A letter from the past

I used to be a good letter writer! But, with blogs, email, facebook....not so much anymore. I keep thinking I should write more especially to my grandmas who may not catch all my internet news. But, I never seem to get around to it. Yesterday, while looking for something else I came across a copy of a letter from nine years ago. Paige read it and laughed and laughed. This is it (leaving out the more boring parts).

February 19, 2002

Hi Everybody,

We have been enjoying the Olympics. It looks like everything is going so smoothly and that people are enjoying it. We have been watching a lot. Bryce watches a little. He has liked a few things like snowboarding but his favorite event is the bobsled. Ty and Paige aren't interested. We had our own family olympics for family home evening last night. We all had fun. Our events were: The crawlin' slalom, aerials, and cross-house rely. For the slalom we crawled around a maze of stuffed animals, We jumped from the couch to a pile of pillows doing "tricks" for aerials and then the teams of mommy and Ty vs. Daddy carring Paige and Bryce had a relay from one end of the house to the other. We had a medals ceremony (everyone got gold medals). Then Ty and Bryce continued to have their own olympics until bedtime.

I also registered Ty for Kindergarten yesterday. He says he doesn't want to go. I saw Bryce's teacher while I was there. She had great things to say about Bryce. He is very intelligent, a perfectionist and notices all the details. She also said he could use some work on his common sense.

Paige has hit the age of many questions. She went on and on yesterday, "Do kids go to school? Do boys go to school? Do girls go to school? Do babies go to school? Do backpacks go to school?" etc. etc. So, now there are three of them with a never-ending stream of questions. On at least 2 occasions in the van recently the boys have asked question after question about the lines on the road.

The boys decorated our entire driveway with chalk yesterday. They tell me it is hopscotch and giant caterpillars. Luckily it is supposed to rain later.

Paige has been throwing some good tantrums lately. She has even given herself time-out. We have also been potty training. She has a chart where she gets to add a sticker when she goes. Well, a couple of days ago she got a step stool and found the stickers and filled up her chart.

I hope everyone is doing well. Talk to you soon.

Love,
Dave, Lisa, Bryce, Ty and Paige

Ty: the amazing saxophone player

Bryce, Paige and Brett complain a lot when I talk about them on the blog or facebook. They don't like me giving quotes or telling about the silly things they do or even their great accomplishments. they think I don't talk about Ty as much. I am not sure if that is true or not, but I know that Ty is not as embarrassed about it as they are. Recently, Ty made the district honor band for the second year in a row. There are two bands "Contraband" and "Buccaneer". Ty has been in "Buccaneer band" both times which is the #2 band. He was pretty disappointed about it this year. But, he was first chair alto sax in the buccaneer band and with only 4 alto saxes in the "Contraband" that makes him the #5 middle school alto sax player in the district which covers several parishes. So, I say that is awesome! It ended up that he really liked their director and the songs they played.

The Honor Bands practice all day on a Friday and then Saturday morning before they put on a concert. Ty's band played 4 songs...pretty impressive considering the short amount of time. He wanted me to video their pirate song (I forgot what it was called ) but, I had a little bit of trouble with his new video camera. I did get the next song, sorry it is a little bit jumpy, we were in the balcony. Ty is to the right in front of the trombones and after the french horns. I have tried to load video 3 times so far with no luck! Maybe I'll try again later :(

Brett quote of the day

Brett was telling me that some of the kids at church have smiley faces in their scriptures, like :) He said, "They must have a new translation."

Christmas Events

It has been a busy month. Our Christmas activities started with Ty and Paige's Christmas concert. It is always fun to see just how much 6th graders have learned in 4 short months. Bryce marched in 2 Christmas parades and was very relieved to be finished with marching band until next fall. We enjoyed Christmas parties at school, at church and with friends.

We enjoyed a quiet Christmas at home, as usual, except....we had visitors! My mom was here for 10 days and it was so much fun to have her. The kids thought it was a great excuse to treat the holidays like a real vacation and thought we should eat out alot and do something fun continually. I think they were disappointed on that point! But, we did enjoy Grandma and were glad to have Chad, Leia and Kalani for dinner the day after Christmas.

Everyone was happy and surprised with their Christmas gifts, especially Bryce who got a cell phone! As usual, we got plenty of new games and spent lots of time playing them.

After Grandma left we spent a day with Brett's friends exploring a fun Star Wars exhibit. We spent New Years eve doing our usual...fireworks in the drive way and lots of games.

Bryce's random fact of the day

Perfume was not invented to make people smell good, it was because they smelled bad!

A new break through

Sunday night the boys and I had gone to the church to go carolling with the youth. When we got home, Dave told me that Paige had answered the phone earlier that evening. If you know Paige, you know she is not likely to answer the phone unless she is 100% sure who is on the other end. Well, Dave was busy with something and yelled for her to answer it, then he yelled AT her. And she answered it! She said, " Hello" and briefly answered two or three questions to let the caller know I was not home! I am pretty sure the caller(Laura) did not realize who had answered, probably thought it was Brett. It may not seem like much, but for her it is huge. I am really proud of her.

Brett quote of the day

"My tongue is feeling static again." ??? I have no idea what that means :)