The Chronicles of James

People say that the youngest child has the least amount of pictures compared to the oldest child.  Not in James's case.  He has plenty.  Especially this year, because his 6th grade teacher Mrs. Jacobsen has kept him busy with a lot of projects!

James and his group (Camden, Zach and Hallie) were tasked with making a city out of sugary substances.  They were required to have water, bridges and some sort of protection, as well as a number of critical buildings a city would need.  I think I have to increase my insulin just looking at it.

James has been insistent on a buzz cut for the last year.  It sure is easier for both of us and I figured why not do it during elementary school while he still doesn't care too much what his hair looks like.

This is James taking a picture of me.  You don't see me in the picture? That's because I'm posing on the other side of the camera while he takes selfies with my phone.

That's James for you: our happy Captain America.  He's happiest though when he's reading a book.

Fall 2016 was the first year James started wrestling competitively.  He won a few matches and learned a lot from the ones he lost, so it was a winning season in my book and I think in his too because his losses didn't deter him from wrestling.

One of James's 6th grade projects was a presentation called Images of Greatness, where students chose a person in the past, studied them, wrote about how they achieved greatness, wrote a 6 stanza poem about them, memorized it and recited it to an audience.

James chose J.R.R. Tolkien and was mostly excited to wear that hat and pretend to smoke that pipe (thank you Amazon).

Christmas program. Last one of his elementary school years.

James is being industrious here.  His scout troop is making their own knives and he was lucky enough to be included even though he wasn't quite an official member of the scout troop yet.  

Wacka Wacka Woo!

As I look through all the pictures for posting, I come across a number of wacky ones.

For your pleasure:

I got hooked on watching America's Got Talent during Fall of 2016 and I just had to show the boys a couple of the fascinating acts.  One was a comedian called Tape Face, who did a funny mime-like act with tape across his mouth.  He had a funky hairstyle that Spencer tried to duplicate. Thankfully it didn't last past this picture.

You know you are a Utah fan when after you get a dog, you are pleased that she conforms to Utah colors.  Yes she has a red collar and is cool like that.

I have a love hate relationship with this picture.  There is a water bottle on that high up window pane because DJ or one of his friends flipped it up there.  Bottle-flipping.  You take a half empty water bottle and flip it, hoping it will land right side up using centripetal force or something?  It's kind of cool when you get it to land where you want.  The hate part about this picture is that it takes 4,538 (give or take a few) times to flip it to where you want it and I have to listen to 4,537 thunks before it hits its mark.

While taking out the garden this fall, I discovered I was wearing just the right material for leaves to cling to.  Which reminded me of Uncle David's proudest Halloween costume: man in the wind.  His was much cooler than mine thought.

I have a friend who I don't see as often as I want even though she lives only two streets south of me, we just go in different directions.  But every year for our birthdays we do something silly for each other.  She said she was in a store and saw this outfit and it just screamed LISA! So now I am the owner of a coconut bra Minion (Depicable Me).  The conundrum is where it belongs in my closet.

The toy room get less and less use as the boys get older, but when they revisit their toys, they come up with good stuff.  James made a funky long-brimmed baseball cap out of Zoobs.

D.J.'s glasses broke while wrestling Spencer one night. He had all sorts of fun with his frames.

Cute. Not wacky.

D.J. decided one of his favorite snacks is graham cracker, with or without chocolate, and squirty whipped cream. Creativity at it's finest!

Happy Halloween! 2016

Halloween began with just a few decorations (Mom, you don't really need to decorate this year.  To which I answered: great!)  But my Aunt Kaye stopped by and left a Halloween salutation on cow clock udders.  Last year I cleaned up a bunch of cow clocks that my Grandpa made and donated them to the Festival of Trees, but I didn't feel the need to attach the udders on the pendulum, so I gave her a shoe box full of udders for Christmas.  She drove all the way up from Provo to give me this utterly spooky message.  After taking the message down, I played Boggle with the udders and sent her pictures of many of the 90-something words I arranged.  After filling up her phone memory, she asked me to stop sending so udderly many pictures.  Thankfully the battle has stopped.  I think.

Pumpkins seem to be the strongest and most loved tradition of Halloween in our family.  It's a fun night of creativity and togetherness.

I opted for a sort of Day of the Dead pumpkin.

D.J. went with the U of U pumpkin this year.

James chose the death by knifes pumpkin.

Mark chose the understated pumpkin design. He was quite proud.

And of course we needed to hear and see "Hey, that's pretty good!" one more time, so Spencer designed that for his pumpkin.

The only dresser-upper this year was James. His class performed Michael Jackson's Thriller in flash mob style during his school's Halloween parade.  Thank goodness a zombie costume is easy to put together, or rather, pull apart.

While the older two boys found parties to go to, James grabbed a pillowcase and started running.  I'm not sure how many neighborhood he cased, but it was enough to amass a Twix tower.

Spencer Could Not Possibly Be 16-Years-Old!

This is Spencer's life theme.

He says it all the time. Like this:

HEEEY! THAT's pretty good!

So I made it into a cake.

It's also indicative of Spencer's happy attitude toward life (most of the time). 

He certainly had a happy attitude when he saw this little box beneath his cake, and opened it to find a car key!

Alas, there was no car outside. Tricky Dad.

But when he came back into the house he heard a ring tone coming from a hidden corner.

AW! DANG! AW! DANG! AW! DANG! over and over until he found the source: a new cell phone!  Finally a phone of his own!

This calls for a celebration!  Guzzling Huckleberry soda. By the way, his birthday was on a Sunday and we opened gifts right before going down town to General Conference.

He was very pleased with the back pack Granna gave him as well as the money necklace from Grandpa and Grandma (not pictured).

Spencer keeps our lives moving and hopping and laughing! He loves to be social, loves to wrestle, loves his hair do and his growing muscles.  He has a good heart, loves to talk and loves "dank memes." And we love him!

Fall Means Football 2016

I get the privilege of going to the first Utah football game of the season and I love it.  I let the other boys take turns the rest of the season.  Although, this season, Spencer got a job putting up and taking down stadium seats, so he got into the games for free!  So, DJ went to most of the games with Mark because James is still more partial to reading books during the game.

Since Mark and DJ usually waited for Spencer to finish seat take down after the game, they would sometimes see players that they thought were pretty cool.  D.J. was happy to get a picture with Tom Hackett, a punter who won the Ray Guy award twice.

Every season ESPN Game Day will choose a school to broadcast at beginning in the wee hours of the morning.  For one weekend this year, they chose to come to Utah for the Utah v Washington game.  They set up in President's Circle and many fans come to yell, scream and wave funny signs. So the boys had to join in.  This "Straight Outta Compton" sign was a lot of work, but it was D.J.'s choice since he is a Cory Butler-Byrd fan and Mr. Butler-Byrd is from Compton.

A big red U is a must.

This is Mark's creation.  Todd Graham coaches Arizona State University and has been known to steal signs (hand signal, words, actual signs) that the other team is using for their plays, to his advantage.  So an opposing team (Oregon) started using sheets to block Coach Graham from seeing their signs.  So, we have a sheet, covering a sign.  Clever, huh?

A few hours before the game the football team walks to the stadium while fans stand by and give high fives and cheers. D.J. and Mark even got a picture with Swoop!

We are Kyle Wittingham fans at our house, but we became even bigger fans when he walked by DJ and then he bent down in the middle of the Ute Walk to pick up a hat that someone had lost. Nice people are great!

Spencer's stadium job required him to bring four or five friends to help and there usually wasn't a shortage of teenage boys wanting to get into the game for free.  It was no different for Game Day.  Mark treated them to McDonald's before they left, purchasing somewhere around 16 egg McMuffins, consumed within minutes after purchase.  Pictured here is Isaac Stark, Seth Larsen, Spencer, Hayden Christiansen, Spencer Guggesburg and D.J.

On the home front, I was looking hard for them all through the broadcast but could never find them. Yes I watch all the football games.

But when Mark got home he pin pointed right where they were. D.J. is holding up the Compton sign and Mark is to his left with a "U" hand.

Fun football memories!