It's All Downhill From Here....

I have to take as much advantage of this as I can! I'm younger you see, so even if he pulls all this out when it's my turn, he'll still be older, so it won't have as big of an impact!

Scott turned the BIG 4-0 yesterday!!!!! (That's when I start to giggle.)

It just seems so OLD. But he doesn't seem that old. The number is big, but he still seems like that cute, young guy I fell in love with. The night before his birthday, we were reminiscing about his last night in his twenties and how that differed from now. Let's see. We were living in West Jordan in a tiny, little town home. It was our first home that we owned. We only had Regan and she was only a few months past her first birthday. Scott was working at Channel 2, behind the scenes of the news and making very little money. I'm not sure how we paid the bills then. Now, we live in South Jordan, in a home three times the size of the town home. Scott changed careers and is now a Software Engineer and makes a lot more money than we did then. We've added three more kids and a dog. Wow. A lot can change in 10 years!

We went out to dinner with Scott's brother and sister and their spouses and then hit a movie after. Scott's traditional birthday dinner was at Bennihana's, but we have something similar that's closer, called Tempanyaki. I'm sure I butchered both spellings, but you get the point.


I seemed to be the one that the chef picked on that night. Rude. But still pretty funny.

Happy Birthday, old man!

Christmas

I'm such a slacker! Not only has it taken me a week to post anything about Christmas at all, but I have barely any pictures to prove we even had a Christmas. Slacker! I did manage to take this one, though.

I looks like a toy store exploded in my house. We had a lovely Christmas this year. Christmas day we spent playing with the loot and eating at Dave and Natalie's house. But mostly, it's been really low key. Scott's probably been the most busy, only because he got a gun for Christmas and has been to the shooting range twice already and is planing to go again today! Ugh. I so don't like having that thing in my house. But he locks it up, so I guess I can't complain too much.

It snowed pretty much the whole week of Christmas. I love a good snow storm, but that was a little excessive. Luckily, Scott was home for much of it, so I didn't have to clear the driveway too much. I know, whaa, whaa, I have a snow blower. It still takes effort.

The kids decided that they wanted to do an activity that represented the true meaning of Christmas. So for about three days, Regan and Hali worked on this:

It turned out pretty good, I think. There were only a couple of fights with Porter. He wanted to do more than the girls allowed him to do, which was pretty much nothing. As I was taking the picture of the little nativity scene, I noticed Hali lying on the floor next to me, so I turned the camera around and took a quick snapshot of the two of us.
It seems like I always have to take about 15 pictures of Hali, because she always BLINKS! She just can't seem to keep her eyes open with the flash going off. It like this big joke now, to see if Hali's eyes are open in any picture. So, we are laughing about her eyes again, and Regan says she has an idea on how we can keep Hali's eyes open and tells me to take another picture.
I just laughed and laughed. Get used to that look, babe, this may be how you will look in every picture from now on! By the way, the strange girl (meaning stranger not that she's strange) in the picture is our neighbor, Stephanie.

Some People Don't Know When To Shut UP!!

Today, as I was paying for some purchases, the teenage cashier complimented me on my sweater. I smiled and thanked her. Then she had to go and ruin it by adding, "My mother has one just like it!" Great.

Porter And The Ward Christmas Party

Sometimes I feel like I'm writing a children's book about a mischievous four year old and all the many scrapes he gets into. Hum. Not a bad idea. Ken, you up for some drawing?

Anyway, last night was our ward Christmas party and the primary was asked to perform two songs for the program. We've been practicing for about a month now and they were really cute. They sang "Picture A Christmas" and "Silent Night". The second song we even had chimes for. There was a huge turnout for the party. We must have had at least 200 people there.

So the kids are up on the stage and sing their little hearts out and it's so cute. The Bishop was waiting back stage for the kids, with a basket full of candy canes. It was pretty chaotic getting them off the stage, so the pianist started playing a rousing rendition of "Jingle Bells". Jingle Bells just happens to be Porter's favorite Christmas song. He sings it all the time, no matter what time of year it is. There also happened to be a microphone on stage that had been lowered to just Porter's height. And it was on.

Yes, my son serenaded two hundred people......on stage......with a pianist.

You should have seen Scott! He was closest to the stage, with Zoey on his lap. He jumps up, holding Zoey like a football and grabs the mic off the stage, as people roared with laughter!

Porter is fast becoming infamous in our ward. We have one man, who is a primary teacher, who thinks Porter is the best thing ever. He has no boys of his own. I keep telling him, I'd be happy to send him mine.

I think it would have been interesting to have left him there and seen how long it would have taken him to notice 200 people staring back at him. He seems to have no fear. Crazy kid.

Porter Meets Santa

I'm totally kicking myself that I walked out of the house without the camera AND the video camera. Especially, the video camera.

This year Porter is really getting the whole Santa thing. Every morning he wakes up and goes to look at the Christmas tree. And every morning he tells me in a really sad voice that Santa didn't leave any presents under the tree. Apparently, showing him a calendar and explaining the date today and showing him Christmas day and ALL the days in between are not making much of an impression on him.

Today, Porter had a Christmas program at his preschool. They sing songs and just look cute. So Porter did a great job and he has such an expressive face that he's pure entertainment. The program ends and they tell everyone to remain seated, because they have a surprise. They lead us all in singing Jingle Bells and as we sing Santa walks in. The preschool kids can't really see Santa, because he comes in a door that is to the side of where they are sitting. So, pretty soon the kids start noticing who is there. And then they are all seeing him, except for Porter. I keep motioning to the side and mouthing "look who's here!". But Porter is off in his own little world. I can totally see the moment that Porter finally notices Santa. He kind of jerks in his chair, gets really big eyes, and gets the Biggest grin. Then he looks at me like, Mom, Santa's here!

They brought the kids up one by one to sit on Santa's lap. Porter is one of the last ones to go and he's getting really antsy to talk to Santa. His turn finally comes and Santa asks him what he wants for Christmas. Porter looks at me with this panicked look on his face. I can totally read his face. It's an "Oh, crap. Oh, crap. I have the big man right in front of me and I can't think of a thing to say!" look. So finally, he says "Um......I want a transformer....batman." Huh? Santa says "Are my elves even making those this year?" Porter shrugs, "I don't know."

I am dying. I'm laughing so hard I have tears running down my face. My son was so in awe of Santa that he couldn't think of what he wanted to ask for Christmas. Man, that kid kills me.

Christmas Lights @ Temple Square

With some of my family in town for Hali's baptism, we thought it would be a great opportunity to go see the lights at Temple Square. Apparently, half the valley decided to do the same thing. It took us about a half hour just to find a place to park! But worth the view.

It was pretty cold, but not as cold a usual for this time of the year. Maybe that's what brought out the crowds. We did find a free space to get a picture of our little family.
The kids just had a great time being together.....
except for maybe one.
All the excitement of cousins caused us to get little sleep and certainly no naps. But so much fun! And you kids better practice your Rock Band! Maybe we'll have a battle of the bands in January! McCusker's vs Jackson's!

Hali's Baptism

Hali had a big day on Saturday. She baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We had lots of family there, which was so great.

My parents, along with several of my sister's kids drove in from California for the event.
Afterwards we had a party at our house and had lots of food. I really think it's something naturally in everyone to put olives on your fingers.
Hali was so happy and thought that getting baptized was really fun. She was ready to do it again, cause she loved it so much!

Thanksgiving in Denver

I know, I know, I'm a little slow getting this one done. It's been a really busy week!

Anyway, we had a great time at Scott's brother, Jeff's house for Thanksgiving. It's always fun when we are staying at the same house, because we stay up late, play games and talk. We took the opportunity to have family pictures taken. I've already described how much fun that was. Goose poop, cold and grumpy kids. Always fun. At least the picture turned out good.

I so didn't take enough pictures, but I did manage to take the camera to the park (we went before it turned cold) with the kids. Zoey sure loves those slides!
I had to get this one of my nephew, Taylor. The picture so doesn't show his intensity. Taylor is a HUGE Star Wars fan. I could tell by the look on his face that his imagination was going wild and this kiddie swing was actually the cockpit of a X-wing fighter. (I totally had to ask Scott what they are called! I didn't want anyone to call me on it if I got it wrong.)
Zoey is my music kid. She sings all the time and her favorite toy is a microphone. Anytime anyone has headphones on, listening to music she begs to listen, too. So, here she grabbed Regan's headphones and was rocking out.
It was loads of fun, but the drive home sure wasn't. Go to my sis-in-law, Natalie's blog and see the pictures of how the weather was. First, the freeway in Wyoming was closed for most of the morning and we were worried that we'd be in Denver for another day. They did open the road, but the drive from Cheyenne to Laramie was slow, windy, and snowy. Pretty scary. Then, of course, there were our children. Regan was dealing with a stomach virus, so was using the bathroom or vomiting most of the way. Then little Zoey decided to have diarrhea, which caused us to have to stop often, then search for a grocery store in Rock Springs to buy diapers, cause we went through all that we had. We were so happy to pull into our garage at about 11:00 pm.

For Patti

I just joined facebook and came across a good friend of mine that I haven't talked to in a while. We would exchange Christmas cards every year, but that was pretty much it. She's had a very challenging year. I guess just before Christmas last year, she took her husband Rob to the doctor with what they thought was the flu. It turned out to be cancer. He died 11 weeks later. I had no idea any of this was happening to her until today. I can't imagine what her life must be like trying to raise five kids and dealing with the loss of her husband. I'm so sorry, Patti. I wish I had know so that I could have helped in some way.

I'm now looking at my family, especially Scott, in more loving way. I think sometimes, you take the ones you love for granted and they could be gone so fast. I love you, Scott.

Family Pic

I haven't had time to download any of the other pictures taken over the Thanksgiving weekend, but I did get this one. Only because we are sending this out with our Christmas cards this year and I needed to get them ordered. I'll do a post on our weekend later.

This is one of the family pictures that we took in Denver last weekend. Believe it or not, this is the best picture we had of Regan. It was really cold and there was goose poop EVERYWHERE and Regan was pulling some major attitude. Oh well, someday when she wonders why she looks like a dork, I'll just gently remind her of her pre-teenagehood. We have only two years until full blown teenager.

Pray for us.