Thanksgiving & Black Friday

As we all know, this week was Thanksgiving! We only got off Thursday and Friday. My last two classes on Wednesday were cancelled, so I can't really complain. We were going to go to some friend's house, but their kids got sick. We ended up going to some other friends. It was a lot of fun. They have a girl who is a month older than Adella and one that is two months older than Kayla. It didn't really feel like Thanksgiving because we weren't with family, and it was way too warm. I didn't know that Florida celebrated the holidays in the summer!

We also decided to set up our Christmas tree. We had the windows open to keep it cooler in the house, but I was still sweating by the time it was up. As you can see, I was wearing shorts. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I've set up a tree in shorts!

I went to Walmart at 5:00 Friday morning. They had some good deals on some movies for Christmas. I got home a little after 6:00 and tried to go back to sleep. After everyone else woke up we all went to a couple more stores searching for great deals. I went out again on Saturday and it was still really busy. We did find some deals that were too good to pass up.

Here's a gross story. This morning Adella woke up and she was unusually happy. I went into her room because she had woken Kayla up. She was happy too, but needed to eat. I brought Kayla into our room and Adella followed. The girls were all sitting on our bed and I was getting dressed for church. Adella sounded like she was choking. I realized that she was about to throw up and hurried over to get her off the bed and to the bathroom. Well, I didn't even get her off the bed in time. It was so gross. I started cleaning it up and I was doing well until I smelled it. I started gagging, but the only thing that kept me from throwing up was knowing that I would have to clean it up! After she got cleaned up she was acting fine. She wanted apple slices for breakfast (who knows why), so she was eating one and suddenly threw up again! Katie took a turn cleaning it up while I tried to keep Kayla out of it. I ended up staying home from church with the girls. Katie had to go play the piano for the ward choir.

This was her punishment for making me clean up her mess. At least this way she'll throw up into the garbage can. Of course I'm only kidding. She wanted to help peel potatoes the other day. She really is a sweet girl. She seems to be doing much better now. I can't even get her to sit still.

There is now less than two weeks til we get to go back to Idaho! We are still really excited about it. It will be fun to be with family again. I just have to get through finals this week, and next Monday. I have been spending a lot of time in the anatomy lab looking at cadavers, so I feel pretty good about that exam. The rest of them shouldn't be very bad (I hope).

This is after one of Kayla's many times peeing without a diaper on. She absolutely loves the bath, and it's even better with mommy in too!

We bought a gingerbread haunted house after Halloween and had fun putting it together. Kayla got to try some of the black icing. This is what happened when we stopped giving it to her. She throws her head back a lot. Adella says she is drama, and she really is. Everything is like the end of the world with her. Adella and I finished decorating it while Katie fixed everything by...

giving Kayla a bath!!! You can fix almost anything with a bath!

As you can see, we have reached the (back) end of this blog. Isn't that the cutest little bum you've ever seen? Until next week!

GOSH

This semester is quickly winding down. I have now turned in the two papers that I had to do, and my first final is tomorrow!!! I can't believe it's already here. After that I have three finals next week, and one the Monday following that. That is it. Two weeks from tomorrow I will be done with my first semester of optometry school. It has gone by really fast. The bonus point from donating blood will be nice also (we made it).

I have been spending a lot of time in the anatomy lab with the cadavers. Our first two lab exams for that class have been with pictures, not on the cadavers. Well, for the last unit they decided to change it up and give us a test with the gross cadavers. I think I should do fairly well on it. They are going to have a mini mock exam set up a couple days before so we know what kinds of things to expect.

Now for the reason I named this post gosh. That is Adella's new favorite word. She is so stinkin cute. She really says it all the time. If she eats something good she'll say, "Gosh, that was good." If she thinks something is funny, "Gosh, that was funny." The cutest (sometimes) is when she says it under her breath when we tell her to do something. Katie and I were talking about what people will think when we go home to visit. I mean if they will think she has changed at all. Kayla has obviously changed in the last 4 months, but we don't know if Adella has.

Kayla did the funniest thing the other day (and a couple times since then). She was sitting in the hall next to the wall. We started hearing a thud, thud, thud. I was wondering what the upstairs neighbors were doing when I noticed Kayla banging her head against the wall! You hear of kids doing that, but I didn't realize they actually did. Adella never did it. Adella and Kayla are different in a lot of ways though. Adella has always been pretty cautious. Kayla is not afraid of anything. We have had several close calls from her trying to crawl off the bed or couch. She is afraid of walking, so we're not sure she'll be walking by the time we go visit.

We have all been sick this past week. I think Adella and I got it first, then Katie. I'm pretty sure Kayla is just cranky from trying to get a tooth. We have all been miserable with stuffy (or snuffy, as Adella says) noses and bad headaches all week. Adella and I are definitely getting better, and I think Katie is too. It's no fun being sick when Katie can't take care of me. :)

Well, I can't think of anything else, and I don't have any new pictures to post, so I will say good bye until next week.

Donating Blood

There are now less than four weeks until we get to go back to Idaho! We are really excited about it. Katie realized that we only go to church three more times before we leave. That is really coming up fast. That also means that finals are just around the corner. I can't believe that they are so close. One of my finals is actually a week from tomorrow. Yikes! Then we get Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving. The week after Thanksgiving, I have finals on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and the following Monday. The Friday after the last final we come home. When I list it out like that it makes it seem even closer. I guess I need to make sure I know what I need to.

Last week at school they did a big blood drive. Well, we were informed that if at least 50% of our class donated blood we would get an extra 1% on our final grade in three of our classes! That is a lot! They also told us that we could get other people to donate and count toward our class. Katie likes giving blood, so she said that she would. It's been about ten years since I have donated because I don't really enjoy it. I have never had any problems though, so I decided to do it.

Right after I sat down and they stuck the needle in my arm, one of the other people giving blood passed out. Not really a big deal. I even thought that I was glad I had never done that. I keep squeezing that little ball and everything seems to be going fine. Then the girl to my left says that she feels like she's going to throw up. That's when things start going downhill. I knew that if she threw up, then I would too. My vision started fading, and the next thing I know there are a couple ladies dripping water on my face waking me up! I had completely passed out. I felt like such an idiot. I have never passed out for anything! They told me that sometimes it just happens. I hope they weren't just trying to make me feel better.

I was feeling well enough to watch the girls while Katie donated. Then we started walking to the car and by the time we got there, I felt really sick. That feeling stuck with me for the rest of the day. It was like the worst feeling. All I could do was lie on the couch. This was on Thursday, and on Saturday my arm was still really sore. I looked and there was a big bruise. I just took this picture because it has not even started to go away. In fact I think it's worse today! It looks worse than it does in the picture.

Well, in other news, Adella has been sick this week. She has had a sore throat and runny nose. Also, Kayla is trying to get a tooth. This combination led to a very rough night on Friday. It all started better than normal (that should have tipped us off that something was wrong). Both Adella and Kayla hadn't slept great on Thursday night and were tired from not feeling well. We put them to bed a little early, and they both went right to sleep. Katie and I were up working on some Christmas presents and we kept hearing Adella crying, but she wasn't really awake. Then at about 10:45 Adella woke up and pretty much threw a fit until about 1:00. Of course this woke up Kayla, who wasn't feeling well either and wouldn't go back to sleep. The rest of the night was not great either. We kept Kayla in our bedroom in her portable crib so that if one of them woke up, the other would (hopefully) not be woken up.

The good news is that they are both acting a lot happier now, and have been mostly sleeping through the night. Kayla had a little temperature earlier, but she is napping now. Adella is still really stuffy, but she is feeling a lot better. Getting sick is no fun, but having sick kids is the worst.

No more exams until Finals!!!

Hooray! Last Monday was my last midterm exam. It was a pretty difficult exam in Biochemistry. Overall, I did pretty well. It is a relief that I don't have another exam until the Monday before Thanksgiving. I have two short papers that are due between now and then, but I am done with both of them. It's been nice to be able to stay home in the mornings. I have been going in to school and studying in the mornings. This week I have been able to stay home a little later and spend time with my girls.

This week we went to Ikea to get the girls a rug for their room. We had found this one there before and thought about getting it for Christmas or Adella's birthday. Well, we decided that was too long to wait. We went to the store and left Adella at the play area. You can leave them there for an hour and they give you a beeper in case they need you before the hour is over. She had a lot of fun until it was time to go. She couldn't find the picture that she had colored, and was heartbroken. Poor little girl. Anyway, we got home and unrolled it. She absolutely loved it! We told her that we could have a picnic for dinner. We had to have a picnic on the rug. It was a lot of fun. I got to sit with my feet in the ocean. She has had so much fun with it this week.

We went to the beach yesterday. It still feels like summer here. It has been getting into the 80's. The water has definitely gotten cooler, but I still get in. It's WAY warmer than the Oregon coast that we used to go in. We are getting used to having the beach close to us. It's going to be hard to have to move back and not have an ocean. Good thing that's not for a while. We'll just enjoy it while we have it!

So, we started a new tradition that we check out a family movie at the library (which reminds me of another story to tell in a second), and watch it together on Sunday afternoon. When we lived near our families, we would almost always spend Sunday afternoons with one of them. It is a lot of fun. Adella loves to turn the couch into a bed and have the whole family on it. It really is a fun tradition, and I think they are about to start without me.

Now for the library story! We were there on Friday afternoon and the fire alarm went off. Of course it was really loud. Adella doesn't like loud noises, so she was a little freaked out. We had to go out a back door. We explained about fire drills and she kind of thought it was neat. This happened shortly after we got there, so we hadn't picked anything out yet. While we were checking out it went of again! I guess they were working on it or something because the guard was telling people they didn't have to leave! I couldn't believe that! Now when there is a real fire, nobody will leave.

While we were outside the library we walked around the pond that is behind it to find big lizards. We have found them there before. This time we found a huge one. Of course we didn't have a camera. Maybe next time.

Well, they started the family movie without me, so I gotta go.

Halloween!!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

We had a couple really fun things happen this week. We took the girls trick or treating, and my parents visited! First I'll tell you about trick or treating. As you can see Adella decided to change her costume a little bit. She wanted to be a Cheetah Girl kitty this time. We went with a couple other people in the ward who have kids Adella's age. We just did a couple streets, then they were done. Nothing like how we used to run between houses and go home only to dump out our candy and go to another area. I am totally fine with that by the way.

It is different trick or treating here. I think about half of the houses we went to had people sitting out on their porch handing out candy. We didn't even wear jackets! I'm beginning to see some of the appeal of south Florida. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't outweigh the whole down side of hurricanes, not to mention the awful heat and humidity, but it has it's good points. When we got home I showed Adella how we would separate our candy into piles on the floor. She thought that was great! Oh, I almost forgot about this until I saw this picture. Adella was pretty tired when we got home. She sat down in her chair and just let her arms drop like she was too exhausted to move. It was really cute.

Earlier in the week we had my parents visit. That was a lot of fun for us. It was a really short visit, but we are glad they came. It was quite the adventure getting them. We got all loaded up in the van to go to the airport, and it wouldn't start. I was pretty sure it was a dead battery, so I started trying to find someone home to give us a jump start. I finally found someone who was home, and he actually used to work as a mechanic. He had a thing that can charge a battery, or jump a battery. He said it sounded like it was completely dead, and his machine said that too. He told us where he would go to get a new battery.

Anyway, we went and picked up mom and dad, then I had to go to class. Katie took them to the place that our neighbor had suggested, but they were really expensive. Mom called Costco and they had some for way cheaper. Instead of everyone going, my dad dropped everyone off and headed to Costco. They wouldn't let him buy it because it's my mom's name on the card. By this time I had gotten home from school and we all got ready to go to the beach, but first we went to Costco and got the battery.

We had a lot of fun at the beach. Grandma helped Adella make a sand castle. Katie sat Kayla in the sand this time. When we have gone other times, Kayla has been held the whole time. Of course she loved it, but she also kept shoving handfuls of sand in her mouth. Katie has a cute blog all about that. Check it out.

It was funny when we picked them up because Adella was very excited. Kayla, who faces backward in her car seat, saw them and started crying. She screamed the whole way home. She did finally get warmed up to them, as long as Katie was within view. We can't wait for December when we get to go home. I'm sure Kayla will really warm up to everyone within the three weeks we are there.

Just one more really cute story from today. Adella was playing with a flashlight in our closet while we were changing after church. I told her to stop because I would be upset if the batteries died. She gave it to Katie and said, "Mom, will you put this up somewhere I can't reach it? I don't want dad to get upset." I don't know when she started caring so much if I was upset, but evidently she does. Well, Katie gave me the flashlight and told me what she had said. Adella went into the bathroom to go potty. I went in there and sat the flashlight on the counter so I could help her. She got a little upset with me when I did that and told me she could still reach it there! What a sweet little girl I have. And here's a cute picture of Kayla, in case you thought I was forgetting about her.

She'll probably be walking pretty soon. She is really good at walking along the furniture. Oh, I just remembered this cute picture. I was reading Adella stories for bedtime, when Kayla crawled in. That isn't unusual, so I kept reading. The next thing I know, she is standing by the bed, but she was way too tall. She had somehow climbed on the step stool that was by Adella's bed.

Until next week...