We had a wonderful Christmas Break. After spending Christmas Day at home playing with new toys and the new XBox, we went to Dan and Brandee's along with Andy and Beth for a dinner and gift exchange. It was casual and low-key and nice. That next week the kids played in the snow a lot. We went sledding down at The Pit, played in the snow in our yard. Went ice-skating one day at The Peaks ice arena, and on New Year's Eve I was determined to go snow shoeing and so at 3 in the afternoon I kicked out all the neighborhood kids that were here playing and made my family go up AF canyon to Tibble Fork. Eric was so mad about me making his friends leave and stop playing the XBox that he would not get out of the car. Since we only had an hour anyway I didn't fight him and let him sit in the car and freeze. Scott towed the Chariot along but Samuel refused to sit in it. Instead he wanted to hike and have an adventure with me. He is so great! He made it really fun. But of course Scott got ahead of us on the way back and the only way I could get Samuel to turn around was to carry him all the way back. Yipee :(. That evening we went to Dan and Brandee's again, Andy and Beth joined. We had dinner and played some games while the kids played too. We also joined the kids on the XBox to play Just Dance and Rock Band. Of course that was hilarious.
Eric's birthday then came up. He turned 9!! Wow! Last year with Scott being unemployed he did not get much of a party, oh well, I guess that the party was the baptism celebration. But this year he wanted to have a party at Jump On It. We let him invite 9 friends. He invited some from the ward Brock, McKade, and Logan Fox who was here visiting, some from school Tyson and Owen, and some other friends Reid, Max, and Noah, and then Sam and Rubie. They got to jump and play for 2 hours and then we had a table where we had pizza and birthday cake. It was super fun for all the kids and a great party. On New Year's Day mom and dad came down to go to lunch with us at Chuck A Rama and gave Eric a nice birthday gift of Star Wars Legos. One set was not even supposed to be out on the shelf yet, but someone shelved it and mom got it. He got lots of fun stuff from his friends. We gave him a music stand that he has been wanting and a wall hook to hang his guitar on.
A bit about Eric:
I am so impressed and proud of the young man that Eric is. He works hard at doing well in school and at making right choices. He is liked by all his classmates and friends. On a poster that his classmates signed they all wrote that Eric is their best friend, he makes them laugh, he is nice. It makes me happy that he cares about being kind and being a good friend to all. He has lots of lost teeth right now and has a cute Jack o' Lantern smile. He cares about doing well in school. He wakes up each school day and practices his guitar before school. I am happy with the progress that he is making. He works hard at karate and really wants to join the Black Belt/leadership program. We will get him into that either this summer or next school year. He loves cub scouts and it is a highlight of his week. Since he turned 9 and joined the Bears Den, they meet with the Den in the 8th ward for now since there is just he and McKade Wallace in the Den. I actually wish they would keep meeting with the 8th ward. It's nice for him to get to know those boys also. There is a lot of kids in the 8th ward that could be great playmates for him. They all just live a couple streets up from us but we don't know them because we don't go to Grovecrest. Eric is obedient and does what he is asked and sometimes without even being asked. He likes to keep his room picked up and will help pick up in the rest of the house sometimes. His friends are super important to him and he loves having time to spend with them. That motivates him to get his work done so he has time to be with his friends. He is a good brother and has shown some real patience with Sam. Sam really looks up to Eric and wants to be like him. The other morning when we dropped the kids off at school Samuel with no prompting from me said, "Eric is really cool guy. I want to be a guy like Eric." I was so proud of both of my boys at that moment. He and Rubie still have their tense moments but they can also be good playmates and they and their friends will often play together. Eric does like to tease Rubie and she can be mean to him. But they are friends. He did have a bit of a hard time the first few days of school. Mrs. DeSoto passed away over the break. Their new teacher is Rachelle Glines. She has been the 3rd grade aide this year so the kids know her. She is fantastic! But that was still emotional. Then with scouts changing to meet with the 8th ward, they meet on Wednesday instead of Tuesday, so we had to make some changes with karate and scouts. The schedule change was a little hard on him at first, but then after going to the Tuesday karate class, and the scout Den he was happy. It has affected Brock as Eric is not in the scout Den or karate class on Wednesday. But we are ok now.
I took Eric to Mrs. DeSoto's funeral/memorial service on Saturday. It was a super nice service. So much was shared about Penny DeSoto. She was an amazing woman and I'm very pleased that we got to have her as Eric's teacher even if so briefly.
We are really happy with Mrs. Glines. She actually suits Eric's learning style better than Mrs. DeSoto. She has not actually ever taught a class but has been an aide and actually has implemented so many good practices and procedures. I was a little worried that some things might fall through the cracks like the math learning or something. But not so! She is actually insisting on the kids memorizing their math facts even more than Mrs. DeSoto did and Eric is super motivated. We implemented a flashcard practice with earning a penny for correct answers at first glance. Something Mrs. Glines husband did with her sons. It is working. Eric has a lot of work to do, thus I have work to do too to help him.
Eric's class had a field trip last week to the Peaks Ice Arena. I went along and we had so much fun. They read the book Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. After ice-skating back at the school they had hot chocolate and Dutch Waffles. This was as a celebration for the book. When we went ice skating during the Christmas Break the ice arena was SUPER crowded. It was hard to get around the ice and there was a huge wait list for the walkers. So I supported Sam in my arms trying to get him to skate around the ice. It was really hard work. This time it was just the 3rd grades from AHS. I really enjoyed it. I skated a lot with Eric and even took turns with some of his friends. The kids were good to share around the walkers with those that wanted or needed them. Eric actually found it easier to skate without one.
Eric and Rubie were off school today and then Monday also for Human Rights/Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Rubie is at Brooklyn Sivert's birthday party at Classic Skating right now, and has a birthday party to attend tomorrow too for Abbie Olsen in our ward.
Sunset
6 years ago
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