Preference Dance, BINGO, IEP Meeting, Valentine's Day, Daddy Daughter Date, 911, Award

I am a few weeks behind in blogging, but the following is what our family has been doing the last two weeks.

A few weeks ago Sarah and I had a fun girls day out.  Sarah loves to paint so we picked up a few wooden boxes to paint at a later time.  Wednesday night was the best night to paint these since Aaron would be at scouts and the other boys minus Noah would be at mutual.  When I got out all the supplies Noah was pretty sad that he didn't have a box to paint, too.  I let him paint my box instead and they both had fun.  While they painted I supervised and tried to make sure there was enough newspaper underneath them to catch spills and random paint drips.  It was funny to hear Sarah coach Noah how to paint different shapes on his box.  It was nice because I usually don't let the kids do things like this, but I am trying to not say NO as much if I can help it.

In band they let whomever pair up to play different songs in an ensemble competition.  Josh paired up with another student to do a trumpet duet.  It was extra credit so they played for the teacher after school which meant we could come and listen.  They did really well.  It is fun to hear him play.  Here's Josh and his trumpet partner (Josh forgot his church shoes so his blue school shoes had to do the trick--haha!):

Speaking of Josh we had to register him for high school this week!!  It was so weird to write down Drivers Education on his registration form.  This will be an interesting year coming up....

 The older boys were able to attend a Weber State basketball game for their activity for mutual this past week.  Josh was pretty excited that he won a T-shirt so he texted me a picture:

 Their section even got toilet papered from a toilet paper gun.  Daniel is in the middle of the toilet paper mess:

 They even got some hugs from the Weber State mascot:

They had a fun night.  Matthew was there, too and said he had a good time.

Lately Noah has been really struggling with sleeping.  He has a really hard time falling asleep and then he will wake up at the crack of dawn.  Another thing I need to say is that he can't be awake alone either.  Whenever he has a hard time sleeping he has to come and wake me up to let me know--whether it is at midnight or at 5 am--ugh!  I thought it was a phase and that it would pass, but he continues to struggle with sleep.  I feel bad because it seems I have passed my insomnia on to the poor kid, but our schedules don't match up so I get to be awake twice as often now--DOH!!  I have tried occasionally giving him Melatonin, but I hate for that to become a habit and it didn't always work, either.  I have him take a long, warm shower before bed and that always doesn't work either.  Sigh--I am hoping it gets better soon because we are both pretty tired.  He will rarely fall asleep in the afternoon, but since it happens so rarely I will let him take short nap since he doesn't sleep very much at night.  He fell asleep watching TV the other afternoon so I had to take a picture to remind him of what sleeping looks like--haha!

Last weekend Matthew got to go to the girl's choice Preference Dance with his friend Ashlyn.  Ever since she asked him over a month ago he has been excitedly waiting for the day to come.  Ashlyn came to pick him up to do a group scavenger hunt and to go to lunch.  I was so worried and nervous  about how Matthew would be that I didn't even think to take any pictures.  Doh!!  Luckily, Ashlyn's parents are more on the ball than I am and snapped this picture and texted it to me:

After lunch they dropped Matthew off for a few hours until it was time to go on the evening portion of the date.  Ashlyn had messaged me a picture of her dress so I could get Matthew a matching tie and to pick out the right color for her corsage.  Here's my handsome Matthew before Ashlyn came to pick him up:

Here's the corsage for Ashlyn:

Matthew was so excited when she came to pick him up.  She pinned on his boutonniere, but it was hard because Matthew was so excited he couldn't stand still.

She made him a cool candy boutonniere that was pretty cool:

Here's the cute couple:

We followed them over to a park so the parents could all take pictures of their kids and their group date.  Here they are waiting for the rest of their group to show up and let me just say it was SO COLD!!

Here's the whole group that went together to the dance:

While they were getting everyone in place Matthew kept going around and seeking out all the parents of the kids that were in his group.  Once he found the parents he had to inform all of them that he was the 'Human GPS' and then give them traffic updates about the construction on I-15.  **Sigh**  Good thing Matthew is cute because he really can be a handful!!  Anyway, after taking pictures the group left the park to finish out their date.  I was so nervous and worried about how Matthew was going to be.  Ashlyn's mom was so sweet and told me not to worry and gave me a big hug.  I tried not to worry, but that was like trying not to breathe....

While they were on their date the rest of our family had our annual BINGO party.  It has been a tradition of my dad's family that has carried over to our generation.  It started as a birthday celebration for my grandpa since his birthday was on New Years.  My grandpa would save all year long to take the entire family out to dinner at a restaurant and then we would go someplace to play BINGO.  Every family would bring white elephant gifts wrapped up as the BINGO presents.  There were some interesting presents to say the least.  It was fun way back when I was a little girl and my kids really enjoy it now even though it is just with my parents and siblings and their families.

This year's party was a bit quieter since Matthew wasn't around to chat it up with everyone.  Another interesting note is that Josh has now passed Uncle Burke up height wise which is crazy.  Who knows how much taller this kid is going to get?!?!

After a potluck dinner and our BINGO game the cousins played together while the adults played games.  Here's Daniel trying out a hula hoop:

Aaron and I drove separately to BINGO so Aaron could stay for a little while and then leave to go home and be home if there was any problems with Matthew or if he needed to be dropped off early just in case.  Thankfully everything went well.  I did hear from his date that she was worn out by the end of the dance since Matthew kept walking around and through the crowd just to say hi to people he knew.  I am sure he didn't sit still at all the whole night.  I was thankful that he got the chance to go and for the wonderful person Ashlyn is to take him.  She has known Matthew since 3rd grade so I am so thankful that she wanted to take him.  As for the rest of us at BINGO we got some interesting presents I am sure that will get re-gifted at next year's BINGO--haha!  A running joke is the re-gifted macrame plant hanger that gets re-gifted year after year.  Luckily, we didn't end up with it this year--haha!

Last Friday we had Matthew's annual IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meeting with his special education teacher, a regular education teacher, the vice principal, the speech therapist and us.  I have a love/hate relationship with these meetings.  To show where Matthew is at they have to compare him to his peers.  Every single time it is so depressing to hear how behind and different Matthew is from his typical peers.  I REALLY HATE hearing that part of the IEP meeting.  I do love to hear the positives about Matthew from everyone involved, though.  They all know Matthew because he is super social and loves talking to anyone and everyone including all teachers and office staff.  It is crazy to think he only has one more IEP meeting until he 'graduates' and moves to a different school.  Since Matthew is in special education he won't really graduate until he turns 22, but the high school will let him 'graduate' and do the walk with his peers if that makes sense.  There are so many decisions we have to make for Matthew in the next few years.  It is pretty overwhelming to say the least.  Aaron and I attended and a Transitions class last week to see what steps and decisions we should make for Matthew in the next few years.  We will be attempting to gain guardianship status over him.  The crazy thing is is when he turns 18 he is recognized as an adult by any official standard.  That means we as parents would have no say in what he chooses to do and everything else which is quite concerning since I don't think he would have the cognitive ability to make appropriate decisions--for example if he enlisted in the military it would be binding, he could take out loans and it would be binding, he could make his own decisions about his medical care with no input from us, etc.  These are just a few of the binding decisions he could make if we didn't have guardianship over him which could be scary.  Anyway in order to show that he needs help with that we have to have him evaluated and tested to show IQ and other various things and then go to court to become his legal guardians even though we are his parents.  Since we have no idea how to do this we will be signing up for a class around April to help us out.  It should be an interesting year of trying to get all kinds of supports set up for Matthew and have them in place before he 'graduates' from high school.  After high school he will be attending a new school in Farmington that helps him earn his actual diploma and learn job skills so he can be employable.  To say we are overwhelmed with everything that needs to happen in the next three years would be an understatement.  I keep telling myself you can eat an elephant one bite at a time so I am not trying to worry about things I can't control right now and take things slowly.  It will be a very interesting year to say the least!!

Valentine's Day came and Daniel was excited for the Valentine's Dance at school.  He made sure his hair was combed perfectly and that he smelled great with some help from some Axe spray.

Sarah was so excited to get her hair done and most days that isn't the case.  I was more than happy to do some Valentine hair on her.

She helped pick out what she wanted done.  She got a heart braid along with another heart put in her ponytail:

Noah made sure he was wearing a shirt with red on it.

The only Valentine box we had to make was Sarah's this year.  This is what she wanted to do:

Here's my youngest Valentines before they left for school:

I wasn't able to help with the Valentine's dance, but I got to see a few pictures from it.  Daniel is in the second row with the suit on:

 Daniel knew the dance was coming up so he made sure I cut his hair the weekend before so he would look his best for the dance.

 You have to have a refreshment break especially when you can sit with the ladies!!

 Proof that Daniel actually danced at the dance.  Gotta love that most of the girls are taller than all the boys:

Daniel, Sarah and Noah had a lot of fun at their Valentine's parties that day.  Matthew even got in on the action since he begged me to pick him up some Valentine's to pass out.  He didn't come home with any extra so I assume he passed all 50+ of them that I sent with him to school.  Poor Josh Valentine's doesn't mean a whole lot when you are in Jr. High!

Daniel did come home with an extra present from his 'Valentine' at school.  She gave him a sweet note and a bag of Sour Patch Kids:

Wahoo Daniel--or should I say Romeo?!

For dinner Valentine's night Josh made us all Red Velvet pancakes with cream cheese syrup.  We also had some eggs and bacon to go with it.  The kids all got a Valentine cookie from Aaron and me.  It was a pretty fun day for everyone.

For our Activity Day girls we had a Daddy Daughter party Friday night.  As we were waiting for everyone to arrive we had three stations they could visit.  We had a photo booth where I took pictures of the couples.  I took three pictures--one silly picture, one picture with props and one nice picture of the girl with her dad/grandpa.  Here's Sarah and Aaron--somehow Sarah sweet talked Aaron into wearing a pink boa.  She has some good sweet talking skills!!

Silly picture:

Nice picture:

After taking pictures they did the candy guessing jar then they sat down and worked on a word search together while waiting for everyone to get there.

We then had some pizza, then we played the "How well do you know each other game" which is a form of the Newlywed game, but the questions were geared for dads and daughters.  After that game we frosted some cookies.  

We ended the night with playing a few Minute to Win it games.  The first one was blowing the cups off the table with a balloon.

Then we played another game where you had to get the Oreo cookie from your forehead to your mouth just by using your face muscles only.  That one was pretty funny to watch.

Then the next one was you held a pencil on your elbow and dropped it while you tried to catch it.

All in all it was a fun night and I think everyone had a good time.

Occasionally I have to go through Noah's back pack to clean it out.  I did it a few days ago and found this sweet Valentine's note:

The inside said, "Dear whole family thank you for all that you done for me.  I want you to visit me. I love you.  Love Noah".

I also found a Valentine's note he wrote to G&G:

I love finding sweet things like this!!

A new gym opened up by us and they had a open house where anyone could come see it Saturday afternoon.  We went to Daniel's basketball game and then we took Josh and Daniel over to check it out.  Aaron tried out the racquetball court with Daniel:

We then looked over the exercise machines where Daniel tried out an arm machine until his arms got tired:

Of course we had to try out the massage chairs:

Daniel and I were trying to figure out how to work the rowing machines:

I showed Josh the racquetball courts.

For dinner Saturday night Aaron tried smoking some different kind of bacon wrapped peppers and they were really good!  He got peppers that weren't hot at all just for me since I am a wimp when it comes to stuff like that.  They were really good if I didn't mention that already!!

For Valentine's Day Aaron gave Sarah a Fiiz gift card.  She talked him in to taking her Saturday afternoon.  Aaron was more than happy to have a reason to go to Fiiz--haha!  Here's his cute date:

We had a family movie night and Sophie made herself comfy even though it meant Josh couldn't move:

Monday was a holiday, President's Day, so that meant Aaron and the kids had it off from work and school.  We decided to make a day of it so we got up early and started to head down to Provo to spend the day.  Unfortunately, it had really snowed quite a bit the night before enough to set a few records and it was still snowing as we got on the freeway.  The roads had not plowed and were horrible!!  After it took us over an hour to get to Salt Lake and seeing too many wrecks and cars that had slid off the road we rethought our plans and decided to return home and have a family movie, pizza and game day instead.  We dropped the kids off at home so Aaron and I could go pick up the movie, game and the pizza.  We had only been gone for maybe 20 minutes when we got back home.  As Aaron walked through the door the phone was ringing.  He picked it up to find that it was 911 seeing if we were okay since they had just gotten a call a minute before from our home phone number.  What?!  Aaron talked with the operator and come to find out our kids had been fighting and someone decided to call 911 and hang up without giving any information.  During the original call the operator had heard screaming so they told Aaron they had to send out the police to make sure things were okay.  What the heck?!  No one fessed up to who called 911, but someone did.  DOH!!  That was sure a fun visit....Oh well the police that came were pretty cool about the situation.  Seriously Aaron and I had only been gone for 20 minutes.  The kids had been arguing about what to have for lunch...nothing else-- just disagreeing about what to have for lunch.  I don't think any lunch argument warrants a call to 911.  Afterward we had a big long talk about when it is appropriate to call 911 and when its not.  We really emphasized that it was not appropriate to call them when you can't agree on what to have for lunch...ugh!  These kids keep things exciting that's for sure!!

After the police left and our discussion we ate some pizza and played a game called Speak Out.  It's where you have to wear this mouth thing and try to say phrases while your team tries to guess what you are saying.  It was pretty funny to watch and to play.  Aaron went first:

He cheated a bit by using charades along with what he was saying, but it was pretty funny to watch:

Everyone got a turn to try it out:

Daniel had some saliva issues when it was his turn.  It made it even more hilarious to watch:

Josh:

Matthew:

Sarah:

Me:

Noah:

Again I went through Noah's backpack and found his 100th day of school packet he had made.  One page said, "When I am 100 Years Old:  I'm going to school"

His answers to the questions are in light blue:

"I wish I had 100: wands"
"If I had $100: I would buy 100 candies"
"I want to eat 100: candies"
"I can do 100: push ups"

"When I am 100 Years Old:
I now live in: California
"I had a great career as a: Grampa"
"My family has been by my side throughout all of it: My family has been by my side forever"
"My biggest accomplishment was: playing"
"If I went another 100 years I would: play"

My favorite answer was about the career as a grampa--haha!

Tuesday night my brother in law Tom was in Utah on a business trip. We all met up with him at dinner where he could tell us about their family's visit to Israel a few weeks before.  It sounded like an amazing trip.  They even brought us all back an olive wood nativity from Jerusalem.  It is so beautiful!  We could actually all talk, too, since there were no kids at dinner.  Here we all are:

Here's my beautiful and authentic olive wood nativity from Jerusalem:

 It was pretty cool to see the Arabic on the outside of the box, too:

I have gotten a chance for a few baby snuggles this week.  We have three sets of twins 1 and under in our ward.  Occasionally I get to help out by holding one during relief society.  I love it.  I also got to watch my friend's baby yesterday morning.  He was sick so he curled up with me and fell asleep and I loved it.  I miss having a baby around so I will take snuggles from any baby anytime!!

 I have to brag a bit.  Aaron got an amazing award at work today.  He got nominated for his innovativeness in engineering.  He won the award out of a group of 1600 engineers so that is pretty amazing.  He now will go to compete for the same award at the national level.  They had a big base wide ceremony this morning to acknowledge all the nominees.  He got this certificate:

Pretty proud of my hubby!!