UPDATE

It has been a while since I have gotten around to blogging. Obviously I am slacking on writting to our missionary. Sorry Brad.
We are very excited as to how the Idaho elections turned out. Hooray! I am a little concerned about Boise though - as a city, Boise votes completely opposite of the rest of Idaho. That's what happens when people move here for our way of life - first thing they want to do when they get here is change it. Silliness!!
We have been very busy with life. We have been on fieldtrips and had fiddle recitals and such fun things as that. I always forget my camera - ugh! I will try to do better. We went to Planet Kid for a fieldtrip with the homeschool group. It was a blast! (Think giant McDonald's playplace minus the ketchup and the smell.) Grace learned to jump very far into the ball pit. It was so cute. When she first started, she could barely clear the edge; by the time we left, she was landing in the middle of the pit.
I have been keeping busy with my 5 Pillar group. I have had two papers due for it already this month and one more still to come soon. It has been fun, but it will be nice to take a break in December. The book we just did was Steven Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It is very good. I actually wrote my own mission statement this time through! Hopefully I will be able to incorporate more of the habits in my life this time too. I have listened to it before on tape a few years ago and we have been trying to use some of his ideas but I still have plenty of room for improvement.
Randy ran a half marathon a few weekends ago. He did really well. We were proud of our dad. I think he got 9th place out of almost 700 people.
Last Wednesday, at fiddle lessons, the kids got Jingle Bells for one of their songs. They both have it pretty much memorized already and Robyn can play it on the keyboard too. If only every song were that much fun! Grace likes to get her violin out and say she is going to play Jingle Bells. We had a fun time practicing this morning, I learned a few back up chord to Boil Em Cabbage Down and we had a jam session. It was really fun to play together like that. Robyn even learned Shortenin Bread so she could play more songs with Colin and I. We aren't exactly ready for a real show, but we had fun.
A few days ago we got Children's Miracle Music. It is AWESOME! It is two CDs - one for morning and one for night. 46 minutes before you want everyone ready for the day, you push play on the morning CD and nice music plays for 2 minutes. Then a pleasant voice says, "Wake up, it's time to play our game." She then instructs everyone to make their beds and a song plays that you have to have your bed made before it ends. Then you go potty to a song. Then you "Do your act of kindness" or take a bath for three songs. Then you get dressed and comb your hair. Then you have 8 songs to eat breakfast. (That is not quite enough for us to eat in so I pause the CD for a minute to read a story from the Friend and of course to say the meal prayer.) Then everyone rinses their dish and then brushes their teeth. Then you get to record the points you earned by beating the songs done with each task. When you earn 100 points you get to go on a private date with mom or dad. The bed time one starts with the Act of Kindness (some job you choose when you started the CDs the first time) or take a bath. Then you get your jammies on, brush your teeth, and go potty. Then it has five minutes of silence for family
and personal prayers. Then 22 minutes of soft go to sleep music which I read chapter books to the kids in their beds during. We have only had it a few days, but I love it! My house has never been so tidy and my children more willing to get things done quickly before. It really helps everyone stay focused on the task at hand. It keeps me focused so I don't get sidetracked and makes it so I don't have to get upset at anyone for getting sidetracked themselves. I love it. It has made bedtime easy as pie. Everyone stays in their beds after the story because the music ends and thus so does story time. I actually read for the full twenty minutes instead of feeling like it has been twenty minutes and bailing early. Good Stuff. I found it at www.childrensmiraclemusic.com from an ad from Meridian Magazine. Check it out!