Sandwich

My kids are pretty independent. They wake themselves up, they get ready on their own, they make their own breakfast, they pack their own lunch. Jared has a lot of experience making his own food.  He can open and heat a can of something on the stove, he can cook chicken nuggets in the microwave, and he can make his own sandwiches.  Never one for peanut butter and jelly, this year he has gotten especially creative and skilled at making a good sandwich.  Here is the one he made himself for lunch today.  Two different kinds of ham, peperoni, cheese, lettuce and mustard.


Cinderella

The girls are busy with rehearsals for Cinderella. Kaitlin was particularly pleased because she got a one line solo in the show. Ruth is making a lot of friends and seems to be having fun.  The dates for their show are March 3, 6, 9, 12 and a matinee on the 10th. 


Kitchen

After a lot of research and taking 4 bids, we've chosen a local company to build our cabinets.  We took a tour of their workshop not far from our house and feel really good about spending our dollars right here in our own community.  It's been a process trying to figure out what we want but I think we are finally starting to zero in.  We will be finalizing the plans hopefully this week.

Days of 47 Float

Kaitlin illustrated my float idea for me.

Several months ago I was asked to serve on our Stakes (our area of churches) Days of '47 float committee. Here in Utah, Pioneer Day is a state holiday. We call it the Days of '47 because 1847 was the year the pioneers first settled Salt Lake Valley.   Every year there is a huge parade in Salt Lake commemorating the event.  The Days of '47 parade is second in size only to the Rose parade, west of the Mississippi. This year our Stake was asked to build a float to enter into the parade.  For the last month our committee has been brainstorming ideas, and I ended up submitting two ideas, complete with artistic renderings.  This week one of my ideas was accepted!   They asked me to run a blog and a facebook page so people in our area can be kept up to date on our progress.  You can read all about my float idea there. Since right now the idea is really only a concept, the next step for our committee is to draw up an actual 3D plan.



Straight A's? How Did that Happen?

We have hit the half way mark in the school year for the kids.  This week we looked at Kaitlin's grades for this past quarter.  She had gotten straight A's! Kaitlin was amazed. "How did I get an A- in Chemistry?" she exclaimed.   We looked it up and discovered that she had been given 30 points of extra credit and that had bumped her up from a B+.   The extra credit was marked "water passes".  Kaitlin thought for a moment and then it dawned on her; she had not used any of her 3 bathroom passes the entire quarter.  Each was worth 10 points extra credit.   So how did Kaitlin get straight A's this quarter?  Because she didn't go to the bathroom in Chemistry, that's how (of course, there is a lot more to it than that, lots of responsibility and hard work and all that, but the story is funny regardless).

And So It Begins

Ruth and Kaitlin were cast in the chorus of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Our local city's children's productions have always had an emphasis on involving as many children as possible with as little a time commitment as possible.  This production is quite different, they are a much better established group, with quality being their primary goal. That means a lot of competition for the rolls, and a lot of time commitment.  It will be a different experience for us, but not necessarily bad.  The first practice was Saturday and the girls came out of it feeling very excited.  The performance dates will be March 2-12. And there is a double cast, so we will only be in half of those shows.

Other News

Our furnace was fixed on Monday morning.  We were very grateful as things were getting pretty chilly around here.  

Today we went to our first day at our new church.  Chuck was put back in as High Priest Group Leader (leader of the old men class).  He has been pretty anxious about it this week as there is a lot of reorganizing to do and his group is much bigger than his old one.   I still haven't gotten any calling and am just basically waiting for them to put me back into cub scouts.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

Getting ready for church this am. Notice the pjs.

We got our first snow in weeks and on the same night our furnace started to die. Chuck worked on it on Saturday morning and by afternoon he called in a furnace repair man. Lucky for us we found a guy who could come out, but unlucky for us, he couldn't fix it.  For the last few Christmases we have spent my parent's christmas money on things for emergency preparedness, food storage, 72 hour kits, that sort of thing.  Last year we bought a large kerosene heater.  We thought that if we were ever caught in a snow/ice storm and lost power we have no fireplace, and no way to heat our house.  We are glad that we did, because all weekend we've been able to heat our house somewhat.  The furnace guy is coming Monday morning with a part so, crossing fingers, we won't have to replace the whole thing.


Church Changes

Today they changed all the boundaries for our church, and because of where we lived we were switched to a different church. That means that both Chuck and I will be getting new church assignments, Jared will be going to a new Cub Scout Den and Ruth and Kaitlin will have a new youth group.  While change always brings stress, overall we are pretty excited to meet new people and have new adventures.

In the bird area of the reptile house.

Christmas Break

Our Christmas break included a lot of sleeping in, playing with our new toys and family fun.  The weather has been very mild and there is no snow so on Wednesday the kids and I went to the free day at the zoo.  It was just cold enough that we bought some hot chocolate but not cold enough to wear a hat. We all enjoyed watching the ducks slip on the ice and looking at the unlit zoo lights trying to guess what they looked like illuminated.

We were so excited to see "Native Sage Brush".  You don't get to see that every day. Oh wait....

After seeing the sage brush, I joked that next we'd see an scrub oak display.  Sure enough!

This light display made us laugh.

New Years

Cousins and friends playing Just Dance Abba edition.

My  brother David hosted a New Years party to make up for the Christmas gathering that we all missed because of my mom's surgery.  All of the Utah family was there except for my parents, as my mom wasn't feeling very well that day.   The adults visited while the kids played wii games.