Our Neighbors

We've been hanging out with our neighbors in Apt. #2 and #3 a lot lately. The people who live in #'s 2, 3, and 4 all went to high school together and somehow they all ended up here at the same time to go to school and the ended up on consecutive apartments. I don't know how they did it. So we have kind of joined their little group and they are a lot of fun. We have a lot of impromptu parties and most recently, we had a Wii Fit party. Here's a video of a couple of the guys doing the hula hoop.

The first one is Neal(#3) and the second one is Jovus(#4). I don't know how to fix it so they're upright. Sorry.

Big girl bed

We converted Haylie's crib into a "big girl bed" yesterday and she slept in it for the first time last night and did great! We were a little worried because when we transitioned Henry we went through the whole crying/talking for hours after we put him to bed and the can't open the door because the kid is asleep behind it thing. But we put her to bed like normal and she didn't make a peep and I just put her down for a nap and she's passed out. I hope our next kid is this easy!

Ew.

So, Brandon started complaining about a smell coming from our room a few weeks ago. I didn't really smell it, but then I started to. It smelled like someone hid a poopy diaper in our room months ago. So I started hunting around. I concluded that the smell was coming from our closet. I assumed that it was somebody's shoes. So Brandon's tennis shoes that he's had since bootcamp went outside. But the smell stayed. Then the other day Henry was in our closet and got into this travel bag thing that we use when we go on road trip to put snacks in. I wondered...so I checked it out, and found a half a loaf of banana bread that had been in there since CHRISTMAS. Gross, gross, gross. The weird thing was, it that it still looked pretty normal. No mold or anything. But the middle looked kind of shriveled. The scientist in me almost wanted to slice the thing open and see what was inside. But instead I threw it out and put the travel bag that also reeked outside to air out. Next time, that thing is getting checked and double checked when we get home from a trip.

What a weekend...

So it's been pretty stressful around here the last couple of weeks, Brandon's had tests and projects and papers galore and I've been with the kids 24/7. We did manage to go on a date, but we went to dinner with some of our Chinese friends, who took us to a Hot Pot restaurant, where they serve meat and veggies. Not my fare right now. So I spent parts of it trying to not vomit. Anyways, my neighbor, Deena suggested that we go get manicures and pedicures soon since the weather was getting better and we would (hopefully) soon be wearing sandals. (no such luck, it snowed on Saturday) So I asked Brandon, ever so nicely, if I could maybe get a massage too. He one-upped my of course. (He loves to do that!) We went online to the spa website, and he picked out the biggest package they had, which included: a 1 hour massage, a European facial, a spa Paraffin pedicure, and some sort of scalp treatment. He also told me that I could come home afterward and take a nap. I think that getting a massage or anything like that done early in the day then coming home to fight with your kids is somewhat counter productive.

I was so excited for my Saturday (yes, the day it snowed) spa day! I left the house and 9:40, kissing my kids and husband good-bye, and headed off for my "me-day". I spent 4 1/2 luxurious hours at the spa getting pampered, then I picked up some Arby's (one of my favs right now) and a milkshake for Brandon, and headed home to take my nap.

Then the trouble started. Halfway through my nap Brandon busts into our room and says, "Henry's puking". Great. I'd like to mention that Brandon does not deal with vomit well. Usually, if someone it vomiting, he vacates pronto. If it's me, he'll yell from our bedroom door while I'm in the back in the bathroom, asking if I need anything. Heaven forbid someday I do, and he has to come back there.

So I go back to Henry's room to survey the damage. It looked horrible. Now, I'm still in the nauseous stage of pregnancy, so things that wouldn't normally phase me make me run for the toilet. This was one of them. The thing is, is that one of us had to man a bucket for Henry, (he won't puke in the toilet) and the other had to clean his bed with the huge pile of grossness. I don't know what Brandon fed him, but apparently he stuck the rest of the cookies I had made, along with other various sweets during the day. Brandon thought that was probably why he was sick. So I had bucket detail and Brandon cleaned the bed.

Usually when Henry is sick, we put the mats we use for under their chairs at the dinner table (our table is on carpet) and lay him on the couch (thank goodness we have leather) and he watched movies while I hover, waiting. Luckily Henry gives me at least one cough before he vomits, so I can get there. So we did this for a few hours, (kind of) fed Haylie some dinner, and put her to bed. Now, the thing that makes me really sick when I'm pregnant is having an empty stomach, and I didn't feel like cooking, so I sent Brandon out for some mexi-fries and a slurpee. Around 9, we hear Haylie coughing, and my worst fears are realized. My 19 month old is having her first bout of the flu. Luckily, Henry is asleep and is mostly only dry heaving by this point, so Brandon can handle that. I now get to hold Haylie on my lap and hold the bucket for her. It's so sad when a kid pukes for the first time. They don't know what's going on, and it scares them. So she's crying and trying to push the bucket away. Oh, and she doesn't give me a cough or two before she blows, she just blows. But since I have the reflexes of a panther, I managed to not get vomited on.

So this is how our night goes. And early morning. Basically everyone except Henry pulled an all-nighter. The next morning, Brandon snoozed on the couch and I got to sleep in our bed for a little while. When I woke up around 10, guess what? I was sick. Wonderful. Luckily the kids slept most of the day, because I would have felt so bad if Brandon had to catch vomit for all of us. So much for my relaxing weekend.

But, we're all better now (I hope). Somehow, Brandon has not caught it yet, and we are praying that he doesn't. Haylie is still asleep at 9:30 in the morning. I'm hoping she's just catching up on her beauty sleep. I am so looking forward to dealing with things like this for years to come...

New Beginnings

This month is a big month for us here in the Allen home. Brandon starts a new semester with the hardest Chinese class he's ever taken. Henry starts Primary! (I would like to apologize to his teachers ahead of time) And Miss Haylie starts Nursery. Now Brandon and I will actually have to pay attention in class! J/k, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm the only one who isn't starting something new. Maybe I'll take up pottery or something in my spare time (haha).

I'm so excited to be done with last year, it was not the best year of my life and I'm ready to start fresh and see what tomorrow brings. That sounds so cheesy, but it's true. Brandon and I have been discussing options for after he graduates. We're looking at the NSA, and possibly him getting his PhD. I think he may be a little burnt out on school right now so I think the only way he'll do the PhD is if the NSA offers to pay for it. Everything is kind of up in the air right now, but we're using this time to enjoy each other and enjoy Brandon being home more, even if he does have a lot of homework most of the time. That's all I've got for right now...

Called

So, being that we're in a new ward, we've been waiting for our callings since early September. We found out that our Ward has a major shortages in nursery staff, probably due to the fact that they are only allowed to call women. Anyways, Brandon and I got to sub in nursery a two weeks ago, and later that week, I got a call from the Bishop's clerk to arrange a meeting between myself and the Bishop. Also, a few weeks before that I hear the Ward Nursery Leader saying that she's going to be released soon. Awesome. So I totally go to this meeting thinking that I'm going to be called as the new Nursery Leader, and I'm called as...RS Missionary Committee Member. At first I am so relieved. Now I'm nervous. I am not a good missionary. I'm totally the person who figures they must have left the Church for good reason (not really) and who am I to bug them relentlessly? So obviously this is a calling that I need to help me be a better missionary and I'm looking forward to it, but I think it may just be a bigger challenge than nursery would have been. We'll see...

Reality

The kids and I are driving up to Washington tomorrow. I've never not wanted to go and right now I can't even explain how much I don't want to go. I think it's because every time I go back it makes it more real. The reality that she won't be there to greet us when we park in the driveway. My step-dad is going to be in Pullman for the WSU homecoming game so he won't be there when we get there. Maybe that's better. Maybe I can still just pretend that she's at the store, which is what my subconscious has kind of been doing ever since it happened.

I'm going home to do a job. Her things need to be gone through and her rooms cleared out. To make room I guess. Room for what? For who? Why does her space need to be filled up so soon? I guess if it were my house, I would probably leave her room the way it is forever. Or at least a long time. I guess I'm just not ready because I feel that when her stuff is all gone, then she'll be gone too. There won't be any place I can go and smell her, or see her things, just as she left them. I mean, why am I even going? It's not like I can fit into her clothes anyways. I don't want them. But I do. I want to take all of them so that they won't get scattered to the wind. Maybe I'm selfish. Maybe if it were up to me I wouldn't have let them harvest her organs because I wanted to keep her whole. We just watched Snow White the other day and I think if I could have I would have stolen her away and put her in a glass coffin because she was that beautiful to me.

It makes me so mad. That she's gone, that "she wouldn't have wanted" to have a headstone for me to cry over. Well I want a headstone. Since all of her things are being packed or given away, I want a place to go to think of her, to cry over her, and to show my kids. I don't care what "she wouldn't have wanted". She never told me these things. That's me being selfish again. I feel like I'm losing her all over again when I think about it. So I don't. But this trip home is forcing me to think about it. To dream about it when I don't want to. I don't want to go home. I'm not ready to end this chapter in my life. The chapter on my mother. But everyone else seems to be ready, and so tomorrow morning I'll pack the kids up in the van and head home.