Big Wheels keep on turning, Rolling Rolling.......

 I love the doctoring that is happening at preschool. Ashy knows how to use all of the instruments correctly. He is too cute.

Alex's Lego league team is headed to state. They had competition at Entheos School, last weekend. Let me reexplain what Lego League is.... The first cool thing is.... Only the robot and the parts used for mission IE: trees, buildings, attachments, bridges are actually built out of legos. The team is also asked to program and code the lego robots to carry out missions. Missions can be anything from moving certain pieces to stack, or even stand pieces in other places on the mission board. It can also be moving levers or pushing buttons with the robot. They only get one chance to complete their mission during a run. The team gets three runs during competition. The second cool thing is, the team is asked to come up with an innovative idea. The team came over on Fridays and we brainstormed ways we could use this years theme "City Shapers" to do an innovative idea. They originally thought way too big and wanted to do a working model of West Jordan as a Smart City, with working lights and such. After visiting with then; Mayor Jim Riding, we came up with some other ideas. They decided on waste water smells,  particularly from Danone and the Water Treatment facility. Both businesses are here in West Jordan. Danone North America was extremely helpful. They took the team on a tour of the facility and also helped them learn more about how yogurt is made and how the waste water is cleaned and then how it can be used. Danone hasn't always been treated kindly by the community, and we thought they were particularly amazing to take a group of kids and explain things to them. They could have easily turned us away, but they want to do things to "Nourish lives and inspire a healthy world through food", even for a Lego league team. The team also learned how smells travel, watched youtube movies on water waste and water treatment. The team read tons of articles, some about the History of Danone and also some about how filters work. Then they drew up ideas, created, and tested their own prototype smell filters. After testing the prototypes, they reevaluated and fixed problems. The really learned a lot. I learned a lot... The third and last thing that the team is supposed to know and do for competition is be able to work as a team and solve problems, this is known as the Core Values of Lego League. The competition day came and their first mission was super successful. They got 190 points. Unfortunately, everything from there took a back step. But they plowed through. Their project  presentation went awesome. The guys came up with a whole name for their prototypes... Gasbusters....and a little song "when something stinks in the neighborhood....  Who you gonna call... Gasbusters".... so fun!!!! Their Core values calls on them to solve a problem as a team. This year they had to move beans without touching them using only a few objects. They were not successful the first go around, they spilled the beans everywhere, but on second chance they got all the beads in except one.... Yay team.... When it came time fore the announcement of awards, they were over joyed to have won first place for their innovative idea, which is now going onto state. Go TEAM!!!

 This is the team... Left to Right...Izic, Gabe, Mason, Alex, Coach Devin, Sean

SWAG

 Coach giving some advice before the first run. Luckily we had a judge come mention that the robot had to return to off mat. The team went into immediate crisis, but coach talked them off the ledge and they quickly added new coding to each mission and updated the bot.

 Prepping for a run.

 Score board.

 look at this awesome trophy!!! Way to go team!

 This is all the teams headed to state...

And Then...

Short lived....

I got a call from Alex's transplant team on January 2nd that they finally got his DSA back, this stands for Donor Specific Antibodies. I thought we got all of the test results back, I forgot about the DSA. It looks like his are elevated a little bit. Which made them relook at structures, like his coronary arteries. He has a little bit of narrowing as well. Soooooooo now we will wait two months until we can retest.

It was MayLee's Birthday weekend and we started off everything with a Monster Truck Show. Ashy got it for his Christmas present. Then dinner with the Clawson side. We made homemade pizza, per her request on Sunday and I took her Costa Vida lunch to school on Monday. She really did have a great birthday and we are so happy for her. She really wanted a big basket and an American Girl Doll bike seat for her bike. It is so cute and even comes with a helmet for her doll. They will be riding around in style when it finally warms up enough to go out riding again.

The girls made it into the Youth theaters production... Eden and Ry are Who's and May is a little fishy. This was MayLee's first time trying out and she worked herself into a few tears after she boldly sang Rubber Ducky.. She remembered her words and stayed (mostly) on pitch. Eden did a great job,  singing 'I was born to Entertain' with almost as much sass as she sang it at home. Bless their hearts, they totally get stage fright from me. Yet they keep trying out.

Daddy, Gator, Ashy and Grandma Homer all went to visit Great grandma Eiman in Idaho. They did some of our favorite and most important traditions. Visiting Grandma is the best! What little boy doesn't like the Army Navy surplus store?

The girls stayed in town, went to dinner, and thrifting. We had loads of fun.

I got released from primary singing time and I'm now working with the young women. I haven't been in young women for 12 years, so I am pumped to be back again.  I loved Singing time... two Sundays ago I did musical measles... I laughed so hard about where the kids placed the stickers. Especially one of my little buddies lifting my skirt and putting it on my bootie... I promised the Primary kids that I wouldn't take them off until I got home. Hahaha little rascals.

Happy New Year 2020

With 2019 a couple of hours behind us, I am determined to blog again for my children. This is like a yearbook of the things I can unabashedly gush/brag about our family.

 I can't believe I missed a whole year. I missed so many great stories and wonderful accomplishments. Luckily, Jeff has done a book for us and I am so thankful he did. To be honest, somethings just had to give and this was it.

2019 was a fantastic year.... But......I am glad to be on this side of hard.

 I am not so mislead that I don't understand that there are not more hard things is our future. I am also not naive enough to believe that we will most likely not have an easy time, all the time... But.... I am basking in the lull.

A biking analogy for all you cyclists out there..... There was incredible elevation gain this year for the Homer family... We probably did something outrageous like Torey Philipp, who if you don't know, recorded 1 million feet elevation in one year. That means he went uphill for 1 million feet.  He also got to go downhill 1 million feet. He had the descent to look forward to after all those hard climbs. With the wind in his face, the bugs squishing on his body, and his average speed looking better and better on his Strave (this is a distance and elevation gain tracking system). With some of the tough things behind our family, the descent feels amazing.

Ry- Finally finished that PE packet... She did a PE packet in order to make room in her schedule for more electives. She has grand plans to get her learners permit in January. She has helped and managed the kids for endless hours while we take other kids to appointments, or even if Jeff and I go on a date. She rocks!

Alex- Had his yearly Cath and Biopsy of his heart. Always a bit unnerving leading up to it. It came back squeaky clean with no rejection, all his labs look awesome, meds are in range, and the pressures in his heart look better than they ever have. He has worked so hard to remember to take his meds everyday, to learn the names of the medications he takes,(I can hardly pronounce some of them, so a huge endeavor) and to get good exercise and sleep. He takes pretty darn good care of his health for a twelve year old. This Cath and Biospsy goes to show how hard he works.

Eden- With everyone having something kind of huge, being in the middle, and the happy-easy kid, Eden gets overlooked a lot. She isn't in crisis, so I do a terrible job of making her feel special and needed. Eden helps at home, obeys, works hard in school, and never complains, that has to be tiring. But she just keeps going and going.

MayLee- MayLee has done a great job in school and with her health. She takes things in stride and is good at helping with Asher. May has matured a lot this year, and doesn't have as many break downs. This helps us as we learn from mistakes. This little perfectionist is learning to let things go, for herself and her classmates/friends.... She was the kid who told you that purple was not the color of the sun. Now she can see that it is an artist's perspective. That helps a lot in school. Although she will still tell you that, "We are listening now and we can talk later" and "We have a schedule to keep, let's stay on task".

Asher- You would not ever believe that this boy was diagnosed with a heart defect. That he had open heart surgery, that he went on heart and lung bypass, that his stenosis (narrowing) was at 2mm when it should be 10mm. They sent him home after five days and he was off all medications at 10 days. That it took almost physical force to keep him sedentary to give his sternum and body a chance to heal. You wouldn't believe how hard that was. The moment we walked in the door, he jumped from the top of the stairs to the landing, jarring his whole body and crying out because he forgot that such things might cause pain. He doesn't walk anywhere, he runs full speed... in socks... on our hardwood floors.... The next fall/jar came when he slipped on his socks and fell to his knees.... Or the angry child that lives inside him when he is on Beta blockers... Oh man.... I know that those who brought us dinner were surprised that we needed the help, especially since Crash was usually the one opening the door. But to try and go to the grocery store, let alone get him in the car was a full hour fit of rage while he told be that "I hate the store", "I really don't like you", "I want to stay home" (he couldn't stay by himself, although I seriously considered it) ..... We got a flat on the way home from the hospital, AAA saved us. The next day I had to take the car to repair the tire. He asked me the whole time we were at Big O, if we could go home now. It was brutal. After that we came straight home. There would have been no making of food, no shopping, no minutes to contemplate meal choices... Those meals brought in saved my bacon. Whew!!!

Jeff and I have had a few bumps in our health, me with the miscarriage and Jeff sorting out his blood pressure and hurting his back.

But so many other good things happened that we can easily over look the tricky stuff.

Last night the kids tried their hardest to stay up all night. We did puzzles and watched movies. We had yummy food. Ry did a movie (Knives Out) and had friends over. At midnight Jeff had been asleep a couple of hours, I was quietly putting a puzzle together. The big girls and the little kids, went out to ring in the New Year screaming and shouting with the neighbors. It was awesome. Gator stayed up alllllllll night... Ry made it to 3 AM, Eden to maybe 1, Asher and I fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow at 12:45, I think same with May...

This morning Jeff got up and ran 4.3 miles in the New Year Revolution at the Olympic Oval. Then he and I rode our bike on the trainers... We went to lunch with some amazing friends.... Then, Grandma and Grandpa Homer invited us over for a British dinner of, Prime Rib Roast, Yorkshire Pudding, Roasties, and a green salad... Then I was in charge of dessert. We did cake batter in the waffle iron and ice cream and toppings... Soooooo good.

Closing out the first day of the new year with things looking pretty darn great.