Kids Pictures--I am so NOT a photographer!!!

The first 3 are actually the last pics I took--can you tell they were glad it was over???









Rehanyn's expressions make me laugh in these next few pics
















ADREYN















TRISTAN















REHANYN

Christmas Eve

So, I've been quite lax about blogging lately. I guess I took a blogging break--not because I planned it but because I just didn't feel like it :-)

So, Tristan got sent to the principal's office again. Same reason. Why the teacher took him to the office immediately instead of stopping at the bathroom first when he said he had to go--I will never understand that *idiot* (ok, sorry, adjusting my attitude) *crazy* woman. Come to find out the cafeteria incident (first one)--upon investigation another kid told Tristan to do it, so not his fault, really, I guess. Come to find out--this time the same kid told him to do it again. So after *expressing* my frustration to the principal I asked for a new teacher for Tristan and hopefully we will get a new one when the current 6 weeks is over (middle of Jan) so that makes Jason and I much happier. Tristan's speech and motor skills are continually improving too.

Adreyn is doing well in school--other than being a bit messy so we are working on that with her handwriting and keeping her desk neat. She is motivated to do well so that helps.

Rehanyn is frustrating us as always--I swear she is the child God gave me in return for my parents saying "just wait--one of these days you'll get a kid just like you". She is such a sweetie but sooooo high maintenance! We are looking forward to school for her next year. Right now she is sick with a cough and stuffiness so she is even more fun because she is "fweeling vewy sick, mommy".

Work has had a bit of a low census in the last couple of weeks so I have been able to get some time off (on call but at least I get to stay home). That has been nice. I've been busy the last couple of weeks doing some Christmas baking (cake balls, chocolate chip cookies, chocolate covered pretzels). The middle of December mom and dad watched the kids overnight for us so we could go to a friends birthday party and actually be adults for awhile :-)

Jason has been busy again--this is nice since his work was slow for awhile. Right now his car is in the shop (has been since last Thursday) to get some warranty work done before the warranty runs out. So, Jason has been driving a rental car--well, not a car it's a Dodge Ram King Cab truck. That thing is so HUGE I have to crawl into it!!!! It doesn't look too bad for the kids to crawl in but not so good when the mommy has to. Even Jason has a little trouble climbing in :-)

This is the first year in 9 years that I have both Christmas Eve and Christmas day off. I usually work one or the other--so have to spend at least some time sleeping each day. It will be nice to be fully awake tomorrow!!!

Today I went last minute Christmas shopping--and took all 3 kids. That was an adventure and reminded me why you shouldn't procrastinate and shop the day before Christmas!!! And why mom would never take us shopping with her--I always wanted to go and now I totally understand why! :-)


Mom and Debbie have both asked me about Cake Balls so here is the recipe:

CAKE BALLS
1 box Cake mix (any flavor)
1 tub frosting (any flavor)
1 package white chocolate bark (or chocolate or the candy spheres you can get at Michaels)

Cook cake mix according to directions. Let cool then crumble into tiny crumbs
Add entire tub of frosting--mix completely with crumbs
Chill mixture
When cold form into small bite-sized balls--Chill again
Melt white chocolate (or whatever you are using)
Dip chilled cake balls in white chocolate (cover cake completely) and let dry/harden on wax paper or aluminum foil

Eat and enjoy!!!

I like to use white cake mix (I add a little peppermint extract to the batter) and mix vanilla frosting (tinted pink with a bit of peppermint extract added) in with a chocolate coating. you can use whatever flavors you like--red velvet cake is really pretty with this too if you coat it in pink or white.

I guess that is it for now--I'll post pictures of Christmas morning and Christmas at mom and dad's tomorrow.

Merry Christmas Eve to all!!!!!

Holiday Party

Jason's "boss" Max took his employees out for Christmas. We went to the Gaylord Texan Hotel and ate at the Riverwalk Cafe there. Then we went to the ice sculpture show that was there at the hotel (VERY impressive). Enjoy the pics!

Holiday decorations

Here are a couple pics of my decorations. These are little "corner people" dolls. I just love them! One is a little girl dressed for the holidays and one is an angel.







Here are a few pictures of our new tree. We've been using a 4 foot tree while the kids were little and Molly was a puppy but this year we got to get a BIG tree again. This one is 9 feet tall--and I LOVE it. It fits perfectly!

Crafty Rehanyn

I smelled a fireman because I'm sexy and I do what I want!!!!

A little laughter and fun for the weekend. Make funny sentences for everyone in your family, just follow the instructions.

Pick the month you were born:
January-------I kicked
February------I loved
March--------I karate chopped
April----------I licked
May----------I jumped on
June----------I smelled
July-----------I did the Macarena With
August--------I had lunch with
September----I danced with
October-------I sang to
November-----I yelled at
December-----I ran over

Pick the day (number) you were born on:
1-------a birdbath
2----- --a monster
3-------a phone
4-------a fork
5-------a snowman
6-------a gangster
7---- ---m y mobile phone
8-------my dog
9-------my best friends' boyfriend
10-------my neighbor
11-------my science teacher
12-------a banana
13-------a fireman
14-------a stuffed animal
15-------a goat
16-------a pickle
17-------your mom
18-------a spoon
19------ - a smurf
20-------a baseball bat
21-------a ninja
22-------Chuck Norris
23-------a noodle
24-------a squirrel
25-------a football player
26-------my sister
27-------my brother
28-------an iPod
29-------a surfer
30-------a homeless guy
31-------a llama

Pick the color of shirt you are wearing:
White----because I'm cool like that
Black-----because that's how I roll.
Pink-----because I'm NOT crazy.
Red------because the voices told me to.
Blue-----because I'm sexy and I do what I want
Green----because I think I need some serious help.
Purple----because I'm AWESOME!
Gray-----because Big Bird said to and he's my leader.
Yellow---because someone offered me 1,000,000 dollars
Orange---because my family thinks I'm stupid anyway.
Brown----because I can.
Other-----because I'm a Ninja!
None------because I can't control myself!

Thanks, Tamra (this was good for a laugh at work!)

Latest cake--baby shower

Finished this cake last night for the baby shower today. Left it on the counter last night as the boxes are in Tristan and Rehanyn's room and I really didn't think I should wake them just to retrieve a box.

This morning, got up and was told by Jason to get a box as Rehanyn was eyeing the cake. Went to grab a box and when I get to the kitchen what do I see.....but my child digging her finger through the frosting. There was frosting missing from the circle around the baby's name, and frosting missing from the border at the front of the cake. Luckily I still had frosting left over and was able to fix it!!!!

Frustrated....and a bit of a hissy fit!

So, Jason got Tristan and Adreyn off to school this morning and then went to work.

At 11 am I got a phone call from the school (we get automated phone calls periodically so not real worried). I answer the phone and it is the Principal of the school. She is just calling to let me know that Tristan is in her office....because "apparently" he pulled down his pants in the cafeteria. OK--not really something he would do but what do I know. She said she was "talking" to him trying to get across that it was "inappropriate" to do that. Well, after a frustrating couple of minutes of trying to understand what was going on (she kept saying, "well, Tristan said he did it but won't say why, and he is saying that _________ did it") I finally told her that she just needed to tell him firmly that he is NEVER EVER to do that again. I asked why he was in her office (I mean, it's the PRINCIPAL's office) she said that it was just the closest place to take him and that it wasn't for discipline. Okay--there were alot closer places they could have taken him. Then she told me "well, he's done this before" Well, that is when I totally lost it...Really??? If he has then why haven't I been told? This is ridiculous--I think that this is something I should know, RIGHT???? Her answer was that she guessed that the teacher didn't tell me because she "handled it". Well, apparently she didn't handle it well if he is now doing it in the cafeteria, huh??? So, I told her that I was really upset with how Tristan has been treated in school and of course she started in with "well, I'm noticing you seem really upset". REALLY???? I just have the kindergarten teacher from hell!!! So I told her about the teacher wanting a conference after just one day of school, and how everything the teacher has sent home is negative and how supposedly Tristan can't complete things at school but comes home asking to do homework and completes everything in about 10 minutes (including the stuff he "can't" complete at school), and how the teacher thinks Tristan is "young" and how he came to school without being able to write his name (he's only 5). So we talked about this RtI stuff--I actually got information from her (the teacher said she didn't really know how it worked)--it sounds like it might be a good thing for him. We talked about Tristan's speech delay--she thought that he was already in speech therapy and was surprised to find that he wasn't. I told her about Tristan managing to cut up and ruin his brand new pair of shoes in class--he was not being watched if he managed that. She definitely could tell that I was frustrated with his teacher. She said she would look into several things (today's incident since it is unlike him, the RtI stuff, and getting speech therapy started). So after 30 minutes of discussion and me getting to express my frustration we hung up. I called Jason after about 20 minutes (I needed to calm down first--I hate that I cry when I get mad :-{ ) Then, at 2:20 I got another call from the Principal...I wasn't sure what to think....She had researched back to when we had Tristan tested by the school system in 2006 (when they wanted to classify him as autistic) and come to find out....back then he had qualified for speech and occupational therapy...and they never told us!!!!! I am so frustrated!!! Anyway, the principal is getting everything started to get him into the speech therapy program and to get some occupational therapy so hopefully that will get started and we may see some improvement in those areas. Jason and I are still thinking that we will probably have to request that he get a new teacher though as we don't feel that this teacher is "the right fit" (to put it nicely).

I'll keep updating this as we know more...we are supposed to hear from the speech teacher and occupational person soon.

Thanks for listening to me vent.... :-)

Sooooo

Well, not too much going on.....besides work, cakes, kids, kids school, illness, etc.....you know how it is :-)

Last Wednesday we had a conference, finally, with Tristan's kindergarten teacher. We had had it scheduled for the previous week but due to "miscommunication" or "non-communication" we showed up for the meeting but the teacher didn't. The conference seemed to go okay--we got to ask the questions we needed to ask and find out where she is coming from. I think Jason may have intimidated her a bit, but we were pretty frustrated. Hopefully we are on the same page now and things will get better....already the communication between her and us is better. She's finally keeping us in the loop regarding Tristan's education. The teacher has recommended that Tristan be evaluated by the Response to Intervention (RtI) group at school and this is a group of teachers that work together to create a plan to help a student with whatever interventions they may need. The teacher says she is hoping to get some speech therapy and possible physical (motor skills) therapy. This would all be done during school hours. We are just looking at this as hopefully a good thing :-)
The good thing is that the school has a motor lab that tristan is already using weekly so it may just be that he gets to use it more frequently. We are also making him do little exercises to increase his hand strength as this will help him with his penmanship.

So, enough about Tristan :-)

Adreyn is still doing great in school. She is STAR student next week and is very excited about that!!! Yay, Adreyn. She is finally finding the joy of reading as she is required to read a certain amount of time each day. She is getting through her Ramona books and some of her Junie B Jones books and is really enjoying them.

Rehanyn is still being her same little self. She NEVER stops talking--even while I'm typing this she is laying in bed chattering (she has been in bed for an hour!) She still misses her brother and sister during the day but it is slowly getting better. She is happy this week though because we managed to go to Kroger twice...I think that made her week :-)

I'm working as much as usual--at least I got 2 days off in a row :-)

Jason is staying busy too, while not feeling well...poor baby :-) It's kinda funny though cause when he talks he sounds like he is about 12 with an odd squeaky voice!

100th post!

My, my, 100 huh? well, I feel like I should post something exciting or earthshaking but instead....well, I'm gonna post pics of my monkeys fingerpainting. Oh the joys of fingerpainting--I have found though that it isn't so much *painting* as it is *color mixing until black is achieved* Oh well, at least they had fun :-)