Thanks for ...

Thank goodness for Teletubbies. They are the GREATEST!! Jared and Kamryn have one tubby DVD and they watch it every day. It's a great diversion for them and gives me a few minutes to do something. They've watched it longer today than ever before. Usually they watch it for about 5 minutes and then start playing. Today they've watched most of it. It's fun to watch them watch it. They get so excited about it.

ebay

I've been spending quite a bit of time on ebay.com lately - trying to get something for Justin. This morning there was an ad for a sweepstakes at ebay express - Wish for It Sweepstakes. You create a wish list and then if you win the grand prize you get $5000 to buy what is on your wish list. Man that was fun shopping.

A great party

Last weekend we had our annual group Christmas party. I meant to write it about before now but I just barely got the pictures loaded onto the computer from the camera.
I think we all had a great time and it was so nice to enjoy a wonderful dinner together. I loved visiting with everyone and it was fun to see what gifts everyone received. I am so grateful for such great friends.

Can't sleep

I just hate it when I wake up some time during the night and can't get back to sleep. Tonight is one of those nights. This is the second night this week that this has happened.
After reading everyone else's latest entries, I guess I'll catch up on mine.
Life is so crazy busy sometimes and it has been around here.
On Monday, Carolyn (Paul's mom) fell in the morning and broke her femur on the same leg where she'd had a 2nd hip replacement in Feb. It was a bad break and she was in surgery for several hours on Wed morning. She will be in the hospital for several days and then to a care center for many days and then home with a very long recovery ahead of her. Paul's dad is just recovering from a heart attack and so we are just as worried about him as we are her.
Last Saturday I took Brooke, Jared and Kamryn to the festival of trees. My niece, Kierra, was performing with her dance group. She did a great job as did the rest of the dancers. Jared and Kamryn loved looking at the trees, especially ones with stuffed animals, dolls and toys. I was reminded why we don't go to that event on a Saturday.
I'm so behind this season. I usually have my Christmas card out by now and I'm nowhere near getting it out.
Shopping is going okay. I'm struggling with ideas for all of my children this year. They really don't need anything.
My exercise buddy has been out of town for several days and I'm really noticing the effects of not exercising in over a week. Hopefully we'll get back to it Friday morning.

Holiday Goal

My goal during the holidays this year is to really try to enjoy them and not get too stressed out. To help me with that one of the things I'm going to try to do is wrap presents as I buy them. I went out shopping on the BIG DAY and again a little yesterday. So, this morning I set up my wrapping station (a corner of our crazy office area). I wrapped 9 presents. There's a great way to get in the holiday spirit. I love wrapping presents especially while listening to good Christmas music. It also makes the snow a little more bearable.

A great weekend

I love a laid back holiday weekend. We didn't really try to cram in too much and it was great that way.
Thanksgiving dinner was yummy but I do not recommend having it at 5:30 in the evening. Way too late. There's no down time to recover before having a pie. I don't think we'll ever have it again that late. On the upside of a late dinner it gave us time to have a family football game that I think will be a new tradition.
Friday's morning excursion went very well - got the one item at Toys R Us and it only took about 30 minutes. Then we were off to ShopKo for a few things and only had to wait in line for about 10 minutes there. Then came the big wait at Kohl's. We were there in line for about 90 minutes - taking turns standing in the line while others shopped. Got some great deals and cash back too.
To top it off, went to breakfast at Mimi's - YUM!
And then there was the BIG GAME! Talk about a rollercoaster! Paul, Justin and I watched it at my dad's. He was cheering for BYU and we were all for the U. My dad takes games like that very seriously and it was very stressful for him. We had to do all of our cheering silently so that he didn't kick us out (he said he wouldn't have kicked us out but we probably would have had to go watch on the little kitchen tv). And then Utah goes ahead with only a minute - man were we cheering!!! And my dad says it would be a miracle if BYU could score. Never count out a miracle with BYU involved. We just sat there in shock when it was over. Justin went home sick and depressed. Paul was on a high because that is his favorite kind of game - just plain old good football, nice and close and down to the wire. I was bummed that the Y won but so glad that Utah held their own and didn't get blown out.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday. It's Paul's favorite. I love it because he is home and not even working from home.
The 3 big kids and Paul went out at 8 this morning for the ward Turkey Bowl. All had a great time and Brooke even scored the winning touchdown.
I stayed home with Jared and Kamryn and started on my assignments for the big dinner (green bean casserole, banana cream pies, jello salads - plain grape for the little kids, and little english muffin pizzas for lunch time appetizers).
We've already been over to my mom's for a little bit this morning. I went out to buy a couple of papers at 7:30 this morning and both Dan's and 7-11 did not have them yet. So I looked at my mom's and will get my own later.
One of the things my mom started a couple of years ago was having the kids go through the ads and make wish lists after the BIG DINNER. It's great for her and all the parents.
Are you going out tomorrow morning bright and early?

Reconnect

I thoroughly enjoyed my weekend away with my sweet husband. It's so good to get away just the two of us and reconnect. We loved sleeping in, walking together holding hands, eating dinner and breakfast together. I love my husband very much and am looking forward to getting away with him again.

Belated Anniversary Trip

Paul and I are leaving tomorrow for a little weekend getaway, of sorts. We're flying to Phoenix early tomorrow like we've done in the past. Only this time we're staying over night there for one night. It's the end of the project (3 level parking garage for the hospital) and we're supposed to be doing a team dinner with the project team and their wives on Thur evening (I say supposed to because it may not happen if they're not ready for the grand opening Fri morning).
Then Friday afternoon we're flying to Vegas for one night. We want to go see the cool hotels and the fountains at Ballagio (sp?) and just hang out together.
Thank goodness for my mom who is willing to watch Jared and Kamryn for 3 days. The big kids said they would help out when they are home.

Jared and Kamryn's best day ever

Yesterday was the best day I've ever had with Jared and Kamryn (well, in days that I can remember). They were so happy for most of the day - no whining, not too much fighting with each other.
They slept until 11:00 am and even at that I went in their room before they were really talking and jumping in their beds. They were happy when they got up and ate a good breakfast. Then they were happy to play downstairs and watch TeleTubbies. They were happy when we went in the van to pick up Taylor and his friends from school on early day. They were happy to go down for a nap and happy when they woke up 2 hours later. They were happy going in the van up to the U to go the Utah vs Wyoming women's volleyball match. They had on their cute Ute outfits and they loved being at the game. Jared was jamming out to the band and Kamryn was waving to everyone. We were there for 3 hours and they were so good. Only a little bit of crying at the end and when they got scared by the Ute mascot coming to talk to them. They didn't even fall asleep on the way home and were really good about getting ready for bed. They gave kisses to everyone and then went to bed.
What a great day. When Jared and Kamryn are happy, we're all happy.

To Do List

Paige asked "what's on your to do list", so here's mine for this week:
1.Ironing - This is my nemesis, although lately I've kept up with it a lot better and haven't had to write it down on THE LIST. But I got behind and it's on THE LIST. I've got 3 more shirts and a pair of pants to go and then I can cross it off.
2. Clean shower - just finished that this morning.
3. School area - in our office area I have some shelves with arts and crafts supplies and a shelf where school papers go to sort out later. I need to sort that shelf. This one has been on THE LIST for several weeks. I just can't make myself do it.
4. Living Room Carpets - I just need to call and schedule to have them cleaned.
5. Windows - we want to replace the downstairs windows. I got several bids last year and then we never did anything with the bids so now I'm back to getting bids updated and trying to schedule someone to come do the job.
6. Call Denise - my cousin. We want to go to lunch and catch up.
7. Taylor's parent/teacher conference - crossed this one off yesterday. He received glowing reports from his teacher and had all Es for behavior. AWESOME!
8. Plant spring bulbs - did that one on Tues when it was such nice weather. Now I can hardly wait for spring to see what comes up.
9. Mop kitchen floors - did that one yesterday.

THE LIST keeps me going and more organized. Some weeks are better than others with finishing THE LIST. What I don't cross off gets carried over to THE LIST for the next week.

Happy Birthday Justin

I really meant to do this on Justin's birthday but I didn't get these pictures of him until the next day. As a tribute to Justin I thought of a list.

14 Things I LOVE about Justin

1. He is a great big brother to Jared and Kamryn.
2. He is an awesome soccer player.
3. He finished his Deacon Duty to God.
4. He has a great smile (even with braces on).
5. He is almost always in a good mood.
6. He always does what I ask him to do.
7. He cleaned the house as a birthday present to me (while he was tending Jared and Kamryn).
8. He is a very good student and is independent about getting his work done.
9. He LOVES the U.
10. He has a great sense of humor.
11. He's comfortable hanging out with his sister and all of her friends.
12. He honors his priesthood, attends church and activities.
13. He likes riding MY bike a lot.
14. He has a good time wrestling with his brother Taylor.

I love you Justin and I am so grateful you are my son.

Tagged

So, I've been tagged by Paige for the name game. This one is why you named your children what you did. We had our reasons at the time I just wonder if I can remember them. Unfortunately we don't have any real good ancestor stories or anything significant like that - just like the names.

Justin Paul Adams - We didn't know what we were having with our first baby. We both made lists of names and tried to narrow them down from there. We both liked Justin a lot. We also liked Benjamin but I didn't like any of the nicknames that go with that name. Paul liked the name Justin because one of his all time favorite bands is the Moody Blues and their main guy is Justin Hayward. I knew all along that I wanted the middle name to be Paul if it was a boy, and it was, so there you have it one the first one.

Brooke Lindsey Adams - Brooke was our number one name from the first time I was pregnant so it wasn't too hard to come up with that. This time around I found out what I was having and started calling her Brooke from then on. Paul wouldn't really agree to it until she was born and he looked at her. My only reservation with the name Brooke came from our neighbors who had a daughter named Brooke and they called her Brookie and I really didn't like that. So what do we do? Call her Brookie. It fit when she was little but not now. Her dad still calls her that sometimes.
Lindsey is a compromise. Paul really wanted the middle name to be Lynn and then she would be Brooke Lynn. I really didn't like that and didn't people calling her Brooklyn Bridge or something to do with Brooklyn, NY. So Lindsey was kind of like Lynn but different and we both liked it. (Since then I've heard of several Brooklyn and the name has grown on me).

Taylor Benjamin Adams - Here again, it's just a name we both agreed on. That is the big point - we BOTH AGREED ON. Paul and I really struggle with naming our children. He never wants to agree on a name until they are born and he can look at them. I disagree. I think they become the name you name them. We were deciding between Taylor and Nathan (I really liked Nate better than Nathan but we would have gone with Nathan to give him options). Justin and Brooke both liked Taylor better and I think that helped us decide. And Benjamin worked great for a middle name.

Jared Truman Adams - I have never struggled so much with naming a child as with Jared. It was so hard. Truman was easy and I really wanted it for the first name but Paul doesn't go for last names being first names so it was perfect for the middle name. I'd sworn after Justin no more J names to keep it more simple with calling for a certain child (that certainly doesn't make a difference since I go through all of them most of the time before getting the right name) but we just kept coming back to Jared. When he was born he just looked like a Jared.

Kamryn Lindy Adams - Kamryn was another easy one. I knew right when I found out I was having another girl that would be her name. I'd loved the name for a long time. Paul of course had to make up a list and see if there were any other options but there weren't. I'd first seen it one of those law shows - an actress on the show's name is Camryn. I loved it with the Y but I thought it should start with a K instead.
Lindy is one of the names Paul was considering for the first name so I suggested it for the middle name. He thought it sounded good. It wasn't until we were home from the hospital that someone pointed out how similar Brooke and Kamryn's middle names are. Oh well.

There you have it. I tag Ashley, Rebecca and Julianne (if you don't blog, just email me or put it in the comments.

Picture update

For those of you who thought I was extremely out of my mind to take Jared and Kamryn on Halloween to get their pictures taken, let me put your mind at ease - I didn't do it. Jared woke up in the worst mood and right then I decided it wasn't going to happen. So now we're going on Friday when my kids are out of school and can go and help me.

Go Utes!

One of the best thing the Utes have going for them this season are their new cheerleaders.
These are Jared and Kamryn's costumes for Halloween. When I saw them at Walmart back in Aug I think, I had to buy them. I justified buying them saying they could be their Halloween costumes. It worked out great. Easy costumes that they were comfortable in.
We took them to Paul's work for trick-o-treat. They got their first piece of candy in their hands and they were happy and that's all they needed. Taylor made sure to get a little more candy for them in their buckets.
I stayed home with Jared and Kamryn most of the night. We did go to two houses - perfect for their age. It was more fun for them to be at home and they would get all excited each time the door bell rang. They loved seeing who was at the door and getting more candy out of our bowl.
Taylor went out with friends and came home around 9:00 and Brooke went out with a big group of girls from the ward and didn't get home until almost 10:00. Her dad couldn't believe she didn't have more candy than she did. He figured out after her stories from the evening that the trick-o-treating is much different for girls than boys. For the girls it's a big social outing with lots of visiting at friend's houses in between the candy collecting.
And poor Justin. He's too old and big to go. But he doesn't really care. He stayed home and played his favorite football video game and ate whatever candy he wanted out of the home bowl.

Happy Halloween

Hope you all enjoy a fun filled day - in other words, I hope we all survive the day. I've set myself up for complete frustration. I am crazily planning on taking Jared and Kamryn to Kiddie Kandids to get their pictures taken in their Halloween costumes. Since that is my plan they of course woke up way too early today (I could hear them mumbling at 7:00 am. It's now 8:30 and they are still in bed but awake) and will probably be very ornery by 10:00 when I want to be at the mall ready. Why do I do this to myself? Why?

Made my Night

Thoughts from Thursday:
**The day started out great with a luncheon with great friends. It was so good to visit with everyone and see the kids having fun playing together.
**I spent two hours at the church with my Beehives for volleyball. We got there early to practice and they asked us if we wanted to play a practice game against one of their wards who's opponent ward didn't show up. So we said sure. Most of the girls didn't hear that we were playing just for fun and were kind of stressed out because we lost both games. When we told them it was just for practice they felt much better. Then the ward we were supposed to play at 5:45 didn't show up so we played another practice game with whatever girls were there. Then we hung around for a 1/2 hour waiting for our 6:30 game. We had fun and got in some good practice. Finally at 6:45 our opponent ward shows up (15 min late), with only 5 girls and a leader. There has been a lot of controversy in our stake this season about leaders playing (long story but basically last year they started out with leaders playing and decided it didn't work out so this year they said no leaders but every week there have been leaders playing). So our girls feel like it's not fair and that the other teams are cheating. I try to keep them positive and say it's just for fun anyway and let's be good sports but they're getting tired of it. I can't blame them. When we were finally done playing we went to Arctic Circle for ice cream. It helped us all feel better.
**The world series is messing up our tv schedule. We were all excited to watch a new Survivor episode and it was a recap night.
**But, what made my night (again due to the world series being on) was that ER was a rerun. Not just any rerun, the season premiere from just a month ago. I'd missed it and was rather bummed about it. So I was so excited it was on. I know, how shallow of me but it made my night.

Winter weather

For most people they may welcome the first snow but for me it is so depressing. I am not a winter lover at all. And this year will probably be worse than most because Jared and Kamryn love to play outside. They are happiest outside playing in their very little sandbox on the patio or going for a walk in their cars. I guess we could still bundle up and do both of those things but I'm really not into being cold.

Birthdays

Birthdays are good things. A guy in our ward said " you only have one birthday, the rest are anniversaries."
I had a good birthday yesterday. For the most part a pretty normal day with a couple of exceptions - went out to lunch with my sisters and parents and then went out to dinner with my family. Applebee's for lunch and Burger King with my family. When you have 2 17 month olds with you it dictates where you go.
Before dinner we went to Brooke and Justin's volleyball game. It was their first game in a co-ed county rec team. It was so much fun to watch their team play. They have a good team and a diversity of players.

Dinner groups

In our ward one of the activities we have quartely is dinner groups. Everyone who is interested signs up and those that are willing put down if they can host. I figured I could handle hosting this time around. Long story short, I hosted at my mom's house. We had 3 other couples join us and we had a great time. I made vegetable lasagna (I was remined why I very rarely make lasagna) and had fun setting a pretty table.

Nice note

This great note is what I found this morning on my bathroom mirror when I get back from exercising. It was so nice and it feels so good to have someone call me his.

The Dash

I'd heard this story before but it's told very nicely here www.thedashmovie.com

Update on RS Lesson

My lesson went very well. I was happy with how the discussions went and it was a fun change. To explain why I was teaching RS - a while ago our RS president had to teach on short notice because the teacher for that week had to go out of town very unexpectedly. I asked the pres why she was teaching and she said she didn't dare call anybody on Thur to teach that Sunday. I told her she could call me (I'd rather have short notice than too much notice). So, recently she asked me if I'd be willing to come in and teach sometime and bring in the YW with me and I said sure. The Laurel class occasionally goes in with RS so this would work out fine. Since it was UEA weekend and we had several girls out of town we had all of the YW go in. They seemed to enjoy being in there although one of my Beehives came up to me after the lesson and said "great lesson but boy was that long."

Get Away

We had a short get away over the UEA weekend. After church on Sunday we went up to our cabin at Brighton. My parents joined us overnight and Paul's parents came up for dinner. It was beautiful up there, even though a lot of the trees are already bare. It was nice to spend some good quality time together, especially with our parents. We enjoyed a nice dinner and played some games. Monday morning we woke up to snow. It snowed on and off most of the day. Kamryn and Jared even went out on the deck to have their first real snow experience. It was cute watching them in their little hooded jackets.

Relief Society

I get to teach in Relief Society today. The subject is service. I've thought about it a lot over the last 10 days or so. Hopefully it will go as planned. What is your most memorable act of service that you have received?

Quote

I've been playing around with my blog this morning. They've changed to a BETA format (whatever that means) and it is much more user friendly. Yeah!!
Anyway, check out the quote I added - it's at the bottom. It's from the movie "Akeela and The Bee"

Post Cleanout

Yesterday I helped my 12 year old daughter clean out her room. You wouldn't think it would have been to bad since we've only been back living in this house for a little over a year and before we moved from Phoenix her grandma had helped her clean out her room there.
You would be amazed at how much STUFF was in her room. We started with under the bed first - dolls and all the STUFF that go with them. Old rollerblades, several beach bags, old shoes, easy bake oven, socks, pencils, etc. She also had her American Girl doll (Molly) and all her stuff in their original boxes. We debated about what to do with Molly and ended up deciding to keep her for Kamryn to play with in several years (sorry Paige).
Next we moved to her desk - papers, papers, papers. Almost every drawer is empty now.
Then her dresser. Unbelieveable what was still in those drawers.
Lastly was the closet. I have one very picky daughter when it comes to what she wears. We filled up several kitchen garbage bags with clothes - some with the tags still on. We boxed up two boxes for my sister's daughter and are taking the rest to the D.I.
My daughter was a very good sport about this. She really is not sentimental so she has no problem with purging. I asked her if it felt good to get rid of all that stuff and she said "Yeah." Today she just has to finish - dusting and cleaning. I told her dad that we spent the day in her room and he looked in and said "it doesn't look any different."

UEA

Breaks from school are a great thing. I think I look forward to them more than my kids do :)
I know I would like year round school if all of my kids were in the same school but it wouldn't be as great now that I have kids in middle school and elementary.
We have some big cleanout plans for the long weekend. Brooke's room is full of old toys, dolls and clothes and we've got to go through that. And Taylor's room is a big mess which will take a while to straighten out. We've got regular chores and then we get to put up the basketball standard on Sat and finally try out the new court.
Of course, we'll have to fit in some fun times too.

So MAD

You know what makes me so MAD? I'll tell you.
We have been having some work done in our backyard, specifically a basketball court. Luckily we know someone who used to be in our ward that does awesome concrete work. He did our side driveway last year and now he's had a free week so he could do this court for us. He was supposed to pour the concrete last Thur and Fri but the weather didn't cooperate so he postponed to Mon and Tues of this week. (It's been very stressful watching the weather and having them say chance of rain, the worst thing for pouring concrete). Well, the weather ended up cooperating and they poured half the court on Monday. It's amazing to watch these guys work. It's like a work of art getting that concrete smooth and level. Our yard backs onto a park area and I've been worried about kids getting in the yard with the wet cement pad out there. We put the yellow caution tape up across the fence opening and hoped that would deter most people.
Well, yesterday we had an incident. They poured concrete in the morning and were pretty finished with the job by about 2:30. I was heading out there to kind of guard the area while kids were walking home from school. I got out there too late. Some kids had a thrown a long handled piece of reber on the just finished side. There was a big scrape where it landed and some divots. I was so mad. All that beautiful work defaced by some stupid kids. What are they thinking? They are lucky I didn't see them or they would be in jail today (or worse). I was so MAD!!
Thank goodness I saw it right after it happened and was able to call our friend and he came right back and fixed it. Any later and he wouldn't have been able to fix it.
Why do kids do stupid things like that?

A walk

Our family frequently goes for a walk on Sunday evenings. We all enjoy this and it's a great activity that our whole family can participate in. One of the things I like the most about it is that Justin, my 14 year old son, is the one who usually asks when we're going to go on our walk.
Tonight was great - sunny, beautiful fall evening with a slight chill in the air. We usually see a few friends on the way around the neighborhood. Jared and Kamryn love it as well. We'll all be sad to see our walks come to an end for a season.

Nightmares

I can't remember the last real nightmare I had (I know it had something to do with Paul leaving me in some way, that's how most of my nightmares go).
Well, Friday morning at 5:00 am we thought Jared was having a terrible nightmare. He is almost 17 months old and too young to be soooo scared. Paul went in and got him and he was sitting up in his crib screaming/yelling/growling combination at something. Paul brought him in our room while I got Kamryn who woke up from all that noise (luckily Paul got her back to bed pretty quickly). Jared went on with his terror for about a half hour. It was very scary and I felt so bad for him. He did have a pretty high fever so I'm sure that had something to do with it. It almost felt like an evil spirit was trying to possess him. Even though Paul or I were holding him he was staring at something and trying to scare it away. My friend later suggested that maybe he was hallucinating due to the fever. That seemed to fit. Boy, did I feel bad for my little boy.

A little bragging

It's my blog so I guess it's okay to do a little bragging about my two middle school children. We had student led conferences on Wed. This is something kind of new to the middle school. They started it last spring and have continued this year. Each of my kids had compiled a portfolio of their work, grades and evaluations from each class. Then at the conf. they shared their portfolio with me. I am very lucky and my first 2 children are very good students. They are responsible and conscientious about their school work. They are both almost straight A students (each one has one class keeping them from straight A status.) I am very proud of both of them!

Best and Worst

So, this evening I asked Justin what is the best thing in your life right now? After a little discussion about why I was asking him that and what did I mean, he answered the best thing in his life right now is when he doesn't have any homework (that is very rare this year) and the babies.
The worst thing in his life right now is school.
Then he asked me the same questions. My answer for best is my family and for worst is doing laundry. Laundry day really gets me into a bad mood.
What are the best and worst things in your life right now?

A good haircut

Don't you just love it when you get a good hair cut? I went to my favorite stylist today and told her what I needed - something fresh. Of course, I'm not brave enough to really do something new although I'd really like to do it sometime. I went back to one of my old standards, kind of a long bob with layers. She blew it dry, straight and curled under. My hair looked so nice when she was done. Now if it could just like nice every day but it won't because 1 - don't have time to do it (or the patience) 2 - don't know how, I'm just not coordinated enough to use a blowdryer and round brush at the same time.
Of course I loved my haircut but you should hear the comments from my family
"You look weird" - 9 yr old son
"I liked it better before" - 12 yr old daughter
"what did you do to your hair?" - husband
It used to bother me, these comments, but now I just figure I feel better about myself and who cares what they think.

Catching up

I'm not really back in the habit of posting regularly. I'll try to add that to my goals.
I'm into a To Do List lately. For the last 3 weeks I've written out a list on Sunday of things I want to do the coming week. It has been a great thing and I've gotten a lot done. I am getting a little obsessed about it though. Last week I didn't do fun stuff because I wanted to finish this list. So this week I've put fun stuff on my list. It feels so good to cross things off that list. I've got a bit of cleaning on there, clutter clearing, paperwork, and fun on there this week.
I was dreading the kids going back to school but it's actually been kind of nice. My days are actually a little less complicated. I seem to get more done while my helpers are away.
I took my boys clothes shopping yesterday. We went to Mervyns and I spent a fortune for 2 boys. Hopefully that will do them for a while.
I had a great day with the babies. I guess I can't call them babies anymore. THE TODDLERS! It is so much fun to watch them walking down the hall together. They love to explore and they love to get into EVERYTHING! Nothing is safe anymore. It's new enough that it's still cute all that they are doing but that is going to end soon, I'm sure.
We went to story time at the library. They liked it but it was quite a challenge for me. It's hard to keep track of two little walkers - esp when they are going different directions. Jared kept walking up to the front and taking the flannel board story down. And it was difficult to get to him fast enough since I had Kamryn on my lap or was going a different direction. Next time I'll have to break out their new back packs (leashes really).
The bad thing about my kids being back in school is the HOMEWORK! My 8th grader has really been slammed this year. My 7th grader is doing okay but it took her almost a month to turn in her disclosure for gym ( how hard is that?) . I finally had to threated her with cleaning out the basement window wells if she didn't turn it in. It worked -she did it. I guess I know what to threaten her with now.
And my 3rd grader - life is way too hard for him now. I don't know if WE'RE going to make it through 3rd grade.
Well, there's a bit of what's been going on lately.

20 years

Saturday night I went to my 20 year high school reunion. This was the first reunion I've been to. Our five year was on the day I got married and I was living in Tucson for the 10 year. So I was really looking forward to going this time. At $75 a person I didn't even invite Paul to come. I didn't go to his and he didn't really want to come to mine (although he would have if I wanted him to).
I had a good time visiting with lots of people there. At first it was a little embarassing to not remember people's names and have to look at their nametag but then realized everyone was doing that. It was fun to see how people had changed, esp the guys, or had not changed, a lot of the girls.
It was disappointing to not have any type of program or welcome from the committee. The DJ was terrible, in my opinion - he played yucky music of today and way too loud.
I enjoyed visiting with people but it sure would have been nice to have really talked with some people and talk about what we've really done in the last 10 years. Mostly it was - where do you live and how many kids do you have?
I look forward to the 30 year reunion and hope more people come.
PS For phots of the event, go to Paige's blog

Photos

I put that first photo on and then haven't done any since. I finally went through my photos on my camera from camping and our trip back east so I'll add one from each event. I wanted to take a good family photo on our big trip and this was the only photo we got - in front of the DC temple. I had planned to use it for our Christmas card picture this year but Justin and Brooke said no way.

A Great Day

Yesterday I flew to Phoenix with Paul for the day. Since he flew so much over the last year he earned a companion pass on Southwest. So, I can fly with him anytime during the next year for FREE!!!! How awesome is that?
I had a whole day to myself to do whatever I wanted ! I loved it !!
I went to Kohl's and Mervyns to try and find something to wear to my 20 yr high school reunion. I enjoyed just leisurely wondering around both stores without children or worrying about getting back to a sitter.
I visited with several friends, went to lunch at Cheesecake Factory, visited my kids' teachers from there and went to dinner with our bishop and his wife. (we left 15 minutes later than we planned to go to the airport and just squeaked on the plane before they closed the doors).
I can't wait to do it again and see more friends the next time I go - in October.

Funerals

I went to the funeral today of my great uncle "Dick." I saw him a lot at my grandparents while growing up. If you didn't go right up to him the second you came in the door and say "Hi, Uncle Dick" then you were in big trouble with him and he'd let you know it. So, I went mostly because I wanted to and a little because I'm afraid if I didn't go that when I got to Heaven (hopefully Heaven) he would be all mad and I'd hear about it.
Anyway, I think funerals are so interesting (when it's someone who is old and it's their time to go). I learned so much about my Uncle Dick today and it was great. I learned that he didn't go by his real name and my uncle once teased him about his real name and Uncle Dick got mad and twisted his arm and the two families involved didn't see each other for a long time. My Uncle Dick dated my grandmother before his brother (my grandfather) did. I also learned that he was a great record keeper and made scrapbooks for his grandchildren. What a neat gift to them.

A Good Cry

I stayed up late Sunday night finishing a good book. It was the first book I'd read in a long time. It was "My Not So Fairy Tale Life" by Julie Wright. It's an LDS book (if that bothers you than never mind reading it). I really enjoyed it and bawled my eyes out. It taught some very good gospel principles and I think all young women should read it. Now I can start my book club book "The Princess Academy."

Teaching YW

We haven't been to our ward in a month - what with 2 baby blessings and then 2 Sundays on our trip back East. We are all excited to be back to our home ward. So, I get to teach the Beehive class for the rest of the month. Tomorrow's lesson is entitled "Personal Purity through Self-Discipline." The title sounds very overwhelming but it is actually a very good lesson, I think, and one that I really could work on. Hopefully the Beehives will find it interesting. Wish me luck.

stomach ache

I've just come home from a new kind of pack meeting and man did it give me stomach ache. I'll try to spare most of you the long story and just say that our stake is going to a stake cub scout pack meeting. I've never liked the idea from the first time I heard it and I really don't like it now that I've come home from the first "pack" meeting - an info meeting for parents and a very boring meeting for the cubs. After about 30 minutes they finally had the den leaders stand up to be introduced and then they called out their cubs and each den went into a room to get to know each other and work out a little skit or song to come back and present in 15 minutes. (why didn't they have the scouts excused to do that at the very beginning). Meanwhile the parents have to stay for more BORING meeting and heated discussion about whether to continue with belt loops and who should pay for them and whether or not to have treats at pack meeting and den meetings. I REALLY DO NOT LIKE THIS PROGRAM BUT I'LL TRY TO SUPPORT IT.

Park date

This morning several women from our ward met at Anzak Park with our kids. It was great to get out of the house and enjoy the sunshine. It was fun to watch the kids play and we all enjoyed visiting. Jared and Kamryn seemed to have a good time and were only clinging to me towards the end of our time there. We hope to do this regularly - as long as the good weather lasts.

1st day of school

I've been abandoned - my great helpers have all gone back to school. They didn't seem overly excited about going back - we had a super busy summer and they weren't quite ready for it to come to an end. And I'm really going to miss them and all of their help. Jared and Kamryn are really going to miss them. All they have is me and that's not enough apparently. They both want to sit on my lap while I'm here at the computer. You would think they could play with each other but that is not really working at their age. I got out a bunch of new toys for them to play with but that didn't last long. I guess I'll have to go and play with them - I just wanted to print up a new calendar and a new job chart for the school version of jobs. (not as many so they can concentrate on school). Hopefully my big kids are having a good time at school.
Side note - Brooke did get into the Honors Language Arts class - She scored very high on the reading comprehension test she took. I had to go in this morning to find out - the counselor thought he had called to let us know but he didn't. Thanks for making me stress about it all weekend.

Double post

So, when you blog in the wee hours of the very early morning, it's a little crazy. Sorry for the double post. I'm still trying to figure this site out and it's keeping me up. I've got to let it go and go back to bed and see if I can sleep. Good night.

To explain

To anyone who might be reading this and noticing the crazy hour that I've been up posting - let me explain. I couldn't sleep and decided to get up and check a few things on the computer (email, powerschool, etc) and one thing led to another and now I'm trying to get back into blogging.

To explain

To any of you who read this and notice the hour that I've been doing this - I couldn't sleep and got on the computer to check a few things (email, power school, etc) and one thing lead to another. I'm really going to hate myself in the morning.

Trying a picture

I'm most frustrated with blogging lately because I can't figure out how to add pictures. It was so easy with my MSN site when we were with MSN. Ever since we switched to Comcast I haven't been able to add picture to my MSN site. So this will be the real test with blogger - to see if it's easy to add pictures. So here goes (wait just a minute)
So it took more than a minute but the photo is there. Aren't they cute?

New Blog site

I can't access my old blog site anymore so I'm trying blogger again. Hopefully I can figure it out better this time.