Veteran's Day Program

Another week chained to my computer. The end is in sight now! As of yesterday I only have 6 more mini sessions left to edit. I spent half of Monday burning 20 photo CDs and ordering mini session prints. The rest of the week I spent editing the mini sessions and taking a break for a day. Evelyn is on a nap strike...and quite honestly, a sleep strike at night as well. Justin and I are exhausted. I had him take a couple of turns when I reached my max. Not sure what is going on with little goober face. She still has a cough and is trying to teethe her eye teeth. She also made huge strides with her speech the past week or so. She learned how to say Phillip's name, ketchup, pickle, pumpkin, trick or treat, candy, spooky, leaf, and work; and other words we throw at her she will finally mimic us to a point. She cried for 90 minutes every day this week during nap time. I don't do well when my kids cry like that. Plus, she never settled down. She would be in a deep sleep then wake up as soon as I put her in bed. Little stinker.

We are pretty excited that Mom, Jeremy, Yulz, and Jared are coming for Thanksgiving. I plan on using the boy's muscles to help me move our food storage around. My energy levels are pretty much gone. I ordered a bunk bed yesterday and two more twin mattresses. The new bed has a full on bottom, twin on top, and a trundle bed! I am pretty excited to get the basement area switched around and organized since it was disrupted last month when the egress window was installed. For now, I will keep the kids together until school gets out then shake up the sleeping situations over the summer.

We had a terrible blizzard on Wednesday...no snow, just a blizzard of wind. It was a really cold, windy day. Everett was pretty upset the snow did not fall.

Thursday the Third Grade presented the Veteran's Day program they worked diligently on for a couple months. She was excited to pick out a Patriotic outfit, shoes, and hair. Justin walked her down to the High School at the appointed time. I came a bit later with the kids. The program started with two Veteran's uncovering a row of military uniforms set up in front of the stage. Each guy carefully unveiled the uniform and adjusted the cap and made sure the uniform looked sharp. It was quite moving! Amelia told me later that she had chills up her arms and cried during the unveiling. Each class paired with another class to sing 3-4 songs, Amelia's group went last. Everett was totally dancing to a funky song about uniting as a country put to 70s jive music. Amelia's class sang one of the best songs of the evening, American Tears. It was put to a slide show of Veteran's who served from the kid's families. Grandpa Lane's photo showed up 3 times, plus the photo of Amelia, Uncle John, and I was the only photo that showed a child in the grade with a Veteran. The boys were excited to see photos of Uncles John, Joe, and Jeff as well. Well played 3rd grade. I had to keep myself from smiling as Amelia relayed her feelings to us after the recital. She totally waved her hand to keep herself from crying. I took a video of her singing American Tears before the concert since she worked so hard learning that sing.

Justin turned the big 40 today. We celebrated yesterday with a trip to Cabela's, Mexican food for lunch, he enjoyed a long 2 hour motorcycle ride plus 25 more minutes ferrying the kids on rides. He is lucky I am not feeling well, otherwise he'd have an over the hill party. He would hate me for that! Today I am making his favorite brownies and Waikiki pork chops. The Primary performed their program today. Our kids did well delivering their memorized parts. Everett sang his little heart out! We could all hear him shout/sing the songs. Phillip is convinced the program was just for Justin's birthday! I found the kids throwing granola all over the kitchen floor after my shower this morning. They were feeding the bird dogs. I am not going to sing "Feed the Birds" again for a quite a while at night. Amelia copied a cheesy love poem off a card she found, she jazzed it up for Justin's birthday card. It is awesome.