Happy Birthday Jenna!

The 3rd time was the charm.  When Jenna woke up today she was nothing but smiles. She dressed up for school and loved the entire day.  I was in her class 2 different times on her special day, once for reading groups and once for a birthday celebration where Jenna was able to tell the class about herself and share a birthday treat.  She was very specific in what she wanted for her birthday dinner and we fulfilled her every wish.  This is what she asked for:

Tortellini
Apple Sauce
Mozzarella sticks
Bacon
Orange Julius
hot dogs
and soda to drink

She was one happy birthday girl.

Take Two

Last night was Jenna's 2nd family Birthday party with Grandma and Grandpa P.  It's not even her birthday yet, but the celebration continues.

She was still in her gymnastics clothes and was in high spirits.

The Big 7!

Korinne and I had a deep talk today while she was typing one of her nonsense e-mails on the computer. I asked her if she was going to miss me while I was in Hawaii.  She quickly replied with a definite, "No." So, I said, "You aren't going to miss me at all?"  "No, I'm proud of you for going to Hawaii, Mom." What? I'm not sure what she meant by that but by this time she was getting annoyed with me for asking her questions while she was trying to type something on the computer.  "Mom, don't talk to me while I'm typing, you just made me mess up!"  I looked up at the screen and saw the usual string of random letters and numbers.  How can she tell if she "messes up" I wondered. So, I had to ask, "What does it say?"  She replied, "I love me." Sometimes I just have to laugh.  In her defense she had already written "I love my family" earlier in the letter but it was hard to tell because everything looked like this, "lkaehba98dialkja;hnv;alkdjfeyjhasduhvalkdjf." It is good to know she thinks highly of herself, even though its something we've never doubted, of course.

You can go to Elk!

On Friday night we had the first of 3 small family birthday parties for Jenna. Aunt Kim and Uncle Ben came up to celebrate and Jenna asked  for a Chinese New Year party.  We got Chinese food (which Jenna didn't eat, of course, but she let us get it anyway so we were happy), played Chinese checkers, watched out for Chinese athletes while watching the Olympics, played "find the hidden Chinese flag" and had paper Chinese lanterns (which Jenna learned to make at school) for decorations. We were about as festive as we know how to be.  Here is Jenna with Uncle Ben eating ice cream.

On Saturday we went to Hardware Ranch which is a gathering place for wintering elk about 30 min. away.  You can ride in a horse drawn sleigh/wagon right through the elk herd.  The elk are free to come and go as they wish, but because they are fed and not threatened in any way they feel pretty comfortable just hanging around.  It was pretty cool.

The kids also enjoyed the visitors center nearby.

After our wagon ride they let the kids pet the horses.

The herds start to leave around the end of February so this was probably the last weekend we could have seen them this year.  It was a nice little excursion that was very "Libbie-esque".  I'm sure she would be proud.

You've got mail!

Korinne likes to send e-mails and texts.  When Adam gets out of his office chair for any reason she makes a mad dash for it and then insists Adam help her send an e-mail to either me or a grandparent.  She just pushes all of the letters randomly and clicks "send" when she is finished.  One time she even wrote on my wall on facebook (with Adam's help, of course).

So, if you ever get an e-mail or text that looks like this:

dlkjfpeivajdlibuadknf;aoij;jkh;poiajdlks;alijga

dlkaj;oidjg;oidh;ikfjdkjlksdjflijslkdfj;lkcmsd;o

ldkja;lkj;kid;lksjflkslksdlkfhksjhkjshfoeislkdlks

lskdjvoijelfkwjlf;alsdkfjlkdlskdfjlsd;aldkfja;

It's from Korinne and she loves you.

The Question that Popped

10 years ago today Adam asked me to marry him.  I, of course, said yes.  I'm writing this in an effort to record the story for our posterity.

(Oh, and today's post comes with a special musical number. . .)

Adam and I dated for 2 weeks before we both graduated from college.  I moved to SLC where I had a job lined up and he went to Brazil for 3 weeks to see his family (his Dad was serving as a Mission President there) and then came back long enough to pack up his car and move to Atlanta, GA to start a new job.  We went on 3 official dates during our college days. We went to a movie, went to dinner and a play, and went to an Institute Christmas concert and a pizza place afterwards.  That was the full extent of our college dating life. We spent a few days together after he got back from Brazil and before he moved to Atlanta where we were able to go snowmobiling and do a few other fun things. After moving to Georgia mid-January he flew out twice to visit me in SLC and then I flew to Atlanta on February 10, 2000 for a visit.  He had arranged for me to stay with a family in the ward while I was there but after picking me up from the airport he brought me to see his new apartment.  I walked into the apartment and saw a gray blow-up couch with a matching blow-up chair and ottoman complete with blow up accent pillows. In the dining area there was a plastic patio table with 2 plastic chairs.  In the bedroom he had one twin mattress on the floor and that was it.  All he had was what he could fit in the 1997 white dodge neon he drove across the country.  It was pretty comical. He had a car and some clothes and that was it!

After taking the grand tour (which lasted about 10 seconds) he told me he was going to take me someplace nice for dinner so he would give me some time to shower and get dressed up.  I showered and got dressed in the one outfit I brought for church. He knocked on the door to "pick" me up for our date.  When I got out to the family room I realized he had used the time to set up the table and make dinner for us right at the apartment.  The table had a tablecloth, the candles were lit and he had menus at each place setting.  The menu referenced all of the things we had done on our dates.

We ate dinner and laughed at everything and then he said he would dish up the dessert and bring it to me in the family room.  I went and sat on the blow-up couch while he fiddled around in the kitchen.  He came in with 2 green bowls but told me that I had to close my eyes and guess what we were having for dessert.  When I opened my eyes he was right in front of me, down on one knee holding a ring box in his hands.  I can't remember everything he said, but at the end he clearly said, "Will you marry me?"  After I said "Yes" and we hugged he asked me to dance. In the middle of his empty apartment in Morrow, Georgia we danced to a song that he had picked especially for the occasion.  It was a country song (which in and of itself was quite shocking since at that time Adam was NOT a fan of country music) "From Here to Eternity" by Michael Peterson, which is the song I have playing for this post. (Shocking fact #2-I had never heard this song before he played it for me that night so how in the world did a non-country music loving person discover this song?!)

We set up the camera to take a few pictures of the occasion.

Ok, so I look kind of dorky in this picture, but back in those days we didn't have a digital camera to make sure we got a good picture. I had to wait to use up the entire roll of film and then have it developed before I discovered that I looked dorky in our "I just got engaged" photo.  In this next picture we attempted to show how the candles had melted all over the candlesticks because we were talking for so long at dinner.  It didn't work. The counter we set the self timer on cut out the table completely. 

Adam surprised me by asking me so soon after I arrived in Atlanta.  The thought had crossed my mind that he might pop the question during my visit, but not just a few hours after my arrival.  It was all perfect.  He knew me well enough to know I would have been absolutely mortified if he had asked me to marry him in a public place or with a lot of people around.  It works for some people, just not for me. We went to lunch today to mark the 10 year anniversary of getting engaged. Definitely the best decision we ever made (getting engaged, that is, not the going to lunch part. . even though that was good, too.)

Imagine

Imagination is a good thing.  When there is a couple feet of snow in the front yard and the temperatures are hovering in the teens I'm glad my kids have come up with a few ways to keep themselves entertained indoors.  Last week they pretended they were at Disneyland and ran around the family room and kitchen screaming because they were on the latest and greatest roller coaster.  They had the beach towels down in the family room where they rested in-between roller coaster rides and soaked up the "sun". They had a great time and it didn't cost me a cent.  A win-win for everyone. Yesterday they enlisted Adam on their newest adventure to the "beach".  The girls were in their swimming suits and they made Adam put on his yellow swimming suit over his church clothes.  Then they all chased each other around the basement with water guns.

Adam is always such a good sport when it comes to stuff like this.

To all of our "Settlers of Catan" friends out there- Adam and I have become well versed at one of the extension games called "Cities and Knights."

It's Settlers of Catan on steroids and we love it. There are a lot more ways to get points and it adds a whole new dimension to the game.  I was starting to get burned out on Settlers, but now I'm right back in the game.  We have some friends in the neighborhood that love to play and we have been having a lot of game nights.  I got Adam the Cities and Knights expansion game for Christmas so now we are ready to teach anyone who comes to visit.

Remember when the only way you could buy carrots in the store was like this?

Then you had to peel them before you could eat them, or cut them up into carrot sticks? Once the baby carrots in the bag came out I never bought carrots like this again.  Here is it years later and my kids had absolutely no idea that carrots even came like this.  When my Mom was here helping for a bit after my leg surgery she bought carrots in a bag and it was a novelty for the kids.  I realized that once they were peeled my kids liked eating the big carrots and would actually eat more then if they were eating baby carrots.  Ever since then I buy the bagged carrots and peel a few for dinner.

I just throw them on the table with everything else and they pick up a big carrot and eat the entire thing.  They look like Bugs Bunny but they are eating their carrots and that is all I really care about. I guess sometimes it pays to go retro.

Good Morning

Monday through Friday we have a typical morning routine around our house.  Adam gets up at 6 a.m. to go and play basketball with a group of guys at the church, but he is always home by the time the alarm on my watch starts to beep at 7:30 a.m.  My goal is to get up by 7:38 a.m. I always wake up Jenna first because she has a more difficult time waking up and CANNOT be rushed.  When I wake Britton he pops up like he wasn't even sleeping at all and starts to immediately make his bed.  Then I usually go back to Jenna's room to make sure that she really is getting up, she has a tendency to snooze sometimes.

Once downstairs there is an absolute guarantee that at least one person is on the heating vent in the family room. This is what it looked like this morning when I made it downstairs:

Yes, there is a heating vent down there and yes, it is always occupied by someone between 7:30 and 8:10 in the morning.  Jenna missed this chance at 7:41, but after breakfast and before getting her hair done she finally made her way there.

Since Jenna cannot be rushed, eating breakfast was a problem that we solved with Carnation instant breakfast.  It is like chocolate milk, but has nutrients in it.  Most importantly Jenna can make it herself and drinks it every morning for breakfast.  Without fail she holds onto the glass with both hands and drinks it without taking a break, like this:

Every morning.  It is as predictable as the sunrise.  At our house the other breakfast staple is:

Summer, winter, it doesn't matter.  We go through a LOT of hot chocolate. We also go through a lot of toast.

This is Britton's toast before he started eating it.

This was how it looked when he was done.  Very typical.  It drives me absolutely nuts. He loves to dip his toast in hot chocolate (ewww!) but he refuses to drink any of the hot chocolate so he has been banned from having and therefore wasting hot chocolate. 

Korinne caught in the act. 

This morning Britton was begging Korinne to let him dip his toast in her hot chocolate because "Mom and Dad won't let me have my own."  She finally relented and he was very happy, just not happy enough to actually eat the crust of his toast.

While everyone is eating I usual open all of the blinds in the family room and kitchen.  It snowed a few days ago, but already there is more gunk in the air.  This was our view of the smog this morning:

Between 8:10 and 8:15 a.m. Britton and Jenna get their coats and backpacks and after family prayer everyone hugs everyone else and they are off to catch the bus.  Sometimes Korinne's watches them from the window.  Not long after they left this morning I caught her with a plate of powdered sugar.

Her latest thing has been to just get into the pantry and help herself to a plate of powdered sugar.  She fixes it herself and then hopes we aren't looking.  I'm sorry, but eating powdered sugar with a spoon like this is just nasty! On Monday we caught her 2 different times with a bowl of ice cream.  We had no idea she could just help herself to ice cream out of the freezer and dish up a bowl by herself!  Needless to say the ice cream has been moved.  She is definitely an "ask for forgiveness instead of permission" kind of girl.  Grrrr.

Yup, another typical morning.