It's January and the leaves finally fell off the trees in our backyard. Somehow we seem to skip Fall and Spring in this crazy place; it's just not right! The kids had a ball playing in the leaves and having sword fights with the rakes (don't worry they're plastic.) For some reason that just reminded me of a story someone told me the other day. They are Sunbeam(3-4 yr old children) teachers in their ward( you can write a book of funny stories if you're around those little Sunbeams frequently.) Anyway, it was right before Christmas and they were in Sharing time (all the kids are together learning a gospel principle) and the person doing sharing time asked if any one could tell the group about the Christmas story. So, one little sunbeam raised his hand and the lady said "can you tell us about the Christmas Story?" The little boy responded "well, you see it's about this boy, and he wants a gun..." Not exactly the Christmas story she had in mind? It is such a blessing to be able to work with children--they sure help to keep you focused on what really matters, and they make you laugh a lot!

Life has calmed down a bit now that we're back into our old routine. However, Scott is taking a 4 credit class this semester--just to fill his spare time (ha, ha). He had to take a class to renew his license so he decided to take something that might be of use to him in the future rather than just take a useless class. Okay so I convinced him to take a useful class, he would have been more than happy to take a no-brainer. The good news is that his basketball team is doing better, they're not winning but they're working hard and the games have been really close. At least he feels like the girls are really giving all they have which is a complete turn around from the start of the season. I actually took all three kids to a game after giving up last season after spending the entire game chasing Olivia up and down the bleachers. The kidlets were quite excellent at the game this time. Tomas brought a book and his gameboy and Olivia brought two purses, her cell phone, jewelery and various hair accouterments and sat like a little angel and the baby was great. We may do it again before Sofia is able to run up and down the bleachers!!!!