2/2/16 Mr. Connelly

     Look what I found in my box at school today. It made me feel like an official teacher. For the lesson today I took all of my classes to the computer lab. The kids all worked in a math program called Khan Academy. It's wonderful because it allows each kid to work at their own speed. If they need more practice problems of a certain type it makes up more. The kids do appear to be learning. I had five students make up the exam today since they were sick last week.  They did about as well as the rest of the students have done, which is pretty good. One student came and made up one of the home works that he hadn't turned in. That alone bumped up his grade quite a bit. If he works hard he can continue to improve his grade as we go along. It made me happy to see him improve. I'm really teaching because I want kids to learn. I don't want any of them to fail. 

      As usual Heidi did a fabulous job of holding down the fort while I was at school. Life goes on when I am out of the office and it is gratifying to see that problems are getting solved without me as well. I am so grateful to have such a great team. 

12/4/15 Peter Peanut Butter and Rebecca Reader

     Peter decided that he likes peanut butter. Luckily Heidi spotted him before he made too big a mess. 

     Today Rebecca came home with a medal. It was for becoming part of the word millionaires club. She has read books this school year totaling over a million words. They also have a multimillionaire club. At the rate she's been reading she could hit that mark as well. She celebrated her accomplishment by reading another book. 

     In other big events today we went to the Alcantar Christmas block party. They trucked in ice that was ground into "snow" for a sledding hill. The kids had great fun. They all would have liked to stay longer but we had another project to do. 

      Next up was to install new monitors at the Stake Center Family History room. Heidi came up with a way to upgrade all the monitors in the stake for the same price as we had planned on getting monitors for the new computers. The stake president and his wife stopped by as we were working. They both seemed pleased by the improvement. (She is over family history in the stake). The kids were very patient waiting for us to finish. We are blessed with some pretty great kids. 

12/2/15 The Pencil is Mightier Than . . .

     The other day Peter grabbed a pencil and shoved it backwards into our nice pencil sharpener. The metal end got stuck and just like that our fairly new tool for sharpening pencils had come to an end. Or had it? Tonight Heidi found the since idle sharpener when we were cleaning up from dinner. She asked me to take a crack at fixing It. I first had to find 2 screws hidden under soft stickers. Then 3 more from the inside and pop of the front plate. At this point I began to worry if I'd ever get it reassembled and fuctioning again. It proved to be a three handed job using needle nose plyers and a screw driver to get the, now slightly more accessible, pencil top out of the sharpener. I learned that I could not reassemble the device in the reverse order that it came apart. With some trial and error I got it back together (with only one extra part). Then, drum roll please, it worked! The kids were not as surprised as I was. With four kids in elementary school we go through a lot of pencils. Heidi was very grateful to have it back online. I am grateful to Heavenly Father that it did not break in my hands and I did not have to buy another new one. Tender Mercies. 

11/29/15 Help with the Furnace

     Last night we decided that it was cool enough that we wanted to turn the furnace on. When we did though it was blowing cold air. We ended up covering the kids with extra blankets which worked fine but it got down to 62 degrees. The forecast for tonight says 36 degrees. Today we called Brother McDowell in our ward. We'd heard that he might be able to help us. Turns out that he knows a lot about fixing units like ours. He was able to make a couple of quick fixes that got the heater going again. We'll still need to call the property management company in the morning but we do have heat in the meantime. Brother McDowell says it just won't be as efficient as it should be without the frion that it needs. We are super grateful for his help. 

11/27/15 The Good Outing with Gram and Papa

      The latest Pixar movie is out this week. It is called The Good Dinosaur. Gram and Papa invited us to go with them to see the movie. The kids seemed to enjoy the movie. Sarah was so scared though she had to sit on my lap for half the movie. Still, she said to me after it ended that she couldn't wait for it to come out on DVD so she could watch it again. After the movie Papa said rightly that it is a drama, not a comedy. There are cute and funny moments. However, the young dinosaur spends much of the movie in peril and there is tragedy as well. Overcoming these two things is a theme of the film. Peter did not sit still for the whole movie but he did let Heidi stay in the room. That is a first for him. So we can say that was our best theater experience since Peter was born over a year ago. 

     After the movie we ate lunch at Gram and Papa's house. David asked Gram if her scooter needed to be driven to keep the battery from dying. He always wants to do his part to help with this. The kids can get impatient waiting for their turn to ride. The photo above shows the solution they came up with. So far as I know no one taught them how to fit 6 kids on one scooter. They sure love to be together. 

        We are all grateful for this wonderful outing with Gram, Papa and Becca B. 

     This evening we got another fun treat. Heather brought her three kids over to roast marshmallows and hang out. Heidi started a 1 match fire. I was impressed. Later on though I was given the task of supervising the fire. After most of he kids had gone inside Sarah stayed out and asked me questions about how to keep a fire going. Bradley also came out and gave me an update on his life. He too enjoyed tending the fire. Today has been a busy and fun day. 

     I almost forgot to mention the Good Samaritan Heavenly Father sent our way. Around 8 this morning Heidi and Peter and I were going to install two new computers in the stake when our battery wouldn't start. We called our home teachers, and they would have come, but a kind man saw our plight and stopped to give us a jump start. That helped us get on our way. I am grateful for kind souls willing to take time to lend a helping hand. 

11/26/15 Thanksgiving Simple Gifts

    The picture above fails to show how much fun Peter was having with the swing. He was discovering that if he pushed it away it would come back. He laughed and giggled. Moments like these are fun to watch as a parent. When your kids are able to find joy in the simplest gifts from our Heavenly Father. 

      Today we were blessed to have both sets of grandparents over for Thanksgiving dinner. What an unusual blessing that is. The food was lovingly prepared by many hands and it was delicious. The kids seemed to have grown in maturity since last year. They seemed more willing to try new foods. This has been a source of tears in the past but not today. This may have come, in part, from an unconscious choice that Heidi and I made. Rather than give them something of everything and obliging them to eat it, we gave them foods we knew they liked and the option to try others. As a result some of the kids surprised us by requesting to try the new foods (and finding they liked them). This may have lead other kids to be brave enough to try the unfamiliar (to them) Thanksgiving dishes. So, another simple thing to be grateful for, a Thanksgiving meal with no memorable crying. 

       Our blessings are, of course many. We are blessed to have family nearby. In addition to the grand parents and Becca B both Heather and Matt (and some of the kids) stopped by for visits. We were blessed with time, I'm sure that many people had to work yesterday. We were blessed to all be healthy. So many times during the holidays we have taken turns being sick. You never know when that might happen but today it did not. Another small mercy is that Peter did not fall off he playground. You may remember from an earlier Facebook post from Heidi that Peter taught himself to climb up the 5 foot tall climbing wall on our play set by himself. That doesn't mean he isn't still very wobbly once up there or that he doesn't give me a heart attack when he sneaks outside and climbs up with no grown up nearby to catch him. That happened today. Happily he was fine and loved it. I was the only one who seemed worried that he would fall. He surely was not. I could go on and on about things to be grateful for but I think this post is long enough. If anyone is reading this feel free to post something you are grateful in the comments. 

11/23/15 Helping Hands

      Peter is a social baby. He has come to a good family for that. We have learned that he can be well fed and clothed and rested and still be sad because he is lonely. 

     Today David was a big helper with Peter. David attached a tie down strap to the little car and pulled Peter around and around the yard. Peter was so content. Heidi and I were a little nervous when the car got a little too fast. To quote Thomas the Train "luckily no one was hurt". 

      In the evening we went grocery shopping as a family. Then we left a Turkey on the doorstep of a family we know. Hopefully it makes Thanksgiving a little brighter for them. 

11/21/15 Coon Bluff Continued

For an extra dose of excitement Joseph thought that if he ran fast enough he could walk on water (like Dash from the Incredibles)

Here he is dressed in his mother's hoodie after we got him out of his soaked clothes. I was prompted to follow the kids and so I was blessed to be nearby when he went kurplunk into the water. So grateful that aside from having to miss the morning hike in order to get dried off no real harm happened. Grateful for Heavenly Father's promptings that keep us safe.

This morning the river looked beautiful with the trees reflected in the water. Here is another look.

     Here is a snapshot of what our campsite looked like with Matt and Heidi surveying the scene.

    The kids enjoyed climbing on the rocks. A lady from the campsite next door told us to be on the lookout for two bald eagles that nest on the bluff nearby.

     David managed to capture a few pictures.

David keeping warm (or at least trying)

A Nice smile from Cousin Lucy

11/16/15 AZ Merit and a bit of Ice Cream

     Today the kids received back their scores for the AZ Merit test from last year. Rebecca and David were both old enough to need to take it last year. They both did well, coming in above the school and state averages. Rebecca even got a perfect score for her grade level in math. She reports that there were questions she hadn't learned how to do yet on the test but those must not have counted against her. We are proud of both of them for paying attention in school and doing well on the test so we took them out for a frosty. Thank you to Kelly for treating us to some free frosty coupons. It gave us something nice, and tasty, we could do to reward the kids. 

11/15/15 Grateful for what we have

     Today we had the privilege of giving our old bed to a family that needed it. I found out that this family had a couch and the floor of their apartment to sleep on. Now they'll have a bed to add to that. It makes feel embarrassed for feeling like we have it hard sometimes. We can't always have the things we want but we do all have beds we can sleep in. We are very blessed to have that. 

11/13/15 A King Sized Family

    OK so the phone cam doesn't do great in low light but here we all are trying out the new mattress. Heidi and I tried downsizing to a Queen after only ever using a King. Time to face it that we are a King sized family and Queen size just didn't leave enough room. The Queen was a gift from Heather and a welcome improvement over the lumpy King we had before. The new one is memory foam. Our first so it is a bit of an experiment for us. Right now Peter is asleep next to Heidi. In the Queen we couldn't seem to make that work without one of us hanging off the edge of the bed. Anyhow, super grateful for the change. 

The right motivation

Peter has decided that he is not a huge fan of his car seat. When it's time to go someplace he will straighten his back and refuse to let us buckle him. Thankfully his Aunty Heather got us a cool present for his birthday. It's a little steering wheel that makes sounds when you play with it. I just hand it to him and he sits and relaxes and I can buckle him right in. Heidi reported to me today that he cried when it was time to come in from the car because he wanted to keep playing with it. Thank you Heather. You have made our lives easier. 

A New Way to To-Do

This morning we started using a new To-Do list app for our business. It is called Wunderlist. It lets us assign tasks so that people can see a filtered list of only the things they need to do. In the past everyone saw the whole list. So far it has been very useful for keeping focused on the tasks that need to be done. It also has some great collaboration tools so that team members can ask questions about tasks without having to make a phone call. That also seemed to help us stay on task. 

      This evening I went with Rebecca, Sarah and Joseph to pick up Lauren from dance. The class got out late and we were listening to songs from my phone on the radio. By the time Lauren got out our battery was dead. Thankfully a couple of kind gentlemen were there and helped us jump it. I am grateful that Heavenly Father sends us people to help when we need it. 

11/2/15 internet back on

This morning I went and met with a client. Our hope is to keep providing services that provide people with better quality of life. Heidi asked me to be home by 1 today and I missed it by one minute. She wanted me to be here when the Internet repair guy came. He discovered some of our wires had faulty connectors and he repaired them. It is so nice to have our wifi running again. How the pioneers survived without wifi I'm not sure :)