Oct 14-18, Muffins, Mud, Flag Football, Speedwork, Fall, a Big Scary Dog, and Sewing

Oct 14 - There was no school today because it was a teacher's work day.  Sofia and Ally had stayed the night after the concert and the Allen's came over at around 11:30am to help make loads of muffins to freeze for lunches and to decorate pumpkins.  We made 3 kinds of muffins:  Chocolate zucchini, banana, and pumpkin chocolate chip.


Meagan's pumpkin and Wilohm and Ally's pumpkins.


Oct 15 - Today was supposed to be a really bad stormy day, leading into some worse days, so I had the kids help clear out all the rotting tomatoes.  There was literally over 1000 green and rotten tomatoes.




Dantley's flag football game was the only event that wasn't cancelled and it was at Prairie High School.  He was supposed to have a double header, but the second team forfeited because of the weather so they only played their first game.   The kid in the blue shorts was super fast and kept pulling our team's flags, so during half time I told Dantley to block him.  He listened to me and went straight for that kid, which allowed his team to run the ball and get a touchdown.




I had to get a picture of the beautiful leaves before the rain and wind knock them off and blow them away.

Oct 17 - Today was a hard day of speed work at XC practice.  I took pictures between sets to help me keep track of how many they had done.  I was in charge of the JV as they did ten 200 repeats.  The varsity did various distances.




Tasha snapped this picture with her phone on our drive home.


A lady I visit teach had surgery on her wrist recently and I was asked just today if I could bring her a meal.  I said I could, but when I got there nobody was home and this giant dog came barking around the corner and scared me to death as I was standing on the porch holding a tray of food.  I quickly tried the door to see if I could get in and it was locked.  I thought the dog would smell my fear and attack me, but luckily I got up enough guts to try talking nicely to it and when it got close to me it sniffed the food and stopped barking.  I made it back to the van and tried to get ahold of the family to see what to do.  I needed to get Tasha and Thurston to their various basketball practices so I didn't have a lot of time.  I ended up needing to go back and just put the dinner in a wooden box on the porch.  This time I brought Thurston with me and a pocket full of dog biscuits.  When we got there the dog was no where to be seen but we could hear it start to bellow in the distance as we headed back to the van to get in.  It came around the corner right as we were getting in.  Thurston wasn't scared of it, he just said how pretty it was.

Oct 18 - Tamsyn has been sewing on Tuesdays with Vione.  She learned how to put a zipper in this week.  She is almost finished with her fleece hoodie.



This was the view at Dantley's flag football practice today.

Oct 13 - Maroon 5 Concert

I bought tickets to this concert almost a year ago, so I was super happy when it turned out to be on a Thursday night before a teacher's work day, so there was no school the following day and we lucked out that there was no xc meet that day either.

At first I thought I would take both Natasha and Tamsyn to this concert but then I started realizing that the music and the opening band would be way too mature for Tamsyn.  I'm glad I decided not to take her because there was quite a bit of bad language.  Natasha invited her friends Ally England and Sofia Clinton to go.  We had so much fun singing along with Maroon 5.  The two opening acts were definitely not our favorites though.

Right after we snapped this picture an usher came and chewed us out for having our feet on the backs of the seats.




We got there plenty early because I wanted to find a free parking spot (which I did) and I always worry about getting lost or something.  The girls had time to go buy T-shirts and some food before the concert started.  The first opening group was called Phases.  I didn't mind them, but couldn't see much.



The featured opening act was Tove Lo and she was just plain raunchy.  I had heard radio versions of a couple of her songs and wished that was the way she performed it because the real version was plain disgusting.





Finally Maroon 5 came on stage.  We knew almost all of the songs and enjoyed the performance.  The girls sang along and stood and danced.  I think they had a great time.

Oct 10 - Oct 12 HS Spirit Week, Costume Prep and Powder Puff Game

Oct 10 - The high school Homecoming football game is this Friday so it is spirit week at school.  Today was pajama day.



Oct 11- I made 3 pairs of bell-bottoms for our family costumes today, plus I have been adding details on the boys jackets and vests.



The boys tried theirs on to see how they are coming along.  Just a few more details on each and they will be ready to go.


Trying to get this Sia bow to work for Tamsyn's costume hasn't been easy.  I have had to redo it several times and I am still worried it won't stay up like I want it to on the top of her head along with a witch hat.


Oct 12 - White day for freshman.  That is the color their assigned for the powder puff game.

 After Natasha's league meet she got back in plenty of time to play in the powder puff game.  She pretty much only played defense because someone had told one of the boys who was coaching that she couldn't catch a football.  It was ok though,  because it meant less chance for her to get hurt... even though she can catch.

I think the following day was retro day.


October 13th - The power went out at all the La Center schools, so Tamsyn got to spend extra time in choir.  Which made her happy.  She really enjoys that class and it was the last day of their student teacher from Germany so they got a little extra time with her as well as some time to play piano duets in the dark.



The weather forecast for this weekend is really bad with high winds and lots of power outages are expected.  The football homecoming game wasn't cancelled but the homecoming dance was postponed a week and the xc team decided not to make the drive to their scheduled meet - George Fox, which was disappointing to Natasha because they give out t-shirts to top finishers at that meet and she really wanted one.  Thurston's soccer game was cancelled as well.  It worked out for our family though because Jake got a call on Friday night from a recruiter to see if he could interview the next day.  If I had been at the meet and he had had to take the boys to all their games it would have been difficult for him to have that interview.  The interview went very well and the by that evening he had a verbal offer.  We have been praying that he could find a new job somewhere local so this was a definite blessing, as the company is based in Vancouver.
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A couple other stories I wanted to get written down so I don't forget them:

In August when I was reading the book of Mormon, I spent a lot of time listening to it in the car because I spend a lot of time driving kids all around. I shared this in a FB message with my group of friends that were also reading the Book of Mormon this month with me.

A little story for you ladies -- Today I was driving Dantley to La Center to ride with a friend to his first Flag Football practice and I was listening to scriptures the entire drive. He was quiet the whole way until I pulled into our friend's driveway and he said -"I have tears but I'm not sad." I asked if he was listening to the scriptures and he said yes :) (We were listening to the part in Mosiah when Abinadi is teaching about Jesus.) I realized later that I should have taken the time right then to explain to him that when he feels those happy tears well up when reading or listening about Jesus that it is the spirit. I love how little children are so sensitive to the spirit --I need to work on being more like them.

The next day I asked him to tell Jake about his experience and he told him about the tears and not feeling sad, so both Jake and I had the opportunity to explain to him that he had felt the spirit and talk a little more about those feelings and what they mean.
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A couple weeks ago during sacrament meeting Tamsyn looked at me and asked if it was the 7th day.  I thought she was referring to the number of the days of the week and if Sunday was the 7th or 1st day, but she quickly corrected me and explained that she meant the days of the creation not the days of the week.  She wanted to know what day of the creation it was.  Are we in the 6th day or the 7th day or is there and 8th day?  I told her that I ask that question all the time, especially when I'm in the temple, but no one has ever given me a good answer so I didn't really know.  I also told her that I had never even thought of it until I was an adult and that it amazes me how she already thinks of those kinds of things.
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One Sunday Natasha was running late for church.  Everyone else was out in the van waiting and I was getting after her to hurry up.  She was looking for her black boots but couldn't find them anywhere.  I started to help her look and couldn't find them and then started to get angry with her that she hadn't had them ready sooner.  Finally I said she just needed to wear some other shoes because we had to go.  I was not very patient with her.  She finally agreed to wear some sandals instead and we headed out to the van.  When we got in she said "there my boots are."  Tamsyn had them on.  Natasha stayed calm and climbed into the back of the van and didn't really say much more.  I was so impressed that she didn't get angry or anything.  I know I would have probably screamed and yelled and made her take them off.  But Natasha didn't, she was an example of peacemaker to everyone that day.
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