Yard Sale Again!

Courtney decided that she needs more "spending money" that she can buy things with. I told her that she has enough "things" and doesn't need anymore. She strongly disagreed with me, found a bunch of "things" she doesn't need and decided to have a yard sale so she could buy new "things." Okay!

So this is what is in front of my house:



She is holding up the sign but there isn't anyone coming down the street. It took about 5 minutes before her arms were too tired to hold up the sign. CUTE! She hasn't had any customers but the rule is that if something is taken out to be sold, it doesn't come back in the house. So to DI we will go sometime this week.

Science Project

Courtney's teacher invited her students (the ones who wanted to participate) to do a science experiment about a plant. They are studying plants right now in their class and this is another way to incorporate that into their learning. Courtney decided she wanted to grow a plant. So I found some old seeds from a few years ago, some dirt from the shed and got a terra cotta pot that she had decorated at her birthday party last year. And we planted flower seeds (4 O'Clock flowers).

We watered them, put them in sunlight and waited. They GREW! I was so excited because the seeds were forever old and the dirt was...well, dirt. I wasn't sure if anything would work and I was afraid that Courtney was drowning the poor seeds. But it worked.

She was first up today at the presentations for her class and was a bit nervous. She didn't want to go up alone so I stood by her while she told how we had planted the seeds, watered them and how they were now growing. It was fun to watch.

Here is the video of "The Angel" dance from Courtney's competition:

Dance Competition

Courtney was involved in a dance competition this past weekend. It was a long day but she had a lot of fun. They performed their regular routine to "All the Single Ladies." Then later in the morning they performed a lyrical routine to "Angel." It was really neat and Courtney loved it.

After the competition was over, Bryan and Ethan gave her some flowers to congratulate her. (Ethan wanted to buy her a bigger bunch that looked "fancier" but Bryan reined him in.)

Miscellaneous Denver Trip Videos

Here is a video of Courtney going to sleep while trying her hardest to fight it. The poor girl. We were almost to Denver when she finally fell asleep! She eventually woke up, adjusted her seat back and then woke up. Ugh! But it's cute to watch.



Here is a video of some karaoke kids. Courtney is quite the crack up. She had fun singing with Grandma Pack.



If you look at this video you can see that Ethan is singing along too even though he is acting indifferent. Cute boy!

Green Guy

Courtney brought home this little guy from kindergarten the other day. They are learning about plants and so they grew some grass-head guys. Courtney promptly went outside and buried hers. I don't know why, she just said she "felt like it."

Denver

Wednesday morning we woke up early, loaded the van and left for Denver at 6 a.m. Ethan wanted to leave earlier but we thought we had better wait until at least 6 a.m. The drive was long and uneventful. The kids watched movies, played games or fought. Bryan drove, slept, broke up fights, distributed snacks and changed movies. I drove, broke up fights, changed movies and distributed snacks. We were happy to arrive in Arvada.

We relaxed when we got there. After a while Grandma and Courtney made some shamrock cookies. They frosted them with dark green frosting which turned their teeth green! It was funny.




Thursday morning we woke up, had breakfast (green lemon pancakes), got pinched (because I was wearing by BYU shirt instead of green) and then Courtney, Grandma and I went shopping for a while. The guys hung around the house watching basketball. That afternoon, Courtney, Grandma and I did karaoke. Courtney's pretty hilarious with a microphone.




On Thursday night Bryan and David had tickets to the BYU game so they went to that while the rest of us watched all the games. There were some great nail-biting finishes! It was fun. The kids went to bed late, but they had a great time.

Here's Bryan outside the game:


Friday morning we woke up, had breakfast and then we went sledding. It had snowed on Thursday night but there wasn't enough close to Arvada to sled on, so we drove to Elk Meadow Park (not too far away) to do some sledding.

Bryan's gigantic snowball (see the one that's about to hit him on the right?):

David pulling the kids back:

Ethan sledding without a coat, WHERE IS HIS MOTHER?!?

Courtney making a snow angel:


When we came home we ate lunch and then went swimming. It wasn't too crowded and was a lot of fun. Then we went home, got cleaned up, ate dinner and watched basketball. Ethan filled out a bracket with Bryan. Ethan really got into the games after that!

Saturday morning the kids wanted to go to the Denver Zoo. The last time we went was with Uncle Andrew right before he went into the MTC almost 2 years ago. We hadn't come prepared to go to the Zoo, but we decided to do it anyway (it was better than the train museum which we have been to way too many times!).

When we got to the Zoo it was crowded! There were a lot of people in town for the NCAA basketball games. Bryan dropped Ethan and I off and then went a mile away to park the car. Finally we were all together, bought tickets, rented a wagon and were off. The kids loved it...for a while before Courtney got tired. Then she loaded herself into the wagon, used Uncle David's coat as a pillow, buried her head and laid down. She was set.

We walked around looking at animals for a while before Bryan and David had to leave to get to the BYU game. Grandpa then pulled the wagon with Ethan in it as well as Courtney (what a trooper Grandpa is!). We looked at animals, watched the sea lion show, used every bathroom in the place and enjoyed ourselves. We stayed for a long time until finally we were all exhausted. We returned the wagon, went to the gift shop, bought some stuffed animals (tiger for Courtney and sea lion for Ethan), loaded into Grandma and Grandpa's van and drove home. It was a fun time!

Then we spent the night watching basketball. BYU WON!!







Sunday morning we woke up, packed, loaded the van, made lunches, ate breakfast, put toys away and took off for home. The ride home was, again, uneventful. It took us less time because we didn't stop for lunch, we just ate our sandwiches in the van. Everyone was tired and happy to see home but we had a great time in Denver!

Spring Break

It was Spring Break last week and we were busy.

On Monday, I taught piano lessons, got the oil changed in the van, had the tires rotated in the van, took the kids to lunch, weeded part of the garden, and played around with the kids. We were going to Denver on Wednesday and the kids spent the day finishing packing their stuff. It was cute because they packed their clothes on Sunday morning but they waited until Monday to pack toys.

On Tuesday, I took the kids to a place called Kids Discovery Academy. It's a huge room filled with all kinds of scenes from Southern Utah where they kids play dress up. For instance: there was a Tuacahn stage with dress up clothes where they could act out plays; there was a Stahli Farm setting where they could pull fake vegetables out of the ground, ride a toy horse, gather fake eggs, and dress up like a farmer; there was a service station where they could pretend to change the oil in a car or change a flat tire; there was a magnetic engineering wall where they could make a marble run with all kinds of pipes; and lots of other things. It was a lot of fun for the kids and they had a bunch of kids to play with. Ethan was, by far, the oldest kid there so all the younger kids played sword fight with him. He loved it! It was 5 on 1 at one point and a little kid turned and said, "Boy, he is so good. I hope I can be that good someday!" It was cute. We stayed there for quite a while and then it was time to get back home.

The rest of the day was spent cleaning/packing/playing with friends. It was a good start to Spring Break.

Health Inspection

I have a "Cottage Foods Business" out of my house - I make wedding cakes. I have it all legal and pay a ton of fees every year to keep my licenses. Each year the health inspector comes to do a "surprise health inspection" of my business. I love this health inspector because not once has he come inside my house to do the inspection!! Yes, he stays on the front porch, chats with me while he fills out the paperwork on his computer, asks for my signature and then leaves. Surprise, surprise: I haven't ever had a violation! hahaha

Ivins Soccer

Courtney had her first game with Ivins Soccer last night and she had a great time. One of her best friends is also on the team and Bryan is the coach....what could be better than that?!?! A year certainly makes a big difference. I remember when she first started playing soccer and would run off the field crying if she feel or was kicked by another player. Now she just pops back up and keeps running. Of course that is about all she does but she runs around with style!

The Ten Virgins

(This is a long post. I print our blog out each year and it becomes our family scrapook/journal/etc. So you'll have to excuse it.)

About 6 months ago I got this great idea that our ward should combine with another ward and do "The Ten Virgins: A Musical Parable" for the Relief Society birthday party in March. I was the Relief Society counselor over the monthly meetings and I enjoy planning things, so I got the ball rolling. The other ward was great and really excited to combine with us because it means only half the work. We found 6 women in our ward and they found 5 women in their ward who would be willing to sing solos and act out parts (the 10 virgins and a narrator). I bought the script/performance CD/regular CD from Deseret Book and then made copies of what each character/sister needed so they could practice on their own. I found some women in our ward with decorating/artistic abilities who made a set for us. One woman's husband had a sound system that he set up and let us borrow. We had 3 Saturdays worth of rehearsals and the women found their own costumes.

In the middle of all of this, I was released and a new counselor was put in. I felt horrible telling her, "Okay, we have this HUGE production planned for a month away and you are in charge. Go to it!" So I stayed in charge of it and turned a lot of little details over to her (like finding everyone a lamp and ordering the cheesecake desserts).

Our dress rehearsal last Saturday went badly at first! The sound system kept acting up, everyone had a new suggestion to add to the production (which would have been nice but we couldn't even get through one rehearsal without women getting confused on the basic stuff), songs weren't ready, and I was panicked. But I knew it would all work out eventually. Our last run-through on Saturday went wonderfully and I felt good about it.

Tuesday morning I was supposed to drive to Payson for another doctor's appointment about my foot. But Monday morning I called to change it because it was snowy and I was afraid something would happen and I wouldn't get back for the performance on Tuesday evening. I am certainly glad I changed the appointment.

I spent Tuesday morning getting little things ready, setting up an outline of where I wanted chairs to be set up at the Church (some young men showed up to put up the chairs for us and to clean out the Primary room so we could put up the set), and finding little odds and ends people needed. I had the kids taken care of: Courtney would carpool to dance as usual, Ethan would go to piano and then carpool to soccer and Bryan would do the pick ups of the carpools for both kids. I was set. Then I had the feeling that I should put the music on my second Sansa mp3 player. The music was on my large Sansa mp3 player which we were going to hook into the sound system. We had practiced with it and I was all set to go. But I had a strong feeling that I needed to put the music on my second Sansa player (which is quite a bit smaller) just to have a back up. So I followed that feeling and it only took a few minutes.

When Ethan got off the bus he had a horrible ear ache/sore throat and I ended up in Urgent Care with him while other women (and young men and a counselor in the bishopric and a husband of a woman in the play) set up everything at the Church. Urgent Care was empty so we got right in and out. (He has an inner ear infection and it has moved to his ear canal so we have a Z-Pack prescription and ear drops but he will be fine.) Bryan met us in the parking lot and got Ethan's medicine while I took him home. Then Bryan arrived home and I went to the Church.

We had time to run through the play one more time before sisters began showing up. We didn't know how many to expect so we set up chairs for 98 women thinking that would be plenty. We haven't ever had over 40 women show up to a meeting before. Well, we ended up with standing room only, after bringing in more chairs (about 130 women attended!). It was amazing. We had women inviting their sisters and their in-active friends. It was great.

We dimmed the lights, turned on the spotlights, said the opening prayer and were ready to start. I sat down, punched the "play" button on my large Sansa and...."File Not Found" showed up. I tried the next file and still "File Not Found." I shut off the player and turned it back on and again "File Not Found." I quickly got up, ran to my bag in the kitchen, grabbed my smaller Sansa, turned it on, calmly plugged it in and it worked. The music began and we were off and running. Boy was I glad I had followed that prompting earlier in the day. Could you imagine the mess I would have been in? I am so grateful for little promptings!

The play went by so smoothly. The women did wonderfully and their voices were so beautiful. I was in awe of the talent these women have and the willingness to share it. Three of the women had never sung a solo before. It was great.

When it ended there were many sniffles and the Spirit was so strong. It took a while to clean up but, again, we had the husbands and counselor in the bishopric back to help us get it all back together. Women afterward were so complementary to how well it had gone.

I slept really well last night and feel so relieved that I can now turn the calling over to the new counselor and I can concentrate on what I need to. But it was fun to be a part of such a great experience.

Dessertitarian?!?!

Ethan told us this morning that he believes he should become a dessertitarian (a person who only eats desserts). We laughed and then I put carrot sticks in his lunch.

Multi-Tasking

Ethan is great at multi-tasking. He can listen to you read a story while reading another story to himself and still know what is going on in BOTH stories. But today is the first time we have seen him trying to multi-task in this way:



He is practicing his scales on the piano while reading Calvin and Hobbes. The only thing that clued me in was he missed a few notes on the easy scales he usually breezes through. We promptly took the book away but not without a lecture from him saying that he can multi-task just fine "thank you!"

What a kid!

Jetette Review

Last night Courtney's dance team was invited to participate in the Dixie High School Jetette Review. The high school's dance team (The Jetettes) had asked a lot of different dance teams in the area to participate so it was a long night! But Courtney did great waiting until almost the end when it was her group's turn. Her group was, by far, the largest dance group there.

She did tell me afterward that she likes watching a basketball game before she dances better than watching a bunch of other girls dance. ;) We got home after 9 p.m. and she was still up at 6:30 ready to go for the day! She has another dance review tonight -- for the Rebelettes at Dixie State College. (As I side note: Dixie State College no longer has the mascot of "The Rebel" because he offended some people so they are now "The Storm." I wonder if they will change the name of the dance team to "The Stormettes?" Just curious.)

Pizazz (Courtney is front row on the left side). The group of ladies to the left of Pizazz that are in the yellow are a group of women 60+ who dance all around the country but are based in St. George. Two of the women did the splits at the end of the routine!!

Surprising Ethan!

Yesterday Courtney was out of school and so we decided to surprise Ethan and have lunch with him. We made our own brown bag lunches and went up to the elementary school. Courtney was super excited to surprise her brother. Since I didn't want to miss him, we showed up a bit early. When his class finally showed up at the door to the cafeteria we were there waiting for him. He was shocked and then smiled from ear to ear. He played it cool but he said he was "really happy" that we were there.

I realized a few things at lunch: 1) He doesn't eat half of what I send; 2) what he does eat is the healthy stuff (apple slices, sandwich and juice); 3) he only eats as long as his friend does (and the kid doesn't eat much so he's fast!); and 4) he's not too old to give me a hug and kiss on the cheek in the middle of the cafeteria. Ahhh!

He asked last night if I was ever going to do that again and I just smiled and said, "Maybe."

SEPs

This is SEP week at the kid's school. Courtney doesn't have school Monday or Tuesday then she has early out the rest of the week. Ethan has early out every day this week. It's been funny to see her get him ready to go to school in the morning. They argue a bit because she doesn't have to get ready and she likes to make sure he knows that, but when it gets past 8 a.m. and she knows he needs to get ready for the bus, she gets Ethan hustling. Then she waits outside in the backyard until the bus goes by the house so she can wave at Ethan. It's cute.

We had SEPs with the kid's teachers yesterday and they are both doing really well. It's hard to really gauge how they are really doing and we don't always know the questions to ask. They don't do a lettering system like was around when we were kids (A, A-, B, C, etc.). They have a numbering system. Getting a "4" means they are above in that area. Ethan's teacher requires perfection to get a 4. Then you can get a "3" which means you are on target. That is the average, or where a student should be in relation to their grade expectations. Anything less (2 or 1) means they need to improve because they aren't up to level.

I think the kids feel better with the numbering system but I feel like I can gauge where they are better with grades and pluses/minuses. I did email their teachers later and ask if there was anything (besides doing homework with them and reading with them) that we can do to help them. So we'll see what they say.

All in all, they were good visits!