Wasatch Halloween Parade 2010

Velma emerged from our home this morning...just in time for the annual Halloween Parade.

Julia went with a Scooby-Doo theme this year. The costume is getting a lot of wear and tear even before the official day of Halloween (October 30th here in Utah). 

Can't wait for all the fun activities this weekend!

Have I Mentioned...

how incredibly grateful I am for this guy?

Last Friday some random sickness hit me... swollen, sore throat. It only lasted a day and I thought I was in the clear. Then Saturday, during the night, it came on full force. I'm pretty sure that Dan got just as much sleep as I did (very little). He headed off to early morning church meetings. I mumbled something in my sleep that I probably shouldn't go to church. The kids headed out the door and I was finally able to catch a few zzzzs.  The next thing I knew, Dan was home....for the rest of the day. He cleared his schedule to be home and take care of me.

I know this only makes his schedule more hectic for him this week, but him being home, making dinner for the kids, etc. was a huge help. It almost made being sick worth it!

Pictures in a Packet

My in-laws have been doing some cleaning out and organizing and gave us some of their extra photos we've sent them over the years.

It got me thinking about how many more pictures I should be taking and how much more journal writing I should be doing because time is slipping by increasingly fast.

It seems like yesterday we were at Sunset Beach, North Carolina

enjoying my favorite family beach ever!

This Christmas photo was obviously snapped quickly.

This one makes me laugh because it looks like Hannah (on the right) is about to cry and I wonder if it has anything to do with how Emily is gripping her little hand....hmmm. Or maybe it's a guilty look Hannah has because she has pulled of her shoe again.

We have a lot of pictures like that when the twins were babies--

almost all of them taken in our Murrieta, California home.

And we all laughed so hard when we pulled out these two photos from the packet...

I wonder who she looks like :)

And then we found a family picture we took spontaneously with our "Atlanta Braves" hats and visors. I remember Dan set the timer on the camera and we all grouped together on the deck outside our house in Georgia. No one "matched" or had even combed their hair, but we ended up using this on one of our Christmas cards.

I love walking down memory lane...

Mondays

This is how I feel about Mondays...

I really love them.

It's not that the kids are back in school or that a weekday schedule resumes.

Mondays mean that it is one guaranteed evening I have all six of us together, even Emily.

No work, no classes, no church meetings, no answering the telephone.

I'm still working on the not answering the door...because the doorbell usually rings.

However, I love that nothing gets in the way of Family Home Evening.

I love that we can eat dinner early or late because no one is dashing out the door.

I am savoring Monday nights this school year especially.

Because whether I like it or not, my girls are growing up...fast.

So right now, Mondays are indeed my favorite day! 

Friends

Emily took these cute high schoolers on a fun photo outing and

here is part of what she captured...

I love all these girls!

 

Orcas

Being in the 5th Grade entails giving a lot of oral reports.

Last week Julia completed her animal report with the study of Orca Whales.

She was thorough, dedicated and stayed on task until every last detail was planned and prepared.

Julia had complete command over her audience and made sure she had prepared an "attention getter" for her introduction, as well as a visual activity to help her fellow classmates really grasp how large orcas are.

She measured out 32 feet of twine to illustrate how long orca males can grow and had the class spread out on the playground with the twine in hand. She concluded her oral report with a quiz and Swedish fish for her audience. It was so fun to see her in action!

Last but not least, we got to see her completed self-portrait in the hall way.

Great job J.J.!

Op-Ed Piece

A great op-ed piece appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune today.

If you live in Utah, this may interest you.

You can read it...

here

Thanks to my father-in-law and Mr. David Irvine for expressing clearly and concisely what I feel is so important as it pertains to Utah politics.