October 2015

October is always a busy month but this one seemed especially so.  Here are a few things that kept us hopping this month - in reverse order - because that is how the photos uploaded!

Halloween

We continued our tradition of spending Halloween evening handing out candy at the Zeller's.  We rarely get trick or treaters in our neighborhood and let's be honest we love the Zeller's neighbors!  This will always stand as one of my favorite memories.  Scott put an old couch out on their driveway and we brought our fire pit so we had a pretty dang sweet setup.  The kids took Libby trick or treating and us old people hung out eating candy and chili and handing out candy to the people who came by.  Lots of neighbors stopped and hung out for a little while chatting. I really can't imagine a better Halloween ever.

One of my favorite things to do at this time of year is take photos of the kids in their costumes.  I really love how they turned out this year.  I am grateful that the kids are patient enough with me to allow me this little pleasure.  

Poor JJ got sick and missed out on some of the fun but still got to participate in a most of the stuff.

Asher has been a ninja of some sort or other for that last several years.  This year he had grown out of the previous ninja costume so we got this one for him.  It is pretty cool. No doubt he will want to wear it again next year.

Hannah always has a hard time deciding what to be. She really wants to be everything!  This year she settled on a huntress costume. We saw several other girls with the same costume but I thought she looked awesome!

 Ah, the school Halloween parade.  Gotta love being in a pack gym, sweat pouring off every living soul, waiting for that moment when you can get a picture of your child. Blink and it's over and you picture is probably blurry! LOL! I love it!

 BYU Basketball Game

Lance has had BYU basketball season tickets for the last few year and really enjoys taking the kids and his dad and even me occasionally to the games.  This was a season opener that was free so we all went.  I'm not a sports person at all but you know what I am? I'm a cougar tail person.  Just the smell of the maple frosting sends me into raptures and sugar shock!

 Crazy Hair Day

Crazy hair day rolled around at the elementary again.  Asher decided that bed head was good enough but Hannah wanted a little bit more!

 JJ's Birthday

How did I come to have a 14 year old child?  I blinked and he went from 2 to 14.  JJ's BYU themed cake was another of my semi homemade endeavors.  I am NOT a baker so I like to get a plain Costco cake and just have them do a border and the writing.  This time I printed out the oblong Y logo and cut it out with an exacto knife and used it as a stencil for blue and white sprinkles. I think it turned out pretty awesome! JJ liked it so that was a win. 

For JJ 's birthday party he got to invite some of his favorite people to go to a space camp at the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center.  They had a blast as usual.  It helps that his best friends Kynlee and Josh are nerds just like him!

JJ's favorite restaurant is Brick Oven so of course that is where he chose to have his birthday dinner.

Soccer

As I mentioned in last month's post, soccer for Asher has been tough this season.  I am proud that he has kept trying even though things were not the way he hoped they would be.  

JJ's team remained sort of intact.  Several of his friends stayed on this team but he had a different coach.   JJ enjoyed it and really liked the new coach as he is the father of one of JJ's friends.  I was less enthused, not being a fan of this new coache's attitudes on sportsmanship.  As I mentioned before I am not sport person but if I do have to watch or participate, sportsmanship is more important to me than pretty much anything else.  I am coming to realize that I am in the minority in this. 

 Cornbelly's

I took the kids to Cornbelly's with some of their friends the Prices.  We were lucky enough to catch an awesome dog show.  Asher was enthralled!

Family Time

We relish the time we get to spend occasionally at Charlie's house.  We especially love it when Emmy and Cam and/or Brandon bring their dogs.  This time we got to love on Murphy, Brandon's weimaraner puppy and of course Brandon himself! 

 Lance's Birthday

Happy 46th Birthday to this awesome guy.  We love him so much. He really makes our world go round.  We headed to Texas Roadhouse for some steak and those yummy pillowy rolls and cinnamon sugar butter to celebrate the day of Lance's birth.

Other Stuff . . . 

JJ became a Life Scout.  We are so proud of his scouting accomplishments.  He has worked very hard.  I had a tough time getting any photos because we couldn't use the inside of the church so they had the court of honor outside the church - in the dark.

I like to look for rainbows.

Asher got student of the month for Kindness.  He is such an awesome kid.  This is his goofy "I don't want my photo taken" face.

September 2015

September was our Yellowstone vacation month so I didn't get very many photos of our day to day happenings.  I did get a photo of Hannah loving her cat Mouse . . . because, well this happens pretty much everyday.  

 I have a decent zoom on my camera but it doesn't cut it when trying to capture the lunar eclipse. Oh well it was a fun attempt.

 You might notice that this blog is filled with lots of references to these people.  The Zeller's are some of our family's favorite people in the whole world.  We were so glad to take part in Libby's 3rd birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. We haven't been there in AGES!  It was fun to relive some of our memories from when our kids were that little and to hear about when Scott worked there as a teenager. 

Asher really like the concept of getting tickets.  I think he was a little disappointed when he found out how many you have to have to really get something good.  It's a rite of passage.  I remember feeling that way too when I was a kid.

 We adore Libby!  The kids feel like she is their little sister too!

 I had to add this photo of the Libster chugging a giant pixie stick.  You can bet she got a real sugar high off of that!

If you know Asher at all, then you know that he takes things hard sometimes.  His way of dealing with it is to block everything out for a time.  He used to run away and hide but now he goes to his room or finds another creative way of blocking things out until he's ready to process whatever went wrong.  One of the challenges of being a mom is to help your kids be resilient and deal with disappointment.  This is one of the hardest things I've had to try and figure out mainly because when you think you have it figured out for one kid another one comes along and is totally different in the way they deal with things and what bothers them.  I'm not sure I have it figured out for myself in any case so who am I to tell them how to do it!  So frustrating not knowing all the answers to life's little struggles.

 Our school started a twice a year "munch and mingle" day where parents can come and have lunch with their kids out on the front lawn of the school.  I think it is a good idea but I do feel for the kids whose parents cannot come for whatever reason. They often mill around hoping that their parents or family will show up and then when they don't the kids have missed getting school lunch all together.  Sometimes you see tears in their eyes as they realize no one is coming. Others act like they don't care about it all but I know they must.  We are a low income school -the majority of our kids are from middle to no income families.  In any case I am glad I got to spend a little while with these two cuties!

 This cat. Seriously. So weird.

 Speaking of weird. This girl dressed up like a pig because . . . well just because.

 Soccer season is upon us and JJ and Asher are both playing again this year.  Asher has really struggled because for some unknown reason - although he signed up to be a coach, Lance was not asked to coach.  Asher was put on the team that Lance has coached for the last 3 years.  This is where the resiliency and dealing with disappointment comes in to play again. Asher was devastated that his dad wasn't his coach.  No matter how great the new coach might or might not be - nothing could change that is wasn't Asher's dad.  We have decided to help him persevere through the soccer season but I won't lie - it's been tough. There's been plenty of times where I wanted to give up too. If Asher could have connected with the new coach on some level things would have been at least bearable but his style of coaching is in some ways polar opposite from Lance's. Lance's philosophy was to make sure everyone was having fun, challenge everyone to try a little harder, emphasize good sportsmanship and make sure everyone got equal playing time at games.  The new coach's philosophy as far as I can tell is WIN and WIN some more and the best way to WIN is to CREAM the opposing team no matter what.  Asher does not and probably will never have the killer instinct.  He just wants to have fun playing soccer with friends.  The new coach changed the attitude of many of the players to the point that they would make fun of Asher at practices.  Which the coach did not put a stop to because, I can only assume, he figured it would make Asher tougher or try harder. Asher, not surprisingly, HATED going to practices.  In our attempt to help Asher realize that he can do hard things and persevere we had little moments where we surprise him with little treats after he got through hard games.

 Here is Asher's school picture. Can you tell he LOVED getting school pictures done?  I really had to laugh so hard!  We never buy school pictures because I do their pictures or we have Missy do them when we have family photos done.  We do buy the class composite photos though.  So we and all his class members get to cherish this little nugget of a photo forever!

 Crazy cat and dog antics!

 Seriously just eat the mouse already.

 Hey little friend, this is so fun but I'm planning on eating you when I'm bored with this game.

 Lance is now working for Intermountain Healthcare in their corporate offices in SLC. The kids and I had a day off school so we rode the Frontrunner and Trax trains up to visit him at City Creek.

 This is a panoramic view from the soccer field at Willowcreek Jr High.  JJ was practicing soccer and I decided to walk the track a little bit.

 One of the first events the PTA has is the Room Parent Tea to give all the room parents info about what is involved and meet with their respective teachers.  I didn't have to do much - we have a Room Parent Coordinator who is fantastic.  It was great to get out and meet some new people and talk with old friends.