Dallin loves school

Dallin loves going to preschool. In fact he wants to go everyday, so on the days he doesn't have it, we do "school" at home. We seriously did school all day yesterday, and it wore me out. He had me write letters on a chalkboard which he then copied on his paper. We finished one of his workbooks and bought him another one (which was the only way I could convince him to stop doing school and go to Wal-Mart because I had to pick up prescriptions). He wanted to do more telling time after he finished the page of it in his book, so I found some clocks online and printed them out. I don't know what the deal is, but he just can't get enough.
All of my boys have gone to the same preschool. It's at the high school, and all their "teachers" are high school students. They've all loved it. And I like it because they do all kinds of really messy crafts which I don't have to clean up.
First he puts his snack in his cubby.
Then he jumps right in and doesn't even say goodbye. I usually hug him anyway, but he doesn't like me delaying his play time. Every day when I pick him up, he hides a surprise behind his back (whatever craft he made that day) and won't let me see it until later that day or even the next day. He sure has definite ideas about how to do things.

Proposition 8

Yesterday was a special broadcast from Salt Lake about Proposition 8. It also happened to be our quarterly enrichment activity at church, so after we ate dinner and visited for a little bit we listened to the broadcast while working on humanitarian projects. You know how I like to keep busy while listening to talks, so that worked out great. Several of the 12 apostles spoke, explaining the overwhelming importance of legally defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. They talked about the ways we can help through donations, yard signs, phone calls, and getting the word out through blogs and other online discussions. So I'm doing my part. Here is the link they wanted us to include: http://www.preservingmarriage.org/ I just checked it out, and it's very good. There's a short video interviewing young people who support Prop 8, as well as other resources from the church and the proposition campaign. It looks like the next 25 days will be very busy.

Books

I come from a family of readers, but I thought the gene skipped me because I've never been as much of a reader. I always loved going to the library with everyone when I was little, but then I never knew what to get. And if a book didn't captivate me by the first chapter, I stopped. My mom often made suggestions for me, and that helped. But eventually I only read what I had to for school, (like A Prayer for Owen Meany - MAN, I hated that book!) and then history and medical books - yuck. Kristen pointed out to me the other day that the Twilight books have gotten me back into reading, which is so true. I have been reading constantly ever since. And now I have http://www.goodreads.com/ to help me find books. Then I just order them from the library so that all I have to do is pick them up from the front desk (do you have any idea how hard it is to browse in the grown-up section of the library with little kids? Nearly impossible, believe me). It turns out that Spencer has inherited our reading gene. He has always enjoyed books and reading, especially science. You should have seen him the day he discovered the non-fiction section of the library. It was like he found a candy shop. When I had his parent-teacher conference last week, his teacher told me that he tested at a 5.8 reading level (meaning the 8th month of 5th grade), but he was choosing books in the 2.8-3.0 level. So she said he should read more challenging books. He always reads for about an hour in bed every night; he just finished Charlotte's Web and is now reading Harry Potter! He loves it. But he can wake up pretty cranky from staying up too late the night before. We all know how that is!

little brothers are so entertaining

Whenever the boys get home from school, the first thing they do is play with Brennan. Yesterday Spencer told me that no matter what kind of day he's having, seeing Brennan when he walks in the door always makes him happy.

Brennan enjoys the attention and loves to put on a show.

Here he is flexing his muscles, which cracks everyone up

Which in turn cracks Brennan up. It's a vicious cycle.

Conference

http://www.lds.org/move/index.html?type=conference&event=178&lang=english

I'm on a spiritual high from watching General Conference all weekend. I would say the overall theme was peace, hope and faithfulness in the face of an increasingly tumultuous world. I laughed at the hilarious story David B. Haight told about his daughter's blind date! I cried about the story of the 7 year old boy who crossed the river to get the cows. I got goosebumps when Dave relayed Uchdorf''s story at the priesthood session about the man walking 22 miles every week to work on the Salt Lake temple, even after his leg was amputated. I liked Elder Bednar's talk about our morning prayers symbolizing the spiritual creation while our evening prayers are a continuation or representation of the physical creation. I'm motivated to be more appreciative of my children and enjoy this stage of my life after listening to President Monson's talk this morning. Man, I love that man! I really enjoyed the presentation about him between the sessions on Saturday. Overall the kids did an awesome job playing and entertaining themselves so that Dave & I could listen, and the broadcast worked great on the internet. It just keeps getting better and better each time. Yesterday I ironed through both sessions (I actually got caught up! It's been months since the ironing basket's been empty), and today I made pancakes and bread to freeze for Brennan as well as wheat bread and brownies from scratch for us. I like to be busy while I listen or else I get all fidgety or fall asleep. Plus I stayed up 'till 12:30 finishing my book last night, so I was a tad sleepy today. After conference we went on a family walk, and it was a gorgeous day. At dinner I asked the boys what they liked from conference, and Spencer and Tyler both remembered rather deep concepts. I was way impressed that they had caught so much. I'm sad to see the weekend come to an end as we leave our spiritual bubble and face the world tomorrow.

Panda Fun Run

Today was the Panda Fun Run school fundraiser. This was the first year they've done it, and I love the idea. All the money donated goes directly to the school, instead of half of whatever product they sell, which I usually don't want anyway.

Here's Tyler with his best friend Jordan. He lives close to us, and the boys all walk home together every day. He's a really sweet kid.

Each grade took turns running around the field for 20 minutes throughout the morning. As the kids ran by, the teachers would mark their stickers to count the laps. The fastest runners from each grade won a prize.
But of course everyone got a medal and popsicle at the end. Luckily it's much cooler today than it has been the past week, so that was nice. I heard the school earned about $10,000, which is more than they usually earn for a fundraiser. Plus it encourages exercise, so I think it's a great idea. I hope they do it every year.

It's about time

Over the past 2 days I've finally gotten around to doing things I've been meaning to or trying to do for a long time.

1. I made hotel reservations for Hawaii! Dave and I are coming up on our 10th wedding anniversary next month, and I've always wanted to go to Hawaii. So although we had decided to go there, I just hadn't been able to choose a place. My friend said she could get me a good deal through her time share. But the problem is that the deals don't turn up until a month ahead of time, and Dave has to give his work at least a month's notice. I kept looking online, but I just couldn't bring myself to decide on anything. I'm so dang indecisive!! So I called my friend yesterday, and although she couldn't find anything good on Oahu, where we wanted to go (Polynesian Cultural Arts Center), she happened to notice some great deals on other islands. So I called Dave, and we decided to go to Kauai instead. It's more tropical (waterfalls, tropical plants, etc.), and much less developed. I wanted to go someplace exotic without a lot of crowds. So we'll go to the PCAC another time - maybe our 20th. We're going to a really nice resort with its own private beach, and we'll have a bedroom, living room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. It feels so good to finally having it arranged, and we're totally stoked to go.

2. I took Brennan in for his 1 year shots. I know, he's almost 2 years old, but let me explain. When he was diagnosed with his allergies last year, right before he turned 1, his pediatrician said he couldn't get any of the 1 year immunizations because they were all grown in egg. Well I believed him. Then recently I started to wonder if there were any he could have. So I called the health department and made an appointment. The nurse told me that it wasn't true about the 1 year shots and egg allergies, and that the only one he can't have is the flu shot. So he's all caught up now, thank goodness. I'm not a negligent mom after all!

3. We're getting the A/C fixed! After 2 un-returned phone calls, Dave called the guy for me and left a message saying that if he's too busy than please refer us to someone else. Well the guy called right back(!) and said he's been out of town, so he referred us to someone he said was honest and reliable. We made an appointment with the new guy for that morning. Apparently it's just a part that needs to be replaced, which he is installing at this very moment. Of course now the weather is cooling down, but I'm just glad it's finally getting done and will only cost a couple hundred dollars.

4. I ordered a new calendar. Our old calendar expired a month ago, and I just hadn't gotten around to ordering a new one. I have all kinds of notes posted around my old calendar and feel lost not knowing the dates coming up. I like to order my calendars from Wal-Mart, so of course that took a little time to choose which pictures to use and upload them, and then of course they had to make it and mail it. But it came yesterday - yay!

5. I cleaned off the piano, bookcase and mantel. We fed the missionaries a couple nights ago, and then my visiting teachers came over later that evening, so this motivated me to de-clutter. I really need to have people over more often!