An Indian Ballerina Princess

Thanksgiving Dressup

Temple Ready and stuff

Jen, Erica's party sounds very very pretty and sweet. I hope she has a lovely time and I hope you survive. And, no, you aren't the only one amazed at what Uncle Leland and Aunt Joann are planning. I personally think they are crazy. The only time I want to feed that many people is when I have an entire Enrichment or Activities committee to back me up. And a cultural hall to serve it in.

A couple of months ago, Mema brought me all of Grandpa Tobler's Knecht genealogies. I have made it through 1/20 of the work to be done, I believe--and I've probably worked some 18 hours on it so far. But I have some temple work that needs to be done. Here is what I have thus far:

Women:
2 spouse sealing
4 parent sealings
2 initiatory/endowments
2 baptism/confirmations

Men:
3 spouse sealings
4 parent sealings
1 baptism/confirmation

LaDale, Mema, Bradley, and I are planning on going to the temple on Tuesday evening to do some work, I imagine the sealings but I'm not sure. (Maybe with David and Amy? Let us know). (Jen and Jeff, I wish we could wait until you get here, but Bradley and I are planning on leaving Friday morning, we wouldn't ever have time.)

Let me know if anyone wants to help me with the temple work. (Or for that matter, the actual computer checking/data entry part.) I thought it might be cool for Benjamin to do the male baptism we have so far, if he wants. Hopefully, I will be able to continue to find more and more.

By the way, these are collateral lines of the Knechts (for reference, Grandma Cecila Ence's mother (or grandmother, if you go by the family legend) was a Knecht). A collateral line (if I'm using the word correctly, and there's no guarantee I am) is through brothers and sisters. So, imagine g-g-g-gmother Knecht's uncles and aunts. People lots of people who never came to America, and/or whose lines died out. That's what this stuff is.

this and that

Today I had to tell my bishopric that they needed to release me from something. Four callings is too much! I told them that I would continue to do everything until after Christmas, but after that they would need to decide if they were going to release me from Gospel Doctrine or Choir Director. I don't see them letting me off the Organ, and I've only been doing it just under a year, and I only have to make four or five calls once a month as a visiting teacher supervisor, so being released from that wouldn't do much, time wise. So they are going to have to decide which of the two will go. Jeff asked me if I just wanted to request to be released from one of them, so I could chose, but I'm really fine with whichever way it goes, so I should let them figure it out. I honestly don't know which way their decide. It doesn't matter.

Erica's birthday party is going to be next Saturday. We are having a princess tea party. I am going to make strawberry lemonade and we are going to have little pink cookies and a Cinderella cake, oh and ice cream. When the girls arrive, we are going to have them make their own tiara's out of foam shapes and then we are going to have princess makeovers with some of my old makeup and take pictures of all the beautiful princesses. Then we are going to play, pin the crown on the princess, and Princess freeze dance, and then the tea part of the party with the cookies, cake, ice cream and such while we're watching Snow White and them presents and done.

We have decided that we are most likely to be coming to Vegas on Tuesday night. The biggest question mark is weather I'm going to be ready in time to leave at a reasonable hour. We can leave as early as 3:00 our time which puts us in Vegas by 9:00. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone. Is anyone other than me amazed at the number of people Uncle Leland is planning on trying to stuff in his house for Thanksgiving?

4:30 A.M.

The wind woke we at 4:30 A.M. this morning and I couldn't go back to sleep. So here I am, thinking about the day. It will be an interesting day. First my students have been very talkative this week so I plan on going in with a stern face and lots of stickers (star stickers for students following procedures- school behavior plan). They(the students) also have a huge colony presentation today- they've been working on it for about two weeks and some don't care enough and other students care too much. I remember feeling that way, especially with group work. After school I have an interesting experience set up. Actually, the school has an interesting experience set up for us. It is a fund raiser with Barnes and Noble. A percentage of anything spent today using Rockrimmon's number is given to back to the school. Several teachers are scheduled to read out loud at the store. I'm scheduled between 6:00-6:15 and am reading Piggie Pie- one of my all time re-alouds.
Anyway, it is now almost 5:30 and time to get up and face the day.

Love you all.

This is what a confused one-year-old looks like

Heber wasn't quite sure what to do with his birthday cake.



My favorite part is about eight seconds in, where he shivers with disgust over the icing on his hands.

He did finally get a little chocolate on his face.



He really loves the books Mema sent, too: Pat the Bunny and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.


But my sweet baby's favorite gift was the $1 play telephone I found at D.I. He loves it.


Happy belated birthday, baby Ber.

Autumn

I do love the autumn, although this year is has been a little strange. First we seemed to skip fall and jumped right into winter. After a cold week of snow, late delays and no school, we jumped back into late summer and now we are rocking back and forth between the two and I am confused. I can't decide which I rather stick around.

In any case, life is just crazy. I know there are very few people out there with a life that isn't crazy. There are moments when I long for a 9-5 job. And, of course, other moments when I wouldn't change a thing.

I've been asked to take on a bit more this year. (Please read the bit with ironic inflection.) This is both a flattering and exhausting. They've asked me to be the school's math coach- THE math coach- ME?! Nothing else has been taken away, of course, I am still on the behavior team, and the technology web 2.0 team.

I don't have a calling yet. I guess this doesn't surprise me a ton. What does surprise me is that I thought I'd have a ton more time, but not really. Time tends to fill itself- but I am do wish I had a spot to fill. It helps one get to know people faster if one has a common goal one is working for. I do know this will be the first ward in almost ten years where I will not be the choir accompanist. The choir just started today for the first time since the ward has been formed and so the new pianist has only just been called. Interesting change for my life. I went and joined the alto section today- another change- but my voice is NOT what it used to be. I guess talking all day to 26 students takes a toll after a while. My range has become severely limited but I love being part of a choir. Luckily one does not have to try out for the ward choir.

Thanksgiving in coming quick!! With Christmas on its heels. Shauna and I are actually decorating for Christmas this coming weekend because this will be the only time we can before we are halfway through December.

Love you all and miss you tremendously.

A little Katy-love

Strange person

We have a very strange brother. Samuel gave a fairly hillarious party tonight for Caren. It was a fun and amusing evening.

By the way, Caren, it was a wonderful cake! I loved it.

Halloween pictures

So here is my family this past Halloween.

Happy birthday

Happy, happy birthday Heber dear!
Have a wonderful first birthday.
We love you, even if we haven't met you yet.

Halloween

I tried to take pictures of the kids on Halloween. I really did! But the battery in my camera died the second I turned it on in the church parking lot. Sigh! I did get some adorable pictures of Lillian at her school party. The school decided to not allow costumes at all this year, so the preschoolers created their own out of paper grocery bags and paper plates. I even tried the video app on the camera. It's not wonderful, but it is cute! She told me that her bag is red because that is Snow White's color.

The video wouldn't load, sorry.

Pictures of David and Amy's kids

Here are a few pictures of the grandkids in town at Halloween.

Oh, and...

P.S. If you want to see more pictures, just look on facebook. I posted quite a few last night. Love you all!

Halloween 2009 - Pictures!

So, this year we went to Keryn's ward Trunk or Treat. We didn't really think about costumes until about 2 hours before the event, so we threw together whatever we could. Katy was Snow White again. Last year, around this time, she was in a Snow White phase and Grandma Smith got her a Snow White costume that was way too big for her, so we thought it best to reuse it this year. Jayson (after much gnashing of teeth) was a mountain man. We tried missionary (too much of a cop out) and then ranger (but we didn't have the right hat or a park ranger patch or anything to really identify him as a park ranger), so he ended up as a mountain man. And we had a little pumpkin outfit (again from Grandma Smith) for Brooke. Tyler and I decided to put good use to those graduation robes that we had to buy back in the day, and we went as graduates. Class of '02!!! Anyway, here's some pictures:

Pumpkin Brooklet!

Mountain Man Jayson

Snow White Katy, Pumpkin Brooke, and Clark Graduate Telima

My wonderful family! Snow White, Pumpkin, Mountain Man and Silverado Graduate!

We had a wonderful time and hope you all had great Halloweens too! Love you all!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Caren! Thanks for being part of our crazy family!