MaryAnne's 7th Grade Band Christmas Concert

MaryAnne did a great job with her Christmas concert.  I loved listening to her play.  After the 8th grade band played there was a combined band with all three grades. Unfortunately, MaryAnne got sick while waiting and wasn't able to perform again.

Thanksgiving 2017

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving on November 23, 2017. We did miss having Rebecca and Justin, Julia, and Matthew at home.  Neil, Bethany and I went to the temple in Billings on Wednesday. I usually do a lot of preparation for Thanksgiving on Wednesday so that was a little different this year. I came home after the temple and baked the rolls.  I planned to cook the turkey in the pressure cooker so that freed up the oven for Thursday.  We heard that Sister Cordes and her boys, Zane and Ryan, didn't have plans so we invited them over.  We had a fun day and a delicious meal.  The turkey was done in about an hour in the pressure cooker.  It was moist and delicious.  Sister Cordes brought pumpkin pie and a cranberry dish.  We also made dry jello salad, cookie salad, Chocolate cream pie, peanut butter pie, German Chocolate pie and Coconut Cream pie.  Bethany had to work at 4:00 so we ate at about 2:00.

Sister Cordes and her boys stayed around for few hours in the afternoon. We taught them how to play pool After David and the boys played a few games we decided to play the moms against the boys in a game of 8 ball.  David, Dallin, Zane and Ryan ended up beating Sister Cordes, Joshua and me.  We came close though.  We only had one ball left when they won.  It was a fun afternoon.

Neil started a project of painting the family room Thursday afternoon.  I have always thought the family room was painted too dark.  Even though I picked out the paint 8 years ago I never liked it.  I love the new color, it really isn't a new color, it matches the rest of the house now.  I am so grateful that Neil was willing to take his Thanksgiving weekend and paint for me.

The kids played Hearts in the evening. It was fun to listen to them play as we primed the walls and worked in the family room.  It was a fun day!

Dallin's Arrow of Light

Dallin worked hard to earn his Arrow of Light award before he turned 11.  Sister Opps is such a fun Cubmaster.  She had a fun activity where the boys who earned their Arrow of Light ended up with balloon hats.  I wasn't very good at making the balloon hat so I had to tag team with Neil for help.  Here are the pictures of the Balloon hat. Aaron loved Dallin's balloon hat.  It was fun to watch Dallin walk across the bridge into Scouting. We are so proud of Dallin for taking his cubscouting serious and working to earn his Arrow of Light.

Halloween 2017

Halloween isn't my favorite holiday.  This year I did enjoy helping Dallin figure out a pretty cool costume. We watched a video on how to be a headless man carrying your head in a jar.  We might not have been able to get it to work without Neil and David's help. They helped us figure out which backpack to use to get the coat up high enough without just being bulky behind Dallin. Neil was also willing to go back into Costco on a Saturday morning to buy animal crackers in a big jar so Dallin had a jar to use for his costume.  We heard lots of comments about how cool Dallin's costume was.  He even made the front page of the Powell Tribune.  It was a big, color front page picture. Dallin wasn't so sure that he liked having that big of a picture.

Everyone else enjoyed dressing up.  Bethany went out to the farmer's field behind our house and gathered some straw to become a scarecrow.  MaryAnne was Ella Enchanted.  Joshua was Chewbaca. I found his costume at Walmart and they are also pajamas so that was great.  Lydia was  a fairy. Aaron loved being a lion. It was really cute when someone would give him candy he would take it out of his bucket and just hold on to it. I think he thought we might take it away from him.  He wanted to wear his lion costume again the next day. He probably thought he would get candy again.

We carved pumpkins the day before Halloween for a Family home Evening activity. We all had fun and I think they turned out pretty great.

Here are the pictures:

MaryAnne's seventh grade fall band concert

MaryAnne has been working hard at learning to play the clarinet. I think it is one part of school that she truly enjoys.  Last Thursday we went to listen to her band concert.  The band did a great job. I love listening to her play.