All About the Argyles

I stole this from Shawni Polthier of "71 toes" (See right). She posted it on her kitchen wall before Thanksgiving. Let's face it, though - it is good to think about your many blessings all year round. I have too many windows and not enough wall space to post it up on my kitchen wall so I improvised and put it on my kitchen table. I think I actually like it better. The kids LOVE it. Some of them have gotten really artistic and colored little pictures too. All you need is a roll of paper, markers, and some tape to secure it and you have a great way for your family to be mindful of some of the things/people they are grateful for before each meal. I also love it because it encourages my kids to come sit in the kitchen and visit with me while I am prepping dinner, breakfast, etc. Its a great conversation starter, a few worthy of mention are: Sister Lloyd (YW leader) Brother Romney (Tanner's Seminary Teacher) Sister Ziminskas (Jensen's Sunday School Teacher) Uptown P

What are the odds that when you are getting a new roof, you might step on a roofing nail? Apparantly pretty good. Because I did. After the fact, my roofer estimated that 12,000 nails came down with my old, hail damaged roof. They ended up all over my drive way, yard, and sidewalk. I just happened to step on one. It went through my flip flop. (Yes, I was wearing flip flops, not one of my better moments) It also went about an inch into the heel of my foot. In case you are wondering it hurts. It also makes for a really lame date night to spend it at the ER getting a tetanus shot. And although I should be the one getting a note to release me from participating in P.E., I found this in Reagan's room. Do you think the P.E. teacher fell for it? When I asked Reagan about it she said that she lost the note I actually-validly- wrote for her so she wrote this one in it's place. Likely excuse.

Then this is for you...

On Monday, April 11th @ about 1 AM we had visitors in the form of large wicked balls of ICE, (a.k.a hail.) We ran out to move cars inside to the garage. (I don't know why we don't park in the garage, we are just lazy, it's not like we have alot of junk in there.) When we saw the hail we changed our mind quickly. Some of it was the size of a racquetball. It was accompanied by 70 mile an hour winds. We immediatlely ran back in the house to get kids up out of bed and move them to an area where there were no windows. We waited out the storm. The kids went back to bed. We started calling insurance companies. The next morning we saw this: See the hail damage in the backboard? It punched a hole clean through the plexiglass. Top left Dormar window (in the attic) broken. Two windows to the garage were shattered. Trampoline was damaged. Playground and fence have little white spots all over them from being pelted by the hail. Our skylight was broken in our kitchen. We need to repl

Once a month we pull out the box of thank you notes and spend a few minutes writing someone a letter. Each of us thinks about someone that we are grateful for, who has blessed our life in the last month or so and then we take a few minutes to tell them "thanks", I try not to dictate who they should write to. Contemplating the people in their lives who bless them is part of the beauty of this tradition. Last week: Tanner wrote to his seminary teacher. Brother Romney has been a huge influence in his life this last year and has taught him so much. He talks about his lessons all the time and looks forward to the 6am class every day because of him. Reagan wrote a note to her Activity Day leader. Sister Doyle teaches the 8 year old girls and has done such a fantastic job, going above and beyond. Now that Reagan is 9 and has moved to the next class she wanted to let Tammie know how much she appreciated her time and effort. Brady wrote a note to his Soccer Coach. This is the first y

On Friday, Brady was awarded the music award from Ms. Tucker. She sent me an email to tell me about it so I would be there and mentioned that he was getting it because he always sings so loud and has a great attitude. When I told him, he asked if he could wear his suit to the award ceremony since it was a special occasion. "Sure!" "Why not"? When they announced his name and he got up to walk to the stage there was an audible reaction from all the moms and grammies in the crowd, oohaing and ahhing about this cute lil guy in his suit... My friend, Audra, the awesome photographer was there with her super long lens and took these delightful pictures for me. Thanks Audra!

And just one more thing about Reagan in case you haven't gotten your "Fix"this week... Today Reagan won the READING award for her class. (sorry for the horrible picture but atleast its documented for history.) We are soooo proud but not soooo surprised. When I asked her WHY she thought Ms. Thornton had selected her to receive the reading award, she replied, "Well maybe it's because I pretty much always have my nose in a book." I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.