Dear Friends and Family,

Another week of odds and ends. Fertilized the lawn, worked on staining Lauri's cabinet etc. I realized that I am really good at pottering around and running little errands!

Kids had their fall break this week so they were out of school Thursday and Friday. Thursday I took Taylor up to Primary's to speak to the seizure people. Taylor's seizures have gotten really bad lately. He is doing all types of seizures without rhyme or reason. Wearing sunglasses at school to help with the florescent lights seems to help a bit. If nothing else he keeps his head up and eyes open with the glasses on. Tuesday I left my relief society meeting to pick Taylor up at school and take him home and knock him out as he had been in and out of seizures non-stop for 1 1/2 hours. So they adjusted his VNS to see if it helps and I go back up in 4 weeks to re-evaluate. They also gave him Versed to see if that works better at stopping the bad seizures instead of Diastat. The hope is that it won't knock him out for the day and its a syringe that is hooked to a nose inhaler instead of doing a suppository. Much nicer for me. We had to wait for half an hour while they filled the prescription as they have to do a quick background check for it. So Taylor and I headed up to the lobby and played Disney songs on the grand piano. Wow, what a difference in sound compared to our old up right. Taylor cheered me on by clapping and chirping whenever I would stop. Taylor has had a bit of a bad week as he became impacted as well which involves a bunch of smelly unpleasantness. Hopefully things will start to look up for him. The young men and women in the ward have started working vicariously on doing Taylor's Duty to God award for his deacon years. One positive note is that Taylor has gained 3 pounds this year and when we went in for new daffos he just had to have his old ones adjusted.

Allison visited with the Primary President this week about her baptism and has been working on all these little baptism games. She is still nose burried into Harry Potter books. She is on book 7 so she should return to the land of the living soon. Thursday afternoon she was busy playing with friends and then came down saying she didn't feel good and projectile spewed all over the kitchen - TWICE. We had a little talk about not waiting for me but just going straight to the bathroom! She spent the afternoon and evening extremely pathetic and sick. Friday she was feeling better, our house was bleached and lysoled and everything had been through the sanitary cycle on the washer. So happiness once again returned although she was very careful all day to eat only bland food.

Friday afternoon we met Kelly, her mom and kids at Pier 41 for pizza and then to see Where the Wild Things Are at the movie theater. Not really a kiddie movie, but well done I thought.

Kelly had invited me go with them to witches' night. So Allison and I with witch hat in hand headed out for an evening of poking through crafty stores at Gardner Village. We were broom to broom packed in. Amazing witch costumes were everywhere, with DJs playing dance music, cackling contests and decorations everywhere. Its almost all women and girls with a few brave men slinking around. It was a really fun night. Allison left tired out with her fudge bag in hand. She found a really cute quilt for Robyn's room. I had a mental argument with myself since I had planned to make her a quilt but this one as very cute and marked down to the point that I couldn't make it for twice the cost. It has to be ordered in so Robyn still has to wait a few weeks but here it is spread out at the store as Allison not so patiently watched me stare at it for many minutes.


We also found a really cute pillow I think I need to make for Allison with ladybugs flying around it and saying "Sisters are like ladybugs. They are little ladies that bug each other". With the teasing, whining that goes on between the two of them lately it really fits.

Spencer has been hard at work on his pinewood derby car. He couldn't understand why I handed him the spray paint and then we all stood far away while he went to work. He and Allison had piano master class this week and he is quite proud of the song he played for it. We hear it many times daily.



Jeremy had a service project clearing out a neighbor's yard this week. It ended up being in the pouring rain! Spencer came by at the end after his piano to help. I am so glad he is getting to have more opportunities to be surrounded by men trying hard to live the gospel. It really is a good influence on him. Jeremy also met with a contractor to being bids on fixing Lauri's place. I am curious to see what the damage will be! Yesterday we took all the kids out to Kneaders for their oh so good french toast. Then suitable rotund we went to empty out some more food storage at Lauri's. She was quite creative at finding spots to store food. Our kids can do an hour there before serious complaining starts so we decided we just need to do that every week before cleaning the office.

Last night for our date I went with Jeremy on a photo walk in old greek town in SLC. Then afterwards we went to dinner with his photo group. It was interesting to see Jeremy surrounded by photo enthusiasts as they all speak their different language of lenses, focus points etc. It is a very eclectic group but they all share the same passion.

Best part of the week is that we made our annual Halloween cookies. Robyn did multiple layers of candy on hers. Spencer went for the scary look with bulls with nose rings etc. Those cookies are addictive to me, especially with a big cup of peppermint tea.





Love to you all, Heather