Mitchell turns 10!!

Hard to believe my Mitchell turned 10 on May 21st. My last baby and my only boy. What a treasure and I know I am biased but he is such a nice boy! All his teachers love him because he is kind and helpful. He's also pretty smart, makes up his own spelling lists! He is in Grade 4 this year and loves to play basketball, soccer and baseball. Not too keen on going to watch his sister's dance recitals.......is sure he can find something better to do but he goes anyway.
This is a picture Maranda Schwarz took about 5 years ago, time goes so fast.

Loved this picture, he had hurt his ear but was still hungry. Can't believe I've forgotten how he did it but not surprising, maybe one of his sisters will remember!

Rebecca and Mitchell and all you need to have fun.....a big box. I don't know if they would sit this nicely together any more!

Happy Birthday Mitchell! We love you lots!!

What's Been Happening!

I wish I was better at keeping my Blog! I go through good days and then get busy and don't do it for awhile. I've been reading a writing book that encourages you to write every day for at least 10 minutes. I answer emails but that's not always what I want to write and it's not really keeping track of my own life.
I've been so happy to be home, just feels good to be here getting things done! I think we have been so focused on Disneyland for so long that it's funny to have it all over and be focusing on different things.
What I want to remember about these last few weeks:
*The wonderful memories that we made in Disneyland!
*How grateful I was to be able to gather with Don's family for Burnie's funeral.
*Thankful to have Ryan and Darci (with their 3 boys, Sam, Zach and Connor) visiting with us this weekend.
*Especially happy to have Ryan here to help Don empty the pool so we can get the liner changed in the next couple of weeks.
*The fellow doing our pool explained to us how he can get our hot tub up and running for a pretty reasonable price so hope to do that this fall!
*Another anxious morning waiting for a daughter to come back from a driving test......third daughter and she didn't pass but learned lots from the experience so will be doing it again.
*Happy to have Sandra buy my camera today, it was the one that had to be sent to be fixed, didn't get back in time for my Disneyland trip so they replaced it.
*We went to the airport to welcome our two missionaries home, Lauren Razeau and Corey Jensen, it was a special night.
*Pretty happy to know that Vanessa is a co-valedictorian for her graduating class! She is just thrilled to be doing something her sisters haven't, lol.
*Still love scrapbooking digitally and just wish I had more time for it!
*Excited to find out that Melodie has won an all expense paid trip to Quebec for an RT conference because she and her roommates entered and won a contest for RT students to make a video!
*Learned again a valuable lesson: People are more important than things!!

My Boogie Kids!!!

Rebecca and Mitchell who I usually have to drag out of bed on Wednesday and Friday mornings to help me do their papers, informed me last night that they wanted to get up this morning and go running! I was a little nonplussed but told them I would get them up. So to my surprise, Rebecca was up and dressed before I was (Mitchell was ready to go back to bed but then found out Rebecca was up) and so at 6 this morning I have these 2 wide awake kids ready to run...and run they did. They were half way down the street by the time I dropped off my first paper and they kept going. Our block is about half a kilometre and they ran down our street and Greenfield a couple of times, so by the time they were done Rebecca had run about 3km and Mitchell about 2 1/2km (he helped me do papers). I couldn't believe it as I watched them running the whole time, crazy kids! I think they are planning on doing Boogie the Bridge, so I better get going if I want to do it with them! (Boogie the Bridge is a big family, community run that we have every April started by Jo Berry......it's amazing, fun, energetic and really promotes being healthy and happy!)
What makes me really happy is that I think I have "MORNING" kids! Kids who like mornings and who have energy in the morning, because it's my favourite time of day!

Just 15 MINUTES at home!

Yesterday, Wednesday was a good day for me! I actually had the whole day to be home.....and it was wonderful. I've always been grateful to be a stay at home MOM (SAHM) but now that I'm working 2 days a week I find I appreciate it even more. The days I am home seem to be filled with appointments, meetings, grocery shopping and driving kids to lessons, so a real at home day is rare. I have to be careful when I'm at home though, because I'm a computer junkie and can spend more time there than anywhere else, although yesterday I was pretty tempted to just get in the bath and read. I used my flylady skills (flylady.net) and got out my timer, set it for 15 minutes and got tons done. I really wanted to tackle my downstairs, especially my craft area that had got overrun in the last week........so I did it 15 minutes at a time. I then spent 15 minutes on the computer scrapbooking, so fun too. I ended up going through my kids school boxes and dejunking a ton of stuff......I'll be so glad to get that organized so I can find things and stay on top of it. Looking through Rebecca and Mitchell's old schoolwork brought back so many memories.....I still miss Mrs. Cowden, their Grade 3 teacher!

So after a day of decluttering, it was fun to just go over to Sue Ferguson's last night and make cards!

This is a picture of Kathy and I playing colour Yahtzee on the computer, one of our traditions whenever she visits!

Vanessa is a HAPPY girl!

Vanessa called me yesterday and was pretty excited!! I was working ( I do bookkeeping at the Petro Canada up the hill two days a week, I have been enjoying it, it works right into my schedule, I have been learning lots about Simply Accounting and it gets me motivated to do my own accounting, lol) and it was around lunch time. She had went to school but forgot her lunch.......tried to persuade me to drop her off some but I was the mean Mom that day and told her I was too busy. I had just tried to phone a few minutes earlier because I knew Don was home but there was no answer and I laughed to myself. Figured Don had probably brought Vanessa her lunch, (he's much more patient with that kind of thing) but actually he gave her a ride home.

So she's on the phone with me with "great news"! "Guess what Mom? I just got a scholarship in the mail!" I was thrilled to hear that Thompson Rivers University here in town where she applied for the nursing program last month just sent her a $3000 TRU Regional Board of Governors High School Scholarship! What a gift! We were all so thankful, that almost pays for one year of school and with what she has saved, her first year is covered. She's hoping to get a few more and then to work during the summer because 4 years is a long time........but this is such a wonderful start!

The other wonderful blessing for her yesterday was that she received her patriarchal blessing. Patriarch Branchflower dropped it off to her and so that was pretty special as well.

So Tuesday, March 24 was a spectacular day for our Vanessa. We are sure happy for her!

Camera woes!

I have been so thrilled with the Canon Rebel camera Don got me for Christmas! The pictures it can take even though I am a complete newbie (I usually just keep it on automatic), are amazing. The last couple of months I have been learning more every time I use it. I have been taking it to basketball games, using the zoom lens on sports mode and getting some good shots of the girls playing basketball.
Here Kathy took this picture of the kids and I home from church. It can be fun just pointing and shooting.

I also took it with me when I was down in Vancouver at a scrapbooking convention in February. Melodie and her roommate Jade Shultis joined Jen Oviatt and I and we had fun doing some pages....... I'm pretty much digital now, the only traditional I occasionally do, are cards. (I think the picture with Jen is on her camera!!)

So you can imagine my dismay when in the last 3 weeks my camera keeps reading Error 99 and that I have to take out the battery or turn the power off and on. I went online and tried everything I could think of and nothing worked. So I took it back to Future Shop (they figure it is the lens) and they said all they can do is send it back to Canon to have it worked on.......... so I am without my Rebel for 4-6 weeks! I'm just hoping I can have it back before we head to Disneyland in April!!!!

Edis Reception

We were happy to be able to attend the Edis/Everett reception last month! Aaron and Savannah were married in the Seattle temple and we went up to Kelowna to their reception. I worked with Nadine in the Stake Young Women Presidency and still miss her so it was sure fun to see her and all the family. Of course the bride and groom looked absolutely happy! We were also glad because Melodie was able to get a ride from Vancouver to be there. We just wish that Danielle and Tim could have made it especially since we were able to visit with the Wilsons, Carole, Kristina and a very pregnant Jaime.
My two beautiful girls, Melodie had her hair cut and a darling new dress from Le Chateau. We brought her back to Kamloops with us and Vanessa was sure happy to have her home. She really misses her and would go live with Mel in Vancouver if she didn't have to go to school!

Poor Mitchell, dances are really not his thing yet! So he was pretty patient with us that night, just sitting around waiting!
Vanessa was able to get Mitchell up dancing at least once, sisters are okay, girls are not!
Even our Rebecca was dancing with a boy!! I'm not sure I'm ready for another dancing daughter, where has the time gone? She is as tall as Vanessa now and is often mistaken for her!

As usual Melodie found someone's cute baby to hold!
Vanessa and Dad!

Warren and Nadine Edis, the happy bride's parents!

It was a beautiful cake!