Deer

I finished the last of the gingerbread houses for Mike's family this Sunday. Matt called while I was taking my last pieces out of the oven. While I was talking to him, this deer wandered to my back door and was looking at me. He was shy when I tried to take a picture though.

I checked Jorja out of school for her therapy appointment. I think it went well, but Jorja seemed really drained afterwords. We went home and I finished up a few things. The boys were gone to diving. Jorja came with me to get the rest of the stuff I need for the gingerbread party tomorrow. Then we stopped at the pet store to buy goldfish for her friend Drew. His birthday is tomorrow and Jorja really wants to give him goldfish.

We went through some of The Living Christ and then watched some bible videos for scripture study. Mike then put on The Goldbergs. I don't know what is funnier, the show or watching Mike laugh about the show. He was laughing so hard it was cracking the rest of us up.

Mike and I put together six houses for Jorja's gingerbread party tomorrow. I love gingerbread season. My house always smells amazing and it is so much fun to see the different houses people come up with. I'm glad our families like this tradition as much as we do.

Billy Joel

I spent the day today making gingerbread. I now have 25 houses baked.

If Mike had a bucket list I know one thing that for sure would be on it. Going to a Billy Joel concert. Mike even went to a conference in California last year where Billy Joel was supposed to perform. Except he cancelled at the last minute. Today, Mike was finally able to see him. He loved it. We were up high, but it didn't matter. It was great. Too bad there was some kind of outage at work and Mike had to check in often. Even during Piano Man. We were planning on going out to eat before the concert, but work was too crazy. We ended up getting JDawgs at the arena. That worked out just fine.

Mike & Stephanie

I'm not sure if these videos will show up, they were a pain to upload.

This one should be For the Longest Time

Once Billy Joel put on his harmonica the crowd went nuts!
They knew Piano Man was coming. It was awesome.

We got home close to midnight. I snuck into Stockton's room to look for his bowling shirt. I wanted to wash it. He had bowling today, but he is supposed to get his bowling picture tomorrow, I think. That's about it. I don't have much to say, but tonight was a really fun night.

Student Government Pictures

Jorja and Preston had a dentist appointment this morning. Jorja will probably need her wisdom teeth out in a year and a half. Preston will probably need braces in a year. He didn't like that. I almost got Jorja to school on time, but we didn't make it. That means she had to bow in Chinese and say some weird phrase. She wasn't looking forward to that. I forgot to ask her if it went okay. Jorja did forget her mask we bought yesterday. After I dropped Preston off at school I ran home to get the mask. I put it in Jorja's locker. I looked at the sterling scholar pictures. Stockton's is not there yet. I looked at the class officer pictures. They are now up! I took a picture of Jorja's.

Carson, Marshall, Brenton

Eliza, Jorja

 Screenshot of the same picture

Jorja and Carson both had to turn their shirts backwards because they had writing on their shirts. I wish I could buy one of these pictures. I keep getting emails to buy Jorja's school picture. I don't think I need one of those. I would love to buy the class officer picture, and I would love to buy the sterling scholar picture. Why aren't those ever offered?

I spent the day making gingerbread houses. The freshman officers are going to come over on Friday after school. That should be a lot of fun. We are going to have Mike's family come over on Sunday. I think that means I need 28 houses. I got 12 1/2 houses made today. I listened to The Wall and the Wing while I baked. My house smells amazing.

Jorja asked if I would go buy more photo paper. She has been loving her scrapbook. We picked up the paper, then we picked up Sami. They hung out here for a couple of hours and then Sami went to Young Womens with Jorja. Mike let Jorja drive to Savers when they came back. He is a brave, brave man.

Looking for Masks

Pretty exciting day spent doing dishes and laundry. I did go with the boys to diving. I haven't done that in quite awhile. Stockton was looking fantastic. Jorja was alone most of the day. She stayed after school for her improv thing. Her theater partner Tess came over and they worked on their scene. They are supposed to perform it tomorrow. When I got home Jorja was laying on her floor wrapped in a blanket. I tried to get her to talk to me about her day. I was excited to hear how the improv went. She asked if we could go to Zurchers to get a mask for her costume. Jorja and Tess are burglars. We looked around Zurchers forever. They had red masks, white masks, silver masks, blue masks, yellow masks. Basically any color except black. That was frustrating. We bought silver masks. Hopefully that will work. Jorja begged me to drive home. She did great, but I was a wreck the entire time.

Once we got home I asked Jorja if she had found out if the freshman student government wanted to do gingerbread houses and what time. I need to start working on them. I'm hoping they can do it this weekend, because that would be the easiest time for me. Jorja hadn't asked them. She is scared to because she thinks they don't like her. I asked her to just send a message on GroupMe. If they say yes, they say yes. If they say no, think of a new plan. Well, that put Jorja into another panic attack. It is frustrating to me because she seems to get these attacks when she feels I am disappointed in her. I wasn't disappointed, I just needed to know if I need to bake all day. I could see the attack coming and I said, "Jorja, don't." That just made it worse. Then I did something that made it even worse. I told her to please stop, that she is making me feel like a horrible mom. Yep. I said that. I meant it too. You would think I yell and scream and insult her with how bad her attacks are. I don't. I never raise my voice. Jorja's eyes fill with fear, she starts gasping for breath and I don't know how to help bring her back down. I grabbed water for her to drink. That worked before. It didn't work this time. She couldn't swallow. I heard Mike come home from Cyber Monday. I ran upstairs to get him. I came down to find Jorja on the bathroom floor. She was hyperventilating and sobbing, "What is wrong with me?" Jorja hadn't had a panic attack for one month. October 27th was the date of her last one. I was hoping she was through with them. Guess not. I wish I knew how to help her.

Hutch Sighting

Mike and I got up at 5:30 this morning to fill the font for a convert baptism. It takes about three hours to fill the font. The baptism was scheduled for 9:00. It's weird, because in our stake center, the baptismal font is in the hallway. There is also 9:00 church. I was worried about this. The missionaries said it would be fine. And it was. Once Mike got the font going, we had to sit there for three hours. Mike brought his laptop and we watched The Force Awakens. Well, we only were able to watch the first part, because it was awkward to watch Star Wars once people started coming to church.

Mike

 The plug likes to float up, it is annoying.

 Mike is a master improviser

I went home and picked up Jorja. She was asked to lead the music at the baptism. Sister Hutchinson was allowed to come back for this one. Jorja was so excited to see her again. You would think she had been gone forever, instead of less than a week!

Jorja & Hutch

 I snuck in their selfie

Mike went straight from the baptism to ward council. I finished working on my lesson. I only had two kids today. The lesson went great, so that was a win. Mike and I finished watching The Force Awakens while Stockton was at mission prep. Mike dressed up for the occasion.

Mike

 Jorja working on her scrapbook

Today was the last day of our vacation. Too bad we spent most of it being sick. Hopefully Christmas vacation is better to us. Mike talked to the kids about The Living Christ. We are going to go through that a little at a time now that we just finished the Book of Mormon. We also are going to watch bible videos during scripture study.

Mike, Preston and I played a game of Pandemic. We barely won that game. Preston is a walking rule book. It is so funny. When Mike and Preston are having a disagreement about a rule, Preston is always right. Plus, he will quote exactly what the rule says. He's awesome.

Day with Maysen

Maysen made a wise decision and didn't come home for Thanksgiving. She would have most likely just gotten sick anyway. She was able to get a lot of work done during the break and doesn't feel as overwhelmed. I didn't want to go the entire break without seeing her, so this morning I got up early and drove to Logan. The first thing we did is we went to see a movie. We saw Coco. I didn't like the movie at first, it took awhile to get interesting. I ended up loving it though. I keep thinking of the song Remember Me. It is interesting how the song sounded different depending on who was singing it. After the movie, Maysen and I went to the zoo. She had some paperwork she needed to pick up. She was able to find Troy and get her papers. She is now done doing the internship. That's awesome she was able to do her psychology internship at the zoo. It is also great that this class is over with. Kind of stressful to have to find your own internship, and leave enough time in your schedule to do it. Especially with no car. Anyway, it is done now. Maysen and I then had lunch at The Waffle Iron. It was delicious.

Maysen

 Tables

 Our waffles

Stockton and Jorja hung out with Gavin for awhile. Mike picked up Jorja to before she was planning on meeting her other friends. Stockton stayed at Gavin's house the rest of the day. Mike took Jorja driving while I was gone. She is absolutely loving being behind the wheel. My other two kids didn't care as much. Mike even started teaching her how to drive a stick shift. He said she did great. They just worked on the stick shift in the church parking lot. They used the van to drive on the road.

Jorja

Mike also got the front room under control. We have had things stuffed in here for a long time. Things from Mike's house that we haven't known where to put them. Random wand stuff. Weird things. Anyway, it looks much better now. We still have to finish the rock wall, but this is tons better.

I took Maysen grocery shopping and then I headed home. I walked into the kitchen and found Jorja will her friends. Evan, Hailey and Drew. I haven't seen Drew in a long time. Jorja asked if I would take them to Temple Square to see the lights. I agreed. As soon as we left Jorja's friend Joe texted saying he just got back into town. We swung by and picked him up too. The traffic to the lights ended up being horrible. I guess there were a ton of things going on in downtown Salt Lake. The parking where I always park at was full. I finally let the kids out of the car while we were stopped. I drove around for awhile looking for somewhere to park. I finally found a lot that cost $10. Even though I was going to be there for less than an hour I was willing to pay that. I pulled in and talked to the parking guy. They would only take cash. I didn't have any. This is where I used my female privilege for the first time. I was so frustrated. I said, "My daughter begged me to take her to the lights, we haven't been in years. I'm never doing this again." My eyes started to tear up. He told me I could just park for free. Thank heavens! I hurried to find Jorja and her friends, luckily I found them quickly.

Evan, Hailey, Joe, Drew

 Evan, Drew, Joe, Jorja, Hailey watching the nativity show

 Drew, Evan, Joe, Jorja, Hailey

 Hailey, Joe, Evan's back, Drew

 Evan & Jorja

 Hailey, Joe, Drew, Jorja, Evan

 Evan, Jorja, Joe, Hailey, Drew

 Evan, Jorja, Joe . . . Hailey

 Hailey & Drew

 Joe, Drew, Evan

 Joe & Evan ~ I'm pretty sure Evan is giving Jorja a secret code. I just can't remember what it means anymore.

Jorja

 Evan & Jorja ~ This picture is blurry, but I love it. Evan has been a great friend to Jorja. He's my favorite.

 Joe & Jorja

We needed to drop Drew off at a movie theater at 8:30. We made it just in time. I was quite impressed. I took the rest of the kids back to our house. It was funny because Mike walked into the kitchen and said, "Hmmmm. Looks like someone was replaced." Joe was now there instead of Drew. The kids joked around until I was tired and took them home. I did find weird videos of people filling their face with whipped cream. The things they think are fun.

Jorja's on the Road

I took Jorja to get her driving permit this morning. She passed! AHHHH! This is going to be scary! Actually I'm really glad about this. Jorja will have fun focusing on this and it is a life skill.

Jorja ~ success!

I was even brave and took her to the church parking lot and taught her how to drive. This is something I refused to do with Maysen and Stockton. But, today is Black Friday, so there is no way Mike would be able to do this; and Jorja was so anxious. We drove around for quite awhile, then Jorja drove us both home.

Jorja and Stephanie's reflexion. Whoops.

Jorja and Isaac worked on their biology project for a long time today. Hopefully that is most of the way done. Jorja wanted to go driving again when Isaac left. This time we went down to the driving range. Jorja drove around that for awhile. Then she went in the parking lot and drove around for a bit. After about ten minutes of driving there we realized that there were some people making out in a car we kept driving past. Awkward.

My friend Kristi's daughter got married today. The weather couldn't have been better. Especially for November. I wish Mike could have come with me, but again. . . Black Friday.

 Kennedi & Austin, Jordan & Paige, Kristi & Chris

Jorja and Hailey made a video while I was gone. Once when they were hanging out with Evan they showed him this clip from Parks and Rec. He laughed and laughed and laughed. Jorja and Hailey remade the clip and sent it to Evan. I love those two.

Thanksgiving

Last Saturday my oldest nephew eloped. He sent this picture to Steve. Spencer got married in Rhode Island to Xiouxuan.

Xiouxuan & Spencer

I felt better today, but not great. I did not want to cook anything. I wasn't that confident in my not being sick abilities. Mike and I went to the store this morning and grabbed rolls and pie. Luckily I still had lots of cranberry sauce from dinner on Sunday. Plus, that stuff gets better after a few days anyway. We had dinner with Steve and Shannon and their family. Shannon had everything looking perfect. I felt so bad that she worked so hard and I wasn't able to do my part.

 Stockton, Brandon, Weston, Preston, Jorja

 Steve, Mike, Stephanie, Jacob, Erica

I also don't have a picture of Shannon. Whoops. Scoop came over after dinner. Another person I didn't get a picture of. I was wishing I had gotten a picture of him with his grandkids, or at least him with his sons. Mike, Steve and I played Hearts with him. Just like old times. He won, just like old times.

Mike was not feeling well and was anxious to get home. He slept for a bit, but then . . . Jorja and I were in the kitchen when we heard him throwing up. Now, just to give some context. Mike has the loudest sneezes in the world. I tease him about that all the time, because they are obnoxiously loud. Well, apparently he is loud when he is sick too. Jorja and I kind of looked at each other when we could hear him. I started laughing. Jorja kept saying, "Mom! It's not funny!" Oh but it was. I don't know why, but it was hilarious. I gathered the kids to read scriptures when someone brought up the fact that dad got sick. Again I started laughing. I couldn't stop. I was crying I was laughing so hard. Mike came in to find out what was so funny. I told him why I was laughing. He did not find it as humorous as me. This entire week has been ridiculous with the sickness. Nine of ten people got knocked down by this bug. Jorja is the only one who is still holding strong. That thing didn't even touch her. Let's hope it never does.