Monument Park 13th Ward Primary Program

Have I mentioned lately how much I love this ward?  Well I do :) The whole family does actually.  I mention that because today we had the Primary Program.  And what was amazing is that they used the talks that the children had given in primary throughout the year to create the program.  That way the children were familiar with their parts because, for the most part, they were their own words.  Such a great idea.  They also had very nice invitations that they handed out 2 weeks before the program so we could invite family, less-active and non-member neighbors.  Great idea as well.

We were touched to have so much family support.Grandpa Earl changed his flight so he could be there (what a fabulous Grandpa!) and even Uncle Cameron came!  Alexander sat relatively quiet during church because he was with Grandpa and occasionally Uncle Cameron entertained him.  It was also nice to have a chance to really enjoy the program instead of wrestling with little A.

Lincoln had been working on his part for 2 weeks and he had it all memorized.  He paused in the right places and he emphasized the right words when he did it with me.  I was so proud of him. Stephen practiced in a slipshod manner and I wondered if he'd speed read his talk in the moment.  Well when it came time for their parts, Stephen walked up to the mic, adjusted it, looked at the audience, licked his lips and took a deep breath in and out and then began reading his talk very well.  Half way through he shifted his gaze directly at the congregation and gave the rest of his talk in a very deliberate and expressive tone, totally memorized.  Hilarious.

Then instead of going back to his seat, he remained next to the podium to be with Lincoln ("because I love him", he told me afterward).  Sister Gurgel adjusted the stool and mic but Stephen noticed it was too high for Lincoln, so Stephen reached across the podium and adjusted the mic again.  Then Sister Gurgel gave Lincoln the first line of his talk and sat down assuming Lincoln would take off on his own like he'd done in practice, but he didn't.  He looked back at her.  She came back up and began prompting him while Stephen stared on.  Then half way through when Lincoln got more confident and remembered his talk, Stephen turned and began waving and mouthing something to us with large gestures.  Oh it was cute and there were giggles in the audience but it was also rather embarrassing.  It always has to be something with those two.  We found out later that right before Lincoln's part, the little girl that Lincoln was sitting next to had torn his 3X5 card with his talk on it into two and the teacher had taken it. That's what threw Lincoln off and flustered him.

All in all they did a good job and sang most of the words to the songs.  We took a couple of pictures afterwards to remember the day:

With the Primary Program and my one and only lesson in Relief Society today and then Dan and I giving talks last week, we had lots of comments from people as we tried to leave today.  We are going to miss this ward! 

Stephen Graduates from 2nd Grade!

Stephen has been working so hard on his Math!  He finished up his 2nd grade workbook a few weeks ago and Saturday afternoon he wrapped up his final drills on IXL Math.  We're so impressed with all his hard work. He's mastered addition and subtraction with 3 digits, beginning multiplication and over 200 other math skills.

As the days got closer for Grandpa Earl to come, Stephen wondered if he could finish in time for Grandpa to give him his certificate.  That became his goal.  The last few days were difficult.  Some of the hardest and most time consuming drills were at the end.  Some days he wanted to give up but he pushed through and worked 4 or 5 hours a day just on math!

Well Grandpa Earl was such a good sport, after our Pumpkin Days excursion he came back to our house and took a nap until Stephen finished.  I thought it would be about 1.5 hours but it ended up being 3 hours! 

Well done Stephen!!!

Grandpa Earl and Pumpkin Days!

 

Grandpa Earl came to Utah for the BYU game we were lucky enough to spend lots of time with him.  We had been wanting to take the boys to a pumpkin patch of some kind before that part of the season was over and Dad came just in time.  We went over to Wheeler Historic Farm for their Pumpkin Days.

I got my camera all charged up and then left the memory card at home.  Nice.  Luckily I thought to bring the ipad!  It's a little harder to get the right shot, mainly because it doesn't always take the picture when I want.  Like the one below that finally took after Stephen ran away and Lincoln was no longer smiling  :)

 

Wagon Ride

There were lots of fun things to do on the farm.  First we enjoyed a Wagon Ride pulled by a real live tractor.

 Alexander had a little bit of an issue with the tractor.  You just never know what he's going to be afraid of until it happens. Luckily Grandpa was there to hold on to the whole time :)  That's why he's not his happy self in these shots

We also saw a lot of animals because it is a "working farm."  We saw horses (including some rather sad saggy horses), shaggy dwarf oxen (we actually didn't know what they were), turkeys, pigs, sheep, chickens and more ducks and geese than I've seen in one place in a long time. The boys got caught feeding ducks for quite some time.  They are pretty particular about what you can feed the animals but someone stuck in with a big sack of bread and passed it out to the kids and so the ducks got a treat instead of that nasty ol' seed they were used to :)  It was hard to pull the boys away!

The autumn colors were beautiful but sadly they are almost over.  It's the one of the big things I will miss about living in Utah.  Grandpa took this shot down by the creek that is a nice memory though.

Then after what was meant to be a short pitstop at the tree house, we headed over to the Pumpkin Patch and Hay Bale Maze.  The boys loved the maze.  I didn't think to pull the camera out for that one so just imagine a nice short maze made with hay bales and not a 4 mile long corn maze. Thank you Wheeler Farm!  They also created a cute little hay bale maze for kids that you could see over.  Again, thank you Wheeler Farm ;)

Except for a few random mummies and the like it was pretty tame and non scary which I really liked.  The boys all picked a pumpkin and then we headed out for some yummy Mexican Food. Thanks Grandpa Earl for such a fun day!!!