Annie turns 11

Annie turned 11 on the same day as the school trunk or treat, so we didn't celebrate until Sunday.  

She was happy to get her art kit.

She also got some cool shirts ("Booooooks," "I'm not weird, I'm limited edition," and "I'm into fitness...fit'ness ice cream into my mouth.") a pop it purse, and other fun stuff. 

She made a peach cobbler for dessert and it was a big hit! 

Her friend party was a week after her actual birthday. 5 minutes before her party was supposed to start we got a call from the assistant principal to tell us that Megan had had a close contact at school and should quarantine. Megan was super disappointed to miss the party. We sent her upstairs and let her watch her own movies. She came out onto the balcony to eat pizza with everyone else eating in the back yard. 

Annie had a good time with her buddies. They had pizza, ice cream cake, opened presents, watched a movie, and drew on themselves with face paint. 

The next week Annie had a few more special days. Monday I picked her up from school for a surprise trip to lunch and to get her covid shot. She wasn't excited about getting a shot, but was a champ and it was the easiest shot she remembers having. And she was excited to be one step closer to being vaccinated. Having Eegees for lunch helped make the experience a bit better. When she gets her second shot she gets to miss a whole day of school to celebrate. 

Then Thursday she went in to get her braces on. This is Annie's last picture braces-free, next to the sign that has her name listed as getting braces. 

She was a champ and now is a brace-face. Her mouth was very sore for the first few days, but is finally starting to feel better. 

I felt bad piling on one thing after another, but I had gotten an email from the school saying she needed her 11 year old shots within 2 weeks of her birthday, so after braces I took her to the doctor (without telling her so she wouldn't worry for the whole drive). After her shots we went to Frost Gelato for the treat she thought she was getting when I stopped at the doctor. 

Overall I'm not sure it was worth it to her, but at least the gelato was delicious and made things a little better on a rough day.

And now our 11 year old is vaccinated, braced, and ready to start YW in January. She's very mature and helpful, and a joy to have in our family. She's been making dinner every other Tuesday, which is a great help to me, and she's getting pretty good at cooking. She's a great student and a good leader at school. She's a great influence and a kind friend. Hope you had a good birthday, Annie! We love you!

October-post fall break

Jumping back into school and real life was a little rough after fall break. It was a crazy busy couple of weeks. Annie got to start Starbase, which is a super awesome STEM program hosted on Davis Monthan Air Force Base. 

The first Saturday after break was FULL. It was Make a Difference Day, which was a huge undertaking to help get ready with the PTA. So many projects were completed with 200 people helping out. Afterwards we got a picture of Ms. Duncan and 3 of the 4 of the PTA board. Left to right: Ms. Duncan, Rebecka Fannon, Sabrina Irizarry, and me. 

After Make a Difference Day was our stake/community picnic. Jacob took the kids over and after cleaning up I made it just in time to get some food as things were wrapping up. 

That night was Jensen Powell's wedding. I was helping with getting some of the food ready beforehand, so Jacob went with me early to help. It's a beautiful setting.

It was fun to see Jillian since she moved across town and we don't get to see each other much any more. And of course visiting with friends that we do see is fun, too.

I went home and slept like a log that night. It was an exhausting day. Savannah volunteered to host dinner the next day since Saturday had been crazy busy for us and my dad had just had gall bladder surgery and was not doing well. (Thankfully a couple of days later he turned a corner and was feeling a lot better pretty quickly.) The kids always end up playing fun games at Todd's house. 

I've been in physical therapy for months to get my shoulder pain to go away. It was finally starting to go away, but before our trip to Utah I got a flu shot in my other shoulder and it had been in pain ever since, with tight muscles and all. So my second to last PT appointment the therapist worked on my other arm the whole time and the next morning I woke up with both shoulders feeling great for the first time in forever. Then Monday I went to get my covid booster since boosters were just approved for those who got a Johnson and Johnson shot. The next day my shoulder was sore and I thought I had messed it up again. Then my back got achy and I was super tired by lunchtime, so I laid down to sleep, knowing that it was just side effects from the shot. When I woke up a while later all the body aches and shoulder pain was completely gone. It was amazing. That Friday I finally graduated from PT. Yahoo! It's so nice to be able to use my body how it's supposed to work.

Friday was the trunk or treat at school, which was a big PTA event. I have never gone because I don't like Halloween and figure the church trunk or treat and walking around the neighborhood is enough candy for my kids. But since Halloween was on a Sunday, and I had to be at the trunk or treat since I'm on the PTA board, I figured the kids could come to the school trunk or treat this time. It was crazy busy with so many people the line took an hour to get through. I never even got a picture of most of the kids in their costumes, and Megan was only a rainbow witch that night (changed her costume for the church trunk or treat) so we don't have any pictures of that costume. I did manage to get a picture of Rachel and Eliza as Mabel and Dipper from Gravity Falls. 

I ended up having to run to the store twice that night, first for sodas, and then for more candy when it was all running out and there was still a super long line of people waiting to come in to the trunk or treat. I guess it was a successful night, but it didn't make me love Halloween or trunk or treating any more.

The following night was our ward party and trunk or treat, and I liked that one a lot more. Annie, Kenzie and Eloise dressed up as greek godesses, Rachel was Dipper again, Peyton was Mabel, Megan was Waddles the pig, and Ryan was Hank the Cowdog. 

The youth had a few games and face painting going on, then the kids went around the parking lot a couple of times and we headed home. 

They ended up with tons of candy and spent lots of time that night and the following day sorting and trading candy.

 We were just happy to be done with Halloween and the two weeks of craziness with two huge PTA events. 

Fall Break-Utah part 3 and home

By Thursday school was out for the Utah kids (and grown ups) and we got together at the church to have plenty of room to run around.  

They played colors, mafia, and who knows what else before we headed to the Bean Museum, also known as the dead animal museum. After checking out all the dead animals we headed back to Grandma's. We had some questions about who was taller than whom, so we ended up measuring everyone. 

Turns out Mark is taller than Jacob and I am both taller and shorter than Rachel. She is 5' 6" and I am 5' 5 1/2" on my right leg and 5' 6 1/2" on my left leg. 

Scum is always a popular game when everyone gets together. 

Friday we headed to Springville to visit a pumpkin patch/corn maze for some fun. They used corn like playground sand. It was everywhere. Even when we got back to Tucson we kept finding kernals of corn in our shoes and car. 

They buried Cari in the corn.

Joy's favorite animals are llamas, so she was excited to get to see some.

Look! Miri found a head sitting on the ground. 

There was a giant slide. The kids started filling their shirts with corn to send down with them, then finally filled Lena's sweatshirt with corn and it took 3 kids to carry it to the top of the slide. The shirt was stretched beyond use afterwards, but the kids had fun.

We went on a hayride, then topped things off by going through the corn maze.

Looks like Jacob should take over the operation.

Here's a picture of the whole crew. If only Lisa and Braden had come we'd have all the grandkids together in the picture. 

After the corn maze the kids were kind of wiped out so we did some chill activites for our last night in Utah. Sharon had lots of good "would you rather" options for some funny discussions.

There were games played including hitty, pinchy, flatty, cutty cow.

Saturday morning we headed for Arizona. The drive was pretty uneventful and went really smoothly, unlike our last drive home from Utah. We found a great playground and dinosaur at the bottom of highway 20 that will be the kids' top choice for a pit stop from here on out. 

It was a great trip and we got home with one day to decompress and recover from travel before we had to jump back into school and real life again.
 

Fall break-Utah part 2

Megan found a picture of Annie when she was Megan's age wearing the exact same shirt she was wearing that day. She thought it was pretty cool.

On Tuesday and Wednesday mornings we went to visit my side of the family. We visited my cousin Carrie on Tuesday, then Wednesday visited Von and Patty. It was good to visit with them and catch up a little. After visiting Von and Patty we headed over to Tucanos for some Brazilian BBQ and ate until we were about to burst. 

We got back about when the kids were getting out of school for their fall break, and the cousin fun was mostly non stop from there on out. 

We roasted hot dogs and s'mores one night. 

Watching funny videos always draws kids like flies to honey.

One of the favorite activities this trip was to play drawing games. Either drawing part of a monster and passing it around for everyone to draw a different part, or Add On where people take turns dictating what everyone will draw, then compare afterwards how different they turn out.

 These nightly drawing games produced a big pile of beautifully ugly monsters.

Fall Break-Babies!

The kids (especially Annie and Megan) were super excited to get to play with their baby cousins in Utah. Rosie is such a happy baby. Everyone loved holding her and playing with her. 

Lisa arrived with Brayden on Tuesday and he was an immediate celebrity. He's a little older than Rosie so he can walk and interact a little more so the kids had fun reading to him and playing with him.

Now that we're back home they miss the babies and wish mom would have another baby. (She won't.)