Audrey, a woman of many words!!!!

After a couple months of saying dadada, yesterday she finally said mamama!!!!! I think she is also starting to try and copy more of the sounds we make. She is such a doll and quite the little mover. She has been crawling all over the place for many weeks now and she has been pulling herself up to a standing position whenever she has the opportunity. She is so fun!!!!!!

Let's all do a little dance and shout Horray because......

WRESTLING IS OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think that both Hillary and I can appreciate this one.

Happy Belated Paczki day!

I love paczkis and I haven't had one in years. So this year I indulged myself and bought my two favorite flavors, raspberry and cream cheese. I thuroughly enjoyed making myself fat while eating about 5 over the last two days. I know that's pretty bad, but sometimes you just have to live a little. These were the first paczkis for Jaxson. He wasn't as thrilled as me. In fact, he started to eat one, thought it was too messy, asked for a fork to finish with and then ended up not finishing anyway because it was getting all over his clothes. He's such a weird kid. He usually doesn't care about being messy.

The Good & The Bad

THE GOOD: I made an appointment to get my taxes done for free on campus next Friday! I am so happy about this because last year I ended up paying almost $100 to get my taxes filed. Once I get my tax return I will be joining a gym, I need to get more exercise.

THE BAD: I had a midterm to take on Saturday, but I completely spaced it. I knew that I was forgetting something, but I couldn't remember what. Luckily I was able to take it yesterday but I had to pay a late fee. Grrrrrr! At least I am pretty sure that I did well on it.

Randomness

We had a surprise visitor during Sacrament Meeting today. Elder Cook, yes the General Authority, decided to spend sacrament meeting with us. It really was a surprise for all, the Bishop didn't even know Elder Cook would be coming today until his morning meetings. He bore his testimony at the end of the meeting. Only crazy, random things like this happen in Utah. It was a pleasant surprise and a great privilege to have heard from Elder Cook today.

On Friday evening I went to a show, all by myself, called Living Legends. The show consisted of dances from different nationalities such as Mexican, Native American, Polynesian, and others. It was amazing, despite going by myself. I was really wanting to see this show and it I also have a friend that performs with the Living Legends group. Tara, my friend, is Native American and she does a pretty amazing dace that involves hoops that she puts all over her body and makes different shapes with them. Anyway, the point is that it was a very good show. A bonus to going to the show was the enjoyable sight of Polynesian men.

Starting on the 3rd of March I will be spending a month in a 4th grade classroom. I am looking forward to this so that I can get a better idea of what grade I want to teach. I am just a bit stressed because there are so many more lessons that we are required to teach, as opposed to last semester. Despite all the work that will need to be done I can't wait to get started. We have to drive through Provo Canyon in order to get to Midway to the elementary school. I am already hoping that there will be one day that the weather is so bad they close the canyon so that I can have a day off. Pathetic I know, but this is how I feel. I am ready to get this semester done and over with.

Just to let you know, the link to my blog does work now. I am posting on my blog but I will try to copy and paste to this blog.

Happy Belated Birthday

I know that these birthday wishes are overdue and I have thought often about making a video to sing you all a birthday song. I went to go make the video but the site that I used is no longer available and I don't know where else to go. So here it is in writing instead. "Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear Charlie, Hillary, Alexis, Merrit, and Jaxson! Happy birthday to you!" I hope all of you had wonderful birthdays. Love you all!

Bro. Douglas from the Howell ward, the guy who fixed the electical stuff, came and fixed the furnace today and installed a new hot water heater. The furnace is working great. He couldn't try the heater though because there is a iron filter on the water pump that brings the water in from the well and it's missing a part. Without that part the water just flows all over the floor when you turn it on. So we have to find the missing part and replace it so we can turn the water on and try the water heater. I just hope that there are no other leaks in any other water pipes (I'm counting on leaks, but hoping I'm wrong!). I have become addicted to the DIY network, especially the program they have called Sweat Equity. It's hard to watch them do all these cool things with their spaces and not want to do the same for mine. I'm just trying to take their ideas and adapt them to our house. It's so fun adding sweat equity to our home. It's going to be so great when we're finished. I'm going to try to go to the house tomorrow to check on the furnace and I'll try to take some more updated pictures to post.

Jaxson was so excited for his birthday. He's been asking if it's his birthday everyday, several times a day, for a couple of weeks now. He wanted me to make him a red car cake. I tried my best, but the frosting didn't turn out as red as I had hoped. He was also anxious to get out of his "baby" car seat and into Makayla's booster seat. She has been using one with a back on it that we have given to Jaxson now (he's such a big boy) and we have a booster with out a back for her to use until she is 8 (that's the law now). To make matters worse, Charlie put Jaxson in the front seat, in his new booster, on his birthday. Now Jaxson thinks he gets to ride there all the time and continues to ask me to let him. I have to keep telling him it was just for his birthday and he isn't going to be able to sit in the front very much. He doesn't seem to hear me though because he keeps on asking :). It's so much nicer to get him in and out of the car now that he's in a booster. What freedom I have now.

P.S. Mom told me that Les's wrestling team won districts. Congrats to you guys! Charlie's team didn't win districts. They are up in Traverse City this weekend for Individual districts. They were only able to seat six of their team. I know this sounds bad, but I really hope none of them go on passed districts. I'm ready for Charlie to have more time to work on our house, and be at home.