What a Night!

I haven't forgotten about you, though I'm sure you think I must have.

On Tuesday night I had a great experience. It was our ward's turn to clean the temple. We passed around the sign-up sheet in Relief Society once and had all six spots filled. (I think that's a little victory for me, because any other assignment takes the whole month.) I decided to call the sisters that had signed up to remind them, and in doing so I found that only 3 of the six would be coming. I felt like I should go to fill the place of the missing sisters in my ward. As the day progressed, more sisters called an canceled and I was stressed about filling this assignment. So, I ended up calling my mom and sisters as back up. When we showed up we waited in a little waiting room. I think we were waiting for all of the attendees to finish up getting dressed and be on their way home. Then we went down to the baptistery to change into white jumpsuits and get an specific cleaning assignment.

We all changed and when we met in the chapel, the head housekeeper told us that usually they have 15-18 volunteers, but we had 25 show up. I was so amazed! She also said that they have a regular housekeeping staff from Monday to Friday and then have volunteers come in Tuesday to Friday to help with the cleaning. Our specific assignments were to vacuum, upstairs volunteers, men's locker room and waiting room area, women's locker room, baptistery, and kitchen.

My assignment was the women's locker room. I got to clean all the mirrors, counter tops, and locker tops. I was also given the job of refilling the toilet paper holders (this was my favorite part.) Emily, was working with me for the most part. Amanda cleaned all the glass and stainless steel in the baptistery, and my mom got to mop the kitchen.

I thought it was one of the coolest nights. We showed up at 9:30pm and they sent us home around 11:45pm. The time really went by fast and I think that cleaning the temple is easier than cleaning my own home.

The Beekeeper Field Trip

Yesterday I went with Tom's kindergarten class on a walking field trip to the beekeeper's house. There's a girl in Tom's class whose dad is a beekeeper. His class was lucky enough to go on a field trip to her house to learn about the bees and see them.
We started out the day at school and looking at the map to walk to Brinkley's house. When we had the directions right, we walked up the hill, down the block, across the street, and three house down to the beekeeper's house. We went into the backyard and sat on the blankets that were ready for us.
The beekeeper then talked to us about bees and the neat things that they do. The kids loved to hear about the amazing abilities of the honeybee.

They learned that bees go to the flowers to collect nectar and pollen. The nectar is what they store to make honey and the pollen they spread to nearby flowers to make them bloom and help the garden produce food.

He even pulled out a form from his beehive to show us how the bees store their honey. Then he showed us how they harvest their honey. It was really cool information.

When the beekeeper was finished telling us about the bees and his hives, Brinkley's mom had made homemade rolls for the kids to have warm rolls with bread, butter, and honey. Of course Tom didn't want any honey, but just a roll with butter--strange boy.

P.S. These aren't the pictures from the field trip, but ones I found on the Internet. I wish I would have remembered my camera, because those pictures would have been a lot more fun.

It Was Only a Matter of Time

So at the end of last week, I saw a funny spot in Tom's hair. I though he'd slept on it funny. I tried to mess with it so it'd lay better and then didn't give it a second thought.

The next morning it was the same thing. I thought, "man, how does he lay on his head to were he still has the same spot." I eventually asked him if he cut is own hair and he admitted right to it.

He had found Pete's little trimmers and thought they were cool, so he turned them on and decided to take them to his own hair. It looks funny, but he doesn't mind.

One GREAT Day!

I love Mother's Day! It's a day that we get to celebrate the wonderful women in our lives, and I am blessed to have so many--my mother, Brian's mother, our sisters, friends, and wonderful women in our wards and neighborhoods. I love it.
This is how my family celebrated me. Tom made this card in class on Friday. He colored it and cut it out and wrote the message inside for me. Then attached to the card was some chocolate candies. What a good way to start Mother's Day weekend!
My favorite thing with the card is that when you open it up is says WOW MOM! So cool--Tom thought so too. He wrote "I love you" on the inside. He's such a sweet boy.

Brian picked out these gifts for me. This cookbook that I thought looked really yummy and these DVD's to watch. We already watched one of them last night. One of the many things that I love about Brian is that he gets so excited about giving gifts, he can rarely wait until the gifting event to give them. He couldn't wait for me to open them, so he gave the movies last night and the cookbook this morning. (He did the same thing with Pete's birthday. When we figured out what to get Pete, Brian was going to call him on the phone to tell him about it.) He always is trying to make us happy! He's amazing!

Lastly, Charlie made me this fabulous Fruit Loop necklace in Primary. He smiled for the picture which always makes me happy. When I put the necklace on, I had it on backwards and you couldn't see his face. I said, "Oh, no! I put it on backwards." He responded, "No, Charlie is supposed to be on your heart." What a sweet reply. I'm sure he doesn't know how much he is and all five of my children are always on my heart. I love them all and feel so lucky that I have them in my life.

The best gift was that all five of my children were with me at church today. I love that. I hope that's how forever feels.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Pool Secret...

Goggles!!!

These goggles is what it took for Charlie to be the star swimming student. He loved wearing these while swimming. He really was the best swimmer in his class. He even loved wearing them to the rec. center. They're funny boys.

Happily Ever After...

I got a message from an Ohio friend the other day that was very disturbing, but has made me think quite a bit. A couple of days ago a message came from Ohio--wondering how we were doing, asking for a phone number, and checking on a rumor. The rumor mill in Piqua, OH is hard at work, because the new one in town is that Brian and I are divorced. [gasp] I was a tad offended at that comment and knew that it had to have been started by someone that doesn't know Brian and I at all.
First of all we are very happily married--completely happy! We love spending time with each other. We say the same things at the same time, like we have since we met. We love each other so much.
As I was thinking about potentially not being with him, I couldn't even imagine a day without him. He makes me so happy. When we are apart from each other, I can't wait to see him and spend time with him. He makes me laugh and he thinks I'm funny (which I'm not.) He also treats me like a princess all the time. He thinks about what would make me happy and always puts my feelings first.
I am so lucky to have him and am glad that I don't have to spend a day without him. So let the rumors be squashed--we are living happily ever after!

Kindergarten Day at the Zoo

Today was Tom's Kindergarten field trip to the Zoo. He was so excited to go, he was dressed and upstairs before Brian was out of the shower. Just he and mom got to go on the field trip, Charlie got to spend the day with Gram and that's an entirely separate post.
Here we are riding on the school bus, one of the first fun things of the day. We got to school and they had it all ready for us to put our lunch in a cooler, get a name tag, and separate into groups that we would walk with around the zoo.
One of the first things that we saw was the giraffe. Tom wasn't as excited about them because we had seen them be so active about a month ago, but he stood in front of them to have his picture taken.

After the giraffes we went to see the Asian Highland animals, but first we had to climb all over the rocks and wood. Here are the boys of our group standing in the "highlands."

One thing the kids in our group wanted to do was to play at the park area. They have a cool empty turtle shell that each of the students had their picture taken in. This is the giant spider web at the playground. Tom thought he was very Peter Parker here.

Still playing at the park. Tom rocked at the monkey bars. He did so much better then I ever would. After playing at the playground, we went to the pavilion to eat our sack lunch. The lunches I made were awesome. We had peanut butter sandwiches, Cheetos, grapes, carrots, cookies, and juice boxes--yummy!

Once lunch was over, we headed out to see more animals. The first ones we saw were the huge rhinos. So cool, you can see them in the background in this picture.

We walked past the rhinos and looked at the bears that were out, and then the zebras. Next we stopped by the penguins. Right behind the penguins were the llamas. They were staying in the shade of their shed, but we did watch them roll on their backs with their feet in the air like dogs. They were really funny.

After we saw all these animals, we only had the great apes left. Here's Tom and I looking out at the silver back ape playing outside.

What's a trip without trying to measure up?

Here's the boys on the bus ride home. We had so much fun and saw so many cool animals. I think that more were out this time then they were when we went last time.

After the zoo, the kids stayed at school until the rest of the school got out. I'm a little worried about how Tom will do when he starts going to school for a whole day. This is what happened when we came home.

It was a great day. We wore ourselves out.