Valentine's Fun!

The kids and I had fun on Friday making Valentine Candy Bars for each of their classmates.

I think they turned out super cute!

Then we decided to celebrate Valentine's on Sunday.

I love that Elissa can read her own cards now, so Darin and I both gave her a card.

It was fun to watch her read them.

Then Grandpa Frink and Grandma Myrna came over to be with the kids while Darin and I went downtown to have dinner and watch a movie.

Oh yeah and I was a bit spoiled with this pretty ring. :-)

It's a plumeria flower. We ordered it when we were in Hawaii and it just came.

It is my Valentine, birthday and Mother's Day all rolled into one.

Thank you Honey!!

On Valentine's Day I had these crazy boys all day. :-)

We were going stir crazy in the house so we went outside to blow bubbles and run around in the rain.

There are just days that you have to do this.

Our final Valentine's fun was Zach's preschool party.

Not sure what Zach is doing here, but I love how Brady is just watching him.

Teacher Jo was showing the kids how to say "I love you" in sign language and Zach is quick to point out that this is how Spiderman shoots his webs. Crack-me-up!

Crafts, crafts, crafts

We enjoyed our Valentine's!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Look how my lil' Valentine's have grown......

2010



2009

2008
His First Valentine's

2007

Zach was born the next week. :-)

2006

2005

Her First Valentine's

3rd Tooth......GONE!

Elissa was working on this tooth last night, but we had her go to bed before she could get it out. So this morning she is pushing it and it is bleeding a bit and then she stops and says, "Daddy said we would do it tonight." I laughed and told her that she needed to get it out now because it is just hanging by a thread. She was very brave and twisted it out. She is very unlike her Mother in that reguards. Pulling my teeth out was a tortoures event. I remember running around our house with a string hanging from my tooth and my Mom finally cornered me on the stairs as I'm crying and she is holding my tooth. :-) It totally freaks me out. I think the dentist ended up pulling the last of mine because I wouldn't do it, even when my parents were going to pay me something like $5 a tooth. It's just not right! So anyways, Elissa is very brave. "-)

Here she is calling Daddy to tell him the good news.

And a little close-up.

Here comes the tooth fairy!

In February, Signs of Spring!!

It makes my heart fill with joy!!

even if I don't like rhoddies :-)
and I won't show you that there is frost on the ground

What a surprise!

#1  It was a beautiful sunny morning.

#2  This is what we saw as we approached the guard gate to leave our neighborhood. I wish that this showed the "magic" of seeing the balloon in the beautiful blue sky.

#3  We got into the valley and all these "train tractors", as Zach calls them, were working to change the railroad ties. He was really excited to see them. I pulled over so he could watch them for a little bit.

#4  Not really a surprise, but it is always nice to see the beauty of Mt. Rainier.

I hope you had a wonderful sunny day too!

Kid's Health Update

Elissa

On Monday Elissa had an appointment with her neurologist.

She is 1.5 years SEIZURE Free!

We are SO thankful for this blessing.

It was her regular 6 month checkup.

I was preparing for a bit of a battle with the Doctor. She is great and knowledgeable and highly recommended, but she is also very stubborn. My plan for Elissa is to have another EEG the beginning of the Summer and then ween off the medicine all Summer long so she can start 2nd Grade without medicine.

It was such a blessing that she went right along with my plan. :-)

She said that it sounded like a great idea and we'll do the EEG in June.

If the abnormality is gone, then we will wean her off this Summer. If the abnormality is still showing then she will have to stay on medicine and we will do another EEG in a year.

The EEG will not be that fun. Elissa has to be sleep deprived. We have to keep her up till midnight and then wake her up at 4am and keep her awake until we get to the sleep study center in Puyallup. Then while she is sleep deprived she has to tolerate them putting A LOT of electrodes on her head, which takes about 20 minutes or so. Then the test is one and a half hours long. It will be interesting.

Her blood work came back normal and she is doing great!

Please be in prayer that the abnormality is gone!

 Zach

If you have been around Zach at all, you know that he is a bit hard to understand at times. Soon after he started preschool his teacher suggested that he be evaluated by a speech therapist. Thankfully Dieringer School District has two speech therapists on staff and even though Zach is not in grade school yet, he still has the opportunity to get help from them. His preschool meets in the elementary school, so they work closely with the school.

It took awhile, but Zach was evaluated just before Winter break. He ended up not having very many sound issues, so he didn't "technically" qualify for the program. But the issues he did have were atypical and the speech therapist was able to make a case that intervention needed to start now to correct the issues.

We decided to have him tested at Mary Bridge also to make sure that we were doing everything that we needed to work on his speech issues. We met with the speech therapist there today. She confirmed that he does have atypical issues. He doesn't make the sound for "F" and he can't make the sound for "S" or "Sh", which of course is one of the hardest issues to correct. She said that doing the speech therapy through the school district and working with him at home is the way to go. The only other recommendation she had was to have his hearing tested again. He hasn't had a test since before his tubes went in. This is just to rule out that there are no hearing issues affecting his speech.

Why does he have these issues? Well, it would have to be due to his chronic ear infections. He started with a severe double ear infection at 9 months and he had an ear infection from that point on every 6-8 weeks until tubes were put in just before he was 2 years old. The poor little guy never heard words clearly. When he started speaking, he would kind of hum or mumble under his breath. After his tubes were put in he started speaking clearer and clearer. Now he just needs help relearning what he wasn't able to hear when he started speaking.

I have to say, it has not stopped him from talking at all. I think he talks more then Elissa ever did at this age and she talked A LOT.

Thank goodness we have no idea how hard parenting will be before we have kids. LOL!

Amazon Party at the EMP

Saturday, 1-29-11

We always love an evening in Seattle!

We got a great deal on Hotwire, the Sheraton for $77! So we checked in there first and then went to dinner at McCormick's & Schmick's. They always have great food. I had a fabulous meal of filet mignon and stuffed shrimp and then creme brulee for dessert (all for $30!). Yum!

The EMP was a cool place to have a party, but it was a little small for the amount of people at Amazon.

We saw the sights of the EMP.

The Battle Star Galatica exhibit.

And trying to get a good self-portrait.....didn't quite work out.

And then Curt Smith of Tears for Fears!

He was pretty funny. He was expecting a few hundred people instead of a few thousand. He lives in California and has two young girls. It was a cool concert!

Here is a little bit of his concert.

A very fun evening!