I caught the boys exercising the other day. They ran up and down the stairs, jumped, etc. I need to talk to Tim about form on crunches... Nate kept asking me, "Does this burn calories?"

Nate reading

Natotato reads all the time now. Here he is reading a DK Reader about Spiderman, I believe. He takes his turn reading the scriptures at night, and although he still stumbles over the tough words, he does pretty darn well!

Music Adventures

If you look carefully you can see Ben right in the middle. (If you click on it you can see him more clearly in the blurry bigger picture.) On January 10, he participated in an hours band comprised of kids from the four middle schools in the school district. A few weeks later, he tried out for the high school bands. As a freshman, he made it into the highest level band at Brooks High School! That puts him in the Raider marching band, rather than the Freshman band (which means more parades, games, practices, etc. doh!)

Both Ben and Jon competed in the Solo and Ensemble contest, and both received gold ratings. Jon got a perfect score. I don't have any pictures from that day, but I was really impressed with both of them. Especially since I accompanied them on the piano and made plenty of errors...

WAY behind

I'll try to post a few more things in the next few days. I am not sure what made me too busy, but I've been busy! Guess just life.

I've got a Nate story I have to share. Today at about 11:30, Nate started telling me he was hungry. I tried offering him some quick healthy foods, because I really needed a shower (I had just finished exercising... Running a little behind...). He didn't want cherry tomatoes, didn't want snow peas, didn't want carrots, so I finally said, "Look, I'm going to go shower. I'll be back in 10 minutes, and then I'll make you a bento."

I walked away. When I was halfway up the stairs, I heard a wail. "How can you be so cruel?!" said my little 4 year old Nate. I was cruel enough to crack up laughing.

Happy New Year!

Our New Year tradition has become fondue night! We invited the Twitchells over. They brought pizza fondue along with breadsticks and cheesecake fondue with pumpkin donuts, gingersnaps, brownies and strawberries for dipping. I made cheese fondue with vienna bread and veggies to dip, meat fondue (hot broth) and three sauces, and a chocolate orange fondue with tons of dippers (pound cake, shortbread cookies, vanilla wafers, pepparkakor, brownies, apples, pears, dried apricots, pretzels, and marshmallows).

We had way too much food to eat! But it was fun. The kids played in the basement on the computer and the PS2. The grownups, along with Ben and Abby, played Out of Context in the dining room.

We rang in the new year at 11, or rather, shortly thereafter because we weren't quite ready on time. We had noisemakers, hats and bubbles, as well as non-alcoholic bubbly drinks.

Museum of Science & Industry

Since we all had the week of Christmas off, we decided to go to the Science museum. It was CROWDED!!! Apparently everyone had the same idea. We had tried the day before to call the museum to reserve Star Wars tickets (we got 4 with our membership) but only got a busy signal for 2 hours. We got to the museum at 9:30 when it opened and went right to the line at the members desk. It was a long line, but not nearly as long as the line for the non-members! Some museum employee came by and told us that if we already had a membership, we didn't need to stand in line. We could get Omnimax tickets at the theater or at the members lounge!So we went straight to the members lounge to see what we could do. There was a line there also, but not nearly as long. When we had moved up to the point that we were second in line, Nate dropped to the floor and said, "Can we go home now? This place is boring." We had been at the museum for two hours and had yet to see an exhibit!!

Even though Star Wars was booked clear through the 4th online, the woman in front of us was able to get the 3rd. We chose to get ours for Saturday the 5th. We also picked up Omnimax tickets, and headed off to see the museum. It was, however, nearly lunchtime and we thought maybe we should try to beat the lunch rush. It was a futile attempt, because I believe the lunch rush probably lasted all day!! And the prices were way too high. Next time we'll pack a lunch.
But the museum was great, and we stayed until 5:30. We still didn't see every exhibit. There was too much to see. It's a good one to get a membership to, because you can't see it all in one day.

Christmas Day

The kids slept in, but only until about 8. (Normally they sleep in until about 9!) They got up and opened their stockings in the family room. Since their stocking gifts included those little boxes of sugar cereals, they had a grand feast for breakfast!Charles and I got up not much after the boys did. So we switched to the front room where the tree is and handed out the gifts. Nate was so much fun--every gift he opened was 'awesome'! Tim had to pose as cheesily as he could for every picture. Then we got dressed and headed to Grandma and Grandpa's house. This year the Worlton clan all waited until everyone was there, which was wonderful! We love to see everyone opening their presents. It took a while to get through everything, but it was fun.
Our family spent most of the day there, playing games, doing puzzles and just hanging out. When we did finally go home at about 7:30, the boys immediately plugged in the new Guitar Hero for PS2. In Ben's words, "This is freakin' awesome!"