The McCrud

So what happens when you have 2 children working at McDonalds, they just happen to have big wigs coming to town and well one or more of the workers are sick?  You get to pass the McCrud along to all the other workers.  I am here to announce that it has hit the entire family with the exception of Ethel and Matt.

Mandy was the first to go down.  Then I got it, followed by Bill.

Josh was next, and he wasn't so much sick as his blood sugar was totally wacked. 

Daniel was next and his messed up his asthma and sounded more like the croup than the others.  Daniel gathered all the things that were fluffy--including the cats and made a nest in the living room. 

 I think it is morphing.  Jessica was the last to go down with it.  She is the most healthy of the family and it only took her down for one day. 

Trivia question????  How long does it take a family of 8 people and 2 missionaries to drink 1 gallon of orange juice??

5 minutes 30 seconds--most of that is used in finding glasses and pouring the juice.  We have consumed massive quantities of OJ, vegetable soup, and herbal tea.  Most are feeling better now.

Homecoming week

Since I have a child in High School--Jessica. And since I have a child in the band--Jessica.  I need to be involved in homecoming.  One thing I learned this week is that I do NOT take good pictures at 5:30 in the morning.  However. . . homecoming=spirit week=wacky days.  Here is Jessica.

Dress up day

Wacky Holiday--she is the blue bunny of Easter--think ice cream

Cartoon day--Felix the Cat

School Pride Day--I so wasn't awake yet

Game Day just before she put on her band uniform.

I was going to take pictures of the band on the field, but well there was a big thunder and lightning storm and so the band got sent home, due to the instruments making great lightning rods.  I just loved it when the announcer said "We are required by law to inform you that the metel stands you are sitting on may draw the lightning."  Talk about the mad rush to leave.  Oh the football team had to stay and finish the game.  We lost.

When my steps were put in, the two flower beds that I had on either side of my walkway were stomped into mud. I looked at them, but though "who cares I am getting new steps. I can plant new flowers later. I also thought that perhaps some of the flowers would come back. I was major surprised when all that grew back was weeds. Today I decided to go out and weed the beds a see if I could get Bill to let me buy new flowers to put in these beds, perhaps mums in burgandy and yellow. So I was pulling weeds and there it was. . . just the smallest rosette of leaves growing. There were my Missouri Primroses growing back. They will bloom once again in the spring. But they are there. It is amazing how Heavenly Father makes some plants so strong that they can be totally mashed into mud. Mashed so much that there was no sign that they ever were there. Then a few weeks later, there they are, pushing up from the ground, determined to show the world that you can't keep them down. I believe that I am like these Missouri Primroses. I can learn much from them.

Trying Again

When I started this blog I had it open to anybody like my sister, and got a lot of bad emails. So I restricted it. Well I have decided to open it back up and try again. It will make it easier for those I love to get in and see what is happening with my family. I will just have to see how it goes. Thanks to those who comment. I love you all.

Grandma Comes to Town--game night

This year at the begining of August my Mom came for a visit. We asked her what she would like to eat and she said to the children decide. Mom you were a great sport about eating the most outragiously named food they could find. For those that don't know--we eat pretty normal food, but my children have pretty much renamed most of the dishes--think Addams family for the type of names. On Sunday evenings we have found that we are pretty much all home for the only time most weeks. We usually play games together. This paticular Sunday we played Yatzee. We do better if everyone has their own dice. You had better be careful with your roll though as we have a family rule that if the dice go on the floor, you loose your turn and have to cross something off your score sheet. Daniel won.

After playing Yatzee, we thought we would play dominoes. We are new to dominoes having just learned to play this summer. Who knew dominoes was a game and not just to set up and knock down? Mom put lots of thought to each move--She didn't win. Mandy had to keep up a text conversation with a friend while playing--she didn't win. Bill kept track of the points on the table at all times--He didn't win.



Many in the family believe that if you line up your dominoes just right it will be good luck and you will win. I use a classic V-formation--I didn't win. Matt made a wall of his pieces--He didn't win. Jessica put hers into neat little rows--She didn't win.

Josh used the mystic powers of stone henge--He didn't win.

Daniel doesn't have any particular way to set his up. He constantly moves his pieces around using them as some sort of building block, building new things after each turn--Daniel Won again!!

Building Steps

The stairs of our home are pretty much toast. They are all crumbling. So with the help of our home teacher Chris Roberton, the Missionaries, Elder Jensen and Elder Calquin, and the ward Missionary leader Doug Southwick, Matt and the children worked on the problem. First the tore out the old steps. This proved much easier than we thought. The hard part was transporting the rubble to the back yard where we will recycle it into the landscaping.

Brother Southwick knew that Matt would be wearing his worker hat and so brought his hippy hat to help with the work. Note the grey pony tail. Brother Southwick is pretty much bald when not wearing the hippy hat.

The forms were built using wood that Brother Southwick saved when we helped to clean out an old hobby store when they went out of buisiness. Brother Southwick told Bill and I that you never knew when it would come in handy. Two years later we found this to be true.

After pouring the cement we put yellow caution tape around it to help keep the neighborhood kids form stepping on them. We also had to be on our guard to keep them from writing bad words in our steps. We live in a bad neighborhood. Most of the time we are left alone, but we feared that new cement would be a temptation. As it turned out, one of the neighbors told the others that he would take it as a personal insult if the messed up our stairs as we were good people and didn't judge on peoples looks. Who knew? We feel very blessed.

We feel very blessed have these new steps. We know that we have 2 more sets to do, however we can only eat this elephant one bit at a time.

The Ugly, The Bad and most of all The Good!

I have noticed over the years that when bad things are happening in my life, I tend to not write. It is as if somewhere in my mind there is the feeling that if I don't write about it that it didn't really happen. During the past few months we have been hit with one bad thing after another in our family. It all started when Bill was diagnosed with cancer. It was found during a routine check. How could my very active husband have the dreaded word "cancer?" (We have been working through his treatment, and things are going very well.) Shortly after that, Ethel was put in the hospital with multiple problems and well since March, I have had someone either in the hospital or in the ER every 2 weeks. It is really bad when the ER staff knows you by name, and well, you know them as well. It has just been a bit of an ugly stretch for our family. This all caused so much stress that it sort of made me sick with bleeding ulcers and sleep deprivation and that was bad.

However, through all of this there has been much good . . .

In preparation for recieving the priesthood, Daniel learned to how to tie his own tie.

Well lets try that again Daniel. . .

Jessica was once again on the YMCA Swimteam and she with her fellow Barracudas finished the season winning the North Suburan Confernce title. Jessica greatly improved her times this year and will continue to swim 1000 meters, 3 days a week in prep to be on her High School team in the fall. Jessica isn't built like many of the other girls, at first that was a great disavantage until her coaches put her to swiming the power strokes. Seems that she is built perfectly for those. That would be the Freestyle and the Butterfly. She won many personal ribbons this year. We are very pleased.

Between events we spend a lot of time at what is called the "crash site." Here the swimmers re-fuel, re-hydrate, and relax--it is extreemly noisy. The avarage meet lasts 4-5 hours. All of the events are under 1 minute of swimming. Jessica usually participated in 3-5 events. I spent my time knitting.

At the beginning of June I was released as Relief Society President. I was exteemly sad, however somewhat releaved as well. During my time as RS Pres. Our family developed a wonderful relationship with the missionaries. Now I think it is in the book they have, that the Helm famliy is weird, but always has extra seats at the table for dinner. We have them at least 2 times each month. It greatly enriches our lives meeting and getting to know these young men. As time moves while they are on thier missions, they miss things they did before they left. One of the things our Elders missed at the beginning of June was going to camp (Scout camp, and Girls camp was the first 2 weeks of June) So we built a fire in the fire pit and let them cook dinner for us over the camp fire. We also introduced them to a family favorite--Wookie Vomit.

Elder Jensen and Elder MacIntire couldn't wait. . .

Mandy turned 22 on July 3rd and we forgot to take pictures of most of her birthday stuff, except Jessica was so proud of making her fruit pizza that she took a picture of it early. Notice that the fruit spells the word "Happpy"

Each year, on the 4th of July we have a family tradition--we get up early and make doughnuts in the shape of stars. This year the missionaries wanted to be a part of this tradition. We then take the doughnuts to the ward picnic.

Daniel and Josh told the Elders that at the end, when we don't have much dough left we make doughut holes and then we get to eat the doughnut holes. That is when they quit making doughnuts and concentrated on the holes.

Daniel turned 12 on July 10th. We celebrated with a Pirates cake made out of cupcakes.

Matthew felt that the ultra green frosting that was way toooooo thick was good for only 1 thing. . . . .a new type of hair gel. I don't think it will fly, however it probably did attract flies.


All in all, so far it has been a pretty good summer. We have read some really good books, watched some movies, and played many games. Most of all we have enjoyed being a family.