So Proud

  Last year, when we talked to Jordan about receiving the priesthood, he told us that he really wanted his Great Grandpa Bill to do it.  He was worried that Taylor would be upset about his decision, but nothing could be farther from the truth.  We knew that he had prayed about this decision and it was important to him.

On Sunday, December 14th, Jordan received the Aaronic Priesthood.  Grandpa Bill, Taylor, 

 my dad, Taylor's dad, and all of Jordan's YM leaders were able to participate.  It was a really neat experience.  We are so proud of him!

Jordan Turns 12

December 2nd was Jordan's 12th birthday.  Jordan had some phone calls wishing him a happy birthday, but my favorite was when my dad called not just for him but for me.  He said that he thought of me because he remembered when his first son turned 12.  That milestone really made him feel old.  Yes, that's something Taylor & I have been talking about for a few years now.  It always seemed like a far off event, but it crept up on me faster than I thought possible.  Scary how fast time flies.

I don't often have friend birthday parties for my kids, but this year I thought I'd give it another round.  Now, I knew boys were generally louder than girls, but I didn't know how much louder until a bunch were in our home at one time.

  

Wouldn't you know it, the first thing they did was tackle each other for 20 minutes.

I'm not sure what the name of this game is, but I do remember playing it with some groups up at BYU many moons ago.  You pack flour into a bowl, turn it upside down, place a quarter on top of it, then each person cuts chunks of flour away from the quarter.  You can cut as little or as much as you want, but if the quarter falls when it's your turn, you have to get it out.... 

....with your teeth. 

 
It started calm, but after the first one round, they ALL wanted to be the one to lose.

After several more rounds, and several heads shoved in the flour pile, they all decided they wanted faces covered with the white stuff.  I'm sure their parents wondered what in the world we did at this party.

Caden's mom always wraps $ presents in very interesting ways.  When Jordan unwrapped the paper, all he saw was a Special K cereal box. Inside that was a Crystal Light container.  That contained a pink purse (which Hailey now loves), and inside that was some money. Very creative....and funny.

Now this is something I would do.  So embarrassing for Jordan.....yet so fun for us.  

Mommy-Daughter Date

We recently realized that RARELY am I ever alone with Hailey since Benjamin is usually around.  Since the older boys are "too cool" to go see a Disney movie now, we decided to make an official Mommy-Daughter date out of seeing the movie Bolt. 

 

I'm not a big fan of 3-D movies.  Not that I mind things coming at me from the screen, but it's those dang glasses you have to wear.  Fortunately, the glasses they give you at the theater aren't paper, and they aren't red/blue, so they're much more bearable.   The 3-D in the movie also didn't have the intention to throw things at your eyes constantly, but to make the characters seem more real.  I enjoyed the movie and thought it was pretty cute.

She was so excited that she got all dolled up for our "date".....even sneaking to put on make-up (hard to tell in the picture).  I didn't notice until we were already at the theater.

We went to the 12 o'clock showing in the middle of the week, which generally means not as many people would be there.  Not only were the crowds low, we were the ONLY ones in the theater.

I made her pose in front of the poster, and it happened to be a very cold day that day.  

Poor girl.

Psychotic Dogs

I think these two were separated at birth.

Thanksgiving in Utah/Idaho

Yes, amazing but true, a picture other than my foot.  I'm sick of it just as much as the rest of you are.

For Thanksgiving this year, our family took our yearly trip up to Northern Utah and Idaho. We always look forward to getting together and doing things we would never get a chance to do in a place like Las Vegas.

Marijke is very into planting trees, plants and flowers.  On her back fence, she has grapevines producing the most wonderful grapes.

Bill has a room designated only for his trains. This picture just shows one section of this amazing room. Benjamin was in absolute heaven here. He ran around showing me everything. Dadoo Train is the name the kids have called him since they could speak. Hmmm, I wonder how he got that name?

Can you believe the view they have from their balcony?

The first place we went to when we arrived in Rexburg was a pizza place named Craigo's. This is one of our favorite places to eat when we're there.

Not many know that I have two veneers on my front teeth. Weeks ago, one unfortunately popped off. Because that tooth is dead, it's much darker than the rest and in order to get a good fit they need to file down that tooth before to have a base to work with making it look even darker. May sound archaic, but in order to save time & money, I superglued that dang tooth on instead of having a new one made (my dentist would kill me).

Craigo's just happened to have a pizza named "Hillbilly". I felt so at home!

Although it was very cold, surprisingly there was no snow up north. The kids were able to play on their cousins' swingset, ride dirt bikes and four wheelers, and go bowling in a alley that oddly doesn't reek of smoke. Ben preferred to just watch the others outside from the doorway (bottom left). They live so close to the Rexburg temple. It's a picture-perfect view at night in their family room (upper right).

Marijke and Nicole stuffing the turkey. Both of these women are fantastic cooks. Benjamin fell asleep before we even ate (upper left and right).

Taylor finds another lucky participant to walk on his back.

Baby Will was born two months ago.  Everyone loved to hold him, and I'm sure Nicole enjoyed the break.  

It was so nice getting my baby fix each time I held him.  I now realize how grandparents feel about their grandchildren.   It's so fun to hold them and take care of them, but knowing you can hand them back whenever you are done makes it even MORE fun.

Saturday night, we decided to go to Temple Square. Instead of driving, we took the Frontrunner, a double-decker train that stops in each of the cities from Ogden on down. Then we hopped the Trax (trolley type of train). It took over an hour, but it was nice not to have to find a parking spot downtown.
Santa also played the bagpipes in a kilt just outside of the gates. Good times.

Of course we stopped by Great Grandma Scheer's house (Marijke's mother) to visit before we drove home on Sunday. She is always so excited every year to put out all of her Christmas decorations. She can hardly walk, but that doesn't stop her from showing the kids around her house, having them push all the buttons to make the toys work.  Ben couldn't tear himself away from anything that moved or made sounds.

She may be getting older, but her sense of humor is sharp as a tack. She loves to freak everyone out by taking out her dentures and giving that crazy smile (upper right).

Thank you to Marijke & Bill and Nicole & Jared for giving us a place to stay for the week. We had so much fun spending time with everyone, eating, playing, eating, talking, and did I mention eating? We hope all of our friends and family had a wonderful Thankgiving this year.

My Peeve

I have a few pet peeves.  Actually, when I really think about it, I guess I have more than my fair share of them.  Some of those peeves include men who clip their nails in church (YUCK), someone using my bath towel, not washing hands after the bathroom, speeding through a school zone, etc.

One of my recent peeves is finding grocery carts in places other than the store where they belong.  Now, I know there are companies whose soul purpose is to pick up these stray carts and return them to their rightful owners, but please.....we all know how entirely long (if ever) this takes to actually happen.

I realize it's not the carts' fault that they aren't where they should be.  It's the loonies that feel that they are allowed to take these carts home with them that irk me.  And I'm not talking about the homeless who use it to hold all their belongings.  

Rarely do I actually SEE these wandering carts with their temporary "owners".  They just happen to show up on my street, down some side alley, and even up alongside someone's house.  Several times I have even seen people using them to transport their children!  WHAT?!  What kind of crappy stroller is that?  How uncomfortable for the poor child sitting in the basket, no padding, bumping along a side dirt road.  Places such as Walgreens have really been smart and installed locking mechanisms on the bottom of their carts.  That way you can get your purchases TO your car and not use them AS your car.

We've made this annoyance into a family fun-time though.  This picture shows the first time we brought one back.  Noah was so good about doing this.  Now when we find them, I lift up the door  in the back of our van, he sits inside and holds onto the cart while we drag it back.  I'm sure it looks so odd, but it's pretty fun for us. 

Speaking of Feet.....

Those of you who see me often have seen my fantastic runway-style limp for the past year.  Also, you may notice that I'm rarely without my best friend, my black foot brace (see our header picture).   What you may not know is that this ever ongoing saga in my life ended in surgery.  My foot never seemed to heal correctly.  Insurance made it impossible to see my initial doctor until this past August.  He ended up trying several cortisone shots.  They worked to a point, but never really did the job.  Next step, cat-scan.  What do you know?  A larger break in my foot that they never noticed the first time.  The cat-scan showed that the broken bone never healed back into place, so it's been flopping around my foot this entire time.  No wonder I was still in pain!

So....on October 9th I had surgery to smooth the bigger bone off and drill/chip the broken piece out.  Oh what fun.  I understand when they say take it easy.  However, the guilt makes it so difficult to follow orders.  I ended up paying for it too.  Once I got back into the swing of things, I realized how behind I was, so that explains a lot of why blogging has been on the back burner for me.  On October 30th, exactly one year from the date of my fall, I had my stitches removed and I can actually walk without limping.  What a long year!

I do have to thank a ton of people who helped me out while I was sitting on my fanny.  Quint & Chelly (you guys don't know how much having you in town helped me and my sanity), David & Amy for taking Ben for a couple nights, my friends in the ward for giving my kids rides here and there, and especially my hubby for taking control of things around the house.

  

My foot a few days after surgery.  

Taylor thought it would be funny to write on my legs in the hospital.  The right calf said "Pain down here" with an arrow.  The left one said "Not this one the other one".  The writing you can see on my leg is my doctor's initials.   He said they always write on the body when there's two body parts involved.

I Think I'm Gonna Be Sick

Doing my usual housecleaning brought out some severe nausea today.  Not because of the smell.....luckily puberty hasn't brought that one on yet.....but because I realized that I could not tell the difference between Jordan and Taylor's dress shoes as they sat on the the stairs.

Now, I have known for a long time that his feet were big.  My size 10 feet fill his shoes with room to spare.  However, reality didn't sink in fully until I saw these big boats sitting on the stairs.

I Think I Can....

I absolutely love taking pictures, but I've always wanted to learn how to take better shots.  I don't have the time and/or money to go find a school that teaches photography, so I started searching around online.  Luckily I found a website that has courses for a multitude of things, but the one that really caught my eye was the photography course.  So many people gave positive reviews for the course and teacher, that I knew I needed to try it.  Now I'm just hoping to learn enough to figure out what all the different technical terms mean.  This way my camera won't be glued to the "auto" button.

It's only been less than one week, but I'm surprised at how much time and energy I'm spending working with the camera.  Since I have my niece Clara staying with us for a week, I'm trying to take advantage of having a different face around for my practice.  I love the lighting of this photo.  As for the class, I am hoping that this will become a skill I learn.  

As for this shot........pure luck.

The Pounds Will Just Melt Away!

I recently found this new workout while blog stalking one day. I was so impressed by this routine that I think I'll be getting up early every morning now to workout. I can feel the pounds melting away already.