Changing of the Guard

Well, I am very bummed.  Sad.  Heavy heart.  Blah.  Why?  Because today was my last day as the official singing lady in primary.  Yup.  They released me.  BOOOOOO!!!!  With a very heavy heart I have accepted a new calling as the Ward Scout Committee Chair-Who Ha Whatever you call it person.  See, my new calling is not even half as cool as the primary chorister.  Yes, I am reluctant to leave primary.  The new woman called to fill the roll will be awesome.  And I already told the primary kids that they are not rid of me yet.  I will probably go visit often.  I am not a fan of Relief Society.  Forgive me all of you out there that are.  But, seriously?  Primary is so much fun!  The beauty of primary lies in the fact that it is the gospel in purity.  Primary is love, simple truths, innocence and happiness.  And talk about fun!  I loved it.  And I will miss it.  So, to help my kids and I all remember our amazing and awesome time in primary together I got us these singer kids.  

Each one represents one of my kids.  The smallest one was supposed to be mine, but Peter just claimed it.  They are nesting dolls but I split them up and inside each one is a roll of paper where I wrote down some memories I have of being in primary with my kids.  It was the best time ever.  I know, I may be in primary again one day.  But it will never be with all my kids at the same time.  Caleb leaves primary next year!  So, it is with a heavy heart that I leave my kids and primary.  How much can I say that I loved my time there.  It really is the best place to be on Sunday.

Christmas...started and ended perfectly

 Peter woke up at 7:45am, not too bad.  He was so excited to see what Santa brought him.  First words out of his mouth, "Awesome!"  And yes, Santa brought him plants, perfect for Peter.  When Haley woke up the first thing she did was give me a kiss and a hug.  It started out perfectly.

 Peter's presents from Santa.  He liked one present so much he did not open anything else until everyone else was done.

 Caleb was really stoked about these nesting nutcracker dolls.  And I must say, they are awesome.

 Haley was very happy with this princess nutcracker.

 The boys played happily for hours.  Like I said, going perfect so far.

Well, then there came that time where we made them leave home to go somewhere else and then someone got mad and there were some tears.  Not so perfect....but it did not last for long.

Because it snowed!!!!!  Yeah!  We all loved it.  Snowball fights, snow-ice cream, snow angels.  It was wonderful and fun and not cold and perfect.  Such a great way to spend the day together as a family.  Not 100% perfect, but nearly there. 

My kids are awesome

 So, two weeks ago Caleb came home from school informing us that he had volunteered to play Silent Night on his violin for his 6th grade Christmas program.  All of a sudden the practices became a little more serious and longer.  He proved his awesomeness several times by practicing while everyone else was playing.  He even skipped recess this week and stayed inside to practice his violin.  He also proved that he should not practice while tired, there were some cranky nights of violin.

 William had his Christmas program at school and it was cute, awesome and sweet.  And this teacher, Señorita Robles, is terrific!

 Today was the Day Of Truth for Caleb.  Today was the day that he had to play for the whole school and then the parents program in the class room.  He was great!  But this voluntary sharing of his talents did not come without some bumps in the road.  For two weeks Caleb practiced Silent Night in the key of D.  Also for a week and a half he was the only one playing music for the 6th grade to sing to.  HOWEVER, two days before the program (yes TWO DAYS) they changed the key from D to G on him!  They also added a piano player and two other violins for him to play with.  Caleb took it all in stride and was okay with the key change.  Man, talk about late notice.  But he did great.  My favorite parts of  the morning was watching Caleb play, hearing Peter's class Christmas song (5 hula hoops), and the 6th grade teachers performance.  It was awesome, epic, so fun and fabulous!  I wish I could show you the video, but trust me, 6th grade at Heartland Elementary has got to be the best!  Those teacher are fun and great!  Look at Señor Meza, he just emits coolness.

Then soccer tonight.  Wahoo!  The final score was 10 - 3, us!!!!!!  Caleb made amazing saves, terrific focus and the rest of the team did amazing (as is evident by the score).  Those three goals you are asking?  They were high, tough and one of them was even off of a ricochet that Caleb batted away.  Indoor soccer is intense, fun, fast and great training for these kids.  William and Haley were great siblings rooting for Caleb.  Peter is a terrific brother and even though he read a book the whole game, he still caught some of Caleb's saves.  Our family is awesome!

Christmas lunch day 5

All wrapped up, with yummy things inside and ready to start Christmas break.

Christmas lunch day 4

Snowman!  Unfortunately this lunch did not encourage the clouds to drop mountains of snow.

Christmas lunch day 3

Red, Green and Funny

I went with easy today and included some jokes to go along with it.

Christmas lunch day 2

Rudolph...

I only made one mistake in this lunch, I forgot to open the bottle of water for the boys before sending them off to school.  Dang.  I hope their little hands can crank it open.

Christmas lunch day 1

Since this is the last week the boys have school before Christmas vacation begins they will have fun little lunches each week.  Haley gets to have them too, just here at home.

Day 1: Gingerbread/Christmas tree theme.  My favorite is the juice box.

INTENSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We won 4 to 3!  What am I saying, Caleb's team won, I was just there biting my nails the whole time.  It was such an intense game!  So freaking hard and good!!!  I had so much adrenaline going through me I could not zip Haley's zipper after the game.  That was a hard game, and very fun.

Busy, Busy times

Well goodness, November really went by and I did not make much mention of it.  From soccer, homework, cleaning or nagging nothing much seems exciting enough to write.  The most news-worthy events were Thanksgiving and birthdays.  Thanksgiving was good, yummy good.  Kids got along pretty well....Diedre's birthday was relaxing and happy.  No big kid fights, no major problems.  It was good.  Rob's birthday was the most fun.  We went to the zoo.  It was packed because it was free zoo day, everyone in Utah went.  But it was also enjoyable because the animals were out and moving around, the kids were happy (Peter had a few problems with people getting in his space) and we walked away happy, contented people.  Pretty darn good for the month.

Farewell October, Hello November!

 Halloween 2014, The Medieval Times.  This was the best picture I got of Haley.

 Caleb was a knight, Peter was a wizard, William a king, and Haley a pink princess.  They had loads of fun trick-o-treating around our neighborhood.  We went with some friends, broke out the glow sticks and it was great.

 Caleb moved up into the big-leagues and was invited to go with his friends from school!  So, he went with us for about half an hour and then met with with his friends and they got a bunch.  Then they went to a friends house and played games, gambled for candy.... it was a great night for the boy.

 Hello November!  We worked on our Pinecone Turkey Family.  Haley loved doing it all on her own.

 Peter really got into it and made himself a turkey.  I asked him to give me a good turkey face, this is what he gave me.  So crazy

Our Pinecone Turkey Family for 2014.  It is going to be a good month!

Normal October life

Life sometimes gets swallowed up with the laundry and cooking.  Thought I would try to remember a few fun moments that happened.

 We made a big sprinkle mess while decorating cookies.  There may have been one child (that one being William) that filled his cup up with sprinkles and tried them straight.  He got tired of them pretty quick.

 We tried to go to the Scarecrow Festival, but when we realized it was canceled we headed to Wheeler Farm.  We took a fun wagon ride, met a sweet week old calf (Caleb named it Milkshake) and collected some leaves.

 Halloween pumpkins....foam stickers make things so easy.  But the kids keep begging to carve them too.  Humph  We have a princess, a fox, a skunk, a raccoon, two bats, and Peter's crazy pumpkin.

 Caleb outgrew his old bike and passed it on to Peter.  Caleb was able to go to Pa's house and get one from Pa's yard sale stash.  It fits Caleb much better.

 

The boys put their creativity to use for the school's Reflection program this year.  The theme was "The World would be a better place if..."  Caleb did two projects.  One was in literature.  He wrote a poem about the world/nature.  His other project was in photography.  He took pictures of each of our family members and his statement was, "The world would be a better place if people smiled more."

Peter wrote up how the world would be a better place for him.  It was entitled, "The things that make me happy."

William did a diorama of donut falls.  He also had some animals that he loves to see at Scofield.  Of course he has a rainbow in there.  It was entitled, "If there were more beautiful places."  They all did a great job of using their creativity and were happy with their projects.

Well, last night was the "Night at the Museum" and surprise, surprise: Caleb won an award for each of his entries!  Wow!  He was pleased and we are proud of him.

 Up next, Halloween.......The Medieval Times

Happy Number 4!

Okay, I am so far behind.  But I must remember this sweet girl's birthday before we get to Halloween.

 She woke  up bright and early so excited that it was finally her birthday!  Walking down the stairs she asked, "Am I 4?"  Such a sweet little heart.  We went to Wheeler Farm the day before and explored.  Then Sunday, the actual day of her birthday, we went to Stake Conference and then the family came over for dinner and noise.

 Haley's birthday cupcakes.  Who knew I would ever use so much red (making pink pancakes/waffles, cupcakes, frosting.....) food coloring in the space of four years?!?

 The early risers!  It was not even 7:00am and they were up and ready to help.

 Helping Haley break in a new toy.  The game soon turned into something totally different from what the manufacture of the toy intended, but at least they were together.

Another of the presents she loved was this rocking horse from Pa and a mermaid from Granny Gray.

She is also really into musical jewelry boxes.  And if you could not tell, princesses.  

 

 Every girl deserves beautiful flowers on her birthday.

The evening ended happily with a wrestling match between Dad, Haley and William.  Crazy times. 

Haley is all girl. And is generally nice to her brothers.  She loves pink, princesses, flowers, spinning and dancing and singing and setting up picnics on the floor.  She has started to tell me she does not want that "boy book" at bed time.  She will happily try any new food and eat what the grown-ups are having, so nice.  In fact the day before her birthday she woke up from her nap exclaiming, "Mom, I really like tomatoes." She has started to wear shoes more often, always wants a dress so she can spin or feel like a princess, still loves "Pink Hermoine" and is now really interested in school-time and letters.  But most of all she is always thinking about her brothers and what they are interested in.  IF she is picking a flower she gets one for Peter.  If she sees rainbows in a book she mentions William.  And she knows that Caleb will listen to her sing and not complain, and that Caleb will always be happy to see what she drew or her pretty dress.  She is a sweet girl who loves her family.  

Fall Soccer 2014

Soccer is done.  The only thing I will not miss about soccer season is waiting through all those practices.  I love everything else about it.  Cheering, watching my boys do their best and sometimes do better than they believed they could.  

 Peter did great.  He was always where he needed to be.  He even scored a goal this year!  He would have scored more had the stars aligned.  He is a terrific player, gets in there and does not quit.

 William had fun this season.  He got a little better with each game and really had fun people to play with.  He did great.

All three of the boys together with their trophy.  They are awesome!  As we all know, Diedre does not take pictures at Caleb's games!  It is forbidden.  Call it superstition or what you want, but I do not do it.  So, I keep mental pictures to remember.  Like the ones where Caleb was the muddiest of the team and it was all because of terrific saves.  Or the one where they missed the goal box kick headed right for Caleb, but he was ready.  Or the photo of Caleb going in head first to make the save or running after the ball and clearing it from the box, then charging back to his spot as a top goalie -ready to make another save.  Or even the photo where they did score on him and he called over to me to say, "sorry, mom."  And all we could do was shake it off and make the next save.  Or the time when Rob texted me play by play of Caleb's game (because I was at William's game) and Caleb made at least 20 saves in the first half!  He is a star.  When I watch most teams that Caleb plays against they usually change out their goalie at half or even mid-play.  Caleb is consistently goalie.  There have only been a few times when Coach has pulled him out, and that is only because the team is winning by 3 points and he wants Caleb to not be bored anymore.  But for the last 5 or so seasons, Caleb has been back there in the box, improving with each season.  At the last game when his coach (who is terrific and awesome and so great) was handing out the photos and saying something nice about each player and he came to Caleb, he had nothing but good things to say.  What I remember most was that he said Caleb was the "most aggressive" player on the team and that was what they needed down in the goal box.  Coach said that even though he has worked with Caleb and knows Caleb is good, sometimes Coach would watch Caleb make a save and wonder, "how did he do that?"  He makes my heart proud.  All three of them do.  That is why I love watching them play.

Life keeps moving

I'll let the pictures do the talking....

 We have had some very pretty moments

 We went to a fun car show together

Some sweet, happy moments 

 We went for a drive in the canyon to see some beautiful colors and sights

 More fall colors

School days

Caleb took his turn at Safety Patrol

 Haley is master of the spider web on the play ground.  Her favorite thing to do after we drop the boys off in the morning.

 Lots of soccer practice.  Soccer deserves it's own post but this picture of Haley being the supportive sister is too cute.  She has made some fun friends while waiting for her brothers. 

 Heartland Elementary has some fun school traditions.  The one pictured here is the Fun Run.  The kids make a goal of how many laps they think they can do, then they go run around like crazy out in the sun and heat, all the while being cheered on by their teachers and us crazy moms.   All three boys did great!

 Caleb ran a total of 2 miles for his fun run.  He was hot and tired afterward but felt good about his efforts.

We celebrated with fun run cookies after school.  These boys are awesome!