Hannah vs. The Outbreak Monkey

Over the past month or so, everybody in the family has been battling one form of illness or another.  It all started with everyone suffering from bad stomach cramping.  It then evolved into a mutant virus that might be confused with the stomach flu.

Emma was the first to begin exhibiting flu-like symptoms.  She ended up missing two days of school and, even now, is still not functioning at 100%.  Holly also got hit by this bug causing her to miss three days of work.  I think that she is now finally over it after a week of suffering.  I’ve been experiencing some symptoms including stomach discomfort and a fever but, so far, I’ve managed to avoid too much downtime. Alex has been able to avoid the majority of the contagions very effectively.  Hannah, on the other hand, has not.

Halloween 2008: The Aftermath

So Halloween this year was pretty good.  We started our festivities early in the week with some pumpkin carving.  We had five huge pumpkins but a lack of time so only three of them ended up getting carved.  Holly decided that it would be fun to do Shrek and I unleashed my inner geek (what’s new?) and did Mario of Super Mario Bros. fame.  Emma decided to do an original creation which turned out pretty good.  Like every other year, there were lots of dads commenting on how cool our pumpkins were as their kids took our candy.

This year will be known in my mind as the year of the recycled costume idea.  Emma decided that she wanted to be a devil, Alex wanted to be a tiger, and Hannah wanted to be a clown.  Whether it is dumb luck or just coincidence, we have each of these costumes in the appropriate sizes in our costume box.  Everybody was happy and we saved money.  You can’t ask for more than that - especially if said costumes yield free candy.

Remember Halloween?

If you were to walk into any store these days, you would probably think that the next holiday to be celebrated was Christmas.  Contrary to retailer belief though, we actually have two holidays, including one pretty major one, between now and Christmas.

In just a few short weeks, we will celebrate the end of the harvest by stuffing our faces.  This holiday is know as Hallowe’en or, if you’re not into traditional spellings, Halloween.  Ironically, we will not be partaking of the fruits of said harvest but will be gorging ourselves on sugary confections originating in Hershey, Pennsylvania and McLean, Virginia (home of M&M’s).

On Saturday, our ward held their annual trunk or treat. This is a safe environment where neighborhood kids can run around a parking lot and get candy from people sitting in and around their vehicles.  Normally, I try to encourage my kids to not take candy from people that are sitting in their car but for this, I made an exception.  We have about 4.3 million kids living within our ward boundaries so, as you can probably imagine, there were a lot of kids running around in costumes.

Having Two Remotes Is Fun

Some of you may remember a few months back when I posted my thoughts on Logitech’s Harmony One universal remote.  I love this remote.  It has got to be one of the best gadgets in my house.  Anyways, I discovered a new use for it: teasing my kids.

Sunday night, Emma and Alex were watching television.  I was standing behind the sofa with my Harmony One while Emma was trying to surf channels using the television’s remote.  She would change the channel and I would mute the television.  She’d then un-mute it and I’d change the channel.  After a few minutes of this Emma became extremely frustrated and actually got up to change the channel.  I muted the TV again.  She was so angry that she shut the television off and told Alex that they couldn’t watch TV because it was broken.  At this point, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and began laughing.  I told Emma that the TV was fine and that I was the one causing the problems.  She responded by hiding my remote when I wasn’t looking.  Lucky for me, I was able to find it relatively easily.

What A Week…

I know that it’s been a while since I posted anything.  I actually have good reasons for not doing so.  Last week was complete chaos in the Zohner home.  Let me try and catch everyone up.

Last Friday, my sister Chelsea got married.  Because of this, my mom came into town from Denver.  The last time she was here, she made a comment about how the basement looked just as it had months earlier when she last saw it.  I wasn’t about to let that happen again so I spent 35 hours over the weekend painting and installing the home theater speakers.  I started on Friday afternoon and finally finished Sunday evening.  Lucky for me, Chelsea and Nick came over and helped a bit which actually ended up helping a lot because without them, I wouldn’t have been ready on Monday when we had the flooring installed.  Now I just have a few things left and then the basement will be complete.  YAY!

The Pinks Of Their Eyes

This morning, Alex woke up screaming.  Holly went in to see what the problem was and found him standing in the middle of the room with his eyes closed.  Holly asked him what was wrong and he told her that he couldn’t open his eyes.  She asked if they were glued shut and he said that they were.  He also said that Emma did it.  (Emma can be so mean. )  She took him into the bathroom and cleaned the excessive amounts of eye boogers out so that he could once again see.

It was at this point that Holly was convinced that she, Alex, Emma, Chelsea, and maybe Hannah all have pink eye.  She took the kids to the doctor where her thoughts were confirmed.  Chelsea got lucky and just has allergies.  For now.

Another Weekend In The Mountains

Last Friday we loaded up the van and headed back up into the mountains to do some more camping.  We liked where we camped a few weeks ago so much that we decided to go a few miles up the road.  Actually, the campgrounds were all reserved months ago.  We just happened to get lucky in the fact that they were great places to pitch a tent.  But I digress…

Camping with friends is always more fun so we went with our friends, John and Dana Rimington and their three daughters.  For additional fun points, we also brought along Chelsea and her soon to be husband, Nick.  We tried to get my brother, Ryan, to come too but he had to work.  Maybe next time…  It was really nice spending time with everybody.  The kids enjoyed playing with John and Dana’s girls and they loved having Nick and Chelsea along.  I know though that if Ryan had been able to make it, he would have been the star of the weekend.  The kids love playing with him so much.

Happy Fourth Of July!

As a kid, whenever anybody would ask me what my favorite holiday was, the answer was obviously Christmas.  After all, what kid doesn’t like Christmas?  Free toys, lots of candy stuffed into clothing designed for feet, and did I mention free toys?

Now that I’m a bit older, I still love Christmas (I think it’s the free toys thing), but I’ve developed a deep appreciation for other holidays.  Thanksgiving is awesome but the Fourth of July holds a special place in my heart.  There’s something about seeing an American flag flying as a wing of F-16s fly overhead that makes me extremely grateful to live in this wonderful country.  Add to the the fact that we’ve developed some really fun family traditions, and you have a day that we all look forward to each year.

I’m Batman

Well, I’m not but Alex thinks that he is.  He has two Batman shirts, a Batman vest, a Batman hat, and a Batman mask, ears and all.  He loves putting on one of the shirts, the vest, the mask, and a pair of gloves and pretending to be Batman. He even goes out in public like that.  People think it’s very cute but we all know that if I went out like that, I’d be mocked until I cried.  It’s amazing what kids can get away with.

Emma is also a big Batman fan.  She likes to join in on the fun by wearing all black (if her Batman shirt isn’t clean) and then running around with Alex.  It doesn’t matter to her that Batman’s sidekick doesn’t actually dress like Batman.  At least I hear her talking about Batgirl so she’s aware that not all characters in the Batman universe are actually Batman.

Burp Bops

On Saturday, I noticed that Emma was wearing one of the nastiest pairs of flip flops that I have ever seen.  They were old, filthy, worn out, and to top it off, about two sizes too small for her feet.  I can’t have my kids looking like they do their clothes shopping in the dumpster so we stopped by Old Navy to pick her up a new pair.

Since Old Navy has them at two for $5 or one at $3.50, I bought Alex a new pair as well.  But what about Hannah?  Yeah, I got her a pair too.  Since I was buying three pairs, I might as well pick up a fourth so I got myself a pair as well.  Yay!  New flip flops for all!  (Holly got a new pair a couple of months ago so she opted to not get any.)