Thursday, February 26, 2009

Snot Bubbles!

Sorry James - I couldn't pass it up. As I have been fishing through the many, many photos I took on our Tahoe vacation, I died laughing when I found this one. I didn't even know I caught it!!! (Click on the images to get the full effect!)


Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Value of Private School

I have never been insistent upon sending my kids to private school but with Raider we just made the decision that it was the best choice for him. The more time he spends there, the more I am leaning toward sending Haylie and James as well.

Case in point: Tonight when I picked Raider up from youth group he was buzzing about what he is going to be when he grows up. He summarized his God-given gifts for me and explained how he was going to use them for God in his career of choice. I was curious what got him thinking on this topic and he said his math teacher (who he really likes) pulled him aside in class earlier that day and mentioned that he is really talented at Math. He asked Raider what he wants to do and Raider told him he wants to be an engineer or architect. The Math teacher asked him how he's going to use that for God and they proceeded to discuss using our gifts for the one who gave them to us - which obviously made an impact on him becuase our whole conversation was about the fact that God gives us gifts and it's up to us to use them! I am so thankful for positive role models in Raider's life! You just don't have those kind of conversations in public school.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Take Heed and UNPLUG!!

Well we just returned from a week long vacation in Tahoe, hence the recent lack of blog updates (preparing for vacation, vacationing, then recovering from vacation...) On the drive home from our trip we started thinking about getting back to real life when Micah realized that our DVR was pretty close to maxed out before we left (all those Veggie Tales stored up!), so we were a little concerned we missed our recorded shows (no 24???)!!! Raider went straight to checking it out when we got to the house but for some reason the TV wouldn"t even turn on. After a little investigation we found this behind the TV:

That is the surge protector that held the TV, DVR, DVD, VCR and Wii. Apparently it CAUGHT FIRE while we were gone. You can see here the holes burned through on the bottom of it (they still had sparks coming out of them):


And this is what the TV stand looked like AFTER Micah scrubbed it:


I have heard the statistics about electrical fires and unplugging your electronics when you leave but never really listened. Based on our DVR records it appears the surge protector burned up not more than a couple hours after we left. We are just thankful that our whole house didn't catch fire!! Micah took the surge protector in to work and talked with the Fire Chief about it. He shared this picture of someone else's house that caught fire (this is just the spot where the surge protector was located) and he said we were lucky it wasn't sitting on carpet as the wood luckily didn't burn up before the fire went out. He kept our surge protector to use for training :) Now I have one more thing to be paranoid about!!!! Can you imagine what might have happened to my scrapbooks??? I need to buy a fire safe trunk for those!!

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

All Tuckered Out

It's hard work trying to keep up with the big boys...





Tuesday, February 10, 2009

The Story of Sam the Elephant

Meet Sam the Elephant. Sam came to live with us about two weeks ago. One evening we ventured out to Ikea in search of a cute organization system to deal with our ever-growing pile of toys in the living room (which we never found). Upon entering Ikea there was a large bin of stuffed elephants, which must have been strategically placed at the beginning of the long journey though the store. Haylie absolutely wanted to hold one of the elephants in the cart with her - of course who could pass by this huge ball of soft, cuddliness and not want to ride around the store with it? As we made our way through the store, Haylie's relationship with her elephant friend grew deeper and deeper and I feared for when they would have to part ways. When we got to the checkout stand I swiftly informed Micah he would have to be the one to deliver the bad news that Haylie's new best friend was not going home with her.

He broke the bad news to her that the elephant needed to stay in the store and as he started to take it away, Haylie instantly burst into tears. Not the kind of have a fit, tantrum tears that she normally gets in trouble for, but the kind of sad, weepy, crocodile tears that insinuate, "Daddy how could you do this to me? How could you break my heart like that?" Micah tried to be strong and reason with her but I could tell he was folding so I had to throw in a little tease - "are you really going to take her elephant away? look how sad she is," I said. We had both agreed we weren't going to buy it, but with one poke Micah toppled like a house of cards and bought Haylie her new elephant. I was of course just joking with him and did not think it was bad that he was taking away the elephant but it was cute to see tough Daddy melt in the middle of the store and give in. She promptly named him Sam after a boy in her class that she talks about a lot. :)
So there you have it - the story of Sam the elephant - I'm pretty sure that is just the beginning of how kids end up "spoiled" but it was so cute to see her happy and she really loves her elephant. C'mon who hasn't given in every now and then?!?!

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Mommy's Little Helper

Haylie always loves to help Mommy cook dinner!

Monday, February 2, 2009

I Always Wanted To Do This...

I got these matching outfits for Haylie and her baby about 6 months ago but she wasn't real interested at the time. Lately Haylie has been asking for a new baby every time we go to the store so I finally cracked and bought her one since the only babies she has are a couple that Auntie Bekah used in Home Economics class. Well - it was like she got the chance to adopt her own child. She was very careful in her selection and has been taking very good care of her baby ever since - feeding her, dressing her, putting her down for naps, driving her to school, etc. And now she loves the matching outfit idea. She wants to take the baby everywhere she goes and when I don't let her she cries and says, "but I love her..." It is really quite cute!