Rodeo, Bubba Bustin', Dentist Visit, Bear Award, Birthday

The other day I found Sarah coloring a picture.  Later I discovered that she drew a road so Noah and her could drive their cars on it.  What a nice sister!

 Saturday morning the local grocery store had an Easter egg hunt.  Of course my kids were all over that.  They had separate areas for different ages.  I took the four older kids and Aaron took Noah.  Here's Daniel and Sarah waiting for it to start:

 Matthew was so excited because he saw one of his fellow classmates from school.  He couldn't sit still.  He kept running over to me to tell me random things because he didn't quite know what to do with all that excitement.  Here he is bouncing around before it started:

 Josh was embarrassed that he had to turn around for his mom to get a picture:

 Noah was just there.  He didn't quite know what to do so the only way he got any eggs is from Aaron picking a few up and putting them in his bag.  He's not down with the Easter Egg hunts yet.

 Inside some of the eggs they had coupons you could redeem in the store.  Most of the eggs contained leftover Valentine candy, too--kind of funny.  Anyway inside they also had face painting which everyone got except Noah.  He wouldn't get anywhere near them.

We made quite a haul.  I guess that's what happens when you have five little egg gatherers--there are some advantages of having a big family!

After all the Egg Hunting excitement was over and a few errands had been run, we came home so I could finish Matthew's train mural.  He was so excited!

While we were out and about we won some rodeo tickets from a radio station.  The rodeo was being held that night and I was excited to go.  However, in the past Josh has struggled with some horse/cow allergies so we decided to pre-medicate him with Benadryl and Zyrtec so he could enjoy the rodeo, too.  However when we got there Josh immediately started sneezing and his eyes were watering.  The longer we were there he started coughing, coughing and coughing and his voice went hoarse and his throat became really itchy.  We only made it through about half the rodeo before we finally had to leave for Josh's sake--poor guy.  IT was pretty bad considering he already had allergy meds on board--I would have hated to see what would have happened had he not been pre medicated!!  However, the rodeo started past Noah's bedtime and he was pretty much 'Chuckles' (ornery) during the whole affair.  Aaron got some of his own rodeo we lovingly named 'Bubba Busting'.  Noah wanted to get down and wander, but we wouldn't let him.  The longer we held on to him the more upset he got and started doing some major headbutting to Aaron.  Here's a video of the 'Bubba Busting':

Monday all five kids had their dentist appointments.  I HATE going to these because the odds are pretty high that someone will have a cavity and that means we have to pay to get it fixed.  Most times that is not such a big deal, but with the furlough for Aaron coming up we are trying to save as much as possible.  Our blessings were answered.  The dentist checked everyone out and no one had any cavities this visit.  YAY!!

While we were waiting in the waiting room Noah LOVED watching the fish and saying (or I should say screaming), "HI FISH!!" over and over again.

 Noah refused to do anything until he saw his siblings go first.  All of his siblings went first getting X-rays and finally Noah decided he would take a turn.  He looks so little in the chair!

 He did not like the X-rays so the only way we could get him in the chair for a cleaning was to bribe him with some toy cars.  I know the way to my car obsessed little boy's heart!  After picking out two cars he allowed us to put him in the chair.

 After we got the good news of no cavities we came home and had some dinner.  Then after Family Home Evening of being a missionary we went over to get some Pace Bars at Paces.  Everyone was excited including Mom and Dad.  Pace Bars are only $0.25 and Daniel can eat them.  They are sure a lot cheaper than getting a cavity filled--that's for sure!!  The kids really enjoyed them and as we were leaving Sarah exclaimed to the family walking in, "I'm a Missionary!"  Maybe she did get something from the lesson even if it appeared she wasn't listening to any of it!

 The other day Noah was hungry for lunch, but I was talking to Aaron while he was home for lunch.  I looked over to see Noah patiently waiting on the bar for me to start his lunch.  What a funny boy.

 Since Matthew, Sarah and Noah have their murals done it was finally time to start one in Josh and Daniel's room.  I have to do a double whammy in there since they share a room so I finished the first one.  Here's the BYU mural on one wall:

 The other wall will be The Avengers. There will be the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor and Captain America.  Here's the sketch of Thor:

I have it sketched out, but I won't start painting for a bit.  One reason is my hand is really sore from all the painting I have done and needs a rest.  The other reason is next week is Spring Break and there's no way I will get any painting done with all five kids at home.  It will be an interesting week that's for sure!!

Wednesday was my birthday.  I was awakened to Josh and Daniel fixing me breakfast in bed--an awesome way to start the day!!  They fixed me five pieces of toast and a bowl of cereal.  I figured out really fast why there were five pieces of toast---it was for all of them to eat while sitting on my bed.  Oh well it was a great start to the morning.

 The morning got even better when I came out of my room to find that Josh and Daniel had made and packed everyones' school lunches.  YAY!!  I never peeked at what was packed in them, but I did notice I was missing a half of package of Oreos so I can only guess what else went in those lunches.  :)

During the day Aaron surprised me by coming home for lunch and taking me out.  He arranged for a friend (thanks Erin!) to watch Noah and Sarah so we were able to have a kid free date.  It was great!!

That evening Aaron fixed dinner and then we had some birthday cake.  Aaron did inform me that he now has to buy two packages of candles because one just isn't even anymore.  Isn't getting older just grand?  Good thing we ate it outside because with all that fire it might have set off the fire alarms in the house.  For my birthday I got a Disney Grumpy jacket and some Cars underwear for Noah which symbolizes Aaron promise to potty train Noah in a few weeks!!  WAHOO one of the best presents EVER!!  Josh got me a nifty bottle opener, but unfortunately it broke after the first use.  Josh was a little upset by that, but what can you do?!

 After dinner it was Cub Scout Pack meeting.  In this meeting they talked about having compassion for other people who are different from ourselves.  They had three stations to practice how it is to be different.  Once station you had to try writing your name with your opposite hand.  Another station you had to stack metal washers while having big, bulky gloves on.  Another station was trying to say the ABC's with a giant marshmallow in your mouth.  You could do these stations before Pack Meeting started.  After it started they talked about having Compassion for others.  Everyone got a turn at holding a letter to the word compassion and then reading the paper on the back of the letter.  Of course all my kids had to have a turn...

 Except for Noah who was still back at the marshmallow station stuffing his mouth full of marshmallows.  He took down probably half the bag before we noticed he was missing.  I know, I know we deserve Parents of the Year award for that one.  MMMMMMmmmmmm marshmallows:

 At this particular Pack Meeting Josh received his Bear Award.  They painted a Bear Paw in his hand explaining what each mark meant.  He then got to put a Bear Pin on my shirt and was excited to receive his Bear Patch after popping the balloon it was in.

 Yay for Josh!!

 Yesterday I heard some weird noises coming from behind the kitchen island.  As I rounded the island to check it out I found Sarah.  She had opened one of her brother's toothbrushes that they got from the dentist and was using it to scrub my floor.  Now I am trying to decide whether to tell the certain brother what happened or to wash it off and just give it back to them.  I finally decided that ignorance is really bliss so don't tell them if you see them.....

I think it is so funny how much you change with each kid.  I would have never done such a thing when I had Matthew or Josh, but I have become quite lax.  I don't know if it is because the kids have worn me down, or if I am just getting too old....who knows?!

IEP Meeting, Painting, Spring Fever

We had Matthew's annual IEP (individualized education plan) meeting this past week.  Thankfully,  Aaron was able to come to it with me.  Sometimes we can hear some hard things there and it is always nice to have someone else to be there with me.  Luckily this meeting went pretty well.  However, it was mostly about dealing with Matthew's transition from elementary school to Jr. High.  Wow, I can't believe he is old enough to go to Jr. High!!!  Anyway, this was his teacher's first transition meeting for a student so she was learning things right along with us, but I really like her.  She has been a great teacher for him this year.  It appears he is having hand writing issues so he will start using a portable keyboard to help him write things down during class time.  Well, unfortunate or not, him and Josh will have that in common : /.   Anyway, Matthew is doing about what is expected of him at his own level.  We are still struggling with comprehension (even though he can read anything you put in front of the kid).  He is still in speech therapy and doing social teaching with other students.  This next year will be quite a change for him so we are hoping to make a smooth transition, but change hardly ever goes smoothly with him.  It will be very interesting to say the least.  It seems like his IEP team really has Matthew's best interests at heart so I will trust their judgement for now.  At least we didn't leave the IEP meeting in tears which is always a plus.  Aaron still had an hour before he had to be back to work so we headed down to the nursery to buy some fertilizer for our lawn.  The nursery had lots of little things to look at like a Koi pond, knick knacks, plants and fountains.  Of course Noah's favorite thing was playing in the fountains.  However, he must have been pretty thirsty because he started chug a lugging the nasty water out of the fountain.  He was far enough away from us that he got quite a stomach full before we could stop him.  Ewwwww!!  Thankfully he didn't get sick from it, but did I mention that it was gross?!

It has finally warmed up outside (except for today when we woke up to snow!).  Anyway, me and the two youngest kiddos have been enjoying our beautiful weather at the park.  Our family has a severe case of Spring Fever especially after this bitterly cold January!  

 Last week Sarah was able to go to a princess birthday party of one of her friends.  At the party all the girls dressed up as their favorite princess. Sarah went as Sleeping Beauty because that was the only princess outfit I could find all the pieces to.  Anyway at the party they did all things princessy and Sarah LOVED it!  She came home with a tiara, sunglasses and candy.  Of course the candy lasted all of five seconds, but she loved wearing the tiara and sunglasses.  In fact when I went to check on her before I went to bed I found her sleeping with her sunglasses, necklaces, bracelet and tiara on.  What a funny girl!

 Since we have come in to warm weather finally it was time to break out the flop flops as Noah calls them.  Unfortunately we run into this particular problem every spring--we can never find both flip flops at the same time.  We found five left shoes, but no right.  We gave up on looking after a while and let the boys wear mismatched flop flops--shhhh don't tell anybody ;).

 Our awesome neighbor who is a train engineer gave Matthew another Union Pacific hat the other day.  Matthew was in HEAVEN.  He had to tell anyone and everyone about how he cheers for Union Pacific Trains--even perfect strangers at the store.  We got a few questioning looks that we just had to shrug our shoulders on--gotta love Matthew.

 Saturday we had to run to Ikea to pick up a few things and after we were done we decided to pay G&G T a visit.  It was such a nice day we went outside and played some baseball in their backyard.  It was lots of fun.

 G&G M gave us Aaron's old car toy set and we promptly let the car obsessed Noah play with it.  He LOVES it and makes sure it goes to bed with him every night.  After tucking him in bed as soon as the door is closed he hops out of bed to play with it.  He is a funny car obsessed little boy.

 Because he is such a car lover I decided to paint a mural of cars on his bedroom wall.  Here's the initial sketch--it is hard to see, but trust me it's there:

 

I started painting Monday morning and finished by Tuesday morning.  Noah took advantage of my lack of supervision as you can see.  He got finished playing in the kitchen faucet about the same time I finished painting--that's why his shirt (and my kitchen counters) were all wet.  

Because the kids had so much fun playing baseball at G&G T's house that's what they wanted to do for Family Home Evening on Monday evening.  However, we couldn't find our baseball so we ended up playing kick ball.  Here's Noah running with the ball not knowing quite what to do with it after Matthew kicked it.  Have I mentioned we are loving the warmer weather?!

 

Yesterday I started on Matthew's mural.  Since he is such a train lover that's what I decided to do.  I started after he went to school so I could surprise him when he got home.  He was pretty excited to see it when he got home.  I recorded his reaction, but for whatever reason the video won't upload.  Just imagine him screaming, "IT'S A TRAIN!!"  over and over and over again while jumping up and down flapping his hands. He was very excited!

I am not quite finished, but here's what it looks like so far:

Done Stuff, Career Day, Mural, Advice From Kids

G&G Mancil came for a visit last week.  Of course when they got here we put them to work ;).  I had been begging Aaron for a long time to make me a headboard and footboard for our bed.  It finally got built and here's the result.  However, we still need to putty the nail holes, sand and paint, but the hardest part is finished:

I am excited!  I think it turned out very nice considering the plans I had found for them weren't complete, but hey, what's a handyman project without a bazillion trips to Lowe's anyways?!  I love you, Aaron and Phil :).  We had a nice visit while they were with us.

While G&G M were here it was Dad's and donuts day at Josh and Daniel's school.  Aaron got to take Grandpa M along with Josh and Daniel to enjoy some reading with some donuts.  However, when they got to school they had realized they had forgotten a book to read.  Whoops.  They did enjoy the morning with some donuts (a poptart for Daniel) and the boys, though.

The next morning happened to be parents and pastries at Matthew's school.  He didn't tell us about it until that morning and he wouldn't take no for an answer.  That meant a quick call to his bus driver to let her know that I would be taking him to school in all my just out of the shower no makeup and undone, wet hair glory....Oh well.  Matthew was really excited to have his mom there.  He introduced me to anyone and everyone whether they wanted to be introduced or not.  He would just yell out from across the room in his typical monotone Matthew voice, "HEY so and so! This is my mom, Rebecca!  Tell her hi!"  We did bring along a train book to read, but he was more interested in introducing me than in reading his book.  What a funny boy!

Matthew's teacher asked Aaron and I to present our careers to Matthew's class.  My turn was two Friday's ago and I must admit I was a little nervous.  Taking 40 minutes to present my career to a classroom of 11 year old autistic kids would be interesting.  Luckily I brought along lots of visual aids.  I made Matthew my patient and told the kids what I did in an assessment of a patient.  I then let them use my otoscope to look in Matthew's ears, my stethoscope to listen to his lungs, heart and bowel sounds and then showed them how to find a good vein to start in IV in.  I was worried about keeping their attention and taking the whole 40 minutes, crazy enough, though, I went overtime.  The kids seemed to enjoy the hands on lesson.  The following Friday Aaron had to present his career.  He decided to bring some visual aids as well.  He works on the F-16 airplanes so after explaining a little about that he brought some airplanes and let them have flying contests.  The kids seemed to really enjoy that as well.  Overall it turned out to be a pleasant experience.

Last Friday was Daniel's long awaited allergist appointment.  After getting checked in they brought him back to do his lung function test which he passed with flying colors.  Knock on wood we haven't had too many issues with asthma lately which is AWESOME!!

Next it was time for the skin prick test.  It is where they place the allergens in his back and then scratch it into his skin and wait to see how big of a hive forms.  Daniel HATES this test and I can't say as I blame him it looks like it is absolutely miserable.  He was so mad about being there and getting the test done that he refused to even talk to the doctor.  When she would ask him questions he would just glare at her and I had to answer all of the questions.  Oh well he's had 7 years of these awful tests so hopefully the doctor understands his rudeness.... Here's his back before they start:

Here's 5 minutes after they started:

Here's after the test was over:

Since his blood levels last October showed his allergy toward egg whites and yolks were very low, we were hoping his skin prick test would show the same result.  Unfortunately, it didn't so we have to wait another year before we can even think about reintroducing egg into his diet.  As always the nuts and milk were extremely high which is no surprise.  It is quite frustrating, but what can you do? In the mean time we are stocked with the Epi-pens and Benadryl and hoping against hope that by next year the result will be a little more positive (not hive wise, though).  **SIGH**  Afterward I took Daniel out for a treat which almost made up for him getting the test or so he told me....

We had some friends over the night and they have a daughter that is about a year younger than Noah.  While eating dinner she ate at the little picnic art table we had for the kids.  Now Noah likes to eat his meals there to be just like her.  This time Daniel decided to join him to see what was so exciting about the picnic table.

 Sarah is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall.  That is crazy!  I still think of her as my little two year old girl, but she is almost 5!!  Kindergarten round up was last week so I had a bunch of paperwork to fill out.  However, I would be lying if I said I didn't tear up with excitement when filling this particular paper out:

 It was so exciting for me to finally be able to check the No Health Concern box.  She is the first child that I have been able to do this with and it felt GREAT!!!  Hopefully it stays that way for a very long time!!!

The other day I had a pen that I couldn't put down right away so I put it behind my ear.  Well Sarah and Noah had to be just like Mom and made me put a pencil behind both of their ears.  They wore it there for as long as I wore mine there.  They are so funny.

I finally finished Sarah's mural.  It has taken me a while because I haven't been able to work on it at all for a couple of weeks between car problems and having guests so I was glad to finally finish.  Sarah LOVES Cinderella so that's what she got.

 

Here's Cinderella's face:

The Prince's face:

 

All in all I think it turned out well.  Now I just gotta decide what to do for Noah's mural.  Tough decisions...

Two Saturdays ago it was the Model Railroad Festival at Union Station in Ogden.  Of course anything railroad Matthew is all over so we decided to take the family.  Matthew was in heaven.  The rest of the kids seemed to enjoy it, but Matthew LOVED it.  He just sat there and screamed, "IT'S A TRAIN, IT'S A TRAIN IT'S A TRAIN!!!" over and over again.

Here he is getting  excited watching a train go by.  

 Speaking of Matthew his backpack is falling apart.  His zipper is not closing very well so he came over to tell me as a matter of factly that his back pack was getting old and that he needed a new one with his very characteristic monotone Matthew voice.  I had to record it because this is just the Matthew that we love:

It was Science Saturday at Weber State University this last Saturday.  We went and had fun as a family.  Aaron happened to have some spare change that we put in the coin spinny thingy.  The kids thought it was pretty interesting.

 Then we learned about how drilling in the landscape affects things.  They used a cupcake and the straw as a drill for an example.

Noah just saw there was food and screamed until he got a cupcake.  However, after he got the cupcake he still continued to scream.  

 We finally figured out that he wanted a straw to go with it so once we got him a straw he was all smiles.

 Here we are learning about the composition of comets.  Noah's just still happy with his cupcake and straw.

 Here they had a jump machine that measured the force of your jumps.  Of course everyone had to try it including Aaron.  This time it was Sarah's turn:

 Matthew liked learning about static electricity (mostly he just liked playing with the balloons).

 Noah and Sarah like to keep me on my toes.  This morning while I was trying to get all three older boys ready for school they decided to get themselves ready, too by brushing their teeth.  When I say brushing their teeth I really mean squirting the whole tube of toothpaste in my bathtub over my shirt, turning on the water and scrubbing whatever besides their teeth with their toothbrushes.  Not a fun way to start my morning off to say the least....(all those white spots on my shirt are toothpaste squirts).

In other random happenings, last Sunday as I was walking into Sharing Time Josh came running over to me asking me if I noticed anything different about him.  Upon closer inspection I noticed blood on his shirt.  I started getting alarmed and asked him if he was all right.  He finally blurted out that he had just pulled out his tooth in the bathroom.  Ewwww.  When we came home I got the whole story.  Aaron said he was wandering the halls at church because Noah was very sleepy and he didn't want to drop him off in nursery that way.  While he was out in the halls, a neighbor came over and told Aaron that Josh might need some help in the bathroom.  When Aaron walked in Josh was trying to clean up his tooth pulling mess from all over the sink.  What a crazy kid.  Good thing the Tooth Fairy was prepared for it that night is all I can say.  Now how is the best way to get blood stains off a white church shirt?

The other morning I sent Matthew on the bus to school.  I was surprised when I found him running back through the front door about 5 minutes later.  He screamed that he didn't have his lunch in his backpack.  I told him that it certainly was in his backpack because I had put it there.  He ran back out to the bus to check and ran back inside quite upset because it wasn't there.  We started looking around and found it in the mudroom.  It must have fallen out of his backpack when he grabbed it to get on the bus.  When he realized he didn't have it he through a big enough fit that his bus driver turned back around and came back so he could get his lunch.  Poor Matthew was pretty upset and I am sure his bus driver wasn't too happy about it either, but I promise his lunch was inside his backpack that morning!

The other night after we had put Sarah to bed she got up a few hours later and went to the bathroom.  Now her getting up woke Noah up who started SCREAMING.  After a few minutes I went to get Noah.  That's when I walked by the bathroom Sarah had used.  Cue the Psycho movie music now....  I guess Sarah had needed to go #2, but wasn't fully awake enough to take care of things by the looks of the bathroom.  It was quite a scary site with smears everywhere.  I called out to Aaron to come and look.  He came walking by and then yelled out, "GET ME THE WIPES!!"  I guess Sarah had finished pulling up her underwear in the hallway walking back to her bedroom and left a chocolate nugget trail for Aaron to spin out on with his bare feet.  YUCK!!  I grabbed Sarah and put her sleepy self in the shower while we cleaned up the mess.  Poor Sarah doesn't function well while being half asleep.  Now we are a little more wary when she gets up to go potty after she has been asleep.

Josh came home from school yesterday and said, "Mom I have some good advice."  I asked him what advice he had and he proceeded to tell me that you should never wear underwear that is too small for you because it makes you itch.  I asked him how he knew that and he said that he had done it that day and it was not comfortable.  Come to find out he had worn a size 4 pair of underwear.  Well no wonder!  If an almost 10 year old boy wears size 4 underwear that's bound to happen, but I thanked him for his oh so helpful advice.

Daniel came home last week and told me that he wanted to be called Dan instead of Daniel from now on.  I asked him why and he finally told me that Daniel was too hard to write fast on his paper and keep it looking nice.  Let me just say that Daniel is quite the perfectionist when it comes to schoolwork and I am not complaining at all!  He said he can write Dan a lot faster so that's why he wants to be called Dan from now on.  I said that I will still call him Daniel because that is his name and that he just needs to write a little slower to put it on his paper.  He wasn't too happy about that, but I am his mom so he will have to deal with it!

In scouts Josh was talking about when it is appropriate to dial 911.  I asked him what he thought and he said, "Oh you should call 911 when someone is having a baby."  I started laughing and told him that just because someone has a baby doesn't mean you should call 911.  He said, "Well you guys did!"  I then explained that our situation was different because we were accidentally having a baby at home and that is an emergency and it was ok to call 911 then.  It was funny.  I am curious as to what his scout leaders thought about that...