Christmas is exhausting

Christmas preparations

Playing in the snow = cold hands and nose, a giant snow man, some good sledding crashes, and a lot of fun.


Christmas pictures= tears, yelling, and an angry mom.
"Mom did you know when you get angry and stomp and make that mad face Santa is watching and I don't think you are going to be getting any presents right now."
Thank you Addie

What Am I Doing Here?

Disclaimer: I am glad to have gainful employment. Really, I am. I promise. This post is not intended to express a desire to alter that state. OK maybe a fleeting desire but I also have fleeting desires to join the Air Force after watching "Top Gun" and Star Fleet after watching the new "Star Trek" so don't be too alarmed.

That said I did find myself wondering, as I was driving to work today through several inches of fluffy powder listening to loud music to keep me awake, what I was doing going north on I-15 and not east on Little Cottonwood Road. Yes, I know that sentence was long. My mind is thinking in run-on sentences right now. As in long runs that keep going and going and going...

I can not tell a lie

The hospital were I had Rachel had a rule that no children under 14 were allowed on the floor because of the flu season. This made Addie really really sad and when we pulled into the garage to come home she was waiting with the door open. I walked in excited to see her and told her that I had missed her. I thought she would ask about the baby but she looked at me and put her hand on my stomach and asked, "If you had the baby why is your stomach still so big?"

Baby pics

Heaven and paint problems

Two quick stories that have made me laugh and almost cry (I am really pregnant).
1st
I picked Addie up from primary yesterday and she had the grumpiest face. She usually loves her teacher and everything to do with Sunbeams so I was surprised. I guessed it was because she didn't want to come home. (Last week she had a similar grumpy face for Nick when he picked her up because she didn't want to come home.) I asked her why she was so grumpy and she told me, "I am mad because I do not want to go live in heaven. I love our house and this beautiful earth. I don't like heaven." I tried to talk to her a little but it wasn't really the place. We got home and she was still really mad. She came in and announced. "I am throwing my scriptures in the trash so that I won't get to go to heaven. Then I can just stay here."

2nd
Lizzie and I went to Home Depot today to get some more paint to finish the girls' room. It was just a little quart and Lizzie was insistent on carrying it. I must have not been thinking straight because I handed it to her and let her carry it out of the store. Who really thinks "yeah lets give the two year old who has incredible coordination and never drops anything a quart of paint." Anyway she of course dropped it and it went all over her, the store, and me. I grabbed the can to try to save some of the paint so my hands were also covered. After that I just stood there extremely embarrassed, not knowing what to do while Lizzie cried. Luckily Home Depot employees are very nice. After forty-five minutes, several outfits, a quart of paint, and a loss of dignity we walked out of the store with a new quart of paint... in a bag... that I held.

October is gone

October is gone which makes me very happy. It is usually my favorite month but I have to admit I have been counting the days this time. We did manage to have a very good month and did some fun stuff too,

Here is Lizzie in the only decent picture I got at the children's museum. Addie had a minor meltdown because of the helicopter that makes noises on the roof. She thought it was going to take off and it scared her to death. She is just a little sensitive.

We spent a fun Saturday (along with half the valley) at the zoo and saw all the baby animals that are there right now.

My sister came to town so we played with the cousins a lot and got lost in the corn maze until Lizzie fell asleep.

Lizzie's day

Lizzie is two. We have had parties with both families and she is quite the happy girl with all her presents. All day yesterday when you asked her if it was her birthday she said, "Yes it is izzie's birthday and I three." If you tried to convince her that she was just two she would get very mad.

This weekend we went out with Nick's family and Lizzie picked out her new cat that she now takes everywhere. (Sorry about the blurry pics they are all I had)

Yesterday we had my family over for cake and as you can tell she loves being the center of attention. Lizzie continues to be our little sunshine child and I can't believe she is already two.

September

Just a quick catch up. Addie started soccer with Nick as the coach. Nick has had fun and Addie likes the practices and kind of likes the games. (Except the other team she doesn't really like playing with them at all.)

School started which has been wonderful.

Nick spent sometime in Chicago
And some time with the girls.

Getting the Bug

Yesterday I watched snow fall in the parking lot at work, the high was like 42, I saw several occasions of "light flurries" in the forecast, and I listened to Pearl Jam's "Daughter" on my way to lunch. It is so on.

Marathon #1

Well, Top of Utah marathon is done. Wow. It was fun but it hurt. I learned some things. The first thing is don't run your first half too fast. I ran the first half in in 1:28 and finished in 3:30. Yep, the wheels came off, hard. I am still proud of my time but the second half was pain. The whole experience was great though. I can't compare it to other races because, well, I haven't done any other ones but I wasn't looking for any more organization. All in all a great time and it definitely wet my appetite for future better times. So, first marathon, check.

Parental Supervision

Parental supervision is a parenting technique that involves looking after, or monitoring a child's activities.

Young children are generally incapable of looking after themselves, and incompetent in making informed decisions for their own well-being. For this reason, they require supervision, or at least
some guidance or advice by their parents or another adult in loco parentis.

Oops

Rise and Shout (Long Post Warning)

Yes, I know this is late. Yes, I know most of you know the outcome of the game but I have to put my post up here regarding the awesomeness that was the man-trip to the BYU-OK game in Dallas. The itinerary was simple, fly into Houston, hang out at casa de Hudson-Texas until the following morning, drive to Dallas to play golf with the guys, attend the game hoping to not get blown out by OK too badly, crash that night in Dallas, drive back to Houston in the morning, and fly home that afternoon.

Two things changed. First, the big one, we did not get blown out by OK. That was an amazing game. There are a lot of people who get paid a lot of money to analyze football games so I won't add my amateur knowledge here but I will say that it was one of the most exciting games I have ever attended in my life. My voice is still recovering. The other change was that Sam and I decided that we would rather stay up late than wake up early so we left Dallas to go to Houston at 2:00 AM. It is kind of a 4 and a half hour drive. Nice. For that though I had Sunday morning to hang out with Isaac, Beckham, and Truman, oh and Taryn. Definitely worth the trip and, lets be honest, a middle of the night tour through Texas is kind of fun in itself.

On another note the man-tripness of the trip was past measurement. I had had a rough week leading up to the trip and it was all forgotten. It is amazing how you can forget the fact that you haven't seen people for years and just go back to having a good time. It is also amazing how many peopletell me that I have really good friends. I think they are right. Seriously it is funny to me that a couple of random meetings in the first week of college has led to such good friendships. I am a lucky guy. There was also that guy there that I met when he punched me in the nose when I was ten days old. That meeting didn't go as well but lead to a decent friendship too.

The other element of the trip that was great was seeing the Texas Hudsons. The boys are getting so dang big but so dang fun. As a tip, if you ever do stay with them DO NOT have light saber wars with Isaac and Beckham, you could lose fingers. The house was great, the kids were great and I guess the adults were OK too.

As a summary, I think we can all agree that this was a classic/memorable trip in every way possible from a great game to great friends and great family. Plus I jumped in a dry river bed and found 17 golf balls, not bad; so let's get a cheer... 1-2-3 MAN TRIP!


PS, Sorry for the lack of pictures. I was kind of too busy/distracted to take any. These are lifted from Reza's Facebook account. Additional pictures would have told you the following in a thousand words:

1) Cowboy Stadium is huge
2) Sam and Taryn's house is cool
3) Isaac, Beckham, and Truman are big and cute
4) I look good in all sorts of colors and situations
5) Golf was fun
6) We ate a lot of chicken wings
7) The road between Dallas and Houston is dark at 5:00 in the morning

mad mommy

"Mom this is a picture of you when you are mad at me right after I have been naughty. You look mean."

Traditions

Yes, this is another biking post, but watching the Tour of Utah has become one of our favorite August traditions. The girls do really well and I think they actually enjoy hanging out at the top of the Alpine Loop waiting for the racers. They both ring their bells and enjoy the free drinks from the race caravan that comes through.
This is Alex Howes getting full points for the mountain. He actually attacked the break in Little Cottonwood and took the stage.

Multi Adventure Post

So we have a lot of pictures and not enough motivation to blog for each set so here is a smattering (yes, a smattering) of pictures from our random adventures.

In August I took the girls up to Cascade Springs and they had a great time. It was a cool day and we had fun trying to find all the fish but I didn't get any good pictures except this one. Lizzie loves bridges and throwing anything off of them.



This summer has also been full of playing at the fountains by our house. It's a nice addition that we found recently.



We also took the girls to the Salt Lake Real game. We were a little afraid of the whole experience with the girls but they actually did pretty well. The credit goes to the Security Guy who ignored my bag full of candy at the entrance right next to the big sign that says "No Food or Drink Allowed in the Stadium." It would have been a long night without all of the "Ummies" you let us take in.

Coach

Nick was at a soccer meeting on Wednesday because he is going to coach Addie's team.
Addie turned to me and said,
"Mom, Dad is at a soccer meeting." then she looked really confused and asked,
"Mom how is Dad going to turn into my coach?"
I asked her, "What do you mean?"
"She said how will he turn into my coach and carry me and the princess."
I was really confused and asked her, "What?"
She said, "You know who is going to turn him into the coach so he can carry the princess and the mice are horses and the dog is a man how is he going to do that?"
It finally clicked and I realized her mind was on Cinderella a little more then soccer.
Addie kind of lives in a make-believe world, and I'm OK with that.

Because enough of our clothes don't smell like smoke

Because we haven't been outside enough lately we decided to go up to Sliver Lake for dinner with the Randall clan on Monday. I still love that place. I don't know how many times we went fishing up there when I was a kid but it is definitely one of those places that is stuck firmly in my memory. So I guess I am doing my part to pass that on now. I also have a couple of terrifying memories of driving the trail to get up to the lake but that is another story (thanks Grandpa Pickering.)

As for this trip, the most difficult thing was trying to keep Lizzie from wading so deep into the lake that she floated away like Andy Bernard in a sumo suit. It really was difficult with the little pill. Here is a picture to give you a feel for the typical. Now add a life jacket (to avoid the oncoming heart-attack that Nat's Mom was going to have while watching her) and put her in water up to her chest. Never mind that it is a high mountain lake with temperatures to match. In the end though there were no disasters, just skipping rocks, canoeing, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows (a staple in my diet lately), and hanging out by the fire. Not a bad Monday night.

Copper Mountain

This weekend we drove to Leadville Colorado to meet my sister and her family. Nick and Sean did the Copper Triangle bike race and the rest of the time we had fun camping at Turquoise Lake. The drive was a little long and the camping way too short.

We drove out to Copper Mountain to watch the boys finish their ride. Addie gets really excited to watch the race finishes and "steal" whatever free stuff the racers get.

We rode up the ski lift at Copper Mountain and here is one of the few times Lizzie sat still on the lift. She kept yelling, "Out Jump" it was an interesting ride up.

The rest are just pictures of us playing at the lake. The area back there is so pretty and the old mining towns are pretty cool too. Addie wanted us to make her a mermaid and she sat still for a really long time while all of the kids buried her.





All in all a great trip even if Addie did throw up the whole ride home. Hopefully we will repeat it soon.

Summertime

Blogging isn't always a family strong point but every once in a while we like to throw a couple of things up here to show that we are still alive. Here are some random pictures from the summer. Things have been crazy just like summer should be. 4th of July
Who doesn't want their uncle to throw them into a waterfall?
The one and only time I have ever seen my dog stay still.
Just kind of pretty
Camping, water, mud Lizzie is in heaven.