A Personal Day and a Late Night Show

A couple weeks ago I told Kenny that I was requesting some time off, I needed to take a personal day. :) Sometimes I just like to be alone with my thoughts. Most days I feel like I can't even think because I'm interrupted so much. Not that it's a bad thing to be with them all day, but I just felt the need for quiet--a little breathing room. So Saturday morning after making breakfast and starting some laundry I left them in the very capable hands of their father, and drove to Anchorage. I really needed a new pair of jeans. My favorite pair has a huge hole in the knee and looks so trashy. So I went and got another pair, the exact same one, just a different wash. Also did some shopping for the 3 kids' birthdays coming up. I went out to lunch at the Pita Pit, stopped at the library and looked at books for myself. Then I ended my outing with a big trip to Costco to re-stock our house. After our financial fast I felt like we were like Dr. Seuss' Who's, down to "the last can of who-hash". :) So I didn't do anything too fun or exciting with my day. But I didn't need to. I just wanted to go shopping and not have it be so gosh darn hard. The kids had a really fun time with daddy. He let them do "experiment cooking" which they always want to do with me and I never let them. I generally believe in following recipes and I don't like wasting ingredients. Thankfully Kenny is much more creative-minded then me and has fond memories doing "cooking experiments" growing up. So they all made some sort bread-type thing and ate it for lunch. That night we roasted hot dogs for dinner. It was so cold we couldn't eat outside, but it was a fun change with very little clean up! 

 We play lots and lots of card games. These kids are pretty into games. A few favorites lately are: Go Fish, War, Uno, and Sleeping Queens.

 I took this picture of his hand to remember his little scratching habit. He is always feeling textures this way. A lot of times he will wake up and before he ever makes a sound I know he's awake because he'll start scratching the sheet. He's getting quite a good grip, much to the dismay of his sisters with their long, grab-able hair! (of course that's a word!) I love the face grabs though, it's so sweet, and sometimes painful haha.

Briggs had his first tooth break through on the bottom! The one right next to it is also coming in. Just ask me how much I love teething?! He's got a really runny nose, but thankfully no fever associated with it. But the congestion makes eating and sleeping more difficult of course. Not to mention the pain of teething. But we're getting through :). He's still so stinkin cute we can hardly stand it!

Yesterday after church Tyler had his interview with the Bishop for his baptism coming up. We have been focusing our family home evening lessons on preparing him for being baptized. It's been great to have those teaching moments and discussions in our home. Not just for him, but for all the kids. He was a little nervous going in, knowing we weren't going to be with him. But he did great and the bishop said he knew he was ready.

Last night I had a feeling it was going to be a good night for the Aurora Borealis since the sky was so clear. We kept looking out the window but couldn't see any lights. So I told the kids to go to bed and promised to wake them up if I saw them. Sure enough, around 10:00 there's some green bands so Kenny and I ran upstairs and woke up Ty and Bryn and we watched them out Ty's window for a while. It was Brynlee's first time ever seeing the Northern Lights so she was so excited. They both were, it's pretty fun. They were dancing and moving around in the sky. We thought we'd get an even better view if we drove out of town. So I got in the car with T & B and we drove. Unfortunately they started fading and by the time we got to a great clearing, they were gone. I'm sure they came back later that night but we went home and went to bed. It was a fun time with them and something I hope they'll remember. They thought it was so special to be up so late and doing something so out of the ordinary. Tyler said, "We're probably the only ones in the whole city still awake right now!" haha. yeah it was only 10 p.m. And then we drove way too close to a moose standing just off the side of the road and it freaked me out. Glad we didn't have a collision.