Too much time with mom?

So, I was beginning to wonder if it's obvious that my kids' dad works out of town and maybe my boys have been spending a little too much time with their mom??? Taran does make a cute princess though!

puppet show

The other day the kids put on a puppet show for Joe and I, it was so cute. Here they are, they did great letting Kyler try to help also.

Valentines Parties

Somehow, I have ended up as the room mother for both Joely and Taran. For Joely the Halloween party turned out my favorite so far and for Taran it was definatly the Valentines party.

For Tarans class we divided the class into two teams, purple and red. They each had a wrist band that matched there teams color (at the end of each relay they got a sticker to put on there wristband, regardless of winning or loosing)
The first game we played was having two big cutout hearts per team...you place a heart on the ground, step on it and move your other heart in front of you to step on, trying to make it to the other side of the rug. For kindergartners, this took much more coordination then I thought, but they LOVED it.
Next we did my favorite (most of the pictures are of this relay). The night before the party the kids and I cut out millions of little tissue paper hearts. Seriously we spent a couple of hours doing this! For the relay I scattered tissue hearts everywhere in the classroom. Then each kids got a balloon. they had to rub the balloon on there hair to create static electricity, then use their 'charged' up balloons to pick up the hearts. They then brought the hearts over and stacked them in a pile with there teams hearts. This game was SUCH a BLAST! Sure it was totally messy, but man was it fun the kids couldn't contain there excitement! I will remember to do his one again!
We did a couple other relays and made a craft and had a snack, as usual I planned to do too much and we didn't have time to complete everything I wanted too (darn those short days!)
Next I went to Joelys class where we played Bingo, made a magnet out of fun foam, glitter, buttons and other stuff. We played another fast game and had treats....once again not enough time.
The day went great, but I must say I'll never be a room mom for two classes at once again...it's SO much prep work!

'Brace Face' cupcakes

What better way to celebrate new braces then matching cupcakes! Don't they look just like Joely? We made little cupcakes complete with little candy brackets to bring to Joely's 3rd grade class tomorrow. I'm sure her braces will now be a big hit with the whole class.

Joely gets braces!

This morning Joely got braces on! She was pretty excited about it. Two days ago she went in for some spacers, and her mouth has been sore since, so I hope she does well! She was so excited to choose the color of the bands, she new she was going to pick red and pink, and made sure she wore a coordinating shirt to the orthodontist today! Parents aren't allowed in the back area, but I asked if I could sneak back and get some pictures of the big day. Her before picture is right outside of the office, then some of her getting braces, and finally after with her new TIN GRIN!

Yeah for Joely

Joely received a certificate from the Bishop for memorizing all the 13 Articles of Faith! Way to go Joely!

Pine Valley Snow

After going to church and enjoying the best Sunday nap, we took the family up to Pine Valley to check out the snow! There were some really deep spots. The kids were having fun and of course freezing to death, because we surely don't have the right winter stuff for hanging out in the snow! I just love Sunday drives, and spending time with the family.

Tye Dye

Today we had Sarah come over to tye dye some shirts with us, and I must say they turned out awesome. We needed some little elementary hippies ;)

Feeling blessed....

Needless to say, if you read this you'll see why I decided not to post this when it happened. But, as it turned out Joel called me and left me crying thinking about what happened in our family a couple of weeks ago...

A couple weeks ago Joel and I were in SLC with our family to check out the Draper temple open house. On Sunday we went to church with Joels sister, after we came back to her apartment to visit her and later have dinner. As we were getting ready to leave the kids were acting up, begging to stay and play longer. (Lets face it, we were staying in a motel and it was a Sunday, of course they wanted to stay) I on the other hand was ready to get out of my church clothes, we had been there for hours! Well, Cheri starts telling us we should just go to a movie and let the kids play. We said no, but now the kids were all agreeing and Cheri wanted them to stay...so needless to say, we agreed.

Cheri told us she would be gone for a half hour while she went to a baptism fireside, but she has teenage daughters, so it would be no big deal.

We left, drove up to our motel to change (on the other side of the valley) and decided on a movie. We drove to the theater (Yes, I already know it was a Sunday...and I have enough guilt about that) and went in. Joel decided to call and check on the kids while the previews were playing...but no one answered. He continued to call, same thing. Finally Austin (9yr old nephew) calls us back.

Joel asked why they never picked up the phone. Austin casually answers "Because we were looking for Kyler" Joel asked to talk to Kelsy and find out what the heck Austin was talking about. Kelsy gets on the phone and also rather casually mentions that they are looking for Kyler, and the neighbors are helping.

At this point Joel jumps out of his seat, and starts yelling "What the heck is going on" he is also running out of the theater, and I am following him. He starts shouting questions like 'Are you serious, you cant find Kyler' Now we are both running at adrenline pumped speed to our car, which is parked SOOO far away. We get in, and start speeding towards Bangitor highway, running stop lights and anything in our way. At this point I am hysterical.

Joel is on the phone still with Kelsi, and ask's if they have called 911 yet, they say no. I yell at Joel to get there address and phone number so I can call.

As a side note, my car says it is 21 degrees outside, there is snow everywhere, and it's compeletly dark out. Cheri lives way down by the point of the mountain, and we are at least 20 minutes away.

I call 911, and give them the information I have, they ask some questions about the apartment, of course I cant answer anything because I have only been there once. Franticly I just start saying just send police there, we are from out of town, just send the police there now! ( I hope to never hear what I must have sounded like on that call, I know it must have been pretty bad because, they put some councilor on a second line just to try and calm me...fat chance of that happening)

Somehow, and I'm fuzzy on this, I must have been done talking to 911 and had to call them back again, because about 10 minutes later I was back on the phone with them. We were still driving. The police told us they had a little boy in custody, and would stay at the apartments with him. I was realived they got there so fast, but we were still a wreck.

We continue to drive to Cheri's, knowing that the kids must be relived being there with Kyler and the police.

We get to Cheri's and we see people outside walking around and NO POLICE! Instantly I become hysterical again, wondering how there could have been such a huge misunderstanding. Joel runs into Cheri's to ask if they have Kyler yet, and I get on the phone with 911 again. I must have sounded so crazy as I start yelling, 'you said you ahd our boy, you said you would be here, but no body is here. Where is the poilce, why isn't anybody here.' I was completely freaking out!

They told us we needed to go to a certain apartment building and knock on door G101. That's all we know, so we go looking for G101, it's about a 1/2 block to a block away.
We knock on the door and a young family with 3 young boys answer, and there is Kyler. I start crying the mom starts crying, Joel and the other dad start crying. It was so emotional. I was so greatful that he was alive, wondering how long he had been outside..assuming he had been missing for 20-30 minutes.

I ask them what happened, so that we could hear her story, and she starts out with "Well we found him about an hour and a half ago" I didn't think we could break down any more, but we did! I swear my world just came unglued...and hour and a half thats about how long we had been gone! Nobody noticed he was gone until about 5 minutes before we started calling!

They continued with there story, saying how they were all supposed to go somewhere, but the husband decided to go by himself so the rest of the family could stay and watch a movie, however there 3 year old wanted to play in his room (which had the only window in the apartment building that faced where Kyler was found)

The dad left, and a little later, the little boy came out and told his mom that there was a little boy outside crying. The mom goes out and Kyler was at the edge of a parking lot by a little fence (the snow was to the top of it) trying to get over (there is nothing but a straight drop off and snow for along time on the other side, these apartments are in a very rural part of Bluffdale) Kyler was crying and pointing over the little fence yelling for daddy.

The mom picked up Kyler and started walking aroung the apartments, expecting a mom or dad to come running down the road looking for him any moment....but no one comes. So she took Kyler in her house and calls the police department, they come over. Of course someone will call the police station soon, with a report of a lost child...but it never happens. Kyler was still dressed in his church clothes, so they decide to take a chance and call the Bishop to see if he recognizes Kyler, he doesn't. But he then calls the Primary president to come over, who then calls the Nursery leaders to come over. Desperately, they were hopping someone may just recognize him, someone remembers seeing him in church, but doesn't know who he belonged too. (Remember, we went to Cheri's ward that day)

Finally over an hour later 911 gets a fanatic call from me about a lost boy. We arrive an hour and a half after the fact...I don't think I will ever be able to wrap my head around that one.

We figure if Kyler was walking straight to that point, it would have taken him about 15 minutes...in the freezing cold. That's assuming he made a straight walk there, and the little boy instantly saw him outside.

The sickening feeling Joel and I had was unexplainable. As we drove to the motel Joel said I think we need to say a long prayer, because we have surely been blessed tonight! No one can ever say that blessing and miracles don't happen, because we have been at the receiving end! (Hard to type when I'm crying)

Joel and I couldn't sleep that night, one of us would randomly say things like "You know we should be out looking for him right now" or "I can't believe we have our whole family with us!" Joel later told me how all he could think of was the dad who left his 2 year old asleep in the truck while he went hunting and they found him a half a mile away in the snow dead...and that all happened in shorter time then our 1 1/2 hour time. We truly were blessed.

I don't think I can talk much more about our feelings that night. Some of those feelings however were resurfaced tonight as Cheri called Joel to come and fix her car at her apartment. He told her "I just don't think I can go back down there again" But he did, and after he left he told me how he drove to were they found Kyler and just cried because of how lucky we were and what could have been. He told me that he doesn't want to go to Cheri's apartments building again, it was just to hard...I don't think I could go there.

In case I don't say it enough, I love my family. I am grateful for my husband and each one of my children!

Happy Groundhogs Day!

Stress!

I am stressing about Food Storage! I wonder if everybody is feeling the same feeling I am, that the economy is getting worse, and who knows just how bad it's actually going to get. I just can't seem to shake the feeling that I need to collect more food storage, I worry that we will actually be using it soon, not just collecting it, but relying on it! Doesn't that thought just scare you? I know it does me! I hope to be just overly concerned, but then again I think I have talked to 6 people just today about food storage, and I only brought it up to one person, the other 5 times it was brought up to me! Maybe it's on all of our minds right now!