Weekly Review February 5 '11

Happy Birthday to Ben!! I had to say that before I forget!


I'll start out with some photos I forgot to post last week. First, here is Snickers with his nice new hair cut:

Doesn't he look cute? He is one handsome dog! I admit I don't really understand dogs. I wonder every day when I take him outside, why he has to sniff and sniff to find the spot that "smells right" before he'll poop. Wouldn't any patch of grass do? (Preferably, one right next to the front door!) When it is cold outside, I would especially like it if he were not so picky! He is fun, though, and I admit that it is good that he gets me outside a lot more than I would be otherwise. I think the outdoors is beautiful, but I tend to stay inside too much. Anyway, here is a picture of Scott and Tanner, also with new haircuts:

I meant to post that one last week. Now, on to this week! One of the benefits of being up early to pick up the boys from Seminary, as well as being forced to take the dog out early every morning, is that I see a lot more sunrises than I used to see. (While Snickers has his nose to the ground, sniffing for the "right" spot, I am looking up at the sky!) Like this one, on the last day of January:

As always, the pictures don't do it justice. These photos were taken after I got back from taking the boys to school. On the way to pick them up, it looked incredible also--the sky was a little pinker and a little sliver of a moon was still up. I didn't have a camara then, though!

Now for the weather report. Today it is "misting". It is wet, cold and miserable. It rained on Wednesday but the temperatures were in the mid 40's, so it felt a bit balmy and after the sun came out if was actually quite nice--until the sun went down and the temperatures dropped. The rest of the week has been cold gray winter. The huge storm we were supposed to get did not really materialize. We did get some freezing rain Monday night and it was a bit icy Tuesday morning, but everyone was still surprised when Frederick County cancelled school that day. What was that about? The kids were thrilled, of course, but I found that day rather trying. I had a lot of work to do and the boys weren't too happy about helping with that. They also weren't happy that I made them do some scouts and some Duty to God stuff, but I am a mean mom so I made them do it anyway. We got a lot done, but it took most of the day and I was exhausted from all the contention! Seth got ahold of the camera and took this blurry photo of Scott playing games (after the work got done):

That's Jared in the background, and in the foreground you can see that Tanner is on facebook, getting caught up with "his peeps", as he calls them.

I think even the kids were glad when normal life resumed on Wednesday and they were able to go to school, basketball practice, and YM. I had a presidency meeting that evening while they were at YM. Frank had work to do, so Seth came with me.

Scott started a new class on Wednesday--he transferred out of his AP Environmental Science class because he found out he was supposed to take Chemistry first, which he hasn't taken. He wanted to take Physics instead, but the counselor insisted that he take Chemistry and he is not happy about it. It's not going to be a fun semester. He can be very stubborn when he doesn't get what he wants. We are already struggling to get him caught up on the things he missed before he transferred into the class. He thinks there is no way that he can pass the class, which is not a very good attitude to have going into it.

Tanner and Jared went to spend the night with Ryan and Bryson last night, so it was just Seth, Scott and I after school. I took this picture of Scott holding Snickers because I thought it was so cute:

Scott had some friends over last night. I've been encouraging him to do some group dating, and he finally got around to getting something organized with some of his other friends. Each of the boys invited a girl and they all came to our house to make dinner, play games, and watch a movie. Scott made lasagna and cheddar biscuits (with my help), Neil (boy in the center) brought a salad, and Ricardo (on the far left) made a cake. They are playing tennis with Collette and Ellen in the picture (yes, that's me with Snickers on my lap in the background):

Scott and Abbie (the girl he invited) are watching:

Ellen came with Ricardo and Neil came with Collette. (Ellen is the girl that Scott took out once this summer--they have the same birthday).

After dinner, they watched a movie (How to Train Your Dragon). Seth really enjoyed having all the "big kids" over. He flirted shamelessly with all the girls. Here he is making himself at home in between Scott and Abbie:

I think everyone had a good time, judging by the amount of laughing going on and how long they stayed up (about 11:00 before everyone started heading home). When I was cleaning up the dishes, I found this on one of the cake pans:

Cute, eh?! I have no idea who wrote it, although it doesn't look like Scott's handwriting.

Since we were up pretty late, we slept in this morning. It's been a bit of a stressful day (mostly because of chemistry) but we are hoping to relax and have some fun together as a family this evening. I have a baptism to attend in a few minutes, so we are waiting until I get back.

The rest of this week was the usual busy stuff. Frank had a lot of work to do. I also did a whole lot of cleaning and organizing on the main level and although I wore myself out a bit, the house does look a lot better. It's amazing how little time it takes for the house to get messy and unorganized! But for now, it looks great, and I breath a deep sigh of satisfaction every time I look around. (But don't ask me to go down to the basement!)

We feel very blessed and we are glad that it is February!