Favorite Halloween Video

We have watched this video several times lately and it is still SO FUNNY!
And now, its really funny to Jared and Kamryn and they love watching themselves when they were little.

He did it!

Just before school started this year, Jared decided he wanted to start reading Harry Potter.  I was all for it and told him we could read it together.  2nd grade has been the year for Harry Potter - that's when Justin and Brooke both started reading it too.
Jared has a bit of unfair advantage - he's seen all the movies and knows what's happening.  So that's made it easier for him to start reading in this magical world.  I remember starting to read the first book with Justin and it was a bit hard to get into at first - since it was all so new to each of us.
Its been great Harry Potter with Jared - its been a family affair. He's read with everyone in our family (except for Justin, of course).
When he started out his goal was to read the first 2 books during 2nd grade and I thought that was a good goal.  It was kind of slow start and in the beginning he would just read a page or 2.  Many times I would read a page and he would read a page and that's all we would do.
But the last couple of weeks he's really been into it and we would read several pages or even the whole chapter.  I started telling I bet he finished the first book by Halloween - and then he finished it last night!  That's over 300 pages for a 2nd grader :)
Now on to the next book - at least we don't have to wait for them this time around.

He's Got SPIRIT

Its been spirit week at Taylor's school this week.  He's been pretty psyched for the "United Assembly" - which is a competition type assembly between the 7th, 8th and 9th graders.  7th grade wears blue, 8th grade wears red and 9th grade wears white.  Of course, the 9th graders always win :)  Taylor was picked to chug a 2 liter of 7UP and of course - he won!

Don't mess with this "white" boy

Crazy Hair Day

 It was Red Ribbon Week at our school last week.  Jared and Kamryn were very excited for the last day of it - which was crazy  hair day.  They got up extra early on Friday so they could have time to get ready and then do their crazy hair.

it's CRAZY hair day!

Kamryn went for the medusa look with pigtails all over her head
and then we sprayed it purple and pink

There wasn't much we could do with Jared's buzz
other than color it

He went with orange, blue and red

these kids have spirit, yes they do!

Missionary Mondays

I didn't used to really like Mondays too much - it's laundry day and a day to try to recover from the weekend.  But now I love them because its the day we get Justin's letters by email.  He is a very faithful writer and we almost always wake up to a great letter from him every Monday morning - early, like 5:30 am or so.  Its such a great way to start the day and week.  We are very grateful that he likes to write and continues to tell very funny and also spiritual stories. He always shares a spiritual thought every week.

He sure makes it easy to be a missionary mom.

Elder Adams and Elder Foote

The Best Date

Paul and i were able to sneak in a date on Saturday and headed out on the golf course - our favorite date.  We went to Mulligans on a gorgeous fall evening.  I love that we can be out there together but don't have to play against each other.  I probably had the best game of my life tho - we ended up tied on the 8th hole.  We didn't get to finish the scoring because we played the 9th  hole in the dark and lost our balls.

After golf we went over to Market Street for another favorite - a bowl of clam chowder and sourdough bread.  That's all we get and its so yummy (I'm sure the server doesn't love us but we still tip well).

the sunset was beautiful

Momentum

Last week I took Taylor and his friend to Momentum, an indoor climbing place.  I had a groupon that was expiring that day and they needed to finish the scout climbing merit badge.  They started it at scout camp but due to weather they didn't get to do the actual climbing.  So after some basic instruction from a staff member they went to work on doing all the climbing and belaying they needed to - and some more just for fun.

They seemed to have a good time and it was fun to watch them.  Taylor's friend is all set to head back there for his birthday.

Some Good Mail

What a joy it was to receive this postcard in the mail. Thank goodness for a teacher taking time to send us this good news.

Personal Progress

My calling is to be the Personal Progress advisor for our young women.  Most of the time I feel like I am failing miserably but occasionally I feel like I am getting something done with the yw.
Last Sunday we were so lucky to have a tri-stake fireside where Sister Elaine Dalton was the speaker.  She IS AMAZING!  Almost all of our yw were there and we got there early and were sitting right up front - right in front of her :)
She told several amazing stories and gave lots of advice to all of us.  Some of her thoughts:

• Personal Progress can strengthen mother/daughter relationships
• Her wish for all yw is to be worthy to go to the temple
• She asked several yw want they wanted to be when they grow up and only 1 yw said "to be a mother."  She told the girls we should ALL want that - to be a mother in Zion.
• The Lord sends her around the world for ONE girl.
• It is important to be a Latter Day Saint - you never know who is watching
• Fight the war with your testimonies
• Stand as a witness at all times, in all places and in all PROM DRESSES
• General Conf - make a list of things you are going to DO.  Make a change. Take action
• You won't fit in ... you can't fit in ... you can't lead fitting in.  A leader has to be different

Thanks to Jenny for sharing her notes.  I took notes but they were in a letter to Justin and I forgot to copy them before mailing his letter.

After the fireside Sister Dalton stayed for over 1 1/2 hours and shook hands with everyone who wanted to meet her.  And she didn't just shake hands - she talked to the girls and was so genuine.

One yw in our ward is a recent convert and just moved here from Russia with her mom.  She is a gem!  She came up to me after the fireside and said "can we meet on Tues about personal progress"  I felt so bad because all summer I was supposed to meet with her and tell her about PP.

So I met with her and her mom on Tues night and it was so great to meet with such a valiant young woman. She is already doing most of PP on her own and she didn't even know it.  Since she is 16 I told her she doesn't have to do it all - but she wants to do it all!  She's already doing 3 projects but didn't know they were projects :)

As long as I was out, I met with another young woman new to our ward that night too.  She is a new Beehive and after 6 months has several value experiences already done.  She is a perfect example of doing PP with her mother.  I'd taught a lesson on Sunday on Faith value exp #6 and the homework was to teach the plan of salvation to someone and she'd actually done it with her mom the night before.

Young women like this make my job easy.

Now if I can just reach out to the girls who really do need my help.

Family Field Trip

last week i took Jared and Kamryn on a little field trip.

That's what we told their school.

My dad was able to come with us too.

They were ok to drive up to Brigham City because they could watch Pooh Bear in the van.

We went on a Wednesday morning and I thought it wouldn't be very crowded

since it was early in the morning and a school day

It wasn't crowded but there were a lot more people there than I expected

We didn't have to wait very long at all to get in to see the movie

and then tour the temple

Jared and Kamryn were very impressed,

especially with all the beautiful chandeliers

A funny little story:

When we were finished touring the temple and we ended up in the area where they had the water bottles and cookies, Jared said "oh we've done this before, I remember having the cookies but we didn't go in the temple."  I told him he did go in the temple when we toured the Draper and Oquirrh temples but all he remembers are the cookies.  Good thing they have cookies at the open houses.

It was definitely worth driving up to Brigham City to tour the temple.  It was beautiful and there was such a strong spirit in the temple.  It was great to be there with my dad and 2 of my kids (Taylor had gone with the youth on our youth conf and Brooke went with her student ward).

Back in Time

Yesterday I went back in time - to my middle school, to be specific.  As a TEACHER this time.  How crazy is that.  I was a sub for the 8th grade honors english teacher.  It was a super easy day and I thank Mrs V for that - 4 of the 7 classes were taking an SRI test in the library.  The other 3 classes just had an assignment to work on.  She teaches 7 classes - no prep period - crazy!  And 4 of her classes have 39 students each.
It was interesting to be on the other side in the school this time - checking out the faculty lunch room where they have their own vending machines.  It also made me think of when I was in 8th grade and had the most awesome English teacher - Mrs Simper.  I wonder where she is now.

Fun FHE

tonight was a great FHE - we have a small family now with Justin gone on his mission and Brooke away at college.  so its just Taylor, Jared and Kamryn with me and dad.  We have had some good lessons the last couple of weeks starting to prepare Jared and Kamryn for getting baptized.  Tonight we had a short lesson given by Dad about prayer.  We told J & K about an experience Taylor had when he was about six while we were living in Phoenix.  We had a gas stove there and it frequently wouldn't light.  I was frustrated with it and trying to make dinner.  Taylor left the kitchen and was gone for just a few minutes.  He came back and said "you can turn it on now Mom" so I tried it and it lit.  He said he'd gone in his room and said a prayer that it would work and it did.  J & K were very impressed with that story.  Taylor said that is his personal keystone.  Jared went on to tell that he said he prayed this morning that he would have a good day and he did.  I LOVE the faith of children.  We need to be more like them.
After our lesson we all played UNO Attack.  It was very fun and Jared won.  He was so excited.  It was really fun to play a game together because J & K are finally old enough that we can really play games together.

Things I've learned

A couple of things I've learned in the last day:

• there is a much easier way to get photos from my phone to my computer.  I'm not great about learning new things on computers and tend to do things the hard way.  I've been emailing my phone pictures to myself so I can then download them and then post them on to my blog.  Someone recently mentioned syncing your phone to your computer and transferring your photos that way. Duh!  Why had I never thought of that.  So last night I easily transferred all my photos to my extra hard drive and now it will be so much easier to post photos on my blog.
• that I can make bread first thing in the morning and have it out of the oven by 9 am.  I've been meaning to make bread for over a week now and just wasn't getting to it.  I had to make it this morning because Brooke was going to be home this afternoon and I wanted her to be able to have some to take home.  So I started making it as soon as I got back from exercising and it was out of the oven by 9!  Definitely the way to do it - first thing in the morning.

Labor Day

One of my new goals is to post more often, whether i have pictures to go with the post or not.
Today was a great holiday - great because I love Monday holidays and the extra long weekend.  We stayed up late last night watching The Great Sugar Bowl of 2009 where Utah beat up on Alabama.  We were able to purchase it on iTunes after the game and now that we have an iPad we can hook that up to the stereo and watch the game on the TV!  Great memories of watching that game.
So we stayed up late and then had to get up early cuz it was our family's turn to do flags in the neighborhood.  That is how our ward works it out - families of the youth take turns doing parts of the neighborhood flags on a couple of holidays a year.  It works out great.  I drove the truck while Paul and Taylor put up the flags.  It was kind of nice to get an early start on the day off - so we could labor :)
I've made myself crazy lately with big home projects and we are finally getting to end of this latest phase of craziness.
With Justin being gone on his mission and now Brooke away to college, I've felt very strongly that I wanted the 3 kids upstairs, close to me :)  So that's meant some moving around.  We moved the twins to Brooke's old room because its bigger.  And then I somehow convinced Taylor to move upstairs to a smaller room, because I don't want him down in the corner of the basement all alone.  I want him close to me.  So, luckily he agreed.  And with all this room moving around I had to do some painting - Taylor's room, and got new carpet - hall and all 3 bedrooms on the main floor.  What a pain but so worth it!  I love the new carpet and how it makes the rooms so much more cozy and inviting.
So today I've been working on trying to get everyone all settled into their "new" rooms.  Taylor is all done moving.  His old room downstairs is now FULL of stuff - all the stuff that used to be in our storage room because Paul is finishing off half that area for an office for me (so that the area where my office stuff is now can go back to being a ping pong/pool room).
Jared and Kamryn are pretty settled into their NEW room - I really don't want to move back in most of the STUFF and TOYS they had in their room before.  All of that stuff was stored on our deck and this morning I told them they could pick 3 things to bring back in their room.  It was fun to see what they chose - Jared: his castle, a football, and box of squinkies; Kamryn: her telescope, a makeup box, and a felt bag of little STUFF (that stuff is probably going to disappear somehow).
In the late afternoon we went swimming at the rec center.  It was the last day for the outdoor pool to be open.  Taylor came with me and Jared and Kamryn.  Then Paul joined us for the last hour.  The kids had a great time with their dad - swimming TRIPLE DOLPHIN and having him throw them up high to splash back down.

2nd day of 2nd grade

Even though Jared and Kamryn were up extra early on the first day of school I waited too long to leave for school and we barely drove up when their bell was ringing.  So we hurried and got them in line just as their teacher was taking the class inside.  So no time for pictures or even goodbyes.

This morning I made to leave plenty early so we could get some 2nd grade pictures at the school

Jared and Kamryn
before their 2nd day of 2nd grade

Kamryn loves to do the monkey bars!

Jared and Kamryn by the 2nd grade door

Being very typical silly 2nd graders :)

Back to school

I really can't believe that its already the end of summer and time to go back to school.  Jared and Kamryn were very excited to start 2nd grade and got up 30 minutes before their alarm went off on the first day of school.  They were ready to go 45 min before we needed to leave.  That was good so we could take the 1st day of school pictures with Taylor before he headed off to 9th grade.

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

Jared's report at the end of the first day was

"that was fun"

and Kamryn said

"I love my teacher"

Taylor, cool 9th grader.

His report of the first day was a good one for the most part 

and pretty detailed.

His favorite classes so far are art, math and seminary.

Hoping this will be a great year for all of them.

Its kind of strange to not have anyone at the high school

for the first time in 4 years.

Its nice to only deal with the middle school

and elementary for one year.

1st College Child

Brooke is starting her first day as a college student at the University of Utah tomorrow.  She is paying her own room and board so she can live on campus her freshman year.  We are excited for this experience for her.  Moving day was last week.  She got everything packed up and ready to go on her own.

Brooke in front of the Emma Eccles Fine Arts House
This is where she'll be living at the U.

Jared and Kamryn came along to help Brooke take all of her things up to her room.  She has her own room (how spoiled is that) on the 2nd floor.  Its a neat old house and she has 2 windows in her room that look out to great views on the east side of campus.

 Brooke with her great helpers, who are really going to miss her, and I think she'll miss them too.

 This was a cartoon I saw on facebook the other day and shared on my wall.  Its not exactly true with Brooke, but I certainly will miss her a lot.  But I am so proud of all that she has accomplished to be where she is at today.