Peaches and Pears, Parties and Peter B.

Here's my final picture of all the food storage I bottled last week- minus the pear butter and peach jam. Yes, I am proud of it and yes, it's still out on the counter- at first I leave it so I can look at all my hard work and enjoy it then I leave it out because it takes forever to take them all downstairs to the closet!

Here are my birthday cakes I made for Zach's dad's 60th birthday party! We had a Hawaiian themed party and I made a scuba diver and a treasure chest...

So, Saturdays are now taken up by BYU football games at our house and many others along the Wasatch front. Last Saturday, instead of being bored, I took the boys and went with Kristi and Christina to the Harvest Moon festival in Spanish Fork. We played games, made crafts, took silly pictures, went on a hay ride, saw a juggler and listened to Kristi's symphony which sounded great! To end the night, Peter Brienholt performed and made my night! I love a little Peter B.!

You can see him in the darkness... The kids loved it, too, and they danced and danced!

The night was much more fun than the game - they lost
pretty bad. Oh well!

Busy busy ... and Seize the Day!

Some how, I tricked myself into thinking that as soon as school started I would have a normal schedule, things would settle down and I would have time to exercise, clean, scrap book, blog, build a book shelf or something productive.... Did it happen? NO! I haven't had a NoRmaL week for months! It's been a little stressful but at least it's fun, right? Here's a little run down:

We started the season of BIRTHDAYS! Bella and Grace begin the party months and then 13 more family members JUST in the months of September and October...

The next day we had a sickie boy- Weston was pukie so That threw off the schedule... Thankfully he got better fast so that two days LATER we could host our first JOY SCHOOL!

There are a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds in our ward this year so we moms got together to do Joy School -the REAL Joy school with the old manuals, tapes, puppets, everything! So this was our week to host and we talked about Spontaneous Delight and how fun it is to be silly and to laugh! These are the kids making funny faces. :)

The next day we acted out the story of "Caps for Sale" and the kids took turns being the salesman while the rest were the monkeys in the tree... silly kids!

In between THAT, we had YM/YW watermelon eating contest and then a good round of Ultimate Frisbee... there's my exercise for the week!

I also helped with a birthday party, bought pears, picked pears, prepared a lesson for Young Women's on Sunday, and attended Welfare and choir... the end of the week!

Week of September 7th: Starts with Labor Day festivities!

We went up the canyon to South Fork with our friends, the Turley's to picnic and play in the water. This is the Turley family!

The boys brought their wooden boats they made at Grandma Norviel's and floated them down the freezing river!

And THIS is the awesome Ghostbusters car we saw as we were leaving the canyon: How cool is that?

Later, we went over to the Largey grandparents for a BBQ and I caught Jessica posing. :)

And THEN the real work begins! Tuesday was bottling peaches and nectarines and a literacy class at Hyrum's school. Wednesday was cleaning the house really well, making snacks for YW's, bottling pears, hosting YW's at my house: movie party! Thursday was Kristi's birthday so we had lunch at my house and I watched her kids for a couple hours and that night we all went up to Nunn's park for cake and pinatas... and guess who happened to be there? My Mother! She drove up with a friend who came for a funeral and just surprised all of us. It was SO exciting! So Friday, Mom helped me bottle more pears, and I set up our NEW bedroom furniture and that night we went to Kristi's for dinner. Saturday Zach and DJ and Robby got a trencher and spent all day (well, until the BYU football game) working on digging our sprinkler system out. Mom left at noon and we went to Largey's to drop off Zach and then we picked up Jordan and went to the dollar movie to watch UP- great show! By the end of the day, I was ready to crash! But, one more day: Sunday I had Ward Council, Weston got jilted out of giving the talk for Primary so I had to deal with a sad boy, but I didn't have to teach a lesson, though I did go to choir. FINALLY, my week is done!

Is next week any less busy?

NOPE!

But, someday when I'm bored, I will appreciate this time when I had a lot to do and people to see!

Seize the Day!

On the first day of first grade I'll tell you what he did...

Hyrum made the switch to First grade and ALL day school! I was having a hard time with it at the end of kindergarten because I LOVE the kindergarten schedule...BUT, he got a great teacher and he was excited to take his lunch so I finally let him go to first grade. :) This of course, is the first day of school picture, but, it's the Mommy version. Here is the Hyrum version:

Silly boy!

So we all walked down to Westmore and waited by Hyrum's door- his class has the castle on the the door-until the bell rang. Then he went inside and left for the rest of the school day- ALL day!

Luckily Weston and I had Liesel come and hang out with us and she kept us entertained for half the day! We went to the library, got doughnuts at Macey's, made zucchini bread and played with the kitty.

Here's the two kids...

Finally it was time to pick Hyrum up- he RAVED about school all the way home! His table got the most table points for being the quietest and fastest to get cleaned up and he got the first turn with the drink pass because he was being so good- that's my boy! After school, we ate a snack and went bowling at Fat Cats which was a ton of fun. They had the bumpers up, the rack to roll the ball down, and the balls were even light enough for Weston to hold by himself. It was a great first day of school party!

When Zach got home Hyrum was telling him how school is actually not all day, he only goes for half the day... I guess he figured he'd be gone until bedtime so he was pleasantly surprised. That's a relief!