Churchisms

Our kids' primary teachers are SOOOO good. They work so hard to prepare meaningful lessons for their little classes. And they're teaching our kiddos so much.
Today at church Harley and Tatum were learning about keeping the sabbath day holy.
Harley's teacher asked, "How do we get ready for Sunday, on Saturday?" To which Harley replied, "Torture my brother... It's a Saturday chore. If I do it on Saturday, I won't have to do it on Sunday."
Tatum's teacher asked what they should do on Sunday. To which Tatum responded, "Hunt for praying mantis.-- Get it?... PRAYING mantis!"
Oh man! At least their Primary teachers have good senses of humor. Thank goodness!

How did I miss this?!?!

The kids started back to school on July 23rd. Somehow I missed blogging about it. Oops!
I know, July 23rd seems really early. But, I really love the modified year round school schedule we have. Mostly because it gives us 2+ weeks off in October, 2+ weeks off in Dec/Jan, and 2+ weeks off in March. The breaks really keep the kids from getting burned out during the year, and from getting too bored in the Summer.

Anyway... This year, Chandler started Junior High, which is SUPER weird for me! He's very involved in band, and is LOVING it. Junior High is totally perfect for him. He's loving hanging out with his friends, and learning to be a teenager. It's pretty awesome!

Shelby is in 6th grade this year. She is already excited to be in Junior High. She hasn't decided yet if she want to be in cheer again this year. She still has time to decide before they start. Choir will start after Fall Break, and she wants to do it again this year so she can get more experience before she tries to join choir in Junior High. She spends all of her recesses in one of the 1st grade classrooms. She and her friend, Maddie, go in and help the teacher and kids with whatever they need. She LOVES it, and I think the teacher genuinely appreciates her help.

Harley LOVES her 3rd grade teacher. She's a great balance between fun and educational. Right up Harley's alley! Harley loves to read, write, and draw, but she's not a huge fan of math. She's making new friends, and they're very nice girls. Being in 3rd grade means she can join the choir. She is SO EXCITED about it, she can hardly stand it! She's also quite the fashionista, and loves putting together cool/cute outfits.

Tater is just as cute as a button! She's in 2nd grade this year, and loves to learn. She's reading like a maniac, and is so excited about this big world that's opening up to her. She has a fabulous teacher that we are lucky to have this year. Her BFF ended up in a different class this year. She was very disappointed at first, but she's making lots of new friends, and it's been good for her to be on her own a little bit. She looks up to her sisters so much, and can't wait until she's big enough to do all the cool things they're doing.

It's been a great year so far, but it's going SO quickly! I don't love that, because it means that my kiddos will be all grown up before I know it. Blech!

Labor Day Festivities

On Labor Day we decided to just spend the entire day playing! It was awesome!

We started the day with 2 hours of bowling, complete with lots of root beer and laughs...

Harley and Shelby had a blast, and did well. (Mostly because they were using the bumpers, but I'm not judging. :) )

 Chan had to get the hang of it, but had fun once he did...

 Tater got super into it-- lining up the track every time. It was pretty funny...

After bowling, Eric and the kids went and did the bumper cars. We've had such a serious last few months, it was nice to see him brake loose for a little while.

Next we went out to lunch, then home to relax and watch a movie.

Later that night, Chandler taught u show to make homemade ice cream in a bag... It was yummy, but we'll have to double the recipe next time. There just wasn't enough. LOL!

It was the perfect, most relaxing day! Just what we all needed!

I guess this means business!

A couple of weeks ago, we received a box of tithing donation envelopes in the mail. Oddly, they had Eric's info on it. :)

I know that's the way it's supposed to be, but it just seemed to feel strange to me. I guess that was the first time I'd really seen his name written next to "Bishop".

So, there are constantly things to teach us to be flexible and go with the flow... even though it's SUPER DUPER WEIRD!

Overachiever!

In August, Chandler received all the Scouting merit badges that he'd earned since the last Court of Honor. His scouting leaders are RIDICULOUS!!! They have these boys working SO hard, with the goal of completing their Eagle by the time they turn 14. Chandler is right on track to just about do that. Hooray!

 He didn't even stab me when he pinned on my mother's pin. :)

Anyway... Chandler earned 11 merit badges, and advanced to the rank of Star. He's such an overachiever! ;)

Great job, Chan Man!

Stewart Family Reunion

In June we were able to go to Pinetop-Lakeside, AZ to stay in a cabin with the whole Stewart Family. We were only missing one of Richard and Laraine's kids and his family.

Even Rik and Heidi's fam came all the way from WA...

And Tim and Shu Shu's fam came all the way from TX...

 It was so fun to spend time with everybody. I especially enjoy getting to know all the older/teenage grandkids as they get older. They have such fun and unique personalities, and I genuinely enjoy their company. The grandkids also had a BLAST!!! The place we stayed was big and had lots of room for everyone to spread out. Not to mention, that the weather was so much better than at home.

One of the days, we went to a nearby church building and played some games...

We also had lunch, and made a care package for our first Stewart family missionary, Rik and Heidi's son Mason who is serving in Brazil.

Here are the cute girl cousins working on their notes to Mason...

It was sure fun to be all together, even if it was just for a few days.

We love you, Stewart family!

We're Spoiled!

This Summer we decided to buy a pop up camper. We looked for some time and finally found one that was just what we were looking for on craigslist. So, we took it to girl's camp to try it out before our fan took it out for it's first real trip. It was everything we hoped it would be!

A few weeks after girl's camp, we went with 2 families from the ward on a week long camping trip in Greer. It was heavenly! Spending time with the Moon and Buchanan families were a BLAST!!!

We lost one tire on the camper on the way there, ad our spare had a leaky valve. But, we limped it into camp just fine. On the way back out we lost the 3rd tire.So we pulled over, unhitched everything, and ran the 30 minutes into the nearest town to get new tires. Not the adventure we wanted, but it didn't keep us from having a great trip!

The scenery was AMAZING!

One day, we went to Big Lake so some folks could fish, swim, and hunt for crawdads. They even rented a small fishing boat that they took out into the lake to fish off of. But they didn't catch anything. Boo! The little kids sure enjoyed taking it for spins though. :)

 Here's the crew at the lake...

 Shelby and Harley spent the entire trip in their happy place... with the littlest kids and babies...

Chandler and Tatum spent most of the trip-- well, somewhere else. Chandler was always off exploring with the other boys, and Tatum was always following whoever she could, wherever they'd go. It was pretty adorable.

Our friends brought a piñata, so the kids had a good time with that...

Here's a pic of most of the kids that we had there...

 On the way home, we stopped for dinner where Shelby and I advantage of the photo-op... ;)

It was a wonderful trip, and we feel so spoiled to be able to take our wonderful camper out to make memories for our family.

A Change of Scenery

After all the changes that have been going on around here over the past few months, we decided that we needed to give Eric a space of his own at the house. He needed a place to be able to make sensitive calls, or to sit quietly and make decisions, or to study in peace. We even thought that if he had his own space, he could do some interviews here at home. My dad did many interviews at home during his time in Ward and Stake leadership. While we knew he was unavailable at times, we knew he was there! And I remember being grateful that he was there.
So, we made some changes to the room situation here at home. Shelby was previously in her own room. However, she would sleep on the floor of the little girls' room whenever we'd let her. So, we moved her into the same room with the little girls. It's very squishy in there, but they seem much happier. Next, we moved Chandler down to Shelby's old room... after we redecorated, of course.
Here's Chandler's new BYU themed room...

And here is Eric's new office...

I love the office. Sometimes I even go sit in there to find a little peace of my own.

We've learned something from this... Make wherever you are -- HOME! Even though we had big plans of buying/building a big beautiful home before Eric was called as Bishop, we are learning to make the most of and be grateful for what we have. We know we're very blessed... even with our little home.

Change bring growth... Or so we're told!

What a difference a few months can make! 5 months ago Eric was serving as the 1st counselor to Bishop Ric Moon, and he was loving it! He was learning so much from him, and had that “missionary” feeling that he hadn’t had since he was a full-time missionary in the mid 90’s. I had just quit my part time job, and we were aggressively looking for a piece of land to build our dream home on… outside of our ward boundaries. However, we both felt the winds of change blowing, and were a little scared of what that meant.

The last time we had felt that feeling was last July while we were on a family vacation in WA/ID. As we sat at the Demars family cabin overlooking beautiful Hayden Lake, we both talked about how we knew changes were coming. At the time I was serving as the YW pres, and had been for 3 years. We were sure that these feelings meant that I was going to be released from that assignment. Neither of us were prepared for the call that came the very evening that we arrived home from our trip.  We were asked to meet with a member of the Stake presidency, where the call was issued to Eric to serve as the 1st counselor to Bishop Moon. He was overwhelmed, but up to the challenge. The next few months that followed brought lots of growth and learning for him.

Now… fast forward to April 10th of this year… We were once again asked to meet with the Stake presidency. Remember, we had felt those same winds of change blowing, so we were pretty nervous. This meeting was a beautiful experience in which Eric was extended the call to serve as the Bishop of our ward. He had seen Bishop Moon first hand, and knew some of the challenges that face a Bishop, and their family. The idea that those were now his challenges was pretty terrifying.

Over the last 5 months we have seen the Lord's hand in our lives, and in the lives of the members of our ward. It has brought many challenges for us to face, but Eric has done an amazing job, and we're learning to be patient with the process of refinement. We're hoping that the Lord will refine us and make us instruments in His hands.

Here's a picture of his new bishopric...

His counselors Tyson Davis (Left, 1st counselor), and Ethan Garret (Right, 2nd counselor) are AMAZING!!! They are so good at just doing what needs to be done, so that Eric doesn't even need to worry whether things are taken care of. They are all such hard working, inspired men. I'm so proud of them all. They have jumped right in and done so many great things for the people of the ward already; In their 5 short months. They all amaze me!