December Recap Part 3

Tuesday morning was an early one.  Zane had 6 am basketball practice because of the community Christmas program in the evening.

Benjamin had an 8:30 am dentist appointment so I dropped Emmalee off at school at 7:30 (Callum rode his bike since we barely have any snow--just a little here and there where it was shoveled or doesn't see the sun).  Then I drove to IF.  

Unlike his first dentist appointment (see post here about that), he was very uncooperative & I couldn't even get his to lay down in the chair.  He was quite the fighter (arms flailing, legs kicking, and mouth clenched shut--mostly).  We tried everything but he wouldn't calm down--he said he remembers "ow, ow" from last time.  Darn!  So that means day surgery so all his teeth can be worked on.  We scheduled that for Thursday, December 22nd (my dad's birthday).  Rusty will be done with school and Brienna & Zane will be home to help.

 Examples of Ben's fits at home:

Even though Callum also had to have day surgery to get his teeth worked on & everything went well with him, I hate the idea of "putting Ben under"--it's a little scary.  So if you think about, keep our little guy in your thoughts and prayers on Thursday.

After scheduling his day surgery, I went shopping.  I was a bit pleased because I had a little extra time so I was hoping I wouldn't feel so rushed.  I even made it to a couple extra stores.  I needed to get home about 1 so I could go to the community center and start setting up nativities.  So we finished shopping & headed home.  But the van started making a terrible noise when I started getting onto the interstate & I almost felt like I didn't have a lot of power.  I thought it might be the transmission or something.  Whenever I would accelerate, then it sounded like there was either air blowing out somewhere, or there a  clicking sound (like a stick in the spokes of a bike).  But I said a few silent prayers, and felt like I should just keep driving home.  

Ben fell asleep shortly after we started home, and I turned on Christmas music to help me not worry so much about the van's problems. Whenever I tried to go faster than 40, it sounded terrible & took a lot of power to get going.  Although I didn't go much faster than 45-50 mph, I finally made it home.  And it took over 1/2 a tank of gas!  One more challenge in our lives!

But I made it home safely (said a prayer of thanks) & then packed up some of my nativities and went to the community center.  I set a few up, but the other ladies had done a lot already.  So I decided to go home so I could get the music copied & into a binder (music for the Christmas carols--I was asked if I had the music for all the carols, but they were in about 10 books, so I copied them & put them into a binder).  

I then had 2 piano lessons, then the kids got home from school & I had 2 more piano lessons.  I needed to change my clothes & gather a couple of  more things before heading back to the community center.  (Let me clarify about this Christmas program--it started out as our Ward party, but we wanted to involve the whole community & since we have some that won't come to our church building for any reason, we decided to hold it at the community center & involve the Baptist church & others in our community--we only have 2 churches in our town).  Our Relief Society president did an awesome job at involving so many people--it really was a Christian Christmas celebration.

Rusty wanted to look under the van so he needed my help a little--but Brienna & I were supposed to be at the community center at 4:30 to rehearse the program.  So I helped as much as I could & then told Zane to take over.

I helped set up more nativities (people from the community displayed their nativities for others to enjoy).  I think I had about 25 of mine there--about 1/3 of what I have.  They were able to go through the play 2 times & I was able to pop in and out when I was needed.

It was a nice program (not too long & not too short), a lot of friends & "enemies" were gathered together, more chairs had to be set up & some people had to stand, and it was a wonderful inter-faith Christian Christmas celebration.  There were cookies & punch afterwards &  a lot of visiting.  I helped take the nativities down & put the lights/table clothes, etc. away.  Then I took 3 cheer baskets to deliver (most of them had mini loaves of bread, jam, popcorn, ornaments, and a couple of cookies/goodies). 

I was going to post my nativities in this post, but I think I will do a separate post for my nativities.

Reasons (Excuses) I haven't Posted

I haven't posted in a few days for a couple of reasons (I guess this is more than just a couple!):

1. I have been soooo tired. Tired because I have an infant that likes to go to bed at 11 pm or later (but I can't complain because he sleeps 6-9 hours!).

Tired because I have 5 other children. Tired because when Benjamin does go to sleep, I have usually found my second wind and can't get to sleep. Tired because I haven't been out in the sunshine enough. Tired because I am tired :)

2. I have been spring cleaning. I know spring isn't officially here until Friday, but it is our spring break so I am taking advantage of having all these babysitters & helpers home. We have been working on a few projects and I will post those pictures next week.

3. My dryer was not being a dryer, so my clothes piled up and I had to catch up on laundry after my dryer decided to be a dryer again. (thankfully my father-in-law is an electrician & my hubby has helped him enough to figure out & fix the problem--and quite quickly & "cheaply".)

4. My aging van (photo not our van) decided to shake and limp at an extremely slow pace--it needed a repair. Thankfully it received that "hip" replacement and stopped shaking.

5. My oldest had a dentist appointment (no cavities--yay!) and a trip to town means lots of shopping :) I found a few excellent unadvertised sales so I had to stock up on those items. I love finding good deals :)

I guess it's a good thing that I am a stay-at-home mom that "doesn't work"!

Van troubles--again!

Okay--I had another run-in with a bird! The first incident that I'm referring to can be found at the following address:(http://http://busymomto6.blogspot.com/2009_01_25_archive.html).

It was Tuesday night, quite late, dark, and foggy. I had taken Brienna & Zane to the dentist earlier in the afternoon and shopped a bit. We (Brienna, Zane, & Benjamin) were driving home from watching the boy's district basketball game (we lost). About 10 miles from home, I saw (through the fog), what I thought was a clump of snow. As I switched my bright lights on, I realized it was a pretty big bird sitting in the middle of my lane. I had a second to react, so I applied the brakes, but the silly bird did not move--just sat there and hit the front of my van!!!

I screamed, because as it hit the van (thud), it then flipped up to the windshield right in front of my view {thump, thump--that's my heart beating a million beats a minute :)}, and over the top of the van.

I thought that it had hit the bumper/license plate. But after I had parked the van (by now it was after 11 pm), I started unloading the groceries, etc.--you know I can't make a trip into town without buying groceries!! As I unloaded, I heard a ton of liquid dripping (pouring) from under the van. That's when I discovered the damage.

So I had to go wake poor sleeping Rusty (he had stayed home with Emmalee who was sick, and Callum) to tell him the bad news and have him check it out. He asked what he could do about it at 11 at night, and I said nothing except make me feel better!He said it was the transmission radiator, but it looked like there was a nice big hole in it.

If you look close, you can even see some of the feathers the bird left behind! Wednesday after school, Rusty took the radiator out--so we didn't have to tow the van 45 miles to town to get it fixed. Friday he took the broken parts to town: the radiator was beyond repair, so a new one is on order, and he found a grill at the junk yard. But that took his whole Friday up!! Thanks Rusty--you're the greatest.

The van will be out of commission for about a week, so we are going to attempt to fit into the pickup to go to the next district basketball game (Sat. at 6 pm).

This is my first "accident"/damage to a vehicle!! I miss my van.

I looked stress in the face--and laughed!

Well, I looked stress in the face, and won!!

Friday I went into town for Callum's therapy & Dr. appointment. We left at 8 am, Callum did great in therapy (although he still is too scared to climb to the top of the climbing wall--but who blames him? It is 3 stories high), and then I went to Target to get a few things from the ad. Emmalee and Benjamin were with me since Brienna and Zane both had sewing 4-H club, Ethan had student body meeting, and Rusty was helping his dad with an electrical job.

Anyhow, I buckled the children in, climbed behind the wheel of my trusty 18 year old mini-van, turned the key and.......NOTHING!! The key turned way too easily, so I immediately knew it was the ignition. Rusty had problems in his truck a few years ago with his ignition, so I knew it was that or the starter.

So what to do?? I am 1 hour away from home, don't have friend or anyone to call in the town, and so I wanted to cry. That was my first reaction--but then I thought: what will crying do? I knew the children would get upset if I was upset. So I stayed calm, unbuckled the children (so they could entertain each other) and tried to call home. Of course, the other children were all at their various happenings, and Rusty didn't have his cell phone with him. And neither did my father-in-law. So I had to make the decisions on my own. If they had been home, I would have waited in Target while they drove to town and they could tow me to the mechanic (who is our mechanic??).

Luckily, I have an old phone book under the seat, so I looked up the last place I remember going to for our tires--Wally's by K-Mart. It is only about 1 mile away from the store, so I was hoping the towing wouldn't be too much (the other side of town is 5-8 miles away). Unfortunately, Wally's does not have towing services, but they said they would call me a tow truck and it would be there in about 15-20 minutes (since I told him I had a newborn with me).

Now, it was a chilly day in town. It was overcast with low clouds that left a chill in the air, and the wind had picked up. The tow truck got there about 15 minutes--talk about quick service. Emmalee was nervous about getting squished in the van--thanks to watching "Cars". But I told her we would not be in the van when they pulled it to the "car fixers". The tow man (police man to Emmalee due to the flashing lights on his truck) didn't have room in his truck for 4 of us (he was told about the newborn, but not the other children). So he called for another vehicle which came within 5 minutes. It was starting to get chilly in the van, but Callum wasn't worried--"We have blankets, Mom!"

We got to the mechanics (after buckling 3 kids into a strangers car) and Emmalee was worried about her car seat left in the van!! The mechanics were sympathic, since I had the 3 young ones (although they behaved so well--I knew my prayers were being answered). And then they were even more sympathic when they found out I had 3 more at home (and thankful that I didn't have everyone in town with me!!) lol

Okay, this blog is now becomig a chapter book, but I am getting to the end soon.

By now, the kids were playing with the train table in the waiting room, drinking complimentary hot cocoa and eating candy from the machines. And little Ben kept snoozing away like the good baby he is. It had been 1 1/2 hours since we had left Target, and the mechanic told me the bad news: it was more than just the ignition and the problem was in the steering column too. And that would take about an hour to diagnos, plus then fixing it would be at least an hour (if they had the parts there) but they thought they would have to order the parts.

So I called home and finally got a hold of Ethan (my oldest). He hadn't heard from Dad, so I called my mother-in-law. She said she would come and get me. I had to call the Dr. office & cancel Callum's appointment (it was for his poor skin--ezcema). It was just after noon, and the kids wanted some lunch. So I thought I would have about 1 hour. So we walked over to K-mart (3 buildings away) and we about froze!! The wind was in our faces and it was cold. There is a little eatery there, so we ordered mini pizzas and bread sticks. We had just sat down when mother-in-law called back and said that brother-in-law was in town, and would pick me up in about 5 minutes, take me to his house about 20 minutes away and she would met us there and take us the rest of the way home.

The lady at K-Mart was quite nice (must had felt bad for me) and gave us a full order of bread sticks for the road and aluminum foil to wrap our food in so we could go. We squished into a little, tiny, small pick-up truck, stopped by the van so I could get a few things out of it, and then drove 20 miles to his house. Emmalee was really good with all the shifting going on by her legs, but the last 5 minutes were spent singing songs, counting, guessing and anything else I could do to distract her from bugging everyone else!

We were able to eat our pizza there, and then transfer ourselves into Tasha's van (cousin that lives in our town) and make it home in one piece. We did need to get back quickly, though, because her boys had a middle school basketball game at 4, and then at 6 & 7:30, Ethan had his games (he plays both JV & varsity).

I really didn't feel stressed. I love my new year's resolution of letting things fall where they will, and not stressing about things that are out of my control. The good news came when we were almost home--the van would be fixed by Monday morning, and the cost was half of what I expected it to be. I guess since I didn't call the tow truck myself, and went through the mechanic, I was given a huge discount. And it didn't take as long to diagnois as they expected. They did have to replace the locking cylindar thingy along with the ignition thingy (like I can remember any of the mechanics termonology) and we would be getting new ignition keys.

So this morning (well, it is now Tuesday technically, but Monday morning) I got the phone call shortly after 8 that they had just finished fixing it, they gave the the total amount that I owed, and I got a ride into town with my father-in-law & uncle (I just had baby and Emmalee today).

But I did have to spend all day in town trying to do the shopping I didn't get to on Friday. I got most of the things done (the necessities), and made it home in time to throw a lasagna into the oven, put some of the fridge food away (left the rest in the cooler in the van), and begin piano lessons (I had 3 students today).

I know we are blessed and that our prayers were answered. I am thankful that family is so willing to drop everything and drive 50 miles (one way) to help others in need. Life is good. And--I looked stress in the face--and laughed!!