Wednesday, December 13, 2006

elbow pain

Last night, I was running up the stairs, and I tagged the corner of my elbow on the the molding half-way up the stairs (as I turned the corner on the landing). Man, it hurt a lot. I haven't felt pain like that since The Great Kidney Stone of 2004. This morning I have a visible bruise, but most of the pain has moved into my shoulder. I don't know why. This pain seems worse than my elbow pain last night. It feels like I have a deep and intense bruise in the lower section of my deltoid. This makes it difficult to hold Ben and still get things done. I'm doing much better after 400mg of Advil that expired 5 years ago.

On another note, today Denise will mail off Christmas presents, marking the end of our holiday shopping and shipping season. Hooray for that.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

The black eye

Last night, Joseph tripped on the downstairs bath mat and caught the sharp corner of the bathroom counter-top just below his eye. The skin was not broken, but we called the doctor's office to see if there was anything we could do. We already had ice on his eye, and they recommended that we give him ibuprofin, which we did. He looks much better this morning, although he does have a moderate black eye.

It was the perfect end to a long day for Denise, who traveled all the way to Albany just to have pictures developed. You see, our local Fred Meyer store here in Corvallis had a photo machine whose Matte finish wasn't working. We prefer the Matte finish to the glossy for photos we are going to hang on the wall (or give to others). So Denise went to Albany - only for them to do all the photos in Glossy. Denise had already done all of her Albany shopping (while the 1-hour photos were being done), so she waited in the parking lot while they did them again.

There really wasn't any other choice, but of course the three boys didn't take it patiently, as they had already been having bad days at Target (and Fred Meyer and hour earlier).

After the obligatory half-hour, Denise picked up the Matte-finish photos (with a 10% discount), and came home. When she got to the car, she took a peek at the photos, and there seemed to be about twice as many as we ordered, and most of them were wrong!! There was not going to be a fourth trip into Fred Meyer, so she continued home. I can't believe they messed up as badly as they did - twice - and in two different ways. Most of the pictures they picked instead of the ones we chose are actually pretty nice poses, so it's not a total loss.

I tried to hang some of the pictures this morning, but we couldn't find any nails for hanging. Maybe they have some at Fred Meyer.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Sam and potty-training

This weekend was our first honest effort at potty-training Sam. He does pretty well. On Saturday, he had two accidents compared to 4 successful trips to the toilet. On Sunday, we backed off a bit and put him in diapers for church time. After church, we put him back in the briefs. He had an accident all over the kitchen floor, but overall, he's doing a great job.

When he sits on the toilet, he looks up at us and exclaims "I do good job!" This is his standard remark whenever he does something we praise him for. On the flip side, he also knows what we tell him when he's in trouble.

Take this morning for example. He likes to follow Charley out to the bus in the mornings and makes every attempt to get on the bus without me noticing. This morning he got all the way to the steps of the bus and he really threw a fit when I picked him up and carried him home. After I put him down inside our apartment, he looked at me and pointed to the stairs and screamed "No, Dad. On the stairs! You go your room!!" You see, we sit him in time-out on the stairs and send him to his room when he's in trouble.

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Last project done

Today I officially handed in the very last class project I will ever do in my school career ... so long as you don't count my dissertation. My next hurdle happens on Thursday when I take my last final for my last class that I'll ever take in my life. I sometimes joke with Denise that I can still always go to medical school. She doesn't think that's a funny joke.

We are now in the midst of making our Christmas plans. We'll head down to California for a few weeks and enjoy time with my family as well as Denise's. It will be a great trip, and a much needed vacation for all of us.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

weekend update

So the big news over this last weekend was the purchase of a bunkbed. Denise and I took the kids shopping in the morning. We looked at Gibbs furniture first. We were in the market for a bunkbed, mattress and some dressers - all as adjustments for the new baby. We figured the kids would need to adjust enough when the baby came that we could take care of sleeping location adjustments before Baby Ben came. Anyway, we looked at three places and I went back to Gibbs around noon to get the first bed we looked at. They were able to deliver around 4pm, so the kids were very excited and practiced the rest of the day climbing over, under and through the bed in every way possible.

In other news ...

Denise came home with Charley (fever) and Sam (cold) after Sacrament meeting. They both seem to be doing much better this morning.

Charley officially has three loose teeth. The one on top has been loose since before Christmas, and we haven't even been paying attention to the bottom teeth, so we were plenty surprised to find her two new bottom teeth already broken through and the two bottom baby teeth almost falling out. I pulled on them tonight for our Family Night activity, but couldn't get either of them out. Charley was very brave. I remember how much I hated having other people's hands in my mouth when I was a kid. She was a trooper while I tugged on them.

Joseph is having a tough time adjusting to the new sleeping arrangements. He's used to having me put him to sleep, but now he's in the bunk beds with Charley. I wish this were easier, but I'm glad we're doing this now and not with a new baby in the house.

Sam is so excited to learn his letters, colors, numbers and everything else. We only wish we could get Joseph to be so excited.

Sunday, January 29, 2006

still sick, Sunday assignment

We've all been sick over the past few weeks. Right now, it seems that Sam and I are the only ones with lingering coughs. Of course, I heard Charley couging up a storm about an hour ago.

We were asked to lead a discussion in church tomorrow. Sam and I won't make it past Sacrament meeting, so we contacted the bishopric,and they got someone else to do it. The discussion will center around two questions:

1. What should we focus on in our families?
2. How do we focus on those things?

Denise and I talked about this a little yesterday. The typical responses that you would receive from question one would be:

-Family Home Evening
-church attendance
-daily prayers
-daily scripture study

Denise and I feel that these should be the answer to question two.

The answers to question one should be:

-that we have a testimony of the gospel
-that we have a personal relationship with our Savior and our Father in Heaven
-that we have an increasing understanding of the gospel
-that we have a love for our family members
-that we feel, recognize, and respond to the Spirit
-that we teach our children these things

We feel that people go about doing the things they should be doing, but forget why they should be doing these things - and in the process lose a good deal of the benefit they should be getting.

Mosiah 13:30-32

They didn't understand why they were given the law, and they became lost, even as they performed the law to its letter.