Aladdin!!!

Seeing Aladdin performed by East and West Orient Girls.  I took the older two on Friday while Addie was at gymnastics so Nana and Pa took her on Saturday and they all LOVED it.  With all the acrobatics throughout the show Addie LOVED it and was doing tons of cartwheels during intermission in the front Nana told me.

Kaila and Karley after Friday's showing

Bruin Preschool Graduate....Miss Adelaide

Addie Graduated from Barlow Preschool. She earned a blue hat which means she's moving on to Kindergarten in the fall!  She's sad to be leaving her friends behind (Willa and Maggie) but super excited to be going to school with Kaila and Glenn.

Addie with the Bruin Bear and Mrs. Bhem

Rowan and Addie loved the cookies and punch after the little ceremony.  We all loved that it was a short production and was perfect for Rowan.  It was really nice that they separated the singing performance from the graduation.

End of basketball/Football season

Yummy Strawberry Cream Roll to celebrate all the birthdays from December to June.  It was fun gathering all together to celebrate.  Dan and kids were able to make it too over to Greg and Sher's house.

Kaila last game and she made her goal...she scored her FIRST basket in a game.  She was thrilled and jumped for joy!  I'm so glad she made it.  Grandpa was there and captured the pictures of her winning shot.  I was too busy watching to remember to record it.

Glenn's Flag Football Pizza party.  Love that kid.  He sure loves most any sport he plays (t-ball not so much).

Wallstreet Pizza

 celebrating the end of another great season of growth and learning

Addie and Rowan

Glenn Jackson

Water Fight and swim/slip 'n slide BBQ party at our neighbor's house after all the games to end the season.  It was lots of fun!

Gresham Splash Pad Fun

My nails match the grass

Axel and Brody Hoeppner

Miss Ellie, Aunt Sher and Rowan 

Enjoying the Gresham splash pad together

5th Grade Field Trip to Wildwood

with Kaila's Class

                                                                                 (Kaila and Mirna)

Stopped by on the way home for some yummy Baskin' Robbins

Glenn, Kaila, and Addie

Addie's Preschool Singing Performance 

(Barlow Bruin Buddies)

Addie is the wearing the pink flowered headband :-)

Skate World

Skating at Skate World is always so much fun and Rowan got to try out skates for the first time!!!

Rowan and Kaila.  She was so good and helpful for him.

Rowan, Glenn and Kaila

Swimming 

(with Brooke & Vivian Cross) 

Brooke was in Kindergarten with me back in 1985 and 

then Vivian was in Kaila's Kindergarten class too!

Kaila, Addie, Glenn, Rowan

Silly Addie

Addie fell asleep next to our bed in her own made up bed (laundry basket) 

Problem Resolved

Hello Sarah and Kevin,

I have spoken with Coach Sarah about last Saturday's practice to hear her side of the situation and this is what I was told...

Saturday practice the girls have thirty minutes of strength and flexibility work, our new Level 2's as a whole are not incredibly flexible so Sarah takes a good chunk of that time to work flexibility. The group all together was working splits and at the end of the one minute split hold they had to hold their arms up for eight seconds all together. Many of the girls in the group kept putting their hands down before the eight seconds, so Sarah had them restart until they as a team completed the task. Sarah had told me they restarted the eight seconds maybe three times before fully completing the hold. She said Addie did not tell her it was painful and needed to stop but did notice her and other girls frustrated with having to start over. This took place at the end of strengthening and other stretches.

With this being said; I have talked with Coach Sarah on being sure that the athlete's feel they can speak up when it is a bad pain and how to coach them to know the difference and how to speak up. I will also be speaking with the girls about this on a regular basis as it is very important for any athlete to know what is pain, what is a stretch and knowing how to speak to their coach about it. I did also speak with Coach Sarah about how these are much younger athlete's than our group last year (Last years team was Sarah's first year as a Team Coach) and they are out to please, so it will be a lot of work on our end as coaches to look for when they are in pain versus a good stretch and help them speak up.

I hope this explanation helps; I will be speaking with the girls next week (I am gone Saturday) about how to talk with us about pain, along with better training Coach Sarah in this particular area. This will hopefully bring everything full circle on a coach/athlete communication.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know.

Thank you again for bringing this to my attention,
Allyson

Panicking Addie

Kevin: "You had dinner, it doesn't matter about lunch!  Please go brush your teeth"

Addie: "Dinner wasn't enough, otherwise I wouldn't be panicking right now!"

Kevin: "........you'll be okay, I promise you."

I love this girl and all the great word choices she uses!!

Impossible

Today I told Addie to clean up the few items on either side of the play house in the hall and she was exasperated and declared, "It's impossible for any human to do that."  Oh my, what a statement.  I then explained to her that I cleaned the entire bathroom for her already which was worse than the hallway and I survived.  She would survive too.  She repeated her statement though later I discovered she was successful in completing her "impossible" task.

Addieism

While driving home from the movie tonight Addie noticed a car being towed by a flat bed truck and said,  "Mommy,  look how much fun that car is having."

Summer Recap (Letter to Riley on His Mission)

Here on the home front Kaila had her 7th birthday in June and Addie had her birthday 2 weeks ago and is now 4.  She's super happy to now have gum (that's our house rule that you need to be 4 before having gum so it's been nicknamed by Glenn as "Gum Birthday").  

We were able to go on two family vacations this summer.  We went to Yellowstone to visit with my family for a family reunion with my parents, siblings, and their kids.  It was a lot of fun but really messed up Rowan and his sleeping.  He was going 7 hours at night and when we got back home was going only 2.  He was sleeping all day in the car as we were driving around which was great to make the days better but the nights were horrible!  I was so exhausted especially since he was only 5 weeks old when we were there.  

The kids loved Yellowstone (though I would go again until the youngest kids is at least 5-7).  We got to see Old Faithful, geysers, waterfalls, a wolf, coyotes, osprey, and a Moose.  The Mountains and scenery was stunning.  My favorite thing was seeing the Lower Canyon Falls hike (still can't believe I did that in flip flops while carrying a baby and only 5 weeks after giving birth).  It's steeper than Multnomah Falls but has the switch backs just like it going down but on gravel which was super tricking in flip flops with a baby pack in front of you and not being able to see your feet.  The view at the bottom was worth it all!  I'll try to attach a picture though it doesn't do it justice. 

He started to sleep better 5 hours at night but then we took off for Utah for Meg's baptism and his sleep got messed up again though one night while we were there he slept a long stretch which was wonderful.  The bad habit he picked up was needing/wanting to sleep with mommy at night.  It's nice but hard to fully sleep well too.  

We were able to stay a full week after the baptism and enjoy being with Stephen and the kids.  We went to Thanksgiving Point and went through the Dinosaur Museum there, ate frozen Custard (a few times), Temple Square, saw the new Joesph Smith movie, and the boys played tennis a few times.  The kids loved playing together.  It was fun to see them interacting together and using their imagination with all these different books they were playing with. I'm still not sure what they were doing since they said it was a secret and wouldn't let me know.

We stopped over in Boise to see my brother's family on the way back and enjoyed going to the YMCA there and went swimming.  The kids took lessons this past spring and into the beginning of summer.  Kaila is doing really well and has advanced to the class that swims the length of the pool the whole time now (S3.5).  Glenn has moved to the far deep end of the pool (P5), and Addie, our little fish, has moved into P4 in the middle of the big pool.  Addie seriously amazes me at what she can do swim, pull ups, climbing, you name it she will try to figure out how to do it. 

Rowan is 4 moths old now (today-Monday).  The time is flying by.  I can't believe it.  He's grown SO much!!!  He goes to the doctor on the 18th but I got him weighed after Addie's 4 year check up and he was 15lbs 4 oz and that was at 3.5 months.  All my other kids were just 18lbs at 1!!!  He's going to pass that up by 6-7 months.  My poor arms. ;-)  He's talking so much more now and laughing.  It's the best.  He loves chewing on his hands and the little stuffed owl on the side of the strap on his car seat. He prefers to sit up and loves to sit in his bumbo watching me cook or while i'm canning (pears and soon to be peaches and tomatoes this week).  He's such an easy baby and is very mellow and patient.  We have been very blessed to have him in our family.

Kevin's super busy with work which has been a huge blessing for our family right now.  Sadly he's had to pass on a lot of jobs because they are overlapping and I pray more work will come to him in October and on through the winter.  I'm slightly worried because he had a very slow winter last year and then low paying jobs in the spring and we depleted our savings to survive and just now are catching back up and starting to put some money back in the bank.  We just don't have enough to allow for a slow winter again.  Pray for more work to come our way that will support our family and be what we and Kevin needs.

I'm finally feeling like I have my energy level back up.  I just joined a small group of ladies trying to reach their own health goals.  I'm trying to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  I know I can do it and hoping this group will help me over this last hurdle I have.  It starts to do so wish me luck.  I also have been enjoying canning all the fresh produce.  I'm hoping to figure out a childcare schedule so I can volunteer at the school and help the kids out with their reading like I have the past 2 years with Vaughn.  Glenn just started Kindergarten and Kaila's now in 2nd Grade so we have two classrooms to help out in this year.  I love that Vaughn like to come and be involved.  Kaila has loved having us both there and we love to see her face light up when she sees us.

Our Little Gymnist

Addie started Gymnastics the end of November 2014 and for the first time has a has to show off her skills for us at a rec meet.  She's so excited and we all are too.  We got there early so we could get the best seats we could for the competition.  Sadly after sitting there for 20-30 minutes we discovered that the preschool kids were doing a different routine at the other end of the gym.  So much for getting there early for good seats.  It ended up being a circuit run instead of a performance which was slightly disappointing to Kevin and I but Addie loved it and loved showing us what she can do.  I'm glad she felt special and had a great day.

Barlow Swim

The kids really enjoyed swim class at Barlow this year.  I'm really glad since the last time I took Glenn there the water was FREEZING and he hated it.  I was worried they would complain this time too but I really didn't want to take Kaila to her class at Mt. Hood that was only at 8:15am everyday the entire summer.  That's earlier than a school day!  The kids ended up loving it because they got to go off the low and high diving board!  Glenn's class was begging their teacher to go off the diving board.  She said they could do it if the entire class swam all the way across the pool.  They did and were rewarded by getting to jump off the high diving board!

Little Update

So we've had a really fun end of November beginning of December. Addie's been enjoying gymnastics and the other two have been able to go on their open gym days on Wednesday once or twice.

Rowan is growing so much. He's the size of a one year old even though he's almost 7 months old next week. My niece just turned 1 the beginning of December and she is just about an inch taller than Rowan is.

Both Kaila and Glenn are doing awesome in school. We had a parent teacher conferences the week of Thanksgiving break and both teachers had nothing but great things to say about them. Although Glenn's a little crazy but we've been working on that before conferences even happened. He is super smart so we also had to talk to him about answering things in his head so the other kids had a chance to answer to.

Addie is loving preschool. I think she likes being able to have something that's just her own to do. She's also had this weird mysterious rash on her face. I took her in the middle of November and they said that they thought it was eczema that had gotten infected so they gave her antibiotics to put on it. She finished her antibiotic just before we were in Seattle and just after she had some raspberries and the rash  reappeared. So we were thinking she's allergic to raspberries the rash was never fully going away. We took her to our regular pediatrician about it and she now has a topical antibiotic on it hopefully this will cure it. Really frustrating not knowing what's going on. Thankfully it doesn't by her too often.

Kevin hasn't been working this month so far with nothing coming up. We hope he get something but its been kinda nice having him home for a bit. So nice being able to do all the holiday fun with him.

Fall Family update

Riley sent a picture of a major rainstorm they had and it made me think of the flash flood we had in Hawaii. When I was at BYU Hawaii we had a flash flood. We went swimming on campus and the next day it was completely dry and you could walk. Hope you're having a lot of fun there right now.

Kevin's been working a lot lately. It's been really great. His job will be ending soon though we're happy and he's back for a bit. The kids have their parent teacher conferences tomorrow. Kaila's will be great I'm sure. Glenn's a little crazy at school! My mom told me to just wait to hear what his teacher says. Addie still has two days this week even though it's Thanksgiving break. The other kids have the entire week off of school.  They celebrated by having a sleepover tonight in their room since we tell them that they can't sleep together unless it's a holiday. 

Rowan's my little giant baby.  He has cabbage patch dimpled hands.  At his 6 month appointment he was 18. 4 pounds. All the other kids at 1 were 18 pounds. Its crazy how big is compared to the others. He still only 54 percent weight his height is around 75 we still skinny for his height. He has the cutest little two bottom teeth, although they aren't nice when he starts biting. He's still such a happy and sweet baby boy. We're very blessed to have him.

I'm so excited this Thanksgiving all my family will be together for the first time in a really long time for Thanksgiving dinner. Both sisters from California will be here and so will my brother from Boise join us. It will be a lot of fun!

Happy Thanksgiving! 

Happy Veteran's  Day!!!  Sadly I'm still sick today.  Ugh, my throat still hurts.  Kevin's voice sounds awful but thankfully he says he feels fine otherwise.  It's a good thing too since his job was awarded today and he had a lot of work to do.  I'm so happy this job came through.  I know he was feeling nervous about it and wanted another job to come through.

Today Addie got to go to the her first gymnastics class with the bigger class.  She was so super excited to go!!!  It was so fun to see how fearless she was there with the other kids in her class.  She did really well and had a lot of fun.  It was tough on the other kids the the entire hour since they had the day off from school and were there the whole time.  I'm so glad that for the other classes I'll be dropping Addie off earlier and then going back after getting Kaila from school so then they won't have to be entertained for the whole hour.

After class I took Rowan and Addie to her doctor appointment for the rash she's had around her mouth for the past few weeks.  Kevin thought 2 weeks and I thought a month so we took the middle at 3 weeks.  We didn't have our normal doctor but Jean Butler saw her and she was amazing talking about the little hat going on the light for going in her ear and the "TV" screen on the back for her to look through.  It was so cute and Addie ate it all up!  Rowan was amazing as always and put himself to sleep once I turned the phone on to a sound machine for him.  He's such a great little baby and makes life less stressful.  How I love that about him.  The DR decided that Addie's rash wasn't from food but probably eczema that has gotten infected.  She ordered her a prescription of antibiotic to help her get over it since it wasn't clearing up on it's own.  I also got a moisturizer to help her with it too.

After getting home I quickly made a sandwich since Kaila's dinner wasn't Game On approved.  Then I feed Rowan while Kaila grabbed me a skirt to throw on and then headed out the door for Stake Leadership Training at the church.  I love those meetings.  I love getting together with friends and sharing fun ideas with each other and feeling the spirit.  It was wonderful.  After the meeting I stopped by Kari's house to draw names for our knitting Christmas party.  I love our knitting group!  I wish I could have stayed longer but Kevin had volleyball to get too and he was already late since I didn't get to her house until after 9pm.

I finished up my water intake, exercise and habits after Kevin left.  Now to bed and praying to meet weight in the morning dispite my lazy exersices the past few days.  I'm still proud of myself for doing something even I feel like crap!

Wonderful Stake Conference and Illness Strikes

Today we had Stake Conference for all of Oregon.  It was wonderful! I was privileged to able to sing an opening song with a women's choir made up of women from the Stake, lead by the awesome Eddie Richey. It was so wonderful to be surrounded with such wonderful and beautiful sisters in our stake. It was a great way to start the day and to feel the spirit so strongly! Our stake president talked before the broadcast from Salt Lake. He shared a picture of Sister Anderson (a daughter of my friend in Damascus Ward) serving her mission in Florida when she surprised a lady she had been teaching in a previous area to be there for her baptism day. Sister Anderson is in full smile and the investigator getting baptized was in full tears. It was very touching. He talked about how that is the gospel. I was explaining it to sweet Addie who was sitting on my lap the lady crying was so very, very happy. How the gospel can bring us so much love and joy. It was sweet to have a little time to talk with her. 

Sadly we are all getting a little sick in the house with colds.  If you can say a prayer of healing for us, especially Addie. She's the worst. Pray for Kevin's hand to heal.  He hit it on a persons head at volleyball weeks ago and still isn't feeling better. He went to the doctor on Friday and it's not broken but is very painful with many movements and to the touch. Kevin started some oils on it tonight and feels they are actually helping it. I pray it does because it's his right hand. Poor guy.

Good with the Bad

Good- The kids playing well together while I slept some more with Rowan in the morning
Bad- they were playing in the garage with things they shouldn't (baby toys-climbing up shelves to get them, suit cases, Dad's motorcycle)

Good- time to visit with my friend Jen Card while the kids got to play at McD's and burn off some energy.
Bad- Addie peed her pants again there...ugh!
Good- Kevin came home around dinner time
Bad- Addie peed her pants again right by the toilet
Good- Kaila went straight upstairs to finish organizing her desk after school.
Bad- Her two friends came to play but she didn't have time to play with them before dinner
Good- We found Kaila's other soccer shoe so she could go to practice
Bad- While trying to find the shoe we discovered the kids rooms were a mess and so was the office.
Good- I got to spend time with my mom going to a doTERRA meeting on the Leaky Gut
Bad- it was in Hilsboro and there was a huge traffic jam and we were 45 minutes late.
Good- Pa came to watch the kids while Kevin was with Kaila at her soccer game and after while he was at YM
Bad- he let the kids watch a TV show and not put them to bed after they were in trouble for the messes they made and were told to clean and go straight to bed.
Good- I learned a lot about different foods and tips to help our family
Bad- it didn't end until after 10pm and we still had an hour drive home

Trunk or Treat

Tonight was our wards Trunk or Treat night.  The kids love this every year and look forward to it so much.  I enjoy being with my friends and seeing all the different and unique costumes too!  Our ward always has a chili and pie contest/potluck.  This year I decided to opt out and not make or bring anything.  Usually I'm bringing 2 pies and once a pot of chili too (and I won 2nd place for it too).  Kevin went to the Timber's last game with a friend of ours and I decided to stay behind with the kids so they could enjoy the night.  I was telling Glenn that I was skipping the game so I could take them to the Harvest Festival and Glenn said I was a wonderful mommy to do that. Melted my heart!  Then Kevin asked what that made him and he said a bad Daddy...it was funny.  I really did appreciate Glenn noticing that I was sacrificing for him and his sisters.  It meant a lot to me just for that moment.

Grandma and Grandpa came too and joined us at our table for dinner.  I brought chicken nuggets and apple slices for the kids because they don't like chili and wanted to make an enjoyable evening for myself.  Kaila did ask for a hot dog (which I hoped they had but couldn't count on it since it wasn't announced).  Glenn hates hot dogs anyway so I was bringing stuff mainly for him.  It was wonderful to pass out dinner before the prayer was said and they were able to eat immediately after the prayer.  I fed Rowan and Grandpa helped to get me some pie.  I took the meal off from The Game On Diet and was looking forward to the pie the last couple days!  I told him to find me the coconut pie.  I knew Emily Jensen had made one and couldn't wait to eat it.  She sent me a text a couple hours before the party saying, "I say we hid ourselves in a closet and eat this by ourselves. #coconutcreampie"  YUM!!!  I told her it was a deal...well a slice is fine too.  He found it and it was delish!

After dinner Grandma took Rowan around in the stroller for a visit to see everyone.  She loved it and I loved being able to wonder around with Addie and enjoy the games.  Kaila and Glenn went off doing their own thing which was nice but sad that I missed seeing their faces while they did all the different activities.  We had a great night though!!  My favorite was the Angry Birds sling shot that Mike deLeon put together.  It was amazing and so much fun!  I even took two turns at it.  The kids all loved it too especially Glenn.

We missed the costume parade since they never came out to the back hallway to announce it was happening.  I was sad about that and Grandpa was sad too.  He was looking for us and never found us.  Thankfully I was thinking that we needed to go start trunk or treating and they already had started.  I sent the kids up the hallway the opposite direction from everyone else but didn't want them to miss out on all of it by going around the long way.  Kaila kept going for more and more candy and by the end I was throwing handfuls into her bag to get her to go away.  It was too funny!  She's my girl that will save it too and doesn't really eat a lot of sweets.  Glenn would eat everything in one sitting if he got the chance and Addie was be right behind him.  Those two love their sweets.

Love my little Row-dog

Rowan was wonderful as always and loved just looking around at everyone and enjoying all the sights.  I fed him as we arrived and changed him right before we left so he was a happy camper.  It sure helped make the evening enjoyable.  He made a very cute little doggy too.  It was so fun to see him in Glenn's old costume.  The crazy thing is Glenn wore it at 9 months old and Rowan fits it perfectly at 5 months old.  He's my growing boy!!!

 
Our Primary went around and gave all the senior primary kids sheets with all the apostles and first presidency on it and told the kids that for every person they take notes on they can select a topping to add onto their ice cream sundae that would happen afterward.  The Junior kids could come with their older sibs (mine lucked out and got to come because I went to help out and Kaila got one of those sheets anyway and took great notes without even knowing about the ice cream toppings.

It was lots of fun and worked out well. Kevin came and picked up Kaila early for her soccer practice (about 10 minutes after we got there) and then I took the other kids after the activity.