Remembering Aunt LaNore

Neoma LaNore Crapo Harris, 1931-2008

Michael's aunt LaNore Harris died yesterday of cancer. She had cancer about a year ago and took some experimental drug. The drugs worked and she was cancer free for awhile, but it recently came back, this time in her lungs. Last week they let her go home, because that was where she wanted to die, there wasn't anymore they could do for her. I only met aunt LaNore a handful of times but she was a wonderful person. We stayed at her house, pitched a tent in the yard, the summer of 2007 for a family reunion. I'm glad that I had a chance to get to know a little about her.

What next??

Okay, so I told you about the herniated discs in my back. Well no sooner had we gotten used to the idea of paying out the nose for it that I took Aaron to the eye Dr. and found out that he has a pretty serious problem called muscle inefficiency in his eyes. That means that the muscles aren't working together. When you or I look at our finger moving towards our nose, our eyes track that and come in together. Aaron's eye's don't come together. When he is watching something swinging in front of his eyes he doesn't follow that in a smooth motion, his eyes don't follow and then they jump to catch up.

So this muscle inefficiency is going to require about 18 weeks of once-a-week therapy in the office and lots of homework. Not to mention the cost. Yikes! We can get a discount by making one payment of the whole thing, but even that is a huge chunk of change. And who has that much money just laying around? Normal people make payments.

As if his eye's aren't enough, when I took him in for his dental cleaning the dentist told me that we should start thinking about braces for him. I knew he was going to need them, his mouth is just too small for all of his adult teeth they are already crowded in there and he doesn't even have all his adult teeth yet. I'm just not ready for that yet.(Annie is going to have the same problem with her small mouth).

Can anything else come up? The new year isn't even here and we've already spent all and then some of Michael's cafeteria fund.

It seems like we have plans made and something comes up. We need to get my bedroom redone so we can move back in there, but the money keeps going other places. There's never enough to go around. I remember a thing I heard once. There's more month at the end of the money, or something like that. More month at the end of the money, then money at the end of the month.

Herniated Discs

So I found out why I'm experiencing this wonderful pain. I have three, yes 3, herniated discs in my neck. How did that happen? Anyway I'm going to the chiropractor everyday, I'm going to be going a whole lot for the next year to get this healed. I am currently being stretched everyday to get the discs back into place in my neck. It sure makes my shoulders hurt. But I guess it's always been no pain no gain, right? So because I've been avoiding the chiropractor for the last 5+ years I now get to see him a whole lot this next year. Great! But I guess I'd rather do this then have surgery, yikes, no thanks.

Thanksgiving & Shopping

Thanksgiving was spent with Michael's family this year. We rotate Christmas and Thanksgiving between the two families. We had Thanksgiving dinner at his grandmother Liz's in Vernal. It was a rather small event this year. Most of Michael's family was there, one Uncle with family, and one cousin with husband and child for a total of 25. So it was really a small gathering compared to past years when there has been 50 or more.

After dinner most everyone helped split and stack wood for grandma. They were going to hang Christmas lights but it got to cold.

I stopped at the store on the way home to get pull-ups and Benadryl, and found a really good deal on winter coats for the girls and Ethan. They were 50% off, I wasn't going to get them but then realized that it was a one day sale. I was going to get myself a new coat too, but even at 50% off one for me was just too much. I never come out of the store with just what I went in for, there's always something else. I went in for pull-ups and Benadryl and came out having spent $180+ for pull-ups, Benadryl, socks for 3 girls, & 4 coats.

Seen Twilight?

Michael took me to see Twilight last night. I was really excited to see this great movie that everyone has been talking about, and hey it was based on this really awesome book I had read so I was really excited to see it. Boy, what a let down. It was okay, but I think it was a much better movie in my head when I was reading the book. Of course they couldn't do Edward or his family justice, the worst one was Dr. Cullen, could they have caked his face on anymore? And there was so much more of the book that wasn't in the movie. Also, a lot of the stuff, if you hadn't read the book you would have been clueless about things. I was sitting there in the theatre explaining things to my husband because it just wasn't clear in the movie. I should know better then to see a movie based on a GREAT book I have read because it never measures up. The Chronicles of Narnia was the same way, movies just don't do great books justice.

Avoiding the chiropractor, Not anymore

So I haven't been to a chiropractor in 5+ years, and there is a reason for that, I don't like to hear that snap, crackle, pop. I hate it even more when I feel it. So anyway on Monday I was feeling really awful, bad enough that I wanted to cry, so I gave in and made an appointment. Now Michael gets to say, next time don't wait so long.

So on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I went and had snap, crackle, and pop. It wasn't getting any better, in fact it was getting worse, the pain and numbness was moving down my arm. So he tells me that I need to go have an MRI done because I might have a disc out. Great! So now I feel worse then I did on Monday and I'm going to have another huge bill at the hospital.

Life sucks, and it really sucks getting old and having a body that is falling apart. I really could just lay down and die because of how bad it hurts. Hopefully after this MRI he will be able to make it better. Wasn't that why I went to him in the first place?

Wedding Bells

So any of you that know my sister, Caroline, she is getting married. I don't know the details yet I just know that she is now engaged. His name is David Mangum (I think that's his last name), anyway, they've been dating about a month and he popped the question on Wednesday. She hasn't even shared the good news with me yet, I had to hear this from Julia.

Ammon's 7th Birthday & Erica's 3rd Birthday

I have looked and looked and I can't find pictures for their birthday's. I'm sure that I took them I just don't know what happened to them.

Strep

Yuck, I started feeling yucky on Friday with just a tickle in my throat. It slowly got worse until this morning when I got up I knew I was really sick. It hurt to swollow, my glands were really swollen, I was either too cold or too hot, and my head hurt, really bad. I have had strep throat enough times to know when I have it. So even though I can self-diagnose I can't prescribe medication. So I had to take a trip to the Dr. just for him to tell me that I did have strep and for him to give me two prescriptions, one mouth rinse called Magic Mouth to numb my throat so I can eat and one antibiotic disguised as a horse pill.

I hadn't really thought about it until Michael was talking to his mother about my strep and she asked if I could have gotten it from Ethan. See I took Ethan to the Dr. on Friday because he had had a red bum all last week and it didn't matter what I put on it, it just wasn't getting better. So the Dr. took one look at Ethan, did a rapid strep test to confirm his suspicians and low and behold Ethan had Perianal Streptococcal Dermatitis, something I had never heard about. So I don't know if I could have somehow gotten the strep bacteria from him or not. I suppose anything is possible.

I felt like crap all day, sleeping most of it on the couch encased in blankets, thankfully the girls and Ethan were pretty well behaved. Michael actually was able to leave work early(that doesn't happen very often) and come home and take care of the kids while I slept some more, this time in bed. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow.

Halloween Costumes

We had our ward Fall Festival/Halloween Party last night. The kids got to dress up and go trick-or-treating to members of the ward.

Ethan was just himself for the party, I was so busy with getting the costumes on the other kids that I didn't have time to go get the box of costumes from upstairs that I'm sure has a small costume that will fit him.

Erica is a princess, she looks so cute all dressed up. She was just missing her crown, I forgot to buy one when we went shopping for the costumes on Saturday.

Emily couldn't make up her mind what she wanted to be, first it was supergirl, then a princess, but when she saw this costume at the store she insisted that she be Bat-girl



Annie wanted to be a princess but when she found these butterfly wings she changed her mind. She does make a cute pink butterfly(she even has a butterfly painted on her cheek).

Ammon is the batman from Dark Knight, it's hard to tell what his costume is without the mask, but of course he can't wear it anywhere, he won't even be able to wear it to school for his halloween party there. Maybe I'll have to put some black paint on his face.

Aaron is a wicked wizard, I think that's what he said anyway. He has this thing with wizards, I think for the last four years he's been a wizard.