Carters B-day and some Random Pics

Life has been crazy busy around the Simonson household, but I finally have a minute so I will try to catch up a little.

Jaron is working at Bennigan's Restaraunt in Bloomsburg now. He is enjoying it but I think he dreams of the day that I finish school and he can teach music. School for me is going really well. So far I have managed to keep straight A's, and I only have 2 weeks left of school, so barring anything crazy happening I think I will pull it off.

Carter turned 7 on the 23rd of November. Our house isn't really big enough to have a birthday party at and Jaron's work schedule made it impossible for us to even have a good family party, so we let Carter open his presents at 6:30 a.m. and then the kids and I had a cake without Jaron that night. Our neighbor Judy did come over to sing to him with us and watch as he blew out the candles.

I met with both Emmy and Carter's teachers this last week for conferences and both of their teachers couldn't say enough good things about them, especially Carter's teachers. We had some testing done on Carter to see if he was going to need some extra help due to his Tourette's syndrome, but it turns out the kid is in the superior intelligence category, only 3 points below the "gifted" bracket. Instead they are recommending that he start in the gifted program next year, and Emmy too (of course). I have to say. . . I am extremely proud of those two. They are both excelling in school and even though Emmy cries over her math homework sometimes, she has managed to get a 97% overall for the semester so far (and 100% in everything else).

Ashton LOVES his preschool and it looks like he will be following in his older siblings footsteps in the intelligence arena. What can I say? Jaron and I make smart little cookies! Lilly has been starting to talk a little more and once she is over the strep she has, she will be golden.

The pictures I am posting are of Carter's Birthday and the video is of Lilly dancing with Jack the Elf to some Christmas music we had playing. (I really need to get a camera that can record sound!)

UpDate Thing-a-ma-jig

Ok, so I have been really bad about blogging. Now that that's over with, on with the update!

Jaron: Jaron is really enjoying his new job and his calling with the scouts. His employees really like him, which is no big surprise =0) He still sleeps alot, but don't tell him I said that. =0)

Heather: Ok, I am crazy busy with school, kids, church and trying to keep a house. School is awesome. I love Penn College and am actually really enjoying all of my classes. I am happy to report that so far I have gotten A's on everything. If that changes, I may not tell you, but I figure while I am only 3 weeks into school and doing well I should enjoy it! I was in charge of the quarterly primary activity and the primary president wanted to do something with stranger danger. I had already started school and had very little time to actually plan the activity since I have only been in my calling for about 4 weeks now, but I came up with the idea to have the kids make their own stranger danger movie and the LOVED it! We spent the first little bit going over all of the stranger danger rules and then each of the kids got to "act" in the movie. I just used my camcorder, so it was very amature, but it turned out well and the kids watched themselves in their movie over and over while they ate homemade pizza for lunch.

Emmy: Emmy is missing Utah and her old friends and school, but she still really likes her new school and she is making new friends very quickly. They have started some art classes at school and Emmy's first sketch was of a pencil. The rest of the drawings are of some monsters that she thought would be fun to draw for a game at school. She wanted me to include them because she is very proud of them. She is certainly a very creative little girl.

Carter: Carter, poor little buddy. He has been having a rough time these last few weeks. He has had severe bowel problems and is now on medication for that, and it seems to be helping. Meanwhile he started school and the first day that he came home from school he was wheezing really bad. It just went downhill from there. He narrowly missed being hospitalized again and we have him on 4 different medications just to get his breathing under control. Top that off with an official diagnosis of Tourette Syndrome and a new medication for that and the kid spends about 30 minutes a day taking or breathing in all of his medication. He was really upset because no one would play with him at recess because he couldn't play running games. He is having a hard time making friends and so school has not been very fun for him. His new medication for the T.S. seems to be working. He has only been on it for almost a week now, so we will have to give it more time to see how well it is going to work. The neurologist says that once we get the ticks under control he can stop the meds and coast for awhile until he has another flare up of ticks, so at least he doesn't have to be on it all the time. Anyway, please pray for the little guy, he really need some friends and some better health!

Ashton: Ashton is LOVING "junior preschool" as he calls it. He gets to make something every day and he feels really big being able to go there. The only thing that he doesn't like is that he says he isn't learning anything yet. When I asked him what he was hoping to learn he said, "How to count really high and how to read." I didn't want to tell him that he probably would have to wait until kindergarten to learn that stuff, he would get too mad.

Lilly: Lilly is finally starting to warm up to her daycare. It is a really nice day care and I plan on taking some pictures and posting them so everyone can see where the two youngest spend their days. Lilly started out with a teacher that she really seemed to like and then her actual teacher came back from vacation. Lilly did not like her at all. She spent about a week and a half screaming almost the entire time I was gone (8:30-4:00). I had made up my mind to talk to the director about switching classes for Lilly when I walked in and they had already done it. Lilly is now back with her original teacher and she is much happier. She is smiling and playing everyday when I pick her up and she gives me the biggest hugs and kisses! She is finally starting to talk a little bit more. She does especially well when she is at our neighbor Judy's house. She will talk up a storm with Judy, all about crackers and pretzels and "dwink" drink. . . I still haven't gotten her into speech therapy and I really don't think she will need it.

The rabbits are doing well, getting fat and pooping everywhere, in case anybody cares =0)

Miss Hemisphere Pageant

When we were living in Utah Emmy and I saw a show that I believe is called "Toddlers and Tiaras". It shows all these pageant moms and their tortured little children being forced onto stage to parade around in the hopes of winning trophies, ribbons and most of all crowns! I was horrified by it, but Emmy was absolutely fascinated. Ever since then she has been begging me to be in a pageant.

We were at a local mall when Emmy saw a flyer for a pageant and was so excited that there was going to be one close by. Grandma Rae got wind of her plight (hmm. . . wonder how that happened) and agreed to pay her entry fee so that she could compete in the pageant. We spent the better part of this morning doing her hair and getting her pageant ready. She wore the pink dress that was made for her when she modeled in the fashion show in Pocatello, thank goodness she got her crazy teeth pulled two days ago, so instead of a pumpkin smile she had a beautiful 8-year old toothless grin!

When we arrived the people running the pageant had the girls and boys walk through the steps they were supposed to take on stage. Emmy did a great job smiling and posing. I took some video, but it didn't turn out too well. Anyway, there were different categories they could enter and Emmy was in the model search and cute pageant portions. After all the kids took their turn on stage and then went back on stage together to say their name and age, they took a short break while the judges chose the winners. Emmy won the model search for her age division and also "best outfit". She got to go on stage by herself to receive her two trophies. After everyone else received their trophies etc. they were all gathered on stage and we thought the pageant was over, then they announced that they were going to name the over all winner of the entire pageant and wouldn't you know it was our little Miss Emmaline! She got her crown and her sash and a pin to go on the sash. She also won a cruise to the Bahamas and $25 dollars plus her entry fee. Because she was the over all winner she received in invitation to compete in the national finals in Ocean City, NJ in November. We haven't decided if we are going to do that yet or not, but Emmy sure had a good time today and she is really enjoying feeling like a "supermodel" (I said Princess, but she read this and she said supermodel).

I have to admit I was hoping that we would do this and she would find out it wasn't all it was cracked up to be and then be ready to move onto the next thing, but it turns out it has only wet her appetite for more! Oh boy!

Thanks Gramma Kristi!

Yesterday the kids came running to get me to tell me that a package had come in the mail and to hurry up so they can open it! It was a back-to-school package from Gramma Kristi. She sent each of the kids a new outfit and Ashton and Lilly got a coloring book and magnet letters, and a doll. There was some candy involved too, which Jaron and I quickly claimed. . . but yes, we did end up sharing with the kids (all but about 2 pieces of it in fact). We got on skype with Gramma so she could see the kids try on their new outfits. I will take pictures of them when school starts and they are allowed to wear them, then I will go back and add them to this post. Thanks again Gramma!

New Callings!

Oh Yeah, I forgot to mention. . . Jaron and I have both received new callings in our ward. Jaron is now the scout master and he is really excited. He loves scouting and he has fond memories of time he spent doing scouts with his dad. He will only have 3-4 boys who are interested in the scouting program, but that will really let them focus on their needs, so it will be a good thing.

I just got called to be the second counselor in the Primary Presidency. The president wants me to be in charge of everything that is not Sunday related-- all the quarterly activities, activity days and cub scouts, and then sharing time once a month. I guess my 5 years in activity days will come in handy yet again!

FOG YOU!

The other day the kids were playing "dance party" with the music we have on the computer. Carter found a song that he thought was really cool called "Shoes". It is one that Jaron's choir friends from Pocky downloaded years ago to make fun of him for his love of nice shoes. We never listened to the whole thing and so you can imagine my shock when in the middle of the song it suddenly started saying F**** you over and over. I quickly ran and turned it off and you can be sure that song is no longer on our computer, but I was a little too late because Ashton was running around saying "Fog you" to Carter. Luckily he didn't hear the word right and even Emmy wanted to know what was wrong with saying "fog" when I talked to Ashton about it. Close call on that one!

Thanks Uncle Casey and Aunt Sophia!

We got a package from Casey and Sophia today that had (desperately needed) clothes for Lilly and a (not so needed- but certainly WANTED) Wii Game for the older kids. They have been having a blast playing it this morning, it is the cooking mama game. They also sent a couple bags of gummy bears. . . too bad I didn't open the package before the kids, or I would have had to make the gummy bears disappear! I put Lilly in all the outfits that they sent and took pictures, so she got to do her own little fashion show. It will be so nice to see her in a shirt that doesn't show her buddah belly =0)

My Veggies

Earlier this summer I planted some veggies in those Topsy-Turvy things, and they have really grown really well. I wanted to throw some pictures of them up. When we first moved here there was a Borough Wide yard sale, so the kids and I walked through the town and Ashton brought his money with him. He ended up buying a sit-and-spin and Lilly has just recently discovered it. She loves to sit on it and squeals at anyone else who tries to get on. I got a video of her playing on it. Enjoy!

ScaRy!

I have been running with the ambulance alot lately, and one of the accidents we got called out for on Sunday ended up in the newspaper. . . and I happened to be in one of the pictures. I had no idea anyone was taking pictures or I might have moved. It is really amazing anyone survived this wreck, but they only suffered minor injuries.

I have certainly gained a greater appreciation in the last several weeks for seat belts and helmets, you never know when you might need it!

Not too much has been going on here lately. I just captured some cute pictures and thought I would post them for the grandmas. I helped the kids build a fort in the living room and then they climbed inside and watched movies on my laptop. Later on in the day I was looking for Lilly (it was too quiet) and found her in the fort with my laptop on her lap, just typing away. Luckily she didn't do any serious harm to my computer =0).

Yesterday while I was folding laundry, Ashton asked if he could watch t.v. while sitting in an empty bucket. It wasn't too long and he had fallen sound asleep!

Catch Up Time!

So there has been alot happening, and again, I have been horrible at blogging about it.

A couple weeks ago Jaron and I took the kids to Ricketts Glenn to see some waterfalls and go on a hike and then to Lake Jean to swim. We had a great time and although it was a little cool, the kids had fun swimming in the lake.

I have been volunteering with the ambulance here in Catawissa. They are really short on people, and even though I don't have my EMT up to date anymore, I have taken the driving course and I am still CPR/First-Aid/AED certified, so I can drive the ambulance as well as do some patient care. I have been out on several calls already. Some have been pretty tame, and a couple have been bloody and challenging, like the motorcycle vs. truck accident that happened here on the 4th of July. I have never seen a bone sticking out of someones leg up close before. I love running with the ambulance and getting to be involved in the urgent care of these people. It makes me even more excited to get started with my schooling.

Jaron has quit working at Cracker Barrel and is now employed at Bennigan's. He is much happier at Bennigans and the hours are so much better for someone with a family. It turned out to actually be a really smart move for our family and the Lord has blessed us so much. It is so nice to have Jaron home for dinner, and for those of you who know how much he likes his naps, he has almost quit them completely!

The kids are loving tennis and we have spent plenty of time at the library and the park. Our next door neighbor Judy has become a close friend and the kids just love her. Ashton has especially taken to her and he makes sure to visit her at least once or twice a day. She assures me that she loves his company and that he is always welcome, although we both have to wonder if he's just using her because she keeps bread and butter pickles in the house just for him now.

Lilly has an appointment on the 20th of July to have her hearing and speech evaluated. She is starting to talk more, so she may just be a little on the slow side due to her hearing loss before she got her tubes in. Carter will also be going in soon to be evaluated for Tourettes syndrome.

More Stuff. . .

This is a cute baby bird we found in our yard. You can see how small it is compared to my hand!

Emmy and "Valerie"

The kids in the van while driving to PA.

Carter and "Katie" (sorry Aunt Katie, I tried to talk him out of it!)

I keep thinking that I just need to get to the computer and blog. I do have a few pictures to post, all though not as many as I could (or should) have by this point. We have had a fun time the last few weeks. We got to visit with one of my best friends, Teresa, and her husband and kids. They came to celebrate Skylars 2nd birthday. We got pizza and went to an awesome nearby park where the kids had a blast and we all had a fun time.

Yesterday we were planning on going to a hike at a beautiful place near here called Ricket's Glen. It has a trail that is 4.2 miles long and has 7 waterfalls along the trail. The trail we were going to take was along a small river/creek with a waterfall. Good thing I checked the weather channel online first because there were flashflood warnings for all of the counties in the region. So instead of our hike, we went to Hershey's and went on the ride/tour at Chocolate World. The kids loved it, especially the chocolate bar you get at the end of the tour.

The kids are going to be busy this summer. The school does a program that runs four days a week for half a day and the kids get to go on field trips, make crafts, do science experiments and more. It is totally free and includes bus transportation. Emmy and Carter both really wanted to go, so they will start that the end of June. Bloomsburg also offers free tennis lessons to kids from ages 4 and up at the local tennis courts. Ashton, Emmy and Carter are all signed up to take the tennis lessons. Emmy has been wanting to take tennis lessons for the last couple of years so she is super happy about it.

The ambulance service in Catawissa is completely voluntary and they have been extremely short on people, so I am volunteering with them. It works really well for me since they give you a pager and a radio. If you are available and can make the call, then you let them know and go to the scene or to the garage to pick up the ambulance. If you can't go, you just turn off your pager and don't go. That way I can go on calls when Jaron is home with the kids.

We're Here!

Wow, I finally have a chance to blog about the past couple of weeks. So much has happened that I hardly know where to start. . . so I will go with the whole chronological order and hope that I don't forget anything!

ThE MoVE
Packing was going really smoothly. A few sisters from R.S. had come over to help pack up the kitchen etc. and everything was going as I had planned. . . da da dum.... So of course Friday, the day we are supposed to load the truck we drive over to the Uhaul place and give them our reservation number for the truck and car trailer. The lady is acting all confused and says, "I show that you have a reservation for 2 dozen furniture pads, are you sure you are supposed to get a truck?" AHHHH!!!! The lady who did our reservation over the phone had only reserved furniture pads for us and we were on a tight schedule. After about an hour and a half of scrambling, Uhaul found us a truck in Tooele which is about 45 minutes from Fruit Heights. Jaron got a ride out to Tooele while I waited at home to tell all of the Elder's Quorum who were showing up to load boxes that we didn't have a truck to put them in. They also didn't have a single car trailer anywhere in the state for us. I told them we would be driving through Wyoming and to see if there were any trailers along our driving route that we could pick up. The closest one was in Cheyenne, WY. Thank goodness my brother Cody was coming to drive with us, or else we wouldn't have had enough drivers for the truck, van and car. Finally we got the truck and the Elders were awesome to stay late to help us get everything loaded. We all slept on the floor that night and the next morning we picked up Cody (who was dropping his truck off at the airport) and got on the road.

It rained the ENTIRE way to PA. Other than that, it really wasn't too bad. The 2,000 mile drive took us 4 days and we made it safe and sound to our new home in PA. I had to take Cody to an airport in Harrisburg, so we swung by the Hershey factory and toured that, it was really cool. Thanks Cody for all of your help!

ThE NeW HoME
Good thing we got rid of some stuff before we moved! This house is alright, but man it is small! We have 3 bedrooms, if you can call them that, and 1 bathroom, which is probably our biggest challenge (as anyone who has ever lived with Jaron would know). There is no storage here and barely any cupboard space in the kitchen. Jaron had a few days off before he started back to work and I have spent the last few weeks trying to get our house in order. The most challenging thing has just been finding places for all of our stuff.

Our new neighbor is a sweet heart. She is a widow who's daughter lives with her and she loves kids (thank goodness). Her name is Judy and already our kids sneak over to her house to "play" with her (it's actually all the toys she keeps around for her grandkids).

Catawissa is a beautiful little borough. It is old, but I am finding almost everything out here is old. It is very small, boasting about a thousand residents is all, and the average age of the resident here is 67. It is located right on the Susquehana river and surrounded by creeks (which are the size of our "rivers" out west). We live in the mountains here, and we had to laugh when we saw a sign boasting the highest elevation east of the Mississippi as 2,252 feet.

Our ward here is small, about 300 members and about half of them are active. Our ward boundaries take in an entire county and then some. We all live in different towns, although there is a widow that lives in Catawissa too.

PaLMyRa, NY
Before we moved out here, I had purchased some air conditioners off of craigslist, and the town I got them from ended up being farther away than I had thought it would be. Also, I had told the kids we would think about getting rabbits once we moved here, and I found some dwarf rabbits, but they were in Elmira, NY, which is only an hour away from Palmyra. Since I had to pick up the ac units and we wanted the rabbits, we decided to just go all the way and visit Grandma and Grandpa Hamblin. It was a beautiful drive and it might have been fun if Lilly hadn't been throwing up the entire way there, poor thing. Emmy was on bucket duty and everytime Lilly started crying, it was her job to try to catch the puke in the bucket. Lilly kept pushing it away at the last minute and by the time we got to Palmyra our car reeked of puke and Lilly was just absolutely miserable. Despite her crankiness and not sleeping so well, we had a fun visit where we got to see the sights and even got to visit with Linda and Gary. We didn't make it into the Sacred Grove because of a massive thunder storm that decided to hit right when we were on the tour of the Joseph Smith Frame House. It's alright though, we will go next time when Jaron can come with us and see it all too. Grandpa took us to a great little ice cream place that serves great big ice cream servings! The kids loved it. Emmy was so glad to get to see them. We will probably go back in June when her grandma and grandpa Simonson (Brent and Kristi) will be visiting.

For the last week we have all been battling the stomach flu and working on unpacking. Once I get the house done I will post some pictures.

Video of LIlly

Emmy was giving Lilly some sour spray and she would cringe and then ask for more.

MOre FuN

Ashton made a pirates hat at reading time at the library. He wore it all day and kept telling me he was going to pirate school.

Family Weekend

I was on an awesome roll getting packed for our move, and then it was time to take a break and head to Pocatello to say our goodbyes to our family before we head 2,000 miles across the country. We are on the final countdown with only 4 days to go before we pull out.

We got to visit with family as well as some close friends and it made the weekend wonderful. We started off by leaving Friday after Jaron got off of work and pulling into Pocatello rather late. We stayed at Brent and Kristi's house that night. Saturday we went to visit with Angie and Truman Lackey. Our kids are super close and they loved the chance to visit. That evening Jaron went to the symphony while the kids and I went to my parents house to visit. Grandpa Eldon rented "Bed Time Stories" and the kids loved it. That night we spent the night at Kristi's again. At about 2 in the morning Carter woke up unable to breathe (he is allergic to my moms dog and it really aggrevates his asthma) so I had to take him to the E.R. where he received some breathing treatments and prescription for steroids. He is doing much better now.

Jaron's two sisters (one who lives in Florida and the other in Lewiston, Idaho) came to town with their kids, so all of the grandkids were together and they had a ball. If you ask all of the adults who were there it was a little noisy (ok, a lot noisy). We got some really cute pictures of the kids, so enjoy the show!

Easter

Alrighty then. I know it's a little past Easter, but better late than never right? The Easter Bunny came on Saturday like he does for us every year. The kids had a great time finding their baskets and then some eggs. Grandma Kristi made some adorable dresses for the girls, so on Sunday they got to wear them. Daddy took a few pictures for us. My fun was trying out a new hairstyle on Emmy. There is a really cute website that Kristi pointed out to me that has step by step instructions on how to do some awesome hairstyles. http://hair4myprincess.blogspot.com/
Check it out, it's great! p.s. Gramma Kristi. . . the girls had tons of compliments on their dresses at church!