Spring Break

    Time goes so quickly when you are busy.  I’ll start by talking about Caleb’s birthday.  It was on Friday the 17th.  He was so excited for it.  I bought donuts to share with his class.  I bought enough for our family too.  He loves donuts.  He loved that the school had some activities for St. Patrick’s Day.  He wore his green and was very happy.  When I picked him up from school he was all smiles.  As we walked home he was singing “happy birthday to me.”  I made him a shamrock shaped cake.  The borrowed cake pan worked great.  We had a nice family evening time.  We played some games, the kids enjoyed balloons and Caleb was very happy to open up some gifts.  He had asked for simple things this year.  I bought him what he asked for, sidewalk chalk, pom pom balls to play with, and a small monster truck to play with outside.  It is nice to have simple requests.  Now he likes to tell everyone he is 7 now. Caleb also lost a front tooth on his birthday.  Well, he let me pull it out before he ate dinner so it wouldn’t bother him any more.  He was very excited to loose another tooth.

 Caleb at school with his donuts for his class

 the donuts for home were a little more colorful

the cake

Becky and Caleb

    We had Spring Break last week.  Ruth had been asked by our friends in the ward, to feed their chickens and parakeets.  She was checking on them about every other day.  She gathered the eggs every time and refilled food and water as needed.  I went with her the first couple of times, Neal went with her once to help her figure out the water dispenser.  Then a couple of times she rode her bike over.  One trip Andrew went with her.  They were gone longer than I had expected and I wondered what was up.  When they came home they told me that the chickens got out the gate when they were going in to refill their food.  Then they had to chase the chickens down and get them back into the fenced area.  It sounded pretty funny.  We have enjoyed lots of fresh eggs this week.  Ruth told me Monday, her last day checking on them, that she was glad the job was over.  She didn’t really like taking care of animals.  I am proud of her that she would accept the job and do it.

The eggs were colorful, we found we liked the green ones better, they were bright
yellow inside and clean "whites" while the brown ones sometimes had speckles inside.

    We have worked in our yard this week.  I got the kids out there helping me weed.  On Saturday I was able to get some iris plants from a ward members, who were clearing out a flower bed and didn’t want the irises.  I was happy to take them.  On Saturday afternoon I was able to plant about half of them in the area that I had wanted iris in.  I still have a lot, so I plan on clearing an area to plant the rest of them in. I have always loved irises and I am excited to have gotten so many for free. It has rained this week so I haven’t gotten out to do more work.  Maybe this afternoon it will dry up enough for me to work on it.  The trees are finally blooming and so are the daffodils.  I was wondering why our yard seemed behind things I was seeing around the neighborhood, so I am glad that things are looking better.  We have lots of tulips coming, maybe they will be blooming in a couple of days.  It is fun to see the yard waking up after winter.

The pear tree

the apple tree with the tulips

we have two small purple trees in our yard, I think they are pretty, our neighbor has big ones in their yard.

A view of our back yard

    A week ago I had a visiting teaching appointment set up after church and my companion wasn’t able to join me.  I invited Ruth to come with and she did.  I enjoyed going with her.  We had a nice visit with the sister.  Ruth and I also enjoyed doing some shopping Saturday and found her some cute clothes and then we went to the Women’s session of conference at the church building together.  It is nice to spend time with her.
    Last week for Spring Break we stayed home and enjoyed time just relaxing from our school schedule.  One day we went to a park and met some friends there.  Ruth and I sat around with the moms talking and the kids played.  We brought our lunch and were there for about 2 1/2 hours.  It was a nice outing.  Another day I took the boys mini golfing.  We had fun with that.  They are all getting good with it and it was a close game with our scores.  Another morning we went to the Explora museum.  The kids had fun looking at things and playing.  We discovered a play ground this time around that we hadn’t seen before.  Spencer and Andrew were invited to play at a neighbor’s home, one afternoon.  They spent almost four hours there and came home all happy with making better friends with them.  One morning we had friends Nathan and Xan come over to our home to play.  The boys had a lot of fun together and enjoyed going out into the open space together too.  It was nice weather all week, so that helped with outdoor playing.  Ruth went with her friend Grace to the movie “Moana” that was playing at the discount theater.  She enjoyed going out with a friend.

 The kids had fun playing with the blocks at the museum

 Spencer and Caleb built this little house

    Last Friday evening we had a little family party to end our week.  The kids have asked if we can go to a place like “Cold Stone” to get their favorite mixed in treats into ice cream. We told them that it gets really expensive to go to places like that with the whole family.  So instead we did our own cold stone.  We asked the kids what their favorite toppings were and I bought a big bucket of vanilla ice cream and toppings.  Neal was our mixer and he did a good job.  We did it again Saturday evening too.  It was fun to get our ice cream specialized and mixed in like a ice cream parlor.  Neal used a cutting board he had put in the freezer and two ice cream paddles for the mixing, it worked great, and it was a lot less money than going out.  We had fun playing some games together too.  It was good to have some fun family time.

      Saturday afternoon Neal, Andrew and Spencer were invited to the home of the organizer of the model train club they belong to. He wanted to get to know the boys better and spend more time with them to know their interests with the trains.  They really enjoyed it.  Andrew worked on his train lay out a lot this week.  He is making progress getting the outline and beginnings of things going.  He needs to buy some switches to have the track work.  It is coming together and it was nice he could work on it over his break.

    Saturday when we went to get the iris plants the boys found big snails their yard.  They brought home four of them.  Neal found a large pickle jar for them to make a little habitat for their snails.  They are enjoying having pets.  I don’t mind it because they are quiet and so far haven’t had any smells. 
    This week is going well.  We got back into our school time routines.  Spencer and I have both come down with colds.  We are doing okay but it is hard to not feel well.  Yesterday we got caught in the rain coming home from school.  Today I drove them to school because I didn’t want to chance getting wet again.  We have also had our neighbor boys come over before school a couple of times this week.  Their mom needed to go to work early and asked for some help. The boys have enjoyed playing together for about 45 minutes before school.  Today is their early out day.  Spencer and I plan on making a cake for his Blue and Gold dinner tonight for cub scouts.  It should be a fun activity.  Andrew has enjoyed working on the Sustainability merit badge this month with a Stake merit badge activity.  Ruth enjoys going to her Young Women activities.  On Sunday she was happy saying that it was her last Sunday as a Beehive.  She is excited to turn 14 and move up into the MiaMaid class with all her friends, she is the youngest in her group of 8th grade friends. 
    Sunday I was mixing up some bread dough and heard a clunk and turned to look at the mixer and found it was broken.  The stirring planetary part had broken off.  I guess it can only take so much mixing and over almost 10 years it got worn off.  I have looked up on the internet and found that we can buy a replacement part, so I will only be out of a mixer for a short time until it gets fixed.  Just one more thing to add to the things that have broken this year!

    There is a little of our activities.  Neal has been very busy with work trying to get some projects finished before the end of the month.  We enjoy all our family time when we can get it. 

Busy Month

The days just keep passing by.  So many things happen.  It is hard to keep up with it all.  We got the taxes done and mailed.  It is good to have that behind us now.  It always is stressful because of the time that it takes for Neal to go through everything.  I took time to review things and try to at least understand some of it.  I let Neal read all the details to make sure he is using the right forms and all. 

We finally have gotten over the illness that was in our home.  Spencer did miss three days of school in a row (Feb 28, Mar 1, 2) He was having a hard time.  On March 2nd his teacher wrote me an email asking how he was because she was concerned he had been sick so long.  She also asked if I wanted some school work for him to do.  I responded he could work on things.  I went over to the school and picked up a packet she had prepared.  He was feeling well enough that afternoon to work on things.  I am glad he got that head start on getting caught up from missing class.  That has been a hard thing for the kids.  Andrew got behind in his classes from missing school.  He did okay getting caught up with everything except his language arts class. He worked hard to get caught up in that class.  He had to write some poems, he did a good job with them.  He also had an essay to write on World War II.  The novel they are reading is about WWII time period.  He did some research and wrote the essay.  The night before it was due he was up until midnight finishing it.  I am glad that he is caught up with things now.  He is also happy that he has time to play in the evenings now and not be working on home work all evening.  He is also busy working on scout things.  This month the Stake is doing a merit badge conference.  The boys choose what merit badge to work on and each week they are meeting as a Stake group to do things.  He is doing Sustainability, which we found has a lot of things he need to do with his family.  For Family Night on Monday we worked on things with it.

On March 3rd, when Spencer was returning to school, he was worried that he wasn’t well enough.  His stomach felt a little funny that morning.  I encouraged him to go to school so he wouldn’t get further behind.  I told the kids I planned on going to the temple.  I hadn’t been for a couple of weeks because of the kids being sick and I being home with them.  Spencer was so worried about it though.  He was so sad when I took him to school.  I asked why and he said that he was worried that if his stomach hurt more and I was at the temple he wouldn’t be able to call me.  I told him I would just stay home, if that would help him feel better.  He gave me a huge hug and smile and thanked me.  I enjoyed the quiet morning working on my quilt project.  I am thankful for family relationships.  I know they are important.  That day I also went to the church to help with a family lunch after a funeral.  An elderly man in my ward had passed away.   I didn’t know him, but know his two daughters in the area.  I wanted to help with the lunch because I remembered how nice it was after my dads funeral to have the help with food.  I am glad that I helped.  It was a big family group, we did lunch for about 200 people. 

That Friday evening I went with the boys to the school activity with the book we read, “Nim’s Island.”  Caleb and Spencer enjoyed the activities at the school with the book.  One day Caleb won the prize for answering the trivia question right and having his paper drawn, he got a little stuffed bird toy that he has enjoyed.  That evening we went to the final activity.  They had some information about sea creatures, more trivia contests and then they showed the movie.  We enjoyed watching it.  I am glad that I choose to walk over, even though it meant walking home in the dark. I was glad that we could just walk away and not deal with the crowded parking lot when everyone was trying to get out at the same time.

Saturday the 4th I went with Ruth to a work fundraiser project.  The youth were working to earn money for the summer camps.  They had asked for parents to come help too.  I spent about 2 1/2 hours raking grass.  They had men and young men working the power raking machines over a large lawn at a business and then we had to rake up, pile and remove all the dead grass that had been pulled out.  It was a lot of work but we had a lot of people come to help.  I understand that it went the fastest they have ever done.  The ward has been doing this work project for a few years now and each year it goes better.  The company pays them pretty good and they can earn enough to pay for most of their camp fees.

It was also our families turn to clean the church that morning.  Neal took the boys over to do that work.  Then Neal did a couple of errands with the boys and even came home with a dozen donuts, they liked that part.  That evening Ruth watched the delayed viewing of the Face to Face broadcast from that morning with Elder Holland and Pres. Eyring.  I watched parts of it and could hear it playing, it was really good.  They were talking about the youth theme this year of “Asking God.”  It was a good program. 

Saturday afternoon I took Caleb to a birthday party for a boy in his school class, Dima.  The party was at Chucky Cheese.  Caleb was so excited to go.  We don’t take our kids to places like that, so the only time they go is for parties they are invited to.  Caleb had so much fun playing games, eating pizza and being with his friends.  I am glad that it was fun for him.  I was also reminded why I don’t like places like that, it is crowded, noisy and most the games for the kids are a type of gambling.  At least they do get some reward with the little toys they can buy with their tickets they earn.  Caleb had fun.

Last week was busy too.  I worked a lot in the yard.  The weather was nice and there are things to do to clean up from winter.  I still have more leaves to gather up and clean up areas of the yard.  I was able to make a new area for a compost pile.  I had to remove landscape rocks to get to the dirt.  That was the hardest part of the project.  I am putting the compost pile in the corner by the shed.  The next step is getting the garden area ready to plant.  We need to remove a few more rocks from that area, take out some of the sandy dirt, then buy good soil to put in that area.  We plan on getting it done this month so we can plant the first of April.  Last Saturday Neal and I went to a plant nursery and bought a peach and an apricot tree.  Neal planted them were I had prepared a place.  I am excited to have more fruit trees here.  We may not have a lawn, but at least fruit trees do well here.  I know it will be a couple of years before we get anything from them, that is why we wanted to get them in the first year here, so hopefully we can enjoy them. 

Last week Caleb went on a field trip to the aquarium.  He really enjoyed seeing so many fish and sea things.  The field trip was in conjunction with a school project doing research on a sea creature.  Caleb had choose to do a project on lantern fish.  I helped him find information on them and we made a little habitat. (The project instructions said that parents could help with it.) It was easy since the fish live in deep ocean, so it is all dark.  We made a box covered in black paper and hung little fish to look like they were swimming.  I forgot to take a picture, I will try to remember when it comes back home.  Today Caleb will give a oral presentation on his project. He was excited to shine his uv-light on his fish, since he colored them with a uv pen, so they would glow like lantern fish do.

This week Spencer went on a field trip to a historic home in the area.  They had some pioneer living demonstrations there.  They are working on a unit with New Mexico history and he is enjoying learning about the state. He has fun working on weaving with yarn, something he learned on the field trip.

Last Wednesday Ruth had a young women in excellence program.  Neal and I went to it with her.  It was a nice program.  Spencer had cub scouts at the same time.  We left Andrew and Caleb at home.  Andrew was a good babysitter.  When we got home we found he had done the dishes and they were both in bed.  Caleb was asleep but Andrew wasn’t.  I am glad they got to bed early since they had been sick.

Last Thursday Ruth and Andrew had a band concert.  Neal took the boys to a open house for a model train in the late afternoon.  A man who lives in a larger home has a lot of model trains set up and every few months he opens his home for people to come see his trains.  The model rain road club was invited to come over.  The boys loved seeing things.  They got home at 5:55, right as I was about to take Ruth to the school for the concert.  Andrew grabbed is clothes to change into his concert attire at the school.  I dropped the kids off at the school and then I went to the church.  It was also our Relief Society dinner.  I wanted to go to it.  We had a nice dinner and program.  It was good for me to have time to visit with other women. Although I felt bad that I missed their band concert.  After eating some dinner Neal took Spencer and Caleb to the school to hear the band concert, they were a little late but were able to hear a lot of it and gave the others a ride home.  It was a busy evening.

Thursday and Friday last week Spencer and Caleb didn’t have school because of parent teacher conferences.  I went to conferences with both of their teachers.  They are both doing well in class.  Their teachers enjoy them and had many good things to say about them.  We found out that the testing for the gifted program will happen on the 31st.  Caleb should do fine.  His teacher said that she is sure he will get into the all day program, and if he doesn’t she will be very surprised.  She said it is fun to see how quickly he learns things, he has a good mind.

Friday was Neal’s day off (he gets every other Friday off) but he had to go into work because things are busy and he needs to finish a project.  I felt bad he had to work on his day off.  I had signed up to help in the temple baptistry during the open family time when anyone can come in, without appointments.  I was a bit worried leaving Spencer and Caleb home but knew that Ruth would be home from school in about 40 minutes.  I got to the temple and after changing into white clothing found out that they had more help than they needed.  Another sister, who is in my ward, suggested that I could go home.  So I changed again and came home, arriving about 5 minutes before Ruth and Andrew.  I am glad that I could be at home.  I would have liked to have helped in the temple too, but it was good to be with the kids.  We had a nice evening.  We decided to watch a movie and watched “The Man from Snowy River.”  The kids enjoyed it so much that on Saturday evening we watched “Return to Snowy River.”  I enjoyed the music and horses.

Saturday morning was the model rail road club meeting for the boys.  They enjoyed it this month.  This time they brought some of their own trains and had a chance to drive them on the track set ups owed by the club.  They came home all happy and talking about trains.  Last night Neal and Andrew did the finishing up on the table they made for a train layout of their own.  It is all done and painted nicely.  Andrew is excited to start working on making a layout for his n-scale train.

Saturday I took Ruth to an art show with the school district.  It was for the middle schools and high schools in the district.  It was a nice art show and there was a lot of good things displayed.  The high schools were judged more and had awards on things.  The middle schools were smaller exhibits where the art teachers choose things from their classes to display.  Ruth had two pieces chosen and I thought that was pretty good.  There was about 20 or so pictures from her school on display.  We enjoyed our time together and enjoyed seeing some good art.

 Ruth is also working on a young women goal for personal progress to learn more about family search and how to do research.  I spent time with her Sunday evening showing her the programs and working with her on things.  I have learned a lot just by doing it, I hope that she can learn and enjoy the work too.  It is amazing how much we can find from our home computers.

I have been asked to play piano accompaniment for a song for the ward choir for Easter.  I have been working on it and on Sunday the choir started working on it.  The song is “Beautiful Savior” and I am enjoying the music.  I should practice and play the piano more, so this is good for me to have something to work on.

Sunday was the time change for day light savings.  It has been a hard change for us.  We have struggled to get up in the mornings.  I didn’t sleep very well for a couple of nights either.  I look forward to spring break next week so I can sleep in a little bit and try to get use to this time.  I have enjoyed doing activity days for the primary girls this month.  I did an activity with games to help them learn the Articles of Faith.  Last night we had some fun crafts for St. Patrick’s day.  It is a fun group of girls and I enjoy them and enjoy working with the other leaders.  I need to work more on being ready to teach a lesson in Relief Society this Sunday.  Being involved in church things keeps me busy.

Today Ruth went with the school band to a music festival.  They will be playing for judges and having a day to listen to other bands too.  She was excited to spend the day with the band.  She has enjoyed doing band. 

I am thankful for my family.  Caleb is very excited for his birthday tomorrow.  I checked out a shamrock cake pan from the city library, yes, they have things like that there.  I plan on making him a cake tomorrow.  He is so excited it can be a shamrock this year.  He wants everything in green.  It is fun to see his excitement.  I hope you all can have a lucky day and enjoy wearing green tomorrow.