It has been another busy week. The kids had a lot of fun with Halloween activities. Last Wednesday, the 26th, we went to our ward activity. They did the activity outside and that was hard for me to keep track of the kids. They all had a great time playing the games and doing the truck or treat and getting lots of candy. Monday, Halloween, after school we carved pumpkins. Actually Andrew and Spencer carved theirs and Ruth and Caleb painted theirs. It was fun to watch their creative juices working. They all did a great job. Andrew amazed me with a neat carving of a cat face on one side and a more traditional pumpkin carved face on the other side of his pumpkin. Spencer didn’t want to be outdone and did carvings on both sides too. I have since cut up, cooked and pureed their pumpkins. I made some pumpkin muffins and pudding yesterday. I might get to a pumpkin pie today. Neal and Andrew also enjoyed eating some for dinner the other night with just butter on it. They both like squash.
To finish my Halloween thoughts: Monday evening I took the kids out down our street and back up the other side with trick or treating. We live on a long street and it took almost an hour to do just our street. I thought it was nice how many were participating in passing out treats. We ended up with a group of friends from church. The boys were running ahead and it was a big group of kids. It ended up me keeping up with seven boys and Ruth, her friend, Zaida, and her mom and baby brother that came up slower. It was a bit crazy for me to keep the seven boys together, but it was also fun. They were so energetic and excited about it all. It was a nice evening and I enjoyed the walk.
Backing up in time: On Friday night last week, Neal and I went out to eat. It was nice to have a quiet dinner and time for visiting. Then Saturday we were busy cleaning the house and getting things in order before Neal’s brother, David and his family came. They got here about 2:00 in the afternoon. They are moving from Idaho to Texas and we were a good stopping point. We enjoyed visiting with them and had a nice evening with barbecue chicken and sitting outside watching the sun set on the mountains. Sunday morning they went to church with us. The ward choir sang this week and I thought it went well. We enjoyed being at church together. After church they got busy and organized their things to be on their way again. They continued on their trip to get to Texas. We have heard from them that things went fine to get into their new home and they are now working on moving into it. I am glad that they made it safely. It would have been nice to have had more time to visit or show them around, but I am thankful they were able to come and see us.
Monday evening we also had visitors. Neal’s aunt and uncle, Karen and Carl came. They were on their way to Utah from Texas. They are starting a mission in a couple of weeks and were going early to visit family in Utah before entering the MTC. It was good to see them. When we lived in Texas we would visit with them at Thanksgiving time almost every year. They just stayed over night but we enjoyed the time they spent here. They left Tuesday morning to continue north.
Monday and Tuesday the middle school was closed for parent conferences. I went with the kids to their appointments to see their advisors and hear how school was going. I thought Andrew received a nice compliment that he was adjusted well to middle school and organized, the teacher said that is rare in a boy for this early in the school year. They have completed their first quarter and received good grades. I am glad that they do well in school and motivate themselves to get the work done.
Last night was Andrew’s beginning band concert. He did a little solo too. He had told me that the teacher was letting anyone do a solo that wanted to. They were playing simple melodies from their music books. I thought the kids did great for only playing these instruments since September. Andrew played two little solos and played well and with confidence. The beginning orchestra also played. It was a nice concert.
Andrew is enjoying the trombone. He likes being with his friends,
Adam and Adien every day.
Wednesday Ruth went to the temple with the youth in the ward. I am glad that she can go. She enjoys it too. I had been working hard to get some names ready for her to take with her and ended up having 20 ready for them to do. I am thankful for the youth in the ward who can help me with doing this work. I am enjoying doing the family history research and find it taking time away from my other projects. I have some sewing projects I want to do but my machine isn’t working right now, so I just do my family history instead.
Wednesday evening I had activity days for the girls and Spencer and Andrew had their scout activities. Spencer also had fun playing with Jonathan after school at his home. He is someone in our ward. They are both a bit quiet and it is because the parents are helping them get together that they do, but it is going well and they are starting to feel more comfortable around each other.
Spencer has enjoyed reading this month. He has been reading a series called “Bone” by Jeff Smith. He will sit and read for an hour or more at a time. I am glad he found something interesting for him.
Caleb has an interesting imagination. He still talks a lot about “Caleb World.” For a long time he was drawing maps of the different continents on Caleb World. Now he is writing out their languages. He will have a paper filled with make-up words and a title on the paper saying something like Caleb Language 3051. He has even started typing words on the computer when he has a turn. It gets a bit hard for me because he will ask me to guess how to say things or what they mean, in his Caleb Language and I have no idea because they are such nonsense words. He seems to keep tract of things though. I also learned this week that he doesn’t like to draw pictures. He told me he isn’t very good with it and would rather not draw a picture. It came out when I was having him do an assignment for school where he had to add an illustration to his book report writing. He did do it but at first didn’t want to do it. He is currently working on his next book report and project on komodo dragons. He will need to draw more pictures and he isn’t excited about that part.
I love my family and their fun personalities.
The pretty view from our back yard
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