So Much Going On!

Well, I got behind again thanks to my allergies. For two and half weeks I was dealing with a sinus headache and pressure. I tried several things to help such as allergy pills, neti pot rinses, Flonase nasal spray, humidifier, soaking in hot bubble baths and just resting. I finally was able to help it when I got some Sudafed Sinus Pressure and Pain. I usually woke up in the morning feeling good and then an hour or so later the pressure would start coming back. I went through two boxes and was about ready to take myself to the doctor. I took my last pills on Sunday morning but thankfully I haven't needed them since! I'm thinking the rain we have gotten might have helped clean the air out and maybe that helped me but I'm not sure. I'm just glad I'm feeling better again. 

Even with my problems with allergies I still had plenty going on in the evenings. Alice was doing swim lessons up until the 20th. Garrett was still busy doing marching band until the 22nd and had a couple of football performances and competitions. Charlotte started basketball on the 10th and because no one else was willing or able to coach I was roped into coaching for the first time ever. Honestly, I had thought about coaching when my oldest 3 kids tried basketball but I usually had a little one to take care of or I was just too nervous about it. Well, I was nervous to do it this year also but with Alice being almost 6 years old I couldn't use her as an excuse this time. And besides, I had lots of experience from when I was younger so I already knew about the sport. So we have practices on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6-7pm. I try to be there 15 min early. I have also been able to find helpful videos online for warm ups and drills. I found some fun drills that are more like games. Going into our 3rd week it has mostly been a good experience. I had a little trouble with one of the girls during this last Monday's practice but other than that it's been good. I also had to write down the things I planned to do for each practice and print it out. It makes it so much easier because otherwise I would forget what was next. I think the more I do this the less I will have to rely on the looking at the paper. Because I am coach I have yet to get a picture of Charlotte playing but hopefully I can get one at the next game this Saturday morning. Thankfully, one of the other parents stepped up to be an assistant. Another difficult thing we've had to deal with for her team is that it's so small. We only have 7 girls on the team and it makes a big difference if even 1 girl is gone for a game. On Nov 5th I know that 2 girls will be gone so that means the other 5 will be playing the entire game. Poor girls. At least they are still having fun.

If any of you were the lucky ones to get a special email from one of these girls regarding a fundraiser well guess what, just because they sent so many emails they automatically won a prize. They both got these stuffed animals that have a built in slap bracelet so they can be worn on their arms. They were both so excited to get them and they were the ones pushing us to do it so they could get one. Most fundraisers that my kids do I felt like I was the one pushing them to do the asking around but not this time.

Charlotte got an elephant and Alice got a cheetah. They came in a surprise package so they didn't know what they got until they opened it.

Jack had his first band concert at South. Everyone received a black polo shirt so they were all matching. I wasn't able to go to this concert because of Alice's swim lessons but I got a picture when I dropped him off. Thankfully Curtis and my parents and grandma went to support him. Garrett also performed at South with the Skyview marching band. I hated missing it but Alice would have been very upset if we had missed her swim lesson.

I did however get to see Jack play with the high school band during a Skyview football game the next day (14th). The 8th graders were invited to come play if they wanted to. He enjoyed it and is now more excited to be in marching band next year. 

They let him play the mellophone. He was told it was the marching band version of the French horn.

Performing some pep music during the game.

And us watching the game (and the band).

Alice gave Garrett a high five before his half time performance with the marching band.

And I had to get a picture with him afterwards.

The very next day was a marching band competition held at Vallivue High School called Treasure Valley Festival of Bands (TVFOB). Last year it was at Ridgevue. I guess they rotate each year between the two schools. I had chaperoned the first two competitions this year and helped with moving props but now that I was coaching basketball games in the mornings on Saturdays I couldn't chaperone anymore (which I was kind of thankful). I was able to watch the band perform because it was in the early afternoon. Unfortunately, Skyview didn't do very well that day due to the excessive wind. It was the first time having backdrops in their show this year and the wind blew a couple of them around. It also made it difficult for the color guard with their flags. There were only 4 bands in their division and they did not place in the top three. It was a rough day but they learned some things before the big D3 competition the following weekend at BSU.

Last Thursday was Alice's last swim lesson. I always take Charlotte with me so that she can swim around while Alice is doing the lesson. Alice's class did some fun things to end the class like a floating train and going in the deep pool to jump off the diving board. Charlotte wanted to do it so badly but I told her she had to either be in a class or she had to take the swim test in the lap pool. She decided she wanted to do the test so I told her to practice in the shallow pool first. She practiced once without me watching and then again while I was watching. I was surprised with how smoothly she did the regular stroke so I told her to go ahead and talk to the life guard. I got a video of her taking the test and she passed with no problems. She's definitely a better swimmer than I am! We are so impressed with her!

Alice's class doing the floating train. Alice was first in line.

Alice getting ready to jump off the diving board. The teacher was waiting in the pool.

Charlotte enjoying being in the diving well pool after finishing her swim test. Unfortunately she was unable to do the diving board because of other swim lesson classes using it. We went back on Saturday with Curtis and swam with the girls. She was able to do the diving board a lot that time.

Last Saturday was also the last competition for Garrett at BSU but they did things different this year and so unfortunately they ended up performing in the late morning and I had to coach Charlotte's team at the same time so I was unable to go but Curtis did. He took Jack with him but they did not stay the whole day. (which is why he went swimming with me and the girls) I don't think he took any pictures or videos though because he didn't send or show me any. Skyview did do much better. They took 4th place overall out of 6 in their division and the color guard (auxiliary) took 1st in their division. Unfortunately, they did not do well enough to perform again in the finals, which were the top 12 schools out of 28. So they ended the night early.  There happened to be a stake dance that night that was a costume party. I thought for sure Garrett would be too tired to go but he decided to go so he could wear his Link costume again. And Jack and his friend Porter went with him for the first time, Jack wearing his kilt and carrying his plunger.

Curtis also took time that day to carve some pumpkins. They are having a contest at work and so it pushed him to do it. He carved his and Alice's. Charlotte took a break until the next day. We at least got all 4 of our pumpkins gutted but only 2 of them carved. Curtis took pictures when he was finished so I didn't so I'll have to get those pictures from him and post them later.

Just starting to carve.

Last Sunday the girls really wanted to bake sugar cookies. We had to wait until Curtis was finished in the kitchen though since he was busy cooking up pumpkin seeds and Zuppa Toscana for dinner. It was kind of nice having Curtis take charge in the pumpkins this year. We didn't even do pumpkins last year. And he baked the seeds, which is something I usually do. We invited my parents and grandma to come over and play games, so we were munching on cookies and pumpkins seeds the whole night. We should have set some seeds aside though because we nearly ate the entire 6 cups of seeds he had baked!

Cutting out cookies.

Charlotte carved her pumpkin after school on Monday all by herself and taped on some ears and a tail since it was a cat. (I still haven't carved mine yet.)

Oh, and I almost forgot that last weekend I was also stressing over preparing another Relief Society lesson. I struggled just like I did the first time but finally it started coming together on Saturday and I finished Sunday morning. This time I was able to use my computer and hook it up to a monitor at the church during the lesson. It made it easier for visuals. I wasn't as nervous this time thankfully and I think it went well. It was based on Elder Uchtdorf's talk from this last conference, "Jesus Christ is the Strength of Youth". 

Whew, if you made it this far reading this post I commend you. This is what happens when a lot goes on that I want to write about but wasn't able to for a couple of weeks. Hopefully now that I'm feeling better I can do better to keep up. For now, I'm going to end this post because it's already too long! 

The Farmstead

Like I said in my last post on Friday afternoon after I hurried across town to get my computer fixed I came back and finished getting ready to go to Lowe Family Farmstead in Kuna. Our realtor gave us tickets as a thank you. There were 8 tickets and only 6 of us so I said the boys could invite a friend. It wasn't until last Wednesday that I sat down with Curtis and said we need to pick a date to go because we don't have a lot to choose from with so many things going on this month. Last Friday the 7th looked good so we decided on that. It didn't give the boys a lot of time to find a friend but fortunately they were able to find someone. Jack invited Porter. I was impressed that Garrett tried inviting Trey and Vera first. I had a feeling he would invite his old friend Ryan. I gave his mom a heads up just in case. Trey and Vera couldn't go so Garrett texted me while at school on Friday and asked me to ask his new friend Calvin from the ward. So I called his mom and he said he would love to go (he's homeschooled).  I'm so proud of Garrett for getting out of his comfort zone. First inviting new friends to his birthday party and then to go to the Farmstead. 

We had to drive two separate cars so Curtis took Jack and picked up Porter while I brought Garrett and the girls and picked up Calvin. Then we met in Kuna. After we all arrived we just let the boys take off and do their own thing with their friends while Curtis and I went with the girls to do activities. There are so many fun things to do! The first thing we did though was head over to the animals. We looked around at some of the animals and then the girls got a pony ride. Then looked at more animals.  I didn't get a picture of everything but here's bunch of pictures of some of the things we did.

Meeting the donkey.

Pony ride time. This year Alice wasn't scared at all.

They had a bunch of goats. These ones were so little and cute!

I can't remember what this one was called. Some long haired cow I think.

They had a bee feeding station but we skipped that and just took a picture here.

They also had these bee rides pulled by a tractor and a bee line (zip line). 

Garrett and his friend Calvin after finding us.

The corn poppers (or bounce inflatables)

They had two corn poppers. One for little kids and one for big kids.

Jack called and told me about The Perch where they had a bunch of parakeets so we went over to check it out.

It was pretty cool. There were lots of birds and they could fly up and over from one side to the other while people walk through the middle.

The big bubble making station.

Instead of a corn box they had a corn island that was bigger than the box at Linder Farms.

Even Calvin and Garrett had fun it.

Alice insisted on doing the corn maze. We didn't do it last year.

We did the mini maze so it wouldn't take too long. Charlotte didn't want to do it but we made her anyway.

The House of Pumpkins

They had a huge rocking chair.

Visiting the reindeer. The male had a broken leg he was recovering from. He got kicked by his girlfriend. 😆

Saving the hay ride for one of the last things we did.

We went through "The Beast" earlier when the sun was up so now we had to do it when it was dark. It's mostly dark inside but there are some flashing lights and they make it look like you're actually walking through the beast, with a beating heart and intestines. It wasn't really that scary, just kind of a fun dark maze.

Well, it wasn't Linder Farms but we think we actually like this place better anyway. There's so many activities you can do that are included in your ticket. We did have to pay extra for the pony ride though. We also like that it's so much bigger and spacious with grass to walk on instead of dirt. It's a really nice set up and makes it worth the drive out there. Who knows what we'll get to do next year since we'll be in Washington. I don't know if they have anything like this. But we had a lot of fun this year and stayed for about 4 hours! The food was a bit pricy but that's to be expected with everything being pricy these days but the food was good (especially the fries) and the weather was perfect the day we went. It was a great kick off to Fall!

Garrett's 16th Birthday and More

I hate playing catch up all the time with my blog but between life being busy and the trouble I have been having with my computer lately, it's difficult to keep up. I am happy to report though that last Friday I finally called ABI Computers and told them what was going on. That after just a few minutes of being on my laptop, sometimes only a minute, my computer starts flashing these little circles and the next thing I know it's doing random stuff like opening or closing folders, etc. I usually end up just closing my lid to stop it because it won't let me click on the power button to restart it or anything. Just from talking to the guy on the phone he asked if I had a touch screen, which I did, and asked if it was disabled. I said it hasn't worked for awhile so it probably was disabled on accident or something. He said to bring it on in and he could fix it in 5 min. I zoomed over there because school was letting out and we had plans to go to The Farmstead in Kuna. He was right, it only took a few minutes. I'm still not exactly sure what he did but I didn't get to test out my computer until yesterday. I had it on all afternoon and no problems! I'm guessing that maybe he actually disabled the touch screen because the touch screen still doesn't work. He had said that those circles I was seeing were touch points on the screen for the touch screen. I'm just happy it was a quick and easy fix and didn't cost anything except the drive over. I need to learn to call them sooner because I was about to go buy a new computer!

Anyhow, now to back up a bit. I wanted to share some pictures of the girls and their room after they decorated it the weekend of homecoming. They used decorations from the parade and also cut some ghosts, bats and pumpkins out of paper and hung it all over their room. I told them no holes in the walls so they used tape for everything. They had so much fun decorating their room.

We also celebrated Garrett's 16th birthday. He had band practice on his birthday so we celebrated the next day, which was Friday the 30th. He invited his old friend Ryan as well as a few new friends from our new ward, Trey Bledsoe and brothers Calvin & Logan Hansen. We ate pizza, fruit, chips, and veggies with some Sprite and Root Beer for drinks. My in laws were out of town but Dad, Laverne and GG were able to come over. Usually Dad & Mom go to bed early Friday nights because they work in the temple early Saturday mornings but with it being General Conference weekend that meant the temples were closed so they could come Friday night this time. Garrett has been working on putting together his Halloween costume which is Link from the videogame The Legend of Zelda. He was so excited about it that he wore the costume at his party. He asked for a sword and shield....which I later learned that he already knew he was getting because he looked at Amazon on my phone and saw that I had bought them. Sneaky kid! Anyway, we did cake and presents after everyone was finished eating dinner. Then after getting a few pictures the boys had fun playing videogames. Jack also had Porter over so it was a boys night. 

This was taken on his actual birthday.

I found some yard balloon decorations at Walmart. It was fun to do but it was a lot more work than I thought!

Garrett asked for an apple cider donut cake. He had the same thing last year for his birthday. We had to put a glass bowl on it to hold the big candle. He was so excited for his birthday!

Gaya made the green tunic and hat for him but he did pay for the fabric. He also bought the boots and waist belt from DI. For the pants he wore my white leggings underneath his old white football pants. He bought the arm bands and gloves from Amazon. We told him he had to pay for his own costume now that he had money for it.

The sword did come with the chest belt to hold it.

Calvin, Ryan, Garrett, Logan, Trey

After his friends went home I got a picture of him inside by the birthday banner. He had a great birthday and was very happy!

The very next day was Oct 1st and it was General Conference but Garrett had another band competition in Kuna. I ended up chaperoning for that one also. I knew I wouldn't be able to chaperone any more competitions because I am now the head coach for Charlotte's basketball team and will need to be with her Saturday mornings for her games. The Kuna Competition was fun and it was a nice warm day, not quite as warm as the previous week thank goodness. Skyview brought home 3rd place overall for their division and their were 6 schools in it so we were happy with that. The atmosphere was also fun in the stands after everyone had finished competing and were waiting for the judges. They were playing songs such as YMCA and Macarena and lots of people would stand up and dance.

I had an opportunity to hold the trophy at the school when we returned so I got a picture of it.

On Sunday we watched General Conference from home and I was having such a hard time staying awake. I finally realized I needed to be doing something so I could stay awake. I got out the diamond painting I got from my mother in law back in July and finally started it. It made all the difference. I love watching and listening to conference but sometimes it's just so hard to stay awake.

The before picture. I now work on this on Sundays while we're watching Relative Race or when I have some down time. We'll see how long it takes to finish. I'm not in a hurry though.

On Monday the 3rd it was a Moms and Donuts day at the girls' school. The girls wanted to ride the bus so I drove over by myself and waited for them to get dropped off. Then we went inside to have donuts and juice in the cafeteria. Unfortunately Alice spilled most of her juice and got some on her clothes but she didn't seem to care. They were both in a hurry though to finish eating and get to their classroom. I ended up finishing both of the girl's donuts for them (plus my own). That was all I had for breakfast and then I went to Melissa's boot camp class at the Rec Center. I had so little energy that day. The sacrifices I make for my kids 😂

Last Wednesday I decided to do some more yard work. I found a lot more grapes hanging on the vines behind the shed. I'm not sure we'll get around to eating all of those. I also cut down the squash plant because my family just does not like squash. I tried a casserole with one of the big squashes and it was kind of good but not good enough to want to cook again. So I decided we were done with that plant. I then took out some more pine needles from the stack and put in the dumpster. I didn't want to put too much in though because I also wanted to start cutting the raspberry bushes down for the winter. I was able to get a lot more branches in than I thought I would. Every time I put branches in the dumpster I would chop it to smaller pieces and stomp it down. 

Grapes on the vine still.

I didn't take a before picture but I had started right up next to that green tree bush on the right and worked my way left. This was taken after I did a bunch. I cleared out pine needles, pine cones, weeds, and branches. 

This was after I finished. I got about half of the raspberry bushes done. It looks so much better! There were tons of old dead branches at the bottom that I pulled out also.

I still had a little room to spare but I was done. Plus we needed space for a garbage bag from the kitchen that I knew would come later. Our garbage doesn't get picked up until Tuesdays.

Jack had an activity that night with the deacons to learn how to bake homemade cinnamon rolls. They weren't finished when I got there so I went in and visited for a bit and got to see Jack add the icing to his tray of rolls. He now says that if I need frosting for anything that he knows how to make it.

The activity was done at the Hansen home, which was the family that two of Garrett's friends were in from his party. There's another Hansen boy who's close to Jack's age. I learned they have 7 kids in their family. Most are grown up. They do homeschool so when you first walk in to their house you see rows of monitors. It reminded me of my brother Derek's house! 

I still have some more catching up to do on my blog but I'm going to end this post and do another new one later. I need a break.