A Great Teacher

This year I had a hard time when I found that Scott literally was the only kid in our neighborhood to be in this Kindergarten class.  Sounds silly to anyone living outside a community like those here in Utah, but when you live here and in a 5 block radius there are literally 3 dozen kids the same age, it was a bummer for me to find he was in a class alone.  After cooling off and standing back, I came to the conclusion that where I was raised, I hardly had any friends nearby and I never was in classes with other kids I knew from church, so really…..who cares!?  It’s ended up being great.  Since this is my third time around having a Kindergartener, I have some experience to compare this teacher to and really, she’s been so great!  I have to say this was the first time I’ve ever seen a Kindergarten teacher doing a science experiment!  I watched her sit down with the kids to go over a hypothesis and look at reactions under a microscope and then go outside and see what happens when you put Mentos in a bottle of soda!  It was fun and the kids thought it was awesome!

The Lights At Temple Square

Every year we make the trek to downtown Salt Lake to visit the LDS Temple Square, where our church decorates the grounds of the Salt Lake Temple for Christmas.  It’s a fun tradition – one the kids look forward to every year.  We’ve done it in the freezing wet weather, covered in snow and we’ve been lucky a few times to get up there on nights when the weather wasn’t so bad at all!  Fortunately, this was one of those years!  I told Michael we’d better get up there while the weather is still in the 40’s so the baby doesn’t freeze!  We had a good time walking around looking at the grounds.  I really loved the scene of the manger sitting on the sitting pool of water just in front of the temple, with the little bubble lights.  I tried to get a good picture of it, but there were just too many visitors, so I’m afraid it doesn’t do it any justice.  At the end we went over to a large narrated manger scene and then into the Visitor’s Center with the large statue of Christ.  That’s the part the kids kept asking to see.  I love Christmas.

Christmas In November

Yep, it was an early Christmas for me!  I found  a pin of wainscoting that I liked and showed it to Michael.  I told him I’d be forever grateful if he’d build it for me……and he liked that idea!  He did a great job and I’m so proud of him! It only took him a couple days over the break to do it too!  He’ so good at building things and figuring them out…..kind of like a little boy I know, that lives with me…… ;)  Hmmmm….wonder where said little boy got that from? Thank you honey!

Oh Tannenbaum……..Already!

This is probably the earliest we’ve gotten our Christmas tree!  Michael will be really busy with work for the next couple weeks, so we went over to Costco and picked out our Christmas tree!  We usually go over to Home Depot to pick out a tree, but this year we tried something different, being influenced by one more foot of tree for $10 less.  Thinking we will go to Home Depot next year, though.  It’s a beautiful Noble tree we bought this year!  I wasn’t too happy that all Costco had was a trailer full of trees – no real help to load the tree and didn’t cut off the end to help it drink better…….

Nonetheless…..we have a tree and it smells heavenly in my house!  Michael teases me a lot, but I love Christmas and decorating for it!  Mason’s not quite sure what to make of it.  He keeps pointing to it and saying, “tree,” followed by a smile.  It seems to make him happy too!  It’s fun!  The kids love it as much as I do!   I’m really looking forward to all the festivities this upcoming month holds!

Happy Turkey Day!

We began this year with a special breakfast for my grandma, affectionately known as “Gee.”  Her birthday this year, happened to fall on Thanksgiving Day.  I know she was feeling a little overlooked with that being the case, so I decided to invite she and my parents over for breakfast and dedicate it to her birthday.  I think she had a great time.  I know we did and Jared particularly enjoyed playing “Cat’s Cradle” with her.  Funny…..a game both generations could understand!  We scoured the ads to find any “Black Friday”deals and really, I seldom find anything tempting enough to give up my precious sleep!  After the birthday festivities, it was back to Thanksgiving………

Another Thanksgiving has come around!  Michael and I try to rotate families for the holidays so we spend an equal amount of time with each.  This year was our year to spend Thanksgiving with his side and Julie & Hank happened to be the only ones that were around!  We had a great time with them!  The food was amazingly good…..Julie’s one of the best cooks around!  We all hung out and watched a movie, ate lots of yummy food, I painted the girls’ toes with my glitter toes kit, while the kids played and ate more yummy food!  It was a nice, relaxing day.  I need more of those  (minus all the calories :))

One tradition we like to do every year, is make “turkeys” out of cookies and candy corn and rolos for place settings.  Well, we were late for making them this  year and our cousins had it done by the time we got there.  Mason took it upon himself to check out all the place settings and sample them…….for everyone!  I think he approved!

The kids also had a gingerbread “House Off,” and I’m leaning more toward how the girls’ house turned out.  The boys however, were pretty creative.  There’s a character on the Super Mario Brothers game called "Bowser” and they sort of dedicated their décor to him.  It was a gingerbread house with a spikey roof made of candy corn. 

Hank and Julie decided to perform “the Robot” for us and of course, I had to get that on film! 

Oh yah, and of course, I can’t forget Gavin’s brief stint with cross dressing.  The boys find girlie stuff fascinating and somehow the girl cousins managed to persuade him to try on a Cinderella dress.  He thought that was so fun and silly until I threatened to take pictures and show them to his friends!  I was happy that quickly motivated him to change!  All of a sudden, it wasn’t so cool!  ":)

Party For Two

I think I’ve mentioned that I’m a room mom for all 3 of my kids in elementary school.  That being said, things can get a bit crazy!  This holiday, I had Scott’s party on Tuesday from 11-noon.  I team room mom this class with Alli Hunter and she was in charge of lining up the activities.  She had the kids split the class in half and play musical chairs and a form of hot potato (with a cute bean bag that looks like a turkey) and after a few rounds of that, she did a “feast” with them.  We basically just passed out string cheese, crackers, water bottles and candy corn.  I think the kids really liked it.  Scott’s teacher wasn’t able to make it to the festivities – I heard she threw her back out again (poor lady), but she still managed to send pumpkin pies to the class for the kids.  I wasn’t sure how these would go over…..I personally don’t’ really love it.  Of course Scott, being the hallow legged growing boy that he is, totally scarfed it down!  It was a hit!

Gavin’s class does “Homework” parties instead of the traditional holiday parties.  Unfortunately that meant this month, that there would be no celebration for Thanksgiving, so I brought in some cookies to the class to “celebrate.”  I didn’t get a chance to take a picture, but I think he was surprised and happy!

The last party for the day was over in Jared’s class, from 1-2.  This was my holiday off – the other mom who helps, Cara Hall, coordinated all the activities for this one.  The kids had games and  crafts after they had their “feast.”  I was in charge of the dipping chocolate.  The kids all had food assignments and I scooped chocolate for them to dip the various items in.  It was a total hit!  They also made turkey pinwheels.  They turned out pretty cute!

Of course a chaotic day wouldn’t be a chaotic day without something unfortunate happening.   In between parties I was eating a sucker and my crown fell off my tooth for the 3rd time in the last month.  I was able to get a last minute appointment with my dentist, and begged her to glue it in for the big holiday, and she did, but let me know that unfortunately what is left of my tooth, is cracked and now I will have to find an oral surgeon and have it pulled :(  SO not looking forward to getting a dental implant.  Sounds way painful, if you ask me!  I’ve felt my tooth seem like it may fall out a few times now in the last couple days since and I’m afraid it will soon, but I can’t get in for a consult with the oral surgeon until Dec. 4!  I am skeptical I will make it that long! 

10 Years And Counting…

that my love has been cancer free!  This is a particularly great year for us!  10 years ago I admit, I thought life as I knew it was over.  It was the hardest time of my life, but we made it through!  10 years is generally a big marker in a cancer survivor’s life.  Technically its your go-ahead to “breathe easy,” but truthfully, after you’ve been through it, you never really will.  We move on and live life, but I have to admit it still has a tiny little spot in the back of my mind.  I think it’s just because the fact that you’ve heard the bad news before, just the reality that it could easily happen again….to Michael, to me….to anyone.  But, life moves on and you just go on living it :)  Michael has been the greatest example of this to me.  He’s such a great guy with a great outlook on life.  Yah, it stunk, but he always kept a positive outlook.  I never once heard him complain about his fears, and I’m sure they were there.  I know they were for me. 

I look back on the past 10  years and they’ve brought us so much.  When all this went down, we only had Jared and he was just a little baby.  Now we have 4!  We’ve grown and changed so much in those 10 years and it’d be such a shame to have missed them!  I told the boys we all need to thank Heavenly Father for saving our Dad and letting him live.  We are all so blessed to have him lead our home.  Today when I picked up the boys, I told them what made today special to me and they agreed that we should do something special for Michael to let him know how much we love him.  So……they all made special cards for him (Gavin of course, being ostentatious, made a trophy ;) )  and we told him he could pick what we ate for dinner and Gavin also made him a little sign saying he loves his Dad.  It was sweet and it’s true.  We love that Michael Brown.  He’s an amazing man! XO

Twi-Hard

Another chapter of my “Twilight Adventure,” comes to a close….. ;)

Several years ago these “Twilight” books were such a hit and I heard people talking about them a ton!  I thought for sure I wouldn’t ever like them…..first of all I HATE sci-fi and second…..vampires?  Get real…… Well, one fo my friends had chosen the 4th book in the Twilight series for Book Club that year and I didn’t want to start into a series at the end, so I thought I’d give the first book a try and if I hated it….then, oh well….I tried!  Well, I was hooked.  I hadn’t read books in years and I couldn’t put them down!  I red all 4 in 10 days!  LOVED THEM!  Then they came out with the movies……well, the casting could’ve been WAY better, and honestly the acting wasn’t that hot until the end of the series of movies.  But, it made the story come to life and this weekend was the 5th and final movie!  Friday night I had a girl’s night with a group of friends from my neighborhood.  We went out to dinner at Chili’s and then out to the movie.  It was a fun night!

But of course, it didn’t end there!  Saturday I had another girl’s day out!  Because it is, after all……Twilight!  ;)  Saturday we went to Scott’s basketball game and after that, I got to take off for the day with my mom and my sisters, Kelly and Kenna.  We had a great time!  First we went to the new outlets that just opened up nearby and ate out at Johnny Rockets! I remember them from my younger days….still a fun place to eat!  After we got a few hours of shopping in, it was off to the movies!  It was nice to get away.  Especially after learning that Michael will be really busy with work for the next few weeks and finding that I won’t really be getting much of a break, if any, then.  It’s nice to re-charge!

 

Secret Service

The other day I thought, I’m going to do something different with my boys.  I thought, I’m going to teach them to do something for someone else anonymously.  I have a friend in my neighborhood who works really hard to help her son at his new start-up company and is now pretty much half raising her grand-kids.  Her husband has had some health troubles too and I’m sure yard work is out of the question for him, so I thought, who better to do some yard work for.  I explained this to the boys and they were happy to go help (until they discovered it would take a few hours)……then, the happiness waned.  But, nonetheless, it was a good lesson and I’m proud of my boys.

Piano Recital Season

Along with the Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie is the tradition of the boys’ piano recital.  My friend Kelly teaches them and I am so thankful for her talent and her patience with these boys.  This is probably the only time of the year we don’t have to fight them to practice because they are proud that they get to show off their “skills.”  They both did great and we are proud of our boys.

Gobble Gobble!

Once again the annual “turkey shoot” rolled around for the Elder’s Quorum in our ward at church.  We had our first real snow storm too…. but only 2 inches or so and just in time for the turkey shoot!  We were wondering there if it would even be able to happen, but yay…..he had a day out!  Even better…..once again, he won!  He didn’t win last year, but he did the year before.  They don’t shoot turkeys; clay pigeons (the next best thing) and the prize is a wrapped (cleaned) bird!  There’s Thanksgiving Dinner!  Proud of my honey!

Different

I’ve been wanting to paint my front door for years now.  If I were being totally honest,  I would much prefer to buy a beautiful wood door, but since that’s not an option……I settled for a coat of paint.  I’ve been wanting to paint my door for years now and it finally happened! A neighbor of mine painted a bright blue which I LOVE, but because she got to it first, I thought I’d go with the color I’d originally thought of; green.  After I got going I decided it would look best antiqued, so I went over it with a gel varnish and whoala!  It looks beautiful…..if I may say so myself.    I think people either really hate it or really love it and I love it.  And honestly, if they hate it…they can keep it to themselves; I don’t care :)  I think this summer I’m going to ask Michael to build me some shudders for the front window that I can match to the door.  And maybe…….I can eventually talk him into framing our pillars with wood that we can varnish and paint, rather than the cheapy metal columns that came with the house.

Celebrating October Birthdays

……at Kenna’s house.  We got together with my side of the family to celebrate Melissa’s 16th birthday, Steven’s 11th birthday and Mason’s 2nd birthday.  The kids had a great time running around and playing with each other.


I’m coming to the realization that all the pictures I’m taking on my smaller, older 8mm camera are looking pretty bad.  I think I may have to give up carting it with me to things so I don’t get such blurry pictures.  This was the best I could come up with.

This Is Halloween….

I’m humming the tune as I’m typing……another Halloween has come and gone.  This year’s was particularly chaotic!  Once again, as a result of my own doing, I was spread thin at two different class parties which I was in charge of.  I am room mom for Jared’s, Gavin’s and Scott’s classrooms.  

Fortunately Gavin’s teacher has a system where she throws class homework parties and at the beginning of the year she has two parents sign up to be responsible for each of them.  They are always the last Friday of the month and as a room mom I just have to make sure that the mom’s who signed up for them show up with something.  So that’s easy enough and his homework party was on the 28th (although I do feel bad that it’s a little anticlimactic on Halloween when seemingly everyone else has a big bash. 

 

The school holds a parade early in the morning at 9:30 and the kids get to walk around the whole school….through all the classrooms and into the lunchroom where the parents can sit and watch.  This takes a little over an hour and at the end, we had Scott’s party scheduled.  It was pretty straight forward.  We did the typical 5 station rotation; 2 where the kids made something, 2 where the kids played games and one where they decorated and ate a sugar cookie.  For these parties, I call up moms and assign one to each station and those moms are responsible for that activity and all its supplies.  I usually run the cookie station…. :)  Scott seemed to have a great time!

Then I had Jared’s party later that day at 1pm.  Since he is getting older, I figured they might not appreciate the same 5 station rotations and I opted to do 6 different “Minute to Win It” games.  At first when we told the kids a few of them actually groaned and complained, but I think it turned out to be a hit too!  We had a game where they had a minute to sculpt something, a game where they had a minute to wrap a partner in TP, a game where they would bounce pencils by the eraser and try to land them in a cup, another where the rolled a marble out a tube to knock over  cups, and one where they put a quarter on their elbow and tried to catch it with their hand.  I ran the one where they put an oreo on their forehead and moved their face around to catch it in their mouth without using their hands.  It was fun and I got some great pictures!  Even the kids that originally griped had a great time.  We had another mom (and my best friend) Amy, bring donuts for the kids at the end.  It was a sugary fun time!

After all those festivities, I was running out of time to do anything spectacular for dinner.  I like to do a funny ghoulish themed dinner and was pretty much spent after that.  My parents came over for that.  We had “scabby pizza,”  “Frog guts salad,” breadsticks and “Witches Brew” to drink.  I also bought a cute little pumpkin cake for dessert.  Simple, but it worked.  The kids were anxious to chomp down their dinner and get going on their trick or treating.  This year Jared decided to be a Slurpee, Gavin opted to be a vampire, Scott wanted to be Captain America and Mason was Scott’s mighty companion…..baby Thor!  It was so cute!  I loved walking behind Mason watching his cute little baby head bobbing and his bunchy diaper wiggling…..just wanted to pinch his bum and cover him with kisses!  SO cute!  This was the first year in awhile we haven’t carted around a stroller when we went and its strange to think that we never will again!  Fun that everyone could trick or treat and so cute when Mason rand around with a glo stick in hand telling everyone “hammer, hammer.”  He thought it was his Thor hammer!  Of course I had to put in a picture of what was probably the coolest decorated house in our neighborhood too……although Mason would argue that point.  When he saw it he just cried.

It was a crazy-busy day….all to be followed up the next day by my hosting a baby shower for my neighbor!  Too much!  Too much!  And BOY…..am I grateful that week is over!

Air Scooty

Scott’s season for basketball has begun!  This is his first year he’s done Jr. Jazz and it’s the first time we’ve put a little guy in this young for Jr. Jazz, but he’s having a great time!  No agression in that little body!  Reminds me of someone else I know……ahem….Jared…..did I say that?  That’s OK.  He’s having fun and it’s always entertaining to watch!  He’s lucky if he gets passed the ball.  At this age the kids are thrilled if they get the ball and take it down to the hoop (usually traveling the whole way) and take a shot themselves.  They don’t really share…….this young!  It’s fun and he did manage to make one of the few shots for his team at the last game, but honestly, I think he’d rather just hang out and chat with Luke Osmond….or Kade Daniels….or Logan Kunz…..or in this case…..whomever this little guy is on the team!!