End of school year 2014-15 (finally)

LUKE:

Our preschool pro finished his second year a couple of weeks ago.

First and last day of preschool. He looks so much older!

 I finally manned up and helped chaperone a class field trip to the nursery.

 They got to plant a flower to take home and dig around in the dirt, so of course they loved it.

 They learned about dinosaurs and made dinosaur footprints in clay

 They had class pictures by Studio West

And then there was graduation!

For their program, they sang a song for each letter of the alphabet. I believe this is the "Letter O" song. Luke is always very exuberant with the actions that go to songs, plus he likes to pretend that his hands are puppets that are singing the words. So he basically just flailed around the whole time, it was so funny.

 

 

 He is such a goofball. Dear Mrs. Woolsey is a saint, she is one of the most patient, level headed ladies I know. She has three different preschool groups going year round.

 Here is the joke he wanted me to write in her card. We need to work on his handwriting a lot this summer, so that he will be ready for kindergarten.

 

 When the program was over, we had some cookies.

 

 Luke had not been feeling great that day...by the time we got home, he was coughing so much he threw up and needed a breathing treatment. He is sick so often, I am glad we are getting a break from school! Poor kid.

 He had to skip the next day of school but was able to finish his last week of classes.

MADELYN:

 First and last day of 4th grade! She likes to wear the same outfit so we can see how she's grown.

 

 This was a tough year for her (and me). Go Math! nearly killed us. It is incomprehensible the way they try to teach certain things. Let's make things more confusing and less efficient, shall we? EWW. I wanted to burn this book. If you have had dealings with this common core curriculum, you'll know what I mean. Plus, our school is a STEAM school and it focuses heavily on math (and science, engineering, art and technology), so it just seemed like so much to deal with.

Part of her final project, which took four weeks and nearly gave me an ulcer.

Her teacher, Mr. Carter, was a good teacher and a nice guy, we just had issues because he assigned so much homework. Whatever math wasn't finished at school had to be completed at home, but this was always a problem because Madelyn has ADD and was supposed to have special accommodations through her 504 disability plan. (Which Mr. Carter forgot about...)

In November, we finally reminded him about the 504 plan and he cut her math work load in half, which helped immensely. By the end of the year, he was recommending that her language work be cut in half, too. She is a smart girl, she just gets overwhelmed by the volume and really can't cope with the stress.

Mr. Carter was a huge fan of PROJECTS. Every freaking three weeks there was a major project due. (Book reports! Dioramas! Video reports with commercials! Game boards! Animal reports! Valentine Box! Science Fair!) Elaborate, "parents as partners" projects every time and I wanted to die by year's end.

I am so glad to be done.

We came out for Arts Night a few weeks ago...last year during Arts Night I went into early labor!

 Madelyn is a great little artist and really enjoys drawing and sketching.

 

She and her friend Natalie Moses decided to make "puff balls" out of yarn for their school's Mini Mall activity. All the kids are encouraged to have shops that they create business plans for and advertise and the kids pay with tickets they earn for good behavior. We worked hard to make all those puff balls and they sold every one (and some gum and Blow Pops).

Earlier this year, one of the projects I helped Madelyn with was writing an ancestor essay about her grandpa Frank Yoder for the Sons of Utah Pioneers.

On the last day of school, there was an awards assembly and we were super excited and proud that Madelyn won first place and twenty $1 gold coins as a prize!! She also earned awards for Reading, Math, Citizenship and Perfect Attendance for the 4th quarter!

 I'm so happy that she had a successful year, even though it was hard. 

I'm even more glad that I don't have to harp on her about homework for a few months. PHEW.

4-6 years late is better than never

I presume that some of you might also start craft projects, only to not finish them for 4-6 years? No?

Well something came over me recently and I actually finished three such projects. *Pat on the back*

The first one was a little quilt--you can tell that I cut it out 4-6 years ago, because nobody uses those colors anymore. I was trying to use up scraps. The squares were 3" when cut out and 2 1/2" when sewn. I had to add a couple of borders to make it a decent size.

To avoid having to use batting and such, I decided to finish it by self-binding with some heavyweight minky, which is the Satan of all fabrics. If I wasn't in such a rush to get it done, I probably would have used interfacing or some other method to stabilize it, but as it was it shifted all over and turned out all wonky. And that was after sewing it twice, because despite the fact that I have made several self-binding blankets, I still get the method wrong about 50% of the time. HOORAY.

 However, as it was for my 3-year old nephew, I didn't sweat it too much.

 

Happy birthday, Jack!

 

The next thing I finished was a pile of 11 kid sized aprons. I'd cut out over a dozen of them a few years ago and serged around all the edges, but then only finished a couple of them. This time, I finished them alll. I kept a couple for Luke and Isabelle, gave one to my niece and sold a few. I still have two pink and white ones, a blue/brown stripe and a blue/pink floral left, if anyone wants to buy one for $8.00.

I'd figured that I really should finish Luke's before he outgrew his, and I didn't want this Michael Miller fabric I got in ABQ go to waste.

 

Six years ago, my mom gave me and my sisters-in-law some Betty Luken felt books, which come in a giant sheet that you have to then cut out and assemble. I cut out all the teeny little pieces right away, but then the rest of it sat in a bin until now. My excuse is that 2009 was the time when we moved twice in six months, I was helping to plan my sister's wedding, and I was pregnant and sick.

 Another reason why I put it off was because it required grommet installation, which involves tools and hammers and you can't make any mistakes. I had Mark* help me a couple of weekends ago, and I FINALLY FINISHED THE DANG BOOK.

I'm looking forward to bringing it to church tomorrow so that the kids can lose all the pieces.

Maybe this will be the year that I finish the two shoulder bags I cut out that have since been sitting in my garage, and figure out how to make the zippered pouches that I bought the stuff for ages ago! Who knows!


*While we were grommeting, Mark had me go buy a replacement snap for a pair of board shorts that he wears to bed (which are "the best pair of board shorts ever made" and he refuses to ever stop wearing them, even possibly when he's dead), which has been missing part of a snap for SEVENTEEN YEARS and we fixed it.

SEVENTEEN YEARS.

Knott's Berry Farm

Day two of our California trip was spent at Knott's Berry Farm theme park. True, our hotel was right across the street from Disneyland, which is my favorite place in the world, but the hotel and medical conference were already setting us back $1,600. And in case you haven't heard, park hopper tickets for one day at Disneyland/California Adventure are now $150 PER PERSON. Knott's was *slightly* more affordable at $45.00 per person. For crying out loud, people.

Anyhoo, all I really remember about that day is that it was like walking around in a freaking sauna. 90+ degrees and 88% humidity. We were dying after the first five minutes and had to stop into a gift shop to get into the A/C.

There is no humidity in southern Utah to speak of, and therefore I am a huge wuss when it gets that muggy. To be fair though, it does exacerbate my heart condition when I get overheated and can't cool off. It was really uncomfortable and I felt like I couldn't breathe.

 Madelyn was extremely grouchy and didn't want to go on any rides at first. Too hot! So after the first ride, we went and stripped her down to her undershirt and that helped.

 Isabelle was a trooper but I felt bad for the poor baby! Mark and I had to take turns holding her while the other stood in line with Luke and Madelyn for rides.

 Luke has fun in whatever weather.

 Yes. Exactly.

I am a huge fan of carousels with weird animals. I rode on a rooster but wish I'd gone on the ostritch. Or perhaps the goat...the pig...the rabbit, or the cat like Madelyn.

 After about 6 hours, we decided we'd had quite enough fun and went back to the hotel.

But not before buying (yet another) pop gun for Luke. I was holding his hand when we walked by this shop and he literally went *YOINK* and dragged me over there.

Then we got overpriced Dreyer's ice cream because we felt we'd deserved it.

 Mark and the kids cooled off in the pool and ate s'mores, and everyone took a shower.

At least the kids always sleep well on vacation!

A gap of sorts

11/3/10

I took the kids to the dentist this week. Monday, Madelyn went in for a cleaning and came out looking like a BIG KID! Her top tooth was extremely loose, but knowing her, she'd let it hang there for another month before it'd finally fall out on its own. But the dentist said that her permanent tooth was already exposed, and as long as the baby tooth was still there, it was risking getting decayed because we couldn't brush it.

Anyhoo, he numbed up her gums, all casual like, and I gave him the go-ahead to pull it out. She didn't even realize what was going on until the last few seconds (it did hurt a little). But I'm so glad it's out! Now hopefully she'll forgive me sometime within the next six months before her next visit. Haha. She's so cute and lispy now.

...............................

AND...

I don't know if I've mentioned before, but we're trying to get Mark into the National Health Service Corps. It's a federal govt. program that helps primary health care providers (including dentists, psychologists, nurses, PAs, etc. or students in school to become such) repay their student loans. The stipulation is that you have to be working in a rural or medically under-served area. You work for a qualified clinic for two years--the NHSC pays $50,000 towards your student loans. Then you can keep working for up to six years or more and get $145,000 or your total student loan debt paid off.

Well, we owe right around $150,000 in student loans--about $140,000 of it was just for PA school (more than we bought our house for). OUCH. And Mark's salary is only half of what you probably think it is. We've had the loans in forbearance/deferment up until now, but we're soon going to have a monthly payments totaling $1,075. For the next 25 years. Unless we can qualify for a lower repayment plan and/or the NHSC, or defer for another year and rack up another $5,000 in interest.

My sentiments exactly.

Mark's clinic is already an approved site, so we submitted an application for the NHSC back in June, and have been waiting to hear news. We were supposed to have found out by Oct. 15th, but that came and went long ago. Mark finally called them yesterday and they were like, "Oh! Well......the funds for the 2010 cycle have been exhausted, so we're saving your application for the 2011 cycle, and we'll send you a notification by the end of the calendar year." (Don't you think that should have warranted a letter of it's own? Apparently they thought not. &^%*#$!)

Soooooo......we haven't been denied, exactly, but it's still going to be a long time before we find out if we got approved. I HATE waiting. Ugh.

I would like to be able to continue to afford food, clothing and housing for the family, so let's all pray that something works out soon! I'll keep you posted...