Walks & Pumpkins

Sunday was a perfect Fall day, the weather was absolutely beautiful! Tyler's mom's friend, Michelle, was still in town for work so we took a walk with her in Indian Springs Metropark Sunday afternoon. We had never been to any of the trails at this Metropark so it was fun to explore a new place and visit with Michelle! Here are some pictures from our walk:

Also on Sunday, the girls wore their new dresses that their Grams Brady got them. They looked so stinking cute and they got so many compliments. I just wish I could've gotten a better picture of Lucy. When I asked if I could take her picture she ran into the corner. I have no idea why, maybe she was feeling shy?

Monday night for FHE we carved our pumpkins. And by "we", I mean the kids told Tyler what they wanted their pumpkins to look like and he carved them. It was lots of work for him and is going to be even more work for him next year when Penny has an opinion too! 

I did help him out though by cleaning out all the pumpkin guts. I used the fancy Pinterest trick of attaching a beater to a drill to clear out the guts. That trick worked like a charm and made the nasty gut cleaning process WAY easier! Penny spent most of the pumpkin carving time inside the house watching us from the window. It was a chilly night so I didn't blame her!

Tuesday I went to Target to exchange some pants. When I got back to the car after exchanging them, I couldn't find my car keys anywhere! I went back inside Target to see if I had dropped them somewhere-I had only been to the returns counter and the boy's section- and was still not able to find them. This is when I began to panic. I went back to my car started unloading the diaper bag for the bazillionth time and then I patted my pockets. I swore I had already done this but apparently I hadn't because there they were. They were in my jacket pocket the ENTIRE time. I felt like such a basket case. I swear I am literally loosing my mind these days.

Wednesday I had my pre-applicant sub meeting. Basically we turned in paperwork and were trained on how to use the sub system and how to be a good sub. It was stuff I already know so it was pretty unexciting. The next day I went and got my fingerprints done and so now all I have to do is wait for an email that tells me if I am hired or not. I am equal parts excited and nervous about subbing again. I am also hoping subbing might help my mind return to me!

Friday Penny got her dental work done. It was about traumatic as I expected it to be. The sedative they gave her made her sluggish but it did not prevent her from being aware of what was going on. She cried throughout the whole procedure. Thankfully Tyler went back with her and I could not hear her in the waiting room. I would not have been able to cope with seeing her so upset and being able to do nothing about it. She had a really rough day after getting the work done but that was to be expected. Nobody enjoys getting a root canal and crown. Thankfully, she is doing much better today. The only funny thing about that whole ordeal was that when the sedative was first setting, she just started giggling randomly and saying "Barbie, Barbie!" 

Also this week, Lucy informed me that she has a brother named James who lives in a tent in the woods. But right now James is visiting his Grandma in AZ. That girl and her imagination! She is very much like Steven!

Fall Days

We had our landlord do a walk through Monday and I am so glad to have that done with. It went OK. Our landlord seemed to be cool with the normal wear and tear so that was good. She will definitely not be reimbursing me for painting supplies which stinks, kind of took the wind out of my sails. I was all prepared to make this home more pretty but her "eh" attitude changed my mind. The only thing she seemed genuinely surprised about was a pantry door that is falling apart. But it is an ancient folding door that opens and closes a lot so I'm not quite sure that she should have be surprised by that.

After Penny's speech group on Wednesday we decided to stop by Kensington. The weather was warm and the Fall leaves were oh so pretty. When I suggested taking some pictures, Lucy got very into that idea. She kept pointing to places and asking if I would take her picture there. She is such a diva already. Penny is also a diva and gets really upset whenever I try to dress her. She wants to pick out her own clothes(and her own shoes and her own jackets) and she doesn't always have the best fashion sense ;)

On Wednesday we also got our first Kohl's package from Grandma (who now works there). The kids were ecstatic, it was like Christmas! Since I have been a cheap-o lately and getting a lot of their clothes from Salvation Army, I was also excited. I love being able to dress them in cute new things, even cute new jammies:

And to add to our crazy Wednesday, Tyler's mom's friend, Michelle, was in town again and we had her over for dinner. It's always nice to chat with her and hear all the Hatch family updates. It's also just nice to have someone from AZ here. It makes me feel a little less homesick. She took some selfies with my kids:

Friday I made a run to Walmart for just a few groceries and to look at shoes for Lucy and remembered why I do Meijer's Curbside. Penny had an utter meltdown because I wouldn't let her have any shoes and screamed the whole way to check out. When we got to the self check out (because all the other lanes had lines) we realized the shoes I was getting for Lucy had no tag so then Lucy had a meltdown when I told her we weren't going to get them- no way was I going to wait for a price check with a screaming Penny. It was horrible. I also realized that the last meltdown Penny had in a store was for the exact same reason- I didn't let her get a pair of shoes when we were looking at shoes at Salvation Army. I think this girl has a shoe addiction. Or maybe it's just the woes of being the child that only gets hand me downs?

Friday night we went to a birthday party for a friend (the one who fixed our shower last weekend). It was so fun to get out and socialize and play silly games. I always forget how needed that time is!

Today after I left to run some errands Lucy got pretty upset and I guess Tyler had a talk with her about her behavior. She then went up to her room even though Tyler didn't tell her to. After awhile Tyler went to check up on her and asked her why she was reading upstairs. She said "Because I don't like you." Such a sad story.

Cleaning, Blessings, Honesty

This week has felt like a doozy of week. We had lots of things going on (primary meeting, visiting teaching, story time, Penny's speech playgroup...) and in between it all I have been working hard to deep clean our house since our landlord will be doing a walk through tomorrow. This will be her first time seeing her home since we started renting it. *Gulp!* It's not that we are horrible, destructive people but when you put 4 kids in a house that is super old and not in great condition, things seem to wear and tear easier. I just keep hoping they remember the condition the house was in when we moved here.

Tyler had Wood Badge Camp this week, he left early Thursday morning and came back Saturday evening. I happened to mention to one of my friends the woe of not having him there to help out with a few small projects that I wanted to do before the walk through and she nicely offered up her husband to help. I tried to dissuade her because her husband is in the Bishopric and they are busy people themselves, but she wouldn't have it. Her awesome husband spent his whole Saturday taking apart our shower, cleaning it and re-caulking it. It looks fantastic and I will forever be grateful to them.

This week, I also took Penny to a dentist here in Michigan. It turns out that for some reason, I am still not sure why, the dentist in AZ failed to fix two molars that had cavities (one pretty severe, the other not so much). The whole thing is a bit frustrating but the dentist in AZ does at least seem willing to reimburse us some to help pay for this work that he should've take care of while we had her under. We set up an appointment here to get them fixed and I am extremely nervous about the whole thing. They are going to give her a nasal sedation that will *hopefully* make her very sleepy and then basically strap her down in a giant swaddle. It sounds completely traumatic and I am completely dreading it but I am hoping this really will be the last of the dental work.

We also had Parent Teacher Conferences this week. I had Bunco during Steven's conference so Tyler took Steven to his (along with all the other kids). I was told that the teacher had nice things to say about Steven but unfortunately we did not have nice things to say about Steven. Steven had an encounter with cheating this past week. He decided to fudge his reading log so that he could earn a prize for having a full reading log. When I saw his reading log and all the books on it that he had never read at home, I had to have a hard talk with him and he had to in turn have a hard talk with his teacher. Teaching honesty can be rough. Benny's conference was better. He is really excelling at math. He still struggles with reading and writing but he is growing and showing progress so that is a good thing.

And to end things, after Lucy's song about wanting Jesus to go away last week, this week she told me that she wanted Jesus to come to her home. I am glad they are on better terms now ;)

Here are two sneak peeks from our awesome Fall Photo Shoot:

A Fat Lip & Nice Weather

Last Sunday Penny woke up from her nap with some awesome bedhead, I had to document that fun:

This past week was a much better week than last. There was very little rain and the girls were feeling much better so we were able to hang out with friends and enjoy the sunshine. 

Tuesday evening Steven had a Campfire Pack Meeting at the Hess's Home. It was actually the best Pack Meeting ever because the Hess family lives so close by so we didn't have to drive far for once, plus the Hess family has an awesome backyard for all the other kids to play in. Steven was the master of ceremonies for the night, which meant he got to use a bullhorn to conduct the Pack Meeting. He was nervous at first but he did fine and ended up being a little too comfortable with the limelight.

Unfortunately the super great Pack Meeting had a pretty bad ending. The Hess family has a zipline in their backyard and one of the kids pushed back the handlebars you hang from pretty hard and it hit Steven right in the lip. It was perfect timing since he had picture day that Thursday. Ugh.

Park play date, story time at the library, Penny's mom/tot group, a play date at a friend's home, a family service project helping a Ward member move their firewood stash, walks, bike rides, a baptism, a birthday party, a date night for Tyler & me and that pretty much is our week in a nutshell. These pictures below show how Lucy has felt about this week ;) 

After church today I heard Lucy singing the car: "Jesus don't follow me, go away..." and other awesome similar things. I think she is learning a lot at church.

Gloomy

This past week felt pretty gloomy. It literally rained on and off throughout each day this week. That meant very little sunshine and very little time outdoors. What added to the gloom was that we couldn't go anywhere to play indoors either because the girls still had coughs and runny noses. It was a very cooped up, cabin fever kind of week but I am happy to report that the sun is out again, the forecast is looking promising for the week and the girls seem to be on the mend so good times are ahead!

Just to keep myself sane this week, me and the girls took a couple brief walks in the rain and sat outside under umbrellas and watched the rain coming down:

Also in the name of sanity we went on an outing to the craft store where I bought some supplies to make a felt board and felt board scenes for the kids to play with. I cut a lot of felt this week but it was so worth it. All the kids have found it highly entertaining. Benny has especially loved playing with it after school and even helped me cut out some felt monsters to play with. I didn't snap a picture of the monsters but here's Benny playing with the pumpkin:

We also took a trip to the dollar tree and picked up some spider web for the porch. Lucy then insisted I put it up that same day. That's right I put up my spider web before it was even October and believe me I paid the price for it. That night it was rainy and extremely windy and my spider web already looks like poop :(

Friday night Tyler had a camp out with his Scouts and was given permission to take Steven along. However with all the rain, all his wimpy scouts cancelled on him and he ended up just going with Steven. Steven was super hyper about the whole thing and apparently nonstop talked the entire time. The rain definitely did not put a damper on his fun.

Saturday we were scheduled to get family pictures and I was a little concerned that it might not work out with all the rain but lucky for us the weather cooperated and we had one of the most positive picture taking experiences ever. We were scheduled for a Fall Mini Session with our photographer which means she does a 30 min session in a pretty location that has lots of Fall colors and she also had 2 cute Fall set ups (one a pumpkin stand and the other hay bales). Doing picture in a 30 minute interval meant she had to work quickly which is exactly what our kids need. It went fast, the background was beautiful and there were no melt downs or freak outs. I am so excited to see the pictures! I wish I could see them now!! I mean look how cute Penny still looked right after them:

Also this week, I finished applying to substitute and I am pretty disgruntled by the whole thing. I waited until I had all my ducks in a row (letters of reference and contact info for previous employers) before filling out the application. Only I found out that I didn't need all that stuff for the application and that by waiting to fill out my application I just barely missed the September Substitute Pre-Applicant Meeting. Now I have to wait for the on at the end of October before I can go any further. It probably will be Nov or Dec before I can actually start subbing which is sooooo lame and frustrating.

A few tender mercies that I want to share so I can end on a positive note...

Monday morning I was feeling broke but wanting a date night with Tyler. I thought in my head, "Wouldn't it be great if a gift card and money for a babysitter just magically appeared?" That same day I was cleaning out my pile of junk and out slipped a forgotten gift card. Now we just have to find a babysitter so we can get out!

Also this week I was worrying about who would watch the boys if I got sub jobs at other schools. Well, lo and behold Steven's friend Max's dad (they live just 2 houses down) asked about carpooling. So now not only do I get to share the responsibility of taking my boys to school and back everyday but he also offered to help watch the boys before or after school when needed. 

Things

Last Saturday evening Tyler had to go chaperone a stake dance so I decided to get the kids out of the house and we took a walk down a trail by the YMCA. While we were walking, we decided to look for a geocache that was supposed to be just off the trail. It was a tricky one (especially since it was covered in camouflage, but Steven found it. He was so proud of himself!

Penny, as usual, had me carry her a lot but she did walk sometimes so that she could find some super rocks!

The weather was perfect and it was such a nice walk, that when Tyler said he had a fireside to go to Sunday night, I thought we would do a second round. I should have known better. Nothing goes quite as well the second time around. There was also a geocache off the trail we walked on Sunday but it was a nano one and we had absolutely no luck in finding it. This made Steven extremely angry and Lucy extremely fussy and it was really just a miserable walk. I should have just stayed at home with them.

On Monday, Steven gave me some major attitude and ended up vacuuming the car, mowing the lawn and doing other misc chores as punishment. This meant we had to postpone FHE until he was done with all his work. While waiting Ben was a very good sport and let Penny push him around in a stroller and Lucy feed him fake food:

This week we started story time at the library. This is my attempt to get Lucy in free learning activities. She loved it so much and it made me wish even harder that we could put her in preschool. She is so ready for all that fun! And she is so constantly bored, this is going to be a rough school year. 

Also, boredom apparently causes Lucy to get creative in what she wears to pick up the boys from school.

During Penny's Mom & Tot Speech class Wednesday I asked the speech therapist if she had any tips for how I could help Lucy. She said doing repetitive phrases (like "I see...") or looking at a pictures and having her say what the person is doing in each picture or just really enunciating when I spoke to her would all help. So this week we have been doing a lot more talking than normal and I have really had to focus on slowing down my speech and enunciating words. For some reason this has been more challenging than I thought it would be! I also printed out some picture cards that would help us with all our speech practice. Lucy (or should I say Spider Lou) decided she wanted to "help" me cut out the cards. She was super helpful...

Wednesday I had Bunco and was once again mediocre and won zero prizes. I always have one really awesome round (I got 3 BUNCOs and 3 baby BUNCOs in one round) and then my rest are really lousy. That means I don't do good enough to win the high score prizes and I don't do bad enough to win the lowest score prizes. Regardless though, it was so much fun and I love getting out.

Thursday Tyler headed to Woodbadge Scout Camp and he came back Saturday afternoon. The kids were actually pretty good so it wasn't been too hard having him gone. The only bummer is that I have had a cough and the girls have had runny noses so we haven't been able to go out and socialize.

Lastly, I am still slowly trying to become a substitute. I got all my letters of recommendation and so I decided to start the application Thursday night. That ended up being quite traumatizing. It was late and I was tired but I figured I could handle filling in blanks. Turns out there was an aptitude test that required THINKING-- like MATH thinking!! I am pretty sure I did a terrible so...great. Then I got to a part that asked for contact info from my previous employer and since I don't have their current info, I had to stop. I am still waiting for her current info so it seems like this is going to be a long process. I don't know why I was thinking it wouldn't be. I also saw that I will need to get fingerprinted so that's another step. But on the bright side, I did find someone in the Ward who would be willing to watch my girls so that is one thing taken care of...

Speech Delays & Things

This week was busier than last week and that was good, especially for Miss Lucy who was struggling with boredom last week. It was also challenging since I had a pretty fun cough that I had to douse out with Dayquil in order to not miss out on all the fun things that we had to do.

One of the fun things that we had on our agenda was Penny's first Mom and Tot class. We had done a speech evaluation for Penny and the end result was that she was delayed but not delayed enough to qualify for speech services. I was frustrated but the Evaluator did offer to let Penny join a Mom and Tot class (and Lucy could tag along too). So this week we had her first one and I wasn't sure what I was expecting but it was essentially it was play date with a few other kids and 2 speech teachers where they  had a word of a day ("play"} that they said and signed a lot. The girls had a blast though and it will be good for them to have this once a week.

Also this week, Lucy took her turn and got her speech evaluated and she got exactly the same verdict as Penny. Delayed but not enough to qualify for services. They recommended I put her in preschool but that is just not financially in the cards right now so I started going through other options...

Option #1: A co-op with ladies in the ward- not enough interest, one of the ladies kind of scared everyone away with an intense approach to a co-op.

Option #2: I start my own preschool. Except I would have to do it under the table which would making getting students challenging and I don't want to risk getting myself sued or anything so no go.

Option #3: I find a cheap one day a week preschool or mom/tot thing that I can get Lucy in. The closest thing I found was for 2.5 year old's and thereby no good for her. 

Option #4: I get into subbing again so I can make some money to put away so that Lucy can go to preschool next year. 

In the end Option #4 seemed the most feasible so that's my current plan. I'm working one step at a time towards starting to sub again (because if I think about the big picture of how I am going to make it work logistically I start panicking). We'll see how it all pans out and though it scares me a bit, I also feel a bit excited at the idea of being in the classroom again. 

On another note, the weather has been fabulous this week and so we've been outside a lot which is apparently dangerous for Penny. She tripped and literally fell on her chin, causing herself to do a pretty serious bite down on her inner lip. There was lots of blood and it was super deep and a I panicked and called Tyler. He was so good to me and came home from work to check it out, and he was concerned too. So we sent pictures to a doctor friend who determined she would probably be fine without stitches. She was super fussy the rest of the day but it seems to be growing back together, poor girl.

And let's end on a more fun note...I went to Curriculum night at the boy's school this week and another mom informed me that her daughter calls Ben, "Benny Boo" and has told her that she is going to marry Ben. Oh my little charmer, getting the girls already, ha ha! 

So Penny discovered the shoes above in her closet and has been wearing them everyday since> They are church shoes with a small heel so it's been pretty funny having her wear them to super unfancy places like Walmart and the park. And Lucy discovered that bib in her closet (it was with the doll clothes) and thought she was soooo funny wearing it!