Kyrie

There is so much I have wanted to post about Kyrie the last couple of months. She changes and grows so fast and some of the things she does I think would last a long time, but they seem to be a short phase and then she's on to the next big girl thing. I remember the same thing happened with the boys and there were things I thought were so cute and I'd tell myself that I would get around to capturing it another day, and then before I knew it they were no longer doing those things, but something different (and just as cute). One thing I love about Kyrie is the way she loves and takes care of babies. She spends like half of her day loving on her dolls.

The other half of her day she stays busy by changing her clothes. She goes through several outfits and pairs of pajamas every day. She loves getting dressed. A couple of days ago I took her to JC Penney to look for some bigger jeans for her and she was in heaven. As soon as we got to her department she stripped down and started trying on clothes. There was so much to chose from and she wanted to try on ALL of them. She'd barely get a pair of pants on, take them right back off and put on a different pair. And then she found the shoes. Let's just say she was a happy girl!

Another thing I wanted to post for a long time is her citrus rash. I don't know what else to call it. When I started feeding her baby food some foods would make her eye break out with a rash. I mentioned it to her Dr. at her check-up and took a jar of bananas for her to eat so he could see. After just a couple of bites her rash broke out. He was in awe and said he had never seen anything like it. We went through allergy testing and everything came back fine. He thought she would've outgrown it by now and so did I, but she still breaks out. It's hard to capture what it looks like on camera, but I thought I would try. This rash is after eating a small, Valentine sized air head. At first we thought it was preservatives, because with experimenting jarred bananas made her break out, but fresh bananas mashed and thinned with water did not. As we experimented and wrote down all foods she ate that did and did not cause this, we found it is anything citrus, or that has citric acid. Just licking a sucker can make her break out. The allergist thinks I am crazy he says it makes no sense. What can I say, I have weird kids!

This AMAZES me! Kyrie loves to draw and color pictures. She'll draw a picture and tell you what it is, she thinks she is great at writing her ABCD-me. But what she is great at is holding her pencil and crayon. She just naturally holds them with her fingers, instead of holding them in her fist. Maybe it's more normal than I think, I am not sure. She just turned 2, and neither one of the boys could do it until they were 5.

Another recent thing about Kyrie is she goes both #1 and #2 in the toilet! About 3 weeks ago she had a friend over and Hayden asked, "Mom where is Kyrie's friend?" We looked for Delaney and found her on the toilet. The very next day I had just changed Ky's diaper and she brought me another one. I told her "No, I just changed you", she said "Potty". So we tried and within a couple of seconds she went, for the first time ever. And then the very next day she went #2. Now she goes everyday all by herself whenever she wants. She has been such an easy and happy child, we are so lucky and blessed to have her.

One of Kyrie's favorite thing to do right now is wiggle, bite, and smell our toes. She'll say "wiggle cuckos (toes), hem me" then she lifts up her shirt and wants us to wiggle our toes on her belly.

Hayden

Oh Hayden, where do I even begin? Hayden definately has a mind of his own, and he can't wait to use it how he would like to. I told him, only 11.5 more years, and he can have complete control, until then, Chris and I get to be the boss! No really, I love how he uses his mind (most of the time). And no matter what we say, he says we are not the boss of him. I don't think he would mind if Kyrie was his boss, though. So far he will do anything she says and he just giggles and grins through it all. He sure loves his sister, and she loves him right back. He asks her for a hug when he's feeling sad, and somehow her hugs really do cheer him up. Hayden can be so serious and hilarious at the same time. Like the day he insisted on wearing a white shirt and a tie to church, and when we got to church he was writing on a piece of paper and said "This is where you sign up to be Bishop, and I'm signing up!". We sure get a lot of enjoyment from him! But we also get extra sleep because of him, he definatley wears us out, sometimes I think he himself is worth 4 kids or more. 4 times the smiles and laughter and 4 times the work and patience. I remember when he was really little someone told us "it's because he has this giant spirit trapped in this tiny body". I guess that's one way to look at it! We go through these phases with Hayden where everything for the most part is going really well and we're making really good progress, and then we go through phases where it's just all really hard and we are currently in one of those phases. We are out of ideas to help him and we have thought of every game our minds could come up with and we just feel burned out. Sometimes it gets really hard on us and Chris and I get really frustrated and it effects the whole family. But the poor kid! I just feel so bad for him and I feel things are really unfair for him. I just don't understand why simple things have to be so hard for him. I realize things could be much worse, and I know others deal with life challenges that would be so much harder to deal with, so I guess I should be greatful that it is what it is. But really I do feel so bad for him. For the most part the mood in our house is really good and Hayden gets along with everyone. But if things aren't just his way he cries - over everything! Thankfully it doesn't last hours like it used to, but it sure adds a lot of stress. He gets along good at school and all of the kids love him. Chris is afraid that might soon change. Chris (the meanine) said he would've been that kid at school that would have teased Hayden and made fun of him. We just had our yearly IEP meeting and found out numbers can be shocking and painful. According to the Goldman-Fristoe test, Hayden is in the 1st percentile in speech for his age. He also continues to struggle with his motor skillls, which makes it very hard and frustrating for him to do his school work. Then because of his speech, it makes it difficult to sound out anything to write it on paper. He does pretty well at school although he can't do his work as fast and can't get as far as the other kids. But at home he lets out all of his frustration, he realizes it's not as good as the other kids or as good as Dusty's and it is effecting his self esteem. I don't understand why simple things can be so hard for some. At the meeting we reviewed our goals from the past year, and set new goals for this next year. The psychologist suggested a few things to be added to his IEP that will really protect him next year. I am so greatful for the concern and the help we are getting from the school. Hayden has been blessed with some really good teachers and therapists that have been so loving and understanding. So what is in a number? Hearing that he is only in the 1st percentile really shocked me! He has made so much progress and we can understand him most of the time now. This time last year, I couldn't understand him very often and he couldn't, hadn't EVER produced the "k" sound. He worked and worked so hard on it and he has been able to say the "k" sound for about 8 months, although he doesn't use it like he should. He is very smart, intellectually we aren't worried at all. He knows all the sounds the letters make individually and last week when we went over his sight words, he only missed 2, and he read through the rest pretty fast. And he is a wizard on the computer. He is still progressing and I know he will continue with that. I know he will do great things, he sure is stubborn and determined, and with those qualities he could really get somewhere someday if he puts his mind to it. In the mean time, I just hope there aren't very many kids out there (like Chris), who would tease Hayden for something that is so simple to some but very difficult for others. Sure we feel so much frustration and stress in our home but we also get so much joy, maybe it depends more on my mood and how I perceive it. I guess it's just been on my mind more since we just had the big meeting. Dusty and Hayden are growing up and don't always act like best friends anymore, but we couldn't ask for a better brother for Kyrie, Hayden is so loving toward her and would do anything for her. I just hope things get easier for him, we love you Hayden!

Dusty

I was talking to my parents the other day and my dad asked if Dusty had any recent inventions. He is always crafting/creating something. I told them Dusty actually had a sale going on, everything 25 cents. Just a day earlier he had the sale upstiars on the hockey table, but I guess he didn't get enough business. He then moved his sale to the prime location - right in front of the t.v.Here is my big purchase for the day! Chris pretty much wiped out the rest of the store except for one saved for the grandparents. So then Dusty got right to work and created more.

He is such a goof!

Company

We had company come and visist last weekend, we were excited to have Chris's dad and grandma stay with us for a few days.
Chris with his cute little grandma

and me with cute little grandma. We had a lot of fun, we did a little shopping and a whole bunch of talking while the boys worked on gun stuff.

we almost had to beat Hayden to get him to stand for just a second to get a picture!

And Ky with Grandma. When we picked them up from the airport, Grandma got in the trailblazer and sat right next to Kyrie. Kyrie turned and looked at Grandma and gave her the dirtiest look! It didn't take her long after we got home to find out that "Pampa" was her newest best friend. Kyrie had so much fun with her and if she had something to say, she'd go tell Grandma. She really enjoyed having her around! We are so thankful for the visit.

Here we are trying to get our company to the airport. We all searched and searched for Dennis's lost shoe, we wondered if some disclosed events of the weekend had something to do with it, or if Kyrie used it as a dress-up and placed it somewhere. Luckily it was found and we were able to get to the airport with just enough time for them to catch their flight.

I felt so bad Monday morning, we had an event with Hayden that kinda took all of my attention, I was the lucky mom (AGAIN) that because of his event, I got to drag him to school as he screamed the whole way. He was screaming, "Let go of me, you are hurting me, you are going to break my arm" Ya the whole way. I have had lots of experience with this situation and if I let go of his arm, he plops down on the sidewalk, crosses his legs and plops his head down. I try to pull him back up and it feels as if he is cemented to the sidewalk. So the best thing for me is to keep hold of his arm and just keep pulling as he screams the whole way. One end of this story is one of his classmates was walking behind us on the sidewalk and saw/heard it all. The next day I was volunteering in his class and this same little classmate came up to me and so sweetly said "You know what? When I get big, I am going to be nice to my kids."

Another end to this story is, because of everything that happened that morning, I forgot to have Dusty say good-bye to his grandparents. I felt so bad when I realized, and he didn't get in on any of the pictures. Grandma saved a hug for him though. Grandma was out here just a few months ago for Dusty's baptism and we did get pictures then. I've wanted to post this letter to Santa that Dusty did at school. It says "December 15, 2010 Dear Santa, This year I want my Great Grandma to live at least half of the year because she is very old. She wants to have a long life too. please let her have a long life. From, Dusty" We all hope Grandma gets to live a longer healthy life, we love her so much, she is such an AMAZING woman and good example to us. I found out this weekend she even has a lot of spunk!

Another great thing from the visit is Grandma taught me how to make her famous sausage gravy. Chris talks and talks about this all the time how he used to go to the farm every Saturday and Grandma would have biscuits and gravy. I had it on the farm a couple of times right after we were married and it was yummy. Grandma was excited we wanted to know how to make it, and Chris was excited to get his inheritance early, he told Grandma that's all the inheritance he's ever wanted, to know how to make her yummy gravy.

We've been waiting for this

We waited and hoped for snow this winter. Instead of a white Christmas, we had a really warm one. We were hoping to spend some a big chunck of our 3 week Christmas break playing out in the snow, just as I remember doing many years ago. Just before school started up again, we finally got some fluffy snow. It wasn't the kind that is good for making snowmen or having snowball fights, but at least it was snow.

As soon as she could, Kyrie started digging and licking. It seems she remembered from last year, her favorite thing to do is eat the snow.

The boys get to jump on the tramp year round at our house - I guess we are too lazy to take it apart and set it up again.

Kyrie LOVES to sled, but apparently not when she gets sent down the hill by herself.

I couldn't get Chris to go down the hill this year, but he loves to go and makes jumps on the track for the boys and spin them as he gives them a push down the hill.

New Years Hunt

Dusty went on his very first pheasant hunt on New Year's Day. He was so excited to wake up dark and early in the freezing cold to hang out with the boys. And that was after staying up most of the night for New Years Eve. In fact we were up until 1 in the morning and Chris thought Dusty would want to stay cozy in his warm bed and snuck out of the house without him. Dusty made a phone call and Chris drove back to the house to get him. I'm glad he did, Dusty had a great time. They went along with some friends, the Fordhams and the Easdons.

I think Dusty has found a new love, he loves to shoot guns - he doesn't want to touch anything dead though. I am totally fine with that, target shooting is much funner than hunting! Dusty also loves to help reload bullets, probably because it is like doing a craft - either way, Chris seems thrilled that Dusty is interested in something he himself loves to do!