Happy Birthday Taylor!

Taylor came to us on December 18.  She weighed 7 lbs. 12 oz. and was 20 in. long.  We are very excited to have this precious addition in our home.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Megan!

Megan had a birthday a few weeks ago.  I've always tried to make a cake of their choosing.  But with my limited abilities in cake decorating, it's getting more difficult for me to make the cake they want.  This year, Megan told me she wanted a My Little Pony cake.  I was determined to figure something out that would please her, but her vision of how she wanted it was beginning more than I knew I would be able to do.  So one day I told her that I would bake the cake and frost the cake and she could decorate the cake.  I didn't realize she wanted to do it with frosting, so I didn't make enough frosting for her to use.  So she just ended up placing the ponies around the cake.

Megan received this umbrella.  She was so excited about it.  Lucky for her, it was raining the next morning.  She and Daniel were outside in the rain before I had a chance to get out of bed.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween month!  We went to Bryan's sisters Halloween party.  Megan made her own mask.

 

We carved pumpkins - I should say the kids carved their own pumpkins.  Daniel knew we would be carving soon and so one day he came up from his room with a drawing of how he would like his pumpkin to look.  Megan didn't come up with a blue print, but she did the carving all on her own.  The only help they got from me or Bryan was cutting the top off and helping to clean the pumpkin out.

 

We topped the Halloween season off on Halloween night with going to a movie and walking around the Oquirrh Mountain Temple.  We saw Dolphin Tale.  That was a great show.  The whole family enjoyed it.  It was only the four of us and two other people in the entire theater.  Halloween's a great day to see a movie if you don't want to be in a place full of people.  The kids wanted to walk around temple before heading home for dinner and bed.

Nebo Loop

The next weekend after 5-mile, we took a trip down to the Nebo Loop.  We stayed at the south end of it near Nephi.  What a perfect time to go and see some Fall leaves.  They were amazing.  We were very glad we got there when we did.  Each day we could see that the leaves were changing and they were beginning to lose their brilliant colors.

 

 

 

We drove the Nebo loop a couple of different times.  Elevation was about 9000 feet.  My parents had stopped by about a week before we went camping to 5-mile and brought us a movie, The Long, Long Trailer with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.  This movie was quite comical.  We thought about it a lot while driving this loop.  However, in them movie, they only climbed to 8000 feet.  But they were pulling their long trailer.  We left ours at the bottom and just took a drive.

Along the loop we stopped at many of the different lookouts.

Devil's Kitchen also referred to as a mini Bryce Canyon.

 

 

 

On another occasion through the loop, we stopped at the Payson Lakes and had lunch.

Beaver Dam overlook.

 

Utah Lake Overlook

Mt. Nebo Overlook

When we were hanging out at the campsite, the kids entertained themselves with the many leaves that had already fallen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What a great way to end the camping season!

5-mile pass

Bryan finished up with Fall ball and so we were finally about to take the new trailer out.  We only had one night that we could go, so we found a place close by.  We went along the five mile pass and found a nice place to camp for the night.  It was a perfect place for Bryan and Daniel to enjoy some shooting.  We took it pretty easy on the trip.  We didn't worry about a fire.  We just cooked our food inside.  However, due to the fact that we have an oven, I made an apple pie while the boys did some shooting right outside the trailer.  YUMMY!

 

 

Self-Serving Elitism

I have long thought that the high barriers to entry in the legal profession were really only serving the attorneys themselves.  But I couldn't have articulated the thought as well as this article from the New York Times.

The basic idea here is that an open law profession would lower prices, increase consumer awareness of dishonest/incompetent practitioners and allow many who cannot overcome the barriers to enter the practice of law to do so...after all, Abraham Linclon and Clarence Darrow, both recognized as some of the finest lawyers and civil rights advocates this country has produced, did not graduate from an ABA accredited law school nor pass a bar exam.

Real Things

Elder Bednar recently talked about things as they really are and the church put it into a nice video presentation that illustrates his points in a very straightforward way.  It's worth the 4 minutes to watch this video.

A Toothless Grin

After a full week of letting this loose tooth hang in her mouth, she finally allowed Bryan to pull it out.  Last week she was in tears because she realized she had a loose tooth.  Because of this tooth, she then decided she wasn't going to eat anything.  So I babied her for the day with the food and she was excited because she was able to eat pudding and popsicles.  The next day she was sick of eating those things and decided to eat her regular bowl of cereal.  She would still play with the tooth and keep telling us how loose it was and that it hurt, but she refused to let anyone help her with it.  So we just let it sit in there.  I figured she would bump it hard enough or she would play with it enough and it would come out.  Each night Bryan would beg and try to convince her to allow him to pull it out, but she would be very scared at this thought and would say no.  Even Daniel was working on convincing her by telling her it only hurt for a second. 

Finally last night, it happened. With Bryan giving her an ultimatum.......bribe......Megan let him pull it out.  There was a show on TV last night that Bryan was really interested in watching.  Megan really wanted to play a game with dad.  So Bryan proposed that after the show he would pull her tooth and then play the game.  Or, he could pull the tooth now and then play the game and he wouldn't watch the show.  Bryan got to watch about a minute and a half of the show before Megan became bored and said he could pull the tooth so that they could play a game.  I heard no screaming or crying.  It just popped right out.  She was pretty excited.

 

 

She was so proud this morning at breakfast to be able to chew right where her tooth was and not have it hurt.

First Day of School

Megan began Kindergarten this year.  Her first day of school was about 2 weeks ago. She has been looking to starting kindergarten since her last day of preschool back in May.  She was a little worried about making new friends, but within about three days she said she had three new friends.  I'm way excited at how well she has been doing with school.  We haven't had any crying fits and refusals to go into the school.  We did have one break down one day after I picked her up from school.  She said it was because she was so tired.  As soon as she was home and had some lunch, she was good as new!

Megan playing on the playground while waiting for the first bell to ring.

The first bell rang and the class has all lined up.

 Megan is blocking the sun from her eyes while waiting for the teacher to come out and bring them into the school.

Daniel began 2nd grade at his new school today.  As nice as it was to have some time with just him while Megan was at school, I was so excited for today to come yesterday.  Daniel needs something to keep him busy.  The things I have asked him to do and that we did together wasn't enough to keep him busy.  I'm excited to see what this new school brings as challenges for him.  I also get a couple hours everyday just for me.........at least for a few months.

Unfortunately, I only have pictures of him from home.  Because of the distance of the school and me needing to get Megan to school immediately after Daniel, I didn't have time to take pictures of him at the school.  I only had enough time to drop him off and get to Megan's school.

Perfectionism is Unhealthy

I saw an article online today about a talk Cecil O. Samuelson gave at a BYU devotional. In it, he says, "(Perfectionism) is corrosive and destructive and is the antithesis of the healthy quest for eventual perfection that the Savior prescribes."

This is so true for me.  We've recently refinished a few rooms in our home to make proper space for the new baby.  I have shirked away from the work not because I was lazy or too busy.  I shirked it because I was afraid that the end product would not meet Julie's expectations--or worse--that it wouldn't meet my expectations.

Now that all the work is done, I see flaws all over the place.  However, there is also a great deal of satisfaction in knowing that I did it.  In retrospect, I think it would have been cheaper to have a pro come and do it for us...but it was a good experience for me...to seek and not achieve perfection.

Endeavor Hall

Yesterday was the walk a thon for Daniel's new school, Endeavor Hall.  It was a lot of fun had by all.  We started the day off with playing on the playground.  Daniel found one of his friends from his old school that will also be attending Endeavor Hall.  He was pretty excited about that.

After the kids had a chance to play for a bit, the actual "walk" began. This walk was about a mile around the neighborhood and ended back at the park. I was planning on walking with everyone else, but didn't make it with the group in time. I was passing out the t-shirts and didn't get away. Bryan helped lead the walk with the principal.

 

After everyone returned from the walk, we ate lunch and then had some games.  This gave the students a  chance to meet their teachers and also meet some new friends that will be in their class.

What a great day!  I know this event has helped Daniel not be so worried about attending a new school and having to make new friends.  It was also great for me and Bryan to be around the faculty and get to see how they interact with the students.  I am excited for school to begin and can't wait to see the things that Daniel will be learning!