Sam's Birthday

Well my big plans to have Sam's birthday party on a different day than his birthday failed. He ended up with no party since I was sick all week. We just had a cake and a present with the brothers on his birthday and I went back to bed.

Family dinner

Here are some pictures of the cousins at our monthly family dinner. We really are going to miss Jared's family when they are all gone to California.

Bear Scouts

Brandon Got his Bear award tonight. Yes Bryan took the boys over while I was getting better aquainted with the bathroom floor. He also got a few arrow heads. It was the Blue/Gold banquet tonight. I've missed it every year for some reason. Oh well there is always next year. The boys all enjoyed going out to dinner and running around with their friends. Ben was in charge of taking pictures for me and so he took one picture of Brandon and one of Sam. :)
Sam is feeling better this week. Too bad I can't say the same for myself. Oh well. Good Job Brandon. He is still young enough he loves scouts and the only thing slowing him down is mom not helping him sign things off fast enough. He really is a super sweet kid.

Birthday

February has always been the month of birthdays in our family. My big birthday this year consisted of having the day to sleep and go to my spinning classes at the rec center. Actually it was nice, because lots of people stopped by while I was asleep and left notes and small gifts. Best of both worlds, gifts and not having to make idle conversation with the various neighbors. :) Bryan got to be an greeting duty. He got Pizza for the boys so I could sleep longer. I guess the boys have noticed I don't eat pizza, but I love eating their left over crusts. So after I got up I went into the kitchen and there was an entire pizza ring of the outside crusts left for my dinner by the boys since it was my birthday. So sweet of them.
Bryan made the mistake of telling Sam his birthday was after mommy's and every single day since he has woken up and asked "Is it my birthday?" "Is it my birthday today?" The concept of 10 days after mom's birthday is too much for him. Actually, I realized I had already scheduled to do vision screenings at the boys school all day on his birthday, so I'm just going to tell him it's the day before. Hey, he's 4 he won't know the difference. right.

The circus

The circus came to UVU last week. We took the boys Thursday night after I had worked all day. We got all the kids free passes and we had never been to a circus with them before. I think Sean and Sam were a bit young, they were tired after an hour but Brandon and Ben loved it. We had to leave early because it was nearly 10 pm and still going and the boys all had school the next day. Sean and Sam kept complaining the whole time we were there but all the next day they kept talking about the circus and when they would get to go again. Go figure! Complain for hours and then talk for days about how they loved it. Kids!!

Virus's

All of you who have kids know how quickly they can be sick and then be fine. Last week Sam woke up at 1 am throwing up and by 6 am he was just fine! No other problems, nothing. He was just fine until two days ago when I noticed his eyes were puffy in the morning. Sure enough his kidneys have stopped working again!! I hate viruses. This is his third bought with kidney problems this year. The docs put him back the steroids but I guess this is the last time he can do the cortisol since he is repeating so often. The steroids in someone his age can give him brittle bones, cataracks, stunted growth etc. They said next time he gets sick he'll have to go on a specialty Chemotherapy drug that will completely wipe out his immune system. He'll be isolated, blood draws the whole works. Just one more thing to look forward too. But for now were doing the yucky cortisol everyday for the next two months. Poor boy, the stuff makes me throw up I don't know how he stands it everyday. But on a bright note, Spring is around the corner and we haven't had a snow storm in over a week. Hurray!

Science Fair

Well Brandon and Ben participated in their first science fair this week. It was only mandatory for the Junior high, but since their school is so small the elementary had the options of doing a project if they wanted to. Brandon did his on electrical circuits and Ben did one on magnets. Yes very boy things, but since I wouldn't let them blow up rockets those were the next best things I guess. They had lots of fun and didn't know why they had to make posters, they were having fun just playing with the magnets and the connectors. Brandon's poster was beautiful I wasn't sure his teacher would believe he made it. Of course the process was a big fight. Brandon is slightly OCD -don't know where he got that one from- so he is cutting out all the things for his poster and wants to glue them to orange paper before putting them on a white board. He has a major melt down when I don't have enough of the exact same orange cardstock. I keep telling him it's ok if they are slightly different shades, but that is completely unacceptable. So after the crying fit when I refuse to drive to walmart at 11 pm to buy the correct color he decides black will have to do. So his papers and cardstock are cut out and glued down very precisely. Ben didn't care, glued them crooked to some old red craft paper and tapes them willy nilly on his board. He just wanted to play with magnets. :) But they were both excited to get award ribbons and hopefully will be this excited about science projects when they are required for school.