A Fabulous February

FEBRUARY.........

We love the month of February at our house. We celebrate 2 birthdays, Ground Hogs Day, Valentines Day, and the President's Day holiday-(yeah! no school). It is the shortest month of the year, but it seems to be one of the busiest for our family. Along with all the regular happenings this year...a trip to Florida was thrown in the mix as well.

Mark shares his birthday with Abraham Lincoln on the 12th. We had a birthday party for him where he was spoiled with lots of great presents. It is always tradition that we have pie for dessert...thank you Marie Callenders for always having a pie sale in February! Yes Dad...you can have a little of both!


Cupids arrow found it's way into everyone's heart at our house this year. Ken and Barbie were no exception! Don't they look like they are in love? Avery always makes sure that they are well taken care of...

Another family tradition is held on Valentines night. We have heart shaped pizza, with heart shaped ice cubes in our drinks, and of course mood lighting with candles. SO ROMANTIC! The kids get their Valentines cards and treats on their plates...it is something that we all look forward to.
The kids eat fast, take their candy and usually disappear to the basement to enjoy their goodies where they can't hear mom say "Don't eat too much chocolate...you'll get a tummy ache!"
Good times are had by all.

A Day at the beach.....or two.

On President's Day we had great plans to spend some time at the beach. We packed up the chairs, the books and were ready to enjoy the sun, sand and scenery. Unfortunately...the wind was not our friend that day. After a few minutes of trying to enjoy our surroundings, we were tired of being pelted with the sand and we ventured out to do some shopping instead. We did however take time to snap this photo..

Our second attempt at the beach came a few days later....Wednesday was official beach day. Mom and I had a great time walking along the water collecting sea shells. When we thought we could get a bigger shell without getting too wet, we would try and out smart the waves to get to them. Only got surprised a couple of times. We spend an enjoyable amount of time wading in the water and sitting on the sand digging for more shells. You know, you can never have enough sea shells. It was a wonderful day! I don't miss the snow at all!

Big Accomplishments

ARROW OF LIGHT

On Sunday, January 25th, Evan received the highest award that a Cub Scout can earn. He was honored in a special ceremony that night along with two of his friends, Porter McNeely and Colby Neville. We set up a display table with some of Evan's favorite things that describe him best and had a great time celebrating his BIG accomplishment. The night wouldn't have been complete without some face painting and a brag session!

Each one of the rays of light on the arrow represents aspects of the Cub Scouting program. As a story was read, Mark took a colored feather and painted each color that correlated with the Arrow's values on Evan's face.
By the time Mark was done, Evan looked like a real Indian Chief!

*Wisdom - Blue
*Courage - Black
*Self Control - Orange
*Justice - Green
*Faith - White
*Hope - Yellow
*Love - Red

Evan is a fine young man and he tries very hard to live each of these values...he's been a very good example to those that are in the Cub Scouting program with him!

SOLO AND ENSEMBLE FESTIVAL

Mason had his first opportunity to perform in the Jr. High Solo and Ensemble Festival. He played "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" on the french horn while I accompanied him.

He did fantastic! I say this not just because I am his mother, but because I think I know a little about music and I was very impressed. The judge was the Syracuse High Band teacher and he gave Mason some great compliments when he was finished. We couldn't record it during the actual performance, so when we got home, we made a video of it instead.

Later on this month, Mason will have another fun opportunity. The Syracuse Junior High Symphonic Band is 1 of 12 bands that was chosen to participate in the State wide Jr. High Band Festival. He will get to spend the day at the University of Utah listening to other bands and then he will have the chance to perform later on that night. Hopefully we will be able to record some of what he plays.

Tanner Takes a Two-year Trip

I, along with all of my brothers and sisters, had the opportunity of accompanying Tanner to the MTC on Wed. January 14th. We were able to spend some time with him the night before eating pizza, taking pictures, and playing Rockband. It was as close to heaven on earth as you can get!
Wednesday was such a special day being able to have this experience together as siblings. Lindsey, Trevor and I thought we would be the only ones that would be going. But as luck would have it, Liz was able to make arrangements for her kids, Laurie was able to come from Vegas, and Spencer drove all night from Grand Junction. It really was picture perfect!

Here are a few pictures from the evening of fun and then from the MTC. Thank goodness for cameras! They are so valuable when trying to capture the moments that you want to remember forever.
These were a few days that I will want to hold on to for a very long time. Good Luck Tanner! We miss you already!

Elder Linton


Pizza Party

The Missionary Training Center

Week in Review

When I asked my family what I should write about this week, they all told me that I should tell a story. Well, I'm not sure that I have just one story to tell about this week, I have many.
So instead, I have decided to tell you a little bit about each day. You know how the news channels will highlight their top stories in a weekend review, well, this is OUR Week in Review.

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

About every 4-5 weeks, there is a mass haircutting session in my bathroom. (Just the boys, I won't touch Avery's hair) You can see how thrilled Mason is to be participating in this activity. He used to complain about it until we figured out how much money we were saving by not going to the barber. Money speaks volumes! Mason, Evan and Mark are good sports about it, and with the money that we save, we can do more fun things!

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Now that the Christmas Break is over and the kids are back in school, the homework has started up again. It's our own fault for not taking care of some of the work during the break, but we were having way too much fun! After much thought and preparation, Evan was finally ready to do the fun part of his Science Fair project. The experiment! He wanted to see what kind of liquid would melt an icecube the fastest. His hypothesis was that the Sprite would be the winner - he was surprised when it was the water!

Tuesday, January 7th, 2009

I know that it is random for me to take a picture of my family room, but this was a traumatic night for me, and a first. After spending a little too much time helping Evan try and finish his book report, my patience was gone and I was BANNED to the basement by Mark. Kind of a time out for the mom, I guess. He was gracious enough to take over for a little bit so that I could have a break from the homework and Evan! I spent a few hours cleaning anything that needed it, and was quite pleased with myself when I was done. Cleaning has always been a bit theraputic for me. Mark teases me and says that I do my best cleaning work when I am mad!

Wednesday, January 7th, 2009

It is not unusual to find Avery in some sort of a dance or tumbling costume at our house. I came home from Community Council and was immediately requested to come and watch a special performance in the front room. Little did I know that I was going to be part of the performance. She is turning into quite the little entertainer.

Friday and Saturday, January 9th/10th, 2009

As part of my Christmas present, Mark arranged for us to have a weekend away in Salt Lake. We stayed at the Radisson ( Room 923 ) and went to the Hale Center Theater to see the play "Cash on Delivery". We also spent time riding Trax to the Gateway where we did some shopping and ate way too much!

It was a wonderful weekend and a much needed break from the kids.

Well that's it. It's good to have one busy week behind us and another one on the way. We are all looking forward to having Uncle Tanner arrive on Monday for a few days and then he is off to the MTC on Wednesday..... I'm sure I will have a lot to say after that day.