Christmas

We had an amazing Christmas!  It started Christmas Eve when we did a Mexican night with four other families from our Ward.  The kids decorated cookies for Santa and we adults had a $2 gift exchange.  

After dinner we headed out to look at some Christmas lights.  We are very fortunate in our area to have a place called Sensky.  They do landscaping etc. and they do a huge light show choreographed to music.  We had gone several times to watch the 20 minute show, however no Christmas Eve (in my opinion) is complete without looking at lights so we headed back over and watched the lights for a few minutes.  

Once home we opened the "Open on Christmas Eve" box and pulled out our new jammies that I made.  This is the first year I've made 6 sets.  

Then came the Christmas story which is always my favorite part.

And the wait for Santa began.  We told the kids we wouldn't get up before 6:30.  However, we had to wake them up at 7 because we had Church at 9. 

So before Church we just opened Santa presents and stockings.  

They were so excited....Santa brought us a 10 person tent.  Man that thing is HUGE!!!

All the kids were sufficiently spoiled this year.  We all got a bunch of books and a lot of games to play as a family.

And for your viewing pleasure....here are a few pictures.

Hope you had a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas

I Love the Christmas season!

I love the lights, the sounds...typically the smells. 

 (This year we are not doing the typical Christmas baking due to our new low carb & little sugar lifestyle....the jury is still out as to whether or not anyone in the family but me likes this new lifestyle.  But I figure keeping off the 50 pounds I've lost is VERY much worth the change!)

I don't however like the frantic dash to buy Christmas presents or the finishing of Christmas presents.

I fell victim to the busyness that is life this year and 

therefore am still finishing Christmas presents.  

2 quilts, 5 pairs of pajama pants and hopefully a new skirt for me.

So, sorry for the lack of blogging (Mary I promise I'll be better in the new year!)

I'll be back again hopefully in January.

Merry Christmas!!

November

Ah November.  I wouldn't typically say November is one of my favorite months.  

But I LOVE that there are still leaves on the trees here.  

I remember watching movies growing up where at Thanksgiving they were able to decorate with real leaves on the table in beautiful reds and yellows.  

In Colorado, Iowa and Wyoming this never happened.  All the leaves were dead and gone by Thanksgiving.

But not here.  

I love that we still have some color.  

There are trees that don't have leaves anymore, but I'm so glad for some color in such a bleary month!

Now on to our regularly scheduled program of why I actually started this post to begin with.

We had parent teacher conferences tonight, and I am very happy to report that despite some talking in class (by both Mobley boys) all 3 are doing fantastic in school!  

For a treat all 3 got to pick out a book at Hastings (love that store and the fact that we can get used books for a decent price).

They were so thrilled that they got a new book, we were thrilled that they are doing well!

So, now you get pictures....some of which I should have posted a while ago.

This is our Thankful Tree.  We normally do Thankful Turkeys.  This year I opted for a tree.  It was meant to start tonight, but due to parent teacher conferences FHE will be tomorrow night in the Mobley household.

 KatieJo has finally started eye therapy.  Right now she is going once a week (eventually it will be twice) and then does therapy at home 5 more days a week.

 Phillip has been having some issues with his eyes as well...like rapid blinking because he can't focus.

So the eye doctor put him in glasses.  He's only been in them for a week, and they've already made a difference and his teacher has noticed a difference too.  So grateful for his glasses right now!

 I am the Relief Society Activity Coordinator so my committee plus an awesome friend (who isn't on the committee but likes power tools) and me put together a Super Saturday.  Those bags you see on the stage are full of a total of 200+ pieces of wood that we cut, sanded and separated for each person.  It took us almost 3 days of cutting and sanding to get done.  We of course didn't wear masks and it wasn't until we had 7 pieces left to sand that one of our wonderful husbands told us there were masks we could have worn.  We have all sounded like chain smokers since...thankfully we are all getting better!

 I love this picture of Miss. M!  She felt so pretty for Halloween!  She was supposed to be a Fairy Princess...but the wings just got in the way and kept falling off.  So we settled for a ballerina.

 Almost the whole clan.  The Cat in the hat, the little grey mouse, Percy Jackson (see Riptide that he's pulling out of his pocket?), Fairy Princess and Charlie Brown.  I did both S's shirts.  Percy's says Camp Half-Blood in English and Greek with actual Greek translation...I amaze myself at times...LOL!

For the record, I was Lucy.  I do have pictures but they aren't flattering so I'm not sharing.  

Hope you are having a Happy November!

On Monday my friend Laura, Quinn, Laura's kids Emily and AJ and my two smallest people made a 

trip to Spokane for Phillip's visit to Shriners.

For those of you who don't remember he has Perthes disease.  

His hip is in the regeneration stage and looks so AWESOME compared to last year!!!

Even I knew how good it looked after seeing the x-rays and before seeing the doctor.

We don't have to go back for another year, which is exciting!

Not only did we go for Phillip's appointment, but we met my friends Holly and Cathy there as well. 

We spent the day playing in Spokane and had a great time.

LOVE love LOVE the fact that Spokane is a fairly equal meeting distance with Holly and Cathy!  

And I Love the fact that to get from the bottom of the state of Washington to the Top it's about 5 1/2 hours.  We're 2 hours from Spokane and a half hour from the Oregon/Washington border.  Holly and Cathy are 3 hours from Spokane and about 15 minutes from the Canadian border.  

I love Washington!

So thanks to a few different factors....like PCOS, edometriosis, thyroid issues, hormones and the fact that I like food I've gained a lot of weight in the last few years.  

I've decided to do the HCG diet and started August 8th.  

I have lost 30-33 pounds (depending on the day) and am currently in phase 2--which is where I can eat most foods except starches and sugars.  

Next Tuesday my plan is to start another round, or 3 weeks of drops and hopefully I'll be able to drop another 20 pounds.  Then I plan to take a break for a while before I do another round.

It's taken quite a bit of will power, but I really feel a lot better.  

I haven't had sugar since the beginning of August and I haven't had many carbs since then either.  What a difference! 

I am currently in the process of revising how we eat.  We've always eaten a lot of carbs, not necessarily a lot of sugar, but if I feel this good not eating them then perhaps we need to revise our eating!

I'm quite proud of myself, and I feel great!

August 5, 2011

October 9, 2011

Not sure if you can really tell a difference, but I do!  All my old clothes are falling off and I'm seriously enjoying shopping for new ones.  Funny how great that feels.

Do you see what I see?

KatieJo has always had a high reading level for her age.  

That is until this year.  It's lower than it was last year and she reads ALL the time.

I got worried when I found out what it was.  (It's 2.9-3.8)

This last year she was diagnosed as having what is called Amblyopia (meridional) and alternating extropia.  

What does that mean?

It means her eyes alternate turning out and is usually caused by a strabismus.  I didn't notice it until 2 Christmas's ago when she wasn't wearing her glasses in our Christmas picture.  

And the amblyopia basically means her eyes aren't seeing the same and aren't working together as a team.

We patched her eyes for a while and we were able to get her eyes closer to seeing the same.  At the time it was determined that she needed eye therapy.  Then summer happened and we left town and the eye doctor's office lost one of it's therapists.  So there wasn't a spot for her.  They said most likely they'd eventually fit her in during the day during school.  I wasn't okay with that.  She can't miss school 2 times a week at the same time.  If she's struggling with reading because of her eyes we can't afford for her to miss the same subject twice a week.

Today I took her back in to see Dr. Karen because I was worried.  I thought maybe I was just being paranoid about KatieJo's vision and I was told that the tests they give are very subjective, meaning if a kid has an off day the results could be way off.  But Dr. Karen assured me today that I was not being paranoid.  KatieJo's strabismus in her right eye is getting worse.  She's not changing her prescription yet or giving her bifocals, however she is going to get her into therapy ASAP.  We should hear back in the next few days as to when she'll be going in.  Thankfully they have a new therapist on staff that doesn't have any patients yet which means we will get the first choice of spots.

We were told that when she reads she had to take a break every 10 minutes in order for her to rest her eyes. She also is having problems with some focusing issues.  She can read fine up close and then when they switch to the board her eyes refuse to work together and vice versa.  Dr. Karen described it as her eyes just get too tired trying to work together.

I'm so grateful there is help for her eyes!  She has always been a great student at the top of her class and it was a little scary to all of the sudden be lower than she's ever been before.  

I'm also very grateful that we have some awesome eye insurance!  We didn't have any in Wyoming and I have no doubt in my mind that part of the reason we moved here was for the eye doctor and for the great insurance.  Between KatieJo and Phillip the staff know us by name when we walk in!  

Busy

I used to think I knew what it meant to be busy.

I have 4 kids.  That's busy right?

W.R.O.N.G

I forgot to add activities into the definition of busy.

We have orchestra and band on alternating mornings every day of the week.  Didn't sound too difficult until I realized I have to either watch the kids walk to school or walk kids to school 2 separate times every morning. I'm one of those crazy parents who won't let my 4th graders walk to school by themselves.  Actually I should probably say  paranoid parents.  I think I have great kids and heaven forbid something happen to them!

Then Phillip gets out of school at 11:35 and on Mondays I have to (it's a requirement of the preschool program) volunteer in his class on Mondays.

Then we have dance, soccer practice two times a week, cub scouts and activity days some of which overlap and I still haven't figured out how to get 2 kids to different places at the same time.  

And don't forget my calling, and walking every morning (after the kids go to school) and doctors appointments...we've spent a lot of time at the eye doctors and dentist lately, and not because they are regular check-ups. 

Somehow not everything gets done everyday.  I have a list, so I know what gets done and what doesn't....maybe if I didn't keep a list I wouldn't realize what doesn't get done.  Ha!

Most days I consider myself lucky to get some laundry done, the kids dressed and fed and some sewing done for Christmas or some other project on my to do list.

Is it summer vacation yet?  I'm ready for a break!