The end of 2013...

Hard to believe another year has almost gone by.  In a couple of short days we will be celebrating our 7th Christmas with Kassi.  Wes and I were talking the other day about how hard it is to remember what Christmas was like without her.

The biggest event of 2013, for us, was Kassi starting kindergarten.  We have been blessed with great teachers who see her potential and try to find ways to challenge her.  I am so appreciative of them.  Yesterday we had a chance to speak with her reading teacher for a moment, she told us that in her 24+ years of teaching she has never had a student like Kassi.  She said she is one of the kindest, most considerate children.  That does my heart good.  I admit I do boast about my kid, I think all parents should boast about their kid(s).  Kassi doesn't really like it though, she will talk about her achievements some, but doesn't ever want to offend others.  We also got to go to Kassi's Christmas party in her classroom yesterday.  I even got Wes to go!  It was so much fun.  I love spending time in the classroom.  Kassi's teacher asked if I had ever thought about working in the education field...can't lie I would LOVE it.  Just wouldn't work right now.

Other things of 2013...
-I finally realized what I want to be/do when I grow up...too bad it just isn't in the cards for me right now.
-Wes bought snowmobiles again.  Those that knew Wes before I did, know why this is a BIG deal.  I have to laugh, because when we had motorcycles we never had just one.  It was like they magically multiplied.  Now snowmobiles seem to be the same way.  It started out as one that he picked up for $20, then next thing I knew there was another one in the driveway, and then another one...  Oh well as along as he is happy.  Our first trip out is supposed to be this coming week.
-We finally made a decision about where to live.  While we would love to be out of town, there are just too many things going on so we will be staying in town.  It is probably for the best.  Who am I to think that I could handle maintaining a bigger place with my allergies and asthma the way they are!
-We finalized our house plans!  The new one will be so nice.

What's the plan for 2014?
-Kassi starts the Stargate program, for gifted and talented children, in January.  This is a big deal!  They do not have a program for kindergartners so she will be working with a first grade class.  January 14th we meet with the head of the program, her kindergarten teacher and the principal to discuss Kassi's scores, where to go now, etc.  This will have her going to a different school on Friday's.  She is really excited about this.  When she took the test to see if she was eligible for the program she came home and told me she did the funnest things she has done yet.  At that time she did not know she was taking a test...
-Right now  the plan is to break ground on the new house March 1st.  I have no idea what we are going to do with our current house, but we will get it figured out.

Kindergarten

Wow it has been almost exactly one year since I was last on here.  So much for keeping people updated...

I am going to try and get on here more often and make posts about what all is going on.  I like to look back through the posts myself every once in awhile.

Recently I posted something amazing about Kassi on Facebook and got some flack from people over it.  A word of warning before you read any further...I will be bragging about my daughter, I will be telling you how wonderful I think she is, and how wonderful others think she is.  I am very proud of her.  Now that being said if you want to go to your address bar and get out of here that is fine, it's your choice.

Where to start to get caught up?  Last spring they tested Kassi for kindergarten readiness.  We always knew she was extremely intelligent, but you know how it is as a parent you should think your kid is great.  When we got her test results back they proved what we had known.  Kassi tested within the top 7% in the nation.  Now this testing is just a short test to see if kids are ready for school, and where they are at with their learning.  When we met Kassi's teacher for the first time I was a little hesitant to speak up about my fears of Kassi getting bored, but I did it anyway.  She was very encouraging and said it would take a few weeks, but she would see where Kassi was at and work with her however she could.

Within the first couple of weeks Kassi was moved up to a first grade reading class.  She loves this, because it gives her a chance to read books that are more challenging and have more of a plot to them.  They are not just books with sight words.  As the month went by Kassi started to tell me she was very bored in school.  After talking to her teacher about this she informed me that she had offered Kassi a couple of other things she could do, but they would separate her from the class more, and Kassi had told her she didn't want that.  When I went to talk to Kassi about this she said the other kids talk about her when she goes to leave for reading and she is afraid they will talk about her even more if she is leaving for other things.  It was hard for me to see my baby so upset about something, but at the same time I knew something needed to change.

After several conversations and trying to figure out what was right for Kassi the teacher told me they were just about finished with their map testing.  This is a test that is completed at the beginning of the year to see where kids are at, then again at the end of the year to see what improvements they have made.  The test is computerized and as the kids get answers right the questions get harder.  The significance of this was that the teacher was hoping the tests would give her an idea of Kassi's strengths and weaknesses so she could come up with a plan to work on the weaknesses.

We waited and waited for the MAP test results.

Last week we had our first parent teacher conference.  We of course discussed the usual she is friendly, helps the other kids, kind, caring, only a couple of times where she has had to be reminded of her behavior.  The teacher also told us that she had some 1st and 2nd grade worksheets that she was going to start giving to Kassi when the other kids were doing their kindergarten worksheets.  It was at that point that she pulled out a piece of paper and apologized for the fine print.  She said these were the scores we had been waiting for, these were Kassi's map scores.  I was nervous I thought maybe she had done poorly the way she pulled them out.  She then said they were absolutely amazing.  Kassi tested in the 99th percentile, her scores were amazing...I am still learning about the map testing, but given the way the questions change and looking at the actual scores it appears Kassi is in line with the average 2nd Grader!  This is amazing, and yes I do and will continue to brag about this, I am very proud!  We discussed the scores a little further.  She explained to us that she was waiting to see the final scores, because the test shows you areas where children need work.  Kassi's test shows she is High in everything, there were no areas that were lacking.

During our time at the parent teacher conference we were also able to meet with Kassi's first grade teacher for a bit.  This was our first time to get to speak with her.  She said that Kassi was doing amazing.  She has placed Kassi with her top readers and even then Kassi is ahead of them.  The one thing that really stood out to me was that she also said Kassi was very good about waiting for the other kids and that she never really boasted about being able to read better than them.  She said she had some books she would like to start having Kassi read, but she wanted to check with us and Kassi's kindergarten teacher to make sure we were all okay with the content.  She said the amazing thing about Kassi is her ability to really take in the story and understand what the author is writing about, because of this she wants to give her books that do have a plot, unfortunately they don't make many books for 6 year olds that have a plot.  She said it is rare at this age for a child to have such a good overall understanding like Kassi does.  She said she has seen lots of strong readers over the years, but not ones that really understand what they are reading.

Kassi's teacher has recommended her for the gifted and talented program.   We have filled out the parent permissions sheet and are awaiting the response and results.

Now that I am done boasting... how about a few more updates.

You may recall my last post was about Kassi's bunny breaking her spine.  Well Bun Bun has recovered fully and is living very happily in the back yard.

Our house has been for sale for over a year now with no takers.  We have taken it off the market and are waiting a bit to figure everything out.  The scary part is our new house plans are at the architects and the excavator is scheduled to begin on March 1st.  So rather this house is sold or  not, our new one is starting construction March 1st.  I am excited and petrified at the same time!

Kassi is still dancing away.  She is in tap, ballet and jazz this year.  She will have her first Christmas performances this year as well.  She has three places she will be dancing.

Well I suppose that is enough for now!

BunBun

After having to re-home Kassi's two roosters this summer we had an empty coop.  We couldn't just let it sit there so when we went to fair we let Kassi get a rabbit.  BunBun (Kassi calls her Daisy, but I have already had a Daisy...) is very friendly she doesn't like you to pick her up.  She loves to run around the yard and has spent most of the summer and fall running around or yard, that is until a couple of weeks ago when something got a hold of her and injured her spine.  We always locked her back in her hutch at night and she was usually in it eating and resting by the time we got out there.

Well on that one night I noticed she was acting very skittish and had wet spots and tufts of hair pulled out.  It was apparent that something had gotten a hold of her.  She didn't want to move so I put her up in her nest and figured I would check on her the next morning that maybe she was just in a little shock.  The next day she had managed to get down her ramp to her food and water and was laying in the corner.  Usually when I open the door she comes hopping up waiting for me to let her out.  That day she didn't move.  I noticed she was sitting funny and I put her water and food up in her nest as usually she would go hopping after it too.  She tried, but couldn't get up the ramp...it was apparent to me then that she had a spinal injury.  I know it is common for rabbits to get spinal injuries and they don't normally recover from this.  I was dreading telling Kassi, because I knew we were going to have get her put down.  This was especially hard to think about since we had recently had to find a new home for one of her roosters and she can't see him anymore...the thing with roosters is they can become aggressive and when they are as big as Kassi's they can really hurt someone so it was either a new home or the stock pot.  Fortunately he got a new home.  Kassi was really bummed though she is so hopeful that our house will sell and she can have her roosters back.  Anyway I thought I would give her one more day and then call the vet.  The next morning there was no progress so I called the vet and made an appointment.

The vet confirmed part of what I thought.  She did have a spinal injury and it is uncommon for them to recover from this.  Understanding that this was Kassi's bunny she did say that it was low on the spine and she could feel what would be equivalent to her hips, but couldn't feel from about mid thigh down.  She said she could give her some metacam, but we would likely have to decide what quality of life we wanted her to have.

So we brought BunBun home and prepared her little cage in the garage.  She was not in apparent pain, she just could not move much and would get frustrated and not move.  Our once crazy rabbit that was litter box trained was no longer either of those things.  We were going out several times a day to set her on her litter box and clean out the corner where she laid all day.

After a week I decided to start letting her run around the garage a little bit.  One day when I went out she had hopped back in her cage and was sitting on her litter box!  Progress...unexpected progress.  I spoke to the vet tech and she said given the vets notes she thought we would be back in, but not for progress...  She suggested another round of metacam, which we have just finished.  BunBun still has no feeling in part of her right hind leg, but that doesn't slow her down much.  We are still making her still cooped up in the little cage, but are thinking in the next week or so we may try putting her back in her hutch and see how she does.

Now I know some people who would say we are crazy for taking a rabbit to the vet, but she got better.  Most would have written her off and figured it was her end.  Kassi had faith in the vet fixing her bunny and by golly that faith paid off!

Disneyland!!!

For Kassi's 5th birthday we went to Disneyland.  Now I don't know how we will ever top this birthday!  It was so much fun and we will go back some day.  We did so many fun things and enjoyed almost every minute of our vacation.  I don't even know where to start, here are a few of the over 500 pictures we have from our trip.  These pictures are all ones that the Disney photopass photographers took.  (What a great thing, we got so many pictures of all of us together!)

Disneyland at Halloween is amazing!  Everything is decorated and has lots of pumpkins.  We spent one night at the Halloween Party and Kassi got to meet her favorite princess.  We also got to see a lot of the villains which only come out for the Halloween Party's.

Our trip started out on Sunday night as we headed to Billings to spend the night so we could be at the airport by 4a.m.  Our flight was to leave at 6 and get us to Anaheim by 11a.m. that morning so we could have most of the day in the parks.  Yeah we got there by 11, 11p.m. that is!  What a horrible day to be flying.  Some of the people on our flight did not even get out of Billings that day, all because the flight attendant got sick!  The next flight we could catch out of Billings was at 11 a.m., this flight was late, but we had a 4 hour layover in Denver so it didn't matter to us.  Then our flight leaving Denver was late...  By the time we made it to the hotel all we wanted was a pillow.  We had been up since 3 a.m. and finally laid down around 11:30 p.m. Needless to say we didn't get going non too early the next day either.  We didn't even make into the park until late in the afternoon.  We did enjoy the Halloween Party though.  Our hotel was amazing too, we stayed at the Paradise Pier which is the lower end of the Disney Hotel's, but still a great place to stay.  Well worth the extra money!

Wednesday was Kassi's birthday and we had all sorts of big plans. We did a couple of rides before going to the Boutique so Kassi could see a fairy godmother in training and get her hair and makeup done.  I think this was her favorite part of the trip.  From there we headed over to Aerials Grotto for a late lunch.  We  had been told the food was not very good, but we really enjoyed it.  Everywhere we went that day people kept stopping us and commenting on how beautiful Kassi was and several asked if they could take her picture.  The cutest part was when a boy, probably around 13, saw her coming, got down on one knee, lowered his hat and said something along the lines of fair maiden.  Kassi thought that was so cool, that was something that would only happen to a real princess.

After Aerials Grotto we headed to Aladdin the Musical.  It was a great show.  The theater they hold this in is incredible.  One of the best things we did was later that night in the California Adventure Park.  We got front row seats for the World of Color!  Now that was an absolutely amazing show!  The water shot way higher than we though it would.  I had thought this would be neat, but it was way more than just neat.  We were also able to watch this from our hotel!  So we got to watch it a couple of nights.

Since we had spent a little bit of time in each park we decided that the next two days we would spend one whole day in each park.  In Disneyland we rode the tea cups, went through it's a small world, went to ToonTown, and did several other things.  The best thing that day was when we went on the Mark Twain's paddle boat...Kassi got to drive!

The next day we headed to California Adventure Park, I LOVED this part of the resort.  We visited Cars Land, Bugs Land, the Pier and went on so many different things I don't think I can remember the names of them all.  Our favorite was the Grizzly River Run, we had to do this one twice!  We also really enjoyed Soarin Over California.

We of course had to go to the Cozy Cone and get our cone drink.  We also ate at Flo's!













Kassi got to meet Russell after she finished his Redwood challenge.

We went on this trip thinking this would be the only time we went...we left trying to figure out when we could come back.  I had been to Disney World for a day when I was 11 and it was okay...  To get to spend a whole week here and see how excited Kassi got with everything we did was so wonderful.



 I love that we got so many family shots.  There was a bit of time where Wes went back to the hotel for awhile and Kassi and I spent a few hours on our own checking out some different things we liked so there are a few with just her and I.  Normally I am the one taking the pictures so there are very few with me in them.