Slime, Economics Fair, Pee Hair, Student Council, Grinch Party, Nativity, Allergies

This past week Daniel had his economics fair for third grade.  All the third grade students had to choose a home made product to sell, make it and then advertise it.  Everyone was invited to attend--other grades and families.  They sold tickets to use to make purchases for a fundraiser.  Daniel chose to make slime just like Josh did when he had the economics fair.  We made the slime two nights before the fair to make sure he would have enough.  Daniel thought mixing it up was gross, but isn't that the point of slime?!

Daniel named his business Daniel's Ox Snot Slime.  He made 40 different blue and green slime balls and put them in bags.  I went that morning to check it out and found Daniel being quite the salesman--something he obviously didn't get from me.  If I ever had to make a living by being a salesman I think I would starve because I am horrible at it.

The slime seemed to be a good thing to sell because he sold out by the end of the day.

Josh has the opportunity of being on the student council this school year.  He got his student council sweatshirt this past week and has been proudly wearing it.  I finally had to tell him he couldn't wear it to school every day--just once a week at the most.  His first group project is helping to set up the angel tree at the elementary school.

 Our elementary school has also started an afternoon science, technology, engineering and mathematics after school program which is called STEM.  It is held twice a month after school for all the students in the 5th and 6th grade that are interested.  Of course, Josh signed up.  The interesting thing is, up on the Air Force Base in Aaron's work area they sent out an email requesting volunteer engineers to teach different classes for this STEM program.  Aaron signed up to teach the first real class for this afternoon on the scientific method, how he uses it in his job and about his education. He's a little nervous, but Josh is excited to have his Dad come and teach.

Sarah loves to draw and color.  Every day before and after school I find her at the counter or table just drawing or coloring.  Her latest project is she is making a book and has been taking her time on it.  To make it even more official looking she even put Daniel Tary as the illustrator because you need an illustrator to make a book official.  She is the real illustrator, though.  She has already used quite a bit of a glue stick and a roll of scotch tape.  Here's a few pictures of what her book look like so far:

 She has been working at it every day for a while now so I don't know when it will be done.  I love it.

Speaking of Sarah...the other day she wanted to get ready for the day before I got up so she could surprise me.  I still had to do her hair so as I was braiding it she told me about she got herself ready that morning.  She said that she did have a small problem as she was getting ready, though.  Mind you I am still braiding her hair when she starts telling me about her problem.  She said her shoes were in the bathroom.  When she bent down to pick them up, her long hair fell into the toilet.  She then proceeded to tell me that someone had not flushed the toilet either.  YUCK!!  Double YUCK since my hands were currently braiding her pee hair.  Oh the joys of parenthood.....

The other day I got a nastigram email from the lunch ladies saying I owed them $1.85 for Sarah.  The weird thing is I pack all the kids a lunch every day.  None of my kids eat school lunch.  So when Sarah got home from school that day I asked why I owed the lunch ladies money.  She said she decided at school that she didn't feel like eating her home lunch in her back pack so she got hot lunch just because she wanted to eat that instead.  I didn't get mad, but told her she couldn't do that because she needed to eat her sack lunch.  She insisted that she wants to eat school lunch sometimes.  Fair enough, but she needs to let me know beforehand so I don't have to pack her a lunch and have her waste that and pay for a school lunch all in the same day.....Crazy kid!

A few weeks ago our elementary school had donuts and grandparents morning.  It is so nice to have G&G T so close so they can go to these with the kids.  Another really great thing is that Daniel was able to eat the milk and the donuts they gave out along with everyone else.  This is the first time and it was awesome!!  Before he got over the milk allergy I would have to prepare him a breakfast to take to school to eat while everyone else was eating their donuts and milk.  It was nice to not have to do that this particular morning.  AWESOME!!

We have some good neighbors in our neighborhood.  We have had some emergencies in the few years we have lived here and I have always been able to find a neighbor to help me out.  A few weeks ago we had a medical emergency where an ambulance was called to our house.  Thankfully our neighbors saw us drive to the hospital and offered to come and sit with the kids while we were busy getting things sorted out.  Those neighbors even fed our kids pizza for dinner which was above and beyond the call of duty!!  Awesome!!  One of these particular neighbors is also Sarah's dance teacher who lives a few houses down from us.  Since they are close Sarah's brothers walk her to and from dance.  The dance teacher has a closed circuit camera tv in the dance studio that looks out into the front/side yard to see whose parents are there to pick up the dancers.  One time a few weeks ago Josh walked Sarah to dance and saw that video camera.  When it was time to pick up Sarah after her dance lesson Josh walked down and in front of the camera started to crazy dance just to be funny.  Well his antics got the attention of the dancers in class and basically ended the class because the dancers wanted to watch Josh crazy dance then listen to the teacher.  We had no idea this even happened until the dance teacher's husband told Aaron at work (they work together).  Aaron apologized and just shook his head.  Sometimes you just never know what goes through kids heads to explain their actions.  Also last month Matthew decided he needed to do train rides.  I told him not to ring any doorbells or bug anyone inside.  If someone was outside he could ask them if they wanted a train ride.  Matthew of course didn't listen to me.  He decided Sarah's dance class needed to have train rides.  He burst into the middle of their class time and offered everyone a train ride.  We of course didn't hear about this particular incident until Aaron was at work again.  I feel horrible.  I had no idea my kids were being poops!  Oh well we have talked with them and hopefully Sarah's class won't get interrupted by my kids again....Let me just say we have some patient neighbors :).

Aaron and I had an embarrassing moment the other day.  We were out Black Friday shopping late Friday night.  We had been walking out of a store into the dark parking lot.  As we were walking we were talking and only paying minimal attention to where we were going.  That's when we both noticed out of the corner of our eye someone get into our suburban.  Both of us perked up and walked over to see what was going on.  Aaron went over and got into the passenger side door where he usually sits.  He looked over and saw and guy sitting in the driver's seat.  The guy looked at Aaron and said, "Um I think you have the wrong car."  Sure enough there it was a red suburban just like ours, but a lot cleaner on the outside.  Aaron jumped out and apologized and we went to find our car which was a few more rows down.  Whoops!

This last week our ward had its Christmas party.  It was Grinch/Whoville themed and turned out pretty fun.  They had a picture taking section where you could get your picture taken with the Grinch.  Here's Matthew:

 They had another area where they were doing kids hair like Cindy Lou Who.  Sarah got her hair done:

 Here's her Whoville hair front:

 Back:

 It was a fun activity.  The entertainment during dinner was put on by the primary kids.  The Relief Society Presidency had taken each primary kid and recorded them answering different questions and then put together their responses on video.  They asked questions like, "Where does Jesus live now?", "Why do we celebrate Christmas?", "If you could give Jesus a Christmas gift what would it be?", etc.  Some of the answers were funny and some were pretty serious.  It was fun to watch the video.

Here's a random picture of Noah snuggling with Aaron.  Aaron says Noah only has eyes for me, but here's proof that Aaron does get some Bubba Lubs once in a while:

 This weekend they had a big Nativity display at the Weber County Fairgrounds.  They had over 2000 different nativity sets from all over the world on display and it was free admission.  It was really neat to walk through and look at them all.  I had never seen so many different takes on the nativity.  It was really fascinating.

 They even had a dress up area where you could dress up as the nativity scene, too.  We had all the parts covered except for the infant where Sarah's is just holding a doll.

 There was a lot of walking around and Noah begged to be carried after the first few minutes because his 'toes were tired'.  Aaron didn't mind.

They also had Santa there.  All the kids, except Josh, were more than happy to sit on his lap again.  Matthew had quite the list that still included a dog.  He might be a bit disappointed Christmas morning....

 Noah still only had eyes for the candy cane:

 Sarah:

 Daniel:

It was a really fun activity.  That evening I got to have a night out.  My friend invited to me go to dinner and a concert with her family.  I was more then happy to go because I needed a break.  It was a fun night.  Thanks for letting me tag along, Erin!

We finally got our Christmas stuff up.  Sarah saw that there were no presents under the tree so she came up with a few.  I have no idea what's in the packages, but Sarah wrapped them up using a whole roll of tape and paper so under the tree wouldn't be bare.  I think they are just random crayons and markers, but it was funny that she thought of doing that all by herself.

 Lots of stockings:

Last week we had a scary experience.  I gave Daniel a sip from my protein shake and he immediately started sneezing, having a runny nose and complaining that his throat was itchy.  I gave him some allergy meds which slowed the symptoms, but didn't stop them.  The whole next day Daniel had a stuffy nose and complained of itchiness all over.  That evening I gave him his usual milk dose and 20 minutes later he was completely covered in hives from head to toe.  He was also wheezing and his lips were swelling.  Oh GEEZ!  Thankfully we have a emergency meds and an emergency protocol at home while we were doing Daniel's OIT (oral immunotherapy) for milk.  I grabbed all of his emergency meds and gave them to him to stop his reaction.  He got some Allegra, Zyrtec, prednisone, Zantac and his inhaler.  I texted the doctor and he said to watch him.  After an hour the hives weren't getting any worse, but they weren't getting any better either.  The doctor said the next step would be an ER visit for more steroids.  When Daniel heard he would have to get shots he said he wanted to wait 20 more minutes before we went to the ER to see if things would resolve because he did NOT want any shots.  Thankfully in those next 20 minutes some of the hives started fading.  Phew.  That was close.  He has not had that bad of a reaction in YEARS.  It was pretty scary.  Since it was such a bad reaction to who knows what the allergist wanted to see him in the clinic. 

 The allergist figured it was something from the protein shake that sent his immune system in to overdrive so when he actually drank the milk it sent his body into anaphylaxis.  I took a picture of the protein shake ingredients and let the allergist look at them.  There was nothing in it that he was allergic to.  However, the doctor saw the protein shake was full of sunflower ingredients.  In Europe allergies to sunflower seeds/oil has been skyrocketing lately.  It has been dubbed the new 'peanut' allergy because it is becoming so common.  The doctor wanted to test Daniel for that sunflower allergy.  They did a small skin prick test on his arm and unfortunately it was positive.  BOO!! 

There is currently no OIT therapy for sunflower yet, but the doctor hopes to have one in place within the next year or two.  Until then we get to eliminate sunflower from his diet.  Sunflower oil is in everything from potato chips, fruit snacks, protein shakes, etc.  It's quite a commonly used oil so this really bites!  The doctor said anyone can develop this allergy at anytime and the likelihood of him outgrowing this allergy was nil.  BOO again!!  Oh well at least we know to watch out for it now.  Jeez, it seems like it's one step forward and one step backward with this kid!!