Field Trips, Playoff Games, and Birthdays Oh My!

Last week was crazy and awesome.  It started out watching general conference which was great!  My kids still aren't great at actually watching general conference but at least, during the majority of the time, they are in the same room as the TV and maybe they are catching bits and pieces as they are coloring, playing, fighting, whatever. :)  It was a great conference weekend.  So excited about the missionary age change.  I told Pacen about it and he just had the look of, Are you seriously making me go on a mission earlier?!?!  He is a little bit afraid of leaving me.  That will change over time, I'm sure.  I will be interested to see how many more young women serve missions.  It's going to be awesome!

Monday morning was pretty awesome.  I had volunteered to drive for Pacen's field trip to go to Shadelands historical museum.  Unfortunately Than's car decided not to start and he had an important appointment with his accountant that he couldn't miss so we had to do a little shuffling.  I ended up driving to the field trip, coming back and driving Than to his appointment, and then back to the field trip and then home.  It was so fun to be able to be with Pacen, even if it wasn't as long as I had hoped for.  

 Pacen was looking forward to stepping through the "time machine" but was a little disappointed when he realized that it was only some wood with a sign.  He even asked towards the end, "Well, when are we going to go through the time machine?  That was it?!?!"  

 When I got back, I saw them make a little crazy quilt.  

 He got to count and weigh walnuts. 

 Learn how to wash clothes old school style. 

 And beat the smack out of a rug.  Those were his favorite parts.  

 Oh, and play some old fashioned games.  

 I'm glad that I can go out with him every now and then.  I know he wishes that I could go into his classroom but it's just not in the cards on a regular basis right now.  But I do what I can and hopefully he appreciates it.  

I have to post some pics of my finished temple print!  I made the frame! With real wood, stain, and a saw!  I was so proud.  I think it turned out super nice.  I keep expecting it to be fallen off of the wall and in pieces when I walk into the room but it's still intact!  

 I found a note from Camry to Pacen the other day. 

 Isn't she so cute?  She is all about writing and is becoming such a girl and I love it. 

This was Gentry one day last week with her noodle soup lunch.   She was so proud of her mixing her ice cubes in her soup and making such a big fat mess!  

 And it was also all over the floor.  Man I love having toddlers. 

 Claira was just sitting there putting all of these people in a row and making up a story about what they were all doing.  I love her little imagination and how engaged she can be with little pieces of paper.  

Tuesday night was a fun night.  We went to our first ever MLB playoff game!  The A's vs. the tigers.  The A's were in a must win situation since they had fallen behind 0-2 and they won!  The atmosphere was AWESOME and we all had great night even though we were up super late on a school night.  And it was a little stressful because I had to do cubscouts right before we left but it all worked out like it always does.

 Gentry was LOVING the baseball game.  she was dancing and waving her towel and giving highfives.  It was so cute.

And in the end, she was all tuckered out.


Claira's favorite part of baseball games......Hodden Candy.  Doesn't understand the cotton reference yet. :)

Hanging with my boy!  Love that kid.

I love him even if he now says he does not like the Giants at all.  I try to be supportive of the stinking A's but now my only son is an A's fan.  I should have pushed harder for those giants!  At least they are still in the playoffs.  Neener neener neener, Pacen!

Wednesday we stayed up way too late watching the A's win game 4.  Winning game four meant that we were on our way to Game 5 the next night!  Woohoo for Than just buying a bunch of tickets ahead of time! 

Thursday:  

Started off with another field trip.  This time with our little preschool group.  We saw the play The Emperor's New Clothes and they loved it!  It was the perfect length for little ones and fairly entertaining.  Claira couldn't get over how many times the princess and prince kissed. :) 

Camry's first grade class went the next day.  We're going to go to all of them.  It was a hit! 

Then we went out to lunch which is also fun. I could go out to lunch every day.  Its one of my favorite activities. 

We only took Pacen and Gentry with us to the game this time.  Camry and Claira stayed with a friend.  Let me tell you, going to two baseball games in one week is exhausting!  I was so tired that night and the bummer of it all is that they lost, but the fans were still classy.  As classy as Oakland fans can be. :)  After booing when they lost the game, they gave like a 5 minute standing ovation to the team for a season well played.  It was still a great atmosphere and I'm glad that we went. Oh, and Pacen got a ball from batting practice!  He was super pumped!  And Gentry made friends with the people sitting behind us.  That is my super friendly baby for ya!

Oh playoff games are sooooo crowded!  It took us a while to get home but again, totally worth it. 

Friday I got to go to lunch with some friends to celebrate mine and Megan's birthday.  Another lunch!  Woohoo!  Than was home so I put the kids to bed for naps and was out the door.  Going to lunch with out any of my own kids was even better!  I think it should happen weekly! :)  

Friday night I ran up to a friend of mine's house to take some family pictures.  I haven't had a chance to go through them thoroughly but I had to do this one because she was just so cute! 

The rest of Friday night was filled with Pacen's basketball practice and The Habit for some delicious burgers.  Saturday was full soccer and the start of my birthday weekend!!!  But I'll blog about that next because, let's be honest, my birthday deserves it's own post. :)

Already Saturday.

Than has been gone and this week has not bee the most smooth week ever and so I've been thinking, "Is this week ever going to end?"  But then I look at my blog and I'm like, seriously is it saturday already???  Well it is.  And its conference weekend but it's also soccer picture day and soccer games and I'm tempted to say that we are taking a break from sports every conference weekend from now on because all I really want to do is sit on my couch and watch conference but that is not happening today.  One thing I did like about this week was that for scripture reading at night each night I just chose a scripture or two about prophets and we talked about the importance of listening to what the prophet says because those are the messages that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father want us to hear and we even (almost) memorized a few and it was fun seeing the kid remembering what we had read about the previous day and really focusing on a subject for a whole week.  Kids need repetition and so do I, lets be honest.  Anyway, despite our busy schedule today, the kids and I are excited to listen to General Conference.  Camry has pictures at 9:45, Pacen has pictures at 11:45, Camry has a game at noon, and Pacen has his game at noon.  Did I mention that Than is gone????  I have great neighbors who will help with all the running around.  

This week was rough because I didn't use my time wisely.  I became one track about getting a built in desk/bookcases built downstairs.  I got a quote from this one company and it was anywhere from $11,000 to 13,000 dollars!!!!!  What the heck?!?!?!  I was not expecting that.  So then I went crazy researching and trying to find a DIY alternative and then went to Ikea because I really thought I had a solution for part of the space only to go to Ikea (which is a headache in itself) and buy what I needed and bring it home and open it to find that it was 1/4 of an inch too tall!!!!!  ARGH!   So now, not only did I waste all of that day with that but now I have to go return it to ikea.  Going back to the beast.  Then I searched some more at plan c and still don't have a real plan and that makes me frustrated.  Making your house beautiful is too time consuming and that's probably why mine is just normal.  

Another project I was trying to do was a temple picture for my living room.  I have been wanting one and just don't really love any of the ones out there and so I think, Why not just take my own???  So Monday morning I headed down to the temple because it's closed and no people would be around.  Problem #1 was that the fountains were not on either.  BUmmer.  I was really bummed.  So I started taking some pics anyway and then I saw a maintenance guy and asked him if it would be possible to turn on the fountains for me and he asked and they said yes!!!  It was so great.  So here is the print that I like the best.  

So then I printed it as a 20x30 which is big.  BIG.  And I needed to find a frame for it and they were super expensive so I think....I'll just make my own!  I used this blog for an idea and buy the stuff I need and get it all cut and put together to see that was like 1/2 and inch too big on all sides.  WHAT THE HECK?!?!  That is why I just buy things!  So, I'm in the middle of fixing it and I think it will be awesome even though it took me longer to finish it.  And I really love the picture and am so excited to have a temple picture in my house again.  

But even though I was going to write more my time is up because now we only have 45 minutes to get ready for cam's picture day.  Bleh. 

Hot August Nights.

Summer Catch Up! 

Than tried to revamp our ward's youth fundraiser.  They have been doing a Youth Auction every three years in hopes to raise enough money but there were some flaws with that option such as not being the best budgeter over three years, and then for instance, we bought two things in the auction a few years ago that we were never able to use even though we tried really hard to use it.  Anyway, Than wanted to make an annual fundraiser that the youth could be a bigger part of and his idea was a Hot August Nights!  It was in August, obviously, and what was kind of funny was that it was FREEZING that night.  Strange walnut creek evening weather brought in this super cold wind and it was like the coldest night ever.  But, even with that inconvenient weather, the even was a total SUCCESS!  He and a lot of other people worked their tails off and the youth worked super hard and the whole night was tons of fun and they raised a lot of money.  

They had all these different booths like face painting, bean bag toss, super putt, bounce houses, cotton candy, snow cones, dunk tank, dinner of hamburgers, french fries and milk shakes...you name it.  You had to buy tickets and then each different thing was a certain amount of tickets.  They also had a small auction to make sure that they could guarantee making enough money but they are hoping that next year they can phase that part out.  It really was a pretty awesome event.  I was super proud of Than and all the youth for all their hard work.  

The thing that my kids were most excited about was getting their faces painted.  I never let them get their faces painted because it just don't want to pay for it so this was the perfect opportunity! 

Gentry did not want to have her picture taken. :)  These pictures were taken like three minutes apart.  She was not having it. 

Than wanted the youth to do a 50's style dance as a sort of "thank you".  He and Katie planned it over at our house a few weeks before, taught it to the youth, and then performed it for everyone.  It was awesome!  The youth were totally into it, too, which surprised me.  Than is just a great teacher and motivator! 

 I feel bad that I didn't take more pictures but like I said...it was freezing!  And it got colder as the night went on and Than was one of the last people in the dunk tank!  And of course he was seriously obnoxious so that everyone would want to spend tickets getting him soaked.  He dressed up in all BYU gear and sang the fight song and you can imagine how many Ute fans wanted him to go down.  What was hilarious is that the one guy that is a huge ute fan tried like 20 times to get him but couldn't!  It was classic and made Than sing even louder.  

Pacen tried his hand and him and says now that he got him but I don't remember.  

 AND DOWN HE GOES!!! 

 This was the hog august nights aftermath Sunday afternoon.  Everyone was wiped out and took a super long nap.  

 Obviously Than didn't do it all by himself and there were a lot of components that went into this night but without him and his ideas and his enthusiasm it wouldn't have been the same.  I was proud of him and all of his hard work he puts into his calling despite his busy work and family life.  He's pretty much amazing!