Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Back to school...

This will probably never happen again -at least not until next year. Ethan woke up on the first day of school and by the time I came home from my run at 7:05 he was upstairs, dressed, teeth brushed, and backpack strapped on - ready to go. His carpool doesn't pick him up until 8:05. Somebody was excited! He didn't want to take his backpack off - just wore it for an hour or so.

Quick Picture before they were out the door - Nice Pose Dooders!
Ethan
Grade: 2nd
Teachers: Mrs. T. Coleman as his homeroom teacher and Mrs. Bingham for Spanish and Math.
Favorite subjects (as he told us at back to school night):
1st fave subject: His imagination.
2nd fave subject: Legos
3rd fave subject: School

Eva was so excited to take these cute notebooks to school. Thank goodness she has a friend with a creative mom! Part of their homework on the first day was to decorate their notebooks. She was so excited for this - she and her friend Aspen got together and used her mom's scrapbook supplies to bling them up a bit. I would have just stuck a few stickers on there and called it good.

Eva Diva
Grade: 4th
Teachers: Mrs. Hansen as homeroom and Mr. Robinson for Spanish and math.
Favorite School Supplies: Jonas Brothers folders and her Justice monkey binder.
Best quality: Hard worker and a generous friend.



Friday, August 21, 2009

A nice end to the first week of school....


Today was a beautiful day for an after-school swim with friends at Joan's house.




School is in, but summer's not out!

Wicked!!

Eva, Auntie, Grandma, and I are all going to NY to see Wicked next week!!! We are so excited - finally we can join in on all of the Wicked conversations that everyone else is having:) I didn't have it in me to figure out how to get tix when they came to Salt Lake last year..(How did you get those Brooke??) or travel to Denver, NY, and whoever knows where else to see it a bagillion times (Jill - you lucky girl!). We are really looking forward to it. Thanks Auntie for getting it all rolling... Can't wait!!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

The Dollar is Still Strong!

I told Kerry today at lunch that we needed to order a new remote. I had looked everywhere - for 3 days and couldn't find it.
Today when the kids got home I mentioned to them that if any of them found it, I would give them a dollar.
30 Seconds later the remote was found. In the same spot I had already looked - twice. (just not carefully enough!) It's amazing how far a dollar can get you nowdays!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Beck's chit chat and Ethan's reading material.

So that I remember these:

I was trying to get the house picked up and I told Becks "to pick up the REST of the toys," and he said, "MOM. I am NOT a rest boy!" That finally clicked one day when I realized what he was talking about. I guess he constantly hears: Eat the rest of your food, pick up the rest of your trains, clean up the rest of your mess, etc.
Apparently his status on the matter has changed. Today he told me that, yes, in fact he IS a rest boy. As in, " I want the rest of your fruit snacks."

He also said to me the other day, holding a microwave popcorn packet close to his chest, that, "if I didn't make this popcorn for him his heart would break into a million pieces." Well Becks, that's just a chance I'm gonna have to take. Whatever. I ended up making the popcorn for him. Mom's a sucker.

A while back Eva gave a talk in Primary and did a fantastic job. Beckham - being the energetic new Sunbeam sitting on the front row, made sure he let Eva know he was watching her. He started yelling out her name, waving his arms back and forth to try to get her attention as she started her talk. She glanced up at him and smiled but realized that she was going to have to focus on her talk. When she kept ignoring him, he stood up on the chair and kept waving saying her name over and over and leaning in to try to get right in her face. At the very end, as Eva was sitting down, he yelled out enthusiastically, "Good Job Eva!" and he ran up to her chair and gave her a high five. Oh what love!

A few weeks later Beckham gave his first talk in primary. As I asked him if he was ready he said yes and walked right up to the podium. I started to read the talk we had written, but before I could begin, he just reached up into the mic and started talking to the whole primary - randomly and about absolutely nothing. He said something like, "We can all obey if you want to come over sit here Jesus would be happy my house...." Even though everyone was laughing at him, he didn't seem to be bothered by it. He would have just kept going and going if I hadn't stopped him and had him start following me on the talk. It was eye opening to me to see that this kid had no fear of speaking- especially as he was under the impression that he just had to get up there and go for it on his own!

And little Ethan. Our neighbors were having a garage sale and the kids were so excited to go over and spend a little money that was burning a hole in their pockets. I walked over to see what they were getting - Ethan had bought a book. Great! I love buying books at garage sales!
I turned it over to look at the cover and their was a picture of a beach and a sandcastle. Then as I glanced at the title I realized that what he had in fact purchased was a cheap romance novel. This for some reason struck me so funny I started to laugh out loud. Do you ever laugh AT your kids, and not With them? I did.
Our neighbor said she thought it was odd that he would want that book, but thought that it might have been something he was getting me for my birthday. (Just for the record - I DO NOT read romance novels.....unless you count Twilight, and then, yes, I do.)




Thursday, August 13, 2009

Around the block

This morning, after hitting snooze 3 times, I gladly agreed with Kerry that I should just sleep, turn off my alarm, and skip my morning run all together. He said "Just sleep in and you can have Eva watch the kids for a half hour while you go for a run this morning"
"Ok....sounds like a great idea", I thought for 2 seconds before I was back fast asleep.
I woke up at 8:30. And instead of going on a run, had the rest of last nights leftovers from recipe group - banana- pudding- wafer- heavy- cream- dessert- that- is- to- die- for from Jill. It was delicious. After that I was craving a small sliver of brownie. So I had that, too.
Some days you just have to do that.
Eva on the other hand has big plans that she and her friend Amanda made for this morning. Last night they set up a time to go running - around the block - 10:45am to be exact.
(assuming all jobs were done and approved by the moms)
They made up a list of things they needed: music, tennis shoes, apple, water, hair elastics, sweats, and a backpack. You can never be too prepared for your run around the block :)
I'm glad to see that she is following her mom's stellar example!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

From Destruction to Construction

Beckham decided to move from Destruction over to the Constructive side of things this day...
While I was getting ready one morning, I could hear him doing something in the kitchen and was prepared to go in for another major clean up. He came in to my room and asked me if I wanted to come to his party. He was so excited he could barely stand it and I was filled with terror wondering what I was going to find when I walked into the room.
Becks had laid out an entire buffet line for his future party guests complete with star decorations, napkins, silverware, raspberry syrup, and cereal for all to enjoy. He had filled each bowl with cereal and had put the syrup on top for each person. He had also taken a few spoonfuls of the syrup himself, as evidenced in the pictures.
I really was so impressed with his new party planning abilities. Usually it is nightmare central with him, so this was a big day! He was so so proud of himself - we invited his friend Dani over along with her brother and sister to be his guests.
On the flip side, this is what Ethan was up to with his friend Hayden.
Complete Destruction and annihilation to any intruders! Army guy forces Unite!
No cool army guy wants his picture taken by his mom.... This was the only shot I could get before he was off to war.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

The Bear Lake Darrohn Family Reunion means.....



Time with the kids...
Time with Cousins......


And Aunts.....



And Uncles....

And 4-wheelers....


And sisters that can't ride the 4 wheelers because they wear their bike helmet backwards...



Time with Grandma and Grandpa....


and competitive games....

like golf.....
And Lasso ball tournaments...


and beating Grandpa in a game of hearts.



Time in the water......
(when without a working boat.....find a canoe!)


and jet-skis.....




and whatever else you want to do....













Time with sisters....




And always time for tired kids....



Bear Lake July 2009 Family Retreat at Riley's Cabin