Sharing

Last Sunday we were all sick so we missed out on most of church. I still had to go, however, because I had agreed to be King Benjamin in a primary class. Well, lucky for King Benjamin that his appearance earned him a cupcake! A cupcake that someone could smell before I even opened the door back home.

"What's that in your hand dad?" asked Kallie.
"A cupcake!" I said.
"OOOOOoooooohhhh, I LOVE cupcakes!! Dad, you have to share your muffin!" (For some reason the words "cupcake" and "muffin" are interchangeable to our children).
"Don't take such a big bite that there is nothing left to share Dad," Kallie warned me.

Now to be fair to Kallie, she is my MOST sharing child. She would give anyone anything if she thought that they wanted it, even if it isn't her's to give (we're working on that). She is also my sugar monster. I've hidden some pretty clever things in this house over the years (including an entire king size bed frame that my wife didn't find!), but no one has EVER hidden candy in this house without Kallie finding it. I can hide an oreo cookie between the plates of a waffle iron on the highest shelf of the pantry at 2 am, and Kallie will ask me to get it down for her the next morning along with a glass of milk. If the world were to end, I somehow think we would always be able to find food with Kallie around. With that in mind, this morning's events should not have been a surprise.

Ben woke up a little earlier than usual and found me downstairs in the kitchen. He noticed that the cupcake was still sitting untouched on the counter from yesterday. After drooling over it for about 5 minutes he started asking me questions about it. Finally, I told him that he and Kallie could share it after their breakfast. No sooner had the words left my lips than from the far upstairs corner of the house I heard a bed spring pop and a small voice yelled, "WHAT?!?!?!?!? WHAT DID YOU JUST TELL BEN, DAD!!?!?!?!?!?!" I could not stop laughing long enough to answer her. "WHAT DID YOU TELL BEN ABOUT THE MUFFIN?!?!?!" and then the very anxious pitter patter of little feet brought my angel rushing down the hall and stairs. "What did you say, Dad? You have to share your muffin!" It was a little while before I could turn to her with a straight face and tell her the deal. Needless to say, it made her day.

Valentine's Day Weekend... Feel The Love!

Not only did Valentines day weekend end up being a three day weekend... it turned into a quasi-family reunion! And what does that mean little boys and girls? Anybody? That's right. LOTS of great stories. Where, oh where, to begin?

The first big surprise that came was that everyone who said they were coming actually came! No, really, that's a big thing. Realizing that we were suddenly going to be dealing with a lot of reunited cousins, half of whom haven't been able to play outside for 3 months and the other half who just spent 10 hours in a car, Katie put on her thinking cap and got clever. She decided to go for broke and took all the kids for a day-long pool party up in Lehi to "tire them out". I think the following picture was taken closing in on 11 pm that night. Keep thinking Honey! You'll get it eventually! Not brag, but I'd like to point out that someone I love very dearly seems to ALWAYS know when there's a camera on and ALWAYS has a smile for it...
Not to mention that it only took us two hours to get to the cabin that night. Why so long you ask? Well, lets just say that we usually don't stop at one grocery store, three fast food places, and a bowling alley on the way up before we try to put chains on the car in soft powder in the dark. And, no, we didn't get food at all the fast food places or go bowling or buy new pants to go bowling in; we're just attracted to bright, flashing lights apparently.

In order for you to understand why I bothered to put on chains on a cleared, but snow packed, road in the dark, I must first relate to you a story we neglected to post earlier: The first trip up the mountain in our new car. The short of it is that when we gave our Blazer some steroids and it exploded into a Suburban, it traded in the nice all terrains I'd bought for some worn down road treads. It also committed perjury before congress regarding some performance enhancing issues, but, oh well. Anyway the first time we took it up the mountain was in the midst of a series of storms, and the roads were not being well maintained due to the frequent amount of heavy snow. To my surprise, we actually made it about half way up before we lost traction and turned back to go buy some chains. We almost didn't make it back to buy chains..... First, coming down a particularly icy stretch of road we lost all traction going down hill and managed to end up sliding sideways in a full length Suburban down a road the width of two Camrys. It just happened to be a road with a junction at the end of it. How we managed to stop without rolling over the burm at the bottom is still a mystery. Then, starting down the final stretch we encountered some idiot flooring his truck up the mountain and fishtailing wildly.... which forced us into the soft shoulder off the side of the road. After plowing powder down the hill for about 500 feet with the side of my new car, I finally gave up and some nice man offered to help pop us back onto the road. Well, *pop* we did! We popped right out of that rut and starting shooting for the left embankment and a sudden drop into a ravine. Again, a mystery as to how we stopped there too. Katie was an emotional wreck for.... okay, she still can't recount this story without tearing up. That is why I have not even bothered trying to go up without putting chains on first. I need my wife to be sane.

So, going up the mountain last Friday night I pulled off the road into a small area that is USUALLY cleared for people to unload their trailers. When the car came to a rest I immediately felt it settle about 2 inches into the snow. YEP, it hadn't been cleared with the rest of the road. Needless to say it doesn't do any good to try to put chains on a car that's already stuck. Finally, someone came along and "popped" us out again (much less exciting this time). Somehow, we made it to the cabin, with everybody, with no injuries, and even got a little bit of sleep after the kids went to bed.

Apparently, we had forgotten to tell the kids that they had spent a lot of energy and stayed up really late the day before, because they were "up and at us" bright and early. Andrew was particularly crabby that we weren't up on his schedule... you would never know that the next picture was taken in the middle of a screaming fit. Guess who else knows when a camera is around... Katie figured that she had the right idea the day before, but just hadn't done enough to tire the kids out; so they went sledding.

While they went sledding, I decided to go on one of my dad's "little" cross-country ski runs through the Uintah back country. I have not been so exhausted in years. Not to mention that while sledding actually seemed to give the kids MORE energy, I returned with hardly ANY energy left to help Katie. The funny thing about the next picture is that my dad and I are actually skinnier with all our snow gear on than we were shirtless last summer (check it out here).

Katie was determined that these kids had to have a finite amount of energy. To prove it, she decided to organize a second cross country ski run and a snowmobile tour while I recovered.

Now, if I only could have known what was about to happen, I would have dragged myself on my belly to witness the second cross country ski run. Members of the party: Nini, Alysa, Katie, Brittney, and Matthew. Who had cross country skied before? Um, well, uh, Katie had been up and down the driveway once... it was disaster waiting to happen.

Things apparently went well, while they were on the roads. So, for about 5 minutes. As I understand it, the first little bump leading onto a driveway and it was all downhill from there (on relatively flat terrain too). While the first person to attempt the small obstacle lost all balance and wailed around, Nini decided that she didn't have to wait around for this and found a nice untouched parcel of snow to the side. She proceeded to bypass the rolling ball of legs and ski poles and promptly found a sink hole. Given the inexperience of the entire group it wasn't long before everybody had either gotten stuck on their own or by trying to help. At this point Katie and Alysa were snorting so hard with laughter we could actually hear it back at the cabin. In the end the group traveled about a round trip of half a mile in, um, well, 2.5 hours.

After that, we managed to convince Nini that it was actually a good idea to get on the back of the snowmobile I was driving and head off into the back country. I don't know what Katie told her, but given the smile she has here I don't think she knew what was really up...

So do you think the kids were tired yet? NOPE. The solution: more sledding. This was a little overkill for Ella, whose tongue managed to freeze to the outside of her cheek while flying down hill. (That's why you don't see dogs hang their heads out the window on the freeway in January.)

The next picture proves that snow angels really do exist.

Well, can anyone guess what time the kids went to bed that night? That's right, even LATER than the night before. Good thing they were so tired out! Luckily, Sunday was a little more relaxed, and before long we found it was time to leave winter wonderland and go to dinner at Aunt Jan's house. On the way we stopped a minute to make sure Uncle Bud got a bowl of ice cream.

At Jan's, Katie passed off the job of tiring the kids to Kesley, who took them down to the barn to see her horse. Luckily for Ben, there just so happened to also be a tractor there to sit on while he waited his turn.

Kallie now asks if she can have a pony. Sometimes, when I tell my children "no", I don't even feel a little bad about it...Not to be outdone by Kelsey's love for her horse, Robert was very affectionate with Cutter.

And who can stand to have so many people all together without wishing several of them a happy birthday? Well, actually I know lots of people who can, but nobody in this family.

While she does a good job of hiding it, there's no doubt that cousin Mel has her "special" side. Apparently, she learned how to ride the "short bus" from her big sister Sandy and she'll tell you all about it even if you don't want to listen.

Did anybody see a camera? Anybody?Ooh, ooh! And there's another one over there!

With her limited understanding, cousin Mel just didn't understand that not everybody takes whipped cream baths.

Although Nini and Kelsey were all for it.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if Katie wanted to take a whipped cream bath.

And then along came Monday with a sledge hammer... nobody wanted to go home. That changed when Ella decided to inspire everybody by showing them that food really does look different if you throw it up before you let it turn into diarrhea. She didn't mention which she preferred, but I understand that there is now a Tundra for sale cheap, in Rexburg, if anyone is interested.

The plan for everyone else was to go see the Draper Temple before Nini and company headed back to California. While we were waiting for them to finish some errands so we could go up to the temple, I started putting a couple of things together from statements people had made. Innocently, I asked Katie, "So, your mom has tickets to the open house, right?" While she pondered that one, I called the reservation hotline which informed me that the wait could easily be 5 hours long if you didn't have tickets. We were just confirming with Jan that nobody actually had any real tickets when the fun began.

Alysa called from Nini's phone wondering if we knew where Nini was. It was a little confusing. The girl who had dropped Nini off at a store was now calling from Nini's phone to find out from us where Nini was. Apparently, Nini hopped out of the car without her phone and was now running loose in Orem with no way to contact her. Luckily, despite the adrenaline rush, Katie had the presence of mind to suggest that Alysa simply hang out around the store where she had dropped Nini off. Unfortunately, Alysa had forgotten which office supply store she had dropped Nini off at, which meant a very frustrated Nini at an Office Max, and an extremely frustrated Alysa at an Office Depot. We still aren't clear how they found each other.

Since, going to the temple was no longer a viable option, we decided to go eat at Red Robin before saying goodbye. Let's see, we got there at 2:20 pm and didn't get out until 5 pm. Oh yeah, another good story! While we were waiting for appetizers, Nini slipped Katie some checks for her birthday and mine. Katie, who doesn't believe in checks, took them out and started ripping them into little shreds on the table right in front of Nini without even thinking about it. And she claims that I'm the absent minded one. So Nini decided to get us something Katie wasn't strong enough to rip up, and presented us with a Red Robin gift card.

In the meantime, the appetizers arrived the kids started plowing through a basket of mozzarella sticks. That became significant when it was suddenly realized that one of the kids was lactose intolerant (and if you know the diarrhea song, you know how suddenly these things can be realized). Well, to round it all out ice cream had been ordered for the kids before the onset of this "realization". Luckily, the child was still reading the interesting things written on the restroom walls when dessert arrived. Unfortunately, that didn't stop Nini from suddenly yelling in the middle of a crowded restaurant, "Get that ice cream away from that child's plate!" Ahhh, memories.

Anyway, when it came time to pay Nini handed the waiter her credit card, Alyssa handed the waiter a gift card, and, in beat, I handed the waiter the gift card Nini had given us which he put on top and promptly walked away with. Nobody was the wiser. If I had only had the camera out when he returned and asked why they had given him so many cards when the entire bill had been covered by the card I handed him. Silence truly is golden at moments. To round it out, Katie snatched Nini's credit card from the waiter so that she couldn't recharge the gift card. I have never seen my wife so proud of herself as when she beats Nini at her own game.

So after having discussed leaving late Sunday night, and after having plotted to take off EARLY Monday morning, and after having vowed to get out by noon on Monday, and after swearing to be gone by the afternoon, Nini and Alyssa and the kids finally said goodbye to us in south Provo at 5:30 pm. We then returned home to find that most of their own blankets and pillows as well as a backpack had been left behind. So we called them. Surely they were halfway down the freeway by now traveling at an incredible speed to get home, right? No, they were still in Provo shopping at the Quilted Bear. It was a true "What about Bob?" moment. You can just see Richard Dreyfuss swinging open the porch door and yelling, "Gone?! He's not gone! He's never gone!" and Bill Murray saying, "Is this some sort of radical new therapy?"

So Katie went down to return their things and decided to "browse" around a little. This inevitably involved a shopping cart (things never stay on the shelves when you're just "browsing" apparently). At some point, Alyssa asked Katie if she could help by taking some of the things she wanted off her hands while she continued to "browse". My otherwise usually intelligent wife said, "sure". Upon which Alyssa promptly vanished with all her things. While hunting for Alyssa, Katie came across Nini at the checkout counter and, still not catching on, sat and chatted with her about how Alyssa just dissappeared while Nini purchased all of her things. So much for beating her mother at her own game...

Anyway, it's never a dull moment when family comes into town. We had a blast and hope that all of our visitors did too.

Painting!

I know we haven't blogged in a while, but there hasn't been any big stuff (or funny) to blog about. Since it was Papa's birthday on Monday, the kids decided to make him something extra special, so they painted him pictures! It was so cute to see them working so hard to get it just perfect. Andrew is over in the crib because he was a little too excited about all this fun paint. If you look at picture #1 and picture #2 he is doing peek-a-boo, which is his all time favorite game at the moment. He plays peek-a-boo with anything and everything he can put up to his face. He laughs and laughs and thinks it is so funny (which it is) Kallie working on her masterpiece.

Benjamin painting his gift to Papa, a wooden truck. He picked it out all by himself :)

Andrew saying "Boo!"

Andrew and I zonked out on Sunday. Don't you love how completely out this little man is? He is so dang adorable!

Fun at Church

A couple of Sundays ago I had to go to church early to practice with the choir before the meeting started. Both Ben and Kallie decided it would be fun to go with me and promised that they would sit very quietly and not goof around or cause any trouble while I was practicing. Not only did Ben do that, he also critiqued the choir. While Kallie flirted with the always jovial Bro. Stokes, Ben would give me a big thumbs up while smiling and nodding his head every time I glanced down to check on them.

Later, after the meeting had started, Kallie leaned over to me and said something very softly. I said, "what?" She repeated her statement. "WHAT?" I said. A third time she calmly told me something very seriously. "KALLIE, speak up! I can hardly hear you!" I said, in a little-too-loud-for-church voice. "At church we talk very softly! That's what I said!" she shot back in a little-louder-than-I-was voice.

Sore Back in forecast

Yesterday was Sunday. I like Sundays...but I LOVE snowy, rainy, cold Sundays. Yesterday was one of those Sundays. We woke up to snow falling and white grass again, which I also love. After church and choir practice we headed up to Alpine for dinner with the family. We thought, "oh, it is just raining a little bit...maybe a little snow mixed in, but nothing our van can't handle"....so we took the van (front wheel drive...not 4 wheel drive). We had a great dinner with the family, visited, played, funny stories....and didn't really give the weather another thought. We discovered how busy the weather had been when my father-in-law had to leave to go to a meeting. A little dusting of snow turned into inches in just a few hours. So no big deal you're thinking right? WRONG! My in-laws have a very steep driveway. Without a four wheel drive car you really can't get out of it in the snow. Luckily for us they have a monster of a truck that can pull just about anything. So Chris and his dad hooked up our little mini van and pulled it out of the driveway like it was pulling a sled. We decided if it was this bad (snowing in those big beautiful flakes) we should probably get on the road and get home ASAP.

The drive home was slow, but relaxing and beautiful with all the snow falling down. I think Chris got a little too comfortable with the road conditions and took a turn a little too fast (15 mph) and we did a complete 360! The whole time I was grabbing onto my door handle yelling "BRAKE! BRAKE!" (I'm not sure if I was yelling that in my head or out loud...I should ask Chris) He didn't brake, which probably saved us from getting suck in the ditch or going off the side of the road into a little gully. He is so much more level headed then I am....thank goodness! We made it home with only a few more slips and slides.

When we got home, and after getting kids to bed, I started to shovel off our flat top (which is not an easy chore). Chris came and helped me finish if off, and then we started on clearing all that snow off our driveway and walkway beneath. I thought we were so smart getting a jump on the snow removal I would have to do today. I went to bed sore, but so glad I wouldn't have to shovel snow this morning with the kids. I woke up with a VERY sore back and my stomach sank when I looked out the window to see this.....

Half the Flat top...
The other half...

Our Neighborhood....

and under all that snow is our driveway....

So back outside, with Kallie and Ben as "helpers" so move more snow. I really can't complain....what better place to have to work then outside in this beautiful winter wonderland. If you want to see what I mean you are more than welcome to come on over....just bring a shovel and gloves!!!

Not Quite 8 Inches

So Katie has been asking for sometime when I'm going to cut my hair. I love having long wavy hair that I have to brush out of my eyes, she doesn't. I'm not sure why, it's not like she has to brush it out of my eyes. I told her I would cut it when I was done with an experiment at school, thinking I had just bought myself another 3-4 months. Well, by a strange twist of fate I was done much sooner than planned and admittedly had to cut my hair. It was long enough that I actually toyed growing it out long enough to donate it like Katie did (Rogain doesn't work on all men). But the other morning I just decided I would cut my hair myself. Now this is nothing new. I have cut my own hair many times before. However, I usually let Katie take care of the blending and the very back as I don't have a double set of mirrors. Well, this time I thought I'd just do it myself anyway. Needless to say that after about 15 minutes of messing around with that (or messing that up or whatever), the rest of the haircut took just 30 seconds. By the way, Ethan and Josh, this is a #3. Lets just say I'm not sure Auntie Katie would have left me alive had I been brave enough to do a #1 as you do. It sure "accents" my cheekbones, don't you think?