Sticking to his goal

 Yup. At the beginning of the year he decided that he wanted to ride his bike to school everyday. A month ago he mentioned that he had not missed a day.  And today, even though it was lightly snowing, he bundled up and ventured out.  To keep his goal of everyday.

 He left minutes before the blizzard hit.  Brave kid.  Poor kid.  Determined kid.

This photo does it no justice, but the visibility was getting worse and worse.  Thankfully I think that Caleb made it to school before the worse hit.  His ride home should be a grand adventure.  

My Hero for today

This sweet boy made my morning go from yuck to wonderful.  Lets just say that Haley (and thus, mom) had a really rough night.  So, Diedre accidentally slept in, till 7:14am.  Well, the boys needed to be up, lunches made, all the like.  ACK!  I rushed into the boys' room to wake them up.  I noticed that my early-bird Peter was already out of bed.  I ran downstairs to get started on lunches, when what do I find?

This boy, my hero and helper.  He had already lined up everyones backpack, shoes and jackets.  And he was just wrapping up packing all the lunches!!!!  And these were healthy lunches, something I would have given them. Yes, that is right.  He woke up before anyone, got ready and when he saw that the school stuff was not prepared he served me and did it all.  Oh was a blessing he is.  I am so thankful for all my boys, but especially Peter today.

Easter: Thoughts of Jesus, Full Tummies, Happy Kids, Tired Parents

Yes. that time of year came around an the Gray Easter Egg Hunt was held.

 Look at the anticipation on their faces!

 I have no idea how many eggs we have.  LOTS!  But it still never seems like enough when you try to fill up the yard.  Caleb showed no mercy.  He did all Grays proud at this hunt.

 Haley cleaned house with her collection of pink eggs.  She did manage to get a few blue and purple too.

 The Golden Egg!

 See what I mean?  No mercy.  He cleaned up in the egg hunt.

Peter fared well also.  He came in second.

The kids had a blast gathering eggs and then playing together afterwards.  And even with all of the fun, and mess, and running around that was done, we were able to feel the spirit of conference, feel the love of family and remember the love of our Savior.

When Winter turns to Spring

 Winter was kind enough to give us one last hurrah!  We were able to build a fort, make snow angels, eat snow ice-cream, have a snow ball fight, get lots of gloves and pants wet, and have a super fun time in the snow.  Hip, hip hooray!

 Winter indoor soccer ended with a bang and a close call.  This kid did fabulous on each game.  The last game ended in a tie, but it was a great game that put a smile on everyone's face.

 The Leprechaun visited us on St. Patrick's day and made everyone happy (well, almost everyone.  William was hoping for a surprise but got the shaft).  This was Peter's surprise, plants to play with.

 Diedre celebrated Clover Day by making rainbow BLTs.  They were very tasty.

 Caleb had his first overnight camp with the scouts.  He was excited and I guess so was I.  I had to get fun and make him a shirt.

They went to the sand dunes and had a blast.  The weather was great and they brought home plenty of good memories (burning tumbleweeds in the fire) and sand in the ears.  Caleb also had another first boy scout moment this month by earning his Tenderfoot rank advancement and 7 merit badges to go along with that.  He is off to a good start.

 We went to a really cool lego display.  They had all the major American landmarks built out of lego. They were awesome.  The White House, Lincoln Memorial, The Statue of Liberty....and in this picture you can see Mt. Rushmore with of course the Rainbow for William.  Very fun.

The school had their reading contest in March and so the boys and I frantically read minute upon minute, hour upon hour for 3 weeks to get as many as possible.  This was at the reading contest assembly where William (who had 2,375 minutes of reading for those 3 weeks) was in the top 5 readers of Heartland!  Go, William! Much to the dismay of William's brothers he won, not them.  Both Peter and Caleb had 1,000 more minutes than the little dude, but they got passed by.  Bummer

 And HELLO SPRING!  I wish I could say we had a more prosperous and snowy Winter, but spring is surely here.  Digging in the dirt and getting dirty, all part of the fun.

Not to mention all the beautiful blossoming trees that there are to see.  Makes for a beautiful time of year.  And that of course leads us into the Easter Egg hunt, Easter remembrances of Jesus Christ, and more time outside.  But that will wait for another day.

Second chances at fun and happiness

Time just seems to fly sometimes.  It has been another month of homework, activities, scouts, fun and the like.  

 Peter celebrated his 9th birthday and I think he enjoyed himself.  Rob took the three younger kids swimming while I took Caleb to choir.  Caleb was unhappy about missing out on swimming, but it is what it is. Among the other presents Peter received was this new bike for school and fun.  He was excited to ride it to school the next day.

Valentines Day came and went and I called for a re-do, a second chance to show love to each other.  The actual day was terrible.  Selfish kids, grumpy parents, tired kids, impatient kids and parents. So, we determined that we needed to give this "day of love" a second chance and do it another day.  Our re-do was on Monday and it went much better.  Happier kids, smiling parents, good food to eat. Yea!

Caleb had a fun first happen for him.  The 6th grade Valentine dance was held at the school and he was one of the few boys who was not dreading the experience.  He wanted to ask his cute friend to the dance, and was looking forward to dancing and having fun.  What an awesome kid!

 These two crazies can have a super fun time together.  On this particular night they dressed up as ninjas and went to town in their fighting skills.

 You may have seen my love of nesting dolls in recent photos.  Well, I tried my hand at nesting dolls for our little family.  Goalie is of course for Caleb.  Plants is for my botanist Peter.  Haley loves tigers.  And William goes crazy for foxes.  That tiger had a few second chances given to it when I had to do a few coats of paint to get it just right.  I have another set that I painted for the cabin.  The fawn for that one took 6 coats of "second chance" paint for me to get it right!

 And winter gave us a second chance!!!!!!  Oh what a happy family we were to see the snow fall, and stick.  We could not resist.  Snow ice cream was made and devoured.  Snow angels were done.  A fort was constructed.  Snow ball fights ensued.  Glove after glove was used in keeping warm and dry.  It was terrific!

The play by play

So, a few disclaimers before we get into it.  Watching a game through texts is interesting.  Trying to text a game, play by play, for indoor soccer is tough.  The only reason that I, Diedre, did not go to the game is because we had one child that chose to be slightly punkish and not go.  So, I stayed home while Rob went.  And this appears to have been a very intense, hard and fast game.
So, this is how the game played out:

• 9:20pm; 3-2 (our team is always the first mentioned)
• 9:22; 4-2
• 9:23; 5-2
• 9:24; 6-2
• 9:25; 7-2 (hello? one goal per minute, wowzers!)
• 9:29; 8-2
• 9:30; 8-3 (darn one got by Caleb)
• 9:31; half
• 9:36; second half begins
• 9:42; 9-3
• 9:45; 10-3
• 9:51; 10-4 (another darn)
• 9:51; 11-4
• 9:52; 12-4
• 9:52; 13-4
• 9:55; 13-5 (humph) (but holding strong)
• 9:58; game

Phew!  What an incredible amount of action that must have been! Even though 5 got by Caleb, Rob said he was playing hard and focused.  I still cannot believe how many goals were scored in such a short amount of time.  Our team was killing it!  And we won.  Phew!

(Haley and I made this for our family before Caleb got home from school)

(It is for St. Patrick's Day.  But also, soccer, tests, and life passing happily.)

I think it worked for tonight.

Busy, Busy Beavers

Well, my my.  Time seems to keep passing and each day something crazy happens, but we are too busy to remember it all.  So, in no particular order I will try to keep track of what has made life so busy this last month.

 This awesome dude will be turning 9 in a few short days.  He is awesome!  Does his homework quietly without needing much help.  Has grasped onto multiplication and division without so much as a problem.  Is doing great in school, still gets bored at church and struggles, and is a terrific kid at entertaining himself when the rest of us are running around crazy.  Oh, how thankful I am that he is okay with blending into the back gound sometimes so I can focus on other things.  And he has also become a real helper in walking William through his homework.

 Why do I say we are busy beavers?  Because of this young man right here!  Gosh, we have focused a lot of time on him lately.  And I would not take any of those minutes away.  Here he is, puffy eyed because of lack of sleep, but ready for school in his cool robot bow tie.

 Still going strong with soccer.  Finished his first session of indoor, on to session two then Spring will be right around the corner.

He asked his friend and class-mate to the 6th grade Valentine's dance.  He has such a great group of friends to be with.

Why are we so busy?  Well, a month ago Caleb auditioned for the Salt Lake Children's Choir and was accepted.  What a great kid!  However, he was accepted for the Wednesday choir.  EVERYTHING HAPPENS ON WEDNESDAY!  Choir is on Wednesday.  Soccer practice is on Wednesday.  Scouts is on Wednesday.  So, to throw life out of balance we go to choir on Wednesday up at Highland High.  Since he cannot go to soccer practice, we go to Highland early so he can practice on their full size goals before choir.  The other three kids are awesome and run around together while I slam the ball at Caleb.  Then we have to do scouts on our own, the other days that Caleb is not doing homework.

 Choir practice at home with dad, late at night, before bed.

 Caleb has also been insanely busy with homework.  We had to work on four papers at home one week.  Talk about an active kid.

 What are the others doing while Caleb and mom are together?  One night they played twister together.  Another time Haley and William did some sewing.  They read, draw, make messes, sometimes lose it and throw a tantrum.

But generally they stay sweet and patient and are totally awesome!

And occasionally they find time to be together and have fun. Yes, this is February and there is no snow!!!  BOO!  But it makes for some nice moments outside together.