The Lights of Home

Malia is enjoying her house. She has pulled her little table inside and does her homework in there. And she loves to turn on her desk lamp, turn off the big light and read in her beanbag chair. It makes the time spent making it time well spent.

 

This is What Happens to Your Tongue When You Eat Leftover Black Fondant

Let’s Get This Party Started!

Malia has been celebrating her birthday for over a week and honestly, she has been loving it. The party started ten days ago when I took her to get her first pedicure. I had my annual patriotic pedicure with my sisters in June and she has had a hankering to have one of her very own ever since then. She absolutely loved the foot soak and massage chair part and chose nail polish is two very glittery colors. My choices were a bit more sedate, but she was thrilled with her selection and that’s all that matters!

On her actual b-day, we had a little celebration here at home. She was (not unexpectedly) overly eager for her presents. We made her wait until after dinner and it almost killed her. She managed to pull through, however, and received Hot Wheels from Matthew, colored pencils and crayons from Daniel and Nathan, and a nice sketch pad, colored pencils and a great dot to dot book from Kevin’s folks. When she opened her first package from Kevin and I, she was mightily confused. I can understand why. It was command hooks and drapery rings.

She was not any less confused when she opened up the rest of the present.

It wasn’t until we took it into her room and got it all hung up that she realized that she had become the proud owner of her very own under-the-loft-bed playhouse. And then she was excited!

Her friend party was on Saturday. She wanted white tiger cupcakes and cake so we went with a zoo themed party. We played pin the tail on the tiger, made toilet paper roll binoculars and did a zoo themed scavenger hunt. Malia helped make the cupcakes and they turned out super cute. We had a really great time.

On Sunday we celebrated with my family. I am totally proud of how her cake turned out! Not only did it look super cute, but it was tiger striped on the inside as well as the outside. Malia wanted raspberry filling with a vanilla cake and while it was super tasty, once it was cut it looked like the tiger was bleeding. That was definitely an unplanned visual!

The official end of Malia’s celebration was today’s Birthday Table celebration at the school. The PTA had extra tables and decorations like always and (of course) Malia asked me to pick up lunch from Carl’s Jr. Acie, her best school friend since Renee moved, had a birthday this month as well so they got to enjoy their lunch together.

Malia is such a fun, crazy, creative kid. She is not afraid to jump right in with all the boys and has definitely taught them a few new things (Barbie, My Little Pony, princesses, etc.). We are so glad to have her in our family!

Quantifiably Funny

Malia loves the water. She loves to take a bath and will stand in the shower all day if we let her. This evening I told her to get out of the water (something that happens every single time she is in there) and she responded with, “Ok. I have about ten more bubbles.”

Fingers Crossed

Today was Matthew and Malia’s first day of the new school year. Malia was excited to go back because she is a very social creature and gets lonely and bored when she is away from her friends for too long.

Matthew was excited to go back because this year he is a mighty sixth grader!

In addition, he is hopeful that he will have a more positive experience this year. Last year there was a personality conflict between him and his teacher. It’s not that he got in too much trouble or anything (although it was more than he normally would which was kind of a warning sign for us), but his teacher’s teaching style and personality was definitely not a good fit for Matthew. Some of the kids and parents really liked her, but neither Matthew nor I had much love for her. It turned out to be a very negative and stressful year for him and we’re both hoping this year will be much, much better.

Party Animal

The yearly Pioneer Day block party has become one of those things Malia really looks forward to. It is like one last big blow out before the new school year starts. She was super excited this year. I mean, what’s not to love? The road is closed so she can ride her bike right down the middle of the street. She can run around with all her friends and eat her dessert first. There are games, fireworks, and an entire section of road set aside for sidewalk chalk. She gets to stay up past bedtime. And there is face painting, which she loves. 

This is another of those events I don’t love because of the heat, but I’m really glad my kids enjoy it. I have fond memories of the many ward parties I attended in my youth and hopefully Malia is creating wonderful memories.

The Search Begins

Our much-trusted allergist retired in December. That means we are on the look out for a new one. Matthew had his first appointment with a different allergist today and to be honest, I came away completely under impressed and a bit ill at ease. Our previous doc was very proactive. Her main goal (besides keeping Matthew safe, of course) was getting as many foods back into Matthew’s diet as possible. As such, she did blood work and skin prick testing every year. Allergies are not a static thing and can change over time as the body changes and grows so she was always looking for those changes. Through her constant vigilance, over the years we’ve been able to add almonds, coconut, baked milk and eggs in bread to Matthew’s safe food list. Those few things have made worlds of difference in terms of choices for him and I will always be enormously grateful for all she has done for us, including handing me tissues and talking me through the ramifications of having a food allergic child at our first appointment a decade ago.

Today’s doctor basically came in, asked why we were there, and gave us the results of his bloodwork. The only reason he did any skin prick testing was because we asked him to test for milk since our previous doc was ready to recommend Matthew do a food challenge for baked cheese. He was not proactive in any way and we didn’t feel like he was even listening to Matthew which is a definite warning sign for us. Not only is this Matthew’s life on the line, but he is wise beyond his years and is fully involved in any allergy related decisions we make and has been for years.  I don’t think Matthew was comfortable either and his trust of his doctor is so important that we will definitely be looking for someone else. Finding a new doctor is not a task I relish. It can be so hard finding one that is a good fit for us, especially since our previous one was so fantastic.

The Phantom of the Opera is Here…Finally!

One of my favorite things about giving the kids experience gifts for Christmas is that Kevin and I get to do fun things as well. As you can imagine, I was terribly excited to give Nathan tickets to see “The Phantom of the Opera.” He has wanted to see this show for years and was desperately hoping we’d be able to get tickets ever since we heard a couple of years ago that it would be coming here. We got lucky and were able to snag tickets. It made for a fantastic Christmas present and after seven months of waiting, today was the big day. The anticipation had Nathan in a state of high excitement. He was grinning like crazy as we waited for the show to start.

And the grin did not waver after the fact. Not only was he completely thrilled with the performances of the cast, he was totally mesmerized by the sets, the lighting, the effects…the stage crew side of him was just as entranced as his performer side. And rightly so. Christine and the Phantom were very well cast. Christine actually sounded like the young girl she was supposed to be (although a very talented one) and the Phantom was about six and a half feet tall which added a lot to the imagery of his domination of Christine. The Phantom’s make up was fantastic, very grotesque. The sets were amazing, so clever in the way they turned to portray different locations and changed as the actors moved within them. Although he has heard all the music many times before, seeing everything in context gave him insights into just how masterfully the music conveys the progression of the story. And the lights. Oh, the lights. Nathan has fallen in love with designing and running the light boards and was absolutely fascinated with the lights and the effects they created. Sometimes experiences can fall flat after such intense anticipation but that was not the case today. He came away feeling completely satisfied with his experience. He was “geeking out” about everything, not just to me, but to my sisters via text.

As for me, the last time I saw the show was during my senior year in high school. I loved it then and was definitely not disappointed today. In fact, I felt like today’s cast was better than the one I saw at my two previous viewings of the show. And it was so much fun to watch Nathan’s reactions! We had a wonderful time!