Melting Pot

For my 43rd birthday, I decided I wanted to go to the Melting Pot, once again, to celebrate. Trace reminded me that we needed to have a picture to commemorate the day. Kevin managed to slip free of being in the photo, he was just the photographer this time.

Over 40 year old picture posted by my Dad on social media

"How To" Project

As part of his 3rd grade experience, Ms. Stroud required that each of the kids in Trace's class read a "how-to" book and then perform the project they read about and document each step in writing and via photos. Some of the other kids did things like; building a Lego, making a pillowcase, build a birdhouse etc. Trace, with the help of Kevin, chose to read a cookbook and make cupcakes from scratch. I thought it was a good choice since he usually shys away from helping his Dad with all things cooking related. He got a good grade and even had to load the photos onto the computer at school and give a short oral presentation to his class and during SEP (student education planning) conferences. Good job Chef Trace!

Wash your hands before you begin

Preheat the oven

Got the mixer put together without help!

Only one rouge shell......

Have to get a parents help with the hot oven!

Toothpicks to see if they are cooked

All done!

Yummy!

Clean up is the worst part!

Written synopsis

The Master Chewer

Raven is usually a pretty good girl. She loves her little routine and expects us to play our parts. During dinner (and any other meal) she sits in between Trace and I and calmly waits for any small morsel of food to fall to the ground for her consumption. Then, after Trace has gone to bed, she retreats to her pillow inside her open kennel and snores away as Kevin and I watch a show before bed. Then, Kevin will say to me; "Take your pills" and that is the words that wake her and she crawls out of the kennel, stands by the back door and waits to be let out for one final bathroom trip. Then, while she's out, I fill her food and let her back in and we proceed upstairs while she eats her "dinner". When done, she comes upstairs to join us in our room on her cushioned bed in the corner of the room and again begins to snore. It's such a funny thing to see how strictly she MUST adhere to that routine! If we try to feed her before she goes out, she won't eat. If we wait downstairs after letting her back in, she'll stand by her bowl and wait until we go upstairs to eat. Such a funny girl! One thing she is excellent at is when we leave out food or toys she's not supposed to play with, she doesn't. She has to wait until they are given to her to understand that they are hers and then she will only grab "her" toys when playing. The only exception to this is stuffed animals. She has a really hard time understanding if this particular one lying on the ground is hers or someone else's, so sometimes she'll grab it just to try. One such day that she was being really good, Trace and I picked her up a stuffed toy at the store while shopping and were super excited to give it to her when we arrived home. When we got there, she ran around excitedly and when Trace pulled out the toy, she plopped her butt on the ground in the "sit" position so that he would give her the new toy. She is so cute when she plays with a new toy! She throws them up in the air and catches them, she tosses them across the room and "gallops" over to grab them and if you throw it for her, she will jump in the air and try to cross her two front paws over one another to "catch" it with her paws. It's so funny! The one thing she does do is tear them to pieces in seconds flat. Knowing this, we try to watch her carefully when she gets a new stuffed animal and if she starts to chew, a quick, deep volume; "Raven!" will get her to stop.....momentarily. Since I think she's cute when she does most anything, I happened to snap the photo right after I told her to stop chewing and destroying her new toy and the look on her face was priceless! Of course, she went right back at it until I took it away, but I thought it was a funny face worthy of sharing.

Bully

I never like it when the school calls my cell phone during the day, but I don't usually sweat it when I get a call from Kevin. This particular call from Kevin was not fun because in it, Kevin explained how the principal of East Sandy Elementary had called him and spoke to him about an "incident" that happened with Trace today. Turns out, a kid in his class named "James" who has taken to trying to torture Trace at every turn lately had BIT Trace THROUGH his coat and broke the skin. I understand that it happened at lunch and Trace had walked down to the office with the lunch aid and was crying so hard that it was hard for the staff to understand him as he explained what happened. He said they were eating lunch and joking around saying; "I'm going to eat you!" and the kid actually chomped down on Trace's arm near his armpit and put a hole in his jacket and flesh with his teeth! I was so MAD! I guess when they got Trace calmed down enough to talk to the principal, he did two things; 1) Told her that it "wasn't James' fault" and "he was just joking around" and 2) He asked the principal to please call his Dad and not his Mom about the event because his Mom would "freak out". (Which I kind of laughed about) We ended up having a meeting with the teacher (Ms. Alison Stroud) and the principal (Dr. Angela Wilkerson) and the school resource officer about the event. This kid James has been a problem for the entire class and they seem to think that because Trace is nice to him, he tries to "be his friend" but hasn't yet learned how to control himself. I told them all that Trace loves Ms. Stroud and is making good strides academically in her class, so I didn't want him to be moved to another class, but if ANYTHING like that happened again, I'd be making a formal complaint and insisting that they move James to another class. Trace was told that he has permission to move to another lunch table (you aren't supposed to switch once you sit down) if James tries to sit by him and his teacher vowed to watch the situation carefully. It was interesting to hear that both the principal and teacher said that Trace was giving James the benefit of the doubt even AFTER he'd been assaulted and kept trying to say he was okay so that James wouldn't get in trouble. Shows what a sweet, kind child I have despite the toughest of situations. Love that kid fiercely.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

On our last day in Los Angeles, I promised I would take Trace swimming, so we went down to the pool as soon as it was warm enough while Kevin slept in and helped get us packed up to leave. I wasn't crazy enough to get in the pool in 65 degree weather, but I was comfortable sitting on the side while the boy dove in and out as he has been known to do. He had bought a little (and I do mean little) remote control boat at one of the shops at Universal and so he was anxious to try it out in the pool. It was a little windy so the boat mostly moved because of the wind rather than it's tiny propeller, but the boy still had a good time with it.
I realized as I was sitting there that today is the 5 year anniversary of the surgery that removed the cancer from my body and allowed me to keep being this precious little boy's earthly Mommy. I wasn't sad, or particularly happy, I just felt a sense of calm. It was as if I had known all along that "it would all work out", like Kevin always tells me, but in the middle of tragedies is so hard to remember. As I sat with the sun shining on my face, feeling good, well rested and content, I had an overwhelming feeling of thankfulness towards my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for the sorrow and sacrifices they've helped me to overcome and the peace I've gained with the ending results and the wonder at this world and it's many trials and tribulations. I think it's because I don't often give myself much time to just sit and think, so it may be why it hit me so hard at this particular moment, but I was really happy that I endured that particular trial and thankful for all those who helped me through it.

After we checked out of the hotel, we had some time before we headed to the airport, so we decided to swing by and see the TCL Chinese Theatre (formerly the "Grauman's Chinese Theatre") where all the celebrity stars are on the walk of fame and their hand/feet prints are left in the cement at the entrance. We saw some recognizable stars like; Tom Cruise, Gene Kelly, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp, Robin Williams, Harrison Ford, stars of the Harry Potter movies, Cher and even Donald Duck. It was funny to see that Trace's hands and feet are almost the same size as "Jack Sparrow" and his feet were bigger than Tom Cruise! (That guy must be tiny in real life) The walk of fame brought some interesting emotions to me again with names like; Michael Jackson, Kevin Spacey and others that I just didn't feel are worthy of admiration no matter how talented they may have been in their craft, but those feelings were offset by cool names like; Drew Barrymore, Harry Houdini and the always-awesome Mickey Mouse. It was fun to see all the names and signatures, a great way to kill a few hours before the flight.