FHE & a new baby (but not mine)

 We got to spend the last two days with these two cutie patooties!  Frankie and Addie are new big sisters and we are so excited for them and their awesome parents.  We had a fun day playing and eating mac and cheese and drawing pictures.  Yesterday Lu was very disappointed that they didn't get to spend the night, luckily they came back today so we could play again.  (Millie was hoping for someone to drop a tasty morsel on the floor, she had a lot of luck today : ) )

 E was in charge of FHE tonight.  He started out by making the treats.  He made brownies and even added in a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter and swirled it around. 

 Then he told us it was very important to take care of our bodies and planned a fun family kinect game in the basement.  It was lots of fun.

...and here's a photo of the bowling winner :)

Hannah

Hannah had a busy day today.  First she spent from 9-2 at Alyssa's house working on their giant evil dust bunny top secret project for D.I.  Then she spent from 2-6 at Chelsea's making dinner for our two families.  Busy happy day.

The rest of us were busy too, with soccer, cleaning, driving Hannah from place to place :), R worked, we went on a family walk/bike ride.  Love Saturday.

Lucy

playing math games

every  day  after school

what do people talk about?

I often will see people chatting away and I wonder what they are talking about.  Especially husbands and wives.  Not that R and I really run out of things to talk about, luckily he's very chatty, but I am just curious.

We talk about

politics
our kids
logistics (who is going to pick up which kid when and where, what time will he be home, who is paying what bill, how many games do we have to attend on Saturday)
where we'd like to go, or what we'd like to do (whether we actually go or do is separate)
other people we know (who is getting married (our kids friends), who had  a heart attack (our friends), who died (our parents friends))
what I want to paint
exercise R wants us to do
miscellaneous

in that order

catching up

I wrote the other day, and it somehow got lost in cyber space.  Most annoying.  So now just a bullet form up date.

• Saturday soccer game, E scored 3 goals!
• YW camp pants making activity, also on Saturday, we made 11 pairs of lime green pants...a few more to go :)
• D.I. instant challenge plus a few D.I. practices have kept H busy.
• Subbed a few days.
• Took a trip Waldorf where Lu spent her Books a Million money and H spent some Forever 21 money and we all enjoyed ourselves.
• Daisy scout meeting, red petal earned.
• Cub scout meeting
• recital pieces chosen for spring recital at piano lessons this week.
• some laundry done.
• checking on J's Romania blog each day, so glad she keeps it :)
• Fear Factor for YW.  H ate pigs feet, cow tongue, and anaconda meat.  I did not try the feet.  Kids had a good time. 
• R likes his job again.
• weather has been mild
   



birthday fun

Friday was Lu's actual birthday.  Now she is 7.  She is getting very grown up.  Even though we had a party for her a couple of weeks ago we wanted to still celebrate today. For lunch she requested that I bring her a happy meal at school, so I did.  I also brought mini cupcakes for her class, which they loved.  She enjoyed passing them out to everyone. In the evening she chose a restaurant and we all went out to eat.  She chose "olive garden" which is always yummy!  The last fun thing we did was go to Target.  Lu had two gift cards and really enjoyed walking around and choosing things she wanted.  She ended up buying some winter gloves, a bathing suit, a cute outfit, a country critters frog family and school play set and a polly pocket splash toy.  Pretty lucky ducky!  She said she had a great day.

Picture of Lu when she was 2.  So cute!

7 Things about Lucy

1.  She loves to read and is a wonderful reader.

2. She loves soccer and swimming and biking.

3. She loves taking piano lessons and practices all the time.

4. She is sweet and silly and a little sassy.

5. Her favorite TV show is Sponge Bob.

6. She has a herd of stuffed elephants and loves elephants.

7.  She likes to help in the kitchen.

dream room

I totally love love love this room and want it.  Except for the oars above the window, which I don't mind but don't love.  I have no style.  If I had bank this would be mine though....honey??

Got to skype with J this morning, it was frustrating and reminded me of skyping mom and dad in Belgium.  Calls dropped all the time.  Annoying.  But she looked great and was excited and I was glad for a few minutes to chat.  Maybe next time will be better.  She was on her way out the door anyway to buy bleach to soak her produce in, which reminded me of reading Grandma Peg's letters to Uncle Brian (which I loved and would love a copy of) when she was in Turkey and he in the states at college.  She wrote about doing the same thing. 

I am home today, alone.  This is the first time in over a month that I have been home alone.  I do  love that.  I really love having everyone here...but I am one who enjoys a bit of solitude from time to time.  I am cleaning and laundrying and working on New Beginnings and just happily putzing around. 

Other things I love:
my green new york mug, makes me happy
my kindle, love it!
minty toothpaste!
warm weather (or the memory of :) )
good friends
hugs
engaged kids
a heated mattress pad
and to finish off the list for today DQ, where I have not been in forever until I took Dani to the airport and we stopped at one and I remembered how yummy their ice cream is.

Back to singing my happy little working song, sans the roaches

pinewood derby

 Ohh, it's been a crazy few days.  We've had so much going and so many projects.  R and E have been working on his pinewood derby car, they cut and sanded and soldered.  We painted it black with white stars and had high hopes that this year the car would be fast.

We also had Lu's trash sculpture to build, which we did.

 Anyway we had a poor start finishing last in a number of heats, which led to great discouragement on the part of our boy. 

Then they raced all the cars backwards and his did great.  Oddly enough.  Then he was happy.  (we need to work on losing with dignity)

It was a fun night.

Jenna's blog

jennaandromania.blogspot.com  For all you who want to read about her adventures!

field trip

January beach fun with my boy

Today was Ethan's field trip to Elm's Beach, take 2.  We woke up and it was raining, plus in January it's not all that warm anyway.  Brrr!

looking for fossils

As  always we had a good time at Elm's.  We learned about latitude and longitude, fossils, hunted fossils, played some awesome games and went geo cacheing.

Having lunch with the boys was a lot of fun too.  I learned so much, like if you put pop rocks in the toilet it will make a loud sound, and playing infection is better than regular freeze tag.

lunch break

she's off

We spent the weekend in a flurry of getting ready, squeezed between derby car making, scrub monogramming, laundry doing, church meetings, and what not.  We copied documents, read security reports, printed out emergency numbers and decided between bringing black boots and brown boots. 

Finally everything was ready and J was out the door.  Lu and I drove her to the airport.  On the way we stopped for one last lunch at Salsas.  Yummy!

After we got her on the plane I got to enjoy a two hour drive home with this cheerful camper asking over and over again "why does she have to go?", "why can't they (her big sisters) live here and use your money?", "why?, why?, why?"

trash sculptures, derby cars, sets and costumes

Subbing Lu's class went well. She was perfect and cooperative.  The class was cute, rambunctious. It was fun to see her with her friends and in her element. 

After school Jen and I went to Waldorf.  We needed to get a few things for her trip.  I was actually going to take Han also, she needs some new jeans.  On Thursday I asked her to clean her room.  She did not.  On Friday morning I told her if she was done at 4pm when I got home she could go to the mall.  She did not.  She was very surprised when I left her home with R and the little kids.  Hopefully next time she will do her job. I hated to leave her.  We have a problem with her doing what I ask chore wise and I hate to have her miss out on fun things, but she has to obey and so I left her and hope she will do much better.

On the bright side Jenna and I got to spend a lovely evening together.  We had so much fun.  First she treated me to cold stone! yumm!  Then we went to TJMaxx and found two super cute dresses for her to take to Romania, and then we went to Hancock fabric and bought some fabric for a project R is building for me.  We walked in and immediately spotted the cutest fabric, at the same time we loved it.  Lastly we went to Red Lobster and enjoyed a nice dinner and a great talk.  It is so nice to have grown daughters and to spend time with them.  She is doing so well and I am really proud of the young woman she is.  It was a precious evening.

Today was a busy day.  E had a soccer game at 7:30 am.  They lost, 8 to 0. They played the wolf pack, which we knew would be a their hardest game although we were hoping for a goal or two.  I don't know why but those boys are really awesome.  Individually they are not any better than our little guys but for some reason as a team they really are great.  I don't know if it's the cool name, the stickers they have slapped on the back of their minivans/suburbans or the wolf pack flag they post where ever they go but they are tough.
Then we worked on my project, E had 4 friends over to play soccer and eat food :), we went to Lu's game, then divided and R, H and E went to the Zawadas so Han and Emily could build their D.I. set and I took Lu to a birthday party and went to Wal-mart.  We made a good dent in our to do list, although still left on the agenda for the weekend is: E's pinewood derby car, H's D.I. costume, Lu's homework sculpture to be made out of recycled items (trash), and to put "Y"s on J's scrubs for the orphanage.  We did have time for a fun date with Pete and Katherine and J went back to the mall with Alexis for the last things she needs.  I can't believe she is leaving across the world on Monday.

polar and grizzly and pooh, oh my

It was cold today.  It was raining in the morning and I subbed for kindergarten today so that meant I had indoor recess to look forward to.  Then the sun broke out and we had lovely time outside.  Yeah for outside recess!!

In kindergarten this week the children are learning about the Arctic.  Which gave me a brilliant idea: in the hall we played penguin and polar bear.  They were the flock of penguins quietly walking down the hall so that the big bad polar bear (me) would not see them and then do what polar bears do when they see penguins.  It was great.  They were so quiet!  Yeah for quiet kids in the hall.

Right now I am laying in bed with my lap top, and NCIS on the TV, and my hubby next to me on his ipad, and a small boy laying between us and the boy said "google grizzly bear sleeping bag images and you will see Dani and Tatum".  What?  So I did and guess what, there they were.  Funny.  Also while there I saw a very funny picture of a human arm sticking out of the mouth of a grizzly bear sleeping bag, which I didn't even know existed until tonight and now I wonder why we don't have one.

So tomorrow I am subbing Lu's class.  She is thrilled and can not wait, like it's Christmas morning or something.  I am a little concerned.  She is not big on "quickly I obey" lately and I hope it's not a disaster, and I hope it doesn't rain.

Tonight we skyped with little Pooh bear and her momma.  Santa brought her an egg in her stocking which she hatched today and guess what was in it...a penguin.  How's that for a coincidence?

they left

fun new puzzle

Dani and Tatum

Oh what a good time we had with these two girls.  I am so happy they could stay awhile so we could mix in some days of doing nothing special, which was special anyway, with some days of doing fun things.  We went to Salsas for lunch one day.  We had a fun FHE.  We played and read books and sang the songs from Beauty and the Beast.

Dani cut hair and we visited.  I am really really grateful that even though we live all the way on the east coast so very far away from everyone we still have lots of opportunities to see our family.  This last year we saw all my brothers and sisters, all the girls, Tate a few times, my parents, R's parents, and UB.  Family is really the most important thing.

So today I took D and T to the airport.  We stopped at the AG store at the Tyson's Corner Crossing mall on the way.  The  mall was fabulous, I don't know why I have never been there before.  Unfortunately the girls missed their flight, by 2 minutes, fortunately they were able to get on the next one. 

So our visit is done.

everyone loves girl scout cookies

Lu reached her girl scout cookie selling goal this weekend.  She wanted to sell 1000 to get an e-reader, but we set a more reasonable goal of 115 so she could win the stuffed giraffe.  They were super easy to sell.  Everyone loves cookies and anyone we asked bought a couple of boxes, or more. 

This weekend was busy.  We had soccer games, a primary activity, a stake dance that I chaperoned, and today was ward conference.

Conference was wonderful.  I especially enjoyed our ward council because the Stake President gave us some great council and I learned a lot.  We had a linger longer after with tons of delicious food & great company.

Lucy celebrates turning 7

This month is Lu's birthday month, her actual birthday isn't for a couple of weeks but she wanted to celebrate while Dani and Tatum and Jenna were still here.  She wanted to have Sierra here too but it didn't work out.  She wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese.  A couple of years ago Andrea and Yoho took her there and she loved it and has wanted to go back ever since.   We've been watching Veggie Tales "wonderful wizard of Ha's" so Tate was excited to go to the "land of ha's" the most fun place on earth :)

We had a fun fun time.  We ate expensive pizza and soda and salad bar.

The kids played lots of games and won fabulous cheap plastic prizes.

We ate some cute monkey cupcakes with purple frosting.

And Lu was very happy with her presents and her party. 

soccer

 This morning bright and early we convened with all the other soccer families for a friendly game, ...right.  The boys all filed in, like little warriors, each decked out in their uniform and wearing on top of that emblems of their passion, whether it was a Barcelona jacket, a hoodie with DC United's logo or Beckham's number on a shirt.  They gathered at the net and watched the game before theirs with the intense interest of those knowing it was their turn to next battle.  Finally the whistle blew and the moment they've been waiting for all these long weeks since the fall season ended was here: game time!  Our little "Freedom Fighters" were playing a team that was both older and bigger than they were, but they had not a doubt that they would dominate.  And dominate they did.  It was a fast paced, exciting game ending in a devastating 9-0 loss for the opposition.  E scored 2 goals himself, which pleased him very much.  Our boy loves soccer.

 Fast forward a couple of hours and we were back at the same court, this time for Lu's first soccer game ever.  She met her team, got her jersey and was ready to play.  The game was cute as can be as little kindergartners and 1st graders ran after the ball.  They kicked, they swerved, they touched the ball with their hands, they fell down, and the ball sometimes got near the net.    She had fun and after we went out to Big Larry's for some celebratory ice cream :)

going home

Greg left this morning, Sierra left yesterday.  It's very sad.  It's been so fun having everyone here.  We took this picture on NYE when we went out to eat after our temple morning.  It's a little blurry but I still really like it. 

Lucy is a writer

This week for homework Lu had to write about her best friend, and draw a picture.  She thought about it a lot and just couldn't pick one of her real live girl friends so she decided to write about Notdog, her very first elephant..which lead to writing about her whole herd and how much fun she has with them.  Instead of drawing a picture we took one of her with the herd and she was proud of her good work.  She writes very neatly with lovely penmanship, she also writes with a lot of detail and interesting thoughts.  Every week her writing gets a "VG" which stands for very good, she loves to write. 

our week

 lots of baking

 bathing

 tower making

tea party, barbie playing

New Year

New Years Day we went to church and the propane tank was empty so it was chilly.  The Bishopric decided to only have Sacrament meeting and we got out early.  After we went to the Martines' for dinner to celebrate little Alexis' blessing day.  It was yum-my! We spent a last nice evening with all the family here.

This morning we got up early and I took  Greg, Dani, Sierra and Jenna to DC so they could catch the bus to NYC.  They were excited (me too cuz I get to keep Tinkerbelle for a couple of days!!) Dad stayed home to get the kiddos off to school, vacation went by too fast.

When Tate and I came home  DH and I de-Santafied the house.  I am always happy to put up the Christmas decor, and equally happy to take it down.  The house always looks like a clean slate after we take everything down.  Our house really turned into a tornado since Christmas so even though we cleaned a lot we only got one floor done.  I guess Tate and I will do the other two tomorrow. 

Then we went shopping.  Got some warm gloves for J to take to Romania (where I am afraid she will freeze) and some running pants for R, who is now a runner and a Tinkerbell outfit for little miss who picked it herself and walked up to R and said, and I quote, "Grandpa, do you want to buy this for me?".  He said yes. 

Then we went to Panera.

Tonight we had a nice FHE.  We sang lots of songs, played bingo and wrote letters.  Now princess pony and little Lu are snoozing and we are watching NCIS with the "big kids".

Sierra and Greg won't be coming back.  They will go from NYC back to Utah.  Si is excited to go back and looking forward to school and seeing her friends.  I am glad, and sad to see her go.