Holiday Happenings

Last Saturday BYU got into the Las Vegas Bowl, so Bob took the boys. They had a great time even though BYU lost.

Bob is proud of the solid sports fan Danny is turning out to be. He loves all things BYU and any sport. Just to give an idea of how Danny's mind works, yesterday on his first day of Christmas break, Danny got up and played three games of college football on the Wii. He was, of course, the BYU cougars every time. He keeps records of each game he plays on the wii with the teams that played and the final score. Then he got on his laptop and went to BYU's website, found their sports section and cheered for the cougars as he watch some archived sports highlights. Then he needed a little action so he went in the living room and played football by himself, while commentating on his game. Then his friend came over and they played soccer.

Rachel and I spent Saturday at the Nevada Ballet's Nutcracker. We had a great, girly afternoon.

That's Crazy Talk

Aaron wanted to watch 'Horton Have a Hoo' (Horton Hears a Who) today, so he retreated to the master bedroom because somebody was already using the TV in the front. He's pretty tech savvy - surfing the web and all - so he was able to handle the DVD. About 10-15 minutes passed before he yelled out 'Mom, they're talking crazy!' Aaron has expressed similar statements before about the movie (when it transitions to a Japanese anime scene), so Jean fast-forwarded through that segment and walked down the hall to tend to the laundry. Another minute or two passed and Aaron yelled out 'Mom, they're still talking crazy!' This time Jean returned and discovered that the movie had been playing in Spanish the whole time.

I always thought I could speak three languages, but now I know that I most assuredly can thanks to those four years of 'crazy talk' I took in high school.

More snow pictures

Las Vegas had one of the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) snowstorms in many years last night. The Las Vegas strip got 3 1/2 inches. We hardly got any at our house, but that didn't stop them from canceling school today for a snow day. I took the kids to the park this morning to make a snowman.

It happened!

It snowed in Las Vegas. And it even stuck a little. Here are the kids trying to catch snowflakes.

And isn't this magical? All three kids are looking at the camera and smiling.

This Isn't Right

Forecast for snow? What is this nonsense?

I'm calling Las Vegas and telling them that I want a refund.

Lights at Temple Square

We went to Utah for Thanksgiving. And while we were there we went to Temple Square to show the kids the lights. We had a fun time. After we got back home, Aaron told me he didn't like the temple lights. I asked him why and he said because "it was too cold!" I guess that's what we get for raising kids in Las Vegas.
Rachel was having a fun time posing for the camera that night.

The Rule of Cool

Aaron is still adamant that he isn't cute or handsome, only cool. So today I asked him if I was cool. He said no. I would have felt bad except that he followed that up by explaining that I was fancy. All girls are fancy and boys are cool. That's just how it is.

Graffiti and Other Kid Behavior

Jean and I will occasionally leave the digital camera in places where little hands can find it. It's always entertaining to see what the kids do with it.

Here are some recent examples:

What Aaron does when he's waiting for one of his web pages to load.

Danny was apparently upset with the paparazzi over this candid shot.

This next picture shows one of our kid-sized chairs that the kids use in the playroom. It was recently vandalized. We're still trying to track down the criminal. Please pass along any information that could lead us to his/her apprehension.

The next two photos were taken by adults to document some of the nutty things that the 'wildlife' leaves behind.

Each of the kids have their own whiteboard. This is Danny's. We think we've been able to decipher his most recent message, thanks in large part to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone. Here's the translation:

I'm crasy!!! I will tacl (tackle) you !!! I will git you in jale (jail)!!!

Jeez, Danny. We need to put an end to all of that talk about tacling people in jale. That's CRASY!!! At least it's probably not the worst thing that could happen to you while incarcerated, but still not a good thing to git tacled in jale.

We happened upon this scene one evening this past week. From what we can gather it looks like these animals are endangered. We believe there's a total species population of 3. We'll do a census count early next year and hope to find another male.

Here's some raw footage of these animals that was taken by them while in their native habitat:

Just Another Night With the Coxes

Jean and I were cleaning up from this evening's dinner when we heard an all-too-common voice echoing from the other side of the house. We hear this little voice repeat this same phrase 2 or 3 times a day. Here's a glimpse at Aaron in real life:



Later in the evening, our pretty young girl was sitting in my lap as the following conversation unfolded:

Jean: Look at our girl's hair. Isn't it pretty?

Bob: Almost as pretty as mine.

Rachel: No it's not, Dad. You don't have any hair.

I'm depressed. I think I'll go an have a smoke to relieve the stress.

U-N-L-V, Go, Fight, Win!

We went to our second UNLV football game as a family last night and enjoyed another pleasant evening at Sam Boyd Stadium. The Rebels pulled off a victory and beat the University of New Mexico Lobos, 27-20 in front of a crowd of 13,154. That's why we love going to the Rebel games - small crowds. We find a little spot about 20 rows up from the field and set up shop by securing a 10-row buffer around our lucky bench. Tradition holds that we purchase an oversized bag of kettle korn and dig in while we watch the action down on the field. Well, Bob watches the action on the field. The kids spend most of their time chasing each other and the crickets (when it's warm enough for them to make an appearance).

Dance Moves

Fancy Nancy

Rachel decided to get all her jewelry on last night while the kids were dancing in the front room.

This is the boy version:

I'll post their dance moves soon.

Halloween Night!

Another successful Halloween! Lots of loot with minimal amounts of sweat - sweating in late October may sound unfamiliar to most of you, but we do live in the desert.

This year we herded a Batman, Ariel and Darth Vader around the neighborhood.

We had a humorous moment towards the end of the evening when Aaron approached a lady for some candy. As the lady doled out the candy, she said "Here you go, baby." The candy lady said this in an endearing way with no intent to insult, but Aaron is especially sensitive to that word as he is a big 3 year-old boy and all. After the exchange of words and candy, Batman (aka Aaron) turned around, hunched his shoulders and in a sulky, mopey, stick out your lower-lip sort of way exclaimed "She called me a baby and I am NOT a baby!" The candy lady overheard him, offered her apologies and then joined us in having a good laugh.

This was the second time that Aaron has had to fend off these types of statements this week. Jean and Aaron were out grocery shopping earlier this week and were paying for their purchases when the cashier placed some eggs on the little fold-out seat of the grocery cart. As she did so, the cashier heard Aaron (without seeing him - because if she'd have seen him, she would have altered her next statement) and said "Ohh, do you want these taken out of the seat for your baby?" Awwwwwww - snap! Aaron overheard this and immediately began to protest "I AM NOT A BABY!"

I repeat: Aaron is not a baby. He's a big boy.

Consider yourselves forewarned.

More Halloween Pics:

Halloween

Rachel Runs for Office

Yard signs are commonplace these days. Our yard has escaped the plague of these eyesores, or at least that's what I thought. I drove up to our house at the end of the workday this past week to find that Rachel has decided to run for political office. Well . . . not really, she's just noticed that yard signs are the hip thing to do these days and was in a creative mood.

If you vote for Rachel, you'll get real change; change you can believe in. She'll solve the energy crunch by giving everybody a pony, covering graffiti with pink paint, requiring all citizens to sing for at least half of the day and delivering copious amounts of salt (Rachel's favorite condiment) for use on their vegetables and french fries.

She's got my vote.

Dinner Conversations

We had some good chats at the dinner table this evening, so we thought we'd share some of the witty humor that was passed around.

Conversation #1 - Always
Jean: I've got to go Visiting Teaching at 6 tonight.
Danny: You have to go again?
Jean: Always. I go every month. I need to go visit people and make sure they're doing OK and help them if they're not.
Danny: Always?
Bob: Yeah, it's kind of like Wal-Mart.
Jean: (Rolls her eyes and smirks. 2 seconds of silence).
Danny: (Audible laughter). It is like Wal-Mart! Always low prices. Always.

There are two things that one can deduct from this conversation: 1 - Danny is a bright boy and was able to pick-up on his Dad's humor even when his mother didn't want to acknowledge that anything funny was said. 2 - Bob's humor is designed for 6-year-olds. Both are true.

Conversation #2 - A-B Patterns
Danny: Can I have some more cake?
Bob: No. You need to eat more dinner before you have more cake.
Danny: More dinner!?!?
Rachel: Yeah, Danny. It's like an A-B pattern. A, you eat your dinner, then B, you get dessert.
Jean: (Laughter) You're funny, girl!
Danny: I want to follow a B-B pattern. Eat dessert, then eat more dessert.

Here's an A-B pattern for ya - A, Rachel says something insightful and amusing, B everybody laughs. The end.

Aaron is 3!

Today is Aaron's "fake birthday". According to our kids the real birthday is when we celebrate with cake and presents the fake birthday is the actual date.

We asked Danny and Rachel what they love about Aaron and this is what they had to say:

Danny: "I love Aaron because he makes me laugh and tackles me."

Rachel: "I love Aaron because he shares his toys."

We all love Aaron because he's a live wire and always seems to be running his act from comedy headquarters. It's pretty common for Danny and Rachel to find something humorous that they've discovered in Aaron and bring him in tow to show their parents the new monkey tricks. He gets unanimous votes from our family for being the funniest member of our clan. He loves sports (he got the most out of our trip to watch the UNLV vs. Air Force football game last night - dancing when the band would play, watching the UNLV dancing girls in their glittery red dresses, etc.), rough-housing (ie thrown on the couch), monster trucks, running, his 'comfy' blanket and mounds of fruit snacks.

Happy Fake Birthday, Aaron!!

Aaron's 3rd Birthday

Halloween pumpkins

We painted pumpkins this week instead of carving them. We picked paint over knives for lots of reasons. The kids can do it all themselves, they hate to actually touch the slimy insides of the pumpkin, and because in the warm weather in Las Vegas, if you carve them too early they rot and cave in before Halloween comes.

And this is just a bonus picture of my Dad when they visited last weekend. Aaron took the picture and it looks a little halloween-ish.

Counting from 1 to 8

Jean's parents were in town this weekend to help celebrate Aaron's third birthday (more to come on that later).

Part of our action-packed Saturday included the obligatory trip to one of Danny's soccer games. This was the first time he has had spectators outside of his immediate family and he did not fail to impress. Final score: Danny - 8, Other Team - not enough.

Here's the highlight reel (special footage at the end):

See Danny Run. See Danny Write.

Danny participated in a mile-long run for PE today. He finished first out of two 1st grade classes and managed to clock-in under 12 minutes. Not bad for a six year-old. He said he didn't even break a sweat.

We also received a collection of short stories that Danny wrote recently. We've been learning all kinds of new things by reading his literary works. For example, ducks have water 'poof' feathers. Really though - he's got some decent spelling and grammar considering the fact that he wasn't pounding it out on a keyboard or using a spell-checker.

Candy Pumpkins

I live for these things in September and October. They sell out fast at lots of stores, so you have to shop early. Danny and Rachel both used to like them, but they had their fill after the first couple of bags I bought and now they don't touch them. But Aaron is right there with me. We both hunt the isles of every grocery store we go to in search of the Candy Pumpkins. Most stores now are just down to candy corns, which just are not the same. Today Aaron talked me into buying the "Autumn Mix" which has pumpkins and candy corns. The pumpkins are all picked out of it now. We'll have to make some halloween cupcakes or something to use up all those candy corns.

Policy Before Cooties

Danny confided in us this past week that he was tired of running during recess and before-school free time. He told us that he is having to run because there are two girls in his class that chase him around the schoolyard threatening him with kisses. You could tell he was appalled because there are obviously more interesting and pressing things he could be doing with his time, but he was most disturbed by the girls' disregard for school policy. "I kept yelling at them that they were going to break the 'Hands off Policy', but they wouldn't listen!" he exclaimed.

Danny is a by-the-book kid. Clearly he was concerned about his exposure to the dreaded disease known as Cooties, but he was just as worried that the girls would break the school's stance that there be no physical interaction between students & teachers. As a result of this incident and Danny's choosing to share it with his parents (keep 'em coming Danny), the phrase "Ahhhhh - stop it! You're breaking the Hands Off Policy!" or its variant has become a common refrain in our house.

Thankfully, Danny takes it in stride, just like his laps around the schoolyard.

Danny's Halloween Decoration

The kids were out of school today for a teacher in-service so Danny used his time to make some great Halloween decorations. There are three ghosts above his head. And the other picture is two mummies and a ninja.

Go Cougs!

A couple weeks ago we went to Utah so Bob could get a Cougar fix. We wanted to go to the Homecoming game, but apparently when the cougars are doing well, the tickets sell out earlier. So we got to go to the BYU vs Wyoming game. It was pretty warm and crowded. Bob and his friend, Josh loved it. Danny and I also went. We had fun, but we spent half the time wandering under the stadium eating churros and snow cones.

We also visited Janai and Jeremiah at their cute new house and the awesome little farm by their house.

We like Aaron's great poses.

Rachel the Movie Star

This past weekend we travelled to Provo to watch the Cougars execute another defensive shutout against their opponent. This time it was against Wyoming, 44-0. While we were there, we made time to visit Jean's brother, Casey. Uncle Casey works in the basement of the BYU Bookstore and makes all kinds of audio/visual goodies for their advertising team.

While shopping in the clothing section of the BYU bookstore, Rachel was inspired to sing an ad hoc song about BYU socks. Problem was that it came out sounding like 'BYU sucks!' Uncle Casey's creative skills kicked in and this little video gem is the result of his ingenuity - now showing on the in-house TVs at the BYU Bookstore:

Nice job, Casey and Rachel.

GO COUGARS!

Kid's careers

Today the kids were talking about what they want to be when they grow up.

Danny: Zoo keeper
Rachel: Horse rider
Aaron: Monster truck driver.

"I'm not handsome, I'm cool"

According to Aaron, he is no longer handsome or cute, he's cool instead. He'll accept good-looking, but the other two will be rejected if you say them.

Rainbow In Las Vegas

The kids were so excited about this rainbow. We almost never get rain in Las Vegas, let alone a rainbow. We all had to run out to see it. And the kids look so cute here. Aaron learned his posing skills from Rachel, but he takes it to the extreme! And he lost his pants to a milk accident at dinner.

Slugger Danny - Feb 2005

Here's one from the archives:

*Poof* - Grass Be Gone!

In the first week of August I finished up a month-long project of converting our front yard to desert landscaping (xeriscape if you want to get technical). Of course I had to pick the hottest part of the year (the project started with a bang on the 4th of July). I would weigh myself in the morning, go out and work for 10-12 hours in the sun, consume lots of water to keep hydrated and check my weight at the conlcusion of the day to find that I had lost 8lbs.

Water is expensive in Vegas and for good reason - we live in a desert. The Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) maintains that 41% of all water used in the Las Vegas Valley goes to residential landscaping and about a quarter of that amount is wasted due to poor/wasteful watering practices (watering at noon, broken sprinkler heads, etc.). So in order to curb consumption and lengthen our water supply SNWA provides a rebate of $1.50 for each square foot of grass that residents 'xeriscape'. The rebate will cover all of our costs (my time/labor and all materials and rentals) and we actually stand to make a pretty penny. This doesn't account for the fact that our water bill for August 2008 was $30 cheaper than August 2007. Nice. The other benefit - it only takes me 5 minutes to mow the backyard and I'm done. Rocks don't grow.

Here's a before and after. Click here to see some other photos

Rudolph

Rachel requests only one song to be sung to her every night. We try to offer other options, but she always turns them down. Either Bob or I have sung Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer to Rachel at bedtime since Christmas '06!

HP Bob

Last Friday I left Las Vegas to collect three more state high points. 52 hours and 2,100 miles later I arrived back in Vegas after having visited the high points in New Mexico (Wheeler Peak - 13,161'), Oklahoma (Black Mesa - 4,975') and Kansas (Mount Sunflower - 4,039'. Yes, Mount Sunflower - every state has to have a high point). Rather than bore you with all the details, I'll give you a link to the photos and the driving route we took.

These three high points brought me to a total of 20 (40% done). My thanks to Paul for accompanying me and helping with the driving on this trip.

Wheeler Peak, NM

Black Mesa, OK

Mount Sunflower, KS (circa 02:00)

Yes, that's the same shirt in all three photos. My shirt and body have been washed since. We all smell better now and Jean is happy.