I Love You Grandpa

My Grandpa H died this week. He is my dad's dad. He just celebrated his 90th birthday last year. He has been without my grandma for a decade and his son, Shyrl died last year. I am grateful that my dad and his brother and sister-in-law were with him during the last hours of his life. Even though I grew up with a really healthy perspective on death (growing up in a funeral home will do that to you) I still grieve when someone dies. I am happy for him that he is now with Grandma and Shyrl.

Last Week

Andrew and Bev are taking piano lessons. I rarely have to remind Bev to practice--she loves it. She keeps the keyboard in her room and loves playing it before bed. They both love the Primary Songs for Kids book.
This girl loves her Bedazzler. She keeps threatening Andrew that he will wake up one day with Bedazzled clothes. She added some bling to her piano bag.

The three karate kids had a tournament on Saturday. They did great and had fun. Bev won first place in her division for sparring. Andrew got third for his form and Christian got second place for weapons. Bev and Andrew competed at the same time on different ends of the rings. I stayed with the little kids at Bev's ring and Mike ran between rings to catch them both.

When it is time for the kids to be getting off the bus, I start looking for them. One day last week I looked out and this is what I saw. Apparently Bev hurt her foot getting off the bus. Andrew carried her three blocks home. Also last week Bev came home from school one day with a chipped front tooth. Apparently she hit it on the metal playset on the playground. The next day was my day to volunteer in her class. She insisted on taking me out at recess to show me the "dent" her tooth left in the metal. Sure enough, a small piece of the paint was chipped off right at the height of her tooth. It isn't too bad, but we'll see what the dentist says.

Who needs the Wii? These kids have them some boxes. Christian brought up these boxes from the basement and wanted to make robots. I cut his out while he started on Jessie's. He wanted her head to "peek out the front." That didn't quite work, so we cut a hole in the top. They have had hours of fun with these boxes. My favorite is when they curl their limbs inside and act like Wall-E.

I started practicing with my camera. I was dying to know how a large print would look, so I sent it to Costco and the 8x10 looks great.

Sunday we celebrated my mom's birthday with a Mexican Fiesta.

Stay out of my womb!

I have watched this like 5 times today--and I laugh out loud each time. That Pres. Bush the First is a hoot.

A word for my peeps

I taught Relief Society yesterday. The lesson was on The Ministry of Angels. One of my favorite quotes is from Pres. Spencer W. Kimball:

"God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through another person that he meets our needs."

Some of you that read this are my angels--you support me and help me in my life. Just wanted to give you a shout-out.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Days 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

I have been taking at least one picture a day--I just haven't been a great blogger lately.

Day 19

What better way to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday than bowling. We spent time with my family bowling and playing canasta at my parent's house. We can always tell when Natalie and Landon show up because the kids disappear and attack them. Day 18

One of my goals this year is to get my pictures and my kids scrapbooks organized and caught up. I am 1.5 years behind on printing photos for our family album. I printed doubles, and the total printed was 1310 pictures. This is the stack. Day 17
After much deliberation, we decided to take the kids to Walking with Dinosaurs. The dinosaurs were amazing--the kids loved it. Mike and I enjoyed it, but we were still stinging a little from the price tag. Here are the kids giving their "scared of the dinosaurs" pose. Day 16

Today, I walked into the craft room and saw this--all of them gathered around the computer playing NickJr.com. They were taking turns, helping each other--basically being civilized little human beings. Moments like that come every once in a while. They are so nice, and so fleeting. Day 15
Jessie loves her babies. She also loves to put them up her shirt and walk around the house. Here she was watching Dora with her baby up her shirt. A few minutes later, I asked Christian to take some toys downstairs to the playroom. He took the toys down, and then decided to go shopping in the food storage. He brought up some peanut butter, fruit snacks and a brownie mix and said, "Mom, I got us some food for lunch."

Days 11, 12, 13, 14

Day 14
We were in the kitchen and Mike answered one of the kids questions. I sarcastically said, "Daddy just earned a gold star." Bev quickly ran to the craft cupboard and made him one. He even wore it to dinner that night.
Day 13
Almost as good as Christmas. I have been saving up for this little beauty. Mike talked to Doug and found out it was going off sale, so he surprised me and bought it. I love this camera already. I am learning how to use it, but already I can get such better pictures of Jessica (and everyone else.)

Day 12
Christian and Jess do dress-up everyday. His favorites are the worker and the pirate.

Day 11

Mike took the kids (minus Jessica--she gets too cold) ice fishing. They didn't have much luck on the fish, but they all had a great time. Later that night, Mike and Andrew went to the Jazz game. Thanks to Ross and Claudia, Mike is able to take the kids to the games--it is their date night with Dad. They sometimes take the train and then they go to dinner and the game.

Project 365

This year as I embark on some new goals, one thing I have decided to do is Project 365. Some people make a scrapbook--I don't know if I will do a scrapbook or not, but I am going to take a picture everyday of 2009. One of my personal goals is to do a better job at organizing and documenting life for my kids. Another goal is to focus on photography. I am getting a "good camera" and I want to become a good photographer. Project 365 fits nicely with these two goals.

I also like sharing bits and pieces of our lives with friends and family. So here goes...

Day 9
I just crave mornings like this. I got up and got A & B off to school. C slept in. I did a load of laundry (laundry rules my life) and then read J a book. Had breakfast at 10 a.m. The kids played with stickers while I read the news online (notice they actually have space on the table to work on.) Then watched A Christmas Story--again. Had ham sandwiches and hot chocolate for lunch. I went through some medical bills while watching Law and Order on TNT while C & J played good guy/bad guy with his transformer and her princess doll. It was a morning made in heaven.

Day 8
Mike had some friends over to watch the BCS game. I had these red and green white chocolate chips left from Christmas, so I made some chocolate chip cookies.

Day 7

Craft room organization. I will show more pictures later, but I am almost done organizing it--one junk box to go. They are not the prettiest things, but I just love these plastic totes. I like being able to see what's inside them. I have assessed that my organizational style for my craft room has to be open organization. That means that it looks a little more junky, but will be more functional for me. I tried closed storage a while ago, and I just didn't like it.

Day 6

The kids went back to school on Monday. I didn't want it the Christmas break to come to an end. For the most part, I really like them being at home and I miss them a lot when they are at school. Also, the babies miss Bev a lot when she is at school. Chrisian asked when Bev was going to be home several times the first day back. Here Andrew is enjoying his breakfast of champions--Marshmallow Mateys--with his Legos magazine and the remote control.

Day 5

Putting my little laborers to work on the baseboards. When there are lots of chores to do Andrew and Bev still like to call me Miss Hannigan.

Day 4

Our upstairs furnace has been broken. Jessie and Kiki were playing upstairs. I was doing laundry. She came to me and asked for hot chocolate and the fireplace--sad, huh? She sat in front of the fireplace for quite a while. (Notice Hello Kitty there too.)

Day 3

Jessie is such a skinny minnie. She has a lot of stretch pants, but needed a pair of jeans. Thank goodness my two favorite stores for kids clothes (Target and Osh Kosh) have pants with adjustable waistbands.

Day 2

I am in denial about December being over. I normally cannot wait to get the trees down and get things cleaned up. This year, however, I didn't want it to come down. I did want the kids to help, so we finally took the tree down on January 2.

Day 1

Bev is loving her easel. She is also loving writing poems.