Service

On Martin Luther King Jr. day I had the opportunity to spend the day volunteering.  As part of my job with AmeriCorps I am required to volunteer several hours throughout the year.  It has been a life changing experience.  Serving others has been such a blessing in my life and has made me realize the importance of service and helping others.  For our big service project we went to the Carbon County Animal Shelter and cleaned the dog cages and played with the dogs.  I fell in love with those precious animals and was so heartbroken to see them caged up.  After we helped feed them, cleaned their cages, and played with them we were able to visit with the people who run the animal shelter.  They truly love their job and take such good care of the animals there.  I pray all the dogs (there weren't any other animals there) get adopted out quickly and to loving families. 

After volunteering at the animal shelter the other volunteers and I went to the Community Closet on Main St.  It is a non profit clothing store for people in need.  Everything there is absolutely free and is in decent condition.  Any clothes that have stains our holes are bagged up and made into rags.  They then sell the rags to local businesses to pay the building rent space and utilities.  The girls and I took several large garbage bags and cut rags for hours.  It was very tedious and we didn't even get half way done before our day of service was over.  I brought a few bags home for the kids and I to work on, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.  Hopefully we can get them done soon and do our part to help keep this amazing business open.

One of our New Years Resolutions was to go to church more frequently and to pray and read scriptures as a family.  We've been doing really well and the kids seem to enjoy the consistency.  Connor even set a goal to read the entire Book of Mormon, and has been getting up early every morning to read it for 20 minutes.  Sundays meeting went way over and the kids were really good but getting very antsy so I gave them my phone and they took these adorable pictures I just have to share. 

Basketball & Scooter Party

Not much new has been going on at the Bradley's.  Connor is still playing basketball and so far his team is still undefeated.  He practices morning and night and is really in love with the sport.  We have had a great time watching him play and cheering for his awesome team.  Rory is the coach and he loves it just as much as Connor.  Sorry about the terrible team picture, I didn't have time to edit it before updating my blog this week.  

Kinlee's teacher has each student set individual goals and then has a party for the kids who completed their goals.  This months party was a scooter party.  The kids got to bring their scooters to school and scoot around the gym.  Kinlee was bringing her Princess scooter and everything was fine until she was riding it up to the school and the handle fell off and she fell face first onto the concrete.  Luckily she wasn't hurt at all, but she was super sad her scooter broke.  Connor let her borrow his (big brother saves the day) so the day wasn't a total bust, but I feel really bad that her scooter fell apart on her. 

January 2016

Happy New Year!  So far the year has been fabulous!  Last week I was asked to be the mystery reader in Kinlee's Kindergarten Class.  I chose to read the book Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.  After reading the book we sang Pete the Cats version of Wheels on the Bus, played pin the button on Pete's coat, who stole the button from Pete's coat, had a graham cracker treat that looked like Pete's coat and had a Pete the Cat coloring page.  I think I had just as much fun as the kids!  I love being at the school and being involved in the kids activities.

As the end of 2nd term is next week I have some bragging to do.  The kids have done fabulous this term and all have straight A's.  They have awesome citizenship and Kadence hasn't missed a day of school all year.  At the beginning of 2nd term Connor, Kadence, and Kinlee sat down with me and wrote down some goals they had for the term.  Everyone of them completed their goals.  Each of them had a goal to read 1000 minutes (Kinlee to read 500), Connor to memorize his Constitution Bee facts and learn 90 new spelling words, Kadence to memorize her times tables and learn 90 new spelling words, and Kinlee to learn 30 new sight words and receive her Silver Math Medal.  Matthew is still working on speech and is learning how to spell and write his name.  I couldn't be more proud of these crazy kids of mine.

Connor's basketball team has won all 3 of their games they've played so far and Kadence has begun working on her front walk over in gymnastics.  We are living and loving life!