Darr Family Blog – Page 2 – The place to follow the Darr Family

Just Keep Swimming

Well, we’ve had one interesting thing happen in the past little bit. Our ward (church congregation) had gotten quite big, so they decided to adjust the boundaries (wards are organized by geographic location) so that our ward wasn’t quite so large and other wards bordering it would be a bit larger. When this happened, they called me to become the new Relief Society (women’s organization) president. When the Relief Society was originally formed, it was mainly to help with temporal needs of the church members. It has since expanded to make sure that all the needs of the church members, both temporal and spiritual, are met. The Relief Society has structure in place so that the workload is spread out with a lot of people doing smaller jobs so that all the work doesn’t fall on just a few, which is nice. My job as president is going to be to make sure that all the jobs are being done (and that the people doing the jobs are still comfortable in those roles and not burned out). So, I have this new calling at church to get used to as well as getting ready for school to start in the next few weeks (I go back on the 12th and the kids go back on the 19th). It’s a lot, but I received a blessing when I received the calling and I was blessed with being able to handle all the responsibilities that I currently have: home, church, and work. I’m sticking in the same grade level with the same team, so there’s a little less stress there. We did a lot of work last year with organization to make this year run more smoothly and it seems like it’s going to work out.

Paul has been busy with work and LP stuff. Sometimes (like this weekend) he needs to travel to go to meetings since he holds a position at the state level. He’s also worked really hard to keep our yards looking nice and the garden plants healthy.

The kids are soaking up the last little bit of summer. Abigail had some sort of upper respiratory infection that I took her in to the doctor about. They weren’t sure if it was viral or bacterial, so they prescribed antibiotics as well as allergy medicine, nasal spray, and breathing treatments. After a few days, we were able to stop the breathing treatments. We were also using a vaporizer in her room up until a couple of nights ago. She only has two more days of meds and she sounds so much better. She would get these hacking coughing fits and now she’s only occasionally coughing.

A random green parakeet has been visiting our bird feeders. Paul looked it up and apparently there are feral parakeets that live further south in Texas. This one is either someone’s pet that got loose or a wild one. Either way, it’s decided that our backyard is the place to go for the good grub.

Big brother entertaining her while we were having her do a breathing treatment.

Have I mentioned we’ve gotten rain? We’ve gotten a few really good storms that have greened everything up really nicely.

Her Play-doh creation which is Paul hitting a pinata at her birthday party. She’s never actually had a pinata at her birthday parties, so we’re guessing this is a hint for this year.

Paul planted an acorn in one of our large pots. We’re going to see what happens. 🙂

He also planted a mango seed along with its peel. We might get a mango tree (if we can keep it alive through the winter, that is).

We have a cute squirrel that also likes to hang out in the yard (probably due to the copious amounts of birdseed the birds drop from the bird feeders). He’s still cute because he’s currently happy with living outdoors and hasn’t tried to get into our house at all.

…and more that are just funny. I thought the one on the top left had a typo, but apparently “periodt” (pronounced “period-tee”) is this generation’s way of adding emphasis to what they just said. You learn something everyday, ha.

The pollinators really pollinated the heck out of our gypsy pepper plant. Anything that is light green is a pepper that is growing.

Hey, I’m on a Roll!!

Hey! I’m actually making a post a week after my last one. I’m on a roll, haha. Our adventures this week included the beginning of band camp for Joseph, phonics practice for Abigail, and finally organizing Abigail’s room and the loft. We all survived and even had fun. 🙂

I had to take a picture of Abigail’s work. I helped her with sounding out the words. She picked a cow because she said she wanted to help people by giving them milk to drink. Her cow is adorable!!

I got this set of posters for my classroom. I decided to laminate them so that I could put some on the wall near our calm corner and the rest I’m going to make into a book that they can read through while in the calm corner (the calm corner is where they can go to regulate if they are upset, overwhelmed, sad, etc.).

I love my thermal laminator! I actually have two: one in my classroom and one at home. It’s nice not having to haul one back and forth!

We upgraded our compost from an empty margarine container to an actual compost container. It has vent holes and charcoal filters, so it’s better than just a plastic container on the counter. Plus, it’s cute!

Abigail donated a lot of toys she didn’t play with. This helped the loft become way more organized.

As a reward, I let her pick out a couple of replacement toys since she got rid of three bags full of toys!

My cool new stapler that swivels and lets me staple things from multiple angles. I bought two of these, two, haha.

Abigail and I went to a baptism and as we were leaving, we saw these cuties in the parking lot.

We found books for her that have indented numbers and letters so that she can work on formation. The cool thing is that the pen that came with it has special ink that fades after a bit so that she can practice a page multiple times. Plus, they sent several replacement ink vials, so that’s nice.

She wanted us to have matching toes. I love this phase in life.

4th of July and More

Well, it seems like I’m not getting better at remembering to post weekly. I think it’s because we are completely off our normal schedule. So…here are pictures from 4th of July and the time after that, up until now. We spent 4th of July at home, which was so nice. We just had a relaxing day and then popped fireworks off once it started getting dark. The other pictures I have here are garden updates and pictures from our most recent trip to Six Flags.

This may become an annual 4th of July tradition. I stumbled across this recipe for Rice Krispy treats a few years ago and have decided that it’s the best one. Over the years I’ve tweaked it a bit for different holidays or times of the year, but the original is probably everyone’s favorite.

The pumpkin plant has pretty much taken over the side yard.

When it ran out of room on the ground because of the fence, it simply decided to go…up.

She decided to dress up as Link and then decided to play with her bubble wand from Disneyland. I never know what I’m going to encounter with this one.

Did I mention that on my last trip to Buc-ee’s, I got matching shirts for the family? Well, I did.

Google Photos made this comparison photo and it just about knocked me flat. They were so itty-bitty! Time is a thief.

Having her help him light one of the smaller fireworks.

She was talking to the next door neighbor kids about her sparkler.

I like these sparklers because the handle is really long…and the fuse stops at about the halfway point.

My favorite part of this picture is actually in the background: you can see our neighbor shooting off a Roman candle!

Getting brave enough to dual-wield and move them around a bit. He’s definitely our cautious child.

I sure love this man (and the kid behind us that is soooo excited about the fireworks…I didn’t realize she was in the shot until later).

Paul took a weekday off and we went to Six Flags right as the park opened. It was not very crowded and the weather wasn’t too sweltering in the morning, so that was nice. This was the best shot I could get of the kid who insisted on me taking her picture.

She got to ride on this ride two times in a row, without getting off, because there was nobody waiting in line.

This kid was happy to get to ride some of the bigger rides without having to wait too long.

This picture pretty much sums up how the ride went: Paul and Joseph smiling and me and Abigail looking absolutely terrified. We all had a ton of fun, though…and this was our last ride for the day, so we walked out to the car a lot cooler and ready to go home and change. 🙂

One of our really good friends has a daughter who is now grown. When her daughter was younger, she had a couple American Girl dolls. She has been holding on to them, waiting for the perfect person to pass them along to (along with clothes). Abigail was the lucky recipient and has been playing with them all day. It’s been fun to see her imagination at work.

Here she’s figuring out that putting socks on dolls is hard. I told her it was easier than putting socks on her, since the doll’s foot is holding still, haha.

We have birdseed that attracts songbirds (you can see a cardinal at the feeder) and bird bath that attracts…pompous grackles. I’m sure he is just trying to spread his feathers to cool off, but it sure looks like he’s all pridefully puffed up.

A close up of one of the cardinals. We have a male and a female that are in the yard so frequently that I think they must have a nest in one of our trees.

Different stages of bell peppers ripening: we left them on the vine until they were purple (like the center one on the bottom). Then Paul cut them off (he was afraid if we left them until they were red, critters would be attracted to them) and let them finish changing on the counter. Yesterday we had fajitas for dinner and used them all up. They were so good!

Here’s a short video of just some of the fireworks from the 4th. It still blows my SoCal-raised mind that these types of fireworks are legal for the average person to purchase (assuming they’re outside of city limits, which we are).