A Family History Project

Hello everyone
Jeff did a fun project as a Christmas gift for his siblings and parents this past year. He had everyone write up memories on specified topics, then compiled them, along with some pictures, into a book. I thought it would be great to do for our family,too, but I need your help to do it.
Here's the plan. I'm going to give you five topics and we'll focus on one topic a month for the next five months. I'll give you the topics now, so that you can start thinking, and then at the beginning of the month, I'll issue a reminder. Write up your thoughts or memories any way you'd like and email them to me. DON'T POST THEM ON THE BLOG. The fun of receiving the project at Christmas will be reading what everyone has written. Any and all kids are welcome to participate and send me their thoughts on any of the topics. If you do, you'll receive your own copy. And Mom and Dad, you're included in this, too, but you'll be writing about memories of when your children were young, not you. (Hopefully you're working on your own personal histories on your own.)
This is a tentative list of the topics. I may juggle them a bit as we go. If you have other ideas that would be fun let me know.
Favorite memories of family gatherings
Growing up in Beaver
What I learned from Grandma
What I learned from Mom and Dad
Favorite vacation and/or Holiday memories (if this one is too much at once we might have to split it in two)
Start thinking now. That way, the actually writing won't have to take a lot of time out of your busy lives.
One last note, let's try to focus on the positives. Yes, negative stuff happened. But that's not what we want to remember or carry with us into the future.
I hope you don't mind helping me out with this. Watch for the first reminder at the beginning of February. Thanks in advance!

Siennah's surgery

Siennah is having her hernia surgery this Thursday morning. I was wondering if you could remember her in your prayers this week. It's a really simple out patient surgery but she does have to be put out for it and that scares me to death! I will be so glad when it's all over.
We haven't done anything too exciting lately. It's so cold out and Siennah has been sick a lot this winter. She loves having play dates with some friends that are close to her age. She gets a long with other kids really well right now. I am loving that I can actually communicate with her now. She is understanding so much more and talking every second. She is starting to put words together and she has figured out that saying "peez" gets her almost anything! It sounds so cute when she says it that it's hard to resist!
Jason is still liking his job. I'm liking that he still has a job as a lot of pharma companies are laying off hundreds of employees all the time. He is going to Boston for four days for a diabetes conference next week.
That's about all that's going on here. I will let you know how Siennah does with her surgery. Thank you for your prayers!
Love,
Tyff

Sand Dunes

So for MLK day, me and five friends went fourwheeling at the sand dunes at Sandhollow in Hurricane. It was me, Mary, Jessica, Aubrie, Kenzie, and the King of the Dunes, Jameson. He and Aubrie brought two of their fourwheelers and we took to the sand. I hadn't had so much fun in a long time! We stayed out there for hours, and then we took a break to eat lunch and we played ultimate frisbee on the beach. We also took a little cruise around the lake, it was beautiful. The water was bright blue and it was a perfect 53 degrees outside.This is me and Jameson. We met a couple weeks ago and have been inseparable since. He's such a sweetheart!Here is the six of us driving home, covered in sand and tired. But it was so worth it!

MLK Weekend Extended

We were happy to have Chris home for an extra day this weekend. He took Kennedy and Tristan to the Life and Science museum which was a nice break for me.

Kennedy learned how to ride her bike without training wheels. Her bike has not had training wheels for a few weeks and I have been trying to help her learn how to ride but she couldn't get it. Then all of a sudden this weekend she picked up her bike and just started riding it.

We woke up this morning to a couple of inches of snow. Of course school was cancelled. I took the kids out during Jack's morning nap. They had fun but Kennedy said she won't play outside until spring. She's such a drama queen. I enjoyed the snow but living in N.C. has make me a wimp. I've had enough already.

~Time to Baby Proof~

Time is just going by so fast. It seems like just the other day I was mowing the lawn with a 7 month prego belly, and now the grass is completely covered by snow and my baby boy is 7 months old. The time has now come for us to "baby proof the house." Not quite crawling, but Michael's way of transportation sure gets him around. He uses his arms and pulls himself around on his stomach. It won't be long before he gets those legs involved and is in a full out crawl.

Michael's favorite thing to get into..... You guessed it!! The electronics!! The cables, remotes, phones, receiver, speakers and the dvd cases. We even got one of our old phones for him to play with. He likes all of his other toys too. The crinkle paper, his books (more to chew on) his stuffed animals and of course his Tonka truck!!! (thanks mom and dad)

Michael and Chevis play great together. Michael hits him in the face, pulls on his hair, and pokes him in the eye and Chevis just lays there. He is such a good big brother.

Here is one of the few pictures we took from Christmas. Michael was more interested in the bows than the presents! Grandpa did a great job helping with the unwrapping.

After Thanksgiving we did a little "Photo Shoot" with Michael and Siennah. It was a bit of a challenge to get the two together and look happy but we still got a few out of it. Here are a couple of the pictures that I really like.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Seven Months Old

Jack turned 7 months old on Saturday. We got some pictures taken at Target but this one is just one I took at home. It seems to me like around 6 or 7 months my babies all change drastically. They turn into different babies--not infants anymore.
On Saturday morning I noticed Jack's first tooth finally poked through. He's been working on that for over a month now. Finally. . .
Jack can now sit up. Each day he is able to sit up more and more. We had pancakes for dinner last night and I gave him a few nibbles (well, more than a few--he ate at least one whole pancake) and he loved it. He gets cuter and cuter every day.
I know it's just a matter of weeks before he is crawling. Poor kid doesn't get as much floor time as the other two had. He spends more time in a car seat than Kennedy and Tristan did but we're working on it.
Kennedy sure loves her little brother. She likes to take a blanket and make a little "tent" over Jack and they play and giggle under the blanket. He knows when she walks into the room. We sure love him too.

Triple Chocolate Peppermint Trifle

It seems we're suffering from the post holiday nothing-to-write-about blahs, so I thought I'd share this recipe. This was the dessert for our Christmas day meal. It was described as "divine" by Jeff's sister, Leslie. It fills a large trifle bowl and is quite rich, so save it for a large group occasion.

Triple Chocolate Peppermint Trifle
1 9 x 13 brownie mix, prepared as directed (I actually made one from scratach and that worked, too)
Hershey's syrup
Mousse:
2-1/2 cups whipping cream
12 oz pkg white chocolate
1/2 cup coarsely chopped peppermint candy or candy canes
To make mousse, heat 1 cup cream for about 1 minute, until just before boiling. Remove from the microwave and stir in white chocolate. Let cool, stir occasionally. Beat remaining 1-1/2 cups cream to stiff peaks. Fold into white chocolate mixture, then fold in candy.
Pudding: Prepare 1 large cook and serve chocolate pudding; prepared but warm
To assemble
Layer 1/3 of mousse in a trifle bowl. Top with crumbled brownie, pudding and a drizzle of Hershey's syrup. Repeat layers two more times. Cover and refrigerate at least 12 hours. To finish, whip an additional 1-1/2 cups cream with 2-4 Tbsp powdered sugar. Spread over top of trifle and garnish with crushed candy.

End of the Year

We have really enjoyed having Mom and Dad here for the holidays. It's been very helpful too with having Kennedy home from preschool and all.

The kids were surprised on Christmas morning to find Grandma and Grandpa sleeping in Kennedy's bedroom. Lucky for us Kennedy had asked a few days prior if she could sleep in Tristan's bunk bed on Christmas Eve so she wasn't even suspicious.

Christmas dinner was quite eventful. We had three guests, our single Relief Society president, one of the residents Chris works with and my Mary Kay director, who is quite colorful to say the least. There was never a dull moment the whole evening.

Last night, New Year's Eve, we played games, ate too much and watched a movie. My favorite game was "Magical Flower Garden" that Kennedy got for Christmas. You think I'm joking but we had a ton of laughs. . . .