Ice Storm

Yesterday we had an ice storm come through, they canceled school early and even businesses closed early. The mall closed at 2pm, and Josh's work even let out early, and they even closed the temple. So when I woke up I took these pictures of our ice world. It's rather pretty, but a little dangerous. I was watching one of our neighbors Mom's try and get up their drive way but she was just spinning, she would make it to the top and slide down to the bottom. I wish I had my camera ready for that one, that would have made a great video. I'm just a little worried about flying today. Right now we are delayed 25 minutes, I hope that that is all it is. Hopefully we will make it to Utah safely tonight! Farewell to we get back!

Allergic

So a couple of weeks ago we had breakfast for dinner, something very common for our family, and now that Bryson is eating with us and not his baby food anymore he also had some eggs and French toast, until he started to look like this...

(notice his left eye, your right, and around his mouth)

So I gave him some Benadryl and it went away. I was a little weirded out by it since I don't have any allergies to anything, and neither does Josh, so why would he be allergic to eggs. So a couple of weeks later we had eggs again and I gave them to him to see if he would react again. The exact same thing happened. So, I got an appointment scheduled with an allergist and today we had his appointment. They test allergies to everything, seasonal, common food allergies, dust, smoke, pets... all that stuff. This is what it looks like...
Each little dot represents the different allergies they test. He ended up having 2 allergies... Eggs & Dust mites. Eggs are on the top right of the picture and dust is on the bottom under column D.
So now no eggs for Bryson. How do I cook with no eggs??? Cookies, brownies, everything? I know people have allergies to eggs, but I really hope that he out grows this. I don't know how to cook without eggs.

A Prophet's Prayer

I recieved my LDS news today and there was this story about one of the prayers that President Hinckley gave back in 2000 over the youth of the church, and recently was put to music. I just wanted to share this beautiful song and what a great inspiration it is to anyone with kids. Follow this link to read the story and read the actual prayer that was given by President Hinckley, and of course hear the song.

A Prophet's Prayer

My Valentines

Josh:
I love how you make me laugh.
I love your good looks.
I love your passion for dentistry, & your willingness to never give up.
I love how you make me want to be a better person.
I love how you dance.
I love that you cook for me.
I love how smart you are.
I love that you love me for me.
I love what a good Dad you are.

I LOVE YOU!

Megan:

I love your smile
I love your freckles.
I love your willingness to help.
I love your laugh.
I love what a good sister you are.
I love how you love to try new things.
I love how smart you are.
I love that you are friendly and make people laugh.

I LOVE YOU!

Bryson:

I love your laugh.
I love how you walk.
I love your hugs.
I love how you snuggle your blanket.
I love watching you explore new things.
I love your big blue eyes.

I LOVE YOU!

2 Snow Days!

We have had a lot of snow the past few days. We received 2 inches (that's a lot for here.) On Monday night and everything got canceled on Tuesday, Josh's work even shut down for the day, except they forgot to call and tell him so he drove down the nearly vacant roads to work, slid through one stop sign, but made it, just to turn around and come home. It was really nice to have him home for a day especially since I still had to baby sit and had 3 kids plus mine to baby sit. Then again Wednesday they had another snow day since on Tuesday it had started to rain during the day and the temperatures were going to freeze overnight making the roads slick to drive on, plus we received some more snow. Luckily today on Valentines Day, Megan was able to go to school and exchange Valentines with her friends!

Below are pictures of the kids playing in the snow, this was Bryson's first time in the snow. He doesn't have any snow gear, so he was in Megan's old boots which were very big on him, he could barely walk, he made it to this spot and fell and never got up till we went inside.
He also has on his stylish swim shorts for this year to help keep his other pants dry. He was styling!

Recipe Search

I was wondering if anyone has a good homemade Macaroni & Cheese Recipe that you like to make? I have 4 little kids to feed and they all love Macaroni, and I have lots of Macaroni noodles. Thanks for your help!

Curls

While we were gone in Nashville, the babysitter put curlers in Megan's hair and took these pictures to share. I think that Megan looked so cute, and she LOVED her curly hair. What a girl!

(Megan's face is covered in pizza sauce, messy!)

Crown Council in Nashville

Josh was so lucky to go down to Nashville with his work, Mortenson Family Dental and take part in this amazing weekend. Josh left on Thursday afternoon and WE (yes "we", since I joined him Saturday evening) returned Sunday morning. I survived just fine without him staying busy and I didn't even block the doors with chairs like I usually do. (Paranoid I know.) But I am going to have Josh tell you in his words about his weekend, since I was not there. Here is a link to view all of the pictures, and there are a couple of videos below. Here is Josh...


I went to the Crown Council Annual Event in Nashville. It was a great meeting with a lot of great dental professionals. The speakers were amazing. They were really motivating and they reminded me of what I really want to do with my life and how much I want to be a dentist. I heard from Vince Poscente, a former Olympian speed skier, David Neeleman, founder and chairman of the board of JetBlue airlines, Dr. Joseph A Michelli, author of the Starbucks Experience, and Robin Crow, an amazing guitarist and founder of Dark Horse records. All of them were incredible. The Gaylord Opryland Hotel was enormous. There are huge atriums with incredible gardens and waterfalls. The entire weekend was one of the greatest weekends I have ever had and I was extremely excited to have Alexis join me for the Garth Brooks concert. By far the best concert ever. Overall, I learned a great deal about the vision and excitement surrounding dentistry and what I personally need to do to ensure my success not only as a dental professional but as an individual in my community. Oh yeah, there also was a performance by the African Children's Choir. Truly a heartwarming story and inspirational singing. Each child in the choir has lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS. Once chosen to sing in the choir they perform for one year to earn money for education. Upon completing the year each child has enough money to go to school and earn a degree so that they can improve their lives.

Enjoy the video of these beautiful children.




Robin Crow playing one of his many guitar numbers during his speach.

Aint Goin Down Till the Sun Comes Up

So I waited for almost 2 hours trying to upload this video using blogger and so I found somewhere else to do it. But this is the last video we got since they told us to stop recording during this song.
Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing - Photo Books

A Night to Remember!

What an AMAZING weekend. Words cannot discribe the time that we had, I am SO happy that I was able to go down with Josh to see the Garth Brooks concert. I can't even thank our friends Brandi & Alan enough for coming over to watch Megan & Bryson on such short notice, and over night too, THANK YOU! What wonderful friends. We owe you guys! So I know that you all just want to see pictures, and since we took so many I just uploaded them to the web, so click here to view all the pictures, and there is some video footage below, Josh videoed until he was told that he couldn't. But let me just tell you how INCREDIBLE our seats were. And I really owe it to Josh's co-worker James for giving up his ticket since it was next to Josh so that we could sit together. He didn't realize what he was giving up, and really got a hard time for it. Apparently the lady in charge of all the seats put Josh & James up front since they did A LOT of the work (made whitening trays & performed the zoom whitening) to reward them for all of their hard work. What an award! Before the concert we were able to meet Garth and what a gentleman. He took his hat off when he shook hands with every girl, and introduced himself "Hi, I'm Garth, what's your name?" as he shook your hand. And since we were the last group he even let us take some personal photos.

So... no words can discribe the evening, I am just grateful to have been able to share this with Josh, Thank you Sue & Wayne Mortenson!

So I just wanted to say a little bit about the concert. It started off with a few of his songs, talking about what music inspired him growing up and how he came up with some songs. Then he took requests for the rest of the evening (2 full hours) he just said that he would perfer if they were his songs, but he did play one that his wife sings, it was great! Then for the encore he came back out and sang old classics that he loved growing up, like Piano Man, Bye Bye Miss American Pie (I don't know if that is what is really called.) & others that I don't remember the names of, I'm sure that my parents would know them all though. It was a great concert singing with "The G Man", he is so funny, entertaining, & a gentleman.

Now here are a few videos of some songs that he sang:

Here is part of the song of SHAMELESS!

Singing RODEO

Change of Plans

So today Josh told me that he got an extra ticket to the Garth Brooke's concert and that he wanted me to come down to Nashville to join him. So I called a good friend, and my visiting teacher to come and stay with Megan and Bryson for 24 hours with her husband, so that I could go join Josh. So no worries about taking Megan to the birthday party since I won't be here anymore, but now my worries are how Bryson is going to do, since this is going to be the first night leaving him. Thanks to wonderful friends, I get to join Josh for a once in a lifetime chance to see Garth Brooks in concert and stay at a hotel costing $219-$284 a night! Check back for pictures of it all Sunday or later! I'm OUT!!