one crazy day

THE PUMPKIN PATCH

So just after I wrote all about how we were being phased out of Will's preschool class, I got to go with them on a pilgrimage to the local pumpkin patch (which really was only a couple of houses away). I love seeing this class of boys!

And there is Ms. Jeri, right there in the middle of all of them.

After a walk through the yard, each boy got to pick his own pumpkin to take home. Will sat on the curb and kept letting his pumpkin roll down the small hill while yelling, "It's the Runaway Pumpkin!!" (That is one of his favorite Halloween books)

Once we got back to the classroom, Ms. Jeri wrote each boys name on their own pumpkin...then it was snacktime...and then time for me to go. What fun times with these guys!

OSCAR

I had to include a picture of the mostly friendly neighborhood cat which our boys have somewhat adopted. I am soooo allergic to cats, dogs, horses, etc., that we will never have any of them for a pet, but if they can get their fill from the neighbor's pets that's fine by me. Oscar, who Daren named, showed up in our neighborhood a few weeks ago, but has been hanging around our house a lot since she gets so much attention from the boys. I took this picture just before she caught a mouse in our garage and hauled it off in her mouth. GROSS!

ONE CRAZY DAY-- starting with LACROSSE

The final days of fall lacrosse were finally upon us. It has been so fun for Ben to play, and he has already talked about playing in the spring.

These three pictures are from Ben's game a couple of weeks ago. This was the Saturday before the snow storm on Sunday, so he was bundled up and had prepared for the worst. Luckily the wet weather held off until halfway through the second game, so it wasn't too bad.

And then on to the final game with brighter skies, though not that much warmer at 9am!

Ben came a long way during this season. He even got the ball in a few games, which for him was a very big deal.

Ben and his buddies!

After the game the boys got trophies for playing, which I have to say are what I think are just about the coolest trophies I have ever seen--a bobble-head lacrosse player. How cool is that?!!

And so the season ended...until spring!

DO YOU DARE...??!
After the lacrosse game it was time to get ready for our very scary Halloween party. Last year was our first one with all the kids from Ben's first grade class. This year we decided to do a neighborhood party with all the boy's friends. Now I don't know if we will ever not do a Halloween party because they are so much fun!

Ben made up the invitations all by himself, complete with a graveyard, a bat, a ghost and a spooky tree. So cute! Then the day before the party as we were getting ready for it, Ben invited Preston, one of the older boys in the neighborhood, to help him draw the "creepy cupcake creatures" sign, and amazingly enough, Preson agreed to help. It turned out way cute. Ok, maybe cute isn't a good word. Hmmm, maybe creepy?!

So by Saturday at 1pm we were ready!! The first thing kids did when they entered the house was to write down a guess of how many tootsie rolls were in the pumpkin. Matthew won with a guess of 200 (there were 188). This is Dr. Henry Jones, Sr. (aka: Jake as "Indy's father"), Batman (Nathan), and a witch (Jaycie).

There were so many great costumes!! How cute are all these kids?! We tried to tell a ghost story downstairs where it was quite dark--you know, the kind where you start off with, "Once upon a time there was a very old, dark, spooky house at the corner at the end of the street..." and then the next person in line adds to the story. Ya, some of the kids were too young to get it, so it pretty much failed. Oh well.

Next we did a mummy wrap contest, which Danielle and Sydney won!! I couldn't resist a picture of Will with Ronnie trying to wrap him.

Yum--the donut eating contest!

There was plenty of time for playing in the yard--thank goodness it was such a beautiful day!!

The final part was making the "Creepy Cupcake Creatures." Thomas, Jaycie, Zane, and Gregory made some masterpieces!! Thomas just told me his cupcake is an alien!

And the fun didn't stop there. The Halloween party went from 1-3pm, and then we went to Salt Lake for an end-of-the-season lacrosse party at 4pm at The Skybox (in Gateway). THEN on our way home we couldn't resist going to see "The Nightmare Before Christmas" at Jordan Commons movie theater. Daren had never seen it before, so that was fun. Also, I never realized how many quotes are in that movie that Will quotes all the time:

- "This is Halloween, this is Halloween; trick-or-treat."

- "What's this, what's this, I can't believe my eyes?!"

- "BUNNY!!"

- "I, JACK, the Pumpkin King"

- "You"re jokin', your're jokin', I can't believe my eyes!"

Those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. What a funny kid!!

And so at the end of the day on our way home, imagine that--all 3 boys fell asleep! I feel like I'm still catching up as well. So, that's it for this week.

hakuna matata

I have been absent from the blogging world for a few because my computer has been "in the shop." One of the hinges is cracked pretty good, so I took it in 2 weeks ago, and I finally rescued it a couple of days ago so I could use it while they are waiting for the parts to come in. AHHHH! They drive me crazy sometime, but what do you do?! Anyway, plenty has happened lately, if I can just remember it all.
This is a paper Will brought home from school a couple weeks ago. Daren was at school with Will when he wrote his own name for the first time, and to the regular person this may not look like anything special, but to Daren and I it is a shout of hallelujah!! We knew going into this school year that Will was quite a bit behind where most of the kids his age are, especially Jake. I know, I know, he is only four, but I had to agree with his teachers from last year that it was more than just being a little behind. Certain things were just not connecting. It was very hard at first, especially on me, that we had to split up Will and Jake, not only in separate classes, but into separate schools. It wasn't easy, but we got Will into Newcastle Preschool in Draper, and that has been the best move EVER for Will. He is in a class with 11 other boys and he has the most amazing teacher, Ms. Jeri, who is so patient, loving, and positive, and I don't think we could have found anyone better for him. They teach those "Love and Logic" classes for parents at his school, we made it to a couple of classes, and it's what the teachers use on the students as well. Ms. Jeri is a master at it, and because either Daren or I have been in class with Will every day for over a month now, we have seen how well Will has responded to it. Ms. Jeri and I (and Daren) have had plenty of time to talk about Will during these times, and I think part of the problem is that there wasn't ever too much expected of Will, because he has always been pretty quiet and has kept to himself wherever he was. When he is around Jake, Jake is so outgoing and overbearing that he, Jake, would make decisions for Will or answer questions for Will. It's amazing how all of this can happen right under our noses and we didn't even realize what a problem it was becoming. Will seems to be learning for the first time that he can make his own decisions, and that some choices he makes on his own can have either positive or negative consequences. He is doing so well and is making so much progress that this week Daren and I have been "phased out" of going to school with him. It has been so fun to be in class with him and get to know all the cute little boys in there, and to learn from Jeri, whose classroom motto is, "Hakuna Matata," which means "no worries." I can be pretty high strung sometimes when it comes to kids, and I need to take a chill pill and not worry so much about things--hakuna matata! Funny enough, I miss going to class with Will already!
So on to other things: I've learned my lesson--never leave Daren and the twins alone with an Etch-A-Sketch in Cafe Rio while I'm in line to order the food. Ya, this is supposed to be me; I'm sporting a John Lennon look I suppose!! The twins got a kick out of it, though!!

Last winter one night, Daren and Ben were messing around on the internet and found a playhouse that they thought would be fun to build. They bought the plans, we went shopping for all the materials, and finally got started on it in early April. Back then, in our family newsletter, Daren jokingly wrote that he would try to drag this project out for a month so we could get our boys to eat their dinners better (their reward for eating their dinner before the timer went off was to work on the playhouse, and it worked well for a bit). So life happened, and the playhouse got put on the back burner for a while, but recently it has been revived...

We had a couple big pine trees in the backyard die (shocker...not!), so we decided to put the playhouse back there where the trees had been. Daren worked a few days on the playhouse last week and it's coming along nicely--although Ben is a little disappointed that it's not as big as he thought it would be.

Ben was taking pictures this day of Daren--otherwise he probably wouldn't pose so willingly!! Ben can't wait until the playhouse is done because he want to make it into a school house and teach his brothers, and other kids in the neighborhood, how to read and write. How cute is that?! He's got big plans for it, and it has been a fun thing for all the boys to do together. It should be done soon...we'll see!

As far as other happenings go in our lives: we had our first snow a week ago Sunday (Oct 12), and we have church at 9am, so there wasn't any time before then to go play in it (not even time for a picture), and by the time we got out it had all melted. The boys were sooooo disappointed! Will kept asking why "Mr. Sunshine was out melting all the snow?" Of course, the first thing out of their mouths that morning was, "Where's Santa?" Is it really only 2 months until Christmas?!?!

I've decided to sign up for the St. George half marathon (13.1 miles) in January with my friends I grew up with, so I figured it's time to get going on it. I've started back at the classes at the gym again, and already it's killing me. At the same time, I've started playing soccer again with those same friends, and that too is a major killer on my body. We have been playing indoor soccer for a few years together and it is such a blast. I think Teresa and I have been playing soccer together since 3rd or 4th grade, and we won the state tournament for Davis High back in 1987 when we were juniors--although it wasn't a school sanctioned sport back then; my how times have changed!! Someone had to pave the way I guess:)

It's turning out to be a great year for the University of Utah football team. We are still undefeated (8-0), ranked #11, with a bye week this week. Daren had fun with a bunch of his friends at the football game last week when I opted out of my ticket to go to a great parenting seminar that my good friend Willie, from Kaysville, had arranged with Dr. James Jones. He was amazing and I learned a lot that will hopefully help in our parenting here. Anyway, football has been fun, and with 2 huge home games left (TCU and BYU), it should be even more fun. Once again--GO UTES!!

I went to Ben's school yesterday for Mother's Visiting Day, and it is always so much fun to see what is going on in the classroom and to see him interact with his friends. Ben has a great teacher this year, Mrs. Duke, and school is really going good for him this year. He has even started doing his homework on the bus ride home so most of it is done by the time he gets here, because when he gets home he either wants to play with friends or play on the Play Station--which I'm sure will be the death of me, except that we finally set some rules on it.

So that should catch us up for a few days at least. I wanted to send my Aunt Martha some well wishes and let her know that we are thinking about her and praying for her. She is not in good health now, and has been in the hospital and in a rehab center for the past couple weeks. We love you Aunt Martha!! And to everyone else, love you too and take care!

ensign peak

For Young Women's this week we combined with the Young Men and hiked up Ensign Peak, which overlooks the whole Salt Lake Valley. Bishop Christensen came with us and spoke to everyone about the history of that peak when Brigham Young and the first pioneers came to the valley.

It's hard to imagine Brigham Young looking over this valley to see just a vast desert area when all we can see are the lights of cars, homes, businesses, etc. I know it took a lot of hard work to even survive back then, and it makes me so grateful for their faith and sacrifices. We are truly blessed to live here among such good people.

a bountiful harvest

I love, love, LOVE the changing of seasons, and I love falls in Utah. It is also a busy time of year with everything there is to do, but it's so fun too.

One of our main focuses this year in our garden was the pumpkins. Last year Will pulled out all our pumpkin starts a couple of days after they were planted, so we didn't have any, and buying all our pumpkins was very painful--only a handful of pumpkins for so much money! This year we did much better, and the boys loved watching them grow over the summer. When we picked all the pumpkins last week, it was a neighborhood effort. I cut them, all the kids carried (or rolled) them over to the grass to clean them off, and then we took them to the front porch. Every pumpkin looked like this one--I think we have a snail problem!

We love to decorate our front porch, and this is the final product.

Ben wanted to make sure I included this picture in the blog--it's the annoying tombstone that screams every time something moves close to it, but it's the boys favorite thing!

Our peach tree didn't do so well this year, and the fruit was gone weeks ago, so once again I had to buy my peaches this year, and dang, they really went up in price! I love the lemon alberta peaches from Brigham City, though, so it was worth it. Daren and I bottled these together this year.

And then there is the salsa...YUM! Daren and I made these this year while listening to General Conference, which was so good once again. Between our garden, Jeanna's, our neighbor, and Julie's, we got one batch of real good homegrown stuff. The rest of it had to be purchased, but was still very good. I started making this yummy salsa 13 years ago with my sister, who got the recipe from her friend, and I have passed it along to others who are willing to do the work to make it.

So, although it may not have all been from our garden (I agree, Lynette, you can't compete with John's garden!) it was another bountiful harvest this year. And a huge thanks to Daren--it was fun to do this together and you were a big help!! Now if I can just get my kitchen clean again...

football and a fireman

Daren and I went to a heart-stopping football game up at the University of Utah tonight. We were playing Oregon St., from the Pac-10, who upset the #1 team, USC, last week. Utah (5-0, ranked #15 this week) is off to it's best start since 2004 (when we went undefeated and were the first team to ever bust the BCS from a non-BCS conference), and we knew this was going to be an important and hard fought game. It wasn't the prettiest game, and with just 2:14 left to go in the game we were down 28-20. Incredibly, especially compared with how we had been playing the previous 2 quarters, we drove down the field, scored a touchdown and after a penalty during the 2-point conversion, were able to convert the second time (as everyone in the stadium collectively yelled at the QB, Brian Johnson, "RUN!!") to tie up the game. We got the ball back with under a minute to go, marched down the field again, and with 0:02 on the clock, Louie Sakoda, our awesome kicker, put it through the uprights and won the game!! It was an unbelievable finish and now we are 6-0...it could be an interesting game next month when we play "the team down south."


Final score!! I think at least half of the people in the stadium emptied out onto the field as time ran out.

Yea, we were there baby!!

Today is another day of celebration because 13 years ago today Daren, only a newly-wed for six months, started his journey of being a firefighter for the Salt Lake City Fire Department. I can't even begin to think of where we would be without the fire department. Daren didn't grow up with a desire to be a fire fighter, but with a little encouragement from a family friend who was a fire marshall for SL County, he took the written test...and then the physical test...and finally the interview. He ended up #13 on the hiring list, and was hired with the first group from that list. There have been a lot of ups and a few downs through the years, but being on the fire department has allowed Daren to do many things he may not have otherwise done. During the last 13 years we ran a successful lawn care business (on his days off from the fire station), completed a couple of undergraduate degrees from the U (Daren in German and Political Science, me in history); Daren went on to get a Masters in Public Administration and finally on to law school at the U of U. It helped him get a great job at a law firm in Salt Lake City, and eventually allowed him to leave that firm and begin his own law practice. He has had 13 years of great friends, many of whom had a part in finishing our basement, and several who he loves to golf with. Daren even ran his first, and perhaps only, marathon with his crew (at the time) from his station. (Which reminds me, good luck to all my running friends who are running the St. George Marathon this weekend!!)

And, the boys think it's the coolest thing ever to have a fire fighter for a dad--they love to visit the fire station, which for the last 8 years has been Station #13. Hmm, there seems to be a correlation between Daren and the #13 (that is Ben's lacrosse number too!). All the guys from his station have a skull and crossbones sticker that says "Lucky 13" on their cars. I know I'm leaving plenty of stuff out, but it's late and I wanted to write this today. I'm so proud of Daren and for his hard work and commitment to the fire department. It has been a great job that we have been able to depend on for years, and look forward to many more.

Daren's mom found this comic not long after Daren was hired on the fire department--who knew it would fit so perfectly someday!! I love you heed!