Women's Conference - III

Joshua and I got to go to the 3rd Annual Bell Women's Conference. This year it was my aunt Melanie's turn to host and she happens to be the one aunt who lives out of state. So 16 of my aunts and adult female cousins and Joshy and I flew to San Fransisco to Nate and Melanie's beautiful home. It was a blast. The past two women's conferences have been just one night but since we traveled a lot further we extended it.

Most of us arrived Thursday morning where we were picked up in two Suburbans (my aunt traded a friend of hers a smaller car for her big car). When we all went places it took both Suburbans plus a car. Anyway, after arriving everyone but me and baby love took off for Stinson Beach for a hike and then to a campground where they cooked dinner around a campfire. Joshy and I stayed behind and settled him in for a good nap. I got to chat with my cousins who live there and loved getting to know them a little better. When the group returned we chatted for a bit and then headed to bed.

Kristin, Brittany, Ashley,Kristen, Eliza, Brynn, Mandolin, Tiff, Tasha, Ally, Melanie and Megan

Friday morning we got up and after breakfast and 16 women showered and got ready headed off to the Oakland Temple. 3 of my cousins haven't been through the temple yet so they volunteered to watch Joshy for me so I could go. We were a little late getting to the temple and discovered we had missed the session which was only every hour on the hour. Melanie asked if there was anyway they could do a special session for us and guess what - they did! They were so kind and the 13 of us got to do our own session, it was so neat. Thank you so much Megan, Brittany and Ashley for taking care of Joshua for me!

Kristen, Brittany, Tiffanie, Tasha, Kristin

After the Temple we headed into town for some shopping in Chinatown. We had a fun lunch there and then walked around and got some souvenirs for our kids. We then headed back to Mel's house where her sister-in-law came to teach us a class on marriage. It was wonderful, she was a great speaker and had tons of great information. We also had a great dinner and stayed up late, late, late (or should I say early?) chatting and laughing. Great times.

Liza, Allyson, Melanie

Saturday Melanie's son, Jackson, who recently returned from a 2 year LDS mission in Madagascar showed us tons of pictures and told us all about his mission. It was fascinating! We then headed to a nearby town for lunch and more shopping. My Mom, my aunt Jan and I were flying out that late afternoon and the rest of the group was staying til Sunday. After lunch we said goodbye and Melanie took us to the airport. We went through the whole checking in, security, boarding and then after taxiing out to the runway we were told there was some maintenance issue so we'd have to wait for a few minutes. Then we were told we would be de-planing and then we were told that that was the last flight out and we would be spending another night in San Fransisco. Huh. We felt fortunate that we had great company and accommodations waiting for us so we dealt with our disappointment of missing our families for one more day and went to settle up with Delta at the ticket counter. 3 HOURS LATER, we had a shuttle ride to my aunt's and a $50 flight voucher. That wait was NOT awesome. Fortunately I was in excellent company and my Mom and Jan were amazingly cheerful and helpful with Joshy. We took turns standing in line. If they hadn't been with me I'm pretty sure I would have just sat down on the floor and cried. We finally made it back to my aunt's house where we were greeted with lots of love and sympathy. Our husbands were wonderful sports about the extra day, my kids burst into tears but pulled it together and hung in there one more day. We had another really really late great fun night chatting and laughing. Sunday morning we got up and re-packed and hopped aboard our shuttle, jumped back through all the airport hoops (got another $50 flight voucher - yay, Mom) and finally made it home!!!

Tammy, Brynn, Mom, Megan, Mandolin, Ashley

Sadly, Brennan had to go out of town about an hour after I got home, but only for one night. It was great to see them all again. I missed them so much but the trip was perfect. Joshua was an ANGEL, and there were always lots of willing hands to help me with him. The women I got to be with are just plain amazing and I love them so much. I feel so blessed to be able to rub shoulders with some of the finest, brightest, strongest, most righteous women in the world. These women are phenomenal women, wives and mothers and I came away determined to be better.

Thank you so much Brennan for taking time off work to run things at home. The house was clean and the kids were happy. They had a great time with him. I'm so grateful I was able to leave things in such capable, willing hands. Thank you all my aunts and cousins who made the trip so much fun, especially Melanie! To all my sisters-in-law and cousins and aunts who didn't come, we missed you so much. Can't wait for next year!

Joshua

Lately Joshy has been laughing a lot and hard. Anna got him going the other night and we got some footage. In fact, he was laughing so hard he kept almost tipping over. Enjoy.

Untitled from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

Check it Out

My sister in law is a Demarle rep. and is offering a giveaway for a Silpat. Check it out here if you're interested.

Update

I could probably cut this way down and just sum up the last few weeks by two words: sickness and Olympics. That's pretty much what we've been doing. You know I can't just leave it to that though, right? I mean come on, two words? That would kill me.

So for the sickness part, as you faithful readers will recall we took Joshua to the ER last Sunday morning and fortunately he tested negative for RSV. He's been pretty good this week, but just hasn't totally gotten over the cold and I'm not sure about his ears either. He had a couple of really rough nights, but I'm not sure why he wasn't struggling to breath or anything I'm wondering if it was his tummy from the antibiotics. Then Friday morning I woke up in the night and got a very nasty case of the throw-ups. Last night Abby and Brennan joined the club. Fortunately this seems to be the 24 hour thing and I'm feeling great and I think they'll be feeling a lot better soon. Hopefully, this will remain an elite club of just the three of us!

I've really tried to keep Joshua home the last few weeks and so I haven't seen much of the outside world lately. I've discovered a crucial key to happiness in these times and that is: take things a second at a time. If I start looking ahead, wondering how I'm going to get back into my exercise regime, or shower or make dinner I start to get a little crazy. If, however, I don't look ahead and just deal with the tiniest sliver of the present I can usually stay calm and sometimes even enjoy the mellowness of it all. Fortunately, too, having 5 kids teaches you that babies are only babies for 2.5 seconds and while it would be nice to sleep each night, it's sooo temporary.

Brennan has been a champ again. He took such good care of me and everyone else yesterday. I was laying in bed worrying about whether Anna would remember to turn in her book report and take her lunch or whether Brennan would remember to pick up the carpool and give baby love his medicine and guess what they did it all. I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, we women worry too much. Anyway, Brennan has been in the trenches right along side me through many sleepless nights with Joshy and I am so grateful to have a partner in all this. I love Brennan.

Anna has been incredibly helpful too. She came home from school yesterday and completely took over with Joshua. She knows just how to calm him down, and keep him happy and loves him to death. They had their cast party yesterday for their play they did last week and Anna was supposed to bring a treat. She made no bake cookies all by herself, and they turned out great. I was very proud of her. She and Chloe were here last night and they asked if they could go watch tv downstairs, but instead the little kids started doing "gymnastic" tricks on an old mattress and Chloe and Anna got way into it dressing up as reporters and announcing the gymnasts and their tricks. I love that they are so creative and not to cool yet for those kinds of things. We love Anna.

Abigail saw one of those little coupons tucked into an American Girl catalog, it said, "Free Catalogue!" but she misread it and excitedly said, "Oh my gosh, I am SO keeping this! I can get free college!!!!!" I'm so glad she's on the look out for a good deal for her college education. If only. We tease Abby that while she can be extremely graceful and coordinated, she is also a gifted klutz. The other night she came into the kitchen, stepped around Joshy's exer-saucer which was in the middle of the path and told me something. When we finished there was a VERY loud bang, bam, crash, smack. We looked over and there was Abby sprawled out on the exer-saucer. She gets a little ahead of herself sometimes and leaps before she looks. She's a great sport about laughing at herself and letting us laugh with her. We love Abigail.

Nathan reported to me that Ben should not get in trouble because he was not "traticipating". I love the words he comes up with. He has been our Olympic fan and is obsessed with short-track speed skating. Last week we got to go watch Nate in the first grade patriotic program and it was fabulous. I LOVE watching him in these things because he furrows his brow, looks right at the chorister and sings his little heart right out. He is so focused it cracks me up especially when he's singing a light happy little song and he looks like he's getting dental work done. I'm also always struck by how handsome he is, I know I'm prejudiced, but I can't get enough of his face. We love Nate.

Benny has been a great sport about being cooped up lately. My sweet neighbor has 4 little kids, Ty, Diana, Will and Daisy. Ben loves playing with them and has kind of combined them into one name: Tyana. He is always wanting to go to Tyana's. Nate and Ben were playing football yesterday. Ben has learned that when things aren't going his way play sick. Yesterday he was upset because he wanted the storm trooper action figure, but Nate had it. He collapsed into tears and on the ground saying, "My stomach hurts because I don't have the storm trooper!" Brennan and I watched them tackle each other and then Ben stood up and pretended to throw up. Evidently he's decided the ultimate in toughness is to play so hard you vomit. Awesome. We love Ben.

Joshua is a long-suffering, sweet little chubs. The people at the ER were cracking up at his "stoutness" as they put it. He's had to deal with one form or another of sickness for basically 2 months now, but still manages to be adorably sweet and happy most of the time. He's so social and loves to engage everyone and anyone. Yesterday about broke my heart when he kept looking at me wondering why I wasn't picking him up. I missed him!!! We love Joshy.

Oh the Drama

We've had quite a weekend. Beginning with the big ACPP's (Anna, Chloe Play Productions) production of "The Princess and the Pauper" We had a bit of a scare when we lost our venue, but luckily Chloe's mom is a school teacher and pulled some strings and saved the day by getting the school. I always have a mild heart-attack before these performances because I realize I have no idea what is going to be performed. Rehearsals were at my house every week, but they were downstairs in another universe and I never saw it. Anyway, people paid to have their daughters be part of this and it always makes me nervous. Yet again, however, I was totally blown away. Anna and Chloe were completely organized, figured out scenery, props and costumes completely on their own. They made the best of the location change which actually turned out to be a blessing because they were able to use the big steps and be closer to the audience rather than a huge stage far away.

WARNING: Some serious parental pride ahead!

We were mostly totally blown away with the performances. All the girls in the play did such a darling job, but we were especially proud of Anna and Abby. Abby was one of the leads and I kind of had no idea what to expect. She was totally confident, poised and had real genuine stage presence. And, it was a musical and you should have heard her belting out her songs. Brennan and I looked at each other and both kind of burst into tears (I know, we're out of control). Anna, we knew could perform, but she had to play like 4 different pats including a prince. Her other character was the comic relief and she totally hammed it up in the most delightful way. She too, has such a great voice and even managed to sing as a boy in a love song with Abby. SOOOOO cute. Here are some pics. and video clips for your viewing pleasure:

This first one is the duet with Anna (as a boy) and Abby. (They sang along with a CD which also had singing on it, so that's why you'll hear other people singing)

Untitled from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

Anna as the clumsy villain

Meg the Princess and Abby the Pauper

The whole cast

The lovely princess


Our sweet pauper

This is a little snippet of the finale.

Untitled from Andrea W. on Vimeo.

Our other weekend drama included a little trip to the ER for Joshua. Poor baby is currently battling round three of ear infections and then Saturday night was working hard to breathe. Sunday morning we called my parents who kindly took the 4 big kids all day while Brennan and I took Joshua to the hospital. They thought for sure he had RSV but he tested negative for it. They observed him for a while and then sent us home with an inhaler and what to watch for. He was so sweet through it all.

My mom reported that not suprisingly our emotional little crew back at home were upset and worried about their baby brother. Several of them were in tears and at one point my Mom walked into a bedroom where she saw Anna reading the scriptures to Abby and Nate in an effort to comfort them. So sweet. Nate also showed my Dad that he'd brought one of Joshua's socks to their house saying that Anna had suggested they have something to remind them of Joshy.

I will be the first to admit that the emotions around here are sometimes a little out of control and often run amok. When someone around here feels something, pretty much everyone in the world will be well aware of it. I'm probably the least emotional of the bunch, but I'm getting more and more so every day. Anyway, all that drama and feeling does have an upside and it was all put to very good use this weekend. We love our affectionate crazies very much.

Princess and the Pauper - Venue change

Due to a funeral needing our church building the girls' play will be changed to our school (down by Smiths). Hope no one feels pressure to come, just wanted you to know where it is if you were planning on it. Thanks!

Love is in the Air

I need to record what turned out to be my favorite Valentine's Day ever. Last Monday for our FHE lesson we talked about service and how important it must be because that's what Jesus spent his days on earth doing. We then wrote all our names (except Joshy) and each of us took turns drawing one of the names. The name we drew was our secret valentine and we had to do some kind of anonymous service for our person every day until Valentine's Day.

I LOVED seeing what everyone came up with. There were lots of treats left on pillows and cute pictures drawn. My favorite though was Nate leaving a pile of goldfish crackers on Anna's bed. I had Ben and everyday he'd come out and show me something he'd found on his bed. I'd say, "Wow, is that from your secret valentine?" "No." "Yeah, I think it is." So very cute and the kids really didn't need to be reminded they looked so forward to doing something kind each day. Sunday we each wrote a letter to our person and told them what we love about them and signed our name so they knew who had been serving them. It was so much fun. It showed me once again that in spite of all our problems and weaknesses, we are blessed with lots of love in our home.

Also, not much in life is more awesome than the Olympics, right? LOVING them.