pie can't thank you enough

Natalie came down a few days before Thanksgiving, nothing makes me feel more grateful than my best friend.  With everything that I am struggling with she is the only one from outside of it that really knows my inner battle, I never feel like she judges me and she always inspires me.  Sometimes I think we are like an old married couple, we don’t send cards or presents for birthdays or Christmas because it’s like we are more than that.  I think making pie is therapeutic and I was obviously in need of some therapy... I went crazy with pie crust.  I started working as the volleyball coordinator at the YMCA and it has been a little crazy.  There is a ridiculous amount of paper work and that is saying something because I taught Special Education.  It just isn’t very organized and the person that has ran the club program still wants to be involved, it is a delicate balance.  I have never known a man to cause so much Drama!  Well needless to say my crust turned out with flaky perfection. 

 

 Then she took her pies and I took ours to Thanksgiving.  I just want to add that Heath is a challenging kid for a lot of adults well for me too, I love how great she is with him and she really gets him too.  She makes him feel so good, he is very secure in their relationship and he just doesn’t get that very often.  I really love that little boy and I’m so glad she does too and that she is his Natalie too!    

I love Kanab I don’t think I would relax any better at a spa or retreat than I do at my in-laws!  Brant’s brother Matt took us off-roading.  The kids loved it.  Matt asked what he thought the squirrels were having for Thanksgiving dinner and Rianne said Acorn soufflé. 

 

We saw diving board rock and enjoyed the beauty of those red hills.  Nate was cracking us up to.  He would stick his head out and then get so made if a tree touched him. 

He also called Brandon while we were driving around, after Matt said he doesn’t call Brandon very often because he doesn’t answer.  Brandon answered, so funny! 

I’m grateful for my 3 wild turkeys!   It was a little different for Brown family turkey day we all fit in the dining room so it felt more like Sunday dinner.  It was so delicious!  Bennett’s first thanksgiving, I hope it becomes one of his favorites, ol’ Kanab cowboy and lil’ indian J.

  He loved all the attention, he is such a social, happy boy!  It felt so good to relax and have some peace.

It wasn’t the turkey bowl but we did get in some backyard football.  I’m counting on one next year when we have more nieces and nephews! 

We did get to participate in the Kanab light parade. 

 We drove the float.  All of the kids had a blast!

  Jeff gave the lesson on Sunday which talked about blossoming like a rose.  Deep symbolism cut back, more thorns the bigger the flower when just a bud you don’t see full potential and layers of petals.  Brant’s dad got a little chocked up talking about Bennett blossoming it meant so much to me.

Comparative Volleyball

I love coaching, every year I learn something new.  This was a fun season.  I was able to coach JV so I got to move up with some of my girls from last year.  I was also able to sit on the varsity bench and learn from one of the best strategy coaches.  He is also such a positive person too.  Although I coached with him last season I really felt like I got to know him well this season.  And He loved Bennett! 

He graduates this semester and I hope he will be around next season.  We also had a new head coach which is sometimes an adjustment but she did great.  Our program is really growing and I feel like we did good this year but I am so excited about how this group is just on the verge of greatness, I can feel it coming.  One of the highlights was placing in the Coconino tournament, and my JV had a winning season ending with a big win over our cross town rivals! 

Tess helped me coach about mid-season and she is an amazing skills coach, we made a great team.  Now she has me roped into coaching with her a 12’s team, which Rianne will be a part of.   It was great to see my girls get better with each practice and game. I had a great group of girls who were all very different but they worked hard and had great team unity.  Every season I seem to have one girl who teaches me something that goes beyond the court.  This season I felt like my girls had fun and wanted to win but I just didn’t see them fight to win. 

There are at least 2 elements I don’t know how you coach, timing and competitiveness.  One girl at the beginning of the season I thought had the competitive fire but the more I coached I started to notice something.  She wasn’t being competitive, but I couldn’t figure out how I saw these sparks of competitiveness but it was within herself.  Then I thought I like that inner drive to be better but it was something else and it was eating at me.  One night it hit me it wasn’t competiveness it was comparative.  I watched her for the next few practices and she was ok making a mistake as long as other girls on the team were too.  When she was the one that ended a play or killed the drill, she was great at finding someone else to blame.  When we talked about stats she was interested in where she was but more on where the other girls fighting for her position were.   She is a smart girl, and a good player but I felt like it was holding her back somehow.  Because volleyball is (in my humble opionion) one of the greatest team sports ever, she wasn’t taking on a role on the team.  I thought how can I help her and what if I don’t, maybe I could just leave it alone but then she would just become a good player but one that is easily replaced, and certainly not a clutch, true team player, they worry too much. 

 I did talk to her and I think it helped but a few weeks before the season ended I came across this poem, I have read it before. 

The Grade…

God does not grade
On the curve,
I'm sure of it.

But we sit around
Like high school students
In an important class,
Whose teacher has drawn
On the blackboard
The tiny wedges
For the A's and E's.
And the great bulge
For the C's.

We sigh in veiled relief
As the person down the row
Messes up,
Because it makes us
Look better
And probably means an E
For him, which is good,
Because while we have
Nothing against him personally
It means an A is more
Available to us.

And we secretly sorrow
When the person in front of us
Does really well,
Although we like her okay,
Because there goes another good grade,
Darn it and we're looking
Worse and worse
And slipping further down the curve.

And God, I think,
Sits at the front of the class
Holding A's enough for all,
Watching us
Working out our salvation
In fear and competition.

-Carol Lynn Pearson

my biggest fan, now 10months!

That’s when the transition happened.  Transition is key to success in volleyball, it is the movement from defense to offence and in a volley it is the key to who will win that point.  It puts you in position to score for your team.  I laid in bed thinking about this and realized I am on the defense.  Maybe its pride I don’t want to fail, or look bad.  Isn’t it enough that I’m on the team, I come to practice (go to church etc.)  I am watching and hoping we win, but not in position to help because I am looking at my team (the really good people) and worrying about myself thinking I have nothing to offer so I hide letting someone else do it because they will do it better than me, and the other team has me complacent, just going through the motions.  I’m expecting that the ball won’t come to me, surely He’s not counting on me.  I heard so clearly “whose on the Lord side who, now is the time to show.”  I know God’s team will win and I want to be in position when the ball will come to me.  Will I make it better for my team or be so worried about all the ways I don’t handle it as well as someone else that I let the ball drop?  I have been the coach looking down the bench at all the potential but who will go in and make the difference.  He’ll do the best with the players he has but does he have me?  I need to dig out of this hole I have put myself in and just do something to put my team in a better position.  Balancing being grateful to be on the team with making sure I have a spot next season because tryouts (trials) are coming.  Being one of the really good players is hard work.

Sea monsters

Happy Halloween!  Halloween is such a fun holiday and I love a theme and our crazy traditions.

Brandon and his girlfriend stopped to see us at a pumpkin carving party which made our day! 

Bennett liked making root beer. 

This little water monster

 is a fish!  He loves the water.

I really wanted Bennett to be some sea creature I thought about a sea turtle and looked around for green hoodie but then he got crawling so fast that the turtle didn’t seem fitting anymore and an orange hoodie was much easier to find. 

So with the help of my super talented friend, ok I’ll be honest no help from me just the idea.  She did all the work.  She sewed Heath’s shark fin, stuffed my octopus legs and eyes, Made Ria’s mermaid fin and shell bra (which was AWESOME). 

And she made the perfect little goldfish costume ever!  

Brant is a good sport when I get on a theme kick.  He was glad he was able to borrow a shark costume because I wanted him to be a SCUBA diver!  It was a very fun Halloween! 

 

1 and 1

Little man is 9 months now, they grow up too fast we have officially had him longer than his birth mom, I often tell him he has the best mom, Heath corrected me saying we don’t know if that is technically true.  Now, I say your mom loves you so much then it is true both ways!

Rianne celebrated her 11^th birthday, which marks her last year in primary, her last year of elementary school.  As if volleyball season isn’t crazy enough it ended the day before.  So on her birthday it was going to be all about her!  Well Dad made the usual birthday breakfast requests. 

Then I was reminded it was mornings with mom at school, I hurried made myself slightly presentable and took the kids to school as I chatted with a few moms, I discovered it was also the awards ceremony.  I asked Ria do you know about this, “yes there is a note in my backpack”.  Great I’ll be staying a little longer so she can be honored on her birthday for being on the honor roll.  It is a day all about her. 

  I’ll work on the cake after school wrap presents etc., but it is a half day at school.  I made it home for a minute before I had to go to the high school for uniform check in with my volleyball girls.  Good thing she is going swimming with a friend so I can go in town and pick up something to finish her cake and pick up her bff.  Rianne is so go with the flow and I’m grateful because EVERYTHING took longer than I thought!  I did get her present and Hailey but I picked her up late and the little friend she was swimming with had to take her with them to a ball game.  One stop at the grocery store and home to finish her cake and open presents. 

She was very excited about her volleyball, volleyball purse (from grandma Mary) and Volleyball shirt.  We’ll see how much she likes it or maybe she is just seeking some attention from her mom, she starts playing next week and I got roped into coaching a 12’s team.  She will be one of the younger ones but hopefully she has fun. 

We took her out to her favorite place (weird kid) Village Inn.  I can’t explain it, I told her only old and weird people eat here and Hailey asked, why she was there! We had a good time, Hailey made us laugh and “we like her face”. 

Then back to the Udall’s for cake and wishes! 

Rianne is such an awesome kid and so obedient, she is so positive and such a great sister.  I love our 'Mom and Me' journal and she always leaves me movie quotes at the end of her posts.  She has a contagious laugh... well really it's a giggle. 

 I feel blessed to be able to raise this incredible girl but let’s be honest she is raising me.  As she has been going through a tough time right now (she would like me to keep it private and I will honor that).  This situation has stirred so much emotion and hit too close to home personally but she has inspired me, and I find myself wishing I was more like her!  I’m trying to be as full of faith as she is and I appreciate her reassurance to me that everything is going to be ok.  I wish I was giving her more support but she is the one giving it to me.  I know when we found out we were pregnant and Brant said he wanted a girl first so our family started with a peace maker, he was prophetic, she is that!  Happy birthday!           

Natalie’s cookies got here on Halloween and Rianne was ecstatic.  Perfect purple, with all her favorites the popcorn one was my favorite.  They were delicious!