Our 1 year old!

It's hard to believe that Jack has finally turned 1. His birthday was on March 27th. But since Easter was on Sunday, we celebrated his birthday on Easter and had a big family get together. The kids did get some cute Easter clothes as you can see in this picture.

Rather than doing a birthday cake, we like using our cupcake tree. Jack was about ready to dive right into it.

As we've done with each of our kids on their 1st birthday, we stripped down Jack to his diaper and let him go to town on his birthday "cupcake". He didn't get as dirty as Brooklyn and Isaac did, but he did love that cupcake (at least what he was able to get into his mouth). It's always such a treat to see what has fallen down onto the seat.

Here's a picture of Brooklyn on her 1st birthday. Can you tell Brooklyn and Jack are related?

We needed to do something on Jack's actual birthday, so we decided to go to Tucano's in Provo, a Brazilian grill where they serve the best grilled pineapple in the world not to mention a plethora of meat.

And finally, what is a birthday for Jack without Jumpin' Jacks in Springville. He was scared to death of this slide at first but now loves it, faceplant and all. Jack's a good boy. We're lucky to have him in our family.

Who's snoring?

Within the past couple of months, we've noticed that Isaac has been snoring a lot more than before. He's worse than I am which is saying a lot. We had Brooklyn in for a doctor's appt. a few weeks back and had the doctor take a quick look at Isaac's tonsils and the doctor simply stated "Wow! Those are huge tonsils!" So Isaac saw a nose, throat and ear doctor this afternoon and there was no question by the doctor at all. He needs his tonsils and adenoids removed. The doctor said that his tonsils are so big that they are almost fused together. We've noticed lately that Isaac when he speaks sounds much more like he's talking through mucus in his throat. No wonder he's snoring when he sleeps.

Anyway, the surgery is a simple one that only takes about 30 minutes, but it does require that he go completely under and they have to give him a breathing tube. He's scheduled to have it done next Wednesday morning (April 2nd). Recovery is about a week and then the snoring should be gone and he should be able to sleep much better. He's pretty excited for his all liquid diet filled with smoothies, Gatorade and Popsicles. We'll report more after the surgery.

They say that this problem is hereditary. Maybe if I get my tonsils removed, I'll stop snoring too?

Snowbird Tunnel

Tami works a few hours a week and at her Christmas work party this year she won 4 free full day ski lift passes to Snowbird. I had never been to Snowbird before, so I was pretty excited. The snow is incredible this year. They have a 150" base right now at Snowbird. The weather was in the 50's. Nothing like Spring skiing in Utah. They just finished a brand new tunnel towards the top of the mountain that takes you to the backside of the resort called Mineral Basin. The tunnel is pretty cool. You ride a little conveyor belt and it takes you right through. At the deepest point you are about 200' below ground. They had good music playing throughout. Check out the pictures and video clip. It was a fun day and we're excited that we get to go again this season with the other 2 passes.

Here's a view just before going through the tunnel.

You can see how far from the ridge the tunnel opening is in this picture.

Here we are going through the tunnel itself with a video clip as well.

This is the other side of the tunnel. Only goes one way. To get back over to the other side you have to take the ski lift to the top.

This was the view we got as we came out of the tunnel. I love Utah mountains!

Another view of the mountains from the top.You can read all about the tunnel and facts by going to Snowbird's website.

Google Street View

I'm telling you . . . Google never ceases to amaze me. You may have heard of the new "Street View" feature available in some cities on Google Maps. Well, they have pretty much done all of Spanish Fork and a lot of cities in Utah County. They use a car with a 360-degree camera mounted on top and then they just drive around. They must have been through our neighborhood sometime late last summer. Our garage was open when they went by our house:


View Larger Map

Use your mouse to click and drag to look around. You can zoom in and out and if you try to look straight down, you can see the hood of the car. If you go to the East on this road, you'll actually see a kid riding his bike. Pretty crazy technology. Here's what the car looks like with the camera mounted on the roof. If you happen to see one of these driving by, be sure to smile really big and then you too can be immortalized on by Google.

Donuts and Dads

This past Thursday night I had the privilege of attending my first Donuts and Dads night at the Elementary School where Brooklyn goes to Kindergarten. They have done it the past few years. Basically they figure that Dad's are not as involved in their children's lives as the mom's (go figure) and so at 6:30 we showed up in her classroom with all the other dad's and their kids. Earlier that day in class the kids were all given books that they were to bring with them to the activity that evening. Brooklyn and I sat down and read her book together. She did all the reading of course (she's quite the little reader . . . in fact she just finished reading The Cat in the Hat tonight. That's a long book for kids to read). We read for an 1/2 hour and then they invite everyone to the gym to eat donuts. Brooklyn was so excited to bring me to school. It really was a fun evening. It was good to see so many old friends too. We've been in 3 different wards since we moved to the ward about 2 years ago and it was amazing how many people I knew. And as a bonus, Brooklyn got to keep her book.

Jumpin' Jacks

They just opened this new place about 5 miles away from our house where kids can go and play on big inflatables. It's normally about $5-6 for a child to play there, but during the off season months, they offer a parent and child pass where one parent and up to two children can go between the hours of 11 and 3 (on weekdays) and you pay $19 total for the entire month. That's a good deal. The kids absolutely love it. Tami has been with them a few times, and I took a lunch break last week and met them down there and played with the kids. Besides a few "vinyl" burns on my arms, we had a great time. There's even a small area for little kids like Jack. It's nice because the kids get a ton of exercise during the cold winter months where they're normally cooped up inside all day. Enjoy the pictures and video clips. Be sure to click the picture below to link to the online album.

Jumpin Jacks

Dinosnorzzzz

You're probably wondering by the title of this entry what this is all about. Brooklyn Isaac and I had a very fun opportunity this last weekend that few kids (or adults for that matter) have ever done... we had a sleepover at the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving point. This museum is actually a pretty cool one. Check the link to learn more.

We arrived at about 7:00 pm and were given treats in the cafe... a bag of popcorn each, a soda and a candybar.It was then off to the Xango Giant Mammoth screen to watch Sea Monsters in 3D. Pretty cool movie. Brooklyn kept her 3D glasses on the whole time and was constantly reaching out in front of her to touch the sea creatures. Isaac on the other hand did not keep his glasses on and just watched the "blurry" version.After the movie we were taken on a guided tour of the museum. We had been to the museum many times before thanks to a family membership card, but listening to the "back stories" behind all the giant skeleton dinosaurs and excavation efforts were fascinating. It was then off to the Gar Fish tank to watch "the feeding". I was thinking they were going to just give them regular fish food, but when they dumped a bunch of live goldfish into the tank, it got exciting. Just like a dinosaur with eyes on the sides of their heads, they would turn their head sideways as they came up on the gold fish and then open their mouths and take a sideswipe action, gobbling the little goldfish alive. The kids loved it.

From there it was time for a scavenger hunt, which sent the kids running around the museum from end to end and back again looking for clues. We finished up underneath the huge Brachiasaurus skeleton where they received little Styrofoam flying dinosaurs. By then it was around 11:00 and the kids were very tired. They told us we could sleep pretty much anywhere on the main floor, so we scoped out the best spot in town....right underneath the two fighting T-rex skeletons. With our inflatable mattress pad and sleeping bags, we were ready for a fun night. I did try to trick the kids into the whole "Night at the Museum" story, but they didn't buy it. It was so neat to be laying down and looking up right into the belly of a T-rex skeleton. Not everyday you can do that from your bed. Here's what I mean...It was a little eerie to wake up at 2 in the morning surrounded by silent giants, but we made it to sunrise alive thank goodness. The kids slept well and after cleaning up our stuff, it was off to a very nice breakfast with waffles, cinnamon rolls, juice, grapes, oranges and apples. Here are a few video clips of the museum floor and the kids talking about their experience.





After breakfast it was off to our PALEO activities. We started in the cafe by making a talking Oragami terradactyl.From there they went to the lab and reconstructed a Mammoth skeleton (typical balsa wood puzzle).After the Mammoth puzzles the kids took a few minutes to unearth dinosaur bones in the sand with brushes. Very cool "hands on" exhibit. Check out the video.

The kids finished up in the lab by creating their own fossil molds with plaster and then they were able to use real air drills to etch the stone away from real fish fossils in stone. They were even able to keep the fossils. All in all it was an awesome experience and one that the kids will remember for a long, long time. And for the price we paid and for all that we got out of it, I really don't think the Museum is making much of a profit (if any) off this activity. If anyone in Utah is looking for a fun overnight adventure, you have to check out Dinosnorzzz. You'll be glad you did. (FYI. The link says 4th graders and up, but that's if you don't have an adult chaperone.)

6 years old!

It's hard to believe that we have a 6 yr old! My how time flies. Brooklyn had a great day though. Because of a very large party last year, we decided to have just a family party this time around. Brooklyn loves this Brazilian restaurant here in town called Tucanos because it serves so much meat and Brooklyn is true carnivore. Not to mention the delicious fried, brown sugar glazed pineapple that just melts in your mouth. And the best part about it is that kids 6 and under eat for free. Can't beat that. Grandma and Grandpa Casaday showed up along with Marinda, Abby, Brian and Kaley. We did a lunch instead of a dinner because it's quite a bit cheaper. Brooklyn ate a lot of meat that's for sure and we all had a great time. Brooklyn especially loved it when they sang to her as you can see in the video below. Our little girl is growing up!



She did get a free ice cream sundae out of it too.


And for those of you who are "in" with kids toys and technology, we bought Brooklyn a Webkinz stuffed animal. It's this new fad where you buy a stuffed animal and then go online to a special site, enter their unique ID on their tag and then the stuffed animal becomes a virtual pet. You can build your own room for your pet. You have to feed it, play with it, take it to the vet if it's sick. It's actually pretty insane what you can and are supposed to do. Check out the link for more info on it.

Break Dancing

I remember the days back in the 80's when I would go over to my friend Brad Nolte's house and we would lay out a piece of cardboard in his living room and "break". Ahh those were the days. I was never really good, but Isaac, Jack and I have since been practicing. Take a look below. Not sure what happened to Isaac's arms. I guess we forgot to wash them or something after he was out playing in the dirt.

Where were you?

So I'm sure the passing away of Pres. Hinckley all sort of caught us off guard. We knew it was going to happen sooner or later. I found out during a stake priesthood meeting Sunday night. The funny thing was that the Stake President was speaking about distractions and that in a conversation with Pres. Bateman (Provo temple president), he said that the #1 problem they have right now in the Provo temple is cell phones, especially in the locker room. Then at about 8:00 pm, when the breaking news of Pres. Hinckley was first aired on TV, a few cell phones went off in the audience. You could see some of the people on the stand sort of rolling their eyes, but then my cell phone went off too. Luckily I had set mine to silent, but I noticed it was Tami. Tami and I have a rule that if I'm in a meeting and she really needs to get a hold of me for something important, I tell her to call me twice in a row. She didn't, so I didn't bother. The Stake President finished and we began to sing the closing hymn when the 1st counselor in the Stake Presidency was called off the stand and out the side door. I thought that was strange. He came back pretty quickly and mentioned something to the Stake President, but I didn't think anything else of it.

Suddenly a text message buzzed through from my sister-in-law Stephanie stating that President Hinckley had just passed away. I still remember the sinking feeling in my stomach and the immediate sadness that swept over me. I was sitting next to the Bishop and I showed him the message and I'll never forget his reaction. He closed his eyes very tightly, looked for a moment upwards and then bowed his head and began to weep. At this time it was getting difficult for me to even finish the song we were singing. I looked up and saw that the Stake President was now weeping as well. However, only a handful of people in the audience probably knew what had happened. I was very much expecting one of the members of the Stake Presidency to get up after the closing prayer and make an announcement, but he didn't. Immediately after everyone began to migrate to the back of the cultural hall for refreshments, people were on their cell phones. I tried calling my parents in San Diego and couldn't get through due to busy circuits.

Anyway, we will all miss President Hinckley. It's strange though because after the initial feeling of sadness I first felt, it was quickly replaced with a feeling of concern for President Monson and what he is now going through. The passing of a dear friend is one thing, but the weight he must feel on his shoulders for what will be coming next is something I can't even imagine. I am so grateful though for the order of the church. It's such a good feeling to know that the Lord is very much aware of every single facet of this church. Prophets come and go. New leaders are called and released. But the work of the Lord continues uninterrupted. What a marvelous work this is!

Lemonade

As we were driving this weekend, we stopped at Arby's to get some lunch and Brooklyn had some lemonade with her sandwich. Not thinking about the context of the question, Brooklyn asked us, "What does 'aid' mean?" We responded that it's another way of helping someone. Her reply was classic, "Then that means I'm drinking lemon-help"

13.1 Miles - Painter's 1/2 Marathon

Well, we did it! Tami and I successfully ran the Painter's Half Marathon in St. George this past weekend. Tami's brother Brian also ran it with us as well as Tami's cousin. The picture above is a before shot. As you can see, the weather was beautiful. We all left Friday afternoon to St. George and carbo-loaded at Fazoli's. We then headed to Littlefield 30-min south of St. George) to stay at Marva's place (Tami's grandma). We were all feeling pretty good about the race and slept pretty well. We were a little worried on the drive back in Saturday morning though when the thermometer on the car read in the 20s. But we were prepared for cold weather. This really was my first big race and as we all huddled (the three of us and about 1500 other runners) we tried to keep warm. The race kicked off at 9:00 and it was slow going until I was able to weave around all the other runners and find some open space. I had my iPod loaded with music this time. I figured the Ensign recordings could wait for another workout. With gloves, hat, running pants and windbreaker, the cold really didn't bother me. The course weaved through neighborhoods and also along a paved parkway trail that really was nice. Quite a bit of up and down, but nothing extreme. Tami said she was able to see me for the first couple of miles but then lost track of me. I had no idea where Brian was. It's so interesting to watch other runners and what they wear especially. I'll bet there were people out there that were easily wearing $150+ worth of brand-name running clothes. Lots of spandex.

At about mile 5 began to realize I had a long ways to go still. I was feeling good and I don't want to say I ever hit "the wall", but I thought about it. After about mile 8, things started to go pretty quickly and before I knew it, I had hit mile 12. Surprisingly all my joints felt good the entire race. I made an effort to walk through the thirst aid stations rather than run through them. I also made sure to drink at every one. I didn't even get blisters on my feet. I was pretty excited to hit the finish line. In my mind, I couldn't imagine thinking that the finish line was just the half way point of the marathon. One thing at a time though. I ended up finishing at about 1 hr 45 min which is an average of about 8 min. miles. My goal was to finish under 2 hours, so I feel good about that pace. Tami's time was 1 hr 56 min, which is under 9 min miles. She felt good about her time too. And Brian showed us all up by finishing in 1 hr 36 min, but for a guy who has run 10 marathons already, I wasn't surprised. The kids were excited to see us at the finish line too.

The worst part about the whole experience was having to sit in a car for 3 1/2 hours to drive back home, take a 45 min break and then drive 3 1/2 more hours to a cabin in Idaho where we spent the weekend. I'll blog about that soon. Let's just say that I was not able to walk upstairs very well Sat. night. Was doing OK on Sunday and by Sunday afternoon was feeling pretty recovered. Today is Tuesday and I plan on running about 3 miles. Can't stop training now. It's hard to believe in about 2 1/2 weeks I'll be running 15 miles just as a training run. Here's some pictures from the race.



This picture of me was at about mile 8.



This one is about 100 yards from the finish line.

One week and counting

Well, I did something today that I can say I have never done before in my life. I ran 10 miles. Sure, I've hiked further than that but never continuously. Tami and registered for the 26th Annual Painter's 1/2 Marathon in St. George next weekend. It's just a small checkpoint race in our training for the Ogden Marathon in May (yes it is 26.2 miles). Tami ran the 10 miles with me this morning as well. It's too cold outside right now, so we headed to the indoor track at BYU for the run. Tami doesn't ever listen to music while running but I have my little iPod Shuffle and which helps me from getting too bored. However, call me crazy, but this morning I actually put the January 2008 Ensign on my iPod and listened to it for the 90 minutes while we ran this morning. Each article is narrated by various people, one of which is a very familiar voice from the temple ceremony and of course Lloyd Newell from Music and the Spoken word usually narrates a few articles.

First ski lesson

Yesterday the kids had their first experience skiing. Novell offered a deal this week to employees and their family for an all day adult lift ticket and lunch for only $22 at Sundance. That's a steal when the normal price for an adult lift ticket is $35. Sundance is just up Provo canyon. It's a much smaller resort than the ones you'd find in the Salt Lake area, but it's close, which is nice. Mike and Marinda came along with us and we received some money from Adele to go towards ski lessons for the kids, so we figured we'd get it all done in one shot.

The kids did wonderfully. They had a private 2 1/2 hour lesson that with "Mike", one of the resort instructors. He gave them a glowing report card. They were going down the little tow rope slope like pros by the end of the lesson. He mentioned that both kids had a lot of stamina and where most kids their age would get tired easily and want to sit and rest, Brooklyn and Isaac didn't stop for one moment. That's what I call dedication. Now if we could just get some of that dedication to trickle over into their household chores, we'd be in business!

Sundance was beautiful and we couldn't have picked a better day to go. It was all of our first time at the resort. We're not going to jump out and buy skis for the kids however. This was just an introduction. Skiing is an expensive sport as we realized between ski rentals, ski lesson costs and the lift tickets. But the pictures are priceless. Follow the link to see some cute videos and clips. You'll also notice some pics of our snowman that we built a week ago. The snow was the perfect consistency for snowman making. Gotta love Utah in the winter!

BE SURE TO CLICK THE PICTURE BELOW, WHICH WILL LINK YOU TO THE FULL ALBUM.

Skiing and Snowmen

Jack's tongue clicking

One of Jack's recent mimics that he loves to do is tongue clicking. He is pretty good at it too. Both Isaac and I are in the background trying to get him to do it.

Snowball Fight!!!

We had this pretty wild snowball fight the other day. You'll have to admit that Jack is pretty agile when it comes to dodging snowballs. And to think that he was just learning to crawl last week.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

And of course for all of those out there who like to celebrate Hanukkah, check this video out.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Christmas time

Christmas time and the holiday season has hit our home with full force. The kids are excited for Christmas and are enjoying the snow on the ground. Between family Christmas parties, birthday parties, and tithing settlement, we've been keeping pretty busy. Check out the link below to see the latest set of pictures. Isaac's 4th birthday is next Tuesday, so I'm sure I'll enter something then. If you ask the kids what they want for Christmas, they will both say they want Transformers. Brooklyn wants the Bumblebee Transformer and Isaac is thinking he'll inherit my old school Optimus Prime that I still have when I was a kid. Although he doesn't know that I know, he's getting me the new Optimus Prime. It's crazy how all the excitement for Transformers has been rekindled inside since the new movie came out.

Christmas time

Black Friday 2007

I figured some of you might want to know about my annual Black Friday shenanigans. Well, it was relatively successful this year. There was not a lot of high priced electronics that I was going for this year. Mainly stuff for the kids. The excitement of receiving the infamous Thanksgiving newspaper chock full of ads has diminished quite a bit over the last few years with all the ads being available online almost a week before. Still, perusing the ads and wishing is always fun to do.

Anyway, I didn't get to bed Thanksgiving night until after midnight. The alarm went off at 4:10 am. With all my warm clothes set out the night before in preparation for the upper teens overnight low that was fore casted I rolled out of bed, got dressed, and ate a quick bowl of Mini Wheats to give me the sustenance I would need to sprint, push and shove. My first stop was Toys R Us, which I think was pretty much everyones' first stop. I arrived at about 4:45 and got in the back of a line about 1/10th of a mile long (thank you Google Earth). Needless to say, when the doors opened at 5am, I didn't actually walk into the store until 5:10ish, which was way too late for the wireless guitar I wanted to snag for the PS2 Guitar Hero games. I left pretty quickly and headed to Best Buy for a 100-pack DVD spindle. The trash left on the sidewalks leading up to the store was about as bad as what you see left on the bleachers after a football game. Best Buy was a joke and of course the DVD's were gone. I left there feeling a little discouraged, but Target didn't let me down.

It was only about 5:25 when I arrived at Target and relaxed and caught my breath in line while watching an episode of Heroes on my Blackberry. I think it had warmed up to the mid 20s by now, which actually felt good. The doors opened and it was a mad dash to the back of the store. I was running pretty quick (I had my running shoes on!). I snagged the toys that I needed to get and was actually out of the store by 6:15! Next stop was Ace Hardware to get a red wagon for Jack and some other items. Ace didn't open until 7, so I had plenty of time and was 5th in line, which gave me time to finish my episode of Heroes. When Ace opened, I was in and out and with some extra time on my hands, I headed to Recreation Outlet (a camping store in American Fork) that had some pretty good deals. I needed to get down to a furniture store in Provo by 8am to try to get a leather recliner for $99, but when I realized it was 7:45 and there were still about 20 people in front of me, I stashed my basket of items under some sleeping bags in the corner and raced down to Provo.

I got to the furniture store and found out that everyone had been given "vouchers" to buy the hot items and that those vouchers had been handed out at 11:00 pm the night before. That made me mad. So I jumped back into the car and headed back to American Fork where I found my stash and waited for about 1/2 hour in line to check out. This time I watched an episode of the Amazing Race. Portable video players are pretty cool, especially when waiting in long lines. Home was the next stop after that. So, yes I saved some money, but it's always the experience that is the best part of the morning.

More than meets the eye . . .

Transformers fever has officially hit our house. It all started late this summer when I came across all of the cartoons for the series back in the 80s that I used to watch as a kid. The original Generation 1 Transformers cartoon series ran a little more than 3 seasons with roughly 95 episodes. The kids have watched about 75 of them. Brooklyn can name the Autobot leaders by heart. I have shown them a couple of my old transformers that I have saved from childhood, but they don't know I have Optimus Prime yet. We'll save that for another day. Looks like we may need to get some for Isaac for his birthday this year from the new movie. Heck. I wouldn't mind getting this one.

For those who want to go back and reminisce about the days of Autobots and Decepticons, take a look at either transformerland.com or seibertron.com

And of course it's not to early for Jack to enjoy the shows too. I snapped this picture of Isaac and Jack watching an episode this morning.

Learning to Dance

We've been hard at work learning some new moves. Take a look at the videos below:



Even though Brooklyn and Isaac didn't grow up in the 70s, that's not stopping them from learning how to dance.