"Why are you asking about my dry eyes?"

The title to this post is a quote from a movie called "The Kid." The main guy goes to a psychiatrist and she noticed his eye is twitching, he denies the twitch, "I have dry eyes! Why are you asking about my dry eyes?!" I guess because it would mean something is psychologically wrong with him. I have a twitch in my left eye. I don't know why, but it won't go away. And I think of that movie every time it twitches. Maybe its because my "head has too much education," a quote from my sister Krystal's comic strip about my life, I love it:



But on to the past week. Weston has scarlet fever. We got him into the doctor this morning after three days of a persisting fever, no appetite, congestion, a white tongue, and a fine rash on his back, arms, and tummy. He also had some throw-up, he would give us some warning coughs before he puked so we could grab the throw-up bucket for him. Last night he would just cough and yawn, but never actually produced. Jared was there with the bucket just in case and Weston said after a few minutes, "Hey its a pattern, cough, yawn, cough , yawn." So he's on antibiotics now and should get better soon. I hate to see him so sick. This was Weston before the sickness:

This is Weston during recovery from scarlet fever:

Tissues, water, and a garbage always by his side. But he is still a handsome man! Why is Joseph there you may ask, if Weston is so sick? Joseph is sick too, my mom dropped him off so she could do her duties. When kids get sick it puts a wrench in moms' plans.

Jared says my "stay-at-home-mom" muscles are out of shape, because I get more grumpy and tired from staying home with sick kids (or even healthy kids) than I do when I'm at school for 12 hours. Yes I'm weird, school is a respite, not work. But I still love my family!
Fiora was invited to a birthday party at Kangaroo Zoo on Friday so I took her to join the party, and took my other two kids also, and so all three in for 14 dollars. The fish really jumped in the boat that day. The party host even gave all of them a pizza, even though only Fiora was invited. They had fun jumping off their energy for a couple hours. I really wanted to take them since they missed cousin Trevan's birthday at Kangaroo Zoo the week prior.

How school is

I get a lot of people asking me "How's school going?" I often just say "good" because there's so much going on in school I don't know where to begin. It's an intense, grueling, exciting, awesome, hard, incredible learning experience every day. Some days I love it and want more, some days I hide in a bathroom stall and cry. I'm learning so much about myself; how to be a better friend, and how to better serve, love, and help those around me. I'm also learning a lot about the world. My community organization class has required that we as a class complete a community service project that includes research and writing a 100 + page manual, web, media, publicity, and fundraising for a project we call YCARE (Youth Conquering Alcohol Relapse Every day). I was the leader of the research and writing team for that project and it took quite a bit of my time. For my Psych theories class I am learning that the most helpful elements in therapy are love and empathy and client motivation in any therapeutic approach. In my stats class I learned to run an Ordinary Least Squares Regression analysis on data and write a methods and results section of my research project. I should have that done by the end of the semester (equivalent of a Masters Thesis.) In my Client Supervision class I have learned that it is important to be myself and not worry so much about whether I'm messing my client up or not, that even just listening can be therapeutic. In my group work class I'm learning how different group therapy is to individual therapy and that it is not a second rate counseling method, but very effective. In my marriage counseling class I'm learning how to be a pro-marriage professional in a confused world. In my workshop class I'm learning a lot about the program and its evolution. And somedays I just get humbled and sent on my way. I love it all and it is turning into one of the greatest experiences of my life.
One other very valuable thing I have learned is that I couldn't do it without Karli and Jared. Karli follows all my directions and the home is well kept and the kids are well taken care of. She is one of the family now, Weston informed me we have six people in our family (and I thought he meant including Lillian) so when he named Jared, Heather, Savanna, Fiora, Weston, and Karli I really felt how much he loved her. We all love her. The Lord blesses us greatly.
Jared is a great support when I get exhausted. He's so willing to grab some food on his way home, go to the store, or fix something here. He is so upbeat and really helps me keep my spirits up. And he pays for Karli which is so awesome of him alone. I am learning from school what a lucky girl I am to have Jared. All my other relationships seem to be on hold right now, but my marriage is better than ever.

So that's how schools going. Lots of work, but I'm almost to the point where its normal life for me now, and I'm not sure what I'll do with myself once I'm done! But that's a year away. In a few weeks I'll officially be a "2nd Year" MSW student. (Picture is of me and 2 of my friends in the program, Heidi and Shannon.)

Keepin' 'em happy

Kids can be hard to please. Either their bored, or overworked (ha ha), or injusticed, or disappointed, or mad, or all of the above. Have you ever read the book "David gets in trouble" ? Those phrases, "It was an accident" "I forgot" "Its not my fault" "Do I have to?" "But she likes it" "But dad says it!" all get said around here on a regular basis. Sometimes all I can do is sit on the couch an console the next kid who has been victimized in some way. Weston yelled to the world this morning that "everyone in this house is being mean to me today!" after Savanna opened up the door to his secret club under the sink four or five times. Good Weston, that was just the reaction she was looking for. Savanna was enraged when the finger-nail polish polka dots on her fingers didn't turn out just right and had to let out a piercing scream and refuse to go downstairs and calm down as I suggested. She also didn't really like Fiora and Weston refusing to learn the dance she wanted to teach them. Fiora just had it at the grocery store, when I didn't buy the $1.47 candy that came with a bunny keychain. She begged and pleaded, cried and sulked, and moped all the way home. I have tried to keep my cool while all around me kids lose theirs, but once I did slap the counter and yell, but its "not my fault" Weston kept hitting Fiora because she tripped him while they were dancing (which really WAS an accident). I have half a mind to cancel Easter. The candy part.

But other than keeping them happy, I have enjoyed being with my kids this weekend. Its always nice Thursday after school when they come home from school excited to see me and knowing I don't have to go to school the next day and can just be their servant. I mean their mom. Ha ha. I'm not complaining, we have really good kids. Poor Fiora got sick Friday and fainted at school after hitting her elbow on the table, the nurse called me saying she had a seizure and I was a little freaked out. But after explaining it to me I concluded she fainted, but falling under the cafeteria table scared the teacher there. I was glad I wasn't in school myself so I could go get her and take her home, give her a nice bath, and spend some one-on-one time with her. She read me almost a whole chapter book! She threw up that evening so I'm sure there is some kind of sickness that caused her to faint when she hit her elbow. But today she seems OK. (She's embarrassed about the fainting part so don't tell anyone.)

I got to meet with my supervisor up at LDS Family Services on Thursday for about an hour. She was awesome, and the manager of the adoption team, which I will be part of from May until August. I just feel so blessed to be given that assignment. Jared took me out to lunch after that so it was a good day. Friday I get to hang with my cute little man Weston, we went to the store and got some new church clothes and did other errands. He was such a good boy we went to Arby's for lunch. He's a good kid.

We are going through the "Hannah Montana" episodes on Netflix. We go through episode phases, first it was iCarly, then Wizards of Waverly Place, Spongebob, now Hannah. So much for not having a TV. At least no lame commercials. We tried to play a hannah montana board game the other night instead of watching episodes, playing the game sure is a lot louder and more contentious, but hey we were spending quality time together! Don't want their brains to turn to mush.

Grandma's funeral

What a week! We have been very much enjoying each others company in the Schauers Family sharing memories and grieving. Wednesday all the grandkids got together and practiced "I Know That My Savior Loves Me" for the program, and I was able to head that up and accompany them. I also was able to find and quickly learned the piano arrangement of "Through the Years" to accompany Keith Snow for the funeral program. I was very honored to be able to participate. Jared was able to speak in the program which was very nice. The entire program was beautiful. Thursday was the viewing and funeral services in Gunnison. My brother-in-law Gabe did all the mortuary services for us and did such a great job on the embalming. Everyone commented on how great Grandma looked, just like herself and so peaceful. What a blessing. The kids were so well behaved, Savanna and Fiora cried quite a bit right before the casket was closed, but Fiora was Grandpa's little friend and comforter all through the program. We shared a lot of tears and a really great lunch by the Gunnison 1st ward afterwards. It was a very special day.




Thankfully my mom and Grandma Rappleye were able to come down to Gunnison with me to be my comforter. Jared had already gone down and then sat on the stand and then spent most of the luncheon setting up and helping out. That evening we all got together again for dinner and were able to process and talk about the great program. Wendy Snow and Savanna engaged in a touching conversation, Savanna pretty much testified to Wendy that she knew Grandma's spirit would always be with us like a comforter, retelling the story she heard at her baptism about the Holy Ghost. Wendy said, "I just love you, you know I introduced your mom and dad to each other, I only wanted their first born in return but they haven't paid up!" Savanna said, "So you're Wendystiltzkin?" Funny girl!
Friday we got up and got ready for Schauers family pictures with every living member of the Neil and Sandy Schauers posterity. I think they will turn out really nice, can't wait to see them. Then we spent the next couple hours at the graveside under a snow fall, again sharing memories. Weston was an honorary pallbearer, and a great umbrella holder too. The kids were able to release balloons at the end of the graveside service, and then we had another great lunch at the Weight's ward.




Grandpa Neil loved seeing my Grandma Rappleye, age 89, attending the funeral services. He asked her how she was, and answered for her, "Every day above ground's a great day!" So True!