A Trip Back to Soldier Hollow

We headed back up to Soldier Hollow to tube with the Shapiro family. The snow was nowhere near what it was the last time we came up here. It was melting and didn't allow for very fast sliding. Cole got stuck halfway down the hill his first trip down :( 

We are here, with our friends, on a day off of school, and so, we are going to have fun!!!

We tried to go in groups so that there was enough weight to get the kiddos down the hill. Sometimes that worked out and sometimes it didn't :)

Andrea, Vic and Sophia were going to go down as a family, but somehow, Andrea fell out of her tube and literally face planted on the hill. It was funny to watch, but we felt badly for her. She wasn't hurt and was laughing, but her tube had been attached to her family, so, now she had no way to get down the hill. We gave her Cole's tube and Steve, Reagan, Andrea and I hooked ourselves together and started down the hill. Cole ran after us and literally jumped onto Steve's back for the ride down. We were laughing so hard.

I love that you don't have to walk up that huge hill - you just sit in your tube and the tow rope pulls you to the top. Yay!!!

Cole was talking smack to everyone and throwing snowballs at everyone. I was below him on the tow rope and he called to me. I couldn't turn very well to look at him, so, I arched my back and looked up at him upside down. Right then, he threw a snowball and it hit my chest perfectly. Seriously - he couldn't have aimed any better - it was the one place I wasn't covered since I was leaning back to look at him. It hit right below my chin and the snow dripped into my sweater and down my chest. UGH! I told him I'd get him back. He avoided me for a while, but after our last trip down the hill, I grabbed him and threw him to the ground and rubbed snow in his face..... revenge! Lesson? Don't mess with the mama :)

After we had enough tubing, we headed to a Mexican food restaurant that the Shapiros like in Midway. We like it too now - it had great food and a salsa bar. I swear there must have been 20 different kinds of salsa. It was great. 

Another winter, fun day is in the books! Thanks Shapiro's for a great day!!!!!

A Trip Back to Funtopia

I received another 2 for 1 email for Funtopia, so, we headed down there to do some climbing. Reagan and Cole didn't have to watch the safety video as they had already seen it and we were super early since we just picked them up from school and drove down. (I thought they would have to watch the video again.) The group before us wasn't full, so, they let Reagan and Cole start climbing 20 minutes before their scheduled time..... SCORE!!!!!!!

They immediately went to their favorites and started climbing. Unfortunately, I brought a change of clothes for each of the kiddos, but forgot to bring different shoes for Cole. He had his little boots on and they looked crazy with his workout clothes that he climbed in. Mom fail.

Cole loves to jump off of that platform to the big punching bag. He makes sure to tell the worker there to move it as far out as it can go... he loves a challenge.

He loves to jump off the platform to the trapeze bar as well. Again, he makes sure to ask for the trapeze bar to be as far away from the platform as possible. You go Cole!

Reagan doesn't love the platform jumping as much. She loves to climb the walls and the ropes.

In the past when we have come here, the big slide has been closed. You have to pay extra for this, but it was well worth it. 

The kiddos put on a helmet and a full body, footie, suit. Then, they lay down on this metal slide. They grab a trapeze bar which pulls them up (next to the slide) until they are up in the air and then it drops them. The suit makes sure they slide down the slide to the bottom. It was great!

I had to laugh, though, because Cole, in his suit, looked like an Oompa Loompa to me :) Oh well - whatever works, right?

Reagan kept letting go of the bar before it was all the way up. She was scared and said it looked too high. After some encouragement (aka shaming) by mom and some coaching by Cole, she held on for the entire time. Yay Reags!

After all of our sliding, Cole and some other children started building their own little staircase. Good thing Cole had a belay on him. He is crazy.

Yep - we love this place and with a 2 for 1 - it can't be beat!!!!! Thanks Funtopia!!!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!

It's Valentine's Day!!!!! Reagan and Cole packed up their Valentines and were super excited to share them at school. Since I had been in charge of Cole's Halloween and Christmas class parties, I decided to be in charge of Reagan's class party for Valentine's Day. I told my friend, Angela, who is another mom in Cole's class and whom has helped me with the other parties, that I wouldn't be available to help with the Valentine's party. No worries - she said she would do it alone. Then, the day before Valentine's Day, I texted to ask her what they were doing for their party. She said that their family had mixed up the dates and were actually in San Diego. She had given the teacher ribbons and stickers and things for the students to decorate their Valentine boxes but that she wouldn't be at the party. I knew from Cole's reports during the week that the students had already decorated their boxes earlier in the week. So, I called Cole's teacher and asked what she was planning for the party. She said "I guess I'm going to figure that out tonight." She was clearly stressed. So, I asked Steve to step in. He was happy to. I found some Valentine games and sent a craft with him. He stepped in literally the day of and ran Cole's class party - What a guy! Cole said the party was great!!!

Meanwhile, I had a great time in Reagan's class party. We decorated their boxes and that took most of the time. I had some games prepared just in case, but we never needed them. Their classmates raved about Reagan and Cole's Valentines.....YES!!!!!

Last year, we had karate or football or something on Valentine's night, so, Steve and I didn't even go out. This year, Shannon offered to watch the kiddos so, we headed to my favorite restaurant ... La Calle. They had a special menu for the night and it was all SO delicious. We had a great meal and a great evening out. Thanks so much Shannon!!!!

Such Cool Valentines

You'll remember that, in years past, we had our favorite photographer, English Photo, create custom Valentines for Reagan and Cole. Last year's mermaid and Darth Vader themes were fabulous. Well, we were up for it again this year. I must say, this year's Valentines were EPIC!!!!!

Cole, still being SO into Michael Jackson decided he would have that for his theme. We ordered a glove, hat, shirt, glasses and socks and prayed they would arrive in time... they did!

Usually, we have only a front of the Valentine and a back. However there were SO many great pictures this year that we couldn't narrow it to two. So, we ended up doing a fold in card that had 6 pics. The purple lines aren't on the cards, they just show where the folds are.

With both kiddos having just earned their first degree black belts in November, Reagan wanted to have karate be the theme for her Valentine.

Allison did an AMAZING job and these cards turned out so great!!!! Everyone raved about them and we love them. Not sure we can top that next year, but maybe it doesn't matter. These were fabulous!!

The Boys Play Hookie

I'm late or out of order in posting this, but..... Steve and his youngest brother, Brett, decided to skip work and to take their boys out of school and they headed up to Brighton to ski for the day. They rented their skis, got all of their gear together and met up first thing that morning. It was a super snowy day, the day of President Trump's inauguration, a Friday (a work and school day) and it was during the Sundance Film Festival. Somehow, all of those combined to mean a very UN-crowded day at Brighton and they were able to get in like 21 runs!!! They were tired when they got home but they had a blast together. I'm so glad that these brothers (and their families) are close!!!!

You can imagine that this idea did NOT sit well with Reagan who didn't get to ski, didn't get to skip school and had to endure the drudgery of the day. So, I took her a milkshake at her lunch time and had lunch with her and her friends. After I picked her up from school, we ran a few errands and shopped a bit :)

The Primary Children Gave the Bishop a Heart Attack

We have a new bishop in our ward. So, before Valentine's Day, we wanted to show him how much we love him by giving him a "Heart Attack". We had each of the Primary children write a note on a cut out heart. During the last half hour of church, while the Bishop was in Priesthood, we went over to the Bishop's office and decorated his door.

In addition, we left a cute note for him with a bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which his wife told us were his favorites. Unfortunately, he caught some of us as we were putting the last few hearts on his door. Oh well - it didn't matter - we were happy to be caught.

Yep - we love you Bishop!!!!!

Friends??????

I found this in Cole's lunch box one day and asked him what it is. He said that he would go to classmates at lunch recess and show them the front of the card and if they nodded or said "yes", he would put a checkmark next to their name on the back of the card. I'm not sure he proceeded his card with any sort of statement or explanation or that they knew what they were agreeing to when they said or nodded "yes", but oh well. From the card, it looks like you are doing pretty well Cole!!!! (That boy cracks me up!)

It's Science Fair Time...... Ugggggghhhh!!!!

Yep - it's that dreaded time of year again.... Science Fair (duh duh duh!!!!). Ugh - I know I've posted every year about how much I hate this. Well, it's a requirement and our kiddos usually do pretty well, so..... let's get started!

This is Cole's first year doing his own Science Fair project. Until now, it has been done as a class or as a group within the class. Now, he is on his own. One change since Reagan's third grade Science Fair is that the 3rd graders no longer have to write a written report. They have to do their proposal, their outline, their abstract and their board along with an oral presentation. That takes some of the burden off. Oh - and the 3rd graders have to hand write everything - even the headers on their boards. Interesting.

Cole's project this year is to determine which packing material (none, bubble wrap, Kleenex, or styrofoam pieces) would best protect an egg in a box when dropped from a second story deck. He named his project "Don't Crack the Egg". 

He got everything ready and we labeled each box and headed outside to drop them. We filmed each drop in slow motion. After all the boxes were dropped, we checked out each of the eggs and recorded our results on a spreadsheet.

This is Reagan's third year doing an individual Science Fair project. Even though we have experience, it is still so much work. Reagan chose to do a project to determine whether friction on a surface slows a toy car down. We made a ramp and sent a car down a lane with no sand paper, extra fine sandpaper, fine sandpaper and coarse sandpaper. She named her project Friction Factor.

She recorded each run down the track in real time and slow motion video. She had to find out the angle of the ramp (in degrees) and had to document everything. Her written report was huge...as usual, but at least we could type it.

Now that we have completed the experiments, we have to get down to research and writing. Alrighty then.... let's go.

Another Pack Meeting

Here we are at another pack meeting. Cole earned two belt loops at this meeting.

They do most of their work as a den, but when the Scoutmaster asked them what they did to earn this loop, Cole was the only one who could tell him what they did.

He is getting so many belt loops - soon his belt will be covered. He is now in the Bear den and is loving it!

Once again, Cole was the only one who could answer the Scoutmaster's questions about their activities. C'mon guys - get with it!!!!

Well, we are super proud of Cole for all of his work in Scouts. They work hard, but they have a lot of fun!!!!

The Super Bowl

We went to Steve's brother's house for the Super Bowl - we were also able to celebrate his wife's birthday. What a crazy game that Super Bowl was - double overtime? Whew! Great game in the end. Well, the kiddos had been playing together upstairs, downstairs, inside and outside. Not until I retrieved the photos and videos from my phone did I realize they were doing crazy tricks on the trampolines (yep - they have two in a row - right after the swing set that acts as a launching ramp to the trampolines) in the dark. Apparently, Reagan thought the tricks were good enough that she borrowed my phone to film them. Crazy Drew taught Crazy Cole what to do and .... well, I'm just glad that we didn't have any accidents during that awesome Super Bowl.

A Technology Class

In our ward, Steve is known as the "Go To Technology Guy". It seems like anyone and everyone who needs help with their lesson calls him. There are the older people who have no idea how to download a video they want to show or how to display their device onto the television in the various rooms in the church. Then, there are the younger people who know how to do that, but can't get a video clip embedded into their Keynote. Still, there are those who don't ask for help, but get to church, set up for their lesson or talk and then..... bam.. nothing works and they call Steve up out of the class to help them troubleshoot while everyone else watches. He has given so many lessons and classes on this, but still... people struggle.

Anyway, the Sunday School wanted to have a class to help people learn to use their devices. So, they asked Steve to help the people with Apple devices and they asked our neighbor John to help the Android crowd. Steve put together a presentation and those in attendance said how much help it was. Most of all, I had to laugh at the flyer the Sunday School gave out the weeks before the presentation. Here it is:

I'm not sure it came to the level of "Binary Extravaganza" as outlined in the flyer, but we had lots of great questions and we were able to work one on one with some of the class members after the presentation. Hopefully, it was beneficial to those in attendance :)

A Battle

There is always some sort of craziness going on at our house. One day, Reagan and Cole each set up their own fort and had battle plans and opted to "war" against each other. In an interesting twist, Cole opted to battle in full Darth Vader gear..... and his favorite warm, tiger striped socks. Silly boy. Oh well - he can still fight with the best of them. Alrighty then..... battle...ON!

Christmas Decor

I LOVE Christmas - LOVE IT!!!! Our Christmas decor just makes me happy. This year, we found some large ornament balls at Costco that I love. I put those in the big glass bowl at the top of the cabinets. Oh - and at Orson Gygi, I found a subway sign about Christmas that looks perfect in the kitchen where our "Family Rules" sign usually hangs.

I still LOVE our big, white star that hangs in our kitchen window. So fun!!! 

One of my new favorite things is our lighted wall of cards. I found this wire with lights on it. We put it up in a zig zag pattern on the wall as you walk from the garage into the family room area. It came with lots of itty bitty clothespins that we used to clip the Christmas cards we received from close friends and family. I LOVE it!!! The lights have 7 different patterns - my favorite is where every other light gradually comes on and then gradually fades while the every other one gradually comes on. 

We also got a new Christmas tree for the family room this year. We most decorated this one with things from Target, combined with some Tai Pan decorations and ribbons. I love it. We used a navy, turquoise, white, silver and rose gold color scheme - so fun!!!! Target's stuff is so great because they match everything together - ornaments, decorations, ribbons, garland - everything.

We also got some new trees for the dining room. I've always wanted a flocked tree. Steve isn't a fan, so, we always opted for a green tree. However, I was at Tai Pan and there was a 6' super skinny, flocked tree on sale plus I had a coupon, so....... I bought it! Then, I thought it needed something to go with it, so, I bought the last two of their 3' flocked trees. I found these turquoise jewels that are ornaments at Tai Pan and knew that these trees would be turquoise and white. Some more ornaments from Tai Pan and some from target and we were good to go. I then found some turquoise fabric with silver snowflakes on it and that was our tree skirt... YAY!!!! Seriously - it made me so happy each time I walked by the dining room and saw those three trees. I love them!!!!

We also added these funky, shiny, red vases that sort of look like tree topers, but they aren't hollow. I put those on the shelf half way down the stairs. I love them!!!! They seem SO fragile. I hope I can pack and store them well enough to protect them. 

My friend, Jennifer, made me this beautiful, white, wooden sign that says JOY. It is perfect next to our little tree in the hallway. Last of all, I went to Deseret Book the week before Christmas and they had nativity sets on sale. You KNOW how I love those. Plus, I had a coupon, so, I bought a new white one with gold. We put it on the coffee table in the living room and, again, it made me happy to walk by and see it. Love it!!!

Both kiddos decorated their rooms with Christmas items, but Cole took his down before I could get a pic. Yep - I LOVE our Christmas decor and our new additions made this a great year to celebrate!!!!

Great to Be Eight Night

We held our annual Great to Be Eight night for all those Primary children turning 8 and getting baptized this year. Last year, we had 7 children attending... this year, only 2. Oh well - we still put on a great evening for those two and their families.

We had a table with the programs on it as well as a picture of each of the children. Our center table had candles, a picture of Christ, a statue of Christ, one of the baptism towels we give at the baptism, book and packets for the children to help them prepare for baptism and the Faith in God books.

We had talks about preparing for baptism and the covenants made there, the interview process, a tour of the baptismal font and presentations from the Activity's Days and Cub Scout leaders. We also gave them lots of information necessary for their baptism day. We had a table in the back with baptism invitations and programs from previous baptisms in the ward and we served white cupcakes, white hot cocoa, white chocolate covered pretzels and white kit kat candy bars. YUM!

I hope these two children and their families feel more prepared for their baptisms and that they feel how excited we are for them and how proud we are of them :)

Sweet Notes

One morning, we all woke up to notes that Reagan had left for us. Steve's was on his bathroom mirror, mine was on the microwave in the kitchen and Cole's was in his room.

Reagan is so sweet. She often does kind things like this. We love her!!!!

Thanks Reagan - you made our day!!!!!

Reading Scriptures as a Primary

For 2016, the Primary theme was I Know the Scriptures Are True. All year, we encouraged the Primary children to read their scriptures. In March of last year, one of the counselors gave a sharing time about reading scriptures. She taught the children about chain mail and how the links of metal attached together to form a protection for the soldier wearing the chain mail. She told them that if they would read their scriptures, they were effectively forming a chain mail that would protect them in today's world. So, we decided to ask the children each week whom read the scriptures during that week, either with their family or by themselves. Each child that read during the week had their name written on a strip of paper that was made into a chain. By the end of 2016, our chain stretched around the entire Primary room, protecting all of our Primary :)

We HAD to take a picture of our chain. We definitely read our scriptures this year!!!! Way to go Primary kiddos!!!!