got busted

In case you can't recognize him, this is my husband, Jed.

Yep. Wondering how he busted up his face? Everyone who sees him reacts the same, "WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?!!"

Well, on Tuesday he went skiing. Going off jumps, and then one of them went wrong. His ski caught on a 'keep out' fence (yeah), he did a complete flip in the air, and landed with his face in his knee. I don't think that felt so great! In his defense, he wasn't being THAT reckless, but still. :)

The picture above is after 48 hours. (And you can't tell very well, but his eyes, forehead and nose are all still quite swollen and puffy.)

Anyway, he came home looking like this:

He had a hemotoma that was sticking out of his forehead a full inch. I am NOT exaggerating; it was freaky looking. You can kind of see the lump in the picture, but these pictures do not convey the gruesomeness of his smashed up and swollen face. I was horror struck when he came home! In addition, he broke his nose and broke out one of his veneer front teeth. (He has veneers from when he got in that big accident on his mission, when he was in a coma for a while - I know, he has a knack for this!) All the blood from his forehead has settled around his eyes and now he looks pretty bad!

Good thing he has a few days off because he would definitely scare away all his patients!!!

*Update - I just have to add this! He went in to the dentist today to get his veneer put back in (keep in mind he looked like the top picture), and the dentist actually said to him, "Now, did this get knocked out or did it just fall out?" Um. Hmm. Are you serious? Jed looked at him and was like, "It got knocked out." When Jed told me this when he got home, I couldn't believe it! So funny!

Valentines Day activities

Benjamin is showing off the crafts that we did at our home preschool the Monday before Valentines.

Earlier in the month, for a Family Home Evening activity, we decorated Valentines cards for all his aunts and uncles and cousins. That was really fun! And Eliza was a big helper too!

Jed got a remote for my new camera in the mail, so this is a picture of us trying it out.

We went on a fun Valentines date out to dinner on Saturday the 13th. It was really fun to spend some time together!

Valentines Day Party!

We invited over four other families and had a really fun Valentines Party on Friday the 12th. We decorated Valentines boxes (for them to collect their Valentines in), played simple games together, decorated cookies and cupcakes, and then exchanged Valentines. Fun fun fun!
Showing off his well decorated Valentines box...

11 kids milling around exchanging Valentines. This was a very exciting part of the party!

This and That - January & February

My friend, Jen, and I took our kids to the Henry Ford Museum in January. The kids enjoyed the excursion. It was a great winter day activity!I just had to get a picture of Eliza wearing this cute little dress. I bought it at a Mom2Mom sale when I was pregnant with her, and it seemed like the day would never come when she would actually be big enough to fit into it...
This is what I have to do in order to take a shower around here. The kids freak out if I say I'm going to take a shower, and I've discovered that one way to appease them is to tell them how exciting it will be to snuggle up with blankets on the couch and look at books while I take a quick shower. :) I've used this incentive with Benjamin since he was a little boy. I'm glad it works for Eliza too. :)
Ben and Eliza in their 'fort'... complete with boxes, pillows, board games, all our coats that were left out, a toy firetruck, bball hoop and slide. It was one beautiful mess.
This picture is SO TYPICAL! I love it! This is Eliza displaying just to what extent she is willing to stoop when it comes to scavengering everyone else's clothes... Notice my dirty pair of fluff-socks covering up her cute tights, and Benjamin's pair of black crocs. With an old black beenie to complete the picture she looks positively homeless. Jed was laughing, pointing out how other little girls will dress up in their princess playclothes, but since we don't have much of that, she goes for the hobo look. He said she only needed a bottle in a brown paper bag to make it complete. :) haha!

By the way, I took her hobo beenie off and gave her her own cute knit beenie to play with, and she had a complete melt-down. She did NOT want her cute hat, she wanted that OTHER hat!
Last of all, Jed and I thought this little scene was adorable. A few Sundays ago, we put on The Testament: Of One Fold and One Shepherd for Ben to watch. When Eliza woke up, she joined him, just at the part when Jesus was ministering to the people. Benjamin was being so tender and sweet to her. (Talking about Jesus often makes him super sweet and loving - it's pretty cute.) He had his arm around her and was tenderly patting her head and telling her about what Jesus was doing in the movie. It was just adorable watching them!

This is what a Daddy is for...

Teaching Benjamin how to ride a bike in the middle of January. They were taking advantage of having all the snow melted and the sidewalks clear!While I'm making dinner, building towers out of the masses of cereal boxes I brought home when I found a great deal...
Enjoying a roller coaster ride at a Stake Party...
Pushing his luck by asking Eliza to go get herself a tissue.... She had a little bit of a runny nose, so Jed asked her to go get a tissue and bring it to him. Here she came.... As you can see, the toilet paper is still connected to the roll in the bathroom! It was trailing all the way through the kitchen and around the corner! hahaha!
Planning AWESOME Family Home Evening Activities! Jed made a fun "Treasure Hunt" for our activity, complete with a colored treasure map where X marked the spot, and multiple notes along the trail, one of them including a key to the treasure chest... The treasure was found in his metal briefcase and it was our yummy FHE dessert! :) Talk about exciting!
Washing the car in the dead of winter... What a good Daddy to get the kids all dressed up so that they could all hang out and "help" while he gives the cars a washdown. :)

We Love You, Daddy!

Eliza is 2 years old now!

I can't believe our baby girl is two years old! She turned two in January. She is such a sweetheart! She has developed a fun little personality, and Jed and I get a kick out of her antics every day.

For her special breakfast, we had Easter Resurrection Rolls (I know, I broke tradition and made them when it wasn't actually Easter - but this was a good reason!), and Jed's famous, delicious, moist, and cheesy Ham Scrambled Eggs (applause). (Really, they were delicious.)

She felt extra special I think!

Here she is opening up her birthday present....

Notice the nice Christmas wrapping. :) She doesn't seem to mind, luckily.

Aha! She finally extracted her birthday present!

She had a great time with it. It took her a few minutes, and much encouraging, before she whacked the balls hard enough to get them to go down. Benjamin was just itching to get his hands on her new toy! Jed and I kept having to tell him that it was her present for her birthday, so she got to play with it right now. :)

Happy Birthday, you darling girl!