Christmas Dinner at Denny’s

Yep that’s right no cooking for me this year.  Was dinner fabulous?  It was, only if you are talking about the fact that my entire family was together, including my mom.  The food was…..a means to fulfill a need.  It was 9pm on Christmas night and not a one of us had eaten since noon.  We left our house shortly after lunch yesterday and headed to Washington D.C. to attend the Festival of Lights at the LDS Temple visitor’s center. 

What a wondrous night it was.  When we arrived at 4:28pm, as Rodi had predicted to JJ earlier while driving on the beltway, it was still light outside and we were able to walk the grounds  and take some pictures.  My mom had never seen the DC temple before and she was amazed at how beautiful it was.  We have seen it many times and yet every time we see it we too are amazed at how beautiful it is.

While we were walking the grounds Bubs kept looking at his watch.  I couldn’t quite figure out why.  Shortly I figured it out.  JJ and Bubs were trying to do a countdown to the lighting of the grounds.  They had been told that they would be turning on the lights at 5pm.  Their countdown was just a bit off but it really was neat to be outside and see the lights all turn on.

Once we were done walking the grounds we headed back into the visitor’s center.  There was a beautiful photography show called “Reflections of Christ“.  What an amazing grouping of photos.  My favorite was a series of 3 pictures of Joseph, Mary, and Baby Jesus. 

We followed the photo’s with a viewing of  the movie The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd  I was glad I remembered to grab some tissue before the movie started.  I always cry near the end of this movie, no matter how many times I have seen it.  I must be my mother’s daughter though because she was in tears as well.

After the movie it was time to stand in line for the  musical performance in the auditorium.  The line was long but well worth the wait.  The music was spectacular.  There were 8 Sister Missionaries performing and they sounded like angels.

As we headed to the van for our return trip home we passed by the live Nativity scene where Joseph and Mary were with baby Jesus, and Moe said    “…I miss you Jesus”.   And yes, I cried.

It was a full afternoon and evening filled with the wondrous spirit of  the Gospel.  I couldn’t think of a better way to spend Christmas.  The kids had their fun opening their gifts in the morning and then eating their traditional cinnamon roll breakfast.  But the magic of the day really happened when we were at the Temple and their focus of the day was Christ, the true gift of Christmas.

After a day like that a holiday dinner at Denny’s and it’s not so holiday feel, didn’t phase me at all.  I had just spent the most beautiful day with my family and we were blessed to find a place to sit and enjoy a dinner from some place other than an open 7/11. 

And I’d do it all over again.

The Mock Meet

The girls gym held a Mock Meet where they had the head judges for our area come to the gym and score our grils on each of the events.  This was even better than a meet because after each girl completed their routine they were able to go to the judges table and get FEEDBACK!  This will never be the case at a meet, so it was truly a wonderful thing for the girls.  Now the girls know exactly what they need to improve on to get even better scores.

Here are a couple of Pictures of the girls on the beam warming up.  Mind you these are really grainy pictures, don’t ask how, but I forgot my camera and was stuck with my camera phone….ughhh

 

They had a great day.  JJ’s high score of the day came on beam where she received a 9.0

Nina’s high score was on the vault where she scored an 8.5

Way To Go Girls!!!!!

 

I am going to have a “photo shoot” later this week with the girls in their competition leos.  I will post those pics as soon as I can.

What a week it was

Last week was very eventful.  Yes there was the typical Rodi schedule of:

Monday: 4 hour gymnastic practice (the girls)

Tuesday: 1 hour gymnastics class (Moe),1 hour swim team practice (Bubs)

Wednesday: 4 hour gymnastics practice (the girls), 1 hour gymnastics class (Bubs), Scouts (Bubs)

Thursday1 hour swim team practice (Bubs)

Friday1 1/2 hour swim team practice (Bubs)

Saturday 4 hour gymnastics practice (the girls)

Now add to that….

My Grandma being sent to the hospital 2 times last week via ambulance.  She was had more than one heart attack last week *sigh* ( I am very happy to say that she is back home now and for that I am soooo Thankful!) 

At the same time my Grandma was at the hospital a dear friend of mine here needed my help as her husband ended up in the ER for severe stomach pain.  Of course I was there for her without batting an eye and ended up on with 6 kids in my house on Wednesday.   I love her kids and so it wasn’t a bad thing. Just a lot of kids in one house *grin*  Her hubby is doing better and though he is still in discomfort (he tore something in his stomach) he is on the road to recovery. 

Thursday night there was a meeting for the swim team parents during practice and wow was it a BORING meeting!

Friday night Bubs had to miss swim team to attend a Scout camp-out.  Now neither I or Rodi had to attend but getting Bubs ready for the camp-out was a chore in and of itself.  He had a blast and is still trying to catch up on missed sleep

On top of all that there was the constant  watch on IKE he was headed right at my SIL and her family.  They are all fine and took shelter at my SIL’s MIL’s house.  My SIL’s house however isn’t so great.  Three trees fell.  One of the trees landed a mere foot from where my niece Miss. Z (everyone needs a nickname *smile*) would have been sleeping if they had been home.  Needless to say they will not be able to stay in their own home for a while.  Our prayers are with them.

Moe LOVES hand-me-downs!

A friend who works with Rodi (Farmer, as they call him at work) has a son a couple of years older than Moe.  Recently he gave some clothes to Moe.  Moe was beyond joyful about receiving such a gift.  Last night Rodi brought home 2 bags of more treasure for Moe.  It was like someone plugged in the Christmas tree and said Santa had been here.  I kid you not, Moe was beyond excited about each and every shirt, shoe, pair of jeans etc… that he pulled from those bags.  So much so that I HAD to get out the camera so I could share this moment with all of you.

 

Almost

He wanted these sneakers to fit so bad.  We were headed out to the store a few minutes after his gift extravaganza was over and WOW was it hard to get him to wear the shoes that FIT him.

Oh Yeah!

 

  Some shorts that FIT now!  He was more than thrilled about these.  He even wore them to the store.

 

They really fit I promise

 

He was so funny after he held up the, obviously too big jeans,  to himself, he walked around the room holding them up to each of us.  He would say… “doesn’t fit you”  Then he walked over to his pile and while tossing the jeans back into the pile he stated “Guess I’ll have to keep them”.  It was too funny.

 

The winning photo of the night….

When all was said and done he picked out quite the outfit to model for all of us.  We all laughed and then quickly found him something else to wear to the store.

Stud Muffin jr. They say I take after my dad *grin*

Updated Header

I was looking at the header on our site last night and realized that it needed to be updated.  It is amazing how much the kids change in a year.  The pictures of the kids were all taken today so they are very up to date.  The pic of Rodi and I however was taken this past winter.  I am not sure why but we are hardly ever in the pictures.  Well I know why I am not in them…. I am taking them!  Not sure what Rodi’s excuse is.  Oh, maybe that he is never home.

School has gotten off to a good start so far.  No one has threatened to throw books at me or out the window yet.  You laugh but last year several papers were found floating in the pool….hmmm wonder how that happened????

This morning JJ woke up with an ugly red spider bite on her arm.  Poor thing was in some serious pain too.  So while Bubs stayed here doing school work with the other 2 (not to his delight), JJ and I went to see the doc..  She did her History work on the way and read her novel for lit. class in the room while we waited for the doctor.  I was not about to give up an entire day of classes for a spider bite.  Oh and yes she was deemed to be A Okay. 

He said I was going to be good as new in no time!

After a few days off from the gym (for the labor day break) we are back to class again.  12 hours a week for the girls and 1 hour a week for Moe.  Bubs is thinking he wants to give swimming a try.  We shall see how that goes.  I am just worried that when Rodi deploys again next year that I will have to hire a driver just to help with the logistics of these activities.  Oh well, one day at a time I guess.

“My BEST FRIEND”

Moe has more “Best Friends” than any kid I know.  This past week though he made me laugh, when he was crying sobbing about his best friends moving away.  Who were his friends that he was going to miss so terribly?

Farewell

Okay I know it is a bad picture, but what might just be worse than the picture is that my 3 year old has livestock for “Best Friends”.

Jasper and Whisper are not on their way to a nearby dinner plate incase you were wondering.  They are going to greener pastures in Iowa, at my in-laws.  We had a terrible drought last year and times were tough here for 6 Zebu trying to graze.  So we shipped 2 of them off leaving us with 4 very jealous Zebu.  I know Molly would LOVE to see all the green grass Jasper and Whisper are munching on.  She almost got to go instead of Whisper but she is just too far along in her pregnancy to travel that far.

One more MOEment to share with you…..

I was riding the ol’ John Deere doing what I thought was a fine job of mowing cutting the lawn.  Until I looked yonder and saw my lil’ Moe with his saw (plastic of course) cutting some stray pieces that John couldn’t quite handle.

40 minutes….

until the FIRST DAY of SCHOOL.  I am praying that I am prepared.  I spent weeks setting up the schedule hoping to make things go as smoothly as possible.  I guess the first day for the kids is more like a final exam for me.

Bubs is making pancakes while the girls change their clothes for the day.  Moe is GRUMPY this morning.  I am hoping he gets over that quickly.  He will be doing some school work today too, the letter A. 

I will let you all know how it goes.

My Tree Overfloweth

So I decided to dust off the genealogy files yesterday and dabble a bit online. I wanted to see if I could find any missing branches.   I had NO IDEA what I would discover in those few minutes.  On my mother’s side I have only been able to go back 4 generations for the past 11 years.  Yesterday I found the equivalent to sunken treasure.  I was on the site www.familysearch.organd I found HUNDREDS of people who are supposed to be livin’ in my crazy tree.  Here is the greatest part, my grandma (a tiny, spunky little lady), has always claimed Scottish royal blood but never knew who it was.  I FOUND IT!  Okay so think bad guy in Braveheart.  Yep Robert I “The Bruce” King of Scotland.  Since Royal lines are usually well documented I was able to go WAY back on this line.  Let me tell ya, there are tons of royal roots feeding my tree.  Here are just a few: 

Imma Duchess Of SWABIA  born Abt 0736  Of, Aachen, Rhineland, Prussia

William I “The Lion” King Of SCOTLAND born 1143

Robert I “The Bruce” King Of SCOTLAND born 11 Jul 1274 Writtle, Near Chelmsford, Essex, England

Charlemagne Emperor Of The HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE  born 2 Apr 0742 Aix La Chapelle, Austrasia

Charles King Of PROVENCE born  Abt 0828 Alsace-Lorraine, France

Charibert I King Of PARIS born 0520 Of, Paris, France

Ida Princess Of Lower LORRAINE born Abt 1106 Of Brabant, Netherlands

And there are TONS more.  I found my self giggling when I saw the link to Charlemange.  if you knew my grandma I think you would giggle too.

Looking Up

Tonight was the evaluation for the girls at the new gym.  THEY LOVED IT!  I was so excited to see that what I thought was going to be just okay for them turned out to be a fantastic experience.

JJ made an immediate friend and Nina was chatty with all the girls (some might say she takes after her mother, I don’t know why *grin*).

The girls did good, even though there were skills that they hadn’t learned yet.  What the gym lacks in “bling” they make up for in the individual attention they are able to give to the girls.

Bubs was able to show his abilities to the boys coach for a few minutesm which was a pleasant surprise that we hadn’t planned on.  Moe of course found his way to the bars and wanted to show what he could do as well.

All in all it was a great night and I am really not all that sad we had to walk away from the other gym.

 

Priceless

Competitive leotard, warm-up suit and personalized gym bag….. a lot of $$$

Fees for 12 hours a week of gym time…. even more than you can imagine $$$

Gas to get to gym 30 minutes away several times a week…. I don’t even want to think about it

Watching JJ’s face when she heard that this fall there may be mandatory practices on Sunday and if not at level 4 then definately when she gets to a higher level…..PAINFUL

Hearing her say she needed to walk away from this FANTASTIC gym with amazing coaches due to that Sunday practice….. PRICELESS!

 

We signed all the paperwork for the parents association, brought her to her first official 4 hour TEAM practice, and then found out that there would at some point be mandatory regular Sunday practices.  I was NOT prepared for that one.  I had a feeling I would have to find a way to deal with meets on Sunday, but I never thought that there would be practices on Sunday.  Maybe that is my simple mind living in my “keep the Sabbath Day Holy” world.  It really was painful to see the hurt in her eyes when I asked her if she still wanted to be on team if she found out that there would be practices that she HAD to attend on Sunday.  You could see the hurt pouring out of her eyes in a steady flow as this was something she REALLY wanted.  Yet, in a nano-second she replied, “I will have to quit”.  She didn’t want to wait and see if it was going to happen while she was in level 4 to make her decision.  She knew that at some point in time if she stayed with this gym she would be asked to make this choice and she decided to walk away.

Rodi and I quickly made calls and found another gym, smaller & maybe not as great, but there are NO Sunday practices and not all meets are mandatory so if there is a meet that falls on a Sunday she still has an option to opt out.  The girls start tomorrow and the boys begin next week.  We could have kept the other kids at the gym we were already going to as Sunday’s would not be a factor for them (yet) but we figured that would be hard on JJ.

This was a HUGE choice for her and we are THRILLED with the choice she made with out hesitation.

Priceless, simply Priceless