Chocolate waffles and sunshine.

I told myself a couple days ago that I couldn’t blog until I got one lesson done on my BYU class.  Well, I finished it tonight, took the quiz and got 100% (go me.) and now here I am. 

Sunday night we went to Chad and Julie’s for dessert and to play games.  The kids had their usual party, and we adults plus Trevor and Matt played games. 

We played Bang twice and The Great Dalmuti several times. 

Monday the boys had their parent teacher conferences.  All three got rave reviews, and I couldn’t be more proud.  I love our school and am so grateful that my kids have wonderful teachers.  We are truly blessed. 

These are Josh’s chocolate waffles that he made and that were displayed in the hallway.  He sprinkled chalk dust on them to give them the powdered sugar look.  lol.

Andrew’s story and haunted house . 

Luke’s work.  Pretty sure he does know how to spell his name.  lol.

Monday night we had the sister missionaries over for dinner.  I didn’t find out until about 2:30 in the afternoon that one of them is gluten/dairy intolerant which sent me into a panic changing what I was going to fed them.  Luckily after a quick trip to the store, I figured it out.

Ella always wants to do what her brothers are doing.  Sometimes it just cracks me up. 

Another case in point.

Tuesday we spent the day playing with friends.  Josh went to Austin’s, Jake came to play with Andrew, and Luke spent the day with Zach.

I burned my hand on the oven when getting the frozen pizza out.  Ouch.

Tuesday night after dinner I went to a school district parent meeting on the Common Core.  It was interesting.  We are obviously locked into the standards whether we like it or not, but I liked the attitude of the district staff of linking arms with staff, parents, and students and making these standards work for us. 

Her obsession with shoes has begun.

Last night I finished our Christmas cards.  Now I just need to wait until next week when Shutterfly posts their Black Friday deal and then order them!

Speaking of next week.  It’s Thanksgiving.  And we’re hosting.  Last time we hosted lots of things went wrong.  Hopefully that doesn’t happen again. 

Went running this morning in the 27 degree weather.  It. was. cold.  And despite having a cough, it felt good. 

This morning and into the afternoon, I watched 2 little girls.  One of them is 2 and is potty training and the other one is just younger than Ella.  It was a circus sometimes but fun for Ella to have some friends over.  They only all cried at the same time once.  lol. 

After kindergarten Luke went to play at Ethan’s.  again.  Danielle is awesome. 

After all the girls left and Ella went down for a nap, I laid on our bed in the sunshine and read a book and then took a little nap.  It was amazing.  The sunshine was glorious. 

I’m excited for a super fun weekend and stake conference on Saturday and Sunday. 

Happy Weekend.

XOXOXOXOXO

a week in review.

Two binkies at once.  Silly girl.

Busted.  She finds them about once a day. 

Last Saturday we went on a group date with some of our friends to bid farewell to Chris and Jayme who are moving half way around the world :(  I tell you, my friends always move. 

For dinner we went to a Chinese food place and got soooo much food.  It was insane.

Selfie of the whole group.  lol.

Then we went to play laser tag.  I’m terrible at that game.  I lost both times we played.  The second game we played against some super expert laser taggers.  Holy cow—we got killed.  It wasn’t even fun.

Then we went to the Moss’ to play games and hang out.  We had such a fun night.  And are super sad that our friends are moving, but glad we have some fun memories to remember.

 

Darrin makes a great place to sit for FHE.

Darrin took Andrew shopping for some new shirts and came home with this one. Poor Andrew lol. We’ll see if he wears it. I think I need to find one for Darrin for Christmas.

I love these caramels from Costco.  A couple months ago I found out they weren’t going to sell them anymore, so I bought a ton of them.  Well, this week I started the last container of them.  Sad.  I guess I’ll have to start making them homemade.

Ella loves to get in Luke’s bed.  Yes, he’s still in a toddler bed.  Shhh don’t tell anyone.  She thinks she’s pretty cool that she can get in and out by herself. 

This is Andrew’s story he wrote for his homework.  The story sounds vaguely familiar.  lol.  except the end, of course.  

Ella’s first time eating ketchup with her chicken nuggets. lol.

On Friday Luke had no school, so we had Ethan over.  They played with the hot wheels track for hours. 

We decided to finally get started on Andrew’s bobcat award.  We sat down with the cub scout book, and Andrew opens to this page and says, “Requirement one: sleep with a wolf.”  hahaha.  I laughed so hard.  I still laugh when I think about it.  Oh Andrew.  You crack me up.

Andrew finally had his soccer party.  He made some great friends on his team.  Way to go Andrew for a great season!

Yesterday morning I went on a run and ran 3 miles at my fastest time.  Look at that!! Mile 1 almost less than 10 minutes!!  That made me happy.  Granted it was starting to rain, so I think that helped me run faster.  lol.

Love these curls.

Ella has started walking on her knees most of the time now.  It’s pretty funny to me, but whatever works. 

My dad is stronger than your daddy.

Last night we took the family out to dinner at Changs.  Everyone loves that place especially Ella.  She ate tons of noodles and meat…

and she loved the egg drop soup.  She was super cute about eating it all by herself. 

We came home and watched some of a BYU basketball game.  Josh loves Tyler Haws.  I was hoping to get a picture of Darrin watching BYU basketball (he’s a Utah State basketball fan), but he was being a stinker about it.  I guess it was nice of him to watch with Josh.  lol. 

A weekend of family and a baptism.

Aunt Kristin made Luke this peanut butter sandwich.  Holy peanut butter.  He loved it.  Love that smile.

Just hanging around like Spiderman.

Ella climbed up on this box all by herself.  It was a big deal :)

Andrew beat Grandma M. in a legit arm wrestle. lol. 

Grandpa H. pulled out Andrew’s tooth that had been hanging for a month. 

Andrew received the Responsibility Character Trait Award in his class and was honored in an assembly.

Friday night we went to Mike and Tanya’s for dinner.  Grandpa M. came into town later that night. 

Ella kept licking Darrin’s face instead of giving him kisses.  It was hilarious.

Saturday was a super busy day full of soccer, soccer parties, and Andrew’s baptism. 

Josh’s game was at 10:30.  All Grandparents and Aunt Kristin came to watch.  It was a tough game that they lost.  But they played super hard, and Josh scored at least one goal. 

Then we headed over to one of Josh’s teammate’s house for pizza and trophies.  Josh had such a wonderful team this season.  They were all great boys.  Hopefully we will see a lot of them again on teams in the future.

At 1pm Andrew had his soccer game.  His team played well and won.

  

During his game it rained on and off.  Some of us are more used to the rain than others.  lol.

We rushed home and got all ready for the baptism and then headed to the church. 

Lots of Andrew’s family was involved in the program.  Aunt Kristin led the music, Grandma H. played the piano, Grandpa H. spoke on baptism, and Grandma M. said the closing prayer.

It was a special day.  And we are proud of Andrew and his decision to be baptized. 

After the baptism, the family all came over for dinner.  Since we were hardly home to prepare any food, we had Panda Express-- one of a Andrew’s favorite meals. 

While we were eating Andrew started choking on some chicken.  He came over to me not being able to breathe.  I hit his back a few times but quickly realized that wasn’t doing anything.  So I did the Heimlich maneuver two times and out came the chicken.  It was super scary.  Andrew doesn’t like to be the center of attention, so we all kinda pretended that it wasn’t that big of a deal.  But I was pretty shaken up by it.  I’m glad it all worked out okay.

Sunday morning all the kids ended up in our room, because people we sleeping in all rooms of the house.  It made me want to sing, there were three in the bed and the litte one said…

After church we went to Chad and Julie’s for dinner. 

We had fun chatting, eating, and playing.

 

Monday Aunt Kristin headed back home.  The girls (Kristin, me, mom, and Ella) went out to lunch at Panera before she left.  So glad she could come!  My kids adore her.

Darrin took the day off, so he could hang out with his parents.  They went out to lunch, watched Duck Dynasty (Darrin forced them haha), and had a Dr. Mario contest.  Grandma H. won.

After dinner we went back over to Chad and Julie’s for FHE.  We had a lesson on being thankful and then made marshmallow pops.  Everyone loved them!  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Hancock for being super fun!

Jenna has been the only girl cousin her age around here for a long time.  Ella is finally old enough to go play in Jenna’s room.  They both love it.  Jenna loves showing her girl stuff, and Ella loves the attention.  And I love the break!

Ella also loves it when the big kids take her out to the garage to see the kitties.

Grandma Morris got to stay until Thursday.  Hopefully she had fun.  We were busy with life, and she just had to come along for the ride: flu shots, pta meetings, volunteering, scouts, well check appointments, etc. 

Grandma was doing her exercises, and Ella joined in.  lol.

Playing ball with Grandma.

Whew!  It was a whirlwind of family and fun for about 10 days!  We are grateful for everyone that came to support Andrew on his special day!  Thanks for coming!!  We love you all.