Another Week!

Well, another week has gone by and still no job. I'm trying not to freak out about it, but sometimes (especially in the middle of the night) I get panic attacks about it. Lincoln did have one interview with a recruiter last week, but he hasn't heard back from him yet. I have been thinking today about what we are supposed to learn from this experience. There's the obvious, that we need to learn to better manage our finances, get out of debt, and save. Could there be something else, as well? I'm trying to figure it out, so I can hurry up and learn it and move on to having a steady income again.

Lincoln and Faha are leaving in the morning for Scout camp at Bear Lake. They will be gone all week. Lincoln was going to take my van, but I was able to convince him that I NEED my van! I wouldn't be able to go anywhere during the day all week without it. So, finally, he told me today that he will be taking the car. Hurray!

Pasi is leaving in the morning for Mill Hollow. It's a school camp that Granite School District does for students that have finished 4th and 5th grades. He will be gone until Wed. He is sooooooooo excited! I hope he will be able to sleep tonight.

So for most of the week it will just be me and the girls and Cody. Where can we send Cody???? No, I want to keep Cody here to entertain the 4 day care boys. They think he is "awesome" as one of them said to me.

Pasi and Siu finished their first set of swimming lessons this year. Pasi passed Level 6 (first try) and now he is finished with swimming lessons. He is officially a swimmer. It's a good thing, because he HATES swimming lessons! Siu is still at Level 4 and will keep working on her swimming skills. Their last lesson was on Wed. and most of the classes had the kids jump off the diving board. Siu was going to do it, but she chickened out. She was very upset about it and had a big temper tantrum fit right there. I took a picture of her when she was walking out on the diving board before she started freaking out. So here it is:


I'm pretty excited because I have just found out I will be having another great niece or nephew. We are now up to three of my nieces and one niece in law that are pregnant. It's so exciting! For two of them this will be their first baby and the other two their second. So, for those of you who might know them: Brooke (Coleen's youngest daughter) is expecting their 2nd boy in October, Alysha (Coleen's 2nd daughter) is expecting their second child late February or early March (she just found out she is pregnant), Jenelle (Kevin's oldest daughter) is expecting their 1st in February, and Kelly (Sheryl's oldest son Brandon's wife) is expecting their first in February. I have to get busy making baby stuff. I love it!

A Bad Week!

The last week and a half have been really hard for us. On the 10th of June Lincoln was laid off from his job of almost thirteen years. He was given a decent severance package, but it won't last long. Unfortunately, we have not followed the counsel to not get into debt and to have an emergency fund, so we are definitely not prepared for this crisis. I ask all of you for your prayers that Lincoln can find a job soon so we can take care of our family and not lose our house. It's so hard to keep going and act normal when I am so worried, but I try. It took all of my effort to go to church today and play for Primary, teach my lesson, and go to sacrament meeting. I did feel better after though. I try to keep up my spirits for Lincoln's and the kids sake. It's pretty hard for me though!

We went to our ward camp out Thurs-Sat and we had a good time. It was a little cold the first night, so I came home and got us more blankets and warmer clothes and the second night was much more comfortable. We camped in the Spruces campground up Big Cottonwood Canyon. It was beautiful! We have had so much rain so everything was really green and pretty. We saw a moose in our camp the morning we left. I forgot to take my camera so I have no pictures. I have to be better about taking pictures. I know I will regret not having taken pictures more as the kids get older.

I'm stressing this week because I have my follow-up surprise inspection for my daycare probably sometime this week. I have to have corrected the problems they found on the announced inspection last month. Most of the problems were with my swingset that we bought last summer. I hope we have everything fixed so that it will pass. I had my kitchen inspection almost two weeks ago and almost had a nervous breakdown before it. It turned out to be no big deal and I passed with no problems. I also will be having my food program inspection sometime in the next two weeks. Sometimes I wish we could just be normal in our own house, but it is good to have that income and be able to stay home. Trying to count my blessings!

I hope Lincoln has had a good Father's Day. I made him breakfast in bed. He doesn't want us to spend money on him ever, so I didn't, but I wanted him to have a good day.

Summer is here!

Well, summer has arrived and I love the weather so far! It's rainy and cloudy with a little sun each day, temperature is mid 70's. I love it!! Can it stay like this all summer??

Yesterday I had my kitchen inspection from the state health department for my daycare. STRESS!!! I was having panic attacks, but it turned out to be no big deal. The inspector lady was only here about 5 minutes and everything was up to her standards and she liked my floors. I only have 2 more (hopefully) unannounced inspections from child care licensing and then my quarterly inspection from my food program. Sometimes I get sick of it all and want to tell them all to kiss my grits, but I do love being home.

So the kids got out of school last Friday we are all still alive, so that's going well. Cody and Faha left Monday night for an orchestra trip to Disneyland. They will be gone until Friday. Monday night Anita spent the night at her friend's house, so we only had 2 kids home. Last night Siu and Pasi both spent the night at their friend's houses and Anita was the only kid at home! It was cool! Very quiet and when I got up this morning, the living room looked exactly like it did when I went to bed. Amazing!

Pasi and Siu have started swim lessons. Pasi only has one more level to pass and Siu has three. Pasi doesn't enjoy swim lessons so he is working hard to pass this time so he doesn't have to take lessons all summer. Faha is taking tennis lessons. He is missing the first week because of his Disney trip, but he will make them up the next lesson set. Cody has weight training for football Mon., Wed, and Fridays at 7:00am. So even though we are out of school, we still will keep busy. I'll post more later.

My Projects

Well, has it been long enough since I last posted?? I have waited partly because I wanted to post some pictures, but haven't been able to find my cable that connects my camera to the computer. It's so great to have sooooo many helpers to help me keep track of my things (translation, lose everything I own!). Anyway, I had a couple on my phone so I will post those, even though the picture quality is somewhat lacking. These are my projects I have been working on the last couple of months. I painted the playroom and Siu's room. For those of you who have seen my house, you know that the playroom was painted about 1/3 of the way up with chalkboard paint. That is all gone as you can see.

Siu and I had been wanting to paint her room for a long time and I finally got it done! We went with pink (sassy pink) with brown polka dots. I still need to get the vinyl lettering and more polka dots put up. It takes me awhile. Above her bed we will put "Sweet Dreams", above her closet "Butterfly Kisses", and some other place we haven't decided yet, "The Princess Sleeps Here". A friend of mine (Stacie) has a Cricket machine and offered to cut out the vinyl for me. It's great. We just haven't been able to get together to get everything finished. So here it is so far.... The big circle is a chalk board. I made it from a table round top that I was going to throw away. It's coming along, it's a work in progress. I found a cute comforter at Target, I just need to save up for it.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone! We had a really nice day. It was just our family and it was so relaxing and unstressful. We slept in and I didn't even put the turkey in the oven until about 10:30. We ate about 5. We had a nice little vacation just relaxing and spending time together. It was refreshing. Our dinner turned out wonderful. It was our best one yet. Delicious!

We started our Christmas Box tonight. It has become our tradition. We put a clue in a special decorated box. The clue tells what we will be doing for the evening. It's something special like play a game, watch a movie, make a treat, or go someplace. We start on Dec. 1 and do something every evening until Christmas. I started it to help us remember to spend some time together each day during a time that can be very busy and stressful. Sometimes we just do something simple like have a candy, or it can be a big thing like going ice skating. We started a little late tonight so we didn't get to do everything I had planned, but that's okay. We can do it another night. But we did something, that's the important thing! It's something that we all look forward to doing and it's fun! It's also fun to think of the things to do and to come up with the clue for it.
What are some of your family Christmas traditions?

I'm so proud of myself! I got most of our Christmas cards mailed today! I'm trying to get things done early and not wait until the last minute and have to rush like a crazy person.

Well, it's getting late and time for bed!

New Project

I think I will have a new project. Well, it's not really a NEW project, but it's one that it's time to face for real. It's called saving as much money as possible. Right now I'm focusing on groceries. I read Brooke's blog and she's not totally convinced about coupons. I'm not sure whether I am or not either. I mostly buy store brand rather than name brand items, so I'm not sure if I would save any money. I'm reading a book called "Live You Life for Half the Price" by Mary Hunt. It's very good. The author says the best way to save on groceries is to use coupons together with store sales and double coupons if the store offers it. She also suggests shopping "in reserve" as she calls it rather than for "needs shopping". I'm still reading the book, but I'll post when I learn more about the program she recommends.

We are getting to the end of football season. (Yippee!) The last game is Saturday. Neither Pasi's, nor Cody's team will be going to the playoffs, so we are done! It's been a rough season. Both teams started off really well, but have had some hard games. About 3 1/2 weeks ago Cody got a grade 2 concussion in a game. He was out of all activities for 3 weeks. It was a little scary. He couldn't (and still can't) remember what happened and was disoriented and dizzy for several days after. The kid from the other team hit him helmet to helmet right in the forehead. He was really doing well before that happened. He had scored several touchdowns (He gets to run the ball this year. It's very exciting! I'm one proud mom.) and was the kicker for the team. He didn't have much opportunity to do either in their game last Saturday because they got smashed! Pasi's team still might go to the playoffs if they win on Saturday, but that's only if a couple of other teams lose their games. Football is fun, but it is so time consuming that it's nice when it's over.

We had an awesome opportunity last Saturday to go to a Stake fireside with Sister Elaine Dalton, the General Young Womens President. It was so neat. Our stake held the fireside and invited the other two Tongan stakes in the area to come. The chapel wasn't even full!! It was very sad that so many people missed out on that great experience. Anita and I got to meet her afterward and she was so nice. She talked to everyone that wanted to talk to her. It was just a wonderful experience.

My other project is motivating my kids to do their chores. This morning I decided I was sick of running late because Pasi and Siu wouldn't get out of bed. I had bought some charts a few months ago with stickers, but hadn't decided how to use them. I put them to use this morning. The charts have 20 squares for star stickers. My program will be when they fill a paper with stickers they will get a treat. If they want to save it and cash in 5 at a time, they can get a toy. I'm still working on the list of things they can get a sticker for doing. So far I have:
getting up out of bed the first time I call them
getting ready for school by 8:00am
homework done the night before
brushing and flossing their teeth (one sticker for am one for pm)
bonus sticker if they make their bed
if their room is clean when they leave for school
bonus sticker for Siu if she doesn't take her hair out before bed (she always takes out her ponytail, braid, whatever at school and then she looks like an orphan)

These are just the things we've really been struggling with. It worked wonderfully this morning. They were both ready and happy they got their stickers and I got some peace in the morning! Even if it only works for today, I'm happy! Now I just have to think of something for the older kids. Somehow I don't think sticker cards will give them the same motivation.

Well, It's almost time for everyone to get home so I better go! Love to all!

Wishing we were there

I'm sitting here thinking that everyone is at Jenelle's wedding reception. I hope it is beautiful and will be a lovely memory for her always.

I had an interesting day. It was nice and quiet, just John (almost 3) and Wyatt (2 1/2). Lincoln was home, so that was nice, too. Wyatt's mom picked him up and as she was walking out the door just happened to mention that she is taking him to her friend to be babysat until he's potty trained. She's not sure how long that will take, but I won't be watching him until he's potty trained. I told her that after her two weeks of vacation are gone, she will have to pay me whether she brings him or not. She did not seem concerned about that, so I'm guessing that she's not planning to bring him back. That leaves me in a bit of a spot. I was planning on that money. Now it's back almost to square one. At least I still have Davyn, my other new child I started watching this week. It's a little discouraging! I need to have 7 day care kids to be okay. Without Wyatt I have 5. Pray that I'll get some calls this weekend!

Tomorrow is Cody and Pasi's first official football game. It's a home game. I hope they do well and nobody gets hurt! Cody already has some bumps and bruises and the season hasn't even started yet. I'm worried about him now that he's running the ball. When he was on the line, he never got hurt! Those blockers better protect him!

I think I'll sleep early tonight. We have to be at Pasi's game at 7:45am. Love you all!

I'm Feeling Sorry for Myself Today

Today was the day we were supposed to leave for New Mexico. The trip has been cancelled due to finances. I'm very disappointed, but I know we honestly cannot afford to go. I even looked for a plane ticket online and the lowest I could find was $345! Maybe if I would have started looking into it earlier, I could have found something. I hope everyone has a great time and we will be thinking of you!

Well, school started on Monday. It was quite an event around this house because we had our first high school student (Anita) and Faha started Jr. High. Everyone is still in the "I love school" phase. Hopefully it will last. I only have to wake up Pasi and Siu. Anita, Cody, Faha, Lincoln, and I all have to get up about 5:00am to make it to work (Lincoln) and to the bus stop (everyone else). I am in a carpool. I take my kids and 2 other boys to the bus stop about 6:10 and the other 2 moms bring the kids home. It was going to work out great, except now Anita's bus gets back about 40 minutes before everyone else's. So, I will still have to pick up Anita. Luckily, Lincoln is on vacation until Sept. 8, so he can pick her up.

Football has also started and Pasi and Cody are doing well. Cody scored a touchdown at their pre-game last Saturday. It does take up a lot of time, but it is so fun to watch them play!

I'm also busy getting ready for the Primary Sacrament Meeting program. It is Sept. 14. Siu has her part memorized, but Pasi is still working on his. To be fair, Pasi's is much longer than Siu's. All the children's parts are in Tongan and we are singing one verse in Tongan of most of the songs. It is challenging. I finally got the seating chart finished. Last Sunday we practiced and it was crazy! Hopefully this week will run more smoothly.

I started watching two new day care kids this week. One is an 8 month old boy and the other is a 2 year old boy. That gives me 6 total: the 8 month old, a 19 month old, 2 two year olds, a 4 year old, and a 5 year old. The 5 year old will start kindergarten next week. We haven't found out if he will be in morning or afternoon kindergarten, so depending on that I will either take him to school or pick him up. It definitely has been busy, but so far they have taken good naps. That's the main thing that's saving me.

I'm down to 14 piano students so I give lessons Tues. and Wed. and I hope to be able to stick to those two days. Between my two paying jobs and Primary and family I'm spread pretty thin. It's only through many prayers during the day that I am able to keep it all together. If nothing else, I am gaining an even stronger testimony of prayer in our daily lives for our little "worldly" concerns and problems. I even prayed this week that we would be able to make it to the bus stop on time. And I suppose I would rather be busy than have nothing to do.

I am interested in expanding my economical meal ideas. If anyone has any great and cheap meal ideas, please share. It's time for me to go now and check on the little ones. Have a great day! I love you all!

Thanks for the input.

Thank you Coleen and Alysha for the input on the colors for my kitchen, especially the cabinets. I like a dark cherry wood look too. How can I get that when I don't have wood cabinets? They are some kind of particle board garbage. I also like the idea for cranberry and maybe a beige.

Well, again I have spent the entire morning not doing what I was supposed to be doing. I did important things (like pay bills), but I need to be doing my shopping for the Primary Quarterly Activity today. We are leaving this afternoon for our ward campout and the activity will be at the camp. We are going to Willard Bay. I hate it there. I wanted to go to Deer Lake, where we went last year, but no, we have to go to yucky Willard Bay. The bugs are horrible, it's ugly, and the freeway is right there. It's like camping on the side of the road. If I'm going camping (and you all know what a camper I am!), I at least want to go somewhere where it is pretty and in the mountains. I offered to just stay home and let Lincoln take the kids, but he didn't like that idea.

Well, enough procrastinating. I have to go do errands and shopping. Wish me luck at yucky camp!

I'm still getting the hang of this! Anyway, here are some pictures from our day at the museum.

Our big project today is to move Faha and Pasi into the same bedroom. They decided they want to share a room. I'm all for it because whenever we change bedrooms around, they get a thorough cleaning. The boys will share the room at the end of the hall upstairs. I would like to use Faha's old room as my storage room (again!) so I can get the garage set up as another play area. I have spent so much time trying to add my pictures that the morning is almost gone. I need to get busy before Anita leaves to go with her friends to Raging Waters. I need her help!

I am getting more and more tech savvy! I'm so excited because I was able to take pictures with my cell phone (my digital camera died) and email them to my email and save them and now I shall post them here! It doesn't take much to make me happy!

Monday we went to the Utah Museum of Natural History. It was fun and educational. I wasn't able to take as many pictures as I wanted because the kids kept taking off to explore on their own and I couldn't find them! We went with my friend Kari and her kids (same ones we watched fireworks on the 4th). I felt like such a good mommy. Cody didn't go with us because he wanted to go to his friend's house. We also took one of Faha's friends with us. I only had one daycare child to take so it was a piece of cake. He was so good in his stroller the whole time.

We had a nice quiet 4th. The guys got home about 5:00. I made homemade pizza and then we went to Murray Park to watch fireworks with some friends. We had a little problem finding where they were, mainly because my cell phone died, but we eventually found them right as the fireworks were starting. It was fun especially for Pasi and Siu because our friends have kids their ages. We stayed and visited with them until almost midnight! We dragged ourselves home and went to bed!

Today we got up early and went to a baptism and after that the parents of the little girl who was baptized took everyone at the baptism out to eat. It was nice. We came home and did errands and now I HAVE to get busy and type up the children's parts, 70 parts, for the Primary sacrament meeting program. I need to hand them out tomorrow. After that I need to make the Primary bulletin board. I'm also doing sharing time tomorrow, so I have a lot of Primary stuff to get done. (I am the Primary president, by the way. A little stressful!) So I better stop playing and get busy!

Time for an Update

I've been looking at Coleen's, Alysha's, and Brooke's blogs and it inspired me to update mine. I've been trying to post for over a week, but I've been having problems with our computer. Hopefully it's fixed. Anyway...................

Happy 4th of July! I love Independence Day! We're not really doing anything exciting. Lincoln, Cody and Faha will be coming back later today from Scout camp at Bear Lake. We'll probably get some fireworks to do here at home and then we usually go up on our sundeck to watch the big fireworks shows. We usually have a pretty good view of them. I'm mostly looking forward to a day without day care kids and piano lessons!

Well, in the spirit of Brooke's blog I'll give you a view into a day in my life. I get up between 5:30 and 6:15 depending on which day care kids are coming. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are usually my early days. I get ready, make our bed, and eat a little something. (If I don't eat when I get up, I get sick. It must be from all those pregnancies.) My friend, Kayla, and I go walking at 7:00. We walk around the neighborhood until 7:30. We come home and wait for two more day care kids to arrive, then we leave and walk until around 8:00. I come home and make breakfast. We usually have omelets, french toast, pancakes, oatmeal or other hot cereal, or scrambled eggs. I try to make a hot breakfast most mornings. We have not been having much cold cereal lately, only once in a while. So we eat, clean up and we do house cleaning from 9:00 until about 10:00. Then the kids have free time and I usually fold clothes, feed babies, or something else that I can do sitting down and rest a little. Then I usually take the kids outside and they play until around 11:30. I start making lunch at 11:30 and we try to sit down to eat by 12:00. Two kids get picked up at 12:30. I eat lunch and clean up. By then it's usually 1:00. I read to the kids and put them down for naps. I rest, work on Primary stuff, and tidy up. The kids usually wake up from their naps around 3:00 and we have a snack. I try to start making dinner then because piano lessons start at 4:00. I usually give piano lessons from 4:00-8:00. All the day care kids are picked up by 5:30. Sometimes the family eats without me, sometimes they wait and we eat together at 8:00. The kids clean up the kitchen. I usually get to bed about 11:00.

Some things I want to improve on as I read this are:
more structure to our day
scheduling time for doing schoolwork, art projects, and music practice
more routine to our evening and bedtime

I usually have a project I'm working on and my current project is the garage. I'm hoping to have the garage all cleaned out and set up to use as another room for my daycare for the summer. I'd like it to use it for messy play and also to give the kids more room to spread out a little because I'm not using my basement anymore for the daycare. During the winter we can use the garage to park the cars in (imagine that!).

After I finish the garage I want to change some things in the kitchen. I have finally had enough of apples. My plan is to paint the cabinets black and get rid of the country look. I am trying to decide on an accent color. I'm taking ideas and input. Let me know what I should use as my accent color. I'd like to paint one wall the accent color and the other walls will be a very light beige.

The family room is next. I want it to be brown and aqua. I need ideas for decorations for the walls. I'm also thinking of painting one wall aqua.

Well, it's time to go make lunch. I hope everyone has a happy 4th! We are so blessed to live in a free country with all the blessings we enjoy and the freedoms we have. I feel very blessed to have the family and friends that I do. I hope all of us can get together to celebrate Dad's birthday and Jenelle's wedding in the fall. I'm looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible. Love you all!

Here is Cody with his ukulele. He is almost never seen without it.

Hello to everyone! Well, in case you haven't heard, our plans for me to go back to school have changed. I'm back to providing daycare and giving piano lessons as my life's work. Things just didn't work out, but it's okay.

We had a nice couple of weeks. The last week of June Anita went to our neighborhood stake's girls camp. She had a good time and certified for her 3rd year. While she was gone, we went to our ward campout at Deer Creek. It was fun. Anyone who knows me, knows I am NOT a camper, but I actually enjoyed it. It was a nice break in the usual routine. Siu was in the water from sunup to sundown. She's a little fish. The boys played cards and swam too.

We had a pretty relaxing 4th. We went to see Spiderman 3 and then we went out to dinner. We came home and took a nap and then did our little fireworks in the front yard. It was fun.

Last week was pretty uneventful. Tomorrow, Anita, is leaving to go with our (Tongan) stake to girls camp. This will be her last camp this summer (thank goodness!). I sure do miss her when she's gone.

We're getting ready to participate in the Pioneer Day Childrens Parade on July 21st. Faha and Pasi will march in the parade.

Well, gotta go and take Anita's camp stuff to be loaded up. Have a nice week everyone!

Love,
Michele

This is just a quick update. Cody had an awesome time at Disneyland. I'll have him post some of his pictures. Anita and Cody did very well in their theater workshop this month. They both were teacher's assistants and had a great time. The teacher appreciated them so much that we only had to pay one fee for the workshop. Also, Cody didn't try out for the Shakespeare team, but the teacher put him on it because he impressed her so much! He and Anita are natural actors. They are both really excited for the competition which will be in October in Cedar City.

Anita is now at her second camp of the year. She went to Oakcrest two weeks ago. It's an LDS girls' camp for 7th and 8th graders. Now she is with our Palangi (English) ward at their rough camp. In two weeks she will go with our stake to their rough camp. After that I think she'll be home the rest of the summer, thank goodness! She was gone every weekday from 9:00am-3:30pm for 2 weeks this month and Oakcrest was a week long camp. I've missed her!

We are getting ready to go to our ward campout tonight. We're hoping to leave about 6:00pm. Lincoln is working today and I'm babysitting and giving two piano lessons before we go. I'm hoping to get at least one blanket finished with all my free time at the camp! We'll be back Saturday.

Not much else happening with us. I just try to keep up with the kids and the house and that keeps me pretty busy. Well, gotta go get ready for my morning walk.

Yea! I finally was able to post Siu's picture. I will try to get photos of the other kids posted soon. It seems to take me forever to post, so I usually don't have time. Well, I better go get ready for the day. I've spent an hour trying to get my scanner and computer to work together! The daycare kids will be arriving soon! Wish me luck today!