i don't like being sick

There have been a lot of people getting sick this past month or two. We've somehow managed to avoid all of it{for the most part...Emma Grace had a fever for a few days a couple of weeks ago} until this past week. It started last Saturday. I started feeling kind of yucky, kind of congested and kind of worn down. Like any other mother who know they can never get sick, I continued to act like I was not sick. But by Monday afternoon, I crashed. I turned on "Barney" for Eliza and Charlie and tried really hard to lay down. Charlie was all over me. Oh my poor head!! He has no mercy for the head! He just crawls all over it! So I was very happy for the big girls to get home and help me out with the two of them while I rested. Todd came home from work an hour early. Thank heavens! I was in bed by 6:30 and didn't wake up until 7:00 the next morning. Of course, I was up a little bit through the night feeling horrible. Cold chills! Sweating profusely{is that how you spell that?}! The next day was a little bit better and by Wednesday I felt pretty good, but it wasn't over just yet.

Wednesday night it felt like my eyeball was being stratched to death by something. I tried so hard to get it out! Todd put drops in my eye but nothing helped. I finally resolved that the only thing I could do was close my eyes and keep them as still as possible so it wouldn't stratch anymore. Once I was laying really still I started having a coughing fit! The cough was part of the sickness I had had. The lingering cough was the last symptom. So lucky me! I'm laying there in bed trying to relax my eye and I start coughing and can't quit. I felt bad for my sweet husband laying next to me so I went out to the couch so he wouldn't be up all night too.
The next morning I called a friend in the ward who is a doctor to ask him what he thought about it. He told me to meet him at his office in an hour. I was so nice of him to offer to help but I'm not sure I'm so thankful for his technique....oh my...have you ever had your eye flushed out by a doctor. That is just NOT nice!! I think it was worse then child birth. Okay....so I've never had natural childbirth. But really....that hurts to have that much water SPRAYED into your eye. If my eye wasn't swollen and irritated before this it was now.

infected eye{as if I needed to tell you which one this was}

healthy eye {wish I had done my eyebrows before I took this picture}


I hope that by the next day which was Friday that the swelling would be gone from the whole experience and life would be back to normal. Oh NO! The swelling and the {mild}headache were still there. With it being Friday and worried that it may get worse over the weekend, I decided to go to an opthamologist to see if there was anything else wrong. After waiting in the doctors office for 1 hour and 45 minutes{I felt so bad for the friend who volunteered to take my children}, I saw the doctor. After his 2 minute evaluation, he determined that I had a viral infection{pink eye but he says that too "lose" a term for it and doesn't like to call it that...whatever!}. So after all that I have an eye infection that you can do absolutely nothing for. Basically, it's just an extention of all of the other junk I've had this past week! Can this week just be over please!!! Hopefully my eye will return to normal soon. I'm tired of feeling like someone punched me in the eye!

Of course, this has completely thrown my running off this week. I felt well enough to run 3 miles on Wednesday{or maybe it was Thursday morning} and this morning Todd and I ran 8 miles. I think I pushed myself{with my swollen eye} a little too hard though. My knee has been killing me all day! I think my muscles were too weak to try and run that far so quickly. I'll start it off slow next week and hopefully run a long distance by next Saturday!

ladybugs

Every year at this time, we get a little bag of ladybugs from Home Depot. Not for our lovely garden{I wish} but for our children's amusement. There are approximately 1500 ladybugs in one bag. I think that about half of that 1500 is already dead when you purchase them. But the rest come crawling right out when you cut the bag open. For the most part, the kids have the best time letting the ladybugs crawl all over them. From year to year there is usually one child that because of feeling a little squirmish about bugs doesn't want them to crawl on them. This year everyone enjoyed the little critters.

Charlie was probably the most excited! He squealed with delight and pointed at every one he could. He was more than happy to let them tickle him all over.

By the next day the ladybugs had either died or flown away. Except for the 20 or so that the girls had captured in a container to try to prolong their life. They punched holes in the top and gave them a little bit of grass for their survival. Of course they were dead the next day too.

Eliza was eating her snack at the table the next day, when she suddenly said, "The Holy Ghost told me go check on ladybugs". And off she went to go check on the ladybugs in the container. I laughed so hard inside at just how cute that was. Oh my!! She cracks me up on a daily basis.

good deals

So Brenna has been complaining that she doesn't have any shirts to wear to school. How old is she? I'm in so much trouble when she's a teenager! But, actually I agree with her. Now that the weather has warmed up, she doesn't have many shirts that fit her. So Brenna, Emma Grace and I went last night to find a couple of shirts for both of them. I thought we would just go to OLD NAVY. But then as we were about to pass Dillard's, I decided to go check out what they had. And we lucked out!! This is the stack we came home with{minus the shirts that they are all wearing today}. In years past I've been pretty good at shopping the "end of season sales" to stock up for the next year. But the past year or two I've been a little lazy about it. So I was happy to catch this sale last night.
Get to a Dillard's as soon as possible while they still have some selection. We were able to get a couple of short sleeve shirts for each of them to wear right now and several long sleeve shirts for next year. So here is how the "low-down" of our good deals.

{All of the kids stuff was on average $5.00 a piece}11 shirts for the three girls, 1 pair of pants, 2 pair of pants for Charlie, 3 shirts for Charlie....all at the great price of....
2 pairs of jeans{that I desperately needed} and 3 shirts for me...all at the great price of..... Nothing better than getting great deals!!

up to something {4}

Sorry for the quality of some of these pictures. Once again I forgot to change my ISO before trying to hurry and get the shot.

Charlie decided he wanted some grapes out of the bag sitting on the table. This is what happened next, of course.

Charlie loves to sort the laundry AFTER I sort the laundry. I find laundry all down the hallway. He's such a big helper!

Charlie got the stool and put it up to the drawer where the plug for the griddle belongs. He took the plug and figured he could somehow hook it up to this little boat. I'm sure he thought it would do something cool. I didn't get a good picture before he was off to something else. Notice the really cute shorts he's wearing! You can't tell but those are blue sharks on there. It's a swimsuit we just got along with some other "hand-me-downs" {thanks Cindy}! He got them off of his changing table and insisted on wearing them. When I tried to put his regular pants on, he started fussing and I knew immediately it was because he wanted to wear the shorts he had picked out. I've since hidden the shorts until it's time to go to the pool!

One of Charlie's MOST favorite things to do is to get in this little car and go down the little hill in the neighborhood. It's like a mini rollorcoaster. He would go down a much bigger hill if we would let him!
This is the spot on my carpet after Charlie {and Eliza} were recently "up to something". I smelled something burning around the house and started searching frantically for what it could be. After about 5 minutes of looking all over the house. I realized that the floor lamp in the front room wasn't standing up. It was laying on the floor on the other side of the ottoman. Too much longer and this could have been a lot worse than this hole melted into my carpet.

images of marching fo{u}rth

Today has been so much fun! Brad and Sarah and their family came over for lunch to celebrate march fo{u}rth. This is how we celebrated.....


We had a PICNIC in our backyard with {what else?} "foot"long subs. Yum! Yum!

It's fun to be able to do something as a FAMILY and encourage all of the children to set goals. This is Brad and Corbin. Corbin's goal is to learn to ride his bike with no training wheels.
Everyone in the family in three different states {Arizona, Kentucky, and Georgia} sent me their goals for 2008 in email. We had fun talking about all the NEW GOALS!As part of the fun, I trace the children's feet on a large white tablecloth. Emma Grace says this tickles her foot!
Of course, you can't celebrate march fo{u}rth without MARCHING DRUMS and MARCHING MUSIC. The children marched around the house and backyard while "The Saints Go Marching In" was playing.

In marching order, that is Brenna, Alyssa, Eliza, and Emma Grace. Corbin was right behind Emma Grace but didn't make it into the picture. They made their cute little signs last night before bed. If you ask me, it was nothing more then a way to get out of going to bed. They knew I wouldn't say no when they asked me if they could do it. Their signs were very cute though!!

And the GOLDEN BOOT winners, of course!! Three out of the four GOLDEN BOOT winners were here. Here they are in order of importance!! Hee! Hee! Don't tell Todd I said that!

Alyssa

Sarah

Todd

march fo{u}rth 2008

Today is March Fo{u}rth!

Let's march fo{u}rth today by setting goals to become better people each day. Here are a couple of quotes that I found about setting goals and marching fo{u}rth that I love.

"Life offers many challenges. Go forward worthily and with faith. The Lord will make you equal to every righteous task.....Let us go forth like the armies of Helaman and build the kingdom of God. Like the royal army, let us be “united, bold, and strong, … marching forth to conquer on life’s great battlefield” (see Hymns, no. 251). All of these hopes, blessings, and opportunities will come to us if we will only believe and be not afraid." -James E. Faust“Don’t Be Afraid,” New Era, Jul 1998, 4

"I am so thoroughly convinced that if we don’t set goals in our life and learn how to master the technique of living to reach our goals, we can reach a ripe old age and look back on our life only to see that we reached but a small part of our full potential. When you learn to master the principle of setting a goal, you will then be able to make a great difference in the results you attain in this life." -M. Russell Ballard“Go for It!,” New Era, Mar 2004, 4

Fears Family March Forth Goals for 2008

Todd: Read the Doctrine & Covenants
Journal every day
Submit at least 1 book proposal to a publisher
Run a full marathon
Give my wife a hug and a 6 second kiss every day{okay, I added that one to his list}

Liz: Run a full marathon
Take twelve family names to the temple
Run 800 miles by December 2008
Learn to play 3 hymns from the hymnbook
Give my husband a hug and a 6 second kiss every day

Brenna: Save $50.00
Journal four times a week
Read 1 chapter a week in the Book of Mormon
Practice the piano 30 minutes a day 5 days a week
Get to bed by 8:30/8:45 on school nights{I’m in full support of this goal}

Emma Grace: send birthday cards to all my cousins
Learn to play 2 songs from the Primary Passages song book
Go on one horse trail ride

Eliza: Learn to ride a bike without training wheels
Send birthday cards to all my cousins

Charlie: Learn to talk

Scott: Journal everyday
Have daily scripture study with Tracey
Don’t acquire any new debt

Tracey: Learn something new each quarter
Have daily scripture study with Scott
Don’t acquire any new debt
Bradley: Go camping with Corbin & Family at least 4 times this yearGo to Hawaii on Vacation with SarahJournal everydayRead the Book of Mormon cover to coverAttend the temple once a monthWrite a children’s book
Sarah: Attend temple once a monthJournal writingScripture studyKeep photos organized and in orderKeep scrapbooks up to dateSew a quilt

Alyssa: Learn letters and numbers moreHow to put together wordsLearn to readHow to do big cartwheels Corbin: Learn Letters and numbersLearn to play sports (catch and throw and kick...)ride a bike with no training wheels Ava: Learn to walkBe a good girl for mommy and daddyGrow some hair

Miralyn: To go along with a new found passion...read 6 books (it all started with Twilight and I realized, “hey this leisure reading is kind of nice”)

Brian: Get back into running - run two half marathons

Brady: Finish 7 merit badges

Connor: Get 25 silver arrowpoints on top of the regular requirements for cub scouts

Callie: - Read 3 fairy books all independently

Ashlyn: “learn how to ride my bike all by myself”

Tara:Keeping my Monthly Goals (New Years Resolution)
Attend the Temple with Gary (together) every month
Run the Ragnar and train well for it
Track my Miles
Read all of President Hinckley's Talks (or as many I can find)

Gary:Run a half marathon
Attend the Temple each month with my wife (Tara)
Stop biting my nailes in time segments - I will start by quitting for a whole week. (March 4-March 11). Hopefully I will do so good in this week that I continue on!
Land a big time Job!
Read Religous Material Frequently

Mom(Peggy): Read the Doctrine and Covenants and the commentary
Stop procrastinating…do things when called upon

Dad(Bob): Publish the Bishop’s book by summer 2008
Exercise by riding bike
Go to Gary’s graduation
Go to watch everyone run the Ragnar Relay

Julie: Read Sunday School and Relief Society lessons each week ahead of time to be ready for Sunday.Attend the temple once a month during the school year, but at least twice a month or more while the boys are in Kentucky.Organize all school units and have a planner ready and usable for the new year so that I can be ready and prepared ahead of time for each school week. (As Cody put it-"You mean organize your classroom!")
Be an active part of the Book Club in my ward and read all the books that we choose Cody: Bear my testimony at least 6 times this year in church. Achieve Tenderfoot and 2nd Class Scout by his 12th birthday in April.
Then acheive 1st class and be working on Star by next March 4th
Garrett: Achieve Wolf and Bear and as many badges as I can.Read the Pearl of Great Price and Joseph Smith History.

Alexa:To not procrastinate (school, Church, chores, etc)
Be able to run the Ragnar Relay. Run Cross Country and get a PR: 27 Min.
Don't pick my nails until March 11th

Susan:Be a "Menu Planner"
Be a better business owner such as being more "aggressive"
Train and run the Ragnar

Ethan:Read Scriptures every night
Work to improve my Pre-calc grade and study for my next ACT test
Work with Spencer to get my eagle scout award this year.

Spencer:Run 3 times a week
Get 7 Merit Badges
Run the Ragnar

Tanner:Scribble Scribble Scribble...Not sure what that says:)

Addison:Practice the Piano 5 times a week
Start Dance

and the winner is...

And now ... the moment you've all been waiting for ... the judges (who also happen to be the participants in the event, but we're ignoring the obvious conflict of interest issues) have returned from deliberations and it's time to reveal this year's Golden Boot recipients.


But before we reveal the winners, I would just like to say that everyone did a fantastic job on this, the first of many annual goal setting challenges. It has been exciting to see many of you carry through on goals that may have been a little bit of a stretch. Stay tuned for the next post, where I will reveal everyone's goals for 2008.




And now ... without further delay ... the winners of the 2007-2008 Golden Boot Awards are ...

Adult Winners:


1. Todd
2. Sarah


Children Winners:


1.Alyssa
2. Cody




the GOLDEN BOOTS