Little Cheerleader

This seven year old had a very busy week!  Dance on Monday afternoon, Dance again on Tuesday night, giving her school presentation Wednesday and then going to her Cheerleading clinic on Wednesday night, performing with her dance company Thursday night for Tuacahn's pre-show and performing with the other little "cheerleaders" at the High School's Football game Friday night.  I don't think we will do the cheer clinic again -- just WAY too many kids.  This year they had 262 girls ages two to fifteen.  Jaiden was in a group of girls first through fourth grade -- probably one hundred of them.  I thought I would be fine watching from the stands since my video camera has a zoom lens.  Well, when you are watching 100 girls from a distance all wearing the same shirt and blue shirts with a pony-tail, they all look the same.  I searched and searched while trying to video their routine and by the time I spotted her the song was finished.  Talk about disappointment!  I had her perform her routine (as best she good) for me when we got home and video-taped it.  She sure looked cute though!

Big Brother, Josh!

I was SO proud of Josh today!  The first thing he says everyday when I pick him up from kindergarten is whether or not he got a blue stick and how many people got to pick a prize that day.  Throughout the week he kept saying, "I am SO exited for Friday because I will get another blue stick for doing my homework and then I will have FIVE and then I get to choose a prize!"  Well, Friday finally came and as he hopped into the van he had this little kitty.  He gave it to Jenna and said, "Here -- Happy Birthday!"  (Her birthday is on Monday.)  I was so surprised that after all his excitement and anticipation of getting a prize, he chose one out for his little sister!  Way to go, Josh! 

FRIDAY!!

Cute Jenna

I keep forgetting to write down the kids' funnies, but here are a couple from Jenna today...

I brought her to the park and we were playing "chase."  She kept shouting, "You can't catch me!  Chinee Chin Chin!!"   Sort of a combination of the Gingerbread Man and The Three Little Pigs!

This morning when she put on her pants she looked at the tag and said, "It says, 'These are Jenna's pants'."  It actually just had the size, but I like her version better!

Janelle had some great one-liners this week but of course I forgot to write them down and now I can't remember!  I will try to do better at that! 

Jaiden's Presentation on Gerilyn

Jaiden did her second grade presentation on her Aunt Gerilyn.  She called her on the phone to ask her various questions and wrote down the answers.  Then we looked through our digital pictures and ordered some prints so that she could glue them on the poster.  We got a little too carried away with the pictures and ended up putting the write-up about Gerilyn on the back of the poster instead of the front, but I have included most of the information below: 

GERILYN:

*Is SO MUCH fun!! 

*Has her Master's Degree in Education

*Is an elementary school counselor for two schools (over 1700 students)

*Is a licensed Massage Therapist

*Is AWESOME at playing the piano and can even play the piano upside down!!  (The kids all got a kick out of that one).  

*Started playing the piano at age two and started taking lessons at age four.

*Has been teaching piano for 21 years and has a two year waiting list.

*Has 17 piano students and 11 vocal students

*Loves to read stories to children, sing, play the piano, speak in different accents, dress up in costumes and be silly! 

*Always SPOILS us! 

*Celebrates all our birthdays when we get together and takes us out to eat and to fun places.

*Babysits us when my mom and dad go out of town.

She ended with "We always have so much fun at Gerilyn's house!  I love my aunt Gerilyn!"

Jaiden also went through and explained every single picture... "Here is Gerilyn giving us a facial... Here is Gerilyn after tending all of us when my mom and dad went to Hawaii"....and so on.  She said "Gerilyn gets us coupons for Frosties and here we are eating them..." (only she said "snow cones" instead of "Frosties"). You may notice a picture from Gerilyn's recent church history trip of her holding up the scriptures and pounding the pulpit like a preacher.  When Jaiden got to that picture she said, "And here is Gerilyn throwing the scriptures at people!"   I had to jump in and clarify a little!  

Jaiden's Best Friend

The second graders all get to interview someone and do a presentation on them.  Jaiden's best friend, Emily, decided to do her presentation on Jaiden.  So cute! 

Missionary FHE

For FHE tonight we invited Kaden Bundy and his brother, Kam Bundy, (and Kam's wife and two darling little boys) and Elder Lee for dinner and a missionary lesson.  Kaden recently returned home from a mission to Spain.  We wanted him to share some of his experiences and a missionary lesson to our kids.  Kaden is also one of our Hands in Harmony Carolers this year (and was before his mission as well) as was Kam (several years ago).  Kaden gave a wonderful lesson and definitely had the kids (and everyone else) engaged.  It was clear that he was a wonderful missionary.  He is an awesome young man with a strong testimony, beautiful singing voice (and good looks too as you can see)!   Too bad we don't have any daughters closer to his age, ha ha!  It was a fun evening!  Thanks Kaden!

Caroler Retreat

We had our Hands in Harmony Caroler retreat tonight.  A big "thank you" to my Aunt and Uncle who allowed us to host the retreat at their condo, to Corrie Theobald for bringing all of the food and doing all of the costume fittings, and Marie Allred Burdette who taught the acting workshop!   It was a beautiful evening and so we held it all outside except when it got too dark and then the group came inside to sing through some of their numbers before finishing up for the evening.  We have a really fun group this year.  I think they will all have a blast performing together this Christmas season!

Parade

After we all cheered Jared on in the race, Rick fixed omelets and sausage for breakfast.  I took the kids to see the parade; Rick opted to stay home and finish up a song he was working on for the carolers.  All of the Swiss Days events are only a block from our house which makes it really nice!  The parade was an hour long and consisted of the usual small town parade entries -- city princesses, school bands, local businesses, city officials, descendants of local pioneers, noisy fire trucks, and so forth.  Tuacahn had the best float with its "Little Mermaid" ship.  The kids don't really care what comes by as long as they throw candy!  They all came away with enough treats to keep them happy.  There were rides and games set up for the kids but they are overly priced and so we didn't do any of them.  We walked around and looked at all of the booths.  Jase and Jared and their friends set up their annual table trying to sell water bottles, popsicles, and other odds and ends.  They didn't sell much of anything this year and came back extremely disappointed!

Swiss Days 5K

Jared was the only one from our family who ran the Swiss Days 5k this year.  I haven't been running lately and so I didn't sign up.  But seeing all of those runners made me wish I had.  Rick doesn't feel the same way.  He said that watching everybody run just made him want to go lay down.  Jared ran it in 24:53.4 beating his last year's time by two minutes.  He was 7th in his age group and 86th overall.  (Which is pretty darn good considering that there was about 770 runners this year).  Way to go, Jared!  Look at how many 11 and under kids ran the race!!

Friday

I help out in Josh's classroom on Fridays.  It is fun to see how he is doing in kindergarten and gives me a chance to get to know the other kids in his class.  This afternoon Jared went with his scout group to help out at the milking cow booth for 2 1/2 hours at Swiss Days.  I had an interpreting appointment and then went to the college to make sure everything was ready for the ASL movie tonight.  I had reserved an auditorium for a new ASL movie that was being shown to the Deaf Community and ASL students through the Southern Utah Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.  It is a unique experience watching a full-length movie with absolutely no sound -- only sign language and sub-titles.  This movie was a comedy called "Versa Effect."  All of the actors are deaf and they did a great job -- it was a cute show.

I watched another ASL movie several months ago which was supposed to be a scary movie but it is a lot harder to pull off a horror movie with no suspenseful music or sounds and still have it be scary.  I can still remember those firesides when I was a kid on the power and influence of music where they took scary movie clips and took out the music and what was terrifying before was laughable after.  So I think doing a comedy was a good choice.  The movie had some really funny parts and I found myself laughing out loud during several parts.  Meanwhile Janika had about fifteen teenagers over for a "pickle party."  Everyone brought jars of pickles and they watched a really scary movie called, "Insidious."   I am wondering how long this obsession with horror movies is going to last.  I would prefer something a little more uplifting!  

BUSY Wednesday!!

Today was picture day at the Elementary school and so I needed to wake the kids up early in order to curl the girls' hair.  We don't actually buy school pictures any more since we take our own every year, but the kids' pictures still go in the yearbook for class and individual pictures and so I want them to turn out nice!  I do buy a yearbook every year that the kids can share -- no sense in buying three of the same book.  The fact that they leave the house with their hair curled all cute doesn't necessarily mean it will still look nice when picture time rolls around, but we can always hope.  I should have taken a picture before they left. 

Janika also went to school early for an ETS fieldtrip to Las Vegas for the day.  We signed her up for ETS (Educational Talent Search) in 8th grade and it continues throughout middle school and high school.  She doesn't particularly like it but we thought it would give her some good information. According to the SUU website, "ETS is one of the five TRIO programs that helps prepare students for post secondary education. The program is funded by the United States Department of Education, Student Services Division...In addition to tutoring, counseling, and academic instruction, this program also provides valuable information pertaining to financial aid, scholarships, federal grants and college applications."  

When we got the Itinerary for the trip a couple of days ago we saw that the kids were scheduled to be home between 7:15 and 7:45 tonight.  Janika was in a quandary as to what to do because she had been asked to sing a solo at the Young Women's Night of Excellence tonight that was scheduled at 7:00.  I told Janika that I could pick her directly up from the school and bring her to Young Women's and she could change to a dress in the car, but you never know with trips if they will be on time.  She texted her leader to see what she should do.  Her leader said that they would put her last on the program and hope that she made it.

Janika had been really excited about the trip because she was going with one of her friends. But her friend ended up backing out at the last minute and so Janika was distraught at the thought of going on a trip with a bunch of kids she wasn't really friends with. But I was proud of her for keeping her commitments anyway, even when it wasn't always comfortable. Their bus left this morning and picked up students from various high schools in our area and they headed to Vegas. They were supposed to go to the Shark Reef Aquarium but ended up going to the CSI Exhibit instead. Janika said it was really neat. They got to become investigators to figure out what happened in various crime scenes.  She said it was really interesting. 

Then they took a tour of UNLV and ate lunch on campus.

ETS provides a field trip each year to a different University so that the kids can see the campuses and get a feel for college life.  The 8th graders take a tour of Dixie State College, the 9th graders go to SUU, the 10th graders go to UNLV, and the 11th graders go to BYU, UVU, USU, and Weber State University.  Janika is really excited for next year's trip.

Janika texted me a few times throughout the day to let me know how her trip was going. I checked Josh out of school 15 minutes early so that I could drop him and Jenna off with a friend while I went to an appointment.  After I got back, the kids and I did the dishes and then Jared arrived home from school.  I took my half hour nap (thanks, Jared!) and then started working on dinner with Jase.

The kids arrived home from school.  Jaiden's friend, Emily is doing her second grade "family or friend" presentation on Jaiden and so her mom came and took some pictures of Jaiden and Emily.  Jaiden went to Emily's house for awhile and then Rick dropped Jaiden off to her Cheer Clinic at the High school.  Then I dropped Janelle off to Achievement Days and stopped at the store to pick up photos and poster board for Jaiden's second grade "family or friend" presentation (she is doing hers on her Aunt Gerilyn).

I picked up Jaiden from the cheer clinic.  I had been praying that Janika would make it back in time to do her song in Young Women. Right then I got a text from her saying that they decided to skip dinner in Mesquite and were coming straight home and so she would be home earlier than planned! Yeah! I gave a "thank you" prayer, rushed home and changed to a dress, hurried back to the high school to pick her up, picked up Janelle from Achievement Days and hurried to the church. Janelle's Achievement Day project for the evening was a cute round mirror that she had decorated with buttons around the outside edge.

Janika had already changed in the car. She had worn a darling outfit that she would just need to throw on a matching skirt with but the ETS advisors had given them all T-shirts which they were required to wear which made the "car change" a lot more awkward. I threw a skirt to Janelle and and told her to change too since I wouldn't have time to bring her home and so she would need to come with us to Young Women. We pulled into the church parking lot at 6:58.  Whew!!

It was a lovely program and Janika's solo was a beautiful addition and perfect ending to the evening.  I felt very grateful to Heavenly Father that everything fell into place today! 

Weeds

I mentioned that we needed to clear weeds off our empty lot this week.  We tried to find someone to hire but nobody called us back and so we decided to make it a FHE project with the promise of pizza afterwards.  We all headed over at 4:30 with our van filled with shovels and gloves to chop off huge prickly bushes. We did make a little dent in it but could see that we would need a lot more man power to finish the entire lot.  The ground was hard, the temperature hot and allergies were starting to kick in for Janika and Jared.  Allergies hit me too but not until we arrived home -- and persisted for several days -- UGH!  Anyway, we made it almost an hour before Rick left to pick up Jaiden from dance.  He decided to make a few more phone calls while he was out to see if we could hire someone.  He came back and said, "I found someone -- let's go get pizza!"  At least we tried, right?  The cost to have it professionally cleared?  $150.00....and worth every penny!

Watermelon -- Yum!

Celebrating another perfect watermelon!  Thanks Janelle for growing a watermelon plant in our yard! 

Scout Camp

Jared had a great time at Scout Camp last night!  There were only four kids and the two leaders and so they got a lot of attention.  They ate hot-dogs and hamburgers for dinner and pancakes and sausages for breakfast and so he probably ate better than he would have at home -- ha ha!  I am glad that the weather cooperated for them! 

Patricia Harris's Memorial Service

There was a beautiful memorial service for Patty Harris at our church tonight.  The family wanted this to be a "Celebration of Life," and it truly was.  After an opening prayer and beautiful musical number, the service was opened up to anyone who wanted to come and share some special memories about Patty.  It was neat to learn about how many lives she has impacted. She is an amazing lady with leaves behind an incredible legacy.  We will all miss her! 

Thursday Thoughts

*I just finished listening to an awesome book series on audio:  "The Great and Terrible" by LDS author, Chris Stewart.  The first book starts in the pre-mortal life and the rest of the books follow the journey of several key characters on earth in the last days when the very constitution is hanging by a thread.  It is so well written and very scary!  It really makes you wonder "what if this happens?"  It really made me want to get our year supply of food storage!  Anyway, I always hate when a good book comes to an end.  Now I need to find another book to keep me occupied as I go about my work!

*We had Jaiden's last follow up appointment for her fingers last Tuesday.  They have healed so well and look great!  We are very grateful and appreciate all of the prayers that came our way during her surgery and healing process.  I will post an updated picture when I get a chance.

*Our high school cheerleaders do a fund-raiser every year where they teach a cheerleading workshop for girls of all ages for three weeks (one evening each week) and then the kids get to perform during half time at the homecoming game.  Janika and Janelle were never interested but I wasn't at all surprised when Jaiden came bouncing in the door waving a flyer about how she could "be a real cheerleader and cheer for a real football game!"  So I signed her up and brought her last night.   There were little girls everywhere!  At $30.00 a girl I imagine they make a load off it.   It really is a great idea.  Jaiden can't wait to get her T-shirt and "real" pom poms!

*My visiting teachers came over yesterday.  They are such wonderful people and good friends.  We all have kids the same ages and so it is always fun to talk about them and compare notes.  I really enjoy visiting with them!

*My kids love those potato pearls that you get at the cannery.  They even like to eat them plain.  Josh has been asking for them everyday -- just a bowl of the little round pearls.  I wouldn't mind except that they end up everywhere and make such a huge mess. The continuous crumbs have even attracted ants.  Apparently they like them too. Yuck!

*Today Josh came home from school SO excited because he earned five blue sticks and got to choose a prize.  He has already earned two prizes since school has started (plastic dinosaur paper clips) but they were out of those and so he chose a miniature whoopy cushion and couldn't wait to use it on his big brothers when they got home from school.  Unfortunately it broke before we even arrived home which led to tears and then a full-blown tantrum.  Sigh.  The drawbacks of dollar store prizes!

*Rick always cuts the boys hair and even has one of those hair cutting swivel chairs out in the garage that he picked up at a yard sale one time.  Yesterday it was time for their haircuts.  Jared came in the house holding back the tears because his dad cut off his faux hawk.  I told him we could still style it up in a smaller one but he rushed upstairs to take a shower and then went to bed and slept through dinner.  Then I put some gel in his hair and styled it back up into a miniature faux hawk and he seemed to feel a little better.  Soon he was out doing his usual flips all over the tramp. 

*I went and got my first mammogram.  It wasn't as bad as everyone makes it out to be.  I noticed that one of the nurses was someone I went to high school with and I gave a sigh of relief that I got someone I didn't know to do the procedure instead of her.  Breast cancer does run in my family -- my grandma and my aunt on my dad's side both had it.  But thankfully the results came back normal. 

*Jenna has had a cold all week.  It has woke her up in the night and I have heard her little pitter patter of feet coming into my room.  I pull her up next to me and she intertwines her little fingers in mine and goes back to sleep.  So sweet.  She sounds so cute and funny with her little hoarse voice.  She is into picking her own clothes and dressing herself right now.  Yesterday she had on a purple shirt, green and pink skirt, two different color socks and two different shoes -- and a necklace.  I was just grateful we weren't going anywhere.  Thank you to those who gave potty training advice.  She does seem to be doing a little better the past several days and I am trying not to stress if she does have an accident.  You would think that after seven kids I would have this down by now but every kid has been so different with each one on their own timetable!

*We just got a "courtesy notice" about the empty lot we own.  Apparently it is covered in weeds that need to be cleared within the next week.  Since we rarely even drive by it, we weren't aware that it even had weeds. So we are scrambling to try and find someone who has some equipment that we can hire to clear it since it would be difficult and take many many hours to do by hand and we just don't have time.  One person we called gave us an estimate of $350 to do it.  You have got to be kidding!  So we are still looking...

*One of our carolers accidentally showed up an hour early to practice tonight.  He ended up reading to the kids and helping Jaiden practice her spelling words.  I hope he shows up an hour early next week!  I enjoyed listening to the strains of Christmas music wafting up the stairs as the carolers rehearsed in the basement tonight.  Jenna sat on the bottom step listening to them while quietly playing with some toys. 

*We had another death in our branch.  Sweet Patricia Harris passed away last Friday due to a blood clot in her lung.  We will miss her.  She was a wonderful woman and an amazing seamstress.  She was ambitious and had been going back to college. They have a wonderful family and we love them all.  Her cute grandchildren always give me a hug whenever they see me at church.  I love it.  Her memorial service will be tomorrow night at our church.  A group of us are doing a musical number.  We practiced it tonight at my house and it is really pretty.  We pray for the spirit to be with the family and all those are participating tomorrow night.  Our thoughts and prayers go out to their family!

PTA Swim Party and Diaper Dilemma

The PTA swim party at Sand Hollow was the same time as Janika's concert.  I opted to go to the concert and have Rick take all of the rest of the kids swimming!  Since we are a "one car" family right now, I dropped them off at Sand Hollow on our way to the High School and picked them up on our way home.  I packed a bag with supplies including Janika's camera and told Rick to take some pictures of the kids swimming.  The camera came back without a single picture.  A "picture happy" person like me just can't understand how someone can go someplace fun and watch their kids play for two whole hours without even thinking to take a picture.  But that is just me.  The kids all had fun and had lots to talk about on the way home.  Apparently Jenna loved the froggy slide and went on it again and again.

 I also learned that one kid had a potty accident and they had to clear the whole pool until it was cleaned up. And no, it wasn't my kid, thank goodness.  But it could very well have been since my little "almost potty trained" two year old had accidents all day long today.  I am FRUSTRATED!!!!  How can someone with a fierce independent streak like hers suddenly back track so badly?  I became upset with her and said if she was going to act like a baby then I would have to treat her like a baby and put her back in diapers.  Instead of getting upset over this, my extremely verbal child put this dopey look on her face, pointed to her pants and said in a baby voice, "Di-pah!"  What the heck??  She knows perfectly well how to talk and she knows perfectly well how to go to the bathroom in the right place.  She does it (usually) 95% of the time but today was just a losing battle.  I just can't figure out why she is doing this and it is driving me crazy.  With this being my last child, I am just so anxious to be done with diapers FOREVER!!  I am definitely not one of those people who want to hang on to those last shreds of babyhood before they are gone forever -- she is doing that all on her own!!  Advice, anyone?  

9-11 Memorial Concert

I went to Janika's High School 9-11 Memorial Concert tonight.  I got a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes as I listened to the music, watched the slide show, and stood for our National Anthem and clapped for those who had served in the armed forces.  Yesterday was the 10th Anniversary of 9-11.  I remember it well.   We lived in Ivins at the time and Janika (5) was in kindergarten.  I had Jase (3) and Jared (1) in the double jogger stroller as we Janika her to the bus stop.  My friend was there with her daughter and asked if I had seen the news.  I hadn't.  She told me what had happened and I just couldn't believe it.  I was on my way to our local park and I sat there at the park pushing the kids in their swings.  It was so quiet and peaceful.  I tried to wrap my head around all of the chaos and tragedy that was going on at the other end of our nation.  I didn't fully realize the extent of the destruction and loss until I went home and started watching the news.  It was so devastatingly shocking and tragic and affected all of us. I can't imagine what it must still be like for those who were directly impacted.  It is truly an experience that none of us will forget!

Kids Update

Here is a little update on the kids:

Janika is enjoying High School and is having fun with Madrigals (except for the fact that it starts at 6:30 a.m. every other day).  She was also excited to start Carolers last week and we are excited to utilize her beautiful Alto voice.  She likes to learn new hairstyles and wakes up early to do her hair and get ready for school.  I never have to worry about getting her up in the morning -- she is always up before I am.  Like all teenagers, she is very attached to her cell phone.  We don't allow her to bring her phone to school with her or to her room at bedtime and she has been good about respecting those rules.  She has a great group of friends and is always getting together with them to "hang out."  She is very responsible about keeping up with her school responsibilities and does a lot of babysitting for us.  We are so grateful for her!   

Jase seems to be enjoying middle school.  He walks to and from school with his buddy who lives next door.  His dress hasn't changed any but he lets me comb and gel his hair everyday (even asks me to do it) and so that is actually a big step for him -- ha ha!!   Even though Janika sometimes complains about Jase, they actually are very close and Jase is probably her biggest confidant about the idiosyncrasies of her love life.  Jase has also confided in her about a few crushes of his own.  What? Jase?  Who knew!  If Janika wants to go for "walk" to meet a certain boy, she drags Jase along with her.  Jase seems to be enjoying Caroler practice too and I can frequently hear him practicing the songs. School has always come easy for him and it seems like he hardly ever has any homework.  Jase is doing well on the piano too although I do need to get after him a bit to make sure he is practicing.

Jared just started piano lessons.  He didn't really have a choice in the matter and wasn't thrilled about it.  But he has been good about practicing without being asked or reminded though.  He has been walking his piano teacher's dog twice a week to help cover the cost of his lessons and he actually seems to enjoy it (walking the dog, not the piano).   His new thing is flips.  He does flips everywhere -- on the tramp, on the couches, on the ground.  I keep getting after him for doing flips on and off the couches.  I told him that he should sign up for Gymnastics/Tumbling and he is really interested.  I called the studio where Jaiden attends dance to sign him up for tumbling but the class is full.  I put him on the waiting list and hopefully he can start in January when we finish up with Carolers.  Jared seems to be enjoying Intermediate school and regularly checks his powerschool account to make sure it still shows straight A's.  H is also a little obsessed over his hair!


Janelle not only started Carolers this week, but she also started choir over at the elementary school.  So Tuesdays will be really busy for her.  She gets up early for piano lessons before school (which is a bit of an ordeal because she takes a while to get moving) then straight to choir practice, also before school.  Then after school she has caroler practice for two hours, and then practicing and homework.  She seems really excited about it all though!  And of course she continues her love of reading and I sometimes have to take her book away from her to get any work out of her!

Jaiden continues to play, play, play!!  Her fingers have healed so well and are almost back to normal.  She loves her dance classes and is excited to start learning new dances for the Nutcracker.  Every since I can remember she has enjoyed dressing up.  When her friends come over, they dress up in costumes, turn on music full blast (which happens to be the Broadway Version of "The Little Mermaid" right now), and dance around with Jaiden belting the songs at the top of her lungs.  She is also starting piano lessons next month.  It is a bit of a chore trying to get her to do her homework (or her chores).  She would rather be dancing, or riding her bike outside, or jumping on the tramp, or anything else!

Josh is doing great in kindergarten!  I was a little worried with him being so temperamental and all, but I haven't heard any complaints from him or his teacher and so I guess everything is going okay.  I went and helped out in his class on Friday and he did great (although he was just a little loud sometimes).  As soon as I pick him up from school he tells me if he earned a blue stick (which is good) or a red stick (which is bad).  He has only been given two red sticks so far.  If he gets five blue sticks he gets to earn a prize and he is extremely motivated by prizes!!   He loves homework!  As soon as he gets home he wants to dive right in to his homework.  He has even gotten excited about reading his "take home books" and will sometimes read them several times a day.  It has been really nice having him at kindergarten since he and Jenna often bicker and often times he is doing something to make her scream within ten minutes of arriving home!

Jenna is just so fun and adorable!  I can't believe how big she is getting!  She will be three in less than a month and is fiercely independent.  She has learned how to pick her own clothes and get dressed all by herself.  She may have mismatched clothes and shoes on backwards but she did it all herself!  She will change clothes several times a day (and unfortunately every outfit is dirty and so it makes for lots of laundry.)  She insists on buckling herself, opening the door herself, getting out of the car herself, and turning a show on Netflix herself.  Her latest achievement is pouring her own milk in her cereal (eek!)  The other day I found her sitting on the bathroom counter with the water on in the sink washing her feet!  A couple of days ago our little neighbor boy came over to see if she could come over and play.  As I watched her run over to his house with her little blonde ponytails bouncing up and down I just had to smile!  She is a talker and will go on and on.  Her favorite color is "Lellow."  She loves "Top-A-Ramen."  (She adds the extra "A" in there).  She loves to eat non-stop and is very messy!   A couple of her favorite phrases are, " Don't wowwy, mommy!"  and "Just a second!"  (She must get that from me).  She is such a cutie!

Hands in Harmony Carolers

Tonight we started rehearsals for our Hands in Harmony Carolers!  We have done this group for several years but when Rick was called to be Branch President of the Deaf Branch three years ago, we decided that it was just too much and took some time off.  But after a three year hiatus we are ready to go and very excited!  We have already had several people call us to book appointments!  From our family we have Janika, Jase, and Janelle in the group.  We wanted Jared to be involved too but he didn't want to.  But he agreed to babysit the younger kids on Tuesdays since they have practice at the same time I teach my ASL class.

At 8 years old, Janelle is the youngest in the group and probably the most excited!  She kept bugging Rick, "When do I get to try out?"  And when she passed the audition she ran around shouting, "I made it, I made it!"  Tonight Jaiden came up from their bedroom and said, "I can't sleep because Janelle keeps singing her Hands in Harmony songs!"  So I told her Jaiden to go ahead and sleep with the other kids.  Rick went down at 10:00 and there was Janelle, sitting up in bed, her caroler music binder across her lap, singing to herself.  He had to laugh but tried to appear stern as he commanded "lights out."  She piped up, "Let me just finish this last song!"  So funny! 

We have kids from elementary, intermediate school, middle school, high school, and college, in the group.  So it runs from age 8 to age 21!  (We could still use one more boy and one more girl if you know of someone who wants to try out -- high school or college age would be preferred)  We are excited!  Here is a sample of a couple of their songs!
Hark, How the Bells 
Dashing Through the Snow

Labor Day

Today is Labor Day and that is exactly what we did -- labor.  Our poor kids -- I think they would have preferred school.  Jase has been doing an awesome job taking care of the lawn each week and the grass is greener that ever.  But our flower beds are overgrown with weeds and look terrible and it has just been too darn hot to have any motivation whatsoever to take care of them.  But the weather today was perfect.  We actually woke up to an overcast day of cooler temperatures and light sprinkling throughout the day. So the kids and I attacked the weeds while Rick did some edging.  Janika preferred to stay indoors to clean the kitchen and make home-made chicken soup for everyone for lunch.

We finally got a ripe watermelon!  Janelle had come home from a school field trip to "Cotton Days" near the end of the school year last year with a little watermelon plant in a cup.  She planted it out in our front flower bed and it grew everywhere tangling itself around plants and bushes.  We got about six watermelons.  We picked the first one a month ago and unfortunately it was too early and completely white inside.  After a couple more weeks we picked the second and it was barely pink in the center -- still too early.  Rick's sister and her family were in town that day and stopped in for a visit.  My brother in law said that you could tell it was ripe when the little curly tendril near the end of the melon dries out.  The Internet also said it is ripe if the belly where it was sitting looked yellow instead of white.  Today I saw those two signals and went and cut out a little triangle to see if it was ripe and it was.  So we all enjoyed watermelon from our "garden."  Janelle was so excited that her little plant actually grew (we haven't had much success in that area).  I didn't get a picture of today's watermelon but did take one of the first one (which wasn't ripe yet).  

After we did as much yard work as we could handle in one day the kids all took off to friend's houses.  Rick spent some time searching for a car on the Internet.  Rick does a lot of shopping on the Internet and that is how we found a couple of our other cars.  He found one this past weekend that seemed like a great deal.  He was interested and ready to purchase it but then started to have a funny feeling about it and did some checking around.  We finally decided that it was a scam and reported the seller on the site he was advertising from.   

For the past month we only have one car (our big red van).  It has worked out okay so far because Rick just rides his scooter to work and I take the van.  But I would still like to get a car as soon as possible.  When we sold our mini-van, we purchased an inexpensive older car to use until Rick could find a CNG car that he liked.  But he has never been able to find one in our price range. They are really hard to find right now and are expensive.  That car got us through for a few months but then it started becoming unreliable and so we decided to list it on the car auction.  It still hasn't sold and so we might spend the money to get it fixed so that we can either keep using it or sell it.

I want to find a car soon -- especially since Janika will be driving in a few months too.  I want a nice, reliable car.  I don't really care what kind or even what it looks like too much as long as it is reliable, safe, clean, has good gas mileage, and is nice to drive!  (And a strong AC of course!)  We are looking for a used car that is just a few years old and not too many miles on it already.  So if any of you hear of a good car for sale let us know!

Tonight I fixed meatloaf and cheesy potatoes for dinner along with green salad and corn on the cob.  Then we had a "cleaning the basement" project in order to prepare for caroler practice which starts tomorrow.  I also swept out the garage and set up a table in there so that we can put some of the bins of toys out there since Rick doesn't want all of the toys cluttering up the basement during caroler season.   Then Elder Lee taught a lesson on the plan of salvation.  His mom had sent him a cute little "Plan of Salvation" puzzle and he purchased a cute picture book from Seagull book on the Plan of Salvation.  He was so excited to try out them both out on our kids!  He also brought an apple pie that he had made.  Great job, Elder Lee!

Jaiden's Tooth

Jaiden lost her first tooth!  She is in the second grade and so her mouth is a little behind -- just like her mom's mouth was.  Below is a picture of me in the third grade with my front tooth hanging down ready to pop right out.   I believe it was my first one, but I am not positive. I had to have a whole bunch of molars pulled around the fifth grade because they just did not want to come out!  Janelle, on the other hand, is only 19 months older than her sister and has a mouth full of permanent teeth.