Insert interesting title here

I continue to gain respect for those who have raised children. one reason I have not posted too many pictures of Callie lately is because I spend every second chasing after her and monitoring her to make sure she's not spilling, dropping or breaking anything; dumping something out, pulling something over on top of herself, or just wreaking havok in general. I realize I can't really complain to anyone because most of you have all been there/done that and this is just part of the game.

But amidst all the choas there are the little gems that make it all worthwhile. For instance in church yesterday; In between crawling under all the pews and trying to gain access to the aisles, she was standing on Brother Willardson's lap playing pattycake with his shiny, 'Mr. Clean' head. Callie was fascinated and Tim was loving it too! Then she leaned forward over him and slapped the bald head of the brother behind them who was leaned forward, resting his head on the back of our pew. It was like the cymbal crash at the the end of a drum roll thing- "Ba- doomp - -TSSSSS!!!!" The guy immediately sat up straight and stayed that way the rest of the meeting. . .

I guess that's what he gets for not listening to the speaker! We were sitting near the front so the whole congregation was quite entertained yesterday! When the home teachers came over later, they confirmed that she was the highlight of Sacrament Meeting. I 'm sure if I should be proud that she was so disruptive or not though.

Tim taught me a valuable lesson that day too. He said that if you want your kids to behave in church, give them freedom. Let them think its fun to be in there with you. Then if they do become tooo wild and carzy and you have to take them out into the hallway or foyer or something, don't give them any freedom, make them know that it is much better to be in there and not sitting nicely than to be dragged out into the hall and not have any freedom whatsoever. I'm not condoning beating your children or anything just make sure that theay know the difference between when they are good and not so good.

Anyway, right before we had to leave to take her back today, I was able to get a few good pictures out in the back yard. The snow was really crusty so a snowman was out of the question, but we ran around a little...

Civil War and more

Almost everyone I know says I look good with a beard. They say I look older, more distinguished,etc.

I had to take a phone picture of the back of my camera because I couldn't find my card reader. Sorry about the blurriness...

And a normal one with just my phone.

Logan Temple

When I was coming home from the Library up at school the other night, I noticed something different about the Temple. It took me a minute to figure out what it was, but then I realized- it wasa different color! And it also seemed to be brighter than normal! I thought maybe my eyes were fooling be because of the dense snow clouds overhead that might be refracting the light differntly, but I checked again a different night when the sky was clear and the color was definitely not the same as it used to be. up until recently the spires had a greenish glow to them at night. You could always pick out the Temple amidst all the lights of the city when you look out from any vantage point across the valley. Now the spires have a nice rosy color to them and they are much brighter than before too. This first picture as actually taken about two years ago, but it shows the color pretty well. The second one is a view from last night.

Prettty big difference, eh?

I apologize for the blurriness, I blame it on the shivering from the cold. See what I go through just to keep you people updated!????

Pente

I hang my head in shame for having not gone to FHE in a long time until tonight. I'm glad I went though. After the lesson, the activity was just board games in the cultural hall.I didn't know that that was the activity until that very moment so I wasn't prepared. I promptly went back home and got my game box and my Pente board. I love that game! By the time I got back, everyone had settled at their tables and were immersed in their games so I had to wait until a table was done with their game to introduce mine to them. Luckily, no one had picked the Monopoly box that was an option... Anyway about 15 minutes before time to clean up a table finally opened and I brought over Pente.

One of my favorite things about the game is that is is so easy to teach and get started. After about 30 seconds of instruction, our table was up and going and enjoying themselves. Even with my past experience and expertise, I was not the first one to gain an advantage over everyone else. (We were playing with 4 players.) Ultimately I did win though. It was a good game to play because we wouldn't have had time to play any other full board game in the time we had left. The guys had fun learning a new game and I got to play Pente for the first time in over two years! Yay!

Happy New Year everybody!

I've had this picture on my phone for a few weeks, and I thought I'd share it with you. 

Christmas pics

I had the pleasure of being able to have Callie for Christmas this year. Even though she was a bit under the weather for some of it, we had a great time overall.

~Christmas Eve~
These pictures of the lights really don't do adequate justice to the megawatts of electricity that it must take to run them all. This first picture of the street is in Preston, ID(where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed). I'm sure if there was a way to put lights on the street itself, they'd find a way to do it!

Once you get to the north end of the main street you can see a glow on the horizon. This is one circumstance where you want to follow the light! You'll end up at this house:

Obsessed much???
We even saw some fireworks on the way up there- the picture is horrible.













Unfortunately Callie was asleep for all this. She wasn't feeling well. . .

When we got home, I got her to wake up enough to open a present or two for Christmas Eve. She got a nice warm blanket from Grandma Albrecht


I helped her realize that the box with the fun tape wasn't actually the present, but the fuzzy blanket she had tossed aside. She loved it!









She also got a couple pairs of new jammies too, one of which she's wearing in the picture.


~Christmas Day~
Santa brought various toys, books, a cute new outfit. . .

and. . . what could this be???



















a "bike"!














She cried when she had to get off to open the rest of the stuff. : (



For $2.00 at D.I. you can't go wrong with a complete set of Trouble Tracks! (ooh, ahh) with rompin', stompin' revving truck! It was a winner.














That about sums it up for now!

a simple fun recipe!

We've all done the thing where you put a candycane in your cocoa to make a nice pepperminty drink.

Here's my variation on that idea. I'm surprised that that the Reese's company hasn't marketed this idea yet. Maybe they have and I just haven't seen it out there...

All you have do is:

Put a spoonful of creamy peanut butter in with your cup of hot chocolate! Stir it around until it's melted in and then relax with your cup of goodness!

Enjoy!

what a trooper!

Yesterday Callie endured going to two churches with me. We went to my family ward first. It meets at 9 o'clock in the morning. This ward has a lot of kids in it that are her age, so I was relieved that she wasn't the only one being loud while the speaker was giving his talk. After that block, we dashed home as quick as we could, grabbed a fast bite to eat and hurried up to my old ward for choir practice before the next meeting. I unloaded all the kid paraphernalia into an empty pew and went up with the choir. She entertained herself quite well for that 1/2 hour before people started showing up. Right before the meeting got started I asked some friends if they wouldn't mind letting her sit with them while I was up with the choir and my quartet. They were happy to help out. This time she was the only kid in the audience so all of the noises were all hers(and there were plenty of them!). But they were cute noises, so I don't think most people minded too much. It was also fun to be up there and watch her down below waving her arm and pretending to lead the music from time to time.

The Christmas program went very well over all. The choir was good , our quaretet did extremely well, and the narrator read everything right. Best of all to me, perhaps, was that there wasn't a two year old running up and down the aisles raising havoc and screaming. I'm so appreciative of those who watched her. We went back home again after that and both took a nice long nap.

This weekend was a fun. Callie was still getting over being sick from before, so we didn't go outside and play in the snow at all, but that's ok. We colored, played and watched movies inside the whole time. I sliced up some apples and we put them on the dehydrator. Little did she know that these are going be treats in her stocking! It also made the house smell really good, so that's a bonus! It didn't even really seem claustrophobic being housebound for so long. We had fun!
here's a phone pic of her in her Christmas dress (it's really green) after the two meetings:

Last weekend

I got to have Callie for a while last weekend! It has been nearly a month since I last got to see her and She has grown a lot! Kids seem to do that, don't they? Here is also a picture of the hearth I made to: #1- Cover up the storage shelf that is so unattractive . . . #2- have a place to hang our stockings! And this post will bring us up to date!

When I got home last Tuesday night, this was sitting in my driveway waiting for me...(these pictures were not taken in my driveway) Not bad, eh???

Back to Oregon

Laura came back to get me Saturday night and we made the trek all the way back to Monmouth.
She was a REALLY good sport and helped me take some pictures of a tree that will become a bonsai in the future. It needs a lot of training and refining to make it look better. It is a Canadian Hemlock. Here are some others that have been in training for years and years. Some day this little guy will be like them!

More of the trip

On Saturday I went to Yelm and got to spend some more time around the places I grew up.

Thanksgiving day

Ok, on to the Thanksgiving part of the trip. I got to pend some good quality time with all the family members, it was quite fun!

Playing catch up

I'm finally getting to report on things that happened about two weeks ago!

For the first time in four years I was able to be at home with my family for Thanksgiving. I owe it all to the kindness and generosity of my one and only Laura Licious. Without her, it wouldn't have been possible. She did it all; She bought my ticket, picked me up from the airport, chaufferred me around while I was in Oregon, made an eight hour round trip to take me up to Olympia and then made another one three days later to pick me back up again and take me back to Oregon. What a sweety, huh?

It was an action packed week! On Tuesday night After Laura picked me up from the Portland Airport, we stopped by the Portland Temple. We walked all around it and we held hands and talked and enjoyed the spirit there. It was beautiful, I had never been there before

What a great way to start the trip!

Later that night we went dancing with Laura's sister Janice. Since I'm not much of a country line dancer, I was perfectly content to stay off the floor and give the space to everyone else who was out there.

Wednesday afternoon/evening we made the trip up to Olympia. The traffic was not so good, so it took us an extra hour to get up there. She stayed and chatted for awhile but had to leave again to be home that night.

(Due to the fact that I'm at the library's computer and their computers upload pictures differntly, I'm going to have to do several different posts about the trip) This is the first one and there are more to come!