Photoshop Strikes Again

Bryan's dad took a bunch of family photos at Christmas. We took some on Christmas Eve, but they were blurry. So on Christmas morning, after we had unwrapped everything, we took some more photos. As always, with kids, you can never get everyone looking forward at once. So I took a couple of photos and morphed them into one. I switched 3 heads, a knee and a shoulder. I erased some random fingers that weren't supposed to be there and a roll of wrapping paper in the corner. I also erased part of someone's leg because it looked weird. It was pretty fun. I think it turned out pretty well.

Courtney's Naps

Courtney has been, what I call, "resisting-a-rest" lately. She thinks she doesn't need a nap...but she really still does. She gets so grumpy if she doesn't get her afternoon nap. One day she was just not cooperating when it was nap time and she had been in her room for over an hour yelling and screaming. I decided to try something that worked with Ethan. I put her on the couch, with her blanket and pillow, put on a movie (Scooby Doo is the favorite right now) and left the room for 15 minutes. Sure enough, she fell right to sleep! And she slept for over 1 1/2 hours. I think she would have slept longer, but she rolled over and fell off the couch ;)

I let her fall asleep on the couch all last week and it worked each time. One day I tried to transfer her into her bed, but that never works with my kids. She woke up and thought she had taken a long nap and was ready to be up.

Friday she fell asleep with Ethan on the other end of the couch giggling loudly. Her neck was kind of funny, so when she woke up she had a crick in her neck and while trying to work it out, she fell off the couch. Poor girl. But at least she is getting a nap!!

Kathy and Don's House

My Aunt Kathy and Uncle Don are having a house built in St. George. The house is being built SO FAST!! Ethan takes piano lessons in the Bloomington Hills part of St. George and when we drive the "long way" to piano, we go right past Kathy and Don's house. Two weekw ago we decided to drop by and see what it looked like. On Tuesday it was being framed, last Tuesday the crews were putting up the boards and today Bryan and I went by it and they have all the stucco done. I can't believe how fast. Here are some photos. It's a great area and the house looks great. We are so excited that they are moving here!!


This is the back view.

This is the front of the house.

Congrats Snow Canyon!

There are quite a few high schools in St. George. The one our kids will attend (unless we have a HUGE population growth in Ivins, which I doubt) is Snow Canyon High School, the Warriors. Our ward has a HUGE presence at Snow Canyon. We have the vice principal/athletic director, head basketball coach and almost every assistant basketball coach, boys and girls soccer coaches, baseball coaches, and teachers. And, of course, our young men/women go to that school. Our ward is represented in every athletic club (tennis, baseball, basketball, soccer, etc.) and cheerleaders. Bryan has so many of his young men on the baskeball team (or attending the games) that they decided to have Mutual on Thursday nights so they can all go to the game.

Last night we went to the Snow Canyon vs Dixie game (a big rivalry). We went to the JV game to watch some of the young men from our ward play. It was a good game and close. At the very end, with only 6 second left and down by 2, a young man from our ward (who lives around the corner from us) hit a 3 pointer to put the Warriors up by 1 point. Luckily, they held Dixie for the last 6 seconds and won the game. It was great. And that kid was thrilled (so were his parents).

We weren't sure if the kids would want to stay for the Varsity game but they ended up wanting to stay. The game started out well with both teams keeping up. About 5 minutes before half-time, Ethan decided he was tired and wanted to go home. It had gotten really noisy with all the fans showing up and he has really sensitive ears. We pursuaded him to stay another 5 minutes until half-time. And then we had to watch the band, drill team and cheerleaders for Courtney. The game started again as we were heading for the car. By the time we got into the car and turned the radio on, Snow Canyon was down by 8. We figured it was over and didn't lament the fact that we had left early. Bryan had seen almost all the Priests, so he considered it a good night.

When I opened the paper this morning I was sick. Snow Canyon had beaten Dixie 41-40. Apparently it was another close game at the end where a Snow Canyon player threw up a 3 pointer at the buzzer and it went in. I called Bryan to tell him and he said, "No more leaving early!" I bet it was a great game to watch. Somehow we have got to get Ethan to wear ear plugs. ;)

"There's Frog"

It's been rainy and cloudy for a couple of days. This morning Courtney looked out and said, "Mom, look there's frog on the mountains, there's really frog." It took me a bit to realize that she meant "fog." But it was cute.

"Sweet Breakdown"

Courtney had, what my visiting teacher called, a "sweet breakdown" yesterday in Church. When the classes wer dismissed from Junior Primary she was just fine, but when she saw Ethan waiting to go into his class, she started screaming and wanted to be with her brother. She didn't want Bryan or I, she just wanted her big brother. His teacher, who is my visiting teacher, was so nice and let Courtney stay in their class for a while. Ethan took good care of her while she was there.

During the prayer of Sunday School I thought I heard Courtney screaming but Bryan couldn't hear anything so we just ignored it. Before Relief Society a friend asked me how Courtney was. I went out and asked a counselor in the Primary Presidency if she was okay and she didn't know anything. She looked in Courtney's class but she wasn't there. So she looked in Ethan's class and there she was with Ethan and his friends taking care of her.

I took her and tried to get her to go back to her class. It wasn't easy but I finally took her in there and we sat for a while. But we ended up in Relief Society for the last 15 minutes. But afterward, everyone thought it was so cute that Courtney would want Ethan so much and that he was so willing to take care of her. They make a cute pair!

Hopefully next week she will be fine.

Patience

I am not one that is known to have patience. I get a "bee in my bonnet" and I can't rest until something is dong, but I really have no patience to wait for things to happen. Bryan is usually the one with all the patience.

Yesterday Ethan wanted to play a game on the computer but the game he wanted to play had to have something downloaded. So Bryan helped him download the file...with a HUGE virus attached to it. It was Anti-virus 360 and it was horrible. It affected the internet and wouldn't let us get on sites that needed passwords (which really is a blessing because they couldn't get our passwords). But we couldn't do anything on the internet and it was attaching itself to everything.

Bryan tried for 3 hours to fix it. He had the laptop next to him and searched the internet on that to find sites to help him fix it. But most sites would be blocked by the virus so he couldn't get help. He was so frustrated and finally washed his hands of it.

I decided to give it a try. I found a site (www.majorgeeks.com) that had a 5 step process to get rid of it. I had to download 5 programs and then run them, in order, to get the virus and all its extensions cleaned up. It took about 4 hours to do (I got a lot of Ensign reading done that I haven't had time to catch up on, so it was good) but it worked!! I finished at about 11:57, so I didn't have to do any of it on Sunday, an added bonus.

But I don't think Ethan is going to play any more games if something has to be downloaded. Because I'm not sure if I'll have patience to do the clean up again!