Volunteering

Every Thursday I volunteer in jared and Kamryn's 1st grade class. I give spelling tests to 4 kids - each child in the class has their own spelling list each week. And then I do whatever the teacher asks me to do.

Last week I put up this bulletin board - which is in the main hall.

This is Kamryn's comic retell of "The Mitten"

This is Jared's comic retell of "The Mitten"

Jazz Game

Last week Paul called from work to say he had 3 tickets to go to the Jazz game that night and would we like to go. Brooke volunteered to stay home with Jared and Kamryn. So Taylor and I got to go. The best part was we got to see the game from the Layton Suite. We had a great dinner and got to choose our desserts from the dessert cart :) Oh yeah, and watch the game, which the Jazz won.

Between

I never remember to take the BEFORE picture on a big project.

So here is the BETWEEN picture.

This is the back half of our storage room. Its normally FILLED with lots of STUFF. I've decided that I want it finished so it can be my office/sewing/craft room. Its really a domino effect of decisions. Where all my office stuff is now is in the back half of our family room in the basement. It used to be a big open room where we had a ping pong table. With the addition of 2 more kids when we had the twins we needed more bedrooms and lost the ping pong room. Well, we'd like it back - especially for the teens to have a place to hang out. This was really prompted after Taylor and his friends spent about 8 hours playing ping pong at the cabin.

So, we've moved all the stuff from the storage room into Justin's room. I did most of the work in one day! The only stuff left in there is Paul's :) So, I'm giving us a year to get this project finished - that's the goal anyway. We've at least got to get the room cleaned out before Justin gets back.

Jared and Kamryn photos

While we were at the cabin

Susan and Kierra braided Kamryn's hair in lots of braids

this is the results

it turned out really cute

and we think it made her look really grown up

jared in his super cool angry bird jammies

the pjs I got him for Christmas didn't fit so I was able to exchange for these

I scored big points when I brought these home

Jared had to go to the dentist last week

to have 2 teeth pulled and a cavity filled

he was very brave

didn't cry at all

and didn't ask for me to come back

he had to have the teeth pulled

because the 2 adult teeth were fully grown in

behind the baby teeth

Welcome to 2012

We were very lucky to get the cabin for new years weekend. That is our favorite place to be for New Years Eve. We were up there with my parents and one of my sisters and her family and one of my brothers and his family. Paul and I were sad that Taylor and Brooke chose to not come and go to parties with their friends instead (but we understood). So it was just Jared and Kamryn up with us.

We were there from Friday to Monday (I even kept Jared and Kamryn out of school on Monday) and it was such a great weekend. We went to church up there and the best surprise was that they only had sacrament meeting since it was a New Years Day - what a great idea.

We enjoyed playing games, watching movies, eating lots of good food and just relaxing. Its such a wonderful place and we're so grateful to our parents for such a great getaway place.

There is not much snow but there's enough to go sledding.

Most of Monday was spent outside in the sun and snow.

what a fun train

susan is a great mom to sled with her kids

(luckily, I had the job to take pictures)

Even my dad took several runs down

the sledding road

Kamryn loved being outside in the sun

(jared chose to stay inside on Monday

and play video games with his cousin Jake)

katie

(who can resist this cute face)

Kierra and Kamryn

Kierra is such a great friend, cousin, big sister to Kamryn

while we were at the cabin someone asked Kamryn who her best friend is

and she said Kierra

What a great ride

they went down all the runs

over and over

this is mostly to prove that I was really there