Tough Mudder

 

Cross country season conference was today and it was cold, wet, and very muddy! Soren trudged and slipped and slid through thick mud, and waded through running water that came up close to his thighs at at couple spots. Talk about dedication. He was chilled to the bone, but he had a blast. Great way to end the season. 

Pre-Bedtime witching hour

Tonight I ended up with the triple threat piled onto my bed begging for a chapter of the Ickabog. Bear and Inhave been listening to the audiobook together, but Sloane and Esme have found the hard copy and are trying to catch up. So tonight, we had a story time party. They love it, I love it, and there were giggles galore. 

On Sunday night we played apples to apples after dinner. Corbin won every single turn that wasn’t his to be judge. How does he do it? I texted this pic to my girls because of our “No RAGRETS Credo” from our Croatia trip.

Paul and HolleeAnn came by and I made the first ginger softies of the season. Paul taught Soren a magic trick and HolleeAnn gave the girls long shoulder sweeping Halloween earrings. Sloane picked out leaves for herself and sent some bats to school with Esme for her pen pal, Mrs Batt 😂

No one goes to bed at a decent hour, which means I stay awake for hours after to decompress. And then my Provo kids rotate nights calling me at midnight like that’s a super normal thing. But I miss them all so much that I take the calls every time and get my daily Reese (and Logan) Quincy, or Ryan fix. I wonder what time of day our calls with Q will be when she’s in Seoul. Maybe this is mission prep for us haha!  And now here I am blogging at 1:30am before turning off my mother brain and going to sleep. 

Life is so full and good. 

 

All Region Audition Day

Corbin and Soren both auditioned for All Region orchestra on Saturday. I joined them at the school from 7-3 helping students and directing volunteers…and took a turn in the boba suit. The signature Tiger Pride Boba drink is my fundraising brainchild from last year. The orchestra makes a $4 profit off every drink. The suit is a silly addition, but once someone puts it on and stomps around in it, the drinks sell as fast as concessions can make them. Brock and Luke also took turns in the suit. Corbin left straight from his audition for work and then played basketball with a few boys.h Soren ran around with Trace B and Lucas A most of the day. They came to our house after auditions to watch the BYU game, congratulate Lucas for third chair, play an exciting round of Bank, and the movie F1. 

Neither of the boys made All Region. Soren is a bit of a shock…both jr high teachers actually texted me to say they are surprised he wasn’t at the top of the list. Soren handled it well and he and Trace congratulated their very happy friend in a graceful way. Corbin texted congratulations to all his friends who got in. To me, he said he can’t wait to get his scores back to read the critiques. Last year he scored higher than 4 of the cellists in chamber, so I’m guessing this validation is what he seeks again, but several of his chamber buddies didn’t make it either —and since no cellist from camerata has made 10-12 grade all region for as long as I can remember, it’s possible he just wants to see how close he was. All that to say I’m really proud of both of them for trying out and the growth they experienced in learning the audition excerpts. Both signed up voluntarily and were hopeful, yet disappointed. I hope they’re still proud of themselves. I think Corbin will be pleased when he gets his scores back. They both sound so great. It was a crazy busy day for music. We are super happy for their friends who got in and Corbin already looks forward to hopefully working with Soon Hee Newbold as the clinician for Honors Orchestra in early 2026. 

 

Soccer Season

(Jace, Dallin G, Sawyer H, Soren)

Soren had one more makeup game to play, so we gathered at the fields one last time for fall soccer season closer. 

Soren has loved getting to be on the same team as friends this year! He abd Lucas G have known each other since their early elementary days and were pumped to be on the same soccer team this year.  

Cousin Nico played soccer for the first time ever and had a great start! It was fun to visit with Paul and HolleeAnn at the games.

Soren has one XC conference meet left and then we are so ready for fall sports take a winter nap. (Just in time for wrestling, basketball, and winter distance runner training) 

Sloane’s Pen Pal

At the beginning of the school year, Sloane started sending notes via Esme to Mrs Batt, a literacy resource teacher who worked with her at Cooper. 

Esme started coming home with letters back for Sloane, asking her to be a pen pal. The two have been exchanging letters, notes, little cards and even gifts or poems for months. This is excellent motivation to get Sloane writing for leisure, and she is absolutely chuffed every time Esme comes home bearing a new response. They squeal excitedly and dart upstairs to read the letters together. Last week, Mrs Batt sent Sloane a journal notebook. Sloane promptly tore out the first page to write a letter to Mrs Batt. Bless dedicated wonderful educators for the impact they make on the future. Sloane feels so loved, and Esme feels super important on the errand of messenger. The world needs more of this wholesome goodness in it. 

 

It’s Bear Season!

 

Sweet Abram Bear! He read a book to Ava (his chicken) yesterday 😂

He loves to sing and has been playing his uke a lot lately. We also hear him sing through the anthology of songs for the 4th Grade Veterans Day program multiple times every day. I’ve got to get him into some music lessons. He is so eager to learn right now it would be a sad opportunity to miss. I’ve reached out to a handful of teachers but have been unlucky so far, but we’ll find it, soon! 

He’s such a funny little buddy. Bear asks a lot of questions—possibly even more than Quincy, who is the queen of questions.  He loves animals, National Geographic, America, perfect weather, talking, and one on one time. 

We’ve had a lot of one on one time lately with his quarterly Peds appointment and three appointments for dental work this month. One of which also turned into a shoe shopping date when I noticed he was sporting crocs that he “repaired” with packing tape after his Nikes were sacrificed to the Buffalo River. 🤦🏻‍♀️

We started reading the Ickabog together, just the two of us. Hilarious. This one reminds me of something written by Roald Dahl. 

Bear decided he wants to run for students council. He asked me to make him a poster and then had me add “kind and cool bears giving love”

I hope they vote for him!

He is the n most lovable Bear there is. 

Memed

The orchestra photographer from media day texted me saying she took a cute photo of me while I was talking to some students and it is now my profile pic in her phone. 

The cute photo:

Sent. Gone. Dead. 

Obviously I cannot just walk away when armed with so much material to harass my children. So instead, I spammed their phones all afternoon. 

Willy Autumn Retreat Day 4: Willardsons are Hard Workers

I made fruit and yogurt parfaits and hot sausage cheddar biscuits for breakfast. We packed up the van, and finished the puzzle triumphantly at checkout time, then said goodbye to the pretty little Baker Ford cabin in Saint Joe Arkansas. The boys grabbed the dessert pie leftovers and plastic forks and we passed the pies around and finished them off on the drive because we are super classy. 

We planned an important stop in Harrison Arkansas today. We haven’t seen Calvin and Lindsey in far too long! I took a picnic lunch and we spent the afternoon outside at their ranch in Harrison, which is also where Lindsey runs her non profit: Branded Equine Therapy Services. Lindsey offers OT, PT, and Soeech therapy, but also runs a very successful program where she teaches veterans how to break/gentle wild mustangs. After 16 weeks, they adopt their horse at an 80% success rate. Lindsey has built this business from the ground up over the past three years and she puts her whole life into it. 

We had planned to just visit, but she had a whole team building session ready for us today. We tacked up and harnessed 3 of the therapy horses and rode them all around the arena. After seeing 4 year old Hazel climb up onto her horse and ride her around the ranch completely unassisted, even Sloane decided she could be brave and get on a horse. We all took turns riding and guiding one another, and then rode independently. Everyone groomed the horses, and the at the end of the day, the littles and I took them back out to their pastures, and the older boys and Aaron helped Lindsey put all the saddles, harnesses, helmets, and blankets away. 

Weekends like this are magic. But not magic at all. It was wonderful but actually took a lot of careful intention and some thoughtful preparation. I know core memories were made. I hope the children remember this weekend forever. 

You know, I tried everything to make today’s theme: Willardsons are not cat people, but my people disagree. They were super grossed out though when they woke up to Lucy the cat meowing loudly at the cabin door. Sloane opened it and then screamed. 

Lucy brought her a dead chipmunk. 

Then, to her horror, ate it on the pouch. Barf! 

Cats are adorable and also gross little monsters. Lucy was not snuggled any more. 

And then arrived at Branded and there were kittens and cats everywhere. And THESE kitties are so used to Heston and Hazel loving on them, the Willy Littles immediately forgot about the rodent murder scene in the doorway from the morning and instantly re-joined  Team Cats 

An hour later, we discovered the van door had been left open and a kitty was inside, licking a pie plate clean. 😂🤮 at least it wasn’t a dead animal haha! 

See? Dogs are so much cuter.