Merry "after" Christmas

As I ran out of time to get this Christmas letter out with Christmas cards, I thought I'd reprint VERY BRIEF (I say very brief as the original was 3 pages long!) parts of it on the sad, and extremely neglected blog so those that follow this blog can see what we've been up to....

After almost 10 years at West Valley Elementary I left for a new job at a new school. The new job is going wonderful-even though it was and sometimes still is an adjustment. I leave at 8am to get to work by 8:20am and don't get home until 6pm four nights a week. My regular work day ends at 3pm, but I am involved in the after school program at Hillsdale Elementary which is why the late nights. On Friday's I work until 12:30 then tutor a student out of my home in the afternoons. My mornings are spent doing guided reading groups for 2nd graders and my afternoons Early Steps tutoring for 1st graders. Every spare minute I have is spent writing up lesson plans for eight different groups so I am extremely busy. The plus side to this is the day goes by very quickly!

Kaylie is doing well in 10th grade and is planning on going into nursing. Right now her desire is to be neo-natal nurse. She has to do 50 hours of community service so several days a week she volunteers over at West Valley helping a first grade teacher. The teacher tells me she really enjoys her and the students love her! Her biggest complaint this year is she isn't getting enough sleep. I think that must be a teenager thing...
Kaylie has also embraced being a vegetarian which she began in June. She's not super proactive in trying new things so I found a vegetarian cook book for Teens online and gave it to her for Christmas. Hopefully this will encourage her to add some new dishes to her diet.

Mark is still our love bug, still always happy, independent and always willing to help. His latest thing is baking cookies. He will get on the internet and download a cookie recipe and bake all by himself. I am amazed that I have child who will do that and isn't afraid to do it! He continues to excel in school and take care of his lizard, Zorro.

James turned 18 on Dec. 19th and Mike and I still can't believe we have a child who's 18! Time goes by so fast! We celebrated with family and a few friends who came over for tacos. He has been accepted to Dixie College so far, but still waiting to hear from U of U and others. For graduation we are hoping to give him a gift of a plane ticket to Guatemala. His best friend Nick has family that live there and Nick's dad and Mom and I have been talking. They are planning on doing the same for Nick and Nick's dad will plan on flying with them to Guatemala. I couldn't keep the passport a secret as I need him to be there for that but as Nick's family has invited him in the past to go to Guatemala next time they go, I am using that as the excuse to get his passport - so he has it ahead of time, just in case....

Mike stays busy building Jr. High and High schools in Utah. He is currently working on finishing Kaysville Jr. High and starting Olympus High School. Keeps him extremely busy and a little stressed.

I didn't make any Christmas cards this year or get any Christmas gifts made. I just didn't have the time. Though instead of buying Christmas ornaments for the kids this year, I did make them. They were easy enough, that I may make similar ones as gifts for family next year.

Christmas evening I came down with a cold which I think is now turning into a sinus infection. I've been sick all week and having a bowl of my special homemade cold-bustin' chicken soup - has lots of chicken, vegetables, garlic, ginger, jalapenos, and peppercorns to help with cold symptoms.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family, friends and loved ones!

Kaylie's 15th Birthday Pictures

I really have no idea how time seems to just fly by. One day we have a new baby daughter and the next she's turning 15! After a quick drive to Heber to check out where we will be staying in a few weeks for the Allen family reunion, we came home and had a nice evening with just the family, watching Kaylie smile her lovely smile and open her gifts from us. She wrote on FB that this was "by far the best birthday ever" so that made us feel good knowing she had a great birthday!

...just a few teaser pictures from an album I'm making.....

Goodbye Jilli-bug

Twenty years ago, before Mike and I were even engaged, we become "parents" for the first time to a teeny, tiny, not even weaned kitten. Our neighbor and friend Mary found her abandoned by her mother at the horse stables where she worked and brought her home covered in fleas and spent two weeks getting rid of her fleas and bottle feeding her. Mary asked us if we wanted her and Mike and I took her in. Mike was telling the kids tonight the story of how I went out and bought her all these kitty toys - I think she got a new kitty toy every week there for awhile :) - and put them all in a basket for her. When we got home from work each night - every toy was strewn about the house. Mike and I would spend hours playing with her and wondering what we did before she came into our lives!
Six months later Talasi, a one-year-old wolf hybrid that belonged to Mike's sister came to live with us. I was so worried this wolf was going to eat my baby! We found someone an hour's drive away, clear on the other side of the Phoenix valley and took her to be "psychologically analyzed". I had nothing to worry about. Talasi was so gentle with her and Jilli used to curl up right against her and sleep. (Talasi became one of our most loved dogs ever and loved our children and our other cats we acquired like they loved her. She passed away in 2004)
Jilli had this unusual habit of kneading and sucking on my hair whenever possible. At times she was quite aggressive and annoying about it. The vet told us they thought it was due to her being weaned way before she was ready to be weaned and I was like a mother to her and it was a response she had to me. She continued that habit for most of her 20 years. She also liked sleeping on us. She would go back and forth between Mike and I and drape herself across our waist at night. It was such a comforting habit that it was hard to sleep if she wasn't there.
She loved to eat pieces of banana out of my hand and mandarin oranges. She loved to drink out of the bathroom sink. She loved playing with the tie on Mike's bathrobe. She loved immediately sitting on Uncle Larry's lap when he sat down on the couch, "knowing" he was massively allergic to her. (Larry eventually grew out of his allergies to cats and I'd like to think she helped build up his immunity to allergies against our cats.) She loved us and we loved her.
Jilli started going downhill a few months ago and we started giving her Magic Minerals from a friend and wet cat food. She rebounded for a while. Then the weight just started dropping and about a week ago quit eating. We tried everything and she wouldn't eat. She was having trouble walking and could no longer jump up on anything without falling and was sleeping non-stop. She would curl up with anyone who sat down on the couch and would lay between Mike and I at night. This last week she would curl up against my chest and sleep with her paws on my shoulder and her head tucked under my chin. I think she knew her time was coming and wanted to be as close as possible to us.
If you have a love for your animals, you know that they become just like one of your children. It's devastating when you have to say goodbye. You want to be selfish and keep them close to you for as long as possible. We made the hard decision to put our much beloved kitty to sleep. It's been a very emotional weekend and very emotional goodbye. I don't see Mike cry very often but he has had just as many emotional moments as I have knowing we were going to have to say goodbye. We went to the vet together, Mike carrying her in. Mike said his goodbye to her in the lobby while I decided to spend her last moments holding her. I'm glad I did. I know she's not suffering any longer but oh, how I will miss my baby.

Pictures from Christmas

Welcome to the Menagerie

We have acquired a new cat. His name is Sport, compliments of all the guys on Mike's job-site in Kaysville. Sport showed up on the job, bedraggled and starved and the guys started bringing him food and eventually named him. He would follow Mike around the job-site just like a dog. The day before Thanksgiving, Mike brought him home, with my blessing, afraid to leave him over the long holiday knowing a huge storm was passing through then. He has taken to our household like he was always a part of it. The only one who has a problem with him is CeCe, Kaylies' cat. To this day, over a month now, she still has violent reactions towards him. So now we have 3 cats, 2 dogs, and a lizard. Jilli, our oldest "baby" is 19, maybe even 20 years old and sadly getting closer to the end of hers, though in good health for being so old. It's sad to watch her waste down to nothing even though Mike and I try everything we can to keep weight on her. It worked for a while; now it's not. Our house has been home to cats, dogs, wolf-hybrids, fish, hermit crabs, a tarantula and a bearded dragon. Our kids have a love and respect for animals of all kinds and I'm glad no one has allergies that would deprive us and them of the experiences we've had with them. (Just had to attach some pics of Zorro sitting in the windowsill sunning himself while I washed dishes)

Just Posting Pictures....

James' 17th birthday, and Mark's first dinner he cooked all by himself - ultimate chicken fingers and french fries!

Halloween Pictures

Bye-Bye Post Office Job

For the last 4 months I have been in the process of applying for, testing for, and training for Data Conversion Operator for the USPS. This job would be a part-time evening job four nights a week. That process ended last night when I made the decision to "give it up" so to speak. For the last two weeks, I have been working 6pm to midnight (that's after working my day job - which I would never give up - I love my job and everyone I work with!) The training requires one to encode mail that the scanners at the post office are unable to read and one must due it with a very low error rate and a high speed rate. In and of itself, this job would not be difficult for one who loves to type (me!) and the hours are doable. The family was very supportive and pitching in extra to take over the things I normally did in the evenings. The hard part of this training was 1. remembering how to encode the multitude of different types of mail, keep your errors low and still type the required rate of speed and 2. the lack of sleep. Being up at six in the morning with the kids, seeing them off to school, getting myself off to school, being home an hour and half then leaving again for 6 hours and not getting home until after midnight. Getting through the workday and then subsequently the night on 4 -5 hours of sleep for the last 2 weeks was extremely difficult. (I did it with the help of Lift-Off- a B vitamin drink and 5 hour energy drinks! Anyway, after 2 nights this past week where I really struggled to pass off the typing tests, I was really behind. I have had a lot of friends and family praying with and for me but ultimately if this was the path that HE wanted me to be on, then I would make it through this training. I firmly, deeply and faithfully believe that and last night when I knew I wasn't going to be able to pass this one test and move on, I relinquished that responsibility and said okay, I'm done. I told one of the trainers I was done - I have no regrets and no disappointments. I am proud of myself for trying my best. I think it's good for the kids to see that I attempted something that was at times difficult and even though it didn't come to fruition, they are able to see how an adult handles trying something that doesn't work out and the attitude of acceptance and faith that I have toward that. When our children try for something -I'll say sports as that is what my kids are into the most - and do not make the team, or make a team they didn't want etc... it's easy for us to say, "have a good, positive attitude" "there is a reason for everything" etc.... but it's even better when they can see that we as adults can go through the same type of situation and come out of it with a positive attitude. This job would have been helpful financially, but the positive is that the training was paid for and I made enough to pay for some specific truck repairs we needed. HE provided the way for that. The other positive (beside the fact that I can actually sleep more than 4 - 5 hours) is that I believe I am meant to be home in the evenings with the family and Mark said as much to me. He was glad I was going to be home and he had really missed me. That, is really all I need!

Summer Pictures by Kaylie

Kaylie has been camping 3 times this summer and I let her take my digital camera. It was hard to let go and trust that my camera would be taken care of (it stays in my purse and not even Mike is allowed to touch it) but Kaylie did a wonderful job of being responsible and taking some great pictures. I think I have a budding photographer on my hands. Or maybe it's just that she has been blessed with an artistic gift and taking pictures is just another way for that gift to come out. Either way, she took some great pictures. Notice the heart shaped cloud in the lake picture?

Yeah, Back to School!

I might be one of the few mom's who's happy school has started back up. I love the first month and a half of summer vacation but after that, I think even the kids start missing/needing/wanting a routine. I know I tend to get more done when I'm working than when I'm off during the summer because I have to. I can't just put things off "until tomorrow". I did get a lot of scrapbooking projects worked on/done but not many of the clean the basement/junk projects done. Somehow those projects really aren't all that appealing!
Mark was and is excited about 4th grade and I feel a bit lonely in my lower grade hallway knowing he is now in the upper grade hallway and I won't be seeing him as much. Mark did come by my room and gave me a quick hello and kiss yesterday which made me smile.
Kaylie started 9th grade and first day of school was yelled at by her teacher for borrowing a sheet of paper. Same teacher made another student cry for chewing gum in her class. Hopefully this isn't a sign of a bad year.
James is in his junior year (can't believe he only has one more year of high school before graduating!) Nobody told me concurrent enrollment classes are so expensive! Okay - I know it's tons cheaper this way than paying for college classes, but still! $79.00 for text and workbook for Spanish and $90 for calculus calculator!!!
Heavens! Keep him in prayer as he's got a really tough school schedule this year. On the bright side, senior year should be fairly easy!
As hard as it is to watch your children grow up and be independent, I miss being needed as much. But I am proud of all of them!

Paper Bag Mini Album

I made this for a friend at church who just had a baby - I'm pretty proud of how it turned out so I just had to show it off. Not sure what I did wrong but all the pictures are out of order and one page is missing.....hmmmm.... okay, figured it out and missing page is now there! Yeah, me!

Brotherly Love...

It amazes me how close these two boys are. One's going to be turning 17 in less than 5 months and the other is almost 10. There is quite a few years difference in ages between them, but that doesn't stop them from playing and usually annoying each other. You can definitely tell they are brothers but what is even more special is that they get along so well. As they grow older, my hope is they will be the best of friends also.