Highlights...Lame, I know

Since I am now a terrible blogger I decided that a highlights post was going to have to do for this month. I had great ambitions to be a better blogger and we can all see how well that went. 

Bear with me while I get a little reminiscent....

I recently read a book I loved.  It's called "These is my words."  You should all read it.  It is a diary style book written from the point of view of a woman traveling/settling the Arizona territories in the late 1800's.  Towards the end of the book her entries get further and further apart as her children grow.  It made me so sad.  I wanted her to keep writing until the day she died so that I would know everything that happened to her and everything that she thought.  I picture my kids one day reading this and getting sad as they get older and my entries get farther and farther apart.  I want them to look back at this blog and have reminders of their childhood.  Unfortunately life and schedules get in the way and I continue to find blogging harder and harder.  I'm determined to stay with it!  Although I have admitted to myself that I will never be the blogger I once was, I will at least continue so that my children will have a record to look back on.

And now on with my lame recap!

First:

John's parents were here the week before and after Emmie's birthday watching Dan and Paige's kids while they were in Africa.  It was nice to have them nearby and to be able to spend time with them.  I miss seeing them on a regular basis and my kids always love having them around.  One Saturday afternoon we ventured out and hiked table rock with the Dinger Cousins and grandparents.  Despite an unfortunate "incident" fun was had by all (at least for the first half of the trip:). 

 

 

Next:

 



I also lost Emmie at Costco last month.  Like truly lost her.  I have gone through nearly 11 years of motherhood without losing a child, so I guess it was my turn.  I lost Emmie in the toy section when I headed over to the produce section with a card FULL of groceries.  I picked out my oranges and turned and realized Emmie wasn't with me. 

So I pushed my heavy cart back to the toy section assuming she would be there looking at the toys.  But she wasn't.  I searched for a few minutes.  Couldn't find her.  Ditched my cart and found a worker and told her I needed her help.  We both searched and couldn't find her.  I found another worker and frantically told her I needed help. Three of us were running and calling her name.  I kept hearing crying and trying to head to that but they told me to stay put.

By this point I was frantic and my mind was thinking the worst.  Costco is the worst place to lose a child.  No intercom, no way to communicate to everyone that a child has been lost.  Anyone could kidnap a child there with little effort at all!  After about 5-10 minutes the second worker I found had been to the front of the store and heard that someone had found a little girl.  She raced back to me and we went to the front of the store.  Emmie wasn't there.  Finally through some walkie-talkie communication a worker at the back was instructed to bring Emmie to me.  I'll never forget Emmie with her brave face on walking up the main aisle at Costco holding the hand of a nice worker and then crying and running as soon as she saw me.  I may have finally cried a little too as we had our little moment there in the middle of Costco. 

We then talked about what had happened and what to do if she ever got lost again.  She eventually told me about 20 minutes later that the "nice lady giving the samples said "did you lose your mom?"  I'll forever be grateful for that nice sample lady.

Also:

We also celebrated Thanksgiving.  We had delicious turkey.  Played a little football.  Shopped a bit.  rested a lot.  And ate even more.  It was wonderful.  Syd surprised my parents with a visit for Thanksgiving where she announced that she and Cy would be moving up here in December in order for Cy to start at BSU in January.  All of the Welch's are in Boise again.  It's been over 15 years since we all lived in the same city!

And Finally:

Christmas is already in full swing.  The tree is up, the house is decorated, and my closet is slowly being taken over with stuff waiting to be wrapped.  It's wonderful!

Emmie's 5th Birthday

 Emmie turned 5.  About a month ago.  And I'm finally getting around to writing about it!  First of all I can't believe Emmie is 5.  How do I not have a baby anymore?!  I love it and hate it all at the same time.  Emmie is an amazing little girl and she truly makes our family better.  She is somehow feisty and a peacemaker at the same time.  She is funny and kind and she is the youngest and can therefore definitely hold her own when necessary.  I've known from the time she was a baby that one of her spiritual gifts would be her ability to be likeable and a good friend.  Her friends all love her and she is good at helping all of her friends to get along.  That skill will surely be a blessing to her in her life.

And now onto the party stuff...

Emmie got to have a family party with both sets of grandparents here. That never happens with my  kids!  It was so fun to have lots of cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents to celebrate with us. 

Emmie's birthday was also the day of the primary program.  All of my kids did a stellar job.  Of course.  And they even had their parts memorized!  If it weren't for church policy I would have pictures and a video to share, but what can I say, I'm a rule follower.

Halloween Festivities 2014

Halloween this year was crazy and fun! For some reason this year I decided to actually put effort into my children's costumes. And I must say they looked adorable. Emmie was the cutest Anna we saw all day.

Owen was the spitting image of Harry Potter!  And Ainsley was an adorable 50's girl.

 

I sewed (you heard me right, SEWED, Owen's robe and attempted to iron on a Griffindor patch.  You can barely see what it says.  A bit of a fail, but I'll take it.  Owen made his scarf.  We found his perfect glasses at good will.  I also sewed and Ainsley's skirt. That's right...I sewed two whole items for Halloween this year.  And I ordered Emmie's dress.  That was hard too.

 

On Halloween day I was crazy busy.  I got roped into being in charge of Owen's class party.  I decided minute to win it games with third graders would be fun.  While I think the kids all had a blast, I was exhausted!  I managed to take this one picture Ains during the school costume parade and then I was busy in Owen's class the rest of the afternoon and didn't get a single picture!  The kids ate doughnuts on a string, launched spiders at a giant web (notice giant web in above picture), wrapped each other in toilet paper, tossed mashmellows into cups, and moved oreos from their foreheads to their mouths.  They loved it!

As soon as school was out we rushed to John's work for his annual office trick-or-treating.  Then we rushed back to the neighborhood for a dinner party with friends and more trick-or treating.  The kids had a blast, got way too much candy, and ate their weight in doughnuts and junk food.  A successful Halloween I'd say! 

 

Oh ya, and we even carved pumpkins last week.  And I got these crummy pictures with my camera phone.  But at least I got a picture!

I like to think that the creepy eyes and ghost in the corner of this low resolution photo make it perfect for all Hallows eve.  What do you think?

I painted my front door.

I've wanted to do this for a long time. In my mind it would help mask the ugly color my trim and doors are painted. And I wanted a pretty wreath on my door. And the poop brown color of my door did not match well with pretty wreaths. This is what I came up with. I think I like it!

BSU

John and I are by no means true football fans.  But we do embrace our hometown team.  (Although I'm still a BYU fan as well and will be for life.) So last week when I got a call from my friend Brooke who's husband had been given 4 tickets to that nights game I was excited. 

 

Night out to BSU game, awesome. 

 FREE night out to BSU game, even better!!!

Firsts and Lasts

First: Ainsley had her first real paying babysitting job on October first.  During the Young Women in excellence program.  When all the Young Women were unavailable.  Lucky for her!  She watched 3 kids who were 8, 5, and 4.  She fed them, watched tv, lost a bean bag on the roof, and most importantly kept everyone alive and safe!  A true little babysitter in the making.

Last: I went on my last preschool pumpkin patch fieldtrip!  Emmie and I had a lot of fun.  Although I think she had the most fun with her friends.  I can't believe she will be in Kindergarten in less than a year!

Random

My kids (probably technically Owen) made paper boats. And floated them in the sink.  With bubbles.  And took pictures.  And I never even knew about it until I saw these pictures.  And that's all.

 

Conference Projects

While conference weekend was a pretty typical one for us (full of cinnamon rolls and watching conference) there were a few noteworthy events.  The missionaries ended up watching the first session with us and hanging out for a bit that day.  We've never done that before.  We now have a set of missionaries for every ward.  It feels completely weird to have that in Boise, Idaho.  I've never lived anywhere where the missionaries were so present.  It was actually nice having them here.  And the kids were pretty well behaved.  A win, win situation I'd say!

We also got some projects done.  We completed this puzzle.  I'm now going to be a conference and a Christmas time puzzler.  (A puzzler is my name for people that do puzzles.) 

And Owen got a great start on the Griffindor scarf he is knitting himself for his Halloween costume!  Yay Owen!

Volleyball

Ainsley decided she wanted to try volleyball this year. And since I love volleyball, I happily obliged.  I ended up being the assistant coach.  Mostly because I realized that when my children play a sport that I know and enjoy I become a little controlling and bossy and a little bit obnoxious.  It was really hard to keep my mouth quiet sometimes. 

I think Ainsley enjoyed it. I'm convinced she could be quite the volleyball player with some time and practice!  She is willing to try and learned a lot for her first attempt at the game.  Her team improved a lot over the season as well, although they still only won their first game.  Some of the teams they played had fourth and fifth graders serving overhand!  Crazy!  I think she wants to try it again in the spring.  So yay for me!  I might have a child come to love a sport I love as well! 

It's that time of year again.....

 The one time of year when I feel the need to make sugar cookies with orange frosting.

Owen's Baptism

Owen's baptism was on September 6th. I hope it was a special day for him.  We had family in town to support him and make his day special.  John's parents made the trip up even though his mother had recently had foot surgery and no use of her foot.  I'm sure the trip wasn't easy but we really appreciated them being here.  We spent the day getting ready for  the big event and spent the evening with family at our house. 

The commitments made at baptism are a lot for an 8 year old to fully comprehend but I'm hopeful that Owen gets parts of it.  Although I thought it was funny that he told John that he didn't feel any different after he was baptized.  I appreciate his honesty :) Maybe he was expecting an angelic cloud parting moment?  It's hard to say! Perhaps he was a little disappointed, but in the end I know he will grasp the significance of the ordinance he was just a part of.  He has so much spunk and spirit and I just pray that he will keep those traits and learn to use them in a positive way. 

Goose Lake

We were invited to go camping over Labor Day with some friends last March.  That's right 6 months ago.  So this trip has been a long time coming!  I was a little  nervous about it due to our last camping experience. But we gave in and paid someone to fix the heater in the trailer before we left because it was going to be cold while we were there.  We left Friday after the kids got out of school (actually technically I took them out of school about 45 min early.  Bad Mom!  But it ended up saving us from waiting in traffic for an hour on the way up because of a wreck...so maybe good mom?)

We went up to Goose Lake which is about 30 min North of McCall. It was gorgeous.  And cold at night!  Our last morning there we woke up with frost on the windows. Our heater ran so much that it wore our battery completely out and we had to be rescued from the cold by our friends generator.  Thank heavens for friends with real camping gear!!!  The days were gorgeous and we were able to stay toasty warm in our little tent trailer at night.  The set up was so great this time that John and I decided we like camping again!

We had quite the group.  Six families and about 35 people.  A small army if you will. 

 

 The views and the campground were gorgeous.

 

One afternoon we spent a couple of hours in McCall, but it was ridiculous because it was chilly so we went back to our campground to play games more appropriate for 70 degree weather.

 

We hiked to a waterfall another afternoon.  The hike was 2 miles downhill to the falls.  It was a gorgeous hike.  The kids climbed all the way down the rocky cliff to get to the bottom of the falls. Being the overprotective mother that I am I about had  a heart attack.  But I contained my fear and let them explore and no one died.  Thankfully.

 

Owen and Ains both caught fish.  There was lots of fish catching and eating while we were there. 

Owen caught this adorable little frog.  Apparently last year at Goose lake at this time there were thousands of these little guys around the lake.  

 

 

The kids had so much fun with friends that I rarely saw them.  They played hard everyday.  I loved it. 

 

My favorite was probably the awesome game of capture the flag we played.  Parents vs. Kids. I wish I had a picture of Owen and his buddy diligently guarding their flag, or of Ainsley crawling through the forest in a stealth-like manner.  It was great fun.  I loved that all of Emmie's little friends had self imposed themselves in prison and would scream for someone to tag them so they could get out.  Even though no one had ever told them that they were in jail and they could get out any time they wanted.  It was too funny.

I definitely want to head up that way to camp again.  It was great.