Swimming, Trails Day, Procrastinating, Dentist Visits, Birthday, Retirement

We have had a pretty busy week.  First off our police officer neighbor has been really nice to Matthew.  Every time he drives into his driveway with his police car Matthew comes bounding out of our house and asks him, "Did you put anyone in jail today?"  The other day he even gave Matthew a Clinton City Police Department coin.  Matthew was ecstatic.  Our other neighbor, the train engineer, gave Matthew a Union Pacific Train Key on a key chain.  Oh Matthew was in heaven.  I only got a picture of the coin because Matthew has hidden his train key in a super secret location that I have yet to find.  I must say that we have some pretty great neighbors!

 Of course I am teaching Josh the ways of my procrastination, unfortunately.  He was assigned a Utah state county to do a report on and to design a shoe box parade float for two weeks ago.  When did we get around to doing it--two nights before it was due.  It wasn't Josh's fault either.  I take full responsibility because he would ask me every night if we could work on it and I kept putting it off until I realized we were so close to the due date--whoops.  Oh well I think it turned out pretty well.  He was assigned Morgan County so Josh looked up facts about the county and then he wanted to emphasize the farming, the Devil's Slide formation, the Pony Express (they had a route that ran through Morgan County, and the Browning firearms company.  If we had to do a full size parade float this is what it would have looked like:

 Matthew was in last week to visit the orthodontist to get spacers to make room for the appliance they will be putting in next week.  While they were in doing that they decided they wanted to pull the last three baby teeth to make room for the appliance.  Matthew did pretty well with the spacers.  You never know how he will react to things, but he did really well which was a relief.

 It was Aaron's birthday last week.  We had so much going on that we decided to celebrate his birthday on Thursday instead of his actual birthday which was on Friday.  We went out to lunch which was Aaron's pick.  He chose Café Rio.  Yummy!  Unfortunately, at the end of lunch Aaron decided to spill his just refilled cup of soda in a strategic location on his pants.  DOH!!  He tried to sneak out of the restaurant without too many people noticing his stained pants that looked like he didn't make it to the bathroom in time.  However, Noah decided to throw a tantrum about then causing all eyes to look over at Aaron and his wet pants.  I drove him back to work with a detour by home so he could change his pants.  He didn't want to be known as 'Pee Pants Mancil' at work for some reason ;).  When we got home I had lots of help making Aaron's birthday cake as you can see all the chocolate goodness all over these kiddo's faces:

 I decided to try something different to surprise Aaron with.  I made a vegan chocolate cake filled with vegan caramel iced with a vegan whipped caramel icing.  I was nervous since I had to do a lot of substitutions to make it Daniel friendly, but thankfully it turned out ok.  You just never know how things will turn out when you try to make it vegan.  I tried some brownies once and they came out so hard that once I took it out of the pan they shattered on the counter top because they were so hard.  We were left with the tantalizing chocolate aroma in the air, but only shattered brownies to show for it. Anyway the cake did turn out edible which is always a good thing.  That's a lot of candles--I guess they match all the gray hair :):

The kids love it whenever it is anyones birthday.  They have their own version of the Happy Birthday song they like to sing:

 After having a birthday dinner and cake Aaron and Daniel had their first T-ball game.  It was supposed to be their second, but the first one got rained out.  Here's Daniel coming up to the plate to bat with Aaron, the coach standing beside him:

It was funny to see that Daniel still has the 'Daniel run' which is the whole body wiggle run that he has had ever since he has been able to run.  It is not a very good camera angle, but trust me he still shakes his body especially his booty while he runs.  It is very entertaining to watch.

 Friday morning I got up and got all the kids ready for the day because we were going to have a very busy day.  Josh and Daniel usually like to leave  a few minutes early so they can play with our neighbors before it is time to leave for school.  I had just sent them out the door whenever I heard Daniel walk back inside telling me about some breaking glass.  I guess our neighbor was testing her abilities.  She told Daniel that she bet she could throw a big rock over our house.  Unfortunately, it only made it as far as the upstairs window which it shattered.  Doh!!  She felt horrible.  She went and got her dad, the police officer that gave Matthew the police coin, to tell him what had happened.  He offered to take care of it.  We called around and got the cheapest estimate and are now waiting for the glass to come in.  In the meantime our upstairs is getting cooled off through the hole in the window.  I am not mad I just thought that it would have been one of my kids to break a window first in the house :).  Oh kids and their crazy ideas!!

 After the glass breaking incident I had to run over to the park because the whole fourth grade was having a mountain man rendezvous that I had volunteered for.  I got the fun opportunity to help run the trading post.  Wow those kids can be crazy.  It seemed like it was Black Friday, but only for fourth graders!!  The kids had been earning pretend beaver pelts for good behavior at school for the past few weeks.  They got to spend all their pelts at the trading post for whatever little trinkets or treats they wanted.  It got pretty crazy, but I was glad to have the chance to help out.  Josh still thinks it's fun to have his mom help which I love.  Who knows how much longer he will feel that way....Here's the mountain man set up:  They had a story telling tee pee, four different game rotations then the trading post.  I think they had fun.

 I had to leave a bit early since I had also volunteered to help out the first graders with their luau.  They have been having Hawaiian week that ended with a big luau.  They got to make a grass skirt and lei out of paper and then have a fruit luau.  They had plates full of yummy fruit--pineapple, apples, strawberries, bananas, watermelon, etc.  Here's Daniel eating his yummy plate:

 They then performed a Huki Lau Dance.  After that they did a fire dance with their paper fire sticks.  Daniel took his fire dancing very seriously as you can tell by his facial expression:

Here's part of his fire dancing.  Oh he was so proud of his sweet moves.  It took everything Aaron and I had not to giggle.  It was awesome!

 After the luau it was time for school to be out.  When everyone got home we headed over to G&G T's house because Friday was Grandpa T's last day of work because he retired.  She through him a surprise retirement party that afternoon.  She snuck him out of the house while Johanna, me and Bryan's families help set up the decorations and food to surprise him with.  When they got back we got to hide and then surprise him when they came into the backyard.

The kids thought it was awesome!  How many surprise parties do you get to have?!

 Grandma got Grandpa an alarm clock to destroy with a hammer since he won't have to wake up to an alarm clock to go to work again. Surprisingly enough there are lots of pieces to an alarm clock!

 After dinner he got to slice up his retirement cake that said, "Congratulations on your retirement Dad!"

 He then got to open his retirement gift that all the kids pitched in for which was an iPad.  It came with an inscription that said, "You will always be our hero. Jennifer, Johanna, Rebecca, Bryan"  It is crazy to think that he has had a job since he has been 14 years old which ends up being over 51 years of employment!  That is a long time to work!

 The next morning, Saturday, was National Trails day.  There is a trail that runs along the old rail tracks from Ogden down to Salt Lake continuously.  Part of it runs through Clinton by where we live.  We headed out to celebrate the Trails Day.  We hiked 3 and a half miles and along the way participated in the booths they had set up.  We scored 5 free swimming passes which is awesome.  We can now take  the family swimming for cheap.  Wahoo!  Along the trail Noah was Mr. Friendly and waved to everyone.  Most everyone didn't see the little squirt in the stroller so not many people waved back, but that didn't deter him.  Noah still waved regardless of anyone waving back.  He is a friendly little guy!  We even ran into Johanna and her family along the trail.  It was a beautiful morning to go on a hike!

After walking on the trails, we came home and had a quick lunch.  We then headed over to pool party with our friends, the Einzingers.  Their grandma has a pool in her backyard that we were able to go swimming in.  Even though it was only in the 70s she had heated the pool up to 90 degrees so it was awesome to go swimming in.  We had lots of fun.  It took the kids a bit to remember how to swim, but it came back.  I covered the kids in sunscreen so they didn't get burned, however, Aaron forgot to get his shaved head with sunscreen so his head got pretty burned.  Poor guy--he didn't realize it until he got in the shower and the hot water hit his sore head.  Ouch!!

 Noah refused to get in the water without a life jacket on and a floatie.  He is a fraidy cat, but I am ok with that especially around water!

 Here's Josh striking a pose underwater:

 Everyone having a buddy during snack time:

 Everyone did really well in the pool.

 

We ended up swimming for over four hours.  We definitely wore the kids out which was awesome.  However, I was worn out by the time we got home as well.  We had lots of fun.

 

This morning I had to take Matthew in to get his three baby teeth pulled.  When we got to the office he was pretty happy.  Ignorance is bliss, right?!

 They then got him back and started hooking him up to the nitrous oxide.  He was pretty relaxed after that.

 He did pretty well.  He did get upset for a bit when they started giving him the shots, but who wouldn't?  That stuff hurts!!  He did get upset again when they started pulling the teeth out, but it went so fast that he wasn't upset for longer than a minute.  Here's the huge holes on top that were left behind after the teeth were pulled:

 He is trying to smile, but it is so hard whenever your mouth is so numb!

 Here's the teeth:  Gross!!  Those are some nasty looking roots!

Before he let the dentist do anything to him he made sure that the Tooth Fairy was going to come for the teeth.  Once assured of that he let them begin.  What a funny kid!

 

I do have to end on a thankful note...These past few months I have to say I have been feeling very overwhelmed in dealing with our hectic and crazy family life.  I have really started questioning my parenting ability as well.  I know family life is crazy for everyone, but with our extra family issues (autism, allergies, epilepsy, etc.) it seems like I am not doing enough.  I look at others and compare myself to them and always seem to come up short.  I am either not teaching my kids all they need to know, my  house is not spotless, I am not cooking healthy gourmet meals for my family, or I am not reading to them enough or I am not spending enough quality one on one time with them, or whatever else.  However, I have had some experiences lately that have let me know that the Lord does know my needs from day to day.  For Mother's Day a few weeks ago I was attending Relief Society since they got substitutes for Primary.  Now I hardly know anyone in my ward since I had only gone for two weeks before they pulled me into primary.  However, when I sat down next to someone I didn't know, she leaned over to me and told me, "I just want you to know that I think you are doing a good job with your family."  I don't know if she noticed the tears in my eyes, but that was exactly the thing I needed to hear that day.  It happened again last week.  We had had a very difficult morning getting everyone ready for church (especially Matthew).  When church was over we were walking out to the car to go home when another lady I didn't know very well came over and told me that she thought we were doing a wonderful job with Matthew.  She had just moved from a ward with quite a few autistic children and that she could tell we have been really working with him and it shows.  Again I almost burst into tears.  The Lord knew I needed to hear this because things have been really hard lately.  I am thankful that He knows each of us and gives us what we need at the times we need it the most.  It makes me feel like I can work through this challenging time and come out a better person because of it (hopefully).  I am very thankful for all the support we do receive whether in word or in deed.  You never know how much you can touch someone by encouraging words, or small acts of kindness.  I guess I have rambled enough---until next post....