June Part 2

Here are some pictures! Jeff and Laurie sent Papa a Papa shirt for Father's Day, and the rest of his presents were from Dollar Tree. 😅

Benji got his official permit!

And here are pictures of us at China Face. Harry was sad. He'd just woken up from his nap and his leg hurt.

Henry decided this week that he was done with swimming lessons. He just kept trying to run away, and when he wasn't running away he was crying while they held him. He just wanted his towel. He was cold. Poor guy. I finally decided I'm done making him do it. He likes to go so he can get a candy and a lunch, but that's it. It's funny, though, because at the EAC pool he's a regular fish. He pops his floatie, goes right in there and swims around and around all happy. 

One day this week I was thawing chicken to cook for dinner, and Bubby said, "Just don't put grass on it. I don't like grass on my chicken." I told him its not grass. It's rosemary. And I was going to do lemon pepper instead this time. His response: "I don't want lemon paper!" 😅 He did concede to my putting "grass" on the sweet potatoes, though. And the chicken does have "lemon paper" because I'm sneaky.

We worked on driving this week. Benji's eager to drive, so he's bee driving nearly every day. Joshua doesn't want to be reminded, but he doesn't seem to remember himself, so he hasn't been as much.

Michael has been working on Secrets on his cello and it's coming along. He had a birthday party for his buddy Tim on Friday. 

Benji decided he's doing college next semester. We'll put him in intro to auto shop or whatever it is, along with Men's Chorus. It'll be fun having two in there. Michael might be able to start college in January. Benji will be old enough for the GED in December, right when he gets his license. 😬 I hope Joshua and Benji can both have licenses before the year is out. 

Joshua has signed up for classes. I hope it'll go well. He has Men's Chorus and then watercolor with Andra, and he's happy about those. It could be a good semester. He's also doing English 102 and World Art and I think one other. It'll be a full schedule. I think 15 credits. I hope the fun classes will balance out the not so fun ones and that he can pass fine. The good thing is he has no more math to do for this major.

I think that's it for now. 

Sure love you! Hope you're sleeping well!

Love,

Mommy

These first few pictures are from China Taste.  Timmy decided to get a shrimp and try it.  But mostly he just looked at it like this.  One of the workers came by and saw and said, "Aren't you going to eat it?  Maybe your mom will shell it for you."  I said, "NO."  She walked away laughing.  Ew.  Gross.  He didn't eat it, and I don't blame him.

Benji's permit came in the mail.

Father's Day shirt from Jeff and Laurie

Hey, Elder Burk!

Hooray that it's Monday in the morning and I get to hear from you! I love Mondays!

I feel a little guilty that I never did birthday parties for you guys with your friends. But honestly, I never knew how to find your friends. All of these that Jill wanted to invite I was able to find pretty easily! Most were in our ward, and for another couple I already had their mom's contact information. So I guess I can't fault myself too much. We did have some fun parties with your cousins anyway. 

Anyway, Jill's party was really fun. I was kind of surprised. She invited Elwyn, and that meant that Michael came too. And Joshua came because he wanted cake and ice cream. Joshua and Michael are fun. And Elwyn is fun. And it was fun to get to know Jill's friends a bit. She has some cute, nice friends. I think we'll have to invite them over one at a time sometime.

Val came over that day too. It think it was to wish Jill a happy birthday. And because he was there his girlfriend came too. They stayed for cake. Red velvet with whipped cream frosting. Honestly, I don't really love red velvet unless it has cream cheese frosting, and the whipped cream stuff is getting old... But she had fun frosting both of those cakes. 

There's a picture in here with Bubby perched on Papa's leg. I just thought it was funny, so I took a picture. 

There's a picture of Henry in line at swimming lessons. Those last few days he decided he really did want to do lessons after all, and he had a blast. I though all those little guys lined up were so cute!

Jill got a necklace and bracelet from Elwyn. She got purple headphones. I got her a fan from Mt. Vernon, and Papa got her ruby slippers socks.

Bubby and Henry keep making dirt clods and smashing them. We had it all over the table by the grill and the porch. I can't really blame them. That's good fun.

I think Papa told you we went to church at the rest home. I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I'd been to rest homes several times, but never to church there. They like families to come to their branch. Those poor old people never really get to see kids otherwise. I led the music, and we sang I Love To See The Temple for a musical number. My phone decided to read the words instead of playing the music, so we turned that off and sang A Capella. (It played the music for me on Saturday!) That's ok. Papa gave a nice 5 minute talk. It really touched me how the people who are called to serve in that branch just love the people. The branch president went around with Michael as he passed the sacrament, and he lovingly asked each one if they'd like to take the sacrament, and then he helped them do it. He just looked so happy to be there helping. It was neat. I'm so glad we got to go. Also, Jill was afraid at first and didn't want to sing, but she did sing, and then she decided she wanted to drive people to their rooms, and she drove 4 of them and loved it. :)

I'ma send another email with a few more pictures. Henry spent a lot of time drawing two pictures. The big orange scribble is me, and the one with the little groups of scribbles that he worked long and hard on is "Bubby Signing Time." Ha! Also, I have a picture of Michael at Jill's party.

And speaking of parties, did you hear about the party Benji was invited to? Shaylee Hunt invited a few girls and also Benji and his good buddy Nathan. But Nathan never got the invitation, so Benji was the only boy who showed up. The played Mario Kart for FIVE HOURS. He gave her Magic cards and a necklace and came home happy. She wore that necklace to church today. Ooooooooooooooooo Benji! ;) (He's had a crush on her for a while, but don't tell him I told you. I like those Hunt girls, though. They're good girls.)

I think that's enough for now. I need to get to bed. 

Love you so much, Hyrum! We pray for you and for the people you're teaching. Let us know if there's anyone or anything specific we can pray for. 😊

Love, 

Mommy

Other pictures:

That one of Harry holding his pocket was from today. He woke up grouchy, but it made him happy when I told him he could take some cars to church. So when I got him dressed he stuffed his pocket with 4 cars. 😅 I'ma have to sew it back up a little because the seam is coming undone a bit.

I bought real vanilla from a girl who grew up in the colonies in Mexico and goes back to visit now and then.  I love it!  It smells so good and brings back fond memories of making cookies at home in St. Johns.  But alas, Benji thinks it tastes all wrong and complains loudly whenever I use it.

Timmy likes to make me reminders whenever I till him I'll do something tomorrow or whatever.  He is crazy about apples, so when we run out of apples that's a big deal.  He put this one by my computer.

That's Henry at the back of the line.  He LOVED waiting in line.  Ha ha!

Henry's artwork - I wish I remembered what he said these are!  He spent a lot of time on them.

This fire was across from the gym when I came out one morning.  I wonder what was on fire.  That's an ADOT maintenance yard or something like that.

Dirt clods are the best!

Jill's birthday party at the park

The girl on Jill's right is Teleysha Hunt Smith's girl Hannah.  I really like her.

Elwyn Lash is Michael's age, but Jill just loves her.  Shee's in the middle leaning toward the girl in blue.

I didn't dress Henry for swimming because he would never actually go in the splash pad part of the playground.  This time he did, though!

Unwrapping purple headphones

Fan from Mt. Vernon

Ruby slipper socks from the Museum of American History

I kind of gave up on Les Mis several pages after this.  I'm still about halfway, and I do intend to finish.  It's just a a lot.  I needed a break, especially on top of my breakneck scripture reading schedule!

So I figure last Monday the power must have gone out before you could email.  Sister Ashby says Elder Ashby told her a storm was moving in, so it probably knocked out the power? Anyway, I missed ya!  I'm excited to hear from you tomorrow!

Not much happened this week.  It was a lull between swimming lessons sessions, so I kind of took it easy.  I slept in (yea!).  I went to the gym and read my scriptures.  We did get Benji registered for college.  I think we got all his forms in.  Fingers crossed!  He'll take the intro to auto shop class and Men's Chorus.  It'll be cool having 2 of you in there!  And in the spring Michael can do it too.  It'll be great!  

I did some more work toward getting ready to teach for Prenda.  I'm a little nervous, but I think that Timmy and Bubby will both love it.  So far I have 3 kids who aren't mine, for a total of 5, and I can have up to 8 total.  But 5 students means $1600/month.  I like that.  One of the girls, though, has ADHD, and I'm not sure how that will be.  That makes me nervous.  But I agree with her mom that because of her circumstances a regular public school is not the place for her.  So we'll see what happens.  I think all I have left is more training and a home inspection.  And then I can set up my school calendar and stuff.  Yikes.

We signed the 4 younger kiddos up for swimming lessons again.  I think it'll be good.  Timmy will be mad because he doesn't get to move on to swordfish, but he's already going to be mad if I try to leave for swimming lessons without him (cuz I can't go anywhere without him, right?).  We'll see how that goes.  Everyone else is excited.

The Burk reunion is coming up in July.  We're probably only going to go to one day of it, but I'm glad about that.  That means I don't have to pack.  They want to do a slideshow, and Papa volunteered to do that.  Last time we made one nobody watched it.  That was a bummer.  Hopefully this one will go better.  Becca planned out this whole schedule of events, and I'm just like, "I'm not doing the stupid cornhole tournament, and the kiddos won't want a schedule of events anyway.  I'll be out at the playground pushing Bubby if you need me."  Ha ha!  I do want to buy the game Twister to take there.  I loved that game as a kid.  And I like that if you fall down and lose you get to do the spinner.  That's not a bad thing.  I hope it's nice and cool up there like it was last year.

Last night the Hatches had us come over for dinner.  I made 2 pans of Guadalupe poopy.  It was yummy.  We also had burgers.  And then the little guys watched a movie while us big people played a card game.  Sister Hatch and I won.  Yea!  I don't remember what it was called.  It was kind of complicated to learn, but it was fun. :)

The Steam summer sale started.  Papa and I bought Neverwinter Nights because Papa wanted us to play it together, but then he realized he was really thinking about Baldur's Gate, so we both refunded it, and now we're back where we started.  Ha ha!  I just want to do Warcraft.  The fire festival is going on.  Waaaaah!  Oh, well.  I don't really have time for such things anyway. :)

I can't think of anything else to say.

I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here's Jill with the Rubik's cube she got for her birthday.  She can make a flower and then get it back to solved, but that's about it.  She loves it and plays with it all the time.  And here's Benji putting on his socks. :) He and Joshua are both really improving in their driving skills.  It's great!  Joshua never wants to go driving, so Benji has improved faster.  I can now text people while he's driving and not be worried.  He's going to be quite ready when he turns 16.  Hopefully Joshua will be ready at the same time!

Love you so much!  We think about you all the time, and we pray for you every day.  Hope you have a great week!  (Also, it's fun to hear how you've been so happy and doing so well.  And it's fun to be able to tell people you're doing great whenever they ask.  Ha!)

Love you!

Mommy

Last summer for about a month Benji, Michael, and I all had the Harry Potter game on our phones. It's like Pokemon Go where you walk to make things happen.  Anyway, I decided I didn't like it because there was too much to do on it, too many things to take care of.  I couldn't do that and Pokemon Go both.  So I got rid of it.  But first we played with the portrait tools that make you look like Hagrid or give you a witch hat.  Here's Jeremy.  Ha ha!

Timmy

Bubby

Jill

Michael

June Part 1

Here we are 9 months later, but I really do want to catch up.  It's spring break now, so I guess I finally have time!  A lot of these pictures I don't even remember.  Some just don't really need an explanation.  I think what I'm going to do is just plop in my emails to Hyrum and call it good unless something really needs a caption.  So here we go!

Hi!

This week Benji turned 15 1/2 and passed his driver permit test on the very day that he was finally old enough to take it. I sure wish we knew about the practice tests when you were doing it!! Anyway, he's way excited and wants to drive all the time. So he's been driving some and Joshua's been driving more too. They're both scary. But we haven't crashed yet. I feel like this is the next big step after potty training, though, and we've still got a bunch of kids to go, and that's terrifying. I'm not a very calm driver's ed teacher.

We started swimming lessons. Henry's old enough this year, so he's doing it too. The first day he kept leaving his class and wouldn't stay unless I sat right there with him. Then the next day he mostly just stayed in class. He did mostly ok, though, until Thursday. That day there was a breeze, and he does NOT like being cold, so he kept trying to come and get his towel. Finally, one of the teachers just held him, but he was not happy about that. He just wanted Mommy. Then that teacher decided to dunk him. It's a swimming lessons thing. They say, "OK, were going to go under the water," and then they bounce and count to 3 and then bob down under with the kid they're holding. That was the last straw. He freaked out and cried for the rest of the lesson. (These teachers really are nice people. They're just not Mommy.) The other guys are doing good. I didn't get a lot of pictures yet. Maybe today. Bubby is getting more brave. He can bob himself down and back up, but he'll only do it during swimming lessons. He's still terrified of "going down." He'll get it, though. I keep telling him that swimming lessons are to teach you to stay up all by yourself, and to go down and come right back up again.

We also went camping on Friday. It just needed to happen. We'd talked about it, so I went and bought all the stuff. And then I got overwhelmed trying to pack everything myself. And Papa was tired. He wanted to cancel, but I feel like we've cancelled too many times, and it wasn't even windy, so we didn't have a real excuse. So Michael and I knuckled down and got it done. We got a burger on the way up the mountain, so nobody was way hungry when we got there. That was nice. We didn't even have to make dinner. We just ate some chips and cookies and went to bed. Our neighbors had a camp trailer, and even though they were supposed to turn it off at 10:00 because camp rules say that's quiet time, they left it running all night long. They had a newborn baby and didn't want him to be uncomfortable, so I guess they were running the cooler or heater or something. Anyway, it was frustrating! I woke up several times and that stupid thing was still buzzing away. I was so happy when the ranger came and lectured them in the morning. It sounds like if anyone had complained at them in the night he could have given them a citation. But nobody did. It was so nice when they finally turned it off. I was sad that it drowned out all the night sounds all night. Oh, well. It really was a nice trip anyway. We didn't do anything fancy. I didn't even bring eggs to cook because I was tired of looking for things and I didn't know where the egg container was. But we had pancakes and bacon. Do you see the face on my little pancake? Ha ha!

I think that's enough for now. Sure love you! I look forward to hearing from you! ❤️

Love, Mommy

I think Timmy was happy because he made this nest of pine needles.

Henry and Bubby in back and Joey and Charlie Cline in front

Charlie was Timmy's best friend in kindergarten, and also, their mom is Hyla Machula Cline, who grew up in Globe.  So she's an old friend too.  We had fun seeing them at swimming lessons.

Jill's class finished first, so she went and got her sucker and came to wait for the little guys.

I cut this out of the newspaper when I was like 12 because I thought it was so funny.  I laminated it with clear tape.  I still think it's so funny.  Jeremy has it on the wall next to his dresser.

Henry found Jill's nail polish.  So pretty!

I found this stuck in our mailbox one day.  We did go have a fun time at China Taste!  It's Jeremy's favorite.  The more I look at this, the more I think that's got to be Kenzie's handwriting!  I wonder...  Either way, there are such nice people here!