I wish I was a JELLYBEAN!

I chose not to take the boys with me to SEP's tonight. This is the first time that I have gone alone. I wanted to talk to H's teacher privately. I've had some concerns. First off, the teacher shared with me an experience that they had in the classroom.

Somebody has been stealing stuff. One of the little girls earned a Starburst and within minutes it came up missing. The teacher, Mrs. B, gets up in front of the class to talk about how stealing is wrong. She said she was trying really hard to be serious because of the situation. She talked to the kids and it was kind of tense. H, who sits front and center, raises his hand and says "I wish I was a Jellybean!"

She was laughing and I was laughing too! Where does he come up with this stuff? She said that she was happy that H is letting his personality show and that she thinks it was his attempt to lighten up a very tense situation. It's a good thing we all have our individual personalities!

Work in Progress

DH finished placing the rock for our backyard water feature the day before it snowed. I am really excited about this. He built it so that there will be two waterfalls. One on the left side and one on the right. It is hard to see on the photo. We will plant flowers and greenery around and behind it to hide the ugly white vinyl fence. We also have a little rock bench off to the right. sorry, I didn't get it in the picture. 

Help! White Elephant Gifts

We needed to come up with 6 different White Elephant gifts for different parties that we are invited to this year. I never really know what to take. Do you buy something our just give away something you already have? We have done it both ways but I am just wondering if any of you have any great ideas. Is there a white elephant gift than you have given or received that you have loved! I need all the ideas I can get. Thanks!

Whirlwind and Snow

I spent the day in a whirlwind... calling doctors, preparing for scouts, substituting in the preschool, finishing my Usborne book order, and preparing two Photography entries for Reflections contest.

The boys dug out their snowboards for a first of season day at the park. Its always amazing to me when I realize that they've grown out of their boots, snow bibs, and gloves. I don't think I'm ready for this winter stuff.

I want to spend the winter with Chel or TXmommy. Can I?

A new week

I'm really sad that the long holiday weekend is over. I've enjoyed having a few days "off". No job to run off to and no homework for the boys. Saturday night I had a babysitter set up. Just as she arrived, my good friend showed up at the door asking for help. Her family is going through some serious trials. We spent all last night with her and most of today. I am so worried about her and her family. She has lost a young daughter recently and things have gotten worse from there. It isn't good:(

Over the weekend I was able to get the Christmas decorations up and DH mostly finished our ongoing water feature project in the backyard. I will post a picture later. I was so happy because this is one of those projects that we started clear back in May or June.

S & H spent several hours playing nicely together today. They were so cute sharing a chair as they navigated their way through some new computer games. I honestly didn't hear any fighting. What a blessing!

Give Thanks!

DH made his famous Sweet Potato casserole and we teamed up to make the Raspberry Pretzel Salad. This is the first year in forever that we haven't made the turkey which is actually a big relief (for me anyway). In years past, DH always volunteers to do the turkey. He likes to smoke it or deep fry. Unfortunately, we burned a hole in my dads redwood deck one year and I always stress when the turkeys not done on time.

First thing in the morning we are heading off to Happy Valley. I love Happy Valley. We moved away about 2 years ago. I miss my friends but we won't have time to go see anybody. Besides, they are probably all off visiting their own families. Still, it will be nice to visit the in-laws.

Tis' the season to be thankful. I'm thankful for family, health, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, good neighbors, friends, therapists, doctors, medicine, hugs, smiles, a kind word, The Book of Mormon, the temple, a warm home, food.....

Have a good one!

stuff

After 2 days of phone tag I found out that the Neurologist is booked until APRIL! I couldn't believe it. Crew is still having seizures. We scheduled an appt. with our Dr's PA. We go December 5th. Hopefully we will be able to switch meds or gets some more tests done. Crew slept until 5 am the last two mornings. This is good! A nice change from waking at 12:30 or 1:00 am for the last little while.

H is playing some basketball this season. He was in a really good mood today after practice. I saw him make several baskets which is a huge accomplishment for such a shorty.

S went to a B-day party. He had a good time. The twerpy kid who stole his lunch was there. S said that this boy refused to play any games and holed up in the B-day boys room where he played Game Cube for the duration of the party. S came home and said "J messes with me". I talked to him about how to handle it. I've concluded that this J kid is probably jealous of S or just likes to get a rise out of him.

My computer is way SLOW... and I'm having major problems. I am still reading most blogs but not commenting.

Novembers half over!

Wow! I can't believe this month is nearly half over. I have been so busy. I started that new job and it keeps me running. However, I am enjoying it more and more. I found a great in-home child care provider meaning she comes to MY house. So far she seems to be great.

Crew is crawling more. He is getting faster and is making messes here and there. I love it! Preschool is good for him. His meds are still not working 100% and side effects are that he is irritable and not sleeping. Aargh! Maybe tomorrow I can actually find time to call the neurologist. His seizures have decreased but are not eliminated. He has been waking around 1:30 or 2:00 am and staying mostly awake the rest of the day.

S has been having issues on the bus. The buses are overcrowded. I drive the boys to school but they have to ride it home because I'm either working in the afternoon or Crew is napping. They have "assigned" seats but 3 or 4 kids in a seat is a bit much. One of the boys has been punching and shoving. S came home with marks on his neck. I talked to the principal and the boys parents. The boy denied everything. The principal threatened to give him a white slip. Also, on the same day, a classmate stole part of S's lunch. This was very upsetting to S and he came home in tears. I think the two incidents happening on the same day was a bit much and S is very tenderhearted anyway.

H is having a hard time in school. I've asked his teacher to have him tested for dyslexia and ADD. The district has a policy where they have to track his work and progress for 12 weeks before they can even test him. 12 WEEKS! The school year will be half over by then. It is very frustrating.

Last night our trampoline blew away. Life doesn't get any better than this :)

Name Game

I've been tagged! Chel from Happiness is Everything blogged about where her kids names come from and why she chose those names. I got thinking that it really is a neat thing to record, or blog about. So even if your not interested, here goes:

My DH was named after his grandfather Carl Alexander (first and middle name... same grandpa) and an uncle. He wished that he had his "own" original name. So, when we were expecting our first we decided that when naming our children we would give them a first name (with no ties to family) and a middle name linking them to a family member.

With our first child we found out we were expecting a boy. We wanted a name that was manly. A name that couldn't be used for a girl. We actually found the name in a baby name book. I was kind of joking around when I first read it aloud. Over the next few months as we bounced names around we finally came back to the name Stockton. It's very boyish and besides the Utah Jazz was playing well that year. So, our little 5 lb 15 oz. boy, born during the 1997 NBA playoffs was named STOCKTON CARL! Okay, Carl comes from his dad's name but I think a lot of people really thought that it was Karl Malone. That is stupid because we don't really even like Karl Malone. To set the record straight.... We didn't really name him after the Jazz player, John Stockton, it was a coincidence that they were playing well that year. In fact, I told myself that by the time our little boy was old enought to know anything, John Stockton would be retired anyway. When people ask if he was named after John Stockton we look at them dumb and say "No, then we would have named him John!"

I've wondered how much a name shapes a person. Or, as someone mentioned earlier, maybe names really are inspired. Our Stockton is quite tall, outgoing, and he loves sports. Who knew that my smallest baby would be my biggest kid?

Our second little boy came along two years later. We had talked about names and narrowed it down to two, Logan & Hunter. However, right there at the end, I thought we had decided on Logan. Logan is where Carl & I met. Logan is easy to spell. Logan is manly. A week or two before baby was born I went scrapbooking with a friend. We were both expecting babies and she suggested that I make some scrapbook pages with his name, announcing the birth and stuff and then I could just insert his picture later. So I made several scrapbook pages announcing the arrival of "Logan". Wrong. While I was in the hospital, a couple hours after the birth, DH filled out the Social Security name sheet and turned it in. HE chose HUNTER! What I couldn't believe it. I didn't want to fight about it so I just let it go. Then when I got home from the hospital it really started to bother me. So we decided to compromise and change his name to something else (I'm not going to even get into it). We called him this other name for two weeks but I didn't love it and neither did DH. Finally, when baby was two weeks old the Social Security card came in the mail and it said HUNTER MARTIN! I threw my hands up in the air and decided at least one of us should love the name so we went back to calling him Hunter. Besides it is manly and easy to spell. Martin is the name of my youngest brother, he is full of life and lots of fun. Interestingly enough, so is my Hunter.

Baby #3 was a long time coming. During that time, I was working in the Playroom at Gold's Gym. I helped "supervise" children while their parents were working out. It was a good job for me because I could take my boys with me. There weren't very many kids that I became attached to but one little baby boy, Crew, was so sweet and happy. I loved it when Crew came. I loved the name from the get go. I decided then and there that if I ever had another boy I would name him Crew. Finally, a year or two later I was expecting. We decided not to find out the gender. However, after the last baby naming fiasco, I was determined to have the name set in stone before arriving at the hospital. DH didn't try to sway me this time. I got to choose! If it was a girl we would name here CARA and if it was a boy.... CREW!

The gender of our baby was announced as an afterthought, as the medical "crew" had other things on their minds. .... like resusitating my child. About 5 minutes after the emergency c-section, one of the surgeons said, "Did anyone tell you that its a boy?" "You have a beautiful baby boy... he is very sick" he said. It was not the way I expected. It was hard but that is a story for another post.
So, CREW XANDER joined our family. Xander comes from his dad's middle name ALEXANDER! We call him CrewXander a lot of the time... and we call him "Crewser" and the "Crewman" and sometimes we just call him Xander. But CREW it is! Crew is the sweetest little one ... he is cuddly... he is happy... he is perfect!

Funny Faces

I haven't posted any pictures in awhile so I thought I would share some of our latest goofing around.













My little Crew man! Extremely Affectionate. Hard worker:)



















Big S, my running partner and walking or running encyclopedia! Highly motivated. Where did it come from?

















Middle stud, H. Family comedian. Big hearted. Fun, fun, fun and oh so independent. 

Run before dinner

My favorite time to run is in the morning, but since DH leaves in the wee morning hours that isn't working for me. I was explaining my dilemma to my sil... how I need to get back at it but I don't know when because DH goes to bed before the children and he's gone in the morning and she said that her favorite time to run is about 5 pm just before dinner. Hmfph! I'd never thought about running right before dinner before.

Tonight, S man and I went running. We left at dusk and we had a nice run. I'm totally out of shape though but I wasn't about to quit. S is only 9 and he keeps a good pace. I have to keep up with him or he'll remind me how old I'm getting. It was a fairly short run but a good start. As we were running, S kept saying "I wish we did this more, it feels good"! I have to admit that it does feel good.... after the fact anyway.

Running with my son is so much fun. It's our thing that we do together and I am thankful that we have something in common. Oh, and running before dinner not only feels great but helps suppress the appetite. At least it does with me!

SAHM fog

Tis the season to break out of the "fog". Even though I truly treasure staying home with my kids, I feel like my brain is falling out. LOL. "Your brain will fall out" is what I tell my boys when they are playing gamecube. Well... I think it happens to moms too. Too many stinky diapers, too many late nights, and not enough expanding myself. Not enough keeping up with the ever changing techno world, not enough formal learning opportunities, and not enough thinking outside the box will turn your brain to mush.

I've started helping my brother with some bankruptcy cases at work. I'm also working as the bookkeeper at the golf course. I've started thinking again and it feels great. I'm trying to get my computer set up to work from home and I realized that I don't know anything about computers. Aaargh! I'm figuring things out a little at a time though and it is kind of exciting.

I've ordered high speed internet which should be going by tomorrow. I'm keeping my fingers crossed because I have my doubts about it. The company (Qwest) told me that DSL is available at my home but the neighbors don't think so. I even called Qwest back a second time and they confirmed that "yes" we really do have it here. I'm so hoping that they are right. The dial-up here only gets me a 28K speed and it is driving me nutso.

I'm not excited about the cold weather here. This is the time of year when me feet are cold from morning to night. I get lazy because I'm cold. My walking partner is expecting twins and unfortunately the doc recommended that she stop walking among other things. We haven't walked in two months. I'm starting to feel like a slug. I've got to start running again. My oldest, S, is a great running partner and we plan to run the "Snowman Shuffle" in December. Last year when we ran it was 17 degrees and I had the flu. The run was up hill and I wasn't prepared for that. This year I know what I am getting in to. I need to register. That will be the motivating factor, so the sooner I register the better. Toodles!