The Kirkmans: April 2013

This past week, had really only one major event. Thursday evening after we put all the kids to bed, except for Joseph and Caleb, I was cleaning up after dinner when Joseph came running downstairs (he was taking a bath) with a plunger in his hand and told me to hurry because the toilet was flooding everywhere. I told Travis to take care of it, since I was still putting away food from dinner. He ran upstairs, and then called Joseph to come and help him, and bring towels. I had just finished putting away the food, when all the sudden poopy water came pouring down from the light fixture above, and running down the wall from the light switch outlet. I yelled for Travis and ran up the stairs to see what was going on. The toilet was pretty clogged, so he told me to call maintenance. I called them and fifteen minutes later they arrived on our doorstep. They helped unclog the toilet, then took off the light fixture to get all the icky water out, so it could dry out. Travis, Joseph, and I finally cleaned up all the poopy water, and mopped everything, and then bathed/showered ourselves. I felt so gross, it's taken my days to feel clean again. It turns out that the toilet had been clogged due to a bunch of ink pens, and pencils. Joseph stuffs his pockets full of pens and pencils, so they must have fallen into the toilet when he went to the bathroom.
Tuesday this week, we had 3-5 inches of snow. The kids still had school, and Travis had to work. So Caleb and I enjoyed this spring snowstorm, and went outside and played in the snow and built snowmen. He enjoyed laying down in the snow and eating it, and building snowmen with me. We built 3 little snowmen, one for Caleb, Mommy, and Daddy. After we had finished building a snowman, Caleb would hug it, kiss it, than either lick it, or bite it. He sure loved that snow.
Joseph quit track this week, his grades were suffering, so he is working on bringing his grades back up.
Friday night, Austin threw up all night long, so our weekend plans were ruined. We didn't get to go to the temple, but Saturday evening we had a babysitter, and we went to the adult session of stake conference together.

Austin's science project, making yogurt out of different kinds of milk

Caleb drinking Austin's yogurt, he liked the rice milk

The week after spring break was incredibly boring compared to spring break week. I can tell I'm going to have a lot to write about this summer. The kids were back in school, so I was able to breathe much better. Caleb and I hung out during the day, and things were crazier once the kids got home from school. All the kids started track this week. Joseph has track every day at the middle school until 5pm, he comes home exhausted every day. Also the Monday after spring break he finished up his dog sitting, and got paid $65, and was able to pay off his debt to me, for melting my blendtec blender, so hooray!! Austin, Betsy, and Samuel have track practice only on Tuesday and Wednesday, and they all love it. The weather here has been crazy, and twice in the past two weeks have had track practice and/or school cancelled due to blizzard or high wind warnings. Apparently Spring in Colorado Springs means a few nice 60-70 degree weather days in between major storms and blizzards. We found out we are having another baby boy. I really thought it was going to be a girl, so now I have to return things I've already gotten, for more boy appropriate colors. Caleb is finally healthy again, and has been much happier, and sleeping better. He's been doing his "happy dance" a lot, it is really cute. The other day, the spun honey bucket fell off the shelf in the pantry and was spilling all over the floor. Caleb discovered it and stepped in it, and got honey all over his legs and feet, and started doing his "happy dance" all over the kitchen. I realized what was happening, before he left the kitchen, and quickly scooped him up and stuck him in the kitchen sink, and gave him a bath right there. He thought that was quite fun, and enjoyed the new experience, and got water everywhere. Then I spent the next 20 minutes, cleaning all the honey off the floor and pantry. I'm very grateful it was confined to the kitchen, and didn't get in any carpeted areas. Caleb thought this was all just great fun, and keeps asking me for honey, and then points at his feet. This week has been absolutely crazy busy. Monday I had a FRG (family readiness group) meeting to attend, so Travis watched the kids all evening. During the day I was getting things ready for an FRG Coffee (no actual coffee) I was hosting, and feeding dinner to 16 ladies, and preparing games and prizes. I made individual size bath salts, and single serving deep dish chocolate chip cookie mixes. I also made a cheesecake for dessert. Tuesday, I made the carmel for the cheesecake, a vegetarian lasagna, homemade French bread, for garlic bread, and got the games all ready. I also went to PWOC (protestant women of the chapel) for 3 hours in the morning. I was able to leave Caleb in childcare and he did pretty well. One lady there asked me if I was pregnant with twins. No one has ever asked me that during any of my pregnancies, so it made me feel pretty fat. I've gained 15 pounds so far, and that's more than any other of my pregnancies. Travis says I'm beautiful, so that's all that matters. So that evening, as soon as Travis got home from work, he dropped me off at the ladies house we were having the coffee at. We got everything ready, and ladies started arriving. We had a great time eating, and talking. Everyone loved the food, and the cheesecake was an especially big hit. We enjoyed talking so much, that we didn't end up playing any of the games. By 9:30pm everyone left, and I got a ride home. Travis was supposed to have taken Joseph to scouts, and the girls to activity days, but he didn't take them. I found Travis asleep in bed, with Caleb sitting next to him playing puzzles on his kindle. I put Caleb to bed, and quickly fell asleep. Wednesday I spent the day planning for Travis' marriage seminar/game night. He asked me to plan games to strengthen a marriage relationship in five different ways. Know, Trust, Rely, Commit, and Touch. Wednesday Samuel also had a psych appointment, so I had to get ready for that and take him to that in the middle of a blizzard. The roads weren't too bad, just very wet and snowy, but the visibility with the blowing snow wasn't very good, but we made it. Sam's making progress, but we're still working on getting him some behavior therapy. All after school activities were cancelled due to the weather. Wednesday night, Travis had bible study, and I had lots of food leftover from my "coffee" so I took some neighbours some dinner. Thursday, was filled with finishing up the games for the seminar, I made more prizes and got all of the games ready. By 4pm Travis came home, and we loaded up the kids and all the stuff for the games that I had put together and drove to the Elkhorn lodge for the event Travis had planned. We put the kids in the room for childcare, and started setting everything up. There were supposed to be 25 couples coming, so we had a lot to set up. I had divided the games/activities into 5 different stations. The couples started arriving, and we handed them a people scavenger hunt to do, and had them do that for the first half an hour. Only 13 couples had shown up, so it was a lot less than we expected. Travis welcomed everyone and gave an overview to what he wanted to teach, then we ate dinner, while watching a video segment about sex in marriage. I thought that was an interesting choice, while eating dinner, but the couples didn't seem to mind. After dinner, I explained all the stations, and divided into groups and then had fun. The first station, was KNOW. Each couple played the newlywed game. The second station, was Trust, they did the trust fall, took a trust quiz, and drew a silhouette of their spouse, and wrote in it what they trusted about their spouse. The third station was a blindfolded obstacle course, they had to be guided through by having their spouse talk them through it. In the obstacle course they had to step over a broom, set on two chairs, build a tower with blocks, pour water into a cup and then into a bowl without spilling, guide them in a zig zag pattern through cones, and play the first part of "twinkle, twinkle, little star" on my colored hand bells. The fourth station was about Commit, each couple had a booklet with 10 categories to discuss their relationship and a calendar to commit to things like date nights, talk time, and so forth. The last station was Touch, first they stared into each other's eyes for a minute, then they had to stick together like "glue" while putting together puzzles, and playing twister, making sure they were always touching. The couples were supposed to stay after completing all stations so Travis could wrap things up, and talk for another half hour or so, but everyone kept leaving, so Travis didn't end up doing his wrap up. Everyone seemed to have a good time though, I know Travis and I did. We cleaned everything up, and took the kids home and put them to bed. I was so exhausted. Today the kids have no school, and Travis has another event, for single soldiers this time. Too much stuff going on, I'm ready for a break. Today we have to do Austin's science experiment for the science fair, and it should take about 5 hours, so we're going to be busy doing that.

Here is Caleb singing "you are my sunshine"