Miscellany

I found this computer art drawing by Whitney entitled "100 percent as a dream".

Last week I started working on my Personal Progress stuff by reading all the scriptures related to Divine Nature. I kept needing to refer to The Family: A Proclamation to the World and decided I needed one to fit in my scriptures. I went online and found a great website with it already formatted, then printed it on sticker paper and stuck it in the back of my scriptures, woohoo!

The girl who likes Landon came into the office and put this picture and note on my computer last Friday (talk about bold!).

I snuck a shot of Landon with her at the school dance, where apparently I told her that I had told him about the picture! She came into the office yesterday and acted all embarrassed, but really I think she is pretty secure about letting him know she likes him.

We're doing Secret Pals again at work this year (woohoo for good mail at work!) and mine gave me this frame with a dry erase marker and notepaper under the glass.

I thought it would be the perfect daily to-do list medium for Whitney but so far she just keeps drawing on it.

I'm investing in Spring for once and went a little crazy with bulbs. I was so disappointed when our tulips didn't do well last spring (possibly from hot weather) and am really hoping for good blooms next Spring.

I'm loving the foliage and sunshine these days!

Whitney turned 12 just 10 days before the annual Primary Program so she opted out of being in it, but they asked her to draw the program cover and this is what she came up with. 

Sunday Thoughts

Hello Again, it feels like it has been so long. Our 11:30-2:30 schedule doesn't lend itself well to me blogging, especially since I usually spend an hour and a half working on the Relief Society newsletter each Sunday. I have adopted an "I can do what I can do" attitude about blogging these days, but I know I'll be sad later if my posts get too far apart.

Whitney turned 12 on the 18th (I have yet to blog about this) which means she graduated from Primary (for kids 3-12) and has moved up into Young Women's (for girls 12-18)! This is a HUGE milestone for her and is rather mind blowing for me, especially since it doesn't seem like that long ago that I was in Young Women's myself.

So last Sunday morning before church her Beehive leader (she's over girls 12 & 13) came over to explain the Personal Progress Program to us (it has changed a lot since I did it). It was a rather spiritual 20 minutes and made me so excited for Whitney and for myself since I can participate too.

Purpose of Personal Progress

Young Women Personal Progress is an achievement program designed to help young women:

• • 
  Strengthen their testimonies of Jesus Christ.
• • 
  Strengthen both their present and future families.
• • 
  Prepare to be worthy to make and keep sacred temple covenants.
• • 
  Prepare for their future roles and responsibilities.

Participation of Mothers

Mothers are welcome to participate with young women in earning the Young Womanhood Recognition. Mothers work from their own Personal Progress book and may earn the recognition along with their daughter. It is recommended that a daughter earn her recognition before or along with her mother.

Mothers may complete the same requirements as their daughters, including:

• • Attend sacrament meeting regularly (where possible).
• • 
  Live the standards in For the Strength of Youth.
• • 
  Complete the value experiences and value project for each of the eight values.
• • 
  Keep a personal journal.
• • 
  Read the Book of Mormon regularly.
• • 
  Record her testimony of the Savior Jesus Christ.

--On Tuesday morning Whitney got up at 4:20am (miraculous!) with Landon  and went to the temple to do baptisms for the first time, then that night she went to her first Young Women's Activity!

And We're Done!

Last Saturday was the last football game of Landon's season. While he has loved playing football and it has been fun watching him, it has been super time consuming and we're thrilled to be done! I've been shuttling him to practice 5 days a week since August! I ended up meeting one his teammate's moms and we started carpooling, but even with that help it was a daily errand that took 30 minutes round trip for me and 2.5-3 hours practice time for Landon. Now it feels like we've been given a great gift of extra time in our days...I may even make dinner!

Back to last Saturday's game, this is a shot of Randy walking over to my side of the bleachers before the game started. We were facing the sun which wasn't pleasant, but the view of the mountains was worth it.

This was their 3rd time playing on the Lehi High School field (which is the nicest field they played on) so it felt like a fun, official field for their last game.

Action shot!

I found plenty to look at between plays.

After the game a bunch of parents took some team photos at the same time so we ended up with the boys looking every which way, but Landini is front and center.

Landon has a fan club! These two cheerleaders came to the game and cheered for all the boys but gave Landon several shout outs from the stands. I know them from school and think it's funny that they're so chatty with me, the one on the left has said to me, "You should talk to him about me!"

 

It was cute.

Busted Outing Sort Of

We were on Fall Break since last Thursday (it has been glorious) but Monday was our last day off and I really wanted to take advantage of the Fall goodness going on outside before it turns into winter woe.

Landon opted to spend the day with a friend, so Whitney and I drove up to Sundance to ride the ski lift and take in the surroundings. But it turns out that yesterday was the last day to do that!!! Aargh! I didn't even know there was a last day to do that! It was a crushing blow for sure (I even had a coupon) but I tried to rally our spirits by walking around and taking pictures.

Whitney was less than thrilled about the walking around aspect of things. I don't know how she's immune to such beautiful surroundings, but she kind of was.

She perked up a lot when she got to climb down on the rocks by the freezing brook. She liked to put a leaf in the water and watch it float away. I actually got this photo of her from a distance when she turned to look at me (i.e., she wasn't posing on purpose).

Even though we were there past prime foliage coloring, it was still beautiful, especially up close.

I love how the macro setting blurs the background.

Childlike no?

I have a thing with blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

I love this one.

After leaving Sundance we drove to Heber to get shakes at Granny's only to find that it was closed for the season #$@!. So I kept driving and we ended up in Park City. It was beautiful up there, their Aspens were in prime gold (and yet I have not photos).

We eventually stopped at Kneaders to get dessert, a Napolean for Whitney and a Boston Cream Cupcake for me.

We got some fun items at T.J. Maxx and drove home, good heavens it felt like a road trip!

12 on the 12th--October

1. Since it was Fall Break I got to sleep in, which meant I made the bed (the last one up makes it so it's usually Randy's job).
2. I'm finally catching the vision of Pinterest (I've never been accused of being an early adopter).
3. Trying to finish The Thousand Autumns of Jacob DeZoet so I could return it to Michelle.
4. A trip to Walmart to pick up photos.
5. It was delightfully rainy and fall-like.
6. Whitney writing tags for Randy's birthday presents.
7. The three of us on our way to Michelle's for Creative Friday.
8. Whitney worked on her birthday list.
9. I decorated tags with rub-ons.
10. We met Randy at Texas Roadhouse for his birthday dinner.
11. Randy with his birthday presents (44th birthday).
12. I got to start a new book!

Weirdest Location Ever

Landon's game on Saturday was at a field clear out in Freakin Eagle Mountain in an area I'd never been near before. I had been warned that it was far away and hard to find so Whitney and I left the house an hour early and had Google Map directions with us. We followed the directions on and on and on until it felt like we were headed to Nevada! We stayed on the road until it literally ended!! What the? Luckily I had the phone number of the dad who had taken Landon that morning and he told me it was off a dirt road near the middle school being built (which we had passed). What in the world?

It was only about a mile back from where the road ended, and it's no wonder we missed it! Good grief, it was a field in the middle of miles of sagebrush. We drove down a bumpy dirt road and parked randomly because there wasn't an actual parking lot there.

We could see the boys over the top of the sage brush, but couldn't figure out why they were planning in this remote location.

This is the school being built "nearby" but really it's pretty far away from this field in the middle of nowhere.

I think they should change the name of this area to Tinder Valley or Prickerville or Desolation.

Eventually I got over the strangeness of the location and was able to focus on the game.

Here is Landon (#0) blocking a guy so his teammate could score.

Whitney's lack of interest in the game is admirable really. Her focus on drawing is intense and rarely disturbed by the game, even when a boy on Landon's team broke his ankle right in front of us! I was traumatized by it and took pictures (for his family of course). I know this boy from school and remember all too well how awful it was when Landon broke his elbow last November. I was in tears as they carried him off the field, through the sagebrush and into the backseat of his car for a bumpy ride to the ER.

Scenes from Today

I had Parent/Teacher Conferences at Whitney's school this afternoon and wanted to bring something to her teacher and the two front office secretaries. This time I emailed them all the day before to see what their favorite things are (it's hard to guess for people you don't know well), so I ended up giving a cute jar with M&Ms in it to the secretaries and a box of Mini Triscuits, 5 string cheeses and a bottle of water to Whitney's teacher since she's trying to lose some baby weight. It pained me to give her nontreat items, but she definitely didn't want anything tempting.

Every year at the book fair we buy a book for the kids' classroom and then Whitney gets to pick one thing; I about fell over when she wanted to buy a One Direction poster! It's going on the back of the kids' bedroom door so she can see it when she sits at her desk, and so the rest of us won't ever really see it.

Landon has taken over the kitchen counter with a leaf-identification project he's doing for Biology. He's been gathering and pressing leaves for weeks and has to identify and label all of them. He has labeled 35 of the 50 so tonight is going to be a long night, but then I'll get to have a clean counter again!

After dropping Landon at football practice, Whitney and I went over to the junior field to watch Austin's soccer scrimmage...except Austin's team didn't end up being there! I texted Robyn and found out it had been cancelled, so Whitney and I sat in our chairs and watched a girls team full of strangers for about 20 minutes until it was time to go see Lori. It was a little weird, but the girls' team was quite good so I was hoping Whitney would get inspired.

The reason we were waiting for Lori to get home is so that we could meet her new puppy Brody. He's a teacup Bulldog and is all kinds of cute. We sat outside for 45 minutes or so playing with him and waiting for him to go to the bathroom, but he didn't do that until we'd been inside for about 10 minutes then did his business on the floor! Whitney and I made a hasty exit and left Lori to enjoy the clean up...I'm standing firm with my "nothing that poops" policy of animal ownership no matter how cute!

Every night after football practice Landon gets undressed in the garage, but can't do so until he has the itouch with him so he can listen to music. It cracks me up that even the short process of getting undressed needs a soundtrack, but then again he is my son.

Some friends dropped off a pile of corn for us, so nice.

Family Party

My dad passed us on the freeway with a car full of family (including Whitney) on our way up to Adam and Amy's house to celebrate Lori and Andrew's birthdays.

The mountains were covered in orange leaves, so beautiful!

The guests of honor!

We had spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and crusty bread.

Amy got the new iphone 5 so there was some comparing going on. Lori and Robyn both have the iphone 4 and I'm still kicking around with the 3.

I love this photo of Ashley.

Lori and Andrew sat together as we showered them in presents...Andrew first of course.

He only wants movies, even if he already owns them! His excitement never fades.

I got Lori a Friday Night Lights football t-shirt, we love it!

We all went in on a mini refrigerator for her Girl Cave (movie room) at her new place, Randy and I got her some beverages to stock it with.

Remember loving World Record books?

This is my favorite picture of the night! Andrew was thrilled to receive a new Woody doll (though he still loves the old, falling-apart dolls too). We can't believe he's 25!!