Cheering for Family

One aspect of family life that I just love is cheering on the members of my family when they are performing and competing.  I want my children to cheer each other on in all of their activities.  We attend concerts, recitals, plays, track meets, soccer games, baseball games, Pack Meetings, Courts of Honor and cheer for the family member participating.

This past Tuesday, Sabrina performed with a vocal ensemble "Off Topic" in the Acapella Fusion High School Vocal Contest.  We took the whole family. It was at the Morrison Center on the BSU campus. The contest was decided by popular vote of the audience.  Everyone in our family voted for Off Topic - they sang well and even had some audience participation.  When the results were read and Off Topic did not place in the top 3, Beatrix was sobbing. Loudly.  "But, I wanted Sabrina to win!" It took several minutes to calm her down.

Maybe we're taking the whole cheering for family to an extreme, but I'm glad Beatrix loves listening to her sister perform!

Here is Off Topic performing their set.  Unfortunately, the video camera ran out of space and stopped recording right before Sabrina's scat solo at the end of the second song. Happily I also used my voice recorder, so we do have audio of that solo.  However it is not the same quality or volume.

Am I An Exercise Fanatic?

Twice in the past week, Ryan has said that I am becoming an exercise fanatic (those may not be his exact words, but that is the tone I got from him).  Now it is true that in our 18.5 years of marriage, the ONLY time I have ever been consistently awake and moving before 8 am was the 12 weeks I worked the 0600 shift at Delta Air Lines in 1997. And now, since June 1, I've set my alarm to wake me up at 5:45 am every Tuesday and Thursday to join the Exercise Mommas at the church building. And I even went today, knowing full well that I'd be hiking up Table Rock (while toting Beatrix in the backpack) with the cub scouts at 8:30 this morning.

Beatrix fell asleep on the way down.

I have exercised regularly before. Walking with Lindsay Daniel (and Wendy Bushman and Stacy Smith) on the circuit around our neighborhood while pushing Sabrina in a stroller. I had a YMCA membership for a while where I did water aerobics while pregnant with Roderic and then did a personal training fitness regimen after he was born.  Pushing Roderic and Hyrum in the double stroller with Amy Mella around the circuit - and even up the hill to Albertson's on occasion. I even trained for and participated in a 5k race when I was expecting Leo.

But all of these times have been during his work day. Now Ryan is actually seeing me come back from exercise with my face beet red and hearing me complain about my sore muscles. A. Lot. Because the woman (Tiffany Hortin) who is coming up with all of the 'boot camp' torture exercises is spectacular at helping me use all sorts of long neglected muscles in my body. I am feeling stronger. I have more stamina - although I have been taking naps in the afternoon, but I think that is because I haven't been going to bed any earlier. I can do hard things (like completing 80 push-ups, 80 jump squats, 80 chair dips and 70 jump lunges in 10 minutes after already having exercised for 25 minutes).

So perhaps he is on to something...

Boise Idaho Temple

Last July, our temple closed for renovations.  Oh how I've missed it.  I've written about it here.  The temple is right next to the interstate, quite a sight - especially at night when the lights are on.  But during the construction phase the exterior lights were off.  I was so happy to see them turn on again at the beginning of October!

Now we are in the Open House phase - until November 10.  Last Friday I got to take the tour twice - in the morning with my husband and children and in the afternoon with a friend from chorus and her children.  Can I just say how beautiful it is!

The Entry, with 2 Carl Bloch paintings (there are many of his paintings throughout the temple).

 The Baptismal Font, with stained glass 

and murals depicting Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery being baptized and confirmed.

 The Sealing Room, with eternity mirrors.  

Sabrina says this is the most beautiful room in the entire temple.

The Celestial Room

On the 26th of October, Sabrina and 3 of her friends (the Mad for Music String Serenaders Quartet) had the opportunity to play at the open house in the reception hall.  The had weekly practices for a month before hand to prepare 30 minutes of church and classical music.  We invited Ryan's parents to come and tour the temple and hear them play, so that day Ryan, Roderic and Hyrum got to tour the temple as well.  Leo was really sad when he learned that he missed going to the temple with them (it was during nap time).  Just imagine his exuberance at being able to go to the temple the next week!  "I going temple? Hurray!" complete with jumping.

The cultural celebration will be held on November 17 in the Taco Bell Arena on BSU campus and the temple will be dedicated by President Monson on November 18.  The temple will reopen on November 20 and I have plans to go twice that week because there is no school for the children so Sabrina will be able to babysit for me!  My goal is to attend the temple at least 3 times before Beatrix is born.

We're Expecting! It's a Girl! We're Entering the Weekly appointment phase!

I have not yet officially announced my pregnancy on the blog, which is pretty funny, since we started telling people very early in this pregnancy (we told our children during week 6).  Now I'm 35.5 weeks along.  I took Leo with me to my first appointment and recorded the baby's heartbeat on my digital voice recorder.  He would say, "Baby?  No!  Choo-Choo!" whenever we listened to it.

To do something different this pregnancy, Ryan convinced me that we should have an ultrasound at 20 weeks and find out the sex of our baby.  It took a lot of convincing.  At the ultrasound appointment, the technician was looking all over and took lots of pictures of the baby's parts.  Very unceremoniously she said, "And you're sure you want to find out the sex?"  "Yes," we replied.  "It's a girl," she said and kept moving on.  It was not as exciting as finding out when the baby is born and they put him or her in your arms, for sure.  Ryan, being the engineer, asked, "How often are you right?"  To which she replied, "I've been wrong 3 times and those were all at the beginning of my 11 year career."  So we're pretty confident that we're having a girl.  Sabrina, Roderic and Hyrum are all so very excited to have a little sister.  Leo is still coming to grips that it's a baby and not a train.

With this being my 6th pregnancy, my body remembered very early on what a pregnant woman is supposed to look like and my belly popped out at about week 12, forcing me into maternity clothes.  I was also very tired early on, taking naps daily.  In fact, that was the clue that had me convinced I should take a pregnancy test.  Every day during spring break, I got so tired about 2pm I just had to fall asleep.  I've been sleeping a lot (and yet still not enough!).

So, the anticipated due date is December 7, which is a short 4.5 weeks away.  I can hardly believe it.  Roderic was born on the due date and the rest have come 2 or 3 days before, so we're expecting that again.  Yes, we have a name picked out.  Beatrix Beryl.  No, we don't have a boys name picked out so that ultrasound tech better be right!

Camping Success!

Last year on Labor Day weekend, we tried to go camping to Shafer Butte.  Here is the post I never published about that experience.

Sept. 3, 2011.  Camping Fail

Our kids decided that we hadn't done any "real" camping this year because we never had a fire lit or cooked s'mores. They refused to acknowledge the fact that we spent more nights in sleeping bags in July than in beds. So we planned a camping trip for this weekend. We made a reservation for Shafer Butte, which is 18 miles up the road from downtown Boise, a 1 hour drive from our house.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to camp overnight, but we learned valuable lessons, like:

Firewood is necessary to build a fire.
It is cool in the mountains when the valley is hot, so Leo needs a jacket.
Moms need to be able to see. It's not an option to forget glasses and contact lens solution.
Packing for a camping excursion must be done before it's time to leave.
Children need to help their parents pack.

I didn't want to repeat the experience. at. all. All week, Ryan kept mentioning that he'd like to take the family camping, but I didn't really think he was serious.  I sure wasn't.  I am not getting comfortable sleep on my own bed, so why would I like to try to get some sleep in a tent?

Well, Friday morning, he was bound and determined and I found it was futile to resist, so I spent the day working to get ready.  I knew our neighbors were going camping on Friday night, so I asked if we could join their family. (Already better than last year, when you camp with others, what you forget, they most likely have.)

Sabrina had a tennis match, so we couldn't leave until 6:30pm.  We arrived at Ten Mile campground (9 miles beyond Idaho City on Highway 21) about an hour later.  The fire was already going (another perk of going with another family!), so the hot dogs cooked up quickly and we ate.  The kids did some exploring at the nearby creek.  We set up the tent, ate s'mores and JiffyPop, sat around the campfire enjoying the beautiful scenery and talking with the other two families that were sharing our group site.  I slept terribly.  There was a cool rainstorm in the middle of the night that woke us up, although we all stayed quiet so we didn't know others were awake until the morning.

Leo loved sleeping in the tent.  And playing in it while I cleaned up the sleeping pads and bags.  Hyrum loved playing IN the creek.  It was a good thing he had a change of clothes to wear.  Next time I'll have to remember our swim suits and sandals for that campground.  Roderic loved adding wood and pine cones to the fire.  Sabrina wasn't too thrilled about going, she had planned on doing all her homework on Friday night so she wouldn't have to do any the rest of the long weekend.  The s'mores made it worth it.  Next time I need to remember the HOT COCOA for breakfast!

Thank you Egberts and Thorntons for helping me have a positive camping experience so I'll want to do it again with my family!

Explained

So our neighbor's cat has been spending a fair amount of time in our yard.  I haven't found any poop, so I'm not overly concerned.  I figure we have mice living under the wood pile on the side of our house.  We found evidence of mice earlier this year (prepping for paint) when we moved the pile away from the house and next to the fence.

I now believe it is not mice that has the cat spending so much time at our house.  We've got a cotton-tail instead.

A whole lot cuter than mice, but are they as destructive?

Rewarded for not going to sleep

The other night, Roderic and Hyrum were delaying going to sleep.  Not unusual at all, unfortunately.  "I need a story."  "I need a drink."  "I need some music." "I need the light on."  "I need the light off."  "Roderic isn't letting me fall asleep."  "Hyrum isn't letting me fall asleep."  "It's too hot."  They were using all of them.

Ryan was finishing the front lawn and I was enjoying the cool evening without the smell of fire on the front porch swing.  Our neighbor, Stan, was working on his Hot Rod.  Its a Model A cab, with an early corvette engine, a sweet ride.  I told the boys to go ask if they could have a ride.  They were too shy.  I told them I would go with them.  So we walked down to the end of the cul-de-sac, where he was taking pictures (it's for sale, if you're interested I can get you the info).  He told them to hop in and off they went.    Five or so minutes of driving around the neighborhood and the boys came home so happy.  Tired?  Not at all.  They still needed a story, some music, the light off and a drink.

Happy Flag Day!

 The first holiday with our newly painted house!

 We had a little bike parade.  Even Leo got in on the action.

Totally 80s

When we were in Utah a few weeks back, Ryan's little sister hosted the annual Gibby Family "Fish In Love Under The Sea Dance". This year's theme was "Totally 80s". We've never attended before, but knew that Heather and Trever dress to the theme each year, so I decided we'd do the same.

Doesn't Heather look totally awesome in those acid washed jeans and a side pony tail?

Ryan scoured the Internet to find a picture of what he'd like to wear and we found this one of Huey Lewis sporting a purple suit.

That began my quest of finding a purple suit for Ryan. And I found one. And I bought it.

For my costume, I rummaged through my friend's closet who actually has clothes that she wore during the 80s. This is a shirt that she sewed herself and wore when singing with her family - with the original big belt that buckles in the back! D.I. helped me with the pants and shoes.

We had sunglasses with neon ear pieces to dance to "I Wear My Sunglasses at Night". We had plastic guitars and had an "Air Guitar Contest". Those Biddulph men were the big winners with their in-sync choreography!

My boys weren't keen on dancing, but when the air guitar contest started, they decided they could participate with style. The rest of the night, they walked around playing on their guitars. Two and a half weeks later and Leo still walks around making music with his air guitar anytime he finds it.

Predictions for 2012

Here are our families predictions for the new year:

Roderic says, "Grandma and Grandpa will return from their mission in New York."
Hyrum says, "We'll go shopping for Oreos."
Sabrina says, "I will move upstairs."
Ryan says, "Uncertainty will increase."
Malauna says, "Mitt Romney will win the GOP Presidential nomination."

And here are milestones I think we'll reach this year:
Leo will start speaking in sentences
Hyrum will start Kindergarten and read with the 1st graders.
Roderic will be baptized and join cub scouts.
Sabrina will go to Girl's Camp!
Ryan will hike in the Sawtooth Mountain range.
Malauna will compete on a race walking team. Portland to Coast Relay on Milaka's team with Ryan!

Looking back on 2011

Leo's favorite things from this year: Sleeping in his own bed in the same room as his brothers. Watching Baby Signing Time over and over and over and over. Going to Nursery with Dad.

Hyrum's favorite memories: Opening "Blacky" on Christmas morning (his new puppy). Going caroling on Christmas Eve. Eating pie on Thanksgiving.

Roderic's favorite memories: Going to Monkey Bizness for his 7th birthday party! Receiving the Lego Toy Story 3 train set for Christmas. Swimming lessons at the YMCA over spring break. Riding on the Arcade & Attica Railroad. Watching the Hill Cumorah Pageant twice.

Sabrina's favorite memories: Going to New York. Going on Trek. Earning the Gold Presidential Academic Achievement Award. Learning double dutch. Catching the bus at 6:32am daily for TVMSC. Getting her braces off.

Ryan's favorite memories: Crawling through the attic to install CAT-5 wire for the intercom system. Climbing Lucky Peak with the boy scouts in June. Becoming an antelope. Having a stairway to Heaven.

My favorite memories: Teaching Gospel Doctrine to the 14-15 year olds. Our Epic Vacation. Watching the framing of our house addition. Singing barbershop with my mom, sister and aunts in Houston. Teaching our family a song to sing together "Sing Noel".

Merry Christmas!

We are having a great Christmas this year! We went to Sacrament Meeting at 9am today. Malauna and Sabrina sang with the choir. Ryan was planning on singing, but wasn't able to because the people we were going to have our boys sit with didn't come in time and because Ryan is starting to feel sick (sore ears, chills, head congestion, etc.). We sang some awesome songs: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel", "As It Fell Upon a Night" (with descant solo by Malauna), "Once in Royal David's City", "Nativity Medley", "Only a Baby Came", "Angels we have heard on High", and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". [Including links to the songs, in case anyone is interested.]

After church (and it was only an hour this morning), the kids were happy relieved thrilled excited that we f i n a l l y opened the presents under the tree. Legos, fire trucks, CD boom box, BYU t-shirts, baby signing time, garlic press are some gifts received. And Hyrum is super-duper excited that fun-pretend Santa brought him a new puppy! (The black poodle puppy is to replace the favorite sleeping friend {puppy} that he lost on our epic vacation. It's a webkinz.)

What a merry Christmas!

Happy Thanksgiving!

For Thanksgiving, we drove to UT to spend the day with Ryan's family. Genette and Glen hosted the dinner and let us stay the weekend. We wore our 'Angry Birds' shirts that I made for Halloween but never wore all together and had no pictures of.

Before we were able to eat on Thursday, we each had to write at least 5 things we are thankful for. The person who wrote the most would win a prize.

Ryan: spouse, grown-up daughter, boys, our builder John, parents that follow the Lord
Malauna: Ryan, honest builder, good-nights sleep, family, modern transportation
Sabrina: Leo, Roderic, Hyrum, Mom & Dad, my friends, good food, hope, joy, turkey, writing, good fortune, Christmas, temples, pans, brothers, youth leaders, systematic agriculture, stairs, plates, lights, pools, forks, table cloths, clocks, extended family, SPOONS, colors, glass, fast transportation, knives, color TV, dogs, The Gospel, cups, corn, heat, chocolate, hospitality, intercoms, potatoes, metal, castles, plaques, school, educations, beef jerky, snow, candles, ribbon, fabric, fiber, pumpkins, stuffing, airplanes, hats, books, the Book of Mormon, angry birds, games, baby signing time, jello, missionaries, pioneers, Nauvoo, Trek, the Atonement, Mrs. Durller, high chairs, grapes, apples, apricots, raspberries, BYU, Boise State, zebras, penguins, kangaroo, shingles, cotton, wood, trees, white boards, couches, rugs, flash memory, digital processors, capacitors, smart people, Newton, England, India, Egypt, China, freeway, Boise, ID, bliss, Grandma & Grandpa, cats, rolls, bread, wheat, eyes, microwaves, leaves, indoor plumbing, buttons, pi, pie, acorns, TV, flowers, Hollywood, paper plates, LEDs, oleds, silver, gold, steel, sunlight, fire, plastic, door, tile, carpet, blankets, cars, trucks, tupperware, awards, Mark Twain, shoes, sticks , Toto, computers, pictures, pillows, Apple, jewelrey, Disney, houses, Romans, Troy, clapping [she won the prize - a theater size pack of Reese's Pieces]
Roderic: Legos, toys, food, homes, family
Hyrum: Toto, good house, good family, good food, couches for jumping on
Leo: sign language, family, food, dogs, bananas

We played "Kill Dr. Lucky", "Memoir '44", "The Dutch Golden Age", ate some delicious food, and enjoyed a fun afternoon with family! Can you believe no one brought a pumpkin pie?

Leftovers for Lunch

We ate leftovers for lunch today. (Left over from our annual eat-dinner-with-the-Smith's-on-Halloween at a restaurant. Last night we ate at Carino's.) Leo put on quite the 'party face' eating his share of spaghetti and meatballs.

General Conference Weekend

On Friday night, Ryan and I went to his mission reunion celebrating 20 years of missionaries in the Kiev Ukraine Mission (although I think they now spell it Kyiv Ukraine Mission - difference of Russian vs. Ukrainian). All of the former Mission Presidents and their wives were there and there was a fair number of returned missionaries, though just a handful of those who had served when Ryan was there.

He did get to reconnect with Isaacson (his MTC companion), Whipple (who was serving in the office when Ryan had to leave the country with Visa troubles - he gave a pretty good explanation on why Ryan had to go, but Isaacson didn't), Roylance (who went to the temple dedication with him last year), Lunt (also went to Ukraine last year) and Osipenko (Ukrainian now living in Utah). It was a great evening. I enjoyed talking with the wives of these former missionaries and listening to Ryan talk with them. There were a few cool decorations that I took pictures of as well.

I really like the nesting dolls with the latter-day prophets on them. And the quilt was charming.


We stayed with our friends the Harmon's overnight. When telling the kids who we'd be staying with, I told them, "If you're a 12-year old, they have a 12-year old girl. If you're 7 they have a 7-year old boy. If you're 4, they have a 4-year old boy. If you're 1, they have a 1 year-old girl." They were so excited! And they played very well together.


Sabrina and I got tickets to attend the Saturday afternoon session in the conference center. We arrived fairly early, and were able to sit on the front row of the balcony. Sabrina counted the number of seats set up for the General Authorities (136). When President Monson came in, we stood up with the rest of those in attendance and the room was silent. We knew there would be no new members of the Seventy called because there were no empty chairs. Elder Oaks, Elder Hales and Elder Cook were not in attendance.


We also had opportunity to see family while there. Ryan picked grapes at his parent's house (which have now been turned into 10 quarts of concord grape juice). He went to Priesthood Session [at 3 different church buildings due to freshly re-done basketball court at the first and technical difficulties at the second] with brother Daniel, and Ethan, while the kids and I played with Michelle and kids. They introduced us to Kid History on YouTube. Sunday morning we went to Heather's for breakfast and the morning session of conference. It was a delicious feast (food and conference talks). We stopped in on the newlyweds at Ryan's parents house, and on Shanda to see the painting she's been doing at her new house.


About an hour into our drive home (coincidentally an hour into the last session of conference), we could no longer pick up KSL on the radio, so we listened to the rest of it via Ryan's droid on the Mormon Channel. It was better than nothing, although we did miss out on the end of President Monson's talk.


We then stopped at Malad Gorge State Park. It was beautiful scenery. There were hundreds of dead lady bugs in the bathrooms. The playground had a small merry-go-round. There was quite a bit of water still flowing into the canyon.

I feel like I took some decent notes from the conference speakers. I still need to print pages 23-25 of the April 2011 Junior Primary Conference Packet from sugardoodle.net to put in our quiet book for the next six months of remembering what the Prophet and Apostles spoke about this time.

More Changes

Church callings come and go at no set interval, yet it still can catch you off guard when you're released. For instance, at the beginning of August, I had an appointment with the Bishop where he released me from being the Ward Choir Director. I was relieved as it is coming up to the time where I'd be planning the Christmas program, which would have been my fourth. The Bishop told me that they didn't have a new calling for me then, but would keep me in mind when others came up. I reminded him that I was also serving as Visiting Teaching Coordinator, so there was no need to hurry and give me another calling. Two weeks later, I was called in for another appointment with the Bishop, this time with Ryan. Now I was feeling a little nervous, because usually when your spouse is invited to the appointment, that means you're going to get a high profile calling. I was wrong. I was called as a Gospel Doctrine Sunday School Teacher (for the 14 year olds). The reason Ryan came along was to be released as Scout Master, a calling he's had since March 2009 (and he was Assistant Scout Master from October 2005-March 2009; and Webelos leader for about a year before that). The new calling he received is Nursery Worker. As a result, Leo got to start attending Nursery one month early. I've taught the Sunday School class twice now, and I am going to enjoy that class. The students are well behaved and share experiences/give answers when appropriate.

Hyrum waited patiently impatiently for Joy School to start. It was especially hard when Roderic and Sabrina started school a whole week and a half earlier than him! He is so glad to see his friends again and even got to meet a new one (Zach)! There are 5 Joyschoolers this year, so I'll teach every 5 weeks.

This is the view of our house from Highway 21 on September 1. Yesterday, even more demolition occurred. (And some patching of holes in the ceiling where a stray board fell and a circular saw slid off the roof.) The pounding is even louder now, because the work is over our living area.

The End of May Madness

In my previous posts, I neglected to mention family coming into town on May 13 to watch the National Touring production of Wicked! My parents, Carson, Milaka and Aanja. It was great to see Elphaba defy gravity!


That was also the night of the school carnival, so we went right at the start and stayed for an hour. Roderic got to stay longer with the Smith family (Clara is his best friend).


It was also Sabrina's soccer tournament weekend and team party.

And we put some plants in the garden: tomatoes, broccoli and brussel sprouts. We had already planted lettuce, spinach, peas and radishes.


I haven't mentioned that Sabrina went on the Environmental Field Trip in Cascade, ID May 16-19 (the week we went to Utah for Missy's wedding). Each year the whole 6th grade at Trail Wind goes to Trinity Pines Camp in Cascade for a 4 day field trip of learning outdoors type things. Fishing, tent set-up, geocaching, dutch oven cooking/leather working, arts & crafts, community service, archery, dancing, and a ropes course (high and low).


We attended a lot of T-Ball games. Roderic got the most improved swing award at the team party. He improved a lot during the season.


We had Joy School Graduation right after my final lesson last Thursday.

And to finish off the month, I've done some sewing: replacing elastic in new pants for Roderic, replacing elastic in hand-me-down pants for Leo, new BSU colored capris for Sabrina, and new cushion coverings for the porch swing.

It has been a busy month! Glad it is over!

More May Madness

May is truly a busy month with all of the end of school activities. But for good measure, we added a few trips on top of it, too. Shoshone Falls, Swan Falls Dam (Ryan and the scouts), Utah, and Spokane.

We traveled to Utah for Missy and Evan's wedding in the middle of last week. They were married on a beautiful rainy day in SLAKE.


All of Ryan's siblings (except missionary Meggan) were in attendance, so we made sure to get a picture of them together.

Then on Friday, after dropping our three oldest at 3 different homes, Ryan, Leo and I flew to Spokane so I could compete with Syringa Sound Chorus in Region 24's Sweet Adeline International competition. We sang our hearts out and Ryan took this contraband photo of the group. This was the first time Syringa Sound Chorus competed. 13 of the 17 singers had never sung in competition before. The crowd was pleased. The judges were pleased. We were pleased. Our score was 465, which was good for 9th place overall out of 15! I'm second in from the left on the front row.
And now that we're back home, I'm prepping to teach Joy School this week. The unit is about families and I made this Ancestor Tree for a part of the lesson.
Compared with all the traveling last week, this week should be pretty calm. Only 8 more days of school!