A beautiful day in the desert...

Yesterday was such a beautiful day in the desert. N8 and the kids went to the Home Depot Kids Workshop (I stayed home and worked on setting up my new laptop).

Then we all went out and did some geocaching. N8 had picked up a travel bear while he was on travel this last week in Maine. The bear did some talking at the telephone pole!

And got placed at the "geo" station:

Then we drove out to the desert to a fun rock and cache!

These non windy, great temperature days are wonderful and I'm glad we took advantage of it and went out into our desert!

A chip off the old tooth...

Yesterday morning Mo, Henry and I took a walk over to the park. Monday's Mo doesn't have preschool. As we were leaving we were walking past the monkey bars and Mo wanted to climb up. As he was, his foot slipped and he hit his chin on the bar and in the process chipped one of his front teeth.

The worst part of it was that we still had to walk home! He was a trooper and handled it all very well.

We had an appt with the dentist this morning. They took a couple of x-rays to make sure everything was ok and then filled and smoothed down the chipping tooth.

Nothing like a little drama!

Boxes, boxes and more boxes...

I'm the Box Top Coordinator for our school. That means I'm in charge of collecting, counting and submitting the Box Tops for our school. It's something that I can mostly handle from home and allows my to still feel involved with the school since they usually don't let younger siblings into the classroom to help.

In October I sent off our big shipment and in December we got our check, just over $1200!! We use that money to help get the teacher additional school supplies so it doesn't come out of their pocket. So, last week I put a note in each of their boxes with a list of items they could choose from (as well as an "other" line for items not listed). I had a place for their name (although one teacher forgot!) and reminded them "if you ask you shall receive, I cannot purchase you items until you tell me what you need". On Thursday I placed an very large order through Amazon, Oriental Trading and Becker's School Supply.

Then the boxes started coming!! Lots of boxes!! And there are still more to come!

This tall box is all Kleenex!

The kids have loved playing with the big box and so have the kitties!

Where's Puma?

 

 

The Box Top program is such a simple and easy way to "fundraise" without asking parents to purchase expensive trinkets they will never use. Yay for Box Tops!!

Organize our technology!

N8 and I are kind of technology geeks. We love gadgets. And I will be the first to admit, it's not just N8, I love gadgets too! So all of the charging of these gadgets was getting out of control. Also keeping track of where the gadgets and cords were was getting a little crazy too! So, N8 found a solution that so far has really worked for us!

He purchased a wire letter organizer:

  He also got 2 new plugs, one with 3 outlets and one with an extra outlet plus 2 USB plugs and a place to put a phone:

Here it is all loaded up!

 

We have to be sure to keep the cords organized, but so far it's worked out really well and we all know where to find the chargers and devices!

Mustache day...

This past Friday was a spirit day at school and the theme was Mustache day!! I was still feeling pretty under the weather, so N8 took charge of applying the mustaches to the kids. He found a brown eyeliner in my makeup bag and went to work!

This coming Friday is "Bling day". We'll see what we come up with for that!

The blahs....

So today is January 16th. That means 16 days of someone (usually more than 1) in our household has had some sort of crud. We had a stomach bug then moved right into croaky, congestion, coughs that just keep going and going....

This morning this is what I woke up to:

He's actually acting much happier today than yesterday. But today Mo is back down. He ran a fever on Saturday night and then was fine. This morning a low grade fever is back. My congestion has no end in sight and how I've got a cough. Blah....

Luckily Bud and Emma are doing ok and haven't missed school and N8 is enjoying 70 degree weather in Florida this week on travel. It was 21 degrees when I got up this morning (we live in the desert, remeber!!). It's nearing a 4 day weekend and I want to enjoy it. Here's to a rest and recover day that and maybe day 17 will do the trick!

Goal Setting 2013

It's that time of year and we thought we would join in and set some goals during Family Home Evening tonight. I'm not really down with the term resolution, so we stick with goals. N8 was less inclined to goal set this year though because he is currently working on a few things already. So, they became part of the goals for the year, because that's really what they are

Here you go:
N8:

• Run a marathon & ragnar
• Finish android app for the market

Mom:

• Drink more water (and because of it less soda!)
• Exercise regularly
• Consistent Scripture reading

Bud:

• Listen to Sacrament mtg talks (rather than drawing)
• Read Scriptures
• Be better at math

 Emma:

• Exercise
• Read Scriptures
• Eat healthy foods
• Learn multiplication

Mo:

• Learn to read
• Eat healthy
• Drink Milk
• Shoot a basket

Henry:

• Be potty trained!!

I realize that these are generic in nature, but they are things we're pondering and would like to happen. So, maybe writing it down will help in that department.

We are also starting a new chore (and "allowance") system this week. I never received and allowance growing up, but N8 did and I feel like it's time for the kids to figure out this money business. So, they have a list, can earn $.25 a day if complete and a total of $1.50 a week. We'll see how it goes!