Thanksgiving Trip and a Snowball Fight!

(Just skip to the Movie if you don't have a lot of time.)

Our Thanksgiving holiday was awesome! We went to Utah to spend most of the holiday with my Parents. The kids couldn't wait to go to Gramma and Grampa Z's house. We got there Monday, then Tuesday we spent most of the day near Sandy, going to IKEA and other places while my sister-in-law watched the kids. They got to see her chickens and gather the eggs, and they also met their horse, which kinda freaked Gabe out. Then they met us at IKEA for a lunch of Swedish Meatballs, yum! We hurried home to try and beat the incoming blizzard --thanks to which I never got to go out with my friends-- and spent a fun evening making more luminaries and playing games with my mom and sister. Wednesday was spent doing more Christmas shopping, and Richard took care of the boys and played in the snow (which wasn't very deep considering all the hype about that weak-sauce blizzard). Thursday my two brothers and their families came to celebrate Thanksgiving. Ah, good food... We also spent a lot of our time in Utah utilizing my Dad's workshop and tools (and his expertise) to make some handmade gifts for Christmas which will be pictured in future posts. We definitely kept busy while we were there. The kids loved playing with their cousins too. Friday was spent mostly working on the projects, and then Saturday we packed up and went to Park city to meet up with Richard's family at his sister's new house there. And what a house! Of course I had to take a dip in the hot tub. It was so beautiful, overlooking the small valley and mountains behind with the steam curling up around us and fun with the kids daring each other to run across the yard in the knee-high snow and back. That night my sister-in-law arranged for babysitters to watch the kids while we adults got to go out to dinner. Sushi, YUM! The kids did great, in fact Ethan was asking for that babysitter the day after we got home. We watched some old home movies, ate some more pie (that chocolate caramel one was to die for!), put the kids down and stayed up a little while playing games. So much fun!
The next morning though was another story. With rumors of sick kids in the night, and deciding it would be best to leave sooner than later, we started packing up just in time to hear the news that the road at the Utah/Idaho border was closed due to the weather. The estimated time of reopening was about noon, so we decided to go for it. Traveling down the canyon was a little scary, but we were lucky enough to be driving right behind three enormous snow plows. We passed Ogden and got word that Richard's sister's family had stopped in Layton and were holing up at a hotel there. That's when we started re-thinking our plans, but Richard really didn't want to miss school and work, and his brother and sister-in-law were ahead of us (we thought) and still going just fine, so we just thought we'd stick it out. The drive from Tremonton to Snowville was super scary, with blowing-snow whiteouts, and portions of the road that were impossible to see. We stopped in Snowville (along with a million semis and other people waiting out the closure) thinking that it might be our last chance to turn around. It's a good thing we did too, since while we were waiting there we got the update that they wouldn't be opening the roads until 10 the next morning. We turned around and went back to Brigham City. Richard's brother and sister-in-law found a hotel, but we weren't real keen on having to pay an extra 70 bucks, so we hung out in their hotel room for a while, sending emails to cancel classes Richard had to teach and such, and trying our hardest to get ahold of some friends we knew who lived in Brigham city. It was actually the people we had shared a condo with in Jackson three summers ago. Luckily we got their number (which I had lost) through a mutual friend and they welcomed us with open ams! It was so good to see them, and they really gave us the royal treatment. It was fun to see Ethan and and Ashlyn playing together just like old times, and to meet their new kiddo and let them meet Gabe. We stayed up visiting and playing games way too late though, and it took us a while to get going in the morning. I hope it wasn't too hard on Ron who had to get up at 5 and go to work the next morning. It was so great though since here we were in a potentially bad situation, and rather than it be a total nightmare, it was more like a surprise extension of our wonderful vacation! We were seriously so blessed.
We packed up slowly, reluctant to get back in the car, noting that he road was still closed until around noon. We were very hopeful this time though since the weather was clear and beautiful and the roads were just a little wet. We had considered going the long way around through pocatello, but we got such a late start, we figured we'd get there just after it opened anyway. We got gas and some food for lunch so we wouldn't have to stop on our way and took off. Once again we were pretty much traveling in tandem with the other two Boise families. It was smooth sailing, and pretty much clear roads all the way, so we were surprised when at just after 12, we found ourselves in the line up at the still-closed border. We figured surely we wouldn't have to wait long. At about 12:25 a girl from a few cars up came and knocked on our window saying that she had just talked to a trucker up ahead who had heard over his radio that the road wouldn't be opening up til 2:00. Ugh! I called the Utah department of transportation and they had updated their message to say 1:00, which made us feel a little better, but not much. We let the kids out of their seats and ate lunch while we waited. I have to say I was actually glad both my kids are still in diapers as I watched other parents having to take their kids out behind bushes in the snow. Finally about 15 minutes after 1:00 we began hearing the big trucks starting their engines. We quickly changed the kids and strapped them in just in time for the whole procession to start moving at about 1:30. It wasn't ever really clear to us why the roads were closed for so long, since they didn't seem that bad, (at least nothing a snow plough couldn't easily handle) but we were just grateful to be on our way. We got home before dark and still had time for FHE! Everyone else got home safely, and such was the conclusion of the adventurous end to our wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. We truly have so much to be thankful for!
The kids and I all caught something from over the holidays, and the weather was bad enough to close school here two days after we got home, but we've still managed get over the after-holiday blues. We even felt well enough to have some fun making a snowman, playing out in the backyard, and putting up a tree and Christmas decorations (which is why our furniture is all moved around). Now we're just looking forward to the end of school and Christmas! Yay!

November 2010

New Hobby... for now anyway.

Like I said, I've been trying out a new hobby, making candles and such with beeswax. I made this beeswax luminary (the pictures are front and back) last night and I'm just so pleased with it I had to share. I love how it glows! I got the idea off a site that doesn't exist anymore, but got the how-to off this site and added the pressed leaves. I just used a tea candle inside, but may try other things like making my own beeswax tea candles or something (not that I'm that much of a purest or anything :)). Right now it's actually holding my pumpkin spice votive candle just because I like the smell and I'm running out of room for all these candles!

Visits, Halloween, Candle-making and such

So this post pretty much covers from before Richard went to Seattle up to yesterday. There wasn't much from before, just a few visits with family, and I was also really bad at taking pictures while Richard was gone. We had a fun time here with my mom who came to keep me company. We went to Settlers Park, Costa Vida, and Kohl's the first night, then the Zoo and Lucky Peak Lake the second day. We also took it easy having naps when the kids did, and doing crafts and watching movies at night after they had gone to bed. Sunday she flew back to Utah and my Boise in-laws took care of me with a yummy dinner. I hardly had time to miss Richard (although of course I did!). I picked him up the next day from the airport (the kids were getting to know that place pretty well, and I lost count of how many times we rode the escalators) and it was back to the grind for him as he played catch-up with his school work. We had a fun Halloween, although I decided to simplify quite a bit, we were lucky to even do pumpkins. Ethan had a halloween book from the library, and so he was really looking forward to carving a jack-o-lantern, otherwise I wouldn't have done it. By the way, don't ask what Richard's pumpkin is supposed to be. He was just carving random shapes and I think the plan was to cover the whole thing like that, but we ran out of time and motivation. As far as costumes go, I was really lost, so I just went the easy route and put Gabe in the old froggy suit, and Ethan got to wear the monkey suit he picked out at the DI. I gave up on trying to make him look more like a monkey when my wonderful plans didn't work out. It didn't matter since we missed Boo at the Zoo, and ended up just going to a Trunk-or-Treat at our Church building after dark and no one could see what he was anyway. We were only 20 minutes late and most people were out of candy too --which was just fine since we still had way more sugar than we needed. Ah, Halloween.

So I've been trying out some new hobbies, and one is candle-making. I got some pure beeswax for a really good price at a bee-farm near Rexburg and I've been trying different things with it. This was our first experiment, but it won't be our last. We just used some PVC pipe to make some pillar candles to begin with, and purposefully used wick that's meant for bigger candles so that we can get a nice drippy effect. We'll post more pictures later. We stayed up way too late trying to make a colorful candle with layers of different colors, but we got impatient and so it didn't turn out as well as we hoped. The cans were too hot to hold and pour, so we tried using straws to add a little bit at a time to each layer. Yeah, I bet you can imagine what happened --Yes I got a mouthful of wax, but luckily it didn't burn me and it came out pretty easily. It was still a very unpleasant experience. I don't think we'll try that again. I think the plain natural beeswax candle turned out nicely though. We'll be posting soon with some more of our different experiments. It's amazing what kind of ideas you can find online!

Other than that, life is going well. The kids are playing together a lot more (if not a little rougher) and I feel a little freer to get stuff done and since they like babysitters now Richard and I can actually go on dates! Yay! That is essential since I hardly see him any more. It's that time of the semester, and we'll both be glad when it's over. That is... if Richard survives it! Wish us luck!

Richard's Seattle Trip

Hiya,

I've been in Seattle for the last three days at my first professional conference: The Humanities And Technology Camp: Pacific Northwest (aka "THATCamp PNW." They say it's more of an "anti-conference" because it's free and it's participant organized, but still). It's been a great experience: I've got some great teaching ideas, I was able to share a lot about what I'm working on, I've been able to travel solo (which I hate, but which is good for me), and, as you'll see in the montage, I've been able to explore Seattle a bit.

Laura was sick right before I left, and I think I was fortunate (blessed) not to get any more nauseous/head-achy than I got. The very first image of me at the airport was when I was feeling Blaghh. Luckily, Laura's mom came and helped Laura with the kids. Thank you!

I was intrigued by the plant-life in Seattle. There were vines everywhere, growing on everything. In the video you'll see pictures of these strange, round, red, mildly pointy fruit. I have no idea what they are...I know the picture's not that good, but if anyone has any idea what they are, I'm dying to know. They were really squishy--there wasn't any seed and the insides were the same color as the inside of peach.

There were really cool bridges. Under one end of a certain bridge was the "Wall of Death," and under the side on the other end of the river were a couple of bums in sleeping bags.

At one point I show the street; you can't see it very well, but there are puddles because of the torrential downpour. It wouldn't be Seattle without getting a little drenched, right? It cleared up later though.

Those are cool boats, sea planes, and river apartments, huh?

I decided to do a lot of walking (almost four hours worth. My feet still hurt!) after my conference. I found some really cool art and buildings and stuff under the Space Needle (which I was planning to go to the top of, until I found out it was 18$--no thanks).

I had to wait until Monday morning to get a flight because we waited too long and that was the cheapest flight. It was nice to relax in the hotel room for a while though.

A few notes about the video--I used a default iMovie theme because it worked well with this trip, I didn't have that much time, and it looks nice. The song is "It's Up to You" by John Denver.

Anyway, I hope you get a sense of how much fun this trip was. Enjoy!

Fun in the Park and Conference Weekend

The last couple of weeks have been fun-filled. The kids and I have been keeping busy at home, and Richard's semester is going well so far. We went to Rexburg over conference weekend, and were able to attend our nephew's pinewood derby. He actually won first place, so we were super glad we got to be there for him! We celebrated Richard's birthday over the weekend by going to Big Jud's again, and I completely forgot a camera. The kids had so much fun with their cousins, and pretty much had Gramma and Grampa Sam tied around their little fingers the whole time we were there. Conference was great too, (what we could hear of it when the kids were awake). It was such a beautiful drive home, I couldn't help but take pictures of all the amazing clouds.

Sandy Point

We spent two different days this week at a place called Sandy Point Beach up near Lucky Peak Lake. It's also at the end of that bike path in our last montage. We had so much fun, and the weather was perfect! I'm a little sad we didn't discover this place earlier in the season when it was so hot. Oh well. For the second visit we invited some of Richard's family to come as well. What a blast!

Labor Day week

Here's just some things we've done in the past week and a half. We went to the zoo when it was open late for the summer hours to see if the animals acted differently. A few of the nocturnal animals were awake, but not many. We got to hear the lion roar though, and that was cool. Of course we forgot to take pictures, so we went to the rose garden in the park and took pictures there. The kids love their sandbox, as you can see, and practically live in it. For Labor day we took the kids in the bike trailer for a ride along the river to have a picnic in one of the parks below the dam. It was a fun family outing, and although Gabe was unhappy for some of the ride up there, I think the kids enjoyed it overall. It was a beautiful evening, and the perfect weather. Richard and I had fun taking pictures of each other while trying not to crash our bikes.

This weekend we met up with members of Richard's family and went to Art in the Park where all sorts of artisans come to sell their work, along with food vendors and musical entertainment. It was fun to look at all the amazing stuff. The kids of course were mostly bored (when they weren't trying to touch things they shouldn't), but they enjoyed the cotton candy at the end.

Summer's End

We've been having fun so far since school started. It's been mostly warm here in Boise (even reaching nearly-record highs), that is, until we planned a picnic at the park. It's a really cool park, and it even has a splash park portion that we were not able to take advantage of the day we went. We were freezing and about got blown away. It was still fun though, and we're happy to be back in Boise with so many of Richard's family members nearby. By the way, we just figured it out that Boise has the largest population of Samuelsons (immediate family that is) and so we think more people should come visit. :)

The kids and I have fun here at home, and we see Richard more often than we ever did in Jackson. As you'll see in the montage, most of our mornings are slow with the kids running around in their diapers. I' ve been hoping to potty train Ethan, and my kind sister-in-law gave us some 'big boy pants' but the closest he's come to wearing them is running around with them on his head. Boys...

Along with the crazy weather, they had some strong winds that knocked over a huge tree onto the roof of a house down our street. We went for a walk and took pictures. I'm not sure if anyone was living there or not. Luckily it hasn't really rained much.

We were able to enjoy some of the warm weather, though, by going to the park, as well as building monkey houses and playing in the water right here in our own back yard -slash- jungle (they haven't mowed in ages, and the tree has cool hangy-down vines all over). Richard and I also worked hard this Saturday to build an actual sandbox for the kids. They love how roomy it is, and I love the fact that it is across the yard and so when they cross the grass most of the sand gets brushed off, instead of migrating straight into my kitchen. The fabric on the lid (and on the bottom for that matter) was some heavy duty stuff I found at the D.I. for 3 bucks. Pretty hideous eh? And to think they were curtains! I'm sure you'll see more of this sandbox in the future. We made it so that will disassemble and move with us since we move so often. We'll just have to keep getting sand whenever we visit Rexburg. (We get it from the sand dunes. Is that legal? Don't answer that, we don't really want to know.)

Oh yeah, a funny thing Ethan did today -- We were in church and I realized how unruly Ethan's hair was, so I grabbed a little baby brush that happened to be in our sunday bag and began to brush his hair. He shied away and covered his head saying, "No mommy, I want to be a boy!"

The Boys' Weekend

While Laura was gone with my sisters to the "girls' weekend," Ethan, Gabriel, and I had a definite "boys' weekend." Here is a short video showing some of the things we did. A few notes:

The song of the montage is the actual song they were dancing to at the beginning--I tried to splice it in so it matched. Ethan's got quite the moves, huh?

I took the boys in the bike trailer to the river to throw rocks and have a little lunch; that's a grape I'm feeding Gabe.

I didn't get great videos of some things, like Gabe was dancing a lot more, the turtle was moving and playing with a ball, etc.

Gabe was traumatized by the goats. You can hear him start to cry when they got a little too close, and he didn't stop crying until we were halfway to the entrance. Ethan was actually able to get some food into the goats' mouths after this video.

I was pretty exhausted after the whole thing. Whew!

Richard

Last of Jackson

Here's the last montage from our summer in Jackson. We had some strange weather in those last few weeks (in the first storm, our hamburgers got stranded out on the grill), we took the kids for a picnic and roasted marshmallows, we also had my mom come for a visit. We ate at a little restaurant near the entrance to Teton Nat'l park, visited the visitor's center, and enjoyed some cool weather beneath the Tetons. It was beautiful. The next week was Richard's last week of work, and then we packed up and moved to Boise. We stopped by Craters of the Moon Nat'l park since it just happened to be Free National Parks Day on our way, and got to take a little hike out among the old lava flows. It was really cool. I wish we could have seen more of it, but we were on a tight schedule. Now we've been here for a week, and I wish I could say we had all our boxes unpacked and put away, but I'm afraid I can't. I took off for the last few days, leaving Richard with the kids, and spent the weekend with Richard's sisters and mother for a girl's weekend retreat. It was wonderful! It was the perfect end to a lovely summer.

Richard starts school again tomorrow, and we're off...

"Check" vs "Chuck"

I was preparing to put Ethan down for his nap when I told him I'd need to check his diaper to see if he was poopy. Here's about how it went:

Richard: "Ok, Ethan, I'm going to have to check you."

Ethan: "Chuck me in the river?"

I promise we've never threatened to throw him in the river! I don't promise that I've never been tempted to, if I had a river handy, but still.

Jackson Fun!

Our Summer is almost at an end here in Jackson. This post and the next are just a few last things we've done recently as we've tried to make the most of our stay here.

Utah Trip and Such

I've used some of the reward weed money that I've recently gotten (this is my best year yet in that regard) to get a new computer. Here's my test video using some of the new features. Actual montages to come.

Richard

June 2010 (Ethan's birthday, no reunion stuff)

I guess I should explain a few things, in this montage. Richard posted this while I was out of town, and I thought I would just let it speak for itself, but it needs details.

So we moved to Jackson, and coming from Boise it was a bit of a shock. It was green and blooming with 70 degree weather in Boise, and Jackson is about a month and a half behind. There were no leaves on the trees, there was frost on the car, and then it snowed a few times. The boys made the most of it, and made a snowman, but I have to admit I didn't really think I'd need snow clothes for the summer, and came unprepared. I guess I thought we'd be getting the best of both worlds this summer by retreating from the heat. HA! It's finally getting nice now and we'll be going back to Boise soon to experience the hottest time of the year. Oh well. In addition to the unusually cold and rainy weather, we were sick a lot in that first month here, and I have to admit it was miserable. Richard had a hard time of it since he was out in the cold having to chop and pull weeds by hand because it was too wet to spray the herbicides. That wasn't fun, but he had a few exciting run ins with some Moose, and that kept things interesting at least. Luckily by the time our family reunion came around we were healthy and the weather was great in Rexburg. Richard didn't include any pictures of that because one, there are too many to fit on this post, and two, he will be making a large montage for all the family and doesn't want to spoil any surprises. At least I think that's his reasoning.

I also have to explain the little critter you'll see on the montage. My sister does gardening up here in Jackson and one cold rainy day near where she was working she heard a little squeaking sound, and went over near a river to find a little baby mink. It was so tiny, it hadn't even opened its eyes yet, and it was all alone and cold and wet and crying. She looked around for its home and mother but didn't see anything. She decided to leave it alone in case the mother came back, but would return to check on it later. The whole day while she was working at that property the little animal stayed there, and by the end of the day, it was barely moving and the ants were starting to attack. She figured that a fox had raided its den and dropped this one, probably killing its mother. She took the baby mink to a vet, who thought it probably wouldn't last after getting so cold, but they fed it some warm broth and wrapped it up with a warm water bottle and sent her home. Suddenly she was a mink momma. She had to feed the thing warm kitten formula every four hours, even taking it to work with her. This was difficult, not to mention it's illegal to keep a wild animal like a mink, so eventually she found a wildlife rehabilitation center that would reintroduce it into the wild and gave it to them. I was so glad she came by to show the boys, they loved it. It was really cute. Hopefully it is now healthy and thriving in the wild.

The second half of the video is Ethan's birthday, which we got to share with Richard's parents and Grandmother. I stole the froggy cupcake idea from my sister-in-law. He had fun playing with his new toys, and doing the money jar which is a tradition in Richard's family. The next day, (which was his actual birthday) my sister came to visit and he got more candy and toys to play with, and then we had a pool party in the back yard that evening. It was a little too cold (that's Jackson for you) so we made it into a hot tub by connecting the hose to the hot water tap in the laundry room and filling it with warm water. The kids liked it as long as they stayed completely in the water. Sorry, no pictures. We forgot.

Well, enjoy the movie!

Jackson and E.R. visit

Ugh, we're so behind. I don't think I'm even going to add commentary on those last two montages, I'll just briefly recap here. We've had a crazy last month and a half. Richard finished up the semester with a bang, all while we were preparing to move to Jackson again for the summer. I'll tell you what, I don't know how we survived it really. Richard was pulling all nighters here and there, staying on campus until 7:30 in the morning, coming home for a shower and some food and then leaving again to teach classes or have conferences with students and such. It was a really hard time for us. Somehow, with the help of family and ward members, we pulled it off, and here we are living in Jackson again. It's a little cozier than we're used to, with only one bedroom for all four of us, but it could be worse. It's nice to have Richard home at a reasonable time every evening, and we have gone to the pool a few times already --which is one of our favorite parts about living here. It has been too cold and rainy and yes, snowy for us to do much exploring and hiking, but the one day it was nice enough to go for a little hike, I came back with three ticks! Ack! At least they were only on me, and not in me. The weather is bound to improve too, right?

This last week has been the hardest though. Monday night Ethan came down with some sort of stomach flu bug and threw up all over the place. By Wednesday I had it and had to call in reinforcements. Richard's parents came over and took the kids for a drive while I rested (bless them for putting themselves in harms way, and sacrificing their health for us, I feel so bad that Richard's mom got sick too). Ethan seemed to be doing better that morning, but by the time they got back, he was feeling ill again and Gabe had definitely come down with it too. Richard stayed home Thursday to take care of us all, and he kinda got it as well (he never did throw up the lucky duck) and so there we were all lying around on the floor and couches and stuff all day. It was miserable. By Friday, Richard felt well enough to go to work, and I was feeling well enough to take care of the boys. Ethan was bouncing off the walls, but Gabe took a turn for the worse. I got really worried and called around to all friends and family who had any nursing expertise because he was really beginning to scare me. I'm so grateful for their knowledge and advice. By the time Richard came home from work, we decided we needed to take him to the E.R. He refused to drink, and was just lying around barely moving because he was severely dehydrated. They had to put him on an IV and give him fluids that way. It was so traumatic because they couldn't find his little veins through his chubby arms because he was so dehydrated. They poked him in both arms and fished around to no avail. What torture! Finally they found a vein in his ankle that worked and had to tape his whole leg to a splint so he wouldn't bend his foot (it was painful when they had to take that tape off too). I sat and held him for two hours while the IV went in watching movies to pass the time. It was a dreadful experience getting the IV in, but he calmed down once I was able to hold him and after only about 20 min he perked up and started eating crackers and drinking on his own. I'm so grateful for modern medicine! He's still a little sick, and Ethan started throwing up again last night, so we're not quite out of the dark yet, but I see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I've been so blessed to get better so quickly so I can take care of my family.

Here's some pictures I took with my phone while at the hospital with Gabe--Isn't he so cute in the little "johnny" (gown) they gave him? It's so sad though how limp and lethargic he was. In the second picture he doesn't really look like himself, and maybe that's just a little glimpse of what he'll look like as an older child --just add freckles. Anyway, so far our time here in Jackson has been pretty eventful. We'll have to post another montage soon of our place. Somehow we didn't get any pictures of the move --probably because we didn't want to remember. Thanks so much to everyone that has helped us recently!

Gabe's First Birthday

Easter and Such

April Fools

Sorry, but we just had to post this. My sister who will be living in Jackson with us got a new, very nice little guest apartment to live in this summer. She was really excited about it, and when we went over to Jackson to see our new place over Spring Break she was out of town, but wanted us to drive by and see it. Well it happened to be April first, so we decided to play a little practical joke on her. We took a picture of the place and then Richard worked his magic changing the colors to look like it had been painted a horrendous color. We texted her, hinting at the fact that someone had been doing some painting and emailed her the picture. When she got it she called us up nearly beside herself. Richard had done too convincing a job I guess, and it turns out the landlord is a little eccentric and could possibly do something like that. Once we told her it was a fake, we all had a good laugh about it. After all, who could live in a pepto-bismol colored house? ; )

Sparkles

When Ethan was barely one year old we had a family reunion with Richard's family. One of Ethan's little cousins started calling him sparkles, and when asked why she said it was because his eyes are so sparkly. It kind of stuck, and here you can see why. However, I think that Gabe might give him a run for his money. We also thought we would compare them to our eyes just for fun.

I'm afraid the colors aren't completely true, since this was evening light, and our camera isn't as good about colors as I would like, so maybe we'll do it again sometime.

Yay! A New Post!

Okay, so we've gotten a little behind, and we've got a LOT more to do before we're caught up, but here's through the end of March at least. Sorry it's so short.

St. Patrick's was fun and we started out the day with green eggs and ham for Ethan, and a green "bowl full of mush" for Gabe (baby cereal really, but that's what Ethan calls it from the book Goodnight Moon). We had a glass paperweight in the windowsill that made this fantastic rainbow on our kitchen wall, so I put a Leprechaun (thanks Heather) with his gold there for Ethan to catch when he got up from his nap. We also decided to take family pictures that day, since our clothes were already coordinated. Enjoy the short montage. Hopefully another will come soon, but no promises.

Gabe Walks!

Here is Gabe taking some of his first full steps! In case you were wondering, he will officially be 11 months old on Friday, March 19th. After taking this video he was so excited and wound up it took me forever to get him to bed. The montage isn't the best quality, since I did the editing rather than Richard, but I didn't want to wait any longer. Also, we didn't mean to cut Richard out of the picture when we shot the video the first place, but there was nothing I could do about that. Oops.

Gabe's motto, "If at first you don't succeed, make it look like you were trying to fall on purpose."

Up to Date!

Here's the last montage to get you all up to date. We have been enjoying the warm weather here in Boise, although we did have some snow here yesterday morning -which you can see at the end of the video. I think we will be getting the best of both worlds since we are going to be moving back to Jackson in May. Oh yeah, did I mention that? Just for the Summer again, and it should be interesting. I think that this will be the 9th or 10th move in our 4 years of marriage. I lose count. And of course, we will be moving during finals weekend. Blegh! I actually like Jackson so much that I don't mind, and the money is the real reason for it. We wouldn't find any jobs like that here. Anyway, we won't worry about it just yet.

On to the video! It pretty much speaks for itself. If you have any questions, just ask me and I will explain.

February: visits and fun!

So, we're still not completely caught up on our montages, but this will take you through February, with some sparsely documented visits from family, and a bunch of Gabe's newest tricks.

First Richard's sister's family came for a short weekend with their 4 boys. Ethan loved playing with them and learning how to be a rough tough little boy, although in general when things get a little too crazy he's more prone to watch from the sidelines. Richard's parents came the weekend after Valentines day (by the way, the green tongue was from Gramma Sam's valentine which he very much enjoyed --Gabe loved it too and crawled all around with the little dip-it stick in his mouth getting my kitchen floor all slobbery). We had a wonderful time visiting with them. They even got to sit in on one of Richard's classes that he taught, and were very helpful participants. He loved it.

Other events of note: This Valentines day marked exactly 5 years since the day we met. We also celebrated our 4th anniversary on the 18th by going out to dinner (thanks Stephen and Shawna). Gabe turned 10 months old, and got his first tooth! (you can barely see it in one of the last stills of him on the montage). I got to attend a marriage seminar given by Richard's brother-in-law who works for the Church Family Services --which was fantastic. I've also been enjoying having little play-dates (if you can call them that) with my sister-in-law. I got called as the Activity Days leader in our ward, and Richard got a second calling (in addition to teaching Priesthood every Sunday) as the assistant ward clerk over membership. We've been keeping busy as you can see. Overall February was eventful, however I don't think I did it justice on the picture taking end of things. Oh well.

On to the kids.

Gabe's getting so much more independent. He's really getting a mind of his own now that he's more mobile. You can see his unique mode of transportation on the video --which I'll call scooting since he doesn't really crawl. It makes me laugh to watch him, and although he can really move fast, our little race with his cousin who does crawl didn't really work. Those two are so cute together though. They're only 10 days apart, in case you were wondering. As you can see, Gabe also wants to feed himself and lately he only wants to eat what we're eating. Where do we get these stubborn kids I wonder? He's made even more progress in his jumper, trying new things and incorporating different props, however I foresee that our Johnny Jump-up days are growing short. He has had no patience for it this past week, and I think he realizes the restricting nature of the thing. Rather, he would like to be cruising around the house getting into things and making messes.

Ethan is growing out of all his clothes, and is eating a ton. His verbal skills are getting much better, but he's still hard to understand sometimes. Favorite phrases of late: "Ethan funny huh," and "STOP Daby!" (the name he uses for gabe) "Oh yeah, of course," was one that, sadly, he has stopped saying as much. Another one we hear all the time is, "Ethan no want!" He still hasn't figured out personal pronouns, and usually refers to himself in the third person (probably because we that kind of thing all the time), or he'll beg us to "carry you," instead of carry me. I never really had to think about it before but it's a complicated concept to explain --especially to a two year old. It is also extremely hard to get a yes or no answer out of him because he repeats everything I say. It's actually quite frustrating -like today, when I made him a ham sandwich and didn't find out that he wanted peanut butter until I put it in front of him, simply because I asked, "Do you want a peanut butter sandwich or a ham sandwich?" and true to form he repeated the latter. Argh! Has anyone else had this problem with their kids? Hopefully it will all sort itself out.

Well, as usual, I have written way too much. Again, it's mostly just for preserving our family history, and everyone just skips to the montage anyway, right? Well, enjoy the video.

Side note* We decided to go with two pieces of music that are amazingly similar, but both really fun. The first is David Grisman, and the second is from the movie Chocolat.

January 2010

(By the way, this is one of the rare posts that are done by Richard)

Now that we're at the end of February I can finally do January's montage...ok, we're a little behind on our blogging. We are planning on catching up, though. We've not only had a lack of free time, but we've also had a lack of space on our computer. It's a tricky dilemma--we have an external hard drive to back up our files, but if I remove the stuff off the computer it's not really a back-up. It's the ONLY place we have it, which makes us a little nervous. But that's what we're going to have to do until we figure something else out. Next up--February's post!

School is going well, even though I'm in "attend-to-the-crisis-at-hand" mode most of the time. I feel bad for my students, who aren't going to get their papers back for quite a while. I really like my classes, my class-mates, my teachers, my students, ... and my family. Life is good I guess.

This reminds me of a great quote I heard this week: "Don't criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them you're a mile away and you have their shoes."

Laura is having fun with the boys at home. This week has been rough because we've all been sick, but we're slowly recovering.

We recently discovered Skype video conferencing. We found out that you don't even have to have a web camera to see someone else's video feed--so we're willing (and eager) to video conference with everybody, whether you have a camera or not.

A few things to watch for in this video:

We're still exploring the uses of the new blocks Ethan got for Christmas. We still make towers (the second one is Laura's--the top block is darker because Gabe was sucking on it), but we've been making floor plans as well. The smaller one with the red sock is actually a floor plan of our apartment! It's pretty accurate (the red sock is our Cuddlebag), so pause it if you want to know what our place is like.

That's an Eeyore that "Ethan monster" gets--hence the tail. That is his Halloween froggy suit that apparently wasn't scary enough. We have always wanted to do something with it, like add a tail so it's a dinosaur suit, but Laura came up with a low-cost solution--tape on scary teeth.

The music is Bob Marley's "Jammin." Notice how the piano part near the end lines up quite nicely with Gabe's piano playing.

This video comes with two music-less "Bonus Features" that are tacked on the end. I tried to keep Ethan's translations as clear as possible (I only left "wivvers" the way it was...classic). I did this in the Blogger video format because I heard that the Viddler was having problems. Feel free to comment on if you like the Viddler better (with it's full screen feature) or if you like the Blogger better. Enjoy.

"Montee"

This one deserves a post of it's own. The other day after playing most of the morning with his monkey, Ethan busied himself with my kitchen appliances while I made lunch (they were out of the closet where I usually keep them to make room for Gabe and his jumper which we hang in the closet doorway). I called him to come and eat and after lunch I put him down for a nap. As I was putting him down, he kept saying "Montee, scared," and thinking he was referring to a book we had read, or else wanted to sleep with his monkey (which I couldn't find), I dismissed it, and put him down. After I came out of his room, I looked around and discovered why his monkey was so scared. "Montee" was in the blender!

I hate to admit that I let my two year old play with the blender, but as you can see, it was just the top part so there was no way to turn it on. Also, Ethan understands that it is sharp at the bottom, and he is very careful. He is a careful child in general. For example, if it even looks like I'm going to open the oven, he runs away with his face covered, and he won't even touch a butter knife simply because he knows that knives are dangerous.

That reminds me of something funny:

The other day, when I took our dinner out of the oven, he warned me saying, "Sharp Mommy!" He meant to say hot, but I still consider myself warned.

December 2009

Our Holidays were a bit hectic what with moving right before Thanksgiving (see last post --which I have yet to write something about.) As soon as we got back from that, Richard had about two and a half grueling weeks of school with final projects and grading and such. We hardly saw each other. We did, however, get to do some gingerbread (a.k.a. graham cracker) houses with Richard's siblings here in Boise. As soon as school was over we made the long trip to Utah for Christmas. I say long because normally what should take 6 hrs, took us 9 --what with pit stops on the way for the babies. Richard and Ethan found a big frozen puddle to play in at our first stop while I fed Gabe. The roads were clear, but pretty foggy through northern Utah, and we saw an overturned apple truck on the I-84 exit overpass which had dumped it's contents onto the freeway below. We are very thankful to Richard's sister who let us stop at her house near Salt Lake and fed us dinner. It was good to see them. We got to my Parents' house safely, if late, and had a nice long holiday ahead of us. We spent most of our time visiting, making messes, and playing with the kids. Nights were spent making a block set for Ethan and Gabe out in my dad's garage out of some nice Walnut they had salvaged. It took us longer than it should have, and we kind of got carried away, but it was worth it. Now we have more than just Jenga blocks and dominoes to work with! We also realized that our grandkids would probably play with this set, so we tried to do a good job. Anyway, we had fun seeing my family, a few of my siblings came down, and Ethan absolutely loved having the other kids around, even if he didn't always get along with them. I also got to see my friends and go out to eat with them. I'm afraid that Richard got sick again after Christmas, and wasn't much fun when we went to see my Brother's new house in Heber, but I got to do a little sledding with Ethan, I just forgot the camera and Richard wasn't feeling well enough to bring it out to me. Actually, Ethan didn't do much sledding, he just had fun sliding down the hill on his bum. It was pretty steep and slick so it worked just fine for him. We put off coming home one day more because we got quite a bit of snow, which Ethan helped shovel, and drove home on New Year's Eve. The roads were clear, and though we got a slow start we were making good time. We stopped at Richard's sister's house again, and got to see Richard's parents too! We stopped in Jerome to feed the baby and let Ethan play at a McDonald's play place (buying a little food out of guilt, but generally disliking it). When we got in the car it had just started snowing, and what would have been a two hour trip took 4 hours. The roads were bad to say the least, and we counted 8 cars off the road, including a winnebago on it's side and another small suv upside down in the median. We also counted a set of tracks heading off the road and off the side of a hill which might have led down into the river. I hope it wasn't anything serious and I feel bad not checking it out, but we were just trying to stay on the road and survive ourselves. Is that selfish? Anyway, needless to say, we didn't do much celebrating that night. We got home late, put up Ethan's new toddler bed that we got from my brother and sister-in-law and then we all went to sleep. We got to celebrate the next day by hanging out at Richard's sister's house all day on the 1st, but that is for the next blog. Hope you all had a great holiday!

A few notes from Richard about the video:

• We had a really hard time coming up with the music. We didn't want anything too Christmas-y, and we had a hard time getting the volume balance just right. We're fairly pleased with the final product, but be prepared for some louds and softs. The first song is "Dance" from Gian-Carlo Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors. The second song is from the Barra MacNeil's Christmas album, and the final is "Gagliarda" from Mannheim Steamroller's Christmas in the Aire.