3 Weeks

The boys go back to school tomorrow and I am sad.  We didn't get to do a lot of the things that we had planned.  The first half of week one was spent in quarantine, as Seth and Mark had pinkeye.  Normally there is just a 24-hour wait until you aren't considered contagious, but Monday Seth had it, Tuesday morning Mark's right eye was infected, and then his left eye was infected on Wednesday.  As a precaution and courtesy, we stayed home to avoid sharing the bug.  I was so grateful that Jane didn't get it.  I am glad that it stopped at two people.  I spent a lot of time cleaning door knobs, handles, light switches, remotes, etc. to keep the rest of the family from getting pinkeye. 

Week two was good.  We spent an afternoon with Madeleine, played with friends and had a good week. 

Week three was not so good.  I had a migraine that started on Tuesday night and it stayed with me until Thursday.  I had the classic "migraine hangover" on Friday and Saturday.  It amazed me how quickly I got depressed when my headache lingered.  Having the boys home made it difficult for me and I was upset that I had to cancel the plans we had made. 

We did go to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point with my parents on Friday.  We had never been there before and my parents have a membership there (it was a Christmas present from the kids!) so we went and had a good time.  If my parents hadn't been coming, I wouldn't have taken the boys (and girl! Why do I always forget to include her?).

On Saturday the boys were trying to link up with their cousins to play a computer game together, but it wasn't working.  Ben came and got the boys and took them to his house.  They spent the night there and it was strange to have it so quiet around the house.  It was theraputic for me to have some quiet while getting over the crazy headache and accompanying depression (You know what?  Sometimes I really don't like being a girl.)

I know that tomorrow Jane will call out for the boys.  She doesn't understand this crazy schedule we are on.  She loves to play with her brothers and really does miss them when they are at school.  The first few days are the hardest on her. 

Jane calls all of the boys "Paul" (it sounds like Pauw).  Paul thinks that it is great, but Mark and Seth try desperately to have her call them by their names.  She will say Seth's name when looking at his pictures, but she will call all of them Pauw when face-to-face! 

Jane is quite the chatter bug and I love it!  It is so fun to see her chat away- she is so animated!  Almost every time I try to catch it on the camera, she stops.  The other day Seth pretended to fall down the stairs in a dramatic fashion.  Jane ran to the top of the stairs and yelled down "You okay?" 

The next time that the boys are off-track will be our last off-track session this school year.  Next school year will be different around here because Mark will be on a different schedule than Paul and Seth. Mark will start Jr. High in the fall.  I'm not sure how I feel about being on different schedules.  I know that Mark will feel kind of left out when we do things while Paul and Seth are off-track, but I can't make them stay home because Mark is at school.   We are entering new territory here.  Hopefully we will all be healthy for our next break from school. 



 

Dog Food and Baby Dolls

On Valentine's Day, we went up to Madeleine's house for a little party.  We made creations out of clay, ate lunch, played Husker Du and frosted cookies.  It was a wonderful afternoon.  I don't know what it is about Madeleine, but I feel so refreshed and calm when I am around her.  Daniel loves it when I spend time with her because I come home a much happier me.  It is wonderful to be friends with Madeleine.  I feel so lucky. 

Madeleine's dog, Elliot, was eating her lunch and Jane decided to join in.  She got down on her belly, placed a piece of dog food on the floor and licked it up!  She even went back for seconds!  Elliot was good to share her food, and I was good to be calm and let Jane explore.

We decided to cleanse Jane's palette with some sugar cookies.  Jane ate her first cookie, so Madeleine got some frosting on a knife and helped Jane frost her second cookie.  Jane had the knife in hand, loaded with frosting and she decided to forgo the middle-man and eat the frosting right off of the knife!  I wasn't concerned because the knife wasn't sharp at all.  We even reloaded Jane's frosting administrator.  The boys finished off the entire batch of cookies.  They loaded the cookies up with frosting and sprinkles.  They were in a sugar-induced coma on the way home! 

Jane loves to play with her dolls.  Today she was feeding her baby some goldfish crackers.  She would break off a tiny piece and put it on her mouth!  It is a lot of fun to see how different she is than the boys were with the dolls.  She mainly plays with this doll and one that is a bit smaller- they were the boy's dolls when they were little, but they never cuddled with them the way that she does! 

You can't see them really well in this picture, but she was wearing denim overalls today.  There is just something about toddlers in overalls that makes me so happy.  (Aaaaaaaugh!  I just referred to Jane as a toddler.  I mean, she is one, but it makes me so sad that she isn't a baby anymore.)

On Wednesday we went to Living Planet Aquarium.  I was smart this time and didn't bring the stroller.  Jane does better there being held or climbing around on the benches.  We loved watching the otters, but they weren't out for very long while we were there.  Our next favorite exhibit is the penguins.  I loved watching the penguins dive into the water and watch the trail of water bubbles that would follow them.  It was beautiful! 

Seth was excited that he is finally taller than the emperor penguin! He is such a sweet kid! 

We have one more week out of school and we hope to keep busy with a lot of fun things.  We had a small snow storm last night, but still not a good enough storm to go sledding at the park.  Does anyone know of a good place to go sledding that is free?  The boys are so anxious to go sledding!

Belt Test

All of the boys in our family are taking Tae Kwon Do.  It has made our evening schedule busier than ever, but it has been great.  On Friday night, Paul and Seth received their yellow belt and Daniel received his purple belt. Mark has his purple belt already, but isn't ready to advance quite yet.  (The belt order goes: white, yellow, purple, orange, green, blue, brown, red, black.) It was a long evening, but I really enjoyed watching the boys work so hard. 

Paul

Paul doing a roundhouse kick

Jane watching her brothers. 

Seth doing the frog leaps

Paul breaking a board

Seth breaking a board

The yellow belt recipients with Master Hong

Here is a video of  Daniel breaking three boards at one time.  Each board is about 3/4 inch thick. 



Daniel doing the Tae Kwan Do forms. 

Congratulations to Paul, Seth and Daniel for doing so well!  High-Ya! 

For Marianne (and anyone who is interested): We go to Family Tae Kwon Do in West Jordan.  Contact Master Hong 801.938.3849  Ask him about a free trial class and tell him that I referred you! 

Another Before and After with Jane

Jane loved playing with this snowman last year. 

It was so easy to get her to hold still for a picture last year.

When I tried to get a picture of her with it this year, she wasn't wanting to pose for me.

Then, I wouldn't let her play with the camera and see her picture.

She settled down, but still wasn't ready to smile.

Oh well, I tried! 

A Quarterly Wrap-Up

I don't know what my problem has been lately, but I have really struggled with updating my blog.  I check the blogs that I follow daily, but I haven't been able to get my mojo going with blogging.  Perhaps I should limit my time on Pinterest?  Then maybe I'd feel like I have something to blog about? Do you know what?  I just figured out my problem (well, some of it). I kind of got trapped in this idea that my blog was too boring and I didn't have interesting enough topics to write about.  I tried to put together some tutorials on projects I was doing, but it was hard, and my pictures were terrible.  Looking through a lot of blogs that have awesome projects and writing/storytelling started to intimidate me and make me feel badly about my own blog.  I actually like my family and I don't think that they are boring, but I started to compare myself to others, and that is never a way to win.  I started this blog to document my family and what we do, so I am going to stop trying to be like someone else and be me!

So, here is a round-up of what has been going on in my family since December! 

Seth, Jane, Mark and Paul at the Thanksgiving Point Light Festival

• The 24 Days of December countdown was great this year.  I simplified the process, which was nice.  For a while though, I thought that the boys didn't really care about the countdown and that it was a waste of our time to do it because they were really silly and sometimes uncooperative with the activities.  I had talked to Daniel about actually calling it quits, but the next morning during our weekly family meeting, I changed my mind.  We open our meeting with "Compliments".  Everyone gets a turn to compliment someone or everyone about something that happened that week.  Paul thanked me for putting the countdown together and told me that he was having a lot of fun with it!  I was so relieved to hear that!

• Daniel got sick the week before Christmas.  He had the flu and he was out for the count for a solid 10 days.  My family had a Christmas party and we had everyone coming, so we were doing pictures.  With one of my nephews leaving for a mission, it was the last chance for a while to have everyone together.  I feel rotten that I had to drag Daniel to the party just for the pictures, but he was a good sport about it.  I had to wake him up on Christmas morning to open presents.  After 2 weeks of being sick, he developed a sinus infection, so he went to the doctor.

• The physical therapy on my tailbone wasn't working, so I went into the doctor to get a steroid injection (not pleasant).  They numbed my tailbone area to do the injections and the ride home was the most pleasant, pain-free ride I had had for over a year.  That afternoon I was sitting on a chair at Tae Kwon Do ( Paul and Seth are taking it now) and the numbness wore off and my tailbone was hurting.  I sat there and cried- tears streaming, but no ugly face crying.  I was beyond frustrated.  The pain did ease, as my tailbone area was bruised from the injections, but the pain was only 50% gone.  In January I was sitting in bed reading and when I sat up, my tailbone popped, then it popped again when I moved again.  Since then my tailbone has not hurt.  It has been a big relief to have it feel better.  

 

• December 27 I started an Anti-Candida Diet.  My current diet (no wheat, dairy or fruit) was really close to the ACD, but I had to cut out starches (white rice, potatoes, corn) and sugars (cane, corn syrup, etc.).  I thought that I would really struggle without my daily chocolate fix, but I was pleasantly surprised that I didn't struggle much at all.  I had a day about 2 weeks in where I craved sugar, so I had a grapefruit and that quelched my craving!  I was amazed at how sweet a grapefruit tasted after not having anything sweet for 2 weeks!  I am about halfway through the 90 day phase.  I have added a limited amount of maple syrup into some recipes as the allowed sweetener, Stevia, is not something that I enjoy the taste of.  My digestive health has been great and I am pleased with the results.  After the 90 days, I can add different foods back in, but I will try to keep it to 80% of my foods on this diet and only 20% from the sugar/starch group. 

• New Years Eve 2012.  We had a little mustache party and lit sparklers in the yard.  We didn't do a lot, as Daniel was still feeling sick, but we had a great time (We don't stay up until midnight as a family because I don't enjoy dealing with tired kids the next day.)

Daniel celebrated his last birthday in the 30's.  Next year will be the big 40!

In January, I went to Paul's class (5th grade) and taught them all how to sew.  They got to pick out a red, white, and blue rectangle, and then sew two lines to make a square.  This project combined two subjects that they were studying- fractions and the roll that quilts played in the Civil War.  (I didn't know until a year or two ago that people who had safe houses for slaves would make quilts with certain patterns on them and hang them on their clothes line to indicate that they are a safe house.  Pretty cool, huh?) 

For the majority of the kids, this was their first time using a sewing maching.  They were very deliberate with their stitching and they did a great job!  I actually learned something by watching them sew- they would use the slowest speed my machine and I put a guide line down for them to follow and their lines were very straight.  I have been using a slower speed for some of my projects since then, and I have been much more accurate! 

The kids took turns sewing the quilt top together and then I quilted and bound it.  We walked over to the hospital that is next door to the school and we donated the quilt to the children's unit.  The kids got to tour the radiology department and it was really fun! 

I am very proud of this class for the work that they did.  We finished the quilt top in 4 sessions (about 1 1/2 hours each).  The finished quilt is 45x60

They made me a card to thank me for helping them.  Two comments from the boys made my day:
"Mrs. Taylor, Thanks 4 helping me learn to quilt.  I thought that sewing was just for girls and thanks to you, now I know that I am a girl!  J/K! It was really cool!"

"Mrs. Taylor, Thanks for teaching me how to sew.  I thought that it was for girls because my mom sews a lot, but it's not, so thanks a lot!" 

 

•  I had been saying for over a month that I needed to cut hair.  Everytime I mentioned a haircut, Paul would cringe and say that he didn't want me to touch his hair.  He has beautiful curls when his hair is long, but he needed it cleaned up a bit.  When I finally got around to cutting hair, he requested a buzz cut!  I double and triple checked with him to make sure that he understood what a buzz cut was and he was sure that that was what he wanted.  His curls were beautiful, so I was a bit hesitant, but I did it! 

 He looks so different!

•  I did a shave down the center and told him that he was done.  He wasn't too thrilled with the results.  Well, actually he loved it and wanted to keep it that way, but I told him that I wasn't done and it had to be finished.  He was rather bummed that I wouldn't let him go to school like that. 

• I signed up for an on-line sewing class.  The class is all about sewing curves.  Curves have always intimidated me, so I decided that this was my year to conquor the curves!  It is a 5-week class and each week has 3 projects that advance in skill week by week.  Thankfully I didn't struggle too much with the basic curves!  I made a bunting for Jane's window, a bib (no picture) and a pillow. 

Look closely at the pillow- I sewed 5 rows of scallops together to make this pattern. 

   

Baby Jaxon

Daniel's sister Deb had a baby boy on January 31st.  (Daniel and I both have a sister named Debbie- both are twins and born on the same year! They both live in Arizona, too!)  Deb and Chad moved to Arizona so that Chad could learn how to fix up motorcycles.  I found this fabric and thought that it was perfect for little baby Jaxon!  Congratulations Deb and Chad!

Quilt measures 40x40