Overheard Yesterday

Yesterday I heard Haley say the following to her cousin:

"My mom works at night and gets paid money and my dad works in the day and gets paid money so soon we will be able to live in a castle. Ahhh, I wish I was the princess of the world!"

It just made me smile. She is sure the princess of my world.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I am loving Christmas already this year. We started out our festivities last Saturday with the Kemp family Christmas party at our house. And we haven't stopped playing since. We have had numerous cousins sleeping over every night since then. And it has been so much fun. Hyrum came to stay with us Saturday night and was here until yesterday. John and Leanne's family stayed with us Monday and Tuesday night. And Kenna slept over Tuesday night as well. So, it's been a great big party all week long. And then Anna has been over off an on to play because she has been staying with Jon and Mijoung. We've been sledding, shopping, watching movies, eating a lot of treats, and just enjoying everyone's company. Kim and Ryan also came over Tuesday night to join the crowd for watching the BYU bowl game. It has been so much fun. I love that my kids love all their cousins so much. They are in heaven when they can just play all day (and night) with them. Yesterday afternoon Kim took Britton and Haley to her house for a sleepover, so Jason and I were able to get the rest of our shopping done. Britton ended up coming home late last night, but we will go over to get Haley and hang out for a bit. Then, it's off to Sheryl and Ryan's for the Christmas Eve party. What fun. I love Christmas!

9 Years

Today is my 9th anniversary.

Jason and I are both sick, exhausted, and stressed beyond stressed.

Not exactly the romantic anniversary one envisions.

However, I wouldn't want to be sick, tired, and stressed with anyone else!

It's been a great 9 years--here's to 90 more!

Yesterday Britton bought himself a guitar with money he's been saving for quite a while.

We were totally going to get him one for Christmas. Now what do we do?

But, he was so excited when he saw it and realized he had enough money for it. He has been playing it ever since. This morning when he got up, the first thing he said was, "I can't believe I really have a guitar." It's so cute.

My Job

I started working again about 6 weeks ago. I don't work a lot (about 15 hours a week), but it's at night, so it has completely thrown any schedule we did have completely out of whack. But, I really love my job and I think it is such a blessing in our life right now.

For a while, I had been thinking about getting a job on nights or weekends, when Jason is home, but I am a teacher and there aren't a whole lot of teaching jobs on nights and weekends. So, I feel very fortunate to have found this job. I teach English over the internet to kids in Korea. It is really cool how it all works out. I teach 14 classes a week right now and each class has, at most, 10 students in it. My students are ages 7-12. The classrooms are set up so that I can see all the students at the same time and they have a big screen so that they can see me. There is a Korean teacher in the room to help with discipline and translating when needed, but I am their main teacher. I love that I found a job that allows me to work at nights while my kids are both asleep AND teach. Right now, I have to go into the office to teach, but after another month or so I will be able to teach from home, so that will be even better. It has been really fun so far. The kids are great. The curriculum is really organized with lesson plans already prepared, but I can still add my own little games and personality to it. I'm excited to get teaching experience like this too as I think there will be more and more opportunities for online teaching in the future. It's definitely different than what I am used to because I am limited in the things I can do since I am not actually in the class with them. But, it's a fun challenge trying to think of fun interesting things to do and show them so they aren't just staring at my face the whole lesson. I'm amazed at how interactive I can still be. We play games all the time and I show pictures and objects and bring props. They really are a blast and they love every silly little thing that I can come up with. The technology is really amazing and I'm learning so much. Another thing I love is that from month to month, I can work as little or as much as I want. So, I can go down to one hour a week for a while to stay in the company, if needed.

Even though I really enjoy my job, it still has been a major adjustment for us. I don't get home until 3 or 4 in the morning most nights. Luckily, Jason works for himself, so he has started getting the kids up and ready and taking Britton to school at 9 on his way to work. That's when I usually get up to be with Haley. But, still that's a lot later than I used to get to sleep in. So far, it's working. I sometimes nap after Haley goes to school. Also, if I'm extra tired or know I have something important in the afternoon, Jason has been able to stay home all morning and be with Haley so I can sleep. One day my mom took Haley all morning so I could sleep too. So, I at least have options so that I can rest enough. It has really helped me be a lot more organized and prioritize my time a lot better. I have had to let go of a lot of things that I used to do so that I can get the day to day home things done. And then some days, nothing gets done because I choose to just sleep the whole 4 hours that Haley is at school. And that's okay.

Mostly, I'm just grateful that this job came along right at the perfect time.

Britton

I was just playing around with photos the other day and I made this collage of Britton. He is such a fun, handsome kid. I'm so glad that I am his mom.

My Two Little Monkeys

I just overheard Britton and Haley playing. Britton is opening up the "School of the Monkeys" and Haley is his first pupil. They are picking out uniforms right now. Can't wait to see what he teaches her...

My thoughts for today

It's been a really long time since I have been good about blogging regularly. I don't really know what it is keeping me from it. The other day I went back through the archives and read some of what we were doing a year ago and it made me so grateful that I had recorded so much. And it's the small things that I really enjoy reading about. It's fun to look back on the big events too, but those things seem to stay in my mind anyway. So, it's all the cute things my kids do and say that I love to look back on and read. I'm hoping I can be better once again.

It feels like time is flying by at the speed of light lately. I barely realized October was over and then Thanksgiving was here. And now Christmas is a short few weeks away. I constantly feel a pull at me to slow down and let go of things that aren't important. But, it's easier said than done.

The last few months have been stressful and hard for our family for many different reasons. But, it's also been full of miracles and blessings. Things have happened that remind me once again of how much Heavenly Father knows our little family and watches out for us and blesses us with things beyond our understanding. He knows the desires of our hearts, of this I am sure.

Grateful

Reading Time

For Britton's daily reading time, lately he has chosen to read the Old Testament. The other day he asked me for a scripture marker so he could mark the parts he likes. I gave him one, but I just assumed he would randomly mark things for fun. But, I was glancing through his scriptures and read some of the parts he marked and could tell that he really was giving it thought and marking things that spoke to him. My favorite part that I saw was that he marked just the phrase, "he made the stars also" from where God was creating the earth and heavens. It just made me smile that Britton decided to mark that part because he has always loved the stars and anything to do with space. I could just feel his gratitude that God has made stars for us to enjoy.

Sunrise

This morning, Haley came into my room right next to my bed and said, "I know it's still night time, but I want to watch the sunrise with you."

And even though I'm really sleep deprived and this is the only day I can sleep in, I just could not resist that little girl.

Halloween

Haley was a Butterfly Princess for Halloween.

Britton chose not to dress up at all (how is he MY kid?). He didn't want to dress up for the ward party, for school, and he didn't want to go trick or treating at all. He wanted to hand out the candy and tally up how many "customers" we got. Too funny. And so him.

This might have been the cheapest Halloween in history since Haley already had a princess dress and we just bought a few butterfly accessories. Nice. And easy.

But, we had a great time.

Exchange Student

About a month ago, we had an exchange student from Japan come to stay with us for a week. His name was Shinichi and he is 15. It was a lot of fun for my family. We did a lot of fun things, bowling, went to the cabin, BYU football game, temple square, went to the movies, and then there was a big dinner for all the students the night before they left. We packed a lot in since he was gone to school things all day and we only had him in the evenings. Here are a few bowling pics. It was his first time and he definitely was a natural. He beat all of us by quite a lot.


Good form!

William's 100 Day Party!

A few weeks ago, we got to celebrate William's 100th day old. It's a big celebration day in Korea when a baby turns 100 days old. Enjoy the pictures.



Look at all the yummy food we had! Mijoung is such a good cook.

Playing Catch Up

I don't know why it's been so hard for me to get around to blogging these days. Here are some pics from a LONG time ago.


THANKSGIVING POINT DINOSAUR MUSEUM w/ Cousins and Grandparents

Dig, Dig, Digging

Anna and Jacob
Reed and Emily
Haley and Stripey
Haley
John and Reed
Chloie
Anna with Grandma in the background
Britton and Anna
Scary Haley
Cute Haley with crazy hair


CHERRY HILL ELEMENTARY CARNIVAL

Haley and Chloie
Haley and Chloie
Britton and Isaac
Britton and Isaac

Attracting Nocturnals

Britton came in the other day and said, "I wish I was nocturnal."

I just smiled, but I was thinking, "You mean you're not?"

He has never been a good sleeper. He's always been a night owl. He can stay up and up and up. It doesn't matter what we do to try to enforce an early bedtime, he just isn't tired. If he has a sleepover with cousins or friends, he is always the last one asleep. If we're having a late game night, he has to stay up just as late as we do. And he loves the night time. He loves the stars and moon.

He's not the only nocturnal creature around these parts. Several years ago, we had 4 owls living in our big tree in the backyard. They were so cute.

Then, this summer, apparently we had several raccoons living somewhere in our backyard, feasting on our neighbors gardens. We never actually saw them, but our neighbors did and they were able to catch them and get rid of them.

And just the other day, the kids came running in, telling me they found a bat. I didn't really believe them. So I went outside. And, in a crevice of our tree, sure enough, there was a tiny, little bat hanging upside down, sleeping soundly. It was actually quite cute. I went out today to try to take a picture, but it was gone. I don't mind that it's gone since I didn't want my kids getting anywhere near it.

So, what will be our next visitor? A tarantula? A hedgehog? My kid's love Sonic, the hedgehog. Or how about a cute little one of these? Who knows, maybe we'll even have a visit from Lupin one of these full moons.

Whatever it is, chances are, Britton will be up waiting.

His Work Never Ends

Jason cleaning out his trailor.

He said I could help him, but, being the good wife that I am, I decided to take pictures and blog about it instead.

Sunday Mornings

Two Sundays ago, Britton got up and quickly got ready for church and then started begging to go to church at about 8:30 am. Our church doesn't start until 11:00, but he was very persistent about wanting to go right then and not waiting until 11:00. He was practically in tears. It was really strange. So, instead of going to church and waiting in the foyer for 3 hours, I decided to take him to the temple grounds. It was the right decision. Once we stepped on the temple grounds, he was happy and peaceful. It was a beautiful day and the flowers were gorgeous.

Love these two so much!