Coming up for Air

Well, just when I was getting my computer back to up and running I got sucked in to the mad tornado of Valentine's Day projects, class parties, sick kids, and a church calling that definitely picked up speed.

Things in the Stake have been busy as we've started planning for Girls Camp, have ward conferences and New Beginnings programs to attend, and we had the opportunity to entertain a general authority. WHAT?!?! Yes, I got to make lunch for Mary N. Cook, First Counselor in the Young Women General Presidency! Not only did I make lunch (Cafe Rio Pork Salads) but our entire presidency got to have lunch and dinner with her, spent several hours visiting with her in the Stake President's office, listened in on a focus group that she had with 11 of the girls in our stake, and attended a fireside she put on that night that was broadcast to several other stake centers in our area! I even got to "pitch hit" and give the opening prayer at the fireside when the girl assigned to do it didn't show up! Even though it ended up being a very long and exhausting day (about 9 hours at church) it was one of the truly remarkable experiences in my life. To listen to her speak, watch her teach, and interact with the girls in the area was a testimony building experience. I've never doubted the leaders of the church were called of God but I felt the spirit testify that not only was she called to serve but that she was specifically called to serve the young women. We are so blessed!!!! I was able to use that experience and what I learned from observing her teach when I gave a talk on gospel teaching this past Sunday in another ward (a stake assignment). Throw in another ward conference that I got to teach just a microsecond in young women and another meeting that night and my LONG Sundays are hopefully over. Steve will be SO glad that I only have to attend one ward this week since we are the ones having ward conference!

Cougar is back to regular breathing treatments again and just went for another chest x-ray yesterday. We are waiting on the results and are hoping that he just has the bronchiolitis that is going around rather than the pneumonia we battled the entire month of December. Hopefully we will hear something tomorrow.

Last week Brinley came into the craft room while I was up working on valentines after she had gotten up to go to the bathroom (4 AM, mind you). She talked to me for a minute and when she turned to leave the room she fainted and hit the ground - hard. Her eyes were rolled back in her head so all I could see were the whites and I was worried that she was having a seizure! She came back around pretty quick and then spiked a fever to the point she was sweating like crazy!!! She was crying and disoriented and complaining about her stomach hurting. 30 minutes later I am holding her hair and she is throwing up ... no school for her!! She ended up missing her Friendship Lunch that her class had for Valentine's Day. They each filled out a questionaire about their likes and dislikes and then each student was assigned to bring lunch for another friend in class. Here is the box that she took hers in (well, we delivered it to school since she wasn't able to be there):Ashton had a friendship breakfast for Valentine's Day and Kendyl had her preschool Valentine Party that I got to be a part of. I love when I can be in their classes but it can be difficult at times with Cougar and having Easton 3 days a week. I've been really lucky this year because most of their classroom "fun" has been on Thursday which is Steve's day off so he can keep Cougar and Easton doesn't come on Thursday! I had fun making valentines for all of the girls this year. As I worked all night to create 3 different designs I questioned myself ... I knew most of these would go straight to the trash with little appreciation for the detail! The pay-off was the next morning when the girls found their bags of valentines and were *SO* excited to take them to school!! They love to take something fun and different and always tell me how much they love that I make them ... guess that makes it worth the effort :) Here's what I came up with this year:My creative team work has been busy and FUN! I took part in a Secret Valentine Swap for my ScrapMatters Team and got to make a gift/package to send to one of my favorite designers over in the shop! It was intimidating because she is super creative but I loved making all of the goodies. I used all kits that she had created, too! I covered some of the mini mailboxes from the dollar spot at Target for each of her kids, made them each a t-shirt to put inside, and made and epoxy keychain for her! They loved all of their goodies and her son even insisted on sleeping in his shirt :) Here are a few pics of what I sent. If you want more details/credits you can click HERE to go to my gallery!I've got a few other things I've worked on but those can wait until later! At least you know I am breathing now, right? I have a few pics from Valentine's Day, and need to post some pics of the kiddos so I can prove they are around here somewhere, too ;)

Oh, and my new computer? I'm about to redo all of my HARD work to set it up ... AGAIN!!!!! Less than 2 weeks after I had it running just perfectly I noticed a glitch in the LCD screen! Since it is an all-in-one computer I can't just get a new moniter. My options? Send it to Sony to have them repair it or order a new one from Costco and return the first one. I thought sending it to Sony would save me the trouble of having to reload everything because they could just fix it. Two problems with that - it would be gone for another 10 business days and they have to reset it to factory defaults so my set up work would be gone! My solution? I bought another from Costco and am waiting to muster up the strength to go through the hours of tranfer and set up all over again. Steve has an overnight campout next weekend so I'll probalby do it then (since I don't sleep well when he's not home anyway). I'm beginning to wonder if this is a sign that I should have bought the Mac I really wanted - even if it would have cost me about $1000 more ....

And for my Facebook naysayers - told you I would update tonight!!!