Miracle Of The Chili and Continuation of "Life Comes At you Fast"

So Tuesday started out pretty bad. My furnace was still out (it had been out since Friday) and the furnace people couldn't get to us until Tuesday. So of course I had all my visiting teaching appointment set up for Tuesday from 10-12 and that's exactly when they wanted to come. So bless my companion, she went ahead without me. The furnace guy came and couldn't find anything wrong with our furnace so he reset the system and it started working again. That night I had the sister missionaries coming over for dinner and they also brought along a family of 3 that they're teaching. I made the Turkey Chili that was a big hit at the Chili party that I had on Halloween. Well, the recipe was supposed to make enough for 8 servings so I figured I would have just enough to feed the 6 adults and 2 children that I had coming. Well, we were sitting through dinner and every person there had at least 2 bowls (except for the poor boot camp girl) and some people even had 3! I started to worry a little bit that I didn't have enough. Well, I got a phone call from one of my young women. Her mom has cancer and she just got out of surgery to remove the rest of her thyroid. Well, she asked if I could bring them a meal so I told her I would. As I did, I just kept thinking to myself, "How in the world am I going to do this?" I have YW on Wednesday night that I'm in charge of, I'm cleaning my house from top to bottom on Thursday for my big ornament exchange, and then I have my party on Friday. How was I going to have time to make up another meal when I wasn't even planning on cooking the rest of the week because of everything going on. Well, as I was cleaning up the chili and putting things away, I looked into the pot and to my surprise had plenty left over to take over to their family!!! Are you serious?! This pot of chili was only supposed to make 8 servings and it ended up making 16!!! This was truly a miracle! I packaged everything up and thought to put in an extra Tupperware of frozen chili that I had left over from the Halloween party. More about this miracle later. Well, Wednesday Ry left out of town and of course the furnace went out again. When I called in, they couldn't get me in until Friday! Are you kidding me? You took 4 days to get to me the first time, don't fix my furnace, and now I have to wait another 2 days! What the heck?! So we've spent our days in multiple layers. My mother-in-law called me and asked me if I would want her to come up and spend some time with Ethan so I could get some things ready for YW and for the party. Bless her!!! I was able to run my errands, make my mini quiches, make the wedding gifts for the upcoming wedding receptions, and wrap all the gifts for YW and the ornament exchange. When Ethan got up from his nap, he ended up sounding really congested and was super cranky. I was planning on taking him with me to YW that night since Ry was out of town, but my mother-in-law offered to stay with him so he wouldn't infect everyone. THANK YOU!!! Right before I left for my YW meeting, my little YW called asked me for a ride so it was perfect timing to bring over the meal that I had conjured up. When I got there I was so relieved that I brought that extra chili since her grandparents just got into town to help. What a wonderful miracle! I ended up being late to my meeting, but at least I was able to help someone out. My activity went well on Wednesday night. We ended up doing a "Christmas Family Tradition Show and Tell." All of the girls brought something to talk about and they all loved sharing their special family traditions. After that we did a "White Elephant Exchange" and the girls loved doing that too. We had each girl tell a silly fact about themselves before they opened their gift so the new presidency could get to know the girls a little better. All in all, the night turned out pretty good, especially since it had been planned in such short notice. Well, my mom came up that night to spend the night so I could go to boot camp in the morning so my day started very early yesterday. When I got back, Ethan was up and he didn't sound good at all so I hurried and got ready and took him to the doctor. So we've got some medicine on board now so he should be getting better soon. While I was gone, my mom started cleaning my house. The plan before was that we would both put in 2 hours and that would be like me cleaning for 4 hours by myself, but with E getting sick, the plans changed. Well, I had a dentist appointment after the doctor so I dropped him off and ran did that and picked up E's prescription. When I got home I got started cleaning with my mom. I just have to say my mom is amazing and she is the best mom on the planet! She totally rocked it out and helped me get my house in perfect order for the party. She left after lunch and Ethan then wreaked havoc. He started dumping out his toys and taking the toy bins and pushing them around the house so he could stand on them and get into things that he shouldn't. By the end up of the day I had so many items locked away in the laundry room: chairs, toys bins, potty chairs, a plunger, you get the idea. Ry got home late last night so it's good to have him back home. Tonight is the big ornament party that I'm hosting. It should be really fun and I'm really excited for it. I'll take lots of pictures. But in the meantime, here are some pictures of my little cooking helper. My mom got the apron and chef's hat for free when she bought the movie Ratatouille at Circuit City the other day. I think he looks so cute! This picture was when E was helping me make pies for Thanksgiving. He likes to stand on his toy bin and help cook.