Family Hiking Day

We packed up the kids and the dog on Saturday and went in search of some good hiking.  We ended up at Ha Ha Tonka State Park.  The kids weren't too thrilled about it, but we told them they'd go and like it.  Turns out they did!

 

And even better...I saturated us with bug spray and we didn't get a single nasty, disgusting tick on us!

 

If only this tree was in our yard...

Gracie found her seat and we've budging!  Silly puppy!

I was in control of Gracie so I didn't bring my big camera.  We've used Jaelyn's little camera and I can tell the difference.

Jaelyn is becoming quite the photographer...this shot was hers.  I love her perspective.  The next 3 pictures are hers with a little cropping from me.

 

 

Caden had fun exploring the "secret island."  It wasn't really secret, but we told him it was.  We thought we were on a path, but we ran into steps and a railing.  We were on the wrong side of the railing!  Oops!

 

Prayer Request - Dan's Grandma

We need prayers for Dan's grandma, Nana.  She's not doing well.  She's struggled in recent years.  She's had breast cancer.  It metasticized to a spot on her rib.  She did a low dose of chemotherapy for a year that killed the spot.  She's had problems with her red blood cells.  A bone marrow biopsy revealed she had a syndrome that is usually a precursor for leukemia.  She's been getting weekly shots to help her body make red blood cells and for the last year or more? has been getting monthly blood transfusions.  She's getting weaker and is needing blood more often.  They believe she might have leukemia now, but they won't be confirming with another painful hip biopsy.  Recently, she's been dealing with nausea and loss of appetite.  She's had weight loss.  She's sleeping a lot of the time now.  She says she's not having any pain though.  Would you please pray for her and for Dan's family?

The Taste of Fall - Cocoa

Cooler weather is here.  I'm sure it's not going to stay.  My grandmother always said, "there's one last cold snap before Easter."  Well, there's one last warm snap before Thanksgiving too.  Honestly, I hate cold weather.  I hate being cold.  I hate grey skies....so dreary and depressing.  I can still vividly remember the gray of winter in Germany and opening the curtains one morning to a blue sky.  It was so shocking to see blue again.

Anyway, this post isn't about the weather, it's about the food.  So far I've only made a pot of chili.  I'll have to find the recipe to share.  It's a Southern Living vegetarian black bean chili that I add ground beef and pinto beans to :).  I'm looking forward to more crockpots filled with soups.

My favorite thing about cool weather is a mug of hot chocolate.  I don't buy the cheap stuff.  For the last few years, I've bought Land-o-lakes specialty hot chocolates.  I haven't bought any this year because it's not good for me...too much sugar.  The other night, I wanted a cup so badly.  I went to my favorite recipe site and found this one.  It is sooo good that I won't go back to store bought hot chocolate.  It takes a few minutes.  I really have to want it to make it.  I'm hoping that'll help me to ration the sugar :).  Here are my tweaks on the all-recipes recipe for 1 mug of hot cocoa. 

Hot Cocoa

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp water
a pinch of salt
1 cup milk
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp half and half

Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

The Week

Time is going to fly this year, I guess.  I can't believe it's already Friday.  This is the first time all week I've sat down in front of the computer. 

Monday morning, I had a conference with Jae's two teachers.  Her main teacher is Mrs. A.  She has her for homeroom, reading, spelling, language arts and social studies.  Mr. K is the other fifth grade teacher.  She has him for math and science.  It was a good meeting.  It doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things why Jaelyn is like she is.  I'm sure a lot of her issues are related to possibly being exposed to things in-utero or spending 15 months in an orphanage.  That first year is so important with brain development.  Anyway, like I said it doesn't matter, but it does help to be more understand and help to have an overall picture of the child...which is why I really wanted to share Jaelyn's story with her teachers.  I think a lot of the behavior problems we were having was the constant sub in the room.  This week was a normal week and she has had good behavior all week!  Yay!  She's still talkative and has some focus issues.  We are tweaking her medicine dosage.  We'll give it a couple weeks and see if it helps.  As far as school work, she's brought home many graded assignments and I haven't seen anything lower than an 85 which is a B here.  She's also doing her homework more independently.  That in itself is a big stress remover for me.

I ended up at the doctor's office on Tuesday.  I hurt my neck way back in 2003 for the first time.  Since then, I've tweaked the same spot over and over.  Sometimes, I know exactly what I did, sometimes, like Sunday, I have no idea.  I'm fine in the morning, but by the end of the day, I can't turn my head.  It's happening more and more.  Ms. B (my FNP) thinks I have arthritis in my neck.  She ordered x-rays and gave me a different muscle relaxer.  Flexerall doesn't seem to help.  Since I was there, I mentioned my hip flexor that has been bothering me since Spring.  That should have healed by now.  We did x-rays of it too.  I have physical therapy appointments for both in two weeks.  I'm about to hit 40 and I guess it's time for me to start breaking. 

I think I've worked out my volunteer times at school.  All the teachers are going to use me in reading groups.  I really enjoyed my reading groups last year so I'm looking forward to it!  I'll be at school pretty much all day Wednesdays and Thursdays.  I feel really blessed that at this time in our lives I can be so involved with the kids.  I'm in school, I know their teacher and friends.  It's a good thing and I'm taking full advantage while they still want me there and we can afford for me to be there. 

Our extracurricular activities are going well.  Dan takes the kids to karate.  They went 4 days this week.  Allie has decided she doesn't want to quit.  We are going to give her a little bit longer and if she continues to want to participate, we'll let her test for her green belt.  They love weapons training.  Next Thursday, they are having a fun night...a board breaking pizza party. 

I can see weekly gains in Jaelyn's gymnastics.  She was born to be a gymnast.  She's getting more control, her legs are straighter, her toes are pointed harder.  She was doing round offs off the high balance beam last night without a spot.  Everyone else needed Coach to help.  I keep telling her if she keeps working hard, I can envision her being good enough to compete one day.  I see Jaelyn frustrated in so many things that are hard for her.  I'm glad she's found something she can be good at.  It's a confidence booster.

Allie LOVES her cheer and tumble class.  I was never a cheerleader; so maybe I don't get it, but it's great to see the joy and happiness come out of her like it does.  She actually listens and focuses even though it's in the evenings when her ADHD medicine has worn off.

I think Dan's knee is mostly healed.  I don't know if he's jogging on it, but he's doing other exercising on it and says it doesn't hurt anymore.  I tell you what, falling down a mountain can be dangerous to your health.  I'm still thankful it was his knee he hit and not his head!

School and Things

We are almost done with our second week of school.  Is it Christmas break yet?  Seriously!  This might turn into a tough year.  It started off so well too. 

Jaelyn is being a toot.  In 7 days of school, she's brought home 3 "think sheets."  Two for talking and the third was for saying something after the teacher specifically told her not to say it again.  Blatant disrespect as far as I'm concerned. Losing her electronics for two days hasn't worked.  We are adding time-out in room, loss of after school activities and sentences.  I know that last one is a little outdated, but it's worked for decades.  It's worth a try.  On a work front, she's actually doing well so far.  She's doing homework independently which is a HUGE thing.  She doesn't like that she is required to read for 30 minutes every night, but she has dealt with it okay.  We both like her teachers.  Ms. A told me she "has a poor work ethic" - ugh, but it was the perfect way to open up a conversation about her history and struggles in school.  Mr. K is very understanding of the ADHD (dealt with it with his own children).  I'm going to give them a few more weeks to get to know her and for her to settle down and then we'll be filling out a questionaire for the doc and hoping for a possible dosage increase on her medicine.

Allie is doing really well, I think.  She hasn't had a lot of homework yet, and there are no grades in powerschool.  I chatted with her teacher today.  She didn't mention any problems; so I'm going with "no news is good news."

Caden likes his class.  Thankfully 8 kids didn't show up, so his class only has 21 2nd graders.  I volunteered for the first time today in his class.  I got hugs from all his friends last year.  They were excited to see me. I love working in the school.  His teacher was doing reading placement testing while I was there.  Caden tested at a 3rd grade 2nd month level.  Go Caden!

I'm ready to get my times set up and start my literacy groups in the girls' classrooms.  Caden's teacher wants me to work with a new ESL student from Russia (kind of cool - maybe he can teach me a few words).  It's good to get back to our routine, but it's kind of exhausting too.

The kids start nunchaku, as Dan called it, training in Karate tonight...I'll get Dan to take some video.  Can you imagine 6 or 7 kids swinging around nunchucks.  What could go wrong?!?!?!

It's Her Birthday

Today is Gracie's 1st birthday and she's ready to celebrate with...a bath :).  I can't believe I don't even mind a little stinky dog these days. 

 

She can be a turkey sometimes and I'm not sure how Zac feels about her, but we sure love her.  She's a sweet dog.

 

Zac's Been Sick

 

I'm a bad kitty Mommy.  Zac had a urinary tract infection and I didn't notice it until he was really sick.  A UTI can kill male cats quickly.  After a trip to the emergency animal hospital in Springfield for antibiotics in the middle of the night (Yea Dan my hero), Zac is doing much better.  Poor kitty.

Scattered Pictures

Here are some random pictures I've taken over the last few weeks.

 

Just about everything in our yard is dead, but 
there's one rose bush (that I planted) that is thriving somehow.
 It's covered in pretty pink roses.



I find Gracie stretched out near Zac more and more.
I'm so happy to be moving a little bit out of puppy stage.



Our last afternoon at the pool.



We had thunderstorms the other day.  I have never seen clouds like this. 
They are called mammatus clouds.  It was like being under a giant bag of cottonballs.

Our indoor pool closed...but yea, they made the repair quickly and it's reopened. 
The water was so perfect last weekend.  We went twice on Saturday.

Dan's Imaginative Play

Dan and I play so differently with the kids.  Last weekend, everyone was B-O-R-E-D.  Dan gave them bags and told them each to go find potion ingredients in the backyard.  They came back with all sorts of things.  He had them write out a recipe for their potions and then helped them make them.  Allie was first up with an immobility potion.  She was very creative with her ingredient list.

Dan helped her cook it up on the stove.

 

 

 

And then Jaelyn agreed to be the test subject.

Allie might need to refine her potion a little.

 

Caden and Jaelyn were next.  Jaelyn made a love potion.  I'm not sure what Caden's potion was supposed to do.

 

There were a lot of kitchen skills in their play time.  They chopped and diced.

Caden even had to crush a few things before cooking up his mixture.

 

 

Allie agreed to be Jaelyn's test subject, but as far as I know, Allie doesn't love any boys and no boys love her...although, now that I think about it, there in one boy this is driving her crazy this week.  Maybe Jaelyn's potion really did work after all!

 

The Stress of Army Life

With Dan's new job, they plan assignments 1-2 years out.  For instance, we know we are leaving here next summer to move to Washington, DC so Dan can go to school and get his masters.  We were told we'd get the follow-on list (summer 2014) in February.  We got it Thursday!  We aren't super thrilled about anywhere on the list.  Our choices are back to Aberdeen Proving Ground (my top pick, Dan says NO WAY, he has had enough of that command), Ft. Belvoir or Bolling Air Force Base in DC (traffic, commuting yuck), Charlottesville, VA (there's no base there, it's an intelligence job so we'd be away from our normal military support, not to mention the commissary and exchange) and Kirtland Air Force Base in Albequerque, NM (so far from home and totally difference from anywhere we've ever lived).  We are in the researching stage.  Dan will turn in his list early next week and then maybe by October or November we'll know where we are moving in about 20 months.  Would you keep us in your prayers?  Ultimately, God's got it all planned out.  We'll move where we are supposed to move; I just hate this portion of the process (along with the good-byes, packing, unpacking and starting over)!

***Update***

Dan turned in his list

1&2 Charlottesville, VA jobs. 
3 Kirtland AFB Albequerque, NM
4 Ft. Meade between DC and Baltimore
5 Aberdeen Proving Ground MD

We'll find out in November...torture as we wait.

The End of the First Day

I thought I'd celebrate the end of the first week of school with the pictures from the end of the first day of school (I am really trying hard to catch up...there aren't enough hours, even with the kids in school).  Anyway, they all had a great first day - and week!

 

Allie was the first one out.  She ran to me with her arms outstretched.  What Mommy doesn't love that?!?!

 

Caden started to run and then realized I was taking his pictures.  He hammed it up, but he was still happy to see me.

 

Jaelyn is Jaelyn...she doesn't make scenes outside of our house.  There's no way she'd run to me or scream my name in excitement.  She slowly walked to me and only looked at me when I asked her to.  Crazy girl!

 

 

The true test will be to see if there are smiles and goofy faces at the end of next week after "real school" has begun!

THE TANTRUM

You might think this entry is going to be about Jaelyn, but surprise, it's not.  Jaelyn has perfected the art of the tantrum; although we've all been working really hard at keeping her cool.  We've gotten Jaelyn stabilized on a medicine that is helping her ADHD, which in turn is helping the "intermittent explosive disorder."  Now that school is starting, I'm watching my little volcano closely to see how she deals with school pressure and anxiety...

Anyway, this entry is about Allie, who apparently has been studying at the feet of the tantrum master.  One late afternoon, I told the girls they could play with our neighbor after they got their rooms cleaned and vacuumed.  They'd been playing in Allie's room all morning so it was a mess.  Jae helped clean a little and then told Allie she was going to get the vacuum.  Allie thought Jaelyn was going to vacuum up all her toys and flipped out.  And I mean totally wacko...she was screaming at Jaelyn to get out of her room and stomping or maybe pounded her fists on the floor.  I didn't know, I just knew it was loud.  When I went in to talk to Allie, she continued to scream and pitch a fit.  I warned Allie that her tantrum would have consequences (ie the toys she didn't pick up would be removed from her room).  She told me I "am the worse Mommy every" and that she "wished I wasn't her mommy."  I picked up a toy and got Allie's beloved Justin Beiber book thrown at my head.  She was totally out of control at this point, but it was so over the top dramatic.  I tried to hold it in, I really did, but I couldn't.  I started laughing.  It was funny.  That didn't go over well with Allie as you can imagine.  Two shoes sailed past my head followed by two pillows.  I had to finally hold her arms down to keep her from hitting me while she calmed down. 

I don't know what's gotten into her, but she's been horrible for several weeks now.  Her normal sassy, emotional self has kicked into over-drive.  I'm afraid hormones are starting to kick in...I am not looking forward to the next 10 years!

Two Wheels for Two Wheels

Summer 2011, Caden learned to ride a bike without his training wheels, but it didn't stick.  He has absolutely refused to ride his bike without the training wheels since then.  Santa even left him a new big kid Spiderman bike.  Caden immediately asked "where are the training wheels?"  I had to send Santa an email to leave them under our Christmas tree while we were in Florida.  Geesh.

Well, the other day, Dan took Caden and Jaelyn to the park.  Caden didn't want to ride his baby 3 wheeled scooter; so he rode Allie's razor.  He came home begging for one.  Being one to never pass up an opportunity, I made a deal with him.  When he could ride his bike with two wheels, I would buy him a razor with two wheels.

It was windy, sorry for the loud wind in your speakers.

 

In less than a week...I think it's time to pay the piper!

Silver Dollar City...Take II

After our Friday at Silver Dollar City, we had planned to go camping at Johnson's Shut-ins.  The shut-ins were totally booked up.  No camping.  Instead, Dan wanted to go to SDC with us on his Monday vacation day.  The park was EMPTY.  We didn't wait in a single in.  We walked onto every ride and in some cases, got to stay on the ride to ride again.

 

We started the day at the Wildfire. I didn't let Allie ride it on Friday since no one else could.  Jaelyn was hoping to ditch her yellow band in favor of a new 52" pink band that would give her all access.  No such luck.  She measured in at 51 5/8"...so close, but soooo far away! 

 



We are mad because we didn't get to ride the Wildfire.

Well, maybe I did :).  It's the first - and the last - time I ride in the front row.  So crazy scary, but also crazy fun.

 


Caden loves the giant barn swing.  This is one of the ride he was waiting to ride.

Seriously, who doesn't love the carousel?

 

It was hot that day.  We normally bypass the shows for the rides, but we needed some air conditioning.  We went to the saloon show.  It had us all laughing and Allie LOVED the can-can girls.  I wouldn't be surprised to catch Allie practicing her high kicks in her room.

 

Dan said he'd ride the water rides with the kids.  I brought my raincoat with me just encase I got a crazy hair and decided to ride too.  It's a good thing because Dan didn't bring a change of clothes which left only little ole me to ride with them.  They ended up soaking wet, but other than my bottom and some damp socks, I was okay.  We rode the log flume twice.

 

I got in trouble on the lazy river for putting my feet up.  I was bad and as soon as we turned the corner, they were back up.

 

 

I was sad we didn't get to go camping, but it was a fun family day and a great way to end our summer!

 

Kicking High and Seeing Green

We are back into our normal routine around here.  Caden and Jaelyn are working hard in karate.  Allie has decided it's too hard.  She seems to enjoy it when she's there, but she complains and cries when she's getting ready to go and when she gets in the car to come home.  She will be stopping the end of October just as soon as our contract allows her to.

 

I think catching their expressions during practice is interesting.  Caden is so serious...he might need to open his eyes though so he can see where he's kicking.  Pretty good leg extension, huh?

 

Check out Jaelyn's little smirk.  She is actually starting to enjoy karate.  I thought she'd be the one to stop first while Allie and Caden kept going.  I'm proud of her.  She's still quiet and timid is her voice, but her kicks and hits are getting harder.

 

Silly Allie is loud, but she's not kicking or hitting very hard and she's all laughy and smiley (are those words?).  I think she's really going to enjoy her cheer and tumble class that starts on Friday.

 

Because Allie is stopping, we only let Jaelyn and Caden test.  They skipped their yellow belt, green stripe and when straight to a green belt.  Way to go!

 

 

There have been a few nights where Caden has been the only child.  Shehon has been teaching him extra stuff and he loves it!

 

 

 

 

Dan just informed me last night we have to buy nun-chucks (do I come close to spelling that right???).  I'm not so sure about this...

It's the First Day