Building

We recently bought a new bookcase to go in Nathan's room. He is a voracious reader and the little shelf he had before was just not even close to enough!


I love watching Ryan and the boys (this time just Nathan) work together to build things. What could be better than bonding while working?!

Thanksgiving

This year we had a fairly low-key Thanksgiving. I really enjoyed spending time in the kitchen, preparing everything for the big meal. I bought our usual Marie Callendar's pies, but basically everything else was homemade -- not bad for doing everything ourselves! This year we even brined our turkey! I'm not sure that I did it entirely right, because I didn't really notice a difference, but it was fun to try.


We had one guy from church join us -- Brother French. The boys loved having him here . . . probably had something to do with his iPad! They also liked calling him French Fry :)

I have to admit I was sad that we didn't spend the holiday with our extended family, but it was great to have a delicious meal and a relaxing afternoon!

Wow

A miracle occurred last Sunday . . .

TWO miracles, actually . . .

1. Elizabeth let me put a clip in her hair, and it stayed in for almost an hour and a half!

2. Nathan cooperated for church and had a great attitude!

Sleeping Beauty

A few weeks ago, Ryan and I went to check on Elizabeth before we went to bed and we found this:

(The last 2 were taken the next day when she was awake)

Silly girl! I think it's so funny that some nights she'll stay awake for a long time, but she is always quiet about it!


We recently had a major change in Elizabeth's sleeping arrangements. By this age, all of the boys were in beds because they would get out of their cribs all of the time. Elizabeth has only gotten out of her crib once and part of me wanted to let her stay in there as long as possible! But she is getting older and also we are traveling at Christmas where there won't be a crib, so it was time to transition her to a bed.


I'm not yet ready to think about getting new bedding and such, so for right now she is sleeping on her crib mattress on the floor

A Decade!

Last week we celebrated that we became parents a decade ago -- Nathan turned 10 years old! It is hard to remember him being a little guy, and yet it seems that the last 10 years have flown by way too quickly!

Nathan on the day of his birth in 2001

10 months old

about 2 years old

Since his birthday was on a Sunday, we spread out the fun over a few days. On Friday night, Nathan and I went to Brick Oven --his favorite restaurant. (Thanks, Ryan, for letting me be the one to take him while you wrestled the other kids at home!) I really cherished this one-on-one time with him. The two reasons he loves Brick Oven: Pasta Shells with Cheesy Sauce and the balloon animals.

Yum!

I think the balloon person spent a good 20 minutes working on this top hat and bunny! She was so nice to the birthday boy!

Standing on the bench while the staff sang Happy Birthday

While Nathan was in bed Saturday night, we hung "10 Things we love about Nathan" on his wall so that he'd wake up to it on his birthday.



I know that Nathan would have preferred not having his birthday on a Sunday. But I was so impressed at some of the things he did because it was his special day:

* He woke up nicely and was in a great mood (often hard for him on Sundays).
* He chose to share his testimony at church. He said that he knows it is important to be a good example and that he's grateful for the example of his parents.
* He LOVED that they sang to him on his actual birthday in Primary -- he jumped up to the front so fast when they called his name!
* He wanted to go Home Teaching with Ryan and was sad that it didn't work out for his birthday.
* He often comes with me to choir practice, but on his birthday he wanted to stay in his church clothes to go. Ryan left to go on a business trip just after presents and right before choir practice started. Nathan was excited to go to choir on his own. I found out later from other choir members that Nathan did well and asked questions :)


After church we did presents and cake before Ryan had to leave for his business trip.

A microscope

Nathan got a little too excited about the money in the cards from his grandparents. What he didn't realize is that it's the same amount he gets every year -- we just always take it and put it in his savings account since he gets other presents. Those dreams of a DSi will have to wait!

Nathan let his brothers each help open a present

Trying on his new batting helmet

Ready for baseball season!

Nathan requested "Out of This World Dessert" again this year for his cake. He didn't want 10 candles :)

Halloween 2011

I thought Halloween was just right this year . . . not too crazy busy, but still enough activities that the kids got their fill.

ready for some fun

On Friday, October 28 we attended the city Halloween party at The Center. I was thoroughly impressed -- there were a lot of activities, and they went all-out on themes and decorations. Ryan took the boys and I stayed with Elizabeth, so she is the only photographic evidence of our fun evening! She loved the Alice in Wonderland cake walk -- we won on her very first time around, so we had to go back and do it again later! She loved the Winnie the Pooh game: you dig in the "honey" (those wet balls that are popular right now) and find a bee; then you climb up in the tree and tell Christopher Robin the number you got and he gives you a prize before you slide down the slide.

digging in the honey

climbing up the tree

this was the reason she loved the game so much -- the slide!

Joshua joined us near the end of the night

The boys had fun in the Mad Science lab where they got to play a messy version of Operation and other games. They also loved the Angry Birds game!


On Monday -- Halloween -- Joshua dressed in his costume all day in anticipation of going to afternoon kindergarten! For some reason, this made Elizabeth think of her lady bug costume from last year, and so she wore that in the morning!



In the afternoon the school had its traditional Halloween Parade. The weather was beautiful, and it is always fun to see all the costumes and the children's excitement!



And here they are before heading out for trick-or-treating. This is the first year I have not made the younger boys wear hand-me-down costumes. Joshua's costume came with a helmet, but I don't think he wore it except for when he first brought the costume home from the store!

so excited!

meeska, mooska, Minnie Mouse!

Jango Fett (from Star Wars)

oops . . . I forgot an individual shot of Luigi-- but I love him in this picture! He told me he is pretending to smash a goomba (the brown mushroom-looking guys)

Even a vampire cannot escape the camera!

Even in her costume, she tries to escape and ride her bike down the sidewalk hill!

Watching the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown

O What a Surprise!

The weekend before Halloween was Owen's baby blessing (Brett and Stephanie's new little one). Ryan's Grandma and Grandpa came into town on Saturday, and surprised Brett and Stephanie. Owen's middle name is Edwin -- Grandpa Long's first name, so they made the effort to come even though Grandpa Long does not like to travel much.

Owen showing off his new Sun Devils hat from Grandpa Long

Ryan got to pick them up from the airport. They spent some time visiting a friend in Salt Lake and then came to our house for a little bit. Then we met Brett's family at a restaurant. We had told Brett ahead of time that we wanted to go out to eat -- that Scott and Cheryl were sorry that they wouldn't be here until Sunday for the blessing, and that they wanted to treat us to dinner anyway. Plus we wanted to celebrate the success of our Choose Today concert from a few nights before. All of these were true statements :)

We got to the restaurant first. We were able to have the hostess seat just Grandma-ma and Grandpa Long, while our family waited in the front for Brett and Stephanie's family to arrive. We just pretended that we were still waiting for our table to be ready. When they arrived, the surprise almost got spoiled: Joshua walked right up to Brett and said that we weren't 6 anymore. He meant that we were 8 with our surprise guests, but luckily for the surprise, Brett erroneously thought that Joshua was trying to hint a pregnancy announcement. Then when I told the hostess that our party was ready to be seated, it was not the main hostess we had worked with earlier, and so she loudly said, "Oh, the party of 12?" But luckily she walked us back right away before Brett and Stephanie could figure out why her math was off by 2 people.

Brett and Stephanie were surprised! I think Stephanie even got teary-eyed that Grandma-ma and Grandpa made the effort to come. We all had a fun night at dinner!

Grandma-ma, Grandpa Long, Brett, and Noah

Hyrum, Stephanie, Joshua, and Ryan

Nathan and Benjamin

Elizabeth loved the ice cream cone

Nathan loves to invent -- even with utensils, ketchup bottles, and sweetener packets at the restaurant!

Scott and Cheryl arrived in town late Saturday night. It was so wonderful to see 4 generations together, and that they could participate in the special blessing! After church, we had a nice evening of visiting together, kids playing nicely for the most part, and a yummy deli tray dinner (those never get old)!

Bear Scout

Nathan received his Bear Scout award and his Gold Arrow Point at pack meeting last week. And not a moment too soon, since his birthday was less than 2 weeks away!



He got to "be a bear" and eat "dirt". He loved it!



I always feel funny receiving the pin -- I really don't do that much work. In fact, this time I feel that his scout leaders deserved the pin. They were really on top of things, and he did most of his requirements at his den meetings.

What a Concert!

Whew! I am just now recovering from last week -- it was a busy one!

Provost's "Choose Today" Concert was on Thursday, October 27. The concert script and songs were given to all Utah PTA's, so that aspect was taken care of already. I had originally thought that our Red Ribbon Week committee would do a lot of the work to arrange the rest of the details. But when they informed me that they thought they'd signed up for the usual routine and did not want to plan a concert, I became the committee! I enjoyed working on it, and I did have some help from other board members (I couldn't have done it without Susan), but the preparation definitely kept me busy the last month or so.

When I first presented the idea to the teachers in August, I could tell that not all of them were convinced of the value of the concert. Understandably so -- it is time they need to spend working on songs, when they need to be accomplishing so many things academically. My vision for the concert was three-fold: 1) Bring our school together and create a sense of community, 2) Create a memorable event for the students that will stick with them and hopefully make a lasting difference when they are faced with choices about drugs and alcohol, and 3) Involve the community to get our school name out there in a positive way.

We decided to rent out the high school auditorium, since we knew we could barely fit our students in our gym, let alone their families. I know a few people were skeptical about whether or not the students would show up for the concert. I am grateful for my Mary Kay training, where I learned that you have to think positive and share your enthusiasm and advertise the event like crazy! That is exactly what we did, and I think everyone involved (including me!) was amazed at the turnout. I was hoping for 800-1000 people including the students. The Timpview auditorium holds about 1450 people, and we were pretty full -- I'm guessing we had around 1200 there!

I got to welcome everyone and introduce the concert and Mrs. Herbert. Aidelin was great to help with Spanish translation.

The students did a great job on their songs! The concert focused on making good choices regarding drugs and alcohol, but also about being a good friend, taking care of your body, being honest, and liking yourself. We had a few technical issues with the DVD that played in between songs, but overall it went fairly smoothly . . . especially considering that the students did not rehearse at the high school ahead of time!

I invited our school board and city council representatives, as well as the school district superintendent and the council PTA president. I debated whether or not I should invite the Mayor -- he's a busy guy. But I did decide to send him an invitation . . . he called me personally the next morning! It took him another week or so to arrange his schedule, but he was able to come! He even posted about it on his blog after!

I also wanted to invite the media to our event. I was able to get in touch with the state PTA public relations person, and she helped me with getting a Media Release sent out. Unfortunately, no media came -- they missed out! While on the phone, she happened to ask if I'd invited Utah's First Lady . . . Mrs. Herbert's Uplift Utah initiative created the concert. I had requested her -- twice -- on the PTA website but had not heard back. She informed me that that was not the right way to request anymore, and directed me to the First Lady's website. I filled out the request form immediately and emailed it, but I knew it was a long shot since by now we were only a week away from the concert. Long story short, Mrs. Herbert was able to arrange her schedule and she came to our concert! When I first greeted her upon her arrival that night, I learned that this was her first concert she has attended! That made me so happy that we are special to be her first, and that she didn't have any other one to compare it against! I sat by her for a lot of the program, and I could tell that she really enjoyed it. By the end of the finale number, she was in tears (so was I)!

Mrs. Jeanette Herbert

Thanks to my friend, Andrea, who was so kind to take pictures so that the PTA would have a record of the night. She was so nice to be sure to get pictures of my kids, since I was too busy with other things to do it myself (and her camera is SO much better than mine)!

Joshua and kindergarten sang "I Like Being Me."

Benjamin and 2nd grade sang "Take Care of Your Body." As their song started, I was helping the next grade line up and my back was to the stage. I heard the audience chuckle briefly. When I asked Ryan about it later, he said that the steel drum intro music started, and Benjamin did some boisterous drumming action while the rest of the kids stood still :)



Nathan and fourth grade sang "Honesty." Before each grade began their song, 2 students each said an intro sentence at the microphone. Nathan got to be one of the students for his grade and he did a great job, speaking very clearly. I was glad he was asked to do it, because maybe he has the concept ingrained in his head a little better! He said, "We know it is important to always be honest with everyone so that we can be trusted."



Overall, it was a wonderful evening! I feel that we met all of our goals, and that the Choose Today concert was a success!