Things to Remember Week of 1-21-18

WARD CONFERENCE
I LOVED ward conference this time.  I really enjoyed the Bishop's and Stake President's talks.  They really hit close to home on some things I had been thinking and praying about recently.  Things I've been struggling with and things I needed to be reminded of.  It was nice.  It's always good when that happens.  Primary was somewhat relaxing with the Stake doing it all.  It was just a nice day.  The evening felt less relaxing, but it was fine.  I had to finish making the cake for Great to Be 8.  Kelly helped me with the little banner to put on it.  It turned out pretty cute and got lots of compliments, so that was fun :).  Both the Great to be 8 and Temple Preparation meetings went really well.  It is nice to have those done.  1-21-18

FHE
For Family Night Charity taught us about some of the things she learned from the talks on Sunday.  She did a great job.  We watched Shrek the Musical in honor of Kelly trying out this week as our activity and then Brad gave us Scotcheroos for the treat.  It was a nice evening, but definitely not as reverent or focused as we would have liked.  Especially with Molly being her crazy, noisy self.  She really isn't grasping reverence yet.  She wanders around barking out orders and getting worked up pretty quickly when things don't go her way.  IT's kind of hard.  We're going back to the Naughty Spot and that's working pretty good.  Hopefully we can get through to her soon :).  She is two though, so we try to just be patient with her.  Everyone is really sweet to her.  I'm glad she has her sibs.  They love her so much.  IT's fun to see how much she loves them too.  Putting Brad in time out was my favorite tonight :).  He just let her drag him through the house :).  1-22-18

NOAH GOT HIS BEAR
We had our first real pack meeting with our new cub master.  I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised with how well it went!  Not that I didn't think it would, it was just kind of refreshing almost to have new leadership.  Minus that he asked me to do the dumb drum for the Arrow of Light.  That was a few minutes of my life that I'll never get back.  And pride.  Whatever.  Anyway, things went really well.  I'm not sure how I feel about the cheer box, and him not using it- I wonder what he'll do in the future now that he knows.  But I did enjoy not losing my hearing or making my headache worse.  So Noah got his Bear!  He's officially a Webelos.  I am not sure how I feel about that!  Somewhat relieved though, that he's almost done with cub scouts :).  But it's a sign that he too is growing too fast!!  Doesn't seem to matter what I say about not growing up, they all keep doing it!  Noah has loved his bear leaders.  I hope he has as much fun in the Webelos den.  1-23-18

ALANA'S
I got to go to Alana Smith's house to help stuff bears today.  That was a LOT of fun.  I really love Alana.  She is such a fun person and so upbeat.  I feel like she was inspired to tell me something her dad told her about how Satan's best shot at destroying a family is to attack the mom.  Makes sense and isn't a new idea, but for some reason it hit me as very profound and something I needed to think about at the moment.  She's just a cool person to be with.  I can't believe she made 61 of those!!  She's absolutely amazing.  1-25-18

ERIKA'S DATE WITH MOM AND DAD
We got to take Erika out to Applebee's in honor of her 8th birthday (a little late I know).  It was such a nice time!  I enjoy her company so much and love talking with her.  She's such a fun girl.  She was such a good listener and seemed to enjoy her time with us :).  Love that girl.  1-25-18

BORIS AND THE BRIEFCASE
Nate and I got to go see Charity's play for the One Acts Festival.  SO MUCH FUN!!!  I LOVED it!!  I had no idea what she had been working on for the past two months, but this just FAR surpassed anything I could have imagined them putting on.  Very cool.  Charity did amazing.  I'm so proud of her and first of all her bravery to try out and get out there, but also her hard work.  This was a LOT of work.  She should be proud as well.  We decided the kids needed to see this, so I brought the older 6 to see it for our FHE activity.  Nate stayed home with Molly.  They loved it too.  Even Jack.  He had decided to try not to laugh- "it was hard!!"  HA!  1-26-18

CHINESE SUPERMARKET
My mom and Simon invited us to the Chinese Supermarket.  It was pretty cool.  Such an interesting experience.  There were so many different things in the produce section which was cool.  And lots of other random foods- "Fresh Pig's Blood" in big huge cubes that looked a lot like jello.  Very weird.  But I think I'm with Noah- he pointed out that we were like the only white people there.  Kind of a different feeling being the minority.  Now we know how Simon feels probably 90% of the time.  We had to hurry home to get Nate off to work.  1-27-18

BIRTHDAY DATE WITH NOAH
I've decided to do the whole Date with Mom thing again as their special gift from me :).  Noah and I went out on Saturday night after Brad's basketball game.  I wish I had planned it a different night when we weren't so pressed for time, but we still had a blast.  We ended up going to Seaquest at the Layton Hills Mall.  Very cool place, we got to touch turtles, lizards, we got to hang out in the bird cages and feed them with birds flying all around us, we got to pet the stingrays, and a shark! and walk around and look at amazing sea life (and birds- BAH!).  Noah loved it!  It was a really fun time for the two of us.  We went over to Tepanyaki for dinner.  Unfortunately it was a 35 minute wait (and according to Noah's calculations we waited for 33 minutes!) and Noah was so hungry that I think this was more torture than it was worth.  He was dying by the time they sat us and the whole time they were getting things ready and taking orders- we had a lot of people at our table who had special orders so it took even longer- he was so patient, and didn't want to complain, but he really was starving.  Luckily, they did eventually come and cook our food- we loved it!  So much fun!  Then when we were done eating, the waitress brought out a bowl of ice cream for Noah, with a candle and we all sang to him, then this guy sitting next to him handed him a folded up $20 and wished him a happy birthday.  PRETTY SWEET RIGHT?!  I thought it was cool.  This happened a couple years ago, a lady gave him $2, so I'm not sure what it is about Noah, but he just seems to put off this vibe that he deserves money :).  It was an awesome night.  I hope Noah enjoyed it.  I'll have to post pictures I took on my phone.  1-27-18

Noah's 10th Birthday

NOAH'S 10th BIRTHDAY
I can't believe my Noah is 10!!!  That just feels so old!  He probably got sick of it, but I couldn't help but keep pointing out that he's double digits now!!  So big!  So Kelly surprised us all with a cool sign- I was headed downstairs bright and early to make one for him and there it was!  Already done!  That was cool of her.  Noah was in a great mood and loved the birthday cake pancakes I made for him- even though I think he would have preferred crepes.  I went out on a limb.  Not a good idea.  But he was sweet about it.  For lunch Nate and I (along with Molly- Jack went to Liam's house) checked Noah out of school to take him to lunch.  We went to Applebee's.  It was a lot of fun.  It's been a long time since we went on a date with Noah, so this was a fun time.  I think Noah enjoyed it :).  We grabbed his treat for his class, and took him back to school.  We had Thai Chicken Soup for dinner (Noah's choice),then we hurried off to the Ice Cream Sandwich place (I keep forgetting what it's called) for our "I'd Love To" jar reward!  Yes, it has been a really long time.  And yes, we did kill two birds with one stone, celebrating Noah's birthday and our reward at the same time.  Go us :).  That place was so cute and fun!  I loved it!  Mine was WAY too sweet for me though, which is really saying a lot.  Super fun though.  Then we all went to the boys' deacon ball at the church and watched them play.  This has been a lot of fun this year, to support them in church ball.  I hope we do it for the girls too- good family time.  We came home, Noah opened his presents- everyone spoiled him pretty good :)- and then we went to bed.  It was a nice day.  I hope Noah enjoyed it.  He deserves a good birthday, he's such a good boy.  I don't know what I would do without him in my life.  He brings a sweet calm and a loving peace whenever he's around.  I love his humor and his wittiness.  He is so smart and so willing to share his knowledge with me.  I love learning about animals from him- extinct ones especially.  I love his magic tricks and his ability to make those around him feel loved and special.  He is a good friend to those around him and puts up with more than most kids would.  I just love him!  Happy birthday Noah!  1-11-18

NOAH'S FAMILY PARTY

We all met up at the South Davis Rec Center for ice skating!  Grandpa Hatch, Dawn, Jen, Grandma Ruthie and the two Harris boys beat us there.  It was so fun that everyone had skates on and were out on the ice!  Minus Grandma Ruthie, but she was cheering everyone on from the stands and helped out with Molly quite a bit.  But it was such a fun time!!  I loved seeing everyone out there.  I loved that the skates fit my feet :) and I was able to get out and skate like I'd been in the last 20 years :) even though it's been at least that long, minus the little bit at Nate's union party a few years back.  Noah was a rock star and had a lot of fun zooming around on the ice.  Unfortunately, he did get a little too familiar with the ice in the form of landing on his nose- bloody noses are messy when you're wearing gloves!  We know that now.  He took a little break, but got back out there as soon as he stopped bleeding.  Tough kid.  Jack skated for a while, that was cool!  We even got Molly on skates!  She LOVED it!!  It was hard to get her off!  Erika was awesome!  Not a surprise since she spends so much time in her roller blades.  Luke struggled again- I am not sure what it is with him :).  Just not his thing I guess.  But he seemed to have more fun this time and did get pretty good at it by the end.  Same with Brad- he improved a lot in that hour and a half.  Charity had invited RyLee Mottishaw along, so they were buddies the whole time.  They helped with Molly a little and talked and walked around :).  Kelly spent a lot of time with Evan and Marshall.  They've been having so much fun with their cousins lately- it's been really cool.  It was fun to see Grandpa Hatch out on the ice and Jen!  They're so much fun and so supportive.  I wish Jen's fun could have lasted, but unfortunately, she fell and hurt her knee pretty bad.  I hope she's okay.  We all went over to Dairy Queen afterwards for ice cream and presents.  Unfortunately, our snowman cake had "melted" too much all afternoon and was not going to survive a drive out there, so we left him at home.  It was so sad.  I was really bummed that things just didn't go well with him at all!  I hope Noah wasn't too disappointed.  He's a good sport, but hopefully he was really okay.  We did do candles and all when we got home, so that was nice.  I think he had a fun party overall :).  1-15-18