goings on

not too much has been happening at our house lately. Either that or too much has been and that's why we haven't blogged for a while. It's Sunday and I had some free time tonight so I figured I'd write a long post about the last month. That way when we're old and can't remember anything we can read back about what we did in January of 2011. Anyway, here are some things we did:

I took Rhen up to do some skiing last week. He did great, but was a little more interested in riding up the lift. He thought that was pretty cool. Yes that is a picture of a cruiser around his neck. His sisters were making necklaces and he really wanted his own necklace. I gave him a lanyard and he wanted a picture of a cruiser in it - i was very proud. I think it's better than pink and purple beads.


This is Rhen taking it easy on the hill thinking about going on another lift ride.

Stacie's been skiing more this year than she has since we got married, which is nice because she is learning fast and getting much better. Not that she wasn't good before, just sayin. She hasn't been able to go for a long time because every year we were able, she was pregnant or had a newborn. It's been really nice to have her up on the hill with me and the kids. One of these days maybe I'll get her out in the powder after a nice storm. Chloe loves skiing, Elsie and Addie are thinking about it. I think if Justin Bieber were to show up Addie would enjoy skiing a bit more. For right now she is unsure about being out in the cold for so long voluntarily

Speaking of Bieber fever, I tease Addie about Biebs from time to time and I guess Rhen decided he'd join in. Yesterday i was playing with Layla on the floor and Rhen came running in with his hair wet and combed down over his eyebrows and he says, "hey Dad, Check it out! I made a Beiber!" Pretty cool.

Rhen started to affectionately call Layla, "Lay". It's pretty cute. If she's crying he'll sweetly say, "don't cry Lay. it's ok."

In January, we celebrated Chloe's bone marrow birthday, and then a week later her real birthday. Since she had two birthdays, she wanted a Pazookie instead of a cake for one of them (thanks for the pan Eskelson's/Whites! it gets alot of use). Chloe is down to checkups every three months, which we are really enjoying. We had a visit last week and she is doing great. Everything looks wonderful and we are so grateful. Another exciting event was that Addie got braces as you can see in this pic. Chloe got some kind of mouthpiece aparatus which is a prelude to braces so we have those bills to look forward to.

Stacie distributed some hugs throughout this month as mothers tend to do. This was one. She gives good hugs.


Stacie has also turned into a running machine. She runs most every day and has started capping the weeks off with a 10 miler on Saturday, just for good measure I guess. I run to the fridge when I am hungry, and figuratively I 'run' to the post office occasionally. I haven't capped anything off since that broken sprinkler pipe last summer.

My brother Jeff and I hit a Manchester United game a few weeks ago. He is a huge fan and has really been wanting to catch a game in person so I decided to tag along cause it sounded really fun. It was. I wish I had made arrangements to take Stac with me. I definitely owe her one since she was stressed out with 5 kids while I was galavanting around with Jeff. Oh and Man-U won very comfortably. It was an exciting game and way better in person than on TV.

We cruised through the countryside to catch a church meeting in Preston. The countryside was beautiful as always. Jeff drove that 1.2 liter Skoda compact like he owned it.

We got there just in time for sacrament meeting to start in Preston and had a wonderful experience there. Pretty hilarious actually, but thats for another posting. The temple next door was beautiful as expected.

Then we strolled around the Rievaulx Abby ruins in the rain. It was a very memorable trip and always fun to spend time with Jeff and try and gain a little of his wisdom.


Layla started to walk this last week. She doesn't like it enough to keep trying until she gets it, but she'll take a few steps here and there and loves to stand on her own. She also started dancing - or trying to while keeping her feet planted. It's pretty darn cute.

In between our regular daily duties we've been taking many trips up to WY to work on or check in on our remodel project we have going on up there. We're getting a hefty new roof that should hold up better than the old one, so that is pretty exciting. We also just got a pretty sweet new flight of stairs welded in. It's been challenging for the guy framing up the addition/remodel as we've had a combined snow total of 120" that has had to be shoveled away. It'll be months before we're ready to start finishing things off, but we're on our way.



Well that pretty much sums it up for now. Maybe we'll start posting more regularly, or maybe not. It's the unknowns that make life more interesting.