Temple, Field Day, Splashtown and Stake Conference 4/22 - 4/28 2018

I had a harder time with my lesson today.  The kids were being pretty rowdy and I had to raise my voice a bit.  I really don't like doing that, but I don't know how else to make them realize that their behavior is inappropriate and I'm not going to put up with it.

It was a beautiful Sunday though and we went to the park after dinner to enjoy the not too hot weather.  Earlier at choir Damon enjoyed holding my friends baby while she was asleep.

 Monday I went to a new exercise class.  A mom in the ward is doing some dance exercise routines that are pretty easy, but fun too.  We meet on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Tuesday was crazy busy with errands, but I got a lot done then met up with my friend Kari to have lunch at a local Indian place.  It was very good and I was very hungry.   We had pack meeting in the evening.  It was Tyler's last one and he earned his Webelos Rank.  Chris earned a belt loop.

 Wednesday I went to the temple.  The temple had been closed since the hurricane/flooding in August and it just was reopened on Tuesday.  It was so good to go back.

 It's so nice when they play together nicely. :)

 Friday was field day.  I was at the school basically all day.  I was with Kaylee for the most part, but I was able to see Jenna's class too..  They had a fun time doing all of the activities.  I went home for lunch and then back again to help with Chris's class.  Once they are in 2nd grade they get to participate in the tug o' war.  They had a lot of fun.

Friday afternoon Doug left to go camping for his Scout Master training.

 Saturday was so busy!!  I went out with my friend in the morning to look at Garage sales, I found a few fun things.  The kids ate breakfast and got their jobs done all by themselves - it was awesome! Then we all went to Damon's soccer game.  It was hot!  Then we changed into our swim suits and went to Splashtown.  It was the opening day and if your went you got some free tickets for a friend.  We didn't buy Doug and pass this year, so we will be able to use those for him when he wants to go.  We had a good time, but the kids started getting cold - not quite warm enough for us yet.  We stopped and got a frosty on the way home because the kids had been so good getting their jobs done in the morning.

The kids had some screen time while I made dinner and then I went to a wedding reception.  They made the church gym look so good and they they had a full dinner buffet line.  I wish I would have known and I would have gone earlier.  I didn't have a lot of time because I needed to go home and pick up Doug who had just gotten back from camping and then we were going to the adult session of Stake Conference.  The meeting was so good - they talked about not judging and just loving everyone.  We got together with friends after and picked up a few things at the grocery store and then had some frozen yogurt and talked.  We still had to clean up the house a bit when we got home, we got to bed late.  It was a very long but fun day. 

Hives, Movin' & Grovin' and Crawfish Boil 4/15 - 4/21 2018

I ran out of time on Easter to take a group picture - so we did it this week.  

We fasted for Chris a a family today.  He has developed a habit of clearing his throat and snorting.  We tried just ignoring him, but it hasn't gotten any better.  I hope that it is something he will grow out of, but it really is a problem.

Lots of errands on Monday, getting ready for the girls' birthday.  Tuesday I went and had lunch with Tyler and then went to his book fair.  He still likes to be with me - I don't embarrass him yet. :)

Kaylee broke out in hives on Thursday, this was a first for us - no other kid has had this type of reaction.  My nurse friend thought it was a reaction to the antibiotic that she took for her ear infection or the remaining effect of the ear infection itself.  It came and went for a couple of days, but she got better just fine.

 Friday was Movin' and Grovin' with Mom at the elementary school.  It is always super crowded, but fun.  We all do exercises and dance to fun music.

 Saturday we did some deep cleaning - under Chris's bed was a mess!  I went to Damon's soccer game and then we all went to the Stake's Crawfish Boil.  This is a big event that the stake does every other year.  We had a good turn out even though the weather didn't cooperate very well.  It rained on and off, but it didn't down pour so that was good.  They had carnival games inside that they kids enjoyed.  Once you did them all you could pick out a piece of candy. I helped stock the food tables for a bit and we all had hamburgers and hot dogs (we passed on the crawfish).  I loved the live music.  We have a very talented stake.  We had a band and some vocal artists for the whole time.  It was a fun evening.

 My kids all still like ring pops - Kaylee chose a long pixie stick.

Ear Infection and friend baptism 4/8 - 4/14 2018

Not a lot happened this week.  Normal activities: soccer, piano, and scouts.  I helped a friend by watching her new baby so she could rest.  I helped at the school and went to institute.  

I took Kaylee to the Dr. on Thursday.  She had been battling an ear infection for a while and her fever got high enough that I wanted to take her in.  We got an antibiotic for her and that helped.  

We went to a friend's baptism on Saturday, grateful for these opportunities for the kids to see their friends making good choices and feeling the spirit. 

Easter, 2nd Grade Program, Honor Choir and Church Ball 4/1 - 4/7

Easter was a simple celebration.  We just did things as a family.  The kids looked for their Easter Baskets and were excited to find some candy, a small toy, and cotton candy.  As a family we got a new game: Sushi Go Party!  The kids were very excited and we played a couple of games after breakfast.  We had crepes and grapefruit.

Also in their baskets was a kit to make your own bouncy ball.  The first ones grew too much and broke the mold, but we taped Damon's so his turned out ok.  

 We went to the park in between sessions of General Conference.  It was a beautiful day.

 The kids did really well listening to conference and it was exciting to participate in the solemn assembly when Pres. Nelson was put in as the new prophet.  There were some other exciting changes.  The elder's quorum and high priest quorum will now be together and home teaching and visiting teaching will now just be called ministering and no more records on it beside interviews.  It's very cool to see the Church progress and rise to a higher level of living.

I made a nice Easter dinner: ham, cheesy potatoes (I tried and new recipe that turned out really yummy), broccoli, carrots, rolls, and fruit.  I was tired of making desserts so we had root beer floats for our treat.

During the week I visited with a friend on her birthday and made her a lava cake.  I had to hurry to get it done in time since I had tried to squeeze in a trip to the store beforehand.  I worked on finishing last years slide show and made it so you could access it from this blog.

Evenings this week were busy with scouts, soccer, and Tyler had two extra honor choir practices.  Wednesday I hosted book group.  We talked about the book Radium Girls.  Such an interesting piece of history that it not talked about much.  We had a great discussion and I served wheat bread, yogurt parfaits, and deviled eggs.

Thursday evening Chris had his 2nd grade program.  It was called Going on a Picnic and all the kids were to dress up as bugs.  Glad that Tyler had made this spider costume a couple of years ago.

 Chris did a pretty good job.  I couldn't see his mouth going all the time, but I think he had a fun time participating. :)

Later Thursday evening Doug went to basketball and called me shortly after he got there.  I immediately knew something was up and asked what was wrong.  Doug replied: "I think I may have broken my nose!'  He came home and iced it and now we are just waiting for all the swelling to go down to see how it looks and decide what to do.  Sorry Doug!

Saturday I went to some garage sales in the morning with my friend and found a couple of good finds and a couple of not good ones.  I bought some soccer cleats, but they ended up being the wrong size.  I can never remember what size everybody is.  Oh well.  

Damon had a soccer game, they lost and it was really cold.  We were all going to go as a family, but Doug ended up watching by himself.  Then we went to Tyler's Honor Choir concert.  It was really good.  They sang about 7 songs.  I was so frustrated because there was a really tall girl right in front of Tyler.  She should have been standing in the back row or moved down to the lower riser.  Anyway, after the second number they re-positioned a bit and it was better so that was good.  

 Tyler's choir teacher Mrs. Engle.

Court of Honor, Easter Activities, and Lemonade! 3/25 - 3/31/2018

The girls can be so fun sometimes, playing make believe and doing things together.  They really do have a special connection with each other. 

 Chris and the girls play with the magna-tiles frequently.  Usually they share pretty well.  Sometimes we have to divide everything up evenly, even by color. :)

Monday was crazy busy, I left the house at 9:45 and didn't really get home until 7:30.  I did a bunch of errands and then rushed home to go visiting teaching, and then ran to the church to help set up for dress rehearsal, then pick up the kids from school and a quick trip to the store for something I needed for dinner and then back to the church for dress rehearsal. (All while putting in the next load of laundry between each activity).  Grateful for Damon's and Doug's help keeping things going when I'm not home.  

 This was Doug's first Court of Honor as the new Scout Master.  He did a great job.  Damon was master of ceremonies and he did a great job too.  Damon earned quite a few merit badges this time since he finally finished the three he had been working on for months.  He received: personal fitness, family life, personal management, digital technology, programming, and mining in society.  The last three he did at a merit badge clinic.  He is getting close to earning his Star, he just needs a few more service hours.

 Soccer and piano keeps us busy on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I don't like driving Tyler to piano at 4:30, there are a lot of cars on the road with crazy drivers.  But it's still worth it, he is getting better and learning lots.  This week it was raining really hard and the roads were flooding a bit. I was white knuckle on the steering wheel the whole time and was really grateful when we made it home safe.

I did a big trip to Kroger because they had some canned items on sale. They have to put in each can separately so my receipt was crazy long!

Thursday was our RS activity.  Instead of doing a dinner for the birthday celebration we did some service projects.  I helped sew a weighted blanket and I brought a very yummy white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.  I was kind of bummed that I only got a small taste at home, they went pretty fast at church.

 Friday was Good Friday so the kids had the day off of school. In the morning someone came and picked up our old piano - Doug also had the day off so he was able to help wheel it onto the trailer.  The person buying it ended up just living down the street so that was nice that they didn't have to move it very far.

It was the perfect weather and we went to the beach with some friends in the morning.  I packed a lunch and so we stayed until 2 or 3:00.  Tyler took off his shirt part way in and I forgot to put sunscreen on his back, so he got sunburned pretty bad.  The kids love this beach and I love how close it is.  Cleaning up sand is a bit of a pain, but I'm grateful for washing machines.

 After the beach and dinner I went over to the church to help with The Barefoot Theater Company's production of Lemonade.  We did a quick run through and then the show started at 7:00.  There was a good audience, they even had to set up more chairs.  Natalie and I had gone over earlier in the morning to set up the backdrop and Damon and Tyler had set up the chairs.

The show was great, the kids did the best they had ever done and were loud enough most of the time.  I had hinted to a mom to get flowers for Natalie and she surprised me with flowers too.  They were a huge bouquet.  We quickly took down everything and left the building at 8:05 (we started at 7:10 - so to do the show and clean up in under an hour was phenomenal).  Then Natalie, Haley, Laisa, and I went out for ice cream to celebrate Haley's birthday.  I got my favorite at Cold Stone: oreos and raspberries in sweet cream ice cream.  Mmmmm, so good.

Notice the red curtain backdrop, I ironed and sewed all of those - that took awhile. :)

Saturday we had time to do our normal cleaning before conference started.  The kids do a great job of watching even on Saturday.  We dyed eggs during the morning session and then had our egg hunt after lunch.

 Everyone loves dad!

 I really tried to stay away from candy this year.  I only bought one bag of jelly beans and then used some lifesavers and laffy taffy's that I had in the cupboard. We didn't take them to any other egg hunts either - oh well, Easter isn't about the candy right?  They get more excited about the legos and money anyway.  The boys all got a small set and the girls got some Shopkins and $1.00 each.

Doug and Damon went out with friends for dinner then watched the priesthood session at a friend's house.  The new announcement about the merging of quorums was exciting.