I play the Banjo!

For our YM/YW activity we got to be graced with the presence of Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband. Their guitar player is in our ward, so we lucked out I guess. The banjo player is someone who grew up in Sean's ward, so we knew 2 of the 4 band members. They gave great talks and put on a great show. My favorite song is "Dream Big" which you have probably heard on the radio. They also sang a Christmas song by request of one of the audience members which was a beautiful song called "The Gift". Travis actually was so excited because he went to their concert a couple of years ago at Christmas time and got a "I Play The Banjo" T shirt which is one of his favorites. I'm attaching a picture he took with his cell phone (not very good quality) and the Youtube video of "Dream Big".

Spelling B-E-E

Trevin took 2nd place in the 3rd grade spelling bee. The boy that won was his friend Matthew from across the street who is also in his class. Matthew actually has gone on and won the district spelling bee also. Trevin was kind of sad when he missed his word, but I thought he did great even though he didn't study the word list at all and Matthew studied every day after school.

Trevin's words were

L-e-a-f
H-a-l-f
B-r-a-g
G-r-i-p
L-i-l-a-c (I thought for sure he would miss this one, what 8 year old boy even knows what a lilac is?)
W-h-i-t-e
W-r-i-t-e (he had them use this one in a sentence so that he spelled the right write)
B-a-l-d
S-m-a-l-l
A-r-t-i-s-t
P-e-r-f-e-c-t
P-e-r-s-o-n

J-e-r-k-y (I though he missed this one as I was typing them on the laptop as he spelled, I spelled it j-e-r-k-e-y, I guess he is a better speller than I am)
Q-u-e-e-r
C-o-r-r-e-c-t-l-y
S-a-f-e-l-y
H-o-u-r-l-y
S-e-n-s-e-b-l-y (This is the word he got out with. Should have been s-e-n-s-i-b-l-y)

The last picture is of the medal that he got for finishing in the top two.

Work is still crazy. I used to think 45 loans was bad, now I'm up to 130, but I have hired some help so we are managing. One thing about the lending business, you have to make hay while the sun shines, as the saying goes, because it can be a very up and down industry. We are in full swing with Basketball season right now, so our Saturday mornings are consumed with basketball games. The boys are having fun and doing great this year.

Work is CRAZY!!!!

I've started a new entry several times only to be interrupted, so I'm ignoring everything until I get this done. SO I sit here with cold feet because I don't have socks on this morning and my hair is still dripping wet, but I'm determined to do this.

I have gone from processing 4-5 loans a month to around 45 loans a month. I am working from 6:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. some nights. My poor kids haven't had too many decent meals and my house is a wreck. I hired Tyrel to work a couple of hours after school. He loves the money and it helps me out. I also hired a neighbor girl to work a couple of hours 3 days a week. Hopefully when she gets trained, it will give me a little extra time although the loan officers seem to want to double their volume. At least I'm working from home, so I can at least say HI to the kids occasionally.

We have been getting lots of snow here lately. The boys built snow caves for their Young Men activity last night and thought it was great fun! Sledding at the driving range at the golf course here is the #3 spot for sledding in the State of Utah, so that is always fun too!

Basketball season has started, so the 1 free day I have each week (Saturday) is filled with games. I love watching my boys though. Travis has really done well this year. I think his coordination has finally caught up with his growth and he is doing great in all sports he tries this year. He just started a weight training class at school and thinks he is going to love it. Trevin is quite the little defender. This is his first year for Basketball and he always has his long arms out and waving to block the other teams shots.

That is all for now. Life is great and busy!

A Toilet seat????

Sorry if you are a regular reader and have missed us over the past few weeks. LOL, I don't really think we have any regular readers, but we never know.

I managed to get all of my Christmas things done, although I was hemming pajamas on Christmas Eve day and I decided to make some last minute vinyl wall football logos for my boys so I was getting ready up to the last minute.

We spent the Saturday before Christmas with the Evers family where we got the best news ever! Brett and Andrea are expecting a baby. We are so excited for them. That news made our day. We had a great dinner and enjoyed spending time with our family there. All of the boys got air soft gun gear and it was a hit!

The Sunday before Christmas we had the surprise party for Diane and LaMarr's 40th wedding anniversary. That is one of the reasons my life has been so crazy but I couldn't say anything about it earlier. I had to round up table settings, make food assignments, making place cards for the tables and had to have my house clean as well as help scan and get pictures to Jennifer for the video she did. It was great by the way. Here is a picture of the tables. Trevin said our house looked like a 5 star restaurant. Not that he has ever been to a 5 star restaurant to know, but...... We had tables decorated with candles and garland. We used red chargers with clear glass plates and had linen napkins with little name place cards for everyone. We first served a caesar salad to everyone while I started dishing up the main course of chicken parmigan, angel hair pasta, candied carrots and breadsticks. My boys served along with some help from Todd and Ken serving the sparkling cider. It was so cute to see all of the grandkids waiting their turn to give grandpa and grandma a hug.

After dinner we all retired to the theater room for 1 1/2 hours of Jen's video. It was fun to see all of the pictures and video clips. We had some great laughs.

Okay, now we are to Christmas. For Christmas Eve we made waffle cookies for Santa because dad said that is what kind of cookies Santa likes best even though they take more time to make. We read the story in Luke and Sean had each of us tell one of our favorite memories from Christmases past. Is Christmases a word? Anyway, then we opened the PJ's and the boys get to open 1 more gift because they say the PJ's don't count because they know what that is. Then we went upstairs to fill the traditional Santa plate. We give 2 cookies, a piece of string cheese (because of the national dairy association TV commercial from about 10 years ago, sorry if you don't know what I'm talking about) 8 carrots for the reindeer, and a cup of egg nog. Last year we had to make an emergency run to get egg nog because we were out and I forgot to buy more and Trevin was in tears because we couldn't very well leave hot chocolate for Santa because he likes egg nog the best as everyone knows. This year we had plenty because Sean went and bought 5 cartons of the stuff so we would be prepared.

Christmas morning the boys got up around 6:15 an we opened presents. The funniest gift this year (I thought) was the toilet seat that Sean got for Travis. The hinges broke on his old toilet seat a couple of months ago, so Sean got Travis a toilet seat with hydraulic hinges (so it doesn't slam when you close the lid, like a boy ever closes the lid). Tyrel got a flapper valve for his leaky toilet and Trevin got a 3 way lightbulb for his lamp. They all got a PSP game from dad in addition to their home improvement project. So we spent some of our time that day doing home improvement projects. I got a new wonderful heavy duty tripod for my camera that I am so excited about. Sean got gift cards to Cabelas to get a new scope for his gun and a Steelers SUperbowl leather jacket. The biggest hit was the 2 additional Guitar Hero games and an additional guitar. Even I have taken up the habit and can now play on medium. Travis and Tyrel are amazing to watch. I can't believe they can move their fingers that fast. THey are both on the "expert" level.

It was fun to get all of the Christmas cards, letters and pictures from family and friends. THanks to each of you who thought of us this year.

We had our annual New Years Eve party at our house and for some reason were up until 3:30 in the morning. We had some laggers after the fireworks at midnight and then just spent time talking and lost track of time. It was fun. That's all for now. Work has been very busy, so I guess I better get back to it.

Progress

I'm making progress.....
I received the pre-lit tree I bought last week and it took me 3 days to get it up and decorated because I have been so busy with work. BUT, it is now up and looks great. We made gingerbread houses and delivered to Trevin's teacher. Last night we did our shopping for the Sub For Santa families we have. We got little boys this year, so we had fun shopping for snowboots, coats, and monster trucks. We will deliver them next Monday night for our family night activity.
Tyrel has been busy practicing after school for the Christmas band concert which is this Friday. Travis has been busy IMing his friends. Trevin has started basketball practice. Hopefully we will hear from the coach for the other boys soon.
I got the Christmas cards made, addressed, stuffed in envelopes with letter and pictures, sealed and delivered. Look for yours coming soon to a mailbox near you!
We had the Smith Family party in Lehi. I went to the Relief Society Christmas dinner last week and the ward Christmas breakfast was moved to the 15th, so we will be going there this Saturday morning. SO far things are moving smoothly. I believe we will be ready for Christmas. My only worry is the neighbor gifts....I have been so busy with work lately that I don't have time for anything extra, but we have such great neighbors, I know I am going to have to find time somewhere. Maybe the boys can help me when they get out of school for the holidays. Hopefully work will be slow that week before Christmas also.
We finally got snow over the weekend! I went to town Saturday early evening to pick up Travis from working on a video he was making for his English class with his book group and the roads were really slick. We were coming up the road to our house and saw a car take out about 20 feet of white vinyl fence and keep on driving. I wish I could have got the lisence plate number but the roads and visibility were really bad. Travis said he wishes they would have got stuck so that they would be forced to be accountable for what they did. I hope they come back and admit to it and take care of it. Well, I'm getting emails for work, so I'd better end for now.

I'm Making a List .....

.....and checking it twice. LOL So much to do and so little time. I believe I've said that before. I feel like I am behind this year. Mainly because I ordered a pre-lit tree and it isn't here yet, so I haven't decorated and also because it isn't cold enough and I can't get in the mood. We did have a little snow yesterday, it just looked like a powdered sugar dusting though. So here is my list of what I normally do between Thanksgiving and Christmas (just in case anyone cares)
Decorate (boys have their tree up, but that is all that is done so far, hope my new tree gets here soon)
Get Christmas Cards Out (have cards made, and pictures developed, just need to print off the letter and mail)
Christmas Shopping (usually do this on Veteran's Day every year - DONE)
Wrapping Presents - DONE
Gingerbread Houses - scheduled for first Monday in December - when I was a kid we made these and gave to our school teachers for Christmas. I have continued this tradition with my kids and now that I only have 1 in elementary, we only have 1 to give away, but my older boys still make one and eat it themselves!
Sub for Santa Family - family requested, shopping scheduled for 2nd Monday in December, deliver scheduled for 3rd Monday in December (we do this every year)
Neighbor Gifts - scheduled to be delivered the week of the 17th - I make pumpkin bread, so we usually have to deliver 8 loaves a day unless I find more time in a day to do more baking. I tried doing something other than pumpkin bread one year and my neighbors were mad at me, so we are back to the pumpkin bread!
Ward Christmas Party - Scheduled for December 8th
Relief Society Christmas Party - Scheduled for December 4th
Smith Family Christmas Party - Sean's extended family party complete with soup, breadsticks, treats, a Pinata and Santa - scheduled for December 7th
Evers Family Christmas Party - Fancy dinner prepared by Kenalou scheduled for December 22nd
I'm sure Sean will have a work party thrown in there somewhere and we also usually have a friend party with all of our old friends from when we were first married, but we haven't been contacted yet by whoever is in charge this year.
Christmas Eve - make cookies for Santa - we leave cookies, 8 carrots for reindeer, egg nog, and string cheese (this tradition comes from a dairy council commercial on TV quite a few years ago)
then we sing songs with Sean playing the guitar, read the Christmas story from Luke, open 1 present - PJ's, go to bed
Christmas Day - Open presents, go to Sean's parents house for Christmas Morning Casserole, juice, and eggnog, come back home and play! Then Sean's family usually comes up to our house in the evening for spiral honey baked ham, rolls, and everyone's leftover neighbor gift snacks.
THEN WE HOST THE ANNUAL NEW YEARS EVE PARTY AT OUR HOUSE.
Whew! I hope I can make it through the month.

Busy, Busy, Busy....

I haven't written in a while. This time of year is always crazy. Last week we had our Young Women Evening of Excellence, so I was busy the week before that making invitations (which turned out way cute if I don't say so myself). The theme was "The Beauty Within" and the girls all got makeovers (makeup and hair) before and we borrowed a bunch of formals from women and girls in the ward for them to dress up in. They all looked beautiful. The boys escorted them to their seats for the dinner with their parents and then the boys also served dinner. The deacons didn't get invited to help (ha ha). But the Teachers did, so Travis got to dress up and he did look mighty nice. I had to give the lesson on Sunday so that took up some time. It takes a lot more preparation to teach the young women than it did to teach the 4 year olds I had in Primary before I got this new calling.

This week is Thanksgiving. In Sunday School our teacher had us go around the room and everyone had to say something we were thankful for but there couldn't be any repeats. All of the ones I could think of got taken before it got to me (family, good health, nice area to live in, etc) So by the time it got to me I was afraid there woudn't be anything left. I decided at the last minute that I am thankful for having the Priesthood in my home. Pretty good one huh?!!

I guess I'll have to end this for now. Thanksgiving is at my house, so I have to get cleaning done today because the boys will be home tomorrow and I have pies to make tomorrow to get ready for the big day!

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving and remember to think about all of things you are thankful for this year!