First Days of School

So this September has been a lot of firsts. Benjamin started the 1st Grade and Alex Started kindergarten. Today was my fist day with both boys in school. Alex is in afternoon Kindergarten so we dropped Benji off this morning and then for the next 3 hours or so Alex was asking is it time for school, I want Lunch. He knew that when he had eaten lunch then it would be time for school. It was a little hard for me to leave him in the Class room but after I got him settled down he was fine when I Left. It is in the 90's today. When I went to Pick Alex up from school I took one look at him and he was drenched in sweat. His Classroom is very hot. Benji is enjoying the first grade and being at school for a longer period of time. Now I have to find something to keep ME busy while the Boys are in school. I haven't had time to myself like this since before Benji was Born. Here are some of the pictures of the first days of school for the boys.

Benjamin and Alex's interview

I decided to interview my boys to day and this is what I got: Alex 1. What is your favorite color? Purple 2. What is your favorite toy? My Pooh Bear 3. What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries and Blackberries 4. What is your favorite show on TV? transformers 5. What is your favorite food? Chicken 6. What is your favorite costume to wear? Army costume 7. What is your favorite game to play? Dread Pirate 8. What is your favorite snack? cookies 9. What is your favorite animal? Giraffe 10. What is your favorite song? The Spirit of God (square temple song) 11. What is your favorite book? Pooh Bear 12. Who is your buddy? Benji 13. What is your favorite cereal? Golden Grahams 14. What is your favorite thing to play outside? My Car 15. What is your favorite drink? Chocolate Milk 16. What is your favorite holiday? CHRISTMAS!! 17. Who do you sleep with at night? Pooh bear and ruby and Lumpy and kitty 18. What is your favorite breakfast? Donuts 19. What is your favorite dinner? Chicken 20. What do you want to do when you grow up? A missionary and a Fireman Benjamin's Interview 1. What is your favorite color? Blue 2. What is your favorite toy? Scotty Dog 3. What is your favorite fruit? Apples and Bananas 4. What is your favorite show on TV? Monster Jam 5. What is your favorite food? Pizza 6. What is your favorite costume to wear? Captain Hook 7. What is your favorite game to play? Monopoly 8. What is your favorite snack? Granola Bars and Fruit Snacks 9. What is your favorite animal? Orangataun because he has red hair like me 10. What is your favorite song? I hope they call me on a mission 11. What is your favorite book? Jake and the Pirates 12. Who is your buddy? Alex 13. What is your favorite cereal? Lucky Charms 14. What is your favorite thing to play outside? Monster Trucks with Alex 15. What is your favorite drink? Apple Juice 16. What is your favorite holiday? CHRISTMAS!! 17. Who do you sleep with at night? Scotty Doggie 18. What is your favorite breakfast? Donuts 19. What is your favorite dinner? Spagetti and Meatballs and Pizza 20. What do you want to do when you grow up? A missionary and an engineer on the Railroad

Benjamin's Kindergarten graduation.

Today Benjamin Graduated from Kindergarten. Yet he still has two days of school left. What is up with that. So Alex and I walked to the school and waited in the Gym. Then the music teacher started playing Pomp and Circumstance ( The graduation music) and the Kindergarten Kids started walking into the Gym and of course I teared up. My Benjamin looked so grown up with his cap and tassle. The kids sang and signed three songs, The Abc Song. The Rainbow song and the Number rock song!. Then the kids went down and sat in their seats. Mrs. Barker got up and started calling the children's names. It was fun watching Benji walk across the stage and get his diploma! My Baby is getting so grown up. So after the ceremony we went back to Benji's classroom. THey had a slide show of the children through out the year. There was cookies and drinks. Then Benji got a photo book of his year in Kindergarten and a present from his teacher. Then We went with our neighbors out for Ice cream Because it was so hot. I cannot Believe that Benjamin will be in 1st grade come september. Here are some pictures of his day!

Memorial Day

I cannot believe that it is the end of May already. I have been doing a lot of thinking about geneology this month. So I was looking up some relatives on my family tree and realized that my great grand aunt on my grandma's side is actually buried about 25 miles from where I live. So on memorial day I thought it would be fun to go out and visit her grave. It actually was not that hard to find. It was kind of fun wandering around the cemetery looking at the old gravestones. My husband and I started a game to see who could find the oldest grave stone. There were a lot of veteran's graves in this cemetery and it made be proud to be an American when I saw the graves and the flags next to them. I am so grateful for my Grandfather and uncle and brother who have served or now are serving to protect this country! Here are some pictures that I took at the cemetery!

Everything falls apart at once

So this week has been crazy! Sunday night our heat pump died! Then monday morning I woke up with the stomach flu. It is definatley montezuma;s revenge. I have not felt so miserable in a long time. I tried to get up to feed the boys and both times I threw up it was not very fun to say the least. Stephen came home from work to have the guy fix our heat pump only to discover that it is busted and it will be cheaper to just replace the entire thing. It is going to cost 6 grand to fix it not at all cheap. Last week we discovered that someone had turned our fridge off. I thought it was leaking and that we were going to have to buy a new fridge but no one of the kids I had been watching turned off our fridge. Now with the heat pump going out it is not our week. So the Sales guy came by yesterday to tell us how much a new Heat pump will cost. Ouch. It is really hard not having heat especially since is it 30 degrees outside or less. Alex came home from preschool yesterday and threw up. Let's just say I will never have tuna fish in this house again. Having to clean up barf when you are already sick is not a pleasant experience. We have a kerosene heater and a space heater and are trying very hard to stay warm. unfortnanly the heat pump can't be replaced until monday so we are trying to find more wood to burn in our fire place. I am trying really hard to stay positive but it is really hard when I am not feeling good and I am trying very hard to stay warm. It is even hard to fix food for my kids becasue food does not sound all that appetizing right now. I do know that The lord is aware of me and that this to shall pass. What a way too start the new year though. I really hope that there is something really awesome in my future becasue right now just stinks.

Trials

This week has been an interesting week for me.On Wednesday my brother had his court of honor in Kingman Az. I really wanted to be there. but as I had been in Arizona this summer we could not afford for me to go there again. But it turned out to be a blessing that I did not go because about 1:00 Wednesday morning Alex woke up with a fever and throwing up. So I got to stay up all night with him. Thank goodness for priesthood blessings and herbs. By wednesday evening Alex was feeling like his normal self. But because I was not getting any sleep I developed a cold. On top of this I was asked to speak in church this sunday! So I needed to prepare a talk as well. This is not easy to do when you don't feel well. Saturday afternoon Stephen took the boys somewhere so that I could get some sleep and maybe feel better. When they came home Stephen told me there was something wrong with the car. I had noticed that morning that it was draging at very low speeds. HE said that he had had trouble starting it while he was gone. So Last night I said a prayer that the car would start in the morning so we could go to church. Well this morning I got up and got everybody ready and I made last minute changes to my talk. We all got in the car and the car would not start. We ended up calling our neighbor who let us borrow their other car so we could get to church. I think Someone was trying really hard for me not to give my talk today. It was interesting because all the talks today in sacrament meeting went alonf with the lessons in Relief Society and Sunday School. I amso glad that I made it to church becasue I needed to be there today! I really hope that all that is wrong with our car is the battery. We will find oout when my husband gets home from doing his calling!

Our Trip To Boise

So the Boise Temple has been Remodeled. We we decided that to it would be fun to take the boys to see it was time for the open house for the temple so that the public can see what is inside the temple before it is dedicated. Boy has someone been trying really hard so that we would npot make it to the temple. It started ASunday night before we were to go. We had gotten everything packed and were eating dinner when all of a sudden Alex Started Throwing up. I cleaned him up and took care of him and put him in the bathtub. I put Digize on him so that his tummy would feel better then I put the kids to bed. Then on Monday moringin we got up and left about 7:15 bin the morning. We got to I205 and there was a car fire which backed traffic up for about half an hour.but eventually we got on our way again. We ate Lucnh in LeGrande Oregon at the KFC There. We arrived in Idaho at about 5:30. We ate a light dinner and eventually tried to put the boys to bed. But becasue the boys had been in the car all day they just had too much pent up energy. Alex ended up getting hurt and bit his tongue really hard. But eventually they went to sleep. Then Stephen could not sleep So I ened up moving to the couch so that I could get some sleep becasue I knew that one of us needed to get some sleep. Then that night it decided to ppour down ain iot started raining so much that I was afriad that we might have a flash flood. Nobody wanted to get up in the morning and the rain was terrible. As we were driving to the temple we got pulled over by a cop. luckly he just gave us a warning. It was grey and really ugly when we got to the temple. We watched a short video about the History of the Boise temple and then we got to go and tour the temple. Alex threw a fit when we put the booties on to go into the temple. THe booties are so that we don't scuff up the floors in the temple and get tem dirty. So I hel ALex as we walked into the door and stood in the foyer of the temple. I was overwhelmed with the most wonderfully warm and comforting feeling as I realized that i was in the temple with my boys. ALex then looked at me and said "mommy you are crying", which of course started the tears running down my face. Alex really liked lookiong at the pictures of Jesus in the temple. When we walked out of the temple it was the most incredible blyue sky and the sun was shiny. Yoyu would never have known that a half hour earlier it had been all grey and yunky and pouring ddown rain. I am so grateful That we were able to make it to the open house and feel of the spirit in the temple.