#2 has gotten a hang of letting us know what he wants for his birthday coming up 1/2 a year away. For a month now it has been kid size SUVs, Jeeps, Convertibles, or whatever else is in the latest toy advertisement. This is the latest:
--Mom, I want a cow for my birthday.
--What kind of cow?
--A real kind of cow. A big one.
--Real cows are pretty expensive and they take a lot of work to take care of.
--I want a real one.
--What would you do with this real cow?
--Ride it. Around in circles. Big circles. Then little circles and big circles (insert hand movement to indicate large and small circles here) and then big and little circles the next day. I'll ride it everyday.
--What about when there is snow on the ground?
--I'll ride it on the snow on the grass.
He seems to have this pretty much figured out. Maybe we should take him to The Farm more often to ride the ponies for free. See if that satisfies his riding desires. Hopefully the broncos aren't next year's wish!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
Laughing, not bragging.
A fourth grade class came to read to #1's kindergarten class today. One of our friend's children was #1's reader. This evening, as Melissa and #2 ran some errands, they ran into this girl who read to #1. She said it was exciting to read to #1, "She helped me with the big words I didn't know."
That's so wrong.
Wish it were the parenting, but #2 disproves that thesis. Little girl is a real self-starter.
That's so wrong.
Wish it were the parenting, but #2 disproves that thesis. Little girl is a real self-starter.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The Year in Adventures - An Open Holiday Letter
Note: We’ll keep this as the most recent post for a couple weeks, so check below for new posts.
As the debris settles on another year of adventures for our family, it is fun to emerge from the damage we have survived (or caused, depending on one’s perspective) and take a moment to let our family, friends, and acquaintances know what is going on in our lives. This may be somewhat silly, since most of the information in this post is just a rehashing of what we’ve said as we’ve keep those who care to know about us updated with weekly blog posts. So, to all of our faithful reading and posting loved ones, thanks for your support, kind words, funny comments, and friendship. And to those of you who don’t read often, thanks for taking the time to drop by. Feel free to come back soon.
Merry Christmas to you,
David, Melissa and our three operatives
Missions: DECLASSIFIED
Operation Yellow
The most successful mission this year involved commandeering a Marathon RV and setting up a field operation just outside 44*27’37.77” N 110* 49’40.95”, commonly known as Yellowstone. We locked down the area for a week, making it safe for our operatives to collect the necessary intelligence of the surroundings before we began a covert assault on the wildlife. Hundreds of mosquitoes met their deaths in hand-to-hand combat. We recovered the territory lost to the squirrels as they grabbed their nuts and fled to the trees. Four-star generals Grandpa and Nannie provided tactical support while we collected evidence, memories, and enjoyment.
Operation Black and White
Supplied by our quartermaster, we recovered smartees, dumdums, and other sugar POW’s from our neighbors, all dressed undercover as our animal counterparts – the Madagascar Penguins. Even better, we did not contract the bird flu in the operation.
Operation Green, Black & Blue I & II
David led two teams of 5 year-olds into combat by coaching two soccer teams this year, the first went 7-1, and the second went into the classified folder under the file name: pain.
Operatives: DECLASSIFIED
003 - Our little recon expert is now 17 months old. She spends her days giggling as she plays jokes on the rest of us. Hiding keys, hair clips, and other trinkets. She believes reading time should occur a minimum of 3 hours a day. She does not cry often, choosing instead to demonstrate her masterful pout. Unlike the others, she is completely a daddy’s girl. Shrieking with glee anytime he’s around, she can usually be found in his arms. She’s picked up his “It’s going to be okay” face and pats people’s backs when they are discouraged. She also climbs everything.
002 - Our Jr. green beret is the athletic one of the bunch. He plays soccer as well as his mom and sisters, can ride a bike without training wheels (as long as someone starts him, because at age three he is not big enough to get up onto the bike alone). He loves tractors, Thomas the Train, and Cars. He can hold his own in Mariokart on the Wii. He also is a great help in the kitchen and can usually take partial responsibility for the meals Melissa prepares in the home. Tim’s favorite dates are “ice cream”.
001 - Is there a military position for a princess? Oh. Our little diplomat started kindergarten this year and recently got her first progress report (report card). She had perfect marks without any marked room for improvement. She currently has the reading proficiency of a 5th grader, but needs to work on her reading comprehension, because there she’s only at the second grade level. In her personal study she just finished Alma and is starting Helaman. She likes reading the Chronicles of Narnia with Dad before bed. She’s been taking piano/organ lessons for about 8 months and has decent form. She loves singing, musicals, and Disney movies. She picked flowers as a midfielder on her soccer teams and likes practices more than games (except for the treats). She loves going to Olive Garden and musicals/plays for her dates.
Melissa continued her responsibilities as quartermaster this year. She makes dresses, clothes, and lots of little gifts. She has been very busy the last few months serving in the church. She manages the family finances and is still able to work as a mother raising of the children. Her favorite dates are “yes”. She ‘bonus schools’ the children at home in addition to the formal public education.
David continued his work as an intelligence operative by completing his Master’s Degree in Education this year and graduated top of his school at Brigham Young University. We’re excited about this because he’s now home and gets to help out and play with the children again. He is still employed as a Religious Educator and enjoys writing in his spare time, having produced a few articles and other curriculum materials in the last few months.
As the debris settles on another year of adventures for our family, it is fun to emerge from the damage we have survived (or caused, depending on one’s perspective) and take a moment to let our family, friends, and acquaintances know what is going on in our lives. This may be somewhat silly, since most of the information in this post is just a rehashing of what we’ve said as we’ve keep those who care to know about us updated with weekly blog posts. So, to all of our faithful reading and posting loved ones, thanks for your support, kind words, funny comments, and friendship. And to those of you who don’t read often, thanks for taking the time to drop by. Feel free to come back soon.
Merry Christmas to you,
David, Melissa and our three operatives
Missions: DECLASSIFIED
Operation Yellow
The most successful mission this year involved commandeering a Marathon RV and setting up a field operation just outside 44*27’37.77” N 110* 49’40.95”, commonly known as Yellowstone. We locked down the area for a week, making it safe for our operatives to collect the necessary intelligence of the surroundings before we began a covert assault on the wildlife. Hundreds of mosquitoes met their deaths in hand-to-hand combat. We recovered the territory lost to the squirrels as they grabbed their nuts and fled to the trees. Four-star generals Grandpa and Nannie provided tactical support while we collected evidence, memories, and enjoyment.
Operation Black and White
Supplied by our quartermaster, we recovered smartees, dumdums, and other sugar POW’s from our neighbors, all dressed undercover as our animal counterparts – the Madagascar Penguins. Even better, we did not contract the bird flu in the operation.
Operation Green, Black & Blue I & II
David led two teams of 5 year-olds into combat by coaching two soccer teams this year, the first went 7-1, and the second went into the classified folder under the file name: pain.
Operatives: DECLASSIFIED
003 - Our little recon expert is now 17 months old. She spends her days giggling as she plays jokes on the rest of us. Hiding keys, hair clips, and other trinkets. She believes reading time should occur a minimum of 3 hours a day. She does not cry often, choosing instead to demonstrate her masterful pout. Unlike the others, she is completely a daddy’s girl. Shrieking with glee anytime he’s around, she can usually be found in his arms. She’s picked up his “It’s going to be okay” face and pats people’s backs when they are discouraged. She also climbs everything.
002 - Our Jr. green beret is the athletic one of the bunch. He plays soccer as well as his mom and sisters, can ride a bike without training wheels (as long as someone starts him, because at age three he is not big enough to get up onto the bike alone). He loves tractors, Thomas the Train, and Cars. He can hold his own in Mariokart on the Wii. He also is a great help in the kitchen and can usually take partial responsibility for the meals Melissa prepares in the home. Tim’s favorite dates are “ice cream”.
001 - Is there a military position for a princess? Oh. Our little diplomat started kindergarten this year and recently got her first progress report (report card). She had perfect marks without any marked room for improvement. She currently has the reading proficiency of a 5th grader, but needs to work on her reading comprehension, because there she’s only at the second grade level. In her personal study she just finished Alma and is starting Helaman. She likes reading the Chronicles of Narnia with Dad before bed. She’s been taking piano/organ lessons for about 8 months and has decent form. She loves singing, musicals, and Disney movies. She picked flowers as a midfielder on her soccer teams and likes practices more than games (except for the treats). She loves going to Olive Garden and musicals/plays for her dates.
Melissa continued her responsibilities as quartermaster this year. She makes dresses, clothes, and lots of little gifts. She has been very busy the last few months serving in the church. She manages the family finances and is still able to work as a mother raising of the children. Her favorite dates are “yes”. She ‘bonus schools’ the children at home in addition to the formal public education.
David continued his work as an intelligence operative by completing his Master’s Degree in Education this year and graduated top of his school at Brigham Young University. We’re excited about this because he’s now home and gets to help out and play with the children again. He is still employed as a Religious Educator and enjoys writing in his spare time, having produced a few articles and other curriculum materials in the last few months.
Festival of Trees
To contribute to the festive spirit we decided to go with some friends out to JCW's and then to the festival of trees.
We learned:
- JCW's has a new location by Thanksgiving Point, and is our current favorite burger and shake joint in Utah.
- Melissa has difficulty with initials: "Hey, maybe this is Joseph B. Wirthlin's family's restaurant, the initials are J... um... wait."
- Our gingerbread houses are weak sauce.
- Trying to bid on a tree is darn near impossible.
- #2 cannot comprehend a certain word in the English language: "Don't". As in, "Don't touch".
- #3 hates, yes hates, crowds. She was happy as soon as she was away from people.
- Camera batteries run out at inconvenient times and so there are no pictures.
- Saturday is the worst day to go because of the crowds.
- That if you forget that you told yourself last year that you would never bring your children again, you will make that promise again this year.
We learned:
- JCW's has a new location by Thanksgiving Point, and is our current favorite burger and shake joint in Utah.
- Melissa has difficulty with initials: "Hey, maybe this is Joseph B. Wirthlin's family's restaurant, the initials are J... um... wait."
- Our gingerbread houses are weak sauce.
- Trying to bid on a tree is darn near impossible.
- #2 cannot comprehend a certain word in the English language: "Don't". As in, "Don't touch".
- #3 hates, yes hates, crowds. She was happy as soon as she was away from people.
- Camera batteries run out at inconvenient times and so there are no pictures.
- Saturday is the worst day to go because of the crowds.
- That if you forget that you told yourself last year that you would never bring your children again, you will make that promise again this year.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
WQQG, UXU?
#1 has loved looking at comic strips since before she could read. She would look at pictures and just laugh. Once she could read, she started laughing at some funnies and would ask about the random comics.
She's bumped up a level again. This morning after breakfast she was reading the usual comics and asked if I'd help her with the Cryptoquip in the bottom right corner of the comics page. I said yes, even though I'd never succeeded at solving one. How do I learn new things lately? The internet. I found something about an applet Edgar Allan Poe wrote to teach how to solve Cryptoquips but #1 was anxious to get started so I went to the next Google search for clues.
The question was: What Strategies do you use to solve Cryptoquip?
There was just one answer:
Do you mean where one letter is substituted for another?
If so, I try to start with the smaller words. Look for words that have an apostraphy, such as won't can't don't, she's, etc. The letter following ' can only be a t or s and d and m. If two letters follow, it could be I've, I'll.
Also look at the word 'the'. You may find similar words; there, their, they, or them.
Does the sentence ask a question? It most likely starts 'Do' or Would.
With this brief explanation, we went to the daily Cryptoquip she found:
ORO AROM RB MZZQFD BQD DQ WRXJM ZQFMJD ZLFMJ. UM WGRLAMO LD'J BQD BLWM DQ ZXMG AZDUMF BRDXFM.
Clue: O equals D
From there we filled in all the D's then found the apostrophe and figured it was 'it's'. It took some work but she worked it out pretty much on her own. She kept track of what letters equaled. When we got stuck, we wrote the alphabet the opposite way and filled in the empty spaces with unmatched letters. She got some laughs with some letter substitutes. The most surprising part was when I thought I was helping quite a bit and she piped up without any guidance from me to figure out what z equals. It was amazing! And we had fun. We'll have to do that again. :-)
When you solve the puzzle, you'll know the Title.
She's bumped up a level again. This morning after breakfast she was reading the usual comics and asked if I'd help her with the Cryptoquip in the bottom right corner of the comics page. I said yes, even though I'd never succeeded at solving one. How do I learn new things lately? The internet. I found something about an applet Edgar Allan Poe wrote to teach how to solve Cryptoquips but #1 was anxious to get started so I went to the next Google search for clues.
The question was: What Strategies do you use to solve Cryptoquip?
There was just one answer:
Do you mean where one letter is substituted for another?
If so, I try to start with the smaller words. Look for words that have an apostraphy, such as won't can't don't, she's, etc. The letter following ' can only be a t or s and d and m. If two letters follow, it could be I've, I'll.
Also look at the word 'the'. You may find similar words; there, their, they, or them.
Does the sentence ask a question? It most likely starts 'Do' or Would.
With this brief explanation, we went to the daily Cryptoquip she found:
ORO AROM RB MZZQFD BQD DQ WRXJM ZQFMJD ZLFMJ. UM WGRLAMO LD'J BQD BLWM DQ ZXMG AZDUMF BRDXFM.
Clue: O equals D
From there we filled in all the D's then found the apostrophe and figured it was 'it's'. It took some work but she worked it out pretty much on her own. She kept track of what letters equaled. When we got stuck, we wrote the alphabet the opposite way and filled in the empty spaces with unmatched letters. She got some laughs with some letter substitutes. The most surprising part was when I thought I was helping quite a bit and she piped up without any guidance from me to figure out what z equals. It was amazing! And we had fun. We'll have to do that again. :-)
When you solve the puzzle, you'll know the Title.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Another first.
#1 decided to amaze us by doing another thing way before expected.
Falling asleep while praying.
Your knees are going to ache there kiddo, but you get used to it...
Thanksgiving week quotes
Perhaps the best way to summarize the week is in quotes:
"I don't think we've ever had a turkey quite that good, ever, that was amazing." - Richard
"This is my mom, we call her mom, except for Dad, he calls her Melissa. That is a weird name for a mom." - #2 introducing Melissa to the family as if they don't know her.
"#2, for the fifteeth time, his name is Richard, not 'that guy'."
"What is that brown thing on your face? (pointing to Richard's mole) Is that part of your face? Have you always had it? Oh." - #1
"Where's Richard?"
"Oh, he left once Melissa organized the puzzle. He could not find any of the pieces."
"Who would have thought we could finish a 1500 piece puzzle in four days. I think that's a sign of how much fun we're having." -David
"This season is the season when we come together and all hate together. And what a better thing to hate than turkeys? And what better way to hate 'em, than to eat them by the millions. ... I thought one turkey would not be enough... Ya I can see how 3 pounds of meat each would leave us unsatisfied...A turdunkin - it's a chicken, inside of a duck, inside of a turkey. Although impressive, I think they stopped short...ya they were real underachievers. ..." -RedvBlue
"Why not start balderdash at 10:30 P.M.?"
"Eleven gnomes out of thirteen at the Thanksgiving Point Museum isn't bad."
"Her name is pronounced Jen-nay." Then #2 creates a song... "Jen-NAy Hoff-MAN, JEN-nayyyy Hoff-man" "She's not Jen-ney Hoffman, she's Jen-ney Piercy." #2 continues the song, "Jen-NAYYYMagie, Jen-NaYmag-GIEEEEE."
"#3, I'm your Nannie, you're supposed to like me. Oh, don't run away... :("
"Given this land, if they live, righ-a-sleep" -#2
"I don't think we've ever had a turkey quite that good, ever, that was amazing." - Richard
"This is my mom, we call her mom, except for Dad, he calls her Melissa. That is a weird name for a mom." - #2 introducing Melissa to the family as if they don't know her.
"#2, for the fifteeth time, his name is Richard, not 'that guy'."
"What is that brown thing on your face? (pointing to Richard's mole) Is that part of your face? Have you always had it? Oh." - #1
"Where's Richard?"
"Oh, he left once Melissa organized the puzzle. He could not find any of the pieces."
"Who would have thought we could finish a 1500 piece puzzle in four days. I think that's a sign of how much fun we're having." -David
"This season is the season when we come together and all hate together. And what a better thing to hate than turkeys? And what better way to hate 'em, than to eat them by the millions. ... I thought one turkey would not be enough... Ya I can see how 3 pounds of meat each would leave us unsatisfied...A turdunkin - it's a chicken, inside of a duck, inside of a turkey. Although impressive, I think they stopped short...ya they were real underachievers. ..." -RedvBlue
"Why not start balderdash at 10:30 P.M.?"
"Eleven gnomes out of thirteen at the Thanksgiving Point Museum isn't bad."
"Her name is pronounced Jen-nay." Then #2 creates a song... "Jen-NAy Hoff-MAN, JEN-nayyyy Hoff-man" "She's not Jen-ney Hoffman, she's Jen-ney Piercy." #2 continues the song, "Jen-NAYYYMagie, Jen-NaYmag-GIEEEEE."
"#3, I'm your Nannie, you're supposed to like me. Oh, don't run away... :("
"Given this land, if they live, righ-a-sleep" -#2
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Grab Bag
Here's a grab bag of comments and events of this week...
I.
#2 has learned how to ride a bike. #1 is terrified of it, but still wants to learn (Jedi mind tricks work - you dooo want to learn to ride a bike, these aren't the training wheels you're looking for.)
So, while #2 rides ahead, David has been jogging next to #1 holding the bike making sure she does fall, but that's not the funny part. As she rides, she rocks forward and back, psychotically repeating to herself "I'm holding on, I'm holding on, I'm holding on." She alternates between that and "just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling." Issues. Serious issues.
It doesn't help when Tim looses control and runs directly into a mailbox and endo's over the bars right in front of her. Then she also starts shaking uncontrollably.
II.
#2 told me a joke that apparently Melissa told him.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana orange."
"Banana orange who?"
"Aren't you banana orange i did not say, um, hahahahhahahahahaha."
III.
Our washer died. Roger Demming from our stake is a repairman and did a good job resurrecting it and gave us a decent price on the repair. The problem? A sock got eaten by the filter. Apparently washing machines do eat socks!
IV.
#3's sense of humor is set to "stun". She is at the stage where she laughs at all sorts of un-funny things, and never seems to laugh when things are funny.
V.
Got a funny email this week...
Post your own funny dialogue explaining this one...
I.
#2 has learned how to ride a bike. #1 is terrified of it, but still wants to learn (Jedi mind tricks work - you dooo want to learn to ride a bike, these aren't the training wheels you're looking for.)
So, while #2 rides ahead, David has been jogging next to #1 holding the bike making sure she does fall, but that's not the funny part. As she rides, she rocks forward and back, psychotically repeating to herself "I'm holding on, I'm holding on, I'm holding on." She alternates between that and "just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling, just keep pedaling." Issues. Serious issues.
It doesn't help when Tim looses control and runs directly into a mailbox and endo's over the bars right in front of her. Then she also starts shaking uncontrollably.
II.
#2 told me a joke that apparently Melissa told him.
"Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
"Banana orange."
"Banana orange who?"
"Aren't you banana orange i did not say, um, hahahahhahahahahaha."
III.
Our washer died. Roger Demming from our stake is a repairman and did a good job resurrecting it and gave us a decent price on the repair. The problem? A sock got eaten by the filter. Apparently washing machines do eat socks!
IV.
#3's sense of humor is set to "stun". She is at the stage where she laughs at all sorts of un-funny things, and never seems to laugh when things are funny.
V.
Got a funny email this week...
Post your own funny dialogue explaining this one...
