Family pictures

The day before we went to Utah for Thanksgiving, we finally got new family pictures taken. We went to a place by us that's called Portrait Innovations. It's a chain kind of like Kiddie Kandids, except the photographer holds the camera and they take a lot more pictures. Since our last family group picture was taken when Chris was about a year old, we really, really needed a new one. People were starting to think we were ashamed to have Daniel and Abby in our family.

Anyway, if you're anything like us, it's not easy to get a good family picture with 5 kids, especially as young as they are. Some of the pictures were quite humorous. And luckily for us, we have a nice cd of all the pictures they took so we can have them to remember.

Here are some of the pictures that were taken. I'm not going to label them. Some I put on just because they cracked me up. If you have any questions about any of them, just ask. :)

Alex

As most of you probably already know, last month Alex was chosen to be the student of the week for his class. He was pretty excited about it. He got a certificate with a pencil and some candy and I was invited to go eat lunch with him in the school cafeteria. We were all proud of him and excited for him too.

Anyway, his school has 10 virtues that they emphasize, like honesty, caring, discipline, perserverance, etc. When each student shows characteristics in themselves in each of the 10 virtues, the school gives them a t-shirt. Last week Alex told me he only had one more virtue to do, then he got a shirt. On Saturday as I was driving him to his soccer game, he told me that he had completed them all and would be getting his shirt the next time he was at school. So today when he got home, he opened up his backpack first thing and pulled out his new t-shirt to show me. And it didn't take long before he decided he wanted to wear it too, so he now has it on.

So good job Alex!

Bryce's birthday and Halloween

We had a fun time on Bryce's birthday this year. I made him his cake like he requested: choclate cake with a layer of pudding filling and chocolate ice cream filling and chocolate frosting. I also made him lasagna for dinner, even though it was his second choice, his first choice being Indian food. Since I don't make Indian food and we're not sure the kids would eat it, we went with the lasagna. It was pretty tasty. The boys were pretty excited to make Bryce find his present (Halo 3 ODST) by playing "hot or cold" with him. I think they were more excited about his present than he was.

Here are a few pictures of Bryce and the kids with Bryce's cake:

I laugh everytime I see this one, once I noticed Daniel's pants. Bryce had changed his diaper before this and told him to pull up his pants and that's as far as he did it.

Singing happy birthday:

Blowing out the candles:


And since I had Chris who had been asking every day in October if it was Halloween yet, I was pretty glad when Halloween finally arrived. So was he. The kids were all excited to be able to wear their costumes and go around trick-or-treating. Daniel once again didn't want to put his candy in his bag and just wanted to eat it all right then and there, but he loved going around to get it with his brothers.

Here are the kids in their costumes:

All the kids together:


Ben and Alex both had pretty similar costumes. Alex said they were Halloween Knights. I loved the play on words there, and he did it on purpose. Later he said they were just knights, but they were called anything from gladiators to warriors as we'd go to people's houses.




Here's Chris as a t-rex. He loved this costume so much that he wore it all Sunday morning before we had to go to church:


Here's Daniel the tiger. This costume has gotten a lot of use.


Here's Abby. She's a bee.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

So last night we had our first ever parent-teacher conferences with more than one kid. It's not really a lot different with more than one kid scheduled, you just go from one to another and are there a little longer.

Ben's was scheduled first, so we all headed to his classroom and waited outside for a couple of minutes while another student was finishing with hers. Ben's teacher offered to let the other kids draw on the dry erase board, which they thought was pretty darn cool. Anyway, Ben's teacher had mostly good things to say about him. Yes, he still has occasional problems, but they're normal for his age and he's usually pretty good. And she thinks they usually stem from him being bored with what they're learning. She talked about how he and one girl in his class are going to start doing the accelerated math stuff (which usually starts in the 3rd grade, but they get to do it now). She also talked about how advanced he is in reading. He tested at 147 correct words per minute in reading, which is well above the benchmark for his grade. I looked at his report card where they list the fluency benchmarks for all the grades and they had listed the benchmark for 5th grade in spring at 145. So Ben is doing pretty well, I'd say. As far as his grades go, he got all E's and one E+ (that's A's to you and me...E stands for "exceeds standard"). We were both really impressed with Ben's teacher and how much she's doing to try to make sure he's actually learning new stuff and able to do things on his level. She even said that she will let him stand to do his work if he needs to, and that she'll let him doodle while he's listening to her, since he seems to actually listen better when he's doing something like that.

After Ben's, we went over to Alex's room. His was actually a lot faster. She showed us how he's doing pretty well. She said he usually listens and is good in class and that sometimes she needs to remind him to keep him on track, but he's usually pretty good. She will be going on maternity leave here within the next couple of weeks since she's due on the 14th, but her student teacher (who I already knew because her daughter Molly was in Ben's kindergarten class and she went in and did some work with the kids sometimes) will be taking over while she's gone. Alex's teacher sent home some letter flash cards and a sheet to practice writing his name, so he can keep improving on those.

After those conferences were over, we went into the music room where the music teacher said they're both doing pretty well and participating, and then to the gym where the gym teacher said they're doing well. She did say that sometimes she'll be talking to Ben and he'll just kind of shut down (due to frustration usually) and other times he'll jabber away, but he's doing really well. And Alex is doing well too. After we left the gym, we went to the library where they were holding their book fair and bought 3 Goosebumps books for Ben to read (and he's already on Chapter 7 of one) and another Star Wars book for them to read.

It's always nice to go to the conferences and hear that the kids are doing well and not really having problems.

Abby's 6 month WCC

I took Abby to the doctor this morning for her 6 month well child check-up. It was your typical appointment with weighing and measuring, checking ears, eyes and other things, and 3 shots and an oral vaccination.

Abby now weighs 16 pounds, 12 ounces (a little above the 50th percentile) and she is 26-1/4 inches long (a little under 75th percentile). Her head is 16+ (I can't remember and am too lazy to go look it up) inches, so that's 30th percentile, which is higher than it was last time, so she's growing well.

She was funny and kept bouncing when the doctor came in like she wanted him to pay attention to her. She was happy the whole time, except for the shots, which she did not like at all.

I would have had her get a flu shot, but the office is already out of them. Of course, right? But they have been giving everyone papers on what to look for with the H1N1 virus. I was reading it while I was waiting for the doctor to come in. Of course, the first symptom was fever, but it had an asterix by it, so I looked down and read what it had to say about that, and it said, "It's important to remember that not everyone with the flu has a fever." So I immediately thought, "Oops." I had thought with all the hubub about the H1N1 virus that they always said something about a fever of 102 or higher with it. Some of us here have been kind of sick this week, with sore throats, headaches, stuffy noses, coughs, and fatigue. I just assumed it was just a cold, since none of us had fevers. Apparently it could have been the flu. Fun times.