Sweet

Tuesday afternoon around 3:30 p.m. we received a phone call from some friends inviting us to go to with them to the Jazz game that night.  Their tickets were from a company who sponsors the team so dinner would be provided before the game and the seats were great.  Going to the game would mean asking my parents to watch the kids at the last minute, leaving Jameson for the first time, packing an overnight bag for everyone, staying at my parents house that night to avoid a really late night driving home and leaving at 7:00 a.m. the next morning to get the kids to school on time.  We thought about it for about a nano-second and said yes.  I started throwing things together and we were on our way by 4:30 p.m. Not bad for a family of 6.  Sometimes it is kind of fun to be a bit spontaneous and Adam and I know that the only time we will ever get to go to a game is if someone has extra tickets and invites us to use them.

We met my Mom downtown and she took the kids and we made it to the arena in time to get something to eat.  I have to admit I felt all fancy, shmancy wearing a little pass around my neck that allowed me into areas not accessible to everyone.  Not only did we have dinner before the game, but during half time we could go back to the room for snacks and drinks.  Oh, and we were on the 13th row.  I've never been so close to the floor before. These tickets had a face value of $164.00 each. That's just crazy. The team won in the last minutes of the game so it was a great game all around.

This was the view from our seats.

The weather this week has been awesome. I took Jameson and Korinne on a walk around the neighborhood yesterday afternoon and it was Jameson's first time being out of doors for more than the time it takes to get in the car. 

Jenna's class had a science fair today and Jenna was more than happy to leave everything to the last minute and put her project together in one night.  She was so cheerful putting it all together it was a bit more difficult to be annoyed, but I still managed.  I have a particular bias against science fairs because I HATED them when I was in school and apparently I still haven't gotten over it.  Jenna explored the question of why sunsets are so colorful and even I learned a few things.  Her experiment included creating a sunset by putting a little bit of milk in a glass of water and then shining a flashlight through it.  The light becomes an orange/red color.  She was delighted with the results and even though her board was less then perfect I let her do it exactly how she wanted it.  One science fair down, about a million to go. Did I mention I hate science fairs?? Yeah, I do. 

Awww!

Ok, so if you don't think Jameson is just a wee bit cute you may not have a heart.  His eyelashes have grown a lot in the last week and I LOVE long eyelashes. 

His hair has started to get pretty wild.  A lot of it fell out on the top, but as you can see there is still a lot left.

He likes to show off his new skills.

"Oh yeah, I can totally hold up my head. No problem."

Watch out ladies, Jameson is in the house!

World Wizards

The Geography Bowl was this week and Britton was definitely in his element.

He was the team captain of the "World Wizards" and lead his team to victory!  There were 2 other teams in the competition and they won by quite a margin.  30 questions were asked and if the student got the question right they were asked to raise their whiteboards showing the correct response.  Each right answer was 1 pt for the team.

Britton scored the most points of anyone in the competition.  This kid knows his geography! They invited parents to the assembly so Adam and I were there to witness it all.  Britton was usually done writing the answer before the question was finished being asked.  Seriously, he was in the zone.

The World Wizards with their first place giant candy bars--and bragging rights, of course.

I think the geography club is a great idea.  The amount of knowledge about the state and our local area combined with world geography was impressive.  There is no way they would have time in class to cover everything and these kids really had a grasp on it all.  I left having learned a few things myself.

2 Months

Jameson hit the 2 month mark today.  To celebrate he got to go to the Doctor and get some shots. (Yeah, we sure know how to celebrate around here.)  He tipped the scales at 13 lbs 5 oz and was 23 inches long. 

Britton's favorite thing to do is to put his face up to Jameson so they are cheek to cheek and then say, "Look, we're twins!" Yup, they look just alike-- definitely brothers.

Britton loves Harry Potter so much he went out and got himself a scar on his forehead that looks kind of like a lightening bolt.  Wow, that's a true fan.

Ahh, nothing is better then hanging out in a warm tub. 

Jameson is a smiley happy little guy.  He recognizes all of us, even the kids, and will squeal with delight when one of us comes up to him. He likes to lay on the floor rather then be in a bouncy seat so he can kick his legs and wave his arms without anything getting in his way.  Lately he has only been getting up once during the night.  I find that babies are always a little cuter when I've had some sleep.

Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like. . .

. . . getting the flu. Blah.

Jenna turned 9 years old on Friday and for most of the day she had a great birthday.  The night before her birthday Britton and I were throwing up all night but Jenna woke up feeling great and was so excited for her big day.  School got out earlier than usual because of a district teacher training and she got to go to Activity Days ice cream party and a group violin lesson and Aunt Kim and Uncle Ben and their 2 kids were staying at our house. Even Uncle Stephen came up and was around for her birthday party!  It was around dinner when we were sitting down to her favorite meal, tortellini, that I realized she wasn't as enthusastic as she was earlier in the day and she wasn't eating.  Finally I just asked her, "Jenna, are you feeling ok?"  She confessed that her stomach did hurt a little. The rest of the evening it just kept getting worse.   I still wasn't feeling well myself, Britton had gone through it all the night before, and within an hour after dinner Adam started not feeling well either.  So, Jenna opened her presents with a throw-up bowl close by.

And while our visitors played, Jenna layed on the floor.

She was a trooper and said that she still had a great birthday.  Instead of playing wii Kids Dance Jenna opted to have us all watch a movie.  Good call.

We have all recovered from our family flu bug and none of the extended family members staying at our house during the ordeal came down with it.

The Streak Has Ended

In 10 1/2 years of child rearing we have never had a single set of stitches, a broken bone, or any trips to the emergency room.  In fact, I can count on my right hand how many times we have been to the Dr. for anything other than a well child visit.  One of the reasons for this amazing streak is that Britton is not the kind of kid who likes to do things that are "unsafe".  He doesn't care what people say, there is no way he can be talked into doing something risky.

Monday our 10 1/2 year streak came to an end and Britton is the proud owner of 10 new stitches.  Yikes.

The only reason he is smiling in this picture is because Adam took him to Zeppes after getting stitches.

This has been the year of no snow so when we finally got 6 inches of the white stuff the neighborhood decided to have a little sledding party at our neighborhood park on President's Day.  Britton and Jenna ran ahead to start sledding with the group while  I stayed home with Jameson and Adam went to the store to get a sled.  Britton arrived at the park and all of the boys his age were going on the bigger part of the hill.  That didn't look very safe to him so he opted for the smaller hill with the smaller kids.  On his first trip down the hill he hit a rock and when I say he hit a rock I mean his HEAD hit a rock.  He hadn't even been gone from our house for 10 min. when I got a call from a neighbor Mom telling me that Britton had been hurt.  She started walking him home and I called Adam and told him to abort the sled plan and come home immediately.  Britton was calm when he got home and was holding a big chunk of snow on the spot where he was cut.  I didn't get a chance to look at the cut since it was under his hair but Britton was sure he just needed a bandaid. When Adam got home and got a good look at it he knew that he was going to need stitches. The gash was deep, very deep. They had to shave his hair to do the stitches and since it is right in the front we had no choice but to shave his entire head.

As you can tell from the picture it was a pretty traumatic day for him.  Knowing Britton he will probably never go sledding again, period.  I asked him if he had anything to say about it and all he said was , "Pleeeeeeaaaasse don't put this in the blog!"  Sorry bud, but it just had to be documented.

This and That

Taylor, Jen, Will and June were in town this week and since ICON was paying for them to stay at the Marriott we took advantage of the hotel pool. It's always a novelty to go swimming during the winter so it was a big hit with the kids. 

This year for Valentines Day it was clear to me that Britton and Jenna approach the holiday very differently.  After receiving the Valentine class list last week Jenna set about to make individual Valentines for each member of her class based on things that they liked.  She painstakingly found a unique picture for every student and then wrote out a To: and From: and Happy Valentines Day by hand on each one.

What was so impressive to me is that she knew something about each student in her class. As she was cutting them out she would say,  "Matthew is going to love this because he loves pineapples.  Gage loves to skateboard so he is really going to like this.  Tess is going to love this because she loves dogs.  Brenden has a pet turtle so he is going to love this Valentine with a turtle on it."  She put a lot of thought into each one and was pleased with the results.  She spent days making sure they were all just right.

The night before Valentines Day Britton looked at me in a panic. "What are we going to do for Valentines, Mom?" I spent approx. 1 min. and 24 sec. on the computer before printing out a simple Valentine on cardstock .  He taped suckers on the back and was done with the entire process in no time at all.  "Mom, you are a genius! That was so fast!"  When it came to decorating his Valentine box he went with a Geography theme because nothing says "Happy Valentines Day" like the planet earth and a map of Utah.

Yeah, he was the only student with a Geography themed Valentine box. . .imagine that.

With Korinne I printed out a simple postcard size Valentine I found on the Internet. It had 4 to a page and was ready to go.  It took me less than 1 min. to print it out and cut them with our big cutter.  I let her fill them out and then her friend Cara helped her tape suckers to the back.  I'm so proud of the fact that I spent less than 3 total minutes doing Valentines and I have 3 kids in school! Boo-yah! (Only a holiday challenged Mom, like myself, would celebrate such a feat.)  Adam and I went out to lunch on Valentines Day and called it good. We're festive like that.

The other night I walked into the family room and found this:

 I guess maybe Korinne does miss being the baby of the family after all.  She sure is a good big sister and absolutely adores baby Jameson.

She still finds plenty of time to be crazy with her BFF.

We were finally able to get copies of Jameson's newborn pics taken in the hospital.

This one shows his birthmom holding him.