Evelyn's patriarchal blessing

 

Evelyn told me a couple of weeks ago that she's been randomly having the words, Patriarchal blessing, pop into her thoughts while thinking about other things.  She called and made the appointment to speak to the bishop and made an appointment with the Patriarch.  It was an honor to be there with her while she listened to direct counsel from her Heavenly Father.  I love this happy and joyful soul.  I look forward to watching her learn and grow. 

Evelyn and Sam's birthday's

Evelyn's birthday was on Bear Lake work week.  It's the week that all the cousins get together at the cabin to do upkeep, construction, demolition, etc... I'd just had surgery, so my parents took our kids and they painted the tree house.  They were marvelous workers and my parents were so grateful to have them there.

Sam made Evelyn special birthday brownies just as she requested.

The Young Women's group dropped off this birthday banner for Evelyn while she was gone.  They left it up for her until she was able to get home and see it in person.

Ada's strawberry plants are making cute little berries.

Sam turned 16 and passed his driving test with only 4 points off.  Happy birthday buddy!

Sam wanted steak and apple pie for dinner.  I made the pie the night before and we made steak the night of.  I'm so proud of both these growing teenagers. I love seeing the understanding in their eyes as they learn something new or think or a new point of view. 

My birthday, I was given an ice cream maker.  I love it.  I make dairy free, sugar free and protein packed ice cream.  Our newest two favorites are snickerdoodle and Seth especially likes root beer float flavor. Jer made strawberry out of Ada's strawberry patch. And Ada made Alexx chocolate for her birthday.

 

Ada's Birthday

My Fire Cadet is 17 years old.  I couldn't be more proud of her and the woman she's becoming.  She's working hard and getting to do things that most people don't. So as a celebration of her.... here's a couple of the things that 17-year-old her is up to....

She LOVES FBLA.  She and her friend, Alexx, are co-presidents of the club.  She's learning managerial skills as well as all the professionalism that the business world demands.  She cares about the quality of the work attached to her name and isn't afraid to learn new things to help her with her goals.  Along with organizing and completing presentations, service projects, concessions at sports games, and the school store, she and Alexx will also be running a kids finance club after school at Seth's school.

She's taking guitar, welding, Seminary, her internship, Calculus BC (which is really hard and she's putting in a lot of work), financial literacy, and AP Language.  Her internship and two AP classes take up most of her time.  

She works for my cousin, Tiffany, a couple days a week.  She picks up her 6th grader and hangs out with the 6th and 8th graders until Tiff gets home from work.  Sometimes they play games, sometimes they do homework, but they all love each other and I'm actually kind of excited about the next Bear Lake week we have together.  She also is licensed to be my daycare assistant on school breaks when needed.  

Ada got released as the YW's class president, which is nice while she's so busy, but she's still working on the Family History and Temple committee.  Sometimes she joins us to sing in choir and the choir director loves having a nice strong soprano with us. He's had her sing a couple of solos to accompany the choir too.  It's fun because he never asks me about it.... her just talks to her and arranges it with her (I'm the pianist).  That's when I know that she's getting on her own merits.

I love hearing Ada's more mature singing and piano.  She doesn't have a lot a time for them, but she's come into her mature voice.

She's loving her internship and I have a separate post about that.

Her best friends are Alexx, Rachel, Eleanor, Aubrey, Devin, Jimmy, Brenton, Donnovan, and of course far away cousins and friends like Rachel, Anya, Grace, Mariah, Hannah, Sage, Maisy and Wesley.

So, the Tarkington family came to town for their Fall Break.  Eli had his 17th birthday on the way out, and it was Aubrey Bingham's birthday too.... so, we got together for cake and Marg suggested that we go The Wild Robot movie.  It was very sweet, and I was in tears. We basically had the theater to ourselves, and it was fun.

Cute Cadet

Fire prevention activity with the city.

Ada's marvelous YW's leader (Rachel Libutti) asked if she could decorate "Ada's" car for her birthday.  It was so cute and I'm grateful for wonderful women like her that show their love for their neighbors. (I will serve her in turn... Her older daughter has recently decided that she likes singing time in Primary and says hi to me every time she's out walking her dog.)

I asked her if anyone honked at her.  She said that no one was out when she went to early morning seminary with Sam and Alexx, and because she had an FBLA meeting after school she missed most of the traffic.... but one person honked at her and scared Alexx to death on the way home from school.

 

Teenagers are hard

 

Teenagers are hard.  Not impossible and often they are delightful. Ada and Sam are my best friends, but watching them grow... make decisions... get hurt... make mistakes... learn... try again...is emotionally harder than watching them learning to walk, fall and try again. I have extreme anxiety, joy, pride, worry all at the same time. Here are some of their current activities though that are less of a roller coaster than the emotional side of things.

Sam got his bottom braces on.  He really struggles with taste/texture and smell.  Getting molds and the fun stuff required for teeth work is hard on him.  He did it.  He didn't move.  Then he came home and cried.  I'm sad and proud all at once.

Ada used her day off school to help support Daddy in his new calling as Elder's Quorum president. He needed to fill 3 spots for the meat packing facility that the church uses for the Bishops Storehouse.  Ada and Jer went with our neighbor, Brandon.  They boxed and helped package sausage.  Ada said she wouldn't eat meat for a little while.... that didn't last long.  Her outfit is throwback to how I dressed working in the clean room.

We have a busy house.  I don't let my kids have more than one pair of shoes out at a time.... These are their shoes, our friend's shoes and daycare shoes AFTER half the daycare has left already.  Janine keeps their shoes nice and lined up.... I don't.  

We got two new chairs off amazon.  I wasn't expecting them yet and they both showed up the same day.

My beautiful painter missed the canvas a little.  She walked around a whole day before I told her she had paint on her cheek.

random pictures

This week was our family dentist visits.  Only two cavities out of 6 people, so not too bad.

Evelyn came down for school with her cute dress and Darth Vader socks.  I said she looked adorable and she said that it's only because she couldn't find any pants to wear.

These were pictures of Minnetonka cave that were on the kid's phone. I just got to transferring all of Ada's UK pictures over and found these too. 

Tired teens that just want to be loved and snuggled like little kids.... It's a different kind of love, but oh so needed.

Ada went axe throwing with the YW while I attended a training class over zoom in my car.  

Ada took this picture of Seth and our neighbor, Collin Allen, while I was at the doctor's.  They're just so cute.