Blood Draws, Treats, Morning with Dad, Dance Pictures, Answer, Soccer, Track Meet, Concert, Secret Singing Valentine Gram

We have had a slightly slower week.  Sarah had her liver doctor appointment today.  In preparation she had to get her labs drawn last week.  We went to the lab and it took 6 sticks with 4 different phlebotomists to finally get Sarah's blood.  Sarah handled things really well, but when they kept missing she started to cry by the 5th attempt.  I don't blame her.  They told me if the 6th attempt didn't work we would have to go down to Primary's to get her blood draw.  Thankfully, they got it the 6th poke.  Poor girl!

 Daniel and Sarah had orthodontist appointments that same morning so afterward I let Sarah pick out a donut and drink just for all the torture she had to endure that morning.  Since Daniel was there he got to pick something out, too--the freeloader--haha!

 The liver doctor was very nice.  She thinks it was just a gallstone that got stuck for a bit and then passed, but to make sure she wants to follow Sarah.  Unfortunately, Sarah's liver levels are still pretty high, however, they are trending downward which is good.  To make sure they continue to decrease Sarah has to get her blood drawn every 2 weeks or more often if there is a problem for the next little while.  She was not happy to hear that, but what can you do?!  They are concerned with her and also considering my terrible family history of autoimmune liver issues they want to keep a close eye on her.  They did run an autoimmune panel and everything, except one test came up negative which is good. That one other test was a pretty general marker of autoimmune antibodies in her body so it is a watch, wait and see what happens kind of approach.  Hopefully, over the next month or three things get back to normal.  The doctor did say in some people it could even take up to a year to come back to normal, but she wants to make sure the numbers are trending downward and not stagnating.  So we get to hurry up and wait to see what happens while Sarah gets blood draws every 2 weeks.  Sounds like fun especially for Sarah--not really, though... We did make sure to have a girls lunch together after the appointment, though.  Maybe that will help soften the blow of 2 week blood draws....

I did forget to post a picture of Dad's and donuts earlier this month.  Sarah had just gotten out of the hospital right before this so we were glad Noah, Aaron and SARAH were able to go.  They went enjoyed the morning together while eating donuts and visiting classrooms to show Aaron what they were working on.

We got Sarah's dance pictures back and I think they turned out great!

 Here's her team:

 Josh finally got his Prom answer back.  Aaron and I were sweating it for a bit since it took a little over a week, but Josh was unflappable.  He was just excited to get all the Cadbury candy along with the poster:

 It says, "I've been scrambling for a way to respond and my brain is scrambled thinking of an egg-cellent way to say prom would be CAD-astrophic without you and I'm BURY-egg-cited you cracked the question...YES!"

 Josh is pretty excited and is already saving and planning his date.  I still can't believe he is old enough to date!!  Anyway, he will have fun!

Soccer has started for Noah.  He was so happy to start practice last week.  Here's Noah doing some warm up running before practice started.  He is wearing the orange socks second from the left:

 Here he is doing drills:

 Aaron and I had to divide and conquer that day.  I went to Noah's soccer practice while Aaron went to Josh's first track meet.  Josh ran the 800 meter race in the meet.  Josh is the super tall kid in the very front of the picture wearing dark blue shorts and a gray tank top:

 Here's the race line up at the beginning:

 Josh running:

The next night was a band concert for Josh.  Here's his class performing:

 Here's Josh with his bow tie.  He lost the first one we ordered a few months ago and didn't tell us until it was almost concert time this time.  Thankfully, we ordered the bow tie and it came in just a few hours before the concert started--phew!!  Josh's band teacher takes his job pretty seriously so if the kids aren't wearing a bow tie they get docked a whole bunch of points.  Let's just say we were glad Josh's bow tie got here in time!!

 Josh playing his trumpet:

 Josh has been burning the candle at both ends lately.  He says he is not tired, but if he stops moving for 5 minutes he starts nodding off.  Here he is waiting for piano lessons--poor kid!  It doesn't help that they are at 5:30 am either.

 Daniel likes to take random pictures with my phone.  This is one I just found today the crazy kid:

I keep forgetting to post this small video.  Matthew's Spanish teacher recorded Matthew when he got a singing Valentine gram in his class.  Matthew was beside himself with excitement.  The Spanish teacher told us about it at parent teacher conferences and then sent the video to us.  The high school did a Valentine gram fundraiser and you could purchase a singing Valentine for someone.  The singing Valentine for Matthew was signed anonymous.  Well later Josh was telling us that he had sent a few singing Valentine's to some people.  He tried to keep it vague, but accidentally let it slip that he had sent one to Matthew.  I do have to say that Josh and Matthew don't really get along very well so I was touched by this gesture even more so that he tried to really keep it anonymous to not get the praise.  I was impressed by my son.  It really did make Matthew's day!!  I was also really grateful the Spanish teacher caught the moment for us, too!

In other randomness Noah likes practicing soccer with Daniel in the backyard:

Daniel is still enjoying track.  We were wondering if he would stick with it, but so far so good!

Things with both my jobs are going great.  I had one major training for my immunization job last week at the Health Department in Salt Lake.  I have another immunization training this week as well, but then I should know what I am doing...haha!  Luckily, they will put me with a trainer for the first few clinics to make sure I feel comfortable so I won't be all on my own for a little while.  As for my clinical instructing job we had our semi annual meeting last week and things will be starting up with that job as well.  I am glad since all those hospital bills have started rolling in--haha!

Sarah had some fun Friday night.  Her and her friend Beth had a late-over Friday night.  They both dressed in comfy clothes and had fun together.  Beth's mom texted me this picture so I know they had fun and enjoyed some cheese balls--haha!

Josh also had fun this weekend.  He worked Saturday afternoon and then after his shift he went to the MORP dance.  The theme of the MORP dance was teams and they encouraged you to wear sports related things including sport uniforms.  Josh was a brave soul who wore his track uniform.  He wore the tank top, but thankfully, he didn't wear the short flapper shorts but wore some longer shorts instead.  He said he had a lot of fun at the dance.  I can just say he is a lot braver than I would have been at that age!!

Yesterday Daniel got to teach part of the lesson in young men.  I also got to teach the lesson in Beehives.  Unfortunately, they weren't the same lesson so we couldn't help each other though--DOH!!

Wisdom Teeth, Root Canals, Leadership Conference, Hope Squad Conference, Guardianship, Robotics, Jazz Game, Concert, Seussical the Musical, Sick Dog, Promposal, Psychiatrist Visit

We have had a busy 2 weeks!  Aaron got to take Noah out to a Jazz basketball game since they got two tickets when we signed Noah up for Jr. Jazz community basketball.  Noah was excited to go out to dinner with Aaron and then to the basketball game.  To kill two birds with one stone Aaron took Noah out to Crown Burger since it is close to the Vivint Smart Home Arena (it will always be the Delta Center to me!).  Anyway, if you buy dinner there you get free parking for events at the Vivint Center.  Aaron doesn't need much of an excuse to eat at Crown Burger since they are so yummy so it was a win-win situation!  Here's two of my cute boys enjoying time together:

Noah wasn't too impressed with the Jazz dancers he ran into:

Watching the sports broadcasters do their show before the game:

Nosebleed seats baby:

The Jazz was ahead most of the game, but in the very end they lost by two points--DOH!! Oh well they still had a good time!

The Jr. High band did a concert, but it wasn't an official concert.  It was in the middle of the day and they combined with the Syracuse Jr. High band to play one final piece together conducted by the Syracuse High School band teacher.  Each individual Jr. High band got to play two pieces on their own, though.  Here's Daniel's band class playing their music:

It was in the middle of the day so I was able to attend, but Aaron had to work, unfortunately.    Here's both bands combined playing their piece conducted by the high school band teacher:

My cute saxophone player:

The elementary school has been working on Seussical the Musical Jr. play which Sarah got to be a part of.  They had try outs about 5 months ago for 4th, 5th, and 6th grades.  I was surprised Sarah wanted to try out since she is a bit of a shyer person.  However, she tried out and got a part as a dancing girl/jungle animal.  They have been working on this play for months staying after school twice a week.  It was fun to finally see them perform the play.  I had never seen Seussical before so I was curious to see what it would be about.  For an elementary school production I was pretty impressed with everything.  It was fun to see what Sarah's been working on for the last 5 months.  Here's one little snapshot of one of Sarah's parts in the play:

Afterward we got to see the performers out in the hall.  Here's my cute dancer girl:

We were glad G&G T were able to come and see the play with us, too:

Sarah enjoyed it so much she wants to try out again for the play next year whatever it may be.  I think she will do great!

I am sad to say that my brother Bryan's dog, Parker, passed away.  Since they didn't need anymore dog supplies they brought the extras over to us.  Well I didn't put them away right away.  Unfortunately, Matthew got a hold of a bag of treats and ended up feeding most of them to Sophie which upset her stomach.  She started having a ton of diarrhea.  It was a huge pain to clean it up every time.  The poor dog would try and make it outside, but she did have a few accidents inside.  I figured it wouldn't take very long for her to get over it, but I was wrong.  On the 4th day of watery diarrhea she started pooping blood.  I took her in to the vet and got some medicine and thankfully she was a lot better within 24 hours.  The poor dog didn't feel well at all.  She felt bad since she really couldn't help herself, either.  Every morning I had to clean the bathroom since Sophie had accidents all night long--poor thing.  I know this picture is gross, but here is when she started pooping blood and that scared me a bit:

Thankfully, she is all better for now and the treats are up and out of reach for her and Matthew--haha!

Josh got an amazing opportunity to attend a 3 day Youth Leadership Conference up at Utah State with the Clinton City Youth Council last weekend.  They all left for Logan Thursday afternoon and stayed until Saturday afternoon.  Here's some of the pictures of the activities they were able to participate in:

All the Leadership conference attendees:

You can tell Josh is concentrating since he is sticking his tongue out--haha!

Josh had an amazing time and was excited about all the things he learned.  I am grateful he got this opportunity.  Who knows he may even end up at college at Utah State in a few years!

Last Saturday Daniel had a Hope Squad Conference, too.  It was held at Clearfield high school.  They had an amazing day of activities and speakers lined up.  They also had performances by Burke Laidler which Daniel got a picture with:

and Alex Boye as well:

Daniel had a good time attending the day long conference.

The other afternoon Sarah and Noah were dorking off.  Next thing I know they are begging me to take a picture of them.  Sarah had Noah wrap her up arms and all inside two or three different blankets to the point she couldn't move without help.  Noah then grabbed another blanket and decided to use Sarah burrito as a pillow.  What weird kids--haha!

Josh is looking forward to turning 16 soon.  I am just wondering how he got here so fast!  I still see Josh as my cute 5 year old little boy.  Anyway, he had his written and driving test this week in his Driver's Ed. class.  He aced the written test, but unfortunately, failed the driving test.  He didn't check his blind spots which is an automatic fail as it should be.  That just means when he turns 16 he has to redo his driving test down at the DMV to get his license.  He's not worried about it so I am trying not to be worried about it.  We are practicing driving with him, but it is still a bit nerve wracking.  He has improved quite a bit, but he still has a few things he needs to work on--haha!  In addition to driving he is also looking forward to DATING.  Whaaaaaat?!?!?  He decided he wants to go to Prom and has asked a friend from Cross Country to be his date.  His poor friend is a bit on the really short side so it will be interesting to see how well they can dance together--haha!  Here's how Josh asked her:

He got one of her favorite snacks and dropped this sign off at her door, rang the doorbell and ran away.  We are still waiting to hear her answer back, but Josh is excited.  We cut the sneaker shoe name paper up in puzzle pieces so she has to piece it together to find out who asked her.

We had to order him a new suit since his old one doesn't fit anymore and he is too big to be able to find a suit in the store since his inseam is 36".  I guess that is what happens when you hit 6'5".  I still can't believe he is going to be old enough to DRIVE and DATE soon--ahhhh!  I still see him as my sweet little boy who sneaked yogurt and spilled it everywhere:

 Liked helping me to cook:

 Loved his baby and blanket:

How is he almost 16 years old?!  That went by fast!!

Sophie is still our comic relief and we are all glad she is feeling better--especially me since I was the designated diarrhea cleaner upper which wasn't a fun job AT ALL!  Good thing she is a cute dog:

She also keeps us quite entertained when she chases her tail:

Aaron was out of town this week so I had to single parent for a bit which is not always fun.  It was a crazy week for me, though--especially Thursday.  Thursday morning Sarah had an appointment to get root canals on both front teeth.  These are the teeth she broke last May.  The dentist tried to fix them, but they ended up abscessing so they both needed root canals.  Sarah wasn't very excited for her appointment--in fact she was in tears before we left for the appointment.  She did put on a brave face as they got started.

 It was a 3 hour long procedure--poor thing!

We aren't done with the Endodontist either. She needs to be seen by him at least every 3 months to make sure the infection is not spreading to her jaw bone.  Good thing I like him because we will be seeing a lot of him the next year.....

When we got home she didn't feel like going to the rest of the day at school so I let her hang out while her mouth became un-numb.  She could only smile using the bottom lip--the top one was pretty numb:

 I was able to drop Sarah off at home and then take Matthew to get his Wisdom Teeth out.  Matthew was really upset before we left for the appointment.  He got even more agitated as we waited in the waiting room to get called back.  He was downright yelling and crying as we got called back to our room for him to get his IV started.  I am sure the other patients got a bit more agitated after hearing us walk in--haha!  I kept trying to calm him down, but he was wound pretty tightly.  Thankfully, they got the IV started on the second try and gave him some medicine.  After that he was pretty chillaxed without a care in the world.  I wish they could have sent me home with some of that to give him later--haha!  Anyway, after he got the medicine they had me leave so they could do the extraction.  It was really fast!  I was only in the waiting room maybe 10-15 minutes when they let me come back to see him since the procedure was done.  The poor kid was pretty sleepy and confused.

He kept trying to talk to me, but I could not understand a thing he was saying.  He started getting upset at me since I couldn't understand, but what can you do?!  Here's the poor kid trying to tell me something, but there was no way you could understand what he was saying as you can see:

 I had some help getting him in the car and then I got to manhandle him inside the house.  He laid down and fell right to sleep.

 He made sure to tell the oral surgeon he wanted to keep his teeth.  The medical assistant brought these to me and I about dry heaved.  I said Ewww they are bloody.  She then said she had cleaned them up so they looked worse than that before I got them.  Ewwww!  Matthew put them out for the Tooth Fairy to come, but she is a slacker and hasn't come yet.  He wakes up and is starting to get really upset that she hasn't come.  She better get her act together!!  Here's the nasty teeth that are supposedly cleaned off, but still disgusting!!

 Josh has taken special interest in seeing Matthew and his Wisdom teeth since Josh will be getting his out in a few weeks.  Yayness! The fun is never-ending at our house--haha!

Matthew did tell everyone at school why he was going to be absent.  The older missionaries assigned to his special needs seminary class took note and stopped by Thursday afternoon with a chocolate shake and a movie for Matthew.  That was so sweet!  They wanted to make sure he was doing okay after getting his teeth extracted.  He was excited to see them and tried to jump up to come to the door, but was still a bit tipsy, though.

Thursday afternoon my friend, Erin, stopped by and dropped off a frozen dinner which was so nice, too!  It was nice to know that people were thinking about us that crazy day!!

That crazy day didn't end there, either.  That evening G&G T came over to sit with the kids and keep an eye on Matthew so Aaron and I could attend a Guardianship class in Farmington.  Since Matthew will be turning 18 this year we need to get guardianship over him.  When someone turns 18 the law sees them as an adult whether they can function in this capacity or not.  That is a bit scary seeing as anything Matthew chooses to do when he turns 18 will be binding if we don't have guardianship.  That means if he signed up for a loan, joined the military, etc. there is nothing we could do to stop it even though we know he does not understand the ramifications of such actions.  So to keep this from happening Aaron and I need to go to court around Matthew's 18th birthday to seek guardianship over him.  This class we went to teaches us how to do the legal work/paperwork to accomplish guardianship.  However, even if Aaron and I can do the legal work for ourselves, we still have to hire a lawyer for Matthew to make sure getting guardianship is in his best interest.  There have been too many people exploited by unscrupulous people so we need to get a lawyer to make sure we are doing the right thing.  I agree with this so we will be hiring a lawyer in a few months to represent Matthew. Luckily, through the Utah Parent Center (who are the ones who teach the guardianship class) have a list of lawyers who provide this service at a discounted rate since being a parent to a special needs child is difficult and expensive enough!  We are very grateful for such a service.  In the mean time we have to start a bunch of paperwork, track down the different assessments Matthew has gotten at school to prove the need for guardianship, get a letter from a doctor stating the need for guardianship and go from there.  Wish us luck because it will be a long drawn out process, but hopefully, by the time Matthew is ready to turn 18 we will have our ducks in a row and be able to get guardianship status over Matthew as close to his 18th birthday as we can.  I am feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment, but I keep telling myself you can eat an elephant one bite at a time, right?!  Let's just say Thursday was a really LONG day that was not very pleasant.....

Friday was a better day, though.  I had a work social which was fun.  We all got together and made a craft and then all went out to lunch at Leatherby's down in West Valley.  It has been fun getting to know the Core staff better.  What made it great, though, was that I got paid to craft and to eat lunch.  I have really enjoyed this job and am grateful I work with such nice ladies!!  I have two more trainings and then I will be ready to do clinics on my own.  I am a bit nervous, but looking forward to be one of the gang.

Right after lunch I sped home so I could attend Noah's robotics club open house.  He has been doing a robotics club at school for the past few months.  They had an open house where parents were able to come and see what their kids have been working on.  Noah was pretty excited to show me the robot he and his team built.

He thought it was funny to pretend to have the robot chase him.  What a crazy kid!

 Here's his certificate of completion.  He liked it so much we signed him up again so he can do the next round of robotics club, too.

 Sophie's a cuddler.  She somehow knows who needs loves and curls up with that person.  She has been close to Matthew through this weekend since he is recovering from getting his Wisdom teeth out.  Matthew's been loving it!  Matthew has been recovering pretty well, too which has been nice.  He will definitely be ready to go back to school on Tuesday!

Speaking of Matthew he had a visit with the psychiatrist this past week.  It was just a routine visit to update his labs, vitals signs and see how things were going.  I really love his psychiatrist.  He has been seeing her for 14 years and hope to continue to see her for just as long.

Noah and Sarah had a sleepover at G&G T's house this weekend.  They had a lot of fun and Noah came back and showed me the Easter Bunny craft they did.  However, as soon as Noah set it down another member of our family, Josh, came by and ate the ears off the bunny.  Noah got pretty upset, but what can you do?!  To make amends Josh bought Noah a new pack of Peeps.  Noah hid them so none of the ears have been chewed off yet--haha!

Daniel has decided to do track at school this spring.  He had his first meeting this past week and practice as well.  Hopefully he will enjoy it as much as Josh has.  However, Daniel isn't as interested in running the long distances like Josh, but hopefully, he come around--haha!  To celebrate track season I scheduled Josh and Daniel for a sports physical tomorrow with the doctor since they both needed one to participate in track.  Nothing says fun like a hernia check--haha!  Poor guys!