No trick-or-treating

Caleb fell asleep in a nice comfy spot, with all the stuffed animals

Betsy with the butterfly painted on her

Samuel with the guitar painted on his cheek

Caleb with a smiley face on his cheek, which he promptly wiped off 2 seconds later, with his sleeve

Austin with a flower on her cheek

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The hula dancers

Caleb clapping enthusiastically for the hula dancers, he was absolutely fascinated by the dancing. 

Monday night I fed the four missionaries, and had forgotten until that morning.  So Caleb and I went to Costco and bought a huge chicken pot pie, and some rolls, and salad.  I had promised the kids we would go to IT'Z right after school (I had a groupon I needed to use), so we went, and my friend Janene came over and stuck it in the oven for me, since it had to cook for an hour and a half.  But we had a good time at IT'Z, and made it home in time to get dinner on the table, and make some homemade ice cream.  Tuesday night Samuel had his last soccer game, he had a great time playing, but it was dark and freezing, so we were happy it when it was done.  Joseph went with a friend to the 100 years of scouting broadcast, and came home and said "it was a great presentation, I wish general conference were more like that".  I watched it later with him, and it was a good show, and I learned a lot about scouting.  In particular I liked the song they sang about moms, and eagle scouts.  I'd like to say we were all healthy this week, but I'd be lying.  Caleb got a really bad cold.  Wednesday night, he was up a lot of the night, having trouble breathing, and he wouldn't let me give him medicine or anything, he was just miserable.  Finally, Thursday, (Halloween) he was so bad, just before trick-or-treating time that he allowed me to give him a breathing treatment, with the nebulizer, and he had a fever so I gave him Tylenol.  He finally fell asleep, and the rest of the kids and I watched "dennis the menace" on t.v. and had popcorn.  Joseph went out trick-or-treating with a bunch of his friends, and Austin went trick-or-treating with her "Big", but everyone else stayed home with me.  Samuel was the most upset about not going trick-or-treating, but he still enjoyed the movie and popcorn, plus I gave each of the kids $5 for their candy, whether they got any or not, so that helped appease him as well. Earlier on thursday I did take Samuel, Caleb, and Malachi to a special trick or treat for special needs kids, and he got to go to a building on post, and get some Halloween toys.   I spent the day on Friday, getting ready for a candy making class I was teaching for the relief society super saturday.  I made carmel, peppermint patties, chocolate peanut butter balls,  and raspberry cremes.  I also dipped some apples in carmel, and made some carmel popcorn balls.   Friday night Caleb was feeling a little better, so we went to a free military dinner put on by the YMCA, that I had RSVP'd for.  The kids enjoyed getting their faces painted, and painted ornaments to send to soldiers oversees.  The dinner was yummy, and went well, except Samuel kept whining and complaining about not being able to eat all of it.  After the dinner, the guy in charge said the kids could go play in their indoor playground, during the hula dancing.  Joseph and Samuel wanted to, so I let them, telling Joseph not to let Samuel out of his sight.  Caleb absolutely loved the hula dancing, he kept looking at me with shock and amazement on his face at the way they moved their hips.  He kept trying to imitate them while standing on his chair, it was pretty funny.  Part of the way through, a lady brought Samuel to me, saying he had pushed a girl, so he stayed next to me the rest of the time.  Then when it was over, we went to find Joseph, but he wasn't in the playland, so I let the other kids play in it, except Samuel, and we waited for Joseph to come back, since I didn't want to drag five kids all over the place, looking for him. After waiting an hour, Joseph finally came back.  I guess he got mixed in with a group that was being watched by childcare workers, and they wouldn't let him leave.  So we finally left and went home.  Saturday was the relief society super Saturday, so I gathered up all my supplies, and piled all the kids into the car, and we drove to the church.  We ate the breakfast, and I dropped off some of the kids at the nursery, I kept Austin and Malachi with me.  Austin helped me make the first step of the Orange cremes, since I had forgotten them at home.  Then Austin and I worked on making my menu board for the craft portion.  It was time for my candy making class, and after quickly changing Samuel's diaper got started.  It was fun teaching everyone how to make the different candies, and they all loved them, and had fun making them.  I had to hold Caleb for the first half of it, then Joseph was finally able to coax him into playing with him.  Malachi was being passed around to all the ladies, unless I had to feed him.  Everyone loves him.  I finally finished the class, and fed Malachi again.  I came back to clean up the mess I had made in the kitchen, and two ladies had put all my leftover candies in baggies, and were taking them home with them.  I was a little disappointed, I wanted to have some leftovers, but oh well, I guess that's what they were there for.  At least I had one batch still in the freezer, that wasn't done yet.  I cleaned up, and gathered up the kids and went home.  As I was driving home, I realized I had signed Joseph up for horseback riding lessons, and that they started in 45 minutes.  I hurried home, to grab the address and directions and realized it was a 45 minute drive, and in Peyton, CO.  So we drove all the way out to the middle of nowhere, and made it only 15 minutes late.  No on had any lunch, but we were 1/2 hour away from the closest city, so we ate all the snacks I had in the car, and the candies from the freezer.  Austin was able to get horseback riding lessons too, because one of the kids was a "no show".  Austin and Joseph had a great time, they said they loved every minute of it.  Caleb and Malachi were asleep in the car, so I sat in the car and read for an hour until they woke up.  Then the kids and I played on the Ranch and the swing set for the other two hours.  It was supposed to be only 2 hours total, but since they had a late start, the lady gave them a 3 hour lesson.  We bought a dozen eggs from her chickens and then stopped for dinner on the way home, we were all starving.  I tried to get the kids to do their chores after we got home, but I think they were just as exhausted as I was.  Today we made it to church, but soon after sacrament meeting started, Caleb started having diarrhea, after changing him 4 times in 30 minutes, his bum was incredibly sore, and I had run out of diapers, and Caleb was miserable.  So we went back home.  Caleb is still not feeling good, and is having a hard time, so I've been taking care of him, and not doing anything else I wanted to get done today, to get ready for Travis coming home.  Oh well, I know he'll understand.

more sickness

This is Malachi smiling as Travis is singing him a song over the phone.  He loves the sound of his Daddy's voice

Caleb threw up Monday and Wednesday several times, but was finally feeling better by the weekend.  So I spent most of the week home with sick kids.  On Wednesday Caleb, Malachi and I dropped off the car to get an oil change, and then walked to our friends house for an LDS chaplain spouse get together (it wasn't far), and while we were there, I got a call from the school saying that Betsy had thrown up.  I didn't have a car, so one of the nice ladies there, gave me a ride to the school to get Betsy and bring her back, than stayed with her while I got Caleb and Malachi from the friends house and walked home (again not far).  Caleb was so mad at me for taking me away from his friends house, that he sat down and refused to get up.  So I ended up carrying the both of them back to the house.  Thursday the evening was crazy, Caleb was still throwing up in the morning, but felt better the rest of the day.  Both Austin and Betsy went with their "bigs" to carve pumpkins, Samuel had a Soccer game, and Joseph had a psychologist appointment.  So I asked my friend's husband to take Samuel to his game, and I took Joseph to his appointment with Malachi and Caleb.  I had put chicken and rice soup in the crock pot that morning, and offered to bring dinner over to my friend, since her son was sick too.  I decided to make some rolls to go with it, so I looked up a recipe that was fairly easy and fast and started making them.  I realized soon after starting that this was a huge batch.  So I decided to make on large cookie sheet full of rolls, and the rest into cinnamon rolls.  I ended up being able to make 2 more large cookie sheets full of cinnamon rolls, but they were absolutely delicious.  the recipe is on my kitchen blog, if anyone reading this wants the recipe www.kayleykitchen.blogspot.com under potato puff rolls/ maple cinnamon rolls. Also the crock pot went crazy, and tried to explode, I was moving it out of the way to roll out the dough, and it sparked and made a small explosion sound, and half the outlets in the kitchen stopped working.  So I went outside and flipped the circuit breaker, and looked at the crock pot to see what was wrong, but couldn't find anything so I tried plugging it in again, and the same thing happened again only a little louder.  Once again the outlet's stopped working, so I flipped the circuit breaker again, and but the outlets in the kitchen still wouldn't work, I hit the reset button, nothing.  So now only half my kitchen works, so I've moved some of our appliances to the hallway so that they will work.  I put in a work order, but haven't heard back from maintenance yet.  I also finally realized what happened, when I checked underneath my crockpot, and saw the wires exposed in the cord.  I really liked that crock pot, I'm going to try buying some electrical tape, and seeing if I can fix it.  So I was crazy busy getting everything ready, but we made it, and I got everyone off.  The only hiccup, was when we were coming home from Joseph's appointment, we hid bad traffic, and Samuel had to stay at his friend's house until we got back home.
Friday, Joseph had another appointment for neurofeedback, I don't remember if I have mentioned this before in my posts, but the results of his testing found that the front region of his brain is constantly on high alert and agitated, which makes it almost impossible for him to handle stress without anger, so he is going to these neurofeedback sessions to train that region of his brain to calm down, to help him get his anger under control.  I also delieved all those cinnamon rolls, I made up 9 big plates with the extras, to all my visiting teaching families, and serveral friends.  I also had a Samuel's friend's father come and tell me about some inappropriate behavior from Samuel, and asked that our kids stay away from his kids.  These were really good friends of all of ours, so it has been a very difficult weekend for me emotional, dealing with what Samuel did and helping him understand, and teaching him, so it does not happen again.  It has taken several days of study, pondering, and prayer, but I have come to a feeling of peace, that I am doing what is right in helping Samuel, and everything else involved.  I love being able to receive guidance, from a loving heavenly father.  Saturday we spent the day doing chores, and that night went to our ward potluck and trunk or treat.  Joseph wasn't able to come because he did not complete his chores.  Austin and Betsy both dressed up as angry birds, and Samuel and Caleb were each spiderman.  The kids had a great time.  Caleb managed to get a hold of a bright purple frosting cupcake, and was eating it when it slipped and got smooshed all over his front and arm, and of course the floor.  I grabbed all the napkins I could, and a bunch of wet wipes and cleaned him up, but not before his friend Liam wiped some frosting off of him, and licked his finger and said "yum".  That made us all laugh.  I had to go feed Malachi when it was time for the trunk or treat, so Austin and Betsy took Caleb around, and Samuel went with his friend Leighton.  They all had a great time, and were very good, and it worked out perfectly, because I finished feeding Malachi right as they were done, so I walked out, as they were walking towards me, and we went to the car.  They each gave me all there candy, and got to keep there non-candy items and I payed them for their candy.  I was so happy Sunday morning when I woke up, and no one was sick.  We got ready and went to church, it was great.  The kids were pretty well behaved during sacrament meeting.   Samuel's friend Leighton sat with us, and so did his younger brother, and Caleb's friend Liam.  I must have looked quite a sight, with 8 children surrounding me on our bench.  We almost didn't make it, because Malachi woke up not long after the meeting started, and I new he would be hungry, but I didn't see how I could leave to feed him, and getting up and walking out with 8 children, would have been very disruptive.  Austin did take him out once, and change his diaper, and I just let him suck on his little fist.  Of course, the meeting went long, and Malachi was not putting up with just his fist anymore, but we just barely made it to the end of the meeting.  Later the Mom who had been sitting in front of house, told me how impressed she was with how patient I was with my kids.  The kids and I made up a song to sing for Travis when he gets back.  Were down to the single digits now, and getting pretty excited.

EEEEWWWWW

Sunday night, Austin helped Caleb go to bed, and played with him, and let him sleep in bed with her.  He called her his "best friend", then Monday morning he didn't want Austin to go to school, he was sad that she was leaving, and said he needed her.  Then while she was at school, he grabbed the baby monitor and tried to talk to her through the monitor, saying that he needed her, and wanted to talk to her.  It was so cute, I finally helped him understand that he couldn't talk to Austin while she was at school.  As I was lying down with Caleb to put him to bed, he started crying a little, so I asked him what was wrong, he whispered his answer so quietly, I leaned in real close to hear what he was saying, and he threw up right in my face, and yes, my mouth was open.  I had throw up all over my face and upper body, soaked in it actually.  I called Austin to start a bath for Caleb, took off his clothes and stuck him in the bath, then I ran in my bathroom and took a shower, brushed my teeth and used mouthwash.  It was one of the top ten grossest things that has happened to me as a mom.  I feel bad for Caleb though, he hadn't thrown up since sunday morning about 11am, so I thought he was done throwing up, but apparently he is still sick.  Joseph stayed home from school, complaining about his stomach hurting really bad, but he never threw up.

visitors

My Mom and Dad visited for about a week.  I was able to go to all the kids parent teacher conferences, with only Malachi.  The girls and Samuel are all doing well, and Joseph is struggling to do his classwork and homework, but doing well on his tests.  The kids had a great time with their grandparents, especially since they had a 5 day weekend from school.  They went to garden of the gods, and took a train ride up to pikes peak.  They helped us clean the garage out, and we went to the santa's workshop amusement park together.  It was great having them visit.  When they left, Caleb told his grandpa "I need you", and was heartbroken that they left to go back to their home.  Grandpa had even gotten Caleb to sleep through the night a couple of times, by offering him a treat in the morning if he would sleep all night.  I got to go get a massage, which was really nice, and lots of extra help with the kids and house work.  My mom and dad even helped me with making a sensory swing for Samuel for his birthday.  The next day Travis' sister Maia, and her 16 year old daughter drove down from Utah and stayed for two days.  It was really nice to visit with them, and we went on a shopping trip to costco, and went to the deployed spouses dinner together, and to see the Croods movie.  Their trip was short, but it was nice to have them come.  Now we only have a couple more weeks until Travis gets home.  Friday morning it snowed.  Betsy came downstairs for morning devotional in shorts and a t-shirt.  I told her to look out the window, when she saw all the snow, she looked down at herself, and said "I better go change".  She came back downstairs, with long pants, shirt, jacket, coat, gloves, hat, and scarf.  Later while making a breakfast of hot chocolate and toast, Caleb started singing "jingle bells", it was so cute.  I also brought in our newspaper with snow on it, and Caleb ate all the snow off of it.   Yesterday I was able to get a free crib, so I went and picked it up in the van, after we got home, I needed to go feed the baby, so I took him up to my room.  Samuel insisted that the baby needed his crib right away, so Samuel all by himself dragged each of the crib pieces up to the baby's room, and pulled out the instructions and studied them and started trying to put it together.  When I finished feeding the baby, I helped Samuel figure out the instructions and with only a little help from me, he put the entire thing together, including the crib mattress, sheet, tying the bumper pads on, and setting a little blanket in it.  Samuel said that he loves his little brother, and he needed a bed, so he made him one.  Sweet little boy, was so proud of him.  He didn't stop once, until the project was done.  Yesterday all the kids got their chores done, and earned a pizza and movie night.  Then Caleb started throwing up at  bedtime, and continued to do so throughout the night, each time needing a bath and change of clothes and bedding.  I also spent a lot of the night washing clothes and bedding.  We didn't go to church, since Caleb was still throwing up, and hasn't thrown up since 11am, so I'm hoping he is done with throwing up.  I was telling Betsy how skinny Samuel is, and she said " I think he is a pillow full of bones" I thought that was a funny description, and Samuel thought it was hilarious.  Malachi continues to grow, he was 11 lb 5 oz at his 2 month appointment, and smiles and coos and goos.  We love him and he continues to be a calming influence on all of us.

At the COG railway station going up to pikes peak

Betsy wasn't very happy right at this moment, but she was happy the rest of the trip

On the train

At the top of pikes peak

In the pikes peak visitors center, since it was too cold to play outside on top of the mountain

the view from pikes peak above the clouds

Pikes Peak

Santa's Workshop amusement park

Grandma and Caleb riding a ride together

Samuel making a goal at soccer

tummy time

Off to a costume party.

Getting free pumpkins

Yeah!  Grandpa helped to clean the garage, Caleb is swinging in the swing.

exploding 7up

Caleb climbed up to the top of the shelf in the garage and hid in a box, while playing hide and go seek 

Caleb colored all over himself in orange.  This is him feeling bad, after I told him not to color on his body

Caleb has had a runny nose all week, and today when Samuel bent over in front of him, Caleb put his nose on his back and wiped it all up his back, leaving a trail of snot the whole way.  Then Samuel stood up, and oblivious to the snot trail up his back, kept doing whatever he was doing, while Caleb walked off, satisfied that he had taken care of his snot.  Gross and hilarious at the same time.  Caleb threw up Friday evening, and didn't feel good for a while, but was much better Saturday and Sunday, just grumpy.  This was general conference weekend, and I enjoyed listening to the prophets and apostles.  I could only get the girls to listen with me.  while the boys messed around most of the time.  I don't really remember what happened this week, just a blur of messes, diapers, and cooking and cleaning.  I do know that the government shutdown is really annoying, because a lot of things closed down on post, including the commissary, and we may not get paid this month.  Hopefully the government can figure some things out soon.  Caleb and I started a KinderJam class this week, and he loved it.  He was so cute singing and dancing to the songs, and having a great time.  Caleb also said his very first prayer all by himself.  I was contemplating whether or not to try and have my parents come watch my kids, so I could go to the chaplain conference, and Caleb answered my prayers, with his own prayer.  I was helping to prompt him in his prayer, like I usually do, when he said "I do it" and started saying it himself.  He said "Dear Father, thank thee for this day, and please bless mommy not to leave, and please let mommy stay, and help us to be happy and healthy, name of Christ, Amen."  Right then, I knew that Caleb's need for me to stay with him, far outweighed my desire to go to chaplain's conference.  Joseph went to the Priesthood session with a friend, and they had a dinner beforehand.  While Joseph was gone, a friend texted me and said that Joseph had accidently spilled 7up, and it sprayed all over somebody else.  I felt bad for Joseph, thinking about how bad he probably felt, and the brother who got soaked in 7up.  When Joseph came home I asked him about it,  it turns out he did it on purpose!  He told me, they were outside, and he thought it would be funny, so he shook the pop can, and threw it on the ground, where it exploded all over this unsuspecting brother.  I couldn't believe Joseph did it on purpose, he just told me that it was outside, so they didn't have to worry about the mess, and the guy could wash his clothes.  I told him that suits need to be dry cleaned, and that if I can find who the man was, he needs to pay for his dry cleaning bill.  Sometimes I wonder what is going on in his head.  Hoping for a week of less stress, and more sleep!