Future Memories

- Erika got her 3rd tooth Sunday 8-22-10, the top left.  It's big!  I'm sure she'll look adorable in it :)  I love baby teeth.  She's getting really active and crawling all over the place now.  It feels like there wasn't a day where she "started crawling" it's been like a whole week or so that she's been kind of testing out and not sure if she liked it.  Today 8-27-10 was actually the first day I've seen her crawling with a smile on her face, so I think things will be looking better for her here :)  She will be able to get around and do a little more on her own, which I think she will embrace.

- The second day of School, 8-24-10, Kelly got a BLUE SLIP!!!!  She's number 8 on the Principal's 200 Club.  It was pretty exciting and pretty darn cool to be getting one on the SECOND DAY!!!  Kelly's teacher really likes her. 

- 8-26-10 was Back to School night.  For some reason it's still bugging me that they had it AFTER school started.  Seems off, but whatever.  It was a lot of fun to go see the girls' classes and meet the people they have spent the last 3 days under their care.  They both have really great teachers.  Mrs. Rice said that Charity is already just more than she can handle as far as finishing her work early and needing more to do :)  It's funny because I have the same problem at home with her :)  She has a lot of fun things planned for the kids this year, I'm excited for her to experience 3rd grade.  They have their own class money and plans for auctions, the claw, lots of good stuff.  Charity's loving it.  Kelly's teacher, Mrs. Rafferty, is brand new to Holbrook and is really sweet!  I love her.  She too is struggling to find things for Kelly to do.  She said that she felt bad because Kelly came up and asked if she had to keep reading (since she had been reading ever since she finished whatever it was they were doing) and because Mrs. Rafferty wasn't planning on anyone being done so quickly, she just didn't know what to tell her and said that yes, she had to keep reading.  It was a funny story in person.  Anyway.  They have a lot of fun ahead too.  Kelly's lucky because she sits in direct line of the cooler fan.  That school is SO HOT!!!!  I don't know how they all do it there.  I would be so irritable just from the heat if it were me.  Somehow they manage!  We learned too late that the Kindergarten teachers weren't going to be there for Back to school night, much to Bradley's dismay.  I did get a chance to meet Mrs. Savage, his teacher on the first day, but he had wanted his Dad to meet her.  And I'm sure he wanted to show of his classroom that he had been in all of 2 hours :)  We'll have to get over there again soon for him.  I love the feeling that we are going to do better this year and get our homework done on time and have all our reading minutes recorded, and go the extra mile on all the projects!  It's just fun to think that's even possible :)  I'm hoping for a really great year though.  We've really gotta get some structure back in our lives.

- For the last couple of days I have been typing up a journal I stole of my Grandma's.  It's been SO NEAT!!!  I don't know what it is, but I LOVE reading her journal.  I find myself just craving it!!  I finished the one tonight and it's just killing me to have to wait to get more.  She was just so amazing.  And even though a lot of it is kind of mundane, just day to day stuff, it's SO FUN TO READ!!!  I keep catching myself wondering what will happen next, when I know full well where Uncle Frosty is going to get called on his mission :)  It's really fun.  Plus Grandma was a good writer.  She knows how to phrase things just right and get all the important details in without being too wordy (something I know NOTHING about!!).  She's just cool.  I hope to be able to print it all in a book sometime soon. 

- The boys' fish Water died the other day.  Someone (we won't mention any names, but we'll just say it starts with an N and ends with an OAH) left the lid off the fishy container, and tricky little Water jumped right out!  We found him dead and dried out on the counter next to his home.  The poor little guy committed suicide.  Luckily our kids are okay with it all and I don't think a tear was shed.  We replaced him promptly the following day with Fire Twisty Maynes our new red betta.  We'll see how long he lasts :)  I"m really surprised Water and Swimmy went as long as they have (or did).  Fun stuff.

- Today 8-27-10 Charity won the Watermelon Spitting Contest in her class.  I have to say as funny as it is, I'm proud of her!!  That's my girl!  She won a bag of "Lightning Bug Candy" little gummy candies that "light up" when you pinch them with the tweezers they came with.... Charity has been talking about them all night, they must be pretty cool :)  I love stuff like this :)

- It's been way too long since I made any kind of update on Nate and his job.  Everyone always asks how it's going and I'm afraid I'm always a little negative in my response.  But really, things are going well!!  We really couldn't ask for better.  Nate passed his big Eval last week, and stressed and strained his brain to pack in one last map for his map test this week and of course passed that with flying colors.  He's doing great!  It's been hard to start over, and to feel so setback, but really, the blessing of having another chance here in Utah is just huge.  I really am grateful, and it feels like things are going to go well.  He just got his new schedule for when he goes back on the floor.  We have mixed feelings about this new schedule, but overall I think it will be an interesting change for us.  I guess the hardest part will be him working Sundays.  He will have to be to work by 3:15, so he will not really be able to go to much of church.  It's really a bummer.  As much as I dread doing Sacrament meeting on my own, I really feel like he's the one that will suffer the most.  I'm hoping we can get him to another ward at an earlier time or something.  I don't know if that's something you can do or what.  But hopefully it won't be too bad.  I'm totally planning on depending on people in the ward to help me with my kids, that's kind of a given at this point.  I think we'll do fine.  We will need to change our Family nights to a different night as well since he will be gone Monday nights too.  But we've done that before and it's totally fine.  It will be nice that he has Fridays and Saturdays off, and he will only miss out on time with the kids on Mondays, unlike his schedule last year, where he missed a few days a week, going to work the same time the kids got home from school and not getting home until they were in bed.  We'll see how we like it here in a few weeks :)  I'm anxious to try it out.