MAYLIN2007

I am exhausted. I feel like I have been running around for days. I really am never home. We have been working on Ken's assessment, working with teachers etc. We are excited with what is going on. They found she has an incredible math IQ. It is off the charts. They have also found that her foreign language skills are also miraculous. She can move from one dialect to another, easily. It is amazing. We are putting some programs in place to help her in the weak areas and to promote these strong areas.Her weak areas are in the language arts. Obviously, we have always known that, but it is nice to put a number to what we see. We are expanding her tutoring time from 2 days a week to 4. She is also taking some exercises classes 3 times week. Alex is taking them too. Austin planted his wheat today. He is so funny. Maylin was sick last week...yeah, I am late getting this picture up, but it is so cute I wanted to share. She ran a 103.8fever for about 4 days. While she was sick we tried to get...

Okay, so now that I have a moment...all be it a short one, we are building a mudroom onto our house. That probably doesn't sound very exciting, but I am thrilled. It is located in our garage. If you go out our old door that takes you from the house to the garage, you will now be going through an arch way and stepping into the new mudroom. My extra fridge will be in there!!! Yeah, no more cold morning trips out to the extra fridge for milk. And there will be great cabinets so the kids can put their shoes, backpacks, coats, jackets, whatever. That is super thrilling! No more piles by the front or back door. Now everything will have a place. I have a closet by my front door, but it is filled with our Sunday coats. I also have one by our back door, but it is filled with our vacuum and big 10 gallon buckets with my flour and sugar, so this will be awesome. I am hoping it will be done by the end of April. We will see. The new door that you can see in the picture now goes out to the garag...

We are doing a little bit of construction at our house. So excited! I love new things like this. Gives me something to look forward too. More details soon, but here is a sneak peek. (At first pictures wouldn't show. Reloaded them and they look fine on the screen, but when you publish they go sideways.....UGH!!!    

The state science fair was Wednesday and Thursday. Austin did it again! He won 2nd place over-all in engineering again! We were so excited for him. To be honest, he was a bit disappointed. He wanted 1st this year. I guess I can't blame him. He also received the Roots and Shoots Environmental Award, the U.S. Metric System Award for Best use of the Metric System (that one impresses me a lot!) and he got another $4,000 scholarship to a local college. We are so proud of him! He is glad it is over. The stress was getting to him.     Here are Austin and his partner Erik setting up. Erik didn't really do a lot with the project but give major needed moral support. Any prize they got last night he turned it over to Austin. He kept asking why he was even there since he didn't do much and Austin kept saying because I need you. I think it was a good comfort to Austin to know he had a back up during the interview. Their project looked great.   During the actual interviews on Friday, ...

I guess I better clarify...she said do you want to wait for your husband or do you want to be seated now. Pretty clear. But thanks to all of you who tried to soften the blow with saying she must have thought I was the daughter or even better the granddaughter. But, alas, not so much. Tonight we were at the State Science Fair so Austin could set up his project. It was held at the college I graduated from. While there, I saw a room full of young men in suits. I said to one of them that they looked like LDS missionaries, but without the name tags. The young man said, "We aren't missionaries we are just here for an interview." Oh, yes, I said to him I remember that the students go to church in the school buildings and it was obvious now that they would be there if they had an interview with their bishop. I said to him, "I forgot. I was just here a couple years ago and you know how you can forget." Then I asked him what year he was born. He said, "1991." I ...

Today we are celebrating our 4th year together. I can't believe how quickly time went. Our Gotcha Day is still a vivid memory and it certainly was filled with so many emotions. Maylin is celebrating the day with a fever. She has had a cough since Thursday, but last night a fever started. It was 103.8. We got it down to 101, but never got it to go away. She still has it this morning. At first I felt badly she was sick on this special day, but then, what better way to celebrate Gotcha Day than in your mama's arms being cared for? She is so sweet and we love her so much. We are grateful for the blessing of her in our life.

We had family visit us today. It was wonderful. We had a great visit even though it was just too dang short. We loved every minute. We didn't do anything fancy, just stayed at home and enjoyed talking and catching up. We celebrated a birthday. That was extra special. It was a nice reminder of how great family really is. Thanks for coming.

Today's doctor's appointment was the best one we have ever had! Really! Austin's pulmonary valve was still leaking at a 2. That is good. The doctor was so glad to see it wasn't leaking more than that. They know they will have to replace it sometime, but that time is not now. It looked good. The tricuspid valve which he has had replaced looked terrific and was only leaking mildly. His heart hadn't enlarged anymore than it already was. It stayed the same!!!! Also, his ventricle has only been paced by his pacemaker .1 percent. That is way down from the last visit. His atrium had to be paced .9 which was way up, but still we will take that. The doctor felt we could get more time out of his defibrillator than thought. So, her plan is.....NO SURGERY in August. She wants to see him days before he leaves on his church mission which will be in January and then she will have a definite date for replacement surgery. She thought after he was on his mission he could go 1 year to...

Austin sees his cardiologist tomorrow. He is having an echo too and they are testing and resetting his defibrillator. They will also be talking to us about a surgery this summer. Keep him in your prayers. We will let you know how it goes.

Austin, my creative/unusual/thoughtful/smart child is out preparing the ground in a section of our yard so he can plant wheat. Yep, you read it right. He wants to plant wheat this year. He says he has to get it in the ground soon. I asked him why he wants to grown wheat and he says he just wants to learn how and we wants to see if it will work so we can have wheat for at least a loaf of bread. He is looking at going into Agricultural Economics at school. I am aware that I love to garden, but not to this extent. Not sure where he got it from. Maylin is out there helping him. I just heard her say, "We are having fun out here together, aren't we?" Even if the wheat doesn't grow, their relationship did and that is most important. Maylin loves a little girl at preschool that is Chinese. Her mom is from Taiwan, her dad from China. The little girl turns 3 this week. Maylin adores her! We found out the other day that the little girl's dad is being transferred to Denver fo...

The partying began on the 4th....a day before Maylin's big day. Grandma and Grandpa were coming in town for a bit and stopped to have an early b-day lunch! Maylin and I spent the morning making 5 little mini flower cakes. They turned out so cute and they were delicious, as you can see from Maylin licking the beaters clean. It was great to see the grandparents too! Yesterday, March 5th, the birthday party got underway. Maylin was first to celebrate with breakfast in bed made by her siblings! She thought she was so special. A few moments later, we checked on her only to find her playing Barbie's on the floor and the dog enjoying the breakfast. She said she wasn't hungry and he was!     Later that evening we took the girls to Tucano's. This is a Brazilian restaurant. Kenzie picks it every year....this is the 3rd year running. She won't eat meat and it is a big meat place, she solely goes for the grilled pineapple. The girls had a blast and loved it when they sang to t...

I am on overload. Every day seems to be more jammed packed than the day before. I am taking a moment to post because I need some "me" time. Yes, I find blogging relaxing. I am hoping this gives me a moment of peace and relaxation! Jay's office building was sold so all the tenants had to move out. Therefore, I have been painting his new office. This new office was bright pink/purple with green carpet. I repainted it in greys, tans and greens. It looks fab. So now I am putting things together, unpacking etc. I am also trying to get ready for the girls' birthdays.My parents are dropping in tomorrow so I am trying to make little individual flower cakes. We have been busy applying for scholarships for Austin. He obviously does them, but there is a lot of work for the parents. Maylin is in gymnastics. She only goes once a week and I forgot to take her last week. Gimme a star for being the on-top-of-it-mom. She is doing well and loving it. Kens has some learning disabilities...