Saturday, January 23, 2010

New Arrivals

We have new additions to our family circle! Meet Brutus.Okay, here's a better shot, though it still doesn't show just how beautiful and rich his colors truly are. He's more a deep, royal blue with some golden-red highlights.
We also have a little frog to keep Brutus company (someone who can live in the same tank as our Beta and live to tell the tale), but Ollie likes to stay in his little cave we bought him. When he does come out, he's partial to the bubbles and likes to swim near them. Fun stuff! I did try to take a picture of Brutus underwater, but he's a little shy and kept showing me his tale. But my CAMERA did awesome! Once I got over being terrified of putting it in the water, lol. Hey, it's made for it! It even has four underwater settings, lol.

Anyway, we're all loving our new family. Just wanted to share. =)

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Beautiful Snow

It's snowing today! Hooray! We have had such a dry winter with just a couple or three real snowfalls that this is VERY much appreciated. I love the flakes falling lazily down, or even hurtling down as they are now. I love watching the kids stomp off to school right through the yard in their boots and laughing as they can't resist pelting a snowball or two at each other. I love watching the baby's reaction as she watches the falling white stuff and feels snow on her face. I miss seeing a clear sky with trees heavily frosted outlined against it, but in many ways, this is better anyway. Yes, I love winter. I've missed a lot of it this winter since I get to stay inside with Serene a lot (she drools and spits up almost constantly which means she'd have a nice coating of ice if we went outside for longer than five minutes), but I intend to get out and take advantage of this snow this time. We've been paying the kids to watch Serene when we go out (mostly Xeneea since she's saving for a school Yellowstone trip) -- maybe they won't mind an added paycheck. =) And maybe Steve will let me use his slick sled!

Thursday, January 14, 2010

First Hurdle


So out comes all my FBA (functional behavior analysis) training. The Simbug, much as we love him, has had just a BIT of trouble following directions . . . or choosing to, shall we say. So we're starting our own program of reinforcing for following instructions the FIRST time they're given and ignoring when he doesn't since he's motivated by attention (even ignoring his collossal tantrums. And yes, that's the truly hard part!). We make it easy to earn rewards at first to show we're actually going to dish them out rather than having empty promises, and then we go from there. So here is Sim after he has completed his first small milestone and earned his piece of gum this morning. He's not perfect yet, of course, but it's already an improvement. Yay! Now if we can just keep finding what's reinforcing for him, we may be able to bring his mind back on track and hopefully get rid of all those not so desireable outbursts, lol! Let's hear it for FBA, probably one of the best things to come out of my SPED training. =)

Friday, January 8, 2010

I'm . . . dreaming . . . of a . . . lifted 4X4 for Moab . . .

So we can dream, right? As we don't have the lift kit needed for our Suburban yet (or the larger tires and rims), Steve settled for creating a vehicle out of Leggos that can twist and climb with the best of them. Check out those wheels!

4,100 Pages

Finished today!! Started middle of August, lol. And amazingly enough, she's read other books, too along the way. But she is now (and has been for a while now) the undisputed Harry Potter expert in her 3rd grade class. Yay sweetie!

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Here's to a new type of life

So how does everyone say 2010? Twenty-ten? Two thousand ten? I think I'm the latter simply because the last ten years have had a two thousand in them. Hmmm. These and other meaningless thoughts. =)

So sorry to everyone I didn't call or send a gift to this Christmastime. I'll admit I've been a little scatterbrained with everything this year (NOT working or going to school, pregnancy, starting Sim in school, new baby, etc. Strangely enough, they've all been big adjustments), but hopefully I can at least improve this year, lol.

Our family has decided to try and get healthier all around. Yes, that means get rid of junk food, keep healthy snacks, try for desserts only once a week, eating right all around, and exercising. And some of us have a weight-loss (or gain) goal in there. Remember Body For Life? It's still out there, and I still swear by it. And now that my baby is four months old and the holiday goodies are gone, I have NO excuse not to follow it again. I'll admit I got off when I was in school and teaching in classrooms simply because neither of those lifestyles are conducive to five mini-meals and LOTS of water (teachers just don't get bathroom breaks!). I've tried to keep up the exercising part, but it's nice to be joined by others now. I remember how good I felt when I was following the Body For Life program religiously, and I want to feel that good and have that energy again. So here we go! On to lower fat levels, more muscle mass, not to mention more energy! Care to join in? Here's day 2.

Our little Kissable is letting me know she does NOT approve of my typing any longer, so I'll sign off for now. Consider this my documenting my new goal so I can't back out! =)

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Christmas Part II

So I have pictures of when we had all the kids finally home and we opened the last of our presents together . . . but I decided this was really more what Christmas is about for us. Sure, we all love presents and especially the thoughts behind them (btw, Erika and Glenn, the kids all loved your gifts, especially being from the Old City!!), but even more, we all love the doing things together. And in Logan, that mainly means getting close and personal with the snow, lol!

Everyone remember our snowman? About nine feet tall, made with really heavy, compact, wet snow? WELL . . . as impressive as that was, look what we have now! This was done about dusk while snow was falling, so even my wonderful camera had a hard time with the snow setting in that light. And by daylight, the finished product (thus far). Yay!