Friday, November 30, 2012

Kessiah's Birthday

I don't know how it is even possible that I have a 12 year old!  She is so excited to go into Young Women's, I know she will love it.

I love this girl.  She came into our lives so miraculously and I never forget it.  She is an obedient child and strives to do what is right.  It is fun (and trying at times) to see her grow up.  She is a good student.  She has been enjoying 4-H again this year and is involved in several clubs (photography, hiking, cavy, sewing, cooking).  She has been enjoying dance, but I think she is going to focus on gymnastics next semester.

This was a birthday party year for her.  She invited a few friends over for pizza, a craft, and a movie (they watched Tangled).  It was a fun evening.





Family Pictures

We attempted to take some family pictures today.  With 8 of us...it's tough to get a shot where everyone is happy, has their eyes open and is smiling all at the same time!











Thursday, November 29, 2012

Tarantula

While Ryan was putting up Christmas lights he found a tarantula.  He has wanted to hold one...but he wasn't ready to do it with bare hands.  So, he put on a pair of gloves!  Cool!






Friday, November 16, 2012

Sienna's Birthday

Last night I told Sienna that I was a little sad because it was the last day that I would ever have a 6 year old girl!  I'm sure she wasn't too sad...she would really like to skip 7 and go right to 8!  She believes that 8 is when life truly begins!  But I do hope that she enjoys her 7th year!

I am excited to see her continue to learn and grow.  She has become an avid reader...following in her sister's footsteps.  It has been fun to see her begin to read chapter books and get excited about filling up her library box!  She loves to play and spends a lot of her days playing with Logan.  I have been teaching her piano this year (it's been hard to be consistent about lessons...but we try!).  She has been good about practicing and will often sit down and the piano during the day to play a few of her pieces.  She has been reading the Book of Mormon (she hopes to finish by her 8th birthday), she is almost to Alma.

She has enjoyed playing soccer this fall and is looking forward to basketball in January.  She also takes gymnastics and really enjoys our homeschool co-op.  I have signed her up for Coverbuds in 4-H (I had to be the leader to make that happen!)






Five for Friday

1.  Monday was Veteran's Day...ahhh...a 3 day weekend....an extra day off from work and school.  The kids talked us into going to Denny's for breakfast.  I told them only if they would be good while we went shopping afterwards for clothes for our family picture.  Both things were accomplished!  The rest of the day was spent hanging around and relaxing.

2.  I had preschool co-op at our house this week.  We talked about Thanksgiving, pilgrims and food.  One of the boys has a sister that is Sienna's age (who is also homeschooled), I invited her to stay as well...Sienna was very excited to have a playdate.

3.  We found out this week that Jenessa was nominated to be on the all-star soccer team.  So, in addition to her regular practices on Monday and Wednesday this week, she had another one on Friday afternoon.  She will have her last soccer game on Saturday morning and an all-star game on Saturday afternoon.

4.  On Wednesday I had some extra time between dropping Kessiah off at dance and Jenessa's soccer practice starting.  We spent some time at the playground...which the kids LOVED...I admit, I'm not a mom that loves the playground!  So, of course, they thought I was the best mom in the world!







4.  The girls are practicing Christmas music on the piano now...it is fun to hear it.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Five for Friday

1.  OK, I am starting to realize (finally) that my life is super busy...and is not going to slow down any time soon...if ever!  This week we even had a few extra things going on besides the usual gymnastics, Mason's preschool, Logan's preschool coop, library/piano lessons, soccer.

2.  For Family Home Evening this week we did our (mostly) annual Thanksgiving tree.  I enjoyed some of the things that we came up with this year.  Everyone got 5 leaves and had to write something different on each leaf.  Some of my favorites were...Mason was thankful for Papa (I guess he still remembers when Papa and Nana were here while we went to Disneyland), Logan was thankful for Daddy taking him camping (not sure why he was thinking about the father and son campout from the Spring!), Logan was also thankful for the candy that he got at Halloween, Sienna was thankful for her family, Jenessa was thankful for memories, Kessiah was thankful for knowledge, I'm thankful for the opportunity I have to homeschool my children

3.  Kessiah had her dance recital this week.  She did a great job (even if we thought the recital was a little long because the place where she takes dance does several other things...so there were numbers by the voice teacher, piano teacher, guitar teacher, and dance teachers, plus a raffle that took at least 30 minutes!).  She had a dress rehearsal on Tuesday...Ryan took her to that since he had a meeting on Wednesday and couldn't go to her recital.  I dropped the youngest 4 of my crew off at someone in our ward and took Jenessa to the recital on Wednesday.  It was held at the Elk's Theatre...a very historical location in our area.



4.  We had homeschool coop at our house this week since the Mecham's are at Disneyland.  That meant I've felt extra pressure this week to have my house clean and presentable...not easy when I have kiddos making messes behind my back when I'm cleaning a different part of the house!

5.  We had 4-H Community meeting this week.  November's meeting always includes a pie contest.  So we held our cooking club that afternoon (it didn't work out for anyone else to come!)  Kessiah made a coconut cream pie and Jenessa made a peach glazed cheesecake.  I was really hoping this would be the year that I could actually sit through Community Meeting...but my little guys simply make that impossible!  I spent 99% of the meeting in the hall.  I didn't come home in tears, (like I have before) just frustrated and unsure of how to make this work this year.  Last year I took a movie for the kids to watch in the car every meeting...maybe I'll have to do that again...except I'm a leader this year and I'm supposed to report on the clubs I'm in charge of during the meeting.


Saturday, November 3, 2012

Saturday Edition

We had a couple of extra things going on today besides the usual soccer games.

Kessiah and Jenessa had a piano recital with tasty treats for everyone afterwards.  I loved Corbin's shirt which said "Will trade sister for candy!"










Ryan and I went on a mysterious group date.  (I'm so glad that Kessiah is old enough to babysit now...with Jenessa they are a great team!)  It was a fun scavenger hunt type activity and we ended up at the Haws's house for a bonfire and snacks.  There were several things we had to do along the way like an obstacle course, a "Fear Factor" activity, a "Minute to Win It" activity, eating some really hot salsa, pulling light sticks out of a pond, and counting windows on the stake center.  Our team came in last!  But we had fun!

In the Fear Factor activity, Ryan had to pull some rubber worms out of a pie tin of whipped cream.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Five for Friday

1.  This was a BUSY week (and the condition of my house this morning proved it!).  We skipped gymnastics on Monday because Corbin was not feeling well that morning...he was fine after lunch.  We had Mason's preschool, Logan's preschool co-op, homeschool co-op, Relief Society meeting, and piano lessons/library.  Soccer practices were cancelled on Wednesday because of Halloween!

2.  Monday night for Family Home Evening we carved our pumpkins.  Well...Ryan, Kessiah, Jenessa, Sienna and Logan carved pumpkins.  Corbin, Mason, and I painted ours!








3.  Tuesday for preschool Logan had a Halloween party.  Sienna got permission to go as well...she was feeling a little left out since Kessiah and Jenessa had a Halloween party for Activity Days and Logan was having one with preschool.

4.  Wednesday was Halloween...and the way the kids were acting you would have thought it was Christmas!  They were very excited!  We had a trunk or treat at the church and then Kessiah, Jenessa, Sienna and Logan went around the neighborhood with Ryan.  We have so much candy in the house right now!  Kessiah missed most of the trunk or treat because of her dance class (she has a recital coming up so she really needed to go!)  Corbin found it very interesting that he could walk up to someone and hold out his hand...and they would give him a piece of candy! 







Please ignore the fact that I still have spring butterflies on my wreath!



5.  Ryan had to work on Friday morning.  I tried to get the house back in order and tried to keep the kids moving along with the things they needed to do...sometimes that takes a lot of effort!