Utah Visit

Yes, I know I haven't been very good at keeping up with the posts here. I think I've been on an especially lazy kick lately and with nothing really all that interesting to write about, it just hasn't been worth the effort. I really did want to write last week before we went down to Utah, but then I just got too busy to do it.

In case you don't know why we went to Utah last week, Bryce's Grandma blunt died. She was a great person and we'll miss her a lot. She was always happy, even despite the pain she was often in. She was always helping other people, even when she had enough to deal with on her own. What a great example.
Here's a picture of Grandma Blunt:

The funeral was really nice and it was good seeing family. We just wish it was for a happier occasion. If you'd like to read her obituarty, click here.

We did enjoy our trip in Utah. The boys all had a really good time playing with their cousins. They were ready to come home by the time we left, but the day after we got home, Chris was already saying he wanted to go back. We were glad that the weather was cooperative for our trip, especially on the drive there and back. We were even able to drive straight through without stopping on the way back, so we made really good time. The kids were definitely ready to get out of the van when we got home though.

And of course the trip wouldn't be complete without something happening, like at the end of this trip. When we pulled in the driveway, we both forgot we had the car top carrier on the top of the van and Bryce pulled into the garage. The scraping noise reminded us. It would have just dented in a bit and popped out again with no problem if he hadn't tried to back out of the garage. As it was, it ended up cracking both sides on the bottom section of the carrier. It's still usable though, so that's a good thing.

I should say again that I have really nice neighbors. They willingly took Ozzy for us while we were gone, keeping him at their house and letting him play with their dogs. Candice even taught my Sunday School lesson for me. When we picked Ozzy up, they kept saying how good he was and what a sweet dog he is and offered to take him for us again if we ever needed someone to watch him. I do feel a little bit worse for the dog with his hip problems since we've been back. The few days away have made me really notice how skinny and sad-looking he really is. It's really not going to be for too many more years before we'll have to put him down, possibly even by next year. He's just so young and already in so much pain. But we truly are blessed to have good neighbors.

So we enjoyed our trip, despite the unhappy circumstances. It was good seeing our families again and catching up with everyone. Hopefully our next trip down will be for a happier reason.

Ben's 2nd Quarter Report Card

Ben came home with his 2nd quarter report card today. He was pretty excited to have me look at it, even though he hadn't, so he didn't know what it said. He must just know that he's smart and gets good grades. I wonder if his getting excited for us to see his report card will change as he gets older. Hopefully it won't and he'll only get more excited for us to see how well he's doing.

Anyway, in basically everything he could improve a little, he did. He did go down a little in a couple of things though. His teacher basically sends two copies of the report card home. She sends her one where each subject is broken down a bit more to smaller parts and is where she gets the final grade. This was one of the spots where he went down a little bit. It was in "Listening attentively". He went from an S to an S- (They do their grades as E for Exceeds Standard - basically an A, I think, S as Satisfies Standard, I for Improving, and N for Needs Work.) So he's still doing okay in listening, but apparently needs more reminders than he did before.

I think Ben's teacher only gives out an E if she feels like they truly are exceeding the standard. She seemed to indicate as much at the last parent-teacher conference, at least from my view. Bryce might disagree. So anyway, Ben ended up with 3 E's, 2 S+'s, 2 S's, and one I. The last one was one where he went down a bit. It was in Music and he went from an S to an I and the music teacher left a comment that he needs to participate more in class. After going to his Christmas concert where he stood front and center and just stood there and didn't sing or anything and eventually just sat down there, I'm not really surprised. Ben says that Music is his least favorite subject. Kind of funny, since both his parents like to sing.

So for the most part, Ben is still doing really well in school. It was fun seeing where he's improving and getting better. And we know a couple of areas now where we can try to help him improve a bit more.

Keep up the good work, Ben!

Playing outside

My boys get really excited when we get snow and they can go out and play in it. Unfortunately for them (although not so sad for me), living where we do, the snow never really sticks around for long. So last night we decided to go out so they could play in the last little bit of snow that we have. They had a really good time and wanted to stay out longer than we did.

Here are some pictures I took of the fun:







And today Alex had his usual speech therapy appointment. The last couple of times, he has been stubborn and will stop talking for a bit. Today he did really well though. He did all of his g sounds perfectly, which he's never done before...he usually especially has a hard time with the ones that have an o sound after, like go or goat, but this time he did really well. He did very well on his other sounds as well. I'm thinking it's because I told him on the way to speech therapy that if he were good today and talked the whole time, we'd stop at the store on the way home and get some doughnuts and a cake. He was pretty happy choosing the doughnuts. :)

Alex's 5 year check-up

I took Alex today for his 5 year check-up with the doctor. His appointment was scheduled for 11:00 just like Daniel's 18 month appointment, so I wondered to myself if that would mean the doctor would end up seeing Alex at noon like he did with Daniel.

With the snow storm we got yesterday and this morning, my goal was to leave a little earlier than usual, but of course that didn't happen. And the roads really weren't good. They really made me miss snow plows. They did look a little better in the opposite direction I was going, but not by a lot. Despite the roads and my late start, I did manage to get to the office shortly after 11.

Of course there was a line waiting to check in. And with the new year, we were issued new insurance cards that have different numbers on them, so the receptionist had to enter in all the new information. And apparently our insurance cards confused her, since she had to go ask one of the other receptionists questions about it a couple of times. After she finally got all the information typed in, had us pay our co-pay, took Alex's picture, and gave us our receipt, we finally got to sit down in the waiting room. By then, there was only one other person sitting in the waiting room, and she didn't have a kid with her. I took out my phone to check the time. It was 11:24.

On the up side, we got to go back to the examination pretty quickly after that. The nurse weighed and measured Alex and took his blood pressure. He's 42 5/8" tall and weighs 44.8 pounds. They never did tell me where he falls in the percentiles with that. I'll have to look it up later.

Then we proceeded to wait for another half an hour before the doctor came in. I discovered when the doctor came in that I have a very silly child. Okay, I knew I did before, but I didn't necessarily know exactly how silly he can be sometimes. Dr. Aldous had Alex draw him a picture so he could see where his developmental skills were as far as that and told him to draw a picture of his mom. I was a little confused watching him draw, wondering what he was drawing, since it didn't look like his normal pictures of people. It wasn't until he drew lines going up at the top that I realized he was drawing the picture upside-down. After he drew the picture, he was asked to write his name. Which he also did upside down, since the picture was upside down and he wanted it to be in the same direction. Alex seems to be developing normally and is healthy. He's also very ticklish and had a hard time staying still when the doctor was trying to feel his stomach and other parts.

After the nurse came back in with a flu shot mist thing (yay, no shots for Alex today), we finally got to leave. Alex had to make sure he got his sucker though. It was after 12:30 when we did get to leave the doctor's office. And the roads were a bit better coming home than they were leaving.

practicing a song

Bryce and I are singing in Sacrament Meeting this Sunday. We were supposed to sing in November, but then our accompanist and I both got sick, so it got moved to this month. Sometimes when I have to do a solo or duet, I like to record me practicing it with my webcam just so I can kind of hear how it's going to sound. Sometimes it's a bit scary to do that. If I really don't sound good, will I really want to do it in front of the whole ward?

Anyway, I did that again this time. I really should make Bryce sing it with me while I do that, since I have one part in the song that's more of a descant, and it sounds better with the harmony part too, but I really doubt I'd be able to talk him into it. So if you want to, you're welcome to click play on the video below and see and hear my little practice video.

You really don't have to. Really. And it may be better for your ears if you don't. Just know if you do that the microphone on my webcam isn't the greatest and I'm definitely not a professional singer. Maybe this time will just make it so they don't ask me to do this again. :)




If you want to hear how it's really supposed to sound, go here. I love that Sally Deford lets people print off her music for free. I'm sure more people hear or use her arrangments because of it.