Katie's 8th Birthday, Halloween Festivities, Potty Training, More Sick

This week has been hard to deal with. Last Friday, James stayed home because he had a sore throat. He ended up not feeling too bad, but he found a broken pipe under the house and spent the day fixing that instead of relaxing.

Saturday morning, Lewis threw up. He felt completely fine by midmorning, thankfully. I made Katie's birthday cupcakes. She wanted white cake with purple frosting and candy pearls, so that's what she got. She loved opening her presents after breakfast and playing with them the rest of the day. We'd considered going to the corn maze, but it was too expensive, so we went to the Jensen Pumpkin Festival instead. It was really fun after a stressful, rainy day. The weather cleared up and wasn't too cold, and Lewis was feeling completely better by then. We had him mask up, even though the event was outside, and he never showed a sign of illness. Phew.

Sunday, James, Kenny, and I all had talks (Kenny in Primary). I think they went really well. People were very complimentary whether we deserved it or not.

Tuesday, James took Katie to see the Addams Family at the high school. I think they had a lot of fun.

We did our date on Wednesday and included some shopping in it. I got fabric so I can make everyone rice bags for Christmas. The 2 I've made for James and Katie have been extremely popular so far, and they're so easy to make. The highlight of my week was coming home to a dark house. The kids were dressed in Halloween costumes and dancing to "The Monster Mash."

Samantha has been using the toilet since Monday! I would be even more excited if she'd consistently poop in it. Her potty chart is all filled up, but she's only pooped in the toilet once and insists on having a diaper for other times. Sometimes, she insists on wearing a diaper but takes it off 10 minutes later to use the toilet. Actual accidents have been rare, but she insists on wearing new clothes after using the toilet, so she keeps running out and then complaining about it.

Samantha also woke up this morning (Thursday) having thrown up in her hair and on her bed, so it's more laundry for me. Though she can't keep anything down yet, she doesn't appear to feel too bad, and she smells a lot better after having a bath. I don't know what that means for potty training today, but I hope it doesn't ruin everything. I also hope she doesn't throw up in the car when we go get our grocery pickup order.

Now that I've written it down, I can see why I've been feeling stressed. This week really sucks. I absolutely hate dealing with body fluids, and I've had to clean up an abundance of them recently. Someone will need to stay home with Samantha instead of going to the Harry Potter Halloween activity at the library. I'm crossing my fingers that the sickness ends with her and very quickly.

Fall Break, Canning

We had a pretty good time during fall break in Rexburg. Thursday, we got lunch at Del Taco and dessert at Millhollow. The Relief Society progressive dinner that night was fun and delicious. I still know some of the people in the ward, so it was fun to catch up.

Friday, we went to Idaho Falls to go shopping at Costco, Big Deal, and Lowe's. We came back with stuff from all of them, but especially Costco. I got a new winter coat and some good gloves. We then got lunch at the taco truck down the road. It was delicious!

Saturday, we went to a thrift store in Rigby and found some treasures there as well. James, Rex, and the older kids went up to Victor to go kayaking. We watched a movie that night, but I fell asleep. Oops.

Sunday, we went to church and did dinner afterward. (I missed my 9:00 church since it doesn't mess with meal times!) We then went over to the Lees' in Rigby for dessert: apple pie and ice cream.

We played a couple of board games in there, but I can't remember exactly when: Turbo Cranium, 7 Wonders, and our newest expansion on Catan, called Traders and Barbarians. All were really fun.

Monday, we left in time to go to the Pocatello temple open house. The flower theme is absolutely beautiful, and I think the kids really enjoyed it too. We made it home around 7:15 after a long drive through some snow and fog.

I've been catching up on regular stuff like laundry, shopping, parent teacher conferences for the older kids, and checkups for the 2 younger kids, so I didn't do any canning until today. I've been dehydrating 5 trays of apples each day and should finish those up with another 10 trays and a batch of applesauce. (Melodie gave me a whole box, and I still have a drawer full in the fridge.) I just finished a a batch of spaghetti sauce with meat, my first time ever making it. I think it'll be especially yummy as pizza sauce since it has Italian sausage and mushrooms in it.

I broke my cardinal rules of happiness while I was in Rexburg. To have a good day, I need to work on some kind of creative project, spend an hour reading a book, and have a clean place to retreat to. Though I helped with the cooking some, I never took the time to get AWAY from everyone and read. I regret that. It made my days more difficult than they needed to be. I'll do it right next time.

Better, Leaving for Rexburg

We had a pretty relaxing weekend. Well, I did because I went to a baby shower after spending the morning in the kitchen. James worked on winterizing the sprinkler system. It took a while since he was using his friend's air compressor. Basin Rental was all out of the big ones.

We had a pretty normal week. There were no big meltdowns, only a small one or two. I spent Wednesday getting ready for it and got pretty stressed out, as always. I hate that I do that. I tried to have some fun with the littlest kids by getting tacos for lunch, but they fought over the soda and spilled lettuce and cheese all over our clean dining room.

We left around 4:30 and made it to Rexburg just after 11 p.m. I don't want to do that again. I took over driving in Park City, so I had to drive in the city and then through some snow around Pocatello. It was not fun, but I got used to the night driving by the time the snow went away and was able to relax a little. (There were definitely some white knuckle moments before that.) Thank goodness we were never in any danger.

We've had a good day so far. I feel weirdly anxious still, but staying here is not the same as it's been for many years now. Someone lives in our old apartment, so we don't have as much space or our own bathroom. I got 12 trays of apples ready for dehydrating and will probably take apples home for applesauce next week. I also chopped a bunch of veggies for chicken pot pie. Everyone is at Bear World, so it's nice and quiet. Tonight, James is going to play DnD with his cousins in person after dinner together. Melodie and I are going to a Relief Society dinner that starts at 7. We'll see if I can hold off eating until then. Probably not. Haha.

Conference, Tantrums, Canning

We had a pretty good conference weekend. I made some toffee as a treat, and it was gone pretty quickly. James listened while he was driving "into the wild" to take pictures of sandhill cranes, and I tried to pay attention at home with the kids. It wasn't the easiest.

Saturday night, we ate dinner with the Murrays. It was really fun to hang out with them. I worried a lot the next morning that I said something offensive to Taylor, but nothing specific came to mind. It's just been so long since I talked to anyone for that long.

Amy and Katie came over for the Sunday morning session of conference with lunch afterward. That was really fun. James and I did a short DnD game with Devin and Samantha (who was virtual since she was sick) after my emotional resilience class.

It's been a tough week with Katie again. She's been having a hard time getting ready for school in the morning, so I've had to be really patient and talk her through getting dressed. Every tiny bit of fuzz or supposed stain bothers her. She thinks there's "gross spot" in her dresser, so if anything touches that, she won't wear it. She also won't wear anything that has touched anything that touched the spot. I did find the spot. It's a TINY sticky spot in the drawer, so I'm going to wash everything in there, clean it, and put it back. She's skipped breakfast a few times but said her teacher gives out lots of snacks. I'm not so worried about her food intake, but the clothing issues are driving me absolutely crazy. No worry ever seems to last more than a week or two, so I'm hoping this goes away soon. Then, I'll have to figure out something else.

The Murrays gave us about 70 lbs. of tomatoes and 30 lbs. of apples. I've been making dried apples every day this week and plan on an apple pie on Sunday. I made one batch of salsa and one batch of tomato sauce. Now, I'm waiting for the rest of the tomatoes to get ripe so I can make a batch of tomato sauce with meat. I've been using the pressure canner for everything, and it's great. I can't believe I was every scared of it. I find it a lot less cumbersome that using a water bath canner.