Halloween 2008

I even dressed up this year. Camryn asked what I was and I said "The Queen". She loved that! Colton made me feel so good because he said "mommy, you look so pretty." What a sweetheart for saying that:)

Brandon is a ninja/Naruto man. He went to a friend's house for a halloween party and had a blast! I got to meet the 2 girls who keep texting him-he has been reminded no dating until 16!

Of course, Camryn had to be the princess:) I made the dress last year-a little short this year but it still fit. She was so funny as after going to 4 houses she declared her bucket too heavy so Mom had to carry it.

Dylan is a Ninja. He loves to be a Ninja every year! This is the first year I let him go trick or treating with a group of friends and no parents. He did great and had a blast!

This is Colton doing his Spiderman pose. He loved this costume and declared today was the best day ever!

Rich had to work so he did not get to wear his vampire costume. I would have posted a picture of Darin but he was so excited to go trick or treating with his friends that he took off before I could capture him-the turkey! We had a great time trick or treating and as usual, we have a ton of candy! I love our neighborhood, our friends and our ward members as they all helped to make this a great Halloween for our family. The kids all crashed as soon as we got home-the sugar rush wore off quickly! Now, it is time to get ready for Thanksgiving.

Leave out All the Rest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ac50sxRaTZM

Thanks for the heads up from my old college roomie and friend since middle school, Jill Salyers Fields, for letting me know of this performance. This is for all you Twilight Fans out there:) The song is by Linkin Park and will be included on the soundtrack due out Nov. 4. We are both trying to figure out where this song fits into the movie. Brandon loves Linkin Park so he will be excited when he gets home from school and sees it on here:) And my dear friend Mary, your older boys will enjoy this song too!

Quilting

I have been so caught up with other things going on in my life that I have not sewed or quilted for months now! I need to get back into to it as it is enjoyable for me and I have so much fun watching all the pieces take shape into something fun.

Last christmas I made for one of my bosses a memory quilt. She had saved all her kids tshirts, school uniforms, pillow cases, etc-anything that had a special memory for that child. I had so much fun deciding which piece to put where and then doing the actual quilting. My boss, Bert, had a party at her house the other night and her son told me he sleeps with the quilt-how sweet is that?

I also made a grandchildren quilt for my mom and dad. There is really cool fabric that you can run thru your printer and the photos do not run. In the middle I embroidered "Fowkes Family Grandchilren". Now I need to figure out how to get an extra square on their as my sister in law is expecting another child.

I have almost finished Brandon's quilt for his bed-I just need to get it out and do it!! I also have all the fabric to make a butterfly applique quilt for Camryn's bed and a matching color scheme of frogs for a quilt for Colton's bed since the 2 of them share a room. I am just happy that all the costumes I spent hours making last year still fit all of them so it let's me off the hook.

My goal is to get my 1 year old cool quilting machine out and get these projects done instead of letting them collect dust in my room:)

But What Does Purple Mean?

Camryn is in preschool and is learning what the colors of the stoplight mean. The teacher uses the stoplight in her class so the kids know if their behavior is good or needs some work. Every day Camryn says "mommy, green means go, yellow means slow down and red means stop." I tell her "good job." Then she always asks me "what does purple mean?" I always say it is not a color on the stop sign but just a pretty color on the rainbow. That satisfies her for about 2 minutes and then she starts all over again and ends with "but what does purple mean?"

If any one has any suggestions, please let me know! She is not satisfied with my answer:)

My Boys

When will they ever learn that mom knows all that is going on? I heard the vacuum tumble over and trust me, I heard Darin, the loudest screamer ever known to mankind, let his feelings be known when he was lassoed by his big brother. I love all the Indiana Jones movies but I did not buy the last one just so my 4 boys could learn rope tricks:)
I had the privilege of meeting the funniest patient on Saturday. She has 2 boys and is from England. She has chronic lung problems and has a different sense of humor. As she said, some people just don't get it! I got her sense of humor and had fun listening to her tell stories about doctors, hospitals and her kids. She told one story when her kids were young and they were getting into some sort of trouble. She had her head cocked at a funny angle and her boys asked her what the heck she was doing. She told them "Don't you know, us mums come with eyes in the back of our heads so we know what you little buggers are doing!" I thought that was a classic. I went home and told my boys about it. I don't know if they believed me but I will have to try the head cock on them to let them know I am watching:)

Indiana Jones

Me and Darin (me=Brandon) just found a rope I got from a camp out with my patrol. I got bored so I swung it at the vacuum (I made sure my parents did not find out!) and it wrapped around it and I pulled and it toppled over!!! I figured that if it work on the vacuum it would work on my brothers. It worked very effectively and Darin toppled over (yyyyeeeessss!!!) and his face got red as usual when he is angry. I am just waiting for the perfect moment to get my dad. If you think this post shows that I have good grammar or punctuation my mom pestered me to correct it ssssiiiigggghhhh.

4 in the morning

It is early in the am and I cannot get back to sleep. So what do I do? I go on facebook, find a new skin to make my profile page look pretty. Then I decided to send a few more eggs to people (the virtual reality kind). Who thought these up?! They are cute but still cracks me up to send an egg to someone where it will hatch into something cute.

Then the devilish side comes out and I start superpoking people with all these little cool gadgets on Facebook. Won't all my friends love that when they log in this morning:) And I just know that my dear friend, Mary, will not fill out the application!

On a more fun note, we finally decorated the outside of our house completely for halloween. I just love watching Colton and Camryn's face light up. We were outside for an hour while they had to check and recheck every little thing. Their best friend Cameron Nussbaum came over and so we spent another hour pointing out all the decorations, their names and how scary they could be. I love to watch life thru the eyes of a 5, 4, and 3 year old. Reminds me that Heavenly Father made them so innocent for such a short while (age 8 is not that long!) I love how their cute little faces light up and they over talk each other to be heard. Then they start to giggle and that honestly is my favorite part. It was difficult physically and mentally to bring these last 2 children from Heavenly Father down to earth, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat for all the joy, laughter and love I receive from them on a daily basis. I just pray that I will be a good example to them and to be the best mom that I know how to be.

Tag

Ok, I did not know that adults played tag in the blogger world but here goes (thanks, Mary:))

1. What were you doing 5 years ago?
1. Just had my fourth newborn baby boy.
2. Was working as a triage RN but for another company.
3. Cubscout leader for my now 13 year old.
4. Trying to sell our smaller home for a bigger house for our expanding family.
5. Trying to stay sane (haha).

2. What are 5 things on my to do list today?
1. Go to the dr for yet another round of antibiotics for yet another kidney infection.
2. Go to target for necessary (and some not so necessary supplies) for halloween and the house in general.
3. Pick up the kids from school as a special treat for them.
4. Teach to cub scouts (webeloes) first aid, shock and heimlech manuever.
5. Take a nap as those cub scouts wore me out!!!

3. What are your 5 favorite snacks? (can I just put chocolate for all of them?!)
1. Reeses peanut butter cups
2. Chocolate ice cream with peanut butter on it
3. Hot chocolate and I put the flavored coffee creamer in it (like pumpkin spice -yummy)
4. Any chocolate cereal
5. See, I told you they were all chocolate. I even ate junior mints for dinner the other night as a stress reliever:)

4. What are 5 things I would be doing if I were a millionaire?
1. Pay off my mortgage.
2. Travel to Utah more often to see my mom, dad and brother and his family.
3. Teach the kids how to ski and snowboard (I will just look on as I am the biggest klutz)
4. Save money so that the kids could all attend college.
5. Would love to go to Europe to take in the sights and visit Rich's mission companion.

5. 5 places I lived
1. Columbus, Ohio
2. Naperville, Illinois
3. Dale City, Virginia
4. Provo, Utah
5. Mesa, Arizona

6. 5 jobs I have had
1. Roy Rogers (so much fun, got into so many food fights in the walk in fridge)
2. Telemarket (that lasted 2 months and I hated every minute of it)
3. Certified Nursing Assistant (which includes the lovely job of being a butt wiper-sorry!!)
4. Nursing Home RN (only lasted 4 months after finishing school, hated to be confined in one spot)
5. Hospice RN-my favorite job and will probably always be in this field.

7. 5 people to tag
1. Whoever wants to play:)
2. Nicole if she ever updates her blog!
3. My mom if she opened a real blog and not just one to post comments:)
4. The next person to read this?!
5. I don't know!
So there ya go! Funny how life has changed in the last 10 years but some things have stayed the same.

Michael Douglas Perry

I had the opportunity to learn alot about this cousin yesterday at his funeral. So many wonderful stories, relatives to hug, and tears to shed. He was born in 1962 and was the oldest of 4 children. His sister told stories of him rigging her science projects for her, being a father figure to the kids (parents were divorced when he was 9), and a memorable story of him saying he was the electrical god and putting up a ceiling fan without turning off the electricity:) His friend was there to say she still has burn marks on the ceiling.
His baby brother, Merrit, told stories of always helping Michael make any car become bigger, faster and better. He also said that when Michael was first starting up his company, he would send Merrit up into the attic (where it would be 130 degrees) and would shout up at him from below which wire to hook up to which place. Meanwhile, Michael would be down with the homeowner drinking lemonade and bossing his baby brother around. They were currently in the process of powering up Merrit's trans am-he has a whole bunch of high tech parts at his brothers shop-unfortuantely Michael passed away with Merrit's car all in pieces as the were getting ready the next week to put it back together.
We also heard of all the charity work he and his best friend, a dentist who passed on with him, did for the poor in Mexico. Michael would fly down there with him and assist his best friend with root canals, tooth extractions, etc. We also found out his dentist friend let him perform a few with his assistance. Aunt Virginia did not let this be brought out at the funeral, thank goodness! Instead, it was shared as cousins were all standing around, talking and bringing up memories.The saddest part was watching his little 3 year old Brynn and my daughter, Camryn throwing roses into the open grave and saying "goodbye Daddy." Neither girl knew what they were saying as they are too little to comprehend, plus the fact Camyrn's daddy was standing right across from her. When Rich and I went home, we gathered our children around us and thanked Heavenly Father that he has granted us the time to still be here on earth as a family together. I do not know how our whole extended family would have gotten thru this past week without the knowledge that there is a life after death and that Michael's family will be reunited with him once again. It would be so hard without having that testimony of God's eternal plan for families.

Nuts:)

Well ok I am a little nuts, I agree. But I am not as obsessed by Twilight as I thought I was. We went to the fall festival at our ward building on Saturday and guess what I found out from my friend Tammy? There are 30 women in the ward who have already purchased their tickets for the premiere night of the movie Twilight. So now I just say woohoo:) Let's go have some fun!

Still for Sale

Our not so little Maltese, Snowball, is still up for sale according to my husband and older son. I had to post these 2 things as they have just made me laugh even though the little underwear eater should know better by now:)
We took Colton and Camryn for a walk on Saturday as it was only 70 degrees here-that is amazing!! We went from 90 degree weather on Friday to a high of 70 on Saturday. The weather is crazy here at times. We took Snowball with us and he was a dirty mess when we got home. My husband offered to give him a bath (well, it was either give him a bath or write Dylan's talk for primary-and of course I chose the talk). That was a 2 hour chore:) That night we were sleeping and I always let Snowball sleep on the end of the bed. My husband got up early Sunday morning and came out of the bathroom not too happy. He asked if I had let the dog up on the bed at night-I said of course I did. Well, it seems the little underwear eating dog decided to take his revenge for his bath. He actually chewed on my husband's underwear while he was asleep!!! Cannot believe he slept thru that:)
This morning Brandon was playing with Snowball before school. He happened to have his very artistic book report in his hand. You guessed it-Snowball grabbed the report out of his hand and ran under my bed. The report is due today!!! We only found a corner of the top of the report. Brandon and I searched the whole house and we cannot find the rest of the report. I told Brandon "you will have to tell the teacher the dog ate your homework." Brandon said "seriously mom, the teacher is going to think I am lying!" So I wrote the teacher a long note and had Brandon take the part of his report we could find. I also emailed the teacher. First time I have ever had to excuse one of my kids from an assignment with the real reason being "the dog ate my homework!" My dear friend in Virginia needs a puppy for her kids-I wonder how much it costs to send a dog in the mail:)

Sleeping Children

Isn't she cute? My other kids would not allow me to post their pictures of them sleeping. I love that time of night when I can go in and kiss them all good night while they are sleeping. The teenager cannot complain about the kisses and neither can the 10 year old. I still get kisses all the time from my younger three. So yes, I will continue to sneak them from the older ones while they are sleeping as I have learned that they are growing up way too fast. I do get hugs from them, thank goodness!

Twilight the Movie

Ok bloggers - I have officially circled the date of Nov. 21 for the Twilight movie. We watched the movie trailer on TV last night and on the official website. Brandon, who originally said he would not like the movie, saw the preview and cannot wait either. It is proving to be as highly anticipated as the next Harry Potter movie, which is now not being released until summer. It will be fun to see the director's intrepretation of the book. I also found a local artist who is making jewelry after reading the book and meeting the author. She also lives in sunny AZ and we found out we had many similarities of family and friends-what a fluke:) She makes the jewelry (not only from the book series) from glass, copper, dried flowers-just to name a few of the elements she works with. Fascinating to me as I am not crafty with jewelry at all!!!

Boys!!

I would like to know how my house has become one of constant burping contests (Dylan won with his 1 minute burp), wrestling, light saber fights, constant "where is the food" and "there is nothing to eat". They seem to be always foraging thru the fridge, especially Dylan. He thinks that if he does not eat every 2 hours that he is going to starve. You would think he would be overweight instead he is just sturdy and taller than his 10 year old brother, which has not earned him any points with Darin:)

Then there is the 13 year old who is getting text messages from his friend at 11 pm at night. His phone woke me up and it was his friend saying that Alex (a girl!) was just too grumpy. So of course I texted the boy back saying Brandon was asleep and who in the heck was Alex? Received a very brief message saying " a friend". Brandon says she is just a good friend that has some of his same likes. Will have to keep my eye on this! Brandon is now going to have to turn his phone off at 9pm as I don't need Linkin Park blasting thru the house at full volume just because his friend is awake and feels like texting him........

Hospice Nurses

I thought I should tell you a little bit about what hospice nursing is besides race car driving-which no one appreciated:) Anyways, I became interested in the hospice field when my Grandpa Fowkes was very ill with terminal colon cancer. My Uncle Greg took great care of him at home until the day he passed away. This was while I was still in college and working as a certified nursing assistant. My first day of working hospice I knew I was in the right place, and this was when I was bathing people, changing them, shopping for them, among other activites.

I love to listen to the patient's stories and hear about what they used to do for a living, their family stories, pictures, insights into life. They have so much to share and sometimes no one to share it with. Most people think of nurses as taking vital signs (which I do), being poked at with needles and all the other high tech stuff that can come with the profession. I am lucky that I don't have to do all those things. I am able to spend time with these lovely people and really listen to them. My patience skills with my kids are not the best (at they will attest to) but when it comes to the patients I can sit there and look at pictures and listen to the stories for hours. And when they reach the stage where they are about to pass on to Heaven, I am able to help their loved ones tell them it is ok to let go and encourage them to hold their hands and still give them kisses and hugs.

I tried to post a picture my mom sent me of my Grandpa and Grandma Cowley along with my grandpa's sisters. They were watching the olypmic's in 1990. But I could not get the post to work!!! It was not until later in life that I found out my Grandma Cowley was a flapper (and a very good looking one:)). They were married during the depression and lived in a tent while my Grandpa built their house from the ground up. That house is still standing today in Holladay, Utah. My Grandpa was a fireman, mechanic and liked to stir up trouble when he was younger from the stories I hear. It is fun to hear these stories as I remember my Grandpa as a quiet man-but I think that is because he would not wear his hearing aides!!! My Grandma had the best laugh and I can still hear it today, even though she passed on 7 years ago. My Grandma Fowkes taught Kindergarten in Payson, Utah and I am amazed the people I run into that know her or of her. My Grandpa Fowkes worked on a farm, construction and we could always look forward to riding in the back of his truck when we visited them. He also used to sneak us candy when Grandma and parents were not looking. When I was in college, I had to have an emergency appendectomy and he picked me up and I stayed with him for a week while I was recouperating. I defenitely had better food than what my roommates or I could cook!

So this is why I went into Hospice nursing, to make a difference in people's lifes at a difficult time. I may show some stupidity now and then to help me cope with all the loss I see, but I promise no more texting and driving!! So mom, quit calling me dumb:)

Tantrums

You may have already seen this video on youtube. I had to put it on here as I know, as a mother, there are times I wished I could have done this in the middle of a store!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxXIhM9nd2o

Texting and Driving

I work as a triage hospice nurse and I have a great LPN who goes out and sees the patients. I am lucky enough to be able to do the majority of my work from home. Tonight was just a little bit different-2 patients decided to pass on to the other side within 10 minutes of each other. The funny part was (we hospice nurses find humor wherever we can get it!) that both patients lived in the town of Surpise (what a dumb name for a town-I mean really) AZ. We both live in Mesa so it was a 100 mile round trip for the both of us. We decided to make a game of it on the way there and have a race. So the 2 of us were texting, driving stick shifts, and racing:) Not a very smart idea as we were on major freeways the whole way, not to mention that texting and driving is illegal in Phoenix. But I do have to say we had great fun doing it!!! I call her Lightening McQueen as she always seems to get places very quickly-and yes, darn it all, I lost! We both decided when we arrived at our destinations that we should not play the game on the way home as we were lucky that neither of us got pulled over or got in a wreck. And for my sweet friend in Virginia, please do not tell your husband what we were doing:) I do not want to get a ticket in the mail!! And mom, do not have a heart attack over this:) She was lucky (or she will tell you unlucky) enough to ride with me when I was triaging and driving. My mom was not too impressed that I could drive with my knees and make a phone call at the same time. I guess the car is not the place to multitask!

Conference

Hopefully you are able to read this. I love to play with the colors and fonts. Unfortunately I am approaching 40 and sometimes I cannot read my posts!! It was so great today to be able to watch general conference. We are so blessed to be able to hear from a living prophet twice a year and from his apostles. I can always find something that applies to me or our family. Our primary music director called conference a holiday they celebrate in their family. I thought that was cute! She said that the word holiday came from holy day and in her view conference days were holy days. The little children thought that was great. She talked about the tradition they had of each child picking out a pint of ice cream and they could eat it any time during conference-breakfast, afternoon, whenever. Other kids said they had a special breakfast or dinner. Our family is just lucky to all sit in the same room, actually sit down and be quiet and listen:) I consider that a huge accomplishment. Especially if no one sticks their feet on somebody or touches someone-you get the idea! My husband is also enjoying the fact that finally one of our boys is old enough to go to the priesthood session with him and his father. Someday it will just be Camryn and I home-we will have to do something fun-like shopping:) I do have to add that I did not trot my kids down to my work to breathe on my boss-I really wanted too but thought that would not be very Christian of me!! Lucky for him-right:)

Bosses!

We have the upset tummy throwing up bug at our home. Of course it is my week to work. I called in sick and my boss told me "he would not allow it!" Since when are you not allowed a sick day?! I told him fine, I would just throw up all the way to the hospital to see a patient and all the way home. He said ok and then proceeded to tell me how he has worked out at the gym every single day this week. Does he think I CARE?! And what the heck does that have to do with being sick-is he telling me that if I work out at the gym I won't be sick? Dumbest comment I have ever heard him say!
I think I will go to our office tomorrow with the sick kids in tow and have them breathe all over him. Then when he gets sick I and all the nurses I work with can tell him "we won't allow you to be sick;)" Sounds like a good plan.............