Happy Birthday Don

We went to Famous Dave's for dinner to celebrate. I didn't realize but Alika doesn't have air conditioning where she lives either. Yikes. She came to our house after dinner and in the morning she was asleep on the day bed. I wouldn't have gone back to a hot house either. It has been one hot scorching summer. Alika started her new job today. She was supposed to start last week but it got pushed back one week.

Tired from all their house work!

I don't know what Carter is looking at, there must have been a TV in the room.

Grandma "interviewed" her new basement mate and approved. Hoping it works out as a good situation for both. Mom gets lonely and this lady is home a lot. She is young but had cancer as a child and now has rheumatoid arthritis. She likes to do genealogy, read and make jewelry. Here's hoping she's not a psycho. I don't need anymore drama. I think she's a Republican, but hey everyone has their faults:)

Alika bought Don a box of "old" games. Jacks, marbles, pick up sticks, domino's and cards. It was fun. Steph beat me at Jacks. Sean is the king of marbles. I am trying to teach Sean how to throw the ball up and catch it for Jacks but he hasn't gotten it down yet. He did learn to whistle and snap and can now do both at the same time.

Then we had ice cream cake! Yippee! Happy Birthday.

July doings

AJ and Steph are moving into their condo this week. Steph had been painting. They have worked 12 hours a day for the past week getting it cleaned up and ready. Today the carpet went in and tomorrow they are moving.

They got another dog, Peiko. He's a corgi. Shortest legs you've ever seen on a dog. Pretty funny to watch him try to climb stairs. His favorite place in the house is next to or on top of the air conditioning vent. If he could crawl in that vent he would.

Alex came for dinner. Here he is with two of his three dogs. Callie and Rylie.

Don and his partner (shadow). Sean is getting pretty handy with the tools. He can hand Don what he ask for.
I took Sean to the dollar store to buy Don a birthday present. He wanted to buy him tools.
He got him a roll of masking tape, a retractable razor, a pack of bungee cords, a flash light and my favorite a nozzle for the hose. He asked me what it was and I told him and he said "oh dad needs this!" That kid is so stinking cute.

David and I had words last week and he moved out. It was over a Wii game. The Wii game was hooked up in Sean's room. (Pam bought it Alika brought it home and had said Sean could use it until he got one), Anyway David plays video games between 18 and 20 hours a day. He doesn't work, go to school, speak to anyone in the house other than to grunt. Occasionally he will have a tantrum and bang things when he can't find something.  David said "Can I take the Wii out of Sean's room? I said for how long, and he said forever. I am sure my mom didn't buy it to put in Sean's room. Oh, they just rubbed me wrong. To make a long story short I said "Why don't you go live with your mom!" Next thing you know he was slamming things and hauling his stuff out. He said I kicked him out. OK, I will go with that. I also told him to act like an adult and get a job. Often that kid makes me crazy. I hope he pulls his head out of his rear sometime soon. He's an adult now...

Sean watched him going and asked "Is David moving out" I said yes and he said "can I have his room?"

I'm thinking about turning it into an exercise room but want to wait awhile to make sure he doesn't return.

We are renting AJ and Steph's space in the basement to a woman on disability. That way mom won't be down there alone.

Sean and his cousin

Sabrina (Jenny's sister) was moving out of the YWCA and into an apartment. She needed Empress to stay somewhere for three nights. That somewhere of course was our house.


Empress says in her new house she is going to have a princess room. I'm thinking if you are an Empress and you get moved to a princess room it is some sort of demotion. She doesn't see it that way.

 

Empress likes worms. She found one and held it for an hour. She kept telling us it was pooing in her hands, nice! Eventually she found a nice spot of dirt for it to sleep in. Empress is the biggest potty mouth and I mean potty as in your a poop face poop, poop, poop, potty, potty, potty. It must come from her preschool.

I took Sean and Empress swimming a couple of times. They of course thought that was great fun.

I had Empress and Sean at McDonald's play land (no this picture was later that night at the mall. Hot Dog on a Stick, yep only the finest eating establishments) when a little boy cam running up yelling HI! It was Ethan. Fun times. His mom was at McDonald's trying to stay cool. They haven't closed on their house and they are staying at her moms house with no air conditioner. She is nine months pregnant and miserable. They actually went up to the lake and stayed at our condo this weekend where they could sleep in comfort.

Ethan of course had to leave McDonald's with us and spent the rest of the day and evening playing.

On Empress last day with us Taya came over and swam. She was at the house for a couple of hours and then I couldn't take it anymore. Three kids was equalling one kid left out. After both girls left Sean said "I want someone to play with" I said "I want just you!" Again, Lanette who adopted Kylie and Brie is my hero. She has adopted four kids eight and under. Chaos all the time yet her house is clean. I get tired out by the chaos.

Getting in touch with my heritage

My Mormon heritage that is. I am a shopper and a food storage person. I can't stop. We have a closet in our kitchen that had a couple of sweaters and coats that no one wore and boxes of cereal stacked up on the floor. I decided I wanted a can rotation system. Don was game which was important because it was not an exact fit. He had to take all the sheet rock down and cut the boards back to get another two inches to make it fit.

Don was really lucky (and patient) because he had a helper EVERY step of the way. They had to cut a lot of boards and rewire the lights to the living room. Sean even helped me take the stuff that he's not allowed to touch out of the Grandfather clock. When I handed him a blue glass cat he said "I've always wanted to touch this!"

Learning how to use the caulk gun

Mixing grout.

Sean supervising Don as he pours the grout. Then they put up the new sheet rock and walls, painted and it was ready for the shelves.

Of course Sean loaded the cans on the shelves. He thought it was like a race track if you put a can of green beans in at the same time as a can of pineapple, which can gets to the end fastest?

The final result. Pretty darn cool. I have a ton of beans. Black beans, red beans, kidney beans, navy beans, green beans.

Not so in touch with my Mormon heritage. Mormon's all over go on Pioneer Treks. They dress up like pioneers and go out, wearing old time clothes and pull wagons in an effort to get in touch with what the pioneers went through. I have always thought this really dumb. It's 103 degrees out. I don't even want to ride in a car without airconditioning. I can read a book about pioneers and get a pretty good idea for what a miserable, horrible experience it was. I have no desire to live it. I feel lots of empathy for people starving in Ethiopia and I have no desire to live in a tent and starve. I just read today that in some parts of Africa women had a one in nineteen chance of dying in childbirth. I wouldn't recommend anyone go there and try it out. My sister in law Teresa went on one of those treks a couple of weeks ago and she cut her leg on an out house. (Actually a port a potty) Apparently she would have been safer doing her business in the woods. Anyway she got a really nasty infection which required really nasty antibiotics. One of which caused her to go into anaphylaxis so she spent a couple of days in the ICU in  trendelenburg because she couldn't maintain her blood pressure with a central line recovering. Not that I ever considered going on a trek but if I did it would be fodder for why I shouldn't. Teresa has recovered and is home.

Silly pictures

The cone of shame. Polly had a total hysterectomy. Poor Polly I feel her pain. At least no one made me wear a cone. She looks like a light bulb. She did really well. She still only weighs three pounds. AJ and Steph are buying a condo and moving out later this month so they are getting ANOTHER dog. AJ has been wanting a Corgi and they found one. My kids and their pets. This will put me at five grand dogs and one grand cat. Art is working on his sixth grandchild. Not complaining, just sayin! I know all the kids say "well you have Sean." Good thing we do!

We did the Butterfly garden again this year. It seems like they transformed really fast.

Butterfly, butterfly

Fly

Fly

Away
Sean is such a good looking kid. He has grown so much. I had to buy new shoes and all his size four pants are too short and I had to buy size fives.

Note: Alika got a new job working for Aetna Health Insurance. Pays more then she was making before. She is pretty excited.

I was in denial

Tell me it isn't so! Tell me Ethan didn't really move! I tried denial. I tried convincing Miranda that she didn't really want to move. I hoped that their house wouldn't sell. Heck, there's a half dozen houses for sale in our neighborhood. But alas, not only did they sell their house it sold fast, closed fast and they up and left!!! How can this be?? How will I amuse Sean? I have been telling Sean the past few days that they were moving and he said "I don't care." Hm, really? Saturday morning he woke up and said "I want to play with Ethan". I said "Ethan doesn't live there anymore." He said "oh yes he does lets go see." We walked over and knocked on the door and I was surprised that a big dog started barking. I hadn't seen anyone in the driveway. That clinched it for Sean and he realized they didn't really live there. Today he saw new cars in the driveway and said "lets go see who is there." I told him we'd have to wait I didn't think who ever was there would appreciate a 9 a.m. Sunday visit. Miranda's baby is due August 3 and they close on their new house July 27. Until then they are staying at Miranda's mom's house. Their new house is in West Kaysville and I mean WEST Kaysville. Clear out by the powerlines almost to the lake. Not a few miles away for easy visits. Their days of best friends are over.

Yep, the moving van really put a dent in my denial.

The kids had a final McDonald's picnic in the driveway.

The lies never stop

I was reading my blog from last July and we had just had a meeting with DCFS, guardian ad litem, drug and domestic violence counselors the whole nine yards and they told us the girls were going home and nothing was going to change it. They said a home placement was to start the following week and it was our goal to make the transition smooth. Fast forward a year and Sean's adoption is final and the girls will be soon but Jenny is still lying and still using the kids for her own gain.


She got out of jail on Tuesday. I don't know where she spent Tues, Wed and Thurs. She called Lanette from a "private number" yesterday. I got a couple of private calls too but I didn't answer. It caught Lanette off guard and she answered thinking it could be her son in Afghanistan. Jenny asked to speak the girls and she let her. The girls were really confused and didn't have much to say. Jenny then asked Lanette if she could see them in a couple of weeks.

Today I got a call and I answered it was Jenny calling from Rehab. It wasn't a private number. She was on speaker phone asking me to bring Sean for a two hour visit on Sunday. A visit without me, just Sean. What the HELL!!! I told her no then she asked me to bring her underwear and socks. She said she was on black out for three weeks and couldn't make any more calls. I still wonder where she was the past few days that she could make private calls and update her face book status. I'm guessing somehow she was with Ryan.
She told the judge she still had custody of one of her sons and wanted to take him with her to rehab. I actually sent her an email after that telling her Sean’s adoption was final just to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Anyway, I know she's telling the rehab center that Sean is her son and she wants visitation. This made Don go crazy. I told Lanette we should go to the rehab center in three weeks after her black out and meet with Jenny and her counselors. Don said don't wait three weeks call now. I called and talked to a manager and explained that Jenny was asking to see Sean but he had been adopted and wasn't hers. She asked if I was his guardian I said "NO, I'M HIS MOTHER!" I told them I thought it was important to Jenny's treatment that she be honest about the fact that she had lost all her children.

The lady said she could neither confirm nor deny that Jenny was a resident but thanked me for letting them know. She said Jenny could not see her kids if they weren't her kids. I know that tons of the women at the rehab center have lost their kids to adoption. I think Jenny needs to use her time in rehab to come to terms with her loss. She’s got to find a way to get on with her life. You’d think five months in jail would have given her some time to face reality and come to terms but apparently it’s just been five months to sit and scheme.

I don't guess she is ever going to quit lying. Don wants’ a restraining order. I want her to get on with her life and leave us and the children she gave birth to alone!

Some people's mothers

Mom had an appointment at the hospital to get pulmonary function test and an echo cardiogram today. Polly (AJ and Steph's dog) had an appointment for a hysterectomy. Last night at dinner we were discussing these appointments as I needed AJ to help me get Grandma up the wheelchair ramp. We joked it would be bad if we got confused and took Polly to the hospital and Grandma to the vet. Grandma said she wasn't worried because she'd already had all those "parts" removed.

Grandma fell on Tuesday night. She had a tooth pulled Tuesday morning and had taken a lortab. She used her cell phone to call the house phone at 2 am for help. She said she'd laid there for an hour. It took her some time to work her way to her cell phone then she tried to get up on her own for awhile. She said she even debated pulling a pillow off the bed and sleeping on the floor. I woke AJ up to help us get her back in the bed. I'm not sure what I am going to do when AJ and Steph move out because I really don't like Grandma alone in the basement at night. If she'd called out Polly would have heard her and barked. We got her back in the bed without too much trouble. She didn't hurt anything but said her neck and arms hurt from trying to pull herself up.

Polly's surgery was fine and she came home this afternoon. Grandma's pulmonary test weren't too bad. Her alveoli are at 49% (that's what mom said. I haven't seen a report). We stopped and got a Subway sandwich on the way home. I was upstairs and I heard a crash in the kitchen. My first thought was oh crap then I heard a spraying noise. Mom dropped her Pepsi can and it exploded all over the kitchen. Hence, my some people's mother comment. I was happy mom hadn't fallen and all I had to do was clean up soda, no blood.

On other notes: Jenny is out of jail and at rehab. She called Lanette who let her talk to the girls. Lanette was not happy. Jenny wants to see the girls in two weeks but Lanette said she's not going to let her. I asked what number she called from and she said it came up "private." I got two private calls today but I didn't answer them. It would be nice if she took advantage of all the counseling and opportunites at rehab and made some changes so she can start over with a fresh, productive life. Instead of spending her time calling me and Lanette. Not holding my breath though. She's young she really could start over and do something positive with her life.

Old photos

Mom gave her negatives to Lynn and he had them printed. Hmm, I then took those prints scanned them had them put on disc and then chucked the photos. I think there was probably an easier way to do that. The end result was some fun pictures I hadn't seen in years or had never seen. I posted all 155 of them on facebook and the old Durham first ward people have been tagging themselves. Fun stuff. Here's a couple of my favorites.

Kind of a sad picture when they put the road through the front yard. Now there's no house at all.

Tim and a very little Carter.

Steph's fourth birthday. Note how awesome the cake is. Grandma always decorated great cakes.

Peter, Jaclyn and Catherine. Jaclyn's twins look so much like her. I kept looking at Catherine trying to decide who she looks like and I decided she looks like Catherine. Tyson looks alot like her.

Peter and Dad

Mom with Stephanie and Carter

Marjie with her flash dance hair, dog Sasha and long ago husband. There are sure a lot of ex's in the pictures. Seems like almost all of us have one. With the exception of Tim and Brad we do.

My cousins, Susan, Marian and Kathy (now called Katie) with Carter.

Mom and Dad. I don't know where this picture was taken but I remember that wall paper.

Grandma and Stephanie

Mom and Carter at a ward camp out

29 year old blanket

This picture is Carter and Mom's dog Stuffy. When I was pregnant with Carter I made this blanket. It has a lion with floppy ears on the front. All the kids used it but it was never any ones favorite. None of the boys had special blankets. AJ had a special pillow that Mary White made.

Fast forward 29 years and the blanket is still in use. While it is only Sean's second blanket, his first is of course his ever present blue blanket. The lion blanket does get a certain amount of respect. It is the blanket Sean has slept with for nap time at school for three years. He also uses a He Man blanket mom made Carter when he was four. Carter got all the cool blankets.

Funny I could have imagined the blanket being used by a four year old grandchild 29 years later. I never imagined it being used by my four year old son. Life's a funny thing.

Scleroderma

We've been blaming all Grandmas’ symptoms on her post polio syndrome: increasing fatigues, pain, hair loss, dental problems, digestive problems, tons of telangiectasia, skin problems, and sleep problems. Apparently we were mistaken it is scleroderma.


What is scleroderma?

Scleroderma is an autoimmune disease of the connective tissue featuring skin thickening, spontaneous scarring, blood vessel disease, varying degrees of inflammation, associated with an overactive immune system. Autoimmune diseases are illnesses that occur when the body's tissues are attacked by its own immune system. Scleroderma is characterized by the formation of scar tissue (fibrosis) in the skin and organs of the body. This leads to thickness and firmness of involved areas. Scleroderma, when it's diffuse or widespread over the body, is also referred to as systemic sclerosis.

I didn't initially believe the diagnosis when we first got the lab test requesting we come in for repeat lab test. I've seen scleroderma but I've never seen it in someone as old as mom. Usually it has an onset before 60. We went back in and repeated the test. I was out looking at assisted living centers to arrange for respite care for mom when Don and I are out of town when mom got a call asking her to make a 30 minute doctor appointment to discuss test results. Hmm, that's a diagnosis right there.

The assisted living is in response to mom's request to go to a "spa for seniors" while Don and I are out of town. I told her "I think those spa's are called assisted living." Doctor Horsley thought that was funny he told mom "that's euphuism if ever I heard one but at least you can play bingo."

What now? We had a doctor appointment yesterday; she has a dentist appointment today to get a tooth pulled and a root canal. On Thursday she goes for pulmonary function test and an echo cardiogram. Bottom line, there is not much they can do about it. I'm supposed to check her blood pressure every week because she can go into renal failure and a hypertensive crisis very quickly. I have to work the next two weeks so I couldn't schedule any appointments then but she has her podiatrist appointment the next week I have time off.

I think it's time for Brad and Lynn to get over here and help out with some doctor appointments.

Happy Birthday Alika

Alika wanted to spend some time with her family celebrating her birthday. We had lots of fun playing! The only ones missing were Alex and Loreal. Alex was working and Loreal was out of town.

The water squirting felt so good. It was hot outside. Not sure quite how hot but hot enough.   After getting soaked we went in to bowl. AJ and Steph were ready for minature golf but there was no way I wanted to stay outside that long.

Get Don!

Sean, Don and Alika racing. Alika and Don both got stuck on the track and had to be rescued. Don actually got stuck twice. He he, I didn't get stuck at all because I am the superior driver and I write this blog:)

Carter and Don not quite bowled out.

Sean sliding down the ball rail. He bowled half a game and was ready to go play other games. He tried to throw the ball and it got stuck between the guttar and the bumper. Sean has outgrown all of his shoes. Tomorrow we have to go buy new ones. Sean is outgrowing his everything!

 

Steph and AJ taking a picture of AJ's four strikes in a row. Impressive!

Don and I went home and picked up Grandma and we all met at the Japanese steak house for dinner.

Sean fell asleep the minute we sat down. He slept through the entire dinner.

Check it out, I made a birthday cake that was not chocolate on chocolate. I made babycake balls, stacked them up and drizzled red, white and blue frosting on top. I call it a hot stack of mess. It was fun. It looked like the candles had already melted all over it.

This is the only picture I got with David. He kept ducking out when I was taking pictures. Don lit the candles with a blow torch. A little excessive but effective.

Alika thinking about her birthday wish.