Cool Weather

The weather has gotten cold.  We turned the furnace on last week.  All of a sudden the open window weather has ended.  It is nice to feel like fall is here.  We were excited to hear that May Bo had her baby.  We welcome little Emily to the family!

Ruth has been busy.  She had a fun mutual night doing some outdoor games.  Then on Friday she had an activity and they played more games outside and ran around having fun.  I am glad that she is making good friends.  Saturday she did some baby sitting in the evening.  Then on Sunday she gave a talk in Sacrament meeting, it was her first time and she did well.  Many in the ward talk to me about her and are surprised that she is only 12, she looks and acts older.  Ruth’s wart has gone away!  We are happy about that.  Last night Ruth was able to go with the youth to the temple and do baptisms.  Neal went with her to help.  They enjoyed the time together.  It was neat that she was able to do some family names from both the Hancocks and Hubbards, thanks for sending them to her.

Friday evening I played the game of “Life” with the boys.  We had some fun with that.  Saturday morning Caleb’s friend Miles came over to play.  He is in our ward and in Caleb’s class at school.  The boys all had fun together.  Last night I went with the boys to the elementary school for a science night.  They had lots of fun little activities to do and the boys really enjoyed all the hands on things.

Sunday evening Neal got out his old scrap books.  The boys enjoyed looking at pictures of him and hearing about his mission too.  Monday evening for our Family Night Andrew gave the lesson.  He asked us to write down attributes we liked in other people.  The kids wrote things about each other.  It was really neat to hear the kind things they said about each other.  I think it helped our family to hear what others thought of us.  It was a good evening. We also enjoyed eating the pumpkin shaped sugar cookies that Spencer helped make and the kids enjoyed decorating. 

Monday at school Caleb was doing a running activity in his P.E. class.  He was running too fast and couldn’t stop and ran into a brick wall. I got an email from the P.E. teacher and a phone call from the school nurse about it.  He got a small cut by his eye.  Monday under his eye was a little puffy.  Then each day the bruise darkens.  He said that his teacher told him today that black eyes look cool.  I hope that it can heal quickly.

He had some food on his lips, they aren't sore, just needed to be washed!

We are excited for Halloween.  I was able to finish Andrews rat costume.  So we are ready for all the activities the next couple of days. I hope that all of you can have some fun with it too.

Fall Time

It is raining today.  It is kind of nice to have a cool wet day, it makes it feel more like fall.  This morning I went to the temple and there were a lot of ash trees that are full of red leaves there.  It was so pretty with the red and some yellow leaves with the gray clouds in the back ground.  I am thankful I can go to the temple often.

Last week Spencer had lots of fun at the school doing a bike safety class.  The school district had a group come to the school.  They had bikes and helmets for the kids to use.  They set up a course to ride around on.  They also did a presentation on safety.  Spencer thought it was great to get to ride a bike at school!  Yesterday Spencer went on a special field trip.  It was a full day of fun.  They went to El Rancho de las Golondrinas.  They saw some fun things about what was life like here a long time ago.  Spencer especially liked the flour mill that was run with a big wheel turning in water.  

Ruth had some fun activities this week too.  Friday evening she went to a young women Personal Progress retreat at the YW presidents home.  The mothers were invited to attend and I went for dinner and some of the evening activities.  They had some fun crafts they did together.  But most of the time they were working on things from their personal progress books and having good spiritual discussions.  I thought it was great.  The girls slept over night and had all Saturday morning to do activities.  Ruth really enjoyed listening to a FacetoFace broadcast that LDS.org did last night with the Piano Guys.  They met at the church to listen as a group and were fed pizza at the end.  Ruth was also excited that her “Camp Half Blood” tee-shirt came in the mail this week.  We ordered it from Amazon.  It is from the Percy Jackson books she has read and enjoys.  It is what she wanted to dress up in for Halloween.  Funny thing was that yesterday I was talking to my sister Mandy and found out that her daughter, who is close to Ruth in age, is doing the same thing for Halloween!  Too bad they don’t live closer, then they could go out together in their orange shirts.

Andrew had a field trip on Friday.  He was able to go to UNM campus and listen to a philharmonic orchestra play. He had to dress up in his church clothes, so that wasn’t exciting.  But, he said he liked the music and enjoyed that they talked about the different instruments in the orchestra.  They came back to the school for lunch and ate by candle light in their class room.  The boys have enjoyed playing hide and seek with the neighbor boys.  They cover a couple of the yards and hide in creative places around them.  They have enjoyed playing out side this week.  On Friday night Neal thought the boys would like having a special sleep over time, since Ruth was on one.  So the three boys and Neal slept outside in the back yard.  They enjoyed seeing the stars.

Caleb was awarded for being a trustworthy student.  There were two kids in each class chosen and Caleb was the boy for his class.  He enjoyed going to lunch with the principal on Friday and eating pizza and three cookies.  Lately Caleb has been saying the word “definitely” a lot.  It is cute to hear.  Saturday morning Caleb came in from sleeping outside and climbed into bed with me. He was talking and telling me things.  Then he paused and said “mom, I love you.”  It was so sweet and spontaneous, I love it when things like that happen. 

The boys are excited about their Halloween costumes.  I am making rat costumes for Andrew and Spencer.  I finished Spencer’s yesterday and have Andrew’s part way done.  I should finish it by our ward activity next week on Thursday.  Caleb is going to wear the dog costume we have.  

 Spencer enjoyed wearing the costume yesterday.  Here the boys are reading stories together.

Neal bought me some pansies and potting soil.  We got the plants planted in some pots we already had.  Neal told me they were my pets.  Also, last week I mentioned how much I was enjoying my little flowering plant.  We had a wind storm that knocked the pot off the counter, breaking the clay pot.  We have a counter area right outside our kitchen window.  I have had some plants on that space.  They seem to enjoy being outside.  But the wind was too much for that little plant.  We repotted it in a bigger pot and it seems to be liking that.  I hope we can enjoy some pretty flowers this winter.

We moved the plants closer to the house yesterday because it was raining so hard and even a little hail fell.  

Last week we did have a good hike with the cub scouts.  I am glad that it all went well.  The boys all came and Andrew had fun helping to lead the group on the hike.  It was a bit hot, but I am glad that the weather was good for it.

Balloons and Balloons and Balloons

Last week the kids had some time off school for their Fall Break.  I heard that the reason the school district has time off is for the annual Balloon Fiesta here.  That way families can go enjoy the balloons and not take their kids out of school for it.  We didn’t go those days but it was nice to have a school break.

Thursday we went to the Natural History and Science museum.  We enjoyed looking around.  The kids really liked looking at the rocks and minerals.  Andrew noticed the letters by the names, the chemical formulas and asked me about it.  The kids have been asking to buy things from the museum store, so this time we did.  They all had some money and each picked out something they wanted to buy.  Ruth got a little jar of turquoise.  Andrew chose a unbroken geode and broke it with Neal’s help and thought that was cool to see what was inside.  Spencer chose some small prehistoric animal toys.  Caleb chose a stuffed snake.  He said his yellow snake needed a friend.  So now he has “Snaky One” that is yellow and “Snaky Two” that is green.  I chose to buy a nice laminated periodic table.  We have had some good conversations with it already.  Andrew was really interested in all the element symbols.  It is fun to have good teaching moments with the kids.  Monday evening at dinner time we had a good conversation with Ruth about her science class talking about the composition of living things.

Thursday afternoon I took the kids out for a special ice cream treat for their hard work on piano and music practice.  I try to do little rewards for them to encourage them to keep working at it.  We all enjoyed the Italian frozen ice and custard we bought.

Friday morning we went to the Bear Canyon open space that is about a mile from our house.  Today I am leading a hike with the cub scouts and I wanted to go on the actual hike beforehand.  So Friday we took the route I will do with the boys this afternoon.  The kids had fun with it and half way through the hike we get to some Bear statues.  Of course, the kids climbed all over them.

Friday afternoon the boys went to play at at friends home.  They had fun there. I took Ruth to the doctor to have a wart on her hand looked at.  She has had it for six months and we have tried multiple treatments for it, but it just continues to get bigger!  The doctor gave a prescription cream for it and it seems to be working.  The wart is looking different.  The doctor said it should fall off within a month.  I hope so.  I feel bad for her that it has been such a problem.

Saturday morning we got up early!  We left the house about 4:10 AM.  We wanted to beat the crowds or at least the traffic.  We did pretty good, we didn’t hit a back up until we were about a mile from the parking lot for the Balloon Fiesta.  We were in the park by about 4:45 and walked around a bit and found a spot to spread out blanket out.  The kids all laid down and rested.  Nothing happened for about an hour.  Then a little before six we watched a laser show, it was cool to see the lights flashing around in the dark.  At 6:00 the “dawn patrol” balloons started to inflate.  It was still dark so it was fun to watch them glow.  The went up in the sky and we could see them glowing every time they pulled the flame.

Other balloons started to get ready to go up.  The crowd also was getting thicker.  We picked up our things and started watching balloons inflate and launch.  Andrew was at the right place at the right time and was asked to help spread out and hold a section of the large cow balloon as they were preparing to inflate it.  He was given a special pin for his help.  The kids got trading cards for some of the balloons too.  We stayed by the cow until it was fully inflated and launched.  It was huge!  It was the biggest of the balloons there.

The kids with the cow in the background

The cow head when it was inflated

There were many character balloons but also a lot of just regular round ones, all different colors.  We had fun watching them all float around in the sky.  I took a lot of pictures, some turned out better than others.  We stayed watching the balloons and moving around the field some for a couple of hours.

This picture give you a feel for the crowd that was there

The cow, when it finally launched. 

About 9:00 the balloons were mostly coming down and many were landing on the field again.  Others were landing in different parts of the city.  We watched a few balloons come down.  We worked our way over to the chain saw carving competition that was going on.  It was neat to watch the men work to create some cool carvings with their power tools.

The boys by some of the carvings we saw.  The sun was starting to get bright and hot.

We went into the NASA information tent.  We looked around at their displays.  Neal and Andrew listened to a man from NASA talk about space travel.  I was with the other kids doing a free craft.  We enjoyed doing a few things there until they closed the display at 11:00.   Then things were pretty much done for the morning.  We decided to leave the park and call it a day.  We were all tired.  It was a fun morning.  In the afternoon we rested and also did house cleaning.  Saturday evening Ruth and I went to the movie “Inside Out.”  We enjoyed it.  Saturday was a busy day for us.

Sunday was good to have a day of rest going to church and doing quiet things at home.  We had our home teachers come for a visit.  Then we fed the missionaries in the evening.  That was nice to have them in our home, that was the first time here.  Since Neal and I are in the Primary we don’t see any kind of sign up for feeding them.  Actually the missionaries called me and asked if they could come eat with us since they hadn’t been to our home yet.  I thought was different for them to call.  We enjoyed having them here.

Monday the kids went back to school.  This week has been going well.  Andrew had his last day of playing Pickle ball after school on Tuesday.  He had lots of fun learning a new game and playing it every week.  Caleb had a note from school saying he was chosen from his class to get an award for his honesty and integrity.  He gets to go to a special lunch on Friday with the principle.  Last night we went to Ruth’s first band concert.  I thought they did a great job.

Ruth is sitting in the front row right in the middle. This was right before the concert started.  I took a picture of her when when we came home.  She looked pretty in her new outfit. 

Spencer checked out a book on how to make paper air planes and has been experimenting with them.  The boys also created a mega block robot, Caleb size.  It has to be propped up, but it is cute.

I am thankful for my family.  We are doing well, just staying busy with life.

A few pictures of things, this is a start to a spider plant that Spencer got from school last year, it is finally starting to grow and looks happier since I moved it outside. 

This is a little plant that I did with Caleb in a preschool class at my home in the spring of 2014.  It has survived two moves and it is blooming right now and I enjoy seeing it by my kitchen sink. 

Some of my flowers are still going, they have been pretty.  I got out my fall decorations and I like the way this shelf looks. Some of the trees out side are starting to turn yellow.  It gets cool at night, around 50 degrees, but it still is getting about 80 in the day time.