It's Christmas Day and I'm working. I know, I know, I shouldn't be updating my blog while I am working. I am sitting here listening to Christmas Carols watching people check into the ER, while I sit and answer the phone, and wait for something to happen for my job. Since it is Christmas Day the front admissions is closed, so I get to be in the ER for my shift! I love the ER, I miss the ER. I don't miss the hours of the ER. Last night John and I gave the kids a choice to open presents the 24th, wait until I got home from work, or open them without me. The kids chose to open "everything" last night! We had so much fun. We played and sat around for hours, then when it died down we decided to watch The Nativity Story. GREAT MOVIE!! Thank you Weston Davis for letting us borrow it. We are for sure going to have this in the collection. Santa came about 1:30 in the morning. It's amazing as parents how we can hear him come in, but we never hear the tooth fairy.....why is that. Maybe in our house the toothfairy stiffs the kids and forgets to come. Not Santa, man he is good, it must be the amazing woman behind the man?? Since I'm here and the kids are there, we decided to save "the best for last". John let the kids open the last present.....a Wii....yup, we caved. We finally are up to speed, well sort of. The new Wii U is out, but we don't see why it's so cool, so we just got the Wii. I called and Cali was just squeaking for about 2 minutes on the phone, I couldn't make any of it out. Then I finally heard Wii, yes, John let them open it!! I am sooo glad he is the one home with 4 kids figuring out how to hook it up, fighting who gets the first turn, what game to play, who needs to get off and let the other play. While I sit here and listen to carols, and abdominal pain then a cut hand come into the ER. Merry Christmas everyone, this year has been blessed and I look forward to 2013!!

Parent Teacher Conference

Last night I had parent teacher conference for Bryan and Cali. It has been an emotional roller coaster this last week for me. We got back from the center for disabilities Bryan's IQ test. It was a 58. That's not good, not good at all. As a matter of fact I really, really can't believe it. Now, the good thing about Bryan is he is really smarter than that. We all agree, his therapists, teacher, resource leaders, parents, grand parents...all of us agree that it is not a concrete number. We think that he's more of a 72. He had his testing through the school district last year, and the numbers show around the 70 range. Anyway, because of this news, I had been looking into the future of our little Bryan. How do you deal with a child that has a low IQ? I can see working with a disability where you just know off the bat that your child won't be self sufficient. But with this, the questions swirl like a blinding snow storm in my head. So I just resolved that I'm not going to worry about the future. I am going to take it a day at a time and fight for what he needs now, not what he needs for the future. I see this as two things: 1. A defense mechanism for my heart strings. 2. I can enable him with tools that he needs right now to learn for the future. Armed with my Psyc Eval I went into the school to show the resource teacher, his kindergarten teacher what our new findings were. They were so happy to get it, but totally agreed that Bryan was not that "number". Sooooo, his teacher changed his homework for each night because he struggles with reading so much each night. He is on grade level for knowing his letters and their sounds!! YEAH little bubbers.

Cali is doing great. She struggles with the timing for math. She is doing great when it comes to concepts and worksheets, but she just struggles with the time constraints. She pouts in class too when things don't go her way. Am I surprised?? NO. Her teacher stated that she just ignores it.

As a parent, I am sooo glad to have a team of professionals that are willing to morph things to my kids. I am so willing to work with them and help them because they in turn help my kids. Great parent teacher conferences last night. Now today is the other two kids.

Summertime, cars and grey hairs

I need to start off this post with my love of my car. It's a 96 Acura RL with leather seats, and a sun roof. It has a lot of bells and whistles for a 96. I take care of her because I LOVE TO DRIVE MY CAR!! Well she got new shoes (tires) and we had to get them at Sams because that is what we could afford. Usually we buy from Les Schwab in Rigby. I LOVE LES SCHWAB, I will never stray again (I promise). Well we were just going along all dandy, new tires and a few months later, we end up in July of 2012. I went to Salt Lake at the end of June and drove my lovely car. Heading back to Rigby, ID I noticed that a lug nut wasn't on correctly. Sooooo what do I do take it to Sam's. They tell me that they can't replace it I need to take it to a tire store, pay for it, and they will reimburse me....GREAT, like I have the time for that. Soooooo....I slither into Les Schwab on my pleading knees for them to fix the problem that I wouldn't have had if I had just gone there in the first place! UGH. Well sweet BJ Byrum told me not only did they break the lug nut stud on the one, that Sam's had stripped another stud and it was just spinning. He warned me that in order to take it off they might have to cut it with a torch which might damage the wheel. (Seriously! This is my one freakin day off and I have to deal with this crap!!!) So I called Sam's and went the rounds about who was going to pay if the wheel got damaged, the limit they would pay without an insurance adjuster...blah, blah, blah. I left the car with sweet BJ and set off about my other errands in Rigby, after John had taken me to lunch. Now I have the suburban to drive, a hubby at work, kids at home, its hot, its humid and my damn hair won't stay off my neck. While Les Schwab was fixing my car I went and cut off my hair! It's short, off my neck, light on my head, and out of the way!! And my car got fixed, no torch needed, 2 studs fixed and it only cost $27.95. I will never stray from Les Schwab again. You get what you pay for. I will pay an extra $100.00 for tires just so I don't have to deal with the problem. A $20.00 gift card for my inconvenience from Sam's club wasn't enough. Grey hairs seem to be sneaking in about my head. I have my two favs in front, but now I have a couple on top. I am embracing the new me. New hair cut, new grey hairs, and a new outlook on life. Summertime is so hot! But when the shade of the day, and it cools a bit it is a wonderful place to be. We pulled down our patio furniture after 10 years in the garage loft. Sitting in the chairs last night was wonderful. I can't wait to go home today and sit in my chair with a cold pepsi :) I will have to shop on Sunday, just so I have have that sweet pepsi in hand. Thats ok, I feel ok about it. If I have to work on Sunday, I can shop on Sunday. That is how I justify myself. Here's to your summertime and grey hairs!!

Grey hairs and summer

As I work through the summer, my kids stay at home with little to do besides chores. We were blessed as a family to get a year membership to the Apple Athletic Club. This has been such a huge blessing. I use it as bribery and when there is nothing to do...APPLE!! Date night for John and I now includes APPLE!! If its a hot summer day...APPLE!! Summer is going fast. School is around the bend. Madison will be a sophmore, not sure I really like that idea. Thomas, 7th grade and year 2 of precussion here we come. Cali Ann, 4th grade! I can't even believe that. Then the baby...Bryan full time officially...1st grade :( Man are we getting old. I have 2 grey hairs in my bangs and I don't want to pluck them out. I have worked hard for them. It's been a hellish 3 years and then when I finally feel like we have hit a plateau.....2 grey hairs. I have grown out all of my artificial color and am all natural. For some odd reason I feel this "duty" to show my natural hair. I have spent years covering it all up and now....it's all natural. This week I am having lasik surgery which will help me not feel so old grabbing my glasses all the time. I shouldn't say all the time because I grab them when I wake up and take them off when I lay down. There is no taking them off during the day. I can't see my hand in front of me if it's an arm lengths away. I have super bad eye sight. This is the year of procedures for our family. I can't wait until Thursday. I am super nervous, but so excited. I can't wear any make up 3 days before and 5 days after. Sooooo, to go along with my all natural curly greying hair, I now have no make up on for 8 days!! My sweet husband says I am so pretty without all that stuff, but when I look in the mirror I feel like a washed out palette. I guess I have to look forward to the surgery and then being able to wear makeup again!!

Reading the last post has me so excited for tomorrow!! I get to dig holes and water my plants. I feel so bad that they have been sitting for a week, but the weather here just hasn't been good. If you have ever wondered what the weather in Rigby, ID is.....windy.......usually windy. As a matter of fact, I just got my haircut thinking "oh this will be soooo good because less hair to deal with". Well, I was wrong the problem is now my hair flies into my face and I have no way of "pinning" it back. I'm glad it's short though. Sorry for the diversion, back to my plants. My raspberries are starting to pop green on the sticks and my grape is still looking like a halloween tree. After this weekend, when they are in the ground and staked up properly.....GREATNESS will occur. We are going to till the garden, plant the peas and carrots!! My kids are going to be weeding the front flower beds getting them ready for bark. There will be bees humming, birds chirping and it will seem as if Snow White was singing "just whistle while you work". I wonder if my children will be singing while they work. I just might get the BAR B QUE warmed up this weekend. I don't have to work (thank goodness). That is a whole different subject. May the peace of spring be with you on the coming Saturday.

Grapes and Raspberries

Can I just tell you how EXCITED I am for monday night. My sweet hubby bought me 10 raspberry plants, and a grape vine to plant! I have wanted to plant these for a couple of years, but didn't ever get around to it. This year after a very busy Saturday, I told him I wanted to go get some starts. Now on the ditch bank about a mile from my house, I could have gone and dug up some "free" raspberries. Sometimes it's worth buying things already prepared. I really didn't want to find them, dig them up, transport them, and then get stuck with the thorns the whole time. Instead we drove up to Rexburg to Treehouse nursery. It's family owned, small, but very helpful. They didn't have any. Sooooo the hubs drove to Lone Pine Nursery, they have a beautiful nursery, but NO RASPBERRIES! (they are coming next week or two) I had told him earlier that Town and Country nursery in Idaho Falls was advertising bare root plants. We drove down there and HOLY COW! What an amazing nursery. I could have spent all day, no joking, all day at Town and Country. They had the plants, and a freakin flyer for those of us that are newbies!!!!! I am totally going back. I am so excited to plant these bare roots and watch how beautiful they are going to be!

Then, while we were looking around, there were grapes!! I have been reading about grapes and I want to plant the vines along our pasture fence. We got a grape vine too!! Bare root of course, but I can't wait to talk to these little plants and encourage them along :)

This is what I hope for them to look like:

Grape vine:

Raspberries:

Wish me luck

Science Fair - 3 down, 1 to go!

Part of being a mother is the 3rd grade science fair. My first brilliant child wanted to have the science of bones. We included a femur bone from a cow, with a cross section, a HUGE trifold poster board and a report cover for the neatly typed presentation. My second brilliant child, who is a boy decided he wanted to do a project on solar energy. After many hours of trying to find the correct components to make said solar energy box, we went to Hobby Town. We purchased a "solar energy kit". He wanted to make his own poster, and mount the report to it. Here is where my "motherly" instinct comes in. It drove me nuts to have a poster whose margins were totally skiwampus. I took a deep cleansing breath and cringed when he mounted letters and report, they weren't straight. He loved it and so in turn, I LOVED IT! My third brilliant child, a girl, didn't want to do her project on bones or solar energy. She wanted to show how flowers grow (picture me with my not happy face). I knew we would have to start early and take care of said "flowers". Well, my most not shining moment as a mother came when, with 2 weeks before the science fair, my brilliant child gave me the puppy dog eyes and begged to get a start on it. We started with water beads, pebbles, fine sand, and then mud/sand from school. She was so excited to be caring for these little seeds (which were green bean seeds). I would check on them every other day. Out of 4 different "soils" only one seed sprouted. She learned that seeds will rot, and not sprout if you over water them. Today was the day, she took to 4 flower pots, and the poster to school. I haven't been able to talk to her yet, but I am sure it all turned out good. Now we have 3 years until the next science fair!

One one hand I cannot wait to get past this part of helping with projects, posters, experiments, and assignments. One the other hand, when the day comes that my children no longer need me for all of the things that means they have been raised. I was so excited to cut out the title, the flowers, leaves, and name out on my Cricut. I was excited to see how she arranged everything. She, like my 2nd did not glue the report on straight. She did however draw a cute sun on the poster board.

Kandice Stewart Photo: Lots of Lovin' GIVEAWAY!!!

Kandice Stewart Photo: Lots of Lovin' GIVEAWAY!!!: Soo... I was thinking today... I need to do a giveaway !  Yes, you heard me!   Being that this month is all about L. O .V.E. and gets me ...

Love day is approaching

I am excited for St. Valentines Day this year. Why you ask?? That is a good question! I guess lately I have been having so much fun with my kids growing up. Their different personalities shining through is so fun to behold. Madison is getting so excited to start drivers ed. She is starting to see the struggles teenagers are having. Thomas bless is soul is such a sweet boy. He is getting taller and now can rest his head on my shoulder instead of my armpit. Cali is getting more personality and again, getting taller. Bryan is getting taller too. He has come so far and it's neat to see the journey he is embarking on with his disability. We are embracing and getting used to explaining his delays. I have started the whole process for applying for the Katie Beckett grant. This is lengthy and lots of test are involved. We had the pshyc test, the home visit, now next week SIBAR here we come. I hate this freakin test. Anyway, keep your fingers crossed becuase we really need him to qualify so he can get services. If Bryan doesn't qualify then there is no program that can help with the costs of therapy. We have applied for medicaid numerous times. Because we have qualifiable insurance, he doesn't get it. Blah, Blah, Blah. Maybe I should speak a different language, get fired, start smokin crank and then he will qualify?? Nawww, I have integrity in myself, my children, and my family. I should not get on this soap box. I graciously am stepping off and will look to the day I get to buy heart pizza from papa murphys. Plan a heart attack for the family, make a heart cheesecake, red punch, and a comfortable dinner. I can't wait!!