Daddy Daughter Date Night

On September 19th, Shaelynne and Ken went out on their first Activity Days Daddy Daughter Date. Since I am one of the leaders, I got to tag along also and take lots of pictures.... :)
They decorated picture frames together.

Then they helped each other get ready for the night. Shaelynne shaved her Dad...

And then Ken fixed her hair. Afterwards, they posed for a picture which they will put in their frames but I don't have that picture.

Finally, they had a cake decorating contest. They brought their cakes baked and ready to be decorated. Ken and Shaelynne decided to make a purse cake. They made two round cakes and then stood them up together. Ken cut a little too much off of one side so just as they finished, the one side fell over. I love this look on Shaelynne's face. She is such a perfectionist so this was a very stressful moment for her. She quickly thought it through and suggested it just be an open purse. They filled it with M&M's and called it a success!

Ken had a good time teasing Shaelynne. She just enjoyed being with her dad!

 

It was a fun night and since it was also my birthday, Shaelynne brought her cake home instead of eating it at the activity and we all got to eat purple purse cake. YUM!

Cross Country 2008

Zach is running cross country this fall. Since his charter school does not offer sports, he is running with Robert Stuart Jr. High. He is having a good time and has made a lot of new friends.

Assignment of the Week

In honor of the many papers I am seem to find myself writing, each week I'm going to post a personal favorite (and also got a good grade on)

This one is from my education class:

To continue to discern between schooling and education, please answer the following question. What do you think has been the most important thing you learned in school, and what has been the most important thing you have learned outside of school?

Upon graduating from high school, I did not have not much self esteem left. I had gone to school each day to learn intellectual subjects and walked away with an education in my social status among my peers. Looking back, that was my entire education. While I know I was taught other things, I did not learn them. I do not place blame on anyone but myself, but in talking to many other former classmates, many of them also have the same feelings towards those years. They were hard years and we were hard on each other! I have often thought that I spent the first half of my life in school learning how to be an adult and a contributing member of society and the second half of my life out of school trying to undo all that I learned, heal my inner child, and ironically, still have no idea what my role in society is. What I have learned outside of school is that my entire life is a learning process and that sometimes the things I learn can’t be graded or passed off. It’s a process where I am trying to become the best person I can be while learning to understand the world around me.

Creative Art?

Zach was given an assignment by his art teacher "to prove that he had all the required supplies at home that are listed on the class supply list." Zach asked if they could just bring the supplies in and show them to the teacher. The teacher told him that this was a creative art class and he wanted to see what project each student could come up with to prove to him that the supplies were indeed purchased and at home ready to be used. Zach expressed his frustration at this assignment to me. I suggested that we have some fun with it since that is what the teacher intended, I am sure. Here is Zach's finished project. He printed this off and turned it into his teacher. The teacher laughed and laughed and told him that was exactly what he was expecting; something creative, totally unique and very fun! (This teacher always has his hair in a pony tail with a pencil in it so that is what the pencil is doing.)



I asked Zach how he felt about the assignment after he handed it in. His comment was, "Make a silly assignment, get a silly answer."

To: YOU!

Since all my limited amount of creativity goes into writing paper after paper after paper lately, I don't have much brain left to post here. I'm realizing that I miss writing down the exciting(?) events of my crazy life though, so I've got to at least journal some things. This is where it's all at so I'm going to keep writing here.

Warning: The creativity level of this blog is going to go way down. Sorry.

And my commenting on your blogs has all but disappeared. I'm still here, just not as much.

We can still be weekend and holiday break friends though.....:)!

Weekend Review

Last weekend was our stake conference. On Friday evening the youth met with for a youth fireside. Ken took Zach. The report I got was that it was a talk on morality. Ken teased me that when I have "the talk" with the kids, I just tell it how it is. When he steps in and has "the talk", he allows a General Authority to teach. Whatever...as long as it's getting done. After putting up a stink about giving up his Friday evening for another church meeting, I hinted in his ear that a trip to Sonic might be involved, his attitude changed and as he slurped on his slushie, he claimed it was the best meeting he'd ever been to. Call it bribery, I call it working.

Saturday was the priesthood meeting and the adult meeting. The talk was pretty much on finance. Then they turned it over to question and answers. When asked what the secret was to raising teenagers, Elder Robbins said, "Ask your husbands. We covered that in the Priesthood meeting." OOPS! Missed that one. Ken went out to do Marine Patrol that morning and was seriously 1 minute from home when a call came out that a boat was sinking. He turned around, hooked up the boat and went back to work, missing the Priesthood meeting. My thought was, "If your going to cover such an important topic as raising teenagers, don't give it to the men, give it to the women. They're the ones who #1)will be at the meeting and #2)are doing the raising.

Sunday we went to the General meeting. Our the two Twin Falls stakes were divided to form a new stake. We are now in the new South stake. A new temple, a visit from the prophet and now a new stake. It's all so exciting. A little personal story: I was excited for this new stake but at the same time feeling a litte hesitant also. Maybe that's not the right word. I just feel like it was like we were moving and starting all over again because I don't know very many people from the 5 other wards we combined with. I knew that I would not know the new Stake Presidency but I wanted to feel the Spirit that day as our new leaders were called. They announced them and immediately I loved them. Then they asked their wives to come bear their testimonies along with the newly called Presidency. The 2nd counselor's wife spoke and I loved her. Then the 2nd counselor spoke and I liked him. Then the 1st counselor's wife got up from the second row and walked to the microphone. As she turned so I could see her face, tears started to flow down my cheeks. Not only had the Lord heard my prayers but he had answered them and added one of those sweet tender mercies moments. This woman was sent to our family a year ago and provided the glue that I needed to hold my family together and my own life together. She is a gift from God and I love her. She has changed my life and my family. She has a smile that makes me feel safe and loved. The rest of the meeting was emotional for me. I felt very humbled.

Our Bishop was called into the Stake as a clerk so in addition to all the changes that have already taken place, we get a new Bishop this Sunday. Also, since we have been meeting in the West Stake Building, tonight we are having a moving party to move our ward to a different building until our Stake building can be built.

Wordless Wednesday

This picture has some background. So I guess it's not entirely wordless. Maybe after my explanation, you'll understand why this picture is wordless.

Monday morning I have a class on campus. I also have to put in 30 hours of classroom fieldwork for this same class. Rather than leave my little ones more than once a week, I have arranged to have them spend all of Monday morning in a day care while I go to school. It's only one day a week for four hours. Plus I'm doing my classroom hours at the older kids school so I get to spend some time with them. That's double, right?

So, Monday morning I loaded all the kids into the car to head off to school. I put my sunglasses on because it's really bright at 7:30 in the morning,depending on which way you are driving, which was into the sun. Zach was in the front seat next to me. He looked over at me and asked, "Mom, why are tears running down your face?" I just smiled at him. The kids in the back overheard some of what he said so they asked him what was going on. I motioned the finger to my lips "Shh" sign. He got it and just said, "Mom's just having a hard time being a mom today." I was.

I left my two little ones kicking and screaming, as I ran out the door of the day care. I kept thinking, "Is this worth it?"

I loved my time in the classrooms and my class is always enjoyable.

Four hours later I returned to pick up my little ones. Henry was asleep and Kate met me at the door with her backpack on and her preschool papers in her hand. She was out of there! I brought them home and laid Henry in his bed. He slept for 3 more hours. I listened to him sniffle the entire time. Kate told me all about how she didn't like following rules and how they made her stay with her class and she just wanted to check on her baby brother. Then she grabbed her cat and said she needed to spend some time with her baby brother. She climbed up next to him and I told her to be quiet and not wake him up. A few minutes later this is what I found.

 

You know the saying, "A picture is worth a thousand words....."

In defense of the day care: It is a day care run by Ken's aunt and his cousins wife teaches the preschool class. We know them very well. His aunt has allowed me to bring Kate and Henry over to do some volunteer hours with her kids so they have been there before. They are in good hands. It's just new to us and hard to leave. I really like just staying home and being a full time mom. I have been spoiled!