Bing Blog

17 January 2013

Wolverine Assembly

I didn't get to go to this assembly today and watch my little brother be a little weird, but I did find this video.

The best part occurs around 2:45.

I gave him those Superman Socks with the little capes on the back for Christmas.

He came over last night to borrow some camouflage gear from James for some Sasquatch part of the assembly. While at my house, he was a little frustrated because he had already burned 5 different soundtracks for the assembly and remembered that he goofed and needed to burn cd #6. He was also donning a scarf and Hunter Junior High sweat pants.

A little weird, but we love him!

13 January 2013

My Kids

I need to post more things about my kids.

Molly:

Calls Jack "little buddy." I know I have probably called him that before, but she picked up on it and calls him that ALL THE TIME. "It's ok, little buddy." "I love you, little buddy."
Molly is getting better and better about me leaving her at school without any issues. Most days lately, she actually says, "Bye mom . . . see ya." However, on Friday, there was mega snow, I overslept and we were really late for school. She had a meltdown. It took us so long to get Jack off and then to school that she was yelling at cars out the window, "Move cars. Go faster." She took her shoes and socks off and was just super uptight. When we got to school, Ms. Sarah was heading to the cafeteria to get breakfast for the kids and I said I would just walk with Molly and the others down the hall. When we got to the kitchen and I needed to go up the stairs to my classroom, Molly freaked. One of my assistant principals was walking past at that moment and said something like, "My heavens! Is everything ok." Yup. It's just my Molly. I stood at the top of the balcony and waited for the kids to come back out of the kitchen and head down the hall. Molly was fine.
She's starting to get a lot better at recognizing letters. She can spot an "M" or her name from a mile away. She can identify probably half of the alphabet, but can sing a song to tell you a word that starts with every letter.
She likes to make calls on one of a couple of toy phones we have. Her favorite people to call are Mr. Matt, Willie, and Uncle Jason. Usually the conversations go something like, "Hi Mr. Matt. How you doing? Ok, bye. Mom you wanna talk to Mr. Matt?"
She loves to build towers and give me lunch with her play plates. She loves to read books and color.
She's really good at taking toys away from Jack and telling him, "Don't play with that. That is a bad choice."

Jack:

Continues to win the award for "World's Happiest Baby!"
He is a rolling machine. He's not crawling yet and when he gets on all 4's he just face plants, but he can pretty much get anywhere he wants by rolling back and forth.
He is super happy all of the time. He's very observant. He watches everything, but especially people, just waiting for them to make eye contact so he can give a super dimple smile.
He loves going to Stephanie's house and they are taking great care of him.
He's been a little bit sick lately with bad diapers and lots of congestion. I think he must be getting teeth in, but he might just have a bit of a cold, too. I took him to Instacare one day last week to make sure he didn't have ear infections. He didn't, thank goodness.
His favorite activity to entertain himself is to rub his hand back and forth on his mouth and make a lot of noise. It's pretty funny.
He's always been a good sleeper until the last 3-4 weeks and now he wakes up (almost exactly) at midnight every night. He wants a bottle and then goes right back to sleep. I thought he must just be hungry, so I've been trying to feed him more food before bed, but that hasn't stopped it. I'm not sure what to do.
He likes the car and almost always falls asleep.
He still doesn't really nap well, but has been consistently going down for a morning nap at the same time, though the length of the nap still varies.

12 January 2013

Grandpa's Talk

Today I decided to go to a funeral. Phyllis, a lady who lived one street over from my Grandparents, passed away this week. I grew up in the ward she was in. I think my dad was the Bishop when her husband died. Her oldest daughter and her family lived in our Granger ward and her youngest daughter was my most favorite young women's leader (you know, the leader who's car you always fought to be in). Her family has always been close to my mom's family, but I really went to the funeral today to listen to my Grandpa speak.

I sat on the back row with my dad, my mom, and 3 of my mom's sister's. My Grandpa talked about how neat this lady was and that he was happy to have the opportunity to speak. Here are the highlights I want to remember.

I sat by Betty Mae Plott. She smelled significantly of old lady perfume and I have had it in my nose all day. She also was really embarrassed when part way through the funeral she realized one of her zip-up-the-side snow boots was unzipped. I helped her zip it up and she whispered, "usually I have to use a pair of pliers on that one."
My mom mentioned that several of the older sisters in this ward have died in January - my Grandma, Kaye Pederson, Sue Burkett, and now Phyllis Howard. There must be something to the let down and bleakness of the winter that causes strong-willed older ladies to decide to let go.
During my Grandpa's talk there were a couple of times when I thought my grandma, had she been sitting on the bench with us, would have put her head in her hand and sighed, "Oh, Ed" because he was a bit less than tactful (though perfectly innocent, just awkward). He mentioned how he had married one of the daughters to her first husband, but then got off on a tangent about how she had been remarried and how that was okay, it happens to lots of people, even one in our family, etc. Second, he mentioned how Phyllis was always really into politics, but didn't like our current president for different reasons. He then went off on a tangent about how some people are racists. It was a little crazy, but ok.
Grandpa mentioned (actually my Aunt Cindy mentioned this too, at the basketball game last night) something that I had never heard before. Up until the 1980's, a woman could not go to the temple and be endowed if her husband wasn't a member of the Church. Phyllis's husband was not a member and it wasn't until later in her life that she could go to the temple even though she had always been a faithful church goer. My Aunt Cindy mentioned that when she got married, it was the first sealing that Phyllis had been to.
Some of Phyllis's family has stayed active in the Church and some haven't. My Grandpa ended his talk by bearing testimony that the Church was true. He said something to the effect of "it doesn't matter what you do or what I do, it's true. It's a fact. We can believe it or not, but it's true and it will always be there." I thought that was a good way to end things.
My grandpa will be 84 this year. He's the only grandparent I have left and though I don't go visit him nearly as much as I should (or as I did when my grandma was still alive), I really hope he decides to stick around for a while.

( I don't regret the decisions I've made in my life - school, job, marriage, kids, etc. - but I do sometimes think it would have been great had I had kids when I was younger so that they could have experienced how cool all of their great grandparents were. I grew up with good memories of 4 of my great-grandparents and my kids will only remember Grandpa Huber. It's ok, though. It just means that it is my job to teach them!)

30 December 2012

I hate pictures

Let's just face it. I'm not photogenic. If I die tomorrow, James has specific orders on what photograph to use for the obituary, though just my luck, he's probably forgotten. I'm not comfortable getting my picture taken and I would just prefer to never look at a picture of myself. The only reason I get it taken at school every year is because something deep down inside me hopes that one of these times it will actually not make me sick to my stomach to look at (like this one - Though perhaps it would help if I would remember it was picture day, even though it was a Friday, and wear something other than a t-shirt). There is, of course, this picture of me stuck in a barrell - like this one.

But to celebrate my little bitty brother's big #18 birthday, I read blogs.

My sister found this young, sessy, super skinny, beautiful picture of herself to post in celebration of my brother's birth. She's even in a swimsuit, no less. The cute boy and the tall thin super model are enough that you don't even notice the flower swimsuit & green plaid shorts combination.

Here's the picture my mom chose to post. Now, I'm sure my mom would respond to this by saying, "I didn't born no ugly children." But, honestly, mom, this is the picture you post? Who is that person? I have super creepy eyes. My hair is a giant yellow buffalo that even at age 14, you know you had to curl it for me that morning. It's obviously a Sunday (Willie was born on a Friday so he is now 2 days old). My rebellious sister (is her shirt velvet?) is out of her church clothes already, but I still have my foo-foo hair and red flanel dress on. The really sad part is that I liked that dress and would probably still wear it today if I had it (and it wasn't 10 sizes too small). Braces!?! Oh wait, I had them on my entire adolescents. Sigh.

I have always felt bad because "people say we look alike" is the tag line of many conversations involving my brother and I. Whatever. When people say that. This is the type of picture that comes to my mind and I feel really bad that people are calling him a scary 14 year old girl with big hair, braces, and a flannel dress. Sigh again.