Family Goal Completed

Last year, in September, we started reading the Book of Mormon every day. We figured we try and get through it as a family. In January, the Stake Presidency challenged the stake with the goal of reading the Book of Mormon. So we kept going.

Every night, we'd pass the book around. Everyone would read.(Bonus blessing: everyones reading fluency improved like crazy!) Whatever we read, we'd color in with a crayon. Different colors all year.

Sometimes we would fall behind. Sometimes Mom and Dad were too tired. Sometimes the kids had to remind us to read. Sometimes we would listen to an audio version if we were traveling long distances, or on our way to church. Sometimes just because, sometimes because we needed to catch up. We read the last chapter on Christmas Eve.

What we ended up with was a really colorful Book of Mormon (why did we choose pocket size?! That thing was small and hard to read!), three kids who can say they read the book of Mormon cover to cover before they are 12 and who, 2 parents who can say it is possible to accomplish a reading like this with small children, and a pretty good bedtime routine.

But mostly we ended up with a family of individuals who can say they understand the conflict between the Lamanites and Nephites and other ancient inhabitants of the Americas a little better. A family who talked more about the importance of family records and the dangers of the pride cycle. And first and foremost, a family who can testify that the Book of Mormon truly is another Testament of Jesus Christ. That it's main focus is to bring people to him and his teachings. I think we've felt that.

We have so much more to learn and grow. We've only scratched the surface of what we can learn from it's pages. But it's a pretty good foundation and start for our family.

Brian's Building project

Brian's brother, Mark, asked him to help with a "little" project for Digital Dudz. Later this month is a Halloween trade show/convention in Houston... and Digital Dudz will be present...and accounted for. So they need display tables. And just any old table wouldn't do! It had to stand out. So with Marks vision, Brian has been building these tables, made to display Digital Dudz products and the logo, brought to you by LED lights, shining through acrylic that has been sand blasted. NBD (No Big Deal). All 5 tables have to be built, then shipped to Houston. I think Brian has enjoyed the project. It's been a nice distraction from work.

P.S. The tables aren't even finished yet. This picture is only what we have "so far"! More pictures to come later!

LED's on a strip!?

New Years Eve

 We met up with Annessa and the kids on New Years Eve in downtown San Jose at the Tech Museum. The kids favorite part was the MythBusters exhibit.

 Ty submitted a myth.

 Natalee testing out the swing held up by phone books

 I wish I had these little stations around my house, for when the mood strikes to create!

 Ty checking out the blue prints

 Briggs nails the "table cloth and dishes" exhibit. All the (plastic) dishes were left standing!

 He's fast!

 the boys playing with magnetic color changing toys.

 Ty, writing his name in binary code. He was so fast, I couldn't keep up with him.

 A tsunami survival pod. It reminded me of the Jaredite boats.

 a mini rover you could drive from a control room.

 Briggs driving the jet pack. you had to move the chair around so that a red light lined up with a target on the ceiling. Briggs got all 3 in the 60 second time allotment.

 the chair was a little big for Ty.

 Ty trying to focus the power of light onto a solar panel.

 Love Big Bang Theory

 My little Hobbitses!

The cousins enjoying their ipod.

Halloween 2012

We parties hard this Halloween season. Between the Harvest Festival/Carnival at school and the Harvest Festival/Chili Cook-off (not trunk or treat) at church, an adult Halloween party for Brian and I and then actual Halloween night, we are all sugared up and partied out!

 This year Ashlynn made her costume. She saw an idea for a Book Fairy and has been talking about it all year. So with the pages of a book, she made herself a tutu...

 ...and used the cover for wings, she had herself a costume (after adding her own touches of stripes, sparkles, curls, leopard print and glow sticks).

 The boys were easy this year. Digital Dudz. done. Thank you Uncle Mark. They were a hit!

 The balloons behind them were filled with glow sticks, but even when the sun went all the way down, the street light was still too bright to make them glow much. I still think it looks fun, though. I may use this design in the future, only with more balloons and LED lights. When you work with glow stick, you're dealing with an expiration date.

This was the Digital Dudz shirt I wore for the 2012 Halloween season. It was cool. And yes, people stared at my chest all night. Not sure how I feel about that.

JOHN WILLIAMS CONCERT!!!

 Over Labor Day weekend we got to go to the John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl! We were all so excited!

 This is a pretty cool concert. John Williams leads the LA Philharmonic in selections from his works while clips of the movies play around the stage. Thanks to Pandora, our kids are huge John Williams fans. They can name almost every movie he has scored (even though they haven't seen half of them).

 Brian and I got to attend the same concert years ago. That first time we went, we thought it was so funny that some people had brought along lightsabers and when the orchestra started playing music from star wars, they lit up their lightsabers and waved them around in the outdoor theater. This time we went, the audience was FULL  of lightsabers! It was so cool!

 So Ty dressed up as Indiana Jones - and brought his lightsaber! (We forgot the Harry Potter wand...)

 It was so neat to hear John Williams talk about many of the pieces before they played them. He talked about as a kid how he loved going to the movies and listening to the music and watching the action movies, especially the  sword fighting. He said he was excited to collaborate with Steven Spielberg on a new piece that had sword fighting in it, The adventures of Tin Tin. As he was discussing with Steven (name dropping) about which clips from the movie he should show during the song, Steven suggested using sword fighting clips from many different hollywood movies, as well as Tin Tin. So they did. And it was cool. Errol Flynn, Pirates of the Carribean, Tin Tin, Tom and Jerry, The Princess Bride (the audience gasped and cheered at that part!) Star Wars (the audience went NUTS at that part!) It was really cool.

To commemorate the 30th anniversary of ET, John was once again discussing with Steven which clips he could use during the concert. Steven offered to give him the last 2 reels of the film, updated into HD with the voice overs and sound effects so that the orchestra could play the music along with the film. Which was awesome! We watched the last part of the movie, which started when they steal the van with ET in it, the police chase on the bikes, flying to the forest, then saying goodbye to ET as his spaceship flies off. Briggs was a little tired that night, but when I pointed out to him how cool it was that the music we were hearing in the movie was actually coming from the stage and the orchestra, he smiled real big at that! At the beginning of the concert Ty asked, "Mom, are they playing real music, then those guys on the stage are just playing some of it?" He had never really thought about where real music comes from. It was a neat experience to show them how "real" music is made.

After a long night, Brian ends up carrying the lightsaber

This is a video of music from Superman. The fans were very respectful and only waved the lightsabers during Star Wars music, but Superman got them a little excited and they couldn't help waving them around a bit.

If you watch any of the video clips, this is the best one, taken by Larry. The Darth Vader theme. The audience just couldn't get enough and he ended up doing 3 encores. We explained to the children what that meant, and after the third encore when people kept standing up and cheering, the kids started whining because they were tired and done, and as much as they love John Williams, they didn't want any more encores.

The whole thing was such an amazing experience.. I was surprised that the theater allowed so many people to bring in distracting projectile weapons and wave them around during the performance (especially since I was accosted by the security because I tried to take in my DSLR camera - one lady told me no, two people told me yes, brian and my ticket were leaving me in a sea of thousands of people, i kept going and the armed security guy had to chase me down. seriously?). But when John Williams and the first chair violinist pulled out their own lightsabers at the end of the concert, I figured he must think this tradition is pretty cool. Thanks for a great night, Larry!

Ty's Reading

 Finishing Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets last January
Today I got to work in Ty's first grade class for the first time. The teacher had me doing reading assessments. The kids would read as much of a story as they could in one minute, and I would mark the words they didn't know or read incorrectly. Then I subtracted the number incorrect from the number correct to give them a total score.

Many of the kids were below 10 or in the teens range. A small handful were in the 20's and one girl got a 64.

When I tested Ty, he got 214, with no errors.

I was worried that the teacher might think I had fudged the numbers, but I flipped through her student assessment book and noticed she had previously assessed Ty. He had scored a 214 with her, too.

Ashlynn is 11!

Ashlynn turned 11 which meant... I had to decorate (even though she said she didn't want a party.)

 I took her and Lauren to get their nails done.

 They both got a french manicure with gel polish, hoping it would last longer (it's already chipped...)

 I love their cute little feet!

 Then we went to BJ's for lunch and strawberry beignets!

 At 11, Ashlynn is still her sparkly self, although I'm starting to see her mellowing a little and getting a little more moody (wonder where she gets that from?)

 She was with me when I bought the wrapping paper and I asked for her approval (did you know that aqua is the new pink for Ash?). She said she liked the paper, but I had to "decorate it fancy!" Of course.

 The day of her actual birthday was the real treat. The whole family got together at Nana and Papas house for dinner, gifts and cake. Auntie Mae Mae and new Uncle Kevin were even able to be here. Thanks for planning your vacation around Ashlynn's birthday!

 Ashlynn was in her usual spunky mood on this day because she loves a big get together.

 It was Nana and Kevin's birthday in the month of August, so we celebrated those, as well.

 This year, Ashlynn was into anything sock monkey. If you slap a sock monkey on it, she's happy. But the big gift of the day was the... wait for it...

 The mermaid tail! This thing is awesome! it has a rubber flipper in the tail so you can actually swim with it! She immediately pulled it on, then we had to carry her around everywhere!

 Her sock monkey PJ bottoms that Auntie Nessa skillfully re-purposed. She's pretty talented!

 The kids were all pretty excited to see Auntie Mae Mae.

 The four layer banana cake that Ashlynn insisted on. I'm more of a "buy a really nice cake at the bakery" type of mom.I'm not really a fan of frosting cakes, but she wanted this recipe, so, after only a few mental breakdowns, we had a Banana cake!

 Then the kids and Aunts and Uncles played games in the back yard. The kids love Nana and Papa's backyard. At one point I heard Ashlynn, with her tail on, shout, "I'll be the mermaid referee!!" and it took me back to when she was a squeaky little-er girl.

Thanks for hosting a great night, Mom and Dad. And I think we did Ashlynn's birthday justice!