Halloween

It seems like there is never time to blog! Here is a run down of our Halloween this year. The 29th of October was my dad's 75th birthday so the kids and I decided to go up to surprise him along with Clint and Alyson and their family and Darin. Dave stayed home and worked on the house. He spends every free moment working on it and I appreciate him so much! Anyway, we carefully planned our arrival time in Perry so that we would all get there at the same time. We met at the Flying J near my parents house on the 28th. We got the kids in their Halloween costumes and then trick or treated to my parent's door. My dad was VERY suprised. We had a wonderful weekend together having a birthday/halloween party, playing games, and visiting. We came home on Sunday the 30th. On Halloween I make mummy faces and mummy fingers for dinner. The kids helped and didn't even recognize the faces as pizza until they tasted them and said they tasted like pizza. I used string cheese, olives and English muffins for the mummy faces and sliced up tortillas to wrap around Little Smokies for the fingers. I give each finger a dot of pizza sauce for the nail.

After dinner the kids and Dave got dressed up for trick or treating. I stayed back to answer the door for the 2 trick or treaters that came while they were gone. Dave kept saying he was thinking of shaving his head and being Charlie Brown for Halloween and on Monday morning he made good on his word. It is still working on growing back to its original length. At least we found out that if he every goes completely bald he has a pretty normal head under there! Zander was a robot for Halloween and Haylie was a black cat (of course). Our black cat, Sam, walked with them around the neighborhood.

My Birthday

I was going through some pictures and found some that I wanted to blog about but haven't yet. We decided to go to the Salt Lake area for my birthday. Gretchen Rimmasch, my good friend growing up, was having a wedding reception in the area that evening so we thought it would work out well. We took the kids the Living Planet Aquarium. It was a fun place and small enough we saw the whole thing before the kids got tired of it. My parents and Darin joined us at the aquarium and my parents also joined us for a dinner at the Olive Garden before we went to the reception. We ended up getting home pretty late so Dave and the kids and I had cake next day.

Mixa Moxa

I had to post about this because I know it is one of those things that is so funny and cute now but I won't remember it later. As I may have posted before, Zander has some idiosyncrasies that make him very unique. He shakes and flaps his arms and/or jumps when he gets excited. I have had to tell people that watch him that he is fine and he is not having a seizure, he is just really excited. Another of these idiosyncrasies is that he likes to make little songs or chants when he sees something happening in a rhythm or repeatedly. That is where Mixa Moxa comes from. He likes to get on a chair and watch me make things in the kitchen. Whenever something is being mixed (batter, something in the Bosch mixer etc) he repeats "Mixa moxa mixa moxa" until the mixing is over. To us it is just part of Zander but when he had done it around others it has been known to crack them up. His other favorite is popcorn in the air popper. It is "pop, pop, pop" for that one. Oh, and who can forget his sprinkler obsession. It has a song too..."sprinka, sprinka". What a silly kid! I love him to pieces!

Kindergarten!

Haylie started Kindergarten at Castle Heights Elementary on August 30th. She was very excited to go and kept wishing the day before that it could be tomorrow already. I hope she keeps her enthusiasm for school. She goes to the same school that I teach part time at so we get to pass each other in the hall every now and then, and I have to admit it is nice to know what is going on at the school. Her teacher is Mrs. Sjogren and so far everything is going great. She has even overcome her fear of automatic flushing toilets! I had the cutest outfit all picked out for her first day of school. What you see in the picture is not it. Haylie is very particular when it comes to clothes. Nothing can be "cute". Pretty much any other adjective is acceptable but if I call something cute it is downhill from there. So, instead of fighting all morning on her first day of school. What you see is what she chose. She did finally wear the outfit to church this past Sunday (it was a dress with leggings) and looked very "cute" if I dare say.

I have to add that I am very proud of both of my kids. They have done so well as I have had to drag them around all over the place to meet my obligations. Between teaching, coaching volleyball, and Young Women, I am always going. They have been so good to tag along or stay with Dave or the babysitter. I will certainly be ready for volleyball to end and to be able to get in a more comfortable routine. Hopefully there won't be too many more days like last Wednesday. I went to the Jr. High at 10 to get the balls ready for our away game and ran a couple of other errands. Then I dropped Zander off at 11 and went to school. At 2:00 I left school early, changed my shirt in the car and got on the bus to go to the volleyball game. I coached the volleyball games, rode back on the bus, changed my shirt again in the car and went back to the school for Back-to-School night at 6:30. That lasted until 7:30 and then I had to get my things ready for a substitute teacher the following day. At 8:40 I finally got home and ate dinner at 9. Those kind of days are LONG! Thankfully Dave is a wonderful dad and I didn't have to worry about Haylie and Zander. I do miss them on days like that though.

For Haylie

Tomorrow is Haylie's first day of kindergarten so I wanted to write her a letter that she could read later and to help her remember this day later. Since I would lose anything else and this will eventually make it into my blog book, I thought this was a good place to put it.

Haylie,

Where did the time go? I can't believe you are no longer that chubby little baby we brought home that snowy December day. You have turned into such a beautiful little girl. I am so excited for you to start school and show everybody what a smart and caring girl you are. I am so glad that you were so excited today you kept asking why it can't be tomorrow already. I know you will make lots of good friends and am so happy I can be just across the library from you for part of each day. You will do great. Just put on a smiley face and don't be afraid say hello and make a friend! I love you so much and want you to be happy. Good luck tomorrow and don't worry if I cry just a little bit. It is only because I am so proud of you!!!

Love,

Mom

Lagoon

After the kids and I spent a week at Grandma and Grandpa Oberholtzer's house at the beginning of June, Dave came up on his motorcycle and stayed for the weekend. Then on Monday we went to Lagoon before heading back to Price. Haylie was a HUGE chicken when we got there and didn't want to go on any rides. Zander started out pretty good but as he saw that Haylie was nervous about the rides he started to get worried about them too. We kept at it though and ended up having a good time even though I had to drag Haylie on a couple of rides while she was kicking and screaming. She ended up enjoying most of them and so did Zander. It was nice that he was just tall enough to go on all the rides that Haylie could go on. It was nice spending the day together doing something out of the ordinary. The day started out rainy but by the time we got to the park it was just overcast which made for a perfect day.

On the baby boats.

Driving the car

On the baby whales. These baby rides are the only ones they wanted to go on.

Going for an airplane ride

Zander manning the bumper cars

Grandma and Grandpa O

We had the opportunity to go to my parents house in Perry, UT a couple of times this summer for various reasons. First, in June we went up so that I could take the Praxis test in Logan in order to get my Utah teaching license. I passed the test with flying colors and we also got to spend the week hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa. We spent most of the time at the house just relaxing in the yard or playing in the house but we did make it out for a round of mini golf. Both Haylie and Zander used some pretty interesting tactics to get the ball in the hole. Mostly they just kind of pushed the ball along until it got close to the hole then they would tap it in or in Zander's case pick it up and put it in the hole. They loved any hole that involved the ball going through a tunnel to get to another part of the hole and had to try it over and over.

Dave and I celebrated our 11th anniversary on June 30 so we decided to head through the canyon again to celebrate. We decided on going up to Perry again because there would be free babysitting for a date and then we could stay and celebrate Independence Day in Perry. We got to watch fireworks on Saturday night then on Monday morning we went down to the parade. Perry was having its 100th birthday so there were all sorts of things to do in the park after the parade, including face painting.

Last, we went up last weekend for the annual Oberholtzer Family Reunion. This year is was combined with a Demar and Virginia Hillyard Family reunion at Willard Bay. It was fun to see some of my cousins that I haven't seen in years. We were all meeting at the beach of the bay and as I was looking around and total strangers and wondering if they were my cousins. The reunion also included my younger brother Ryan blessing his new baby girl Xanthe. It is always great to get together with my family. We always have lots of laughs and make lots of great memories. It is just too bad that we don't live closer to Dave's family so that the kids can make more memories with them.

Mother/daughter campout

Dave and Zander when with other members of the ward for the annual Father/son campout. Haylie was feeling a little left out so we decide to have a little "campout" of our own. Haylie LOVES pretend play so she was super excited about it. We decided to really rough it and go out to dinner, then we stopped at Wal-mart to get all the supplies we would need--s'more makings and orange and yellow glow sticks to make our fire glow. We came home and cut some fun foam in the shape of flames and then used our glow sticks to "light"our fire. Then we made our s'mores by heating them in the microwave and them ate them around the fire. We watched a movie and then got ready for bed and climbed into the tent Haylie made under her bed. You can see she has a slide bed in the background. She hung blankets around it to make the tent. It was a fun night, even if we both ended up in my bed by the end of the night!

Late Easter

I am getting ready to start another edition of my blog book and I am realizing that I have kind of slacked over the past several months. so in an effort to document our lives the next few posts might seem a little outdated but need to be here for posterity sake.
We had a pretty low key Easter this year. We got to color Easter eggs on Saturday which is getting more and more fun as the kids get older. On Sunday morning we let them hunt for eggs and for their Easter baskets. Not too much excitement but it is fun to see my kids enjoying the traditions that I enjoyed as a child.

A man obsessed

Zander has a serious obsession with sprinklers. It is almost scary how excited he gets about them. Today he sat on the curb for probably 45 minutes watching the sprinklers across the street run. He loves to see them run but he even has to stop at every sprinkler head he sees in the ground whether it is running or not. We have spent quite a bit of time this summer at Grandma and Grandpa Oberholtzer's house and they have huge yard. Zander spends most of the time we are there walking around the yard and checking the sprinkler heads when they are not on and the rest of the time watching as each of the zones run, all the while asking Grandma and Grandpa which one is going to come on next. My parents were also taking care of the yard and house of their next door neighbors so Zander kept asking about Bob's (the next door neighbor) sprinklers too. It is a very strange obsession that is certainly unexplainable. I have to be careful not to mention sprinklers that I see when we are in the car. If Zander doesn't see them before we pass there is real trouble. What a quirky little guy! Speaking of obsessions, Dave's recent obsession has been our house plans! That is the kind of obsession I encourage so that we can get moving on it. We have secured a lot and will be taking the paper work to the bank this week. If everything goes smoothly we will be breaking ground by the first part of August! Yippee!!! I can't wait use a dishwasher again!!

Zander's 3rd Birthday

Zander turned three on the 10th of April. It fell on Sunday this year and I have been so busy with teaching that we decided not to have a friend party. Instead we took a trip over the mountain and took the kids to a place called Jump On It. It has a bunch of trampolines lined up together with all of the springs covered. The kids jumped all over the place and exhausted themselves. We also ran some much needed errands and went out to eat at Dickey's BBQ. It was funny because we ordered the large family platter because we wanted some leftovers but we weren't prepared for the quantity of each item that we got. I am sure people around us were gawking at the amount of food. It was a fun day spending the day with each other and having a little change of pace. The only down side was that it took us an extra hour on the trip home since we had to crawl through the canyon in the middle of the snow storm.

On the day of Zander's birthday we had cake and he got to open his presents. He got a motorcycle that he can ride and push with his feet, a kung zhu pet to go with Haylie's zhu zhu pet, a block set, a bubble blowing car and some money.

He insisted that he wanted a train cake that had chocolate frosting and was a triangle shape. I tried to talk him into a rectangle or circle cake but he is a very stubborn little boy and I knew if wasn't like he had envisioned it there would be trouble. Thus we have the triangle train cake. It wasn't minty as you might think and it is kind of strange looking, but it sure made the birthday boy happy.

He was very excited to have a card that played the chicken dance when you opened it. He even chose to bring it for sharing day at the day care.

Zander has always had a great sense of humor, even from the time he was a baby. He likes trains and blocks and playing whatever game Haylie makes up. He seems to be asserting his power by refusing to eat anything we call dinner and refusing to even think about going potty in the toilet. He likes to play trapeze with Dad and Super Mario Brothers on the Wii with Mom (he is Luigi). Lately when he is asked what he wants to eat or what he ate at daycare he responds with a made up word. His favorite made up word is ba blister. Don't ask me what it means. We have been so blessed to have this funny little boy in our lives. He keeps us on our toes with his insistance on things being exactly what he has in mind, but we sure do love him!

Thoughts on teaching

The last 3 months have gone by in a blur. I have felt like I am barely keeping my head above water in most areas of my life and that is not a feeling I like. Teaching 4th grade has been a learning experience for me. It has made me realize that I enjoy older elementary kids. It has been very hard to come into a classroom and take over for someone else. I was given no information whatsoever and was basically told to be the teacher. The kids really have taken advantage of my lack of information and it has really been an uphill battle to manage the classroom. That has always been my biggest challenge as a teacher so it has really been tough for me.

Haylie and Zander have done really well at day care. There are mornings when the don't want to get up and go but they always have fun while they are there. I am glad that Dave drops them off most mornings because every time I have to I shed a few tears. I feel sad sometimes to think of all the time I am missing with them. I can't wait for the summer when things can slow down a bit and I can be there for them. I have become keenly aware of how much I love them and how quickly they will grow up. Being away from them everyday has given me a totally different perspective.

Next year Haylie will be going to kindergarten and Zander will be going to preschool for part of the day so I have decided that I will job share a teaching position in second grade. I will teach in the afternoons from 11:15 until 2:45. I am excited to have the time at home to keep up the house and spend some one on one time with Zander. The person that I will be teaching with already has an established classroom and just wants to start teaching part time. It should be a pretty easy transition to just pick up with what she has done in the past. Zander will be at preschool for part of the time I am gone and the other couple of hours we haven't decided where he will go. I think it will be nice because I have a feeling that once Haylie is gone all day Zander would get bored hanging out with me all day. I am exciting for the prospect of having something think about and a reason to get up and get ready each day without having it consume my whole life. Only about 25 days left for this school year. Can't wait.

A job

This is kind of an ongoing saga that goes back to this fall and this post. I got an call last Tuesday from the principal as Castle Heights which is the elementary school just up the street from us. They had one of their 4th grade teachers get transferred to be a prinicpal at another school and so they were in need of a teacher until the end of the year. She got my number from the principal at the Jr. High where I coach and was hoping I would think about "applying for" the position. Now if you read my other post you might think that this is a continuation of my little test and so did I at first. I mean, really, what do I know about 4th grade except having passed it when I was 9? So she asked me to think about it and let her know the next day. I figured I would just call her and say thanks but no thanks.
That afternoon I got a call from Paige who is in our ward, teaches 1st grade at the same school, and has a daughter in the class that doesn't have a teacher. She pleaded with me to seriously consider it and told me her daughter had been praying for a good teacher. So I decided to look into it a little bit more. As I got to figuring what I would making after paying for child care, I realized it is almost the exact amount of money Dave and I are short for the down payment on our building loan. Wow!! I suddenly felt like this opportunity was given to me for a reason. So I found some options for child care that sounded good and decided that I would do it. I went in for an "interview" (like there were so many candidates) and now I start on Thursday. It will be a big change but I feel like we can get through for less than 4 months. I am continually amazed at the knowledge that our Heavenly Father knows us and knows our needs. I am so glad that I have an education and have kept up my certification. This will be the second time that I have been able to use it when our family needs it and both times the job has fallen in my lap. I am a little anxious about the changes for Haylie and Zander but I have to keep telling myself that it will be for a very short time.

Plans!

Dave bought our house plans today!! If you have ever built a house you know that it is a bit of an investment. It is becoming a reality! The two lots we are looking at are both in our current ward. (Julie S, I think you might be the only person from Price that reads my blog so that info is for you!) So much to do! I wish I could do more of the work. Dave can't sleep at night because his mind keeps racing with construction thoughts. Hopefully once the work actually starts he can put his mind to rest. He will probably be so exhausted from working then going to work on the house he will be asleep before his head hits the pillow.

House??

There are still about a million hurdles to jump but it looks like Dave will be building us a house this spring!! I still have to tell myself not to get my hopes up just in case one of the hurdles proves to be too much for us but I am getting pretty giddy in spite of myself. We have a floor plan picked out and a couple of lot possibilities. It will be kind of slow since Dave is going to do most of the work himself along with a friend in our ward but I am going to do my best to be patient. Yippee!!!

Christmas 2010

Since last year a big snow storm altered our plans for traveling for Christmas we decided to just plan on staying at home this year. It turned out to be a good choice because Zander had been sick the whole week before Christmas and was really down and out on Christmas Eve. Luckily that was the turning point and he felt pretty good for Christmas morning. It was kind of sad to not have other family around. It didn't really feel like it was much different than any other day. I made tons of good food and it went largely unappreciated by the kids. Over eating is just not the same without a bunch of family around I guess. :) We took it easy on Christmas Eve since Zander was not up to much. We did make cookies for Santa Claus and carried on the Oberholtzer tradition of Fondue for Christmas Eve dinner. We read the story of the nativity and used our nativity scene to act it out. Haylie had been waiting all season to do that so she was pretty excited. Then we opened up our new pajamas and got ready for Santa to come.

The kids got up at about 7 on Christmas morning. Haylie was way excited to see her dolphin Pillow Pet. I still can't figure out the craze with these things. As usual the kids got way too spoiled. I feel like I did too this year. I got a carpet cleaner from Dave. I know it sounds really romantic but it is what I asked for. He helps to clean the carpets which makes it a little more romantic! From my parents and Darin we got a Bosch Mixer with a couple of attachments and from Dave's parents we got a Food Saver vacuum sealer. Now I can cook and clean with the best of them! I have used each item several times already. One day we even used all three! Dave and I cleaned the carpet in the living room, I vacuum sealed some ground beef, and made some bread with the mixer!

Decorating Santa's cookies

"Would ya get that camera outta my face?"

A Pillow Pet!!!

Checking out the stocking

Haylie LOVED her gift from Uncle Darin. 20 new Littlest Pet Shop Pets complete with accessories.

Zander's gift from Great Gram Holzer...Tractors.

Working really hard at saying "Cheese"

Oh My!! What blew up in here??