A Rough Start But Good End To The Week

So last Monday Devin had his evaluation with a psych intern at The Children's Center at 9 am in Murray(as when I made the appointment we didn't know we wouldn't be in Taylorsville anymore) so I arranged for my friend(and previous Relief Society President) to watch Elizabeth(who was thrilled to get to play with her nephew Oscar again!) then Devin and I went to the Children's Center.  When we arrived we were told that the gal Devin was supposed to see had called in sick and they didn't think they could fit him in anyone else schedule...but they could reschedule him with her for a couple MONTHS later!  I stood there speechless(and pretty irate, you mean I woke up super early, woke both my kids up super early, found a sitter for my daughter, packed both kids lunches, as it was expected to be a two hour appointment, drove all the way down there, and you can't fit him in again for A COUPLE MONTHS??!!!) Since I obviously couldn't yell at them what I was thinking I managed to mostly politely ask that if they have to reschedule him anyway could we go to the downtown Salt Lake office?  They left a message for the lady up there to give me a call, which she did a couple days later and he has another appointment for May 1st(pretty ridiculous if you ask me!)  Anyhow, since I knew Elizabeth would NOT be okay with me picking her up early, I went and parked in our condo parking lot and thinking I'd visit with one of my good friends there, I called to make sure she was home...which she wasn't but we had a good long talk on the phone.  I sure love that amazing lady!  Then Devin and I went and visited with another of our neighbors who was like a "condo grandma" to my kids, and had a really good visit with her as well, next time I'm definitely going to bring Elizabeth as they both really miss each other.  Then I picked Elizabeth up...of course visited with Maria for a bit then got the kids in the car with their lunches to eat on the way home. Tuesday Elizabeth had dance and tumbling again which is so nice to have her back into!  It helps her burn energy, socialize with other kids, and be in a class setting, all of which are things she really needs! For school I worked with Elizabeth on her "tens", counting by ten and identifying numbers to 100...she did AWESOME!!  We also worked on adding to ten, even adding numbers over ten together, and I was very impressed.  And for reading we worked on her scripture for primary which was Abraham 3:24-25, she read most of it by herself the first time through, I was impressed that she noticed that both spellings of there/their were in it.  And there were a few compound words we were able to work on and talk about as well.  Thursday after lessons she was just messing around in the living room and counting, I stopped and listened to her count higher and higher...she got all the way to 110 when she stopped dead, looked over at me with wide proud eyes and a big ole grin on her face and exclaimed "I COUNTED PAST ONE HUNDRED!!!!" I gave her some high fives and big hugs, we were both very proud of her!  For fun Friday I pulled out their tents and also a couple of tunnels and connected a tunnel to each of their tents, and they had tons of fun!!  Saturday morning my mom and I went to the Clearfield Library for their huge book sale.  I scored lots of fun books for the kids and to use in some of Elizabeth's school lessons, I got about 30(or more)books for $10.50!! My mom scored some great stuff too, books, books on cd, music cd's, even some dvd's!  Nothing was more than a dollar!!  She even got me some great lesson type books for school, thanks so much mom!!  After lunch while Devin was down for his nap, Tony and my dad put the new struts in the Aveo, and I went out to the DI to drop some stuff off and then went in and found a few new pairs of jeans(as all mine developed holes in unfortunate places) I wandered shirts and skirts and dresses as well but nothing really jumped out at me, so then I went to the yard area to check stuff out there, nothing great there either.  Then I perused the toys and found a stuffed Woody for a dollar...yay! Then I found a Thomas the Train pull toy for 75 cents.  Then I found a Disney princess fold up little castle that would make a great addition to her Little People castle, it too was only 75 cents.  Then I found a cute little baby doll and got a great idea...you see I've been wanting to get a boy baby doll for Devin(as he loves Elizabeth's dolls and it's good for him to learn how to be soft with babies) but finding one that isn't all girlie has proved pretty difficult...or expensive, so I found this very nice baby doll, went over to the infant section found a tiny boy onsie put it on the doll and for $2 I had a very cute boy baby doll!  Go me!  So I left the DI with LOTS of good stuff!  And the kids were way excited about them!  Saturday evening our friends the Michael and Kim came over for dinner, to visit and play a couple fun games of Ticket to Ride.  It was such a great night! We really enjoy their company, we always have such fun! Sunday(yesterday) Elizabeth was all excited to read the scripture in primary, in the morning before church she went upstairs and read it to her nana and papa, she had a hard time focusing but she still managed to read it for them.  As for in primary she got up to the *working* microphone and she was immediately enthralled with it and completely unfocused she started by pretending(quite silly)that she couldn't say Abraham, but eventually said it, she read a little bit, then I couldn't get her to even look at the paper she was too busy trying to eat the microphone or move it up and down...in the end it was all I could do to get her to repeat the words after me!  Oh my silly little girl...I can't help but laugh about it.  On a good note, Devin made it through Sacrament without having to go out once!  That NEVER happens....then he even made it through nursery without having to come to us once!  Go Devin!!  My mom gave the lesson in Relief Society and it was a great lesson too!  And that catches you up with us!

Devin in his cute BYU beanie

Dancing with each other...so sweet!

Fun Friday, tents and tunnels = lots of fun!

 Here is a fun video of the kids playing in the tents and tunnels

Snow Much Fun!!

Alright so going way back to a couple fridays ago(to the last time I posted), that night Devin was having a really hard time breathing and was coughing and choking a lot.  He woke up about 11pm coughing and upset, so I went into his room and stayed with him most of the night(we were both awake pretty much all night as well), I felt so bad for my poor little guy.  So first thing Saturday morning we were back at the Insta Care, where my worries about his lungs and oxygen level were comforted, as his oxygen is was at 97 and his lungs sounded clear, so it was just a super nasty virus.  That afternoon my cousin Mary came down and so kindly stayed with Devin so he could get his rest while my family went to Olive Garden for lunch to celebrate my brother's birthday...I was so exhausted but it was still delicious! That evening we went and got our "home phone" situation figured out, and to Tony's benefit! We used to have T-Mobile at home but since we're on my parents network now it wouldn't work(that's the long story, short) so we ended up getting a great deal on a smart phone for Tony as the line that was considered our home phone was eligible for a full upgrade, and they had a really good deal going as well, they just put the sim card for our "home phone" into Tony's old flip phone.  I just ended up forwarding the home cell phone to my cell, it's actually nice.  Sunday we stayed home from church, Devin obviously because we didn't want to share his nasty virus and Tony was still having a hard time sitting for extended periods...Elizabeth was also "claiming" not to feel well(but I think she was just feeling left out).  We did get a lot of unpacking and organizing done though so I was excited about that.  We're slowly getting the front room in order, though there are still quite a few boxes to be sorted through.  We also started getting things into our hall closet and realized we'll need to put in a couple more shelves to get everything in.  Then there's the bathroom...going from three bathrooms to one actually hasn't been as hard as I thought it would, but we did have too much bathroom stuff...luckily a lot of it was seriously old and we just threw it out.  This past Friday my parents ever so graciously bought a cabinet that Tony and my dad put up above the toilet and we now have ample space to store things in the bathroom.  And I must admit I'm loving only having to clean one bathroom! ;) Anyhow it was very nice to have so much put away and to get so many boxes out of the way as we barely had a one foot path through our front room to our front door and it was frustrating!  Oh and I got the "school bins" sorted and even better organized and put away, so I can get back to doing school again! YAY!  Oh we also put up our coat racks and set up our shoe shelves as well.  It's so nice to have done!  We really did get A LOT done!  Monday I started looking into some things for little girl, where the library is(she's been dying to get more books to read!), swimming lessons and getting her back into a tumbling class.  Well I found the library no prob, swimming lessons were pretty much all full until April!! CRAZY! And I decided our best bet for tumbling was going to be at Bravo Arts Academy, I figured it would be but I checked out other places as well just to be sure.  As for "school time" the past week I told you Elizabeth has been working on learning to spell her whole(9 letter)first name, and Monday she wrote AND spelled her first name all by herself!  She was so proud of herself for spelling such a long word!  She also did a half hour of reading, we went over words that sound the same but are spelled different and have different meanings like "no" and "know" or "light" and "lite", then reviewed the sounds of "sh","ch","th","gh" and "ph".  We've gotten though a lot of nitty gritty grammar stuff while structured school has been on hold, which has actually been nice.  Tuesday after putting Devin down for a nap, I took Elizabeth to the backyard to play in the snow and she had such a fun time!!  The snow was really deep but she didn't let that stop her.  She stayed outside for almost an hour, when I made her go in cause her face was red and frozen!  That afternoon I called Bravo and talked to them about getting Elizabeth into one of their dance and tumble combo classes and they said they had one spot left in their 6 o'clock class on Tuesday and they would hold that spot for her if we could come to a "sample class" that night, so I said yes, despite the fact that the weather wasn't great.  Luckily my mom agreed to watch Devin for me and my dad even dropped us off at Bravo.  Tony met us there on his way home from work.  It is a GREAT class, Elizabeth loved the fun and I loved the structure and more strict discipline offered there(Elizabeth requires strict boundaries or  she'll walk all over people) she was taken off guard at the teachers' strictness, but quickly came to respect her for it and probably had a better time because of it!  So it was totally a win win!!  Oh and the best part is that she gets dance AND tumbling for less than just tumbling at the little gym.  Triple win! Nothing too exciting happened Wednesday or Thursday(that I can think of at the moment)...just the same old same old playing, learning, trying to keep Devin breathing.  For fun Friday I got out a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse bowling set we picked up cheap on black Friday, and the kids had so much fun with it!  At first the whole taking turns thing wasn't going so well but after a while they warmed up to it.  It turns our our main hall makes a perfect little bowling alley!  Friday Elizabeth rocked her Spanish lesson with my mom.  That evening after stopping at the Home Depot to pick up the cabinet and a new sink bowl for the bathroom, my parents took us to the Clearfield Library, and Elizabeth was in heaven as their children's section is much larger than the Taylorsville Library's.  Then they graciously picked up dinner for us all on the way home, it was great to get out and get so much done as well!  Saturday we had the daunting task of finding a car to replace the Focus.  After all was said and done our insurance gave us a check for about $6,400...I do believe.  But we wanted to keep it as close to $6000 as possible, so as to have some extra for any repairs that inevitably come up when buying a used car.  My mom kindly watched the kids for us and my dad came with us to offer his expertise.  We started at a great place close by called Butler's Auto Sales(where we bought my little Mirage just before we were married, and my parents have bought 2 or 3 cars there), and they had a few cars within our price range but they were either manual transmission(which isn't a problem since both Tony and I can drive stick, but we preferred an automatic as it's easier to operate while dealing with kids, especially for me) or the car had really high mileage, like over 100,000 miles, and we were really hoping to stay closer to the 75,000 to 80,000 range.  They did have a Nissan Sentra that they felt they could get us into for $6,000 out the door, it had 77,000 miles and was an automatic, it looked nice as well.  It needed cleaning and detailing but said they could probably knock a couple hundred off the price if we did it ourselves which obviously wasn't a problem since Tony loves doing that kind of thing.  So we took it for a test drive and man that car sits just off the ground!  It had a minor very fixable break issue(which they would take care of) but other than that it was a nice ride...other than being so low, and for some reason it felt kinda cramped as well.  After much deliberation and mostly because I just felt like we needed to look at least one other place before making a final decision, Tony remembered another car lot he'd seen while searching online that had a Cavalier he wanted to look at.  It was in Roy so we headed up there.  The Car he wanted to look out was gone, but he'd forgotten about a Chevy Aveo that looked nice as well.  And look good it did! It was listed at $5,500, had 82,000 miles on it but was a 2006 which was three or four years (I can't remember for sure) newer then the Sentra.  It was an automatic, it doesn't have any bells or whistles like power locks or windows, no keyless entry, or even a cd player, but that's how the Focus was as well(minus the cd player) so it didn't bother us too much.  So we took it for a test drive and it was surprisingly roomy!  And we didn't feel like we were sitting on the ground.  We could tell it was going to need new tires so while I was taking it for a little spin(around a parking lot...I'm chicken)Tony called and got a price on new tires which was under $400 for the best tires of that size!  We went back and paid forty bucks for our own car fax on it which showed it was a great, well taken care of car that hadn't been in any accidents! YAY!  That made me feel so much better about it.  Tony got him to sell it to us for $5,400 out the door, and we went for it!  Spending that kind of money and taking that kind of risk is not my favorite thing, but I think we did good!  We took it to our favorite car place, Redd's and had them look it over and they said that other than the front struts needing to be replaced it looked great!  Another YAY!   After the great car hunt we went home and chilled for a bit, while Tony "internet window" shopped for a car cd player.  Early that evening we went to Iggy's in Centerville for dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday!  It was so yummy!  Sunday we went to church and Devin even made it through nursery without being brought to me once!  Go Devin!  Elizabeth was very excited she gets to read the scripture in primary next week, and Tony and I were extended a calling but more on that when it's official.  That evening we had cake and ice cream to celebrate my mom and brother's birthdays with the extended family, only my Aunt Susan was able to make it though.  More cake for us!!  Enjoy the pictures!

Dancing to the Disney Princess dance along(for music time on fun Friday I typically let the kids watch a Disney sing along movie...the princess one is naturally Elizabeth's favorite)

Devin being a trooper during a nebulizer treatment, although getting to watch a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse sure does help!

Elizabeth playing in the snow!!

Making a snow angel!

And attempting a snowman...but it wasn't very good snow for that.

Making her way to the swing set...she was determined to swing!

She got this far before falling down, I was impressed!

Then she decided it was easier just to crawl.

The first couple attempts to get on the swing ended like this thanks to her slippery snow pants

But third time was the charm and she was off!

We did a little physics experiment with the snow filled baby swing...what goes forward, must also come about that far backward!

The slide wasn't much fun until we dug it out

Just layin' there eating freshly fallen snow...now that's the life!

The kids having fun with the art easel

Like how Devin decided it would be more fun to crawl under it?!

Having fun with dirty doggie in the kennel

Hat fun!

Devin is so good about keeping his mouth wide open during his nebulizer treatments!(fyi, the mouth does not have to be wide open, he just always does...it's kinda funny!)

And finally all of our bowling fun!