A Small Tender Mercy

This morning I woke up with no energy. I took a shower and dressed hoping that I would feel better afterwards. But I did not, in fact I felt so heavy with exhaustion, I felt like I was moving in slow motion. My kitchen desperately needed cleaning, and the girls and I had planned a picnic at the park for the day, but I just didn't see how I could do even a simple task. I was feeling helpless and hopeless. But then I took a moment and knelt beside my bed and poured out my heart to my Heavenly Father. It was only a brief moment, that was all I had time for with three unsupervised children in the other room. But I asked for strength to not just get through my day but to enjoy the day with my children. There have been many, many days where I have prayed for the strength to get through the day, but something was different today. Almost as soon as I stood on my feet I felt the heaviness lift from me. I went to my kitchen and cleaned it up and then made some delicious homemade bread. The girls and I enjoyed a fun afternoon at the park, and I just felt strong and energetic. I am so grateful that I was able to enjoy the day with my sweet daughters, that I could help them cross the monkey bars and scoot down the slides with them; that I could not only hear them laugh but enjoy their laughter. I am grateful that my Father in Heaven answered my prayer this morning.

Art by Amy

Amy girl drew this picture this morning. I love it. And I think it is a very well drawn picture-- even if they are stick people. Its a picture of Adelynne and Amy, I'm sure you can tell who is who. She drew it for Adelynne.

So our life is going to change...

I can't believe we have reached this stage in our lives now! We will be moving to the Chicago area this summer!! Dustin has accepted a post-doc position at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. It is a one year position with possibility of extending up to three years. It is also a lectureship, which means the position will focus on teaching (as opposed to research), which is what Dustin prefers. He loves teaching, and doesn't love research so much, so when he was offered this lectureship he was very excited (as excited as Dustin can be). This all happened so fast. Dustin received an email letting him know that he would receive an offer from Northwestern soon. A week later, Dustin received the offer, with ONE week to accept or reject the offer. The deadline was today, and after much thought and prayer (hopefully enough of it), Dustin decided to accept the offer. He had not received any other offers, although he did have a job interview with BYU a few weeks ago and he was still being considered for that position. However, Dustin much preferred the position at Northwestern. It has all been quite stressful, especially for Dustin since up until Tuesday of this week, he still did not know if he would be able to graduate this May as he had originally planned. (Although now, he is kind of wishing he had planned for an August graduation so that he would have work through the summer). In January, Dustin received news that there was a mistake with his dissertation, and it wasn't an easy fix. It took him about 3 weeks to figure out a solution, and when he submitted that to his professor, it turned out that fixing that mistake had snowballed causing other problems that needed fixing. Daily Dustin would return home declaring that he didn't know if he could fix the problems. He started feeling like his reputation as a mathematician was depreciating, and that his advisor and other professors were thinking less of him and his abilities. It has been a very difficult few months watching Dustin stress and worry over something that I cannot even pretend to comprehend. I had no way to help Dustin, and beyond worrying for Dustin and his stress levels, I was starting to worry a little that he wouldn't graduate as well, and we might be in school for one more year. But it seems as though the Lord has answered our prayers and things are turning out fine! I know the Lord has helped Dustin and guided us along, and is continuing to do so. I am feeling very blessed!

So while Dustin works tirelessly on finishing up his dissertation and preparing for his defense (on April 17th), I am looking and praying for us to find a place to live in the Chicago areas. Dustin and I discussed what our finances will be with the income he is to receive, (which isn't much for a family of 5 to live on in an EXPENSIVE city, especially since we are used to living in a lower cost of living area). I am VERY nervous. I'm worried that my expectations are too high. I really want a 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house/condo/townhouse, or something of that nature. The price range for these types of homes is around $1900/month, not including utilities! That is nearly half our monthly income. I started thinking of scaling down my expectation, but I am worried that places that are 2 bedroom just won't allow a family of 5. I also don't want Dustin to have too much of a commute. Sigh. Att the moment I just don't know when we will move out there. We don't have work for the summer and we need to save quite a bit more money than what we have saved. I'm aware that this is nothing new in life, but it is new for my life. I also have to consider what schools that BOTH of my daughters will attend. (I am still in disbelief that Amy is going to be in Kindergarten).

Oh, it is all so exciting and terrifying!!

Dustin and I are a little sad that we aren't going to be much closer to our families in the West, but, I am excited that we will be close to West Lafayette. We can come for a visit to see our friends that are here, and when they come to Chicago they can come and see us! One of the reasons we want a 2 full-bathroom place is to accommodate overnight guests. (Our hope is that friends will like to come and stay the night-- if they are coming to attend the Chicago temple-- or any other reason), and having 2 bathrooms will be much more comfortable for all. I want to more comfortably be able to host family and friends. (And if you are familiar with my current residence you can understand the reasons for my desires).

Sigh.

Smile.

Life is good.

I am blessed.

Leprechaun Trap

So I decided to be a fun mom tonight and make a leprechaun trap with Adelynne and Amy. We got some ideas from the internet and this is what we came up with. We made our trap based on some "rules" and some pictures from other traps that were made. Some of the rules included: leprechauns are lured by rainbows, sparkly things, gold, and lucky charms (the cereal!). We also learned that leprechauns don't like to follow rules, so we put up a few "tricky" signs. We decided to make it smaller using a child's size shoe box (that also was less work for me). But the girls and I had a lot of fun. I don't think I've been so involved in a craft for my kids before. I know, sad, but I'm trying to change. So here's the proof of all our fun.


A close up: The girls drew their own rainbows to add to the trap.


The back side: You can see the "tricky" note Adelynne wrote, "Lepercon trap, don't go up." The green pipe cleaner on the side is a rope ladder just in case the guy doesn't want to use the rainbow ladder. But who wouldn't want to use that cute ladder? The beads are keeping the back of the box on the trap.

And the top: So the trap works this way: the lucky charms are sitting in a paper cup cake tray which is in a hole. When the leprechaun jumps in to eat the lucky charms, he will cause the paper cup to drop into the box and we will trap him!! The girls were even willing to sacrifice the marshmallows from their cereal. Amy also came up with the idea to make a "pot of gold" with a black pipe cleaner, and then Adelynne made one too. They sure had a lot of fun, and so did I.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

487 points. An awesome day.

Today was a good day.

- I got 3 loads of laundry washed, dried and put away. (And there is one load in the dryer and one load in the washer still): 100 points/completed load

- I did some organizing and a little cleaning: 20 points. (Only 20, I didn't wash the dishes, but I did put clean ones away).

- I did NOT clean the bathroom (this could be a bad thing, it hasn't been cleaned in a LONG time, please don't ask to use it if you come over): 0 points.

- I showered: 10 points

- I got dressed: 10 points + bonus 5. (I get a bonus 5 points because I showered AND dressed).

- I did my hair AND put on make-up! (And I'm wearing earrings)!!: 10 points (for hair), 10 points (for make-up), 2 points (for earrings)

- I changed Aurora's diapers: 10 points (one of them was poopy):Yes, I totally get points for this, it is a required chore when you have a baby, but I still get points for it).

- I got up early to help Adelynne get ready for school AND I made her her lunch. (Normally Dustin lets me sleep in and he gets Adelynne ready.... don't judge me): 50 points (this is NOT an easy task for me so I am rewarding myself)

- When I got up this morning I remembered to get on my knees and pray, hmmm maybe that's why it was SUCH a good and productive day, hey!: 50 points

- I didn't "hit a wall" today and conk out on the couch while my children watched TV. (That is pretty AMAZING, but my children did watch a lot of TV): 10 points

If I added correctly I get 487 points!!! :)

But really, most of my days lately cannot even compete with this kind of day. I am really really grateful for being able to do each of these tasks today.

After all of these points were awarded: Dustin and I had a parent/teacher conference with Adelynne's teacher, T. Younts. Ms. Younts is a fabulous teacher! Adelynne adores her, and Ms. Younts seems to adore Adelynne just as much. I am so grateful that Adelynne has such a great teacher. But the conference went well, even with 3 little ladies in tow. The girls played happily with legos and books while Ms. Younts discussed with Dustin and I about Adelynne's school work. Adelynne is still at the top of her class, scoring at the top of testing levels, and even higher in her reading comprehension. Ironically, math is the one subject that Adelynne has a very slight struggle in, (if struggle is what you can call it). She is still doing extremely well, it just doesn't always come as easy to her-- which is fine with me. I think it is good for her to work to learn something. Adelynne will sometimes rush through assignments and do her work more carelessly, but I believe that is her competitiveness. If she sees someone working faster, then they are "winning," and Adelynne likes to win, so I can see her rushing an assignment so that she can be the first to finish. But really, Adelynne is intelligent and loves learning and loves school.

After the conference, we strolled through the book fair at Adelynne's school, and we let the girls pick out a book. Actually we let the girls bring two dollars each and I figured they would pick out something like a pen or a bookmark, but they both really wanted a book. Adelynne was really pouty about not having enough money, but Amy was kind of cute about it. I asked her if she had seen any books she liked and she replied, "Well, there are a couple of books, but I'm pretty sure they are more than two dollars." And she seemed really okay with not having enough money. But then I decided to pay the difference for the girls' books. And Aurora got one too. She wandered around pulling books off the shelves and sitting down and reading through the books, (under supervision of course). Aurora loves reading (and she mostly prefers reading to herself). After leaving the book fair, Dustin and I surprised the girls with a stop at Subway and a picnic dinner at the garden playground. The weather was very nice, very windy, but still worth being outside in. We weren't sure if it was going to rain, and we were feeling some mist, so we decided to go to the garden park here in Pville so we could be closer to home if the weather went bad. But it didn't, and we ate our sandwiches and played together on the playground. Aurora LOVES playgrounds right now. She loves climbing the stairs and going down slides. She sits down at the top of a slide and scoots closer to the slide. But then she will get a little scared and hesitate and waits for someone to assist her. Although tonight, she didn't want help and she just went right down. But one time she went down too fast and bonked her head, and after that she wanted help going down the slide. She's so cute. I decided to instigate a family game of tag, and actually Amy volunteered to be "it" first. She tagged Dustin, and then Dustin went for me. I could barely run in my lady shoes (not to mention I can barely run despite what shoes I am wearing), and I knew Dustin was coming up behind me and I was laughing. And right before he tagged me I was thinking to myself, "I'm going to wet myself when he gets me." And Dustin got me, and I wet myself a little bit. Yes, I just admitted to that, but hey, I was laughing and I said it out loud and then Adelynne asked me if I had wet my pants, and I told her that I did. Haha. Just something to laugh at, or shake my head at.... or both. It was a fun game of tag, and Aurora watched us all and laughed. She thought our game was so funny.

After our game of tag, we went home and the girls read their new books.

Aurora's new book: she got a board book because she is into ripping pages out of paper books. (GRRRR).


Amy picked a Barbie book with stickers. She was very proud of her sticker pictures (and yes, she got a hair cut. She asked me to cut it because she does NOT like me doing her hair. However, she does like having a little "whale spout" pony on the top of her head ???? don't ask me. Also, the line you see above her lip is a cut that is healing. She got hit in the face with the door and needed some gluing. The scar is 2 weeks old now and I just hope it won't be so obvious after it is all better):


Adelynne picked out a 3D book about kittens:

oh yeah!

She is such a diva! I'm pretty sure Aurora will NOT be a tomboy. If her sisters are dressing up, then she wants to as well, and Amy and Adelynne are more than happy to help her out.


Picture was taken on January 3rd.

PI day

Every year I forget about this special day. I really shouldn't because I am married to a mathematician and I am proud to be married to him! This year I told myself to not forget, and guess what? I forgot until this morning. Luckily, there is still plenty of the day left. I made a chocolate pie for dessert, and I will be making a chicken pot pie for dinner. YUM! I think Dustin will be surprised.

Happy PI day!

Funny Amy

Every time my girls say something funny I think to myself that I will put it on the blog, but I always forget. Well last night at dinner time, Amy said a funny, and I am writing it down darn it!

I was making grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and there was a lot of excitement in the house because of this. I think Dustin was the most excited. We had been enjoying the nice warm weather outside, and everyone had come inside except for Dustin. I was cooking up the sandwiches and Dustin came in the room and asked excitedly, "Can I have a grilled cheese sandwich too?!" Amy jumped from her seat into Dustin's arms laughing and declared, "No Dad! You can't have a girl cheese sandwich because you're a boy!"

Oh were we laughing at that one! I'm still laughing to myself this morning.

Hallucinating?

I just went through a terrifying 20 minutes, and this is how I am de-stressing: Amy is really sick today. She slept in until around 8:30 this morning and had a fever. I gave her some medicine to break the fever, and she was fine the rest of the day. Aurora had an appointment (her 18 month) at the doctor, so I decided to take Amy along and have her checked out because last night she started coughing, and she's been complaining about her ears hurting her and had fevers for 4 days last week. So Amy was checked out at the doctor, and she was given a clean bill of health. The doctor said to bring her in if her fevers or coughing gets worse. So we came home and Amy was definitely not feeling well, but she played outside in the beautiful day we happened to be having. She was definitely listless though. After a while she just sat at the table and put her head on her arm. So I took her inside and she fell asleep on the couch. Around 7pm I checked her temperature and the thermometer (undecided if it is a completely reliable one) read 104.4 degrees! Holy Cow! So I made her take some tylenol, which she did reluctantly. Then she fell back to sleep. I checked her temp at 7:30 and it was down to 103ish. Amy woke for a bit and played on Dustin's iPad. But she didn't play much before turning it off and going back to sleep. Around 9:15ish I checked her temp again and it was at 100.2. Shortly after checking her temp, she cried out and I went to the couch and sat beside her. She had a blanket on her (and no shirt), and she was crying and pushing the blanket off of her and saying, "I'm wearing too much...." she didn't finish the sentence and so I said "blanket?" and she looked at me and gave a little smirk, like she thought that was funny. And that's when I started feeling like something wasn't right. She was looking at my eyes, but not really looking at me, kind of a glazed look. I asked her if she could see me and she didn't answer so I held up two fingers and asked her how many fingers I was holding. She answered "two" and smiled at me. Moments later she was holding out her hand, which was shaking, and she was crying, "I, I, I colored too much!" It was hard for her to say the words, and I was confused. I tried to comfort her and said that she didn't, its okay. But in my mind I was starting to freak out. Then she was quiet for a moment. Then she was pointing at me, but kind of behind my shoulder, and crying out like she was scared of something. I wasn't sure if it was the lamp behind me or not. She did that a couple of times with moments of quiet in between. And just before the end of this experience she said while kind of looking around, "I felt something, I felt, I felt, you on a bus.... with, with whales." ?!?!?!?!? All of this happened within about a 10 minute time period. And yes, the last one is a bit funny, but I was FREAKING out. I was telling myself to stay calm, I was trying not to cry. I didn't know what to do. Dustin was on campus administering a test, but I tried to call him (at the beginning of Amy's hallucination). He didn't answer, so I texted him a 911. I didn't hear from him. I decided to call Amy's doctor's office, knowing that I would get an answering service, but I was hoping they might page the doctor so that I could talk to her--that didn't work out. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat beside Amy and tried to keep her calm. I would put my hand on her chest and I could feel her heart just racing. But Amy's last weird comment was the last thing she said, and now she is sleeping calmly on the couch again. I am all prepared to take her to the ER if her fever spikes again, or if she hallucinates again-- if that's what you would say she was doing, would you?