April Showers of Snow?!

We looked out the window this morning and what did we see?
Snow covering the ground!
My poor daffodil didn't survive the weight of the snow on its head. By the time we got dressed and ready for church, most of the snow had melted away.
But I still had to record the historic event. We don't even usually get snow in the winter, let alone in spring.
Of course, it has been a cold, wet spring - except for our two days of summer.
My poor flowers are trying to bud and bloom, but the weather in conspiring against them. My trees have just started to blossom (notice the trees in the above pictures). I have faith, though, warm weather has to arrive soon - doesn't it?

April Showers Gymnastics Meet

In our family, gymnastics is a family event. We all go to support Leilani at her meets and make a family day out of it.
The kids are pretty good. They only watch their sister (not anyone else) and the rest of the time they color, eat and play with small toys.

Benjamin is the hardest to keep entertained, of course. At this last meet he kept stealing his sister's hat and playing in the water fountain (thus the beret on his head and the wet shirt). I took this picture to show the amazing sandwich he made out of crackers and lunch meat. We took lunchables for the kids and he used two crackers and all the lunch meat at once. We kept waiting for him to drop it all over, but he managed to eat every bite!
This ended up being Leilani's last meet. She qualified for Sectionals, which was supposed to be on Saturday the 26, but they just changed it to Sunday the 27th. Since we don't do Sunday meets, she will miss it. It was a hard decision, though, because we got some pressure to let her go. She missed three meets this season because they were on Sunday too. We haven't had to miss that many before. The head coach pointed out to me that this is a competitive sport and that is what they do...compete. If they are not going to compete, they might as well not be on the team. I understand that, and I hope this isn't going to turn out to be a major problem. It has been fairly easy so far, because her soccer coach, volleyball coach, softball coach and gymnastics coach have all been understanding of our position. In fact, we do not have one Sunday game this soccer season! That is a first. Her soccer coach is so awesome - he tries to work around his players who can't play on Saturdays for religious reasons too. I just feel like we need to take a stand and hold to our standards as long as we can. Maybe at some point exceptions will have to be made, and we will just let the Lord guide us as we make these decisions. Anyway, I guess we will see what the future holds. Both gymnastics coaches said they would not hold her missing Sectionals against her, so she should still be moving up to Level 5 in June. Her team took 3rd place at this meet. Leilani did not place on any event, but they did combine all ages into one group and only placed the top three. She just didn't have as great a season this time as she did last season. I was so absorbed in watching the meet, that I totally forgot to video her bar routine. I feel really bad, because it is probably the best one she has done. Oh well. You can watch her beam and floor routines below if you want. We are very proud of her!

A Change of Perspective

I had one of those mornings today. My husband's alarm kept going off and I couldn't seem to figure out how to turn it off (of course he wasn't home). My girls wanted to sit on the heater in their pajamas instead of get ready for school. At 8:15 I was still doing Emily's hair, even though school starts at 8:30. Elisabeth and Benjamin didn't want to go to the car and take their sisters to school, because they would miss the end of "Super Why." You get the picture. So as I am wrangling my kids out to the car in my "it's a good thing I don't have to go anywhere, maybe I can get a shower in later" mommy outfit (consisting of sweat pants and my nightgown thrown under a coat), you can imagine how good I was feeling about motherhood at that moment.

I started the car, looked at the clock and noticed that we had four minutes until school started (as if it were possible to get there that fast when you have to drive through two school zones on the way), and fastened my seatbelt amongst the demanding yells to turn on the primary songs. Exercising iron will, I held my tongue and turned the car in the direction of school. Reminding myself to keep the speed down (I did NOT want to be pulled over in that outfit and without my purse), I turned on the primary songs. As I heard my two year old behind me singing along with "I Feel My Savior's Love," peace poured through me. My whole perspective changed and my morning was suddenly much better. How could I be frustrated when I was listening to this choir of angels in my car singing about their Savior, Jesus Christ? It really is amazing how much power those simple songs can have in our lives.

A Little Bit of Summer

We had two really warm days (one was a record breaker) amidst the normal spring rain and cool weather. My kids were really excited, and spent as much time outside as they could.
Elisabeth made wishes and blew dandelion seeds all over the yard.
Benjamin helped his dad dig up the dandelions in the lawn. Unfortunately Mom and Dad were not in a summer mind set, so we didn't even think about sunscreen. Our kids were all sunburned. Oops! Emilyanne got sunburned the least, because she had on long sleeves and pants. (She wanted to change, but it just never happened and now she is glad)
We found some tulips that we didn't know were in our yard. Yeah! That made it feel like spring.
The kids spent hours on the swing set.

They invited the neighbor girls over and just played and played. It was a nice break in the weather, because today we are back to clouds and rain and cool temperatures.

My Little Louisa

Leilani did a report on Louisa May Alcott this week. The teacher focused more on the oral report than the research or the written report. So, we convinced Leilani to be creative and give her report in first person - as if she really were Louisa talking. She did a good job and stayed in character the whole time. Her friend told her that she wished she had given her report that way, which made Leilani feel really good. They were supposed to dress up. Thanks to Grandma Bevans we were able to put together an outfit. We raided her closet for the skirt and blouse, and she made Leilani an apron. Leilani used her hat from Williamsburg and a pair of my boots and ta da ...we have Louisa May Alcott.
Grandma also let her use her Jo doll from "Little Women" as a prop. (Jo is the character that Louisa based on her own life) There are a lot of benefits to living around family!
We went to listen to Leilani's report and then played on the school playground until school was out.
It was the first nice day we had after a long period of cold and rain, so the kids didn't want to leave.
I called Tricia and told her that we could take Charlotte home, since we were already at school and Leilani had piano lessons near their house. That way she didn't have to wake her kids up from naps to pick Charlotte up. Did I mention that there are a lot of benefits to living near family?
The kids were very happy to have their cousin ride home with them. Elisabeth and Charlotte held hands all the way to the car.
It is nice to be able to support the kids in their school activities.

What Would You Do?

I have been emptying some boxes in my bedroom this past week, and I am trying to figure out what to do with some of the stuff. So, I decided I am going to ask all of you out there for advice. I have two shoe boxes with memorabilia, pictures and letters from two past relationships (1 box for each). Each of the relationships were fairly serious - one of the guys I was actually engaged to. Alan knows about the guys, so it isn't like the stuff is a big secret, but he hasn't read the letters, looked at the pictures, etc. So what do I do with it? My mom says, "throw it out," which seems logical, I guess, but it is a part of my personal history and tells a lot about me and who I was at those points in time. I can't help wondering if it wouldn't be useful to someone who was trying to learn about me somewhere down the road. Heck, I was enjoying reading some of the letters the other day as I went through the boxes. I'd forgotten some of the things that had happened or that I'd done. So, do I throw them out and part with that part of my life and pretend it never happened? Or do I keep them? And if I keep them, what do I do with them? Keep them in the shoe boxes and shove them in a dark corner somewhere? Scrapbook the pictures as a part of my life and store the rest of the stuff? I am wondering what other people have done with memorabilia like this. I have to admit that I do not want to throw it out, but then again I am a self proclaimed pack rat, so I guess that is not a surprise. Please, leave your comments and let me know what you would do or what you have done. I really am interested!

Notes From My Class

I am a packrat. I save everything! So, as I was looking for some pictures of Alan and I, I came across some of the papers I had saved from my teaching years. LOL I always keep things that make me smile.

Since I taught English, I usually made my students write an essay for anything they got in trouble for. For instance, using offensive language:

If you can't read it, it says (with corrected spelling):

It is not appropriate to say "eat me" because it is not kind to say that because I guess it means something that offends Mr. Bevans so I guess I should stop saying it. Sorry

I should explain that Mr. Bevans refers to my dad. I always shared with my students the words like "dork" that I used to get in trouble for saying because they offended my dad. So, "eat me" must have fallen into that category. Most likely because my student didn't know what it meant in slang, and I didn't want to explain...so I blamed its obscenity on my upbringing :)

Another offender had to write an essay about getting caught cheating.
It says:

Mine and Debbie's paper were the same cause I did the definitions but I forgot we had to do the sentences. So I asked if I could use hers. If you are going to give any one a 0 give it to me not her. It's not her fault it's mine. I'll just fail this class again! My dad will kill me but that's my problem not yours. So you can give me a 0 if u want.

I love the guilt trip. Mind you this was an "A" student until she discovered boys. It always amazed me that my students didn't think I was going to notice if assignments or reports were word for word the same. I guess there must be teachers out there who do not look at homework or something. But really, don't you think it would take just as much time to write your own sentence using a vocabulary word as it would to copy someone else's?

I sometimes wonder what kind of a teacher I was. I have notes from kids who loved me and notes from kids who hated me. (I told you I keep everything!) There was a girl in our ward named Mary Newton, who I think also lived in 3rd ward for a while and now lives in Portland. I was actually her junior high teacher in Utah. (Which is so sad because it makes me feel so old! But I was a young teacher) What a small world! I asked her if I was a horrid teacher to have, and she said she actually liked my class...but what else would you say to someone asking you that question years later at Enrichment ? LOL I guess I'll never know.