Halloween and More

Well, we've been a busy family these last 2 weeks. It started when another class I am taking this semester started. It is very hard to go from 1 class to 2 classes at mid-semester, it is much easier to go from 2 clases down to 1 class. It is an 8 week class, with lots of assignments and I'm just hoping to make it to Christmas alive. On Oct. 22nd we had a ward campout. I found a tent at Wal-mart on clearance since summer is over, and we went and had a relatively good time. On Saturday we helped a young man in our ward work on his Eagle Project, with 2 kids in tow we only stayed an hour and a half (Bobby was working). Since no one slept well on the rocky ground, we spent most of the rest of the day napping.

Richie and Kamry on Saturday after we got the tent packed up.


Sunday, October 24; Bobby and I received callings: Bobby - Activities Committee; Selina - RS Teacher and Ward Choir Director. We are very excited for our new callings and the skills we will learn. Monday Bobby left for Idaho for 4 days, which made life a little more hectic for me. On Thursday I received my student teaching letter and am excited to be at Legacy Traditional School in Casa Grande with Jennifer Little. I am currently doing my practicum hours in Ms. Little's classroom and look forward to January and my time student teaching. Thursday, I made slippers for Kamry's halloween costume, but they were sized too small. Friday, I re-did the slippers and they look soo cute. After going to Legacy for practicum hours, I went home got the kids ready to head to our Ward Halloween Party. Bobby got called in to work and wasn't able to help set-up, so I dragged my kids to the church to represent my husband. When I got there at 4:15 (thinking the set-up started at 4), only the activity chair was there. Shortly after 2 men came to help and around 5:00 many people were helping. Somehow, I got 17 bug bites; the party was outside (which I did not expect) and after set-up started getting itchy feet. I was wearing flipflops, but had pants on. Even with pants I had bug bites on my legs. I must have stood where a colony of ants were stationed or something. My left foot is VERY swollen and I don't know how I'm going to wear dress shoes tomorrow.

Richie was a Cowboy and he had fun at the Trunk-or-Treat.


Kamry looked so cute as Tinkerbell, kind of sad to see Halloween over already.


Richie loved his cowboy costume and slept in it Friday night and wore it all day Saturday. On Saturday, Richie had a Primary Activity and at night we went to the Fall Festival put on by the City of Casa Grande. When we got there the lines for the dozen games were really long, so we went played on the playground and went home.

Richie was enjoying pushing Kamry in her stroller, but she wanted held.


Our life is busy and we're hoping it will slow down soon.

Vertuccio Farms Family Night

For Family Home Evening we decided to go to a fun farm that had a corn maze. Since we were going and there would be hay I had everyone wear long pants in 80 degree weather. The farm had a "train", cars painted like cows and pulled by a tractor, carnival games, a bounce house, hay maze, corn maze, farm animals, etc. It was a lot of fun, worth the hour of travel time each way. The only down-side was the corn maze did not have any lights; since it was night we didn't get to go very far. All the corn mazes in Idaho are lighted, so we didn't realize we would need flashlights. Other than that we had a lot of fun. Since I didn't have my camera, I used my cellphone which means the pictures aren't great. Mom is sending my camera and I will be grateful to have it in time for Halloween.


Richie and Kamry in the Hay Maze

They had a wooden cow that you could "milk", when you squeezed the teats water would squirt out into a bucket. I had fun showing Richie how to do this and he really had fun.


Richie posing at a photo op

Arizona Educator Test and No Sleep

Yesterday, Saturday I had signed up to take 1 of the 3 tests I'm taking to get licensed in Elementary Education in Arizona. I got a babysitter, cleaned the house with Bobby's help, made lunch, and finally got to bed around 9:30p.m. and couldn't sleep. The test was at 8:00a.m. and I had to drive an hour to get there. I figured I needed to be up at 5:30a.m. at the latest. Everyone was asleep, so I go to bed. Kamry kept waking up, I tried my best to keep her sleeping by feeding her when she'd wake up. I realized that her diaper felt really full at one of the feedings, so I decided to change her diaper (it was 2:55a.m. at this point). Of course, she woke up and decided she wasn't going to bed. Bobby got up because he had to get ready for work. After trying to get Kamry to lay down for 30 min. I resigned myself to getting up and hoped that I could nap while she played on the floor; no such luck. I did make myself eggs for breakfast, since I was up early. Kamry started fussing as we went to get the babysitter, fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep after getting home. I am worrying about how I'm suppose to stay awake during a 4 hour test when I didn't get any sleep; not a recipe for success. Somehow I made it through the test in 3.5 hours and I think I did well. I just hope that I didn't spend all that money and fail because I didn't get enough sleep.

I've been having problems getting my practicum started, I am the only one without a placement and I found out yesterday that I may not be able to student teach in Casa Grande school district. Needless to say I'm just frustrated and wondering if I should quit and figure something else out for work; not that I have any ideas where I'll be able to find work. I did apply for a part-time teaching position and hope that somehow I will be given the job; eventhough I'm not licensed as an Elementary Teacher.

Picture-less Post

The begining of August, the kids and I went to visit my family for 2 weeks. The great thing about having your family live only a half hour from your in-laws is that you only have to take 1 trip to see everybody. We were excited to find that my brother-in-law, Beau, is in the process of turning in his mission papers.:) We are really excited and can't wait to hear where he is going. Well, I lost my camera somewhere when I went to visit my Mom. I let Richie look at the pictures on it and apparently never got it back. I really wouldn't even care, except it had pictures of my kids riding horses at my in-laws and I hadn't downloaded them yet. Richie and Kamy were able to go horse riding and they both did really well. Richie can't wait to go back and ride again. Kamry turned six months, which came with crawling, sitting by herself, and eating baby food. She is 26" tall and 16.5 lbs, Richie loves making his sister laugh and has had to learn to share which we are still working on. We moved to Casa Grande in July and are starting to feel like we are moved in. I start back to school on Wednesday and it is a busy semester for me. Along with taking 4 classes I have to take the state exams to get licensed, so lots of studying and I'm not so good at that. Good news is that there is enough hay that needs hauled that Bobby is not going to Idaho for six weeks like we thought he would need to.

4 Years Old and 6 Months!!

Wow!! My baby turned 4 years old on Monday and my new baby turned 6 months. Time seems to fly as an adult, but I remember it being really slow as a kid. Bobby and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary at the end of July, it's still hard to believe we've already been married for 5 years.

Kamry is so close to crawling it's scary. Right now we are in Ely, NV visiting family and by the time we get home I'm sure she'll be faster than a tornado. Everyday she gets a little closer to sitting by herself and crawling. She's such a happy baby and smiles all the time, we just love having her in our family. We have a check-up in mid-August, so I'll post how big she's gotten then.

Kamry sitting by herself! I had to snap it quick because she fell seconds after taking the photo.


Richie had a really fun day on his birthday. It took him a while to decide it was okay for it to be his birthday. He kept wanting it to be someone else's birthday. We had a pretty easy day. We had a barbeque at the park with lots of family and friends to share it with. The kids played at the park until dinner was ready. We rounded them up and got everyone served. Grandma Jones was getting Richie some watermelon and sat it on the table by me and we look around and Richie was sitting at a picnic table 50 feet away. Granpa Bennett went and sat by him, which Richie really liked. Richie is really into Thomas the Train, so Grandma Jones got him a Thomas birthday cake which he really loved. It took Richie several tries to finally blow out all of the candles, he just wouldn't get close enough to the cake for his blowing to work. He got a 2 new outfits, 2 new games, a puzzle, socks, bubbles, and tub toys. It was a really fun birthday and everyone enjoyed getting together for some fun. I've really missed living so close to family and have fun birthday get-togethers.

I never remember to get pictures of Bobby's side of the family, so this picture is proof that we do see them. Uncle Beau eating dinner at Richie's birthday.



Richie's cool Thomas Birthday Cake!!!

Richie with his presents and birthday cake.



One of Richie's presents was taking a train ride. In Ely they have a historic train that runs 2 routes and you get to hear the history of the area, it's really quite fun and informative. This year they are having a special where kids are free, so we only had to pay for my ticket. We went on August 3rd and there were only 4 people besides myself, Richie, and my nephew Jayden. The train has 2 indoor cars and 1 outdoor car. For most of the ride we sat indoors and the boys looked out the windows at the weeds and desert landscape. We went outside for 5 min. or so. We rode close to a town called McGill that is a 15 min. drive (30 min train ride) from Ely. On the way back to the train depot the conductor punched our tickets. For the boys he punched the first letter of their name. Somehow we got on the topic of it being Richie's birthday the day before, so after we got back to the train station the Engineer let us climb into the Engine and Richie got to pull the train whistle 4 times (1 for each year since he was born). It has been a great couple days!!!

Jayden and Richie in front of the Engine.



Jayden and Richie in the outdoor car on the train.

Crazy Moving Weekend

Well, we got everything moved Saturday, July 10th. We had a lot of help from both our old and new wards Elder's Quorums. I am especially grateful for our new ward, who had to bring all of our stuff upstairs to our second floor apartment. I don't have any pictures as I haven't found where I packed the camera. Getting all of our stuff from one place to the other didn't end up being a problem it was a lot of other little things. The U-Haul we rented wasn't going to be ready to be picked up when we needed it, so we had to go to Chandler to get a U-Haul the size we needed. Bobby and I only got 2-3 hours of sleep since I hadn't gotten everything packed. Since we had been doing a lot of traveling and in Arizona you have to drink lots of fluids to keep hydrated Richie became dehydrated. He threw-up in the car as I was driving to our apartment in Casa Grande. Since he was sick I went and picked up some dinner, on the way back the air conditioning went out and I started to smell something burning. Since I have blown up 2 engines I'm afraid that was going to happen to our little red car. We got Richie some gatorade and since we have so much stuff there was no place to set-up beds. Bobby found the air matress and pumped it up. Richie and Kamry slept on a couch and Bobby and I on the air matress that barely fit in the living room. Richie woke up throughout the night because he was thirsty, making it difficult to sleep well.

Richie was fine the next morning, and since he was just dehydrated and not flu sick we went to church. After church we all came home to take a nap since we had not slept well the past couple nights. After my nap I woke up sick, I am a terrible sick person, so we did not get the beds set up for another night. We have a wonderful ward and a wonderful couple took Kamry and Richie on Monday morning so I could get some sleep, as well as feeding us dinner on Sunday and breakfast and lunch on Monday. I finally feel better and am ready to start un-packing. The goal today is to get the bedrooms cleared enough to set up the beds. It certainly makes me grateful not to be a pioneer, when I struggle sleeping on an air mattress.

Moving!!

Well, we found an apartment to rent in Casa Grande, AZ. Being forced to move has actually worked out in our favor. We'll be closer to where I'll student teach and Bobby's work. It is sad to leave friends that we've made the last two years, but I know that we'll make new friends. Now all I have to do is start packing, I've got 3 weeks and have no idea if we'll be ready by then.