Soccer

Weston had his final fall soccer game last night. He ran after the ball a lot, no scores this season though! He has spring to try again... What a cutie!

Help People

The other day Fiora said to me, "Mommy, you know what I want to do when I grow up?" I said, "No, what?" She states, "I want to help people!" So I push it along, "Oh, you want to be a Social Worker?" Fiora says, "Do sosh sosh.. do those help people?" I said, "YES. And that is what I am going to do also." She said, "What is it again?" "Social Worker." "Oh, Social Worker. I want to be a Social Worker when I grow up." I told her that is awesome, we will be Social Workers together.

Friday Grandma Day

This week has been fairly routine...kids up, kids fed, kids out the door, kids home, kids do homework, kids eat, kids go to bed. With slight variations interspersed. Every Friday we visit Grandma Rappleye. We love Friday and we love Grandma. Grandma has TV programs the kids never get to watch at home, like Curious George. (That's right, we don't have cable or an antenna, nothing but movies). I like to help grandma tidy her house and go through her mail. It is funny to see how many solicitors have her address. She got 5 sheets of return address labels from people wanting her donation for this that and the other. She has enough of those to last 3 lifetimes. I slip as much of it as I can into the recycle bin. I wish I knew why she has a subscription to every magazine every made, even SKI magazine which I am positive my 87 year old Grandma will not read or need. So I make Grandma have dinner with us too on Fridays. We can usually con Jared into taking us out to eat with Grandma somewhere. The kids have learned some restaurant manners so it is more fund than a chore now. We haven't even had a spill for a while!


We had family pictures taken Saturday. It was a little bit of a hassel trying to find all matching shirts that Jared and I both agreed on! And I dread and hate fighting the will of Savanna on how her hair should be done. But the pictures turned out very well, I was delighted. So look for us this Christmas in your mailbox! Exciting.


And speaking of Grandmas, my awesome mother-in-law (the kids' grandma) Sandy has some type of cancer growing on her reproductive organs and has to have a surgery this week to get rid of it! We are all on RED ALERT praying that the cancer has not and won't spread so she can avoid radiation therapy. Savanna Fiora and Weston have been carefully including her in every prayer they give, and remind each other in the middle of their prayers. Please help us pray for her. We love you Grandma Sandy!

Heather and Jared News

(My mom and me in 1982)
HEATHER
I am taking 3 classes at BYU right now in preparation for admission to the Masters of Social Work program at BYU. I took 5 other classes BYU independent study from Jan - Aug, finished 4 of them and will have to finish the 5th class in January. The classes I am taking on campus are not offered independent study so I had to go through the rigamarol of registering as a student and paying an exorbitant tuition so I could get these last 3 prerequisites. I have nearly completed my application to the Graduate program and will know if I am accepted in April of 2009. I was very nervous about taking 3 classes at once and finding time to actually go to class, but Heavenly Father has guided me in every tiny detail. I take Psych 302 Tuesday at the Salt Lake Center at 7:30 until 10:00 and PD BIO 205 the same place and time but on Wednesday evening. Needless to say Jared is not happy with the gas consumption that will require. Thursdays I have Psych 220 at the Provo campus at 4:30 until 7:00. My friend Shelene Westover offered to watch my kids from 3:30 until Jared comes home every Wed and Thurs and I in return watch her kids Wednesday 7:00-2:30 so she can attend class that day. So far it is working out well! With Jared helping me find some study time I have been able to keep up with the school work. (By the way, I got an A- in my Statistics class! I worked pretty hard for 4 months on that class.) Of course I am first and foremost a mother who is up early getting kids to school, picking up a kindergartener at 10:45 every day, getting Weston to preschool Tuesday and Thursday, taking all three to gymnastics Monday, pushing Savanna to do homework, reading, and piano after school before I leave for school, helping in the PTA every Friday, and of course cooking and cleaning. Life is good, we are very blessed!

JARED
My husband is doing well with his Home Basics Real Estate and Property Management (which prosperity I attribute to the Lord because I need $ for schooling). The new building on State Street is finished and they have started moving into it. It's very nice!
Jared has had a couple closings this month and lots of units to manage. Jared tries to find time to fish whenever he can. He spent a large part of last Saturday with Bill Valora and most of Thursday with his co-workers fishing Strawbery Reservoir. He took Weston out on a fathers-son campout, and the two of them snuck off to fish the river. They caught two big fish they brought home, Jared said Weston was so cute about it. We were watching a movie last night and every time a river came on the screen Jared said "I bet there's fish in that river!" He's a little obsessed. He takes care of the kids Tues, Wed, and Thurs evenings now, making sure Weston gets to soccer practice and the kids get fed and to bed. I think he enjoys being a Soccer Dad, although Weston still needs to capture the soccer idea. (Wes kind of floats around the field unaware of the goal. But he has fun!) I am grateful for Jared.

tacky ball

We had a fun Labor Day with my family. They all came up here and we left all the kids at our house and went to see a movie. When we came back we barbecued! We had fun. The wreckage afterwards was evidence that the kids had fun too! During the clean up the next day I found some strange things in strange places. Like pieces of a ping-pong paddle on the floor instead of attached to the paddle. The most unusual was a bunch of tacks all over the floor which led to a green kickball with a wig tacked to it. Here is the ball, Savanna had drawns a face on it and attached the wig to it with about 20 thumb tacks.
That ball will never inflate again.
Jared takes the kids to Westons soccer games and practices in the evening while I am at class. I like to hear his stories about things the kids said and did while I was away. It's really hard to be around Savanna long without threatening to punish her, which I did when I found the tacky ball and which he did after spending the evening with her my first day of class. Fiora said, "And you'll be punished for your own sins and not for Adam's transgressions." I guess she has that article of faith memorized.
Savanna asked for a journal the first day of school. I had a journal embossed with her name on it to give her on her baptism day but I figured if she wanted it why wait. She loved it and writes in it occassionally and gets frustrated when I want her to do her homework, reading, or piano when she's trying to write in her journal. I love it!

Weston decided to dress up like goldy locks. Which was weird, but when he turned around and exposed his back and superman underwear he redeemed himself. We were all laughing at his ineptness at putting on a dress and his inadvertent display of boyness.

Nursery Manual

Last year my cousin Trisha Ann Wight photographed our family, including Lillian, for a picture insert of the new LDS Nursery Manual Behold Your Little Ones. It came out to the Distribution center a couple of months ago and we were delighted with the picture. It was a full page of our whole family! It was so neat that was taken when Lillian was alive. You can see it at this link: Nursery Manual
or visit www.lds.org and click on the link to the nursery manual and go to section 20 "I will be reverent."