Happy Birthday Savanna!

This year for Savanna's birthday, we had Parker's orchestra concert. It was a hectic and crazy day. Instead of having cake, she requested that we go to Angies for ice cream and clean the "kitchen sink". We had a really great time and it was fun to do something different. It is hard to believe that Savanna is 17. I'm not sure where the time went. The last year has brought a lot of changes - dating, driving, dances and pageants. Next year will bring even more changes. It's hard to believe that she only has one year of high school left!

(Notice that Casadie pulled her hair back, this was serious business!)

Orchestra Concert

This year Parker chose to play the violin. He was really excited and so was I. He started in September and by November he was ready to be done. I talked him into keeping with it until the Christmas concert in December. Much to his disappointment, I forced him to continue and finish out the year. He really does a great job with it and I would love for him to stick with it for another year. I keep telling him that next year will be more fun because he has already learned the basics. They played a final concert in May. He did a great job and I know that he is excited to be done. Who knows, maybe I will have to resort to bribery for next year.

Cousins

Over the Easter weekend, we were fortunate to spend time with family. My brother Craig and his family were here in Utah. My sister-in-law's family is always really great to include us when they are visiting. This weekend was really great because my brother Todd brought his family down to visit and Nicole and Jake came also. We had a great time with everyone. I wish that we lived close enough to do this more often.

Volley Ball

We have three children. I realize that looking back over the blog, the posts lately seem to be more heavily weighted to Savanna and Parker, but we do have a middle child - Casadie. She is a great girl who is incredibly socially and rarely home. She is always on the go and hanging with her friends. This year she played rec league volleyball for the first time. It was a coed team and she played with a bunch of her friends. It was fun to watch her. She is a natural athlete!

Royalty

We love living here in our small community. Recently Savanna participated in a pageant for our town. It was a fun opportunity for her to dress up, share a talent and wear a tiara. She earned a small scholarship and I think she had a good time. She asked her dad to escort her and for her talent she shared an excerpt from one of the books that she is writing. We are so proud of her. She will be representing our town in several parades over the summer. It looks like we will be attending a lot of parades again this year.

Look who's a Weeblo!

In April Parker advanced from a Bear to a Weeblo. We are really proud of him. He had to do a lot of the work on his own at home, but he managed to get it done. I actually managed to get all of his patches on his shirt.

Junior Prom

Savanna's junior prom was last night. I'm pretty sure that Brett and I are not old enough to be having these experiences. It seems like just a couple of years ago that Ralph Lopez and I were awkwardly pinning on flowers and taking pictures in the living room. Last night I stood on the other side of the camera lens and took pictures while my daughter experienced this wonderful, albeit awkward right of passage.

A couple of weeks ago we spend one grueling Saturday afternoon in search of the perfect dress. Brett said "It will be fun" and I said "no it won't!" It turned out better than I thought. It took a little negotiating and compromising to bring her ideas and plans into line with my ideas and plans. At the end of an exhausting day we managed to find the "perfect" dress. She loved it, it fit all of her requirements and managed to be modest and not break the bank for mom and dad. Best of all it didn't need any alterations. Yahoo! I pulled out my scrapbook and showed her all of my old prom pictures (I couldn't get the picture to scan of my junior prom). I told her that it doesn't matter what the dresss looks like in 25 years she is going to think it is ugly (sorry mom).

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting...

Ooops! I mean Karate fighting (that doesn't sound as good). For Parker's birthday in March we gave him Karate lessons. It has been so much fun. He has loved every minute of it. I like it because it teaches great values and discipline. In five weeks he has advanced to yellow belt. He had to memorize 10 attitudes (things like "when you believe you can do it then the how to do it develops.") and 2 katas. He worked really hard and was able to get his yellow belt on Wednesday and participate in his first tournament on Saturday.

Karate tournaments are a new thing for me and I'm not sure about the etiquette. Can you yell out and cheer, or will that land him a kick in the head? Not sure! I do know that he did really great and we are super proud of him. He took 2nd place for his kata and earned a medal. He did really well in his sparring and did surprisingly well considering he has only had 5 lessons.



(Parker is the yellow belt)

Parker is 10

It is official, my baby is grown up. We have hit double digits. There is no longer anyone in the house that is a single digit number. Parker's birthday fell on a Sunday this year. We opened presents before church and that is why he is in his pjs still. He scored in the weaponry department with a pocket knife and a sling shot.

The top 5 things we love about Parker:

1. He has the best sense of humor! He is a practical joker and also a little bit goofy (but I think all 10 year old boys are goofy). He can always make us laugh.
   
2. He is incredibly kind and loving. He is always randomly giving his mom hugs.
3. He is so smart. He loves math and science and often knows the answers to things that I don't.
4. He still thinks his mom and dad are great. (Now that we have teenagers, this is greatly appreciated in our home).
5. He has a great attitude.

Sweet Hearts Dance

I'm already falling behind on posting things. Savanna went to the Sweet Hearts Dance in February. It was a girls choice dance. They were going to do a dinner at our house before the dance. When we started planning and thinking about decorating I came up with the brilliant idea that we should hold it at my school. Every year at the school I teach at we do a Valentine's Social. Each year it seems to get a little more over the top with decorating. The gym was all decked out for Valentine's Day, so we moved the dinner hear to the elementary school. It was lots of fun for the kids and surprisingly easy for me.

"Mortal Messengers with Angelic Messages"

Last weekend we had the opportunity to watch general conference. We gathered the family, prepared snacks (I think this year Parker was confusing general conference with the super bowl and we were required to have a lot of snacks!) and snuggled in together. What a blessing it is to be able to sit in my own home and hear the voice of the prophet. Here are some of the things that I felt were specifically for me!

• No matter how difficult it is, I still need to gather the "bedlamites" and have Family Home Evening.
• "How you deal with life’s trials is part of the development of your faith. Strength comes when you remember that you have a divine nature, an inheritance of infinite worth." Elder Nelson. (definitely something I needed to hear right now)
• Elder Robbins on "Being" vs "Doing"
• Elder Scott's talk on eternal marriage was a great reminder to keep trying and never take it for granted.

I was truly touched by the spirit and power of Elder Holland's talk. I am grateful for the "Angelic Messages" that were given and look forward to the next conference.

• 

Geek Week

Last week was "Geek Week" at USU. On St. Patrick's Day the Physics department set a record by dropping 20,000 bouncy balls from a helicopter. Brett and Parker went to watch the action. It was a little crazy with all of the college students that came to watch but Parker had a great time. When they dropped the balls he said that it looked like giant sprinkles falling from the sky. After the balls hit the ground and bounced they let the crowd go and everyone ran to gather the balls. Brett said it was crazy and was worried that he would lose Parker. Parker gathered 42 bouncy balls. He loved it. The great thing is that he has a bouncy ball collection. With the addition of the 42 new balls, he now has 99 bouncy balls!

Let it Snow

Last weekend we got about 15 inches of snow. We left our friends house Friday night and had enough snow that we weren't able to drive out of their circle. We had to take turns pushing every one's cars up the street to get them going. When we finally made it off their street we got stuck trying to drive up the steep hill leading up to our road. We had to back down and take a different route. When we finally got home we had to park at the bottom of the driveway until Brett could get out the snow blower and clear are unusually long and steep driveway (I wish I had taken a picture!) When Brett finally got the driveway cleared, we couldn't get the car moved. It was stuck at the bottom of the driveway. After some angry words and maneuvering he was able to get the car out and up the driveway. Of course all of this was happening at 11:00 at night. I didn't have to clear the driveway so I can say this, it was a winter wonderland and I loved it! All of the snow has provided some fun outdoor activities!

Flour or Flower?

We were all hanging out one night when the door bell rang. Brett answered it and one lonely bag of flour was sitting on the porch. It had a note for Savanna that said "Will you go to the Christmas Dance with me? Look inside the flour to find my name." Well, it was a 5 pound bag of flour. Savanna got out a large bowl, dumped out the flour and proceeded to look for a name. Guess what! She couldn't find a name. She got out another bowl and dumped the flour and sifted through again, and still no name. Casadie joined her in helping to look and soon we had flour, bowls and baking sheets everywhere, but still no name. She finally gave up and went to bed. The next day the boy in question showed up with a flower and said "oops, I gave you the wrong flower!"

I hope I'm not showing my age, but it sure seems a lot more complicated to go to a dance these days.

Who's the real loser?

Recently my sister-in-law posted on her blog about being a loser blogger because she had only posted 55 times in 2010. She vowed to do better in 2011. Brett was looking over our blog (the one that is sadly out dated) and commented on how we were doing pretty good because we had posted 9 times in 2010. Thanks honey! :) I guess it's all about expectations. This year I vow to do better. I feel bad because I really missed out on sharing some of the great things that we did in 2010, so rather than try and go backward to post for the whole year I decided I could do either share some highlights of the year or give you the link to my sister's blog (she is much better at documenting than I am). I guess the latter would be cheating, so here goes with some highlights from 2010.

1. Family Reunion in Island Park
2. Cindy get's her Real Estate license
3. Savanna was the Youth Council Mayor
4. Mad Scientist Parties
5. Pinewood Derby
6. Casadie's "Beiber Fever"
7. Teenagers
8. Two Teenagers
9. Savanna turns 16 = Dating and Driving (still no license)
10. Emergency Surgery