Preschool Indian

Even though the kids have had a couple different preschool teachers, ALL the kids have made these cute Indian outfits as part of their Thanksgiving celebrations at preschool. When Landon needed an Indian outfit for the church Halloween activity, I suggested he just make something like this!

November Notes

I've gotten behind ... on my journal, on my blog ... here's just a few things that have happened in November. Gray and I both celebrated our birthdays. I turned the big 40, Gray and I were both 40 for nine days, they he turned 41. Are we old? We went to dinner with the parents downtown at "The Roof" and the next night went to see "Welcome Back Potter" at Desert Star with my folks and S&A (that could be my brother Scott and his wife Amy, or my brother Shane and his wife Alicia ... guess which one came with us to the theater ...)? Then we went to Hale Theater to see "The Drowsy Chaperone" with Maga, Rex, Ana and Adrian. The kids had their primary program and they did great. We had four boys in it this year. More on the homefront ...

Keaton fell at school, hitting his eye on the corner of a desk. He was SURE he had cracked his head open (his good friend at school actually had a skull fracture a couple of months ago, so that was definitely on Keaton's mind) ... lucky for Keaton it was just a bump and black eye. As I met with Keaton's teacher at Parent/Teacher conferences a day or so after, she said she had been approached by some of the other teachers at the school, wanting to make sure that the little boy in her class wasn't in an abusive home ... sometimes I'm GLAD things like this happen at school, not at home, so we're off the hook!

Keaton's class was having a chocolate party, so we were asked if we'd bring in our chocolate fountain again. This was our first fountain FLOP ... the chocolate would NOT melt properly to flow through the fountain. The kids were still ok just dipping where they could, but Gray wasn't very happy about it!

And we got hit with a HUGE snowstorm. The Saturday of the basketball championships it was a weird windy day ... it was the precursor to the storm that hit that night. Sunday morning we woke to a good foot of snow! The kids had a blast playing in it before church. Gray got the snowblower out ... but couldn't get it started. A few days later everyone was stressing about another storm ... the BLIZZARD of 2010 ... which didn't amount to much at all. The kids were hoping for a snow day, but no such luck. Hopefully we'll get our snowblower up and running again by the next storm!

Turkey Cookies!

Turkey Cookies

Gobble Gobble .... a few years ago I saw these CUTE cookies in an advertisement. They have since become an annual Thanksgiving treat. They are just basic sugar cookies ... I'll use a Betty Crocker mix if I just need a few, and make a batch of dough from scratch if I'm trying to make more than a dozen. The cookie cutter is actually a "pumpkin", basically just a circle, with a little "stem" at the top. I just turn the cookie upside-down and the stem is now the turkey's feet! As I snack on my candy corn throughout the Halloween and Thanksgiving season, I try to set aside the candy corn without the white tip ... these I use as the beak, cutting off the yellow or brown top and using those for the feet. Mini chocolate chips are the eyes, and the little decorator frosting finishes the red waddle. I just add a little brown food coloring to a basic butter cream frosting for the base. The basic design also works for cupcakes!

Turkey Cupcakes

Fall Ball

Fall 2010 - 1st Place

They did it again! 1st place for the Fall season. So many of the kids and coaches play year round, so we really get to know the other teams. Callahan loves it when he gets to play against friends ... Andre and Cody on one team, Cole and Hunter on another, this season we were combined with the Taylorsville Rec center, and so we also played against Reggie's team, which had several friends on it too. Then there's THE team to beat, we've gone head to head with them both Spring and Summer ... we had tied when we played them this season, so both teams were coming into the championship game undefeated. Our boys (and Callahan especially) had a GREAT game and were able to get the win *Ü* ... Dad doesn't make it to all the games, but we're glad he caught this one (Grandpa made it too!).

Generally, I jog the track during the games, but this only works at the Gene Fullmer Rec Center. Two of the games were at the Taylorsville Rec center, so while there I took pictures and video and then condensed them to just the highlights *Ü* The Nov6 game video is a little long ... there was just SO much to showcase ...

Nov06, 2010

Sept25, 2010

The Junior Jazz season starts in just a couple of weeks. We're losing a couple of our players who are going to play on other teams with friends, so we'll see if we can keep the winning streak alive without them. Keaton and Cooper are going to be playing too ... and Landon will be reffing again! Bring on the basketball!

Army Boy

November 11, Veteran's Day ... to help remember, Colton's preschool class made these cute little camouflage army hats (and the shirt he just happened to wear that day matched too!). Colton loved his little hat and wore it for the rest of the day ... except when he took it off and poured some cereal in it ...well it was a little paper dish before it was a hat! Landon got into the patriotic spirit as well, wearing red, white and blue to school. I loved to see all the flags flying throughout the neighborhood. Thank you to all the troops!

Bowling Buddies

So we hit our first off-track time of the new school year. With Cooper's broken arm, we had initially planned on him sitting out this session. But then, buddies Ryland and Ridley asked if they could catch a ride and go bowling with our boys (we've got the room in the car, so why not?). Well, if Cooper's best buddy Ridley was going to be bowling, then Cooper wanted to go bowling too, broken arm not withstanding! It actually went great! Cooper says maybe he'll still bowl with his left arm even when the cast comes off. He even won the coveted "trophy" (bowling pin) again (yea, now we have three bowling pins around the house).

It was very fun bowling with friends. Allstar Lanes also redid the arcade section, making it bigger, and using a "credit card" rather than tokens. You can even count your tickets and upload them to your card (rather than saving them like we did in the past). The kids LOVE playing in the arcade, and they are given a few credits as part of the session, so they always spend the last few minutes playing until they are picked up. Once, as I walked in to get them, I found Ryland surrounded by a PILE of tickets ... he had hit the jackpot. The older kids tend to save their tickets for a big purchase, while the little guys usually would spend that day's winnings on small items each day.

Thanks again Allstar Lanes (and Ana, the teacher!) for another fun off-track bowling session.

It's New, It's BLUE

Cast update ... after four weeks in Cooper's initial "long arm" cast we went back to the doctor for a checkup. They removed the cast and x-rayed the arm, then recast it. This time, Cooper chose blue, and they went ahead with a smaller cast, below the elbow. It's a little strange for me to see the BLUE cast, ALL the previous broken bones (Keaton's arm, Callahan's arm, Landon's arm) were all RED. Four more weeks in this cast and then Cooper should be good as new.

If you look at the picture above, you might also notice bandages by Cooper's eye ... he took another tumble, hitting his head on the table in the den. I took him into the Kid'sCare just to get it checked. It didn't need stitches luckily, they steri-stripped it and said it should heal fine.

Some of the bills are starting to come in ... $50 copay each doctor visit (three so far ... NOT including the trip to the Kid's Care), and the first cast cost us over $400 (we have a $1000 deductible). Unfortunately with Gray's job change we no longer have our flexible spending to help pay for these costs (but luckily we DO have insurance and overall we're pretty healthy, so I'm not really complaining).

Cooper is excited to have everyone sign his cast ... again ...

Missionary Week

The final week of the quarter, Landon's seminary class held "Missionary Week" ... and during that week, the kids were to try to live as a missionary would (no texting, no pop music, no television, video games or Internet ... white shirt and tie for the guys, etc.). The kids received points for each portion they were able to accomplish (extra points for preparing a lesson or giving away a Book of Mormon). Monday through Thursday, Landon wore his Sunday best to school. He TRIED to give up texting, music, television and video games ... but it was a little too hard (he caved after about one day). I liked missionary week *Ü* even though Landon wasn't perfect, I could tell he was trying a bit harder than usual. And the brothers took advantage of it too ... if Landon did do something inappropriate, they would yell "missionary, missionary" ... we'll see if that reminder sticks even as "missionary week" comes to a close.