Brooklyn is back in phonics

Yesterday was Brooklyn's first day back in phonics. Phonics is a program that Apple Creek offers to their students to get them to learn to read. Last time she was in phonics she concentrated on the upper case letters and now she is getting ready to read. They concentrate on two words a session, they do all kinds of games with those letters and pick out pictures that start with those letters. She started yesterday with A and B. Eventually they will start putting words together. She was very excited and had a lot of fun. They also work on the sounding of each letter as well. Unfortunately, when they got to her she had the hiccups so she couldn't finish that portion of the class. She will have homework each night which is good because this way she will really grasp the understanding of the letters of the alphabet and get her ready for kindergarten.

Logan Having Fun Cooking with Mommy

On Sunday, mommy always makes a dessert for the week. Since Logan was sick and recovering from his seizure and ear infection and strep throat he wanted to have some fun. Logan is always wanting to help out in the kitchen, maybe he will be a chef one day. Who knows. Anyways, I let him help me on Sunday making my famous peanut butter pie. He had so much fun and as you can tell in the pictures he loved eating the pie mix as well. It doesn't matter who is in the kitchen or what we are making, Logan just wants to be in the center of the action and I don't blame him. Being 2 and going on 3, he is a very curious little boy.

A Good Report Card for Brooklyn

Brooklyn is on track to enter Kindergarten in the fall. Scott and I spoke with her teachers on Wednesday to go over her progress and how well she has done since the beginning of the school year. I won't go over everything that was discussed but will give you all a general idea on how well she is doing, what she still needs work on, what she has mastered and what she hasn't done at all.

Brooklyn has mastered quite a bit since the beginning of the school year. Some of the things she has mastered is she can recognize her printed name, her age, states her parents names upon request, repeats a series of 4 numbers, recognizes numerals: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, draws human figures with head, body, arms, legs, fingers, face and feet. She also knows left from right. She can cut in a straight line, hold a pencil correctly, cares for her own clothing such as hanging up her jacket etc, goes to the bathroom and washes her hands.

Here are a few things that she has not quite accomplished yet but will by the time school is done: knows her phone number, her address, can name an object for each letter of the alphabet, and can tie her shoes on her own.

There are many things that she is still progressing on but doing well for her age. I am not going to mention everything but here are a few things that she is progressing on: counts to 20 or more, can draw recognizable shapes, recognizes all capital letters (the only one she has problems with is "U"), recognizes lowercase letters ( the ones we are still working on are h,y,a,i,c,g), recognizes sounds for each letter, speaks clearly enough, follows directions, plays cooperatively, helps and participates in general classroom clean-up, sings, being persistent, stands up for her own rights, and pays attention during instruction time.

Both of her teachers were quite pleased of her progress and how well she has come since the beginning of the school year. Brooklyn is very eager to learn and I think she will do quite well next year. Both teachers say she is well liked by all of her classmates and she plays with all of her classmates as well. Mommy and daddy were real pleased with out the conference went and can't wait to see how things progress for the rest of the year.

A Scare with Logan

Last night after eating dinner, mommy ran to grandma and grandpa's to drop something off. As I was coming home, Scott called me and asked me where I was and I told him Preston and Eldorado light. He told me that get home ASAP because Logan went into a seizure. I never drove so fast in my life to get home. As I was driving up the driveway I would here the sirens coming to our house. Walking in the door to see my child lying on the floor is one sight I would like to forget. Its the worse nightmare a parent can ever go through. The paramedics came and Mommy and Logan took the ambulance to the emergency room. At first, we went to Children's but come to find out that they didn't take our insurance so we went to Presby Plano. They got us in immediately and put us in the crash room. Not a good sight for a little kid to see. The outcome came from spiking a high fever. The cause of the seizure is caused by how fast the fever rises. He came back negative for flu and had a clear chest x-ray. Today we followed up with our pediatrician and Dr. Messner told me that Logan has a double ear infection and has strep throat. In the mist of all of this, Madison ends up having a double ear infection as well. Both kids are on antibiotics and lots of fluids. The past 24 hours has been crazy. Of course, mommy didn't sleep much last night because I was afraid that Logan would go back into a seizure and if you are not in front of them then you would never know that he had one. These types of seizures, kids grow out of them and they are not in the same category as having epilespy. I hope that I never have to call 911 on any of my kids ever again. Poor daddy has seen mommy have a seizure and now his son Logan. Everyone is resting comfortably at home so it will be a quiet weekend.

Everyone else is doing okay. We had our parent-teacher conference with Brooklyn's teacher on Wednesday so this weekend I will update everyone on her progress.

Have a great weekend.

Having Fun

Brooklyn has been out of school since last Thursday. Poor child was in school 4 days, had an ice day and then the following week was in school for another 4 days and then off a week. She doesn't understand holidays just yet but I promise she will thank me later on in life when school becomes more and more demanding. We registered her for phonics. She took the first round before the holidays and now is in the reading part of phonics. She can't wait to get started. We register Logan February 1st for him to start school in the fall. We are going to put him in a 2 day program to get him started and then work our way up to the 5 days. Right now Logan is very clingy to mommy and doesn't like to be left alone with people he doesn't know.

I have attached some pictures from last night. I fed the kids some chocolate for dessert and I gave them too much because they were off the walls and driving mommy crazy on how hyper they were. Regardless , they had fun with everyone while mommy was watching the Bachelor. Even daddy got involved with their craziness. Enjoy the pictures.

A quiet weekend

This weekand was a very quiet one to say the least. On Friday, we celebrated daddy's 33rd birthday. Brooklyn and Logan made him a cake and home made cards. He loved all of it. Daddy doesn't really like to celebrate his birthday or even make big deals about it but its always the thought that counts. The kids had fun making and frosting the cake.

We are really working hard on potty training Logan. This weekend he had a couple of accidents but for the most part he is doing very well wearing big boys underware. He even went #2 in the toilet which shocked me but keep up the good work.

Also, Madison is saying a couple new words and phrases. She knows how to say bye but her saying is "Bah" with a southern accent. Its very cute. Also, she loves to help empty the dishwasher with daddy and she will say "here ya go." She is really catching on and understands you when you talk to her. She knows when she has done something bad because she will hide her head or cry but if you tell her to stop or come here she does it on first try most of the times.

Other than that, nothing else exciting happened in the Booth household this weekend.

Another day in the Booth Family

I thought today that I would go back to Christsmas day. Brooklyn was so happy that it snowed and all she wanted to do was play in the snow. Well, Christmas morning we were suppose to go over to my parents house to open gifts and have brunch but because of the treacherous roads we were unable to do that so we had our Christmas as a family and after breakfast we went outside and played in the snow. It was great and the kids had a blast. Madison was sleeping through all of this so you won't see her in any of these pictures. Brooklyn, logan and daddy had fun making a snowman and having snowball fights. Also, Brooklyn made snow angels. I am not quite sure where she learned about the snow angels but she knew exactly what to do. Enjoy these pictures of them in the snow.

Our Dog Lilly

We found out that our sweet heart Lilly has a tumor on her neck. The preliminary results show a thyroid tumor but we are not a 100% sure. Our vet Dr. Bobo wants to refer us to a specialist to have it biopsied to find out what kind of tumor it is. The sad thing is we took Lilly in for her skin allergies and then he finds this mass on her neck. Because Lilly is over weight you can't tell that she even has this tumor. The place that Dr. Bobo wants us to go to was kind enough to tell me that most of the times these tumors are cancerous. We just lost Guy not even 7 months ago and now we are faced with another medical issue with Lilly. We love our animals just like they are one of our own kids and I dont' know what I would do if I lost another animal. Right now we are weighing the pros and cons and see what the best solution is. Fortunately, the cost is right up there with the decision process and if we did biopsy the tumor and found out it was cancerous then your are faced with what to do next. I will keep everyone posted on her condition. Right now she doesn't show any signs of being sick, in fact she shows opposite signs. She is eating just fine and definately not losing any weight. We will make the decision as a family and go from there. Its just not a decision I thought I would have to make any time soon.

First real weak of January

Brooklyn was so glad to get back into school and so was mommy. She has been asking for awhile when she could go back. When Monday came, she was up ready to go. Not mommy, it will take awhile to get things back into the same routine. I think Logan was upset that Brooklyn was gone but he found ways to to keep him occupied. His new thing is wearing daddy's slippers. He loves slippers and doesn't have any of his owns so he goes and gets anyones he can't I have a cute picture that I will post for everyone to see how darling he looks.

Happy New Year-2010

First and foremost, I hope everyone had a great Christmas and brought 2010 in with a bang. We had a great Christmas and as for New Year's, everyone in our household except mommy was sick and was in bed well before midnight. I said "Happy New Year" to myself and went to bed. Its a New Year's Eve that I would not like to remember at all.

I am also not going to try and tell you everything in one entry from the last time that I wrote last. One of my new years resolution's is to write in my blog everyday and if not everyday then every other day depending on the amount of time I have and if anything really exciting happened where you all have to know immediately.

Lets go back to the week before Christmas. I had surgery on December 17th for my sinuses. I had sinus surgery two years ago on my left sinus and for the last two years. My sinuses never gave me any problems. It wasn't until the last 5 months or so I started to get constant sinus infections and none of the antibiotics or medicinces they were giving me were working. I had a cat scan done of my sinuses and sure enough I had four blockages of my sinuse cavities. The first surgery, I only had my left side done but this time I had blockages on both cavities. My original ENT didn't think I was a surgery candidate, I didn't believe him and pushed for the surgery but instead he referred me to one of his buddies Dr. Sam Anthony in Rowleett. I have to say he was a great doctor and I will continue to see him from now on. The surgery took over an hour but was able to open up the cavities even more so hopefully this won't happen again. He did tell my dad I had a lot of scar tissue from my previous surgery that also caused some of my problems and later down the road we found out that I had staph growing in there as well. Not a pretty site but I am on the right road to recovery.

The following Monday, I had had wrist surgery on my left wrist. I had torn cartilage and a gangolian cysts on my wrist. This was caused by numerous falls throughout the years. I finally got up the nerve and did something about the pain and in the end was well another surgery for Jennifer. I started 2009 having surgery and I ended 2009 having surgeries. My first new years resolution is to stay out of the hospitals and operating rooms. I was in a splint for Christmas but overall it really wasn't that painful and I am glad I did the surgery. I saw my doctor on Monday and was released already so that makes me a happy patient. I have one incision on top of my wrist but in 6 months or so you won't be able to see anything.

Today was Brooklyn's first day back to dance class. She was so excited to go back because they are now going to start practicing for their recitial in June. She loves dance a lot and I think its an activity we will keep her in for awhile. She loves her teacher and of course her BFF Campbell is in her class as well. After class, our regular routine is to take the girls to the mall and eat lunch and then play in the play area. During the holidays we did a lot of shopping so now everything has slowed down and we are back to playing.

Each day I will catch everyone up. Tomorrow I will write on Christsmas eve and show some of those pictures. Eventually I will be caught up so I only have to write on that days events.