Honor Band

So, once a year all of the upper jr high and high school bands send their highest bands to be part of the Honor band.  Sam was flabbergasted.  He loved that there were 11 flutes instead of 2. They sounded amazing. They practiced all day Friday and all morning Saturday. I was the only one available to go, but I enjoyed it. 

 

Birthday Momma

My wonderful Momma invited me to go with her, my dad, Seth, Janelle and Uncle Reid to breakfast for her birthday.  It was so fun and I very much enjoyed it. Seth wanted to give my mom a swimming suit for her birthday.  Sam wanted to make her a pie.... I went with Ada's idea, but I still need to give it to my mom.

 

last couple of weeks

It was warm and so Jer and I took his lunch break and rode our bikes out to check on the Lindon temple.  It's got the weathering up. 

Baum's Christmas trees.

Seth and Evelyn

Evelyn and Ada

Evelyn's almost ready for braces.  I'm glad they pulled some teeth last time.  The adult teeth used to be growing into the roots of the front adult teeth.... they were worried that they would cause damage. Looking much better now.  Might not have to do braces, but might have to do a spacer.

Seth's class made different kinds of indian homes. 

Ada has been working hard the last couple of weeks.  She joined FBLA at school.... Future Business Leaders of America.  Her club has about 20-30 people in it.  The just did Regional competitions.  She presented 3 group presentations and took 3 tests.  She got 5 rewards.  She got 1st place for one of them, 3rd for 2 of them and 5th place for 2.   All her hard work paid off.  Next is State.  For state they can either perfect what they presented or they can choose a new thing to present on. If they get in the top 10 for state, they will get their travel expenses paid to go to Nationals.  That's what Ada's hoping for.

After a false start (The first time we went to get a tree, they had just closed.... then we were sick for a week), we were able to find a very pretty tree in a pretty fast time.

My Mom invited us over to make wreaths with her.  It was fun.  It reminded me of all the toll painting and hot glue crafts that we used to make. My mom is a maker and I love it.

For Primary on Sunday, I brought my bells.  We were practicing for the ward party this Saturday.  Turns out that the song that we were going to go wasn't in the same key as the music for the bells, so I dug up new bell music and we're going to be playing Silent Night. 

The cats like that these mat tiles aren't as cold as the cement.  It's pretty funny.

Evelyn's friend, Maylee invited Evelyn to the Salt Lake City Hale Center Theater to watch The Christmas Carol.  She loved it, and loved being with her friend.

I think Seth's pants are beyond my fixing.  The crotch and both knees are just hashed.

Seth has started taking almost daily naps under the Christmas tree.  I love it.  He curls up by the heating vent with a book and just falls asleep.

 

pictures off my camera for the fall

I don't pull pictures off my camera as often or regularly as I used to.  But her are pictures from things that have already been blogged about.  This is Sam's last soccer game of the season.  I was proud of him sticking up for himself against Cesar who was only picking on Sam and no one else.

This picture made me laugh... here's little 14 year old Sam playing against some guy that looked to be in his 20s.

Our trick or treating crew. 

Sarah and Anna, Evelyn, Sam, Rose, Seth, Jack and Beth

Making apple turkeys for Thanksgiving.

We love our family!  

Seth, Evelyn, Sharon

 

Sam patriarchal blessing

I've been saving this post for last.  Sam got his patriarchal blessing.  He is such a tender and sweet boy.  He prepared with lots of scripture reading and prayer.  I fasted for him the week before.  We made sure we weren't late, and the Patriarch asked to chat with us for a minute before the blessing.  He asked specifics about Jer and me but just talked to Sam about what the blessing is.  I was reminded how Heavenly Father knows us so well.  My blessing is specific to me and much of it has already happened in my life. Sam's was a very Sam blessing.  Everything was directed just perfectly to him and was beautiful. There were two things that stood out to me.  One was that Sam just started crying at a certain point in the blessing and afterwards he just broke down with happy tears.  The patriarch said that he's had lots of people in tears, but it was the first time in 16 years that he'd had someone in tears over that part of the blessing.  And it was so cute of Sam!  The other thing was that one of the descriptor words that the patriarch used to describe Sam is one that I use in my head to describe him too.  God knows His children.

Squinty into the sun before picture.

 

Orem Temple Open house

We met up with McKay and Sophie's family at the temple and got to walk through together.  That was fun.  I LOVED walking through with Evelyn.  Evelyn, Ada and Sam all were ushers in the lower floor of the temple.  Evelyn was telling me all about her experience while we walked through.  I took the time to talk to her about what it was like getting married in the temple and talking about the artwork and stained-glass windows. Evelyn says that the thing she's looking forward to the most about the temple is being able to sit in the Celestial room.

You might be able to see it looking closely.... there was a complete rainbow that ended just behind the temple.  

Cute Aubrey got a picture of up after the walk through. Look how big the kids are getting.

The 3 musketeers

Just our two families took up most of the shuttle.... There were only 14 of us.  I wonder how many the shuttle can fit.