Stray Dogs

Since moving to Missouri my little ladies have taken up a new hobby - it's called finding stray dogs and begging to keep them for pets. Last Saturday was no exception. Sure enough two dogs find their way to our yard and immediately my children bring them up on our deck and try to block off their exit. This time the dogs had collars on and so we were able to call the owner who just happens to live a few houses down from us. Next day, same dogs, no collar --HMMM?

Stake Conferences, Youth Conferences, Scripture Conferences, Any other conferences?

Holy smokes we are in the thick of it now. I have been praying to know what I can do to help the seminary and institute program grow here in southwest missouri. I felt that the best thing I could do is to meet as many people as I can. Every opportunity I have to be with the members, I try to help them get to know me and hopefully make them excited about the seminary and institute programs along the way.

Well the opportunities have been plentiful this month. Last week I was asked to present a lecture at Missouri State University in their religion department. I spoke to them concerning three things they need to understand about Mormons mainly, The First Vision, Revelation and the Book of Mormon. I spoke for about 45 minutes followed by 45 minutes of questions. It was a great experience and I was invited back...probably for the tar and feathers part.

4 days later (last night), I roped Liz into going with me to Rolla, Missouri (about 2 hours from Willard). I was asked to speak at a stake standards night. I said I would if they would allow Liz to speak as well. She was not happy with me but did an excellent job. They gave me an hour and a half to speak. Much to the pleasure of the crowd, I only spoke an hour.

Today I spoke in Stake Conference, next week I speak in another Stake Conference. I really enjoyed speaking in stake conference today, probably for the wrong reasons though. I knew I got to sit on the stand and Liz had the fight the kids. Needless to say, I saw her pacing the halls and scowling at me everytime she caught my eye. I told her that with any luck, maybe she would be asked to speak at the next stake conference and I would watch the kids. This also did not excite her. I would have posted the talk but it is too long. Let me know if you ever are having a hard time falling asleep and I will email it to you.

Grandma Pinegar comes to visit

Liz and I have known that Grandma was coming to Springfield for about 2 months. We have done an amazing job of keeping it a secret. We told the girls we were going to the airport to get a rental car...which is true. Liz and I are going to Dallas for meetings. Here is a video of what happened.

Student of the Month, DaVinci, and Sleepy

Anna was student of the month last month. Her teacher was very impressed with how well she is doing in school and how well she helps others. She has come a long way from the days of sitting in primary with her blanket over her head for fear of people noticing her.

Katie and Sara are doing great in school also. Katie is really impressing her teachers (and parents) with her artistic abilities. Art was a big focus at her last school, Missouri...not so much. She really has a gift for it.

Sara loves kindergarten and nap time. The other day she fell asleep in class and no one bothered to wake her up. Her sisters are jealous that she gets nap time. Today, one of the kindergartners decided it was to far to go to get to the bathroom so they went in the trash can...it wasn't pee either.

Treadmills and Potty Training

Emily has had the most eventful month. The first and most exciting news is that Emily has decided it is okay to be potty trained. Yeah!!!!!! Now with one in diapers we can cut that part of the budget in half. I am so proud of her. She has done a really great job.

As for treadmills, Katie decided to hop on one morning not knowing that Emily was close behind sticking her fingers in the belt. Her fingers got caught underneath and it tore up the skin pretty good. We bandaged her up and kept a close eye on it for the next couple of days. Sure enough, it got infected and we had to take her in to get some medicine. I knew it was bad when the doctor saw her hand and said, "oh my". I was hoping to take a picture for all to see, but Emily didn't want to show her fingers to anyone. Thank goodness they are healing up just fine now.

Katie 3rd grade

We got up early to curl everyone's hair and as soon as they stepped outside the humidity pulled it right out. Of course, Sara gets to keep hers -- Lucky!! She doesn't think so.

Anna 1st grade

Sara Kindergarten

Silver Dollar City

Yesterday we went to the hillbilly version of Disneyland. It was a blast.



Emily had the most fun of all.
Sam would like everyone to know that even though this looks like a kid ride, it was really intense and he had to help his mom get through it.








Scary indeed


Anna got soaked. Watch the video below and you can see how.

We discovered Emily's dancing talent at our friend Kim's wedding a while back. Here she is showing it off again. (She gets it from her father.)


Sam gets his moves from his mom.

Katie's Letter

Katie wrote this letter to Grandma and Grandpa...not sure which ones (but if your reading this grandma or grandpa, I am sure it was to you and not the other ones). I thought it was kind of funny so instead of spending the 41 cents and saving our postal service from being bought out by the government (wait they already are) I would just post it here. (click on the letter and it will enlarge)

Missouri is a beautiful place in the fall. We will post some pictures as soon as the leaves change a little more.

Painters for Hire

What do you get with a 5 gallon bucket of paint and 5 crazy children running around?..... Unfortunately it is not a joke. I set the lid on the bucket just to cover the paint for a moment while I took care of something else. Anna thought she needed something to sit on. She pulled on the handle and ... well, you can see what happened. Thank goodness for a couple of flattened appliance boxes covering our beautiful hardwood floor. Yikes!!!

Toads

SPIDERS EVERYWHERE

Everyday we find spiders, lots and lots of spiders. They spin the most fascinating webs and when you walk outside early in the morning you are sure to walk right into one. We just hope the spider isn't sitting right in the middle of the web when we do. Yuck!

We have been told that we have brown recluse spiders, but so far we just find black widows. Lets just say I keep stocked in bug and spider spray.

The girls have taken to catching bugs and throwing them into the spiders webs and watching the spiders attack -- go ahead, watch.

FANG!!!
St. Louis Temple
Trip to Lagoon "It's just like Disneyland...really!!!"

We are on our way!

Moving to Missouri was not the most exciting news for Katie to hear. She came home from school one day and I sat her on my lap. I said to her, "Katie I have some news to tell you...I got a call today from my boss and...." She blurtted out "We are moving aren't we!" to which I answered in the affirmative. She immediatley started to cry and said, "What about Sister Pope?"

Frankly, that was one of the first questions I asked myself as well. It is difficult to leave family and friends, but leaving Sister Pope seemed to be on a different level.

Katie had developed quite the friendship with the Pope's who were well in into their 80's. Katie was with Sister Pope, holding brother Pope's hand as he passed away after a long fight with cancer. Brother Pope refused to eat the last few weeks of his life, but could not resist when Katie was sent in with food. I think he felt like he would hurt her feelings if he refused.

The other kids are exctited but also a bit nervous about things like tornados, chiggers and ticks.

The town we have bought a house in is Willard, population 3,000. It is in the sticks but we will live closer to the Church building there than we did in Utah!