March 6-12, 2017

We woke up to more SNOW on Monday morning.  We couldn’t believe it.  Thankfully it didn’t stick around this time.  Crazy!

Isaac and Grace loved learning about the Titanic in school.  They each got to pick a project to do with the information they had researched about the Titanic.  Isaac made a poster and Grace wrote a diary.  Their school is a no homework school and I love that they couldn’t work on their projects at home so that their teacher could be sure that it was their own work.

The state of our craft room sometimes drives me nuts.  But it also means that there is a lot of creativity going on.  I’m glad we have the space for that.

Lee and I went to the temple on Friday night.  Look at that moon!

Jessica Poe is my new YW Camp assistant director.  She and I spent Saturday at Camp Alpine at a meeting for camp directors.  We got great info and then went exploring.  I showed her around camp and we did some planning.   I sure love that place, even if it makes my stomach a little floppy and nervous to think about camp!

We made friends with a one-eyed newt.  Or is it a salamander?  Not sure.

Emma must have had too much fun with the Laurels in class on Sunday.  Love these beautiful young women!

Sunday was an extremely busy day.  Lee left at 7:30 in the morning for meetings and didn’t come home until 10:30 that night.  I spoke in sacrament meeting and subbed as the Primary chorister.  Then I met up with Lee for a meeting with Tad R. Callister who was visiting our stake.  Bro. Callister is the General Sunday School President and has written several books, one of which I had used for my talk that day on the Atonement.  The meeting was wonderful and I was able to use some things I learned in it for our YCL training meetings for camp.  After that meeting we were able to attend a fireside that Bro. Callister gave.  Emma joined us for that.  When the fireside was over we FINALLY got to celebrate Lee’s birthday!!!  He barely had time to breath on his birthday, but I know there is nothing he would rather be doing than serving the Lord.  Jen got him a birthday cake and we shared the cake with our good friends and the bishops of the stake (during one last meeting!).  All people who Lee loves and he enjoyed sharing his birthday with them.

The Parker’s gave Lee a necklace to go with his smolder.  Lee will never live down a picture of him as a 16 year old with a smolder and a necklace that I displayed at his 40th birthday party.  It has been shown all over the stake, even at the trek last year.  Good thing he is a good sport! 

I love Lee so much.  We couldn’t wait to really celebrate him the next day.

February 27–March 5, 2017

On Monday night Pres. Leptich, Ashley and Tyler came over for treats after FHE.  We sure love the Leptich’s!  Lots of laughs when they are around.

On Tuesday the spring on one of the garage doors broke.  A few months ago the spring on the other door broke and the repair man said it wouldn’t be long before this one broke too.  He was right.  Thankfully we got it fixed the next day.

March 1st marked one whole month that I was mint Chaptstick free!  That is a huge accomplishment for me considering I had been addicted for over 20 years!  I gathered up all my sticks of Chapstick from all my hiding spots in the house, my car, and purse and got rid of them!  Now I am fighting a Vaseline addiction…

Thursday was Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  We dug out Isaac and Grace’s Thing 1 and Thing 2 patches from their 1 Halloween costumes when they were one year old and pinned them to red shirts.  They thought it was hilarious to wear them again.  Isaac went home with a friend after school so I didn’t get a picture of him.

Seoul came home with Grace that day.  What did they decide to do during their play date?  Math worksheets.  Smarty pants.

On Saturday morning we watched the LDS Youth Face to Face event with President Eyring and Elder Holland.  It was so good and helped me with my YW Camp planning.

The base of our kitchen faucet had been disintegrating for months.  Yes, disintegrating.  It was so weird.  We finally bought a new one and Lee installed it that day.  I was so glad!!  Saturday night we went to the Hawkins’ house and had dinner with them and the Reed’s.  The kids had a blast playing together and the adults had way too much fun playing games.  It was a good night.

As is too often the case, Emma made cookies on Sunday.  They are so yummy and so tempting. 

She was also finishing up reading A Tale of Two Cities.  She enjoyed it more than she thought she would!  Now it’s my turn to read it.

February 20-26, 2017

Monday was President’s Day so there wasn’t school.  The Jensen’s came over to play!  Isaac and Grace were thrilled with that and we had a fun day with them.  Look at all those cute kids!

Emma spent that day with Ashley taking pictures.  She stayed for dinner and Tyler joined us.  We had FHE and then played a little Wackee Six with them.  Love that game!

Emma’s wisdom teeth have been bothering her.  She went to the dentist on Tuesday and sure enough, they need to come out.  We made an appointment with an oral surgeon. 

Wednesday night was Emma’s swim team awards ceremony. 

Eric is not only her coach, but also her boss!  I need to track down pictures of Emma and her friends from that night, I don’t have any.

Another awesome season of swimming down for Emma, and another Varsity letter.

While the twins and I were celebrating Emma, Lee and Peter were enjoying Ruth’s Chris at a drug rep presentation.  He was nice enough to send me pictures.

I help in Isaac and Grace’s class every Thursday.  This week I finished reading Stone Fox with the reading challenge group that Isaac and Grace are in.  They enjoyed it!  I didn’t know Iron Will was a book before it was a movie!

That day my roommates and I were having a text discussion about what to do with curly hair.  I sent them this picture to show them what NOT to do with curly hair.  You don’t brush out curly hair.  It took a while for my mom to figure that one out…

Thursday night was the Cub Scout Blue & Gold Pack Meeting.  Isaac baked his cake the night before and he was so excited to decorate it that afternoon! 

He made the frosting and spread it on the cake all by himself.

The theme was superheroes so he chose to make a Hulk smash cake.

He was so happy with how it turned out!  I was happy that it was pretty easy. 

The Wolf Den performed the cutest skit.  They painted the backdrop (that their den leader had drawn). 

He was excited to get some awards!

The highlight of the night was when the Canby Superheroes (yes, there is such a group) helped the Cub Scouts to fly.  It was hilarious and Isaac loved it.  Those superheroes were huffing and puffing by the time they were done.

I spent all day Friday with Grandma Dorothy.  We watched The Scarlet and the Black, an old Gregory Peck movie.  She had wanted me to see it for a long time, it was actually pretty good!  She made me lunch and we visited.  It was a good day and I wish I had a picture.  When I got home Grace showed me her newest cootie catcher.  She is obsessed with those things right now.  That night we went out to dinner with the Parker’s. 

On Saturday morning we had one of our favorite former missionaries, Dusty Clark, over for breakfast.  He was showing his girlfriend around his mission.  That girlfriend became his fiancee later that afternoon.  He showed us a picture of the ring while she was in the bathroom.  It was kind of fun to be in on such an exciting surprise!  We enjoyed having them over and relived memories of ugly ties and haunted house shenanigans.  It was a nice day and we got to spend some time outside after they left.

That evening we went to Seoul’s baptism and then to her house for dinner afterward.  We sure love this bestie of Grace’s!  And her family.  Lee got to give the baptism talk and I played the piano.

They have grown so much since they first started hanging out! 

We got to witness the most beautiful sunset on our way home from the stake center.  Gorgeous!

Sunday was a busy one with church, several meetings and New Beginnings for Emma.  But we love Sundays, even when they are busy!

February 13-19, 2017

Valentine’s Day morning brought lots of sweet notes and some fun little surprises.

 We ate heart shaped pancakes with Emma while we read scriptures before seminary.

  Heavenly Father gave us a love note with the beautiful sunrise that morning.

 The twins got a heart shaped lunch that included the cookies we decorated the night before for FHE.

They were also happy with the contents of their mailboxes when they woke up.

And Lee was happy with his traditional heart cookie.

And I made more heart shaped pancakes for them that we ate over more scripture reading.

We also read our last love scripture.

Isaac and Grace dressed in red and were ready for their class party later that day.

Lee walked them to school.  I love them!

One of the big benefits of Lee working from home??  We could have a Valentine’s lunch date!  We ate yummy Thai food in the middle of the day.  It was perfect.

Then I headed to the school.

That night we had our usual heart shaped pizza by candlelight dinner.  I tried to change up the menu this year but that idea was quickly shot down.  I guess the kids like our traditions!

I love this bunch of weirdos. 

The next day Emma tried to kiss a frog she found outside our house. 

He didn’t turn into a prince but he sure was cute!  She rubbed his tummy to make him ribbitt and his throat would get bigger than his body!  It was pretty crazy.  

Isaac was a Terrific Kid.  But we already knew that!

Isaac and Grace have been making all sorts of contraptions in the tree in our back yard.  They really want a tree house.

Emma and Grace went out to capture the sunset on Friday night.  It was a beauty!

On Saturday I took Isaac on a book date.  He has really wanted to be in on the book reading competition that Emma and I have.  Of course there would be no competition if Isaac was involved because he reads A LOT and has way more time for it.  We decided we could have a family competition going on as well.  He blew us all out of the water by reading 252 books and 37,609 pages.  He proabably actually read more than that becuase he didn’t keep track of all the books he read at school.  This kid.  We started our date by going to the library, appropriately.  I had a hard time getting him to leave after he started one of the books he checked out.

Then I treated him to a Blizzard.

He also got a new book.  He didn’t get to pick it out though.  I got a good deal on some books at Christmas time and so I bought the fourth Harry Potter for him since I knew he would be very happy to get it.  He was! 

Too bad he can’t read it yet!  He has read the first three several times each, but I am holding him off on the fourth one.  I’ll read it with the twins soon.

We had a good little chat while he ate his ice cream, he is so fun to talk to.  Then he begged me to let him read for a bit.  I figured we were on a book date so that was an ok thing to do.  I pulled my book out and we both read.  It was great.

 

Sunday morning Isaac and Grace made all sorts of Lego creations before church.  I love to see what they come up with!