Sierra's Music Project

My Bikers

Aspen & Sierra have signed up to do a bike ride to Louisville this Summer. If you don't feel like Google mapping, that is about 160 miles going the side road route. The youth leaders in the ward that we share a building with have put this together and have invited our ward's youth to participate. They will ride down to Louisville in 2 days; going 75 miles one day and 85 the other. Once down there, they will sleep for the night, and then get up and do Baptisms for the Dead at the Louisville Temple.

The girls are super excited to be able to go on this adventure and I have been so proud of their accomplishments so far. They have done a couple of 10 mile rides, a 26 mile ride, and a 31 mile ride. Do you really want to be jealous? Neither one of them has complained to me yet about being sore! Sierra did take a bit of a spill on the 31 mile ride this past Saturday and scraped up her arm and knee, but nothing to really write home about. She also had a bruise on her ankle, but hasn't really had a problem with it.

They have LOVED every minute of riding and I hope that we can keep it up even after the big ride to Louisville. I wish I could have done it with them, but these rides are mandatory, and I still have class on Saturdays. Hopefully, I can start riding with them when I'm done, but most likely won't be going on the big ride.

Thomas and I are just beaming with pride and know that they will really cherish these memories that they are making!

PS. It is BEAUTIFUL out here in Indy, and we LOVE visitors!! *Hint**Hint**Wink**Wink*

Can't be fixed...Story of our lives...

Aspen had an appointment today with a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. It took us about 3 months to get in. The reason we were taking her had sort of resolved on its own, but I thought we better go and make sure everything was okay. Last summer, we noticed that Aspen had a lump on her kneecap that was probably the size of 2 marbles. It was kind of gross looking and she could grab it and squeeze it...double gross. After about a month, it started to send shocks up and down her leg. We took her to the pediatrician and she made us an appointment with the surgeon, but the earliest appointment available was for 3 months later. Gotta love it!

So this lump has kind of just diminished slowly over the last month and really isn't there anymore. At her appointment, they ordered xrays to make sure everything was okay, and by the time the Dr. came in to see us she looked pretty annoyed with us for coming to have her look at something that wasn't there. Wah, Wah, right?

While the nurse was asking us questions before the Dr. came in, I asked her if we could also have the Dr. look at Aspen's feet. Aspen is very pigeon-toed and looks like she has really flat feet. Well, a nurse practitioner came in first and asked Aspen if she could sit in the "w-sit." It's where you kneel down, but then spread your legs outward and sit on your bottom on the floor. I knew exactly what she meant because Aspen sits like that ALL the time! Aspen shows her, and I hear the NP just hum and nod...not usually a good sign, huh? She then watches Aspen walk up and down the hall, and checks her legs and hips while she lays down on the bed. By this time, I knew something was up.

The NP said that Aspen has Femoral Anteversion. Uh...what? It's when the femur is twisted. That is what cause the knees and feet to point inward. She said the being able to sit in the "w-sit" comfortably is a tell tale sign. Apparently 90% of kids who have it grow out of it by age 10. Yeah, well, we all know my kids don't ever grow out of the stuff they should. She goes on to say that the only way to treat it is with a VERY painful surgery that they absolutely won't do unless the child is in severe pain from it. Basically, the slice the femur bone and twist it back to where it should be. OKAY...she can live it!! She did say that doing ballet really helps kids with this condition. As soon as she left, Aspen turns directly towards me and says, "I am NOT taking ballet!"

Ballet focuses on turning the feet outward, which is why it would help.
Aspen can do this move, but completely opposite. She turns her toes inward all the way and then puts her feet one in front of the other.

Marina came with me and she was doing really well and being super patient sitting in the chair. Well, towards the end of the visit, she slumps out of the chair in complete boredom onto the floor straight into the, you guessed it, the "w-sit!" Both the Dr. and the NP look at her funny and then look at me and say, OH...she's got it too! Nice.

Fashion Show Pics...as Promised!

Aspen with the whole group before the show started. She is in the back left hand side.
Don't they look ready to ROCK?!?

Oh sure, she strikes a pose backstage....

AND...here we go!

She had a GRIP on that necklace!

Sorry that they weren't in any kind of order, but I GAVE UP after messing with it for so long!
Can you believe this girl is ONLY 13?!?

Divine By Design

Last night, Aspen was invited to be a part of an awesome program put on by the Stake Young Women's (YW) Presidency. It was a MODEST fashion show called Divine by Design. Talking about how we are designed by our Heavenly Father in his Divine wisdom. Aspen felt really special for being invited to be in it, especially since only a handful in the whole stake were chosen. The fashion show was before the YW General Broadcast last night, and tied in really well with all that the General YW Presidency and Elder Uchtdorf had to say. The leaders in charge of the fashion show had no idea that the General President and Elder Uchtdorf would bring up the same theme, so it was just a really nice night and went together perfectly!

They really went all out for this program and I was completely surprised at what they had planned. Before the fashion show started, one of the leaders talked about how the media is distorting our views about beauty and how FAKE they are in their advertising. She went through lots of time periods and discussed how certain fashions were "in style" and how the media played into those fears that women have about their bodies. She talked about how plastic surgery is really popular now and how that may be as crazy as when the Chinese women would bind their feet to be smaller. I think it made complete sense and I know that she had all the girls' attention in that room. She showed a couple of videos that showed how a picture of a model can be so distorted and how when you look at and think about how beautiful the model is, you really are not even seeing the real person! Here is one of the videos by the Dove and their campain for real beauty.



She also talked about this picture that Ralph Lauren had as an ad. I mean this model doesn't even look human anymore after all of the photoshopping!

There was another video that she showed, but I can't find it. It was just a really nice program with a great message. I'm glad that Aspen and Sierra were able to be there last night.

I got some video of Aspen walking the runway, while a friend of mine took some still pics. I'll post those as soon as I get them. She was so super nervous, but still had fun! She did GREAT!! The first time they modeled their hair that they had done by professionals, then they modeled a casual outfit, and then they modeled a Sunday Best outfit! She thought is was so funny that the hair people told her she had a beautiful mane...ha ha! I'm so proud of her & so glad that she got to spend a couple of days with some great girls getting pampered! Everyone came up to me all night telling me how beautiful she is, which I of course already know!

It's About Time

Ryker is FINALLY beginning to lose some teeth! He is so overly excited. It's just adorable! He lost one on the bottom a little while ago, but he lost another one yesterday. His adult teeth are starting to come in behind his baby teeth. They're tired of waiting, I guess. He has an adult tooth on the bottom coming in under his tongue. The picture of the one below was starting to wedge his loose front tooth and wouldn't let it come out. It's been loose for awhile, but it's just been stuck on the one side. So, yesterday we decided it needed to come out. Ryker couldn't pull it, and didn't want us to pull it, so Thomas suggested to Ryker that we wrap a string around it to try and get it out. He did, and he pulled and pulled and it came out! His face was priceless! He was so proud of himself!

AWESOME GIVEAWAY!

Hey Everyone!

My good friend over at www.sewmanybooks.blogspot.com is doing an awesome GIVEAWAY!! Get on over there to enter (CLICK HERE to go directly to the giveaway post) and tell her that Jamie sent you! Don't forget to reference my name people!!

What are you waiting for? GO NOW!!

Brace Face!

Aspen got her braces on today! I think she was a little excited, but didn't want to show it too much. After she came home, she didn't hurt hardly at all. I kept asking her because I KNEW it was gonna hurt. Sure enough, about 5 hours later it hit her like a brick wall and she was in tears! Poor thing! She looks great with them on and I'll be glad to have ONE kid in braces done with and FOUR more to go. I was told awhile ago by our dentist in Vegas to start saving because ALL 5 kids were gonna need them. Boy, was she right! We definitely got the bad teeth genes in this family, for sure!

Valentine's Day FUNdue

On Valentine's Day, I decided to start a NEW tradition! We had FUNdue for dinner. We kept it a secret from the kids, and then when we told them what it was and gave them directions on how to eat it, they had a BLAST! They just couldn't get over the fact that we were gonna let them dip their dinner all night. I had a lot of fun putting it together and am so glad that the kids enjoyed it.

First, we had a Cheese FUNdue! We dipped cut up french bread and cut up ham into it. Here's the recipe for the cheese. It was super yummy! I doubled this, but I really shouldn't have. It made a LOT! I got the recipe from HERE, but changed the cheese. I used half Swiss and half Cheddar.

Non-Alcoholic Cheese Fondue

1/2 lb. Swiss Cheese
1/2 lb Cheddar
2 Cloves Garlic
3T Flour
2T Butter
1 1/2 cups Milk
1/2T Lemon Juice
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
Salt & Pepper to taste

Peel garlic and slice the cloves in half the long way so the most inner surface is showing. Rub a heavy saucepan with two halves of the garlic for flavoring. Rub the fondue pot with the other two garlic halves.

Grate the cheese and mix with 1 T. of the flour.

Melt the butter in saucepan over medium-low heat. Add rest of flour. Stir well till smooth. Add about ½ cup of milk and stir till smooth. Slowly add the rest of the milk, stirring constantly until the mixture thickens to about the consistency of light cream. Add a handful of cheese and keep stirring. Let the cheese melt and then add another handful and stir until it melts. Repeat the process until all the cheese is melted.

Once all the cheese has been added and the mixture is smooth, you can stir in the nutmeg, salt and pepper. Finally, add the lemon juice. Stir well till the mixture is smooth once again.

Then I added the cheese from the stove to a crock pot. It worked out really nice!

Eat Immediately!!

Then we moved onto the Meat FUNdue. We started off putting chicken broth into a Frydaddy. The chicken we cooked in there tasted GREAT, but the broth kept trying to boil over. So, we emptied out the broth and put in some oil. It worked great, but didn't taste as good as the broth, but it was still YUMMY! The kids got a little bored waiting for their meat to cook, so this wasn't their favorite course.

After the chicken, we had DESSERT! It was so good, and definitely the kids' favorite course! I used white chocolate because some in my house aren't big on the regular chocolate. (That would be ME & Aspen!) The white chocolate was HEAVENLY! Seriously...the kids were in heaven! We dipped strawberries, marshmellows, pound cake, pretzels, and bananas. I got the recipe HERE, and we followed it exactly!!

Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 2 (12-ounce) packages premier white morsels

In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine cream and butter. Bring mixture to a simmer, stirring constantly. Remove pan from heat. Add white morsels. Stir until melted and smooth. Cool slightly. Transfer to a fondue pot, chafing dish, or ceramic bowl. Serve immediately with sliced apples, sliced bananas, strawberries, cookies, pretzels, and pound cake.

It was so much fun and

I'm so glad I started a new tradition!

School, School, School.....

Literally.....

We have been so focused on Thomas' school, my school and the kids' school that not a whole lot else has been going on. There is pretty much NOTHING new and exciting going on in the Garyson home! It's been challenging, to say the least, the last few months. I go back and forth at least 5 times a day on whether I should just send the kids back to a regular public school or just tough it out and keep them in their charter school.

Aspen would really like to get back into sports and friends. She has also told us how she likes her teachers teaching her and not us. Sierra is completely opposite! She would rather be completely at home and not have to go into school at all. That worries me a little as I don't want her to become a hermit! Ryker and Harley get tired of having MOM tell them what to do and what not to do, but for the most part they are doing quite well. I've started giving them checklists of all the school work needed to get done in the morning, and they love doing it "on their own" and checking it off as they go. Marina, well, she is tired of having everyone home, and NOT having everyone's attention at all times. I mean, if they're home, they should be paying attention to her, right??

Thomas is plugging away at his Calculus, Chemistry and CAD classes. It's starting to get SUPER tough, but he is doing a great job staying focused on the future and working really hard to understand all of it. He has a tutors for calculus and chemistry, but I'm not sure if they are really helping. He NEEDS a great tutor! Hmmm...where to find one, though....

I am taking 3 online classes, and a chemistry class on campus. PLUS, I just got into a class at the hospital here to become a Unit Secretary! I am SUPER DUPER excited and the first class was really fun. I can't wait to finish and be able to get a job in a hospital nursing unit and get some experience with nurses. OH, well, that's new....I hated all of my business classes, so I decided to try nursing! It's quite a big step for me, as I NEVER thought I would EVER want to be a nurse. (I'm not too keen on needles.) But, I've talked with several nurses and it just feels right. For some reason, I just keep coming back to it! So, I thought, let's give it a try! I am also still babysitting, so I keep busy with my school, the kids' schooling, babysitting and helping to run the Primary in our ward!

So, now you know why I don't update as much as I'd LOVE to. Hopefully, soon, this will all be worth it! There is a faint light starting to show......

Trip To DC

Thanksgiving morning after my parents headed out to Jerusalem, we packed up and headed out to DC. I love that we live here in Indy and can drive there. There is absolutely no way we all could have gone to visit my brother if we didn't live so close. And by so close, I mean about a 10 hour drive away. Which is still fairly close.

Before we could even leave, we had to break into our house! Yup, you heard right. We locked up ALL of the doors, and since we had rented a van, we left all of the keys to the cars hidden in the house. Well, the keys to the house are also on those key rings. We realized it too late, and had to figure out how we should go about getting in. Thomas ended up having to go up in the attic in the garage, walk across the rafters to the back of the house and bust down the drywall sealing up the attic access in our room. Definitely NOT as easy as that sounds!!

So, after all that hullabaloo, we were on our way. The trip wasn't bad at all, and the kids did great! As lond as we had movies, they were GOOD! We got there that night, and just relaxed and played with cousins for the night.

The next day, we decided to go to Mt. Vernon, which is George Washington's home. I am so glad we went! I love going places where my kids will enjoy themselves, but also learn a TON while they are there. If you're ever in DC, go to Mt. Vernon. I think you should go, at least, once.

The next day, we headed out to the National Mall. We did the Museum of Natural History first, and then we walked around the Mall to the Air and Space Museum. My kids LOVE the movie Night at the Museum, so they really enjoyed finding all of the stuff that was in the movie. Then we walked back around to our cars, and headed to the Lincoln Memorial where a few of us jumped out and went up and took pictures.

Sunday, we woke up, got packed and headed home. It took us about 2 hours longer than going because of an accident, but it was so worth it to go! We loved spending some one on one time with my brother and his family, and hope to get together with them once more time before they head out for Cairo Egypt for a few years. We will definitely miss them!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Harley's Baptism

We had a wonderful day for Harley's Baptism. It was so nice to have some family come. We are so proud of Harley and are just loving being her parents. She got her new set of scriptures the night of her Baptism and started reading them. She didn't put them at all that night. It was so sweet! We definitely missed those who couldn't come, but we're so thankful you could all be there in spirit. Enjoy the slide show!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Getting Ready for the Big Day

Wow! I can't believe the day is almost here. Harley is 8 now, and will be baptized this Saturday. My 2nd to youngest child will be baptized! How is it possible that my kids keep getting older, and yet, I stay so young?!? Ha ha! We're so excited to see her take this big step in her life and couldn't be prouder of the young woman she is becoming. We will miss those of you who can't make it, but I know that your hearts will be with us on Saturday. I will try to remember to post pictures soon after.