Hunter's Baptism

Hunter's Baptism will be Saturday January 3rd at 10:00 am.
We would love for you to come if would like to! Comment with your email and I will send you the info!

A Great Christmas

I guess it has become a Christmas tradition to go to Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Bowl. We have only missed one year. This year, we drove down on friday after the kids singing program at school. We went straight to the hotel and as sad as it is, went to sleep. The next morning we rose early to try to cram in some Vegas time. We went to the buffet for breakfast, Fremont Street, Coke and M'n'M stores. Then we headed to the game. We spent about an hour trying to get into the parking lot. What a joke! The game sucked as I am sure most of you know. Then we left with 2 minutes left and headed home. What a long night!






The next day we headed to my sisters house for the Parry Party. Always a highlight for me. We have a great dinner, have fun with friends and do a white elephant. This year we took a "brick" for Emily (she has been begging for a cell phone for about 2 years now.



The kids and I decorated a gingerbread house. The kids loved it for about 15 minutes. Then I finished it up. I couldn't believe how much candy came with it! I ended up throwing alot away because the kids didn't want to eat any more and there wasn't any space left on the house!



We spent Christmas eve with Kirk's family. We went to dinner at Mimi's cafe and then watched a bootleg copy of Bolt at their house.





We slept over there so they could see the kids reaction to Santa's gifts. We enjoyed 3 hours of gift unwrapping and breakfast and then left for Ogden. We enjoyed another hour of gift unwrapping and then games and good food with Joy's family.




I think we have been gone more then home in the last 2 weeks. We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and for Kirks jobs! What a great Christmas!

Kids Pictures

Hunter is 8!

Today Hunter is 8! I can't believe it. How did 8 years pass so quick? All he wanted to do for his party on Saturday was go play Laser Tag. No matter how many things I tried to talk him into, he was not going to be swayed. So we told him he could invite 3 friends. We had wanted to go to Boondocks, but we were worried about the crowds so we thought Libertyland would be good. We've never seen crowds there. Despite 3 phone calls, we still haven't heard back. So Laser Assault it is. Did you know Provo has a ghetto? Well that's where it's located. We had everyone meet at our house at 11. After missing our reserved time, because we waited for one of Hunter's friends, we finally got a game going 1 1/2 hours after the party started. The kids (and adults) had a blast. After laser tag we went to Mcdonalds. They were all starving, it was 2:00 by now. We finally dropped the kids off at about 3. What a long day for just 30 minutes of laser tag and Mcdonalds for lunch! Sunday we had a mini party at grandma and grandpas. Man, he made a haul! What a lucky 8 year old!

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Farewell to a little friend, family time, and a little sparkle

I decided that I was going to be so much better at this blogging thing. How does time pass so fast before you realize you haven't done it?
We have had a crazy couple of weeks yet I cant name many things we have done. But here are a couple:
Cassia's mouse Peanut (named after the kids favorite books, Magic Tree house) died. Cassia was heart broken. We buried her in the yard.

I actually finished my ornaments for my Ornament Exchange, before the night of (for the first time ever)

Enjoyed a VERY yummy Thanksgiving with my family. We were so excited that we were able to see my brother Gaylin and his family. Cassia was sick in bed all day. We were worried we wouldn't be able to make it. Somehow McDonald's sounds even worse on Thanksgiving.

Went to the mall to see Santa come in on the helicopter. Cassia was still throwing up but we had so much fun. Redick was in heaven. We were very disappointed in Santa this year. He usually stops and talks to all the kids. This year he just walked by and waved. But since Kirk's dad was the "Santa Secret Service", and he mentioned they were his grand kids, we got a "Hi grand kids" Way to go Santa!

Kirk put up the Christmas lights this year. FIRST TIME EVER! I guess he didn't like the job I had done in the past. They look great!

Went to cut down Christmas trees. We had a great time being with the whole family and riding the 4 wheelers.

We have spent the last 2 days trying to get the tree to stay upright, finding enough lights to cover it, and getting it decorated. It is HUGE! Kirk picked this years tree. I guess he is just in a Christmas state of mind this year. Or I have done a horrible job and he's fed up.

BYU and Utah

This is an interesting week for me only because of where I work. I am definitely in the minority being a BYU fan. I would say I get 4-5 people a day coming up to me and saying something about how Utah is going to win Saturday. Greg has received the worst of it. Look what they did!



I just hope to have a good game and obviously a BYU win. It's going to be a great game.

Prediction: BYU 28 Utah 24

Kirk's New Car

We bought our Chevy Cavalier used in January of 2001. It has been a great car, but... The newspaper job has taken it's toll. I expected a call everyday at 4:00 am saying he had broken down somewhere. Kirk needed a new car. After an seemingly endless search, we found the car he wanted. A Scion XD.

We thought this would be a great move for us. Little did we know it was going to be a huge hassle and ruin our credit!
We went to Brent Brown in Provo and picked out the car. They didn't have any in stock so we waited the week that it would take to get it here. We pick it up the day before Kirk leaves for the Philippines. I thought this would be great. I would be the one to get to have the fun car for 3 weeks! I start getting calls from the dealership saying they need Kirk to come in and sign things that they forgot about. Hello! He is on the other side of the world! So instead of waiting they start calling Kirk's mom! He gets home, we go sign the things they needed. They call and say they need a copy of Kirk's paycheck. Ok. He faxes it to them. They don't call and tell us they don't receive it for another month. They call (at 4:30)and tell us they need it by 5:00. Oh did I mention this is Saturday and we are no where near a computer, fax machine or Provo? So, they call Kirk's mom again. Because of course she will have a copy of it (sense the sarcasm?) Kirk emails it to them on Sunday. They call a week later and say they would like to have us bring the payment to the dealership to expedite the loan processing (so far it has been about 3 months)we rush down there with the payment, they tell us they had made the previous payments on our behalf because of all the mix ups. We get a call last night from the bank saying no payments have been on the car yet. It will be repoed it 2 days. Are you kidding me?!?!?! Oh, and when should we receive the license plates? Our temporary plate expired Oct. 3!
Moral of the story? Never buy a car at Brent Brown in Provo.

The "new" Couch

When Kirk went to SD to help move his Grandma here, he saw this couch and knew I would love it.

We were lucky enough to receive many beautiful things from her. So now we have the couch sitting in the living room and I am planning to cover it...hmmm. I don't know how to make this choice! Do I choose something I want?

Something that will be very timeless?

Or something boring like what Kirk wants?

Here are couple that we are thinking about. Let me know what you think.

Snow, plus Red being Red

Well, the first "real" snowstorm of the year has hit us hard. I was doing the paper this morning and I had to turn off the headlights to be able to see. Visibility was about 10 feet at some point in the night. I couldn't believe how hard it was coming down. It reminded me of the snowstorm we got during a BYU football game last year.

Here is the snow storm this morning. The pictures don't do it justice.




Here are some photos of the BYU football game I referenced:





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I was leaving for work the other morning and wondered why the house was so quiet. Joy was downstairs doing something and I walked into the living room and found Red with Joy's phone, playing a game. Before I took the picture, he had his legs crossed. It was classic.

South Dakota Or Bust

My Mom, Dad, Brian and I are heading to South Dakota to go pack up my grandma and move her back to Utah. My grandpa passed away at the end of september and we are going up there to get my grandma. We are leaving tomorrow afternoon and driving all the way through. It's going to be a long trip, but it will be good to see my grandma and say goodbye to my grandpa. I am also excited to have my kids get to know their other great grandma.

Mountains

Driving home today I was noticing the mountains. How I take them for granted. They are so amazing.

That is all.

Redick & Talking

Redick has been picking up on words lately. A commercial came on the radio today about your heart and how you should take care of it. It would have two-word sentences like, "It's beating. It's hurting. It's pumping." I could hear him playing with his fingernails and repeating the last word of each sentence. It was hilarious.

Also, he is starting to have conversations, which I love. Today he was sitting on our bed with a piece of chocolate that he wanted open. Here's the conversation:

Redick: "Daddy"
Daddy: "What?"
Redick: "Uh" - showing me the candy wanting me to open it.
Daddy: "No"

At this point he throws his body back in attempt to throw a tantrum, but he doesn't. He sits back up and asks:

Redick: "Why?"
Daddy: "Because it's almost lunchtime."
Redick: "Oh."
Redick: "Hunter"
Hunter: "What?"
Redick: "Uh" - again showing the candy.
Hunter: "No"
Redick: "Why?"
Hunter: "Dad already told you."
Redick: "Oh, ok."

Snow

I had so many good expectations to have this be a regularly-updated blog mostly for my reference (it's an easy to way to have a journal), but sleep has become much too important. :)

Redick has been waking up at 1:00 am on a regular basis and then coming into our room. Reluctantly we let him in our bed in hopes that he'll just go back to sleep, but that hasn't been the case. He just screams and there is nothing anyone can do to console him. Any suggestions would be appreciated. It is so hard for Joy and I to wake up enough to do anything about it, and I leave at 2:00 to go to the newspaper job. Today I took Redick with me and he enjoyed that and fell asleep in the car while I was out throwing some papers.

Hunter had a football game on Saturday and absolutely hated it. He did get a nice run that went for a TD and he did get an interception (although it was called back because the defense pulled the QB's flag before the QB even had the ball snapped), but he was so miserable because it was so cold. It was snowing pretty hard and the wind was so cold. Cassia and Redick sat in the car for the majority of the game with the heater on. After that game, Hunter decided it was not worth it to experience that again, so he decided not to go to the BYU game with me. Probably a good idea because it was freezing there as well. The nice thing was there was no snow.

Cassia has been enjoying Kindergarten. We had her Parent-Teacher conferences last week and she is so social that she is disrupting class. She is one of the two in the class that has to be put in specific spots so she can focus on her work the most. I honestly didn't see this coming. I thought Cassia did really well at home when we told her to do something. Yes, it did take some prodding, but what kid doesn't at that age? We have a system that worked well with Hunter in Kindergarten and we'll try to apply it with Cassia as well. It's a daily reward system, so we hope that will work with Cassia. Maybe it's the fact that she has a boyfriend! :)

All else is well in our household. We are dealing with the cold as much as we can. I can already tell it's going to be a bad winter. Or maybe I am just getting older and I don't deal with as much anymore.

Cassia's Last Experience with Soccer

Cassia played her last soccer game a week ago Saturday. We asked her if she wanted to play next year and she said she would. We then told her she would be on the big field (not official size, but much, much bigger) and that is when she said she was done. She'll probably change her mind, so we'll see what she says next year. Here are some pictures of her during a game a bit ago.

Hunter's Football

Hunter has just started a flag football league. I've only been to one game (and have issues with how the coaches run it), but he loves it. They have tried to pass maybe one time and it went straight up in the air and was intercepted. It's quite funny. So they run every play and they can barely get anywhere because no one can really block. I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to teach the game at this age. As long as he has fun, that's really all that matters. Here is Hunter running in an extra point (I guess it would be a two-point conversion, but that's not what they call it):






I love this last one because as he is celebrating, the other team is still trying to pull his flag.

Photos courtesy of my dad and his new camera. So jealous.