some more teasing....

The famous Centerville Elementary Parade.

I love this event. It's crazy, crowded, and always starts late but ITS WORTH IT.

I love how the staff goes all out.  The principal was "smartie pants" and gave out smarties, the office staff were dominoes and dominoed right in front of us, partly on purpose.

Byron and his friend coincidentally bought the same costume...but no one else in the school had it which is CRAZY because we bought it at Costco.

Miriam wore Aunt Sarah's childhood pirate costume and loaned mine to her friend. Aunt Julia's is here at my house for any 5/6 year olds who aren't dressing up as Elsa or Anna.  My mom was always super cute about Halloween costumes (see this post and this one both costumes from my childhood, wish I had the Princess Leia one.... it was awesome!)

I had lunch with Thor today

He is an entertaining lunch date.  We swang, went down the slide backwards/upside down, and jumped in the crunchy leaves.  Then we had about an hour to get ready for Byron's class party.

I changed things up with the pretzel dipping rather than cookie or cupcake decorating.  Equally as messy, costs about the same but a fun change.

Still need to carve those pumpkins...but I think I am done Halloweening for the day. 

Halloween Teaser

OgtoLo and CovetoPort

Darin and 2 friends came up with and completed the OgtoLo bike ride.  It all started with the CentoFarm (Miriam named that leg of the day) Centerville to Farmington Station, where they caught the train to Ogden.  

The guys rode from Odgen Station through Hwy 89 up Sardine Canyon to Logan. They made stops for apples along "fruit Highway" and lunch at Maddox. They made great time, and it was an easier ride than Darin anticipated.

I drove the kids up to Logan to meet up with Darin and the other families there.  The kids got pizza and the disney channel at the hotel while the adults went to celebrate at El Sol with amazing Mexican food! I haven't been that stuffed in a loooong time. I have a love hate relationship with those fresh fried tortialla chips. Then free fried ice cream...so good....so full.

Saturday we zoomed down to Price to see Claire get baptised.  Claire was happy, and sweet and wet! That evening the older guys when to Priesthood sesson while the ladies and small boys had a session of decluttering Grandma's storage area.  Namly the Halloween costume section. We came away with some doozies.

The next morning Darin and I did CovetoPort, 24 miles from my parents house (covecrest dr.) up airport road. The best part about our ride was being completely alone for mile after mile.  We had the ride to ourselves 95% of the time, had more run-ins with cows than people.

Beautiful ride, beautiful weather!

I think we ended up going 24.7 miles...need to check with Darin on that.

The flooding in that area had just happed the week before so a few of these ravines that hardly ever see moisture were filled with water.  Those desert storms are amazingly powerful.

Harses...Harses...Harses

Anyone recognize the title?  

Probably not, that is funny to no one but me....it's from Sleepless in Seattle, when Meg Ryan is listening to the radio on Christmas Eve and starts singing along with the radio.

Annnnywhoooo

We went to the Natural History Museum's new Horses Exhibit during their Cowboy BBQ festival.

Fantastic family day.

Once again, so grateful for that Natural History Museum pass.

Hilarious Cowboy poetry

beautiful hand crafted jewelry, wonderful mustache art,

Foot-stompin' bluegrass music

raspberry mint or pear ginger italian sodas

and of course the history, anatomy, and culture of the horse was interesting too.

Doings and Going-ons

There is no photo documented proof, but today was a great day.

The kids did fantastic at their yearly primary performance.  Byron, who would rather eat a worm than speak in front of an audience said his memorized lines slowly and deliberately.   His part even included a scripture this year, and I know his heart sank when he saw how long it was...but he did it!  He also had a seat in front on the raisers.  The boy who doesn't like groups of people looking at him sang, and did sign language up front and center. Miriam had a solo in I Stand All Amazed which was beautiful!  I was so proud of her.  I love her sweet voice and the beautiful confident way she holds her self, but what I am most proud of is how hard she worked on that song!  She worked hard....sang the song a million times and it payed off.

And Soren....poor little Soren who loves to speak in the microphone, and sings his heart out in primary every week had a bad case of Hand Food and Mouth.  The fever and sore throat are long gone but the sores are still healing up so he stayed with Dad, Grandmas and Grandpas and watched.  He sang the songs from his seat and was a good sport about it all.  It certainly helped that there were gifts given....hot wheel cars, dry erase board, and halloween books, Grandparents are awesome.

We had a fun dinner with Grandparents afterwards. Darin helped me with the cooking so it was all so easy and seamless. Damon and Gwen stopped by for peach cobbler and some visiting.  After everyone left Darin and I took a glorious nap.....can a Sunday get any better than that? 

 I mean seriously....

The day before though.....whew it was a rough one.  Worry + stress + anxiety (add some hormones in there for good measure) makes for some nit picking/sarcastic/sensitive discussions around these parts.  Long story short, I ended the day in tears and was reminded once again that it's best to keep things simple and let go of the things you have no control over (ie...buy the dessert for Girls Camp fireside, stop worrying about daughters solo, sons anxiety, and other sons disappointment/sickness).  I just really don't like sadness and disappointment and other dark cloud feelings.  I badly want to control the environment so my kids won't feel those pesky emotions.  It's a useless desire. Amidst all those worry for others feelings the biggest and scariest one of all is that I myself am not doing enough, that I am not a good enough mom/cook/teacher/ and that if my kids make mistakes it is my fault. Once I could let go of the control (with much help from Darin) I never had in the first place it was so much easier to enjoy the day.
And then miracles of miracles, the day turned out wonderful!

School is in full swing now.  Weekly spelling tests, reading minuets, starting on science fair, there is not much of a warm up!  It's good though, I enjoy the rhythm and focus school brings to our lives.  I am serving as Byron's class room mom.  It's something I kind of fell into half-heartedly, but I really like having lots of communication with his teacher.  If you ask Byron what he likes about school he will say #1 recess, #2 lunch, #3 sometimes they get snacks, not a glowing report but, he goes happily off to school and hasn't complained about anything.  We will call that a win. He is a bright kid. Miriam loves school, loves her teacher, loves her friends.  She still has super duper test anxiety but she preforms well through it,  I just wish it didn't cause so much worry in her.  She comes by that worry honestly though, at least she has very understanding parents.

So now it's just Soren and I all day long.  What in the world do we do with ourselves, especially because it feels like we are the only people in the world who don't send our kids to pre-school. I won't say it's always a piece of cake, but we keep busy.  A good illustration of what our days are like could be summed up in what Soren said to me today when I told him to go wait for the kids on the porch "But Mom, nothing is fun by yourself".  He plays by himself fairly well...but in whatever room I happen to be in.  He also wants to give me a constant commentary of what he is doing.  It's very reminiscent of my days alone with Miriam.
It's getting easier as we get a rhythm to our days as well. He has his Rusty and Rosie school time every morning, Tuesdays we exercise at the church, I teach every other week and Soren runs around the stage with the other kids who show up.  We might start going MWF as well....although we haven't made it yet.  We are starting up a park lunch playgroup on Thursdays, Wednesdays are story time at the library and shopping, sometimes we meet friends for adventures on Fridays.

And there are lots of fun Fall chores to be done this time of year.....

My father-in-law brought us another load of apples, pears, and peaches so we will be doing some more peeling, slicing, stewing, baking in the coming weeks!

Summer Art Class

No explanation really required.  Just a really fun class taught by a cute talented girl!

First Day Photos 2014

One of these kids is excited, one is mildly intrigued, one is feeling left out....I will let you decide.

Soren and I weren't alone for long.  We walked the kids to school, it was early out, and we walked to pick them up.  That means they were only gone 4 hours. It was a long zucchini shreddin', Rusty & Rosie doin', movie watchin' 4 hours for Soren.  I on the other hand, could have handled a full day, I was still recovering from our Zion weekend and felt all kinds of out of sorts. 

The 2nd day of school, but we had to take pictures since the kids are wearing their new t-shirts from our Zion vacation and Miriam finally got new school shoes!

Lovin' it all so far....

The part where I get older.

So last year if you recall, our lives were in an uproar for my birthday.  I had a small {but fun} birthday celebration and ended the post with "Solid Birthday, but next year I want to ride a gondola and do a zip line".

Not even kidding, we are at Zion Ponderosa and they had nighttime zip line rides for $5.

The universe loves me!

Alicia and Darin took rides with me.   It was terrifying, but half way down I started to remember why I loved zip lines in high school.  The stars were amazing, the night air was refreshing, and I just love a good adrenaline rush.

Okay universe...send the gondola.  I am ready.

On the actual day of my birth, Darin took me {and my sidekick} out for Pho at a Vietnamese restaurant called Pho Hoa.

So good. We are going again for sure, especially since there are like 4 Pho restaurants all right by each other...we have to figure out which is our favorite.

I went home and made 2 types of zucchini bread {lemon, crasin, pecan & chocolate chip pecan}.

Why? Because the shredded zucchini sitting in my fridge was making me crazy, and I didn't feel like going anywhere, but couldn't sit around watching TV because...Soren {thats going to be my new catch phrase "because...Soren"}.  I was restless, but didn't want to clean anything or go anywhere, or see anyone. 

So I talked on the phone to my friend Mirissa, and made zucchini bread. 

It was actually really fun....and the house smelled amazing....and visiting teaching is now finished {haha}.

So we had zucchini muffins and my favorite cake for dinner because, I was still full of Pho so I didn't want real food. The kids were happy to make a meal out of various types of sugared bread, and I can always make room for cake.

Miriam made me cute clay figures of my favorite foods, a folded paper flower, and she helped the boys make homemade birthday cards.  Those kids are completely adorable. There were other gifts from Darin, cards, little gifts and well wishes from friends and family.  I felt loved and blessed.

We kept it simple because my "birthday party" happened tonight.  We all went to a local production of Peter Pan.  Loved it....watching Byron and Soren's faces when Peter and the kids flew was so fun.  Watching them figure out where the wires were connected was fun too.

"I Do believe in fairies...I DO I DO!"

My birthday sunset.