this week's favs

Skyler: Abc's, blankie, and snow

Danny: playing "Love Somebody" on the piano, yogurt with granola, and cat in the hat books

Cole: newest invention idea is a freezing gun with liquid nitrogen, there's another blue gooey invention in my fridge, Big Nate books, and of course, he'd prefer x-box over homework anytime

Hunter: basketball, loves school/his teacher, wants to snowboard every weekend, just finished his 39 Clues book series (11 books) and is hoping to get the 3rd book of Michael Vey as fast as possible.

Sweet prayers

A couple weekends ago, Cole had a NASTY ear infection.  Well, both ears were a mess.  He kept coming into my room throughout the night complaining about his poor ears - but why do these things always happen at night and on weekends?!?  I took him to insta-care on Saturday afternoon and sure enough, the ears were very infected and the Dr. prescribed antibiotics for him.  We waltzed over to Walmart - but unfortunately, the pharmacy was closed for lunch.  We had to linger for a while until we could get the medicine.  Hunter and I spent the time buying supplies for his science fair project and Cole laid in a grocery cart, moaning and crying out load.  It was a little dramatic, honestly - an 8 year old crying aloud and just miserable as could be.  I finally turned around and said to him, "please stop the complaining.  Who are you even talking to because I'm talking with this person about cutting material?!"  and another woman behind us quickly said, "he's saying a prayer."  I stop what I was doing and sure enough, Cole was sitting there, arms folded and saying his prayer out loud to help his ears feel better.  Sweet Cole.  He did this again a little later - and once again, I was so impressed by Cole's faith in prayers.  I'm so grateful that he is quick to think of prayer when he is distressed. As a parent, I constantly worry if I'm doing all that I know I should do, want to do, and hope to do.  It's rather daunting at times. I'm so grateful to know my children know there is a Heavenly Father who is mindful of their needs.  And I'm grateful for children who teach me to be more prayerful myself.

"wock you"

My kids have all been great sleepers, fortunately!  But, none of them would sleep in our arms.  They were very well trained to go to bed and go to sleep!  The rocking chair really was just for feedings and for long, sick and sleepless nights.  Well, thank goodness that Skyler has decided to change things up lately.  Before going to bed, he'll say "wock you" and I'll answer, do you want me to rock you?  "yes!"  We'll sit in the antique rocking chair and read a story, sing a few songs, he might even lay his head on my shoulder - it doesn't last long - but it gets me a little "wock you" time that melts my heart.  He'll even say "bed" after our few minutes together.  And when it comes to the music, he's rather opinionated and will constantly say "a diff'n one" (a different one) and I'll start a song and he'll say "no, a diff'n one" again, and again - until I get it right.  This week's favorite tunes include "elefun song" (the Elephant song, willabee, wallabee, wee - an elephant sat on me) and Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam.  I wuv you Skye.

Ski Bunny

That's me!  I'm a ski-bunny now!  I've moved on to "BLUES" and I'm terrified everytime I start down the slope and I think to myself, "you can do hard things and you don't have to be as fast as Shayne!"  (ha, ha)  I'm grateful to my mom for watching the little kiddo's while we had another ski-day together along with Shayne's brother, Shad.  It was a BEAUTIFUL day in the mountain tops.  I went to new heights, literally, and I didn't crash!!  I'm really enjoying this!  And I'm already trying to figure out the next time I can go!

(this pic was actually taken up in Park City earlier in the week - lucky guys who got 2 ski days in!)

Shad, Shayne, and Hunter (the ninja)

Birthday Boy

So what fun activity did Shayne plan for this year's birthday?  Paintball was the choice.  And this was a first for me - I went hesitantly but willingly.  At the place, it was definitely "testosterone" driven - only 5 girls in the midst of 80 others standing around waiting for their chance on the "field."  (and three of them were in our group)  Hunter was soooo excited to do this and was having a great time talking up about how much fun this was going to be with his cousins.  Doug, (Shayne's cousin) offered Hunter $5 to walk out at the start of the game and be a free for all (jokingly) and Hunter thought that would be easy and awesome.  Luckily he didn't do it, we convinced him it wasn't a good idea.  

Before I even try to explain how this went down, I need to make a disclaimer and acknowledge all terminology and descriptions are going to be wrong.  I'm ok with that.  

I positioned myself behind a big "obstacle" and was having fun shooting my gun across this warehouse sized arena.  Then I felt a "PANG" of pain on my leg.  I had gotten shot on the one spot that didn't have covering (I was wearing old clothing that I thought would be ruined... hence the capri's).  I thought to myself - this is more painful than expected...  when I moved behind the base, which you have to do after every hit, I took a peek at my leg - it had already started to welt and BLEED!  It wasn't cut - it was just the sheer force pushing blood out around the edges of the welt.  It hurt.  We tried to take a pic of it but, for those who saw it you can agree, the pic doesn't do it justice.  It looked like it hurt.  So, I was the tough wife.

When the round ended - we collected ourselves back in the waiting area and Hunter was UPSET and hurt.  He was not a fan of Paintball and had no intention of going back into that arena again.  We had enough ammo to do another round and so I went in again (despite my bleeding leg).  Cherae and I traded pants in the ladies room so I could have full coverage on my legs and she had to go home, so I was a little better off the 2nd time around.  I got hit on my arm and somewhere else I can't remember, the leg hurt the most.  I know, I'm pathetic to complain but the website says that getting hit by a paintball is not painful.  I beg to differ.  I'm grateful I tried it -and I'm glad that the big boys had a lot of fun and I'm grateful to be done with it.  

One of Hunter's bruises - a couple days later...

Before we went to Paintball, I "ASSEMBLED" Shayne's best cake EVER!  He LOVES bear-claws and he made a comment a few months ago about how Cakes are over-rated and we should just eat bear-claws.  So, his loving wife made him this "Bear-claw" cake.  Easiest cake ever (ha, ha) and I threw every candle we owned on it (I forgot to buy candles) and we almost had enough to match his age, almost.

What I love about Shayne -
He's fun - LOTS of fun!
He's funny (and thank goodness for that! I'm boring!)
He's the coupon-king
It's so easy to just be with him - I miss him when life is crazy with our four kids and no time for ourselves.  Thank goodness when I do have those little moments we still love to just be together
He's my best friend
He works so hard to take good care of our family
He gets me to try new things such as mtn biking and snow skiing - he keeps me young and adventurous
He's genuine - with everyone.
He's the love of my life - and I can't imagine not having him by my side - EVER

I love you Shayne!!  I hope this year brings even more fun times and great memories than the last!

Hunter's happenings

As mentioned in the Christmas post, Hunter got snowboarding gear and a pass for his Christmas this year.  It's his "EVERYTHING" and so far, he's very glad he did it!  He's had a couple turns with Daddy on the slopes and a day with me as well.  And we managed to get in a day all together during the break while Grandma and Grandpa helped with the little kids.  I wish I had taken a picture of the three of us together!  But Aunt Cherae and Uncle Shaughn were there too and they were all great sports about letting Hunter and I take our time to work down the slopes.  They are the skiers - we are determined to be more like them!

ALSO, Hunter has been busy with his class play.  They read "A Christmas Carol" as a class then using Google Docs they created a screenplay for themselves.  It was an amazing task to take on and their teacher is awesome.  Hunter wanted to be Marley soooo badly, and luckily he got the part!  He was fantastic, of course.  He spoke clearly and really got into character.  It was a struggle to hear everyone in the play - which was a shame.  Scrooge was his good friend Isabella, she was also great.  It was just a VERY long play and I wish Hunter had chosen to be a narrator - we would have understood so much more.  But, I think they learned a lot doing this project and now they are looking forward to creating their very own play next semester.

My Birthday

I'm out of sequence - but I just have to mentioned my lil' birthday day.  First thing, my workout bff's gave me a sweet treat to start my day - yummy oj and the best cinnamon roll fresh from the bakery.  It was super sweet of them and super sweet to eat!!

Danny got all decked out to look nice for me on my b-day.  Quite the handsome fellow - all the way to the toes in his church shoes!

For lunch - I tried to invite everyone I know (please don't be mad if I somehow missed you!) to come have a birthday lunch with me.  All I did was do the order through Cafe Rio and picked it up - everyone paid for their lunch and we had about 13 neighbors here!!  It was great to just have some girl time and let the kids go crazy downstairs.  The rest of the afternoon was dedicated to lessons as usual and it was a little bit rough cause Shayne had to be out of town that day.  ;-(  I know, bummer.  But, he called and felt really bad to miss out on my boring day!  

A sweet friend brought me cupcakes so I stuck every candle I owned into them (no, it wasn't enough) and we sang and blew out candles.  Skyler LOVES to blow out candles!

I stayed up late to change these tombstones to say Scrooge and Marley... (next post will say why) 

And what I didn't do was these...  but they patiently waited for me until the next morning.

It was still a very nice day thanks to many wonderful friends who helped me feel special and loved!

What I really did last month...

Devri had a vision of doing a book all about my dad's heritage as a gift for him last spring, for Father's day.  Then we decided to wait until his birthday in July.  THEN, we decided we should aim for Christmas.  I remember Devri lamenting that we just didn't have very much information or photos (compared to the book we had done for my mom a couple years ago) and then inspiration struck me - I should go visit my Great Aunt and Uncle who live in the SLC area and see if they had any pictures or stories to add to our special book.  We hit a gold mine and I came home with some amazing photos of my Grandpa growing up, and his grandparents and his great-grandparents too.  She also had short biographical sketches about my great grandparents, my great-great grandparents and even more.  It was a gold mine and I was giddy!  Suddenly names were becoming real people - and these real people were a part of me.  I loved learning their stories and about their immigration to the United States and about their conversions to the LDS Church.  

I spent many hours listening to a cassette-tape of my dad interviewing my great-grandmother and transcribing it word-for-word.  I remember her and to hear her voice and laugh, I could barely keep it a secret from my dad.  I contacted other cousins of my dad to try to get more info - and everyone was willing to help.  I wanted to tell him everything I was learning about his parents, his grandparents, and so forth.  It was hard to keep it contained but, I did it.  Devri and I spent hours upon hours working on this project - we were a team effort at our home computers.  I'd enter in info and I'd think - "that page looks good, I hope Devri likes that..." then I'd come back a day or two later and you would see Devri magic all over - suddenly the pages were beautiful and looked 200 x's better than when I'd last seen them!  It was fun for us to work together and to make something that we knew would mean a lot to my dad.  Even better was the surprise of how much it meant to me personally.  The book turned out to be more than 110 pages - it's packed full of stories, photographs, and memories.  A couple of favorite parts:

My Great-Grandmother Della and her family

-Transcribing Della's interview with my dad.  She lived to be 98 years old and I remember visiting her in her home as a young girl.  I believe the interview was when she was 92 and even then she was funny, witty, and full of personality - and that was on an audio cassette tape!  That woman was a go-getter!

My Grandpa and Grandma

My grandpa died when I was 5 years old.  I don't remember him personally - but to be able to read portions of his journal, learn more about his childhood, and to see all those photographs were very endearing.  He was a very good man.  I knew my grandma and it was especially fun to have everyone write their memories of her.  We all remembered different little things about playing at her house or the way she loved us - but it just felt like a big grandma hug.  She too, was a remarkable woman.

Our afghans

One of my favorite pages in the book was a little insert about our special afghans made by Grandma.  She made one for each grandchild and we all have them still.  That's a grandma hug too.

The revealing

Of course, the high point of our little project was giving it to my dad.  When we had our family Christmas - we started with his gift first.  We managed to get all my siblings there electronically (Facetime) - we all wanted to see him cry.  And he did.  

Thank you Devri for having the vision and the perseverance to make it happen.  And a big shout-out to my Aunt Martie for her help as well as my Great Aunt Donna and cousins Larry and Kelly.  It was an exciting adventure and one of the best gifts I have ever been a part of!