Sunday, March 8, 2009

Happenings 3/02/09 - 3/08/09

Last week seemed hectic. J.J. started work after taking 4 weeks off, and it definitely didn't seem like it was time for her to go back to work again. Our babysitters came on Monday and Wednesday,(I had them come last 2 weeks for a couple hours 1 day per week so they could get used to Maggie, she could get used to them and I could get used to them with her) and that worked out pretty well, although there was some confusion on Monday with feeding Maggie -- she only drank one bottle and when J.J. came home she felt like a horrible mother for being gone. But we figured out that maggie wouldn't eat anymore because she drank the one bottle too fast and had a tummyache. So we told the Laurens to give it to her slowly and that worked on Wednesday. But meanwhile, Rachel was grumpy on Wednesday and we discovered that she had an ear infection, so she went to the doctor on Thursday for some medicine. (What a fun first week of working. Work was fine, but coming home wasn't. Rachel had a fever last week on and off and ended up with a crazy rash and wasn't acting herself, but I put it off to a little virus and figured she would get over it. Then on Wednesday, when I came home Paul said the babysitter noticed Rachel messing with her ear and there was a little something in it. When I looked in her ear, it was clogged with brown gunk that when I wrestled her down and got some out, was also pus! Yuck! Also, Maggie had goopy eyes that were from clogged tear ducts, but had now turned green and orange. So we made a trip to the doctor. I came home and now have a pharmacy sitting on the counter. Rachel has drops for her ears - which she hates!- medicine to take by mouth - which she loves- Maggie has drops for her eyes, ointment for the skin around her eyes, Tylenol for Rachel's fever, drops for their nose and motrin for fevers. It was crazy!)

Thursday evening we were supposed to have a new part-member family over for dinner, but with all the sickness we didn't want anyone over and it turned out that they were sick as well. The wife decided to come back to church after several years, and told her husband that that's how it's going to be whether he likes it or not. He's fine with it, and has come to church twice and likes how he feels and how it helps the family. So things may work out well. They are about our age.

I went to the Murray State basketball game on Tuesday evening -- it was the first round of the OVC tournament. They won, but then they lost in the semifinals on Friday. I was hoping to burn the pile of limbs and branches from the ice storm on Saturday, but with some rain this week I could not get the pile to start, and that was fine because the wind picked anyway. (Plus he was supposed to be watching the girls while I was gone. And a fire with 3 girls under five to take care of at the same time don't go well together - at least to me.) But the weather was warm even with the wind, and then after a big rainstorm on Sunday afternoon, it calmed down and Monday was a beautiful day of 70+ degrees. The bonfire will have to wait until we have spring break, which is the week after next.

Claire was very excited on Saturday because it was her birthday. J.J. had a leadership meeting in Paducah in the morning and while she was gone with Maggie, we cleaned the house. When she came home, it was nearly time for Claire's party, which was fun. It was a Hello Kitty theme, with a HK cake (which I made and was pretty proud of - I'll post the pictures) and J.J. made a cardboard picture of HK holding a flower that the kids took pictures with. The kids played outside a little, busting a pinada, but it was too windy to hold the party out there. She received phone calls from her grandparents and had a good day, even after she had a meltdown the night before for 2 hours. (She is 5!! I can't believe it! My baby is growing up!! I love to see how happy she on her birthday!)

Saturday evening there was supposed to be a baptism, but it was cancelled, so we went out to eat at a mexican restaurant. The server brought Claire some fried ice cream because Claire told her it was her birthday, but Claire didn't even try it because she didn't like how it looked. Sunday was kind of a crazy day -- it turned out the cancelled baptism was only part of a whole string of events involving the young single adults. The person who was going to be baptized is a college student, and she is friends with all the other singles, but something happened to cause some drama. So after choir practice and then at home evening there was some tension. Oh the drama. Things should work out, we hope, because there's such a small group of YSAs that it is not good for them to not get along.

The one disappointing thing that happened this week was that we received one of J.J.'s W-2 forms way late. I didn't realize she was going to get another one and did our taxes at the beginning of February, though I thought that it seemed like her total income was a little lower it should be. Because her company joined the hospital, the hospital sent one W-2 and her company had another one. So I used our online tax site to do an amended form and the difference was very surprising. We should have paid some federal taxes instead of receiving a refund, and received a little more from the state. So now we have to pay back our federal refund plus more, which is not easy to swallow. But we'll wait to the deadline so at least we'll earn some interest on the temporary loan. I guess I can't be considered for a presidential cabinet position now because I underreported our taxable income.

No comments: