Calling the Tooth Fairy

That long awaited day in a child's life when they finally lose their first tooth as arrived for Garret. He finally had a loose tooth and he wiggled it and wiggled it. We were reading together one night 2 weeks ago and he said, "Wiggle my tooth after each page that I read." So I did. We worked it over pretty well. He was afraid that he would lose it during P.E. the next day, but he came home with it still in his mouth. I had to leave to help out at my Dad's for the night and so I asked if he wanted me to try one pull. So out came the toilet paper and out came the tooth. He was very excited for the tooth fairy to come. I asked,"How much do you think the tooth is worth?" Garret replied,"I think 12 dollars." He finally settled on 4 dollars. How much did the tooth fairy give him you ask? 1 dollar. That is the standard protocol for the tooth fairy, I say. (Notice Katelyn is the background. She also lost a tooth the week before.)

That's a boy for you!

It's a good thing girls dig scars on boys, because our boys will have plenty. Garret had a hard couple of weeks with getting banged up. He scalped part of his forehead at Uncle Blake's house swinging. Then a week later, while I was at mutual the boys took a ride on the four-wheeler with Dad. Which is always a wild ride!( I took the boys for a ride and they informed me that I am a stinky driver and they wanted their dad back.I guess I am not wild enough.)I got home from mutual with Shawn telling me they had a small accident. Garret had let go of the handle bars and hit his head on the key. I tried to wake Garret up and check his head but he would not budge. He kept fighting me when I tried to take off his band-aid. So I decided to wait until morning to look at it. When he woke up and I checked it out, I decided that he probably would have benefited from stitches. One call later to sister-in-law Josie informing me stitches were probably too late, I butterflied it together and off we went to school. It satyed together pretty well, but a scar will be the result of too much rough riding with Dad.

Family Pictures 2010

We had our family pictures taken by a friend in our ward Melanie Nebeker who is trying to get her photography business up and running. We were in a rush to get them done before she started harvest, so we picked to go after school one evening in September. We had them taken down at the local park. Everyone decided they would cooperate except for Brady. He smiled for maybe one picture out of the whole thing. Our family is always working on something. Oh well! The kids all wanted their own photo taken, so Melanie ended up taking alot of pictures of the kids.

Halloween 2010

Halloween was a four day event around here. I wanted to have a family Halloween party and invite a few friends over. So the Friday before Halloween we planned to have the party, but in the middle of the night Brady woke up sick and ruined everything.(The kids were upset) We quickly rescheulded for Saturday night. We enjoyed spaghetti,bone breadsticks, green leafy things, mummy dogs, and dirt pudding. We played games like eating donuts off a string, pass the pumpkin, freeze dance, and Halloween pictionary.
Blakely had her school Halloween party and dance on Wednesday. She dressed up as batwoman. She recycled Garret's batman costume which he had wore into holes. Which was made for cousin Josh by Aunt Beth. She enjoyed the dance and was excited to hang out with friends.
Thursday was our school's Halloween parade and party. Katelyn was going to be Kit, American girl, but decided to be a prom queen. Even though I stayed up late finishing a skirt for her. She decided to wear this costume to our ward's Halloween party Firday night. Garret decide to be a black ninja which I recycled his Darth Vadar costume to make. He just looked like a boy dressed up in a black costume. Brady was dressed as Woody. He had party at Christy's house. He trick or treated and made a pumpkin head. Friday night we had our ward carnival and trunk or treat. The kids played games, ate soup and cinnamon rolls, and got lots of candy. Katelyn did finally dress up as Kit. Blakely decided with friends to be a painter,a painting, and the rich lady who buys the painting. Interesting! They came home and traded candy. I always ask myself the question do I ration the candy or just get it gone. becky-.it was a fun halloween like all of them. i love tootsie rolls.- katelyn

Drops 2010

Looking at my camera, I noticed that I hadn't blogged about our trip to the Drops this year. Last year when we went I took the kids by myself. Thankfully Shawn came with us. I don't know if it was still the safety talk from Uncle Blake last year or just my anxiety getting the best of me, but my anxiety level was to the freaking out level when we got there. I finally jumped in with Shawn and Garret. By the time I got I had calmed down a little. Then we decided to take Brady down, it rose a little, but when my Dad said he was going down it went back to the freaking out level again. We all jumped in several more times and slowly my anxiety level mellowed out. At the end of the night the older cousins decided to jump off the cliffs right after the rapid section. Uncle Blake and Uncle Brian jumped in with them thankfully. They would have continued to jump in if we would have not called it a night. We returned to the Shoshone church parking lot and had a nice picnic with the family before saying good night.

School 2010-2011

No matter what we do, time does not slow down. So school is here again. I started at the beginning of August in my classroom trying to put it together. I headed to Boise for meetings for a team I am on. It was weird being by myself(staying at a hotel by myself, eating myself,etc.)Actually it was nice at times.
This school year we start with 8 less days because of budget cuts. I had a full week of meetings before the kids started to school. School started Sept. 30th. Blakely is now in 8th grade and loves everything about school. This year she gets to be an librarian aidefor the first semester. Katelyn is in 5th grade and in Ms. Matthews. Katelyn started out the year next to my classroom, because her classroom wasn't finished being built yet. She of course loves school and loves that Bekha is in her class. Garret is in 1st grade and has Mrs. Haugeberg. He loves school, but has to be threatened to get all his homework done. He already has been kicked out of his mom's classroom when I walked in to my class and he was handed out peppermint candies to all my students.(I keep peppermint candies in clase of upset tummies) Brady is being watched by another wonderful lady named Christy. He loves it there even though the week before school started I kept telling him that it was school time again and he was going to a new babysitter. He would say I not going, she has no babies. Turns out she has 2 babies that come and some of his friends from Tara's also come. He seems to enjoy being there. I also teach Christy's daughter. I have 22 students; 14 of them being boys. I think it will be a good year. I don't like the extra stress in my life, but we will fake it till we get it. We did start out the year with three out four children with ear infections. Once again, Shawn has to step up and help take my place and take kids to the doctor. Which he had to wait a hour to see the doctor with kids being silly in the room. Which I replied been there, done that. He takes up the extra slack beautifully. I sure love him for that. I hope we have a great year and very little sickness. Go Declo!!!

5K with the girls

I have wanted to try a 5K for about a year now. So I talked and bribed the girls into doing one in Declo over Labor Day weekend. I started running one minute and walking two minutes; now I know some of you are running experts,but this was my training. The girls didn't want to train as well. Blakely said I wouldn't have signed for this if I knew I had to train. So with some pushing we got a few runs with each other. My favorite saying was "You are not going to let your 34 year old mother beat you, are you?" One night running a coyote ran right out in front of us running away from our dogs. I then proceded to tell Blakely that the momma coyote was probably not far behind so she better start running fast. I said you only have to run faster then the slowest person. I know not nice. Saturday we got up and headed to Declo and got our shirts and took off running. Katelyn had found a friend to run with. So it was just Blakely and I running and walking together. Mom coaxed and encouraged. We pulled each other along. I ran back and got Blakely and walked with her. I loved doing the 5K. I will try and keep running so I can find another 5K and do it. (I have only ran twice this week:( Blakely vows not to do it again, but maybe I can get a friend to run with her she would change her mind!