Spencer's 8 Year Old Birthday Questions

How old are you? 8 years old
Who are your good friends? Eli, Matthew, Emmarsyn, Ryan, Corbin, Eric, Carson, Jack, Isaac
What is your favorite thing to do? Build with Legos
What is your favorite color? Red
What are your favorite foods? Cherries, Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy
What do you like to do with your family? Go to the beach in Pensacola
What is your favorite toy? Legos
What do you want to be when you grow up? A scientist and an inventor
What makes you happy? Seeing my family
What makes you sad? When my brother is hurt or sick
What is your favorite show to watch? Tom & Jerry
What are your favorite books? Harry Potter, Magic Tree House, Bailey School Kids, A to Z Mysteries
What do you love to learn about? Geography, American History
What was the best part of your birthday? Being baptized
Where do you like to go? Church
Who is your teacher? Ms. Kirsten
What was your favorite birthday present? My art kit from Grandma Leeann
What do you think about before you fall asleep? Stories to write.
What is your favorite treat? Chocolate cake and maraschino cherries
If you could meet someone famous who would it be? Thomas Edison, definitely
What is your favorite animal? Tiger
What are you grateful for? Legos

Best Conference Packets Ever

I was a little late in my General Conference prep this time around. The boys actually asked me for a packet about 10 minutes in to the morning session today. In my search, I came across these on the Scriptures for Kids website. There are separate packets for Nursery, Jr. Primary, Sr. Primary, and Youth. As you can tell from the post title, I think that these are the best I have ever come across. I got them printed and into packets about a half hour in and the last 90 minutes of conference have been lovely.

Spencer's Baptism

Spencer on Saturday right before his baptism. It was a great day for him. We are very proud of him and couldn't be happier with how it all went!

Converstion Between Bruce & Emmarsyn

This was a little long for the "Say What?" side bar, but it was too good not to post...

Emmarsyn: Daddy, you are cute.

Bruce: Thank you. What else?

Emmarsyn: You are smart.

Bruce: And what else?

Emmarsyn: You are pretty.

Bruce: Well, I guess I can't ask for anything else.

Emmarsyn: You could be funny.

Four First Days

Emmarsyn started preschool today so we have finally completed our "First Days" for this Fall. Each child thoroughly enjoyed their respective firsts although Matthew's first day of Kindergarten was noteworthy.

Here is how it went:

• Drive boys to school in a sizable thunderstorm - my favorite.
  
• Get to school. Walk through the downpour to Matthew's classroom.
• Am met at the door by the teacher and am informed that the office does not have a copy of his birth certificate or proof of an eye exam. (Perhaps the glasses on his face should count as proof of an eye exam. Perhaps they could have notified me before the first day of class. Perhaps not.)
• Am told by the secretary that technically they should not allow Matthew to be in class, but they will let him stay if I am frantically driving around the valley to obtain the documents which, by the way, I turned in last spring.
• Panic slightly because I could not find Matthew's birth certificate and had given my only copy to...hmmm...oh yeah...his school.
• Call Bruce on the way to the eye doctor. He finds out how to get a new "original" birth certificate.
  
• Get proof of eye exam and head to a county health facility to get the birth certificate.
• Things are looking up - completed half my mission, rain is stopping. Put keys, cell phone, and wallet on front seat of van while I take off my sweatshirt.
  
• Watch van door close in slow motion while in even slower motion I figure out what is happening.
• Call my mom to bring the spare key.
• Sit in rain ( yep, it started up again) while I wait for an hour for my mom.
• Realize that she is likely lost and call Bruce.
• Sit in rain while I wait a half hour for Bruce.
• Get birth certificate. My mom shows up with key. Turn in documents 5 minutes before kindergarten is over and Matthew gets expelled. Things are looking up.
• Go home. Kids go over to a friend's house while I reflect on the fact that it was just one of those days.
• Hear banging on the door. Go upstairs to find the neighbor bringing Matthew home early. He fell off the couch and got some cuts on the bottom of his foot.
• Discover that the "cuts" are actually puncture wounds from landing in an art bucket and several actually still have significant pieces of pencil lead in them.
• Go to doctor. Have leads removed and wounds cleaned. Get prescription for antibiotic to ward off staph infection.
• Go home and hope that the next day would be better.
• It was.

Matthew's Birthday Questions - 6 Years Old

How old are you? 6
Who is your best friend? Spencer
What is your favorite thing to do? Play with Bionicles and Hero Factory
What is your favorite color? Green
What is your favorite food? Scrambled Eggs
What do you like to do with your family? Go on a trip to Florida.
What is your favorite toy? Legos
What do you want to be when you grow up? An inventor.
What makes you happy? Bionicles and Hero Factory
What is your favorite show to watch? Sponge Bob
What is your favorite book? The Cat in the Hat Comes Back
What do you love to learn about? Bionicles
What was the best part of your birthday? Presents
Where do you like to go? ToysRUs
Who is your teacher? Mrs. Hillyard
What was your favorite birthday present? Hero Factory

It Never Gets Old

Every other year (at least that is the plan) we go to Florida to stay with my dad and step-mom. Bruce comes for about a week and the kids and I hang out for a couple of weeks longer. As I have mentioned before in a previous post, one of the coolest parts the trip is seeing the Blue Angels practice. How awesome is it that my kids get to stand next to the runway and wave flags as the pilots taxi back after landing? The previous Blue Angel post has more pictures if you are interested. This time I just took a few and actually got to watch most of the practice. As always, they are amazing! I think I get at least - if not more - excited than the boys.

4th of July Photos

We had a BBQ with my mom, my brother, and our niece and nephew last night. These are the fireworks pictures. My particular favorites are Bruce helping Emmarsyn with her sparkler and the close up of Matthew plugging his ears. Of course, the sparkler poses are pretty awesome too.

4th of July Artwork

Spencer created this using Paint yesterday. I thought it was pretty cool so here it is. Happy slightly late Fourth of July!

Father's Day Gift

I saw this idea for a Father's Day gift and tweaked it a bit to come up with this...

Bruce loved it and the kids loved being part of making something special for him. We framed it and it is going to have a prime location on his desk at work.

Measure Twice, Cut Out the Window Once

We are finally getting around to redoing our master bathroom which has needed it for, oh, about 10 years. In case you think we are slackers, we really haven't needed a master bathroom. When we first moved here without kids, we only used the upstairs. Slowly we have reclaimed the rest of the house and the master bathroom is the final frontier.

For the remodel, we went with a one piece fiberglass shower. Not exactly top end, but then again neither is the house. Bruce is usually meticulous in his preparations for any project. So when he informed me that something went wrong with his measurements and that the shower which had taken up a semi-permanent residence in our garage was not going to fit through the hallway and bedroom door, I was pretty surprised. (There were other emotions as well, but I won't go into that.) After a few days of mulling it over, Bruce decided that the bedroom window looked to be just about the right size through which to shove a shower. And it was"just about" the right size. There was some minor damage to the back of the shower and a piece of hopefully superfluous metal will never be going back into the window opening, but the operation was generally a success. After all, the shower now resides in our bedroom - only one doorway from its intended location. If all goes well (it won't), soon it will move into the actual bathroom and we will get to move back into our bedroom.

Fortunately, I was able to document this little adventure. Our friend Matt was kind enough to spend way too much of his day off helping Bruce. Thanks Matt (and Suzanne)! Here are the pictures...

Has It Really Been Two Months?

I'm not sure what happened in March, but April has been crazy and I didn't manage even one blog post. My first problem was that we left town at the end of March and didn't get back until April 4. For some reason, when I am gone for the beginning of a month, it takes me until about the middle of the month to even realize the calendar has changed. And, unfortunately, it was around the middle of April that we were first hit by an evil stomach bug that came and went for a couple of weeks. That brings us to just about now. I have wanted to post some pictures from our trip to Portland and I am finally doing it. Our niece, Amy, got married and since it was Spencer's spring break we decided to go. These are a few of my favorite pictures from the reception. The kids had an amazing time getting to know some of their cousins from California and Oregon.

And a few pictures from a little outing to Washington Park near downtown Portland. We were loving all the green!






















And finally...the fish. We noticed this on the back bumper somewhere along the way to Portland. It was stuck there because of all the rain and snow that we were lucky enough to drive through. We decided to see how long it would last. It made it all the way home with us. A pretty tenacious "not-so-gold-anymore" fish.

Because Your Kiss, Your Kiss, Is On My List

If you sang that title in your head instead of simply reading it, YOU ROCK! If not, you need to brush up on your early 80's pop music. Matthew had never heard the song before tonight, but this post is about him.

A few months ago, he decided that - in his words - "nobody kisses me and I don't kiss anybody either." I have tried diligently to repect his wishes, but I did slip up several times. I mean sometimes you just kiss your kid without thinking about it. Well, I used to anyway. Now, I find myself pausing slightly before kissing Spencer or Emmarsyn just to reassure myself that I am not violating any rules when kissing that particular child. When one does "accidentally" kiss Matthew, you are required to remove the kiss. This is done by grabbing it with your hand and putting it back on your lips - kind of a kiss eraser. Isn't parenthood great?

Anyway, recently we have entered a period of kissing detente. It started with some sanctions for some undesirable behavior. Who says diplomacy doesn't work? (Not sure how I got on the foreign policy metaphors, but it's working for me.) Matthew went through a growling phase. These growls were pretty much a verbal eye roll. So I told him, that everytime he growled at me, I would kiss him. I got a few kisses in and he even growled at me on purpose a couple of times just to get a kiss. Then about a week ago, we had our biggest breakthrough. We are now allowed to kiss him...but each time we do our names go on his "Kissing List". Kind of like the Terror Watch List, he's got his eye on us but he is still letting us through security. So now I get to kiss all my kids, but I have to be careful about timing. If we are in a hurry to get out the door, it is not a good idea to kiss Matthew because he has to stop and add my name to the the list again.

The other problem is that I can't get that song out of my head!

A Suessical Day

Matthew has been all about Dr. Suess lately. We listen to his books in the car and read them every night at bedtime. Since we have such a fanatic in the house, we decided to celebrate his birthday this year. March could use an extra holiday anyway.

The Unofficial First Day of Spring

While I know there are technically three more weeks of winter, March 1 felt like the first day of spring. It has been rather warm here - if you can call upper 40's warm. Matthew and Emmarsyn spent about an hour and a half playing in the backyard - they were collecting, swinging, and cleaning Emmarsyn's "house" (the swingset). I am looking forward to more and more warm days when kids can go out to play without putting on full snow gear and then coming in after 15 minutes because it is too cold. Yippee!

Finally a Good Use for Conversation Hearts

I realize some people like them, but I have never been a fan. I actually can't stand them. Before I tossed them this year, I happened to see a blog post in which they were used for a sorting and graphing activity. So Matthew and Emmarsyn spent part of their "homework" time today doing pre-math activites with conversation hearts. They loved it, and since they do not share my disdain for them, they got to enjoy a few along the way.










Since Bruce was out of town today, here are a couple of more photos of our afternoon so he can see what has been going on here. Matthew was doing a new math workbook and Emmarsyn was working on some pre-writing skills. We have discovered Matthew has a bit of a math obsession. Recently, he had to have a mole removed from his arm. During the procedure and every time we change the bandage he begs us to give him math problems to distract him. He is getting pretty good at it.









And lest you think it is all work and no play at our house, here is Emmarsyn putting all of her Dora figures "in prison". This is why I try to keep them busy. As everyone knows, idleness can lead to some really bad things.

How to Win a Chili Cook-off

Just like in real estate, it's all about location. I have taken the same chili to our ward chili cook-off at least 3 times. This year I won. Now, personally, I believe my chili is pretty darn good and could have won 3 years ago, but I never got the "sweet spot" on the table. The "sweet spot" being right next to the bowls. So this year, we took the chili over just a few minutes early to test my location theory. And while it wasn't exactly a scientifically valid experiment, I think we proved that the "sweet spot" matters. To borrow another real estate term, I also did a little "staging" by putting bowls of Fritos, cheese, and green onions in front of my chili. If location isn't enough to sell a bowl of chili, Fritos certainly can seal the deal.

I thought I would post my recipe now that it is award winning. My mom actually got this recipe a church dinner years ago.

Chili
1lb extra lean ground beef
2 onions, chopped
2 green peppers, chopped
3 slices bacon, cut into small pieces
2 15oz cans diced tomatoes (do not drain)
2 15oz cans kidney beans (do not drain)
1 6oz can tomato paste
2 bay leaves
2 T chili powder
1 t salt
1 t curry powder
1 t paprika
2 t ginger

Sautee ground beef, bacon, onion, and green pepper. Add all ingredients to a large pot. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 3 hours.

A few tips and tweaks -

• I always double the recipe. If you are chopping 2 onions and 2 green peppers you might as well chop 4 of each. It freezes really well so leftovers are not a problem.
• I cook the bacon first until it is crisp, then remove it and pour off the grease. Then I sautee the onions, green peppers, and ground beef.
  
• For the big competition Saturday night, I added 1 T of sugar, about 1 t of garlic powder, and a few dashes of red wine vinegar at the end. I had never tried these before, but seeing as I won, it obviously didn't hurt.
• And, of course, serve with Fritos and shredded cheese. I usually don't do the green onions, but I figured for staging purposes a bit of color would be a good idea.

(I got a trophy for winning but it is going to be kept on display at the church, so the boys made trophies and a crown for me Sunday morning. Amazing what you can do with a few pipe cleaners.)

Check That One Off the List

If I had a "Bucket List", tonight I would be crossing off "See Billy Joel in concert." One of my first rock music memories - besides listening to Devo and Blondie on my brown transistor radio when I still lived in California (I would have been no more than 7, which makes me wonder what I was doing listening to Devo and Blondie on my brown transistor radio) - was watching the "Uptown Girl" video over and over on MTV. (Again, perhaps not the best use of my time. But, in my defense, I do not believe MTV was the same beast that it is today.)

Anyway, tonight Bruce and I went to the Billy Joel/Elton John Face2Face concert. It was definitely worth the wait of nearly 30 years. And as a bonus, we got to see Elton John. "Face2Face" refers to the fact that to open and close the show these two piano geniuses sat facing each other at matching grand pianos that rose from the floor. I could probably go on and on about how amazing they sounded in person and how I would probably go see it again tomorrow if possible, but it is late and Bruce has already gone to bed - and when I am actually up later than Bruce, it means I am up way too late.

(Since we were too high up to get a decent photo from our camera phones, I found the above image here. It was posted by Todd. I saw no copyright info, so hopefully this link and credit covers it.)

President's Day Parade

As I mentioned in my last post, the boys are holiday fanatics. They couldn't let President's Day pass by without a parade and some costumes. I believe Spencer was going for George Washington and Matthew was a clown - every parade needs a clown. There was a short indoor parade and an even shorter one outdoors. Personally, I was ready for a break after the Valentine's Day festivities, but it was not to be. In case you are curious, the bag contains Play-Doh hamburgers that they made to throw to the people in the crowd.

A Bit of Our Valentine's Day Festivities...

I'm not sure how I ended up with no pictures of Emmarsyn, but she did join in the festivities. The boys are the real holiday fanatics at our house though. They make things like heart shaped cinnamon rolls and paper conversation hearts taped to bedroom doors totally worth the effort. They even made themselves quivers and arrows and spent the morning playing Cupid.

Emmarsyn's Birthday Questions - 3 Years Old

How old are you? 3
Who is your best friend? Emery
What is your favorite thing to do? Doing the girl thing.
What is your favorite color? Pink
What is your favorite food? Some French fries and burger.
What do you like to do with your family? Playing games.
What is your favorite toy? My bug.
What do you want to be when you grow up? A big, giant mommy.
What makes you happy? Kisses and hugs.
What makes you sad? Hitting and throwing and being mad.
What is your favorite show to watch? Dora the Explorer.
What is your favorite book? My princess books and my space books.
Where do you like to go? I love to go to the zoo and parks.
What is your favorite animal? A pink humpback whale. Hey mom, it has a purple bottom.

Last year's questions.

Yet Another Cheap Magazine Subscription

Click here for a link for a one year subscription to Taste of Home magazine for $4 with tax. You can actually buy up to 4 for that price so it could make for a great birthday present too.

A Couple of Cool Sights Over the Holidays

The day before Christmas (otherwise known as Christmas Eve of course)...

Our ward has always delivered two luminaries to each house in the neighborhood to be lit on Christmas Eve. They are a very simple light - a white lunch bag, a couple of handfuls of rock salt, and a votive candle. But when the whole neighborhood lights them, it is a very surreal sight and creates a profound sense of peace that adds to the spirit of Christmas Eve like you wouldn't believe. The pictures aren't great (we need to spend a little time figuring out some of the more advanced settings on our camera) but in real life it is amazing.

This year, however, the ward did not provide the luminaries. Bruce and I couldn't imagine not having them so he got the supplies on Christmas Eve (for 10) and we put 5 in front of our house and 5 in front of the house across the street. Fortunately for us, all the other houses on our street are in a different ward - only in Utah - so we still got pretty much the full effect.






The day after Christmas...

Bruce happened to look out our bedroom window and saw this...











Moments later we saw this from the front porch...








It turned out that a group of balloonists from a town about 30 minutes south of here, decided to go joy-riding and ended up in our neighborhood. In fact, one balloon landed on our street. They even were letting neighborhood kids go up for a quick ride while the balloons were tethered to the ground.


And this is as close as any of our kids got. The others were cowering in the van. Spencer refused to go up because he has recently developed a fear of heights and Matthew was freaked out by the sound of the burner that heats the air. And Emmarsyn, well given her level of understanding, I think she was just making a wise decision. There isn't much in her experience that would lead her to conclude that going up in a giant floating balloon would be a wise idea. As far as she knows, floating balloons either pop and disappear with no advance warning or they simply float away getting smaller and smaller until they too disappear. So really I have to commend her on reasoning abilities. I was hoping we could get past the boys' issues, but no amount of reassurances would get them in that basket. Oh well, things like this happen all the time, right?

For Leeann...

We woke up to snow (not a ton) on New Year's Eve morning. We got some pictures before plows had come through so the whole neighborhood still looked blanketed in snow.These pictures are for my not so evil stepmother Leeann, who never seems to get enough snow in Florida to meet her needs.