Plugging along

Do you ever find yourself saying "Once this (insert school, work, pregnancy, kids, church calling, etc) is over, I will have a lot more time?" Lately I find myself saying it more and more, but I think it's time to just admit they we choose to have a busy lifestyle. I know I would be bored if we didn't do what we do, but sometimes it seems we have so much going on we don't know if we are coming or going! Here are some updates on our crazy lives!

Jacob got new hearing aids this month. Wow, how wonderful this has been as he is able to hear so much better now. Actually, instead of him always asking us to speak up, now he asks us to quiet down so we don't hurt his ears so much! Jacob is trying to get used to hearing so many sounds he hasn't heard for so long. Things like computer keys tapping, cupboard doors being shut, silverware set on a table, dollar bills being counted, and certain sounds in speech. He says our voices all sound so much different than what he is used to.

I'm loving my job working at Canyon View High School. Mostly I just work with one person, and she is so delightful. One day I usually go with her to dance and then we do some work in the classroom. The next day I go to a regular PE class and then an adaptive PE class. Occasionally instead of doing work in the classroom with her I go to a biology class with 4 other kids. It is so weird interacting with high school kids. Let me just say, I KNOW I was never as dumb as some of them are these days. I'm talking about the way the average high school kid dresses, talks, and the things they do! It's so silly how important kids think it is to have certain boys notice them or to dress a certain way or put off a certain image. If only they could take our word for it when we say "If I had it to do over again, I would save myself so much agony by..."

Makayla is almost finished with soccer. I wasn't able to sign her up for the regular league in town this season. Silly me, I guess I didn't realize that the signups for fall soccer were in March...they told me I should have known that because they send sign up sheets home from school with the kids...I didn't have kids in school then! Oh well. It worked out anyway because there are several kids in our ward who wanted to play but couldn't for various reasons so we formed our own teams and have been playing twice a week. It's actually been good because Makayla is the youngest person so she really has to work hard to keep up. She still does a great job and has even scored goals!

Lately Kelli has been taking her job of being a big sister very seriously. She and Laney have grown a lot closer the past few weeks while Makayla is at school. It's so funny to hear Kelli, who is still quite young (2), talk to Laney in baby talk. She actually does a pretty good imitation of adults, by kind of putting her chin out and up and having a big smile covering her face as she says silly things in a sing song voice. You've gotta hear it sometime. They have a similiar sense of humor and are always starting the other one into giggling fits.

Laney may not be walking yet, but she is already starting to try to climb in and on everything. I'm afraid she is going to be a monkey like Kelli is. However, where Kelli is a daredevil who thinks she will never fall, Laney is a lot more reserved. When she thinks she is going to fall she just gets this wide eyed look of panic on her face. I don't think it has anything to do with her falling down some of the stairs a while back...

We are almost finished with our latest house project. We decided to put in a flagstone patio, walkway, and sidewalk. It's really expensive to buy the rock, so we have just been getting it from the BLM rock quarry down by St. George. We made four trips with the truck and a trailer, but we finally got enough. Now all we have left is to just finish arranging the rocks and then leveling them and filling them in with sand. It was tons of hard work, but we already like the look of it and we aren't finished with it yet. I'll post pictures when we are done, hopefully later this week. Here are a few pictures of us getting the rock. Jacob and I did all, well, most of the work, while the girls played in the truck. We moved the front seats forward and they actually had tons of room in the back seat to play and eat while we loaded the truck. Sometimes they got out and added a few rocks to the truck. Big helpers!

We tried to get the biggest, flattest rocks we could. My husband is kind of wimpy, so we weren't able to get the tiny rock in the first picture in the truck. Actually, Jacob is very strong and so often I would say a rock was just too heavy and impossible to move and the next thing I know he would somehow have it in the truck. Jacob told the girls to make a face like they were working hard. Kelli just thought it was funny.