Merry Christmas 2008

It's been a great holiday season so far. Scott's not stuck in an airport somewhere, we were able to convince Erin that the star on the Christmas tree does not belong in her bed without too bad of a tantrum, it seems as though we have more time together than in past years, and Amanda seems to finally grasp the nativity story (just in time for baptism this year!). We are very grateful for what we have and wish all of you the best as well.

just for fun

Winter has decided to take some time to come, which has allowed more playground time for the girls, and more photo ops for me.

construction 101

So, Scott's been nagging, I mean, encouraging me to get to work on posting some updates. So, here it is. To kick off the holidays my mom has the tradition of making graham cracker houses. My sister eagerly awaits this event. No, not for the sugar rush or the bonding time. Rather, she eagerly anticipates the ability to mock my construction abilities. As a kid, school always came easy to me, much to the frustration of all my siblings. So, anytime they can outdo me at something always seems to come with quite the fanfare. As you can see from the picture, my attempt at a cathedral clearly gives her reason to get quite excited. After a few takes, and a lot of sugar, my kids finally recieved their uninsurable little shacks. They were not like Jenny's perfect row of modular homes. I suppose her experience living in one gives her the advantage for structural superiority. Fortunately, my kids don't care as long as it stands upright and is edible. And as always, Erin was eager to dig in. As you can see from last year's picture (right), she hasn't changed much. Thank goodness she's not allergic to sugar!

Time with Amma and Ampa

Erin doesn't say the first of each word sometimes. Today Erin and Amanda got to spend the day with Grandma and Grandpa Nef. Amanda had a great time in the hot tub. Erin, well, she's Erin. After being talked into putting on her swimsuit Erin finally put her feet in the water. But a few minutes later Mary Ann averted trouble saving the hot tub from being used for something else.

A couple of weeks ago we went to see Rick finish a 50 miler and the kids had a good time with what else, the swingset. Erin loves swings and she loves to have grandma give her a push. This is one of the happiest times I've ever seen her.

Amanda and School Work

Amanda loves school. Well, not always. She gets bored with it sometimes and tired of doing the same thing over and over again. Recently though she has been working on some school projects that she has done very well with.

She did her first book report for school. She did it on Curious George Goes to the Beach. She put together a poster about the book and drew pictures about it. We were very impressed with her work.

Amanda has also worked on the Reflections Contest. The theme this year is "Wow." Amanda wanted to do a report on her uncle Rick because he runs several marathons and more. We can't keep track of how many marathons he's done this year as well as the 100 mile race he did last year. Amanda put in some pictures of Rick from when she went to watch him finish a 50 miler through the mountains.

Another Family Photo

Nothing really to add here. But since we do not have many family photos its nice to post it somewhere. Some people would be disappointed with the lack of photos and decorations in our house. We have a lot of bare walls and almost no pictures of family. Someone in the photo is usually so stubborn that we don't get many opportunities to all sit together and look in the same direction at the same time. I'll let you guess which one that is.

Halloween Girls

Yes, we're a little behind with keeping up with the blog. We are still up to our necks in paint fumes and battling illnesses. Its been a while since we have downloaded photos off the camera so there's the key purpose to our posting.

The girls had a good time trick or treating and fortunately for me, Erin can't eat chocolate and Amanda doesn't have a huge sweet tooth. All the more junk for me! As every parent has experienced I'm sure, Erin was originally going to be Jesse from Toy Story but got a thing for dresses a couple of weeks earlier. She wanted to wear a dress 24 hours a day for weeks. When Halloween came along she wanted to be like her big sister and be super girly. We ended up with Tinkerbell and Princess Presto. They were very cute. Also, in the pictures is their cousin Sienneh.

----Scott

A Nice Day for Soccer

Yesterday wasn't all filled with paint fumes. I have to work every other Saturday so I miss a lot of Amanda's soccer games. But yesterday I was able to take Amanda to her last soccer game of the year. Its been fun to watch because she has a good time. It also helps that the kids on her team are pretty good and each time that I've watched her, they seem to be playing younger and smaller kids. Its usually a blowout and her soccer coach gives the team the secret play call to let the other team score. I'm surprised at how well these young kids can make it look like they are trying yet letting the other team score.

While we are still a ways away from driving from one activity to another with the kids I'm enjoying this time with Amanda. She's not like here cousins who all in the same day had a soccer game, a football game, and a basketball game. And that was just Dayan. I don't know how Mary Ann's sister does it. Or for that matter Dayan.

I got a couple of good action shots of Amanda. What a difference a good camera makes.

Blogging While Under the Influence

Not what you think.

We've needed to add to this for a while but as you can see from the pictures, we've been busy with the basement. As I type the house is full of glorious paint fumes. Every window is open but it doesn't seem to be enough. Mary Ann and her father have been busy all day priming the entire basement and getting ready.

The basement is coming along quickly and only making us more anxious to have it done and useable. Especially since we've already had our first snow and our garage is full of basement storage stuff. It may be a while before it is completely finished as the funds continue to dwindle. (Thanks stock market.) We definitely would not be as far as we are with the basement if it wasn't for the help of our parents. My dad has been very helpful with the finishing work and trim and Mary Ann's dad is the man when it comes to painting. And, of course, we need some grandmas to help with the girls.

Its a good thing we have family to help push us through this process. If it was just left up to me, it may take forever on getting things done. Especially when she changes her mind every other day on which color the paint is going to be, what to do for the floor, etc., etc. Now if it was as easy as what size TV to put in the family room we could be done by now. (Of course, as big as we can afford.)

Why the name?

We've come a long way. This December Mary Ann and I will be celebrating our 12th anniversary. We were married while in college and pretty poor. Mary Ann found this ad for a place to live and talked me into it. It was a separated house behind a house in Ogden. It wasn't an apartment and it cost about half as much. $250 a month. We quickly nicknamed it the shack and it has been called that ever since.

The trade off was it was basically in the middle of the block in an alley. It was located about a block and half away from the turn around point for the cruising on Washington Blvd. For neighbors we had a big black rottweiler, Ralph, to the north; an unmarried couple that had the cops called on them for stealing their parents' car to the east; and a dysfunctional family that a social worker could have done a thesis on to the south.

Oh yeah, and there was the one time when half of the big tree in the yard had blown down onto the house and almost trapped me inside. Oh, and then there was the spider egg hatches. At least two that I haven't completely repressed. I could go on and on. I can't believe we stayed there for two years.

Well, almost 12 years, two kids, a new house, a couple of jobs, and a lot more gray hair later, we've still have our challenges. Its much bigger than the shack but our house still has issues that we have to deal with. But at least it has we now have a garage and A/C and we don't have to drive through an alley and rely on Macey's frozen food department to cool down in the summers.

- Scott

Anatomy of a Tantrum

For those who don't know our littlest one, here's a little insight to our wonderful bundle of joy. Sure she may look cute to the outsider, but what most people don't know is she's caused problems long before she was even born. Mary Ann can put more detail into that explanation. Erin had an early start at causing problems and she hasn't stopped yet. She's tough to take any where due to here expertise at the tantrum. She's as stubborn as they come.

Here are some pictures of what happened when Erin thought it was her turn...correction, her computer that we were using to start this blog. Between the numerous tantrums and her inability to sleep through the night even at her age, she wears us out and ruins plans often. If you are reading this and we've ever been late, are late for an event, this is likely the explanation.



-Scott

We've arrived!

So email communication is already outdated. It's come to our attention, many times mind you, that we are living in the past. So, we've arrived to the world of blogging. If all but two of our out of state friends and a handful of family view this, we'll be satisfied. My fears have limited this engagement for quite some time. The thought of disgruntled families, that I've worked with in the past as a social worker, and knowing the vast amount of "oogie" people who frequent the Internet has greatly limited my desire to publish my kids online. But with increased confidence in remembering that not all people are sociopaths and knowing that I want to share our life with others, we've arrived in blog form! So, if you dare to let us bore you with our 30 something age lifestyle and endless monologues, please enter in our day to day affairs.

I'm a bit intimidated with all this downloading/uploading digital age that we live in. I don't own an IPOD and haven't changed the songs on my mp3 player (a whole 8 albums) for almost two years. I'd like to use the excuse of our tantruming, food allergic, egocentric two year old that hasn't let me sleep through the night for almost three years as an excuse. Actually, that is a pretty good excuse. (You do not need to ask who wears the pants in our family.) But sufficient energy is a factor given the finishing of a basement, managing a relief society, working part time, ushering mom's taxi, and constantly defusing the overabundance of female emotional outbursts in our home. So I hope to find a potential refuge in this all. Plus, Scott has issued the challenge for me to redefine my hobbies, which included enticing me with a Cannon digital SLR camera. So I suppose getting back to my photography roots and posting a few photo shots with captions will help defuse the mom bomb and issue us into the new millennium.

~Mary Ann :*)

Why not us, too?

Maybe this is just in a time of envy of all those other people we know that have blogs. But after seeing a blog from friends that we haven't spoke to in a long time and the fun their family seems to be having, maybe starting a blog is just a way to try to see if we are doing as much as others. I think I've gone through life not always giving credit to some of the events in my life. I've downplayed a lot of things I've done and after you do that enough times you may not appreciate all the things that take place in life like you should. This blogging thing may be the answer to better appreciate our family time and document it a bit.

Our family has done some fun things and we don't have a lot of pictures of them. We don't have many videos either. In the days of technology we don't own a camera phone or take the big camera or video camera with us to capture some of the fun moments we have as a family. Today, however, was different. Our second child, Erin, is almost 3 years old now and we maybe have only 1 good family photo from about 2 years ago. After several attempts, or good intentions, we finally had a successful family photo taken today. It may not have been the best back drop. We weren't wearing matching clothes. We didn't have perfect smiles and you couldn't really see our faces very well, but at least it contained all 4 of us and we had a good time.

The last couple of General Conferences we've tried to go for a ride as a family and see where the car takes us. In the spring we ended up at Promontory Point and spent time playing in the rocket tubes at Thiokol. This time we ended up at Salt Air for a drive and we actually brought the camera. The dried up lake and the smokestack doesn't make the best of backdrops but the kids had a good time. What a feeling of accomplishment we had to get a family photo and even better yet, we were able to get Erin to wear her new shoes. Now that has been a battle to talk about. Most of our frustrations about family photos all point towards Erin and her stubborn (sometimes referred to as "evil") ways.


-Scott