Alive

Henry put this rubber T-Rex skeleton puzzle together almost all by himself.  It was hard for me!

So if any of you are wondering...we are still alive.  On Halloween I took the most adorable photos of the kids in their costumes with my old slr camera and they came out all unfocused and horrible and that was the last straw. I wasn't going to take another photo with that camera.  Uploading photos has also been a huge problem for many reasons including 1. Our desktop took at least 15-20 minutes to recognize it was attached to my camera and bring up the photos, 2. The Mac that my sister left me wouldn't even recognize my camera as attached to it so I couldn't upload my photos on that, and 3. Justin's computer was totally full of photos and I didn't want my pictures on that anyway.  If I don't have photos I'm just not inspired to blog because most of the time I forget what we did a week ago and without those photo reminders I can't even remember what to write!(such is the brain of a tired mother).  Now with a new camera for Christmas and a new laptop for my Birthday that has a chip reader built into it I am in heaven.  My photos load in about one minute, my camera works and I have an empty hard drive to store all my photos in! It's literally a dream come true! 

Henry at the new Museum of Natural History wearing a bug mask

I guess I should recap a few major events since the last time I wrote just for posterity's sake.  So...
1. In October the kids took a trip to Southern Utah with Justin to camp and play in the desert.  Henry climbed to the top of an arch and scared some old ladies to death.
2. We have been taking Henry up to Snowbird on a regular basis to ski and he has gone down the blue square(intermediate for you non skiers) all the way from the top of the tram, which takes about 45 minutes to reach the bottom.  He's doing aweesome!
3. I missed the parent teacher conference that was scheduled and Henry chastised me for being irresponsible. I ended up just having a phone conversation during which the teacher said he was already at the academic level they want all the kindergartners to be at by the end of the year.  He could have just gone into the first grade. 
4. Henry and Daddy had fun ding-doing-ditching people for Christmas
5. Aunt Courtney got married in the SLC temple the weekend before Christmas so Henry got to spend a whole week with his cousins, the Chous, and his best friend Wee-o.  They had so much fun running around together, having sleepovers and throwing tantrums.  We hiked up to the Bradshaw family cabin and did some sweet sledding together. 

Henry lounging on the elephant trunk at the zoo

6. Christmas came and Santa brought another PS3 controller, Little Big Planet 2, which Henry has already beaten, and the best present, a slider bike called the rip rider 360 that has coaster wheels in the back that allow you to spin out in 360s.  Click on the link to watch the commercial for it.  It literally is as fun as it looks.  Justin and I want an adult sized one. 

I like how he spells Jackson

Can you tell he's watched the Christmas Carol over and over?

7.  Since we're in Utah, we've had many visitors.  We had Nanni and Papi(my dad and step mom Teri), Mary and Aaron(step sister who married my cousin), other cousin Margie, my brother, Uncle Will, and then we hung out a lot with Meghan and family, Tracie and family(both Justin's sisters), and had tons of fun the week before with everyone who came out for the wedding. 
8.  Henry has been gorging himself on Candy since Halloween and I've pretty much let him eat whatever he wants, but on January 1st I got rid of every piece of candy in the house(like I've done in years past) as far as he knows.  It's actually in the Ziplock box up at the top of the pantry.  When you read this 20 years from now, Henry, you'll know my little secret.  haha. 
9. Finally, Justin took a job here in SLC at a place called TOSH (The Orthopedic Surgery Hospital) and will start in August.  We have been looking around at real estate and have found our dream farm which is a short sale so we don't know if things will work out, but we're praying to get it.  It's actually a 2.25 acre horse property, but I'm going to slowly integrate some goats, pigs, more chickens, and a giant garden.  The house comes with one horse, chickens and some wild cats that catch all the rats and mice.  It's my dream come true, rats and all!