Picnic

The weather is great. We had a picnic out back. Pizza. No fire ants. Perfect.

Crazy Pictures

Brett sent some pictures from Japan. These pictures were taken about 20 miles down the coast from where Brett is. Crazy. Mike said it looks like they put the entire city in a blender. I am so thankful that Brett and his family were okay. Like Rachel said....just didn't have access to facebook and couldn't make hotpockets. That is the way to go through a tragedy! We are so very blessed.

So Close!

I'm so close to finishing the Parry Post I can almost taste it. I can't wait! Sorry it has taken me so long.

Stockton's New Toy!

Stockton is a saver. He has saved all his money for over year, maybe two. He spent it all last week and his new toy arrived today. He bought a 3DS. It is blue and he is so happy. It was waiting for us on our porch when we returned from diving. Stockton had a GREAT day at diving. He did a few awesome back flips and was so happy. Mike even got to come today. After diving we have made it a tradition to stop and get chips and Slurpees. We are living the dream!

The Shield of Not Caring

The other day Mike made fajitas for dinner. The kids weren't too happy about this. Mike said, in a Monty-Python voice, "I will raise the shield of not caring!" Oh man, it was so funny! The kids just rolled their eyes. We raised the shield again today when we had barbecue chicken. We plan to use the shield often, it's our new favorite toy.

Mike Would Be Proud

Stockton loves Battlebots. He loves playing a computer game called Robot Arena. Preston is hooked as well. In Robot Arena you build combat robots (battlebots) and compete against other players. Anyway, Stockton was excited to tell Mike that he figured out how to make it let you use the cheat components (hover-pad, cannons, etc.) in multi-player games. Mike asked him how he did it. Stockton answered, "I just edited the ra.cfg file and changed "allow non-standard components in multiplayer" from a 0 to a 1. Mike was quite impressed. I have no idea what he is talking about.

That brings me to frogs. Jorja loves them. I don't think there have been a pair of frogs played with more in the history of the world than these frogs. She takes them everywhere. She took them to Steve & Shannon's house tonight. We celebrated Spencer home from college (Cal-State), and Weston's birthday. All of Mike's siblings were there. It was really fun. I love being in Utah! And now, enjoy some frog pictures.

Stockton

Stockton & Jorja Freaky Porge Jorja, Cricket & Hopper

Yes, We Moved a Piano

We have our piano back! Mike and I moved it ourselves. With a little work and ingenuity, we were able to pull it off without having to ask for help. Sorry Dad. We decided to move the piano today after our home teacher left. Probably would have been a good idea to think of that before he left, but oh well. We realized that it finally stopped SNOWING, so we went for it. 2nd time was the charm. It was a lot harder to get out of the van than I realized. So glad that is done!

Mike is off call now. I am glad he only has to do that every 10 weeks. It's not bad, and kind of fun . . . but I am sure glad when the week is over. Mike kept getting called all last night. Usually I can sleep through anything, but I just couldn't last night. I will sleep well tonight! After Mike got off call, we went to Hires. YUMMY! We let the kids stay up pretty late tonight. We were watching Amazing Race. The kids love it. I love that there is a show I can watch with them, and now I'm off to bed. After I eat an orange.

D-R-A-T

BYU lost. If they won, it would have been the best birthday present for my brother John. Sorry they lost John, but happy birthday anyway. Stockton was cute and would come see what I was cheering about. Then he told me, "Let me know when there are two minutes left." Mike laughed and said the same thing. It was a pretty great game . . . until overtime. Funny how when Jimmer seemed to have an off night he still scored 32. BYU looked so tired in overtime. I'm going to miss watching Jimmer in BYU blue.

Jorja had a great day today. She brought her frogs over to Luke's house and was there for quite awhile. I finally had to make her come home so she could get her homework done, have a bath and have dinner. Boring things. She is nervous again about her Chinese spelling test. She makes herself so worried the day before the test, but the lowest she has ever scored is a 92. Probably because she works SO hard on it the day before. We really need to get into a better routine and have her study a little more each day instead of a ton at the end. Her teacher sent her home with a Chinese book and CD for her to work on. That will be great to do this weekend.

Rachel is in the States!

I just chatted with Brett on facebook. Rachel has landed at Travis Air Force Base and is now spending the night with one of her good friends. How cool is it that Rachel got sent to Travis? She couldn't have planned it better if she tried. The flight was about 8-9 hours long. They gave priority to those that were pregnant or with children under two. Brett said he laughed thinking about an entire flight across the Atlantic filled with babies. My thought was, I would rather have a flight full of babies then have the only babies on the flight. (Brett was laughing thinking about the flight attendants who have to deal with all the possible chaos.) I don't envy Rachel going on that long flight with two little ones, but I'm glad she did because she is here! I don't know when we will get to see her, but just knowing she is in the States is great. I think she flies to Boise tomorrow, then one day she will come see me! I can't wait to squeeze Marie and hold Mina! Yay for good things coming out of bad situations!

Friends

Jorja walks home from the bus with the two boys in the tree. Luke & William. They are all in the same class together at school. They love to hang out together for a little bit after school. Their mom's told me that they have never played with girls before, but with Jorja it is different. They have been playing tag at recess lately. A ton of boys and Jorja. It is so good to see her playing with friends. She is very social, but she never found a friend to play with when she went to Granite. I would ask her what she did at recess and she would say, "Just walked around." When I asked her if she found any friends yet she replied, "No, maybe one day." Now that we are here, Jorja is in heaven. It is nice to see her so happy, especially when school is incredibly hard right now. It seems like the kids in the Chinese class have bonded really well . . . maybe because they are the only ones who understand how hard it is to learn the way they are learning. I am so glad Jorja has this opportunity.

William, Jorja & Luke

Reverse Dive

Stockton did a reverse dive today. That is a dive where you stand facing forward on the board, then you jump forward and do a backward dive. Crazy scary. The first time he did one a ton of people started cheering. They knew it was his first time. One of the high school kids came over and gave Stockton five. At the end of practice, I told Stockton how great it was. He said, "What? That I landed on my back?" I said, "No, that you landed on your head. Why do you think everyone was cheering?" He said, "Because they felt bad for me"....or something like that. I can't remember exactly what he said, but it made me laugh. I'll have to ask him in the morning. Anyway, it was pretty awesome. Stockton's inward dives are getting pretty good as well. One girl hit the board with her leg as she was diving. Ouch.

I took Maysen back to the chiropractor today so we could look at her x-rays. Good news is she doesn't have the L-5 fused to her pelvis. (I just made up random words, I can never remember what the doctor says to me, but it was something like that.) Anyway, she doesn't have my problem, but her spine is curved. It's not too bad, just 10%. Might as well try to get it straightened up. Dr. Fries thinks she will need to be adjusted once a month for a little while. She has me coming every two weeks. My back is pretty sore right now. She warned me I would hurt more this time. Hopefully soon I can get to where my back doesn't always hurt. Now when I say my back hurts, this is nothing like Courtney. It's more of a constant annoying kind of pain, but I can still function. But if I can get the annoying pain to go away I think that would be very nice.

Bookshelves

In our basement, there is this long hallway that leads to the kids rooms. When we bought the house, there was a weird closet with sliding doors that had really small shelves. We didn't like it so we took the closet doors down. We hoped to make a bookshelf out of the space. Mike has been working on it for the last couple of days. I think it looks better than we even planned. Yes, Mike is amazing.

New bookshelves thanks to Mike

with the doors open

Yes, we have a lot of books. The sad thing is we have a ton more. I happen to love books and I love having them around. In Georgia we didn't have a good library nearby...now it is so nice to live close to many amazing libraries to choose from!

Sweet Sixteen

Looks like Mike has always been a Jimmer fan. The BYU game today was awesome! Headed to the Sweet Sixteen! I wish I could have watched this game with my brothers, I bet they are very happy right about now.

Stephanie, Bubs (Lincoln in a few years)

Dad, Mom (isn't she beautiful?), Brett

Matt, John, Mike (always loved The Jimmer!)

I remember when this picture was taken. It was at our church. I have a brush in my pocket. You can see it where my shirt bulges out. That annoyed me. Why did I stick it in my pocket? It's probably the only time I have ever had a brush in my pocket.

Taking Back the House

We are in the process of taking back the house from the boxes. Evil, evil boxes. We have successfully rescued two rooms: our bedroom and Mike's office. We didn't know Mike's office was going to be his office until we moved the boxes out. We were planning on expanding the kitchen and getting rid of this room, but that will have to wait for quite awhile. So, for now it is Mike's office and he really likes it. Maybe it is because it is so clean! Mike is on-call this week. He started today. I'm actually looking forward to it. Last time was so hard because we were living up at Mike's parent's house; but their Internet connection wasn't always reliable, so Mike spent most of his time here. That meant we didn't get to see him much all weekend. This time it will be a different story and I'm excited!

A family in our ward invited us to dinner. Preston asked where we were going, I told him, "We are going to the Crockett's house." Preston said, "The prophet's house?" Haha! No Preston, we are not going to the prophet's house. Preston kept saying, "I thought you said we were going to the prophet's house" in the car. I love that little boy!

Basketball

Another great day. I love spending the day with Maysen and Stockton. I'm not really looking forward to sending them back to school. Jorja had short day, so she was home early. She brought her frogs to show-and-tell, she was pretty excited about that. Will's mom called and asked if Jorja could come over and play. She brought her frogs. There are two boys on our street named Luke & William. They are both in her class and she plays with them a lot. Will lives two streets up. Jorja is loving having so many kids to play with.

I am so glad BYU won today. It was fun watching the game with Mike. Poor Maysen's bracket took a hit today when Belmont lost. She predicted them making it to the final game. Stockton has enjoyed the brackets. I have called him in to watch the end of a few games. We saw the end of West Virginia and Clemson (Pepper was crazy!) & Butler/Old Dominion. Stockton was quite annoyed with the clock. I wonder if I can get Stockton to watch the BYU/Gonzaga game with me. It might be kind of fun for him to see Stockton play. Preston was pretty funny and was telling everyone that he picked Morehead and no one else did. He also picked Richmond, so nice job Preston. (We won't mention that Duke is the only number 1 seed Preston predicted to win the first game.)

March Madness

I had my entire family fill out brackets for the first time. There were various methods employed. I went for the 'randomly pick whichever name strikes my fancy method'. Mike tried to do something with pi, I'm not sure what that was all about...I don't think he was either. I'm pretty sure he gave up his weird way and went with my method. Maysen flipped a coin - heads the top won, tails the bottom. Stockton, Jorja and Preston all rolled dice. Stockton had each team roll a dice and whichever was higher advanced. Jorja's was a little more complicated. If she rolled a 1-3 the top team would advance, a 4-6 the bottom team would. Then she would switch. Quite confusing, but her bracket got filled out.

I have BYU winning it all. Yes, I can dream. I also have them playing San Diego State in the championship. Wouldn't that be funny? Mike went with BYU winning against Duke. Maysen has Ohio State winning Belmont. Pretty good she got Ohio State in there. Stockton has Indiana winning Florida. Jorja has Memphis winning Purdue and Preston has Michigan winning Richmond. Those are our predictions. Awesome.

Little Lost Lamb

Maysen took forever getting home from Young Women's today. I was contemplating getting in the car and looking for her. Her leaders usually bring her home. At about 8:30, the doorbell rang. Maysen was there and had walked home. She thought I was picking her up, so she told her leaders she didn't need a ride. I am so glad she is safe and in bed as I type this. What a horrible mix-up!

Stockton had scouts today. They ran a quarter of a mile. Stockton had the fastest time, he was proud of that. Of the six records, Stockton got three of them. Let me see if I can remember. The run, the standing long jump and sit-ups. They get to do them again in a month to see if they improved. Stockton's pretty funny. He said to me, "The good thing about scouts is you can do whatever you want, you just have to pay 10 push-ups. I can leave my shirt untucked for 10 push-ups." I don't think I can do one push-up anymore. My wrists are so weak with my tendinitis. It's really quite annoying.

3.14159

Happy Pi Day! I made Stockton a chocolate pie. We ate it at exactly 1:59. Another thing I love about homeschooling.....

Stockton

This morning I woke up to Preston's screams. I raced downstairs to find out what was the matter. He was sitting on his bunk bead sobbing, "You wrecked my train and I worked so hard on it!" I calmed him down, got him water, snuggled with him and got him back to sleep. Today he refuses to believe any of this happened. I love getting a hint of what he dreams about.

Cold Tub

As we were getting ready for bed, Jorja said it was Stockton's day for a bath. I told Jorja Stockton had a bath this morning. Then I caught a look on Stockton's face that clearly indicated he did not have a bath this morning. I said, "Stockton, did you have a bath before church?" He said, "You never told me to." Then I asked him to go to the bathroom and see if the tub was full. It was. Oh boy. I can't remember if I asked him to get in the tub or not. Maysen says I did. Stockton disagrees. Pretty funny that the water waited for him all day. Glad I don't have little babies anymore.

Ouch!

Mike and I were moving our big screen TV downstairs. I tried to pick up the bottom of the TV to help Mike (against Mike's objections). Instead I dropped the TV on my fingers. Three of my fingers were slammed between the TV and the hard edge of the stairs. They are a little hurt and swollen now, but I'm sure they're not broken. Later in the day we took another storage run. I wasn't much help. Mike hurt his back moving the boxes. We are getting old. At least we have all the boxes out of the storage area. They are still in the van outside, but we're getting there. We still have a lot of stuff in the storage area, but the boxes are out.

I was disappointed in the BYU game today. How I wish Melissa's bridal shower had been today so I could have missed this game and watched the one last night instead! Hopefully they play better in the tournament then they did tonight.

Hamsters & Frogs

Maysen bought two hamsters today. She is really happy with them. She named them Luka and Creel. She couldn't believe I let her buy them, and I can't believe it either. Jorja is still in love with her two frogs she got yesterday. She has named them Hopper and Cricket. She took them over to Luke's house and had the best time.

Maysen with Luka (or Creel)

Jorja with Hopper & Cricket

We were very worried today about Brett & his family in Japan. I was relieved when I read that everyone on the Misawa base was accounted for, but I felt so much better when we received Brett's e-mail. I hope they are not too cold. Especially Mina and Marie. I am really looking forward to the recount on their blog. Both Brett and Rachel crack me up with their writing.

Maysen and Stockton got 'locked in' at the library today. They had pizza and got to be crazy. I haven't talked to them, but Mike said they had a good time. I went to my niece Melissa's wedding shower today. She looked so happy. I didn't get to see Jimmer dominate New Mexico, but Aimee and I watched the play by play on our cell phones. Very happy about that. At least this crazy day ended well.

More Frogs

Jorja got more frogs today. Oh boy. She got two 'barking tree frogs'. She is quite pleased with them. She has to feed them 12 crickets once a week. Gross! I'm glad she's taking care of them and not me! And...HAPPY BIRTHDAY LARKIN! We love you!

Dutch Websites are Cool

Mike sent me a link of a pretty cool website. http://producten.hema.nl/
It's a store in Holland. After you click the link, don't click anything...just wait and the magic will start.

Footprints

I dropped Maysen off at play practice this afternoon. I was planning on picking her up at 6:45, but I guess they finished early. About 6:30 our doorbell rang and Maysen had walked home. In crocks. We had plowed our driveway, but I hadn't shoveled our walks yet. The snow was pretty deep. Poor girl had freezing feet when she got inside. Sorry about that Maysen.

Chiropractor

I went to a Chiropractor today for the first time. Well, actually last week was the first time but she just took x-rays then. My back has hurt for as long as I can remember. I've thought about going to a chiropractor before, but never got around to it. When she (Dr. Fries - awesome name)was showing me the x-rays, she showed me how one of my vertebrae in the lumbar region is fused to the bone below. (I don't really remember medical terms.....so it was something like that.) Anyway, it is something I was born with. I wonder if Maysen is like this too. We both failed the scoliosis test in school. Maysen's doctor doesn't think she has scoliosis, but she sees something. I am going to take Maysen to get x-rays next week.

Stockton had diving today. It took forever to get home. First off, I couldn't get out of the parking lot. It snowed a ton while we were there. I don't have a scraper, so I used a newspaper to get the snow off the windows. When I finally was able to get out and on the road, a ton of snow covered my windshield. My windshield wipers refused to admit the fact that we are in Utah and quit working. I somehow made it to a side street where I was able to get the rest of the snow off. It took me forever to get home. Maybe the fact that I was going about 35 mph on the freeway had something to do with it. Poor Stockton was so exhausted.

Scrape

Walking to church: awesome. Dinner at Dad's: yummy. Games with Matt: dominated by me. Parking in the garage: scraped up car. Bummer. At least I wasn't the one driving. My least favorite thing about our house is the sideways garage. It wouldn't be so bad if we had a double garage door, but it is three single garage doors. Very tight squeeze. I think Mike was a little overconfident and thought he made it....not good timing. At least the car still words, just a bit scraped.

Semantics

Stockton's spelling bee was today! I am so proud of how hard he worked for this competition. I always tell Stockton that spelling bees are 50% hard work/talent and 50% luck. Stockton got out on 'semantics'. He spelled it with a C. Stockton hates the S/C, the double letters or the dropping of an E words. We had studied this word, but Stockton always spelled it with a C...I guess it was just stuck in his brain that way. We had pages and pages of lists, so we didn't get around to perfecting them all. Guaranteed Stockton will never spell it wrong again. He said, "All my branding words start with S....satellite, spasm and now semantics." I pointed out that his winning word started with S too....skillet.

We stayed and watched the rest of the bee. We kept track of where Stockton would have been and what words he would have had. They would have been: empanada, terrapin, repertoire, genealogy, and execration. Stockton was rooting for the boy that sat next to him. His name was Brandon and he made it to the final 12. In that round, only three spelled their words right. The words the final three got were: andante, carambola, and plasmalemma. Stockton did spell the winning word right. INFARCTION.

Anyway, this was a really good experience for Stockton. I loved studying with him. Hopefully he will be able to participate in this next year. I love you Stockton!

Stockton

Top three

We finally got the kid's beds put together! They are no longer sleeping on the floor. I bet they are loving that. The house is still full of boxes, but baby steps.....

The girls have beds!

Jorja's bed

Preston & Stephanie

Preston's bed is the top one...for now...

Whose idea was that? Oh yeah, Preston's.

This is our guest room. Mike had the brilliant idea of setting our crib up. Isn't it just calling out for Mallory - or Blake - or Mina? Plus, Ange will be able to have a safe place to put Abbs. I can't wait until you guys (my brothers....or anyone really) put this room to good use!

Tomorrow's Going to Hurt

My dad invited us to Max's birthday party today. It was at a place called Jungle Jim's. It was pretty fun. There were bumper cars, swings, a merry-go-round, arcade games and Preston's favorite, the rocket. Every time I lost site of Preston I would go to the rocket, I could always find him riding them. We spent about three and a half hours there, the kids had a great time. On the ride home, Preston said, "If that was my house, I would want to be a starter." I guess he thought the people operating the rides were pretty cool.

Jorja & Preston

Maysen, Jorja & Preston

Preston

Jorja

Maysen & Stockton (He's going to be sick)

Jorja, Lincoln & Max

LOVE Lincoln's face

Preston & Maysen

Max & Jorja

Preston & Jorja

Maysen

Max, Preston, Stockton, Jorja

Max

Max & Cathy

Lincoln Lips

Bubs, Lincoln, Stockton, Preston, Maysen

Lincoln

Max's party gave Stockton a much needed break from studying spelling. Tonight when he was going to bed he said, "Tomorrow's going to hurt." He explained how tomorrow he is going to get another branding iron word that he will never misspell again. So far he has satellite, spasm, and the less painful skillet.....

Bye-Bye Birdie

Maysen tried out for our stake musical. (They are doing a medley of different musicals.) She got a part in the Bye-Bye Birdie number, also a part in the flash mob. I think I'm a little more excited about it than she is. I think she will have a great time. Maysen just wants to work on stage crew. I hope she puts forth her best effort and really enjoys herself, it can be a great experience.

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Grandma turned 88 today! Wow! I love you Grandma!

Stockton started diving for 2 hours today. He was worn out. He did so good and is so fun to watch. When we get our life under control I'll have to video him again.

Sad day for BYU basketball. I'm sure my brothers are not thrilled.

Still Moving

Mike got a load of things from the storage area. He was able to move one of the sides of our entertainment center by himself. That thing is huge! We now have both ends in the basement, it is just missing our TV. We did find out that it will fit! That is exciting news. We were (I was) a little worried we (Mike) might not have moved the door far enough. That would have been depressing.

I took the kids out to IHOP today for free pancakes. Mike had welding class, so I needed to cook dinner. Perfect.