BYU/Gonzaga

After cleaning the bathrooms with the kids, showering and getting ready for the day, I was anxious to get to the temple.  It is the last day of the month and we kept putting it off.  We realized we would probably miss the session at Draper, so we headed to Jordan River.  Mike said he hadn't been back to that temple since I got my endowments out.  Wow! That was a long time ago!  As I was walking to the dressing room I ran into Shannon.  Talk about timing!  It was fun to go through the session with her.

After the temple, Mike took me to a Hawaiian barbecue place.  It was pretty tasty.  We were debating on going to eat before the temple or after.  I was worried if we went before that I would end up sleeping through the entire session, or wanting to.  When we got home, Mike finished making sock frogs with Jorja.  Well, one frog is finished and I think they have one more to go.

I got to pick the activity for date night.  I had thought and thought about what I wanted to do.  Finally I decided.  I wanted Mike to watch the BYU/Gonzaga basketball game with me.  He had to watch, cheer and not fall asleep.  It was a great decision.  Such an amazing game!  I think it was 21 years since they had an upset that great.  Maybe it was 31 years, I can't remember.  I do remember that BYU never trailed the entire game.  In basketball.  Against the number 3 team in the country. Incredible!  It was so fun having Mike watching the game with me instead of falling asleep and getting scared if I cheer loud.  Much better this way.  I didn't think BYU would pull it off.  Such a great game!

Peter Pan

The kids had today off of school.  Mike also had today off.  Matt called around lunch time because he realized he left a part of Anne's high chair here.  He came to pick it up and brought Anne.  My kids pounced on Anne and proceeded to play with her.  Anne had been grumpy, but was super happy playing with the kids.  Matt had no idea my kids were home, so he had planned on staying zero minutes.  Instead we got to play two games of Dominion!  Matt won the first game and I won the second game.

Anne

I got a picture of Stockton diving in my e-mail.  It is pretty cool and perfect timing.  This is Stockton doing an inward one and a half.  I think this was at the Bear River competition.

Stockton

Mike and I went and bought him temple pants.  He was still wearing the same ones he got before his mission.  They were quite uncomfortable.  Our plan was to get the pants and then go to the temple, but we were starting to get worried that we would run out of time.  So, instead we went to a movie.  We saw McFarland.  It was pretty good, but my kids probably would have hated it.  It was long.  I was getting anxious toward the end.  I was worried I would be late for Jorja.

Turns out I had just enough time.  As soon as we got home, Jorja piled in the car and we headed out to watch Jazzie in a play.  She was an Indian in Peter Pan.  She is adorable.  We talked her dad into going to Cold Stone afterwards.  Jorja was in heaven!  She was pretty disappointed that Jazzie isn't going to the Chinese celebration on Tuesday.  She thought for sure she would be there.  Jazzie has New Beginnings that day.  So does Jorja, but we are planning on missing it. Jorja has been staying after school practicing a Chinese song that she is supposed to sing with a few other people.  Now that Jorja knows Jazzie won't be there she is wishing she could just go to New Beginnings instead.  Jorja had been practicing for this before we realized New Beginnings was the same day.  Jazzie doesn't turn 12 until July, so New Beginnings is a bigger deal to her.

Jorja & Jazzie

Watching Anne

I was a bit frustrated with Preston this morning.  I had been gone so much this week that I wasn't able to personally oversee that his homework was done.  I had asked him to do it several times as I headed out the door.  He just looks at me and says, "I forgot."  I tried to have him finish this morning, but you just can't study for a Chinese test at the last second and expect to do well.  Anyways, it started snowing today.  This has been the craziest winter!  It has been so warm with hardly any snow at all.  Preston went to school wearing crocs; which he has done several times this month.  Today it snowed. All I could think about was Preston having to go to recess in crocs.  I was watching Anne today.  We decided to go to lunch with Preston.  I wouldn't make it for his first recess, but at least he could have his boots for his long one.  I met Preston's class in the hall.  He was towards the back of the line. When he saw Anne and I his entire face lit up.  He had the biggest smile I have ever seen.  Pure joy.  It was awesome.  Preston loved eating lunch with Anne.  I had warmed up her peas and hotdogs.  It worked out really well.  I decided I wanted to surprise Jorja also.  I knew I was cutting it close on time, but I thought I might make it.  Too bad lunch ended earlier than I thought.  The kids were walking to their classes.  I hurried to Jorja's Chinese class.  Once I got in there and looked inside I saw there was no one there.  I was confused for a bit before I remembered it was A day.  Jorja has orchestra on A day.  If I would have realized that when I got there we could have made it.  I didn't want to barge into her orchestra class, so we just went home.  Oh well.

Stockton had so much fun playing with Anne when he got home.  He took lots of pictures and asked me to bring my cell phone.  He wanted to text Jorja pictures of Anne every minute on her way home. I was supposed to text Stockton a message about diving so he would know when to start texting.  Jorja has been staying after school this week to work on a Chinese song for this big multi school Chinese extravaganza next Tuesday.  When Jorja got to the car she was crying.  I guess they want them to dance as well.  She is not happy about that idea at all.  As we were driving away, Jorja started getting the texts of Anne.  That made her laugh.  Once we got home we saw Sam's car in the driveway, that made her sad again.  Sam stayed for about twenty minutes so Jorja was able to get her Anne fix.  These are the pictures Stockton texted Jorja.

Anne

 Anne and Stockton

 Just Anne

I took Stockton to diving today and then went back to parent/teacher conference.  I forgot to find Ms. Rees.  She is the one in charge of testing out of pe, and I had some questions.  I also talked to Mrs. Ferguson again.  She is also in charge of the yearbook.  I just wanted to let her know that Stockton is on the dive team and I didn't really want his name to be with the swim team.  She was great about it and asked me to send in a picture on Monday.  I told her it didn't need to be anything big, but an inset would be great.  She had her papers with her and cut out two swimming pictures and found the perfect spot for Stockton.  (Sorry about that random swimmers.)  I went to the counselors also and got the form for Stockton to try to test out of pe.  I hope he can do it.  I'm worried about the mile and a half.  He has to run it in 10 minutes.  Anyway, with him taking calculus (2 periods) and robotics next year, he just doesn't have any room for pe.  I talked to Ms. Court (my kids counselor) about Maysen's math class as well.  Maysen wanted me to double check that she could just take math 1040 (statistics) and it would satisfy the regents scholarship requirements. Ms. Court said it should, but I should send an e-mail to regents anyway and save the email.  That way if there is any problem we should be covered.  I was also hoping there would be a way for Maysen to sign up for the same four classes next year.  She is hoping to take the a veterinary class at a different campus.  The only problem is people from Jordan School district get first priority.  If there are any spots left she might get one.  It might be in the morning or it might be afternoon. She will not get a choice.  I was hoping to plan her schedule the exact same for morning or afternoon and then I could just delete one.  They won't let me do that.  We have to hope she gets in and then just guess which slot they think they will put her in.  Ridiculous.  Computers are great, but sometimes they take away common sense.

Stockton was pretty excited when he came home from diving.  He learned a 2 1/2 off of the three.  Gage's grandma videoed him doing one and he was able to show me.  I love it!  

Parent Teacher Conferences

Parent/teacher conferences at the high school went from 4-8 today.  I was there the entire time.  Maysen got extra credit if she attended for her ceramics class.  I told her to bring something to do because we were going to be there for awhile!  She was a trouper and didn't complain once.  She did get a lot of homework done.  After we visited her ceramics, she set up shop at one of the tables in the cafeteria and did homework while chaos surrounded her.

I did make it to everyone of Maysen and Stockton's teachers.  Yay!  I learned that there is a technology contest of making video games.  I tried to get Stockton interested in that.  The maximum of people in a group is 5.  I asked his teacher what the minimum was.  It is 2.  That might be too many for Stockton.

I can't even remember how many teachers said Stockton had the high of their class.  One of them said, "I can't remember his grade, but it is crazy high.  Probably 118%."  I am so proud of both Maysen and Stockton.  They are working hard for their grades this year and it shows.

I was on my way out to the seminary building when I ran into Lisa and Michael.  I asked Lisa if she ever noticed Mike's picture down the hall. They have all the student government pictures since the school was built.  She said she looks at it every time.  Michael had no idea her was in one.  We helped him find it.  He asked his mom what year she graduated from, then laughed at their clothes.  Lisa and I both graduated from the school our kids are now going to.  Crazy.

There was a huge line for Ochoa (AP history).  He came in late because of soccer tryouts.  Michael went home and Maysen waited next to Lisa while I went to Courtney (math).  I almost got to Heffner (AP Geography) before Maysen was next for Ochoa.  Maysen came and waited in the geography line while I talked to Ochoa.  That was really helpful.  Later Maysen said, "I have no idea why I didn't ask Michael for a ride home."  Poor Maysen!  I didn't think of that either.  Whoops.

While Lisa was waiting to talk to Ochoa she said, "This is my last conference with one of my kids teachers ever."  Wow.  Michael is a senior, he is her youngest.  He is her fifth child to go through the school.  That would be so weird.  I'm glad that's not me.  I love this stage of my life right now!

Doorbell Surprise

It is weird not going to the youth activities on Thursday.  I walked with Jorja and Kristin down to Sue's house.  I thought about going in and hanging out at their P party, but I knew I needed to let the girls go. They need to bond with Sue instead of me.  Around 8:00 I heard the doorbell ring.  I expected it to be one of my three older kids.  Instead it was my beehives!  They filled our entire porch!  It was so great to see them.  They are amazing and so full of life.  It was awesome.

During their activity tonight they made me this apron.  I love it.  It is cute because most of the girls signed with the nickname Kristin has given them.  I know most of the nicknames, but I haven't paid too much attention to them because that was Kristin's thing.  The girls love them.  So much fun!

Jorja, Stephanie, Preston

In case you were wondering, Jorja's nickname is Rana.  That is frog in Latin I think.  

Secret Messages

For scouts we played with secret messages.  The boys seemed to enjoy it.  They liked making messages for the other boys to decipher.  We also made invisible ink with lemon juice, although Mike helped make this so cool!  He had these pen things that we were able to put the lemon juice in, so it looked just like a pen!  Then we cooked it in the oven.  Pretty nifty.  I also found some robin eggs for Easter that you could write on with edible makers.  They LOVED that!  We managed to stay busy the entire hour, so that was definitely a win!

Once the scouts left, Maysen and I went to the mall.  She had to do a psychology experiment where she needed to drop things in front of someone and see if they would help her pick them up.  She had to make sure they were by themselves and not in a group.  Out of the ten people, only one person stopped to help pick up her papers.

Once her experiment was over we went to dinner at Village Inn.  It was wonderful to have some time to chat just with her.  She told me how lucky she felt to be in our family, with a mom who can stay home and a dad that is awesome.  Made me happy.

Settlers

Preston is going to be so mad if he sees this post.  After Preston and Jorja went to bed, Mike, Maysen and I played Settlers of Catan with the new board.  Stockton did not want to play.  Preston went to bed saying, "But I thought we were going to play Settlers!"  I told him we ran out of time.  We did.  We couldn't finish a game before his bedtime, but we could before Maysen's.  We thought it would be good to play a small game before we tried it out with the family anyway.  Maysen was extra happy because she won.

 Maysen

Maysen also got called as a Ward Family History Consultant today. She, of course, didn't let us know that was going to happen.  We were pretty surprised when they had her stand up in church.  She likes doing that to us.

Cookie Party

A few weeks ago Mike started doing Time With Dad again.  The kids have been thrilled.  Stockton has Monday, Preston has Tuesday, Jorja has Wednesday and Maysen has Thursday.  Preston actually did his today because he had the Blue and Gold banquet on his real day.  They worked on making dragon eggs into a wand station in Mike's workshop.  Mike finally got his workshop cleaned.  During the remodel we used the room to stuff things.  Mike is so happy to have it back!

Preston and Mike

 Mike, I don't think that is safe!

 Mike and Maysen have almost finished their 3d Settlers board

Maysen had a Girls' State interview today.  She felt she did really well. There are 21 applicants and only 7 girls will be accepted.  Even if she doesn't make it, I'm so glad she tried.

Seth and Megan had their annual cookie party.  I made chocolate covered cookie dough.  Basically the same as the homemade reeses, but with cookie dough instead of peanut butter.  I had so many cookies! They were delicious!

Jacqui won best tasting cookie and also best overall cookie.  She made a brown butter sea salt cookie with nutella in the middle.  It was really good, but super rich!  Because Jacqui won best overall she got to take home Seth's cookie.  He had to take himself out of the best looking cookie competition because it just wasn't fair.  This was his cookie this year.  It took him about an hour to decorate this.  Crazy!

Goat Finalists

We went to a Chinese New Year party at Lisa and Nathan's house.  The year of the goat/sheep/ram.  They had a lot of yummy food!  They had a movie on called Iron Monkey.  The kids thought that was kind of silly. They also had a contest to see who could draw the Chinese character of the goat the best.  Nathan picked five finalists.  All four of my kids made it into the finals.

Maysen

 Preston - notice the character in the ram's face

Below it says something like, "The goat I drew"

 Stockton

 The winner!  Jorja

Jorja won a Panda Express gift certificate.  Nathan gave the five papers to Nova, Melissa's 1 1/2 year old, and she picked one out.  Weston put Jorja's name on his drawing.  It was pretty funny.  My fortune cookie said, "Smile if you like this fortune."  It was a fun night.

Lasagna

Maysen and I made lasagna today.  It was delicious.  That seems to be all I can remember about today.

Banned Books

Stockton and I went to the library today to get a banned book.  He had a two page list of different books.  He has to read a banned book for English.  He can choose from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Their Eyes Were Watching God, One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, The Giver, Gone With the Wind, Catch-22 . . . a lot of different choices.  We came home with The Kite Runner because that is one of the few we found at the library.  I had a handful of books at home as well.  Stockton had to look up why the book was banned.  I looked over his shoulder and told him his mom was now banning Kite Runner from him too.  I'm trying to talk him into reading Of Mice and Men.  Hopefully I'm successful.

Blue and Gold Banquet

I didn't get any good pictures from tonight.  Drat!  After volunteering in Preston's class I went and helped set up for the banquet tonight.  It was a Luau theme.  Ashley is the cub master and she is amazing. Everything looked so great!  As soon as Mike came home we went to set up the snow cone machine.  We were supposed to do the snow cones while they kids were playing a few games, but it didn't work out that way. After dinner Ashley had her aunt teach the boys the haka dance. Ashley's aunt is Polynesian.  The boys and their dads learned the dance. It was so cute to watch!  Preston did not want me to take any pictures during the dance.  He paid more attention to me making sure I wasn't taking pictures than to what he was suppose to do!  The dance went a little long so Ashley said, "Grab a snow cone before you leave!" Yikes! All of a sudden we had a gigantic line.  It wasn't bad though.  Judy helped me with the syrup.  The kids really liked it.

Maysen, Stockton and Jorja had a combined video service scavenger hunt for their activity today.  They weren't too incredibly excited about it.  All three of them had a great time.  Yay!  They picked their groups by picking a sucker out of a bag.  They were all in different groups. Stockton's team came in 2nd place.  Sue was with Maysen's team. (Preston ran up to Sue and wouldn't stop hugging her.  Made her cry.) Ebony was with Jorja.  They had to do things like hug a fireman, help someone pump gas, take a picture by the A, run a lap, shake hands with a full time missionary, take a picture of a fish tank.  Those are the only ones I can remember.  I'm glad they had such a good time.  Today was a win for everyone!

Day at Home

Today was great!  We didn't do anything really blog worthy, but it was so nice to have an extra day at home.  Mike got today off as well. Stockton and I worked on his AP Geography homework, Maysen worked on her Covenant manuscript to review, Jorja went and played at Dallin's house, Preston worked on his book report.  We all went out to lunch together.  Mike had bought coupons from a boy in our ward as part of his Eagle Scout project.  This restaurant is only opened for breakfast and lunch.  With Mike having the day off, today was the perfect day to go.  Plus, they serve scones.

Teaching?

Friday I got a text asking if I could sub for a primary class.  There are five boys in this class and no girls.  I said okay, but I was a little disappointed.  I haven't been able to go to Relief Society for years and I was looking forward to going to the church history class with Maysen and Mike.  I read through the lesson on Saturday, but didn't start really planning it until Sunday morning.  I got up at 6:00 and started working on it until we left for church at 9:00.  After sacrament meeting two people stopped me to talk about things I really needed to figure out. (One of them was Judy.  She will be doing scouts with me.  She was on a three week cruise and just got back.)  I rushed away from them because I needed to get to my class.  It took me a few tries before I found the right room.  I went in and announced that I was teaching today.  They were confused because their teacher's bag was on the table.  What?  Apparently this class is team taught.  I stressed, prepared and worried about this lesson for nothing.  When the other teacher came in the room I told her that I was asked to teach.  She said, "She knows it's my week.  That's weird.  What is your name?  Can you teach on March 1st?"  I asked if the other teacher was going to be in town.  I didn't want to go through this again.  She said, "I only want to teach every other week.  When it is my week I don't want to bother her.  I'm sure she feels the same way."  What?  That's the craziest thing I ever heard.  So, you are getting a sub and the other teacher of the class might be here anyway?  Can't you just trade weeks?  I told her I would have to look at my calendar.  When I got home I noticed it is a three day weekend.  Right now we are not planning on going anywhere, but I don't want to say yes and then later wish we could have made a quick trip somewhere.  Especially if the other teacher might be in town!  I texted the lady back and told her the kids have a three day weekend and we are not sure what our plans will be.  Super weird.

I didn't make it to either class I wanted to go to.  I was so thrown off by what happened.  I ended up going to the bishops office and asking to get set apart.  That took a bit.  Then Sue came and talked to me to ask my opinion about some Young Women things.  Mike overheard someone say that Autumn's fridge went out.  Autumn is Kristin's mom. Mike and I went home during Relief Society to clean out our extra fridge so they could use it if they needed to.  They had missed my phone call and gotten ice at the store.  They ended up not needing to use it, but at least they know they could have if they wanted to.

The beehive class was split for lessons today.  Kristin was sent to the opposite class of Jorja.  She was so good to Jorja though.  She asked Jorja if she could be her spy and tell her when went on in the other class.  Then they walked home together so Jorja could let her know what went on.  She is so good to Jorja!

Couples Extreme

I talked Mike into going to the gym today.  We went to this 'couples extreme' class.  It was pretty fun and funny.  We did all sorts of weird exercises.  Mike's favorite was when one of us put the band around our waist and tried to run as fast as we could while the other one was supposed to hold you in place while doing deep squats.  I couldn't budge Mike and he had no problem moving me!

Mike gave me a cool journal.  Both of us are supposed to answer a question a day.  For three years.  I had him help me pick out a mattress topper for the motorhome.  I want one for the overhead bed.  When we want to leave early, Mike and I sleep up there.  I have a hard time getting comfortable.  Last time Mike moved our mattress topper and it was so much better.  I am really not a high maintenance person, except when it comes to my back and sleeping.  I wish it were different because it is annoying not being able to sleep.  Anyway, this will be nice to have a permanent topper so Mike doesn't have to move the other one back and forth.

That's about it.  We had a pretty relaxing Valentine's Day, and it was great!

Valentine's Day Cookies

Jorja was pretty excited that they were going exchange valentines at school.  She spent all week making heart shaped chocolate chip cookies.  She wrapped them up real cute and made a fancy tag.  She debated about just putting her name (from Jorja) or putting different kids names (to Jazzie) on them.  She was worried because there are a few kids she gets mixed up.  This was in her English class.  For years she has been with the Chinese kids, and now she is in middle school....lots of new faces.  Anyway, she decided to put their names on them because she had a class list.  That turned out to be a bad idea. Jorja thought they would have plenty of time to hand out the valentines.  They only had three minutes.  She came home with more than half of her cookies because she couldn't get them handed out fast enough.  She was really disappointed.  Poor little Porgie.

We watched Max tonight while my dad was at dinner club.  It looks like my dad and Cathy will have Max for the next year.  Patrice and Hunter were sent to jail a little while ago.  The judge has asked my dad and Cathy to do the foster parent thing for the next year or so.  He doesn't mind that one bit.

State Diving Competition

Stockton had his state diving competition today.  It was during school. He was not happy about that at all.  Stockton hates school, but he hates make-up work more.  He was able to go to the first part of his math class before I checked him out.  They were taking a test.  He will have to finish up next week.  The state meet was down at BYU.  Stockton did really well on all of his dives except one.  He hates the back dives.  He has been competing with a back one and a half.  It is his least favorite dive.  On the way up he told me that he guesses every time when to come out of the flip.  He hasn't figured out how to keep track of where he is in the air when he is going backwards.  Luckily he has always guessed right . . . until today.  He still was able to score the dive, but got the lowest scores he has received all season on one dive.  The rest of his dives went okay, it was just hard to get over that one bad dive. Stockton ended up finishing in 9th place.  Mike couldn't come, but they had the dive meet streaming over the Internet.  Mike watched it at work with his coworkers.  Stockton was pretty embarrassed that they saw his bad dive.  Before bed Mike pulled up the dive meet to show Stockton.  We watched all of his dives except his back one and a half.  It was great that he could see he did better than he remembered.  It was also funny to listen to the commentators, who really didn't have any idea what they were talking about.  First, they spelled Stockton's name STOCKTEN. Who spells it like that?  They talked about how there were a lot of divers from Hunter High School, when the big group of divers were from Herriman High School.  When Stockton came to the board they said, "He looks like a 9th grader."  We laughed so hard at that! When he did his inward flip half twist they said, "I have never seen that dive before....  Very unusual dive.....  He did it about as well as it could be done."  Kimble was on his last dive, I think, when they said if this dive is good he can rest easy and would be hard to beat.  Haha!  Everyone knew Kimble would win!  He is amazing, crazy good.  He probably could have flopped two dives and still won the meet!  Anyway, I am so proud of Stockton.  Even though today didn't go exactly like he hoped, I am proud of him for trying.  I'm proud of him for choosing dives that are hard, that he knew had the potential of messing up.  I am proud he pushed himself.  He has improved so much these last three months. He is so fun to watch!  I love it!

I met my dad at Bubs house around 5:30.  My dad is watching Bubs kids while Bubs and Ange have a quick getaway.  I think they are up at Daniels Summit.  Anyway, my dad teaches a class on Thursday so I said I would watch the kids while he did that.  Things went great until 7:00 when it was time to get Millie to bed.  Ella, Abby and Millie all share the same room.  I went down to get Millie some pajamas and the door was locked.  Lincoln and Ella carry their door keys around their neck.  I asked Ella if she could unlock the door.  She didn't lock it.  Someone had locked it and left her key inside.  I was not amused.  At first I thought we could figure a way out of this.  Lincoln said last time that happened his mom got into the room with his tool box.  He brought me the tools he used and told me how she did it.  I told Lincoln that there was no way that worked because I would break the door.  Then he said, "Wait!  That was my room she broke into.  It looks like my room has a bigger gap."  I called Bubs hoping they had an extra key lying around. The call just went to voice mail.  Finally after an hour I decided to get the older three into bed, all in Lincoln's room.  Lincoln said he had a 9:00 bedtime.  I told him that tonight he didn't.  They could read in bed, but there was no way I would be able to get Millie asleep if they were out and about.  I made a bed for Millie in the upstairs playroom with blankets.  I was not hopeful for this.  Judging by how well Millie sleeps at the cabin I knew my dad would be in for a long night.  I gave Millie her tablet while I did some dishes and cleaned up the Valentine paraphernalia spread around the house.  The kids had their Valentine's parties today because there is no school for them tomorrow.  About 9:00 I went into the play room and got the tablet away from Millie.  She did not like that at all!  Probably 15 seconds later Bubs called.  They decided to check on the kids so they drove until they got into cell phone range.  Thank goodness!  He was able to tell me where Ella's spare key was hidden.  Bubs had shown my dad where Lincoln's spare key was hidden, but not Ella's.  Yay!  I took Millie downstairs and was getting her in jammies when my dad came.  I was able to get Millie to bed easily.  My dad's night would have been miserable if we couldn't get that door unlocked!

Today was a LONG day.

National Math Test

Stockton took the National Math test at the beginning of this month. They were able to bring the booklet of questions home.  Some of the questions are so crazy, and pretty funny.  For example:

Eight people are sitting around a circular table, each holding a fair coin. All eight people flip their coins and those who flip heads stand while those who flip tails remain seated.  What is the probability that no two adjacent people will stand?

Claudia has 12 coins, each of which is a 5-cent coin or a 10-cent coin. There are exactly 17 different values that can be obtained as combinations of one or more of her coins.  How many 10-cent coins does Claudia have?

Hexadecimal (base-16) numbers are written using the numeric digits 0 through 9 as well as the letters A through F to represent 10 through 15. Among the first 1000 positive integers, there are n whose hexadecimal representation contains only numeric digits.  What is the sum of the digits of n?

Needless to say, I'm glad I wasn't the one taking this test!

Two and a Half

I stayed at diving just so I could watch Stockton's two and a half.  Here is is for your viewing pleasure!

Preston's Snow Globe

Becky, Jacqui, Jenny and I all went out to lunch today.  We went to a place called Stella's.  I had never heard of it.  It is about thirty minutes away.  It was pretty funny because Sister Sabey was there having lunch. I thought that was so random!  Lunch was so fun.  We didn't have to plan New Beginnings or anything.  That was nice.  Becky has already figured out a way to spend her extra time now that she isn't the Young Women's president.  She is teaching preschool down at the homeless shelter.  Becky is awesome.  She asked us if we had any ideas for art projects.  I took this picture of Preston's snow globe.  I love it!  The only problem Becky would have is the same people aren't in the preschool class every day.  She couldn't take a picture one day and plan on the same people being there the next.  That would be challenging!

Preston

I had scouts today.  We worked on passing off the Keep Your Body Healthy achievement.  I drew on red marks on my arm and they had to clean and bandage it.  We also made cards and little pretzel, rolo treats. We walked them down to Sue.  She loved it!  She gave hugs over and over to the boys and told them how much she missed them.  They loved that!  Adorable.

Back from Parrydise

Today we left the cabin.  Boo!  It is always sad to drive away from the cabin.  We went through Wyoming and got home at a decent hour. That was nice.  The kids hate it when they have to go straight to bed after a long drive.  Today they got to goof around for a few hours before bed. School is tomorrow.  Fun, fun!

Everybody Loves Jorja

Jorja made pancakes this morning.  I tried a red hot chocolate chip pancake and it was delicious!  Bubs and Ange took their kids to Idaho Falls to see Grandpa.  We used that quiet time to do homework, go sledding, and play Ticket to Ride (German).  Jorja creamed everyone in the Ticket to Ride game.  When Bubs and Ange came back, they said Grandpa went to the hospital Thursday night.  What?  We had left his house after 11:00 Thursday night.  I wish I could have helped him.  On the plus side, they said Grandpa was happy and looked great.

Jorja decided she wanted to sleep on the pads in the kids room downstairs.  Ella wanted to sleep next to her.  When Preston saw them, he wanted to sleep on Jorja's other side.  Soon Abby came down and immediately wanted to sleep next to Jorja.  Both Ella and Preston wouldn't budge away from her.  Abby was sobbing, "But Jorja's mine!" That made me laugh.  Jorja is definitely loved in this family.  Finally Bubs came up with a satisfactory plan.  He pulled down Preston's pad a bit and slid a pad above Preston's head and next to Jorja's head.  That solved Abby's qualifications of being next to Jorja but not next to Ella; and it kept the other two next to Jorja.  Whew!

Maysen really wanted Stockton to learn how to play Pirates.  Mike, Maysen, Stockton, Bubs (and Lincoln) and Ange all played a game. Stockton did pretty well and had a good shot of winning until he got attacked by the Navy at the end of the game.  The thing that made me laugh most during the game was Mike went and got his Pillage and Plunder mug (that happened to be in first place) to drink during the game.  As he was coming back he sang, "Pirate mug!"  Immediately Maysen and Bubs jumped up and ran to the mugs.  Maysen got her mug in the first place spot before Bubs could.  It was so funny!

The thing that made Stockton laugh most during the game was when Mike said they should make Obamaopoly.  Then they were talking about all the different squares or cards for the game.  Like 'community chest' Give your chest of money to everyone else.  I can't remember them all but Stockton sure thought it was funny.  Ange ended up winning the game.  The cards ran out.  Ange only needed $100 to win the game outright.  Stockton wasn't too far behind her, but he had no way to earn money the last turn of the game.  I think he had fun, but he kept mentioning to me that this was a LONG game!

Warm Snow

I absolutely hate the fact that I can't sleep in.  I was up at 6:00 and knew there was no chance of me getting back to sleep.  Preston woke up about a half an hour after I did.  Today was pretty relaxing, although I felt drained the entire morning.  I am not a night person at all.  It wipes me out when I stay up late.  We had fun playing games, drawing and reading.  Jorja had printed out a whole bunch of Webkinz pictures and the kids were coloring them for a contest.  Lincoln had brought up some cool oil pastels that they had fun using.

Today was really warm!  We didn't end up going outside until around 5:00.  We didn't want it to be too warm when we were sledding out there.  I just rode the snowmobile, but I had so much fun bringing the kids up.  Jorja loves our big black sled.  The first time down she had Ella and Abby with her.  They had the biggest smiles on their faces. Especially Abby.  I wish I had a picture of that!  It was adorable!

I noticed that the oil light came on the snowmobile I was riding.  I showed it to Bubs.  We traded snowmobiles so he could fix it and I could get the kids up the hill.  The only problem was, Mike and Bubs couldn't figure out which oil to put in and they did not want to get it wrong.  Like Bubs said, "I didn't want to be the one to break the snowmobiles!"  From the bottom of the sled hill I could see Steve and Sharon's cabin.  Their lights were on.  Mike and Bubs had tried calling Steve to ask.  Ange and I decided to drive over.  Steve and Sharon had just gotten there.  It was perfect timing!  We chatted for awhile and then Steve came over to help us.  They are going to come over for a bit tomorrow.  I was hoping they would be here this weekend!

Bubs made the food today.  I am so full!  I always eat way too much at the cabin.  I called and talked to Brett for a bit.  They went to Great Wolf Lodge a couple of days ago.  He said they loved it.  I was relieved. My family loves it, but that doesn't mean every family will.  It would have been embarrassing if they hated it and we had told them how great it was.  Luckily that didn't happen!

The cell phone reception is so much better here than it was in the summer.  I don't know if they built more towers, but holy cow!  What a difference!  Mike was able to watch his work meeting.  He tested out several things and said, "I could totally work from here now." Awesome!  We will have to try that out sometime!

I found an old recipe book camouflaged in the back of one of the kitchen cabinets.  The Bathtub Chocolate recipe sure looks like my mom's handwriting.  The paper doesn't seem to be yellow enough for it to be hers, but I am going to pretend.  Really, it looks exactly like it.  I always loved her lowercase rs.  The Ms are the same, the Qs.  I wonder if she wrote this?  If not, I wonder which one of her sisters handwriting looks just like hers?

This Refrigerator Rolls recipe is definitely my grandma's.  I sure do miss both of them.

I was planning on staying up and playing games, but I was too tired.  As soon as it was 10:00 I was in bed.  Looking forward to a fun day tomorrow though!

Anne and Idaho

Jorja and Preston had the day off of school. Jorja REALLY wanted to watch Anne.  I watch Anne about one Thursday a month.  When Matt was making his new semester Anne schedule I asked if we could watch her on the 5th.  Jorja was so excited!  Wow.  It is so much easier watching Anne when Jorja is home! 

Anne is getting to be a lot of fun.  She is walking now, which is great! The only problem with watching Anne with Jorja home is then Anne doesn't like e at all.  Whenever I come near her she will forcefully say, "No! No! No! No! No!"  It is really funny.  She always dives to have Jorja hold her.  Even when her Mom is around.  She also can say Jorja's name, which is adorable.  Jorja loved feeding her and wanted to be the one to put her down for naps.  I told Jorja to let me do the naps, she could do the fun stuff; that way Anne would always associate her with fun!

Anne and Jorja riding a bee scooter

I finished making welcome cupcakes for Sue.  I thought she would think that was fun.  Jorja and Preston wrote on the card we gave her. Preston's made me laugh.  "Hope that Stephanie will be good at it!"  Me too Preston!  Me too!  Jorja, Preston, Anne and I walked down the street to Sue's house.  Sue loved the visit.  Sue loves everything.

Maysen had asked Jorja if she could get Zeke out to play for awhile. Zeke climbed on my head.  It felt really weird.  Zeke is always on Maysen's head.  I guess he likes being up high.

Zeke

 Stephanie and Zeke

I was able to get packed up while Anne was here.  It was nice to be able to get a lot of things done.  Mike and Sam came home around the same time.  Sam took Anne home and Mike finished up the last bit of packing so we could leave.  We left for Idaho around 5:00.  We got to my grandpa's house around 9:30.

My grandpa doesn't look well at all.  He is starting to tell the same stories over and over, like Grandma did.  He told me at least five times that he prays every night to Heavenly Father and Lois (my grandma) that they will come take him, but they never do.  Sad.  Maysen would say things like, "We love you, Grandpa."  But I don't think he ever heard her.  My grandpa and I watched the BYU/Pepperdine game together.  BYU was doing so well until they choked at the end.  Most of my kids laid down in the living room through the game.  I know Preston slept through the entire thing downstairs.

We left for the cabin at 11:15.  Bubs was already there, so it was nice knowing we would have a arm cabin to sleep in.  We arrived past midnight.  Bubs waited for us and had the snowmobile ready to bring up our things.  We didn't get to sleep until 2:00.  LONG day!

Planning

I had a scout meeting tonight.  I guess we have one of those a month. Who knew?  We planned the Blue and Gold Banquet.  This year is going to be a Luau theme.  Ashley put me in charge of the snow cones. That was lucky!  That shouldn't be hard.

I had parent/teacher conferences for both Jorja and Preston.  They both are doing great.  I got Jorja to agree to speak a little Chinese in front of me.  What is happening is she is refusing to speak even one word if I am around.  Now Preston is doing the same thing.  It is extremely annoying.  Especially when I see all of Jorja's Chinese scores and she is doing well in Chinese.  Ebony came up to me smiling saying they were speaking Chinese together.  I asked her how it went.  She said, "Jorja is a lot better than me!"  Ebony just started taking Chinese, but her parents are from China.  Although I think they speak Cantonese.  Anyway, hopefully Jorja won't be so paranoid around me anymore.

Weird

Tonight was really weird.  I folded laundry instead of going to Young Womens.  Becky, Jacqui and I kept texting each other about how weird it was.  I'm sure we will get use to it, right now it's just weird.

First Time with the Wolves

Sue had handed out a scout schedule for the next three months.  She didn't have scouts for today or next week because today she is having surgery and Judy (her assistant) is on a three week cruise in the Mediterranean.  I was tempted to just stick with her schedule, but then decided it would be best to jump right in.  No sense just worrying about it for a few weeks!  I decided to do some get to know you activities and then have the boys make catapults out of marshmallows.  I let them shoot the marshmallows everywhere.  They had a great time.  I didn't anticipate all the marshmallows that would be stepped on though!  I had to scrub the floor for a long time after the boys left!

Preston with his marshmallow catapult

Preston was excited to show the boys his treehouse.  They loved it up there.  He also showed them the motorhome.  I think he likes me being his scout leader.

Griffin, Braxton, Preston

 Standing on a tree branch in the tree house

No More Young Womens

Today was an emotional day.  The Young Women's presidency was released.  We had been serving for almost three and a half years.  I have loved it.  I am going to miss working closely with Becky and Jacqui.  I have learned so much from Becky.  She has been a phenomenal Young Women's president.  I also officially was called into scouting today.  I'm still a little nervous about that one.  I am going to miss my girls.  All fourteen of them.  Mostly Jorja.  At least I can still have her at home and no one is going to release me from being her mom.

We had a combined lesson today.  Becky, Jacqui and I each taught a part of it.  Traci helped me out a lot.  One of my favorite quotes is from Thomas S. Monson.  I asked Traci if she could take that quote and make it look nice.  This is how it turned out.  Isn't it beautiful?  Thank you Traci!

I was extra thankful for Traci because the rest of my lesson didn't go as planned!  I only had about 7 minutes for my part.  I asked one of my old beehives to do a part of my lesson.  I reminded her on Saturday with a text message.  The only problem is, she didn't show up!  After having a minor panic attack noticed that she texted me a few minutes before sacrament meeting saying that she was going with her family to a Super Bowl party.  Okay, new plan.  Everything worked out just fine, but thanks to Traci I at least looked a little prepared!

I was glad we were able to teach the girls one more time, but it was pretty hard.  Poor Ebony was so upset.  She was sobbing.  I saw Sue talking to her letting her know things would be okay.  I talked to her a bit later and told her I was going to miss her.  She sobbed as she gave me a giant hug, "I don't want you to go.  I love you being my teacher."  I am sure going to miss her.  I'm glad that I did a good job in this calling. I'm glad my girls aren't throwing me out the door excited to have someone else.  Ebony's going to love Sue.  Everyone loves Sue.

I feel like we did an excellent job for the three plus years we served. Becky made the comment that she feels we didn't leave anything on the table.  I'm glad I can walk away knowing I did my best.

We had my family over for dinner and the Super Bowl.  Mike made fajitas.  We didn't want to have my dad make dinner because it is my mom and dad's forty-sixth anniversary today.  I was hoping to go down to the cemetery (Sam's idea) together, but we never got the chance.  We did watch the Super Bowl together.  Gayle came as well.  I wasn't a big fan of the ending.  What a great ending it would have been if the Seahawks had scored after that amazing catch!  Too bad he couldn't get a few more yards after he caught the ball.  Oh well.