Addicted to Facebook

It is true! I am addicted to Facebook and have seriously neglected my blog!

We have been pretty busy lately - so much has happened and changed since the last time I updated my blog in October - wow, that's bad!

David went back to work at Pinnicle Career Institute at the end of December. He has just met his 90 day probationary time and all is going good. He seems to like it and is doing quite well at getting students signed up. I am so proud of him! With David going back to work, daycare had to make a change too - Aubrey and Peyton have been able to stay at home and we have someone come to our house to watch them. She is 18 and trying to get out on her own, so it is helping her out as well as us.

Zachary has made the JV Baseball team for Van Horn and we are so proud of him. He will be also a backup for the Varsity team. I'm ready for him to start playing games - so ready to watch him play. Unfortunately, I won't get to see as many as I would like since they are almost all at 4:00 and during week days. Zach also turned 15 on February 24th - hard to believe he is old enough to get his drivers permit...so impossible!

Hunter just started practice for machine pitch. He is so excited to get started in playing. His coach told me the other night that he hopes that Hunter continues to want to play in the years going forward, he said he thinks Hunter will be a great player. That is so nice to hear.

Peyton will be playing t-ball again this year - hopefully that will go well. This will be his last year of t-ball. Peyton just celebrated his 6th birthday on March 11th - so hard to believe that he is already 6 years old! How time flies!

Aubrey is still in dance and she had her first recital in February. She really enjoys it. I think her favorite is tap - she's not the delicate ballet type, but she cooperates. She will be performing little dance numbers with her group at nursing homes around the area - they had their first one last night and she did so good. I really enjoy watching her - she told me she wanted to play t-ball too, but we decided to wait a year.

Tanner turned 3 this week and is turning into quite the little guy. If I ever had a shadow...it's name was Tanner. When I am home at work, I can almost guarantee whatever room I am in, Tanner won't be far behind. He really loves his "PaPa" and likes to "talk" to him on his play phones. I think it's so cute - neat to see him so crazy for my dad. Most of the kids are all about grandma and while he loves grandma, he always makes sure he asks if he's going to get to see grandpa too.

I have signed up to walk in the 3-Day Susan G Komen 60 mile walk...Lori and I are planning on attending the walk in the Twin Cities in August. We have started training and hope that we are up to par by the time that gets here!

I am also planning on going to New York in late October for a 5K for awareness of craniosyostosis, which is what Peyton was born with. He will be having a second surgery in December, it has been scheduled for 12/13/1o and since this is a cause near and dear to my heart, I want to be there for the walk. Plus, we are planning a Girls weekend to go along with it and should prove to be a fun time!

I guess that's about all for now - little updates on everyone in the house.

Dawn

Long Time...No Post

We are still alive and kicking - just very busy lately! I think of updating and then not quite sure what happens - I'm going to try to be better here!

I've started a tax class through H&R Block and have been going on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. I am hoping to get a part-time job with them come the Spring and tax time. I love doing taxes, so should be good and hopefully help us to get some extra money. I have sure been learning some interesting things and it's been quite exciting.

The kids are doing well in school and everyone is staying healthy - so that is good. I attended a meeting at school today to renew Peyton's IEP for his speech therapy and they reported remarkable improvements in his speech from when he began last year - which we already knew and we are so proud of him. The meeting was with his speech teacher, his Kindergarten teacher and the principal. Mrs. Butler, the principal, said that she gets such a kick out of Peyton when she sees him. She said there are a couple little guys that sit with him at lunch and Peyton has them laughing all the time. He will say something totally silly and these boys will just laugh and laugh. Mrs. Butler said it's the craziest thing - but that Peyton knows how to make others laugh and as I always say - will enjoy life to the fullest!

I stopped by Hunter's class to say hello to his teacher after the meeting and we visited for a short bit. She said she was just getting ready to send me an e-mail about Hunter and something he recently did in class. There is a little boy, Peyton, who was also in his kindergarten class, who has a lot of difficulty in class. I think his permanent seat is by himself at the front of the room and Ms. Ash said that he barely has any friends because he acts up so much and the other kids. Hunter came to Ms. Ash the other day and asked her if it would be okay if he talked to Peyton and worked on a plan to improve his behavior - she told him to go for it! My little Hunter, he is quite the mature little one. Well, he talked to Peyton and I guess he completed his first assignment in two weeks and turned it in after Hunter helped him. I couldn't be more proud of Hunter. I asked him about it when I got home and he said, I just want to help him mom. Go Hunter!

Speaking of Hunter, he received Student of the Month for Integrity. They are having an awards ceremony on Friday. He told me that another little boy in his class was upset because Hunter received this award and that Hunter received one last year too - last year was responsibility. I guess Kyle felt like it wasn't fair to have received another award - I couldn't be more proud of Hunter!

Aubrey and Tanner are both doing good - keeping their dad company during the day while the rest of us are at school or work. Aubrey has been going to dance on Monday evenings and truly loves it. I asked her the other day if she wanted to take a little break from it and she said - no way! We may have a little ballerina on our hands.

I think that's about all for now...I will try to keep up a little more often!

Dawn

Baptism, School and More

Tonight the kids had their back to school night at school, so David, Hunter, Peyton and I went over to it. We met with Peyton's teacher first and they pretty much just went over the curriculum and various rules of the classroom. We asked how he was doing and he seems to be doing pretty good - she said he occasionally needs to be re-directed in his behavior, but handles it quite good and is able to redirect pretty good. I think he will have a good year. After we were done in Peyton's room, we went down to visit with Hunter's teacher. She had nothing to say but good things about Hunter. She said that she often apologizes to Hunter that they have to wait for all the other kids to settle down before doing something and that he will sit patiently and wait. I guess he is used as an example quite often in class on behaviors. We have one extreme...to the other...but, we are lucky that Peyton usually only shows his extreme at home - I am happy about that.

Sunday, we attended the Baptism for Brinley. It was a beautiful day and a very nice day spent with family.

The proud parents - Matthew and Megan with Brinley, Godparents - Myra (Megan's sister) and Brian (my brother) along with the priest.

The Harris siblings (minus Carrie)

The Harris family - again, with the exception of Carrie and her family. Aubrey wouldn't cooperate for pictures, so her head is down in all of them - there always has to be one who doesn't want to cooperate.

That's about all for now...

Dawn

Hunter and Peyton posed for a quick picture on Tuesday morning before heading to school.



Peyton excited about his first day of Kindergarten.

He settled in quickly by finding his chair and getting ready to color a picture.

I got them on the bus and then headed up to school to greet him - here he is after his first bus ride.

Turns out that Peyton received a warning on the first day of school on the bus. In trying to figure out the story, I guess he and Rick (a friend from preschool) were talking. They are allowed to talk on the bus, but quietly and from the sounds of it, they were talking too loudly. Nothing too serious, but he will need to learn to keep his voice down when talking.

I took a vacation day on Tuesday and was home to see the boys get off the bus. Peyton came running off the bus and after the bus started to take off, I asked him where his backpack was. He about lost it - he had left it on the bus and he was crying like crazy - so Zach, Hunter and I loaded up in the car and followed the bus until it stopped where we could go get his backpack off it. I bet he doesn't forget it again!

I e-mailed both teachers to see how they were doing and both came back with good reports.

Here is the report I received back from Hunter's teacher:

"Hunter has been A-OK since day two. What a good choice not to cry!!! How awesome!

He is really excited about learning and absolutely he best at giving me good listening attention. He is a great role model for other students. It looks like he is having fun at recess too.

My favorite "Hunter moment" of the day was when we were brainstorming words that start with "D" and he came up with dawn. I was amazed...I was thinking 'daybreak' and what first grader knows that word?!? Then he explained that it was his mom's name...of which he was very proud. It provided me with a great
teaching moment to talk about proper nouns and capitalization...so...be proud!
He rocks!"

Way to go Hunter! We are so proud of you!

Until next time!

Dawn

First Day of School!!!

I remember so vividly when Zachary started Kindergarten. He seemed so little and while it seems like just yesterday, it also seems like so long ago...if that makes sense. Today marks the first day of high school for Zach. It is so hard to believe that he is a Freshman! I am sure the next four years are going to fly by - so I will be sure to enjoy them as much as I can - as well as - make sure he enjoys his high school days.

Zach was so excited to pose for a quick picture before heading to his bus stop this morning...well, excited might be stretching it - but he complied. I wish I had a digital picture of him from Kindergarten - but I'm not exactly sure which box that is in...so, here is a picture of Zach on his first day of high school.

Today was also the first day of First Grade for Hunter...here are a couple pictures from the past couple years - I thought it would be fun to see how he'd changed the past couple years. Hunter's first day of preschool...
First day of Kindergarten...2008

The big day!!! Hunter's first day of First Grade!!!

Posing for a quick picture with Mrs. Pelzl. Mrs. Pelzl is the school counselor and is Hunter's buddy. They got to know each other quite well last year with his difficult start and they have a nice little relationship. Hunter looks up to Mrs. Pelzl and she is absolutely wonderful.

Hunter in the classroom getting ready to start his day...

Everything seemed to be going so good this morning. Hunter was so excited to get to school and settled into his classroom pretty quickly. I hung out for a few minutes with the other parents who were in there, and suddenly I noticed this look on Hunter's face...a look I've seen before...a look of anxiety, uncertainty and I no more had the words out of my mouth..."Hunter, what's wrong?" and the tears began to fall. Luckily, Mrs. Pelzl had just came in the classroom to show another student where he needed to go and she noticed as well. She quickly asked him if he would like to come help her get the other students to their classroom and off he went - tears and all. She asked me if I was bothered by her taking him out to help and I said - no, whatever it takes for him to feel comfortable.

Hunter informed me this afternoon that it didn't take too long to get back in the classroom and that he was just a little scared. I hope that the week goes well and that this is the only bout of tears he has.

Aubrey had dance class tonight and she did so good with one of her tap numbers that she has been invited to perform at Santi-Cal-Gon days! Only the students who performed the numbers well are invited to perform - there are two dance numbers and Aubrey did really well on the first one. If she can get the other one down in the next week, then she might be invited for that one too. How exciting! \

Tomorrow...First day of Kindergarten for Peyton!

~~~Dawn

Bedazzled Photos...by Dawn

Check out my new blog...photography website still in the making....photo galleries are coming.

http://bedazzledphoto.blogspot.com/

Happy 4th Birthday Aubrey Dawn!

What a wonderful day, August 11, 2005 was for our family - blessed with a beautiful, healthy baby girl - Aubrey Dawn.

Aubrey is known in our house by a variety of names...Auba; Auba Daba; Baby Girl, Sister and her daddy's favorites - MonkeyDuck and Munchkin...she's not too fond of these two, but answers to them all. Aubrey brings so much joy to our family - I wasn't sure being the only girl what her likes would be - if she would be a tomboy or girly and she is a good mix of both. Aubrey likes to watch Spiderman and play Transformers with the boys, jump on the trampoline with them or fishing with Grandma - but she loves her dollies, she especially loves clothes and shoes and wants to be a ballerina.

Happy Birthday Aubrey Dawn!

Aubrey's famous "look" - everyone who meets Aubrey gets this look at least once!

~~~Dawn