Aug 01
Everyone,
This is the social event of the year for our ward. We have so much fun swimming in our bishop’s pool and playing with all of his camp equipment. It’s like a mini ward camp. Check out last years visit here. We have gone every year we’ve lived here and I couldn’t find any other time I wrote about it. Huh.
This year I was really excited about taking all the kids there because we always have so much fun. I was worried the night before that we wouldn’t be able to go because of Butterfly’s fever. It was basically gone so we planned on going. Besides we couldn’t miss out on our yearly picture on the alligator!
During the boys’ first nap we cleaned another section of my room. I now have a scrap booking table available to use every day. I’m so excited! I also threw out a big trash bag of garbage, found a bunch of unopened mail (oops) and put more things into the attic. Gotta love this cleaning I’m doing. I hope to have this all done by this weekend.
The party was a lot of fun. We did a lot of swimming. The boys really loved wading around in the baby pool. Butterfly and her BFF Vinny stuck together like glue until his family had to go home. I’m sad he’s going to be going to school this year! We’re going to miss him. I think the highlight of the day was finding a grey tree frog. It was so cute! It had yellow legs and curled up in Juice’s hand. We both wanted to keep him but figured having another creature in the house was just asking for trouble.
Butterfly and I went down the slide again. And she told me again that she didn’t ever want to go down it again. Crazy girl. I had a good time with it! The boys were done walking around the pool a lot sooner than Butterfly was done playing in it.
We enjoyed eating bbq and Butterfly and the boys spent about an hour playing in the sand box. I was able to help out another mom rinse out her little boy’s eye (he is about a month older than my boys) because another kid threw sand in his face. It was nice to help out a little. And it was nice that the boys were so entertained with the sand!
While I helped with the other mom and the kids played in the sand with Flower watching out for them, Juice played street hockey with all the other guys in the ward. You aren’t really a part of our ward until you’ve bled at this game. It’s a serious thing. Juice plays goalie a lot, and this year was no exception. He could also barely walk after the game.
Everyone had baths when we got home to rinse the sand off. That’s when I noticed both of the boys seem to be sporting fevers as well. Looks like our house is sick!
Safire
Safireanimals, Lala and Vinny, swimming, ward activities
May 27
Everyone,
Tonight was recognition night for the 8-11 year old girls at my church. I am the co-leader and every 2nd and 4th Wednesday, we have activities. The idea is to prepare the girls to be righteous young women in our church. It’s fun, we do a lot of cool little things.
Anyway, tonight we asked the girls to bring something that showed who they were and asked them to prepare a short presentation (basically telling us what they brought). Kind of like a big show and tell. Let me tell you, these girls are amazing! We had several play instruments (piano, recorder, violin, and clarinet) and several show off some other talents (drawing, gymnastics, etc.) I am just in awe at the broad range of talents we have! And the desire to show them off…it’s not something I would have ever been happy to do (play my violin in front of people) but they all did it with a smile on their face and just wowed me.
The coolest one was one of our 8 year olds. She is so quiet, soft spoken, and can break 2 boards in half with her fist. She has a trophy that is taller than me (and I’m 6 feet!) and a whole bunch of metals from breaking boards. I have learned so much about these girls I’m teaching. They are so incredible.
In other news, we only have a few days left before we leave and things are not getting done. It’s mostly my fault they are not getting done, only because I hate dragging all 3 kids out to run errands so I wait till Juice gets home. But then I’m too tired to do anything that nothing gets done. I’ve got to buckle down and do several things and errands tomorrow, 3 kids or not. Wish me luck.
Speaking of kids, Professor is crying so I’m off!
Safire
PS- Thanks to my MIL who sent me a wonderful book on motherhood. It had me in tears all afternoon.
Safireward activities
Jan 10
Everyone,
We were brave. Tonight was our ward’s annual adult only white elephant exchange party. We love going. Every year we have such a great time and laugh so hard. This year there was some question as to if we were going to go. We both wanted to, but were we ready to leave the boys with a babysitter that wasn’t family? (The last time we had a babysitter was in Utah, almost 6 months ago.)
We, okay I, decided that I was ready and called our normal babysitter to see if she could come. No! The 14-15 year old girls in our church were all having a sleep over together. So that meant that all of my regular babysitters were busy.
An older girl’s mom said her daughter wasn’t doing anything and so I asked her to babysit. Worked out great. She’s really close to me and 16 too. And she has twin younger brothers. So I feel very comfortable leaving them with her.
And I’m glad we did! As we were leaving, Juice said that it was a good thing that Butterfly was staying home because she was driving him crazy today. Me too! We had a good laugh at that one. Poor Butterfly, it’s been rough on her lately. RSV in the house, no one to play with, and a lot of pent up energy. She needed a fresh face to play with and we needed a night without her bedtime games.
The party was a blast. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time. We all get together in a circle, a huge pile of presents in the middle, and everyone has a number. When it’s your turn, you get to either pick a present or steal a present from someone else. Once the present has touched three people, it’s locked and that person it it’s final owner.
I’ve gotten some interesting things in the past. Like last year when I was pregnant with the boys, I got a fat burning work out dvd. Juice got a manicure set the year before. We always bring some pretty fun stuff too. Like a bunch of really stinky soaps (sorry Lolli who got them). This year we brought some stickers I won’t be using and cup Juice got at a conference he went to this year. Juice got to pick his present first and picked out a wooden bird house painted as a barn with toy animals stuck to it. It was not functional, but kind of cute.
The missionaries came to the party, and Juice and I were wondering to ourselves what in a missionary apartment could you bring to a white elephant gift party. I found out. It was….
a box of cheez-its with only crumbs inside.
What a lame gift! Worst gift ever, and bordering on not funny. It was the missionaries so I forgave them that. Plus, as the night went on and we saw some of the funny things people brought (VHS tapes, a signed picture of themselves [really really funny!] and random bits of makeup) I was actually kind of happy with my cheez-its box because I would not be bringing home useless junk.
Someone stole it to get a laugh. So I got to pick another one. I picked out a hanging holiday sign with a saying on it about friends and holidays. Something sappy. The missionaries took back their cheez-its box and the person who stole them got to steal something else.
We had the best time laughing and being with our ward and our friends. It ended way too early though so we decided to go to Toys-R-Us and see if we could buy Rock Band 2. They closed at 9pm so we drove around for a few minutes and went home.
All was quiet on the home front. The boys didn’t even peep and Butterfly went down without a fuss and was asleep when we got there. Awesome! I checked the messages and Lolli had called to see if we wanted to get together and play the Wii tonight. Yes!
So as I took the babysitter home, Lolli and CandyMan came over and we played carnival games and Mario Kart. Fun fun fun!
It was a great night and a good recharge for me. Now if only I could guarantee myself several hours of sleep, that would just be the cherry on top.
Safire
Safirebabysitting, Lolli, ward activities, Wii
Jul 28
Everyone,
Each year our bishop has a huge ward party at his kid camp. We swim, we eat, we talk, and the men play stick ball. We all look forward to it every year. This year we had another great time. We got there really early (because I thought it started an hour before it really did…otherwise we would have been an hour late) and Juice and Butterfly swam while I sat with the boys and talked to the ward ladies. 
Butterfly came dragging Juice about an hour later and said she was done playing with Daddy, she wanted to play with Mommy. So I went to the pool and sat and chatted with more friends while Butterfly splashed with best friend Vinny. She wanted to play in the big pool so I convinced her to slide down the big slide with me. (My camera battery was dead or I would have a picture…these pictures are from my friend Laura.) So we climbed up 3 layers of webbing and got to the top. I sat her on my lap, told her to be prepared to go under the water and take a big breath and hold it. And down we went! As we hit the water I heard her say, “Ohhh!” as all the air she was holding rushed out. Down in the water we went and she starts to flail. I got her out of the water before I got my head out and she’s trying so hard to get to the edge of the pool. She climbed out as fast as she could and I asked if she wanted to do it again. “No!” We played in the kiddie pool the rest of the time.
I think I ate probably 5 hot dogs. The boys were a hit (as always) and Butterfly played some more in the pool with Daddy after dinner. Then the men played stick ball (in which Juice was a goalie and totally blocked the bishop which was the talk of church on Sunday) and Butterfly played in the playground. I sat and fed/held the boys and talked some more. I talked a lot at this thing and it was so much fun!
We are looking forward to next year’s party!
Safire
Safireswimming, ward activities
