Family Night

Last night I decided to have one of my spontaneous moments. I told Jared that we needed to go on a family date, so we packed up and went to dinner at Red Lobster, and then we went and dropped Jordyn off with grandma and took grandpa with us to see Rango. It was a very funny movie, and Uriah really liked it a lot. He also liked getting to sit next to grandpa and share a bag of popcorn with him.

Here's Uriah and daddy snacking on biscuits at Red Lobster.

Look mommy, a fishy!

Uriah thought this poster was pretty neat!

We had a good night on the town. We really don't do these kinds of things very often, and Jared usually doesn't like to go along as easily as he did last night, so hopefully we can have more nights like these!

We have finally been able to take Jordyn back to daycare after her being out almost all week last week. She got really sick with viral pneumonia and we needed to keep her home for her to heal up. We have been fighting off sickness at our home, first with Uriah getting croup, Jordyn and her illness and then I got sick last week and have hit day 6 of my cold. Jared has luckily been able to stay healthy, which is good because he has been taking care of the rest of us and helping me do chores around the house. I am very thankful that he hasn't gotten sick! We are about half way through the semester and things have slowed down for Jared a little bit, and that also helps free up some of his time. 

I realized that it had been a while since I had posted any pictures of the kids, so I went digging through my camera files and found some from the last month or so that I haven't shared yet.

One day, Jordyn's day care workers decided to put her hair in pigtails. I thought she looked so cute that I just had to get a picture.

Silly girl with pigtails!

Uriah and Jordyn love to bath together. They can make each other giggle a lot. 

Jordyn got some head bands from her aunt Lana for Christmas and we try to put them on her every once in a while, but she doesn't like them and immediately pulls them right off, so it's not very often that we get a picture of her wearing one.

Here she is getting ready for church. For the moment, she hasn't tried to take off her head band, but wait...

...yup! Off it comes!

I decided that Uriah needed more than one outfit to wear to church, so I went and got him a vest suit. 

Isn't he so handsome?! :)

In more recent news, we promised Uriah that if he could go all week at daycare without having any potty accidents, then we would let him pick out some fish to take home. I didn't think he could actually make it a whole week, and I thought that daddy's goal of a week was sort of unfair to Uriah, but he went a whole 5 days without having potty incidents at daycare, so on Saturday we took him to Petco and he helped us pick out a tank and some fish. Now we tell him that if he doesn't have potty accidents at school then he can feed the fish. He really likes to do that too. He likes to tell the fish good night before he goes to bed, and he likes to look at them when he wakes up in the morning. I knew he would like having them around!

Although life is hectic and work is busy, I am forever grateful to have my children. They always remind me that love is what's most important, and that worldly things and what the world thinks don't matter. God bless our little children.

Blessings Brought by Others

Yesterday was a very special day. My very dear friend Kira invited me to be with her and her family when her new daughter Hazel was blessed. She told me that they attended a Spanish branch, which made me a little nervous, but I've never been one to let foreign language stand in my way ;) Plus, I knew there would be others there who couldn't speak Spanish either, so I wouldn't be alone. I had planned to sit on the back row, go unnoticed, witness the beautiful blessing and then go home, but if there's one thing that my beautiful friend is good at, it's making sure that everyone is included. She invited me to sit with her family, and she even let me hold her little Hazel for most of sacrament meeting. What a special blessing it is to hold a new baby. I've had two of my own and it seems so easy to forget  how precious they are, especially when they are talking back and making messes everywhere :) The chapel provided head sets so that we could hear a translation of the testimonies being born. I used mine to hear Kira's and her husband Sergio's testimonies. They said beautiful words that touched me deeply. Truly, there is nothing like being a parent. When the meeting was over, I was invited to attend a lunch with her family in honor of the baby blessing. I was delighted to be invited. Again, I planned on sitting by myself, and not because I'm an outcast or anything, but simply because I know how hard it is to entertain so many people at one time. You just can't get a chance to spend all the time you want with everyone you want. But my dear Kira, bless her heart, never left my side. How grateful I am for her friendship and her example. We are the same age, but I feel she has lived so much more than I have. I feel she is much more mature and has a better knowledge of where her life is going and what she wants out of life. I also know that she has an amazing testimony that nothing could shake. How I hope every day to seem as clear-headed as she is. I am thankful every day that she was brought into my life. If you'd like to see pictures of her beautiful baby girl, check out her blog here.

The cold and flu season is not over yet. Uriah got croup last week and is just getting over it. I was up with him all night last Wednesday because he was coughing all night and he would cry and saw "owie" every time he coughed. I felt so bad for him. The doctor gave him a steroid by mouth to make sure his throat didn't swell, but he told us the cough would just have to work its way out of his system. By the time Uriah was getting better, Jordyn was getting the flu again. She has had fevers all weekend, and she has had some coughing that is hard but not as bad as Uriah's croup was. She has been pretty lethargic, not wanting to do anything but lay around. She slept a lot of the day away yesterday, which is probably a good thing. This morning while I was getting ready for work, I could hear her playing in her crib, but she wasn't crying or coughing or anything like that. I am hoping that that is a good sign she is feeling better and I am crossing my fingers and hoping that the daycare doesn't call me away from work today. The kids and I have been sick so often that I don't have a lot of sick leave or vacation leave built up. This is also a very busy time of the year for us and missing work would mean a lot of catching up, but I know that family comes first and if I have to miss work, I can make up for it later.

We are into March already and the first 8 weeks of the semester are behind us. Jared was taking a Psychology class that was only 8 weeks, so now he has freed up about 6 weeks out of his schedule to spend more time working on his other classes. We go to Camerata Singers on Tuesday nights together and we really enjoy that. I am thankful that we both have a talent that we can share and that we can spend time together working on.
Last week one of my friends told me about an event that the Heber Valley Railroad does every year called A Day Out With Thomas. They have a real train that looks just like Thomas the tank engine and you can take a 30 minute ride on it, and then throughout the rest of the day they have all kinds of train activities and fun things to do. I bought tickets right away. It isn't until the end of May, but I know that Uriah will have a great time and I can't wait to see the excitement on his face when that train rolls up. I love my little boy and I'd take him anywhere in the world he wanted if I could (^_^)

Twu Wuv

One of the best ways to show someone you love them is to do something they love, but that is so far out of your comfort zone that it freaks you out and you don't know if you can bring yourself to do it. Well, at least within reason. (^_^) I have been planning a surprise ski trip for Jared because he has been saying all winter how much he wants to go snowboarding. He has been snowboarding since he was a freshman in high school, but after he left high school he didn't get to go up as much as he wanted, and especially after we got married he didn't get to go very often because I would never go with him. My story is that I went skiing for a "citation free" party when I was in the 5th grade and I haven't been back since. So, as a late Valentine's Day gift for my hubby, me, my sister and bro-in-law took Jared up to Pomerelle for some fun. I was the only one skiing. I told him that I loved him, but not enough to learn how to snowboard yet (*_^) I was really nervous at first, but after going down the bunny hill twice I really felt like I had some pretty good control. We spent about an hour and a half on the bunny hill and then we went up the lift to ride down Milk.

I left my camera in the car, so the only pictures I could take were with my phone. Here is my hubby sitting next to me on the lift, looking as happy as can be. He really loved the trip, which made me very happy.  I am  glad that I did something unexpected and stepped out of my comfort zone

This is my bro-in-law chilling with me at the top of the mountain. We were waiting for Jared and my sis to get up to the top with us. After we were done skiing we stopped at a little grill in Albion and got some cinnamon rolls and some hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was delicious! Nothing warms you up from playing in the snow more than a nice cup of cocoa!

After realizing that skiing wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I think we might have to make a yearly trip up the mountain. Here's to doing things unexpected for the ones you love!

Angel Soft

These pictures were taken a few months ago, and I completely forgot about them until I was flipping through my phone and found them. I think this should be Angel Soft's new slogan: Angel Soft, soft enough for angels to sleep on!

Poor Jordy got so tired of being at the store that she just crashed...and found a nice comfy pillow to rest her head on (^_^)

Back That Blog Up

Holy Smokes! I knew it had been a while since I blogged, but I didn't realize it had been a whole month! For some reason, it seems like January is a hard month for me to blog in. Maybe it's because I'm coming off the hype of Christmas and New Years and starting a new semester, who knows. Really, not a whole lot has happened this month. I am very busy at work, reviewing applications for our program, preparing for this year's Continuing Education conferences, and advising students. The spring semester is always busier than the fall semester. 

My poor husband got a letter stating that he had to serve two weeks of jury duty, and they started the exact same week that the school semester started. So he went to the courthouse for 3 days straight, had to stay there for 6-7 hours each day, and he didn't even get picked for the jury. After that, he didn't have to go to the courthouse, but he had to call every night to see if a new case was starting that needed a jury. Even though it was a big hassle for him, we are very grateful that he was not called to be on a jury, especially the one that he originally got the letter for. It was a very high profile case, and if he had been called to it, he would have had to drop out of school because it would have taken weeks to finish. Everything happens for a reason!

Around the middle of January, one of my best friends had her baby shower in Burley. I was very excited to go. I had been waiting for this shower since she told me she was expecting! A lot of people came, and she and her mother were the only people I knew, but I just loved being there and seeing all the support she was getting. She got a ton of clothes. Almost every present she opened was a new baby outfit, so I was very excited when she got to mine. 

I stayed up late to finish this before I had to leave for her shower. Jordyn has a sign with the same saying in her room that I had bought from Deseret Book, but I was wanting to try working with vinyl and doing my own projects. I was very pleased with how it turned out, and I think my friend liked it too. I also made her a blanket, but that didn't turn out as great as I would have liked it to, so I didn't take a picture of it. It was my first time using a sewing machine since my 7th grade Home Ec class, and all I'll say is that I am going to have to practice some more. Anyway, it was great seeing my dear friend, and I can't wait for her to have her baby. She will be a wonderful mother.

My mother's birthday was around the end of the month, so we got together and played games and ate some junk food. My brother has a new game called "Telestrations". It's like the Telephone game we played when we were younger, when you would sit in a circle and whisper something to someone, and then it got passed around the circle until it was a completely different saying by the time it got back to the beginning. Well, with "Telestrations", you have to pick a word or saying and then draw it, and then pass it to a person who has to guess what it is. By the time it gets back to you, you can look through the pictures and see what people guessed. Sometimes it stays the same, but most of the time it is something completely different, and it is SO funny! We were all laughing so hard we cried. I think that is one of my new favorite games to play. 

 Jordyn got tired of being ignored while we were playing games, so she decided that she needed to be in the middle of it all, and she wanted to play the game with us.

The result of Jordyn being in the mix was that her silly uncle TJ colored her fingernails and toenails black with a dry erase marker. Jordyn didn't seem to mind. I'm actually surprised that she sat still while he did that.

For my mom's birthday, we went to Costco and got her two jugs of chocolate milk and a giant box of peanut M&MS. 

 Mom was very willing to share her giant box of M&MS with us. You can see, Uriah was eagerly waiting for her to share.

 Jordyn still wants to be in the middle...

 Gamma was sharing some chocolate with Jordyn.

Papa really likes to take pictures of his granddaughter Jordyn.

I guess I should mention that I was called to teach the 4 year old class in Primary. When I met with the member of our bishopric, I was very excited when he asked me to serve in the Primary. I think I have secretly been waiting for this call for a long time. However, right after that, he asked if the hubs and I would speak in church, and that wasn't as exciting. I spoke on fast offerings and Jare spoke about fasting. I am very grateful that I was given that topic because I didn't know very much about it, even though I thought I did. Giving that talk really strengthened my testimony of fasting and giving fast offerings. I LOVE teaching the 4 year olds in our ward. They are very cute, and although they are all over the place, they aren't too demanding. I don't have to work extra hard to prepare my lesson because they don't care if I am reading out of the manual. As long as you give them treats some time during class, they are perfectly fine. I am very, very happy in this calling. My mother-in-law also has the same calling, so we can bounce ideas off of each other. She has some pretty good ideas for me on how to keep the little ones calmed down. 

This week is basically a normal week, but I am very excited for the Super Bowl! I am cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers! Woohoo! Oh, and we have a nice, new tv to watch the game on, and I am excited about that too (^_^)