A Worthy Cause

Our church does a lot of services for Our Haven Shelter, a temporary winter shelter for the homeless in our county.  On the first Tuesday of every month, the Hardee's in our area donates 20% of the cost of all meals purchased to the shelter.  Tonight, our youth group helped out at Hardee's serving dinners to people that made purchases.  Kenzie is part of the youth group so she volunteered her time this evening to help out.  Connor is also part of the group but because he is still sick Kenzie had to carry the torch for both of them.  I'm very proud of the time that the kids donate to the needy through out the year.

No More Work

To bad it's only for the rest of the week. One of these days I won't have to worry about going to work but not anytime soon. Of course, if I'd known we were going to spend the whole day cleaning the house, I probably would have reconsidered staying home. I think I would have worked less if I'd gone to work. ;-) We did get alot accomplished with the house, though.

Alex and Connor spent the day in Baltimore with their church youth group helping to feed the hungry. I'm sure how impressed they were since they were relegated to trash duty...but they were there helping and that's what counts.

High School Youth Group

Tonight was Alex's first night with the high schoolers for youth group...he's previously been going to the middle school group. I think he was a bit nervous because he wasn't as proactive with getting information about it as he normally is. During the summer months, the youth group is held at a house located on a point of land where every where you look, you see water. And the houses in this community are huge! Makes our 7 bedroom house seem puny...which it is compared to these houses. He seemed to have a good time if his smile when I picked him up was anything to go by. They started off by talking about a C S Lewis book, then did a cook out and played volleyball. I can't say enough about the youth groups that Safe Harbor Presbyterian Church hosts...they open it up to any kids of the appropriate age which is wonderful since we don't actually attend this church...the youth minister is awesome. He just has a knack for putting people at ease and relating to the kids.

Another Crazy Day

They switched Kenzie's softball practice from Thursday to tonight which throws everything out of whack. Thursday we don't have anything going on other than her practice. Mondays we have Alex's youth group and we also found out that they do clean up work at the firehouse on Mondays so Andy dropped him off at the firehouse when he left to take Kenzie to practice. I just picked him to take him to youth group and then have to go back out at 8:30 to pick him up as Andy and Kenzie won't be home in. Also, because Connor went with Andy tonight that means that I will have to pack up the twins, Bekah and Kearsyn when I go to get Alex. I sure hope they don't try to make this a permanent switch. One night of messing up the bed time routine is okay but I wouldn't want to do it more than that. And thankfully because of all the rain we've had, baseball practice for Alex and Connor was cancelled otherwise the night would have been even crazier.

Andy has put us in a real pickle. ;-) After Alex had his interview with SPPS, Andy and Connor were talking and Andy said that we would also try to get Connor into the school hopefully by the time he was in the 8th grade. Andy has recently been emailing with the principle of the elementary school to see how we would go about getting Connor (and Kenzie) onto the waiting list for the school. There's always a waiting list for the elementary school so we figured if we got them on now that they would be in a good position when it came time for them to each enter 8th grade. Turns out, because Alex is enrolled in the high schools, that moves Connor and Kenzie way to the top of the list...there are only two other kids ahead of them. Ack! While that's good it's also bad because we haven't figured out how we are going to pay for Alex to go there, let alone anyone else. I know everything will work out however it's supposed to...just have to have a little faith.

Ski Trip

Alex left last night for his very first over night event with his youth group. They are going to spend the day skiing, snowboarding or tubing...whichever activity they chose...at Roundtop today. Alex chose to try skiing. They left last night, spent the night with their sleeping bags in a church up there and then were hitting the slopes early this morning. The camping in the church was good because it saved on expenses...they got to sleep at the church for free so only had to provide money for food last night and for the activity today. I'm anxious to hear how he did as this will be his first skiing attempt. I'm sure he's having a blast right about now. =)

Andy and Kenzie are down in Trappe for her Saturday softball practice. She's discovered that she loves to pitch the softball so we'll see how much of that they are doing today. I logged onto work for a little bit to get some programs started that take about 5 hrs each to run. Thought I'd try getting a jump on things so I'm not waiting around Monday morning for the data. I'm already running about a week behind getting this particular data updated so hopefully this will help me catch up a little. Now I'm off to try and clean the house a little.

Hope all is well with everyone out there and hopefully it won't be another 2 weeks before I'm able to get back here again. ;)

Evaluation Report

I forgot to update about the meeting we had last week to go over Bekah's evaluation. The report said what we already knew...that her developmental levels other than speech were where they should be or above level. She was 26 months when she was evaluated and all her scores came in 28 months - 33 months. This was for cognitive, social/emotional, adaptive/self help, gross motor and fine motor skills. Her speech evaluation showed her at a 20 month level (instead of 26) which just barely qualifies her for their program. They're going to come to house twice a month to work with her and also to show us things we can do with her during the times they aren't here. I'm still totally impressed with how quickly she can pick up sign language and she now has quite few that she uses regularly like more, please, thank you, mess, shoes, coat, milk and drink.

We went to my parents yesterday to celebrate my dad's and Kathy's birthday. It was a nice visit although the boys/guys spent most of time in front of the tv watching the Ravens game. LOL Afterwards, mom took Connor to go see Eragon. Alex had seen it with his youth group on Saturday and really enjoyed it. Kenzie was so upset that Connor got to go to the movies with mom. Never mind that Saturday afternoon, she'd gone to birthday sleepover party that also included going to Build a Bear workshop, getting smoothies and pizza and then going out to Fisherman's Restaurant for dinner.

I tried doing some work today but it didn't go very well as Kearsyn was a complete grump today. I'm not sure what was up with her but she sure wasn't happy. It was also a very late night last so that didn't help things any. It was beautiful outside today so we took outside for a little while. Andy swung with her on the swing while I jumped on on the trampoline. I'm going to be so sore tomorrow...as Andy so kindly said, I'm no spring chicken anymore. LOL Oh and speaking of the trampoline, the younger kids have been banned from it after Tyler tried to hang himself on the top of the enclosure net. He got two huge scrapes on the underside of his chin around his neck where he flew up and got his neck on the top of the netting that is supposed to keep him in the trampoline. Guess that only works if you aren't trying to jump higher than the netting which is what Kenzie and Tyler were trying to do.

Tonight we went to the Christmas party for Alex's youth group which was at the youth group leaders house. What a gorgeous house it was too. He made half the house from trees that he'd cut down from his own property. How cool is that? The walls, flooring and ceiling were left the natural wood that had been made into planks (no bark on it) and he had a loft area with a cool spiral staircase. I know Andy and Alex are hoping to get invited over when the weather gets warmer (that sounds funny since it was 68 degrees today) to shoot paintballs since the guy owns 15 acres of wooded land. How fun! The kids did a huge Yankee Trader game and it was such a hoot watching them pick a present and them steal presents from each other. The biggest kid there ended up with a girls bag with lotion in it. It was hilarious! The gift Alex unwrapped was a great hot chocolate set but someone eventually stole that from him. He ended up having to go back to the pile and unwrapped a big box of bubblegum which he was just as happy with and no one tried to steal. The hot gifts of the night were a lava lamp and the hot chocolate set. The kids got really into it. Bekah made a new friend and it was fun watching them "playing" cards and putting out poker chips. They sure start young. LOL

On Our Way

I called our insurance company Wednesday and had the kids pcp changed to the new dr, so effective 12/13 they are now patients of Dr K. I figured since insurance thought they were his patients, I'd better drop off the registration paperwork at his office so I ran over after dinner to turn that in...plus it gave me a chance to get a look at the office. What a nice trip that was, 5 minutes and I was there. I got to say hello to Dr K. as he was passing through the office on his way to see a patient. I had a nice chat with the office manager while turning in the papers and filling out another form for her so now they are officially patients there. So far so good. Let's hope it stays that way when we actually have our first appt in February. I was talking to the office manager about the shots given during the 4 month visit and Kearsyn will be getting another 4 shots and an oral vaccine and then at 6 months, she gets another 4 shots and an oral vaccine. Good grief...doesn't that seem like an awful lot of shots for someone so young? So far she's had 9 shots and an oral, so by the time she's 6 months she'll have had 17 shots and 3 orals.

Alex is very excited about tomorrow as he gets to go see Eragon with his youth group. Connor, on the other hand, isn't quite as excited because he wants to go as well but he doesn't know that his mommom is planning on taking him to see it. She's not sure she can do it this weekend...but one day soon she will. Kenzie is going to a sleepover birthday party tomorrow so she's looking forward to that. She's going to be eating at a nice restaurant...I'm kind of jealous cause she'll be eating better tomorrow than we will. LOL Wednesday is my dad's birthday, so we are all going to my parents on Sunday to celebrate. My sister and her DH are coming over so it should be a nice time.

So far I've worked 5 out of my 8 makeup days for work. I was able to redo two of the reports so that my boss could review them over the weekend...he loves to work on the weekend. The rest of us hate it because we know come Monday that there will always be a list of things for us to do. I only have 3 more days to make up and I'll be glad when they are done. I'll work Monday, Wednesday and Thursday next week and then I'll be done working until the new year. Of course, that means I'll actually have to start going back into the office on 1/2/07...wow, hard to believe it almost the new year...which I'm so not looking forward to...but I know everyone there is. ;)

Done

Chorale is done til after the holidays. Connor and Kenzie had two concerts this weekend...one Saturday evening and one this evening. They were actually scheduled to do another one at a nursing home today but it got cancelled. The concerts went well...at least from what I heard. I didn't actually get to really hear either one of them. For Saturday's concert, Andy dropped the kids off because they had to be there an hour and a half before the concert. It was near where my parents live and the kids and him had spent the majority of the day at their house working on cutting down trees. They left me at home to get some sleep cause I'd had a rotten night with Kearsyn. She didn't go to sleep until after 3am and to say I lost my cool that night is an understatement. I'm surprised my hubby is still talking to me as I was not a nice person at that point. Anyway, Kearsyn and I went to pick Connor and Kenzie up from the concert while Andy took the rest of the kids to 5pm mass...Alex was alter server that night, having to do it by himself since his brother was off singing. ;) We came home, ate dinner and then went to 7pm mass while Andy and the rest came home to eat and to watch Kearsyn. I have to say, it was really nice being able to go to church without the little ones. I could actually hear what was going on...usually I'm having to keep track of Bekah climbing up and down the pew or having one of the kids arguing with another.










Today we ate a late lunch because there was a party for the Chorale after their concert today. We had a deep fryed ham which was delicious! The outside of the ham always burns to a crisp but the inside is so moist. If you've never tried one, you really should. =)

But because we ate a late lunch, that meant Bekah didn't get her nap which meant by the time the concert came around, she was way too cranky to go in to listen to it. So Alex, Bekah, Kearsyn and I wandered the hallways of the church trying to keep her quiet while they were singing. Alex found some legos in one of the classrooms so that kept her entertained until the end of the concert. Alex actually ended up having two other little kids join them...he's such a kid magnet. LOL I ended up sitting outside the doors of where they were singing so I could somewhat hear them but it just wasn't the same as being inside. And the acoustics in this church are just amazing! They sounded beautiful. It always amazes me how good a bunch of kids sound when singing together. The party afterwards was nice, lots of pizza, cake, cookies, pretzels, fruit and alot more people than last year as the choir has actually grown this year. That's so nice to see as we'd lost of lot of membership last year.

Alex has a bunch of activities coming up with the church where he attends the youth group...going to see the movie Eragon, an ice skating party, a Christmas party at the pastor's house and a New Year's Eve party at the church which is open to the whole family. He's really looking forward to these events and I think the New Year's Eve party will be really fun although we'll see how long Kearsyn and Bekah make it. ;)