In all of living, have much fun and laughter. Life is to be enjoyed not just endured.
Gordon B. Hinckley
"God doesn't give children with special needs to strong people; He gives children with special needs to ordinary, weak people and then gives them strength. Raising a child with special needs doesn't take a special family, it makes a special family."--Author Unknown
We had been wondering about Matthew's eyesight for awhile, but I never got around to scheduling an eye exam. I didn't schedule one because I didn't know how Matthew would react to the exam or if he would be able to participate. Well I finally bit the bullet and scheduled one just to see what would happen. Matthew tolerated the exam a lot better than I thought he would. He did have a hard time when it came to saying whether each turn of the lens was better or worse. However, the optometrist was able to bring out a pair of adjustable glasses so he could switch out the lenses to see which ones helped Matthew to see the letters on the wall the best. I hope that explanation made sense....Anyway, here's Matthew getting his eyes checked out:
Here's the adjustable lens glasses that helped the optometrist tweak his prescription:
It only took two days for Matthew's glasses to come in which was very fast. His prescription isn't too strong, but Matthew does like wearing his new glasses so far.
I never thought Josh and Matthew looked very much alike until now. Aaron and I have mixed them up a few times already. This will take some getting used to:
Two Saturdays ago it was Science Day at the Willow Park Zoo in Logan. We headed up to check it out. Throughout the zoo they had different science stations where you could perform science experiments. The first station talked about birds and their feathers. It explained how feathers worked and how they are made waterproof from the birds putting oil on them when they preen their feathers.
You could put a dropper full of water on the feathers and see it bead up.
We even got to see an owl close up and learn about it.
Sarah was really interested since she has been learning about owls at school:
This table showed how fat keeps the animals warm. They had a bowl of ice water and some bags. One bag was insulated with Crisco while the other bag was not insulated. You stuck your hand in both bags and dipped it in the ice water to see which one stayed warmer.
The kids got to make their own bird feeders. (Aaron and I were glad this activity was outside because it got pretty messy!):
Noah got bored after a while and started playing in the snow. It didn't come as a surprise a while later when he started complaining that he was so cold.
They had some peacocks wandering around the grounds. Noah was amazed by the "Really Big Chickens". Every time one would come close to us he would yell, "WHOA LOOK AT THE BIG CHICKEN!!"
Last Sunday was the Priesthood Preview for the primary boys turning 12 this year. Aaron and I were able to go with Josh. I can't believe he is going to be 12 this year!!
They had a few people speak Aaron was one of them. It was a good program. Their current primary teacher talked about the priesthood and likened it to a car. He said you had to drive it and use it not just park it in the garage. The bishop got up right after that talk and expounded on it. He said you can't have bad gas for the car either. That was the wrong thing to say with a room full of 11 year old boys. After all the giggling stopped the bishop was able to finish his talk and made sure not to talk about having bad gas again--poor guy!
Noah is all about being Mr. Helpful. He randomly decided the other day that he needed to bring in the full box of soda from the garage. After he brought it in he had to show me how strong his muscles were. What a funny guy!
Josh was the Laudable Lion (Student of the week) this week. I found out about it when I got a call from the school. Every time I see the 402 prefix on my caller ID I get scared--I HATE CALLS FROM THE SCHOOL!!! Well this was a good call, though. It was the principal telling me that Josh was picked as student of the week. Here's what his teacher wrote about him, "Josh Mancil is a Laudable Lion because he is cheerful and happy. He is always smiling or making others laugh. He has a fun personality and is enthusiastic about life." Wow good job Josh!! I think I could handle calls like that from the school :). He got a certificate and a coupon for a free meal from a local restaurant. Pretty Awesome!!
Like I said most calls from the school usually mean some kind of problem. Like the call I got last Friday afternoon. It was from Sarah's teacher asking me if Sarah left her coat at home. DOH!! Let me rewind. I had an ear infection all last week. I was hoping it would go away on its own, but it didn't. I finally got an appointment with the doctor Friday morning at 8:20 am. That was the only appointment time they had open so I took it. It wasn't a good time for me because that is when I am getting the kids ready for school, but I had to make it work. Before I left for my appointment at 7:50 am I made sure all the kids had their lunches, coats and backpacks ready to go. I set the timer for 30 minutes so they would know what time they had to leave for school and then I left for my appointment. So when I got the call from Sarah's teacher asking me where Sarah's coat was I was a little annoyed. Sarah had forgotten her coat even though she had to move her coat to get to her back pack. Anyway, I had to bring her coat to her so she wouldn't freeze on her way home from school. I am glad her teacher called to let me know, but I still don't like calls from the school. At least my ear feels a ton better now and Sarah didn't freeze on her way home from school. I am grateful for modern day antibiotics!!
Last week our family got to attend the Access to Music Concert down at The Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. It is a special concert put on by the Utah Opera and the Utah Symphony for special needs kids and their immediate families free of charge. They do this every year so kids with special needs who can't always control outbursts or have regular 'concert behavior' are able to enjoy the music without offending anyone if they are noisy or wiggly or flapping their hands (Matthew) throughout the concert. I won't lie, it was noisy, but I think the kids really enjoyed the performance as did the audience. There was clapping and yelling by the whole audience through some of the fast paced symphony pieces which probably would not have happened at a typical concert. We were excited to go. Here we are in front of Capital Theater:
Waiting for the concert to begin:
Noah wasn't a fan of the opera singing as you can see by him plugging his ears:
We were grateful for the experience and for these opportunities for kids with special needs. It was great!
Sarah had her dress rehearsal for her dance recital. She was so excited to get dressed up with makeup. I can't believe how big she is getting:
Here she was on the actual dance recital night:
Her hair is getting so long:
Here's her first dance:
Second Dance:
She was excited to get her flowers from dad:
WE were glad G&G T could come watch. It is nice having them living closer to us!
Saturday night we had a movie night. We watched American Treasure and everyone loved it as you can see:
Daniel and Josh are our big helpers at home. We like to occasionally reward them for their help. Aaron took them to get a donut at the grocery store. Daniel asked if he could get an ice cream cone instead. Aaron was more than happy to oblige him seeing as he has missed out on 9 years of ice cream yumminess due to his old milk allergy that is now gone--Wahoo!:
Josh wanted the HUGE Texas sized donut. Aaron is a pushover.
Aaron said it was nice to spend some time with the big helpers.
Aaron also got a chance to be a judge for the Junior High Science Fair. He got to be the Engineering judge which he said was interesting. I am not looking forward to doing a science fair project with Josh, but at least we now know what they will be judged on :).
I haven't blogged since the New Year so here's a catch up post. We haven't done too many exciting things the past few weeks. Aaron and I have been enjoying the slower pace of life for a few weeks--the kids, however, not so much. For New Years we had our friends, the Einzingers, over to celebrate. We had pizza and played games while the kids entertained themselves. When midnight hit the kids went outside and banged some pots and pans to celebrate.
Hopefully our neighbors didn't mind too much.
For Christmas all the kids got a family game. We were trying out Uno. You know it was a good game when one or more people end up in tears by the time it's over. Those stupid draw four wilds....
We got Christmas put away the next day. Matthew has always been excited to decorate for the next holiday. He would go and look at the calendar to figure out which one came next. A few years ago he asked me where all my Martin Luther King Day decorations were. Well as you can imagine those kind of decorations are hard to come by. Luckily, my sister in law Jill made us a Martin Luther King Day decoration. It is hanging up so now we can be festive. It is a plate with the silhouette of Martin Luther King with his famous quote, "I have a dream..."
For New Years we went as a family to the Kaysville Theater to see the movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. That was a pretty funny movie and I think the kids liked it, too. Daniel has officially decided he LOVES movie popcorn since he can now eat it. I have to agree with him :). Here we are waiting for the movie to begin:
Also during the Christmas/New Years break we took the family swimming to the Aquatics Center. The kids had won a free swimming pass way back in the summer and have been begging to use it ever since then. The pass expired by the end of the year so we had to use it or lose it so we used it. It was fun and wore the kids out which was great. However, when it was time to leave the building and walk out to the car it was COLD especially since all of us were wet. It was also only about 10 degrees and it was really windy Brrrrr! It was so cold that by the time we reached the car my wet hair was completely frozen. When we got home everyone spent an extra long time during their showers just to get warm again.
January 5th the kids went back to school. Wahoo! To celebrate Aaron, Noah and I went to lunch. I had some fun lunch companions. I was just glad to survive the almost three week school break--phew!!
With the kids being back at school that meant it was back to reality for me which meant I really needed to do laundry. Noah being Mr. Helpful crawled up on the clean clothes pile (aka Mount Laundry) and watched me work. Thanks for all the help, Buddy!
The second day back Sarah got an award. All the kids who had perfect attendance in the school for the week get put in a drawing. Sarah's name got picked so she got to go to the office and pick out a prize. She chose a necklace because she loves herself some bling :).
This past weekend was my Grandpa Gee's 90th birthday. He is my mom's dad. He and my grandma are still doing well. They have moved into a care center and are still getting used to it. My grandma has had a bit of a harder time adjusting between the move and some dementia, but they are still doing ok. Here's my family--my mom and dad, sister Johanna and her family, brother Bryan and his family and me and my family. We are missing my other sister, Jennifer and her family, who live out in Ohio. We got together with some aunts, uncles and cousins for pictures and some cake.
Here's my mom (in pink) and her two sisters standing by my G&G Gee.
Here's my family with G&G Gee:
By the time it was over I think my G&G Gee were overwhelmed with all the noise so many grandkids can bring! Oh well it was nice to celebrate and visit with them for a bit.
On the way home we stopped by the new Provo Temple they are building out of the old tabernacle that burned down a few years ago. It is turning out very pretty:
When we got home Matthew wanted to watch football with Aaron, but after a few minutes he fell asleep. Aaron didn't mind because it is very rare you get loves from Matthew nowadays.
A few weeks ago the bishopric asked Matthew to be a youth speaker for the first time. Aaron and I were pretty nervous when it was his turn to speak on Sunday. We had written him a talk on how prayer helps your testimony. However, with Matthew you just never know what will come out of his mouth. Luckily, he did great. He wasn't nervous at all. He first passed the sacrament and then went and sat up on the stand. He gave his talk when it was his turn and then came down and sat with us. We were glad he got to have that experience and that it went well!
Daniel is still doing basketball and loving it. They mistakenly put him on a 4th grade team even though he really should be on a 3rd grade team. Everyone is a good head taller than Daniel, but he doesn't let that bother him. His coach is a pretty serious guy and for every basket or layup they miss he makes them do push ups which has been a pretty effective motivator for Daniel.
Aaron thinks that I spoil Noah. I must admit I do spoil my baby sometimes. However, he seems to think he should get his way at all times now. The other day we ran out of string cheese and he cried/whined about it for over an hour until I was able to find a string cheese buried deep in the fridge. Maybe I shouldn't spoil him so much because an hour was a really long time to listen to that and to have this sad face looking at me the whole time.....
Noah also has a hard time pronouncing oatmeal. He calls it his ointmeal instead. Here's the proof:
Speaking of Noah the other day I heard him in the bathroom. He was sitting on the potty and he said, "I am a big boy!" I told him I thought he was a big boy, too. After I said that he said, "Mom I wasn't talking to you!" Seeing as there was no one else in the house I figured he must have been talking to himself--giving himself a pep talk while sitting on the potty. I had a hard time not bursting out in laughter because he was so serious about it. So just to let everyone know Noah is a BIG BOY according to his solo pep talk--haha!
One last funny experience happened yesterday. Now when I get up in the morning I give the kids their medicine and then I prepare their lunches on the counter. It is their responsibility to get their own lunches from the counter into their lunchboxes. Monday we were running a bit behind so we were all pretty rushed. After everyone left for school I noticed there were two lunches still sitting on the counter. DOH!! After exercising I went over to the elementary school to try and figure out who forgot their lunch. I was pretty sure one of them was Josh just because he forgets his lunch pretty often. I went and dropped off Josh's lunch on his desk. Josh's class wasn't in their classroom so I hoped Josh was one of the forgetters of their lunch. I walked over to Sarah's class to see if she had forgotten her lunch. I walked in and she insisted she had her lunch and she showed me her packed lunch box. So then I walked over to Daniel's class to see if he was missing his lunch. He said he had his lunch. Puzzled I left and went home with the extra lunch. When school got out and the kids got home I asked them if they all had their lunches. That's when it came out that Sarah ate school lunch on Friday without telling me. She forgot to bring home her lunchbox over the weekend. So when she got to school without bringing her freshly packed lunch she thought she was ok since she had her lunch from Friday still packed in her lunch box. She went ahead and ate Friday's lunch on Monday. Ewwwww!! The bad thing is it had yogurt in it. That yogurt sat in the warm classroom all throughout the weekend and she ate it Monday. YUCK!! Aaron and I are just waiting for her to get sick from it.....Bleck!! I told her she couldn't do that, but I don't know if it sunk in. Maybe if she gets sick from the bad yogurt it might sink in a little better.....
I am running really behind in the August and September birthdays. Here's my attempt to update....
Sarah and Matthew's birthdays were in August and I interviewed them around their birthdays but never blogged the answers. Better late than never, right?!
Matthew's Interview:
Favorite Color: yellow
Favorite Class in School: Art
Future Occupation: Art Teacher and Train conductor
Favorite Book: Any Train Book
Favorite Food: Mac and Cheese, hot dogs and Pizza
Favorite Activity: Going somewhere fun
Fav. TV Show: Phineas and Ferb, Dora, Diego
Fav. Movie: Freebirds
Fav Sport: Basketball
Fav Cereal: Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Fav. Candy: Chocolate and Tootsie Rolls
Fav. Color: Turquoise and Pink
Fav. Class: Art and Math
Future Occupation: Doctor
Favorite Book: Frozen Book
Fav. Food: Peanut Butter Sandwiches
Fav. Activity: play telephone with her family
Fav. TV Show: Spongebob
Fav. Movie: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
Fav. Sport: Soccer
Fav. Cereal: Cinnamon Toast Crunch
Fav. Candy: Chocolate
Fav. Color: Blue
Fav. Class: PE
Future Occupation: Electrical Engineer
Favorite Book: Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Fav. Food: Hot Dogs, Spaghetti and Meatballs, Pizza
Fav. Activity: Playing with Friends (Reed is best friend)
Fav. TV Show: Scooby Do
Fav. Movie: How to Train Your Dragon 2
Fav. Sport: Basketball and Soccer
Fav. Cereal: Fruit Loops
Fav. Candy: Mints
Alas, I am a little late on the Christmas cards this year so
I thought we would just do a quick version of our year. What a crazy year it has been, too! Here’s the rundown of the Mancil Family Year for 2014:
Noah turned 4 years old this year. He started preschool this year and loves
it. He also participated (and I use that term loosely) in soccer. He is still really loving cars and has quite
a few Matchbox cars he loves to play with.
He is Rebecca's buddy during the day while the other kids are in school. He is a Sunbeam and loves singing time in
primary.
Sarah had a crazy year.
She started out the year with a week long hospital stay with Kawasaki Disease
which is an inflammatory vascular disease.
Luckily, after treatment she has shown no problems, but we do get to
follow up with the Cardiologist for the next few years to make sure. Sarah has been having some problems with
urinary tract infections. After some
testing we also found out that Sarah has Vesicoureteral Reflux which means a
valve in her bladder doesn’t work very well and the flow of urine goes up to
her kidneys every time she voids.
Luckily, there has been no significant damage to her kidney, but to make
sure we get to follow up with the urologist for the next few years in addition
to being on a low dose antibiotic for the time being. Despite the health issues, Sarah is a pretty
healthy kid. She started first grade
this year and loves school especially learning how to read. She participated in soccer and loves taking
dance classes.
Daniel had an awesome year.
The greatest accomplishment has been getting Daniel over his peanut, milk and
most tree nut food allergies. Through a
local Oral Immunotherapy program an allergist (Dr. Douglas Jones) was able to slowly
get Daniel over these allergies which has opened up a whole new world of food
for him. His favorite new food is pizza
and he loves eating it every chance he gets.
He still is allergic to cashews, pistachios and we found out a new
allergy to Sunflower seeds/oil, but those are not too hard to avoid. Daniel is in 3rd grade and loves
school. He also participated in soccer,
baseball, basketball and Cub Scouts.
Josh has had a busy year.
He is in 6th grade and loves school. He is currently participating in Student
Council and orchestra at school. He is
learning how to play the violin. He
loves reading and we are always looking for great book series for him to
start. He participated in soccer and is
currently involved in piano and Boy Scouts this year. He even went on his first overnight Boy Scout
camp out with Aaron. Josh loved it. We did learn that Josh was not quite ready to
be weaned off his epilepsy medication, though.
After being two years seizure free and having a clear EEG test his
neurologist wanted to try and wean Josh off his medication. Unfortunately, he was not ready to be off them
when he had a seizure. Oh well at least
we were able to get him back where he needed to be and he is doing great
now. He keeps us on our toes for sure!
Matthew had a wonderful experience this year. He was participating in a summer program
which was located by some railroad tracks.
Every morning Matthew would wave to the train engineers as they drove
their train by. One day a train engineer
stopped the train to say hi and give Matthew a lantern, hat, gloves and safety
vest. Matthew was beside himself with
excitement. The local news stations and
newspaper picked up the story so Matthew was able to be on TV. It was such a wonderful experience for him
and us. Because of that news story we
were able to take a tour of the UTA Frontrunner facilities and the Union Pacific Engineer training center as well. Matthew was in heaven. Matthew was able to attend a special needs summer camp at Camp Kostopolos for two weeks this summer and loved it. Matthew started 8th grade this
year and loves school. His favorite
thing is the community field trips the Learning Center takes every month. These special kids are able to go out to
lunch and learn how to order from a menu.
After lunch they head over to the grocery store and learn how to do some
grocery shopping by following a budget and a grocery list. Matthew also participates in piano and loves
attending his after school program as well as Young Mens where he serves as the
2nd counselor in the Deacons Quorum presidency.
Rebecca has had a busy year.
She has been the behind the scenes coordinator to make the household run
smoothly and to make sure everyone gets to everywhere they need to be at the
time they need to be there. That is not
an easy job to have 7 people’s schedules to keep track of! She keeps our family busy with different
activities and experiences. A few of our
favorite have been the Sherman Wayment Fun 5K Run we did as a family. We also enjoyed doing a few corn mazes and a
road trip. She taught the Sunbeam class
in primary every week, but just got released from that calling after doing it
for the last three years. She loves to
read, can/bottle and blog to journal about all our family’s activities. One of her favorite highlights of the year
was participating in the 10K Dirty Dash Run at Soldier Hollow this past fall.
Aaron has had a busy year, too. He is another behind the scenes coordinator
that helps in keeping things running smoothly and Rebecca sane. He continues to work at Hill Air Force Base
as an Electrical Engineer. His current
project as Lead Hardware Engineer is developing test stations for software development for airplanes. He also got the chance to coach Noah’s soccer
team and Daniel’s baseball team. He has
volunteered and taught a few classes for the STEM (Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics) program at a few different elementary schools in
our area. He currently serves as the
Elder’s Quorum President in our ward which keeps him pretty busy as well.
2014 was a crazy year for our family. We hope 2015 will be a great year for our
family and everyone elses, too!
I am happily married to a wonderful husband. We have four busy boys with one cute little girl. My kids keep me pretty busy most of the time, so when I get a spare moment, I like to read, blog and scrapbook. I attended college and received my Bachelor's Degree in Nursing. At college, I met my husband in a karate class of all places and we have been married for 18 years. After putting my husband through college by working full time graveyard shifts as a nurse, I have gone on hiatus to be a stay-at-home Mom and enjoy spending time with the kids.
