Ivory Anniversary

We've never given the traditional gifts for our anniversaries - I had Ryan look it up on his Droid last night to see what it should be this year. Ivory. Perhaps we should get a new-to-me piano with ivory keys. Ha ha.
We were married at 7 am. If you look closely at the pictures, you can see the lights still on the temple. It was that early. You really have to be in love in order to get married at 7 am. We were the 4th couple to be married in the Salt Lake Temple that morning. (My friend Liz and sister Shanda were both married in June at 7 am, but there were weddings taking place as early as 6 am then!)

Happy anniversary, love!

Merry Christmas!

Wearing our "Christmas Toto pajamas" (Hyrum named them). We're having a very Merry Christmas, hope you are too!

Gibby Gazette 2010, online awards edition

Most Traveled Award goes to Ryan! 10 camp outs with the boy scouts (including a week at Camp Morrison), 10 days in Ukraine (for the Kyiv Temple dedication), 11 days in Singapore (for work), 5 trips to Utah to visit family. Happily his commute is 3 miles, so he can come home for lunch most days.

Finding Joy in Motherhood Award goes to Malauna! This award has taken the entire year to qualify for: traveling to San Fran with Sabrina; giving birth to Leo; volunteering in Roderic's class; substituting in EACH of the kids' primary classes; teaching Joy School for Hyrum (and 5 others); nursing a child with 6 teeth; hosting a Jam Session for Sabrina & friends who play stringed instruments; a lot of nights with Ryan gone.

Best Babysitter Award goes to Sabrina! She took 'Babysitting 101' at St Alphonsus RMC in February and has since had several well-paying jobs and a bunch of jobs at home. When the boys (or even Ryan) ask who is going to be the babysitter I reply, "I got Sabrina. She's really good!"

Newest Reader Award goes to Roderic! First grade at TrailWind is all about reading and Roderic has discovered that he CAN read! His favorite authors include Dr. Seuss and Bill Peet.


Diaper Free Award goes to Hyrum! Right after Leo was born and Ryan was taking days off of work, he helped Hyrum learn the joy of using the toilet.


All-Around Cutest Award goes to Leo! He got his first tooth at 4 months, now he has 6. He sings along with the Syringa Sound Chorus (and Mom) at their rehearsals. He makes a funny face with the first bite of every food (even if he's eaten it before).

Journals

Sometimes I get frustrated with my ancestors who didn't keep a journal. I really want to know what their lives were like. How they handled struggles. Read their testimonies.

Then I remember that life is full of work. Mouths to feed. Dishes to clean. Laundry to fold. Gardens to plant, harvest, put to rest. Clothes to make. Decorations to get out, enjoy, put away.

This morning while Hyrum was at Joy School (performing the Nativity for a nice grandma in our ward), I got to help in Roderic's reading class. Every student read the same story for 1 minute. Leo came with me. He didn't cry, although the 2 squawks he made did cause the neighboring room to close their door. Roderic reads as well as the rest of them. I'm working on cutting out Christmas pjs. The fabric is really cute this year! You'll see them on Christmas here (hopefully). In an hour I get to take Sabrina to an orthodontist appointment to put the rest of her brackets. I'm performing with Syringa Sound Chorus at a retirement home this evening. I may be the only tenor in attendance. I've re-read President Uchtdorf's talk "Of Things That Matter Most" several times and love the message.

6 year olds say the darnedest things

Mom, don't you think it would be really great for the first time to have our whole house clean?

Roderic just said this to me as he was working on cleaning his room. Yep, it would be really great.

A Forgotten Birthday

There are some guys from China who are in town for training at Micron and they've been asking when they can go out to dinner with Ryan and some of his coworkers. Last week, on 2 separate occasions, Ryan told them that Tuesday would be just fine. He never looked at his calendar. So, Ryan went out to dinner with some guys from work last night. On his birthday.

I guess when you've lived 37 years, you need a lot of reminders hype leading up to your birthday in order to remember it.

When you're a kid and it's your dad's birthday, you get pretty excited. After all, birthdays are exciting! You get to open presents! Everyone sings to you! You get to choose what's for dinner! You get to eat cake! To help keep their excitement during his absence, I took the kids to dinner at McDonald's (half-price Happy Meals on Tuesdays!).


Quite a lot of 'smoke' coming off of that train. (The chocolate train was melted by the time he blew out the candles.)

He arrived home about 9 pm and was surprised by Roderic's idea of a surprise pajama party.

As for presents, he got a box of strawberry candy canes, chocolate cherries, a sleeping bag for winter camping and a pair of snowshoes.

Toto earns her keep

-- Toto on her first 'field trip' with our family --
Kathryn Alberston Park, October 10, 2010

While Ryan's parents and sister are serving as missionaries in Rochester New York, we are taking care of their West Highland Terrier, Toto. She was really sick about a month ago when Ryan was in Singapore, but now she's healthy again. Thankfully!

Before Toto came to live with us, I did some research on her breed and learned that Westies were bred to seek and dig out badgers and foxes. They're white in order to be distinguished from the animals being hunted.

Well, I didn't take any pictures of the gruesome evidence, but Sunday night when Ryan was getting ready to take Toto for a walk, he discovered a dead mouse or vole. (We were unable to determine the species since the carcass was pretty mangled.) We've been thinking that Toto was similar to the dog 'Trusty' from "Lady and the Tramp", she growls a lot at unseen-by-us things. But, now we're being convinced otherwise.

Snow Day

So, we woke up to 6 inches of fresh snow this morning and learned that school was canceled. Last night I made some Pumpkin French Toast for breakfast (it was really good!), so I was all ready for shoveling the snow off the driveway so Ryan could go off to work and then use all of my extra helpers to get some Christmas decorations up.

And then I remembered the Legos strewn all over the table in Roderic and Hyrum's room and knew that Leo could pull himself up and then eat all of those Legos, so we had a "GREAT LEGO BUILD" day - which lasted all of 20 minutes, when the neighbors called to ask my kids to go play in the snow. Sabrina, Roderic and Hyrum were outside for hours playing in the snow. I nursed Leo and built Legos. The boys got cold and came in (and helped building). Sabrina went to a friend's house. Lunch was late. Piano lessons was later and now the Legos are built and up high in the closet.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll get some decorations out...