Pumpkin Carving

Life rolls on! And on. It's destined to. Another pumpkin session carving session goes down in the books. Another Halloween almost gone. I am already looking forward to what next year will bring. I predict more hot days. That one is a sure deal. 

Josie thinks napping on the floor is fun. She only naps for 20-30 minutes each day now. It's killing me a bit since she really wants to sleep an hour or more. Little Jojo does not like her bed and just cries. It might be time again for another sleep duke-it-out series of sessions, nap-style. I need more time to get things done than 10 minutes with my arms free. She goes around whining: "Mommy! Mommy?! Mommmmmy!" It's cute. It does get old since she is trying to say something else but does not have the verbal skills to tell me what she really wants. Josie will get the hard treatment in nursery now since I have a Sunday calling in Primary as the Music Leader. Should be fun! Josie just cries and cries in nursery. Guess it's time to get used to a little time away from "mommy." I do enjoy her sweet kisses! She is quite the snuggler. 

I had a return Dr visit with the Red River clinic about my blood work from a couple weeks ago. Several items stood out that could be affecting my health. Mainly, it seems my liver is not quite working as it should, possible it's dealing with high amounts of inflammation due to food allergies or hormones. I have sufficient thyroid levels BUT it seems my body is not using the thyroid hormones (the reverse t3 serum is high). Treatment with the clinic will cost about $4,000 plus $150 per month in supplements for 6 months. Price tag hurts even with a medical loan. Still I felt hopeful that the Dr gave me some clues of what could be going on to cause my fatigue and headaches. I plan on approaching my new family Dr to ask for a food allergy work up, see if I can eliminate the tremendous inflammation my body is constantly fighting, normal levels are 1-2 and mine are at 11. A lady in my ward, Sister Wolford runs a clean eating blog and has lots of good information to help cleanse and help the liver to start working again. Means lifestyle changes, but I was totally expecting that. Justin was able to attend the visit since the office is not too far from his work. The girls were so excited to have him there. 

Melanie Christenson let us borrow her bottle of Viral Hot Pink shampoo. Amelia and Evelyn now have fun pink hair! The shampoo colors hair for 1-4 weeks depending on your hair type. It's pretty fun for the girls. I kind of want to get the ruby hair shampoo for myself! Evelyn now thinks she is a real genie with her pink hair.  

The kids had half school days on Thursday and Friday for parent-teacher conferences. I scheduled all the kids between 3-3:45 on Thursday. Amelia of course is sailing along with flying colors. She did some early gifted testing and could possibly attend the gifted school for 6-8th grades next year (if she wants to). Mrs Howard gave the kids self-evaluations and Amelia said the one area she needs to work on is turning in assignments on time (she likes to take her time making sure everything is perfect). Mrs Howard said that was exactly what her own evaluation said! She is making some friends in her class. Her friends are Chloe, Abby, and George. She earned straight A's her first quarter at a new school. That my friends is awesomely amazing. Phillip's conference was next with Mrs Epstein. He is doing well! Most of his scores are high average, except reading comprehension and able to write narratives alone. I've witnessed his jump in reading skills this quarter. He is really improving. We talked about his ability to focus and get work done. He works well at school (and home) only when someone is sitting next to him guiding him along. He gets it but needs guidance. We decided to have the school psychologist test him for general developmental delays just to see if anything pops up. Hooray for Phillip! He's got this reading challenge in the bag. Everett was last on the conference list. Mrs Laske said that Everett gives her a hug each and every morning! It's something she loves to get! His report card looks almost identical to Phillip's because the rating system is quite broad, especially the first two quarters. He knows 151/200 sight words, and has his pluses memorized up to the +5's! This kid is overly excited about school and loves the classroom. Our house is now a reading farm! Books everywhere! I love it. We read before school, after school, and before bed.

Phillip wants to be Luke Skywalker for Halloween. I spent lots of time scouring the Goodwill for items to make his costume. I found the last pieces on Friday, shoes and brown pants. The pants are women's fleece leggings! He put on the ensemble and started moaning. The karate Gi was not right, his hair was not yellow, he actually wanted to wear Luke's flysuit etc. Next morning Phillip comes downstairs wearing the women's leggings, the cool brown high tops, a brown button up shirt, sunglasses and a hat. He looked like a total hipster, leggings and all. I'm not telling him the pants are actually girl pants. Makes me laugh inside knowing something he would possibly freak out over. Phillip is on day day three wearing those leggings. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

I promised the kids Saturday they could carve pumpkins. Everett's was rotten before we even got a chance to carve it. I had to make another run to get a pumpkin for him before we started. This time I used a drill with a whisk attachment tightened on to scramble the insides of the pumpkins. It did help to loosen the guts! Josie about gagged when I showed her the inside of the pumpkin. She appropriately squealed, "Ewwwwww!" Lots of giggles, gags, and usage of kid-safe carving knives produced four carved pumpkins. Amelia carved a Pegasus, adorned with painted mane and tail, lots and lots of glitter. I carved most of Everett's spider and all of Evelyn's witch. Phillip's was his very own creation, a killed zombie pumpkin. Justin had work to do over the weekend so he mostly read and popped out once to admire the chaos. We took a much needed slurpee run after Josie's "nap." Justin worked on a busted sprinkler pipe he started work on at 5:30 am on Thursday. Dang anxiety pops up at the most inconvenient times. Once he found the correct parts the fix was done in minutes, just took him 2 days to find the right parts. 

Our kind neighbors sent the kids the "You've been Boo'd" card back with a huge plate of cookies and treats. I am sure Hannah had to run fast since the kids were close to the door when the bell rang! Our neighbors are so intriguing! When I first went over to visit a couple weeks back, I saw a huge 5 ft Roman goddess gracing their dining room wall. Can you guess? Husband is from Rome! People genuinely make me laugh and smile. Later the same week we got to visit some neighbors across the way behind us. Their home is an antique wonderland. They have a record juke box, an air-pumped piano player box, and an entire wing of the house loaded with Egyptian fancies. Oh, and more mystery/adventure books than one person (except me) should ever read. Forget the library! I am going to my neighbor's home.

Justin was called to be the new ward clerk today. I was called to be the new Primary music director. I pray my energy levels will stand up to the challenge! Mia and I are not totally hooked on attending ward choir. We go at 1:30, after I take a short 20 minute nap! It's rather perfect and fun for us to do together.