Baby Blessing

Back in December, we had Avery's baby blessing. Megan's parents traveled all the way from 3.7 miles away to be able to attend. My parents, on the other hand, had a slightly longer distance to travel and made the 1,749 mile journey from Tucson to be able to meet the newest grand-baby.

On Ava's big Sunday, she deliberated long and hard, but wisely elected to wear her new white, long blessing dress, complete with white headband and honkin' flower bow (for which her mother was very grateful). She looked absolutely precious!

Dad was only able to stay for the weekend, so we did our best to entertain at all times by putting him to work, with activities such as:

• changing the lightbulbs 18+ feet off the ground in our family room
• figuring out why the closet doors in the scrapbook room kept skipping off the track
• replacing the broken guide from the closet doors that skipped off the track
• figuring out how to put the doors back on once we had taken them off
• buying a new floor guide for the closet doors (which I have yet to install). (Megan, do you know where I put that thing?)

We also challenged Dad and Mary Lee to a contest on Wii Sports Resort. Naturally, we assumed that their inquisitions on the proper pronunciation of "Wii" were indicative of their skill level, and, counting on our prior Wii experience, we assumed that their inexperience would be no match for our virtual sport prowess. We made sure to encourage them before the games even started with comments and phrases like, "It sometimes takes a little bit of getting used to" and "we've been able to play quite a bit" so that they wouldn't feel upset by the trouncing we were about to administer.

Unfortunately, we were wrong. Dad's 3-point shooting technique set an amazing record--which we still haven't broken--and Mary Lee found something "very satisfying" about the Speed Slice game and the ninja-like reflexes she unleashed on us.

Mary Lee was able to stay for a week after Dad left and was a wonderful help, taking the baby, making bread, cooking dinners, playing with the kids and hanging out.

Ava loved every minute of the whole experience...

...except for 2-seconds later when she didn't.

We're so lucky to have Avery in our home. For days and weeks after she was born, each of the other children would say in their prayers, "...we're so grateful that Ava was able to join our family."

We agree.

Now...if we could just do something about that sleeping through the night...

Back When We Liked Snow

My hands and back are still recovering from digging out from the storm from this last week that encased our house, driveway, basketball hoop, mailbox--even individual blades of grass--in inches of ice. One of our neighbors took advantage and ice skated around the neighborhood. I spent Friday night clearing 1 to 2 inches of frozen ice off of our driveway. Then, I spent some time again on Saturday afternoon doing the same thing for the sidewalks at church with the other elders from the quorum.

So, in keeping with my November 14, 2010 stance on blogging "about any event during the year (or any subsequent years) in any order that I please" I thought a nice post with some photos of a wonderous winter time before backbreaking ice picking might help alleviate some of my wrist, hand and back pain.

Photo #1: "I am Max, and I have conquered this Mt. Everest of a snow pile by the mailbox!"

Photo #2: "Oh...were you taking pictures? I hadn't noticed."

Photo #3: "Dad, take a picture of me sitting down."

Photo #D: "Dad take a picture of me being fabulous by the mailbox."

Photo #5: "Dad, I'm Freezing" / "Just Strike a Pose and Smile"

Glitz and Glamour

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a five almost-six year-old girl. Your aspiration in life is to become a fashion designer. You love the color pink. You asked for a hair salon station for Christmas. When large gatherings are taking place in your home, you stand up on a chair and loudly announce, "I am a great person and I have a great personality" for all to hear. When you walk from room to room (whether people are watching you or not), you pause every so often to spin and twirl, as if the world is your runway.

You would surely wonder, "Is there such a place in this world where I can take a friend or have a birthday party where our innate fashion sensibilities will be recognized--even celebrated?" "Is there a place that will charge my parents a hefty premium to provide me with this experience?"

There is.

It's called "Glitz and Glamour" and it is Kaitlyn's dream. And, for her birthday "party" this year, she took a friend there for a visit.

They start off setting the girls in movie director chairs and give them princess magazines to read, while serving them their choice of water or fruit punch served in pink goblets.



After getting the girls all settled in, they give their feet a soak and do some sort of mini-pedicure. (I'm not exactly sure what that means. To me it looked like they got their feet wet in epsom salt water and then dried and painted toe nails, but what do I know?)


After getting nails (fingers and toes) painted, they then paint the girls' faces in what must have been some sort of Native American war paint because I've never seen a woman, girl or child anywhere with so much make-up on her face.


With the war paint dry, they then take the girls to the back part of the room which is completely decked out with all kinds of sparkly and shiny dresses, hats, gloves and costumes which the girls are able to choose from in order to walk up and down a runway complete with microphones, blaring music from High School Musical and a large flatscreen TV which projects the view from the end of the runway.





When you leave the locale, for your convenience you realize that your retinae are burned in pink so that is the only color you are capable of seeing.


Happy Birthday Kaitlyn! We love you!

Progenitor-Offspring Dictionary

Fourteen years ago when I first went to Argentina, I found myself surrounded by a large number of people that I couldn't understand very well. I had studied Spanish for some time, but my book learning was different from actually being on the street. There was, however, one little tool which I found most handy, and which I carried with me for the first several months--until everyone started speaking intelligibly: the Spanish-English Dictionary.

Now that I have a "whole big huge massive family", as one friend of mine recently observed, I thought all other parents might benefit from some of the key words and phrases which may too often be "lost in translation" with their children. Yes, I'm providing the Progenitor-Offspring Dictionary.

For 8-year old girls:
Word: Living Room Wall
Translation: Something to practice shooting a basketball against when it's too cold to go outside.

Word: Carolina Panthers Football
Translation: "Who cares? I like basketball!"

Word: T-shirt
Translation: It's called a jersey if it has a number on it somewhere.

Word: Softball
Translation: Basketball

Word: Nerf ball
Translation: Basketball

Word: Dinner
Translation: Basketball

Word: Father
Translation: Wallet

For 5 (almost 6) year old girls:
Word: Dinner
Translation: Ice Cream, Fruit Snacks, Peanut Butter Crackers, Candy

Phrase: "You're the worst dad ever."
Translation: "I'm too young to comprehend why it's unreasonable to consume ice cream, fruit snacks, peanut butter crackers and candy as my sole source of sustenance at meal time."

Phrase: "I never get to do anything I want."
Translation: "It has been approximately 3 minutes since we spent 60 minutes doing something that interests me."

Phrase: "I don't have any clothes!"
Translation: "Going all the way to the laundry room to check the laundry basket or dryer for clean clothes myself feels like 26.2 miles away for my little feet."

Word: Bed Time
Translation: Dinner Time

Word: Father
Translation: Wallet

For 3-year old boys:
Word: Furniture
Translation: Trampoline (see also Gymnasium)

Word: Baby Sister
Translation: "Plastic action figure whose arms don't stay where I position them."

Word: Big boy underwear
Translation: Diaper

Phrase: Family Scripture Study before bedtime
Translation: Recess!

Word: Big Sister
Translation: Master

Word: Hammer
Translation: Hammer

Word: Fork
Translation: Hammer

Word: Toy truck
Translation: Hammer

Word: Building blocks
Translation: Hammers

Word: Kitchen table
Translation: Trash can

For 2-month old girls:
Word: Sudden, blood-curdling scream
Translation: "Get the one they call 'Max' off of me!"

Word: Loud cry
Translation: "I hear the one they call 'Max' approaching...!"

Word: Sudden whimper
Translation: "Whose little hands keep knocking my plastic sucking plug out of my mouth?! (I'm outraged that you insinuate that the hands were mine.)"

Word: Constant cry
Translation: "It's been 20 minutes. Don't you guys ever eat around here?"

Word: Unconsolable cry
Translation: "It's 2:00 a.m. and I noticed that you were trying to sleep."


Hopefully, you will find these translations useful, and now that you are able to speak the language of your offspring, your parenting skills will be able to rise to a whole new level.

Happy Halloween

Max's birthday was before Ava's birthday but I posted it after posting about Ava's birthday, I now reserve the right to blog about any event during the year (or any subsequent years) in any order that I please. That's right, get ready for Christmas in April, Memorial Day on Labor Day, Labor Day on Memorial Day and Thanksgiving in November.

Today I have decided to post on Halloween.

Since Halloween fell on a Sunday this year, we had to innovent (a word that I just innovented--ahem, or stole from a TV program I saw, either one) a new way for the kids to get enough cavity-causing candy to pay for our 26-year old dentist's student loan payment this month.

Our masterplan began by having each of the kids dress up as something cute and adorable. Alison chose Kobe Bryant zombie with a basketball card notebook with plastic bag inside (a candy-catching mechanism which she innovented). What's more cute and adorable than that?


Despite the fact that we had already anticipated Kaitlyn's costume choice and ordered a BYU cheerleader outfit well ahead of time, Kaitlyn opted for pink Batgirl. When asked why she chose that costume, she pointed out that Catwoman's outfit is black (and thus apparently not quite as fashionable), and completely snubbed our desire for a modest and alma-mater-loyal cheer female.


Max was a one-eyed pirate (or a chef--as some people thought when he took off the hat, bandana and eye patch), but the disturbing thing was that what he liked most about the outfit was the fake earring. Rest assurred, I have since downloaded football games and construction truck flash cards apps onto my phone so that he's getting enough testosterone into his daily diet.


Avery asked nicely if she could be dressed up as a pink cheetah-leopard-giraffe, which we reluctantly accepted. She also contributed her best blood-curdling screams to the night. What's more cute and adorable than that?


The ward helped our plan by providing a Trunk-or-Treat on Friday night in the parking lot of the church building. The kids literally did laps and likely hit up each car 3 or 4 times until they were completely milked dry of treats.

On Saturday, with a group of friends from church, we hit up various neighbors and nearby friends homes--some of which had prepared extra large goodies for the kids' baskets.


I'm sure it will be a few months, but I'll be on the lookout for that thank you note from our dentist.

Mr. Max's Third

Hello blogosphere. I'm sure you're shocked at the recency of this post given my recent trend of posting every other blue moon. I thought I'd go ahead and pull a shocker on you.

So, Max just turned 3. Goodbye "Terrible Twos"! Bienvenidos "I-punch-my-sisters-all-the-Time Threes"! For his birthday he received toy phones, old used cell phones, phone looking devices and electronics looking thingies from everyone he knew. The boy is obsessed with phones. Case in point, during family scripture study tonight I asked Max why he wasn't following along in his book. He held up one of his many phones and said, "I have them on my phone!" He came over to me and showed me the (blank black) screen and said, "Is this the verse that we're on?"

I can't believe the boy is 3. He looks huge when you see him after holding Ava for a while.

Megan went out to take Third Birthday pictures of him the other day and they weren't turning out so well.

Even when Megan said "Head up. Chin down!" trying to improve his pose, this is what she got:


It turns out you get much better pictures if the boy doesn't have a 100+ fever!

Happy Birthday buddy!

Ava's First Honkin' Bow

Megan was so excited when we found out we were having another girl so that she could dress her in these big ol' honkin' bows. We have several, but this is the only one that doesn't drown her head so far...