still here with me!  I sure love you!

Being Fancy

Last night I took the two older girls on a little date.  As we were going inside the place I noticed that Rebecca didn’t have on a coat.  (Mind you it is in 30’s outside)  She did have her flashy, sequin purse and a big, flared skirt on.  Oh I forgot to mention her ginormous ring on her finger and shiny lipgloss.  Are you picturing her now?

Well I say, “Rebecca, where is your coat?”  To which she replies, “Oh I forgot it, but I did get fancy.  AND it’s more important to be fancy than to have my coat?”

Kaylee then pipes in “Rebecca are you crazy!”

“No, just fancy”  she says.

Oh my pretty little Rebecca, is such a girly girl.  It doesn’t matter how much pain or torture she will be in as long as she is pretty.

The Hair Book

Doing my girls hair everyday is a MUST!  I can’t stand having it hang in their eyes AND I love having them trapped in front of me, spending one on one time with me as I do their hair.
My sister is always keeping me organized with hair things.  Remember this cool container here on this post http://mymixofsix.blogspot.com/2009/01/girls-and-hair.html.  Well she sent a fun book at the first of the school year with updated styles.  I have been wanting to post it and thank her.  Here are a couple of the pages -




We emailed her different pictures of our girls with various hairdos and she printed them all up and slid them into a plastic photo book.  The girls LOVE looking through it and seeing themselves and their cousins.  I love being reminded of different styles.  Sometimes I get into a rut and do the same styles over and over.  The only thing I hate about the book is when my girls ask for a time consuming style and we only have 5 minutes until we have to be out the door.  That’s when the good old tried and true pony tail comes out.
Anyway, thanks Kristy for the updated hair book with hairdos from your girls, and thanks Alesha for contributing all of your girl hairdos.  My sisters and I have 12 girls all together!
Now Tanya if you would come over and do MY hair!!!

Pumpkin Patch Part 2

Well it snowed this afternoon and was in the 30’s.  I can’t believe that these pictures were from yesterday in such beautiful weather.  Anyway, here are some photos from our family field trip.

Notice how Ash is holding her belly.  Jacob tried to pull her on top of the big hay bales and scratched her tummy pretty good.  I felt so bad for her!  Other than that we had an aMAZEing time at the corn MAZE. 

Family Field Trip - Pumpkin Patch

Last night I sat watching the news and saw that today was going to be BEAUTIFUL in the low 70’s!  AND that the weather would be quickly changing (SNOW) for Thursday through the weekend.

I had just finished typing my post on Monday’s picnic in the park and remembered what a beautiful day that was.  Well, I just could not send my kids to school on a day like this.  When they woke up and started donning their uniforms, I ordered them to change their clothes and get ready for a family field trip day.  We do a few of these a year (http://mymixofsix.blogspot.com/2009/04/earth-day.html).  Of course there was cheering!!!

We went to an incredible pumpkin patch in Longmont called the Anderson Farms.  Take a look at its aerial view:

Yes, we did get lost in the train corn maze!  They had barrel trains, wagon rides, huge pumpkin patch, petting zoo, tricycle roadways, haystack mazes, feeding of goats and buffalo, playground areas…  Since it was a weekday, there were hardly any people there.  We had sooo much fun together! I loved how there was fun for the older boys and fun for the younger ones, that’s always tricky with such various ages.

Of course I took a ton of pictures that I will post tomorrow.  I will however post one favorite of Kaylee poking her head through the corn.  She was so giggly today.

We also stopped at another fun place in Denver on the way home, but I will have to put up details tomorrow because I’m just too tired tonight.

I am so glad that we made today a family field trip day!

The Starfish

“Uh, mom my teacher asked if someone would go first with their ocean project for an example”

“Oh that’s nice …”

“And I said that I could do it”

“You did?!?  So when is this due?”

“On Tuesday. And I thought that I could do this huge paper mache model, and put tubing with suckers all over the legs on the bottom, and then put rocks all over the top to make it like the real ones look like, and then spray paint it like we did the bats because it’s a fast way to paint….”

I’m thinking how fun school projects are and how fun a very creative child is when he is doing them.  NOT!!!!!!!! 

There was a lot of this going on over the weekend.

He turned out like this …

And had details like this… (The balloon is the stomach of the starfish.  I guess they have two stomachs.  The things you learn with your kids!) 

“Mom, my teacher said it was fantastic.  Thanks for helping me with my idea”

I guess it was all worth it, working with my Jacob!!!

Cheetah Running in the Leaves

I was driving home from basketball Monday morning and just couldn’t believe what a beautiful Fall day it was.  I called Stephen and told him that HE HAD to meet the little girls and me for lunch.  We decided to get fast food and take it to a park.  (Makes sense to have fast food after playing two hours of basketball?!?  NOT, but oh well).

The girls loved the leaves!  It made me wish that our trees were bigger.

I wish that we could have just laid there in the sun relaxing the entire day.  BUT, Stephen thought that he needed to get back to work, and I had laundry, dinner, and cleaning calling me.  The little girls could have stayed there the entire day!

Pig Cake

The girls and I made a pig cake for Jerrica this year. I thought that you would like to see each phase of Jerrica with it!

The Cake

Posing with the Cake

Watching Dad light the Cake

Making a Wish and Blowing the Candles

Getting One Candle OUT and Checking out the Smoke

Blowing out The Other Candle

Feeling the Satisfaction of TWO blown out Candles!

Jerrica’s Birthday

My baby is two!  We are so lucky to have her.  I can still remember going in for her 20 week ultrasound and being told that “We are surprised that you haven’t lost her yet.  You will probably lose this baby.  OR she will have some problems.”

Our little Jerrica Joy made it to us just fine and is now TWO! 

I just wanted to post a few of her favorites to remember.  She has always taken to Frog.  He is the one that she cuddles with at night and drags around.  He used to be Nathan’s until Jerrica started crawling and found him.

She loves to do board puzzles, play-dough, dance, play with balls, AND draw.

She also loves to eat chips and pizza.  I will get her out of bed in the morning and she will immediately start her pleas for chips.  If you ever ask what she wants to eat she will say pizza and chips.

She also loves shoes and tries to switch other kids with their shoes in the nursery or at the YMCA.  She is always quick to try on other people’s shoes that they take off at the front door.  We bought these sparkle ones for her birthday today.

She mimics everything Ashley does.  And between the two of them they can cause quite a bit of trouble.  I love how she has started asking Ashley, “Why?”  Just like Ashley does to me.  Ashley will be patient like I am for the first few questions and then after a while she starts yelling at Jerrica to quit asking questions.  As a matter of fact, Ash doesn’t ask quite so many questions anymore!

Jerrica is a sweetie and so expressive with her big eyes.  I think that she can get ANYTHING from her Daddy when she uses her big eyes.  We love you Jerrica Joy!!!

Date with Dad

I usually don’t post date nights with the kids, but this one was special.  Jacob just turned 12, so he was able to go to the Priesthood session with Stephen. 

Stephen made it special by taking him out to dinner as well.  Jacob was very excited to tell me that he had steak!  I think he was trying to rub it in.  I was happy that he was so thrilled to go.  I just hope that he is ALWAYS thrilled to attend conference.

Call from the Art Teacher

Last week I got a call from the Art Teacher at the kids’ school.  She told me that she wanted to talk to me about Nathan.  I thought oh no, who is he teasing now.  Then she proceeded to tell me that she had selected him from all of the art classes to receive the character award.

I guess there was “a boy” in his class that has a splint on his arm.  She had excused the class out to recess and “the boy” was still trying to clean up his work area but having a hard time because of his arm.  Nathan went over and helped without being asked, and was very friendly and nice to “the boy”.  I was so proud of him and excited that the teacher had called to share.

THEN, I talked to Nathan.  Apparently, “the boy” was Jeremy.  Jeremy is Nathan’s best friend in his class, who ALSO plays competitive soccer.  It all made sense then.  Why would Nathan go out to recess if Jeremy wasn’t out there.  He obviously had to help his friend so they could play soccer TOGETHER.  Oh well, I guess he still was nice, in a little selfish way.

Bat Friday

Today was Friend Friday. I’m kinda wondering about these half day Fridays. I hurry, hurry, hurry and clean in the morning so that I can go and play basketball. Then I run a couple of errands and head over to the school to pick up the kids. When I drop off kids and parents drop off their kids I still look frazzled from my basketball work-out and probably stink. I’m sure they wonder about me!!! But I’m not about to stop my basketball or Friend Friday!!!

Anyway, today for the project we made these little pumpkin bats. I was thinking that they would be cute as spiders too. I bought mini pumpkins for 50 cents a piece at Albertson’s. We spray painted them black. I knew the spray painting would be the fun part for my older boys. Then we slit their sides for the wings and glued on eyes, nose and fangs. They were fast and fun. I was sad that my Becca was at a friend’s house and missed the project. She is my project girl!

The kids then played Battlefield Dodge Ball on the trampoline FOREVER. Yeah for Fall weather!!!

Halloween Pictures

I LOVE having photos of my kids up during the holiday. I put my little witch near the witch’s shelf here http://mymixofsix.blogspot.com/2009/09/time-to-decorate.html It’s just fun to have them here and there.

Well, my friend taught me about the Liquify Tool in Photoshop. Can I just say lots of fun!!! I decided that I wasn’t going to play with it for nothing and saved my masterpieces.

Of course I had to share the new found fun with my sister Alesha. She took it a step further and gave me the idea of replacing the kids normal pictures on the wall with the “liquified” pictures.

So our wall is filled with Halloweeny pictures of my kids now. It makes me feel like we are the Adams Family instead of the Thompson Family. Oh holidays are fun!

I just had to post my sister’s pictures here too.  I had to laugh as she was telling me this story this morning.

She had just changed out the photos without telling anyone to see who would notice first.  Well, when her two little girls saw them they would keep running back to the wall to see if the photos had changed back.  Too funny!!!

Thanks again for the idea Lee!

 

I think Dalton’s picture reflects himself a little better this way!!!!!!!!

Here is Jacob’s print from the wall that I had printed as a 4x6 to stick in their Halloween lunches or use on a special Halloween dinner night.

Biking with the Boys

A few weeks ago I went for an early morning (5:45am to be exact) bike ride with some friends on the Woodmen Park n Ride Trail.  I knew that I had to bring my boys back to it.  It has beautiful scenery and fun bridges.

So on Saturday afternoon the boys and I did it.  I had felt sorry for Jacob because he had been doing service projects all day long.  He cleaned the church in the morning and then cleaned a highway with the boy scouts later. 

I was going to go with just him for a date, but of course he asked and wanted Nathan to come along.  Those boys think that they have to do everything together.  I didn’t have my camera on the ride, BUT I did have my cell phone to take a picture and capture the memory.

We kept yelling at Nathan to keep up with us.  I kinda forgot that he had just played a soccer game an hour before!  At any rate, it was fun to be with my boys!

Halloween Silhouettes

Last year I wanted the Martha Stewart witch silhouette, but of course Michaels was sold out as well as her online store. As I started thinking about it, I realized that I probably could cut my own out of black cardstock. So I pulled up the image on Martha’s site to follow and cut away. I was excited about how she turned out. I was even more excited when I realized that mine was actually LARGER than the store’s version.

Yesterday I was getting out a few more decorations to put up and found my witch. I thought that it would be fun to add another one to the window this year. I went to my artist Jacob with a request and reimbursement for his time. I was thrilled at what he made. I find him quite amazing because he pulled his idea out of his head whereas I had to follow someone else’s image. Here is our dining room’s window scene. It is fun because it’s right by our witch’s shelf.

Then this afternoon Ashley and I did a little bat project with her hands to add to our decor. She kinda got carried away with the glue. I’m thinking that it would be fun to do something about hands tonight for FHE and have everyone’s hands made into bats on our door.

I’m also thinking of leaving all of this Halloween decor up for the year. It’s just too fun!!!