Cooking queen

My days are done in the blink of an eye. These are the only two pictures I took this week. Savanna is turning into quite a chef. She makes herself omelets, fried eggs, oatmeal, school lunches, and macaroni and cheese without any help. It makes me a little nervous to hear her in the kitchen rattling dishes and butter sizzling, but she does not like me to help her because according to her I "just take over." I really like that she can do it herself actually, since I am gone in the mornings and after school half the week I like to know she can get something other than cereal to eat. And for her siblings too.

As much as I love school, :), the weekends are a nice reprieve. Friday I was able to cut Weston's hair, visit with my sister Holly, go to the temple, help in Weston's class, and go to Carrabas with my parents and siblings while the kids played here with their cousins. Saturday we went to the rec center again, with Jared, much funner that way. That evening Jared took Weston to the Motor Cross in Salt Lake while I took the girls to Chili's. (We're using our gift cards and loving it!) Weston LOVED the jumping motorcycles! He told me all about it the next day. Jared kept him out until 11:45 PM! But he never complained, he had a great time. Sunday we had dinner with the Schauers at Wendy's, it was fun to be with them for a while.

One note about miss Fiora. I am amazed with her reading level and interest. I have only Savanna to compare her to, and I thing Savanna is a good reader too, so normal or not I don't know, but she seems ahead for first grade. She reads chapter books already. Every night in her bed she reads Junie B Jones, Magic Tree house, Ready Freddy, etc. Her teacher has this requirement that parents read to their kids 20 minutes a day and Fiora won't let me read to her, she insists on reading to ME! When she is done reading her Level G home reader she reads Weston's Level A and then Savanna's level M too. It is really something, I like it.

Swimming and snowman

Weston succeeded in getting his father to build a snowman with him Saturday, Weston was very proud of it and drew a picture of the finished product. The next day it was a little melted so he got dad out there again to do some snowman maintenance.
Jared got us a family pass to the rec center at the beginning of January. The kids have enjoyed going to the pool this month, about 4 times so far. The first time I had a lot of fun swimming with them. The second time was a hassle, and I sat on the side most of the time. The third time I ran on the track and rode the bike machines while Jared swam with the kids. The fourth time
was quite a pain in the neck, Jared wasn't with us and Savanna had invited a friend, we only had 45 minutes, and everyone in Orem was at the rec center. I will need to allot more time and a helper if we go again.
The kids are doing well with the rigors of my school schedule. I just couldn't do it without Karli, and Jared's support, but I've been really impressed with the kids being so great about it. They wait for each other after school, come home all together, hand in hand usually, and are always so happy to see me. I got my internship assignments for my program, I'll be going to LDS family services Sandy office in the spring and summer and the Utah State Prison for Fall Winter. As much as I am learning now, I am sure I will learn a lot more.
This morning Jared opened his car door and the cat ran out of it! Yesterday he was cleaning his car and the cat somehow sneaked in there and Jared accidentally shut him in all night. It smelled pretty badly in the car, and we had to take care of the cat's business he left in the back. Jared was in a rage, I thought it was pretty funny, but of course I took it very seriously while we were cleaning it up.

Awesome fun filled weekend

Jared ordered a "sky scraper" sandwich at rib city and it was so ridiculously not a sky scraper that I just had to make him a REAL sky scraper sandwich.

They were DELICIOUS: garlic bread, mayo, provolone, roastbeef, turkey pastrami, green peppers, avocados, tomatoes, bacon, mushrooms, onions, lettuce, and a lot of love.

We took the kids to In and Out and got hats. That was the only part Heather liked about the place. Aparently they have steamroller in the back that ran over my hamburber patty.

Jared tricked the kids into thinking our kitchen was a restaurant and they were the employees in charge of cleaning up. They did a pretty good job of it too.

Aren't they cute decked out in their aprons hats and rubber gloves?

How now brown cow? This calf was SO cute! The kids let the calves lick their hands/fingers.

Savanna and the cows in line to be milked!

Fiora looks down on the merry go milk around. This was such a cool set up, they can milk 500 cows an hour in this barn! 3rd largest dairy in the state.

We visited Gunnison and Grandpa Neil gave us a tour of the dairy farm out there. It was cold and kind of messy, but it was really awesome to see where our milk comes from.

The dairy was a little stinky right where the cows were being milked!

Singing happy birthday to our girl who would have been three.

Here are the kids on Lillian's birthday trooping through the snow in the cemetery finding her headstone and putting pinwheels in the frozen ground!

Here is Jared in front of my new tree. I just love having a plant in the house, the winter is long.

Weston made this costume for himself, he is a police officer. And he is making a car out of cardboard.

Grandma Sandy

Grandma with her newest wig

My mother in law, Jared's mom, has been battling endocrine cancer for a little over a year. After her chemo treatment in the fall she started feeling painful symptoms again. This was alarming to us so soon after treatment, the cancer seems to be very aggressive. She is back on another round of chemotherapy, it saddens us to watch her go through this. I just wanted to dedicate this post to Grandma Sandy as she has been in the forefront of my thoughts and prayers so much lately.

10 reasons I love Sandy:

1. She is a very expressive person, her home is decorated top to bottom with the neatest things, themes and holidays are represented in every room of her home. She is truly the heart of her home.

2. She loves playing with children, she has been an ideal grandma for my kids and all her grandkids. She has dress up time, tea parties, games, treats, and dancing with the player piano every time we go to her house. I am amazed with her patience with children and genuine love of their company.

3. She has a very positive attitude, even through chemo she has kept such high spirits (as far as I have seen!).

4. She is so proud of and so loves her children, she shows so much interest in all their pursuits and you can see how pleased she is with each of their accomplishments (for example, Jared catching 7 fish just tickles her pink).

5. She is a great cook, she can make a fantastic meal out of the meagerest of ingredients, it is truly a talent!

6. Her log cabin house is the greatest, and her green thumb makes her yard and flowers so beautiful every summer.

7. She loves traveling and carefully logs all her travels on video, in photo albums, and scrap books.

8. She has always loved me even though I was only married into the family and treats me like a daughter.

9. She has a strong testimony and shares it with her family. She has done her best to serve and magnify her callings in the church.

10. She is a great example of an ideal mother, grandmother, and daughter of God. My kids love her so much. And I Love her too!

Resolutions

Happy new year! If feels like a lot has happened this year already. Jared bought us a family pass to the rec center so we've been swimming and running a couple times. We went sledding and got a flat tire and stayed at the Turpins' in Lehi for 7 hours waiting for Jared to fix it. The kids and I have gone back to school, and Karli is with us again, and she started school too, and cousin Lucy had a birthday party, Jared's been ice fishing, and there's been no time to use the great restaurant gift cards we got for Christmas. My semester is very intense this time, 19 credit hours and a client, finishing a research project and memorizing the DSM-IV (huge diagnostic manual for mental disorders). Yes, pray I won't go insane. Fiora has officially quit gymnastics and unofficially enrolled in a dance class instead, I just need to get over there and register her. (I had to fight my biases on that one, but Fiora just wants to do it so badly I couldn't refuse. It is the first thing she has really shown a genuine interest in pursuing.) Weston is still in gymnastics. Savanna is back to practicing the piano and doing lots of homework, and is looking forward to spring soccer. Who isn't looking forward to spring? I bought a tree for my living room because I'm so desperate for greenery and sun. It's a nice tree.

The kids are funny, Savanna has a hard time keeping her temper. We have had a discussion about keeping criticism out of our interactions with family members. She agreed she would try to be less critical this year. But she just can't seem to help herself. I had already talked to my kids about hitting, that it is only ok to hit someone if they cross a boundary. Crossing a boundary includes someone biting, pulling your hair, forcing you to do something wrong, etc. There are some rough characters at Bonneville Elementary so I wanted the kids to know they could hit if someone tried to yank their pants down (happened to Savanna) or something like that to defend themselves. Fiora and Weston were included in this discussion although I wasn't sure if that concept processed with them. The other day I learned that Fiora had indeed listened when I was lecturing Savanna after she had been fighting with Fiora.

Mom: Savanna I thought we agreed you would be less critical! Do you know what you just did to Fiora? Do you know what that is called?
Savanna: no comment
Fiora: Crossing a boundary

Another thing I don't like is tattle-taling. Neither does Savanna because it usually involves ratting on her. Weston and Fiora like to run to me whenever Savanna has lost her temper yet again. Last night Jared found Savanna writing a contract for Fiora. It said, "I WILL NEVER TELL ON SAVANNA FOR TWO MONTHS. Signed by Fiora" Of course Fiora didn't really sign it, in fact when Jared and I saw it she was embarrassed and threw it away. We thought it was funny.

So our big resolution this year is to not be critical, to not tattle tale, and not cross boundaries. You like my valiant attempt at maintaining a neutral emotional climate in our home?