Weekly Review November 6 '10

School spirit! (Scott showered before I got a photo of his red face.)

The rest of the photos are from Scott's Eagle Scout project:

Cute boy enjoying the outdoors

Boys playing around

Tanner takes a whack at a rock

Digging

More digging

And more digging

Beginning to move the turtle habitat

Not afraid to get his hands dirty!!

Moving the habitat

More moving--using logs to roll it down the hill

Lowering the habitat into it's new home

One of the turtles (won't go into the new habitat until spring)

Another turtle who's getting an improved home.

All the hard workers (+ a few cute kids)

Before I go any further, I should mention that I did do a weekly post last week. It posted before the post with the photo of the bent curtain rod, because I started the weekly post first. So if you missed it, go check it out. There are some really cute pictures of Seth in his Halloween costume!

Do I need to say it? Yes, this week was busy, too!

We started out being a little late to church on Sunday. That's because our wonderful clock "fell back" a week early. We bought it a few years ago, before they moved the dates we go on and off daylight savings time, and it's "hard wired" somehow to automatically "fall back" and "spring ahead". This would be very convenient if it were changing on the correct dates, but is not so convenient since it's not. We really need to get a new clock!! Anyway, shortly after I got out of the shower at what we thought was 7:00, Frank happened to check his phone for messages, and noticed that it said 8:00. We immediately realized what had happened and went into panic mode. I think we did pretty well--getting everyone up, ready and out the door in less than an hour! We got to church in time to sing about half of the opening hymn.

Jared was recognized in Sacrament Meeting for advancing into YM; he recited the 11th Article of Faith. After church, Frank ordained him to the Aaronic priesthood which was especially wonderful because our bishop invited Scott and Tanner to both join the circle for that. After that ordinance, I rushed off to a Primary presidency meeting, followed by a visit to a new family in our ward who have 3 Primary age children. I missed choir practice entirely--trying to do too many things at the same time! It was nice to come home from the visit and relax after that. We had family night that evening, which was interrupted by the arrival of trick or treaters several times. We were reading scriptures afterwards; we are in Mosiah and were reading the chapter where Abinadi is teaching King Noah and his priests about the 10 commandments. Right as Frank read the verse where he teaches "Keep the Sabbath day holy"--ding dong! The doorbell rang for another trick or treater. We all got a kick out of the irony! Seth enjoyed seeing all the kids come to the door in costumes and didn't mind at all that he wasn't going out himself. We had fewer trick or treaters than usual this year, though, so maybe we aren't the only ones who don't go out on Sunday. No one came to our door after 8:00. Up until then, we could hear a lot of the neighbors outside chatting and someone behind us had Halloween spooky sounds cranked up really loud, but by the time I put Seth to bed at 8:30, it was completely quiet outside and not a soul was out on the streets. We thought that was kind of strange, but didn't mind of course!

We've been busy this week getting ready for Scott's Eagle scout project. He had to send several emails and make some phone calls. Then yesterday he called everyone to remind them about the project this morning. We were going to buy supplies this week also, but then last night as we discussed what we were going to do this morning we decided that we weren't going to get to the building part yet, so we decided to wait to buy the supplies. We thought Home Depot was going to donate / give a discount on some of the supplies, but it's starting to look like that isn't going to happen. It's been a little frustrating because every time Scott talks to them he gets a different story. The first person he talked to (a couple of months ago) made it sound like they would probably donate a significant amount of the supplies, but the last person he talked to said they would probably only give him a $25 gift card, and for that amount it doesn't really seem worth the hassel.

The kids were out of school on Monday and Tuesday. Monday was a teacher work day and Tuesday was election day. Why do I always think that when the kids are out of school, I'm going to have more time to relax? I still had plenty of work to do, even though they were "on vacation". On Monday Tanner and Jared went to Ryan & Bryson's house. Scott went with another friend from the ward (David) to help him and one of the men in our ward work on a little film they are making for some church competition. Apparently, he had a lot of fun. Scott and Tanner have both been growing out of their jeans, so I arranged to pick up Tanner & Jared and meet Scott at the store to see if we could find some jeans. I was later than I'd planned, but Scott was with David and they got lost so they were even later. I was starting to feel pretty concerned by the time they showed up. I spent the time waiting, though, combing all the shelves for pants in what I thought was his size and managed to find 3 pair. When he arrived, he tried them on and they did fit well, so we got them. Scott's 3 pair of jeans that he is outgrowing fit Tanner, so I didn't have to buy any for anyone else. (And thank goodness; the ones I found for Scott weren't all that cheap. I've never spent that much on a pair of jeans for myself before. They weren't outrageously expensive, but they were more than I'm used to paying.)

Frank had to be at work really early on Tuesday (4:00 am). I got up early too so I could go to the temple. (I decided to take advantage of the fact that I had babysitters at home that day.) I managed to make it to the first session, which starts at 8:00. I had a few anxious moments because the traffic was worse than I had anticipated that morning, but it all worked out perfect. (They only have sessions every hour on weekdays during the day, so if I'd missed the 8:00 session I would have had to wait an hour for the next one.) When I got to the temple, the sun had just come up and the temple was bathed in this beautiful, soft early-morning glow. The sky behind the temple was a gorgeous soft blue, still streaked with pink. The trees around the temple were beautiful fall colors, and some white Christmas lights (which they must have just put up) were still on and twinkling. It was just a breathtaking sight--oh, how I wished I had a camera with me!!! I feel so grateful that I got to see that amazing sight!

After he got off work that day, Frank went directly to our church because he had signed up to help "babysit" the building for a few hours. Because it is a polling place, they wanted a priesthood holder to be present in the church at all times, just to keep an eye on things. The man who was supposed to relieve him after his two hours were up was an hour late--Frank wasn't too pleased about that! But he finally got home, and he and I went to vote (our polling place is the middle school down the street). We took Seth with us because the older 3 boys were all at Ryan & Bryson's house again. Jared had soccer practice that evening--his last one for this season.

On Wednesday after school I took all three older boys to get haircuts. Frank had to work all night that night. Unfortunately, he was working all day Wednesday also, so he only got about a one hour nap. I had a RS meeting that evening--our Christmas activity. There was a class with gift ideas for friends and neighbors, a bunch of Christmas family home evening ideas, and they also had several Christmas crafts we could make. I had signed up to do two of those. I finished the first one (a sillouette nativity on a glass block) but had to bring the other one home to finish (an advent calendar). We already have a nice advent calendar, but I decided to do this one as a gift. It is so cute that I wanted to learn how to make it! It's made from a mini muffin tin that has 24 cups. Each cup is covered with a decorative square (made from patterned papers and other fun Christmas scrapbooking products) attached to the tin with magnets. You can put a piece of candy or some other small treat in each cup. I spent a couple of hours making all the squares on Thursday afternoon. I still need to attach the magnets to finish it up. They suggested adding a scripture to read each day, which I'm going to do also. Anyway, at the meeting we each brought a favorite holiday appetizer or dessert to share. It was a fun night, chatting with others while making our projects and eating lots of yummy food!

Thursday I helped take kids in Seth's class to the library and then I took Snickers to the vet to get an immunization. The rain really came down all day; it was cold and wet. It seems that our beautiful fall weather is coming to an end. It was cold (not just chilly) on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the rain on Thursday, the temperatures came up a bit but it's definitely not warm and mellow anymore. I guess it couldn't last forever! The trees all over town are really beautiful right now, though.

Scott and Tanner's school had homecoming this weekend, so they had "spirit week" and were supposed to dress up in different ways on different days all week, finishing up with a pep rally on Friday. On that day, each class was supposed to wear a different school color (they are red, white, and blue--the seniors were supposed to wear all three colors). Some of their friends had some face paint, so Scott wore red face paint all day and Tanner wore blue. We didn't do anything fun Friday night--we were tying up loose ends for Scott's project and our main goal was to get to bed early! (Tanner did have his friend Seth over, though--he didn't have a way to get to the church Saturday morning, so we just had him spend the night and come with us the next morning.)

Today we had a "non stop" day. We met at the church at 8:15 to offer rides to any who needed them up to Cunningham Falls State Park, which is where Scott is doing his Eagle Scout Project. Not many people met us there, but we did get a few and then several other people met us up there or arrived later. In the end, we had close to 20 people there working (including us), so that was a pretty good group. We did some more excavating to level the site out a little, moved the turtle cage to the new location, re-assembled a few of the pieces that had to be taken apart, and did a little more leveling. We were done by 11:00, which was earlier than we'd planned, but that was good since we had a lot going on. I spent most of the time watching Seth and monitoring the snacks we brought for everyone. I had purchased a lot of snacks and bottled water, but the hot chocolate we made that morning was the most popular choice, by far!

By the time we cleaned up and got back home, we only had about an hour until Jared's soccer game. Seth curled up on my lap and fell asleep, so we left him with the older boys and Frank & I both went to the game. We were really interested to see how this game went because they were playing a team that beat everyone by a huge margin last season (and they weren't very nice about it, either). Jared's team has been playing a lot better this season, though, so we were interested to see if they would do better against this team this time around. We were thrilled when Jared's team didn't just do better, they beat the other team, 4-3! Jared's team actually was ahead 3-0 at half time, but the other team rallied in the second half and made 3 goals. Fortunately, Jared's team made another goal that half also, so they came out on top. The other team were poor sports when they won last year, and they were poor sports again when they lost, unfortunately. It was the last game of the season, and they were undefeated up until this game, so they considered themselves the "champions" coming into the game. This league is a non-competitive league and they don't even keep track of wins and losses, but the coach of the other team had purchased a trophy for his team and after the game they were running around with it and saying "in your face, Cosmos"(Jared's team name). As Frank put it--"not very classy". Jared's team just kind of shrugged their shoulders at them. Jared's team also only lost one game this season, so if they had been keeping track and awarding a championship, Jared's team would have got it. At any rate, it was a great way to end the season, with a big win like that, and we are proud of Jared and his team for working so hard and for being great sports.

The game started a little late and went a little long, so by the time we finished there it was time to go straight on to our next activity, which was the ward chili cook off. Frank made chili Friday night and it cooked in the crock pot all night and day. It was good, but a bit too spicy for me. However, those who like their chili spicy loved it, and he won the award (by a large margin) for "spiciest chili". Everyone had a good time--the boys enjoyed socializing with friends, playing volleyball, and participating in sack races. They also had hayrides and a campfire with s'mores. We left a little early because we were tired and ready for bed! It was a long day, but a lot of good was accomplished.

Seth has been a bit on the ornery side this week. He has been falling apart over little things and screaming whenever he wants something or when he doesn't get his way. Not much fun! I think he hasn't been getting enough sleep. I've been working on teaching him a better way to ask for something when he wants it, which includes refraining from screaming when I feel like doing that myself!

He is so fun when he is happy, though. He goes all over the house, singing. It is especially funny to overhear him singing one of the popular songs of the day ("...I could really use a wish right now...", "...tonight's gonna be a good, good night..." , "...because you're amazing just the way you are...", etc.!) He hears those songs on the car radio a lot when his brothers are in the car. One day I gave him a kiss on the cheek and exclaimed "You're so cute!" (Actually, I do that several times a day nearly every day.) This time, I thought to ask him "do you know what cute means?" He said "Yes." "What does it mean?" He pondered a moment, got a big grin on his face and said "It means 'I love you'!" Come to think of it, that's just about right! Another fun conversation we had this week as we were finishing off a bag of Cheetos: "I think we need to wash your hands." Seth: "I think we need to get some more Cheetos!"

Seth is also being funny about prayers. Right after we got home from Utah in June he started saying his own prayers at night (instead of me saying them for him, as I've been doing since he was very little). He said his own prayers for a week or so and then started to refuse to do it again. Just lately (the last couple of weeks) he has become very interested in family prayers and now he wants to say the prayer every time we say family prayer. He gets really upset when he has to give someone else a turn. However, he is still refusing to say his own prayers at night. He wants me to say it for him, but then he corrects me constantly through the whole prayer! What a monkey! Hopefully he will start saying his own prayers again soon. In the meantime, we are glad that he wants to pray at all--of course that's a good thing!