Justice 8th Grade Christmas Concert

Justice's last Christmas Concert @ MCS. He's been sick since last Wednesday so we were afraid he wouldn't make it. But miraculously he regained his voice enough in the last day & a half to play the trumpet. He did a great job! We love Mrs. Nelson. Her concerts are always so fun!

Here's the Traditional end to the MCS Christmas Concert- White Christmas with music by Justice's 8th grade band. "May all your Christmases be White!" ❄️

Basketball Season 2016

Justice finished up his 1st Basketball season. We're way proud of him for being brave & trying out new things. It was lots of hard work 4-5 days a week. And his knees paid a little bit of a price but good job, kid! Xo

Parenting a Teenager...

• mtseamonsfamReality Check. Half a foot of snow, freezing temps, hubby out of town, a procrastinated school project, and a night filled with teenagers wishing they lived somewhere else. Quote for the day- "My kids call it 'yelling' when I raise my voice... But I call it 'motivational speaking' for the selective hearing!"

• crumra53I can't imagine that happening with you and your teenagers, great quote though.
• mcfeilzerThe struggle is real
• sealib7Whatever mom 😜

My Teenage Boy plus the Seedalls

mtseamonsfam Wanted to post a picture of my handsome teenage boy but he never sits still for very long (unless it's iPod related or his nose in a book. Lol) Every fast Sunday, he amazes me with his sweet testimony. He gets up in front of our congregation & shares what God has taught him. He is an great example of "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house." #lighttheworld (plus these Seedall boys of ours love a good tackle from their Justice friend)
seedall  My kids love going to Nana's house and love your children. There's always a sweet spirit in your home. I am so thankful you are so dependable and help me out of all my jams!! Love you my friend so much.

Here's the other kiddos when they came to play with "Nana" one day. So cute!

Basketball Begins

Justice decided to play Basketball this year. Makes his Daddy proud!! 😊It's his first time on a school team. (He even double booked himself for 2 weeks while he finished up Football season. Whew! Glad that's over!) Let's go Mustangs!

Haunted House & Scary Clowns

Brett also took the kids to Spring Meadow Lake for a Haunted House. Scary!!!

Halloween Carnivals, Trunk-or-Treat & Chili Cookoff- Oh my!

Brett was a Rock Star while I was away! (Thank, Love!) He took the kids to tons of Halloween parties this weekend. They started at the Cub Scout Carnival. Then he took the kids to the Ward Trunk-or-Treat at the Church. Followed by a Chili Cookoff & another Halloween Carnival. All in one day! Whew! What a good Dad! XO

Big Buck Hunt

Justice got to participate in the Youth Deer Hunt again this year.
He got one BIG BUCK! Lucky duck!

Football Season 2016

Justice played a good season of football. This was his last year of Small Fry football- kind of bitter sweet. He played for the MT City Grill team with Steve Thennis as his coach.

Here's the team when we took our own pictures:

And the 2016 Team roster:

He played a little Offense.

But mostly Defense:

One awesome story to remember-
On his last game they were losing so the coaches rotated every one in to get a chance to play one more time. Justice played some defense and got an awesome tackle. Then they put him in on Offense. Guess who scored the only touchdown for his team???? Yep. That's my boy!!! Way to go kid!

Justice's Fieldtrip to Yellowstone

Montana City School took all their 8th graders to Yellowstone National Park today for a fieldtrip. Pretty awesome! Justice got to visit Mammoth Hot Springs, the Horace M. Albright Visitor Center and see some wildlife. AND he took pictures!!! What a good boy! He makes his Mama proud! ;)

From Mr. O'Connell- "It has been a goal of mine for a couple years now to get our students to Yellowstone in order to study various aspects of the ecosystem there as well as the workings and impacts of a national park on the people, land and economy of our region. I would love to make that trip happen this year with our 8th grade students. Hopefully, the trip would grow into an annual event and the learning benefits that come from such a trip would evolve each year."

Backyard Campout

Brett is serving as the Scout Master in our Ward. He had the boys over to campout in our backyard so they could mark off a bunch of their requirements. I didn't go out and take any pictures when they were awake but here's all their tents set up before they all got up in the  morning.

Muffins with Moms

My last Muffins with Moms with my son. {Sad face!} So glad to be able to be with my kiddos though. They walked me back to my car & held my hand the whole way. How sweet is that?

Walk to School Day

Even though it was raining, the kids braved the Walk to School Day with their Fife friends. Once again, it's bitter sweet as Justice participates for the last time. Man! Why does he have to be going to High School next year! ;)

Showing off His Football Skills

We took Grammy & Grandpa Randy with us to Justice's football game this morning. It was a little chilly! (way chilly for Grammy in her parka, gloves & hat!!! LOL) Good game, Buddy!

Let the 2016-17 School Year Begin

Kids are back at school!!!

Man! They are some good-lookin' kids!

I didn't get teacher/kid pictures this year. Slacker me! But I did get one of Victoria and Sofie after school.

I drove Liberty in for her 1st day of Seminary. Early, people! Ouch! But sure cute friends!

Pokemon Go

The Pokemon Go craze just made it to our house. LOL It took us a while to catch up with the times, I guess. The kids don't have smartphones and we didn't want Mom's to be hauled all over the place. We had one sad teenage boy for quite a few weeks. ;( Then we figured out how to get it on our free tablet we got with our phone last time. They rigged something up on Justice's bike so he can take it with him. The kids have now been out several times. They pack a lunch, take a couple bucks, a refill bottle and head over to the Montana City Store, or the Baptist Church or the school. They are usually gone for hours. They love it and seem to get quite a bit of exercise. Fun times!

Here's the info their website tells you about the game:
Travel between the real world and the virtual world of Pokémon with Pokémon GO for iPhone and Android devices. With Pokémon GO, you’ll discover Pokémon in a whole new world—your own! Pokémon GO is built on Niantic’s Real World Gaming Platform and will use real locations to encourage players to search far and wide in the real world to discover Pokémon. Pokémon GO allows you to find and catch more than a hundred species of Pokémon as you explore your surroundings.

The Pokémon video game series has used real-world locations such as the Hokkaido and Kanto regions of Japan, New York, and Paris as inspiration for the fantasy settings in which its games take place. In Pokémon GO, the real world will be the setting!

Get on your feet and step outside to find and catch wild Pokémon. Explore cities and towns around where you live and even around the globe to capture as many Pokémon as you can. As you move around, your smartphone will vibrate to let you know you're near a Pokémon. Once you've encountered a Pokémon, take aim on your smartphone's touch screen and throw a Poké Ball to catch it. Be careful when you try to catch it, or it might run away! Also look for PokéStops located at interesting places, such as public art installations, historical markers, and monuments, where you can collect more Poké Balls and other items

Island Park Scout Camp

Justice wen to Scout Camp this week. They went to Island PArk which is in Idaho. They left early Monday morning (like 4 AM) and got back Saturday afternoon. Long week!
Justice acted as Senior Patrol Leader all week, {he's pretty young to do that but turns out that it was a miscommunication that they thought we requested. Oops!  It made it for a little bit of a stressful week for Justice (extra meetings and in charge of the other scouts for cooking & cleaning up every meal) but his leaders said he did a great job!}
Here's his Troop:

Here's everyone at the lakeside:

Here's some of his duties as a Patrol Leader:

And some kind of Scout War that I'm sure they thought was super cool! Looks like he had a great time! He also earned 8 Merit Badges!!! Way to go, Kid!

Secret Mission: Youth Conference

Youth Conference was this weekend. Liberty was at Nagu Con so she didn't attend on Friday. The kids fourteen and up went to the Lewis & Clark Caverns all day. It sounded like it was a lot of fun and some hard work.  Justice was only able to go for the Saturday Session. It was held down at the Zipperian Ranch where Trek was held last year. Remember Trek here, here, here, here and here. Fun times!!!    Brett & I were asked to go be in charge of a group on Saturday. (Thanks to my good friend KrisL Fife for taking care of my little girls and bringing them down) It was super hot but they did some great service as well as had a lot of fun together. Thanks to all the Stake leaders that put so much work into a fun weekend.

Brett & I were over the Hinckley Group (all of the 12 year olds) They were some fun kids!

 For our group's service project, we hauled tons of wood to the burn pile. They were some hard workers!

Back at the main site and eating lunch, a water fight ensued, Mostly due to Brett's enticing of the 12 year olds against his Senior Seminary Students. LOL Way to go Honey! He also payed Garret (BubbaBob, our Trek son) $5 to dump a bucket of water over President Christensen's head. It was hilarious!!! I got some pretty awesome shots!!I love the closeup because it looks like Pres. Christensen doesn't even care. Garret's face is priceless as he dumps the water on him. So funny!

They also had some other Water Games for the kids to participate in. This is one where they threw wet sponges at each other. Justice is in his Captain America shirt in the middle.

We ended the evening with skits from each age group. Here's Justice in his skit as the Disappearing Leprechaun. LOL

Our group  lip-synced to Frozen! They were awesome!!

Here's a video of them starting out! Love it!

And it wouldn't be a Helena Stake Youth activity without the Christensen Brothers rockin' out! Love these guys! Here's their debute of Press Forward. (That's this years theme)

Bread Makers

The kids were trying to come up with something to cook for their Power Boards. They decided on BREAD. Mom had to run errands today so they did it on their own. Oh my heavens! Look how awesome it turned out! They rock this bread thing!!!!

Check out the size of this slice of bread with our home-made jam. Yum!

Youth Float Trip

Our Ward Youth Leaders took the kids on a Float Trip in Glacier today. They had an amazing time!

Here's the bus ride to the river:

Here's the whole group:

Justice's Boat with Josh, Bryson, Caleb, Walt Tubbs, Bishop Lynch, Josiah, Justice & Colton

Liberty's Boat with Marcus Strange, Aimee, McKenzie, her boyfriend, 

Nick Seedall, Samantha, Anna Strange, Liberty & Stacey Rae Lynch