Awards, Eating lunch with Lorin and The Polar Express

The last day before Christmas break was a lot like the last day before Halloween. Our day was spent going Home - School- Home - School - Home - School - Home. Love those days! Lorin got an award for being on the honor roll in the morning. With the award she got a bumper sticker to put on my car. Yeah, you won't be seeing that on my car. Then it was eat lunch with your child day. So Christian and Kaki and I went back at lunch time to eat some nasty food. Then I went back after the kids took naps to help with the Christmas party in Lorins class. And since it was Polar Express day in her class they wore their pj's to school. This would make it the second awards ceremony Lorins had and she wore PJ's to both of them.

I'm so proud of my Lolita. She is doing outstanding in school. We got a report card last week and she is advanced in all areas. Even with my complete slackerness she does great.

Her teacher, Ms Sprinkle, gave all the kids the ultimate gift of Christmas. A bell. It was real cute and Lorin really loves it.

Piano recital sing along

Lorin had a Christmas Piano Recital. She's been taking Piano lessons for about 6 weeks now and she is doing sooo good. She really is a natural and she gets it from Mike. For the most part she's really enjoying it. Her teacher can motivate her just about enough to get her to practice everyday. Her teacher is in my moms ward and is a fellow celiac.

Lorin played Up On the Housetop and Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. We did the webcam thing with Mike so Mike was about to watch her perform during her first recital. She played flawlessly and had no nerves. I think she's going to do real good if she can continue her practices.

Quick trip to UT

Jumping and Bowling with family and friends.

Quick trip to UT part 2

Spending time in Grantsville and in the SNOW!! We spent what was suppose to be our last night out in Grantsville with my friend Lyndsay and her family. We had a little get together with some other friends too. The kids played and stayed up way too late. We woke up to a ton of snow and more was suppose to come. We were suppose to head out that day after some appointments but pretty much all my family called me and told me not to go because of the snow.
The kids had been praying for snow all week. So it is totally their fault that it snowed the way it did. They were so excited because they got to play in it.

The week after Thanksgiving I did the craziest thing. I packed all three kids up and drove to UT by myself. The trip there went great. 9 1/2 hours with only 2 stops. The kids were great and the weather was fine. It was super cold compared to what we've been enjoying lately.

Castle Park with Dad

The day after Turkey Day we went to Castle Park. The kids loved it and it was a little overcast so there were absolutely no lines!! Lorin still writes about it being her favorite time ever at school.

Lorin and I doing DDR

Kaki's favorite ride
And she rocks at rock band

Of course Christian found a game with a gun. He's so like his daddy.

We now have a theme

So I have acquired a theme over the past couple weeks. It's called

------------------SLACKER--------------

There I said it. That's the first step, admitting it, right?

I have been such a slacker when it comes to Lorin's school stuff. I have to say I have no motivation for it. *I'm such a bad mom!*

This is not even taking into account the curriculum itself, because that's just another can of worms.

This last week we went to Utah for a short trip. Some stuff NEEDED to get done and lots of friends we WANTED to visit. It feels like part of our life is still there. That part is getting smaller and smaller the more we're away but still, it's there.

Another big part of our life is in VA, working his hardest to get this all past us.

So I let Lorin take 4 days off of school this past week for our trip. And I'll admit I'm going to let her take more time off of school for other trips coming up.

I'm sure her teacher thinks I'm a complete flake for not giving my complete all. Lorin has so much potential that if you work with it she really succeeds. I just don't want to push her to much right now for us to move in another month and a half and have to start again. I want her to enjoy her time here with family and friends. So when she thinks back to this time she doesn't remember doing hours of homework for frivolous tests that she passes with ease.

We drove home from Utah today(pictures to come). It was so much fun to see and talk with family and friends. Lorin sooo misses her friends. It makes me cry. She thought we were going back for her to go back to school and back to church. Doesn't that make you just want to cry? The drive back was horrendous! Just about anything that could go wrong did. Luckily our car was fine and worked properly. We had freezing cold weather, snow, ice, sick kids, tired kids. But we did really good. Not much fighting(that in itself is a miracle) it was just a long and exhausting trip. We were suppose to leave yesterday but the snow storm was so bad we waited an extra day. 13 hours later we got home late tonight.

Tomorrow we are taking the day off. OFF of EVERYTHING! Except laundry, what can I say Christian needs under-roos. Lorin is ditching school(there's that slacker word again) Movie and hot chocolate day for us. I am literally still defrosting from the trip. My toes are frozen! I really don't know how I lived in snow for 10 years. It chills me to the bones.

S-L-A-C-K-E-R

I am such a slacker!! I know, It has been forever since my last post. So I've pretty much caught up and I promise to do better.
Life is good here. We are LOVING the weather, dont miss snow or cold. Mid 70's in December, I really am fine with that. The leaves are starting to fall off the tree's so it's starting to feel like fall :)
Lorin's doing great in school. I'm going to cry, again, when we have to move and she has to say goodbye to more friends. Christian is loving his preschool. More importantly, I'm loving his preschool. I love love love his teacher. They are so great with him and know how to keep him on task. He is coming home with new and crazy things they do. And he loves it. Kaki is my sweat, and now sassy, pea. She turned the big 2 in October. We go to the gym mon-fri and she has a friend named Sarah that she loves to play with. But dont call her Sarah, she say's her name is Sawah. And if you ask her if she wants to go play with Sarah, she'll tell you NO. But if you ask her if she wants to play with Sawah, she jumps for joy!
Christmas is coming, not as strong as it usually does, but it's coming. I've got all the shopping done and the kids are really excited. It's just not the same when Mike's not here to go through all the madness with me.
I'm taking 2 classes now, one is an 8 week and one is a 16 week so I'm considered a 3/4 time student. I have no idea what I was thinking when I did that. Not like we dont have a ton of other stuff we're trying to figure out right now.
Mike is still loving what he's going to be doing :( The shooting the crazy car chases. He's eating it up. We're trying to get as much as we can ready for our next move. We've been looking for houses and schools and wards in our next area. We pretty much have it the school, area, and ward down. Now we just have to find a house in that area :)
I wish I could fast forward 6 months. Then I wont have to deal with moving, buying a house, getting Lorin and Christian back in school and everything else we're going to have to deal with!

still 13

Turkey day was spent with family. Lots and Lots of family. All of my step dads kids came over for dinner. My brothers came over, Mike's family came over and we had friends over. It was a great day to spend with family. It was a great day to spend with Mike. I picked him up from the airport Wednesday night after I put the kids to bed so they were surprised to see him in the morning. Kaki came in the room in the morning saying "momma, momma.....Daddy? Daddy!" and then it was daddy all the time after that.
There's a park right down the street in the neighborhood my mom lives it. It's right next to Lorin's grade school. The weather was perfect so we ride our bikes there a couple times a week. We went there with all the cousins on Turkey day and played hide and seek. Then we went with daddy every day after that he was here.

Thankful for week 13

Lorin is on traditional school year so for Turkey day she got a week and a half off. I know long time! So we planned a very mini Turkey get together with a couple of her school friends because I knew she couldn't last a week and a half without seeing William.(her not aloud to have boyfriend)

We made little turkeys out of Oreo Cookies, colored Turkeys and watched Charlie Browns Thanksgiving. Her friends are so cute, William is such a character and I was so glad when that get together was over ;)

Week 12- Gettin ready for Daddy's visit

So the kids and I made this countdown link of chains. You know, like the one's you made in grade school to count down for Christmas. Our was a Daddy countdown. One for everyday he's gone. The black links represent Thanksgiving and Christmas when he comes to visit and then end is THE END! Everyday one of the kids rip one off and our chain gets shorter and shorter. I'll have to take a picture of it now, you can notice the difference.

Citizen of the month

At Lorins school they have Citizen of the month awards. It's awarded to 2 kids from each class who are outstanding students. I'm so proud of Lorin that even with all the crazyness that is our life right now she is doing great in school. Her and her friend Amber were the citizen of the month for the month of November and they had the awards ceremony on Halloween day. They also had eat lunch with your child that day too. So the day was spent..home-school-home-school-home-school-home. Sound fun?