Nov 28, 2010

Dear Family, Happy Thanksgiving!! I almost feel like the writing has gone out of me!--maybe my brain has just hit overload. We've had fun around here--I painted!!! (a hard decision, as I had REALLY wanted a change (though the old paint was fine), but I didn't want to neglect my little treasures).

new front room and rug!

It felt amazingly good to be creative for a bit, but Anne's health has been gradually declining again since this summer when she did so well, and it hit rock bottom about the time I realized the front room I had just painted needed a whole new color. It came together, AND I was able to piece together odds and ends for the top of my kitchen cabinets. I have left them empty all along, SO intimidated by having to fill that space between them and the ceiling, but the lighter color seemed to DOUBLE the emptiness there, and a few things I had ended up looking better with the new background, so I finally conquered it! We also celebrated w/ a new rug in the front room we've had our eyes on since we got here (it helps to muffle our piano playing a bit too)! 

finally filled kitchen cabinet tops--such a silly worry!

 

We had a great visit up to Idaho for Thanksgiving!  It was FREEZING and icy and snowy, but SO warm and fun to be w/ so much family.  ALL the Duncan family was there (at one point or another) and we even got some nice family shots taken. We had a nice visit w/ G&G Stewart, and Aunt Kenda who was there, on Friday, and enjoyed lots of good cousin and family time.

Anne, Lucy, Makaela, Spencer

Brent, Tyler, Masina, and Maddie playing games at Stewart's

Duncan grandchildren w/ Great G&G Stewart:  Makaela, Emily, Maken, Maddie, Lucy, Anne, Spencer, (row2)Brent, Masina, Tyler

Grandma Stewart w/ her boys

 We also went to a little Fun Center to celebrate cousin Aiden's birthday.  The dads and older kids had fun w/ laser tag and a rock climbing wall, while the younger ones stayed busy with a fun ball playground

Anne in the balls

Brent on climbing wall

Maddie on top of "hard" course

Emily and Anne on slide

Spencer on monkey rings

Spencer teaching EVERYone to play "Magician Ratslap" (he held those cards all weekend!)

Poor Anne was fairly miserable, which made traveling a bit more hectic.  Brian and his Dad were able to give her a nice blessing Thursday morning, and she survived, but Oh, how I hate seeing her suffer! We have restarted her elimination diet since that is the last time she was doing well. After talking to Robert (and many other helpful people), it seems fairly certain that her eczema is from food allergies of some kind, made tricky by the fact that the tests are not always accurate in children. There are just a few basic allergies that are the most common (milk, eggs, soy, wheat, nuts, seafood), so we are taking her off of all of that for a while again to see if it will help. The hardest part is that nothing is instantaneous for her, so it's hard to see what is causing problems, AND hard to see improvement sometimes. I worry constantly that I'm wasting all this time and energy with all the wrong ideas!, but I have had COUNTLESS advice and input, and I DO feel like the Spirit has nudged me in the right directions w/ bits of right information, so I can only keep pursuing it for now. When things don't improve, I just feel THAT much worse about my decision making, but my only consolation is thinking, "What WOULD anyone else do? Who could I turn her over to, to do a better job??" Meanwhile, I'm getting better at learning to manage stress, w/ my poor family as the guinea pigs! I am so impatient when under stress, so this is good practice to get over that!

She is still a sweetie in between her long bouts of crying and scratching. She has recently taken to even MORE girly things-ballet dancing and daily lipstick wearing to name a few. She found our old ballet video, ballet shoes, and a tutu in the dressup tub (I finally fit a dressup tub into the toy closet after Halloween!), and has to wear them w/ her princess crown nearly every day, and her singing repertoire still grows w/ "Jingle Bells" and "I am A Child of God." We'll make it through, but I am not a huge fan of these line upon line blessings!!

In other news, Emily's busy planning her birthday party for later this week, I have new curtains to make for the new paint, we've all had a taste of colds, we finally replaced our bed for the first time since we were married w/ a “Memory Foam” style that we are so far happy with. Brian and I are nearly DONE w/ our Christmas shopping!!!!!, we went to Brent's “Priesthood Preveiw” (is it possible?!), and Lucy is scooting ALL over the place! Doesn't home seem so much cozier and delicious as these cold days and storms move in? It almost makes the snow worth all the trouble! We're putting up Christmas decorations today w/ music in the background, so it really does feel like everything will work out! Love, the Duncan's

November 7, 2010
Happy Halloweening time! Here are the kiddos right before trunk or treat AND trick or treating.  Anne would barely wear a costume for more than 5 minutes, and she went through almost a dozen, but Maddie appealed to 2yr-old vanity to get her to stay in this Cinderella dress long enough to get some candy.  Brent was Frankenstein (I even broke down and let him wear the fake blood he was "dying to wear," once I realized it was his last trick-or-treating year.  He went with 2 great boys in the ward dressed as the KISS singers--he told me later they had asked him to dress up like them, but he was SURE I wouldn't let him--I told him I would've, but I'm not so sure he believed me :).  Emily was Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (her FAVORITE costume she's ever had!!!-thanks to a brilliant find of a $2 tie at DI, my bathrobe and gray sweater, and a brother's shirt--she even spoke w/ a British accent the whole time she was wearing this!), Spencer was a ninja (just like last year--but since he's a ninja in "real life" it's a shoe-in), and Maddie did great handing out candy, and enjoying her own collection trick-or-treat free.

 Here are the elementary children (plus Anne) before school the day of the school parade and parties--I made wonderful bolts for Brent's neck, if you look closely out of rolled up duct tape, but he quickly "lost" them after the parade--can you see we even sprayed his hair black?--that is a big step for fuddydud Mom!

Lucy has this new negative response she gives us when she's frustrated that CRACKS us up.  It's so hard to get a picture of her doing it though, since she's happy if we're giving her attention.  This is almost of shot of her doing it though:  she scrunches her nose up and sniffs really loud through her nose--if we start to leave her, or if she's been in her crib too long, or tonight when Anne started to reach for a sweet potato on her high chair--it is hilariously cute!

Otherwise, we're pretty fine.  We started Anne on Zyrtec to see if it would help her itching, etc., so we'll keep our fingers crossed.  We also had a good family fast for her today--as better as she is in many ways, her skin is still giving us trouble.  The girls and I were able to enjoy a Young Ambassadors concert last night at our very own high school, Brian and I found a yummy little Peruvian restaurant here in town, and Brian's been eating up all of the election coverage all week like it's his personal Superbowl or something.  Happy Fall! Love, The Duncan's