It's almost done!!!

My kitchen should be finished within the next couple of days! I'm SO excited! Now that it's snowing, cooking on the porch just doesn't have the same "roughing it" charm.

Here are some "before" and "during" pictures. The "after" pictures should be posted soon!

Halloween Extended Sugar High

We had a fun Halloween week. On Wednesday, we had our ward (church) Trunk or Treat. The upper parking lot of our church was completely full of parents' and other ward members' cars. I think just about every Primary kid was there. I took four bags of candy, and only came home with three pieces! Needless to say, Ryan's bag was completely full. It was also fun to see that our little friend Quinn also dressed up as Davy Crockett.
On Thursday, Ryan's school had their Halloween parade. Thursday evening, Ryan attended the birthday party of his friend, Isaac. They had fun telling spooky stories and doing other fun Halloween-themed activities. We also made our annual Halloween visit to our next-door-neighbor, Darlene.

We have a few Halloween traditions. The care center where my Great-Uncle Jim and Great-Aunt Flora live have a trick-or-treat time in the afternoon. We stopped there to see them, and Ryan was thrilled that Amy was there visiting her grandma and grandpa. For those of you who haven't read this post, Amy is a former Miss Utah. Ryan is her biggest fan!
We left the care center, and went to the Main Street trick-or-treating. Not only is it fun walking up and down Main Street, there are also a lot of fun photo ops.
After Main Street, we went to Colonial Square. We like trick-or-treating there because of all of the non-candy items the merchants give. Most of them give coupons for their products and services. We also had fun visiting with our dentist, who is also our bishop.

We went to Rara and Papa's for dinner, and then Ryan had a new fun experience and break from our Halloween tradition. My dad is the bishop of a young adult singles' ward. His executive secretary is engaged. He and his fiancee asked if they could take Ryan trick-or-treating. They took Ry out for a couple of hours, and were thrilled to come home with their haul, including several king-sized candy bars! WOW! Every year, I "budget" Ryan's candy so he doesn't eat it all in a few days. We can usually stretch it out until Christmas!
Our final stop on Halloween night was to the home of our great friends, Jerry and Linda Davies. We only see them a couple of times a year, but we always make sure that we see them on Halloween. Jerry works for Hostess, and they give Twinkies and Ding Dongs for Halloween. They always make sure to send Ryan home with a whole bag of Twinkies and Ding Dongs.
The best part of the week was that Alice was released from Primary Children's Medical Center on Thursday! We are all so glad that she is back home. On Saturday, we went to Marc and Frances' for dinner and to see the girls. We hadn't seen Claire since Alice was admitted to the hospital. It was great to see them both together again. Claire has gotten so big! (Claire is the bunny, Alice is the kitty.)
Ryan took his costume so we could get a picture of all of the grandkids in their costumes. Aren't they adorable?

Creepy!

Just in time for Halloween, Ryan caught a tarantula (and a grasshopper)…He kept it for a couple of days as a "pet" (I know – it gave me the heebiejeebies, too), and then let it go back into the wild… A spider (not the tarantula) spun a nifty web above our front steps (saved us the time of putting up a fake web for our Halloween decor)… And we made fun treats…

My favorite "Ryanism" of the week...

Melanie: I think you gave me the flu.

Ryan: I didn't give it to you...I still have it!

Sick Kids

Our family has had a rough week! Last Monday, less than a week after she had been released from the Intemountain Medical Center NICU, Alice started throwing up quite a bit and had blood in her diaper. After some blood work and an X-ray, Alice was admitted to Primary Children's Medical Center. She has a bacterial intestinal infection which is apparently common in preemies. She was started on antibiotics, and was taken for X-rays every six hours. She also had a tube put into her stomach to suction it out so that the bacteria no longer had anything to feed on. After several hours, Frances and Claire went home and Marc stayed at PCMC with Alice.
The next day, Marc and Frances moved from the duplex near IMC back to their own home. Our family has been taking turns staying at the hospital with Alice relieving Marc to do some work that he has needed to do. Last Friday, Ryan and I went to stay with Alice from about 3:00 to about 9:00. Rara and Papa went to stay with Claire, and Marc and Frances were able to have their first night out together since the girls were born. They had a good time, but joked that the next time we all volunteered to take care of the girls, they would just go to their bedroom and sleep! Ryan and I had a good time with Alice. She had her stomach tube removed, so she is a little bit happier and sleeps a tiny bit better. Ryan is such a good little helper and loves his new cousins so much! Last night, it was Ryan that had the rough night. If you have a queasy stomach, skip to the next paragraph. Ryan sleepwalks about once a week, so last night when I heard him walking around at about 1:30 am, I calmly asked him if he was ok. Just as I finished asking, I heard him throwing up in the bathroom. I went in, and it was everywhere but the toilet. And I mean everywhere! It was also on his jammies, so I got him new jammies and had him lie down again while I cleaned up. It took me 1/2 hour to clean it all up! I went back to bed, and the prior sequence was repeated at 2:30. All of it. We got new jammies and I cleaned the bathroom again. About every hour for the rest of the night, Ryan was in the bathroom again. At least in subsequent visits, everything landed where it was supposed to. At about 5:30 am, I called Papa. Rara spent the night at the hospital with Alice, and I knew Papa would be up getting ready for his 7:00 am meeting. We told him the events of the night, and told him that Ryan had requested a Priesthood blessing. Papa finished getting ready and came over at about 6:30 am and gave Ryan a blessing. Thankfully, as I write this, it has been about 2 1/2 hours since his last episode. Hopefully, since he seemed to be on an every-hour schedule throughout the night, he is done. I called Rara to hear about Alice's night (sleepless) and tell her about our night (sleepless). We decided that we need to tell Marc and Frances that they may have actually had the BEST night's sleep of all of us last night!

Here are pictures of the girls that we took on Friday night.

Alice...

Claire...

The Cousins

Ryan FINALLY got to hold both Alice and Claire at the same time!!! He was SO excited (for about a minute, then he was done).

Aren't they all adorable? (Claire is stretching and yawning, not crying.)

Age is Relative

One day last week, Marc mentioned to me that one of the NICU nurses was a graduate of Woods Cross High School. He said as they were talking and discovered that similarity, she asked him what year he graduated, with a comment that they were probably pretty close to the same age. Marc chuckled and told her that he was probably considerably older than she was. When he told her how “old” he is, she was appalled! She said he was about 10 years older than she thought he was!

Later that day as I went into the NICU and introduced myself as Marc’s sister, she asked if I also attended Woods Cross. I said, “Yes, but I’m Marc’s OLDER sister.” Her reply was, “YOU…ARE…NOT!” Frances and I both replied that I am. After a couple of minutes of working with the babies, she said, “How old ARE you?”

“I’m 40.”

“YOU…ARE…NOT!!!”

“I am. And I’ll be 41 next week.”

“YOU…WILL…NOT!!!”

After letting that apparently alarming fact sink in, she commented that Marc and I must have good genes. She said that she would have guessed both my age and Marc’s age at about 10 years younger. As I mentioned in this post, I hear that often, and it’s always nice to hear. One of my friends just posted on her blog that she recently had some Botox injections. I guess one of the advantages to being “fluffy” is that my fat fills in any potential wrinkles on my face and makes me look younger. :)

Last night we celebrated my birthday at Marc and Frances’ temporary home. Ryan and Rara and Papa came to get me when I was done with work. Ryan brought me a beautiful bouquet of red roses that he picked out himself. Then we went to Marc and Frances’ and had Chinese take-out and cheesecake. Yum! We took turns holding Claire the whole time. Alice is being released today. So, they weren’t born on my birthday, but they were both finally home on my birthday. What a great present for all of us!