Sarah Turns 16

How did we get here? We are here, nonetheless.

Saturday night after the funeral Sarah had a few friends over to make cookies and watch a movie. I didn't get any pictures of that but from my room I could tell it was quite giggly.

Sunday morning we had biscuit cinnamon rolls and chocolate milk before church. They turned out so good. I'm glad she loves cinnamon rolls as much as I do.

After church she went to choir practice while the rest of the kids made her menus for her to choose what she wanted for lunch. Then when Justin got home from meetings she opened her presents.

She asked for very few things and I was able to get all of them. New hair dryer, new black boots, a sweater, some vanilla wafers, wafer cookies, a book, a new phone case, new wallet and I surprised her with a keychain and her favorite ice cream, BYU's graham canyon.

She helped me bake her cake on Friday--lemon--then I made raspberry cream cheese frosting that afternoon. Raspberry lemonade cake. 

Do we look old enough to have a 16-year-old?

After our French dip dinner, grandparents came over for cake and presents. She got birthday money from my parents and a belt and some fast food gift cards from Justin's parents.

And then the next day I checked her out of second period to take her to the DMV to get her license. She drove herself there and then back to school. Then when she got home from school I let her drive to my mom's house less than a mile away but I was silently praying the entire time. Will it get easier? Tell me it gets easier to send them off driving on their own.

We sure love this girl. She is an atypical teenager in so many ways. She's happy and friendly and almost always willing to help. She's the go-to babysitter for a couple of families in our ward. She's crushing school--even with an AP history class.

 She loves her ASL and photography classes the most but she likes all of her classes. All of her teachers love her. She's serving in the class presidency at church and on our city's youth council. She doesn't like to play many board games but she's up for watching any movie. She'll read any book I recommend to her. She's easy-going and reasonable and super smart.

I have a sneaking suspicion she's going to blow both her parent's ACT scores next year when she takes the test. 

She has so many friends in so many groups and seems to bounce around and is happy about it. This is so different from my high school years. I had 4 best friends that I did everything with and another couple of groups of girls that we sometimes joined up with for other stuff. Justin was similar. But Sarah will hang out with her friends from elementary school one night, sit with her orchestra friends at lunch, watch a movie the next week with a couple of girls from our neighborhood and then stay late at a girl from our ward's house after a church activity the next day.

We love you Sarah!

*********Update 11/3/2024**********

We couldn't take her out for birthday brunch like we wanted to before her birthday because of the funeral so we went yesterday. We took her to TruReligion Pancake and Steakhouse because I told her all about the amazing cinnamon rolls. I asked the waitress to bring us two that had the most frosting. She brought them out with a small bowl of extra frosting! It was amazing to dip each piece of cinnamon roll into warm cream cheese frosting. 

She ordered a Monte Cristo sandwich, I got the cordon bleu crepes, and Justin ordered the chicken fried steak. 

Everything was delicious and Sarah said it was worth the week wait.

Fall Break, Sad News, End of Football

We've had unusually warm weather all fall. Like annoyingly warm weather. And then when we finally  have fall break from school, we get slammed with cold.

So Justin went camping. We had Thursday and Friday off of school so Justin took the littles up camping in preparation for the deer hunt starting Saturday. He borrowed a wall tent with a stove so he was prepared. Justin's parents also went up with their trailer.

This tent was huge. Justin has wanted a wall tent for years so this was a good way to test one out.

Meanwhile back at home the biggles traded rooms. This also required a 3-way bed trade since Sarah wanted her big queen bed to go with the bigger room downstairs. So now Sarah has a bigger room, bigger bed and her own bathroom. Henry has a smaller room, a regular twin bed instead of his squeaky loft bed, a walk-in closet, and across the hall from Erica and James which is what he likes--to be in the middle of everything. Erica got her twin bed back so she has the biggest room, small bed and it feels very spacious in there especially since I made her do a deep purge of her clutter.

It's so nice they are big enough to do the heavy lifting. I  helped a lot but they did most of the work.Meanwhile the littles were keeping cozy in the trailer playing games.

Despite not seeing any deer, they had a blast. Every time I talked to Erica, she would go on and on about what they saw and did. James is a man of few words on the phone.

Sarah went up Friday night then they all came home Saturday night and then Justin, Corey, and James went back up Monday morning and came back Tuesday morning because they got word that Corey's mother had passed away. 

It was a sad and abrupt end to their hunt. We are all still processing her passing and we will miss her.

Saturday was Grandma Kendall's funeral. We took the opportunity to take a big Dye family picture.

And a smaller Dye family picture.

From there Henry and I left to get him to his playoff game. They fought hard but had a disappoionting loss. I'm so proud they made it to the semifinals regardless. They improved so much over the course of the season. (Henry forgot to grab a shirt to wear under his pads so he's wearing the t-shirt I brought for myself to change into. Lucky for him and hilarious for me.)

He was more sad a couple of weeks ago when we picked him up from practice and realized it could have been his last practice. I think playing in two playoff games that extended his season helped in giving him more time to process the end of things. He's had so much fun and has learned a lot from his coaches and teammates. We'll see what happens next year since 9th graders can try out for the high school team or still play for this league.

Family Pictures 2024

I love this crew and I think the photos are worth the effort but family photos are not for the faint of heart.

Next time we do this I might have kids as tall as me.

This is how we do it

Around here general conference means cinnamon rolls. And I think these beauties are my best batch yet. I used this recipe but replaced 20% of the flour with gluten powder. (Give me all the gluten.) The texture was amazing and they were still great the next day. I smothered them with cream cheese frosting, of course.

Sunday morning these two went on a walk with me. I hoped the neighbors goats were out but we couldn't see them.

Sunday evening we went up the canyon to do family pictures. We do the the tri-pod plus timer thing and yours truly is the designated runner. If this photo doesn't sum up family pictures.....

And I didn't notice that one kid ruined 80% of the shots until we packed up. That earned us all another round of pictures.

This was after he poked James with a stick and made him cry (you can see his face is still red). Needless to say, James got Henry's "wear what I tell you to wear and smile when I say" good sport $1. I'll post some decent shots once I find one.

Monday, Henry had his first junior high orchestra concert. They played some fun songs and Henry was right on the end so we had a good view. They got to dress in costumes; he didn't come straight from football practice.

Tuesday was the elementary school's Fall Festival. It's the PTA fundraiser that my basket was for. Sarah got roped into helping out but she needed the service hours for youth city council so she was okay with that. I didn't get any other pictures of my kids because I spent what little time I was there watching the bid sheet for my basket then I had to go get Henry from football practice. I have no idea if the festival was a financial success but people looked like they were having fun.

My basket sold for like $150 so the family that won it got a steal of a deal. I saw them taking a group photo with it and they looked so excited.

Sarah took some great pictures of the northern lights.

Yesterday was James's best friend Calvin's baptism. Calvin looks so dapper in his suit.

These boys are so funny (missing Jay). I hope they are friends forever. 

Upset of the season, Henry's team won their first playoff game! They beat the number 2 team as the number 8 team so they fought hard. They have a break until the semifinals and I hope they feel ready. (Henry is second from the right, standing.)

That evening Calvin's and George's moms let James tag along to the Scarecrow Festival at the city park and sent me this picture.

So that's that. Work is going okay. I feel like I have lost more than 3 hours a day and don't get as much done each day as I'd like. I'll be glad when football season is over so I can have my Saturdays back and less driving around during the evenings. The student teacher is teaching solo for the next several weeks and the kids are so naughty for her I come home a little frazzled. I think it will get better once they get used to the idea that she's the teacher. She's talented and capable; they are just stinkers and there are 25 of them. I enjoy the work and most of the kids the kids most of the time. I am a pro with the laminator and will start next week doing one on one progress assessment which I know I will enjoy.