Our Valentine's Day

We had such a nice Valentine, this year.



I stopped off at the fabric store a few days before V Day and snagged V Day prints on sale for 75% off. I knew Connor wouldn't be interested in pink hearts so I also snagged some fleece at 65% off. I made pillolws for the girls...some nice comfy memory foam pillows. And Connor got a pair of Transformer fleece pajama pants. Al bought flowers for everyone, roses for me and yellow daffodils for the kids.

We made V Day cookies on Saturday so the kids took treats to their church teachers along with the extra daffodils and some corny monkey Valentine Cards.

After church, we had a nice nap time followed by games and a family activity planned by Lillee. She was so cute directing everyone. It went something like this, "Isabel, you'll do the song. Daddy, you'll do the scripture. Mommy, you'll do the talk. I'll do the prayer. And Connor, you'll do the silly dance. Then I'll hide all the prizes and we'll all go together to find them."


Lillee took stuffed animals and other trinkets from her room and hid them, then directed us where to find them. It was a really fun evening and I love that when our kids think of fun family activities that it includes prayer, talks and scriptures :)

This guy made me smile

You'll have to click on the picture to see the stickers up close, but I'll tell you what they say starting in the upper left corner and coming down (like making the letter U).

1. Well at least the war on the middle class is going well
2. Work harder, Democrats want to spend your money
3. So how's that hopey changey thing working for you?
4. OOPS!
5. Conservative IN EXILE
6. Peace had a chance
7. O BUMMER
8. Bend Over, Here comes change

The capital O's on the bummer stickers are all the signature Obama O

Snowmageddon, Snowpocalyse or Blizzard of 2010

This is Connor sitting ABOVE the deck on a mound of snow.

And he made a 'snow chair' in the center of the yard.

Isabel couldn't even walk in the stuff. She crawled to the trampoline (you can see the snow is nearly to the top of the trampoline frame. She crawled right back and she's crawling onto the back deck...the snow eventually mounded over the top of the deck by about 1.5 feet.

Call it what you want, but I call it frustrating. It was enjoyable at times, but an inconvenience for 2 weeks and the inconveniece will continue for weeks to come. Over 40 inches of the white stuff from 2 storms just a few days apart.

This is the blanket of snow that leveled the backyard.

Here is a rail and if you look close in the background, you can see the snow is about to overtake the fence in the yard.

Our BBQ grill and it's new domed cover.

What a fun filled 2 weeks we've had

AAAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

I'm done with snow :) We've been hit with over 40 inches of snow in two back-to-back storms and the state has no money to deal with the huge mounds of white stuff.

This is a measurement after the first storm.

We have enjoyed drinking lots of hot chocolate. Actually, I think Isabel gets all geared up to go play in the snow just so she can have hot chocolate when she comes back in because she never stays for more than 5 minutes.

Speaking of Isabel, she turned 4 years old last week and we had a great party! I stayed up late to make her Strawberry Shortcake birthday cake.

The next morning, when she hopped into bed with us, Al said, "Let's go have cake and ice cream." And he wasn't kidding. We had cake and ice cream at 7:30am

and were opening presents before 8:00am. She received some great gifts and had a fun day.

Isabel saw a cute little fabric dollhouse in a magazine and said she wanted on like it with little bunnies (just like the picture). I sewed this cute little house but wasn't able to find bunnies to live inside but thought she would still enjoy it. She's not played with it once. She wanted the bunnies and the stuffed bed and chair that was pictured in the magazine. maybe one day she'll appreciate it...when she's 30 and has her own kids to please :)

She got a new baby doll and baby bed from Grandma. This doll sucks her bottle and binky and closes her eyes and and breathes deeply when she goes to sleep.

Strawberry Shortcake was the star of the day. She received a doll, movie and 2 books all Strawberry Shortcake.

She's also been saying and doing some really funny things:

Grandma Jane has been organizing all of her hundreds, maybe thousands, of photographs. So one day, Isabel went downstairs where the sorting has been happening and said, "Where are those books with the pictures of the human beings in them?"

One afternoon, I asked the girls to clean their bedroom. After a bit of time, the girls appeared in the kitchen to announce the bedroom was clean and ready for inspection. Lillee continued to share that she cleaned the room almost completely by herself. When I questioned Isabel as to why she did not help clean the room, she spouted back, "I wanted to see how good Lillee could do by herself."

One morning at breakfast, we were having a little family chat...nothing serious, just talking. Isabel is something difficult to understand as she's lazy in her speech. On occasion, Al and I will tease her a bit to make her aware of her mispronunciations. This particular morning, I had mentioned that Connor made Isabel's cake all by himself and that he really enjoys commenting on the food I cook, with very descriptive language. Isabel wanted to chime in that she was a good cook, too. Al picked up on this and started teasing her about being a 'dood took'. Well the teasing continued in a slew of other funny word combinations. She corrected him over and over, "No, I'm a dood took!" She finally gave up, slapped her forehead and shook her head. It was hilarious!

I took her for her 4 year old check-up today and she was wonderful! Of course, I bribed her with a milkshake and chicken nuggets from McDonald's. Normally, she would scream when the Dr approaches her, but the bribery really worked! Dr. Pedriera told me how sweet and kind Isabel is and said, "Isabel, you're my favorite patient" and that made her feel so good. He always tells me what a good mom I am, that's why we really go to see Dr Pedriera :)

Mommy's special pill

I take many pills each day, albeit a bit less now that my asthma has gone away. I take several pills each day for blood pressure, one for my sinuses when they're acting up and a couple vitamins to make me feel a bit more rounded at the end of the day. The best pill of all is one I don't actually take myself. It's Connor's pill.

For a few years now, Al has been trying to convince me that we should take Connor to a psychiatrist to have him evaluated for ADHD. I've been reluctant, especially since I teach Connor and his attention issues haven't bothered me. However, just before Thanksgiving, we started having some behavioral issues from Connor. We took away all his typical rewards---Nintendo DS, Wii, reading in bed, listening to CDs in bed, the privilege of staying up later than the girls, etc. After several weeks of having lost his privileges, we realized he didn't seem to care. He had no motivation to do anything. He no longer wanted to play piano, which he once loved doing. He became very emotional, we were always yelling at him, sending him to his room or threatening him to try to get any positive response

I broke down, I told my husband it was time. Fortunately, my husband knows a great doctor. Al, who has ADD, has been seeing Dr. Brody since he was a kid. And when Al's mother was being tormented by Al's behavior as a child and teenager, she started seeing Brody, too. So Brody has now seen 3 generations of Al's family :)

Brody was happy to schedule an appointment with Connor. He has a large TV on the wall and plays video games with his young clients. Within one Wii session (about 30 minutes), Brody walked out to say, "Yup, ADHD. We should start him on some meds." Voila! That's it, it was that simple?

Brody suggested the same meds that Al takes for his ADD, Vyvanse. Can I tell you how special this little pill is? Miracles are encased in this little capsule!!! Now it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, right away.

After leaving Brody's office, the guys went to the pharmacy and then home to see what happens when the pill is consumed. This part proved to be quite tricky. Connor was willing to try the pill, but when he couldn't swallow it, he panicked. Then Al and I panicked. We all yelled, screamed, argued and cried. After 45 minutes of promises, bribes and threats, it ended with Al having to hold Connor down while I forced it into him. It was not pretty, but it worked.

Within 2 hours, we noticed Connor couldn't stop reading. He had picked up a ThinkGeek catalogue and was reading it from cover-to-cover. When I realized what was happening (read: the medicine was working), I decided to test it a bit. I asked Connor to play piano, this really challenging piece he's been working on for months and typically gets so frustrated with that he can't make it through 2-3 measures without wanting to give up. He moaned when the piano teacher assigned it for another week. This time, when he tried to play it, he didn't get frustrated. He took his time, played each measure while actually reading the music (he once loved playing from memory because it took too much effort to look up and find his place on the sheet music). He persevered through the entire piece, no complaints, no quitting. I was so amazed that I asked him to play it again and he did. Willingly!

As he finished the piece, he turned to Al and I and said, "Thank you mommy and daddy for taking me to that Dr and getting this medicine. Thank you for everything." I was nearly in tears while he was playing the piano so I was ready to burst when he said this.

For 2 years I've been telling myself that Connor didn't need meds because I was OK with him and since I was the one spending so much time with him that it was OK. My husband finally clued me in by telling me, "The meds aren't for you, they're for him." I understand, now. And I was grateful for a husband who understood Connor's symptoms, his frustrations and his need to have some control over his actions. If it weren't for Al having experienced the same frustrations as a child, poor Connor would still be a sad little boy who on occasion wished himself dead (that was a hard one for me to swallow...my 6 year old thought things would be better if he weren't alive).

Connor recognized the change in himself with the very first dose of his medication. He promised that he would take it willingly the next day because he was so happy with the results. And he did! And he's gotten better at swallowing it every day and Al and I haven't had to threaten him or yell at him since.

His improved behavior has changed the dynamics of our entire house! The girls are behaving better and the yelling has really calmed down. We had 3 hours of school yesterday! 3 hours, straight! That is a first. He did 7 pages of math (fractions) and never complained...he actually offered to do the 7th page when he had finished the 6th page.

When we were visiting my parents this past weekend, Connor was a bit bored. So he started cleaning. First he closed himself in their bedroom and started cleaning and rearranging the room, lined up the shoes, straightened all the decorative pillows on the bed and so on. Then he came to the living room where he lined all the shoes up by size, smallest to largest, then noticed things were dusty, grabbed a cloth and very systematically began dusting the furniture in the room.

The magic that this little pill creates has changed our lives! The only negative thing about this pill is Al's gloating. Thanks, Al, for being patient with me and for not rubbing it in more than once or twice a day.