Hallelujah

Ella has reached the most important milestone of a young life. She has reached 18 months of age, which means she finally goes to the nursery on Sunday.

If you don't go to church, or haven't ever had a child between 12-18 months in age, I don't think you could possibly know the relief I feel at this moment.

I had to celebrate by taking this picture. I think taking it through a dark window caused it to lose some of it's quality.

The bishop's wife wondered why I was taking pictures of the nursery. She asked if I was trying to get "evidence". I told her yes, because I didn't want to tell her it was going on my blog.

Boredom... the bloggers workshop

My fantasy football league has entered the playoffs. This year, I actually made them. I am playing Matt otherwise known as "The Bloodsucking Ticks". I am winning by 16.5 going into tonight, but Matt has his kicker playing the Monday Night game.

You would think under such intense conditions, I'd be watching the Monday Night game, but no... it's on cable now. Instead of watching the NFL, I'm watching the AFL. That's right, Australian Rules Football on channel 9-2.

It's been a pretty good game between the Swans and the Kangaroos. The refs have made some pretty bad calls. For example. The ref called a behind for the 'roos, when it was clearly a goal. The other ref made up for that bad call though by awarding a goal to the 'roos, when the guy didn't kick it in time.

Yesterday, we went to grandma's house, and helped set up her tree while Ange studied Chemistry. This is a grainy picture taken on my cell phone of Lincoln and Ella playing in the Christmas Tree box, with their aunt Karen.


This is one of Ange's favorite pictures. It was taken a couple of months ago at her aunt's cabin in Idaho. I think she likes it because Lincoln looks so old and mature.

Angela's grandma (dad's side) died last week. She (Phyllis) was a nice lady, almost queen like, but she was in so much pain. The first time I met Phyllis was in church at the old fifth ward. My dad had moved out by then, but Clark, Ange's brother was being confirmed. I sat next to her grandma, and was doing the usual shaking my leg routine. Before I knew it, her grandma's hand clamps down on my leg. I guess she didn't like the constant shaking. It was more jarring than anything.

I'm glad they moved up to Utah for the last few years of her life, and I'm glad that she got to see her great grandchildren. Until last week, Ella and Lincoln had a higher percentage of great grandparents alive than grandparents. And here's another stat for you. Of the 120 decedents of Ange's great grandma and great grandpa, Phyllis was the first one to die. Ange sure has the long life genes... to bad she married someone seven years older than her that insists on drinking tons of eggnog.

I'd better hurry and see if the Swans pulled this one off.

A disturbing development

Earlier this year, on April Fools, we had our minivan broken into so someone could steal our DVD player. Details are here. We have acquired another DVD player, also with two screens, after enduring a summer without said player. It was a nightmare, and I will tip my cap to those parents who raised children without a DVD player in the car. My cap gets untipped to you guys now that I remember that you didn't put your children in car seats, but rather, let them roam all over the place whilst driving.


Anyway, Lincoln will tell Ange from the car seat to push play on the DVD. This is usually how the conversation goes: "Mommy, push play!" Mommy then pushes play. Then Lincoln says: "Daddy, die!" I am usually stunned by this development, because I've been innocently driving, minding my own business.


I figured I should try to post pictures at least once a month. I didn't realize that kids grew up, but after some of the comments when I last posted pictures, you'd think nobody recognized my children anymore.

Just a word to the wise: if you blow up the above picture, you might spot a booger forming under Link's right nostril. If that's going to gross you out, you might not want to blow up the picture.

Lincoln loves abc's and numbers more than I thought imaginable. He goes around singing the alphabet song now, with a few omissions. He's known letter sounds and how to sign them since he was barely 1. He can recognize and spell a few words too. Among the notables are: Lincoln, Ella, Mom, Dad, zoo, cat, and his all time favorite, happy.

He also likes to change our alarm clock's time. So far I haven't shown up to work an hour early or late but stay tuned...

My little girl is awesome at ping pong.


My favorite part about the bottom picture is how I whited out our license plate. If anyone needs training on how to use 'Paint', then let me know. My other favorite part is how my girl has outgrown the huge jacket we bought for her only a couple of months ago. Geez.

Luckily, said jacket was purchased at DI for a cool $3.

In conclusion, it's hard to take the kids together to Costco, because they both want to push the cart. This necessitates us getting two carts. But if there is only one of us, Lincoln usually ends up being disappointed.

For a very strange one, we don't have this problem at Wal-mart* because our kids don't want to push shopping carts at Wal-mart*, only at Costco.