A Blessing Indeed

Today at church Richard gave Annie a blessing that was so sweet. (At least what I heard of it...Ruby was on my lap saying, "We can't climb up!" over and over, so I missed some of it.) It was so fun blessing her in our ward. Ella and Ruby were both blessed in Arizona with lots of family and friends around, so it was a little different to bless her here. But I was so happy to have our great ward there and the wonderful friends who stood in the circle to help bless her. She was happy as a clam and Richard said she smiled while they were blessing her. I would too if I got to be bounced like that!

The Circle of Trust! Tyler Fordham, Richard, Brent Casper, and Dave Cundick (Aaron Hassel had already left to go to his own ward.)

After church we had a little photo shoot and Annie was being so cute and happy. She really is an angel! I used to roll my eyes when people said they had a baby who never really cried. I thought they were totally lying, but now I truly have one of those babies! It can happen! She is really just a joy to have. I've always kind of wanted the next stage to come when my kids are newborns, but with Annie I want time to just stop. She's getting so big, so fast and I want her to stay little and sweet forever.

Grandma Lari made her beautiful blessing dress.

Hooray! Big girl!

Not loving the pictures any more...

and we're done!

Annie had her two month checkup last week (yes, she's almost three months old, but we had a little delay with the insurance) and she was healthy as could be. She was around 12 lbs and 23 inches (they didn't really tell me, so I'm trying to remember what I saw) and Dr. Bartels said she was in the 50th percentile for height and weight. I don't think that's right, and neither did he, because she seems really long. She got her vaccinations and wasn't too happy about it. She is still a champ at sleeping. She's in her own room in a crib now and goes right to sleep when I lay her down between 9 and 10 pm. Then she wakes up around 5 am to eat (last week she went one day until 6:45!) and then goes right back to bed until 8:30 or 9 am. She's loving her playmat and has been grabbing at the toys, probably accidentally. And she loves to nap in her swing. I am just head over heels for her!

My proud mommy moments continued into Primary today when Ella gave her first talk. She did awesome! She was supposed to give it last week, but the stomach flu struck at our house, so we didn't go to church. Luckily, she got to do a make-up talk today. We hadn't really practiced it since last week and I wasn't sure if she was still going to be the one giving the talk today, so I stood next to her at the podium to whisper her lines to her. To my surprise, she totally remembered the first half of her talk all by herself. I had to help her through the last part, but she did great and was so excited to talk into the microphone! Here's what she said:

"I know Jesus loves me because sometimes when I'm scared at night, I say a little prayer and then I'm not scared anymore and I can go to sleep. I try to be like Jesus by saying kind things to my friends and family."

My excitement for her made me forget about the embarrassing moment I had a couple minutes earlier. I was conducting opening exercises for Primary and tried to give a sticker to the little boy who gave the prayer. He put up his hand and said, "I don't need one of your stickers." I thought it was so funny, so when I stepped back up to the microphone, I was still laughing to myself and accidentally snort-laughed in front of everyone. Did I mention I was right in front of the microphone?! Yikes! Everyone in there probably thinks I'm the biggest dork because I turn into a bumbling fool when I get in front of people. What can you do, right?

Ode to Buffalo: Part 1

We've only got a few more months until we move away from this interesting place that is Buffalo. So until that day comes, I'm starting a new installment called "Ode to Buffalo". Here I will highlight the good, the bad, and the ugly of Buffalo. All the things we'd love to remember, and lots of the things we'd love to forget. They are things that made us laugh, made us cry, made us question how we ever ended up here, and made us realize the sometimes-charm that the Queen City holds. So without further ado, I give you Ode to Buffalo: Part 1...

Local Business TV Commercials

I know that every community has their cheesy commercials. I still get the Metropolitan Mattress jingle stuck in my head every now and again. But I feel like Buffalo is in a class of its own. These are just a few of the awesome commercials with catch phrases that have become part of our daily vocabulary. I guess they're smart though, because we know who they are, and isn't that the point of a commercial?

#1- Airport Plaza Jewelers. When we first moved here, it was the "arm and a leg" reference, complete with mannequin body parts as visual aids, that first left us scratching our heads in disbelief. As the years have gone on, the commercials now feature a cast of characters including needs-to-get-her-roots-done lady, owner-man-from-the-seventies, a rubber chicken, roots lady dressed as a chicken, a pocketwatch named Old Timer, and more recently, the chicken mobile. I'll admit, I really wish I had some old gold to go trade in, just so I could meet these people. I imagine they'd be waiting outside their kiosk-sized store when I pulled up and parked next to the chicken mobile (it is, in fact, parked out front. I see it every time I go to Sam's Club). I'd be nervous that they wouldn't want my old, broken gold, but they'd say in unison, "We buy it all!"





#2- Fuccillo on Grand Island Car Dealerships. Out of control!! First of all, they have a new commercial every week, so the opportunity to laugh and mock (which is what shallow folks like us do best) is endless. There's one guy, who seems to be "the brains" of the operation, perhaps the main salesman, that tells what the current promotion is. He's well spoken and articulate enough, not overly sleazeballish like most car dealers. But then...there's his sidekick, whom I guess is the owner of said dealership named Billy Fuccillo. He never gets his lines right and just kind of bumbles and yells through each commercial. He always ends each one with his catch phrase, "It's huge, Buffalo, HUGE!" If I were to spell it the way he says it, it would go something like this, "It's Yuge, Buffalo, EEEEEEYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUU-JA!" And apparently he is the main finance guy, because you can qualify for "Huge Billy Credit". Kind of scary, but again, I kind of want to go there and buy a car, just to hear him say it in person.





#3- Mighty Taco. When we first moved here, we were kind of surprised that many of the chain fast food places we were used to weren't here, including Jack in the Box and Del Taco. More than one person raved about a place called Mighty Taco. "Sweet! A Mexican fast food place!" we said. So one day we tried it. I ordered the El Nino, the biggest, most expensive burrito on the menu. It had to be the best, right? WRONG!!! So wrong in so many ways. It was basically canned beef stew (could have even been dog food for all I know), and a Kraft Singles slice in a tortilla. Nasty. Wisely, we have never revisited a Mighty Taco. We should have known what we were in for from the quality of their commercials. I can remember the first time I saw one. It was all tye dye background with go-go dancers shadows moving around. I would have never guessed it was an ad for food. They have even come up with a commercial to parody Airport Plaza Jewelers commercials. Yikes! That's when you know it's bad. Mighty Taco! Mighty Taco!



And honorable mentions go to:

- Valu Home Centers for the man who does the coffee grinder dance at the end of every commercial. "Valu has everything you neeeeeeed!"

- Cellino and Barnes, injury attorneys. Call eight five four twenty twenty.

- Hurt in a car? Call William Mattar.

Resolution Reminder

This is the view from my kitchen window. I know it's the end of January and I'm just writing about my New Year's Resolutions, but it's probably better this way. It's a good reminder of all the things I want to do and be. I have recently become a huge fan of a blog called Clover Lane. The things this woman writes about make me think...really hard...about the person and parent that I am and want to be. I especially enjoy reading her series called Vintage Parenting. It's back to basics, simpler times where what matters is your kids- not what they have, how many activities they do, or getting caught up in what other people think. I love it! Anyway, she had a great idea for simplifying your New Year's Resolutions. She said instead of having a long list of things you want to work on, come up with an all-encompassing word that will help you to do all of those things. In the last few months of last year, I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at all the things I wanted to change, especially in the way I parent. This idea sounded great to me! So I came up with two words (I know, it was only supposed to be one, but I cheated) that will remind me of what I need to be doing.

Simplify- I want to have less "stuff" cluttering up our house. I want to only buy my kids clothes if they really NEED them. I want to only buy my kids toys if it's their birthday or a holiday. I want to have an actual budget and stick to it. I want to eat out less, and make more healthy meals and snacks.

Active- I want to play with my kids more. I want to speak kindly and not raise my voice. I want to be a good example. I want to teach my kids to do chores. I want to take more time for Richard. I want to read my scriptures, say more prayers, and have Family Home Evening. I want to exercise. I want to be patient.

I know it's still a long list of things, but if I just keep in mind those two words in everything I do, it helps me to regain my focus and think about what I'm doing. I'll admit, I'm not doing great at most of these things YET. But I have all year to get my act together. Then I'll have a whole new list to work on.



One thing I'm obviously struggling with is not over-buying. I bought all of this gift wrap after Christmas because it was 80% off. Who can pass up that deal?! Nevermind the fact that I will probably never wrap this many presents in my life, but hey, it was 80% off!!!

Smiley Girl!

I can't believe Annie is two months old! She is such a happy girl!

Together Again!

The McIntiers came from PA for the weekend and we had a grand time! It was so good to hang out again and see their cute kids grown up. We ate, watched movies, ate, chatted, ate, went to breakfast, and ate some more. Everything you need for a good time.

I LOVE all of these folks. These are quality people!

Garrett & Melanie, Anthony & Kristie, Richard & me, Jeff & Abby

Richard wishing he was just one of the gals.

Boys...always ruining the picture.

We'll call this one "Testing the self-timer".

The kids had so much fun together. There was quite a bit of dressing up going on, and surprisingly, less fighting than I thought there would be. Max and Ella used to fight like cats and dogs (can you say power struggle?) but now that they're both a little more grown up, they kept the fighting to a minimum. It was great to have so many friends around all the time. My kids ask several times a day now who is coming over to our house. I guess Richard and I aren't entertaining enough for them!

Cadence, Kenzie, Parker, Max, Ruby, Perry, Ella, and Ciella.

And the third child is always the third wheel, so Annie and Kaitlynn got their own picture.

Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam!

Ella is now in Primary as a Sunbeam! I can't believe it. She was so excited to finally be in there.

That excitement lasted for about ten minutes.

I think that her being in there with me is going to take some getting used to. She kept trying to talk to me and come sit by me. I was trying to teach Sharing Time and she kept talking to me and shouting random things out. There was only one teacher for her class that day (with at least 8 new sunbeams!), so I felt like I had to discipline her in front of the whole primary. Not in a mean way, but I just wished she had a teacher sitting by her to remind her to raise her hand when she wanted a turn. We went over Primary "etiquette" several times in the weeks prior to entering nursery, but I think that being in there was a little overwhelming with all the new rules. I'm sure it will get better, but it has to be a huge shock for her to go from playing for two hours during church, to having to sit still and be quiet for the whole time.


We had a little photo shoot before anyone else came into the Primary room. To tell the truth, we haven't been on time to church since I had Annie, so we seem to end up hanging in that room until sacrament meeting is over. We'll get our act together soon enough.

It Was Crazy, But It Was Worth It!

As I said before, we decided late Christmas afternoon to drive to Arizona. We rented a Chevy HHR to get better gas mileage (30+ mpg!!!) and it was surprisingly roomy. It barely fit all three carseats across the back, but it was a nice little ride. We left at 10 pm and drove through the night and all the next day, finally stopping in Oklahoma City at a hotel. Oklahoma gets the road trip award for worst snow plow skills. The highway was terrible! Maybe they aren't used to getting snow, so they didn't know how to handle it. The road trip award for prettiest freeway goes to Albuquerque, NM. They are so clean and well decorated. We slept for a few hours and headed out again in the morning. We arrived in Gilbert at 10 pm, exactly 48 hours after we left. So we were able to spend 5 days hanging out with our families and friends. I actually really liked the timing of this trip. We got to have our own little laid back Christmas at home, then go hang out with everyone after that. Nobody was running around like crazy, trying to get all the Christmas stuff done. We didn't have to go to a million things and everyone was still off work. We all just got to hang out and take it easy and make our own agenda.

The first day we were there, we went hiking in the Superstition Mountains with EmmaLee and her kids. I thought our girls would love finally being able to be outside, but neither of them were really into it. We went on a little Junior Ranger tour and neither of them paid any attention to it. Ruby fell asleep about half way through and Ella kept wanting to wander off or be carried. Oh well, we gave it a try.

Ella and James listening to the ranger.

This picture makes me smile and cry at the same time. Ella looks so cute, but she also looks so grown up. Someone needs to pause time!

We went to watch Brock play volleyball at Grand Canyon University one night and lucky for us, Merrick was there with my parents. It was fun to watch Brock play...he is really good! And the girls had fun going up and down the bleachers and playing with Merrick and Uncle Ty.

I tried to get a good picture of Grandpa and Grandma with all the grandkids (except for Davis, who lives in Utah), but a decent picture with four little kids is nearly impossible to capture. Especially when one of them, whose name starts with R and ends with uby, thinks she's really funny when she picks her nose and tries to give her boogers to everyone. She's kind of gross. But hey, you can see that these crazy kids have personality, and they love their Grandpa and Grandma!

Cutie Merrick. We love when we get to see him!

Best part about going to any sporting event is that when it's over, the kids get to run all over the huge gym!

Here's Uncle Ty threatening to throw Ella in the garbage. Don't worry though, she dishes it right back!

We took the kids to play at the Children's Museum of Phoenix. I love that place! They had so much fun! They painted a castle...



Made peace doves. As you can see, their birds didn't look quite like the examples, but they had so much fun using scissors.


There's one spot where the kids can ride all sorts of different bikes. Ella and Ruby tried each one, pedaling, and using their feet to move them. This little girl was riding her bike, minding her own business, when both of my girls decided to hop on the back for a free ride. Never mind pedaling, get a chauffeur! The girl had the funniest look on her face, like "what do I do?!" but she took them on a couple laps and then finally wised up and got off the bike. Poor girl!

Here's what Annie did. She was smiling at Grandpa for a long time.

And here was Ruby's favorite part. Eating the pretend ice cream. I kept trying to stop her from really licking it, but I finally gave up. Germs, schmerms, right?

After playing for hours and hours at the Children's Museum, we went to Lo-Lo's Chicken & Waffles for lunch. Grandpa and Grandma met up with us again and ate there too, although they probably wish they hadn't called. We went as kind of a joke, but it was actually pretty good. Plus, Ella would eat breakfast food for every meal, so she loved getting to choose waffles for lunch.

Richard ordered the "jar of red drank". It was good.

For New Year's Eve, we attended the Smith Family Murder Mystery Dinner. It was set in prohibition-era Chicago and we had to find out which one of us murdered "Hal Capone" and stole his money. Well after a loooooooooot of bits of information, lots of them seemingly insignificant, we finally found out that I WAS THE MURDERER AND THE THIEF! Me! My character was named Silky M. Adam and I owned a high end "nightclub". We all had fun dressing up and some of us (me and Richard) tried to use accents. That particular story was too long, so everyone kind of lost interest, plus my kids kept coming in crying and whining about different things. But it would be so fun to do it again with a better story. It was lots of fun.


After the mystery was solved, Richard and I took Annie with us to Lafe and Bea's house to play games with our friends over there. Ella and Ruby stayed at Papa's house to play with their cousins. They played lots of dress ups and Ruby came in wearing this white dress and shouting, "I got married!!!" Apparently Ella is quite the party animal. After all the aunts, uncles, and cousins left at midnight, she stayed up till after 1 am chit chatting with Papa.

We relaxed on New Year's Day and played games that night with my parents and Brock and Katie. Then we decided that we should probably take three days instead of two to drive back. So the next morning we got up, packed and were on our way. I think the first day, we drove to Amarillo and spent the night. Then we drove to St. Louis and spent the night. We (especially Richard) were SO tired that night! Then the next day we drove the rest of the way home. It wasn't too bad, except that it was snowing/raining through Ohio and our silly rental car had water in the windshield wiper fluid container. So it froze and there was no way to clean the windshield and no way to add real wiper fluid because the tank was full. So it was quite the challenge for Richard to see out of the windshield.

We got home around 7 pm to this...

Welcome back to Buffalo. I can do this. It's our last winter here.

Christmas Day

Santa actually came to our house! There were a few moments where I doubted if my girls would get any presents, but it turns out they were pretty darn good this year.


Ella and Ruby were ecstatic about their presents. Santa came through with the Princess Barbies! They got those - to share - and a Cinderella castle playset - to share - so we'll see how that works out. So far, Ella chose the three princesses she likes best, hid them away, and asks Ruby to share hers so she can actually play with them. She's kind of quirky, but that's a whole other subject for another day. Both girls have played with them non-stop since Christmas.

Opening the stockings was so much fun. I absolutely loved being at home for our own Christmas this year. We were able to take our time and really watch each other open gifts. It was a perfect morning.

Richard received a lovely gift from Cosmo, that I'm sure will come in handy (ha ha!) some day...Handerpants! Everyone should have a pair.

The girls got several games as gifts and one of them was Cootie. I LOVE this picture because I have a picture of my mom playing Cootie with us kids at Christmas when I was Ella's age. I'll have to find it. Talk about coming full circle!

We hung out all day and played with toys. We made waffles with our new waffle maker and stayed in our PJ's all day long. We were hoping for a white Christmas, but it was just raining that day. As we sat there, Richard started coming to the realization that it was going to rain/snow the whole next week and we would be confined to our house every day. We talked about places we could go for day trips, but anywhere within a day's drive would be frigid. Apparently, we are afraid of boredom, because that's when Richard had the bright idea to DRIVE to Arizona! And I agreed...
We decided we would go at 4 pm. By 10 pm, we had rented a car, semi-cleaned up the house, packed bags for 5 people, and were on the road. When I called and told my parents what we were doing, they just laughed at us. I guess no one could really be shocked. It's us we're talking about, after all!

Christmas Eve Posada

Melanie hosted a Mexican Posada on Christmas Eve for a bunch of us. She made tamales and Mexican rice and Richard made carnitas and tortillas. All of the food and drink was tasty! After dinner, the kids did a white elephant gift exchange and got some sweet gifts. Ella got a snow tube for sledding and Ruby got a DVD of weird and creepy Christmas cartoons. I felt bad that Ciella chose the Barbie movie that we gave, but it is hilarious because she asks to watch ours every time she's here, and I think it's the most obnoxious video ever! Ha ha!

Then the adults did a funny white elephant exchange. There were some fantastic prizes given!

Garrett was overjoyed to get Kristie's bucket of wheat! Truthfully, Melanie was really excited to have this.

Richard got these lovely Napoleon Dynamite socks (and wore them all night and the next day!)

Andy was the lucky recipient of one of our gifts...an authentic Du-Rag.

And Camille got our other gift...our African Queen Angel tree topper. It has served us well since our first Christmas together, but she was replaced this year by a star, so we are sharing her love with someone else.

A sample of the treats...

Kenzie ate Richard's vampire/missing arm snowman cookie. We let the kids sit at the treat table while we did the adult gift exchange and we came back to all the cupcakes having their frosting licked off.

After everyone left, we got a little surprise from the Christmas Elvises! New PJ's!!!!

Christmas Adam: Special Delivery

We spent two days baking all sorts of delicious goodies. On Christmas Adam, we decorated the sugar cookies. I hope the people we gave them to like candy because the girls covered every centimeter of each cookie with chocolate chips, jujubees, m&ms, red hots, and sprinkles.

Richard's snowman & my snowman:

By the end, Ruby gave up on the decorating and just drank the candies.

We got the kids in their jammies and set out to deliver the goodies. While we were visiting our neighbors, Santa came down the street on a fire truck. The girls were pretty excited to see him.


And lest you think our family togetherness is all fun and warm, here is what Ruby was doing for half of the time we were looking at lights...

We are a happy family!

Santa at School

Ella's preschool had a little Christmas party with a special visitor. Ella was very excited to tell Santa about the princess barbies she wanted for Christmas.

Ruby, on the other hand, still wanted nothing to do with him.

This picture is hilarious. All the kids who were scared of Santa sat with Miss Kim. It's a little lopsided, huh?!

Let's Go To The Movies!

On Richard's first day off of school, we took the girls to their first real movie. We saw Princess and the Frog, and they loved it! Melanie and Ciella came too and we had the theater all to ourselves. All the kids stayed interested the whole time, but Ruby did fall asleep on Melanie's lap toward the end. It was perfect!

Richard voted to see the Twilight movie.