Meet our new...Fetus

Cynthia is pregnant and no it's not a joke this time. I swear. Her due date is August 18th and yes we realize how close it is to the family reunion in July. Although we do not know the sex of the baby we are extremely confident that we are having a little girl. Normally we battle back and forth on names for the entire 9 months but we think we have found one in Meli and Cynthia's middle name of Daniela. Initially Cynthia liked Malia but soured on it when she heard that Obama has a daughter by that name. We are also breaking the string of K's that have dominated the family for the last 11 years. I was asked the other day what if we end up having twins, but was assured from the most recent ultrasound there is only 1 in there. Not only are we excited to be having another one, but even more excited that this is the last one. I swear.

Holiday

Today was a holiday and so I decided to take the kids sledding. This first picture is affectionately known as 'granny hill' in Nephi. It's very steep and has several little jumps with a large one at the bottom. If you get enough momentum you can make it all the way to the bottom, up the bank and across the road. It is by far and away the best hill I have ever been down that I didn't have to pay for.

There was another place to go sledding that had several shorter but steeper hills and was only accessible by four wheel drive.

This is the kind of hill that deserves nicknames like 'widow maker' or 'butt buster' or my favorite 'I-think-I just-crapped-my-pants'. I was only able to talk Taylor in in going down it (the others were a bunch of scarety cats). She did it the first time and fell off, so I told her it didn't count. She tried it a second time and made it all the way down without falling off. However as soon as she stopped I could hear her crying. She said her back hurt and her knuckles were bleeding from all of the ice she hit on the way down. If she had worn gloves, it wouldn't of happened I told her. I couldn't believe she did it! I wish I had taken some video of it because she was going so fast! I stood in front of her at the bottom but literally ran out of the way because she was going so fast. All I could think of as she was traveling down the hill was, "Oh man if she gets seriously hurt, Cynthia is going to freak out on me". I was one proud papa today!

Enough!

I finally broke down and bought a snow blower. Actually, I have been teetering on the edge ever since last year. But with the several new storms we have had lately I couldn't (wouldn't) do it any more. I started shoveling Saturday morning and quit half way through because I was sick of it. I used to enjoy shoveling snow because it was a 'good workout' and it doesn't snow enough to justify the cost of buying one. However, we now have enough property and snow plus the workout and cold are grossly overrated.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve 2008 was held at the Cope estate and hosted by Rich and Angela. It was a black tie event that began promptly at 6:30. Hors d'oeuvres and champaign were served while guests mingled among one another. It was followed by a 7 course meal in the dining room and ended with dancing in the West Ballroom. The evening ended sometime after midnight...
Dude. Dave. I'm pretty sure you missed her mouth and it doesn't look like she wants you anyway. Better luck next year.

I hadn't been feeling well all days and eventually fell asleep around 11. What scared me the most about the evening is that 20 or so kids between the ages of 0-11 were able to stay awake past midnight without the use of any legalized stimulants. Not only that but when midnight came around the became even crazier than they had up to that point.

For most of the evening we played Guitar Hero and Rock Band. I learned that I suck at the singing part but not too shabby with the drums.

Now where did those keys go...

As I was getting ready for work I found some of Keanu's handywork. I told Cynthia she had to pull it out because there was no way in hell I was touching it. He ended up doing it one other time and how he didn't get hurt either time is beyond me.

The Family

Our New Year's resolution is to have a family picture taken, professionally. Not at the end of the year, not at church after tithing settlement and not by a member of the bishopric (not that there is anything wrong with that). And yes Allan is actually wearing a suit. I realized this week that of all of the hundreds of pictures we have taken over the last year we do not have one with the entire family. Sad but true. Given the high price that quality photographers are demanding these days, we are taking donations. There is an account set up at Zions bank under our name if you wish to contribute.

Christmas Day

We woke up Christmas morning with several inches of new snow. This was on top of the other 2 storms in the last 3 days. It was nice to see snow falling on Christmas Day.

The kids have historically been late sleepers on Christmas Day. However this year the 3 were up at 6am. Keanu eventually rolled out around 7am. I thought 6 am was a respectable time for getting up on Christmas morning even if they didn't get to bed until 11 the night before.
Keanu was funny all day. As we were getting ready for dinner he was sitting on the couch in the living room with his blanket and eating a plate full of cinnamon twists while staring at the lights.

The kids asked for fried rice for breakfast and I made it after Round 1 of opening presents.

For those of you who don't know we started a tradition a couple of years ago of opening the presents in rounds. There is a lot of excitement in the morning and it can get a little overwhelming so we open presents throughout the entire day. One year we didn't finish up until almost 9pm. It makes it seem like there are more presents and we never hear 'is that all?' Also pieces to presents are less likely to get lost or accidently thrown out. The kids also seem to like the suspense. Today we wrapped it up (no pun intended) around 2 o'clock because Cynthia had to go into work later on.

We also try and have 1 big present for the entire family that we open last. This year it was a bag of cat food. The kids figured it out pretty fast what it meant. Because we live in a rural area with a lot of mice we have been kicking around the idea of getting one for some time. A neighbor mentioned to Cynthia this week that she had 2 of them she wanted to give away. So instead of getting one kitten we got both of them.