SnowJumps... back yard fun

So I have this video we made of sledding in our flat back yard with less than an inch of snow. I hope to have it posted soon. It is too big and taking too long to download... I don't know what format and what tool is best to reduce the file size and still maintain some measure of quality... anyone?

I figured I'd just cut 90% and put something up rather than be accused of all talk and no action.

Here it is:

4x

So today was a landmark day. Parker finished the "Mad Minute" 4x multiplication sheet (50 problems in 2.5 minutes with better than 70% correct. We raced a few times and he really didn't want to do it, but did it anyway. I'm pretty proud of him for it. He did one sheet and I did two. I finished and he didn't the first try. The second try, he did one and I did three. He almost finished it the second time. The third time I did 4 sheets and only made it through half of the last one. He finished while I was half way through the third sheet (30 seconds left). The fourth time was a gut check: Parker vs. the clock and he finished it with 100% and 1 second remaining. He's the man. He's here with me as I type this. Good luck with your math everyone. Parker is "Getting it" now.

Day After Christmas

Londyn really wanted to type, so here is her typing:
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZI

We are well.

Christmas Eve

It rained a bit this morning and then it turned to snow rather quickly... a nice heavy wet snow perfect for snow men. We made 3 of them. Here is one:

It lasted about at week

An update on the gingerbread house: Everyone who came over took a piece of the gingerbread house... after a week, it looked pretty bad. It got to the point where the kids had a butter knife and were popping things off and bits of sugar would fly everywhere, so it has been condemned and demolished. The photos are immediately prior to demolition:

My Birthday Project

Sharee gave me a project for my birthday. She decided she would whip up 4 batches of ginger bread and enable me to build a modest gingerbread house. I found a piece of plywood in the garage, foil covered it and decided that since the board was bigger than the average gingerbread plot, I would build a gingerbread manor, or mansion. I baked the bread that Sharee mixed up while Sharee did dinner and helped the kids we had over for babysitting group. They then all decorated graham cracker houses with some of the colored sugar I purchased earlier while I continued to bake. I finally started assembling the house at about 10PM, and got all but the center section roof together. After church today, Parker and Londyn wanted to help, so they were patient enough to place the items I told them and they waited for instructions. It was a lot of fun as we assembled the finishing touches for several hours this afternoon. The pictures below show the size of the mansion. The foil covered plywood plot is about 2' x 2'. Check it out.

-Rob

Notice the chevron car in included for scale. The candy pillars in the front are about 9" tall.

The gumdrop overhang began to sag and fell off this morning...

Fat Turkey Day

So yesterday was a big turkey day. I ate a bowl of cereal in the morning and a huge plate for lunch... then sat and played a little nintendo with Parker and we all went to see BEE MOVIE. It was... interesting. Seinfield is the voice of the main character and at the end his whiny attempts at emotional expression are a bit of a stretch ... to put it nicely. Parts were funny and the kids enjoyed it. We went with Sharee's family as we are having Thanksgiving in American Fork with her older sister and her parents.

Hint for those of you not aware: buy tickets early or you will be driving all over town to find a show with seats available. That was turkey day. Pretty low key. I hope you all had a great day.

-Rob

Cold November

So we are hanging out waiting to get ready for Stake Conference. It is rainy. Yesterday we were going to finish staining the fence that we started last week, but it started to rain just as we finished the scouting for food project, so we did some inside jobs and then I worked on my truck. Parker and Londyn are contract laborers on the fence and they are earning $0.10 per slat, but they won't get paid until the entire job is finished, so there is some urgency to finish.

Parker and I went to the $3 theater yesterday and saw Ratatoille. It was pretty fun. This $3 theater is way nicer than any other cheap theater I've attended.

Londyn went to a movie with Sharee on Tuesday, so the guys went out last night.

Abigail turned 2 on Thursday. She had a barbie birthday cake. It was angel food cake with whipped cream frosting. She is now doing quite well in her finding nemo underwear. She has occasional accidents but lately only when she has trouble getting them off. She has started singing for us. I got some good video of her singing "Give Said the Little Stream." This is a phonetic spelling of what she sounds like: "Seening seening all-DE-day, div o way Oh, divb o way." It is really cute. Whenever anyone asks a question, Abby says "I own no!"

Anyway, we better be on our way. Hope everyone is well. We hope to have some new pictures up soon.

-Rob

On and on it goes

So we are headed to Yellowstone tomorrow to rendevous with the Wilcox clan. Parker and Londyn started school (3rd and K). Friday last week, Abigail fell off the neigbors' slide platform and fussed a bit. Saturday she used her arm a bit and we figured she'd be fine. Sunday morning Parker was helping her put on a backpack and she really freaked out because she was hurt, so Sharee insisted that she be taken in right then. I was figuring that it was "just a sprain" and resisted the push to take her in, but I did so anyway in the middle of sacrament meeting because she wouldn't stop fussing. Sharee had nursury and so I took Abby to the quick care and we missed the rest of our meetings. She was such a trooper at the Doctor's office. She played for about an hour while we waited and then she fell asleep just before it was time to x-ray. She was semi lucid and did not resist at all the placement of her arm on the cold metal x-ray plate. Apparently if you fall hard enough you can get a "buckle fracture" in your bone... similar to hitting the end of a wooden stake with a hammer, the end splits and mushrooms out. Abby has two broken bones in her arm just above her wrist on her right arm. She now has a bright pink cast on her right arm from her hand to her shoulder, but she is much happier now that her "owwie" is protected. One interesting thing is trying to watch her eat out of her right hand because it is too far from her mouth with the cast. I thought it was funny to see her negotiate with the cast. She as taken to torturing Sharee by calling "MOMMY" and pointing each different signature on her cast repeatedly until Sharee tells her the person's name, after which she points to the next one and does it over and over. Anyway, that is the latest from up here in dry and burning Idaho.

Life is CRAZY!!!

Well I guess I won't be able to count on Rob to write anything, and it took me a while just to figure out if I had changed my user account name or password, so I could even get in. Life has been busy. Rob has started his new job, and so far likes it. He is able to be on a longer leash than before and he is doing stuff he likes, which I would explain but it is all way over my head, and in my opinion pretty boring. I guess if he wants to refute that he can get on and write. He is going up to Washington this week to get some samples run and also some sputtering.

We went to Lagoon this past weekend for the Ricks college Alumni day, it was fun, but I decided it would be about 10 years before we do it again. Sorry we didn't see anyone, but we came on Friday and left on Sunday. We mainly came down to pick up my sisters little boy. We have him for a week while they went to the Dominican Republic on a trip she earned selling books. So I have four kids now and have decided I better stop at three because I was already behind and I think four would just put me over the edge. We are having fun though. Abi not as much because Tylan likes to pick on her, especially when I tell him he has to do something he doesn't want to. She is a pretty good sport though.

I am excited for school to start as are the kids. Parker is ready to see his friends again and not have to play with Londyn all day, he will be in third grade. Londyn is very excited to start kindergarten, she has been ready since Parker started kindergarten. I got smart this year and went to get supplies about a week ago and missed the big crowds and even got everything but one item on the list, which is a first for me, I usually have to run around to 5 different stores and still haven't gotten everything. I am excited to be back down to just one kid at home for at least a few hours every day. It will be nice to be able to run errands and whatever else I want to do. I will be spending quite a bit of time at the school volunteering in the class room and also being the PTO secretary.

Parker and Londyn are in swim lessons this summer, and both are improving quite fast. The P.E. teacher from Parker's school teaches them at a local athletic club. Parker is learning the butterfly stroke right now. Londyn can almost swim the width of the pool with a one arm breast stroke and then flipping over on her back to breath and to rest. Abi is just busy discovering the world around her. She loves to swim also and will spend her time at any pool going down the slide over and over, or else walking off the edge of the pool and having me catch her, over and over. She doesn't even care if she goes under the water.

We have been busy with yard work, and have gotten the front yard done. We have put some rocks in and a fountain, and perennial flowers, because I don't like to plant flowers every year, and when I get done with a project I like it to be maintenance free. We still have work in the back yard, I want to put a two foot wide garden around the yard next to the fence so I can have a garden, and the kids still have room to run around. I would also like to put a pergola, that is what I have heard it called, up for shade and grow grapes on it. Vinyl of course so I don't have to maintain it. I also want to put in kiwi vines, and lots of blueberries and raspberry bushes. Then in the summer we will plant vegetables and a little herb garden. I would also like to get a peach tree. But that will probably take a few years to get all that done. Rob isn't looking forward to it because he gets to do the heavy work. I guess I can always claim I am in my child bearing years.

We went rafting a few weeks ago with some of my cousins. The kids rode in a raft with her, she is good with the raft, and Rob went on a blow up wave runner, and I went in a tube, there were more in tubes also. It was a lot of fun. Abi stayed home with my aunt. Then two weeks later Rob took the kids with our neighbor and his kids. We borrowed rafts from the next door neighbor, they were 2 man rafts. Well they got in to launch and barely fit with the two kids and the rafts were riding pretty low in the water. I wasn't sure they would make it. They made it down, it took about an hour and they had to drain the raft along the way and found they had to sit on the back wall so they wouldn't hit all the rocks. They had fun though.

Well I better quit for now, this is longer than I expected. You'll have to excuse my spelling and letter form, I have never done well in English, and my last English college course I was given lots of special treatment because I was pregnant with Parker and the teacher felt sorry for me, which was to my advantage, not liking English. Hope everyone is doing well. I will write later.

The Idaho Owings

Wow this thing has a really cool spell check!

Yes we are alive!!

Ok well I didn't know we were supposed to write anything because the information was given to Rob, and he isn't reliable with important information. I also thought it was a big Christman Family thing, but now that I know it isn't I will be more willing to share all our dirty laundry. We are busy up here in Boise. Rob's last day of work was last Tuesday, but he doesn't start his new job till tomorrow. Being the wonderful hubby he is he stayed home with the kids and let me take a quick vacation to see my sister in Washington D.C. for a few days. It was lots of fun but I suggest never to travel through Chicago, I was stranded for a whole day. Rob got me a hotel and when I made it to the right one did much better. Saw a few sites and made it to D.C. that evening. I also suggest planning more than a few days in the D.C. area, there is so much to see. They have wonderful public transportation there. Rob is excited to start his new job as am I. Today Londyn was talking about swim lessons and I told her I was excited to watch how good she has gotten and she said she was excited for me and daddy to both take her. I said it would just be me, and she said no daddy too, and I said no he has to work and she said, no he had his last day. I told her he got a new job and she asked why, then I had to explain the need for money. She was a bit dissapointed he has to go back to work but understood, and was quite happy when I said he wouldn't have to travel so much. So we are back to the daily grind tomorrow. Sorry this is all coming from my viewpoint, and I realize I am the outsider here so I will try to get Rob to write also. It was fun to read what all of you are up to. Ma sorry about the newsletter comment, I thought this was a big Christman family thing.

This is christmas 05. ah look at the cute daddy!!

Hey Fam. this is the Owings Family Blog Spot! Write all of the loverly thoughts that come to your mind!