Bear Cub Ethan

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Ethan received his bear rank and his religious square knot tonight. The pack actually hasn’t passed out any awards for awhile, so in addition to the bear and square knot he also received his bicycling, fishing, art, map and compass and ultimate belt loops. He also received one gold and two silver arrows. So he had a pile of things to bring home for me to put on his uniform.

After the meeting, one of his leaders congratulated me and said “Yay! You’re all finished. You got him through.” What she doesn’t realize is that I don’t see us as all finished with scouting. We are just beginning. And the way I see it, Ethan still has LOTS of things to earn as a bear. He can earn more arrows, more belt loops, pins, the outdoor activity award, the leave no trace award and the world conservation award. So we will just have to keep working hard and see how far he can go. 🙂

The Creation of Snakes

Ethan had to write a story about one of Heavenly Father’s creations as one of his requirements to earn the cub scout religious square knot. This is what he wrote:

The Creation of Snakes

By Ethan Andelin

“Hiss,” said a snake one day. “Hiss!” it said again. “HISS!!” it screamed. A bunch of snakes came from hunting. Snakes are oviously awesome. I realy, realy love snakes. The snakes ate thear dilisiose dinner of, frogs and tuna fish at the pond. The End.

Happy Halloween

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This year, I wasn’t really getting into the Halloween spirit. I think it’s mainly because the whole house feels like it’s been turned upside down, due to preparations for getting the basement finished. We did try on costumes a few weeks ago to make sure we didn’t need to go out and buy anything for anyone though. The school kids got up this morning and got dressed and put their costumes on, and went to school. The school’s costume parade started at 9:30 but Dinah was refusing to get dressed and I just didn’t feel like fighting everyone to get dressed. Then the thought of wrangling them all down to the school by myself and having to try to keep them under control while I tried to take pictures, all felt really overwhelming to me. So we stayed home. Dinah was mad later when she found out that the parade was over and we hadn’t gone. I’m feeling rather depressed about it as well.

The kids came home from school, and instead of hopping in the car to go to Kyle’s work, like we usually do, we just stayed home. The kids kept asking when we were going to leave, but Kyle and I decided that since Symantec was doing something different this year, that we wouldn’t go. Usually the kids get to go trick or treating from cubicle to cubicle. This year they just wanted to change it and do a ‘trunk or treat’ instead. Personally, one of the things I liked best about going to trick or treat at Kyle’s work was that it was INSIDE and therefore we didn’t have to freeze, or deal with chilling wind. Today was pretty nice and warm considering it’s the end of October, but that’s not the point.

I called the new Saratoga Springs Pizza Hut to order our traditional Halloween pizza dinner, and Kyle came home. We ate dinner early and then it was time to trick or treat in the neighborhood. 🙂

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The fact that we didn’t go to Symantec this year, meant that they got out nice and early while the sun was still up! Kyle took the kids out and I stayed home with Adam to try to clean up in between passing out candy. We did have one episode where Chloe ran off and left Kyle and the others so she could come home. THEN she decided that she didn’t want to be home and wanted to be out with daddy still. Fortunately they were coming up the street on the opposite side and I could just get her back out there again. But it did catch me off guard when she came home without them.

So this year we didn’t carve or decorate the pumpkins at all. I didn’t take the little ones and go down to the school for the parade. We didn’t go to trick or treat at Symantec. All of that makes me somewhat sad, but I’m trying not to beat myself up over it. After all, we did let the kids wear costumes to school. We did order pizza, like we always do. And they did get to go out trick or treating. Hopefully by the time Halloween rolls around next year, the basement will be finished, and I will have had time to rearrange the whole house and unpack the garage, and therefore I will be able to access the Halloween stuff!

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I would say that we still did enough to make it an exhausting day. 🙂

Lydia’s first day in nursery

Lydia went to nursery for the very first time today. I dropped her off, because I’m meaner than Kyle is. I can actually take her in and walk her to the toys, let go of her hand and walk away. Kyle would have stayed with her to see how she handled it.

I went to Sunday school and wondered how long it would be before they brought her to me because she had just been crying too long. I got through Sunday school, and before relief society started, someone came in to ask for help in Lydia’s nursery. I didn’t volunteer, just because I wanted to see how long Lydia would go. Relief society began and surprisingly ended without anyone bringing Lydia to me.

After church, I went to go get her, and there she was playing with the bubbles just as happy as she could be. Until she saw me. She looked up and noticed me after I came in the room and THEN she started crying, as if suddenly realizing that I had left her and she just couldn’t believe it. I thought it was totally funny. I knew she was fine, and obviously, I came back for her. But as soon as she realized that I had left, despite the fact that I came back, that is when she had the melt down.

Entering the next Decade

Last night the kids asked Kyle if he would take them shopping so they could get me a birthday present. Kyle invited me along, basically because he didn’t want the kids picking out useless things and he wanted me to pick out my presents, so they would actually be something I would like. 😛 So we went out, and I picked out a pair of super soft fuzzy pajamas, and because my current purse is too small to hold my kindle, I picked out a new purse.

Kyle worked from home today, so that he could be here with me for my birthday. Then he went out to pick up something for dinner and to buy a birthday cake. When he got back I got to open my presents. Now I knew about the things that I had picked out yesterday, and Dinah has been constantly telling me about how I was getting some Woodstock earrings, and then the final present I also knew about. We were having chicken for dinner a couple of weeks ago when four of the kids asked if they could have a drumstick. I made the comment, “I still want that book”. In case you don’t know, the book is “Who Gets the Drumstick?” by Helen Beardsley. As soon as I made that comment, and Kyle realized what I was talking about, he went to his computer and looked it up on amazon. Being that it is out of print he couldn’t find a reasonably priced hardcover copy on amazon and went to check ebay. There he found one, and bought it right away. He didn’t try to keep it a secret, and so I knew that he bought it. I knew what was in the package when it arrived in the mail, and for some unknown reason it totally surprised him when I knew what every one of my presents was. 😉

After opening my presents, I went down the hall to put on my new soft and fuzzy pajamas, and then we had cake.

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So here I am entering my thirties. Life has been very good to me. 🙂