Ellen Turned 5!!

Ellen is officially 5! That means that she gets to go to school in the fall and she can hardly wait!  She already reads better than any of my other kids did at her age!!  We've started having her help read scriptures and its fun to see some words getting easier to sound out or have become sight words.

Aaron went on a walk with Aaron the other day and Aaron found out that Ellen has a dramatic side to her.  As they were walking along she would suddenly exclaim, "Wow Dad!!  Isn't that just beautiful" as she was looking at a run down house.  When Aaron looked, he had to ask what she was looking at.  She said, "That rose!"  Isn't it beautiful!!"  And there at the base of the house was a beautiful rose bush!  Aaron hadn't even seen it.  That happened several times on their walk.  Ellen knows how to find beautiful things!

 Playdough

 Books!  Winnie the Pooh and other Disney books!

 I love these little dolls. They are magic clip dolls.  They are the perfect size for little hands and so easy to change the dresses.  Even Sarah can do it by herself!

I made Ellen this play dress.  She got to wear it for her Preschool/Valentine's party and looked/felt like a TRUE princess!  You can't really tell, but I had braided her hair into a crown.  This picture was taken at the end of the day so you can't tell how pretty it was, but just take my word for it!   :)

Calista turned 7!!!

Things have been crazy the past 6 months, but here's a little start to catching up!

Calista turned 7 years old last January!!  I love these early morning pictures!  Some day they might regret having our early morning wake up tradition, but that day is not now!  They love it when we come in singing to them.  

Calista had a great 1st grade year and so excited that the teacher said she could go on to 2nd.  For some reason she seemed very nervous about whether or not she would be allowed to go on.  Calista loves reading, math, recess, jump roping, hot lunch and her new friends!  She also loves coloring, writing letters,  chap stick and fingernail polish.

Calista is starting a new book series entitled, "Ivy and Bean."  They are really cute books.  They kind of remind me of Junie B. Jones, but the girls are older.  Aaron sat down and read two or three one night, so they aren't very long, but he enjoyed them.

Calista is a wonderful helper with Heidi.  If Heidi is crying, she is the first to volunteer to help and she does a great job walking her around, getting her interested in other things, or feeding her.  It's fun to see her mothering skills develop.

 Chap stick and fingernail polish

 Colored pens!

 Aaron crocheted this bag for Calista!  That is something I haven't learned to do.  She was so excited.  She decided to have this be her Sunday bag.  Aaron was a little embarrassed to have her bring it to church, but she is very proud of it.

 I made Calista this blanket.  I've made blankets for Samuel, Jacque and Ellen, so it was Calista's turn!

Her WONDERFUL castle cake.  Poor cake kept falling over, but she really DID think it was wonderful!

Interesting day

Today was my first Sunday to go to Church without Aaron.  Most people would probably worry about how Sacrament meeting would be with just me and six kids, but I decided to see how the meeting would go with just 6 kids and no parent!!

I woke up in the middle of the night with my stomach just hurting.  Not necessarily throwing up, but more cramping.  After spending several hours back and forth to the bathroom, I was finally able to settle down and go to sleep on the couch.  Three hours later, I woke Aaron up for his eary morning Bishopric meeting.  I thought I was feeling good, so I laid down to rest before I had to get up for the morning.  However, my stomach started hurting again.  I figured maybe I was just hungry.  I got myself and the kids ready for church, but my stomach still didn't feel right, not as bad as it had been, but not good either. 

With Samuel's help we had everyone dressed, hair done and breakfast over by 8:15am!  Samuel did Ellen and Calista's hair and it looked pretty good.  He put their hair in pony tails and added a flower clip.  There were a few loose hairs that I was tempted to fix, but they didn't mind and he did a good job, so I let it be.

We got to church 15 minutes early and found our seat in the chapel.  We have started taking two of the small pews on the side of the chapel.  I sit in the back pew with Samuel, Sarah and Heidi.  Ellen, Calista and Jacque sit in front of us.  Everyone is within reach if they need a tap on the shoulder to remind them to settle down!

As I sat in the chapel waiting for church to start, I kept feeling worse and worse.  By the time the opening song started, I was silently crying.  Samuel leaned over and asked if I was alright.  I told him I wasn't feeling good.  Then a lady behind me asked if I was alright.  I replied the same and she told me to go home and she'd watch the kids.  I hesitated for a minute, but decided I should take her up on her offer.

I didn't have keys for our house, so I caught Aaron's eye and motioned for him to meet me in the hallway to hand off the keys.  Then Heidi and I walked home (another great part of living just across the street from the church).

I had a couple of friends come over during church to check on me, which was very nice of them.  They said the kids did very well.  Jacque told me that she'd look at Aaron and every now and then he look at her and then to Ellen, which clued Jacque in that Ellen wasn't acting how she should, so she'd tell Ellen to be quieter or turn around.

Aaron took over singing time in Junior Primary for me!  What a guy!  And a primary counselor did the Senior singing time.  Everything seemed to have gone smoothly.

There was one little glitch to all of it.  Samuel and Ellen were supposed to give talks.  We had gone over their talks the night before and then I printed them off and put them in my bag.  Samuel took the bag to primary with him so he'd have the talks.  Ellen, I guess, didn't give her talk because no one knew where it was (our Sr. and Jr. opening exercises are split).  Samuel came home from church and asked if I had added to his talk.  I said no, but wondered why.  He said that it didn't seem he same as he remembered it.  The theme of the talk was "The earth was created for Heavenly Father's children" and we went through his favorite creations that Heavenly Father made.  His talk was identical to Ellen's, except the part where we list the favorite creations.  I asked both of them what their favorites were and then wrote exactly what they said.  If Samuel had gotten his own talk, it would've been alright.  However, he was given Ellen's talk.  Later I found out that Aaron was the one to give Samuel is his talk, and if I hadn't have known whose was whose, I would've made the same mistake.  Samuel's real talk starts out that he likes green fields to play in.  Ellen's first thing she liked was fires-especially building campfires to roast hot dogs and marshmallows.  Reading those two lines, you would think that Samuel's would be the campfire right?  However, the rest of the talk was different.  I wish I could rewind time and sit in the back of the room as Samuel reads these few precious lines from Ellen's talk:

Cows:  I like watching them moo and I like to say "Here cow"
Clouds:  They are whitish and move
Birds: when it is morning, they wake me up by saying "peep peep" and sing

Oh poor Samuel.  He was a good sport though.  For some reason it just sounds funny coming from a 10 year old boy!

Aaron's new calling

We got a call last week, and were asked to meet with one of the Stake Presidency members on Saturday.  A few weeks ago, Bishop had asked Aaron how things were going and that he was going to submit his name for a new calling.  Later he asked me how I'd feel if Aaron were given a calling that would require me to sit by myself with the kids during Sacrament meeting.  I told him that I knew I would be blessed somehow.  We have a very helpful ward and I knew the Lord would bless me and the kids to do whatever was needed.  I mean if the Lord could bless my mom so she could teach a  primary class with twin babies, then he could help me too!

Saturday morning came and we got up early and went to the church.  President Leonard asked Aaron if he'd serve as the 2nd Councilor in the Bishopric.  Aaron accepted the call and went home and called his dad and asked if he could come to Pilot Rock the next day to set him apart as a High Priest.  James and Marjorie made it over the next day for the ordination and then hurried back to fulfill their own church obligations in Baker.

It was a great weekend.  I'm not sure exactly how this calling will change our lives, but I'm looking forward to the growth we will all make in the years to come.

Tiffanie laughs because we have the same calling as Primary Choristers and our husbands (both Aarons) have the same calling.  Leslie, I haven't heard if you have a new calling yet, but Tiff and I are rooting for you to be a Primary Chorister!!!

Our last Pinewood Derby

Samuel had his last Pinewood Derby on January 15th!  It was probably his most successful one too!  Aaron and Samuel got to shape the car and added the weights coming out the back end.  Samuel liked the looks of them sticking out the end - rocket jets!! Samuel painted it and I drew/painted the road runner on it.  Then they put the wheels on.  They set the car down and it popped a wheely!!  ALL the weight was in the back.  Luckily we were still under weight, and when they got to the gym, they had weights we could add to it!

 

For the races they raced Wolf vs. Wolf, Bear vs. Bear, Webelo vs. Webelo.  They chose three cars to race against each other, then had those same three cars race again but change lanes.  Samuel's car always won the first race, but one of the wheels always came off during the second race, and he would barely lose, but he never came in third.  It was fun and he thought having the wheel come off was great!  He got the award for the fasting looking car with the loosest wheel!!

 

This could be the last Pinewood derby that my family ever gets to participate in and it was a lot of fun!

 

 

He had to put three extra weights on it!

Covered Wagon

I know everyone has already seen this, but I wasn't able to upload pictures of it earlier, so now that it is working, I thought I'd put the pictures on my blog for a journal entry.

 

Samuel's teacher gave all the 4th graders and assignment over Christmas break. They've been learning about Oregon and the Oregon trail, so she asked each kid to make a covered wagon with their families and have it done by January 17th. She really left this open. She said it could be made out of anything they wanted, and it could be any size. The only size restriction she gave was that it had to fit inside the school doors. Aaron and Samuel had a lot of fun with this project. Aaron took the week off of Christmas and they spent it all in the shop. Luckily we had a broken down wagon just two houses down that they were able to run over and take measurements off of. This is about a 1/4 scale of an real prairie schooner. The bed is 1'x3' and probably stands about 2.5' high. The back wheels are 12.5" and the front ones are 9" in diameter. We tried to make it the approximate size of the little Red Ryder wagon that we all grew up with. Aaron tried to make as much of it as possible out of wood. At the last minute and after a lot of failures, Aaron was even able to come up with a way of bending the wooden bows!! He did have to use a few screws, one large bolt for part of the turning mechanism and then metal bolts and washers for the hubs. Aaron experimented with putting metal rims over the wheels, but we ran out of time before he had it down.

We are hoping that this wagon will last over the years and we can just add accessories each time this project comes along.

 

 

 

 

Twirl!

My girls love to dress up, and I thought Sarah needed her picture taken!

 

I made this cute skirt for Jacque on Friday and it was fun to see her twirl!  It's been a while since my big girl twirled and it was fun to see the little girl inside come out!  She loved it and she was nice and let her little sisters have a try at it too!