Levi has been working on crawling for a month or so. This week he finally figured out how to go from his tummy to a sitting up position and within 3 days he was really crawling. Sometimes he does a face-plant, but most of the time he can crawl a few feet, then sits up. He's already starting to try to pull himself up on people's legs or on the couch. Unsucessful so far, but it's only a matter of time. We lowered his crib mattress, because he has been trying to stand up in his crib. He's also beginning to be interested in clapping his hands and waving hello/goodbye. Probably in another month or so.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
May Events
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| Levi, wearing shorts for the first time! |
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| Lauren stayed home from school on Friday so she could go to Landon's classroom and help out. Her class was going on a field trip to see Japanese anime movies. Boring! |
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| These two are best buddies. |
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| Dad loves to see us when we come visit him during the day. The kids all surround Levi and talk to him at once. He has a perpetual "what the heck is going on" face when we're at Kennedy. |
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| Daddy and his boy. |
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| For teacher appreciation week, one of the moms made a really cool DVD for Landon and surprised him with it, along with a fun gift basket with movie treats in it. She invited me to come watch the presentation. |
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| Landon will probably miss this kind of thing when he's a principal. As a principal he'll get to influence even more kids' lives though! Lucky kids. |
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| These two are always soooo tired!! |
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| It's fun that this event made the local newspaper! |
Monday, May 6, 2013
10 Year Relection
Evidently this blog has turned into our family journal. If you're not interested in posts like the following...just move along.
Landon was offered and accepted the job of principal at Burton Elementary for the 2013-2014 school year. We're so happy! It's a school with 3 classes in each grade, K-4. There is a pre-school for developmentally delayed children, plus an extensive special services classroom. It's a challenging school for a new principal, but if anyone is up to the challenge, it's Mr. LeFevre.
10 years ago next month our lives turned upside down when Landon was laid off from his job at Staffing Solutions in Salt Lake. We endured the trial of our lives as we experienced 11 months of unemployment, followed by several months of under-employment. It was definitely a life-changing experience to struggle financially to that extent. Throughout it all we were blessed with help from neighbors, friends and family. Making the decision to sell everything and start over in Rexburg so Landon could get his degree took a lot of faith, but we knew it was the right decision. As soon as we stopped fighting with the idea that living in our house in Sandy and living the standard of living we had been used to was the only option, everything fell into place. Landon went to school full-time, and between financial aid, loans and my on-campus job we were able to support our family, not needing to compromise our priority of keeping the girls out of daycare and providing a nurturing home life for them.
10 years later, Landon has not only his bachelor's degree, but also his master's degree, has taught school and built a stellar reputation in our community for the past 6 years. We've endured continuing financial struggles, but not the lack of stability we had known the first 10 years of our marriage. Our priorities continue to be our marriage, our kids, and our home life. We have so much love and fun at home and no amount of financial or professional frustrations can rock that foundation.
Emma used to ask me relentlessly, "Mom, where am I going to grow up?" When we moved to Idaho, I kept hoping this wasn't the place she'd find the answer, but I guess after all this time in Rexburg, I am finally accepting the fact that we're actually staying here and this is where our kids are going to (finish) growing up.
A quick assessment of what the kids are like right now (according to their mom):
Emma has lots of friends, loves ballroom, yearbook, reading, writing, baking, cooking, gardening, texting, fashion, pop culture, and understanding current events. She is committed to finishing Personal Progress, has a growing testimony, is curious, very obedient, and very perceptive. She loves spending time with her family and is the first to jump up and help any of us who seems stressed out at the moment.
Lauren has lots of friends, loves ballroom, playing her clarinet, playing games, being the life of the party, laughing, making others laugh, riding her bike, babysitting, and taking care of Levi. She has an amazing memory, is extremely quick to pick up on complicated concepts, gets frustrated when something doesn't come easily to her, is compassionate, empathetic, affectionate and really funny.
Levi is adorable, sweet, gives kisses, makes all kinds of noises with his mouth, is trying to crawl, loves his mom, dad, and sisters (in that order), hates solid food but tries to grab it every chance he gets, wiggly, loud, kinda rough, and loves to put everything in his mouth. He is curious and enjoys new experiences. He has a very sensitive stomach like his dad. He isn't a great sleeper yet, but his dad and I don't mind that he likes sleeping with us at least a couple hours every night. He's well on his way to being a spoiled kid, but in fairness to him, his sisters were just as spoiled as he is at this age.
Landon was offered and accepted the job of principal at Burton Elementary for the 2013-2014 school year. We're so happy! It's a school with 3 classes in each grade, K-4. There is a pre-school for developmentally delayed children, plus an extensive special services classroom. It's a challenging school for a new principal, but if anyone is up to the challenge, it's Mr. LeFevre.
10 years ago next month our lives turned upside down when Landon was laid off from his job at Staffing Solutions in Salt Lake. We endured the trial of our lives as we experienced 11 months of unemployment, followed by several months of under-employment. It was definitely a life-changing experience to struggle financially to that extent. Throughout it all we were blessed with help from neighbors, friends and family. Making the decision to sell everything and start over in Rexburg so Landon could get his degree took a lot of faith, but we knew it was the right decision. As soon as we stopped fighting with the idea that living in our house in Sandy and living the standard of living we had been used to was the only option, everything fell into place. Landon went to school full-time, and between financial aid, loans and my on-campus job we were able to support our family, not needing to compromise our priority of keeping the girls out of daycare and providing a nurturing home life for them.
10 years later, Landon has not only his bachelor's degree, but also his master's degree, has taught school and built a stellar reputation in our community for the past 6 years. We've endured continuing financial struggles, but not the lack of stability we had known the first 10 years of our marriage. Our priorities continue to be our marriage, our kids, and our home life. We have so much love and fun at home and no amount of financial or professional frustrations can rock that foundation.
Emma used to ask me relentlessly, "Mom, where am I going to grow up?" When we moved to Idaho, I kept hoping this wasn't the place she'd find the answer, but I guess after all this time in Rexburg, I am finally accepting the fact that we're actually staying here and this is where our kids are going to (finish) growing up.
A quick assessment of what the kids are like right now (according to their mom):
Emma has lots of friends, loves ballroom, yearbook, reading, writing, baking, cooking, gardening, texting, fashion, pop culture, and understanding current events. She is committed to finishing Personal Progress, has a growing testimony, is curious, very obedient, and very perceptive. She loves spending time with her family and is the first to jump up and help any of us who seems stressed out at the moment.
Lauren has lots of friends, loves ballroom, playing her clarinet, playing games, being the life of the party, laughing, making others laugh, riding her bike, babysitting, and taking care of Levi. She has an amazing memory, is extremely quick to pick up on complicated concepts, gets frustrated when something doesn't come easily to her, is compassionate, empathetic, affectionate and really funny.
Levi is adorable, sweet, gives kisses, makes all kinds of noises with his mouth, is trying to crawl, loves his mom, dad, and sisters (in that order), hates solid food but tries to grab it every chance he gets, wiggly, loud, kinda rough, and loves to put everything in his mouth. He is curious and enjoys new experiences. He has a very sensitive stomach like his dad. He isn't a great sleeper yet, but his dad and I don't mind that he likes sleeping with us at least a couple hours every night. He's well on his way to being a spoiled kid, but in fairness to him, his sisters were just as spoiled as he is at this age.
IBA Final Concert, 2013
Saturday was the last concert of the year for ballroom! I'm always so happy when it's over for another year. Saturday was a 12 hour day for the girls to be over at the high school for practice, dress rehearsal, and 2 LONG shows. It's such a great activity for the girls to participate in, but it's so time-consuming, exhausting, and expensive throughout the year. Lots of early mornings, make-up and hair doing, sore feet, uncomfortable costumes and stress. They love it though. Hundreds of kids in the community participate, so I'm happy they get to do it too.
Hopefully Levi will take an interest in sports, because there's no chance in you-know-where that we'd encourage him to dance. Crossing our fingers for a rough, tough, athletic or outdoorsy-type of kid.
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| Emma, in her Chim Chimeree costume. |
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| Lauren, in her Hot Hot Hot costume. (Poor girl wearing a bra in the background!) |
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| Emma, messing around with her friends. |
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| Lauren in her Whole New World costume. |
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| Lauren got a haircut! Cute, huh? She hates long hair and was so happy when they were told no bun required for the concert. We went right out and got her hair cut. I'm sure it will grow out enough for next year's ballroom. |
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| Pre-teen Black Team |
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| Junior 8th grade Black Team |
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| Emma's costume for the combined 8th grade performance, Beach Bash. |
Thursday, May 2, 2013
The Kidney Stone Saga
Sunday, April 14th, Lauren started crying because her back hurt. We were just getting dinner ready and Landon and I told her to quit crying and being so dramatic. We sat down to eat and she stayed in the living room crying. Landon asked her if she was familiar with the boy who cried wolf story. Eventually she threw up and we started taking her more seriously. Landon took her to Community Care, where she threw up again. They realized she was dehydrated, tested her blood, found out it had an elevated white blood cell count indicating an infection of some kind, and sent them to the hospital. Levi and I met them at the hospital. Lauren kept throwing up and crying because of her back. They drew more blood, gave her an IV with fluids, anti-nausea medication and pain medication. They did an X-ray, then they eventually catheterized her and tested her urine (she couldn't make herself go pee). It had blood in it. They did an ultra-sound, then a CT scan and found that she had a kidney stone about 4 mm that had almost completely passed into her bladder by that time. Her right kidney was swollen, as was her ureter from the blockage that the stone was causing. They sent us home with pee-straining equipment and pain meds. By the time we got home, she wasn't in any more pain and just slept the rest of the night. She stayed home from school for two more days, but we never did see the stone. She never felt pain again after we left the hospital, which probably meant she had passed the stone into her bladder.
I took her for a follow-up ultrasound the next week. The ultrasound showed a limited flow to her bladder from the right kidney as well as lots of little stones in that right kidney. We were sent to a urologist later in the week. He kind of blew us off. He said that since she's not in any pain, she's probably just fine. We went back to Dr. Jones, our family doctor, who gave me more information and answered questions that the urologist didn't seem to have time for. At this point, we just wait and see if Lauren develops more pain, indicating she's passing more stones. We're assuming the stone in her ureter has passed, that the flow of fluid was limited because the ureter was probably swollen, and that she'll be OK.
Weird experience for a 12 year old girl to have, but the lesson learned here is that she needs to drink A LOT more water. Dehydration, combined with a family history, is probably what caused this to happen.
Fun times.
I took her for a follow-up ultrasound the next week. The ultrasound showed a limited flow to her bladder from the right kidney as well as lots of little stones in that right kidney. We were sent to a urologist later in the week. He kind of blew us off. He said that since she's not in any pain, she's probably just fine. We went back to Dr. Jones, our family doctor, who gave me more information and answered questions that the urologist didn't seem to have time for. At this point, we just wait and see if Lauren develops more pain, indicating she's passing more stones. We're assuming the stone in her ureter has passed, that the flow of fluid was limited because the ureter was probably swollen, and that she'll be OK.
Weird experience for a 12 year old girl to have, but the lesson learned here is that she needs to drink A LOT more water. Dehydration, combined with a family history, is probably what caused this to happen.
Fun times.
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