Faster and Faster

Cooper had another cross country meet today. He continues to do well. He ran an 18:54 and placed 15th overall, 6th from his school. We arrived just a few minutes before the race ended, but we were there to see him cross the finish line!

Love Note

Topher left me a sweet message with his afterschool snack today.

Picture Day!

The Harvest

We spent Labor Day having a very long dress rehearsal for our next kid choir concert. When the singers went home and just us directors and our kids were left, we had a picnic on the back lawn of the church building. Topher and his friends took it upon themselves to start cleaning out the church garden. They insisted that they were picking wheat and were going to make bread.

It was not wheat. But I don't know what it actually was.

In related news Topher came home very itchy and needed a shower. 

Day Off

The kids had a good first week of school. Our district starts with a four-day week and then a four-day weekend. We celebrated our first day off of the year with some mild sleeping in, one early cross country practice, and a few free donuts from the summer reading program. And lots of chores.

Bryan was well enough to go outside for a few minutes today. Progress is good, even if it's small.

Rock and Roll

This is me at 3:11 this morning. It's the only picture I took of Bryan's stay in the ER. He was in so much pain, I didn't think we would appreciate any pictures I took of him.

Last night the kidney stone pain combined with medication induced nausea to create a perfect storm. He was back forth about going to the ER again. After he threw up for the third time in less than an hour I said it was time to head to the hospital. He checked in just before midnight. Around 3:30 in the morning we were told that he was being admitted and had been put on the list for surgery. They were going to remove the stone.

Nearly twelve hours and several anti-nausea and pain medication doses later, a nurse arrived in his ER room to wheel him to surgery. Just over an hour later he was out of surgery and in the recovery room. The surgeon found me in the waiting room and told me the stone was so big Bryan likely wouldn't have passed it on his own. They were able to blast the stone and break it into smaller pieces. Then they endoscopically used a tiny basket to scoop out the pieces.

He was finally able to eat food after he came out of the anesthesia, roughly twenty hours after he had started feeling so intensely awful. He has a stent, which is both supposed to help the process and will really hurt over the next five days.

Thankfully he's home. He's still in pain, but hopefully that pain has an end date. And he's really glad to be in his own bed.

Twenty-Four Years and Counting

We were finally able to have our family birthday dinner last night! Does that mean that Bryan has passed the kidney stone? No, it does not. But thanks to some strong pain medication, he joined us for the picture and the meal.

A Long Long Time Ago

Today is our 24th family birthday. We had planned to eat our traditional family birthday meal, but we needed to postpone it to Wednesday. Bryan woke me up at 6:00 in the morning to tell me that he was having a kidney stone. We think this is his ninth, but that's just a guess since we've kind of lost count. He spent the morning in the ER getting some very strong medication and the rest of the day going in and out of sleep, still on very strong medication.

This is not how he wanted to spend today.

Since the day went sideways, let us instead focus on this day twenty four years ago.

Aw, look at those cute kids.

Keep Out

I found this sign on Topher's door. I understand that he wants us to know that his room is private property. I'm not quite sure what C8T means.

Read for Your Breakfast

These two completed the summer reading program at our library and earned two free donuts in the process. They cashed in their first coupon today and enjoyed fancy donuts for breakfast.

That Looks Good Enough to Eat

Tonight for YM/YW activities Cooper, Phoebe, and Sophie decorated mini cakes, which was an idea that Sophie had come up with.

Can you tell which cake belongs to which kid?

Taller Than a Human

Words, Words

Last week I got a text from my friend asking if I wanted to see a play with her. Her husband had gifted her the tickets for her birthday back in May and she was excited to use them. At first they tried to find a sitter so they could go together, but it was the weekend of youth conference for both our stake (their old stake) and their new stake, so there were no youth to be found. She decided to make a girls night of it. I said yes!

And then she discovered that she had the date wrong and it was actually for Saturday night when all the youth would be back in town. She opted to keep it a girls night.

My brain got a solid workout watching the existential comedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. It was well done and fun to see something from the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

About two months ago we had some friends over for a few hours to play. Topher and his friend Caleb spent much of that time in the backyard. We had just prepped the garden bed, but hadn't planted anything yet. Topher and Caleb found our stash of seeds and decided to plant some pumpkins. We found out after the fact, of course. They were very proud of themselves.

A week later we planted the rest of the garden. Topher was concerned that we were upsetting his seeds.

It turns out he had nothing to worry about. His pumpkin is coming along quite nicely.

In the Leafy Treetops

On Saturday night we had a big ward activity that I helped plan and run. There were several stations, one of which asked the members of the ward to write their name on a leaf and add the lead to our ward family tree. After the activity, somehow the extra leaves ended up among my party supplies. I decided to use them for singing time the next day.

The leaves on the left have song titles, the leaves on the right have instructions on how to sing the songs. I scattered the leaves on the ground at the front of the room and the kids got to pick which leaves we added to the tree that Bryan drew. I've done similar activities with them in the past, including making a thanksgiving tree. But either the kids didn't remember or they were nice enough not to point it out.

Sometimes the kids get carried away with the actions and forget to really sing. This time I brought a handful of blank leaves. I called them our bonus leaves. I told the kids that our primary pianist would listen to how they sang. If they sang the words clearly and used strong (but not yelling) voices, they could earn a bonus leaf for each song. That made all the difference! They didn't earn one on the first song, and that really pushed them to do their best for the songs that came after. I realized after I took the picture that they'd earned one more bonus leaf that I'd forgotten to add.

The bonus leaves are in the middle.

She's an Old Girl

How can you tell when your vehicle is getting older? The door handle comes off in your hand.

Don't worry, Sophie was able to put it back on.

Fancy Digits

What happens when the mom sleeps in and Sophie is unexpectedly and unintentionally in charge of Topher?

In related news, we appear to be out of nail polish remover.

Seven Eleven!

Brotherly Love

Missing Pieces

Suddenly, all those times I asked if everyone was wearing shoes as we left the house don't seem so ridiculous.

We discovered the missing footwear about five minutes from the church building yesterday. Topher got to attend our Sunday meetings in his stocking feet.