Mr. Bray, I lost my........

We had forty twelve year olds over for Chloe's first boy/girl party. It was fun! A bit crazy, but fun. If you want a full run down you will have to connect to Gale's blog. She does a great job explaining it. I am headed out of town and wanted to get the pictures on before Halloween is a 2 month memory!

The best part about the whole party for me was how many of those kids lost things. "Mr. Bray, I lost my cell phone." Did you use our phone and call it? "No! what a great idea!" Yes-Sarah that is why I'm a brilliant father. That conversation happened about 7 times in a three hour period! I couldn't stop laughing. They also lost candy, gift certificates that they had won for the games we played, shoes, clothes, hat and each other. "Mr. Bray, have you seen Chloe I have lost her!" It ended up being a really fun party and I got to scare a couple of them which made it all the more fun!

We also snuck in some trick or treating with Elle and Ava. Elle was a gypsy and Ava was Cinderella. Olivia was Ms. America and Chloe was Baby Spice from the Spice Girls.

An Amazing Day

There are days that occur,that when you are at the end of your life and you are thinking back to some of the most memorable moments or experiences, days that seemed to impact and forever change the direction of your life and even change who you are as a person. Days that you remember and think back to when the storms of life blow through.

Today was one of those days for me. It was an absolutely amazing day. One that I will look back on for years to come and be so grateful for. Too special to discuss, but one that needed to be on the blog, to remind my children what day this great event happened on. (How grateful I am that I was able to share it with Gale.)

Edmond 3rd Ward Primary Program wins a Tony

The Primary program was today and Gale and her counselors did an amazing job. The children were phenomenal! All throughout church everyone kept on saying it was the best primary program they had ever been to. Why? I decided it was because all of the children's talks seemed to come from their heart. They spoke of the Savior in a way you usually don't hear young children talk about him. It was really a moving service. I would say my highlight was when a little 5 year old boy (Cardon is his last name and I can't think of his first name right now!) sang a solo by himself called "I'm trying to be like Jesus" I don't think there was a dry eye in the congregation.

Elle almost made it through her sentence, but then she broke down. She just hates to talk in front of crowd. Chloe talked and Olivia sang with two other girls. (Savannah Rudd and Zoey ?) It was a great day.

Miraculous Moments

I am often amazed at how things work in my life, and the life of my family. The little miracles that come and if not watched for can pass by unnoticed. Tonight one came flying by and how grateful I am for it. We have been missing something very important for our show and we found it tonight--actually it knocked on our door. As Gale and I talked tonight we couldnt' help but see how the Lord's hand is always there for us.

One of the church talks I listened to this week was by Elder Eyring--Woops--President Eyring and during the talk he said that he tries to never let a day go by that he doesn't stop and think about how the Lord's hand was in some way involved in his life for that day. Think I might try to do the same thing. It seems like I have had such joy in my life recently and it is interesting that it has come during such a difficult time in my life. But I can now truly say that I am so grateful for those hardships.

Big Money

I was driving to the gym this morning when I saw the car in front of me (on a very busy street) drive through what looked like a pile of money. I immediately thought it was Monopoly money, but then thought what if it wasn't? So I quickly turned around and went back and started to collect it. It wasn't fake money. In fact it was twenty dollar bills. So in the middle of a very busy street I was frantically grabbing money thinking to myself-

1. I don't care if I get hit as there is money all over this street.

2. I am being filmed for some 20/20 or game show and I need to make it look good so I must work hard before anyone else stops and grabs the money.

So after working out I came home and pulled the girls together and told them the story and asked them what we should do. After the immediate "Go to the mall!" the girls said we should find who lost it. So we called up the Edmond police to give them our name and number just in case someone called who had lost a significant amount of money. The first reaction of the officer was "Where are you I am going to send an officer right out to pick up the money!" Yea right I thought to myself, I watched the O.J. Simpson trial and I darn well know what you do with evidence! So we decided that I am going to call the Edmond Police department tomorrow and give them an email address that I set up and if anyone calls having lost any money they can email us and let me know how much they lost and where they lost it. (Now for those friends in Edmond, I take a very wierd route to the gym so don't go emailing me about your lost money!) Yes--Bushman's I'm talking to you!

Halloween Parties & Big Ole Hair

Halloween is in full swing at our house and for the first time Chloe is old enough to start going to Halloween parties. I was a bit jealous tonight as I dropped off Chloe at her Halloween party. It looked so fun that I wanted to stay. They had a DJ and everything. (Chloe, Olivia and I have perfected the "soldier boy" dance now.) Gale is so far behind...she doesn't even know how to do it yet!

Chloe is having 35 7th graders over to our house for a party on Halloween. Because she is having a party she can't possibly wear the same costume to two different parties within the same week. So there was a frantic search to find her a costume before the 7 o'clock start time of the party. She ended up going as Miss America. The shocking thing about it is that when she came out in full costume she looked better than Miss America. So your probably thinking..a Miss America coming out of Oklahoma? Let's see....who is the current Miss America. None other than Lauren Nelson from our home town of Edmond, Oklahoma and one of the students at UCO where I teach. (Gale has assurred me that hair that high and wide deserves a crown on it!)
This just gets better. I had to go find a picture of our hometown girl from the Miss America website and I just found out she has a blog site. Just in case you want to catch up on Lauren her blog is http://www.blog.missamerica.org/. Now, I have always been a bit against the whole pageant thing, but with as many girls as I have and the college scholarships they offer the girls may have to start entering them! (That is a pure joke!)

Here is how great Chloe looked. What happened to my little girl? and yes she is much cuter and more talented than Miss Nelson from Edmond Oklahoma. She may have to work on the big hair if she is really going to make it.

The great thing was the talk we had on the way home after the party. She still shares everything with me, even if when she is telling me I cringe and can barely stand it. I have learned to smile and just listen (most of the time--but I was lucky I was in the dark car and she couldn't tell).

Talking about big hair--today was crazy hair day at Centennial Elementary school for Olivia and Elle. Pictures speak much louder than words, but let's just say we were all laughing our heads off all morning long. I could barely fit them in the car. Does Cindy Lou Who come to mind?

If you love me you will Iron my clothes

To understand this post you have to understand that I have had a pile of clothes to be ironed for close to a month and a half now in a corner in the bedroom. This is not Gale's responsibility as I am a somewhat picky about all my clothes being ironed. I was saving it for conference weekend, but it didn't happen as I was in France that weekend. So today I came home and Olivia had ironed almost all of my clothes. The pile was huge--she spent hours on it. See what a gigantic bear can do for a 10 year old sweet little girl. If I had known I would have got her one years ago. It was so thoughtful of her, she is an angel who is always caring about others around her. It may sound cheesy, but I was really touched by her taking the time to do it for me.

So now how do I get Chloe to finish the pile?