Happy Birthday Abram!

Here are ten of our top reasons for why we love Abram:

1. He's really good at winning. It's one thing to win at strategy games like Settlers, but when he killed us at BINGO--that was too much.
2. He'll acknowledge a good argument even if he thinks the other person is insane.
3. He truly commits when it comes to a dance competition (two words: the worm)
4. Because of Abram, Katie can spot a Dunkin Donuts from a mile away.
5. His wife is strong, he's good looking, and his children are both above average (and then some!)
6. He spent his whole last year of law school playing video games and earned honors by choosing a large font size for his final paper. The guy is a genius!
7. His cooking is fantastic.
8. He's very honest about his feeling when it comes to the outdoors ("I mean, have you ever BEEN outside?!")
9. He's Ypsilanti's biggest fan, and future mayor.
10. He liked Anchorman enough to encourage the entire Quinn family to watch it together.

There many things we admire about Abram, perhaps the most being that he regularly amazes us with how generous he is.

Not only that, he'll actually laugh at this list we wrote. We love you!

Keeping it Real

After Mason and Katie had gotten into bed and turned out the lights, Ryan sat there and read the scriptures to them. When he was done, I went to tuck them in and say goodnight. Katie was looking pretty zoned out, so I asked her what she was doing. She said, "Just laying here drooling". Well...don't let me interrupt you.

She had a great dinosaur birthday on Saturday, and will be officially five years old tomorrow. And then she can start planning her next year's birthday party.

The Gift of Self

Mason and Katie both have birthdays coming up, which results in a lot of birthday present discussions. They were talking about it the other day and decided that they should make each other presents (in other words, "I don't want to spend my hard-earned money on you, so lets find an alternative").

Fast-forward to yesterday when Mason came in to me holding scissors to his hair, ready to cut a big chunk out from the top of his head. After I grabbed the scissors (making sure to thank him for asking first), I asked him if he wanted a haircut. He kept trying to get me to just cut just the very front really short, but I explained why that would look really stupid.

It eventually came out that he wanted to cut a big chunk of his hair out so that he could use it to make a paintbrush for Katie for her birthday. Nothing says "I love you" like a paintbrush made of human hair.

Yuck, yuck, yuck!!

I stayed up a little late the other night, and became aware of a noise that I couldn't quite place. I got up and finally located the sound: a scratch, scratch scratch coming from my basement door. Really, really not the think I want to hear after Ryan has already gone to bed and the house is dark. I finally figured out (after opening the basement door while standing on a chair holding a broom) that the sound was coming from inside the wall. A mouse had found it's way up through the unfinished part under our stairs and was either stuck or curious.

I had noticed signs of mice (aka mouse poop) in our garage, and once in our basement where some popcorn had been spilled. This little midnight incident lit a little fire under me to finally do something about it. I buy the traps and set the traps, but I leave it to Ryan to deal with the dead mouse bodies (we are now up to four). As I said before, yuck, yuck, yuck!

A Great Conference Weekend

I'm not sure what it is about conference weekent that makes me feel like I have to get together with people. But that's how it is, and I like it that way. We went up on Friday to Abram and Kristin's so we could meet Aviva, and it was definitely worth the trip. She is so beautiful and snuggly. We had a great time going to an art fair on Saturday where the kids hopped from one advertisement booth to the next. We came home with brochures and balloons from every preschool in a 10 mile radius of the fair, but Mason and Katie loved it. The added bonus is that they didn't break anything while we were there. Not only were there lots of crafts to do, there were lots of dogs. Since I won't get them a dog, they have to borrow those of other people.

We spent this morning hiking with some friends at a great little nature trail nearby. After getting the kids worn out, we got in the first session of conference, and then headed over to some other friends for the second session and dinner. It made for a wonderful day.

I'll admit that I do love the traditions of conference weekend that involve getting together with friends, but watching conference really is the best part. I am so grateful for that added push to do better in my life.

General Conference

We came across this review from Mason on the last session of General Conference. He wrote it in his school journal (phoenetically, of course), and his teacher translated underneath. The fact that she wrote "proffet" makes it pretty clear she had NO IDEA what he was talking about. If you click on the photo, it gets bigger so that you can actually read it. It's also very clear when you read it how Mason felt about the experience. The picture is of our family sitting in front of the television, the thing that looks like an ant is Andrew crawling (obviously) with the other bug-like creatures being the rest of the family, and the red blobs are the general authorities.

I fell off the blogging train, and I need to get back on. It has been a great Sunday, meaning I've only shouted at my kids once. We have a great new addition to our family: thanks to $50.64 and an amazing Sam's Club clearance-aisle, open-box special, we have a fabulous new trampoline in our yard. In case anyone hadn't noticed, I have children who have springs for legs. Now they have an option other than my chouches. Our back yard is really coming together, except for the fact that our grass is sketchy to non-existant. We're debating on whether we want to tackle it this fall or put it off. Between our awesome sandbox and the play structure, our kids can keep busy for quite a while. I've really grown to love our home (Ryan will be glad to hear that) now that we have a back yard that attracts our children and a basement that doesn't terrify me.
I took the pictures this morning when Ryan was entertaining Andrew on the trampoline (Andrew loves being on it in spite of the fact he can barely keep standing), and Katie and Mason were building an extensive canal system in the sandbox. I have had such a feeling of gratitude this week that I have such a content life. It's definitely busy and chaotic, but I've seen so many improvements over the past month in our daily routines that I am thrilled to feel like I'm actually accomplishing something as a mom. Mason and Katie have stopped complaining about playing the piano and actually practice pretty willingly. I bought a beautiful new piano a few weeks ago and it has been such a joy to play and listen to. The power of the "sticker chart" to enact change (assuming I continue enforcing the sticker chart) has been fabulous. Ryan has a sticker chart, and he looks pretty pathetic compared to the kids. I figure I will start a sticker chart for me once I'm not exhausted getting Mason and Katie through theirs.
I'm sure the kids have been doing something cute, but I'll have to add that in later. I just wanted to at least post something since I've been so bad about it. I've been getting my blogging fix simply from reading about Aviva on the daily EFN updates. We are looking forward to meeting her!