Winter Festival

Last weekend we decided to go to the winter festival in McCall. It's a little resort town a lot like Park City. They had an ice sculpture contest and you could walk all over the town and see these amazing sculptures. Some of them were at least 2 to 3 stories high and they all had a lot of detail put into them. It was so cool to see. Siennah loved being hauled around on Jason's back like a little queen. They also had tubing and sledding on the lake but we didn't come prepared for that. It was a lot of fun to get out of town and see something different. And Jason really misses the snow so he was happy that McCall had a few feet on the ground.
Siennah is doing really good, except that she is sick AGAIN. She is going to be starting her swallowing therapy within the next couple weeks. It will be so nice to be able to feed her normal things with out her gagging. She is trying to count to ten. She says about every other number but she says them in the right order every time. She really cracks me up all the time. The other night, I was folding laundry on the couch and she climbed up and got right in my face with a dryer sheet and tried putting up my nose. When I asked "hey what are you doing?" she said, "mommy boogies!". You maybe had to be there to see it but I laughed so hard all night. I'm glad I don't have to worry if I have a "boogie" in public because I'm sure Siennah will tell me.
Love, Tyff

A likely first for GHS Freshman B-ball

The play was fairly routine. The player from Keller received a pass from the top of the key and made his move toward the basket. He dribbled to the corner of the key and hoisted his jump shot. Meanwhile, Jared saw the play developing and moved from the opposite side of the key to see if he could defend the shot. Jared arrived slightly late and was unable to get in the players face, so he did the next best thing. He attempted to block the shot well after it was air borne. To everyone's surprise, Jared swatted the ball against the backboard and prevented the player from scoring. Or did he. The referee looked puzzled for a moment, then he did the unthinkable. He called GOAL TENDING. Even though the call was probably the wrong call, it is really cool that Jared got called for goal tending at the tender age of 14. As far as I know, this is a first for GHS freshman basketball.

New Haircut

Kennedy has had long hair for quite some time now. She has been throwing out comments lately like, "I want hair like yours, mommy", "when will I have short hair?", etc. So we took her this weekend to have her hair cut. It looks pretty good on her. I wish it would have been long enough to donate because she has really good hair (besides the cowlick but she kept that!). She seems to like it. I think it will be good for summer. What do you think?

In other news, Jack is now 8 months old. He is crawling all over the house. He loves that he can do this and his favorite place is the vents in the floor. He moves himself over them and pulls them out of the floor--I think we're in for it if he is doing these kind of things already!

Jack has two teeth now and he loves to use them. He loves eating. His favorite things to eat are crackers, especially graham, cooked carrots, and anything mom will give him that's homemade, like pancakes, muffins, waffles, etc.

I guess I better report on Tristan too. He is such a sweet little boy. We started potty training him when Mom and Dad were here in December. He has done pretty well so far. He still has some learning to do but that will come with time. He is registered to start preschool next fall at the same preschool as Kennedy attends. I can hardly believe it. His 3rd birthday is in April and he has grown up so much in the last year. A few weeks ago we had to speak in church. I was the first speaker and Chris sat in the congregation with the kids. My topic was "teaching your family reverence for the sacrament." As I was giving my talk Tristan came up onto the stand. Daddy couldn't get up fast enough so I just kept on with my talk. It was mere coincidence that my very next comment was, "Children learn by example". I probably had 20 people tell me how funny they thought that was and wondered if I had planned it. Tristan is always keeping me on my toes.

Chris and I are managing to keep busy. We are painting our bedroom this week and having a playset installed in the backyard for the kids. We are excited for these changes.

Valentine's Date

We had a friend offer to watch our kids so we could go on a date. There's an ice skating rink up the street so we thought we would try it out. It's been about 12 years since we have done any skating and it showed on the ice. We skated for about an hour before they had to re-ice. We got back on for a few more rounds and I was just thinking how well I was doing and that I hadn't had any falls when my legs gave out on me and I biffed it so hard on the ice that some of the onlookers actually came over and asked me if I was ok.
If I had to fall though, that was the way to do it. It was a good one!

Stacey has her baby

Just thought I'd let everyone know that Stacey had a 9 pound baby girl on February 10th. Her name will be Kyler. When we saw Stacey at her shower a couple of weeks ago she lamented, "I feel like I've been pregnant for two years", and she looked it. Where is everybody? Happy Valentine's Day to all and Happy Birthday to Taylor and Jared.

Little Trooper

Siennah's surgery went really well. It only lasted about 40 minutes and we had her home within an hour after it was over. She didn't even cry when they took her away but despite my best efforts, I bawled like a baby! It was so hard to let her go with total strangers. When she woke up she was really upset and her voice was so sad because they had put a tube down her throat. It was so sad to see her like that! We got her calmed down after a while and took her home. She slept for almost five hours, got up for two, and slept for twelve more hours. And the next day she ran around playing like nothing happened. So, thank you so much for all your prayers. I know that she was watched over. She is so sweet and so brave. I am so proud of her! I will post some pics of the whole day. Sorry my computer doesn't let me drag and drop. The top one is before the surgery, the middle is right after she woke up, and the bottom is her little incision with a heart bandage.

February's subject

Okay, I know I didn't give you much time to think (and if you don't know what I'm talking about, go down and read the last post I did ), but here's your subject for this month.
We'll start with an easy one to get you warmed up. The topic is "What I learned from Mom and Dad." We did something similar for Mom and Dad's golden wedding anniversary. If you want to recycle what you wrote then, that's fine. At least this way we'll all have a copy of it.
If any of the next generation want to participate in this, you can write what you've learned from your grandma and grandpa. And Mom and Dad, I want to know what you've learned from each other.
After you write up your thoughts, email them to me at jarand89@msn.com.
Love you all, and trust me on this. You might think what I'm asking you to do is a pain, but you'll enjoy it when you have it in hand.