The Joys of Christmas Music

My sisters have been sharing some of their favorite Christmas music, but I'm shocked that the traditional Robertson Christmas music has not been a part of that. It is, in a word, awesome! Listen and enjoy.

Is all life mockumentary fodder?

The other day I sat down to watch This American Life. I've listened to the radio show for quite some time now and was aware of the TV show, but could not watch it because I would not pay ridiculous amounts of money for Showtime. It's out on DVD now and as I started watching it the DW asked are you watching a mockumentary? I thought about it and yes, it seems like the kind of stuff from a mockumentary. What kind of person keeps a Brahma bull around as a pet? A pet that gores them. So, it beggs the question what in our everyday life could be taken and, with little effort, be made into a mockmuentary?

24 Days of Lego Awesomeness!

I was able to pick up a Lego advent calendar for the boys and myself (I'm not going to deny it) for our holiday joy this year. One door has been opened and it will be hard to keep the other doors shut until it is time to open them each day when I come home from work. Each boy also has a chocolate advent that they get to eat after breakfast, so hopefully that helps. I am totally looking forward to each new door and seeing what it contains. We currently have one knight, he's not too much fun to play with on his own, so we'll see what tonight brings (I'm sure it will be just as exciting).

What do I want for Christmas?

I don't know, so could you help me? You, my blog followers, know me so well I bet you could help me. Anything that is reasonably priced. Thanks.

You Voted, Now What?

Take advantage of some of the voter freebies. If you like coffee go to Starbucks for their free offer. If you like doughnuts, go to Krispy Kreme for a free doughnut. You can even get ice cream from Ben & Jerry's for voting. If you haven't voted, hurry up so you can cash in!

Halloween

Here's our family, Jessie, Mr. Potato Head, Woody and BuzzScary pumpkin #1 from the younger son
Scary pumpkin #2 from the elder son
The pirate designed by the wife
Jack Skellington that I did, this matches the mug I got at Disney World.
I hope everyone had an enjoyable Halloween!

Snow!?

Yeah, about 2 inches of the white stuff. I came to expect snow his early while living in Logan, but never this much this early. People talk about snow by Halloween, that's still almost three weeks away. Well to warm the heart and body I've been making Heavenly Ham Beans Soup, I hope it does the trick.

Mind your P's and Q's

So if you've been following the kind of news I do you are surely aware of the Large Hadron Collider built by CERN. This news brought back an old memory from my college physics class. I has this Scottish professor who would occasionally make mistakes in front of the class. One day he was lecturing on hadrons. He thought he wrote hadron on the board, but switched the r and d around. Someone in the class mentioned to him that he had misspelled the word to which he replied, "I'm Scottish, I make spelling mistakes." He went on with his lecture for a few minutes as we laughed a bit now and then about the word he had unintentionally written on the board. He eventually came back to what he had written, realized what it said and became very embarrassed. He promptly dismissed class and the incident was never spoken of again, at least by him. I have a friend from that class that I still bring it up with on occasion.

Another week with a few highlights to report

In keeping with my fathers request, here are a few of my highlights.

On Friday I took the day off to let Kinsey rest, she was sick. I took the boys to a great toy store in Salt Lake, lunch at their favorite, McDonalds, then some fun looking at birds at the aviary.

Helping my wife get a party together for my MIL's 50th B-day.

Being finished with a priesthood lesson for another month.

Tune in next week for more exciting highlights.

Highlights

In no particular order, some highlights from my Week.

Going to the fair. I honestly don't think too much of the Davis county fair, but it's so fun to go with the boys and see them enjoying the animals and the other kid stuff. They don't have the fair food selection that I grew accustom to as a child if you were wondering why didn't love it.


Chocolate zucchini cake, I'm eating some right now.


Out anniversary. Here she is with the flowers I gave her, aren't they beautiful together!


BLT's! There's only a small window each year to have something so good as this with real tomatoes from your own garden.

The Garden is Alive

Our little garden is coming along. After one pumpkin plant failing once it was put in the ground the second one has taken over the garden. It has covered two pepper plants, the cucumber that wasn't doing much of anything and has extended past the tomatoes and through the fence to the other side . Most mornings the blossoms are filled with bees doing what they do best.


The tomatoes are coming along well too. After last years poor showing the plants have shot up and now all have some fruit on them. Here's the one tomato that is starting to get some color.


Our peppers are doing something too. I was afraid they were duds this year, but not so. I guess we might eat something from our garden yet.

This is dedicated to the one I love

Happy Birthday. I love you tons and I hope it's a great day for you. May we celebrate many more together.


I can only hope you look this surprised opening your gifts.

I've been outed

When posting about my birthday/fathers day my wife included a photo of me opening a gift, or more specifically a Lego set. I love Lego's and I am a grown man, there I've said it. I noticed that there is a new Vintage Minifigure Collection and the oldest are some very familiar to me.


I decided I would do my own little vintage collection, or time line. I have one that is very old and predates those in the lego set of the vintage guys. I felt this was representative of the minifigs I've had over they years and still love today (generic ancient figure, astronaut, firefighter, knight, pirate, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones).
I decided to put all the minifigures I have together, at least the ones I have here at home. There is a Lego collection in Boise I think I might still be able to claim as my own. Take a look.


Of all those guys I have, most have been found second hand at thrift stores. In some cases I have found entire sets fully intact, the best example is pictured below. It came in the box with instructions and is out in the garage assembled right now.


Yes it might be childish, but I enjoy them. I have at least one brother that has collected some Lego sets of his own. Really my boys will be playing with them a lot in the next couple of years too, that's my real justification for collecting so much right now.

Fun was had

Here's a picture of the better looking family members waiting for the big show of the evening.
This is what some of them looked like
I hope Noelle had a good birthday on top of it all.

Haiku

Anticipation
Freshly made, ready to eat
Cleaning up the scoop

Happy Fathers Day

Now, enjoy some grilled goodness!


We hosted the Fathers Day feast this year and had some great grilling action going on. Chicken kabobs, pineapples, peppers and onions. It was pretty good with the baked potatoes and salad to round out the meal. I hope all the fathers out there had a great day!

It might be hers, but...

So the DW is in a cooking club that meets monthly to exchange freezer meals. It's called Girlfriends Cooking Club, but it has one male member and at least one male behind the scenes member. In preparation for the upcoming meeting we purchased about 40 lbs of chicken breasts to be marinated. Being the kind husband that I am I trimmed all the fat from the whole lot myself. I'll be the first to admit I benefit greatly from the club in that we are introduced to a variety of great food. Additionally preparing ten identical meals to be frozen is a lot easier than preparing ten different meals. I'm not saying it makes my meal prep any easier because I don't cook dinner too often any more, but the DW seems a little more relaxed for the most part. I just think the name of the club could be revised.

My Son Doesn't Chew His Food

This evening we went to a park that we used to frequent before moving to our house. We have driven past this park and seen that the cool old playground had been replaced and assumed it was the typical modern playground that isn't all that fun. We were wrong. There are more things to spin on at this park than I have seen anywhere in a long time. M's favorite was a "Spinner Bowl" that looks like this
Since it is on an angle it can really go for a long time. I tried it out and even a little motion will get it spinning. M wasn't interested in a little spinning. I would get it going and it would really go for a while.
On the ride home he said his throat didn't feel good. Just after we pulled into the driveway he tossed his cookies. This is how I know he doesn't chew his food. I know, I'm an awful father, but he was enjoying himself at the time and I expected the results to be more immediate if they were going to show up at all.

Doctor visits made and avoided

Some of you might remember an issue with E and anemia last year. It showed up once again at his well child visit so we actually visited the specialist that we tried to see last year when there was a power issue at the hospital. He is anemic, and probably always will be. He has a congenital form of anemia that his body thinks is normal. As any of you that know him can tell he is rather active which is a good thing in this case.

The other day I was getting some chewies out of the pan when the spatula slipped and I dug it into the palm of my hand. The DW thought I should go get stitches, and I didn't. It wasn't bleeding too bad and the wound hasn't hurt much either. My hand has been a little sore, but not at the specific place where the wound is. I think I'm fine.

Lastly the DW was cleaning up a broken light bulb and cut her thumb. She thought she might need to visit the doctor to make sure it didn't need stitches. It was far less severe than my hand, so I convinced her it would be alright.

Now for the details

So, now that you have seen the car here are the specifics. It is a 2004 Honda Odyssey EX with the DVD player. The exterior is Havasu Blue and the interior is Fern (gray), Kinsey isn't the biggest fan of the interior color/patter, but we weren't going to be too picky about that. It has the two bucket seats in the middle row, I don't think I've seen an odyssey that didn't have that. The boys are sufficiently spread apart that they can't easily harm each other, but we are also further from them than we have been in the past. That being said, they are actually easier to get to now that you don't have to climb over a seat to get to the back of the van. It has dual power sliding doors that can be controlled from buttons on the dash board. The elder son can open and close the doors himself, he loves that. The car is a lease return and has a little more than 36,000 miles on it, we will be sure to put more on it as soon as possible. It has the fold flat third row seat, so we can easily load a ton of junk back there if needs be. We are really excited about this. Are we weird to be excited about a van?

Out with the old...

In with the new

My favorite online game

So, I like to play games online from time to time. My current favorite is Traveler IQ Challenge. I can get an IQ above 100, but not by much. It has several quizzes, some for the world, North America, the United States, Europe, you get the picture. Just don't ask me about Africa, I am terrible at any question that deals with Africa.
Another online game that I like, but is totally different, is Desktop Tower Defense. You have to protect your desk from creeps that come across. It's fun and challenging, but in a different way.

A Perfect Ending

While we were unloading the car after returning from E's horse birthday party
a kind horseman passed by and stopped long enough for this:As you can imagine, and see, he was very excited.

Knives

A couple weeks ago while we were at Ikea and I found a magnetic knife holder. The DW was all over getting one. We have had a knife block that takes up what precious little counter space we have. Tonight I got the required fasteners to get it stuck to the wall and we are good to go. I'm already a big fan of it.

Here's how it look s holding all our knives.

Teach them in their youth

This is our photographer in training

Here's a portrait of his brother

This is an artistic pose of my hula Homer

And finally some of his experimental work

It's in his blood

This is my hard core tie dye (or fire shirt as both the boys call it) boy today eating lunch. This is how into the tie dye he is. This one got dirty as he was playing after lunch. He was screaming for his fire shirt as we took it off, so the DW put on another one. When I put his pj's on tonight he freaked out again for his fire shirt, so he is wearing it over the pj's as he sleeps.

Oh what do you do in the winter time?

It has been snowing here with some regularity since about christmas. I've been getting a good workout with all the shoveling, and I've certainly been feeling it.

I didn't have to go into work today, but I did have to work nine hours on Saturday, so don't be to jealous of me. It was fun to have a weekday off with the family. After doing some shoveling, we borrowed some sleds and headed for the hills. Fortunately for the wife and I it wasn't really a big hill, but plenty big for the kids. We spent quite a while sledding and otherwise playing in the snow. I got a good workout carrying children up the hill and forging paths as we trekked into uncharted territory. It was pretty awesome. We had pristine snow and were all alone to be as crazy as we wanted. I look forward to another weekday off to spend some fun time with the family, or maybe I'll go skiing next time.

Me,the tax preparer

It's official, I am a tax preparer that can electronically file your returns for you. I also have a website for my practice, Wyndham Tax, please check it out and tell me what you think of it. Don't forget to schedule you appointment with me either.