random pics of kids

Ginny's birthday

We celebrated Ginny's birthday with a small family party after our trip to Mississippi and a little celebration with our preschool friends.

pics

Vicksburg Mississippi

more trip pics

trip to Mississippi

Here is an excerpt from our kindata letter about our trip:

We went on a fun family trip at the end of October--a journey down south to Mississippi with the civil war band. It was about an 8 hour drive…not too bad. On the way we had fun looking at the cotton fields that were being harvested. I'd never seen cotton fields before. We stopped in Memphis to see Graceland. We loved it! We saw the pink Cadillac, his jet, the Lisa Marie, toured the home and saw all his gold records and jump suits, etc. Now every time we hear an Elvis tune the kids perk up their ears.
Vicksburg, Mississippi was really fascinating. The band played at the 100th anniversary of the Illinois monument. The monument itself is a big marble domed building. The band sang and played in there--and the echoes were incredible! Beautiful! It was like history resonating all around you with the names of the soldiers on all sides. The 33rd regiment fought at Vicksburg, so that was especially meaningful. We toured the court house museum and saw a lot of interesting artifacts, including some things from Jefferson and Varina Davis. A real highlight was the Cairo ship that had been found in the Mississippi and restored. The artifacts were incredibly well preserved. Bottles that still had their original liquids in them, etc. That ship was sunk in only 12 minutes, but everyone on it survived. We learned that most civilians survived the siege of Vicksburg by living in caves. I bought a book that was a journal account of one such lady and her son, and was really touched by it. We also enjoyed some good Southern cooking at a round table restaurant. Catfish, fried okra, biscuits, corn bread, black-eyed peas, etc. It was interesting how many of the locals had trouble understanding our northern accents! We also squeezed in a moment to visit the coca cola museum where coca cola was first bottled to deliver to customers who couldn't visit the soda fountain in the local drugstore.
An interesting side note to the trip was that in the evening as we relaxed in the hotel, we were able to watch our beloved Cardinals win the world series! It doesn't take long living in St. Louis to catch Cardinals Fever. Go Cards!

activity days

Here are my cute girls from activity days at church.
We took these pictures to use as part of a project to make our own Friend magazine.

Halloween

Halloween 2006. Ginny the fairy princess (of course) Sam, Max, and Trevor as ghosts of civil war soldiers, and Emily as Olivia Vertigo.

new pics!

Here are some new pictures, at last! I haven't gotten around to uploading pictures in quite awhile. I'll start with the kids' soccer pictures.

snow!

We had the real thing today....snow! The kids were so excited. I woke up to.....mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, can you tie my boots? where are my mittens? is this coat warm enough? mom, mom, mom, get up!!!! Needless to say, before I was barely awake this morning I was donning my gloves and scarf, and out we went. We had a great time sledding, making snow angels, playing follow the leader, etc. Even Emily came out to join the fun. We played for awhile in the morning and then went back "out into the winter" in the afternoon. (That's a Sam quote.) With the kids home, I just gave up on my clean house and we enjoyed the winter break. We can clean up tomorrow. I'll promise the kids that if they get their chores done in the morning we can put up the Christmas tree in the afternoon.

The down side of the winter storm was that a lot of St. Louis got hit pretty hard with the ice storm and so a lot of power lines went down. We were lucky there and didn't lose our power. But it's no fun to lose power in this cold weather.

Snow Day!

Got an automated call from the supintendent this morning saying there was no school today because of weather. So the kids have been home driving me crazy...actually there were some good moments. We baked a cake, played board games, and painted some Christmas ornaments. This afternoon we got another call from the school district, so it looks like tomorrow is a snow day, too!

Spent the first half of this week laid up from injuring my back this past weekend. We cleaned out our garage so we could park in it again (and not a moment too soon!) and I guess I must have lifted something wrong because all day Sunday and Monday I was in excruciating pain. Could barely walk or even roll over. Then Wednesday when I was feeling a bit better but still moving a little slow, poor little Sam woke up vomiting. The poor guy spent about 4 hours sitting on the toilet and holding a bucket at the same time. I hope no one else gets it. So far so good. Sam seems recovered, but I'm scared of that terrible virus that my sister's kids got. It had recurring symptoms for 2 weeks...just when you think you're better a new wave hits you. Disaster! I hope that's not what Sam had.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....
Love the Christmas carols the most!

today's simple pleasures

Saturday. The best parts of today were:

1. having the whole family fold laundry together without any arguing. Chatting as we worked together. Someone should have taken our picture for the Ensign! These moments don't happen very often...

2. finishing our chores early enough in the day that I spent a lovely hour this afternoon just reading a book.

3. Taking the girls to the library without the boys. Half the kids = less than half the trouble.

4. Curling up on the floor tonight to watch a movie with the kids (My Dog Skip). Ginny of course came to curl up beside me.

5. Watching Sam get teary at the end of the movie.

6. Teasing Max about giving him a haircut. That is one boy who loves his hair!

7. Watching Sam capture all the bad guys in his new Batman costume (after Halloween clearance sales) and musing with TRevor about how sad it will be when we don't have kids in costume anymore.

8. Trevor got his new dresser put together, so now I don't have to look at the old broken one falling apart all over the place.

9. crisp fall air

10. saying hi to Tutu on the phone. Always fun to talk to family.

11. making a new friend. Emily invited a few friends to sleep over last night and one of them is a new girl in our ward. When her mom picked her up, we had a good chat. It's fun to meet someone new.

indian summer

Yesterday and today have been absolutely gorgeous. Sunny and clear with a pleasant breeze, about 70 degrees. The kind of day that makes you feel like it's a miracle just to be alive. I took the kids on several walks, we played baseball in the backyard, and went for a bike ride. My house is an absolute disaster, but I figure the mess will still be here when the weather turns cold again.

stake conference

Just wanted to write a quick note about how much I enjoyed stake conference this past Sunday. There seems to be a tradition in this stake of having some new converts bear their testimonies and tell about their conversions. I was extremely touched by these testimonies--I could tell the kids were really paying attention as these two ladies spoke, too. Also, I absolutely love singing hymns in stake conference! There is something so fantastic about uniting with so many other saints to sing the hymns. I also played my flute on a couple of numbers with the choir, which is always fun. Anyway, I came away rejuvenated and ready to do my share for the kingdom.

busy days

Haven't written much recently because we've been so busy with projects, etc. Here'a recap of the last 2 weeks. Trevor took a week off of work--and in that time we reorganzed our storage room, even putting the food storage in order of date, painted our bedroom, and took a trip to Missippi. (MOre on that later--I'll write about it when I post some pictures.) Then home to get ready for Halloween. I was in charge of Max's class party--was so involved in what I was doing for Max's class that I completely forgot to pick up Emily from school that day! oops! poor kid. The kids had a blast trick or treating. Trevor and boys dressed as ghosts of civil war soldiers. Ginny was a fairy princess of course and Emily dressed as her favorite book characters--Olivia Vertigo and Suzie turquoise-blue. We had TONS of kids come by our house trick-or-treating. I ran out of candy at 7:30, but remembered I had some gumballs left from Max's school party, so for the next half hour every kid that came to the door got one tiny gumball. Felt kind of silly, but at least I didn't have to turn my light off. That's the most trick-or-treaters we've ever had.
I started a new session of my music class this week. Only 4 kids in the class, but I also have an evening class starting soon that t has 5 kids. We're starting to advertise for the class I'll be offering in January at Mozingo music. That will be a higher end music class--with book/CD/and instruments included, and of course also higher price. Also, have been working hard on exercise--did yoga with Elise 3 times, and went walking once at the YMCA. Trevor and all the kids started their Tae Kwon Do lessons this week. I think Trevor was more excited than any of the kids. Ginny and Sam were a little nervous, but I think they'll like it once they get going.
Last night and this morning we painted 2 of our bathrooms. The hall bathroom is a rusty red--and our bathroom is cream and sage green. They both look great. This afternoon I helped Emily clean out her bedroom--she was desperately in need of mother help, although I was actually impressed that we only had one large garbage bag and a bag the same size of stuff to give to goodwill. I've also been working on decluttering the whole house this week. Where does all of this stuff come from?! We were going to clean the garage this afternoon, but I think I'm too tired to start another major project this weekend. Maybe next week! I think I need a nap--but it feels good to have a few of these things taken care of.