Jaina's Drawings

Ever since Jaina started preschool, she has gained a love of drawing. Now that she's in 

Kindergarten, she draws almost every day. It's hard to keep everything that 

your kids make, so I took pictures of what she has pinned up around the house.

The following is what she told me about the pictures.

This is a rainbow and it also has Melody that's 'off limits'.

This is the sun burning the grass, next to a tree, and a snow storm protecting the grass.

This picture is about flowers. She also has practiced writing 

Mom and Mara, and for some reason she wrote her name backwards.

Jaina, Xander and Mara going to school. She said "we sometimes 

have fights, but we sometimes are nice to each other."

This is her bracelet that one of her friends found on the grass and gave it back to her.

This is about two trees living, they were growing so tall. The sun was 

growing them. The sky was growing them but we don't know how.

This is Rapunzel, she's my favorite character.

These are my mugs for hot chocolate.

The First Week of November

Melody has become an M&M fan and loves all the tiny packages from her Halloween stash.

On Tuesday night after the kids had gone to bed (or so we thought) Mara came back downstairs

 to tell us that her tooth came out!  She's been saying for a few weeks that it's been wiggly, but 

every time I've wiggled it, I didn't think it was that close to coming out. But sure enough, after 

she brushed her teeth, it popped and came out!  This is the first molar for her to loose.

Wednesday night, Melody just wanted to be held and it was a miracle that she let me hold her 

like this. She was so cute and snuggled up with me for a bit and I enjoyed every minute of it.

After dinner it was bath time. Jaina doesn't like getting her hair brushed and washed because it 

gets too tangled and it hurts, because of lack of brushing. It's so long and pretty but all she ever 

wants is a pony tail or a braid. I've been asking her for months if she wanted her hair cut and 

kept telling her that it would make doing her hair a lot easier. She would always tell me 'no' and 

we would leave it at that. But this time she said 'yes'!!  So I got out the hair scissors and went at it.

I cut off about 6 inches, which is so crazy. When she was smaller I was worried that her 

hair would never grow in like Mara's. But now it's long, pretty and getting thicker 

all the time. I really like the length, even though she said she wanted it shorter.

I'm not a skilled hair stylist, so it ended up a little crooked, but for 

now it'll be okay. She's happy with the change and so am I. But I'm going to 

have Stefanie come down next and fix it up for me so it won't look so crazy. 

Sadly, she still wants it in a pony tail every day, but at least it's easier to manage.

Mara entered the schools Reflections contest in October, the theme was 'Let Your Imagination Fly'. 

She won a Award of Excellence ribbon and her painting is moving on to the next round!!!!

Friday night there was a Carnival at the school. We started the night with 

a pizza and drinks for the whole family. I'm so glad that Melody was hungry, 

because she ate almost a whole piece of pizza. It was so cute to watch her eat it.

We got unlimited wristbands for the girls, and Jaina took full advantage of 

it. We spent most of our time in the gym on all the 'bounce houses'.

This one took her awhile to climb, she fell at least 4-5 times. But she 

finally made it up and over and loved it. She then did it all 2 more times.

Xander and his best friend Josh playing this fun one.

It took awhile, but I finally got Jaina out to play some of the little games.

Xander spent most of the night as a volunteer helping out a football throwing game. 

Mara and Aurora were running around together the whole night and had great fun.

They even had a few things outside to do, a rock wall and this Wizzer. Jaina loved 

this one, but it was too cold for me and we went back inside as fast as we could.

Saturday, we headed to the Mall for some shopping and stopped in at the Disney Store. They 

have the new Mega Tsum Tsums that are $100!  They are huge and Jaina loved hugging the giant 

Minnie. But there's no way we are getting a Mega one, I like the mini ones that are only $5.

Sunday was our Primary Program. These girls did a great job. Watching the program really 

made me miss being in Primary, not that I want to go back, it was more nostalgia. 

Halloween Weekend 2015

Since Halloween was on a Saturday this year, we got to dress up 2 days in a row! 

Pat and I are usually really low key with costumes. Pat was inspired by a 

student and did an Avatar-ish theme. He is Avatar the Last Knowledge Bender.

Melody had a rough morning and just wanted me to hold her, but I was helping the girls get ready for school 

with their costumes. By the time they left she started to calm down. She is really good at directing me where 

she wants me to take her, and this moment it was to the light switches. She has only done this a handful of 

times, but it made her happy. I was originally holding her, but needed to make myself breakfast, so 

I pulled a chair up and let her play with the lights. After that, our day seemed to go better.

Since Jaina is in AM Kindergarten her parade was at 10:45am, about 20 minutes before 

she was done with school. I got Melody bundled up, since it was a bit chilly, and we 

drove over to the school. It was fun to see her in the parade and I know she was 

excited to do it since she had seen Xander and Mara do it for a long time.

Jaina and her good friends Ashlyn & Evan Murphy.

We went home, had lunch, then it seemed like we needed to turn right 

around and go back to the school for the big kids parade at 1:00pm. Here's 

Mara wearing shoes from a friend. She was clunking all over the place, silly girl.

Xander was glad that this was his last time doing this sort of thing. I've heard 

that the Jr High doesn't allow costumes at school, which will make him happy.

We went home, put Melody down for a nap, and hung out until about 4:00. We got Melody up, got everyone 

in their costumes and headed up to Orem to visit Mana at the bank. She loves when we come to visit.

After the bank, we met Morri, Liza, Carter & Addi at Taco Amigo for dinner, then headed back to 

their house to hang out for a bit. I left the family there, and headed over to my Uncle Gene's viewing 

in Orem. He died on Oct 21st. It was good to be able to see my family and not worry about cranky 

kids. When I got back to Morri's it was getting late and we decided to head home. Usually when we 

are together on the weekends, the girls always want to have sleepovers. So this time Addi came 

and slept at our house, while the boys went to Watergardens Theater to see Man from UNCLE.

Saturday morning (Halloween) was the day of my Uncle Gene's funeral, so I took Mara & Addi to Addi's 

house so they could hang out some more while I went to the funeral. It was a great service and I was glad 

that I was able to be there and support family. I feel for my cousin Megan. She is Gene's youngest daughter 

and she went into labor on the 30th and had her 2nd child that night. So she missed her dad's viewing 

and  funeral. I can only imagine the anguish she was feeling. But we are blessed that we have 

amazing technology. Her husband Dave attended the funeral and used FaceTime to help her 

participate and witness the family prayer, funeral and grave side service. 

After the funeral I went and picked up Mara so we could go home and get ready for the fun 

Halloween festivities. She must have stayed up way too late, because she was so tired 

on the way home that she fell asleep. I snapped the picture at a stop light.

We got ready and headed back to Orem to go to Grandma & Grandpa 

Tolman's house for the traditional chili, donuts, and trick or treating.

Melody was in heaven picking out candy from Grandma's candy bucket.

She tried quite a few different candy bars, but never finished one.

It's so fun to have holiday's with cousins.  Here's Jaina with Olivia as Rapunzel, and Maddox as Baymax.

Group picture. Pat's cousin Cody and his new wife Capri came to hang out with us 

too. Melody wouldn't be in the picture unless she was held, and she was a little 

nervous around Maddox. She didn't know what to think about his costume.

These girls headed to the basement to play for awhile and make music.

Mara got in character and played with a ball like a cat.

Grandma's favorite thing at Halloween: dancing with the grandkids to Monster Mash.

Gwen brought these fun little props for pictures.

Finally it was time to go trick or treating. When Melody saw this fire 

hydrant she pretended that she could look through it, it was pretty funny.

And we're off!!!

She finally was warming up to Maddox.

Melody was so happy to carry her own bag and kept calling it a 'pocket'.

These kids were a lot faster than the rest of us.

Jaina, Maddox, Mara, Olivia, Addi, Xander and Melody.

Melody kept saying 'trick treat' and was so happy all night and loved to walk 

around with dad and watch all the kids. It was a whole new experience for her.

Jaina was taking handfuls at a lot of the houses so her bag was much heavier than everyone else's.

Xander and Mara decided to stay in Orem and Trick or Treat with Addi for awhile. So we headed home 

with Jaina and Melody, got them bundled up and headed out to a few houses in our neighborhood. 

Everything on the floor was Jaina haul!! 

She had a great time sorting and choosing her favorite candy to keep.

Morri brought Xander and Mara home around 9:45, then Pat took Xander to the Watergarden's 

theater to see Gremlins on the big screen!  So I was the one to help Mara sort her candy.

Over all it was a really fun and busy Halloween. 

I'm just glad that it's over and we can move on to other things.