Valentine's Day 2013

Memorable moments from Valentine’s Day:

Ben’s awesome minion box (He won first place in the cartoon category.)

Pancakes with heart shaped jam

Breakfast in bed for Abby

Rowan (a boy in Elise’s class) giving Elise all of his candy because he isn’t eating sugar this month

Abby wearing her pretty pink dress to school for Valentine’s Day and having blue teeth all night long from eating candy

Cute heart hair

Making sugar cookies

Ben wearing Maxwell Bowen’s mullet wig for the 80’s themed 6^th grade dance (the day after Valentine’s Day)

Not pictured, but also memorable:

Elise coming home early from school with a tummy ache

Valentine gifts: ski goggles and a slinky for Ben; ski goggles, lotion, and candy scented nail polish for the girls

Emily making cookies and a candy tin at Activity Days

Take-out Chinese food from Zhang’s

Winter Weather

We've had a long winter!  It has been super cold and hazy and we've gotten loads of snow.  Our biggest one day total was on January 29th with 20 inches of the white stuff falling in one day. 

The kids have had lots of chances to play in the snow.  Abby is usually more excited about going out than the other kids and she has spent lots of hours outside all by herself.  Luckily, she is self-entertaining and doesn’t get bored even if no one else wants to play.  Every time I go out to check on her, she’ll tell me “I’m having snow much fun!”  She thinks she is hilarious with that little play on words. 

 

The other kids have gotten in their fair share of play time too.  We had enough snow to make our own little backyard sledding hill.  The kids and their friends had a great time playing on it.  I even got in on the action for a few minutes.

Nate told the kids that he would build them a snow cave.  His first attempt didn’t go so well.  He had it all hollowed out and was just getting out when the whole thing collapsed on his head.  Never one to give up easily, he made another big pile of snow and tried again a couple of weeks later.  The resulting cave was much sturdier and big enough for the whole family.  Phew.  Emily made her own little snow cave.  It was really more of a tunnel that was just long enough for her to back into, but she was excited about it.

Two other funny Nate stories: Nate shaved off his winter beard in stages.  He went from full beard, to goatee with sideburns, to just a goatee, to a moustache with a soul patch, and finally got down to just a moustache.  I was not a fan and tried to get him to shave it off.  Instead, he went out to shovel sporting his Magnum P.I. look.  I cracked up laughing every time I looked at him.

Second story: We drove up to Bear Lake last weekend for Katie Hadley’s (Ballingham’s) funeral.  There was a winter storm warning and we were a little worried about making it through both canyons.  Nate was apparently more worried than I was.  When we got home, he started unloading the van.  Before we set out he had packed a bunch of supplies in case we got caught in a blizzard.  He had a snow shovel, winter coats, snow boots, gloves, a quilt, extra water, and some food (4 cans of ravioli, 2 bags of chex mix, and a bag of peanut m&ms).  “You always hear about people getting stranded in their cars in snowstorms.  I didn’t want us to be unprepared.”  Once a boy scout, always a boy scout.

Artist in Residence

Last night was the kids’ Artist in Residence Art Show.  Over the last couple of months, they have been working with a local artist (Stacy Harris) to create grade level murals.  She chose a photo for each grade and cut it into little squares.  Each student got to paint one square of the picture on the canvas.  The 6^th grade recreated Mr. Barker’s barn, 4^th grade did Kirt’s Drive-In, and 2^nd grade painted a moose.  Kindergarten didn’t copy a picture; they just got to use a bunch of different materials to decorate one square on their class collage. 

For the other part of the experience, she taught each grade (except Kindergarten) about a master painter and had the students replicate one of their paintings (6^th grade Picasso’s Woman with Yellow Hair; 4^th grade Senecio by Paul Klee; 2^nd grade Monet’s Water Lilies Red).  The teachers picked four paintings from each class to be displayed at the art show and both Emily’s and Elise’s paintings were chosen.  

The Big 4-0

Nate turned 40 on Friday.  Mother Nature gave him a nasty cold for his birthday.  That wasn’t his favorite.  We had a really low-key birthday celebration.  Nate insists that he likes it that way.  We had Subway sandwiches for lunch (Nate let Abby pick since she didn’t have school on Friday).  The rest of the kids got out of school at 1:05.  We had just enough time for Nate to open his presents and blow out his candles before we had to head back to the school for parent teacher conferences.  He got a blu-ray player, a Nerf gun (so he can have Nerf battles with Ben…Ben insisted on this present), Hive, a scan tool for the van, pistachios, pineapple juice, and a homemade book from Abby.  I didn’t want to light 40 candles, so I figured we would just use some number candles.  We had a 4 candle but not a 0 candle, so I had to be creative.  I put 73 on his cake for the year he was born.  The kids thought it was pretty funny that it looked like he was 73 years old. 

Parent teacher conferences were great.  Some days I wish our girls were as angelic at home as they apparently are at school, but I guess I should just be happy that they are good somewhere.

 

As soon as we got home, I headed off to Time Out for Women.  I felt a little guilty about leaving on Nate’s birthday (even though he was the one who originally suggested it to my sisters), but I had a great time.  The speakers were amazing!  It was just what I needed.  I didn’t want to drive to Layton twice, so I stayed at Jody’s house on Friday night.  That’s why all of our birthday celebrating had to be done so early.  Nate and the kids had Papa Murphy’s pizza for dinner, played Hive, and watched Apollo 13.  Ben made up for his slacker mother by making Nate breakfast in bed on Saturday.  He made cheesy scrambled eggs with bacon* and salsa, and toast with the number 4 and a balloon painted on in jam.  I love that sweet kid.

I thought about making a list of 40 things I love about Nate, and then remembered that I already made a list of 36 things a few years ago.  They are all still true (I checked), so I decided to just add 4 more things to the list . . . some with photographic evidence.  Here goes:

37.  He teaches our kids how to ski.

38.  He has learned how to listen to the sound the boat makes when it is almost full of gas so he knows when to stop and we never waste gas by having it spill out when he is filling up.

39.  He keeps playing Words With Friends with me even when I beat him 9 times out of 10.  (He holds his own in Scrabble; I can just work the board better in WWF.)

40.  He has depression era philosophies about wastefulness . . . and makes really cool blanket forts.

I sure lucked out to score such a quality guy.  He is better than I deserve, but luckily he still hasn’t figured that out.

* Really it was shredded fajita chicken we had in the freezer.  Ben didn't know the difference and Nate didn't want to hurt his feelings so he didn’t say anything.

Winter Camp

Ben went on his first winter boy scout camp this weekend.  Nate was a good dad and went with him. They spent the night at Crystal Springs.  I was worried that they were going to freeze, but they both said it wasn’t too bad.  The highlights for Ben were going down the waterslide at the hot springs, roasting pizza over the fire, playing truth or dare in the tent, and having a snowball fight in the morning.

I had a bunch of Box Tops to count, so that was how the girls and I spent most of our time while the boys were gone.  On Friday night we watched random TV shows, including Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie (which the girls loved), and played Yahtzee.  Emily rolled two Yahtzees and won with 354 points.  Saturday, we had an Anne of Green Gables marathon while we finished counting Box Tops.  We’ve watched the movies once before, but the girls really loved them this time.  That makes me happy.  Sunday morning I was putting on make-up and Abby came in and started pinching her cheeks to make them pink.  She learned that trick from Emily who learned it from Anne.

12 Year Old Ben

Ben turned 12 years old on Saturday.  He had “the best birthday ever!”  The fun started on Friday night.  The girls watched movies in our bedroom while Nate and I watched The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers with Ben.  He loved the movie and we loved having some one-on-one time with him.  We kept up our birthday balloon tradition, but Ben was still awake at 11:30 when we snuck in his room to hang the balloons so they weren’t really a surprise in the morning.  Oh well.  It’s the thought that counts.  Since his birthday fell on Saturday, he got to open his presents first thing in the morning.  He got everything on his list.  We gave him a new Nerf gun, Nerf darts, a bathrobe, the LOTR Attack on Weathertop Lego set, LOTR piano music, and the Lego LOTR Wii game.  He got a new scooter from Grandpa and Grandma Nelson and the Shelob Attacks Lego set and a framed “Put on the Armor of God” picture from Grandma Reatha.  He couldn’t have been happier with his gifts.  He spent most of the day building Legos and playing his new game on the Wii.  We headed out for linner at Arby’s and then went to Toad’s for some laser tag.  Toad’s was super crowded, but we got in a couple of games of laser tag and some arcade time before heading home.  We finished the night with white chocolate macadamia nut FH’zookies with eggnog ice cream (a repeat of Ben’s birthday treat from last year) and the kids watched Despicable Me and had a slumber party in the movie room.  Ben was a little disappointed that we hadn’t worked any friend time into the schedule, but he got over it.  Sometimes I forget that it is normal for kids to think that spending time with friends is lots better than spending time with family.

Ben was ordained a deacon after church on Sunday.  He invited Nate’s parents and my mom and brother and sisters to come to his ordination.  There were six people in the circle . . . Nate, Bishop Briggs, Bishop Foulger (Ben’s scout leader/inspiration), Grandpa Nelson, Uncle Karl, and Uncle Shane.  We were going to have everyone over for dinner after, but with sickness and other commitments it didn’t work out.  We settled for a nice, low effort evening with our little family.  It was a big day for Ben.  He’s super excited to get to pass the sacrament on Sunday and to go do baptisms for the dead next week.  I’m looking forward to seeing him learn and grow as he takes on more responsibility.  I’m glad that he has Nate as a role model. 

We finished up birthday celebrations with dinner at Firehouse Pizzeria on Tuesday.  Logan is a long way to go for a birthday dinner, but the food was so yummy.  We had a great time and left completely stuffed.  We listened to a talk (Tour De Family) by John Bytheway on the way up and back.  It was a good way to pass the time and the whole family enjoyed/learned from it.

We sure love our Ben.  He is certainly never boring and he keeps us on our toes, but he is a good kid with a good heart.  We’re hoping he’ll be patient with us as we stumble through this new territory of raising an almost-teenager.  

Skiing

Nate took Ben, Emily, and Elise skiing on Thursday night.  On paper it was the perfect time to go.  It was an early out day at school and there was no school on Friday.  Plus, there was a brief break in the cold snap on Thursday.  It worked out mostly great.  Along with the warmer weather came one of the biggest snow storms of the year.  The wind and snow made for less than ideal skiing conditions for the first couple of hours, but the rest of the night was good.  The kids really love skiing with their dad and they are getting better and better every time.  There always seems to be a little drama when they go.  This time it was Elise’s cold hands/feet (again), Emily twisting her knee, and Nate leaving the girls in the lodge for 38 minutes (they kept track) to warm up while he and Ben did a couple of runs up the big hill.  Drama aside, they had a really fun night together.

Abby and I had big plans of what we were going to do while they were gone.  Our first stop was to get haircuts.  Then we were going to do some shopping and go out to dinner.  The storm started just as we were leaving and by the time we got to our hair appointment, I realized that we probably should have just stayed home.  The roads we so bad that we tossed all of our other plans out the window.  When our hair was done, we headed to Jody’s house.  We stayed there for a couple of hours and seriously considered just spending the night.  In the end, we decided to brave the roads and come home.  I don’t think I got past 35 mph on the freeway.  There was so much snow on the road that I couldn’t see any lane lines.  Luckily, Abby wasn’t the least bit concerned about our safety and she jabbered on and on the whole way home.  I was glad she was there to keep me company and keep me calm.  I was double glad when Nate and the kids made it home off the mountain an hour later.  I love the feeling of having everyone safe and warm under the same roof when it is wintery outside.