Go Storm!

We got a chance to get away last weekend . . . even if it was just an hour or so away. Jared and Nate had a tournament so we went up with our friends and assistant coach, the Burrups, and stayed in a hotel, went swimming and cheered on the team! Between games we went to see the elk at the game reserve (which was really neat but all the pictures turned out blurry) and, of course, ate at Miner's.

Amanda stayed home with grandma and grandpa due to an obligation to her social life (two parties to attend) and I left Bradley for the first time overnight! He did great with grandma and grandpa and didn't seem to miss us at all! It was nice--I may have to do it again some time.

Way to go guys! They took 3rd in the tournament and it is so fun to watch them play!

Winter is Whizzing By!

With so much to do before Christmas, I love when we have a snow day to slow things down a little bit! Although our "snow delay" was last week, it was so fun to have a slower paced morning and be back at school by afternoon. The kids are a constant reminder to me to enjoy more of what is going on around and not be so task oriented at this time of year. Speaking of task oriented, I made 26+ of the graham-cracker houses pictured above for Megan's Jan Brett winter party. As I was mentally beating myself up for being so insane and agreeing to do this, I thought of all the things that I take upon myself at Christmas just because I think I have to and/or because I did it for the older kids . . .

For example, Nate and I thought letting the kids pick out an ornament for the tree each year was a wonderful tradition to start. Now times that by four and trying to get to the mall (on a school night)frazzled and $50 later, we were questioning that idea. Once we were home, the kids were showered and were so happy to put their special ornament on the tree which they proudly display when people come over, I realized that is why we do it. Today, when I attended Megan's party and watched the kids have so much fun decorating houses, big frosting-and-candy smiles on their faces and getting their picture taken with their works of art, I remembered why I lost a few hours of sleep to get the party ready. I think of all the silly things I try to do to make more work for myself at Christmastime and I am reminded that our love grows for those whom we serve. I love you, family! Thanks for letting me serve you!

Holiday Highlights

Here are some highlight pictures from Thanksgiving. We had a nice, relaxing holiday. I still love that I don't have to host or cook much (this year I only did a pie and a green bean casserole). I have to take advantage of that while I can, which makes me very thankful for my mom and mother-in-law who do go through a lot of work to have a nice family dinner. This year, my mom, sister, niece, Ashley, and Amanda all started Thanksgiving morning running the Turkey Trot (a 5k run along the Columbia River). My mom and Ashley walked, Mindy got sick partway through (still finished and did great) and I capitalized on everyone's weakness and did well--three minutes faster than the last race (this is not hard to do when you run as slow as I do). Amanda also did awesome! She ran the whole time and was such a trooper--it was very cold! Nate and Jared went to play some football with a bunch of families and then we headed over to Papa and Nannee's for dinner. Megan and her cousin, Jordan, are pictured doing a "Thanksgiving play" which was a short narrative about the first Thanksgiving, I think. They looked very cute! Amanda and Kayleigh and Nannee are in the next picture. We also spent an arduous two hours getting family pictures taken. At this point, I'm grateful they are done, we survived and we were all in the same place at the same time so just keep that in mind when you see your Christmas cards this year. We rewarded the kids by going to the Bee Movie and then spent some time getting some Christmas shopping started. Above is one Santa picture and all the kids are pictured with him near the heading of the blog--kind of unplanned, as we were there to see the Festival of Trees but I love the classic "baby traumatized by Santa picture." We kind of predicted Bradley would be my one kid who didn't care and would like Santa--he's not shy and will go to ANYBODY. I guess we're 4 for 4--all of my kids thought Santa was scary initially. Well, we're forging onto Christmas and it feels like it's coming too quickly. I hope to be able to step back and enjoy a little this year--I was too pregnant last year to enjoy much!

Thanks and Stuff

Every once in a while, we actually get a productive Family Home Evening lesson in on Family Night. We've done a few variations of a "being thankful" lesson over the years such as paper chains, lists and leaves on trees. As I looked over the feathers, I realized we all feel thankful for many of the same basic things (which is a good thing). Since then, I have thought of a few more that wouldn't quite fit on a feather in one or two words:

1. The 24-hour flu bug only lasts 24 hours or less.

2. No one wanted to show our house during the flu outbreak.

3. Carpet cleaning products that work pretty well.

4. Football playoffs ended before the cold weather began.

5. The policeman who this week let Nate know his tabs expired on his truck--last June! (I'm not really thankful for the $216 ticket, however).

6. Elementary school conferences where kids are home and want to play.

7. Everyone who cares about our lives and reads our blog! = )

8. By popular demand (i.e., inquiring grandparents) here are the latest schedule's:

1. Nate's 7th grade boys' basketball (B white)http://www.rsd.edu/schools/carmichael/pdf/winterIsportscarmichael2007.pdf

2. Nate and Jared Richland Storm AAU basketball http://http//www.ieaau.org/yakimaleague/2007/fall/4boys.pdf

Thanks for being so supportive and coming to our activities--we love it and all of you!

Halloween Fun!

Of course I have to post some Halloween highlights--These are from our church ward chilli feed and trunk-or-treat, family night carving pumpkins with several families at our friends' dentist office, and trick-or-treating at Uptown in Richland. The kids and their cousins--Ashley, Tyler and Maddie are in the top picture and our friends, April and Sierra, are inadvertantly in there, too.

Thinking of Many

Amanda wore this symbol on her shirt to school yesterday along with many of her friends to show their support for their friend, Kaylee's, mother. She underwent surgery yesterday in Seattle as part of her ongoing fight with breast cancer. I tried to remember if cancer was a part of life in my world as a seventh grader and I'm pretty sure it was not. Amanda has helped bring meals in and fill an angel basket and made cards and letters of encouragement. I am very sobered by this. I wanted to express to those of you who we know of who are dealing with cancer in their lives (past and present) that you are on my mind and in my prayers. I also recently found out that one of the young moms I played softball with for several years was just diagnosed with breast cancer as well. So, Butz family, Joe's mom, the Bassett's, the Peck's, April's dad, Kirsten's grandma, Sherrie and many, many others, much love and positive thoughts as well as prayers on your behalf are going out and although it is not much, I hope it helps just a little.

A Good Read

Are any of you into the series by Stephenie Meyer--Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse? I just finished them all (neglected many other things but boy, did I enjoy reading)! I'm glad there are plans for more books in the series! Amanda is reading Twilight now and is getting into the story line, too. So, since I should be in bed I am goofing off taking a quiz to find out which Twilight character I am. I think it's wrong, however, but you may enjoy giving it a try.

http://www.quizilla.com/users/twilightnexus/quizzes/Which%20Twilight%20novel%20character%20are%20you%3F

It Wouldn't Be Fall Without a Trip to the Pumpkin Patch!

Although I absolutely love warm, sunny weather the most, I have to admit I am starting to enjoy the beauty of fall more and more each year. The trees are so colorful right now, it's fun to decorate the house and I love making soup for dinner. With grandma and grandpa, we enjoyed beautiful weather at Country Mercantile on Saturday after Jared's football game and before celebrating Nate's birthday with his family.

I've Joined a Cult

We're having battery issues with our camera so I don't have any recent pictures to post from last weekend (I'll get to what we did, later). However, Amanda took this cute pic of Bradley with her camera and I needed to give him some blog time, of course. He's supposed to be my little buddy but much to my dismay, he seems to be indifferent to his mother. I think he thinks I'm OK because there's no one else around during the day and I take care of him. For that reason, he tolerates me. Once someone else walks through the door he's happy to have a better option. Really, though, he's at a great age (9 months) and we're having lots of fun with him. We have good times together during the day, that is, until 3:30. That's when my cult that I'm in takes over. By cult I mean strange consuming lifestyle that others who are on the outside may find, at best, ridiculous. Memebership in the cult probably began about 12 years ago (upon becoming a parent) but I held off on full participation until this year. The lifestyle requirements of the cult are as follows:

1. You must get in and out of your car and drive around your city four about four hours daily.

2. You must watch the maximum amount of sporting events you can possibly fit in during a week and shuffle your kids to any extra practices that are scheduled (because 5 days per week is absolutely not enough football when the playoffs are around the corner).

3. In between driving to those sporting events you must also schedule your kids for piano, church and scouts in between so that there is no breathing room which will in turn cause you to, out of necessity, be part of a carpool. This entails multiple phone calls daily to see which moms' schedule is the worst for that day.

4. You must live off of boxes of food and drinks that you can throw in your car with sandwiches, or, on a really special night, order pizza.

5. Upon arriving home, exhausted, you must attack homework, showers and bedtime at a marathon pace so that you can crash into bed and wake up ready to repeat the following day.

Last weekend, we decided to play hookey from this pace and did what? Watch more football! Nate wanted to go to an EWU game so he, Amanda, Jared and Uncle Kevin braved the cooler weather while Bradley, Megan, Aunt Em, Jordan and I opted for warmer activities. We had fun with some down time in Rathdrum, Coeur d'Alene and Spokane, so thanks Fuhr family for helping us avoid our cult for a day or two!

We Did It!

On Saturday morning, Mindy and I ran our 2nd 5K race together. Our first one was in May and I was pushing Bradley in a stroller so it seems that this time I did much, much better. It was the perfect morning--a bit of a breeze down by the river but warm enough to make us dripping with sweat--just like real runners! I have to say, I have never been much of a runner--we Floyd girls just aren't built that way. Fortunately, my sister is my drive, motivation, inspiration and personal trainer. Upon hearing about the race, Mindy immediately signed up and then made sure I was signed up and committed. She can pretty much run me into the ground when we are working out--I'm much more of a wimp but I love that she stays with me and pushes me to go harder and do better. We are already talking about doing another one soon, maybe. . . .

Nate's a Star!

Here is a commercial that a friend from church put together for one of our local TV stations. If you know of any good agents, give Nate a call . . .

Fall Frenzy

Okay, for those of you who are interested the following links provide the schedules for Amanda's volleyball games (see A team schedule) and Jared's football games (see Cowboys C-team). Now you know where we'll be over the next six weeks or more:

http://www.rsd.edu/schools/carmichael/pdf/fallsportscarmichael2007.pdf

and

http://eteamz.active.com/RichlandYouthFootball/ under upcoming games.

Last Chance at Summer

Our summer went by so fast and now that three of the kids are in school all day, I am missing summer a little bit (only a little). We took one last trip to the river in Grandpa's new boat on Labor Day. This is Megan and her friend, Amelia. The fact that everything seemed to fly by so quickly this summer is one of many reasons prompting me to document life by blogging. I feel like maybe I'll have some tangible evidence that summer actually happened and my kids (and husband) were once home making noise, messes and lively moments every day.