Some Random Little Bits And Pieces

• My hair is curly again. I missed the curls, and my pixie cut was growing out to the point of funniness, so I went for a perm last night. I love it.
• We're headed to Seattle tomorrow for Brian's cousin's wedding. We're excited to meet Rebecca and see everyone else in the family. While we're there, we'll be livin' it up with the Sumsions for a day. Yea!
• The kids are having bread and jam for breakfast, and Alyssa is singing, "Jam, jam, jam. Jamma, jamma, jam," while she's spreading it on her slice.
• We got the house! Brian and I signed the acceptance papers for the bank's counter offer on Saturday. We'll be closing on the 22 of March. I've got a OneNote file full of decorating ideas for each room, and a Word file listing the "plan" of our moving schedule. In less than a month we'll have a dish washer, a garage, and a driveway!
• Yesterday I took the kids with me to Achievement Days, and Hope was giving the lesson. She was talking about the 12th Article of Faith, and Ethan was sitting on my lap, and when she asked the girls the question, "Now, what do we do if we think a law is stupid?" Ethan turned to me and gasped, "Hupid is a bad word!" He's such a good boy.
• Marcus' new phrase is "All right." If I tell him something, he says, "Awe vibe!" And speaking of Marcus, he just got his butter privileges revoked, because he stuck Alyssa's pill bottle in the butter tub. Maybe blogging during breakfast isn't such a good idea.
• I'm reading "Alice in Wonderland" to Alyssa in preparation for the movie coming out next month. We're not taking the kids to it, because it actually looks scary, but I've requested that Brian take me for my birthday when he's asked what I want, and I'd like to officially read the book before seeing it. I'm also making notes on ideas to decorate our new school room, and I've decided the Alice in Wonderland theme is prefect for a school room. It encourages stretching your mind and using your imagination, it has quotes on the Earth that would be great to put by a world map, and it's just fun.

Gotta go. We're getting a late start to the morning, and we've got a lot to do today.

Now Why Are We Teaching Her How To Read?

Alyssa learned her letter sounds in the same way any respectable three year old would: Leap Frog's Letter Factory movie. My sister recommended it to me, because it was a fun and easy way for little kids to learn their letters. As Alyssa got older and started going to school, she improved and expanded on her letter knowledge, but she has always been cautious and shy in the reading department. I know. Alyssa - cautious?!? Shy?!?

Last summer we read through "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons," because that is what my mom taught me to read with, and it's a great source. Alyssa was quick to catch on to the letter sound concepts, but she was reluctant to read when it came to sentences, and then stories. We discovered, though, that once she was familiar with the book, she wasn't as hesitant, and this also became the case when it came to her Phonics lessons this year. Once she learned that reading the Phonics books wasn't as scary and intimidating as she thought, she stopped fighting when it came time to read them. But if I offered any other book to read, even if it was 100 times easier than her Phonics books, she absolutely refused.

Last month we noticed that Alyssa was more willing to read with Brian's mom than she was with me, so we "hired" her as our Reading Specilist. (Grandma's get paid with love, or maybe ice cream. We'll be thinking about that one.) Anyway, this was the most brilliant thing I've done for Alyssa's reading skills. Spending special time with Grandma every day, without the boys, made Alyssa look forward to reading time, instead of dread it. Alyssa's confidence in her reading skills improved dramatically, and now she's reading books to us without fighting, and she's actually enjoying herself! Her favorites right now are Frog and Toad and the Fancy Nancy series, and we're thrilled.

Now, in our lessons each day, I sometimes sneak in a little bit of extra work. If a math lesson is super easy, I might combine it with the next lesson and put it in the same folder, turning it into one lesson. I did that last night while putting together Alyssa's binder, and didn't think anything of it. But come this morning, Alyssa sat down and pulled out her first Math lesson and said, "Mom, this paper says 'Lesson 4' and these papers say 'Lesson 5' and I'm only supposed to do one lesson, so I don't think I should do this paper." My little girl is a reader. I'm so proud of her!

Nine Years Ago

Nine years ago today I woke up as Carrie Lewis in a hotel room in Provo Utah. I did my hair and make up with my maid of honor (Kimmy) beside me, and had a doughnut continental breakfast with my family. I don't really remember how much I ate. I think I actually had a yogurt in an attempt to be healthy so I wouldn't plump up and look fat in my wedding dress.

Nine years ago today I sat in the lobby of the Salt Lake City Temple getting teased by the elderly temple workers about the groom not showing up, because Brian was a little late in arriving.

Nine years ago today I shared the bridal room with another girl about my age, who was scared out of her mind and kept asking me, "Aren't you nervous?" I just kept shaking my head, because I knew exactly what I was doing, and I remember not feeling nervous at all.

Nine years ago today I sat on a couch in the Celestial Room with that sweet girl and talked for a few minutes while we waited for our fiancees to join us. When they entered the room they were accompanied by a cute little lady, who was advising them on how to be gentlemen by helping us stand and sit in our wedding dresses and letting us go through the doorway into the sealing room first.

Nine years ago today I knelt with Brian and listened to a beautiful sermon about love and marriage, and didn't understand about a fifth of it, since the officiator learned Brian had served his mission in Germany and then proceeded to give Brian a personal sermon in German. Brian still hasn't told me what was said, although sometimes when we have a friendly disagreement he'll say, "Remember that German part?"

Nine years ago today I kissed my brand new husband for the first time as "husband and wife", and he totally backed out of the kiss we had practiced and left me hanging there for a second. Everyone got a good chuckle out of that.

Nine years ago today I shared a Hawaiian luncheon with my family, my new family, and my friends. I twirled with my little niece, who is twelve now, and listened to how many rolls Brooke had eaten.

Nine years ago today I was whisked away in a washed and vacuumed car (Brian's best men Jeremy and Don had taken it in their tuxes to a self service car wash while we were still visiting with everyone over lunch) to the Anniversary Inn in Logan Utah for our long weekend honeymoon. And I went to bed that night as Carrie Jacks.

Blah...

Just having a bit of a blah afternoon. Going to make some cookies to liven things up. I'll let you know how they turn out.*

THE BUTLER'S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

(found through blog surfing about homeschooling at http://anewchelseamorning.blogspot.com)

1 stick butter, softened but not melted
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 tablespoons (yes, tablespoons) vanilla
3 1/4 cups flour (a full cup more than the recipe on the package calls for)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 12-ounce package semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375*

Mix thoroughly butter, shortening, sugars, eggs and vanilla with a wooden spoon. Stir in remaining ingredients.

The batter will be stiff, and it should be. Just to make sure it is flavorful, you should try some of the dough. But not too much!

Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 inches apart on an ungreased baking sheet (preferably a shiny sheet which gives better results).

Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown. Cool slightly before removing to a wire rack.

Yield: about 5 dozen normal sized cookies or 3 1/2 dozen ginormous cookies.


*Scratch that! We only have half a stick of butter, and I'm not going to replace it with margarine. I don't want to judge a new recipe when I'm not using the right ingredients. Ethan and I are now making cake truffles, which I heard about from my little sister, Kim. (She likes to be called Kim or Kimberly now, but we all know her real name is Kimmy.) The recipe she gave me was this: make a cake and crumble it up, mix the crumbles with frosting and roll into balls, stick the balls in the fridge for a while, then dip them in chocolate. We have a white cake in the oven, and we're going to mix it with strawberry frosting. Once again, I'll let you know how they turn out. (And can't you tell that my mood is already improving? Baking a cake will do that.)

Edited to Add - the cake truffles didn't turn out too great. I think I used too much frosting, plus I think the chocolate cake, chocolate frosting combination Kim told me about would have been better than white and strawberry. I made the cookies the next day with margarine spread, because I couldn't wait until I went to the store for butter, and they turned out great. Not the best dough for snitching, but once they cooked up, they were fabulous!

I Don't Do Teeth

For the past week or so Alyssa had a tooth that was just slightly loose. She started wiggling it and fiddling with it, which was fine, but then she started pushing and twisting it more than it was ready to go. We kept telling her that the tooth would get wigglier on its own as the new tooth came through, but she kept on pushing. Yesterday morning she showed me a blood splattered napkin and told me that before she went to bed the previous night, she pushed really hard on her tooth. And then she showed me how she pushed really hard on her tooth. It made me cringe just watching her. In fact, it's making me cringe right now just writing about it. Of course it started bleeding, and she couldn't leave it alone after that.

Halfway through our second math lesson (Yesterday was a Plan A day. Yea!) She sprung up from her chair, yelling, "My toof, my toof, it's thtuck!" To which I replied things like, "Of course it's stuck. Leave it alone. It will come out on its own. It's not ready yet..." And then she showed me this:


She had pushed her tooth completely backward, then wedged it back into the hole it came from. I couldn't move it. I couldn't even wiggle it back to where it was supposed to be. It was absolutely, positively stuck.

Now, I'm a mom. I've done all sorts of yucky things in the last seven years. I've changed millions of poopy diapers. I've cleaned up all sorts of throw up messes. Just this morning Ethan coughed so hard that he threw up his Coco Roos into his cereal bowl. I was out of the room when it happened and when I came back to his, "Mom, look at my cereal!" calls, I honestly wondered where he had found chocolate pudding. I cleaned it up. No big deal. Messes don't bother me much, but I don't - do - teeth. They just weird me out. Cringe.

So while Alyssa hopped around the living room, yelling, "It hurths! My toof!" I tried calling Brian's dad to see if he could come help out, but no one answered their house phone or cell phones. Then I went ahead and called Brian at the office, which I hardly ever do. We don't have dental insurance. The doctors at our practice usually find a dentist to switch free services with, but we haven't found one yet. (We have been taking the kids to the dentist for their check ups. Don't worry about that.) I was calling Brian to see if I should just take her in somewhere when his dad called back. He said he would come take a look at it, and while we waited I had Alyssa lay down on her bed while I took some floss and started sawing at the skin her tooth was hanging on to. It took about ten minutes, and finally the tooth was free. Cringe.

And, of course, the tooth fairy forgot to leave a quarter last night, but luckily she didn't feel the tooth when she checked, so I just told her, "You stay downstairs with the boys while I go check," and came back downstairs claiming the quarter had fallen under the bed. I love having gullible children.

Carrie, In A Nutshell

NaDell tagged me. Here I go.

Your cell phone? It's lilac. I love having the chance to call people when I'm out and about, but other than that I'm not a cell phone person. I don't text or use the internet on it or anything.

*Your hair? Short and straight. Just before Christmas I got a pixie cut. I love it.

*Your mother? is fabulous.

*Your father? had a birthday yesterday. Happy birthday, Dad!

*Your favorite food? Cake. I like a lot of other foods almost as much as cake, but cake always comes out on top.

*Your dream last night? Ethan coming into our room with his pillow and wanting to sleep with us. Oh wait, that was real.

*Your favorite drink? Water. Really, I love water, but I also love root beer and freckled lemonade.

*Your dream/goal? To have my whole family in the temple together someday.

*What room are you in? Living room

*Your hobby? sewing

*Your fear? My biggest fear, I think, would be losing Brian or one of my children.

*Where do you see yourself in 6 years? Doing just about what we're doing right now, but all of us older.

*Where were you last night? At Achievement Days for church, then at Brian's parent's to pick up the kids, then at home. I finished the book Pride and Prejudice last night.

*Something that you aren't? Male

*Muffins? Blueberry. You can't beat hot blueberry muffins.

*Wish list item? A house

*Where did you grow up? Pasco, Washington

*Last thing you did? Gave Alyssa instructions for her math worksheet

*What are you wearing? Plaid skirt, turquoise sweater, no shoes or socks

*Your tv? is off right now, thank goodness.

*Your pets? Callie is somewhere in the house, probably either sleeping on someone's pillow or licking the walls. They both happen frequently.

*Friends? I have them.

*Your life? is good.

*Your mood? I'm actually in quite a good mood today.

*Missing someone? Everyone in my family in the Tri-Cities is hoping that my brother will be able to find a job up here when he graduates in May. We all miss him and Erin and the kids.

*Vehicle? 1997 Honda Odyssey.

*Something you aren't wearing? Shoes

*Your favorite store? Target

*Your favorite color? I think it's green right now.

*When was the last time you laughed? Just a minute ago. Alyssa's math work is extremely easy today after a couple weeks of new material, so we had a good laugh about that. She's been learning about money and clocks, but today she's counting the sides and corners of shapes. Easy peasy.

*The last time you cried? Two Sundays ago during a melt down before church

*Your best friend? I'd have to say Brian, but my mom and sisters come in a very close second.

*One place you go to over and over again? Disneyland, hopefully

*Facebook? Yes, though I don't post updates and stuff. Mostly I just spy on everyone else's updates and put up pictures from family gatherings.

*Favorite place to eat? Red Robin

I tag Kim W, Kim-the-sister since she hasn't blogged in forever, both Heathers, Jamie, and Wendi.

A Little Change

Why do changes always cost money? Brian would probably answer that question by saying, "Only when you're in charge of them, Dear," but, really, he hardly ever calls me "dear."

The first change to steal from our pocket book is Marcus' bedding. In preparing for our *possible* upcoming move, I decided that Marcus was old enough to sleep in a twin sized bed in our new house. My mom offered for us to use the headboards that my sister and I used when we were little, which we already have one of, and we talked about painting them dark blue to match Ethan's bedding, and the bedding I planned on getting for Marcus. I bought Marcus' bedding, the first bit of money spent on this change, and made two pictures to match both of the boys beds.This part acutally cost nothing, since I used two picture frames that the previous tenants left in the basement, some card stock, and some wall stickers I bought for Ethan forever ago and never used. I must point out that I realize that no one would park their cars that close to a rocket launch, but I didn't have a big enough picture frame to make it more realistic. I love how they turned out. I love what you can make with just a little bit of paper.

During the process of buying bedding and making pictures, we moved Alyssa out of the bedroom that all three kids shared. She was tired of Marcus climbing out of his crib and wreaking havoc before falling asleep at night, so she finally got a room of her own, and she loves it. After moving Alyssa out of the boys' room, we discovered that with her gone, Marcus started going to Ethan's bed to play. Now, Marcus is a bulldozer, and Ethan doesn't quite know how to fight back when Marcus wants to jump all over him, so we spent a few nights listening to Ethan shriek in terror between our visits to put Marcus back in his crib, and we were soon discussing ways to keep Marcus from attempting to kill his older brother before falling asleep at night. Brian found the solution while searching for something completely unrelated, and we were soon spending more money. A little extra money, too, because I went ahead a paid for overnight shipping, which I've never done before, but I felt it was necessary to keep our four year old alive.


The crib tent came yesterday, and I set it up immediately. We actually ordered the car sheet and blanket along with it, because up until now Marcus' crib sheet has been Ethan's flat sheet wrapped around his mattress. Marcus loved it while we were setting it up, and he loved it while he was testing it out, but once it came time for bedtime, and I laid him down and zipped it up, he didn't love it anymore. He cried for about five to ten minutes, then fell asleep, which is better than me rocking him to sleep and having him wake up all night, because that's what he does when I rock him to sleep. And it was better than either Brian or I laying down beside his crib for an hour saying, "Marcus, lay down," over and over again. I really think it's a good solution. Brian has also been worried about Marcus falling and getting hurt while climbing in and out of his crib, so it solves that problem, too. We'll just hang on to the rocket idea for another year or so until he's old enough to firmly grasp the meaning of "Stay in bed!"

Two nights ago, Ethan and Marcus actually stayed up looking at books for a while, and they both fell asleep by the door. So they've gone from this:

To this:

(They're supposed to be pretending to sleep.)

The second change we've had in the last couple of days is to our kitchen cupboards. When Brian and I first got married, we saved our margarine tubs from Costco to use as our containers for baking ingredients. People sometimes open our cupboard and say, "Wow! You eat a lot of butter!" But they don't understand that it took us a couple of years to stockpile our collection.

So these are what we've been using for most of our marriage. They work great. I've been using them for years, and I haven't once complained, but you have to admit that they're not exactly very pretty. I went to a thrift store with my mom today while Alyssa was at school, and I found a great collection of dishes to turn our flour and sugar containers from the Sharpeed yellowness you see above to this:
Isn't that so much prettier? They had a smaller salt container, but it didn't have a lid. The flour dish is actually a little bigger than our margarine tubs, and the sugar is about the same size. I bought a couple of other dishes as well.

I'm excited to start using the special plate. I think the kids will love it! They had a ton of other dishes from the same collection, and I was tempted to buy more, but we don't have that much change.

Our Revisited Schedule, And Much, Much More

I think I've already done quite a few posts about our various schedules and what-not, and I'm about to bore you with, yet, another one. I think the most important thing I've learned about homeschooling this year is that you have to keep mixing things up. Schedule and routines are important - even essential - but they only last for so long. What works one week will completely bomb the next, so when it stops working, you reevaluate, and start again. And then when that stops working...you get the picture.

Right now we're doing two lessons each of Math, Phonics, and Language Arts on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and on Tuesdays, when Alyssa has her morning acting class at MCP, we do three lessons each of History and Science afterward. Thursdays are the days Alyssa spends all day long at MCP, so she (usually) does a lesson of Language Arts when she comes home in the afternoon. And every day we do our "Dailies," which consist of Alyssa doing a practice Math worksheet, a writing assignment (mostly to work on penmanship and sentence structure), and reading a couple of books with Brian's mom, who is currently our Reading Specialist.

So that's the basics of our schedule. We have two plans that we're starting to use on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Our Plan A is: Math, Phonics, Math, Phonics, Language Arts, with a five minute break in between each lesson. Each lesson usually lasts about thirty minutes, depending on how willing to work Alyssa is, and when she is willing to work, things go very smoothly. We go through the lessons and worksheets together, then she dances during her breaks. When she's not willing to work, she fake cries and feels sorry for herself until she starts crying for real, and it gets to the point where I want to throw my hands in the air and say, "Do whatever you want to do," but I know that we need to get through those lessons. Plus, if I give her a break, it will only teach her that whining and crying will get her what she wants.

Plan B was invented last week at one of those hand-throwing moments. I decided that when Alyssa was having one of those days where she just didn't want to cooperate, we would switch to Math, Phonics, Language Arts (both lessons), then have the rest of the morning off, then lunch, reading with Grandma, and then start back in again with our second lessons of Math and Phonics. Today was one of those days, and when we were spending a long, emotional time on our first Math lesson, I just made a mental switch to Plan B, and it made me feel less stressed, and it gave Alyssa time after the first half to regroup and have fun with Grandma, so she could get right back in things. It worked great!

Plus, we've been using a checklist for the last month in order to make sure we're doing every thing we're supposed to do each day. It started out small, with a little section for each family member all on one page, and it's expanded to being one page per family member. I worried that having a checklist for every little thing (prayer, brushing teeth, cleaning up after breakfast, etc) would be over-doing things a bit, but it's made my days a lot smoother. Both because the kids are excited to check things off their lists, and because I don't have to think, "It's Monday, what do I have to do today?" I can just look at my list and know that I need to make our meal plan and grocery list, because tomorrow is shopping day, and when I'm done, I can check it off my list. When we have enough points, we're all going to Chuck e Cheese's, and we're (basically the kids) are excited.

And to make the post longer, I'll go ahead and tell you about something I've been wanting to write about, but haven't found the right moment to do it in. This just might be the right moment. Be sure and tell me if it's not. Are we good? Okay.

Kay, raise your hand if you know Alyssa. Go ahead and put it down. Now raise your hand again if you know that Alyssa is an extremely busy, energetic little girl. Most likely, if you raised your hand to the first question, you immediately raised it again to the next question. Alyssa is busy. Busy, busy, busy. And she's been busy since day one. Brian and I have spent tons of time as Alyssa's been growing up worrying about this busy-ness, and wondering just how bad does it have to get to seek help. We watched her be busy in Nursery. No big deal. We watched her be busy in Sunbeams. I was terrified to send her to Sunbeams. She was busy in Sunbeams, but it wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it would be. We watched her be busy in ballet, and basically get kicked out of class. (Although in truth, I took her out after the teacher told me that Alyssa was devious and trying to manipulate me and I should just go get some coffee during her class instead of staying to watch. Honestly, I think all the other kids must have been messed up to sit still in a circle for a full ten minutes during roll call. What three-year old wants to spend ten minutes of a forty minute dance class sitting still when they're wearing a cute leotard and tu-tu?!?) We watched her be busy in kindergarten, then first grade, then kindergarten again. And finally, I watched her - up close - be busy in our living room and be barely able to contain the movement in her legs to sit still for a lesson.

Last year a very kind woman in our ward helped us with some exercises we could do with Alyssa. She did her thesis on these exercises that help ADHD kids be able to control their bodies, and she did a course of lessons for her granddaughter and Alyssa. They helped. They honestly helped, but not enough, I guess, and we didn't have the extra half-hour each day of quiet without the boys to be able to do them enough to be effective.

So this year, we finally decided to seek help from our pediatrician. We fought this decision for a long, long time, and the last thing I wanted to do was medicate, but it finally got to the point when it was getting out of our control. I called and made the initial appointment on a very rough day between Alyssa and I, and I'm glad that it took a few days to see the doctor and that we needed to get her blood work and other tests done, because it made me really think about whether or not I was putting her through all of that for me or for her.

We got every thing figured out with the doctor just before Christmas, so she's been on Staterra for just over a month. The doctor explained that there were basically two types of medication to try: the Ritalin type (I can't remember the official names) is one where if you imagine someone's energy being in a jar, with a normal person's energy level "here", and Alyssa's up "here," and the medications will push Alyssa's energy levels to completely fill and overflow the jar to kind of wear her down and slow her down. I didn't like that option very much, and he agreed. Staterra is the type of medication that just stops the neurotransmitters in her brain that make her busy.

So far it's working great. It's so much better than I ever thought it would be. I was afraid that if she was on medication that she would lose her personality, but she is still very much Alyssa. And she still is very much a busy little girl. She still might be busier than your average child. I don't mind that at all. The medication seems to slow her down just enough for her to stop and think about things, and to be more in control of her body, instead of her body controlling her.

I've been on the look-out for the side effects this last month, but so far that's going well, too. One of the possible side effects is depression and suicidal thoughts, and she's honestly been less wheepy and emotional while she's been on the medication than she was before or during a week break from the medication when we were trying to get things approved by our insurance. The other thing is that the doctor said it might make it harder for her to fall asleep at night, especially if she took her pill too late in the morning, but she's been falling asleep better than ever. It's wonderful.

I hope this explains all the thoughts that have been running around my head for the past month. Yet it doesn't even touch on the discussions Alyssa's had with the counselor she's been talking to in order to "treat the patient, not just the problem" where, for instance, in response to the counselor asking me how Brian's and my relationship is, and me saying, "Just fine," Alyssa says, "...and when they're alone, and Daddy stretches her out, and she starts screaming for us to come help her, Ethan and I run in and pull Daddy's hands away so we can save her." Of course, Alyssa failed to mention that Brian likes to tickle and wrestle before saying this and permanently burning those words into my brain, where they will remain forever and ever.