thanksgiving @ the Cecil's

We have a family tradition of going to my folks' house for Thanksgiving. Maylee and Jared joined us this year too. Our big girls stayed the night before to lend Bubbie a hand with the food prep. We loved seeing all of our family members. Clyde, Jared, and Josh went the morning of Thanksgiving to play soccer. I have to admit that I was upset that Clyde made us all late. I liked that they went to play, but again not thrilled that we were an hour late for Thanksgiving lunch.

After the Thanksgiving feast, we got to saddle up Slim, the horse, and take turns riding. I loved this! This made the Thanksgiving Day for me. I got to spend time with my family outside and laugh and play. I hope that your day was as fun as ours! Happy Thanksgiving.

muppets conference call

Saw this posted on a friends FB and thought it was cute enough to share. Enjoy!

you've got your hands full

...is a phrase I hear all the time. I hear it everywhere I go. I see people counting my children and then they will chuckle and say the phrase. Usually it doesn't bother me to hear them say it. However, today it made me mad. I am walking out of a discount store, with my stroller full of children and my buggy full of groceries in tow, when this lady cuts in front of me to get out of the store, turns and says, "you've got your hands full." No duh- Sherlock! I wanted to scream, "No don't help the lady with a stroller of children and a buggy of groceries, when your hands are empty, just keep walking..."

breaking tradition

Penny has a speech disorder called Apraxia. It make it very hard to communicate. She has had 6 speech sessions per week for the last year. She has shown mucho interest in getting her ears pierced for that year. Clyde and I told her that if she could say, "ears pierced," then we would take her to get the done. She had come close several times, but not clear. Friday afternoon, she came into the living room with one of Libby's hoop earrings and said, "Holes, ears pierced." It was so very clear and totally unprompted. We were so very proud of her that we, as a family, took her to the mall to have her ears pierced.

She wouldn't stand still long enough to have a clear after photo. There were a few tears shed, mainly due to a malfunction with the ear gun thingy. But she Loves her "heart" earrings.

Obviously her ear piercing experience wasn't a horrible one...

We have broken tradition several times with Penny. She was the only Wardling that we found out the gender, while in utero. The big girls didn't like that we didn't make her wait til the usual 8 to have her ears pierced. Mad is a better word. However, we felt that she had worked so hard to even get the words out, a simple phrase to us, "ears pierced." that we had to break tradition. I recently gave a talk in our stake's Primary auxiliary training about LD's in children (Learning Disabilities) and addressing children with special needs. After doing some research on the topic, I totally agree with Richard Lavoie, who talks about fairness. "Fairness is when he or she gets what he or she needs. To treat them [children] fairly, we have to treat them differently." Hopefully the big girls will see that in the future. Penny, we are very proud of all your hard work, hours spent practicing repetitive sounds & drills, even when it is hard. We see your frustrations and know that you have a huge cheering section. Penny, we love you!

Below are links to a few of his conferences. They are very educational and were very enlightening to me.

Richard Lavoie F.A.T City conferences... F.A.T- Frustration, Anxiety, and Tension.

more Richard Lavoie.

time to give

Not the most flattering photo of me, but one I am kinda proud of. I made a new years resolution to donate blood twice in the 2009 year. Goal met. The Red Cross gal was trying her best to get me to donate 2 pints, by separating the red blood cells from the plasma, with the plasma being put back in my body, along with saline and the 2nd pint of red blood cells being removed and the process running over again. I decided to do the usual pint this go round. I may change my mind in 56 days, when I can donate again. As usual, very very dizzy, needing to sit with my feet propped up for 10-15minutes. I was glad that Clyde was there for support.

art show

Erin had her first Art show last week. She worked really hard on a dot's piece, where the entire piece was drawn in dots. She drew her hand with a strawberry in it. She also used this piece for her YW in Excellence achievement. We are very thrilled for Erin. {{However, her Art teacher misspelled her name. When we named Erin, we never thought that her name would be so difficult. Her teacher wrote, "Erica Ward." Poor girl, her name is rarely pronounced correctly by medical personal. The girl has been Erwin for years. Come on people, Erin is not so hard to say or spell correctly.}} Beautiful Job Erin!!