Region Science Fair

After winning the district science fair, Amber had the option & opportunity to participate in the region science fair. She was entered in the Environmental Science category for her project that tested the health of a local river.

She won 2nd place!!

Kids from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade from two of the local school districts got to participate. I think that for being one of the youngest participants she did awesome. I believe there were about 350 (maybe that was 450) students at the science fair. She did AWESOME!

Part of her prize was cash, but the other half of it was a $200 scholarship to the local University if she chooses to go there once she is out of high school!

Visit with Grandpa

Every few months, I go with my mom to visit Grandpa. This time, I took Zak out of school to go with me. We watched a lot of BYU during March Madness, and Zak kept Grandpa busy with games. Grandpa used to own a dairy farm with about 200 head of cattle. He and Grandma gave it up to go on a mission 23 years ago. But my uncle usually has some kind of livestock (sheep, pigs, a horse, or a cow) out back that he is raising for meat for his family, or to sell at auction. My boys love to go see the animals. They would make good farm kids. This cow was very interested in us, and when I would get out the camera to get a picture, he kept trying to eat it. We laughed, and then kept harassing him with it!

Field Trip!

I am so lucky that I get to go on field trips with my kids. I love going with them. It is so much fun to see them learn and experience new things while socializing and interacting with their peers. I am so amazed at the confidence that my kids have. They certainly didn't get that from me. In early March, I went to the Environmental Center with Les and the rest of the 3rd grade. When they go in the winter, they get to cross-country ski and snowshoe. Les loves going there, and since he gets more opportunities than most of the other kids, he has gotten very good at both. He wears me out every time we go. But he loves it. He is in his element up there. He simply can't get enough of the outdoors. He is a smart kid and has never struggled in school, but after he has been contained inside, sitting down, day after day, he gets stir crazy and can't focus. (For those of you who know Brian well, you'll understand) But when he can move, he goes as fast and as hard as he can for as long as we will allow him to. He never tires of being outside exercising.

When we arrived at the Environmental Center, Les beat the other kids up the hill by 5 minutes (it is about a 1/2 mile walk up-hill up a snow/ice covered road). Then we put on our snowshoes, and he led the other kids to the top of a mountain ridge. Of course, he got to the top first, blazing the trail through about 8 inches of fresh powder. Once at the top, he claims they spotted a bear across the other side of the valley. None of the adults saw it, so I can only imagine what those 3rd grade imaginations saw, but Les is usually the first to spot wildlife, so in some ways it wouldn't surprise me.

After lunch, we went out to ski. I think Les did about 6 laps on the big loop. Probably 1-1 1/2 miles. He is awesome on skis. I did one lap on the smallest loop available. I'm a chicken. But we had fun. I love these days.

We're Still Alive!

I started my blog so that my Mother-in-law could see what the kids were up to while she was across the country on her mission. She has been home for two years now, and every time I get behind, I decide that I'm going to stop blogging. Who really wants to read about the day-to-day of our life anyway? Well in the last week or two, I've had a few friends that are far away comment that they are missing my blog. So, for them, I'll keep posting. For now anyway. Ultimately, I would like to put it into a book, but for now, that hasn't happened. So, all the more reason to keep it up until I am able to do that.

Hardware Ranch

This year for President's Day, we changed our normal plans and instead, went up to Hardware Ranch with Brian's family. Gramps has been trying to take us for a few years. We were excited to go.

At Hardware Ranch, they feed the elk to keep them from migrating down into the valley. This is a picture of the elk from the visitors center up on the hill. I believe they said that there are over 300 elk there.
We got to take a sleigh ride out through the elk. This is the sleigh driver. He had a funny handlebar mustache. It made me giggle a little.
It was fun to see the animals up close. This one felt like there were too many other animals in her space.

It was a good time. Thanks Gramps for taking us. We enjoyed it!

District Science Fair Awards

After winning 3rd place in the school science fair in November, Amber had the opportunity to participate in the district science fair. Last week was the awards and....
Amber won 1st place in the category of Environmental Science!! We were super excited and very proud of her. Now she gets to continue on and participate in the region science fair!

Happy Birthday Les

Every year, Les struggles through Amber's birthday knowing that his is only 5 days after and yet he is getting nothing. As always though, it was worth the wait. He got exactly what he had been asking for....

Some cowboy boots from his grandparents,

New rollerblades that fit!

And a pocket knife. He was so excited. He went out immediately and cut a branch off of the tree so that he could start whittling.

Les has been asking for a pocket knife for about 3 years now, and I refused to get him one. But the last few months, he has shown a lot of maturity, and I gave in.

You win Buddy.

I hope you had a great day! Happy 9th!

Behind on Blogging

I don't remember the last time that I blogged Christmas. By the time it has come and gone, I am exhausted and by the time I care enough to post anything, Christmas is too far in the past to worry about.

So for now....onward and upward!

(P.S. We had a great Christmas)

Amber's Quilt

I met the designer of this quilt, Natalia Bonner (from Heber) at a conference that I went to with a friend in November. When I saw it, I knew that I had to make this for Amber.

It is done with a Moda Jelly Roll. If you aren't familiar with the Moda Bake Shop pre-cuts, they are essentially a pre-cut dimension of fabric that comes in a collection with one piece of every fabric in a particular line of Moda's fabric. In this case, the jelly roll was a 2 1/2 inch by 44 inch strip of every fabric. So for the smaller squares, I was able to get 2 squares out of every strip and for the larger rectangles, I only got one. So no piece of fabric is in the quilt more than twice. For the flowers, I cut and sewed the strips together, and then cut the circles. It was SO EASY. It is tempting to never cut quilt pieces again, although I know I will eventually.

Natalia has a tutorial for the applique flowers on her blog that made doing the flowers just as easy as the rest of the quilt. It is an applique that doesn't use fusible and you don't have to do any turning. I'll definitely use it again!

This quilt was both fun and easy to do, and I love the way that it turned out.

Amber's Birthday Surprise!

This year for Amber's 12th birthday, I decided to surprise her by redoing her room.

We bought bedding for her when we moved to our house 10 years ago, and otherwise we have never done anything else for her room. Her bed was a $10 yard sale find, and her dresser and desk were both hand-me-downs. Her room drives me insane, so when I saw a quilt that I wanted to make in November, I knew that I had to do it.

Here is the before picture of her bedroom. You can see why it drives me crazy.

What a MESS!

And here is the after!

I love the way that it turned out. And I have to brag that I am also very proud of the way that the quilt turned out.
I still am going to replace her old dresser when I find one that I like and can afford, but otherwise, it is done.

Now, we just have to "fight" over what things she gets to put back into her room and what gets to stay on the walls.

And here is here face as she walked into her new room and realized what was going on.

But even better, here is the look on her face 10 seconds later when she said, "Where's all my stuff!"

A Taste of Christmas

This is what we do for Christmas. It is a tradition that Brian's dad taught us the Christmas before he passed away. And he got it from his mother whose funeral we will be attending tomorrow. Mine still aren't as pretty as Ron's were, but they are just as tasty. This year we had the privilege of the Arizona cousins coming to help. Thanks guys.

Included in this year's candy making:

• Penuche
• Fondant fudge
• Orange flavored fondant dipped in dark chocolate
• Cherry cordials dipped in milk chocolate
• Cherry cordials (without the cherries...blech) also dipped in milk chocolate
• Vanilla fondant dipped in milk chocolate
• Chocolate truffles

Yummy!

Great Grandma

Last night, Brian's grandma passed away peacefully at the age of 93. She will be missed.
We love you Grandma.
18 Oct 1917-17 Dec 2010

A Long, LONG night.

When we got to Salt Lake on Friday night, Zak complained about his arm hurting. I knew that he had a spot (from a virus he has called molescum) under his arm that was a little red and swollen, but I had no idea how bad it was until now. So on the way home, we decided that it would be best to take him to the doctor to have it looked at. And since we were there and paying a co-pay, I asked if they would take care of the wart on his foot too.

Little did we know what we were in for. Apparently the doctor had another patient that she was communicating with Primary Childrens to make sure she did all the right things. We finally got in to see the doctor an hour after Zak's appointment time, and then Primary Childrens called and it was another hour before we saw her again. By the time she got to Zak it was 11:30. (Amber and Les were waiting in the waiting room too.) After she looked at his arm, she decided that it would be best to lance the spot and squeeze the infection out, and she said that the wart was so big that she was going to have to cut the top part that was dead off before she could freeze it.

Zak is such a brave kid. He laid on the table as if nothing was going on and let her do what she needed to do. She had to cut into the infection two different times, but he said it felt so much better to have all of that out, that it was OK. She was able to squeeze at least a dime size pocket of infection out, and said that there was a lot more, but it would involve too much cutting and that she would have to cauterize it if she did any more. So she bandaged it up and gave him an antibiotic and moved to his foot.

Again he laid there very brave and let her take care of his wart. He said it hurt a little bit, but not too bad.

Anyway, after leaving the doctor at 12:20, finding a pharmacy and waiting for his prescription to be filled, and driving the rest of the way home, we finally arrived home at 1:00 in the morning. It was a very long night.

Lights in Salt Lake

Friday night we decided to go to Salt Lake to see the lights on Temple Square. It was warmer than it has been, and so we thought we better do it before it was too cold or the roads were bad.

As always, it was beautiful. I always enjoy just taking our time to see the lights and enjoy the music and crowds (but we always try to go on a night that the crowds won't be too terrible!)

We love the luminaries that are around the Church Office Building. They are always fun to look at and see the different depictions of our Savior's birth. And then the fun of the night began after we left Temple Square (dun, dun, dun!)

Santa Run

This year for Thanksgiving weekend, we helped with the Santa Run 5K in Ogden. We were at one of the aid stations.But instead of water and Gatorade, they had cookies and milk. It was lots of fun to watch and to help with.
This is one of our friends that did the race. It was only his 2nd 5K. And even the Grinch did the race! Zak had fun giving out cookies to J.R. After the race, we stuck around for the Ogden Christmas parade.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving this year with my family. The kids all got an assignment from Mom of something that they had to help make for dinner.

Zak made chocolate pudding to fill the pie crust that Mom had left when she was done making the real pies. And Les had to whip cream to make marshmallow fruit salad.

And Amber helped with several things including making the rolls. It was a wonderful day and a great dinner!

Thanks for having us Mom & Dad.

Tooth #2

Yesterday, Zak had to go to the dentist to get his other tooth pulled. His permanent teeth were coming in way behind the baby ones and they weren't pushing them out. So now he has lost two teeth in two days.
Thank heaven he was very brave. He wasn't worried at all about what the dentist might do to him. He sat there and watched TV like nothing was going on.

And the tooth fairy brought two silver dollars for being brave and letting the dentist pull his tooth.

My Big Kid

Last night, after days and days of effort, Zak finally lost his 1st tooth. His permanent ones are coming in so far behind, that they weren't pushing out the baby ones. He is actually scheduled to have both bottom teeth pulled today. Now we just have to have one done!

Yesterday he said that he wasn't a big kid yet because he hadn't lost any teeth. Shortly after he pulled this one, He said "I'm finally a big kid!"

Big Springs & The Waterfall

Yellowstone closed for the winter on Sunday, so on Monday, my parents took us to a few places close to the cabin. The first place that we went to was called Big Spring. It is the spring that is the headwater for the Snake river.

Standing on the bridge, we saw a Muskrat.

The muskrats loved harassingthe ducks. The ducks were beautiful. If you look closely, you can see five fish in the water. The water was so clear that we could see everything in it all the way to the bottom. The spring comes out to the right of this playhouse sized cabin.
Then they took us to a waterfall on the snake river. It was simply breathtaking. Behind Brian you can see Amber and Mom right next to the fall. It gives some perspective to the size of the waterfall. Unfortunately as you can see from the photos, the weather was not real great. We really didn't dare spend too much time for fear our little 2 wheel drive cars wouldn't get us out of the areas we were in, but I'm still glad that we took the time to go see these places. Especially the waterfall.

After the falls, we went back to the cabin to play games by the fireplace and soak in the hot tub. thank heavens for places to get warm!