Alice in Wonderland

Madeline had her first grade musical performance. They did a musical titled "Lemonade" and cute little play filled nursery rhyme characters learning from Mother Goose on how to make Lemonade when life gives her lemons. Madeline dressed up as Alice in Wonderland mainly because it was a simple enough costume that her not so talented mother could manage on the sewing machine. Madeline made a perfect Alice in Wonderland, but I think her favorite part of the costume was her bling bling black shoes.

We had a conflict of schedule that day with Grant and Anthony having some where else to be at the same time. Early in the day the first graders performed their play for the Kindergarterns and Second grade. Grant left work early and went up to the school to see Madeline performance and Anthony's teacher allowed Anthony to step out of class and watch his sister's play. This allowed our whole family to watch Madeline shine as Alice in Wonderland.

Madeline was giddy with excitement over her performance and she did a beautiful job!

Running Bear

Madeline is now in first grade and is able to do all the things that she watched Anthony do in first grade, one of them being Running Bear. During the month of November they study about Indians and at the end of the week they perform a Indian Love Song for all the parents to see. Even though this is my second time to see the performance, I still do not know what the song really is about and the only lyrics I know is "Running Bear." That may have something to do with the fact that is the only line the kids know really well. However, it is neat to see Madeline get excited about participating in events with her class. Because of her up and down health a lot of times she misses out on the events. After the performance the kids enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast in their classroom. Because Madeline is still having stomach issues, she really wasn't up to eating so Mommy enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast first grade style.

Note: There is a benefit from saving older siblings school work and projects. Madeline was absent the day her class made their necklaces for the performance and was not able to make one in class. However, Mommy found Anthony's necklace that he made and bingo it worked perfectly for Madeline.

Anthony is 9

It is hard to believe that I have a nine year old.

Anthony loves: Math, Lego's, star wars,science, camping, hiking, and writing.

Anthony doesn't like: chores, vegetables, and most meat.

Anthony's talents: Piano, writing, math, memorization, and building anything and everything from scratch.

Mommy loves about Anthony: His strong testimony of the gospel, his desire to do what is right, complete obedience with no questions asked, his smile, compassionate love for all people, enthusiasm for life, positive attitude, family prayers he truly understands that he is talking to Heavenly Father, and the fact that no matter what he is my son for eternity.

Birthday celebration went as follows:

Thursday, November 4, started off with his favorite cereal, Lucky Charms. Serenaded him with a wonderful Happy Birthday rendition for a morning wake up call. Mommy meets Anthony for lunch with Daddy joining as a surprise, Mommy also brought Cookie Dough Pie from Burger King. Later that afternoon was able to enjoy homemade cream cheese brownies with classmates. For dinner Anthony chose to have a Pasta Bar, and then at Piano lessons his piano teacher surprised him with a rockin birthday song. While at piano lessons Daddy, Madeline, and Spencer decorate the house. Anthony comes home from piano lessons, Anthony was surprised with a little family celebration, complete with a Cookie Dough ice cream cake. Then we put Anthony to work by going on a treasure hunt to find his presents. After criss crossing the house, Anthony found his gifts hidden in the dryer.

Friday, November 5, was able to go to Grandma Gates house and play with Jonathan and make a giant chocolate chip cookie.

Saturday, November 6, got together with a couple of friends for an hour of bowling fun and a yummy pizza buffet.

Anthony is gift and joy to have. He is a gift that keeps on giving and it is a privilege to be his Mother and to partake of the joy he gives.

Lunch With Daddy

For Anthony's birthday, Grant surprised Anthony by coming to his school and eating lunch with him. Since Madeline eats lunch right before Anthony, Grant came early and surprised Madeline as well. The kids really enjoy having Daddy come to their school. We are so blessed to have such a good Daddy, who every year takes time out of work to come and eat lunch with them, and who is there for all of their school parties and functions.

Death to the Microwave

I can laugh now, but a few weeks ago there was NO laughing going on. Spencer sure keeps me on my toes and constantly looking over my shoulder, and this time was no exception. So without further delay here is the story on the death of the microwave.

Saturday, October 16, Grant's birthday started out as any ordinary Saturday full of lots of hard work and fun. BYU was in town that day and Grant was going to the game with his cousin to watch BYU get stomped on by TCU. Because Grant was going to be out enjoying the game, we celebrated his birthday on Friday. With the kids safely entertained and busily playing I thought it would be a good time to get the house cleaned and picked up, so when Grant returned home he would have a sparkling clean home to come home to. This plan was working and little bit by little bit I was making progress on our house. Until Spencer decided to help. I was finishing the shower in the Master Bedroom when I heard my bedroom door shut. This usually means Spencer is up to know good and doesn't want you to hear or see what trouble he is getting into. This particular time, Spencer was in and out of the bathroom talking to me and "trying" to be of help so when I heard the door shut I thought he had come back to "help" me in the bathroom. However, after cleaning the shower there was no Spencer and there was no Spencer in the bedroom either. The hunt begins. I opened the door and get knocked over the head with smoke, what on earth is going on. Obviously the smoke is coming from the kitchen. I see lying on the stove the oven mitts and I think to myself did I forget to turn off the stove and now the oven mitts are on fire. No, the stove was turned off and the oven mitts were just fine. Then I see huge flames coming from the microwave and see that the paper towel that was left in there from cooking lunch was on fire. Well there was no time to get to the bottom of it and panicking was not an option. I grab a near by container and fill it with water and slowly open the microwave and douse it with water. With the fire out, I escorted the kids outside to enjoy some nice clean fresh air, while I air out the house. With everything and everyone taken care of I began to put the pieces together. You see, Spencer closed the door to my room while I was busily cleaning the shower so he could "use" the microwave. Left at the crime scene was a stool, the culprit that allowed Spencer to reach the microwave. Upon further investigation I found a piece of plastic pretend bread which was now completely black but not melted ( now that is good quality plastic). So my conclusion is this: Spencer, knowing that he is not suppose to play with the microwave, closed my bedroom door so as to not get caught, retrieved the nearby stool in the kitchen, climbed upon the stool to use the microwave to "cook" his piece of bread. Now the mystery is how long he tried to cook the bread, but one thing was for sure Spencer didn't stay around the crime scene very long. Lucky for him, putting the fire out and every ones safety was more important than putting a clever and curious three year old in time out. However, Spencer is not the first child to blow up the microwave because at the store there were lots of nice microwaves to chose from with a child lock button for the keys. He may put whatever he wants in the microwave but with my best friend "child lock" he won't be able to "cook" anymore bread.

Oh by the way, Grant found Spencer's latest stunt entertaining when he returned home from the game. I on the other didn't find it so entertaining. With Spencer being only three, I dread knowing what my future holds. Hopefully he is alive to send off on his mission and hopefully by then his fascination with fire will be past and I won't get a phone call from the mission president of Spencer blowing something up.

Pumpkin Patch

What is October/Fall without going to a Pumpkin Patch. I decided it had been a few years before I braved the crowds and take the kids to the nearby Pumpkin Patch. However, our October calendar didn't look very promising for accomplishing such task. However, thanks to the school district and Mr. Columbus a day opened up. I knew with it being a holiday lots of people would probably have the same idea I had, and so to out smart them all we arrived right at opening. Well luck would have it, we were running a bit late that morning, but still made it in good time. Thank goodness for Madeline's little handicap sign, I didn't have to trench through the freshly new mud from the previous' day rainstorm. The kids enjoyed playing on the jump houses, and because the crowd wasn't too terribly bad, Madeline was able to climb around without being trampled on. The kids enjoyed the corn maze, and Spencer enjoyed it a little too much. It was quite the ordeal in getting Spencer to exit with the rest of the kids, he just wanted to turn around and run through the maze over and over. Thank goodness for a smart older brother who was able to chase after Spencer and bring him safely out of the maze. Anthony probably had that maze memorized after having to retrieve Spencer a few times. We were even able to tackle the hay ride, this particular hay ride didn't impress the kids much but sometimes that is okay. We ended the trip with a yummy snow cone treat and luckily for me Spencer was a clean snow cone eater, I dodge a bullet with that one but at times it is good to exercise bravery with the kids-especially Spencer.

A Date with Dad

Back in early October I went along with a friend from church to Time Out for Women. The event was both Friday evening and all day on Saturday. Originally while I was gone, Grant was going to take the kids camping, but Madeline's stomach started acting up so the camping trip was canceled. However, he still wanted to do something fun with the kids.

On Friday evening, Grant built a fire in our fire pit in our backyard for the kids to cook hot dogs and make smores. Anthony built an amazing fire all by himself and Spencer decided to practice his independent side and insisted on cooking his hot dog himself. Spencer was not interested in Grant guiding him, in Spencer's eyes he had seen us cook hot dogs many times and so he knew ABSOLUTELY what to do! Spencer's idea of cooking a hot dog is waving the hot dog stick with hot dog attached high in the air, causing those around him to duck for cover out of fear of being attacked by a flying hot dog. After that excitement is done, time to rest the hot dog on the logs and watch it cook to perfection. Too bad no one (including Spencer) likes the taste of what he calls perfection.

Saturday they packed up a picnic and went down to Dinosaur Valley State Park for a day trip of hiking, looking at dinosaur tracks, and wading through the water. This was the kids first time going to the State Park and they really enjoyed climbing around and exploring the different trails. The favorite part by all was wading in the water. The neat thing was they returned from their day trip about the same time I returned from my excursion and we all had fun stories to share about our great day!

Halloween 2010

The week of Halloween, Madeline was admitted to the hospital because her stomach wasn't disgesting her food therefore her stomach would look full and extended. This caused her a lot of pain. Because her intestines are not normal and due to the fact that she had a fundoplication surgery Madeline is not able to throw up; so combine these two factors the food in her stomach had no where to go. Madeline stopped eating to the point that she became dehydrated and her blood sugar got to be low as 28. They were able to get things flowing and get us home a few hours before our wards' trunk or treat.

Five minutes before Madeline really took a turn for the worst, I put the finishing touches on Madeline's and Spencer's costume; so lucky for us everything was done and the kids were able to go trick or treating like as planned. Madeline was able to go twice because the hospital threw a trick or treating event while she was in the hospital. The hospital doesn't give away candy due to the dietary restrictions of a lot of the kids, instead they pass out toys and boy did Madeline luck out-two bag fulls of fun stuff to enjoy. Daddy brought up her costume and the nurses got things squared away so Madeline could participate in the festivities. Madeline had fun putting her cape on and running down the halls (with IV pole in tow) playing the part as super Madeline. Since we were on the heart floor and many of the nurses there have been taking care of Madeline since she was a baby, they got a kick out of seeing Super Madeline all bling blinged up.

Grant was able to finish up Anthony's costume just in time and it was a big hit at our wards' trunk or treat party. Even though Spencer was Maury Wiggle he insisted that he was Jeff Wiggle, and at the last minute the disposable camera became a part of his costume. This was the first year Spencer picked up on the trick or treating part of Halloween. Once he realized that he could get candy he hurried as fast as he could from car to car and at each car clearly proclaimed trick or treat. As soon as his candy hit the bag he was off to the next car and on it went. I think he circled the parking lot at least 3 times. Towards the end his bag was getting heavy, but that didn't stop him from getting his beloved candy, he just let Mommy carry the goods. Anthony and Madeline circled the parking lot a couple of times and then they were done; but Spencer kept going. As long as someone had candy he was trick or treating.

After the festivities we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then we hit the hay. When you are in the hospital you never get a good amount of sleep. We were just glad that Madeline made it home in time for her to wear her costume. Lucky for Madeline she just isn't Super Madeline only on Halloween, but she is Super Madeline everyday of the year.

PS: Thanks to Katie for the pictures. Our camera has mysterious disappeared and "Spencer" just cannot remember where he put it.