Second Week of Christmas Break

Friday Notes:
After I hit publish last Friday on my post Mason's orthopedic surgeon's nurse practitioner called. I was expecting it, but not looking forward to it. Because of Mason's Spina Bifida, Hydrocephalus, and the resulting nerve damage there are many other medical issues that he is likely to deal with in his life. One of those things is Scoliosis. Mason has had a curve for a while, and while it has been stable for some time, it has recently gotten worse. He is at approximately a 30 degree curve right now, which has crossed over the treatment threshold. Treatment at the moment is a custom made hard brace that he will wear when sleeping. Scoliosis can't be reversed or fixed by bracing. It can be slowed, sometimes even held at the current curve indefinitely. If it worsens again then he would move to wearing a brace 23 hours a day. If it worsens a lot the only possible help is spinal surgery. We really don't want that.

At the same time Mason will be getting AFO braces to help stretch his tendons and hold his feet in a neutral position. He will wear these at night as well. We are noticing some tightening of tendons in his ankles and want to head off surgeries for contractures if we can. The risks with any braces Mason wears is skin breakdown. He has extremely sensitive skin that can and does break down easily. Yes, this may sound familiar if you read Mason's blog I kept for several years, because he has had these kinds of braces and surgeries before, and he will have them again (probably more than once). It is just part of his life.

Saturday Notes:
Grocery shopping in the morning while kids did their weekly video game time happened. Then kids spent some of their Christmas money. I also stopped at the library to pick up some books we had ordered. Makayla and Joseph had the Snow Ball (youth dance) that evening while the rest of us stayed home and played board games together.

Sunday Notes:
The last day of 3 hour church went well. (Our church is moving to a 2 hour schedule in the new year.) In the afternoon some grandparents visited and stayed for dinner. Then Daddy had to go to bed at 7pm to be up in the wee hours of the morning for his last day of work for four months.

Monday Notes:
I woke earlier than usual and had by 30 minutes of exercise done before 6:00am. Kids started trickling down from their bedrooms at 5:50am. A normal break week morning commenced with lego building, Pokémon card games, snacks, and playdoh. Rebekah, who woke up at 6am, fell asleep in my arms by 9am. I spent an hour and a half creating schedules for the last 5 units of The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts High School 1. I printed out writing samples from kids' first semester work and added those to their portfolios.

Tuesday Notes:
We took a family trip to COSI, a science center. It was our first time exploring the Power of Poison exhibit, as well as the Hot Wheels exhibit. The Power of Poison was fascinating! So many interesting stories, items, and things to explore. I think my favorite was the giant magic book. As you turned pages the images would appear. There were places to touch that made the pages come alive with stories, pictures of different medicinal and poisonous plants growing and blooming, and more.

We had our first new family gospel study lesson from the Come, Follow Me materials. Our plan is to keep this simple. We gathered around the table and read the parable of the sower. As we went, we made a poster about the different kinds of ground the Savior spoke of and what happened to the seeds in each one. Then we read on to find out what each of those represented, talked about examples, etc. We moved into a discussion of how Joseph is doing at learning Latin (he isn't studying Latin!). It led to our theme: "We are responsible for our own learning." Everyone understood that even though Makayla has been learning Latin for almost 2 years it hasn't helped Joseph learn Latin. She can not learn for him. We have to do our own studying and learning. So what do we want to learn? We want to learn to be more like Jesus Christ. For the next few days the kids are to think about how they would describe Jesus, what he is like, his character, what he does. We'll be talking about it and making plans about how we can learn more about Jesus and learn to be like him.

Wednesday Notes:
Jason had knee surgery on this day. We were gone for about 7 hours and my sister took care of the kids in my absence. The surgery went well and the doctor says it will be about a 3 month recovery process with a lot of lasting swelling to deal with while his microfractured femur (done by the doctor) grows scar cartilage (Jason's cartilage was damaged and some was cut out). Jason is up and walking some, but also doing a lot of elevation and ice on the knee. He's also on strong painkillers for now, to get through the initial swelling of the next few days.

Thursday Notes:
Home life was quiet. We took turns choosing shows to watch and that meant I got to start a new series on Netflix called Tidying Up. This is centered around Marie Kondo, author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. I read her book several years ago and while we don't agree about some things, she is a great motivator for decluttering.

Emma baked a root beer cake mid-morning just because she could. Dinner was already going in the crock pot, Hawaiian pulled pork for sandwiches.

In the evening we had another family gospel study lesson. I'm all about simple. Our goal this time was to talk about Jesus Christ, his character, what he does, and what we can do to be like him. I took 30-ish pictures from the Gospel Art Kit we've had for years and laid them face down on the table, a few at each person's place. We went around sharing one of our pictures and what we learn about Jesus from that picture. I took notes on a piece of copy paper with Jesus written at the top. It was so fun to look at the art work, talk about the scriptural events, stories, and parable, and more than that, to hear my children sharing. Here are some examples of picture topics we had:

• Jesus stilling the storm
• The crucifixion
• The parable of the good Samaritan
• Christ as a child working with Joseph
• Jesus as a boy in the temple
• Healing a blind man

You can see the artwork in the Gospel Art Kit free online here. Most of our pictures were pulled from the New Testament section. The images are also free to download. Enjoy!

Friday Notes:

Today I've taken kids aside to update their personal literature lists (books they read independently) for their portfolios. We've talked about school goals for second semester. I'm so excited to get back to school next week! 

Jason is doing well. We took off his bandages today from surgery and things look good, but definitely swollen. 

Five of the boys got haircuts this morning. Now I'm getting ready to take most of the kids over to the church because it is our turn to clean. Member families take turns cleaning the church each week. It is divided into 3 areas and we'll clean one area. Jason and some of the kids will stay home, since Daddy isn't up for walking that much or cleaning. 

Time for me to hit publish and get going! Happy Friday!