Here's Cory reading about our new blender and some recipes that came with it. I think he'd much rather do this than work on the yard.
Avery and the dump truck dumping the sand all over the patio.
I made these two scripture totes at church last night.
Free at last!
our finished fence and a yard in the works
Well the sprinkler system is not going in very quickly. Cory took the day off today so maybe he'll make some progress. The fence is finished and looks nice and we didn't have to do any of it. It's nice to have it done but we can't let the kids out b/c Cory's working on the sprinkler system. He's trying to get the back yard done first. It's nice not having the dog on a chain anymore.
Aiden doesn't like karate too much so he may not continue with it. This first month was a trial month. He wines about going and then pouts afterwards because someone got a new color belt and he didn't or because he can't do things the first time he tries. He's still very happy to just stay home and play. He brought home an essay he had to write about his summer yesterday. He only wrote three sentences, not an essay. He wrote: This summer I went to my Grandma and Grandpa's house. My Grandpa is funny and magic. He can make a coin come out of your ear!
Lidia likes ballet but says they just do the same things over and over. I told her that's how you get better at those things and build muscle memory. She is making friends at school and wants to go to their houses after school to play but I won't let her b/c they don't live close by us and I don't know their parents. I need to set up a play date for her with the girls down the street from us. She doesn't see them at school b/c they go to the charter school. She nor Aiden are playing soccer. I guess no positions have opened up yet. I know there is one open on one team but I guess the coach isn't concerned with filling it.
Tristan is liking school and I guess likes a girl named Shy. He's always talking about how pretty she dresses and that he asked her to be his girlfriend and she said yes but then he asked her again another day and I guess she said no because he told me she broke up with him. I seriously don't know where he learns these things. I told him he's too young to have a girlfriend and he told me he wasn't because they are both five. A couple of days ago I was running errands and got him to school a couple of minutes late and I asked him if he could go in to class by himself. I have been walking him into class everyday but he knows where to go and I pulled right up to the front door. He said he could do it himself and I watched him go inside but something told me I better go in after him and make sure he went into class. So I got out and went in and sure enough he was just standing there in the hall next to his class room door. I asked him why he didn't go in and he said he was scared but I think he was contemplating what he could do if he didn't go in. I sent him in and he was fine. It has been harder for him to adjust. I think he has just realized since starting school that his pals from last year would not be here at the new school. He talks about our old house and people back in Maryland more than the others. One day in Target he asked if we could go to Mason's house or if Mason could come to ours. I told him it was too far away and he just made the assumption that he will never see him again and started wailing right there in the middle of the store.
Avery likes it here and doesn't think about the past. He has always been a daddy's boy and now he loves seeing Grandpa more often. All the kids do, but Avery wakes up in the mornings now and asks where's "bee-ha", that's what he calls him for some reason. I guess he can't say grandpa yet. Avery loves to play outside with his new dump truck and sandbox. He had a great time running around the back yard on Monday after the fence was done. He was so wiped out that he fell asleep about 6:30pm and didn't wake up until I woke him at 8am the next morning.
Ever since we moved out here my car has been making a rattling sound off and on that has had me worried. Well when I stopped and got gas the other day I was looking at the octane rating and how it's lower here and I thought about getting a higher grade but then I thought why waste the money so I didn't but then as soon as I got into the car it clicked in my brain or someone up there was helping me stop long enough to think and I realized the the rattling is probably from the lower octane fuel. Cory looked in the manual and sure enough it said that you are to use at least 85 or it will make a rattling sound and eventually cause permanent engine damage. Well 85's regular back east but not here. Why is that? Why do they sell lower octane gas here? So I had a full tank of the crap stuff so I went and bought some octane booster and put it in and from now on I'll use at least the mid grade. It hasn't been rattling anymore so that's one less thing to worry about. Another problem I had noticed since we moved here but not stopped long enough to think about it too much is that my bathtub drains way slow. I would think that everytime I took a bath but then dismiss the thought until the next time. Well I stopped to think again and actually unscrewed the drain plug thing and there was a bunch of crap in there from construction. I threw away the nasty junk and it works great now. I was going to call the builders to have someone come and fix it. I'm glad I didn't. They would have told me to just clean my drain every time I clean the tub or something.
A super snaggle toothed boy who got his previously somewhat loose teeth knocked out at recess yesterday while playing tag and getting a head bumped into his mouth.
a cold rainy weekend and snow capped mountains(it's melted now)
a full moon and purple mountains
Here's Cory reading about our new blender and some recipes that came with it. I think he'd much rather do this than work on the yard.
Avery and the dump truck dumping the sand all over the patio.
I made these two scripture totes at church last night.
Free at last!
our finished fence and a yard in the works
Friday we had a load of topsoil delivered and spent all day Saturday spreading it all over the yard. we just realized we should have done it after we put in sprinklers but it'll be ok. we'll just roll the dirt after we put in sprinklers and fertilize it before we put down the sod. Grandpa and Grandma and Ben and Brooke came to help. It was a busy day but renting the skipster helped a lot. The kids love their uncle Ben. Avery and Tristan kept following him around. They love it when the grandparents come down too. Aiden says we should have moved to Idaho next door to them. The kids have noticed how close we are to everything here like stores, school, and church, doctors office, library etc. These things are all less than a mile away. Where we used to live it was 8-10 miles from anything. They keep saying,"Wow, that wasn't very long". They love being able to walk or ride bikes places. The kids ride their bikes a lot here and the peer pressure has worked in a good way for Aiden. He took the initiative yesterday to be brave and ride Lidia's bike. I told him that if he practiced on her bike and proved that he could ride, I would buy him his own bike. He did pretty well. I am helping him start but after that he's riding pretty well. He's very proud of himself and wants to keep practicing. Lidia's class is going on a field trip at the end of the month that is a two mile bike ride over by the marshes by the salt lake. She is very excited about it. Friday I took the kids for well child visits and to get shots because they require Hep A here and they are suggesting two chicken pox vaccines now instead of just one. I am so glad I had Cory take off work early to go with me because the kids were awful. Four kids in one little office is bad on it's own b/c they are constantly getting into everything in the room and bouncing off the walls but when they learned they were getting shots they were not too happy about it and were trying to hide behind the exam table. When the time finally came to get the shots rigt before you leave, they started whining asking us to please not give them shots. Lidia was the worst. She kept crying,"no mommy please no mommy please don't let them give me a shot". I tried to explain things to her but she was not acting rational. We made the mistake of having the boys go first. Avery was oblivious as to what was going on until it was over with. He cried for a minute and then calmed down. I kind of had to hold tristan down and he cried a little bit but was ok. I think he and Aiden were kind of curious about it and so they didn't mind it so much. I asked Aiden to act like it was no big deal to help Lidia. He made a little moan when the needles went in but that was it. Well by this time Lidia had really worked herself up and had her arms and legs wrapped around the side of the chair and was determined not to let go. Cory and I both had to pull her away and force her up onto the table while she was kicking and punching and screaming. Cory sat up on the table with her in his lap and wrapped his arms and legs around her so that she couldn't move and told the nurses to go ahead. The two nurses got on each side of her and said, "one, two, three go" the needles went in and she screamed so loud. The whole office probably thought we were torturing her. After all that craziness we took them to Baskin Robbins for ice cream and they've been fine since. Too bad I have to take them all back in 6 months for the other hep a shot. On Saturday Lidia had tryouts for the Nutcracker but didn't get selected. She hasn't had class for the past two years up until a week ago but she said she did everything right and smiled the whole time. She was pretty let down. When she got in the car and told us she didn't get chosen Aiden said,"Well you must not have a very good teacher". Then last night she said that she thinks she didn't get chosen b/c there were just too many girls trying out. She said there were 80 girls trying out in her height division. At the most there we maybe half that many parts for that height division so it's kind of luck I think. How different can they all be at that age? So I guess she feels a little better. In Maryland, everyone who wanted to was in it. Maybe next year. She will have a recital in June though so I told her to look forward to that. Today at church Cory and I received callings and spoke in sacrament meeting. They called Cory to be cub master and they called me to be in charge of an annual fund raiser for children's primary hospital called pennies by the inch. I don't mind doing it but I don't see how this is a church calling. I have never heard of the church being associated with fundraisers like this before. This is just something that will take a month. After that I'm sure they'll find something else for me to do or I'll just help Cory out with his calling. I am hating all the mosquitos here. Were are getting eaten up by them. They need to fog the neighborhoods here like they do back east. I guess tomorrow we'll draw out our lot and get planning the sprinkler system so we can get it started. We may hire a guy in our ward to help. He does it as a side job but right now he's busy working as a teacher and coaching games in the evenings so he may only be able to help out a bit on Saturdays. We need to get started on it asap so we will likely to most of it ourselves. I am hoping to get sod in in about two weeks. Cory and I are taking a family history class during Sunday school over the next 4 months. I am working on my dad's line. Our teacher really knows his stuff and lives right behind me if I need his help.