Year In Pictures - Week 3

 Sunday, January 29th

Anyone who believes that you shouldn't play video games on Sundays please look away.  We had a nice afternoon playing Star Wars Old Republic Online.  After church, of course.

 Monday, January 30th

Somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.  Bet you can't guess who.

 She ended up having a good day, but I was a bit worried when she brought her gun in the car to pick up the other kids after school.  Luckily she only pretended to shoot at cows and birds and refrained from participating in her very first drive by.

Tuesday, January 31st

On Sunday by Aunt Karen Dickson had a stroke.  Tuesday morning my sister, Tracy, called and asked if I wanted to go with her to visit Aunt Karen at the hospital in Provo.  I called a friend and made arrangements for my kids for the day and took off.  We stopped in Provo and picked up Tracy's daughter, Jessica and grand-daughter, Avery.  It was so good to see Aunt Karen and even though she couldn't communicate well, she smiled and gave us a thumbs up as we left.  The doctors were pleased with how she was doing and she has continued to progress each day.  She is an amazing lady and has had lots of people praying for her speedy and full recovery.  After spending some time at the hospital with Uncle Roy and with Karen's mom we headed to get some lunch.  Here is a picture of Tracy, Jessica and Avery at Kneader's.  Yum!

Wednesday, February 1st

This morning Gabby lost another tooth.  This makes five that she has lost now.  She was super brave as usual and let me pull it right out.

 Thursday, February 2nd

Happy Groundhog Day!  The groundhog did see his shadow today, although he wouldn't have if he were peeking out in Utah.  We finally got some snow today!  Corban came out with me first thing this morning and helped me to shovel sidewalks.  He was in charge of the walkway right around the house and didn't do too bad considering it was his first time shoveling.  We lost our power for a few hours before school and Gabby was in a panic that she would have to miss her 100th day of school.  They do a whole big 100 Day party and she was not going to have school get cancelled.  Luckily power was on at the school and ours didn't stay out for too long.

You get two pictures today because it was a large accomplishment for me today when I finally completed our taxes!  After completing everything  when I went to print out my forms for my files this is what I got.  Eighteen pages of complete gibberish that looks similar to Russian.  What in the world?  Now I know that some tax laws can be confusing and at times you might wonder if you are doing everything right, but this print out was just plain weird!  I reprinted them and everything looked perfect.  Glad to be done for another year!

Friday, February 3rd

I need to go shopping.  My groceries are very much dwindling and I haven't had a chance to get out to fix that.  Today after school Quincy brought me a can of smoked oysters and asked if she and Corban could have them for a snack.  I told them that we didn't have any crackers or cheese to eat them with  and they both said that they didn't want crackers just the oysters.  Why not?  I gave them each a toothpick and they plowed right through the can.  Grandma Wright would be so proud!  She used to hide smoked oysters from us when we were kids.  As soon as she would open up a can she knew that they wouldn't last when all 8 kids came running.  I like them just fine, but I sure don't mind sharing either.

Saturday, February 4th

Today my little brother's oldest daughter, Mallory, was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  She is a beautiful girl and the oldest of all 7 of the little baby girl cousins that were born in 2004 (counting our Adara that was stillborn).  This is going to be a big year for all of those growing girls!  We are so happy for Mallory! 

Quincy on the iPad

Caught this great little clip of Quincy last night.  She is playing patty-cake with a giraffe on Grandpa's iPad.  I love how she taps her little fingers together.  It was so fun to watch.

Year in Pictures - Week 2

Sunday, January 22nd

This is my new bunk mate.  The kids call him Darth-Dad.  As I mentioned previously, he has been trying for a few weeks to get used to his darn cPAP machine.  It's not working very well and he still fights it and stops breathing.  Go figure.  Nothing can be totally normal with this fine gentleman.  We think he looks pretty cool though.

Monday, January 23rd

My kids, like most, need to have a night light.  Bump thought it would be cool to get Corban this very neon blue glowing clock for his room and it has become Corb's night light.  Notice it's position above his bed. . . it  no longer keeps it's place on the wall.  He doesn't use it for the time.  Even though the entire room is glowing brightly with a blue hue he still has to have it right in his face with his little fan.  I apologize to his future wife right now.

Tuesday, January 24th

Today when Bump got home from work he asked what I did all day today.  The below picture is what I spent my day reading.  Seriously it took me more hours than I would like to admit to complete this week's assignment in my online Geology class.  I enjoy it and I could drag it out over a few days if I needed to, but I love the feeling of just getting it done and then moving on to other things for the rest of the week.  Tuesday has become my study day for the week.

 Wednesday, January 25th

Today was Dino-Safari Day for the Kindergarten.  They got to dig for dinosaur bones and break open dinosaur eggs, paint their favorite dinosaur and many more things.  I was lucky enough to be assigned the DinoDance center.  We all got dinosaur tails and got to dance around to a few rocking dinosaur songs.  My favorite was the dinosaur boogie song and I taught the kids how to do the twist.  Most of them thought I was pretty crazy, but I got them up and dancing and definitely got my aerobics in for the day.  I am sure I was very entertaining to the other parents that were helping out.  The kids all had fun and Corban was the cutest one out there.  When I asked the kids if they noticed anything different about me today (expecting the usual reply of "you have a tail") one little boy answered, "you are one hot chick today."  I love Kindergartners!

Thursday, January 26th

I guess it is a week about Corban.  He has been wanting to grow his hair out longer and the poor boy has the thickest, most stubborn hair.  It goes where it wants to and I really can't do anything with it, so his entire life we have kept it shaved very short.  Well after finally letting it grow out more than we usually do I finally had enough.  Today he got a hair cut.  I promised that I would leave the front a little longer and that I would't completely shave it short.  I trimmed up around his ears and back and trimmed it all over, but left the front long so that he could spike it up.  He looks good, and even though it takes a blow dryer and hairspray to make it stick up like that, he is very happy with his new do.

Friday, January 27th

Quincy saw me playing with my phone and asked me to take a picture of her with her Cinderella doll.  I was happy to oblige.  She got this cute Cinderella doll from her California Cousins for Christmas.  Cinderella has become Quincy's best friend and I am happy to have a picture of them together.

Saturday, January 28th

Tonight we went out to a belated birthday dinner with Bump's parents and these two lovely people.  This is Bump's brother Jeremy and his wife, Jen.  We had a great time and continued to enjoy their company while we watched BYU lose a very frustrating basketball game against St. Mary's College.  While that was going on we kept flipping channels to watch Jimmer Fredette and the Sacramento Kings take on the Utah Jazz.  Jimmer didn't have a good game either. So, it was a bad basketball night, but we enjoyed good food and great company.

Year in Pictures - Week 1

I've been so terrible about blogging lately that I am following my sister's example by trying to take a picture a day for this coming year.  Hopefully if I do this then at least I will be posting something and it will nicely summarize my year.  The quality will not be like hers (her fancy camera cost a lot more than my iPhone and let's face it, if I don't use my iPhone for this it isn't going to happen) I will be using my instagram app to give the pictures some variety and it's great goal for me.  I will use my Sunday afternoons after church to post, so I shouldn't have any excuses!

Monday, January 16

In honor of Martin Luther King's birthday I took a picture of what Gabby wrote in school:  This picture wasn't actually taken on Monday since the kids didn't have school.  We actually went to the dentist for our celebration, which is where her inspiration must have come from.  Hopefully she sticks with her dream!

 Tuesday, January 17th

My sister, Tracy and her husband, Steve went to Costa Rica for the week.  We got to have my nephew Conner stay with us.  On Monday night Conner was playing with my exercise band and flipped himself in his eye.  I made him sleep on it, but the next day (Tuesday) had quite the adventure.  Tracy didn't leave me with a medical card, so I had to call different doctors and ended up taking him to see 3 different doctors through the day.  Luckily his primary doctor gave me a copy of his medical card.  By the time we saw the optometrist his eye was doing better.  We several ups and downs through the rest of the week with him missing school and having a follow up appointment on Thursday.  He is a great kid and has been fun to have, but I am ready for his parents to get home tomorrow night. 

 Wednesday, January 18th

Poor Bump just gets so tired in the evenings.  This week has seemed especially rough (he's still trying to get used to his CPAP machine) and he falls asleep quite easily as soon as he sits down.  I decided to take a picture of my view around 9:00 pm each night.  Bump asleep on the couch no matter what he is watching, or playing!

 Thursday, January 19th

Gabby practices piano every morning before school from about 8:15 to 8:45.  On this morning she had finished piano and was waiting for her ride.  She decided to get a little bit more practice in before she left.

 Friday, January 20th

Even though the kids each have their own beds we find them snuggling together more often than not.  The next night we came home from our date to find all three in Gabby's bed.  I don't mind as long as they aren't waking me up to sleep in our bed!

Saturday, January 21st

Happy Birthday to me.  Today I turned 37.  I went to a Relief Society morning side, then came home to a clean house thanks to Bump and the kids.  After a relaxing afternoon of doing absolutely nothing we dropped the kids off at a neighbors house for co-op and went to dinner (thanks to my brother, Lee) and did a bit of shopping.  I couldn't have asked for a more perfect, relaxing day!  Maybe 37 won't be too terrible!

New Years Eve

New Years Eve was a little different than expected this year, but good.  Normally we have a fun party with family and friends to bring in the new year.  Last year was exciting as the adults were all playing a game and Quincy came up and threw up right in my lap.  That was fun. . .

Anyway this year we were planning on doing the same thing, but due to some kitchen remodel issues (see the story here) the party had to be postponed for another day.  It worked out well and we spent a quiet evening at home.

The kids tried hard to stay awake and we almost lost the two youngest, but they woke right up about 10 minutes before midnight when we said we would do some fireworks out in front of our house.  It was super cold, so we wrapped the kids up tight and were very glad that we saved some of our 4th of July fireworks.

While we were doing our own fireworks the clock struck midnight and there were a few massive fireworks across the street at the high school.  The city must have done those because they were way too big otherwise.  How great is that?  It was a very nice and quiet end to 2011.