5th Grade Talent Show

Friday was the Fifth Grade Talent Show at school. Alyssa played the piano. She did a great job! She played "Heigh- Ho" from the movie "Snow White". She amazes me on the piano!

There were some other interesting acts. A few electric guitar pieces (Metallica and Ozzy Osbourne songs), a drum solo, hula dancing, singing, juggling, acting, and rapping. It lasted about 1 1/2 hrs. and was very entertaining.

As always there is that one act that you just want to laugh and laugh through, but the person is totally serious. I remember when I was 16 years old and I was in a pageant (Miss National Teenager) and there was this one girl that dressed up like a cat and did a weird act to the song "We are Siamese", she just walked around the stage on all fours and purred and rubbed up against the curtains on the side of the stage. It was truly bizarre.

Mother of the Year!

Brayden has been acting kind of weird at school. They called me on Monday and said that he was trembling and breathing shallow. I went to pick him up and he was sweaty and pale. When we got home he was better and playing with his brothers.

They then called me again on Wednesday, same symptoms. This time he was in Science and the teacher was so worried about him that she had someone from the office come and get him. I went and picked him up again. The rest of the day he was pretty shaky and lethargic. I called the Pediatrician and made an appointment for Thursday morning.

Thursday morning we went to the Dr.'s office. They ran a ton of tests (x-rays, took 2 vials of blood). The Dr. also listened to his lungs and said that he was wheezing pretty bad. They checked his oxygen and it was at 91 (they like it to be 91 or higher). The Dr. said to come back in a week and we would go over the results of all the tests. We then went out to lunch (I felt so bad for Brayden having to go through all that testing, he has never had to get blood taken before, he was so brave and calm during it all so I felt he deserved a little reward, not to mention we had been at the Dr.'s office for 3 hours). After lunch I took him back to school.

He had been at school for an hour when they called to tell me he was trembling and breathing shallow again. I went and picked him up and called the pediatrician, as I was driving to his office. We got there and they checked his blood sugar levels, it was normal. They checked his oxygen level, it was at 89. They had him blow into a peak flow meter, for his age they like it to be 214 and he was only 120.

The final diagnosis was that it is his asthma. The problem is that he is not that symptomatic, no coughing. The Dr. said that his oxygen level is hovering around 90 and that it drops every now and then to 89 causing his body to freak out and start trembling and breathing shallow. His body will then release endorphins and all is well, our bodies are truly amazing.

Anyway the Dr. said his x-rays showed that his lungs are pretty scarred up and that the airways are very constricted. Brayden is now on a steroid, breathing treatments with the nebulizer 4 times a day, hooked up to an oxygen machine at night, and a long term medicine to help his airways to open up.

I felt like Mother of Year finding out that my poor son could hardly breathe and I didn't even know it.

To dye or not to dye

I just wanted to share a funny story with you. Before our trip to Oklahoma I decided that my hair needed some highlights. My natural color is a dark brown and I wanted to do some caramel highlights. I first decided to dye my hair a mahogany, just a little darker than normal. That worked just fine and then I asked my wonderful husband, Paul, to help me pull some hair through a lovely cap with holes all over it. He is a great husband, he said he would help me. So we got busy pulling hair through these little holes with a crochet hook. I then put the dye on my hair and then got busy doing things around the house. When I came back upstairs and Paul saw me he said, "WHOA, you better rinse that off!" So I quickly rinsed the dye off my hair. The end result was a ton of yellow hair with dark roots. It was already 11:00 pm by this time, so I decided to wait and fix it the next day. The next day was when we were driving to Wichita. Every time we stopped somewhere people would stare, my kids kept saying how pretty my hair was (their standards aren't that high). As soon as we got to our hotel I bought some more dye and went to work. The end result is actually pretty nice. Anyway I just had to use a ton of conditioner and not go swimming during our trip.

Trip to Oklahoma

Here is a picture of some of the cousins, the other twin is almost in the picture she is on the bottom right hand corner. It is no small task to take a picture of this many small children.

We made a trip out to Oklahoma to attend our niece's baptism. We left Friday morning, April 11, and drove 8 hours to Wichita, KS. We had a great time visiting friends. We ate good food and Paul fell in love with a Wii, he was sore the next few days from bowling, boxing, and apparently burping (who knew there was such a game). Then on Saturday we drove the 3 hours to Norman, Oklahoma. We really did have a lot of fun with my family, it just felt so good to be all together. I miss seeing them and just hanging out together. The highlight, of course, was the baptism. Our niece, Sariah, was so cute and just smiled through the whole thing! On the drive back (we left Monday morning)we missed a turn just south of Wichita and ended up in Emporia, KS. We stopped at a truck stop to figure our where we were. We filled up with gas and then parked over to the side to get on the laptop and figure out how to get home. As we were parked there looking at the laptop, and a movie playing for the kids, some guy comes over to our van and tells Paul that he is parked in RV parking and then called Paul some profane name. Paul was upset and told him not to talk like that in front of our kids. The man then said some other profane words to him. Paul then rolled up his window and drove off. I guess the people in Emporia aren't to friendly. The weird thing is that the man didn't have an RV either, go figure! Anyway we got home about midnight.

Don't be Fooled

We had a busy day today. Tyler and Brayden just got their orange belts in TaeKwondo and Brayden even got the Best Student Trophy. We then got home and had to make a quick dinner for everyone, so I made spaghetti. The kids then did their homework, got ready for bed and went to bed. I then began cleaning up the table. The kids had juice to drink with their dinner and I noticed that there was still a full cup of juice on the table. It was the expensive antioxidant juice and I really hated to waste it, so I decided to drink it myself. When I was almost finished drinking the juice I noticed that there was a bunch of spaghetti in the bottom of the cup, yuck!!

Cup Stacking

Yesterday Brayden participated with his school in the World Cup Stacking Championship. It was an exciting day. There were groups from Germany, Canada, Japan, and all over the United States. He participated in a relay style stacking doing a 3-6-3 pattern, meaning they first do a stack of 3 cups, then a stack of 6 cups, then a stack of 3 cups. They then have to unstack all 3 pyramids and then run back and touch the next person's hand, the next person then runs up and does the same thing. The whole team is timed, so they have to be fast. Brayden did a great job and their team won 3rd for their age division!

Spring Break

We just had a wonderful Spring Break. Paul's sister, Laura, and her family came to visit us. They arrived on the Saturday before Easter and stayed until Thursday. We had a great time together. We visited a castle, saw the movie "Horton Hears a Who", went to the zoo, ate yummy food, and enjoyed each others company. They have 2 children, a 5 year old and a 2 year old and all the kids got a along great. They played a lot in the backyard, all of Paul's work on the playset (it took him 2 weeks) finally paid off. We definitely need to spend more time with family!

We then went to Wyoming to visit my mom and dad. We left on Friday and came back on Sunday. We had a good visit and the kids got spoiled. Paul did not go with us, he had to work and take care of the pets. One night he was coming down the stairs and stepped in my brand new stair caddy and fell backwards hitting his head on the stairs. I felt bad for him and was glad that he was okay. I was also happy that my new stair caddy was not damaged.