Swim Christmas Party

 Our swim team all got together for Christmas.  We had a yummy ham dinner with amazing desserts.  Then the coaches gave out medals to all the swimmers and the swimmers of the year plaques.  Donald got the coaches swimmer of the year award for his group.

          Here they are with their coaches              

And here is the whole team.  Donald is on our right of the wise guy in the back row next to the coaches with the plaque in front of his face.  Eli is in the front towards the right. 

Go Crocs!

Annual gingerbread houses

It is that time of year again...time for Aunt Lorie's Annual Gingerbread House Party.  This is the second year that we went (I think it is her 13th or so year of doing it).  My kids love it cause they really get to bring out their creativity.  Last year Eli and I worked on one together and Donald ended up making two.  This year we all did our own.

 This was mine.  I really liked the way the roof turned out :).

 This one is Eli's.  He tried really hard and decided to give it to his teacher for Christmas.

 And this one is Donald's.  He decided to go with a church/temple theme so that he could give his to the missionaries for Christmas.  Those are gingerbread missionaries on the front.

Eli was so proud of his creation.  Just look how messy he was!  But we had a wonderful time and can't wait to see what we create next year.

Power of the Priesthood

I just have to start by saying that I am so grateful for the Spirit and all that it provides in my life.  Yesterday Donald received the Aaronic priesthood.  I was so overwhelmed that my Heavenly Father would give such an amazing gift to my son.  My parents got divorced when I was young and my dad stopped going to church before I was born so I was not really raised with the influence of the Priesthood in my home.  Don has had the priesthood most of our married life, but for some reason it seems so different when such an amazing power is given to someone that you helped come into this world.  In the last year as Donald has been preparing for this I have felt the Spirit so strongly in him and it is so wonderful.  I was scared that as he reached his teenage years he would become more rebelious, but instead he has become such an example.


For the last week or so Don has been in Monterey for work and today I have not felt real great (it is like I can feel my immune system attacking foreign invaders and the side affects are not feeling so good).  So tonight we sat on my bed to read scriptures and Eli was a bit jumpy.  I told him to settle down, but he was still hyper and not listening.  After the third or fourth jump on the bed, I told him to go to bed.  I could hear him cry down the hall and tried to call him back, but he buried his head in his pillow.  After I read the section we got up to go say prayer in Eli's room so he would know that I wasn't mad at him.  Donald picked up the scriptures and carried them in with us without really saying anything.  We said prayer and I kissed everyone good night, but as I walked out of Eli's room I noticed that Donald didn't get up to leave.  Instead he sat on the bed and opened the scriptures to the section we were reading and read the whole thing over to his brother.  I sat in the hall listening and crying, how did I get so lucky to have such amazing children.  After he was finished I gave him a big hug and Eli came and joined us and told me that while we were reading in my room he was saying a prayer that he was thankful for his family.   This is the first time I have ever cried for two days straight because I was happy.  I am completely overwhelmed by how much I love these boys and stand amazed as I watch them walk in the light.  Thank you, Heavenly Father for blessing our family in so many ways.

Total Package

Today is Donald's 12th birthday!  I can't believe that he is growing so fast.  He has changed so much in the last year and is growing out of the childhood phase.  He makes me laugh so much and I am so grateful that one of my best friends is also my son.

His sense of humor cracks me up!  The other day we were on the pool deck and he was getting ready to get in the water for practice.   He pulled his sweatshirt off and I said "Hey, look at those washboard abs!" (It's kind of an inside joke because everyone keeps commenting on how he is getting a swimmer's body and he always responds by lifting his shirt and saying "washboard abs!").  After I said it, he responded sarcastically, "I know, I have a nice body."  So I said, "And you are so humble too."
Then he concluded with a smile, "I am the total package!"  So now our family and his coach have decided his nickname is Total Package (TP).  I think we might get t-shirts made.  We are going to chant it at swim meets.  I just think it would be the coolest thing if in 5 years we were all at the Olympics cheering on TP with our TP shirts and TP groupies.  :)  See what happens when you try to boost a kid's self esteem, sometimes it snowballs out of control, but, I am loving every minute.

 Our swim team tradition for birthdays is called the gauntlet.  Everyone else lines up along the lane lines while the birthday boy swims down the center and they splash him with their kickboards.  It's fun to get all the attention sometimes and the three dozen donuts that I brought to practice made it even better.

Happy Birthday TP!  Love you!

On Your Marks....

 We had such a fun weekend, that I am sure left Eli completely exhausted (actually this was evident in him sleeping during the entire car ride home this afternoon).  It all started on Friday morning when I was invited to an award assembly for Eli.  They don't tell you what they are getting the award for ahead of time so you never know if it is for academics or demonstrating one of the life skills. 

Eli got his for Academic Achievement in Math.  It is so funny how one of our kids is so math oriented and the other is so reading oriented.

A couple hours later we picked the boys up from school and drove down to Palm Springs for a swim meet.  This was the first one that Eli got to swim in and he was so nervous.

  Friday night was mostly for the older kids and had some of the longer distances, which Donald is still conditioning for.  Donald did his favorite event the 100 breaststroke and finally broke over into a red time.  He is only a couple seconds away from the blue time actually.  He cut about 9 seconds off his last time, so he is still improving a lot.

 Here he is warming up with Andrew on Friday Night.

 This was their warm ups early Saturday morning.  This hardly represents the chaos that is an invitational swim meet.  There were tons of teams, some even came down from Utah and Arizona.  Kind of overwhelming for a seven year old who has never done this before.  Donald's first meet was this past summer and it was a dual meet (only two teams), so he was initiated a little easier, but he still gets nervous.

This was Eli listening to his coach trying to "Talk him down".

I have to say that although it wasn't Donald that was doing this, it is still one of my favorite pictures.  This is Dylan (one of the boys on Donald's relay team) helping Eli get ready for his backstroke race.  He was so sweet to help him.

The first event for my kids that day was Donald's 200IM.  He cut about 6 seconds from his time.

Then Eli swam the 25 backstroke.  I was so nervous at this point that I was nearly crying.  Eli's heart was almost beating out of his chest, but he had a great start.  He slowed down about half way through the race, but he finished it and did not get DQ'd so he was pretty proud of himself.

I have to say though that he got first place in cutness, but I could be a little bias in that.

After that Donald did his 50 backstroke, which is one of his least favorite events, but he still cut 4 seconds, so he is gradually getting better.

Then Donald did his 50 breaststroke and missed the red time by 0:00:47ths of a second.  Although, there were three timers and they went by the slowest time, which I don't think is very nice.  However, he did win his heat, so that made him feel good. 

Then Eli had his 25 breast stroke which he is still getting the kinks out of his kick and they are super sensitive about the form, so he got DQ'd on that one.  Really he mostly has been practicing freestyle, but that event was on Sunday and we aren't having the kids swim on Sundays, so he had to enter into the breaststroke instead.  He did do it faster than the backstroke though so he is a lot like Donald in that.

Donald's next event was the 100 freestyle and he cut 18 seconds!

After that he was in a 4 x 50 freestyle relay and his team took third or fourth (I didn't check all the times) out of 24 teams.

Here is his team getting ready.  I just love all their expressions!  Cisco, who is the one bending down, was a little upset that one of our girls hit him in the face with her googles.  The rest of them were trying to convince him to use his anger to fuel the race.  I think at the end of it all the boys didn't care what place they got, but were mostly happy that they beat the girls team time by quite a bit.  Oh, the 12 year old drama!  Just a little taste of the upcoming teen years. 

I totally love this sport my kids have latched onto and our fun team.  Don was asked a couple weeks ago to be on the board as Meet Manager and they asked me to help out with the Christmas party.  Good Times!

The Middle of Nowhere

We have some friends who live down the street that have a trailer and quads and they like to go riding and camping all the time.  They talked me in to going camping in the middle of nowhere in the middle of November...(very cold!)  At least we didn't have to sleep in a tent.

 Donald on a quad

 Eli and Don on his dirt bike

Me on a quad...freezing!

It really wasn't my cup of tea.  I had fun with the people, but riding just isn't something that I get excited about.  Don loves it though, so at least I tried doing something that he likes :). 

My empty wall

So this is my entry hall as you come in the front door.  Yes, I know my house is very neutral, it is still a work in progress.  I actually really like the colors, you can't really see the wall color in this picture, but it is a very clean, warm color.  The problem I was having though was the wall to the left.  It is very empty.

 There are a couple different places in my house that have groups of picture frames on the wall.  In fact the wall next to our bedroom is covered in lake pictures.  The wall in this picture is way to big for something like that, plus I wanted it to look a little more formal since it is the first thing people see when they come in.  So I decided to keep it simple and just add some vinyl to it.  I knew the pattern I wanted, but didn't know what it should say until Don suggested I look in the hymn book for some ideas.  Here are the results.....

 I know it is really small, but I wanted to get the whole wall in the picture.

 I love the font and the size.  The song I chose was 'More Holiness Give Me'.

I tried to make it look like the wind was blowing it or it was flying around like a little bee.  The wall doesn't look so empty now, but if I want to add something there later there is still room.  I wish the pictures really captured what it looks like in real life, it actually turned out pretty cute.

I am the nucleus!

*Warning, you are about to experience another nerd moment!*
For the last couple weeks Donald has been learning about cells in his science class and so to help him remember the functions of each of the organelles inside of cells, I told him to figure out something in our house that could symbolize each structure.  He started by saying that the electrical outlets were the mitochondria because they provide the cell with energy and the fridge could be a vacuole because it stores liquids.  Then I asked him what could be our house cell's nucleus and he said "You! You control everything in the house so you have to be the nucleus."  I was so honored....I am the nucleus!  It is funny to me now though because my nucleus status is based on how happy he is with me.  The other day I told him to turn off the video games because it was bed time and he said "You're not the nucleus anymore."...Like he can demote me or something....silly boy.  Then a day or two later I did something he liked, even though I forget what that is now, and he said, "See....and that is why you are the nucleus!"
I like being the nucleus, it makes me feel like I have power- wa ha ha!

Why I feel like throwing our TV into the pool

Back in May when our lives became a bit chaotic and we started our summer of moving around I put our Directv account on hold until we figured out where we were going to be permanently.  We have now been in this house for about three months and the 6 month postponement that we are allowed is up, so last week we had it hooked back up again.  Personally I was enjoying the fact that I didn't have to deal with cheesy tween shows on Disney and endless sporting events.  But it is back now and I have just been trying to avoid it mostly.  For the past two nights I have been up grading till way early in the morning and then compensating with afternoon naps.  My internal clock is way off and even though I have no work to finish tonight, here I am at 12:30am, unable to sleep.  A couple hours ago I decided to try the TV.  Perhaps there was something that I could occupy myself with.....No not really!  I now feel like throwing the darn thing into our pool.  There are absolutely no redeeming qualities about it at all.  In the hour that I tried to find something that did not completely drive the spirit away from my house I saw about 40 political commercials for the up coming elections, all of which contradicted each other.  I clicked through at least 10 murder shows and caught a glimpse of a man getting brutally hit by a car.  Continued clicking and ran into a show where a guy was feeling his girlfriend up on a roller-coaster.  And all that was highly seasoned with a sprinkling of slutty girl commercials saying that they knew guys did not really want a date when they call in and so instead they should call them because they will give men what they really want.   Why did I even get TV to begin with?

Another Science Nerdy Day With My Boys

I found an amazing science nerd gem this month in LA.... it is the California Science Center...and it is free! (except for parking, unless you want to walk).  It is part of Exposition park and there are some wonderful things to see down there.  They have a natural history museum, a science museum, an air and space museum and a beautiful rose garden.  We ran out of time and didn't get to the natural history museum, but the rest was fun.

 This is an A-12 trainer that was originally used by the CIA and then taken over by the military.  It is one of the fastest planes and can reach speeds twice the speed of sound.  They also used this design to make a slightly smaller, slower plane- the SR-71 that was more commonly used by our military for survallience.

 I just loved this model of DNA and it is great that both my kids knew what it was.

 The science center has an ecosystem section that has a bunch of rooms devoted to different ecosystems.  This was the islands room and the contraption that Eli is playing with has to do with adaptations and how organisms, such as birds, change to fit their environments.  The sticks had different shaped "beaks" and they had to see what food types they were better suited for.  I used to do a slightly smaller scale version of this in my high school classes so I got to teach my kids the reason why they were trying to capture different objects with strange sticks.

 This was in the poles room and that is a wall of ice.  There were different materials in those mitts (feathers, cotton, fur, fat, etc.) so that the kids could figure out which material would be the best insulator.  This also ties in with adaptations because it helps them see how animals have been able to survive in such a cold climate.  (Side note- I learned something neat about a larva fish- since it lives in such cold water it doesn't have any red blood cells because they would slow down due to cold and clog up so instead it absorbs oxygen right through it's skin and gills so it doesn't need the blood to carry it.  Aren't adaptations fun!)- Sorry that was a run away nerd moment!

For lunch we had brought a picnic, I though it would be nice to eat out in the rose garden.

 That pretty building in the back is the natural history museum.

 I just thought that these leaves were so cool.

We ate lunch in a gazebo and then walked around a little.  There was a family that decided to play hide and seek with their kids, until they realized that they couldn't find their son, not the smartest idea, we are still in LA people!

After that it was off to the air and space museum.  This was one of my kids favorite things.  But what little boys don't love big planes!?!

 This was very neat, it is an Apollo capsule from a mission that linked up with the Russian Soyez.  I have to admit that I was a little teary eyed as I was describing it to the kids because it is the same design (except for the modified door mechanism) as the Apollo one capsule that had a fire during a training and all three men inside died.  The men who tried to save them ran to open the hatch but couldn't get it open and watched through the small window as their friends perished.  So sad!

This was a Gemini capsule.  The Gemini project was to prepare for the Apollo missions.  Gemini means twins which was fitting because two men would go up instead of the one in the Mercury flights previous to the Gemini program.  I don't know if you can see it well but there are two seats and the men had to squeeze in there together.

After that we went back over to the science center and went through the kelp forest ecosystem.  This was my favorite because it reminded me a lot of Sea World.

This was a small, and very cold, tide pool.  The anemone that Donald is touching is an Anthopleura xanthegramica (woo- there are some things I still remember from college), there were also some sea urchins (Strogliocentrotus Purpuratus) and some keyhole limpets, sea stars and hermit crabs.   I wish I had gotten more pictures, but my hands were wet and the center was closing in about 10 minutes so we were kind of rushed.  As we left we went past the moon jelly tank and I said "Oh, look Eli, moon jellies."  He said, "What are they?"  So I said, "They are a type of Jelly Fish."  And he replied, "You mean Sea Jelly, they are not fish!"  I have taught him too well.  Love my science nerds!