Trash Talk, Part Deux

TO: Dad
FROM: Jenna

Oh Brett and Aidrian Peterson BEAT the team of yours!
Your`re BEET

DIRECTIONS FOR " BEET":

1. beat up beet


2. add salt/bruises


3. add pepper/injure a few players


4. add spice/ stuff of your own


5. let cook for two quarters/let them be behind on points.

Good luck DIEING! WAHAHAHA :-D ;-)

                    I`m cool 8-)

The preceding was Jenna's follow-up to the original trash talk posted previously. This showed up in my email about an hour prior to kickoff of the Vikings/Bears game last night. She has raised this to an art form. Apparently it worked, too. Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson combined for 75 points and the Bears defense added another 8 points as Kim and Jenna's "Cheetah Girls" team came back from a 153-85 deficit to win 168-153 and take 3rd place in the family Fantasy Football league. Congratulations, girls!

Cougar Pride

Jenna didn't watch much of the game tonight, but she showed her BYU spirit in her own way.

 

She first drew the football player.  Then she disappeared for awhile and returned with the whole background filled in.  As you can see she prefers to use pencils and for some reason she generally only colors in her pictures at her art class.

Trash Talk

Subject: Fantasy Football

From: Jenna

To: Dad

Listen to this Mr, I AM going to win. We are going face- to- face with a black eye, HA!

   Do you want to have fun? Nope you will be SO embarrassed you will be emotional!

 Al of your players will be rusty, hurt, and tired. Mine will be clean, not hurt, and ready for the next game.        It won`t be CLOSE! You will get one point and I will get MANY MANY MANY!!! have fun dieing for us.

          -Jenna ;-)    wink

            Be embarrassed :-[    You will be surprised. =-O   BYE

Yep folks, that is a real email... from my 7-year-old daughter. We don't hold back in this family.

What happened to September?

Here I am wondering how the last two months have flown by?

Well, with school lots of things get added to the schedule. Although, one thing was subtracted from the list. I have recently been released as the Young Women President at church. I am missing my girls like crazy- but I will still see them around at church AND at Girl's Camp because I was called to be the Stake Girls Camp director. The 2010 planning has already begun.

Over the last couple of months we have been having some fun.

Spencer turned 11! Can't believe it.

Spencer is such a good kid.

He is an example to everyone who meets him of how to choose the right. He will not go to bed at night before reading his scriptures or saying his prayers. He would rather skip brushing his teeth!

He enjoys playing soccer and really stays busy on the field. He generally plays center defense/midfield and really is quick when he needs to be.

He does well in school. He loves to learn and this year has learned to plan ahead for assignments when he knows he schedule is busy.

He does a good job of getting along with his sister. They enjoy playing games together and he has taught to her to like most of his Discovery Channel shows so that they don't argue about what to watch.

He has finally discovered the joy of watching football- much to Nate's delight.

He has had an occasional preteen moody moment that catches me so off guard that I don't know how to react. Just a preview I guess.

In September, Spencer also received his Arrow of Light. I don't know how we missed the opportunity to take some close up shots with his arrow but it was a crazy night since me and Jenna were coming straight from Soccer practice.






It was a big pack meeting for Spencer. They had not met all summer and we had a busy summer. It was mentioned to Spencer that there was an award for accomplishing all 20 Webelos Activity Pins. Guess what we did all summer and finished the last one up the day before his birthday!



It is a pretty cool patch. Now I need to figure out a plan to display all of his awards. He didn't get a lot of them until that last pack meeting so I didn't get around to it then. Maybe for Christmas?

Jenna Promoted!

Jenna also had a great September. She promoted a belt in Karate. She is so motivated these days- it is pretty cute. Here are a few moments from that night.


We got a good video of her sparring this time. We recorded it on the camera without sound so you will just have to imagine. She is the one throwing all of the punches when the video starts.

And we recorded her receiving her new belt. She is now a Purple with a Black Stripe. Only one more belt and then she and Spencer can attend the same class! (At least until they move him up to the teen/adult class.)

King of the Trees

We have been keeping my brother busy.

After having every tree service stop by to offer to help us clean up our trees we decided to hire my brother to do it instead. We have only done one tree thus far but it felt like we took off a small tree.

And then Nate decided that it was time for our over grown "bushes" to go too.
Hello, neighbors!

Spencer got to finally drive the tractor mower and pull a small trailer with the chopped up wood. We are saving it for some bonfires and BBQs in the future.

It is amazing how hard Spencer worked when allowed to do something so grown up.

He didn't stop all day!

One tree trimmed, now at least one more to go.

Primary Activity at the St. Paul, Minnesota Temple

In the spirit of catching up I am going to add some posts about what we did over the summer. I figure if I try and have a goal of one a day I may actually get it done.

In August, our ward had a primary activity at the temple. Primary is the what the youth Sunday school is called at our church. So I drove them out to Oakdale, which is about a 40min drive for me- perhaps a little longer for others.

It was a beautiful day that did NOT feel like the first weekend in August.
My kids were wearing sweaters!

The kids had a bunch of questions to try and answer about temples and got to walk around the temple grounds. We tried to keep them reverent. I did wonder if any of the patrons were able to hear them though.

A member of the temple presidency came out to talk to our group
on the front steps of the temple.

President Smith is such a nice guy.

Each of the kids got to have a small piece of marble like the temple is made of and also a small photo of the temple.


After they were able to have a snack and who were the first to offer to help pass them out?



Here is the whole group.

It was a wonderful way to start off a Saturday.

Morsching Family Reunion

It happens every year, although some years it seems to sneak up on us.

The Sunday that falls on the weekend before Labor Day is always the Morsching Reunion at Kamp Dels.

Here are the 3 Morsching sisters: Ruth, Eleanor and Phyllis.

It was a really small gathering this year and "gasp!" there wasn't enough of us to do the annual horse shoe tournament this year. Spencer was really disappointed about that, although he is still a little young to officially be in it (he disagrees with that).

We enjoyed some unusual weather, we were either a little chilled or roasting when the sun came out.

The kids still managed to have fun in the pool and water park while Nate "chaperoned" them with his eyes closed. (He had a busy weekend which I will post about soon.)

Spencer had fun hanging out with my cousin Dayton. They had fun in the water, playing cards, and mini golfing. I was slow to get my camera out until the mini golf though.

Tough guys.

Jenna hung out with the guys at the water park but she really had a blast going on a short trail ride with Nate. Thanks to Kyna for taking to the time to arrange it for her to go. Now it will be hard to prevent her from going every year.

On the way out.

I think she had fun!

It is so nice to renew family connections every year.
Hope to see everyone again next year!

Kids are gone...now to try and catch up

I cannot believe that summer vacation is over already. Where did it go?

We sent the kids on the bus for the 1st day of school today.
How did they get so big?

A big 6th grader- perfect pose don't ya think?

Jenna trying to be "cool" like her brother.

Walking to the bus stop.

And they made it to the bus stop. Not much of a hike this year!

Have a good day!

Now the only question is....
what should I do with my day?

Recipes?

This is what happens when you turn your back on your zucchini plants.

Ugh. I think I need to look for a zucchini cookbook or make one for myself.

Summer Fun at the Library? You Betcha!

Okay- it has been a while...

But we have been having a lot of fun this summer. Our most frequent stop this summer has been the library. I love all of the free programs they have. Both of the kids are in book clubs. They are given a book and then have 2 weeks to read it before their meeting. At the meetings they are given a snack and then discuss the book for nearly an hour. They are loving it! Jenna was so excited that she was old enough to do this now. I love having kids that love to read.
We have stocked up on audio books also. I like to listen to audio books because they help me get things done while enjoying a good story. The kids are having a hard time being productive while listening (sending them to their room to clean while listening to a story has not been very successful.) But they have gone through a lot of books. I had meant to keep track of that this summer but I am afraid it is too late now.

We are also reading the Fablehaven series together. It is fun to find a book series that both kids enjoy. Books, Books, Books.

But the library is more fun than just books. There are a lot of free classes and activities that they have also. But we had to be quick to sign up for them. They tend to fill up quickly.

So far this summer the Jenna has attended two art classes and next week she has a Yoga class. Here is a photo of her Medieval Art project.



Today Spencer really enjoyed his giant chess activity. Normally they have an even larger chess set but the company they rented it from goofed and they got two smaller sizes instead. They were still pretty big.





Next week Spencer has a Duct Tape class. That should be a hit too.

Back from Girl's Camp

So after Nauvoo, I had a couple of days to recover, do laundry, etc and then got to pack again for Girl's Camp. It was so much fun! Our ward has a great group of girls. Here is a group photo.



Before we left, I was surprised to be asked to be the Stake Camp Director- which means I get to plan this activity for about 100 girls plus leaders for the next couple of years. Yikes! I spent a fair amount of time watching and taking notes from the current leaders.

For now I get to play catch up before we ramp up to host our 4th of July Party- can it already be next week! Where has June gone?

Nauvoo Trip- Part 2

Handcart trek.

Wow- it is not easy to push/pull an empty handcart much less a full one. Especially the morning after a lot of rain.

We decided to try taking 2 carts- which was plenty for our group of 14 (6 adults and 8 children.) 3 miles doesn't usually take 3 hours to walk but it did with handcarts!

Here a few photos of the end of our trip. I need to get a few more from Jeri and off of my phone (if they turned out) from the beginning. It was a good bonding experience and we were all good and tired afterwards.

It was interesting how they had you start by going through some water so that your feet were wet from the very beginning. Jenna wasn't too thrilled about this and rode in the handcart over the first "river" crossing but she got over that. Guess her new tennis shoes are broken in now.







Along the trail there were stops (which were sometimes needed in order to catch our breath) and they had stories and quotes about people who took the journey and about their experiences. I can not imagine going through such trials.





For some reason I didn't get any photos of Spencer. Probably because he was usually ahead of me. He was a real trooper and helped Michael pull the handcart most of the way. Up some really tough hills.

Here is one of the easier hills- no mud, just trees along the path. It was really pretty.


By the end of the trip we were proud of how well we all did. We were all tired and dirty and glad that we had started our time in Nauvoo with the handcart trek. The older kids worked really hard, and the younger kids were good sports too. There was very little complaining.

We would definitely recommend this to anyone who visits.