Welcome to our World

With all 4 children in school full day for the first time I have more flexibility with how I spend my time as a stay at home mom. I miss having lunch buddies but the puppies make it so that I am never alone. I am still doing things like I did with N around like go to the grocery store — it just takes a few minutes shorter to run errands without a friend along. I feel like there is still a ton to get done, largely in part to our dogs, but I don’t have that rushed feeling as much. For instance, it doesn't bother me a bit to block out Tuesday mornings for catching up on the blog and scrapbook and spending every Thursday morning volunteering at D & N's school.  It's easier to leave to pick up M from her school when I only have to take the dogs out instead of interrupting N from whatever she was doing.  I am able to take the time to make better choices and work on becoming a better person. A couple women that I highly respect recommended I begin listening to the Better Than...

My oldest and youngest daughters have very big transitions to make this year and are doing well. N is adjusting from half day kindergarten to full day first grade but loves her teacher and has many good friends in her class from preschool, church and kindergarten. We had to suppress happy dancing in public at back to school night when we realized how many people she knew. K began middle school!!!  I am so proud of her for taking good care of her school iPad, getting homework done, and walking with her best friend and being early everyday.  Back to school night allowed me to meet all her teachers and see what her schedule and curriculum is like and it's pretty obvious they already like her. D finally gets to have a guy teacher, which he was hoping for and he has been a real champ about the crutches at school.  I can tell D is enjoying 5th grade because when I had to pull him out to get his cast off and fitted for his boot he was willing to go back for another 4 hou...

Summer couldn't be over unless we took the canoe out to the lake first.  We were curious to see how our water dogs would do and for sure, they are naturals.  Scared of everything under the sun so quite a handful but a fun adventure nonetheless. M and N attended a Lion King themed Hip Hop camp and M liked it so much she is now in a class every week.  K is also signed up for Acro with her best friend again. Just the kids and I got to go with members of our ward to MW's lake and we had a magnificent time.  My middle children tricked me into getting pushed into the cold water and laughed so hard.  I'm glad they did -- it was good for me. D and M performed in The Hobbit together with a local theater group. They both had a wonderful time and I might be biased but I think they did very well at the evening performance our whole family, including my parents, attended.  D was trying to convince me that he could play flag football and sign up f...

K planned her birthday party all by herself and I was so proud of her. She has great friends who came to our house for volleyball, UNO, slime making, pizza for dinner and watching  Aquaman. It was the easiest birthday party we’ve ever had. I am so proud of K as she grows older.  She and I had fun eating out with her birth family and going to the movie theater to watch Spider-Man Far From Home too. K also go to celebrate with her friend E, since she had been out of town, by going to Cafe Rio with her thanks to E's big sister.  (:  P.S.  M really really wanted a summer birthday this year and waited exactly 4 months after turning 9 to have a pool party -- so M's birthday party was the day after K's birthday party!  We had a great time and the weather was perfect.  Our family wore our new matching swimsuits for the first time and received many compliments.  They were cheap and comfortable and fun so I recommended PatPat to lots of moms th...

The day after we got back from New York Hubby’s parents arrived to take care of K, D, and N while I went camping with M’s Girl Scout troop. They did a great job holding down the fort so that Hubby could go to work while we were gone. My co-leader, F, did an amazing job planning the food and activities and my mom sent along some too. The girls got along great and we had a magnificent time!  It was so much fun to play games and hike and cook and sing together. It made me so glad our troop is continuing with 13/14 girls from this year. Lucky 13!  The next week my parents watched D, M and N while I went to Girls Camp with K and the Young Women from our ward to be an extra adult to be with Sister S and the Laurels. The YW leaders did such a great job preparing a nice time for the girls with love and thoughtfulness. I am so glad I got to tag along even though I think K would have been just as happy without me there. Lol.  We also held Activity Days Day Cam...

Palmyra has such a different feeling than Niagara. We felt like we were in the middle of no where and then all of a sudden you would see that familiar blue sign saying “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Visitors Center” and know all was well with your phone maps after all. First we saved seats for the pageant and toured the Hill Cumorah Visitors Center, walked on the same floors as the Prophet Joseph Smith at the Grandin Building, checked into our lovely 200 year old bed and breakfast (The Yorkshire Inn), got dinner and ice cream at Gooney’s and then headed back to see the Hill Cumorah Pageant. The pageant was truly wonderful. We liked meeting and hearing from cast members before the show and the amazing special effects. I’m so sad 2020 will be its last year and grateful we were able to come this year. Of course it is very obvious many people had the same idea and it is rumored there were record numbers of people visiting Palmyra this week. I believe it from what I saw a...

When I was researching places to take families during the depths of the winter I came across Niagara Falls on more than one list of best places to go, so that’s where we went.     We (the children and I) were so sad to leave the puppies again and Hubby had a lot going on at work so we tried to cancel but realized we couldn’t get our deposits back so decided to go anyway, except we did pay the $50 plane ticket change so that Hubby wouldn’t miss as much time at work.     So off the children and I went the day after the 4th of July to the state of New York.     I must admit we were pretty unnerved when we saw the neighborhood we were in and the creaky, almost 100 year old house scared the children so much they had a really hard time going to sleep.     They got used to it quickly and spent our first full day at Six Flags Darien Lake and had so much fun.     The children were good about taking turns with rides since there was only one adul...