Week 49

{December 5 - 11}

Kanyon had basketball practice on Monday night, and we had Family Home Evening after he got home. For our lesson, we had the boys finalize their Christmas lists (that they'd been editing all week)!


Ammon had basketball games on Tuesday in Belgrade, Montana. Josh drove the bus for it. They were gone all day, and didn't get home until about 2:00am that night! I found out that day about a bullying incident at school regarding my twins and another boy. The other boy has been stealing their pencils and water bottles for weeks, and he's been saying mean things to them because they don't play football anymore like he does (they both run XC now), but then I learned that at recess, he pulled on the back of Micah's shirt, and Micah kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn't, and finally the shirt ripped before the boy ran off because he didn't want to be in trouble. I was livid! Josh was gone, so I wanted to wait until he got home so I could talk to him about it. I knew he would be home late, and I have a hard time going to bed without Josh, so I worked on scripts for the upcoming Ward Party's Christmas program all night and watched T.V. until about 1:00am when I finally fell asleep. I was glad they made it home!

The back of Micah's shirt that a boy at school pulled on until it ripped.
Micah wore his hoodie the rest of the day over it. It makes me so sad,
because he got this shirt for medaling in the top 10 at the Challis XC meet.

Josh didn't have to drive bus route on Wednesday morning since he was home so late the previous night, so he got to sleep in a little bit. When he awoke, I told him of the bullying incident at school. He talked to the twins that morning before they left for school, then he went in to talk to the principal. She wasn't as concerned as she should be, considering the high school has taken on an anti-bullying campaign this year. She said she would talk to some teachers and the boy, and get back with us later that day, but she never did. I called repeatedly and left messages with the office, Josh went back in to try and speak with her, but she was unavailable and didn't return our calls. SO frustrating! Kanyon had basketball practice again on Wednesday night. He really enjoys going to them! He especially loves playing Lightning, because he's usually one of the finalists. While he was in the gym, I used a projector in my Kindergarten teacher's classroom to make signs that some children would be holding up at the end of the upcoming ward party's Christmas program. Kanyon helped me deliver a 12 days of Christmas that night, and when we got home, I painted the signs, and got everything ready for the ward party the following night!!


Thursday was the ward party at 6:30. I went early with the younger 3 boys, and Josh and Ammon came a little later after delivering the 12 Days of Christmas gift for the day. I got the stage all set up with the help of some other ward members who helped me with the stairs, piano, microphone, and sound system. Then I proceeded to make sure almost every individual child in the program had a costume, knew where they were supposed to be on stage, and gave them a script and went over their lines with them. I did it before the party began, then during dinner as well (as some of the kids came late). I never had a chance to eat, but I was feeling like the program might just work out as I'd hoped it would! I was also the pianist for the program, so I asked Sister Deschaine if she could be the backstage manager. I had written out detailed instructions and a map of the stage with all the performers on it, so I'd hoped it would be easy enough to understand. I was so, so grateful she accepted the responsibility! I couldn't have done it without her and Camille, who directed the children's songs from the floor in front of the stage. The program started out with ancient prophets who stated their revelations that a Savior would be born, followed by the kids all singing "Said Samuel". Joseph and Mary spoke next, and then Emily sang a song as Joseph pulled Mary on a donkey around the the tables in the gym. The donkey was a covered wagon with donkey images on front and back. If I have one major regret from the party, it's that I didn't take a picture of Joseph pulling Mary on the donkey. They were both dressed awesomely (all the kids were responsible for bringing their own costumes). The curtains then opened with Mary and Joseph at the manger scene, and a lot of the smaller children holding posters of animals at the stable. The kids all sang "Away in a Manger". Then Shepherds, Sheep, Angels, and Wise Men all acted out their parts, with the angels singing another song, and when everyone had joined the scene, the final part was the narrator and a few young girls quoting the scripture in Isaiah that says"And he shall be called: Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace", and the kids all sang the final song "Shepherd's Carol", They sang the final verse in a round, a capella style. The program went pretty well--except for a few random things. I wished I would've had Joseph pull Mary around the front of the gym; I'd given him instructions to walk around the exterior, and up the middle, but there was SO many tables set up, that he walked all around the outside (not enough room to go up the center) and the people sitting up front never saw him and Mary with the donkey. When the curtains were first opened on the manger scene, the little kids holding posters were all sitting in a straight row rather than being staggered, and they completed covered Joseph, Mary, and the baby at the manger scene, so I got up from the piano in front, walked up the stairs, and physically moved some of the kids! At the end when the young girls said their part of Isaiah's quote, there wasn't a direct path for them to walk behind the manger and raise their posters, so they walked straight across the stage, went completely around the backstage curtains, and returned back to where they had originally entered, before one of the leaders backstage showed them where to go. They were the very last part, so we all waited for them to reappear before we could sing the final song, and it took a full minute of silently waiting! It was kind of chaotic once the program ended, because the curtain closed, and the kids were supposed to return to their parents, but they kept hanging out backstage, so I finally got up (again), walked up the steps, went through the closed curtains, to tell the kids what they needed to do. The Bishop was backstage too, trying to find the microphone to have someone say the closing prayer, and there were so many kids (it was like a mob) that neither of us were able to get our goal accomplished quick enough! I was starving when it all ended, so after the prayer, I went down to eat the salad that I'd brought. I'd made a beautiful Christmas green salad--every component was green and red (for festive Christmas colors) and had spent over a half hour chopping all of the fresh vegetables that evening. I was happy to discover that some of my salad was still left, so I got a plate from the end of the table, and by the time I'd made it back to my salad bowl, it was completely empty. There was a lady clearing the remains of everybody's leftover salads onto a plate. I explained to her that I'd brought that salad, and I hadn't eaten dinner, and I wanted to eat the food that I'd brought. I asked her if she was going to throw them away. She told me that she couldn't eat anything else on the table (due to her diet), and she was going to take it home to eat (she'd already eaten dinner earlier) and I told her that I was the same--I couldn't eat any of the potatoes, fruit salads, rolls, or dessert due to my diet, and that I really wanted my salad. So she scooped up four spoon fulls onto my plate. I sat down at a table and cried as I ate. I felt like my expectations for the program weren't met, and I was so hungry, and I hated having to have a confrontation at a church function just to eat leftover food of what I'd brought from home! I finished eating as tables and chairs were being cleared from all around me, then I packed up everything I'd brought, and the boys helped me carry everything back out to our vehicles. The heavens opened up and it was snowing beautifully outside, which made my heart glad! I loved the sight!

This was after I'd moved some of the kids holding posters away from
the front of the manger scene!! 

Some of the brand new posters I'd finished making that
week for the end of the program. Glad these girls
finally found a spot to stand to display them! ;)

Thanks Gina for taking this photo--I'm playing the piano
as the kids are singing the first verse of "Shepherd's Carol"

Kanyon was "Samuel the Lamanite" in the program.
He refused to let me take his picture the night of the
performance, so I settled to have it taken the next day instead. 

The front of the donkey that Mary sat on to get through the gym to Bethlehem

The back of the donkey

I've always loved the look of snow falling
at night, lit by street lamps. 

Friday I had plans to go watch a play at ISU in Pocatello with Darcy, but after it snowed all evening, we changed our plans. And we were glad, too, because it continued to snow all day Saturday and would've been a challenge to drive in. Josh finally put up our exterior Christmas lights in the snow that day, too. For years, he's put a singular lighted deer on our roof, but this year, he wanted to do something different with it after being inspired by some images he saw online. He hung it from the new garage instead, in honor of the deer the boys had hunted this year! I had a work party at 1, and a friend's Christmas party at 6, but I opted to not go to either due to my sugar-free, carb-free diet. I didn't want to look like I was being picky (when I had to be), and didn't want to seem rude, so I thought staying home was the best option. Josh and I went to Darcy & Phil's house that evening instead, and played Settlers of Catan with them. It's become one of our favorite monthly activities. I won for the first time ever!

I've enjoyed coming up our driveway at
night, and seen this fun lit-up display!

I've never won at this game before! Josh
and Phil didn't take the loss very well.

I'm a winner!!

I finally put a tree-topper on our tree on Saturday. I'd been looking for something blue or silver or pink all week, but could never find anything! I finally decided to use some of the leftover ribbon from Malachi's reception to make a bow to add to the top instead. The ribbon was silver with a glittery design in it, and matched the tree skirt pretty well, and I was glad to find the perfect topper without spending any money! The Christmas tree decorations were finally complete!

Sunday was cousin Sammy's homecoming in Stanley. We drove down that morning, and there was quite a few people in attendance. Kanyon sang the song "Gethsemane" during the program (after being bribed with money by Grandma and Grandpa), Sammy spoke, Michael & Denae talked about their favorite Christmas hymns, and the congregation sang them. It was nice to sit next to Josh during Sunday School--I never get to when we are at our home ward! After church, we ate dinner at the Forsgren's house, played Telestrations, Kanyon played the PS4 (and insisted that he wanted one for Christmas after that), and hung out for a while until it was time to head back home. It was a nice relaxing Sunday with family! When we got back to Salmon, Josh went with me to the Christmas Cantata at the foursquare church. We wanted to support our friend Darcy who was singing with the choir, and had a solo in the program. It was the first time Josh has ever gone to it (I went for the first time last year), and he surprisingly liked it! It was a great show, and Darcy did a great job, too!

The snowy 2-hour drive was beautiful

Week 48

{November 28 - December 4}


Kanyon had basketball practice on Monday night, and after he and Ammon got home from their practices, we had Family Home Evening. We talked about the boys making their lists of what they wanted for Christmas, and we discussed our family Christmas service project. In previous years, we've hosted a family (buying clothes and a meal for an entire anonymous family) and we've participated in the Christmas is Sharing program numerous times (where you take tags off trees at stores in town, and purchase specific items needed for people in the community). This year, we wanted the boys to be more active participants in the giving, so we decided to do a 12 Days of Christmas activity for a family that Josh felt inspired to share the Spirit of Christmas with. The boys liked the idea, and we talked about how we'd start on the 1st, and do random days until the 24th. The boys would help deliver the items, and help purchase a few things, and Josh & I would purchase the majority of the items. We asked them to keep it anonymous, and not tell anyone who our family was, because keeping the secret was part of the fun. They were glad to go along with the Christmas service project, and we were excited, and started making plans for ideas that we could give for each of the 12 days.

At preschool on Monday afternoon, one of the students was sorting a giant box
of animals into random piles/lines based on the type of animal it was.
It made my heart so happy to see OCD prevalent in a young child! It's exactly
what I would've done with the box of random animals, too!

On Tuesday night, my college mentor called and said I was officially all set to start my student teaching in January. Yay!


On Wednesday evening, Kanyon and Ammon both had basketball practice. Ammon dropped off Kanyon before going to his own practice. I went in to pick up Kanyon after an hour, and dropped Jonah & Micah off at Scouts. They were going to get a ride home with Ammon because Josh and I were planning to go to our last Swing Dance Class, but then he got injured at work that day, and ultimately decided he didn't feel up to dancing on his hurt leg. He'd been trimming trees alone at the golf course, specifically some of the old willow trees along #9 fairway. He was on a ladder with his chainsaw cutting through the trunk of one of the old willow trees, when the tree fell a different direction than Josh had planned. He shifted his body at that moment, to try and get down from the ladder quickly, but his foot slipped through the rung, and his body fell backwards. His knee was wrapped around the rung, and his body was laying upside down on the ladder. It knocked the wind out of him and he laid there for several minutes in that awkward, painful position before being able to get enough breath and strength to pull himself back up. It really shook him, and as he told me about it that night, I told him I'm just so grateful that the tree didn't fall on top of him and pin him, and he admitted that he felt the same, because he thought when he first fell that that's what would happen. Every winter, he cuts trees at the golf course alone, and he always puts himself in scary situations just to cut a stupid old tree down. He's had several incidents over the years, some that have injured him, but none that were too severe. He's already had an accident earlier this fall at the golf course while cutting trees, too, but thankfully there was someone out working with him that day, so he was able to get help to recover quickly. I made him promise not go cut down anymore trees at the golf course until someone else was around!

When Kanyon saw this picture on our ladder
a few days after Josh's incident, he said
"that kind of looks like what happened to Dad".
We got a good laugh out of it, but Kanyon
was totally right!

Thursday was the first day of December, and our first day of delivering goodies to our 12 Days of Christmas family. Josh was gone on a bus trip to Challis, so I took the younger boys and we did it by ourselves. We figured out where to park, who would take the package to the porch, and where they needed to run to remain unseen due to street lamps and neighboring houses. Then I took the boys to the movie theater afterwards to watch Fantastic Beasts (written by JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter); we all liked it. The boys were kind of scared at one point, but I thought it was exciting and I really enjoyed the film.

We decided to go get a Christmas tree on Friday morning. We drove up above Williams Lake road, went around the lake, then kept driving on the road up into the mountains. It's the same place we went last year, but there was less snow this year, so we made it up the hill further. We stopped and looked at several trees this year, and I found the perfect one about 25 yards below the truck. It was the first time we've taken the tree I picked out! And it was great to have it be so close to the truck, too, since Josh's leg was still bothering him. We got another pine this year--we used to always get fir, but last year Josh really wanted a pine and we all liked it, so that's what we decided to get again this year. On Friday evening, Ammon had his first varsity basketball game at Challis at 7:00. Josh didn't drive the bus, so he got to drive with me in the car, which made me so happy! The other boys decided to just stay home, so it was like a date night for the two of us! Unfortunately, our boys team lost the game, but it was definitely an exciting game! At one point, Ammon got pushed down, and we all thought he'd hit his head (because he fell backwards), and I freaked out big time and was screaming at the refs! Thankfully, his hip hit the floor first, and he was able to get up off the floor by himself. His hip hurt the rest of the night, but that's much better than his head!

The tree I picked out

The boys watching dad cut it down

Josh let Ammon have a turn at cutting it, too

Heading back with our new tree!

Saturday afternoon, Ammon had another basketball game at Darby, Montana at 5:30. The boys' and girls' teams went together, so there was JV and varsity games for both teams all afternoon. Josh and I drove up together again, which was awesome, and we picked up Hannah on the way so that she could come watch, too. We were able to watch 3 of the 4 games. The boys' varsity game was SUPER close, and the boys looked so much better than they had the previous night, but unfortunately, in the 4th quarter, they began to get behind the other team's score, although they had been the scoring leader the majority of the game. Darby has the BEST concession stands EVER, which was great, because I just started the no-sugar, no-carb diet that day and I was glad I could eat at the school without having to leave the games to go get something. Ammon drove home with us, and was bummed to have lost the game, but we were so proud of him and the rest of the team for their strong efforts!

Tied in the 4th quarter. This is where the game began to turn around,
and unfortunately not in our favor.

I was in charge of Sharing Time in Primary on Sunday. I'd been asked to be in charge of the program at the Ward's Christmas party the following week, so I used the time in Primary to have the children practice the program that I'd written and prepared for it. It was kind of stressful, because we ran out of time in Senior Primary to run through it all, but Camille had helped teach the kids the songs the previous few weeks, and she was a great help to me during the practice, for which I was so grateful. Sunday was also Fast Sunday. I won the monthly contest against Gina! Yay! We had tithing settlement later that afternoon, and then we went to the Hobbs' house after for treats! Gina makes such delicious treats, and she spoiled us with Peanut Butter Balls, pie, and cookies that night! We stayed and watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional with them--which we've never watched before; that was so nice of them to share the experience with us. When we got home, we decorated our Christmas tree. We put the tree in the family room this year, and put it right next to the central wall so that it could be taller (we have vaulted ceilings). We decided to put blue lights on it with silver, blue, and pink decorations this year. I put the lights on, and the 3 younger boys decorated the whole rest of the tree, which was fabulous; they did a great job! And we all loved the way it looked when it was done.  

Watching the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional at the Hobbs' home

The boys did a wonderful job decorating
our Christmas tree!

Fall 2016 Top Ten

At the beginning of every season, I create a Top Ten list of items I hope to accomplish, and at the end of each season, I do a re-cap of what was actually done! Autumn is my favorite season. And it was a busy fall this year--but I'm glad to have the opportunity to look back on what we did together as a family, and reflect on the good times amidst the chaos!

1. Start School!

{done 9/6} Ammon is a junior in high school, Jonah and Micah are in 7th grade, Kanyon is in 4th grade this year with Mrs. Clarke as his teacher, and I am working one-on-one with a kindergarten student in the morning and with the 4-year-old developmental preschool class in the afternoon.


2. Watch the boys' XC meets

{done 10/29} Jonah ran Cross Country for the first time this year, and it was nice having all our boys on one team with one schedule! The twins had a great season, and medaled in several of their races. Ammon also medaled a few times as well as qualified to run in the state XC meet. We were proud of all three of them for doing their best all season long, and were so grateful that they weren't injured this year, either.


3. Celebrate Jonah and Micah's birthday

{done 9/22} The twins had a friend party this year: they ate pizza at Dave's, played at the new Zoom arcade, and had their first birthday sleepover. We celebrated as a family on their actual birthdate, too. with their favorite meals, dessert, and gifts.


4. Go camping at Challis Hot Springs

{done 9/18} We watched the twins'  race and Ammon run in the fun run race. We soaked in hot pools, rode bikes, played games, read books, and most of all: relaxed!


5. Harvest the garden

{done} We grew excellent crops of peaches, raspberries, corn, and pumpkins this year. I've never had so many peaches on the trees--the weight was so heavy that some of the branches broke. The golden raspberries had more grow than we've ever had before, which was so exciting! We also grew apples, onions, potatoes, strawberries, and rhubarb. The onions and potatoes didn't grow so well; we planted them in the garden spot by the house instead of down by the pumpkin patch, and I don't think the soil had enough nutrients. The strawberries didn't grow so well, either; although I put a net over the rows so that birds wouldn't eat them, I still didn't get a whole bunch. The red apple tree had its best crop ever, and the yellow apple tree was in its off year so it didn't produce hardly any. I made freezer corn, freezer raspberry jam, frozen sliced peaches, dehydrated peaches, and strawberry rhubarb jam with the home-grown goods.


6. Kala go to Denver with her siblings 

{done 10/2} This was our first sibling reunion ever. Everybody came except Mick. I flew out of SLC with Cody, Tawna, and Tabbi and flew back with Trina. We stayed at a really nice Air BnB. My favorite part of the trip was after watching the Rockies play, they had the best fireworks display I've ever seen!


7. Kanyon sell pumpkins at the Sac Center

{done 10/15} Kanyon's one-day sale was a complete success! We were so busy at the Fall Frolic, and sold out of everything we had except 8 medium-sized green ones. We were so happy that his final year of growing pumpkins was so successful!


8. Dress Up for Halloween 

{done 10/31} Kanyon and I dressed up to go to school on the Thursday before Halloween--he was a Dementor from Harry Potter and I was Hulk. On Monday--the actual Halloween day--the twins dressed up after school to go trick-or-treating. Jonah was Mickey Mouse and Micah was a Pirate, and Kanyon went as a Dementor again. Everybody created their own costumes by themselves this year which was so awesome!


9. Celebrate Josh's birthday

{done 11/6} We met up with some of the Whall family visiting Rexburg from England, and had dinner with them at Texas Roadhouse. I gave Josh a gift of spending the night at the Destinations Inn in Idaho Falls. We ate a steak dinner with one of his mission friends at our house and Josh opened gifts from the boys.


10. Go to Disneyland for Thanksgiving with some of the Perkins family 

{done 11/25} We had a wonderful time at Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Newport Beach with Mick & Jen's family and Tawna & Bryce the week of Thanksgiving.