2021 :: week 43

 

October 17

Lauren spoke in Sacrament for the first (non Primary Program) time on Sunday. Thanks to the wonders of technology and COVID protocols, family members near and far were able to watch her give her talk (my sister Jill snapped this picture of her son Arthur watching Lauren in their living room). This week and last people in our ward have talked about lessons they learned from General Conference. Lauren spoke about feeling God's Love, and quoted from Sister Susan Porter's talk. 

October 18

Monday night Anthony and I went the annual NCCT board dinner. They have the dinner at various restaurants and this year it was at Hereford House in Leawood. Because they didn't hold one in 2020, it was the first time I had seen many of Anthony's co-workers since Christmas 2019. It was fun to eat a delicious meal and catch up a bit with co-workers and their plus ones.

October 19

Miles is often requesting a book be read to him and now we have five readers in the house! Elliott is reading up a storm these days. When I met with his teacher for parent-teacher conferences earlier in the day she told me that Elliott had mastered all of the sight words they expect the kids to have memorized by the end of first grade. I feel a little bad I didn't realize he was reading so well. I assumed he was memorizing books, because he often wants to read the same books with me over and over.

October 20

Lauren's outdoor soccer season came to an end this week. Wednesday evening was her final practice, which is traditionally a family verses team game. Will and Elliott were looking forward to the game just as much as Lauren. On Saturday her team had their final game that started just after 8:30pm. After going down 0-3 in the first half her team rallied and tied the game in the second half. It was a great way to end the season! She will be playing in a few indoor games this winter, but practices are over until spring. I am looking forward to quieter evenings as Elliott's baseball season has already ended and Will's baseball season ends next week.

October 21

We celebrated Miss Lauren Jean's 10th birthday. Lauren is truly a delight. I am so impressed by the well rounded person she is becoming. She is thoughtful, confident, helpful, creative, active, curious and quick. She intuitively knows to lean into what she enjoys and makes the most of things. I rarely hear her say she is bored. She likes to plan and is always thinking ahead. She is so organized and is constantly rearranging the stuff in her room to optimize the way she uses things. She is an avid reader and refuses to count The Goblet of Fire as two books towards the 4th grade 40 book challenge because she "knows" she is going to read way more than forty book this school year. We love Lauren so much and are grateful she is ours. 

October 22

While reading The Goblet of Fire, Lauren decided she wanted to be Fleur Delacour for Halloween. It had been awhile for me and my sewing machine, but I decided I would help make her a cape for the costume. We bought her distinctive hat from Amazon, and I found a blue dress at Target. I matched the dress to fabric and then made the cape on my own. I think this was the first time I calculated circumference in a real life situation since I took Math 110 at BYU. The cape didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, but I was proud of myself for how well it did turn out, all things considered. Lauren and Will wore their costumes to their Halloween Piano party. Their teacher brought a keyboard outside and the kids took turns playing their songs, eating treats and playing games.

October 23

Saturday evening we went to the Allred's house for their second annual Halloween party. Tony and I dressed up as the Wet Bandits--Harry and Marv from Home Alone. Will, Elliott and Miles were Royals players--Aldeberto Mondesi, Whit Merrified and Salvador Perez to be exact. Lauren was Fleur. Lauren wanted Miles to dress up as Dobby, but we knew he would not be willing to wear the ears, especially when his brothers were decked out in Royals gear. We had fun playing games, decorating cookies and eating the wacky Halloween meal. 

2021 :: week 42

October 10

Sunday we gathered at Memaw and Pepaws house for a big Sunday meal in honor of Pepaw's birthday. Jill, Emily and I split up the food responsibilities with Emily making 72 meatballs, Jill preparing the apple crisp and me tackling mashed potatoes. I made the mistake of buying a bag with tons of small potatoes, so it took Tony and I quite a while to peel them all. 

October 11

We got together with the Staritas one last time while they were in town on Monday morning. All the kids not in school came over midmorning to play, then Memaw treated us to a Chick-fil-A lunch. It was fun to see the cousins play together, and observe the dynamic without all the older cousins around. Miles and Peter "played" basketball for awhile. 

October 12

Will jammed his finger while tossing a football around with Curran. I bought him a brace to help him keep the finger straight. He had to miss baseball practice on Tuesday because it needs time to heal.

October 13

Miles has fallen in love with the trampoline again. He often requests to go out and jump, and if I'm able I am happy to oblige. It is a good excuse for me to sit in the sun and read a book. In the evenings I often request that his siblings go out and jump with him to get him out of my hair when I'm working on dinner. 

October 14

I don't usually order school pictures because we get pictures of the kids when we do our family portraits, but these email proofs had me feeling very tempted. October is parent-teacher conference month in SMSD and as I have had the chance to talk to their teachers I have been overcome with gratitude for these amazing kids. Each one is such a bright light in my life and, as I learned after talking with teachers, a positive asset to each of their classrooms. "Steady," "reliable," "model student," and "responsible" we a few of the adjectives their teachers used to describe them. 

October 15

The kids had no school on Friday and while I debated with to do with the free day, the kids were busy making plans with friends. The kids took advantage of the gorgeous weather and played with friends most of the day, then that afternoon we made our annual pilgrimage to Shaake's pumpking patch in Lawrence. We had a new understanding and appreciation of what it takes to grow pumpkins after Will's mini-pumpkin patch this summer. The kids had fun playing on the playground, observing the animals and going through the maze. 

October 16

Lauren and her friends had their second group sewing lesson at Harper's Fabric & Quilt Co in Downtown Overland Park on Saturday. They finished the bags they started working on two weeks ago. Lauren chose a pretty blue color to match her upcoming Halloween costume. 

2021 :: week 41

October 3

We spent the better part of the day Sunday watching General Conference. Will drew this cool picture of President Nelson. It was a cold and gray day, so it felt extra cozy to be inside listening to conference. 

October 4

The kids have been wondering who/what was eating the pumpkins on our porch and Monday morning I caught Snowy in the act! Squirrels make me feel like Mr. McGregor from Peter Rabbit. I sprinkled some cayenne pepper around the pumpkins after this--my latest attempt to repel the squirrels--so fingers crossed the rest of the pumpkins survive the rest of the month.

October 5

Tony spent the first part of the week at a conference in Tucson, so the big kids and Miles joined me at Elliott's final baseball game. Watching Elliott play baseball this fall has been so much fun! He has so much enthusiasm and energy. 

October 6

Wednesday our school "celebrated" National Walk to School Day. We walk to school everyday, but it was fun to see a more friends than usual on our morning walk. Living so close to school is so convenient. Lauren has Math Club on Wednesdays and she was able to walk home while I was dropping Will off at piano.

October 7

While TJ was out of town I went on a cleaning spree. I started following @gocleanco on Instagram and was disappointed to realize that I have been neglecting my dishwasher. Being that we have hard water and I have never cleaned out the filter before it took me awhile, but I felt exhilarated looking at my "like new" dishwasher afterwards. 

October 8

Tony's flight back from Tucson got delayed multiple times so he didn't arrive home until 3am Friday morning. He was still sleeping when the kids left for school in the morning, so they were excited to see him after school that night. There was so much excitement an impromptu family wrestling match broke out!

October 9

The Staritas came to visit and we celebrated with an early Halloween party. Some of the kids dressed up in costumes, others dressed up in Halloween shirts Memaw provided. The main theme was sugar--we had a ghost piñata, decorated sugar cookies and the kids trick or treated to the upstairs bedrooms. BYU beat Boise State, so the uncles were in a pretty good mood too.

2021 :: week 40

 

September 26

I FINALLY got around to teaching Lauren how to use the sewing machine. She has been asking for most of this year and for one reason or another I had avoided it. This Saturday she is taking a sewing class with three of her friends and a basic understanding of the machine was a prerequisite. Luckily, Lauren was a quick study, and within a few minutes was comfortable threading the machine and sewing straight lines. By the end of the afternoon she was pinning pieces together and turning things right-side out. 

September 27

A little behind the scenes of our annual family portraits. Emily always does such a great job, even though our kids range from eagerly participating and suggesting poses to awkward, unnatural smiles to active defiance. We took our pictures at the Liberty Memorial and then got each of the kids a Frosty from Wendy's to reward them for their patience and participation. We lucked out with a clear, gorgeous night.

September 28

I caught the boys walking home from school with the Sutherlins Tuesday afternoon. Living so close to the school continues to be a blessing in our lives.

September 29

When I was cleaning out our church bag I found this communique between Elliott and Will. Elliott asks, "Will do you want to play baseball," and Will responds, "No! We are at church!" These two boys make me laugh. 

September 30

It was supposed to rain all week, but never really did. On Thursday afternoon at Elliott's baseball practice I walked around the loop at the park and caught this rainbow. It started to sprinkle, but never hard, so his team kept playing. This was their last practice of the season, and they scrimmaged. I heard Elliott singing "We will, we will rock you!" to the batters when he was in the field. Elliott lives life with a lot of enthusiasm. 

October 1

Lauren got to play under the lights for her first soccer game in over a month! Her coach is wonderful and does his best to avoid Sunday games to respect our family's desire to avoid Sunday games, but this year their team was scheduled for three in a row throughout the month of September. Lauren and her team played well, but they lost a tight game. They moved to a larger field this year and are not rotating positions very often. Lauren played midfielder in this game, but she occasionally plays forward.

October 2

We had a fun outing to the K on Saturday evening with the Allreds and Wilsons. Will invited his friend Benji to join us so we had quite the party. Rain was in the forecast for Saturday, and all week leading up to the game Will would report if the chance of rain had gone up or down. Thankfully it held off until we were driving home. It was the second to last game of the season and Salvador Perez went into the game tied with Jorge Soler for single-season home run record holder and in first place in the MLB for home runs in a season. Every time he was up at bat the crowd buzzed with anticipation, hoping to see Salvy hit a record-breaking home run. Unfortunately, none of the Royals hit well and they lost the game 4-0 to the Minnesota Twins. We still had a fun time. It was fan appreciation night and we each got a long sleeve t-shirt that says "Together Royal." If you zoom in on this picture you can see Lauren, Elliott and Will on the Crown Vision. The kids were ecstatic to "be on TV."