ASL Talent Show

Tonight was the Appalachian School of Law talent show. We were brave and brought our kids along to watch their dad perform. McKay always says how Law School is a lot like high school. Unlike undergrad, he has become close friends with lots of people at the school. It was fun to hear them all cheer him on. He won third place out of about 15 acts. Good job dear!

Sadly, the camera cut out about the last 10 seconds of the performance, but here it is.

Jackson

Angie requested that I take a video of Jackson talking. Of course once the camera is on he doesn't talk as much as he does the rest of the day, and it seems like it's mostly me doing the talking, but here are a couple minutes of Jackson video.

There are 3 new posts below, so keep reading!

Fancy Nancy Tea Party

Yesterday there was a tea party at the library. Miss Virginia was there and all the little girls from our town were invited to come meet her and spend a couple hours being "fancy". They had stations where you could get your nails painted, make-up done, hair done, get an autograph from Miss Virginia, and refreshments. When I take Sydney to her library class each week there are about 8 girls. I was expecting a few more than this, but would have never imagined how many showed up. There were over 100 little girls at the library. I didn't even know that many girls lived in our small town! It was a fun afternoon with just us girls.

Tara Wheeler, Miss Virginia 2008

Tara & Sydney

Sydney getting an autograph.

Sydney getting her nails painted.

Cotton Candy

McKay's Birthday

Here are some pictures of McKay's birthday. His birthday cake request was a cake made out of brownies instead of cake, and he wanted it to be an ice cream cake....oh, and he wanted it to be Spiderman with blue icing. So, here's his blue-Spiderman-ice cream-brownie-cake-thing.

Perhaps you're saying to yourself, "Boy that cake looks very familiar..."

That would be because it's the same cake Jackson had for his 1st birthday. McKay is a kid at heart for sure.

My Mom and Dad gave Mckay a Cocoa-Motion for his birthday a few years back. It's machine that mixes and heats hot cocoa perfectly. Mckay LOVES hot cocoa, so he LOVED his Coaco-Motion. Sadly it stopped working after about a year. So, my parents sent a new one for his birthday this year. The pictures show how much he liked his gift.

Now, you know how kids often find the camera and take a bunch of weird pictures? Well, here are some pictures I found on my camera the other day. Iy iy iy! McKay has a few false teeth due to an accident he had as a kid. I've heard so many stories as to how he lost his teeth that I'm not even certain which is true. I believe when he was 7 or 8 he was running around the house and tripped and hit his mouth on the wooden arm of the couch, knocking out several of his front teeth. I guess you can ask him what the true story is. Anyway, he thinks it pretty cool to take his teeth out and make weird faces like the ones you'll find below. Enjoy!

New York Baby!

This weekend my brother Bryan got home from his mission in South Africa! My parents and sister Kelly went to Africa to pick him up and spent 2 1/2 weeks traveling to the areas that he served. My Dad served his mission in some of the same areas more than 30 years ago, and they were able to visit some of the families that my Dad baptized. From what we've heard, they had an amazing trip. They showed us some crazy pictures of their trip. They flew out of South Africa on Friday and we were able to meet up with them on their all day layover in New York. We spent the day sight seeing, eating, and visiting. It was so fun. It was great to see our family, especially Bryan...WELCOME HOME LITTLE BRO!

This first video is a tribute to Jake Rice. He's always taking secret videos of poor Angie. Haha. This was taken in the airplane getting ready for take off.

Here we are crammed into a taxi headed toward Times Square.

(McKay, half of Kelly's face, Keresa, Mom, and Bryan)


From the taxi coming up on the city.


Me and McKay in front of Carnegie Deli (right next to Carnegie Hall).

We ordered Reuben Sandwiches. Rye bread with HUGE amounts of corned beef topped with sauerkraut and swiss cheese. Sounds kinda sketchy, but it was SO GOOD! Not to mention the strawberry cheese cake and black forest cake to follow. Yummy!

Times Square.

Walking around Times Square.

My parents treated us all to to the new Broadway Shrek the Musical. It was 100% amazing. Thanks Mom and Dad for the amazing experience!

Lord Farquad was one of my favorite characters. He was on his knees the whole time with those little stuffed legs attached to his thighs. He was hilarious to watch!

Donkey is one if my favorite characters in the movie, so I was worried he wouldn't live up to his part in the musical. Boy was I wrong, he was amazing too.

Mazletov!




Walking through the subway station.



Bryan and McKay in the subway train. McKay is making me claim that Bryan is standing on a box, although he is not. Sorry McKay, you're just short.

Thank you Daniel and Andrea for keeping our kids for us while we were away! Our trip was way fun. Let's go again soon eh?

To all the Moms out there.

Happy Birthday McKay!

Today McKay turns the big TWO-SIX. I thought he'd like a little picture post like I did for Sydney, so here it goes. 1 year old

5 (or 6) years old


18 years old

20 years old

25 years old

Happy Birthday dear.

Happy Valentines Day!!

Make sure you get up early and pinch everyone who's not wearing green!

Oops, got my holidays mixed up there for a minute.


I mean, wishing you and yours a very romantic and lovey dovey day. :)

Lots of people like to cook for their loved ones on Valentines day. That's not a bad idea. A certain Garth Brooks song comes to mind that would make Valentines cooking ESPECIALLY romantic!

And no matter what anyone says, you are never too old to give Valentines out at school.

-mk

Buckets of fun.

I found some storage buckets on sale at Wal-Mart last week. Sydney and Jackson were pretty sure I bought them just for them to play with. They spent about 45 minutes stacking and unstacking them, matching and mismatching the lids, and climbing in, on, and under them. Who needs all the toys that will soon fill the buckets??

Jan. in review

Sydney told me that today in primary she learned her body is a church… (temple maybe?)

For several months we have been training Jackson to use the bathroom. He still needs a lot of help and needs us to remind him. He has not made it through the night yet, probably because he can't do it by himself yet and we haven't been getting up with him. But starting this week, he comes in sometime between 3 and 5 am with Sydney. They come greet me and whisper, "Dad - we have to go PP." so we all go. Its kind of cool - he hasn't had an accident all week.

We have had some cold mornings lately. The design of our bathroom is that it includes the washer and dryer, toilet, then shower/tub. There is a normal glass window to the outside world in the tub. I have long since painted the glass so onlookers would only see a sexy showering silhouette, but when its freezing outside, the shower stays pretty cold. It even forms ice on the inside of the window. Brr. Some of these mornings I have brought my outfit in with me, then throw it along with my towel into the dryer. Then after the freezing shower I put on a warm towel and such. Its nice.

We got some snow, and tried to make a snowman, but when I was walking one of the larger snowballs across the yard I slipped and hit my elbow on the sidewalk. So I pouted after that and didn't make any more snow balls. But the girls made a nice mini snowman.

Jackson helped me make dinner. We made open face tuna melts. Together we were cutting the cheese (go ahead, laugh). I left him on the step stool in front of the block of cheese, cutting board, and knife while I went to put the sliced cheese on the sandwiches. Quickly, I grabbed the knife, so he was left alone with only the block of cheese and cutting board. By the time I made it across the kitchen and back, he had sunk his teeth into the block of cheese. Good for dental impressions, bad for the block of cheese.

We were sitting around the table talking and eating cheese and crackers. Jackson asked Keresa a few times for more crackers, but she didn't notice because she was paying attention to our conversation. So after a few polite tries, he got louder and said, "Stop talking! Stop talking!" Maybe you had to be there.

On the way home from church, Sydney complained of her ears. I figured she needed to pop her ears. Thanks to a trip I took with Chris and Summer a few years ago, I observed a good method of teaching kids to pop their ears. I had Syd blow her nose into a tissue, but halfway through the blow I plugged her nose entirely. She looked at me with glad eyes that her ears were now cleared, and she practiced clearing them just by opening her jaw. Thanks Chris.

Sydney’s bday came and went. Thanks to everyone who sent gifts and packages for her. We had a birthday poptart breakfast, special lunch, and pizza place dinner. Since she’s four now, that means Keresa and I are coming up on our 5 year anniversary! Where has all the time gone?!

MK KGW SRW JGW