Visiting Grandpa Russ

Grandma Ruthie invited us up to see the new bench and headstone on Grandpa Russ's grave.  It was a tough visit.  So many feelings so raw still.  But the freezing cold temps kept us bouncing and made for a shorter visit.  It was nice to spend that time with Ruth and a great chance to reflect on Grandpa Russ and who he is to us.  12-22-17

Things to Remember Week of 12-24-17

THE DAY AFTER

The day after is always a little bitter sweet for me.  I have all these regrets about Christmas and yet, it's still a sit around and do nothing day, so it's not like I have any huge responsibilities.  I sat around and did my puzzle :).  That was wonderful.  12-26-17

PING PONG TABLE
Nate and I had researched the Ping Pong tables to death this year.  We found the perfect one for the price, but the reviews were not good on the assembly of the product.  So we were nervous.  I think that's why it took us two days to finally get around to putting it together.  And well... the reviews were not wrong.  The thing did take about two hours to assemble!  And it wasn't easy!  The instructions really could have been better.  I don't know why those things have to be so confusing.  But we didn't fight, we didn't even argue, and we actually got it put together in one evening (with a quick Panda Express for the family, intermission).  And boy am I glad we did!  The kids LOVED it!!  They had so much fun with it all evening.  We were all able to practice up so that when we play it with Nate tomorrow we have a little experience under our belt before he kills us at it :).  12-27-17

LAZY
I've talked a lot about what we didn't do and how lazy we've been the week following Christmas, but I realized today that there were a few things that I did this Christmas that I am really happy about and might possibly redeem me for all that I didn't.  Well, maybe not that good, but still good!  I am really happy with how much Christmas music we listened to!  I've gone a lot of years where I didn't love the Christmas music as much as I should.  This year I have my amazon account that gives me access to basically any song I want, so I listened to any and all Christmas music that I wanted to all season long (from Thanksgiving on- the rule still stands, no Christmas music before Thanksgiving, it's just not fair to the turkeys) and I REALLY loved it!!  It really made it feel like Christmas and got me in the mood.  In fact now that Christmas is over, I'm a little bummed to not be able to listen to it nonstop like I was.  That will be something I look forward to next year.  The second thing is all the playing I've been able to do with my kids.  It masquerades as me being lazy or unproductive, but in reality is pretty much what I live for.  We played with everyone's new toys!!  It was so much fun!  I love all the games of course, the Ping Pong, even some Tetris which isn't really new, but drew our attention this week.  It's been awesome.  I did take some time for myself to do a couple puzzles- we got TWO this year!  Really hard ones that took up a lot of time, but the whole time I kept feeling like I deserved a little something for myself, so I'm going to go with that.  It was a lot of fun.  So while it may have been a smaller Christmas and less busy, which could really be considered a good thing, I'm glad we did the things we did.  12-29-17

SWIMMING
Nate woke up Friday with the need to do something fun.  Since we hadn't left the house in a week anything would have qualified, but thankfully he thought of something that is actually fun and we ended up going swimming at the Clearfield Aquatic Center.  It was a lot of fun!  Everyone just plays to their hearts' content.  Nate and Jack were buds for most of it, they stayed together mostly.  Jack is a regular fish in the water now- I NEED to get him in swim lessons though!  He had fun.  Molly and I had a lot of fun together.  She was cute, a little nervous at first then totally comfortable not long after we got there.  Thankfully it didn't take as long to get adjusted as it has in the past... we're making progress!!  She was fun and super cuddly- you could tell she was getting tired.  Charity and Kelly seem a little lost when we go swimming these days.  Charity actually went on the slide and stuff with the boys, but I think Kelly is torn.  She stayed by me most of the time.  We enjoyed some fun in the hot tub when Charity took Molly and Erika out to get some snacks.  Charity also joined me in the hot tub.  It's fun to have grown up girls to play with too.  Erika ran around like crazy, bouncing from one group to the next.  She seemed to have fun.  Brad and Noah were buds this trip because Luke had invited Clint.  They were all pretty much MIA the entire time though.  I only caught glimpses of them here and there.  We had a good time though!  A much needed change of scenery.  I felt so grateful for Nate and his inspiration to get us up and going and out of the house.  I've struggled in this department this week.  We came home, got showered and dressed (I ran off to meet with the Presidency for a few minutes) then we all went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner!  And of course a movie night with Dollar Tree Treats to top off the evening.  What's a fun day without a movie night with treats?  We watched Cool Runnings.  Lots of fun.  12-29-17

Things to Remember Week of 12-17-17

JESUS IS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
My sharing time did not go as planned and when I tried to fix it I ran into two road blocks.  I will not go into that.  Needless to say it wasn't my favorite.  Hopefully the kids got something out of it.  12-17-17

KELLY'S SOCIAL DANCE
The choir and dance teachers got together and decided to include the Social Dance class in a few of their songs.  It was so much fun to be able to see Kelly perform!  It's been a while.  She was adorable!  Fun to see her in that setting.  They did a great job!  I only wish she'd been able to dance the whole song.  She had to sit out for half of the song because of uneven numbers.  We were glad we could leave the choir concert early this year :).  It's just not as fun when you don't have kids in it.  12-18-17

FHE
Luke taught us about Faith.  He had us draw a picture of what faith is to us and then we went around the room and talked about our picture.  Great idea.  We had some of our popcorn from Grandma Ruthie for the treat!  We played "Never have I ever" for the activity. 12-18-17

LUKE'S CLASS PARTY
We did a quick little donuts and hot chocolate party for Luke's class today.  I was asked to bring chopped up candy bars and pirouette cookies.  They were finishing up their white elephant exchange when I got there and witnessed Mrs. Downs cutting through Luke's duct taped gift.  It was fun to see him so excited about it :).  He's a goof.  She's such a fun teacher though and really just went with it.  She's cool.  I had fun talking with Krista and Natalie Chamberlain.  It was a nice pleasant afternoon.  Thankfully Nate was able to keep Jack and Molly for me.  12-20-17

SHOPPING WITH DAD
My Dad took me shopping this year!  Hasn't done this in a while, so it was really fun.  We went up to Layton Hills Mall which was funny because I'm not really a Mall shopper.  But once I was finally able to get my head in a browsing mode, I found some really cute stuff!  We had a funny experience with a $225 coat!!!  Luckily, we didn't even have to settle for the $150 price tag, we found one that was 60% off only $30 exactly like it!!!  Kinda funny and really cool for me.  I found three other shirts and then Dad decided to give me the rest of the money in "Universal Gift Card" form.  Cash.  Which was going to be awesome!  He took it all home for me to forget what it was so I could open it all on Christmas Eve :).  12-20-17

PARTY AT GRANDMA HATCH'S
We got together at Grandma Hatch's house for the first time in their new house and had a our annual Christmas Party.  We watched a little Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, listened to Steve play the guitar, ate food, sang songs, and played a few games.  Then we opened gifts.  It was a fun time for all!  12-21-17

Things to Remember Week of 12-10-17

HANNAH'S FAREWELL
We got up and out the door by 7:20!!  Only 20 minutes later than planned.  Which actually ended up being a good thing since we got there an hour early.  Which was also okay because we got to hang out with the Idaho Mayneses for a minute before going to their church.  We had a good, uneventful ride there.  Talking with Becky, singing to EFY CD, I was crocheting, and a lot of people slept. It was fun really.  I loved that Luke looked over at me and said, "I love long car rides even if we aren't going anywhere exciting." With a big smile on his face.  Like mother like son.  The farewell was great!  Hannah did an amazing job on her talk.  It is so fun for me that my girls have her to look up to and her example.  She is such a cool girl and such a great example for them.  I hope they realize that.  We ended up staying at church for the full three hours- the kids all went to class like they should and the rest of us struggled to find a classroom that we all fit in and ended up just finding an empty room and visiting.  That was actually kind of fun.  RS was interesting.  I loved sitting next to Jen and Meg.  Comic relief for sure!  And actually it made me feel like part of their family for a minute.  Which I loved.  We had potatoes at the house after and visited for a while- putting of going home probably- and then hugged everyone goodbye and left.  The drive home was nice.  It's always good quality time together.  We got home around 7:00 but it felt more like 10:00.  Then dropped the kids off and Nate and I took Becky home together.  We were wasted!  Went to bed.  It's always weird when we miss our own ward- we don't do it very often, so it left us all feeling like the weekend shouldn't be over yet.  Unfortunately Monday came!  12-10-17

FHE
Noah taught us about Faith.  He used the object lesson with the pepper in the water and tapped it with soap on his finger- something about how we needed to have faith that that would happen.  Very cool.  Then he did the food coloring one too- about repentance.  He did a great job!  We ate some of the popcorn Grandma gave us for Christmas as Jack's treat and played "Never have I ever" for Erika's activity.  Fun stuff. 12-11-17

STUMP CAKE
I was asked by a lady who apparently got my information from Heidi, to make a cake that looks like a stump and is Buffalo Plaid inside.  Kinda weird at first, but I got really excited about the design and decided to run with it.  The lady was pretty interesting and didn't seem all that excited about the cake until near the end.  She threw in a couple of curve balls, changing the day and number of people it needed to feed and such at the last minute, but it all worked out!  In fact, I was SO PLEASED with how it looked!!  I was pretty proud of myself actually :).  I need to post pictures.  The cool thing about this cake is that I told the woman $50 for the cake.  Then I told her I would be able to deliver it after all for a small fee of $60.  She asked me if the cake was still $80 and I was shocked that she'd missed that, but told her, "I was only planning on $60 but if you want to pay me $80 I won't stop you :).  I was TOTALLY KIDDING.  Well, come to find out she actually venmoed me a wopping $125!!!!  For a cake!!!  I was pretty happy about it after asking her if that had been a mistake and her reassuring me that she was happy to pay that.  Made me feel awesome even though she hadn't even seen the cake yet :).  So then when I was delivering the cake to her mansion in the Bountiful Bench, I felt better about accepting the $125 :).  12-15-17

LUMINARIAS
For the Union Party this year they paid for all of us to go to Thanksgiving Point and see the "Luminaria" display.  It was pretty magnificent!  We loved the huge field of programmed lights that made pictures and stuff to music.  Then all the fun smells that we could smell throughout- pretty cool!  Then the beautiful Light of the World exhibit was another favorite.  So coo!!  Such a beautiful place!  It was FREEZING while we were there though- not Molly's favorite, or Jack's.  But we survived.  We stopped at Mo' Betta's on the way home.  mmmmmmm. 12-15-17

Things to Remember Week of 12-3-17

FHE
For Family Night we were invited to go see the Layton Lights with the Patanes, Maughans, Mendenhalls, and Clemenses.  It was a lot of fun!!  We went out to Fiiz for Hot chocolate afterwards.  This is a fun group for our family- I'm so glad we have these friends in our lives.  12-4-17

BRAD AND KELLY CHRISTMAS SHOES
One of my favorite things this Christmas so far :),  has been Kelly and Brad planning, practicing, and trying out for the school talent show.  They picked Christmas Shoes to sing together.  They worked SO HARD on that!!  They were so fun to listen to and watch.  They were getting along and being such good friends.  Totally melted my heart every afternoon/evening.  It was really a neat experience for me.  Don't tell them that :).  But they did such a great job!!  I got to go watch them tryout and they did excellent!  Unfortunately they didn't make it, but really, I think they had already won in my mind.  So happy to see them as friends lately.  12-5-17

LACROSSE WINTER CONDITIONING
We're back into Lacrosse stuff already!  Crazy!  Just conditioning, but I love it still :).  Kelly is doing amazing!  She is such a tough girl and I know that the conditioning is not her favorite, but she is sticking with it (no pun inteded- HA!) and working so hard!  I'm so proud of her!  And I love that Lindee is doing it this time, so we have someone to carpool with :).  12-5-17

RS PROGRESSIVE DINNER
Always my favorite activity and this time did not disappoint.  I enjoyed visiting with new people and people I've known for what feels like forever :).  Good times.  I want to remember how nice everyone was about my kids.  They are always so complimentary- makes me happy.  12-5-17

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCES KJH
I wasn't as fond of P/T conferences this time, just because we decided to just talk to the ones that the kids were struggling in- it's just not as rewarding, have to remember that for next time- but we did get a lot of things straightened out.  Ms. McCarrey is willing to let Brad make up some of his tardies by wiping down desks!  Pretty sweet.  So anyway- I think they'll get those grades up and all will be well :).  I did love hearing how they feel about my kids- even with less than an A, they are impressing their teachers- that's a good thing.  12-7-17

DEACON BALL
Cute Brad just LOVES church ball.  He loves any time he can play basketball, but I love hearing him get all excited and worked up about church ball each year.  He sure has fun.  12-7-17

HOBBY LOBBY, BECKY and APPLEBEE's
We had plans to go up to Idaho for Hannah's farewell and they grew, evolved, and then shrank again.  We decided that ultimately the best plan would be to drive up Sunday morning.  This involved picking up Becky the day before so that she could spend the night and ride up with us.  So the kids and I, after Erika's awesome basketball game, and Nate went to work, drove up and picked her up.  We came back and went to Hobby Lobby to pick out things to make our ornaments with.  Then we went to Applebee's for dinner.  That was a lot of fun.  The kids were so good!  Well, minus Molly falling off the bench and step up (weird that we were at a booth that was counter height), but she was fine.  It's fun to do something nice like that for Becky.  We came home and most of the kids worked on their ornaments.  Then we rushed off to bed not doing any of the fun sleepover-y things we were going to do, so that we could get some sleep before the long day ahead.  12-9-17

ORNAMENTS
These need a post of their own.  For YEARS (I'm not exaggerating) I have wanted to make ornaments for each kid that represented that year for them.  Or something they did that year.  It was a great idea in my head, but whenever I thought about following through, it seemed to big of a project.  So this year I decided to do it, but that the kids would make their own :).  They're old enough now it's perfect!  So that's what we did.  Everyone got really creative with this.  I was so happy with their ideas and how well we pulled them off!  I will have to post pictures when I get them.  They turned out great!  Charity wanted to remember Once on this Island.  So she bought some beads to look like sand, flower charms and a palm tree and put them inside of a clear ball.  Looks so cute!  Kelly (with my prompting) decided on a bead lacrosse stick.  It's going to be awesome once we finish it.  It was obviously the wrong idea for her because she wasn't all that interested in it.  I know better for next year.  Brad got a cool little cork bottle and put tiny seashells in it to represent our trip to San Diego.  His turned out awesome.  Luke's was super creative.  He wanted to get this little glass ball ornament and put in a tiny little "gold medal" with a blue ribbon tied on it and fill it with clear glue.  I wasn't sure this would work, but much to my surprise- it did!  It turned out really awesome in fact!  He was so smart to come up with that on his own!  It was to represent his medals in Decathlon and a few other races.  Noah did a cool one in the same type of jar that Brad used, only his was to represent the cool experience he had had with prayer at Bear Lake when his canoe tipped over and after praying for help, Brad was able to tip the canoe back over for him and save him.  He told me he knew that the Lord had given Brad that strength.  Kinda cool.  And his ornament turned out really cool with a little canoe button and some ribbon for waves- he got really creative too.  Turned out awesome.  Erika wanted to remember her baptism so we made a little girl in a while dress.  So cute!  Jack started Kindergarten this year and wanted to mark that.  He wrote his name (in white crayon- good idea Kelz!) on a mini chalk board.  Simple and perfect for Jack Jack.  It was way cute.  I made Molly's.  Her's had all her favorite "mammals" that she loves to go walk around the corner to see :).  She rarely goes a day without seeing and talking about them.  We made them to look like a little mobile.  Kinda cute.  She loves it so that's all that matters.  Nate and I have yet to make ours.  I'm going to do a Mercedes Benz logo since that was probably my huge miracle this year :).  Minus my losing weight, which I thought about doing something for that- maybe a big 40 or something :).  But in the interest of not pointing out losing weight to everyone every year, I thought the Mercedes logo would be fun to remind me of that.  Overall, I think this was a fun event.  I am hoping we can make it some sort of a tradition.  Even if I make like a mandatory style of ornament some years or something... I'm not sure.  Anyway- good times :).  Now the little kids have more of their own ornaments :).

Things to Remember Week of 11-26-17

ONE ACTS

So Charity didn't get enough of the after school rehearsals with Once on this Island, she tried out for "One Acts" this week!  She was so anxious/nervous and did really good apparently because the next day she learned she got call backs and then the next day found out she got in!  Pretty exciting!  It's so fun that she's brave enough to do this stuff!  I'm really proud of her for that.  11-28-17

PLAYGROUP SOLO

It was our week to pick the park, we picked Heritage by the freeway.  Then on the way home from taking the kids to school, Molly saw the park and started crying for the park.  She would NOT lay off it!!  She cried about it until 10:00 when I finally just decided to go to Playgroup early.  Well, of course nobody was there, but we got out and she walked along the curbing around the playground for a minute and then for the next 20 or so minutes cried at me for various things.  We had some crackers with us but that was good enough.  The water we had wasn't how she wanted it, and she was basically just really tired and cold- who goes to the park in November anyway?  So at about 10:45 (knowing that this was about the time that some of the others usually show up) we had to leave.  I was mad.  I tried to not let it bother me, but I was mad.  We got home and Molly took a long nap.  I think I did too actually.  11-29-17

YOUNG WOMEN IN EXCELLENCE

The girls did such a great job at YWIE.  It was a nice evening!  You could tell the leaders did all the decorations and that always bugs me, but it looked super cute.  They did a great job.  The girls all talked about the values and what they did for Personal Progress.  Charity talked about learning the piano songs, Kelly talked about getting her medallion and all the service hours she's been working on.  Kelly got a back of popcorn for getting her medallion this year.  There was yummy food, and fun visiting afterwards.  Lots of fun.  11-29-17

WHITE DRESS

Erika and I went up to the Stake Center Thursday night to get her baptism clothes.  When we got there, they surprised us with the option to wear a white dress while she got baptized!  She loved the idea and that's what she picked.  It was really cute on her and fit perfectly.  I wasn't sure how that would go, but I wanted it to be her decision.  They showed us around the font and dressing room so that she would know what to expect.  I think this was really good for her.  She needed to see how things were going to be.  11-30-17

WARD CHRISTMAS PARTY

The ward party was a lot of fun this year!  The kids participated in the Nativity at the very beginning and then we ate soups and salads.  They had a few other little projects after dinner- frosting cookies, writing letters to missionaries, tying fleece blankets (which is what I did most of the evening).  It was fun and I was glad I was able to get my kids to stay in the gym when I heard what happened out in the halls/classrooms during the party- so glad I know they weren't a part of it all!  12-1-17

Things to Remember Week of 11-19-17

SUNDAY READ-A-THON
We had our first Sunday Read-a-thon this Sunday!  I think the only thing that didn't go well was I didn't get enough treats- HA!!  Other than that, it was awesome and the kids seemed to love it!  It was fun to use Noah's idea. So everyone got comfy on the couch and read their scriptures for a couple hours and ate a few treats.  Not as many treats as they had wanted.  We're hoping to make this a new tradition every third Sunday!  11-19-17

CUBSCOUTS
We got a new cub commissioner and a new cubmaster this week.  I can't say I'm excited to train them now, but they seem anxious to get started and I think they will do a good job.  I was able to meet with both of them this week.  We'll see how it all goes.  11-20-17

FRIENDSHIP FEAST
Jami, another mom and I got to help out with the Friendship Feast in Jack's class this week.  That was a lot of fun!  Everyone just brings a bunch of snacks to share and the kids get to treat it like a buffet and eat whatever they want :).  It was so cute to see how the kids acted about it and I loved that Jack actually ate something other than skittles :).  11-21-17

TITHING SETTLEMENT/ERIKA'S INTERVIEW
We got a two-fer this week.  We went in for Tithing Settlement, that was exciting :).  Everyone loves the attention the Bishop gives them and everyone participated pretty well and answered his questions.  It's been interesting with our new money system to keep track of tithing- I think we need to revamp it a little.  I'm not sure how.  But everyone has done so well this year and we did get all caught up on the ones we had lingering on the white board.  Then everyone left the room so that Erika could have her Baptism Interview.  That was a sweet little visit.  She is such a smart girl and was so good at giving him her attention and eye contact.  He even mentioned that she was so good at looking him in the eye.  Very cool.  Glad my little pep talk helped :).  She knew what she was getting into and was excited about it and I think she's one of the more ready kids I've seen to get baptized.  We are all getting very anxious and excited for her big day!!!  11-21-17

WHITE FRIDAY
Grandma started this tradition to go to the temple and do baptisms on Black Friday and call it White Friday :).  This was the third year I think and ended up being just us going to the Bountiful temple without Grandma, but glad we could carry on the tradition.  Nate, Charity, Kelly, Bradley and I all went together.  It was such a nice time!  Quick, because the temple was completely empty! But very awesome.  We loved it.  And we did our own names! Names that I found myself!  Pretty awesome.  11-24-17

WONDER
On Friday we went back up to Grandma's and took her to see Wonder with us!  What a cute movie!  I LOVED it the first time and knew the kids would like it, but that turned out to be an understatement.  They loved it too!  Such a cute message and feeling.  I want to read the book now.  We went to Red Robin with Grandma after the movie.  Lots of fun there :).  The slippery floor is probably the most memorable part.  Good times.  11-24-17