Home from the OHIO

I'm grateful we got to go to my parents ward today for their mission homecoming and I'm also glad they are home. Their report was great and it was fun to spend the day visiting and hanging out with family. We also were able to go to Lee and Maxyne's homecoming report this morning as well. They left and came back the same day as my parents and were in the MTC with them also. Everyone did a wonderful job!

Saturday is a Special Day

I'm so grateful that at least one day a week, my house is pretty much clean! We all spend Satruday morning doing chores and today I didn't even have to get after the boys. I think it is a first. I told them to get started on their chores after breakfast and they did them. Even though I now they hate doing them, it is for their own good and I love when everything is clean even though it doesn't usually last for very long.

Funny Sense of Humor

I think I've titled a post this same thing before, but it seems to happen a lot around here and I am grateful for all the fun times we have.

Travis and I went on our date today. I picked him up from school as I was dropping off the Jr. High carpool boys for soccer conditioning. We went to the gas station and Travis bought me some corn nuts and him self a drink and some Mike and Ikes.

We parked by the light at the intersection and started counting. I couldn't believe how many violations we were able to see in 1/2 hour and I'm sure we missed some of them. I don't remember the exact numbers, but there were over 70 people without seatbelts on, over 50 that were not paying attention (talking on phone, texting, looking over their shoulder to yell at their kids in the back seat, etc.), a couple that we figured were speeding because they were going way faster than everyone else, 4 or 5 kids not in carseats or seatbelts (just roaming around the car), a few people that didn't come to complete stops or stopped in the middle of the crosswalk, a few illegal turns and ...................... (here is where the sense of humor comes in) 7 people picking their nose. It was kind of funny and so Travis added another row with columns at the bottom of his tally sheet with the nose picking information on it. He wanted to give his teacher a laugh. It was fun to visit with him and have a good laugh together.

Date #3 coming up

I'm grateful Travis finally made a decision on what to do for our date. The month is almost over and I have been doing really good on most of my goals, and this is one that I didn't want to fail on. It's kind of hard because I am leaving the decision making and date planning up to the boys even though it is my goal. I want them to learn how to ask someone out, come up with an idea, be respectful, and not do the same thing every month.

So, he comes to me today and this is how the conversation goes..........
Travis - "Mom, I decided what we can do for our date."
Me - "What?"
Travis - "I need to go to a busy intersection with a traffic light and tally traffic violations for 1/2 hour for driver's ed, so I thought I could take some money, buy us some treats, and we could talk while we count traffic violations."
Tyrel - laughing "Good luck trying to get a 2nd date Travis."

But, I'm ok with it, I think it is creative! So, we are going after school tomorrow.

New Beginnings

I'm so grateful that I am in the YW program. We had our New Beginnings program tonight. I made the invitations above. They were pink and feminine to go along with the brand new Personal Progress books that just came out that are pink to remind them that they are feminine and daughters of God. I was also the tech person during the program playing the video clips on my laptop/projector/amp setup. We played a clip from the video that they send out for the Youth at the beginning of every new year with a message from the general YW president on it. We had our personal progress leader talk for a minute on all the new things (book, pendant, scripture markers, charms). Then we kinda followed the New Beginnings program by Jenny Phillips. We had narrators that did their parts, the Clark girls sang a song from the Jenny Phillips CD, I played the video clips, the YW president shared her testimony, the Bishop made some closing remarks, then all the girls sang Strong and Courageous by Jenny Phillips as the closing song. Sister Peterson made a beautiful cake that was yummy! We gave the girls little bags with pink bows. Inside was their new personal progress books, their scripture marker to start adding their ribbons to, and the Jenny Phillips CD that goes along with the theme for this year. It was a very spiritually uplifting evening.

Driver's Ed

Early morning Driver's Ed is kicking my butt this week and I haven't even been the one taking him down. I'm grateful that Sean has been doing it. We were going to trade off, but he has ended up doing it every day. I have been sleeping terribly because I get paranoid that I'll miss the alarm, so once it goes off and wakes us both up, he can't go back to sleep but I can because then I'm not paranoid anymore. So, thanks my love for running him down every morning and I'll be really grateful when these next 3 weeks are over! He has it at 5:30 in the morning but on Monday morning, he either understood wrong or the teacher told him wrong, but he thought it was at 5:00, so we got up 1/2 hour earlier than we needed to.

Temple in Payson

Today I am grateful for the announcement by President Thomas S Monson that they are building a temple in Payson! I knew it would happen one day and now it will. Sean read the press release tonight for Family Night and then we drove down to see where it would be built. It will be so nice to have one so close to home. My boys are really excited too!