Joshua's Lip

Joshua slipped and hit his mouth on the countertop yesterday. His teeth cut into the inside of his top lip. I actually took him to the doctor to make sure it didn't need stitches. He had a chunk of his inside lip hanging down and there was quite a bit of blood so it was hard to really see how bad it was. Fortunately, he did not need any stitches and it is already healing quite a bit--nothing is hanging down and the swelling is going down. I did take some pictures of what it looks like today. As you can see from the last pictures, Joshua is still a happy boy and loves being silly with Ethan!

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Fun Weekend

We had a super fun weekend! On Saturday, we went to my cousin's house (David and Kayleen). They live next to the Sundance ski resort so even though we don't have snow right now, they still have plenty. With all their snow, they have an incredible tubing run. They also had a fun little hill for sledding which was perfect for Joshua and for the other kids when they needed a break from tubing. Sarah and Trevor were a huge help on the tubing run with our kids. Doug's family and Jeff also came up that evening and we all enjoyed dinner and visiting together.







With Jeff being in Utah for a snowboarding trip, we got together again on Sunday. This time it was at our house and Ryan's family was able to join us. Again we had dinner and enjoyed visiting. How great it is to be with family!

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Jared's Science Fair

Jared's science fair was last Friday. He won and will move on to the district competition (March 3rd)! Jared was pretty excited. We were all surprised! His experiment tested which color car heats up fastest in the sun. He had different colored pop bottles with balloons attached to the top. After placing each pop bottle between halogen lights, Jared timed how long it took for the balloons to expand. (Thanks for the idea Kevin and Christine!)

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Todd's New Position at Work

This has been a hard week for US Synthetic with 76 people being laid off. However, there also was some restructuring which turned out to be a blessing for our family. Todd received a promotion and is now over the information systems. I’m sure there is probably some official title, but we joke that he is now the “Head Nerd”! Todd and his new team will be responsible for the application development, ERP system and reporting services for the company. Before, Todd had more of an IT business analyst role with the help from a database administrator. Anyway, we are pretty excited and grateful for this opportunity!

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New Bedroom!

This probably isn't very exciting to anyone but me, but we got a bedroom set! Last weekend, Todd and I went to buy a new mattress. We thought we'd check RC Willey's clearance and outlet center first to see if they happened to have anything we liked. They did. Anyway while Todd was paying for the mattress, I did a little looking around. Lo and behold, they had the exact bedroom set Todd and I had almost bought several months ago! It was a floor model. We figured we could live with a few nicks (nothing major) for 70% off. I was able to minimize the nicks fairly well with a furniture marker. The set has the bed, two night stands, lady's dresser and man's dresser. With the newness of it all, we later also bought new bedding that looks nicer and also fits better due to the thickness of the new mattress. The one thing I am still getting used to is how high our bed is. It is really high--about two inches higher than our kitchen counter top! It is easy to get on, but you do have to use the sides of the bed as a stepping stool. Todd and especially the kids like how tall the bed is. For our bedroom makeover, I'd still like to get lamps for our nightstands and new curtains. However, I think I better not "save" any more money for awhile!

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Kyle the Missionary

My nephew, Kyle, enters the MTC (Missionary Training Center) today! He will be serving in the Indianapolis, Indiana mission. We went to church with his family on Sunday and heard Kyle's talk on missionary work. He did a great job and will be a wonderful missionary! After church, our family and everyone else who has ever known Kyle (or so it seemed!) went to their house for a little luncheon in Kyle's honor. Even though it was a little crowded, it was very nice. Our family spent most of the time visiting in the living room with Doug, Shannon, Kevin, Lauri, Sarah, and Trevor. The kids also came in and out depending on the food and what they were playing.

Good-luck, Kyle, and see you in two years!

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Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is exciting for the kids. They especially look forward to making their Valentine's boxes and having their party at school. Our school's Valentine boxes have a theme for each grade with a competition. Todd helped put wheels out of canning lids on Amanda and Megan’s boxes since theirs were “simple machines.” They then had fun decorating their boxes. Jared had the United States theme and he did his by himself and then he was actually the one who helped Ethan. Ethan did “Hickory Dickory Dock” for a nursery rhyme. It was fun to see Ethan and Jared working so well together. The kids knew they didn’t really have a chance of winning the competition, but they were fine with it. They were each proud of their box and had a great time making them. (I saw the boxes that won and they were pretty amazing. I’m sure there were a lot of hours and more parent help than kid help into those boxes.)



I was able to help with Megan and Amanda's class party. We played a game of stacking candy hearts in a timed race. All the kids seemed to think it was fun. I took Joshua with me and Megan was pretty sweet with him. She let him put all of her Valentine's into her classmates boxes and then let him frost her cookie.




On Valentine's Day we had heart-shaped (or blobbed heart-shaped to be more accurate) pink pancakes for breakfast. Each year I think I'm going to get better at shaping the pancakes, but at least the kids are easy to please! That night our family had a candlelit dinner with soft music in the background. The kids went all out making decorations and setting the table and even included a lace table runner. (I wish I had taken a picture!) Since we had a gift certificate for a Honey Baked Ham, we had ham with "funeral" potatoes. Yummy! Todd pretty much rolls his eyes at our now traditional Valentine's dinner! Although, the night before Todd and I did get to go out on an actual Valentine's date with two other couples.

Hope you also had a Happy Valentine's Day!

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Ethan's Show & Teach

Ethan had his "Show and Teach" in kindergarten on Thursday. This is kind of a special show and tell where you teach the class how to do something. Ethan showed how to make flowers out of construction paper. The flowers are something Ethan figured out how to make awhile ago from modifying a snowflake. (He has made a LOT of snowflakes and flowers over the last few months!) Ethan did a really good job and was completely at ease in front of his class. At one point, he accidentally glued his hand to the flower. Instead of being embarrassed, Ethan thought it was extremely funny that he made his whole class laugh!

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Ethan - 100 Day

Yesterday was Ethan's 100th day of kindergarten, thus his 100 crown and the 100 safety pins on his shirt. (The safety pins are on the back too.) It is hard to believe Ethan's kindergarten year is already more than half way over. Ethan loves school!

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Joshua--Gotta Love Him!

Joshua was excited to share with me that he knew how to spell “farm.” He then proceeded to spell it for me, “E, I, E, I, O!”

November 2008

Joshua and I were running an errand while the other kids were at school. Joshua wanted to sit in the front seat. After I told him he needed to sit in his car seat, he asked if he could sit in the front seat when he was big like Jared. He then explained just how big Jared really is. “Jared is really big. He can pour milk!”

January 2009

Joshua and Ethan love anything Star Wars, although actually watching the movies is too scary for Joshua. They LOVE to battle with their light sabers daily. Ethan usually dictates the rules and is Luke Skywalker while Joshua is then Darth Vader. However, Joshua has some confusion between Star Wars and the Cars movie as he refers to himself as “Darth Mater!”

February 2009

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LDS Draper Temple

We were able to go to the LDS Draper Temple open house yesterday as a family. It is beautiful! It was neat to see how excited the kids were to see inside a temple and to help them understand the importance of temples.

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Jared's Tooth

Jared pulled a tooth tonight. Since Megan received $5 from the tooth fairy for her last tooth, Jared explained that his tooth was also very valuable. I told him he could campaign all he wanted, but it is up to the tooth fairy so he'll just have to wait and see!

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What happened to our little girls?

Todd was giving Amanda and Megan along with one of their friends a ride home from a birthday party yesterday. As Todd was flipping through the radio station, the girls cried out for him to stop. "That's Taylor Swift!" Then later, Todd stopped on a Billy Joel song and got this response, "Dad, that's so '80s!" What happened to our little girls?

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