Birthday Boy

We love it when the grandparents come over to visit.
Emmy & Rah Rah

40 and still a youngin. Look at all the long hair! Brian is pretty blessed to have so many beautiful curls~

Birthdays are a big thing around here. Brian received lots of wonderful books and games for his birthday, a date out and lunch with his parents at our house. Celia is still singing happy Birthday to Daddy. Rah Rah made a beautiful card with a picture of Brian holding baby Emelie on the front. Celia loves it, she carries it around everywhere. It was somewhat confusing to her though to have the baby in the picture be her big sister! This will help when christmas time comes around and we start talking about baby Jesus. I can just hear her saying nope thats not Jesus. Hopefully, she will forget about it soon so I can scrapbook it with the homemade card I made him too.~ Taco Bar was the menu with salad and grapes. I put the grapes in the salad because there wasn't enough room on the table, hehe I thought it was brilliant.:) Rah Rah and Papa came over and we had a lovely time talking together. Rah Rah made a great carrot cake, Mmm was so yummy.

Whoops.

I'm in trouble today with myself because I forgot my camera! We went to Brian's summer/fall work party today at Oak park. It was a great time. There was a wonderful play structure near our shaded party area. I was so happy for all the huge beautiful trees because it was over a 100 degrees out. So highlights I missed out on taking pictures of were Celia's love of the giant bubble wand, Brian doing a gunny sack race.. yes he was winning for a minute there 'till he lost his balance, and Joseph and Emmy turning the water balloon toss into a water fight amongst siblings.. hehe. Joseph was pretty soaked. The kids decorated lunch bags for collecting candy from the sun shaped Pinata. "Too bad we can't use a bat" said Emelie lol. It was a pinata like in Celia's Dora the Explorer book where everyone takes turn pulling a ribbon. It was the last ribbon that was the lever, but they ended up shaking out the candy. Spencer did SO well out there. It really was an enjoyable time and the kids were full of wonderful fun, food and candy by the time the day was over. Next time, I will definitely have that camera in my belonging before I leave the house, I seriously doubt I'll ever get the chance to capture Brian in a gunnysack race again though, darn. Next Saturday is Fairytale town and I am determined to be ready to take pictures galore.:)

These are a few of my favorite things~

I got a new nightstand:)

I love my picture of the temple with my family Demdaco figurines. I've been collecting them over the years from important family events like births.~

President Hinkley's Bees

Be humble, Be grateful, Be still, Be prayerful, Be true, Be clean, Be smart, Be involved, Be positive.

My Yellow rose bush. Yellow is for friendship~



My seven up plant. This is the most pleasing plant, it smells like 7up, has soft lamb ears, and flowers in bunches of peach colored blossoms.

My bell peppers are growing this year, sometimes the weather has been too hot in the past, but we are making it this year, Yum!

The first signs of fall on our apricot tree.~

Smiley Joe~

I have a new Camera.:) I'm still learning how to use all the cool features and super zoom, but I am so excited to post some pictures of objects I had to take pictures of because I have a camera again!

Nice Hidden Accountability.

Celia has tutors coming to our home now. Its very exciting that they are going to work with her on any little thing she needs like language and self help skills, including toileting(Yay),and even helping her to be safe in public. The drawback is someone will be coming to my home early in the morning and going throughout the house daily! I can't stand it if my house is messy and people come over, I have a real problem with it. But, since we have a big family and 4 wonderful mess makers I had just been a little less social and let my home get cluttered on days when I didn't have the energy to do much about it. Those days are gone, I'm afraid, and I'm turning a new leaf! Three days in a row, I've managed to set straight and keep things in order for our tutoring sessions and the rest of the day. It's really wonderful to have an uncluttered somewhat clean home. I hope I can make it a permanent thing hehe. I know Bri would absolutely love that lol and Spencer too for that matter. Ironically,( since he is a Royal Mess Maker) Spencer thinks its the best thing ever when things are straight and orderly! He cracks up and laughs and smiles and hugs me over and over. Will the pressure of visitors and the praise of the family be enough?! I hope so, wish me luck!~

What tah do when?

I was asked to teach Disaster Preparation for this last Tuesday's Enrichment meeting. It was themed "Back to School" and my portion of the meeting was the fire drill. I had Red Hots to pass out to the ladies so they could feel the heat of the disaster scenario hehe. I had thought a lot about what I wanted to say, but encountered various mini emergencies that helped me to know what to teach about! A few Saturdays ago, we had a babysitter and the power went out right as we left...No air conditioning, microwave or anything that would use electricity. The kids had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner because what I had planned for them needed to be microwaved. It was around 103 degrees out and luckily our home had been fairly cool from earlier the AC blasting. It lasted two or three hours without power and everyone was fine, although the house warming up was quite nerve wracking for our respite worker. Then, we heard news of a fire on Sunday afternoon in Auburn that was so fast most families had around ten minutes to evacuate. A volunteer at Joseph's school lost her home in that fire and is relocating near our neighborhood until her home can be rebuilt. Some other incidences were a friend at church had a migraine and I had no pain reliever for her, and finally Emmy's school had a precautionary lock down due to some unrest and potential violence going on in a home near her school.

There are so many types of emergencies and being prepared to face them takes a little work. Spencer's Alta Regional worker gave us an emergency plan for our family to keep him safe, due to his special needs. Great info is in that guide. Some things I really liked about it was the variety of info all in one place, emergency contacts including email address, encouragement to make a plan to reunite( family home evening is good for setting that in place) and info about having a prepared vehicle and having papers in an easily accessible place and having small change.

I've been through a few earthquakes growing up and being together with family again becomes the highest priority I've found when disaster strikes. So we really need to let our children know where we'd meet and who to contact to get information about other family members. I'm now making sure we have a radio to get updates on news in the area if there is a problem, flashlights for power outages, extra medicine for my kiddos in case there isn't a way for them to refill and get he important need medicines right away. Also, I am going to be making copies of important papers and have it in a portable folder for fast evacuation. And redoing my 72 hour food supply and storing up water for my family for 3 days. I'm not thinking its doom and gloom time, just that things happen and I don't want to be caught off guard with no flashlight, water, means to get the things my family needs..I think it will give me peace of mind as well knowing I've done all I can to help my family in this regard.~

Celia the Builder~

Hammer Time~ Celia really looks like I did when I was this age in this picture.

Celia doesn't know that she is really into boy things! We are having a neighbor boy stain our gazebo this week. Celia was pretty interested in all the work tools and things she found for the job. I followed her around and had a great time watching her wear her bike helmet on the "construction site" then listened to her sing songs about the hammer, count the many paint stirrer sticks, and chant "Up and down" with the paint brush. Eventually, she started a sword fight with me and said "eeh yah eeh yah" since that is her sword fighting sound.

Kiddo Update

I thought it would be good to update y'all on how the kids are doing. Spence had a rough transition into Junior High( I know I can't believe it either) for the first two weeks, but it doing great now. It has been super hot and his classroom air conditioning isn't quite keeping up. He has his summer hair cut which is a buzz cut of 2inches all around from the clippers. They spray him with mist in the afternoons on his head and we give him plenty to drink when he gets home. I'm hoping fall will bring a little more mild temps for him and that his comfort level will be at optimum! When Spencer is happy, I am happy. His behaviorist is still coming once a week and he is making some progress. My new job is to be a clothes Nazi and make sure he only gets two outfits a day plus the same PJ's every night. Wish me luck, we will get him enjoying wearing clothes and his changing habit nipped in the bud pretty soon I hope.:)

Celia is enjoying her new school and time alone with mom. She can't wait for the bus to come and we keep her pretty busy and learning even before school. If it were up to her, she would learn and read and exercise all day long. She has so much energy, I am really glad she'll be starting in home therapy next month too. She is like a sponge right now and is making awesome progress with her speech, social, and self help skills. She has been having a hard time sharing, but we knew that hehe, Everything is her nor( she says my nor, we are not sure what it means.) and is used to getting her way. She is so sweet though if you ask her nicely and wait, she will comply. Her service coordinator predicts she'll be in general education kindergarten! I think so too. She is growing in leaps and bounds and it is very encouraging and exciting!

Emmy is liking school and doing well. She is in band and practicing her flute nicely. It helps that she tapes her practice log above her headboard to remind herself and writes down how long each time, instead of trying to remember how long she practiced and on which days. She tried out for volleyball, but apparently they are really competitive and some girls are rather skilled with technique already. Emmy didn't make the team but they asked her to come and learn the game and practice and travel with all the girls and score keep at games. Sounds a lot like playing, but without the pressure hehe. She seems really happy about it and is learning a lot so its all good. She is having fun learning a lot in science. I'm excited to see her reaction when they start dissecting frogs hehe. She is reading the princess bride for class and her friends are all jealous because it is a cool book. Its a great movie too, we will have to watch it together after she is done reading the book.~

Joseph is liking third grade so far. He has a strict, but very animated and fun teacher, Mrs. Docherty. She was Emmy's drama teacher when she was in the play "We Haz Jazz" in fifth grade. She benches them i f the don't have their homework done, but guess what, Joseph is getting it done and learning a ton! Joseph gave a talk on Sunday about how temples and family history bless all generations of his family. He talked of his vacation visiting all the grandparents and great grandparents, and even the cemeteries and of all the wonderful family members who have been sealed and married for so long. The bishop was there and even commented and asked, who was it that was married for 70 years?? I said Brian's grandparents and he was duly impressed. We really have been blessed by strong long lasting marriages on both sides of our family. Joseph has been getting blue cards and is very exciting to get to go to Rah Rah's house to hang out just the two of them.:)