Michael is 8!

Wow, we've had a very busy, but wonderful week. On Thursday, Michael celebrated his 8th birthday. He had a fun day. We were supposed to go to see "Puss in Boots", but William got sick, and Dylan Jr. was on a field trip anyway. Saturday was spent cleaning, taking down Halloween decorations, and getting ready for Michael's baptism. It's hard to believe that he is 8. He was sooo nervous. Out of all of my kids, he gets himself more worked up when he's nervous, than any of the others. But, it was a great experience, and he was very happy afterwards. He did say, though, that the water was cold. I've heard that from so many of the primary kids, that I think there might be something wrong with the water heater at the Stake Center ;-). It was so nice to have so much family there, and we really missed those who weren't there, but also understand completely why they couldn't be there.

We are so proud of our little Michael!

This is Halloween!

I decided on Saturday that I wanted to decorate my stairs for Halloween, so I did this . . .

and this . . .

Here's a close-up of one of the Jack's . . .

The Jack Skellington pumpkins are just the small white pumpkins from Michael's. I cut the faces, after drawing them out in pencil. Then I cut a hole in the bottom, so it would sit on the finial on the railing. Before doing that, I glued a gauzy black cloth in the inside so that during the day, his face looks black, then at night the purple lights shine through the cloth!



I'm just not sure, now, if I should add some of the floral accents that I put under each Jack into the whole garland going up the railing. Should I leave it black twiggy garland, or add floral accents?

What's up with math?

I used to be good at math. I've only gotten a "B" once in the subject. But I think I would totally flunk these days. I was trying to help Nathan with his math the other day, and I had to have him go to Dylan to get help. Not Dylan, his father, but Dylan his big brother! They were asking for something that I'm not even sure I've ever heard of! I can't even remember what it was! I need to go back to school just to help with their homework. Good thing he's got a bigger brother.

Busy Life

Well, the month of August feels like it should be over because it has been so full. So that William doesn't feel left out, we celebrated his birthday on the 14th. He's 4! The boys started school on the 22nd, Dylan started seminary (ugghh!) the next day. He's a freshman this year, Nathan is in 5th grade (already!) and Michael started 2nd grade. Next week we'll begin preschool lessons! Busy, Busy, Busy!

Quick Getaway

We planned all summer to take the boys on a couple of overnighters with Dylan. So the other evening we got the opportunity to have Family Home Evening up at the Oakland Temple. Dylan and I were married there 16 years ago, so it was nice to take the boys up there to show them where we were married. I have never been up on the terrace before! How did I not know that you can go up on the terrace? Well, we got some good pictures, and got to see the "new" Joseph Smith movie. It's really the old one, but it has 40% new scenes.

I normally wouldn't add a picture that includes myself in it, but I thought that out-of-town family would like to see that Dylan Jr. is taller than me now. I'm old, I know.
The next day we took a quick jaunt over to Fairfield to go to the Jelly Belly factory and take a tour. Can't beat a free tour! I would highly recommend it if you are Jelly Belly fans. You even get a free small bag of Jelly Bellies at the end of the tour! (I ate them all on the drive home just to keep myself awake!) I love those cream soda and Dr. Pepper flavors, not a big fan of the popcorn, though. Word of advice: if you do go, take a hat. If you don't have your own, you have to wear one of theirs. William had no problem looking cute in his hat.

Gift money idea

I like to try to come up with fun ways to give gifts. Sometimes I can come up with what I think is a festive idea. Well, a few years ago, when my oldest niece graduated from high school, I didn't want to give her a plain card with money in it. So, I put $5 bills in a few fortune cookies, mixed them up with some regular fortune cookies and put them in a cute chinese food take-out box. Well, her sister graduated this year, so I had to do something different. I wanted to make her work for her money (as if graduating wasn't enough work ;). So, I bought some clam shells, folded up some $5's and glued two shells together with hot glue. Then I bought some play sand from Lowe's, this cute sand bucket from Michael's and hid the shells in the sand. On the card I said something like, "I hope you have fun digging for your clams" or something like that. I wasn't there to see her open it, but I heard it took her about 30 min. to find them all, and pry them open! Much more fun than a card with $! Only 12 more (for now) nieces/nephews to come up with ideas for.

The Wrestler

Our boys have always let their younger brothers wrestle them. Dylan would let Nathan, Nathan would let Michael, etc. Dylan, being the oldest, will sometimes get dog-piled by all 3 little brothers. Well, William has become quite the entertainer when he tortures his big brothers. Here he is getting Michael:


The other night, he was doing this to Dylan Jr., and he grabbed him in a choke hold, then said to him through gritted teeth, "I call you Love Muffin!" We all had tears in our eyes from laughing so hard.

Stairs are a new thing.

I've never lived in a house with stairs before. The first week we lived here, my legs were sore. That's a good thing, I know, but there have been a few things that I will have to watch out for. Very carefully. Like when Michael was at the top of the stairs in a laundry basket, just getting ready to go down. Then a few days later, he had brought William's tricycle in the house and took it upstairs. When I caught William, he already had his front wheel on the first step down. I do believe it was divine intervention that caused me to come around the corner just when I did. One other thing that I've caught William doing is this:


After the other scares, I'm OK with this. It kinda makes me want to put some liederhosen on him.

Catching up

My life feels like I'm always trying to catch up on things. Laundry, pruning roses, keeping up with my calling, helping with the boys schedules, more laundry. Right now I feel like I'm being left in the dust by my oldest, Dylan. He just turned 14 and he surpassed me awhile ago in height, and brains. As a matter of fact all of the boys have surpassed me in brains. This week Michael got his Academic Achievement award for 1st grade:

Nathan got High Honors in 4th grade (and he refuses to smile):

And Dylan received CJSF for Fall and Spring, CJSF Honor, Timberwolf Way Apex award and a surprise award - the Principles Award for Highest Honor. He was pleasantly surprised for this one:

I've always been the type to enjoy a slow-paced life. You know, cuddle with the boys on the couch when they were little and had just woken up, or taking the time to rock my baby to sleep while listening to Enya. This is why I feel like I've accidentally gotten on one of those big roller-coasters at Magic Mountain and I'm rocketing up hill and down, through loops and twists at 80 MPH. I couldn't slow down one of those coasters any more than I can slow down how fast my boys are growing up, and how fast paced their/our lives seem to be at this stage right now. So, I guess I'd better buckle up, learn how to scream through the dips, open my eyes for the loops and not get too excited to get off this fast ride.

Farewell, silly ol' bear.

For years he's merrily chased the fall leaves while singing about a blustery day on what used to be Michael's bedroom wall, and then it became William's room. I was so excited to have our own house to be able to paint what I wanted to on the walls. Painting over him definitely felt like the end of another chapter of our lives. We really don't have any babies anymore! It didn't help, either, that I had to use this to paint over him:

I know, using something called "Kilz" on Winnie the Pooh sounds like the worst form of animal cruelty. I did, however, start to get over it when I was painting the 4th coat of Kilz over that silly ol' bear.