The Campbell/Oxford Dictionary

There are a few terms that have recently been added to our family dictionary. They are as follows:

1. Lasterday. (las-ter-day) Jenna created this word a long time ago and I keep forgetting to write it down. In her mind she somehow merged the words "last night" and "yesterday" and it came out as lasterday. For those of you that see Jenna quite often I'm sure that you have heard her use it as she does so on a daily basis, i.e. "We went to Grandma's lasterday."

2. Foolsball. (Fools-ball) This is what Britton calls a Foosball table. Over Thanksgiving he played quite a few games at my Aunt & Uncle's house and was actually pretty good. He never mentioned names but claimed to have beaten a '3rd grader' and lost to a '6th grader' by only 1 point. (I found out later that his claims were actually very accurate and a few of his cousins were a bit dumbfounded at his "Foolsball" skills)

3. German Sugar--This is the name my kids have given powdered sugar. Its the kind of sugar that goes on German Pancakes so therefore it MUST be 'German' sugar, right? Even when we use it on French toast, it is still German sugar--go figure. I have made the mistake of asking them if they would like powered sugar on something and they quickly replied with, "No, No, I want German sugar on it!" Uh, right. Silly me.

Lately everyone has been telling me that Korinne is a "miniature Hilary with Campbell moments" so I decided to post some pictures of the 2 of us at the same age and see what you think. This is me:



This is Korinne:



This is me:




This is Korinne:

What do you guys think? We definitely both have the cheesy smile down pat!

Speaking of Korinne, we have had a few discussions with her lately on what constitutes art. We are of the firm opinion that art is anything that is on paper. Korinne is sure that real art involves walls. Britton and Jenna were never ones to color on the walls, but Korinne has no problem doing so and seems to prefer the color purple. It has gotten to a point that Britton and Jenna are my spies and immediately alert me if they see Korinne coloring on any wall. Today I was able to stop her in only a few seconds whereas before it took me up to 3 or 4 "masterpieces" before the damage was spotted. I put her in timeout today. She just sat there with her arms folded and did an exaggerated "Hmph" with her furrowed brow. I tried not to laugh as it was straight out of Jenna's "how to" book of attitude. Ah, they learn so young, don't they?

Happy B-daygiving!

Ok, so I tried to combine 2 words that were never meant to be one, but for Korinne every 5 years she will get to celebrate her birthday on Thanksgiving day. What a blessing. :-)

We showed up to my Aunt Kathy's house on Thursday for a meal good enough to be talked about all year long! Kathy spends weeks making homemade chocolates and candies for the big day and I can never get enough. Don't even get me started about the chocolate covered raspberries! (You know me, I'm such a health nut I insist on starting things out with fruit) To our surprise my cousin's wife walked in with a beautiful birthday cake for Korinne. Apparently her sister decorates cakes and they were thoughtful enough to arrange to have a cake made for Korinne. She loved it and we had a fun little party for her after the Thanksgiving feast.


The Price family has a long standing tradition of going bowling on Thanksgiving night. We have a girls and guys competition. The winner gets a traveling trophy and bragging rights for an entire year. This year all of the kids even got to make their own bowling shirts. Here is Jenna and Adam working on her shirt.

You can imagine our shock and horror when we arrived at the bowling alley only to find that they were full and had a long wait. What?! Didn't they know WE were coming and that we have been doing this for almost 20 years!?! We tried to go to the other bowling alley in town only to be turned down again. Unbelievable. We had no choice but to return to my Aunt's house and eat as many leftovers as we possibly could. It helped to soften the blow considerably. The competition soon became one of darts instead of bowling and I know at least a few of the guys had sore arms the next day. It was intense and involved the same 'high level 'of competition with all of the usual trash talking. I, for one, discovered that I am the worst dart player ever! I mean really, how many times can you completely miss the dart board all together and still be included in the game?? They kept having me move closer (totally embarrassing), but I don't think it made much of a difference. Adam did well, but then again he always does well in bowling too. . .perhaps the two are related in some way.

We did take the kids bowling the next day, and they got to wear their bowling shirts. Our numbers were reduced, but Adam beat the rest of the guys there and I'm sure I came in last on the girls side. So, not much has changed. :-)

We are a little sad over Utah losing to BYU yesterday. We raced home to watch the game and Adam was sportin' his Utah polo shirt, but alas, it was not to be. We have recovered so it's all good. (I knew you were worried) It was a great holiday and Korinne loves being 2.

Let's get this party started!

Korinne's birthday isn't until Thursday, but her BFF (that would be her Aunt Kimberly) isn't going to be around for the festivities so the party started last night. We all went out to eat in honor of Korinne. She had no idea what was going on, but thought it was great. Kim gave her some dress up jewelry and a tiara and she loved it.

The other day Korinne was watching "Dora the Explorer" with Jenna. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this children's program they often ask the kids to say stuff and then pause so the kids can answer. Kind of like this: "Will you help me find the magic cave?" Big pause "You will? Great!" I would dare say that 99.9% of kids don't respond and just stare at the screen waiting for the next line. Well, Korinne's language is really exploding right now and there she was yelling out responses at all of the appropriate places. It was hilarious! I've never seen a kid do it before. They would say, "Say backpack" and she would yell something that sounded a lot like backpack. They would repeat it, "Say backpack" and she would yell it even louder. She had a smile on her face and was watching the screen very intently. She was definitely in the zone and did it for the entire show. It was precious.

7 random things about me

Ok, I'll give this a try.

1) I've lived in 6 different US states (and if you want to get technical another 2 states in Brazil)

2) I don't love ketchup. I'll eat it if someone hands me something with it in it, but given the choice I opt out of applying ketchup to any food creation. (To those ketchup lovers who just gasped, sorry, but I do love a good dose of mustard!)

3) I have a birthmark on the back of my left calf. I only say this because during a big extended family trip to California to attend my sister's wedding a few years ago every member of my family at one point on the trip said something like, "Hil, what is that on the back of your leg?" Umm, a birthmark and it has been there my entire life. They all seemed really surprised though I don't know why. I spent a good deal of my teen years in running shorts and it was right there in front of their faces.

4) On the night of my Jr. Prom I was involved in a high speed car chase in downtown SLC. We were in a Limo and while stopped at a traffic light a car of teenage boys next to us shot a paintball gun into the Limo and it got all over the interior. The Limo driver got mad and took off after the car of punk kids who did it. It was totally out of our control but the driver was flipping U's and we were flying all around in the back of the car. He tried the run the other car off the road, etc. We were just looking at each other trying to figure out what to do. Definitely an interesting experience. Sure made for a good story at school the next week (and you know me, I'm always looking for a good story. :-)

5) I put myself through college "makin' copies" at 2 copy centers on the USU campus. It was the best college job ever! I never worked nights or weekends and pretty much got paid to do my homework.

6) I love Charleston chews. You know, the candy bar popular in the 80's that you can only find at a dollar store or Wal-mart? Yeah, those are the ones. I love em!

7) I like being in places that are humid. After living in Brazil and Georgia I got to where I really liked humidity. Unfortunately my current location does nothing to indulge my preference for humid places. O'well, it's all good.

There you go, 7 random things about me. Now its your turn!

What a "Big Helper"

Korinne likes to be a big helper, but at her age it is impossible for her to know when she is really helping or just making a big mess (mostly she just makes messes, but shhh, don't tell her that.) Last night I came into the kitchen to find her putting dishwasher detergent in the dishwasher so we could start it. Never mind that the dishes were clean and she had enough for about 2 or 3 loads, she was "helping" and wanted nothing but praise for her efforts.

Kindergarten is a time to learn and grow and make really silly turkey hats. I think it is an important and essential part of the curriculum. Here is Britton in his prize winning turkey creation (true story, well, except for the prize winning part, but he did get a gold star).

I can't wait to see what else they come up with during the rest of the school year. This hat was a big hit and both Jenna and Korinne wanted their pictures taken with it as well. Actually, Korinne just loves to have her picture taken period!

There she is also. . .

Korinne's favorite place to eat all of her meals is in Adam's lap. If Adam is in the house and there is eating going on, there is a 100% chance that Korinne is either sitting in Adam's lap, or is seriously trying to figure out a way to get there. She could be happily eating up to the counter, but if Adam's sits down to eat at any time, Korinne will automatically get herself to where he is. I took this picture this morning during breakfast. I was trying to get an "action" shot, but as soon as Korinne saw the camera she really turned on the cheese.

Surprisingly my kids haven't been that into their Halloween candy. (I know, could they really be my kids?!?) I took all of the candy away the first day because I kept finding candy wrappers on the floor. They didn't even ask me about it for 2 days. 2 DAYS! Even then they weren't that distressed about not having it. Britton decided that if he was good all day he could have a few pieces of candy at night. Jenna hasn't even brought it up. Last night we had some for our FHE treat. I love having little kids that are way more into suckers and smarties than snickers or other chocolate treats. I don't know how long it will last, but its awesome! I find myself saying things like, "Hey, do you want me to take care of that snickers for you?" Like I'm really helping them out or something. (Hey I'll do anything to help my kids, right?) Britton has actually been quite appreciative of all of the "help" I have given him with those pesky chocolate candy bars each Halloween.

No school. . .again.

Britton was out of school today. He didn't have school last Monday and Tuesday either, and he is out of school again this Friday. In 2 weeks he will be off for another 2 days . . .I sure don't remember getting so many days off when I went to school!! Has it always been like this? I enjoy having him home, but I think all of the time off seems a bit odd.

Don't forget to vote tomorrow!

Candy, Candy, Candy

As I write this Britton and Jenna are deep into negotiations. "I'll give you my M & M's for your Skittles. . " I guess it is a great way to learn an essential life skill-- the art of negotiation. So far we haven't seen any fighting, definitely a plus.

For Halloween Britton was a Shark, Jenna was Cinderella, and Korinne was a ladybug, which, by the way, is one of her nicknames. I always say things like, "Come here ladybug" and yesterday it actually made sense! Too bad Halloween is only once a year. Umm, kidding only. Can you imagine if there was always this amount of candy laying around?? It would be pure insanity. Here are the kids in their costumes ready to go out.

One of my Dad's favorite things is to take the grandkids trick-or-treating on Halloween and for once the weather was great. I took the kids to Adam's office earlier in the day and one of his co-workers had dressed up like a farmer and brought a real life pig as his prop. Yes, a real pig! Apparently he has a pet pig who is potty trained and everything and he (or she) just sat under his desk and slept all day. Who has pet pigs?!? (messy children excluded, of course) Here is a picture of Britton feeding the pig a carrot.

Definitely something you don't see everyday. Brings new meaning to the phrase, "Yeah, I work with a real pig." :-)