2008 Easter Celebrations

Saturday we went to the Billmans for an egg hunt. It was such a fun time. We got to see the Homecs which is always a treat. But I can say that this easter is best summed up by the pictures. So enjoy!

Logan was happy with an easter egg in each hand.


There was a limit of 10 eggs per kid. As you can tell Luke multiplied his limit by 3.



McKee tried to push Mark into the pool.  Luckily Mark is a heavy weight.




The Easter Spirit put some air in Luke's step. Note... he is literally walking on air not the water.

McK and Luke got sunburned. Unfortunately that is inevitable when your kids skin is opaque.

What is Easter anyways without a good swordfight?

Our Little Helpers. Gotta Love em!

I went to bed at 6:00pm last night. I felt crummy and left the kids and the house up to Mark. Not to my surprise, I woke this morning to WWIII in the kitchen and family room. Now, for those of you know us, you know this is not an uncommon occurance and when I say it looked like WWIII, I am not exaggerating. I wish I had a before picture to prove it. Well, I had no energy to deal with it.  I complained a little and said "Mck and Luke, you guys have to clean the kitchen today". There was some weeping, wailing, and nashing of teeth.  I left to put Logan to bed, and Mark went to clean the car when I came back down the stairs I found the kitchen taped off. McK would not let me look in. One thing I love about McK is that he can be very creative in how he accomplishes some of his chores. I left again for about 20 min. It got a little to quiet so I went down to check and this is what I found.

 "Don't go in the kitchen and I'm at Donnys house, don't go in the kitchen"

McKee and Luke had cleaned the kitchen and family surprisingly well. They had vacuumed and mopped the floor, wiped of the counters taken dirty clothes to the laundry room, and put away all the toys.  Just look at how good it looks.
Thank you McKee and Luke for helping your mother stay sain today!

The results are back.

Over the years I started noticing that what he ate and how often he ate really affected his behavior. I've been really careful about not giving him treats and feeding him more often but it seems that lately nothing I was trying was working. Mark and I decided to have him tested to see if we could figure out what was up. He had to fast for 12 hours which all by itself was a trial because he is so emotional and defyant when he needs food. They had to test him 5 different times and each time I had to pin Luke down as the nurse took a vile of blood. This was one of the harder things I had to do in my life. It is extremely difficult to see your child in emotional stress and pain and know that you are helping out what he considers "the bad guys". We got the results the next day. He has hypoglycemia. This didn't come as a shock. Mark and I had suspected it for a while but it was good to know exactly what it was so we can learn how to treat it correctly. Hypoglycemia is basically low blood sugar. He pancreas overproduces insulin which creates the low blood sugar. This is the root of all (or most) of his rollercoaster emotions. He is on a special diet where he can't have any processed foods, or sugars, no white flours or simple carbs. It is the diabetic diet with 6 meals a day. Somedays I feel I do a pretty good job at keeping my head in the game, but there is the occasional day that I don't do a good job and then I'm quickly reminded that I can't slack. When I don't pay attention to what he is eating it seems those are the days he crashes. He gets hyper, then gets emotional, then he falls asleep....what we call the crash.

He is pretty good about what he can eat and what he can't.  At first when we took sugars out, he had a hard time understanding why other people could eat sugar and he couldn't.  You would often hear him say "dont' eat that, that's got sugar and it'll make you sick."  Now, he doesn't seem to mind so much anymore infact, today at Costco, he picked out some cookies and said "Mom, let's get cookies OK?  I won't eat any.  Lets get some for our friends. OK?"  (the friends he is refering to is Aunt Angie, and her friends Natalie and Tara).  At this point, I melted.  Even though I didn't want a box of cookies in my home (mostly because I thought I could eat them all) I couldn't help but say yes.  His is such a sweet and tender little one.  We sure do love our little Lukie.

Our dear "Lukie"

Luke is a very special little guy! 

He has one of the more tender and kind hearts I've ever seen in a boy, He can be so charming and loveable when we have his blood sugar in check, he basically gets away with everything because he is so darn cute. For example, on Monday, I was begging him to play a game with me. He refused.

"Do you want to play soccer with Mom?".

His reply...

"NO."

"Can we read a couple of books together?"

"NO."

"Do you want to watch a movie together?"

"NO."

"Write a letter to Grandma & Grandpa?"

"Play Cars?"

"NO."

At this point I was about ready to give up but I told him that he had to do something with me today and that he could pick anything he wanted to do. In desperation I asked "How about we make cookies together?" He suddenly perks up and asks "Can we make cookies at Lizzies house?"  I told him that was a good idea, but he needs to play with me and not Lizzie, so he needed to pick something that he and I could do together.  He then asked "How about I write a letter to Lizzie?"  "That sounds like a great idea."  He wrote Lizzie a letter that went something like this...

Lizzie,

I like to swim.

I love cookies.

I was so proud of him.  He wrote 90% of the letters himself. He put some of his "sugar-free" candy in an envelope.  He then ran upstairs and came down with a $10 bill from his savings jar.  I tried to convince him that he didn't need to do all of this for Lizzie but he said "Mom, I want to, it's OK, it only buys just toys."

It was all he could think about for the next day.  He asked every 20 minutes if Lizzie was home so he could give it to her.  He was so excited he could barely stand it.  Every time we would talk about it, he would wear his smirk which is something like pursing your lips so you can hold down a smile.  We keep telling him that its OK to smile, but he smirks anyway.

 

We were able to deliver the letter the next day.  He was squirming with joy.  His little spirit could barely contain himself.  I was pretty proud of him as well.

Logan our Little Ham

I'd dare say Logan is our little ham in more than one way. As you can tell by the pictures he is...to put it gently...in the plus sizes. In addition, he is so funny. He tries to make you laugh with his more than obvious fake laugh. He'll squeal, and babble to get your attention, or come up and slap you and then laugh. He is such a delight to have around. I love to see his exploring his world. He is now saying a few words such a bahbah (bottle), mama(mom) da(dad), bah(everything else) as he points. The cutest is that he also knows a few signs. He knows "eat" and "milk" (which means bottle for him). Funny that both the signs he knows relate to food, I wonder if it correlates to his chubbiness? When he signs eat, he tries to tap his mouth but half the time he slaps his face somewhere else, including his ear. I seems to me that he is a smart little tyke, yes I'm biased. For example he has picked up that "see ya later" means "bye" and vice versa and he'll wave by moving both hands up and down without moving his wrists. Its so cute to watch. He has learned that night, night means he gets a bahbah and he'll start touching his fingers against his thumb. He knows what his formula can looks like and will bring it to me saying uh..uh..uh. He gets mad when he can't go everywhere McK and Luke go and thinks he is one of the big boys.

He is definitely a mess maker. He loves to unload the tupperware cupboard, then he moves on to the toy box, after he unloads that, he proceeds to unload the dishwasher and the plastic drawer as he sits in it. I found is so cute but not so much anymore because he is pretty heavy and has sunk the bottom our of the drawer.

McKee was baptized on Saturday February 16, 2008.


It was definitely a busy day but a wonderful day at that. McKee has been so excited to be baptized even before he turned 8, almost to the point of annoying. I didn't realize how much work went into planning a baptism. Luckily every thing seem to fall into place and the whole evening turned out to be so wonderful.

We got to the church early which is an anomaly for us. We were delayed from starting on time due to a very stinky Logan. Linda ran out to the van to quickly change him while I continued to play prelude music. When they returned we got started with the program. After Brenda so kindly helped lead the music and said an opening prayer, Linda spoke on "baptism". She started asking questions directed towards McK. Before McK could open his mouth Luke would shout out the answer. Luke was on the edge of his seat, not taking his eyes of Grandma, waiting with baited breath for the next question. It was so darn cute to see him totally enthusiastic and he even answered every question correct. I guess he is getting this from somewhere, I didn't think he listened to his parents. After a while of this, I started feeling bad for McK because Luke was stealing the show. Everyone was chuckling at his enthusiasm. I even tried to quiet Luke a bit so McK could get an answer in or two, but it wasn't working. When Linda finished I was a bit relieved so that Mck could be back in the lime light, after all it was his night.

He and Mark went into the font. Mark did a good job and only had to dunk him once(thank goodness). We were worried since the last guy he baptized he had to do it over again I think 5 times. When Mark and McK returned from changing their clothes, Sid spoke on the "Holy Ghost". I found it quite entertaining because he told a story about Mark (in front of the bishop and his counselor) about how Mark had bought gas comming home from church on Sunday. Not only did he buy gas, but he went in and bought himself a twinkie (who is surprised here?). Sid went on to tell us that McK called out Mark on his actions and then asked "now how did the twinkie taste?". Everyone was laughing and I was marveling on how my children got to be so smart (of course I can say that, I'm the mom). Its true McK likes his world very black and white. He has a very hard time when his parents tell him "do as I say, not as I do".

Grandpa McKee confirmed McKee. This was Marks idea and I found it so sweet. I think it will make it a very memorial experience for both Grandpa and Grandson.


All in all, it was a wonderful evening. Grandma & Grandpa Thatcher came in from Anaheim. Grandma & Grandpa McKee made the long drive down from Tridell. Russell and Paige came in from LA. It was so wonderful to have family in and I really appreciate their sacrifice to come and support our little family. I felt so empty when they left.

I'm really proud of McKee. He really is such a good boy. I really believe that there is something to him being the first child. He is such a good example and for the most part, the best big brother a boy could be.

McK's 1st Pinewood Derby or School of Hard Knocks?

February 15th, 2008.

Mark, McKee, and I went to the Pinewood Derby on Friday.  We arrived just in time with only a few minutes to have the car inspected, tape on a few weights.  

They introduced Mckee as the newest scout and went through some awards.  Then the race began and McKee's car was to be the first to race.

 

McKee's car was pretty darn fast.  Of course he won the first race... Mark and I assumed.  

But just as it crossed the finish line one of the older scouts called out "Those wheels are not the right wheels"  My heart sank.  I could see Mckee's face go from total elation of victory to devastation and disqualification.  You could see that he was devastated and was trying to hold back the tears.

Now let me get you a little background on what happenend previously during the week.  We were given a pinewood derby car kit that was missing one nail.  Mark went down to the hobby shop and got some weights, nails (which came in a bag with wheels), paint, etc.  I had talked to one of the scout leaders and he had mentioned that the nails of the hobby shop were the same so I didn't worry about getting the exact nail out of the kit.  Not paying attention to what nails came with what wheels,  I carefully aligned the wheels and nailed them as straight as I could to the car.  I was completely unaware that they were not regulation wheels.

Back to the Pinewood  Derby.  At this point, McK could not hold back the tears.  Neither could I.  We went out in the hall and bawled.  I felt awful that I had not paid attention and put on the wrong wheels.  He felt bad because he had been disqualified and he had been accused of cheating when he didn't.  We cried a while and lucky for us no one saw.  Brother Risk was very kind and gave us a second chance and allowed us to put on regulation wheels.  Mark quickly put on the wheels with no time to align and balance.  We raced again and crossed our fingers.  Unfortunately we did not win.  McK was sad again.  Mark saw an opportunity to teach a wonderful lesson.  He said "McKee, you need to learn to be happy for other peoples success and learn from them so next time you will be the successful one."  McK thought about it for a minute, took a deep sigh in, fought back a few tears and took it like a true gentleman.  He is an amazing boy.  One of the things we love about McKee is that you can reason with him.  You can explain things and he understands it.  Before long McK was running around cheering for the others and having a wonderful time.

You might say it was a bittersweet night.  McKee's emotions definitely went for a rollercoaster ride (so did mine) but I wouldn't trade it for anything because the opportunity to teach a great lesson is so precious.  In the end McK got a ribbon for "the most creative".

After the Derby, we took McK to Red Robin.  McK was glowing.  You could see how special he felt.  He said "thank you" probably 50 times.  I would recommend taking your child on a date with just mom and dad.  It's amazing how special they feel.