A Weekend Birthday Celebration!

He looks quite a bit older doesn't he? 

Isaac turned 14 on Saturday. 

We began the day opening gifts.  Daniel got him Lego Architecture models.  He loved them.

The White House.  He also got ties...but that's not important.

Later that day his friends came over and we went to a local bowling alley.  He and his friends has their own lane and a pizza.  The other kids and I bowled in our own lane.  We weren't cool enough for 14 year old boys.

Isaac's high score was 88.  Higher than anyone else. so I'd say he was the winner.  I think we need to go bowling more often, wouldn't you say?  We are super awesome at gutter balls.  But then so were Isaac's friends.

Sunday was a special day.  Isaac was ordained a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood. 

Grandma and Grandpa came.

Abbie and Poppy and Meme came too.  It was a super special day. After the ordination we came home and had food and got to visit for a while with everyone.

Isaac with mom and dad. 

What a great blessing you are to us Isaac.  We love you and can't believe it's been 14 years since you arrived.

Got Goat Coats?

Isaac sent this email to Abbie with pictures and details for goat coats.  So my mom, being wonderful and all, emails Isaac back asking for more specific measurements.  So Isaac did.  Then, last week, Isaac got a package in the mail.  This is what was inside...

Each of my kids went and put a goat coat on each of their goat kids.

They velcroed underneath and I don't think the goats were quite sure of what to do.  Waffles was unable to walk after the coat went on, so Ruthie carried him.

Abbie also sent a dog sweater that didn't fit her dog.  Why not try it on the goats?! 

It fit.

So there you have it.  Isaac also emailed Abbie with ideas on how to make the family Christmas Eve party cooler next year.  Such a hoot.

Ranks and Badges

Last Friday night was out Scout Court of Honor.  That's where the Boy Scouts receive their well deserved rank advancements.  And, because we just got finished with summer, it was filled with merit badges. 

Isaac got his Star rank and 10 merit badges.  He did a double fist pump in the air as everyone applauded.  He's such a hoot. And he's such a skinny thing!

This was Sam's first official Court of Honor.  Actually it's his second, but we were celebrating my grandma's 100th birthday in California during that one.  Sam got 3 merit badges.  Not bad for an 11 year old.  He also has earned his Scout rank, but we still don't have it.  He'll get it along with his Tenderfoot at the next meeting.  Sam led the flag ceremony.  He was the only 11 year old scout there.  He was told what to say, so he said "please repeat the Pledge of Allegiance with me".  But no one was standing or saluting.  So we all quickly got up and saluted and pledged.  He did exactly what he was told to do.

Here is Isaac and mom and dad and Scout Master Steve as he received his Star rank.

We're proud of our scouts. 

But you won't see one of those bumper stickers on my car.

What A Weekend!

We went up to the Ranch this last Friday and Saturday.  We have been waiting for an un-busy weekend to go.  Grandma and Grandpa went too!

Sam looked out the window and saw this little guy staring back.

On Saturday, Daniel, the boys and grandpa got some work done.  This guy gave me a fun ride on grandpa's 4-wheeler.  He wore a helmet and drove the speed limit grandpa had set for the grand kids.  Then he dropped me off and went on by himself.

Not too long later, he came in with dad and grandpa right behind.  He'd had an accident.  He was going too fast and flew off the machine and rolled.  The machine rolled too.  Isaac was bashed up on his shoulder, arm and back. 

The machine rolled so fast there was grass stuck in the wheels.  So we packed those up with us.  That didn't make Isaac feel very good.  Too close a reminder.  We kept reminding him that he was okay.  Nothing was broken on him or the machine.  But he was pretty shaken up and sore.

And here's our carpet money!  I mean the new car.

We are now saving again for carpet to finish the basement.

Our new deadline for finishing is Labor Day. 

We'll just see how that turns out.

Only 9 days left of school!!  Rah Rah!

Looking Forward.

On Monday night, after watching the bombs explode over and over a few dozen times, and hearing the stories of those who lost limbs or life, I sat down with Isaac to talk.  He was sitting on my bed watching the news.  I could see he was thinking through it all and worried.  We talked about living in the Last Days and that, while we are waiting for Christ to come, we are going to see a lot of destruction and sorrow.  We may even experience some destruction and, we are no strangers to sorrow. 

Uncle Clark was running the marathon.  He had finished the race some 30 minutes before the bombs went off.  He was fine.  We also just recently had a cousin, Dilon, who was in a motorcycle accident.  At first he only lost some toes.  Then he lost his leg.  He is recovering and hopeful.  We got to visit him and see pictures and ask questions. 

We live in perilous times.  So Isaac and I talked about living righteously every day.  No matter what happens to us or around us or anywhere or to anyone else in the world, we know that if we are living righteously we will be okay.  It doesn't mean we will not suffer.  It doesn't mean we won't die.  But it also doesn't mean we sit in our house and board up the windows and hope nothing happens to us.  We live.  We choose the right.  We laugh.  We pray.  We look forward with a perfect brightness of hope.  We look foward to when Christ will come again.

Regional Science Fair.

Yesterday was the Regional Science Fair and Isaac got to participate.  He was at the Dee Event Center ALL DAY!  Afterward, we went to goat club and then Daniel came to pick him up and run him over for the award ceremony.  And boy are we glad he did.

They started calling names of kids who got Honorable Mention and $1000 scholarships to Westminster College.  No kids were there.  And then.. Then.. They called Isaac.  Daniel took pictures on his phone, but I can't get them over here.  So I had Isaac do a re-do of what he did.   

He got the crowd to cheer.  He got his certificates and went back to sit down.  I love that he was so excited that he got everyone else excited.  Congrats cutie pie! We are so glad the Science Fair is DONE!

The Birthday Review.

Isaac is a teenager.  And this is how a teenager spends his birthday.  First, on Thursday night, birthday eve, we went to the jr high to see the play his good friend Craig was in. 

Friday I asked Isaac if turning 13 was going to be a lucky year or an unlucky year.  He said after last year's birthday, anything would be luckier.  But he also said he's not superstitious.  Okey dokey.

Turning 13 only gets you 2 gifts from mom and dad. 

But worth the 2 bags.  He got a tablet.  He also got a programming book. I get the tablet, I don't get the book.  Look at the smile

After the gifts we went to dinner at Applebee's.  Then, stuffed to the gills, we went bowling.  Isaac just wanted to do something as a family.  I'll take it!  Look at that form!

Sam doing the granny throw.  He was a gutter champ!

And look at this cute form.  Ruthie was a gutter queen.  Until the second game!

During school Isaac texted me and said "BEST birthday ever".  When I asked why, he said, "Mr H sang to me in class"  That's his math teacher.  He got out his guitar and sang his own birthday song.

I love teachers like that.  Now if you were wondering where Isaac got his form...

Then it was back to home and CAKE!  We still have some.  Come on over and we'll share.

Isaac had a totally awesome birthday!  He's so glad to be a teenager.  Now he can say things like "It's a teenager thing" or "It's because I'm going through puberty" or "I need to sleep, I'm a teenager" and, of course, "I can be cranky, I'm 13".  I like to throw out "Hey, be nice or I'll squish the hormones out of you!", but he doesn't think it's that funny.

Lucky 13.

Today is the day.

This young man... 

Is now a teenager!

My baby boy is 13!

There will be cake.  There will be gifts.  There will be eating out.  There will be bowling.  And then more cake!

Happy birthday Isaac.  We love you and are so grateful you belong to us!

And The Winner Is...

ISAAC! And a whole lotta other kids.  Remember way back when Isaac chose to do his science fair project all on his own and only had me glue the stuff on his board after he laid it all out?  He went to the school science fair. Then he went to the district science fair.  Then!  Then!  He got the invitation to come to the award ceremony.  Yahoo!! So here we were tonight.

 

Isaac receiving his certificate.  He was 3rd place, along with many others, in the Physics and Math category.

Smiling for a pic with the superintendent.  Each category had several 2nd and 3rd place winners and one 1st place winner.  There were also many other honors  given to many of the kids. 

Isaac was squinty.  He was slightly disappointed that he didn't get a special honor.  That would have meant cash or a prize of some sort.  But he was happy to have been able to participate AND get 3rd place. 

Ahh. Squint be gone!  He's just so amazingly awesome!  We are so proud of Isaac and his amazing science fair project entitled "Affects of a HOP switch on an air soft gun".

A Few Days In Our Life.

I've longed for grass for months now.  At Abbie's Tea Party this year my mom had us plant wheat and grow...  Ta Da!  Wheat Grass!  I am officially happy to have wheat grass.  It's the greenest thing in my life!

My birthday was last week.  Did you hear?  I would have just missed it entirely except that all the people at Blue and Gold sang to me.  Daniel sent me these beauties.  He loves me.

Sunday was Chinese New Year.  We went to dinner with our friends Kim and Jon and their girls on Saturday night.  Sunday we had all my family over to celebrate with lots of food and Chinese fun.

Isn't this a gorgeous orange?  I gave my family oranges to signify sweetness and completeness in this the year of the snake.

Monday Isaac was in the district science fair up at Weber State.  I snapped this at 6:30 that morning.  This is his board.  I guess we only know how he did by whether or not we get an invite to the award ceremony.  When Isaac got there he texted me this.. "breathtaking!".  He is now planning on attending Weber State.

So there you have it.  Our world this past week.  Almost like a day in the life.  Almost.  Maybe...

Are You Jolly Or What?

Are you having a jolly week? I sure hope so. Considering tomorrow is the end of the world. But then again, maybe it won't end. So I hope your week is jolly so you can keep going after tomorrow with the jolliness. Or something.

 

I know it's been a tough week and it's kept me from blogging.  I don't want to move into funny and stuff too soon, but I also don't want to be sad.  Here is where I am...  We live in perilous times.  No laws or confiscations or medications or anything else will stop bad guys from doing bad things.  Or from getting guns.  Satan has got a hold on the hearts of the children of men and he will not let go or even loosen his grasp until Christ comes. I hope you are praying, as we are, that He will come soon.

 

On to the happy.  Because happy is good.  Happy is Joy.

Last week our cub scouts went to the Veteran's home in Ogden to pass out ornaments.  It was so fun to watch our cute cubs and their sibling go into the residents' rooms and give them an ornament.  Or 15.  I took pictures as they passed them out then took a picture of the group.  Sam wouldn't stand with the group so I snagged this one.  

Sam wrote this special piece in school.  I love the last line.

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AAAAGGGHHHHHH!!! Isaac just texted me from school and said his science fair project is going on to the district!!!!!   AAAAAAGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

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We got our tree up last Saturday night.  Sunday was the family party and since it was a Christmas party, I figured it would be nice to have a tree up.  Plus, it's Christmas next week.  Notice there are only like 2 decorations on it.  Those are Ruthie and Sam's ornaments they just made in school and gave to me this week.  The lights are part of the tree.  Luckily. And there are really presents under it too, much to our kids' delight!

And here is the play room minus the toys and games and clock and other such things.  Also minus the chairs and tables for people to eat dinner Sunday.  The basement, for which I have NO pictures, mostly because I don't go down there since Sunday because it was a disaster and there were games destroyed and toys EVERYWHERE!, is awesome.  Well, messy.  But still awesome.  And it was a big hit.  It was so hot and crowded in my house that it was a relief that it wasn't more crowded and hot because most of the children and teenagers were downstairs.

So now I'm ready for Christmas and am so grateful to celebrate with our home full of safety, peace, love, completeness and JOY.

On to more Jolliness!

Sewing, Bubbles and Cookies, Oh My!

All 7th graders take a class called CTE.  I only know the C stands for Careers.  T might be for Technology??  E may be for something that starts with E.  Just a guess on my part.  Anyhoo, Isaac's first quarter in CTE was all about wood and big tools.  He built a truss, a cart of some sort and other things that earned him an easy A.  This quarter is filled with clothing care, child care, family stuff, cooking.  And sewing.  Isaac was so excited about the sewing machine.  It's a machine and he does well with machines.  So I put him to work to cinch in his new church pants.  He got in there and sat down and asked if my machine was computerized.  ??  Um, no.  Mine is the cheapest of the cheap.  Story of my life.  I should show you my carpet.  So he threaded the needle and practiced a straight stitch on some extra fabric.  Then I put his pants in.  He had asked me to mark a line where he should sew.  Then he left.  I ended up sewing his pants.  But he did a fantastic job threading and getting the bobbin into place.  Do you know how funny it is to have your 12 year old son talk freely about bobbins?  Funny I tell ya. 

Sam was taking a bath and had asked Ruthie if he could use some of her bubble bath.  Sure, she said.  Then he called us in for a picture. Gives a new meaning to the term bubble boy.  Sam has recently made a list of all the Godzilla movies ever made.  I do believe he knows every single one.  There are 2 that are rated PG-13, so he has to wait a bit to see those.  He has big plans for his 13th birthday.

Sunday was the annual Abbie's Christmas Cookie Party.  We got to see our cousins who have been in North Dakota for a bit.  They're back and we are so happy they are.  Ruthie made beautiful cookies and even brought them home.  The boys left theirs on the table.  The other day Ruthie said, "We get our cuteness from mom and our tallness from dad.  I wasn't born from mom's tummy, but I am still tall."  So there you go.  I just so happy the cuteness came from me.  I'm glad it wasn't that they  had gotten hairy toes from me. Cuteness and tallness and so many other things that all 3 of my kiddos inherited from us.   

We still don't have our Christmas tree up.  Still in storage.  Daniel is home today so we can finish with the primer on the basement walls and ceilings.  I won't have time to paint colors on the walls till after this weekend.  The tree will go up Saturday and I'm putting a marbles circle in one bedroom and hopscotch runs in another.  Then the main area will have a rug and tables with toys and games.  The kids will be banished to the basement  for the evening.  Oh, did I tell you we are hosting Daniel's family Christmas party this Sunday?  Did I tell you that it should be around 55 people?  That's why the basement is being done quickly.  Though it's not finished, it's good enough to have people down there.  Pictures of the basement will be forthcoming.  But, just a warning, white primer on walls is boring. 

Yay Pictures!

Well, we couldn't figure out the problem with posting pictures to my blog.  So we had to move into Flickr and work through that.  I have finally figured out how to get everything done using Flickr.  So I have pictures.  For some reason I have been unable to just write-blog due to the lack of pictures. 

Here we all are with my 99 year old grandma.  We were so excited she got to come to Utah to see us all.  She will be 100 next April and we hope to have a big party for her!

 Isaac is taking Art at school.  He loves to draw so we figured it would be a good fit.  He is awesome at it.  His last assignment was a city drawing.  It was technical.  Here he is holding it.  He is next to he picture of my brother Aaron.  Aaron drew like this.  In Isaac's drawing, he added a little homage to his uncle.  He put a crack in the sidewalk with a flower growing out of it.  It's something my brother drew and titled "Beauty Amidst Bleakness".  (I need to put a close up picture on sometime!)  At parent teacher conferences yesterday, Isaac's art teacher was talking to another student before us and telling his dad that this assignment was a tough one and his B- was excellent.  Then we get up there and Isaac had 200/200 on it.  An A.  His teacher was so impressed with his work. 

Last week was our annual Cub Scout Pinewood Derby.  Officially it is our family's last one.  Not officially, I will be doing Pinewood Derbys as a leader for a while yet.  Sam's car came in 6th overall.  He had fun, though, which is most important.  Sam earned his Webelos badge a couple months ago (I'm so far behind) and has a compass point to boot.  He has been working on more badges to earn more compass points.  yay Sam.  (hi Laurie)

Isaac worked on his 7th grade Science Project recently.  I can honestly say I took no part in the creation and putting together of this project.  I will be earning no grade this year.  Isaac chose to use the hop switch on his air soft gun to shoot at 10, 15, 20 and 25 feet.  He had a great hypothesis and the results were very different than he expected.  And that's as far as I go.  Because I didn't do it, I didn't help, I didn't put the data in.  All I did was buy the board and glue where he told me to glue.  I will, however, much to his dislike, be judging the fair this year.  Only I can't judge his.  But it is awesome!  And this is the basement before the insulation and drywall.

 So here is a recent lesson I've learned.  First, something I already know.  I have a condition called Aquaphobia.  It's a fear of water and it's very real.  So I used that fear as a reason to never have my children learn to swim.  Sick, I know.  But you would think that I would have had them learn very early so that they wouldn't drown.  I mean, I wasn't going to jump in and save them.  But then I would always have Daniel with them in the water.  So it really wasn't a problem.  But then my dear Isaac was working on his 1st Class rank in Scouts.  And one of the requirements is to pass the BSA swim test.  Now Isaac can swim pretty well enough as a self taught swimmer.  But the BSA swim test was more complex.  So I did it.  I signed them up for swim lessons. 

Here is Ruthie (in purple). She is a great little swimmer and has no fear.  Luckily.  She began in level 2 and has advanced to level 3.  Ruthie has recently been sick.  She finally went back to school yesterday.  Whew!

Sam is a little more timid in the water, but he is an awesome swimmer too.  He was in level 2 with Ruthie and advanced to level 3. Here he is doing the back stroke.

Isaac loves this.  He was in level 3 and I was told level 3 is the most difficult level to pass. So I just reasoned that the next set of classes we do they will all be in level 3 together.  No such luck.  Isaac passed and is going into level 4.  As soon as he can do the 75 yards without tiring so much, we'll do the BSA swim test.  Cool!

And then there's the basement.  We had the dry wall guys come in all day Saturday to put it all up.  They are coming each evening and doing tape and mud. It's a long process and my house stinks.  By the family Christmas Party on the 16th, we hope to have  primer on all the walls, the ceiling painted, light fixtures put up and maybe the walls you see here painted.  But most likely the walls won't be painted.  I borrowed a large piece of carpet from my brother and that will help the floor.  Then we'll put some tables, chairs, games, toys and stuff down there.  In 2 of the bedrooms I am going to use chalk to make hopscotch runs and marbles rings.  Then the kids will have something fun to do and the carpet will go down over it all later. 

So there you have it.  There is probably so much more I need to catch up on, but I can't remember right now.  And now that I can get pictures back up, I hope to be blogging more.  After all, this will be a volume to add to my blog book collection!