The Yack Attack

Well..this morning Lisa started throwing up. Then when I took the three kids to church, Tanner started joining the fun. Natalie had it a week ago - I guess Sydney and I are the lucky ones.

Sun in Night

Sydney's life has become a musical lately. I'm suprised how many songs she's learned at pre-school and primary. She tries to sing like Ariel on The Little Mermaid and she makes up songs about whatever she is doing. Today she was singing "Silent Night" for me. She only knows the first line and sings it like this: "Su-un in Night, Su-un in Night." I can imagine these are kind of confusing lyrics to her, but I'm not fixing it because it's so cute. I'm sure she'll learn the right words next year.

Snow day in Oakley

Yesterday we went up to Aunt Jenny's family cabin in Oakley for a day to play in the snow. It's a really fun tradition we do every year. I should have taken a picture of the cabin because it is the coolest cabin I've ever seen. Sydney has been really into playing in the snow this year. Her older cousins are so great to take her on their sleds with them.

Here's a picture of Sydney and her cousin James. James has gotta be the best big brother a kids could have. He even made a point of telling me how much fun he had sledding with her later that day.

Here's a picture of Sydney and her cousin Ally waking back up the hill. And a picture of just Ally because she's so darn photogenic and thought this picture was really cute.

I haven't written anything about my littlest children in quite some time. They did a bit of sleeping during this event. Tanner and Natalie have great party manners. They are always so quiet and well behaved when we go out in public. I suppose they must get pretty bored and tired of being at home so much. If they are not being quiet they are often singing. That's been their thing lately. Natalie's sometimes sounds like a high-pitched garbage disposal, but its still music to my ears. Tanner sings his dada song. It goes like this: "Dadadadadadadadada." We've been working on a mama song, but no luck yet.

Quote the Sydney

Daddy: Sydney - if I were an animal, what would I be?

Sydney: a cow.

Daddy: Sydney - if Mommy were an animal, what would she be?

Sydney: a pretty cow.

RC Willey: part 2

Thursday, December 27:

11:15AM: Corporate called back - said the couches have been found and delivery is scheduled for Monday morning. Secretly I wonder if they're just buying two more days to find them :)

If they don't come Monday, would you:
1. Cancel the order. Get your money back and never go back.
2. Wait another day. You've already waited two weeks.
3. Demand more than the piddling $50 off the couches and Get Gephart or report to the Better Business Bureau (thanks Dave for the suggestion).
4. Hide under a rock and die, knowing that your life will never be complete with these couches.

RC Willey - what are you doing?

Wow. I don't know what else to say? If you want the short version, we ordered custom couches, they setup a few delivery times after they came in, I missed half of a family party, and we still don't have couches, and they don't know where one of them are. Here's the sad long version:

Monday, December 17:

8PM: R.C. Willey leaves a message on our home phone that they received our custom couches from the manufacturer, and that we can come pick them up whenever we want.

Tuesday, December 18:

10AM We call R.C. Willey back to say we picked up the free dvd player but that the couches were to be delivered, as it said on their records. They realized they read their own ticket wrong, and setup delivery for Friday (21st).

Friday, December 21:

8AM: I called to see what time they were going to deliver, they said 7:30 - 10:30.

11AM: I asked why the driver hadn't called, they gave me his number and told me to call him (what's up with that?). I call the number they gave and left a message on the driver's phone. He never calls back (first promised callback that never happened)

2PM: I call R.C. Willey again, they think it's dumb the previous time I got the driver's number, say they'll look into and call me back within an hour. (second promised callback that never happened).

9PM: I call R.C. Willey again, they said the loaders didn't put the couches on the truck, as they read the ticket wrong (again), and that they'd scheduled delivery for tomorrow (Saturday the 22nd). She said they'd also have a manager call to apologize (third promised callback that never happened). I called back and left a message on the store manager's phone about my "unpleasantness".

Saturday, December 22:

8AM: I call to see what time they'll be delivered. They say delivery between 10-1. My family Christmas party is at 11:30, but I figure if the drivers call and say 10 or 10:30, we'll leave right after.

10AM: The drivers call and say they will deliver between 11 and 12.

12:45PM: I send Lisa and the kids, as I feel this might be a while.

12:45PM: I call R.C. Willey, asking what happened. They said they'll call the driver and call me back within 30 minutes (fourth promised callback that never happened).

1:45PM: I call R.C. Willey again, she said they were just looking for my phone number to call back, that the driver said they were in the middle of a delivery and would call them back but didn't for half an hour, then just finally did (note it's an hour later). R.C. Willey said that the driver didn't think he had my couches on the truck. I asked them where the couches were, they said they were in the process of looking, but think they're either on another truck, or still in the warehouse, and that they'd call me within two hours when they found them.

1:45PM: I call the store manager to leave another message, as I'm driving to make the last half of the family party.

4:00PM: Since we drove up separately, Lisa called me on my cell to say the store manager called to apologize, that they still couldn't find our couches and said we'd get a fair price on new couches if we came into the store to pick out new ones. Fair price?

Monday, December 24:

10:00AM: I called to see if they found my couches yet. Nope. They transferred me to the main warehouse to have them track them down. They said they didn't have them and they're transfer me to customer service, who could help me track them down. I interrupted that to say I just talked with them, but they said it'd be the warehouse customer service. I waited 25 minutes on hold to find out it was the same people. They said they'd call within two hours. (fifth promised callback that never happened).

Wednesday, December 26th:

10AM: I called to hope the warehouse had made progress. They said they found the love seat but couldn't find the other one. They said they'd have my original salesman drive the issue. They transferred me to him, I told him the story, he commiserated, and said he'd drive the issue, be the pointman, and call back within the hour to tell me what happened.

1PM: (three hours later) I called the salesman back, said he was just looking for my number (this seems to be a common line) and that he talked to the manager of the warehouse, not just the one over inventory, and they said they needed a day to look for it. I called back the manager of the Murray store and left another message.

Thursday, December 27th:

8:15-9:31AM: Called to check the status this morning. I was on hold for an hour and eighteen minutes. I talked to corporate customer service, who said they'd look into it and call me back in a few minutes.

I'll edit the post when new changes occur. Not that you want to read more...

Merry Christmas

Well Christmas day was a lot of fun for our family. It started off a little rocky. Natalie got sick Christmas Eve and threw up a few times. She slept well at night with no problems but when I nursed her in the morning she threw up all over her and me. Tanner somehow managed to stay clean through that. So she had a bath, I had a shower, and by the time we were all ready Sydney was up and ready to see what Santa brought her.

Sydney finally understood the Santa thing this year and was very excited. We actually had to go see Santa at the mall twice this year because the first time she was so excited and nervous she forgot what she wanted to ask him for for Christmas. She's really been wanting a big ball with Dora on it. So the first time she saw Santa she only said she wanted "presents". That afternoon all she would talk about was how she forgot to tell Santa about the Dora ball. So the next week we were at the mall again and made another more successful stop to Santa. Anyways, Santa did get her the Dora ball. She was very excited about it.

Josh sent me on a video scavenger hunt that morning for my present. He has been so excited about my present this year and with good reason. He got me a Nikon D40 digital camera! So now I can take some AWESOME pictures! I spent most of Christmas day trying to figure out how to use it. It's going to take me some time to figure out all the features.

After the unveiling of all our gifts Grandma and Grandpa Moore came over to visit. It was so nice of them to drive all the way out to us and Sydney loved showing them all the things she got.

We went out to my parents' home that afternoon. My mom had a special surprise planned for all of us. She gave each family gift bags and made us all wait to open them at the same time. Inside them were marshmallow shooters for each family member and a bag of mini marshmallows. And the war began! It was hilarious. Josh wants to build a snow fort in the front yard and shoot the neighbors that go by.

Sydney also got a box of princess dress-up clothes for Christmas. I think I may have a hard time getting her to wear anything else for a while. Natalie will have a lot of hand-me-downs in practically new condition.

Leisure time

What do you do on your leisure time? According the the U.S. Department of Labor's American Time Use Survey (ATUS), if you're 15 and over, this is the national average of leisure time on an average day (note that this includes all days of the week):

Watching TV: 2.6 hours
Socializing and communicating: 46 minutes
Reading: 22 minutes
Participating in sports, exercise, recreation: 17 minutes
Relaxing and thinking: 19 minutes
Playing games; using computer for leisure: 19 minutes
Other leisure activities: 29 minutes
Total leisure and sports time per day: 5.1 hours

More findings:
Employed adults ages 25 to 54 who live in households without children (under age 18) engaged in leisure and sports activities for 4.3 hours, about 53 more minutes per day than employed adults living with a child under age 6.

Yet using the same survey, most fathers with children under 18 at home said they spent 3-4 hours a day with the children.

On average...do you have 5.1 hours of leisure time?

Full article

Use New Media

Earlier this week at BYU-Hawaii, Elder M. Russell Ballard encouraged the students there to use "new media", more specifically blogs and responding to online news reports.

“We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches".

Read the full article

Just a reminder about my LDS Quotes blog.

There's an RSS feed for the LDS Newsroom from the first link, including articles about how measles has dropped 91% from Africa, helped partially from funds donated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Happy Anniversary!!!

Well...as most of you know, when asked how old I am, I respond with how many years I've been married. This makes it easier than remind myself I'm starting to get old (27) and that it's fun to think about being 5.

Sure '5' isn't a big number, but it feels great. As many of you know from my past posts about acquiring telescopes and my astronomy blog, I'm really getting into astronomy. Well, this morning I unwrapped my anniversary present.

This is what the sky looked like in Salt Lake City the night we were married. It's really pretty. You can see the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Pleiades, etc. The fun thing is Jupiter, Saturn, and the moon are all aligned ;)

Thanks Bean - love you big time.

Happy Anniversary to us!

Well we made it! The big number 5. I'm not sure why 5 years seems like such a big deal to me. Especially when you look at people married for 50 years. I guess I just thought this day was SO far away 5 years ago. When you get married and the longest you've dated anyone is about 5 months it's hard to imagine lasting years and years with the same person. But it's been a great half-decade! I'm the luckiest girl in the world to be married to the sweetest, funnest, smartest, most patient guy in the world!

We don't have huge plans for our anniversary. We're going to dinner and a movie. But really it doesn't matter what we do, a night out with just the two of us is fabulous no matter what. Thanks mom and dad for babysitting! Josh got me this beautiful watch and matching bracelet from Brighton Collectibles. I love their stuff! And he's so smart to get a bracelet with the watch so the babies can slobber all over that instead of ruining the watch. Very clever.

I was pretty proud of my gift idea for Josh this year. Since he's so into astronomy lately I found an online store that will print out what the night sky looked like on any given night at any given location. So I gave him a picture of the night sky over Salt Lake City on our wedding night. The sky that night was actually covered in clouds because it was snowing, but had there been no clouds this his what it would have looked like. We noticed this morning that the moon, saturn and jupiter were all lined up which looks pretty cool.

Sunday Fun

Today was quite busy but a great day. Normally our Sundays are really laid back after church, but I scheduled four home teaching appointments today. I've had little luck getting my companions to go with me, so two of the Elders Quorum Presidency helped and went to two each. Each of the four families are really nice and we always have fun catching up and talking about the gospel. Church was 11-2, and I had appointments at 2:45, 3:30, 4:15, and 5:00. When I got home, Sydney gave me a big hug and said "Daddy - I need some daddy-daughter time." It was really cute. So Tanner is in bed, and Sydney, Natalie, and I just finished watching the old-school Rudolph movie...twice. A good hour of chocolate popcorn and snuggles.

The importance of examples

Yes. I know. Hero week has come and gone and we're at least 40+ weeks away. However...

Several things have led up to this blog entry. Lisa and I, on recommendation from a good friend, watched "The Ultimate Gift". I highly recommend it. Okay...maybe it doesn't directly apply (it's late...I'm already rambling).

Lately I've been learning a lot about telescopes, and more recently binoculars. I want a quick way for Sydney to enjoy the stars without having to wait 30 minutes for me to get all the scope stuff ready, eyepieces, etc. I go to a cool site called Cloudy Nights (www.cloudynights.com) to learn about all sorts of stuff. The realization comes later that the only time you're reading it is when there are cloudy nights, otherwise you'd be out under the telescope! Anyway there's a guy who knows all there is to know about binoculars, what there is to know, and why it's important. I learned a ton after doing a few posts on the message board and he was very helpful. At the bottom of each of his posts (the signature) it says "Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards."

One of my greatest rewards is being able to help my dad, on rare occasion. He has been through a lot with me, much less the "minor things" like installing sinks, calls about sprinklers, and such. It's such an honor to be able to help with computer problems, or anything I might know more about...yes...that does limit it to computers :)

There is something great to be said for those who always give. I'm sadly one who always looks for praise (like a dog, or a 3 year old) for doing something nice. Why I need verification it was good, or the pat-on-the-back, I hope I figure out soon so I stop. Anyway - here's my long entry for a short topic from EdZ: "Teach a kid something today. The feeling you'll get is one of life's greatest rewards."

10 sentences of background

Last Thursday Lisa and I went to the Mandarin in Bountiful while Grandpa and Grandma Moore watched the kids. We are so grateful. It felt weird to have so much time where we weren't going anywhere, we didn't have the kids with us, and no electronic devices kept our attention. Something brought up the subject of one of my crazy, zany, or otherwise roll-your-eyes ideas. Don't get me wrong - it's not 1) good, 2) appealing, or definitely 3) intentionally funny. I don't know if it's tactlessness, short-term memory loss...hopefully in kind words you'll have an answer. It's hilarious to everyone but Lisa, except afterwards when she rolls her eyes and laughs because it's in the past and she can't do anything to prevent it again. One of them is that I always give ten sentences of background when no one really cares how we got there (like I've just done) and could have just skipped to the next paragraph. Let me give an example she likes to use:

So since I don't listen well or notice the needs or wants of my wife very well (there's a clue), when Christmas time, her birthday, our anniversary, etc. comes along, I ask her what she wants. She'll get that look like "here we go again", and then proceeds to remind me what is about to happen (or sometimes she plays along, like we haven't done this before). She reminds me that every time I ask, she gives me several good ideas, I decide it wasn't my idea and/or now it wouldn't be a surprise, and decide to get something else altogether (like is happening for Christmas).

I think Alzheimers is right around the corner...or was that last week? Anyway, we were talking about this over dinner, and I (mistakenly) asked her what other crazy things I do. She had so many available (not that she doesn't love me), but we left that restaurant laughing so hard we probably couldn't spell 'sober'. The sad thing is, this is the only one I remember.

What is the goal? Like I told Lisa to do over dinner - she needs to blog about the crazy things I do. I swear Lisa's mom has the best time listening on the other end of the phone as Lisa 'tells her a new one' or 'it happened again' (I just guessing...these aren't actual quotes). Send Lisa an email and request more. She's being kind not doing it, but if everyone gets a good laugh and it helps me remember not to be...ooo...I hope the word isn't "ditsy"..that we'll all have a good laugh.

My little copycat

Sydney is growing up a little faster than I like. Yesterday, she was being an especially big copycat of everything I do. After I walked on the treadmill in the morning she got on her "gym shoes" (a.k.a. slippers) and walked for a few minutes and then went to get us both some "gym water" (sippy cups with water). After I put on make-up she also put on make-up and looked like she had a black eye the rest of the day. I tried to wash it off and I wish I'd taken a picture. That girl is going to be a make-up artist for horror films some day.
Later that day I saw her dragging my enormous nursing pillow into the family room with her baby doll. My mom gave her a baby doll a couple years ago for Christmas I think and it's become part of the family. Sydney announces to me, "I'm the best mommy!" A few minutes later she says "All done!" I look over at her and she's got the nursing pillow around her with her baby and her shirt all unbuttoned. She really is the best mommy!
I took all the kids to Sam's Club that afternoon to pick up Christmas cards and groceries. They were all being so good. The twins especially love to go shopping because there is so much to look at. I was taking my time and enjoying the absence of crying. Sydney likes to talk about everything she sees at the store. Then she says, "Okay mommy, you pick ONE more thing and then it's time to go home." Well I was actually all done but the whole way up to the checkout she's reminding me, "ONE more thing mommy, just ONE more and then we're all done." She gave me quite a few good laughs for one day!

Doing telephone interviews about telephone interviews

Whether you're following the 2008 Presidential campaigns closely or not, you've got to love this article. Not only does the article say most people hung up on automated phone calls about the election, they were only slightly nicer to actual people on the other line doing the same thing.

How did they get this data: doing telephone interviews about telephone interviews.

Now if you want something really funny - read a great article about how one reporter does his polling. Let me just point out a few key phrases you'll see: nuns, those wearing hats, punks on skateboards.

Family Home Evening

It's on, it's off, it's postponed, it's missed. Family home evening is never what it was in my parent's home: consistent. We're working on it. Lisa is quite amazing. Scroll back to hero week and read the entry about her and we'll assume you think she better than sliced bread too and add to it with this entry. On Monday, Lisa brought home a gingerbread house kit, and we were all excited for FHE. Okay...so some of us (especially Tanner) couldn't keep our eyes off the treats, but as you can see - the candies made it on the house. But that's not the best part of Monday. It was Lisa's turn for the lesson. We sang songs like "when the family gets together" and "listen, listen", and had a wonderful lesson on baptism. Sydney's favorite cousin (on Lisa's side) is Mary. Mary is getting baptized on Saturday, and is anxious to see it. Sydney has seen a few, but I'm never sure how much of the explanation of why makes it through. Lisa used pictures from the Gospel Art Kit (the wonder pack of 600 photos (something like $15 at the distribution center), and we had a great time. This morning on the way to school Sydney said "Dad..when I turn eight, I'm going to be baptized." It was really cute. Okay...what you've been waiting for: pictures. Sorry - our camera stinks indoors. I turned on and off the flash, but they were all sorts of blurry.

First Snow

Well we got our first big snow of the year last weekend! I'm so glad we did not need to leave the house that day. It was an all day thing. Sydney played outside with her friend McCoy while Josh shoveled the driveway in the morning. I painted the bathroom while the babies slept and in the afternoon I went out to play in the snow with Sydney. We started what could have been a very cool snow fort. But Sydney started to get really cold so we had to come in. I guess the boots I bought her are not waterproof. Neither are her gloves. It was fun to get outside and play like a kid again. The best part is coming inside and taking a warm shower and having hot chocolate.