November

November was another busy month for us, we finally cleared out the garage so we can park our cars inside, just in time for the bad weather.  Coleman is taking swimming lessons and Bud made the first cut of the basketball tryouts for the junior high team.  Only two seventh graders made the team, so it was great that Bud made it that far.  Rosie lost two teeth and is obsessed with a boy at school named Jeremy.  She has been a little grouchy lately, and so I was surprised when she suddenly became her sweet old self again. " What's up?", I asked her.  She got very embarrassed and told me she is pretending to have an imaginary friend watching her all the time and she wants to be helpful and kind.  Guess what her imaginary friend's name is?  Jeremy.

After such a great report card the first term (3.9) for Bud, we are learning the teachers started off the year easy and are now really starting to push the seventh graders.  Bud has two term projects in each class instead of one, and the homework is getting harder.  (He still has less than last year.)  Bud gets up each day with his alarm, showers, makes his bed, puts in his contacts, takes care of his braces, etc.; he is a very responsible boy.  But, he is struggling a bit with organizing assignments that are given days before they are due back and remembering when things are due.  He had a few bad test scores and was devastated.  This is a learning process for both of us and we have many more years ahead.  I feel like I'm in seventh grade again and go to sleep at night thinking mitosis, miosis, prophase, anaphase, telephase...

Coleman had a wart on his finger, so Jono and I took him to our yearly dermatologist exam.  Our doctor is a friend and teased Coleman the whole time.  Coleman asked him his favorite question to ask people, "What's ten thousand times ten thousand?"  Most people answer one hundred thousand, but the correct answer Coleman will tell you is one hundred million.  Our doctor was impressed as he burned the wart off Coleman's finger.  While examining my face and shoulders, the doctor asked me how old I am.  I answered 40.  Coleman was playing a game on my phone and corrected me without even looking up, "No mom, you're 41."  A week later the wart on Coleman's finger had blistered, scabbed and then fallen off at school.  He felt so bad that the scab fell on the floor and he couldn't find it to bring it home and show us.

We are assembling things for our house every day and every night and finally starting to get organized.  We have a ping pong table and a double shot basketball game in the basement.  One morning, at 7:12 am, I heard someone playing the double shot downstairs.  It was Coleman!  I usually have to wake him and Rosie up each morning at 8:00, but he was so excited to play he woke up himself.  We turn on the fire every night.  We unpacked our poker chips and played the first game of 21 in our new house.  It feels like home already!

One of our favorite holidays is Thanksgiving and we were so excited to host in our new house!  We had Jono's family over for a wonderful feast and a great day.  We used our fine china and silverware, and I sewed table runners for the big day.  Jono carved the turkey on the buffet and served everyone as they walked down the line.  After dinner, some of my family came over and we decorated gingerbread houses.  We are so happy here!

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Our New Home

Here are some pictures of our gorgeous house! Jono and crew worked diligently and built it in a record breaking five months.  We loved all of our sub-contractors and had a great experience watching and participating in the process.  We moved into our new house on October 24th and we love it so much!

 I will post pictures of the rest of the house soon!

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Teeth

We have had an exciting week of teeth milestones in our family.  Coleman lost his first tooth!  His permanent tooth was already poking up so Jono decided to pull the baby tooth out. It was hard to pull (there were blood and tears involved), but it finally came out. Unfortunately, the Tooth Fairy forgot to come that night, but she made up for it by leaving six dollars the next night.

Soon after, Bud pulled out his last baby tooth.  Unlike Coleman's tooth pulling which involved the whole family and a camcorder, Bud's tooth pulling happened at school and I don't think the Tooth Fairy even bothered to show up.  

Another momentous occasion happened today, Bud got braces!  He is complaining of sore teeth and drinking his vanilla shake right now.  He looks just like the rest of his twelve year old friends.

  

Look at these cute boys five years ago: 

Coleman got his first front tooth and Bud lost his first front tooth!

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Bees

We recently went to two Bees games.  The first time we sat in the seats by the field and had a great time.  The kids really got into the game and Jono always loves watching baseball.    Everyone was very excited that we got four balls from the players during the game.  Afterwards we were treated to a spectacular fireworks show.  It was a fun night!

A few days later, we went to the Bees game again and sat in the suite.  They were serving hamburgers and watermelon with a stocked fridge of drinks, and Rosie and Coleman ate so much food and drank two rootbeers!  This night was cooler so I watched the game from inside the suite.  The Bees had a great game and we stayed much longer than we had planned.  When it was time to get ready for the school the next day, some of us were a little grouchy!

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Mother's Day

For Mother's Day I got many wonderful gifts; a pinch-pot made by Coleman, a poem written by Rosie, a homemade card from Bud, aviator sunglasses from Jono and a basket of goodies from Jen F.  I am very grateful to be a mom; it's my favorite thing!!


Rosie and Coleman sang with the Primary children for Mother's Day.  Coleman surprised us all by singing louder that anyone else!  (He is normally not much of a singer.)  He got lots of comments afterwards about being such a great singer.  Rosie, ironically, was embarrassed. I write ironically because when she was younger she was the one who stole the show everytime by singing loudly!

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The Tractor is Here

We have a giant hole and couldn't be happier about it!  The pictures don't show how enormous the hole is and the dirt that is everywhere.  The kids love climbing on the dirt piles and Jono has already trimmed the tall pine trees.  (We had to remove the pine tree the kids are standing by in the picture below, but the rest of the trees fit perfectly with our house.)  We hope to serve Thanksgiving Dinner in our new home! 

Before:

After:

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Bud the Debater

Bud participated in Debate again this year and had two very successful tournaments.  He and his debate partner were on the negative side.  The resolution was about renewable energy resources in Utah.  They did great at the District Debate and qualified for the State Debate.  They did especially well at State and Bud won a Speaker Award.  We are very proud of him!

When we called Grammy and Grampy to share Bud's great news, Grammy reminded me that he was once a toddler whose only words were "tractor dirt, tractor move dirt".  You've come a long way Buddy!

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Easter and Spring Break

We had a very fun spring break and Easter.  We stayed in town this year and stayed very busy with outings, cousins and friends.  These are some of the exciting things we did:  going to the zoo in a large group of 22 children, eating at Crown Burger, getting frozen yogurt, visiting Jono at the bank and drinking hot chocolate, going to the library (Coleman got his own library card and said it was "the best day ever"), working in the yard, playing golf (twice), going bowling and playing at the arcade, going to the aquarium, meeting the Easter Bunny at the mall, and dyeing and decorating 6 dozen eggs!   


On Easter, we had a wonderfully fun party at Laura and JD's house.  They had us play this hilarious game where you take turns breaking an egg on someone's head.  It could have confetti in it or glitter, which means you were the lucky one for the day.  (Rosie got the glitter egg.)  Laura spent hours hollowing out eggs, dyeing them and filling them with confetti or glitter.  It was so funny watching everyone smash eggs on each other's heads.  Jono added a twist to the game and broke a real egg on an unsuspecting Bud's head.  We laughed so hard!  It was a very fun party with delicous desserts.

Here are some random pictures of our family:  playing in the snow on Conference weekend, Bud finished all seven Harry Potter books and is planning on seeing the last movie with Grampy this summer, another Oettli poker match with Coleman coming out as the big winner, and wearing our Master's shirts on Master's Sunday.

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Rosie is Ten!

Rosie turned ten on April 16th!  She loves her birthday and this was an extra special birthday because she is now in the double-digits.  She decided to forget about the big friend party and we spent the day with our family celebrating from morning to night.

In the morning (in front of the fire, is spring ever going to get here?), Rosie opened her presents.  She got skinny pink jeans, sandals, Tron Legacy DVD, other things that I can't remember because I am so late writing this post, and pink Callaway golf clubs.  She was very happy!

We then put on our Utah red and went to the Spring Football game.  Some of us had a great time and others of us were starving, bored and wiggly.  Rosie and Coleman definitely will not be invited to any games this fall!  After the game we went to Rosie's favorite restaurant The Spaghetti Factory.  She was so happy when the waiters sang Happy Birthday to her and brought her ice cream at the end of the meal.

Then our celebration continued at the golf course so Rosie could try out her new clubs.  (I have no desire to play golf, but I love to watch my kids play golf!)  It's a great sight to see the three of them hitting bucket after bucket of balls on the range and playing a round. Coleman is old enough to play on the course this year and we have played quite a few times this spring.  Rosie recently shot her best score for 9 holes on a par 3 course, in the low 50's. Rosie loves her pink golf balls so much that when she gets to hole with water on in, she pulls out an old white ball, just in case!

 Our sweet Rosie has had an exciting year!  She still loves school and gets very good grades.  (The only time she ever had a "B" she cried for hours.)  She has become a good babysitter to Coleman and is getting much more responsible.  I pay her one dollar an hour for tending and she saved up enough money to buy a Smurfette stuffed doll.  Rosie loves to read and has read many books this year.

Rosie got her own library card recently and has her own library bag.  She loves to check out books and DVD's.  She is excited about all her extra-curricular activites like jazz, ballet, basketball, activity days and she loves to play with friends.  Rosie is still sometimes very messy, but is learning that cleaning your room means putting things away, not stuffing them in the back of your closet or under your bed.

As a baby and preschooler Rosie ate everything, now she is quite picky.  She refuses to eat school lunch, but doesn't like sandwiches from home.  For lunch I pack her a slice of white bread with nothing on it, yogurt (which she mostly doesn't eat, but I keep hoping she will eat it so I keep packing it), strawberries (she will no longer eat grapes) and a cookie.  It's pathetic!  At Sunday dinner she declares she is a "carnivore" and tries to get away with not eating her veggies.  On the flip side, Bud was such a fussy eater as a toddler, but will now eat everything!

Rosie is still very much a free-spirit.  She is delightful to be around, but sometimes I watch her and think to myself "Where did she come from?"  She has no inhibitions and does crazy things at crazy times.  She wants to be race car driver or an author when she grows up.  We are encouraging the latter.  Last week Jono was opening the mail and said, "Another bill".  It was his life insurance bill for the year.  Rosie then wrote this letter:

Dear NWM,
     My name is K Rosie Oettli.  I am the daughter of Jennifer S Oettli and Jonathan R Oettli.  I am ten years old and my birthdate is 4/16/2001.
     I am pleased to imform that my mom, if my Dad dies, she will have enough money.  She will have my Dad's checking and bank account money.  That's over 1,000 dollors.  This is the same with my Dad.
     My parents will not put up with any more bills.  My parents are building a house for our family to live in.  We need money to build it.
     Nice doing business with you.  Thank you.
                                                                Sincerly,
                                                                   K Rosie Oettli


Isn't that the best letter?  There is no question about her creativity.  Happy Birthday Rosie, we love you with all our hearts!!

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