Field Trip!

Joe and Ben went on their first field trip today!  We went to a place called Wrights Field, and hiked and looked at stuff.  I chaperoned, and took Sam and Violet with me. Everyone was smitten with Violet of course, she got passed around at lunch time to the older students and some of the teachers.  Joseph fell down and brushed his arm against something with prickly things on it and when he stood up he had tons of these little hair-like pokey's sticking out of his arm.  He freaked.  When we got back to the central locations I sat with him on my lap and picked them all out with a pair of tweezers.  Thankfully it didn't hurt to pull them out, just if you touched them the wrong way.  All in all it was a pretty good trip!

Yesterday, while we were at church I noticed something on Violets upper-lip.  She's seriously teething right now, four teeth all on the top have decided to emerge, but what I saw was milky white, and she NEVER spits up.  It looked like what I'd imagine thrush looks like, but none of my kids have ever gotten it before, and what I've heard about it (that it appears on the tongue and sides of the mouth) didn't quite match up.  Then, today when I looked again it was on her tongue, but she's still eating comfortably, not crying at all, so I walked in with her to her doctors office to see if she had time to take a look.  Sure enough, it's thrush, but we caught it really early so that's good.  We got her some medicine and we're home now, finally.  It's been a long day.

I haven't posted in a really long time, which I'd sort of noticed, but it was brought to my attention in full by my sister Holly (I love you Holly!) just how long it'd been on Saturday.  Well, my excuse is pretty good, first of all, things have settled down in the school department, the boys are doing well and learning quickly.  Karl was out of town last week, and while he was gone I got all caught up in the Twilight Series.  I read all four of them in one week (Thanks Jillian!)!  I'm in love with Edward!  What a great series, it was so entertaining.  I'm going to read them all again, but slower this time, I was flying over the pages!  I'd recommend them to anyone looking for a good read.  I don't know how I feel about the movie they're making, I'll see it of course, but I don't know how they could possibly portray the intense emotion's like the book did.

So that's it.  Oh, one more thing.  The parent's that took Ben with them on a little nature hike said that when they asked the question, "what do you feel"  Ben answered, " I feel the wind, I feel the plant, I feel... hungry!"  They both thought he was very cute, and of course, he is!  That's all!

Second First Day of School!

Ben started at the Day-McKeller Preparatory School today.  Joe was still a little too sick to go, but we all loaded up and headed down there together because Violet had a doctors appointment too.  What a difference, honestly!  There are teachers EVERYWHERE!  It's an 8 to 1 ratio, students to teachers of course, and they're all so caring and friendly.  They introduced themselves to us, and to Ben and Joe.  Joe, even though he's still tired and not feeling good wanted to stay so bad.  We left right before nine for the doctors appointment, and left just Ben there.  

The doctor's appointment went well, Violet is 15 pounds, 4 ounces, and 27 inches, which puts her at the 25% for weight, 50% for height, and her head is in the 75 percentile!  She got her usual round of shots, and handled them just fine, a few tears, but too for too long!  She's such a good baby!  After we were all done there, we stopped back by the school for my own comfort, just so see if he was alright.  HE IS!  Karl went in, and said he was sitting with the rest of the class, participating and behaving well.  The founder, Cara (Day-McKeller) was there and she said he was just perfect, that everyone loves him and that he's being so good!  What a difference.  I honestly knew it wasn't him that was the problem, and I'm so glad we followed that instinct, or prompting, whatever it was.  If things change, I'll update, but if things go as they're going I might not.  I hope this is the end of our nightmare from last week.

Four Generations of Women

Here's a sampling of the pictures we took at Balboa Park a week ago Sunday, at the Ukrainian Festival.  I've been wanting a four generation shot since I found out I was pregnant with the twins, but I wanted it to be all girls, so we had to wait a few years!  I think they turned out very nicely.

Day-McKeller Preparatory School

We've changed our minds.  Joe and Ben will now be attending the Day McKeller Preparatory School until we leave in October.  It'll only be for about 30 school days, but it's such an awesome school that we feel like it'll do the impossible and undo the "car-wreck" that was last week.  It's going to give Ben a reason to want to go to school again, whereas right now he's less than excited.  We were just going to send Joe and I was going to home-school Ben through the academy, but it's such a good school I felt like we'd be cheating Ben out of  a good experience.  So, they're going to start there on Tuesday, because everyone's been under the weather this weekend with fever's and coughing and stuff... not fun.  Karl and I are really excited about this decision, we've wanted them there since we found out about the school, so it's a wish fulfilled.  In your face Mountain Empire School District!

We are MOVING!!!

So it's official, we are moving.  We had been thinking about West Virginia for a long time, and Karl had been searching for a job there.  Well, his performance review came up at work, and it turns out he's doing really well, but he mentioned to his boss that we were considering a move out of state.  His boss had mentioned a while back that he was considering expanding his business, and as it turns out, this was just the thing to get him going on that.  His boss contracts with a business called Red Hat, and they accepted his bid for Utah, Colorado, and Arizona, specifically Salt Lake, Denver, and Phoenix.  Well we've done Arizona, and didn't like the heat AT ALL, and I've never cared to move to Utah (no offense to my Utard relatives) so we've decided to move to Denver Colorado!  This is really good, because it means he's staying with the same company, we'll keep the same benefits, he'll continue to get certified in all his little certification thingies, and we'll be able to afford and HOUSE OF OUR OWN!  YAY!  We're going to have a real winter too, which I'm actually pretty excited about. 

I don't want to get into to much detail, but Ben misbehaved at school again and got suspended for two days, so that pretty much sucks.  We have a meeting with the principal tomorrow and it's going down!  I am so sick of that little hill billy school and their ineffective methods.  Ben's going to stay home with me until we move, but Joe's going to keep going, he's fitting in really well and making friends, which I realize is going to make moving harder, but we plan on settling where we land.  That's all for now!