Category: Uncategorized (Page 111 of 118)

Happy Birthday Ryan!! You’ve come a long way from that skinny kid you used to be. This is a picture of Ryan on his mission in Brazil, back in 1988 or 1989 (sometime back then).

And here he is back in the BYU days, about the time when I first met him.

And here he is with his attempt at a moustache. Funny looking, but I still love him!

He’s a great husband, a wonderful father, and one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. I love him with all my heart!

Sometimes it’s good to get some positive comments, especially when it comes to being a parent.

So, when I went to Parent/Teacher Conference last night, I wasn’t expecting all that much, just dreading finding out the latest things my kids have neglected to turn in, or what the next big project due next week is. I was delighted to hear praise and good things from all the kids’ teachers. Apparantly they save all their sassyness and negative attitudes for mom and her need to hear them practice the piano daily. So, I don’t mean to brag, but…I must (so if you don’t want to hear me bragging about my kids, just stop reading right now. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

–Cole scored 100% on the Math section of the state curriculum testing done last spring. His other subjects were also quite high, all level 4, which is the highest profficiancy rating.

–Megan is everyone’s favorite student, and “a joy” to have in class. She’s also quite gifted in art (the art comment didn’t suprise me, but I must say I’m a little suprised that her teachers love her so much). She also tells her teachers everything I do, apparantly, and her Social Studies teacher said to me, “Oh, I hear all about you–playing bells with the tabernacle choir, doing an amazing shopping race–you must be lots of fun!” That was nice to hear that Megan speaks well of me, especially since we had had a little run in just that morning that ended with Mom reminding her that we are her family and I expect her to “be nice!”

–Natalie’s teacher said she has NEVER had a child who reads so well in the first grade, and that she reads on a 7.5 grade level. That comment really blew me away. I mean I know she reads well, but seventh grade? Wow.

So, like I was saying, it’s good every once in a while to have some outside feedback on how your kids are doing. I came home with a renewed appreciation for my smart, well behaved kids, and I will try to remember that next time they leave their dishes on the counter and their shoes and backpacks in the middle of the floor.

Perhaps this is why I blog. Well, that didn’t work out so well. The last frame says “but I can’t think of anything interesting to say.” It’s not funny when you have to explain it. Oh well, I tried

1–Natalie’s party was a huge success. Except for having to put my own kids on time out on the way home for generally being obnoxious and loud in the car, everyone had a great time.

2–John had a rough night with fevers and chills all night. He slept with me, and wanted to hold my hair the whole night, so we didn’t get much sleep. When I took him to the doctor in the morning, there was nothing wrong. No fever, no ear infection, no nothing. Hmmm.

3–Play group yesterday. 5 four year olds here for a couple of hours. We survived, even on very little sleep.

4–Bells rehearsal last night was very fun. We’re doing some fantastic Christmas songs and it really gets me into the Christmas spirit (yes, I know it’s a bit early, but I don’t mind. Maybe I’ll start with the shopping!)

5–And I must just say that the Beatles had it right. “All you need is love.”

Happy Birthday, Natalie! I can hardly believe she is now 7 years old! She’s a fun, energetic, smart girl, and we love having her in our family. We’re having a birthday party today–taking 9 kids out to Hollywood Connection. We wish her a wonderful day!

Ryan and I had a nice DATE (yes, we do have those occasionally) Friday night. We went to the Harvest Ball at Thanksgiving Point. We sat with two other couples we didn’t know, but isn’t it a small world? Two of them went to PG high..One lived around the corner from Susan in Pleasant Grove, and his wife took Creative Writing from Melinda. It was a nice dinner, and we even did a little dancing. I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard in a long time–if that tells you how good we are at ballroom dancing. There was a floor show done by Center Stage Dance Studio in Orem. These kids were AMAZING! 10-12 year old kids doing the Tango, Cha-Cha and Swing. They were really great! I can’t imagine how much they need to practice each week to get that good. We felt ultimately stupid dancing after them, but we stuck it out (and stayed away from the really good couples who were doing fancy stuff). It was a really fun evening out!

We could all learn to do a little more sharing in life, don’t you think?

Congratulations to Ryan, who won a $100 gift certificate to Gunnies yesterday. If you’ve never been to Gunnies, then you, like I was, are in for a surprise. It’s a mini Cabela’s! Taxidermy all around the store, including a girraffe, a bear, and a boar, and all kinds of fishing and hunting gear. Gunnies and the Daily Herald sponsored a puzzle page, with a word search type thing, a “what’s wrong with this picture”, and identify the eyes of 8 different animals. Ryan wrote a computer program to figure out the highest scores for the wordsearch, figured the differences in the picture pretty easily, but we had a tough time guessing the animals. Megan helped out there, but we were still not right. We ended up with 4 wrong, but were still in the drawing. Only one person got them all right, and she won $400! So, Congratulations to Ryan. Happy Birthday–go buy yourself something fun.