Family Picture May 2022

Family Picture May 2022

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Father Son Heber trip

The first two pictures are from a few weeks ago, but this post is mostly dedicated to Weston. A couple Saturdays ago Jared took Weston to his soccer game (he actually took a picture of him at the game) and then took him from there to Heber for an outdoor extravaganza.  They went fishing, repelling, shot guns, and did other various activities while there. Weston came home pretty worn out but I think he had a good time.  Weston has been pretty "honest to a fault" with us lately.  Mostly it makes us laugh.

Savanna: Weston did you have fun in Heber?
Weston: It was alright.
Jared: Hey! You had a great time!!!
Weston: Yeah, I mean we had a great time.

Jared: I think I did pretty good at making dinner tonight
Weston: Dad, this dinner would not win any "best dinner" prizes. Not even third place.

Weston: Wasn't Savanna just wearing those pants?
Heather: Yes but I made her take them off because they are mine
Weston: (Measuring with his fingers) They look different, I don't think Savanna's legs are that chubby.

Fiora, Lucy, and cute little Penelope at her blessing
Savanna and her double batch of cookies for her class














Sunday, April 28, 2013

No title

OK here's whats happening around the Schauers house. The only soccer picture I have taken this spring is one of Fiora and her friend Sydney, neither of whom play soccer, but who came with not to watch Weston play but to spend money on concessions.  Anyone tell I am a little burned out of soccer?  Some mom's stick with it for years but I'm seriously thinking after this year no more. Weston unfortunately is on a team this year that struggles, and he has never had that much raw soccer talent to begin with, so now that he is on a team of boys about the same good as he is, they lose every game and its a real drag to watch and he is just discouraged afterwards. Maybe time to move on to basketball or something inside so I don't have to sit in the freezing cold to watch it.
Savanna made a bunch of cookies and I made a castle and she put the cookies in the castle and took it to school for a medieval project. Yes she was supposed to make the castle herself, but she couldn't formulate the grand ideas in her head into something we could actually make, and making it out of cardboard and tin foil didn't appeal to her, so I said "Fine you think of something else to make a castle out of and I will work on this awesome box and tin one." She could not figure out how to make a castle from other resources in our home, and procrastinated enough that when due date came, she just happened to like my castle enough to use it, but to her credit she did paint the door and windows.
I held my spring recital last week for my 6 piano students. Sav played a number on the violin as well. I always wonder during lessons why I'm doing piano teaching, I'm super busy and sometimes I wonder if I need to cut out some good things in order to make room for better things, but come recital time it makes me so happy to see the progress these kids have made. I think it is worthwhile.
My sister in law Kelsy held her baby shower last week, I got to help prepare the food, and it was the most beautiful shower I've ever been to!  Kelsy had the house decorated prettier than Christmas, and the food she picked was beautiful and delicious,and it was fun to be with my sisters and mom and aunts for a couple hours. I should have gotten a close up shot of those fruit waffle cones.
I added a picture of Savanna (aka Violet from "Incredibles") with her long bangs. She rarely pulls them back for some reason, those darn bangs are always hanging in her face, I don't know why she likes it like that but I think in 10 years she will be like "what was I thinking?" so I wanted to take a picture of it. Savanna spent all day at "Jump on it" yesterday.  She went with friends and was gone for 8 hours, and we were a little worried as to her whereabouts, but she didn't need any punishment, her body got sick from overexertion and sore muscles were all the punishment she needed.  She was in pretty rough shape this morning.
Fiora took this awesome picture of two deer in our next door neighbor's back yard. They are there every morning and sometimes in the evening too. The house is currently vacant and i guess they have somehow learned that, but we are right next to them and active enough I would think to keep them away.  Maybe they have also learned we aren't going to hurt them. The last picture is just a fun one of our family.





 






Thursday, April 11, 2013

Spring break and etc

 Spring Break  
It was low key this year, but still the kids had some fun. We didn't go on any vacations, in fact Jared and I worked a full work load all week, but we still managed to fit in some activities. Tuesday evening Jared took Weston and Savanna up to a hotel where Uncle Chad was staying and they ate burgers and swam in the hotel pool, Fiora had activity days that evening and stayed home with me, we had a fun time watching a movie until Fiora decided to ditch me and go play at her friends house. :) Wednesday evening my mom picked up the kids and took them to her house for a sleep over, and on Thursday I had no clients so I went to Eagle Mountain and we had a nice lunch and went on a hike up the Eagle Mountains. Jared came too, and brought his wheeler, which was great because he was able to take my mom down so she wouldn't hurt her back hiking down. Weston loves hanging at Grandma's because he gets to play with their video games and Uncle Joseph's toys. Savanna was awesome and babysat Holly's baby Penelope for 3 hours so we could hike and play games. That night we went to Jesse and Kelsy's and had some yummy gormet sandwiches, and watched some Rifftrax.  Friday we had a bbq with the Schauers family to celebrate some bdays.  Saturday Jared took the kids to Gunnison to spend time with their Grandpa Neil and Bonnie. I stayed home to watch conference and had a pretty nice quiet day, and went to see a movie with my sisters. It was F.U.N! 
Over the course of the week the kids had lots of time to decide they wanted to earn money by doing chores, the house never looked so great! Savanna set the table so beautifully and we never even had a family dinner together until Sunday, but it was a job she got 25 cents a day for if she maintained it, so the table looked beautiful all week. (I included a picture of her beautiful table in her segment.) Weston earned all the money for his Ninja Turtle Lego set that goes with the little figures I put in his Easter eggs, he helped me clean the pantry, mopped all the floors, dusted, straightened the shoe rack, did his laundry and his kitchen chores all week. He was golden!  (BTW I finally did find the little missing Ninja Turtle Lego egg, I was cleaning the kitchen during conference, and right in the middle of the song "Did you think to pray?" I knocked over the Scentsy plug in behind the paper towel rack, and a little egg fell off!  So funny!) The girls were golden too, Sav earned all her potential earnings and then did 2 extra chores to get a couple more dollars. Fiora peetered out at the end of the week but at least did all her regular chores. This week now that school is back in there is much less housework going on, but at least they have caught the idea of how to earn a commission should they choose. 1st five pictures are of my hike with Barretts in EM, next four are of the kids with Grandpa Neil in Gunnison.















Missionary Month Dinner


Tuesday evening we are hosted a unique event.  Round these parts, our Stake hosts a “missionary month” and the youth of every ward are all called on pseudo missions and do activities that missionaries would do throughout the month. One of the last activities is that every companionship is invited to a members house for dinner and a discussion, and the hosting members have to pretend like they are really from the country those missionaries are called to.  So we had two “Elders” (Calvin Passmore and Issac Patch) who had been called to serve in Brazil over for dinner, because that’s where Jared served his mission. So Jared knows a guy from Brazil and he hired his wife to make homemade Brazilian food for us, and I made a Brazilian flag to hang on the wall, and I decorated the dining area with the Brazilian colors.  I even learned how to say Ben Vindo (Welcome) in Portugese. It was a lot of fun! We asked the Heim's (a family we are good friends with in the ward who had us come over to their place last year for a German missionary dinner) to join us, Chris Heim also served a mission in Brazil and said the food was very authentic, and the Elders taught us a lesson on obedience after the dinner, it was a good food, good company experience.
 







Sunshine Savanna
Sometimes Savanna is a real ray of sunshine. She left this note on the white board on my bed for me one evening, sorry it isn't rotated correctly, it says Mom: I love you! I love you when you comfort me at bad times, I love you when you cook with me, I love you when you run with me, I love you when you are supportive of me, I love you when you are cranky and happy, I love you when your sad and mad, but most of all, I love you!!! --Savanna.  That was surprising and amazing, of course it made my day.  Our tenants are moving out, and Jared posted our apartment Monday afternoon and had 3 calls within the first hour and 7 more that evening, and we found great tenants the very first day, Jared liked them so much that he asked them to come back that evening and meet me because I wasn't home when they previewed the apartment.  While we were visiting with them, Savanna interrupted us and asked for my phone. I was all irritated with her for interrupting, and then I saw what she was doing.  She was not messing around, or calling friends, was taking a picture of herself reading a book so she could send it to her teacher as part of a reading requirement. It was so cute, I just love her initiative to go the extra mile when it comes to doing assignments. Savanna is currently at Clear Creek with the 6th grade for 3 days, and she was so excited she packed 3 days early.  Its pretty crummy weather here, I hope they have some fun activities despite snow and rain!


Fun and Flowery Fiora
Fiora was accepted into the ALL (Advanced Learning Lab) program for 5th and 6th grade, she had to test in the 90th percentile on a state exam in order to be offered a placement, and she barely tested in at exactly 90%.  I think it will be good, although she has mixed feelings. She worries that it will be super hard, and the teachers will be super strict. I see it as an opportunity for her to finally be stretched, Fiora has been my child that is always ahead in class and has to bring books to school because she gets done before other kids on assignments and needs to read while she waits. She never seems stretched on homework assignments, gets them done on her own in record time, and reads and writes at Jr High grade levels.  Sometimes the fact that she finds school too easy backfires on her, she doesn't think she needs to study for tests and then gets B's because she just didn't bother to review the study guide. But when she does study she gets 102%.  I'm sure ALL will stretch her, and probably me and Jared as well, but I'm grateful. Fiora has been practicing her typing ever since we got back from the ALL orientation meeting, because they told us most of what they do is on computers and most of their students test out of typing class in 7th grade. She is up to 15 words per minute! :) See what stretching is already happening, love it.

Music Man Weston
Weston is my little piano player. Fiora still gets on the piano once in a while, and I convinced her to learn a easy song for our piano recital coming up, and there is a duet part I play with it. Weston came up to me while we were playing and said "I could learn that duet part." I said, "OK then, if you learn it then you and Fiora can play this together for the recital." So he had me teach him the chords , fingering, and rhythm and then buckled down and learned it. Its intermediate stuff, he is really moving forward in piano. I'm so glad because I really wondered if teaching him myself would work out. If he continues at his current pace he will be in level three by the time he is 9, and ready to play for the elementary orchestra by next school year. He is a cute little scout too. I'll add some pictures Jared took of his last activity as a Wolf Den leader. (Last two pictures were supposed to be on the last post, when we had a farewell dinner with Sandra Snow who left on her mission to BRAZIL before spring break.)






Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easter

Pretty Savanna, my sunshine


































We all have our days when we crash and burn, unfortunately that day was Easter Sunday for me. Good thing days are fleeting, and thankfully the day before and after were good. The day before (Saturday) my parents and siblings came over for a candy egg hunt and firepit dinner, and we had a lot of fun!  In preparation for this Jared and I and the kids scooped up 5-gallons worth of deer poop that had accumulated in our backyard over the winter. That was the most excrement I had seen in my yard at one time in my entire life! Weston was so funny, he kept complaining about picking up deer poop in the hot sun, but when we finally finished he stayed in the hot sun and played basketball anyway.  He is getting to be a pretty good shot btw, he beat Jared at Speed a few times on the basketball court. The kids and I had fun coloring eggs for the hunt, and after the kids found them I deviled them up to go with dinner.
I had a major headache on Sunday and it was a busy day so our immediate family traditional egg hunt Sunday morning got pushed back to the afternoon.  I put little toys, money, and notes to the kids in their Easter eggs instead of candy and I was looking forward to it all week.  When I finally gathered up my strength to do an egg hunt for the kids, somehow my brain didn't get the message it was supposed to function because we hid and lost an egg that held a relatively expensive ninja turtle lego figure inside for Weston. This was very frustrating to me and we all spent a good part of the afternoon looking for it. The Snow's hosted a Schauers Easter dinner that evening, I almost didn't go due to my head. But I'm glad I went because Wendy Snow reminded me that I have a really awesome collection of 12 eggs Grandma Sandy made for us that hold symbols of Christ inside them, with scriptures to match, so Monday I found them and we had a great FHE lesson opening those eggs. We will remember to get those out next year ON Easter to think about the Savior, and no more buying little toys to put in eggs we hide and potentially never find again!
PS Fiora is frowning in most of those FHE pictures because she wasn't in a good mood, but she still enjoyed the activity and engaged in reading scriptures and opening eggs. But for the record, Savanna is usually the one in a bad mood during FHE.  Just seems to be the case that someone is unhappy when we try to have meaningful family time!

In Memory of Lillian

In Memory of Lillian
Our Family