A Clean Start

About 7 1/2 years ago I gave birth to a little pack rat.  I didn't know it at the time of course...she looked so innocent then...

As the years have progressed though her true identity has emerged...

I suppose you can have a tidy pack rat...keeps everything but puts it away orderly...but that's not the kind I have, no I have the messy sort...but I love her!

I seriously do love my Abs, but she really struggles to keep her room clean.  It is such a process and ordeal when I tell her to clean up...it takes most of the day and then when it's bed time it's already a wreck again.

I have had issues with this.  It finally came to a head yesterday.

I felt like I wanted to do something drastic but I wasn't quite sure what.  

I had thought about cleaning everything out of her room and putting it somewhere that she couldn't find it.

My sister in law told me of her friend who did that and then when the kids came home from school she let them have back anything they could remember...the rest was dumped (excluding sentimental items that they may not have recalled).  I kind of liked that idea.

Yesterday morning as I was kind of puttering around in her room with these thoughts going through my head my mom called.  We chatted and I told her my frustrations.  I said that I knew I was just as bad when I was a girl (I remember Mom threatening to clean our rooms while we were at school and throw away anything she wanted).  She wasn't so sure that I was as bad as Abby but she said that she remembered coming home from school one day and her mom had cleaned out her room and had a fire going in the fireplace.  Her sister told her she didn't want to know what was in the fire.  To this day Mom doesn't know what was in the fire, but she says she never missed any of it whatever "it" was.

Well, that did it!  If my cute Grandma could do something like that then I felt totally justified in my ideas.

After I hung up with Mom I went to work full speed.

I found all kinds of things...

four half empty water bottles

endless wrappers and papers...sticky tacked to the wall no less...

 about 10 different lip glosses

a million bobby pins and hair clips

6-9 barbie shoes and hair extensions

and the crown jewel...a tiny, pink iPod that I still need to ask her about (where did that come from?)

 

When I was done with it, everything was gone except for...

clothes

bedding

big furniture (bookshelf, table and chairs)

a few pictures on the wall and a plant

her soccer bag

her scripture bag

her CD player and CD's so she can have background music as she contemplates her new clean habits she will form

and, out of the goodness of my heart, I left her "American Girl" doll and accessories

It took me all morning to accomplish this.

I did have a little helper though :)

I was a little worried what Abby's reaction would be.  I could see her going either way...upset and throwing a full fledged tantrum or happy that I had cleaned it for her.

We had a little talk when she came home and I explained everything to her.

She seemed just fine with it...a little shocked and in awe but okay.

However, Andy said he had a conversation with her last night that went something like this:

Andy: What do you think of your room Abby?

Abby: I don't know if I like this Dad.

Andy: How come?

Abby: Because there's hardly anything in my room.

So maybe she's not as okay with it as I thought, but so far so good on keeping it clean :)

It's kind of hard to mess it up if there's nothing there to mess it up with (pardon the grammar).

Basically right now I'm watching to see if she'll keep her clothes orderly.  If she's good with that for about a week I'll let her choose 2 or 3 things that she wants back.  If she keeps all of that clean for another week I'll let her choose some more and so on and so forth.

We'll see.  I hope it doesn't backfire on me or just have no effect at all.

I hope we don't go through months of her earning back her stuff and then find it in the state of the above pictures within a week.

I have to admit, I love walking by her room now and peeking in where before I would try not to look or just close the door and pretend like it didn't exist.

So here's to a clean, fresh start Abby!

My pretty little pack rat

Mother's Day Weekend

Friday:

These arrived in the middle of the day.  I couldn't imagine who they were from until I saw the handwriting on the outside of the envelope.  I recognized it as the handwriting of a former employer of mine.  I worked for several years with her daughter that has severe autism.  We were and still are very close.  Now that I have a child with special needs that bond has grown even stronger.  She sent these as a thank you and a "happy mother's day".

Thank you Pam!

That night I was getting ready for my 23 miler the next morning.  I tried to get to bed early but was running around taking care of last minute things (it amazes me that such a simple 'sport' takes so much preparation and 'equipment').  In my focused mindset I was aware that Andy was encouraging Josh to pull a tooth.  It finally came out and I made sure Andy understood that he would have to make sure that the tooth fairy came ;)  The next morning Andy showed me the tooth in the baggie.  I asked him if the tooth fairy had made it and he said that 'she' couldn't find the tooth that night.  When asked about it, Josh admitted that 'his teeth are just so special to him and he didn't want to give it up.  He said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to let him keep his tooth.  Andy found it clutched in Josh's hands as he watched cartoons the next morning.  Bless his heart.

Saturday:

So Trina and I left at 3:30 a.m. to drive to our starting spot for our 23 mile run.  Matt had a soccer game at 9:00 that I wanted to be to and I knew it would take me approx. 5 hours to finish so that's why we started so early.  We were excited and I was just happy to have the company of a good friend at that dark, and cold crazy hour of the morning.  The first couple of miles were pretty much all up hill.  (who planned that route?)  It was not fun but we got through it.  About the time that the route started to level out I realized my left knee was really hurting (IT band area).  I did what I could but by mile 15 when our other friend met up with us I was shuffling.  I was advised that it might be best to not push it any further and make things worse.  Although extremely disappointed, I agreed that it might be best to quit.  I went home a bit dejected but hopeful that it would heal up, maybe even by next Saturday (so I could try that run again...without the uphill climb at the beginning) and that all would be well. 

I'll attempt a short run in a couple of days and see how it goes.

Andy presented me with this lovely bouquet...

He knew I'd like it because of the hydrangea.

Andy's paternal grandparents live in Ogden.  We do not visit them as often as we would like so we thought that Mother's Day would be a good reason to go down and see them. 

 They had just had an addition put onto their home and so the kids enjoyed running around in the big empty room and sitting on this chair...

It was Lester's (Andy's grandpa) chair when he was a little boy. 

It is about 90 years old.

 We are so glad we were able to spend some time with them.  Andy's aunt and uncle, Cheryl and Lance, and his parents were also there visiting so we had a big party :)  It was such a pleasant visit and such a joy to see them again.  Andy's grandma has recently been diagnosed with congestive heart failure.  She is such a sweet and thoughtful woman.  We love them both.

Happy Mother's day to you Norma!

Sunday:

My favorite part of Mother's Day is always breakfast in bed accompanied by the homemade cards.

Saturday night I was so worn out from the early morning and the run and I just plain wasn't feeling well physically or emotionally on top of it all so I slipped off to bed earlier than Andy.  That is a rare occasion.  

My primary "love language" is acts of service.  Andy is well aware of this and often does things around the house for me.  That night he stayed up late and did all the dishes and the three or four loads of laundry waiting to be tackled in the laundry room.  Love him!  He also made his bed in Ben's room so when he woke up in the middle of the night I wouldn't have to go in and sleep on his floor.  I had 10 hours of sleep!  I can't remember the last time that happened.  Long lead in to my breakfast in bed...but, needles to say, I was comfortable, relaxed and content, reading pleasantly in bed when the troops came in singing and bearing breakfast and cards.

This was my favorite page of Abby's little book...

You're right Abby, I do like to "run miles" but I'm not so sure about the casserole thing :)

Josh wrote a rather lengthy card...he had hidden it on Saturday and it took him a while to remember where he had put it.  He found it and slipped it under the bathroom door while I was showering later on.

You can read sideways right?

Matt made sure I had tape to hang his card up above my bed...

Andy had written a couple of notes himself and taped them to bedroom doors...

After church we went and spent the evening at my parents' home.

I totally left Mom's gift at home...sorry Mom...I love you!

I read on a blog recently that instead of expecting everyone to make Mother's day a special day for you, that it would be nice to focus on being a good mother and telling your kids how much you love them.

I liked this approach.

While Matt was sitting on my lap during church I whispered in his ear that I loved being his mom and I loved him.  He grinned and then told me to keep tracing the lines on the palm of his hand.

When I told Abby the same thing she just smiled shyly.

When I told Josh he smiled and told me he loved me too.

When I told Ben (I realized I hadn't done it after I had already tucked him in to bed so I went into his room and slid down the crib side, told him and hugged and kissed him) he looked a bit confused and motioned for me to put the side of the crib back up and waved goodnight.

I truly do love being a mom and especially to my precious kids!

I wouldn't change any of it!

Top 6, Bottom 2 and 3 In-between

There's lots that I need to catch up on so I thought I would categorize them on a scale of positiv.ity in my life.

I'm glad that there's more tops than anything else :)

I will start with the bottom though so I might end on a happy note.

Bottom #1

I've switched my antidepressant and for the first few days things were really good.  However, the last several have been down.  I've been so sharp with my kids and extremely emotional.  It's pretty embarrassing when I cry for no real reason in public.  I really need to get this under control.  I'm hoping that the medication just hasn't built up enough in my system.  I'll give it a week or two more.  

Bottom #2

We started our two week trial of the etogenic diet.  Remember this post?  Well, I talked to the dietitian a while later and I told her we wanted to really give it a good shot before we ruled it out as an option...just so we could say we had tried everything.  She said a "good shot" would be a two week trial.  Yikes!

So I looked at our schedule and tried to find the best two weeks in the near future to do it.  We started today.  It actually didn't go too bad.  He ate the solids at breakfast and lunch but wouldn't eat at dinner.  He wouldn't drink all of the cream at any meal though...which he would have to if we did the diet.  I've ordered a chocolate syrup that we could use since it's low calorie/carb.  Until it comes I'm still using the powder that he's used to.  We couldn't do that on the real diet but this is just to see if he will comply with the restrictions.  The syrup should taste pretty similar to the powder.

I also ordered some expensive cheese crackers to try and replace his beloved "fish crackers".  When they arrived I took a taste and they were nasty!  However, when Ben tried them he ate the whole bag.

Anyway, he did ask several times for things he couldn't have but most of the time I was able to distract him with something.  We'll see how tomorrow goes :)

In Between #1

A few of you have asked about Ben's walking.  I'm sorry didn't post sooner.
When I was first planning this post a couple of days ago this ranked as an in between but now it should probably be in my "top" list.  Andy brought him home that night and said there were no visible breaks.  I guess that was good but we still didn't know what was wrong.  Our friend said it could be something as simple as a sprain to something called hip dysplasia.  He said the way he was keeping his leg kind of stiff and swinging it forward made it look more like a hip thing.  He suggested we put him in a walking boot for a couple of days and see if that helped.  We pulled out the tiny little boot that we had for Josh when he broke his leg when he was 2 and that we also used when Matt broke his leg when he was 2.  He looked so pitiful with that and his helmet on.  I tried to get a picture of him but as soon as I put him down he would immediately run toward me crying.  So my attempts look pretty pitiful too.  I didn't leave it on him too long.  The past couple of days things have seemed to improve...he hasn't crawled for a day and a half and his gait looks a little more normal...well, normal for him. 
So, hopefully it just works itself out.  Thank you all for your concern.

In Between #2
Again, this one could probably be moved to my "top" list now but I'll just tell you about it here. 
Ben had his first IEP yesterday.   Having graduated in Special Ed and having worked with a child with Autism for a few years I had attended enough of these to know that they are not always pleasant experiences.  At least with my experiences, it was often "parent against professionals" (with one or two parents in a room with a bunch of other people (we had seven) you can easily feel outnumbered) and with the emotions of a child with special needs thrown in it can make for a negative meeting.  I had already had positive experiences with the professionals that we'll be working with so I had no reason to be worried but you just never know.  Well, it turned out beautifully.  We ended up bringing Ben with us and I was worried that it would make things harder if he was not happy and needing attention but he was a little angel and played happily the whole time.  He charmed everyone there.  Everyone was very kind and the mood was light and we were able to joke around a bit.
The thing I thought was funny though was that the head teacher has made no effort to conceal that fact that she is scared.  She's worried about Ben having a seizure in class.  When we met with her for testing she said something like, 'Aren't you worried that something will happen or we'll do something wrong?  I would be so worried?'  Doesn't exactly inspire confidence, but I can see where she's coming from.  It's always scary when Ben has a seizure but I think for most people, after they've dealt with one or two they are more at ease.  It was really cute too because after she talked about how nervous she was she said that one of her sons was epileptic!  I asked her why she was so nervous then and she explained that he had only ever had one tonic clonic (grand mal) and a few smaller ones and once he was put on medicine he was okay.
She's so cute...I just thought it was so funny.
Anyway, a sigh of relief for a very positive IEP!

They were ready for Ben to start mid June but I told them I thought I would like to keep him home through the summer and have him start in the fall with his siblings.  They offered the possibility of having him come one day a week through the summer to slowly get him (and me) used to the idea.  I thought that sounded reasonable so I agreed.  Then in the fall he will be going Mon-Thurs in the mornings.  (They let me pick if I wanted morning or afternoon.  I thought that was so nice)  I think that will work out very nicely since I'm assuming Matt will be doing Morning Kindergarten and they will get home about the same time.
I don't know what I'll do with my mornings open...well, I take that back, I know exactly what I'll do, but I think it will be hard to get used to :)

Okay, moving on...this is turning into a super long post  :( sorry

In Between #3
My sweet sister and her great husband are moving............................far away...to New Hampshire.
Dan has just finished grad school and has been given a wonderful job opportunity there in Meredith, NH.  It looks super gorgeous and exciting.  What a fun adventure...and I am thrilled for them, but oh how I will miss them.  We will probably see them even less than we have the last two years that they've been in Northern Idaho.  I will just have to be better at emails, skype and of course, snail mail.  Who doesn't love a good old fashioned letter in the mailbox?  I'm not promising much Ang, but I'll do my best.
We love you so much and wish you all the best guys!

Top #1
My oldest child, my Joshy Squashy turned 9!
I can't believe it was nine years ago that we welcomed our first baby into our home.  It was such a learning experience...full of joy, love and long nights. 
Josh is such a blessing to us. 
I love his sense of humor.
I love how smart he is and that he uses big words that amaze me all the time.
I love that he loves to read.
I love his smile.
I love his tenderness.
I think he is such a handsome boy!
What a guy.

Josh was kind and let me do a short run in the morning before we opened up his gifts.

I love the expressions in the next ones.

 

Then it was off to soccer games.

Grandpa and Grandma Bryan came for lunch.  Josh chose Chinese.  He and Andy are the only ones in our family that enjoy that type of thing so I gave the others a pep talk before we went and made them promise they wouldn't complain.  They did well.  They tried some food and even enjoyed the lo mien noodles slightly and then just entertained themselves (with chopsticks) while everyone else ate. 
They came to the house for a little bit afterward.
Ben and Merill had a nice time with the trains...

From one railroad man to another...

I had planned a special cake for Josh.  His absolute favorite treat is root beer floats.  I found a recipe for a root beer float cake.  I couldn't wait to try it out.  I've been saving it for literally months.
At first Josh said he liked it but then after noticing he hadn't taken more than one or two bites I asked him again and he told me he really didn't.  He felt bad and hadn't wanted to hurt my feelings.  Bless his heart.
Abby and I really enjoyed it :)

The next night we celebrated with the Olsens.
This is how Ben arrived at their house...

 

He loves his sunglasses so much that he popped the lenses out of them.  He literally wears them every time we get in the car.

It was a festive evening complete with Josh's choice of meal: meatloaf, rice pilaf, carrots and bread sticks.

For dessert we had real root beer floats. :o)

 

We love you Josh!

Top #2

My mom and I made a quilt for Trina, my good friend.  She, along with many others, has been so helpful and supportive especially since Ben was born.  

Mom really did most of the work on the quilt but I was able to help piece it a little bit and then bind it.

I think it turned out lovely.  

Thank you so much Trina for being such an amazing friend!

This is the picture I know Trina would want me to post...

and then this is the picture I really love :)  Isn't she cute?

okay, you're hangin' in there...the next few will be super short!

Top #3

I am losing weight!  It's happening and I'm so thrilled.  I can see my goal as attainable.  I'm just crossing my fingers that I can keep it up!

Top #4

There is a chance that Andy and I will be going to Minnesota for the fourth biannual Dravet Syndrome Conference.  I really think it would be a positive and beneficial experience for us.  I'm working on Andy since it will probably replace our 10th anniversary trip that he has been looking forward to.  I think we could still make it a fun trip but in his own words he has "no desire to see The Mall of America" :)

We'll see...

Along with that, we just found out last night that Dr. Dravet herself is coming to Utah right before the conference in August.  It sounds like most families that would like to will have an opportunity to meet with her.  What an opportunity!  I'll keep you posted on that.

Top #5

I have a new favorite dessert to make, eat and give away.

Found it on Pinterest...of course...

by the way, this is not my own photo...I stole it from the website

 
Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars

Don't they look amazing?

And they do not disappoint!

And they are so simple to make too!

Here's the link to the recipe.

I didn't have any of the peanut butter/chocolate chip swirls so I just made them with plain chocolate chips and they were delish!

Top #6

Okay, finally, my last "top" is that it is lilac season.

again...this is not my picture, although it could be.  we have some exactly like this outside our bedroom window.  I'm just too lazy to go snap a pic right now.

I have always loved lilacs.  Their scent is intoxicating. For a while they were my absolute favorite flower ever, but there are some others that I mentioned at the end of this post that have crept up the rungs of the "favorite floral species ladder" to sit next to the lilac.

image courtesy google images

Today I went into Josh's class to help with reading time.  I was reading a book with a small group and the students were taking turns.  The girl reading read the word "lilacs" and pronounced it "lilocks" as I know many people do.  One little boy in the group interjected and said, "It's lilacks".  Before a real debate ensued I hurriedly assured them that people say it both ways and that they are both fine.

As we moved on, I heard the little boy say quietly, "Lilacs are my favorite flower."

It thought it was so cute :)

After that last picture I had a moment where I thought Blogger must have a limit on how long a post can be because for some reason I couldn't get my cursor to go down any lower on the screen :)

Well, I apologize.  I should have broken this post up into several separate ones but it seemed less daunting this way.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.

p.s. after a post this long there's no way I'm going back to proof read so I'm sorry for any misspellings, improper grammar and the like...deal with them :)

Crawling and Doughnuts

It's 10:30 p.m. and I haven't tucked in my baby Ben yet.  He is at the doctor's office getting X-rays of his legs/feet.

On Sunday he had a bigger seizure which required Diastat to stop it.  After an episode like that he's like a rag doll and can't really move for around an hour or two.  Monday morning I noticed that he was still wobbly when he walked.  It was strange.  He continued like that through Tuesday and Wednesday.  I was thinking that maybe he had regressed in his physical abilities because of the seizure.  

On Thursday he fell down 1/2 a flight of stairs (with helmet, gratefully).  I consoled him for a bit until he stopped crying and then he seemed okay.  Later that day, I was in the bathroom fixing Abby's hair and I had seen Ben transporting his trains (which he loves) from his bedroom to the living room.  After a couple of times though, I saw him go by and he was crawling!  I haven't seen him crawl forever.  When he came back out of his room and passed the bathroom again he was walking on his knees!  What?  From that point on I realized that when he was walking it was with a very pronounced limp.

I called our very handy and very kind podiatrist neighbor this morning and he said if we could hold off until tonight he would come over and look at it.

We had an S&I (Seminaries and Institutes) dinner tonight.  My cute cousins Sarah and Rebecca babysat the kids.  They absolutely love it when the girls come.  About 20 minutes after we arrived at the dinner we got a phone call from them telling us that Ben was having a seizure.  I asked lots of questions about how he was looking and breathing and how long it had been.  At about five minutes we decided to give him the Diastat. 

About halfway through the administration...he stopped.  Big sigh of relief...for me and for them.  {They handled it very well.  Thanks so much girls!}

They assured me that they would be fine, that I didn't need to come home, and that they would call if they needed anything.

When we arrived home Ben was happy as a lark and "told" us all about his evening.  It's so cute how he communicates.  He uses his limited sign language and points to people calling them all "da" and sings songs (I know he's talking about Elmo when he "sings" the Elmo song.  The words are still all "da da da" but he sings them closer together and faster.)  He repeats everything several times...to make sure we got it all I guess :o)

I held him for a bit and then tried to put him down to see if he would walk.  We weren't sure if the little bit of Diastat that he did get would affect (I need to learn how to differentiate between the two spellings of this word.  I think I used it wrong just now.  Forgive me.) his walk even more.  When I tried to put him down he bent his legs up and just hung from my hands.  I tried it a few more times and every time he refused to put his legs down.  We called our doctor neighbor and he said instead of coming over to look at it, that we should just go and get it X-rayed.  So, Andy took Ben and picked up our friend and went to his office.  I haven't heard from them yet.

Results soon to come...

I wanted to mention one more thing...

Becky, (my cute sister in law that says I should enjoy life more and not worry about what I eat :o) I know you will roll your eyes at this, but it was a triumph for me today.

So I don't know if you remember this post, but let's just say I didn't make my goal for my birthday.  I'm determined to make it for the marathon though.  I don't want to be carrying around an extra 20 pounds for 26 miles.  I've been doing very well the last few days.  Yipee!  I love it when the pounds start to drop!  But there's always something isn't there?  A holiday, a birthday, some celebration where you would feel rude if you didn't eat.  Anyway, I'm always thrown off my game by those things.

Josh's birthday is tomorrow.  I had mentally prepared myself.  I took 32 yummy looking doughnuts to his classroom today...32 because I thought he had 29 people in his class and then there would be three left over for each of the kids (I didn't want any leftovers to tempt me...I really think doughnuts are awesome!)  Well, I must have miscalculated because when we came home there were 8 doughnuts left in the box.  Ughhhhh.

I came very close to eating one...but didn't.  I was strong.  I even thought maybe I'd just take one bite and be done...but you know where that leads.  Anyway, so when my cousins came to babysit I told them there were five doughnuts left (I let the kids have some more) and I wanted them all gone when I came home.

Well, which one of you girls didn't eat?  The kids say they all ate theirs.

There it was.  One lonely doughnut laying in the box.  TEMPTATION!  I had done so well at the dinner.  I filled my plate with mostly broccoli and salad, a small portion of mashed potatoes, and one roll...no butter.  I didn't even have dessert!  I couldn't give in now.  I put it on a napkin, snapped this picture of it,

because I wanted to show you how yummy it looked, and then let it sit on my counter for a little bit.  It's so hard for me to throw away such lovely food.  But I finally did it.  I dumped it!  I was strong again!

Yeah!  As I'm writing this I'm deciding that Becky might not be the only one rolling her eyes.  It must seem pretty silly to most of you.  But I know there are some out there that feel the same :)

There's the garage door.  It's 11:00.  I must go see how my little guy is.  I'll try and post tomorrow to let you know what's up.  Bye.

Conference Issue

It arrived!

(Sorry...Blogger rotated my picture funny and I don't know how to fix it.)

I absolutely love the General Conference issue of the Ensign.

The first thing I do when it comes is go through each page and look at the amazing photography.  I love how they catch the spirit of Conference in the images.  I love how they place certain pictures in the magazine with corresponding talks. 

A couple of my favs.

I love how it's all new and unmarked and I think about how worn and underlined I want it to be in six months time.

You see, I always have grand plans to read every talk at least twice and apply everything that I learn and be an expert on what our leaders have said most recently :o).  Each time though, the Ensign comes and I go strong for a few weeks and then I fade away.  I usually make it through each talk once alone and Andy and I make a goal to study each one together also.  But my energy lacks after a bit.  I want to keep that fire all six months until the next conference.  

These words are so inspired...I know they come from the Lord.  And they are so applicable to the whole world!  I want them to be a part of me.

Hopefully I can be as enthusiastic about it all through 'till October as I am right now. 

Along the same lines, I recently made a scripture bag from a pattern I bought online.

I just used some fun Hobby Lobby fabric and had a go at it.  The first time through a pattern is always kind of rough for me but then I figure things out and feel like I could do it again with less trouble.  With this one I even altered some things as I went to make it more what I wanted.  It's fun...but I plan on making another one soon so I can fix some things.

I liked this pattern because it had a place for pencils/pens,

 had a flap but didn't have a closure to worry about putting in and was easily adaptable to add a pocket in the back to carry larger items :)

It's hard to tell because of the striped fabric that I used but it also has a cute "ruffle" on the front.

Okay, I'm off to read a conference talk!
 {General Conference talks can be found here.}

GOALS

Well, I mentioned that something was brewing at my house in my last post. 

This is it!

Our sweet neighbors moved this weekend and I wanted to do something for them.  My neighbor on the other side of me and another friend are on the "quilt in a week" program :)

They're awfully good at throwing together a quilt in a jiffy.  So a week ago Saturday I mentioned to my neighbor that maybe we could do a quilt.  

Monday we pooled our fabric together from our stashes and started piecing.  Wednesday afternoon we had it to the quilter.  She had it back in our hands the next day.  I think she did an amazing job!

Thanks so much Leisha!

Thursday night, my two friends and I got together and bound it.  In the time that I did about a foot, they finished the rest of it.  I got my binding genes from my mom :)

Friday night we took it over to my moving neighbors.  They were so grateful and a bit emotional.  I, of course, was emotional too.  They have been fantastic neighbors and we love them.  

The husband told me later that he has plans to build a quilt hanger for it.  We told them it was just the kind of quilt to throw on their couch or at the end of their bed but they think it is "just the most beautiful thing" and they insist on displaying it on their wall.

So, that was one of my goals this last week...to make a quilt...and it happened!

Another one of my goals this past week was to run 20 miles on Saturday.

My two quilting friends are also running friends.  The three of us along with a bunch of other people drove 20 miles up the canyon and started running down.  

I am amazed each time I do a long run at how my body responds.  The last 2 or 3 miles of the run my mind is telling my body that there is no way I can go any further.  When I finish I feel like the was absolutely the last step I could have taken.  However, when I do three more miles two weeks later my body is able to do it.  I started training on my own but the last two long runs I've had Trina by my side and we just chatter the whole time.  It makes the time go quickly.  I tried to talk her into doing the marathon with me but she is otherwise engaged that day.  I told her to record her talking for 5 hours for me to keep me company during the marathon :)

The last goal I will mention also happened on Saturday.

My little Abby enjoys playing on her soccer team, but bless their hearts, they haven't won a game yet...they haven't even scored one goal this whole season.

Well, that is they hadn't until Saturday.

Abby's not the go getter kind of soccer player but she'll kick it hard if it comes right to her.  A corner kick from the other team came right in front of her and she kicked it towards the goal.  I screamed as it barely went into the side of the net!  Everyone was so excited.  She was so surprised that it had gone in.  The look on her face was priceless.  That won the game for them too since the other team didn't score. 

It was a very proud moment!

I love this picture...especially the gap in the teeth.  She's not in pain as it appears, that was just the look on her face as she was running :)

Congratulations Abby!  You scored a GOAL!