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...