Ears Pierced

We've told our daughters that they have the option of getting their ears pierced when they turn 12. We've always felt that the decision should be theirs when they are old enough to be responsible and care for their ears properly on their own.  Thus, Jesikah has been planning this day for a very long time. We knew that she didn't want to wait a day past her 12th birthday, so Eric and I surprised her and took her out to dinner at Olive Garden and then to the mall to get her ears pierced after-school on the day BEFORE her birthday, which was also our anniversary.  As it turned out, we went out to dinner for our anniversary on her real birthday, so it was kind of a swap.  But, she was not expecting it! 

Jesikah at Claire's just before they pierced her ears...a little nervous

 

Getting the first ear pierced

Eric had to help push the earrings through since they are not allowed to touch it after the piercing is done

The second ear

And Eric pushing that one back

A very happy girl with her pierced ears!

She said that it didn't hurt nearly as much as she expected, it was only like a pinch.  She kept asking me how it felt when I had my ears pierced, and I really didn't remember so I couldn't tell her, but she ended up pleasantly surprised!  When she was finished, we let her pick out some sets of earrings for her birthday.

  A little problem arose the next day though, as we were looking at her newly pierced ears, we noticed that they weren't in the same place on both ears.  One was in the right place and the other was quite a bit farther back.  Jesikah thought it was ok at first, and then she decided to go back on Monday and get it re-pierced in the right place before it was set.  I think it was a good choice, so we went back and they couldn't get the first earring out, and then it started to bleed so they said she had to wait 24 hours before they would re-pierce it.  Which means, we had to go back again on Tuesday.  Finally on Tuesday, we got it pierced in the RIGHT place, and now all is well.  She can't wait until 6 weeks are over so she can change her earrings.

The Pageant

I know that you thought I was done with the Nauvoo posts, but I hadn't posted this last one because I was having trouble getting the videos in the right format and I really wanted to include them.  I think I finally figured it out and learned something new in the process.  Here is the final Nauvoo post:

Here's a brief description of the pageant from http://www.nauvoopageant.org/:

"Narrated by Parley P. Pratt, the pageant emphasizes the prophetic mission of Joseph Smith and honors the sacrifice, faith and courage of the Saints who gave their all to build a city and a temple to their God.


The pageant is filled with authentic hymns and folksongs, lively dances and tender moments that share the joy these early Saints found in living Christ's gospel. Through words taken from journals, sermons and historic records of the period, the pageant invites all to feel the powerful testimonies of these faithful Saints."

I wasn't able to get many pictures of the pageant itself because of it being dark and we were not close enough to the stage any night except the first to get good pictures (which was the night I forgot my camera). The last night, however, I went closer up and captured some video of which I will try to share a few clips on here. 
This first clip is where Joseph Smith announces the temple and the celebration that follows.  My dad is one of the men carrying the guns with the full white hair.  My mom is with the dancing women (one of the shortest ones), and Alex and his cousin, Colton, are both carrying flags.  Alex has the yellow one, and Colton is one away from Alex with the purple flag.

Through most of the pageant, the saints were working on building the temple.  In this next clip, I show parts of them building the temple.  You can see Alex in the very beginning in the front right next to the one who plays Joseph Smith and then he shakes his hand after they get the section of the temple up.  Then later, it shows them putting the rest of the temple up.  It was pretty cool.

Each night before the Frontier Country Fair, we had a cast meeting which lasted about 45 minutes and was kind of a devotional.  This is Ashlyn during the meeting one night.  I stole this from my sister's blog because this was how most of the little kids looked during the devotional.  We were busy all day and up until 11pm each night after finishing the pageant.  It wore the kids out, so this was the quiet time for them to sneak in a nap.  I think Jarem slept during the cast meeting nearly every night (which was probably a good thing because then he was renewed with energy for the fair and pageant).

This is a view of everyone on stage during the pageant.  There were probably 140-150 cast members performing at any one performance.  20 of them were core cast which stayed the whole month of July and had the majority of the speaking and singing parts, and the rest were family cast which rotate for 2 week intervals overlapping one week with the incoming family cast.

Part of the story of the pageant was the building of the original Nauvoo temple.  This is the very end of the show where the Lairds are taking one last look at the completed temple that they built throughout the show before leaving.  The Lairds had migrated from Scotland in the beginning of the show.  Robert Laird says, "This temple is the highlands of heaven". 

This is my sister's family watching the pageant.  You can see Tessa sitting on the end.  We all sat together each night during the pageant.

My Baby is Off to School

Tuesday, August 11, 2010

Last Friday was the kid's first day of school, but for Jarem, it was just a meeting for the kids and parents together and then we went back home, so no separation yet.  For Kindergarten, the first 2 weeks of school they do testing and every child goes to school only 2 times in two weeks (only about 5-6 kids at a time). 

Today was Jarem's first day of 2 full-days in the first 2 weeks.  It was his first time to stay alone at school all day.  Eric and I went together with him and were planning to walk him down to his classroom and help him get settled and say our goodbyes, but all the Kindergarten teachers were standing up front when we walked in, and we had to say goodbye there.  He wasn't sad though, he was happy to see his teacher (who he says is the nicest teacher in the whole school---and he may be right)!  He gave me and Eric a big hug and kiss and we headed out.  On the way out, Eric asked me if I was sad.  I said "Of course", and that is when I started tearing up.  But, I managed to keep it in check until Eric went to work and I was alone at home.  As he was walking out the door, I felt the tears coming.  I would be alone all day without my little sidekick that I've had for so long.  All through this morning, I kept seeing his little stuffed animals he likes to play with or thinking, "I need to go check on Jarem" or "I wonder where Jarem is".  It's been different without him here.  I do miss him.  To keep my mind off my baby being gone, I've been cleaning and doing lots of laundry...at least I feel like I've accomplished a lot.

Jarem is my first to go to full-day kindergarten.  He also is my hardest to let go just because he is the youngest and having him gone all day is going to be a bit hard on me.  Ever since we first started talking to him going to Kindergarten, he has said he didn't want to go.  He is my first child to NOT WANT to go to Kindergarten.  He says he wants to stay home with Mom.  This morning on the way to school I asked him if he was excited and he said, "No, I'm kind of nervous."  He didn't want to get up this morning, but he was excited to get his new school clothes on and take his lunch (because he loves his new lunch box that he bought).  Hopefully his first day goes well.  He does have an awesome teacher, so I'm grateful for that.

Here are some pictures of his first day:

His "mischevious smile" was the only one he could conjure up

Jarem and Tessa ready for school

Getting off the bus after-school

Tessa was a good girl to watch out for her little brother.  He just LOVES Tessa.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

UPDATE: After talking to a couple of good friends that day, I was much more upbeat and happy.  Then he went to his second day of school last Tuesday, August 17th.  That was the day that I recognized a new freedom.  I went to a PTO meeting without finding arrangements for Jarem, and I went to the bank twice and accomplished so much.  I did miss the little guy, but I wasn't so sad like the first day.  Not only that, but this beautiful arrangement of flowers showed up at my doorstep around 11am. 

It came with a note attached: "Congratulations on your new found freedom! Love, Eric". I was very surprised and happy, but mostly, it made me feel good to know that my sweet husband was aware and in-tune with my feelings even though this wasn't really a big change for him, he knew it was for me.

While I was doing PTO business, I went and peaked into his classroom to see if he looked happy. He was sitting right next to the door on the computer and was smiling and laughing. He was interacting with a boy next to him. I thought about how much he will enjoy having friends. He is a social child. It warmed my heart that he was happy. Of course, I will be helping in his class and Tessa's class often and I'll now have the flexibility to have lunch with the kids sometimes at school.

Tomorrow he officially starts full-days everyday, so we'll see how it goes... :)

Bowling and More

I have been feeling bad about Jarem going off to school and leaving me at home, childless.  While I have been happy to have two extra weeks with him during orientation, it has been hard because he is ready to go to school.  Before he had his first official day of school, I wanted to do one more special day excursion with him.  Today, we spent the whole day together.  We got ready this morning and we got his jobs done.  Then we went bowling together and out to Chick Fil A.  We had a really great day and had lots of fun.  One of his favorite parts of the day was taking all these pictures with crazy faces on my phone.

Here he is showing off his Skittle in one hand.  I bought him a pack of Skittles for the occasion.

 While our scores were not so good (especially mine), we had a lot of fun!

Below are pictures of a few shopping excursions in the past few weeks with Jarem.  He always asks me to take pictures of him posing by things in Hobby Lobby and other places.

I will miss this little boy!  I am so glad we got to spend this day together though.  It made me feel a little better about sending him off to school.

Back to School

Our family has had lots of new transitions this month. Alex started high school, Jesikah started middle school, and Jarem is starting Kindergarten. Everyone was a little nervous the first day of school, including me.
Today, Friday, August 6 was their first day of school, and it was a half-day.   For Jarem, he and I only went for about an hour and just got the Kindergarten orientation, then came home. He was very nervous. He didn't want to go to school. This is him with his teacher, Mrs. Williams, on that day.  She is a very kind and loving teacher.  I am very happy that he got her.  I told him that I thought she was the nicest teacher at school.  Now he tells everyone that. :)

Jarem with his nervous face

Kind of a smile while sitting at his table, still nervous

Jarem was the only one that I got a picture of on that day due to all the nerves and numerous trips to school.  Everyone did pretty well on the first day.  Then they had the weekend and Monday off, and went back Tuesday full-time, except Jarem who went back on a flexible schedule for the following two weeks (more on that in my next post).  Here's some pictures that I took of the rest of them on different days during the first two weeks:

Tessa was the only one who didn't change schools.  She was very excited about school.  I am happy with Tessa's teacher, Mrs. Harrison.  She is very organized and does a lot of extra things to challenge higher students.  I think it will be a very good fit for Tessa.  Tessa has realized though that she has to be a little more responsible this year about getting things turned in on time and listening more closely the first time.  She has always been an excellent student, but can tend to get distracted at times and last year her teacher was good, but quite laid back.  She is happy and has already made some friends.

Jesikah was probably the most nervous on the first day because we missed the middle school orientation while we were in Nauvoo.  At her request, I went in and stayed with her for a few minutes on the first day while they all got assigned to their classes.  They all met in the auditorium and then were given their homeroom teacher and schedule.  The teachers watch out for them, and she got put on a team with several of her friends. 

She was excited when I picked her up that day.  She said she had at least one friend in every class except one.  She has an advantage this year because she attended one year at Glen Ellen Elementary and one year at Rossview Elementary both here.  Both of those schools are feeder schools into Rossview Middle School, so she got to see a lot of friends again from Glen Ellen, and knew twice the people.  She is trying out band this year.  She says she wants to play the clarinet. 

We went to her open house last night, and she has a good set of teachers, one of which goes to church with us.  All of her teachers said that she seems to be adjusting well, and I think they are right.  She is very responsible and makes sure she is always prepared.  We practiced locks before she went to school so she could open her locker and it really helped.  She seems happy and likes school thus far.

This is how Alex looked the 2nd week of school when I finally got organized enough at 5:45am to get a picture on his way out the door to seminary.

This is what he looked like the 1st week of school. 

He had grown his hair out for the Nauvoo pageant, and it was getting quite long and curly.  It was longer than he had ever had it.  When we got back, he was so sick of that hair and ready to get it cut, but then he went to the high school orientation and all the girls he hadn't seen all summer loved his hair so he wanted to keep it long for a little longer.  I was ready to cut it, but Eric told him that his parents always let him have his hair the way he wanted it, and he said he always appreciated it and wanted to give Alex that freedom. 

Last Sunday, Alex got home from church and said that he wanted it off.  It was bugging him too much.  So, I didn't waste a minute in getting the scissors out. :)  He said he just wanted about an inch and a half cut off, so I tried to do that, but it didn't turn out looking very well given my amateur hair-cutting skills.  A little later, we got the clippers out and I gave him his typical shorter haircut.  I think it looks nice, but it looked good longer too.

Anyway, I digress, back to school.  Alex loves high school, and is so glad to be done with middle school.  He has the classes that he wants, and goes to an excellent school.  He doesn't have many friends in his classes, but he likes what he is learning and has remained friends with his group of friends from last year.  He does miss his good friends, Nick and Jeremy, that moved over the summer, but they are just a 20 minute drive for now. He especially likes learning about the middle ages in history.  He has always been fascinated with History and has a great, but hard, teacher this year in History.  He has spent time teaching his younger siblings about Black Death and all the scary things that happened during the Middle Ages while he babysits (which isn't always a good thing). :)  He is now going to seminary every morning before school which starts at 6am.  This is a program through our church where high schoolers go to one hour of scripture study before school every day.  He really likes seminary.  He has always enjoyed learning about the scriptures, and he tends to be more of a morning person anyway.  Not only that, but he gets to see all his friends from church every morning and they walk to school together.  It makes a good start for his morning and it makes him want to get to bed earlier, so it's a win-win!  Eric and I have traded off taking him.  He takes him on the days that he could benefit from going to work early and I take him on the other days.  It's worked out quite well since I think he drove 4 of 5 days last week! :)

Having the kids at 3 different schools makes for an interesting morning routine though.  Alex leaves at 5:50am, Jesikah leaves a 6:45am, and Jarem & Tessa leave at 8:20am.  I drive some and pick some up after school.  It's kind of a crazy schedule, but I'm just glad everyone is happy so far.

Tessa and Kadie

Kadie and Tessa were inseparable during their week together.  Kadie stayed with us in our 2-room apartment while Jesikah stayed with Hayley's family.  They were so sweet to each other the whole trip.  When Tessa ended up sick on the last day, Kadie was so kind and caring toward her.  I was happy for Kadie and Tessa to connect so well.  It's great when you can have cousins as best friends.  I somehow missed these pictures in my frontier country fair post, so I'm adding them now.

Kadie getting ready to bowl

Blurry but I still like it...

Working together to set-up the bowling pins

Kadie doing the milking bears while Tessa is setting up bowling pins...different activities, but still together

A couple other pictures I missed...Jarem with the windmill sticks.  You rub one stick on the grated area of the other one which has the spinner on the end.  The vibrations make the spinner go. 

Jarem showing his newfound friend, JaynAnn how it's done.  They played together for a couple of nights at the fair.

 

This picture doesn't really fit in this post either, but I didn't want to leave it out.  Here's Alex with with his sidekick.  His little cousin Ashlyn wanted to be his little buddy all the time.  It was cute and I think Alex enjoyed the attention.

Nauvoo Temple

It was a pretty exciting time when the rebuilding of the Nauvoo temple was announced in 1999.  The Nauvoo Temple holds a special place in our hearts because we lived closeby in Kirksville, Missouri and were in Nauvoo at the time of the groundbreaking and cornerstone ceremony for the new temple.  The original temple was built by the saints who lived in Nauvoo in the 1840's but after they left for Utah, it was burned and then later destroyed by a tornado. 

We were in the Nauvoo stake while we lived in Missouri so we made regular trips to Nauvoo and got to see the temple as it went up again.  They built it in the exact same location with as close as possible to the original materials and floor plan as the original temple.  It wasn't quite finished when we moved away from Missouri so we never saw it completed. 

This was our first time back to Nauvoo since then which was about 9 years ago.  It was neat to see the finished temple, and even neater to go inside and go through a session with Candace and Aaron and my parents as well as some of our cast.  It is beautiful!  The architecture and wood work are amazing as well as the spirit that is there.  I couldn't get enough of the spiral/circular staircase.  I especially loved the blue star windows and the sunstones on the outside.  Because the temple president's daughter was in our cast, the temple president came and talked to us about the original temple and the rebuilding before we went through our session.    It was pretty neat.  Also, on our way out of the temple, we ran into Neil L. Andersen of the quorum of the twelve and got to shake his hand.  He spoke to us the following night at our cast meeting.

The temple really stands up on the hill and can be seen throughout the city.  It is a beacon of hope.  Every time I saw the temple, I wanted to take more pictures, but I'll share only a few of them here.

Here you can kind of see a sunstone and above a glimpse of the blue star windows

A better view of the sunstone and stars

The sculpture of Hyrum and Joseph on their horses was across the street from the temple looking toward the temple.

The clock tower

5 of us talking outside the temple.  The wind must have been blowing, but I don't remember it.

Here you can see the front and part of the side.

Same picture close up

In the front of the picture is the pageant stage.  This is the view of the temple from the stage just before it got dark.    This was taken on my phone so it's not as clear.

Near the end of the pageant each night, the temple would light up and we would all watch for it just before we went on stage for the finale.  It was cool.