Did I forget to tell you?

We have had some big changes here in the Walker House...one of those being that I have now joined the forces of working moms out there back in January!

I work at my boys' school and am loving being a aide in kindergarten and subbing in the other classes. Then next year I will be teaching first grade! I never thought I would be working while the boys are still "little" but they are both at school 4 days a week and now so am I and it is the most perfect job I could get right now.

This job has come when we least expected it and I am very thankful for it. I have always told Chad that one day I would want to work at their school. I am totally in love with the curriculum, religious teachings they get, and the teachers there. It is a small LDS school and I love the spirit you get to feel there daily.

I feel lucky that my boys get to attend the school and even luckier to be offered a position there!

Valentines Day

So yesterday was Valentines Day happy day to you all....

We celebrate every year with a scavenger hunt for the boys....we have done this forever...i used to draw the clues so Kaden could "read" them himself. Now I am trying to think of harder clues so it doesn't take them 3 minutes to do.

This year I also ordered them heart pizza....that was fun and K even drew us directions on how to cut heart pizza.

One last cute E. thing. Lately if he writes you a note or card that he has to sign it says something like "This is Ethan." So when he made Chad's Valentine this is how he signed it.

Too cute!!

A Valentine Surprise

So when we pulled up to the house yesterday after school this is what the house looked like.

After reading all the signs we discovered it was from one of the activity days' groups at church, showing a little love for their primary president! Isn't that great?!

The boys thought it was really funny and brought some fun into our long day at school!

I have the best primary kids!

It's Valentine Party week!

I am trying to get a head start on preparations for Valentine Parties at school this year. Sunday we all sat down and the boys wrote out their valentines.

I am anti-prepackaged boxed commercial valentines...the ones with transformers, star wars...you know the ones....so this takes a bit longer in our house. I cut paper and stamp, the boys count out items and start "stuffing" the bags. We do a little goody bag for things like this and I love it. This year's consisted of m&ms and inflatable balloons...yes i know all balloons are inflatable....but these do it on it's own. I didn't believe it either, one because it came from the dollar store 4 in a pack and two i had never seen them before.

We brought them home a few weeks ago and tried it. The package says to not open the packaging and to hit it as hard as you can and watch the balloon inflate. So the boys hit the packages really hard and we waited. About 2 minutes later out popped a little heart balloon all the way inflated. The balloons were cold and sounded like there was water in them so we assume there is some kind of chemistry going on in there. but it was fun and different.

So the boys have their simple valentines done and I have accomplished on thing on the list this week. And have managed to avoid the commercial cartoon valentines once again.

Oh and I posted this on the "other blog" too since I needed something a little crafty over there. so Sorry if you were expecting something else there!

Book Report

So if you live in little boy land as we do and have a reader you have probably heard all the laughing when your reader is into the "diary of a wimpy kid" books. K choose this book for his book report this past month...we are doing one book report a month...and yes I said we.

Chad was in charge of helping with this one. K has to choose a report style every month and they are not your typical "write a report" reports. I was voting for a "write a new ending to your book" option but he wanted the "make a board game" option. Luckily you can only chose each report style once.

Here are the cards he made, with the help of dad and photo shop, and the board he made.

His class loved playing the game so that was a big bonus for K.

Spelling Sentances

Almost every night E has to write his spelling words 4 times each and a sentence for each word. Most of the time he is right on top of it and needs a little help with the sentences. One day about two weeks ago he sat down and did all his homework without a peep...never asking for help...and I didn't think anything about it.

So when Monday rolled around and we were getting ready for school the next day, I looked over his homework packet to make sure it was all done. And I was reading over his sentences and found this one...

"I am white."

The spelling word was white. I was laughing so hard! And of course showed it to Chad.

You see when E was born he was very "white" compared to our first baby. E was blond haired, blue eyed, and very white skin. K was dark headed, dark eyes, and darker skin. So we have always lovingly called E our "white baby" especially in the summer when I have to consciously remember to lather him in sunscreen all the time.

So for him to write this sentence was too funny!

What We Did...or Be Careful if We have your house key...

So Kris and Elisa were married and took off on a big trip to Paris and Rome...and guess what?

We ended up with the key to their apartment.

So on our second trip to the SLC Valley we went over and did a little decorating for them topped off with a "welcome home love your Apo Family" sign just so they would know we love them and we were thinking of them.

The boys loved it...especially the writing with washable marker on the mirrors....E wrote: "this is ethan. i love you." K drew pictures.

100+ balloons and 12 rolls of streamers and you get a beautiful apartment.

We decorated every room including balloons in the shower...the boys second favorite thing in the apartment decorating plan.

A Happy Suprise for Kris and Elisa....we hope!

Introducing Grandma's Blog

So while we were in Draper this past weekend, I set up Grandma Walker up a blog so she can post pictures and keep in touch with everyone at once while she is gone in Italy.

So here is her link if you feel the need to check up on her.

http://www.utahtoitaly.blogspot.com/

And she'll have a link in that list of friends and family off to the side....

A Favorite Time of the Year

Almost Time to find some girl scouts.

Here in Vegas they stand in front of grocery stores, and don't go door to door like the good old days. But that doesn't stop us.

Last year we drove to the grocery store and saw the girls out there. The boys were yelling "there are the cookie girls!" We couldn't find a parking spot and E was keeping a close eye on them. To his horror they were packing up and he started yelling..."They are leaving!!" I still couldn't find a spot but I did spy out more girl scouts going over to set up thier cookie stand....What a relief to the boys...they weren't leaving. And after finding a spot we got our 8 packs of cookies and headed home.

This year we will get more and I'll hide a box or two of thin mints in the back of the freezer to pull out in July for some yummy frozen goodness!

Another Weekend Trip

We headed back to Salt Lake this past Friday to join our Walker family in a well-wishing farewell for Karen and Will (Chad's Mom and her husband) as they get ready to leave for Rome, Italy on an 18 month mission for our church.

We had a short fun visit with everyone and the boys even got to sing in church with all their Walker/Sommerfeldt Cousins. I think there might have been over 20 there to sing out of 39. It was wonderful. Karen and Will gave wonderful talks. Their assigned topic seemed to be faith but it weaved nicely into more personal stories about their childhood and their own parents. Those are the kind of sacrament meetings I enjoy, ones filled with personal experiences and stories as opposed to those filled with quotes from other church people and peppered with to many stories that are not personal to the speaker.

Here is one of the pictures i took of a few walker grandchildren practicing the night before. I told Chad it was sad we couldn't take a picture during sacrament meeting of all the cousins singing b/c it is likely we won't have many of those times with our new Sommerfeldt family and walker family all together (especially the grandchildren.)

Thank Goodness for Facebook

So I joined facebook for kicks...thinking not much of it...until today when I checked and found out that people put my bothers wedding pictures on it and they automatically show up on my facebook page!

Go facebook!

So a few pictures are recovered and here is my favorite shot of them all.



Elisa wrote Kris a song....yes wrote one and sang it for him. You see we now have a concert pianist in the family!! Isn't that wonderful! And the song was so great and had many of us in tears.


Here is another of the 5 of us in front of the SLC Temple. Don't mind the crazy brother on the left...that is just his version of being funny.

the last one is them coming out of the temple!

So mad

So this weekend was the big wedding...and all was so great and happy and fun and all those wonderful wedding moments.

And we were taking pictures and all was well.

The wedding was over and we were packing up to go back to all of our homes and I decide to download all the pictures from my mom's camera onto the laptop. I slid the card into the slot and a whole bunch of jibberish shows on my screen. Dad tries to work on it and we decide he can just send me the pictures later.

But now the card won't read off any pictures and the pictures are GONE...all of the them....the card has officially been declared "corrupted" by the geeky camera guys and it is all lost!

I am so sad and wish I could take it all back. And just have patience to wait for the disk to come in the mail. instead of trying to put it on the laptop....because I think the laptop ruined it all.

What a Great day!!

Today was Kris' and Elisa's Wedding in the SLC temple...it was so great and a wonderful ceremony and reception. We are so happy we were able to travel up and spend this day with them.

The wedding went off perfectly and so did the reception and the family dinner!

It has been a fun and busy two days and tomorrow is all about the relaxing and just hanging out with the rest of our Apo family....minusthe newlyweds.

I'll post details and pictures sometime this week....after I download all the pics and get some "free time"

We are headed out for the next few days

And this is where are are going.....

to brave the cold weather (it is warming up here we are at 65 again) and to attend the wedding of my brother Kris to Elisa!!

Happy Wedding!!

First Project of 3rd Grade

So today Kaden turned in his first "project" for 3rd grade. All his other projects have been papers and reports. This one was the first 3D project.

Before Christmas he wrote a report on comets and now he had to make a model of one...so here it is to share!

The Clean up

So the holiday is over and we cleaned up all the decorations. Chad thought it appropriate to take a picture of all the boxes it requires to pack away our Christmas stuff...I just keep telling him "remember this is 2 less boxes than last year!"

The box total would be 9 tupperwares, one big tree box, one samll stree box and two very small tress boxes...not bad right?

Happy New Years!!

I thought I would share what we did on New Years Eve.

We had a "dipping dinner." We had spinach dip, veggies and dip, pizza dip and sausages in dip. Than for dessert we had chocolate fondue. I found a great recipe you make in a crock pot and let sit....my kind of easy recipe and it worked really well. The boys thought it was great fun and something we could do more often!

Top 8 of 2008

Top 8 of 2008

Kaden was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in May after turning 8 this year.

Ethan started 1st Grade this year,

A family trip to Washington DC to surprise Grandma Apo for her birthday; we also got to see all the Apo family there and go into DC a few times to sightsee.

Books…we are always telling Kaden to stop reading & go to sleep, and Ethan has figured ot reading & loves to sound out all street signs.

Soccer both the boys played spring season and Ethan played again in the fall..and will again this spring.

Bowling...we have been bowling more this year than ever before..it's probably b/c the boys are old enough to enjoy it the entire game.

Serving…our children love to serve others & have figured out how to quietly serve without drawing attention to themselves. These are very sweet loving moments to witness.

We can't wait to make more memories in the new year!!

Happy New Years everyone!!

Something New

So the past two nights....I think it was only two...the boys have had what we call "family sleepovers" We don't do sleepovers at friends houses so they have never had that real sleepover experience but this week we have pulled Ethan's mattress out to the front room and let the boys stay up too late and watch movies. the first night we all slept out there the second night I gave up and went to my bed and Chad slept out there. Tonight everyone will be tucked into their beds in their bedrooms and we will wait for another fun occasion to roll around to do it again....

One last Christmas Picture

Here is a final Christmas picture tradition. The boys in their church clothes in front of the tree.

Hope you had a great holiday!!