Hyrum's First Recital

Alright! I've been looking forward to this post for a while! The hard part is going to be deciding which pictures to post since I have way too many.

Hyrum started taking piano lessons through ISU from a friend of mine in February. I felt a little bad that we didn't get him started right at the beginning of the semester, but we had other things on our minds. Since he hadn't been playing as long as the other students, I was surprised when his teacher asked me if he could play in the recital at the end of April. We asked Hyrum if he would like to perform, and he excitedly said yes. As it turns out, he loves performing.

He prepared one of the earliest and easiest songs he learned since we were afraid that he would stop and start over if he messed up. He tends to be a perfectionist, and won't just pick up where he made the mistake and carry on.

Because he was the most beginning of all the beginner students in the recital, he went first. I couldn't keep myself from smiling as Dr. Bond announced Hyrum and he took the stage. He played well and didn't make any mistakes. He even turned to look the audience to make sure they were listening as he played. He wasn't even the slightest bit nervous! He smiled at the applause as he took his bow. I don't know where he gets his courage from . I hate performing!

I wanted to get pictures of Hyrum at the piano after the recital, so I took him back on stage and asked him to play something. Instead of playing one quick song, he played through all the songs he had learned so far. He had every song memorized. I don't know why it surprised me--this is Hyrum, after all! He played for almost a half hour. I halfheartedly asked him to hurry up or told him that he should play just one more, but the truth was, I was enjoying how much he loved playing on the stage. Plus, I was getting tons of great pictures! And speaking of pictures...

Hyrum and his teacher, Stephanie.

Our family.

A more accurate representation of our family.

Since Hyrum went first, Stephanie was able to give him some last minute instruction on the stage.

This one is a little dark, but I love Hyrum's half smile.

This is how most of the photo session went. I'd get a serious picture of him playing...

Then he'd notice I was taking pictures, and give me a goofy grin.

Serious

Smiley

Such a big instrument for such a little boy.

There are plenty more pictures on my Facebook profile that I didn't include in this post. They're all good, so I suggest you go take a look!

Hyrum enjoyed his recital so much that he signed up for talent show try outs at school a couple of weeks later. He came home after his try out upset that he had messed up and wouldn't get to play in the show. I guess he's as hard on himself as I am on myself because I got a call from his teacher a few days later telling me that he was going to play. I hope he continues to enjoy the piano throughout his life.

Car Accident

We woke up to a big snow storm on February 25th. I left for school early, knowing that traffic would be slow due to the slick roads. The roads were even worse than I had first thought, so I was only going about 5-10 mph. As I came up to the stop sign at the end of the road, I knew that I would have to stop early. I tried to slow down several yards ahead, but not only was the car not stopping, it wasn't even slowing. The street that ran perpendicular to ours was a major road and the intersection was right next to a grade school, so I wasn't surprised to see a minivan coming straight at me.

The van was only going about 20 mph, but I could see from the look on the driver's face that she had no control over her vehicle. I turned my car toward the shoulder of the road to lessen the impact, but the front of the van still hit the front of my car,

then fish tailed and hit the back of my car.

It then slid across the oncoming lane, through a fence,

through another fence and a hedge,

then hit a railroad tie, broke its back axle, and came to a rest in a flower garden after having driven through two yards.

The police determined that nobody was "at fault" due to severe weather conditions and didn't give any inattentive or reckless driving tickets. I think the fact that both officers slipped on the road and fell on their behinds helped my cause. However, according to the insurance agencies, someone had to be at fault. And of course, since I was the one who didn't stop at the stop sign, my insurance shouldered the cost. Thank goodness I had full coverage on the Hyundai! Costs of repair to just our car was almost $6900. The car was in the shop for over a month! The van was totaled due to the broken axle. I didn't get an exact figure on the cost to replace the van or on the property damage for the yards, but they told me the total figure came to over $10,000. Although the deductible was $500 we didn't have, we happily paid it, knowing that it could have been a lot worse.

January Randomness

January brought a new semester of school. We also got rid of our black cat Buyo because of behavior issues. We were sad to get rid of Buyo, and Diaho mourned the loss of his best friend for weeks. Eventually, we got a new tortoise shell cat, Kagome. Kagome was a rescue who had been hanging around a house where several large, aggressive dogs lived. She was still a kitten, but was getting older and was scheduled to be put down later that week if nobody adopted her. She looked so much like my mom's sweet cat Goldie that she instantly stole my heart. She turned out to be a wonderful cat! She was petite, dainty, well behaved, and affectionate but also playful and feisty! She had a few eccentricities such as chasing bottle caps and licking Mike's hair, but they only made her more endearing. Even Diaho was happy to have her in our home. She was the perfect fit in our family. Sadly, I don't have many pictures of videos of Kagome. She was only with our family for a short time before she passed away in May from unknown causes.

My step-dad Sherwin has a wood shop out in his shed. Every now and then, he tinkers with things such as the sunflower lawn decoration he made for my mom one year. His latest project has been making what he has called "tone boxes" for his and Mom's grandkids. He makes them out of different types of hard wood, so no two look the same. The one he gave to Hyrum and Emily is made of cedar and walnut and looks as beautiful as it sounds. He wrote a short message on the underside and signed it for them. Both kids love playing it, and Emily enjoys making up songs to sing as she plays. I'm sure the kids will always treasure it, and there just might be a fight about who gets to have it when they're grown.

Emily's 4th Birthday

Monday the 6th was Emily's 4th birthday. We weren't able to go anywhere, but we did get a cake and open presents at home. The cake was... an adventure. Mike had bought a tube of frosting to write on Hyrum's cake, but we didn't have a writing tip to put on it, so we never used it. Thinking that I had learned from his mistake, I found a section of writing tubes in the cake decorating section. No tips needed! What I didn't notice was that the set of tubes I picked up were for tinting batter and frosting, not for writing. Really, it's not my fault! I blame the stocker who grouped it in with the other icing tubes and the package designer who decided to put writing tips on the tubes. Anyhow, the box I picked had orange and green which, according to the box, should have matched the cake I picked out. I used the orange tube and tried to write Emily's name. The gel came out uneven, goopy, and red. Mike tried to fix it by tracing over the lettering with the green tube. It came out uneven, goopy, and black.

And it used to be such a cute cake too! Rats.

Since the writing was just concentrated food coloring in gel form, it dyed our mouths green.

Hyrum picked out several toys to give Emily, and finally settled on a stuffed Hello Kitty wearing a black cat costume. Emily thought it was a bat. Mike and I gave her a new pair of mittens and a Strawberry Shortcake play set. She got a Strawberry Shortcake doll last Easter, and it had a cardboard cutout of her pink polka dot cat as a decoration in the box. Emily loved it so much that she kept it and played with it, but she often said she wanted a real cat figurine. Mike and I found a sale on a cute set which included the cat. She was very excited about it.

Because of my mom's knee surgery, Emily got birthday presents from her grandma the same day that Hyrum got his. She got two pairs of "sparkly" pants and a very cute tambourine. She's very proud of her tambourine playing skills, telling everyone that she knows how to hold and play it. She calls it, "my instrument," and even pointed out another tambourine player in the symphony. She's constantly trying to get Hyrum to play a concert with her on the new recorder he got from my mom.

Here's Emily's birthday video. Credit goes to my mom for recommending that I use this song. Sadly, because of the song, youtube is posting ads on my video. Just click the x to close the ad so you can read the subtitles.

The day after Emily's birthday, Mike took her to the hospital for an imaging appointment. She has been getting frequent bladder infections for a few years, the most recent one lasting about a month and a half despite trying 3 different types of antibiotics.

Before the doctor came in to discuss the results of the imaging with us, Emily told the nurse that she needed to talk to the doctor about her hiccups. Both the nurse and doctor were great, and played along.

Nurse: "When do you usually get hiccups?"

Emily: "Every time I go to daycare."

Nurse: "Ok, I'll make sure to tell the doctor when he comes in."

Nurse: very seriously to the doctor "Emily is concerned about the hiccups she gets whenever she goes to daycare."

Emily: "Yes, and Cruz teases me because of my hiccups. Cruz is my boy at daycare."

Doctor: "Boys like to tease you at daycare?"

Emily: "Yes, they're very noisy."

Doctor: "Boys are bad news. Don't you agree, Dad?"

Mike: "Yes. Boys are very bad!"

Doctor: "You stay away from those boys and tell them to be quiet, and your hiccups will go away."

The x-rays showed a level 4 (highest level) reflux from the bladder up to the kidneys. Normally, it's a one way path from the kidneys to the bladder, but on her, the fluids were not only leaking back up from the bladder, but completely filling the left kidney. As her doctor put it, "a bladder infection is not the end of the world, but a kidney infection is." He asked us to schedule an appointment with the urologist ASAP to discuss surgery. He said that there might be an option for a new injection which has had some success in other patients. We're meeting with the urological surgeon on Wednesday to get his opinion. In the mean time, she's on suppressive antibiotics to keep her from getting a kidney infection. I don't like the idea of my little girl in surgery, but I hate how she's so sick all the time, and surgery is certainly better than kidney failure.

Thursday, we met with Hyrum's teachers about updating his IEP. We've been frustrated with the lack of communication from his school. They didn't even have a parent/teacher conference at the end of the trimester! They finally got around to getting him in the appropriate classes when his IEP expired and he was up for reevaluation. After lots of testing and paperwork, they arrived at the same diagnosis as the psychologist -- PDD-NOS. They told us that he is a bit of a dilemma for them because he is miles ahead of his class academically. They said that he is ridiculously smart and talented. No matter how often his teachers tell me that, I still love to hear it! The problem is, he no longer qualifies for an IEP based on developmental delay or academic difficulties, but he really does still need special help. Luckily, they were able to qualify him based on a lack of problem solving language skills and social behavior. Basically what that means is that he is unable to communicate his frustration and work out problems when things don't go his way, and he cries a lot in class. They decided to continue giving him speech therapy and add behavioral counseling with social skills groups. A lot of my doubts and fears about the attention he's been getting in school were alleviated in our meeting, but I still wish his teachers communicated with us better.

That's all the news from Pocatello for now. I'm planning to put up a video of us decorating our house for Christmas, but that will probably have to wait until after finals week. Until then, I hope you enjoy the pictures and video from Emily's birthday!

Fall Update #5 - Lost Teeth and Cats

Mike and I started school again this fall. It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun. Well, at least it's fun for me. We're both feeling a bit burnt out now that we've hit midterms. I sure hope we survive!

Hyrum's new school wanted us to get him evaluated by a psychologist so he could be admitted into the speech and occupational therapy programs. We've known for a long time that he is probably on the autistic spectrum, but we had never gotten him a diagnosis since the school districts in Nampa and Shelly had no problem putting him in the correct programs without a diagnosis. We took him to a series of psychological evaluations and interviews. The whole process took a couple of months. When it was finally all over, he was given the diagnosis of PDD-NOS, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder - not otherwise specified. It's often referred to as "atypical autism." In other words, he has a lot of the symptoms of autism and a lot of the symptoms of Asperger's Syndrome, but doesn't have enough of either one to qualify for either diagnosis. For example, kids with autism often have behavioral issues. Hyrum doesn't. He does have speech difficulties consistent with an autism diagnosis. Someone with Asperger's Syndrome usually has normal speech. However, most of his behavior and cognitive development is consistent with an Asperger's diagnosis. What this all means is that Hyrum is on the autistic spectrum, but that they don't have a term or a definition for what he has. He is very high functioning, and is closer to Asperger's Syndrome than to autism. I believe the school was hoping for a specific diagnosis in order to qualify him for in-school speech. I really hope that they won't keep him out of the programs he needs just because he doesn't fit into any of their neat little boxes. The psychologist did recommend that he be put in speech at school, and also recommended he be in occupational therapy although he doesn't qualify for it through any disability. So far, his school has been lousy about working with us. I sure hope they cooperate in this. The doctor provided us with a letter to take to the school requesting that he be put in these programs, so I imagine that ought to be enough for them. There have been a lot of "issues" at this school, but that's another rant for another time.

My mom recently had the first of two knee surgeries. She was stuck at home for a long time, and I'm sure was bored out of her mind! Emily, on the other hand, thought that using a walker was a lot of fun!

While we were visiting my mom, Hyrum finally got brave enough to ask her to pull out a tooth that had been loose for a couple of weeks. He didn't cry or flinch or anything! I was so proud. The next morning, he was so exited to tell us that the Tooth Fairy had come to visit him that night!

Sherwin and I had a good time teasing my mom about her wide open mouth as she demonstrated to Hyrum how to open up.

Toothless Hyrum! (Try to ignore the blood beneath his nose. We didn't wash his face after pulling the tooth.)

This picture has nothing to do with Hyrum getting his tooth pulled. I just think it's hilarious! Hyrum was trying to look and act tough, but that is just not his personality.

About one week after losing his first tooth, Hyrum lost his second one right next to it. Now he has a big gaping hole in his bottom row of teeth. He's quite proud of it!

This video has nothing to do with anything. I thought I'd include it for those of you who didn't catch it on my Facebook page. Just Emily being silly and cute. She's a pro at hide-and-seek!

The next bit of news is sad for us. We returned home from our family reunion in McCall to a very sick cat. DeeDee, as far as we could see, hadn't eaten since we had left, and she had lost her voice. We weren't too concerned at first because she would often get depressed when we'd leave her at home alone for a few days, but she'd always snap out of it. After a week of her not eating or drinking, we took her to the vet. She was given an IV of fluids which gave her a large humped back like a camel. She seemed to do alright for a few days, but still refused to eat or drink. We eventually started forcing water down her throat with a medicine dropper, but we couldn't do much about the food. We tried chicken broth since we could force feed that to her, but she would refuse to swallow and let it run out the sides of her mouth. After another week or so, we took her back to the vet for another IV--enough fluids to literally turn her into a kitty water balloon--and an antibiotic. She seemed to respond a little and perk up after the antibiotic, and she finally started eating again. However, she only ate barely enough to sustain herself, and still wouldn't drink. Over the next couple of weeks, she lost so much weight that she became nothing more than a skeleton. Eventually she got to the point where she couldn't even stand up anymore.

After a lot of crying, Mike and I decided it was time to put her down. We hated watching her die so slowly and painfully before our eyes. After school, we took her to the vet one last time. Emily, luckily, had spent the night at my mom's house, but Hyrum came with us. We tried to explain to him what was going on, but I don't think he really understood until after we came home without her. At the vet, we told him to tell her goodbye, but he refused, saying he didn't want to lose her. Eventually, he did say goodbye. Mike decided to stay with her as she was given the shot, but I just couldn't stand to stay. As I handed her over the the vet, she tried with all the strength she had left to climb up my chest and lay her head on my shoulder. It was hard to pull her away, but I knew I didn't want to watch her die, and I knew I didn't want Hyrum to see it. Out in the lobby, another cat came over to sit with Hyrum. He pet it, and smiled, but then told me, "It's not the same as DeeDee. I want to see DeeDee again." I had to explain that it was too late to see her now.

We found out that there is a gene that all cats are born with, but lies dormant in some cats, while it activates in others. It causes the organs to shut down one by one until the cat can no longer function. She was experiencing kidney failure at the time of her death. It was a really difficult day for us. I know Mike's family won't really understand. Mike's the only one who even likes cats, and that's only since he's been married to me. We had DeeDee for 10 years. She was a wedding present to me from Mike, but she was a family cat. I've had a lot of cats, but she was one of the best I've ever had, and we miss her terribly.

Several months ago, a friend of mine pointed out to me that I have made lots of videos of the kids, but none of DeeDee. I started recording short videos of her only a few weeks before she got sick thinking that I would one day piece together a video. After she got sick, I figured it was time to make the movie. It's not quite what I would have liked to do if she had been healthy enough for me to get all the shots I wanted, but I didn't want any videos of her when she was so skinny and weak. I think it does a fairly good job showing her personality, although I wish I could have gotten better shots of her sweet, loving side. I think the song has very cute lyrics, so I included the translation in the subtitles.

Last week, we took the kids to a pet adoption sponsored by the Bannock County Humane Society. Hyrum picked out a black kitten because DeeDee was black. I'm sure if there had been a black and grey tabby at the adoption fair, he would have picked it. Emily picked out a tiny Siamese kitten. I was so proud of her when another family came along specifically wanting a Siamese. Her kitten was the only one there, and we had already signed adoption papers for it. The other family begged her to let them have the kitten. She didn't want to give him up, but eventually decided on her own that it was the right thing to do to let them have him. In its place, she picked out an orange kitten which was friends with the black one Hyrum picked. One of the shelter workers paid part of the adoption fees so that we could afford to get both kittens since the two of them were inseparable. It was pretty cute when we got the kittens. One of the workers at Petco had become quite attached to the black kitten because it looked like his cat. He showed us a picture of his cat on his phone and began to tear up as he told us how grateful he was that we were giving the kitten a good home. He became even more emotional when the shelter workers told him we were adopting his orange friend as well. He kept thanking us over and over.

So far, our kittens don't have any names. They're starting to respond to "Orange Kitten" and "Black Kitten," so I think we need to get them real names ASAP. Any suggestions?

"Orange Kitten"

"Black Kitten"

Hyrum's Spring Concert

Hyrum's school had a spring concert. Both Hyrum and I are short. I was standing against the back wall of the gym and Hyrum was standing on the front row, so I could barely see him when I zoomed the camera in all the way. Sorry for the shaky camera work. It's especially hard to stabilize it while zoomed in that close. Emily couldn't see him at all, but had fun dancing to the songs.

Not to be outdone by her brother, Emily asked me to video her dancing. She got a little camera shy for a while, but got over it quick enough.

Spring!

Spring! Finally! The semester is almost over, and Mike and I couldn't be happier about it. In celebration, I'm posting lots of pictures and videos.

First, let's get the updates out of the way. School is going well for me. I was supposedly offered a choral scholarship, but I haven't seen any confirmation on it yet. I wasn't counting on a scholarship, so if I get one, it'll be a nice bonus. Either way, the director of music education says she thinks I'm doctoral material. That's encouraging! She recommends that I get my Bachelors ASAP, then take a few years off to get some teaching experience before getting my Masters and Doctorate in quick succession. She says she thinks I have the natural intuition to be a great educator. Realistically, it might be a long time before I get my Masters, but it's nice to have a clear goal and the support of a teacher I admire a great deal.

Mike is considering another change in his major, but he's unsure right now. He's considering everything from meteorology to business, but he might just stick it out as a nuke engineer. I worry that he's too concerned with getting done quickly and making money than with finding something he's good at and that he enjoys. I worry that if he picks a career based on salary, he'll be miserable at work, and all that time and money spent on his education will mean nothing. As it is, he's doing well as a nuclear engineer. Maybe all he needs is to remember what got him excited about it in the first place. It's easy to forget what you love when you're burnt out.

Hyrum continues to do very well in school. His teachers are impressed with his reading and say he finished the kindergarten curriculum a while ago. They're making up new lessons for him to check his reading comprehension. My mom gave him a 196 page Curious George chapter book for Easter which he can read all the way through with no help. He's also top in math. He loves to quiz us on addition at home. His teachers also say his penmanship is excellent. Looks a little funky to me, so I'll just take their word for it. Hyrum's speech is improving steadily since we started him at the speech and language clinic in Idaho Falls. It looks like he'll be in pretty good shape when he starts first grade this fall.

Emily is like bottled sunshine. She's such a cheerful little girl. It always comes as quite a shock when she her mood suddenly takes a drastic turn to throwing tantrums. I guess that's a typical 3 year old girl thing. For the most part, she loves to sing, dance, make up stories, pretend to be a cat, play dress-up, and all those other things that make her so much fun to be around. She's very smart. Hyrum must be teaching her because I don't know how she already knows all her letters and letter sounds. She can also read common words that she sees often like Emily, Hyrum, Mom, Dad, and cat. Mike and I want to look into the possibility of getting her into a preschool this year.

Alright! Picture time!

Instead of Easter baskets, the kids got trays and bowls of candy. Emily got hair accessories and Strawberry Shortcake dress-up doll. Hyrum got slime and a Frisbee.

Last weekend, we took the kids to Spring Scrimmage at BSU. Before the game, they let the kids play on the field and meet the coach and players. Sadly, we took the scenic route through Arco and Craters of the Moon, so we got there as they were ushering everyone off the field. The kids still got to run out onto the field and play for a short time before a security officer tapped me on the shoulder and told us we had to go. I did manage to get a video and a few pictures. :)

Go Orange! Go Big Blue! Fight! Fight! BSU!

Some of Mike's friends from OBNUG.com (a BSU fan site) saved us seats to watch the game. The kids weren't as interested as they usually are in a real game, but they had fun posing for the camera anyhow.

We decided to take the long way back to Shelley again so we could drive through Craters of the Moon and hopefully hike the lava tunnels and the ice caves. We told the kids that it was created by several volcanoes thousands of years ago. Emily was really excited to see a volcano, and made up a cute story during the long car ride. Sorry, for some reason, the sound quality is low on this video. I plan to edit this video and upload it again. Until then, you may have to turn up your speakers.

When we got there, we learned that the lava tunnels and ice caves don't open for the year until May. We decided to take the kids on a short hike (if you can call it that) to the top of a spatter cone. Emily, who had been so excited, suddenly got scared and made Mike carry her to the top. I'm including lots of pictures for Dave's sake. You'd better be reading this, Dave! Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about any of these rocks too.

This is the vent in a spatter cone. Spatter cones are like mini volcanoes and are formed after the magma becomes cooler and spatters out of vents in larger chunks. The cones are more jagged than smoother cinder cones.

This is the view of the lava flow from the top of the spatter cone. It's just black lava rock for as far as you can see.

The family (minus me) at the top of the cone. Emily still wouldn't let Mike put her down.

This is a cinder cone. These are formed from the cinders which are expelled when the magma is still very hot. The rocks are fine--about the size of gravel. Cinder cones are formed before spatter cones. There are several of both types at Craters of the Moon. This one looks much more impressive in person than in the picture.

Just a typical view of the lava beds and cinder cones.

And another one.

Lava beds are pretty common in East Idaho. In fact, we drive through one nearly every day on the way to school in Pocatello, so it's a little hard to get excited about seeing more lava rock desert. Still, when you step outside the everyday and realize the amazing forces at work on our planet, it'll take your breath away.

Well, that's all for now. Back to studying for finals!