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We had a ton of snow over Christmas and as luck would have it the kids got a new sled/saucer on Christmas morning. It was freezing cold outside the day after Christmas so the older girls weren’t interested in playing with the saucer but Sam and Texas were game so we bundled them up and sent them over to the neighborhood field. They were there for over an hour while Nancy and I worked on clearing the driveway and walks. After an hour Texas came home to go to the bathroom and Nancy and I decided to go check on Sam. Just as we turned the corner we saw Sam trudging home with the saucer in tow. He was ice cold but had been having so much fun that he ended up with a big frozen grin on his face.

Nancy and Sam coming back from the playground

After a bathroom break and time to get warm the kids wanted to slide some more but the realized that our driveway has a longer hill than the little slope at the neighborhood field so they spent time sliding down the slick driveway even though we had already cleared the snow.

Of course, the ice mounds left over from the snowplow at the bottom of the drive make for a bumpy landing but that’s just all part of the fun when you’re trying out your new toys the day after Christmas.

I was in Hawaii the first week of December on business. Being in Hawaii was nice but missing the first week of December seemed to just put everything else in the month behind schedule. We didn’t get a chance to do our annual trip downtown to see the lights. We were behind in our Christmas shopping. We didn’t get around to doing presents for all the neighbors or people at work. By the time Christmas rolled around I was just grateful for a couple of days off and a chance to catch my breath because everything else during the month had seemed so rushed.

For Christmas Eve we went to Lori’s house and had a spectacular dinner of Korean, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese food. I ate way more than my fair share but it was so good! We had a fun program of piano recital, poems, and manger scene reenactment. It was fun to see Nate and even more fun as he carried the laptop around the house filming everything for Grandma Connie and Grandpa Kent to watch live in Hong Kong over Skype.

Christmas morning was our usual fare of presents, candy, playing with toys, picking up messes, phone calls to relatives, and relaxing. The older kids are adjusting to the fact that Santa doesn’t always bring big ticket items like iPods, cell phones, and laptops. I can’t believe that kids in 6th and 7th grade even asking for laptops but apparently having a laptop is what it takes to be cool at “South Jordan” Middle School.

This year(2008) right after Thanksgiving, BYUFan left for Hawaii on a business trip, so the kids and I put the lights and ornaments on the tree all by ourselves. The kids had fun finding all the little ornaments they had made at school in previous years. They also loved getting out all the nativity scenes and setting them up on the mantle. I think the kids did a good job.

This post was written by Anne

Every year, the PTA of my school and many other schools have Reflections. Reflections give kids a chance to show off their talents.There are 6 categories that kids can sign up in, which are: musical composition, visual arts, 3-D art, photography, choreography, and acting. There is a theme that your piece has to follow. This years’ theme is “WOW…”. This year, I submitted an entry in visual arts. I did many paintings before I could come up with something I liked. My final painting was of a beach scene. I handed it in to the school on the day it was due, October 24th. A few weeks later, I was invited to reflections awards night, the day the PTA recognizes the children who won an award. There are three types of awards you can get. They are honorable mention (work that has been recognized but hasn’t won,) Principal’s choice (work that has been chosen by the principal and is displayed in front of his/her office,) and the Award of Excellence, which goes to the kids that won. I won an Award of Excellence. I am going on to the next round, which is the district. The last round is International, and if you win that, I think you get a money prize.I am not really looking forward to going to see if I won district because I hate thinking that I might not win. I also don’t like how they won’t let me take my artwork home because I won. But the thing that annoyed me most was that while I was at school that day, the PTA called my mom saying that I had won, so she already knew! Thanks a lot, mom.

Tonight was Young Womens in Excellence award night. The theme was “A Night at the Oscars” and included dinner, a movie starring the young women, and a red carpet that they walked down to receive their awards. When I got there they were having technical difficulties with the laptop that was supposed to play the movie (it was a Mac). Fortunately, I happened to have my trusty old Dell laptop with me so I whipped it out it and it worked flawlessly.

The cutest Young Woman in the world (right) with the cutest YW mom in the world (left)

Emily won an award for her “individual worth” project which was playing in a piano recital. Other Young Women won awards for pictures they took or crafts they did or service projects they helped out on. Our ward’s YW leadership does a really great job with all the Young Women and Emily really enjoys going.

Contgratulations Emily – we’re proud of you!

I use Google as my default search engine in Firefox. When you start typing in the search box, you get a list of suggestions that you can click on to complete your search. Tonight I happened to type the phrase “why are my” and the following list of suggestions came back:

• why are my breasts sore
• why are my nipples sore
• why are my cookies flat
• why are my feet always cold
• why are my eyes red
• why are my ears ringing
• why are my eyes yellow
• why are my gums bleeding
• why are my hands so cold
• why are my breasts tender

I’m not sure how the little Google widget determines what suggestions to proffer. I speculate that it’s based on the most common searches and apparently the world is suffering from an outbreak of sore boobies, cold extremities, and baking problems.

Just for fun I tried a search beginning with “what the heck is” and got the following suggestions:

• what the heck is emo
• what the heck is an antibiotic
• what the heck is a virus
• what the heck is penicillin
• what the heck is a maverick
• what the heck is electronic mail
• what the heck is aggregate demand
• what the heck is happening

The oddest item in the list was the suggested query about “electronic mail”. This one makes me believe that may the suggestions aren’t based on the most common searches. I mean how many people out there are really tech savvy enough to do a Google search but aren’t tech savvy enough to know what email is? And what’s with the phrase “electronic mail”? I wonder if the person that searched for “electronic mail” typed in the search on their “personal computer” while watching their “digital video disc” on their “high definition television”?

In the weeks leading up to Halloween I kept hinting at Emily that she was too old to go trick-or-treating and she kept saying “this will be my last year Dad”. I didn’t forbid her from going and she managed to finagle an angel costume from her Aunt Janey so she joined ranks of trick-or-treaters once again. Anne was a princess. You can’t see it in the picture but Nancy made the costume and it included fancy puffed sleeves and a fancy skirt. Nancy was going to make Texas a fairy costume (fairies were very popular this year) but ran out of time so Texas ended up being a witch with a costume out of the Box of Halloweens Past. Sam was a vampire (thanks for the cape Aunt Janey) with 100% genuine fake blood! Luppin was a witch (again from the Box of Halloweens Past) without a hat because “it’s bugging me Dad”.

This year was my turn to take the kids trick-or-treating. Fortunately, Emily, Anne, and Texas wanted to go off by themselves so I only had to deal with the vampire and the littlest witch. We walked around the block and the whines about being tired and the candy bucket being too heavy started up after about 10 houses. We headed back home in order to drop off the littlest witch and Sam said he wanted to keep going but once he saw Luppin dive into her candy he called it quits. I guess that old saying about “a bird in hand” rings true to vampires. Emily, Anne, and Texas straggled in about a half hour later and then it was time for Candy Inspections and Taxes. I impose a Dad Tax on all my kids. Someone at work asked me if I had a progressive or regressive taxation policy. I said, “When it comes to Halloween candy, I’m most like the Sheriff of Nottingham”

Sam didn’t like this picture of him. When Nancy asked him why he said “Because Vampires don’t wear jeans Mom! They’re supposed to wear black pants.”

BYUFan has been bugging me to get Caroline’s hair cut for a while now, because her long hair kept getting in her face. So last week I took her with me and we both got our hair cut. Now we both have nice short hair that doesn’t get in our faces.

This is how the pumpkins began their journey to Jack-o-Lantern bliss.

This past Monday night instead of a regular Family Home Evening we carved five of our pumpkins that we grew in our garden. We let Emily and Anne have their own way with their pumpkins, and mom and dad helped the other three kids with theirs. I think they turned out pretty well.

The End Result

Now that I am in my late thirties I don’t like to celebrate my birthday quite as much as I used to. This year I had a great low-key birthday. I went out to sushi, had cake and ice cream with the family, and I bought myself a new serger how can it get any better than that. I have used my serger a couple of times and it is very fun. I can’t wait until I take the class this next week and then I am going to be an expert at using my new serger. Thanks everyone for a wonderful birthday.