Eleven on the Eleventh September 11, 2012

Ava is on Student Council for first term, voted in by her classmates. She went to school early that day for her weekly meeting but did have time to open up a new birthday outfit. She was anything but "blue" about it ;)

The night before while Matt was hanging streamers I cut out a 12 to hang up. Matt asked, "Who is the twelve for?" Oops I did it again.  

11th on the 11th meant that Ava could choose whatever she wanted to do for her birthday. We found ourselves at  Color Me Mine in Provo after school.  She could fit only six friends into the van so it made for a nice doable party for me :)

I went to the studio a week before and picked out the figurines the girls could choose from. This kept them from walking up with a $20 platter and me having to tell them to "turn around."

It was interesting for me to sit back and watch how each girl managed her time. Some got right to work. Others spent half their time deciding on colors. One girl got up after using each color to go back to the color station then choose a color and walk back to put it on her tray. By the time we got to gifts she had maybe a fourth of her figurine painted. Then she had her face glued to the movie the kids put on while others continued to paint. I watched her as we loaded up the car to leave scrambling to glob paint on her undone figurine. Life is full of little teaching moments isn't it? Better. luck. next. time. 

These girls are funny! I can see why they are a good match for my witty one liner Ava. She has found her matches.

Getting older; one gift was a magazine full of One Direction Posters. It was passed back and forth with lots of squeals.  Later one of Mallerie's friends called to ask Ava if she could have one.

Carrot cupcakes and cream cheese icing went with the other nibbles and made for easy clean up. Because Ava and I were caked out by the time we got home at 7:30 that night, we had an ice-cream dessert with the family before opening the last family gifts. I think the babes were disappointed they hardly saw Ava on her big day. See, no one likes to be apart from Ava for very long. She is just too pleasant to have around.

Winter Spring Summer Football

Matt is a HUGE BYU football fan, but still he pales in comparison to Grayon's enthusiasm for the game. The child eats and breathes BYU football. They anxiously awaited the first home game at the end of August.

Matt had to have a rental car for a while. He was driving Mallerie to X-Country one early summer morning and was pulled over. He didn't have his license with him. His registration had been revoked, unknown to him, which made his insurance invalid. Ouch. It wasn't his fault about the registration and insurance. Since he drives a company car they are supposed to keep up on that. I told him that maybe it happened for a reason. If he had not been pulled over he would not have known the fleet company hadn't renewed his registration. He had to drive a rental till it was all sorted out. He finally finished traffic school this week. He has not been very happy about all of this.

So it is good that he has distractions such as BYU football games to go to. He loves the crowd, the smell of the grass, all of it. Matt is a HUGE BYU football fan, but he still pales in comparison to Grayon's enthusiasm for the game. The child eats and breathes BYU football.

Back to School

Big High Schooler Mallerie 9th Grade. The freshmen got Wasatch High School to themselves the first day. I guess to avoid any of them being stuffed in trashcans;) I didn't get a first day photo of Katrina though for this reason. By the time she went for her first day the next day, we were all done taking photos.

Big Intermediate School Ava 5th Grade. This year is her first as a Timponogos Timberwolf. She also joins Katrina and Mallerie as a bus rider. Mallerie always has Ava's hair fixed so cute. I think I mistakenly get the credit for it.

Big King of the school Grayson 4th Grade. With JR Smith Elementary only going through the fourth grade Grayson is top dog this year.

Uh-oh. Someone isn't feeling so big after all. Back to school night in August came before I was ready . I hadn't done any school shopping for the boys (they don't care right?). We scrambled to get in the car. I looked at little Graham in his crumpled clothes with his shoes on the wrong feet looking so uncertain.  Outside his classroom he realized he had a different teacher than the one who tested him and I think that threw him off.  

Nevertheless, he was beyond anxious for his first day to start, which was after Labor Day. 

Much Better. His teacher said he could wear his hat at recess. He was all over that but decided last minute to leave it behind on the first day. Callie and I walked him to his classroom. He found his name tag easily and sat down to play with playdough. 

I was getting pretty misty eyed so I made my goodbye short and sweet. On our way out of the building the pledge of allegance started over the PA. Other moms stopped and put their hands on their hearts. Not me, I needed outta there.

I came home to find this:

The separation of Graham and his hat made it sink in. The little fella had started Kindergarten. 

Matt was looking at the pictures on my I touch and said, "What's with the photos of Graham's hat? Did YOU take those?" I grabbed it back, "Give that to me."

Little Callie couldn't get that play dough out of her head and I was able to hook her up. It's just us two for a couple of hours every day now. 

Confident that Graham could find his classroom on his own. I sent him the next day on his bike with Grayson.

 I followed them...of course!  

Summer lovin, had me a blast! 2012

Ademir stood on his tip-toes, I crouched down and we almost look normal.

Kei and Ademir decided last minute to do a welcome home party for Giovanni. It was a Sunday morning and I was thinking about how I wished I had something to bring him. Looking at the clock and my fabric stash I realized I still had time. I cut and sewed and stuffed and tied and was able to present him with a "gee-gee." Translation: A soft blanket tied with love for a new addition. The nickname came when Mallerie couldn't pronounce blankie and instead said gee gee. My mom made the first gee-gee for Katrina and I made one for each of my newborns after that. The gee-gee was always their favorite blankie.

Graham finally got to hold the little guy he has been praying for so fervently.

From there we headed to UVU for the Patriotic Service. Lauren Green from Fox News was the Keynote speaker. She had a lot of good things to say and I wrote them down when I got home. It was awesome to see Stephanie Nielson accept an award and say a few words. Especially since Katrina and I had just finished her book.

In a split decision we decided to watch the sunset from Squaw Peak on our way home. The view was somewhat obstructed by the hazy fire skies but there were some fireworks going off. The kids couldn't get over how piddly they looked from on top of the world. 

LONDON 2012

I have a love/hate relationship with the Olympic Games. I love them because there is so much to love; Phelps, Fab Five, Bolt, and Oscar Pistorius. Hate (maybe too strong of a word) because I don't get any sleep! I hate to find out results without watching an event live but don't have time during the day to watch the Olympics, so the only time to watch was the middle of the night. I would DVR it and then keep my eyes peeled open best I could to watch. I loved it all but was glad it was finally over so I wasn't so tired all the time!

LAGOON! Boy did we squeeze this in at the last minute. It was the Utah County folks back-to-school night but still the Geertsen's and Whitmore's were there. How could we pass up BOGO?

This was the first year that both babies were on foot instead of in the stroller. It was an odd feeling. I didn't hate it.

Already realizing the sensation of "No hands!"

Highlight of the day: Eliza's face as we went under the waterfall on rattle snake rapids. I snuck an umbrella on the ride and as we approached the waterfall I put it up. Eliza and I were on opposite sides and leaned under it, which turned into a quick game of tug of war. In the end the umbrella did neither of us any good!

SCERA!

The next day was our last full day of summer. Since I knew Utah County was back in school we took advantage by going to Scera Pool in Orem. We practically had the place to ourselves. Ava wasn't as diligent with the sunscreen as she (I) could have been therefore she was wincing at Back-to-School night. 

We got back to Heber just in time for Matt to take Ava to that and for me to take Grayson to pack meeting. I was impressed by the "web of lies" his leaders had created.

Grandma Donna requested a letter from each of the kids telling about their summer vacation. Here are some snippets.

 From Ava: "Another funny thing was when the 2 older girls went to girl’s camp mom took us to Kneaders to have breakfast and it was very cold inside so we took all of our food outside to eat. The thing was it was windy and the wind was blowing over everyone’s food. As mom finished her last bite of French toast her plate flew and went smack on her shoulder. She had a syrupy shoulder. That was pretty funny."

From Grayson:"I went to Kamas pool with my friends a lot and it was lots of fun. I got 15 $ from the fair. It was the best summer ever!!!"

  From Mallerie: "This summer I was able to attend my first quad stake dance and I had the time of my life! Now that I am 14 that mean’s I get to go to youth conference and this year our ward stayed in a cabin up in timber lakes. While I was there I was given a dare to go put a Popsicle in my leaders ear so of course I did it. It surprised him very much and later that week he picked me up and threw me in the creek, right in front of everybody I was so embarrassed but I guess I did deserve it." 

I think we did a pretty good job of dotting our i's crossing our t's this summer. It always goes by too fast. Every summer we talk about how want to hike to the "Y." At the end of this summer we decided to make it a yearly tradition. Every summer we are going to TALK about wanting to hike the "Y".

LABOR DAY~The end of it all. The leaves had started to turn and we met up with the Bocanegra's at South Fork or lunch. A perfectly practical day.

 

Half and Half August 26th, 2012

I have now been married half my life. The first 18 years of my life were the growing up years. The last 18 have been all about raising babies. During the next 18 years the kids will start leaving home. In 18 years my baby will be 21 and officially an adult. This is crazy for me to realize when I think how fast the last 18 have gone. To celebrate this half and half point in life we went away over night.

Getting ready to take off for the next 24 hours Matt was lamenting as he packed his suit case that he has nothing to wear. I pinpointed the problem right off. "All you wear are Polo shirts." Throwing out an inside joke in my family Matt said, "Here you look all good and I look like I've been hit with the ugly stick." I corrected him, "You haven't been hit with the ugly stick, you've been hit with the Polo stick."

After a stop in Midvale at Mike's custom Jewelry to get my ring repaired we headed across the street to Fashion Place Mall. That was our stomping ground when we were dating since Matt's apartment was right down the road. Boy has that mall changed. It is beautiful! I loved everything about it including that it has an H&M. We decided to start there to look for men's clothes. I was immediately distracted by a woman's blazer when we walked in so I told Matt to go ahead to the men's section. When we met up again he had only found one thing. A plain white t-shirt. No writing, no frills, just a plain white tee. H&M is not for him. After hitting a few other store's clearance racks he left with some nice things. We changed in the car and headed out west.

We had tickets for the matinee performance of 9 to 5 at the Hale. This was our first time in this lovely theatre and we wanted a photo. An older man in the lobby was unsure of himself, "You can do it," we assured him. But he couldn't, and the picture was so blurry it was useless. Upstairs we asked an employee. She was also up there in age and moved the camera from side to side trying to find us in the view finder. Here we are digging each other in the back at her horrible picture taking. 

True to what we have heard about the Hale Center Theatre, the production was over the top. I love Dolly Parton so the music had me tapping my feet. However, that was the only happy time my feet felt in these shoes. I forgot how painful they are and swapped out of them for dinner.

Dinner was downtown at Market Street Grill. We were seated in a party room with two small tables and large table for a party of TWELVE. The group of women seated there were so loud! We watched as the couple at the other table got up and left. It took the host trying to sit two more couples there before the third couple stayed. Our waitress apologized to us but what was she to do? The food was delish! With a surf and turf menu we both left happy.   

I had copy-catted Matt in June with a surprise room for Father's Day. We chose to use it over our Anniversary. Our room was so relaxing and welcoming. It was spotlessly clean, even the windows! There wasn't so much as a chipped baseboard, and the bed, towels, and robes were so soft and comfortable.  

The view from our deck was equally as gorgeous at night as it was during the day. But at night with the temple spires all lit up as I lay in bed? Well, I couldn't take my eyes off it and we left the blinds open.

Breakfast was Belgium waffles served in the large dining room. The entire establishment was absolutely stunning.

We walked the grounds a bit on such a lovely morning.

Katrina said, "You guys always make that same pose." Nothing gets past her.

Each anniversary we commemorate together we reflect on previous years and how we celebrated. Some years have been extravagant like Hawaii, Vegas, New York, or Florida. Some years we haven't gone anywhere overnight. But most years we have celebrated in Salt Lake City. It always seems the natural place to go since that is where it all started. We've stayed at all three Marriott's, The Grand and Little America, several Inns and Bed and Breakfasts, just to name a few. But this time? Well, this time we feel like...we finally found our place.