It is Valentine’s celebration at school time! It was Emilee’s turn to have me help at her class party so I went and ran a game for them. There were many cute boxes and lots of excited kids. It is cute to see them deliver all their valentines. I helped with a game called Cupids Arrow. Each kid get a straw and a bunch of q-tips. They put the q-tip in the straw then blow through the straw and try to get it in a bowl. One boy started at the game area and was not happy at it because ‘the games are always boring and the worst part of the party’. Once I explained and started the game, he ended up being the biggest fan and was hard to get to move on to the next area. Emilee opted to go with a traditional mail box for her Valentine Box that she decorated.
Handing out her candy and excited about the candy she will find in her own box when she is done. The girl has the worlds biggest sweet tooth.
Allison’s party was not at exactly the same time so I was able to stop by and hang out with her at her party for a little bit too. True to her previous endeavors when making her Valentine Box she had to go bigger then the year before. Last year is her last year to make boxes which will be sad to not see the creative ideas she comes up with, but good in that they can’t get to much bigger or she won’t be able to carry them with out help. She went with the Rooster theme like last year but created an entire scene instead of just one rooster. This poor guy is running for his like so he doesn’t get eaten by the roosters that are quickly gaining on him. The last rooster is reminding them that they are vegetarians and don’t really want to eat him. The barn door is where you put the valentines.
Allison stuck with the Rooster theme again this year.
It has been snowing almost weekly this winter. That is a lot more often that usual for us. Most of them have been less than an inch but some have been a couple inches. Several of them have been the really wet snow that is good for snowman building. We have played a lot in the snow but winter is always a time to get creative about what to do indoors.
Allison has her braces on and gets to go to the dentist a lot these days to have them checked. She found a fun toy in the treasure box after her last visit.
Allison also tried her hand out at the school National Geographic Geography Bee this year. She was the representative for her class. I was proud of her for trying it. The questions were pretty hard.
Merry Christmas!! December is here. I knew that with Thanksgiving being late Christmas would sneak up pretty quick this year and it has. SO BUSY! I have made a point the last few years to make an effort to not over pack the activities and that has been the plan this year. There just is a bunch of stuff going on this time of year between, regular schedules, end of year stuff, plus holidays. So it has still been busy but I am enjoying it. I have cut out a lot of family activities. We still do stuff together but I have just done the things that the kids have brought up and wanted to do. So some of our favorite activities this December have been wearing our PJ’s grabbing some hot chocolate and driving around looking at Christmas lights, watching a Christmas movie together (Elf and the Santa Claus movies 1-3 with Tim Allen are our favorites) We read my awesome Christmas book collection together a lot too. We decorated a ginger bread house too.
I have not done our White Elephant Christmas party that we did for years last year or this year. It is was fun to do but I am enjoying not doing it more. Ha! We simplified our treats for neighbors and friends this year too. Instead of making chocolate pretzels and other treats we put a note on a bottle of sparkling cider that said “Pop! Pop! Fizz! Fizz! Oh what a good neighbor you is!”
Some of the other fun things we have done is the girl scout holiday party. I am still a troop leader for Emilee’s troop so I was with them, but Allison was there too.
Our Elf Bubbit came. The girls always want him to come the day after Thanksgiving but Bubbit is one of Santa’s special elf helpers so he has to stay and help Santa until at least the 10th. Since we will be out of town this week Bubbit was able to come a few days before that. Emilee is our elf spotter. She can find him faster than anyone. She likes to leave him notes too.
The girls and I went on a neighborhood hay ride too. Allison wanted to have a seat at the front of the wagon with her friends but Emilee and I decided to sit at the back which worked out great because the second set of horses liked to be right behind the first so we could basically touch them. The girls sat on Santa’s lap afterwards too.
I sang with a group in the Relief Society Christmas activity. It has been a long time since I sang. It was a little stressful getting parts worked out. We originally started with 10 singers and ended up with only 5. We sounded good and it was fun though.
Ryan and I were put on the Ward Christmas Party planning group. We were in charge of Santa and his room and then activities to entertain the kids. The whole party went really well. Santa came with a Mrs Claus that was grumpy and I honestly would have liked to cut her out of all the pictures but it all worked out. The kids loved all the crafts, dinner was yummy, decorations were awesome. The person in charge of the program had a lot of primary kids play the piano, the ukulele, or viola, or sing a song. It was really fun.
Emilee and I went to one of the Highschool choir concerts. They sang a lot of fun songs. A lot of the songs they sang were ones I sang when I was in choir TWENTY years ago. Uuuuummmm, I just realized when I typed that my 20 year high school reunion is this summer! Wow that is crazy. Anyway, I digress. We all went to Leah’s choir concert as well. She is in a choir called Allegro. It was very nice. There is several different choirs and they all sang some very good Christmas songs together.
We had our first snow day for school this month. They cancelled church because we had a big snow storm and then school on Monday was canceled too. The cousins got to sled together for a few hours and we ended up with about 5 inches of snow. It was a fun winter treat before we head to Florida for Christmas.
Allison had a couple rough days, this is the first smile I got out of her after trying for a very very long time. I love her cute smile.
Well, believe it or not, the first cheer season has come to a close. For those of you that are inexperienced with the cheer season, I have discovered it is longer than any other sport I have encountered thus far. It began way back in May with uniform ordering and sizing and 12 fundraisers, followed by camps and regular practice, more fundraising, cheering for games, more fundraising, the parade, then dance and cheer competition practices, then the actual competition, and finally followed by the Cheer Banquet in December. Oh boy, it is a long season. Allison enjoyed some of it. Breaking her arm before her first practice put a damper on things but she still had some fun. I think she loved the dance competition the most. Her little adorable face was lit up the second she walked out to the floor.
The cheer banquet invitation said it was “Hollywood Red Carpet Theme-dress to the nines” and it was the whole family. Ryan was out of town but the rest of us went and I made them dress up. There was probably 150 people there that night. NO ONE with the exception of about 50% of the cheer leaders dressed up fancy. For sure, none of the other family members were dressed up at all. We missed the note that most people just ignore the theme part of the banquet. So we did feel a little silly being all dressed up. They handed out awards to all the cheerleaders. A lot of the dads did a cheer dance performance for the girls that was a definite highlight. They did some fancy lifts and tosses and it was fun to watch.
After awards and dinner the rest of the night was a dance party. It took her a minute watching from the periphery but Allison joined in and had a fun night dancing with her friends.
Beautiful Allison
Dad’s cheer dance
Allison’s Cheer Squad
Matthew and I dressed fancy. Notice the attire of the other people in the picture.
Last year four families from our baseball family got together for a Friendsgiving. We did it again this year. It is a fun time. The kids like it because there is a group of them to play and all of them have at least one buddy. We are all very different families but we get along really well and enjoy each others company. Everyone brings a few appetizers and we visit and hang out for a few hours then eat a dinner together. Then play games and visit some more.
This year there was minute to win it games that we all did. We divided into five teams and each team rotated between five games. There was potato rolling, apple stacking noodle fishing, cotton ball flipping and cookie eating contests. The winner of each team wrote their name down on a paper. After all the teams finished we went to each game and the five winners from each team played the game. Those people earned a laminated turkey medal. Then the winner of each of those games played against each other in a final championship game. The final championship game ended up being Cam, Matthew, Jake, Allison, and Frank (his mom actually one but requested a proxy for the championship game). They each had a paper plate with 10 candy corns on it that were covered in whip cream so you couldn’t see them. Whoever found all ten and put them on a napkin next to their plate-without using your hands of course- was the winner. The kids loved it. Jake was the winner and he got another laminated turkey medal for his efforts.
It was a nice relaxing enjoyable evening. The friends that have done it every year are moving to Poland this summer for a couple years. One of the rest of us will have to try and live up to the Friendsgiving tradition while they are gone.
I have been waiting to post this post to add some fun pictures to it…long story short-they aren’t coming. So take my word for it, we had a fun time and looked ridiculous doing it.
Allison’s squad did the dance and cheer competition this year. They did a great job! It was fun to watch. The smile on her face when she was doing it showed that she loved it too.
They ended up placing third for the dance. I really think they were better than at least one if not both of the teams that took 1st and 2nd but they got docked a huge amount of points for the way they tossed their poms to the side when they were done with them…I will refrain from the snarky comment I have about judging competitions getting way out of hand. I have no problem being in competitions that are judged. I think it is can be good for kids actually. If it is logical with clear objectives. When it is convoluted and subjective. All the teams were fun to watch, the judging was just a little obscure and hard to predict.
I don’t know what happened with my pictures. The first few are fine and the last few are fine but the middle ones came out way to dark. I lightened them as much as I could. I feel awful they turned out dark. I also put pictures from her last cheer game on here. They performed the same routine they did for the competition during half time so I got a few good pictures from that. After they last game they switched gifts with the football players too.
The past few weeks have not been the best weeks between Allison and Ryan and I. We seem to go through cycles with her of ups and downs and we are definitely in a down. There are still happy moments when we are on a down cycle but that is what they are moments. Far and few between the contention and friction and arguing and almost constant battles over everything from waking up in the morning to how people are breathing around her. Hopefully we are headed back up at least but that is an unknown for now. It is not fun for all involved obviously.
The other day Allison came to me and said that she wanted to go and have some fun one on one time together. I thought it would be a good idea and a chance for us to have some positive interactions for a good amount of time.
We decided to go to main event together. There is a bunch of different activities there to do and we decided to do bowling together. We played three games and had lots of fun. The score board would use your actual real face on silly cartoons when it was your turn to bowl. Allison thought it was a hoot. We did a fun zip line thing a couple times while we were there too.
It was fun and we did get to reset and enjoy each others company and not fight for a whole two hours. Allison and I have to put more than the average amount of effort into our relationship and communication. The little stinker is worth it though. She doesn’t always believe me but I love her and I want her to be happy and I want what is best for her.
The past few weeks have been pretty busy but really good weeks.
Our primary at church had their annual primary program. It was really good. It is one of my favorite Sundays of the year. This year Emilee helped me invite our new neighbors to come and they did. It was a really cool experience for them I think. Their son Jack even stayed the rest of church with Matthew. That same week they called a new primary presidency and I am the new president. Figuring everything out and getting organized has kept me busy for the last few weeks. I am enjoying it and excited. I enjoy being in primary. Kids can be little stinkers but they also have sweet pure hearts and I love hearing the way they see the gospel and apply it in their lives.
Emilee was the P.E. Student of the Month for her class. I couldn’t make it because I was at work but Dad made it and got a picture of her getting her award.
Emilee is P.E. Student of the Month
Allison became a turtle activist. Basically that means she made lots of posters and shames any of us that use a straw.
We have had some great Fall weather this month, despite it snowing the day before Halloween. The last few weekends have been gorgeous and we have tried to go to the park when we can.
Emilee decided to measure herself doing different things on her mirror. It made me smile when she showed me. There are fewer and fewer moments like this in our house now that everyone is getting older. It is kind of hard to see but she marked a spot for standing on her tippy toes, standing regular, kneeling up, kneeling down, criss cross apple sauce leaning up, and last but not least criss cross apple sauce flat on her bum.
Allison made a tube for something at school and found a funny way to take pictures with it too.
Allison had her last game for cheer this season for the football teams. They have their final cheer and dance competition coming up later this week. It has been mixed reviews on whether she liked it or not this year. I asked her if she wanted to do it again and she is currently undecided. She is looking forward to the competition and will do a great job and have fun. I am sure that will help her decide.
Emilee had a field trip to the the Pumpkin Patch. There are few less perfect field trips for 1st graders in the Fall. We got lost in a corn maze, played in the corn box, climbed in the hay, and rolled down the lawn in huge irrigation pipes. There are some sweet kids in her grade. Emilee and I had fun sitting in the very back seat of the bus together too.
Allison decided that she wanted to enter a pumpkin in the school decorating contest. In typical Allison fashion she stuck to her motto of ‘Go Big Or Don’t Show Up’ and decided she wanted to do Cinderella’s carriage. She designed it, then we went to the store and got all the supplies she needed then she spent the next three days painting it. They weren’t allowed to cut or puncture it at all because it was going to sit in the school for over a week and they didn’t want them to stink. I might have tried to persuade her to choose something different if I had know this ahead of time…something that was just one round pumpkin. It was not easy to get the wheels and pumpkin to stay where they needed to without skewers. We figured it out though. She did a really good job. I helped her put it all together but she painted and designed it on her own. I was proud of her effort. The winner was determined by people voting for your pumpkins by putting money in a jar. Each penny was a point. Allison had a lot of change, which were votes from kids. She didn’t end up winning though because some parent put a $20 bill in their kids jar. There were a lot of cute pumpkins but I thought Allison’s was the most elaborate. It was also obvious that some parents thought it was a contest for them-not their child.
Usually by Halloween day arrives I am more than happy to be done with it. The kids dress up and it is fun but you can only go to so many parties that the purpose is to get candy before it gets old. The girls school had a trunk or treat, our church had a trunk or treat, there was class parties, we were invited by some friends to go to a community party, our neighbors have a party (its for adults but still Halloween themed). It is all very fun and the kids love it but my small introvert social bucket is over flowing by the time Halloween comes.
We did our usual Halloween tradition with the McDonalds. There whole family came over to have pizza and witch’s brew (home made root beer) for dinner then we go trick or treating together afterwards. Allison invited her friend Hailey and her family to come with us too. Matthew went on his own with his friends. Allison was a little put out thinking she would have to wait for the slow people in our group to go trick or treating and not get as much candy as she wanted. Her costume was a giant rooster that made it a little tricky to get around in so she actually ended up being the slowest person. The amount of candy did not seem to be affected though. She ‘won’ her own prize for the most candy collected when her bag weighed in at 14 pounds. Matthew had a mere 9 pounds and was totally embarrassed he was beaten by his sister. Emilee didn’t weigh hers but I’m sure she had a few pounds as well. I felt like I was going to get diabetes just sitting in the room with all of it. Of course there was a giant trading of candy session when we all got back to get rid of the candy they didn’t like. I think they all thought Halloween was a big success. Ryan has been taking several large handfuls to work since Halloween to help protect our children’s pancreas’. It was a fun night.
