Quick Two Month Catch-Up

Since I last blogged:
*Jer and I booked a cruise to the Caribbean for our 10th anniversary next month. We will be spending 8 glorious, kid-free days in Fort Lauderdale, Grand Cayman, Isla Rotan, Cozumel and the Bahamas.
* I turned 31. Nothing too glorious about that except for the new spa-like waterfall shower head Jeremy installed as my birthday present.
*SEP conferences where I was informed that in addition to Jay being way beyond grade level in math, he has FINALLY caught up to grade level in his reading. WAY TO GO JAY!
*School for me is dragging on and on and on....
*Jeremy got a new supervisor position at work, this one actually came with a pay raise too! (Unlike his promotion to the first supervising position)
*Alyssa is cuter than ever and getting smarter with every passing minute. One of our favorite things to do as a family is to turn on ice-skating or gymnastics and watch Alyssa mimic the routines on our living room floor.
*Oh yeah, the best part of the past two months is that we found out we are expecting baby #3 this fall. He/She is due three days before Jay's 9th birthday. Morning sickness has been miserable and I am hoping the second trimester brings some relief.

This Girl Knows How to Party!

What a whirlwind these past 4 years have been. As of 3:13AM PST tomorrow, Alyssa will officially be four years old! (Wiping tear away...) I can't begin to tell you how completely in love I am with this little girl. She definitely has the adoration of her whole family. Now I know why it took so long for her to join our family, the Lord wanted to make sure we would truly appreciate what a blessing she is to us. To make this darling little one as well rounded as she is, in addition to her sweet personality and adorableness, she also has a sassy little attitude and a spark of mischievousness in her eyes when she give you her heart melting smile. Ok, Ok, I know I am gushing a little too much, so to sum it up, this girl is just plain AWESOME!
This year for her party, we invited a few of her friends and cousins to join us at Build-A-Bear. The kids had so much fun picking out their new pets and playing games with the party hostess. Alyssa was having a ball and showing off her dancing skills much to the delight of the girls working today. They thought she was hilarious. Here are just a few pictures of the group of hooligans that we had today:
Picking out their pets.

Heading over to the stuffing machine while chanting "STUFF OUR BEARS, STUFF OUR BEARS..."

Pass The Heart game.

Adding hearts to the pets. All of the kids got to take two hearts and make a wish on them, then one heart went into their own pets and the other one went into Alyssa's horse. So she has about a dozen hearts in her horse that her friends shared with her. I thought that was an adorable idea.

Proud Pet Parents.

True Colors...our kids look and act like this much more often than they look and act in the previous photo.

Back at home we had pizza for lunch and cake and ice cream. This year Alyssa wanted a dolphin cake. I won't go into the amount of time and effort I put into finding an image of a dolphin or a dolphin toy big enough to go on the cake, but lets just say it was a lot. I lucked out at the last minute when I found a dolphin cake at Sam's Club. Yeah, I know it isn't anywhere near as cute as the picture of the cake I posted on FaceBook, but hey, I didn't have to make this cake!
Here she is opening some pretty awesome presents from her friends. Too bad the wand didn't make it to the end of the party, but it was cute while it lasted.

Our little Diva!

School!

Seems like that is all we ever do around this house...school work! As I have mentioned before, I have gone back to school full time at Utah Valley University. I am currently working on getting my Bachelors of Arts in Secondary Education in ASL and Deaf Studies. ASL isn't easy by any means. I get frustrated because much like spoken language, I usually know what I want to say but have a hard time articulating it in my signing. That doesn't mean that I give up or change my major in a moment of frustration. I see other people in my class catching on much sooner than me while I struggle through it. But that's what I do. I keep struggling then go home and struggle some more until it isn't so hard. I may have to practice twice as much as my classmates in order to be up to par with them, but it really is SO worth it.
Right now I am enrolled in 15 credit hours. I am taking BIOL 1200 (Prehistoric Life), ASL 2010 (Intermediate Sign Language), MATH 1050 (College Algebra), ANTH 101G (Anthropology) and ASL 2030 (Advanced Fingerspelling) I have been trying to figure out a way where I can double minor in Earth Science and Math and I pretty much had it all planned out to still graduate in April 2014, but then my adviser told me that getting my minor in those areas doesn't exactly line up with all of the classes I would need to get my teaching endorsements in those areas. So, back to the catalog I go to see how to take the right classes for my endorsements rather than my minor. I will still get a minor in one of these areas in addition to my teaching endorsements for both, I just haven't decided which one I want to focus on yet.
School for the kids is moving along nicely as well. Jay and Briget had their parent/teacher conferences for the 2nd term this past week. At the beginning of the year, Jay was struggling with reading at a second grade level. They rate them from A-Z and most second graders test at a level K at this point. Jay was testing at a level G at the last conference we had after 1st term. However, after two and a half months, he has moved up 3 levels and is now testing at a level J. So, just one more level to go until he is caught up in his reading. Math on the other hand has never been a problem with this kid. They have him in an enrichment Math class for advanced students and he is at the top of that class as well. He is adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers, multiplying up to 12's and is starting division (and having no problems grasping the concept). He is also focusing on his work and managing his class time MUCH better. I am so excited to see him progress and be so enthusiastic about school.
When Briget came to live with us in the middle of 5th grade, she had a lot of catching up to do. This girl is so determined and I love that she has a passion for learning. By the end of 5th grade she had progressed to a beginning second grade reading level and a 3rd grade math level. We have been working really hard with her this year to keep that progress continuing in the 6th grade. At her conference, her teachers were pleased to report that she is now testing at an end third grade level in reading and has caught up to a 5th grade level in Math. She is still in resource to get some more personalized accommodations for her education and she is benefiting from it greatly.
Alyssa is even jumping on the bandwagon with her studies. She just started a new Preschool/Daycare closer to home since we were unable to get her enrolled at the UVU Wee Care program again this semester. She LOVES reading books with Jay and Briget and recognizes any letter you point to and will tell you what sound it makes. She is counting to 20 (though not always consistently. She can get to 14 every time but will jump around after that once in a while) She loves learning about nature and science, though I am sure much of that has to do with her favorite TV show, Dinosaur Train. I gotta admit, it is pretty funny to listen to her tell me that she has a "hypossesis". She turns 4 this coming Sunday and it will be fun to see what new things she will learn at this age.
As for Jeremy, the poor guy doesn't have enough hours in the day to fit school time in. I really hope he is able to start back up sometime soon to continue his bachelors degree, but right now he is working 12-15 hour days. Too bad he is now in a salaried position and doesn't get over time for all of that work. However, right now, in this economy, we are thankful he even has a job so I can't complain too much. Hopefully the long hours will end soon enough for him to enjoy these kids while they are still so darn cute. Not much longer until they are mouthy teenagers.

Christmas Pigs

This past Christmas was a fun one for our little family. On Christmas Eve, we hosted a family party with my brothers (minus Dan who was in CA) my mom and my grandpa. The kids got their traditional pj's and then off to bed. Meanwhile, Santa dropped off lots of new toys for mom and dad to assemble. In addition to Alyssa's new play kitchen and talking Dinosaur Train toys and Jay's new bike and monster truck, Santa also brought two cute little guinea pigs to live with us.
Christmas morning was just the four of us snuggled up playing with the two little guys while the toys were mostly ignored. Alyssa had the honor of naming the pigs and she chose to call them Comfy and Cozy. Rather fitting for two little puff balls. Jay got to chose which was which.

Here are the only two photos we were able to get on Christmas morning before the battery on the camera died. Jay is holding Comfy and Alyssa is holding Cozy.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ok, so the real story about the guinea pigs is that a friend of ours in Las Vegas was giving these two little guys away because their children won a baby ball python from the reptile club they belong to. They decided to give the guinea pigs away before the snake was big enough to traumatize their kids by eating their pets.

Florida

WARNING...This post is going to have way too many pictures. I seriously took over 600 pictures in two days. I promise I don't have that many posted here, but close enough.
Well, now that the disclaimer is out of the way, here is the story of the rest of our trip to Florida. The day after the funeral, our family drove with Jeremy's mom, Lynne, to the Kennedy Space Center. We had a great drive up the coast and got to see some of the HUGE cruise ships that were in port. When we got to the KSC, the admission cost was $60 for adults and $40 for children. Well, it was already 2PM by the time we got there, so we weren't willing to pay $260 in admission for a half day there. We walked around outside and saw some of the rockets then headed to the beach.
The beach was gorgeous; water was warm and the sand was soft. Lynne really needed a nap since she was up since 4AM, shuttling other family members to the airport. While she slept in the car, the rest of us went to play.
Of course Jay made a bee-line to the water as soon as we got there.

Alyssa, on the other hand was a little more apprehensive about diving in.

She and Jeremy stayed on shore and built sand castles instead.

Jay wanted to build his own so he went for it. I LOVE this picture and how the light is reflecting off the water.

Alyssa abandoned Jeremy as soon as she spotted this sand castle a couple dozen yards away. Good thing whoever built it had already left the beach. According to Alyssa, the best part of building a sand castle, is knocking it down. She smashed this work of art about 2 seconds after I snapped this photo.

Jeremy and I wrote our names in the sand inside of a heart so Jay and Alyssa wanted to have their names in the sand too.

We were covered in sand by this time.

So back into the water we go to rinse off.

This time Alyssa wasn't so scared of the water. She was having fun playing when an unexpected wave crashed on her. It was hard not laughing at the face she made. Total shock!
At this point we decided it was time to dry off and get some dinner. Alyssa had had enough of the waves. Here we are bundled up together, waiting for Jay to get rinsed off.


The next day we went over to the Brevard County Zoo. SO MUCH FUN! It wasn't an overwhelmingly huge zoo where you can't seem to fit everything in and are totally exhausted by the time you finish walking through it. However, there were a million things to do and see. There were a lot more interactive opportunities that any other zoo I have ever been to.
This is the welcoming sign as you walk in the gates.

They had this darling little fishing boat where they let the kids "fish" off the back. There really aren't any hooks on the line. They put food pellets on the end so the kids are really feeding the fish. They swarm to the food and the water is pretty clear, so the kids get a good view of the fish.

We then headed over to the petting zoo. I have never seen an armadillo before in real life. It was pretty fun to play with this little guy. He acted like a puppy more than anything else.

They have the worlds softest, most laid-back lama at this zoo. It was so funny to scratch him behind his ears and he would roll his eyes back in his head and lower his head to the ground. Jay had a fun time brushing him.

Alyssa and the lama were mesmerized with each other. It looks like they were having a staring contest.

I was surprised that they had a hela monster in the petting zoo. It was pretty crazy to get this shot with out using my zoom function on the camera.

Next to the petting zoo was a kids veterinarian clinic. The kids got to dress up like vets and take care of the stuffed animals. Here are the kids with their patients.
(The crocodile had a tooth ache)

Alyssa and I bandaged up the otter then she gave him a check up.

Meanwhile, Jay was checking out the bacteria swabs in the lab, trying to figure out what made the eagle sick.

As we left, we had the kids clean up the play area and put the animals back in their cages. Jeremy has a morbid sense of humor. I wish I could have seen the next group of kids that came to play here and found what Jeremy did as we left.

After the petting zoo and vet clinic we went to see the actual wild animals. Our first stop was the crocodiles. We were just in time to watch them feed.

We learned that a group of crocodiles is called a bask. Maybe because they like basking in the sun? The fence looks pretty low, but it was fine. I kept telling Jay to watch his back just in case.

One thing I really loved about this zoo was that it kept as much of the native Florida foliage as possible in the animal habitats. It felt like you were walking through a jungle.

They have a large vulture enclosure there. Kind of spooky but very informative. Vulture eat the volume of 12 armadillos per year. King vultures are the only ones strong enough to crack through bone and cartilage, the rest of the vultures feed on what is left after the King vulture cracks it open. (Yummy!) Here is our own little King Vulture.
Alyssa is still a chick.

The Brevard County Zoo is the only zoo in the nation that will actually take people kayaking in the surrounding area to see animals in their natural habitat. We didn't go kayaking, but here is a picture of the area from the dock. Stunning scenery.

After lunch, we headed over to the aviary. This little bird was so sweet and friendly. She loved Jeremy and even let the kids pet her.

As you walk further into the aviary there is a little area where you can buy bird food. We let the kids get some seed sticks to feed the cockatiels.

They had so much fun with the cockatiels that we decided to buy some fruit nectar to feed the other birds. I forgot what these were called, but the LOVED us. At one point I had about 7 birds on my head, arms and shoulders.

As we left the aviary, there was a beautiful blue Macaw that the kids named Cracker. As that is what it was yelling at us, it was rather an appropriate name.

We saw a lot more animals than I have posted here but I was either having too much fun to take pictures or the pictures didn't turn out very well. However, what trip to Florida is complete with out a picture of a flamingo? I love the reflection in the water here.

After having so much fun at the zoo we were going to head back to the hotel to get some sleep before waking up at 3AM the next day to catch our flight home. But as it were our last night there, we couldn't resist going back to the beach and building one more sand castle.

Esther Petre Plyler 1917-2010

Last Sunday we got the news that Jeremy's maternal grandmother had passed away. Grandma Plyler was a very giving and active woman. She was always thinking of others and showed it by sending us notes or newspaper clippings she thought we would enjoy or would be of interest to us. She was a very strong willed and musically talented person. Some memories I have of her was when she played the piano at our wedding while Jeremy's sister, Edie, and my brother, Jason, sang All I Ask of You from Phantom. When Jay was 5 months old we had the opportunity to fly to Florida for an award ceremony for Jeremy's work. Though we were in St. Petersburg, on the other side of the state from Palm Bay, Esther drove to our hotel to meet her great-grandson. Though as a granddaughter-in-law, I will never do her life justice while sharing it with others, I do want to say this woman has influenced me to want to be a better person.
We originally thought that Jeremy would be flying to Florida alone to go to the funeral. Fortunately, we happened to arrange mine and Jay's school work so the whole family could go. (Well, minus Briget. She had never met any of Jeremy's family other than Edie and she really would have been bored since none of the cousins her age were there the same time as us. Plus I know it would have been torture to make her share a hotel bed with Jay and Alyssa)
Here are a few photos from the funeral. While I have a lot of other pictures from the trip which I will post later, I am going to keep this post about the funeral.

Ok, so this isn't exactly a picture of the funeral, but Alyssa is just so darn pretty, I had to add this picture of her snuggling up to me while we were waiting to board the plane to Florida.

Jeremy, Jay and Alyssa at the funeral. I sure am lucky to have such a good looking family.

Elaine (Jeremy's aunt) Lynne (Jeremy's mom) and Ethel (Jeremy's great-aunt) saying goodbye.

The Pall Bearers. Mike (Jer's brother) Blaine (uncle) Gene (great-uncle) Gabe (great-uncle) Brian (cousin) and Jeremy

Lynne (mom) Gabe (great-uncle) Ethel (great-aunt) Gene(great-uncle) and Elaine (aunt)
The daughters and siblings of Esther. (Minus Isabel) (UPDATE: Isabel passed away Sunday Nov, 21, 2010)

Edie and Jeremy comforting each other with Mike and Blaine in the background.

Jeremy's grandparents head stone. H. Ellis 1913-1995 and Esther P. 1917-(2010) In God's Loving Care

After the funeral, we all went out to dinner as a family. Here is Alyssa and Nathan showing their love for one another. What a couple of cuties.


(PS. To all of Jeremy's family, I am creating a blog for Grandma's funeral pictures so everyone can access them. There are a LOT more than I have posted here. Hopefully we can upload the video of Edie singing too?? I will let you all know the blog address once I have it up and get the pictures edited and loaded.)