Political Views

Here's my question of the day (and has been quite often lately):  How the heck am I married to someone who has completely OPPOSITE opinions about government than I do?!

1-Travis & I cannot even discuss politics involving education.  It starts friendly, but it ends ugly!  I think part of the reason why is that I feel like he hasn't got a clue as to what he's talking about because he hasn't been in the trenches like I have.  Dude would TOTALLY destroy public education as we know it if he was in office (and not for the better).

2-Gay rights - again, can't even really discuss it.  I think part of it is that Travis tends to joke about certain topics & I don't find it funny.... at all really.  Maybe it has something to do with my brother coming out & the relationship I have with him.  I don't really know why I feel the way I do about gay rights.  Perhaps because I'm human?  I have empathy for others?  I don't care what people do in their own home?  I don't think the government should be able to tell people what to do in their personal life?

3-He listens to talk radio.  This gets him all sorts of riled up & his panties in a knot.  Do not want to have a conversation with him after he's been listening.

4-Apparently the guys Travis works with share many similar ideas so he thinks he's got some support for his ideas.  Dude!  They are all oil workers that work with you 14 hrs a day for 14 days at a time.  Of course they aren't going to argue against your point of view!  Duh.

5-The other day I finally told him, "Look.  If you don't like what we've got, do something about it and run for office.  Otherwise, quit your bitchin'."  His response?  "I'm not running for office!  I do my part...I vote."  Right...like one dude voting is going to change the ENTIRE way the government is run in this country.  I had to walk away.

Like I've told Travis on a regular basis: "Choose your battles.  It isn't always worth it."  I've had to learn to let his political views go in one ear and immediately out the other.  Otherwise it would be an ugly place to live during the entire YEAR before the election!

Thanksgiving

 This year Thanksgiving was a little different for us.  Usually we divide the day and spend the early afternoon at my parents' house and the evening at Travis' parents' house.  Generally when we get to Travis' parents' house there is still quite a houseful (since they all come up from Mayfield).  This year we did go to my parents' house, but we ended up staying quite a bit later than normal.  (My sister brought some fun games for us to play after we ate dinner.)  Ever heard of "What's yours like?"  Hilarious and so much fun.  I'd totally recommend it if you like to play games.

While we were waiting for dinner, I was in charge of watching the little girls.  These two are so much fun to put together.  Sunny army crawls and is super fast.  As you can see, Sunny sits up on her own too.  Brooke doesn't sit up on her own yet, but she has been getting up on her toes (almost all 4s) and army crawls.  Brooke isn't nearly as fast as Sunny though.

I love this one because you can see how interested they are in each other.  They kept trying to pull the other one's bows off her head!  Funny because they never touched their own bows!

This one turned out super cute too:

I've had my assumption that my family loves dessert confirmed.  We had 9 pies, a double batch of cupcakes, and 3 cakes to choose from.  Today my mom said, "I think if you cut me I'd bleed pie!"  That about sums it up I think!

I made these cupcakes last year and they were a hit.  My kids loved decorating (confession: so did I) and all the kids loved eating them.  So, I decided we should make them again this year.  I also made 4 dozen rolls and 6 pies.

I forced my family into a family photo so I might have a good one for a Christmas card.  Trav looks kinda goofy in all of them (but that's just Trav...right?)  Guess I'll have to see what I can come up with!

Is it just me, or did having Black Friday start at 10 pm on Thursday kinda ruin it?  I went with my sister in law in Walmart.  We were both hoping to get the 1600 piece lego set for $30.  When we got there we asked a guy at one of the first registers where they would be.  He told us down in the toy department.  We get all the way down to the toy department and can't find it.  So, we ask someone else.  This guy tells us it's in produce.  We trek all the way back to the other end of the store.  No luck.  Made me mad when I saw people with 3 or 4 of them.  My sister in law and I hit Shopko at midnight too.  INSANE.  What is it about Shopko?  We didn't really have anything we really wanted, but figured we'd go check it out.  WE got a few things and then jumped in line.  We had heard a lady saying that the one line went to a single register in jewelry.  I told my sister in law we for sure didn't want that line.  Yeah.  Guess which line we ended up in!  After forty minutes and only moving about 4 aisles, we moved to another line.  We were only in that line for an hour (total of 2 hrs in line).  After that we went home and went to bed - it was after 3 am.  Didn't want to hang out until Kmart opened at 5 am.  I didn't go back out on Friday during the day.  Well, I did run into Joann's to make sure my got the scissors I wanted for me.

Saturday we celebrated my nephew's fifth birthday.  Trav's brother came out with his kids (he wasn't there for Thanksgiving dinner).  These two little girls are only 3 days apart.  Grandpa Scott referred to them as his "little princesses".

Saturday we also worked on getting out our Christmas decorations.  I generally don't put Christmas decorations up until a week or two after Thanksgiving.  I'm a self admitted scrooge - try decorating (for any holiday) with 4 kids under foot grabbing everything & trying to put it up before you've cleared a spot for any of it!  Makes me nuts!  We didn't put the ornaments on our tree until tonight (Nash wasn't here when we were putting all the decorations out so we waiting for him.)
We have to use our fake tree this year.  Manti was sold out of tree permits.  This is only the 2nd time in 12 yrs of marriage we've busted this fake tree out.  I believe I bought it when we lived in our apartment in Logan because we were told we couldn't have a real one.  It's only 6.5 feet tall so it's not very big at all compared to what we're use to.

Brooke sat on daddy's lap & chewed on the brim of his hat while we decorated the Christmas tree tonight.

So, now we've got all our Christmas decorations out, Trav's home for a week and we have Festival of Tree's in Sandy on Friday to get ready for.  We also have another couple weeks of basketball games for Nash, a piano recital and a dance recital coming up.  I'm sure there will be more activities scheduled for the kids, it's just a matter of time.  I do know I'm suppose to venture to Manti on Dec. 17 & 18 for Christmas down there.  Unfortunately, Trav won't be home for that.

Oh!  And we've started a new Christmas tradition this year.  We're reading Christopher Pop in Kins!  Check it out if you haven't seen it.  It's adorable!

Big snowflakes are fallin' and I'm procrastinating

When I did my Usborne Book party I ended up deciding to sign up to sell the books. My reasons? 1-I get up to 75% discount on items (what librarian's granddaughter can refuse that deal? ;) ) 2-There is no specific amount to sell in any amount of time. This means I can go a year without selling and still be considered active. Despite the measly turnout of my party (thanks Amanda for showing up) I ended up getting $80 in free books, up to $50 half price, and 1 book at 60% off (could have chosen 3). I had to spend $16 for my show to hit the minimum mark, but I think $16 is doable. I also ended up spending $70 on the small starter kit. Despite the amount of money I spent (which is considerably less than I wanted to) I'm happy with what I got. My books came yesterday and my kit came today. The kids are as excited about it as I am. Nice to know I've passed that love along to my children! ANYWAY, the reason I'm talking about Usborne is because if you go to my website (see the link on the left) you can register to win $50 in free books. Apparently they do a drawing 1 x a month. It's a national drawing, but still. I also wanted to let anyone that's interested know that there is a Black Friday sale that will be taking place as well. I believe I was told certain items will be up to 60% off. Seriously though, no pressure. I'm not planning to do parties - I just wanted the killer discount!

On to other things....

Brooke is still working on those bottom two teeth. I think they're getting closer. She's got a yucky nose (although clear) today. It seems that every day she chews on those little fingers of hers a bit more. What's odd though is that she's sticking them in the back of her mouth like she's getting molars. Weird.

I gave her some peas last night. She was NOT thrilled about that. I have given her green beans once before and she didn't like those either. She does eat her squash pretty good though. Carrots seem to be rather strong so when I found an apple and carrot combo, I bought that in the hopes that she'll like it. She loves the fruits though (big surprise - all my kids do!).

Unfortunately, little sister has turned into a biter. I'm afraid her nursing days are numbered. She clams down, pulls away & then looks up at me and grins. I can't help but smile back at her, but man she's got a GRIP! As soon as a tooth comes through I'm fairly certain she'll be done! On the bright side, she can hold her own bottle these days.

Brooke's getting quite proficient in the walker as well. She's managing to make the thing move a bit. Fortunately for her she's mostly got wood floors to walk on so that helps her out a bit. Her favorite toy when she's in the walker seems to be a ring to a mason jar. Odd.

Nash is turning into quite the little reader these days. He's currently working on set 4 of the phonic readers from school. These books have 2 stories in them. It takes him about 20 minutes to get through one story, but he does fairly well. I'm a bit worried about a few things though and am considering talking to his teacher about having him tested for speech. Nothing that I think can't be corrected, but it does cause frustration for him and he's already saying he hates school. This kid is amazing with numbers - even if he has had to work hard at becoming a good reader. He loves, loves, loves math. He is forever asking me "Mom, what does __ + ___ + ___ ....... equal?" I think he's going to pick multiplication up in a hurry! The other day there was a conversation between him, me and Sam. It ended with, "Well, it's ok if you aren't the best at reading Nash. You can help me (Sam) with math and I can help you with reading." How awesome is that?

Nash is also still playing basketball. I picked up a basketball at Smith's Marketplace the other day & ended up having to get Caleb a small one as well. All three kids have been dribbling away out in the garage ever since. Nash seems to really enjoy playing and was happy his dad could take him to his game last Saturday. He's got a game tomorrow but has next week off since it's Thanksgiving. Not sure what he's going to do after basketball is over Dec. 21st. I have looked into signing him up for piano lessons in January because he's been dying to learn. Just depends on if Sam's piano teacher is going to take the semester off from teaching piano because of the two intense writing classes she's taking up at USU.

Samantha is getting better and better at her piano these days. She's getting ready for her Christmas recital (Dec. 21 @ 7 pm in Hyrum). I went into The Book Table the other day to pick up some flash cards for her (she's having a hard time remembering the names of the notes) and ended up picking up a book of Christmas music for her. She was so excited. I love that. She's also getting ready to perform at Festival of Trees with her dance group on Dec. 2nd. Her Christmas dance review is coming up as well (Dec. 21st @ 5 pm @ LaShars).

Caleb is giving me a run for my money (as usual). He's starting to use the toilet a little bit better. He will tell me he needs to poop and run in there quite regularly. Getting him to pee in there though, that's now what's become the challenge! I'm sure it will come soon, it's just completely random for now. He's loving preschool and gets quite sad when I tell him he doesn't have school on any particular day. He wants so much to be like his big brother and sister. Thank goodness Miss Shannon is as amazing as she is!

Caleb has recently decided that he's going to tell me, "Mom. You're not the boss of me!" He will then proceed to stick his tongue out and spit at me & then run in the other direction. Not. Awesome. At all. Still working at curbing this new found behavior. Hope to find a solution soon!

Work is going well for me. I'm really enjoying it. It's nice because I have a different schedule each day depending on which school I'm at. All the principals have been good to work with and so have all the teachers. I have about 110 students total between the four schools. The kids just finished their backwards books and were so excited about them. They turned out way cute. Sam is in my 3rd grade group at Canyon Elementary and I think she's pretty excited to show her dad her book now that it's all laminated and bound. They have now started on a research project. They'll have until Christmas break to get it done. I'm giving them the opportunity to decide how they want to present their "report". Should be interesting to see what we get! I'm going to plan a day for the kids to present in January after we come back from Christmas and invite their parents and regular ed classroom. There is a HUGE spread of research projects. I have kids researching Why do leaves change colors to famous people, to events. Sam chose to research Alcatraz. Why? She's been rather interested in the prison system lately seeing as how Uncle Brad use to work at the Gunnison prison. When the kids were picking topics she said she wanted to do the Gunnison prison. I told her she wasn't going to be able to find any books in her school library about that prison and if she wanted to do a prison, she was going to have to pick a famous one. The response I got was, "Well...what's a famous prison?" thus how we ended up with Alcatraz! She's been super into it though. I've found some stuff online for her and she reads it as fast as I can get it to her. I'm curious to see how she'll decide to present.

My fifth graders will be doing elementary debate in about March and I'm excited to see how that goes. I love to debate. I should have joined the debate team in high school. I'm really looking forward to that training (is that weird?). I've also got the Gifted and Talented convention coming up at the end of January in SLC. Actually, it's the same day as the Brad Paisley concert.

Travis is still slaving away in Pinedale. We aren't sure if he'll be home for Thanksgiving or not. At first it sounded like he'd get the day off, but now we aren't sure. It all comes down to the BLM and whether or not they'll let Halliburton guys in on the BLM land.

He's also still going to school. This semester he's only taking one class (had to keep in mind he was going to go hunting this semester and didn't want grades to suffer because of it). So, this semester he's taking a business law class. The entire class is contract law and he is hating it. He keeps telling me how boring it is. It all comes down to how it's worded. He has a hard time staying awake reading his chapters because he's so bored. I think he'll likely end up with a math class in addition to one other one next semester! At least he's doing it and getting good grades though!

Well, there's an update on all of us. Happy Thanksgiving!

Nicklecade

I happened to be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of this this morning.  It was so cute.  They were just chillin' out watching Kung Fu Panda: Lessons in Awesomeness.  Can you see B's leg is up on Nash's?  He is such a sweet heart with her.  Better than I could have ever imagined.  I think these two are going to be very best buddies for life.

Last night we went down to Ogden to visit Trav's sister's family.  We ended up venturing over to Nicklecade.  This place is amazing.  It's like Chuck-E-Cheese only better because there's no giant stupid mouse or over priced food!  It's got all the old school arcade games you could ever want to play.  The best part?  Games are only A NICKLE.  Some games cost 2 nickles, but still, how can you beat that?  It cost us $7.55 for our whole family to get in.  Then we got $10 in nickels.  We were there quite awhile.  The kids got lots and lots of tickets from all the games they played and then we had the pleasure of deciding what to spend the tickets on.  Thank goodness Caleb just wanted some candy & was easily pleased!  Sam made up her mind pretty quick too.  Nash on the other hand, that boy wanted one of everything!  I think we will be going back to this place again.  If you haven't been and you live close, give it a go!

Little sister sat in her carseat, in the stroller for nearly the entire time we were there.  I had to get a picture of her with her bottle like this.  It was cracking me up.  Check out girlfriend's eyes too - amazing, just like her big sister.  This little girl also turned six months old on Nov. 9th.  When I took her in to the dr. for her check up, we discovered she's still growing like a weed!  She now weighs 16.6 lbs, is 26 & 3/4 inches long (almost 2 inches in 2 months) and her head is 17 inches.  I'm surprised she doesn't weigh more though considering how much the girl likes to eat!

Caleb rode just about every ride there was in the whole place.  I think he maybe played one game.  He would have been perfectly content just riding on the rides all night long.

The other day I finished another project.  It was another carseat canopy.  The picture doesn't look like it, but the blue's on each side are actually a teal.  It's pretty wild, but I really like how it turned out.

A little more Halloween, a finished project, basketball & the 1st snow fall

I unloaded the pictures on my camera thinking I'd post about how Nash started basketball yesterday.  To my surprise, there were Halloween pictures on the camera I hadn't downloaded yet.  Oops!

This is out at Trav's parents' house.  Halloween was his mom's 50th birthday.  Halloween is always a big deal out there since it's grandma's birthday.  My sister in law's kids are in this picture - 1 headless horseman & 1 monkey!

I had to have a picture of Aunt Jamie & Brooke in this costume because I have a picture of Jamie & Sam in this costume that I absolutely love.

Me, Grandma Kris, Brooke & Olivia

Brooke is almost 6 months old, but I finally finished her crib quilt this week!  I've had it tied since before she was born.  I've even had the binding pinned on.  I just hadn't done anything with it because I usually hand stitch the binding down.  In an effort to clean up some of my sewing mess for my Usborne party, I caved & decided to machine stitch the binding down.  It turned out good though so I'm ok with it.

And....the reason for this post:  Nash started playing basketball on Saturday.  About a month or so ago Sam brought home a flyer from school announcing basketball through the high school.  She brought it home because she thought Nash might want to play.  Trav & I asked Nash if he wanted to sign up.  His response was, "I'm not good at it and I don't really know how to play."  Trav & I both said, "Well!  That's why you sign up!"  After that he was game to sign up.  So, this Saturday I took him to his first game.  There are six kids on his team (four boys, two girls).  There was a mix up and we thought his game was at the high school so we didn't show up until right when the game was starting.  They play like they did in T ball where the first thirty minutes is practice and the second thirty minutes is the game.  Nash did pretty good.  I decided we need to get a basketball for our house though so he can practice his dribble.  If we can convince him to step in and steal the ball from the other kids, we'll be doing good!

Nash said he had fun and his team won 10-6 (the coach's daughter is pretty dang good).  I think Nash only knows 1 kid on his team, Clay, because they were in the same Kindergarten class.  Hopefully he'll still be liking it at the end of six weeks!

Saturday morning when the kids woke up and saw all the snow they about went nuts.  They played out in the snow for quite awhile yesterday and then again today.  They were trying to build a big hill today so they could sled down it (dad said no sledding down the stairs - amazing how they listen to dad but not mom!).  Not sure if the snow will stick or if it's going to melt.  If it melts I've decided I better get my bum outside and take care of all the leaves!

Halloween week

Tuesday after Sam got out of dance class I took the kids to my Grandpa Maughan's house.  Grandpa took our dog, Chloe a few months back because she kept getting off her leash & getting picked up by the dog cops.  The kids were super excited to see her.  I was impressed she was still alive!  It is a farm after all!

The kids were cute in their Halloween costumes.  Caleb was pretty happy with how his pumpkin costume turned out.  He was sooooo excited about the hat before I got it made.  When it came down to it though, he didn't want much to do with it!  I think it was because it was too big.  I was happy I found Nash's costume for a whopping $9.  Brookelyn's ladybug costume was a Samantha hand-me-down.  Sam's costume was the one I made this spring for her to wear to literacy night at school.  I couldn't believe how warm it was on Halloween night!  I think it was the warmest Halloween I can remember in ages!  I took the kids to a few houses around our neighborhood & then we headed out to Grandpa Scott & Grandma Kris's house.  Caleb fell asleep on our way out & stayed that way for much longer than I had anticipated.  I took the other 3 kids out trick or treating around Grandpa & Grandma's neighborhood.  They ended up with quite the haul - as usual!

Samantha had another piano recital this pas Saturday.  She looks quite grumpy in this picture.  I'm not sure if she was grumpy because I was taking her picture to send to her dad or if it was because she had to quit playing with her brother at home to come play her recital pieces!  She did good though - grumpy or not.  I'm impressed that she's still practicing away & doesn't complain about it (much).  She's even taught Nash how to play 2 or 3 songs!

I started this quilt at the end of May.  I was making it for my cousin & his wife because they had their first baby.  My cousin's sister & his mom asked me to make it.  I undertook the project, as well as a carseat canopy and a reversible diaper bag.  I didn't think much of it at the time.  Well, five months later I finally finished the quilt!  I got the other 2 projects done in time for her baby shower in June.  This quilt kinda kicked my butt though.  Not because it was hard, but because there were a lot of steps.  Since it was made of flannel there is a fleece pad.  So, I had to cut out 56 squares of flannel x 2 & 56 squares of fleece.  Then I had to sew 2 pieces of flannel & a piece of fleece together by stitching a 1 inch seam all the way around the block.  Then I had to go back & sew an x through the middle of each square.  Then I could stitch the squares into rows & then the rows into the final quilt!  After that, I had to go back & snip all the seams to rag it!  Whew!  Don't think I'll make another one like this for less than $50 + the cost of fabric next time!  It did turn out super cute though.

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The other day I got to daycare to pick up Caleb & Brooke & this is how I found Caleb!  Poor kid must have been completely pooped to fall asleep here!  He was actually almost in the hallway & as you can tell, he was in the middle of all the toys!