Photos

I got a new camera for Christmas from my brother Sam and his wife Jenny. I decided today that I need to get my photos off of it so I'll be doing various posts to show off my pictures. I'll start with our New Years celebration. We also got a chocolate fountain for Christmas so we had that and fruit and pound cake and marshmallows, plus the usual chips and stuff for our party.



We also had party hats and noise makers and streamers. We played some music and had a good time. We started our party early and then at 9 pm we acted as if it was midnight and did the poppers and danced. Then we went to bed. It was a lot of fun.

Not Fair!

I know somebody who never gets headaches. This person also never has a sore back and also never experiences being sick to their stomach with worry. I wonder what it would be like to not have thoughts and worries effect your physical being. Luckily I don't get very many headaches anymore, but my neck, shoulders and back constantly have knots. I can get in such a worry that my stomach will ache and ache. My stomach will not rest until I know what to do and make a decision.
So why is this other person so lucky? Who knows, I guess maybe people like that have to suffer in other ways. One thing I do know is that suffering isn't all bad. The R.S. lesson was on sacrifice today which lead into trials and personal sufferings. I remembered there is purpose behind everything that happens to us. Maybe even the way that we each receive our trials has personal purpose for us. It gave me something to think about.

Small World

As I have been getting to know people in my new ward I have found out that I have some connections with some of them. On Wednesday one of them brought a photo that she had of me from a youth conference when I was 15 yr. old. One family has a brother that was the high priest assigned to my old ward and the wife grew up with one of my college roommates. A member of our bishopric and the primary pres. who are married to each other used to live in Linz which is where I served my mission for about 5 mths. We never met but we know many of the same people. Of course some people know my dad from when the stake had larger boundaries a long time ago. Through Facebook I found out that a couple of my friends grew up here and we share friends now. I'm sure it will just keep on coming too.
One thing that the one with the photo of me said was when she showed the picture to her son after she found it. She explained how we met over 15 years ago and must have become friends. She told him that he needs to be nice to people he meets because they might just show up again years down the road. That made me laugh at first but then I really started thinking about it. What if I had left a bad impression on these connections I have? What if I would have been rude to her and she had this photo of me that she drew a mustache on and stuck pins threw the eyes? How awkward would that have been? What if my roommate thought I was crazy and now this friend in my ward is hearing all these wild stories about me and starts spreading it around? You get the point. Well, hopefully nothing like that is the case.
I have decided though that throughout the rest of my life the world will probably continue to get smaller and smaller so I need to make sure I am always keeping myself in check. I mean, if people are going to find out that they both know me, I want them to say something good about me. I don't want my name being tarnished. "Oh, Sarah Bullock, yeah she eats boogers." "Oh I remember her. Her clothes were always too tight." "She always had a filthy mouth." No Way! I want "Yeah, she was always so sweet." "That girl cracks me up." "I always wanted her to marry my brother so we could be sisters." That's the kind of stuff I want said about me.
The End

Honest Boys

The elementary school where my boys attend has a life skills program. Each student is working on one life skill this entire school year. At our first parent teacher student meeting we discussed and picked which one the student would work on. In addition to that the school has a monthly life skill that they focus on. For the month of November it was truthfulness. Each teacher chose one child from their class who they felt displayed the life skill of truthfulness.
Two of my boys were bestowed the honor of receiving this award. I have Eades in the front row, the third from the right. Koen is in the back row, the third from the left. I had to use my camera phone to take a picture so the quality is not very good. I'm telling the truth though, they really did get the award.
We are so proud of them and I didn't want to buy a bunch of copies and cut out the article and mail it out, so I did this instead. Now you can all rejoice in the efforts of my children online.

Little Man, Big Boy

I just can't figure that Brandis kid out. I really was about to retreat from the potty training last week before he went poo poo. After that he's gone days without any accidents. I can't believe it. I still don't trust him at night yet so I've been making him wear a pull-up. He gets so upset because he wants to wear his underwear still. It was just a week ago he was upset when I made him take a pull-up off to put underwear on. It's also funny now to hear him comment about Taygan. I hear him go up to her and say, "You stink TayTay." She would totally have a clean diaper but he just wants to be a typical big brother and tease his poor little sister because he is SO mature now. I'm not sure what finally clicked with him but I am very happy that it did. Now I just have one more in diapers and then that will be it. There are a lot of things I miss about kids growing up, but diapers I cannot foresee as being one of them. I mean, I can't imagine after Taygan is trained crying because none of my kids are in diapers anymore. Who knows though, some of those milestones have surprisingly made me weep, so I guess there's no way of telling till we get there.

Toilet Training

I've had three kids go through the potty training course and graduate but my fourth boy has been giving us some trouble. I was so used to how simple it was for the others. I made a big deal about pull-ups and then showed them how to sit on the potty and flush when done and wash hands and then have a marshmallow party. It would take them awhile to get the hang of it all but one day they mastered it and we were diaper free.
This one though was just taking forever. He should have been trained long ago, but he is being stubborn. This week I was thinking about how many potty training guides say that it won't work unless your child is ready. I started thinking that maybe this one just isn't ready yet. I even mentioned it to my husband today. I was forming a plan in my head on how to deal with this prolonged training. And then my son does it. He says, I have to go poop. We go in the bathroom, he sits and he completes the task. It was totally out of the blue. Tony and I were so proud of him. Luckily the dessert was just about finished baking so we could have a proper celebration. I hope it's smooth sailing from here on out. That was one huge hurdle and now that he knows he can do it, maybe it will continue.

Koen's Nose

Koen Before Surgery
Koen at hospital after surgery
Koen a few days after surgery.
A few weeks ago Koen got his nose banged at a friends house on their trampoline. It bled a lot but there was no bruising so we didn't worry about it. A little over a week later Koen's nose swelled up. It was a Tuesday and I took him to see Dr. Shah. The doctor said Koen has strep throat. I asked about the nose because that's why I was there and he just said that it was unrelated to the strep. I tried to get more info about what I should do about the nose but he wouldn't answer my questions. He prescribed an antibiotic and told us to come back in two weeks. I asked if that would help bring the swelling of the nose down and he said yes. I gave Koen the antibiotic for three more days. Nothing was changing and he was just miserable so I decided to take him to a walk in clinic because I didn't want to go back to the same doctor. The clinic took x-rays and said it wasn't broken but that he had a bad infection and needed to see an ears nose throat doctor right away.
I took him in that same day. It was Friday. The ENT doctor Dr. Reddy said he needed surgery right away. We had to wait until that evening because Koen had just eaten lunch. We went home, made phone calls to arrange baby-sitters for the next day and went to the hospital. Dr. Dumas performed the surgery and said things went fine. Because he had the bad infection for a few days the dr. was worried about the cartilage. Koen stayed in the hospital until Sunday afternoon and Dr. Dumas was very helpful and even funny which Koen liked. I asked him what would have happened if I would have just waited the two weeks like our dr. told us to. He said that I wouldn't have waited because Koen would have been so bad he would have ended up in the ER that weekend anyway. I asked what the damage could have been and he said it would have been BAD being as the nose is so close to the brain. Mom had already told me the same thing.
So we went home and Koen improved. We went back on Tuesday prepared for another surgery. Dr. Dumas said Koen's nose looked surprisingly good and that we didn't need to do surgery that day. He said he will still need cosmetic surgery when he is 14 or 15 years old. We teased Koen that he might have an ugly nose for awhile but he'll get it fixed before it's time to start dating.
We were supposed to see the dr. again Friday but the patient before us took so long with him and we had to get back to meet the other school kids at home that we had to reschedule for Mon. I'm really bummed too because Koen's nose isn't looking as well anymore. It doesn't have anymore infection but it is flattening and widening at the bottom. I'm thinking the doctor might still have to do that surgery he was going to do last Tuesday. He said he would just take cartilage out of his ear and put it in the nose. He said the ear won't miss it. I sort of hope that Koen can have the surgery because his nose looks so strange and he'll be able to breathe better.
So that's what's happening so far. I'll comment about what happens on Monday. And so far it looks like Koen's modeling career will be out of picture. Hardy Har Har.