Night time in the Girls' Room

Claire has decided to move back into the purple room and share it with Rachel. I went to turn off the reading light one night after I thought they were asleep and this is what I found.

Claire was sound asleep....

...and Rachel was not!
She was up and ready to play!

Block Castle

At Christmas last year, a friend of the Coffman family gave Rachel and Claire a box of blocks to play with and Clarie and Paul decided to build a castle one day. Claire loved it and played for quite awhile until the destruction of Rachel came along.

Pumpkin Time

We tried to find a closer pumpkin patch this year to go play at and pick pumpkins, but didn't find much (last year the one we went to was over an hour away). I saw a sign for this one, which just turned out to be a place to buy pumpkins, mums, gourds, corn, etc. We still had a lot of fun wandering around playing though. Katey and her mom Bridget went with us too.

Katey and Claire posed by the pumpkin wagon. I tried to get Rachel in there too, but she just wouldn't hold still.

Rachel was off to pick out her pumpkin.
She tried a few out...
and finally found some her size.
She then went off to check out the mums.
I love the fall here when the mums are all in bloom.
What a beautiful site - three pretty girls among the pretty flowers.
The girls tried to play hide and seek among the flowers.
Rachel found a cozy seat.

Doodle

Claire was playing on the doodle pad and drew a picture of herself and me. Notice she got my curly hair in there, along with her long hair and that is her name in the lower left corner and my name in the lower right. I think she is an amazing artist!

Happenings 9/22- 9/28

The week ended with me getting sick; either I ate something bad on Friday or whatever afflicted the rest of the family finally caught up to me. (I think he was feeling a little smug because he was the only one not miserable last week and it came back to bite him. No, I actually felt sorry for him because I know how miserable I was.) I started feeling a little bad Friday afternoon, but not bad enough to cancel a 15-mile run with a friend on Saturday morning, although I told him that if I wasn’t outside when he ran by, it was because I woke up sicker. Well, I got up and got ready to go, but when I went to the bathroom, I knew that I wasn’t going to make it 15 miles, so I went back to bed. It got worse the rest of the day with a painful upset stomach, so I was on the couch all day long. I felt a little better on Sunday but not well enough to go to church. Even today (Monday) I’m not very hungry. I ate breakfast but have no appetite, which is how I was the last two days as well.

But me being sick didn’t stop the rest of the family from enjoying the weekend. Katy slept over on Friday night (It was a late night. The girls decorated foam picture frames and bookmarks and watched a movie and then got ready for bed about 9:00, but they didn't actually go to sleep until about 11:30 or so. It took quite a lot of reminding that they needed to go to sleep. Then Claire got up about 7 am and Katey got up shortly after. We fixed chocolate chip waffles - a mommy special and got ready to go to the farmer's market.) and in the morning JJ took the three girls to the Farmer’s Market where they were having some kids activities, like a petting zoo. (Not much of a zoo. They had a cow, two pigs and a turkey locked up in a pen. I almost dropped Claire on her head helping her lean over the fence to touch the pig. It was pretty crowded and I was hot and trying to keep track of the three girls, we just bought them each a small pumpkin and had some lemonade and popcorn and went on home. On the way home I took a detour to see a pumpkin farm and along the way I saw them harvesting tobacco. It is pretty amazing to watch since they do it all by hand. It is a lot of hard work. I was pretty fascinated. I like to see the smoking barns when they are smoking the tobacco too, it looks pretty cool and it just looks like fall.) Katy and Claire played at home when they got back until Claire went to a birthday party. (Claire got to dress up for the birthday party, so she was Minnie Mouse. She looked great!) Rachel stayed home with me, and I laid on the couch and let her play in the living room, which she did very well, even though I was in and out of sleep. (I don't even want to know what she did or what she got into when Paul was "in and out of sleep") I was a little better in the evening so that I was able to take care of the girls while JJ went to the Women’s Conference broadcast, and then when she got home I hung out upstairs watching some football. (We didn't have anyone to babysit at the Women's Conference since I was going to try an finagle my husband into doing it, so I sat down in the nursery with some little boys during the meeting and only got to hear some bits and pieces. Thank goodness for the internet. We had 20 women show up for the broadcast which is really good. I think last time we had single digits. I worked really hard on some refreshments - compliments of Wal-Mart- for after, so that was good too. Chocolate is always a good thing.)

The rest of the week was pretty routine for us, I guess. I was busy at work and we had things going on in the evenings. JJ had book club on Tuesday, (We discussed Atonement. I have come to the realization that I just read books differently from at least the people in the book club. I like to read just to read a story and enjoy it. They seem to be more aware of writing styles and watching for things like foreshadowing and thinking about why things were written a certain way, what the author "really means", etc. I enjoy listening to their ideas since I just don't think like that. It's pretty entertaining.) and I played tennis on Thursday evening and then went to a book reading by a colleague afterwards. I completed a few things this week so that I am starting on some new projects, which is nice. I sent off a couple of articles to journals for consideration, and though I probably could have tinkered with them for another month or two, it was to the point where I just needed to send them in. If they aren’t accepted as is or with minor revisions, most of the responses nowadays are “revise and resubmit,” which means they like it enough but it needs some significant changes. So then I’ll make the changes as recommended by the reviewer. That is more efficient than trying to guess now what sort of things they will look for in my basic article. (I went to work on Friday for a meeting since our office is joining the hospital and we had to do a new orientation, so the girls and Logan had a babysitter in the morning which they always love. The office transition is weird since no one really has an idea what is going on.)

The Fall weather came upon us pretty suddenly, but it is really dry again. The weather is cooling down some more, which is great, but there is a burn ban everywhere because of the lack of rain for a few weeks. On Wednesday morning, after the college-kid-plan for cutting the fallen trees in our yard fell through again, my friends Chris and Trevor came over and using Chris’ saw we had it all cut up in 2 hours. We stacked the limbs in piles on the edge of the yard, but now I don’t know what to do with them. We can’t burn them right now, and I don’t know if our garbage service will take them. So they are still there. The bigger logs are up for grabs too — we don’t know anyone with a wood-burning stove so we may just keep it for camping, but then we will have to buy an ax to cut it. Anyway, so much trouble.

I used some of the cut limbs to make a sort of a lean-to fort in the back yard for Claire, and it turned out pretty cool. The neighborhood kids set up a table in there and they like to hang out. Hopefully it lasts until it’s too cold to play outside.

Tree Fort

Paul built a tree fort out of the branches from the downed trees in our yard and it quickly became a fun place to play. Claire and Logan have made good use of it, along with the other kids in the neighborhood.

Logan and Claire
Claire and Logan on their "stools"
Claire and Logan

Happenings 9/15 - 9/21

We ended up lucky last week after Hurricane Ike came through -- we did lose two trees in our front yard, but we still had power. Everyone outside the city area didn't have power Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday. Monday evening our friends, the Eubanks, who live outside of town, came to our house to shower because they have an electric well. Chris and I went to one of my home teaching families to give the father a blessing, and then went to help move a sister into her apartment. We were late to help, so the rest of the ward members that helped were already finished. So we helped hook up the washer and dryer and then went home.

I had several committee meetings this week, which kept me busy in addition to the teaching and the writing that I am trying to finish up. I also attended the Study Abroad fair on Thursday for a couple of hours to try to garner interest in my London course. I will know around mid-October if I have enough students enrolled. One student from Murray State has signed up, which is good. A couple more who I have spoken to are also possibilities. The program draws from 20 other universities, so a lot is reliant on other places.

Friday evening I was involved with a conference that is an annual event for the region's Writing Project, which is attended by elementary and secondary school teachers. The keynote speaker for the conference was Avi, who writes young adult novels. Along with the directors of writing projects around the state, I attended dinner with him on Friday night, and then listened to him speak and read from some of his books. He is a really interesting and engaging person, and he goes by his childhood nickname.

On the home front, Claire got sick on Monday night, was over it by Wednesday, then got it again on Saturday. J.J. picked it up during the week, and Rachel got it on Friday. I have been spared so far. (Oh, Paul has been spared, so he doesn't realize the extent of the fun we have had. Claire woke up about 4am on Tuesday throwing up, so after cleaning her and the bed up, I put her in bed with us only to wake up at 6am to her coughing and throwing up again. So I got her all cleaned up again and she slept for a bit longer. The rest of the day, she just laid around all day, but didn't throw up anymore. On Wednesday, she seemed fine. No puking, etc. then on Thursday morning, she and I woke up with tummy aches and she began puking and while trying to help her, I started puking. So after cleaning both of us up, we just rested. Luckily Rachel was asleep at the time. Then Claire started with the diarrhea. That evening, Claire seemed to be doing better but I got to throwing up again and the other end hit me too and I was up all night. Friday morning was better for both of us. Then Rachel woke up on Friday morning with dried puke on her. I don't know when she threw up during the night, but she threw up all morning. There is nothing more pathetic than a toddler throwing up not knowing what is happening to her. Claire seemed to be fine Friday. No puke or diarrhea, so she went to dance and even stayed the night at Katey's. Everbody seemed to be improved Saturday. Saturday night as Rachel seemed to be a bit better, Claire got the diarrhea again, and was in tears most of the evening. By Sunday morning, she was feeling good again. We should have kept her home from church probably, but she begged to go and seemed to be fine - and still is and since all Rachel and I wanted to do was sleep, I let her go with Paul. So does that sound like a fun week or what? In between throwing up, I have been cleaning up poop and puke. Thank goodness these weeks are few and far between.) Today, we kept Rachel home from church, and since J.J. was still not feeling great, I took Claire with me. We were late because we weren't sure if we should take Claire, so she wasn't ready when J.J. came back from ward council.

Claire slept at Katy's house on Friday night, which makes for a quiet Saturday morning. I got up early and ran 10 miles, and then J.J. went out shopping at the city-wide garage sale event. (I was feeling much better that morning, so my friend Shara and I made an early morning of yard sales. I love looking at all the things people try to sell. I did get some pretty cool things. We got a Barbie princess carriage, a Madagascar Zebra rug, some shoes and other things and best of all was a Clare sized Raggedy Anne and Andy - only $7 for the pair!! It was fun to have Shara to giggle at things with) I stayed with Rachel and did some reading while she napped. I was hoping that a student who works in our department would come and cut our trees up and haul them away, but he didn't show up (for the second time - I vote it is time for another plan) and then it started to rain pretty hard around 4:00. He was supposed to come on Wednesday morning, but he was confused when his alarm went off early and forgot why he had set it, and I don't know what happened on Saturday. I still want him to do it, but if he can't tomorrow, I'm going to have to borrow a chain saw and take care of it myself, although I don't know what I will do with all of the wood.

(I am going to sign off here, because the rest is Paul's Editorial of the news for the week - interesting, but I don't have much to add) The week was interesting because of financial news, but it is nice to be removed from some of the hectic behavior that happens in large cities. As I was reading the Nashville newspaper today, I discovered that on Friday, most of the gas stations there ran out of gas, and if stations had gas, there was a two-hour wait to fill up. This despite assurance that there is actually plenty of fuel distribution. A similar thing happened before Ike hit Texas, and I think it is interesting how rumors and sheep-like behavior will actually create the problems that the rumors are about. If everyone decides that they need gas, of course there will be shortages when they all go at the same time. One thing this week shows to me is how many people are on the edge of catastrophe. Ready credit and the idea that debt and spending boost jobs and the economy overall -- trickle-down economics -- leave many people one hefty gas increase away from not being able to afford food. And because of this, the government is forced to spend $700 billion dollars plus to take over private companies that faltered because of the unfettered greed and bad decision making of its leaders -- that sounds a little like Iraq as well. Meanwhile, there's never any money that can be spared for education. Save the banks from the disaster that the government itself created, while underpaying and getting rid of teachers who see education as more than the government's goal of regurgitation of test material.

This week in my composition class, we are reading foundational "economic" theories, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard Keynes. Right now we are living in a time when our economy exhibits the worst of capitalism and the worst of communism at the same time. One of these days people will realize that government's main purpose is to maintain a salient society and stop voting for leaders who give lip service to morality while supporting an economic system that has thrived on dishonesty and no concern for those who lack capital. The key element of a free market system is that everyone acting in their own self-interest will mean consistent economic growth. But when the Republicans decided that legislating morality was more important than ensuring individuals' ability to live by their own self-interests without a whole bunch of government intervention, they created an atmosphere that we have now where many people who would most benefit from alternative economic and defense policies are voting instead on an irrelevant, but divisive issue: abortion.

Today our high council speaker opened his talk with a retelling of a conversation that he had with someone who was wondering if Mormons could be Democrats. This brother replied that of course there are Mormon Democrats, but he wasn't sure if they could get a temple recommend. It was a joke, but the bishop had to get up after his talk and clarify again -- he had already read the letter from the First Presidency about Church neutrality and the need to vote -- to our ward, many of whom are recent converts, that political party does not have anything to do with temple recommends. He then read the letter from the First Presidency again. I believe that Mormon culture, like Protestant culture, allows beliefs to get mixed up in politics. The "values" of the Republican "moral majority" wing resonate with many of our moral beliefs, even though they are founded on different principles. Rather than being a partial means to meaningful ends -- eternal salvation later and companionship of the Holy Ghost now -- morality commandments for Protestants are ways of showing that one is already saved. Thus, they become a galvanizing force that divides people rather than an exemplary way of living that encourages unity. Perhaps Mitt Romney can wake up from whatever "brainwashing" spell he is under and start a third party that is founded on sound free-market economic principles and integrity. But until then, I think we have one choice, and his name does not rhyme with pain.

Just thought I would put those thoughts out there. It went a little farther than I planned. Feel free to disagree. We love you all and hope that things will get better no matter who wins this election. Have a good week!