Battle of the Books

Zane had the opportunity on Monday to represent O'Connor Elementary, along with his two fellow classmates in the Mesa Public Schools Semi Finals of Battle of the Books.



Battle of the Books is a program for 5th and 6th graders where students make up thier own teams of three, read 12 books of the districts' choosing, then answer questions about those 12 books for points. There were three rounds at O'Connor. Zane's team earned the most points, so they went on to the Semi Finals held at Brimhall Jr. High. Though they didn't win, I was so proud of them for trying. They did a great job and represented our school well.

I finally got some pictures of Jack smiling. He's been doing it for several days but as soon as I get the camera out, he stops. So stuborn at two months!

Easter...Finally

I keep saying I'm going to post our Easter pics, but life seems to get in the way. So today the dishes might not get done but you will get to see what a great Easter we had.

I sewed Easter dresses (Missed you mom!)

We dyed eggs

Opened baskets

and Jackson ate his first chocolate marshmallow bunny.

We hunted for eggs with our cousins

Even the teenagers got into (of course there was money in their plastic eggs!)

And we ate lots of great food!

That night after our bedtime story, I asked Emily why we celebrate Easter and this is what she said, "Because Jesus died so we could live with Him again."

I am grateful for the Atonement and that I will be able to live with my beautiful family forever.

This past week Bekkah and Jackson have both seen thier cardiologists. Jackson is still doing well. His murmur is still there, and he still has some leaks, but they are small. He will have another echocardiogram in September and if all is still well, he will be discharged! Yeah!!
Rebekkah's heart is still very pre-excited (beats too fast). As a result she burns calories quickly and doesn't gain weight like she should. But he said she looks really good and her tests came back ok. He wont take her off her meds, but he didn't put her on a higher dose either. She's still too small for the surgery for her WPW. He wants to check her Ebsteins to see if the valve is growing ok and to check the size of her heart. But to do that she needs to hold still for the Echo and she doesn't do that very well. We had a hard time just getting a reliable EKG. So we are going to wait for a few months then try it. If she is still too wiggly they will sedate her. He also told us that if she were to "grow out" of the WPW, she would have done it by now. So I guess we're in this for the long haul.
Though my hopes of going off meds were not realized, I still felt good about the visit. Her cardiologist is very positive and upbeat and that helps to calm my fears.
I know the Lord is watching over her.

Yesterday Bekkah was fitted for her heart moniter. We keep telling her it's her purse, but I don't think she's going for it. I spent all day yesterday telling her not to pull on the leads. We made it the 24 hours without her pulling them off. In two weeks we get the results. Sometimes little children with WPW go into a kind of remission. If that is the case, she may go off her meds. This would be good because the medicine she is on can prolong the time between heartbeats and could cause her heart to go tooo slow or even stop. The bad part would be that there will be no medicine to stabalize her heart when it goes too fast, so if she's not really in remission or she comes out of it we wont know. Most babies show symptoms or signs, but she doesn't. Her heart can be beating 250 beats a minute and it doesn't even phase her. I guess I'll just keep checking and try not to worry. It helps to stay busy, so if any of you need anything, please let me know. Serving others keeps things in perspective for me. I know Heavenly Father is watching over her and all will be well if we are faithful.