Meet Robyn's birthday present (that she has to share with the family) - Jasper.  He is a 6 month old puppy Dauschund/Mini-Schnauzer mix - a Minature Schnoxie.  Officially we have him for a week trial to make sure he fits with our family.

Allison and her friend Kaori have been doing a project for school.  They have spent the last two months using $10 to make and sell suckers to benefit the Humane Society in Murray.  This week they spent the $90 they earned to buy supplies and Saturday we went up to deliver them.


While there we of course had to look around and the girls fell in love with Jasper.  So Robyn decided she would much rather have a dog than take a ski lesson for her birthday.

So far he has been a big hit with the kids and has handled Taylor and Macho well.  See how this week goes but so far it looks promising!  I do wonder about our sanity as parents sometimes, but am hoping this will be a good thing for our family and not the straw that broke the camels back!


We have never had such a small dog before.  Jeremy started singing Rat Dog to the Batman theme when he saw him.  Right now he is sleeping in Robyn's room and they have worked out a walking schedule.  Macho is expressing his displeasure.

Going back to school this week was tough for everyone!  Those early mornings just don't get easier and everyone volunteered to go to bed early.  By Saturday morning while doing homework Spencer said his brain just hurt.  Originally I thought I was going to have Thursdays off this semester but after learning that I would have to work longer the other days to compensate I am going back to my original schedule of working every day.  The Holy Ghost was almost having to hit me on the head to remind me how important it is for me to be home when my kids get home.  Good learning experience for me and a reminder of how the little things of listening to kids daily dumps of whines, schedules and homework assignments are truly important no matter what age they are.  The new aide in the class asked me if I left work exhausted as he was so tired every day.  Since he is a single guy and only working right now I thought it was hilarious and told him that no I didn't get to go home and take a nap!  Told him to give it a week or two to build up his endurance.

Taylor had a doctors appointment Thursday with some eye doctors as we continue to prove he is disabled to qualify him for Social Security as he is transitioning to adult services.  They said that although the prescription on his glasses -11 is right for his eyes, they nerves are so shot in his eyes that they doubt it would make any difference in his using his eyes.  So we are going to try not using his glasses for awhile.

Taylor has not been walking for us since right before Christmas.  Something with his left leg is really bothering him.  He is doing better now and doesn't seem to be in pain unless we force him to walk.  But we are seeing the ortho on Tuesday to make sure there isn't anything wrong bone wise.  It makes me grateful for when he can walk as it makes life much easier.

Our oven burner element burned out Friday while cooking pizzas.  It was a little spectacular to watch!  So this week we are going to learn how to replace an element.  I think God was just helping me resist the urge to bake something with sugar!

This week the girls had auditions and Allison had callbacks for their Spring play.  Our house has been full of nerves and Shrek songs sung with lots of enthusiasm.  Listening to Robyn belting it out in the shower had me cracking up this week.

Spencer got to play volleyball for Young Men's activity this week.  He was so excited and his leaders stayed with him afterwards so he could practice.  He was on cloud 9.

Jeremy had a couple of photo shoots this week as he works on different skills and looks.  He is feeling tons better and has been busy tackling the work load that piled up while he was sick.