Brynlee's First Sleep Over

 Chelsey and Spencer wanted to go to a Danielle Bradbury concert on Saturday night, but it was going to end late so we decided Brynlee should just stay the night.  I was so excited to get her all to myself without Chelsey for her to default to!  On Thursday, Chelsey text me and said she was getting cold feet.  I told her NO WAY!  

So she brought her over about 6 on Saturday night.  We fed her Grammy's famous homemade pizza and she LOVED it!  Then we just played and unpacked from camping.  Naughty Papa had a little mishap with her and she ended up with an owwie on her chin.  But she quickly recovered as they watched Teletubbies and Strawberry Shortcake together.  She wasn't super hip on going to bed, so I let her sit on Brooklyn's lap while they watched a movie and she fell right to sleep.  We put her in her bed and didn't hear another peep from her till I went in to get her at 7 the next morning.

We fed her, bathed her and got her ready for church.  She was SO good!  The kids however, were quite distracted by her.  She's just so darn entertaining.  After church, we had lunch and then she took a good nap.  She never fussed at all.  We're thinking this might have to be a monthly occurrence.

On Sunday I was making rolls for dinner so I set her on the counter by me and she decided to dig in to the container of sugar.  So I let her!  Yum!!

Camping in September

We were supposed to have our ward campout this last weekend, but it got cancelled for fear of bad weather.  About a week ago, we had so much rain, there was flooding all over the valley.  It was forcasted that we may get the same thing, so they cancelled the campout.  Turns out we barely got any, so at the last minute, we decided to go anyway!  We went with the Rapiers and Kettrings.  The weather was beautiful, just a little rain in the afternoon.  We left Friday morning and came home Saturday afternoon.  Rhett wasn't able to go because he was running in Cali.  

Because of the time of year, we were actually able to have a camp fire!  Haven't had one in years.  There was also a crik  right at the bottom of the hill.  Of course, the kids were through all their clean clothes in about the first 12 hours.  It was all "accidental", so they say.  Finally the last day we just said "go get wet".  So they did and had a great time.  We mostly just hung out, although on Saturday we took a 2.5 mile hike.   Dalin and I decided to run the mile or so back (at least the downhill parts). We had a great time talking while we walked.  He's a great kid.  

Fun times with great friends.  And I even took a couple of pictures!!

Katy and Kylie

Glade and Chase.  Everyone took turns holding the twins.  Though, they spend a lot of time just squirming around in the dirt. Ü

Poor Chase.  Poor Clint!   This is him after the hike.  He had actually fallen asleep like that.

In his eyes...

So I do choreography for shows occasionally for our community theatre.  I love to dance!  Always have, but I don't exactly create well.  But for whatever reason, they keep letting me do it.  Right now I'm working with 60 kids from 7 - 12.  It's really exhausting!  But it's fun to dance a couple times a week, getting sweaty and watching them have fun and get better.

When I'm making up dances, it's usually in my bathroom...dressed in baggy unflattering clothes, sometimes without actual pants on even!  My hair is usually twisted up in some crazy fashion because I get sweaty when you have to do the same thing over and over trying to figure out what to do for the next 8 count.  Once I have finished a song and feel like that's what I want to go with, I have to video myself doing it, because in 7 hours when I have to teach it, I won't remember a thing.  These are very private videos NO ONE is allowed to see.  But they are like gold to me because while right there with the kids, I'll go blank and not remember a thing I made up.  So I pull up the video!

The other day, I hear a faint sound of one of the songs from the show playing.  I look over to see Bo watching my video!!  I ran over to verify that's what he was doing and took my phone away with a loud "rude!".  He was a little surprised and I realized I may have over reacted, but these are PRIVATE things.  A few minutes later as we were about to eat dinner, he says "you're a really good dancer, Mom".  Huh?  You noticed my dancing?  Didn't you see my sloppy clothes and sweaty hair??  Apparently he didn't.  He noticed his mom busting a move....and liked it.  My glory days are over and I'm not as "svelte" as I once was doing those moves, but it's fun and I love it and it makes me happy.  And it seems I might even be a little bit good at it.  At least Bo thinks so, and that made my day. ♥

Crazy Sunday, Crazy Broken Arm

Sunday started out as normal as usual.  A nice couple of hours at church, home for lunch and naps.  ViEtta had cancelled our normal Sunday dinner, so Glade suggested we invite our friends over for dinner.  So I did!  They came at 5, the Bryants, Rapiers, Kettrings, Chelsey and Johnsons.  Jake had just ran a marathon the day before, so we were anxious to hear about it.  But when they got here, Jenny was on the phone with her sister from Washington who is taking care of her oldest daughter.  So we went ahead and ate without her.  After, I went out to check on her and she was still on the phone so I sat beside her on the porch swing.  Jake came out right after and so did Melanie.  Once she hung up, she started telling us what was going on up there.  It was then that we heard a weird kind of screaming.  At first we thought it was just the kids making a lot of noise.  But then it was repeated and intense.  We ran inside to find Kimball (their 12 yr old son) and more of the group in a huddle at the bottom of the stairs.

He was hysterical and yelling "I broke my arm!"  The other adults that were in the house were tending to him and trying to calm him down.  I couldn't see much, but what I could see was a very twisted arm.  Everyone was so great at caring for him.  We found rubber spatulas and ace bandages to try to immobilize it.  He just kept crying that it hurt so bad.  They gave him a blessing and helped Jake get him to the car to get him to the hospital.  It was all very scary.

Then we found little Bo outside sobbing on the tramp.  "It's all my fault!  I was a bad example!"  They had gotten into laundry baskets and were riding them down the stairs.  Bo got lucky and made it down, but Kimball wasn't so fortunate.  I hugged him a lot and tried to comfort him.  We talked a lot about obedience and rules and choice and forgiveness.  He had a really hard time pulling it together, so Glade gave him a blessing as well.  He spent most of the evening on my lap with on and off tears.  He wouldn't even eat a cookie.

Before everyone went home, we all knelt together in prayer.  It was a very sweet experience. As we continued to get the kids ready for bed, Bo came back down and asked if Glade and I would say a prayer with him one more time.  I felt so bad that he was carrying such a weight and at the same time, I hope he truly learned the importance of obeying the rules.  He struggles with that anyway.

Because Kimball had eaten that night, they had to wait to do surgery on it and then the surgeon couldn't make it so he had to spend the night in the hospital.  He had surgery the next evening, they had to use pins to keep it all in place.  I kept their kids for dinner so Jake and Jenny could be at the hospital.  We made signs with balloons to welcome him home.  I'm including a picture, but it's not for the weak....

Comeback Kid

I feel like all my blog post start out with how much I wish I wanted to blog.  Well,this is no different.  Only I haven't wanted to blog.  I've wished I wanted to, but this last couple of  months has kind of found me under a cloud.  But let me be clear...I love Cloudy days!!  This is different kind of cloud.  One of discouragement and frustration.  I've tried "blowing it away" and "picking myself up with a kick to the fanny", but I seem to always land under the cloud.  Well, it took a letter from my sweet missionary boy to really make me drag myself out from the cloud.  It was the only thing in the mail that day.  And it was just for me.  The minute I read "hey Mama", the tears began to fall.  I could hardly read the rest of it.  I cried for a couple of hours after that.  A good cry...tears roll as I write about it, lol.  But he said he just felt a strong urge to write me and felt like I had been sad a lot lately.  First, that made me feel bad, that my letters came across that way and Second, that he noticed and cared really touched me.  But it also made me realize I HAD to get my butt in gear.  I needed to stop focusing on the wants and be grateful for the haves.  Not things really, but the way things were going for me.  My life is GOOD!!  So how silly is it to focus on the things that aren't exactly as I would like them to be and let that affect everything I do??  It's not easy, and takes constant effort right now, but I'm doing it and it feels really great!

Then came the prod from another unlikely source.  My sweet grandma, who I love more than just about anything feels very strongly about getting her history recorded.  She is 85 and trying to make sure all her memories and details get recorded.  Here I am with the ease and convenience to do that every day so I'm never trying to "get it done" and remember everything at once, and I'm totally wasting it.  Months have gone by, I'd be willing to say even a year without good recording of what things happen around here.  What am I doing??  Well, I'm going to try to do better.  I've committed to it before, I know.  But if you never commit, you definitely won't ever succeed.  So I commit again!  And hopefully with a cheerful and grateful heart I can spend more time here in blogworld making sure my family has a recorded history.

This is one of my favs: