Weekly Synopsis 9/2-9/7

Tuesday September 2- AFTER a SUPER LONG night up with Dacie I was able to unpack and get everything back into its proper place from the fun weekend. I FINALLY FINISHED the last twilight series book-Breaking Dawn. I was not disappointed in the LEAST! My sleep and family are allot happier now that I have that out of the way! I also managed to squeeze in a nap--that had to be serious careful timing (it NEVER happens without Dan home). We also were able to fill out the rest of our mail-in ballots and drop them off at the voting station. I dropped them on my way to my monthly stake meeting, where we meet with a member of the stake presidency and the stake YM presidency!
Wednesday September 3- It is Colton's lucky day! He has been stealing my pedometer lately (that I got for Mothers Day). He is a fairly competitive lad of sorts, and it just suits his fancy to see how high he can get the numbers to go up on it. In Colton's POPS cereal this morning they had a free one inside. It made his entire week!!! It even sleeps next to him. He has ran laps around our living room and has figured out how many steps it takes to run a mile (their entire school runs Friday mornings). He was a bit disappointed to learn that it was cheating to shake the pedometer to make the steps go up. I started mowing our lawns as it has been over a week. I also got in some weed spraying--and taking the mower for a short trip to the field next door that needed some 5 ft. weeds cut down.
Thursday September 4- It was the day of the snakes! On our way to school someone had killed a really LONG snake and hung it over a sign on the way out of the neighborhood. Later that day while talking on the phone with my sister about her upcoming move out here to the Verde Valley, I happened to look outside the window and saw one of the neighbors pesky cats in our yard...AGAIN. I was getting ready to shoo it away BEFORE it left a present for us to clean, when I noticed it was playing with something in the grass- it snatched a small snake with its teeth and ran under the deck with it. I dislike the neighborhood cats BUT certainly that feeling is not even close to my HATE relationships with snakes. Not a good state to live in for that hatred I am afraid.


It was early release day, and I watched a friends children after school (McDowells) as we are swapping kids the next 2 days so we can attend parent teacher conferences. Between our 2 households we have 8 children--it wasn't bad...until Ryland stuck something up his nose--AGAIN! He has done this twice in the last little bit, and today he got a jolly rancher wrapper pretty good up there. Thank goodness my friend was here so she could hold him down while I held up a flashlight and pulled it out with the tweezers. Never had a nose sticker upper kid....guess there is always a first!


That evening I played in my first co-ed softball game of the season (I even gave up Pokeeno this month for it!). It is not as fun as church co-ed, as I do not know anyone else on the team. 2 of the guys have longer hair than me and my 2nd base buddy was talking about her partner all night. Throw in some serious dipping of tobacco--It is a different world for sure! I played 1st base and was pretty comfortable there. They take softball pretty seriously and I was fully expected to slide, dive and run! We were all pretty comparable in softball savvy--it was nice to have EVERY player pretty good! I have been sore the last couple of days. It was a kind suprise to get a phone call from the umpire friend who asked me to play thanking me for coming, and telling me they look forward to next Thursday. That was a first! I guess I did not mess things up too badly. Oh yeah! I even got to wear my new BYU t-shirt from this football season (thanks Julie!) for the softball game attire. On the way home I made copies for singing time ideas and cleaning out my stuff out of the primary closet (as I turned it all over to my friend Desiree McDowell Friday morning)!


Friday September 5-It was my turn to go to parent teacher conferences. I am so grateful our children do not struggle academically.I am really pleased with their placements and where they are at up to this point. Sterling could work on his perfectionism by not worrying about the kid next to him who wrote a D instead of a B! I came home with backpacks full of books I am cataloging for book testing. Homework! It was FUN Friday so we had pizza and watched Treasure Island in the Living Room that night as a family.
Saturday September 6- Since we do not have soccer in the mornings this season (I electively forgot to sign our children up)--we CLEAN! It is kind of nice to get everything organized and cleaned early, so we can play the rest of the day. Dan and I took Sterling on our date with us this week. We went out to lunch, to visit the pet store (the indoor zoo), and ended it with our own creations at Cold Stone Creamery (as requested by Sterling). Football season has arrived! The rest of Dan's day was spent watching his weekly game--of course--Miami, that evening (however we listened to a good portion of the BYU game on the radio). I started getting ready for preschool that is going to be at our home this coming week. I fell asleep super early laying Dacie down!

Sunday September 7- Dan stayed up late to check the skunk trap, only to awake this morning to find one in it! We had to dispose of it before church (this is our 4th skunk we have had to drown)...so it would not spray any passer-by's--making Dan run super late. I left half way through our ward to go visit the rest of the Camp Verde wards YW, with the stake YW presidency-we have a fun introduction game we play. It was great spending time with all of them. I got home to napping house and snuck in a quick one as well. We woke up in time to make some smoked salmon and visit some friends (the Steinerts) who have converted us to the coupon sense program (what we were doing before only BETTER).

That about sums up this week--hope yours was filled with fun loving critters, great deals and some serious softball!