Month in Review

I am sure my family is wondering why in the heck I haven't posted any pictures of the kids lately. Honestly I haven't taken any. I am terrible about bringing the camera with me places. I promise that I will bring the camera to any and all events involving my kids in the month of February. (And there will be plenty, I can think of five or six off the top of my head)

But for those dieing to know here is what Travis the kids and I have been up to in January. This is going to be another long post. I promise to update more frequently in the future so you don't have to swallow so much information at once.

Allias and Tyler are both playing basketball. Allias plays on a city league team and both boys play on our church team. Travis is helping coach the church team and they are all having a great time. Travis is an excellent coach and role model for these boys. Tyler has been fantastic on rebounding and being a big guy underneath. Allias is really helping teach the younger kids and has even set up some plays for the team to try. He actually has even been trying to help some of the players on the girls team with some fundamentals. Tyler has been very supportive of the girls as well. He had all the 12 year old boys from the team helping him cheer on the sidelines. The girls were wearing yellow jerseys so Tyler was yelling B-A-N-A-N-A-S!!!
The next game the boys had the yellow jerseys so we were yelling from the sidelines Go bananas go go bananas! Good times.

Travis and I are feeling very blessed that so far our jobs have been very secure and it doesn't look like that will change anytime soon. Travis actually was even able to get a friend of ours a job when the company he was working for didn't have any work for him to do. We thought for sure we were going to have to pay taxes again this year but I did our taxes and we are going to get some money back. Woohooo! That was such a relief because Travis already had to take some of his vacation money (thank goodness we had it) to pay off our property taxes.

Potty training the puppy has been very difficult. For the most part she goes outside if I take her but I am still running into some obstacles. The first problem is for the first 12 weeks of her life she was never taken outside to potty so she has no aversion to going in the kennel. Second problem- when I'm not here the kids never remember to take her out. Third problem- her pee is about the size of a quarter so half the time I don't even notice if she has gone until way after the fact. She does really good during the day when I am working. She sleeps by my feet or in the kennel until I take my break. We go outside and then she runs around a little bit and then when I go back to work she goes back to sleep. She likes to sleep in my lap part of the afternoon. It is once the kids get home and she gets fed and we are all trying to get things done that things go downhill but we will get there I am sure.

Allias had a chance to try out for all districts for band. His band director has told him several times that he could make all states (a step up from all districts). He chose not to go. He said that it wouldn't do anything for him. The kids who didn't make all districts had a chance to try out for all county and a ton of people including me were encouraging him to go. Again he decided not to. He said he didn't see the point. He hadn't practiced the solos for either competition and so we just came home. I asked him if he would play the solos for me and he played them in the car on the way home. He played both pretty much flawlessly. I know he could have gone to all states if he had practiced and played in the all district band. Agency is such a pain in the butt sometimes. I hope someday he realizes what an amazing talent he has and really uses it. Maybe once he is in the High School band his attitude will change. We have our first parent meeting next week. Band is HUGE here and people are way into it. It costs like 1200 dollars for each kid to be in the HS marching band. That is for the base travel fees. They have to raise even more for big trips. This year the band was invited to play in the Macy's Day Parade so Allias is pretty excited for what trips and fun things he may get to be part of. He knows for sure they are going to Indianapolis for Nationals. They get to play in the Colt's stadium.

I made an appointment for Allias to get braces. It will be a little while before he gets the actual metal. They have to put some brackets on the inside of his teeth and wait for the last of his baby teeth to come out He isn't really excited but I know he will thank me when he is older.

Tyler got suspended for skipping class. Honestly I think it is the stupidest thing in the world to suspend a kid for skipping. They don't want to be in school so they skip and then you "punish" them by kicking them out of school. Makes no sense to me. If I was in charge they would go to school on Saturday for three weeks in a row or something. That would be punishment. The new semester just started and he says he is going to really work hard and try to improve his grades and what not. I am sure that has something to do with the fact I had just let him buy a cell phone the day before he got suspended. I found out the same day he got suspended that he was failing most of his classes. The cell phone came in the mail but it is put up for the next three or four weeks at least. The weird thing about Tyler is even though he can be a total pain in the butt and drive me to the brink of sanity he is still a nice kid.

Tyler has actually been fairly responsible when it comes to his job. I think he takes a little advantage of the fact the his boss is a friend of ours (calls her to help him find people to cover a shift etc.). He seems to really enjoy the job and a little bit of money in his pocket.

Kailyn has her first orchestra concert in a few weeks. I think she likes her cello but she hasn't really been practicing like she should. She finally the last week or so started practicing every night. She signed up with some other girls to sing in the Ward talent show and Allias actually agreed to play his clarinet- although he hasn't chosen a song or practiced.
Kailyn is loving having her own dog. She gets really mad at me if I come to school to pick her up and I don't have Molly with me. We finally got the piano set up and she is going to start taking lessons next week. She is incredibly excited. She is learning times tables at school and is doing pretty well. What she lacks in academic success she makes up for in being super well behaved.

On a sad note the trampoline that the kids got for Christmas from Travis' parents decided to take flight during a wind storm a few weeks ago. I was in the living room and all of the sudden saw it flipping through the air. It managed to bounce over one side of our four foot fence tumble through the backyard, take out one side of our fence, tumble some more and then landed on the top of our neighbor's six foot fence. It was pretty much destroyed. We were sooooo bummed. I didn't even get very many pictures of the kids jumping but they were out there every chance they got. Travis did get the store we purchased it at to take it back and we are going to be looking for something a bit more sturdy.

Between exams, holiday, snow days, teacher work days and a few days where no one in my seminary class had to be at school I only ended up teaching nine days in January. Even though I enjoyed the extra hour of sleep and being able to work in my pajamas again, I actually missed it. I can't believe what a blessing this calling has been in my life. I LOVE teaching. I actually love studying even more. I hope the kids are getting something out of being here. They are such great kids and I love each one of them dearly. I have memorized 16 out of 25 scripture mastery versus. I am currently working on Ephesians 4:11-14. This verse was definitely written for our day.
11. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelist and some pastors and teachers;
12. For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ;
13. Till we all come in the unity of the faith , and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of Christ;
14. That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.


January was actually kind of a low key month but I just entered in all our appointments, basketball games and practices, birthday parties, parent nights and other random events into my calendar and February is going to be way way busy.