Family Update

Last weekend our church had the annual "Father & Sons" camp out so Jared and Jonas joined all the other guys for a fun night of camping while we had Girls Night Out.  Jared said it got pretty cold and Jonas insisted on being on the air mattress with him for quite a bit of the time but they had fun despite the bull frogs making a huge ruckus the whole night.  Of course I didn't get a picture of them leaving but Jonas was very excited and told Lilly "I go camping with dad, no Litty!" (as he calls her).

The weekend before this the girls and I had a campout in the backyard while Jared and the two younger kids slept inside.  Emma just finished her "sleep training" so this was a little test for her and we both did great.  We read books by flashlight and the girls thought it was all sorts of fun. Jonas joined them in the morning in the tent to play and wrestle on the sleeping bags.  For girls night out this past weekend we had the Woolford girls over for pizza, pedicures and took a trip to Jamba Juice.  Super fun and super tired girls.  We were all still sleeping when the boys got home at 8:30 the next morning!
Pictures of our girls night out this past weekend:

 Our family effort this month has been focused on getting Jared ready to take the Patent Bar Exam which is scheduled for a week from today.  I don't make any big plans on weekends and take the baby with me when I have outings or commitments in the evenings so that he can do study questions and read through material to prepare for the exam. He has taken the exam before a couple times and missed passing by literally one question so he has dragged his feet to take it again.  Now, of course, the laws changed as of two months ago so there aren't any sample questions or tests for him to base his studying on like he has had in the past.  We are just hoping and praying he passes this time and have had fabulous family support in terms of prayers and well wishes.  In August marks his 5 years of working for Wagner Blecher and the potential for an increase in pay if he has passed this test.   I can't imagine how he is balancing a career, family, church calling and house improvement projects along with the studying...Here is an example: Going over practice questions while feeding the baby (while I get the older three to bed).  Man, we hope we can be done with this test forever!

We also have a ton of rose bushes at our new house.  We talked to one of the neighbors who said that one of the previous owners, Mike, (who, as a side note, was married to three different women while living in this house and no, not at the same time) had a wife who loved roses.  He consequently planted over 20 rose bushes on the property.  We gave away 8 of them so we would have room to put in the swing set in the backyard but we still have a ton and can barely keep up with the maintenance on those.  Here are some roses that I took to a Relief Society event that I was in charge of a couple weeks ago.  They smell heavenly and attract aphids like there is no tomorrow!

rose bush out front

This school year I have been carpooling with a couple ladies from church who also have kids attending Jocelyn's elementary school and live in the neighborhood.  It's a little crazy because after I had Emma I have 8 kids to manage during school pick up.  I can usually coordinate with a friend so that I don't have all the kids with me during my "pick up" days but sometimes we have no choice and I have to transport the masses.  Here's a picture of the carpool kids one day when my younger 3 were being babysat by Tami (she's so generous to let me go early and volunteer in Jocelyn's class for an hour before I pick up all the kids from school one day a week).

Carpool kids minus my younger 3