How She Spent Her Second Birthday

The day started like most.

Chores.

Grace helped put away folded laundry.

Time for a relaxing warm bath after all that hard work.

Then a long nap while Mom ran errands in the snow. 

Post-nap she got ready for the party.

Grace shares her birthday with her cousin Britney and this year they celebrated together.

2. and 24. 

She'd been waiting to enjoy this cupcake for several hours. 

And she ate all the frosting first.

 Brit tried a selection of flavors.

 Time for presents!

A potty seat, little panties, a blanket, doll, and phone. 

We taught her to respond when asked how old she is.

She holds up her thumb and pointer finger and says "twooooooo".

Of course we all clap and cheer. 

Happy 2nd Birthday Pretty Baby. 

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Good Night.

Many people the land over do a Holiday Christmas Card.

We do. You do. 

Who do?

I decided it was time to step it up and have an actual family photo taken.

This is a major undertaking;

Clothes

Haircuts

No facial injuries

Happy Faces

Everyone at the same place at the same time.

I have to say as the Mom I immediately noticed someone with no socks, and someone with sports socks, and of course I'm overly critical of myself.

BUT.

We have a picture of our family captured forever. 

I love it. 

If it was perfect it wouldn't be our family now would it? 

Scroll down and enjoy, especially those last few which REALLY capture who we are. 

Snow Day!

Remember those snow days as a kid.  They were awesome!
They would cancel school because of the drifting that was sure to occur in Burley.
Those farm kids couldn't make it in and we'd all cheer.
We'd be outside making snow forts for hours.
I remember one year listening by the radio in the early morning hours as school was cancelled
several days in a row. "No school in Cassia County".  It was a kid's dream come true.

Yesterday I woke up to run and was met by 7 inches of the heavy wet white stuff.

I shoveled the driveway as per the children's winter instructions.
I am to push as much snow onto the front lawn as possible.
This aids them in making their awesome snow forts.
Like a kid myself I headed out the grocery store before the sun was up
slipping and sliding my way to the hot chocolate aisle.
I stocked up and came home and set it out along with the children's sleds
that were suppose to be Christmas gifts.  I couldn't resist.

I woke them all up by yanking open their blinds to the blinding white. Cole asked if this was Christmas.
Chores were done in a hurry and they all headed out.  I borrowed Scott's snow clothes
and joined them in sledding and the fort building competition.  It was so much fun (and a great calorie burner).

Happy Snow Day!

Relief Society Songstress

I had to post this picture of our Nearly Two-Year Old.
The piggie tails, the ribbons, the grin.  Oh. It melts my heart.

She doesn't go to Nursery.
She's naughty in that regard.
She screams and cries real loud. Louder than her older brother I dare say.
And if you know my little "Bosnian Banshee" then you know how loud that is.

I've taken her in and stayed with her, but the wailing continues.
So I eventually leave, but she is unforgiving and continues to gasp for breath
and cling to me and cry and I am sometimes forced home for sanctuary.

So I don't even try.  I've never done this with any child. All my children eventually went to Nursery.
Some went right away, some took coaxing, but they all went.
What happens when they turn 3 and are ready for Sunbeams but they've never been to Nursery?

Well, I'll tell you something.  She's learned a few things staying with me in Relief Society.
Today as I was playing prelude I watched her from the corner of my eye.
She kind of runs the place while I'm busy behind the piano.
She goes in and out, walks around the room, tries out different seats.
Today, she climbed up on a chair positioned under the shelves that hold the Hymn books.
She reached up on her tiptoes and grabbed a book. It happened to be an old teaching manual.
Then she got down and placed the opened book on the chair and proceeded to sing.
She sang along with the opening hymn.  When the song ended and others had stopped singing she continued for a moment and then realized she was going solo she stopped and looked around.  When she realized people were ready for a prayer she folded her arms, if only for a few moments of the prayer.

Oh Pretty Baby you make me smile.

Cereal Fort

Some things you don't teach your kids.

Some things kids just do. All kids.

Cereal forts, I have decided, are one of those things. 

It is over.

My last Pottery Barn bowl broke this evening. 

Not by itself.

They rarely break by themselves. 

When we were building our home I would buy nice things here and there and stash them away to be opened and used in the new house. 

I found these adorable ice cream bowls at Pottery Barn and bought one of each color. 

All 5 of them are gone now. 

Finally, the pressure is off. 

Perspective

What a day.
Busy, busy, busy.

Kristen picked Greydon up tonight.
Greydon is the sweet talkative treat that stays at our house while his parents teach school.
She's a full-time school teacher and a mother.

So I say to Kristen.
Oh I took Scott to an onsite visit in Kearns at 8:30 am.  Waited in the car for an hour until he was done, took him to the nearest TRAX stop, raced back to Chloe's school and checked her out for her ortho appointment, dropped her off, went to the bank, went to the grocery store, got Chloe her obligatory milkshake and the other 3 littles in the car ice cream cones, took Chloe back to school, and got home around 1:00.
Phew.

Then just as I'm about to follow that up with, "I got nothin done around here (referring to the large amount of housework awaiting my arrival)", Kristen pipes up and says,
"Wow you got a lot done this morning!"

Wha...t?

To a full-time teacher those bank and grocery shopping errands probably are difficult to squeeze into a week.

Perspective.
Just what I needed today.
Thank Kristen.

My Toofs

You read that right. Toofs.
Once upon a time we had Asher convinced that if you had a fake tooth or teeth they were referred to as toofs.  See, Scott had his tooth knocked out as an unruly kid flying down a hill on a bike. Trying to beat his Dad home because Scott shouldn't have been out of the house. He wrecked into a car and his face met curbing. (Funny, a similar thing happened to him as an adult. Except he was flying in a jazzy. Word.)
So anyhow,
we had our innocent kid convinced and he continually referred to fake teeth as toofs and we loved it and laughed.
After all isn't that what children are great for.

So Chloe has braces. I'm a bit jealous.
But there are only so many student loans a man can get. Actually there are quite a few a man can get if he goes to school for, oh say, 7 years.

Anyway. I'm not on the list.

I'm a bit bitter.

I wasn't on the list as a kid either.
My teeth weren't "bad enough".  With several siblings I rated middle of the pack- not perfect straight like Ginger's, not corn on the cob through a chain link fence like.... Molly's.  Sorry  Mol.  There's proof, but I won't post it if your comments are nice :)
I whined to Dad about the gap in between my front teeth, and he claimed it gave me character. The gap fixed itself in my early twenties.
I have crooked bottom teeth and an overbite. My smile covers those things.
But I dream of a perfect pearly white smile like Molly now has, Ginger was born with, and Terri paid through the nose for.

So I made a free consultation appointment at Chloe's orthodontist.
I just wanted to know...how bad are they?
They took lots of strange pictures of every angle. Then they blow those pictures up in front of your face with the orthodontist goes over things with you.

I have to say. Nice guy. Real nice guy. Some of these quotes, taken out of the context of the whole conversation sound, well, mean.  But he is a nice guy.
I know I've got an overbite and crooked bottom teeth, but imagine my surprise when he turns and asks me, "Were you hit in the face or did you have an accident and hit your face as a kid?"

Huh?
Really?
ouch.
I wanted to say yes so I had an excuse for the next thing he was about to say.
But it's a no, so...my jaw bone is longer on one side than the other.
Yep.
Left jaw bone longer than right. Significantly.  So my bite sits funny, my mouth opens crooked (I've noticed this on tape when I talk), my chin is too far back, and not in alignment with the midline of my face AND I"m buck-toothed.
Wondering if I can blame my rough delivery with forceps for this?  Anyone have Dr. Henry's address and I'll send him a bill?
To soften the blow the orthodontist did mention that my two baby teeth have the longest roots he's ever seen on baby teeth!! Go baby teeth.
He also mentioned "Hollywood polishing" to even out the bottom of my front teeth. I remember sitting on the bathroom counter with a metal nail file and going to town on the bottom of those front teeth.
That would be "Burley polishing" I presume.
Wondering if it would be better at this point to have them all pulled and get some toofs.
Tempting.

Feed Croup an Avocado Shake

I love avocados, and I've heard tales of Avocado Shakes from Brazil.

I've always wanted to try one. 

So today I did. 

I got a recipe; avocados, sweetened condensed milk, ice, 2% milk.

This had to be good.

Don't even think about the calories in that. It's good fat remember.

Everyone was skeptical. 

Turns out, Croupy Baby was my only taker.

Even Scott, the self-professed non-picky eater didn't like it. 

So I ignored that tingle on my lip and itch in my throat and ate it up. 

Cole asked for ice cream instead. I said yes. 

And then he danced.

And I laughed and laughed.

Clear Creek: Boy's Edition

With back to back 5th graders I got another turn to head to the fabulous Clear Creek Camp.
It was Asher's lucky year.

Our favorite and best overnight babysitter- Grandma- took the load while I ran away with Asher.
In our rush to get out the door Wednesday morning I left something very important behind.
My sleeping bag.  This was not discovered until bedtime.

I'm so happy Cami decided to come up to Clear Creek as it was mostly Fathers there with their boys.
So Cam and I hung out and tried not to get in trouble for talking too much (a common problem we have when we are together).

I really enjoy watching my children interact with their peers.  It's a good glimpse into who they are and how they work in groups.  Asher likes to be great at things. He wants to be recognized for excelling at the things he does, and this is usually the case.  He was so excited to be at Clear Creek, and while I'm sure he would've been fine without me, it was nice to be there and soak it all up together.

After lunch we got ready for rotations.  The boys made calendars for their parents, did some GPS-ing, did some team building activities, attempted to build a case to protect an egg being dropped from a ladder, made bracelets, and my station: tie-dyeing.

We also went on a hike.  The trail was pretty icy and muddy, so we took a different trail, and upon returning to camp were greeted by several deer.

We ate all our meals in the lunchroom.

Here you have an failed lunchroom trade:

Cookie for fruit. 

A surprising fail if you ask me.

Wednesday night was skit night.  This is the best.  All the classes have a song and a skit to perform, the teachers also do several skits and the parents do one.  

Asher really hammed it up in his class skit.  Here he is taking a bath while dancing.  Now I understand why the boy packed a large bath towel and bubbles. 

Here are the boys of  Mr.D's 5th grade class.

That night the boys watched Robin Hood while the adults played board games.

Luckily one of the boys we know had brought 2 sleeping bags and kindly let me use one. 

It was a fantastic time at Clear Creek with Asher.

Looking forward to 2013 with Aidan.