ski school

Park City is doing a deal right now where UT residents can get ski lessons for $25, including ski rental! I saw that the normal price for a kids ski school is $210. Today was their ski school and they were excited. They both liked it a lot. Alex did better than Nathan the teacher said, but they both had fun and did well. They both want to do it again. They can go back 3 more times at that price. While they were at ski school, Katherine and I went to Gymboree at the outlet mall and got some amazingly good deals on some amazingly cute outfits for summer and next winter:).

Alex is in a yellow jacket and Nathan is in the orange jacket. They are the two in the very middle (There is a faint orange circle around them I did on the computer):

This is when their lesson was done and they were skiing down to meet me:

Here's my second attempt doing the fancy thing with Katherine's hair. It turned out much better this time:

Hamming it up for the camera:

hairdos

Todd showed me how to put the pictures on the computer with the memory card-- yea!!
Here is a picture of Katherine with a candy cane stuck in her hair. I wanted to use this for our Christmas cards (hee hee):
This is after I got it out:

The boys let me play with their hair:). I had to pay them $1 to let me put this picture on the blog:

Katherine held still for my first attempt at doing something kind of "fancy". It's not perfect but not bad for my first try!

She is smiling for the camera:). She knows she's supposed to smile for the camera now, silly girl!

my kids

*The other day the dishwasher was open and Katherine started putting the dishes away! She was putting the silverware in the silverware drawer. Alex got up and said, I'll help her. So she handed him the dishes and he put them away. Who's kids are these??? SO SO cute!!

*I started reading the boys "The Lightning Thief" last night and they were very into it! Nathan said it was his favorite book. They kept asking me to read more and more and we ended up reading until midnight and got to page 75. They got into bed at 8:30 or 9. Here's one part so you can see why it's such a great hit with them, especially Nathan:

"Then the wierdest thing happened. Her (the pre-algebra teacher) eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.
Then things got even stranger.
Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.
Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.
With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword--Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day."

nothing much at all

1. Today I had my 2 boys in senior primary and my baby girl in nursery! They are growing up so fast!
2. I am not good at chit chat. I need some interpersonal skills, mine are lacking. Being pregnant has made things worse.
3. Katherine spilled OJ on the new floor and I JUST WIPED IT UP!!! If it were carpet instead of laminate, it would have been a big mess! I LOVE LOVE LOVE our new floor!!
4. Katherine is poopy.

Christmas

Our dumb camera is broken so I have no pictures of Christmas this year:(. But we had a great Christmas. My parents drove up here Christmas Eve night and suprised the boys Christmas morning. The boys got lots of presents and a Wii. They are probably the only kids who got math books in their stockings and were excited about it. Katherine got lots of things for her dollies and some jewlery and nail polish in her stocking. I got a new floor downstairs:). I am so happy. We also got a cheap used couch and loveseat until we can save up for a nice couch. It's fun to have my parents here. They are staying a whole week! I'm glad my dad got a new job so that he can have time off.

Before Christmas, we had fun with Tawnya and her family. The boys love playing with her boy Spencer. She is one of my best friends.

P.S. We ordered a new camera through Todd's work, but it hasn't gotten here yet.

breakfast and savers and ESP or something

My neighbor directly behind me is Nancy, the retired single lady with a pool that Nathan is going to marry when he gets older. She is also my visiting teacher and she invited me and my family for breakfast last Thurs. morning. When we got there she had the table set with her Christmas dishes, linens, Santa centerpiece, sausage, bacon, waffles, orange juice and raspberry cheesecake hot chocolate with marshmallows! Alex leaned over to me and whispered, "she did it all fancy for us!" I told that to Nancy and she said that she wanted us to feel special. We did feel special!
What a nice thing to do for us!

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Nathan and Alex get $5 every Sat. for allowance. They can spend it on whatever they want, so that instead of them asking for everything, we say they can get it with their allowance. Well, they have been great savers! With Nathan's birthday money, he is now at $100! He is very excited and I am very proud of my savers boys, a skill they did not learn from me:)

**********

Todd's sister Tawnya and I are good friends. She moved to Iowa a few years ago, unfortunately, because her husband is going to school there. She got pregnant with her first baby a few months before we got pregnant with Katherine. When she came to visit, she said the name they picked out was Spencer Bradford (Todd's family are direct decendants of William Bradford). I told her the name we had picked out for a boy was Nicholas Bradford. We had a girl and she had a boy. In July when they came out to visit, they called Spencer "Bubba" and we were caling Katherine "bubba", too. She is visiting right now and now she is calling Spencer "Bubs" and we call Katherine "Bubs"! She is now pregnant and one month ahead of me, and we found out we are both having girls. When she got here on Friday I asked her what they are going to name the baby and she said, "Abigail and call her Abby!" That is what we had picked out, too. I guess we'll have cousins with the same name! Her middle name is Lynne but we haven't decided on a middle name yet, but it won't be Lynne. We have it narrowed down to a few but haven't decided yet. Too wierd, huh??

Nathan's birthday

Nathan was so excited for his birthday that the night before he wanted to stay up until midnight when his birthday started. I was too tired, so I set my alarm and put it by his bed. He stayed up watching the time and woke me up. "The alarm went off! It's my birthday!" I don't remember what I said, but I wish I could have stayed up with him and sang happy birthday to him.

Nathan had an ice skating birthday party and 16 people were there! I'm glad he had a good turn out for his party. All of his friends from the street and all his friends from boys club (homeschool group) came. He had a Spongebob party and he wanted Daddy to make his cake instead of getting one at the store. He did wants toys on it, though. So Todd made his cake. After his party Todd took him to Build a Bear and he got a snowflake bear with a Santa suit. For his birthday dinner he asked for chips and hamburgers. Todd and I were puzzled, but Alex said, "good choice, Nathan." So Todd and Nathan made hamburgers and we had Doritos with it. He had a good birthday and he's so happy to be 6.

Happy Birthday Nathan!!

Nathan turns 6 today (Wed. Dec. 16)! Happy Birthday!

house project day 2

Day 2:
it's 3pm: the kids and I organized the toy closet, I swept and mopped the kitchen floor, cleaned off the counters, the boys wiped the table and chairs, the boys "cleaned" their room, and now I'm taking a break because I'm feeling a bit nauseaus (I hate that word...who can spell it?) and overwhlemed at cleaning this living room.

***

We cleaned the living room until 5 and got it mostly cleaned and then we all were just too tired to clean anymore. Now I'm exhausted.

what's going on around here

For our Christmas present to eachother, Todd and I are getting the house all clean and fixing up all the broken things that have been needing to be fixed this week. Today the kids and I cleaned out the car, and now it's 4pm. Oh my goodness.

The boys got out some hangers and played with them for about 2 or 3 days. Alex said he wanted an orange hanger for Christmas. They are so creative. They made roller coasters, pretended they were swords, etc. I think we should get rid of all our toys, they don't even play with them.
All they need is their imaginations, and of course a computer to play video games.

Last week Todd and I took the boys to "A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Center theater. That is my favorite one--I love it. We go about every year. This past Sat. Alex and I went on a "date" to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. Alex likes music like I do, so I thought he would like it. They only let kids 8 and up go, but I figured he's close enough. Walking from our parking lot to the building, Alex kept throwing snowballs at me:). On the way back to the car, we built a snowman. Then we went to Village Inn and got pancakes and hot chocolate. We had a really great time and he said he wanted to go again next year.

Yesterday night the family decorated stockings. I helped Katherine: I just put a blob of glue and she put a pom pom on it. I think she might have eaten one or two. We joked that she was going to get cancer. Then I put glitter glue on her finger so she could rub it on the stocking. She liked it. I'd take pictures but our camera won't work with our computer for some reason right now. Alex did the angel coming to the shepherds with Bethlehem in the background and Nathan did some abstract art.

Well, I better keep cleaning (and change Katherine's stinky diaper...again).

good parents

Todd and I stayed up late watching a bunch of episodes of the tv show "World's Strictest Parents." In the show, 2 wild teenagers go to a strict parent's house for a week. And in every single episode, the teenagers make huge improvements and it's really amazing. So, Todd and I decided to write down what we saw that was the same in all the strict families:

1. had the kids do hard work as part of the daily routine
2. the parents spent one on one personal positive time with each child
3. the parents had high expectations with clear rules and boundaries, and consequences for every broken rule
4. the parents stay calm; instead of yelling they use consequences instead. The consequences were usually a chore of hard work instead of going to their room or something
5. they find what the kid is interested in and use that to bond with them and strengthen their relationship
6. really open communication
7. lots of praise when they are doing anything right
8. lots and lots of family together time- work and play together
9. the parents in almost every show had the kids do service work
10. the parents don't let them run away; they make them face their problems (cool down period ok, though)
11. dad to boy and mom to girl relationship very important
12. the parents always expressed and showed love; without this the rules come across as domineering, but if the kids know they are loved, they see it as being cared for
13. be patient and consistent

Nie Nie's story

I can never, ever, never, never, ever, never, ever complain or be down--only grateful for everything I have-- after reading this: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/stephanie-nielson-intro-120609.html

The baby is a.....

To find out the gender of the baby, you have to answer a riddle. The first letter of the first name of the 22nd and 24th president of the US is either a "B" or a "G". Technically, it's his middle name, but you wouldn't know it. He was the only president to have two non-consecutive terms as president. He was president when Utah became a state.

the boys can ice skate now!

skating by themselves:

Katherine watching her brothers:

tricks:

a good dad:

"holy!"

We went on sesamestreet.com to let Katherine play a toddler game on the computer because she wants to play on the computer like her brothers. She made lots of stars on her game so Nathan said, "Holy!" Katherine repeated him and kept saying, "holy". It was so cute! I also thought her little hands were so cute on the keyboard:

guess who came to visit on Thanksgiving?

Mr. stomach flu.
He was rude and horrible and ugly and not allowed back! We're all feeling better today, though, and Todd is going to make a turkey dinner tomorrow for us.

Breakfast with ....?

At Thanksgiving Point they have a "breakfast with Santa" but we haven't gone because it was just way overpriced. However, they sent me an email saying that members get half off this Sat.! So Todd said we could go!

So I told the boys that we were going to go to breakfast with Santa on Sat. (waiting for cheers and shouts of joy).

Here's what they said:

(silence)
Alex: What are they serving?
me: (??) I don't know, probably like bacon and eggs and pancakes and stuff.
(more silence)
nathan: Why don't we just take the money that we would have spent on it and have Daddy make us a yummy breakfast.
me: But what about Santa??
(just silence...)

So I guess the boys would rather have breakfast with Daddy than Santa! They really love their Daddy!

ice skating

The boys have really liked ice skating lately. We went last night and here are pictures and videos. They have walker things to help them learn to skate.

the christmas tree

Cute girl!

Katherine loves her dolls. She wanted me to put a diaper on it. So cute!

Katherine's new outfit

Here's the outfit I got Katherine today-- so cute!!

I have a white shirt to go under this sweater dress:

puppy mittens:

It's a......

Dec. 1 at 4pm-- gender ultrasound!!
Merry Christmas to me!!
Two things for you to do:
1. make your guess (winners get a treat)
2. pray it's a girl (so Katherine can have a sister and they can share a room)

The Christmas tree is up!

It snowed today, so...
we put the Christmas tree and our few Christmas decorations in the house up! It looks beautiful, but I can't find our camera so you have to come visit to see it. But it looks like this (except the bottom half is sans ornaments):

(well, maybe not exactly)

The boys helped and did a great job. The lower half has no ornaments because we have a destructo-baby in the house! I got all the Christmas tree decorations after Christmas last year for really cheap because we didn't really have any ornaments. We also bought a new tree today because we were using the tree that Todd had during his childhood and it was shedding really bad and had seen its last day. We'll put it upstairs for the boys though. The boys asked if they could have it for their children. All that's left is getting a star or an angel for the top and I ordered some candles (we won't light them) to clip on the tree--hopefully they'll be here soon.

Todd and I went on a date last night and did some Christmas shopping. It was so fun looking at girl toys and not just all boy toys! I think you kind of re-live your childhood through them.

By the way, it is possible to celebrate Christmas and Thanksgiving at the same time. Christmas needs to be celebrated for at least two months!!

Being manly

The boys lately have talking about how to be manly lately. The first thing for being manly, is stuffing your mouth with food. The second thing for being manly, is fighting your brother with sticks. I overheard Alex ask Nathan what the 350th thing for being manly is, and Nathan said, "staring at something with your eyes open and not blinking." Wrestling without shirts on is another thing for being manly.

Thanksgiving and Christmas thoughts

This morning we read in Alma 27, when Ammon and his brothers ran into Alma. They were so excited to see each other, it says this:

Alma 27: 17. Now the joy of Ammon was so great even that he was full; yea, he was swallowed up in the joy of his God, even to the exhausting of his strength; and he fell again to the earth.
18. Now was not this exceeding joy? Behold, this is joy which none receiveth save it be the truly penitent and humble seeker of happiness.

We talked about being penitent and a humble seeker of happiness-- about taking the time to think about our blessings and being grateful even for the little things. If you can find joy in the little things, you will be happy. I told them a long time ago, Christmas was a lot different. Kids only got one or two presents, and they were probably homemade presents. Kids were used to this, and they were still happy and excited about Christmas and those humble presents. Now kids write long letters to Santa, and expect lots of elaborate commercial toys. Am I taking away my child's happiness by giving them too much so they can't enjoy the little things? It's hard not to want to give my kids everything they want for Christmas! I wanted to spend $250 on Alex and Nathan for Christmas, but Todd said he wanted to do $200 so we don't go overboard.

The only two presents I ever remember growing up, is the Christmas I got my flute and the Christmas Allison made me a soft purple scarf. Those are also the only two presents that I still have.

To help them be penitent and humble seekers of happiness, I can help them find joy in decorating the Christmas tree as a family, listening to Christmas music, doing fun Christmas projects together, etc. -- simple joys of Christmas.

Having Thanksgiving first, we can focus on being thankful for the little things we have and continue that into the Christmas season.