Yeah, It's Been a While

Hey, remember how I have a blog? Remember how I used to update it fairly regularly? Yeah, me too. So I'm back, but I'm not going to promise the [blogging] world. Things are busy and facebook tends to be fast, but kind of more a time suck when you add it all together. I don't know, I'm torn and apparently in a stream of consciousnesses kind of mood....moving on.

Thought you all might enjoy an update of what's been going on. One child is off to school and the other three are still asleep, so I'm going to listen to vicious wind outside and ruminate and reminisce.

So we've been up to a lot of things. I'll start in December...

Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis....We had so much fun at this event! I am continually impressed with all the wonderful work that the Arthritis Foundation does in this community and the events that they put on are amazing! Siobhan was the youth honoree for the event and she did a great job! She gave a speech that was very articulate and moving. Video will come soon-it's on Carson's phone. We had a misshap of illness though. Right after the kid's run, she had a spell of violent throwing up! So sad on her special day! But she was a trooper. We had a great time that day-vomiting aside!

Festival of Trees....Audrey and I both performed in the Festival of Trees with our Irish Dance school. We had a blast! As a result of her adorable performance, Audrey was even picked to dance on a kid's DVD which should be out in the next few months.

Christmas happened and so did my birthday-the Christmas post at least will be at another time when I can post all the pics and videos. Christmas really should be it's own post anyway, not thrown into the mix of a run of the mill update post, don't you think?

Jr. Jazz....Siobhan played basketball this winter. She had a great time and no problems with the JIA! She was the only girl on her team, but totally held her own! She was also the tallest. Favorite memory of the season, after a girl on the other team stole the ball from her, she came over to me on the verge of tears because someone 'just took the ball' away. I told her to steal it right back. She did!

Preschool for Mr. Will....Mr. Will started speech therapy back in November. He has been very delayed in the his speech and vocabulary and after a lot of testing we found out that he has concentration/attention issues and memory problems as well. So we started having a speech therapist come into our house twice a month to work with him. Now that he's three, he ages into the school districts preschool program. He goes to a 'special needs' preschool two mornings a week and he loves it! He gets to ride the bus which is the high light of his day! Oh, and he's improving so much with his speech! It seems like everyday he has new words that he can say. We are so happy! I plan another post about this very soon!

Standing Man...So Ethan can stand against anything and it's so cute! He's starting to cruise too which is so fun to watch! He still won't crawl on his knees though. The other day I put him down on the floor of the living room to play and went into the kitchen. About two minutes later, i couldn't hear him. Yeah, he was upstairs. So I put him back in the living room with more toys and turned my back. Two minutes later, he was upstairs again! Fast little guy!

Carson's Amazing!....Carson has been working out a lot over the last year and has lost 40 pounds! His BMI is down to 16.9!!!! I'm so proud of him! He's been working hard! He's also kept busy with his responsibilities in the Elder's Quorum presidency.

Vegas...We took a short trip to Las Vegas on New Years Day and stayed overnight at the Excalibur. The girls loved being able to stay in the Castle! It was nice to get away and do something fun as a family! Carson's mom met us there and stayed with the kids so we could go out. It was a very quick trip but lots of fun!!!

I'm doing some fun work with the Arthritis Foundation which is keeping me busy. I'm helping to organize the upcoming walk in May and Siobhan is helping also. We are planning on attending the Foundation's gala in a few weeks where Siobhan will present an honoree with the platter that she made. We're super excited for that! Siobhan and I were also chosen to attend to Arthritis Foundation's Advocacy Summit in Washington DC in mid April and we are really looking forward to that! Well, I'm looking forward to that, Siobhan doesn't know. We're surprising her at school on Weds at their weekly assembly!

Soccer....Siobhan just had her first soccer game on Saturday and scored 2 goals! But then she got wicked hurt and couldn't play the rest of the game. It's all good though. She's excited to keep playing!

St. Patrick's Day....Me and Audrey both marched in the St. Patrick's Day Parade down town and performed in the Siamsa. It was so fun! We also had a super fun party the night before with all the kids friends! It was so much fun!!!

So there you have it, a comprehensive update of what's going on in our family. I hope you enjoyed the read and lack of pictures. I have a reason for that. I got a new phone for my birthday and the camera on my phone is better than our digital camera so I use the phone for all of my picture taking needs. I just don't know how to get them from the phone to the computer. I know there are ways like emailing them to myself and then copying and pasting them into my picture library. But that's a lot of steps and I'm kind of lazy. I need to find an easier way. Love ya'll!

Who Do You Jingle With?

We're nearing the home stretch on the fundraising for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk for Arthritis! All things seem to be in order as we prepare for Siobhan's big day...practicing her speech, getting out costumes together for the costume contest, gearing up our legs for the run, lot's to be excited about!
We're doing our best to make Siobhan and our team the top fundraisers. So have you donated yet? Are you planning on joining our team? Click here if you would like too contribute. If you would, please make the donation directly to Siobhan-just click on her name!

On Today's List

Before, you read any further, Have you headed over to join our team for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk? After tomorrow, registration goes up to $30 so do it now!!!! There's also a kids 1K and the price is always $10. And, of course, you can donate any amount you like until the day of.

Now, since it's Monday and I haven't blogged in a years(!!!!!), I'm going to create my to do list so I have some ownership over how I spend my day. And just FYI, this post will probably be boring. So here's what I hope to accomplish:

*Do one more load of laundry and then fold and put away all the loads that I've done between yesterday and today. If I do anymore today than what I've already done I'll get overwhelmed and it won't get completed. After falling ridiculously behind on my laundry, I need to pace myself.
*Come up with something to feed my family dinner. Pancakes? Maybe-We're having leftovers from last night, done!
*Acquire birthday treats to take to Siobhan's class and then deliver them-1/w way done
*Attend Jingle Run planning meeting at the Arthritis Foundation this afternoon.
*Get dressed in clothes other than sweat pants-done!
*Figure out our clothing for family pictures this weekend. I would like my brain to stop keeping me up at night thinking about color/texture/print combinations and the disasters that are possible.
*Take books to library.
*Vacuum Mr. Will's bedroom so he'll stop eating sequins (it's a long story) -That one's done
*Blog something interesting this evening.

I need to bare in mind that I'm giving myself until the end of day to get this all done.

Whenever the Arthritis Foundation has a big event, they always choose a child with JIA to be an honoree-sort of the face of Arthritis and 'voice for hope' to show that life can be normal. Back in June, we were able to meet James Light who was the honoree for the Arthritis Walk. He was super sweet and very inspiring. You can read it here. Siobhan even sees the same Doctor!

Well, we were given the opportunity for Siobhan to be the honoree at this years Jingle Bell Run/Walk so we jumped on it and we just got word last week that it's official! How exciting is that!!!! We're so happy and excited to be able to share her/our story with everyone who is struggling with arthritis and to bring awareness to the fact that there is a huge need for more research, but ultimately, what we need, is a cure!

For this event, our family will be able to help in some of the planning of the event, work with local media, share our story with the community and Siobhan will be able to start the race. We also started a team just like we did for the walk back in June.

Now, I really don't like to solicit people for money or ask a lot from people, but this is obviously something that is really close to our family so I am going to put it out there. So here's where you come in....

1)We need team members to fun with us! There is a $25 reg fee which goes toward our fundraising goal of $1500.

2)If you don't live close, you can still donate to our team. A lot of very generous people donated to us for the last walk and I definitely don't expect that again. But the option is there. If you've never donated before, just know that any amount helps.

3)Come and cheer us on! There is going to be a lot of fun stuff going on at the Jingle Bell Run/Walk so come and get into the holiday spirit and cheer on 'Siobhan's Secret Weapons'. Through this whole arthritis journey, the moral support has meant just as much to us! Surrounding ourselves with people who want the best for Siobhan has been awesome!

If you're interested in helping us one way or the other, here are the event details:

When: Sat December 3

8.30-10am : Registration

9.15am : Holiday Costume Contest!

9.40am : Kids 1k Run with Elves

10am : Timed 5k Runners Begin

10.10am : Untimed Joggers/Walkers Begin

5k Results + Awards Ceremony to follow.

Where: Trolley Square-Southwest Plaza

How: You can run or walk, timed or un-timed

So if you want to join our team head on over here and find our team. This go around, we've called our team 'Siobhan's Secret Weapons'.

Forget Not

The talk by President Uchtdorf, wasn't it amazing!!! Watch the entire thing here. You will be not be disappointed!

Monkeys and Elephants and Dinosaurs, Oh My!

A few weeks back (well, like a month ago) we went to the zoo! We don't venture out for things like that very often because Carson and I are seriously out numbered by the amount of kids we have. But we went with Grandma and Grandpa so that helped a lot-a few extra hands.

We've been looking forward to going to the zoo for a long time because Carson's company installed a bunch of air compressors for a dinosaur exhibit. The air compressors made the dinos move and some of them even sprayed water. Since we have a little boy in our family who adores anything of the dinosaur persuasion, it was bound to be a big hit!






We also saw elephants, and I didn't know this, which are apparently Audrey's favorite animal. We spent a lot of time there listening to the one of the zoo people (docent?) talk all about the elephants they had there which were a grandma, a mommy and a baby girl. So fun!

This is a big elephant outside the habitat. It does a little bit of moving and water spraying which Carson's company also did.

We also saw the monkeys which is always fun! There was this one baby monkey (I can't remember what kind-black with big, white, long tails-sort of look like a skunk) who kept bouncing all around the habitat and he had fun jumping up to the window and making faces at the girls. So cute!!!

We had a great time at the zoo!

Take a Look

If you're not a regular reader of our arthritis blog A Stint in Juvy, head on over there and take a look at our great news about Siobhan and her arthritis!