October 2020

Theo found an old candy corn that was kinda melted/squished on the floor and put his face to the ground and starting sucking it. Gross. Time to mop.

Charlie played flag football with some neighborhood friends.  He played quarterback and receiver I think. Their team won a few games but most of the other teams seemed pretty stacked with amazing, experienced players. It was fun to watch him. COVID is getting worse so they stopped letting spectators come to games 1/2 way through the season. 

I had a crazy idea one morning after Max told me he wanted to wear underwear to try and potty train him before the holidays. I pulled out all the stops and did all our tricks: potty prizes, stickers, juice/liquids galore, no-pants, timers for sitting on the potty and timers for when its time to go sit on the potty.  We made it 2 days and had 1 #2 success and a few #1 successes but most of all we had accidents and he lost interest.  Anytime I've asked him since then if he wants to wear big boy underwear and go in the potty again he'll say, "No.. how about tomorrow."

General Conference! I tried hard this year to be ready BEFORE conference day.  Its often a difficult weekend because I'm mostly disappointed in how little I get to pay attention due to the kids.  I think this was one of our better experiences.  Its always so uplifting and I love getting to read the talks afterward. 

Took this picture one afternoon to illustrate how needy all the kids are after school. We have a huge house and yet all the kids want to be right at my feet begging for my attention in some way. 

Archibald Girls Weekend in Park City! Brittany Kayla and I met Friday afternoon, walked around main street, got some pastries and then met Dixie at the Condo to check in and then went out to eat for dinner and stopped by the grocery store to grab some treats. We stayed up late talking. The next morning Brittany, Kayla and I went on a run/hike/walk up some canyonish road by the condo. It was beautiful and it was good to vent and talk to each other about hard things. Then we met up with Jess and Dixie at the outlets and shopped for a while. We ate out lunch and went back to the condo for our reserved time in the hot tub. After that we went out to eat dinner and again stayed up late talking eating treats. It was so fun! But also it was so hard to calibrate my carbs right so I was super low, then super duper high. It was really annoying and put a damper on the trip a bit for me.  I'm reminded that I'll never be able to take a vacation from diabetes. 

James and Dixie picked this weekend to come finish the pavers!!! yay!! They did most of the prep work by themselves but then when they rented the water saw, we all pitched in to get her done. It took so much time and effort. I was SO SORE, but it looks so great. Bruce came by to help on Saturday. We almost finished laying and cutting the stones that weekend but we finished it off during the next week. A little while later they came by again with the stamper vibrator thing that sets them in place and then we finished laying the sand on top and sweeping it in. It looks so beautiful. I love it a lot. 

Mary had a crazy episode while her family was in AZ. She had a seizure caused by a spike in blood pressure as a result of sodium intake and her kidney disease. It was really scare for a little while. I was on the phone with mom when dad came in the room to tell her about the text from Tiff about Mary being found unconscious that morning by Jared. Eventually she was taken to the hospital (still unconscious) and then life flighted to Primary Children's Hospital in SLC. Jared was with her until Tiffany could get a flight from AZ.  Mary eventually woke up and we eventually pieced together what happened. It was touch and go for a while as Mary dealt with memory loss, unbalanced-ness, blurry vision, bad blood pressure, delirium etc. She was sedated and kept unconscious for a while. Justin hated not being here with everyone during this time so his family came down to stay with Mom and Dad. Our family had had a mild cold a week or so before and its effects turned into a sinus-like infection for me so I got tested for COVID just to rule that out as a possibility. It came back negative but I still wasn't able to go and help Tiffany or be around anyone from the family that was helping her as we waited for the test to come back. It was torture. 

After the test and after Mary was making excellent progress I was able to help paint the walls in Tiff's home over 2 evenings with a bunch of my siblings and inlaws. It was so fun to have a work project together. Mary, I guess, hated the color of their walls and it was a fun surprise for her to have them painted white when she got home from the hospital. Not that it was important, but it was something on Tiffany's list that she'd wanted to do sometime soon and now that Mary would be taking up so much more of her time going to dialysis 3 times a week for about 5 hours each time, it would maybe ease Tiff's burden a little. I love my family. Tiff's and Mary's positive attitude about the whole thing and how grateful to God they were throughout it and how well they communicated all the little updates and requests for prayers and evidence of God's answering them all on our family's Slack App was a real bonding experience for everyone I think. 

Charlie turned 12! It was fun to celebrate Charlie on his special day starting with his favorite meal of all time - crepes - for breakfast in bed.  This was a no-party year so we kept things pretty casual. He got a new bike and rode it to school that morning. Then he had 2 friends over to play video games and eat cake with us. He requested a carrot cake.  Charlie is such an independent, thoughtful, sporty, responsible, friendly kid. Everyone loves Charlie, especially us! 

Max loves to take Theo for rides on the tractor tricycle with the trailer that Chris gerry-rigged to attach it somehow. Max doesn't seem to mind that the seat broke off. He just sits his little diapered bum on the metal plate where the seat is supposed to be attached to and takes off. 

Archibald Halloween Party! We had all the Archibalds (first time all getting together since the reunion) over for a Friday night costume party. Everyone was in charge of doing a game and we had soup and bread for dinner. 

Two favorite activities was the Great Candy Run. Where Uncle Thom had lots of candy hot glued onto this sweatshirt and then he ran around and kids (in age groups) ran after him trying to pull the candy off his shirt. Everyone loved it! except Freddy. He got put with the older kids and didn't ever manage to get a single piece of candy off. He was pretty disappointed but the other kids rallied and gave him some of their candy.  We also enjoyed eating donuts off a string. We played it many times with different age groups. So fun. 

The very next day we had a baby shower for my cousin Holly. It was Nutcracker themed since she was going to name her baby Clara and ballet has a special place in Holly's life. Tiffany, Sarah, mom and Tiffany Cook helped me with the food. We worried it would be too cold to be outside but with COVID we wanted to be careful and all wore masks outside and the weather was warm! Warm enough to melt the cake pops.  

Snow! We got the first snow fall!

We also had a Betteridge Halloween party. Again, with COVID we stayed outdoors but it was SO COLD. Chris and I used the chance to dress up. Earlier in the year when Chris grew his Corona-stache we realized he looked like Albert from the TV show, Victoria. We knew we'd have to recreate it around Halloween. I even trimmed his hair a bit to make it more like Albert's. We found a dress at DI for me and I added lace and found some scraps of Jared's Thai silk to safety pin to Chris' shirt like a vest and cravat. It was very fun. 

We went trick-or-treating around our neighborhood. People were inventive with wanting to be socially distanced. Candy hanging from trees, taped to sticks stuck in the ground 6 feet apart, sending candy down a slide to fall in people baskets, using tongs to hand out candy, or just putting a bowl on the porch.  Max fell asleep on the way home but Theo, despite the late hour was happy as a clam with his bucket full of candy. 

September 2020

So I'm way behind in the blog so I'm going to have to catch up by not typing out as many words for all the pictures. Its a sad compromise because all of us really enjoy reading all the details, but the pictures will basically have to stand for themselves. 

I've been meeting my cousin, Holly, in the mornings for walks and sometimes park time. 

Freddy started Karate!

Theo is getting mischievous. We might even have to call him Max 2.0. 

Also, he's super cute twinning with his cousin, Davis.

We've LOVED going to the Provo Rec Center Pool a lot with our passes. It was closed for a lot of the summer because of COVID but after it opened it was pretty empty which was nice. 

Poor Max is in that transition phase out of napping. He's still tired enough to take them but if he does, he won't fall asleep until 9 or 10 or even 11pm! As a result I try to keep him up so we can put him down for bed early and often he ends up falling asleep in the craziest places. 

This picture really deserves its own long post. I got my pump. Finally. It was so stressful at first and I slept horribly for a while as I struggled to figure out where to put it while I sleep. While that doesn't bother me anymore I still haven't really had a good nights rest since getting it 7 months ago now. It beeps at me ALLLLL the time at night.  Its been a struggle to figure out my correct ratios now that I have the CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) to give me so much information on where my blood sugars are at at all times. I love that part. But it is so much more convenient than shots and needles and pricking my finger all the time. I know this is going to be something I'm grateful for in my prayers for the rest of my life.  I think some people (including me in some ways) thought this would be a cure-all for controlling my diabetes. While it is a VERY useful tool, its still just that. A tool that I have to figure out how to use... and the better I get at using it, the easier it will be but its got a pretty big learning curve.  Diabetes is such a tricky, relentless disease. 

We got a TON of pears off the pear tree and I didn't want to waste a single one. We dehydrated most, made fruit leather out of a lot and gave boxes away too. So yummy. 

I love the way Max plays with cars. .. he can do this for hours. He lines them up and drives them around each other and down the length of the couch and then parks it in a new spot and repeats with the rest of his cars.  He plays so well by himself.  I just don't like how he has to throw all the pillows off the couch every time. 

Labor Day! We went camping up at the Ridge and invited Chris siblings and their families to join us. It was really fun. Our family is getting so big and our queen cot bed got a hole in it so we decided to buy some new camping cots! They're really great. We celebrated Jess' birthday one night and then we celebrated Brittany's birthday the next! It was really fun to share such a special spot with Chris' family. Also, mom and dad were there working overtime to try and finish off the Shabin. Its got insulation now, a shiplap walls, kitchen area with cupboards and windows, lights and a fan. Its so nice!

The Utah State Amateur.  Every since Chris qualified for this baby in the beginning of August he's been working really hard on his game. He's been training in our backyard with his launch monitor he got for his birthday and some other training tools. Also, he's of course played golf a lot to prepare. My mom and Dixie offered to watch the little kids so I could caddy for him on both days.  I will let Chris jump on here someday to give better details. But in short, the first round was rough. It was in the afternoon and the wind picked up big time.  He chose to walk and push his clubs and it is such a sprawling, hilly course that it was exhausting. My mom came to watch and I walked with her most of the time and didn't interact too much with Chris. We were exhausted! The course was very difficult. He mostly played well but had a few holes get away from him. The next day was an early early tee time and he felt better about the day with no wind and less pressure. He just wanted to do better than he did the day before.  We got a cart this time which was nice. I helped him find his ball once, so I felt like I was at least not negatively impacting him. Then 1/2 way through I realized I lost my phone. I thought it'd just recently fallen out so I hopped out of the cart and went to go look for it thinking, I'd run and catch up with him later. I just was so mad at myself for potentially messing up his game! Long story short, I couldn't find it and then couldn't find Chris and almost ran around the entire course. We connected when there was only a few holes left and after walking around a bunch afterward eventually someone turned it in and we got it back. Chris played a few holes really well and again had some tough ones, so he scored a little worse than the first day and finished 4th from last in the entire thing. But really to have even qualified is an honor and he is AMAZING with his attitude and doesn't get angry or mopey or mad at me or anything. He's pretty awesome. 

Oh! We bought a digital piano.  Yay! It was the first thing we did when our house sale in MS finally went through. Oh sheesh!! that should be a post entirely on its own too. Hopefully I already talked about it somewhere in July when we accepted one of the offers?! We had 2 offers within 48 hours of it being showable...one being above list price by $3,000! We got it for 484,900 (I think?) just a few thousand dollars below asking price after giving in to a lot of concessions they had. I was tempted to get picky and fight back, but Chris reminded me that even if they 'win' all the things they asked for after the initial offer, we still 'win' by having it sell!! and really to end where we did is a dream come true... since we had it listed it for 20-30 thousand less at the end of last summer when it didn't sell. I love Chris' perspective. Our realtor was impressed with it too and was grateful we weren't offended by all the picky things the buyers wanted us to give them money for.