Monday, June 26, 2017
No smilie face?!
We went to Costco today and Courtney was excited to hold the receipt when we left the store but her excitement turned into disappointment. The lady didn't draw a smilie face on the receipt! 😳
Swollen eye
Courtney woke up Saturday and asked me "Is my eye swollen?" Yes, it is. She didn't know what had happened but her left eye was itchy and it was swollen. I have her Benadryl and she took it easy.
Sunday morning came and her eyes wasn't as swollen but it had a definite bump in the lid. It still was itchy but she didn't like feeling drowsy with the Benadryl. We are hoping it goes away soon.
She did figure out in Monday that she can wink because the eye is swollen. So there is the silver lining. 😉
Sunday, June 25, 2017
Differences
When Ethan was in California for 4 days Courtney was so lonely. She said, "I don't like being an only child."
When Courtney was at her overnighter last week Ethan told me "I don't think it would be bad to be an only child."
Haha! We figure the difference is this:
1. The oldest was an only child for a while (in Ethan's case it was 3 years) so they know how to entertain themselves and can do things alone.
2. The second child needs to entertained because what older child doesn't want to play with a baby?! We have ample video of Ethan entertaining Courtney. So now she is programmed to be entertained.
I think Courtney is going to have a rough time when Ethan goes on his mission!
Friday, June 23, 2017
Mother/Daughter paint night
The activity days girls had a paint night with their moms. They decided to not do a daddy/daughter date but to do a mom and me. Bryan felt sad.
There is a woman in our Ward who is a great painter so we went to her house. Courtney and her friend wanted to sit by each other so the other mom and I sat together.
Painters...we are NOT! Courtney doesn't like anyone telling her what to paint and I'm just not good. But we did our best.
They had an Italian soda bar as treat.
It went really long so after 2 hours we just finished as best we could and and came home. Here is Courtney's masterpiece. Can you tell what it's supposed to be?
Paint night selfie!
I certainly love this daughter of mine!!❤️
Overnighter for Courtney!
Our Ward young women went on an overnighter Thursday night and then a hike Friday. Since Courtney is going to camp, she was invited to attend. She was so excited that she packed Tuesday morning!
They met at the church to load up and go. She wouldn't let me get a picture so I took one d her back. She is in the yellow shirt with "11" on the back.
Thy went to Pinto to a cabin owned by a member of our Ward (the same place they have fathers and sons each year). They unloaded, played around and then had dinner. After dinner they tie dyed shirts for camp, had a fireside and roasted marshmallows.
When it was time for bed they all chose beds (Courtney got a queen bed to herself)...yeah, they were roughing it (haha). Courtney didn't sleep well because some girls were complaining and others were taking pictures with their phones (ugh!).
Friday morning they loaded up the trucks at 6 am. They then started their 5 mile hike that included such sights as cows, bulls and calves. Their rides met them and they came home.
Courtney was tired but she had a lot of fun and can't wait until camp!
Ethan's shoes
Our neighbor gives us hand-me-downs for Ethan. When her son-in-law moved out of her house she brought over a pair of shoes that he didn't want. They were brand new and size 11 so Ethan got them.
He loved the shoes so much that he put a rubber band around the shoe to keep it together when the sole fell off!
On monday he decided he had enough and found the shoes online. They came and he was so excited!
I love the brand name:
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Inside S'mores
It's 111 degrees outside and ethan has a craving for s'mores. So this is what he does...
Just as I good and you don't smell like smoke!😆
Just as I good and you don't smell like smoke!😆Overnighter!
Courtney goes on her first overnighter this week and she is so excited!! So excited that she is already packed and ready to go, a day early. It will be a little cooler where they are going but it's still going to be hot.
She has been invited to Girls Camp this year and has been going to all the certification activities. They go to camp in July so it is getting close. She can't wait!!
S'mores!
What do you do when it's 105 degrees outside? We make a fire in our new fire pit and make s'mores!
Ethan was in charge of dinner and wanted to make s'mores for dessert. We needed to try out the new fire pit so we decided to give it a go. It was super hot (112 degrees) so we waited for it to cool off ... hahaha!
Ethan made a great fire and we had fun roasting marshmallows. Unfortunately the chocolate went from frozen to melted in 2 minutes so they were pretty messy. But we had fun!
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Father's Day!
We have a great dad in our family!
We had biscuits and gravy, sausage links, eggs and oj for him for breakfast. Courtney gave a talk in church about dads, which was very nice and she did a great job. At church the men got Fat Boy ice cream sandwiches. Then we had Dutch oven for dinner. We went to my parents house for dessert that night.
Bryan got bike repair stuff, a picture from courtney and a new bike tire. It was a good day and we certainly love Bryan!
2017 and 2012:
Fire pit
Ethan is working on his Family Life merit badge. He had to do a project that would benefit his family. He decided, with my input, to build a fire pit in the back yard.
We decided to work on it early in the morning when it was only 80 degrees. Ethan dug the hole, leveled the bricks and then stacked them. We out sand in the bottom and tamped everything down.
The finished product!
Fire pit
Ethan is working on his Family Life merit badge. He had to do a project that would benefit his family. He decided, with my input, to build a fire pit in the back yard.
He did all the research and figured out what supplies we needed. We took the truck to Lowes and bought whatbwe needed.
Ethan picked a spot in the backyard that he thought would work best.
We decided to work on it early in the morning when it was only 80 degrees. Ethan dug the hole, leveled the bricks and then stacked them. We out sand in the bottom and tamped everything down.
The finished product!
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Cake gone wrong
I had a cake order for next Monday and thought I would hurry and make the cake Friday so I wouldn't have to worry about it. Well, something went weird and the cake didn't look quite right when it came out of the oven. I didn't want to frost it and then have the client unhappy so I let my family do their worst.
I told them they could eat it and so they decided to do it without hands....
Cake Smash!!
This was the finished product. The dent on the bottom is Bryan, the dent on the right is Courtney, and all the cake that is gone from the top is in Ethan's tummy. He is better at this than Bryan and Courtney.
They had cake up their noses and all over but they had a blast!
I told them they could eat it and so they decided to do it without hands....
Cake Smash!!
This was the finished product. The dent on the bottom is Bryan, the dent on the right is Courtney, and all the cake that is gone from the top is in Ethan's tummy. He is better at this than Bryan and Courtney.
They had cake up their noses and all over but they had a blast!
Fire Pit
Ethan is working on his Family Life merit badge and he has to do something that will benefit the family. He is going to build a fire pit in the backyard.
We went to Lowe's and bought the bricks and sand.
He decided where it is going to be placed.
He will start on it Monday morning, before it gets too hot. I'm so excited!
We went to Lowe's and bought the bricks and sand.
He decided where it is going to be placed.
Friday, June 16, 2017
Baseball cards
Courtney and Ethan are allowed to watch one movie a day. Yesterday, Courtney decided to watch home movies and pulled out the John Pack family ones. We got to see Andrew's 1st birthday and Bryan's 15th birthday. Ethan thought he looked "weird" because e was so young and had hair.
Bryan was curious to see what a 15 year old got for his birthday in the 90s (he couldn't remember). He gives Ethan a hard time about wanting video games and guess what 15 year old Bryan got the most excited about...Tetris. Some things are the same no matter what decade you live in!
Bryan also got baseball cards which made him really happy. Then the older Bryan realized that the exact baseball cards his 15 year old self was opening are in our basement. Ethan got excited and went down and found them.
It was fun!
Taking care at home
While ethan and I were at youth conference, courtney took really good care of Bryan. One night she made pigs in a blanket and they went on a picnic to the Ivins Reservoir. She did a great job with dinner and they had a lot of fun at "the res."
She is becoming quite the cook.
Tuesday, June 13, 2017
Youth Conference
June 8-10th was the Ivins Stake Youth Conference at the Summit Mountain Lodge near Brian Head. We planned and planned and planned. We had awesome activities planned and all the housing figured out. The Friday before, a few of us went up to check out the facilities again to make sure all our planning would work out. One of the activities revolved around an obstacle course they had on the property. Unfortunately, they took the obstacle course out the week before...so we had spent the next Monday figuring out a new activity. But it all worked out and the youth had a great time.
The Stake leaders drove up Thursday and got there around noon so we could set things up. We put ward assignments on the doors of the yurts, cabins, hotel rooms, and bunkhouse rooms. We got the schedule posted and made sure that everything was ready for people to arrive.
Around 3 p.m. the wards began to arrive. The boys were in the yurts and cabins outside while the girls were in the hotel rooms and the bunkhouse.
Our ward had the bunkhouse on the left (large one) and the smallest one on the right. Ethan stayed in the one on the right with 2 other boys.
It was super windy when we met in the Amphitheater for our first speaker, Del Parson. He is the LDS artist that did the Christ in a Red Robe, Christ knocking on the door and Christ with the lamb paintings. He had a great story and showed us his paintings while telling us the story of how he gets the inspiration and models for them. It was neat to hear how the Church commissions paintings and how they go about making sure the painting is what they want. It was also neat to hear Brother Parson's story. He was asked by the Church to paint a picture of what the Spirit World looks like. He asked them what they wanted and they said "We don't know. We haven't been there before." So he set out to paint a portrait of what it would be like for his wife to greet him in the Spirit World. Not long after he began the painting, his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. After the funeral, his wife appeared to his brother one night and gave him four things to tell to Brother Parson: 1) the Church is true, 2) she loved him, 3) he needed to remarry and 4) I can't remember the last one. It was after this experience that he was humble enough to paint the Christ in a Red Robe and the others. It was great to hear his testimony. I met him afterward and he is such a humble man.
We had dinner (which wasn't very good, but oh well) and then we had a dance. The Youth Committee wanted the dance on the first night so they wouldn't stink. ;)
The boys from our ward hid behind a tree during the dance, haha! They enjoyed each other's company. But girls found them and asked them to dance.
Their hiding place:
It was a girls choice and Ethan was asked to dance.
The kids were having so much fun (minus the boys in our ward who went inside and played cards) that we decided to let them keep dancing. So it went on until about 10:30 before we had a closing prayer and sent them to bed.
The YM leaders were outside in the yurts, cabins and some campers they pulled up while the YW leaders were inside in the Great Room. We were on couches or cots. While we were getting ready for bed one of the leaders saw a mouse! The girls were nervous about the mice so we (and by "we" I mean one of the other YW leaders) caught the mouse and released it outside. But he wasn't alone. We finally gave up trying to catch them all and went to bed. But the wind was crazy and we didn't get much sleep.
The next morning we got ready, ate breakfast, had a devotional and then started rotations. I will explain the rotations by showing pictures of Ethan as he rotated around.
Ethan went to the ropes course first. The facility had a ropes course but it wasn't that great so the Stake YM presidency had to do some designing and figure out how to make it work. They played some games, did a spider web where they had to pass people through one at a time, then they waited until it was their turn on the swinging log.
They ended with the human knot. It was fun to watch them. Notice that Ethan is wearing PANTS! He was not happy about this but the Stake President wanted the youth to wear pants the whole time. I had to go and buy some because he hates pants! Some kids were wearing shorts over their pants in rebellion. Haha!
The next rotation Ethan went to was games. They played a bunch of different games. Ethan's favorite was Rock, Paper Scissors Biggest Fan!
In that game, you play someone Rock, Paper, Scissors and then the loser becomes the winner's biggest fan and cheers for them as they battle others. Soon there are 2 groups of "biggest fans" and the winner wins everything. It was hilarious to watch.
They also played a hula hoop game and it was a lot of fun to watch. This was Ethan's favorite rotation!
We then had lunch and the kids got some free time. Our ward played cards and it was hilarious to watch. Other kids played pool and Foosball. I couldn't believe how well they kept themselves entertained with all the stuff that was provided. There were board games and card games. I loved sitting back and watching the kids play.
The first rotation after lunch that Ethan did was the one the Stake YW were in charge of. This was the one we had to frantically change on Monday. It consisted of 4 stations. The first station was the Parable of the Gems where they learned about gaining spiritual gems in the scriptures. They had to find gems and then solve a puzzle.
The next station was "Magic Shoes" where they had to cross the filthy water. Ethan and his teammate were really quick with this one.
The next station was using a Leap of Faith over the seats in the amphitheater. It was fun to watch them hop all over while gathering puzzle pieces.
The last station was putting together the puzzle. Ethan's group was super fast so they won handily! But it also meant that they had to sit around until the other teams were finished. We gave them some gummy frogs (get it, leap of faith and frogs?!) so they had something to snack on while they waited.
It was then time for Ethan to go to his last rotation which was my counselor who did a spiritual hike. With the wind and the cold, we decided to forget the hike and have the spiritual part in the Lodge. It worked out well and Ethan thought it was a great rotation.
The kids had free time and then dinner. After dinner we had our last speaker who was Sister Cox who was my seminary teacher my senior year of high school. Her name was Oveson when I had her. She did a great job teaching the youth about how they need to make sure they are searching from good places and how they need to make sure they are doing what is right. She also taught them how to answer any question using The Plan. She wasn't afraid to call kids up out of the audience to have them help her and she put them on the spot. It was great to see the lightbulb go on in their head when they figured things out.
We had testimony meeting afterward and it was very windy and cold! But that didn't stop the youth from bearing their testimony for an hour. It was a great meeting and I was very impressed with the youth.
On the schedule we had given the wards 1 1/2 hours to plan their own things with their youth after testimony meeting. When we went to separate it became obvious that the wards didn't have anything planned so we decided to have another dance. The kids, minus Ethan, were so excited! It was cold and windy but a blast.
We slept a little better that night, ate breakfast, packed up and then had a morning side with our Stake President. When he finished talking to the youth about missionary work, everyone drove home.
It was a lot of fun and I think the kids had a great time...and it's done!
The Stake leaders drove up Thursday and got there around noon so we could set things up. We put ward assignments on the doors of the yurts, cabins, hotel rooms, and bunkhouse rooms. We got the schedule posted and made sure that everything was ready for people to arrive.
Around 3 p.m. the wards began to arrive. The boys were in the yurts and cabins outside while the girls were in the hotel rooms and the bunkhouse.
Our ward had the bunkhouse on the left (large one) and the smallest one on the right. Ethan stayed in the one on the right with 2 other boys.
It was super windy when we met in the Amphitheater for our first speaker, Del Parson. He is the LDS artist that did the Christ in a Red Robe, Christ knocking on the door and Christ with the lamb paintings. He had a great story and showed us his paintings while telling us the story of how he gets the inspiration and models for them. It was neat to hear how the Church commissions paintings and how they go about making sure the painting is what they want. It was also neat to hear Brother Parson's story. He was asked by the Church to paint a picture of what the Spirit World looks like. He asked them what they wanted and they said "We don't know. We haven't been there before." So he set out to paint a portrait of what it would be like for his wife to greet him in the Spirit World. Not long after he began the painting, his wife and daughter were killed in a car accident. After the funeral, his wife appeared to his brother one night and gave him four things to tell to Brother Parson: 1) the Church is true, 2) she loved him, 3) he needed to remarry and 4) I can't remember the last one. It was after this experience that he was humble enough to paint the Christ in a Red Robe and the others. It was great to hear his testimony. I met him afterward and he is such a humble man.
We had dinner (which wasn't very good, but oh well) and then we had a dance. The Youth Committee wanted the dance on the first night so they wouldn't stink. ;)
The boys from our ward hid behind a tree during the dance, haha! They enjoyed each other's company. But girls found them and asked them to dance.
Their hiding place:
It was a girls choice and Ethan was asked to dance.
The kids were having so much fun (minus the boys in our ward who went inside and played cards) that we decided to let them keep dancing. So it went on until about 10:30 before we had a closing prayer and sent them to bed.
The YM leaders were outside in the yurts, cabins and some campers they pulled up while the YW leaders were inside in the Great Room. We were on couches or cots. While we were getting ready for bed one of the leaders saw a mouse! The girls were nervous about the mice so we (and by "we" I mean one of the other YW leaders) caught the mouse and released it outside. But he wasn't alone. We finally gave up trying to catch them all and went to bed. But the wind was crazy and we didn't get much sleep.
The next morning we got ready, ate breakfast, had a devotional and then started rotations. I will explain the rotations by showing pictures of Ethan as he rotated around.
Ethan went to the ropes course first. The facility had a ropes course but it wasn't that great so the Stake YM presidency had to do some designing and figure out how to make it work. They played some games, did a spider web where they had to pass people through one at a time, then they waited until it was their turn on the swinging log.
They ended with the human knot. It was fun to watch them. Notice that Ethan is wearing PANTS! He was not happy about this but the Stake President wanted the youth to wear pants the whole time. I had to go and buy some because he hates pants! Some kids were wearing shorts over their pants in rebellion. Haha!
The next rotation Ethan went to was games. They played a bunch of different games. Ethan's favorite was Rock, Paper Scissors Biggest Fan!
In that game, you play someone Rock, Paper, Scissors and then the loser becomes the winner's biggest fan and cheers for them as they battle others. Soon there are 2 groups of "biggest fans" and the winner wins everything. It was hilarious to watch.
They also played a hula hoop game and it was a lot of fun to watch. This was Ethan's favorite rotation!
We then had lunch and the kids got some free time. Our ward played cards and it was hilarious to watch. Other kids played pool and Foosball. I couldn't believe how well they kept themselves entertained with all the stuff that was provided. There were board games and card games. I loved sitting back and watching the kids play.
The first rotation after lunch that Ethan did was the one the Stake YW were in charge of. This was the one we had to frantically change on Monday. It consisted of 4 stations. The first station was the Parable of the Gems where they learned about gaining spiritual gems in the scriptures. They had to find gems and then solve a puzzle.
The next station was "Magic Shoes" where they had to cross the filthy water. Ethan and his teammate were really quick with this one.
The next station was using a Leap of Faith over the seats in the amphitheater. It was fun to watch them hop all over while gathering puzzle pieces.
The last station was putting together the puzzle. Ethan's group was super fast so they won handily! But it also meant that they had to sit around until the other teams were finished. We gave them some gummy frogs (get it, leap of faith and frogs?!) so they had something to snack on while they waited.
It was then time for Ethan to go to his last rotation which was my counselor who did a spiritual hike. With the wind and the cold, we decided to forget the hike and have the spiritual part in the Lodge. It worked out well and Ethan thought it was a great rotation.
The kids had free time and then dinner. After dinner we had our last speaker who was Sister Cox who was my seminary teacher my senior year of high school. Her name was Oveson when I had her. She did a great job teaching the youth about how they need to make sure they are searching from good places and how they need to make sure they are doing what is right. She also taught them how to answer any question using The Plan. She wasn't afraid to call kids up out of the audience to have them help her and she put them on the spot. It was great to see the lightbulb go on in their head when they figured things out.
We had testimony meeting afterward and it was very windy and cold! But that didn't stop the youth from bearing their testimony for an hour. It was a great meeting and I was very impressed with the youth.
On the schedule we had given the wards 1 1/2 hours to plan their own things with their youth after testimony meeting. When we went to separate it became obvious that the wards didn't have anything planned so we decided to have another dance. The kids, minus Ethan, were so excited! It was cold and windy but a blast.
We slept a little better that night, ate breakfast, packed up and then had a morning side with our Stake President. When he finished talking to the youth about missionary work, everyone drove home.
It was a lot of fun and I think the kids had a great time...and it's done!
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