Happy to be a Brimhall

This week was a special one since it was Heather’s 33rd Birthday. Yep, she is officially well into her 30’s. And how did she celebrate?? Andy told her she could sleep in, but who really sleeps in with dishes being washed and a baby screaming and Katie yelling for a bowl of cereal, so she just hid in her room and read a book until Andy finally opened the door and caught her red handed. But he made her breakfast and then the first
activity started. And what activity is worthy of a birthday? That’s right! You guessed it, cleaning house. This went on for about 2 hours and then the real fun began. Heather had told Andy that all she wanted to do was letterbox for her birthday. So unbeknownst to Heather, Andy created a box and cleverly planted it for her, in her honor. It is published on atlasquest.com under the title Grover the Groundhog. This had to be about the best gift ever. So off we went (after figuring out the clues online) and in 20 degree weather, ran to the box, grabbed it and headed to Fritz’s restaurant and rootbeer bottling plant for lunch.
It was so fun. They brought you a rootbeer float sundae for your birthday and we all gobbled it down rather quickly. Katie especially loved it as all the kids meals came in little cars. Plus, you could watch them actually making, filling and labeling the rootbeer bottles while we ate. Once back in the car, we stamped into the logbook of Grover and then rehid the box where it went. Andy is so very clever.

Then we were off to find the box at the Deer Creek Rocket Slide Park that we had Searched so diligently for last weekbut could never find. The kids fell asleep on the way there but were quickly awakened and actually excited to go in below freezing weather and swing. What kids we are raising. I’m not sure what that says about us that we encourage this behavior when we are all sick. But it was fun. The day continued with sharing cake with our friends across the street and playing Sleuth. A game that Andy won for the first time (or so he says). What a wonderful night! Thank you!!

Andy was busy this week preparing letterboxes and teaching. He has struggled with whether to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday and decided against him though this meant missing out on a fun party with friends. It’s not always easy to try and follow gospel principles. This was a big week for him with presenting. The Stake had a couples sweetheart ball and Andy was a key speaker at it. He spoke on communication is marriage. Everyone was relaxed in his presentation and really enjoyed it. He spoke about trying to avoid pitfalls, changing your perspective and made an excellent analogy between Moroni, Ammoron and Pahoran that everyone talked about in the next class. The entire night dancing was spent fending off comments from people on how great Andy was. But we did get to dance (well except for the weird single teddy bear mixer that left everyone uncomfortable) and we loved every minute of our date night without the children. But we did miss our friends that would dance with us in Lubbock. Everyone here was embarrassed or said they didn’t dance.

Katie started the week on a low point. She got so mad at Heather asking her to clean her room that she told (well really screamed) her: “I’m going to kill you.” Now where our nice, sweet daughter got this kind of language is of no consequence, and while Heather wanted to really explain that actually she was her favorite person and how Katie really loved her and should want to be like her, Heather marched her straight to time out. Katie sat on the chair and cried. Once she was cried out and Heather thought that Katie was ready to apologize for her comment, she told Katie to come talk to her. Katie then said, Mommy you need to pay me all your money for being mean to your kids. (Heather making Katie pay her money everytime she wants to do an activity or earn something). It took all she had not to laugh. The week continued with Katie playing dress up. And lacking a sister certainly didn’t stop her from having a partner. She played the fairy godmother and with a little bibbity bobbity boo, Baker was quickly transformed. She loved telling Heather that even though Heather wasn’t as pretty as Katie was, she could sit by her while they played. Obviously self esteem is not an issue with Katie.

Baker had a busy week of cruising around while he held onto chairs, toys and even the cats back. He will be walking in no time, which will perhaps help him escape from his sister. He loves to play exactly what she is and while Katie gets frustrated when he puts the littlepet shop animals in his mouth instead of talking with them as his brilliant sister does, she tries to understandand teach him how to play. He babbles more and more and Katie insists he is talking and that she understands, and her interpretations of what he says are priceless. He babbles one sound and she’ll interpret an entire sentence. It’s like watching a bad voice over of a Japanese movie. But he keeps us happy and laughing and loves on us just enough to let us know that he is happy to be a Brimhall.

Time for a Whitening?

Heather and I decided for Christmas that we wanted to upgrade our digital camera in order to enhance our family pictures. We have loved our first digital camera immensely but have recently realized its limitations. So with the help of Heather's father, Shelby and Jim, and three separate trips to Circuit City (exchanging cameras everytime we went) we picked a camera that we were satisfied with. One of the features that sold us on this camera was the fact that you could set it to only pick up a certain color within the photo and it would take the rest in black and white while enhancing that particular color. We weren't sure we believed their claims so we decided to take it for a test spin. Here are the results of our experiment. You'll notice in the picture above that we decided to focus on blue.

Next, we changed it to red. Look at that cute little devilish vixen. Isn't she adorable.



Now, here is where we were truly amazed. You'll notice earlier how I mentioned that it takes any hue of the color and truly enhances it. Notice poor little Baker's nose and cheeks. The red is faint but noticeable. Overall, we were very please with our new purchase. That is until we tried the yellow. Again, I remind you that the goal of the camera is to take any hue of the accent color and enhance it (or maybe I am just saying that to make myself feel better). Either way, it doesn't feel like I have an inch of yellow fuzz on my teeth. But you know what they say, the camera never lies. Let's just hope (like the myth that the camera adds 10 pounds) that it's really not as bad as it seems. At least Katie came out looking like a princess!