Gilbert AZ Temple
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Fathers and Sons Campout
Halloween
L-R James is “Seth” from Fablehaven, Anthony is a ninja, Benjamin is an army dude (of course), Samuel ninja, and Jacob is Thomas the Tank Engine (of course!) Jacob was really starting to get the hang of it, though he only lasted for about 1 hour. The others were out for 2 hours!
Oh, the other thing about James that you can’t see is that James wanted his hair to be dirty blonde so he got it highlighted. And since he has natural highlights of RED from his Dad’s side, guess what the highlighting did for his hair! Made it a beautiful light red! (and he was too impatient to let the hair stylist dry the hair and make sure it was the color he wanted.) So we’ll have a red head for a few months!
Benjamin – Tiger Cub
January Updates
On the 12th (Wed) we had a joint celebration with Alex as he was going into the MTC the next day. So we had a combination Farewell and Happy birthday cake. That’s the first picture. The video is also on my FB page (so his mom in Germany could see), if you want to hear the combo song 🙂
On the 13th (Thurs and Sam’s bday) Samuel woke up crying because “I didn’t get any presents for my birthday!” Well, I guess that’s what usually happens after you sing happy birthday and blow out candles, you get presents. I assured him that today was his birthday, and that we were having his party today, and he would get presents. My boys missed the 1st 2 hours of school so we could take Alex to the MTC by 8:30 am. It was a great testimony building and confirming experience for them as they saw the fruits of their prayers come to pass. Side note: Missionary arrivals are usually on Wednesday at Noon, however his flights were delayed due to snow. So I called the MTC and they said bring him by Thursday morning. So we did.
Took the boys back to school, and Samuel to his preschool. At 1:00 (Before school got out) I had Samuel’s preschool friends come over and we had a fun little b-day party. Julles stopped by to pick something up, and I said, “Oh good, you’re just in time for the party!” She stayed and helped and played balloon games with us. Got some smiles out of her, so that was good. BTW – yes, you only see 1/2 a cake for Samuel. We ate the 1st half of the cake the night before for Alex’s farewell. Saved the other 1/2 for Sam’s bday. Not like the kids cared! All they wanted was the chocolate and the icing anyway. I also sent home some citrus in their party gift bags. I tell you, EVERYONE (even the kids) were excited for it!
Benjamin’s birthday was fortunate to land on a Friday, so we had kids come over right after school. We had cake 1st, a foam sword fight, and then we gathered up our snow gear and went sledding to the golf course.
Wasn’t the best sledding conditions, but it was warm enough that some didn’t really need to wear their jackets. Though they did all wear their gloves. And as is tradition with all Berky birthdays that are outings, someone got an injury that required 1st aid. It was a friend that went off a small jump and landed face first in a snow wall that someone had built up and got a HUGE bloody nose. We saw him at church on Sunday, it there were some pretty awesome looking scabs on his face! Fortunately the mom had already arrived to pick him up, so that was good timing. My first aid kit for my car is starting to run out of supplies! Time to load it back up!
December Updates
December 21st – massive snow storm:
Anthony braves the storm to survey the damage:
Building gingerbread houses:
Anthony’s 9th “Friend” Birthday Party
Anthony really wanted to have a friend birthday party this year since last year he only had a family party. LaReita planned a fun bike ride from our home to the Spanish Fork North Park down a newly paved bike path that practically runs from our street right down to the park. Yes it is “down” as in “down-hill”. One party-goer (Bethany) did have a minor bike accident but was able to continue on and get to the park. We all told our bike crashes to make her feel better. (Hopefully it did.)
And after the cake (brownies) LaReita went with a few boys to see where the bike path ended. On a bumpy dirt part, Samuel crashed right in front of LaReita’s tire. LaReita couldn’t stop fast enough to keep from rolling over Samuel. So she ditched her bike, and twisted her ankle. There was some pretty good swelling, and will be for quite a few more days. It was quite the adventure! (Before she left the house, she kept having the prompting to find her bike backpack that had a camelbak of water, and her emergency oils. She couldn’t find it, but at least grabbed a small first aid kit, which certainly did come in handy. Another lesson learned in following promptings! And wearing bike helmets!)
The kids played for about 30 minutes once they got to the park.
The party did have its ups and downs:
Then Dad arrived with the Pizza, Pop and Puffs (Cheetos)!
Next it was time for CAKE!
Next: PRESENTS!
And more presents!
And more bike riding:
More fun:
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Winding up and heading home: David had to bike home because of LaReita’s swollen ankle. (She took the van back.) First time Dave has biked up a hill since last summer. He came home and said, “I’m going to go die now,” and crashed on the downstairs couch for 2 hours. Carlos, Cesar and Kooper stayed at our house for another hour or so to play with the new toys. One of our kids asked, “Where’s dad?” Kooper said, “Oh, don’t bother him right now. He’s busy dying.” Oh the funny things kids say!
What fun! Happy 9th birthday Anthony!
2010 School Concert for UVS
The Utah Valley Symphony had their annual School Concert today. LaReita having injured one of her fingers with a knife was unable to play. So instead, she took James and Anthony out of school to attend the concert with her. After years of playing in the concerts she finally go to sit next to her boys during this one. Although cutting her finger so severely that she couldn’t play wasn’t the plan.
Some pictures from the concert: (not only was it for children but there were also children performing!)
Halloween 2010
Traditional Halloween didn’t really happen this year for lots of reasons. It was celebrated on Sat the 30th. It started hailing at prime trick-or-treating time, so there weren’t many that came. It was just plain miserable outside. We didn’t even get our traditional fire set up out front. AND we forgot to get a picture in all their costumes. Oh well.
One notable thing was that James bought his costume this year with his own money! It was $21.34 and was a Star Wars character – like Jango Fett, but something else. This year Samuel wore a different costume each day of the week. Ben finally settled on wearing the orange jumpsuit prisioner costume and a blue wizard-looking hat. So he was the “Prisoner from Azkaban”. Yeah. Nobody realized it until we told them, then they smiled. Pretty ingenious for a 6 1/2 year old (who just finished having the book read to him). Anthony was himself, which made costuming easy. And Jacob just stayed inside with mom while she made homemade tomato soup, grilled cheese and fresh apple cider. LaReita’s cousin (well, 1st cousin, once removed) Jonathan Mitchell* was the door handler. Dave drove in the car being the back-up for the boys and friends Carlos and Cesar as they ran through the cold drizzling rain.
*Jonathan works for Dave and LaMont in the Find-A-Code business. He and his wife moved to Washington this summer. He came back here this week to do some conferencing with Dave.
Anthony’s 9th Birthday
Anthony has to write a 5 sentence journal entry each day. His birthday (and party) was on Monday the 25th. On Wednesday the journal question was, “What is the nicest things that someone has done for you?” He wrote: “The nicest thing someone has done for me is my mom. She made me a cake for my birthday. It was chocolate and had a new transformer on top of it.” Not quite 5 sentences, but it was the nicest 3 sentences he has written!
Lynette of course asked if this was a ‘normal’ cake. And it was… for the most part. 🙂 Brynn even had 2 helpings and she usually doesn’t like chocolate cake at all! So that was fun to see. I also made a applesauce spice cake for those that didn’t want to have so much chocolate. Since it was snowing that day I refused to buy ice cream, but made hot cocoa instead. Which was why I had to have the applesauce spice cake – to dip into the hot cocoa. The hot cocoa was also made from 50% powdered milk from Grandma’s Country Kitchen. That is the BEST powdered milk I’ve tried thus far. (Having grown up with a lot of powdered milk, I’ve developed a kind of ‘taste’ for the stuff. And I’ve had some pretty awful stuff.) My boys will even get excited when I get Grandma’s Country powdered milk.
Grandma Leavitt was there and even gave the traditional recycle card! (A long-standing family joke and tradition. Grandpa was there and I’m sure was smiling.)
It was a wonderful party and family council afterward.
