Dear Family and Friends,

Woke up last night with a stomach bug. This has been the easiest fast Sunday ever because the thought of eating just made me gag. I wonder if Heavenly Father still counts it as fasting if you have no choice in the matter. Made it through subbing in Primary so it all will be better from now on I am sure.

This week was much better. Lauri came home from the hospital on Thursday and returned to the assisted living place. So on Thursday and Friday with Robyn helping we helped settle Lauri, get her a few things and hopefully help her adjust to her new home. Kelly took on the huge task of moving her cat over who seems quite content there. I spent an afternoon talking to their manager about getting VA benefits for Lauri. I am hoping that will come together for her.

Our carpet came Friday and it is so nice now to walk around downstairs. We got this black and brown speckled berber. Thursday was spent doing all the cleaning up and final painting. Most of the stuff left downstairs is in the van's parking space in the garage. Hopefully that will be a good incentive to decide what to do with it. Daniel gave us a wonderful surprise in the middle of our mayhem showing up with a bag of cheesecakes. It was wonderful to give him a hug and after finishing up the last of the paint that night I took a big bubble bath to wash the paint splatter off with a plate of cheesecake in my hand. THANK YOU DANIEL!

With the carpet done Jeremy has been busy setting up his desk and a TV in the exercise room. He tried it out last night and realized he get much better reception down there for all the football games. His plan is to bike through all the big games he wants to see.

Friday night Lincoln school had their big carnival/fundraiser. Spencer spent most of the night in his classroom helping to tie balloon animals for their booth. Kids all ate a ton of junk and had a great time running around and doing all the games. It is a huge carnival and really put together well.

Saturday was a really tiring but really good day. Meredith came to take Taylor swimming (he loves his new floatie Mom and Dad) so he could escape the mayhem of Allison's birthday party. Jeremy kept Spencer with him to make a pizza run and help set up the pinata. We ended up with 16 girls including ours as a few cancelled for the party. Robyn was thrilled because her friends from next door who moved came. They ate pizza, cake, did presents, played games, made lip gloss, did a pinata and watched Hannah Montana TV episodes. They had a great time and Allison has been busy ever since with all the art project things she got (inbetween decorating her face or Robyn's with her new make-up).

Saturday night was the Relief Society Broadcast and the stake presidency put on a munch and mingle afterwards. We WAY overestimated how many people would come and how much they would eat. It was sort of nice today to just tell kids to find the leftover cheese cubes and sweet bread slices in the fridge and help themselves and not to mention food to me.

Kids are all doing good. Robyn has figured out how to get dressed and undressed resulting in many different original outfits each day. Often without a diaper. She doesn't want to wear a diaper but she has no concept of how to use a toilet. Despite always wanting to try, she has never been able to produce anything sitting on a toilet. Figure she'll get it when shes 3 and ready. When Daniel came over she was enjoying the freedom of running rampant, and was wearing Allison's swimsuit sans diaper so a nice crack was showing as she ran around with the swimsuit reaching her knees. She got a haircut this week so its a bob as she keeps taking her hair clips out all the time. So this week it looks good no matter what she does to it. She walks around flipping her hair singing "I'm so pretty". As Robyn keeps finding Allison's stash of new make-up, Allison is looking forward to Robyn moving into the office.

Allison helped pick most of her pumpkins and to decorate the porch this week. Despite chilly morning its still in the high 80s most afternoons so kids are running around with popsicles in shorts. It seems strange to set out witches and goblins. Robyn helped me go get her a bike this week. Tonight we are taking Lauri a piece of birthday cake and saying hi and then going to Jeremy's work to get Allison's bike out of hiding and ride in the parking lot there. I have gotten a lot of comments from teachers at Allison's school about her as I have been interacting with them for the art program. Just compliments on her ability to help others and being able to grasp concepts - always nice to hear.

Spencer found a new book that he loved - the diary of a wimpy kid. He came home from school and read the book start to finish for 2 1/2 hours without moving from the couch. That doesn't happen very often. Of course it helped that he knew he had lost friends that day as he had played the previous day without getting his jobs done. Realized that I don't have a single picture of him for this post - it has been a girl oriented week. We had pack meeting this week with a new cubmaster who is amazing. Some kids got their arrow of lights so they set up a t-pee, had a guy dressed up as an indian come speak to them, complete with ghostly indian music, handing them their own arrow and quiver. It was very cool. It was take your buddy pack meeting so Spencer got 2 friends on our street to go with him, one is inactive and one is only 6. Spencer got his religious knot which he was excited about.

Taylor is back to eating and being happy. He has a tan line right now from school, from the top of his daffos mid calf to mid thigh where his shorts meet.

I have been rediscovering science fiction. Realied it has been a long time before I looked in the genre. Been really enjoying The Ender's Game series and Terry Brooks books.

Love to you all, Heather



Robyn smiling right after her haircut.


Allison won a goldfish at the carnival. Girls were hopped up on sugar and face paint.


Robyn was so excited to see her old friend from next door.




A long time ago we had a birthday party for Taylor with a teddy bear pinata. All the candy was in the body. None of the kids could break it. So Jeremy gave a big swing and decapitated the bear with the body just falling straight to the ground. The kids just stood there staring at the body full of candy and the head swinging in the air, not sure if they should cry or not. Same thing happened this time but I learned and put the candy in the head so kids didn't care about the decapitation, they just wanted Jeremy to break open the head for them.




Playing simon says