St. George Trip - Day 2

Saturday, November 3

We ran into a family that we know from soccer, marching band and church at the breakfast provided by our hotel!  What a small world it is!  Their son is one of the drum majors for M&M's marching band and their younger son plays on Luke's soccer team.  After breakfast both of our families packed up our cars and ended up following each other to the band competition that morning.

This competition was a regional Bands of America (BOA) marching band competition and it was the first one that their high school had been invited to.  I think that M&M's band performed the best that I have ever seen them.  We debated staying around to see if they made it into the finals, but we thought that the kids had had enough of marching band for the weekend...  This was their first competition where they actually had judges on the field judging them.  Those are the kinds of competitions that I remember playing in.

See if you can find M&M in these two pictures.

After their band performed we met up with them out in the parking lot where they were having some pictures taken.  DH got a few pictures of M&M in her uniform and then with the other students in her flute/piccolo/oboe section.

After the band performance we drove out to Snow Canyon State Park to have a picnic lunch and then let the kids play in the sand there for a couple of hours.  We brought some shovels and buckets from home with us.  It was nice and relaxing and the kids had a blast!  The weather was perfect and we were really surprised that there weren't more people there.  For a while we were the only ones out at the sand dunes.

This picture makes it look like we are going to lose MJ in a hole!

And in case you were wondering, it is very difficult to get a picture of 5 of these kids all looking and smiling at the camera!  Especially when there is fun sand all around you!

Me trying to get control of those two younger ones...

Yummy!  Sand on the face!

Who was in charge of this girl's hair? :P

** And a note to myself:  Next time you take kids somewhere where there will be a lot of sand, have them wear clothes that don't have so many pockets and cuffs.  When I went to do laundry after the trip there were handfuls of sand pouring out of the kids' clothes!  Apparently we brought quite a bit of the red sand home with us!

We left St. George for home in the mid-afternoon and stopped at Arby's for dinner on our drive back.  M&M texted us as we were leaving St. George to tell us they had made it into the finals for the BOA competition.  It was kind of weird not having her with us on this trip...

Kid talk

This afternoon MJ climbed up on one of the kitchen stools and saw a piece to the Cootie game there and said, "Hey, what's this doing here?"

This morning while MJ was sitting at the table eating breakfast she started singing out the letter 'I' over and over several times and then she would say the letter 'X' and then go back to 'I' again.  I looked over her and realized that she was looking at our clock on the wall that has Roman numerals on it and she was reading the letters on it!

Yesterday during Primary the nursery leaders had me come in and get MJ because they thought she was acting like she was not feeling well.  So I took her with me back to the primary room and went up to the front of the room to start the Junior Primary opening exercises.  Kay's class sits on the front row and when she saw me with MJ she turned to her neighbor and said, "That's my baby sister MJ.  Isn't she adorable?"

We have a Christmas countdown for each member of our family that has a chocolate candy that they can eat each day until Christmas.  MJ loves these and calls them 'candy canes' for some reason.  Today after lunch she asked me for a chocolate from it and I took hers off for today and handed it to her and she responded with, "Thank you. You're the best!"

I'm doing some laundry today and our washing machine just finished.  Our washing machine and dryer both play a little music tune to indicate that they are done and MJ just heard it and called to me, "The driver's done Mom!"

Trip to St. George - Day 1

Friday, November 2

We decided to take the family down to St. George to see M&M's band perform in their competitions.  We kept the kids home from school so that we would have plenty of time to get down there and get to the competition in time.

MJ sporting some cool sunglasses!

Once we got down to St. George we checked in to our hotel and then headed downtown to take a tour of the St. George Tabernacle.  It is a very pretty, old building and the tour guide did a pretty good job of trying to keep our kids engaged.  We also found out that she is from the city we live in and still owns a home up here.  Her kids all graduated from the high school that M&M marches for.  (Small world!)

The kids on the spiral staircase at the tabernacle.

After we toured the Tabernacle, we noticed that there was a park next to the parking lot so we decided to walk over to it and explore a little.  Well, first we came across a water park and then a little bit of a grassy area and then there was a carousel.  MJ and Kay were in heaven and they couldn't see anything beyond the carousel.  We tried walking past it and told the kids that we would ride it on our way back to the car, but MJ couldn't take her eyes off of the horses.  So we decided to pay right then for the kids to ride on it.  It ended up being fairly cheap - $5 for me and all 5 kids to ride on it twice.  At first when the ride started MJ wasn't too sure of it but after a minute or so she realized that it was fun and started smiling!  The little ones were sad when the second ride was over!

Luke having some fun posing for the camera.

After the second carousel ride we walked back through the water area of the park and let the kids play in the water for a little bit.  I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that they ended up getting soaking wet - especially MJ and Kay.  Luckily I had packed a few extra clothes where we could get to them easily so I could change them before we got in the car.

MJ thought it was fun to get her hand wet and then slurp the water off of her hand.  I'm amazed that no one got sick...

After the water park we went and ordered take-out at Burger King and then found a local park with picnic tables to eat at.  After that we made a stop at the bathrooms and then loaded into the car to drive to the band competition.  After one wrong stop, we finally found the stadium and found a parking spot on the side of the road and walked over to it.  The stadium was somewhat small but it was tall so we were able to get a good vantage point up top - although we were pretty far off to the side.  The stadium was all concrete with large walking spaces in front of each bench.  MJ thought that it was great fun to run around and entertain everyone around us - although I don't think everyone appreciated it...  I finally grabbed a hold of her and just held her tight in my lap and she was not very happy at all.  After wiggling and fussing for several minutes and then realizing that I wasn't going to let her down she yelled out, "I just want to go to bed!"

I think M&M's group finished 5th overall in their division, but got 3rd in the state which is pretty good.

After the band competition we went back to the hotel to crash for the night.  We had enough beds for all of us this time but without M&M there I tried having MJ and Kay sharing a bed.  They thought that it was all fun and games though until I got tired of it and threw Kay into bed with her dad and I slept with MJ.  MJ is a very restless sleeper at night and I did not get a restful sleep at all...  At one point she was flopping back and forth in the bed so I grabbed her to try and calm her down and she started hitting me and called out, "No, Luke!  Stop it!"  I whispered to her that it was mom and she opened up her eyes and saw that it was me and then she settled down and went back to sleep.

MJ talk

MJ has turned into quite the chatterbox!  After I wrote the last MJ talk, the rest of the family and I were remembering some of the funny phrases that MJ says.  Here are a few of them that we could remember that have happened recently:

• "Ewwww, gross. What's gross?"
• "DVDV Disc" - this is what she calls a DVD
• One Sunday I stayed to help out in the nursery for a few minutes while we waiting for the second nursery leader to come.  When she showed up I told MJ that I needed to leave a go to my class.  At first MJ didn't want me to go but then she was okay with it and I heard her say to her nursery leader as I was leaving, "Mom's got to go to class."
• "You're gorgeous mama!"
• "Trick-er-trick-er-treat"
• A couple of weeks ago when we walked into the Wal-mart store and MJ saw some Christmas decorations she said, "Wow, Christmas! I love Christmas!"
• "Oh, right!" or "That's right!"  She says one of these two sayings when she has asked us a question and we give her an answer.
• "You gotta be kidding me!"
• "I don't believe it!"
• Pooties or Footies - what she calls the bugs from the Cooties game
• "It's 'licious" (delicious)
• "You got blue eyes?" or "You got hazel eyes?"  (It is looking like we will end up with just M&M and Kay having blue eyes among the kids in the family.  The rest of them have turned hazel.

Growing kids!!

My kids all seem to be growing like weeds.  With the girls I don't mind so much because I know that their clothes will almost all be worn again by one of their sisters, but it is a little harder with Luke who is our only boy.  It seems that every time I turn around I am telling someone that their pants are too short or their shirt is looking a little too tight.  (And then when I do the laundry I can't remember who I told what to so the clothes usually end up going right back in their drawers!)  I think the kids that have grown the most in the last few months have been Kitty and Kay.  Several of Kitty's clothes are going straight to Kay and she is 3 years younger.  And then we have Blondie who is just a little bit bigger than Kitty so some of the clothes that have been passed from Blondie to Kitty are almost too small for Kitty already.

Right now we are going through growing pains in the snow clothes department.  M&M and Blondie have outgrown their boots and for some reason I can't find any boots that M&M wore that would be Blondie's size (although I haven't checked M&M's closet yet).  I just pulled some snow pants and a coat  out of the storage room for Blondie and as she was trying them on I heard her say, "Oh, they kind of match!"  She sounded excited about that although with snow clothes I don't really care if they match or not!  (But out of all of my kids, Blondie would be the one to care.)

Kay talk

Kay was full of cute sayings the other day!  Here are some of the things that I wrote down that she said:

I had to get the kids up early the other day because Kitty was receiving Principal's Pride before school and I needed to take the little girls with me.  After I woke Kay up, she stumbled into my room and said, "Mom, my eyes won't stay open."

After our visit to the school I ran a few errands with the little girls.  We pulled up to Target and parked and Kay said, "This is the perfect place to get something for Christmas!"

While in Target I had Kay help pick something out to give to MJ for Christmas (for our sibling gift exchange).  Kay saw some My Little Ponies that she really liked and saw one that she wanted to get for herself.  I told her that we needed to pick something out for MJ and so we decided on something to get her and put the other My Little Pony back.  Kay was quite devastated and asked, "Well, who's going to buy me something for Christmas?"  I told her that one of her siblings would buy her something for Christmas but we didn't know who because it was a secret.  So she said, "I know.  Maybe my friend Olive will buy me a present!"  (One of the women that I visit teach has a daughter who is a year older than her, but Kay just loves her even though she really only plays with her when I go visiting teaching.)

Then on our way home from Target we passed a McDonald's and Kay said, "McDonald's is waiting for us to get some fries."  (Her not-so-subtle attempt to get me to stop there for lunch!)

After lunch (which was homemade, not McDonald's) we were downstairs and Kay said that she had an itch on her back so I went over to her and scratched her back for her.  While I was doing that she said, "Ahhh, that feels good."

Later in the day I snuck up behind Kay and scared her and she said, "Hey Mom, I didn't want to be teased.  It bothers me."

Marching Band Trip

Tuesday, October 30 - Sunday, November 4

The high school marching band takes a trip to Disneyland each year towards the end of marching season.  They left in the evening on Tuesday, drove straight through to California and had the kids to the gate of Disneyland when it opened at 8 a.m. on Halloween (after stopping somewhere for breakfast).  M&M spent the day with other 9th graders from the band and had a really good time.  She said that most of the rides had no line at all and those that had longer lines they got the FastPasses for.  They had just opened up Cars Land and M&M said that it was really fun and looked just like scenes from the Cars movies.

Tower of Terror - not one of M&M's favorite rides but she agreed to go on it with her friends at the end of the day.

At the end of the day the band went to a hotel that they stayed at for the next two nights.  The next morning (Thursday) they had breakfast at the hotel and then headed to a music/marching clinic at Riverside Community College (RCC).  For lunch they headed to Balboa Beach and then had a couple of hours to spend at the beach.  Later that evening they headed back to RCC for a performance of their show and then they watched the RCC band perform.

Friday morning they left for St. George.  They had a Red Rocks Invitational (and state competition) at Dixie State College Friday evening.  Then they stayed in a hotel in St. George that night and performed twice the next day at a St. George high school for a Bands of America regional competition - the first year our high school was invited.  They had the preliminary competition in the morning and then the top 10 bands went on to perform again that night for the finals - and our school made it.

After the band finals on Saturday night the band left and got back to the high school around 5:00 in the morning!  It was kind of crazy!  M&M is already looking forward to next year though!  (She ended up missing the last two days of the school quarter with Friday being a teacher work day.)

Thanksgiving 2012

Thursday, November 22

M&M and I made an apple pie with the last of the apples from our apple trees.  M&M wanted to try the lattice top for the pie and it turned out pretty good.  It was a really good pie.  We also made a pumpkin chiffon pie and the layered pumpkin jello that the kids love and then DH made the mashed (whipped) potatoes.

Thanksgiving dinner was at my parents' house with my sister and her family there as well.

MJ talk

Yesterday MJ came up to my room while I was getting ready for church and she came in and hugged my leg and said, "I'm so glad to see you!"

On Saturday afternoon I was out going to some stores with M&M and left the younger kids home with DH.  Apparently at one point MJ walked down to her dad's office where he was working on the computer and went up to him and said, "Daddy, I want a hug."  So he picked her up and held her and she promptly went to sleep within a minute or two.

Kid talk

I found MJ and Kay playing in Luke's room this evening.  I went in and asked them if they were allowed to play in there.  Kay said, "Yeah, it's fine."  And MJ said, "No, we're not."