October 2018

Jaron had his Nursery Rhyme Olympics where he had to dress up and recite a nursery rhyme.  I was surprised when Jaron was so nervous leading up to this and all but refused to do it.  I finally talked him into it and he did great.  His nursery rhyme was Hickory Dickory Dock and I thought his clock shirt with a mouse on it was just perfect!



The girls and Jaron finished fall soccer.  They had a great season and had great coaches.  I'm so mad I didn't get a team picture of the girls team, their coach took one and never sent it.  Then Jaron started Jr Jazz.  He is by far the smallest player just from being young for Kindergarten and he's on the short side anyways.  But he had a great time and a great encouraging coach.  He was so excited he got to be #2, the same number as Joe Ingles on the Jazz.  I was so nervous he was never going to make a basket this season but he did a few times.  One time was when Grandma and Grandpa were there and they had brought cousin Landon.  Jaron was so excited he scored while they were there watching.



We had our annual trip to Gardner village to see the witches, always a fun day.  We actually completed the scavenger hunt this time and enjoyed a treat from the bakery afterwards.


We had crazy hair day at school.  Jaron was all about crazy hair day and pretty sure he had the brightest hair in all of kindergarten.  The girls are a bit more reserved but I was glad they at least wanted to participate.


I got to go with Jaron on his field trip to Hee Haw farms.  It was fun and he had a fun little group that we got to walk around with, go on slides, pet animals, corn maze, hay ride and picking a pumpkin.


I took the kids to Jakers pumpkin patch over fall break.  It was so fun and they had a blast.  We were there all afternoon and I had to drag them out of there because they didn't want to leave.  It helped that they ran into the girl's good friend Sorena.


We of course also had to go to our regular pumpkin patch per our tradition which is where we actually picked out our pumpkins.  It's always fun to do their maze, and hay ride.


Jaron has a sight word book full of different lists of sight words to pass off this year.  When he gets one list done, I sign my initials and he takes it to school to pass it off.  Well one day I was on the phone for work and he came in and asked me to sign it.  I told him to wait until I was done (I wanted to test him again before I signed it) and he kept asking and asking and I kept telling him to wait.  Next thing I knew he came in with the proudest smile on his face and proceeded to announce that he signed my initials for me!  So now I have a Kindergartner forger.  I can only imagine what this will be like when he's older.  And interestingly enough he did a really good job, even signing the G in cursive like I do.  He had to turn the page back one, memorize what it looked like and then do it from memory.  I was totally impressed and laughing so hard it made him mad and embarrassed.


This year for Halloween Jaron dressed up as Dash from Incredibles and Siena and Aria dressed up as Beanie Boo's.  I was happy Jaron picked out his own costume (sometimes he just goes along with what the girls like) and the girl's were cute as they were both different Beanie Boo's and had the matching stuffed animal Beanie Boo to carry around.  This year no one slowed them down and they came home with so much candy.  Shane took them around and I stayed home to pass out candy and it's so strange to me still that we have a full neighborhood of kids and we get about 30 trick or treaters.  No one comes down to our street and they all stay up in the streets that all connect further up the neighborhood.  Next year I think I'll just set candy out and go with them as it wasn't worth my time to answer the door for so few kids.

September 2018

September is always a busy month with birthdays and start of school activities.  This month was no different.

We started the month with a girls trip to Las Vegas.  It was for Jennifer's 50th birthday but since it was also my birthday it was all the better.  We started the weekend on Friday, my actual birthday, with breakfast at my parents.  Then we drove to Las Vegas, which went by so fast when we just talk and sing songs the whole time.  We stayed at this nice Marriott off the strip which was great.  That night we ate dinner at PF Changs and then had tickets to Michael Jackson One: Cirque de Soleil.  It was sooo good.  We were so stressed cuz we almost walked the entire strip trying to get from dinner to Mandalay Bay and walked in 2 minutes before it started.  As we walked in and tried to go to our nosebleed seats in the back corner, they told us we could move up and placed us in the front section center.  It was sooo great.  We were so excited and the show was incredible.  The next day we sat out by the pool, did some shopping and ate dinner at BJs Pizza.  Then it was home on Sunday but it was such a great and fun trip!



While I was in Vegas, Shane took the kids with Shad and family to Usana Ampitheatre to see Jurassic Park as the Utah Symphony played along.  They had fun and I was glad they liked the movie and weren't too scared.  Jaron made a little 'friend'


The next weekend I drove the kids up to Eagle, ID to visit the Pace's.  It was a fun weekend.  We went to downtown Boise one day, Brigitte and I got to go out to dinner one night and then we just hung out playing.  The kids always have such a fun time together and makes it an easy and fun weekend.



Jaron was star of the week in Kindergarten.  I got to go tell the class all about Jaron and then Shane got to be the Royal reader and go read Jaron's favorite story to the class.  He read 'The dog that cried Wolf'  aka known in our house as Moka.



Maybe the biggest event in our house this month was that Aria lost her first tooth.  She had been wiggling it a ton and had told me she was going to pull it out.  I didn't really believe her and actually had thought she would cry and be so scared when it came time for it to come out.  But sure enough she walked into the bathroom (I didn't even go in there cuz I didn't think it was loose enough to actually come out) and she walked out with the tooth in her hand!  She was so brave and so excited.  The tooth fairy came that night and gave her $5 for her first tooth.  Siena is very jealous and asks almost daily when she is going to get her first loose tooth.



My sister Lori was diagnosed this summer with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  Yes the exact same chemo I had 10 years ago.  Crazy...and they say it's not hereditary!  So I got to go with her to one of her chemo treatments.  She went to a different clinic but it was still weird to watch everything they did.  She got the same chemo regimen I got but only did 6 treatments instead of my 12 and didn't have to do any radiation.  They also found that if you take Claritin when you get your Neulasta shot that it reduces the bone pain...crazy how things have changed in just 10 years.



Speaking of 10 years...I hit my 10 year anniversary of being cancer free.  I decided to have a mini celebration one night.  I went and got some sugar cookies and celebrated with the kids.  I told them the whole story of how I had cancer, when I had it, how I lost my hair, etc.  They had never heard the story so it was good to tell them.

We got to go to a BYU Football game with Jennifer from tickets from her friend.  It was so fun to go to a game as it had been 5 years since I had been to a game and the first time taking the kids to a game.



Ridgeline also had Grandparents day.  I got to help in 1st grade and it's always fun that my parents live close and get to come and attend each year.