Jackson has his frist play last night. He was so excited when the second grade told him they were going to do this and he couldn't wait. As they drove to the play, he told Brad that he was nervous to do it. He did a great job though. He was a soldier. He thought for some reason he needed a black jacket but didn't.
The song was "I'm Getting Nothing for Christmas" and this is the angry face he made, he looks a little psycho.
Before the play they sent a little home asking if any kids would want to come and sing before a PTO meeting and Jacks was excited to do it.
Jacks is the first to talk in the video.
Sometimes on the weekend the boys like to stay up late and play games. Since that is Emery and Jacks room, Emery and Jacks go to our room and play the phones for a while before they fall asleep. The other night, after we moved Emery and Jacks to the couch we looked up and saw this. A toy from some kids meal was stuck to our vent. The toy is a magnet and very obviously left by Jackson. The next day he thought he was pretty funny.
This past weekend most of my family came together to have a Christmas party. We had lots of people, food, games and fun. Grandma read a book about the symbols of Christmas, and then they made things to go with each of them. They made bell ornaments, stars, fun candy cane holders, reindeer food, wreath cookies, holly for a tree, sucker Santa and Reindeers, stockings to fill with candy and each family made a gingerbread house. Some of the things they made went onto a tree that most of the grandkids took over to a sister in Grandma and Grandpa's ward who is terminally ill and loved getting some Christmas cheer. The kids ate lots of food and sugar, made a lot of crafts and of course had a ball with their cousins. It was good to finally get together as a family(well mostly, Mississippi is a long ways to travel for one day).
Brad painted a corn hole game which was a hit. When you won you got a prize. Emery got some facemasks. Emery's was a child's size, so good thing I had one of my own and we did masks together. The boys just looked at us like we're crazy, but we are the ones with soft glowing faces now.
It's been up a while, be we put up out Christmas decorations. Since the downstairs is low we decided to nix our tree. The kids did help Grandpa put up their tree upstairs. We decided to put the presents up there too. As you can see, Emery and Jacks were a lot of help, wrestling around.
We will have pops for every season soon. They have a pop Harry Potter advent calendar that we are doing every day. The kids know their days for doing it and can't wait to open them in the morning.
Our cute little section of décor. The kids like that they still get to put our their ornaments.
Grandma had her Christmas concert and the kids helped at it again. First they collected the lights that the singers had in the opening number. They love handing out the cookies and punch the most. They had a few small arguments on who got to pour the punch.
Aren't they so cute? Jacks won the punch on his side.
On Wednesday last week the boys and I took a day trip to Boise for Camden to see a Neurologist. About three years ago we started Camden on some allergy therapy shots. The goal was to build an immunity so his allergies weren't as bad as they usually are. About 3 months into them we noticed he started to have facial ticks. Ticks that weren't there before. We decided to stop the allergy shots to see if that helped and it did. They went pretty much all away. Fast forward to August this year I scanned in a consent for allergy drops. They're done at home at a lower dosage so we decided to give them a try. Before we started we let the doctor know what happened last time and told him if they started again we were going to stop. A month or so into the drops they started up again. The fun thing with this is no doctor wants to be the reason they started, so they just told me there isn't an correlation and is can't be their drops. I don't think the medicine did this, but there definitely is something happening around the allergy therapy and his ticks. The ENT referred us to a neurologist after he saw the videos I took. Of course the appointment was a month away, so we got to think about what it could be for that long of time. Camden wanted Beck to come to Boise with us, so we left that morning and went up. I hate driving on the freeway, so most of the way up I was nervous; I was better on the way home though. They had us fill out a questionnaire about Camden which is the first thing the doctor looked at. I showed him the video then he asked if his dad had ticks at all of if a female in his family had OCD. I said I say I'm OCD. I don't have to touch something so many times but I do need clean. mess gives me stress and anxiety. I told him I'm better as an adult, like I can try and stay calm, but it still bugs me. If there is something left out and I see it, I can see it wrong in my head until it's fixed. The he asked how good of grades Camden got, I put he was above average and is especially good at math. Camden's goal this year is for all A's. Then he asked about piano, is he above average in that, and being the mom I am I said yes, I think he excels in piano. He gets it easy like I did when I was younger. He the said Camden is perfectly normal. When kids grow up girls tend to be OCD and boys get ticks. He said the grades especially math, being good at piano and the fact I'm OCD is textbook for ticks. He doesn't think ticks are bad (unless they interfere with his quality of life) they're just the bodies way of expressing what's going on. I get a high of sorts from cleaning. When the house or something is organized, it's the best feeling to me. Camden gets that from good grades and playing well. His brain releases all of those hormones and since he is so young and small the extra come out in tick. He told Camden his brain does naturally what some people pay lots of money to go on drugs. So when Camden does well he till have a tick from that. It also is the same on the other end. When you are scared or stressed your body releases adrenaline and other hormones which in Camden comes out in a tick because so much is released. Going back to the shots, he was always scared to get a shot, who wouldn't be. This year we moved and he started school again and is putting stress on himself to get good grades. I made him go ask someone about trading a pop and before he went I noticed his eyes went crazy. Looking back now we can see how much this makes sense. It's something that should subside when his brain is fully developed around 19-21. He may still get a little nervous tick, but nothing like he does now. Some reason the boys ticks go away but girls OCD doesn't. He said he can put Camden on medication to stop them, but he really doesn't see a need, unless it is a quality of life sort of thing. He told Camden and us to think of ways to stay calm and not over think things. He told him to get lots of rest and make sure he eats because lack of those will make them worse. The whole appointment was fascinating to me. Just how the brain is working and how just a few things on paper a doctor can tell what is up. Thanks to Brad he has allergies. Thanks to both of us he is good at math and thanks to me he has ticks. We are just happy its nothing major and that the appointment was about as easy as it could have been.
After we went to Tucanos for lunch and the mall to pop hunt. All in all it was a really good day. A weight was lifted off us knowing that Camden is just an over achiever, and that's not a bad thing.
Camden and Beckham are trying out for another play this week. Brad and I decided that if they are going to go for a big part that they have to practice more and show us what they have. Just to help them be more prepared when they go in. Last Tuesday we made them show us what they had so far. Beck did great, just went for it and we gave him pointers and he was done in maybe 10 min. Camden however took 20 min just to start doing anything. He kept trying to make excuses why he couldn't or he didn't remember, but nothing was working on us. He decided if he can't see us he'll be good.... and this is what he came up with, a towel on his face. He did it once that way and then again without it. He let himself get too nervous, which I don't blame him. Hopefully this will help him calm down for the teacher when he tries out.
Grandma and Grandpa have the advent calendar boxes out again this year. The kids love to search the house to find them. One day was a chess game with Grandpa. Since the chess set came out all of the kids have loved playing it. Jacks was first and I didn't get up in time for a picture. He lost but Grandpa said he is actually really good. Emery was next. She has been working hard to learn it more and more and did a pretty good job.
Camden has been practicing the most and Grandpa said it shows. He won!
Beckham lost by 1 move. Grandpa had 2 moves to beat him and Beckham needed 3, but he has definitely improved. They all loved it and play chess almost daily.
Jackson made a Jeopardy which was more confusing than Emery's. He didn't quite get how to do it, so some of them were a little off. One answer was this is five cents. A nickel right? He wrote down dime. This one was supposed to say animal, not anial. He had a lot of fun being the game master though.
I'm a little late on this, but we had a good Thanksgiving. We were at the Barnes and had a good amount of family come to dinner. Downstairs they have a Carl Malone poster. He played for the Utah Jazz and whenever we remember we measure the family and see how they compare to his height. It was fun this year to see how the kids measured up to Brad when he was different ages.
Beckham is as tall as brad was in '98, so when he was 16 and Beck is 12. You can also see Beck is taller than me now.
Camden is as tall as Brad in '93, so when he was 11. They are on almost the same path. It seems that '93 was a big year for height for Brad, 3 stickers there.
Emery is just a little taller than Brad was when he was 7.
It's fun to see how the kids grow, and even how some of the adults changes as well. Grandpa shrunk a little this time.
Grandma was putting out her Christmas things the other day and they have a chess set. Camden really likes to play chess and he was saying how amazing he was at it. I had a cousin who once said that and then my dad beat him pretty quick. I told him to go and play with Grandpa. He was nervous to ask but was happy when he finally got to play. I think Grandpa went a little easy on him, but Camden held his own. In the end Grandpa won, but it was a fun game to watch. Now everyone has been trying to play chess.
This past weekend we went to Utah to see one of our nephews get married. He got married in the newly remodeled Provo City Center temple. It its so crazy what they were able to do with the old building. Inside is beautiful. The kids were good waiting for us outside. They had a lot of fun with Sammie, our great niece. She reminds me so much of Emery at that age. Full of spice and spirit. It was so much fun to talk to her.
That night we went to see the new "Fantastic Beasts" movie. The movie was ok, but the theater was awesome. The kids loved the chairs. Emery couldn't get over how much leg room there was. The only bad thing about the seating is Brad. Emery and I fell asleep for a little bit. They are too comfortable.
The next day we went pop hunting and to Scheels. Cam and Beck both got a Chase pop, which they were really excited for. It was a fun short trip.
Brad found a Jeopardy game online where you customize. He did one for a work meeting and FHE on Sunday. Emery loved it and wanted to make her own. Her questions were about her, Disney, vocabulary words, animals and more about her. They were all very selective to her ideas, like her favorite princess or the best Disney movie. The vocabulary was the hardest to get. They were very vague, like this means really good, the question was what is the best. She did a great job though and we all had fun playing it.
The boys are doing school plays again this year. The first one had its showing this past weekend. It was a pretty cute and funny show, my only complaint was they don't use mikes, so you can't hear that well. Camden was apart of the 'good' pirates crew and Beckham was part of the 'bad' pirates crew.
The play was only about an hour long and when it was over Emery was confused because she said Camden wasn't in the play. He was actually on stage for most of the play, he just looked very different. They have a little break before they try out for the next play, which is Lion King.
Halloween has come and gone this year. The boys said this is their last year actually going out. Emery was a zombie cop, Jacks rex from Fortnight, Camden was Freddy and Beckham was Jason. It was a bloody year for the kids.
In April I got my mom tickets to Josh Groban for her birthday. The time went so fast and it was here before we knew it. It was such a fun weekend. We went down to the show and shopped a little and ate good food. Idina Menzel opened and she was really good. It was fun to hear "Let it Go" live.
Nothing, however, compares to Josh live. He sounds just like his recordings, if not better. He's also really funny.
My 2 favorite songs he sang were "Falling Slowly" and "You Raise Me Up." A choir from Salt Lake sang with him, which would be so much fun to do, if I could sing. I think we may have to go back again next time he is in town.
