Smiling Kids (Big Happenings!)

Elizabeth got her drivers license last week. Look out world! She is excited to have her freedom. Mom and Dad are excited to let her drive herself to her many activities. (Check out those COOL wheels!)


Elizabeth was one of eight students that qualified for the AMA's math contest "Who Wants to be a Mathematician." At the competition she took 2nd place. The whole Empire High School Math Club showed up to cheer for her. She truly is a MATH DEMON.


Charlie has discovered electricity. After learning about circuits in school, he told us he wanted to build one. Scott gave him a little direction and the materials. Before we knew it Charlie was in the backyard building a circuit. After some trial and error, he got it to work!

Halloween Costumes

Anne offered to sew Isabelle a dalmation costume this year. She did a great job! Janet made her own costume! Anne made one for herself. Mom sewed Charlie's Voldemort costume.

That left Elizabeth....She wanted to be Giselle from Enchanted. But I wasn't really sure I was up to that much sewing. So I put her off for quite a while. Finally a week before Halloween everyone had a costume but her, and the "Mom guilt" set in. So off we went to the fabric store. Each day I worked on the costume a little knowing that the night of October 30th I would probably have a lot of work to do. Well that was an underestimation on my part. Thursday night I got the kids to bed and really dug in. I thought I would probably be done between midnight and 1:00 AM. Well, at 6:30 in the morning when Elizabeth was supposed to leave for Seminary I was STILL sewing. I didn't finish until 7:30 when we took a few quick pictures and sent her off to school. I was exhausted.

Was it worth it? Absolutely! The smile on Elizabeth's face made every stitch worth all the time and effort. Some times you just have to sacrifice a little time and sleep as a Mom. It was a morning I will always remember.

One last thing. This was Charlie's program from October 30th. His part was so adorable. The video was taken from behind the piano, where I was, but is still so cute. Right after he said his part they sang "Do You Love Me"!