The Other Day

So the other day Cambree and I were working on a paper for school about her family.  For each person she needed to write one word that described them.  Easy peezy lemon squeezy, says she.  Here's what she wrote:

Haylee: dance

Luke: crawling

Dad: run

Mom: laundry

...laundry?

The other other day was a Saturday and every Saturday at our house BJ goes for a long run in the morning and I try to sleep in until Luke wakes up.  The girls can fend for themselves...as I will illustrate.  Last Saturday, I came down to find the girls making cookies.  They had already thrown away one batch.  They were trying to follow a recipe but maybe they didn't understand it?  Maybe they couldn't decide between several?  But they couldn't find enough butter (after melting a whole bunch for the first batch) or brown sugar (out) or chocolate chips (also out) or eggs (also out after the first batch).  They did, however, find nilla wafers and decided that using crushed nilla wafers would be "so yummy".  Eh?  Well, they never got baked.

And I just added to the mess.  After a quick trip to the store for the above mentioned missing ingredients, I was trying to put the styrofoam container of eggs away.  My fingers broke through the bottom of the eggs and as the container started to slip, my other hand instinctively grabbed the top of the eggs, breaking many.  I added cracked egg mess on the stool and on the floor (because I didn't think there was enough already all over the counter, actually, in all honesty, my egg mess was much worse than theirs).

Another other day, there was Easter.  And jelly beans.  And 3 cute kids and no perfects pics of all 3 together.  The ones of Luke turned out cuter when he was in his pjs than in his new tie.

  

Then, BJ turned 34.  Happy Birthday Hot Stuff!

 Then BJ ran a marathon.  His first marathon ran in his 35th year.  Wow, 35 sounds a lot older than 34.  Don't get mad BJ, you're not there yet.  Besides, I can't think of a single guy in his 35th year that looks better in 3 1/2" long shorts.

Then Haylee and Bree had their turn to run in an all school run.  Both of our girls ran the entire time.  No walking and shooting the breeze with their buddies.  I was so proud!

And then there's this little guy.  We love him. And when I am having a bad day, all I have to do is go get Luke up from a nap.  He is always smiling.  And luckily, in our family it's contagious.

Handsome Boys and Lacy Ladies

I can only wonder what you might have guessed I meant with that title.  Probably you guessed I was going to write about the handsome boys that live in our home and perhaps the lacy dress-ups the girls have been wearing of late.  But you would be wrong.

Today Haylee was singing this:  "I wish I had a nickel, I wish I had a dime. I wish I had a handsome boy to love me all the time..."

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?

Never mind that I may or may not recall chasing boys to kiss them on the playground in the 2nd grade.  Things are different now.  I am the mother.  She is the daughter.  I am not ready for boys and kissing and "love me all the times"!  Not that this has been our first encounter with warmish feelings toward the opposite sex.  But hearing her sing about it...Ah!!!

Speaking of love (it is Valentine's day soon right?) Cambree has been bitten  by the bug too.  Yes!  My sweet (rarely) little, innocent (hardly) kindergartner!  She has been telling us all about how her buddy (guess he's more than a buddy) Aiden is going to be her husband, about how she is in love with Aiden, about how Aiden is her

one true love.

Believe it folks.

Also today, Cambree decided to pull out the Des News and get caught up on current events.  More power to her, I think.  Although she will probably only be able to understand an (ever growing) handful of words.  No sooner had she gotten to page 3f that I hear exclamations of

"OOH! Lacy ladies!"

and 

"Missionaries fighting"

and

"OH, look at these bad dudes!"

Not really what I want my 5 year old focusing in on.  Mostly the lacy ladies bit.  I guess I forgot the newspaper contained pictures.

And then there's this little guy. He is finally feeling better.  Finally.  And we are finally seeing the old Luke back.  HOORAY!  What a character, this one.  Thinks he's so funny.  It is close to impossible to keep this one still.  It was a strange, albeit sweet, feeling to be able to cuddle so much with this one when he was sick because well, there is no cuddling these days.

You ever have those moments, or days, when you get a kick in the pants letting you know that your kids are growing up?  Kind of like an "Ah ha"  moment but more along the lines of "Wait!  NO! Slow down!"

A Likeness

The other day BJ went running outside.  It was cold and snowy.  His sweat froze on his facial hair.

The other other day I was reading a book to Luke and one of the pictures reminded me of my hairy husband.  Luke thought so too.

What do you think? 

Is there a resemblance?

Weather

Don't knock the weather; nine-tenths of the people couldn't start a conversation if it didn't change once in a while. 
-Kin Hubbard

Ah, so true. 

We have had some snow this January.  Many of the big storms have missed us or we could have had more.  We've had 2-ish feet of snow at different times in the middle of the yard (or just past my knees) but the piles near the road and driveway have been 4 and 5 ft plus.  Wow, eh?

Here's a fact.  We do not own a snow blower   There are 2 or 3 other people on our street that don't either but we nonsnowblowerowners are definitely in the minority up here.  Here's  another fact.  I enjoy shoveling snow.  For the  most part anyway.  I like to get out in the crisp, cold air and make our driveway clean.  Lately though, I've had to get creative in where I dump the snow.  It is VERY difficult to lift a shovel full of snow higher than your head.  Luckily, we've had snowblowingowner neighbors that have helped us out this winter on occasion.  A blessing.  Especially upon returning home after being gone for 2 days and not being able to get close to the driveway.  And when I had 3 sick kids and just couldn't get out of the house.  Oh wait, that was just 3 days ago.

3 sick kids.  

Is there anything as horrible as that?  Wait, I've got one.  What about 1 really super duper sick baby and 2 girls that are better enough to start arguing and fighting allllll the time?  This past week (and the week I have ahead of me) are not really days to remember if you catch my meaning.   But a couple weeks ago playing in the snow?  Those were days to remember.

I didn't have any boots for Luke so he had about 8 pairs of socks on and since the pink snow pants were a little long, his feet stayed warm and toasty.  He wasn't so sure of the snow at first.  But then tolerated it.

Our view. 

Poor kid could barely move through all his layers.  He pretty much just stayed wherever he was put. But he tried.

These pictures (below) are from a visit out to my sister's house for nephew Cameron's bday.  It was sooooo cold that day.  But as the troopers we were, we braved the cold to sled with cousins.

Bree tried to take Rosie for a walk.

Tevya Was Right

In looking back, I am thinking I didn't take very many pics of the entire Christmas season.  Like I feel like I am leaving out many of our favorite festivities. 

 Like decorating gingerbread houses at Grandma Amy's with 2nd cousins Riley and Iris,

And seeing the lights and some of Santa's reindeer at Thanksgiving Point

And both girls' singing in their school Christmas concert 

And class Christmas parties

And making new ornaments as a family 

And picking out and bringing home and stringing lights upon and decorating the tree together

And dethroning our long lived BJ angel (with a Cambree one)

And Christmas morning and Christmas Day with the Meyers side of the family...

Some are stuck on my old, dead and buried phone.  Some were never taken because I was too caught up in the moments to bother snapping pictures.  Which is fine.  Sometimes that trade off is worth it, don't ya think?

We always go to Salt Lake Temple Square to see the lights.  Actually, Luke and I didn't go last year because he was only a month old.  But this year we allllllllll went.  Like everybody on BJ's side of the family.  I think.  It was so busy and a bit crazy with all the people and all of us trying to stay together but we do it because it's tradition and we wouldn't dare mess with tradition. 

It actually wasn't deathly cold though (for once) so that helped a great deal.  Afterwards, we all trekked back to Matt and Kim's home for dinner and to exchange gifts.

Christmas Eve was full of family time too.  We had most of BJ's family and my parents over for dinner, a white elephant exchange and chimes.  There's nothing like the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in my mind.  Nothing newfangled, fancy-fied, or in any way health-conscious.  Nope.  Tradition prevailed again.   So fun to get all the cousins together!

My mom and dad joined us Christmas Eve and helped us get everything ready for the next day.  Not to mention the gaming while we waited for the young'uns to fall asleep.  I think it was probably around 7:30 or 8 when the girls woke us up Christmas morning and, after reading the Christmas story in bed with Mom and Dad, went down stairs.  BJ and I just love seeing the girls' faces and watching them get so excited over the simple things they got.  It was also fun to watch them watch everyone else open their gifts.  

After a lazy morning and afternoon, we headed up to Grandma and Grandpa's house to spend the next 2 days with the Meyers cousins!  I don't remember much about those days except that we played a lot of games.  A lot.  But it's tradition!