Back to School 2012

For some reason, unbeknownst to me, my children didn't go back to school until  September 4th.  At first, I thought this was great news:  More Summer!  If you know me, you know that one of the saddest days of the year is when I have to stop wearing my capri pants and actually put on shoes that cover my toes.  But... once I thought about it, I realized that I would be going back to MY school a full 8 days before my kids. This meant several things to me, but most notably, it meant:

• The two weeks before school would be a mad rush to get my classroom ready.
• There would be five days of shuffling my sweet children around while I start school.
• And last, but definitely most sad, I would miss the first day of school for them.  

Now I love Matt. I adore Matt.  He's the most fun, playful, hilarious Dad ever.  But the First Day of School is a day for Moms.  Isn't it?  Is that terrible to say?  Maybe.  I don't know.  The past few years, I have been able to arrange to be there with them on the 1st day and I HATE that this year had to be different. So much so that I spent most of August in denial of this fact. And I threw a few temper tantrums on the inside, narrowly avoiding throwing myself down on the floor and screaming.  Eventually, I had to face the facts:  I couldn't do the first day of school this year.  I put on my big girl pants and got to work.  Sigh. 

 In order to prepare for the first day, we had a lot to do.  I spent all of August and the first week of school getting Victoria and me ready and preparing for Daphne's Baptism Day.  So, Labor Day was "Get the Kids ready for School" Day.  We went to Super Target AND Super Wal-Mart.  All of us.  Together.  I know... you're jealous, right?  

While at Target, we found new clothes for Isaac (who will ONLY wear basketball shorts and white t-shirts), but I was worried that the shorts would be a little big.  The line at the fitting room was so long that we decided to just risk it. Of course, by the time we finished our three and a half hour shopping trip, we got home and they were way too big.  Ugh!

I set in to preparing dinner, dividing up school supplies, labeling, baking the "Back to School Cake" and washing everyone's clothes.  In the midst of all of this, Isaac accidentally dropped a can of coke which started spraying all over in my basement food storage.  AAAAHHH!!!!  So after cleaning that up, Dinner, Dishes, Family Home Evening, Baths, Bedtime and Lunch Making, I headed back to Target to exchange the shorts and pick up a few much needed items.  I drove all the way back home only to find that I was missing an ingredient to frost the cake.  And for the one millionth time, I am grateful that we live right behind a grocery store.    One Mommy Meltdown and about 200 tasks later, I fell into bed at about 1:30 am.

The next morning, I got Victoria and me all ready for school and wiped back the tears and choked back the guilt as I headed off to my school and left Isaac, Daphne and  Dad to figure out the first day stuff.  Matt got them all fed and ready and went to the meetings and took notes for me, like the wonderful partner he is.  But alas, when my heavy heart compelled me to text him at 10 and see if he took pictures of them, I received back a text that said, 

"I forgot." 

I realized that I never asked him to take pictures... And with that, all my guilt and sadness bubbled over until I was a teary-eyed mess right there in the middle of my own classroom.  Sweet Victoria came over and rubbed my hand and kept saying, "it's OK , Mommy.  I love you."

And so then I felt bad for crying in front of her and causing her unnecessary worry to her tender heart.  Seriously, could my week of Parenting Fails just stop?  Oh, yeah... I haven't told you how Daphne was supposed to give a talk in Primary on Sunday and I totally. forgot.  We came to church empty-handed... and when they came to get me out of my class, I ran into the primary room to see her standing next to the child-sized podium:  arms folded, eyes panicked and chin tucked into her chest in complete mortification.  Nice job, Mom.  With a little love and coaxing and "Blame it on Mom" reasoning, she left Church smiling and unscathed.  ( I think)

Having learned my lesson that it will all be ok, I sucked back my tears, took a deep breath and did what any Mom would do:

I took pictures after school and posted them on Facebook like they were taken in the morning! 

 

Honestly, I have NO idea why I make this Back to School Cake every year.  When I first got the idea to make this cake, I thought how great it would be that they could hold the cake for their pictures in the morning and then we could have a piece after school and talk about their day.  And, I do love that about it.  

For some reason, the fact that I am completely incapable of decorating cakes completely slipped my mind when I started this tradition, and now I am too far into it to go back now.  Every year, as I decorate this cake in the wee small hours of the morning (heaven forbid I prepare enough to have it done any earlier), I think, "Next summer, I'll take a cake decorating class and it won't look like a first grader made it."  But, I still have not taken a class and the cake looks as ridiculous as ever.

That said, I have  had a  few friends compliment my decent singing and say to me, "I wish you could sing my kids lullabies at night"... which is always so shocking to me!  Your kids DON'T want someone else singing them lullabies.  They just want their Moms to sing with them; off-key, scratchy, however it comes out. So... as far as the cake goes, I'll take my own advice and remember: My kids don't care if my cakes aren't pretty.  They want Me.  My time, My love, and My Ridiculous -looking Cakes.

So, when we sat down after school to have a piece, I didn't even apologize for how pitiful it looked.  I just sat with them, ate cake, and listened:  Daphne's teacher has a Pirate theme and took their whole class on a treasure hunt all around the whole school!  Isaac's whole first day was like on big party... there were only 5 minutes that were boring.  :)   

After all, these days go by so fast.... I didn't want to miss a word!  

Happy Back to School, Y'all!

When I am Baptized...

It was a big day at our house:  One child got electrocuted, one got welts all over his arm and one got baptized!  We keep it lively at our house, folks!  

Today really was a very special day for the Hunter Family:  our vivacious Daphne Faith chose to baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!  We are so happy for her, and so grateful for all the family and friends who came out to support her today!  

Unfortunately, our camera was dead and I got so busy during the whole program that I forgot to take any pictures other than this one:  Here they are just before the start of the service:  

(In this pic, Daphne is wearing the dress that she wore in the water.  The other dress is the one she wore for the remainder of the service.)

 Fortunately, we were able to go the the Open House for the new Brigham City Utah Temple last week, where Matt's talented sister, Raegan, took some beautiful pictures of her in her baptism dress!  Sooo... there is something lovely for you to look at during my post after all! 

 Honestly, I realize that there is a lot of social expectation involved when a child is baptized at the age of eight.  For the most part, they have only been exposed to the beliefs of their family and that particular church.    With that in mind, it has always been important to me that our children feel that being baptized is a choice for them. It's not an easy task, but we try.  Several months before our older children turned eight, we began focusing family home evening lessons on baptism.  We spoke of how when she turns eight, she'll be old enough to make the choice to be baptized or not.  Earlier in the year, she felt nervous about the whole process... about the water and the mechanics of the ordinance itself.  But the more that she learned about baptism and the sweet blessings involved, the more I watched her begin to anticipate the event.  We went over scripture stories and teachings; we talked about how Jesus was baptized, not because he needed the saving ordinance, but to set an example for each of us to follow.  We shared our own feelings about Christ and His atonement with her and we shared with her many verses from the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  One of those is found in Alma 7, verse 14:

• " ... therefore come and be baptized unto repentance, that ye may be washed from your sins, that ye may have faith on the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, who is mighty to save and to cleanse from all unrighteousness."

 So, knowing how brilliant she is and how often we have shared these truths with her, I shouldn't be surprised that when her Aunt Raegan spoke at her service today and asked,
 "Why do we get baptized?", that she would answer,
 " So that we can have our sins washed away."

 Nonetheless,  my tears spilled over.  I suppose that John was more correct than I ever before understood when he wrote:

• "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth."  (III John 1:4)

 You are so right, my Daphne girl.  I was so blessed to sing at your service today.  My heart almost burst as I watched you step into the font with your Daddy, promising to take the name of Christ upon you and always remember Him. And just as I said to you today after you came out of the water, You are clean!  Precious and forgiven.  But you will make bad choices again.  There will be mistakes and sins.  But through the power of Jesus's atonement, you can be forgiven!  Every Sunday, when you take the bread and water, you renew the covenants made today and you can be just as clean as you are right now.  

 The opening song at Daphne's baptism is a favorite of my girls!  Here is a video of them singing it... with a few word mix-ups :)

I like to look for rainbows, whenever there is rain.

And ponder on the beauty of an earth made clean again.

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain.

I want to be the best I can

And live with God again.

I know when I am baptized, my wrongs are washed away

And I can be forgiven and improve my life each day

I want my life to be as clean as earth right after rain

I want to be the best I can

And live with God again.

So when we came home and had a wonderful Texas BBQ feast with all our family and friends, after her little sister electrocuted herself by sticking a bobby pin in the outlet, after my "prophecy" about bad choices and repentance was fulfilled when Daphne left about 24 little round welts on her brother's arm by slapping him with a dollar store beaded necklace, and after a glorious Texas-like rainstorm, it was perfect to look out the window and see this:

What a perfect end to a Baptism Day!  We love you to the moon and back, Daphne Faith.  We are so thrilled with your choice today and can't wait to see what God has in store for you!  

School Days and Peach Days

It's been a busy couple of days.  Who am I kidding?  It's been a busy three weeks.  We came back from Mexico and I feel like I have hardly sat down since.  (I know, I know:  Waa, Waa, you got to go Mexico.      What do I have to whine about right?  I am seriously grateful that Matt and I had some R&R in Acapulco because we needed it.  Post to come some day.)  Anyway, I digress.  

I really don't have time to be doing this at all.  I need to be asleep because I have to get up in 6 hours.  But I saw these pictures and I had to share them with you.   Someone has to see the precious faces here.  Granted, no one else will probably appreciate the cuteness here like I do, but as I have learned over the course of rearing my children:  Motherhood makes you Shameless.

For Family Home Evening on Monday, we decided to slice up the gallons and gallons of peaches and make pies to take to friends and neighbors. 

  The pies needed to set in the refrigerator for a few hours, so distributing them had to wait for the next day, which was The First Day of School for Tori and me!!    She was so excited about her new tennis shoes.  I don't know if you can see them, but they are sparkly, cheetah print AND have pink bows on top.  I think that is some sort of Trifecta of Cuteness, don't you think?

 This is my seventh year teaching in the Children's School at Weber State University.  It is Victoria's last year of preschool and the last time I will ever have my own child as a student.  I cannot tell you the joy I have had being able to share this experience with my children as a mother and a teacher.  The Children's School is like an extension of our family now.  

 Here we are together, my Tori and me.  Actually, I should say Victoria.  She decided she wanted Victoria on her name tags at school this year.  Hee Hee!  I love that girl!

At dinner tonight, Matt asked Victoria about her day at school, and she being the ultimate Ham, replied, "I had a great first day, blah, blah, blah."  She always makes us laugh, that girl!

So tonight, after a rip-roaring crazy hectic and good first day of school, we loaded up our pies and took them to the children's Sunday School teachers, a few neighbors we were wanting to meet, etc..

We kept a few for us, too.  It's one of the few desserts I have seen Matthew really enjoy and after all, we Hunters are pretty PEACHY keen, too!

I promise I'll blog again some day, but don't hold your breath!

Acapulco Baby! Part 3

So... all over the Resort, they would advertise special activities, like Ladies Night and Dancing Night.  So... Matt and I thought we would drop in at Karaoke night.  Turns out, all they really wanted was to lure people in to drink, but we stayed anyway!  Unfortunately, 90% of the music they had was Spanish.  Not like Enrique Iglesias Spanish, but like mariachi Band Spanish.  Thus, our options were pretty limited.  Therefore, we decided to Karaoke ICE ICE BABY.  Yes, we did. Traditionally, I'm a better singer than I am a rapper, but we thought we'd expand outside our comfort zones.  It was awesome.  Everyone else was drunk, but I swear we had the most fun of all the people there.  I don't know, there was one guy who took his Mariachi music very seriously.  He really liked to hear himself sing.  He might have had more fun than us, but it was definitely a close contest.  It was crazy dark, but here's a picture Matt took of me singing.

Since we were up late acting crazy, we decided to make the next day super lazy and hang out on the beach. (not that we had been particularly productive anyway. I mean,we were taking a once daily trip around the 1/2 mile lazy river.  And that lazy river will wear a girl out, I tell you! ) 

Matt was feeling a bit more productive than I, however.  He decided to try his hand at Boogie Boarding- and he was quite good!  

I, on the other hand, laid on the beach and watched him and read my novel.  It was heavenly!

 And Matt just kept running in and out with his Boogie Board.  It was like my own personal episode of Bay Watch!

Panoramic of our view that day:

Now, in all seriousness, you would think that laying on the beach and reading a novel without my kids interrupting every 2 minutes would be utter perfection.  But... the stinkin' salespeople would interrupt me about every 4 minutes.  It got really old.  I hate to sound like I'm complaining, because we were having a wonderful time.

 But as soon as Matt got tired, we moved back up to the resort to relax with a slightly different view:

So Matt and I lounged together.  I read and he rested.  Ahhhh....

This was the first time we have ever had so much uninterrupted conversation time in all our married lives.  Or at least since we had children.  So, before we left, I printed off a few lists of questions and conversation starters like the ones you can find here.  Whenever we went to dinner or had some time to just talk, I would pull out and we would ask each other questions.  To be truthful, it was a little corny at first.  Matt said that he thought the idea was lame at first.  But after a while, even he loved it!  We were laughing so hard.  We were often re-telling stories we had told one another before, but we had forgotten some or all of the details.  It was like getting to know each other all over again and I highly recommend it for a vacation together or even just a date night! We definitely learned things we didn't know before and remembered things we had forgotten about one another.  And we laughed- a lot. 

 We did some swimming in the pool, which overlooks the ocean.  So, you can have the ocean view without the sand and salt and ick.  I mean, I know I'm a total priss, but I think this is the best idea ever!

Those vendors weren't completely useless... we did get this darling hat for me! (See below)  I love it so much. I brought it home and wear it to soccer games and stuff.  I know it's not really the style but I think it's adorable!

 After a nice long day at the beach, we went back to our room and got all cleaned up for dinner.

 On our final morning there, we had a little time between check out and our flight, so we stopped at a nearby restaurant for a late breakfast.  The menu was entirely in Spanish, so we were trying to figure out what to order.  Matt ordered an omelette and then the waiter brought over a special menu and described it to us. Matt said, "Oh that sounds like something you would ike, Laura!"  So I ordered it.  We were waiting and waiting and then I said, "I'm not even sure what I ordered."  Matt said, "I know.  I wonder what it is."  Matt said, "Yeah, I'm not sure.  I know he said tortillas and guacamole, and.... Oh, no."

"What?"  I say

" I think he said something about grasshoppers.  You don't think that was part of the dish, right?"

"What?!!  Did I just order grasshoppers?!"

Just then, along comes the waiter and he serves me this:

Grasshoppers.  

For breakfast.  Not that they would have been any more appetizing at lunch or dinner. But really?  Grasshoppers!?!

It is at this point that everyone says, "Did you eat them?"

And my first response is, "Have you MET me?  Of course I didn't eat them!  That would be disgusting."

I just couldn't do it.  We sent it back and ordered an omelette for me as well.  The staff wasn't particularly thrilled, I think there were some egg shells in my omelette.  It took us a while to stop laughing, but we finally made it out of there and to the airport safely!  

We absolutely LOVED the Mayan Palace!  We had so much fun together and it was such a good experience for us to get to spend time just with each other.  Another big thank you to Marsha, Natalie and Raegan for helping us out and making our anniversary trip so wonderful! 

Acapulco, Baby! Part Deux.

On our third day in Acapulco, we took a tour of the city with our trustworthy guide, Baldomero.  He goes by Baldo, which is awesome on so many levels.  He was also like 3 or four inches shorter than me, but we didn't mind because he knows so much about the city, was honest and genuinely helpful to us.  He drove us all over the place and we had a blast.  Our first major stop was the Capilla de laPaz, or the Chapel of Peace.    It's one of the highest points in the city and sits atop a cliff overlooking Acapulco.  Here we are by the Mexican Flag just outside the Chapel:

Inside the Chapel of Peace; it's rather small, but beautiful.  Most of the black you see is either wood or onyx and frankly, it's hard to tell the difference unless you touch it.  

The cross that stands on the grounds reaches over 130 feet high... 

Matt' stellar panoramic of the view.  Click on the pic to see it larger-  the view is so magnificent!

Here's a pic of Baldo.  Hes aweseome.

“Las Manos de la Hermandad”, “Hands of Brotherhood”, two hands asking for peace to heaven, made by the the famous carver Claudio Favier.  You'll notice (if you are super observant to detail like Matt) that they are two right hands.

Apparently the family who built the Chapel of Peace was struck with a great deal of tragedy and death all within a few years.  So, one of the main purposes of the Chapel is to serve as the resting place for the bodies and ashes of those family members.  Other random people pay a great deal of money to have their ashes kept here as well.  

The Chapel is located in an exclusive and extremely expensive residential area known as Las Brisas.  Like so exclusive that Enrique Iglesias and Anna Kournikova own the house right across the street:  

(I have no idea if they are actually still together)

And just outside the gates of Las Brisas  is Sylvester Stallone's Acapulco Home:

One of my favorite things about Mexico is that they are smart.  NO ONE drinks Pepsi here. (cause it's gross)   It's all about Coca Cola.  And you can get coke for dirt cheap.  Yay!

After driving around the city a bit, we headed to the: 

Why do you ask?  Well, apparently John Wayne and some of his friends owned this place for their own personal hideaway back in the day.  one of those friends was Johnny Weismuller, who  played the original Tarzan.  Baldo seemed a bit miffed that we had never heard of him before.  

At first, it seemed like a quaint little hotel and restaurant, nothing particularly remarkable.

Then I walked out to the balcony and Matt had a hard time pulling me away:

For some reason, this view was the most beautiful of all to me.  It was so peaceful.

We didn't get a good still shot, but if you look over the edge, you can watch the waves crash into the rocks and the water is such a remarkable blue.  The whole place was incredibly secluded and tranquil.  I kinda wish we had stayed here for lunch.

But... instead we went and had lunch while we watched the Cliff Diving Show!  

These crazy people climb up these cliffs multiple times a day to jump off the cliffs into the water.  (Which was rather choppy)  It was all a little overwhelming to me!  Look in the top right of this pic and you can see the guy doing a flip:

And here's a guy flying through the air.  It's totally nuts to me.  There is even a little kid that does it... he looks about 9 or so.  The whole time, I just keep thinking someone is going to get a traumatic brain injury.  But-   it was a pretty incredible way to have lunch! 

Here's a few videos of the divers:

On our way back home, we stopped to see some of the artwork of Diego Rivera, who lived in Acapulco:

Pretty incredible mosaics:

Stay Tuned for Pics from our Last Few Days in Acapulco!