Conference/Easter Weekend

Saturday we watched both sessions as a family. Kristie came over for the second session and Chris even took notes when she was here.
After both sessions we died Easter eggs together. Joseph's friend Cole also was there to watch for the second session then died eggs with us. Joseph wanted me to take him to the doctor between sessions because he hurt his knee. He asked if I was going to take him at the half. Ha! I laughed so hard. We must be a sports family. Now Conference has a half time. Love it!

Emily had a rough weekend. Nothing went her way. She cried over most everything and anything. Yay for us! She just couldn't get her eggs the way she wanted and the only one she got right.....broke. Oh the joy!

Kristie and Chris made lovey dovey eggs!

Chris getting ready to watch the morning session on Sunday with his Easter basket.

These two punks got up at 5:30 to go on the hunt for their basket. They had a great time on the hunt. They got stuff for our trip in a couple days. Emily put her stuff straight into her suitcase. We are going to Vegas to stay in the most awesome time share with one of my bestest friends ever!!! I cannot wait. We leave Tuesday. Just me and the two little ones are going.

Christine came over during halftime for our big Easter brunch. She made us this awesome bunny cookie. It was so good to see her. Dennis' kids made him this funny card.

Conference was wonderful and uplifting. It also reminded me of how many things I need to work on. I guess the list is long, but I'll always be a work in progress. I just tried to get Emily to come in the office to ask her a question. This was my response, "Stop bugging me! I am designing fashions and I am with a customer." This type of response went on for a while. Then I heard my mom come upstairs and Emily explaining to her how annoying I was being interrupting her business. Oh brother! This girl just keeps me going all day!

Fashion Show

Okay so this is a little off topic, but this is a sample of my daughter's fashion. She makes strange creations and then wants me to take pictures of her. This was after an hour in the shed. She found an old swing and some Halloween make-up and Voila'!!
This is Chris and Kristie after they became "true" T-Wolves!!!

This is Chris and Kristie after the fashion show. We get to spend a lot of time with Kristie lately. She brings light and joy into all of our lives. Our family (especially Chris) just loves her.

This is Chris with my mom after his fashion show. He did so good. It was so fun. It is a long video, but you can find it on my facebook.

Emily, Christopher & Joseph!!! The fashion show was the best!!!

What a week!

This has been a long tiring week. I am just not liking this time change! Tonight Chris and his "friend" Kristie, played games with our family for a while. I went on a double dinner date with these two last week. We had a lot of fun. Krisite is a super great girl. Christopher will be asking her to prom tonight. They even took Emily bowling last night. Chris has been having a great time.
Emily has been designing all sorts of fashions with this scarf. She makes me take a picture of each new creation. She also went to gymnastics this week and chorus. She also had a tooth pulled at the dentist and a physical and a few shots at the doctor. Not fun for all of us who had to hold her down. Oh what scene, oh what fun!

I went to Christopher's track meet. He is doing the javelin. He did a great job! One sport he is allowed to do so it makes him happy to do something. I went with him to his cognitive speech therapist and things seem to be getting better. Slowly, but heading in the right direction. He also has started taking piano this week. He wants to be a music therapist so he is strengthening his musical repertoire. Next week voice lessons will start too, hopefully.

Yes, his friend Lexin, really wore this to the track meet!

St. Patrick's Day is one of Emily's favorite holidays. Maybe because she conned me into getting her treats every year by writing cute little notes for the leprechauns when she was little asking for something from their pot of gold. Now she thinks it's just like all the rest of the holiday's with gift giving creatures. This year because of her tooth getting pulled the leprechauns were sensible and just got her the Jenga game she has been wanting. Well, for her and Joseph. He's in on the game too. Oh and a box of lucky charms for breakfast. Dinner was our other tradition. Green eggs and ham. It looks gross, but Emily swears it is the "best meal" she has ever eaten. She invited her friend over for dinner to share in the tradition. Corn beef and cabbage is not my favorite, so this tradition is much easier for me. That night I had young women's and a meeting and got home for the night close to 10. Which normally wouldn't be so bad, but the night before I had to take Dennis to the hospital until 3 a.m. He had a bloody nose that wouldn't stop bleeding. They tried everything. They finally had to use something called a rhino rocket. They stuck it up his nose and pumped it up to put pressure on the bleeding. He had to wear it for 3 days. He was so miserable and he said it hurt very badly. Here he is eating his green eggs and ham with his rhino rocket.

This week was Joseph's first wrestling meet. He did great! It was so much fun to watch. We all loved it. Especially Christopher he was so proud of his little brother. You can check out the video of it on my facebook page. Emily kept yelling, "Rip his head off!!" I got her to stop finally, but oh boy was she excited. Joseph also got a physical and shots. He was sort of a big baby too. So glad it is over. Very dramatic day. He went to the rock show with some friends today and also got Donny Osmond's autograph at his scout pow wow today. It was the second time he met him at a scouting pow wow. He thought that was super cool. He had seen Donny on "Dancing with the Stars".

I subbed four days this week too. So many other things I couldn't possibly account for it all. I just know that I am tired and ready for a more relaxed week or even a day. I'll take what I can get!

My Entertainers

I have some performers on my hands. Emily LOVES to sing. She is in Chorus at school. She is also a pretty darn good little song writer. I mean for her age, quite amazing. For music, at school, they had to sing a song for class. She sang the EBay Song by Weird Al. They did really good and they even had props. I asked if she wanted voice lessons, but she clearly stated that her voice is "perfect". I guess it's good to be confident. She also wants to start a band. If you ask her she is already in a band. I asked her if she wanted to take any instrument lessons. Guess what? She doesn't need them, she is already highly skilled in every instrument. Wow, she should be famous. She is also trying to help me become a better person. I type with two fingers. I just cannot, no matter how hard I try, figure out typing. Emily has informed me that "It is a life skill you need to have" so she will help me learn.

Then there's Christopher, he is my entertainer. Who knew? He was this shy little boy and he has sure blossomed over the past few years. He was in the lip sync contest last night at the high school. He was so funny and had so much fun on stage. He just LOVES to be in front of an audience. He is quite funny. He is also very talented at writing songs and playing the drums and guitar. He has decided he wants to be a music therapist. He found out you need to try out with singing and piano. He is going to start taking voice and piano lessons next week. Chris has also been banned from having his picture taken from the yearbook. He was at a dance and they asked him to get out of the picture because they were instructed to not take any more pictures of Chris Moore because he is already in the yearbook way too much. Ha! That is funny. Must be nice to be in the yearbook too much. I guess this has been his year to shine at school in at least one way. He is doing some cognitive speech therapy to help his brain to heal, but on that front things are frustrating and going very slowly. I'm glad he can publicly be happy and have fun because his personal struggle with his brain injury right now are quite debilitating and overwhelming for him and me. Several doctor appointments a week and meetings with the school. It has been quite rough, not only time wise, but emotionally as well. Thank goodness I have such great friends who help pick up my slack when I'm having a hard day! They are invaluable in my life. Joseph is not a performer like the other two. He does not like being on stage or singing. He does love sports though and is just trying out wrestling for the first time. He is loving it. I'll get pictures next week of that.

Preference

Tonight was "Preference". It is a girl's choice dance. Their morning date was a nice breakfast.
Chris putting on her corsage.

He is such a cute boy. I hope he has fun!

I forgot to put this one on the last post. We also had a yummy Chocolate cake for our Valentine's dessert.

Valentine's Dance

Joseph has been waiting for this dance for a long time. I heard him talking about it with his friends over a year ago. They LOVE girls and they talk about them all the time. The 6th graders practice many dances during P.E. for quite a while. They then put all of their moves together at a special dance. They all dress up and practice their moves. They cannot dance with the same person more than once. It was boy's choice half of the time and girl's choice the other half.
They did the swing, the cha cha, the waltz, the bunny hop, the electric slide, and a few more. It was very professional!
Joseph danced with many girls. I couldn't even post all of the different ones. It was way too many. They also did many dances that didn't have partners.

Us moms all walked around taking pictures and ooohing and ahhhing! It was a fun time for a mom.

Joseph had the time of his life. He just had a blast. What a great opportunity for these kids to practice their dances and dance etiquette. A great experience for us all. I bet I don't get to follow him around with a camera at his next dance, that's for sure!

Joseph won an award for his Electric Slide. Ha! So fun to watch!

On Valentine's Day, we had assigned Valentines and they had to do dates in the house. (Because it was Sunday). Chris and Emily exchanged gifts and had a nice date that included hide-and-go-seek.

Joseph and my mom exchanged gifts and had their date.

I forgot to get a picture of Dennis and I, but we had a date and he gave me this nice gift. It is a Willow Tree figurine and the title is "Our Gift". I know Sarah is our gift to raise in the millennium, but I'm not that patient and sometimes it doesn't feel like a gift. He was sweet though to give me this, even thought it made me a little sad. I made a huge turkey dinner for us all and I was stuffed and went to bed early. Not too shabby of a Valentine's Day for this family!

Basketball

This basketball season has been quite interesting. Christopher couldn't play because of his brain injury. This was very hard for him. He loves to play basketball. Joseph had a great time this season.

Emily has been the challenging one this year. It was her first year playing. I decided to coach to give her a little help. Christopher was my assistant coach since he couldn't play. Here he is giving some pointers before they begin.

Emily has been very frustrated this season. This has been overwhelming and difficult for her. During her last game she exploded as a basketball player. She was dribbling, guarding and shooting like never before. She was even running. This girl does not run. It was amazing. She was so proud of herself. She got so pumped up and asked if she could sign up for soccer. I am so proud of her. Coaching has been challenging. I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, but to see how far some of these girls have come is a joy I did not expect.