girls

Rachel's home from school today with a fever. The first time this whole schoolyear. I'm loving having her home!! I had forgotten how much better it is to have 2 kids at home instead of just one lonely 2-year old. She has pretty much entertained Caroline all morning, and Carrie is in SUCH a good mood (a rarity). She's loving the attention of having Rachel all to herself.

I have LOVED having the extra help to alert me to Caroline's mischief! This girl is into EVERYTHING. She has written on my sewing machine, my sewing table, more walls than I can count, her body countless times... She's climbing up onto HIGH things. Yesterday I caught her sitting on the top of her kitchen set throwing dishes off of it. I told James just the other night that this child is the little boy I always thought I would have. Just she's a girl. She wears her BYU The Quest shirt every time it comes out of the wash. Even if she catches a glimpse of another blue t-shirt, she yells out, "BYU football shirt". She makes her daddy proud.

If you could see Caroline today, she has a big bruise under her left eye (fell while we were waiting for Eliza at swimming the other day), a bright purple big-toe toenail (dropped a plate on her toe), and a green gooey nose (sinus infection).

see's

James got me See's Candies for Valentine's Day!! I have really missed the Nuts and Chews that we used to get from Brad for Christmas every year. Don't get me wrong, Nauvoo Fudge is really good, but there is just one See's Candies.

The last time James was traveling I had him search the airport for See's...to no avail. The Denver airport is not a source for these delicacies.

So when James got home from a little shopping this morning and handed me flowers and chocolates, I half-heartedly looked at the box, thinking I'd see Godiva or Russell Stover (gasp) or some other inferior chocolate. This red heart-shaped box was none other than SEE'S!!

I don't know where he got these, but he scored some major brownie points with me. Now if I could just eat them. Spacers have done a number on my gums and I am so sore. It's just going to get worse next week, so I'd better get busy eating! I also have to grab my favorites before the kids catch wind that we have See's in the house...especially Eliza!

Shhh....I'm off to savor these now.

success

At church today one of the speakers shared this poem. I hunted him down after sacrament meeting to get it. It spoke to me...not so much the eloquence, but the meaning. I wish I could say that I am more "successful" as defined in the poem. Nonetheless, they are great goals.

Success is speaking words of praise,
In cheering other people's ways,
In doing just the best you can
With every task and every plan.

It's silence when your speech would hurt,
Politeness when your neighbor's curt.
It's deafness when the scandal flows
And sympathy with others' woes.

It's loyalty when duty calls.
It's courage when disaster falls.
It's patience when the hours are long.
It's found in laughter and in song.

It's in the silent time of prayer,
In happiness and in despair.
In all of life and nothing less,
We find the thing we call success.

(Author Unknown)

scheduled!

Oh man, oh man, oh man. I just called up the orthodontist and scheduled my appointments for spacers and braces. I officially regress to my teens on Tuesday, February 17th!

This is something that has been a long time in coming. Just about every year for the past 3 I've seen an orthodontist, had a consultation and gone home a little devastated. "Jaw surgery, jaw surgery, jaw surgery." They all seem to agree this is the answer for my serious bite issues and crowding. No chance that Invisalign would work for me, darn it. Thank you genetics...

But on Tuesday of this week I again visited another practice and this time was SO pleasantly surprised by the new techniques available for my issues. I won't go into too much detail here, but what I will say is that this will involve two screws in the roof of my mouth for a length of time. Sounds like fun? Yes, these will be a few painful years.

BUT, when finished, I am confident that I will be able to bite through a piece of tomato. And, my jaw (cross my fingers) will be aligned in such a way that when I'm through I truly may not need a jaw splint or suffer from the horrendous jaw aches when the temperature goes below 20 degrees.

I'm nervous and SO excited!