100th Day of School

One thing I love about 1st grade is how they always celebrate the 100th day of School! I volunteered this year to help with Katy's 100th day party and boy was it fun!

When Shawn and I first got there, they were sitting at the carpet listening to Mrs. Spadafora give them instructions about the activities they were going to do.
This is Katy with one of her cute friends, Megan, playing a 100's game!

As soon as we got there, Shawn immediately ran to the book shelf and started pulling out all the books that he recognized. He sat himself down by us and started reading his favorites. This is him reading, "Snowmen at Christmas".

After awhile he got bored and was becoming impatient. Mrs. Spadafora grabbed a bucket of dinosaurs and put them in front of Shawn and another little brother.
Shawn was in HEAVEN!

But once Shawn saw that it was Katy's turn to make a Fruit Loop necklace, he was not going to miss out on that for a second. Katy was so cute with him. She pulled a chair right up next to her and started showing Shawn how to thread the fruit loops onto the string. She didn't complain once that it was her necklace and not his.

Of course, once the necklace was done Shawn wanted to put it on. Katy didn't hesitate and helped him slip it over his head. He was so proud to be wearing the necklace, and I was so proud of my Katy for being so selfless and caring for her brother.
I love you Kate! You are amazing!

More Cans for Mission Dollars

Well, he did it again! He saved up and smashed enough cans to head down to the aluminum recyling shop. Grandma Z has a box at her office that friends will drop their cans into. Once we get the cans, Tyler has to smash them all down and then throw them into boxes until the boxes are full. Once he has enough cans, we load them up and take them down to the recyling shop.

It had been awhile since we last went, so Ty had quite a bit of cans this time.

The first time we went, Tyler brought a friend with him, and we figured out how everything worked. After hearing about the process and seeing how excited Tyler was about it all, Jen and Kate have been dying to come with us the next time. So when they heard we were going again, everyone piled in to the back of Dad's truck, and we all headed down to the metals shop. It was fun to see how excited the girls were for Ty and the support they were giving him.

First they pour all of the cans into the bottom of this conveyor belt. Tyler is looking at all of his cans before they sent them up the ramp.

Once the scale has been reset to ZERO, the cans are sent up and over the top where the weight of the cans is calculated. A receipt is printed out for Tyler to take to the office where he is given a card for their "ATM" machine outside.

Tyler takes the card outside to the machine, inserts the card and the money is withdrawn from the machine. Ty had a total of 33 pounds of aluminum this time! He made a little over $15.00! That's about double the amount he had last time.

As soon as we get back in the car, Tyler hands me the money and asks me to put it in his bank account. He's saving it for his mission. What a great kid. I'm so proud of Ty for working so hard and saving his money for serving a mission someday. He is going to be one awesome missionary!

The Down Side of Costa Rica this Year

Sunburn? Yep . . . only Extremely Bad!

Last year Bret came home from Costa Rica with a pretty bad sunburn on the back of his neck. It dried out and flaked off, and he was really uncomfortable for a few days.

So this year we geared up for the sun a little better (or so we thought). I bought bottles of sunscreen with SPF 50 and we made sure that he put it on before he headed out on the boat each morning to fish. Bret came home the first day and said, "I feel like I got fried, and I put sunscreen on 3 more times while I was out there." Even though the burn didn't look like much, he said it was really uncomfortable. After two days of this, he wore a long-sleeved shirt for the rest of the trip and a t-shirt on the top of his hat so he kind of looked like a sheik while he fished (wish I had a picture of that!). He stayed out of the sun as much as he could for the rest of the trip.

On the way home his arms started to get a little redder and they were dry and itchy. But still nothing really strange.

After being home for 2 days they were nearly unbearable. They were extremely HOT and it seemed like the area that was burned was spreading. The skin started to peel, and the raw skin underneath was bright red. The next 4-5 days were the worst. The cycle of red itchy skin, to peeling happened several times. A friend in our ward, who is a nurse at the hospital, came up to Bret at church and told him that she could tell that both of his arms had 2nd-degree burns because of the amount of skin he was loosing!

This picture shows how swollen both of his arms were. He couldn't straighten his arms all the way because of the pain and the inflamation. You couldn't even see his elbows when he tried to straighten them. To say the least he was miserable. He walked around all day with his arms bent and we all tried our best not to get too close.

Well after several days of walking around with his arms bent, Shawn looked up at Bret one day and said,

"Daddy, are you a Tyrannasaurus Rex?"

Being the good sport that Bret is he said, "Yes! Rarr!"

We've been home for about a week and a half now, and Bret's arms are doing much better. They are super itchy, dry and a little sore, but considering what they were like, he's doing great! (Halleluyah!)

Katy and Her Teeth

I'm slowly figuring out that my kids inherited some funky mouths. Putting Bret and I together resulted in little mouths with BIG teeth. When it happened to Jenny I just thought, "Man, she got screwed." But now that Tyler and Katy are experiencing the same problem, I realize that it's all coming our way.

When my kids have a permanent tooth that's ready to come in, they have to lose 2 baby ones in order to make room. And what usually happens is the permanent teeth start coming up behind the other ones because the second baby tooth doesn't know it needs to come out!

Well, Katy has probably had the problem worst of all. She has had 3 permanents come in without even starting to loosen the babies. And she is not the bravest about it. (Which surprises me, by the way.) I can't stand wiggly teeth so the kids are basically on their own(or we pay a special visit to Grandma Clark's -- she loves wiggling teeth). Bret on the other hand is determined to get them out of there and not pay $50 a tooth to have them pulled.

Well this last time, Katy was really sneaky about having another loose tooth because she didn't want Bret to wiggle it. She hadn't eaten very good for days because she couldn't and her smile was non-existent. She even hid the Orajel(numbing gel) from Bret because she didn't want him to use it while he did a little wiggle-wiggle. But it got to the point where the tooth was literally hanging out because it was so loose. Bret couldn't stand it, and he was bound and determined to get it out.

I headed downstairs one night to tuck everyone in bed, and I found Bret lying on Katy's bed with her all tucked in and telling stories.

After telling the story for a minute (and earning some trust) Bret got to wiggle the tooth a little bit. Sometimes she was brave and was a good sport . . .

. . . Other times she would scream and fight because she didn't want him to touch it. Then after a few minutes she would be calm again and listen to another part of the story. It was so cute to find Bret with her, all curled up in her bed, trying to help her get that tooth out! These two are quite a pair.

As you can see, Bret was successful. My Katy is back and she's eating again. There's nothing better then seeing Katy's smile back.

And the tooth fairy even came that night. (It's a miracle!)