Ricker

I was "husband" tagged by my friend Becky...so here goes.

What is his name? Richard I

How old is he? 31 and a half
What does he do for a living? Sorry, that's classified.

How long have you been married? 5 & 3/4 years

How long did you date? About 3 years- I was on a mission for 18 months of that & another 12 months were long distance.Who eats more? Depends on what it is; he eats more pizza, but I eat more ice cream.

Who said I love you first? He did.
Who is smarter? He had a higher GPA, but I'm always right. :)

Whose temper is worse? Does he even have a temper?

Who does the laundry? Me
Who does the dishes? Me - but he helps a ton with everything, too.
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Yes.

Who pays the bills? Me
Who cooks dinner? Both
Who drives when you are together? Depends, we both like to drive.

Who is more stubborn? We both insist it's the other. He won't budge.

Whose parents do you see the most? We get to see both fairly often.

Who proposed? Him
Who has more friends? Me

Who has more siblings? I have him doubled (11-5).

Who wears the pants in the family? We each have one leg in the drawers, but I'm bossier.

What do you love most about him? What's not to love

What a Month-and it's not over yet.

I don't know about everyone else, but we've been to the doctors office way too many times this month. Each of the kids have had croup. Man, I hate that hacking cough. It sounds so horrible and night time is the worst! Andrew started it and when we thought he was better, Lexie got it. When we thought it was gone, Joseph came down with it. Hopefully he is the last one and it doesn't make the rounds again.
On a happier note, here are a few fun pics from the month.

Serves Me Right

A few weeks ago, ( I know I'm slow), we went to the Denver Airport to visit my brother, Erik. He was passing through on his way to some job interviews. He's been living in Germany for the past 2 years, so we were thrilled to see and visit with him. Anyway, we meet at the airport and he was kind enough to bring us German chocolate. YUM!
One of the kinds he brought was marzipan and after serving in Luebeck for 6 months, I really don't care for marzipan. Lexie picked that one out to eat and I opened it for her. She shared half with Joseph and then asked if I wanted some and I told her no thanks and that I didn't care for it. She then told me I had to try a "no thank you bite." (That is what we make her do all the time at dinner.) What was I supposed to do? I did try some and I was then praised for being such a big girl and trying new things. What a sweetie girl! I sure love her, even though she made me eat some marzipan!

Day 1 of Visit-Monkey Bizness

Rick's parents came out for a visit with Uncle Ryan (Rick's brother), Aunt Lyndee & cousin Libby. Our first outing was to Monkey Bizness. You can see the kids had a blast and they ran all of the adults ragged.

Afterwards we headed to Park Meadows for a little shopping and saw this. How much is that Joseph in the window? We'll take 2.

Day 2 of the Visit

In the morning I went shopping with Joyce and Lyndee. By the time we got home everyone was ready for some lunch. So we headed out to Maggiano's, one of Grant & Joyce's favorite resturants when they come to Denver. The evening was spent playing O Heck, Whoonu, & Quiddler. Good times were had by all.

Day 3 of the Visit

Here are some pics of just hanging out with the family. The kids had a great time playing with Cousin Libby.

Andrew's First Non-Milk Feeding

He wasn't so sure what he thought at first, but 10 days later, he decided the stuff wasn't so bad. Here he is acclimating to the high chair, first bites, playing with spoon, & finally liking it.

Some Dreams Do Come True

Rick has been wanting a bigger TV for several years. He finally found such a great deal, he couldn't resist. The next step was building a stand for it. The kids surely enjoyed helping. Now all we need is College Football to start.

Learning to Read

Lexie has been learning to read and tonight I had her read "Go, Dog. Go!" On this page Lexie read the left side, then I asked Joseph if he wanted to try reading the right side. He looked at it and read,

"The blue dog is...CRUSTY!"

Super Tuesday

I attended my first caucus tonight. (Rick got to put the kids to bed b/c he is a registered Independent.) It was quite an experience. It was nothing like the Maryland or the Kansas Absentee process. I was really surprised with the turnout. The school parking lot was packed as well as the neighborhood streets. There was a huge turnout from the ward (and old ward before it split)-it kinda felt like a Ward Activity. It was great to see so many familiar faces. It was not the easiest thing to find your precinct table (no one was holding up our sign when I was searching), but eventually I found it. We had 23 people from our precinct show: 3 for Huckabee, 4 for McCain, and 16 for Romney. Romney easily took Colorado. We also elected a precinct leader, then delegates to the state and so forth. I get to be an alternate to the state if the other 4 can't attend. My friends the Dransfield's put a video of the gym last night on their blog if you want to see how packed it was. Here is a pic I stole off their blog of some of us there.It was a lot of fun, good to see politics in action. It will be interesting to see how the rest of this election plays out. As most of you know, I am bit of a political junkie and have lots of fun discussing it, so we'll see how things go...Enjoy the race.

From Durer To Rembrandt

Today I went with Rick to this amazing exhibit at our Stake Center. It has been ages since I've been to an art exhibit, thus I spent more than my fair share of time there. I had so much fun seeing so many artists I was familiar with and getting acquainted with others.

A huge THANK YOU to Kristin for watching my kiddos!

The exhibit had more than 200 etchings, engravings, and woodcuts depicting scenes from the Bible and they were incredible. Words really cannot express how amazing it was to look at these works, read the correlating scripture reference and see how it moved the Artist to create such an amazing piece of art. One of my favorites, of course, was a German Bible from, I think, 1510. Wow, it is in such incredible condition and was so exciting to look at it and be able to read and understand it. I loved walking around and just imagining what all of the artists were thinking as they were etching and writing. I love how some of them would add aspects of their time into the works-the style of dress, foliage, etc. There was one by Rembrandt of the Holy Family and Joseph is in the back reading a book and Mary is nursing Jesus. The best part is, she had totally kicked off her shoe. I don't know if it's because that is how so much of my time is spent lately, but it cracked me up. I've done a number of papers for school on Albrecht Durer and absolutely loved seeing so many of his works-definitely a favorite. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about the history of some of the pieces and how they were acquired and how very few owners the different works have had. Amazing! I don't even know how to explain it. It was such an amazing testimony to see how the Spirit of the Lord moved upon these men to create such beauty and truth. They had a great understanding of the Gospel and such a talent for sharing it with the world. Thanks to all those who made this exhibit possible and for sharing these gifts with us. You can check out http://www.rembrandtexhibit.org/ to see the online gallery.

President Hinckley (1910-2008)

President Hinckley (the Prophet of our Church) died this evening. I don't know where to even begin to describe the influence of this man on my life and the lives of countless others. I feel very fortunate that today was Ward Conference and I got to sustain him as Prophet one last time and have Lexie and Joseph do it, too. I love the feeling I get when we do this and the Spirit testifies that he is called of God. We love him dearly and are grateful for his life and service to so many and hope to be like him. He had such a great outlook on life, always so happy and optimistic about things. He encouraged each of us to look on the brighter side of things-to be happy and show our gratitude for what we have. He encouraged us to stand a little taller, to be a little better, and to stand for something. We have many memories of him and his teachings. He put a great emphasis on the family, temples, and recognizing the good in others regardless of their faith. We will miss his wisdom, testimony, and wonderful sense of humor, but we know that the best tribute we can give to him is to follow his example in living the teachings of Jesus Christ. We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet.