Four walls

The basement walls have been poured and tarred for the house. Next step is to backfill this area then start digging the crawl space for the foundation for the rest of the main floor. Ryan spent most of the night putting foam insulation around the cement walls so that the basement stays that much more warm and dry.

Happy Birthday to Emma!

The 29th was Emma's 10th birthday. So exciting to be double digits! She had a family birthday this year. Her favorite gift she received was several rolls of duct tape in all different colors. She is excited to make all sorts of crafty things from duct tape. A few things we love about Emma:
--She is incredibly sensitive to what is going on around her.
--She is very observant and often knows where a missing item is located.
--She loves to sing.
--She is taking piano lessons and is almost caught up with Lexi.
--She is quite photogenic.
--She is meticulous about any project she is working on-very detail oriented.
--Her best subject at school is probably spelling, but she does well in all of her subjects.
Thanks for being such a sweet big sister and little sister, Emma. We love you!

What else is going on . . .

Besides birthdays and volleyball, this weekend was a busy one. Christa also had a district choir and orchestra concert, which was fun. She enjoyed participating with the kids from other schools, some of whom are her friends from the Math and Science Center. On Saturday there was a Regional Young Women's Conference, with Sister Mary Cook, 2nd counselor in the general YW presidency as the featured speaker. I was able to go for most of the day with Christa, and it was really uplifting. (I can't remember if I posted that I was recently called to work with the Beehives in our ward). On Thursday night this past week, Emma and Lexi had a Talent Show for their Primary Activity and Lexi played a cello-violin duet with her friend Ana and Emma showed some of her woodworking, which she likes to do with Ryan. Paisley climbed all the way up the stairs all by herself the other day. I was working on the computer downstairs and didn't even realize she was on the stairs, until I came out and couldn't find her where I had left her, and instead found her up in the playroom. I guess it's time to teach her to do down backwards. Today was the Children's Sacrament meeting program--always a wonderful Sunday. There was a bit of panic at the start of the meeting when the microphone wasn't working, but through some miracle it was working by the time the children were ready for their presentation. All of the children did so well. Anya, being in the youngest class, was right in the front, and I don't think she held still for more than 2 seconds in the entire hour. She was so wiggly. She sang and said her little part at the microphone without a single bit of hesitation, but I felt sorry for her friend Piper who was sitting next to her. At one point they just about got into a wrestling match right there on the stand. We all have colds and the baby and Anya haven't been sleeping too well. Maybe we can get to bed early tonight and be ready to start all the craziness again tomorrow.

Blog Tag

Quinn, one of my great roommates my first year at BYU, now living in Germany with her cute family tagged me for this one. You have to pick the 4th picture from the 4th folder in your photos file. This is the one that came up for me. (Our entire digital camera libaray isn't on this computer, otherwise it would have been and older picture, but it was fun to look through them.)

This is Anya sitting on the landing going up the stairs, taken about 2 years ago. One of those silly, every day moments that somehow gets captured on camera. I tag Erin, Kara and Laura.

Birthday Girl!

Happy 8th Birthday to Sierra!  She had a great day, and a fun Pajama Party with 10 fun friends.  We did hair and nails and ate pizza and watched Freaky Friday, and everyone still went home to their own beds.  Sierra is excited to be baptized and be confirmed next month.  Some things we love about Sierra:  She loves to give and receive hugs and kisses.  She does everything with energy and enthusiasm.  She has really learned to love reading in the last few months, and always has her book.  She is doing well with piano and with her school work.  She loves to help take care of Paisley, and will change her diaper without being asked and without help.  She has a cute smile, even without most of her front teeth :)  Story about the T-shirt.  Sometimes Sierra's busy mind is elsewhere when someone is talking to her and you'll ask her a question and she will respond, "I have no idea what you are talking about."  The other day Ryan was watching his favorite show, Mythbusters, and one of the guys on the show had a T-shirt with that exact phrase on it.  Of course Ryan thought of Sierra and was able to find it for her just in time for the birthday party.

Volleyball Star!

This weekend was Christa's last volleyball game.  She played on the 8th grade JV squad all season, which officially ended on Monday, but the City Tournament was on Thursday and Friday and the 8th grade varsity coach asked if she would play with the varsity team for the Tournament.  She really has improved over the season, and has had a lot of fun playing.  She didn't actually get any play time in the tournament, and the team lost in the second round (of 8 teams), but it was great to wear the varsity jersey and be on the sidelines for the games.  

Hole in the Ground

After a year of talking and thinking and planning, we finally have a hole in the ground that is going to be a new house!   The girls like to run around the hole asking, "What is going to be here?"  It's on 10 acres just about a mile from where our house is now, so we get to go check on progress every day.  We are all very excited.  We'll keep you all updated.  

Disneyland

The girls had a couple of extra days off of school so we decided to head to Disneyland.  None of us had ever been before.  We went to Disney World about 5 1/2 years ago when we were still living in NYC.  Anya was the most excited of anyone.  She asked every day when she was going to meet Minnie.  She drew lots of pictures, and made everyone else draw pictures, of Minnie.  Everyone traveled well.  We stayed at the Marriott a couple of miles down the road from the Disney complex.  We wore ourselves out riding rides and meeting characters.  The first night the fireworks were canceled because it was somewhat overcast, but we got to see them the second night.  Anya wanted to visit Minnie each day.  I was surprised that she was more interested in Minnie Mouse than the Princesses, although we did see them as well.  California Adventure was also great.  We all loved the California Screamin roller coaster.  Christa, Lexi, Emma and Ryan did the Tower of Terror.  It lived up to it's name for Emma.  The others went back, but she hated it.  Sierra really liked the roller coasters and was pretty adventurous in trying new rides.  Anya liked anything that didn't go in the dark.  Paisley was pretty good in her Baby Bjorn and stroller.  On the ride back to the airport, our shuttle driver started asking us about religion and we were able to tell him about our living prophet on earth.  He was pretty fascinated by that concept.  We left him with a Book of Mormon that Christa had brought along, as well as our email address.   

Election 08

I heard this great article read on a talk radio program this week.  It's written by James Dobson, of Focus on the Family.  I think he sums up our thoughts on the issues in play.  http://www.citizenlink.org/pdfs/2008-10-c4newsletter.pdf