Katy's first lost tooth

Well, Kaitlyn lost her first tooth the other day... she keeps looking at herself in the mirror thinking that the new one is just going to appear any second now. She thinks it looks funny with a tooth missing. Wait until she loses her two front teeth!

So, I guess I will post my new year's resolutions for this year then maybe I will be more accountable than if I just think about them and sometime around November I might think about them again. :) That's what usually happens. In church today we had a good lesson in Relief Society about centering our homes around Christ and I realized I probably don't do it as much as I should. We usually have FHE and say a family prayer at night, but I realize these things aren't enough. We have never had family scripture study and now I think is a good time to start (better late than never) with my kids. It will probably have to be at night before bed since Joel is gone earlier than we all get up in the morning. It might not be every day, but maybe we could start with 2-3 times a week realistically.

Another thing I want to do is eat healthier. I do ok at this right now, but treats and chocolate are pretty much impossible for me to resist. Joel and I made a pact today that starting tomorrow we would go off sugar completely for a month and see how that goes. If it makes us feel good and helps us lose weight maybe we'll go for longer. I think if I just keep it out of my house and don't even take that first bite, it will be easier. I also signed up to do a half marathon in June which scares the crap out of me, but I really want to do it.

The last thing I am going to work on is patience. I am patient in many circumstances, but not when it comes to my kids. For some reason, I lose my temper and come unglued with my kids a lot easier than in any other situation. Maybe it's just easier to take things out on them, I don't know. But I really need to slow down and enjoy them while they are little and not worry about being in such a hurry all the time. They do try my patience A LOT but how do we learn to patient if we aren't given situations that try our patience??? Anyway, we'll see how these things go by the time February rolls around and hopefully there will be some improvement!!

Christmas 2010

Well another Christmas has come and gone... time just flies by the older I get. Here is Katy with her Rapunzel tower... She was so excited...

Kinlee and Katy in their new shirts...

Dude on his new bike... Dude loving his new trucks...

Dylan with a new watch...

Dude and Toy Story 3... his new favorite movie :)

I just liked this picture because Kaitlyn looks so surprised about something...

Kinlee and Dude...

Katy right before opening gifts...

Dylan with his new skis...

Can't believe it's over for another year, I haven't been able to bring myself to take down all the Christmas things, but I guess it's time. Now if we could just skip to spring!! :)

Kinlee's Christmas Recital

Kinlee had another piano recital right before Christmas. It was held at Day Murray Music in Orem. She played "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and "The Magic Clown". She did a great job and was the best one there in my opinion! Here she is with her piano teacher Margarat Tueller...

Buddy Workout

Here is a pic of Leigh Anne and I at Crossfit... it looks like we are just passing a volleyball back and forth or something, but really it's a 16 pound ball that one has to slam down to the ground and the other has to catch after it bounces and before it hits the ground again. Just one of many movements we did as partners that day. We look so glamorous :)

More Kaitlynisms

I just had to write a couple things down that Kaitlyn said that made me laugh this week. On Monday night we were having Family Home Evening and Katy wanted to do the lesson. So she found a picture of Jesus in the "Friend" and I asked her to tell us everything she knew about Jesus. One of the things she said was that Jesus' nickname was "Je". It was so cute we all started laughing and of course she got mad, but it seemed so logical to her. Then, yesterday she was watching Spongebob and she came to me and said "Mom, I don't like this Spongbob, it's too sad" with tears in her eyes. It was the one where Gary (Spongebob's pet snail) suddenly likes Patrick better than Spongebob and goes to stay with Patrick; so Spongebob was sad and tried bringing other pets home, but none of them were as good as Gary. I reminded her that it ends good because Gary only stayed with Patrick because he had a cookie in his pocket and ends up with Spongebob again at the end, but she started crying and didn't want to watch it anymore because it was just too sad. Where did those little emotions come from? It was just so cute I didn't want to forget about it. Anyway, when anyone is bugging her or making her mad, she likes to say "Stop it! You're embarrassing me!" I don't think she knows what that means, but she likes to use the phrase A LOT. :)

RUNNING IS JUST PUTTING ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER

So a couple of weeks ago I ran my first 1/2 marathon in Saint George. It was called the Snow Canyon 1/2. I have been training for awhile and can honestly say that I have started to enjoy running. I have always been competitive and just felt the need to do it. Part of the reason is I have seen my sister Leigh Anne embrace the running thing and have decided that it isn't that bad. So last Saturday was the big race, there were over 2000 participants which is kind of intimidating. Leigh and James were there as were several other people from our neighborhood.

I started out and much to my suprise finished and hour and thirty nine minutes later. It really wasn't that bad, definately something I would like to do again. Part of the reason I finished so fast was there was no way I was going to let Leigh pass me. (sibling rivalry at it's best) Her and James finished only minutes behind me and was pushing me the whole way. Towards the end I slowed up a little and kept imaging her passing me. So anyways I survived and will likely do another one in February. Her are a couple pics of Leigh, James and I, we all did great.

Katy's 5th birthday

Well, our little Kaitlyn turned 5 on November 7th and she had her first "friend" birthday party. Her party was a long 5 days after her actual birthday so it was like torture waiting for the party to begin :) It was a fun time for all the kids I think. Here are some photos below:
Katy with her friend Emily and one of her gifts.

Here is Katy with her favorite (boy) cousin Hunter and best friend Bradley. Note that they both have red hair :) so cute.

Cousins Karlie, Madi, and Alaina came towards the end of the party.

Here are the kids anxiously waiting for their cake and ice cream.

Elsie, Christian, Aubrey, Emily, Hunter, Kaitly, and Bradley next to the game they played.

Hunter, Bradley and Katy.

Kaitlyn's homemade birthday cake... she placed all the Tinkerbells where she wanted.

Anxiously waiting for the guests before the party.

It was a wild time and hopefully lots of fun was had... a house appraiser showed up halfway through because we are re-financing the house adding to the chaos. I'm pretty sure he did that appraisal in about half the usual time :) hee hee

Random

So a few weeks ago, Christian scratched Kinlee's eye and we had to take her to the doctor because it wasn't feeling any better after a couple hours. The doctor determined that her cornea had been scratched and Kinlee had to wear an eye patch for one day. Luckily when we went back the next day it was pretty much healed. Daddy was calling her Captain Jack Sparrow and telling her to "walk the plank" etc. The teasing never ends around our house.

Here is a picture of Dude shortly after I gave him a jolly rancher to eat. He came back a couple minutes later and it was stuck in his hair. It wasn't exactly easy to get it out. Just something funny I had to take a picture of.

OOPS.... THAT IS GOING TO LEAVE A MARK.

So if you ever wondering what stupid looks like, this would be it. Jill has been bugging me to post this for a while, so here is the whole story. I had to work all weekend six months ago so Jill took the kids and went to St. George. I was in the shop at 5:30 in the morning rushing to get stuff done and wondered how quickly I could take my finger off. 0.25 seconds is about how long it took if you are wondering. Anyways I was the only one there and so I picked up what was left and drove myself to the hospital in Provo 16 miles away. I don't know what was worse, cutting my finger or getting blood all over my truck. Long story short I made it, walked in the front door showed the 70 year old volunteer lady my finger, watched her pretty much faint, then walked back to the ER and sat down. The worst thing was they did not have any hand doctors on call so I ended up having to have a friend drive me up to SLC to get it fixed.

My friend had to laugh that while I was in the hospital waiting for the x-rays (like you couldn't tell what was wrong) all I kept asking for was a diet coke In my defense I have had a diet coke for breakfast for close to 20 years so I really wanted one. So while we were driving to SLC we stopped off and got a coke. I can still remember the white trash dude taking my money and asking "hey dude having a rough day?"

In Salt Lake they reattached as much as they could and thats about it. The worst part of this story is I didn't tell Jill till she got home from St. George later that night. (She was way less than impressed). So there you have it. Went to work the next day and that is that.

The second worst part is having to deal with all the grief. Like my kids coming up to me and saying " hey dad high four" or my nephews asking me if I ever stole something "would you be getting the four finger discount?" or my guys at work "we were wondering if you can still count to ten?" All those years of teasing people has finally caught up to me. So if you are wondering if it hurt, yes it did, but life goes on. As long as Jill will keep loving me I guess it is alright.

I HATE MY SISTER........

My whole life I have been the brother that could do it all. Skiing, Biking, Sports, you name it I could do it, and always felt that I was a little better at it than my siblings. But as I get older I find the need to eat better and exercise more important. So for the last year I have taken up running and have run several races(granted only little 10k's) and have gotten to were I can run pretty good. So my sister Leigh Anne convinced me to train for a 1/2 marathon. Ok no bid deal, all it requires is me to eat a little better and increase my distances. I've heard that Lee is pretty quick and has run several bid races this year (Ragnar, King of the Mtn. etc.). So she hauls me out last night to run a 10 mile down the Canyon. No bid deal, I can do this. So we start out and both are running pretty good. Halfway thru, no big deal. Towards the end Lee picked up the pace and I thought "man this chick can run". So for the last 2 miles I was running like a rape victim just to keep up. I guess I better train a little big harder for our Snow Canyon 1/2 here in 2 weeks. Here is a pic of Lee, she's in great shape.