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 :).