Calm Sunday

We had a quiet Sunday. Attended church and then Ethan and Ana helped make tacos for lunch. They were great helpers, grating cheese, chopping tomatoes and lettuce and setting the table. We had a great lunch then played a little basketball together and pulled some weeds. Ana and Ethan were catching dragon flies and then took them to the neighbors pond to feed them to their fish. I think they spent two hours doing this. We then watched tonight's Harry Potter movie on tv and then they were off to bed. What a relaxing and enjoyable day. A couple friends then stopped by to say hi and chat and before we knew it, it was bed time for us as well. Hopefully most of our summer can be spent so well, with such good helpers. Troy says they have been on some pretty tough bike trails in Moab. I'm sure they will bring lots of pictures home.

Swimming party

Happy Birthday Mom and Kat. We had a swimming party on Saturday for Grandma and Kathryns birthdays. Fun stuff. We swam, opened presents, ate bbq and cake and swam some more. It was very enjoyable to be in the pool with just two kids. I was actually able to swim with them and watch them do tricks off the diving board. We then went home, Ethan totally crashed he was so tired, so Ana and I stayed up and watched one of the Harry Potter Movies.

Morgan's final night

I know I've already posted pictures of Morgan, but needed to add these for me of her final performance. It was fun and they had a bunch of friends come and watch, which made it more exciting for the girls.

End of School stuff

Ethan and Ana had their Greece culminating activity Friday and made all sort of cool things and I keep hearing all sorts of cool facts about Greece.

Grant and Chandler had their final history report and made these cool WWII planes out of hats, tape and fans as part of their report. Very creative.

Morgan and Victor had made bottle people for their reports and I lost those pics on my phone too, but they had both done great jobs with their reports and cool bottle people.

Grant also had to do a movie/play of The Twelfth Night. His group did a great job, thought I'd add a clip, not sure which one, but they cracked me up. Didn't upload will try again later.

Morgan, Morgan and more Morgan

Morgan taking a bow! Her Musical Theater class didn't do a musical this year, they performed 11 broadway songs all about girls. Morgan gets so into the singing and acting she tends to forget the foot work, but the facial expressions make up for that! She was awesome and did a wonderful job. I'm so proud of her!

Fun Run

Last Saturday we signed the kids up for the school fundraiser, Running with the Lions. We knew I would be at the crazy mom retreat and Troy would have just gotten back in town (working hard in Singapore). We are always looking for things for the kids to do on Saturday (weekends get a little long around here still, Ukraine kids just want us to entertain them all day still). So we signed them up, poor Troy had to wake up early after a 18 hour flight, but he survived and I didn't get him a ticket so I'm sure he was grateful that he didn't have to run with them. Ethan and Ana were in the 1k race and Ethan came in 2nd place! Good Job buddy. Here they are getting ready to go.

Now for the 5k. Here are the grumpy teenage boys who like to run and wanted to, but didn't want to get up early. And a happy Morgan, even though it was bitter cold Saturday morning.

Don't know the m&m kid.

Tanya's having fun, she does like to run. She was the second girl to cross the line.

The younger boys finishing with Ethan T's dad. Can you tell we are not a family of runners? Half my kids are in their school shoes and plaid shorts. At least the older three wore jackets. Tanya can't say platypus and the kids like the cartoon Finius and Ferb and the platypus on there, so they everytime it comes on Tanya practices saying platypus. So when I saw these platypus t-shirts on clearance, I got them and the kids were then called were team platapus! Very exciting.

Morgan came in toward the end I'm told, but cheering herself along and singing, you would have thought she came in first place!

The crazy mom retreat... should be the amazing mom retreat

The Retreat... dun, dun, dada. I lost my pictures off my phone, so sad, so I took pictures from other amazing moms at the retreat. We really had a great time just relaxing and hanging around chating about foster care and adoption issues. The spa was fantastic and I walked away feeling like I could handle my challenges with Tanya. But with Troy being gone the previous couple weeks I sort of crashed and ended up with a yucky cold that has lasted all week. I'm always so amazed and impressed with the incredible families out there who are adopting/fostering. It is so much more difficult than I ever imagined. I just was not prepared for the attachment stuff. Some times I still wonder how a child can live with their bio parents and grandparents and be neglected enough that they have no understanding of a parent/child relationship.

So, we went to the spa, played games, visited, chatted about our children, ate and ate and ate, swam in the mineral hot springs, slept in and enjoyed the peace and quiet. It was nice to share things with each other and talk about other things that might help in our relationships with our children.

ward activity

We had our ward ice cream social last Saturday and the Primary did a really cute trek retelling primary stories that the kids learned about last year. It turned out to be a lot of fun.