Catch Up June 2016

last week Emma had girls' camp. It can be summed up like this:

"Emma, how's it going?"
Emma - "Well, I wish there was a window to jump out of so I could be at the hospital instead of here."
"Ummmmm"

And best text from Jack while we were gone?

"Mom. I was attacked by the cat for no reason at all and now I have a bandaid on my lip and on my nipple."

I may have cried laughing.

As for me? I loved Girls' Camp. I got to run the water sports, and was Queen Mermaid (Peter Pan theme), so this past week pretty much rocked :-)

TO-daaaaay

Today was gorgeous and hot.
I soaked it up ALLLL day.
Jack hates it.

Mike and Jack are at a campout tonight. Me and Emma are having a girls' night :-)

With my kids today -
JACK (when we're within sight of our house after the 1/2 mile walk from the bus stop), "Mom, you know how some people get energy from the sun, like plants and stuff?"
Me "Yep."
"I'm the opposite. The sun is sucking all the energy out of me."
Me "But VITAMIN D!!!"
Jack "My chocolate milk box says it has Vitamin D."

And then EMMA.
We sat down w/ our cookie dough to watch the first episode of FRIENDS and Emma says, "MOM! THESE NINETIES CLOTHES AND BAD HAIR ARE MURDERING MY EYES!!"
I also felt super old when I had to explain that when you leave someone a message on an answering machine, it cuts you off.

SIMS

Today, Emma and Jack spent about an hour creating all of the characters from Star Wars as SIMS.
I love those two.

Photo Catch-Up

THANK YOU GRAMMA, FOR THE PICS!!!

End of March wrap-up...

ME, TRYING TO HELP JACK WITH HIS MATH THIS MORNING:
Me: Let's pretend you have two socks.
Jack: But I have two socks.
Me: Okay, then. So now let's pretend you need five.
Jack: Why would I need five socks?
Me: I don't know, you just do.
Jack: *gives me a weird look*
Me: Fine. You grew three new legs overnight, and now you need three more socks.
Jack: *stares down at his legs* I don't get it mom, where would the legs grow out of? This is a super creepy question. I mean would they come out of my side? Or my butt? Or my knees? *he twists around* or maybe out of here... I don't get it. And how would I get five shoes? They sell shoes in pairs. There are so many problems with this.
Me: I'm trying to help you with your math.
Jack: Can you do it in a different way? Please? I'm all creeped out by my new legs.
Me: Fair enough.

~ ~ ~

Emma made honor choir this year, and gets to take two days off of school before her concert Friday night. FUN!!

Jack's pinewood derby was tonight. He won easy last year, this year wasn't quite as spectacular, but his friend Ryder came with us, which made it a little extra fun for everyone. Lots of singing to Imagine Dragons happened on the drive home.

Jolene and Emma are gearing up for the week-long trip to Utah. 
We're all getting excited about heading out to WAJEMJACHA!

Jolene finished up her stint as the Writer in Residence at APU :-)

Today

I'm not writing enough about my kids, so yanno? These posts are going to be more random and more for just us. I'm okay with this.

Jack asked, once again, if he could bring Danny O'Shea to church.
Um.
No.
(Danny is his dummy)
He did bring Danny to student-led conferences, where Danny helped a great deal, and made Mrs. Hamman laugh and the office staff all say - Of COURSE Jack has a dummy. OF COURSE.

Emma's choir concert was on Wednesday, and her awesome, awesome choir teacher picked songs about peace and acceptance and one that was written for the people coming through Ellis Island. So inspiring, especially at this scary time in our nation's history with so much hate being cheered.

Today, as we left for church, Emma was quite sure she was very sick. She folded herself into a ball in the car as we drove to church, but at least she was able to wear her new dress. ALL IS NOT LOST!

Today it was announced that the Wasilla Stake is being turned into two stakes! This has been a long time coming, but I know that next Sunday will be the last Sunday with our amazing ward, and if we're split up, I'm going to lose sooo many of my wonderful, favorite, people. Always a happy/sad kind of thing.

We spent the day watching Lab Rats (Mike and kids), making cookies (Me and Emma - After once again knocking on neighbor's doors until we found an egg - Ok. FiNE. We texted around until I found someone who was home, and THEN we went walking to get an egg).

Me and Jack went for a walk/bike ride down the street. Our kids are such a fun, perfect, delightful age right now. I wish I could bottle them and keep them this age forever. Or...at least longer than I know it'll last.

Oh! HAIR. This has been a "THING" around here lately.
Emma's hair was purple back in the fall. That faded out and we tried to cover it over with brown. As that grew out we thought highlights would help, but since there was purple under that brown, her highlights are a mix of blond and pink. SHE LOVES THIS. (Whew!)

Jack wants to be Erkle. (Is that how you spell it? I'll look later on). Not really, b/c he doesn't know who that is, but he's gotten in the habit of slicking his hair over to the side and wearing his pants slightly too high.
What makes a kid do this?
Well... At the moment, I blame his father for all of the Three Stooges episodes...

Emma made honor choir!! She'll get to miss two days of school, which will be followed by a concert that I'm so excited to go see.

Mike is gearing up for another murder trial.
Jolene is finishing up two novels. She's currently reading the Space Between to Mike, and Fairwoods was just sent off to her agent.
The cat stayed out all night last night, causing Jolene so much worry she didn't get much sleep.
Sadee is crashed on Emma's bed (Mike and Jolene won't let her on theirs, and Emma's is softer anyway).
Tonight, Flash is sleeping right where Jolene would like her feet.
SOMETIMES this is okay, but only when Jolene's feet are cold.

And that's my Sunday catch-up.
I hope to get the kids more involved next Sunday. We'll see... 1-4 church is a tricky kind of beast ;-)

Socks

I find it really funny that when I ask Jack to get socks, he just randomly picks up two socks - no regard to color, texture, anything...

Emma, on the other hand, is teenagery enough that she doesn't often wear socks to school, even though it's WINTER.

Another Jack thought

"Mom and Dad. You know why I really like classical music?"
Us, "Why?"
"Because Kidz Bop can't ruin it."

Can't really argue with that logic.

Aaaaaand this is Jack

So a friend from church who lives down the street related a story to me tonight about my son. He said he saw Jack walking down the road and asked if he wanted a ride home. Jack has a hard time recognizing people when they aren't where he's used to seeing them. So he told our friend, "Well, ya know that whole stranger danger thing? Yeah, I'm not into that."

Good grief, I love this kid.

9th bday and Goosebumps

Just going to do a supah quick post, b/c I can't keep up with the pics and the writing and all the things...

Jack had a FUN bday, filled w/ minecraft legos. I'm going to miss this phase.
Emma's working on a PP presentation on Queen Hatshepsut - wow has technology changed since I was in high school ;-)

After watching the Goosebumps movie in the theater, Jack has been on a kick at home as well. They're worth watching just for Emma's commentary:

"Hey kids, your grandparents are creepy. Just thought you should know."

"Hey, kid. If you open that door, you're an idiot."

"Why would even do that?"

"Oh, well. You're going to die now, and this will be the shortest show ever."

"You really should just let that monster eat the annoying kid with you. I'm sure you can outrun him."

These kids crack me up...

Jack is Baptized!

How we started baptism day...

Like Mike said - this is the only time you'll get to go to church in bare feet ;-)

Our Stake does baptisms for the kiddos the second Saturday. Jack LOVED that his buddy Jack, and his twin, Hazel, got to be baptized right after him. FUN TIMES.

Finished the day off with building Legos and a re-watch of Aladdin.

We both knew that once Jack decided he wanted to be baptized, he'd be excited, and that's exactly how it went. He turns 9 later this month, and I'm super proud of him for waiting until he was ready.

Fun times in the Perry family!

MISSING

I know.
With Facebook and Instagram, I'm terrible w/ keeping this up.

I'll go back and post some highlights... But not today.

Grammy Visits!

Mike's mom came up from UT to visit us for the month of October, so naturally, we had to drag her out onto the raft (it didn't take much convincing). Our "nice" fall days are few and far between, but even with the good weather AND the fire, we all froze a little...

And then we all played around in the "shed" full of toys - Jack was pretty proud of his roller skates (we use these under the skis and tracks of the snowmachines so they're easy to roll across the floor)

And Kay found a machine she might like to try... ;-)

Jack was very disappointed this wasn't coming home with us... Maybe something to ask Santa for, Jack...

One of MANY family trips to Hatcher's Pass...

April Bowl has always been one of our favorite hikes in Hatcher's pass, and this was the FIRST time Mike has  been able to make the trip with us - mostly b/c we're not patient enough to wait for him to come home from work.

 The trail takes only about 20 minutes to get up to the second set of lakes and past the waterfall. Switchbacks, and a LONG drop down...

Near the top!

 Mike is an expert rock skipper, and is always trying to help the kids. Sadee was super fascinated, which led to a lot of hilarity.

 Mike took a ton of geology classes in college, and we all find rocks pretty interesting, so we have to inspect. Also. There  are  gold mines up there for a reason...

 After SO many rocks had been tossed in the lake by Mike and the kids, Sadee was determined to pull one out for herself. She seriously dunked her whole head under the water to get the massive rock at her feet.

 Oh. This was also the day before our EIGHTEENTH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. Go us ;-)

And so it Begins...

SCHOOL.

Both kids whined about school until open house, and then they were both excited about school, and now, a few days into school, it has already lost its excitement ;-)

My little Emma started MIDDLE SCHOOL, which still makes my hyperventilate a little to think about... She is now in the land of schedules, lockers, and no more recess.

And here's Jack on his first day of school - the kid in the middle in the grey sweatshirt. He was most excited to learn that he got an OPENING DESK. Apparently when you're in elementary, this means you've arrived ;-)

A few pictures to catch up...

The force is still strong w/ my lego builders, and they're still forcing mini figures to walk the plank into the deep pit of the sink...

Mike still makes better fettuccine alfredo than any restaurant. Ever.

Jolene got ARCs (advanced reader copies) of her next book, which is super fun (should be in Barnes and Noble Sep 1)

Emma in a dress she and her mom designed together, and thrilled that Dad was able to get to the concert JUST in time

Emma and her "gang" of 5th grade choir pals

We still sometimes reign chaos in Dad's office...

Sitka roses in front of the house always make me happy, but they last for such a short time...

Jack took full advantage of the taxi service Emma started...

Adventures on our hike to one of the nearby lakes...

 Frogs...

 and swans...



We always spend a LOT of time in Hatcher's Pass since it's so close to where we live :-D

Jack helped build the raft at the Bagley grandparents' house - been a LOT of fun. More pics of this project soon...

Emma is getting to be a good kitchen helper

 And dog sitter...? (yes, the convertible is totally practical in Alaska - the whole family AND the dog can fit)

GOLF! our little 3 par nearby course is a blast.

More Hatcher's Pass w/ neighbor friend.

 Me and Sadee have a lot of fun together. Such a great dog.

And that's a quickie recap in pics :-D