Bubba...Our New Teenager

Our trailblazer has turned another year older and we officially have a teenager in the house. 
Bubba really wanted honey garlic wings for his birthday, so we went the night before his actual birthday since it was "Wings-Wednesday" at Gooseloonies. 
Bubba woke up on his actual birthday to the traditional balloons hanging over his face. There were five balloons and $13 cash inside.

Before school Bubba was able to open the gift from Wiggy and Tubbs. It was new Zelda game.

Bubba got the new Nintendo 3DS XL. He thought he wasn't going to get it because they were backordered, but we found it at Gamestop the day before.

 Bubba asked for a peanut butter chocolate cake. It turned out really good. It was a double layer chocolate cake, with a peanut butter ganache in the middle. The frosting was chocolate with crushed up Reese's peanut butter cups on the side. Very rich, but tasty.

This big boy of mine....
He is five foot six. Still wears a size 13 shoe. 
He weighs 150 pounds. I don't know how this can be. Oh wait a minute...I have seen him eat. I guess I can.
Bubba is still one of a kind. We can't figure him out most of the time. He is a thinker. His favorite subject in school is History. He has the memory of an elephant when it comes to facts. (Just not rules around the house). He is really good at math. He can do mental math like nobody's business. Luke and his teachers are always fascinated how quickly he can do things in his head. There's a lot going on up there in that melon of his. We just don't know what it is. :)
Bubba is really enjoying junior high. He has made some new friends, so he is much more social than he's been in year's past. His friend Alex is autistic and is very funny. They do things together outside of school, about once a month. We love having him over to the house. 
Third quarter Bubba switched his elective from Art to "Exploring Tech." We had to pay $30 for him to build a ukelele. He has really enjoyed it and this last quarter he will learn how to play it. This should be fun to watch. He has a performance at school in May.

Bubba still has his braces on. It's been over 2.5 years. After all this time he still can't tell when he has his entire breakfast lodged under his top lip, stuck inside his wire. I have no idea how. Pleeeeeeease let this be the year he gets them off. The kids breaks brackets and wasn't too cooperative with wearing the rubber bands.

Bubba has speech therapy now every Friday morning at 7:45am, before school starts. We love his new therapist this year and feel very blessed. This is a critical age and we are feeling certain that the stuttering may be something Bubba will live with into adulthood. I love that Bubba has confidence in himself and still volunteers to read things out loud at school/church and do presentations.
Bubba really is a special kid. It's hard to believe we have a teenager. The night of his birthday, after everyone was in bed, I laid in bed thinking about how many years we have left with him before he becomes an adult. I was getting all sappy like Clark Griswold up in the attic, watching home movies. 
I did tell Bubba when he turns sixteen he can get a job and he has to get a job at Nordstrom's Rack so his mom gets a discount. :)

20 Birthday Questions for the 13 Year Old

20 birthday Questions for Lishy.....
favorite color - red
favorite toy - Legos
favorite fruit - watermelon
favorite TV Show - Star Wars
favorite thing to eat for lunch - mac and cheese
favorite outfit - pajamas
favorite game - Super Smash Brother Brawl
favorite snack - cookies
favorite animal - squirrel
favorite song - none
favorite book - Lego Assassinations
best friend - Alex Leppke
favorite cereal - Frosted Flakes
favorite thing to do outside - Ride his bike
favorite drink - Root Beer
favorite holiday - Christmas
What I like to take to bed with me at night - the blue marshmallow blanket
My favorite thing to eat for breakfast - donuts
My birthday dinner is - breakfast dinner. pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, strawberries and hash browns.
When I grow up I want to be -An Engineer

Daddy Daughter Dance 2015

The year finally came. Now that Wiggy is in elementary school she gets to participate in the school's annual Daddy/Daughter Dance. It's $20 for each child and it includes a small bought of flowers. Wiggy LOVES to dance, so she anticipated the dance for weeks.
I bought her a dress from Gap and an adorable pea coat to match. I should know better. She likes to do her own thing and I really think we have two different senses of style. Anyways, Grandma and Grandpa Hogue came for Superbowl and brought a dress with them they found at Costco. She fell in love with that dress and decided she wanted to wear that. (Good thing Grandpa Hogue has better style than mom)
I ordered a corsage and boutonniere that morning and picked them up before I got the kids from school.   

 Crazy-eyes

Luke and Wiggy left the house around 4:30 so they could go to dinner at Red Robin. The dance went from 6-8. Luke sent me photos and videos throughout the evening. That girl loves to dance. Luke claims he danced WITH her but I didn't get that on video.

 Daddy took her to Tutti Frutti for yogurt after the dance.

Bubba went camping with the Boy Scouts, so I dropped him off at the church at 4pm, then raced back to get Wiggy out of the bath and do her hair.

After Luke and Wiggy left, that left me and Tubby-Tubbs. He gave me his itinerary for the night so he was my date! 
First up was Barnes and Nobles, where he picked out two books for Accelerated Reader. 

Then we went to BJ's for dinner. While waiting for our food we played the app "Heads Up," where one person has to act out whatever pops up on the phone screen and the person holding the phone has to try and guess what it is. Tubbs really liked it and it was a lot of fun.

After dinner we went to Sports Authority where Tubbs picked out some football gloves and a mouthpiece. Tubbs' new thing is football. :) 

What's the Latest

Heavens to Betsy. I can't believe I haven't posted anything since Christmas. Shame on me. 
Not like there is anything exciting or fascinating to post about, but I try not to go that long....Then it seems like catch up.

Let's see....
January 3rd I was released as the second counselor in the Young Women's presidency (at church) and 10 seconds later called to be second counselor in the Relief Society presidency. 
Holy smokes. I felt totally unprepared for that one.
Because of callings in YW and primary, I have hardly spent any time at all in RS. (I do feel for the RS president, who was called the same day and after moving into the ward two weeks before that. Wild ride.) On Superbowl Sunday I gave my gave my first lesson and I survived. The topic was faith and I was totally nervous. Being in this new calling has really made me aware of the needs of the sisters in the ward. I pray for them and I try to be more social. I think I am an outgoing introvert. A lot of things sound good in my head, but communicating verbally with others is not my strongest suit.
Let's see.....
I have been out of the running loop for about two months. I thought it would be a fabulous idea to dust off the shoes and run a few miles on a Saturday morning. No big deal, right?! The next day I was a tad sore. No big deal. After church that afternoon I was sitting up to the dining room table for 30 minutes or so and when I got up, wowzer....my lower back was done. I spent the next week limping around and going to the chiropractor everyday for an hour of therapy. Luckily on day six, the nurse at work made some calls and was able to get me into my orthopedist that day. I was so relieved and thankful. I was miserable! All week long I was walking around work, looking like an idiot. I was really tired of all the questions and people looking at me like I had two heads. My appointment with the orthopedist was Friday the 13th and he scheduled me for an epidural the following Tuesday. The epidural was the 17th and three days later, I am starting to feel normal again. The pain this time around was soooooooo bad it had me contemplating surgery. Yikes. I know I have an annular tear in my L5/S1 and a portruding disk. It flares up whenever it feels like. 
Lovely.

 My view on the decompression machine (chiropractor). I was able to get 20 minute of scripture study done while my spine was being stretched.

My children. All alive and living to wreak 
havoc. The day of my epidural Scout came home with a fever and a cough. Luke took her to the urgent care and she has bronchitis. They gave her some cough syrup and a z-pack (antibiotic) and sent them home. What would we do without the modern conveniences of pharmaceuticals and urgent care when you can't get in to the pediatrician?!

Scout took this selfie (with a wad of gum in her mouth) as we waited in the Urgent Care a few weeks back on a Saturday morning. (Her ears were really hurting her, so we didn't want to wait until Monday.)

Luke and the boys continue to take their dirt bikes up to Gorman every chance they get. If there is a Saturday with nothing going on, they're heading up. Even rain can't stop them. I have no photos or videos because Luke knows I would freak out if he captured proof of how safe they really ride. :)

 Luke went to a conference in San Diego for s a few days. We took random photos everyday to send to big papa. This was on our way out the door to school, sitting in daddy's truck.

The kids wishing Grandma Baer a Happy 6-7 birthday. 

Tubbs came home sick from school the day Luke left for the conference. He gets a lot of headaches, so i thought he just needed some rest....but ended up vomiting a handful of times into the evening. 

Before Luke left for his conference, we swung by the eye doctor and pick up Bubba's new spectacles. Busy day.

The last weekend of January, Sawyer and I made a homemade triple layer chocolate cake together. This is our finished product, with a salted caramel sauce over the top. It was VERY good.

Tubbs' first black eye. His adoring big brother threw a funky lego piece at him and hit him below the eye. It left a scratch but within two days it was bruised. Poor fella. It's hard having a big brother sometimes.

 Bubba and Wiggy playing with their "fake sand." These two can play for hours with this stuff. If only these two didn't make a mess that needed to be swept up. :)

 Luke and Wiggy at Action Sports, playing phone games while the kids climbed the rock wall.

 ....of course Bubba doesn't do the rock wall. He supervises behind the screen of his electronics.

I got to help in Wiggy's school garden one Friday. It was their class' first time to the garden and it was very informational. They got to eat freshly picked carrots before they left.

We attempted to adopt a dog. "Molly" was dropped off on a Thursday evening. Sad to say, it went back to his original owner on Sunday evening. She is a six year old poodle and she didn't adjust well. She has never been around kids, so after pooping all through my house for four day and starving herself, we had mercy on her. 

This is Wiggy, the night Molly came to our house.