Par-T!!!

Well, we did it! The party was a whole lot of fun. The younger girls all watched "Wallace and Grommit:Curse of the Were Rabbit" and the older girls watched "Coraline". The little girls all got bored of the movie, though, so we played some fun games-Graveyard Walk (like a pumpkin walk) and a bean bag toss. It was great fun.

Sick.... Again.

Taila is sick again. She has a cold and got really nasty double eye infections. I took her to the Doctor yesterday, and he said that it was so bad, he gave her both oral antibiotics and eye drops. However, last night when I was putting her Pj's on, I noticed that she has a rash on her chest. I'm kind of worried about an allergic reaction, so we're going back to the Dr. today.

Halloween Party

I was just standing there one day, looking at my calendar, with every single day full to the brim, and I thought to myself, "Wouldn't it be FUN to have a big Halloween party for all of the kids?" Seriously, I do not have time for this. Seriously, I think that I must be losing my mind. Seriously, we are doing it.

I promised myself that I would not go overboard, and to that end, I hand-made all of the invitations using scrapbooking paper that I already had on hand. I talked to Petra, Sarah, and Kira, and asked them each if they would like to invite a few friends. We talked about it, and came up with a list of six friends each (I mean, not everyone you invite will come, right? RIGHT?) I really wanted the Kira and Sarah to be able to invite their friends, too. I realize that all of their friends live in Rexburg, but that's not that far away, really. Well, I got the invitations all ready, sent them home with instructions to hand them out Monday at school, and their mother talked them out of it. She told them that their ward was having a Halloween party and they could see all of their friends there. I am really upset by this. I have a long history of putting everything I can think of into parties and having them completely bomb. In fact, at this moment, I can think of only one successful party that I have thrown. Ever.

Anyway, I am plowing stubbornly onward. Even if it does turn out to be only Petra's friends, we are DOING it!

Finally Getting Better

Well, we have been sick for the past couple of weeks, but it looks like things are finally calming down (in that area, anyway.) All four of us had the flu, and then I got strep throat, which no one else got, fortunately. Actually, I am really glad that I got it, because you can at least treat strep, unlike most of the other things going around. The unfortunate part was that, between the girls and I, I missed a lot of school. I'm pretty stressed out about catching up, but I think that I'm doing it *fingers crossed*.

I dropped my hardest class--I just decided that it wasn't worth being stressed out all of the time. Besides, I really wanted to take Spanish, even though it's not required for my major, because I thought that it would be really helpful in my career, especially in this area. Now that I dropped that class, it adds an entire extra year into my program, therefore allowing time for Spanish. Besides, it also times it out so that when I do actually start my program, and will basically be working a full time job, Talia will be starting Kindergarten, so at least she won't have to be in daycare all day every day.

I am tired. I got used to sleeping in while we were sick, and now I have to get up early again. *pout* Oh, well. You do what you gotta do.

Family Pictures

When Talia started at her new daycare, they sent home a list of things that they wanted us to bring in. One of the items on the list was a family picture. I started to think about it, and I realized that we have not had a real family picture taken since before Talia was born! We keep putting it off for one reason or another. So, I decided to just do it, no matter what. One of those 'whats' was that Jessica is down in UT for college, so she couldn't join us, but I just knew that if we waited around forever for everything to be just perfect, then we would never do it.

I decided what outfit I wanted to wear, and used that to declare that everyone had to be wearing outfits in either red, black, or white, or some combination thereof. I told Dusty to talk to the kids and tell them to bring their nice clothes, which he did. But they all forgot. I refused to let that stop us, so I took all of the kids to DI and bought new clothes for all of them except for Sarah who just happened to be wearing an outfit that was perfect. Unfortunately, they didn't have black shoes in everyone's sizes, so we went to Wal-Mart and bought a new pair for those that needed them.

We went down to the Greenbelt, on the library side of the bridge, where the Sister-City garden is. Right after we got there, I saw this neat little island across a little stream, and I thought that it would be a great place to take a picture of all of the kids together. Unfortunately, the little girls couldn't get across by themselves, so I was helping them, when I slipped and fell into the stream, scraping my leg on lava rock on the way down! All of that effort put into clothes and looking nice, and my legs were soaking wet and my backside was covered in mud. It was very muddy and wet in the area where we were, so we all got a little muddy by the end of the afternoon. Oh, well!

We went with it. My mom and dad showed up, and Dad took pictures of all of us together. Unfortunately, Petra had thrown up that morning (though she was fine by this point in the day) and Talia had a fever, and we didn't get many smiles out of her.

In the end, we had to photoshop a couple of smiling faces into a shot to make everyone look happy, but I am pretty pleased with the results.

is stressed out.

Maybe I've been using Facebook too much?

Oh, So Very Tired

Last night, we had a serious lightning storm that woke Dusty and I up in the middle of the night. Dusty swears that our lawn got struck. I'll take a picture and post it in the morning, and you can decide.

Anyway, not much sleep last night, and today was my longest day of classes so far. Basically, 8 AM to 5 PM full of classes, with one hour off between noon and 1. In fact, there is only one class that I am taking that did not meet today (and every Monday for the rest of the semester.)

Because I had nothing scheduled for that hour of the day, I decided to take an Institute class this semester. No, I just walked into the building one day and everyone was so nice, and it just felt good, so I decided to take a class (the first one I will have ever completed, incidentally.) Today was the first class, and the instructor went through trying to learn everyone's names. He asked each person their name and a few questions about themselves. When I told him my name, he decided that he could remember it because in Hebrew means 'weary' and I have 7 children!

Now, whenever he says my name, he says it with almost a little sigh, and a sad half-shake of his head, like, "Poor, Leah. She's so tired!"