Better Late than Never

Christmas has come and gone.

New Years too has come and gone and I still haven't managed to send out our Christmas letter.

I think perhaps it shall be a Valentines Letter.  

Christmas was fantastic this year and we were sufficiently spoiled!

We (against my better judgement) got the kids each a tablet for Christmas.  The older two each got a Kindle Fire and the younger two got a Leap Pad Ultra.

All four tablets can get online...EEEK!

I am so thankful for parental settings.  The only thing about the parental settings I don't like is that the Scriptures that we downloaded for them are considered an app, so when we allow them to use their Kindle Free time it counts reading the scriptures as their free time.  We need to figure a way around that because we both feel that reading scriptures should be allowed all the time!  The day after Christmas Stuart and I came downstairs to both of them doing dishes and listening to the scriptures.  

Munchkin and Tallulah have figured out that their can text back and forth to each other.  I find it terribly

funny that they send each other messages especially since Tallulah can't read!

Other than that our big family present was a puppy.  

We were planning on another dog for a while.  We had been looking at Goldendoodles and Labradoodles and wanted one that could be a therapy dog for our family that helps with anxiety.  We really thought we wouldn't be able to find one that wasn't $2500.  Which is what they typically run.  

A friend of ours however got a puppy from a breeder in the spring who breeds them for therapy dogs and doesn't charge as much because she and her mother had been in the same boat...needing a therapy dog and not being able to afford one and wants to allow more people to get them if they need them.

Enter Maize.  

She is a fabulous dog!  And we are all in love with her!

Hope you all had a VERY Merry Christmas and New Years!

The Last Straw

Christmas is my favorite time of year.  

Not because I get presents, but because I get to give presents and I LOVE the Spirit Christmas brings!

After decorating the house for Christmas this evening we read the book The Last Straw

by Paula Palangi McDonald.

In the book the mom is a little exasperated because her children aren't getting along well and the Christmas Spirit in their home seems to be lacking.  So, she decides they are going to make a bed for the Christ child to be laid upon for Christmas.  In order to make a "bed" they gathered straw and in order to put it in the manager they have to draw a name of someone else in the family and do something nice all week for that person.  For each good deed they do they get to put a piece of straw in the manger. 

I have my doubts about whether or not this is going to work in our home.  However, the kids seem really excited about it.  In fact, we already have 1 piece of straw in the manger and we drew names right before bed. 

I remember my friend Melanie and her family doing this every year and I remember wishing my family could do it to.  Well, now we are.  (I'm pretty sure it was Melanie and her family that gave us the book, manger and baby).

I'm excited for the Christmas season!  

I'm already grateful for the spirit we've had in our home and it's only December 1st!

Sisters

We've had two major accomplishments here this last week!

The Tall Girl finished her first ever 5K!

I think she's crazy but she had a BLAST running!  She participated in a group called Girls On the Run/Girls on Track.  It's a program to boost the moral of girls and to show them they can do whatever they desire.  And she did!

We're so proud of her!!  

I may not understand the need to run, but I'm so grateful that she likes to run.  It really helps her out emotionally....read Pre-Teen hormones!

And our second accomplishment is that Tallulah turned 5.  

That's right 5!  

I can't believe she's five!  It amazes me as I look back at her baby pictures just how much she's grown. 

She's quite proud to be an entire hand, and enjoyed almost a week of celebrating.

No, we didn't technically celebrate all week...but she did managed to get us to sing to her all week.

Crazy girl!

Fall

Just for the record, to protect the innocent I've come to the conclusion I should probably not mention the short people by name.  Therefore they have been renamed....Tall Girl, Shorty, Munchkin and Tallulah (this one cracks me up because every time I call her this I think of the movie Cool Runnings).

I can't believe it's November!

I feel like somehow I missed September and October. 

Perhaps that's because we were in survival/crisis mode during those two months, 

but I'm really struggling with realizing that it's almost Tallulah's birthday and then Thanksgiving!

Typically I love fall.  

When I've had time to adjust (in my mind) to the fact that summer is over.

Truthfully we're doing a whole lot better this month!

Shorty is finally adjusting to his medicines and is back to 3 classes at school.  It doesn't sound like much but it's 3 instead of 1!  He's doing pretty good and staying awake most of the time.  At first the school freaked out a little bit because he slept through his first couple of classes due to his medicine but really why freak out when he missed about 4 weeks of school and has been going to only one class the rest of the time!  He's also recovering from ear infections and a throat abscess.  He's had a ROUGH fall!

Tallulah is on a break this week from school for conferences and Shorty will be out earlier than normal on Thursday and Friday and as for Tall girl and Munchkin, lucky home schoolers must just keep plugging away!

I'm pretty sure I've said it before, but I'll say it again....I LOVE home schooling!  Next year we are going to use Homelink (the ALE we home school through) only part time.  Then the kids won't have to take the standardized testing, they will still pay for part of the curriculum, they can still take workshops BUT we won't have to follow their schedule as much.  I want to go to an almost year round schedule so that if we feel like taking a break in the fall or the month of December off...we can!  

Oh, and no I won't be homeschooling Shorty.  He needs a more structured environment than I can provide.  The other three however are stuck with my oh so lovely face everyday.  I feel like I should be inserting an evil laugh here.  But truthfully I think they like it....for the most part. 

And action!

I've started writing this post 3 times now.  Each time has been about a different topic.  

The first was too personal, the second....well turns out I had already posted about Stuart getting a new job and that brings us to this post.  

 

Our home in Wyoming is finally under contract!!!  Provided the government can get it's act together we should close around December 2.  We've been saying LOTS of prayers and crossing lots of fingers that it will all work out!

Things are finally settling down a little for us.  I'm grateful!  After a rough September we're more than ready for a very uneventful rest of 2013!!

KatieJo and Samuel's older brother Payton is coming to visit next week.  They haven't seen him since we left Iowa in February 2006.  They are all SO excited!  They've been struggling quite a bit and after a family emergency in September it was decided that it would be beneficial for Payton to come out.  As it turns out he's been wanting to visit and KatieJo and Samuel have been wanting to visit him and none of us adults have managed to make it happen.

They are counting down the days.  It's fun to see them so animated!  They don't even get this excited over Christmas!!

As for the rest of us, middle school football season is over.  Maija is in pre-school 4 days a week in the afternoons.  I'm attempting to hang on to everything and realizing that I've allowed KatieJo and Phillip to do to many activities during the day!  Some days it's a struggle to get all of their work done.

Phillip is doing really well with homeschooling and is progressing faster than I thought he would.

KatieJo is struggling a little with the online classes we chose for her, but it's because it's more challenging than she's used to.  The curriculum is more advanced than most others we could have chosen.  And Samuel is excelling in his advanced math class.  Turns out advanced math for 6th graders is just 7th grade math.  He loves every second of the math.  

Sumer Time

In January as we are cuddled up in blankets dreaming of summer we always have grand plans!

Summer stretches out on the horizon just out of reach.

Then April hit and we started finalizing plans (I'm a planner by nature) for the summer.

By June, we were ready!

For KatieJo's birthday she got a plane ticket to fly to Denver.  She'd never been on a plane more or less on a plane. 

On June 12 we (minus Samuel who was at day camp) took KatieJo to the airport.  All 4 of us got gate passes to take her to her gate.  Maija and Phillip thought this was AWESOME!  We walked her to the gate and I tried my very hardest not to cry.  It was really a futile effort, but I tried anyway.  

She was so very excited to get on the plane.

Maija and Phillip refused to leave until we watched the plane drive out to the runway.  It took approximately 5 minutes after KatieJo got on the plane for both of them to start saying that they missed her.

Almost 2 weeks later the other 5 of us drove to Hall, MT to visit Stuart's grandmother.  We always enjoy visiting her on the ranch and our time there never seems to be enough!

After that we headed down to Denver for a week and even got to go camping in Estes Park.  As it turns out the altitude makes it VERY difficult for those of us who live at sea level to breathe!

After Colorado we spent a couple days in Idaho Falls and then left KatieJo and Samuel there with Stuart's parents.  

And we came home with two kids.  On a day to day basis I don't realize how loud my house is.  Then I only have 2 kids and all of the sudden it's like a grave yard around here!

Thankfully it didn't last long and we met Stuart's parents in Vancouver/Portland at his brother Mark's house to get the kids.  Well that and take Stuart's parents up to Seattle to see Pirates of Penzance.  LOVE that show!!  But Seattle leaves much to be desired.  It was CRAZY busy.

And now we're back home with all 4 kids.  I'm so glad!  I sure miss those kids when they're gone.

So now I'm starting to plan for the school year.  Stuart is switching jobs to the Kennewick school district, Samuel is headed to middle school and KatieJo and Phillip are homeschooling and Maija...well we're not 100% sure about what she's doing this fall but I'm planning for her school year as well.

There is a whole slew of information out there for homeschooling and I'm somewhat innundated with information right now.  But I'm getting there and I'll be ready for when Stuart heads back to school.  We're going to start our school year a tad earlier than the schools here as there are some days we'll need to take off that Samuel and Stuart won't technically have off of school.  

Dancing through life

What's been happening with us?  

For date night Stuart and I signed up to take a cha cha dance class.  This video is from the first class.  I personally think we've improved drastically since then!  We have so much fun practicing...everywhere...literally.  We took the kids to the park and we danced.  Took Samuel to the ER and we danced (there really isn't enough room to dance in an ER room however...but we tried regardless).  Turns out we LOVE to cha cha!!  The instructor attends BYU and is home for the summer and is working on getting on the BYU dance team.  

Don't mind my large rear-end!

There is a small park about a block away from our house.  The kids play there almost on a daily basis.  The city has tried since the early 1960's to take the park away for various reasons.  The latest is they wanted to put community gardens in the area.  Now, for the record none of us are opposed to community gardens, just not where the kids play.  This is the only park the kids are allowed to play at because to get to any of the other parks they have to cross very busy roads without cross walks etc.  

The kids and I walked around with a petition and had people sign to save the park and we went to the City Counsel meeting on the 21st.  We were told the kids wouldn't be allowed to speak, but we took our kids anyway.  How else are they supposed to learn to fight for what they want without being able to see how it works?  At the very end of the public comment section Samuel decided he wanted to make a comment.  You can see that here.

We were so proud of him!  

And, finally this last Saturday Samuel started complaining of stomach pain.  I ignored him at first thinking he didn't want to walk to the store with me and the other kids.  I've started keeping track of my steps each day and had about 2000 steps left for the day so walked to WINCO.  On the way back his friend and KatieJo took turns carrying him....I thought he was faking.  We got back to his friend's house where Maija had stayed and Samuel proceeded to curl into a ball and not move.  His friend Ethan jokingly took his temperature and it was 101.  At that point Lou (Ethan's mom) and I started probing Samuel's stomach.  Of course it hurt in the belly button area and towards the lower right.  So, the rest of the kids stayed at Lou's house and I took Samuel to the ER.  Stuart was on his way home with the Senior class from the Senior trip and wasn't supposed to be dropped off in the tri-cities.  At first he thought I said I was taking Samuel to the ER for a sinus infection.  It wasn't until we had been in the ER and had an IV put in and blood tests sent off and I was telling Stuart about what the plan of action was and that he may end up in surgery that Stuart figured out I had told him it could be appendicitis.  At that point he kind of freaked out and made the bus stop in Richland to let him off!

At 5 Sunday morning they told us to go home because his CAT scan didn't show anything....literally. They told us to come back at 4 for another round of blood tests.  Come to find out Samuel was in the 5% of people who's appendix doesn't show up on the CAT scan.  

So we went home, managed to get the other kids ready for Church (some very lovely people from Church picked the other 3 up and took them for us).  And then at 4 we headed back in.  Samuel spent most of the afternoon trying to convince us he didn't need to go back in.

I was VERY irritated by this point.  They put us in the non-emergency ER rooms and took some blood.  All of a sudden the doctor rushed in and told us they were going to operate that he did have appendicitis and that his white blood cell counts were up as well as his inflammation markers.  They didn't waste any time getting him up there.  

As I was calling people to let them know what was going on I talked to Lou.  She asked if there was anything she could do.  So, I asked her to bring Ethan up.  These two are inseparable.  Come to find out Ethan was scared and worried that he had done something to cause Samuel to need surgery.  

Ethan was there before he went into surgery and then stayed the night with me and Samuel in the hospital.  Ethan wouldn't even eat or drink until Samuel could.  Such a sweet boy!  

Thankfully we are on the mend (after a minor blip yesterday which resulted in Samuel being put on antibiotics.)

Now, onto SUMMER!!!! 

 Can't wait! Maija has 2 days, Stuart has 3 days and KatieJo and Samuel have 4.5!