How cool is this? I'm writing this from a nifty Wordpress app on my Droid Eris… that just got updated to Android 2.1. This phone totally rocks now. How about this photo of the kids swimming in Grandma Jackies pool?
Three days after the judge made it official, we made it SUPER OFFICIAL by taking Maya to the temple to be sealed to us. I THANK ALL OF MY DEAR FAMILIES who came to the blessed event. We (and Maya) are truly loved. With out further ado, here's some shots of the after party! Actually, it was THREE parties in two days. The sealing was on Saturday, Maya's Blessing was on Sunday, and then we threw in a little extra CONGRATS party for my brother Ian who just graduated from Law School. His wife (Nat) was in Phoenix, but ordered a yummy ice cream cake from Maggie Moos and we all ate it without her.
Yep, as of January 16th, 2008, Missy Moo is officially a Service. She even has a birth certificate to prove it!
The trip to court was fairly uneventful, even the judge was kind of a stick in the mud. It was mildly amusing however when the judge had to ask our lawyer if all was in order as far as adoptions go. I guess he doesn't preside over too many of them, and this was kind of a treat. There were a few criminals in the room waiting for their turn.
Roseanne and Abigail flew up early (for the temple sealing) and were there to take pictures for us. Our good friends Christina and Cory came too, and we all went to breakfast after. Here's a few shots Roseanne took for us.
Sorry if you thought I fell off the planet. I've been ignoring my blog because I've just been so dang busy! It's kind of a double edged sword. I go on vacation and do lots of fun things, and take lots of fun pictures, but when I get back I'm so busy catching up on work, that I don't have time to blog about my adventures.
Anyway… here's what we've been doing since December.
Christmas, 2007
We spent Christmas Eve at Brent and Larry's of course… because they throw the best darned Christmas party on the planet! It was great for the kids because we "cut back" on the presents this year due to the fact that we took a CRUISE and went to DISNEYLAND at the end of January… more on that below. Here's some pics of Christmas.
A few more shots of the annual "Graham Cracker House" building… I don't see any budding architects yet… and of course, half of my kids are always naked.
On Christmas morning, we decided to go to Flat Iron Mesa park for a little sledding. Avery took his snow board. Funny (but sad) story! Avery jumped on his board and expertly carved the hill. At the bottom, he took off his board and started walking up "the trail" behind a larger man to get back to the top. Out of nowhere, a kid about Avery's age decided to PLOW THE CROWD with his wooden sled on runners. Needless to say, the crowd jumped out of the way, but because Avery was behind the large man, he didn't get out of the way in time… I take that back, Avery got out of the way, but his snowboard was a little slow. The kid (who should have looked before he leaped) ended up EATING Avery's snowboard. Yup… split his face like a watermelon. Blood everywhere… teeth missing… Merry Christmas to him.
Avery felt bad, especially after the kids mom chewed him out for having the snowboard on the hill… What? It's a dang good thing I wasn't close enough to hear her. I would have had to give her a piece of my mind. She made Avery feel like it was his fault and he didn't even want to stay. I told Avery the kid should have looked down the hill BEFORE going down (standard snow hill etiquette) and I was backed up by the large man that was in front of Avery on the up hill trail. That made Avery feel better.
So last December we had "the flood" when my sprinkler line broke (see December 2006)… and THIS December is almost JUST AS COOL as last December!
We had a fairly large snow storm early in the month followed by a week of "warmer" weather that ended up melting the snow. During the melt, we kept finding puddles of water in Avery's room… and each day kept getting worse! I thought I had a leaky pipe or something. After a few days of sleuthing to find the source of the water, the thought occurred to me: "My foundation doesn't have a crack in it, does it?". Turns out foundation cracks that leak water are fairly common this time of year in Utah. So common in fact, that I had to wait 10 days for the foundation gurus to come out and fix it! Well, actually, as of this post they haven't come yet – they are scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Anyway… All they have to do is inject some nifty epoxy of sorts into the crack that reacts to moisture and "fixes" the leak. We'll see what happens. Either way, I have another BIG MESS on my hands… as you can see from the photos.
Okay, so this post is just a couple of photos of our weird and cute children. During a snow storm, Avery decided it would be fun to go outside and run around the backyard in his skivvies. Then he came in and posed for us. Oh, he'll rue the day when I use this photo to blackmail him when he's a teen-ager. Love it!
Then there is Isaac and Owen. Since they are at the age where they lose teeth every other week, their smile changes regularly. Isaac is the adventurer… he usually loses them two at a time because he's not afraid to yank. Owen on the other hand, likes to wait until his teeth fall out in his soup. I caught this classic toothless grin of Isaac at their Kindergarten Christmas show. Too bad they didn't sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth".
And THEN there is the cutest baby on the planet… Miss Maya. While we here building our annual graham cracker candy houses, Sage caught a few shots of her laughing like it was going out of style. The photos speak for themselves:
I figured out how to take really neat pictures at night with my camera and a tripod. When it snows in Utah, it lights up the night like it is daytime and gives everything a peaceful glow. It is especially cool with Christmas lights! Here's some shots I took over the last few weeks… just for the heck of it. Enjoy!