letters to Beth {dreams, foam animals, & Radon}

my built in baby gym, 

to distract and lock chase in one spot while i change his diaper,

but better b/c brennan and max don't clobber this one all hours of the day like they do the real baby gym i have now moved back down into the basement.

winning:)

......

Dear Beth,

Last night I had a dream that Sean and I flew to Germany with expired passports with my neighbor Briar {I love her name, don't you?}, but we didn't get to see you b/c we weren't going to the part of Germany you are living, which is funny b/c i don't know any other parts of Germany other than the one you are living in. And we walked through these dirt mountains, and i think there may have been some kind of a river or stream next to us. And then Sean woke me up to tell me he was leaving for work. Tragic. 

I miss you more than words can express!!! Every time I see the Hobbit previews I think about making a sandwich with you in your parent's kitchen in Chico, eating chicken drumsticks down to the cartilage, and slathering raspberry butter and honey onto baked scones during conference. On Christmas Eve one of the channels on TV was airing all of the LOTR movies, and I told Sean if the next one was the first one we had to watch the Shire scene until Bilbo disappears and things get scary {b/c i really only like the happy shire part of that movie anyway}, but it wasn't that one that was on, it was the two towers, so we watched It's a Wonderful Life instead. It was pure joy for my Christmas wrapping heart, even though I was sad I didn't get to see my Shire parts. When you come again, we MUST drink water from jars, and eat scones with raspberry butter, even if it's not conference time. Also, i'm dying for your chocolate covered strawberries rolled in peanut butter cups.

Did you ever test your basement in your house in Utah for Radon? It's the cancer causing gas that is more present in Utah than most places b/c of the Wasatch Mountains, and because January is Radon testing awareness month in Utah there are lots of people testing their homes and talking about it. So my neighbor, who is also my Visiting Teacher, found really high levels in her basement and had to have this mitigation system put in to make it safe, sent out an email encouraging us to test our basements. I ordered my kit, and now I'm all paranoid about breathing in my basement. If we do have high levels then we obviously need to do the mitigating, which is not cheap, but it's about what we had to pay for the new garage door--haven't told you yet, but i backed out of my garage with the garage door closed--yep, i'm awesome. Anyway, it was much more exciting to get a new garage door than it will be to mitigate our basement for Radon if we have to. Blah. I would so much rather put hardwood flooring under my kitchen table. Dang carpet!!! 

We have also been sick here. For what feels like over a month, so I know how awful it is to take care of a sick family. Absolutely exhausting!!! Mentally and physically draining. It feels like you can't ever get going in your day, and that you are never going to get better ever again. Those are the days when i try to imagine setting up the slip n slide in the summer out back with my sunflowers swaying in the wind and big fat juicy tomatoes growing in the dirt. Brennan was sick before and during Christmas. Max was sick after Christmas. Chase had a double ear infection before Christmas, and is recovering from ANOTHER double ear infection this week, and DARN IT the garlic drops don't work for him. TRAGIC. Max was so soothed by them, and only needed a 10 or 15 minute cuddle once during the night. Chase sleeps about ZERO when he has ear infections. Like Sean and I take 3 hours shifts staying up with him. You'd think he would just zonk out after being awake for 6 hours in the middle of the night, but no, he is miserable, and his fever gets so hot. Scary hot. Anyway, now i'm getting really good at knowing that's what it is, and i get him to the doc for antibiotics after only 2 days of wondering why in the heck he's not sleeping. And after 2 days of not sleeping I only feel like I need to kill one of the cats instead of 2. Do you know the Jim Bruer video on YouTube? Did I make you watch it when you were here? If not, type in "Why Mother's Need Their Rest" by Jim Bruer into google and watch the video with Bryce. You won't be able to stop laughing. After a bad night with no sleep I always tell Sean the next morning "I killed the cats," and then he knows what kind of a night it was, and we have a good laugh while we brush our teeth for the day. When my kids were sick last weekend Sean did sponge creatures on the counter with the kids. They got them in their stockings from Santa. Brennan kept dunking his hands into the cup and stole Max's animals about a million times, and she's already emotional about things like that, but with a fever and an earlier episode of puking she was EXTRA emotional about him stealing her foam animals. We just kept wiping up all of the water they spilled everywhere, and tried to keep Brennan from stealing Max's animals the entire time. I didn't know you had to re-warm the water with each capsule. Sean said I was a foam animal amateur. Do they have foam animals in pill capsules in Germany? Could be a fun way to avoid killing cats after a sleepless night with sick kids. Just sayin...

All of that food you ate and described has me all out of sorts. I just want to eat every last bit of it. I feel like I know good food until you start describing your German delicacies, and then I think my taste buds are being deprived. But then i eat something with peanut butter and chocolate, and it feels all better, and the world is right again.

I thought Brennan looked like Tom Cruise in Risky Business in the pictures below. Normally he would have taken his socks off too, but his foot is all messed up and cracked so we have been putting Aquafore on it to get the irritation down. It's like vaseline as far as consistency goes, and clearly we don't want that on anything, so he is sentenced to sock wearing. BTW, Aquafore is amazing. Have you ever tried it on your boys? Great for cracked and dry skin. 

Hello to Bryce and the boys for me.

Kisses & hugs to all of the "my preeeeeecccccccciouuuuusssss'es."

Love, Emily 

P.S.

i went to bed at 11:30pm on new year's while sean and chase smooched when the ball dropped.

that's how tired i was from sick kids.

we always play guitar hero and wii sports on new year's.

the kids love it.

i also made a whipping cream egg nog that linsey and i drank from the bowl with straws.

{clearly she is also a true hobbit}

it had chunks of whipping cream and balls of ice cream floating in it.

TO.DIE.FOR.

i will make it for you next time you come.

oh, and jen lynch stayed with us for a few days after christmas.

i sat in the upstairs hall while she did her makeup, 

and we talked about how she almost ran dave over with her car at your parent's cabin at lake almanore.

not her fault he was peeing outside.

bahahahahaha.