December

Mr. Snowman says I'm a slacker for not blogging in over a month!

We did some craft projects one day. Tessa had fun decorating herself with pipe cleaners.

The rest of us made ornaments with pipe cleaners & beads. The kids gave most of them away.

Clockwise from the top: Kaleb's, Tessa's, Macy's, Elise's, and Isaak's

Herriman Orchestra Christmas Concert

Tessa likes to try on everyone's shoes. These belong to one of my students. She was even walking around in them and was able to go a few feet before falling.

I'm pretty happy with the way this turned out. I saw the idea in a magazine and it took me about an hour to figure out exactly how to put it together. I made it for my sister-in-law, Jen, whose name I drew in our family gift drawing.

Macy & Kaleb, thrilled to be riding Trax up to Salt Lake to see the lights at Temple Square.

Isaak was just thrilled to be on a "train".

Tessa was thrilled to take a nap. We ended up riding the train for almost two hours, without seeing the lights. When we got close to Salt Lake, we had to stop because there was a car crash downtown that was blocking the train tracks. It took them about 25 minutes of sitting there not moving before they finally told us they couldn't go any farther and we'd have to either ride a bus the rest of the way or turn around and go home. It was 8:30 pm by this time, so we opted to go home. Oh well, at least we tried. There's always next year. (And more bad cliches that make us feel better for not just driving up there in the first place.) :)

Isaak & Santa at our ward Christmas party.

Elise & Santa

The obligatory, "Get me the heck off this weird guy's lap!" photo...

Macy & Santa

Girls waiting to see Santa. Tessa's already worried...

And of course Rob volunteered to provide the breakfast music while everyone ate. He's such a sweetheart and a great pianist.

Later that day I went with my students to play at a couple of rest homes. I put a mom in charge of pictures, so what you see is what you get. :)

Robert & I played "Oh Holy Night" together at the end.

I think the residents enjoyed having us come. We'll have to do it again next year. Elise & Macy were so funny. I only "taught" them one of the five songs we played. But they both insisted on "trying" to play the other songs along with everyone else. They both play really well by ear, and I think they did a pretty good job, even though I couldn't really hear them from where I was standing.

Feel the Holiday Spirit

So Simple.

So Needed.

Three Quick Ways to Feel Good.

Just Go Here.

And Here.

And Here.

Merry Christmas!

HSP

Friday night Macy started complaining about her legs hurting. We thought it was growing pains and gave her some calcium and milk and sent her to bed. Throughout the day Saturday it became harder and harder for her to walk, and she was complaining more about the pain. In the afternoon I had her lay down and pull her pant-legs up so I could look at her legs. I noticed a weird looking bruise on the back of one of her knees. I decided I should probably take her to the InstaCare down the street.


The diagnosis is Henoch-Schonlein Purpura. The small red dots and the bruise-like marks are a sure sign. This condition causes the blood vessels in your skin to become inflamed, which then causes them to bleed, which results in the rash called purpura. It can also affect the blood vessels in the bowel and the kidneys, which can also make them bleed.

So far she doesn't have any blood in her urine and the blood sample they took looks good. But we are postponing her trip to Minnesota until it goes away. We don't know if it will get worse before it gets better. I have a friend whose son had this illness last winter, and she says it was very rough. She sent me some pictures of his legs that were astonishing.

This morning Macy had bruises on the backs of both of her knees.

So, it looks worse today than it did yesterday, but Macy was definitely walking better today and she said it felt better. The information we have says that usually HSP gets better on its own and doesn't cause any lasting problems. However, a few people will have kidney damage because of it, so we definitely hope that won't happen. There is no specific treatment for HSP and they're not really sure what causes it. There are a lot of things that may cause it, but the doctor we saw thinks that Macy's is because of her immune system not doing a good job of fighting off the virus that we've all had this week.

We hope that Macy gets better soon, but this is such an ambiguous thing that there's really no way to know. We'll keep you posted. Any information that anyone has about HSP would be welcome.

October Occupations...

We almost look like the anti-thesis of the Addams Family in this picture. (Can you see Kaleb in his black costume against the black backdrop? Just barely...) We had lots of fun at the city Halloween Festival on Oct. 17th. Below are pictures from the costume contest.

MJ, The Corpse Bride & Her Victim (I mean, Victor!), and Aurora

Screaming Poodle (love this pic! hee hee!)

Kaleb is the scary Phantom w/ glowy eyes

Mini Corpse Bride, Fairy Elise, and Death the Graduate (?huh?)

Isaak the Knight and Macy the Punk Rocker

Our recital was on Oct. 23rd. We put Elise's hair in curlers and it was so springy curly and cute. Elise played "Somewhere Out There", and Macy played "Part of Your World". It was a pop music theme - all the students played something from a movie, and we all dressed up.

The girls and I got to see the Utah Symphony's Halloween Hijinks concert. A few of my students went as well. It was tons of fun and I hope we can go again next year!

Trick or Treating with Dad at the home of The Great Pumpkin. Mom and Tessa stayed home cause Mom was sick.

It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

At Gma & Gpa's house, Trick or Treating. Don't know why they're not smiling. :)

Also, Kaleb finally got his Bear award at Pack Meeting this month. He earned it before his birthday, but there have been changes going on in scouts and it's been hectic. I've been put in as a Webelos leader, so I get to help with Kaleb's den meetings now. He really enjoys scouting.

And, oh yes, Macy lost her first tooth this month - around the beginning of the month. She was so excited that the tooth fairy brought her "One dollar and ten cents." (Elise counted it. It was really one dollar.) However, apparently Elise also spilled the beans to Macy and Isaak that Dad is really the tooth fairy. Oh well.

Family Rock Band Night

On September 25th we decided to have a family RockBand night. I thought it would be fun to have everyone dress up as rock stars, so before dinner I got everyone all rocked out. The kids had a blast. We all took turns playing different parts, even baby Tessa! Thank you, Uncle Nick for letting us borrow your extra guitar, and thank you, Uncle Brandon for giving us your RockBand set!