Curtis's Birthday

I was informed by Alice's teacher at her parent teacher conference (before Thanksgiving) that she would be receiving the wise award at the assembly on December 1st. She's been doing very well in school this year and helping others as well. Each grade level has a certain number of kids who get awards and then they have a drawing for one of the winners to get a stuffed owl because that is their mascot. Alice was the lucky winner in 1st grade this time!

Garrett has been going to cardiac rehab in November to see if everything is working okay while he exercises because he has been really tired. They attach monitors to him while he exercises. The people there are not used to someone who has a diagnosis and to have someone there so young either. Usually people are there who have had heart attacks or something like that. Garrett's oxygen saturation levels are lower than normal people but that is normal for him. They kept worrying when his oxygen got under 90%. His normal levels are anywhere from 88%-94%. They eventually stopped worrying about it though. He was going two days a week but we found out that after insurance we'd still be paying around $55 for each visit. Since all of his vitals looked good during November we decided that he didn't need to continue going anymore. He was basically just going to exercise and we could do that at home or a gym. Now if we could actually get him to exercise then maybe he would get more energy. Most people do the rehab for 3 months but we only ended up doing 1 month. I'm glad those days are freed up now though and that I don't have to travel to Richland and back twice a week. 

I love the days when we play a game together as a whole family. It doesn't happen as often as I would like, but it did happen again. We like playing Skyjo. It's easy enough that everyone knows how to play it, even Alice.

Charlotte and I helped Sister Gale make some more origami stars for the ward Christmas party. She had to teach me how to do it first since I didn't see when she taught my mother-in-law. They were fun to make. She had other girls helping to make stars as well.

We celebrated Curtis's birthday on the 5th last Tuesday. He had said he wanted to celebrate his birthday with Alice but I told him since she's having a friend party this year that he would need to open his presents on his actual birthday. Plus, Jack had picked out a gift for him that he really wanted him to open on his birthday. Curtis and I had gone out to eat the weekend before to Red Robin, where we discovered they make cauliflower pizza crust. Since we're on diets he wanted to try it because he's doing no breads. The pizza was a meat lovers flavor and it was SO good! Cauliflower crust pizza for the win. We will definitely be ordering that one again!

Alice made her dad a birthday card.

His birthday snack this year is Diet Dr. Pepper. He wants the caffeine without the sugar.

His gifts: Diet Dr. Pepper, The Lord of the Rings/Hobbit extended edition, tie, and nail kit. He needed some new nail trimmers and I found a set while shopping for other things.

This is what Jack picked out. We know what we'll be doing during Christmas break.

These two love each other.

Alice loves Milo.

Milo loves to sit on the stairs. He's so cute!