Dallin is 14!

THE NEW PHONE!Other misc. for Birthday that's all second to phone!

My Bugler from Scout Camp!

He's looking up at the flag - what an inspiring picture!

I am so proud of him!
Halloween - will beg for candy
Shep Reunion - When do I get to fish?
My silly moments with tape!

Dallin is 14!

Happy Birthday my Dallinito Burrito - Dally Boy - Dilly, Dally -

Dayin (Ben's name for him)

What can I say? Dallin amazes me with how much he has grown up this past year. All he wanted this year was his own cell phone. We debated, thought, waited, researched, asked friends and family and finally gave in. It was the most economical to just add him to our plan. He was so thrilled! He also got a new black suit for his ordination on Sunday, doughnuts for Seminary, Jamba Juice, new jeans and a new shirt, Cherry Cheesecake, instead of cake and ice cream, and a Chris Botti CD which hasn't come yet. Awesome trumpeter. Check out his website and listen - Love his When I Fall In Love CD and we got Dallin his new Italia CD. He is coming to Gammage in Nov. and even though we couldn't get tickets for Dallin's BDay, I'm not giving up yet on getting there with Dallin. Dallin loved his day and actually didn't get the nap he wanted because of Curriculum Night and Brownies for Brookly. He had to babysit for a while. He also packed for his first big Varsity Campout and Canoe trip tomorrow.

I love this young man who will always be my first baby! We were watching little Dallin on video Sunday and he was so cute! He was singing ABC's and I Am A Child of God. He actually sang that in Sacrament when he was only 3 yrs. old. What a handsome Teacher he is now! I don't know how time flew so fast and you are so talented and incredible on the trumpet, in your school work, babysitting your siblings, sweetness with younger children, President of Deacons quorum, see trouble and steer clear at school, You Amaze Me! I love you Dallin!

By the way, do I need Personal Management Merit Badge skills? I thought I was doing OK but was informed tonight that I need this. Oh, the joy of Scouts and Bro. Fish!

We had a rough day at school with a boy who sits behind Dallin who wrote on his back pack and now has stolen his calculator. What do you do when he's a druggie and Dallin's scared of retaliation?

Curriculum Nights

Smith Curriculum Night
I went to Dallin's curriculum night and met all those teachers he talks about. His English teacher is Ms. Vera Sue Lewis from Taylor! Talk about a small world! She saw me and said,"You look so familiar". I recognized her from Taylor but didn't know her name.
As for Ms. Fillmon the now famous AA World History teacher, I was impressed. She has a very hands on way of teaching and they will be doing lots of projects. The desks are even facing each other split down the middle for discussions. She didn't mention movies at all but sure enough I've already been emailed to approve a couple of them. They are so far just documentaries on Egypt and Islam so we'll see how this goes. I definitely feel better having seen her class and the way she works it. I don't think I need to do anything else for now. She was very helpful with Dallin's low grade from those first two assignments and was impressed he's in Marching Band. He's already brought it up with 100% on the assignment this week.

Brinton Curriculum Tuesday
With 4 kids and only 3 sessions and Wes working late, I was glad that they changed Brennen's combined class curriculum to Thursday night. I went to Josh's room first with Mr. Headley and was asked to pay $50.00 for field trips this year. He seems to love Science and I think this will be great for Josh. Then I went to Chorus and was asked for another $50.00 for the fun things they are doing this year with Brookly and Brennen. Then I went to Brookly's classroom and Mr. Wolf and learned why she has already had so many "sticks" pulled. He admitted that he has about 40 rules and it takes a while for them to learn all of this. She got hers pulled at various times already for things like paper under her chair, telling the boy tapping next to her to be quiet, not keeping her pencil down when he gave the 5 seconds to do so because she saw a mistake on her paper and had to fix it, etc. Hopefully she'll catch his vision soon. I just want to sit with all the teachers and tell them all about my wonderful children and give them the right first impression! Josh, Brennen, and Brookly were tested for gifted, or ELP, and we'll see how that goes. Mr. Wolf pulled me aside and said Brookly did well but we haven't heard anything yet. Then it was off to the whole first grade together in the library for Jarom. Mrs. Calise is just so sweet and she seems to really like Jarom and his energy. She is so perfect for him!
Thursday Brinton Curriculum Night
For Brennen, I went tonight and learned some new things. His teacher, Mr. Ortiz, was an English Second Language teacher and was asked to take the combined 3/4 grade class because there was not enough funding and low enrollment. That means no money for another teacher for each grade. Mr. Ortiz seems nice and Brennen was excited to see him when he was working at Costco (a second job many teachers here seem to have). Mr. Ortiz seemed to confuse Brennen a little with someone else, but I learned that he has to be careful not to talk in that class if he wants to keep recess. I think it will be a great year for all of the kids. They all had their Back To School Blessings the Sunday before school and they were beautiful. I'm sure they'll adjust fine with time. I need to get those typed up for them. Here we go!

Jar's Antics

OK, you would think that we had this school thing down now but...here's Jarom who comes home yesterday and asks me to sign his progress report. Ms. Calise says he loves to participate and he has excellent behavior but he didn't finish his homework. I look in the folder and realize that he didn't do any homework last week. Other than Monday, he didn't pull out his packets when the other kids were working on theirs and I didn't realize he had any more homework. He remembered that he was supposed to read 2 books and do some worksheets on Sat. when we were in Tucson and he had left his folder at school. So, last night he worked over 2 hours and he made the comment that he wanted to play. I told him he could when his homework was done and he said "Yeah, I'd have more time to play if I did this every night". He is so funny! I think now that I know what's up this won't happen again. I did tell the teacher I couldn't promise this will never happen again because with our 6 kids plethera of crisis you never know. We'll see how curriculum night goes tonight.:)

Caught and Consequence!

Ben's artworkHe was so intent.
Cleaning can be fun!
Do I have to clean it all?

Ben has a fever and has been fussy and soooo fun to deal with today. We mainly played Legos and he laid on the couch and watched Blues Clues. Once the kids got home from school he grabbed crayons and decided he wanted to color. Well, he chose the front door and our table as his drawing surface. He was so funny when I caught him and he just kept on going. I then handed him a Magic Eraser and he proceeded to clean up his mess. He is so cute, even when he thinks everything should go his way! We're hopeful no one else catches this.
Ben also just had some major growth spurt! His 6 1/2 Sunday shoes were too tight on Sunday and his size 7 sandals were tight and little toes over the edge today. We barely found the other sandal from being lost all summer on the side of Dallin's bed. I guess he needs all new shoes! He feels heavier as well. He's really not supposed to grow up so fast. I love this little guy so much! He makes my day brighter! I actually don't mind having to slow down when he is sick. It reminds me what's most important!

Grandma and Grandpa and Ben

Ben's first picture of his handsRead me a story is a constant for Ben.
Ben wants Grandpa to just play for him!
Grandpa's Boy is always there to help!
The love of music starts here.

Grandma and Grandpa came to stay for a few days before they went to Tucson and Ben sure made sure he spent plenty of time with them. He kept taking Grandpa's hand and leading him to the piano. Ben would either listen and sit or get up and dance around and this was his special time with Grandpa!

Martha's Piano Warming

Wes and Ben take a dipJosh, Brookly, Phillip and Jarom
Dallin and Erik have always been great friends!
Ben convinced Grandma to go for one more walk.

Martha and Andrew Petersen live right up next to Sabino Canyon and it is so beautiful there! We went down Sat. morning for Martha's Piano Recital. Some of the kids waiting for the recital to start.
Brennen and Phillip are best buddies!
Girls have to stick together - Brookly and Emma
Martha and her amazing Yamaha grand piano.

Tucson is so beautiful! What a fun day we had with cousins and what incredible music from Martha! She played several difficult pieces: Prelude and Fugue in A-flat Major by Johann Sebastian Bach, Grande Valse Brillante, Op, 34 No. 1 by Frederic Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 48 No. 1 also by Chopin and then an interesting song that sounded like a car wreck call Toccato, Op. 15 by Robert Muczynski. It was so fun to listen to the beautiful music and dream. The kids just couldn't get enough of their cousins and wanted to stay longer. We really need to get down there more! The 2 hours would seem much shorter if we didn't have bored, fussy kids though. It was a wonderful, relaxing day and Wes even joined the kids in the pool since Ben could not stay away from it. Dallin

went with Erik to a Seminary party and they had fun there. It was hard to leave!

Weekend in Review

Brookly with one of Jessi's twins

Just to journal it in, everything turned out beautifully for Lynnette's baby shower. She looks great! It was fun and she got a haul. The picture I took of Lynnette with the stuff didn't turn out so here's Brookly. Jules and I hung out with Aunt Delann and chatted awhile and I returned Melody's purse she left there. Cute clothes! Fun family time!
Dallin in the meantime had a blast camping with the Fletcher's for a spur of the moment trip and he loved fishing! Now we just need to hook him up with someone who hunts since that is his lifelong dream that we can't fulfill.
Wes worked all day and Josh made his debut as the babysitter of Ben. He did great! Brennen stayed at a friends and had a great time and didn't want to come home.
Wes and I got to see Music Man at the Hale theatre for our date! Oh the memories from when our family was in the play together many years ago. I still have so many lines memorized and who can forget dancing the Shipoopi? I miss theatre.
Sunday Brennen woke up with a very painful back and after Tylenol and a heat pad didn't work, Wes and I traded staying with him for church. I went to Sacrament and took Ben. We were in the lobby as usual but he must sit better for Wes. He kept kicking me with his hard shoes! After he went to Nursery, I taught my class and Brother Peterson said he would take the 12-13 yrs. from now until they get a new teacher. This will greatly help the reverence level. We did have some interesting visitors though. They were 2 large African-American boys who are friends of Adam. We had to correct quite a few slips of the Lord's name.
When we got home I had a mini Primary with Brennen and then I crashed. I was exhausted! Soon the kids came in calling but Wes let me nap. Ah, I keep trying to get a nap in to handle the rest of the week but things haven't slowed down enough yet.

Whew, Does the fun end?

I think I have been feeling my kids stress more than usual because I've been having terrible nightmares that wake me up at 3am and my mind has a hard time settling back down. Today started with the normal routine of saying Bye to Dallin at 5:55am, then crashing until the last possible second at 6:30am when I wake up the rest of the crew and then rushing out the door to school at 7:30am. After this, I bathed Ben, (sometimes he gets his bath before we leave out of necessity), did dishes, mass cleaned Brookly's room and washed her sheets for Gardner's coming to stay today for a few days, did 3 loads of laundry, read to Ben, turned on Blues Clues, made lunch, put Ben in his room screaming and hitting the door to get out now that the crib is no deterrent, worked on my room since I took everything out of my closet a few days ago and am slowly trying to find the floor again in hopes of less clutter, and then took my shower. Thought I was doing good! I hung up the clothes and put the pictures in frames from Brookly's baptism and Ben's 2 yr. Then I woke up Ben and picked up the kids. When Brennen burst into tears before he got in the car I knew we were in trouble. He announced that he was being "removed from his classroom." I had no idea what that meant, so I waited for the explanation which Brookly promptly gave. There are too many students in the 3rd and 4th grade classes so they made a new combined 3rd/4th class with Mr. Ortiz. Any input on who Mr. Ortiz is is welcome. Brennen was randomly selected to go to the new class. He was sobbing and so upset. He really likes Mrs. Salamone and the project they are doing right now. Change can be so difficult! I understand the need for less students in a class and think he'll do great with a male teacher after he adjusts. He had a hard time finding friends and is afraid he won't have any in his new class. It is hard to start over.
Anyway, after homework time and going to the library and realizing we didn't have the movie that was due today so I needed to go again later I came home and made dinner, although not in time for Dallin to leave for Marching Band so he took a piece of Josh's reward pizza and caused an argument there. Wes's parents made it back from visiting with other family for dinner and what a blessing that they are here this week. With Wes working late Wed. because Scouts are doing a Swimming Merit Badge Thursday, I didn't know what to do for feeding the missionaries at 5pm. Now we can still feed them. This also helps for Brookly's Brownies, Scouts and Smith Open House all on Thursday evening. I was sad to miss meeting the famous AA World History teacher and now I'll get to meet her. Anyway, back to today... I went back to the library. Turned in the movie and then came home and started scriptures and prayer. Once most of the kids were in bed I helped Josh finish some homework that he didn't understand because he missed it when testing for ELP this afternoon. Then I answered some email, put the dates on the calendar for Smith Band, and then Dallin got home around 9:30pm. He came in and the first thing he said was "Now don't get mad -but I turned in a packet today for World History only half done." First of all, this is the very class we already have issues with. Second, the rule is if the grades slip we quit Marching Band. He knows this. I asked what happened and I felt panicked. Why do I worry more than he does? He said he misunderstood and thought he had 3 class periods to do the packet and get this, he actually had it at home every night and didn't work on it because he thought he'd have time. She asked for it at the beginning of class and he thought he had today during class to finish. An honest mistake, maybe, but every other person in the class understood and had it finished. AAARGH! Why this class? Why this teacher to deal with? I must have shared some of this with Dallin because he said, "I said not to get mad." Oh, I forgot that he can control my feelings. I decided to do nothing and reminded him of our agreement about his grades and his responsibility. I think the hardest part for me is knowing how this will affect his scholarship chances, which are our only hope for money for college, since he is a Freshman now. Granted, this is only one assignment but this is the second assignment already he said he didn't have time to complete in her class that he's turned in unfinished. That looks SO BAD to a teacher! Especially when we need special privileges from this teacher! Count to 10 or maybe 1000 and I'll have to deal with this until his grade plummets enough to pull him. Let's hope he pulls it together before I fall apart! I just want to do it for him and it is so hard to stand back and watch! Our personalities are so different in this regard. I can't stand to not have big assignments not done ahead of the due date or even leave a question as to timing, and he has already gotten up at 4:30am to try and finish assignments for classes twice in this first week! I love him and hope he can figure out a better system quick. We had a long talk with him Sunday and it looks like it didn't work. Actually, I need to remember that he has come home and started his homework quicker with no TV time, so that part sunk in.
On a different note: does anyone have any work Dallin can do to earn money? $450.00 before Christmas is just not in our budget and that's what it will take for him to make it to Texas to play at the Alamo Bowl with his Skyline Marching Band the day after Christmas. The first attempt to offset the cost is an Outback Steakhouse fundraiser for Sept. 18th. He needs to sell tickets for $20.00 and try to earn some of this money. Wes can't take this kind of thing to work and it makes it really hard when we hate to ask friends and family for money. We usually just buy the one ticket or candle, wrapping paper, chocolate, cookie dough,etc. fundraiser for the child and call it good. Not this time. We are desperate to help him earn this trip. Any suggestions would be welcome. He is a great babysitter and home on most Sat. nights. Friday nights he has to play for the football games. Josh can now babysit for us. That's my plug for Dallin. I really do love him so much and just want to see him succeed.
Another thing today: Wes's self appraisal for work is due today. He's still at work trying to finish this huge document. It has to recount anything of value he did this last year so that his company can base his yearly raise on this. Hopefully it will keep up with inflation this year.
Also, Jules and I are trying to set up going for Labor Day to finish the pictures of Grammy's. It will be a fast, work, turn around, come home trip.
So... this is just another day in the life of the Gardner household.

Rock and Roll

We now officially have a drummer in the family! Josh started Band yesterday and he is so excited. He came home and practiced all evening and he is really good with timing and rhythm. He loves his new sticks and is ready to go!

Sweet, Tired Baby Boy!

Angel Baby! He is so precious when he's sleeping...

I guess the lack of good naptime for the last few days did catch up to Ben. I was in here blogging and he zonked on the couch before lunch. Oh, precious boy. We play a lot of games and read so many books now. I love this time with him. Notice the mismatched socks he chose today and insisted I put on him. He really has a mind of his own. Oh, we were a little worried about his speech and when the lady came to test him she said he's 95% where he should be and that we are talking for him. She counted his words and said his development is already at most of a 3 yr. old. Not quite the 50% delay that has to be there to get Early Intervention speech therapy:) We were thrilled and I have noticed already the difference when we make him talk instead of doing what he wants. I hope he knows how much we love him and that he is still the center of our world! I love his antics and can't even keep up with half of what he does. He truly has a guardian angel working overtime to keep him safe. Lately it's fun to throw things in the fan, break the blinds and climb on the arms of the highest chairs in the house and stand up! He moves the ice chest from the pantry to wherever he wants to go and climbs up. He is amazing with his creative mind to get where he wants to go. "Shoes" is his favorite word and thing to have on. He knows he's going somewhere and he doesn't want to be left behind!

School Days, School Days!

Brennen the 4th Grader has a friend in his brother Ben Dallin the 9th grader! Is it a Freshman when still at the Jr. High?
Josh the 6th Grader!
Brookly's in 3rd Grade!
There is not a cuter 1st Grader than Jarom!

8-11-08---1st Day of School

Oh, the 1st day of school! What a busy morning! We had to get up in time for pictures and it was a zoo! My sanity was that we decided to go ahead a prepay for school lunch for the first 2 weeks! At 6:15am we got up (we need to get up earlier it seems) and hoped for enough time to be ready. By 7:20am Wes left to take Dallin to Seminary and then go on to work At 7:26am I left the house with all the rest to pick up James, Darin, and Nate. I dropped off the crew at Brinton at 7:35 and hoped to make it back to see them walk in. I then took James to Skyline and hurried back. I missed them and that's when it hit me that my little Jarom was gone for his first day of ALL DAY 1st grade. This may seem silly but he was still my baby last year when I got to play with him half day and Ben would nap. I went in to take Brennen's asthma medication to the Nurse and it was expired in July. I had called in the refill but it wouldn't be ready until 10am. The nurse didn't seem thrilled at this idea. I went to Walgreens with Ben and waited and they finished it at 8:20am. We raced back to the school and fixed the problem.

Whew! First major adventure done for the day!

Next we drove to Smith to see what we could do about changing Dallin out of Honors English since with Marching Band this semester, and with all his AA (Honors) classes he hadn't wanted to write more papers. He didn't request it last year, they just put him in. So, we get to Smith and there are at least 20 kids in line because they lost their schedules. We sat down to wait. Ben played in the corner for a while in the office and then he said,"Owie". I picked him up and realized that he wasn't hurt, he had just pooped! Of course, no diaper bag was in my arms or even mercifully in the car so I just waited until the counselor could see us. She quickly changed Dallin's class with no problem, which is huge -since they have a no change classes policy, and gave Ben M&M's, which he drooled all over. Where was my chocolate at this point? On the way home I called Kristy and she had finished Breaking Dawn so I rushed home to change Ben and then went over to her house to get it. I must admit I stayed awhile just to recoop. Thanks girl!

Now that the adventure was done I anxiously waited for the kids to get out and when Ben only slept an hour I started to worry about this new trend of his of not needing as much sleep. Hey, that's my time now, don't take it away when I just barely got it!:)

Of course there were happy kids and sad kids. Jarom's comment was "Awesome!" Brennen and Brookly didn't have much luck on the first day with friends. Josh had a great time and has the coolest teacher in the 6th grade!

Dallin catches a ride home every day from Smith with Joni and it makes life so much easier! He had a good day.

8-12-08---Standing for Something

Oh, does the fun end?! Dallin got up at 5am and left for Marching Band at Skyline with James at 5:50am - thanks Joni for this incredible blessing of another less run a day! Now actually the kids all had a good day and made a few friends and things seem to be going well. Things started OK, I noticed Josh forgot his glasses and after I dropped them off I rushed home and took him what I thought was the right pair, they weren't.

I remembered that it was Sister Dees day to pick up Dallin and Caitlin for Seminary at 7:30am and was glad this worked out. After hearing that Seminary was at 7:40am and not 8am I definitely had an anxiety attack. Wes is my sweetie who saved the day by saying he would do the Seminary run on Wed-Fri so I don't have to drag all the kids, and Joni's, off at 7:10am to make it work.
Our adventure today is with Dallin's AA World History/Geography class. He brought home the syllabus to sign and on the video list of possible movies this year were probably 50 movies and at least half were rated R. Tell me why these kids need to watch Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Alexander, The Last Samurai, Kingdom of Heaven, Schindler's List, Hart's War, Enigma, When We Were Soldiers,Blackhawk Down, Platoon, The Pianist, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond, Crash, Swing Vote, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure,etc. Have you heard of some of these? This is only a partial list of what we were supposed to sign that he could watch edited versions of. Sure they're edited but the main content is still there and isn't an R rating so that kids under 17 are warned even by the world's standards? Why are 14 yr. olds having this presented as curriculum?Sorry but our standards have always been higher than that kind of violence and sexual content. Let alone, I don't care if they are edited there are reasons we don't purposely give our children pornography, why give them explicit pictures of violence? I don't care the historical content! I know history is gory but do we need to relive it to learn it? Isn't the whole idea to learn from the past to NOT repeat it? I just don't believe that movies are the best way to learn. I am not going to view every one of these to fill my mind with filth to decide if we could let Dallin watch either! Aren't there other LDS parents of these kids in there? So... you see the problem.

I first signed Dallin's note with a note to the teacher myself that we don't approve of many of the movies. She emailed back and was willing to work something out.

8-13-08 Always Learning

I called the Counselor at Smith and tried to pull Dallin out to avoid a scene altogether. The only AA World History teacher is this Ms. Fillmon. So, I called her. A teacher in the same room answered and was not so nice. I started the anxiety again. Ms. Fillmon called a few minutes later and was very nice. She will let us decide from an email a few days before each movie which ones we'll let Dallin watch and if he can't then she'll give him make up work to take to a different class and he doesn't even go to her class on that day so others won't notice. It won't affect his grade. I did get to give a few of my reasons why and she was supportive. I still have no idea why this is allowed and am going to pursue letting the Principal and administration know this is not acceptable. I later talked with one of Dallin's friends Mom, Melissa Hawkins, and she had emailed the teacher this wasn't OK as well. Hopefully more parents will stand up.

There is more stress today because some of our family didn't get the invitations for Lynnette's Baby Shower on Saturday that I mailed 3 weeks ago and they sure sounded offended and asked if they were even invited. Come on, give me the benefit of the doubt here. Like I would purposefully not invite someone. So Mom is worried and we had to work that one out. Hopefully they are happy now.

With all this drama happening I forgot about Early Release Wednesday! How could I forget my children on the 3rd day of school?! I didn't even register the whole day until Josh called at 2:15pm that they get out at 1:55pm on Wed. They were pretty forgiving but that is the way this school year has started!

In the meantime our washer is broken-we can still use it though, waiting on a part that takes 2 technicians to install and the exterminator came and told me we needed to mow and rake the backyard for him to be effective next time. Sure, in all my spare time I'll just become a landscaper in the heat:)

Playdoh Poop

Can you believe this innocent face is about to poop Playdoh? His big brothers taught him this neat trick and he can't get enough attention for it this morning.

We were working on the backyard and I broke the weedeater so we came in for a while and this is the result. Aaah. Saturday morning work without Wes to keep us in check. We get a little crazy around here:)

8-8-08

The luckiest day of the year! This is a great day! Olympics started on this historic day and we are excited to see what happens. This special date is just fun to recognize! Hey, it was even Payday! :)