Mutton Busting!

I found out on a Thursday that my niece Laycee was going to mutton bust in the Hyrum rodeo and I decided to hurry and sign Tyson up.  He did it a few years ago and tied for first when he was only 4.  He was excited to try it again so I decided to let him.  It was REALLY HOT outside and there was no where to sit so we ended up standing to watch for most of it.  Laycee is our little heart miracle and has had at least 3 open heart surgeries in her life.  She is a spit fire will a will much stronger then her little body.  My sis in law Jenny was sick about letting her do this but she has been begging for years and years to do it.  Poor Jenny was shaking the whole time until she saw Laycee was ok.  She did awesome! She got one of the higher scores of the night! My mother in law was freaking out as much as Jenny so as soon as we saw her waving to everyone I called out to her to let her know she was ok.  Tyson went right after her.  His sheep went like 25 feet then stopped and they clowns had to pry him off.  I was sad! He would have done so good!  Even though we had to sign up and pay for them to do it they seemed to have a lot more kids then sheep and he went second to last.  I felt bad he didn't get a chance to have a better ride but he was ok with it anyway.  

I think Ty looks too old in the picture even though I really love it.  Laycee is such a special little girl I  just love her to pieces.  When she was a newborn she went into full cardiac arrest. We went down to the  hospital to say goodbye to her and the little girl with the strong willed personality pulled through.  Who knows how long her little heart will hold out on her.  She could live a full life or who knows?  It really was a awesome moment to see her do so well at this rodeo.  She was so cute waving to everyone.  I'm so glad I got to witness it!

4th of July

We love the 4th of July in our house.  I am one of those nerdy mom's that buys matching shirts for her kids because it's fun.  And don't they look cute?

 We didn't make all the grandkids pose of the picture this year just the little ones.

 Bryan and my new niece Hannah.  He needs a little girl don't  you think?  In like 2 or 3 years that is.  =)

 Glow Sticks do really fun things.  It's sort of a tradition to have these for the kids for the fireworks.

 I would rather watch Sannette watch the fireworks then watch them myself.  She is just so excited to see them and yells out how beautiful they all and that one is my favorite color.  She is just too cute.

Brett actually did pretty good for the fireworks.  I thought he would cry the whole time but he only did for the first 5-10 minutes of it.  Pretty good for a tender little guy like him.  He ended up falling asleep at the end of them.  Not sure how he managed that.  Stockton was a little nervous then he really liked them.  My older boys of course loved them.  They look forward to them all year.

On the actual 4th of July Bryan took my older three boys, our neighbor Dallin and Cory and his family, Joe and his family and Lige and Debbie to Despicable me 2.  Brett is just too much work at a movie as I found out when I tried to take him to Monsters University.  I lasted about 5 minutes in the theater before I had to leave with him.  Then he cried in the hall forever.  It was Stocktons first movie too- Monsters U.  He liked both movies.  Then we had the family over here after for pizza.  That night my older boys were going nuts seeing all of the arial fireworks going off.  Bryan broke down and bought some a day or two later and it was way fun.

Grandma Visit

We went to my parents house to stay for a couple of days.  Here are some of the fun things we did:

There is a pond by my moms house with a beach next to it where we went and played.  The boys made a fun sand castle and Brett loved playing in the sand. 

 We used our pass of all passes and went to trafalga (sp?) square.  We did mini golf, bumper boats, go carts and some other little rides.  Stock loved the mini golf and Ty drenched me on the bumper boats!  He could drive his own boat and really got me wet. He was crazy!  Blake liked mini golf the best he says.

 Side note- those are not my normal sun glasses- they look really stupid on me.  I couldn't find mine and had to use ones in the van...

 We went to a splash pad in highland.  My older boys complained about it and in the end got in.  Stockton on the other hand LOVED IT and had a ball.  Brett cried like he always does.

 They especially liked using their squirt guns.

 Stock usually sleeps in a crib and it weired him out to not have a crib.  I had to lay by him until he would fall asleep.  That usually meant that he talked and talked and I feel asleep.  I found him in between the bed and his mattress one morning.

 We also went to 7 peaks.  Tyson is my little fish and would go on all of the slides.  Blake did really good too as long as he got the life jacket.  One slide he went down with my dad and my dad got kind of stopped and had to push himself down the rest of the way.  Blake ended up coming out the bottom with out my dad and went under the water.  He was really angry with me after that.  Ty loved the wave pool (so awesome) and the lazy river.  Brett cried the whole time and Stockton did pretty good.

I'm glad my parents live close enough for us to go visit them.

T ball

Blake has wanted to play tball for years.  I signed him up at the last minute even though the thought of sitting through his games with the little boys gave me anxiety.  Like I said before though- I refuse to have them miss out of life just because it's hard for me.  He loved it!  Tball is super low key and lucky for me next to a really nice park.  Tyson would run off and play and I could watch the game- as much as you can with the little boys.  We ended up having Bryan take them to the park- or me- or one of us staying home with the little ones.  It was really fun to watch him play! 

 Blake is the one standing next to the coach.  His coach was super nice.

 Blake knew how to hit it really far.  He really is good at sports.

And the reason he wanted to play:

 A trophy! After we missed his last game (I thought he had one more and we were at my mom's) we drove around Prov looking for the coaches house and finally picked it up.  He was very happy and proud of it.

Now they both have one!

ADHD

Ever since Tyson was little he has had a hard time focusing in on things.  I remember when Blake was born just wishing he could watch Elmo for a whole episode of Elmo's world while I fed Blake and he couldn't do it.  But he wasn't even two- just his little personality.  Time went on and he was in nursery and couldn't for the life of him sit in his chair for the lesson even though he was the oldest kid in there.  Preschool all the other kids could sort of follow along when I was teaching for my week of joy school and Ty just needed a little more help to get stuff done.  That summer we found out he had hearing problems and ended up getting him ear tubes among other things and man did that help!  He's cured!  He will do better!  And he did a little bit.  But from school to church I would hear how he is a good little boy but has a hard time focusing.  Boy did I know it though.  To get him to look in my eyes for more then 2 seconds and still next to impossible.  I have to ask then ask again 3-4 times sometimes before he listens to me.  But kids do that right?  He is young still so he will catch on.  Kindergarden starts and his teacher says he is a good boy but she has to keep on him to stay on task.  Homework consisted of me sitting with him and helping him do every problem.  He had no problem with the work he just couldn't do it alone.  He was reading with the top kids in his class.  I was so proud of him!  And I started to push him too fast and he couldn't keep up.  By the end of the year he was at the middle to end of the kids with his reading groups.  

First grade started and I was embarrassed that he went all the way back to the first set of reading books. We had gotten to the third set in kindergarden.  No big- we will catch up.  And hour after hour we would read and his teacher would say he's doing great! But I have to put him in the front of the class and next to a helpful student to kept him on task. He stays in his seat and doesn't bother anyone but he needs extra help to focus.  She would even have a parent that came into volunteer or herself pull  him back to the back table to retake math tests that he did horrible on to read it to him one on one.  He would get 90-100% on those.  Then one day I came into the class after school to help him find something in his desk and his teacher told me "I think you should have him see his dr." His lack of attention was hindering his learning and he was falling behind.  I mean, how can this happen??  I'm a elementary school teacher for crying out loud! I do his homework with  him every day!  It takes us HOURS and I want to rip my hair out trying to get him to do it but we do it!  How is he behind?  It's my job to help with with school and I'm failing!! 

We tried all sorts of little things to help him stay focused at school and he did good 50% of the time or so. After having to wait a few months I got him into the CPD (center for Persons with disabilities)  at USU.  I bought in all sorts of forms and things they had Bryan and I fill out.  I just wanted some answers if they had any and help too!  Bryan has been VERY funny about all of this.  He was a lot like Ty was growing up and felt labeled a lot from kids and teachers and is freaked out that might happen to Tyson I guess.  Or it just stresses him out so much he projects it all onto me to deal with so he doesn't have to.  I hope that doesn't make him sound mean.  I think he deals with what he can I guess.  My point is this is all on me really, and it's hard.  When the dr. said he felt like Tyson had ADHD (the attention part of it so really the classical ADD) I kind of thought that already.  When I read about ADD it just screams my little Ty. I hate to admit it but I've kind of had it in my head that ADD kids were naughty little stinks.  It's hard to really understand behavior issues I guess.  I'm grateful to go into the dr and get some ideas of where I should go from here.  He also helped me to understand that kids like Ty aren't broken or have "problems" but really just have a different personality.  And a lot of people can overly focus on things they are interested in much more then I can ever do.  Like Ty with the Wii or DS.  He is amazing at figuring out those games! Too bad he doesn't focus in on his reading like that!

I was ok with all of this but it kind of hit me today when I tired to get him to write a little note to his teacher last year.  I have to have her fill out some forms for the dr. and thought it would be nice for Ty to put a letter in it.  He fell apart.  It took us a 1/2 hour to write two sentences.  Really nothing new for him.  And not hard for him either.  When he just gets it done it's done in 5 minutes.  But there are lots of tears shed and a angry mom telling him to hurry up and get it done.  When he went outside to play after I looked at his scribbly handwriting and started to cry.  This is our life.  Not something that is going to turn off like a light switch or something he is going to mature out of easily.  Of course he will figure out how to deal with it and it will get better but it's my life.  It made me cry.  My sweet little boy is going to have a ruff go.  Why does it have to be hard?  How is this going to affect his life?  He already struggles with friends are kids going to be mean to him about it?  How on earth am I going to deal with this?  I'm already so impatient and his lack of attention in things he considers boring drives me crazy!! But what do you do!  Dust yourself off, pick yourself up and get up in the morning and it again.  I almost hate to tell his teachers next year about this because I know what they will be thinking  "oh great, this is going to be a lot of fun to deal with." I've been there I know!  But what they don't know until they know him is that he isn't the bouncing off the wall kid that can't sit still.  So he squirms in his chair a little- he just doesn't do boring.  

I love Tyson.  I wish I could fix this for him.  Some how we will figure all of this out! 

Fathers day and then some

 Fathers day 2013- I thought it would be cute if all my boys had on a tie.  It was a lot of work to talk them into it and I'm not sure anyone noticed but me.

 We had a fathers day "dinner" at KFC the night before.  It wasn't very good, they didn't take my coupon and the dining room was dirty.  We we won't be back for awhile...

 Brett's "cheese" face.

 I found Blake's old bat man PJ's that he had to wear everyday.  They were his favorite! I love them on Stockton.

 We have a new member of the family!  Heather and Joe had a sweet new baby named Hannah June 7th.  She is so sweet and has lots of dark hair.

 So we went from me being in charge of a activity day's meeting right to the dentist with all 4 of my boys.  Do that sometime when you are feeling brave.  It didn't help that Stockton pooped after we got to the dentist and I  had to change him on the floor of the bathroom.  Brett was crawling around and it was so gross.  They did a quick little check of Stockton's teeth.  He did really good thankfully!  And no cavities for anyone!

 We drove up to Tony Grove end of May and we already could drive up there.  It's been a low snow year.

My boys love being up in the mountains.

Quick story about Stockton- we were in Sam's club and in the check out line.  I was looking at something and walked up to the boys with Brett.  I look around for a minute and ask Bryan where Stockton was.  He says "don't panic but I don't know" so I start walking to the back of the store looking for him.  Can't find him.  Bryan was still by the check out line and I see  him and he shrugs like he isn't sure still where he is so I head to the doors to make sure he didn't run outside looking for us.  By now I'm starting to panic a little because this had never happened to me before.  After 5 minutes of looking for him  Bryan calls my cell phone and he is laughing a little.  I said he better tell me he has him and he did thankfully.  What had happened is while we were in line Stockton walked behind us and into a shed that was set up in the store to sale.  He was right by us the whole time and we couldn't see him. While I was looking for him Bryan saw the door of the shed open just a little bit and he knew that's where Stock went.  What a little fart.  I couldn't even get mad at him for it because he had no idea we were even looking for him.  I am officially that mom that people look at and say "she has no business having that many kids".