Pinewood Derby 2012

Brigham had his last pinewood derby in February.  He built a pretty cool looking car again.  It did pretty well, he was about middle of the pack.  Since we are in a new stake center we have a fancy new track too.  Good thing since some of those cars had just a hair difference in their times.

Wish Us Luck

Family Visits and GWL

In February, my sister came up to visit with her family for a week.  Since we are in a super tiny house right now we decided to spend a couple days at the Great Wolf Lodge.  I love that place!

Phoebe's favorite spot was the hottub and A really got comfortable their too. 

The kids discovered the lily pads towards the end.  It lead to much laughter. 

Grumpy Brigham, silly Auntie.

2011 Interviews

Yes, these were filmed in 2012.

Leprechauns

Luke came home from school last Wednesday saying he wanted to catch a leprechaun.  I'm usually not into that kind of effort, but it struck my fancy this time.  So, we looked up traps online and came up with this:

The top is collapsible so when the leprechaun climbed to the top he fell right through.  Luke had all his wishes planned out too: the ability to change the weather to whatever he wants, unlimited money and laser eyes (like cyclops on x-men).  It was pretty funny because it was all he could talk about leading up to St. Patricks Day.  Jacob was a little disturbed that he could even still believe in leprechauns.  I was going to put some chocolate coins in the bottom while they were in bed, but I couldn't find any in the store so I just settled for some Werther's originals. The next day I decided to tell Luke that leprechauns weren't real.

On Sunday, during sacrament meeting he asked me "so, are genie's real?".  I told him no.  This lead to "is Santa Claus real?".  Nope.  "Wait, then who brings us all the candy and stuff?".  We do.  "Easter bunny?".  Yep, not real.  He had a real awakening that day.

Baby M

The end of February I flew down to Huntington Beach for a long weekend with my brother, his wife and their new little girl, Matilda.  I was able to spend a lot of time just cuddling her and talking to Lucy, very relaxing.  It sure was a disconnect to be in the weather down there though. I should have brought shorts!  M is a great little baby, classically cute, smiley like no other and she's a big talker.  Chris and Lucy are great parents too. I was very impressed with how well they've handled the transition to parenthood.  I did not do nearly that well.

Chris and Lucy took me out to a couple of restaurants while I was out there too. The yummiest was this place called Sugar Shack.  They had the most delicious french toast I've ever had.  I love the name of the restaurant too, definitely my kind of establishment.

 Here shirts says "My Auntie Rocks"

Mustaches Galore

I don't think I ever put this picture up.

Jobs, Jobs and More Jobs

I'm lazy, hence my kids haven't really done chores, ever.  I just didn't want to take the time to try and teach them and then I also didn't want a poorly cleaned house.  My friend was recently telling me about a method she learned from Suze Orman on paying kids allowance.  First, don't pay allowance!  Second, only pay them for the jobs they do.  Third, don't have graduated amounts per age.  Fourth, they still needs chores they are expected to do simply for the sake of living in this house.  I thought this sounded just dandy so I got to work right away.  These are the posters I created.  I bought one of those cheap laminators from Costco so the kids can use dry erase markers on them.

We'll have a lot more jobs once we have a yard and bigger house.

The kids were really excited the first time and the excitement has gradually waned.  Last week they didn't do anything.  They repented though when they realized they weren't going to get any money that week.

Phoebe Montage

Can you tell what that is on her nose? 

Princess Pose 

Big Eyes - our favorite Phoebe look 

Fashion File 

Phoebe has really gotten into electronics lately.  If she isn't playing on the computer she is on the Wii or the iphone.

This is one of those xbox Kinect games.

Risk and Other Exciting Things

We had some extra money so I blew it on the game of Risk.  I've never played it before and it sounded like a good game for smart kids.  We played it a bunch the first couple of nights, but haven't played it much since then.  We're not much of a board/card game family I guess.  Daddy is stomping us all of course.

That's a pretty hefty amount of snow, huh?  Only lasted one day.

Brigham and Luke lasted longest on the sledding.  Luke was reduced to tears though because of how cold he was.

This was after I spent 1/2 hour trying to shovel the van out.  The snow was so wet!

Luke did this while we were out one evening.  Stinkin' kid.

Fefe took pics to occupy herself while we waited at the mechanics.  She gave me enough peace I could read.

Brother B's very belated birthday party.

Cute Kitty

Since Glen spends a lot more time indoors, lately we've been taking some great pictures of him. He's our baby and everyone takes lots of pictures of babies :)  I don't think he's figured out where the local mice live yet so no dead mice on our door step so far.

White to Yellow Advancement

I just finished a huge re-filing of my videos, took a month or so.  Now it is time to catch up on everything that has happened!

Brigham and Luke started Taekwondo back in the beginning of December.  I had to force Luke to do it even though he had been excited initially because of karate kid.  I made him do it for about 3 months hoping he would learn to like it, but he was stubborn.  Brigham, however, is a natural.  He absolutely thrives on the class. It only took him a couple months to advance to his yellow belt.  He has very good stability so he moves pretty flawlessly.  I really like the studio we go to.  The teacher is not a yelling, in your face, type.  I don't think I could handle that, let alone the kids.