Names?

Danny and I are working on names, so last night we went to Family Search to look at some family names for inspirations. Let’s just say there are some interesting names out there, and I would love to know the story behind some of these names. I’ll share some of our favorites.

Mahitable Prudence: I’m not sure if I spelled that correctly or not, but I spelled it how it’s pronounced.

One that caught my attention for a boy was :

Orange: Yup, that’s right, maybe it had been so long since this pioneer family had fresh fruit they started naming their children after fruits.

I actually found some real contenders though. My favorites came from the Horn side there was Camille, Kirsti, and Josie.
As for boys, I’m kind of leaning toward Gavin with a middle name of Justus, which comes from the same side of my Tolman line as Mahitable.

We have not decided on anything though and I love name suggestions, so suggest away.

35 Years


In honor of your 35th birthday I give you 35 things I love about you!

1. Your Smile
2. Your eye color
3. You communicate well (rare for a person who talks with computers for a living)
4. Smart… is there anything you don’t know?
5. You change diapers
6. You do dishes
7. You’ll eat ANYTHING!
8. You’ll watch chick flicks with me
9. You’re honest
10.You work hard
11. You’re a great father
12. You ALWAYS put the toilet seat down
13. You kill critters for me
14. You listen to me blab about things that bore you
15. You tell me that you love me everyday
16. You care about community things, learn and study them out
17. You’ll eat left overs
18. Did I mention dishes?
19. You really good at organizing things
20. You’re not afraid to help with laundry
21. You are patient with the kids
22. You keep my computer running
23. I know you stand by me and things that are important to me
24. You do projects with the kids
25. You readily help me with painting projects
26. You give baths
27. You’ll cook
28. You don’t hog the bed
29. You let me drive
30. You’re a good provider
31. You lead our family in prayer and scriptures
32. You have compassion
33. You’re loving
34. You’re kind
35. You’re You!

Happy Birthday, I love you I hope you’ve had a good day.

Cabin Fever

The weather has been relatively nice around here lately, but my kids are still feeling the need to get out and play. Today Aubrey and Alyssa put on their swim suits and took apart my couch to make a swimming pool to dive into. Normally they wouldn’t be permitted to jump on the sofa, but they were being so creative, and having so much fun, I couldn’t ruin it for them.
Maybe we need to take the kids swimming this week.
I loved the underwear hanging out of the suit, Alyssa couldn’t get her shirt off so she put the swimsuit on over it. I love it when they solve their own problems.


Grandma and Grandpa's visit

Grandma and Grandpa O are here visiting from Alaska. I guess the weather in Alaska this winter has been brutal, but this week it has warmed up and it is actually warmer up there then here, go figure.
We really haven’t done anything except sit around and yack, Grandma did help me with some kitchen chores this morning. If it wasn’t for my own mother and my mother in law, I’m afraid my microwave would never get cleaned.
Grandma made each kid a blanket for Christmas. My kids happen to love blankets, and they are being used and abused already.



Grandma is also helping me with my sewing skills. We had to quit tonight because my machine is acting up, but we think it is my needle, so we’ll go to the store on Monday and replace it and hope that it works. I have a fairly cheap machine, but I have a hard time investing in something more spendy when my skills are less then mediocre, and I don’t sew a lot. Maybe some year, but for now what I have works 90% of the time.
I am excited to finish this skirt we are sewing, having someone with me step by step has helped, and I’m pretty sure I can reproduce the same thing for the other girls. Watch out Emma, your going to be matching your sisters soon (insert evil grin here).

My Star Wars watching buddies or should I say Zombies?

What we are reading

Tanner and I finished Island of the Blue Dolphins. I was surprised at his reaction to the book. He was very upset when the dog died, and asked me to read that page, we take turns reading pages. Emma has since joined us in our reading so we all take turns. We also finished Cricket in Times Square. They all liked that story, it was upbeat and happy. They loved it when they got a turn to read and it was the Chinese guy speaking, they really got into be theatrical with their reading. We took a week off and Tanner and Emma have been nagging me non stop to pick a new book. I finally did and we are reading Treasure Island. The language is more difficult, and it’s a hard book to ready out loud, exactly the challenge I was looking for. So far we are all enjoying it. Danny is reading Kirsten it’s an American Girl Story with Aubrey and Alyssa.

Tanner is really taken with 39 Clues. It’s written by Rick Riordan the same author as Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I really enjoyed his Olympians series, but 39 Clues is a little less mature, but Tanner really likes it. Book two came out in December, I haven’t’ bought it yet, I ordered it this week. There is a game online associated with the book, and they have to solve all sorts of geography and history clues to get to the prize. Tanner was funny, he told me to start staying home more because UPS will be delivering his prize. I hate to burst his bubble…

Random thoughts…

Someone, probably one of MY kids told Alyssa that she will get flushed down the toilet, so after 5 months of almost perfect potty training Alyssa has developed a fear of the potty. Of course no one will admit to it… I think she’s worked through it and will potty with a step stool for her feet.

Star Wars, YIKES, Tanner and Aubrey have been watching Star Wars this weekend, and now I know why I have never watched these movies. The noise that comes off of those movies without watching the story line is just down right nerve wracking! I’m banning Star Wars for at least a year.

4 days to my ultra sound, and 5 days until Danny’s parents come to visit. Should be a good week.

Things

I took Alyssa to Walmart today. She’s a very unpredictable kid. There are times when I take her out in public, and if someone looks at her she yells she cries and when asked what is wrong, she’ll say something awful like “She’s looking at me”. Then there are other days when she goes to the store and feels like she has to talk to everyone she runs into. Today, she had to show everyone that her belly button popped, (it’s and outie) so she walked around the store pulling her shirt up to show everyone her belly button. I guess we are all entitled to our mood swings.

Anyway, I took all the kids for haircuts right after school today. Tanner instantly sat down and read Aubrey books while we waited and Emma held a sleeping Alyssa while I talked with the lady at the front. I guess I’m starting to look pregnant, because the lady in the front asked me if I was one of those ladies like on 18 kids and counting. If you haven’t seen that show, it’s a Discovery Channel show about a family, the Duggers, with 18 kids. I felt a little weird about her question, its like we’ve become some sort of a freak show. I had the counselor at the school tell us that we should just start having kids to sell… I wonder… just kidding!

While we were at the hair cut place my cell phone rang. My cell phone NEVER rings, so I figured it was Danny. It was Emma’s school teacher. She asked where I was, and said that she was trying to locate us. She then informed me that she was getting ready to leave the school when she noticed one of the kids had left their very important take home final. When she walked over to see who had left their books, binder and test, she was shocked to see that it was Emma’s. She said she went and talked with another teacher and they decided that they couldn’t do that to Emma, and so they tracked us down. The teacher even brought it over to the hair cut place we were at, came in and harassed Emma, and left. I was so amazed that she would go out of her way to do something that kind. It really would have been tragic had we discovered the missing test on Saturday. There was a brief thought in my mind that maybe Emma needed to learn that there are consequences to her mistakes, but the teachers point was that Emma is so good, and there are also rewards for hard work. I hope Emma learned that if she continues to work hard, be honest and try her hardest, things wont always work out, but people are more likely to show you mercy. Emma was very grateful though, and will have to bake her teacher some cookies.