Recital Time

One of the things that I enjoy most about the beginning of December is the Christmas recital that Marja's students have. It sometimes amazes me to hear how far they have come with her. Here are Bela and Aspen's recital pieces for you to hear.




You'll notice there is a cry and the camera moves left to show the audience staring at me. That was because a friend was trying to be helpful and hold Violet while I filmed, except she wasn't going for it. This was Bela's first recital and she did a great job with it.




You can tell that Aspen has done this a few times. She's very calm and does fantastic. I'm lucky to be surrounded by so many beautiful and talented women.

Love and Hate

Here it is...the unedited version of my life. I was actually just preparing some of our Thanksgiving feast just now and had to stop to post this because I found it to be SO DANG FUNNY!!! We were all in kitchen, the girls coloring and myself mixing together a lovely concoction of brown sugar, flour, pecans and butter. Elise (who has now decided that she is Elise, not Lou) says to me in the most innocently sweet voice, "Mom, I love you sometimes. And sometimes, mom, I hate you. But right now, I love you." May I remind you that she is 3, not 13. It actually made me laugh out loud. Where are my children learning these early tactics of family therapy, and where can I find the person from whom they are learning? I do love them. Not just right now, but always. Thank heavens I didn't forget to grab my sense of humor this morning!

Halloween Fun

Well here we have another one come and gone. We have plenty of candy to show from it and, unfortunately for me, I love to pick at whatever is sitting around. Do you think I could get rid of it without the kids knowing? Hmmm...

I thought I'd share some highlights from the Halloween fun. This year Aspen decided to be a black cat. Even though her sisters began with ideas of their own, one by one they all decided that they wanted to be just like Aspen for Halloween. This does give me a glimpse into my future and I thank my lucky stars that Aspen is such an obedient, kind person. If they all want to be just like her I have no complaints. I must admit that this has been the easiest year for costumes. Does it get any easier than ears, a tail and a little black eyeliner? I don't think so. You can see that the baby HATED her ears and was more than upset by the 3 seconds that we made her wear them, for photos sake.



I love how each of the personalities come out in one way or another in this photo. Although, Elise isn't usually this tame.

My friend Angie posted this dinner idea on her blog and it sounded so fun! I decided that we needed a Halloween tradition, since we don't have any, and this was the winner. Thanks Ang! Truth be told, the kids were not lovers of the dinner in a pumpkin, but it was actually really good. They did eat it, so they couldn't have hated it that much. I made breadstick bones to eat with it, so they were satisfied. All in all we had a great Halloween. Can't wait for Thanksgiving!

Elementary school woes...for me!

Its been a long time, and while I have no pictures to post, I thought that there might be some of you out there that can appreciate this. So far things have been a little touch and go here this morning. Bela woke up with the baby at 6:45...too early for anyone to be happy. She put on a dress that she had picked the night before, danced around in it for about 5 minutes and then decided that she wanted to wear her Halloween outfit. She was totally excited, pranced around in that one for about 10 minutes and then she panicked that someone would think she was wearing her pajamas. So, we went to outfit #3 and got on a pair of jeans with a Halloween sweater. Then she said that she needed some safety pins for her jeans. Sheesh! When I very calmly told her that she needed to decide what to eat for breakfast because she was running out of time she just couldn't do it. Then I caught her teasing Elise and I remained calm, but sternly, told her that I was getting frustrated with her behavior and that she was going to miss breakfast because there was simply no more time to waste. Oh, you should have seen the watermelon-sized tears. Good grief. Luckily she recovered and ate breakfast. We hopped in the car and as we were on our way to school I was thinking of the menotenous drudgery that I am sometimes living and it occurred to me that I will be doing this routine and running my kids to and from Elementary school for the next ELEVEN YEARS!!!!! Someone out there...save me!! While motherhood has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me, I could do without the morning routine sometimes.

What classified ad?!

So last Friday, I'm at work struggling through the deeper portions of networking and the internet with my class and I notice I get a new email as the students are sent to complete a practice test. Well, what's this? An email from KSL classified. The subject: Your ad has been approved. Hmmmm. What is Mari up to. I click and open the email to read a quick line saying if I want to view my entry, click here. I go to the classified site and find that Mari is selling sod for free, just come and pick it up. I knew that we had talked about taking some sod out in the front for some garden beds, but did she really get the sod out or do the people come and dig it up themselves. Well, really that doesn't make sense. So I called Mari at lunch to find that wonderwoman has gone and rented a sod cutter, unloaded it by herself, and cut the garden areas out herself. Then she loaded it back in the van and returned it. I think that the guys at ACE rents were so impressed that when she told them she forgot to fill it up with gas, they didn't charge her for it. So by the time I got home from work, someone had already come and picked up the sod. It makes me laugh, but she is really amazing!

Saturday is a Special Day

Hello out there to all of you! I had to have a picture for proof because mostly likely none of you would believe this otherwise. Normally at our house Saturday is spent cleaning, going to the girls' soccer games, mowing the lawn, etc. This Saturday was a different one. Everyone has heard of the Iron Man triathlon, right? Well, today I participated in a triathlon. That's right ladies and gentlemen, I am now a triathlete. This is no Iron Man however. I've been joking with the ladies that I've been training with that compared to the Iron Man this is just the Marshmallow Man. It was a novice triathlon with very small numbers for each event, but was a fabulous motivator for me as well as a great introduction into the triathlon world. Here is a picture before the race of me and my cohorts. We took a photo after the race that I'll post when I get it. We decided to do this in June and have been training M-F since then. Its been so fun! I was surprised to find that the event that I felt strongest with (running) was the hardest (perhaps because it was last?) and the biking, which I was most concerned about, was easier than I expected. It did help to see that the people whizzing past me on the bike ended up walking theirs up the monstrous hill that I managed to ride all the way up. The swimming was different than I expected too. I've been training in the morning before the sun comes up and this race was later which meant that the sun was shining straight into my face since I prefer the backstroke. It did throw me off a bit, but all was well and I didn't even knock my head into anything. As glad as I am to have this event under my belt I will be sad to be done. In case you're thinking that you must not know me anymore for me to be doing something like this, don't fret. I am still the same Marja because I came home from the triathlon today, ate two brownies and then took a nap. Same girl, just with a little permanent marker on the arm and leg, and maybe a little more confidence if ever I were to need to run from a mugger. We (the ladies and I) have already been talking about what's next on the list. Maybe a 5K? I'll keep you posted.

Who needs a screw-driver when you have an angry fist?

So, every one needs a hero. Here is mine. She's greater than wonderwoman. Mari helped me yesterday to put up my shed and had to do almost all of the work because I'm currently a gimp with my broken hand and cast. This shed was kind of a pain to put up and while we were trying to slide in the roof panels, there was one point when it wasn't quite fitting and I said , let me get you a screw driver to wedge between the panel and the slot. Marja just used her super woman strength and smacked it down into place. It was a lot of work but now I have a shed up and can clear out some of the clutter in that garage.

Also this month, Aspen finally lost her two front teeth. We were getting concerned because the new teeth started to grow in behind the front two and our dentist said that if in a month the baby teeth hadn't fallen out to give him a call and he would have to extract them. Well, that month was supposed to be up at the beginning of August. We were kind of dragging our feet because we didn't want Aspen to have a bad experience at the dentist and the two front teeth were already loose. Enter Bela.

One evening we were getting ready for dinner and we hear Aspen wailing upstairs. She comes down with her mouth all bloody and screaming that Bela landed on her head and she thinks she lost a tooth. Bela, afraid to get in trouble, was following to see the outcome of her WWF moves and so I took her back up to Aspens room to find the tooth. We eventually found it and by this time mom had Aspen sucking on a wet paper towel and had pulled out the other tooth because it was just hanging there. Then a couple minutes later, I hear Bela upstairs in her room wailing. I went up to check it out and discovered she was panicking because she didn't want to lose any of her teeth. I just reassured her that they would come out when they were ready and no body is going to take her teeth. She finally calmed down enough to come back down, but later was wailing because she then found out Aspen was going to get something from the tooth fairy and she felt bad that she wasn't getting anything. How funny.


Last Monday, me and Aspen and Bela slept out in the tree house. It was a lot of fun but you can see that Dad can't keep his eyes open during the pictures. The flash was just too bright. The girls were great but I still didn't sleep well. It seemed every time I was about to fall asleep I would feel like there was a bug in my hair or the neighbors sprinklers would start up. Even with all that, I wouldn't trade the experience. I am lucky to be surrounded by such beautiful and lovely women.

Where's the beef?

I thought I'd just right a few of the latest events that we have enjoyed this summer. We had a wonderful time at aunt Cathy's with a great meal for their annual Cedar Hills celebration. There was the usual KFC and great fruit and such. At first I was thinking what a bummer it was going to be for me because one of my favorite things that we usually do at the Cedar Hills celebration while we are waiting for the fireworks to start is to play some family soccer, in which usually someone ends up getting creamed or a broken toe (we play bare-footed). But with my wrist in a bandage there was no way. I guess that made it a good year to have this storm come through so we couldn't play anyways. Instead we went down into the basement and played Wii sports games. Bye the way, I beat Nathaniel 1 -0 and latter Brian 6-0 in baseball. He he. I don't really play fair though because I never throw anything but a curve ball, and most of the time its outside.
So we waited for the fireworks because it had stopped raining and we tried a few of our own out in front of Cathy's house. The wind was still blowing so I guess that is why the city never launched its firework show. When we left the girls were very confused because there were no fireworks that night. But other than that we had a blast.

We also went for a drive this past week to check out the triathlon route of the race we (hopefully that includes me) had signed up for. It's a novice race and we thought it would be good to check out the route and see how bad it is going to be. Overall its a pretty flat race and I am hoping that if I have a brace on by that time that I can just swim on my back and take my time and just finish the race. Of course, it looks like Mari is going to do really well. In fact, it's probably good that I have a broken wrist so I have something to blame it on when she is 3 miles in front of me.

The girls also got to spend some time with Grandma Rose (Reynolds) at the annual sleep out. Of course Bela and Elise were up way late and then up really early so I think it took Grandma a couple of days to recover, but they loved it. Thanks Gran.

On the Road Again

I'm on the road to recovery again, with my new titanium wrist. And seven screws. Here are the pics of the plate in my wrist. I'm now the bionic man...you can address me as such. The third picture I highlighted where my break is so you can see. Now let's cross our fingers and hope that nothing else happens this year. NO MORE SURGERY PLEASE!

Woah! They're supposed to warn me about things like that.

You know it's never good when your doctor comes in to see you and says that. That is what the urgent care doctor said when he came into the room last Saturday to look at my wrist. I had gone for a bike trip up American Fork canyon that morning and crashed, going over my handle bars and landing on my wrist. I couldn't even grip my water bottle, so I had to hike down the rest of the trail to where it met the road and the other guys I was with picked me up. I was having a blast up until that point. Now my only thought was if I would be able to heal before a triathlon that Mari and I had signed up for. As it turned out, my wrist was broken. The secretary of the urgent care doctor called yesterday with an appointment for me to see an orthopedic surgeon on Friday. The dumb thing about that is that my arm is sitting in a sling and is just sitting here all mis-shapen and painful. Thanks to Marja, who called almost every orthopedic guy in Utah, I was able to go and see a doctor yesterday in Provo. He looked at the x-rays and said I have a Smith's fracture, which means he will have to perform surgery to put a metal plate in my arm to hold the bone in place as it heals.You can see how the radius bone in my arm doesn't line up with the bones in my hand. So, it's on to surgery on Wednesday. I was going to ask the doctor, while h is in there to add some retracting blades while he was at it, but I don't think that would be covered by our insurance.

Mari has been so wonderful at picking up the pieces because I can't do anything with my right hand now. I feel the worst for her because this really puts a lot of pressure on her. Hopefully, after surgery, I will be able to figure out how to do more to help her out.

Watch For Bears!

It's never good to run into an ex-girlfriend while you're out camping. Especially if things with that ex-girlfriend didn't end so well because she couldn't take the hints that things are over and you were too afraid to be too blunt to let her know it just wasn't working for you. More about that at the end of the story.

Marja and I went camping at the end of June with some friends in our ward. One of our friends that sings in the choir wanted to go on a back packing trip. I was really impressed that some one who doesn't trust nature too well was up for the adventure. We borrowed some old backpacks from my dad and my mom watched the girls overnight while we went on our trip. It was interesting to see how tight my old backpack was that I used when I was 14. I must have put on a little weight since then, because I could barely get my arms into the straps. Mari agreed to go but was a little bit worried about bears. She remembers the poor boy who last year or the year before was killed by a bear up the American Fork canyon. I assured her there were no bears and that I had never even seen a bear in Utah, let alone in a canyon near where we live. Of course, just as we were getting to the parking area for the trail, my friend Troy begins to describe how when he took the scouts last up this trail, they saw a bear. So that night we slept with a hatchet in our tent because that was the closest thing we had to any sort of weapon. We hiked up for about 45 minutes and then came to a meadow which had some old well-used fire pits. So we placed our backpacks at the forest edge and continued hiking up to a gorgeous waterfall.
It was a fun hike and there were amazing wild flowers. We had bug repellent, but there really weren't that many bugs.
At one point, Troy here, felt he needed a hand to cross the bridge. We wanted more people to come so I may make this photo into a flyer saying "Please come, we would enjoy everyone's company.
This is a picture of the group that hiked up to the falls. One couple, the Johnsons, couldn't stay overnight because their baby sitter wasn't planning on it. The other three of us enjoyed a nice camp fire and talked late into the night.

In the morning, Mari was the first one up. She and I got up and after about 4 attempts (well, really about 40 matches) I got a fire going. Troy and Marla were still asleep in their tent at 9:30 so Mari and Becky helped persuade me and Ryan to go and ditch their tent. It was fun watching them struggle to find anything. After about 5-10 minutes, I started feeling bad because they still hadn't managed to get out, so we went and put their poles back in. I'll have to make sure I am one of the first ones up at our next trip. I'm sure Troy would love to return the favor.

Then, that morning we were standing around the fire as it was dying out and up the trail comes this small family. A set of parents and 3 children ( one was in a pack ). One of our campers called out in friendly fun, "You guys need to get some baby sitters." The mother made a snappish remark about how they've brought them up here much younger than this. I was kind of surprised by her response. Her husband came over and starts remarking about how he thinks this area is in the Lone Peak Wilderness and you are not supposed to have fires up here. We looked at each other and thought, well why were these huge fire pits here. Other people obviously had used them. Then I realized who the mother was. It was the Jenny from my high school that I went out with for a while and that my brother Stephen loathed. I didn't really say anything to her and I wasn't sure if she recognized me but it was kind of awkward. They were hiking up to the falls so they kept on going. We packed up our gear, put out the fire, and headed down the trail. When we got close to the bottom of the trail, up comes a Lone Peak Fire Marshall. Uh-oh, I thought. I just walked on by him and he stopped Troy and Marla who were behind us and asked if they had come from the summit. They said no and we continued on down to pass yet another fire marshall. When we got to where our cars were, there was a fire engine and a couple of police cars. I went up to one of the policemen and asked what was happening and he told me that they were just investigating some smoke. I looked back up the canyon but there was no smoke. We hurried out of there as fast as we could. I figure, that husband of Jenny's must have called in our fire. Even with this event, we had a great time.
By the way, I checked it out, and I believe that we can have fires up where we were. Just in case you want to know, Dad. :)

Portraits

Marja took some new portraits of the girls to hang on our walls. These are the ones that we liked the most. Mari does a great job capturing the girls. Some of these were taken in our backyard and others were taken at the Timpanogos Temple.

ASPEN

BELA

ELISE

VIOLET

All of the Cuties Together

Fun in the Sun!

We just spent a wonderful week in California last month. We took the girls to Disneyland. We drove all day on Sunday to get there and were ready to hit the rides the next morning. The girls had lots of fun, but could only last a few hours before we needed to head back to the hotel to take a rest. The first ride that we saw when we got there, Aspen wanted to go on: the rockets. This was fun, but of course made me a little motion sick, so we decided to try one that didn't have so much spinning. We were going to try the Buzz Lightyear ride, but as soon as we were in the building in line, the girls got scared and all wanted to leave. Most of the rides were too loud for them.
They would all plug their ears as we wen on the rides so it wasn't as loud. We spent one night late so that we could watch Fantasmic and see some of the fireworks. The girls did a great job, especially compared to the demon child we saw in the Dumbo line. Most children fuss as you wait in line for 45 minutes to ride a 1-1/2 minute ride but this boy took it to another level. He somehow got 3 groups ahead of his mother and started punching this lady. Then he took out his attacking claws and started at her purse. She was in shock and didn't know what to do. His mom was trying to get to him and then he turn and started pushing the 4 children behind him who were scooting as close to the sides of the line as they could, praying that he would just walk between them back to his mom. Of course when his mom finally got to him, she said nothing of how he treated the other people or apologizes. She just tried to show him the Dumbos and distract him. Well, after that interesting experience we finally made it onto Dumbo (which is one of Bela's favorites).

Here are some more pictures from Disneyland and the beach.


One of the best times for me was taking a nap in the hotel while it was over 100 degrees outside.

Here the girls are enjoying some ice cream that Grandpa helped pay for with some quarters.


Of course we had to see the princesses too.


Bela and I went into the Mad-Hatter store and tried on hats while momma and the other girls went on the tea-cup ride. That ride makes daddy puke and since Bela is somewhat of my clone, I thought it best she not ride it either.


Waiting for Fantasmic to start.


Aunt Micky and Uncle Greg let us stay at their place for a few days and enjoy their wonderful pool and home. They are such gracious hosts. We really appreciated them letting us stay there.