13 Weeks Old

13 weeks today and ready for a day in the sun! Today was the last day of school for Starboy so we spent the morning at the school watching the dance festival and then we got to go to the Lake on a picnic. This summer hat came in really handy to keep the sun out of Princess's eyes!
All of that playing at the Lake made princess tired. Here she is just hanging out waiting for a snack and then a nap.

Last Day of School

Today was Starboy's last day of 1st grade. He was so lucky to have Mrs. S for two years. She was a wonderful teacher and he loved being in her classes. He even asked if she could please move to 2nd grade. He made a comic book and gave it to her as well as a candybar and a thank you card. Starboy likes to be creative and often thinks about others.

Each year on the last day of school is the dance festival. Each grade performs a dance. The 1st graders perform the Sink and Wiggle. Starboy had a lot of fun with it. Enjoy the video

After the dance festival Starboy, Princess and I went to the lake for a picnic.

We picked up Little Ceasars Cheese Pizza and free breadsticks that Starboy had earned from having no tardies. We also had oranges, carrots and juice to round out our meal.

Princess hung out in the shade in her swing most of the time. We did go onto the beach for a little while and watch Starboy swim and move big logs. Princess stayed covered with her summer hat and sunscreen. I used geranium essential oils to keep the mosquito's at bay.

Staryboy had a lot of fun using these big logs as boats, diving into the water and, stomping around. I only allowed him to go up to his chest because I had the baby and jumping in to rescue him would have been difficult. He is a pretty good swimmer, but I really wanted a calm afternoon. He was really good about following the rules. We stayed at the lake for about 1 hr.

For weeks Starboy has asked if he could sleep outside. I kept telling him after school is out. So tonight after coming back from Grandma H's. He decided he wanted to do it. He is out sleeping under/ on top of the tramp. He was trying both out to see which would be more comfortable. I told him that if he gets scared to just come inside and get into his own bed, but he thinks he is brave enough and is excited to sleep under the stars. Because he is a 2nd grader now you know!

3 Months Old

Today is Princess's 3 month birthday. This is her Paris hat, she is so fashionable. She has slept 5-6 hrs in a row at night a few nights which is great for Mom and Dad.

She is now big enough to sit on the potty with Mom instead of being held in arms. This helps our arms not get so tired, she is so big! Still catching almost all the poops and a lot more pee's.

Her legs are getting stronger and she loves to stand up!

She has listened to Coach read two whole novels. "Spindels End" and "Fablehaven" they are now reading "Princess Academy" This is their evening ritual.

Starboy loves to read to Princess each day also. He does 20 minutes of reading everyday for homework. Princess will coo and smile while she listens to him.

We love watching her daily milestones. She is such a happy fun baby. We are all so lucky

Memorial Day Weekend

We enjoyed the holiday weekend by spending time with Coach's family. His sister came to visit from Logan. Starboy got to have his cousin sleep over at our house Saturday Night and then he slept at Grandma's Sunday night. He stayed up way to late and slept most of Monday completely exhausted.


They had a lot of fun playing on Grandma H's swingset, going on bikerides and enjoying the beautiful weather.


Aunt M. was doing underdogs- Staryboy was swinging so high he was almost higher than the swingset! It is always fun when cousins come to visit.

12 Weeks

12 weeks old and soooo darn cute! She is learning to lift her head when on her back and loves to swing at things.

This is her new jungle toy from her Aunt C. The first time we put her under it she was quite overwhelmed, but now she really likes to swing at the toys. The brown monkey makes music if she hits the ball just right. She has done it a few times on her own, and she just grins.

The hand mold from the dentist office turned out adorable. It almost looks like an I love you sign. I will mount it with a engraved plate so that we can keep it always. It is just amazing how fast she is growing. I am glad I will have a few momento's to remind me of when she was small.

Gardening

Well, I decided to try and plant a vegetable garden in the front yard. I have no idea if it will grow, but I worked really hard on it this week. My sister R. came over and helped me make the soil all loose and added good compost etc.. so it would hold water better. My biggest worry is that it won't get enough sun.

I have planted cucumbers, tomatoes, green, yellow and red peppers, strawberries, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, squash, a pumpkin, dill and marigolds-to repel pests- We will see how well it grows. My mother always had flowers in this bed, which seemed to do well, but I decided that if I was going to tend the garden, I better be able to eat what grows from it.

Back to School

Starboy went back to school on Monday. He really worked hard this weekend to earn the privilege of returning to school. He did a lot of math, reading, and writing. He worked a lot with Coach and really was on his best behavior. We discussed what behavior would be expected in each of the situations where he had made a bad choice so that he could process what a better choice would have been and what he needs to do in the future. I know that he has the ability to make good choices and behave with new people.



I know that he is only 7, and that he is still learning. But I also realize that none of the other children were acting this way, so his age should not be a rationalization of why it is okay. I believe that by being strict about the behavior and having consequences in place, he will improve his behavior. Example: After he threw the chair at the primary teacher, he lost the privilege of going to primary for three weeks and had to go to Elders Quorum with his father- he has never been that disruptive in primary again. In fact he has received thank you letters from his primary teacher for being so reverent. Hopefully we will have the same success at school. There are only 2 weeks of the school year left. There are field trips, field days, assemblies, dance programs, and lots more fun activities, so I think he will do great.

All week things have gone really well at school. His teacher says he is trying very hard to be polite and respectful. He got to go on field trip to a museum yesterday, and today is field day. He has earned back all of his toys and earned to go to his baseball game Tuesday night. We seem to have succeeded. Summer school will be the real test since he will have new teachers.

11 Weeks Old

Princess is 11 weeks old today. She has gained a lot of strength and enjoys sitting up with support to play and look around. She has also found her voice and has become much more vocal.

She can now lay on her side. She hates tummy time and will try to get to her side as quick as possible. If she can't she cries until I help her, then she laughs once she is on her side and can balance there. She has begun to slobber a lot so we have instituted using bibs. It is much easier than finding a burp cloth everytime she drools everywhere.

She still falls asleep in Daddy's arms most evenings while he reads to her. She is such almost always happy and smiley. Starboy loves to read his homework while she is in my lap because she usually smiles and coos at him after each page.

This week we went to the dentist office to get a cast/ mold made of Princess's fist. This is a complimentary item that my dentist office does for long time patients. I have been seeing this dentist since 2nd grade.

They put her hand in this really cold putty stuff. She didn't even squirm or fuss. The technician said it was amazing how calm she was about it. My niece D. came with us and took the pictures.

The mold will be ready to pick up on Tuesday. It will be fun to have this memento of her has a baby. She is growing so fast...I wish I could slow down the clock.
Instead I will just try to enjoy every second I can!


In the video she is more grunting than vocalizing, but she was still happy so I thought I would post it

Big Sigh! The hard part of being a Mom

My last blog I started out with "I love being a Mom" well I also need to say being a mom is HARD, especially when you have to figure out how to best discipline your children so that they will make better choices. My son Starboy is a creative, wonderful, funny, talented boy. But he has a second side that is sometimes manipulative, disrespectful, and dishonest at times. Starboy's first five years of life, before we adopted him, were quite mixed up. He had loving family - grandpa, aunts, and grandma, but he was passed around a lot and I believe he learned that every home and person has different expectations and different rules. Thus, he is big on testing people and boundaries. Especially new teachers.

When he got a new primary teacher last year he threw a chair at her. In summer school the first day last summer he ran around a room screaming in one class, hid under a table and talked back to the teacher in another. This year he has struggled with his music teacher who is a first year teacher and is just too nice. He has had to be sent back to class many times for being disruptive in there. When I asked him why he is mean to the nicest teachers at school he told me to please tell her she needs to be stricter. Luckily his 1st grade teacher was also his Kindergarten teacher and has worked very well with him and me to help him learn to control some of his impulsive behaviors. We have had a few days here and there where we have had problems at recess, or carpet time, or with toys that aren't supposed to be at school. But overall through-out the year she has seen improvement.

Well on Wednesday Starboy had a substitute for his 1st grade class. You know the poem "the Little Girl"

There was a little girl

And she had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead,

When she was good,She was very, very good,

And when she was bad she was horrid

.

This poem describes my son precisely (except for the fact it's about a little girl) I will write the list of things that happened on Thursday with the substitute I was given this by the secretary of the school when I was called about Starboy having a very very bad day!

1. Carpet Time - disruptive, bossy, silly - trying to get other kids to laugh, kept telling teacher she was doing everything wrong. When asked to return to his seat he crawled like a baby, when she asked him to walk he kept crawling, when told to stand up had a fit.

2. After recess tore up a paper and threw it on the floor (it was a treasure map from recess) had a 15-20 minute screaming tantrum before the teachers aid could get him to calm down

3. Started crying and getting mad and disruptive because he didn't understand an assignment.

disrupting the entire class.

4. At lunch he stole a picture from another child and lied saying it was his, The teacher had seen the other 1st grader draw the picture so Starboy finally relented and gave it back.

5. Fought with another child and then kept changing the story of what happened first he fell down because the child scared him, then the story was that they kicked him on purpose, and the final story being "they karate chopped my face"

6 Witnessed another 1st grader have an "accident" laughed at them. The teacher asked him to not tell anyone else or to be rude. Starboy then went and told the whole class the child had peed their pants.

7. After the teacher asked him to stop this behaviour he slid across the desks on his stomach. At this point she tried to take him to the office. He refused to go, so she had to call the secretary to come and help her. This is when I got called. (I'm not sure why I didn't get called earlier)

This is just the list of things that the substitute remembered. She said to the secretary "He's impossible, I don't know what to do with him." So, he came home and I was so frustrated I sent him straight to his room and told him his father and I would discuss his punishment when Coach got home from work.

When Coach got home I explained what had happened. I had told Starboy before that going to school was a privilege and that if he couldn't be polite to his teachers he could be home schooled by Coach. (not by me which would be a reward, because he always wants to be with me) So Coach decided we should implement this for the rest of the week. I called Starboy's teacher and made sure he would not be missing any end of year testing. She was sad to hear he had behaved so badly for the substitute. We both thought so much progress had been made. Anyway, she said his testing was complete. He would miss the fun Teddy Bear Picnic that was scheduled for today, and a spelling test. She agreed with me that this might work. We went and discussed the punishment with Starboy, and of course there were great dramatics and fits. All of his toys were removed from his room and Coach explained that this was now his school room. From 8:30-4:00 each day.

So yesterday and today Starboy has had home-school.. now for those Mom's out there that home school your kids Great Job! I know you make it fun and interesting. I have no desire to home-school thus our goal was to make it miserable so that Starboy wants to return to school and be polite to his teachers and substitutes. Coach got 16 worksheets of all sorts for him to do (at least 2 each hour, as well as having him read and then copy a book.

He can come out of his room for Breakfast - 8 a.m., Lunch - 12 p.m. Snack -3:15 and to use the bathroom. He did not get to come upstairs and be with me and the baby. I spent about 5-10 minutes with him at each break. When Coach got home about 4:30 he corrected the papers, then had Starboy start homework spelling, and reading. Starboy came upstairs for Dinner with the family at 6:30 and then showered finished his homework and went to bed at his regular time of 8p.m. He said last night that he doesn't like home-school and wants to go back to his elementary school. We explained the expectations we had in order for him to return and stay at school.

Today the same routine has occurred, except this morning he tried to tell me he was sick and his stomach hurt. . He did not have a fever, and I was pretty sure he was just faking. So I told him I am so sorry you are sick. You can choose to be sick and stay in bed all day or to do your home-school assignments. If you choose to be sick I will bring you some medicine and water and check on you every couple hours, but you need to stay in bed, and today will not count as a home-school day so you will need to stay home on Monday; or you may choose to do home-school today and we will have the same schedule as yesterday. You decide. He decided to do home-school. He ate all of his breakfast no problem and I just served him his lunch so the stomachache thing was a ploy I believe. At lunch he showed me a story he had written about a boy who was disrespectful to his teachers. I asked him how it was going to end, and he shrugged his shoulders. I told him "I hope it ends with him changing his behavior and making good choices so he can enjoy the fun things at school."

Will this tactic work? I have no idea, but we are trying it. The hope is that when he goes back to school Monday he will be more polite, and hopefully when he starts summer school with new teachers, he won't be horrid to them. Since Coach teaches 7th grade he has a lot of disrespectful idiot teens that he deals with everyday. We really want to help Starboy fix his behavior now so that he doesn't have problems at school when he is older.

Just thinking about it makes me tired and sad and confused. I wish he came with an instruction manual. He is doing much better at home and has learned to be very respectful, polite, and kind almost rarely having a problem that begins here. (His tantrums are usually about discipline for things he did else where) I just hope he will somehow internalize the fact that good choices= more privileges and a better life, while bad choices = less privileges and a more difficult life.

I guess we will just have to wait and see if it works and if not go back to the drawing board.

Happy Mother's Day

I love being a Mom!(most days that is) Starboy gave me a flower and card from school. At church they made another card where the children answered questions about their mom's. These were Starboys answers.

1. If your Mom had a super power what would it be?

able to take care of 1,000,000 kids.

2. What is your Mom's favorite food?

Vegetables

3. What is your Mom's favorite scripture story?

The Broken Bow

4. What is something that your Mom always says to you?

I Love You

5. What is something that your Mom does just for you?

Helps me read

Princess and I were twins in green today. Her hair gets more red highlights everyday. Her eyes even looked a little green in this outift today. It will be fun to see what color her eyes and hair are when she is an adult. My eyes and hair have changed a lot over the years. My hair was a much darker red when I was little and my eyes were blue but would sometimes change to green depending on my mood, and what I was wearing. As I became a teenager my hair got blonder and my eyes greener. By the time I was 16 my eyes were always green and I started dying, highlighting, and changing my hair color for plays and for fun. Now, my hair is a mixture of real and not so real colors. Coach met me when it was a very dark red, I was playing Anne in "Anne of Green Gables" the Musical. So, I think he is partial to it being darker. I like the high and lowlights of the streaking to give it personality.

I called my Mother in Hong Kong and sang to her over the computer on Skype for Mother's Day. When I was in high school and college I performed a lot. I used to do musicals and perform country music. My Mother has always enjoyed listening to me sing. I decided to sing one of her favorite songs from back then "Love Can Build a Bridge." She was so happy to hear it and it was fun to make her smile (and cry a little). Starboy of course was watching me as I sang.

This morning Starboy brought up a CD player and told me he wanted to sing to me for Mother's Day. As they say: "Imitation is the strongest form of flattery." I tried to attach The video below of him performing a song from High School Musical (The Disney Movie) called "Its the Start of Something New", but it wouldn't work. Anyway, I am not calling broadway or think he should have a recording label or anything, but I did think it was really sweet, and fun, I smiled and laughed (in a good way).

Saturday Fun!

Starboy had his first Baseball game today. His team is called the Wasatch Cougars. It is a first/second grade coach pitch team. He had a double hitter during the game!

This is his team and coach. The coaches are parents of another player. They have practice for

1 hr on Fridays after school and then games on Saturday. I think there is a lot more standing around than Starboy is used to. (Soccer, gymnastics, wrestling you are constantly moving)
He sure like to hit the ball though.

In the afternoon we all went to the park to enjoy the beautiful spring weather. Now that Princess is bigger, this is her new favorite position in the Moby. She wants to see everything!

For Christmas Starboy got this remote control airplane. We finally got it out to fly. It did pretty good considering it was a clearance item. It goes for about 10 seconds before crashing. Coach and Starboy had a lot of fun flying it over the park.

After flying the plane, Starboy went and played in the water run off flowing through the park. It was a little breezy so he was chilled afterward, but he had fun doing cannon balls (jumping and landing on his backside) and splashing through the water. We enjoyed watching him from the top of the hill.

Mother's Day Program

Starboy's school had a 1st grader Mother's Day program this afternoon for Mom's and Grandma's. I was so happy to attend and Starboy's biological grandmother also attended. We will refer to her as Grandma J. She lives about 1 hr away and tries to see him every couple months.

He was so handsome and proud today. He had to take the rubber spatula for the cooking song that they sang. This is a spring picture and poem that Starboy made. I thought it was really creative.

The poem says:

Spring Sings with

red birds flying to a nest; blue butterflies flying around; pink flowers blooming sweetly.

This song was always one that I loved to sing to my Mom. It was the final song in the program. Afterward we went back to their classrooms and they presented Mom's with a card, a flower, and refreshments. Starboy was so polite he came up and said "Can I offer you some refreshments?" Except refreshment was more life re--fsh-nt. He then brought me a cookie and some lemon water. It was a great afternoon.



Tonight he gets to stay at his Grandma J's. They are going to a cousin's birthday party and then going to her Condo. He was so excited. His Grandpa is planning on sailing a little boat down the stream with him. Starboy and I made a boat last night for him to take with him. He has really worked hard to earn the privilidge of going for the weekend. I am very proud of him.

10 weeks old

10 weeks old today! Princess loves to smile and kick and swing her arms. She now notices if she is left alone in a room and always wants to be where other people are. Even if that means laying on the floor.

Princess got a new set of wheels this week. Cousin E. gave us her stroller with infant seat, since her baby girl is now almost 2. We went on our first two walks yesterday. One with Mommy in the afternoon and another one in the evening when Coach got home. Princess isn't sure what she thinks of the stroller. She is used to being worn in the mobywrap or sling most of the time, but I thought the stroller would be nice for going to the park or on longer walks.


Coach tried to make her smile for the pictures, but she was pretty serious after the walk.

Princess has been trying for ten weeks to successfully find those fingers and suck on them. Usually she just hits herself. Today she got it, and put herself right to sleep.

Coach giving Princess a potty-tunity. We catch about 80% of the poops, and 20% of the pees. She enjoys being held by Daddy and talked to while they wait for her to go.

Mother's Day Present

This is my mother's day gift from Coach. It is a Blendtec Total Blender. I have wanted one of these (or a Vitamix) for about 4 years. They can blend anything. I make a lot of purees for my cooking and I HATE my old blender it always got jammed up or the bottom would twist off while blending causing all of the contents to explode everywhere (that happened with my carrot puree last month). I will be making all my own baby food for Princess starting in August so we were planning on investing in a better blender soon anyway. Blendtec was at Costco's in Utah this month doing demonstrations so we went and watched. I had seen the Vitamix demo a few years ago. I decided on the Blendtec because it is more compact, and you don't have to stand next to it and push the food down into the blade to have it work. It has a 13 amp motor which creates a vortex to suck everything down to the blade, even the ice without a problem. We got an extended warranty (7 years) and a cheaper price by purchasing it at Costco. Since our car and our land both got paid off this month (YEAH), we were able to pay cash for this amazing blender. It makes soups (even makes it hot), batters, smoothies, ice cream (soft serve), juice, nut butters, salsas, dips, milk (soy, almond, rice) and even kneads bread dough. It can also grind wheat into flour.

This morning Starboy and I are going to have a smoothie for breakfast. This has grapes (seed and some stems), watermelon (with seeds), cantaloupe(with seeds), spinach, plain yogurt, apples, and ice. YUMMY.

I am not sure why the video is on it's side. It's still cool to watch it blend all that stuff so easily though.

Now this boy is excited to eat his fruits, veggies, and calcium liquefied!

Mom in the morning. Starboy took this picture. Not exactly beautiful, but real Mom nonetheless. The smoothie tasted great! No chunks of ice or bits of seeds just smooth refreshing yumminess.

Last night I made cheddar broccoli soup and cheddar cauliflower soup in the Blendtec for dinner. They were both supper creamy and delicious. It poured straight from the Blendtec steaming hot. (The blade spins so fast it creates enough friction to heat the liquid inside.) I am so happy. What a great very usable gift.

Rash Documented

I decided I need to document the history of Princess's allergy rash and recovery. When looking at the pictures I was amazed at how bad the rash got, and at how fast it improved once we started the diet and the homeopathic drops.



1 week old. Just a few spots on her face

Two weeks old. You can see the spot on her cheek, and her eye is puffy. Her ears had also started to rash up.

Three weeks old. At this point everyone was telling me this was "Blessing Rash" or baby acne, but it seemed to be excessive to me. Her forehead and ears were the worst. Coaches Mom who is a nurse also thought it looked excessive and seemed to be more of an allergy.


4 weeks old. Now I was pretty sure this was not just baby acne. Each time I would feed Princess she would break out in bumpy hives. The blisters on her ears were oozing and I was sure she was allergic to my milk. With mother's intuition I felt I shouldn't be eating so much sugary foods so I had cut back on fruit and for some reason I felt like I should stop eating Tomatoes
Coaches family has a lot of food allergies and her ears looked just like his do when he eats something he shouldn't. His sister is allergic to peanuts, citrus, beans, etc.. She gets hives and rashes from these foods all the time.


5 weeks old. This picture was taken the day after I took Princess to Life Clinic for Electral Dermal Screening Allergy Testing. We found out she was allergic to Caffeic Acid which is a phytonutrient in most fruits and some vegetables (including tomatoes). I looked up online all of the foods containing Caffeic Acid and started my diet. Princess began taking Homeopathic drops to help desensitize the allergy.

6 Weeks old. Just one week later. You can see the great improvement in her skin tone and smoothness. There were still a couple red patches and some flaking.

7 weeks old. by this time her skin was almost entirely clear, but Mom was struggling with IBS because of the change in diet. It had been 2 weeks with no fruit and only a few vegetables. I bought a bunch of caffeic acid free veggies and kept going with the diet.

8 weeks old. Skin still clear as long as I stay on the diet. If I eat a banana or any other item with Caffeic Acid her cheeks start to go red, and she begins to get a little rashy again.

9 weeks - This day we went in for our follow up at Life Clinic. Princess still needs her homeopathic, but she is not as sensitive to so many foods. Mom can now have apples, watermelon, mango, pears, and grapes. I can have almost all vegetables except garlic, onions, celery, squash, peppers (bell or hot), and beets. YEAH HAPPY!!

Thinking that maybe her rashes were gone for good, I decided to try a couple bites of salsa that my sister brought over last Friday. Of course this had peppers, onions, and garlic. I only had two chips with just a bit of Salsa on each one. 8hrs later when I fed princess she broke out. Her cheeks were all read and she had a big red raised spot on her neck and chin. I wish I had a picture of that. Luckily it was gone by the next morning. I guess I will stick with what the EDS machine says I can have. (It uses the same technology as a lie detector but is focused on balancing the bodies meridians) I will keep retesting every few weeks. Hopefully soon I will be able to eat everything.

I have been going to Life Clinic since I was 16 years old. They have helped me with my allergies, IBS, Asthma, and Hypoglycemia, and hormones. The website is http://www.utahlifeclinic.com/ I am so glad that I knew about Life Clinic so that I could stop the cycle that was causing my babies rash. If I hadn't and I had realized my baby was allergic to my milk, I might have stopped breast feeding. Because I was able to pin-point exactly what was causing the breakouts, I was able to adapt my diet quickly (not the trial and error type of dieting), keep breastfeeding and now both of us are healthy and happy. What a blessing!!