I just read my sister Kari's blog, and she posted about a high councilman in her ward who spoke about how we don't share spiritual things in our blogs. She took the opportunity to share some feelings and taught me a very important lesson.

I just blogged about being released from my calling in the Relief Society presidency. I haven't shared any of the important lessons I learned from that calling. I had the opportunity to work with amazing, inspired women; a bishop who loves and works hard for his ward; and sisters who struggle more than I ever have and still move forward with faith.

I am married to a man who holds and honors his priesthood. I have neighbors who have assisted him in blessing my sick children, which has brought me peace and strength and helped their tiny bodies heal.

I have a strong, eternal marriage because of covenants Ben and I have made in the temple. I hope to encourage my children each day to strive for this.

I never want anyone to question my testimony of the Savior. He lives. He loves me. He loves you. He wants us to come to him, no matter where we are or what we have done. I know this is true, and I hope that I can make this a bigger part of my daily communication to help His other children know too.

So, I was released from the Relief Society presidency today. Round three of Enrichment Counselor has come to a close. I'm pretty sure I didn't do a great job in this calling, so I'm afraid it might come up again in the future.

The kids are finally well. However, there is a contagion going around our house that causes the kids to fall asleep in random places. I typically cannot get my kids to sleep anywhere other than their beds. This was taken Tuesday after Tansy loudly protested being in her bed. I can usually say, "Tansy, do you want to take a nap?" She'll respond, "Nap." And go to bed. This day it was "NO!" with vigorous head shaking and shrieking. Twenty minutes after setting herself up on the couch with her puppy and blanket, here we were.


On Wednesday night, it was Sydney's turn. I got home from an Enrichment activity at 8:00 and found her like this on the living room floor. The next morning, she didn't remember me putting her in her pajamas, taking her to the bathroom and putting her to bed.


And yesterday, knowing how I longed to have a complete montage of strange sleeping children, Zack kindly fell asleep on the living room floor. He had been happily playing with a sleeper, but I soon noticed it had become very quiet. Sure enough, he's in Snoozeville.



And I couldn't resist posting this picture of Tansy reading her favorite magazine. She seriously loves the National Geographic. She will sit quietly for the longest time carefully flipping the pages and occassionally pointing out something that strikes her fancy. She is also a big fan of the Reader's Digest.

Yesterday I made a run to DI. As I was looked for warm shirts for Tansy, I came across this Giselle t-shirt. It just so happens that Sydney has the same shirt. At $2.00, I just couldn't resist. They're pretty pleased. Sydney loves this picture. She asked me to write that.

In other news, I am working for the next few weeks. It is only 10-12 hours a week for three weeks, but it still is making things crazy. My boss was left in a lurch and needed some extra help hiring a new employee. She is super smart, so it's going better than planned.

Ben is now serving as the Elders' Quorum secretary. No rest for the weary, huh? He is also working so hard during this last semester. I don't know how he keeps going sometimes. At least I know that if we end up destitute, it won't be for his lack of trying. Just kidding. We are still waiting for dates from the Air Force, but we'll let you know when we know.

We began our week thinking that we were on our way to recovery. Tansy's RSV was improving slowly but surely, although she was still complaining about her head, eyes, and ears hurting. Lots of painkillers got her through. Thank goodness for modern medicine. Ben and I each got to go to the temple this week (on different days, of course, since no one wants to be around my kids right now). Things were looking up. I should never look up. I just trip over the next thing I didn't see coming.

On Thursday night, I was changing Zack's diaper and noticed that he was sucking in really hard under his ribs with every breath he took. I said, "Oh, no." When Ben came to see what was the matter, I pointed to Zack's stomach and said, "He has RSV."

The next morning we called to find out that our doctor was out of town for the next several days, so we all went down to Instacare. Zack had an RSV test, a chest x-ray, a rectal temperature reading, etc., and hardly even cried. We got lucky on the chest x-ray because they usually time the exposure for the big breath they take between screams. Zack was just hanging out. For those of you who have not had to have a chest x-ray taken for a small child, check out http://www.coneinstruments.com/CIproddetail1.asp?Product_ID=2770 for pictures of the restraint they use for babies. As you can imagine, Sydney and Tansy screamed. As they should.

The x-ray came back negative for pneumonia, but the RSV test came back positive. He's a lot worse than Tansy was, so he is on four breathing treatments of albuterol a day. That's what the cute mask is about. He starts out fine, like in the picture, then cries for a few minutes, then falls asleep. The doctor said that if he gets worse, we should take him to the ER because he would probably be admitted.

Tansy is still trying to completely get well. This is what happened when I ran away for some alone time on Saturday. Apparently, she was ready for her nap earlier than usual.

Through this sleep-deprived weekend, our next-door neighbors went out of town and forgot to turn off the alarm clock. Isn't that on everybody's list when they leave? Turn down the heat, make sure the oven is off, switch off the alarm clock. Just kidding. It woke us up yesterday and today at 5:30 a.m. They felt so bad when they got home and found out. Don't worry. They are fantastic neighbors and really look out for us. It was actually kind of funny trying to figure out what was going on while looking for other places in the apartment to sleep.

On Monday, Zack had his first experience with baby food. I hesitate to say that he ate baby food, because I don't think much reached his stomach. He made this disgusted face the entire time and shoved as much back out as he could. We have made several more attempts and are achieving a slow success. The girls were much more enthusiastic about the whole experience. Maybe we'll add some flavor this week to liven up the nasty, bland cereal a bit.


The biggest news of the week is that Tansy has RSV. Poor baby. She started coughing Wednesday night and had the slightest fever on Thursday. Early Friday afternoon, her breathing had become very shallow and rapid, she had no energy, and her temperature had gone up to 100.2. I gave her some Tylenol and took her temperature again a half an hour later. It had gone up to 101.7. I called the doctor's office to see what was going around and if I should worry. They said bronchitis and RSV were hitting hard this week and I should bring her in. The doctor couldn't hear the RSV in her lungs yet, but he was pretty sure that's what we were looking at. He sent us home and told us to call him if she got worse.

About three hours later, despite the Tylenol, her fever spiked to 104.1, she started trembling, and just laid limply in Ben's arms. I called the doctor, who told me to take her to the hospital for a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. It came back clear for pneumonia, but he said she definitely had RSV. We had given her ibuprofen as well so her temperature was back down below 100 by the time I got home.

On Saturday, her temperature was much more manageable and her breathing seemed less difficult most of the time. She is doing well again today. The picture is where she fell asleep at 6:15 this morning after being up for four hours and watching Curious George twice. Yes, she is right next to an inflatable bed. To each his own. We hope that she will be back to normal in a few days.

I know this is a pretty wacky picture of Tansy, but it perfectly displays her current beliefs about proper sticker use: remove each and every sticker from the sheet in your hand, place them on your shirt, and when you run out, beg Mom for more. We have yet to convince her that a piece of paper is an acceptable place for a sticker. What's the point of taking it off one paper just to put it on another? Makes sense to me.

She also believes that the back of a sheet of stickers is that best place to color. Coloring book? No, thanks. Scratch paper? Uh-uh. Post-it note? Nope. Sticker sheet or the couch, mom. You choose.

Ben has also started reading The Magician's Nephew to our family. We read a chapter every night. Sydney loves the movies The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian (didn't know how violent that one was before we let her see it) so we decided to read the entire series. My set is numbered chronologically in Narnia time, not by publication date, so that's why we started where we did. She seems to clean up faster when we remind her about what's happening to Polly and Digory since the chapters always cut off at critical moments so we have to find out if their all right.

Ben also took Sydney ice skating on Saturday. She loved it! She has been asking to go for so long. They have these little walker-type things that the kids can use and she got going pretty fast. The videos and pictures are on Ben's cell phone, so I'm sorry I can't post them here. Just know that she was absolutely adorable.

The Young Men's presidency was released yesterday so Ben currently doesn't have a calling. Now for the waiting game. Any thoughts on what he'll be doing next?

Zack got a clean bill of health last week. I took him in for a follow-up so the doctor could be sure the antibiotics had done their job. He's sleeping 11 hours a night again so it makes my visits with the girls all night more bearable.

Wonder Woman! The girls decided that it was time for Zack to learn about the joys of dress-up. Oh, my. We'll have to find some more manly items for the dress-up drawer.

Ben and Sydney went back to school last week. It is always so jarring to go back to real life after a long break. Sydney has been teaching us all about germs since they have been focussing on hygiene this week.

Ben is ready to graduate. He is determined to stay on top of things this semester, but after so many years, he is really ready to be done.

The news on Tansy is that she wakes up several times a night and will cry harder and harder until I come put her back to bed. I don't know what is going on, but after three weeks of this, I am really tired.

My camera has seen no action in the last few days. Not much to report. The kids have improved a lot. We were able to go down to Springville to my nephew's blessing today. It was a last minute decision because of the rampant illness in this family. I have a bit of a head cold so going through Sardine Canyon was awful, but other than that, we seem to be okay. Knock on wood.

Ben goes back to school tomorrow. But it's his last semester! There is a light at the end of this tunnel. Good luck to everyone else headed back tomorrow.