Homer

Tanner got to celebrate his birthday at the ball park. It wasn't raining (even though it was SOOOO cold) so I was able to get out of the car and sit on the bleachers to watch his birthday baseball game.

Tanner plays first base and he also gets to pitch. He loves pitching and he's pretty good at it, but he's an excellent first baseman.

Pitching provides better opportunities for moms to take pictures, though.

And that's a good thing since this mom was too busy cheering to remember to take a picture of Tanner's first HOME RUN! He hit the ball all the way to the fence. A little more height and he would have hit that ball out of the park. What a perfect thing to do on his brithday.

Why I Love My Husband

On Wednesday, I had to borrow a muffin pan from my neighbor in order to make cupcakes for Tanner's class (it's the last year of that, you know).

On Friday, Randy went to WalMart for me. I asked him to pick me up some treats to put in the neighbors pan as a thank you. (I know that my thinking doesn't make a lot of sense, but I didn't want to bake anything to put in the pan because I didn't want her to have to wash it when she got it back. So I taped the Hershey minis in the muffin cups.)

 When I got home, I found this sitting on my kitchen cupboard with the package of Hershey minis.

I didn't ask. He just did.

Scavenger Hunt

Randy enjoys creating scavenger hunts. He's done a few for me and did one for Braxton when Braxton received his gun. Well, for Tanner's birthday, we decided that a scavenger hunt would be appropriate for him to find his "fun" gift (as opposed to church pants, which are not so fun).

The hunt started when Randy gave Tanner an envelope with the first clue: Go to the place where you wash the sweat and dirt off of your body.

Then the next clue took him to where he rests his mitt.

The third clue: Oh, you thought you had it and were through. Go to where you and the Empire try to make things new.

Off to the playstation where a ring pop (he wanted one for his birthday) was waiting with this clue: Pop, goes the weasel; nope, not by the easel. Maybe try a place that rhymes with pamper.

Out to the camper for another clue: Oh, the camper - such a good place but way too much space. Look in....and then Randy drew a picture of a pan and a tree (pantry).

I interrupt this scavenger hunt to fill you in on Tanner. Tanner has special talents, but figuring out the clues is not one of them. Luckily for him, Kilee was with him the whole way and helping him figure it out. He couldn't figure out the Empire clue (Star Wars) without help and rhyming with pamper took too much time for Kilee so she just blurted "Camper!" What Tanner does excel at is drawing, pictures, art. I'm amazed at his natural talent. So when Tanner got to the clue with the pictures, he didn't hesitate. Kilee didn't have to help him at all.

It should be noted that when I looked at the clue, Randy had to explain it to me. I do not excel at pictures.

Off to the pantry for the last clue: Oh My Gosh! Your clothes you must wash! And Tanner headed for the laundry room....

...where a brand new bike 21-speed, 26" bike was waiting for him.

What a great way to start his 4,015th day on this earth.

Retreat

Last Friday, I went on a retreat with the English department faculty. This was the noun retreat:

re-treat (noun): A place affording peace or security. A period of group withdrawal for meditation or instruction. A place of seclusion, esp. for contemplation.

Not to be confused with the verb retreat: re-treat (verb): to draw back, move back, pull away, pull back, recede. However, we did retreat from college students, so I suppose it was a verb, too.

I'm off topic.

I went on a retreat. We jumped in some large vans on campus and retreated to nature. Harriman State Park, actually. We started our day with some nature readings and then we had to apply what we'd studied so we went on a nature walk. (So we were retreating from our retreat.)

We observed the birds (I'd never heard of a bufflehead before but now I've seen one) and the sum total of two wildflowers.

Then it was on to more important matters. Writing about nature.

Or just visiting about nature, as the case may be.  But it was all very serious business, let me assure you. (Notice all the jackets. It was a pretty chilly day, and we found ourselves retreating from nature).

No retreat is complete without food, and we had plenty of it. There were snacks all morning long and then we had a fabulous lunch cooked up by Brother Hammer, a member of the English dept. faculty. He made chicken salad sandwiches and french dip sandwiches and his mother's chocolate cake. It was so delicious. (And now I have to retreat to my treadmill.) Of course, there was some department business to attend to, but that was a minimal part of our day and we quickly retreated to the retreat.

I have successfully retreated. I am now more energized and excited and still love my job, not to mention about five pounds heavier.

Look at Me Being Craftsy!

I realize it is very out of character, and that's exactly why I'm showing it to you. I made something. It was easy and turned out so cute!

If you are looking for a cute, simple, and inexpensive gift for your child's teacher, you can stop looking now. See, the problem with me is that I never start looking (my apologies to past teachers). I'm just one of those parents who is a lousy parent for teachers. And I'm a teacher. Go figure. You'd think I'd go all out at the end of the year in appreciation for all those teachers do.

But no.

And then Nana shows up with this cute thing and shows Kilee and tells me exactly what and where to buy the supplies. Nana kind of forced me into it. I'm wondering if those teachers called my mother and told on me.

So - here's what you need:

You need a clear 4 x 6 frame (Walmart $1), scrap book paper, matching Post-it notes, matching craft flower and button, and matching ribbon. I cut the scrap book paper to fit in the frame.

Tie the ribbon around the frame, remembering that the base of the frame is the top of this project. Think of it as tying the frame shut. Use a little hot glue under the knot to hold the ribbon in place. 

Stick the button on the flower. My little flower already had a slit in it so I just poked the back of the button through that little slit.

Then hot glue the flower on top of the knot. Add a pad of Post-it Notes in the appropriate color and - Wa La! - cute little note holder thing for the teacher. 

Add a cute pen (or a set of cute pens). If you live somewhere besides Rexburg, you can probably just run down to your Office Max or other local stationery store and find a cute writing instrument. But if you live in a small college town (like me), and your closest thing to an Office Max is the office section of Walmart, then I wish you luck finding anything cute to write with. Evidently, college students don't write with anything cute. I must change that.

Anyway - there's an idea for that end-of-year gift that you all feel you must give. And please, don't hold your breath for any more craft posts on this blog.

Happy gift-giving!

Ever Notice...?

Have you ever noticed how the closer you get to the end of the school year the harder it is to get out of bed? The harder it is to even get the kids into bed? Forget the fact that the kids don't have any motivation; I don't have any motivation. We've reached the end of homework, end of projects, end of reading slips. We've entered the party-every-day-until-the-last-day phase: field trips, movie days, reading parties.

And as much as I'd like to get annoyed by the fact that they aren't doing anything worthwhile at school, I'm almost grateful that our after school hours can be dedicated to scouts, activity days, mutual, piano practice, piano lessons, baseball, piano recitals, band concerts, dance recitals....

Now, if we can just manage to get out of bed for one more week.

Signs of Spring

Sunday morning dawned bright and beautiful. We were getting ready for church services when the phone rang. It was the neighbor across the street. Randy answered and the conversation lasted about 10 seconds. He turned to me and said, "Do you care if Kilee sees a horse being born?"

So, Kilee, Randy, Tanner, and McKay jumped in the truck and drove across the road. I realize that sounds funny, but across the road isn't just across the road. It's down the lane, over a canal, up the road to the neighbor's driveway. Then walk back to the pasture which is just across the road.

The rest of us ran upstairs to Braxton's room and watched out the window with binoculars. That would be my daughter in her white skirt in the middle of a pasture full of horse manure. Just in case you think they have a bird's eye view of the festivities, here's a picture where I didn't zoom as much.

The horse is over there on the left. Dusty, the owner, is just a few feet away from the horse and the crowd is over there on the right.

This is the part where I'm feeling pretty bad for that momma.

Then she's done and there's a baby on the ground.

Can I take just a minute and point out that Dusty still has a Coke in his hand?

And there's the momma with her baby. Pretty worn out if you ask me.

And there's Dusty's Coke on the post.

Later, Tanner reported that it "was really neat and REALLY disgusting."

Perspective

My students had their first assignment due last week. It was an annotation assignment (you'd be surprised at how many college students do not know how to annotate). I'm grading along and I come to this:

Yes, that would be an English word with Chinese characters above it. And then there's another one.

And I suddenly realize that my reading assignments are very difficult for my student from Taiwan.

Not only does he have to read them and annotate them, but he has to understand them first, which means writing the Chinese translation for the unfamiliar English word.

So, was studying hard for you last night?

My Very Own

A few weeks ago, I shared the story of my sister going to see The Pioneer Woman. Since then, two wonderful things have happened.

First, my sister got a blog of her own!

Second, I received my very own The Pioneer Woman Cooks cookbook! Oh, I am so excited!

Kilee and I sat down and turned the pages and oo-ed and aah-ed. She loves the flowers all over the pages.

We read the dedication page. I laughed because most dedications are just a few words, a phrase at the most. Not so with PW. She's loquacious.

We tried to figure out which section to turn to first.

Dinner?

Supper? Eventually, I had to close the book and start dinner. Supper, actually (I stand corrected).

The end, indeed.

My favorite part, though, was back at the beginning. Remember how I said she might not have very good hand writing?

Perfectly legible if you ask me.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was nice. All I really wanted was to be the last one out of bed. That didn't happen. But I did have a lovely breakfast prepared by my kiddos (with a lot of help from their dad). And then after church we had a wonderful meal shared with good friends (um--I hope I can call them friends).

We invited Mike and Kim Treter to share Mother's Day dinner with us. If you remember, they were the married students in my class last semester. Don't ask me why I didn't get a cute picture of the two of them together. I just didn't. As usual, when I have company I like to try new things so we had pulled pork sandwiches with sweet coleslaw. It was delicious!

The Treters were great company and even brought dessert! Kim had made this red velvet cheesecake creation. It was so pretty and tasted divine. It should be noted that the cake is so big that all eight of us only ate 1/4 of the cake.

Isn't it pretty?

Thanks, Kim and Mike, for sharing your dessert (and Mother's Day) with us.

Reactions to Today's Snow

 

Braxton: "At least track is over."

Tanner: "Dang it! I have a baseball game today and I'm supposed to pitch and it's going to be cancelled!" (He was right.)

Kilee: "Are you serious?"

McKay: "Now we can go sledding."

Why I Enjoy Teaching at BYU-I

My second semester at BYU-I is in full swing and I am enjoying it just as much as the first (though it should be noted here that there is some longing for the Eldest Child who knows my personality). What is it that keeps me going despite all those papers I have to grade?

• Opening songs. Sometimes I let the students choose, and sometimes I choose. I like to choose happy songs. Songs like "In the Leafy Treetops" really gets class set off on the right note (pun intended). This semester, I even have a piano in my classroom!
• Opening prayers. I enjoy hearing my students pray. Each one is unique and individual and I can get a better understanding of each of their personalities just by listening to them pray. I suppose that is a little insight into how our Father in Heaven feels when he hears each of us pray.
• Gospel Doctrine classes. My students have grown up attending Sunday school classes where they are expected to participate. Fortunately for me, they do their preparation and are willing to share when they come to class. It makes my job so much easier.
• Discounts. It needs to be said. I'm frugal; not as frugal as some, but frugal none the less. I get a discount on certain purchases in the bookstore and on some ticketed events on campus. Makes for cheap family activities or date nights.
• Associations. I get to talk to, work with, question, and hob-nob with some very intelligent, very talented individuals, and I'm not just talking about my students. The faculty are amazing as well. I not only get to teach some of the brightest individuals around, I also get to learn from some of the most learned, both spiritually and intellectually.  

I would have to work really hard to find a better place to do what I love. The real test will be to see how I feel after I grade the first set of 54 papers.

It's Always Been There

Yesterday, McKay climbed on the counter and was sitting on his knees. He reached towards the fruit bowl and promptly hit his head on the cupboard. As he rubbed his head and tried not to cry, he asked, "Who put that cupboard there anyway?"