It's Time for Valentine Box Makin!

Jayce brought home the note from kindergarten explaining he needs to make a valentine box. Even though he has two weeks to do it, he insisted we get started right away. The problem was after Christmas I purged the garage of all the boxes I had been saving 'just in case'. So, luckily, Jayce's church shoes are getting too small, so we had to go get shoes...so we could get a box.

Mark is better at everything that requires precision, so he and Jayce worked on it, and I took pictures.








He picked out NBA valentines at Target yesterday, as well as Nerd candy boxes. We still get to address all of those...good thing we have two weeks!

Wrestling, basketball, Superkid, Mormon Battalion, and flips, oh my!

On Thursday Westview hosted our in-town rival, Mt. Carmel, for a dual wrestling match. Cody worked so hard and pinned the guy in the third period!!




And, today, Saturday, Cody attended a huge wrestling tournament in Chula Vista. He wrestled FIVE matches and lost all five. Major sad face! It was a rough day!




Derek and Jayce have a lot of fun playing basketball out front. I'm sure going to miss Derek next year when he is away at school.




The most exciting week of a kindergartener's year is the week he gets to be superkid!! He brought in a bunch of pictures to display for the week. Here he is explaining all the pictures. Please notice the Superkid cape!


On Monday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the kids were off of school and I took Jayce and Cody to the newly redone Mormon Battalion visitor's center in Old Town San Diego. It was way fun! Here Jayce is outfitted like a member of the Battalion.


Here Cody and Jayce are panning for gold! Real gold! Jayce was so excited! He thinks we're rich now. I wish it were real gold.


Cody and Jayce had to try out the covered wagon, too. I wonder how they would have fared on the trail...


Okay, these last two are of Jayce flipping on the couch. He insisted we take a picture of him performing this death defying trick, and put it on the blog, so here it is. It's a wonder he survived!



Just another week in the life of a boy family!! Tons of fun!

This week's quotables

Cody: This - putting my alarm clock on the other side of the room thing - is not working out very well.
Mom: Why? Doesn't it help you wake up more?
Cody: Well, yeah, but I trip on all the stuff all over my floor!
Mom: Uh, well there's a solution to that problem...

(After taking the sacrament in church)
Jayce: Can I go out and get a drink from the drinking fountain?
Mom: Sure wait until the boys sit down.
Jayce: My sacrament cup was only half full, so I'm still thirsty.
Mom: It's not supposed to make you not thirsty. It's just a little drink, to help you remember Jesus.
Jayce: Well, I wish they gave us the water in really big cups because then I'd really be able to remember Jesus!

Family Pictures!!

I don't know what it is about moms and family pictures. My mom always wants us to get them, and I have always longed for a nice one. My sister-in-law, Barbara, always makes sure their family has a nice picture taken every year. Their home is filled with beautiful photographs of their family growing up. Well, for many years, we didn't have our whole family together and couldn't get one. We had some nice ones taken at Caitlin's wedding, but none that were just right with all of us. It was just too hectic, trying to get all the pertinent shots, to focus on just our family picture. Right after Christmas it all worked out. Elise (the photographer we used for Caitlin's wedding) was in San Clemente and we drove up to Laguna Beach to have our pictures taken. I love them! I really couldn't be more happy with them! There are so many (sorry), but I would have been happy with more! I wish I had one with me and Jayce. He is just so darn cute! I hope you love them as much as I do. Now to decide which ones to make big and hang on the wall...

Kindergarten Teachers are Amazing!

These are pages from Jayce's writing journal. It is SO cute! I have these journals for all of the kids (but I'm not sure I could find them :)).

This is written on December 6th, just after Jayce started watching Cody's wrestling matches. I will sign him up for wrestling, eventually, but right now he's starting baseball. One thing at a time!

November 15th, right before we took our trip to Utah. Notice the picture of our car, driving on the road, under the very blue sky, with a radiant sun :).

This journal entry was made before we went to Utah for Steven and Katie's wedding. Notice the picture of the temple, with the Angel Moroni on top.

This was written before the Thanksgiving week break. I'm thinking our house looks a little dark, but we have very green grass, and it's a sunny day :).

November 8th, Jayce was really looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner with the turkey and potatoes. Good thing we had a few more things to our feast :).

There are many sweet moments as a parent, and watching your child begin to read is one of them. I credit our wonderful kindergarten teachers. We had the privilege of having Cindy McCord and Mary Lou Harshman teach ALL five of our children. And the magic is happening again with Jayce. And it is SO fun to watch!

Newsflash!!

We just found out that Derek has been accepted to BYU-Idaho! Way to go Derek!! We're still waiting to hear from BYU-Provo...

Back to Business as Usual

Jayce has been wiggling his tooth for a while now, and one day this week he came home and said he wanted Mark to pull it. It went something like this, "Yes, pull it...no, don't...okay, you can pull it...wait, is it going to hurt?" Mark is an expert at pulling these things. I would just let them dangle until they fell out on their own. Mark had his hand in Jayce's mouth, with the tooth gripped, and Jayce suddenly changed his mind in a panic! "Wait, stop!" But, it was already out! And Jayce was very happy about the visit from the Tooth Fairy!


















Wrestling was rough on Cody this week. He said his mistake was "eating" during the day before the match. Whatever that means. I guess Cody weighed in a little heavier than usual, he normally wrestles 119's and this week he wrestled 125's. The kid was a little bigger and a little more experienced.















Cody fought hard! I never understood the difficulty of this sport until now...and I still don't think I get it. One thing is for sure, it is INTENSE!





























Cody battled for three full periods, six whole minutes, longest six minutes of a mom's life. He didn't get pinned, which I consider a good thing, but he lost the match on points.















Derek started winterball baseball this week. I never get tired of these picture sequences. I love to watch him pitch!