To-Do List

I know I write about this every year, but I hate January.  It is so grim.  It is dark and cold and I never feel like I warm up.  I just want to soak in a tub all day and read a nice book.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) family life precludes that.  Kids have school and dance and basketball and scouts.   Laundry has to be done, bills have to be paid and groceries have to be bought.  Life goes on, even in January.

But it hasn't been all bad.  I have felt somewhat productive on some projects I have been working on for the kid's school.  I have made a small dent in my to-do list.

I try to do it slowly.  Otherwise "Reorganize all drawers and closets" makes we want to curl up in a fetal position.  But I can take a few minutes and organize everyone's sock/underwear/jammie drawer.  All the kids have all new socks, thanks to Kohl's cash and a 30% off Kohl's coupon.  And their corresponding drawers are cleaned out.  Except for the rock in William's sock drawer.  I'm not sure what it is for, but I just yesterday  made him throw away his mini-pumpkin from Halloween so I thought I'd show a little mercy and let him keep the rock.

But only because it's January.

Here Comes the Boom!

As my kids get older, they really enjoy having their own spending money.  They each get an allowance and often request money for birthdays so that they can save for something that they want.  This Christmas they each ended up with a little money from grandparents and saved up allowances and birthday money.  William and Henry bought games to go with their new Playstation.

Tessa bought this:

It's a Furby Boom.  I don't even know what to say about it.  It talks to you in a mix of gibberish and English - the more you talk to it, the more English it speaks.  She named it Duh Bo (I think - it means Crystal Something or other in "Furby" but it sounds like Dumbo when it refers to itself.)  There is an app on the iPad that you can use with it - it bathes and feeds and lays eggs and all kinds of crazy stuff.  It seems like a cross between Elmo and a Gremlin.  It kind of freaks me out.

There is also a movie called Hear Comes the Boom that Jay has been wanting to watch for a while.  He coincidentally decided to watch it with the kids after we got home from the Wright Family Post-Christmas Extravaganza and they seem quite enamored with it.  I am hearing lots of laughter from the family room.  I, however, had had enough of the Booming for a while so I think I will abstain.

I wonder how long the Furby Boom will last until it accidentally loses it's batteries.  I don't think Tessa would fall for that trick.

Merry Christmas!

Quite alot has happened since William's birthday.  Tessa had her school opera (she was a dancing elf in Elves Got Talent) and her holiday dance revue.  Since I bug Jay to give me pictures and video of these events and it never seems to happen, he got me an iPhone for Christmas.  I guess this means that I will always have a camera with me and am now responsible for images and video.  Fair enough.

We have had a nice holiday.  For the past two years our little family has been felled by the stomach flu in the days leading up to Christmas.  Not this year.  I was ready - it was going around the school and other than Tessa having a little bout of it a few weeks ago on a Saturday, no one else was sick.  A Christmas Miracle!

The boys got a new Playstation and have basically done this all day:

Well, they played their new games all day, other than to take a movie break after lunch.

Tessa's big gift was the American Girl Campus Snack Cart.  It is pretty cute.

They each got a few books and two family movies.  Nice and easy and not too much.  It is nice that they are older now and Christmas doesn't involve cleaning out the family room so we can make room for all the stuff that they receive.

Jay is off the entire time the kids are off and we are having fun.  It finally stopped snowing and warmed up a bit.  Life is good.

Merry Christmas!

Will.i.am

Today is William's 10th birthday.  I worried a little that his actual birthday would be a little anti-climatic because we had done most of the celebrations over Thanksgiving weekend.  On Friday, we went out to lunch at Huhot, a Mongolian Barbeque place.  It is yummy and the kids love picking out all their noodles and stuff and mixing their sauces.  We also went bowling.  William has created quite the tradition of going out to lunch or dinner and bowling with the family for his birthday.   Every year I offer him the option of a party and every year he chooses otherwise.  Easy for us, that's for sure.

On Sunday, he opened his presents.  His main present from us was a 1886 Morgan Silver Dollar.  His request.  William is eccentric.  But he loves his coins.

Today we had a Coldstone ice cream cake.  He had to get checked out school this morning because he tweaked his neck somehow and wasn't feeling great, but an ibuprofen and a heating pad helped and he seems fine now.

Happy Birthday, William!  We love you.

The Jaymobile

We found ourselves unexpectedly in the market for a new minivan this week.  I was involved in a minor accident in the van which morphed into the other driver's insurance agency declaring our car a total loss (lots of body damage on an eight year old car).  We had thought we would drive the van another year or so and then replace it but were reluctant to do so since it was paid for and seemed to do the job but the accident pushed our plans forward a bit.  Anyway, Grand Caravan was towed away yesterday so we loaded everyone into the Camry and drove to Salt Lake to buy a new van.

We have been frantically researching replacements since Tuesday and had narrowed our search to a 2011 Toyota Sienna or a 2011 Honda Odyssey.  We liked both but wanted to drive them and see how they were.  Jay test drove a few on Wednesday night on his way home from a work meeting a few hours south of us and had a good idea of what we were looking for.  Our first stop was a place in Bountiful that had two Odysseys that we wanted to look at.  It was cold and rainy and Jay stopped in front of the first van we were going to drive and said, "This is the car.  It has to be."

This is what he was looking at:

Yes, it says Jay on the back.  It's not a sticker either.  Someone just thought it would be nice to put this on the back of a 2011 Honda Odyssey EX.

I almost didn't get in the van for the test drive because really?  But we drove it and really liked it.  It has alot of features we like, drives well, has good mileage and is in our price range.  We went down the road to test drive another van but determined pretty quickly that we like the Jaymobile better so we headed back to the dealership and bought it.  In a few hours we were the proud owner of a new-to-us minivan that we hope to have until the kids are out of high school.

Bonus - if we ever lose it in a parking lot we can always look for the personalized minivan.                        

Rockin the Halls

Tessa and William both Rocked the Halls at their elementary school yesterday.  At Summit, earning a certain number of AR points for reading earns you a reading medal and a run around the school while the other students cheer you on.

William earned enough points just before UEA break.  Tessa needed 10 more points but was nearing the end of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets so I encouraged her to finish and take the test before the deadline so she could Rock the Halls as well.  It was selfish, really.  If they could both Rock the Halls on November 1st, I would not be required to go back the next month for the event.  It's fun but very fast - they run by in a few seconds and are gone.

I did, however, get a picture of them with their medals:

Tessa is hard at work reading the next Harry Potter book and William goes through books so quickly that I don't even know what he is reading right now.  I am so glad that they love to read!  I don't care about the AR points but they do so I encourage them to set a goal to achieve the highest AR award every year, which is a special lunch with their teacher at the end of the year.  It gives them something to work for while reading books that they love.  Win, win.

Lamest. Mom. Ever.

To show you just how lame I am, I didn't even get Halloween pictures this year.  None at all.

Tessa was Hermione from Harry Potter - she is currently reading the third book in the series and loves it.

William was a basketball player.  I made him put on shorts to go trick or treating because it just looked like he was going to school wearing a Jazz jersey.

And Henry didn't trick or treat this year.  We made the decision for him and told him no.  He isn't interested in dressing up at all and was just going to put on a jersey and basketball shorts again if a friend wanted to go.  I told him at some point that you are just a kid going around asking for candy and it wasn't cute anymore.  He ended up playing Wii with a friend until 8 o'clock while the trick or treaters came and went. We had some candy left over so he will still get some treats.

I did, however, let Henry go over to a neighborhood house that really goes all out.  They make scones!  I have never gone because Jay typically takes the kids out for Halloween but this is everyone's favorite - they make scones out in their driveway for one and all.  Very fun.

All in all, a fun Halloween in a fun time of year.  I guess it's the Christmas season now, at least according to my email inbox.  I swear every email from a vendor or retailer was Christmas themed.  I can only hope I will remember to take pictures on Christmas morning.  Sigh.