Michelle's Day

above zero

2012-02-03T18:52:00.002-09:00

It has been below zero for longer than I can remember, but it's FINALLY above zero!!! The only problem with that is that we got more snow. LOTS more snow! It took Jason almost two hours to use the snowblower on the two driveways.

Our mailbox is completely surrounded by snow. I'm thinking it needs to be painted so that the mailman can see it better. Pink and purple butterflies would look GREAT!
The snow is higher than Luke, and he's standing up on the front deck which is about a foot up off the ground.
In the middle of all the snow falling today, I went to work at 6:15 this morning and then drove to Seth's school at 8:30 so that we could get on a BUS and drive downtown to attend a performance of "Sleeping Beauty." When we got back to the school (safely, thank goodness!), I drove home and texted Jason that I would NOT be leaving the house again! He brought the kids home in his four-wheel-drive truck.

Joel's a TEENAGER!

2012-01-29T18:02:00.003-09:00

Wednesday, Joel turned THIRTEEN!!! Sometimes, he surprises me with great maturity. Usually, he's still a normal kid, though :-) Wednesday, Joel got to pick all the meals for the day (which is probably one of the reasons that I gained a pound this week). Today was the family party. Everyone came over after church for chili, gifts, and brownies with ice cream :-)

Gavin was the gift bringer :-)

Makenzie and Luke made sure to get in the "Happy Birthday" song and candle blowing pictures :-)

After the family party, Joel and I went to the library to take his birthday pictures:

He cooperated with the pictures so that we could get them done. I wanted to find more spots to take a few more pictures, but he just wanted to be finished.

Then this evening, Joel stood next to the polar bear :-) He is FIVE FEET, FOUR INCHES tall!!!
At thirteen, Joel still loves to read (fantasy/science fiction and comics are his favorites -- today at the library, he checked out several Garfield comics), play video games, watch movies (he's really into the old "Muppets" tv shows, which makes me chuckle), playing his trumpet in the jazz band (Glenn Miller is his favorite! One of his favorite birthday gifts was a trumpet mute so that he can try to copy the "Glenn Miller sound."), and spending time with his friends. He runs track and cross country because Jason makes him, does the high jump during track season (or tries to -- he's a little stocky for that event), and wrestles. Just Friday, he placed second in a junior high j.v. wrestling meet. He was VERY excited about that! He's pretty mean to Makenzie and Luke, not any more than I would say is "normal," though. Joel is a VERY good worker, better for other people than for me :-)

Since I have trouble remembering what happened two hours ago, the day Joel was born is a little bit of a blur. I do remember enough, though, to be thankful those days are behind me and to be VERY thankful that God gave me this special gift that we named Joel !

silly kids & athletes

2012-01-22T07:57:00.004-09:00

Joel and Seth don't spend a whole lot of time together, but sometimes they really have fun:

Luke started playing basketball last week (which also means that Jason started coaching basketball last week) :-) Their first game was last Saturday (I'm a week behind!). I was laughing pretty much the entire hour that they played because little kids who don't know how to play a game but try really hard to do a good job are FUNNY!!! Luke made a couple baskets, which was really exciting! Here's a shot of him right in the middle of shooting:
And maybe he's playing defense here, or maybe he's trying to block the other team so that his teammate could try to shoot:
This referee is our little kids' church/Sunday School pastor and was my student when I was a teacher :-) Luke seems to be listening to whatever Pastor/Referee Chris is saying:
Luke and Jason's team didn't get many points this game, but they learned a lot about playing a game of basketball.
I didn't get pictures from yesterday's game, but it was a little less funny and a lot more exciting. Our team improved 100% and ended the game with a tied score of 26 points. When the game only had a few seconds left on the clock, we were down by two points. One of our players threw the ball to Luke, and he made the basket that tied the score. So exciting!!

A little less exciting is the temperature up here for the last I-don't-even-know-how-long-but-seems-like-forever:
I've lived here for fifteen years, but still can't get used to temperatures below ten degrees!!

Seth also started playing a sport yesterday: soccer :-) The last time we put Seth in soccer, he didn't play at all. Well, he played, but he didn't play soccer. He played with the net that divided the two soccer fields. He played with the net of the goal posts. He played with the soccer ball very rarely. Yesterday, he actually kicked the ball around a little bit.

Here's Jason getting Seth all ready to play:
Seth refused to look at us to take a picture:
This is the best action shot we could get:
Seth decided that he wasn't going to cooperate at all unless Mom came out there with him. Even when I went out there, though, he wouldn't really cooperate. I think I did more running and kicking than he did. I'll have to dress more appropriately next time!
It was a little chilly even though we were inside. Seth did a little better after we put his sweatshirt back on.
I think he'll do a little better next week because I learned that I'm not allowed to socialize unless he is completely interested in participating (which, honestly, probably isn't going to happen). I was hoping that he'd join in this time, follow directions, have fun with the other kids and coaches, and that I would be able to sit and chat with the other moms. Oh well, running around kicking a ball with Seth is also fun :-)

complaining

2012-01-10T11:08:00.002-09:00

I've noticed that I complain a lot. If something doesn't go my way (which, of course, is the best and only truly logical way), I get irritated and/or frustrated and complain. Sometimes I complain on here, sometimes on facebook, sometimes to my kids, sometimes to strangers, sometimes just to myself. Many people make me feel justified in my complaints. They see the four kids, notice that one is disabled, and I'm automatically given a free complaining ticket as if my life is so much more difficult than anyone else's. Philippians 2:14 does command me to "do all things withOUT arguing or complaining," though. Plus, the truth is that there isn't anything really to complain about. All the complaints are small and insignificant. And the number of smiles, laughs, and hugs far exceed the number of trials. When I was little, my Grandma Waneta loaned me her entire set of Pollyanna books. After I got a full-time job and before I had kids, I bought a complete set for my own bookshelf and re-read them. The main character held the philosophy that there's ALWAYS something to be glad about. That's the outlook on life that I want to become my habit instead of instantly jumping to the negative. So this is another "daffodil" :-)

new beginning

2012-01-08T13:19:00.003-09:00

Amanda took this picture of us on New Year's Eve, or on New Year's Day to be more precise. I believe it was 12:05 a.m. :-) I've known, of course, for a very long time that I was overweight, but pictures sure do emphasize the point!
Starting 1-1-12, I have been counting calories and exercising again. I made my calorie intake goal very high for the first week so that I would be sure to succeed at the beginning. The exercise is more difficult to follow through on because by the time dinner is over, I'm exhausted and just want to read a couple chapters and go to sleep. But I've been walking on the treadmill or pedaling my little i-don't-know-what-the-technical-name-for-it-is thingy (it's just the pedals of a stationary bike, no wheels, no seat -- i sit on the couch and pedal). Since last Sunday (1-1-12), I have lost five pounds and one inch of fat. I'm pretty excited about that!! But as this picture proved, five pounds isn't much. It's a great beginning, though.
I still have nine full months before I get on the plane to Illinois, and I'm hoping that's enough time to make a significant change in my size. I don't want to barely fit into that little seat. I want to see space on either side of me!! So with this new beginning of "dieting," I found a beautiful reminder in flowers since "new beginnings" is the symbolic meaning of daffodils (probably why they're so popular at Easter time -- spring, new life, Jesus rose from the dead to give us new life and hope).

first week back

2012-01-07T09:21:00.003-09:00

Everyone's first week of back-to-school schedule went pretty great. The older kids were a little sleepy and had to receive the mommy alarm because they slept through their own alarms, but they had a good week at school.

The first day at Seth's new school started out to be chaotic. His old school had a perfect system of drop off and pick up that completely prevented traffic jams and chaos. Not true of his new school. There was a mess in the office with all the people who were late to school on the first day. I didn't get to work until about 10:30 a.m. even though school started at 9 a.m. !!!! All the way until I left Seth in his new classroom, he was yelling at everyone, "NO SCHOOL!!!!" He gave me the most pitiful look when I told him good-bye, "MOM, you're NOT leaving me here with all these strangers, ARE YOU???!!!!!" He ended up having a really good week, though.
His favorite part, I'm pretty sure, is riding the school bus. He rides the special needs bus on the way to school, but he rides the regular bus with all the other neighborhood kids on the way home. One of his friends from his kindergarten class last year is on the same bus. I was glad to see that there's a familiar face amidst the many strangers! There are also some kids from church that go to his new school :-) It's SO nice to not have to be in the middle of the mess of a parking lot at this new school! I should've taken the camera outside to capture Seth coming off the bus for the first time!! But I was too excited to go get him, so I forgot. He was so smiley and excited about getting to ride the bus.

Since the morning bus picks Seth up at Jason's work, I get to go to work an hour earlier. So this whole new deal is good for everyone -- Seth gets to go to "school" with Jason, Joel, Makenzie, and Luke; he gets to ride the BUS; he has more specialized attention from trained special education teachers since there are at least five adults and only seven students; Jason and I don't have to take him to or pick him up from school; and I get more time to work, run errands, and get a few things done at home. What a good start to the new year :-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

2012-01-01T15:31:00.004-09:00

My 2011 ended with a little bit of excitement and chaos. Since Joel is in the Pep Band and since Luke's basketball coach plays high school basketball, I decided to go to the basketball tournament this last weekend. I haven't watched a basketball game since I was a teacher! I really enjoyed it. Watching sports is only fun for me if I know people involved and if I really feel like being there. I've been pretty much house-bound the last ten years with small children, but all four kids are now old enough to get out and do more things like staying up late at night to watch high school basketball :-)

Joel enjoys being in the Jazz Band, but the Pep Band wasn't quite as thrilling for him since they don't play much. Also, when they do play, they often play only parts of songs and repeat most of the songs. But he sure looked cute up on the stage :-)

I'm thinking this picture is too far away to be able to see that a giant tuba blocked our view of Joel most of the time. I had to go up on the stage to get that first picture.
The games ended between 10:30 and 11 Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Seth, especially, was hard to wake each morning, but no one was too grouchy because they all looked forward to the day. Joel helped me at work so that his friend could come over one day. Makenzie and Luke ran around the school with their friends. Seth watched movies in one of the classrooms and did his best to escape occasionally to get some excitement. After the final game last night, we went over to Amanda and Darryl's to welcome in the new year.
Seth's mouth is blue because a family friend gave him a blue ring pop as we left the gym last night. And the camera wasn't what caused me to look many pounds heavier :-( I've put all the "baby weight" back on from all four babies! Obviously then, my top New Year's resolution is to take care of that. I'm turning 40 in October and decided that I really want to spend that special day with my mom, my childhood friend who shares the birthday, and her mom. Sara and I were born on the same day in the same hospital and have been close friends all our lives. We grew up in the same small town, same small church, same small elementary school. Our lives took different paths when my family moved to Arizona, Sara went to a Christian school, we went to different colleges, we both got married and moved to different parts of the country. She lives in Michigan now, and our parents live in Illinois. We've started planning now so that I can hopefully get a free ticket with Jason's air miles. Anyway, back to the weight problem. Those airplane seats, as everyone well knows, are very small and uncomfortable. They're even more uncomfortable, though, to people who are a little too "squishy." Right now, I fall into the "squishy" category, but I have determined to lose as much weight as I possibly and safely can before I get on that plane! So it's back to counting calories, getting a half-hour of exercise five nights per week, and getting at least seven hours of sleep every night. We're eating more fruits and veggies this year and fewer sugary desserts. Drinking is my downfall, even more than snacking and desserts. I don't like water, but all the diet-type drinks have artificial sweetener -- YUCK!!!!! Plus, I really like my decaf white chocolate mochas :-)

Seth starts his new school on Tuesday. He'll start riding the bus to and from school the following week if all the details and paperwork go through quickly. I know this is a good change, but change makes me nervous. I'm really looking forward to seeing how much more Seth will accomplish with all the adult attention, help, and supervision that he'll have in his new class.

Another change for this year is that Jason and I are going to head up the annual Down syndrome Buddy Walk. I refuse to allow myself to get worked up about this huge undertaking and rather wait until I get the to-do list and do my best at delegating and working through the list to get everything done. We'll see how that goes ;-)

Two thoughts from the Bible have started out my new year on a good note, I believe:

1. Last night, Seth and I made up a little tune to combine Philippians 2:14, I Thessalonians 5:16-18, and I Corinthians 10:31 -- "Do all things without arguing or complaining. Do all things without arguing or complaining. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all things for this is the will of God. Do all things without arguing or complaining. Do all things to the glory of God."

2. This morning, I started a new daily Bible reading by Charles Stanley. The opening page had the perfect prayer to start a new year: "Cause me to hear Your lovingkindness in the morning for in You do I trust. Cause me to know the way in which I should walk for I lift up soul to You." (Psalm 143:8)

Right before I sat down to write this post, I changed Seth's diaper. He's SIX YEARS OLD!!!! It's time for him to be potty-trained!!!!! So I told him that: "Seth, I REALLY wish that you would pee and poop in the toilet!" He very sweetly smiled at me, hugged me so gently, rubbed my back, and said with the sweetest little voice ever: "Nooooooooo :-)"

Oh yeah! Starting the new year with so many challenges :-)

snow fun

2011-12-23T13:57:00.002-09:00

I finally let Joel and Makenzie invite friends over to enjoy Christmas break. I got up early and went to work from 6:30 - 9 a.m., got my last Christmas things (i hope) from Walmart (plus necessities like light bulbs, t.p., and super glue -- how in the world do we go through so much super glue???!!!!), then got home to make phone calls to the other parents. The boys went sledding, but the girls played in the snow in our back yard.

I finally found Seth's boots and made him go outside. He didn't like it, though, because he doesn't know how to entertain himself out there and I didn't feel like being outside anymore after shoveling the deck. I'm hoping to get him into the front yard to do a little sledding (our front hard has a pretty steep little part that ends in the driveway).
Seth got too cold and had to be warmed up/wrapped up :-)
Now I really need to get out of this chair and make the pie crusts for Christmas. As I've said and I'm sure everyone knows by now, I HATE TO COOK!!!!!! So the music is going to be LOUD to make me forget that I'm in the kitchen :-) Also, it helps that my pies usually turn out to be very yummy, and I LOVE pie!!!! It takes quite a bit of will power to not eat it all myself, but I do share with the rest of the family :-) I should probably make one just for the six of us for tomorrow. We exchange our gifts on Christmas Eve, rest all day just the six of us together, and go to the Christmas Eve service at church. This year Makenzie is singing in the Christmas Eve service :-) I'm hoping to have a video on here by Monday. HERE is the video that Jason took from the kids' choir performance, but it's a little fuzzy because Jason had to use his phone since I forgot my camera.

procrastination -- typing more and more information until there's not enough time to make those pie crusts today :-) just kidding -- i'm really looking forward to eating them, so i'd better get that music started :-)

catching up again

2011-12-16T06:32:00.003-09:00

I forgot to get back on here after that last "my kids behaved so maturely" post. The next day, I could've posted a sequel to that one: "THEY'RE BA-A-A-A-CK!!" They were back to their normal yelling and crying and fighting the next day! Oh well, it's nice to know in an emergency, they CAN behave.

Joel was SO cute playing in the jazz band at the airport!! He got to play a little solo (which i need to put on youtube! subscribe to my youtube page -- polarmom4 -- if you want to see when i finally do that).
We had some HORRIBLE Chinook winds Sunday. Flying garbage cans are usually the only problem we have in high winds, and that's easily remedied since we have a garage. Sunday night, though, we lost our last front yard tree when the wind blew it over onto Jason's truck. There are only a couple dents on the truck, but the tree is obviously ruined.

Yesterday was Seth's last day at Chester Valley Elementary. He handed out Christmas tins with homemade candies to each of the teachers and staff members that we could find. We have enjoyed Seth's experiences at Chester Valley and appreciate ALL that the staff there have done to help and care for Seth. We have a meeting at his new school this morning to discuss what's coming up next for him. I'm not good with change, so I'm a tiny bit nervous. But I'm pretty sure this is a good change for Seth, so I'm looking forward to it.
So here's a funny story about those Christmas tins of candies. I don't usually give Christmas gifts to the kids' teachers because there are so many teachers, and I would feel SO bad if I left someone out! But since Seth was leaving his school, I decided to make candy for the people who have been so nice to us there. I started the list with the teachers and aides, then added the office staff, then added . . . . then added . . . then added :-) Three batches of candy, three nights, and i'm not sure how many trips to Walmart, Fred Meyer, and Costco -- there should be Christmas tins for every single adult that all four children come in contact with at both schools. Jason and the kids have been making fun of me about the whole thing, laughing about how the list of additions keeps growing. Jason suggested he quit his job and we go into the Christmas candy tin business. By the third batch, though, we did have a pretty good system going. Maybe we'll do this every year. (or maybe not)

such good kids!

2011-12-03T07:44:00.002-09:00

Last night, my kids showed just how great they are :-) I had a horrible headache and was in bed, in and out of sleep. When Makenzie and Luke got home from kids' choir practice, I barely heard them come in. There were NO fights and NO noise. At about 9:30 p.m., I decided that I REALLY needed to get up and get everyone ready for bed. I walked into the living room to see that Joel had corralled the other three together on the couch and put on a movie, telling them that I didn't feel well so they all needed to keep quiet. He had the phone in his hand, trying to find his grandmother's phone number because Seth needed a new diaper. They were all so very sweet sitting on the couch trying to let me sleep off that headache! So I changed Seth and let him fall asleep with me in my bed while the older three watched a movie downstairs. When the movie was over, everyone went to bed quietly. My kids have NEVER before acted so maturely and so nicely to each other! I'm really loving the "growing up" here :-)

Yesterday was a day of good news for Joel. His trumpet was fixed and ready to be picked up. He was pretty excited. After dinner, he gave me a little concert (which is why I was in bed -- I couldn't be in the same room with the trumpet playing. Trumpets are VERY loud! He knew I wasn't insulting him by going in another room. I really wanted to hear him play, just at a lower volume.) He's pretty good for a seventh grader! I was impressed. Also, his new glasses came in. He was SO relieved to throw away the taped-up pair that had no nose pieces!!

November's over???!!!!

2011-12-01T18:47:00.003-09:00

I feel like I missed a month somewhere -- where did November go?? This has been the snowiest, coldest end of "autumn" that I've ever experienced in the 15 years that I've been in Alaska! Time has just been flying by, and I'm not quite sure what I've been doing all month. I didn't even take many pictures this month. Here's the total of my photographic recording of November, 2011:

Sunday afternoon nap/movie time:

Seth trying to make Luke feel better, but I don't remember why. And why in the world does he have a spanking spoon in the other hand? My guess is that I left the dishwasher open to let the dishes dry, and he stole a spoon because he does that kind of thing. It probably ended up thrown behind the couch like most things do that Seth gets his hands on
Seth occasionally makes up disguises. This was a pretty funny/cute one:
JOEL:
My almost-teenager is amazing me with his musical talent. Actually, I haven't heard him play his trumpet in a long time, but he is advancing quickly in the school bands. He's in the junior high band, but the teacher asked him to join the high school jazz band. Three mornings each week, Joel goes to school at 7:15 a.m. to practice with the jazz band. He'll be having a concert at the airport next week with a couple solos I think. I can hardly wait to hear him. Last week, though, something broke on his trumpet. I took it to the horn-fixing store, and they were shocked that a junior high student owned this trumpet. They said that it's a professional quality trumpet and is worth at least $3000!!! I asked Joel what he thought about that, and he said he didn't know it was worth that much money, but he really likes his trumpet better than the one he's borrowing from the band teacher (in other words, "Mom, I don't care about money. Just get my trumpet back fast!").

The same week that his trumpet broke, his glasses also broke. Not just a little break, but they broke right in half at the nose bridge. This is a much bigger problem since he doesn't have a backup pair. We got his eyes checked to get a new prescription and ordered new glasses, but he's been having horrible headaches while we wait for them to come in. Today, he taped the glasses to his head to alleviate some of the eye strain. We're hoping his glasses come in tomorrow! Plus, we're ordering him a second pair just in case.

MAKENZIE:
The church kids' choir is putting on a musical this Sunday night. Makenzie has one of the main parts. She's so calm on stage and so dependable for the choir directors. She makes me proud :-)

LUKE:
I'm excited to report that Luke has NOT been sent to the office this whole entire semester!! Granted, there are still two weeks left, but he's done so well, that I'm confident his bad-behavior-at-school streak has ended. Jason made up a system to get Luke to do homework more quickly. He sets a little timer for five minutes and reports back how much he got done in that five minutes. If he doesn't complete a set amount of work, he gets a spanking. Apparently, I've lost my touch in the spanking department because he laughed after I spanked him yesterday. But he's still scared to tears of Dad's spankings.

SETH:
This will be Seth's last month at Chester Valley Elementary. When school resumes after the Christmas break, he will be going to a school that has a special ed. class. On one hand, I'm very sad that he has to leave a place and people that he has grown comfortable with and who love him so much. But on the other hand, I'm looking forward to seeing how much more he can learn in a more special-needs-adapted environment. We haven't had any more luck with the potty training :-( I'm hoping to be able to dedicate lots of time over Christmas break to finishing this process for the VERY LAST time!!!!

JASON:
Besides the normal teaching, coaching, training for his next marathon that is always the list of "Jason's world," he is looking forward to coaching Luke's basketball team next month :-) I'm thinking that "looking forward to" gives the wrong impression, but that's ok. Let's keep it positive :-) We were going to give Luke the entry fee for a basketball season for Christmas, but then we found out that if Jason coached the team, Luke would get to play for free. Yay, Coach Jason :-)

MICHELLE:
I have to chuckle as I type all this because it's a little difficult to type right now. I have band-aids on three of my fingers because my fingertips split open when the temperature gets below about 20 degrees. The cuts are very painful and start bleeding if I don't cover them. I currently have "grown-up" regular brown band-aids on them, but earlier today, Spiderman was protecting the cuts :-) A couple weeks ago, I had Disney princesses on several fingers.

I'm LOVING our new van!! It's so nice to be sure that my vehicle will start when I turn the key :-) I've been trying really hard to take care of this van and not get in too much of a hurry. Hurrying makes me careless and messy. That's why our last van was filthy most of the time and had so many mechanical problems. I had been doing a pretty good job of being careful until Monday morning when I was running behind and needed to quickly get Joel to band practice. I forgot that it was garbage day and just backed down the driveway without really looking -- and plowed over the recycling bin, breaking the passenger tail light. That little mistake cost over $100 and counts as my Christmas present this year (along with an eye exam and a new pair of glasses).

On a disappointing note, remember this lamp shade that I was creating with beads?
One of the side posts broke loose, so I had to disassemble the whole thing :-( Today I bought a new lamp, took the material off the lamp shade, and look forward to starting over!

THANKSGIVING:
We had a lovely Thanksgiving with lots of good food. I made the pies -- always an adventure and a bit of a risk since 1) they have to be gluten-free, which is tricky and 2) I'm not a very good cook, probably because I get distracted and don't always follow recipes exactly. My pecan pie looked like it didn't have pecans in it, so we called it "maple sugar surprise" I think. It tasted really good, though. And I bought the wrong kind of cherries for the cherry pie, but it still tasted good. I was very upset when Jason said that this year's apple pie was the best ever! I usually buy apples, peel and cut them, and make the pie completely from scratch, thinking that would make it the "best ever." This year, I couldn't handle making four pies from scratch, so I bought apple pie filling (because Joel insisted that we MUST have apple pie). How can a can of pie filling be better than "from scratch"? Oh well, opening a can is CERTAINLY easier than peeling and cutting apples!

This wasn't the most exciting post, but it was "catch-up" time :-) Maybe I'll do better with paying attention and blogging in December (again, don't hold your breath for that to actually happen :-).

finally finished a book

2011-11-14T18:56:00.002-09:00

i'm a slow reader. i have to read every single word and form pictures and scenes in my head, hear the people talking, feel like i'm part of the story. i don't get much time to read, either. some days i read a couple pages in bed, but put the book down because i'm falling asleep. about a MONTH ago, i started reading "firefly summer" by maeve binchy, one of my FAVORITE authors!!! (side note: i hate it that there is no "underline" feature on this blog. as an ex-english teacher, putting quotes around a book title instead of underlining it is VERY irritating. surprisingly, though, using no capital letters isn't bothering me too much.)

so first of all, how in the world can it take me a MONTH to read ONE book???!!!! but more importantly, i HATED the ending :-( i was SO into this book, the setting, the characters, the emotions, the action. **SPOILER ALERT** (not that anyone reading my blog really intends to read this book, but . . . just in case . . .) Patrick O'Neill moved to Ireland from New York to build a giant hotel on the land where a castle once stood. His father had worked in the castle, but was fired. Patrick wanted to "right this wrong" and "get back to his roots." In the process, though, an incredible woman was hit by a crane and paralyzed for life. And THEN, the entire hotel burned to down at its grand opening! Instead of everything being explained or "wrapped up" somehow, it with Patrick saying that he was going back home. I can understand not getting a happy ending, but this was too abrupt!

so, yes, i'm letting everyone know how strange i am that i'd get all upset about a BOOK and then take the time to blog about it. :-) i'm going to make up "the rest of the story."

Patrick goes back to New York and finds Rachel (his mistress who went back to New York earlier in the book because Patrick wouldn't commit to her). They decide to get married and move back to Ireland, not to re-build the hotel but to build a normal home on that land. This is the ending I wanted because Rachel is a really nice person and because Patrick and Rachel had both made friends in Ireland. Kerry, Patrick's wayward son, recovers from the burns he got when the hotel burned down and becomes a sincerely good person. He and Dara, the girl who lives in the pub across from the hotel, get together. Michael, Dara's twin brother, and Grace, Patrick's daughter, get together. Eddie, Michael and Dara's wild younger brother, straightens out and becomes a productive, useful, respected part of his parents' pub.

i'm sure that this makes NO sense to anyone reading this blog, but that's ok -- i feel better now :-)

new stuff

2011-10-30T22:02:00.002-08:00

When I looked out the window this morning, I saw NEW SNOW :-( Every year I dread the snow more and more. It's beautiful, though. I think we got about an inch or two. If the sun had been out all day, it probably would've melted. Too bad it was overcast most of the day.

Yesterday, I went to a fused glass show. The lady that makes these decorations has a handicapped son and makes these beautiful creations to support herself and her son. As a birthday gift from Jason and his parents, I got this hanging butterfly picture frame and butterfly mirror:
and this dragonfly photo/recipe holder:
This afternoon, I got Seth his own laptop for only $250!! Actually, Seth gets a $250 scholarship every year from our local Down syndrome group, so the computer was FREE! Tomorrow, I'm going to order him a one-button mouse so that he can play his alphabet game on starfall.com :-) This evening, I showed him his new computer and let him pick out his background picture -- he picked one of all the Scooby Doo friends :-)

And then just tonight we got this NEW VAN!!! I am SOOOO grateful for the good deal Jason's friend from church gave us on this van! It's clean, it starts and runs, it has SNOW TIRES, and so many other bonuses that I couldn't figure out tonight because it's dark and I'm tired and I hadn't eaten dinner. I can hardly wait for tomorrow when I get to explore all the many buttons and compartments and drive around in this beautiful vehicle!!
And the blessings continue . . . the friend that sold us the van said that we can put our old van on an auction and probably get at LEAST $200! Another auction guy said that we would only get about $100 for it. We'll see how much it ends up going for, but anything is better than letting it become yard art :-)

fall festival

2011-10-29T19:41:00.002-08:00

Tonight was the fall festival at the kids' school. For the record (again), I HATE halloween and everything associated with it. But my kids found costumes that they really liked, so I bought them and took them to the little carnival at school. Thankfully, this is also the weekend of the huge wrestling tournament in the high school. Jason runs the tournament and has Joel, Makenzie, and Luke help him. They were more excited about being at the tournament than in going to the carnival, so we didn't have to stay at the carnival for very long at all this year :-)

Seth and I waited in the lobby for Luke and Makenzie to get changed. It is SO difficult for Seth to sit and wait unless he's buckled in his car seat or stroller. He didn't do too badly, though.
Luke was a ninja -- a sweaty little ninja because the heat is on in the building, of course since it's 32 degrees outside now. He had on a ski mask made out of material that would keep his head warm in freezing temperatures. He took it off a little while after the picture.
Makenzie dressed up as Cleopatra. She loves reading anything and everything about Egypt. When she saw this costume at Walgreens, she HAD to have it! One minute after she put it on tonight, though, she was complaining about how itchy it was. So again, uncomfortable parts of the costume came off after the picture.
My nephew Gavin was a Ninja Turtle. SO cute!!!
And my niece Makayla was a Care Bear. Her costume was also very warm, so the hood was only on for the picture. I barely caught this picture before she took it off again.
CUTE kids :-)

WHAT???!!!!!!

2011-10-19T19:51:00.003-08:00

a guy left a voicemail last night at 10:30 saying he was interested in buying our van that i had posted on craig's list. i called this morning and set up a meeting in the church parking lot at 5 p.m. he said that he would call his brother to make sure that was ok and then call me back. his brother was the one wanting the van, but he was doing the calling because his brother didn't speak english, only spanish. so at 4:45 p.m., i still hadn't heard back from him, so i called to see if we were still meeting. he said he thought so. i drove over to the church and waited till 5:25 p.m. before calling again, saying i was so sorry for being a pest, but was he coming? he said he was just leaving work because a problem had arisen there. he was going to pick up his brother and come right over. so i hurried home to finish the laundry and leave the kids with jason to eat dinner and then went back over to the church.

they finally arrived, and i gave them the list of pros and cons that i had posted on craig's list and they obviously hadn't read because on the phone, the guy had said, "there are no problems with the van, correct?" i said, "no, there are lots of problems." so i waited while he translated the whole list into spanish for his brother. then they called their mechanic friend to see if he had time to look at it. i agreed to drive over to their friend's apartment complex so he could take a look at it. when i got back in the van, IT WOULDN'T START!!!!! jason just bought and installed a new battery on SUNDAY -- three days ago!!!!!!!!!! so i called jason to come jump the van because the guys said that they weren't giving up faith. they still wanted their mechanic friend to look at it.

we drove over to the apartment complex (right next to clark middle school -- anchorage people will understand what that means -- not a great part of town). by this time, it's getting a little dark. all the way over there, i was afraid the van was going to stall because it was making some CRAZY sounds!!!! it made it, though. it took the friend a really long time to get outside because he's older and sick and maybe handicapped. he looked at the van and listened to the guy translate the list of pros and cons into spanish (AGAIN!) and gave his advice: no more than $400 (i was asking $1,000). i called jason and he said $500. the guys said no, $400. so i said i'd call if we didn't sell it soon. when i got in the van, IT STALLED!!!! i got out and said, they could have it for $400. i called jason to come get me. they jump started the van. the friend revved the engine a few times and said that they shouldn't buy the van because the gas pump was bad.

so by the time jason got there, i was shaking from cold, nervousness from being in mountain view in the dark, frustration from having wasted TWO HOURS of my day, and a DESPERATE need to use a restroom!!!!!!!!! i told jason that i was pretty sure the van wouldn't even make it home, so i drove the truck and he drove the van (which did make it home). the kids thought i was losing my mind because as soon as i got in the truck, i started crying (for the same four reasons that i was shaking earlier). i'm so very glad that the whole situation is over and that i'm HOME and that our "new" van should be here no later than next week!!!!!!!!

i KNOW that God works things out for the good of His children, so i'm waiting to see what He's got planned here!!!!! maybe one or all of those guys were Christians and God didn't want them strapped with this broken vehicle. or maybe they were scammers trying to rip me off, so God made it so that even THEY wouldn't want my van. or maybe He has some really good deal like a mechanic is looking for exactly this van to use whatever good parts are left to fix another ford windstar. i don't know exactly what it is, but there's a good reason for the "events" of this evening.

cuties & cars

2011-10-18T20:29:00.006-08:00

cuties:
Almost every night before I got to bed, I check Seth's diaper and take Luke to the bathroom. Usually, this helps avoid washing sheets every day. Last night, both boys were incredibly cute because they were EXACTLY how I had left them a couple hours earlier except that they were asleep.

Jason found another ipod somewhere, so Luke inherited it last night. He LOVES listening to music to fall asleep :-) I LOVE seeing him happy :-)

cars:
In general, I have an obsessive-type personality. I get obsessed about things easily. When I decided that my New Year's resolution was going to be to exercise more regularly, I made sure that no matter WHAT, I walked on the treadmill for exactly 30 minutes every single night. That lasted for almost two whole months -- until I got so sick that a doctor had to prescribe a cough med with codeine (not sick because of walking, sick because of cold season). I could barely breathe, but until that doctor gave me meds, I kept walking every night.

This obsessive-type behavior, however, does NOT carry over to my care of vehicles. When I lived at home, my parents took care of my cars (I was a very spoiled child, although I'd rather use the word "blessed"). I had a turquoise Datsun B210, a Dodge Omni, a Ford Escort, and then my first automatic transmission -- a Ford Tempo. I did absolutely no maintenance on any of those cars. I'm guessing that my dad did, but I honestly didn't pay attention. I got in the car, started it, and drove it. I'm hoping that I at least bought my own gas, but I don't really remember (this was a really long time ago!!). When Jason and I got married, we decided to put full coverage on the Tempo since we were on the phone with the insurance company anyway to change my name on the insurance and to add him onto the policy. Less than a month later, the car was stolen while we were watching a Phillies game. With the insurance check, we bought a Subaru Legacy. That's the car we drove to Alaska and continued to drive for another ten years until it was no longer dependable. And by "no longer dependable," I mean that it wouldn't start. Often. We were very thankful that right about that same time, a friend of Jason sold us his truck for $1 (although it's SO sad that he did this because his father was killed in Afghanistan and the life insurance paid for him to buy a new truck -- we're NOT thankful for the tragedy!!!) We still have that truck now about five years later.

A few months before Luke was born, Jason's boss went to a repossession auction and bought a Ford Windstar minivan with us in mind (not as a gift -- for us to buy from him). This van has been a GREAT blessing to us! It has carted us all over town now for nine years :-)

But this van is now in sad shape!! The list of problems is almost unbelievable. The electrical system is SHOT -- we've had to disconnect the power locks, the cruise control, and the headlight switch (which i have to re-attach every time i need to turn the lights on and it just dangles down from the dashboard -- pathetic!). If you super-size this picture, you might notice that the windshield is outlined with black duct tape because every time it rained, the windshield would leak. So i "fixed" it with duct tape :-) AND the whole van shakes while I'm driving it. I don't even know why because I keep procrastinating about taking it to a mechanic. We take it in for an oil change at the same time as the i.m. test requirement -- every TWO YEARS!

I'm hoping I've learned my lesson about taking care of a vehicle to make it last longer! We'll see -- I won't be holding my breath. We're buying a "new" van -- a 2006 Dodge Grand Caravan.
Maybe if we take good care of this one, it'll last us fifteen years! That'll be a new record :-)

basketball?!

2011-10-15T20:49:00.002-08:00

Luke and Makenzie decided that they wanted to play basketball this year. The fee was relatively small, so we agreed. They've had two practices, and Makenzie had her first game Thursday night. Today was the first time that I got to see them play. Neither one of them really knows anything at all about basketball. They mostly run back and forth on the court. They each got to play a couple minutes each game and touch the ball I'm pretty sure a total of twice today.

This is where they were most of the time we were in the gym today:

I'm not complaining about my kids sitting on the bench most of the game! They are still learning and need LOTS more practices before they'll be useful team members in a game. It's just a little boring for the mom to sit on hard bleachers watching other people's kids play a game that I don't even like.

Just to be clear and honest here, I really don't like sports. At all! And after today, I'm pretty sure that I don't like a lot of the people in the stands at basketball games, either. I have an obsessive kind of personality, but there's a line that should never be crossed -- the line between personal obsession and rudeness. If you're sitting in the bleachers at a basketball game, you can be pretty sure that any derogatory remark that you make is bound to be heard by at least one of those kids' parents. But for some reason, people obsessed with basketball DON'T CARE! They just spout off whatever comes into their little heads, no matter how hurtful their words are to the players or to the other parents. I'm pretty sure that the next time I come to my kids' games, I'm going to sit somewhere apart from all other "fans." There really should be a rule that the coaches, players, and refs are the ONLY people allowed to speak in a basketball game!!!

Seth didn't like the loudness in the gym AT ALL!! Every time a ref blew his whistle, Seth would yell at him to stop it. So we found these noise-blocking headphones in Jason's office for Seth to use until his grandparents could pick him up.There will be an equal amount of whining when wrestling season rolls around, I'm sure. I love my kids, but I HATE SPORTS!!

sleepy buddies

2011-10-10T08:03:00.002-08:00

This is how I found Luke and Seth when I went in there to check on them before I went to bed :-) fyi -- Seth has his own bed, but he LOVES his big brother!!

#39

2011-10-09T15:55:00.002-08:00

I turned 39 last Tuesday :-) Really -- I'm 39, not 42 and in denial saying "no, I'm not in my 40's -- I'm still 39!" October 4, 1972 :-) Of course, like every mother throughout time, the gift I wanted most was for my children to be nice all day. This year, I received that gift!! Hurray for growing, maturing kids!!

My day went back and forth between normal and special: up at the normal 5 a.m., special breakfast of pumpkin bread that I made the night before, normal morning routine of getting everyone to school, special pumpkin spice latte delivered to the house by my mother-in-law, normal work for a couple hours with a special phone call from my best childhood friend who has the same birthday (we almost ALWAYS talk on our birthday or at least sometime close to it) and another special phone call from my mom, special shopping at the used book store, normal work for another hour, special lunch at a little cafe that makes gluten-free sandwiches and has a nice fireplace and artwork to look at while I waited (for a longer-than-normal amount of time), special band concert that Joel performed in at school, normal picking up kids from school and doing laundry and dishes, special dinner at a great pizza restaurant that makes gluten-free pizza, special gifts from Jason and the kids, normal getting to bed later than I should :-)

For some reason, Joel and Makenzie didn't get in the birthday pictures. Jason was taking the pictures, so he wasn't in them either -- but they were there :-)

Last Sunday, Joel gave me a special gift from him: a bag of kettle corn :-) After we went to the library, we came home to pop it and eat it with hot chocolate. I love the thoughtfulness of children -- simple and sweet :-)

Luke found this perfect fall leaf and gave it to me as a special gift from him:
Again, SO special, simple, & sweet!! I got a frame to put it in:
And then today was my family celebration with all thirteen of the Hofacker/Nelson clan. Makayla wore her butterfly dress because Aunt Shel LOVES butterflies (the butterflies are glittery on the bottom of the dress and probably can't be seen in the picture because I'm not in any way a professional photographer).
Gavin was so excited to be with his cousins that he couldn't even eat his lunch. His parents told him that he wouldn't get any cake or ice cream if he didn't eat, but he just wanted to go play with Luke and Seth. When it came time to actually have cake and ice cream, he changed his mind. Thank goodness we came up with the idea that if Aunt Shel ate his food, that should count and he should get dessert. And thank goodness, Darryl and Amanda said that since it was my birthday party, the decision would be left up to me :-) Gavin thoroughly enjoyed his ice cream and the frosting off his cake :-)
And here is the birthday table:

and the birthday cake:
It's a good thing that this family doesn't have any qualms about germs! This is the second year in a row that I've put artificial flowers on my birthday cake -- very unsanitary, I'm sure. But no one mentions that. We all just gobble up the yummy cake, germs and all :-)

The only bad part of all the birthday excitement is that I forgot to hand out the treat bags. That was going to be the best part of the whole deal for me (well, second-best, I guess -- I really liked my cake!). Now I have to hand deliver them before church -- not as special as getting a treat bag as you leave a birthday party :-(

I enjoyed both my birthday and my birthday party and appreciate all the gifts :-)

AUTUMN :-)

2011-10-08T21:16:00.002-08:00

Jason got out the leaf blower today so that he and Seth could have some "outside man time." He called to me to come take a picture of Seth jumping in the leaves so that people would know that we DO have fall. People are always complaining that we only have two seasons -- winter and non-winter. But we have four beautiful seasons. This year's autumn is exceptionally beautiful!

I guess Seth was contemplated the exact angle and trajectory necessary to make the most exciting jump:

After jumping in the leaf pile for a while, Seth decided to be more helpful and start up the leaf blower ALL BY HIMSELF:
You'd never know by Seth's energy level today that he was high on Verced yesterday morning! He was a wild child today :-) I'm smiling because praise God Seth is healthy enough to be wild!!

Today, I was much more productive than yesterday; although after I posted my blog yesterday, I did clean up the kitchen counter that is always overflowing with mail, junk, trash, and kids' school papers. Today, though, I did more than just one tiny clean-up. I got up at 4:45 a.m. (btw, SOMEDAY, I'm going to sleep till 7 a.m. every single day. that day might not come for another decade, but I'm thinking that when my kids are out of school, I'm going to refuse to get up before 7!!), worked from 7 - 8:30 a.m., did a little grocery shopping, then started in on the house and party work (tomorrow is my b-day celebration). I made two pots of chili and a pumpkin spice cake, cut up onions, did at LEAST 50 loads of laundry, put on all the clean bed sheets (Jason and the kids very nicely removed all the dirty sheets while I was at work -- they had a little list of jobs that they did perfectly), and cleaned the bathroom floor. That last one was the best part of my day. Odd, I know! I hate to clean and I hate to cook, but that bathroom floor has been bothering me for YEARS! No matter how hard or how often I scrubbed that floor, it was still sticky from hairspray. Today, though, I got it un-stickified!! I used Comet and a dish scrubber, and I don't give a rat's patooty if that's bad for the linoleum. All I care is that for one afternoon, my bathroom floor is hairspray-free!

tubes again

2011-10-07T13:58:00.002-08:00

I'm pretty sure today was Seth's 4th time for the "myringotomy placement" procedure (a.k.a. getting tubes in his ears). He woke up while I was in the shower at about 4:45 a.m. because his diaper had leaked. Jason changed his clothes and let him fall asleep next to the human furnace (a.k.a. Jason). When I picked him up to put him in the van at 6 a.m., Seth just smiled and hugged me, and told his dad "bye." We sang songs all the way to the hospital. Seth is a very sweet morning person, especially when it's just the two of us. He was very charming to all the nurses and doctors at the hospital! The procedure only took about ten minutes, but it took Seth another half-hour to wake up from the little bit of anesthesia they gave him (gas, no i.v.'s for this procedure, thank goodness!). He woke up when the recovery nurse started taking the "stickers" off his chest (the things that they hook up monitors during the procedure). He wasn't quite as happy this time he woke up. He wasn't grouchy at all, just groggy. He drank some juice, the nurse gave me discharge instructions, and we were out of there. I kidded him when we drove onto our street that we still had time to make it to school on time. That got quite the reaction: "NO!!!!! No school!!!!!" I told him I was just kidding and that we were going to spend the whole rest of the day together lying on the couch watching "Blue's Clues" :-) That's not exactly happening since the meds wore off and he started getting into things like the wax burner :-(

It's odd to be home all day long. I've done about five loads of laundry, put away the dishes from the dishwasher, made pumpkin bread, watched yesterday's episode of "Grey's Anatomy," read for awhile, gotten Seth numerous bowls of fish crackers and cups of juice. You'd think I'd take this opportunity to clean, but here I am on the computer. Tonight, Jason's taking Luke and Makenzie to the Veggie Tales movie at church and Joel's going to the cabin with Pop Pop and Uncle Rich. So Seth and I are having LOTS of quiet time together :-)

Seth's new habit

2011-10-02T09:02:00.003-08:00

This is where Seth wakes up every day now. His new habit is to wake up somewhere between 1:30 and 6:30 a.m. and come to our room. I think he's waking up because he has wet his diaper, so this new habit is actually a good step toward Seth's being potty-trained. It just doesn't seem like a good ANYTHING at around 2 a.m.!

Seth the little turkey

2011-09-23T20:44:00.005-08:00

The back yard used to be the safe place to let Seth play without total supervision. Now that's not safe either :-( He has learned to climb better -- so much better that he could possibly try to jump off the deck. He has learned to hike up a leg and pull himself up onto the kitchen counter, so I'm quite sure he is capable of pulling himself up onto the deck rail. Scary!!!
How can such a cute little kid make SO MUCH TROUBLE???!!!
I showed Seth how to rake the leaves into a little pile. It really didn't matter that the tiny little plastic toy rake was almost useless for actually raking because he decided to rake them back into their original spots. But I'm pretty sure he thought he was doing something helpful.
This morning, one of Seth's aides walked into his classroom, and Seth SMILED so huge and said, "SAWAH!!" (Sarah) He refused to sit down and eat his fruit snacks until he had gotten Sarah a chair to sit in right beside him. SO CUTE!! I could tell right away that it would be a better day than yesterday. The special ed teacher had to call me to talk to Seth because he was being SO uncooperative! Today was MUCH better!!

"retarded"

2011-09-13T19:24:00.002-08:00

yes, i know this is my "soapbox," but here i am again yelling to the world about this word. my son is mentally retarded. that does NOT in any way mean that he is stupid, worthless, messed up, or any other negative word. so if there's road construction that makes me wait and wait and wait, it is NOT ok to say, "Man, this is so retarded!" NOT OK!!!!!! (and that's just one tiny little example -- i could go on and on, but i'm sure everyone gets the point)
CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE TRUTH ABOUT THIS WORD
warning: if you know my baby or anyone else who is mentally retarded, or if you have a beating heart in your chest that does not have icicles hanging off it, have a box of kleenex handy!

running & sleeping

2011-09-10T13:21:00.002-08:00

Yesterday afternoon, Joel had a cross country meet. I forgot to ask how far they have to run, but I'm guessing it's two or three miles. Poor Joel really doesn't like to run any more than he likes to work, but he did it. I'm proud of him for trying at all. I hate to run and refuse to do it unless one of the kids are in danger!
I decided this morning that Seth is too old to be sleeping on a baby mattress. He still fits in the baby bed, but it just seems wrong to have a six-year-old in a baby bed. So I took off the rest of the crib parts, brought Makenzie's mattress upstairs (because she wants to sleep on the air mattress until we can get her a good soft mattress -- maybe for Christmas), and put on Scooby Doo sheets and a soft blanket. He's very excited to have a big bed like everyone else!

school pics & silly Luke

2011-09-09T08:11:00.004-08:00

It's school picture time. I made the kids dress up this time. Makenzie was pretty upset with me that I wouldn't let her change into the school uniform after pictures were over. I'm a "one set of clothes a day" kind of person (since I have to do the laundry), but my kids think they can just wear however many changes of clothes they feel like (I really need to teach them how to use the washer and dryer -- I've started, but I need to do more detailed lessons!). Luke didn't mind having to wear a shirt and tie all day. Joel didn't complain at all, so I'm wondering if he has some sneaky plan. He's a junior higher now, so this is always in my mind.
Joel wanted Seth to be in a picture with him, but Seth kept yelling and hitting him:
or being just plain crazy:
Yesterday, Luke's teacher named him THE BEST BOY IN THE CLASS at the end of the day!!!! I'm pretty sure that NO ONE has ever said that about Luke before!!!! I was SOOOOOO proud of him (and happy with his teacher for noticing how great Luke is). He got to pick two things from the prize box. He got a sucker for himself and a cool eraser for his friend. He's always doing things like that, thinking of other people. I wish this good behavior would carry over to home after school! He's back in the bad habit of piddling around instead of getting his homework done. This is how Jason found him right before dinner last night:
I seriously doubt that fireman hats were part of his homework assignment! I might have helped the problem a little today by putting a chair and a tv tray in his room for his own little desk. He'll have to be in room all alone with the door closed (which he hates) until he gets his homework done. I'm hoping this makes him go faster so that I get to see him more than just to kiss him goodnight!

thinking of Dale

2011-09-07T19:24:00.002-08:00

There was only one thing I really needed to find at the 1/2-off sale at Value Village: a t-shirt to match some sweats I had bought at the last sale. I'm weird about matching clothes -- my pj's have to match. These sweats have an off-white stripe down the sides, so I just couldn't make myself wear a white t-shirt with them. The sweats are an army green, so I couldn't wear a red, blue, or pink t-shirt with them. I knew Value Village wouldn't disappoint me -- there's always something good there, and Monday was no exception. I found this John Deere t-shirt that #1 matched my sweats and #2 made me think of my step-dad, Dale (who LOVES John Deere!):
So every time I get out this shirt, I'll think of Dale :-)

fair day

2011-09-05T16:53:00.003-08:00

The Hofackers always go to the fair on Labor Day, the last day. So that meant that I had to get up super early to do a super fast run through the Value Village 1/2-off sale so that I didn't make everyone late :-) We like to get there right at 10 a.m. when they open so that we miss the crowds. Joel and Makenzie went with me this year and picked out some clothes, movies, and books for themselves (I'm LOVING having maturing kids who can do things on their own!!!).

I'm guessing from this flower structure that this was the 75th Alaska State Fair:
There were no lines for ANYTHING when we got there. The kids got to walk right up to every ride they wanted and get right on.

It was REALLY cold today!! All nine of us had on bright green or yellow Buddy Walk shirts, but we had to wear coats which covered up our great matching :-( Seth actually got to walk around a lot of the time today -- usually when we go anywhere, he has to be in a stroller because he either runs off or refuses to hold someone's hand. Seth especially liked holding hands with Jason's mother since she was the only one with gloves. We all warned Joel to wear pants, but he insisted that he'd be plenty warm. He was ok once we were walking, but he was a little concerned when we first got out of the vans.
I wasn't exceptionally impressed with the food this year. I tried a turkey leg because it seemed like the right thing to do, something everyone does at the fair. It was ok, but definitely not one of my fair traditions. There were several things that I wished I could eat -- elephant ears, funnel cakes, different oriental foods, and different kinds of bbq. Having celiac disease doesn't often irritate me, but it does bother me a little when there are LOTS of great foods to try that are off-limits to me. I'll have to try again next year to find something great that's gluten-free!

Seth liked the free inflatable hats that Alaska Airlines gave away:
One of my bosses offered to give me extra hours any time I needed them. I'm pretty sure I'll be taking him up on that offer after spending the day at the fair with its overpriced tickets, overpriced food, and irresistible booths (yes, I did buy more jewelry). These were 1/2 off:
And I saw these at the Saturday market, but decided to put them on my wish list. But then I was wishing that I'd just bought them. They have little forget-me-nots inside (I don't think they're real, but maybe they are. If they are, then I like them even more). So I looked up and down every trail of the fair, but couldn't find them. I gave up and was headed back to the van when my phone rang. Joel had found a building full of more booths, one of which had the necklace and earrings that I wanted! Yay for a thoughtful child who remembers his mother :-)

beautiful children

2011-09-02T17:17:00.005-08:00

Jason reminded me that I forgot to put the kids' 2011 birthday pictures on here. oops! How could I forget that?! We went to the library this year to take the annual pictures. Taking pictures of Joel and Makenzie has always been super easy. They follow directions and smile nicely, although they do sometimes give a fake smile. Luke and Seth, though, are a little more difficult to get a good shot. I'm so blessed to have these four BEAUTIFUL children!!
My big 12-year-old junior higher:
My ten-year-old princess:
My eight-year-old cuddle bug:
And my six-year-old sweetheart:
Tonight Seth was talking to me and I noticed that HE HAD LOST HIS FIRST TOOTH!!! I called his special ed. teacher to find out if she had put it somewhere, but she didn't know that he had lost it. So I think it fell out while he was eating his snack at home after school and he swallowed it. That means it'll be coming out sometime in the next few days, right? GROSS!! I'm not going to search too much, but if it's right there in plain sight, I'll probably get it and wash it REALLY well because I keep the kids' teeth (I think that might be a little weird, but I don't care).
Yesterday, I weighed and measured Seth (like I do for all my children sometime near their birthdays). He is SIX inches shorter than Joel and Luke were when they were six, TWO inches shorter than Makenzie, six to nine pounds lighter than the older boys were, and two pounds heavier than Makenzie was. Crazy how one extra chromosome can make such a physical difference. Seth's speech therapist did a standardized language test over the past two weeks' sessions and found that Seth is speaking and showing the understanding of language like a 2 1/2-year-old. She said that Joel, Makenzie, and Luke would score somewhere around the 115th percentile, meaning that their language skills are more advanced than 115% of the rest of the children their ages. Seth scored in the first percentile. That seems like a bad thing, but it really isn't because Seth is doing VERY well for Seth. Comparing him to other people is interesting as far as "getting some facts" kind of information, but the truth is that he's doing GREAT! He's adorable, sweet, gorgeous, AND he can say a lot of things, follow many directions (if he feels like it), show an independent will (including likes, dislikes, wants, needs, pain, happiness, sadness), count to 10 usually, identify colors, write and color (scribbles, but he knows how to hold a writing utensil), feed himself several kinds of foods, and probably so many other things that I can't think of because I've been awake since about 3:30 this morning. I never expected to be the parent of a child with special needs -- I'm sure no one does. But I really am glad that God gave me Seth!!

silliness

2011-09-01T16:52:00.002-08:00

Luke and Makenzie are amazed that Seth can touch his nose with his tongue:
This is how I found Luke and Seth in the middle of the night when I went in to change Seth's diaper and take Luke to the bathroom. Seth was about to slide right off the side! They were both sound asleep :-)
And HERE is a funny blog post by a friend from church. I laughed out loud on some parts!

donated :-)

2011-08-23T13:39:00.002-08:00

YEP! I donated my hair to Locks of Love again :-) I went to Marie's Beauty Salon because the haircut and style is free when I donate (I always leave a tip, though, so they don't feel ripped off). Lindsey did a GREAT job in my opinion. Plus she kept telling me how great my hair is, thick, healthy, beautiful. Of course I love to get compliments and it's been three years since I've had my hair shampooed and cut (shampooed by a professional -- I have shampooed my hair in the past three years!), so I completely enjoyed myself this afternoon!!!

early & late

2011-08-23T07:46:00.002-08:00

Seth woke up at 5 a.m. because his diaper leaked. Jason changed his diaper and jammies and put him on my pillow while I was in the shower. Seth fell asleep again and didn't wake up even with all the noise of everyone else being awake.

first day of school

2011-08-22T20:40:00.002-08:00

It's back to school time -- YAY!!! Joel was so excited that he got in the truck without even telling me good-bye :-( I'm glad he likes school, but MAN! He's supposed to at least remember me! He got a mini-lecture -- never leave the house without telling me good-bye and hugging me!!! He went to school with Jason since he's now on the secondary side of the building -- the big junior higher (with the big head full of ideas that he knows everything, certainly more than his mother does). Yep, he was late to his second class because he thought he knew more than dumb ole Mom. I know, it's normal. I can just see my mom's HUGE smile as I receive now what I gave years ago :-)
Makenzie and Luke rode with me, which of course meant that they were almost late. We did make it to the gym before their teachers took the classes up to their classrooms. Makenzie was so excited and nervous about getting back to school that she woke up before 6 a.m.! Luke had no such excitement/nervousness. I had to wake him up a little after 7 and rush him along all morning. He was glad to see his friends, though. And -- miracle!! -- he didn't get in trouble at all today, not even a warning!!
Seth REFUSED to admit that he was going to school. He kept saying, "No school! June!! June, Seth, Mom!!" June is his speech therapist whom he ADORES!!! I reminded him that he loves Gayle, his occupational therapist, as well, so then he added her to the list of people he was willing to spend time with. So when we pulled into his school's parking lot, he was pretty mad at me. He got over the anger, though, when I let him take Mickey Mouse with him :-)
That backpack weighed almost as much as he did!
He wore his glasses pretty much the whole day. His aide is GREAT about getting him to do what he needs to do! Oops -- his name tag was turned the wrong way. The other side had a little picture and his name on it.
For the first time EVER, Seth told us about his day. When Jason asked him how his day went, he answered, "Short, Crystal, Heidi." His teacher's name is Mrs. Short -- we'll work on the respectful titles later when he can talk better. For now, she doesn't mind that he just calls her "Short." She was glad that he remembered any part of her name. We had to have him repeat "Crystal" and "Heidi" (his aide and his special ed. teacher) because his pronunciation didn't sound much at all like their names, but he was definitely trying to say them. AND when Jason asked him if he had fun, Seth said YES. AND when Jason asked him if he wanted to go back to school tomorrow, he said YES!!! FIRST TIME EVER on that one, too!!!

So what in the world did I do with all those free hours while the kids were in school? I ran to Fred Meyer before taking Seth to school, and then I worked for about three hours. And THEN, I went to lunch with some friends from the Down syndrome group!!! I had FUN, ate at a restaurant without having to discipline anyone, and talked to GROWN-UPS!!

WHOO-HOO for school :-)

matching

2011-08-21T16:51:00.002-08:00

I braided my hair like I braid Makenzie's, but this picture doesn't really show that.
Then I put our hair up with our beautiful butterfly clips.
I have a funny story about Makenzie from Costco shopping today. I had forgotten my list in the van, so I asked her if she remembered what we needed to get. She very smoothly listed off diapers, wipes, milk, goldfish crackers, and plums. The funny thing about that is that plums are NEVER on my shopping list (because fresh fruit in Alaska is EXPENSIVE), and she knows that!! She was trying to be sneaky :-) I was laughing out loud most of the way down the Costco aisle!

quite a day!

2011-08-13T20:37:00.008-08:00

This has been QUITE a day!! Makenzie and I went back to the Saturday Market and found lots of great stuff! A Christian mom with a special needs child makes these beautiful fused glass creations:
Makenzie spotted a jeweled butterfly in one of the booths. We stopped in to look, and the lady explained that it was a hair clip and offered to show me how it worked. She put my hair up with this clip, but I couldn't do it. Then she suggested I try putting it in a bun. That one I could do, so we bought them for Makenzie . . .

Later in the day, Jason, Luke, Seth, and I went back downtown so that I could get one for me, too.
I have A LOT of hair, so I was really surprised that those things could hold my hair up tightly.

We found THE BEST jewelry booth today!!! They had so many beautiful things, and they were each just $5! And if we bought five things, we got a sixth one for free!

And I found these tiny little opal earrings for half off:
Makenzie and I had FUN walking around together buying beautiful things! When our time was up, we went back to the van which had a green envelope tucked under the windshield wiper :-( I didn't read the parking coupon that had in big bold type at the top "PLACE FACE UP ON DASHBOARD OF YOUR VEHICLE," so I got a ticket!! I called the number and got a recorded message about faxing a copy of the ticket and my parking coupon. Maybe I won't have to pay the ticket. THEN we got into the van and realized that I had left my lights on for the entire two hours we were in the market :-( I've done this so many times, it's embarrassing!!! Thank goodness a nice couple parked next to us were just getting ready to go in, but waited long enough to give the van a jump start (haha -- ironic -- I got coffee at Jump Start before we went downtown this morning). I'm going to make a big sign to put on the driver door to remind me to shut my lights off when I get out of the van!!

When we got home we saw that Jason, Luke, Seth, and our little neighbors had been busy because the tree that used to be in our driveway . . .
. . . was gone:
YAY!!!!! That tree attracted moose in the winter who often decided that our front yard was a good place to sleep since there were crabapples to snack on whenever they got hungry. It attracted birds in the spring who would poop everywhere and hop around in the branches and drop crabapples on the van or on us if we were dumb enough to walk near the tree. It dropped crabapples all over my driveway and yard for us to step on and drive over and track all over the place even without the birds' help, not to mention the million leaves someone had to rake each year. I'm more than glad that it's gone!

We ended the day with game night. Jason won the game of Sorry, Luke and I each one a game of Racko, and then Luke became the grand champion of the evening by winning Monopoly Deal.

It's been quite a day :-)

wish i'd had a camera!

2011-08-11T06:08:00.003-08:00

Yesterday the kids and I went to my sister-in-law's house to watch her kids while she went to work. They have a giant back yard, so the kids all went out there to play -- until they saw some piles of dog mess. I figured that Joel's surely old enough to clean up dog mess, so I gave him the job -- and learned a HUGE lesson! My kids are not used to having to work. How did I miss this important part of parenting? They seem to think that life is all about them having fun and being entertained. They'll do a little work now and then for a reward, if the reward's big enough and if the work doesn't interfere with their fun AND if the work isn't in any way unpleasant. That looks like the road to "brat-ville" to me. Joel first of all threw a little fit about having to work while everyone else played. Then he threw a bigger fit because scooping poop is gross. Then he started gagging and even went to the bathroom to throw up (was he thinking I'd feel sorry for him and let him stop? apparently he doesn't know me very well -- i have NO pity for melodrama!) He finally got the job done pretty well, but all of this opened my eyes. My children need to learn that God didn't put us in this world to sit on a couch watching movies. I'm going to be looking for opportunities for us to volunteer somewhere somehow. I'm starting the example in a small way tonight by becoming a volunteer in the local Down syndrome group. If we all learn that serving other people is more important than entertaining ourselves, maybe we'll have less yelling, fighting, and selfishness.

neighbor black bear

2011-08-09T09:50:00.003-08:00

Joel took this picture last night when he was out selling coupon cards for school! And you can CLICK HERE to see a two-second video of the bear in the tree :-) And then this morning on my way home from work, I saw the bear running down the street!! Moose are one thing to see in the neighborhood, but a bear is something else :-(

dancing

2011-08-05T13:07:00.002-08:00

Sunday reading room

2011-08-01T14:13:00.002-08:00

Makenzie and I went to the library to sit in the reading room to read Sunday afternoon. It was completely silent in there, even though there were three other people in there. SILENT!

We also picked up my prize for the summer reading program. I won an Alaska atlas. I'm going to refrain from commenting on that except to be glad I won anything for my efforts of recording my reading over the summer.

This morning was an incredible Bible morning!! First I read from Matthew 5 about being a light. "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven." In the middle of all the popular "churches are so legalistic -- what about grace? i'm free to do whatever i think is ok" mentality these days, it's always good to remember that God's Word is the real standard, not my own opinions. And then Charles Stanley gave an excellent sermon about the Holy Spirit, ending with a HUGELY important point: Galatians 5 says that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are all fruits of THE SPIRIT, not fruits of a Christian. I had to think about the difference there. A Christian doesn't necessarily have those traits. The Holy Spirit absolutely, unquestionably DOES. Only someone who lives in the constant presence of God's Holy Spirit will have these traits because they are really not traits of any human being. They're the fruit of THE SPIRIT!!

girl day

2011-07-30T20:05:00.005-08:00

Makenzie and I declared today GIRL DAY!!! We made a great itinerary with the main excitement being the Downtown Saturday Market.

We started our day with coffee and coffee cake at the flower garden on Delaney Park Strip. This is my "oops! i didn't quite make it into the timer picture" picture:

but look how cute Makenzie is:

Here we are enjoying our yummy breakfast:

Next, we went to the Saturday Market . . .
. . . where we walked around for two hours and got Makenzie this Ocarina flute . . .

. . . and this beaded butterfly coin purse . . .

. . . and this butterfly bracelet for me:
We also got several of the vendors' business cards so that we could look up their web sites and decided that we need to go back there another time because we didn't have time to see everything that we wanted to see.

Next we had to run into Walmart for a few things, but Walmart is right across the street from Barnes & Noble where Makenzie could hardly wait to go get this amazing book about Egypt:

Next, we went to the gas station so that I could win $60 in gas by answering some trivia questions for the local Christian tv station. And then we went to Hacienda for lunch. I was trying to hold the camera out to take a picture of us and our delicious food (because I had forgotten my little table tripod at home), but the hostess offered to take our picture. It turned out much better that way:

After lunch, we went out to Target real quick before going to Value Village (our favorite store :-) We spent a little too long in there, though, because we barely made it to the library before it closed. I wanted to show Makenzie the reading room where we'll spend some time another day reading with a beautiful view in some comfy chairs. When the library closed, we went outside by the fountain to play Uno and Racko. Once again, someone offered to take our picture so that we didn't have the extended arm/too close/huge faced picture:

Makenzie walked around the fountain examining the water droplets on the leaves:

We came home to have pancakes and eggs with the boys (who had boy day while we were having girl day).

Makenzie's "funny" for today was mixing up the names of the places we were planning to go. She kept saying that we were going to the "supermarket" instead of the Saturday market :-) And then she said that we were going to "Village Inn" instead of Value Village :-) We laughed A LOT all day!! Girl Day is GREAT!! We should have these more often :-)

So I just read this blog and realized that it sounds like we had a super boring day, but the truth is that it was a SUPER FUN day!!! Shopping, library, card games, looking at water droplets. A whole day with my beautiful daughter. It was really a perfect day :-)

summer fun

2011-07-30T06:51:00.002-08:00

Whenever the sun comes out, I try to get the kids into a pool. Up until a couple weeks ago, we had three or four little baby pools (like in the background of these pictures, leaning on the little picnic table). This year, though, I decided to get something bigger since the kids are getting so much bigger. The baby pools don't interest Joel at all anymore, but we all had fun in this pool:

When we get out of this pool, I wrap black plastic around it to hold in the heat. It doesn't keep the water all the way warm, but it did help prevent the water from being ice cold when they got in the pool the next day.

I bought a giant pool for next summer. The picture on the box shows two adults and six kids in the pool, and they all have space between them to move around. We got rafts and goggles and a huge solar cover, so I'm really hoping for a super-sunny summer next year!!

stalker squirrel & last track meet

2011-07-24T13:58:00.002-08:00

This squirrel is a STALKER!!!! It kept sitting on the front deck, running back and forth across the deck rail, pretending it was going to leave by jumping over to the tree, then jumping back to the deck. So I took its picture. As soon as it saw that I had gotten proof to identify our stalker, it ran away.

Saturday was the kids' last track meet. Friday night, though, Luke fell on the deck and scraped his foot. It still hurt too much Saturday morning to put on socks and sneakers, so he couldn't compete. Seth ran the 60 meter dash. For the first time, he ran the race without holding my hand. I had to run behind him like I was chasing him, though. He also didn't stay in his lane, but that's ok because he got last place anyway. It's a good experience for him to be involved at all.

Joel did the high jump:

And he threw the turbo javelin:

We sat around for quite a long time in between Joel's jumps and throws:

"Look, Mom! No hands!!"

2011-07-21T09:23:00.002-08:00

Luke saw someone ride a bike with no hands a week or two ago. He thought it looked like a super-cool thing to do and determined to learn how to do it. And he did :-) Joel, Makenzie, and I are all very impressed because we've never been able to do that.

On our walk yesterday, Luke again made me laugh. Makenzie and I were side by side on the trail. Luke was a ways behind us, but getting closer.
Luke: "Stay where you are, guys. DON'T BE AFRAID!" And he rode between us and passed us (without running into either of us, thank goodness).
Makenzie: "I always get worried when he does that because I know about his 'swerving'."
Luke: "NO! I'm a changed man!"
hahahahahahaha

And here's another funny that I'm borrowing from Sheri, a friend from church (I guess it's technically stealing because I didn't ask her if I could borrow it. I'm thinking she won't mind, though.) Sheri has a four- or five-year-old daughter named Charlotte.
Sheri: "Charlotte, go clean your room!"
Charlotte: "That's a no-can-do, Mom."
Sheri: "Excuse me??!!!"
Charlotte: "That's Spanish for 'I can do that'!"
hahahahahaha!
Kids say SUCH funny things!!!!

6 a.m. blessings

2011-07-20T07:51:00.006-08:00

This little turkey woke up at 6 a.m. today! I didn't sleep well at all last night because of drinking too much soda last night, but apparently Seth slept just fine. He woke up, came out of his room quietly (blessing #1 -- he didn't wake up Luke who did not get to sleep as early as Seth did), very nicely stood in front of me (I was still in bed) and waited for me to say good morning. This morning is his therapy time, so I had told the kids to wake up at 8 a.m. so that we could get ready in time. I knew that if I wanted to read my Bible and listen to Charles Stanley, I would need to get up no later than 7 a.m. Since Seth woke me up at 6 a.m., I was able to get all ready for the day, read my Bible (blessing #2 since I haven't had time to do my normal Bible reading lately because of sleeping in with the kids. and today was a GREAT one!!! : Colossians 2:6-7 "Since you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, WALK in Him, ROOTED and BUILT UP in Him, established in the faith as you have been taught, abounding in it with THANKSGIVING."), listened to Charles Stanley (blessing #3 -- he spoke about God's acceptance which is based on His love not on my performance, eternal life which started the moment I became a Christian, and the privilege of having a real relationship and fellowship with my God. GREAT sermon!!), and checked my e-mail. So even though I really didn't feel like getting up at 6 a.m. today, my sweet Seth blessing woke me up to start my day seeing all kinds of blessings :-)

And THEN he stunk up my room with a poopy diaper and dropped a few thumb tacks around the room -- one of them is still missing, scary thought :-( But it's too late -- I've already got my mind set on blessings, thankfulness, and my God.

AND it looks like it might be a sunny, play-in-the-pool kind of day :-)

park day and library

2011-07-19T16:55:00.002-08:00

We had an unusual park day today. I accidentally picked the same park as the church picked! So it wasn't our normal quiet park playtime. There were big blow-up bounce houses, lots of church volunteers, several neighborhood families, tents, tables with chips and drinks, and grills with hot dogs. It still went ok, just different. My kids LOVED playing in the bounce houses!!

After park day, and after a little work time, we went to the library. Today, the fountain was ON:

So I ran inside to get the next book in the series I'm reading (the Baxter Family series by Karen Kingsbury), and then Seth and I sat in the shade and admired the fountain.

And took a kissy picture :-)

Alaska summer weather is getting annoying! I should have learned by now, but I still keep falling for it. It's summer, so this morning, I put on a sleeveless top and capris. But it got so cloudy and cold that I changed into a sweatshirt and pants. Then it got super sunny and almost hot! I would've been ok if I'd just worn a t-shirt under the sweatshirt. And that's the lesson of Alaska weather: wear layers!! Maybe I've finally learned :-)

play time

2011-07-18T20:20:00.002-08:00

We went for a walk to Seth's school today. I asked him if he wanted to go play at the park, and he said yes. I asked him if he wanted to go play at school, and he said no. Even while he was playing on the slide, he refused to admit that we were at his school.

Luke still has his monkey arms:

And here's a great action shot of Makenzie (with a beautiful mountain background):

Seth was climbing on everything. This was familiar territory, even if he wouldn't admit it:

So we enjoyed playing in the back yard, playing with the neighbors, playing at the playground, and then watching "The Partridge Family." Good day :-)

SUCH a good day

2011-07-17T15:02:00.005-08:00

Normally, I try VERY hard not to leave the house on Saturdays. Traffic is HORRIBLE on Saturdays and Sundays! But yesterday morning, I got an e-mail from the library that Joel's book was waiting for him, so I decided to make a whole fun day based on getting that book. I packed up drinks, fish crackers, and cookies and then stopped by Fred Meyer to let the kids pick out sandwiches (that wasn't my original plan, but it became part of the plan when I realized that I had no bread in the house). We drove to the library for a picnic, something we've wanted to do for a long time, but never seemed to have time to actually do. It was a BEAUTIFUL day -- sunny with a little breeze and a nice shade tree for those of us who get too hot in the sun.

Joel thoroughly enjoyed his sandwich:

Luke and Makenzie decided to eat in the sun:

Makenzie doesn't eat much, so she's not in many of these pictures. She made Joel hurry up and eat so that they could go on in the library.

Seth wanted his picture taken and even said "cheese" . . .

. . . and then posed :-)

Luke and Seth were talking and playing together. Yes, I kept Seth in that stroller the whole time. The library lawn is too close to a parking lot and a busy street -- if he decided to make a run for it, I might not be able to catch him before he got hurt. He has NO concept of danger! In the stroller, though, he was happy, comfortable, relatively clean, safe, AND he ate all his lunch :-)

These two boys, although quite challenging sometimes, are incredibly sweet!!!

Luke wanted to go into the library with Joel and Makenzie, but I knew that wouldn't end well. So I told him to go climb the big rock and pose for a picture:

Then he fell off, and I laughed and took this picture because it looked like the rock fell on him like the house fell on the wicked witch in "The Wizard of Oz":

The only negative of the whole picnic was that the giant fountain wasn't turned on. But that really wasn't too big a deal. We decided we'd just have to do this again and keep doing it until they turn the thing on and make our library picnic experience complete. We saw a huge kite flying across the park. It looked like a giant jelly fish or octopus:

The flowers around the library are GORGEOUS!! I made Luke pose for one more picture, even though a flower picture should've been reserved for my princess. He cooperated nicely :-)

Today, we had another adventure: eating lunch and shopping at Costco on a Sunday! Seth was again in his stroller so that he wouldn't get lost or cause trouble (the stroller is more comfortable than the shopping cart -- he recently started saying "ouch" after sitting in a shopping cart, so that's the end of that). We had a yummy lunch, tried on some glasses just in case they had something great, and got everything on our list plus some extra things that we had to have after trying the samples :-) We saw several friends, including Seth's friend who also has Down syndrome :-)

On our way home, it started to rain. We don't see much real rain in Alaska. It usually just drizzles and drips. But today, it's really raining.

One of my all-time favorite things to do is to sit outside (under the overhang or somewhere covered, of course) and watch the rain or listen to the rain while I read. This love started way back in the 1980's when my family lived in Arizona and rain was rare and sincerely appreciated. One place we lived had a covered entryway, just the right size for me to sit where no one could see me unless they came right up and knocked on our front door. Another place we lived had a huge screened-in back porch. Good memories!! Now I have a front deck (but no place to sit unseen there) and a back deck overlooking my own back yard and trees. And I have a good twenty minutes before I need to get everyone ready for church. Guess what I'm going to do :-)

SQUIRREL

2011-07-16T09:16:00.002-08:00

I used to think my mom was a little bit nuts because of her intense fear of mice. I don't think that anymore because I seem to have inherited the same fear. Except not just of mice -- I'm afraid of all rodent-type creatures. I completely realize that this is an irrational fear. I'm so big and they're so small. They really can't hurt me, or at least not much. They're more afraid of me than I am of them (or at least that's the normal theory). I'm still afraid of them. And not just a little afraid -- petrified, unable to move, possibly even hysterically crying if any kind of rodent shows itself to me. I'm pretty sure it's based on two factors -- the creatures' disgustingness (i don't care if that's not a word, it's the truth about them) and their sneaky speediness. So I had to suppress my fear and disgust when I saw a squirrel sitting on this tree stump in my back yard:

and then here on this post:

My camera didn't work properly to catch the squirrel in either of those two spots, but I finally got a picture of it up in my kids' tree house:

And then I went into my house, closed the door, and did my little "eeeewwwwww!!!!!!! disgusting!!!!!!!!!! keep it away from me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" shiver.

butterflies, bees, laughs, & old friends

2011-07-11T09:04:00.002-08:00

This might be a long post because I've fallen behind, and some good stuff has been happening :-)

First is a new little obsession: decorating my house with butterflies. I think butterflies are exquisite creatures, so I have many things with butterflies on them. I recently looked up at the wood beam trim while sitting at my kitchen table and thought, "wouldn't it be cool to trim all my house with butterflies?" So I started doing that. I ordered a $2 set of little paper butterflies from China (ebay) and put them up on the beam between the dining room and living room:

And on a related topic, Seth had a run-in with a bee. My peonies finally bloomed in the front yard. They never last more than a couple weeks, so I broke one off the bush to entertain Seth on our walk Saturday evening. We walked around our normal walking route -- about 30 or 40 minutes -- with that flower. When we got back home, though, and took the flower up on the front deck to show Dad, bees flew up and attacked that flower. And one bee stung Seth on the ear. Poor Seth had no idea what was going on, but he knew that his ear hurt really badly! The poor child looked like a lopsided Dopey from Snow White when his stung ear swelled up and out! I put baking soda/water paste on it to make it stop hurting. Seth didn't cry or yell -- he's so brave and tough! His eyes had tears in them, and he had a look of total confusion on his face, like "what in the world just happened?!" until the pain subsided and he realized how much attention he was getting out of this situation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke is one of the funniest kids ever born!!!! He was sitting on my bed with Jason and Seth, watching a movie, I think, on Jason's laptop. He started yelling when Jason started wrestling around with him: "MOM!!! Dad hurt me! All I was doing was real snoring -- well, fake snoring -- and he rolled over and hit his head on my head, right on the noggin piece!" Where does he come up with this stuff?!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yesterday was a GREAT day!!!!! In fact, Joel told us that it was the best day he'd ever had :-) We got to spend the afternoon and evening with an old friend that I hadn't seen in over 20 years:

Lesley and I were friends when we both lived in Mesa, Arizona. We hadn't kept in touch very well, but we caught back up a little on facebook recently. When she and her friend Steve came up to see Alaska, we made a plan to have lunch together. We met Lesley, Steve, and another friend Charles at Sourdough Mining Company (Joel's first "best day" reason -- he got to eat out). It was SO fun to catch up with Lesley and get to know Steve and Charles -- one of the most interesting lunches I've ever enjoyed! After lunch, we walked over to Alaska Wild Berry to see the reindeer in the park and get some chocolates and souvenirs from the store. Lesley hadn't seen a bear yet, so they suggested we go to the Alaska Zoo (Joel's second "best day" reason -- the zoo is one of his all-time favorite places). We walked through that whole place and saw almost every single animal, taking pictures, chatting, and laughing. Even though we weren't hungry after the huge lunch we'd had, it was dinner time after the zoo, so we went to Gwennie's for a little something to keep us from getting hungry before morning (Joel's third "best day" reason -- eating out TWICE in one day, unheard of!). Seth and I were glad to see our friends Samantha and Dewey working there (they used to work at City Diner when Seth and I went there every week -- we've missed seeing them). At the end of dinner, Lesley and Steve had to return their rental car and wait for their departure time. Luke suggested they wait at our house and play board games, and that's just what they did (Joel's fourth, fifth, and sixth "best day" reasons -- he loves to play games, we had coffee, and he got to stay up late). Now everyone knows that kids can be cute for a while, but annoying or even monstrous after a whole day together. But Lesley and Steve were SUCH good sports with my kids! They seemed to enjoy their company and agreed to spend even more time with them :-) It helped that all four of my kids were on their super-best behavior (an incredibly rare occurrence). We had a fantastic game of Taboo before they had to get back to the airport and fly home.

Friends are an important part of a good life, and I'm so glad to remember that old friends are true friends! And getting to know new friends is like finding a treasure :-)

perfect!

2011-07-04T09:28:00.002-08:00

Luke decided to spread some blankets over the couch, tucking them in and straightening them.

"Luke, what are you doing?"
"I'm making the couch perfect for you, Mom, because it's been a long time since you've had anything perfect."

He can be the sweetest, most thoughtful child!!

my favorite

2011-07-03T14:35:00.002-08:00

No, I'm not saying that Makenzie is my favorite child. She IS my favorite girl, though. She's wearing my favorite outfit in her closet :-) She wore it yesterday so that I'd be able to see her wear it the whole day. She's a sweet girl!!

cupcakes

2011-07-02T19:53:00.003-08:00

Makenzie and I have been appreciating pictures of beautiful cupcakes like these lately:

So we decided to try to make some designer cupcakes of our own while the boys were at the cabin. We colored the frosting and piped it onto the cupcakes:

And even added sugar pearls for the final touches:

I'm thinking ours aren't quite cupcake calendar material, but we were pretty pleased with our day of creating:

We especially enjoyed spending the day together :-)

the boys

2011-06-29T13:00:00.002-08:00

Luke decided that he and dad should wear matching shirts. Joel joined in with a football shirt, too. Seth joined in just to be with the boys :-)

Look at how HUGE Joel is! Even on his knees, he's taller than Seth.

Seth wanted me to keep taking pictures of him posing with the phone. He was holding the phone, saying "CHEESE!!!!" He's such a funny little kid!!

time's flying

2011-06-24T19:35:00.002-08:00

The days are going by so quickly lately because I've been so busy. I've had to chuckle to myself many times when people whine about having to get up "early," meaning somewhere around 6 or 7 a.m. My alarm goes off most mornings at 4 a.m., and I'm up and getting ready by 4:30. "Sleeping in" to me is sleeping till 6:30! I have a friend who has to get up at 3 a.m. almost every morning to get ready for work. So the 7 a.m. whiners get no sympathy from me.

I'm working from about 6 a.m. to noon most days and then going home to work some more. Both my paying job and my house "chores" are easy, but time consuming.

We are doing some fun things sometimes -- park days with other families from church, track meets, boating on the lake, going for walks, playing in the little backyard pools, reading, watching "The Partridge Family" :-) Tomorrow is the annual summer picnic for the Down syndrome group. Joel begged me to make deviled eggs. I'm REALLY wishing my mom lived up here!!!!! She's the deviled egg queen -- she actually thinks they're EASY to make! It'll take me the whole morning tomorrow to make those things :-( But the reward will be eating them (I'm making extras for us to eat at home) and having Joel happy with me (he's in the "teenage attitude" stage, I'm afraid -- not as bad as he could be, though).

Here are a couple cute Seth pictures:

Notice the little Seth finger on my chin pulling me closer to him :-)

Luke taught Seth to say "na-na-na-na-boo-boo!" HILARIOUS!!!!!!!

work, work, work

2011-06-12T07:53:00.002-08:00

A little over a year ago, I started working for Hallmark so that we would have a better chance at paying the American Express bills. I started out with one store (Barnes & Noble), then added a Safeway, and then a Walgreens. After Christmas, I switched from Safeway to Walmart. That was a little too stressful for me, so my supervisor let me switch back to Safeway. A few days ago, my supervisor's supervisor volunteered me to take another Walgreens (that's store number 4, in case you lost count). My supervisor is stepping back from working the merchandise to just be a supervisor and asked me to take her two Walgreens at the end of June. Now the grand total is six stores. The idea of that is a little overwhelming, but the reality of it won't be too bad because I'll divide the work over four days. It's a huge compliment that my employers recognize that I'm a hard worker, good at my job! Of course, I attribute that to how I was raised. My parents have always been hard workers and taught me, mostly with actions but also with words occasionally, that being diligent is a very important characteristic to have.

Another lesson that my parents taught me was how to win over grouchy people, especially at work, by being kind and respectful and by doing my best at everything I do. A smile and good work go a long way in making people a little happier. The managers at Barnes & Noble didn't want me there at the beginning, but once they saw how well I got the job done and how pleasant and respectful I was to them, they changed their opinion. Now they all greet me with a smile and are always completely helpful and cooperative with anything I need from them. I have another one of those situations at one of my new Walgreens. I'm pretty confident that I'll succeed, but it's a little daunting to walk into a place where I know someone is going to try to dislike me.

My kids aren't quite so happy about my working all these hours, but the schedule will balance out a little better once we get all the stores re-organized. Summer is also the time for store revisions, so I'll work fewer hours once those are all finished. It's good for all of them to have to take care of themselves a little more instead of expecting me to be everyone's maid :-)

first summer track meet

2011-06-03T16:32:00.005-08:00

Last night was the first track meet of the summer. Luke competed in three jumping events (high jump, long jump, and triple jump) and two running events (50 meters, 200 meters). He isn't an Olympic athlete yet, but he's trying his hardest.

Seth gave me a grouchy face for a picture, but he really loves going to the track meets. He's only grouchy when I don't let him run all over wherever he wants.

Seth ran the 50 meter dash, too. He doesn't understand "stay in your own lane," so I run with him. Apparently, we were running so fast that we were just a blur to the camera :-) Or maybe the 12-year-old photographer didn't quite hold the camera still :-)

Joel and Makenzie can't compete in the track meets this year. Joel's foot is healed, but he can't run for a while yet. Makenzie hurt her knee back at Christmas time, and it's still bothering her. So she's can't run either. They still go to the track meets to support Luke and Seth (forced sibling support -- they'd both rather stay home and watch t.v. I don't blame them for that, though -- I would, too! But if I have to go, they have to go!)

Seth & Mommy

2011-05-28T20:07:00.002-08:00

Today was a Seth & Mommy day. Joel and Luke went to the cabin with Pop Pop and Uncle Richard, and Makenzie left this morning to spend the day and night with Meema. So Seth and I relaxed all day together. We watched some "t.v." (videos for Seth, t.v. shows online for Mom), ate lunch on the couch, played some Seth games, played outside, and read some books on the swing. Just about the time I started thinking maybe I should get something out to start dinner, Seth pulled the pools down and told me he wanted to swim. When Seth actually tells me that he wants something, I usually do what he wants.

I had wanted to get the pool out all day, but it was cloudy. By the time Seth thought about getting the pool out, though, the sun was shining brightly -- which is why his eyes are closed in this picture:

We had lots of fun together, but we really missed Joel, Makenzie, and Luke!!

our first boat trip

2011-05-25T18:53:00.002-08:00

We took our paddle boat out on Cheney Lake for the first time, and we loved it!! It's a lot heavier than I thought it was, though. My arms still hurt a little bit from helping Jason carry it. We all piled in, and Jason pushed us into the water before jumping in the boat.

I am well aware that all of the children should have life vests on, but we only had one because I've only taken one child at a time before this. So Luke got the life vest because he's the most nervous out on the lake. We brought oars just in case we couldn't get the hang of maneuvering the pedals. It's a good thing we did since the rudder is somehow disconnected. We would've been going around in circles or jumping in the lake to push it back to shore without those oars!

Poor Joel had to stay on shore as the photographer because he still had his foot in a walking boot. After awhile, he got bored . . .

. . . very bored!

Speaking of Joel, he went to the orthopedic surgeon today to x-ray his foot. The doctor said that the bones are healed and that the joint is all lined up how it's supposed to be. The concern now is to make sure that it stays healed. Joel can walk in regular shoes, but he can't run for awhile. If he feels any pain or soreness at all, he's supposed to rest immediately. We're all so relieved that he healed correctly and won't need surgery or pins or anything like that!

Luke learned a new skill today:

He's so stinkin' cute working hard for his $5!!! He's saving up for a skateboard ramp :-)

new boat

2011-05-23T14:00:00.003-08:00

I found this boat on Craig's List this morning and called immediately. Good deals don't last long on there, I've discovered, so the kids and I went right to the guy's house and picked it up. We can hardly wait to take it out on the lake!!!

So why did we buy another boat when we have a perfectly good inflatable one that we've been using for at least two years now? Because my kids are scared to get in that boat with me. Especially Luke! Joel and Makenzie are a little nervous, but Luke is downright scared! None of them can swim, and they don't trust me to rescue them. We don't do much swimming up here where the lakes turn us into ice cubes, so they don't quite believe me when I tell them that I'm more than capable of swimming us back to land. That's ok -- the inflatable boat makes me a little nervous, too. I get sopping wet every time I take it out. I'm hoping to stay nice and dry in this new boat.

two zoo trips

2011-05-16T18:57:00.002-08:00

Luke's class went to the zoo a couple weeks ago, so Gavin and I went with them :-) LOVE it that Gavin has an A.C.S. sweatshirt and the cousins were matching!

Second grade boys have so much energy! Gavin did a great job keeping up without going out of my sight. I think they RAN to each new animal, never walked. Here's a rare "holding still, looking" moment:

Then last week, Seth's class went to the zoo, so I got to go AGAIN! Yippee for me :-) I love watching the kids get excited about seeing the animals, though. Funny story about Seth's trip, though (and by "funny," i mean "so completely embarrassing, I didn't want to show my face at his school ever again"). The bus was supposed to leave the school at about 10 a.m., so we got there at 9:45 a.m. We waited outside Seth's classroom for his teacher to bring the kids back to get their jackets. We didn't notice the class filing down the other end of the hall out to the bus. We waited and waited, and finally thought to ask, "Hey! Where is everyone?" The school secretary called one of the kindergarten teachers because THEY HAD LEFT US! They had to turn around and come back for us! I was SO VERY embarrassed. After the 15 minutes wasted picking us up and the 15 minutes of waiting in line, we only had a half-hour to zip through the zoo and see as many animals as we could. Everyone was very kind and said they weren't very far down the road and that they were glad to have us on the trip.

Seth's friend Kristin walked around with us, holding Seth's hand, helping to point out the animals to him, and encouraging him to stay with me :-) Here they are standing in front of the sleeping snow leopard (which I bet no one can see in this picture, but its head is on the ledge above the black cage door).

And now, the school year is almost over. I'm really looking forward to not having to be such a drill sergeant every morning to get everyone out the door on time! My hope for the next school year is that Luke will have matured to be a little closer to the level of Joel and Makenzie, who can pretty much get themselves up and ready on time. I know -- don't hold my breath.

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-09T08:12:00.002-08:00

I've written about how great my mom is several times, I'm sure; but this Mother's Day, I've been thinking of how protective my mom was when I was growing up. I didn't really understand it back then, but I certainly do now. Isn't that what all parents say? "You'll understand when you have kids of your own!" It's the truth!

The memory of my mom's protecting me that I've been thinking about the most is about a sleepover. I always slept over with my grandparents, my cousin, and my best friend from church, but one time a girl from school was having a sleepover. My mom said that I could go to the birthday party, but that I couldn't sleep over. I was so upset and embarrassed that the other girls in my class got to stay, but that I didn't -- until I got to the party. I realized that this particular family did not live the way we lived. Honestly, I was a little bit scared and A LOT grateful that my mom had said she would be picking me up in just a couple hours.

This memory isn't about judging people for the way they choose to live, but about a mother's love for her daughter and that daughter's realization that no words could ever say enough how much that love and protection are appreciated. It is NOT easy for a parent to go against her child's desires or a culture's idea of "normal," but sometimes it's necessary. I learned a great lesson from this memory: part of a mother's job is to protect her children, even if it means getting strange looks from other parents and anger from the children she's trying so hard to love and protect.

THANK YOU, MOM!! I love you :-)

Luke is 8

2011-05-01T16:00:00.008-08:00

Yesterday was Luke's 8th birthday. We started the birthday celebration on Friday with balloons and cupcakes for his class at school.

Saturday morning, we gave Luke got a set of Legos. He's so cute concentrating on those things.

Luke decided that he wanted to play miniature golf with a couple buddies for his birthday party. I hadn't been to Castle O'Malley (as far as I know, our only indoor mini-golf course) in quite a long time. It has SERIOUSLY gone to pot!! (sorry if that's an inappropriate expression, but SHEESH! what a mess that place has become!) The greens are all torn, at least one of the holes is "out of order," there's an INTENSELY offensive odor, the bathroom doesn't seem to have been cleaned in months (the other mom that went with us found that out the hard way), and they were "temporarily" out of score cards! I was wondering why in the world they charged us to be in there!! Luke's friend's older brother found a dead fish in the little fish pond. His mom said it looked like it was starting to decay. We tried to keep the boys away from that area, but they didn't even notice because they were running all over the place whacking the golf balls like little tasmanian devils. When we were ready to leave, I told the attendant about the dead fish. He said, "Really? I just checked them this morning. They looked fine to me."

I said, "They're starting to decay!"

He responded, "I think they're fine."

Okey-dokey :-) Bye!

So just a word of warning -- DO NOT GO TO CASTLE O'MALLEY!!!!

The boys had fun, though, after they got used to the odor.

We had lunch, presents, ice cream, and more playtime at McDonalds. Apparently, Luke's goal was to have the best germ-infested birthday party ever :-) We used quite a lot of hand sanitizer!

After the birthday party, Luke put together his second new Lego set . . .

and his third. Luke loves putting together and taking apart Legos!

After dinner, Luke got some new pajama pants and the first clue to the scavenger hunt that Jason made up for his final gift.

finding a clue:

The gift was waiting at Darryl and Amanda's house. Luke looked around, saw a new mattress and jokingly said, "Oh here it is!" We said, "Yep! Happy birthday!!" He was a little disappointed. Here's his pouty butt:

and his pouty face:

But he got happy about his gift when he realized how great it would be to sleep on a super-soft normal mattress instead of the thin little bunkbed mattress he's had for the last six years.

We had ice cream/chocolate chip cookie sandwiches for the birthday dessert.

The birthday celebration continued today with all of the Hofacker/Nelson crew. We had lunch, more gifts, (yes, his hair is red and purple -- there was hair painting in kids' church today. my kids got new orders today -- NO PAINT ON ANY PART OF THEM!!)

adorable little girl cuteness,

cousin group hugs,

and cake and ice cream.

The final part of Luke's birthday was to mark his height and weight on the polar bear growth chart :-)

Luke's life has been full of challenges, but life would NOT be as sweet without my Luke!

Joel's a helper

2011-04-27T20:31:00.002-08:00

Joel started tutoring a little friend after school a couple afternoons each week in phonics. I'm not sure that I even understand all the terminology of phonics, but Joel does. He is so excited to be helping. It should be a good situation for everyone -- Joel's student (who is the son of my previous students) will understand his phonics lessons and Joel will receive the reward of serving someone other than self. I'm so glad to see my son maturing. He doesn't look at this as a job, but as an opportunity to help out a friend.

Here they are being studious (and cute!):

funny boys

2011-04-26T19:56:00.002-08:00

This is how I found Luke and Seth last night when I went in to check on them:

Seth DOES have his own bed, but he's not staying in it these days. Apparently, Luke was hot and Seth was cold. Luke took his shirt off, and Seth pulled the edge of the blanket over himself. I was laughing -- silently so that I didn't wake them up. Seth's a pretty sound sleeper, so he didn't wake up when I moved him back to his bed and changed his diaper.

Tonight Seth untied his little tunnel and set it up while he watched "Franklin."

He's SOOOOO cute!!!!!!!!!!

wrestling and pictures

2011-04-25T21:20:00.002-08:00

Luke wrestled in the state tournament on Saturday. I was AMAZED at how aggressively he wrestled this time! I was shaking after a couple of the matches, they were so exciting. Luke's goal all season was to get a medal. He finally did it!!! YAY, LUKE!!

Luke got a camera for Christmas and has been taking lots of pictures since then. He took it to the wrestling tournament last weekend, too. He was taking pictures of everyone in the van on the way to Wasilla. He told Seth, "Say cheese!" And Seth did. But the camera didn't take the picture correctly (or Luke didn't push the button correctly?). So Luke told Seth, "Wait!! Keep your cheese face on!!" hahahahaha

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T17:35:00.004-08:00

I don't usually make Seth wear uncomfortable clothes, but Easter's one of the exceptions:

Seth wanted to be in the picture with Luke:

Luke was also required to wear a suit today.

I tried hot rollers in Makenzie's hair, but they didn't really work. When I told her to turn sideways to get a picture of the rollers, Seth stood beside her and also turned sideways.

My Easter princess:

Each year, we've had all the cousins sit together for an Easter picture. Placing Luke and Seth next to each other was obviously not a wise decision.

(about an hour later) I just spent way too much time looking for these supposed annual pictures we've supposedly been taking. I found the one from last year:

And I stole this one from Amanda's facebook page, but it's not a nice sit-on-the-couch-and-pose picture:

Apparently we took no group cousin pictures in 2008, and the first annual cousin picture was Christmas, 2007:

We've got cute kids! :-)

broken toes

2011-04-23T21:28:00.003-08:00

Joel broke three of his toes in wrestling practice a week ago. His foot didn't move when it was supposed to. We spent several hours in a clinic waiting to get an x-ray, boot, and crutches. He was pretty tough about the whole thing as long as he didn't have to put his foot down at all. We had to wait almost a week to get in to see the orthopedic surgeon, so I was afraid to let him do anything at all. He got a little bored staying at home all those days watching t.v., so I'm pretty sure he's really ready to agree to anything to go back to school. I want him to stay in his classroom the whole day because his class is on the second floor (no elevators). The doctor said that the boot was just as good as a cast, and that he could put a little weight on his foot unless it hurt to do that. He has to wear the boot for five more weeks (school will be out by then), and go back for another x-ray at the end of May to see if the bones and tendons heal correctly. If they didn't, he'll have to have surgery to put in a pin to hold everything together correctly so that he doesn't have foot pain the rest of his life. If they do heal correctly, he'll start some rehab exercises to get his foot back to normal. Yesterday, he was home the entire day, so his cousin Gavin came over to play with him for a couple hours. Joel and Gavin both had SO much fun!! I had thought we'd be at Luke's wrestling tournament until about 2 p.m., but it ended up lasting till after 7 p.m.!! I'm so glad Gavin was able to keep Joel company for some of that time! Today, Joel went outside to play with our little neighbors. They all had fun :-) It was sweet to see my big sixth-grade 12-year-old playing with smaller children.

Of course, with my kids, there has to be something funny in every situation. Here's Joel's funny: When he took off the boot to show the doctor his foot, Joel saw that the side of his foot was a little green and yellow. I told him it was probably bruised. The doctor looked at the foot and the x-rays and started explaining to Joel what kind of injury it was and who first documented this type of injury. He told us that way back then (1800's), people usually had to have the injured leg amputated because of gangrene. Joel just heard the "green" part of that word and said, "My foot is green!" hahahahahaha!!!!

Luke's funny

2011-04-12T16:07:00.001-08:00

Luke's version of getting his fingers shut in the car door:

"Remember when I was getting out of the van, but you shut the door right on my two favorite fingers?!"

hahahahaha

Seth knows what he wants!

2011-04-11T20:31:00.002-08:00

Luke didn't feel well yesterday, so I let him have ice cream for dinner. Seth felt fine, so I asked him if he wanted a corndog. He very clearly said, "No corndog -- ice ceem!" Yay for Seth!!! To know what he does and doesn't want and to express that clearly is really something :-)

so glad it's spring

2011-04-07T22:21:00.002-08:00

spring in Alaska STINKS! we get snow, high winds, melting snow, dirty slush, then jagged ice in the driveway and roads. but today i'm SO glad that it's spring and over 40 degrees outside because i had to open all the doors and windows tonight to air out the smokey house!

here's a word of warning -- don't EVER microwave a bowl of microwavable noodles without adding the water!!!!!!!!!!

i had to call my nurse sister-in-law to make sure we didn't need to go to the e.r. it still smells YUCKY in here!!!!!!!!!

cousins

2011-03-31T08:22:00.003-08:00

Yesterday, Seth and I went over to watch Gavin and Makayla while Amanda went to work for a few hours -- well, we're really only watching Gavin since Makayla sleeps the whole time. I got two pictures of the boys being cute AND nice. Seth seems to think that he can physically attack Gavin since Gavin is smaller right now. If Gavin cries, though, Seth is nice and sympathetic, giving him hugs and pats.

They get along perfectly, though, when they're being ornery together. I got off the couch for a minute to refill Gavin's cup, and Seth scooted over to my spot and took over as book reader. They both thought they were being so sneaky and funny :-)

one year

2011-03-27T07:59:00.001-08:00

it's been one year
most of it's a blur
still crying
i know i'm not the only one

World Down Syndrome Day

2011-03-21T22:41:00.005-08:00

Today is World Down Syndrome Day :-) It's on 3-21 every year to represent the 3 copies of the 21st chromosome that people with Down syndrome have. A friend let me borrow the book Gifts, a collection of essays written by mothers of children with Down syndrome. I have been shocked that so many medical professionals assume that when a mother finds out mid-term that her baby has Down syndrome, she'll want to kill the baby (or "terminate the pregnancy," as they put it). WHAT??!!! Do these people not KNOW anyone with Down syndrome? Probably not -- they're stuck in their stuffy little clinics. How could anyone even consider "ending" someone as perfectly beautiful as Seth? Just because his life presents different challenges from those brought about by children like Joel, Makenzie, and Luke? That's ludicrous! MANY people with Down syndrome have NO medical problems, and many more have no serious health concerns. Seth was born with a hole in his heart, so he had open-heart surgery to repair it. His biggest health concern right now is that he's allergic to green beans and he needs a daily dose of Miralax to keep his bowels moving properly (i know -- tmi, but i'm trying to make a point). How many "normal" kids have so many more health problems than Seth has!

God blesses everyone who has the privilege of meeting Seth. Some people don't even really meet him and are still blessed by him. There's a lady at Seth's school who watches us walk from the school to the van every afternoon. Seth just makes her day because of his growing independence and his laughter. She rolls down her window some days to make a comment about how much she loves to watch him. I'm sure part of it is the entertainment of watching me try to get him to actually walk instead of lie down on the ground or lean over and lick the dirty snow and then catch him before he runs into the road. I believe, though, that Seth's mission in life is to make people smile. No matter how horrible your day is going, hang around with Seth for just a minute and you'll be smiling. You just can't help it!

Seth's smile :-)

2011-03-20T17:23:00.002-08:00

Before I get to the smile topic, I forgot to put this picture on the last blog about the wrestling tournaments, I think. Seth (and anyone else who happens to be around) watches movies on Jason's laptop pretty much the entire day at the wrestling tournaments. He's so cute with the headphones on :-)

(p.s. on the wrestling topic -- i'm not uploading the wrestling matches to youtube because it's hard to see who i'm trying to video and the sound is so loud because it's total chaos in those wrestling gyms!)

Friday was the 3rd quarter award ceremony at Seth's school. Each teacher gives a few students certificates for something special like being helpful or kind or hard-working. Seth got an award for his beautiful smile :-)

When he saw me in the assembly room, he started to walk away from his class to come see me. His teacher and his aide both called him to come back and sit with the class. He kept walking, but turned a little to put up his finger and say, "Right back. Right back!" HAHAHAHAHA! Maybe I should consider starting to teach him the concept of obeying authorities.

catching up

2011-03-19T18:15:00.002-08:00

I can't even remember what all has happened since I last posted on here. Apparently, I've been busy, though, since I haven't had time to come here. I've been working a lot, of course. And the boys have started their wrestling tournaments, which means entire Saturdays spent in gyms waiting for them to wrestle for a few minutes.

Luke warms up with Dad before his matches:

and then climbs the walls when Dad's not looking:

Seth gets to watch movies while we wait for the boys' matches.

Joel is in the big kids' division now. He's only a couple months away from being finished with grade school!

I have videos to load on youtube, which I'm going to do as soon as I finish this. I guess I should've done that first because I don't have a link for them right now. My page on youtube is under "polarmom4."

One last thing -- I learned a valuable lesson on Thursday: do NOT drive on the highway right after it snows! I was in a little accident. Just me -- no kids, no other cars or anything. No damage to the van and no injuries to me. I was actually driving very carefully -- usually I'm getting a drink, eating something, talking on the phone, wiping a child's nose, or even texting. But this time, I was driving slowly and carefully because of the snow, ice, and cars in the ditch. I looked over for a split second and saw another van on its side in the median. I wondered in my mind how in the world that could happen. And just like that, I was joining them. Since there were two other accidents in that spot already, the cops were already there. One police officer asked me if I was all right and if I needed her to call me a tow truck. Before her tow truck could come, another one came along (driving up and down the highway making money). So that little lesson cost me $50 and a half-hour of work time. Not too costly a lesson, I guess.

toothless/re-decorating/migraines

2011-03-04T13:19:00.003-09:00

Luke lost his other top front tooth at Awana Wednesday night. It was barely hanging on, so he let one of the leaders pull it out. He would scream if I touched it, but he let some guy from church yank it out. I don't get it! Anyway, he's so cute with his "All I Want for Christmas" mouth!! That's one less tooth for the dentist to have to deal with in a couple weeks. Luke has a problem with teeth not getting loose enough to fall out before the permanent teeth grow in.

My computer wall is complete:

I found this picture somewhere on the internet and had an enlargement made for my wall. I'm pretty sure it's a sunset at Wonder Lake in Denali National Park. I have a "thing" for sunrises and sunsets, especially in Alaska where God seems to just get ultra-creative with the sky colors. My picture of the picture doesn't really show how beautiful it is.

Today starts Spring Break for Seth. Jason's out of town with Joel today, so Seth got to spend a few hours with his cousins at Aunt Amanda's house. He didn't get upset at all about my leaving him there. He just threw off his coat and shoes, scooted up the stairs, and joined Gavin. So unlike the daily guilt trip I get when I leave him at school!

I've had two "migraine" days in row :-( Wednesday, I woke up with a headache. I took a little nap in the clinic waiting room while Seth was in speech therapy, managed to get through the afternoon somehow, then slept for a couple hours at home while the kids did I have no idea what (I'm guessing they were watching t.v. with Jason). Thankfully, that one went away with that last nap so that I could make dinner and get everyone to bed. Yesterday, however, was a different story. My kids showed just how great they are because yesterday's headache started at about noon and didn't leave until about 2:00 this morning. I got the kids safely home from school and went right to bed, apologizing for being such a rotten mother. I threw some corndogs in the oven, put the laundry away (which Makenzie had folded and put in the basket!), set the cooked corndogs (at least I hope they were fully cooked) on top of the stove and the drinks on the counter, and went back to bed. Makenzie took care of everyone. She got the boys to get their drinks and food and later put the dishes in the sink. Today she told me that everything went just fine and that they watched a movie and played some card games. I must have gotten them ready for bed, but I don't remember it. Overall, I slept for about 13 hours last night. This Headache from Hell is threatening to return today, but I'm refusing to allow it!! Makenzie needs a break!

LOVE a good deal!

2011-02-28T14:37:00.003-09:00

This is the pretty new butterfly decoration I bought at Michaels. The price tag said that it cost $17, which I thought was more than I really wanted to spend on it, but wasn't too bad a deal. But when it rang up, it was only TEN dollars!! Yay for me finding a great deal :-)

Here's one side of the wall in front of me right now as I'm typing:

(that's mostly for my mom -- i'd want to know how things look at my kids' houses if i didn't see their houses very often)

The digital frame was stopped on a picture of Joel wrestling when he was about five years old - hahahaha!!! He was a funny little wrestler back then, just playing and wanting to have fun. Now he's more serious and trying harder to win his matches. Speaking of Joel, the poor kid has been sick for two days. He didn't get to go to church yesterday or school today. To most kids, that wouldn't be too bad, but Joel likes to work in kids' church with his friends, and he likes to be at school with his friends, too. He's been sleeping a lot and watching t.v. If he didn't have a fever, I might think he was faking, but the thermometer told me he really is sick :-(

Fur Rondy/new stuff

2011-02-27T19:10:00.012-09:00

I'm a little frustrated right now because loading the pictures for this post took about 45 minutes :-( Apparently the entire world is on the internet all at one time tonight! Or maybe my computer isn't working properly.

Anyway . . .

Uncle Rich invited everyone to go to the Fur Rondy excitement downtown on Saturday. The boys all went together.

Luke in an armored tank -- SCARY!!!

Joel's getting so tall and grown-up looking!

While the boys were having fun together, Makenzie and I were having girl fun -- shopping :-) We went out to the bead store in Eagle River. I can't go to that town without commenting on how very annoying the road system (actually the LACK of any kind of system) is in that town!! We did find the bead store, though, and bought beads to make earrings for Makenzie . . .

. . . a necklace for Makenzie . . .

. . . and earrings for my mom (and enough to make some more to possibly sell on ebay).

We couldn't find the other two stores we wanted to visit in Eagle River, so we went back to Anchorage where we know our way around at least a little bit. At Target, we found these adorable sunglasses for Seth . . .

. . . and for Makenzie.

My little movie star princess :-)

Then we went to see the movie Tangled. We really enjoyed the movie (a new twist on the Rapunzel story). But I had forgotten when I suggested going to a movie that sitting in a movie theater gives me a migraine. It was such a good movie, though, that it was pretty much worth it. We went to Value Village to wrap up our girls fun day, and then I had to go to bed for a couple hours. The kids were fine with having me out of the way for awhile so that they could watch netflix without Mom (a.k.a. big old fun ruiner) limiting their t.v. time :-)

changes

2011-02-25T20:41:00.002-09:00

Several months ago, the dentist had to pull two of Luke's teeth because the permanent teeth were growing up behind the baby teeth. Today Luke lost his first tooth all by himself. He was chasing another kid at the basketball game at school this afternoon, then turned too fast to get away from being chased. He crashed right into a chair, and his tooth fell out. It was barely hanging on before the crash, but he cried as if it had been stuck tight. Jason was afraid that it was a permanent tooth and that we'd have to make yet another trip to the emergency room. So now Luke is lisping and not wanting to go to sleep just in case he rolls over the wrong way and bumps his mouth. I don't remember losing teeth being this traumatic as a kid.

I decided this afternoon that Seth needs to start sleeping in a bed like everyone else. Up until now, he's been sleeping in his crib. It's the crib that Pop Pop and Daddy made when Joel was born . . . the crib that all four babies have slept in. Seth isn't so good yet at obedience, especially at obeying things like "stay there." So it seemed like a good idea to keep him sleeping in the crib where he'd be safe and wouldn't come wake me up any time he felt the urge to get out of bed. But he IS five years old and a kindergartener. It's probably time that he learns to make the decision to stay in bed all night instead of having no choice but to stay there. So I removed one of the sides of the crib. Jason picked this crib pattern because it converts to a toddler bed and then to a single bed. Finally, twelve years later, I completed the first conversion.

Seth might be too excited about sleeping in a normal kind of bed to actually go to sleep.

creating again

2011-02-24T18:26:00.002-09:00

It's been quite a while since I created anything, but last night I converted an old bracelet into a new pair of earrings:

If I could just live comfortably on two or three hours of sleep, I'd have time to do all the things I have to do AND all the things I want to do. I finally ordered the beads to finish my lamp shade, but I don't have time to work on it. I have stacks of beading books and magazines, too. I really need to adjust the schedule somehow to be able to do more creating!!

transformation

2011-02-23T08:11:00.002-09:00

This is how Jason left the house yesterday morning . . .

. . . but this is how he looked at Seth's meeting at school yesterday afternoon.

I dared him to show up at the meeting still in his pirate costume, but he had to be all "appropriate." NO FUN!!!

It's Spirit Week at A.C.S., and yesterday was "military or mismatch day" for the elementary (obviously not for the high school). Joel wore Pop Pop's old Air Force clothes . . .

. . . and Luke wore Pop Pop's old Boy Scout uniform and hat (he looked military-ish, even though he wasn't technically dressed in military clothes).

Makenzie chose her comfortable school uniform instead of dressing up yesterday. I'm so glad their school doesn't have some horrible dress code that the kids hate! They get to be comfortable every day (except on dress-up days :-).

not enough time

2011-02-21T20:09:00.003-09:00

So many funny things happen with my kids, but I never seem to have the time to write them out on here. Maybe now that Valentine's Day is over, I'll get myself and my schedule pulled back to together. I've been working nine to twelve hours a day sometimes because of first Christmas and now Valentine's Day. The St. Patrick's Day and Easter cards are up now, but there aren't nearly as many of those as there were for the other two holidays. I guess Mother's Day is a pretty big card-giving holiday, but that's not for a couple months. I've also been working hard to get the Walmart gift wrap/gift bag/party supplies sections and the back storage area shaped back up. I'm probably doing WAY more work with that than is really necessary, but I need it to be pretty much perfect or I feel agitated.

I've been trying to concentrate on positive things this year, even in the middle of difficult or even painful situations. One little example that was hard for me to get over: my cell phone broke in half, so the phone company gave me a new phone. My new phone is probably nicer, but I lost all of my saved texts from my other phone. Actually, I only had one text saved on that phone -- it was the last thing my brother texted me. Well, since I'm crying as I type this, I guess I'm really not over that one. But the positive thing is that I clearly remember what the text said and it made me smile when he sent it.

she's 10

2011-02-20T20:40:00.002-09:00

My princess is TEN years old! We had a family celebration the Sunday before Makenzie's birthday and a friend celebration on Wednesday, her actual birthday. After school, we took Makenzie, six of her friends, Luke, and Seth to Bouncin' Bears where they all got out ALL their energy bouncing on the inflatable bounce house/slides, running around, and yelling. I had no idea cute little girls could be SO loud!!!

faith?

2011-02-15T07:42:00.002-09:00

Joel lost his wallet -- with all his birthday money and gift certificates in it!!!! :-( We told him to take apart his room, put everything away, CLEAN IT!! He still couldn't find it. Jason looked, I looked, we searched everywhere. We were so afraid that Seth had gotten in Joel's room, took the wallet, and put it in the trash can (we've found some interesting things in the trash). I kept praying that little-bit-of-faith prayer people pray as a last resort, "God, help us find it. PLEASE!!" After praying that a few times, I thought to myself, "Why do I keep saying this? He doesn't care about this stupid little wallet." I wasn't thinking that rebelliously or even angrily, just being realistic that God has much bigger things to deal with than a 12-year-old's wallet with less than $100 in it.

Not even five minutes later, Jason found the wallet!

Hmmmm . . . .

deserved it!

2011-02-12T16:35:00.002-09:00

I guess I deserved it after being so self-centered in my last post -- not one thing worked out how I'd hoped yesterday :-( The bead store was closed; I had to work both morning and night; Joel wrestled one of his matches later than I expected, so I had to pick Seth up and hold onto him while we were in the gym. The only thing that happened how I wanted was that I did get to read a few chapters of my book in the afternoon while I waited for Joel's first wrestling match. Oh well -- maybe next time things will work out better.

But here's my consolation prize:

Actually, that's one of my consolation prizes. I ate the vanilla Valentine's cupcake last night, the cranberry scone for breakfast, and the peanut butter cookie after lunch. This last treat is for tonight after dinner (or maybe instead of dinner so that I don't go over my calories too far) :-)

all about ME

2011-02-11T07:48:00.004-09:00

Time to catch up on me me ME :-) I've been swamped the past I don't know how many months now with work -- both the work that I get paid for and the work that doesn't earn a paycheck.

I was working three stores for Hallmark: Walgreens, Barnes & Noble, and a Safeway. My supervisor asked me if I would give up the Safeway so that I could take on a Walmart. Right now I'm questioning whether agreeing to the change was wise or not, but I think everything will be ok after next week. The holidays are just so stressful and busy, but they only last for four months :-) I'm enjoying doing the gift wrap and party supplies instead of cards at Walmart. It's fun to have variety.

I have also become a freelance editor. Some friends at church have an engineering firm and asked me to look over their reports before submission. I'm glad to help out, although even they admit that the information that I read is a sure cure for insomnia.

My biggest excitement of the new year is my weight loss program. By using the website "My Fitness Pal," I count my calories and exercise time. I used to do this same thing on paper, but this website makes it easier because they have lists of foods with the calories already figured. My "program" is to lose a 1/2 pound every week by eating less than 2,000 calories a day and walking a 1/2-hour every day. Since I've been sick for several weeks, I haven't been able to walk much, but I've still been losing weight by staying around 2,000 calories. So far, I've lost 11 pounds!!! My goal for 2011 is to lose 25 pounds. Then my goal for 2012 will probably be to lose another 25 pounds. That will put me MUCH closer to my pre-children weight :-) It should also eliminate my back pain, foot pain, and embarrassment at having to keep buying bigger and bigger clothes. Fred Meyer has some DELICIOUS gluten-free frozen foods that are pretty filling and don't have too many calories. My downfall is the gluten-free treats at Terra Bella! It's so exciting to be able to go into a bakery and actually EAT! They make THE best chicken sandwich on gluten-free bread and scrumptious carrot/zucchini muffins!!!!! That pretty much blows my whole calorie count for the day, but I try to skimp on my other meals in order to enjoy those treats.

Today is a ME day :-) I get to do things today that make ME smile: shopping for some beads at a super-cool bead store, sitting in the bleachers at school to watch Joel wrestle after lunch (that doesn't sound like a "me" thing, but it is because all the other kids will still be in school, so I get to concentrate on watching Joel instead of corralling other children. and then I get to read in between his matches!!! definitely a "me" thing!!), then leaving the kids with Jason to enjoy for the evening. I also still have to do laundry, dishes, Barnes & Noble, and Walmart; but it's all good because the work is spread out in between all the "me" things :-) Tomorrow will be back to kids and work with no time for "me" things until they go to sleep, but I'm going to thoroughly enjoy my time today :-) Actually, I'm looking forward to tomorrow, too, because I don't get to see my angels much anymore because of school and work. It'll be nice to hold Seth and Luke tomorrow while we watch Joel wrestle. Makenzie likes to help with the concession stand, so I won't see much of her until tomorrow evening. I'm thinking a Barbie movie and card games will be the perfect way to spend our Saturday evening :-)

still growing

2011-02-08T08:22:00.002-09:00

Joel is now almost as tall as his Aunt Amanda. By this time next year, he'll be taller than she is. He'll be taller than his Meema in another year. He'll probably be taller than his mother and Grandma Ruth in another year. This is both scary and exciting -- scary to see my oldest child growing out of childhood; exciting to see him healthy, strong, and making his own decisions (many of them good and right).

Seth automatically jumped in the picture when he saw the camera. I'm pretty sure he believes that all pictures, applause, laughter, praise, and celebration is about him :-) And that's just fine since it means that he knows he's loved.

matching boys

2011-01-31T08:16:00.002-09:00

I made all the boys wear their corduroy shirts for church yesterday :-) Joel wasn't too pleased because he likes to wear t-shirts or polos, but he's slowly learning not to fight with Mom.

This should be an interesting week. I'm switching stores for work. I'm trading my Safeway for a Walmart. I start training tomorrow, and I'll be working with another lady. So far, I've mostly worked alone for the last nine months. And I worked alone for the last ten years before I got a paying job. I think this will be a good change. I'll still be working on my own at two other stores (three after this summer -- I'm getting a second Walgreens when another one opens).

Thanks to the good sleep I got by taking codeine for a few nights, I think this cold is FINALLY on its way OUT!!! Thank God for medicine, doctors to prescribe it, and pharmacists who work late :-)

together/oops--forgot

2011-01-30T08:09:00.003-09:00

I just love it when all four of my children are in the same room without fighting!!!!! It's a rare occurrence, so I wanted to document it. Luke and I went to the library yesterday to get movies, books, and coffee. They were all completely engrossed in a Batman movie (except Joel who was only listening to the movie while he read a new book I got him).

I forgot a VERY funny part of Joel's birthday! During wrestling practice, the wrestlers all line up and give birthday whacks to any wrestler having a birthday. Joel knew that this would be happening, so he prepared for it by wearing FOUR PAIRS OF UNDERWEAR under his shorts! HAHAHAHA!!!! Smart kid :-)

cute little boys

2011-01-29T13:23:00.002-09:00

I dressed Luke and Seth like twins, so they also put on matching grouch faces :-)

Luke made this Lego car all by himself -- with no pattern. This is a GREAT activity for Luke, both for his creativity and for his "occupational therapy." Luke doesn't have a therapist, but I try to get him to do things to strengthen and steady his hands. His hands are very tense and shaking most of the time, and this causes SERIOUS writing problems. He has a "D" in handwriting right now, I think. The poor child is already cursed with bad writing since both his father and mother have bad handwriting. But add the whole neurological issue somehow connected to being born with club feet (that's my opinion, not a doctor's assessment), and the child's writing is completely illegible!

I haven't blogged for a really long time! Life is pretty much the same as always -- school for the kids, work for Jason and me. We've been dealing with colds, of course, since it's winter time. Seth and I both went to the doctor just in case we needed antibiotics. Seth's doctor said it's just a cold; my doctor said the same thing, but also gave me a prescription for cough medicine with codeine (my new best friend!!!!!). It's been nice to be able to sleep all night long instead of waking up every few minutes to cough!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JOEL!!

2011-01-25T21:37:00.003-09:00

My "baby" turned 12 today! He told me that he woke up at 5:58 this morning, so he was awake to see his birthday start at 6 a.m., the time he was born. I had waited until 6:30 to go tell him "happy birthday" and "go take a shower" and pointed out that 6:30 a.m. was the time 12 years ago today that I passed out from an overload of pain. That was my only reference to anything negative about the privilege of having my first child, instead focusing on how glad I am that he was born.

We had a family party Saturday afternoon, a special breakfast of doughnuts and coffee this morning, a special lunch from Subway and cupcakes from home, and then a friend party tonight after wrestling practice. I only let him have three friends this time, but they had a lot of fun playing the wii and laughing together.

Here's Joel's birthday "cake" from Saturday -- cherry cheesecake:

Christmas, 2010

2010-12-24T22:06:00.003-09:00

This first picture really isn't about Christmas, but it still gets a Christmas frame because it's December. Joel and Seth both got glasses last week. They both look adorable!! Seth won't leave his on, and Joel's having a hard time getting used to his. I'm hoping they wear them at school and see better than they did without them.

Funny story before I go on with Christmas events: Joel went to a friend's house the other day along with a few other friends. The boys decided to play hide and seek. Joel decided to hide in the laundry chute. HE GOT STUCK!!! His friend's older brother had to call the paramedics to come get him out. The poor child was sweating and crying and wondering how in the world anyone could ever get him out of there. After his friends tried to pull him out, they sat with him to wait for the paramedics. The parents were at a church staff luncheon and had to leave in the middle to go help wait for the paramedics. When I talked to Joel on the phone, he assured me he was ok and immediately told me that he had NOT broken his glasses! He had taken them off to play hide and seek. He really wanted me to know that!

Christmas Eve is our family Christmas. Today was a little different from previous years because I went to work this morning. I was hoping to get back home before the kids woke up, but there was more work than I thought there would be. Jason made waffles and the the kids watched Christmas movies while they waited for me to get back. They all look so cute in their Santa hats :-)

We all opened our gifts and then the kids went to watch some new movies. Later in the evening, we went to the Christmas Eve church service. My boys look adorable in their suits :-)

Makenzie is looking so grown up now! The kids' choir performed at the beginning of the program tonight. The choir leaders asked Makenzie 1/2-hour before they were to sing if she would be able to sing a solo. She sounded GREAT -- not nervous at all! I was so proud of her!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-18T20:09:00.001-09:00

need a clone!

2010-12-10T19:31:00.002-09:00

today was a very tiring day! i'm pretty sure i did a full day's work before some people even got out of bed today -- getting kids ready, many loads of laundry, meals, ironing, cleaning the bathroom, and washing the pans that had been sitting on the stovetop since i don't even know when.

Joel and Seth had an eye doctor appointment today. i really don't understand why the scheduling people make appointments the way they do. every time i go to this eye doctor, we get to see him after sitting in the waiting room for about an HOUR! a little irritating. but he's the best, so i keep going back. Seth's eyes have started crossing again, so he's getting glasses to wear mostly at school. he's doing so well with wearing his hearing aids at school, so i'm hoping that the glasses work well there, too. Joel REALLY needs glasses. the doc explained to us that Joel's headaches are probably caused by growing, not by bad eyes. but the bad eyes have probably been making the headaches worse. there's a glasses store in the same building as the eye doctor, so we went to see them as soon as we got the prescriptions. picking out glasses for the boys took about 30 seconds. there's only one choice for free glasses for Joel's age and size, and there's only one pair of free glasses that hook around the back of Seth's ears so that they don't fall off when he looks down. the lady was SO nice to us! Seth was obviously tired of being well-behaved, so the glasses lady suggested Joel take him over to the toy corner. she then got the laptop and SAT ON THE FLOOR next to the toys so that she could get all the necessary information while i made sure Seth was occupied. and she didn't do it with any huffing like "SHEESH! you're really putting me out here." she was smiling and glad to do whatever worked to keep everyone happy. it's so nice to come across people willing to be truly helpful.

almost a month!

2010-11-27T13:17:00.002-09:00

Sometimes I'm good at keeping up on blogging and sending my mom pictures, but sometimes I really stink at it! November has been one of the "stinky" times I guess. Since the excitement I wrote about earlier this month, nothing exciting has happened. Maybe that's why I haven't taken or posted pictures all month.

Makenzie made a little bed for Seth while they were watching tv in my room. Seth LOVED it!

The kids had no school Tuesday or Wednesday because of ice, Thursday and Friday because of Thanksgiving, and of course Saturday and Sunday. That was a pretty big vacation! We got about four to six inches of snow now, though, so school should be open again on Monday.

Thanksgiving weekend is a fun time for my older three kids. Joel and Luke are at the cabin with Jason's dad and brother, and Makenzie is at the "Nutcracker" ballet with Jason's mom. She gets a new Christmas dress every year and wears it for the first time to the ballet :-)

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because it's all about being thankful and eating food :-) It's also a super busy time because of making all that food and then starting on all the Christmas hoopla. This year, I'm seeing the holiday commercialism more than ever since I'm swamped with Christmas card set-up at work. I'm thankful for the extra hours (bigger paycheck), though!

"Welcome to Holland"

2010-11-10T07:41:00.004-09:00

Jason found this article in a book from one of his classes and it expresses our thoughts exactly:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to Holland

Parenting a Special Needs Child

By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills – and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy ... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you many never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I believe that all parents are blessed, but that I'm the most blessed.

nice, easy excitement

2010-11-07T20:28:00.002-09:00

Life has gotten pretty much "normal" again. "Normal" with four children is not the "normal" person's "normal," but it's so much better than e.r. ABnormal!!

Luke and Jason made a little racecar for the Awana Grand Prix (I think that's what it's called). Wednesday night, Luke got to race his car against 40-something other little racecars. He won two of his heats, and he was so excited!

We have enough snow now to make a cute little snowman -- which Luke did almost completely on his own since Joel quit helping because Luke wouldn't let him be the boss.

Seth is all healed up and so cute this morning that I just had to take his picture. I'm not a great photographer, so the picture doesn't really convey the level of cuteness that he had going on in his little green corduroy shirt and jeans this morning.

so much excitement

2010-10-30T18:19:00.002-08:00

All the excitement has me exhausted, so I'm letting the pictures remind me of all that has happened in the past week or two. Everything will be out of chronological order, I'm sure.

I have made four trips to the doctor in the past two weeks.
1. Seth had a bad cold, so we went to ask the doctor to listen to Seth's breathing because we did NOT want to end up in the e.r. again with Seth not breathing! The doctor said everything was fine, just a cold. He's better now.

2. Joel got a sore throat and was having trouble breathing, so we went to the doctor to get antibiotics. He's better now, too.

3. The next child to need the doctor was Luke. He had some pain where no male wants to have pain. He had to have an ultrasound to find out there was some inflamation that the doctor said would go away without medication. Every time I ask him if he's still hurting, he gives me a percentage. "It feels 85% better." "Now it's 90% better, Mom." This morning, it was 98% better, so he was able to leave the house for some fun time.

4. When Luke and I were on the way home from the doctor, Jason called to tell me that Seth needed to go to the e.r. Joel, Makenzie, and Seth were with Jason at wrestling practice while Luke and I were at the doctor. The wrestlers were running laps, and the kids were sitting along the wall. Seth decided to stand up at exactly the wrong time and one of the wrestlers knocked him out with his knee. The teenager tried to jump over Seth, but couldn't miss him. This time around, we got right into the doctor in the e.r., no waiting at all. He had a ct scan which showed no bleeding in the brain or neck, so they sent us home. He just had a concussion, which I learned means "jarring of the brain." He was in a lot of pain for two and a half days, but then woke up from a little nap completely healed and back to himself. He has been eating all day today almost without stopping to make up for the two days of not eating anything at all. We've watched a LOT of Blue's Clues the last few days!

(Luke just ran into the room saying, "Mom! My problem is 100% better!!" yahoo :-)

Another exciting part of life is the complete rearranging of the house so that Joel can have his own room. The computer room/junk room/Seth's room had to be almost completely emptied. I hadn't realized how much junk I had accumulated in that little room! In just one week, though, it's pretty much all finished. Joel has his own room downstairs, and Luke and Seth are sharing a room upstairs. Luke has been a very nice big brother, straightening Seth's covers for him after Seth falls asleep -- so sweet :-) And Joel is excited beyond words to have his own room.

Since Joel was sick last weekend when the junior high church youth group had an overnighter, we had a late-nighter last night. A few friends came home with us after school yesterday to play the wii. We had pizza, soda, and ice cream followed by a movie and more video games in the game room at church (chaperoned by Jason). They had SO much fun!! Makenzie is looking forward to being in the 6th grade so that she can have a girls' late-nighter with Mom as the chaperone :-)

Tonight was the fall carnival at school. All three kids looked adorable in their costumes :-)

Seth had to stay home because of the concussion, but a friend from church heard that Seth wouldn't be able to enjoy the fall carnival and brought him a giant bag of gifts. Seth was amazed and excited by the toys and candy, going back and forth between saying "wow!" and "yumm!" for the rest of the evening :-)

I'm hoping that the Hofacker house will be excitement free this week so that Mommy Hofacker can recover!!

potty failure :-(

2010-10-19T08:00:00.004-08:00

Friday and Saturday, I tried to do some potty training with Seth. This was apparently a complete waste of time. He sat on the toilet for a while, then went and peed on the floor :-( He sat on the toilet a little later, then went and peed in his diaper. I gave up on undies for now because I don't want to clean up disgusting messes. So I tried taking him to the bathroom more often. He has not yet even once done any business on the toilet! So potty training so far is a failure.

The hearing aids are also a failure. He loved them for almost four whole hours -- until I had to change his shirt, knocked one of the hearing aids loose causing it to screech in his poor little ear. Now every time I try to put them in his ears, he covers his ears tightly and says, "Ow, ow, ow, ow!" When I finally get them in his ears and point out to him that they are NOT screeching, he leaves them in until I turn around for second and then takes them out. He has thrown them behind the couch, behind the video cabinet, under the table, across the table, and down the stairs. We're taking a break from the hearing aids until we hear back from the audiologist. I called yesterday and left her a message about the situation. She doesn't like the way the ear molds on this set were made, so she ordered a different set. It won't be here, though, for three weeks.

On top of these two issues, Seth now has a cold :-( I'm watching him VERY closely this time!! Any sign of wheezing, and we're going to the doctor immediately. He grabbed his ear this morning and said, "ow," so I think we'll be seeing the doctor soon.

After three negative notes, I have a picture that shows the reality of being Seth's mom:

Seth is a person who OFTEN throws his head back and laughs with his whole self. Generally, that's my life with Seth :-) The little pieces of negative situations are just that -- little pieces soon forgotten when Seth throws his sweet little arms around my neck and plants nice, juicy kisses on my cheeks!

hearing aids :-)

2010-10-15T16:15:00.004-08:00

Can you see them? Seth got hearing aids today, and he LOVES them!!! At least today he does :-) They're not very noticeable when you look straight at him. They're not even too terribly obvious when you look at the side view.

So here's an up-close view:

As soon as the audiologist put them in, Seth started whispering to himself and to us. He was SO excited!!! The audiologist said that she had never seen someone so excited with getting hearing aids before. He hasn't tried to take them out yet at all. In fact, he yelled at me when I took them out to practice putting them back in. So the audiologist, Seth, and I are all VERY pleased with these new "ears."

And as a little side-note, Seth's kindergarten teacher and school librarian are reading a textbook about teaching children with Down syndrome how to read. I had to work really hard to not get tears in my eyes when she told me this because it's so touching that they would care enough about Seth to put in extra work time. And she's serious about learning the information, too. She said that she's reading it slowly and just a couple chapters a week so that she can put it into practice as she learns. It's always amazing to me when people care enough about my sweet Seth to spend their own time and attention on him :-)