Checking in again

So here I am again finally. I haven't really had much to blog about. When people ask me how I'm doing I just tell them its the tax season and that pretty much sums it up. Its all good though and I'm grateful for the work we have. We are hugely blessed.

The situation in Japan has had me thinking about just how blessed we are. Among our little group of exchange students we've had over the years there have been three Japanese students. Two girls, Mineko & Eri, and one boy, Yuuki. I wonder how they are doing. I've been so impressed with how the people there are working through this. I love Japanese people. They are respectful, humble, curious, hardworking, and the way they honor their elders is such an example to me. In the aftermath of this horrific tragedy they are orderly and calm. So inspirational. Just good people going about their lives and within an hour their town is gone. I looked over the list of individual names and unless Yuuki Matsumoto is the name of more than one in Japan, someone has confirmed that he is alive.
I wondered how long it was between when the earthquake hit and when the tsunami rolled in. One hour. Can you believe it?

I'm still here

I have no picture to give me inspiration in this post. I haven't picked up my camera in too long! Why is this? I'm guessing because it is February--the busiest month of the tax season and I'm doing taxes for hours everyday. The kids haven't caught onto this quite yet and so the other day I had to have a little sit-down chat with them to let them know that when I'm on the basement computers I'm working. Like people in offices, except that I'm home to take care of them. You'd think when they hear me getting up every 5 min to deal with a screaming John it might cross their minds that I could use a little cooperation.
As in pacify him, don't antagonize him.
Course John's so easy to work with and all.
"Noooo!!! I want Mom to get the milk! Don't touch the glass! Your germs!"
It seems my germs are less germy to John.
But sometimes, if I happened to have touched the rim . . .
It doesn't help that he won't drink out of the same cup twice. Or that they have to be blue.
I've thought about buying more blue cups, but then I'd just be washing more blue cups.
So I haven't.

I'm also homeschooling Rebecca for the last 2 hours of school now. I drop John off around 12:10 and then pick her up at 12:25 when she gets out of Resource. We then have 2 semi-uninterrupted hours to do work one on one. I think she is doing better, but who knows what the school really thinks. I know I'm the dreaded figure lurking in the halls all the time. I should have my own office there some days. I don't feel like I've been accusatory, or rude (this school year anyway) but I do need information. Like on the curriculum--for this week. What are you doing in science this week? They may not hate me, but I think they really don't like me.
They referred me to the "reading specialist" last week. They benchmark their reading by the alphabet--and as they progress through the grades they want them to be further and further along the alphabet markers. Like in 4th grade they want them to be somewhere between "M" and "R." So I want to know exactly what letter she is on.
"Well, we don't really like to tell parents that because it is really more of a marker for the teachers . . . "
Bla bla bla, just give it to me. And then tell me what it means.
Turns out they have her on a reading level with books like "Arthur Goes to School" and "Amelia Bedelia." Very discouraging. I know her vocal reading is terrible. But she can read and understand books at much higher levels. For her book report I had her read "Winn Dixie" and now she is reading "Felicity, an American Girl." But she reads lots of things in between. Mostly fact type books.
I hate that she hates reading. So I tell her stories about how Einstein didn't do well in school and how Walt Disney was told he wasn't creative and how lots of kids that struggle at her age go on to be doctors. I keep telling her she is going to love it when she finds what she likes to read and can read it without struggling. She is getting tired of me telling her these things. She just wants to go play with her friends.
We've been considering a program called "Learning Techniques." See website here. It's not just that its time consuming--I mean really time consuming, but I have to drive her to Orem once a week to meet with a specialist for 6 months or more.
Oh, and it is $3300.
With the discount if I pay up front.
Course if we could be sure it would help her. But I'm very disappointed they don't have more current data and reviews. And that they don't seem to keep running stats on the kids. I'm a skeptic. I need to see numbers.

In other news I got all the kids new Vans yesterday. Lily works at the Vans store in Orem and can get me her sisterly-discount, which is the bomb. This is the 1st time we have done this since she got a job there. I got 6 pair yesterday for $130 bucks! John and Sarah got 2 pair and Nathaniel and Rebecca got 1--soon to be 2 when they finish going through the boxes in the latest shipment. Vans for the price of Payless. So great.
We had to go on a Saturday night because that was the only time I could take all the kids in when she was working there. It took me no less than 25 min to get out of the parking lot. I'm not super fond of shopping at the mall, but on Saturday night? A lot of things I'd rather be doing. Nathaniel kept telling me how if I let him drive it would have been faster.
Yea, faster to our deaths.

Turning 36

Guess by the title of this post you can tell I don't have a problem revealing my age, huh?
All this week I was prepping the kids. What day is it on Friday? They weren't catching on I guess because on Thursday I said, "What day is it tomorrow?"
"Friday."
Ya bunch of losers.
When I came down yesterday I said to John, "What day is it today?"
He sighs. "Your birthday." (who-hoo!)
So then I ask him for a birthday kiss, which he refuses.
"Go talk to dad about it. He'll probably give you one."
John is always good for a laugh!

Peter gave me the "day off" which meant I didn't have to get up or pick kids up from school or do dishes or make sure Rebecca's hair looked decent (which of course it didn't because I wasn't there.) Isn't this the greatest thing? It was just what I wanted. Good job Peter.
Lily took me out to lunch (yum) and then we went and saw the only non rated-R chick flick we could find, "The Tourist." Didn't have good reviews and deservingly so. But it was fun and though Lily and I both enjoyed looking at Johnny Depp we couldn't help wanting to take a little pair of scissors and clip off those super-annoying wispy parts of his mustache that were hanging over parts of his lip making us cringe at the kissing scenes. No chemistry whatsoever between Jolie and Depp. And it annoyed me that a natural beauty like Jolie should look like a raccoon through the whole movie. So there is my movie review.
Then we ate frozen yogurt until we felt sick. Perfect sister birthday outing.

My parents gave me this bag from their trip to Mexico earlier this month. I love it.

Then dad sent me this picture of the lady they bought it from. Very cool.

Lastly, here are two of the cards I received for my birthday that Peter was so kind as to pin up by my computer. Have I somehow communicated to family that I like pictures of naked/partly naked old men? If so let me clarify.
Eww.

Wii Dance 2

For Christmas I got Sarah a game for the Wii where you mimic the dance moves of the silhouette person on screen. Peter likes to play with her, which kills me, and does some serious gloating when he wins.
Here they are dancing to, of all things, "It's Raining Men."

Rebecca's lists

I will often find lists in Rebecca's room, which is not only cute but makes me glad to see her writing something on her own.

"How to scare Sarah"

"My day"

This is the kind of stuff I find in John's room. Cute in it's own way I guess.

Meet Rocky

This is the bird Rebecca earned during the summer by reading and having a (semi) positive attitude about going to her reading tutor. We've had him about 5 months.
She loves animals and has been very happy with Rocky.
Rocky is a Conure, which is basically a small breed of parrot, about the size of a cockatiel.
(We call Rocky a "him," but really don't know for sure as these birds have to be DNA tested.)
Before I got Rocky I was under the impression they lived to a max of 15 years.
Apparently they can live as long as 25.

Rocky and his alter-ego. They fight a lot.

We have been fairly happy bird owners. They are not terribly difficult to take care of and are generally well liked by all. Nathaniel has a yellow cockatiel that only likes him. I have an immortal blue parakeet that doesn't like anyone. I call it the immortal parakeet because I blew dried it back to life after Rebecca saturated it with Spray and Wash. Twice. That was around 6 years ago. The only complaint I have about birds is that they are messy. I haven't really found a good solution to this yet. I vacuum quite a bit.

The only thing Rebecca, or any of us for that matter, has been able to teach Rocky to say is his name, which he will only say for Rebecca, so if we want to hear it we have to hide within hearing range while she coaxes him. He is a friendly bird and bows his head or lifts his wings for you to scratch him. He likes people and the biggest thing is making sure he gets enough attention. Sometimes during the day I'll put Charlie out and carry Rocky around while I clean. He likes to be on your shoulder and if you don't pick him up while you're in Rebecca's room he'll follow you around on the floor until he can get a hold of your pant leg and climb on up. Did I mention his little sharp claws? Ouch.

Bird Killer

One thing we didn't know when we bought Charlie is that Standard Poodles were bred for hunting birds. It wasn't too long after Charlie arrived that he killed our chicken.
Rocky is actually the second Conure Rebecca has had. The first lasted less than 48 hours. She had let it out of the cage and John walked in and left the door open when he walked out. Major miscommunication here. I guess I didn't make it clear to her she couldn't do that. We hadn't mounted the cage yet. It was really, really awful and I missed the attack by less than 5 seconds. It was so sad and we could hardly believe it had happened. I had a hard time sleeping because I just kept running through it in my mind. Rebecca didn't take to Rocky right away because she was so devastated about her little lost bird. It is not a happy memory. Her door is now able to be locked from both the inside and the outside and the cage is mounted up high.

How I spent my time in the days following Christmas

Legos was the theme of John's Christmas presents this year and I finally took the plunge and organized his old ones into this plastic compartment thingy. The kids took turns coming in and telling me how I was wasting my fool time doing something John was just going to ruin.

John says they are married:)

(Lego Star Wars/Prince of Persia combo)

Course now John thinks he has nothing to do . . .