Homework stress

I want to start out by saying that I love my son. He is sweet, smart, and usually very funny. Here is the problem. He is against all forms of homework. He loves to sit and read a book but the little pages that they have to read are "boring". It doesn't matter that they are short and only take about 5 minutes all together he will stretch it our for an hour just by saying that he doesn't like them. He says he's "struggling" (thanks for teaching him that word) when he is perfectly capable and when he actually does the work he does it well. It is making me crazy. He is just really stubborn and it taken him quite a while to do anything that he doesn't want to do. I am sure that as he gets older the struggle will move from homework to something else but for now I am just a really frustrated mom. I am sure that other people have this issue but it is a trial that I am hoping will go away soon. At least he still loves to go to school and see his friends.

He had his first phone call from a girl today. It was really cute. He talked to her for about 10 minutes before I had to tell him that it was time to get him homework done. He is really adorable when he is talking to his little friends. They were making plans for recess. Oh to be that young and innocent again.

August at the SLC Zoo

We had the opportunity to go to the Salt Lake City Zoo and Lagoon. It was fun. The day that we had at Lagoon was a bit rainy but we have a great tent and it was fun. The zoo was okay. There was a baby elephant but it was bonding with it's mom so we didn't get to see it. We did get to see a baby giraffe and a baby clouded leopard. That was very cool. Here are some pictures from the zoo.

This leopard was really active and he was fun to watch. Since he was by the clouded leopards we spent alot of time watching him.

He was a clouded leopard. This was the mama. The baby was playing behind her in this picture.
This is the baby Giraffe. It was a cutie and spent all sorts of time being looked at by the people.

These were really cute little Lemurs, They were also really active.

Finally an Update

It has been a really busy last 1/2 of the year. I got the opportunity to do a lot of great things at work. I got to mix up my schedule a little bit by working some nights for one of my co-workers while she was on leave. I also got to work on a huge project that was very challenging. It's a good thing that I am not afraid of hard work.


Matthew started 1st grade and seems to like the social aspects of it but not the school work. We are working with him on that. For some reason he just doesn't think that it is important. Fortunately, even though he chooses not to do some things, he is smart enough that he is still getting pretty good grades. It would be really nice if we didn't have to fight with him about homework. He seems to be getting better about it. I think that he is alot like me and maybe just a little stubborn.


My brother, Loren, got married so I have a new sister in law. That happened in October. Another exciting thing that happened on October is that Dan got his deer. Matthew was with us and got to watch. He was really impressed with Dan's ability to shoot his deer. He was telling everyone that "Dad shot our deer" and "we shot it", Dan was really proud of him and proud to share the deer with his son. As you can see above we got a great picture of Dan and Matthew with the deer.

Matthew and the Tramp

It wasn't very long ago that Matthew was scared to jump very high on a trampoline. Now he is an expert. He is always showing me tricks that he can do. I caught a great picture of him doing a flip. Brisa taught him how to do a front hand spring and he thinks that is just great.

Crater of the Moon

Matthew took this picture and I think that he did a great job.

These are some pigeons that we found in Indian Cave. This is Indian Paintbrush. One of the flowers that we really wanted to see in bloom.

This is Mountain Blue Bell. I really like it.

This is the Syringa. The Idaho State Flower.

Dan and Matthew by the a sputter cone. It is really neat because some of the gas holes in the rocks are big enough to put your arm in but not touch the bottom.

This was the snow cone. There is snow in the bottom of this all year long.

We climbed this cinder cone. It was really neat at the top. There was flowering bitter brush everywhere. It smelled really good. It smells a little like sweet chamomile tea. Mmmmm.

Dan and Matthew on a bench in Devils Orchard. A minister came to craters and made the comment that this is what the devil's orchard would be like and so it was named.

Matthew at the top of the cinder cone looking out over the valley.

This is a Lava tube.

These are cute little flowers. The pictures are bigger the real like and they are called Monkey Flowers. I found out that they came in pink, purple, white and yellow. I saw all of these colors at craters.

On Saturday the 30th of May, we went to Craters of the Moon. I have to say that I love living in Idaho and especially in the Magic Valley because there is so much to do that is so close to home. It took us about an hour and a half to get to craters and we had a great time. The weather was great until the very end and we were able to see alot of things.

I have to admit that we probably should have planned a bit better and wore tennis shoes but we still had a great time. We went to see about everything there is to see there and I think it would have been better if we had 2 days instead of just a few hours. We were really tired and sore by the time the day was done but Matthew was so good and we got to see some really cool stuff.

We went last weekend because we wanted to see the flowers in bloom and there were a few but we were a little early. Last time we went we were told that we were a little to late to see them in bloom. We still got to see some great flowers and the cones were really neat to see.

It wasn't really hot so I didn't wear sunscreen and am, still paying for that mistake, but since it wasn't to hot it was a really enjoyable time. I took some pictures and Matthew took a picture. He is quite the little photographer. We were just about done and just had to go to the caves because we promised Matthew that we would when the clouds started rolling in and there was lightning. A storm was a brewin'. Another reason that I love Idaho is that you can never really tell what the weather is going to be like.

We went to the caves and were really tired (we should have done those first) but we hiked our way to the Indian cave and it was big and fairly light. We had brought a flashlight from home and then on an impulse buy we got another one at the visitors center store. That was a great buy. We didn't need the flashlight for the Indian caves but it was nice to have it. Then we went to the Boy scout cave. Now I really don't like tight places and I had the bad flashlight from home so I didn't go in very far but Dan and Matthew explored it for quite a while. I was really glad that they did because Matthew had a really great time. When they got out of there it started to sprinkle and we wanted to eat lunch. So with promises that we would go back another day we hiked back to the car. We wanted to eat outside but there were no covered picnic areas and by that time it was raining really hard so we ate in the car and went home. It was an exhausting but a great day.

Kaya's Graduation

This is my whole family. We were all together for Kaya's graduation

Back: Dan, Heather Dad, Loren, Grandma Stahle, Ivan, Travis, Chelsea & Bianca, Cody

Front: Matthew, Mom, Brisa, Kaya, Grandma Tucker

Loren's Girlfriend, Kristen took the pictures and she did a great job.

Thanks Kristen!

This is Kaya giving her speech.

I haven't posted anything for a while and I thought that it was time. Alot has happened in the last little bit so I am going to do 3 different posts to get it all in. My second youngest sister, Kaya, graduated from High school as the Salutatorian. Congratulations, Kaya!!!





She did a great job on her speech and had a good time at the party. We did a family picnic at the MK park. Matthew, Dan and I discovered the visitors center and we played in there for quite a while. We really enjoyed ourselves and the family.

Time for T Ball

This was from Today's game. The ones with the Orange shirt are from last week.

Matthew is n T-Ball and is doing pretty well. He seems to be a pretty good little athlete but he is also a 6 year old boy. The games are all at 7:00 pm which would be fine except that Matthew's bed time is 8:30. The games don't even get over until about 8:15. This makes for a very tired little child. Mondays are challenging because of this but I think that as he gets older I will be glad that he is in so many activities. Here are some pictures from the last 2 games.