Jackman Family Summer

I know I sent a text, but I want the whole world to know how excited I am. lol  I just passed 24 credits in 5 months and have submitted my application for January 2013 Student Teaching Cohort! 
Ben is down to 1 job this summer.  We are still killer busy.  I was hoping summer vacation would be just that, a vacation.  Morgan has a summer job babysitting, Carter has a summer job cleaning, both have summer games for soccer coming up, Carter has piano and Morgan has swim team.  They are both planning a few days in Idaho this summer after girl's camp and scout camp.  I let each of the kids pick a free summer movie, and a couple of library days thinking that a few wouldn't be too bad...I have 5 kids!!!  Needless to say, I am just as busy as before school was out but at least I have Ben home in the mornings and am done with school for a month. 
Logan had her first dance performance and did great.  Her group had the shortest dance, but they did actual ballet and not just twirling and jumping in tu-tus.  It was nice. :)
The fire in Hurricane had Ben stuck at work for an extra 5 hrs waiting for the word to evacuate, but all ended well.  They even escorted him down the mountain's closed roads so he could come home and sleep a few hours before he headed to work the next morning. :)
I finally got to sing my finished version of my Faith song from my personal progress Faith project.  It went well.  I have a fabulous young musician in my ward who was able to help me finish it and get it sounding right.
One of these days I am not going to be busy and I will have nothing to say...but until that day, I can't wait to see all my wonderful family and hold my new nephew!!!  ***Oh my sweet Wesley!*** Love you all!

Jackman Update!

Ben

•  He is working at LaVerkin Elem. in the mornings M-F.
• He is working at DRA 3-11pm, M-F.
• He delivers for Dominos on Saturday nights.
• We still get to see him on Saturday mornings and Sundays...most of the time.
• We just did 10 days of Valentine's for him, (adapted from Kayla's idea), and it was awesome!  Since we didn't get to go out on V-Day, I spent the time with the kids and we planned the great things for Ben, from long-stem noses to movie night, kiss jar to a red filled basket.  We had so much fun!

Tylia

•  I get to teach a lesson in HeadStart tomorrow for my practicum (pre-student teaching).  I am so excited!   
• I just finished my Faith song for my faith project in personal progress!  If you get a minute please listen to it. :)  http://www.noteflight.com/scores/view/7f4e0353df94a7beab09ed7a8232f6bad39ffd13
• I am helping Carter's soccer team warm-up when the coach is running late.
• I am trying to get a double semester done this time.

Morgan

• The 1st soccer game is this Saturday!
• Morgan completed her Faith project, she transposed We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet, and learned how to play it on the cello.
• She goes to Southern Utah Performing Arts Festival with her orchestra tomorrow.
• She and her friends now have a pair of red skinny jeans that are their 'traveling pants'
• She turned 13, so she now has an email and a facebook.
• She is also on the YW basketball team.  It is a new experience for her, and she mostly likes it.

Carter

• Carter's first soccer game is this Saturday as well...of course they are both in town, 10.5 hrs. apart.
• He also has a scout camping trip this Fri./Sat., so he will miss it, and we will have to hike as a family using a compass and map...for five miles.  He almost has his 2nd and 1st class. :)
• He just had his piano recital, and grandpa came.  He is in percussion at school, so he rocked a LOT while he counted and played.  It was great.
• He is spending some time with his Papa after school a couple days a week and helping prune and get the farm ready for spring.

Logan

• She is taking ballet and is learning very quickly.  She bounces in everything she does, so maybe she should go with Jazz next time. lol
• She is working on her last 2 Articles of Faith, and doing great in Activity Days.
• She is a great helper and loves to cook with me.
• She is starting to hold her ground and develop her pre-pre-teen emotions...yay! lol
• Still singing in the choir! 

Benjamin

• Has been getting headaches everyday at school around the same time.  We narrowed it down to his eyesight and he got checked today.  His super tough, flexible titanium glasses get here sometime in the next two weeks.
• Spring wrestling started and he is loving every minute of it.
• I spend a lot of time in Ben's class getting my hours for school, and working on the class' fluency.
• Making a lot of progress on his speech.  His R's are coming along great!

Balian

• He also started wrestling and seems to have a lot of intuition and natural movement that only appears while he's on the mat.
• I get to teach his class tomorrow and he is so excited!
• He got a haircut, by me...it's sad.  I dropped him off for school and he came right back out and said, "See mom, my teachers said it's not awful!" haha

Love you all and miss you!

Busy Christmas time for the Jackman Family

Wow...this one's a long one.  It has been a fun couple of weeks at our house.  Little Ben started speech at school because his r's, or lack of, are starting to effect his reading and spelling terribly.  Logan started basketball...she is a guard.  She made a basket during half-time today!!! It's fun to watch her.  I am proud of her for trying so hard and saving the money to do it.  She went to practice all by herself the first day and by the end of practice she had talked herself into joining the rest of her team. lol  She is coming so far!  She is still scared, but choir and her teachers have really been a tremendous help for her confidence.  Carter continues to work on his merit badges and piano...and percussion.  I can't wait till he has real drums...lol...the bells and the practice pad for his drums are SO loud already!  Morgan is still working on her cello.  She was supposed to tryout for a solo today and panicked and gave it to the other boy.  She is so upset know that she didn't even try.  She is getting more and more beautiful everyday.  She is also working on her personal progress with me too.  We have finished our Faith experiences and can now start our Faith Projects.  Little Ben wrestled a few weeks ago and did great!  Grandpa got to come watch him and help him a little bit too.  It was so fun to see him do well on his first tournament.  Balian is...exhausting. lol  He is very fun, funny, happy, crazy, energetic, etc.  He informed me the other day that we should have another baby.  I told him that I'm not having more.  We discussed that I asked the Dr. to cut my baby tubes...and he did, and burned them so I can't have more.  He was almost screaming when he exclaimed, "Why?! We could have had another baby by now!!!"  I was laughing pretty hard and thought..."EXACTLY!"  I have such sweet and wonderful kids!  They always want to make something and take it to people in our ward.  They love people and think that everyone is as happy as they are.  We had a neighbor lose their home to a fire last week and my kids wanted to help.  Little Ben let me go through some of his clothes and shoes to take him to wear so he had something to wear to school. One of my good friends helped me gather stuff and we got clothes for all of them and some food for them, along with some toothbrushes.  I wish I had more stuff to share...that hadn't been used. lol  I saw her walking this morning with the new coat my friend had given her.  It made me smile. :)  Her parents live in our ward so they might get to come to church with us now.  We are continuing to get up @6 in the morning to read scriptures as a family...mostly. lol  Not everyone makes it all the way to the room we are reading in before they crash again but most of the time the kids do great.  Morgan and Logan are my regulars. Also during the last two weeks, our town had a Winterfest.  I was on the committee and ended up making snowmen out of different items and materials because out of all the teachers at the school, two did it.  Then I had a lot of help from Brandon's family and Josh on the trailer I had to decorate for the School Choir to ride in for the light parade.  After the parade my kids sang I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, and then my group of ladies The Way Off Broads sang too.  I took polls for the snowmen prizes and then awarded them.  I was excited that one of mine won 2nd place.  I used two hula-hoops and made a Venn diagram, turned it sideways, hung it from fishing line, and stuck eyes, nose and mouth on the wall behind it.  It was fun and we had assigned that one to Mr. Hansen's class, which is the special education teacher at our school.  Since one of my friends that was helping has a student there, and Ben and Dawn both work in that classroom, we thought it was a good choice. :)  Anyway, then we handed out gloves with Frosty and then cleaned up while the kids watched the fireworks.  Ben got off work for the end so that was nice.  I have been going to the daycare, the Head Start and Little Ben's class pretty regularly for my observation hours, and have 2 1/2 papers left for the next 10 days of school.  Life is awesome. Life is crazy. Life is warm now that I got hot burning wood from the shop! Saturday is my Relief Society Christmas Breakfast.  I have to be there by 7am to set up. lol It's now time for all of the work and family parties.  I didn't mention the gingerbread house night, or the Christmas story night at Dawns...or the performances the choir, band, orchestra, and my singing group have done and have scheduled. lol  I'm tired.  I think it's time for bed now.   Love you all!!!  I miss you and can't wait until Christmas to see some of you.

Halloween 2011

Okay, so my creative kiddos had some funny costumes. I took a lot of Halloween pictures, but all of the ones when they were holding still turned out bright yellow. I did my best to adjust it so you could stand to look at them. So you don't have to guess, Morgan is Justin Beiber, Carter is a chicken, Logan is Rapunzel, Ben was the grim reaper/skeleton, and Balian was a barbarian.

We got to go up to Diamond Ranch Academy for a staff family party. They had bounce houses, a rock wall, and a gladiator course set up. It was a lot of fun. Then of course we took off into the night to fill our bags with candy. Morgan, 12yrs old, didn't get to go this year, so she had a party on Saturday with about 18 screechy girls. I was exhausted. lol She also got to go to a friend's party on Halloween. Carter is 11 so he went out with his cousins Kellie & Ashlee this year. They went fast and filled right up. I'm sure they had fun. Little Ben started wrestling, but it's almost over, so he will go to the next 3 practices and the last 2 tournaments. He loves it! Balian turned 5 yesterday!!! My baby is bossy...and spoiled. It's fun though. I don't want him to grow up, so I am going to have to deal with that quick, otherwise his teachers an not going to be able to stand him. lol Ben hopefully got the Saturday shifts at Diamond Ranch now. Most of our sports are done now until about Feb, so that should work out okay. I made poodle skirts for the elementary dance festival. It was stressful, but the dances were darling! Logan will be quite the dancer. Ben...oh Ben. lol He was hilarious! He had so much fun and "owned" the music! I didn't even know he liked dancing! I was laughing so hard I had tears. It was fun. I wish I was less stressed, then i could have remembered to invite people. Logan and Ben also earned the "Cubs of Learning" awards at school on Friday for the month of October. Anyway, we are just plugging along. Today is the 1st of Morgan's 2 playoff games in soccer, so next weekend it will be done until Feb. Looking forward to my first partial Saturday home in the last 3 months!