Happy Valentine's Day!

Drip, Drip, Drip...

This is one of those blog posts I wasn't planning on doing. But it's a day in a life that started with 10 minutes of no supervision while I was on the phone and Nature called for Thomas. (Michael had left to run some errands and pick up McKenzie from a friend's house.) Thomas was being Mr. Independant and cleaned up after himself. Normally, that would be great. However, he overloaded the toilet with all of the Cottonelle wipes that I had just refilled in the dispenser, and then Mason flushed the toilet for him. I don't know how many times. I just know that I started to hear a drip, realized that my boys were too quiet, and ran upstairs to investigate. I found over two gallons of clear toilet water on the bathroom floor, and the carpet saturated at least two feet out and around the corners into the children's rooms on both sides of the bathroom.

My boys were hiding in their room. I was not happy. I put them in time out so they wouldn't get into any more trouble while I cleaned up the mess. They giggled and laughed most of the time. It was infuriating that they didn't seem to understand the gravity of the situation. So I took away all of their toys and sent them straight to bed without dinner. I think they finally got it. Later that night, Michael and I found water dripping from our fan in the family room onto our new coffee table. (We got new couches and furniture for our family room just before Thanksgiving.) It's still dripping today.


You know when you sit on the grass and it looks like it's dry, but it really isn't and your bottom gradually gets wet from the moisture in the dirt? That's how our carpet is. I sat on the dry area just beyond the wet part to change a diaper and by the time I got up, my jeans were wet. Not fun. The carpet is still very damp in the hall and both children's rooms for several square feet. The worst part is, it's wet with TOILET WATER. Michael keeps telling me that it's the same water as the water that comes out of all our other pipes, but because it came out of the toilet, it's disgusting to me. And I swear, it smells like toilet water, even though he says it shouldn't. Yes, let the Gibb times roll...

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

The kids and I were feeling cooped up, so we finally rebelled against this cold, oppressive weather and went to the park. The weather won. We only lasted about 30 minutes. It's too cold to go to the park, even if you are all bundled up. (It was 32 degrees!) Now the kids are watching Blues Clues and I'm trying to finish a scrapbook page so I can show it to you. And we're waiting for spring to arrive.

Snowboarding

Michael and I went snowboarding yesterday! We went to Anthony Lakes, OR, because it was less expensive and we though it would have decent powder. The price was right, but the snow was packed and icy. I figured that it was fine to learn in bad conditions, because I don't know any different, and I'll be that much better in good conditions. Plus, there weren't very many people for me to worry about running into.

It was my first time, and Michael has only been twice before, so we signed up for classes. At first, I was pretty intimidated, wondering how in the world I was going to do this. But by the end of the day, I could get in and out of my bindings, skate around pretty well, slide down the hill forwards (heel edge) and {somewhat} backwards (toe edge), and do "falling leaf", which is when you make your way down the hill going back and forth over it, like a falling leaf.
I was starting to learn how to turn toward the end, but I'll have to work on that a lot more the next time we go up. Michael was excited to learn to link turns and start shredding down the mountain. I look forward to when I'll can just be relaxed and go with it, instead of scared of smashing up my face. It was fun, though, and I look forward to the next time we go!

Happy New Year 2009!

I love New Years! I enjoy reviewing the resolutions I made last year, rededicating myself to old ones and making new ones... and occasionally just tossing some. This year, our family started a new tradition. I told the kids on Tuesday night that we were going to have a Gibb Family New Year's Eve Party. Thomas was so excited that he started asking about it on Wednesday morning. We had a kid-friendly dinner (picked by the kids) with hotdogs, potato chips and dip, and grape soda. I made a 7-layer party dip and some fudge for snacking. We played hide-and-seek and duck-duck-goose, and then did a bunch of things for the last time in 2008, like jump on the trampoline and sit on every chair and barstool in our house. Finally, we calmed down by reading our current favorite children's book, Too Many Toys, by David Shannon. I was surprised by how much fun we had. I look forward to many more celebrations with our family!

Thomas was hiding under the cushions that Mason is climbing on, and he stayed quiet both times that Mason looked behind the couch instead of under the cushions!
Mason was not happy about Megan discovering McKenzie's hiding place when he was "it."


Duck-Duck-Goose can get pretty rowdy at our house.

Thomas is a fast runner! I was really trying to stay away from him (Megan got tapped as "goose"), but he tagged Megan anyway!

Halloween 2008

At long last, here are some of the pictures from Halloween. I had no idea Michael had dressed up. Since he was on call, he got home after we started trick-or-treating. We happened to be standing in our driveway talking to some friends when he pulled up. I expected him to come stand behind me, but when I turned my head, it was this guy, instead!

What a surprise to see Michael with such a full head of hair!

Our kids dressed as Supergirl, Superman, Spiderman, and Super Flower.


I was Supermom, of course.


After a little more trick-or-treating, we hurried over to our ward's Trunk-or-Treat.

Brother Bruns had the best costume of all, I think.


Thomas couldn't stop staring at him. He was very concerned for Brother Bruns. He kept asking what the gorilla was doing with him. His little boy is dressed as a banana.

Becky went as the Tooth Fairy.


Now we know why she's so keen on collecting good teeth!



The Elders dressed up as the scriptures:

All in all, it was a fun night.

The Chicken Surrenders

I was not much of a cook when Michael and I met. I've learned a lot in the nine years we've been married, but I'm still learning. A while ago, he told me how to cook a chicken. I'm notorious for positioning meat wrong, so he instructed me (over the phone) to put the chicken's wings as though it were standing at "Parade Rest." He meant like this:
See? Parade Rest.

I didn't know, though, and since I was more concerned about the hand positioning behind the back, my chicken looked a little different. It was very difficult to get it into Parade Rest (I wound up breaking the chicken's wings) but it looked something like this...

only with the "hands" closer together.

I think a better description of how the chicken looks when it is ready to go in the oven would be "surrendering," because its "hands" are supposed to go behind where its head was...sort of.