Happy Birthday!

Dear Elder Jar,

We wanted to get together and celebrate your birthday and what better place than Disney World?! We wish you could be here with us, but we are so proud of the work you are doing in Sweden! We love you!

Love,
Your Family





P.S. Rog and Jason are here too. They were taking the pictures.

Six on Saturday

1. I finished my 1st book of the year - Matched by Ally Condie. I can't say loved it, but I did enjoy it. I will read the other 2 books in the series, but probably not immediately.

2. A big shout out to Elder Jar who was called to be an Assistant to his Mission President (AP). In his email home he said he never imagined serving as an Assistant, but it didn't come as a surprise to any of us. He's about as good a missionary as they come!

3. We have a big vacation coming up next week, so we tried to stay home as much as possible this week to keep the kids from getting sick. It turned out I wasn't very good at it. I tried to run my usual errands at night, but some just had to be done during the day. While we were home, Peyton started pushing her doll stroller around the house (cutest thing ever) and the humidifier was a big source of entertainment.



4. It was a big week for cooking. For Mardi Gras on Tuesday I made Jambalaya and Beignets. On Wednesday I took dinner to two families in our ward (in addition to making dinner for our family). I also made and decorated sugar cookies for Valentine's Day. By the time Valentine's Day dinner rolled around I was totally burnt out, so we had a heart-shaped pizza from Five Buck Pizza.

5. Unfortunately our neighbor wasn't able to get my data from my MacBook Air (probably because he was using a hard drive reader specific to the MacBook Pro). He suggested I take it to the Apple Store, so on Friday morning we headed up to Fashion Place. They don't actually do data recovery at the Apple Store, but they opened it up and surveyed the damage. The hard drive looks fine, so they told me to buy a hard drive reader specific to the MacBook Air. It was only $48, so I figured I'd give it a try. Crossing my fingers that when it comes (I had to order it online), it will work!

6. Because Peyton is walking, she needs to start wearing real shoes (especially with our vacation coming up next week). She has teeny tiny feet (like a size 2) and guess what, they don't make real shoes in that size. I went on a search this week and finally found the cutest little shoes for her in her size on Amazon. Right now she hates them - when we put them on her she whines and doesn't want to stand up or walk. Hopefully she'll come around to them soon!

Sick Girl Weekend

We had one sick little girl this last weekend. We debated all Saturday morning if we should take her to the doctor and finally we decided we should. I had a Super Saturday Relief Society activity, so Rog took her (and Corbyn tagged along). It was a good thing we decided to take her in - double ear infection and bronchiolitis. She's such a little trouper when she's sick. The one time Corbyn had an ear infection, he made it painfully obvious - screaming his head off. This girl is a silent sufferer.

She's been much better this time about taking her medicine although she still hates it... Or maybe we've gotten better at forcing it down her throat. Either way, she's feeling much better.



My Super Saturday Relief Society activity was all about Emergency Prep (72 hour kits, food storage, CPR, and the like). I left feeling like, "Oh man, if we ever have an emergency we're probably just going to die because how can we ever really be prepared?" But it was good. Now I just have to find time to do something about getting us more prepared!

After I got home from that we headed up to Salt Lake. My parents watched our sick girl and the Corb while we ate at the Cheesecake Factory for our Valentine's Day date.

On Sunday my mom turned her MacBook Pro over to me and we could hear the poor thing screaming, "No, don't leave me here! These people kill computers!" It is what it is. Sad, but true.

I took a power nap when Peyton went down for her afternoon nap. When I got up, I found Rog and Corbyn making cookies together. They actually turned out better than I thought they would. (I did have to help them a little with the amount of butter to use, but the rest was all them.)

And that was our weekend.

Five on Friday

1. Peyton has started wearing her 9-12 month clothes which means I've been making lots of bows to match her new outfits. When I finished making this bow Corbyn said, "Oooh, I love it!"



2. We've had another round of sickness at our house this week. (Just the kids this time. Rog and I seem to have missed this one.) You know Corbyn is sick when you turn on a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and he's asleep before it gets to the opening song!



3. Our new sink (the right one this time) came on Tuesday. Rog chose to stay up and install it that very night because he knew he wouldn't have time this weekend. He told me it is the best Christmas/birthday present he's ever gotten. (He does most of the dishes in our home.) It is quite a huge improvement from our old sink!



4. On Wednesday Corbyn spilled bubbles on my MacBook Air. I have to take most of the blame because who leaves an open bottle of bubbles next to a laptop with a 2 1/2 year old around? It makes me sick every time I think about it. My mom jumped at the opportunity to get a new laptop for herself and sell me the one she's been using. And one of our neighbors thinks he should be able to get the data I didn't have backed up off my hard drive, so it's looking like this tragic story will have a happy ending after all.

5. Despite being sick, Peyton has been walking more and more every day. We counted 20 steps in a row Thursday night!



#2 combined with #4 made this week pretty crappy. Here's to a better weekend!

The Good

Let's forget about the not so good from this weekend (an expensive water heater repair, a coughing Corbyn, early mornings with our PJ).

This weekend was good for...

First Steps. We thought PJ would walk early, but we were still seriously blown away how quickly she picked it up.

Charlotte's Baby Blessing. Bill and Mariah chose to bless her Saturday afternoon instead of during Sacrament meeting. We were happy to be able to be there to see that sweet baby blessed. She is a modern miracle and such a blessing to their family.

{I stole this picture from Mariah's Facebook page because I was lame and didn't take any pictures of my own... Hope you don't mind Mariah!}



Lost Cities.  After we put the kids to bed and cleaned up Saturday night, we made time to do something together as opposed to just being in the same room doing our own things. I won, but Rog put up a good fight.

The Super Bowl. We were officially cheering for the 49ers because Rog was a fan growing up, but we were happy to see Pitta (who played for BYU a few years ago) do well and get a ring.

A Valentine's Day Craft. I got to spend some time working on my latest craft although it's currently still a work in progress.

Baby Steps

She's not going to be running a marathon anytime soon, but sure enough at 9 months and 8 days (almost exactly a full 2 months sooner than Corbyn), Peyton took her first unassisted steps today.

That's our mover!

{Not exactly the best video, but it'll have to do for now.}

Five on Friday

1. On Tuesday I took the kids on a "sleigh ride." We made a few stops to visit Mariah, Charlotte, and Cinnamon (their dog that Corbyn loves), drop off some snowmen cake pops, and get the mail. Peyton let Corbyn hold her for most of it until she decided she was done sitting still and tried crawling in the snow at which point I carried her and had Corbyn pull the sled with the mail (mostly ads and junk) in it. It was a fun little adventure.



2. Peyton loves climbing on our dishwasher door. (What baby doesn't?!) We were worried she would break it off, so we were constantly stopping her from crawling up there. That is until we figured out Corbyn's stool is the perfect height to go under there and support it. This picture is a little out of focus, but I just love her face. She loves it!



3. On Thursday we went up to Provo to have lunch with Rog at Tucanos to use his free birthday meal (on the very last day of the month). While we were up there we did a few errands at the mall. Corbyn threw all the pennies I had in the fountain and then I let them play until it was time to feed Peyton. I felt bad making them leave because they were having such a great time!



4. Our sink arrived yesterday. Rog was so excited to open it, but unfortunately when he did we discovered they sent the wrong one! We ordered the 10 inch deep sink, but they sent the 8 inch deep one. So it was back to Home Depot for another return. Hopefully this time they'll send the right one and we'll finally be able to install our new sink!

5. When Rog went to change the air filter on our furnace yesterday he found that our water heater has been leaking (for who knows how long). Fortunately it looks like it's a small repair compared to having to replace the whole thing. (We'll find out for sure tomorrow when the water heater repairman comes.) In the meantime, Rog rigged up a system to catch the water and drain it. The joys of home ownership!