Blogging

Some of you have asked me how I have time to blog. Well, it helps keep me sane. When the kids go to bed, I blog, check my email, and look at friends blogs. I love it! I communicate with so many people that way and I am not disturbing the kids because it's all done online. I truly love technology!!! I am also trying to keep up on the blog because the computer will get packed today or tomorrow until next week sometime.
Yes, I know I should go to bed early, but I never do. I need some unwind time after I put the kids down.

The Lego Trio

These three kids crack me up. They are insane about LEGOS!! Every day they bring Lego guys and trade them. Jack, Willis, and Zach are such good friends. Zach and Jack have known each other since preschool and Willis and Zach met this year. They are late getting out to the gate every day after school. They always are together. From a distance, you can always tell when they are walking out. They always seem to be huddled together checking something out. Zach will miss his lego buddies, but I'm sure he will meet new lego fanatics in Burbank.

LA Temple

I am looking forward to many things about CA like family and fun places to go to, culture, etc. but one huge thing I am excited about is our proximity to the temple. On a good day, probably early saturday morning, we should be able to get to the temple in approx 20-30 minutes. Amazing! We have had to travel 3 1/2 hours one way for over 9 years.

Santa's Little Elf

After the festivities ended at the school today, I got in my car and found this from my friend Kristie. I saw her earlier in the morning and she asked for my car keys to put a "little gift" in my car. There was a card and a sweet message and a pic of her cute kids in the basket. She stocked us for our drive to CA on Monday morning! I was in tears, I couldn't believe the thoughtfulness and generosity of my friends. She is such a sweetheart and always so considerate. I will miss you Kristie! You always amaze me!

THe BEST Kindergarten teacher!

Mrs. Blomstrand(pronounced bloomstrand) is so amazing! She has been Zachary's and Carina's teacher. Carina loves her so much! Every kid in that class loves her. They are constantly drawing pics for her and making stuff for her. She is so fun! Glitter is her favorite! She doesn't ever mind getting messy with the kids. They make great projects. She has every kid reading by the end of the 1st semester. She is fun, kind, so sweet, and has an amazing voice. She loves to sing! Carina has learned so many songs this year. We will miss her SO much! I am so grateful that my kids had such wonderful teachers this year. We are really lucky to have attended such a great school for so many years.

Kindergarten Christmas Program

Carina's program was so adorable! All four Kindergarten classes sang for us today. They did an awesome job memorizing all of those songs. They are so precious at this age. They were so proud of themselves and I was very proud of Carina. Way to go babe!
I also wanted to take pics of her with her friends. The first one is with Emi and the next one is with Lillian. Such cute girls!

Maddie's Class Christmas Party

Maddie and Eileen have been the best of friends since kindergarten. They just love each other. Even with all the 5th grade drama, Maddie and her friends just stay out of it. Eileen is an awesome softball player(pitcher) and plays on traveling teams and is just a sweetie. Maddie happily minds her own business and doesn't get involved in all the girl gossip. She just takes her football to school every day and plays with the boys and a couple of other girls. Maddie says, "the boys just play and have fun. They don't argue and says mean things about each other like girls do. I just rather play football." That's my girl! She's awesome!
Maddie also really loves Kaitlyn. They met this year and we have become friends with their family. They are in another ward here in Sierra Vista and are such a great family. They are so fun and easygoing. Kaitlyn and her family are INSANE BYU fans. Kaitlyn has a t-shirt that says, "Friends don't let Friends go to the U of U." Isn't that funny? She and Maddie plan on being roommates at BYU. Keep up those grades and talents girls!
Last, but not least, is Mrs. Moore, Maddie's 5th grade teacher. Maddie adores her!! She wants to be just like her. Mrs. Moore is so fun, yet so challenging. She doesn't talk down to the kids and treats them like young adults. She has very high expectations and because of it, those kids meet and surpass her expectations. She is very into reptiles and other desert creatures. They have two snakes in their classroom permanently and other creepy crawlers. The kids love it! She is more than I could have ever asked for in a teacher. I hope we can find someone like her in CA for Maddie.

Saying Goodbye

Heather came by with the girls a couple of days ago to say goodbye or rather see you in March. Heather is from So Cal so she will be visiting her family and will be coming by to see us. We already have a date to go to Olvera Street. We love their family. Quinn and Carina were hilarious! Carina was giving Quinn a piggyback ride and they were tickling each other and just being so goofy! Ashten is a sweetie! She is Zach's age and is friends with Maddie and Zach. We love our Sierra Vista friends.

Maddie the flutist

Band Christmas Concert

We just got back from Huachuca Mountain Elementary's band concert. The kids were encouraged to decorate their instruments. Maddie wanted to do something wacky, of course, so she hung bows, ornaments, and put her flute through a gift bag. She didn't win the $10 prize offered by the band director, but she still had fun. She did an awesome job! We are so proud of her! Isn't she beautiful?

Gingerbred Sleigh

For Family Home Evening we made a gingerbred sleigh. It was very fun and sticky! I like pretending to eat the reindeer, said Carina. My favorite candy were the mints. I used them as wheels for the sleigh. I liked eating m&m's and frosting. Yummy!!!

My Friends

My friends had a small farewell party for me on Friday night. They are so awesome! I am going to miss them so much! Keri (in the green shirt) is the ultimate hostess. She loves to throw parties. She is always so generous in sharing her time and her home. The women in my ward are such wonderful mothers and such amazing examples to me. They are so kind, patient, and charitable and so very talented. I hope I can take some of the things I have learned from them and become a better wife and mother. I will always cherish the wonderful memories of our lives in Sierra Vista.

Our new Meetinhouse

Willie attended church in our new ward last Sunday. It is a very small ward compared to what we are used to. Our new ward has about 90-100 members attending every week. The primary has about 30 kids. Our Sierra Vista primary is about 140. They have about 20 youth that attend regularly and there are boys Wesley's age passing the Sacrament every week. We are getting excited about the move, but I think, we are mainly looking forward to our family being together again. It's been a tough 2 months without Dad.
Willie will be here on Thursday night and Fri and Sat will be packing the U-haul days. Sunday we will go to church and say good-bye to friends, and Monday morning we head out to Burbank. We are looking forward to a new adventure!

Yummy!

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Aren't they all amazing? I just had to show you guys these desserts. Wes, Maddie, and Willie made the banana pudding. The next one was Keri's Maple Pumpkin cheesecake, the third one is Carolyn's Pumpkin Pie Cloud, and the last one is Liesle's Pumpkin 5 Layer Spice Cake with pumpkin cream cheese filling. I'm pretty sure I gained 5 pounds this weekend!!

Thanksgiving

I'm a little behind, but I really wanted to put these in. Thanksgiving was great. We had it with three other families. It was just a huge pot luck feast. We had the little kid table, the medium kid table, and even the big kid table. It was fun to share this special day with some great families. We are so extremely blessed and are so grateful to live in this country and to have the gospel in our lives and to know that we are children of God and that He loves us and is mindful of us and our needs.

Family Christmas PIcture

Picasa Web Albums - Willie - Dragoons

California

Some of you have asked me, and some may be wondering about our new place. We are renting the home, not buying it. We decided it would be best to rent right now and buy a home in a year.
Willie will be painting a couple of the 1980's rooms and removing the borders. We got really lucky to have found a house that big. It is almost 2100 square feet. If you know Burbank(close to downtown), you know that most houses are 50-80 years old and tiny. We are getting pretty excited to move and be closer to family and to lots of fun places.
We will be living very close to Griffith Park, the LA Zoo, the Hollywood Bowl, Huntington Library, and so much more. We will really miss Sierra Vista, especially our ward and our friends. We have met such wonderful people here.

Burbank

Well, we chose a spot. It's a nice little place in the hills.

Some pretty lousy pictures from my phone and some video of the new diggs can be found here.

Crazy Hair Afternoon

Saturday was a fun day for the kids because they got to play with friends. Maddie had Cheryllyn over all afternoon and for dinner and they laughed all day while making up silly hairdos(or hairdoos) for their barbies and themselves. They did each other's hair and they couldn't look in the mirror until they were done. Then they lined up the Barbies and had a contest for best Hair.