Visits and Valentines

Last week we had a wonderful visit with Shannon and Chad. They first went to Lake Tahoe and Grass Valley and then came to see us for the second half of their trip. They spent 4 days at our house. We did lots of visiting and catching up.
(Side note- I was just helping Alyssa go potty. I sat her on the potty and she said, "We don't touch the water because there's germs and crocodiles and snakes." After sitting there for a couple of minutes she changed her mind and said, "There's no crocodiles or snakes, just germs." Oh, the imaginations of 2 year olds!)
Back to Shan and Chad's visit... the most exciting part was that Chad got to meet his dad who he hasn't seen since he was 1 year old. His dad, stepmom, brother and his family all drove from Las Vegas to see them. Chad's dad is a born again Christian and sells supplies for homeschooling. Chad and his brother had quite a bit in common and Chad looks a lot like his dad. Shan and Chad have been married for 5 years and before this she had only met one of Chad's brothers.
I took Shan to yoga with me. She almost passed out because she got too hot. Poor girl! We had fun though. We went shopping one day at the outlet malls and Shan convinced me to buy a Coach purse. I'm moving up in the world!
Brianna finishes school on Friday and then she is out until the end of March. We are getting ready for our cruise in less than 2 weeks. There are 30 of us going to celebrate Sheri's Big 5-0!
We had a nice Valentine's day. Bill had a dozen red roses delivered to the house and I had bought him some too. Then on Friday night, we dropped the girls off at the new church we've been going to. They have a big multipurpose room and they had music playing and a bounce house and games set up. There were kids of all ages. The girls had a great time. They even fed them dinner. Bill and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, Wood Ranch BBQ. We had a great conversation. It had been awhile since we had such a meaningful and deep discussion. It was really good.
Bill's mom called him today and said that his grandpa isn't doing very well and could we come out to see them in Arkansas. We are going to try to work something out without taking too much time off work.
I just got a really good book called, "Eat this, Not that". It tells you lots of ways to save calories, fat, sugar, etc. by eating different things when you go out to eat. It also says there are 8 foods you should eat every day.. Spinich, Carrots, Tomatoes, Black Beans, Yogurt, Walnuts, Oats and Blueberries. It also says America's 20 worst foods. I'm trying to be healthy lately. I just wish I didn't like chocolate so much. All in moderation right? One piece a day won't kill me. I got the book at Walmart.com for around $10. Well spent money! I've attached some pictures of when Shan and Chad were here. Enjoy!

A Beautiful Winter Day

The sun is shining and the mountains are covered in snow. I never really notice the mountains around us until they are white. It's beautiful! The hills are finally green. For the past year they've been brown from lack of rain. God is good. Last week I tried yoga for the first time. (Jess, you should be proud! I was thinking of you while I was in class.) I was really nervous about going. All of my old cheerleader friends probably remember how un-flexible I am. This isn't your typical gym yoga, this was an actual yoga place. My friend, Michele, from work invited me. I loved it! I haven't felt so relaxed and energized in a long time. It was a 90 minute class and let me tell you, I was hurting the next day. But it was a good hurt. After class, Michele told me that I was right next to the most flexible guy. Just my luck! I'm going to try to go once a week or once every two weeks. I only have one morning a week without children so we'll see how it goes. It is expensive but I figure it is good for the whole family if mommy is happy, right!
We tried out a new church on Sunday. It is called South Hills. A friend at work told me about it. We really liked it. It is a lot like Harvest, minus the huge crowd. It was so nice to pull right into the parking lot and park, instead of sitting in a traffic jam to park. The worship team was great and the pastor was really interesting. I think we are going to start going there and hopefully can meet some people and get involved. The girls both really liked their classes too.
Bill is home sick today. He had an upset stomach in the night. He's been in bed all morning. Hopefully it will pass soon and nobody else will get it. It has been an especially bad cold season. My parents are sick too. Another reason I need yoga!

The Power of a Chart

It is amazing how motivating a piece of paper with some boxes on it can be. I started a chart for Brianna and Alyssa. I have tried this before when Brianna was potty training. Now we have things like, "Cleans up toys", "No arguing or talking back" (My personal favorite), "Cleans up the bathroom", etc. Whatever issues we're having goes on the chart. Once they get to the end of the row, we will go buy a toy at the dollar store. It has been quite a success.
I had a bit of a crazy night at work on Sat. I was getting report and one of the nurses came and told us that one of the patients didn't look so good. He was having trouble breathing. I left report to check on him and had to call the Rapid Response team (it is a team made up of an ICU doctor, nurse, and respiratory therapist). They came right away and decided that the patient needed to be intubated (tube down the throat to help them breathe). So then it turned into a Code. We intubated him and sent him to the PICU. I've only seen one other intubation on my unit in my 9 1/2 years at CHOC. It definitely gets your adrenaline pumping. I'm so lucky to work with such a great team of people. Everyone really pulls together. It's been really busy at work lately with a lot of really sick kids. The winters are always hard. I've been wearing a pedometer for the past week and a half. It's interesting to see how far I walk. It's been about 5 miles a day or so.
Please keep Brianna's teacher in your prayers. I was told this afternoon that her husband passed away this morning. I know he had some health issues though I'm not sure what kind. I think she is in her 50's. They haven't told the kids yet. Life is short, Pray hard!

Too many toys...

I have started 3 posts and deleted them all. I never was very good at writing. My struggle lately has been discipline. How do we raise kids today to be respectful to their parents and other adults when we give them everything they want? How do we teach them to be appreciative of the things they have and to take good care of them? Sunday night I was getting ready for work and the house looked like a tornado had hit. Bill had told Brianna quite a few times to pick up her toys and she kept getting distracted. So finally he took a garbage bag and started picking them up and telling her they were going in the trash. This tactic used to work but it didn't this time. She just let him do it. Then I see him heading outside to the trash cans. We normally just put them out in the garage and make her earn them back. I followed him outside because he was carrying off her new toys from Christmas including her $50 Baby Alive doll. I didn't want him to actually throw them away. While I'm trying to convince him to just put them in the garage, out comes Brianna, carrying 2 more dolls(one of them is Alyssa's Baby Alive doll).."You forgot these ones." I was furious. Here I'm trying to save her toys and she's ready to throw more away. I rarely buy toys for the girls except for birthdays and Christmas. How they've accumulated so much, I don't know. We do a clean out of toys around every 6 months or so, I guess I need to do it more. I think I might need to follow my mom's suggestion and put some toys away for 6 months then bring them out and they'll be like new. I am open to other suggestions. Tami and Tif, what do you guys do with 5 kids? I only have 2 and it's a problem. I better get going, time to pack up some toys!