gymnastics

"Jumpin' jelly beans... we have a gymnast in the house!"  Jane started gymnastics at the Gymnastics Training Center this fall with six other little girls from our ward.  One of the moms in our neighborhood organized it and coordinated the schedules so that we could all be together while the kids experienced their first go at gymnastics.  This is a sport that has always made me want to hold my breath as I watch all of the incredible flips and back handsprings, and other amazing tricks done by gymnasts on all the apparatus.  The way they twist and turn and fly through the air makes my heart skip a beat.  But, I figured it would be a fun thing for Jane to be able to go each week and be with her friends, and that it also might be a good idea for Jane to learn how to do things the "right way" since she already likes doing all sorts of "tricks" on the tramp downstairs.  I constantly find myself saying, "Be careful Jane.  Tuck your neck..."  

The night before her first class, I went out and bought Jane her first leotard… actually it’s the first time I've ever had to buy a leotard and I know I looked bewildered at Target staring at the rack of so many different colors, sizes, and designs.  The good news is that Jane really likes the leotards I chose, mostly because they have a sparkly design on the front.  Janie is having a good time at her class and is really very good at the sport!  She has a lot of strength and a great sense of coordination and balance.  Her favorite thing to do is to jump from the high beam into the great colorful pit of foam squares.  She still needs to learn the art of sitting still and following instructions, and her teacher, Lindsay, is very patient... Jane is by far the most rambunctious and wiggly girl in the class.  She just loves visiting with her friends and has really enjoyed going to her class each Tuesday morning.  It's been a fun thing for the two of us to go and do together.

All the cute girls from our neighborhood... they had such a fun time together!

soccer

This fall Joshua played in a pre-K soccer league sponsored by the Holladay Lions Recreation Center.  What a total blast!  The teams were made up of a bunch of three and four year olds, and it was anyone's guess as to how it would go, but it actually turned out to be just great!  The game at this stage of life very much resembles a large swarm of bees, except that you have twenty little legs and feet kicking at the soccer ball at the exact same time as they work their way down the field.  The great thing was that every little kid got to have playing time, the coaches got to run right along side the kids during the game and give them instructions on how to play, and everyone just had a good time!

It was really good for Josh to get out there and experience what it was like to participate in an organized sport.  He really enjoyed it and looked forward to the Saturday morning and Monday evening games.  We signed Janie up to play too, but when it came right down to it, she absolutely did not want to go on the field and play!  Fortunately, Rowan wanted to play soccer on the team with Josh and it couldn't have worked out better... two little cousins out there playing their hearts out at times, and at other times, getting caught up right in the middle of the game with a flock of birds or a jet stream floating across the big blue sky.  Josh scored lots of points during the season... some for our team and some for the other team, but hey!... everyone cheered just the same.

There are two main things that stand out to me as the best and most important parts of this soccer season.  The first was to see Joshua's good sportsmanship.  He really caught the vision that "this was just a game."  He never felt frustrated if his team lost.  He never got ruffled or upset when someone kicked him in the shin or plowed into him, knocking him over.  He would always high-five the kid who just scored a point.  And he always watched out for others.  Josh even stopped playing in the middle of a game to go back and help the smallest kid on his team who had been knocked over by the little swarm, and was still laying on the grass, even though the other players continued to kick at and chase the soccer ball down the field.  At first I wondered why Josh had stopped playing and why he was running the other way, but then all eyes were on Joshua as he leaned over to give little Dennis a hand to help him up.  Everyone cheered... not for the soccer game, but for that act of kindness.  My heart was so happy and proud of our little boy.  

The second thing about the season that is a "stand out" in my mind was our sweet Jane.  I have never seen a sister cheer for a brother as Janie cheered for Josh!  She was at every game, right there on the sidelines, engrossed in every minute of the game, and cheering as if Josh were playing for the World Cup.  I had just as much fun watching Jane cheer for Josh as I did watching Josh play.  It was just so cute and made such a sweet impression on me and also on the others sitting close by.

It is fun to give our children opportunities to see what they might enjoy and what their talents may be in this life.  I'm not sure if Josh will continue to love playing soccer and I'm not sure if Jane will always just want to watch and cheer, but this soccer season was a fun experience for our entire family and I'm so thankful we had the opportunity to participate all together.

gratitude

"Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God's love."  President Thomas S. Monson

November has arrived and what a wonderful time of year it is!  It is probably one of our favorites because of the celebration of our favorite holiday... Thanksgiving.  To us, this is the greatest holiday of all and we love the reason we celebrate... to simply remember our blessings and express our love and gratitude.  We are so thankful for a dear Heavenly Father who blesses us and loves us beyond anything we can truly comprehend.  Our faith and our family are among the greatest of our blessings.  How grateful we are to be the parents of Joshua and Jane... they are our best teachers, our greatest examples, and our dearest friends... because of them, we are reminded every day of the true meaning of gratitude.  Our hearts are also filled with great love and thanksgiving for our wonderful family members and our dear friends.  We have been so blessed because of the great people who have influenced our lives for good.

In the most recent General Conference, President Monson said, "To express gratitude is gracious and honorable, to enact gratitude is generous and noble, but to live with gratitude ever in our hearts is to touch heaven."  We hope and pray that we will live each day in gratitude, for we know that happy is he who has a thankful heart.

halloween

What a fun time of year for a little kid!  You get to dress up, sing some songs, tell some spooky jokes, and then have a fun Halloween party afterwards!

At both of the kids' preschool programs today, it was like a little paparazzi... the rooms were filled with moms, dads, grandmas, and grandpas, and there were cameras everywhere!  I'm sure Granny Janet was smiling from up above and I know Blam would have been there in a heartbeat if she lived a little closer.  Suz was there with me to cheer on our little ones and it really was a very fun day.  It made me smile to see Josh and Jane all dressed up in their costumes doing the actions and singing the cute songs they've learned for Halloween.

Jane's favorite part of the program was yelling, "BOO!" out to the audience at the end of almost every song.  And Josh and his cousin, Rowan, got to do a little stand-up comedy in their program.  They practiced and practiced to get this right.

Josh:  Knock, knock...

Rowan:  Who's there?

Josh:  Ben

Rowan:  Ben who?

Josh:  Ben waiting for Halloween.

For Halloween, Josh wanted to be a skeleton-pirate.  It's been the plan for over a month.  However, when it came right down to it, he didn't want to wear the pirate's hat, nor the eye patch, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to send him to school with his plastic sword, so he was pretty much just a skeleton.  Jane has wanted to be Cinderella all along, but when she saw Josh put on his skeleton costume this morning, she wanted to be one too. Luckily, with a little persuasion, she stayed with the princess theme and everything all worked out.  She looked adorable... pretty blue dress, little tiara, and sparkly, silvery shoes.  Josh also looked great!  His favorite part of his costume were the bony gloves he got to wear over his hands.  You never know, but maybe he'll opt for the "pirate gear" on Halloween night... I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I loved the programs, and of course, the kids loved the parties.  Cookies, donuts, candy, and rootbeer-filled-cauldrons overflowing with the special effects of dry ice.  Not the healthiest of diets for a little kid, but, hey, it's Halloween and they've got to experience the whole thing!  Tummy aches and all...

I'm so grateful for these wonderful preschool teachers who work so hard and care so much to make life fun for the children in their classes.  The programs today were just so well organized and so cute that, in reality, the teachers are also making life fun for the parents too.

"Ooooh, ooooh, ooooh, ooooh... THIS IS HALLOWEEN!"  Yep, I think that tune will be stuck in my head for a long time... luckily its such a cute song!

Josh, Emily and Rowan.  It's been so fun for Josh and his cousin, Rowan, to be in the same class.  They are best of friends.

Boo!

yuck

Didn't catch a photo of this one, but it made me laugh.  Tonight when Jane said the prayer to bless the food, she said the funniest thing.  It went exactly like this:  "Dear Heavenly Father, everybody's great.  Thankful for mommy and daddy and Joshy, and Janie.  Please bless that we won't say, "YUCK" if mommy's dinner is icky.  Name of Jesus Christ, amen."

And that was it!  She got right to the point!  I didn't have time to feel badly, because it just made me laugh.

inevitable

We almost made it!  We were getting closer and closer to the "BIG DAY" and hoping for warm weather, but alas!  The first snowfall came today, just four days before Halloween.  It was inevitable.  It actually happens almost every year just like this... we have a beautiful October and we all hope for good weather for all of the trick-or-treaters, but winter seems to tease us a little bit, and the first snow will usually fly just a few days before the holiday.

While I was kind of hoping for at least another week or so of the nice, warm weather we've been having this month, Josh and Jane couldn't have been more thrilled to wake up to a blanket of snow outside.  "Let's get the squirt bottles!" were the first words that came out of their mouths. Translation:  "Let's fill squirt bottles with colored water, so we can go outside and paint the snow."  That's what we did last winter to keep ourselves entertained.  Unfortunately, I wasn't quite prepared this year... no boots that fit, no gloves, and no food coloring.  I made a promise that we would go out right when they got home from preschool.

While the kids were in school this afternoon, I made a quick trip out to Target... one-stop-shopping.  Big, giant boots, in hopes of making it through maybe a couple of winters, two pair of gloves, and a small box of food coloring.  We were outside in the snow within five minutes of them coming home from preschool.  Although the boots are gigantic, and they really do clomp around in them, I think Josh and Jane were so excited to have them that they both exclaimed, "they fit just perfect!"  Oh good... they're keepers!

Although the snow had melted quite a bit by the time we made it outside this afternoon, Joshua and Jane still had fun... especially with the big tractors and huge mound of dirt piled up next to our home.  Needless to say, Joshua's boots and gloves were just a big blob of mud by the time we were finished playing.  At least the snow looked pretty with all the bright colors squirted all over it.

I actually love the first snowfall... it is so beautiful and I look forward to all that comes with winter... warm sweaters, glowing fires, holiday decorations, family parties, snowman-building, snowball fights, sledding, and of course... painting in the snow.

Here are the beautiful rocky mountains right out our front windows...

simple things

There are times in life when I will take my kids out for an adventure to try to do something really great and amazing.  And then there are the other times when we do something so simple that it ends up being much better than the BIG stuff.  This is one of those times... a visit to Wheeler Farm.

What a fun day it was for four moms, two little girls, and five little boys to head to the farm.  This is a kid's paradise... there are tractors to climb on, barns to explore, and geese to chase.  Roosters and chickens run wild, pigs roll in the mud, cows get "moo-ed" at all day long, and there is plenty of dust and mud to make the cleanest of people come home and grab a bottle of "Shout" to get the stains out.

Aside from spending a good part of the morning looking for three of our sons that ran off while chasing the roosters through the farm, we really had a great time.  The afternoon was filled with jumping in puddles, looking at animals, climbing trees, having a picnic, gathering sticks, and enjoying a tractor ride through the fields.  It was an especially fun day for the kids at the farm because, before we went home, each child got to run through a corn maze and then pick out his or her very own pumpkin to take home from the pumpkin patch.  Does it get any better than that?

I thought Josh and Jane would pick the biggest, roundest pumpkins they could find and I was already trying to figure out how I would get them, along with their monstrous pumpkins, all the way back to the car.  But surprisingly, and gratefully, after careful consideration and deliberation... they each chose a very small pumpkin that they could carry, and one that they have cared for here at home ever since.  They carry those pumpkins with them all through the house.  Josh even wanted to sleep with his pumpkin last night.   Hmmmm... who needs expensive toys and games when you can have a pumpkin?

Needless to say... it was a fun October day.

autumn

It's hard to believe, but summer has slowly come to an end and Fall is in the air.  The days are absolutely beautiful filled with sunshine and bright blue skies... the temperatures seem just perfect.  The warm weather has lasted a bit longer this year so the leaves on our trees haven't started to change colors yet, but the evenings are becoming a bit more crisp and cool, so we patiently wait for the bright yellows and reds to appear.

With the new season comes a new feeling of growth and independence for Josh and Jane.  BOTH have started preschool and they love it!  It feels like a fairly significant change for me too because now I have a couple of hours to myself a few times a week.  Needless to say, "I love preschool too".

It's been fun to watch Josh and Jane over this past month to see how much they are really learning.  The other day Joshua asked me for a calendar so he could teach me about all the days in the week, tell me how many months there are in a year, and that we even have seasons like winter, spring, summer, and fall.  And just today, Jane boldly exclaimed that when someone in the classroom sneezes, only ONE person can say, "Bless you"... not everyone!  Lesson learned!

Of course I couldn't let the first day of preschool come and go without snapping a quick pic.

Here is Joshua on his first day of preschool in front of Mrs. Palmer's home.  

She has the greatest preschool-wonderland created in her basement and he loves it! 

Janie loves everything about school... friends, learning, fun, and new adventures.  Each day when she wakes up, she'll ask, "Is it a school day?"  And I always receive a smile from her when I say, "Yes it is." 

compassion in unexpected places

This was the summer... memories flooded my mind... it was time for Josh and Jane to experience one of the places that my brothers and sisters and I LOVED to go when we were young...  Lagoon!  As an adult, I must admit that it doesn't have even close to the same appeal, but when we were little, we would count down the days and weeks until we got to go.


As we arrived at Lagoon, Joshua and Jane were amazed as they looked around and saw all of the colorful rides and heard all of the clinks and clanks of an amusement park.  As we entered the park, the first thing we had to do to get to the ticket line was walk right under the rickety rackety, old, wooden roller coaster.  People in the cars were screaming with delight as the cars plunged from the top of the roller coaster and sped right passed us.  Within 30 seconds of entering the park, the kids were having a blast!  They loved the thrill and excitement of all the kids rides, and Alan and I had a great time standing on the sidelines watching them laugh and have so much fun together.


When it came time to ride my personal favorite as a kid, the bumper cars, I explained to Josh and Jane that part of the fun of this ride was to bump and get bumped in the cars, so that there wouldn’t be any hurt feelings from a misunderstanding of the purpose of the ride.  Alan and I watched as each of them carefully chose a car and then, surprisingly, waited patiently for all of the other kids to get in the other bumper cars.  


The ride attendant, exercising great authority, walked around making sure all the kids were buckled in and issued commands telling the little ones "to stay in their cars and wait for the ride to begin!"  While all this was going on, Joshua noticed a little Hispanic girl sitting in one of the cars across the way just crying.  I also noticed her as I stood on the sidelines and waited for some mom or dad to jump the ropes and come to her rescue, but no one seemed to be aware of or concerned about her.  Except for Josh.  Not only did he notice her, he undid his seatbelt, got out of his bumper car and walked across the floor to see if she was okay.  The ride attendant quickly yelled over to Josh that "he needed to get back in his bumper car right now!", but he stayed with the little girl to see what was wrong and found out that her seatbelt had been fastened in such a way that it was pinching the skin on her stomach.  Joshua tried his best to undo the mechanical belt as the ride attendant was getting more and more frustrated at him for not going right back to his car.  As the attendant marched over and got closer, with great courage Joshua never moved, looked up at her as she approached, and pointed to the little girl’s stomach explaining that the seatbelt was pinching her skin.  


As the problem was resolved, I watched as our wonderful, little boy walked back to his bumper car, got in, as if he did nothing heroic, and got ready for the ride to begin.  But what a hero he was in my eyes at that moment!  I was so proud of him… his kind heart, his courage, his unwavering determination to make sure that this little girl received help.  This is one of those times as a mother when you just feel so blessed to have this special little person in your life…I don’t think I will ever forget it.  It speaks volumes about Joshua and his goodness.

And then, of course, the fun began...

You can see that Joshua and Jane loved the bumper cars, and all of the other rides too!

little fish

This past summer we had a blast at the Murray Park outdoor swimming pool.  Swimming is probably at the top of our family's "favorite things to do" list.  Josh and Jane are like two little fish out of water... they love to splash, jump, swim, and play in the water, and they could literally do it all day long!  Hours and hours were spent in the pool this year playing "chase", doing the alligator crawl, catching Josh and Jane as they jumped in from the side of the pool into our arms, diving for sticks, swishing down the slipperiest slide in the world, and simply enjoying the beautiful outdoors and sunshine.

Jane happened to experience her first bee sting while at the pool one day.  And boy!... she let everybody know that she was not happy about it!  She cried and screamed and cried some more.  Two lifeguards came over to help, but Jane didn't want anyone coming near her toe.  It was quite a scene! With the exception of that one incident, we just had the greatest time at the pool.  This was actually my personal favorite activity of the summer because when I took the kids swimming, we would have so much fun and the kids would get so exhausted  that every single time we would drive home, the kids would fall asleep for a nap, and I'd carry them in so carefully, and then enjoy another good hour or so to catch up or relax myself. Oh the joys of napping kids!

This was the first year of swimming lessons for the kids and they learned a lot and had so much fun.
Their teacher's name was Ericka and she gets an A+ for patience, thats for sure!
She was so cute with the kids and Josh and Jane became her biggest fans.

bugs

Joshua loves bugs.  He had more fun and spent more time looking for bugs this summer than just about anything else.  He loves bugs so much that when he would capture one, he always wanted to bring it in the house, feed it, take care of it, and once even wanted to sleep with one in his bedroom.  When I would tell Josh that he really can't bring the bugs in the house, he would then say, "Okay, but can I sleep with it outside?"  Just a few weeks ago Josh found his first praying mantis in our flower garden and just loved it so much that he couldn't sleep knowing it was in a bucket out on our deck.  It was unreal!  He kept getting up out of bed to check on it.  Needless to say, Alan finally went out with him and his blanket, and stayed outside with the praying mantis until Josh fell asleep.  Once he was sound asleep, Alan carried him in and tucked him in bed.  I wasn't at all surprised when Josh woke up in the early morning hours wondering about his bug.

We had a cricket, the praying mantis, a worm, a butterfly, a couple grasshoppers, and several ladybugs and potato bugs come into our home this past summer.  Most the time I was able to convince Joshua that bugs like to be outside, but I literally went through almost my entire storage of Tupperware so that Josh could have something to put them in.  He actually did a pretty good job of keeping most of the little critters outside, but someday I'm going to find a dried up worm somewhere in our home... don't ask me how, but that one got away somehow.  And thank goodness we don't live in an area filled with snakes and lizards... that would not be good!

racing stripes

I thought there would be a battle, but there hasn't been.  I thought they might look a little dorky, but they don't.  I hoped they would provide protection, and they have!  You guessed it.. I'm talking about bike helmets for the kids.  Our neighborhood has set a standard that every kid riding a bike should wear his or her bike helmet.  Thankfully, Josh and Jane really like their black and red helmets with the white racing stripes from front to back. They are really good about putting them on without the smallest reminder when we head outside for some fun.  When Josh and Jane zip around on their bikes and plasma cars, I feel a lot better knowing that they have an added amount of protection.  I'm pretty sure I'll hang on to these helmets for a long time because they really have been a part of our fun from the summer of 2010.