November Highlights

November started off with me needing to go up to Salt Lake for professional development.  I am a lonely teacher down in Southern Utah so I didn't have a carpool since just the high school was just meeting face to face.  I dropped the kids off at their dad's on Thursday on my way up for them to spend the weekend with him.  David actually joined me on Friday night.  We were getting away for a little while.  We used the time shares and went to Wolf Creek and then to Midway.  It was nice to get away but I was definitely ready to come home.

The kids stayed with grandma and grandpa when their dad brought them back.  They had lots of fun.  They went to McDonald's and got to go visit Justyn's kids.  Colten missed me a lot.  He has never talked to me on FaceTime as much as he did when I was gone that trip.  He didn't want to hang up.  It made me really miss him.  Then of course, he threw a tantrum within 30 minutes of me getting home to really welcome me home.  We are getting better at those.

We finished off soccer on the 14th.  Due to Halloween not having games we went a later into November.  It was quite chilly for the 9:00 game but had warmed up for Aspen's game at 1:00.  The kids had lots of fun.  I think Colten's team was undefeated and Aspen's team lost 3 games, 1 to a forfeit.  But they got their medals and were happy.  We also celebrated the twins birthday that weekend.

The following weekend Alijah and Jeramiah came to sleep over.  Because Saturday morning, all the kids were running the turkey trot 5K.  They had fun with the sleep over.  Watched a movie and did a couple of fights.  I woke them up and had them get ready.  We got to the turkey trot about 45 minutes early because we still needed to register.  We got them all registered and they were excited.  I had to tell them a couple of times they need to save their energy.  Grandma came out to support.  Then Darcee, Jay and Kayleeya showed up.  We got picture of them right up front of the pack at the beginning.  Then we all walked up to the turning point.  I decided that I would run back with Colt to the finish line.  Little did I know that Jay and Kayleeya would come with cheering him on.  He finished the 5K in like 33:40, if my memory serves me correctly.  So not as good as the swiss days but still pretty good.  Aspen had taken my phone because she forgot her ipod at the house and wanted to listen to music.  I had called her right at the beginning to make sure she knew that I was wrong about which direction they should go.  Then from then on until she crossed the finish line, she called Kayleeya, Darcee, Grandma and Jay.  Aspen hung around with Jeramiah for awhile but once she saw Grandma and Darcee she took off to finish strong.  She finished in like 40 minutes.  Still pretty good.  They had treats there for the runners at the end of the race.  They also had prizes and drawings.  The kids were going to Darcee's after that so I took off.  I headed to the high school rodeo to watch some of my students do the rodeo thing.  I was able to meet some of my students and watched another one, who was in a lot of events.  It was interesting to watch all the events.  Some were more entertaining then others.

The next week was Thanksgiving.  The girls came and stayed with us for a night before heading up to David's family in Midway.  We went bowling with everyone that night.  David won, Austin second and I got third.  I was close to 100 at 93 but I was happy.  Colten tied with Alanah for last place.  The kids had fun though.

My kids went to sleep over at Darcee's on Wednesday and we met up with them on Thursday at the grandparents house.  We had everyone there, minus David's girls.  It was a great meal.  We had lots of food.  Then we had lots of snacks for dinner.  Overall the kids played well together :)  The adults watched football and played a game of hand 'n foot.  David and I won :)  It had been awhile since we had won.  After the games we just chatted and ate more food.  It was a great day with family.  The kids loved having everyone there.  Then the kids went to sleep over again at Darcee's, they sure do love them.  Aspen had a sleep over the next night with Audra, her first friend sleep over.  She had fun.  They watched Christmas movies and built forts.

I am sure grateful for the blessings in my life.  My husband, our kids, medication (for MS), my family, my job...the list goes on and on.  

Literacy Fair and Halloween

Gotta love school projects in elementary school....at least they aren't half as bad as the ones I had to do.  I asked the kids to ask their dad if he would help them with the literacy fair and he said yes.  So I signed the kids up for the family fiction.  Well as it came time to pick a book, Colt was not ok with just doing a chapter book Aspen had read.  They are supposed to do books on their grade level.  So I was able to switch them to individual family fiction so that they could each do one.  So their dad helped Aspen with her's on a weekend she was up with him and I helped Colten (who wasn't feeling good that weekend).  I had to help Aspen with a few final things for her board and help Colt come up with everything.  His had a lot more computer typed things but did do his summary in his handwriting.  Overall, I think they both did a great job.

I had the kids this year for Halloween.  And of course, I had picked up costumes 2 years ago on sale.  Colt's iron man fit him just fine but Aspen's didn't.  It was a kitty costume and she wasn't thrilled about it anyway and told me what she wanted so we just made her costume.  We had our Chris Halloween party a couple of days before Halloween.  Everyone looked so cute.

Then the next night was the day before Halloween and Paula had told me that a street in her ward does a cute Halloween party before Halloween.  So we went to Darcee's work haunted house, then to BioLife for their Halloween thing and then to Paula's neighborhood party.  We met up with Paula and Parker's kids.  It was really fun.  They had games and a train ride.  They had doughnuts, cinnamon rolls, root beer, hot chocolate and candy.  It was really fun for the kids.

Then came Halloween.  Aspen was going to do a trunk or treat with her bestie, Audra.  So that left an hour or so for me and Colt to go around our neighborhood.  And I discovered that just one street over they do Halloween right.  There was one house with a "movie" of scary things projected up on their house.  There was another house that had doughnuts and hot chocolate.  Colt eventually got tired and needed a drink.  Right as we got home, Aspen pulled up from the trunk or treat.  I asked her if she still wanted to go trick or treating and she said yes.  So I went back out with her.  We ended up running into one of her friends right away, who wanted to go around with us.  She and her mom joined us in going around our awesome street.  Then we found another street that was having a party.  It was all decked out in decorations.  Then one house had soooo many games for the kids.  They had musical chairs, fishing, racing games, tossing tp in the toilet.  Aspen didn't want to leave.  But then I heard from Darcee who was heading over our way to go on our awesome street.  We got Colt to go back out with the cousins. Jay said they found a different street that was having a party.  And then the kids went to have a sleep over at Darcee's house.  I went home and fell asleep.  Actually I think I tried to watch a movie with David but didn't last that long.  All in all I think the kids had a great time this Halloween.

UTVA school outing to Staheli Farms

So in my final act as a middle school teacher, I wanted to go to the outing to the Staheli Farms corn maze outing.  I had a couple of students say they would be there so I wanted to go meet them.  Plus I had told my kids they could go with me.  So I pulled the kids out a little early from school, which is always fun right??  We also had Jeramiah's birthday party that afternoon and our primary program practice (which we didn't make it to).

We got to the maze and Colten did enjoy it as much as I thought he would.  He had been begging for a couple of weeks to go do it but we were in the maze for about 45mins-1 hour.  When he came out he said "I never want to do that again".  It was a pretty big maze and we didn't have a map for the first little bit.  Luckily one of my students was able to figure out where we were and got it through about half of it before we decided to head out.  I did see an old friend, Ruth Seegmiller, there.  Her 1st grader is enrolled.  I had met up with her at our opening activity.  It was fun to see her again.

After the maze we headed over to the birthday party.  I left the kids in Darcee's care and went to run some errands I needed to on that side of town.  The kids had a good time at the party and of course, asked to sleep over.  But they had soccer games in the morning.

Picture catch up

So I recently updated my Mac desktop and I don't like it.  iPhoto is now weird and I can't access the videos like I used to :(  But I am going through the pictures and I decided I will do a collage of the small little events and then do posts for the bigger ones to try and catch up.  My blog printer is having a sale this weekend, the biggest one I have ever seen so I am trying to get all caught up so I can print :).

Aspen came home from school with the Jr. Cheer Clinic paper for Snow Canyon High and did a pretty good job of begging to do it.  So the above pictures are her on her performance day.  She did a great job (although I like how Cedar High did it when she did it when she was like 3).  She basically got to do a cheer out on the field at half time along with the dance she had been learning.  Still the cutest girl ever.

Here are a few pictures from Aspen's first soccer game.  She is now in the U9 league and has referees.  She learned a lot about soccer this past season and was lucky to be with most of the girls from last year.  She is definitely not going to be the star athlete of soccer but she does enjoy playing.  And went from turning cartwheels during dead ball time to just running to where she should be.  She got to play goalie a few times.  Kept forgetting that goalies can pick up the ball with their hands.  Still learning :)

Above pictures are from picture day at school.  I love how much Colten's smile has changed and looks like a smile.  Both of their pictures turned out really good.  I really tried to nail in their heads not to play hard at recess if they hadn't had their picture taken yet.

I don't think I got this important fact for Colten blogged yet.  Back in February, Colten advanced from yellow belt to orange belt in karate.  I am so proud of him.  He has not always wanted to go to karate.  Been a little better since I reduced the number of times he goes in a week.  But I now have karate as a chore for him and he doesn't fight it.  They are now working in partners (because they have more students) to where they can see what they would do should they need to defend themselves.

Just a few more pictures of Colten and soccer and Aspen's wonderful fashion sense...that she really did get from her Aunt Hollee.