A very polite boy

There are so many thing I love about Zack. One of them is that he ALWAYS says "Thank you." No matter what. If you give him a drink, or a crayon, or a cracker, or help him off of his barstool, he aways says, "Thanks!" I love to hear him be so appreciative. He has had good examples. Our older kids are very good at saying "thanks," too.

Completely unrelated, I had a very scary experience with Zack last night. I usually sleep through anything, except for kid noise. Mark, on the other hand, sleeps through nothing BUT kid noise. Fortunately our kids don't usually wake up in the night, but when they do, I can always hear them.

Last night I woke up to what I knew was Zacky crying. I listened for a minute and didn't hear anything, but I went to make sure he was OK. I got into his room, and he was not in his bed. He was not on the floor. He was not in Savanna's bed. I looked in the great room to see if he was on the couch. No Zacky. He wasn't anywhere! I started to panic, thinking he had walked out the front door or something. We usually have the front doors tied together so Zack can't get out, but the official dish towel was not tied around the door handles. So I woke up Mark. He couldn't find him, either. Next I headed upstairs. He was not in the loft or Aubrey's room, or the bathrooms, or Joel's and Noah's room. At last, I opened Abram's door and saw Zack snuggled up with Abram. I was so glad he was there, but it was so scary! I tend to have a runaway imagination.

I think Zack is getting molars right now, and they were bothering him all night. I would put him back in bed, and then 15 minutes later he would be out whimpering again. Something was really hurting him. I finally slept on the couch and he slept on the floor next to me. This morning he is back to the normal, crazy, happy, silly little monkey that I love.

Digging out

We sure have been living in chaos since July when Mark and the kids emptied the basement while I was at girls camp. But the end is in sight, and it has been a good opportunity to go through all of our stuff and keep what we really need.

Last weeekend I took 4 van-loads of toys to the DI trailer. We really haven't bought large amounts of toys for any one child. It's just that between all of our kids we have had 62 birthdays and 62 Christmases. Things just pile up even when it is just a couple of things at a time. It's going to be so nice to have our game room finished with a place for everything. We emptied our "game closet" a couple of weekends ago and turned it over to Aubrey for an extra closet for her stuff. When you have a harp in your bedroom, there's not a lot of room for other things. The harp has its own dolly and transportation covers, too which need some space, so now Aubrey has room in her bedroom closet for clothes rather than that stuff.

Joel and Noah have room in their bedroom to walk around now. The lower part of their room was the toy storage area, and it was insane. We are all a little happier to start to see some order in our house. It's taking its toll, but the end is in sight.

Stupid mail tricks

Sometimes my brain does not work very well. There are two times I have done not so smart things with packages.

First it was a few Christmases ago. We took the kids to Dollar Tree, and they each picked out gifts for my mom and dad. We wrapped them all up and put them in a big box to mail to Salt Lake. I took the box to the post office, and was relieved because it would arrive just before Christmas. The following day, I came home from somewhere, and we had a big box on our porch. The kids were excited to see whom it was from. Well, it turns out that I had sent my parents' Christmas presents to my own dang address. Such a bummer. They got their terrific Dollar Tree surprises a few days after Christmas.

Yesterday I felt like I should mail cookies to someone. So I mixed and I rolled and I baked and I frosted and I packaged. I even printed out a label from usps.com. I was all ready to go so they cookies could arrive the next day. And then I looked at my "guaranteed express mail" delivery date that said Wednesday, October 15th. It took me about 10 minutes to figure out what was going on. The post office was closed for Columbus Day. Duh! At least I saved myself the humiliation of actually driving to the post office and walking up to the locked door with my package.

That baking didn't go to waste, however. I needed cookies for tonight's youth activity, and so they get the day-old ones. I baked up some fresh cookies and mailed them off this morning.

Things that made me smile

Over the past few days, here are a few things the kids have said that made me laugh:

Joel (seriously as we drove past a sign for Aloha High School): Hey, is that the school where a lot of Hispanic kids go?

So my kid got Hola and Aloha mixed up. Big deal. He's also the one who thought a Siamese cat had two heads.

*****

Savanna (as she was digging through my church bag after church on Sunday): Mom, why do you have all these RANDOM stuff in here? We really need to organize your church bag.

I've had the same calling at church for 4 1/2 years. My bag was a little crazy. But after I had to pick up all the contents off of the floor, it is in a much more organized condition.

****

Noah (as I was tucking him into bed): I'm so glad I chose you for my mom. You're the prettiest mom in the whole world.

As long as Noah tells me things like this, life is very, very good.

All done

Excuse the basement construction mess on our patio.

Have you ever wondered what 500 empty nursery pots looks like? This is the aftermath of our planting project Saturday. Joel's job was to gather and stack the pots as they were emptied. I need to get out and get some close-up shots, so you can actually see the shrubs we planted. They were all planted around the edge of the grass.

I'm very excited to have all the planting done for our backyard. It has been 6 years since it was logged, and since then we have been working on a never-ending project that just ended. It was very strange to finish up Saturday afternoon and be done. Kind of like finals week in college. You work and study and stress, and then when it's over it just feels strange.

The shrub beds look spectacular. They will look even better in a year or so after the plants have a chance to grow. I bought 1 gallon shrubs whenever possible, so they're tiny, bu they will grown quickly. We are so thankful for KC who helped us so much. I was surprised he kept answering his phone for me with my endless questions about plants and cultivars last week as I tried to round up all the plants from his planting plan. Who knew a horticulture degree could be so useful? KC is the all-knowing expert, and we couldn't have done this without him. KC has created a perfect mix that will bring us interesting colors, textures, flowers, leaves and shapes all year long.

Some of my trees that I'm really excited to see in the spring are: Vulcan Magnolia with its 12-inch magenta blossoms, the Empress trees and their purple spikes of flowers, Cherokee Brave dogwoods covered it bright red blossoms, and the Pacific dogwoods. Their huge white blossoms make me so happy in the springtime. The shrubs will be a whole other world of wonder as they start showing us their flowers starting this winter. Now we get to just sit back and watch nature's magic

My new toy

I figured I couln't have a self-respecting laundromat if I didn't have one of these babies. It came a couple of days ago, and I assembled it and put it in the laundry room. I had to wait until I had enough dirty clothes to try it out.

It sure makes transporting a heavy load of wet clothes to the dryer much easier. I wonder when I will get tired of doing laundry now. The laundry room is just such an exciting place to be these days.

It's the little things that make me happy!

The wood for the hardwood floors came today, and the electrician is supposed to be here today to hook up all our light fixtures in the basement. It will be great to not have to wear a headlamp into the laundry room to find the plug for my work light. Things are coming together at last. The finish carpenter and flooring guys will be here next week, and possibly by the end of the month we will be able to move Jake and Abram downstairs to their new rooms.

We miss Jake

Jake has been at outdoor school this week. It is a ritual for all 6th graders here. He was very excited to go, but we really miss his big brown eyes. I hope he has been having fun, and I can't wait to hear his stories and see his pictures when he comes home Friday.

It has been a busy week around here, too. I spent the first half of the week calling nursuries and faxing a list of 40 different plants (about 500 total) we need to plant our yard this weekend. I ended up being able to get everything we need from only 3 nurseries. One delivered 150 plants this morning, and I picked up another load of about 150 today. Tomorrow I'm going to get the last 200, and then the fun begins. Our backyard is going to look amazing by Saturday night. The grass looks good right now, but it will look even better with its shrub and tree border.

The sad part of the nursery pick-up was I had to drive Mark's Excursion. It is a beast, but it was horrible because I had a trailer on the back. I stink at driving with trailers. I take corners too close, and I absolutely cannot back up. Even when I'm in reverse perfectly straight, the trailer always gets jack-knifed. As I was driving to the nursery this morning, I accidentally passed it. Sadly, it was on a 2-lane road so there was nothing I could do. I drove about 1/2 mile and took a left, and got to a 4 way intersection. It only took me about 10 minutes of back and forth and wheel-spinning to get the trailer and car u-turned and headed back to the nursery. It was worth it, though. I will post some pictures of all of the action later.

Meanwhile, I'm feeling about 90% better. I still have an ache in my gut, though. I can't decide if it is really something wrong, or just the anxiety of having to have a colonoscopy at the end of the month. I'm still hoping my problem was a one-time thing, however, the CT scan would suggest otherwise. 7 kids keeps me busy, so I don't have much time to think about it, though.