Douglas Family: March 2013

This is the month of Taylor! Not only did Tay Tay turn 4, she broke her arm!

Here she is celebrating with her class, we made cupcakes with princess rings on top (and super hero rings for the boys, naturally).

This was just the first of 3 scheduled celebrations—I guess I was feeling guilty that she has never really had a party—and Jackson has blowouts every year.

Next we celebrated with her church playgroup, but before we could get to the gymnastics party, she flipped over a ball in our cul-de-sac, fell on her elbow and screamed, “I broke my arm!!!”

And right she was. We ended up having to spend 2 nights at the hospital—the first so she could have surgery, the 2nd because she developed a fever. But the staff LOVED her. She continually cracked them up, as soon as anyone walked in the room, she would announce “I broke my arm. I fell on an oversized ball. I’m 4. I just went to Disney World, and you didn’t.” Seriously, I wish I would have recorded it—same thing every time.

Poor thing was in a lot of pain—and couldn’t/can’t suck her left thumb. It will be interesting to see if the habit returns after the cast is removed!

I am actually coaching Tay’s soccer team (Dominican Republic) this year. She hasn’t minded too much that she has had to sit out—as she is really just there to party with her girls. :)

And the last funny piece of Taylor news is that at her recent 4 y.o. appointment, she weighed 2 pounds less than her 3 y.o. appointment (and grown 3 inches)—so slimming down apparently!

And Grant, has officially taken over the title of Chunky Monkey. And, he has started walking! It only took 14 months, and it’s still not his primary mode of transportation, but we’ll count it! It’s harder when you’re 28 pounds right?! Although he has been our slowest walker, he has been our fastest talker. His words include: mama, dada, uh-oh, more (moh), banana (nanana), car, star, no, two, and fish (ish).

And Jackson is in full swing :) with baseball, soccer, homeschool and chess. We were initially nervous about him making the leap to machine pitch (from coach pitch), but he has figured it out and is the lead-off batter for the Scrappers. Love this pic--2 down!

In soccer we played him up, so instead of playing U6, he is playing U8 (there is no U7 for some reason). It is a big jump, but he loves that there are goalies, corner kicks, throw in’s, etc…(“we are finally playing real soccer”). He is not the superstar anymore, but he can compete, so I think we made the right call.

And the last big news for the Jack man was that he played for his school’s 3rd grade team at the team State Chess Tournament. Montgomery ended up getting 16th in state, and Jackson contributed the most wins! So proud of him, he works really hard on chess. This weekend we head to the National Individual Chess Tournament in Nashville, TN. I can’t wait to show the kids Vanderbilt, and visit Joquez!

Jackson took this pic, a little blurry, but we all made it in! Scotty is absolutely LOVING being a project leader. He was put on his first case (as a PL) about a month ago. It is a local project and he and the team are helping a PE firm decide if they want to purchase a food processing company. And so far (knock on wood), Scott is hitting a home run. I am really grateful that he loves his job so much. Everyday he comes home saying “I love being the driver. I am learning so much. I get to see how multiple people go about figuring things out/solve problems.” It’s important that the first case especially goes extremely well. We have been really blessed this whole last year that Scott really hasn’t had to travel much at all.

And things with me are going well. The public speaking fear has gotten substantially better, mainly because I have just made myself do it. Now I wonder, “why was I ever so stressed about this.” It will probably flare up at times, but this experience has helped me develop faith that the Lord will help me.

Speaking of faith, I wanted to try and make Easter special this year. So during Holy Week we tried to mimic the Savior’s path through Jerusalem. Palm Sunday, cleansing the temple, Last Supper, washing apostles feet, taught about crucifixion, the atonement, and the resurrection. Hopefully the kids remember the point of all this and not just that “lamb is nasty, olives are gross, figs are yucky, I don’t like boiled eggs, matza is dry, the only good part is the grape juice.” Ha! The meal was pretty rough.

Dying eggs with the neighborhood kids, and yes that is Tay climbing a tree with a broken arm.

When I wasn’t busy hiding Easter eggs or acting like the Leprechaun who turned the toilet water green, delivered Lucky Charms, and rolled the living room with toilet paper, I managed to have a knock down drag out with the principal of Jackson’s school.

It’s a long story, that’s not over, but basically I was hoping to have Jackson’s gifted testing resumed immediately upon reentry, and also to have him accelerated in reading and math. The principal is notoriously a pain, and just difficult to accomplish anything with. Her response was basically, “since you chose to remove him, he has to start over in everything.” Scott was conferenced called in to the meeting, and he said he could hear me slowly turning into a tiger. Ha! Now the principal’s boss is involved, so we’ll see how this drama continues.