Candids

These pictures speak for themselves. Boy am I glad we were blessed with kids with HUGE personalities. I love them so much. They are my life:

 These boots had to go: he like them way too much:)

 He really didn't want his picture taken here, what's new?

 The snow was melted enough for his first fourwheeler ride of the season.

 Someday his wife will thank me.

 This kid has skills--he put the attachment on himself and went to work on the couch without any prompting from me, love it!

 Best ride of her life, can't you see it in her face?!

 I looked outside to check on the little monkeys and found this scene. Haivi was definitely enjoying herself! If Taj wasn't so good on the fourwheeler, I would never let him do this with her.

 "Doffin" I get squeaky kisses in my face from doffin at least three times a day.

 Haiv was pooped after so much Saturday cleaning. It got quiet and I found her relaxing in the armchair in the living room.

 This boy knows how to work!

I Traded in My Scar

So last weekend I traded in my 5 year old scar on my neck from my trachea resection in 2007 for a new one. My old scar had adhered to my neck where I had a trache and it never really bothered me until I started teaching and talking for long periods of time. With my old scar, every time I talked, swallowed, sneezed, coughed, laughed, etc., the scar would move on my neck and cause a pulling, tearing, and burning sensation. I didn't think there was a fix for it until I met with Dr. John Bitner. He told me we could take some fat from my stomach, remove the old scar, and place the fat between my trachea and my new scar to keep it from adhering to my trachea again. When my insurance company wouldn't cover the procedure because they called it "cosmetic," Dr. Bitner opted to do the procedure for FREE. Can you believe that? I really didn't feel worthy to accept a gift like that...I mean we are not down and out in the dumps or anything like that. He told me he will take whatever payment the insurance company will give him and call it good. How cool is that? He is such a good guy to do this for me and for my students. Maybe I will even be able to read to my students out-loud now. I haven't tried it yet to see if my voice will hold up, but I think the new scar will help. I am so grateful for tender mercies like this. He has done such a great service for me and I will forever be grateful to him for his kindness. Here are the pics I had Bran take:

 There is tape over this, so you can't really tell, but the scar is much thinner and cleaner looking. My neck kind of looks like it has a little spare tire from the fat, but Dr. Bitner says that will go down as my body absorbs the fat (probably go right back to where it came from, dang it!).

That incision on my stomach is about 5 or so inches long. I think I pretty much got half of a tummy tuck. My stomach looks really weird now and I told Brannon that I'm going to have to hit the pavement to lose the fat that is still hanging out on the other half.

Belated Easter

I realize that my posts are becoming fewer and far between, which is a reflection on the current state of my mental status: borderline crazy! I have one and a half months left of teaching school this year and things are really getting down to the wire. End of Level testing is in about three weeks and I'm hoping and praying that at least half of my kids out of each class have learned enough to pass with at least average scores. They always say that the first year teaching you just have to survive. I never wanted to be one of those teachers, but it's looking like it's coming down to that with only a month and a half left of school. If my kids have learned anything, I hope it's that they have learned that they matter. Some kids, that's all it takes for them to start believing, to start trying, and to see that they CAN become more than what they see around them.

I did manage to get myself together enough to pull Easter together for the kids. Easter egg hunting really clicked for Taj this year and he couldn't pick up eggs fast enough. Haivi got the concept, but preferred holding onto the eggs in her hands and not putting them in her basket. She threw a fit if we tried to get her to put the eggs in her basket, which is true to her nature. She is definitely a-do-things-her-own-way-and-on-her-own-time kind of girl. She is not even two years old yet and already she is a teenage diva. I am not exaggerating. Her favorite words are "no" and "mine" and a hair-raising banshee shriek that sends the neighborhood's stray cats scattering for cover. She does have her moments when she will so sweetly bestow kisses and allow a few minutes of snuggle time. She flaunts her ability to fart with a waterworks show in the bathtub each night. She thinks it's hilarious...I do not. I have told her time and again that I do not condone such unladylike behavior and all I get in response from her is more toots and looks that would have killed me dead several times over if, using the cliche, looks could kill.

 How is it possible for so much sass to be packed into such a tiny body? You probably don't believe me and think that I am exaggerating when I talk about how feisty she can be. I was actually slapped repeatedly by her tonight as I tried to trim her fingernails and toenails...go thing she's cute:)

 Every Easter we head over to our neighbor's house across the street for a massive Easter egg hunt. There are literally hundreds of eggs and lots of kidlets to pick them up. There are also prize eggs with numbers on them. At the end of the hunt, each child goes and picks a prize from the prize table according to the number on the egg they picked up. This is super fun for the kids. How cool are our neighbors to think this up? They are seriously the best neighbors ever! They are like the party grandparents.

 I think Taj picked up way too many eggs, but there were still a ton lying around, so we figured it was okay.

 How cute is this? She has her daddy whipped!

 Haivi chewing on her prize-a paparrazzi bracelet...now maybe she won't slime all of my bracelets!

 Taj chose a water gun, typical boy of course!

 The little turkey would not pose for a picture. She is holding her very own cell phone, complete with about 12 buttons and about a 10 song playlist with the most popular nursery rhymes on the charts.

 Look. At. That. Stance. This boy KNOWS how to hunt an Easter egg

 He was very adamant that I get a picture of the bird

 Taj's haul from our own Easter egg hunt. The golden egg actually had REAL money in it, can you imagine? $0.80 is big time for a four year old.

 This is how here daddy dressed her. I say this is ragdoll cute:)

Taj on the other hand is much more manageable and negotiable. He is exceedingly more talkative these days and I frequently get congratulated for brushing my teeth, driving the car, getting dressed, or going to the bathroom. "You go peepee mama??? Oh Good Job Mama!" I feel like a superhero every day because of Taj. That boy knows when to give praise where it's due! A big accomplishment for Taj lately is that he is finally wanting to "play" with other kids and us too. Every night either me or Brannon plays trucks, tractors, cars, or fourwheelers. "Bwandon wanna pway twucks?" How could you refuse a request like that? Taj calls Brannon "Bwandon" several times a day. I'm sure he does it because he hears me call his daddy Brannon. We are also to the point with him where it's not a good idea to let him see either of us getting into the shower. He's FULL of all sorts of fun questions: "Mama, what's dat?" or "Daddy you have big one?" The kid can't stand when a door is locked, but I don't know any other way to teach the concept of privacy. I think he's getting it though because he likes the door shut when he goes No. 2. Another cool development is that he knows his last name. If you ask him, "Taj, what is your last name?" Usually his reply is, "No, es Taj!" I don't think he understands the question, but if you say, "Is your name Taj Morse." He'll say, "Yes, es Taj's Mose." We figure that he is at about a 2 1/2 to 3 year old level. It's almost as if his brain turns language around in his head because he does not understand or speak sentences in typical sentence structure. I told Brannon that Taj speaks Jigsaw Puzzle: key words here and there and then he leaves it up to you to put the pieces together . I find it's easiest to communicate with him by saying every word that comes to mind that sounds close to what he's trying to tell me. Once I hit the nail on the head, there is a small celebration and we continue onto deciphering the next word or sentence. We are really pleased with the progress his is making socially and we are glad that he will have a third year of school before he starts kindergarten. I have a positive outlook on the whole thing and believe that we can have him nearly caught up with his peers when he starts school for real.
Overall, our Easter weekend was perfect. The weather was amazingly warm and the kids thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Holidays are SO much better with kids!

Love and All That

I don't want to brag, but I just may have one of the most-creative-husbands-in-the-making. This year for Valentine's Day I opened our bedroom door in the morning to find the hallway strewn with red and pink rose petals. The petals were laid in a path down the hallway and into our living room. The petals led to a little white table with four cards (one for each phase of our relationship), a vase full of roses, a pink rose in a vase that says "My Little Princess," (which blooms with the push of a button) for Haivi, and a little red lantern for Taj. We were all super excited by the surprises that daddy left for us and it definitely made for an awesome Valentine's Day. Taj nearly shrieked and kept saying, "Bank you so much!" It was so cute. Haivi loved her blooming rose a little too much and nearly crushed it. One of the petals quit blooming after she got through with it, which sounds about right for her. We celebrated Valentine's Day as a family that night with a steak dinner. My family does the same thing every Valentine's Day and we have decided to carry on the tradition, only we opted out on the candle light part since little Miss Haivi has figured out how to crawl on top of the table.
This next piece of news I am so excited about I can hardly stand it! TAJ IS POTTY TRAINED!!!!! Mr. Taj decided almost two weeks ago that he'd trade in the pull-ups for a set of undies with Lightning McQueen on the back. We ran out of pull-ups about two weeks ago and Taj came out of his room wearing a pair of underwear, on backwards, and beaming ear to ear. He has had only ONE accident thus far. He wears underwear to school and to daycare and he is doing great! We are still working on the concept of wiping our bums after we poop. I have found more than a few skid marks in his undies! We were at Target the other day looking at clothes for Haivi and Taj suddenly announced, "Mama, I go poop!" So we rushed across the store and into the restroom to let him do his business. When we got in there, the bathroom was empty, which was good. He went into a stall and locked it and told me, "Stay wight dere mama! Don't move!" I assured him I would not move. Then the bathroom door opens and a girl comes in and pulls out her make-up and straightener and starts getting ready in the mirror. Then another lady comes in and goes into the stall right next to Taj at which time he begins grunting profusely and breathing loudly and repeatedly asking, "Mama, you need go poopoo?" All the while there is a little plink plink noise coming from his stall. Awesome. I really don't know how everyone kept a straight face. Perhaps they were just really polite people. I ask him how it's going and he tells me he's done and I see 5 yards of toilet paper being unraveled underneath the stall door. The toilet flushes, the stall door flies open to reveal Taj standing there with his drawers around his ankles, grinning, and a tampon box stuffed full of toilet paper with who knows what on it--that all depended on how well he wiped his bum. I had to explain that typically we pull our pants up BEFORE we open the door and come back out. Keep in mind those women are STILL in the bathroom. I really wasn't THAT embarrassed though--I think I was more proud of him. I am just so relieved that he has decided that it is WAY cooler to pee and poo in the toilet than in his pants.
The biggest news for Haivi is that she has learned to crawl up on the table and up the backs of the table chairs, which scares the crap out of me! I don't get that little woman--she can climb like Tarzan, but she is too scared to walk! My almost one-and-a-half-year-old still refuses to walk. I know she can do it because she walks around holding onto things and pushing that mangy kitty of hers around in her stroller. She is still as fiery as ever, maybe even more than she's ever been. She has started shrieking whenever she doesn't get her way or whenever someone encroaches on her space, toy, or person that happens to be holding her. She gives the best hugs and kisses and she has started imitating nearly everything we say. She is well on her way to talking and that has me super excited and super relieved. After having gone through what we have with Taj, it is such a relief that Haiven is hitting all the milestones that she should be. We absolutely love our Taj just way he is and we are SO proud of the progress he has made with his speech, numbers, colors, shapes, and he is even writing his name now. We are very confident that with another year of preschool that Taj will do well in Kindergarten. His social skills are coming along too and I think daycare has been such a good thing for him to learn how to socialize with his peers. There are just so many good things that are happening with Taj this year, that it's given us hope that he will be able to carry on a "normal" life (whatever normal is right?) when he grows up: going to college, going on a mission, getting married, having a job, etc. We are very hopeful and optimistic and will continue working with him to help him become all that he can.

 We only had to put together like 100 valentines for Taj and Haiven! Haivi gave scratch and sniff valentines with stickers to her class. We figured stickers were better than candy for her age group.

 We loaded up these little bad boys with the good stuff, Reeses hearts and kisses. It only took us an HOUR to put these things together. We just prayed they wouldn't fall apart before he got them to his classmates. They are cute though aren't they?!

Life is just so good for us right now and we feel so blessed to have the family and friends and neighbors that we do. We feel so blessed to live where we do and to have jobs, and to have a roof over our heads, and to have food on our table and the cupboards stocked. We really are just enjoying life so much right now and we are so thankful for the gospel and the knowledge that no matter what happens in life, that we can all be together again. There really is nothing better than having that kind of peace of mind.