Kindergarten- Yay!

 Here's a close up picture of Lily's first homework assignment (due her first day of school).  She was to cut out the cardstock gingerbread-shaped person and then decorate it to look like herself (with the help of a parent) using things around the house.  She loves the color purple, if you can't tell.  She made the clothes out of foam sheets and cut it out herself.  I helped her staple the purple raffia hair to the paper.  Then she decorated with stickers I had.

Lily loves her teacher.  She really is a very sought-after teacher, requested by almost everyone who has a kindergartener.  We're so happy Lily got her!

We had Lily's first parent-teacher-student conference a while back and she tells me Lily is far ahead of any of her students (It's not surprising to me.  She was the one that was initiating her reading lesson everyday so she could learn to read when she was 4.).  Lily is enjoying all the fun things she's been able to do in Kindergarten like field trips, art time, library time, P.E., and playing on the playground.  I've started volunteering in her classroom once a week for an hour, and it's fun to see her at school and meet her classmates as well.

So, I know I'm two and a half months late with this post, but better late than never.

Our Autumn Adventures and Halloween

Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Halloween  has recently past, and this year we went to spend the creepy day with some of our favorite spooks.  We stayed with Steve's parents and enjoyed seeing them as well as his brother, Matt and his sisters Bev and Laurel and their families.  Lily and Amara had some good times with their cousins, grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles.  On Halloween, Steve and I got to go to the Desert Star Theater with my family to watch "Welcome Back Potter," a comical play about Harry Potter's 10 year high school reunion.  We all had a great time!  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home, so I don't have pictures of Halloween.


Later that night, Lily, Amara, and I got dressed up to go trick-or-treating.  Lily was a bumble bee, Amara was a ladybug, and I was a snow princess.  We brought Tamsin with us to Aunty April's neighborhood to trick-or-treat.  It was lightly drizzling rain the entire time, but it didn't get the girls spirits down.  In fact, Amara had the greatest endurance of the 3 trick-or-treaters, staying out a half hour longer than the rest (thanks April for taking her around).  The girls came away with plenty of sweets.  As the night got later, our little girls decided they wanted to see if the Candy Fairy would come, so they put their bags of candy on the dining table and sure enough, the next morning their candy was gone and there were 2 toys for each of them.  Candy fairy was a huge success, and the girls don't miss their candy, and they love their new toys.

Steve and I went to Micah's house after the girls went to sleep (thanks to Steve's parents for babysitting our sleeping children), and we had tasty homemade doughnuts shaped like ghosts, and played a rousing game of Cranium with Dad, Debby, Micah, Mandy, April, Spencer, Missy, and Mandy's mom, dad, and brother.  Our dream team (Steve, me and my dad) led the game the entire time up until the end, then the slow and steady "Oldies but Goodies" (Mandy's parents and Debby) pulled through the finish line first.  Wish I had more pictures.  Boo hoo hoo!

Spiders...EEK!

Steve took this picture.  Cool quarter,eh?  Oh yeah, and some spider.

It being Halloween today, I thought I would show-n-tell about the freaky-looking spider that made our house it's home.  It was actually living happily outside, next to our front door without being disturbed or detected... until one day.  One of my friends knocked at the door and upon my answering it, she tells me, "Hey, did you know you've got a huge cat-faced spider living over here?"  I only needed one look before I cowered behind and half-shut my front door.  My friend was definitely not a spider-hater, as her next words after my reaction was, "Don't kill it!  It's not poisonous.  It's good.  It eats bugs."  That trite fact was of little relief and I did not step aside from my front door shield.  Then she says, "You should bring it to your husband at school.  I bet his students would like to see it."  Uh huh.  A great idea, except the part about me bringing it to him...YIKES!  I HATE SPIDERS!  Well, one bright idea deserves another, so I piped up with, "Yeah, I bet he would like to see it.  If I got you a jar, would YOU catch it for me?"  I was glad that she had no problem with that, so I let her catch it, and I took it to my hubby.  The spider was quite a hit with the kids.  After school we set it free, far from the house in a lonely bush, but not without a photo shoot.  Enjoy the spooky smilebox.  By the way, we looked the spider up on the internet and it's not a cat-faced spider, like my friend thought.  It's an impressive Banded Orb Weaver Spider, and like my friend said, not poisonous and a good ole bug-eater.

Too bad we didn't save the spider for Halloween.  Nothing says "welcome trick or treaters" like a giant spider.  

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"Sweet" Memories, Reminiscing With My Dad

Talking with my dad last night was good.  We reminisced about how time flies by.  He was remembering this time of year when it was our first Halloween in the "new house" in North Orem (the house he still lives in that's now 25 years old, give or take a year).  Jacob would have been a baby, so this was before April was born, and all 4 kids were under the age of 5.  Dad's job was to hand out candy while my mom would take us kids around the neighborhood trick-or-treating.

Dad expected maybe 30 trick-or-treaters to show up, judging from his past candy-giving experiences in California and South Orem.  He had his small bowl of candy ready, and the doorbell started to ring.  Well, as my dad soon found out, the new neighborhood was FULL of children and young families.  As he puts it, 30 kids came by in the first 15 minutes, completely cleaning out his candy bowl.  At this point many candy-givers would turn their lights off and pretend no one was home... but not my dad.  When he realized that he wouldn't have enough candy, he put his gifted hands to work and scrambled to produce sweet treats.  He started baking cookies.  He can whip up cookie dough from scratch relying entirely on his number-oriented memory in mere minutes.  And he baked, baked, and baked what he estimates about 9 dozen cookies.  All the while he was stuffing them in plastic wrap and tucking in a slip of paper with his name and phone number on it so the kids would be allowed to eat it.  On top of that, he had to field the constant stream of ghosts and goblins at his front door.  As we (his kids) came home from trick-or-treating, he confiscated our candy too and began to hand it out, obviously teaching us the art of re-gifting at an early age.  I can imagine we were not all too happy about coming home that Halloween.  First we come into the warmth of our home to the smell of freshly baked cookies and we were told we couldn't have even one of them.  Then Dad takes our candy and gives it away!  He sure knows how to torture his kids on Halloween!  To his credit, he claims that he left us the few pieces that we most wanted.  By the time the last trick-or-treater came around, dad guesstimates he saw around 300 kids.  Wow.

Although I don't remember that particular Halloween with as much clarity as my dad, I do remember that every Halloween the streets were always full of kids when we'd go trick-or-treating.  And I remember that when we'd come home, dad would always automatically get to take some of our candy for himself.  I never thought it was fair that he got a portion of our hard earned sugar when all he did was sit at home, watch TV, and answer the door.  It was the unfair dad-tax that we were all subject to.  Did anyone else's dad do that?
Confession time.  Steve and I are parents.  We've adopted the unfair dad-tax.  Sorry, kids.  But look on the bright side, one day, you'll get to be an unfair parent too!

My parents fed the entire neighborhood on several occasions... and sometimes they even found out about it.  Well, after hearing this story about my dad and his efforts to feed the begging children, I think he earned every bit of the candy he got from us.  I love you dad!

Sisterly Love

 I remember longing for the day when Amara would be old enough to play along with Lily and I thought the day might never come.  But I guess it just sort of happened little by little and now they play together everyday.   They know how to play together, they know how to fight together, and they even know how to serve the other, just like all siblings should.  I truly love being able to watch Amara pretend to be Lily's puppy, or Lily and Amara being cowgirls or princesses.  It warms my heart when Lily will race to turn the light on in the bathroom when Amara announces that she needs to go, or when Amara just HAS to give Lily a huge bear-hug before she starts her day at Kindergarten (even if Lily is late), and Lily embracing her back.  Their sisterly ways are so sweet.  I super-duper love our girls!

Lily's Kindergarten Shots (back in June 2010)

I've meant to blog about Lily's Kindergarten shots (K-shots) ever since she got them a few months ago.  I don't remember how Lily found out that she had to get shots before she went to Kindergarten, but somehow she knew.  "Mom, I don't want to go to school if I have to get shots"  she would tell me.  We talked about her kindergarten shots weeks before she had to get them.  I'd try to make her feel better about getting them.  I told her of when I had to get my shots.  "Back when I got shots, I had to get 5 of them right on my bum.  I was afraid, but after it was over I realized it wasn't too bad.  Plus, I got a sucker when I was done."  My stories seemed to calm her nerves a bit, at least for a few days.  Then, "Mom, are they going to give me shots in my bum?"  she would ask.  I would tell her I wasn't sure where they were giving shots these days, but that she would be fine.

Well, the day arrived and it was time for K-shots.  We got ready to go, and Lily wanted to wear a dress so she wouldn't have to pull pants over a fresh wound.  Steve and I tried to make her happy and a little more calm.  I gave her our digital camera to take pictures to make into a scrapbook.  She liked that idea and it was a wonderful distraction.  If you're interested in looking at the photos she took, I finally compiled them for your amusement:

This photo album made with Smilebox

When it was time for shots, Lily's bravery ran low and we had to break out some of our best bribes to get her to quit her thrashing and kicking on the doctor's table.  I bribed with stickers and movies, Steve promised she could go to a buffet and eat as many desserts as she wanted.  Lily eventually held still enough for the nurse to poke the 4 shots in (the nurse held her legs down and I held her arms).  She let everyone know of her pain and frustration by channeling all her energy into her scream.  Amara looked on with concern and then told her dad, "Is Lily freaking out?"  Ha ha ha!  To say the least.

Slideshow of Jake and Kelli's Wedding

It's about time I post something about my youngest brother getting married.  Jake and Kelli got married August 21, 2010 and it was a beautiful wedding with lots of family and a great luncheon and reception.  We're so happy to add Kelli to our family.  She is an absolutely adorable and genuinely kind person.  Here's the slideshow:

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...AND to exercise your smile muscles, here's Jake's engagement story revisited (from his blog).  It's worth a thousand reads.
"I'm engaged.
Now, for 25 whole years I have lived a life full of fun, full of memories, and now I'll have a new one, of a girl, a girl, that's right, a girl. 

I met this girl one day at a classroom where I work. As she entered in, her hair blew like a model in a magazine, her eyes fluttered like butterfly wings, and she looked at me, and "eye" at her. She didn't smile, but I did. Then she returned it. And I was happy. A year and a half past by where we were friends, words were exchanged on facebook, hangouts were arranged and implemented, and much to my surprise she still didn't like me. She left to London and she took her heart with her, she didn't leave me a piece. I would find her on facebook and ask her how her day was. She would respond. And I was satisfied. The time came when she would return to BYU and therefore be in the valley of Jake Lauret. We set a date to go "hangout." I wanted to surprise her, but she surprised me also by writing her name, full name, in the dirt on my car. She imprinted a name which will never be forgotten in the life and memory of Jake Lauret. I didn't regret it. But she did. A semester past and we did things every once in a while. And I would leave her windshield wipers up on her car every time I was in the area. The time came when she needed a job and I had one in the same classroom as me, where she had volunteered at in the past, where I met her.

I hooked her up with the job. Once again, she walked in through the door, wind blowing through her hair, eyes a-flutter, and this time her smile was at me, instead of the other way around. And at that moment I knew, something was going to be different. 

During this time, I had arranged to move out of my parent's house and move into her ward. By so doing, we were in the same FHE group. I knew that I would be having a lot of face time with her and I knew that that was the key to her heart, because seriously, who wouldn't absolutely adore a face like mine? And then, um. Things just got really crazy from there. . 

Um. She held my hand first. I held it back. We cuddled, never kissed, but there was much embrace. My stomach was filled with butterflies (figuratively speaking). My knee was shaking up and down like a piston in a car. I was sweating like a weak WWE wrestler before his match. After the meshing of hands, we parted ways and I went to bed with a smile on my face. A couple days later, it was late, we were hanging out, and we were in her car, and we decided that we liked each other. THE END!

j/k. We dated, we did homework, we laughed, we cried, we argued about bugs, and other little things like that. And after dating a couple months, I decided that it was time to move on with my life. I decided, I wanted this girl in my life. Therefore, I came up with a plan to engage myself to this woman to whom I would want to be wed to. I shopped for rings, I planned activities, and I even planned a day to ask for her hand and ring finger in marriage. 

The day was April 24, 2010. I decided that I would propose at high noon. So, I texted her at 9 in the morning asking her if she would be willing to go on a picnic. She texted back saying, "Ask me in an hour." I then said, "ok." And then, I called the person to whom I would pick up my engagement ring. I told him I was to propose at high noon that day. He said, he would not be available to do that and that I would not be able to pick up my ring. He continued, that I could pick it up at 3:00. My plans were foiled to propose at high noon. A new plan was devised to go shooting across Utah Lake to pass time. The time past, the jeweler called, the ring was ready and I could pick it up. We finished shooting and I arranged for the picnic. I chose to have the picnic at Utah Lake. One special reason was because we exchanged valentines gifts there. As for the picnic food, I made sandwiches, we had a pineapple, carrots, and drinks. I tried to act as normal as possible as to not deter her mind that she would be proposed to that day, that hour, and that moment. We walked up and down the pier of Utah Lake. We came back to the spot of the origin of the picnic, and there we danced to music coming out of my car. And as we were dancing, it was then that I told her how much that I loved her, and I got on one knee, specifically my right knee, and I asked after reaching into my pocket and pulling out the ring, if she would marry me. She then teared up, paused, like they do on TV before they reveal their answer, and I knelt there until she answered. And she said yes. And then, we were officially engaged in eachother forever until we get married, which is August 21, 2010. There is no reason behind this date besides that it is the most convenient. THE REAL END."