Honesty, Santa, Crazy Announcements, Sick, Thanksgiving

I have been a slacker these past few weeks!  Here's a attempt at a quick catch up on our family happenings.  First of all I LOVE checking on my kids when they are asleep.  They look so peaceful and sweet.  However, I checked on Noah the other night and found him asleep in this uncomfortable position:

 Upon closer inspection I realized why.  Earlier that day we had had the fireplace turned on.  Noah had gotten a little too close in warming up and burned his elbow.  The poor kid even in sleep was trying to not let anything touch his blister.  Ouch!  If there is anything good that came out of it, he has a very healthy respect for the hot fireplace now.  We always told him to not get too close and now he learned the hard way of why we always said to not get too close, unfortunately. 

Well I got another dreaded call from school today.  I HATE getting calls from the school!!  Anyway, it was Daniel's teacher.  She said she let Daniel use some of her lotion.  Unfortunately, there must have been milk or nuts in the lotion because he immediately broke out in hives all over his hands and wrists.  She apologized to me over the phone saying that Daniel had asked if the lotion was ok and she told him it was.  I wasn't upset because these kinds of things happen all the time.  I am just surprised I hadn't gotten a call about Daniel being exposed to something he's super allergic to from the beginning of school until now.  That has to be some type of record for Daniel.  Wahoo!! When Daniel was in kindergarten I got calls almost weekly about  him getting exposed to or eating stuff that made him react.  Anyway, I just said to have Daniel wash his hands and wrists with soap to get the lotion off.  I then said I would be by ASAP to give him a Benadryl.  I gave him the Benadryl and his hands were broken out in hives all over.  You could really tell on his wrists how high up he rubbed the lotion in.  It was interesting.  I really need to get the school an Epi Pen for Daniel.  I have all the paper work I just need to get his allergist to fill it out.  It's just such a pain to do every year!!  I am such a slacker!!

Our family got to have the missionaries over for dinner Monday evening.  I am always nervous to have them over because most of them come from small families that are not as crazy and loud as ours is.  When they come to our dinner table things are always calm and quiet to put it nicely.  However, this last dinner wasn't too bad.  Josh was quite the conversationalist.  We had one missionary from Brazil and one from California.  Josh turned and asked the one from Brazil if he knew who all the presidents of the United States were.  The poor missionary repeated that he was from Brazil and that he did not know the presidents.  Josh went ahead and rattled off the presidents to show that he knew them all.  I don't think it impressed the Brazilian Elder too much, though.  Matthew then asked the Brazilian Elder what state he came from.  Matthew doesn't quite grasp the differences between countries and states.  Oh well.  By this time the elder was just taking the crazy questions from all the kids in stride.  Other than that things went pretty smoothly which was nice.  I hope they weren't too scared off by our crazy family.....

Matthew has been in a cooking class rotation at school.  That has made him very interested in helping me cook.  Anytime I am walking anywhere remotely towards the kitchen he jumps up and asks, "Can I help you cook, Mom?" The other day I finally let him stir some macaroni noodles while I made some sauce.  He grabbed the wooden spoon and then looked at me with the most serious look on his face and said in his monotone, autistic voice, "You're about to see me shine."  I just nodded and tried not to giggle.  Oh Matthew, he keeps things so interesting.  I love it!  As we all know Matthew is obsessed with trains.  I guess he has been pestering one of his regular education teachers about teaching the class about train safety.  Well I guess the regular education teacher finally gave in and told Matthew he could take a few minutes to teach the class about train safety the next day.  Matthew came home so ecstatic that day.  The next morning I had to talk him out of wearing his train vest, hat, gloves and bringing his train calendar to class.  I was wondering to myself if the regular ed teacher really knew what he was getting into.  Anyway, I asked Matthew how it went when he got home from school.  He dejectedly said they ran out of time so he couldn't teach about train safety.  I haven't heard anything more about it since, but I am sure Matthew hasn't let the teacher forget his promise....

This last Sunday was Fast Sunday.  So Matthew of course volunteered Aaron to drive for fast offerings collection.  When it was time for them to go, I still hadn't showered.  However, I couldn't shower until our fast offerings guy came by or else we would miss him.  Anyway, Sarah has impeccable timing.  As soon as the fast offerings 12 year old deacon came inside (that wasn't Matthew) to wait while I wrote out the check, Sarah yelled, "Mom, Moooooooommmmmmmm, MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!"  She was in the bathroom and that never is a good sign.  Seeing as she was impatient already, she just blurted out what she wanted to tell me loud enough for everyone to hear even the Fast Offerings kid.  She said, "Moooooom!  I went stinky!!  Come see it!!  COME SEE IT!!  MOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM COME SEE IT!!!!!"  She still likes to show me because if she does she gets treats.  I may need to stop that reward system soon......Anyway,  I handed the check and the slip of paper to the deacon and tried to get him back outside our door before he had to be subjected to any more of that.  Don't you agree that Sarah has impeccable timing to make her announcement for maximum amount embarrassment?!?!?  Oh well, what can you do, but sigh and hope it wasn't as bad as you thought it was.....Oh Sarah.....gotta love her.

Josh has completed his speech therapy and was able to exit the program.  YAY!!!  His speech teacher scheduled an IEP (individual education plan) meeting to discuss it.  She called me and we set it up.  I even wrote it on the calendar so I wouldn't forget.  What did I do?  I forgot about it.  I got a call from the school at 8:20 am asking where I was.  The meeting was scheduled for 8:15 whoops!!  I was still in my jammies, but I got dressed and whisked Noah and me over to the meeting.  We got there right before 8:30 which is pretty impressive considering 10 minutes before I had extreme bed head and was still in my jammies.  Anyway, the speech teacher showed me and everyone else at the meeting Josh's test results and they were great.  I am so excited Josh has finished speech.  He has been in speech therapy for 6 years straight so this is awesome!!  He doesn't need an IEP plan anymore, however, he does need a 504 plan still.  The 504 plan will help cover his occupational therapy services to strengthen his hand muscles, but other than that Josh is doing fabulous.  After the meeting was over, I got to speak with the occupational therapist for a few minutes.  She asked a little about Josh so I explained about his seizures and his medication and how both of those are contributing factors to his motor problems.  She had no idea.  No one had shared that info with her so she was glad to hear that because it explained a lot about Josh.  She also told me how much she likes working with Josh.  She said and I quote, "Josh is so.......honest." Uh oh.  I don't think I want to know why she said that.  Josh can speak his mind and sometimes the things that come out can be very rude.  Oh dear.  I will just to forget that part and try to remember that she said she really enjoys working with Josh and not about how 'honest' he is.

Two Fridays ago Sarah came home from school and felt great.  However, later that night she came to snuggle with me and she was super hot.  I checked and she, sure enough, had a fever.  It wasn't too surprising since Noah had croup with a super high fever as well.  All I can say is it is so crazy how fast kids can get sick.  She was just fine a few hours earlier.  Anyway, we kept her home all weekend so she could rest, but it seemed the fever was just a fluke because she didn't get another one all weekend. Noah got to get a few breathing treatments over the weekend, but after seeing Daniel get so many, he knew what to do with the nebulizer mask which was nice because I hate fighting with that.  Anyway, we kept Sarah home from church on Sunday just to make sure  and because Noah had to stay home anyway.  There was no problem so we sent her to school Monday.  Monday evening she spiked another fever and this time it stayed for a few days.  She felt pretty crummy as you can see:

 I felt bad for her because she missed her Thanksgiving party at school on Tuesday, but she really didn't want to go to school.  You knew she felt bad if she asked if she could stay home because she loves school so much.  It took her a few days to recover.  Even all day Thanksgiving she didn't feel very well--poor thing.  Her and Noah did finally recover and are back to their spunky selves which is nice except when they are getting into mischief!!

Last week we had a huge windstorm.  We had never had a problem with our trampoline blowing away so we didn't worry about securing it down.  Well we should have.  Our neighbor across the street knocked on our door to let us know that our trampoline had blown over and was caught on the our next door neighbor's fence.  Whoops!!  Thankfully Aaron was home so we both ran over and muscled the tramp home.  It did take some muscle to because it was really caught on the neighbor's fence.  It ruined the trampoline enclosure, but the trampoline is still intact, though.  It didn't damage the fence either which was a big relief!!  We just need to take it down for the winter now.

 Since we were stuck at home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving because of sick kids, we had to make the most of our 'Thanksgiving Vacation'.  The kids were out of school and wanted to do stuff.  Josh loves baking/cooking so he begged me to let him make a cake.  I said sure.  He then informed me that he didn't want any help from me and that he wanted to do the whole thing by himself.  I wasn't too sure about that, but what could it hurt....I helped him find an appropriate recipe.  We had to double the recipe since we have a family of big eaters, too.  We did the recipe math together and then he sent me away to not bother him while he baked.  That was hard for me, but I let him do his thing.  It turned out really good, too.  It was a recipe for a Daniel friendly chocolate cake from scratch.  Everybody loved it since it was gone by the next day.  Josh was pretty proud of himself as was I.  I was a little nervous at first since he occasionally gets cups and teaspoons mixed up, but he did great. 

 We got to have Thanksgiving at our house this year.  Everything turned out beautifully.  It was nice to share it with family.  We have so many things to be thankful about!!   Seriously my cup runneth over in blessings and I love this holiday that concentrates on being thankful for those blessings!  For Thanksgiving dinner my brother's family came over along with G&G T.  Here's the spread:

The kids had fun playing with their cousins and it was nice to visit with the adults.  My parents have been going through old pictures and have been dividing them out between the kids.  It is fun to revisit the memories.

It's funny to see the kids reactions to these pictures because they don't think I ever did anything but be their mom.  So it is funny for them to see me when I was younger.

We gobbled till we wobbled and it was delicious.  The tryptophan in the turkey hit Noah hard because Noah passed out cold in the middle of watching a movie which is not like him.

  Matthew played the Wii and got his second perfect 300 score in bowling.  He was quite proud and excited.  I am sure the neighbors probably heard his screams of delight.

 The next day we started decorating for Christmas.  I had lots of 'helpers'.  All the kids wanted to hang the pretty ornaments up.  I let them do a few and I have never had so many broken ornaments.  I got to hone my sweeping and dust pan skills to say the least.  However, we got everything done and I love it.  I love Christmas time!!  While we decorated we listened to Christmas music.  The song Frosty the Snowman came on so we all started singing.  However, I loved Sarah's version best.  She sang, "Frosting the Snowman".  However, the funny thing is when she eats cake she calls the frosting 'frost'.  She will tell me about how much she likes eating the frost.  I think she has those just a little mixed up.

 Later that afternoon we went to visit Santa at the Christmas Tree Jubilee in Ogden.  It was really busy there.  While we were trying to make our way over to see Santa Aaron and I got separated.  When we met up again we were short one child.  I thought Sarah was with him and he thought Sarah was with me, but Sarah was no where to be found.  Aaron set off in the place he last saw her to see if he could find her.  She had only been gone for about 3 minutes, but that's still a long time.  Aaron rounded a corner and saw the guy in charge talking to Sarah and trying to calm her down.  She was quite upset and in tears because she was lost and scared.  The guy was trying to get Sarah to tell him any information about her parents or family, but she was too scared and upset to say anything.  When Aaron walked up they tried to verify that Aaron was her dad before they let her go with him, but Sarah lunged forward and wrapped her little arms around Aaron's neck and wouldn't let go.  I guess that convinced them enough to let Aaron take her back.  I was relieved to see Aaron had found her.  She wouldn't let Aaron or me put her down for a good 20 minutes afterward.  After holding her for so long my arms were killing me.  She did let me put her down to see Santa, though.  Here's all of the kids excited for Christmas:

 Josh was a little embarrassed to sit on Santa's lap, but I made him do it anyway.

 Matthew jumped at the chance to talk to Santa.

 Noah only sat on his lap because he could get a candy cane if he did.

 Sarah was excited to tell Santa her Christmas wants.

 Daniel knew I would make him sit on his lap so he didn't give me any problems.

 Afterward we walked around and looked at all the pretty trees.  Matthew found a train tree.  He screamed so loud in his excitement about it I am sure all the neighboring buildings heard.

 When we came home it was dark outside so we really got to see our pretty Christmas lights at home along with the decorations. The mantle is pretty full of stockings...

 The pretty tree:

 After the kids wanted to do the wishbone from the turkey.  Aaron got it ready and made sure no one had an unfair advantage.

 Josh won and made a wish.

 Yesterday Noah insisted on wearing his flop flops.  Well it was really cold so I got him some socks out and also pulled out his shoes.  He grabbed the socks, but refused the shoes.  He insisted on wearing socks with his flop flops and that was that.  He wasn't going to take no for an answer.  I wasn't about to fight with him so, yes, we did go out looking like that.  Please don't judge me too harshly ;).

 When the kids get home from school all chaos breaks loose.  That's when Noah finds he can get into the most mischief.  Yesterday while I was working on homework he came out of my bathroom exclaiming, "I cleaned it Mom!"  Now not knowing what he had cleaned I thought I better check it out.  I walked into my bathroom only to find very pleased with himself Noah with an empty aerosol bottle of super hold hairspray.  I had used the hairspray as his cleaner and had sprayed everything in my bathroom.  Oh the stickiness!!  He was so proud of himself I couldn't get mad.  I just sighed and congratulated him on a job well done.  I now know to hide the hairspray when Sarah and I are done with it....

Also sometime during homework time he also did this number to some sugar cookie bars:

 This kid is a whirlwind of mischief!!  Good thing he can put on his cute, innocent face at any time....otherwise....

  Noah is really into lining things up.  He lines everything up.  If he weren't so socially normal I would be worried about autism, but I am not.  I just thought it was funny that in this line up even Jesus has to wait in line.

 Aaron complains that Noah is such a momma's boy that he never gets lubs by him.  I took these pictures in the last two weeks to prove that Aaron does get lubs from Bubba occasionally.