Stitches

On October 6, Michael, Rachel, and I were walking up to the mailbox. Actually, I was walking, Rachel was riding in the stroller, and Michael was riding on his bike. It was a beautiful fall day, and I was killing that last chunk of time before Brian comes home from work. Sometimes it is the hardest stretch of the day--this day especially.  We checked the mail, and I had every intention to keep walking. Michael started heading down the hill back towards our house. I called to him to come back, that we were going to keep walking. And then it happened. I watched as he turned his handle bars sharply to the left and then went flying straight off his bike, hitting his face on the pavement. I ran down to access the damage, knowing that one hurt, pushing Rachel as fast as we could go without panicking. Our neighbor was also returning from the mailbox, and she got to him before I did. 

When I reached him, he was on all fours in the grass. First thing, I checked for blood. It was dripping out of his chin--slowly, but big drops. I asked my neighbor if she could run in and get us a paper towel. I rubbed Michael's back and caught his blood in my hand while she ran into her house. She returned with the paper towels, and Michael screamed when I gently pressed it to his wound.  I helped him up, noticed that he didn't get very much blood on his shirt, loaded his bike into the stroller, and encouraged him to walk home. My neighbor offered to get his bike home, and I told her that I had it. I thanked her for her help and we headed on our way. Michael was whining the whole way home. When we reached the corner near our house, I asked Michael if he wanted me to have Rachel walk so he could ride in the stroller. It says everything about how miserable he was that he said yes to that suggestion. So, after crossing the street, I took Rachel out of the stroller and put my big little boy in. As I pushed him home, I couldn't help feeling like I was pushing a wheelchair instead of a stroller. 

Once we made it to our house, I sent Michael into the bathroom and then, after grabbing the first aid kit, I met him in there. I carefully removed the paper towel, took one look at the gash in his chin, and knew there was nothing in that first aid kit that could really help us. Calmly, I told Michael that we needed to get into the car and go to the InstaCare so he could get stitches. He wasn't very happy about that. "Will it hurt?" he asked me. "Yes, it will hurt, but it's better to have it hurt a little bit more right now so that it won't hurt as much later." I told him that he needed to hold his paper towel to his chin all the way to the InstaCare. He cried about that, and I did my best to reassure him. I buckled Rachel in, and then, because it was just too much, I buckled my boy in too. 

I called Michael's Pediatrician, just in case he was still in the office (It was just before 5). No luck. I tried looking up the number for the Instacare, but Google wasn't getting what I was trying to get it to do. So, I called Brian to see if he could call the office and let them know we were on our way. I kept calmly reassuring Michael that we were almost there, and that it was going to be okay, and that he was doing amazing! We finally got there and headed in. Thankfully, there was not wait because Brian never got through to them. I didn't even have time to sign off on the proper papers before the called him back. The kind nurses put numbing gel on his chin, and that's when I finally took his bike helmet. In all the craziness, it didn't even register that we needed to take it off. They showed us to the room, and my brave boy got on the big chair bed and waited:

 The numbing gel needed to be in place for 15 minutes before they could start. Rachel and Michael were feeling hungry by this point, so they snacked on peanut butter crackers while we waited. When they took off his numbing bandage, I took a picture so he could see his gash:

 And then they got to work. I held his hand, and then I realized I would have to pin him down while the doctor administered a numbing shot into his chin. He screamed so loud. Looking back on it now, I'm so amazed at how calm I was through all this. I knew that if I panicked, he would panic. I stayed incredibly positive and upbeat. "You're so brave, Michael! You're doing so good!" When they covered his entire face except his little chin, I told him, "You look so funny! I can only see your chin." Once the numbing shot kicked in, the doctor started into the stitches. At first, I looked away, but then my weird fascination with stuff like this kicked in, and I watched him put the rest of the stitches in. Rachel was also a champ. She wanted to see what was going on, but I couldn't hold her and Michael at the same time, so I reassured her and I reassured Michael. She just held onto my leg, or climbed up onto the chair to try and figure out what was going on. Towards the end, the doctor asked how I was doing. Apparently, a lot of parents pass out of something during these type of proceedings.

Finally, the doctor was all done, and Michael had 5 stitches. I told him it was because he would be turning 5 in a couple of days--again, staying so upbeat and positive.

Just as the nurse was finishing up putting a BandAid on his chin, Brian walked into the room. He was a little bummed to have missed all the excitement. After getting both kids into the car, I made Brian give me a hug. I told him all the not so nice details of the day--the worry I had and how hard it was to pin Michael down while he was screaming. I told Brian about how brave Michael was, and I got a little teary-eyed. I hadn't realized how much stress I'd been dealing with all day until that moment. When I reflected on the whole thing that night, I couldn't help thinking that I'd had unseen help that day, whispering in my ear what I needed to do and helping me stay so calm. Never had a course of action been so obvious to me than that day, and I'm so grateful. This mom thing is kind of tough, and no matter what you do, you can never be completely prepared for what you'll encounter in this line of work. I'm so grateful to know that the Lord really does magnify us for our calling as parents. And I'm so grateful that stitches were all he needed. And honestly, I'm kind of amazed we made it almost five years without him needing them.

Re-staining the Deck and General Conference

But before I get into that, here's a random picture of Rachel that I can't figure out how to tie into anything else. One morning, Sam and I went for a run, and decided to add a little distance to our workout by walking up the hill to the park and letting the kids play. (We walked up the hill, pushing our double strollers and kids). Rachel got out and was playing, but she was shivering so badly that I wrapped her up in my sweatshirt and in her blanket and snuggled her for a little bit. But she loves the swings, so when everyone headed to swings, I just stuffed Rachel in the baby swing with all that bundling. Yes, literally stuffed her in. She still had fun though:

 Okay, on to the deck. Right before we moved in, the selling agent's husband, who (at the time) lived in our neighborhood, painted the deck to help the house sell. After less than a year, his paint job was already chipping. We knew that we would need to re-stain it this fall if we didn't want to replace the entire thing next year. And we wanted whatever work we did to last longer than a year. After doing a lot of research, we decided to remove all the paint and stain it.

So, we made a plan to split it into two weekends. Brian would pressure wash it one weekend, and we would stain it the next weekend. And we figured that we could stain it while we were listening to General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The day of the appointed pressure washing (September 27), dawned cloudy and miserable. But since Brian was going to be wet anyway, we figured it would be okay. So off to Home Depot we went to rent the pressure washer. And then Brian got to work, trying to finish it as fast as he could.

And I watched from the warm house :)  He got completely drenched. At one point, he asked if I could take over. I feel like a jerk, but I told him, "No way." He was a champ for being hunched over like this for 3.5 hours. Ethan and I rushed the pressure washer back so we wouldn't get charged, and got a little wet in the process (It was pouring). I whined about being cold from that little bit of time I was in the rain. Yes, Brian was the hero of the day once again. 

So, that next Friday, I tried to make up for it by getting the sanding finished. Read: Not very fun. We borrowed a belt sander from my fabulous Father-in-law and bought sandpaper and all the supplies so we wouldn't have to make any Home Depot runs the next day. I was determined to get the rest of the paint sanded off that night. Thankfully, Michael was excited by the project, so I let him use my orbital sander,  and his enthusiasm helped me keep going,

  --until I ran into some trouble replacing the sandpaper. I thought I had done it, but then the paper kept slipping off the sander. I was convinced that I had broken the sander, and I was so bummed out about that. I convinced Brian that we would need another belt sander to finish the job. So, after unsuccessfully trying to borrow one, we decided to head to Home Depot and buy one. Yay. Now we are even more grown up :)

The next morning, (October 4) we got up first thing and started sanding. It was after 8, but I still felt a little bad for causing so much noise for our neighbors. At 10, we headed inside to listen to the first session. 

Side note about conference: I've always wanted to have cool Conference weekend traditions like cinnamon rolls or something special like that. I imagined Conference Bingo and treats. Well, I forgot to buy treats for the Bingo game, so I raided the cupboard for anything that would work. Michael decided to mark his bingo card with his dry erase marker and then get to pick a candy when he got a Bingo. And I busted out leftover M&Ms and popped some microwave popcorn. I figured I'd kind of treat it like a SuperBowl party---just lots of yummy treats and snacks to veg on while we watch. 

 Here's Rachel's M&M face (she's a mess eating M&Ms) and here's the popcorn. 

 We listened for an hour and then got headphones and listened to the rest of the session on the Mormon Channel. We decided that we would do as much sanding as we could, but then call it at 2 p.m. when the second session started and just stain it. So that's what we did. Decked out in our finest painting attire, we finally got to work staining the deck:

  We stained the top quite quickly. But since you can see the bottom of the deck from our patio below, I also wanted to stain the bottom. That was awful, but we laughed our way through it. And we only stained just over half. Oh well. We finished just in time for Brian to turn on the Priesthood Session and watch it. Didn't it turn out great?

And the next morning, we limped around the house like old people and watched more Conference talks:

 And perhaps when my kids are older, I'll get more out of Conference again. Good thing that they record and print the messages so I can re-read or re-listen to them again!

Apples to Applejuice

The day after returning home from Idaho (October 1), I invited my neighbor Sam to come help me convert apples to apple juice. It was a lot of work, and I was so glad that she came to help me! It was also fun to chat while we cut up the apples and slammed them into the juicer. 

I borrowed these mixers from my mom last fall...and then never used them. And I forgot to bring them with me when I went to pick up the pigs...and the apples were needing to be juiced. Thankfully, I didn't get in too much trouble (maybe Mom was happy to have an excuse to miss out on juicing this year?), and my Grandma even sent me home with two big boxes full of wind-fallen apples. 

It took Sam and I a bit to figure out how to put the juicer together. A call to Mom and a YouTube video later, we were in business. I lamented that I didn't have bread bags to hook to the discharge pipe, but we figured out how to make a grocery sacks work. And it was weird doing this in the suburbs where we had to just throw the excess away since none of our neighbors have pigs or cows. Someday, I'll be completely used to it. Maybe. 

 Eva and Michael wanted to help. Michael lost interest after two apples. Eva stuck around for quite a bit of it.

 All that work and we got four gallons of juice. I got to keep two gallons, and I sent these four jars home with Sam.

There is nothing quite like this juice, and it made me really happy to have some in my home again. I never thought I would miss things like this so much!

This Little Piggy

This Little Piggy went to market:

This little piggy stayed home:

This little piggy had roast beef:

This little piggy had none:

And this little piggy when "Wee Wee! Wee!" all the way home:

We finished up the last two days of September by heading to Idaho to pick up our pig (and Chelsea's and Taryn's pigs) from the butcher in St. Anthony. Brian stayed home to work, so it was just the kids and I. Thankfully, they are both great travelers, and despite driving through some crazy rainstorms, the drive was pretty uneventful. 

 We made one pit stop right after crossing the border into Idaho. They had Idaho Road Maps for free there, so I gave one to Michael. I marked our path to Grandma & Grandpa's house, and he was so excited to see where we were going. He showed them first thing after arriving at their house. 

 Thankfully, Rachel fell asleep after the rest stop. I realized how hard it is to take care of kiddos without a co-pilot!

 After getting to Grandma & Grandpa's house (and showing off the map), we had to go outside and jump on the tramp. Thankfully, I'm still and Idaho girl and packed their coats because it was COLD! Rachel was shivering, even with her jacket on, so out came her coat.

 She's starting to figure out how to get some air with her jumps. Soon, she'll be jumping as high as her brother:

After heading back in, we sent a shout-out to Grammy Bobbie:

Hung out some

Ate dinner

 and donuts (Grandpa is always prepared for when Michael comes!)

Bonded with Great-grandpa:

 Laughed with Grandma:

 And Grandpa got to teach Michael all about Navy Aircraft Carriers. These two were in heaven together! Dad had a willing audience to show off his Navy yearbook and Michael got someone willing to tell him all about something in a book. It was a win-win. After going through the book, they busted out Top Gun to watch the planes take off in the opening scene. 

 The next morning, the book came out again, and Grandpa found a video about Aircraft Carriers. Michael's words: "This is Awesome!"

I love going to Idaho. My mom asked me if I slept better when I come for a visit, because when she would go visit her grandma, she always felt so peaceful that she left all her worries at home and she slept amazingly well. I do leave my worries behind. I feel like this little place is my Tara, the place I can draw strength and rest. Too bad teleportation hasn't been perfected, right?

 This road leads to Ririe. The shrubs on the left flank my mom's garden.

 This is the view from the my parents' front yard. I love this view, and I love these mountains, even if they are small compared to the Wasatch Front.

The next morning, I got to sleep in! It was heaven! Mom made huckleberry pancakes, and Grandma Linville sent me home with apples and cornstalks. We loaded up everything and headed to St. Anthony to get the pigs. Afterwards, we had a late lunch with my parents in Rexburg before heading back to Utah. I realized when we got to St. Anthony that we had accidentally left Rachel's favorite blanket at my grandparents' house. Thankfully, it was their night to work at the temple in Rexburg, so they met us at the restaurant with Rachel's blanket and jars of Grandma's homemade salsa. Yes! Then, with the kids loaded, the blanket retrieved, and the white packages in the back tucked under two sleeping bags to keep them frozen, we headed south.

Michael protested that I was taking one more picture:

 After a stop in Farr West to deliver meat to Chelsea and Taryn and have a quick vacation planning meeting, we got back on the road and made it safely home. And now our freezer is stocked with yummy meat: