A Friendly Poll and A Not So Friendly Pole...

I guess I should just plan on a monthly blog rather than a weekly blog. Hopefully I can remember the important happenings for the month.

Lets see...

The first part of March was uneventful. The middle is where things started happening.

Elizabeth's middle school was evacuated due to a bomb threat. Just one of several in the state during that week.

My step-dad, Ed, had a mild heart attack on the 20th. He ended up staying in the hospital and going in for heart surgery on the 24th. Things went very well in surgery and he is now home and doing very well.

Alesea turned 6 on the 21st. Wow, time flies by fast. We celebrated on the 22nd by having family over for Hawaiian haystacks, cake, and ice cream. A pinata and an Easter egg hunt were the highlights for the kids.

Our Easter Sunday was spent visiting Ed in the hospital for part of the day, then we came home and cooked a small Easter Dinner for just our family and spent the rest of the evening relaxing and doing nothing. Oh, the morning was spent having a Easter egg hunt and snacking on goodies from Easter baskets.

Mike and I decided to find out what the baby will be. I want to to just a little poll to find out what every body's guesses will be on what it is. (That is if I can figure out how to post a poll here.) So look for the poll on this page somewhere and take a guess. Sorry, there will be no prizes or anything if you guess correctly. Just the pure satisfaction of having guessed correctly.

My lesson learned for the month.... It is not a good idea to sideswipe a pole in your husbands "dream truck" only 2 1/2 weeks after you bought it.



We send our love to all and hope everything is going well wherever you may be. (Oh, I will be posting a few more pics so check back in a few days, if you want!)

Fight with a floor and battling strep...

Hello everybody! Well, I didn't quite get an update out any sooner this time around. Oh well. This one will be fairly quick and no pictures this time.

Elizabeth had to endure swimming in PE for the past couple of weeks in school. She loves swimming, just not in the school P.E. setting. She registered for the 8th grade a couple of weeks ago. Her YW basketball team won every game and will begin region games next week. Her Jr. Jazz basketball team won every game except for one, so her team was thrilled about that. School is going really well for her.

Alesea has battled strep throat all week. No fun. She is finally on the up side again. It is great to see her cheerful again. She received an excellent report from her teacher for parent teacher conferences yesterday. She also lost another tooth yesterday. She does not have a gaping hole, however, because her permanent tooth grew in during the last month right behind the baby tooth. Alesea will be turning 6 this month and I can't believe it! Kids just grow too fast.

James had a fight with our wood floor this month and is the first of my kids to have stitches. He was running around the house playing SUPERMAN and tripped on his cape and fell chin first on to the floor splitting it open. He was not happy about the whole stitching procedure. When we took Alesea in to the same Insta Care for her strep throat James flipped out. He had been there just a week and a half earlier and feared what they might have to do to him. I had to explain a dozen times that we were there for Alesea and not for him. Finally, the promise of a sucker helped calm him down.

We are all ready for the spring and warm weather to get here. We are tired of being cooped up.

My brother, David, and his wife Patty will be arriving back in the States in April and will be here in the U.S. until they head out to South Korea for 2 years in June.

Finally, we just want everybody to know that the 6th member of our family should be arriving the end of August.

Take care and we hope life finds you happy and well!

Awards and a flashback...

Ok. Once again it has been way too long since I made an update. Kids are back in school. Work keeps chugging along. And it has been WWWAAAAYYY too cold. I am ready for the cold to be over. We need the precipitation, but I am tired of the snow.

Elizabeth had spirit week in school last week. They participated in various activities for the week. On Monday Elizabeth was in an oreo stacking contest for the "Anything Goes" assembly which was boys vs. girls. Her team won. Tuesday brought back the 80's. It was fun finding clothes for Elizabeth to dress up in for 80's days. It brought back A TON of memories. Did we come close enough?

Wednesday brought crazy hair day; Thursday brought pajama day; and Friday brought superhero day. Friday also brought a special award for Elizabeth. She was one of 6 recipients in her grade for the LION OF THE QUARTER award. Six students from each grade were chosen for their outstanding academics, citizenship, friendship and all around attitude displayed for the 2nd quarter. We are very proud of her and her accomplishments. She received another outstanding report card this semester.

She has one game left for Jr. Jazz on Saturday. They have won every game except for one. She has just started Young Women's Basketball and they have won every game so far.

Alesea's reading has skyrocketed. She reads anything and everything she can get her eyes on. She has also taken up the "hobby" of trying to spell everything she can. Her teacher recommended that she test for the ALPS program, which is the Accelerated Learning Program for Students. This is the program that Elizabeth was in. Alesea starts testing for the program tomorrow morning. She will have another test in two weeks. We will then be notified of her results in April. She is doing outstanding in school as well. She is still our little comedian.

James is doing better as far as tantrums and fits go. He doesn't bully kids as much anymore either. He hasn't completely stopped, but he is getting better. He loves to hang out with his big sisters. He is trying to learn to sing the alphabet song. He loves music and stories. He is also trying to learn to count. He is becoming a little comedian as well.

Mike's work is going well. He finally received a much deserved raise.

My work is going well.

I am going to add a section for my brother, David. Hopefully he doesn't shoot me for this, because he is very humble, but I am very proud of him and his accomplishments. He received an award from the Secretary of the Air Force for some of his accomplishments. Here are a couple of links to the article. Please be aware the photo is courtesy of U.S. Air Force photo/staff Sgt. Christina M. Styer.

http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,161571,00.html

http://activepaper.olivesoftware.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=U1NFLzIwMDgvMDIvMDcjQXIwMjEwOA==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom

I hope everyone is doing well. I will try to post an update more quickly next time, and until then, enjoy your days.

Christmas loot and a lost tooth...

Well, the crazy Christmas Season is over! I feel like Christmas is becoming WAAAYYY too commercialized. I know I am guilty at times about losing sight of the real reason for Christmas. Hopefully among all the goodies and presents we can also think about the birth of Christ and his ultimate love for all of us. It is pretty amazing.

Christmas day started about 8:30 a.m. for us. YES! Somehow our kids let us sleep in a little bit! Don't ask me how or why! As for the loot, here is a quick summary...

Elizabeth came out with some accessories for her i-pod, as well as clothes, shoes, games, and art supplies, a skateboard, and guitar picks, among a few other things. (For those of you who don't know, Elizabeth has taken a few guitar lessons and is waiting to be able to start them back up.)

Alesea came out with dolls, stuffed animals, games, clothes, and a toy laptop computer among a few other things.

James mainly came out with anything with wheels on it, and some clothes. After every present he opened, it had to be taken out of the packaging and played with before he would open anything else.

We spent the day at our house being completely lazy and enjoying each others company. A small ham, "funeral" potatoes, corn, and homemade rolls filled our stomachs at dinner.

Last but not least, Alesea lost her very first tooth that evening. As you can see in the picture, her permanent tooth had already started growing in behind it, so she officially did not have a tooth-less smile. She needs to lose the tooth next to it because that permanent tooth is already growing in as well. (To Shawn - my orthodontist friend - do you foresee any problems because of this??? j/k)

We hope all of you had a great and relaxing Christmas and were able to spend valuable time with family. Take care and we hope your new year is great!

Oh, just to elaborate on the crashing Christmas tree from my last post...

Mike woke up at 2:30 in the morning to a crashing sound and checked through the house to find nothing. Except for after he crawled back in to bed he realized he did not check the living room. He got back out of bed and checked the living room to find that our whole Christmas tree had fallen over. He ran upstairs and woke me up to help him. Sappy Christmas tree water had spilled all over our carpet and ornaments had fallen off. We ended up cutting extra limbs off of our tree to fit it in a larger and deeper tree stand. Fun times at 2:30 in the morning.

2:30 A.M. and the cRAsHinG ChRiSTmAs tReE

Ok... I was going to make a story out of this one too, but I think I have written enough for this week. I think the title of this post explains it all. If anybody would like me to elaboarate, let me know. HAPPY HOLIDAYS to EVERYONE! Take care!

The Plywood Christmas Tree

It was December 2004. Mike was studying for and taking his finals in order to graduate with his Batchelors Degree that semester. I was pregnant with James, and in the beginning stages of taking and reviewing applications for the people that would replace our job as managers of the aprtment complex we lived in. We were also trying to make as many repairs and fixes as possible around the apartment complex before we had to leave. On top of that, we had started looking for jobs for Mike and looking for a place to move. You might say things were a little busy. We normally take a day and head up to the Uinta Mountains to cut down our Christmas tree. 2004 was a different story. We really had no time that year to head up to the mountains as usual, so we scoped out a few tree lots around town. The price of trees seemed to be outrageous, and for trees that did not seem to be what we wanted. We somehow had it in our mind that if we went tree shopping on Christmas Eve, we could find a tree at a discounted price. We would spend Christmas Eve as a family decorating our tree. Christmas Eve came and as we drove to the first lot we had browsed earlier in the month, the tree lot had packed up and left. No worries, we would just continue on to the others that we had scoped out. As we went to every lot we had found, we discovered they had all packed up and left town. We were getting worried and frustrated, hoping we wouldn't have a Christmas without a tree. We were getting desperate and started driving around the buldings of local businesses hoping they had thrown out their trees in the dumpsters or back behind the buildings. No luck. We drove by many trees that were planted on the property of some of the businesses and briefly thought about breaking the law and cutting one of them down. (Don't worry, it was just a brief flash of desperate thoughts, we never would have really done it! LOL) It was very late and there were no trees to be found. The mood was somber as we drove home empty handed. We got home and put the kids to bed. Mike was determined and would not let our kids wake up Christmas morning without a tree. He disappeared in to the storage shed of our apartment complex for about an hour. I heard banging and power saws sawing. Finally Mike emerged with saw dust all over him and spray paint on his fingers. He told me to go out to the shed and take a look. Mike had created a 3 foot 2 dimensional Christmas tree out of plywood. He had spray painted the tree green and the stand red. (The couple that had managed the apartment complex before us had done many Christmas projects in the past and left cans of green and red spray paint. I almost threw them away on many occassions, but never did.) I have to say I have never seen anything so creative, and made with as much love as Mike put in to that tree for his kids. We brought the tree in to the living room and decorated it with Christmas lights and candycanes that could hang on the "branches". We now use the plywood christmas tree in our holiday decorating and laugh about the year we almost had no Christmas tree.

Our month in a minute... or two.. or three...

Ok, it has already been a month since I had an update. It seems only like a couple of weeks. A lot has happened in the last month. Here goes...

Elizabeth received her first report card with amazing grades, academically and citizenshiply (Is citizenshiply a word? LOL). She started basketball and has had two games. Her team kicked heiny both games. I should add that she made two baskets the first game. Yeah! She is now officially a teenager. The big 13! I can't believe it!

Alesea received all 100% in a round of kindergarten testing. She also has two loose teeth. The fun part is her first two permanent teeth are halfway grown in right behind the two loose baby teeth. Yikes! She was sick for two days the last week and a half, just the two days were a week apart. She is doing well now. She has been having fun with a new friend that I babysit after school for an hour.

James is still throwing fits and tantrums, but has his adorable moments too. He still can't get enough of trucks and cars. He is learning so many new words and new things, he amazes me every day. His new argument is any time we ask him to do something his response is..."YOU!" As in you do it. He is getting big, but still has no desire to start potty training. Any tips or hints from any of you out there?

Mike is still working for BD. He went "surfing" with a couple of his buddies at the new Solamon Center in Ogden about a week ago and enjoyed that, even though he took a beating. The Solamon Center has fun games and activities including rock climbing, surfing and swimming, indoor skydiving, video games and I think bowling, among other activities. We both would like to try the indoor skydiving sometime, as well. (I'd prefer that over the real thing any day.)

I quit my job at the Target Portraits Studio because the hours were too crazy. I was working 5-6 nights a week just to get 17 hours of work. I am now working in the Macey's Grocery Store Deli. It has been a good job so far. I especially enjoy the times when we are required to sample meats, cheeses, and salads so we can tell the inquiring customer whether they are good or not, or what the flavor differences are, or what we recommend. I really like the people I work with, and the time goes by fast. Plus, I work more hours than at Target in 3-4 days. That gives me more time with family. I have been busy taking portraits of several families for their holiday cards and gifts, as well.

As a family we finally went up to the Uinta Mountains and cut down our Christmas tree yesterday. We took our snowmobile and a couple of sleds and made a day of it and played around. It was freezing, but we had a great time.

We hope everybody enjoys the Holidays. Merry Christmas and just in case it is another month for an update, Happy New Year.