Halloween

This is the first year that we went for a theme for our family and I thought it went quite well. Here is our family.

James - Obi-Wan Kenobi
La Tisha - Jedi knight
MacKayla - Ahsoka Tano (from the Clone Wars cartoon)
Annika - Padme
Arabella - Princess Leia

Why????

This has not been my favorite week. On Monday Annika came home from school not feeling good. She had a fever and a sore throat. As she already had a doctor's appointment for the next day for her five year check up I decided to wait one day to take her in. She was diagnosed on Tuesday positive for the flu, awesome isn't it!?! She wasn't too miserable so we went ahead and finished the normal check-up as well just so we wouldn't have to come back. She is doing really well in everything, except she did not pass her eye test. They said she was seeing at 20/30 to 20/40. So we need to take her in for a full exam now. She also has severe allergies and while being put on Tamiflu for the flu was also put on Flonase for the allergies. If you have read James' blog Flonase is the same medicine that gave him bloody noses, so let's hope that Annika handles it better.

Annika is actually feeling pretty good now, she is still a bit of a lump on the couch, but she isn't complaining much anymore.

Now the bad part of the week comes in, Annika decided to share the flu with me, why oh why do we teach children to share :) I also went to the doctor on Tuesday, I had started the awful cough and could tell that I was getting the flu as well. The test came out negative while I was there, but I think that was only because the virus hadn't replicated enough yet. At this point I thought that the flu wasn't too bad, it was uncomfortable, but more of a nuisance than anything else. The doctor did give me Tamiflu though as I had all of the symptoms, have asthma and am in a house with a positive person. By 2:00 though I was hit and I was hit hard. The fevers started and I thought I was going to die. The pain is intense, the coughing horrible and overall I am miserable. Tuesday night I was hungry but I honestly did not have the strength to raise a fork to my mouth. James ended up cutting up my food for me and I laid on the couch to eat it.

Yesterday morning wasn't too bad, I thought I was getting better, but by the afternoon I was miserable again. Today I don't even seem to be getting the morning reprieve, I had a bad night sleeping and now feel miserable. I think the hardest part of being sick however is that you still have to be Mom. The kids don't accept that all you want to do is sleep, they for whatever reason still feel the need to eat and be taken care of. Oh well, such is life...

Sorry for the whine-fest, just needed to vent...

R.I.P. Annika

Well the demise of Annika has finally occurred.... For the past month or so Annika has wanted a haircut. We had agreed that she would get one next summer, we wanted long hair for dance. Well today the little, I want to say doofus, but that would be mean, I'll stick with goober, decided to cut her own hair. She took a chuck about six inches long from the front of her hair. At that point she was strung up as a lesson to the other two not to try anything like that.In all actuality, I took her in and she got a haircut. She is now the proud owner of her first pair of bangs. I think she looks cute with bangs, except that we will have to train the awful cowlick that she has. So here is the new Annika.
Here she is showing off some of our Halloween decorations.
MacKayla lounging about, anything to get out of work with that one.
Bella being her adorable self.

Fed by the Spirit...and sugar

The girls and I are enjoying Conference today, poor James is at work again. I was able to capture a great photo of them being fed by the Spirit as well as by sugar. Our conference treat for this morning was doughnuts and eggnog.

September books

The Negotiator - 304
Dee Henderson
Danger in the Shadows - 320
Dee Henderson
The Guardian - 294
Dee Henderson
The Truth Seeker - 336
Dee Henderson

The first four books in the O'Malley series were quite enjoyable. I thought the stories were fun and I really enjoyed the characterizations. I thought the O'Malley's while somewhat of superheros in their stories were still allowed to be real people that one could relate to. The flaw that I had with the stories was that the idea of converting everyone to Christianity seemed forced. Overall I would recommend the series, I am looking forward to reading the last three in the series soon.

Beastly - 336
Alex Flinn

I really liked this story and have been recommending it to everyone lately. It is a modern telling of Beauty and the Beast, but from the Beasts perspective. It is the story of a rich and snobby big-city boy and how he makes fun of a girl that is odd. She turns out to be a witch and turns him into a beast. You know the basics of the story from there, but it was done in a great way. Definitely a book worth reading.

Jacob Have I Loved - 256
Katherine Paterson

This was an interesting book of a set of twin girls and the struggle that one felt for her own identity. I thought the story was okay, but not great.

Catching Fire - 400
Suzanne Collins

The was the sequel to The Hunger Games and I have to say that the author has got "it." The story was exciting! It took turns that were unexpected and was enjoyable. I am really looking forward to the last book next year, I want to see what is in store for all of the characters.

A Wrinkle in Time - 224
Madeleine L'Engle

This is one of James' favorite books and he feels it is what really turned him onto sci-fi. For years he has tried to get me to read it, but I have had little interest in doing so. Near the end of this month I had run out of money to buy more books and had read almost every book that I own, so I finally settled on reading this one. It took about a week to read it, if that is any indication of how much I enjoyed it (I usually read a book in about a day.) The story was okay, but I was not excited to read it and am not excited to read more in the series.

Total for September: 2470
Total for 2009 thus far: 26268

I made my goal for the year, YAY! Maybe I'll extend it to 30,000 by the end of the year.

I am looking for some more good books, if you have any ideas please share!

Not the brightest move

Yesterday James and I were cleaning up the toys in the downstairs living room. James asked if I had seen the couch yet. I looked over and saw that someone had colored all over the middle portion with a marker. I got mad at the older girls because they had been leaving there markers around the living room and Bella had gotten into them before. I was ready to be annoyed at Bella for coloring on the couch, but really what could I do, she is just a baby.

I then start to really look at the coloring on the couch. I notice an "a" and the first thought was wow, somehow her scribbled strokes turned into an a, how funny. And then I saw the rest of Annika's name, including the flourishes that she does on her i and k. I could not believe that the four, almost five, year old was the one to color on the couch. I was ready to pound the child. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, we got out of her that she thought it would be fun to do it.

Now the title of the post is "not the brightest move," if you were really going to so something so stupid, would you sign your name to it. This belongs in one of those stupid criminals posts.

The only thing that saved the child from a life of servitude and sleeping under the stairs was that the couch was stain treated and they were washable markers, so there is no evidence of the crime. All art toys have been removed for a long time though...

Special bond

Annika and Arabella have a special bond. They play together and share a great love for one another. Yesterday while Annika was at school Arabella got up on the couch to look out the window and she asked several times "where Anka?" It was one of those sweet moments that makes you happy to have kids. She was thrilled later when she got up from her nap and her "Anka" was there to play with her.