More Questions From Blake . . .

These are just a few of Blake's inquiries over the past few days . . .

• Are there any L.D.S. robbers?
• Who invented Satan?
• There probably weren't any schools in the first year of Earth, were there?

Where is my parenting manual?

The SLACKER tooth fairy failed to deliver yet again, so I had to do some quick thinking to appease Marinne when she asked why her tooth was still under her pillow. Then the same day, Blake asked if all children have the same color eyes as their parents and why kids look like the dad if they only come out of the mom. How do I give an age appropriate answer for that one? My lame answer apparently didn't cut it, because he continued to ask, "But HOW does that happen?". The kid is 6 and should stop thinking this deeply! If someone could please publish a quick reference answer book for questions like these, I would pay a pretty penny to buy it!

KUNG FU FIGHTING

Congratulations, Blake!!! Blake earned his green belt with a white stripe at his karate testing. I especially like karate because the kids are supposed to do "homework" such as taking out the garbage and making their beds. They also recite a karate pledge which states, "I will respect my parents". Yeah!

Happy New Year!

It has been a crazy month!!! That is my lame excuse for not updating this in a long time! Here are some pics from our Christmas festivities. Our big family gift from Santa was a Wii. It's really fun, even for the parents! Santa also replaced the hiddeous light fixture above our table with this one! The old one was basically an upside down plastic bowl hanging from a brassy gold

chain! YUCK! Ray will now take that one to the desert and "shoot it up" with the new shotgun he got for Christmas (thanks, Sam!). All of my siblings were in town, so my mom sprung a last minute family photo shoot on us. I'm sure she did not give advanced warning this year because she didn't want to allow time for mustache growth, which was planned by Richard for last year's picture. Please note the pic of my siblings and I, in which my brothers are not making silly faces of any kind. This is a monumental development, because one or both of these lads have been making some goofy expression in every family picture (including my wedding photos) since 1982. My mother promptly blew that one up and framed it because she was so delighted. I made the birthday sign for my mom's Christmas present, thanks to the idea I stole off Ashley's blog. We were able to go to Utah for a short visit after Christmas and spend time with Ray's fam. The kids were in heaven running wild with their cousins for 4 days. We weren't surprised in the least that Marinne and Blake caught strep throat! We did a temple session with Ray's parents and most of his siblings at the Jordan River temple. We also went to BYU to bowl and then feasted at Brick Oven. It makes me so happy to go back there, because I have such great college memories. New Years Eve was a real party - driving back from Utah all day and then sorting through the Christmas mess and unpacking. Someday I will have some sort of real party on New Year's Eve. Oh Well. Happy New Year! My resolutions are too many to mention, but the main one involves the fact that I have recently seen some scaaaary numbers on the scale and am now eating a Special K bar for lunch.