The Puppet Master

Kaleb has become an official puppet master! Over the past month, his teacher, Mrs. Goodman has worked with her second grade class to write their own puppet plays and make their own individual puppets. The class was split into groups of 4 to 5 and they were assigned to come up with a mixed up fairy tale. Kaleb's group chose the Bear and the Goldilocks Family. Everyone of the students wrote their own parts for the puppet play and made their own props. After writing their own parts, each student made their own puppet character. They made the puppets body out of paper mache, sewed their own costumes and added their own embellishments like hats, hair, lips, wiggly eyes and earings. I was able to go in on the day that they were putting on the embellishments and it was so fun to help the kids and see the puppets come together. I am also grateful that I got to help Kaleb a little bit with his puppet. He was Papa Goldilocks! I also was able to help Kaleb put hair on his puppet. He seemed so happy to have me in his class helping and I am so grateful when I can go in and  help.

Last week, the parents were invited to come and view the puppet plays. It was so fun to watch all the plays and see how creative all of the kids were with writing their own parts and putting a spin on the traditional fairy tale. I loved all their mixed up fairy tale stories! So cute and creative. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get any pictures of Kaleb while he was performing his play but I did get a picture of him with his puppet when he brought it home from school today. I am so proud of Kaleb and the hard work that he puts into each of his projects at school. He is a very creative and so hard working!

Cardiology Appointment

Today was Karmindy's yearly Cardiology appointment with Dr. Ronald Day. He has been her Cardiologist since birth and has been a good fit for our family. Karmindy's appointments are at the Primary Children's Riverton Extension office located in the Riverton Hospital. We have been so blessed to live right down the street from this amazing facility. It truly makes it nice having these services in our own "backyard" and saves us from spending all day driving to and from Primary Children's Hospital located  in the heart of  downtown Salt Lake City. These appointments are so mentally and physically draining for Karmindy and us and it is nice to be able to cut the commute out on these long appointment days.

These Appointments consist of getting chest xrays taken, blood pressures taken in both her arms and her legs, an echo, a EKG and another round of blood pressures being taken. After all of these are completed, Dr. Day will then meet us in an exam room and will go over what has changed and what hasn't for the past year and any concerns that he has. This year things seem to be about the same. However, Karmindy's stats  look great and her blood pressures in her arms and her legs are very close in numbers which was great news to us. This means that there isn't a huge difference in her upper and lower bodies blood pressures. Having blood pressures that are far a part can cause all kinds of problems. Dr. Day did express that Karmindy still has the same kinked or "pinched" space on her aorta which is located directly under the three branches that feed (the blood supply) her left and right sides of her brain. This has been a concern for the past couple of appointments over the past few years. The problem with the Pinched space is that it does lie right under the three branches that feed her brain. Normally they would put a stint on these "pinched" areas in the aorta but they would like to avoid a stint in this case because the metal fibers that the stint is made of could cause blood clots to form and she could have a stroke. So are only option is patching the area with a graft from a cadaver.

It sounds like the procedure would of course be risky (any surgery is a risk) but with her getting older and her body getting bigger it is a better surgery to do now rather than if she was a baby. The down time and healing process would end up being good and not hard. So for now, we will wait another year and see what the future holds. I hope modern medicine continues to get better; especially in the cardio-thoracic field. I am sure it will. They are always doing amazing procedures

We take the information that we received today as good news. We will hold on to the fact that Karmindy is growing, learning and keeping up with the other kids her own age. Dr. Day gave her clearance on any form of aerobic activity (baseball, soccer, dance, running) but warned against  gymnastics or any other type of sport that would place strain on this area. So no gymnastics, wrestling or weightlifting for our princess! :D Which we are ok with and not too worried that we will have to fight her on or talk her out of participating in!

I am so very grateful for modern medicine and all that has been done to keep our little girl here with us on earth. We are so grateful to have Karmindy as apart of our family!

Karmindy loves the waiting room toys and activities at Primary Children's Hospital Extention. Today she made a pinwheel, colored a picture and drove the pink car (her favorite color) all around the waiting room. I am glad for these fun things to keep her occupied while we wait. It makes these doctors visits more manageable and bearable.

Happenings.....

Boy, do I love my sweet little girl. She brings so much liveliness into our family's life. Karmindy is full of personality, so there is rarely a dull moment around these parts. The picture above was after preschool one day. She turned to me and struck a pose and asked if I would take her picture. Wow! What can I say? I indulged her!

 Yesterday, we had a couple of  packages delivered to our home. The kids decided to make a "truck" out of the boxes and Karmindy has enjoyed pretending to be a truck driver. I am pretty impressed with Kaleb's creativity because he is the one that constructed the steering wheel and buttons on the dash board. Pretty Creative kids!

As a side note, one of the packages had some new suits and work shirts for Mark. He is in desperate need of new suits, so with working at the Church  for the past 3 years, he was told about this website that has custom-made suits for not much money. He ordered 2 new suits and several new dress shirts and new dress slacks and a couple of belts. He is going to need some new work clothes for his new job coming up. He was just offered a job at Adobe in Lehi, Utah and started this past Monday. I am so proud of my husband! He is one smart guy and is always working so hard to support our family. I appreciate all that he does for me and our two children. Love you so much honey!

The other package was Halloween Costumes! I know, its a little early to be thinking about Halloween but BuyCostumes.com was having an $8 dollar sale on Costumes. How could I refuse a deal like that; especially since Costumes are so expensive? Plus, really if you think about it, Halloween is only 4 more months away but who is counting? 

Karmindy wanted to be a witch this year and we found her the cutest pink witch costume. After all, pink is her favorite color! She had to try it on as soon as we opened it up! I think it looks pretty adorable on her! Now I hope she doesn't grow too much over the next 4 months! 

Kaleb has gained an interest in the Harry Potter Books/Movies. We have let him watch all the PG rated ones but have held off on a few of the PG-13. I think they are kind of scary and don't want it to scare him or Karmindy so we are holding off for now until we think they can handle them. Anywho, he has been begging to be Harry Potter and we found him a pretty awesome Harry Potter Quidditch costume complete with Golden Snitch and goggles. I wasn't able to get a picture of Kaleb in his costume yet....he is too old for mom to be letting mom take pictures apparently!

My little princess is growing up way too fast. I took this picture of her right before heading to Preschool today! She has two more weeks of Preschool and then is going to be my BIG kindergartner! She is really excited for Kindergarten and to ride the bus with her big brother. It makes me a little sad but it is exciting to see the growth and development of your children. I love you little miss!

Spring Piano Recital

It is hard to believe that Kaleb has taken a full year of piano lessons! He has been taking piano lessons from a cute lady in our ward, Tauna Broadhead. He has done extremely well with her as his teacher and has really got a great little talent that he is developing. I think he has a little bit of a natural ability so I truly hope he keeps practicing!

Last night, was his spring recital and it was held at our church building right by our home. Kaleb played the piece, "Chugga, Chugga Choo." It was a cute little tune that sounded just like a little train! Kaleb did a great job on his piece. We are so proud of you son for sticking with piano even when it is getting "hard." We love you Bud!

File Folder Games and Balance is Key!

It has been really nice to have a little bit of down time the past few weeks to recover from being in charge and executing Teacher Appreciation Week(s) at Kaleb's Elementary School this school year. I was in charge of getting in touch with all the Room Mom's to decorate doors, finding other parents to decorate additional staffs doors, teacher gifts, table decor and a huge teacher luncheon at the end of each week. It was MADNESS!!Along with being in charge of Teacher Appreciation week(s) that I was spear-heading, I also had a Primary Auxiliary Training (for my Church Stake Calling) that fell right smack dap at the end of those two weeks. For the Primary Auxiliary training, I was in charge of the food and the table decor, invites to the Primary Presidents, Reminder Emails and Programs. It seriously was the most stressful two weeks that I have experienced in a long time. I seriously didn't think I would live past those two weeks. I had a lot of panic attacks and took a lot of anti-anxiety meds that week to cope. Not Healthy. Yep, I am just keeping it real!!

So needless to say, I have really learned my stress limit and what I truly can handle. I have really had to take a step back and evaluate what is truly important and that is my kids, Mark and our family. I know that my family comes first but since I am a people pleaser, I have had to learn to say no! I have said "No" to a lot of people over the past few weeks. It makes me feel bad but It has also made me realize that I am glad that people depend/count on me but it's also good to serve others in moderation. I love helping others and delight in alleviating other's burdens because I to, have been through tough times and have always wanted to "pay it forward" especially since others have helped me through the years and still continue to help me. I just didn't want it to be at the cost of my family. Balance is definitely key and I haven't had much the past few weeks! I hated running around like a mad woman, it was not fun or healthy!!

Over the past couple of weeks that my every waking moment wasn't occupied, I have been wanting something to "look foward" to doing. I needed a project, because going from insanely busy to not much on the plate, has been an adjustment. I decided that my project would be making something for my children, because I love making things for Kaleb and Karmindy and I hadn't done anything for them besides the motherly caring duties: homework, cooking dinner, reading to them, playing with them, etc. 

For my project, I had found a link on Pinterest for these cute file folder games and I thought that it would be a "relaxing/mindless" project that would be perfect to work on. I needed something to work on that would help me unwind at nights but also help me to feel productive. Over the past few nights, I have printed out the games, cut, glued, laminated and assembled this little file folder games. I am pretty proud of my efforts. It was also a fun project to because I got the kids involved with cutting out the pieces and placing them in the folders. I finally finished them last night and I am so happy with these keepsakes for the kids. The kids have loved playing with them. Another motivation for making these file folder games was so the kids could keep busy during their month and a half summer break that is coming up. I made a few math games to keep Kaleb up to speed on his Math and made some games that would keep Karmindy up to date on her letters, colors, shapes and counting. 

It sure was a time consuming project but it was well worth it because I have loved the results. I have just had to learn that Balance is Key!

Family Time!

 Kamberee and Tyler were able to come up for a visit this past weekend! It was so nice to spend Friday evening with them. Tyler's dad wanted his family to get together for family pictures and to celebrate Tyler's 32nd birthday on Saturday, so Friday night we got them all to ourselves. It was so nice to spend time with them even if it was for one evening. While they were here on Friday night, had a Hot Dog Cook out with all the fixen's, corn on the cob, salads and brownies and ice cream for dessert! After dinner we headed to our neighborhood park to let the kids work off some of their energy and play at the park. We also took all our baseball stuff for the kids to play with. We let the kids have a turn to bat and then the adults took their turns.

It was such a fun evening, and I am so glad that I could spend some time with my sister. It is hard living so far apart from one another but I truly value the time we get to spend with each other!!

LaLaLoopsy Birthday Party Celebration

For Karmindy's Birthday this year, she asked to have a LaLaLoopsy Birthday Party. She has several of the cute little dolls and so it was easy to get on board with it! Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of LaLaloopsy party stuff, so I had to really do some diggin' to find cute ideas and supplies. Thank you Internet and Pinterest!

I found some really cute invites online that were in our price range. The invites were also customizable so it was fun to make them just the way we wanted them! 

Karmindy wanted to invite a couple of her guy friends to her party so I had to get creative and tailor the party to the boys too! We ended up deciding that we would do a baking party. Luckily, one of the LaLaloospy dolls likes to bake so we thought it would be perfect and fit right into our theme. We decided to make personal pizzas and eat cupcakes. I made each of the kids their own apron complete with button embellishments on them. They turned out super cute! 

One day while browsing in the bakery Department at WalMart, I discovered that they make Lalaloopsy cupcake cakes! I was so excited...I love when things come together! They did a darling job on Karmindy's cake and Karmindy was super thrilled with her LaLaLoopsy cake!!

 I loved how Karmindy's cake turned out! I almost hated to pull the cupcakes apart it was just so cute!

Karmindy invited 10 of her besties to her party. All of them but one came. We were sad that her friend Avery Wallin couldn't make it because of the flu. The kids had so much fun making their own Pepperoni Pizzas, coloring their own Lalaloopsy dolls, eating cupcakes, playing pin the cherry on the cupcake, relay races and Duck, Duck, Goose. 

Karmindy was so excited to spend the afternoon with her friends. She also made out like a bandit with all the fun birthday presents she received. She got a few more Lalaloopsy dolls to add to her growing collection, a puppy dog, makeup, books, and Princess Legos. She was very spoiled and has some wonderful friends who came and supported her.

For the party gifts to her friends, we gave each child a tub of play doh, a couple of cookie cutters, a bracelet for the girls, bubbles for the boys and a ring pop.

I hope your 5th birthday was everything you hoped it would be Little Sister! Mom, sure loves planning parties for you and your brother!! Happy, Happy Birthday Karmindy Dear! We LOVE you!!