Mind-Boggling Behavior

One of my pet peeves is dealing with incompetent people. Working in a law office, I unfortunately have to deal with them on a regular basis, whether it be at the state level, or just other professional offices. I have neither the patience nor tolerance for them. And they just drive me crazy (and NOT in a good way).

The latest episode of this I have had to deal with was at Kent's school. His teacher has been gone the last 3 days, and they've had a sub. I believe most of you know that Kent uses his wheelchair at school. We push him to school in it, Kelsey pushes him home, and if they have to go to the portables, or there's an assembly or something, his friends will push him around school. He still tries to walk as much as he can, though. Apparently, he was trying to get out of his chair yesterday, and fell. The sub just looked at him and told him to get up. HELLO!!!!! He told her he couldn't, and she REFUSED to help him!! She made one of the kids help him up, and did absolutely NOTHING! And come to find out, the day prior to that, she had been watching the kids as they were outside for recess, and saw Kent fall, but again, did NOTHING and watched the other kids helping him up. When I told his teacher this morning what had happened, he was astonished. He said he had instructions about Kent in his lesson plan, and couldn't believe she had done that. I then proceeded to the principal's office, and filled out a formal complaint which she said she would file with the district today, and she told me she will never have her back at the school again. I would think not! I'm sorry, but this behavior is just unacceptable, and it truly is mind-boggling. The principal said to me, "How can a person behave like that?" My thoughts exactly. And for you educators out there, we have a 504 plan in place, so the school, and the district, are legally bound by that, and if I really wanted to, I could sue over this (which, of course, I won't). I'm satisfied knowing she'll never be back at the school.

Needless to say, it hasn't been a good morning, and I'm still a little ANGRY (can you tell?!) about the whole thing. So forgive my ranting, but I just had to get that out!

Trip to Denver

This last weekend, I was fortunate enough to be able to fly to Denver for the sealing of my sister, Amy, to her husband, Greg, and to their beautiful 8-month old daughter, Emma! What an experience! My dad was also able to be there. I don't think there are words that can explain the experience. It was just amazing. Thank you, Amy (and Greg!) for letting me be a part of it!

Here are some pictures:

Holidays

As most of you know, I recently got a digital camera, thus the start of my blog. However, I just barely took in my last 2 rolls of film from my "regular" camera to be developed, and the pictures ranged from Halloween to early January! I thought I'd share some of my favorites with you (and I apologize to family who have already seen variations of some of these!).

Here is Kelsey and her friend, Michelle, on Halloween. They decided to wear their "Aladdin" costumes (from the school play last year), and just made some cute hats to go with!

These next ones are from Thanksgiving. I believe most of you know that I had my entire family stay with me for the week of Thanksgiving (26 people!), which actually was very very fun! Here is Kelsey with my sister, Amy:
Here are 2 of my very cute nieces, Laura (on the left) and Hayley:
Since I rarely post pictures of myself, here is one of me and Victor:
Here is my darling niece, Emma:
Here are all the little girls in pink (L to R, sisters Hayley, Courtney and Hannah; Emma (being held by Hannah); sisters Katie and Laura):

Here is the gang before heading out to the BYU-Utah game. (L to R: bro-in-law Will, with his son, Ethan; Victor; my nephew, McKay; my dad; Kelsey; my brother, Tim; bro-in-law Brian (McKay's dad) and bro-in-law Greg):

Here are some of my favorite little people, Drew (taken at the annual Christmas party we have with our friends) and Emery (taken on Christmas Day, playing with her new kitchen, after having played in the snow all morning, thus the rosy cheeks):Here is Kelsey and Victor on Christmas Eve, singing karaoke to Queen, I believe:
Here are Kent and Kelsey with their cousin, Maya, on Christmas Eve:
Here are Kent and Kelsey on Christmas morning:
Here is Kelsey playing Guitar Hero (a post-Christmas purchase):
And finally, here is a picture of Kelsey with her friends, Jessica, Katelyn and Grace, at Victor's birthday party (early January):
Cute girls! (And, sadly, they are all taller than I am!)

Birthdays

In the last couple weeks, I've been able to attend the birthday parties of some of my favorite little people (see prior post). Two weeks ago, my niece, Camila, celebrated her 3rd birthday at one of those bounce-off-the-walls places. Here is Kelsey (with one of the big slides behind her):

Here is the birthday girl!
Here is Kelsey with some of our friends that came with us, Grace and Leeza:
Here is Kent. He couldn't do much of the activities, so we played a lot of air hockey:
Afterwards, we went back to my sister-in-law's house, and Kent was rocking out on their drum set!

Then, this last weekend, we had the 1st birthday celebration of Paige, my friend, Natalie's, daughter. Here she is!
Here she is, eating her birthday cake!And I love this one -- eating with a little help from her friends, Anthony, Drew (her brother) and Emery:

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

I love this play! It is so much fun. Kelsey's school just did this production last week (March 12 to 15), and although she was a "techie" this year, they did a pretty fabulous job! Then, last night, our family went to the Center Street Musical Theatre's production of it, which was amazing! It runs through Saturday, so if any of you have an "itch" to see it, please go! It's so fun! (Here's their website: www.csmtc.com.)

Anyway, here are some pictures from Kelsey's school play. A group of her friends participated, both as techies and in the play, so I tried to get pictures of everybody.

Here is Joseph showing off his coat:


Here is the Pharoah, aka Elvis:


Here are some pictures of Alex, as Simeon. He is in our ward, and did a fabulous job!

And this is Brittany, one of Kelsey's friends from our ward in Provo. They grew up together since they were toddlers, and they moved to Spanish Fork a few months before we did. She was a dancer in the play. In this picture, she has the basket on her head, and they were "interpreting" one of Pharoah's dreams.

This is Joseph's coat at the end, when they hold it out (and I thought this picture turned out pretty good!):
And finally, here is the "gang" afterwards: Kelsey, Alex, Jessica, Katelyn and David. They all did a fantastic job!

Just a quick tidbit. One of the local elementary schools came to see the play last week, and I guess one of the girls watching the play (I don't know how old she was, probably between 7 and 10) , when Pharoah came out as Elvis, said "That's not in the scriptures!" :) And she continued to make comments throughout the play as to whether or not it was in the scriptures. Kids are so funny sometimes!

August Rush

Just a quick plug for a very good movie that came out on DVD this week. If you haven't seen it, you should! Our entire family just LOVED it, and Kelsey said it was one of the best movies she's ever seen! I agree!

Jenny Oaks Baker Part 2

Okay, I'm sure there is an easier way to do this, but I'm not that computer-savvy.

If you go to this link:

http://www.esnips.com/web/hermanaorosStuff

and either click on "Star of Bethlehem" under "Posts" or under "Files", you should be able to hear this song! I couldn't figure out to actually post it here (sorry), so if you have a couple free minutes, go and listen!! It's absolutely beautiful!!

Happy Friday!!

Jenny Oaks Baker

I first heard of Jenny Oaks Baker in October of last year when I attended a "Time Out for Women" in Denver with my mom, sisters and sister-in-law (which was in itself an incredible experience -- I highly recommend it to everyone). She is absolutely phenomenal. She is a very accomplished violinist, and I won't list all her credentials here or anything, but needless to say, after hearing her play a couple songs, I had to buy her CDs. She's just incredible. Then in December of last year, she came to Provo to play with the Utah Valley Symphony, and I was able to take Kelsey and one of her friends, Megan. Kelsey had been listening to the CDs I bought, but after seeing her, told me it sounded better in person. And it does. She's just amazing! Anyway, if you have a chance to listen to her CDs, please do; and if you're ever able to see her in person, jump at it, because you will love it. Even if you don't love "classical" music, you will love her. I have a link to her website in my "favorite websites" section.

My favorite song is on her Christmas CD ("O Holy Night") and is "Star of Bethlehem" from "Ben Hur" (one of my favorite movies of all time). LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!! [Editor's Note: I've been trying to figure out how to upload this song so you can all hear it, but I'm still working on it. Hopefully in a few days I'll have it figured out!]

Girl Scout Cookies

I don't know about the rest of you, but I just LOVE Girl Scout Cookies!! And it's that time of year, again! For those of you in Utah, here's the link to see where they will be selling them near you:

http://www.gsutah.org/programs/booth_locations.php

YUMMY!

Memory Lane

A couple weeks ago, I had to look through some old pictures to find something, and came across some beautiful pictures of my adorable children. It's amazing to think that this really wasn't so long ago, and how fast they are growing up. It's truly a remarkable phenomenon, that of being a parent and watching a child grow up. I used to roll my eyes a lot when my dad would make comments to me like, "I can't believe you're 16 already," but you know what? He was right. I cannot believe that my daughter is taller than I am, and that my baby is 10 years old. Absolutely unreal. Here are some pictures of my trip down memory lane. I hope you enjoy them!

These are from my sister-in-law's wedding, October 1999:


These are from Halloween, 1999:

And these last ones are from Halloween, 2001 (the BEST Halloween costume we've ever had!):

Twilight

As most of you know, I am an absolute die-hard fan of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books: Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse. The fourth and final book, Breaking Dawn, will be published August 2nd. If you haven't read them, you need to! Just be sure you have access to all 3 of them when you start, because once you start, you won't be able to finish until you've read all 3! Hands down, they are the best books I've ever read, and I love them!!! If you have read them, you need to check out this website, which a friend sent me today. So funny!!

http://mormonhusbands.blogspot.com/2008/02/twilight-series-for-dummies-and-totally.html

Some of my favorite little people

I am blessed to have many friends who also have adorable children! I so enjoy spending time with them and watching them grow. I'd like to share with you some pictures of some of them (sorry that I don't have everybody!!)

My adorable niece, Emma (7 months, age in picture: 4 months)
Emery Moser (age 2 1/2)

Paige Henderson (11 months)My niece, Camila (age 3), with her mom, Flor (my sister-in-law)
My niece, Maya (age 6)
Dominique Miranda (age 9), with Kent
Ethan Moser (age 6), with Kent and his brother, Eldon (age 9)Hannah (age 6) and Vivian (age 9) Ruiz, with Kelsey

Drew Henderson (age 2 1/2)
Anthony Sepulveda (age 3, age in picture: 2)And my own adorable Kent and Kelsey (ages in picture: Kent, 4; Kel, 7 1/2)

"....and a little child shall lead them." (2 Nephi 30:12)