Do any of your friends have this problem?

Tessa asked me an interesting question the other day after preschool.  She asked "Mommy, do any of your friends always have a runny nose?"  I made her repeat the question to make sure I got it right, replied no and asked her why she asked.  She told me that there was a little boy in her preschool class whose nose was always runny.  To my little girl she figured if her friend had this problem maybe some of my friends did too. That just got me to thinking.  Even though it's gross, it still is socially acceptable for a four-year-old to have a constantly runny nose.  But can you imagine if an adult always had one?  Your coworker, neighbor, sibling just always had snot running between their nose and lip.  Eww!  There's my random Musing for the day.

Tooth Fairy

Ada is about to lose another tooth soon. I'm afraid she may have to try to make an appointment with the Tooth Fairy herself. I don't know about anyone else's house, but the Tooth Fairy is such a slacker when it comes to retrieving my children's teeth. I think she completely spaces coming to our house. It is so bad that last time Ada lost a tooth she didn't even bother putting her tooth under her pillow until 2 months later. Maybe she'd figured by then the Tooth Fairy's schedule might be more clear. Even then, it still took the Tooth Fairy several days to drop by our house. Maybe she's getting tired of teeth and wants to go into another line of work. I mean all these years of collecting teeth, what does she do with them anyway? We just finished reading The Spiderwick Chronicles and learned that Goblins like to snatch children and take their teeth because they don't have any. Maybe we could convince the Tooth Fairy to sell them to the goblins and then she will feel renewed purpose and come to my house in a timely fashion!

The Reason

I bought Aaron a Canon Rebel EOS for Christmas. He loves to take Nature Photography. He is still learning how to use the camera and he needs to find some time to take more photos but here are some awesome sunset pictures he took while we were at Big Hollow tubing.

Tubing/Sledding at "Big Hollow"

It has snowed A LOT here in Utah this winter so we have tried to take advantage of it on the days the kids have off of school (which have been multiple this month) to go sledding.  We already had one sled and then bought the kids a one person tube and a 2-person tube.  The tubes are AWESOME!  We go to a place just south of Evergreen Cemetery which apparently has a name, "Big Hollow"  We have had a lot of fun tubing there.  I love it because it is less than a 5 minute drive from our house and the kids love it because the hill has these great jumps and you get some pretty good airtime.

The next time they have school off isn't til mid February so I might just have to take them again on a Saturday or after school.  I hear we should be getting 3 more snow storms in the next week or so. . .

Zits (not the cartoon)

Nature has played a cruel joke on me. I can't decide whether I should be annoyed or grateful. As a teenager I had near flawless skin. I was smug about the fact that I rarely had any blemishes appear on my face. Now don't get me wrong, I had the occasional zit now and again and my freshman high school photo is evidence to that fact, but for the most part, I had perfect skin. After I started having children I began to get one zit every month on chin in the exact same location. I was so annoyed by the fact that I had that one zit! But now, I have completely broken out they are all over my forehead and my chin. They are so annoying! So why should I be grateful for these blemishes all over my once perfect face?At least I'm too old to care what other people think now. I don't have fear of going out in public because someone might see my face all broken out with the latest rash of zits. If I had had this many zits at once as a teenager I would have been mortified that I might run into the boy I liked looking all zitty. But now, I feel confident enough about who I am and my self worth doesn't depend so much on what I look like and I know that the boy that I like will still like me back even though I am edging on pizza face territory. (He even thinks I'm sexy still.) But all the same--they hurt and are ugly and I really just wish they'd go away.

WNBA-Here she comes!

Kielle started playing basketball this month.  She loves it and plays so well.  Of course I have no biases whatsoever!  She is really great at making baskets.  She just needs to learn to pass the ball and give her team mates a chance!  The first game we watched had me laughing so much because all the girls were supposed to be playing man to man defense which they did expertly.  They had their "man" who cares that nobody had the ball!

New Years Eve

I think we have come up with a new New Years' Eve Tradition!  We went to Park City to go tubing at Gorgoza Park.  We went up in the afternoon.  It was so much fun!  It was a gorgeous day!  We were a little disheartened by the fact that it was snowing and blustery when we arrived but the weather cleared up quickly enough and we had a blast. 2 hours of tubing was the PERFECT amount of time and we warmed up afterwards with hot Cocoa.  This was Grandma May's Christmas present to the kids this year!  I love presents that become memories instead of gifts that end up broken by the following Christmas (if not sooner.)  After tubing we went to Grub Steak restaurant.  The food was absolutely devoine and ALL the kids liked it too.  (That is how we judge the true merit of a restaurant--whether our kids will eat there again!)  By the time we got home it was about 10pm and so we started on a puzzle and then we threw in a movie "The Santa Clause"  By the time midnight rolled around, I was exhausted and fast asleep, but I think my children actually made it to the New Year!  Woo Hoo!  All in all a delightful day and one that I believe is worth repeating!


Check out my awesome babushka scarf!  I forgot my hat (and my style along with it!) but hey--I was warm!

Christmas 2007

Better late than never.  We had a lovely laid back Christmas this year.  One thing I enjoy about our Christmas is we have guarded it as special family time.  We don't travel on Christmas and we try to enjoy our time together as a family.

Christmas Eve was particularly special this year.  Our traditional evening is to open up jammies and then put them on and read the Christmas Story.  Our evening this year was interrupted by a knock on the door and a box full of huge homemade fleece blankets.  One for each member of our family.  I don't know who gave those to us but EVERYONE loves them.  They were quickly divided up and everyone got their favorite one!  We must have spent the next half hour reveling in our new blankets.  They were so much fun.  And seriously of all the fun stuff we got for Christmas these are quite possibly the favorites because everyone sleeps with their blankets still and are often seen cuddling up in front of the TV with them.  

As we read the Christmas Story, Nathan was particularly touched in such a way that he was moved to tears. He said that he felt like all his worries were gone and he felt happy. It is an experience that is hard to share, but as a mother it made me feel like maybe the things we are trying to teach him are getting through to him. And it was wonderful to see that he is understanding the importance of Jesus as our Savior.


After we finished the Christmas Story, the kids took the"Daddy Train" down to bed and we geared up for a long night. . . I think we finally made it to bed at 1am. Poor Santa had to wait til we were done with our stuff before he could come :).

Christmas Day was a lot of fun. Santa brought the kids a Wii and I have to say that I love the Wii.  It has the kind of video games that you can play in increments of 15 minutes or less.  And  most of them you don't have to get to the next level before you finish it.  I do believe somebody who loves mothers invented the Wii.

Aaron bought me an outfit from my new favorite store--White House Black Market.  I now have some fancy dress up clothes for when we go on dates.  Whenever we go out he always has something in between dressy and casual to wear, but I either have jeans or a dress and sometimes I just don't want to wear a dress and sometimes jeans are too casual.  So now I have beautiful dress slacks and a gorgeous shirt and new jewelry and maybe I'll even get a picture of me in it someday!

I broke down and got Aaron a Cannon Rebel EOS.  He loves photography, he takes especially good pictures of nature so I've challenged him to enter photo contests.  So if anyone knows of a good contest coming up, let me know!

Google Reader

I just have to tell everyone about Google Reader.  I love it because whenever my friends post something on their blogs, I know right away and I can go visit them.  I also don't  have to keep going back to their site when they haven't posted for a while, hoping to get news and then being downtrodden because there was nothing new.  I think EVERYONE should use Google Reader!  It is awesome.  You go to the website, set up an account if you don't already have a google account and then you subscribe to all your friends blogs!  Its that simple!  Go try it out!  And then you'll know when I update my site.  Which feels like it may be another eternity!