Andrew 12

Grandpa's real reason for coming to visit was to see this guy turn 12 and participate in ordaining him to the Priesthood.  Andrew has really been excited for this birthday and I believe is ready to make this important step forward in his life.  Andrew is a kid who's easy to love.  He's kind, helpful, hard working, and just good.  He's getting tall just like Porter and no doubt will outgrow both Aaron and me soon enough.  He likes to play trumpet and is painstakingly improving his writing abilities in middle school.  

After his birthday dinner, complete with coconut cream pie, we played ping pong and Andrew bingo.  This nice guy also joined us because it's his birthday too!  We love Bro. Panton-he is always so thoughtful to our family!

The Sunday after his birthday was a special day-we are so thankful for all who have had an influence on our Andrew and for his choices to follow the Lord.

When Grandpa Comes

Grandpa Smyth came to visit in December.  He flew in on his birthday and ended up coming alone since my Mom threw out her back.  It snowed a couple days after he arrived and was beautiful (December snow is highly uncharacteristic for Virginia)!  He did lots of his diabetic cooking and Leo liked trying his creations.  He's quite independent with his diet.  We played games, baked cookies, attended school band and chorus concerts, did family history, went to the temple, went to doctor appointments, watched some Charles Dickens movies, and went to the Stafford Christmas parade.  The parade was particularly fun-the best parts were the balloon people and when the 'Mission BBQ' truck threw us warm sliders!

Funny Things

Aaron had to reconfigure the plumbing with the new sink we put in.  It took way too much time, but at one point, sitting in this very spot he said, "I don't have enough pieces"  which sent me into hysterics because he was surrounded by a million pieces!!

Jane recently left this lovely note for the brothers whom she loves so much.  It made us smile:)

Botanical Gardens

For part of my birthday, Aaron took me up to DC for the day.  I had wanted to take the kids to the botanical gardens over the summer but it never worked out, so this was very thoughtful of him.  We enjoyed all the plant sculptures and a little plant scavenger hunt for the kids.

Then we walked over to the capital building.  Despite the political turmoil of our day, there is always a special feeling whenever I visit our nation's capital.  A lot of good has also proceeded from here over the centuries.

Pathetic

Pathetic describes my picture taking and blogging for the month of October.  We did celebrate Halloween altho I did finally decide to boycott all Halloween decorations.  Gave my few away in protest of the fact that Halloween is getting more focused on scary and gory every year and I can't stand it!!  But the kids still dress up of course and get candy-yada, yada.  

 We did do a lot of soccer.  It was Adam's first time and Andrew had a great season as a goalie.

 Jane played in a bucket of slime-ewww!

 And the Barrett Elementary School Fall Family Dance was a hit as usual:)  I didn't make the boys stand with girls on purpose (it's not that kind of dance!).  Theses particular friends just happened to be around when I thought to get out my camera.  On to November...

Two Little Boys

Oh how we love these two little underwear 'jammie' wearing, 'Spot It' playing blondies!

Porter

This guy turned 14 the week after his sister.  We thought he'd have to eat his birthday cereal all by himself in the early morning darkness of our new routine, but Daddy surprised him and came down for some cinnamon toast crunch:)  Aaron had been teasing him all week about showing up at high school in his stilted clown outfit to sing happy birthday and Porter was honestly worried that he would do it.  This teenager is in full 'family is embarrassing' mode, but we still love him.  And his gelled hair.  And his Lego obsession -he is often sweet to build Adam and Leo lego things to play with even tho he knows they will end up destroying them.  We are excited for Porter and all that lays ahead of him...

One of the few things that Andrew can toot out of his new trumpet is "Happy Birthday".  It's funny tho, because there are a couple notes from that song that he hasn't learned yet, so he removes his mouth at the appropriate times and makes the note sound himself-so funny!

Jwane

We do some funny talkin' around this house lately.  We have kind of adopted Leo's way of saying Jane, with a 'w'.  He doesn't even say it anymore but it was so cute, it just stuck.  Anyway, our one and only darling daughter turned 9.  She was so focused on preparing for her baptism last year and ever since she was baptized has taken quite seriously the promises she made that day.  She is most often the peacemaker among all these boys and tries so hard to listen the first time and encourage her brothers to do the same.  She's been a trooper with some growing pains this year and is still very active.  In fact she would like to wear sport clothes every day if her mother let her because real clothes inhibit her movement:)  She is loving 4th grade, but we really don't like how close she's getting to the end of elementary school. Want her to stay little forever!!  

She chose an oreo cake this year and enjoyed sharing it with Muna, Papa, and Uncle David.  Our birthday activity was watching her 3 new drinking birds drink-it's amazing and somewhat embarrassing how entertaining such a simple thing can be! She also chose a couple friends to take bowling and out for ice cream the week after her birthday.  Love our girl!!

School Returns

We were going along just fine with summer and all of a sudden school snuck up and jumped out of no-where!  And a regular school schedule probably would have been all right but Porter had to throw high school and early morning seminary into the mix which is why the remainder of his first day of school pictures will be in the dark.  

We swapped Porter out for Andrew at middle school.  But instead of choir concerts, Andrew will be inviting us to band concerts where he will be playing the trumpet. Woohoo!

These little cuties are my last load for the morning and the one on the right doesn't even get to get on the bus.  But lucky for him he does get to hang out with 4 other handsome little boys every Wednesday.

So I now spend 3 hours every morning getting people out the door.  I had to take a power nap the first 3 weeks to get used to the new early routine (which we will be my routine for the next 14 years-yep that's when Leo will graduate).  It's not bad tho-I like the quiet early moments for myself that come along with this schedule.  Here's to a happy school year!

TOTALITY...in part:(

Aaron had been preparing for the eclipse for months.  We watched several documentaries, made t-shirts, ordered glasses, and even got a telescope with a special filter to look at the sun.  His sister got us reservations at a military vacation spot since it was difficult to find lodging.  We drove 9 hours (with traffic) to get to our perfect spot.

The telescope got adjusted.  Uncle David, Muna, Papa and Emily's family joined us.  The canope got set up.  We drank 'Sunny-D' with our breakfast.  We ate 'Milky Ways' while we were getting ready outside.  We even brought 'eclipse' gum to chew.

There was sun!  There were smiles!  There was a dress rehearsal for the picture we would take during the 2 and 1/2 minutes of totality for goodness sakes!

And then this storm cloud had the NERVE to roll in and cover our perfect view.

The 2 and 1/2 minutes of darkness and drop in temperature was cool but a little anti-climactic compared to what we had prepared for.  Aaron was disappointed and that was probably the worst part.  He went to bed early that night and slept in the next day:(  And now our shirts represent what we did not see.

(Man that's a depressing post!  But don't be fooled, it was actually still a very fun time together with his family.)