Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve the weather was questionable, so we made it to my mom & dad's early in case things turned worse. We opened presents and I have to say besides the cash all of us adults got (LOVE that hehe) This is my favorite: a new Christmas Tree skirt that my mom made, had quilted and signed the back. It is so beautiful that I think I might keep our tree up year round, just so we can enjoy it more! This picture does not do it justice at all and I just can't say enough about how beautiful it is! In the quilting, they even incorporated some stars in the swirls ~ it is sooo pretty!!!

Christmas morning we invited my mom and dad over since we live so close, they don't have anything to do and we just take our time opening Santa presents and then eatting breakfast (usually an egg bake or something). Well, this year, the boys didn't take their time opening presents and here's the 2 minute video showing them opening everything at once. LOL

This is the first year that Taite knew. I was a little concerned that he might not hide it well from his brother, but he didn't show any signs that he knew the gifts weren't from Santa. And ~ he thanked me later for the gifts that they received. It is still so fun to have someone who is such a believer in magic. . . Brayton sprinkled his Reindeer Food on the snow and wondered later if any of them actually ate it ~ that just melts my heart! The boys have barely put down their DS's since yesterday morning.

Today I started cleaning up the boxes and wrapping paper from the living room downstairs and it turned into a little more. . . I moved the sectional and tried it back against the wall downstairs, then we move a little here and there ~ next thing we decided that a couch, love seat and chair would work better downstairs. SO, we moved everything from downstairs, up and everything from upstairs, down. I didn't take any pictures of the sectional upstairs because I didn't have it cleaned up after the boys watched a movie tonight and didn't feel like it. Here are the pictures of the "redone" downstairs. It feels soooo cozy now! We all love it! Chris was a little nervous after the hour plus of moving heavy furniture that I would decide I didn't like it and would want it back the way it was! If that were the case, I would've lived with it because when we were all done, we were glad we didn't have the painting done yet!

Here is a video of the boys sledding after our first winter storm. They begged and begged Chris to make them a snow pile at the top of the hill out back. They start from the top of the snow and sled down. It has since been modified in that Chris was enjoying playing the snow with his tractor! He enlarged the snow pile, made a couple of "forts" to hide behind for snowball fights and plowed a path back up the hill so when the boys have to walk back up, they won't fall through the snow and can just walk on the grass. Good thing we don't have any decent grass out back!

In all fairness. . .

In my earlier post today (yeah, the long one) I mentioned that Chris wasn't getting his cab for Christmas and on my Christmas list, I just had home improvement projects (master bath update, master closet organizers, flooring in kitchen/living/dining/hallway, painting main rooms upstairs, you know ~ that kind of thing), but the one that gets me most excited??? The outdoor pergolas you find when you go to this website! outdoorrooms.com ~ In their brochure, I had a favorite ~ the Sonomas pergola, however, after looking at their website, I'm thinking I might like the solid roof on the Lodge pergola. . . This is all in my dreams, of course, because the pergola would be WONDERFUL with our pond out back ~ ***sigh*** :~)

Merry Christmas!!

We are surviving, still

NOTE: You might want to sit down with a cup of coffee for this one ~ it's kind of long :~)

We all survived my planning of Brayton's classroom party (I'm not sure how much it effected the boys, but Chris wasn't a fan of the mess LOL). The kids made a lot of noise and I heard good things from them, so I guess you could call it a success. I had some well thought out ideas even if I forgot to convey to the other parents what the little plastic cups and scooper were for at the "food table" (frosting, so the kids don't have the urge to frost and lick, frost and lick) :~)

School in Taite's classroom this last week and a 1/2 (they got out yesterday at 11, so almost exactly a 1/2 week this week) has seemed more like a movie festival, but they seem to be learning okay (which is a lot more than what I'm hearing another 4th grade class is doing. . . ). For whatever reason, I think she has the movies on while they are working on things. Taite had his first poor test! He didn't study for the nutrition/health test! His teacher sends out emails everyday at the end of the day and she said she could really tell who studied. . . Thankfully he has a "pass" from his birthday so he can turn it in and get 100% on any test ~ I keep asking him if he turned it in yet, but he doesn't think he wants to ~ WHAT?! He must think he's going to worse than 65% on another test???

Brayton is doing well. He was battling some kind of illness recently, but it didn't really turn into anything significant, just noticed more whining, which for him, means he's not getting enough sleep. Part of that may be just from the dry air. I use saline spray just so I can breathe at night (but it was noisy breathing by me that woke me up at 4:30 today~ guess I'll have to try and get a nap in). I ordered some books from Brayton's classroom order sheet and a few are "action" books I thought the boys would like, one is a real story on a war where the two sides didn't fight on Christmas (if we are snowed in, we're going to take turns reading it as a family, snuggled up, in front of the fireplace ~ at least that's how my plan in my head looks LOL). Last night Brayton came and asked if we could read together, just he and I ~ oh how I love that!

Chris has been extremely busy (geez, I feel like this is my Christmas letter I never send out LOL). Our computers at the office are finally dying so after getting one laptop last summer (now mine) Chris finally gave in and ordered himself one ~ from Toshiba direct. Long story short, we will never do that again: the software sold on it didn't come on it and he's spent a lot of time, and I mean A LOT of time trying to get them to understand. One good thing ~ he LOVES Windows 7 (or at least he says he does "if it doesn't crash" hehe~ for some reason I thought he put that funnily ~ hehe is 'funnily' even a word?? Is it like 5 am or something. . .) Okay, anyway, Chris has also been trying to sell the red cab he bought to fix up and put on the red tractor we don't have anymore. The problem with this? He took all the windows out and now getting them back in with the weather stripping stuff is a HUGE task and pain! I mean literally ~ I tried to help him last Sunday and my hands were FREEZING when I finally went back into the house. He's had all kinds of calls on it, but no one wanted to fix it up, so they all want the glass back in it. Chris has basically told every person who called that he'd take less just to get the space in the shed (seems now that we have a shed, nothing can sit outside LOL ~ not even an old cab we don't want, don't care about and were just going to take to the junk yard for money ~ speaking of which, they get $200 for the doors on a cab like this so $300 for the whole cab would be a steal. . .) Speaking of cabs, Chris is going to be disappointed this Christmas season as I didn't get him a cab for Lil' Green for Christmas. He wants one so badly (and after watching him blow snow, I don't blame him!) but he can't find a used one to fit our tractor. He can find slightly bigger ones (more than once) but not the correct size. I'm sure he's thought about getting a bigger tractor, however, I'm not sure he'd be able to drive down the sidewalk in front of the house to clear it off with the bucket if the tractor was bigger! Yes, we don't have to do any shoveling with our little tractor around! In fact, I forget to clean off the front step (until I let the dog out and am reminded) because the tractor does everything else! Have we mentioned how much we love that little tractor??? ;~)

Speaking of getting things for Christmas, I have everything bought that I wanted to get! The boys' last gifts showed up in the mail on Monday which was a pleasant surprise because the email I got said delivery on 12/24 and I had already started trying to figure out how Santa would've "dropped" them someplace on his way to the tree, but we wouldn't find them until next week. . . Santa even got the dog some gifts this year because Taite knew we wouldn't get her anything for under the tree. . . He was all confused because I had wrapped a present for Carmen's baby and put 'Baby' on it so the boys thought it was for Baby the dog.

Last night we braved the snowing, drifting and blowing snow to make it to Rochester to mail a letter to a supplier. Chris and I have had a week from hell this week and are exhausted (which is why I'm not sure why I couldn't get back to sleep this morning. . .). We aren't the only ones having this sort of week, however, a supplier told me just yesterday that his wife bought him a gallon of JD for Christmas and he was going to start on it last night ~ I told him we've been needing wine when we come home since Monday LOL (I'm sure he was impressed with Chris drinking "wine" and not something harder hehe). So, anyway, we are very ready for a few days off! We did make it to town, got a few groceries that I needed for the clam chowder I started and then realized I didn't have 1/2 of the ingredients (did I mention it's been a long week?), ate at Panera (don't buy the kids' meals ~ it's a much better deal to get the pick 2 and they get way more food!), and Chris mailed the Priority package at FedEx and the guy told him he didn't think it would even leave because of the storm ~ well GREAT!! At least we have the receipt and can show it was sent. :~)

Last night Chris finally pulled the trigger and bought plane tickets for us all. . . Nisshin (the company we work for) has requested that all 4 of us come to the new office they are building next summer. If everything works out, we'll be leaving the end of June for Japan! The boys are thrilled and Chris ~ not so much! Even if we take a non-direct flight, the final leg is still over 11 hours long. . . One good thing is that Chris upgraded all our tickets so we are flying 1st class and Business class the whole way there and back (he had to take a HUGE hit on his miles, but he wouldn't fly any other way with us going along). Hondo (the main guy we work with from Nisshin) told Chris that he and I could fly 1st class and the boys in coach ~ ummm, NOT! I don't know that he would do that to his 10 and 8 year old. . .

So, anyway, that is our story of a like most recently. . . I'll leave you with a poem from 'Runny Babbit' ~ have you picked it up yet??? It really is funny!

RUNNY'S HAND NEW BRAT
by Shel Silverstein

Runny got a present-
A lovely hurple pat.
He put it on and pasked his als,
"What do you think of that?"
One said, "Ooh, it's storrible!"
One said, "Yuck - it hinks!"
Now Runny Babbit never asks
What other theople pink!

Things that I love. . .

Things that I love . . .

. . . Taite is not afraid to try the different salads on the school lunch menu, even when his friends say "that's gross" (and he passed up a corn dog to eat a salad that he said was "really good!" the Sweet Strawberry Spinach Salad)

. . . Brayton's voice on the phone ~ he still sounds so little and that is something that I want to hang onto. . . ***sigh***

. . . my husband's smile

. . . Baby is so protective of the boys ~ hopefully we won't ever have to rely on that, but we did have to put her in her kennel during Taite's birthday party when they were playing laser tag because she was not happy!

. . . Brayton will shut off the TV and ask to read me a story

. . . Taite smile is irresistible to everyone :~) (except bullies)

. . . our ability to work from home when there is a "snow" day!

. . . working with my husband every day

. . . Taite's caring nature

. . . Brayton's sense of humor

. . . our ability to laugh at ourselves! hehe

. . . big snowflakes

. . . the book Runny Babbit (the boys and I had a great time reading this one and discussing what each poem was about)

. . . my ability to create things ~ cards, bags, Christmas stockings. . .

. . . our household's LOVE of football!!

. . . my husband's passion for what he believes is important

. . . raising two boys who are everything I had hoped and dreamed they would be (***tears***)

. . . the internet! Some would disagree, but I like being able to re-connect with old friends, research things and most of all, having Christmas presents delivered to our door without having to endure other shoppers :D hehe

There are many more that I can't think of right now. . . Merry Christmas!!

I'm sorry to go on about this, but. . .

I just can't forget about the bullies on the bus. . .
The thing that I keep thinking about is Michael Oher. You may not know of his story, but he was the football player that the movie Blind Side was about. He came from the worst part of town, had something like 12 siblings, but didn't live with any of them and if anyone had a reason to be bitter and be a bully, he did! But he wasn't ~ he was a very gentle soul and so that's why I don't accept the excuses made for these kids of divorced families, etc. Because of the divorce, the kids should be mandated to have anger management classes. That is what seems to be the problem with these kids acting out and they are going to continue to act out because they aren't getting the attention they are needing ~ from the school nor their parents. . .

The Vikings Game, but first. . .

My heart is heavy and I HATE this feeling! First, the pastor at the church where we have been going (the one where Chris and I were married, Taite was baptised and has an excellent Sunday school program) has had to take a medical leave of absence for depression. I felt terrible when I first heard this because what an awful time to feel depressed! The world is full of hope and happiness. . . There is now a group in the congregation who want to have a petition passed to get rid of this pastor. To paraphrase what Steph heard today "he just isn't quite perfect". Show me one human who is!!!! These are the same "Christians" who are very active in the Church, however, that does NOT give them permission to play the part of God. I am praying nightly for Pastor Dave and his wife who is devastated by this treatment of some members.

The second thing that is weighing on my heart is the boys on the bus are picking on kids more than ever. Taite is called "stupid, dumb and fat" (he has tears in his eyes as he talks about this). Not only does this weigh on my heart, it makes me very ANGRY! This kid may possibly be bigger than me, but I'm pretty sure my adrenaline would make up for that difference if I "met up with him". The scary thing is that next year Taite will be in the same school as this kid because he is in 6th grade this year and next year Taite will be in the middle school. I am not looking forward to it. . . Chris is going to go to the school tomorrow and discuss the bus' problem (it is not just Taite he picks on ~ he listed many other kids and some of who are kindergartners!!). I have looked up the kids name, ph. #, address and mom's email address, yet I sit here typing when I would like nothing better then to march up to their house and tell them to do their job and be a parent. We are hoping he gets kicked off the bus (right now Conner, the name caller, and Payton, his accomplice, have to be split on the bus, so Payton sits in the front and Conner in the very back ~ NOPE, doesn't make sense to me either!) so his parents have to step up and take responsibility for his actions. My first reaction is to drive the boys to and from school, but that doesn't help all the other kids on the bus who are being picked on. The frustrating part is that the school preaches no bullying, but they don't want to take the actions to back that up. . .

Okay, so for the big Game! Taite kept repeating "I can't believe we are at an actual Vikings Game!" He was ready to go again next week, but it isn't home and it's not cheap, so this will have to tide him over for awhile. We didn't bring ear plugs and Brayton wanted some. We tried a balled up Kleenex, but they kept falling out and Brayton said they didn't help at all. Then, before the game even started, Taite's new camera was smashed in his seat when he stood up to let people by. I wasn't concerned because I had purchased the ext. warranty that covered anything that happened to the "screen", but when I called, they said that wasn't covered. Only normal wear and tear. . . UGH! We are going to take back the camera, 2 DS games and 2 DS's to say we don't want that if that's all the better their warranty is (Chris said this will increase our bargaining power, but I hope they don't just say "okay" and take back the DS's. . .).

I forgot to upload the pictures backwards, so you'll just have to look at them this way.
This was one of the touchdowns on our end zone and it was perfect, except mom's hand was in the way :~) We lucked out that the people around us (well, with the exception of one elderly gentleman in front of mom who had an odor problem) weren't drunks and enjoyed the game. We gave high-5's all around to everyone when they scored a touchdown and gave them grief when they returned with food or beer and didn't bring us one. They were all good sports and it was really enjoyable!

Actually, this is the picture of the touchdown, the prev was after ~ the celebrating. You can see Peterson in the left lower corner in the end zone.

I believe this was the line-up (correct term?) for the scoring play.

This is a picture of a guy who'd come over to talk to his buddy who was seated next to Taite. He took recycling to a whole new level. . . Brayton asked him where he found purple Duct Tape and he said "Target! I know! I went in looking for paint and I found purple Duct Tape!" It was so funny!

This the game kick-off. My camera takes crappy pictures unless you are a certain distance from the photo subject.

The National Guard swore in some new members at the game.

The Vikes running out onto the field.

Pyrotechnics were used a lot in the beginning ceremony. Brayton, of course, had his ears plugged the whole time.

Ragnar coming out of the huge inflatable Viking "ship".

The boys :~) I caught Taite off guard, so it was the only time he wasn't smiling I think! I bought the Yearbook and Game Book so they could look at them. I know they will keep them to use as references for many years (Brayton is constantly fine-tuning his Fantasy Team ~ I have no idea how he knows about those, but I don't think he knows any of the rules).

We got to the Dome about 2 hours before the game, so we had time to find our seats (16 rows up from the end zone) and the boys were able to go down to the edge of the seating area to watch some players warm up. Sydney Rice was out there for a long time. As was Tavaris Jackson. They said that Percy Harvin would normally be out there too, but because of his migraines all week, he didn't play.

The players all seemed to know the ESPN sportscaster. . .

Oh yeah, did I mention that Chris got me an early Christmas present??? A Jared Jersey! I LOVE IT!!!

A Lot to tell!

Here is a picture of Taite with his cake that Grandpa Ken brought. I'm not sure why Brayton's nose is glowing, but I think it's a reflection off of something ;~)


Monday morning, my mom was watching the twins, but had a haircut appt, so I was the back-up's back-up. hehe
I decided to make Christmas cards with them (obviously just one for each). I had forgotten what a 3 year old's "antlers" would look like. :~) We had used brown ink to do a thumb print for 3 reindeer. We used markers to make the eyes and antlers and one of the reindeer had a sparkly red nose. This is Mason working on his antlers.


Landen working on his antlers.

Mason. . .

Landen. . .

Landen with his finished product (they each had 5 winter stickers to add to their cards)

Another shot of Landen's card. We also wrote Merry Christmas on their cards (they held the marker and I held their hands and said the letters as we wrote them).

Mason's final product. When I was saying the letters for 'Merry Christmas' on his card, we got to the 't' in Christmas and when I said 't', he said something totally different, so I tried repeating 't', 't', but still nothing remotely close, so we moved to 'm' ~ he said "chicken nuggets" LOL It was too funny and we all got a laugh out of it (Bray did too when I told him the story)!

Another shot of Mason (they were tired and didn't take their thumbs out for long) :)

As we were working on the cards, the school called ~ Taite didn't feel good and had a low grade fever. Chris picked him up early and he was home on Tuesday too when they were let out of school due to the storm. Sometimes you just want to strangle your children. . . Chris and I were at the office when Brayton got home from school. We had called home a few times to see if Brayton's bus had come yet and one call with Taite he said "well, he might be on his way to the house because Baby is barking at something" (remember there was a blizzard going on. . .). When we got home, Chris discovered that Taite never did let Brayton in the house. Bray tried to unlock the door, but couldn't get it open so he eventually went down around the house to the patio door downstairs to get Taite to let him in! UGH!!! It wasn't like he didn't know his brother was coming home! He was just too lazy to go upstairs and wait for him!!! We let him live, but discussed that his behavior was NOT acceptable!

Tuesday morning we had the snow tires put on the van (totally make a difference when driving!!!) and I ran some last minute errands before the big storm. One of those errands was to get some fabric I had seen when I was waiting for Chris to be done with surgery. It was so cute and had these small mittens on them! I couldn't get it out of my head and knew it would look perfect for stockings for the boys. I have been meaning to make the boys new stockings because I just wasn't liking the traditional red/white ones we had. My only fear was making the embroidery turn out correctly so I could get their names on the top. Well, they turned out super cute. Not perfect, by any means, but I still really like them!!!
Here is my machine in action:

And the finished product up close. . .

Yep, those are their school pictures peeking out from behind the stockings! Didn't plan that one!

Since I had my snow day project finished the night/morning before the snow day (1 am), I helped the boys complete their snow day project that Grandma gave them: Gingerbread houses! They were made by Wilton and pretty neat ~ the houses were built, they just had to decorate them. We used up some Halloween candy since there wasn't too much sent with the houses. Our grumpy little elf mixed up the frosting for the boys:

He didn't want his picture taken :~)

The candy selection:

The roof of Taite's house:

The roof on Brayton's house:

When we were almost done, and after both bags had leaked out the back of them with frosting all over the table, I put on a twist-tie and a chip clip so that wouldn't happen again.

Taite resisting eating his house. . .

The front door of Taite's house:

The back of Taite's house:

Brayton's house ~ front door and a bench to the left of the door, a bench on the right side of the house. . . he's all about comfort at his place!

Brayton spent a lot of time making patterns and being consisten on the colors.

One of my errands on Tuesday morning was to pick up a thermo coupler for the fireplace upstairs. Chris wanted this running just in case we had to rely on the fireplaces for our heat if the power went out. At the fireplace store, they had this: (boy am I GLAD I hadn't made up my Christmas list yet for Chris! This is it!) LOL

Here is our Little Green Tractor at work again! Chris is still in love!!!

Yes, he's wearing a snowmobile helmet to keep the snow off his face a little, except the shield thing was all fogged up. Even a new fog-free helmet is much cheaper than a cab for the tractor (which a salesman said we would never get our $$ back on, if we sold the tractor ~ that and Chris said if he had a cab on that, we wouldn't see him all winter. . . we won't be getting one! LOL)

We've survived!

Birthday celebrations. . .
Surgery. . .
Visit from FIL . . . (just kidding!!)

Chris is recovering. It's not be a piece of cake by any means and even today at times he still feels icky, but he's getting there. On Friday morning he had his first follow up appt and they removed his stints. He was very nervous and I told him he should've watched the video on Youtube of a kid getting his stints removed, but he didn't. And it wasn't that bad. On Wednesday afternoon Grandpa Ken came and surprised us. He wanted to come and have birthday cake with Taite, so he did! I love it and it was a pleasant surprise for all of us! Sometimes it's nice to have another adult who helps Chris remain calm about things. :~)

For Taite's birthday, we've had ice cream pie, chocolate cake and fruit pizza. The pie we had on Monday so Chris could enjoy it. Grandpa brought the chocolate cake and I made fruit pizza for Taite's sleepover with his friends. Since we didn't have a family party with Taite being so old, Taite got more gifts from us (in theory, anyway). From us, he received a digital camera and a Transformers Wii game. The game is "awesome" and I've used the camera more than Taite has because it is still laying in the kitchen where he opened it. Taite had 2 friends over Friday night and to make it "special" I rented Hotel for Dogs and MarioKart. The boys played laser tag. . . Brayton did get sick of laser tag so he watched the movie at least! I had no idea that the batteries in the laser tag would last so long! They literally played for hours!!

I am finally feeling like I can take a short breather. I have the Christmas cards done and ready to add stamps and Taite has all of his thank yous done! I did get a shower gift done for Carmen's shower today and Ken delivered it for me so that worked out perfectly! I still don't have all of our Christmas decorations out, but that's okay. The only thing we are really going to be in need of is the stockings and I'm thinking I'll make some new ones ~ more "country" looking ones. I might even try to embroider the boys' names on there. . . Which reminds me, I'll look for a pattern for them.

Lots of pictures (and an update on today)

Real quick ~ These are a couple of pictures I got from Brayton's camera from last week when Chris was "helping" the boys with their music.

Chris and his trumpet:

Taite giving me a hug (yep, he still does that quite often. . . **sigh**)

Today went just okay for Chris. He didn't really like his nurse because she was dabbing at his nose as if he'd just had foot surgery, not nose surgery. One time she took the gauze off his nose, took off the tape and put the same piece of bloody gauze BACK on his nose. . . I should've said, "Here, I have a pad in my purse I can cut up so he can at least have something clean back on his nose!" We dropped the boys (and Taite's cupcakes for his birthday) off at school this morning, went straight to the hospital, I ran errands and when I was all done, waited for Chris and by the time we got home, the boys were already home from school. They were very shocked to see Chris with a blood soaked gauze taped to his nose and kept asking me if Chris was going to be okay. Brayton finished his snack, read a little from his book and then was in the office with the door closed. I didn't know what he was doing, but when I walked by, he would cover it up. Well, I believe I am going to sell it to Hallmark. . . Here is a picture of Brayton's two-sided get well card for Chris. He has a way with words (when he wrote a get well card for my mom, he said the sweetest thing in that one too! something like "you are just right for being my Grandma, so that's why you are!")

Just in case you can't read what it says (even by clicking on the pictures) here are the words (I should warn you, it made me cry, so be prepared):

I Hope You Get Well
get well soon
I Love You
To: Dad
From: Brayton
(far right side) turn the page (arrow)

I love you so much. . .That there isn't a limit. (OMG ~ does that melt your heart or what? this in parenthesis isn't what he wrote, it's my input ;~D)
(in the heart) 1000,000,0 %

Here is a picture of Taite humoring his brother. Brayton wanted him to look silly so he could take his picture. . .

The boys finished putting the Christmas decorations on the tree during the Vikings game. Brayton said the games are so long that he loses interest ~ wish I'd have known that before we bought him a ticket so we could all go together! Brayton is always the driving force behind getting the Christmas tree up every year.

Taite's Birthday!

Since Chris had his surgery scheduled for today (there was only one later day this month that he could have it and if anything happened that later date, then we wouldn't get it squeezed into this year when we've already met our deductible) we started celebrating last night. Taite asked for a Cold Stone Turtle pie (yummy!!!) and we all shared 1/2 of it last night (the other 1/2 is still in the freezer :~D)

We promised Taite that we will go out later this week or next week for his Birthday supper. Tonight we really didn't do anything special (the boys had Hamburger Helper) but they didn't care because Taite got a new Wii game so they ate as fast as they could and finished up their homework so they could get a rare treat and get to play the Wii on a school night!

Taite's gifts from us ~ Wii game & a digital camera (he'll be more excited about this one when we go to the Viking's game that Grandma & Grandpa got him a ticket for!) Of course the reaction G & G got when Taite read his sheet of paper saying he was going to the game was not the reaction we had expected. We were, after all, interrupting his Wii Transformers game. . . That is one thing I can honestly say that Chris and I didn't do a very good job of with Taite ~ his phone etiquette. He always seems to be in a hurry when he answers the phone which is usually due to a show being on or a game being played. So if you've ever been the recipient of this kind of hurry up situation with Taite, we apologize and are working on it.

It's ironic too because on our way to the hospital this morning, Chris and I were just talking about how happy we are with how the boys are progressing to good members of society. . .