Cortney's Crew

Today was awards day for the first trimester at school. They do this for 3rd - 6th grade. (It was also pajama day....who's idea was that???) The kids can receive an Academic Award for having B's or better on their report card, or a Principals Honor Roll Award for having all A's. Also the teachers have a few nomination awards for their class. And the specials teachers have nominations for the grades. Riley received an Academic Award. She also received a Teacher Nomination from her teacher for "showing excellent acts of kindness, good citizenship, and classroom behavior". There were only 3 kids from her class chosen for this award. She also received a Teacher Nomination from the Art teacher for "Outstanding citizenship and achievement in Art". Only 2 4th graders received an award for Art. I'm very proud of my Riley! This report card was the best I've seen from her and I'm so glad that her teachers recognized her for all her hard work ...

Riley and Alexandra receive allowance twice a month (when Dean gets paid). They get an amount equal to their age, so Riley gets $9 and Alexandra gets $6. They have banks with 3 separate sections that I got from Deseret Book. So when I get their allowance from the bank I get it all funky with lots of change so they can do tithing and savings. I'm sure the bank people love to see me come in! They have to put 10% in tithing and 10% in savings and the rest is theirs to use however they want. When we first started this, I had been buying little things from the $1 spot at Target or just little toys for them. So once we started their allowance I stopped buying little things for them and they had to do it for themselves. This greatly helped our budget and we found that I spent less giving them allowance. Also we decided not to have allowance tied to their chores. The chores and work around the house they do because they are a part of the family. Also, just in case we couldn...

In November we had Enrichment for our Ward's Relief Society. It was an awesome holiday party. I had a great time visiting with some of the awesome sisters in our ward while I learned how to make a "Gingerbread Nativity". It was super fun and I loved making it! And the girls loved eating it!

Okay so I was horrible with taking Halloween pictures this year. Mostly because I spent every Halloween activity that we went to chasing Scarlett. So these are two of the very few pictures I have. Alexandra wanted to be a black cat. Scarlett was a peacock. And Riley was Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon. (And yes I feel absolutely horrible that I have no pictures of Riley....) Alexandra couldn't wear her mask at school, but when she had it on, it had this catwoman pleather look to it. And Scarlett is up in the first picture throwing a fit in the corner.

Scarlett is 18 months old today!! I can't believe how big she's gotten, and I can't believe how quickly time has flown by! We went to the doctors today and here are her 18 month stats: Weight - 28 lbs .4 oz (91st %) Height - 34.5" (99 th %) She is still a (very) little behind developmentally, but nothing that the doctor is concerned about at all. I love being able to spend all day with her. Most days she is a joy and makes me laugh. She has 13 teeth - all 8 front top and bottom, 4 molars, and 1 canine (although the other 3 canines are trying to come in too). She loves dolls, balls, balloons, chocolate, Tiger (our cat), and her sisters "Piggies" (Guinea pigs - a post for another time). Her favorite TV shows are Super Why, Magic School Bus, and The Cat in The Hat Knows A Lot About That. In fact if I'm watching Netflix Instant Watch on the Wii , she tries to ask for Super Why - although it sounds like "U (blah blah) Fry"? I love the fact th...

So I had my own little miracle on Sunday! Two weeks ago in my primary class the lesson was all about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. Yesterday we were having a family get together since Cindy's in town. I decided to make a pasta salad for the dinner. Saturday night while lying in bed I remembered I didn't have any olives. I knew I didn't have any olives because we'd had tacos last week and I had searched through the cupboards and found the last can then. So since everyone's in bed, and I'm not gonna wake them up to run to the store, I decided I would just stop at the store on the way home from church. (GASP) I know......but it was for family.....at least that was what I kept telling myself. So Sunday when I woke up all I could think was "I taught the kids they weren't supposed to shop on Sunday. I'm a horrible person." So I decided that I wasn't going to pick up any olives and my salad would just be oliveless. After I had gotten most...

Scarlett's new words for yesterday and today are "YUCK!" and "EEEWWWW!" When she says them she usually laughs too. Yesterday she'd come and sit on my lap and lick my arm and then say "YUCK!" and start giggling hysterically. She also love the show The Cat in the Hat Knows a lot About That. She loves the song they sing. In fact this morning she refused to drink her bottle because she wanted to sing along - "Go, Go, Go, Go, GO!" I'll have to see if I can get a video of her doing it.

Almost two weeks ago we went to the pumpkin patch with my friend Beth and her kids. Beth took some awesome photos for me! And the girls picked great pumpkins. Then yesterday we carved our pumpkins. I was lazy this year and just looked up free stencils on the internet. Alexandra picked: And had Dean carve it for her. Riley picked: And she carved it all by herself (and mostly cleaned it by herself.) And I thought I'd try something a little bit more difficult: I had to glue part of the "O" back in! We had a huge scare though when we went to light the candles. Dean started on Alexandra's pumpkin and apparently the lighter had a fluid leak so when he pulled the lighter out it started a huge fireball around his hand. Luckily only the fluid burned up. Dean is okay (other then a few singed arm hairs) and the carpet where he dropped the lighter didn't get burned at all. So Dean has learned if you feel the fluid coming out stop lighting it!! We found another li...

When we first bought the house we were "warned" by the previous owners that we would have a lot of leaves to rake....little did we know.... The first year we thought - How beautiful! How fun! We spent hours raking the leaves into piles and then let the girls jump in them. Because we were tired from the hours of raking we unfortunately left the piles on the lawn and it snowed....which resulted in several dead spots of grass when spring came. Needless to say we learned our lesson. The next year we were very tempted to take up the little kid who knocked on the door when he offered to rake our lawn for $10. Unfortunately I didn't have any cash, plus I would have felt horrible making him rake it all for only $10. Eventually it either got raked or mowed up, I don't remember. Plus I have avoided the leaves since I learned my lesson the first year. Last year I had my mom get Dean a leaf blower (I'm pretty sure it was his birthday present). So last year he vacuumed...

Scarlett can now say "I love you!" It's super cute even when she's screaming it because she's upset. I tried to get some video of it. The first she's just being super cute, but I get her to say it in the 2nd video! In fact as I was sitting here looking through the videos on the computer she keeps saying it, but I know if I get the camera out she'll clam up!

The last week in October is Red Ribbon Week. This is a week that schools promote being drug free in remembrance of a DEA agent who was tortured and killed while undercover in Mexico investigating drug cartels. Last year I was in charge of the weeks activities and handouts. I had heard about this assembly that the CO National Guard would do for schools, but it was past the deadline for us to sign up. I asked the principal if I could try for it this year and he told me yes. So during September I contacted the CO National Guard and got the application and sent it back in. Luckily we have a big field so we were able to pick having a helicopter come to the school. If you can't have a helicopter you can get a Humvee instead. The entire school gathered on the field while we waited. At first the helicopter flew over. And then the two National Guard members who were on the ground held the radio up to the PA system and the kids got to hear the pilot say he was lost and ask if the kid...

So time to play catch up again. Although from now on I'm not going to say anything about catching up...it makes me feel like a slacker. Our school does field day at the beginning of the year. Because the girls are far enough apart grade-wise I end up being at the school all day long. Riley's was in the morning. I loved watching the Omnikin. So did Scarlett. She kept trying to crawl down to get the "BALL!" Then we ate lunch in Alexandra's classroom and got to watch her in the afternoon. She loved the hurdles. She was so proud of herself for not knocking any down at all. They played Omnikin too, but with a much smaller ball. By this point in the afternoon Scarlett was beyond exhausted but I couldn't get her to take a nap. Every time the kids would jump she would laugh hysterically at them. Some of the kids loved it and then others were trying to figure out why she was laughing at them. It was a very long day, but I always love to watch the girls particip...