Monday, January 27, 2014

December 17th

Since Jason didn't had a bought of sleeplessness he didn't really want to get up to go to school.  He fell back asleep while we were waiting for the bus.  Jasons time at school is my recovery period when he doesn't sleep.  Sometimes I feel like a bad Mom for making him go to school, but if he doesn't then I don't recoup.


And of course he couldn't bring home a Gem such as this!  Jason doesn't smile for the camera.


That evening was Duncan's orchestra Christmas concert.  He always does really well.  Somehow Brett and I were the only ones at that concert.  Janice had Jason and the girls and my folks weren't able to make it.  It was a little strange.

















Sunday, January 26, 2014

December 16th

Duncan got to pick up his glasses.  He loves them!  He actually wears them everyday, and really misses them when he doesn't have them.  All of a sudden my constant badgering for him to wear his glasses made some sense.


Jason didn't sleep the previous night.  I swear when he doesn't sleep he's actually sleep walking or something.  You can see how his eyes are dilated.  I think this was the only calm moment we had for about 36 hours.  He's always hyper and bouncing off the walls when he doesn't sleep.  I'm always wondering who he is seeing and if he's even with me at all when he's like this.


Saturday, January 25, 2014

December 14th


I decided to try my hand at crazy hat making.  I'm not that good.  I get to excited about the fringe.  I have to take some of the fringe off so it doesn't look so crazy.

Friday, January 24, 2014

December 13th


My Grandmother crochet all of her grand kids a tree skirt for our Christmas trees.  She even let us pick out our own colors.  I asked for a classic Christmas red, white and green and this was what she came up with.  I think it's beautiful!

Friday, January 17, 2014

From the kids ipod

My girls were obsessed with My Little Pony for a while.




Tori was really excited about having 17 subscribers on her Youtube Channel.

Duncan thinks he's really funny


December 12th

This was the magnificence that is my crochet ability.  Duncan took this to his Christmas Party and it was a big hit for the White Elephant game.


Tori had her Christmas band concert.  She did a fabulous job.  She got to play the first flute part because she had received one of the highest scores on her testings so she was thrilled about that.  Jason had to come with us, and amazingly he behaved through most of it. 





Once it was over, my Dad jumped up to leave with Samantha and Tori was helping put the things away.  We went out to the lobby and Tori couldn't find us.  That was probably OK though because she got to shake hands with President Uchtdorf and he told her they had done a great job.

December 10th

Duncan stayed home from school that morning to get glasses.  He's had a pair of glasses since he was in fifth grade, but he never would wear them.  I tried to get him to pick out some trendy glasses that I believe were even a Tony Hawk brand, but he wouldn't have it.  I finally gave up and he worked with the optical technician because I couldn't figure out what he wanted.  Finally he picked out a pair that were wire frames that were not very visible on his face.  He wore them for like two weeks and that was it.

Fast forward to his appointment.  Since I didn't want to spend a fortune on glasses and I could tell he really couldn't see we went to America's Best.  Before the appointment started we picked out some glasses.  I was a little awed and amazed at the ones he chose.  Yes, he got the thick rimmed black glasses that are anything but invisible. Since they were having their buy two sale I picked out a little mellower pair that he approved of for things like family pictures.  That and if he decided that he didn't like that big pair he had an alternative.  He has yet to put on the mellower pair and he has learned the benefit of wearing glasses.


I don't know if it was the extra time we spent together that morning, but Duncan was hounding me all day.  I posted this picture on Facebook and put "This boy won't stop pestering me."  He found my post very funny.


I also started crocheting again.  I made this hat for Duncan to take as a white elephant to a Christmas party but it was way too small.  But look how cute it is on Jason.


Thursday, January 16, 2014

December 9th

Morning's at our house right now are crazy.  Every other morning Brett gets Duncan to swimming by 7am.  Then I have to get Tori to school.  Then I get home and have to get Jason up and moving to get him on the bus.  Then Samantha needs to get out the door to meet up with her friends she walks to school with.  After that every other day I have to go get Duncan at the rec center.  We come home, he eats breakfast and then I have to get him to school by 9:00 am.  Every other day he just hangs out until I get him to school by 9:00 am.  
On this particular morning the bus was stuck.  There was a ton of snow, as you can see, and they couldn't get through the streets.  Duncan had called about fifteen minutes earlier and I was starting to worry that I wasn't going to get to him until after 9:00 am.  So I ran to get Duncan and made it back just in time to see that the bus was in front of our house.  The kids jumped out of the van and rushed him to the van so I didn't have to drive him to school in that mess.  I'm grateful for kids that will help me!

That afternoon Tori and Duncan tried out for the school play.

Tori was absolutely terrified. Which is hilarious to me because she would sing in front of the ward no problem, but you put her in front of someone who is actually going to critique here singing ability and she freaks out.  She is really hard to hear.  Part of the way through it Duncan puts the phone down, and I asked him what he was doing.  He looked really frustrated at me and said, "Mom, she's really nervous. This isn't helping."  How sweet is that!


Duncan has no questions about how awesome he is so he had no problem projecting.  The only thing he did that was maybe not so good, was he brought the words written down on a piece of paper.  That doesn't always impress the teacher who knows you have to memorize a bunch of lines and lyrics.


They had call backs and Duncan wanted to be sneaky and try to make Tori think only he had callbacks but she had already seen the list.  However it did work when they put up the cast list.  Duncan said, "Tori, they put up the cast list."  She immediately said, "I know!!!  I didn't get a part!!!"  Duncan then said, "Well, I got the lead in the Newsies song, and a cameo in another."  She than blurts out again, "I know Duncan, thanks!"  He continued, "And well, you got two parts!"  She screamed with Joy.  Tori will be playing Aunt Em in the over the rainbow part, and she will be an orphan in the Annie part of the show.  She was so excited, and Duncan just loved seeing her reaction when she found out she had been picked too.  


Wednesday, January 15, 2014

December 8th

  I know....I'm naughty!
Duncan and Brett got to speak in church and I took a picture of the two of them on the stand.

I don't have a copy of Brett's talk, but I do Duncan's.  He did a great job, and we got several complements on what a good job he did.

Hello, for those of you who don’t know me my name is Duncan Lutz. Yes, like Dunkin Donuts as if I have never heard that one before. Today I was asked to talk on Jesus Christ. Possibly the broadest topic you can be asked to speak on other than “We don’t care, you choose.” But before I start, I would just like to point out to the Bishopric that my sister, Tori, has not had the PLEASURE of giving a talk yet. And has informed me on several occasions that she actually WANTS to give a talk, I just thought you should know that. Now, because I was given such a broad topic, I thought I would go with something simple. Repentance and the Plan of Happiness, bear with me now, I promise I will tie this in to Jesus by the end of the talk. In case you don’t know, which you obviously do, repentance is forgiveness of your sins. Lds.org states quote “Repentance is more than simply acknowledging wrongdoings. It is a change of mind and heart. It includes turning away from sin and turning to God for forgiveness. It is motivated by love for God and the sincere desire to obey His commandments.” Close quote. The Plan of Happiness or the Plan of Salvation is the plan that Heavenly Father has put into place to allow his children to return to him. Now, as some of you might know I am on the Woods Cross swim team. Throughout the year so far we have traveled to several places including St. George, Layton, and Salt Lake. We mostly however tend to stay in our main pool at the South Davis Rec Center. Now in any team sport, for the most part, teams tend to move around. Going from one place to another, allowing them to meet other teams and compete to test their athletic abilities and compare themselves to their peers. Teams also tend to have coaches, people, usually of an older age and with some experience in the sport, who are there to give both mental and physical support, making sure that the team is at tip top shape, and helping them to perform at their best. Throughout the several meets that I have been to, we have been assigned an event, heat, and lane. The event is what we will be swimming, such as a 50 meter freestyle, my favorite, or a 500 meter butterfly, which I have thankfully never been assigned to. However, once and a while you would be given something that you did not like to swim or you physically couldn’t and you had to find someone else to swim it for you. The heat is simply a way to split up the events further, depending on how many schools are participating; each event may have up to 34 heats. This, as you might imagine, takes a LONG TIME! The lane splits up the heats even further, telling you specifically where you are assigned to go and where you will come out. Now, this is where I will start to tie in the gospel. Consider the name of our church, the Church of Jesus Christ of LATTER Day Saints; it’s called that for a reason. We were put here in the LATTER days because we were considered the strongest, while the influence of Satan is around every corner, and the world is becoming more and more wicked, we were the ones who God knew could withstand the temptations and stresses that would be placed on our shoulders. God has set up certain “Events”, making sure that we all know the general time period when we will be placed onto the Earth. The “Heats” represent what time specifically we will be placed here, and the “Lanes” represent where in the world we will be put. So there is the pre-mortal existence and some of our mortal life, but what about the rest? What about repentance and returning to our Heavenly Father? Well, I will explain this with a story. Yesterday I had the opportunity to go to a Swim meet. At this point, I would just like to both apologize to and thank my father, because I got the time wrong and I ended up missing the bus. But he was very kind and drove me to the meet. Now the meet was not at a normal pool, no it was at the “Layton Surf and Swim” and if you have ever been there you know that there aren’t any blocks (blocks are the box like structures that swimmers start on). The pool was intended to have waves in it, which would raise the water level so that you could reach the edge if necessary. However, it would be very difficult to swim in such big waves for that event, thankfully they turned them off. But because of the lack of waves, and the fact that there are no blocks, all we had to swim in was 4 feet of water and all we had to jump off of was the cement floor. Now, to make sure that our feet didn’t slip they had placed towels where we were supposed to stand as we jumped in. In my case, the towel did the exact opposite and I slipped as I jumped in. We swam our fifty meters and then proceeded to return to the side, once you were in the water however; the wall looked a LOT higher. There were two bars on the wall for swimmers who were swimming the backstroke, but even climbing onto those did not allow for us swimmers to climb back up. There was no way that we would be able to climb it alone, so we had people, sometimes friends, sometimes strangers, who would grab our arm and hoist us up, we could help them by first grabbing onto the bars and climbing upward, allowing them to not have to carry us the whole way. Back to tying in the gospel, as we know, in the pre-mortal existence there were two groups, those who followed Heavenly Father and Jesus, and those who followed Satan. As I mentioned before, sometimes you get a task that you do not want to do. But you have to anyway, no matter how embarrassing. Those who followed Satan did not want to complete the task we were given, to work to return to our Heavenly Father, they wanted to have a guaranty that they would return. So they went with Satan. In this case, these are the swimmers who walk away from the block because they don’t want to swim the 500 butterfly. Then, those who take up the challenge dive in and swim as fast and as best as they can, as to try to not get disqualified along the way. When they reach the end, as all of us do, they have several bars that they must climb. In this case, they represent personal repentance, and help from your bishopric and or stake leadership. Sometimes, you must climb these bars, and there, your friend and brother, Jesus can help you to the top, or you’re Heavenly Fathers Kingdom. I testify that if we repent, Jesus will help us return home. And that Joseph Smith is a true prophet. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

December 7th

Jason got a haircut.  It only took three of us to keep him contained.  Sitting still can be rough.


I texted this picture to my sister Kristen.  I asked her if Mitch wanted this for Christmas.  I know how much he hates Girly stuff.


We went to Kristen's house to watch the MLS finals and I knew they had an eye bolt in their family room ceiling.  I brought Jason's lycra swing and you should have seen the kids go nuts.  They all wanted to get in it.  Of course Jason just wanted it, and sharing isn't something he knows how to do.  Finally he had a good long turn and was able to get some energy out.

The biggest problem this evening was the ipad cord was broken.  Jason is pretty hard on everything.  It was meltdown city when it woudln't turn on.  So I decided I'd had it and I was going to buy a new cord.  They had just opened a new Apple store not too far away, so I figured that was better then nothing.  Problem.....it was snowing like crazy!  I didn't care....something had to give.  I had to have my brother move his truck and since he thought I was to mad to drive he followed me for a  little while trying to get a hold of my cell phone.  What he didn't realize is that I'd traded Brett phones because I had stuff on mine for Jason to play with.  Long story short, Jason got his ipad cord and Mom had a minute to calm down.

December 6th

I was so excited that I filled my tank for under $50 I had to take a picture.


Another of Duncan's 100 backstroke.  Once again the poor boy got disqualified.  He was really confused about the turns.



Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Mom's Payback

This is what happens when Duncan steals Tori's ipod.  He puts this as her wallpaper.  Well....... =)

December 5th

Duncan got his haircut.  This has been an issue for him/me.  The issue has been swim team.  He had this long hair that was like a haystack.  It looked like if you touched his hair it would break off.  I finally convinced him that he could look like Dean Winchester from Supernatural.  

That was it!!!  I convinced him.

This is how much hair that was removed from his head.

Of course he had to post a snarky remark on facebook.  


But he's a teenager and he loves his hair.

And this is my mom's cute wall of her Grandkids.  Leslie printed up the latest pictures.  They are dang cute!



Pictures from the kids ipods

Tori loves to draw.  This is one of the many that she has floating around the house.


Playing with cousins









Monday, January 13, 2014

December 5th

Jason is as big of a Mt. Dew fiend as his mother.  I started having to leave my mt. dew in the car because he will constantly want a new drink every time he sees the box.  So now he gets unbuckled and he does a head dive over the back seat.

December 1st


Jason had a rough week.  Thanksgiving day he had a melt down at my parents house and then that following Sunday it was just too much.  He lost it!  He freaked out and started attacking me.  Thankfully, I'm the only one that usually gets hurt.  He scratched my face up and didn't really settle down for a couple of days.

November 28th Thanksgiving

Peek-a-boo!


Thanksgiving always consists of lots of family.  We went to Grandma Siddoway's first.  We walked in the front door, Jason headed to the kitchen/family room and then turned right around to the living room.  He's usually pretty good about crowds as long as we're there, but this wasn't a good thing for my boy.


The other kids always enjoy time with cousins.  Even though they are older now I don't remember hearing one complaint about the long day.

November 26th

Sometimes playing in the bath is more entertaining then others.



November 25th

We were driving Duncan to swim practice and the light was perfect to see Duncan's slight dimple in his chin.  It was funny because he had a momentary freak out about his "butt chin".  I made tell me what was up in video and this was his response.  Gotta love my boy!  (The sound quality is bad.  It's really quiet.)


November 23rd


The Dr. Who 50th anniversary special was on this day.  Jason didn't care about that, but Duncan was insistent that Jason wear his Dr. Who t-shirt.

November 22nd

Duncan's swim meet 50 free 34.28


I think Brett got the rest of  his races.  I believe I ran out of memory.

November 21st

Duncan loves to make Vines.  Sometimes they aren't as exciting as he thinks.


Jason loved the hats that Grandma and Grandpa Siddoway bought for the tree. But only on this day.  


Jason and Tori snuggling on the couch.  I love that my older kids don't mind what Jason does.








November 20th

This was the one picture that I got of Duncan receiving his Star award in scouting.  I'll remember not to give my phone to Chad anymore.  LOL!


Tuesday, January 7, 2014

November 19th

I spend a lot of time listening to Jason on the ipad.  This day was awesome because he just snuggled in and made me deaf in my left ear for a while.


Samantha passed off the Gettysburg Address at school.  She forgot the end as soon as she got home so she needed a little help.

I entertained my kids at dinner by explaining what I quote in my head when I hear the Gettysburg address.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation.  Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Indeed we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul."

This is the Gettysburg Address opening and the 13th article of faith melded into one.

Don't ask me why they are connected, but at least they are written by two men I respect.

Then the girls decided they were making cookies.  They made mustache cookies.  That's my goofy girls!!



November 18th


This is how we end up sleeping most of the time.  Even if it's just for a small time during the night he seems to need me there to sleep.

Friday, January 3, 2014

November 16th/Child Family Fun Day

We went to Boondocks for Child Family Fun Day.  The kids had a blast, and basically left me in the dust.  Brett of course kept up with them.  I did take Jason into the laser tag game, and wanted to film a little of what was going on, but Jason was a little overwhelmed so we ended up in the corner while the kids had all the fun.  That was about when I gave up on getting pictures this time.

Jason and I did the kiddie bowling.  He loved it.  Until someone else came along and we had to take turns.  We ended up on a different lane the second time, and because he had started on another lane I had a hard time convincing him not to bowl the other kids game.

The fun part was that he understood and did it mostly by himself.


We found this Jump rope game.  The lights go around and around.  We sat here for about an hour.


We then went back to my brother Jeff's house and had pizza.  It was quite a nice day for all.

November 14th

Jason was obsessed with the ceiling fan in my/his bedroom.  He would jump on the bed and put his hands up to it.  (we have since taken it down.)  I never understood it, it was cold!!  And yet he wanted the fan on all the time.

November 11th

Jason had the sores come back in his mouth.  Thankfully we had the anti-viral refill, and got a jump on it quickly.  It only lasted about 3 days this time, instead of a full week.

November 8th-9th

Duncan had a meet in St. George.  We decided to support him since this was his first, and drive down to see him swim.  This of course took a lot of planning, and Grandma and Grandpa Siddoway had the three others over night.  This isn't a small feat.  I don't think we've ever had Jason spend the night with out us.

They looked like they were going to miss us huh.  =)


Duncan took the bus down, and we drove down by ourselves.  It was a little weird to be in the car that long without having to turn around and tell someone to stop fighting.

We went straight to the pool, and found Duncan in his deck coat.  He thought he was pretty hot stuff.


Warm ups.


He was nervous to go because he didn't know anyone.  Brett and I had found a place on the bleachers and there wasn't room for Duncan so he went to sit on the floor.  A sweet kid behind us told Duncan he could sit with him.  Duncan looked a little hesitant, and the kid said, "Dude....we're on the same team."  That was that.  Duncan was fine for the rest of the trip.


Duncan's first 50 freestyle. 


Duncan wanted to meet up for dinner, and I advised him this was our only time in six years we had a hotel room to ourselves.  So I wasn't going to go to dinner with the swim team.  We were going on a date.

Yes.  This is a picture of our king size bed.  We both slept all night, and didn't wake up sore from being mauled by a six year old.  At about 9:00 pm, Duncan texted us and wanted to know if we wanted anything from McDonalds.  I laughed and advised him we were ok, and to have fun.


This was what made Duncan the happiest.  He likes seeing his name on stuff.


Duncan's first 100 freestyle.

Duncan thought his hair was awesome.  I thought it was ok, as long as it was clean and chlorine free.  Since chlorine free wasn't an option his poor hair was like hay.  This boy told Duncan he had good hair, and I about laughed myself silly.  


Duncan's first relay.  I of course didn't flip it to video so I only got the last little bit of Duncan's leg.

I pulled this picture out of one of the videos.  Although it shows that Duncan has a pretty good dive going, the kid in the back ground makes the picture gold.


We went home without any glitches, and Duncan stayed with the team and rode home on the bus.  I think it was a good experience for him, and a well deserved evening for us.

We got home to happy kids, and exhausted Grandparents.  All went well, and Jason actually made it through the night.



Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Tori doesn't know her own strength


Once again Brett gets to fix something. Tori came running out of the bathroom panicked. "The shower handle broke! I don't know what happened." She even came back in after Brett started working on it and appologized. Such a sweet baby girl. She just happened to be the lucky one in the shower this time. Hopefully Brett can at least get the shower turned off so we can turn the water to the house back on.