Star Week, Party, Chewy, Sophie

The past 2 weeks have been pretty uneventful which is a good thing.  Here's a quick catch up of our goings on.  Last week was parent teacher conferences for the elementary school.  It also meant early out all week long which means Noah only goes for 2 hours until it is time for me to pick him up again.  I personally don't feel like two hours is even worth going for, but I still sent him.  It was nice to meet with all the kids teachers.  They are all doing great.  Sarah even got all 3s on her report card--which is all As.  Wahoo!  Daniel, Sarah and Noah have hit their groove and really enjoy school which was nice to hear.  Sarah had a fun week, too.  Since it was her half birthday she was the Star of the Week in her class.  She was excited to make and bring her All About Me poster in at the beginning of 

the week.  Grandpa T helped her fill the poster out which was nice.  She wants to be an artist and a teacher.  She got to fill in what she is really good at and this is what she wrote, "I am really good at reading, Math and Spelling."  Her favorite things to do is to create things--especially with her rubber band loom.  One of the squares she had to fill in where she would like to go and she put Disneyland.  Silly thing is that she has already been there.  Granted she was only 9 months old and probably doesn't remember a thing, but she has been there.

At the beginning of the school year Sarah's teachers had the parents sign up for a different Fairy Tale to teach the class about for 20-30 minutes during each child's birthday week.  I signed up for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but totally forgot about it until they sent home the paper reminding me.  DOH!!  Since I was drawing a blank on how to teach that Fairy Tale I decided to have the kids do a Participlay.  There were 15 parts in the play and the other 10 kids that didn't have a specific part made the forest animal sounds for the play.  Since it was Sarah's half birthday week she got to be Goldilocks.  Then there were two people for the front cottage doors, a Papa Bear, Mama Bear, Baby Bear, 3 people who played the different porridge, 3 people who played the different beds, etc.  As I read the Fairy Tale everyone got to act out their part.  I think it turned out pretty fun at least I hope it did.  Sarah was just excited that she got to play Goldilocks.

Also within the last two weeks the Young Men and Young Women in our ward got a chance to perform Baptisms for the Dead at the Ogden Temple.  It was such a fun night.  I had Matthew stay home because he gets a bit agitated if he has to sit and wait and be quiet for long periods of time which is what happened.  There was a HUGE youth group before ours so we ended up waiting for about an hour before we got to take our turn.  That would have been really hard for Matthew to do.  Aaron promised to take Matthew at a different time.  Josh had a good time, though.  Of course all of us stopped by Farr's Ice Cream Parlor afterward which was yummy.

Josh is taking a CTE (Career and Technology Education) class which all kids are required to take.  A third of the year he is in a cooking class, the next third he does a sewing class and the last third he does a wood/metal shop class.  He is currently in the sewing class and made this bag.  He is pretty proud of it and I guess I am, too, because I had no idea he knew how to work a sewing machine--haha!

Daniel had his basketball pictures last week.  Daniel has an interesting team this season.  One of the most interesting things is that Daniel is the tallest kid on the team which is something that NEVER happens.  Daniel is really loving basketball and is doing pretty well which makes the games fun to watch.  The morning of this game Aaron drove Daniel to his game in the old 1978 blue truck since he had to go and help someone move stuff right after.  When they got to the school where the game was at they hopped out of the truck.  Aaron then told Daniel to lock the door.  Daniel looked at Aaron strangely and figured out what he meant and pushed down the door lock.  Daniel then asked Aaron how he was going to unlock it without a remote.  Aaron told him that back in the olden times we used a key to lock and unlock our car doors.  I think our age is showing--haha!

Last week I got a dreaded call from school.  Matthew is so skinny that he's hard to find pants for.  I bought him some pants for Christmas, but they were just a bit loose in the waist.  Unfortunately, Matthew's pants fell part of the way down at school so the teacher called me to let me know what had happened and also to have Matthew wear a belt from now on.  Poor guy.  I now make sure he has his belt on every day whether he needs it or not.  He does have some pants that fit him perfectly in the waist, but he wants to still wear the pants that don't.  I don't understand that kid.  Oh well.  He has a belt so hopefully that solved the problem.

Last Saturday night Daniel got sick.  He was still sick Sunday morning so we let him stay home from church and told him to ONLY call us if there was an EMERGENCY.  Well starting into our last hour of church I felt my phone vibrate--it was in the pocket of my church bag.  When I grabbed it I was scared to see a few missed calls from home.  I then got a text from Aaron, who was actually in the middle of teaching the lesson that hour.  He texted me really fast telling me that he just got a bunch of missed calls from home and that I needed to call Daniel at home ASAP.  I was really nervous to call, but to get out into the hallway to call was a bit tricky since I was sitting on the middle of the back row.  DOH!!  I squished passed everyone and quickly dialed home as soon as I was in the hallway.  Daniel answered and I asked what was wrong.  He just asked where we were and why we weren't home yet.  I reminded Daniel that church is 3 hours instead of 2 and that we still had another hour before we would get home.  Phew!  I was glad it wasn't something serious, however, next time he has to stay home I will remind him of what time we get out of church so I don't get panicked thinking there is a big problem at home.

Last Saturday Josh made some Blondies--vanilla brownies.  Noah wasn't to impatient to wait for them to cool off so when we weren't looking he literally grabbed his piece right out of the middle of the pan.  What a stinker!

We are all loving Sophie.  She is a cute, little puffball that loves to be with us every second of every day. She is a bit spoiled as you can see:

Aaron even likes to snuggle with her.  They both fell asleep the other night:

Noah loves to watch TV with her.

He will even occasionally check on her to make sure she is still doing ok:

She loves to fall asleep laying on anyone:

Or laying by anyone:

So whenever we would put her in her pen (which is the half bathroom that has been blocked off using a baby gate) she would whine and cry.  Since she is not house trained yet, she would go to her pen if someone wasn't watching her closely so we didn't have to clean up any accidents.  She hated going to her pen.  A few days ago she figured out how to climb up the gate and jump out.

What a stinker!

Good thing she is cute!

I am trying to decide how to fix that.  We have started closing the bathroom door, but she really flips out when we do that.  She is only about 8 weeks old so she is still a bit young to start house training, but I guess I need to start.

She needs to be penned up because when she roams free she chews on everything.  We have started calling her Chewy because she chews on EVERYTHING!  She started chewing the corner of Daniel's book he didn't put away.  Hopefully that will give Daniel incentive to put his book away when he's done reading!

Matthew really loves Sophie, too:

We watched the Superbowl last Sunday.  Of course we made lots of food.  We made bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed peppers, mini hot dogs, chips and dip, mozzarella sticks, cinnamon bears and bacon wrapped tater tots covered with melted cheese.  They were all Aaron's choices because he offered to cook dinner that evening.  Since I didn't have to cook I let him fix whatever he wanted.  The kids loved dinner that night which wasn't a surprise!

It was fun watching the commercials and the game.

Sophie didn't find the game too entertaining since she kept falling asleep:

This morning was all the kids Valentine's Day parties at school.  Sarah got a fun shirt to wear to school, thanks Jill:

 Then she let me do some hearts in her hair.  I loved it and hopefully Sarah did, too:

BINGO, Cookie Lunch, Flowers vs Cake, Puppy, Piano Recital, Klondike, Single Parenthood, Etc.

We have had a crazy 9 days at our house!!  Here's a not so quick catch up on our family happenings.  

Josh loves to cook.  His favorite things to make happen to be desserts.  The other day he made a quadruple batch of chocolate chip cookies.  Now in the morning the kids have been packing their own lunches for school most of the time.  Usually they have them packed up before I am out of bed and I figured out why.  The other morning I came out and found Sarah's lunch hadn't been put away in her lunchbox yet.  In looking closer at her lunch I saw that she had a juice box, some chips and a bag with 10 chocolate chip cookies in it.  What?!  Not very nutritious at all.  I guess I need to start getting myself out of bed a bit earlier to make sure they will pack a little healthier lunch--the little stinkers!  10 cookies really?!  No wonder the cookies all disappeared so fast!!

We got together for our annual BINGO party on the Terry side of the family!!  My Grandpa Terry's birthday was on January 1 so every year we would get together with the whole extended family to celebrate.  We would have dinner and then play a rousing game of BINGO where each family brought a bunch of wrapped white elephant gifts as the BINGO prizes.  After my Grandpa Terry passed away the family was really big so they decided to divide and have each original family host their own family BINGO party.  So G&G T invited all the kids and grandkids to the BINGO party this year.  So it was our family, my sister Johanna and Burke and their family and my brother, Bryan and Michonne and their family.  We missed having my sister Jennifer and Tom and their family here, but they couldn't make it from Ohio.  Since there are quite a few of us we had it at my sister, Johanna's, church.  It was lots of fun.  All the cousins had fun getting BINGOs and picking out their own prizes.

 There were some interesting prizes.  In all the years we had the BINGO party with my grandparents there was this dumb macrame (which is a hideous plant holder) that somehow came back as a BINGO present every year.  Everyone HATED this present so it was funny to see who ended up with it every year.  Unfortunately, the dumb macrame resurfaced this year and Josh got it--BOO!!  For sure that will be coming back again next year!!

 Since we had the party in January we also got to celebrate all the January birthdays in the family which there are a bunch.

 Gotta keep intense concentration for those BINGOS!!

 It was a really fun party!

Aaron I and don't really get in fights very often which is nice.  However, we got in a bit of a disagreement last Friday.  Saturday morning Daniel had a basketball game that Aaron took him to.  After the game was over Aaron took Daniel to pick up some flowers for me.  While they were picking up flowers Daniel asked why Aaron needed some flowers.  Aaron explained to Daniel that sometimes you need to say sorry especially to your wife and flowers are an additional token of your love for your spouse.  Daniel then told Aaron that he would never pick up flowers for his wife because that was a waste of money.  Aaron again tried to explain why you sometimes need to pick up something that is just for your wife to show you love her.  Daniel then told Aaron that when he and his wife fought that he would just pick her up some cake.  If he picked up a cake then he could eat some, too.  Hahahaha!  We will see if he still sticks to that idea when he is married or see if his wife will change his mind.  I did get some really pretty tulips, though.  It makes me want Spring to come!

Two Sundays ago Aaron was asked to speak in church.  I figured that it shouldn't be too hard for me sitting alone on the bench with my kids since they are getting older.  Boy was I wrong.  They were little stinkers.  I am sure Aaron got a laugh at us while he was sitting on the stand.  I think kids can sense when you are vulnerable and exploit it especially since we were in public and I couldn't be too loud in getting on to them.  We might need to practice our reverence skills for Family Home Evening....

We will be getting our puppy soon which everyone is excited for. Last week she wasn't quite old enough to leave her mom, yet, but she got to come and visit our house for an hour.  The puppy's owner has a daughter in dance and the dance teacher's house is right by our house.  So when he dropped off his daughter for dance he dropped off the puppy for an hour visit.  My kids were in heaven.  I don't think the poor puppy was left alone at all for that whole hour.  She was so sweet, though.  I think we finally all tentatively agreed on the name, Sophie, but we will make it final when she comes to stay.

 It makes everyone excited to get her for permanent this week.  She was messed with so much we wore her out.  She ended up falling asleep after having an accident on the floor first.  Sigh!!  I am excited to get her, but not looking forward to the house training at all, though.  Hopefully, she will catch on quickly!!  She really is a sweet puffball.

 Last Monday the kids were finally able to have their Christmas piano recital.  It was worth the wait, though!  Their poor piano teacher has been battling cancer for awhile and needed to be hospitalized through most of December to fight her new onset leukemia.  I am glad we were able to have her there for the recital.  It was a Christmas recital in January which got us excited for 2016 Christmas, right?!  Their teacher is really a remarkable lady and I am glad she has been able to teach them to get them as far as they have gotten.  Sarah went first out of our family.  She was so quiet in introducing herself.  She was a bit nervous.

 She did a duet with Mrs. Thompson the piano teacher which sounded awesome:

 Josh went next.  That kid has no fear of performing.

 Josh did great.

 Next Josh and Matthew did a duet together which sounded awesome.  It took some work when they first got the duet, but after lots of practicing they did great.

 Matthew loves performing.  After the duet he was so excited he was jumping and flapping and yelling with joy.

 Last of our family Matthew played a duet with Mrs. Thompson which sounded great, too.

 I am glad Katie was able to make it to the recital.  Here's most of her music students which is amazing she could teach and influence so many.

 My kids really loved her:

 The next day after the recital she was back at the hospital getting more chemo treatments.  She will be getting a bone marrow transplant soon, too.  She really is an amazing lady!

It was the end of the term two weeks ago.  Josh proudly presented his Honor Roll certificate to us.  Wahoo, Josh!!

 A few of his classes changed at the semester so I hope he will do as well in his new classes.  As for 7th grade I think Josh has adjusted pretty well considering how different Jr. High is compared to elementary school.

Wednesday Aaron and I got to get up at 4:30 am to take him to the airport.  His parents in Texas were moving from their house of 40+ years into a new house closer to his sister Jill.  Aaron went down to help out in the move.  While helping his parents pack up he found some interesting treasures.  He found our old kick pad from our karate class at BYU.  That's the class we met in 16+ years ago. This kick pad brought back lost of memories.  One in particular is when I was holding the kick pad for Aaron to kick and he missed and got my wrist.  Hahaha!  Good thing it didn't hurt or else I don't know if our relationship would have developed otherwise ;).

He also found his old leather jacket from his middle school days.  He's outgrown it a bit I think--haha!  And if you look close he is wearing shorts which is unfair since we had a huge snowstorm while he was gone.  I would love to have 67 degree weather about now.

He chose the most crazy and busy week for me to be gone, but I managed to do the single parent life while he was gone.  He left early morning Wednesday.  Wednesdays are the busiest days for our family so it was crazy trying to do it all by myself.  Thankfully G&G T were able to come and help me out that evening because I really had to be at two different places at once.  Luckily, they helped me out at home so I could go to Daniel's Scouting Pack Meeting where he earned the Maestro pin.

 While we were at Pack Meeting Sarah had to be picked up from dance which was taken care of for me.  Then after Pack meeting I had to take Daniel home and pick up Josh and Matthew to bring them back to the church for young men.  I also was in charge of the combined Young Women activity that night as well.  We were supposed to do Personal Progress, but we had found out that our ward boundaries were changing the next Sunday so I decided to do a fun farewell activity instead because we were most likely going to lose a few girls.  We did a pizza party and pudding Pictionary night.  I think it turned out pretty fun hopefully everyone else did, too.

I was so glad for the help from G&G T that night because it was crazy.  The next morning Daniel had an orthodontist appointment where he got his expander appliance put in.  Daniel's mouth is tiny so he needs the roof of his mouth expanded to allow all of his permanent teeth to come in.  We get to wind it every night to stretch his mouth to be bigger.  It doesn't look comfortable, but I think it will prepare him for the discomfort of braces which is a good thing.  It makes his speech a bit harder to understand, but it is only temporary.

 Thursday day I had to go out and get everything for Josh since he was going on the Klondike over the weekend.  I had to make sure he had everything he needed to stay warm.  Looking at the weather it was going to be rainy and snowy which are not ideal conditions for the Klondike, but you take what you get.  Thursday night thankfully, G&G T were able to come and help me out again.  Thursday night was a big Transition Fair for Davis School District.  This is where all the companies that provide services for kids with IEP or 504 plans get together to show what services they can provide now and in the future so it was really important I go.  That way I could find out more about services that Matthew could take part of now and in the future.  Since this was a big deal and Aaron was out of town I took Grandma T along for moral support while Grandpa T stayed behind to keep track of all the kids.  I am so glad that autism is getting more recognition because that means more companies are providing services that he can use in the future as well as right now.  Going around and talking to all the booths was pretty overwhelming because there are so many directions that Matthew could go.  I brought home all the brochures and am still trying to sort through all of them to see which ones would apply to our situation.  A funny thing is the Epilepsy Alliance of Utah had a booth there.  I stopped by and mentioned Josh's name.  They all immediately knew who he was from Camp Neuro last year.  That was pretty impressive because that group deals with A LOT of different people through the year and to have them remember who Josh was right as soon as they heard the name.  Good or bad I guess Josh is pretty memorable--haha!

Friday morning I packed up all the stuff Josh had gathered together for the Klondike.  As soon as he got home from school Friday he was excited to go.  We were the first ones there to drop him off because Josh was so excited to go.  He looks a bit like the 'I can't put my arms down' kid from A Christmas Story, but I wanted to make sure he would be warm.  It was forecasted to rain until midnight when it would turn into snow.  Brrrrrrrr!  I was worried for him.

 Daniel really misses Josh when he is gone.  Daniel didn't want to go to bed alone so he stayed up and watched TV with me until he fell asleep on my shoulder.  I didn't send him right to bed because I loved having him sleep on me.  As my kids get older they don't snuggle as much so I have to take it when I get it, right?!

 After sending Daniel to bed I crawled into bed.  I am an incredibly light sleeper so I got freaked out when I heard footsteps in the hallway about 1 am.  It was just a confused Noah.  I asked him what was wrong and he just said he needed lubs.  Since Aaron was gone I let him crawl into bed with me.  Now me being such a light sleeper I have NEVER allowed kids to sleep in my bed with me because I don't sleep.  After letting Noah crawl into bed with me I realized again why I NEVER have let kids sleep in bed with me.  I really didn't sleep much the rest of the night, but at least I got Bubba lubs. Noah is a bit of a mommas boy right now, but I am not complaining.  The next morning I found this comic and texted it to Aaron:

 Saturday morning I went to Daniel's basketball game for a bit.  Then I went and helped out at a friend kid's birthday party with Sarah.  Sarah had lots of fun and I am glad I could help out because there were a bunch of girls, too.  Happy birthday Beth!

When I got home from the birthday party Josh had just gotten home from the Klondike.  I was glad to see he was still in one piece and not frostbitten anywhere.  We did lose a few items because Josh didn't bring them back, but I am sure they will end up somewhere where we can find them again--at least I hope so.  It was nice to have Josh back because there had been a big snowstorm the previous 24 hours that had dumped a lot of snow.  Thankfully, I was able to use Little Caesar's Pizza to bribe Josh, Daniel and Matthew to shovel the driveway.  I shoveled about the third of the driveway and let the boys do the rest.  After the driveway was shoveled I went and picked up the pizza.  We then snuggled next to the fireplace and had a pizza party movie night.  Good thing I have strong boys who will help me out (even if I have to bribe them) especially with Aaron being gone!!

Sunday Aaron's flight got in right during church so we had to miss it in order to pick him up from the airport.  That evening we had our special ward boundary change meeting.  I chunk of our ward got split off which we are a little sad about.  Why is change always so hard?!  Our old bishop got released and we got a new one which happens to be the kids' orthodontist which is interesting.  These next few weeks will be interesting to see what overall other changes happen in our ward.

It is nice to have Aaron back because we really do need two of us to keep our family functioning!