Jessica Kopp

UEA Weekend

Last weekend the girls didn't have any school on Thursday and Friday because of the Utah Education Association. For most people this means a mass exodus to warmer places (St. George) or the Magic Kindgom (Disneyland.) I so wanted to be joining everyone, but it just wasn't a great time for us, so we decided to stay home and just hang out together. This last for about 1 day!!

I had to work on Thursday so Ashely got super brave and took the kids to the the mall for pizza and a little shopping. They had a blast and came home with amazing things like mood rings and expanding water frogs.

Thursday night we all headed to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point as a family. We had a great time. The weather has been absolutely beautiful lately and it was fun to be outside enjoying the warmth and playing all the fun games. The highlight for Sydney was getting her face painted and Abby was super brave and rode the mechanical bull. Evan loved going down the slide, but was most excited about the animated, talking chickens. He spent a good 15 minutes mesmerized by their silly songs and stupid jokes. He could not stop staring at them. I was proud of us for actually finishing the corn maze (with only a little cheating.) 

Friday morning started with fighting and never stopped. The girls were up bright and early ready to play with friends and then were very disappointed when everyone was out of town. A lot of alternative options were given for fun stuff to do, but instead they decided to pout and annoy each other. By mid-afternoon, when my mom called and offered to take them, I think I was a little to excited to say YES!!!

Abby and Syd had an amazing time at Grandma and Grandpa Lasley's house, it was exactly what they needed. They miniature golfed, played arcade games, carved pumpkins, did crafts, and went to their favorite store Family Dollar. They LOVE spending time in Tremonton. 

Evan got to stay home with Derek and me and even though we didn't do anything near as fun, I still think he had a great time. We did a little shopping (got Evan his first tool set) and A LOT of yard work. Evan was happy to explore the yard while we pulled weeds, trimmed bushes and planted lots of bulbs. Saturday night we got a sitter with the Dowdles and went to dinner and a REAL Soccer game. 

Sunday morning we headed to Tremonton to grab the girls and spend the day together. We had a tasty lunch and then spent the afternoon playing in the backyard. We swung on the swings and played tetherball.

It was the perfect long weekend, (even thought we didn't spend it all together.)

3rd Annual Hansen Chili Cookoff

I love our neighborhood!

I love it for so many reasons, but today I'm loving that we all get together every fall to smash pinatas in the street, jump on trampolines and eats bowls full of yummy chili and soup. I was amazed at the great turn out...everyone was there. It was so much fun to see everyone and spend time relaxing, laughing, eating and enjoying the beautiful fall night.

 

The invitation said costumes where optional, but of course for Abigail that meant they were a MUST. She forced me to get Evan in a costume, but I'm glad she did because he was so cute and hilarious.

 

Evan was not excited at all to be in his Big Bird costume, especially once we tried to put on his beak. But when he did have the full outfit on he looked absolutely adoreable. All fluffy and yellow with his skinny striped legs.

 

Sydney has been excited for weeks to try out her 50's costume. It is actually one of my old clogging costumes. I still can't believe that I ever used to be soooooo skinnnny.

 

Abigail can't make up her mind what she wants to be for Halloween, so tonight she decided to go with something from the basement dress-up bin. She ended up being some sort of dead zombie doctor. She is great at playing creepy, scary people. I think she has a future in the haunted house business.

Together we can...

"Together we can..." was the theme of this years Refections Contest. I always entered Reflections when I was a student, but the girls haven't seemed very interested in it until this year.

Abby has really started to love photography and wanted to enter a photograph. She spent the last couple of weeks hauling around my camera and snapping all sorts of images. She had a hard time picking just one entry, but last night she finally decided to go with this beautiful shot of the flower bushes in the front yard. 

Here is her statement she wrote to go along with her entry and explain why she chose this picture:

I chose this picture because is shows all these beautiful flowers. One flower alone is beautiful, but by showing millions of them together it much more beautiful and shows how all the flowers around the world work together to make it a beautiful place.

Sydney wasn't as interest in Reflections...that is until she found out that if you enter you get a prize. She loves to paint pictures and was super excited to add glitter to this master piece. She said she painted this giant heart balloon to represent love and we can all come together if we have love.

Derek and I are both really proud of our girls for working so hard on their entries. Next year we just don't want to leave all the painting, printing, gluing, matting and drying until the night before. I'm just grateful we had a heat gun to get that red glitter to finally dry.

Good luck girls!

 

Last Week

Here's a little recap of some of the highlights and lowlights of last week.

• Everyone in the family got the flu last week. Evan started it off on Tuesday night. Sydney through up all night Wednesday and then Abby, Derek and I all got it on Friday. No fun at all. Lots of medicine and laying around. I can't say I was glad to get it...but I am glad to have it done and over with. Poor Syd had to miss her class field trip and both girls had to miss school pictures. I had planned a creative day with my team on Friday and was super sad I had to miss all the fun and the silk screening class. Derek even had to miss a camp out with the scouts. 

• After not eating much all week, Saturday morning after soccer we decided to see if the French Toast at Kneaders was really as amazing as everyone says it is. I can't lie, it was DELICIOUS. Super thick. Creamy syrup. Fluffy butter. Fresh cut strawberries. Fresh squeezed orange juice. I can promise you we'll be back.

• Saturday night the girls and I snuck out and did a little shopping and dinner. We left the boys home to eat hot dogs and play video games. It was great to get out and spend time together. I let the girls pick what we looked at and we spent a lot of time in the toy and jewelry sections. They also got to pick where we went for dinner, Olive Garden. We laughed and giggled the entire time. They told me about stuff that is going on at school, new friends, stupid assignments and how they want to move to a passport place for 6 weeks, but then come back to your house. I loved it when they started fighting about who was going to sit by me in the booth. We ended up compromising with me switching back and forth the entire meal.

 

Evan Stuff

Evan is very helpful in the kitchen. Not only does he love to empty cupboards and drawers, but he is also very good at helping with clean up after baking.

Evan is officially a string bean. I finally took him in this week for his 12 month appointment (at 14 1/2 months) and they confirmed what I have always thought. Super long and super skinny. He weighs 23.4 lbs (25%) and is 32.5 inches long (90%). I laugh every time I get him dressed because the pants that actually fit his waist are already total floods on him. Poor little guy. 

Evan has a new trick. Every time he feels like a snack, he goes and finds the diaper bag. He has realized that it is always full of Evan goodies. Yesterday I found him eating mouthfuls of goldfish and just this afternoon I found him sitting in a pile of dumped out carmel rice cakes. He would take a bite of one and then put it down and reach for another. I got smart and put the diaper bag up on a hook and an hour later I found him crying on the ground, under the hook, reaching for the bag.

Evan has started turning people to face him. It started with my office chair. When he wants to sit on my lap while I'm on the computer he turns my chair away from the computer to face him and then climbs on up. He has now started turning people all the time now. When I'm making dinner he will grab my legs and turn me to face him and then he holds his hands up for me to pick him up. And if you don't pick him up, once you have been turned, he will start crying.....he's not spoiled at all...right??!??

Evan is at that perfect height to hit his head on everything. He will crawl under my desk and whack his head 3 or 4 times trying to stand up before he realizes he needs to crawl out and then stand up. He does this on any and everything he can crawl under...kitchen table, bathroom counter, coffee table. While I've been typing this he has hit his head 7 times on my desk. No wonder he always has a bruised head.

Evan is starting to talk. He favorite words right now are mama, dada, pahpah (puppy) and tanu (thank you.) My favorite is when I walk into a room and he runs toward me saying "mama mama mama."

 

10 things Tuesday

1. Derek recently returned from a work trip to Vancouver. He had a great time and now understands why I loved spending time there during the Olympics. He ate great food, found some amazing shops, and spent hours just wandering the streets.

2. Abby is so excited that she made Student Council again this year. She can't wait to start planning actvites and working on the food drive. When she told me she wanted to run again she also informed me that she didn't want to have a boring speech like last year. Thanks Abby....I wrote that speech. After much thinking and brainstorming, we came up with a great idea that she was super excited about. We filled 2 garbage sacks with balloons. All the balloons had words describing Abby written on them (Dependable, Responsible, Fun, Hardworking, etc) During the speech she would pull a balloon out, talk about what it said and then have someone in her class POP it by sitting in it. She said it was hilarious and everyone loved it. We also made her a poster that said "Vote for Abby Kopp for Student Council. Here ideas will POP!"

3. Syd had a very very very bad morning today. She woke up very grumpy and it only got worse the more she was awake. After screaming and yelling about her socks, shoes, coat, hair, breakfast and backpack, Derek had to carry her kicking and screaming to the car for carpool. Usually when this happens she calms down before they are out of the neighborhood, but today was different. She kept up the screaming and yelling all the way to school and then refused to get out of the car. Derek finally had to take her into the school and put her in the office. After trying to escape and chasing Derek to the car a couple of times she was invited to visit with the principal. This instantly shut her up and calmed her down. 

4. The weather is turning cold and I want to start parking in the garage again, so I've been spending a lot of time lately finishing up all the projects I've collected in there over the summer. Spray paint is my new best friend. I'll post pictures as I get things finished and moved into the house and my office.

5. I couldn't stand Evan long, scraggly hair anymore and wouldn't be able to get him in for an appointment for another week, so I took matters into my own hands and cut it myself. Basically I just buzzed the whole thing, but he looks so much better. At first I was a little worried it would be too short and Derek would hate it, but it actually looks good. He has a nice shaped head and I don't have to fight with his many colics everyday.

6. Abby is loving soccer this fall. Not only is she scoring a goal or 2 every game, but she is also doing great at goalie. She is super fast and not afraid to fight for the ball. Derek is her coach this year and he couldn't be prouder of his little Blue Blizzards!

7. Poor Evan has his first experience throwing up this week. Between his 12 month shots and the flu that is going around he wasn't feeling great. I put him to bed at 8:30 and when Derek and I were heading to bed at midnight we were hit with the smell. Poor guy was sound asleep, covered from head to toe. He wasn't very happy at all to be woken up and then scrubbed down. The next day he had a slight fever, but kept all his food down. I'm still trying to get the smell out of his room.

8. Both the girls started piano lessons at the beginning of September and after 1 month are still super excited and the fighting over practicing hasn't started yet. Fingers crossed. This is Sydney's first time taking lessons and she loves showing off every song she learns. Abby likes playing her songs over and over until she has them memorized.

9. Sydney's favorite part of school is her new friend Jade. They have play dates a couple times a week. We are so glad that Jade moved into the area. They like to play dolls, dress up and do gymnastics.

10. It was my birthday last week.  I'd like to thank everyone for thinking of me. I was truly spoiled by so many. My actual birthday was on Thursday, but I started celebrating at work on Tuesday and the fun continued until Sunday dinner with my family. Derek and I both took Friday off work and spent the day at the movies and shopping. I'm loving my new tripod and reflectors. Friday night I hit the town with my best friends. We ate delicious food and stayed out way too late.