Lunch Time!!

My girls are funny eaters. When I make them sandwiches for lunch, they eat them but they have to take them apart and eat everything separately. So I've stopped making the sandwiches. I just slice it up and put it on their plates and they happily eat it.

Today was no different, I sliced up the lunch meat, cheese and bread and put it on their plates. A few minutes later I look up at Natalie and she's literally wearing her lunch meat on her face! It just cracked me up, I had to take a picture!!

Farmington's Got Talent!

Miss Farmington is hosting a talent show at the Davis County Arts Center in Farmington. Jon got wind of it and auditioned. He'll be performing/competing on Saturday at 6:30pm for prizes. Tickets are $5 at the door, can't get them in advance. Probably should be there a little early.

He's been singing a lot lately and actually recording, too. I'll have to try to get a couple songs on here.

Maybe I'm thinking too much

I appreciate everyone's comments on my last post. I have been thinking so much about this whole thing. It's so hard to put it all in perspective.

My last post was after I had spent an hour with the principal explaining my intentions and some of my concerns about how this teacher(Mrs. C) is treating my daughter. I felt that he was listening to what I had to say, he was taking notes furiously the whole time. But really didn't have any solutions to offer. He just said he would talk to her and get back to me.

When I left the classroom on Wednesday, my intention was to go again today to see Kim do her own curren event. Just to see if she was doing it different in class than at home. You know how we practise real good at home and then get nervous and speed through the whole thing when it comes time to actually do it in front of people. I thought maybe that was the problem.

Since this whole thing came out, I just don't feel welcome in my children's school anymore.

When my meeting was done with the principal on Thursday, I asked if I could go ask Mrs. C a quick question about a different assignment. He wouldn't let me go ask. He went to the classroom and asked it for me. Like I wasn't trusted or something. I thought it was wierd, but just didn't comment on it and came home when he came back with the answer.

This morning, I was working out how I would go and what I would say to put Mrs. C at ease. That I was only there to see how Kim did. But I kept getting the feeling that I should let it go for now. Kim was well prepared his week, she could give it totally by memory if she had to.

We have a meeting tomorrow after school, Mrs. C, the principal and I. I usually volunteer in Aaron's classroom on Tuesday mornings. I don't know if I should go until this is resolved. If I am such a safety issue in Mrs. C's classroom, should I be in this other classroom? I think my feelings were hurt more than even I realized.

What do you think???

I've had an interesting situation come up and I am curious as to what YOU think.

Here's my question....

Do you think parents should be able to quietly sit in the back of their child's classroom when ever they feel the need to? This is of course after signing in at the office and possessing a visitor's badge.

Think about that for a minute while I tell you the shortened version of my story.

Kimberly has to give a current events oral report every week. When she came home I asked her how she did, this was her 2nd week, she said thinks she did alright, but her teacher wouldn't let her use her notes at all. I said what?, did she do that to all of you? She said no, just me. Obviously, I was a little perplexed, because I didn't prepare her to have it memorized, just comfortable enough not to have to keep her nose in the paper. The next day, I decided I needed to go to the classroom and observe the next set of these reports and watch what was expected so I could better prepare her for the next one.

I checked into the office, and quietly sat in the back of the class. After the reports were given, the kids left for recess, I asked the teacher about the correct form to use because the one she gave me in parent/teacher conference was different than what was used in class that day. She gave me her answer. She talked a few minutes about Kimberly's report the day before, I was very careful not to comment too much. I didn't want to start something during the school day. I did think it was interesting she started to explain herself when I didn't say a thing about it.

Anyway, the bell rang and she left to go get the kids. I left and came home. She asked Kim why I was there and she told her to watch the current events reports.

Do you see a problem with that??? Keep in mind, I am an involved parent. I attend my parent/teacher conferences, as well as volunteer in my children's classrooms. I have been an involved parent in this school for 8 years. I would be surprised if there were very many adults in that entire school that either didn't know me or know of me or my family.

Well, she was upset that I was there without an appointment? I didn't tell her why I was there or how long I was going to be there. She never asked and I didn't interrupt to volunteer that information. If she would have asked, I would have told her I was there to see the current events reports.

She got the principal involved and he backed her and said I had no business being in there with out giving her a "heads up" first. All for safety reasons. I called the district, and they backed them as well.

I thought to myself... if I was interested in what was "really" going on in my child's classroom, why would I give the teacher a "heads up" to prepare for my being there. Wouldn't it be a more clear assessment if I just showed up? Why can't I as a parent, whose checked into the office, check on my childs school experience when ever I feel the need to ??

What do you think???

When in Rome...

Emily has been studying Rome in class for a couple of weeks now. Yesterday, they all had to go dressed as Romans and do activities and things along that line.

We both are grateful for big sisters. I am not very good with this kind of stuff and we were saved once again by Melanie who took her down stairs after prayer and did her magic!!

Here's what she came up looking like...

She is beautiful!!

She was very happy with the results!! I am amazed what a little makeup will do for a little girl?!!

She'll be 12 in a couple of weeks, I think I'm in BIG trouble!!!

Thanks, Melanie!!

She Passed!!

We decided it was time to get Beth licensed. She's had her permit for over a year. When I took her down there a couple months ago, they said she had to take the driving test. None of my kids had to do that, they did it at the school. Anyway, we had to get her practiced up again. We were on a dead line. She had to pass the driving test before Feb 20th because her written test would expire after that. Then she would have to do both. We meant to have her practise but life has been too busy, and she really doesn't like driving, so she didn't push it.

We've had such wonderful weather for a couple of weeks now. It surely didn't feel like January and February. Wouldn't you know it, on the day of Bethanie's driving test we would wake up to not only snowing, but snow all over the place. It had been snowing pretty good for a few hours. If she wasn't already nervous, she was doubly nervous now!! She's never driven in snow before.

Dad let her drive out there, and a little bit around before they went in.

She Passed!! She did pretty good, Too! You can have 20 errors and pass and she had 13. I'd say pretty good for not really driving much! She really hasn't driven a whole lot in the last several months.

Congratulations, Beth, You did good!!

Steven's Birthday

Monday, Steven turned 14 years old!

Steven never ceases to amaze me in how he tests me constantly! He decided the weekend before his bday to not only ditch his last class of the day, but to get caught and lie to the police officer to try to get out of it.

I cringe when ever I get a call from the school asst principal because he deals with the "problems". It's not that Steven is a trouble maker, usually. But this year he is having some issues, obviously. Earlier this year he was jumped by some kids in the halls and was suspended for defending himself. Long story, but boy was I not happy with that. Anyway, it wasn't just a one time thing, so I've had a few calls from Mr. Jackman.

Anyway, Friday, Mr. Jackman called me to inform me of this most recent infraction. Because it's his first truancy, it was classified as a warning, which only means no fees. But he did get in school suspension. Which basically is sitting in detention the whole day. I don't get the idea that you get in trouble for missing a class, so they punish you by making you miss all your classes for one day! Am I missing something here??? The alternative is for him to have to attend classes and miss his lunch social time for 5 days. That's the one I chose! It just makes more sense to me.

The point of telling you this is my dillemma of, it was his birthday weekend and week and now I couldn't let him go hang out with his friends. Hello?, couldn't he pick a better week to do something like this? Why do I feel bad punishing him???

Anyway, we celebrated with just our family. He asked for our traditional waffles and Ice cream breakfast. Jon and Beth took him on a hike to Elephant Rock after school. They seemed to enjoy that. They came home laughing and laughing. It's not exactly the best time of year to go hiking in the mountains. The very last of the hike, Jon was knee deep in the snow which made Steven even deeper!! They said it was still fun! I'll have to get some pics from their cameras and make a post out of it!

He wanted pizza for his bday dinner. We were supposed to play some games together, but he and Dad took off for longer than expected, they were supposed to be getting ice cream, but ended up at blockbuster, go figure!! We only had time for him to open his presents (yes, I caved and gave him his present anyway. :) )and have cake and ice cream before my elementary kids had to get to bed.

He stayed up and watched a movie before I scooted him to bed just before midnight.

Even though Steven likes to test me A LOT, I do recognize that he is also a sweetheart. He doesn't seem to mind being our "go for" anything. If I say I need something from the storage rooms or fridges downstairs, he's the first to volunteer. If anyone asks to go get anything, he jumps. He doesn't seem to mind babysitting and playing with his younger brother and sisters. He scratches backs during sacrament meeting. He can be quite thoughtful when he puts his mind to it! I Love you, Baby!!

Kimberly's Pioneer Day

Again, I was going through my pics on my card and found these pics and realized I forgot to post about Kimberly's Pioneer Day at school.

She dressed up and had to take her lunch to school wrapped in cloth in a basket. She thought that was great.

They played games and wrote on chalkboards at their desks. She also had to memorize and recite a poem and as many presidents of the United States as she could. We only had a week to do all the memorizing, she did an awesome job!! She memorized 24 presidents and wants to keep going to memorize the rest!

Aaron's Baptism

Aaron was baptized on Saturday.

We had a little luncheon for him before. Aaron had to be there a little earlier than the rest of us, here they are all ready to go.

When it was time for the rest of us to go, we all piled in the cars and rode down to the stake center.

There were 4 children from our stake that day, 3 boys and 1 girl. We were the very last, but that made it nice not to have to move to another room after for the confirmation.


He was baptized by his brother Shawn, with Dad and Jon as the witnesses.

He was confirmed by his Dad afterwards.



Just now I realized that I missed a great opportunity to take some pictures of all of us together all dressed up. I can hardly believe that I didn't think of it until now. Bummer!! :(

Afterwards, we went back to the house and had desserts. My visiting teacher brought some rocky road brownies and some other cake like treat that was really yummy. Ben also made a chocolate pudding cake from scratch. All were a big hit!

That night I asked him how he felt, he said he felt good! I'm never quite sure if they really understand all they are covenanting to do, they still seem so young and innocent at this age. He kept saying that he was excited to get the Holy Ghost!!

Thank you to all who were able to come and share in his special day.

Silly Pics

I was going through the pics on my card and found these cute silly faces, thought I would share...

Tiff got this velcro cake decorating set for Christmas, looks like she got a little creative! Cracks me up!!

Just had to share!!

Not to knock all you football fans, but I sure got a geat laugh reading my nieces blog this morning. Since her blog is private, I had to steal it from her to show you.....

Her title

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL???

yeah, me neither!

This just cracks me up!! I grew up in a football loving family, I was the only one who didn't care one bit about football. I swore I would marry a man that didn't sit around watching football. My mom said, "good luck with that one honey!" I was blessed, Doug doesn't watch football, he doesn't watch most sports. We do like to watch volleyball or the the olympics, but that's about it!!

Anyway, I had a real good laugh this morning, hope it brightens your day too!!

Thanks, GG!!

And if you DO like football, hope you enjoy your game!! ;-)

Repairs, Repairs, Repairs!!

When it rains, it pours at our house, apparently!

I've had to fork out quite a bit of money the last couple of months for appliance repairs, YUCK!

We had to fix the washer because it was spinning out of control and making a huge racket every time it went through the spin cycles. Just over $350, it's a real good heavy duty, extra capacity model that can't be replaced, worth the bucks!

We had to fix the dishwasher because it developed a mind of it's own and didn't want to run a wash cycle, it kept switching to rinse only cycle. About $350, had to replace the front panel.

Then both my outside refrigerators were acting up out in the garage. I had the same repair man that fixed the last two appliances check out the fridges, he said he couldn't even diagnose them because it was too cold outside to get them to come on. So I had to clean out my furnace room to make room to bring them inside. What a mess! I just put it all in my living room downstairs and thought I'll get it cleaned up the next weekend. It's totes and boxes of clothes and STUFF. It's been 4 weeks! The plan is to get it cleaned up this weekend, BEFORE the baptism! HOPEFULLY!!

Anyway, while I was emptying out my furnace room, I noticed that one of my water heaters was leaking and had yuck down the side. Not good! So I had my heating/cooling neighbor guy come over. Sure enough, it needed to be replaced! The good news...it was 3 months inside the warranty!! The bad news...warranty only covers the water heater itself, not the labor to replace it. Oh well, can't win them all! About $450!

About the fridges, once we got them inside, they started working again. One of them probably needs the temp control thingie bobber replaced eventually. But because it's running within 5 degrees of where it should be, for now we'll wait and see how it goes.

I really appreciate my repair men (Dean & Ryan at Beehive Appliance). They are awesome to not push repairs if we can get away with out them! They didn't charge me for extra service calls and combined labor where they could. Ryan told me if the fridge were his, he would wait until it wouldn't freeze ice cream anymore, then replace it. He took my model number info so he would have it when we decided to do it. Saved, for now!! I kind of like the fridges & freezer inside the house instead of out in the garage.

I must add that I am very grateful these appliances waited patiently to need attention until after we were employed again. The Dishwasher was real obvious. I was having trouble with it several months ago. The whole time we were unemployed it didn't act up once, but as soon as we had a job, it started in again! Coincidence??? I think not!

Oh I forgot to mention...Our van is dead in the driveway. ::sniff, sniff:: Haven't decided what to do about it yet!

Well, got to get busy on the living room downstairs. Should I take some before and after pics? Admit to what we've been living in down there? Maybe!!

New blog to visit

Bethanie is taking a creative writing class this semester and one of the assignments is to create a blog.

She is such a writer! She wrote a wonderful poem for my flower a couple months ago. I love to read her written words. I am so excited to be able to get more glimpses of her work.

She gave me permission to post a link on my side bar to her blog.

It's called One Struggle Against Silence

Prepared to be amazed!!

Love ya, Beth!!

Pinewood Derby!

It's hard to believe I have a cub scout again!! Aaron had his first den meeting a couple weeks ago. His first pack meeting just happened to be the Pinewood Derby.







When you have a boy in cub scouts, expect to be called to cub scouts. So when Bro Dixon wanted to come over and chat, I was wondering for who it would be for. Sure enough, Doug was released as Gospel Doctrine Teacher and called to be the assistant Cub Master. Talk about a change in scenery!! This was his first pack meeting as well!










Aaron had fun designing his car with his Dad. Then painting it and of course racing it.

Well, he didn't have so much fun when it wasn't winning!

After the competition was over they let the boys race over and over for as long as they wanted. Aaron kept going back until his car finally took first. He said, "That's all I wanted, let's go!! and he was a happy camper again!!

He won the "Best Spoiler" Award!

Women's Conference!

I got my "It's time to register" for Women's Conference card in the mail!

Melanie and I are excited to go! It's a fantastic opportunity to recharge our determination to be better women! Believe me, you come away so charged, you're exhausted!!

April 29th & 30th!

Anyone want to come with us?? The cost is about $120 for 3 nights lodging and 2 full days conference (at registration), then you'll need money for food and whatever while we're there. There's also a fantastic concert Thursday night, sure to please (included in the conference cost)! Let me know and I will give you our link to keep us all together.

For more info visit the BYU Women's Conference site

Let me know if you have any questions!

It's going to be a blast!!

Birthdays!

January is a month for birthdays for us! I can't believe I missed writing about all of them!

So here goes...

First on the 15th, Bethanie turned 17! We really didn't do a whole lot with her, she is definitely our typical 17 year old. She made plans of her own with her older siblings. They went to dinner at Ruby River and to a movie. They saw Avitar. I asked about going with her and she didn't seem very enthusiastic, so I didn't. The rest of the weekend was kind of busy, so we really didn't do much. We didn't know what to get her, so we just gave her some cash. I think she's using it to go to the Chris Daughtry concert in April. I want to make her a pumpkin pie in celebration of her birthday but haven't yet. I better do that this week and take a pic for our end of year slide show. She's still working on getting her drivers license. She has to take the driver test before the 20th or she'll have to retake the written. Yuck! I didn't have a pic to put in that I took on her bday, I know I already used this one, but it's a good one so I decided to use it again.

Second on the 18th, Melanie turned 20! No longer a teenager! Her bday fell on a Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so she didn't have to go to work! That was lucky for her both jobs were closed that day! I'm not sure I remember what she did with her day, I think she slept in and just enjoyed her day. For Family Home Evening we just played games together and ate cake and ice cream. I think I made her favorite dinners all weekend, including ordering some Papa John's pizza one of the nights!

Third was my bday on the 24th! I celebrated all weekend. I went to dinner with my hubby on Friday. We had Pinewood derby with Aaron Saturday morning, then dinner with Gina that night. Sunday was of course church, so I made a wonderful BBQ pork ribs in the crock pot! My family were wonderful to help me celebrate with and with out them all weekend. Melanie made us some of her wonderful cinnamon rolls! I almost forgot to take a pic before they were gone.

Steven's bday is next!