Catch up

Krystal, Heidi, Kynsie, Rachel at Krystal's farewell dinner

 OK so I have a lot to catch up on. February 20th my sister Krystal departed to the MTC for her mission, so we had a big family dinner at Carrabbas to ship her off. The next time we had a family gathering Krystal's absence was noticeable, we miss her! She added a unique and humorous element to the family. My parents only have 3 children at home, my parents are seeing a light at the end of the tunnel of parenting!

So for my blog book I create at the end of the year, it works best with the formatting of it if I just pile all the pictures together at the end of the post. So instead of a picture play by play, you'll just have to read about our adventures first and then look at the pictures after. :)

Fiora had a hot tub party with her friends and they had a fun time, we live next door to a girl Fiora's age and they have had a on and off relationship, but Fiora invited her to her hot tub party and since then they seem to be getting along again. Fiora's had a bit of a trial this 4th grade year trying to communicate with and forgive and love the girls in her age group, she has come home some days just so down because she was hurt by a friend at school and tried to talk to her about it but the friend would have no such conversation. She sometimes says "4th grade is not fun!" I told her I'm glad she is figuring out how to handle social situations now because it only gets more complicated (for girls) later. 

Weston completed all the requirements for his WOLF scout award, and he was presented with his wolf badge at the Blue and Gold banquet at the end of February. He has the best scout leader (Jared) and their den of scouts created the funniest skit for the banquet. Jared's most likely going to be released from that calling soon but I'm glad he was Weston's leader for a little while.

Weston's 3rd grade teacher likes to give assignments that a 3rd grader can't possible complete on his/her own. I'm going to rant a little, because I believe in letting my kids do thing on their own, fail/succeed on their own, and learn on their own, and when I see my kid get a big fat ZERO on an assignment because the only way he could have completed it was if I stood over him and told him word for word what to write or what to do, it makes me ticked off.  So he was required to create a 3D replica of a US symbol. Weston chose the Lincoln Memorial. What would your 3rd grader have come up with as a 3D replica of this? He wanted to make it out of rice crispy treats but had no idea how to go about it. Its as if teachers today are banking on the fact that parents are going to share the work load! So I helped him make the 3d replica, but didn't say a word about the written report he was supposed to write in conjunction for this assignment. Because I helped and motivated him, the 3d part was done a week early. The night before it was due, Weston comes to me and says he needs to write up some facts about Lincoln memorial. So I did through his backpack and find the rubric for this report, and read what he is supposed to do to him, and sit him down to do it, and leave him alone. Well, he got a zero on that part because he had no idea what the rubric was talking about, apparently writing 3 paragraphs with 5 sentences each about the memorial was overload for his brain. I showed him the score and it didn't even seem to phase him, because he really didn't know what he did wrong or what would have been right, SIGH, it seems even failing at something didn't seem to teach him anything. But the memorial was awesome, and the kids had fun eating it afterwards.

6th grade is another story. Most of the assignments Savanna gets she is perfectly capable of completing on her own, and I've let her do 98% of her own work this year, and I love it! I did help her a little with her science fair project. She measured her hair for 2 months, 1 month using regular shampoo and 1 month using Horse shampoo, to see if Horse shampoo influences the rate of hair growth. She did all the measuring, and usually remembered (at least the first month), and I helped her create some graphs and print out the stuff for her poster. I went and saw her present her project to the younger grades and she did great! She is very mature and confident in that regard. Good job Sav.

Fiora's clogging competitions at Thanksgiving point were last Saturday. What an ordeal! Every clogger in the western US seems to come to these, so we had to sit through 3 hours of intermediate clogging snippets in order to see Fiora up there for 2 or 3 minutes 3 different times. She seemed a lot more confident and excited about it this time vs last fall in Salt Lake so that is good. She seems to like it a lot more this year.

Our family participated in a Media Fast last week that our Stake was challenging all its members to do. We had no TV Movies Radio Internet (except email, and it is a valid reason why I didn't post a blog last week) or Video/Tablet games for 7 days! The kids didn't like it of course, but I was amazed at the extra things they found to do instead of watch TV or play on the tablet.  Savanna was playing her violin FOR FUN! and Weston hopped on his bike and went to friends' houses, and Fiora, well she was about the same, just loves to read her books. Sav was pretty mad about it all, I'll put a mad picture of her at the bottom, but she gets mad about just about anything these days.  What did I learn from no media?  There are many more valuable ways to spend our free time, its all about balance!


Jared got super over the weekend and it lasted a long time ! Poor guy coughed so much he lost his voice! And he lost a lot of sleep too.  I always feel sorry for him, but sorry for myself too when he is sick because he doesn't pay much attention to me when he doesn't feel good.  I guess when I'm "moody" I don't pay much attention to him, and I expect him to be understanding. So pay back for me.  I love you Jared, glad you are feeling better !  Well I guess that about wraps it up for this post!