The Dyal Dish: April Update

I already know this is going to be a long post because I have a lot I want to say so, in advance, I apologize for its length. If you manage to get through the whole thing, I commend and applaud your fortitude! I've also published other posts and pictures to this site (even one I wrote back in September), so keep scrolling down to the bottom when and if you finish reading this one. I hope to update the site often so keep coming back to check it out! Hopefully, you enjoy our new family blog site!

We’ve had a good year so far. The weather in December and the first half of January was mild and unseasonably warm. But the second half of January through mid-March we had extremely frigid temperatures, some in the negative 20 range. This has been the coldest winter in Michigan since we moved here 6 ½ years ago. It makes one dream of tropical islands and warm beaches. I’m now extremely eager to see some sunny warm weather instead of the gray coldness we’ve been dealing with up until now. I live for April to come around and now it's here! I’m actually starting to thaw! But April still has uncertain weather. It's been raining a lot and the temperatures are going up and down but I can't complain because it's getting warmer and there are signs of spring everywhere! I've been seeing some buds on the trees and my daylilies are starting to pop out of the garden. I'm really disappointed that I forgot to plant tulip bulbs in the Fall before the first snowfall! I wanted to have tulips in my garden this spring. But it'll be nice to see them blooming around town, hopefully in a week or two.

In early-February, the school district canceled school because of the cold. They feared that children waiting too long for their bus in the morning would get frostbite. Of course, that morning, the thought that school was canceled didn't even occur to me. Why would I check to see if school was canceled just because it was cold outside? School had never been canceled because of the cold before. In the past it would only be canceled because of blizzard-like conditions. So, as I always do, I sent the kids to wait at the corner for their bus. It was a clear and sunny day and looking out the window, one would think it was warmer than it was. Every day, I watch out the window as the kids walk to the corner and wait for their bus. But after a few minutes, it seemed the bus was running late and I became uneasy just watching them stand there in the cold. I took the car out to the corner, had the kids jump in and wait for the bus inside the car. After fifteen minutes or so, it looked as if we had missed the bus or it was running really late. The kids buckled up and I drove them to school. When we arrived, the parking lots were barren. I still didn't know what was going on – I must’ve forgotten it was a half day of school or something. We sat in the parking lot a few minutes and watched as other parents drove their kids up to the curb and observed the children trying to open the locked school door. I turned on the radio to see if the weather was the cause. No answers! As I looked at the car thermometer and it said negative 8 degrees, I concluded that it must be the weather but I was still perplexed. If the school was warm inside and they had inside recess because it was cold out, why cancel school? We went home and sure enough we saw on the news and internet that school was closed because of the negative 24 temperature outside (with wind chill). BRRRRRR! Grandma Dyal was in town and the kids were excited to spend one more day with her before she left the following day.

We enjoyed having Joshua’s parents come visit us for a week in early February. Because of the cold weather, we spent most of the time indoors but it was fun. We played lots of games. We taught them how to play our new favorite game -- "Alhambra." Grandma taught Jessica to cross-stitch and made plastic-braided key chains with Spencer. After they left I realized that I never took any pictures. I really wanted to get one with the grandparents and grandkids.

We just got back from visiting the Brown Family in Columbus. They had their fourth baby in January, Ethan Hunter, and blessed him during conference weekend. My parents were there as well. It was fun to see them again but disheartening seeing my Dad under the weather for most of the weekend. He had surgery on his lower esophagus a few weeks ago and it's left him with a lot of difficulties eating regular food. He also has large quantities of acid in his stomach which has given him a great deal of pain. He was nauseous most of the time and had to lie down quite frequently. I pray he feels better soon. They were really sweet to give the grandkids some early Easter presents. My kids have been enjoying them all week. I especially loved being around Kim's little baby. Ethan is very cute and I got a slight twinge to maybe contemplate having another baby of our own while around him that weekend. Alas, it was a fleeting sensation. Four children keep me hopping as it is.

Our family has been incredibly busy this last month. Seems like when the kids get invitations to birthday parties, they hit us all at once. We've also had Spencer's birthday, school activities, cub scout activities (Spencer earned his Arrow of Light award last Thursday), friend farewell parties, and both Spencer and Jessica have had big school projects. I wish their projects weren't overlapping. It's been exhausting helping both of them! The Wasson family, our closest family friends for almost 7 years, recently moved to Roundrock, Texas. They were our Michigan family (we teased that our kids were almost like cousins) and we were really sad to see them go. We will miss them tons!

Spencer is three-fourths of the way through fifth grade. This has been a growing year for him. He discovered early in the year that he and his teacher clash a little. She’s a no-nonsense, tough elderly lady who has been teaching for many, many years. She runs a tight ship and is exceedingly unwavering in her discipline of the class. Up until this point, Spencer has been fortunate enough to have teachers in elementary school who have been younger, more peppy, energetic and warmhearted so it’s been hard for him to adjust to. Spencer is a very determined young man and likes his point of view heard. He doesn’t necessarily need to be agreed with and doesn’t always want to gets his way, he just wants his opinion listened to. But he's learned that Mrs. Ebbitt is very determined too. I’ve tried explaining to Spencer that this is a good experience for him because he’ll meet and deal with many people in his life and it's important to learn to deal with all sorts of personalities. Next year in middle school, he’ll have to adjust to having many different teachers, one for each subject, so it's good to learn this now. I also told him that everyone's had a teacher in their life that they don’t like or don't get along with. It’s just one of those growing experiences. But besides that little struggle, he’s doing extremely well in school. He’s on the honor roll and is a very good student. His teacher told us he’s been a good example of asking for explanations or having her repeat something he doesn’t understand. Apparently, most kids in his class don’t do that and she praises him for making sure he understands what she's teaching.

In a few weeks, Spencer's fifth grade class is going for a week-long overnight camp experience. This is something the fifth graders look forward to all year. They’ll stay in cabins and do fun things like ride horses, go hiking and basically have all their classes in the outdoors. I'm a little nervous about him being apart from us for so long but after going to the camp meeting for parents last week, I feel a little better about it. It costs over $200 to attend so the fifth grade classes have been trying to raise money all year for it. Spencer has been selling boxes of candy bars to raise money so he can go. Actually, Joshua has been burdened with most of the work. He took four boxes of the fundraiser candy to work and placed them in his building’s break room. It turned out to be a great idea since we raised over $160.00 that way. Speaking of other big things in Spencer's life, Josh and I went to a middle school parent orientation meeting about a month ago. Reality is starting to hit us that Spencer will be graduating from elementary school soon!! Middle school starts an hour earlier and ends an hour earlier than elementary school. That'll be a HUGE adjustment -- His bus will come in the morning around 7:15 am! Yikes! Spencer has already signed up to be in band (instrument yet to be determined) and to take an art class. He's also interested in joining the soccer and basketball clubs.

Besides that, Spencer has been reading the "Series of Unfortunate Events" books - Twelve in the series. He's been whipping through them like crazy! He also loves drawing, riding his bike, playing with friends and playing video games. He is very efficient at getting his chores done so he can make sure and earn his weekly chore money. I have willingly complied to his requests for extra chores to earn more money. It's always easy to find more chores to do. He's saving for a $100 lego set. He has earned $20 so far. Soccer starts in a few weeks for Spencer. His best friend's dad (also our bishop) is his coach and actively recruited him for the team. Spencer was on his team last Fall and he really wanted him again. Spencer is a serious and incredibly aggressive player! It's no wonder he wanted him. He had his 11th birthday last month and celebrated with a family party. For his b-day dinner, he wanted me to make steak, loaded baked potatoes, tossed salad and rolls with beef jerky for an appetizer. He's certainly turning into his father's son in that aspect! He was honored with the Arrow of Light award (the highest award in cub scouts) last week and has moved on to 11-year-old scouts.

Jessica was escorted by her dad to a school Daddy/Daughter dance in February. She was excited to get dressed up. Joshua even ordered a red corsage that matched her new dress. They had a great time. We see many signs of pre-adolescent behavior in Jessica. She's starting to care more about her clothes, hair, jewelry and she's become a little boy crazy. She was looking forward to seeing the movie “Bridge to Terabithia" because she has a crush on the boy in it - Josh Hutcherson. She noticed him in the movie “Zathura” a few years ago and has followed his career ever since (Kicking and Screaming, RV). She even joined the Josh Hutcherson fan club and received an autographed picture of him in the mail. She is apparently on the threshold of being a teenager - crushes and all. Spencer is her confidant and she shares who she likes with him. He's good to his word and never tells a soul. She turns 9 this June and is growing like a weed! She has grown two dress sizes this year and is in youth shoe size 4 (size 6 in women's sizes!). She has been learning her multiplication facts and we study them every night. I remember doing that with my dad when I was her age. I hated it but she doesn't complain and she knows almost all of them. When we were in Columbus last weekend, we went to the morning session of Conference on Sunday and she noticed that my Dad wasn't feeling well. She rubbed his neck and shoulders for a long time. She is a very thoughtful, sweet girl. She loves spending time with her friends and family, reading, playing outside and listening to music.

Alex is probably the most overlooked kid in our family only because he requires very little attention. He isn't very demanding and tries so hard to be obedient. I've noticed he's more of a spectator than a participant so I try my best to make sure he doesn't go unnoticed. But somehow, he doesn't have a hard time making lots of friends. His teacher says that he's very good at being social. He tends to get a little crazy at times, usually when over-stimulated or bored, but it's pretty easy to control him. He is such a good, sweet and thoughtful boy! He's been very eager at learning to read. He knows every letter of the alphabet and the sound it makes. He loves for me to read books to him. I try and read to him often. During our last Mommy date night, I took him to the library to read books. He loved the special attention. Spencer and Jessica have friend play dates every Friday and he just recently decided he wanted to be in on that too. So we arranged Friday play dates for him with a neighborhood friend that he seems to have lots in common with. This friend is also in kindergarten at the same school and in his class at church too. They've since become very close friends and sit by each other every day on the bus. A few weeks ago, I took him and Spencer to a Mother/Son dance at their school. It was super fun but became somewhat tricky when it came to the slow dances. I told them I would take turns dancing with them but Alex was jealous when I was dancing with Spencer. He would either start jumping into me or just sulk on the floor next to us so I ended up dancing with him in my arms while slow dancing with Spencer. Alex's favorite thing is still Star Wars and Spiderman. He is most definitely our super-hero kid!

Logan has adjusted to being the only child at home during the school week. He had a hard time when school started in September but just in the last few months, he's really learned to entertain himself. He loves going to preschool but his best buddy from school just moved a few weeks ago. His teachers were concerned after Logan told them several times that he would also be moving with his friend to Texas. But he's taken it in stride and still seems happy to go every Monday and Friday. On Wednesday mornings he looks forward to going to a playgroup with friends from church. Logan is like a ray of sunshine in our family. He is always so happy and ready to have fun. He's been our most independent child yet. He seems to think he can do just about anything he sets his mind to. We frequently get up on Saturday mornings to find the table set for breakfast, thanks to Logan. He likes to clean with me, especially dusting and vacuuming. He also enjoys sorting the clothes and making people's beds. I catch him brushing his teeth at all hours of the day. Spencer and Jessica are happy when he willingly helps them with their chores. He is our happy helper. He is still fascinated with cars and trucks and loves playing super-heros with Alex. I am repeatedly amazed at how well Alex and Logan get along. They are best friends which is a constant testimony to me of my inspiration to add Logan to our family while Alex was still so little.

Tonight was the kid's "Learning Fair" at school. Spencer's class had been preparing for this for many weeks. They started their own classroom mini-society where each kid had to come up with some type of business of their own. He had a partnership with another friend in class and they started a "pet rock" business. He collected rocks, painted and designed them into different kinds of animals (with Josh's help) -- ducks, rabbits, frogs, cats, hamsters, mice, lions, cheetahs, etc. They made around 60 of them. I helped him come up with training and adoption certificates -- We named every single one. A few weeks ago, he had a market day in class and tonight, the school and parents were invited to attend. Both fifth grade classes sold goods and services. (See a picture of his pet rocks below.) His business was BY FAR the best idea and most attractive. He sold all but 5 and made $130 (too bad it was only fake money). His business was constantly overrun with people. Spencer's teacher said she wasn't surprised he had sold so many because he had a really great product. Jessica's class project was to create a cereal promoting one of the 50 states. She was assigned the state of Ohio and called her cereal "Buckeye Puffs" -- A delicious wheat puff cereal with chocolate buckeye marshmallows. We covered a cereal box with butcher paper and designed a really cool cereal. It even had an Ohio state symbol word search game on the back (picture below). Jessica told me that her teacher singled out her cereal box to show it off to the other 3rd grade teacher since she thought it looked so nice. Jessica was really proud! She also had to come up with a commercial to promote her cereal, and ultimately promote the state, by telling what she learned about Ohio. She dressed up as a Buckeye Tree (Ohio's state tree) and performed the commercial at the learning fair tonight. Alex's class was open for parents to come see their most recent classroom projects which were on display. Thank goodness he didn't have a huge classroom assignment as well. We've been busy enough with Spencer and Jessica's projects.

Joshua is determined to have a movie marathon and watch all the Harry Potter, Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean movies to get ready for the latest ones coming out this spring and summer. Sounds fun! We are pretty psyched about the upcoming season of movies. Joshua has also decided that maybe it's time to start looking around to see what other jobs are out there. He updated his resume and sent it off to several companies. We'll see how that goes. We're glad to have the luxury of being leisurely and fastidious about finding a job unlike many people here in the Motor City. Since the automotive industry isn't doing well, our school, neighborhood and ward seem to be shrinking because of so many people moving (It's been hard to watch so many friends go). Because of that, the real-estate market isn't doing well in this area (we've heard it's the worst in the nation) and that's our major concern. We can't afford to lose tons of money on our house. So, at this time, we just feel grateful to have a job with good benefits. We'll keep you posted.

Joshua, Spencer, Jessica and I are going to take-on Cedar Point again this year. If anyone wants to join us, we are planning to go the Monday after school gets out - June 18th. Let us know and we'll count you in -- It's tons of fun!! We are extremely excited! Jessica is tall enough to ride all but two rollercoasters this year.

My new favorite movie is "Music and Lyrics" -- It is so funny! Hugh Grant is a hoot! See the link below for the hilarious music video from the movie. Joshua and I play it over and over. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0A7dtdc-nU

I'd love to hear from you. When you get an opportunity, send me a message. Take care! -- Julie