White Elephant Gift

We were all able to enjoy this White Elephant gift. These pics make me laugh.

Oh Syd

Oh Sydney....the things she says and does. Sometimes she just cracks me up. She seems to be in her own little world half the time. The other day after trying to discover where the bad odor was coming from she said,

"Mom, I've been wipin' and flushin' today! It's not me you smell."

That's a big accomplishment for Sydney.

It seems whenever Syd has the lesson for FHE she somehow comes up with a theme and starts out pretty good. We usually end up drawing a picture and before we know it we are all playing pretend as she continues to "be the teacher". She can go on and on forever if we let her. She can give a pretty good sermon if you listen long enough. Occasionally you just have to remind her we are real people and not just her imagination.

At church Sydney likes to "sing" the hymns in sacrament meeting. She likes me to whisper the words and then she can belt out those hymns....probably a little more "American Idolish" than should be sung in Sacrament Meeting. Last week her rendition of "God Be With You Til We Meet Again" got a few looks from the people around us. After the meeting the nice older man in front of us said he wanted to sit behind Sydney every week so he could listen to her beautiful singing.

I keep telling Syd that I will get her some books from the library that she can start reading. We finally went yesterday and she thought she was pretty big as we got home and the reading began. She did really well at sounding out the words. She likes a challenge and will work at something with determination until she figures it out. She has been packing the books around with her all day and has read most of the 10 books.

She had the same determination last year when she decided it was time to learn how to ride her bike without training wheels. I tried to help her but I had a hard time keeping up because I was so pregnant with JC. She had to wait for Scott's help. He helped her one time and then I saw her outside by herself working at it until she could ride without training wheels.

I love my little Syd!!

Syd and her BFF

Sydney loves her friend Chloe. I don't know where they would be without each other this year. It's nice to have someone to play with almost every day!!

When they were playing here the other day Sydney told Chloe to wait for just a second she had something to do. She ran downstairs and wrote the little BFF note on the bottom corner of this picture and gave it to Chloe. I thought it was too cute.

The "F" Word

Aubree came running out of the bathroom the other day yelling,

"Sydney said the "F" word, Sydney said the "F" word."

I was a little suprised but decided to inquire a little further. I asked Aubree what the "F" word was. She said, "Well, she didn't say the whole "F" word she said, "I just "Far...." "Tooted" in the bath."

I was relieved to hear that was the f word they were worried about. Funny kids!!

2 Years Later...

The other day I was at Brittanie's house helping her hang pictures in their home. Brittanie had to go and pick up her daughter from Kindergarten so I was you know, snooping around looking at her books. One caught my eye. It was her blog in book format!!!!

That was the reason I started this blog. I wanted to be able to publish my blog so I had a hard copy of everything I posted. Seeing that may have remotivated me to jump back onto the blog band wagon.....actually I think that wagon left and has turned into facebook but I think I'm still a blogger at heart. I don't get on facebook very often.....

Thank-you Brittanie for possibly inspiring me to keep a record of my family. We'll see how this goes. I couldn't even remember my blog's name or login info but I eventually figured it out.

Is this really happening....

I don't know if this is for real or not but I am actually posting something on my blog. I REALLY want to be more consistent.....we'll see if it happens.

Well, it's a reality. We spent our final day in South Ogden on February 17th, 2010. It's such an emotional experience to move. I had and still have such mixed feelings about it. It's hard to say good-bye to friends and life in general that is comfortable and going well. It's hard but also exciting to start over.

As we wrapped up our last few days in South Ogden we also spent time in Pleasant Grove getting our house ready to move into. First of all, I thought I could clean my new house in 2 days and be ready to move in......I was wrong. As soon as I started working (with Ann's help) the house grew and grew and grew. After hours of cleaning I hadn't even made a dent. That's when I decided I needed a little more help. I talked Ann, my Mom and Stacie into coming back on Monday to finish the cleaning. After working so hard all day on Monday on this big empty house all I wanted to do was "go home".

Monday evening back in South Ogden I wondered how I would ever call my new house "home." It's a nice house but it just didn't feel like home.

On Tuesday the movers showed up and started packing us. I couldn't believe how fast they were. They had the entire house boxed up by about 3 pm. I just asked them to leave our beds with bedding so we could sleep in them that night. On Wednesday the movers loaded everything into the moving truck and I cleaned the house. By about 4 they had it loaded and I had the house cleaned and ready to show for any interested buyers. I was exhausted.

With tears streaming down my face I closed the door to my home and said good-bye. I cried about for about the first half of the drive to my new house. The thing I was most excited about was I could actually be with Scott every day again. We had an old mattress that we brought the week before so we would have something to sleep on and the girls sleeping bags. We spread out in the master bedroom and spent the night.

The movers showed up bright and early Thursday to unload our stuff. I couldn't believe how many boxes kept coming out of that truck. I thought they would never finish but eventually they did. I immediately started unpacking the kitchen.

Here's Aubree and I after emptying about 2 boxes. The work was just beginning.

This is how we found Sydney. She just couldn't take anymore excitement.

So, this starts the next chapter in our lives. I loved the previous chapter but can't wait to see what lies ahead.

She's Got Moves...

Aubree started AYSO soccer this year and it has been so much fun for me to go and cheer for her. She was a little anxious before the first game and didn't want to leave the house but once she got there she realized she could do.

She's even pretty good. I think she scored 4 goals her first game. I was proud and yelling and cheering....I just couldn't help myself. I was pretty proud of her. During her second game one of the girls that wasn't there the game before came and pretty much stole the show. I was a little disappointed because no other kid ever really got to touch the ball.

After the second game she asked me if they won and I said yah, your team probably made more goals. I thought she might be disappointed that she never really got to touch the ball but she didn't care as long as they won and she got a cool snack at the end.

I hoped her next game would be a little better. I tried to tell her to get in there and kick the ball. Well, since the other team only had 2 players we played 2 on 2 so I knew at some point Aubree would get to the ball (at least when the one little girl was sitting out). She was more aggressive and even scored a few goals with the "Star" player. I was proud.

As Aubree was talking to us during one of the breaks, Scott, the wise parent, told Aubree to kick the ball to Addy, a cute little girl who hadn't scored a goal yet this year. Well, believe it or not Aubree actually listened.

After getting the ball down near the goal she kicked it to her less aggressive teammate and let her kick the ball in the goal. I was really proud of her and a little amazed she actually listened. I think I was more proud of her for helping her teammate out than actually scoring her goals.

I was shocked as I watched Aubree doing the following moves. I think she must have learned them from Elliot (the 8 year old neighbor) because I don't really know anything about soccer and these looked like real moves to me.

GO AUBREE!!!