Oh, my heck!

You blog stakers out there are so demanding. I finally get around to posting a little more often but is that enough for you? Apparently not. Pictures!!! If you will refer back to my post of two weeks ago you will remember that I am doing well just to post. I am not ready for fancy stuff yet. It is good to know that someone is reading my blog though.

We had another week full of sports and other kid centered activities. Hayden has had two basketball games. The first game they won (32-12). The second game they lost (36-24). The first game was alot more fun. Hayden is a really aggresive bball player. We have decided that the goalie in him prevents him from letting a ball get past him on the defensive end. He will grab a ball that is anywhere near him and will hold on to it until he gets a jump ball call no matter what the personal cost. He has been lifted off the ground, dragged on the ground, and laid on by several players and still managed to keep his hands on the ball.

Spencer is our comic relief. He is studying Spanish in school. He likes to try to communicate with me in Spanish. It is becoming very apparent to me that he does not speak Spanish. He does, however, speak a mean pig latin. Spencer is also playing the trombone in the school band. He loves it. Kari hates that Spencer loves it as Kari thinks that the trumpet is the only true brass instrument. Kari thinks that playing the trombone kills brain cells.

Katelyn had a choir concert last night. Because the last concert was so bad and so long I did not even tell mom and dad about this one because I didn't want them to have to think of an excuse not to be there (you're welcome). This one was better. It was only 30 minutes to long and the special performances were only slightly excruciating. The choirs are actually ok and Katelyn looked beautiful even if she was not very enthusiastic about the actions. The real offense occured with the special musical numbers. Kari was wondering if there is something about the Millcreek Jr. High gym that makes people sing flat. I think it is something about jr high students, microphones, and nerves that make these songs flat. This time Mrs. Wilcox even had a mom and a grandma participate in these numbers (weird and unnecessary).

Paige is struggling to decide what to be for Halloween. She wants to be either a BYU cheerleader (my preference), a pioneer (easiest to bundle on a cold night), or a witch. Apparently the witch's dress I bought her three years ago was both too cute and too big. She has worn it for the last two years and is heavily considering wearing it again this year. She thinks that if she wears vampire teeth with it it changes the costume enough to allow a threepeat.

Kari took a few days off last week and we spent a fun yet crowded afternoon with mom and dad at Gardener Village looking a witches (fake, not real). We also went to a Halloween party at the St. John's in Payson. The kids had a blast and the weather was awesome. We spend one day driving up to the high Uintas and we all walked around Mirror Lake. That was beautiful and really fun. What a beautiful state we live in!

Well, I do go on. In summary... we are happy, we are blessed, and we love seeing all of you that we get to see often and we miss seeing those that we don't.

Wowzers!

I posted to my blog for the first time in months (almost years) and within hours had four comments. This is way better (and faster) feed back than I get at home or work! I guess I better keep writing.

I had a great time seeing all of the fam over the weekend. Julie is such a good party thrower, which I am grateful for, because it means I can attend but not have to do much work. Awesome.

We have one more weekend of outdoor soccer games and then we get to move to the indoor arena. Hurray! It's cold outside! I do love watching my kids play. Very fun. Paige scored the only goal in her game last night. They played against the boys team from her school. When she scored all of the girls on the sideline laughed and squealed, "hurray, she score on Sam!" Girl's soccer is funny to watch. It is so different from watching Hayden's games. These little girls all tend to crowd the ball and squeal the entire time they play. Most amusing.

Katelyn is playing church volleyball. She is a very competative child. She has absolutely no patience for the girls that just stand there and don't even try to hit the ball. If she is not careful she will have to ban herself from all church ball games like my dad did. She is fun to watch. The longer the game went on the more intense she became. By the end of the game she was diving all of the court in an attempt to make up for the lack of play by the other girls. They lost.

I wend to parent teacher conferences on Wed at the jr. high. Because I have two kids there I decide to only talk to the teachers for the classes where my kids did not have A grades. Because my kids had really good grades I only need to talk to three teachers and so was done quickly. With the extra time on my hands I decided to visit the teachers of classes where my kids are getting A grades. Talking to these teachers was way more fun. Next time I go I think I will only visit them!!

Aaagh

I don't know how to do cool stuff with my blog. Alot of my family can do really cool stuff with their blogs. Looking at blogs is starting to make me feel inadequate. I do not need one more thing to make me feel inadequate. Melissa, if you read this take pity on me. I need help designing my blog. If it was cooler I might be inclined to write more often. Well, maybe.

My 14 year old daughter loves to play basketball. She is 5 feet tall. When she was in seventh grade she tried out for her Jr. High basketball team. She was cut on the first round. She was sad but determined that she would simply have to get better and try again. She went to every basketball camp available throughout the summer and practiced in our yard all of the time. She got really good. I had a lot of people ask me what she had done to improve her game so much. She and I were both hopeful that she would make the team in her eighth grade year. Tryouts were on Monday, December 17th. We went to school early to look at the list of girls who made the first cut. She was not on the list. She and I sat in the car and cried. Life Sucks! It is hard to console your daughter when you are as upset or more upset than she is. She worked so hard. She is 5 feet tall.

I told her that I thougt she should go to school even though her first period teacher is the basketball coach. I also told her that if she did not want to go to school she could stay home and go Christmas shopping with me. We went back home and as soon as she got out of the car she ran upstairs to cry. She cried for fifteen minutes! When she was done crying she dried her face, refreshed her makeup, and went to school. She is a tougher person than I am. I would have gone shopping. It was a hard day.

Life is good. Busy, but good. I need to Christmas shop, I need to clean my house, I need a nap! FYI, this is my first every blog entry. My hope is that this blog will allow my creative side to come out and that it will be wildly entertaining. It is not working so far.

My husband Kari is a good man but he works to hard. He makes video games for a living. It may sound like a cushy job but it is highly competitive and requires many, many hours. He loves it. Little did I know when I married him 15 years ago that I was marrying a workaholic.

I have four great kids. Katelyn is 14. She is smart and funny and beautiful. She is also a challenge and makes me doubt my parenting abilities on a daily basis. The stakes are so high for kids today. The amount of stress they deal with is scary.

Spencer is my 11 year old son. He learned at a very early age that having a good sence of humor can get you out of a lot of sticky situations. He is the class clown. Sometimes I think that he gets away with too much because the teachers think he is funny. Lucky for me and him he is also smart and so will probably be just fine.

Hayden is 9. He is my athlete. He is passionate and competative but has an uncanny ability to leave the game on the field when it is done and does not relive his wins or losses when they are done. He is kind and I am told that all of the girls at school love him (Uh Oh!).

Paige is my youngest. She is 7. She looks just like her dad and has a stubborn streak just like her mom. She is spoiled! I now understand so much more about my youngest sister and about why my parents always spoiled her. That youngest child can work the parent like no other!

We have a dog (Copper) two birds (Abby and Sundance) and a fish (Dori). Did I mention to you that I am tired and need a nap? Our house is always full of our kids and their friends. It is a happy place!