Thursday, November 15th,
2007
It hasn't been the
best couple of weeks at the Foede household, to say the least.
We've all gone through our slight colds, but Dylan took the hardest
hit. For a week he had the typical runny nose, and then it
progressed in to a wheezing, hacking cough coupled with a slight
fever. And he is miserable when he is sick. "Mom, Mom, Mom!
I need medicine. Tell me a story. I need a movie.
Wipe my nose. I need juice." Lather, rinse, repeat.
He is better now, though for a while when one of us simply couldn't
accommodate him in his demands right away, he'd get extremely
upset. In doing so, he discovered that if he got mad enough, he
could make himself vomit. And then he'd run around in circles
yelling "I puked. It's gross!" (Pronounced pooked, by the way, so
that we had to try to hide smiles, while cleaning the 'pook'.)
The good news is that he is potty-trained finally. But he insists
on wearing his underwear backwards because the picture is then on the
front. He has a point, but how uncomfortable must that be?
I think I'll introduce him to boxers (or underpants without Cars
characters on them!) It did serve it's purpose though,
because he refused to urinate on Lightning McQueen or Mater.
 As expected, Mark
kept his job at Boston Scientific. He reports that the severance
packages were so good that those that did leave left with smiles on
their faces. He has one co-worker whose wife got a job in
Chicago, and he we has going to put in his two week notice, but decided
to wait to hear how he fared. Sure enough, he was let go, and
instead of job-hunting, now has the next year in pay, bonus, and
medical at his disposal. This is a picture of a sunrise we took
outside our kitchen door.
About a week ago Zach was complaining about his mouth hurting, and
pointed to a bottom tooth. I didn't see anything wrong with it,
and noticed that his 12-year molars were coming in and suggested that
perhaps that is what was bothering him. The next day he
complained about a top tooth, and I peeked at the took, checked to make
sure the bracket wasn't coming off, and didn't see anything. I
didn't hear anything about it again. I noticed that he wasn't
eating well, and he was more lethargic than usual, and finally two days
ago he said he wasn't sleeping well because his mouth hurt. So I
checked his gums, and sure enough they were swollen and red. We
tried a day of brushing well and rinsing with antiseptic mouthwash, but
it didn't look any different. I suspected, because it was most
swollen above the tooth he chipped 5 years ago, that the trauma finally
caught up to him and had him see the dentist this AM. Sure
enough, the tooth is infected, dying, and needs a root
canal! He's pretty scared and wishing that he never climbed on
the counter to reach something in the cupboard. Step one of the root
canal is on Monday. Step two is going to be a few months
away...they want to watch the root and see if it closes on it's own
(apparently it has an opening which is unusual) before permanently
sealing it. It's not supposed to disrupt his orthodontics (but
who knows!) These teeth that have root canals often get brittle
without the blood supply, and have to have crowns. But his
dentist says that will have to wait until his braces are done.
Gabby has been busy finding new friends and being invited places.
It's fun to see her thrive here, and not have to drive so far to get
her to a friends house. Alisabeth is a little envious, and I
asked the Mom of a little girl if we could set up a play date.
She agreed it would be fun. I did make a faux pas though.
My first Sunday someone introduced herself to me, and then introduced
her granddaughter that she brings. I thought Alisa's friend was
this lady, and said something about her granddaughter. She made a
face that made me immediately realized my mistake, and I said "She's
not your granddaughter, is she?" Nope, sure enough it's her
daughter. I apologized and said that I met so many people on my
first Sunday that I was confusing them, and we speculated on who it
might have been. Mark says "Nice recovery" but I feel awful about
it!
Reese is doing well. Her 4 month well baby checkup is next week (at 5
months!), and I'll update her page then. In a nutshell, she is
sitting well, but chooses to slide on to her tummy so that she can get
around, grabbing everything, loves the sound of her fingernails raking
things, and cute as a bug!
(Top)
Thursday, November 1st , 2007
Every year, after the
Christmas Holidays, I tell the kids "Wow, only 9 months until
Halloween!" or "Hey, we're half-way to Christmas already." So I
don't know why November comes and surprises me that it's already here,
that I have 4 weeks until it's time to put up the tree and lights
(which is questionable this year.) But we are all glad that the
bees seem to have begun their hibernation, and are hopeful that the Box
Elder bugs will soon follow.
We had a fun Halloween. Zach decided to not dress up this year,
and to stay home trick-or-treating. I decided that if he gets to
take a break after 12 years, so do I! So we made Reese's outfit,
put her in it for all of 20 minutes, and then relaxed as Mark found a
neighborhood in the city limits to take the kids. I was a little
sad that I'd miss Dylan, but told the other kids I wanted a full
report. When they came home they told me that he rang the
doorbell to every house, said 'Trick-or-treat" and 'Thank you" and then
turned around and jumped from the front stoop to the sidewalk,
sometimes losing candy on the way down. Alisa wasn't sure what
she wanted to be. First it was a witch. Then it was a
ballerina. Then a movie star. Then an indian (to which I
told her she was not allowed to dress up as an indigenous person, and
recommended that she change it to Kaya, the Indian girl from the
American Doll collection, or Sacagawea, the Lewis and Clark guide. Then
we found a really good costume from Grandma Bonnie's suitcase of
clothes that would have made a perfect Professor Delores Umbridge, but
Alisabeth took umbrage (ha, we love how JK Rowling tied some of her
characters into their names...Xenophilous is perfect for the man
who loves strange things!) Finally in the end she decided on being a
movie star. Ethan decided on being an outlaw, Gabby a Gypsy (we
made the dress, the shawl, and the head band out of our satin sheets
that we didn't like because the caused the the bedspread to fall right
off the bed, they were so slippery!) Dylan was a clown (a costume Mark
wore as a child, and each of the children have, with I think the
exception of Gabby who was really stubborn about not wearing it!)
Pictures can be found HERE.
Zach is having a blast with his new scout troop, though he misses his
old one. Last Saturday they went fishing at Lake Mille Lacs and
he caught a 20" walleye. Mark went with and caught a 17"
one. Unfortunately, the slot limit for walleye's on that
particular lake is 14"-16", so neither one was a keeper. Zach is
going skiing in December, and next weekend has a camp out. He was
called into his quorum's presidency as the secretary, and now just
needs a leadership role in scouting so that he can continue to work
towards his Life rank. We are skipping band this year, because
school had already started and he didn't want to join in late, but he
will practice on his own so that next year he can fit right in.
Ethan is enjoying scouts as well. Alisa and Dylan both have made
lots of friends, though Dylan misses his good friend Payson, and cries
every time we pull into our garage for 'Grandma's house'. Gabby
has made a ton of friends, and went to a halloween party, but emails
her old friends every day.
We did pictures of the kids on our own down at the Rum River. You
can see some of them in my new 'signature' at the top of the
blog. I'll have to look into having them printed on quality
paper, and not just stuff you buy at Office Max, as a replacement for
going to a portrait studio. The kids finished one Primary Program, and
have their other one in 2 weeks. They have their parts memorized
and know the songs forward and back.
We have a lot of deer around here. I don't like to drive at night
when they sit on the side of the road. I always envision them
like the squirrels on the car insurance commercial who high-five each
other after causing an accident. Today 4 adult does ran through
our backyard, and 5 minutes later 2 young deer followed. We could
see the tops of all of them congregating over the small hill behind the
house before prancing off. It's fun to watch them leap!
Mark is doing well at work. He doesn't anticipate being part of
the massive lay-off that is looming (though he says with the severance
package they are offering, some of his co-workers are hoping they are
involved...it's that good!) I am fine. I feel so honored to
be in a church ward where two of my heroes attend church (though I know
they
would dislike being called that if they knew.) One for how she has
raised her family, and the other for being the most brilliant person I
know, but so kind. This is the type of person who could reprimand you
over a comment you make or an opinion that you held that was unkind or
unfair, but she'd say it
so gently that you wouldn't realize it until about 3 days later. I've
grown up some since I've been in a ward with her, so let's hope the
reprimands are no longer needed, and I can just soak up her wisdom and
knowledge instead!
Anyway, Reese is crying to go to sleep, so I should sign off.
Until next time! (Top)
Friday, October 12th , 2007
Happy October, one of my favorite times of year (besides the extreme
activity of the bees and wasps at this time of year, yuck!) I
hate going shopping with the kids and have a bee by our groceries in
the cart. I am sure we look completely sane as we all stand by
the car waiting for it to go away and then shout 'Hurry, get in the
van, shut the flipping door, oh no the bee went into the bag!'.
Glad it's almost winter and we can look forward to snow and bee-less
shopping outings!
The kids are home from Arizona and had a great time. Ethan and
Alisa want to go next. We were going to all go to pick them up
from the airport, but the airplane was delayed by a couple of
hours. Before knowing that, I asked Alisa if she wanted to come
with to pick up Gabby. She said, in a scared, quiet voice, 'Will
you come with me?' I said 'Of course I will, we'll all go!' to
which she responded 'Should we pack our suitcases now?' I said
'Why would we pack suitcases?' and she said 'To fly to Arizona to pick
up Gabby!' She was relieved that we'd just be driving to the
airport, and not actually flying. Because they were so late, she
didn't see Gabby until the next morning, and immediately jumped on the
poor sleeping girl and hugged her. Alisa faithfully prayed for
Gabby everyday, and sent her an email card (she sent one to Zach to,
but only under duress!) "Please bless that Gabby is having fun,
and that Gabby is safe, and that Gabby knows I'll miss her, and that
Gabby can fly safe. Oh and I guess bless Zach too. Alisa is
turning out to be a pretty funny girl. At grandma's house, on
first seeing the bear rug hanging on the wall, she ran upstairs and
said "Mom, grandpa caught a bear, and it turned into a rug!" or when
Zach was going to make apple crisp but we needed more apples I told her
"Alisa, I'm running to the store to get more apples" she said "So
grandma already has the crisp here?" Dylan went through several
phases as well, such as the "now" phase where ever sentence ended with
"now" or the "it...a" phase ("I love it a hair, Gabby...I love it a
juice, Mommy"..."Give it a Legos to me, Ethan". Now he is
repeating the word 'the' as in "Give it the the the the the the juice
to me."
Reese is doing well, and her updates can be read HERE.
The kids are doing well in school. We are back into the swing of
things, although we can't seem to find the time to do French through
the library system like we should. I bet if I could find Harry
Potter in French they'd be fluent in no time! I think there is a
French-speaking woman in our new ward, as I was walking the halls with
Reese I heard her tell her son that they needed to get back because
sacrament meeting would soon be done (apparently 4 years in high school
and 1 year in college will do something for you!) Perhaps I could hire
a tutor instead. (On second thought, with a mortgage now doubled,
perhaps her French speaking son would like to come over and play and
only speak French!) We like our new ward. They are taking a
trip to Nauvoo next week, but Mark is out of time-off, due to the
cruise, the baby, and moving. Tomorrow the ladies are having a
'ladies night out' that I am looking forward too. And my brother
Brendan is home from Iraq for a couple weeks, and my family is having a
'Christmas in October' for him, where we can all get together. So
life is good. Busy, but good! (Top)
Tuesday, September 25th,
2007
We are back online! In our rush to move out, I didn't update the
blog about the house we purchased (which was none from the previous
entry) and instead sent out an email with the details. For those
who didn't get the email, I'll paste it to the end of this entry.
After living with Mark's parents for 5 weeks, we closed and moved into
our house in Princeton. Their generosity and patience is
astounding! With the exception of Ethan's pack meeting on the
26th (where he will get 2 yellow beads, his Wolf badge, 1 gold
arrowpoint, and 3 yellow arrowpoints!) the Primary Program that we've
been asked to attend in Hutch on Oct. 21st, and the Christmas Program
on the 15th, we are ready to begin attendance in the Princeton
ward. I took Zach to a youth temple trip, so I wasn't there on
moving day, but apparently 25 people showed up to help move (or play
with our toys, as it were) and the missionaries and 2 women have
stopped by to say "Hi!" Mark was released from his calling during
branch conference on Sunday, and though I wasn't released, my name was
called for re-sustaining of all presidencies. So far we are
loving the house. We'll love it more when the basement is
finished though!
Ethan's baptism and Reese's name and blessing went very well.
Thank you to all who came and supported us, sent a card/email, or
thought of us on that day. Pictures of the event can be found HERE, and
updated Kid pictures can be found HERE.
Alisa is going to take after me with her emotions. Gabby is gone
to Arizona with Zach and Bonnie and Gary, and she cries every day about
missing her. And just now, she said "Aw, Reese you are so cute!"
and then she started crying because she would miss her looking like a
baby when she grows up. I tried to tell her that you think you'll
miss that, but that each age is so special that you never want to go
back to an earlier one. Speaking of Reese, I know I desperately
need to update her page, but I have to find my notebook where I wrote
down all her updates, and it was packed with the other homeschooling
notebooks. In a nutshell, she LOVES her Mommy and won't let anyone else
hold or touch her without crying, she scoots on her tummy, she is
gorgeous, is 15 pounds, 25 inches, scoots out of her car seat and
bouncy seat, loves her exersaucer, loves to stand on my lap, and smiles
and squeals.
So Zach and Gabby are in Arizona. They flew out on Sunday.
I used flightaware.com to track their flight, and took a screen capture
of when I was able to relax and smile. I think Saturday's flight
will be a lot easier on me. Mark will pick them up at the
airport late, so I won't be there to see them come in, so that the
other kids can get to bed at a decent time. I've talked to them on the
phone each night, and so far it sounds like they loved the flight,
loved the Grand Canyon, and were looking forward to Red Lobster.
There's nothing like those two being gone to remind me how much I
appreciate all they do for me!
Zach had a great time
at scout camp, and at his court of honor the following week he received
4 merit badger (camping, emergency prep, wilderness survival, and ???)
and his Star scout award. Gabby loved Valley Fair, said the new
rollercoaster is awesome.
The day of Zach's temple trip we also went and saw the I-35W bridge
collapse site, and took the time to see St. Anthony's Falls, the UofM
campus, but most importantly (eh?) Dinkytown, which the kids thought
was a hilarious name. Wonder what they'd say if I told them
there's a Frog Town too?
Coming off of the 10th Ave. bridge reminded me why I chose the virtual
frozen tundra that is Duluth as opposed to the cities campus.
What a zoo!
(email excerpt)
As far as
purchasing a house, we've put an offer on a house (and it was accepted)
in Princeton.
They started
off at $279,000, and have dropped to $249,000, where they were going to
stay. They bought the house in 2002 for $229,000, and have put in
around $30,000 into appliances, the deck in front, and partially
finishing the basement. We went and saw it and loved it, but just
could not comfortably afford $249,000. A few weeks later, their
realtor contacted ours to see how we liked it (I guess a common
practice among realtors) and said that the owners of this house have a
conditional offer on their dream home, a foreclosure, and that 6 other
offers were pending on it, but that all offers were contingent on the
sale of their home; so whoever sold theirs first would get the
house. He said that they were willing to come to the table
breaking even. So they dropped the price $22,000 and are paying
our closing costs ($5,000). We are getting their house, with all
updates, partial finishing of the basement, appliances, and their
supply of drywall that will finish the basement, for $2,000 less then
they paid for it, thanks to the equity they made in mortgage payments
in 5 years! We are supposed to close on September 10th, but it's still
contingent on the homeowners getting their dream house (which I'd love
to see). No idea when I'll get the final word.
(Top)
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
The house is sold! It has passed it's
inspection, and we just needed to add a lock to the upstairs door for
the FHA appraisal. We are set to close on
August 28th at 10:00 AM. We are excited, but it is SO soon.
The housing market is really awful around here, and we were warned to
expect at least 9 months on the market. We fasted and prayed that
God's will be done, and 2 months later we are scrambling to find a
house to move in to. Last weekend we looked at over 20 houses
(and thank goodness for the internet, I can't imagine not being able to
weed out houses by pictures...it would be HUNDREDS!) We came up
with a top 5 that we like. We called them by their code
names. #1 was Brady Bunch. It is in Big Lake, in the Sand
Dune state forest on 4 acres (mostly wooded.) It looked like the
Brady Bunch house. The woods had some suspicious plants (leaves
of 3 leave them be AND berries white run in fright!) and the house
would need some finishing to make a 5th bedroom and a family
room. #2 was 4Bed4Bath in Zimmerman which was really cute, had an
office that could be a non-conforming 5th bedroom on 2.5 acres.
It had a deck in back with a screened in porch underneath. We
would have needed to bid 10% lower, and they had already reduced by
$30,000. 10 % would have given them no profit. #3 was fruit
tree, also in Zimmerman. Cute older home on 4.5 acres that had
lots of trees, some of them fruit trees in the front. Needed
updating in the kitchen, and needed a storage room to become a 5th
bedroom. #4 was knotty pine, which was a typical split level on
2.5 acres in Princeton. The basement was finished in knotty pine,
but would have had to have a bedroom added. #5 was a CUTE house
in Becker on 2.5 acres. It was perfect, but was on a pond, backed
up to a major road which was loud, and was a longer drive to work for
Mark.
But the house we like the best we didn't
expect too. It is a quick-sale from a bank before having to
foreclose on it. It's only 3 bedrooms and 1 bath. The price
listed on the internet was more than $60,000 less than what it started
out as, and it needs a quick closing date. And it is subject to
'bank approval'. (We thought that meant the buyers...apparently
not!) So we put in an offer at what it was listed at + closing
costs and the bank said they wouldn't take it for less than $30,000
more than that. We asked our realtor how a realtor can get away
with listing a house at a price that the bank didn't know about and
apparently that is where the 'bank approval' comes in. You can
get it for that price if the bank says it's okay (but they likely
won't.) Heck, why not write $1, subject to bank approval?
Anyway, they came down $20,000 and we agreed to go up $18,000 and
closing costs, and then our realtor asked them to come down $2000 more
(without consulting us!) so we don't know where we stand right
now. It's also a split level (which I really don't like, but this
is okay because it has fairly good sized entry and a mudroom to make if
feel less like you either have to go up or down.) It has upgraded
cabinets and appliances, so that is nice. We'd probably have
enough cash to finish the basement before we move in (adding the deck
and the screened porch like on 4bed4bath would have to wait though!)
The bedrooms upstairs are small, so it will be interesting to see how
we could finish the basement (hmm, fireplace? built in fish
tank? whirlpool tub?) (Did I mention it's in Big Lake on
2.5 acres, about 5 mintues from Brady Bunch?) There is no landscaping
(other than sandburr plants (which our realtor called jumping cactus')
so we'd have to work hard at that) and the well water is SUPER rusty so
we'd have to figure out how to resolve that. It's common in Big Lake,
if seeing red stains all over buildings accounts for anything!)
If this one didn't work out, there is another cute one in Princeton,
but it needs kitchen cabinets, appliances, central air, and a furnace
(and I think the owners took all that with them, because it looks like
it used to have cabinets in it.) Or we could go for Brady Bunch and try
to get rid of the poison ivy (if that is what it is...maybe it isn't!)
In other news, Mark was summoned to jury
duty, but we won't be living in the county at that time so it's a moot
point.) Brendan's wedding was lovely. I am attaching a
couple of pictures (removed for space.) I've been trying to learn
vignetts on
Photoshop and these (along with Reese's on her page) are my first
efforts. The picture of Brendan and Amanda originally was outdoors with
my brother Kirk praying between them. It took some work to erase what I
didn't want and put it on a black background.) Anyway, it was nice to
be invited and for Brendan and Amanda to work hard to make it possible
for his family to be able to witness it (can you imagine not being
invited due to space? Or worse yet discovering that only one side
was invited for whatever reason?)
Zach passed his scout camp swimmers test. He
leaves next Saturday and will be gone a week. Gabby went to Valley Fair
with the Girl Scouts. Ethan and I went to Harry Potter #5.
Alisa can't stop singing the 'spider pig' song from the Simpson's movie
comercial, and was delighted to simpsonize herself at
simpsonizeme.com. Dylan is not only a rugrat, he is
dangerous. I woke up this morning and smelled something funny in
the dining room. After searching I discovered he had gotten into
a LOCKED closet, got out the iron, plugged it in an outlet hidden
behind a chair, put it on high, and left it there all night. I
about passed out! We could have all burned. It was leaning up
against the plug in for the baby monitor, which now has a corner that
is brown and melted (at least it was a crappy monitor from a garage
sale and never really worked!) That child is a menace, and obviously a
simple hook lock isn't going to work, we'll have to get an actual lock
to store potentially dangerous things. I got on my knees and
thanked God for His protection first thing! (Top)
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