Good Indications

Another quick note. Julie spoke to the doctor's office today and they had received Court's EEG. They told us that everything looks normal, so good news. We have a follow up with our pediatrician on Thursday, but it looks like this might have been a one time occurrence. Yeah for good news!

Morning Update

So I woke Courty up at 3:30. Well to be more accurate she had set her alarm and had her clock in bed with her. She woke up great and we headed out for Krispy Kreme. Well they don't open until 5:30 and it was only 4 so we headed down the road to Haggen. We got to see the baker working on the doughnuts. I have to say I was pretty impressed. They only had the left over ones but they were still great. So only another two hours to go until the appointment. Pete is playing WII with her now and she already has her things with her that she's taking to the hospital.

Court

We would like to quickly thank everyone for their kind thoughts and deeds in response to Courtney's seizure. She is doing great and is worried that "people are making big deal about it". We are going in tomorrow for some more tests. She can only sleep for 4 hrs tonight in preparation for the EEG, so if anyone wants to play some MarioKart at 3:30AM, come on over.

Spring Break

We started off our Spring break by getting our zoo membership renewed. Saturday was a fantastic day for seeing the animals. They made a good showing. We had fun having Pete with us but I unfortunately forgot the camera.

Sunday Connor, Pete, and I all spoke in Sacrament meeting. Connor was amazing! His talk lasted at least 10 minutes. He engaged the audience, spoke without hesitation and was involved from the get go with his talk. When he was proof reading it, Pete had used the word kid and Connor asked him to replace it with child. He's so funny sometimes. We were very proud of him. I managed to talk with out the butterflies in my stomach for once and didn't leave Pete much time to talk. I always enjoy hearing him talk.

Monday I corralled up the kids for another adventure to the zoo. This time we went with Lisa and her kids and I remembered the camera!!I couldn't get them to hold still but I still like the picture.I took a bunch of photos here because we don't usually see or feed the Lorakeets. That's because I don't want to go there. The kids had a good time though.When we got home from the zoo Court and her friend had a fashion show. It was a good day. We got outside without getting rained on and then the kids got to play with their friends.

Tuesday Connor was gone for the afternoon so the girls and I watched a "chick flick" (Pollyanna), had popcorn and I painted their toenails.It's been awhile since I've done their toenails so I think they liked it.

Some UFO sightings!

I actually got an "un-finnished object" done. It was the FHE assignment board our ward did I think three years ago. I love having it up and done not to mention being taken off my to do list!The other thing I've been working on is taking better pictures. Here are a few of my favorites.

Courtney's hands.Mallory at ballet.

Some nature shots.

Connor's Spring Band Festival and a busy day

We had a crazy day on Tuesday. We had finally set up time to take Connor out for dinner for his 12th birthday, and then last week, Connor brought home a flier for a multi-elementary school band. Well, it took us so long to set up the time to take Connor out that we figured we could just do it before the concert and be fine. And then the day came.....

I wasn't feeling very good, but I knew I had a busy day. It was a crazy morning trying to fit in getting to the library, filling up the car and getting to Costco before a hair appointment at 10:30 (unfortunately, the library and Costco don't open until 10). In the afternoon, I had the normal running of Connor to and from piano and the girls to and from achievement days. I got home just in time to tidy up and make dinner for the girls.

Pete got home at 5, just before Andy and family arrived to take care of the girls. We took off and enjoyed a great steak dinner. Connor is definitely a meat lover, he scarfed down his New York Strip. It took us a little longer than we expected and we were suddenly behind schedule. We were about 5 minutes late to the school. I dropped Connor and Pete off at the high school and dashed home to pick up the girls. There was a key mix up so Andy, Grace and Clark joined us at the concert. We arrived just in time for the performance.

Clark enjoyed the music alot!

The performance was pretty neat. They had a 6th grade band, then the 7th and 8th grade bands and then the high school band all there to perform. We had a good time. So did Connor.....

Connor was fun to watch during the concert...

After the concert ended, I had to quickly drop Pete off at the house for him to run to a basketball game (they lost) and drop Andy and the kids off at their house. When I finally got home, the bedtime routine started. Finally, I was able to sit down and rest (and watch Roman Holiday). I didn't get my husband back until 11:30 because of work meetings. It is days like this that make us appreciate those lazy Saturdays.

Mallory's fieldtrip

Mallory's class went to the Audubon Society. I had never been before and learned some fun new things. Mallory's class went inside first to learn about birds. Yes, that is a dead bird in the tube.

We went outside to have lunch.

Afterwards we separated into three smaller groups and went for a hike to try to see birds and other animals.

The kids held hands to see how big this Fir tree was.

This is a fir cone. You can always tell it's a fir cone because it looks like the bottom half of a lot of mice trying to get inside the cone.



We had a fun day and were very lucky to have had the sunshine with us all day!

Courtney's Fieldtrip

I got to go with Courtney on her fieldtrip to Winningstad theater downtown. The fourth graders read the book Honus and Me and then got to see the play. Here's a look at the theater...
This is a picture of a dog Courtney was showing me but the theater we were in is the building in the shot.We had fun taking pictures of ourselves on the bus. We liked this one.

We sat in the back of the bus. This is the view we had.

I had a great time with Courtney and I really enjoyed the play too!

After School Activities

Tonight was the science fair. The only other time one of the kids participated was Courtney in 2nd grade. This year we knew that Connor would be completing a project. At Tobias, 6th graders are required to submit a project and all others are encouraged. What we didn't know was that Courtney's teacher would be requiring her class to participate. So about a month ago, Connor and Court each picked out projects. Courtney decided to test which liquid would help plants grow the best and Connor wanted to test magnetic fields. Luckily for both we had help.

We didn't know which plant would grow fastest, so Julie called up our friend Rachel who let us know that carrot seeds would be one of the fastest to show growth. Thank you Rachel.

Courtney's hypothesis was right on. Water worked better than milk and apple juice.

Connor wanted to test how different materials would impact a magnetic field.

We had put together a plan to test the magnets power by trying to pull nails being obstructed by different materials. We lucked out again as a friend worked at a testing company and let us borrow a magnetic field tester. We were able to simply put the magnets into different boxes (cardboard, glass, metal, etc) and wave the tester wand over the magnets and download the data into my laptop. Not only did it make the tests smoother and more uniform, but the test software package charted some great graphs that Connor was able to put right on his display board. Connor also did the majority of the display board at school by himself, so in my view, this was by far the best science fair project ever.

And even though the science fair is over, we have to hold onto the display boards for 3 weeks in case either of them have to go to the district fair. Hopefully they will last if needed.

Right after the science fair ended, Connor had his last basketball game. Although he's missed a few games this year with sickness and CHOMP conflicts, he had a good season. He's a tough defender and has really improved working through screens this year. As you can see from the pictures, his team was a little undersized this year, but they still managed to win about half their games.

The kids certainly keep us busy. Between piano, trumpet, basketball, ballet, swing dance, scouts, and activity days, there seems to always be something going. Tomorrow Connor gets his first three merit badges at the court of honor. Like I said, there's always something.

Let them eat cake

I felt I needed to pay penance for some joking around I did. We had some friends whose daughter was celebrating her birthday. The father had told me in passing that they had picked up a particularly delicious cake. I joked that I needed to pass by and grab myself a piece. Later on that evening, we had some other friends over for dinner and found out that they were going over to the first friend's house after dinner.

Now, I have a bad habit of teasing little kids to get their goat. I spent the next couple hours teasing our friend's daughter, telling her that she needed to get me a piece of cake. She would refute me and I would egg her on. Julie tried to get me to stop, but really, is that possible? Come on. I barely have the maturity level of a 5 year old.

After they left, Julie said that I laid it on pretty thick. I shook my head. "Nah," I said, "they knew I was kidding." A few hours later, the door bell rang. Julie answered the door and all I heard was, "Oh my gosh. PETE!" It was at this point I knew I had gone too far. The birthday girl's dad had shown up with some cake. I could only laugh. I guess I need to (1) take it easy on the joking around and (2) listen to Juls a little more.

And yes, the cake was DELICIOUS. :)