My plans and Shiloh's Greatness

Okay Thanksgiving is in 6 days so thing have got to start cooking around here. (No pun intended). This is my plan for the day. I am writting it down and putting it out there so that I have to be responsiable for it and to give some props to Shiloh.

Todays to do list.

-Laundry, lots and lots of laundry, washed, dried folded and put away

-clean Gideons room

-dishes

-sweeping

-picking up the living room

-and still be a mom which means finnishing bathtime, give treats make lunch and at times entertain little kids.

The best part comes tonight. Shiloh is really good at doing this and some times I don't give him enough props for it but tonight Shiloh is staying home with all the kids and I am leaving by myself. This was all his idea. I was telling him I wanted to get my hair cut before all the holiday parties and festivities started and he told me to make an apointment for tonight and that I should go by myself so I could relax and start getting some Christmas shopping done. I love getting my hair cut and I love shopping. I am looking forward to the peace and quite of being by myself and moving at my speed. Thank you baby!

Tomorrow it is back to the grind stone.

tomorrows to do list

- deeep clean both bathrooms

-mop the floors

-go through the boxes of stuff from our parents houses that we have never wanted to touch, de-junk and store properly.

-clean out the window wells

finnish hanging Christmas light on the house (not to be turned on until after Thanksgiving.)

-most importantly watch the BYU utah game. Go Cougars!!!!!

Shiloh has his own big project that he is working on so wish us luck to get it all done.

Up date ShiAnne and gymnastics

The results are back we took ShiAnne to pass offs Thursday night and there were a ton of girls there she had fun and tried hard but at last she wasn't quite ready to move up to the next level but we are all good with it. ShiAnne was only a little disapointed nothing to worry about. No tears or anything. They said they were going to take 12 girls but at last they only moved up 8 girls so I think they were being really strict and we are back to the original plan to try something new. We are going to do nothing for December a gift to all of us and then in January we will start both girls in dance. This should be a fun new phase. They told us they thought if she tried out again in May at the next pass offs they thought she would be ready to move up but I'm not happy with her class right now and I think is is time for some thing new. It is kind of weird to be done we have spent so much time in that gym but this will be a grand new adventure.

Thankgiving

For some crazy reason Shiloh and I volunteered to host Thanksgiving at our house. This was after we were told it would be a smaller thanksgiving this year. I should and do know better than to think a smaller Thanksgiving means a small Thanksgiving nothing with the J* is small, actually some of the S* are coming to. So in one week we will play host to between 40-45 people for Thanksgiving dinner. It is a little crazy but I am actually really excited sometimes my cleaning habits need a little encouragement and I have been joking for a while that it must be time to move again. This is the longest we have ever lived anywhere and I really need to reorganize and de-junk. Before I have always just done this when we moved. In someways it is easier to do it when you move but we are not going to move anytime soon and his is giving me the momentum to get some work done and getting some other projects done around here too, such as I finally made curtains for the girls room yesterday. Yes that would be the room they have been living in for about a year now. See how encouragement works. So our house will be deep cleaned and sparkling just in time for the Christmas season. I'm really excited for that! The only slightly down side to this whole thing is Shiloh is working on a huge job right now which is good because it will be Christmas money but his jobs around the house aren't getting done and some of his need to be done before I can get mine done. Wish me luck on getting Shiloh to get his jobs done so I can get my jobs done. And in a week from now come one come all Thanksgiving Dinner will be served in my basement 1:00 p. m. ish. Bring enough food to share.

ShiAnne the Gymnastics Queen

Usually I can look at a situation maybe study it out if needs be, then make a decision and move forward with it in confidence. After being at times around people, who struggle with this I almost pride myself in it and when I can't do this, it drives me crazy. Well lately I have been driving myself crazy. ShiAnne has been doing gymnastics for over two and a half years now, always at the same gym. We have both really liked it. She is part of the advanced group that they have to be invited to be in and preps them for team. She has fun and has never complained about going.
I think it has been a really good thing for her. She is the smallest kid in her class which can be hard on a kid but I think it helps her that she is as strong and coordinated as anyone else, so despite being small she can keep up with everybody. Lately I have been thinking about taking her out of gymnastic, maybe trying something new like dance or soccer in the spring. (I have a rule one extra activity per child or we are just going to be to busy.) I have gone back and forth on this for months. I asked her what she wanted and she wanted to stay in gymnastics and learn flips. So okay we will stay in gymnastics. Than after not going for two week because of our vacation she tells me I think I want to try something new. After going back to gymnastics she wasn't so sure but I was just not feeling satisfied with the gymnastics. I think it is because When school started this fall they advanced a whole bunch of younger girls up into her class but I felt like it made ShiAnne go backwards because she was more advanced they were but had to go back down to the level the rest of the class was at. Other moms that had little girls at the same stage as ShiAnne were feeling it too. I felt a little like it was a wast of time and money so between Shiloh, ShiAnne and I we had made a decision and with some in trepidation I was going forward with it. We would finish up November at gymnastics, Take crazy, busy, December off from everything and then start dance in January everyone was good with this plan.
Enter Wednesday at gymnastics and a new reason to change my mind. I was innocently sitting on the bench at gymnastics Wednesday talking to my friend about the fact that I thin k we might be done doing gymnastics when ShiAnne coach Miss. Nik (who happens to be our bishops wife) comes and tells me that she heard a nasty rumor that we might be quiting but that she wanted to invite ShiAnne to pass offs so she could move up to the next level. Level 4 where you can become part of the actual team and have the chance to start competing but most importantly where you learn to do flips. You have to be invited to go to pass offs and then be able to do the skills to move up to the next level. This was saying good things about how ShiAnne was doing. It also opened up a whole new box of decisions and options and challenges, like am I ready to have her compete, how dedicated do we want to be to this, can we afford it and on and on but after gymnastics when I went to talk to Miss. Nik about some of my concerns she just kept telling me that we should come to pass offs and we could work things out. Most importantly if she moves up to the next level they will be pushing her again and I will feel like the class is productive again. So as of now if she can complete pass offs we are going to stick with gymnastics. Pass offs are Tuesday night so wish ShiAnne luck and we will let you know how it goes.

p.s. I should have some really cute gymnastics pic of ShiAnne to post with this but at last I have no new gymnastics pic of her. I will work on that and post them with Tuesdays result.

Vacation days 6 & 7

Our final two days of vacation were spent in Disneyland. We had soooo much fun!

Minnie Mouse's House


Playing

California Adventure


The Royal Family

Princesses

Looking back, this is one of my favorite parts of the whole trip. We wanted to watch the parade the last night and we were basically done doing what we really wanted to do so we decided to get a good seat. Shiloh and Cam sat down with the kids while Jill and I went to get treats, ice cream for most of us but Kyler has a cookie and ShiAnne had a churro. She is not much into ice cream. We sat on the curb and ate our treats while the kids danced in the street and ran around as we waited for the parade to start. It is always good to find some down time while you are there, to let the kids just run around, no standing in lines no being buckled into rides.

I was lucky enough to have Lizzy sitting on my lap during the parade and she caught the magic of it. The Belle float stooped right in front of us for quite a while. Belle is Lizzy's favorite princess and we had not yet seen her. Belle danced and sang and waved at everyone and then she turned to Lizzy and looking right at her she blow her a kiss. I think this made Lizzy's whole trip. It was just one of those moments when all the work is worth it.

We were all sad to leave the park that last night. ShiAnne even cried. I promised her I would bring her back in a couple years. She has already started planning it. Next time she hopes to be big enough to ride screaming.

I also wanted to thank Melissa for coming and joining us on Monday. Disneyland isn't the most fun place for someone who is six months pregnant and get to go there all the time but She sat with the babies and gave us the chance to get on a lot of rides. ShiAnne also like having some one her age there to rid the ride with. I hope they all had fun too.

Vacation day 4 & 5

We did a fun thing we didn't plan anything for Saturday so that we could do what ever we felt like doing when we got there. I guess we felt like swimming because in the morning we swam at the hotel pool. We had a lot of fun then we went and got some lunch and went out for ice cream. We had so much fun at the beach on the first day and we were so close that decided to go again. This time it was still tons of fun but a little more eventful.

The kids playing on the beach.

Building sand castles


A boy and the dirt what could be better?

After we got all settled in we went around the little bend and saw everything set up for a wedding. While we were there everyone going to the wedding strolled past us. The the little ring bearer got tired of waiting for the bride and started playing with Gideon on the rocks. Finally the bride's maids and the bride came. It was kind of fun to watch there wedding from a distance even though we weren't invited.


While the wedding was going on Shiloh had some excitement of his own. He had purchased a inexpensive boogie board so we ride some waves. He had taken a pretty good turn, I took a turn, Cameron took a turn and then Shiloh was out for another turn when he stepped on something and his foot started to hurt. He came back in and the top of his foot was bleeding. He didn't know what had caused it but he sat down on the rock to see if he could stop the bleeding. He said it stung pretty good but we thought it was just from the salt water and sand in it. While he was sitting there trying to figure out what had got his foot he said the pain and stinging started to spread across his foot. Soon the life guards came driving down the beach so Cameron flagged them down. They came to check out his foot and as soon as they saw it they said he had been stung by a sting ray they were common in the water around there. They cleaned up his foot and bandaged it. Then they asked if he was allergic to bee stings and said that often the reaction is similar. They told us that the sting ray injects a protein based poison and to go back to our hotel and that he should soak it in water as hot as he could stand it. This would help break up the poison. Despite the look on his face he was in pain, he was just glad to know what it was and was laughing at the way the life guards were describing the pain. When the life guards got there they asked what his pain level was at and he said a three. After they got done and he knew it was something real and it was okay for it to hurt it jumped up a few levels but as soon as we got the foot in the hot water the pain started going away and it didn't put a damper on our vacation at all. It just gave us a fun story to tell.

On Sunday we attended a ward in Oceanside and then headed up the mountain to see our friend the browns. the girls had lots of fun together and we enjoyed ourselves visiting eating and playing games. We spent the night there and the next day they joined us for a while in Disneyland.

Thanks to Melissa and Cameron for being such gracious host!

Thoughts on Baptisim

On Saturday the Kid's cousin, Ahnika got baptized. It was a great baptism and we congratulate her. Earlier in the week I had told the girls that we would be going to her baptism on Saturday, then latter in the car Lizzy and I had this conversation.

Lizzy: Mom when I get baptized, I'm not going to do it in the water.

Me: Lizzy you have to get baptized in water.

Lizzy: but when I get baptized I'm not going to do it in the water.

Me: well I guess your not going to get baptised then because you have to get baptized in the water.

Now is when I really started to pay attention. I don't remember what she said next but I realized she was afraid to go under the water.

Me: Lizzy you don't get baptized until you are eight and by then the water won't be scary.

Lizzy: Ya, but I'm going to get baptized like Derik did (Derik is another cousin). He didn't go in the water.

Lizzy and I were in the bathroom when Derik got baptized. We didn't see the actual baptism.


Later after the baptism I decided to talk to Lizzy about getting baptized again and she told me. "I could get baptized like that in the church I thought you had to go in the ocean or something. " While we were gone to California Shiloh's brother Stance returned from his mission to the islands of Cape Verde. We had been talking about how he didn't get to get in the ocean and he said, well I did get to go in for baptisms sometimes. Lizzy had herd this and thought you had to be baptized in the ocean. I was funny to see how she had put all the different thing she had seen and heard about baptism together. At the end the conversation we were talking about how you just go under the water and came right back out. She told me, "I think I need to have swim lessons again before I get baptised." Maybe we can work out some of these worries int he next 4 years.

Happy Halloween!!!