Brian Regan

We gave the kids Brian Regan tickets for Valentine's Day, and the show was last night. It was so funny!

Excited to go in!

Sawyer has just about all of his jokes memorized, but for the show it was all new stuff that we hadn't heard before. So fun!

I wish our tickets would have been a little closer. His facial expressions are the best part!

His opening act was FANTASTIC too! It's nice to know there are still a few comedians that keep it clean and family friendly. We had a great night with lots of laughs!

May the Odds be EVER in Your Favor!

Hunger Games!

All four of us read the Hunger Games, and loved it! We were so excited for the movie! I got tickets to the midnight premier. Bailey had never been to a midnight premier before, so she was the most excited. I got to the theater at around 5:30 and got in a line that wrapped all the way around the side of the building. I just read a book, and people watched until everyone else got there. We actually got to go into our theater at 8:00, so that left us with only 4 more hours to wait (that is written with sarcasm). It actually wasn't that bad. It was fun listening to all the people around us. Austin Kade was in the lobby painting mocking jays on people, so that kept us entertained for awhile. We all LOVED the movie and thought they did an excellent job sticking to the book. We can't wait for the next one to come out!

Mark, Bailey, Katie, Sawyer, Lisa, and Emily

Bailey was excited that she got to wear her pjs to the movies :)!

There were people dressed up. We saw two people dressed like Effie, and this one was by far the best. We also saw a couple people from the Capitol, and lots of girls looking like Katniss.

Bailey got a mocking jay, and district 12 painted on her arms.

Lisa and Katie

I don't really have words for this, other than to say that the later it got, the sillier they got :)!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Yay for St. Patrick's Day! I'm not even sure why we celebrate it, but it sure is fun :)! I made everyone their own special pot of gold this year.

Pot of gold!

Sawyer enjoying his gold!

You know Bailey, she can't do anything half way :)!

I even got the dogs in on the fun! See the tag on Reese's Collar? It's a Pinch Proof Protection Card! Even though she looks sad that she has to wear something so stupid, I promise she really did like it :)! She even kept it on all day.

Here's what their tags looked like. I couldn't wait to see every one's reactions. I knew the kids would crack up, and I knew Mark would roll his eyes at me, and think I was off my rocker! I had to make sure he didn't use the day to be mean to them and pinch them!

And as you can see, the tags worked! They enjoyed lots of scratches, and no pinches!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

So 'Dog On' Pushy!

Oreo is so annoying, and HAS TO have someone petting her ALL the time!

Time Our for Women

I went to Time Out for Women over the weekend. The theme was Seek the Good, and the whole weekend was awesome! Thanks to my friend Heather, we had front row seats! Women from the area who have a story to tell are asked to share those stories. Heather was asked to submit hers (because it's amazing). Her story was the one they selected, so she got into the event for free, got front row seats, and got to have lunch with all the presenters on Saturday. Her story will be on the TOFW website next week. To read it, go to www.tofw.com, and click on the 'Women Like You' section. I promise, you'll be inspired!

Here's my front row seat :)!

Here's our cute group- Esther, Heather, Heather's mom Ondrea, and her sister in law Whitney.

Before the Friday night event even got started, I got to meet John Bytheway! I had my picture taken with him to show Sawyer and Bailey. They love him!

John Bytheway was the first presenter on Friday, and hands down my favorite! His talk was the Parable of the Marinade. He talked about surrounding (or marinading) ourselves in good. Next, Macy Robison shared her story through music. The final presenter of the night was Virginia H. Pearce. She is the second daughter of President Hinckley. She gave a great talk on forgiveness.

Saturday was fantastic! First we heard from Mary Ellen Edmunds. She talked about goodness. The next presenter was Emily Watts. She gave us 5 habits to make us happy. I was cracking up through her whole talk! Now I need to go buy her books! She was definitely one of my favorites of the weekend. Next we heard from D. Kelly Ogden. He talked about some people from the scriptures doing the highest good. When I heard what his topic was, I was afraid it would be boring, but it was excellent. Then we heard from Merrilee Boyack. She challenged us to give away 5 split seconds a day, and told us how to do it. She was another one of my favorites from the weekend. The last presenter to speak was Emily Freeman. She talked about how we can seek the good during the middle moments of our lives. In between all the speakers, Jericho Road performed. I thought they were great.

Jericho Road

The whole show was great! I can't wait until it comes to Idaho Falls again!

Missionary Week!

Our ward did an awesome, and very challenging activity for our youth. We had a Missionary Week. The kids got their 'mission calls' on Sunday during church. The packet told them they would be serving for the duration of 1 week in the Idaho Falls area. It also had the mission rules, and agenda for the week.They reported to the MTC on Sunday evening, which was a kickoff fireside explaining what was expected of them throughout the week.

Here we are with our two missionaries.

The daily schedule they had to follow looked like this:
6:30am- Get up, pray, get ready
7:00am- Personal study
7:20am- Breakfast
7:45am- Companion study (which was family scripture study)
8:00am- Proselyting (be an example at school, practice, work, etc..)
9:00pm- Return home, plan for the next day, write in journal, prepare for bed, pray.
10:30pm- Lights out

They also had some tough rules to follow for the week:
Follow schedule
Avoid all forms of worldly entertainment:
TV, movies, i-pods, cell phones (except to call parents, and to report to your zone leader each night), Internet (except for school purposes), music (unless it's church music), books and magazines (except for school purposes).
Write a letter to parents on p-day.

As if that wasn't torture enough, they were also given a special task each day:
Monday- Teach the first lesson in Preach My Gospel to your family for FHE.
Tuesday- The kids were given companions for the night. They were picked up from the church at 6:00 by 'investigators', who were families from our ward. The families fed them dinner, and then the missionaries had to teach them the lesson they had practiced with their families the night before. This ended up being a really great experience for the kids and the families who helped out.
Wednesday- Good deed day (do as many good deeds as you can throughout the day).
Thursday- Dress the part. They had to dress like a missionary all day.
Friday- Give out a Book of Mormon (if appropriate), or set a goal to give one out by the end of the year.
Saturday- This was their p-day. They had a big service project in the morning, and then they had to do their own laundry, cook their own meals, and clean their rooms.

They were released on Saturday, and then on Sunday we held a special testimony meeting so the youth could share their experiences.

I was VERY proud of my kids (and all the other kids who participated). Most kids were NOT happy about the activity at all. We were asking them to give up a lot! But the ones who did it had really good experiences.

Sawyer's experience: Sawyer grumbled a lot about the activity at first. It's tough for a 16 year old boy to give up electronics for a week! Parents were not supposed to make their kids do this. It was to be left up to them. The Bishop said they were old enough to decide on their own, and they would get out of it what they put into it. On Tuesday night Sawyer and Mason were paired up as companions. They went to the Hopla's house, and had a really good experience. That was a highlight of the week for him. We were told he is going to make a great 'real' missionary. He also brought three nonmember foreign exchange students to church with him on Sunday. Three very cute girls I might add! They all had a great time, and made him look pretty studly :)! He learned a lot, and ended up being glad he took the challenge.

Bailey's experience: Bailey was totally up for the challenge right from the start. She went all out! The hardest thing for her was giving up her books. She loves to read, and it was hard to limit herself to just church materials. She stuck it out though. She gained a testimony of prayer. She really wanted to give her Book of Mormon out. She prayed every night that an opportunity would come up, and sure enough, one did! On Thursday, a girl at her bus stop asked her why she was wearing a dress. She explained about missionary week. That sparked a whole conversation, and that's who she gave her Book of Mormon to the next day. Bailey loves a challenge, so she took this one and ran with it. I think that since she put so much into it, she really got a lot out of it. Now she wants to serve a real mission :)!
Sawyer and Bailey both did a great job, and when it was all said and done, they were glad they did it! I'm grateful they have such awesome and inspired leaders.

Queen Catherine II of Russia

The GATE program was done away with this year due to school budget cuts. Falls Valley started their own similar program. Bailey gets out of her regular class once a week to go to this special class. I will confess that I did not want her to do it AT ALL (I know, I'm a bad mom). I didn't want her to miss the work in her regular class, and most of the time, these programs just lead to extra projects for the parents to do. She really wanted to do it, so I said she could try it out for a month and see how it went. Well, it went great.
The kids have been working on an "It's your birthday" project. They had to find someone/something they could research that was in some way related to their birthday. Bailey did her project on Queen Catherine II of Russia. They had to have 20 fact cards done each week with 3-4 facts per card. They did 60 cards total. That's a lot of work for a 6th grader. Then they had to make a poster to display about their person/event. And lastly, they had to do a big project about what they researched. They had a special night at school where all the projects were set up, and the parents could come and see what everyone did. Bailey wasn't able to attend the project night, but she still went all out on her project anyways. She made a huge book about Queen Catherine II of Russia, and did a great job! She put so much hard work and effort into this. It has really taught her a lot about how to do research. So, I ate my words, and now I'm really glad she's doing the class. It's really helping to prepare her for middle school.

Good job Bailey! You did Queen Catherine proud!

FINALLY...NO MORE BRACES!

Sawyer has had his braces on FOREVER! They had to be on a year and a half longer than what they told him. But, he finally got them off!