BYU Homecoming

As BYU football started, I had the thought of it maybe being fun for our family to go and watch a game live.  Until I saw the prices - those game tickets are pretty pricey!  Plus, my kids don't even really care about watching football on the TV (with commercials!), so the likelihood of them sitting for 4-hours was pretty low.  Anyhow, I had seen an ad in the BYU alumni magazine for the BYU Spectacular during Homecoming week.  I had never heard of it while at BYU, but thought it would be a fun event for our family to go.  So I bought tickets - the cheapest ones, which were way cheaper than football tickets!

We headed out Friday morning and made it in good time and our first stop was on campus to visit Professor Christian Sabey, who just goes by "Christian" I guess.  :)  Christian is one of Ben's best-buddies from high school and college and beyond and Christian just got hired this fall as a professor in the Special Education department (or close).  So we saw his office and chatted with him for a while.  It was great fun.

Then we arranged to meet up with one of our local Young Men who just started up at BYU this fall.  We had a good visit with him on campus and then took him out to dinner.  He's a great kid and it was fun to hear about his experiences so far.

We then went to the BYU Spectacular that evening and saw David Archuleta perform, along with other BYU groups (Vocal Point, Women's Choir, Cougarettes, etc.).  It was a fun show!  Also, our seats were as high as you can go in the Marriott Center!  Awesome.  We got home late that night - 11pm - and so we didn't force ourselves up early the next morning for blue pancakes and the homecoming parade.

Instead, I went on an awesome Midway run - running up Memorial hill.  I almost cried at the beauty of Midway.  Seriously.  As I got home, Ben was heading out with the kids to swim and so I quickly ate and met them at the pool.  Of course the kids had a great time.  Then we went to IKEA which would wasn't as fun as I imagined . . . but we did get a few items that I wanted, including some unexpected finds.

That evening we had Christian and his wife Erin over - plus their three cuties, Minnie (3), Hope (2), and Vance (7 weeks).  I'm bummed I didn't get any pictures of them!  We tried watching the BYU football game, but had a little trouble with the WiFi, so we ended up at the Sabey's home (they just closed on it a couple of months ago.  It's in Heber.  It's a wonderful home, too!).  Anyways, we stayed and had a great time with them.

Sunday morning was clean-up time, packing, and get-ready-for-church time - all by 9am.  We made it!  :)  We had a fine drive home and regular life will resume tomorrow.

 This was a random classroom in Christian's building.  Some of them are attempting to look "smart."  :)

 Ya know, just two girls walking around campus, reading the Daily Universe.

 And a mom and her 2 boys strolling the campus.  As Ben said, "Miles is almost as tall as you!"  Well Jonas isn't far behind as he is pretty much as tall as Miles.  I sure hope they surpass me!

 And that's Logan - he's practically perfect.  I want my boys to be either like Captain Moroni or like Logan.  :)  This picture was taken after dinner.

There they are at the Marriott Center's highest seats!  Awesome. :)  It was a fun show and the kids enjoyed it!

And that's it!

Preschoolers at the Pumpkin Patch

We all went on a "field trip" today with the preschool kids.  Fun and fallish!

Danglies!

Today was a day Emmy's been longing:  when she can take out her studs and wear other earrings!  Here is what she wore:

Um, yep, coffee cups I guess!  Although I also told her it could be "hot cocoa" as well.  :)  Our sweet neighbor gave Emmy a bunch of earrings when Emmy told her that she can start wearing different ones.  Very sweet.  Emmy came home from school and put on another pair - dangly (really, that's not a word?!) ice-cream earrings.  Oh how fun.  And adorable.

Our Littleton Weekend of Soccer Games, Cousins, Grandparents, and Conference

Whooeee, what a weekend.  We had been wanting to go to our nephew Sam's HS soccer game and amazingly got the chance (when Ben's work had no cases scheduled last Friday).  We left on Friday morning, watched Sam's game (which they won in double-overtime!), and had some cousin-time that night.  On Saturday we went to our nephew Nicholas' soccer game (he scored a goal!), had more cousin-time and grandparent-time, watched some conference, took a walk, etc., etc.  Sunday was filled with going to church to watch conference in the morning (oh, after our conference-breakfast), then spending the rest of the day at Joe and Britt's watching conference and eating and visiting.  We left Monday morning and had a long 5-hour drive that turned in to an 8-hour drive thanks mainly to construction.  It was a wonderful weekend with family, though!

 On the way there we stopped in Glenwood for a little hike.  It was beautiful.

 Brigham dared to get his paws wet - finally!  But that was about it.

 So this is what our kids did during the entire high school soccer game, pretty much:  played on the grassy hill.

 Soccer-star Sam!  (Wow, Jonas is just about covering me up. Awesome.  Really.  I want my kids to be taller than I am!)

 Go, Nicholas, Go!  It was so fun to actually see kids get in to the game!  He's a great little player!

 And here is what my kids mainly did during Nicholas' game:  climbed the pine tree.  Jonas did tell me that he saw Nicholas score a goal while up in the tree.  So I guess they watched a little bit.  :)  (Can you find Miles?)

 My girls with their cousins Emma and Grace.  Seriously, some of the best girls around (their brothers are some of the best boys around, too)!  So beautiful - inside and out.  We're lucky to call them family!  :)

Awwww, how sweet.

Now if only ALL of our kids' cousins would move within a 5-hour driving radius!  PLEASE.  I'm serious.

So Long September . . .

Wacky Hair Day . . .

brought to you by Black Canyon Surgical Center.

So one of our fundraising ideas is to have monthly Spirit Days that are sponsored by businesses in our community.  I was hoping someone else would take over this (getting the sponsors), but that didn't happen so last week I was scrabbling to find a business that would sponsor us.  It came down to the wire and I needed to get flyers made, so I convinced Ben to ask his work.  He did and they said yes.  Yay!  (By sponsoring Spirit Day, the business will match the money our students bring in - to participate in Spirit Day each student needs to be in $1.  I'll put a "thank you" in the paper listing the business that sponsored us.)  I did find out that there are some banks that are very interested in sponsoring us, so hopefully we can line them up!

Anyways, here is what we came up with:

Lucy didn't want to be left out, of course!

Fun, fun!

Child Labor

My kitchen helper:

 

We're Due An . . . Update!

I'm tired - that's my update.  :)  Life is busy - that's my update, too.  But I'll bore you (if you read this all) by giving you a more full update on everyone.  Yes, everyone.

Lucy - she loves her preschool and goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  She has a cute music class, called Let's Play Music, on Wednesdays - which she loves as well.  Gymnastics on Tuesday afternoons.  Other than that, she is mainly stuck at home or running errands with me.  We've started some basic reading on Starfall - some days reading clicks for her, other days . . . not at all.  She's in to laughing uncontrollably at times.

Emmy - she has thrown quite the fits this past week.  Lots of stomping of feet and gnashing of teeth.  Other than that, she's really sweet.  Sugar and spice is this one!  She doesn't like Miles (and that's putting it waaaaay nicer than how she puts it . . .).  They butt heads a ton.  She likes school, but doesn't like her class - they are not very good, per her report.  Sometimes when she is doing her reading, she is mad and so she'll read in a very mad voice.  I tell her that someday I am going to record it and email it to her teacher.  She's a beautiful nut of a gal.

Jonas - he has a 3-month substitute teacher while his "real" teacher is out on maternity leave.  I think he's a bigger fan of his "real" teacher.  He is doing flag-football. ("Why do you guys always make me do sports?" was a question he asked Ben the other week.  We didn't make him, he wanted to - was what we reminded him . . . )  He has fun, but has no clue really about the game - and that really shows through on his Saturday games.  Sigh.  The coach thought he played way better last Saturday - but he pretty much looked the same to me.  Sigh.  He's a great kid, though, and besides his whining, he doesn't cause too much trouble.

Miles - he continues to be . . . Miles.  Which is a struggle for me!  He doesn't like Emmy.  I went on a field trip with him and the rest of the 6th grade today.  It was kind of boring, really.  But it was at a pretty site and was probably good for those kids to just get out of town, I guess.  It was nice driving, though - Miles got to ride with me instead of having to take the bus.  We played "Bowling Dice" on the way up and again on the way back.  It was pretty tricky to do while driving . . . yet I feel it was safer than sending Miles on the bus on that crazy 4WD of a road (though that's not why I drove - I didn't have a clue beforehand of what kind of road we had to drive on)!  We were behind the buses and at one quite narrow and tight curve, one bus' wheel was pretty darn close to the edge.  Miles was super happy to have not been on the bus!  Some kid invited Miles to eat lunch with his group.  Later, when I asked what his name way, Miles didn't know.  But he did know the boy was in his CREW class.  CREW is a special, new class that Miles' school is doing.  I think it is to develop relationships with other kids and talk about issues that they are facing.  Or, as Miles put it, "to help us bond. . . I don't know why, though?!"  Classic Miles.  He really likes middle school and loves his after-school class on Tuesday - baking cookies.

Me - I was put in the primary presidency a couple of weeks ago and have done the past 3 sharing times.  One more time to go and then I'm off for 2 months!  I like being in the primary.  I was released from being a primary teacher.  Also, last week, I was released from being the Cubmaster and Den Leader.  I think I am a little sad about that.  I went on Saturday with my cub scouts boys on a previously-planned hiking trip.  Plus, I will go again this Wednesday - just to finish off some requirements we were working on.  I also feel bad - the new Cubmaster has 4 young kids, a husband who won't be around most Wednesday nights and thus she'll have to bring all 4 kids - it just sounds so familiar.  And it was hard (so, yes, I also feel relieved at the release).  I feel badly about having someone else have to go through that!  I'm busy with being the non-official PAC (PTA) president.  I don't want to be the president, so I haven't said that I am.  But I would say I am acting like one . . . Luckily our school's PAC is made up of just a few of us and so we aren't very official.  If someone wants to make it more official, I will vote for them to be the president.

Ben - has had a few more days off than planned these past few weeks.  The surgery center has just been super slow lately!  I'm not totally sure why . . . ?  It did allow him to finish up his Ward Conference church talk way ahead of time, which was nice.  He meets with the head-honcho nurse at the hospital tomorrow - just to see if he can get clearance to do cases there.  Like on-call weekends, or something.  Oh, and not as a nurse.  As a RNFA - first assist.  He loves watching BYU football - plus any other college football games.  He's really happy when BYU wins (twice!) and not so happy when they lose (once!).  We went on a date-night last Friday (we're doing a babysitting-swap thing with my friend Csilla) and played tennis.  He beat me, as always - 6-2.  But I came really close in a lot of those games.  :)

Wilson - he is old and slightly grumpy.  Tolerates Brigham.  Wants to steal Brigham's chew bones.  Still cute.

Brigham - growing like a weed.  Adorable and loved.  Has the cutest bark.  Has the best temperament ever.  Just sooooooo cute.

And one picture for fun:

Half of my crazy-cuties.

Emmy's baptism

Emmy got baptized this past Saturday.  It was nice event and all went well - even with me forgetting to bring her a change of underclothes and a brush.  :)

My parents couldn't make it, of course.  They are a little far away in Germany.  But Ben's parents came over from Littleton and so that made it really special.  Grandpa Max gave the talk on the Holy Ghost and he did such a great job.  Grace, one of our kids' cousins, also come over with Jim and Diana.  The rest of Grace's family couldn't make it due to soccer games, cross-country meets, etc., so we were happy that Grace was available and wanted to come!  She added so much to the weekend.  My kids all love her - my girls especially!  Lucy and Emmy adore Grace.  For good reason, too - Grace is just about perfect.  :)

Anyways, it was a sweet experience and we're happy for Emmy.

 The two whities before Emmy's baptism.  Cute.

Mom and dad with baptism girl.

 Here is the Maxwell group, taken after Emmy was baptized.

 What a cutie.  Her dress was given to us by Aunt Debbie and cousin Claire.  Claire wore it when she was baptized.  I love that is is a family dress!  It was beautiful and Emmy loves it.

 Grandpa Max, Emmy, and Grandma Diana.

 Emmy, Grace, Grandma and Grandpa.

 The siblings.

The crazy siblings.

Flag-football for J

So Jonas is doing his first year of flag-football.  He kind of wanted to and so I encouraged him to give it a try.  He likes it . . . maybe?  Jonas is just so hard - it's so hard to find what he really likes and what he's in to.  He really doesn't pay much attention during his practices . . . and unfortunately that showed at his first football game this past Saturday.  It was kind of painful to watch.  I think he had a good time, but he did comment to me something like, "But I didn't get to play much."  Which was a direct result of him not knowing what to do when he was out on the field.  Maybe he'll try harder at practices.  But probably not.  Sigh.