The Big 4

Lindsey is getting so big these days! This last week we celebrated her birthday. It's hard to believe that this little lady came into the world 4 years ago.

What a beauty!

Lots of hair 

Very silly with Brandon

And lots of smiles

And when Katelyn was born she took to being a big sister so well

Now she is 4 and it's hard to believe!

We had a fun family party and enjoyed a great spaghetti dinner that Lindsey requested. She had a fun time opening presents and spending time with everyone.

Happy birthday Lindsey girl! We sure love you!

 

Justin's Press Release

Well, we feel incredibly blessed to say the least. This press release finally came out yesterday about the Hawes scholarhip that Justin was awarded last semester.

http://marriottschool.byu.edu/news/release.cfm?article=442

I must be married to some guy! I love you Justin!

Omniture Competition

Yesterday was the culmination of a long month of hard work for Justin and his team. They competed in the Omniture Web Analytics competition. Basically, Omniture is a large technology company here in Utah. They are hired by online companies to track all kinds of info about their site so that they can make recommendations to that company about what is working for them and what they could do to be more effective, etc. It is quite complicated, but I guess some people find web analytics fun! :)

So this whole thing started at the end of January. About 80 teams signed up to compete from BYU and about 40 teams signed up from the University of Utah. Then about 80 total teams submitted their presentation slides to be reviewed by Omniture and 20 teams were selected to present their findings at Omniture for the semi-finals. Out of that group, two teams from BYU and two teams from the U were selected to compete in the finals, which happened yesterday at BYU. Let's just say it has been a long week with lots of very early mornings, late nights and hard work! I think this first picture is very appropriate to start things off. The kids found their daddy still home when they woke up on Thursday this week and decided to spend some quality time cuddling in bed. They definitely miss him when he is so busy.

Thankfully I was able to attend the competition because Marianne, my sister, came to watch the kids. Thank you so much Mar! I was pretty nervous for Justin and his team all afternoon. They presented first which was nice because then they got to watch the remaining presentations. They did a great job! After a long 2 1/2 hours of presenting and questions from the judges, they were ready to announce the winners. Here is a picture of all the finalists on the stage awaiting the results:

It was so exciting when they won first place!

And yes, that is a big check with a big chunk of money for them to split. What a blessing for us! Along with the cash, each of them get a 50" plasma tv to take home. I'm not sure what we're going to do with it. I mean, that's a big tv!

Here is a picture with Justin's team (named .convert) and the Omniture executives.

Here is the happy and relieved team, Oliver, Nate and Justin

Here is Nate wishing that he was as tall as Oliver and Justin

Here is Nate on a stair so that he is as tall as Oliver and Justin

Here is the happy wife (me!)

And here is Angela, the happy wife of Nate, who sat with me as we nervously waited for the results

And here is Brandon modeling the other winnings from Omniture:

an Omniture blanket,

an Omniture towel,

an Omniture backpack,

an Omniture t-shirt,

an Omniture hat,

and an Omniture water bottle with candy and 2 Utah Jazz tickets in the box seats with dinner included for tonight which we won't use because it's my Mom's birthday and we're going to see Mar's play, but we gave them to another happy MBA couple

And to top it all off, this is the first time in 8 competitions that an MBA team has won. It's about time! So there you have it! Whew!

To celebrate last night, we decided to take the kids out for a fun dinner at the mall and ice cream cones from McD's. That was the favorite part!

Here are the happy kids that are glad to be spending some fun time with daddy!

And of course the happy wife again, who is happy that it is OVER!!!

Congrats Justin! I'm so proud of you!

Finally!

Today was the warmest day of the year so far.  

And it was glorious! 

I took the kids to the park with a neighbor friend for the first time in months. The snow has finally melted enough for the kids to play outside. Today is also the first day that I have opened my windows for a long time. Ahhh. Fresh air!

The swings were a favorite, 

but so was collecting pine cones 

and running around in the grass. 

Free at last!

Busy Weekend

This past weekend was pretty crazy for us. Besides the normal school work, church work and house work and going to the temple, we had the task of putting on my last big fireside of the semester. I serve as the Spiritual Committee co-chair and sit on the board for the MBASA (MBA Spouse's Association). My co-chair Alanna and I have had a very busy this year trying to put on the events under the spirutual committee, including monthly FHE groups, choir rehearsals, mini-firesides and a few other small things. But by far the biggest events we have done have been the MBA firesides. We invite all students and spouses, we provide babysitting for everyone so that the parents can actually sit and listen to the speaker, and then we provide refreshments following the fireside.

This may seem pretty straight forward, but as soon as you realize that you will have about 100 kids in babysitting (ages 15 months and up), then the simplicity flies out the window. I think this past round of babysitting has been our most successful yet. Our first good move was to get three wards worth of young women and leaders to come in and run the show (we had about 25-30 helpers). We divided up the kids according to age (15-18 mo., 19 mo.-2, 3 and up) which helped a lot. For the younger ones we did toys, coloring and fruit loop/straw necklaces. Then for the older group we divided them up so that half of them did a movie for the first half hour while the other half did an obstacle course/relay, coloring on huge endrolls of paper spread out on the floor and fruit loop/straw necklaces. Then the groups switched for the second half hour. I think we managed to avoid chaos this time and we got very good reports back on the babysitting situation.

So once you get the babysitting figured out, then it becomes more of a normal fireside situation. We got some amazing speakers. Randy Bott is a professor in the religion department at BYU (a very well known one) and we got him and his wife Vickie to come and speak to us. 

It was such an enjoyable night. I wish that they could have gone on for another couple of hours, but one hour was quite enough for the kids in babysitting. 

The spouse choir did an amazing job once again. I will miss being able to conduct that choir!

We had a great turnout; we were pushing 130-140 adults. Then to top the evening off we all  enjoyed BYU mint brownies and ice cream. I'd say the whole thing was a raving success! Whew! I'm so relieved that it went so well and that it is over now! We've got other things to stress about next month, so it's good to have it done.

 

Balloon Art

We went out to the Brick Oven for dinner on Friday to use up some certificates we had from Brandon's reading program. It's been so long since we have been there. It was a fun night and the food was great! We were very surprised to see a balloon man doing free balloon art for all the kids at the resturant. He came over to our table and graciously offered to make our kids something. So he did! 

Lindsey requested Belle from Beauty and the Beast, 

Brandon requested Star Wars which is funny because he has never seen it. So he got Luke Skywalker. 

And Katelyn got a cute butterfly. 

We were just amazed at the talent that this guy had! And he was fast. Who knew that you could make over 300 things with balloons off the top of your head?

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope you all had a nice Valentine's Day. The kids and I had previously made some Valentine decorations. I think they all turned out mighty fine!

 

(Brandon put everyone's initials on his)

And our Valentine cookies were a big hit....

They are really yummy and the kids did a great job decorating so many of them!

I actually kind of like having Valentine's Day on Saturday. We spent the morning together as a family (which hardly ever happens, well, since the MBA started in 2007). We started the day with oatmeal and hot chocolate (we got a healthy snow storm) and enjoyed watching the kids open their valentines from Justin and I with the candy. They were so excited about it.....so fun to watch!

Then mid-morning we actually got to go shopping at Kohl's as a family. We had some money to use up there so Justin and I got a little surprise for each other. I love ducking out of sight when trying to shop secretively. Then since we were not going to go out to dinner we decided to take the kids out to a Valentine lunch at Goodwood. It's a great bbq place. It was so fun and the kids really enjoyed their special lunch. In the afternoon we did some things around the house, then at night we got our babysitter and headed out to the MBA Valentine Game Night. 

It really was a fun time! So all in all a very fun day. I don't know if Justin has ever had a Saturday during school that he didn't touch his homework. There's always time for firsts, even right before you graduate I suppose!

And as a side note, it seems a bit strange that I can put Katelyn's hair up into pig-tails now. And she goes to nursery all by herself. She is getting so big and growing up way too fast!

Out of Commission

Well, we had a rough end of the week last week. The whole family except Katelyn got food poisoning. What restaurant did you eat at you might ask? Well, sadly enough it happened in my own kitchen. To make a long story short, the culprit was the Miracle Whip and Katelyn was wise to decide she didn't like my egg-salad sandwiches that night. I will spare you the details except to say that it hit Thursday night after the kids went to sleep, and we were all up until about 4:30 am. My mom was a life saver the next day. She came down to take care of everyone because Justin and I just didn't have the energy to do much. She got us stocked up on juices, jellos and everything you need when your stomach is sensitive. I snapped a picture of Lindsey and Katelyn Friday morning while we were watching a movie. Poor Katelyn was as energetic as usual but the rest of us were as fun as bumps on a log. But she is a perceptive girl and spent quite some time laying on/by Lindsey to help her feel better. It was too sweet to miss. 

Thankfully after a slow and restful weekend we are mosly back to normal. We are eating real food and ate a real dessert at our MBA FHE group tonight. 

Thanks Seelys! It was yummy and I'm so glad that we could eat it! Thankfully that chapter has ended. On to another busy week!

Little Helper

Every Monday is laundry day at our house. I love getting it done and not having to worry about it for the rest of the week. I fold the clothes and put them in piles for everyone. Brandon and Lindsey know that once their piles are ready it is their job to put their piles away and hang up their shirts in the closet. We were in the middle of this routine yesterday when Katelyn came up to me with three of her pajamas in her arms. At first I wasn't sure what she was doing, but I quickly realized that she wanted to put her own clothes away too. So I opened up her drawer so that she could put them in. She excitedly ran back to my bed to get another armful of clothes. It was so cute to see her so eager to have a big-kid job just like Brandon and Lindsey. She was successful at putting all of her clothes away, although they didn't remain folded at all. But she was so proud of herself!

And to top it all off, she went and got my jean jacket and stuffed that in at the end and gave me her big cheesy grin. What a big girl!