Change of Heart

Benjamin: Abby, will you help me shuck the corn for dinner?

Abigail: No, I don't want to.

Benjamin: Okay, but you don't get any corn unless you help to shuck it.

Abigail: (Short Pause) Dad, I LOVE shucking corn! I would love to help you!

Born to Dance

I was looking at some old videos of Abigail and came across one of my favorites. On the day Abigail learned to stand on her own at about 10 months we put on some music and she immediately started to boogie. She has pretty good rhythm sometimes too!

Shipping the Books to Iowa

My parents have told me for a long time that I could have their collection of more than 2000 books as soon as I had a house to put them in. Well, that time has come so two weeks ago I flew out to Washington to gather all the books up and then rented a moving truck to bring them back to Iowa. What's nice is that they also gave us eight huge shelves three couches with one of them being a hide-away bed. My grandma Marj also gave me a beautiful seascape painting, two end tables and some lamps. It has transformed our house (especially the front room) and we're very grateful. I spent a lot of time growing up looking at these books and I love that they can now be used by my children as they grow up. Here are some pictures of the move and the transformation to the front room. What you see in the front room is only about half the books. The rest have been put in other parts of the house...

Kindergarten Concert Choir

Abby had a Kindergarten Concert where all the kindergartners sang a selection of songs they learned over the year. It was lots of fun to watch. Here is a video of her singing a song...

Benson's First Birthday

Benson is now one year old! Actually, he's been one for a couple weeks now, but we are only just now putting it up on the blog. He's been a wonderful addition to our family! He is often very smiley and now that he has learned to walk it's been fun to watch him start doing some heavy duty exploring. 

The sister missionaries came over to help us celebrate and Abigail organized a couple of party games for us to play outside.

Benson liked his cake a lot and he even let Abby blow the candle out!

Tetherball

Several weeks ago, we were getting ready to pull out an old rusted out pole in our yard that used to have a basketball backboard on it. Benjamin got the idea to instead repaint it black and turn it into a tetherball pole. He made it so we can detach the tetherball from the pole without having to get a ladder. The kids seem to like it and it looks so much better than it did before!

Benson's Tongue

Benson loves sticking his tongue out and we have gathered so many pictures and videos of him doing it that Benjamin decided to make a cool movie out of it. It loads in 360p, but the image will be sharper if you select 480p. Enjoy!

Emily Drama Queen

I was on the news and I didn't even know it!

I volunteered to be a judge at a regional high school "Physics Olympics" competition hosted by the University I work at and the local AEA. It turns out I got filmed and put on the local news. I wasn't interviewed or anything, but it was still a pleasant surprise. Click here if you would like to see it. I show up within the first few seconds of the video.

Family Pictures

We got some family pictures taken a few weeks ago and we bought a package where they gave us all of the pictures on a CD. Here are some of our Favorites...