School Days

Wow!  The first quarter of the year is already over for school.  Ethan is a 1st grader this year and Alys is in pre-school.  We just had our parent-teacher conference with Ethan's teacher, Ms. Kistler.  He is doing really well.  His teacher had nothing but good to say about him and I know he enjoys school.  I have the opportunity to go help out once a month for a few hours in his class.  It's fun to see what he does at school, see him interact with the other kids and also the fact that I can tell he's excited when Mom is there.  We're proud of his hard work and know he will continue to do well and make many friends.

Alys is also doing very well.  She is learning to read and very fast.  She is very eager to learn and her teacher, Ms. Katie, says there are days where Alys keeps her very busy.  She goes twice a week for 3 hrs.  She also loves school and is always asking me what day it is and if it's a school day.  We're proud of her as well and enjoy watching her grow.

Benjamin, well he's in Mom school.  He's my little tag-a-long.  I enjoy being able to spend time with him and hear him play and learn new things as well.  His big brother and sister are a great help with that.  He likes to sing the ABC song and counts pretty well.  Soon he'll be entering Potty Training?!  He's fun to have in our home as well.

Recently, I had the chance to take some updated pictures of them, so here's our little clan.  They're growing like weeds!

Pure Joy!

Last Sunday, our Primary children had their Sacrament Meeting program, titled "I am a Child of God."  They sing, give talks and the different class recite a sentence or two.  Ethan and Alys are both now old enough to participate.  Benjamin still has a year or two to go.  Anyway, for me it is always pure joy to sit and listen to the children, especially when they sing.  This year, Ethan also gave a talk and was able to read it all by himself.  I was so proud of him.  I have to admit that they brought me to tears.  Two songs in particular got to me, "I am a Child of God" and "Called to Serve".  Hearing about 100 or more children singing those songs was touching, not to mention the fact that during the chorus of "Called to Serve" Ethan couldn't help but yell "Forward, pressing forward".  I love our little children and am thankful for the things that they have learned and continue to learn.  I am grateful for their primary teachers that love them and teach them each week and for all the time that it put into the program so that we are able to enjoy it every year.  I can't wait for Benjamin to join them.

Fun Times with Dad

The kids love to rough house with Dad!  One day I caught them as they were all trying to get a horse ride...all at the same time.  I think even the horse was tired!  I'm so grateful my kids have a dad that will do those things and enjoy it even when it hurts!

Halloween and the Corn Maze

This year the kids were definitely looking forward to Halloween.  Ethan definitely knew he wanted to be a policeman.  Alys started off by wanting to be a princess and use her dress up clothes.  However, that changed from a princess to a fairy with wings and ended up being a ladybug.  Benjamin, well he was going to be a fireman, but we ran into a little resistance when it came time to wear his costume.  So, I think he got away with a fire hat.  I'm glad it was a combination of small items and not a fancy costume!

It had also been a long day.  We decided to visit a place called Linder Farms and do some fun activities there.  We got there shortly after it opened and it was great.  Because it was Halloween day, it was not very busy so it was nice and relaxing.  They had bounce houses, a cow train ride, straw maze, corn maze, food, etc.  The kids had a lot of fun as did we.

 After a little fun at the farm, we rushed home to have a snack and head off to church for our chili cook-off/trunk-or-treat.  Unfortunately, by the time we got there we were about 45minutes late and they were almost done!  So we rushed the kids around.

 Since we missed most of it, Woody took Ethan and Alys around the neighborhood a little once we got home.  Benjamin and I handed out candy since he was still being a pickle and very tired!  I had also made some chili for the cook-off the night before and that didn't make it either.  Woody was great and said it was fabulous though.  After a long day the kids were still excited and probably would've eaten at least half of their candy if we would've let them.  I think they had a great day!

Jack-O-Lantern Delight

Okay, I'm a little behind, but here are some more blurbs on some of our Halloween festivities.  About a week before Halloween we helped the kids carve their pumpkins for FHE.  They had a great time and I must say were very creative.  Alys and Ethan actually did most of the work themselves.  They were all so excited to put them outside and light them up.  We tried to remember to light them each night until Halloween and that was fun too.

Halloween Tradition

When we lived in Texas, we would always try to get together with family for a little Halloween party.  My sister-in-law, Amy, was always great at planning fun  things for us to do and made sure their were fun prizes for the different games.  Everyone usually brought some great food, we played games, bobbed for apples and most of us dressed up, or at least tried.  Anyway, it was always fun.  So, this year, Woody and I decide we'd try to keep  that tradition going, even though we're now near my family.  The week before Halloween was our big shin dig.  We held it in my brother's garage, threw down some straw, decorated it and had some fun.  The kids had fun dressing up and they were cute!  Some of the adults dressed up, so we'll have to work on that for next year, hint, hint!  Every family had a game to play and all in all I believe it was a SPOOKTACULAR evening!  Here are some photos from the event.

Here we have my sister, Tammy, as Raggedy Ann, eating some of Mom's great chili.

As for these boys...I'm not sure who had the bigger muscles, but we'll just say with The Incredible Hulk and Idaho's best policeman, we had our super heros covered.  Even Whitney was checkin' out the boys. :)

Here we have "Lady Vikequeen" and as for Thad, well, I'm not sure, but he was a big lady in a Tutu and he even showed us some moves!

Here's Count Woody Dracula with our cute little ladybug checking out the "treats".  I think the table was full of ghosts and gremlins, ghoul punch, and lots of other good stuff.

Crew was a cute little giraffe and I know you can't tell here, but I do think he really had a good time.

Oh, little miss Azlyn.  She was the cutest, Hollywood duck I've ever seen...

Here's Woody and Josh, trying to keep the kids entertained while building pumpkins from Lowe's.

See what I mean...hello Miss Hollywood Duck...here Grandpa, you wear the hat I've got a camera to pose for!

Here's a great game that Trina had; hilarious too!  We had a kids round and adult round.  They're trying to eat a donut off a string, while it's moving.  

Finding the best Halloween costume of the season...$59.  Watching The Hulk, a policeman, a cowboy and a cute girl eat a donut off a string...PRICELESS!

Vanessa, the maid, was throwing darts at some balloons that had candy in them.

This was a fun game from Tammy and Mike.  We made a large spider web by throwing a ball of yarn back and forth.  It was pretty cool.

Another great game from Curt and Raelynn.  They're trying to drop candy corn from the bottom of their nose into a bottle.  We had a few winners, but not an easy task!

Here's Benjamin trying to sneak some leftover candy corn that missed the bottle.  He was supposed to be our fireman but had no desire to wear his costume.  He had fun though!

Grandma and Grandpa were in charge of pin the nose on the pumpkin.  Another game the kids enjoyed.

This is the tangled web that you can get yourself into if you don't participate...just kidding.  The little ones thought it was so funny to wrap Taylor up after making our spider web.

This was our game...bobbing for apples.  We didn't get as many takers as we wanted, but it was still fun.  This is Taylor going deep.

It's Josh...he scored and barely got wet.

This is Jordan.  She did great...it took us a little bit to convince her to do it, but she got it!

Okay, I don't know if the apple was bad or he just didn't get wet enough.

Even our super heros gave it a whirl.  It was a bit of a challenge though as they have both lost their front teeth.

Way to go Mike...dive for that apple!

Go for it Raggedy Ann!  Oops..we're running into a little trouble....

she had to lose the hair!  We could not get the hair wet!

Fish out of water!

Benjamin is definitely our little fish!  I don't know what happened in the womb but if there's water around he'll find it!  We wanted to get him into swim lessons, but didn't make it during the summer months.  Fortunately, my health club offered them indoors so we signed him up for a Mom and child class.  He absolutely loved it!  If I wasn't careful, he would try to jump in before I did, which was kind of scary.  It was fun to see how much he enjoyed it and great for me as well.  With Alys at this age it was more of a nightmare.  I hope he continues to enjoy it and who knows, maybe someday we'll have a swimmer on our hands.

Goal!

Ethan has been enjoying soccer all month.  He has been playing with the Golden Eagles.  This has been his first run at actually playing on a team.  He has participated in clinics before but no actual games.  He's probably one of the youngest on his team but has enjoyed it and fit right in.  He's learned a lot and has scored a goal or two during the season.  I think his favorite position to play though is goalie.  Whenever his coach asks him to cover the goal he tends to not want to move down the field, as they don't usually play with a goalie.  Even though we've had a few cold, windy games and practices it's been fun to watch him play.  We look forward to the spring season!