10 Years

A couple weeks ago on March 20, Scott and I celebrated our 10 year Anniversary of getting married.  We had dreams of taking a great trip somewhere, but that didn't happen.  We don't have anyone to help take care of our kids for a few days at a time.  We were able to get a babysitter for Sam while Eric and Rubie were at school and we went to lunch at PF Chang's.  Then we went to Rubie's music class for them to show the parents what they have been learning this year.  We are loving our experience at American Heritage.  Mrs. Otteson is the kids' music teacher.  She is really talented at teaching the young kids.  With the songs and games and methods I'm so impressed with what they learn about music.  They don't just learn the words and tunes but sometimes the back ground /history of a song.  They learn about beats and notes and some other things.

Scott successfully completed about 6 interviews with @Task.  He will be starting a new job there in May.  I'm so proud of him for the work he has done and how he goes about it.  He is quite impressive.  I've never seen anyone go into interviews as prepared as he is with information about himself and what he will do in the position he is applying for.  It will be a very nice pay increase for our family.  This is a big deal for Scott's work, not only this particular position but hopefully where it will get him in the future.

Saturday's Warrior

We should be at church right now but instead we are sitting on the couch, having finished devotional in our play church and now watching Saturday's Warrior.  Scott and I are both sick with colds or sinus infection.  Samuel has a cough and runny nose and so does Eric.  So we decided to stay home from church.  As it is a 5th Sunday I don't have relief society responsibilities today.  I started to feel a sore throat come on Thursday and after doing some yard work being exposed to a smelly swamp where the sandbox was I almost completely lost my voice.

Yesterday we had family pictures at Target.  I had a $50 reward and 50% of coupon to use.  So I figured we better use it.  I got a $530 package for $100.  I am still not to the weight or shape I want to be in and neither is Scott but I think we will have some fine pictures.

Friday the kids didn't have school.  We had 4 boys from Eric's class over to play, and Adam from Rubie's class.

Eric completed his class Idita-Read this week.  By Wednesday he had read 1,131 minutes for the month so far.  He will also win a day pass to 7 peaks.  Rubie reached her 500 minutes of reading on Thursday for her 7 Peaks Pass.  I'm so proud of them for participating in these reading programs and setting goals to accomplish this reading.

Some cute/funny things I want to remember about the kids:  Samuel is so good at giving love.  He can give the best hugs.  He will hug someone with his whole body.  Whenever Scott and I hug or show affection he has to rush over and get right in the middle.  I think Eric and Rubie did that too.  But he will straight arm Scott and shake his head "No" to him.  Last night when I was up in the middle of the night with Sam he laid down on me took my face in his hands and put his lips on mine.  I was so surprised and touched.

Rubie loves to pretend to be different things.  She will play that she is the mom and I'm the daughter and will say, "Let's play this forever and ever until I don't want to anymore."  Sometimes she will be a baby, a cat, a 3 year old, a teenager.  Sometimes the game will go on for a few days or just a few minutes.

I've been so pleased to see how Eric will jump in and get his homework and chores done.  He will complain for a few minutes but then realizes he just needs to get it done.  We still struggle with Rubie getting her chores done.  It is a fight.  But then sometimes, she totally surprises me and will want to help with dishes and laundry or vacuuming.  Samuel makes the fire truck siren noise.  We have a fire truck from when Eric was 3 that makes the siren noise.  He loves it and loves books that have a fire truck.  Whenever he sees a big truck he makes the siren noise.  It's so cute.  He is now liking cars and vehicles, but most of them make the siren noise to him.  Yesterday he almost said "bird".  He made the sign for "bird" with his fingers and said "bir".  I love to see kids my children grow and learn, and discover more about what they can do.

Eric and Rubie ride their bikes without training wheels.  They kept begging Scott to take them off and he wanted to wait until he had time to help them ride for a while.  But that was not necessary.  The training wheels came off and off went the kids.  I'm sure because of their riding their balance bikes this transition was so smooth.  Now they are getting so good on their bikes.  We went on the Murdock Trail and and to Rubie it became a race, a competition.  Eric just rode casually one.  But both got better on their bikes even just through that hour.

Samuel is surrounded by Angels

Highlights of the week:

From Eric:
1.  Going to Crew's Lego themed birthday party.
2.  Still going strong on the Idida-read.  It is really good, it is helping me to read a lot.
3.  I liked playing with the Tullet's this week and Brock.

4.  Rubie had a Dr. Zeuss birthday party at school on Friday.

5.  We went to a surprise party for Carlee Tullet on Saturday.  It was at James and Sunny Lawrence's and a group of athletes and friends came together to wish Carlee happy birthday.  We ate and watched Carlee open 30 gag gifts.  She turned 30.  We had a fun time.  I hope she did.

So Samuel has demonstrated yet again that he is definitely guarded by angels.  This Thursday when the Tullet boys came over to play everyone was outside playing.  I went outside too so that Finn and Samuel could play outside.  All the other kids (Eric, Rubie, Reed, Link) were playing on the trampoline mostly.  Sam, Finn, and I were just playing on the playset and with the toys in the backyard.  The other kids were playing a game that they kept getting off the tramp and running into the front yard via there "secret gate" which is the a little gate that accesses the downstairs apartment of the house next door.  Since part of the fence is missing the kids can get into their back yard.  Samuel was watching them and wanted to do it too.  There are large boulders that the kids climb up to get into the neighbors back yard, to their sidewalk, and out that little gate.  I wasn't letting Samuel do it.  After a moment of talking to the bigger kids and doing something with Finn I turned around and did not see Samuel.  I noticed the door to the house was open and thought he might have gone in.  I ran in yelling for him.  He never answered so I searched quickly then went back outside.  I thought maybe he got our gate open and went in the front yard.  Anthony Platt was out, I yelled if he had seen Samuel.  He hadn't.  I ran back to the back yard and all the kids were there I yelled for them to scatter and start searching for Samuel.  I soon heard Patrick Platt yelling that he found Samuel.  He was on the sidewalk about to go into the road just outside the little gate.  He must have gotten up the rocks the few seconds that my back was turned and then while I was looking for him he got out the little gate.  Whew!  That jolted me for awhile.

Then this morning I curled my hair for church as I usually do.  I left the curling iron on hoping to use it on Rubie's hair.  I got the kids up and downstairs to get them breakfast.  When Samuel was done I took him out of his high chair and was getting snacks for Church and he just was walking around.  Pretty soon Scott started SCREAMING and I hear Sam crying.  Scott found Samuel in my bathroom with the curling iron on the floor in front of him.  When I heard Scott scream my mind all of a sudden scanned quickly dangers that Sam could have found and I knew it was the curling iron.  I sprinted up the stairs and grabbed Sam.  My heart was beating so fast.  I could have been having a heart attack.  I grabbed the Lavendar Oil and started searching his body.  I didn't find any burns but put oil on my hands and just was touching him. He was only wearing a diaper too! It took me awhile to calm down.  I was so scared.  It wasn't until after church when I changed his church clothes that I saw a big read burn down his arm from his shoulder to his elbow.  It is a dark red burn, but could be so much worse.  He doesn't even act like it hurts him.  I am so thankful to Heavenly Father for watching out for this precious little person.  My goodness.  I feel so bad at what could have happened to him.  I need help from the family to watch out for him better.

Daylight Savings

I totally did not pay attention that it was Daylight Savings Time (dst).  Thank goodness I got up to get ready for Church at what I thought was early.  Samuel woke up and as I got up I opened his window and saw some people going to Church.  I thought I wonder why they are going so early.  Then I sat down to hold Samuel in his chair and turned on my phone and got on to FB for a minute.  Some people were making comments about getting ready for dst, I thought huh.  And then I looked at what time my phone showed.  8:30 am!!  Why isn't it 7:30 am?  Duh, dst is today!  Why I had not paid attention to that I do not know.  All the years of having dst time in April and October it still is not habit for me, or ingrained in me that it occurs now in March and November.  Thank goodness for a cell phone that always has the correct time.  We hurried and got Eric and Rubie up and we made it to church just after the sacrament was passed.  So we did miss the sacrament, that is a bummer--the major reason to attend church.  But what can you do, I'm not going to let it ruin my week.  I did get RS set up right after sacrament without any stress.  I was able to get two sisters I've had my eye on for offering prayers and got the songs.  This week I had to get a sub for Anna Stice, our regular teacher who teaches each 2nd Sunday.  But she had a baby a couple weeks ago and although she insisted she could teach today, I insisted she needed another few weeks.  I remember well what it is like to have a brand new baby.  I was teaching the presidency message last week in RS and after Kim Schroeppel made a comment I pretty much knew I would like to ask her to teach.  Through a prayer I confirmed it and then Shannon had the same thought that Kim was ready to participate somehow.  She is hard for me to pin down by phone or text, but I was persistent and got her.  And she said yes!  That was a big deal!  She told me that in the middle of the week she almost backed out.  It was personally a hard subject for her to teach--Faith and Repentance.  But she did a great job!

Still waiting for something to happen with @Task for Scott.  He didn't get hired for the job he interviewed for because there is a different opportunity they have for him that will actually be a much better fit.  I really hope they can come through on the $ that he has asked for.

Eric and Rubie had a good week at school.  I love going to Rubie's class on Thursdays and seeing how she is in class.  She is good except that she does have a hard time staying in her seat and focusing sometimes.  They didn't have school on Friday.  Eric is participating in the Readitarod (like Iditarod, but for reading), and 7 Peaks reading contest.  He has to read at least 37 minutes each day to get the 500 minutes of reading and to make the Readitarod.  He is motivated though to read more.  He has been reading 45-52 minutes and has goals of how much to read to hit certain check points.  I love to see how he sets

From Rubie:  Something fun this week was watching Frozen with my family.  We loved it!!  I pretty much narrated what was going to happen for mommy and I sang all the songs.  I made our family room into a kitchen because I got a mixer from Ross and have been cooking all week.  I hate it when Samuel messes it up and makes my kitchen and cooking messy but I guess I have to let him play with it too.  The Tulett's came over on Friday.  We played ninja. Saturday I rode my scooter with Paige and Kinzie.  I got a new Sunday dress.  We dropped Eric off at Camden's to play with his school buddies and mommy and Samuel and I went to Costco.  I got to choose a spring dress.  It is so pretty I look like a butterfly garden.  Daddy set the trampoline up on Saturday--yeah!

February 2014 part 2

Of interest this past week:

1. Scott had a 2nd interview with @Task.  Sometimes things seem to be moving forward with career promotion, but it happens so slowly.
2. Rubie celebrated her 1/2 birthday at school.  I took cupcakes to her class on Thursday, the day I go in to volunteer.  She came home with a birthday crown and a treat.  At the beginning of the year I filled out a questionnaire about Rubie.  Mrs. Strong shared that with the class.
3. Friday there was no school.  The kids and I went to see The Cat In The Hat play at the SCERA theater.  The Rowley's reserved tickets and asked us to join them again.  Another quality play.  This time afterwards we got a snack and a smoothy at Jamba Juice.  
4. Eric attended a birthday party with his whole school class at Jump On It.  Then Saturday Brock got to come over for a very very late night while his mom and sisters went out.