PREVIEW OF BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!

What a fun play!  We were lucky to have FOUR actors/actresses to watch so the whole play was entertaining for us.  Anna was "Cogsworth" (the CLOCK!) , Joshua was "LeFou" (the FOOL!) - Gaston's side-kick, Claire was a "Villager" (whom I might add LOVED to drink her beer!) and Eliza was a dancing fool, I mean a dancing FORK!

Not sure where our villager is in this picture :)

Our villager spotted doing what she did best!

Cogsworth trying to get control  of those out of control dishes!




LeFou looking HORRIFIED!  (next to his best b uddy Shane in red)





Various reactions by the spectators......lol

Some were more into the play than others......

More to come!  Our friend Jim came and videotaped the final night for us as well as loaned us his awesome camera to take stills with so we are excited to see those.  This was just to "whet your appetite" haha :)  The kids did such a great job and it is such a relief that it is over.  At the same time I wish I could go watch it ONE more time.  Loved it.

American Idol Here We COME!

The song you'll hear playing is an Elvis song that somebody emailed me a while back. I played it for the kids one day and now they play it over and over. For the longest time Anna was singing "Wonder Hands" - I finally told her it was "One Pair of Hands", but she refused to believe me until she saw it in writing on the video.

Brett HATES it when they start playing the song - mostly because they never play it just once. That comes in a close second to when the "Saturday's Warrior" CD comes on. However, I love it - it still can bring a tear to my eye! Anna said that she would probably sing a song from "Saturday's Warriors" to try out for American Idol. Great idea Anna! Perhaps another good choice would be, "Doe a Deer".

In this video clip special attention to Josh's part at around :40 seconds :)

Hearing, Milk and Joshua

(This is an old draft that I just found, while editing another post, from almost a year ago. )

MILK!!

About a two years ago Joshua was scheduled for minor surgery (tubes in ear). He had lost a major part of his hearing. The problem was that it wasn't constant. The doctors didn't have any other ideas. He would go days hearing well and then go more days hardly hearing at all. (Which is a surprise as we are not a quiet household!) For some reason I just felt really uneasy about doing the tubes. I realized that it was not major surgery and it would be done very quickly, but I just got this "pit" in my stomach thinking about it.

I talked to my dad about this who suggested I try taking him off milk, and give him his cod liver oil more regularly. He explained that you can take care of the symptom (loss of hearing) with surgery, but if there is an allergy it will eventually exhibit itself in another way down the road - whether it is headaches, stomach problems, even diabetes etc. What was important was finding the cause and eliminating or treating it.

Reluctantly (only because it is hard enough feeding our family with foods that everyone likes and milk was a part of our diet) I did this, half-heartedly. We then took him in to be tested again. His hearing had improved, but not to the standard that we wanted it to be. Then he got a cold and his hearing got even worse. So we scheduled the surgery. We had 2 or 3 weeks to go.


We decided to give it one more chance so we took him completely off milk, gave him his cod liver oil and Vit E daily, also some A/D. We had him tested the day before surgery and the dr couldn't believe it. She asked us what we had been doing and said "Keep doing it!" The hearing in his right ear had come back in full and the left was on it's way. We already knew it had gotten better just in our talking with Josh (and him responding!) but we didn't realize how much better he was. So, we cancelled the surgery :) I'm so happy we waited on the surgery because had the tubes cleared up his hearing we probably would have just been done with it and not worried about what was causing it. The dr did say that there was no infection and no damage was being done currently. I wanted to see if we could get to the root of the problem first - find the cause, and not just treat the symptom.

In the place of cow milk we had been buying Rice milk for Joshua. Rice milk is a little pricey, but it was worth it to have him hearing again. Then, like I said above, we started buying raw milk. Raw milk goes for $5.50 per half gallon - so pretty much the price of gold. I really wanted the raw milk for all of it's health benefits (See below.) Then I recently scrutinized more carefully the rice milk ingredients and realized that yes, it was better than soy milk (think hormone imbalance and overload) and better for at least Josh in some ways, but it also had canola oil, natural sweeteners (do we really need added sugar and oils in our milk?!) No wonder I was enjoying my cup a day as well :)

I decided to let Josh try the raw milk and see if it plugged up his ears again. It didn't. I was thrilled (think only having to buy one kind of milk now :). Mostly I was happy because I didn't want him to miss out on all of the health benefits that raw milk provides. Drinking pasteurized milk has no benefits. Everything is cooked out and then artificially added back. Your body doesn't need sythetic Vit A. In fact, it has been shown that putting sythetic vit A in your body actually decreases the amount of vitamin A that your body would have naturally produced on it's own.

I know there are a lot of people out there who will tell you that raw milk is dangerous, but if you look at the statistics, you are more likely to have long term problems from the over-the-counter drugs that are "acceptable" (think Tylenol, vaccines, statins, anti-biotics). The problems (people getting sick from it) with milk came when it got "industrialized" too quickly. The FDA (not that this should give you a lot of confidence) has stringent requirements on the raw milk dairy farmers and if a dairy is clean and the cows are allowed to live as nature intended you will only reap the benefits of milk the way God intended it to be for us. Also, raw milk dairies have to have extremely sanitary conditions as nothing will be "cooked" for safety.

And here he is - happy and doing great in 1st grade. His teacher says she has never noticed any problems with Joshua's hearing.

As of a few months ago we have joined a co-op to get raw milk here in Livermore. I have to order the milk online by Thursday and then I pick it up Monday morning at the co-op organizer's home. I don't always remember in time and then I have to buy regular milk. The milk comes from Fresno (near Allan and Buffy's new home) about 3-4 hours away. Not too long ago raw milk was "outlawed" here in California thanks to the lovely intervention of the government. (read Ezra Taft Benson's "Proper Role of Government" and the Constitution for more insight :) but it isn't "contraband" anymore.

Update: we didn't really stick with buying the raw milk for the above reasons - price, inconvenience and now as I write - it is up to $6 per half gallon. I'm going to start up again, maybe just 1 half gallon a week just so the kids can get those good minerals. (However, each child will only be allowed one Tablespoon per day! haha - well, not totally kidding!) My dad was telling me that his knee that gives him pain is 90% pain free after starting up again on raw milk. It is hard to find a convenient place to buy it. Growing up, in SLC it was a bit of a drive to get it, but then in Oregon for a while we could buy it at a nearby grocery store. Now, you can't do that anymore, but my dad recently found a small dairy farm to buy it from. He said that Ali loves to go with him and see the goats etc. How fun.

Some more fun reading if you are interested:


Abstracts on the Effect of Pasteurization on the Nutritional Value of Milk http://www.realmilk.com/abstractsmilk.html

More about Raw Milk http://www.realmilk.com/moreraw.html

Raw Milk vs. Pasteurized http://www.realmilk.com/rawvpasteur.html

Milk, It Does A Body Good? http://westonaprice.org/transition/dairy.html

Is Raw Milk Safe For Babies? http://ww.westonaprice.org/children/rawmilk.html

Another more "newsy" article:
http://americasfuture.org/doublethink/2008/08/some-like-it-raw/

Swim Team

Well, we are happy to report that Anna and Josh are having a great time with swim team. It turns out that I worried needlessly (what???!!) about them having a good experience at their first meet. Their coaches signed up Josh for 5 races and Anna for 4. The most you could have was 5 and they both were wishing they had more. We can't believe how much they have improved. In just a short time they've gone from not being able to swim the length of the pool period (let alone any sort of swim stroke) to swimming the length many times with at least an imitation of the 4 strokes: freestyle, butterfly, breast stroke, or back stroke. Both of them like back stroke the best because "they can breathe". Don't blame them.

The best part about this is that they love it. Not once have they not wanted to go to practice or the meets. The coaches are really, really nice too.

The coaches have started to let Josh practice with the 7-8 year olds instead of right after. I didn't know about this until Anna and Josh told me about it. I think the coaches noticed that it was a long 2 hours for mom chasing the little ones while waiting for both practices to be over. Very nice of them! On some days Anna and Josh just ride their bikes over and Josh watches Anna practice and then Anna watches Josh practice. (So that was great of them to condense it for us!)

Every Friday night before the meet they have a team meeting and the kids get certificates for improving their times and medals for being the "Swimmer of the Meet" or the "Swimmer of the Week". Anna already earned a medal "Swimmer of the Week" for they way she helped Josh out when he did his work out with her age group. They said she was very caring to her brother which makes us so darn proud of her!
They get a ribbon for every race they swim in - how about that!?!! What kid wouldn't love that! We have a lot of white (3rd), green (4th), and mostly pink (6th)ribbons so far.

Here are some clips of them doing the butterfly. Something I never could even start to do. We are so proud of them. I remember seeing Amy doing the butterfly beautifully in either Becky's pool or at Heritage Pool last summer. One day maybe they will look more like that!

Mohawk

One day Josh told me that he wanted a Mohawk so his hair would look like Ernesto's (classmate). So knowing what Ernesto's hair looked like I explained it wasn't a mohawk, but it was just combed up and back. I proceeded to help my son with his hairstyle preference and tried not to laugh. He went to school with a smile on his face because he really liked the way he looked. I wanted so bad to follow him into his classroom just to see his classmates expressions.

When I picked him up from school his hair was smashed flat. I asked him why he flattened his hair. He said that kids were laughing at him. He said the girls in his class said, "Josh!" (like in surprised voices) and then showed me how his friends smiled at him. I was laughing so much by the time he was done telling me about it.

One might think his mother should not have subjected him to this, but I think he came out okay. His classmates like him and he really did like the way he looked when he left for school!

To Push or Not To Push

Question for all you out there who have ever been a kid or a parent! It is time to sign up Anna and Joshua for the swim meet. You sign them up individiually for competing in the four races for their age group. (freestyle,breast,butterfly,back).

My question is regarding Joshua. For those of you who know him - he does not eagerly embrace new things. He wants to, but it is hard for him. He likes to watch and watch and then watch some more. However, when he does enter in, he puts his whole heart in it. For example, he really wanted to learn how to do the monkey bars and he would try and try every time we went to the park and when he finally crossed the whole way that was all he could talk about for weeks.

We had a "practice" swim meet the other day and it was the first time that Josh had ever swam the length of the pool without stopping and he was SO tired. He did this three times. After the 2nd race he was in tears and had a side ache, I tried to comfort him, but at the same time downplay it and got him to race again with the promise of a popsicle when we got home. He came in very last on the breaststroke, but at least he didn't give up.

He seemed fine after it was all over, but he was obviously not enjoying the process. I guess what I am wondering is how much do you push? Should I sign him up for all four races so he doesn't think he "can't" do more? So he knows he can do it? Or do I just sign him up for his 2 favorite strokes and let him work up to doing all the races?

Before you answer - really try to think of what you know of Joshua. If you don't know him, I'd love to hear any experiences you've had as a kid or as a parent in this kind of situation.