Roland brought a camera to give to me for Christmas. Here are some of the photos that I took yesterday:
Showing posts with label Jenna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jenna. Show all posts
Saturday, January 11, 2014
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Killer Snow
Shortly after we moved to West Valley, Jenna started hanging at Alley’s house. Every once in a while Alley and her brother came over to our house, but usually Jenna went to theirs. I don’t know why they stopped playing together. But they haven’t been hanging around together for at least a couple of years.
Jenna and I
were waiting for the bus on Tuesday morning when Alley’s mom offered to drive
us to school. Her oldest attends the same junior high that Jenna will be
attending. She had already dropped him off but seemed willing to make
another trip. She said she was also willing to pick her up from school –
and the junior high gets out at least an hour before the elementary school
does.
So yesterday
she picked Jenna up and took her to school and we picked her up last
night. Today brought the killer snow, and she was still willing to drive
us. But as her children get out of school only five minutes after Jenna and the
weather was awful I told her we would find another way for coming home.
Jenna had a
pair of jelly shoes that she wanted to wear to the school performance today –
one that I had planned to attend. I told her to put her jelly shoes in
her backpack and she could wear them to the concert but that she needed her
boots on to wear to school and that she could change.
I didn’t know
whether I should just hang out at the school all day or return home for an hour
and a half and attempt to catch a bus back to the school. But when Jenna got
out of the car I realized she still had her jellys on and that I would have to
return home for her boots (as the falling snow STILL hasn’t stopped)
The distance
between Jenna’s school and our house is 10 min by car, 20 min by bus – except
for snow days, which are more than an hour. I waited for an early bus for
nearly half an hour. When I checked the time 20 minutes before her
program started, I realized I would not get there on time, as it was some
distance between the bus stop and the front of the school. So I turned
around and went home and figured I would return to catch a bus that would get
me to the school hopefully between 12:30 and 1:00.
As I waited, I
watched the news. Top stories and breaking news were all weather
related. Airport closed. Power poles snapped and caught on
fire. Many many many without power currently.
I boarded a bus
that arrived on time. Traffic was slow
getting to the intersection. After that
the bus seemed to speed up and actually had to wait at two stops as he had
arrived ahead of schedule. I was the
only passenger on the bus between my house and the school.
I was able to
climb the street to her school in less than 15 minutes. I was surprised when I walked through the
school doors and noticed the clock.
School wouldn’t be out for another hour.
But she didn’t wish for me to check her out early.
As we were
waiting for the bus, Jenna had to play in the snow banks, of course. She lost a boot in the process. I told her the bus was about to turn and she
worked at tugging her foot free. After
she got to the bus stop she realized that her boots didn’t match (one was just
lining) and her boot was still in the snow.
She managed to rescue it before the bus arrived – just in the nick of
time.
We usually take
the main road to/from school but on the return today we tried something
different. After school we took a route that required 3 transfers.
Outrageous, right? And yet that route took less than 30 minutes.
Unbelievable! It took the same amount of time to walk (or should I say
trudge rather) as it did to ride. We were home only an hour after school
let out – instead of the 2 ½ it took with the last snowfall that lasted all
day.
I actually saw
more plows out on the roads last time. I don’t think the weather issues
were as severe on the 3rd of December as they are today. Perhaps the closed roads had delayed the bus
I’d been waiting for this morning.
I shoveled the
sidewalks and driveway upon my return. A
neighbor assisted with the endless task.
I hope it’s still low enough as to where Roland can get in the driveway.
Thursday, December 12, 2013
There’s a Pink Monster Near My Parking Spot!
Regardless of what else she may say,
Jenna’s favorite season is winter. Okay,
she has admitted to not liking being cold.
But she’s got to admit that she LOVES the snow. Since she was little she
has been magnetized to it. Loves
climbing snow drifts, making snow angels, throwing snow, eating icicles,
drawing in the snow with icicles. Jenna
LOVES the snow!
We lived only five minutes away from
her first school. But we left the house
at least twenty minutes early to give her time to dawdle. The return home ALWAYS took twice as
long. But especially when there was
snow. Not a lot has changed in six years
– except the school and transportation. The
other day she hit every snowdrift between the school and bus stop – and may
have done it yesterday as well, but she forgot she said that she’d be helping
out after school, and so I didn’t even meet with her until an hour after school
got out.
Morning brings the same thing. Today the driver of the red pick up patiently
waited as Jenna played in the drift next to the spot where she wanted to park.
Monday, November 25, 2013
Weekend memory lapse and lack of responsibility
Jenna’s room was not the neatest we lived in our first house but at least she did know where things were for the most part. Over in West Valley I think she’s become less responsible with every passing year. Puberty has certainly not made things easier. She flies off the handle at every little suggestion.
I’ve been working on getting her to accept
responsibility. Pick up after herself.
Get ready on time. I’ve used rewards.
I’ve taken away privileges. I’ve
been nice. I’ve been ornery. Nothing has seemed to work.
Roland
worked only half a day on Friday and thus just happened to pick us up after
Jenna got out of school. Afterwards we ran errands and went shopping and did
not return to the house until after 6:00.
Before
Jenna exited the car I told her to be sure and grab her backpack. I specifically remember telling her to get it
now so that it wasn’t left in the car when dad went to work on Monday. Of course almost every child thinks he or she
knows better than the parent and Jenna is no exception. She said she would get it later.
On
Saturday before Roland went to work, I told Jenna that she should grab her
backpack. I told her that she could use
it to tote the origami Santas she wanted to pass out. Of course she didn’t.
Yesterday
I told her to bring me one of her papers so that I could mark it off. She didn’t.
If she had she would have eventually looked in the car for her backpack
– which by then I had also forgotten about.
This
morning it felt wrong to say, “I told you so” when she was already crying as
she scrambled to find her backpack and reminded herself of where it was. I did my best to comfort her. I tried to do my best. Perhaps it wasn’t my best. I was thinking that she should have listened
to me. I was thinking, “I hope this will
help her to learn”
I have my
own issues though. After closing the
door I realized that I’d forgotten my cell phone. We didn’t have time for me to get it –
especially since I had also forgotten my keys. How could I have forgotten my keys? Hadn’t I trained myself to return it to my
backpack the minute I came home from church?
Apparently not.
We do get
to the bus stop at approximately the same time each day. Sometimes the bus is early we have missed our
regular bus at least three times now. We
have been fortunate enough to catch the other route – which will run on the
south side only after December 8th.
After the
8th the route we like to take will run every 15 minutes – which is a
lot better than every 30. I don’t know if that will make a difference on how
soon she gets ready. I’m hoping she will
make a better effort to be ready on time.
I hope
that both of us will be prepared with all things necessary. The biggest one would be prayer – which I suspect
we’ll have to start just a little earlier.
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Design by Jenna
My daughter LOVES arts and
crafts. In school she made a paper mask
of a female skull. She is quite proud of
it and so wanted me to have my own skull, which she tried to make identical to
her own.
She decided that when we boarded the
bus this morning, we would hold up our masks over our faces. She made up lyrics on the way to the bus stop
and sung them to the tune “Carol of the Bells”
She made me learn her song before
the bus came so that we could sing the song before we held up our masks. I learned the song but told her that we would
not be able to sing its entirety before boarding the bus. And so she sung only the last line as we held
up our masks. Our bus driver laughed.
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
Found here and there
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
Both have yellow hair
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
Both wear a flower
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
Together we have power
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
Each wearing braces
Twin Skeletons, Twin Skeletons
We have skulls for faces
Okay,
maybe it’s not exact, and the tune did change a bit as she sang. But you get the jest.
I love my daughter’s enthusiasm.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Look What I Made!
Jenna’s favorite
princess, without a doubt, is Brave’s Merida . Each November first she has announced what
her costume will be for Halloween for the following year and each year she
changes her mind – though there seem to be fewer changes.
I know better than to
plan her costume before October – although with the last two years she has only
changed her mind two or three times compared to the initial eight (life was
just so much easier when I was the one picking out costumes for her)
In November of 2010 she
announced that she would be Big Baby from Toy Story 3. Really?
After nine months I decided that maybe she really was going to go
through with it and started looking for something she could use – though having
my then seven year old running around the neighborhood in a dirty onesie did
not thill me nor did I have a clue how to do her eyes so that she could still
use both of hers in order to see.
. I was grateful when she finally changed her
mind and decided she would be Juliet from Gnomeo and Juliette.
A red dress and white
apron from Savers. I really thought I
would find something I could use. But
fortunately she wanted to change it again – this time to Tiger Lily.
Oh, Joy of joys! I could do an Indian costume for really
cheap! I used two paper bags that I got
from Winco and cut the fringe and allowed her to do the decorating. She thought it the coolest costume ever!
Last year she decided to
do something different. For ten months
she sounded serious about going as a teapot.
I had called Joh to get his expertise opinion on how I should do
it. He came up with a great idea. But she changed her mind again. She would be Velma from Scooby Doo.
I thought it would be less expensive and perhaps better
made to purchase items from Savers – though Roland seemed gung-ho about
purchaseing a costume from the Halloween store.
I don’t think it was worth the purchase.
The good news is that she can wear it again (at least for the time
being)
But this year she would like to be Merida .
The dress is from Savers, but I made the wig. My initial thought was to make it out of
about 6-8 boas – but I never got beyond the thought as the purchase for the
boas themselves was over foty dollars – never mind that I had nothing to fasten
the boas to.
I
had purchased a pirate cap for a dollar.
I found Fun Fur at Wal-Mart.
It was even the perfect color – unlike the boas I had found. I wish I had thought to ask Joh if he would
make time to make one, or if he had any suggestions for me – but I can honestly
say that I did indeed make the wig all by myself adding one to three strands of
hair at a time.. And it was for under
ten dollars.
No,
it is not true that I had done it all by myself..
Jenna occasionally helped to cut strands or thread the needle. I think for the most part the work is
pretty sloppy and the wig itself is obviously amature(as I really did have a hard time seeing what I was doing). But Jenna is very excited about it. And that is what counts.
I’ll
push for another teapot again for next year.
Now that I have done the wig, perhaps I am ready for the teapot. I may
miss another week or more of posting as I struggle to thread the needle and try
to make it work.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Garden Enthusiast
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When Jenna was
three she discovered some blue gravel that had been dumped by the shed. Biff had left it there after cleaning out a
fish tank. Jenna thought that they were
beautiful seeds and wanted to plant them.
I tried to explain that they weren’t seeds – but she was insistent that
we bury them so that they would grow into a beautiful flower.
Everyday she would
check the spot where the “seeds” had been planted – impatient that the flowers
had not bloomed overnight. Again, I
tried to explain to her that even if the seeds had been real seeds – flowers do
not spring up overnight. It takes
time. Especially in our family, it
seems.
Jenna did not stop
checking. She was determined that her
flower would grow. She watered the
area. She talked to it. She was certain that a flower would
grow. I really did not want her to be
crushed and so devastated that she would not want to try real seeds later on.
I went out and
purchased two pinwheel type garden decorations and put them in the ground above
where the gravel had been “planted” – real as the seeds. Jenna was thrilled. And so when the time came for the preschool
students to grow their own seeds she was not at all reluctant. Her bean would grow just as her flowers
had. It was very exciting.
Jenna also liked snails. They were very fascinating creatures. She would watch them and talk to them. One day she found a whole family of snails.
“Look mom!” she
pointed with sheer excitement, “A mommy, a daddy, two teenagers, and a little
bitty baby.”
She stopped to talk
to them. I gave her about ten minutes
before I reminded her that we had barely just left the house and had to
continue on our way to school.
“Bye snails,” she
waved and continued on her way. She was
so disappointed that they weren’t there as we walked back from school
– nor were they there the next day.
Perhaps a week or
two had gone by before she found three snails out on the sidewalk near our
house.
“Do you think these
are the same ones?” she asked. “I wonder
what happened to the parent and the other teenager. Maybe they’re out looking for food.”
It was a year and a
half later when Amber’s mom asked if she could leave Amber with me as she a
mandatory class for her work. I told her
that I had planned on going to Midvale to pass out invites for my mom’s
surprise birthday party but I could take Amber just as well – and that was
fine. Amber came with car seat and I
strapped both girls into the car.
It was nice having
them with me as I could just hand each of them invitations and give them
direction to take it to this house or that and then I didn’t have to keep
stopping the car and turn the motor off to do it myself.
When we got to
Ruby’s house, I had only five invitations left.
The girls found a haven in Ruby’s yard, and I asked Ruby if it would be
okay if I left the girls with her while I went and got the last five.
Ruby was working in
the garden and her yard was lovely. She
was digging holes and making remarks about “all the snails” Both Jenna and
Amber perked up and assisted Ruby by picking up snails and each started her own
collection.
When I returned,
the girls had lined their snails up on the table and were eagerly watching them
“race” as they’d speak words of encouragement hoping that one of her snails
would win. Jenna announced that we’d be
taking them home.
“Snails don’t
belong in the car!” I said firmly. “Not
my car anyway. Even if they’re in
containers. We are not taking the snails
home. Sorry”
I think Ruby
distracted them with something else. I
believe we threw the snails away. Ruby
and I told both girls that snails are bad for the garden. I don’t think Jenna believed me.
She wasn’t reading
when I purchased a kid’s gardening book at a thrift store. We looked at
it. I pointed out that snails were in
the “pest” category. But then so were caterpillars
– her absolute favorites creature. A
book against snails and caterpillars certainly was not a book that she was
interested in. I put the book away and
forgot about it.
Recently, while searching for something else,
I came across the Kid’s Gardening book.
She has been reading it and telling us everything that we’ve been doing
wrong in our home garden and how to improve it.
She still loves snails and caterpillars but has accepted that they do
damage to gardens. But they are fascinating creatures and she loves them.
Some of us are gardeners that plant and sow seeds. Some of us plant
actual seeds. Some of us bury gravel or
“magic beans” in the ground and leave it at that. Some of us work like lady bugs or bees and
help the garden. Some of us are like
snails and caterpillars that crawl through life expecting free handouts without
working for it. And it doesn’t matter
our capacity. God loves each of us. He doesn’t attempt to throw any of us
away. His love for us is perfect. Even
more than Jenna loves snails.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Happy Memories
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One friend managed to drink
it all. I believe Patrick said he had
swallowed down half of his. But Mark
could not get past the first taste.
After having gagged down the first swallow, he refused to drink any more
of his two cent purchase. The entire bill came to six cents. They left a fifty cent tip.
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Jenna loved fire hats and fire engines and fire fighter equipment. I really thought that she would want to grow up to be a fire fighter. But when asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" she had it narrowed down to two: either a pirate or a ballerina.
When
Jenna was younger, we would go for walks ALL of the time. I would point things out as we passed
different yards. “Oh, look at the
flowers” “See that pretty pin
wheel”
The
thing that she seemed to overlook with each yard I pointed out was the
well. I never understood why she
couldn’t see them. Several yards
contained some form of a wishing well. I
don’t know how many walks we took before I realized she was looking for a
“whale”
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Jenna
was three the first time we had taken her to Arizona. We were actually in the city part when Jenna
asked, “Are we in a dessert?”
I
turned around in disbelief. How did she
know that Arizona is a desert state?
“Yes
we are.” I proudly beamed.
Jenna
appeared to be highly disappointed. And
here is why:
“I
have looked and looked and I have not seen a camel anywhere.”
Oops. Wrong desert.
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My
Grandma and I had gone to a Ferrell’s ice cream parlor in Hawaii. The Hawaiian menu offered a variety of dishes
that were different from the Utah menu.
I thought it would be fun to take
a few menus home and trade them for a couple of Utah menus and watch as people
would order these foreign creations which might fluster the waitress as it was
obviously a Farrell’s menu – but wasn’t familiar with most of the items listed.
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Farrell’s
had advertised soda water for two cents
a glass. Patrick and two of his friends
decided that they wanted to “splurge”
They got soda waters for each of them – that’s it. I don’t think they fully understood what they
were ordering.
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Jenna loved fire hats and fire engines and fire fighter equipment. I really thought that she would want to grow up to be a fire fighter. But when asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" she had it narrowed down to two: either a pirate or a ballerina.
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