Think Positive!

So my black Sunday shoes were left in my office since Sunday. Shanelle found them today and started walking around in them. I think they made her feel a little sassy. . . . a few minutes later she said, "Mom, is my birthday December 21?"

"Yes, Shanelle!" I say surprised, because she I know she knows her birthday is soon, but I have never heard her say the date.

"Well, you just got dissed. My birthday is sooner than yours!"

Wow Shanelle. You are one crazy girl. I am sorry to say she knows the word "dissed" and uses it!

My Dear Sweet Shanelle - 2nd family accident in a week!

 
My Dear Sweet Shanelle - 2nd family accident in a week!

So that darn baseball. This time Shanelle, being a spectator was drawn to the 'kid magnet' which is a 6 foot tower that has a ladder up to a platform. It looks so fun to climb, but it is a ladder that is bolted to the tower, so it is straight up and down. So it is hard to climb up and down. Shanelle was coming down and fell of. She cut just below her lip, only quarter inch cut. So we were wondering if she needed stitches.

The verdict, was yes, she needs stitches. She got 3 to be exact. She was a gem. The nurse put a numbing gel on her lip so that when they gave her the real numbing shot it wouldn't be so bad. She did not cry once. NOT ONCE! Not a flinch, not a scream, not a tear. She laid on the bed, held my hands and let the doctor give the shots and then give the stitches.

She got a prize after. And a picture by the ladder.

Now, she has waited her whole life (3 years) for swimming lessons. They start Monday. Now she can't go to them. So Sad.

This is the closeup.  I know, only three inches, but on this beautiful face. . . that's too many.  We are praying for great healing.

 

 

The face painting is from Lehi Round Up week.  The girls dance in the park for the event.  It has been a yearly event in our family for 4 years.  The girls LOVE to get their face painted!

Baseball Accident

I am refraining from showing the gorey, bloody details of Jaxon's hit to the mouth.  When he wasn't ready another player threw the ball to him (it was a warm up inbetween innings) and the ball hit him smack in the mouth.

His front teeth are wiggley.  Jaxon hurt really bad the first two days, like eating jello!  I took him to the dentist finally .. . he took x-rays and gave us the bad news.  His tooth is broken up at the root, under the gums you can't see it.  I could see it on the x-ray and I am not a trained technician.  He sent us to an endodontist.  He said there is nothing we can do right now.  The tooth is not responding to hot or cold.  He gave it a 20% chance to repair itself and stay alive, but the truth is, his tooth will probably fall out.

I am so sad.  Thank goodness there are things that can be done.

Right now we are fasting and praying for his body to heal itself. 

I love you Jaxon, hang in there, tough boy.

 

This is a picture of Jaxon at bat.  This is not the game where he got hurt.  He did connect with the ball in this picture and hit it very high and far - inbetween center and right field.  He hit it so high that the other team could time it and ran underneath it and caught it.  But great job Jaxon.

I love this picture how you can see the fence, but not right on him, it disappears there.  

PreSchool, School and a Book Fair!

Today I took Shanelle to a preschool .. . she wants to go so badly and there was a sale at the local preschool .. 1/2 price!!! (I know that sounds really weird . . . a sale on preschool)  There are only 5 children in the class and of course they want to fill it so they put the tuition at half price. Shanelle loved it and did wonderful.  I will help Jon and the Northstar business while she is at school.

 

Sienna has been so excited about the Book Fair that coincides with the Parent Teacher Conferences at the school.  She brought the Book Fair flyer home and circled the books she wanted and then she wanted me to go over her choices and tell my opinion.  We narrowed her 12 choices down to 2.  Yesterday she bought a Tinkerbell book to give to Shanelle for Valentine's Day.  Today she at lunch she bought the ballerina book she wanted and tonight at the fair she bought the cat book she wanted.  She kept talking about a "pointer" she wanted, I must say it is a really cute "pointer" and she wants to use it at home in playing "school" so she can point to things on the board.

 

This is Sienna making her purchases at the Book Fair at Freedom Elementary.  Notice Shanelle right by her side.

These are the girls mixed in with the decorations outside the school's library.

And the cute roller coaster.  The decorations are always cute...

Jaxon is not in the picture because Jon whisked him away to play futsol (indoor soccer).  He is not really on the team, but the coach put him on the roster so that he could use him when someone couldn't make it . . .which was the case tonight.

SEP's (aka: Parent/Teacher Conferences)

Sienna's teacher, Mrs. Stephen's, was ecstatic to tell us about Sienna.  These are some of the quotes she wrote about Sienna:

Sienna Smiles!  She has the most beautiful smiles.  She understands her math and does great double digit addition.  She reads at grade level according to DRA test.

Sienna works to make the problem better.  She spells most 2nd grade sight words correctly.  Her journal had perfect paragraphs and she can write in 3rd person (she was the only one in class that did that).

Jaxon's teacher is Miss Waite, she says he is doing great.  He respects authority, arrives on time and has a positive attitude.  He is an A student.  He is a great part of class and definitely contributes.  All of the kids really like him.

Love those kids!!!!  We love school!!!

Julie is a Gem!

We had the fun opportunity of having Julie and her kids over today.  I know she doesn't want her picture posted, but it's my blog and I think she is important.  Here she is cleaning and revamping my foyer.  She cleaned off the foyer table and only put back what worked and looked good.  She changed out a few of my plants, I love the look.  And the foyer floor is much brighter and whiter, I guess I haven't mopped it for a while. Oops!  (it's been vacuumed, just not mopped)

Chloe enjoyed being read to by Sienna.  

Lincoln just hung out.  Don't you just want to kiss this adorable face!  (Can I just document here that he loves chocolate milk!)

Jaxon Dancing!

The girls have been just turning on our ancient stereo. . . (you can see it on the window seat in the background) and then simply dancing!  They have dance clothes they wear, but they mostly put on skirts.  This time Jaxon said "bring me a skirt, too!" 

This is the result!

Love it!

He is strong enough to twirl Sienna too!

So this lasted about twenty minutes and then Jaxon or Sienna found a hackysack on the floor and they started throwing it at each other.  Pretty soon they are running through the house and around the house 'horsing around circle' giggling with glee when they happen to hit the other with the ball.  They have always loved playing with each other.  I love to hear the giggles.

 

Raspberry Pancakes!

Jon and Jaxon got a little busy in the kitchen.  Because they couldn't find any ready to make pancake mix, Jaxon had the idea of using the Raspberry muffin mix from Lehi Roller Mills.  Jon was up for it so they put it together.

So why the picture of Shanelle?  Well, she took a bite of her pancake and came to me and said, "mom, there is blood in my pancake."  I didn't know she could even say the word blood, let alone think that she is seeing it.

She didn't eat the the pancake even after the explanation of the different looking pancakes.

Notice the pig pajamas . . . these are my favorite.  She had some when she was 2, too!  They are definitely a great repeat.

Saturday Is a Special Day. . . It's the Day we get ready for Sunday!

The Job list has been posted by Jon and the action is happening all over the Hunt Home!

 

Juan does the best a jobs which are "task" oriented rather than "cleaning" oriented.  Jon assigned him to put together the wires for the filing cabinet.

Jared has always done a great job cleaning.  He has been cleaning these bathroom mirrors for 10 years!  Wow!!!

Jaxon . . . there are two words for Jaxon's cleaning abilities, fast & thorough.  I don't know how he does it, but he can conquer a job list like no other.  He gets on it and doesn't let anything stop him.  And he is good, really good about doing a wonderful job.  Here he is sweeping the kitchen.  We have a central vacuum that he usually uses, but it is on the fritz, so his tool of choice for now "broom and dust pan."

 

Sienna is a fantastic cleaner.  She is becoming more organized and helping me with the house.  I really can't think of a time when she complained about "cleaning."  Here she is flashing and award winning smile while cleaning her bathroom.

So Jon put Shanelle to work and when I saw this I had to get the camera out.  What a moment from our 3 year old.  Look at her tiny, feminine hand hold that vacuum hose.  She was really busy into her work doing the entire hallway.  She wouldn't even look up for the camera she was so into her work.

 

All the kids were cleaning and not complaining for about 1 hour.  It was a fine sight for us to see as parents.  There was a great feeling in the home!!!   And it is a lot hard than I thought it would be to teach the children to work.  Consistency!  That's the ticket :)


 

Jared Broke the Couch

Well the 7 year old couch is broken.  A board snapped when Jared jumped from the coffee table to the couch.  That was the 'straw that broke the camel's back' however, I am sure Jonnie, Jaxon, Sienna and Shanelle contributed too.

 

Jared also took off his bandage, he was anxious to see what his scar looks like.  He received 10 stitches on Friday, and was told to leave the bandages on for 2 days.   He took them off exactly 48 hours later.  This is a scar he will have for life.. .we are thankful for a nice doctor that said it was nice to stitch a hand because he could use the lines in the hand to line up the skin and stitch it in the right place.  Thanks Mike Young at the American Fork Emergency Room!!!

Just wasn't a Sunday without Jonnie . . .

Jared said to me. . "it doesn't seem like a Sunday." I said, "Ya, I know." But there Jared was in a suit, we had finished church hours earlier. We had a chips and dip snack, played a game and now we were on to making dinner. Nothing was different than any other Sunday, except we were missing Jonnie. And we really missed him. Our house feels empty without him. Sadly, he will be gone at least 5 weeks out of this summer. So we will have to live with the emptiness, but I know we won't get used to it because there's no replacing that awesome kid.

Jared and Sienna had a little squabble in the foyer as we were leaving church.  Jared apologized to Sienna in the car without me prodding him.  Because he could see his weakness and apologize on his own, I switched gears with the punishment I was going to dish out.  Since Jared was sweet with his sincere apology I would be "sweet" with the punishment.  I told Jared that he and Sienna would need to play a game together.  When Jared got home, he asked if he could read her the comics.  I said that would be fine.  I left them to put Shanelle to bed and ran back to the church to listen to Jon, I came back home and found Jared and Sienna on the couch reading the comics.

Later Jon played with the kids on the floor.  They love to "rough house" with him.

 

Sometimes he lets them "win" to boost their self-confidence.

Sienna waited for her turn, I wish I could say, "patiently waited" but I can't.

Jon felt a little "beat up" after today's routine.

 

We played Parcheesi while Shanelle slept, so we could not have 2 year old interruptions. . . it was an educational experience for all.

Jared chose the game.  He left the game.  He came back to the game.  He played to win and didn't win.  But he learned a few things.  He left mid-play because he was angry and he came back before his next turn.