Monday, December 7, 2015

Boy have we had a busy few weeks!

*This week we saw this:
Nash's comment was, "How stupid do you think I am?!  I DID NOT do this!"  Pretty sure it was Caleb's attempt to get Nash in trouble because Nash was trying to do what mom told him to and that involved telling Caleb what to do and Caleb didn't like it.  Nice try kid.  Better luck next time.  And yes, that is dry erase marker on my wall.  Thank heavens for Norwex cleaning paste is all I can say!

*I took Samantha and her friend Lizbeth to the Nutcracker over Thanksgiving.  It was our first time ever to go see it.  I've wanted to take Sam for years and this year she pestered me until I remembered to buy tickets.  It was lots of fun to watch and I think she thought it was even more fun because she recognized several of the teachers from the Cache Valley School of Ballet dancing in it.


*Samantha is down and out with Patella Bursitis for the next two weeks.  No dancing, lifting, twisting, kneeling, or heavy lifting.  Today I caught her at the computer with her head phones on watching her dance videos from her choreography class and she was writing out beats and steps.  Poor child is going to think she's died without dance for two weeks.  She still thinks I'm putting her under some sort of cruel and unusual punishment for making her go to each class and sit on the sidelines to watch.  Sorry kid, you'll thank me later.  Maybe.  Another unfortunate consequence of this injury is that since she is suppose to be off her leg as much as possible, I will be driving her to school every day until Christmas break.  I will also have the pleasure of picking her up the two days a week I'm done teaching by noon.  Hopefully she will follow the dr.'s orders to a T and she'll be back dancing in January.  Otherwise I'm afraid we'll have one very sad and angry pre teen at our place.


*Nash's basketball team is still getting creamed at every game.  This weekend they lost 30-4.  On the upside, Nash finally got a little aggressive.  For example; he clothes lined a kid!  And, he grabbed at the ball and held on like it was his and he wanted it!  Yes, proud mom moment!  I've been telling him for awhile that he needs to play church ball for a bit in order to see what I mean about you don't have to be nice when you play basketball.  It's ok to try and take the ball from the other kids!  With him finally showing a little aggression I'll say I "MOMENTARILY" considered signing him up for the Jr. Jazz season.  And then I remembered that they play that out in NORTH LOGAN and I'm in HYRUM and I really, really, really, don't want to drive to North Logan more than the three days a week I'm already doing it.  Guess we'll wait it out and see.  Only 2 games left for the season.

*Nash had another robotics competition while Travis was home.  We went all the way down to Ogden for this one.  Nash's team had their STEM project done and they were in the top 5 the whole day.  Going into finals they were in 2nd place.  They had an overall win in the bag.  Nash drove the first 30 seconds and his partner drove the final 30 seconds.  As the final buzzer rang their robot slid off the ramp.  This cost them 1st place.  They ended up tying for 7th as a result.  It was a heart breaker.  However, they did win the overall design award for the competition and were pretty excited about that.  They are ready to crush the competition on Feb. 6th at their next competition.








*We've been back to the Wellness Clinic for retesting.  ALL of the bars are now GREEN!  His overall number that was 601 before, is now up to 937.  This means that his body is balanced and we can proceed with the NAET testing (Nambudripad's Allergen Elimination Technique).  I've received a thick book and a workbook on this testing.  I am suppose to read the book and the workbook is to help while we do the allergen testing.  This testing is much more in depth than the testing that he's had done at the Allergy Clinic twice already.  My understanding so far about how this testing works is: when we go in he will get a treatment (not sure what that treatment is) and then there will be specific foods that he won't be allowed to eat OR touch for the next 24 hours.  Based on his response then we can proceed to the next set of allergens to test for.  I was told that he can pretty much always eat white rice (except when testing grains) and he can pretty much always eat french fries.  Should be interesting to say the least.  I think there may be a few times he eats nothing but french fries for 24 hours.  I think the sugars test will be the most difficult of all for the poor kid.  However, I have faith in this.  Why?  Because after just 3 weeks of the various drops he had been prescribed he was already up a pound and a half.  It took 3 yrs for him to gain the last 5 lbs he's gained.  This is not a cheap route to go, but I know it's going to be worth it in the end!



*Thanksgiving was fun.  We ate dinner at Travis's parents house.  We haven't had dinner out there in about six years so it was a nice change of pace.  Travis got to be home for Thanksgiving (he left the Tuesday after).    He will be home for Christmas as well.  However, once he leaves on Dec. 29th he will be gone for 3 weeks.  The only upside is that when he comes home at the end of January he will get to be home for 3 weeks.  Why the change?  It's to offset the schedule he has been on.  His alternate wants to get holidays home this next yr and in order to do that they have to essentially switch places.

*The kids had their Christmas piano recital this past Friday.  They did a really good job.  I was worried about the boys and their duet but all the work they did with Travis while he was home paid off.  It's nice having a husband who plays guitar and can sit by the piano and play along with them until they get it figured out.  The duet went off without a hitch.  Sam was mad at herself because she messed up her duet with her teacher and they stopped and started again so she wouldn't mess the whole thing up - her hands were in the wrong spot.  

*Brookelyn has finished up dance class until January.  I got to sit and watch her final class.  I finally figured out why she tells me class is boring and she hates it.  They didn't learn a single dance - all they did was ballet basics practice.  Brooke loves tap and loves to actually dance.  This class was very challenging for her because of that.  I asked her if she wanted to quit dance until next fall when I can sign her up at a regular studio or if she wants to keep going with ballet.  When she realized how long she'd have to go without dance she decided to stick it out with her ballet class.  Good girl. :)







*Caleb has his Christmas choir concert coming up on Dec. 16th.  They did an amazing job at the Veteran's Day concert they did so I can't wait to hear the Christmas concert!

*We managed to put our Christmas tree up while Travis was home!

*Our friend, Scott, has been on vacation in Europe for about three months.  I talked to him when he first went over and told him how much Sam loves collecting snow globes.  This week we got a package in the mail.  Sam got three new snow globes and the music for a music box, Brookelyn got a new Matroshka, the boys got a pirate German lego set and some dinosaurs to excavate.  They were all pretty darn excited and I can't say as I blame them.


*I've been working with the boys and their reading to make sure they've been writing down what they are suppose to for school.  Nash is participating in Read Across America this year.  His goal is to read 35 books by the end of the school year.  So far he's read 20.  Books have to be a minimum of 80 pages.  If they are over 300 pages they count as two books.  Many of his books have been over the 300 page mark and have counted as two books.  I found out though that he hasn't been turning in the book reports he's suppose to write if there isn't an RC test for the book.  The kid needed to write 10 book reports!  He was not a happy camper.  I think he's about caught up now though.  Caleb set a goal for himself at the beginning of the school year that he wanted to read 100 books this year.  So far he's filled up his entire book in a bag chart and has had to ask for a new folder.  I've literally only written down about 1/3 - 1/4 of the books he's actually read.  We got to school 30 minutes early on Friday and he started doing his tests.  He had 13 Geronimo Stilton books that he had finished and hadn't tested on yet.  When I left him he had 129 RC points (they earn so many points for each reading test they take - depends on kind of book and how many pages it has).  I'm pretty sure he's at least 1/2 way to his 100 books goal and that he's going to have more RC points than any other 2nd grader.  Any suggestions on chapter books for a 2nd grader that reads on a 4th grade level would be great.  He blows through an A to Z Mystery and a Magic Tree House book in about 1 - 1.5 hrs.

*So, you can see why I'm so terrible at keeping my blog up to date recently.  My dang kids just keep me too dang busy!  We have fun though, even when it gets crazy busy.