Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Real Life is a Wonderful Life

OK, so this will be a really long blog just to warn you ahead of time. There are slide shows, pictures, ramblings...

So while I am waiting for my slides to save, I will ramble. I have realized that as I have been blogging that I have neglected to mention that I quit Kids Who Count. Yes, it was a very tough decision for me. But, my kids have been needing more and more attention and my sanity is thin so I had to let something go. I will miss the kids terribly and I really did enjoy working there, with Melanie and the others. Thanks to Melanie, publicly, for giving me the fantastic opportunity of influencing children's lives. It was so fun. I hope to return to KWC one day when 3 is in Kindergarten or 1st grade, if they will take me and if my life can handle it. So, I guess with that you can imagine my level of saneness. It is low, but, I am coping. Having two kids with FXS seems like a task that I could never do and laugh when I think that God trusted me to do this and thought I would live through it! Ha!

I did a class on Fragile X Syndrome for the Preschool teachers for the entire school district here. I was asked to do an hour and a half presentation and I did it! I think it went pretty well. It was a lot of work putting it together and it is always hard to stare all the symptoms in the face all at once when at least once in a while I try not to think about it all too much. My father-in-law came with me and video taped the whole thing—I will post my video one day when I am brave enough to let everyone watch me in all my glory! : )

Also, I have been having problems with weight gain, regardless of my everyday exercise and eating less and even healthier than before. Anyway, to make a long story short, I think it may be Candida--it's where the yeast continues to grow in your body and causes many different symptoms, anyway, I am cutting out sugar entirely--all sugar and that is tough. Yeast feeds on sugar so that has to go along with lactose (dairy) and carbs (grains, potatoes and carrots, etc.) So I am going to be strict on it for 2 weeks and then introduce grains and carbs back in slowly--because there is no way I could ever survive without all those things for the rest of my life, but, if I have to, I will. So sugar is the biggest thing I am going to try to eliminate. Now this is just an experiment to see if this is really what is causing my problems. Look up Candida on the web, you'll learn a lot. Anyway, so the holidays will be interesting--and yes, I will cheat a little, I am not super human. But, to tell you the truth after only one day of of no sugar, no carbs, no dairy—I actually do feel a little bit of a change—it will be interesting to see what happens. Don't worry, I won't go overboard but, it is kind of like people who are lactose intolerant or have allergies to wheat--they feel much better without those things so they do it--we'll see. I will keep you posted. So far, so good—even while we made gingerbread houses last night I didn't snitch, at all!!!!

OK, so here are the slides and pictures of our first snow of December which brought on our Christmas spirit for our Family Home Evening Activities. Enjoy!


Here is 3 out enjoying our first big snow! She loves being outside!





Decorating the Tree together as a Family—tradition



Gingerbread Houses—tradition.
(I am not as cool as my sister though, I just used graham crackers—and Jessie, I don't think ours turned out to look like gingerbread trailers--although 3's has little to show for itself...)




And on Sunday we sang around the piano at mom's house—tradition!

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

I saw Mommy Kissin' Santa Claus!


I saw the real Santa Claus last night!!! No joke! Really I did--check him out! If you want him to come to your Christmas Party you can e-mail him at plattsll@comcast.net or contact me and I will give you the Real Santa's other info!

We went and sang in my good friend, Lynzi and Ben's ward for the Christmas Party last night. It was a lot of fun. And we had a good time on the way home because we all rode together.

I have started a new blog site for our singing group. I still have to post more pics but it is a start. Check it out from my side bar or click here.

Saturday, November 29, 2008

Paintball Chicks and Dudes!






So 16, Kirsten, 12, Marc, Aaron, Daniel, and Tynelle went and played paintball. I went to take a few pics and then take the kids back to my house to babysit. I can't wait till I get to play--it looked like a lot of fun.

Thanksgiving at my house!

Oh, how I loved Thanksgiving. We hosted it at my house again. Marc's parents came, my parents, Kirsten, Jessie and her fam, Daniel and his fam and my uncle Jeff and my grandma R. I loved making the food for it and getting the tables ready. 16 was a huge help with the potatoes, gravies and the tables. She made the name tags. I was so glad to have (almost) everyone there. I was especially grateful to have my uncle and grandma there.

We have a tradition of making apple turkeys with all the kids when we get together with my side of the family. It is so cute to see all the kids working so hard to make their turkeys.
We also let the kids ride our horse, we played football and dominoes and watched movies.

Check out the pics.

We set up 3 tables—one in the kitchen, and two in the front room. We fed 22 people.

Here was where we put all the food. There really was no room but we made it work. I cooked each a ham and a turkey in my dutch ovens. Mmm mm.

Mom's homemade ice cream to go with our homemade pies!

Mom and Dad G enjoying pie

9 loves his uncle Joel.

Tynelle doing 2 of her favorite things... eating dessert and checking out ads for shopping!

Here we are making turkeys.



Forget turkey! 9 made a jelly fish!! So much cooler!






Marc and Uncle Jeff

3 is learning how to play football.

Horse rides

Dominoes.. grueling! It was really fun though!

Later my dad challenged both 16 and Kirsten to an armwrestle.
Ya, both at once... he won, both times, hands down!

So much fun. The boys also went that morning to play paint ball. They had so much fun they planned to play Friday also!

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Rollerblades at 3!



I just couldn't resist posting this pic. 3's newest pastime is rollerblading. She can jump from the bottom stair of the back porch to the cement and land it. She is hilarious. She loves to stomp around in the kitchen with them too. She looks awesome in her helmet and blades!!