Caught Reading

It's hard to find fictional books that boys like to read.  Josh's favorite book is The Strange Case of the Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger.  He's loved the entire series (3 books so far).  For Christmas Josh got Fake Mustache by the same author.  He got caught reading it over the holidays.  Gotta love it when your son chooses to read a book!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

 

We didn't get around to sending Christmas cards this year.  I blame it on the extra hours spent at work rather than the fact that they only picture I have of all of us this year is at Old Faithful. I guess one of my goals for the upcoming year will be to take more pictures and to get them off of camera.

Kynda's Birthday

Happy Birthday Kynda!

Our Little Linus

Hailey is a lot like Linus from the Peanuts.  She wants to take her blanket everywhere.  When she started 1st grade, we put her blanket (aka Mimsi) under house arrest.  That doesn't mean much to Hailey, even though she's a 2nd grader now.  At Julie's band concert this winter she sneaked Mimsi into the school inside her coat, only to pull it out as they were getting started.  Not much mom could do about it then.

Julie's Birthday

Happy Birthday Julie!

Halloween

 Josh decided to be a mummy this year.  He looked gruesome!

 Hailey made a beautiful Belle.

Here's Meg as a genie, along with some of her friends.  I didn't get any photos of Julie this year.  She was in too much of a hurry to go Trick-or-Treating to take time for a picture.

Spooky Flowers

These spooky flowers were delivered from my Secret Pal at work today. They are so cool!  All of the filler was spray painted black and the sunflowers were placed orange water to soak up the color.  Love it!

Julie's Quilt from Grandma

Grandma has been busy again making quilts.  This time she made one for Julie.  She also made 2 baby sized quilts to donate to her local fire department.  They keep them in the ambulances to help sooth frighten children that have been injured.

Pumpkins

We're a little late making our annual trip to Day Farms to select our pumpkins, but we finally made it there!

Everyone has their own type of pumpkin they look for.  Tom likes big, elongated pumpkins.  Megan, Julie and I try to find the perfectly round pumpkins with great color.  Hailey looks for one she can carry.  Josh's main objective is to find the one that will have the least amount of seeds inside.

I've never told the story about getting our pumpkins, corn stalks, and hay bales home.  The kids go in first, then we add the hay bale and pumpkins in the back.  The kids end up holding the corn stalk as they ride home (it's only a couple of miles).

The car is always a mess by the time we're done, but since Halloween is my favorite holiday, it's worth it!

A Quilt From Grandma

Since my mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's there are few things she still enjoys doing.  Quilting is one of the hobbies she not only remembers, but enjoys.  While staying for a visit she made this quilt for Megan.

Back to School

 Josh is a cool 5th grader this year.

 Hailey is a sweet 2nd grader.  (Guess who her teacher is?  Me of course!)

 Julie is in 8th grade and our only kid at Junior High.

Meg's a sophomore this year!  Life's going to be crazy having kids in 3 different schools.  Luckily she gets to ride a bus.

The High School bus comes at 6:55 AM... so we did our group photo after I got home from work.  Yes, Julie is taller than Megan now.

These are Megan's best friends.  They came by the house before leaving for the bus to get a first day of school picture together.  We love Aubrey and Brooke!

New Classroom

I moved classrooms over the summer.  Instead of teaching in a portable this year, I am in the building.  It took my family and I all summer to move, unpack and set things up.  Here's several photos (sorry about the poor quality) of my classroom before Back-to-School Night. 

 Love the Interwrite board at the front of the room!  I always smile when parents see it in use for the first time.  There are lots of oohs and ahs.  Plus the kiddos LOVE to be able to write on it too!

We're using a pirate theme again, but I made changes to my word wall.

My calendar wall has changed, since Utah is now following the Common Core curriculum.

Love this bulletin board, which is outside of my classroom.

These are the lockers in the hallway.  I got lots of compliments on the cute clip art.  Thanks ThistleGirl Designs!

Space Derby

This year the Cub Scouts held a Space Derby.  It was a new experience for all of us.

 

 Josh's rocket is black with flames all over it. 

Josh was so proud of the rocket he built (with a little help from Dad).

Swim Lesson

I'm not sure whether it's a love of the pool or a fear of being late, but Hailey was up before 7 AM every morning for swim lessons.  Since her lesson time wasn't until 9:45, that's a long of time for a little girl to wait.  We finally had to set a timer so she would stop asking if it was time to go. 

My Family

 I have a pretty great family, if I do say so myself!

 Megan

 Julie

 Josh

Hailey

Yellowstone

This summer has been very busy, but we managed to sneak in a quick trip to Yellowstone.  It was the kids first trip there and while they enjoyed all of the beauty and the animals, by the time we left they had seen more gysers then they ever wanted to.  Here they are at Exclesior Gyser Crater (mom's favorite gyser).

You are supposed to maintain 100 yard distance from the buffalo, but when you are walking along the gyser board walks and are suprised to see a very large buffalo near you it's hard to follow that rule.

 We really enjoyed all of the waterfalls.  This is the lower falls in the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

The coolest thing the kids saw was a herd of buffalo walking along the road.  It made all of us a little nervous as they walked in front of our van and along side.  They were close enough you could have reached through the window and petted them.

Temple Scrapbook

Several years ago I started a scrapbook of temples that our family have seen.  I wanted the kids to always be watching for temples and remember how important they were.  On our trip to Yellowstone we passed two temples, the Idaho Falls Temple and the Rexburg Temple.  This time though our experience was a little different.  Since we had been traveling, we weren't dressed in Sunday dress.  At the Idaho Falls Temple there were several wedding parties outside.  The kids felt uncomfortable about their own appearance so we stayed outside the temple grounds.  It was a great lesson to them that they always want to feel comfortable at the temple and must always be worthy to enter.

Rexburg Temple

Pioneer Children

I sent Meg with a camera.  She only took 5 pictures in the four days she was gone.  Hopefully, some of the leaders from our ward took more photos than she did.  Megan's in the blue bonnet.  Her friend Autumn is in the white bonnet.  Meg did have a wonderful experience though.  I'm grateful to the leaders and youth who spent countless hours preparing for this week.  It really does strengthen the testimonies of those who go.

Pioneer Trek

 

Megan left bright and early this morning for Pioneer Trek.  Isn't she a cute pioneer? I sent her with a camera, so hopefully she remembers to take lots of pictures of Trek. 

Camp Fife

This year the Webelos went to Camp Fife.  Josh loved climbing the rock wall.

Josh wasn't completely sure he wanted to go on the zipline.  The first step is the hardest to take.

Unfortunately we had too many boys in our group, so they only got to go on the zipline once.

The sling shots were lots of fun and something Josh' hadn't done before.

BB guns are always a big hit!